The Conservative - Libertarian Schism: Freedom and Confidence

FreeRepublic ^ | July 31, 2002 | Francis W. Porretto

[fporretto]

Each abridgement of liberty has been used to justify further ones. Scholars of political systems have noted this repeatedly. The lesson is not lost on those whose agenda is total power. They perpetually strain to wedge the camel's nose into the tent, and not for the nose's sake.

Many a fine person will concede to you that "liberty is all very well in theory," follow that up with "but," and go on from there to tabulate aspects of life that, in his opinion, the voluntary actions of responsible persons interacting in freedom could never cope with. Oftentimes, free men and free markets have coped with his objections in the recent past, whether he knows it or not. You could point this out to him, provide references and footnotes, and still not overcome his resistance, for it does not depend on the specifics he cited.

His reluctance to embrace freedom is frequently based on fear, the power-monger's best friend.

Fantasist Robert Anton Wilson has written: "The State is based on threat." And so it is. After all, the State, no matter how structured, is a parasitic creature. It seizes our wealth and constrains our freedom, gives vague promises of performance in return, and then as often as not fails to deliver. No self-respecting people would tolerate such an institution if it did not regard the alternatives as worse.

The alternatives are seldom discussed in objective, unemotional terms. Sometimes they are worse, by my assessment, but why should you accept my word for it?

Let it be. The typical American, when he opts for State action over freedom, isn't acting on reasoned conviction, but on fear of a negative result. Sometimes the fear, which is frequently backed by a visceral revulsion, is so strong that no amount of counterevidence can dissolve it, including the abject failure of State action.

We've had a number of recent examples of this. To name only two prominent ones:

1. The welfare reform of 1996, which limited total welfare benefits to healthy adults and imposed work and training requirements for collecting them, is among the most successful social policy enactments of our time. Huge numbers of welfare recipients have left the dole and assumed paying jobs, transforming themselves from dead loads on society to contributors to it. Yet many politicians and those sympathetic to their aims continue to argue that the welfare system must be expanded, liberalized, and made more generous. A good fraction of these are honestly concerned about the possibility that the 1996 restrictions, the first substantial curtailments of State welfarism since the New Deal, are producing privation among Americans unable to care for themselves.
2. The War On Drugs, whose lineage reaches back to the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Control Act, has consumed tens of billions of dollars, radically diverted the attentions of state and federal law enforcement, exercised a pernicious corrupting influence on police forces, polluted our relations with several other countries, funded an immense underworld whose marketing practices are founded on bloodshed, and abridged the liberty and privacy of law-abiding Americans, but has produced no significant decrease in recreational drug consumption. Yet many Americans will not even consider the possibility that the War On Drugs should be scaled back or terminated altogether. Most resist from the fear that drug use and violence would explode without limit, possibly leading to the dissolution of civil society.

In either of the above cases, could we but take away the fear factor, there would be essentially no argument remaining.

Fear, like pain, can be useful. When it engenders caution, it can prolong life and preserve health. Conservatives in particular appreciate the value of caution. The conservative mindset is innately opposed to radical, destabilizing change, and history has proved such opposition to be wise.

However, a fear that nothing can dispel is a pure detriment to him who suffers it.

Generally, the antidote to fear is knowledge: logically sound arguments grounded in unshakable postulates and well buttressed by practical experience. Once one knows what brings a particular undesirable condition about, one has a chance of changing or averting it. The great challenge is to overcome fears so intense that they preclude a rational examination of the thing feared.

Where mainstream conservatives and libertarians part company is along the disjunction of their fears. The conservative tends to fear that, without State involvement in various social matters, the country and its norms would suffer unacceptably. Areas where such a fear applies include drug use, abortion, international trade, immigration, cultural matters, sexual behavior, and public deportment. The libertarian tends to fear the consequences of State involvement more greatly. He argues to the conservative that non-coercive ways of curbing the things he dislikes, ways that are free of statist hazards, should be investigated first, before turning to the police.

I call myself a libertarian, but I can't discount conservative fears in all cases -- especially where the libertarian approach to some social ill involves a major change to established ways. Radical transformations of society don't have a rosy history.

Yet conservatives, too, could be more realistic, and could show more confidence in the ideals they strive to defend. As Thomas Sowell has written in discussing the War On Drugs, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damned fool about it."

The past two decades, starting roughly with Ronald Reagan's ascent to national prominence, have laid the foundations for an enduring coalition between freedom-oriented libertarian thinkers and virtue-and-stability-oriented conservative thinkers. Each side needs to learn greater confidence in the other, if we are to establish the serious exchange of ideas and reservations, free of invective and dismissive rhetoric, as an ongoing process. Such confidence must include sufficient humility to allow for respect for the other side's fears -- for an unshakable confidence in one's own rightness is nearly always misplaced. There is little to learn from those who agree with you, whereas much may be learned from those who disagree.

[fporretto]

This is (hopefully) the last segment in this series of essays. It occurred to me while composing a column for the Palace Of Reason that FDR's "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," while stirring, left out quite a bit of the equation. Impenetrable confidence is just as much of a danger as impenetrable fear. In particular, it keeps you from exchanging ideas usefully with others -- a malady from which the American body politic suffers ever more as time passes.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[fporretto]

Ping!

All my best,
Fran

[Wurlitzer]

If only all such dialog could be so civil we, myself included, might learn more than we thought possible.

[FreeTally]

In either of the above cases, could we but take away the fear factor, there would be essentially no argument remaining.

In deed!

[WyldKard]

Very wise words.

Unfortunately, while I think that there are libertarians/strict Constitutionalists who are willing to compromise on the War on Drugs issue, the so-called Conservatives who support it tooth and nail do so with a religious zeal that prevent such rational and logical debate. They become "ideologically frozen". There are maybe two people on this entire board I've seen who can make a good debate for using caution in approaching any plan to decrim or legalize. The rest are all too happy to resort to strawman arguments, dodging the debate, trying to change the issue, out and out character assassination and personal attacks in order to cling to their favorite issue.

For instance, recently, I had someone from here hand me the URL to an article he told me proved that Prohibition lowered the death rate from alcohol abuse. When I pointed out to him how he read the article wrong, and that it actually said, in no uncertain terms, that Prohibition caused MORE alcohol related deaths and jacked the homicide rate up to levels that weren't seen again until 1975, he suddenly couldn't be bothered to discuss the issue like a rational adult anymore, and resorted to "Drugs are wrong and immoral, and so is anyone who supports them! You are wrong and I am right!" type tactics.

Ironically, the simple minded Socialists who insist on calling themselves Conservatives don't seem to realize that you can support the Constitution without supporting the activity that it covers. I don't like the KKK, or their hate speech, but I will fight to protect their Constitutional rights. People don't have to take drugs, or approve of drug use to see that the WoD is socialist, unConstitutional, corrupt beyond all imagination in it's current form, and needs to be changed/ended.

And it seems a good number of the most vocal pro-WOD's are self-admitted former hardcore drug addicts who have decided to blame the objects instead of their own personal failings. And unfortunately, I don't think you can really expect to ever reason with people like that...

[Grit]

Very wise commentary indeed. It is greatly appreciated (and rare).

[Nephi]

Amen, brother!

Sometimes while discussing the WOD, I will ask, "If heroin were legal today and you could buy it for $5, would you do it?" Not surprisingly, I have yet to find someone who would take up this instantaneously addicting drug...or at least admit to it. I then point out that apparently they believe that they are smart enough to avoid heroin, but they think everyone else is too stupid to make the right choice.

[Free the USA]

Index Bump

[WyldKard]

Sometimes while discussing the WOD, I will ask, "If heroin were legal today and you could buy it for $5, would you do it?" Not surprisingly, I have yet to find someone who would take up this instantaneously addicting drug...or at least admit to it. I then point out that apparently they believe that they are smart enough to avoid heroin, but they think everyone else is too stupid to make the right choice.

Ding ding ding!

That's it exactly. The overriding impression I get from these Pro-WODdies is that they honestly seem to believe that everyone in America is a gutteral animal who is being held in check merely by force of law. That the moment you losen up even a little, they immediately turn into monsters. I mean, WTF? Do they honestly think the majority of Americans are just itching to try crack and heroin, but won't because it's illegal?

Naturally, if we have legalization, we'll need to have SANE, rational, honest drug education in the schools (as opposed to thise DARE propaganda crap that makes kids distrust what they are taught, and increases drug use among kids. We need to just tell these kids "This is substance X. It does Y to you. Now that you know all it can do to you, don't come crying to us if it screws you up."

[HumanaeVitae]

Libertarians hold liberty as an end in itself.

Conservatives start with social order, and then look to history to note that liberty is indespensible to maintaining order. First order, then liberty to sustain order. Thus, pure liberty is not necessary (or even possible, really); only enough liberty necessary to maintain order.

[madfly]

ping

[steve50]

Not sure I would call it social order they want. In many cases it boils down to enforcing one groups version of morality on another by force of law. I think that is incompatible with liberty.

[DaveCooper]

Excellent post.

Please put me on your ping list, if possible.

[madfly]

bttt

[WyldKard]

Conservatives start with social order, and then look to history to note that liberty is indespensible to maintaining order. First order, then liberty to sustain order. Thus, pure liberty is not necessary (or even possible, really); only enough liberty necessary to maintain order.

This may be true, but our Founding Fathers did not intend for Government to be the sole driving force of social order. They would not given us such chestnuts like "Government is like fire; a useful servant and a dangerous master." or "The Price of Freedom is eternal vigilance" or "When People fear the Government, its Tyranny. When Government fears the People, it's Liberty" if they thought exactly the way you do.

Morality begins in the home. The Government only exists to protect and enforce the rights of the individual. To the Libertarian, the smallest unit of Government is the individual. To the Socialist Conservative, the smallest unit of Government is the "social unit" or "society".

Libertarians live and die by the Constitution and apply it evenly, even to stuff they don't like which is protected. Socialist Conservatives make excuses and pretend that the Constitution is a quaint and charming suggestion when it means giving freedoms to stuff they personally don't like. The Anti-Gun Crowd and the pro-WOD crowd are two pea's in a pod. You can remove "drugs" and replace it with "guns" in any of their arguments, and they sound exactly alike. They complain about how corrupt and immoral the Government is, and then expect the Government to turn around and be the sole source of morality in this country.

[HumanaeVitae]

Actually, I'm the latter: a conservative, although not a socialist. I believe the government has the right to regulate all kinds of behaviors.

[WyldKard]

Actually, I'm the latter: a conservative, although not a socialist. I believe the government has the right to regulate all kinds of behaviors.

Then please point out the section of the Constitution to me that grants the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT the power to conduct a "War on Drugs". Or a "War on Poverty". or a "War on Guns". Please point out the section to me that usurps the 10th Amendment, and the States rights to decide these issues for their individual selves?

Once again, it is my belief that only Socialist Governments see themselves as the chief source of morality. Government is Mother, Government is Father. This is already happening (has happened) in our own country.

[HumanaeVitae]

"Then please point out the section of the Constitution to me that grants the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT the power to conduct a "War on Drugs". Or a "War on Poverty". or a "War on Guns". Please point out the section to me that usurps the 10th Amendment, and the States rights to decide these issues for their individual selves?"

I can't point it out, because you're correct on the 10th Amendment. But here's one for you: please point out the part of the Constitution that restricts the states from passing sodomy laws, anti-prostitution laws, anti-drug laws, even anti-atheist laws.

I mean, slavery was Constitutional, wasn't it? The states, under the Constitution that you would "live and die for", can ban or allow whatever they wish.

[WyldKard]

Some more wisdom from our Founding Fathers:

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." --Abraham Lincoln.

[WyldKard]

I can't point it out, because you're correct on the 10th Amendment. But here's one for you: please point out the part of the Constitution that restricts the states from passing sodomy laws, anti-prostitution laws, anti-drug laws, even anti-atheist laws.

Unless the Federal Government has a power deligated to it by the Constitution, it is assumed those powers are held by the States. So yes, States are perfectly correct in passing anti-sodomy laws, anti-prostitution laws, etc. I think such laws are folly, but I would rather see the issue handled on a State by State basis, as was the intent of the Founding Fathers, than see the FedGov overstep its bounds.

I mean, slavery was Constitutional, wasn't it? The states, under the Constitution that you would "live and die for", can ban or allow whatever they wish.

It wasn't UnConstitutional, perse. At least, not until the various Amendments outlawing slavery were passed. While I think slavery was abhorant, I am afraid I must agree with what the South was trying to do when it wanted to break away from the Union.

And now you are trying to change the topic. I've been a tremendous supportive of States rights. Unfortunately, most Conservatives-in-Socialist-Clothing think the Federal Government is chief in all things, and that States Rights are a myth.

So let me ask you: Do you think the Federal Government has the power to wage a War on Drugs? Do you think the War on Drugs should continue as is, or should the matter be left up to the States?