Posted on 08/11/2002 8:44:07 AM PDT by quidnunc
The Libertarian Party is having its national nominating convention at the Marriott Hotel in Anaheim, Calif., from June 30 to July 3.
But there's a much better site in the same city — Disneyland.
What could be more fitting for these laissez-faire visionaries than to convene in the theme park's Fantasyland? Goofy might even be available for their national ticket.
I recently sat down with the man who will likely be the party's presidential candidate this year (as he was in 1996), Harry Browne. An author and investment guru, Browne is charming, articulate and, well, about what you'd expect of a Libertarian ideologue.
The party boasts that there are "over 270 Libertarians serving in public office" nationwide. But its highest elected official currently is a Vermont state legislator. Of course, there is also Art Olivier, who served one term as mayor pro tem of Bell Flower, Calif. Based on his resume, Olivier is now running for the party's vice presidential nomination.
In 1996, Browne drew 485,120 votes. As the candidate of the Green Party (which wants to repeal the Industrial Revolution), Ralph Nader pulled in 651,771 votes.
Still, I'm surprised Browne did as well as he did. I have to assume that most of those half-million voters didn't read the party's platform and were unaware of the nominee's more exotic stands. Libertarians have taken a good idea — opposition to bullying government — and turned it into a crusade for a utopian agenda.
The party's ideal society could exist only in the realm of theory. Its platform calls for "the elimination of all restrictions on immigration." If 50 million Mexicans chose to move to California and Texas, resulting in chaos and the obliteration of national identity, why should that concern Libertarians?
If these new Americans (then constituting a majority in the states where they settle) wanted to secede and reunite the territory with Mexico, presumably Libertarians would not stand in their way.
The party's position on national defense is equally loony. In a Browne presidency, no American soldier would set foot on foreign soil. "What if China invaded Taiwan?" I asked. None of our business, he replied. Well, what if it invaded Mexico? In that case, Browne said he'd fortify our southern border and await an invasion.
Is there never a role for alliances or the use of U.S. forces abroad? According to Browne, even our involvement in World War II was a mistake. The Nazis and Japanese posed no direct threat to us, Browne claims (a la Pat Buchanan).
Libertarian aversion to government often leads to strange dichotomies. Browne assumes "life begins at conception." He believes Washington should be neutral on abortion. (Roe vs. Wade was "an example of judicial activism at its worst.") Sound reasoning.
Abortion policy should be set by states, Browne says. However, "Do I believe the states should outlaw abortion?" the Libertarian rhetorically asks. "I do not."
I said, "You assume that the unborn child is human life, but you don't think government at any level should act to protect that life? What about laws against murder?"
Browne doesn't think much of them, either (look at all the murders despite the law) — though he hastens to add that he's not calling for their repeal.
A Libertarian government would consist of open borders, no troops abroad, no alliances and the repeal of laws against prostitution and drugs. If someone on crack cocaine kills your family, you can go to your private arbitration agency for adjudication.
Impractical? Delusional? Let's just say that if there were Libertarians in the Third Reich, they would have probably been drawing up plans to privatize the autobahns when the Gestapo arrived to take them away.
There never was, nor ever will be a truly libertarian society. Oh, wait. France from 1791-93 may qualify.
Who said anything about cop murderers being Christians? In the U.S. they would likely be of some Christian denonimation but that is nothing more than demographics and speaks not to their actual beliefs.
‘The truth will set you free.’ (John 8:32)
"God's dismissal in the 19th century, and the humiliation of truth in the 2oth, was supposed to set the world free."
"The experiment has been under way for some time now, and it is fair to ask, what are the... results---so far?"
"The Nazi experience in Germany provides a case study. There, a government and a society were organized on the principle of God's non-existence. Did liberation come to pass? On the wall of one of the death camps there is a plaque. It preserves the language of one of Hitler's speeches. The plaque overlooks large mounds of human hair, piles of personal effects; shoes, spectacles. The plaque reads: "I freed Germany from the degrading fallacy of conscience and morality. We will train people capable of violence-imperious, relentless, cruel. . ."
"Those sentiments were nurtured on the same continent that gave the world the reformation. Which was more liberating? If someone came today and said: "I am the truth," we would not take him seriously. But when Jesus says it, we are tempted to let him get away with it. If he is mad, it is a beautiful madness; such an attractive insanity. Let us not be ashamed to offer Christ to the world."
‘The truth will set you free.’ (John 8:32)
Later!
Out of idle curiosity, though, if humans are corrupt and corruptible, is there anything magic about being elected or appointed to a government position that makes people otherwise? And do you consider yourself unusual in terms of the effort you put out to be good, and if so, why?
I think that libertarians are just people that want to fit an "engineering-style" system over the world to explain everything nice + neat. World doesn't work like that, unfortunately.
As Russell Kirk pointed out, eventually "Buonaparte" fills the void, i.e. anarchy (libertarianism) leads to chaos which leads to an autocrat.
Maybe so but if you read the Book of Judges in the Christian and Jewish Bible you will see it came awful close.
This was a group that was pretty homogenous in its makeup, had a strong set of laws and customs, and a common language and religion. Plus was blessed by God. And they couldn't make it work.
The problems were constant in fighting, lawlessness and constant invasion and oppression from neighbors. One of the tribes was all but wiped out in this period by the other twelve. The reason that they demanded a King was because they were tired of getting smacked around by every two-bit nation with an army.
There is no reason to think that we would fair any better. And we don't have the pluses that they had.
Read the book in any case. Some really great stories, Ehud in chapter 3 is a favorite of mine.
a.cricket
Would you want to be governed by people who know the plot of Star Trek episode 26? Case closed.
Dracula Is a Democrat
Isn't such inanity fun!
I have actually used that argument in supporting the libertarian philosophy. The time of the judges was when every man did as he thought was right and the judges function was to resolve the occasional dispute.
What ended this nirvana was the wish of some war mongers to have a King so that they could make war on neighboring peoples. i.e. They were doing fine without a government, they just couldn't get organized enough to attack the neighbors.
Even if there are a significant number of libertarians who fit your description, it's neither a description of all libertarians nor inherent to libertarianism. Witness people like OP or myself.
In terms of whether or not people are completely wicked, this is not true in the USA because of our cultural inheratance. But in, say, Afghanistan, this is unfortunately very true.
I think we're using the word "good" differently. You're speaking of humanly good, but I (a little unfairly, I suppose) took it in a theological context where what you said is simply wrong. Good in the sense I have in mind has nothing to do with cultural traditions. Give a Godly tradition to a wicked man, and you'll get phariseeism, which is worse than drinking, smoking, and staying out past midnight.
Nope. Marxism and left-anarchism (and leftism in general) come from Rousseau, while libertarianism is a variety of classical liberalism, which comes from John Locke and the Whigs. The proof that libertarianism is a type of classical liberalism is that the first recognizibly libertarian writers, people like Bastiat and J.S. Mill (Bastiat is the better of the two by far), were called liberal when liberal still meant liberal instead of illiberal.
True-believers of these quasi-religions all despise central authority--as a tenet of knee-jerk faith, not reasoned understanding tempered by experience and common sense.
You're really saying that Marxists despise central authority. Does the word Stalin mean anything to you?
So far only Marxists and anarchists have been allowed to play at their goofy ideology at a national level (Marxists deliberately; anarchists, accidently), and the results have been horrific beyond belief. If libertarians ever "succeeded" to the same degree, their efforts would merely drop hundreds of millions more corpses into the dumpster of failed ideology.
As libertarian Frederic Bastiat wrote in 1850:
Is there any need to offer proof that this odious perversion of the law is a perpetual source of hatred and discord; that it tends to destroy society itself? If such proof is needed, look at the United States. There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person's liberty and property. As a consequence of this, there appears to be no country in the world where the social order rests on a firmer foundation. But even in the United States, there are two issues -- and only two -- that have always endangered the public peace.
What are these two issues? They are slavery and tariffs. These are the only two issues where, contrary to the general spirit of the republic of the United States, law has assumed the character of a plunderer.
Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty. The protective tariff is a violation, by law, of property.
It is a most remarkable fact that this double legal crime -- a sorrowful inheritance from the Old World -- should be the only issue which can, and perhaps will, lead to the ruin of the Union.
In the closest thing to a libertarian society in history, it was precisely the non-libertarian elements that caused the piles of bodies.
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