Liberty's Blind Spot
To me, there are two components to freedom - and you need to have both in order to be truly free. The first is probably the non-controversial one; at least to Libertarians. It is the idea that you need to be economically free in order to enjoy liberty. Or to put it another way, you should be able to decide how you spend your money rather than the government deciding for you.
This simple view is the sort of thing that has motivated people across the world to fight for freedom, especially given governments have lost sight of the fact that tax money is not actually their own money - it is money they take from their citizens under duress. You can see an example of such a campaign in the Tea Party Movement over in the US. Whatever you might think of them, those guys are fighting for economic freedom from an ever-growing, money hungry state.
But there is a second component to liberty that is just as essential to meaningful freedom. And that is the freedom to live your life how you want to live it (within the constraints of something like the Harm Principle). And it is here that many supposed champions of freedom and those claiming to be Libertarian start to struggle with the practical reality of liberty. Because to actually embrace liberty means you are happy for people to have beliefs other than your own; to live alternative lifestyles and to do things that you would never do. Sure, you may not approve of what others do. However, if you are a true friend of liberty, you have to allow those people to live their life the way they want to even if their choices are completely alien to you.
And it is here that something like the Tea Party movement departs from a genuinely Libertarian agenda and drifts towards social conservatism. You only have to look at the views of one of their current media darlings - Christine O'Donnell. Her views on abortion, for example, are utterly illiberal. She would deny females the right to choose what happens to their own bodies - something that is completely alien to the concept of freedom. This seems to be fairly typical of many of the leading lights of that movement. It doesn't matter whether their views on abortion are down to deeply held religious beliefs or down to pragmatism in the search for votes from the Christian right - they are still illiberal.
Of course, that's not to say that there aren't genuine Libertarians in that movement. Rather, it is trying to point out the danger (which Libertarians so often fall foul of) assuming that your enemy's enemy must be your friend. You may not like much of what Obama does, for instance, but that doesn't mean that the natural recourse is to trust, and therefore back, Sarah Palin. Likewise, in this country a hatred of Gordon Brown does not make you a Tory. Nor does it make David Cameron and the rest of his party Libertarian.
The point is this - if you claim to be Libertarian, then don't fall foul of Liberty's Blind Spot. Social freedom is just as important as economic freedom, and if you truly feel the need to support the Conservatives or the Republicans, make sure that you do so with a full awareness that, at best, they support just about 50% of what is actually needed to make people free.
Labels: Conservatism, Freedom, Libertarians, Tea Party
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 1:01 pm
13 Comments
13 Comments:
You're missing the 'freedom from' part.
My right not to smoke, triumphs your right to smoke if that smoke impacts me.
You can smoke as much as you like, so long as it isn't in a place where I breath it in, or where any costs impinge on me. ie. Increases the cost of health insurance. You should pay a premium if you as a smoker on average cost more.
@Lord Blagger
The owner of the establishment has the choice to declare if the place is smoking/non-smoking/divided.
You then, have the freedom to choose to enter, knowing that it is smoky and the apparent ill effects of it. You also have the freedom to choose to ask the smoker to stop.
And the smoker has the freedom to ignore you.
No one is forcing you to enter the smoky room, you volunteer to.
Lord Blagger,
What Bobski said.
TNL
Whilst the Tea Party movement has some libertarian tendencies I wouldn't go any further than that.
However, to use abortion as an example of their illiberalism is not going to work. Libertarians as a whole tend to be pro-abortion. But that does not mean that being anti-abortion means you can't be a libertarian.
It's perfectly easy to mount the anti-abortion argument using the 'harm' principle you cite as a central plank of libertarianism. You may not agree with that analysis but it is entirely defensible. For, example if I say that inducing labour and killing a 14 week old foetus outside of the womb is a form of harm you may disagree. But that does not mean I am not a libertarian. It means we disagree on how far and to whom or what the concepts of liberty and freedom from harm extend.
I could argue that by not extending the harm principle to human life at a particular stage of development that you are in fact the illiberal one and have a blind spot to treating all forms of human life equally. You might counter that a foetus is not properly a human being and that a fully developed woman's freedom to do what she wants with her own body is paramount. I could then counter with arguments about disabled people and the debate could go on endlessly.
So if you're saying you can't be a libertarian if you're anti-abortion, does this mean that the quote below could be from a libertarian?
"Population control is too important to be stopped by some right-wing pro-life types. Take the new influx of Hispanic immigrants. Their lack of respect of democracy and social order is frightening. I hope I can do something to stem that tide; I'd set up a clinic in Mexico for free if I could. Maybe one in Calexico would help. The survival of our society could be at stake. . . . The Aid to Families With Dependent Children program is the worst boondoggle ever created. When a sullen black woman can decide to have a baby and get welfare and food stamps and become a burden to all of us it's time to stop. In parts of South Los Angeles having babies for welfare is the only industry the people have." "Doctor's Abortion Business is Lucrative," San Diego Union, B-1, col. 1 (Oct. 12, 1980).
If you look at it it does tick some supposedly libertarian boxes: pro-abortion and anti-welfare dependency. I do hope not.
I know social freedom does not necessarily equal socially liberal, but there is some correlation, I believe.
In the light of that, you might find this article interesting:
http://io9.com/5675075/liberal-gene-could-turn-social-butterflies-toward-the-political-left
and I wonder where that might fit in with Libertarianism?
The original comment I was going to make was on the abortion point before anti-smoking got involved.
BenS and I have had the libertarian debate on abortion a couple times and the only conclusion we could come to was that, the answer is grey.
Abortion is murder and therefore contravenes the Harm Principle.
But the mother's body is also involved so she has an input.
If the mother's life is threatened by the growing foetus then the harm principle is moot and thus aborting the foetus can be justified as 'not murder', but the decision is ultimately the mother/mother's next of kin choice.
The is also justification for the 'Pro-choice' argument but the only fix we could think of to avoid contravening the harm principle was that the abortion would have to take place no later than 8-10 weeks as after this the foetus can be observed responding to external stimuli.
Indeed, abortion is not cut-and-dry. If you think libertarianism resides on the non-aggression axiom (or the harm principle, for that matter) then justifying abortion is equally as difficult as justifying pro-life policies.
What TNL said is mostly right - to be libertarian you've gotta be in favour of whole swathes of social reform.
But opposing abortion is not 'illiberal', nor is it anathema to libertarian principles.
Teabaggers are a bit like the EDL. You can't get much coherence out of them because it's hard to figure out who or what they actually are. There are so many disparate groups that we're just left scratching our heads as to... anything about them.
If they didn't have a left-wing president to unite against, I can't imagine them ever sharing a room. Remember the feuds between Ron Paul (the libertarian wing), Romney (the imperialist wing) & Huckabee (the faithhead wing)?
Republicans are unlikely to reduce the size of the state because they are so pro-military. People keep saying they will turn against imperialism but that is just wishful thinking from paleoconservatives.
As for your hints about British domestic politics, I would talk about tht but it's too soon after dinner for the exertion :)
At least the tea party folks have some libertarian leanings. We have nothing, zero, nada like that over here. We're paying more for the EU as we speak and yet we're giving the Yanks a hard time. Hilarious really.
The Tea Party is a grass roots movement. It is not just libertarian, it is not another political party it is Americans (blue dog Dems, moderate dems, moderate republicans, conservative republicans, libertarians and independents) who are deeply concerned about the condition of our country and what BOTH parties have done to it. I argue that you can not have social liberty until you first have fiscal liberty. We have to preserve and protect our country first and foremost from the progressive liberal agenda that is destroying our country before we can engage in social issues like smoking bans and abortions etc. The real and original Tea Party does not take stands on social issues because we know we will not agree on them. We stand together on what we do agree on in order to protect our rights and freedoms.
We stand for limited government, personal rights and fiscal responsibility. We are concerned about spending, our children and grandchildren's future and leaving them a country and quality of life that is worse than what we have enjoyed. We want the government to stop taxing and spending.
In order to protect and restore our country the Tea Party movement believes we need to get back to our founding principles that made our country great. These include hard work, personal responsibility, charity, service and resiliency to name a few. As Palin said we need to get back the steel spine and moral courage of Washington and MLK.
Once we feel that we have restored America and have protected our rights and freedoms then we will have the luxury to worry about smoking bans and other social issues. For now there is a more important battle to win. The Tea Party supports candidates who believe in fiscal responsibility, limited government and the Constitution. Where the candidates stand on social issues isn't as much of a concern to many during this time of crisis. The media wants to portray the movement as a radical right wing group. This simply is not true and we are beyond the name calling, we simply do not care. we will continue to fight for fiscal responsibility and our rights as protected by the constituion and refuse to be tread upon.
I'm not a republican nor a democrat and I've voted for candidates from both parties in the past. I'm an independent with a slight tilt to the right. I do not particularly like O'Donnell but I do hope she wins. On social issues Sharron Angle is too far right for me but I sure hope she beats the pants of Reid and I have put my money where my mouth is in these various races. I do not particularly like Scott Brown but I sent him money so he could vote down the healthcare bill. Americans need to wake up, get involved and the Tea Party is helping to do that.
Ok, let's talk abortion.
First up, I'm not "pro" abortion - I am pro-choice. It may appear to be purely a semantic distinction, but it isn't. And I don't recognise the quote from LH as Libertarian - to me, it sounds like naked profiteering through population control. I support the right of people to choose, and I support the idea of getting people off state-funded welfare. But I don't support what reads like eugenics through abortion.
What I do support is maximising the choice people have about their own rights. Let's grab another concept from J S Mill. In On Liberty "Over himself, over his body, the individual is sovereign". We'll have to excuse the gender politics of the Victorian era, and assume that Mill is talking about humanity rather than just the male gender. That is what my stance on abortion is meant to do - to give the individual the maximum chance to be sovereign over themselves.
But yeah, then the Harm Principle comes into play, and we have to ask the question at what point a foetus becomes an individual requiring protection from others. That is, of course, and area of hot debate but even if we take 8-10 weeks as the starting point of an individual, there is still roughly two months when a child could be aborted. And the Harm Principle, given the nature of harm is relative, could also be used to sanction abortion - after all, what harm is worse (and I'm playing Devil's Advocate here; I don't necessarily believe this) - not being born, or being born into a family where you are just not wanted?
So you can make liberal/Libertarian cases both for and against abortion. But I want to be specific here - when you look at the opinions of Tea-baggers like O'Donnell, there is nothing liberal there. She opposes all abortion, even in the case of rape and incest. And if the mother is likely to die from being pregnant/giving birth then it falls to "family members" to decide who to save. There is nothing about choice here; there is nothing liberal or Libertarian here as far as I am concerned.
TNL
Anonymous,
First up, don't misuse the word "liberal". It is not a synonym for socialist. Indeed, you could argue that what you stand for is liberal.
Secondly, I don't understand why you prioritise financial freedom over social freedom. You can fight for both at the same time. The fact that you may not agree with your fellow Tea-baggers over the details of social reform shouldn't stop you. In fact, you could get around that by introducing principles - such as the idea of maximising individual sovereignty - to get over such disputes.
You may agree with Palin that you need to get to the steel spine etc of Washington (a slave-owner) and MLK (a serial philanderer). Both men did a great deal despite their personal flaws, but do you seriously see any of the Tea Party backed candidates as the equivalent of those two gents? I mean, "I have a dream" is worlds apart from "what's the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick".
And this crisis point of which you write - I really don't see now being anymore of a crisis than any other point in American politics since before the Second World War. The size and scope of your state are increasing. As it has consistently done under both Democrats and Republicans. Now isn't the time to panic and back the first candidate who comes along and makes the right noises on fiscal responsibility. You're falling into the trap I was talking about - assuming that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Palin et al are championing economic freedom; half of the equation, as far as I am concerned. The extent to which they are genuinely friends of freedom could, and should, be fiercely debated.
TNL
TNL,
What we have is a "liberal progressive hard left agenda" that is taking our country down a path that most Americans are unhappy with. Both parties have been infiltrated by these radicals who are pushing for a hard progressive agenda. The Democrat party has been hijacked and the Republican party has its share of rhinos(republican in name only) who need to be weeded out. The tea party has backed independent candidates not just republicans. The republican party is not happy about O'Donnell and refuses to back and support her. Shame on them. The American people voted for her and not the republican establishment candidate. The people spoke and the party should back her but they took their ball and went home. Shame on the repub party.
I believe we have to have economic freedom before social freedom due to the crisis we are currently in. We need to put our social differences aside for now and unite and fight for our very survival. Once we have stopped the bailouts, the stimulus packages and restored power back to our state and local governments, secured our rights, then we can go back to bickering over whether marijuana should be legalized or not etc.
Why the crisis now? Because America is at a tipping point. No doubt we have been on this path for a long time and both parties are to blame. However, once we pass the tipping point we will become a different people and Obama will have succeeded in fundamentally transforming America which is what he said he would do during his campaign. The tipping point, and I quote Paul Ryan from Wisconsin, " is where too many citizens are becoming dependent upon a social welfare state and it becomes impossible to have an electoral majority based upon a free market platform."
Before the tipping point Americans remain independent and take responsibility for their own well being. Right now 1 in 5 Americans are government dependent, another 20% receive 40% of income from the federal gov and another 20% receive some form of benefit. The radicals are trying to pad rolls with illegals, noncitizens and convicted felons in time for the 2012 election to give them a permanent Dem majority of people dependent upon the government.
This means Americans (the silent majority right now) who believe in our founding principles of self-reliancy, the US Constitution, free markets, personal responsibility, charity , service etc. will be put into a permanent minority.
Yes, we have been too complacent and apathetic for too long, no doubt. Americans are waking up and seeing that we are reaching a tipping point and a point of no return and the time to fight it is now. That's what the tea party movement is about. We cannot afford to divide and bicker about the social issues right now when we feel that protection and preservation of our very republic is at stake. Some americans are still asleep and too complacent. We are working hard in local groups and through the tea party movement to sound the alarm and get them engaged by next election or it may be too late.
Thank you for letting me have my say. I appreciate it.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home