On Being Libertarian
This essay is a work in progress. I have published it on my
site because, despite it's unfinished and poorly written state, it
represents the essence of what I believe and why I hope you begin to
believe it, too.
If you can promise, "I will not initiate force or fraud against
another person or their property," then you might be a Libertarian.
But beware! Before you make such a promise, be sure you
understand what it means. Understand that you have been conditioned to believe
you have the right to initiate force against another person or their property. If you read
on, you will be astonished at the the ways you initiate force against others, without knowing it.
You might be initiating force against others when you:
- advocate for new laws or the continuation of existing laws,
- vote or otherwise participate in the democratic process, and
- expect the government to protect you from various risks, such as:
- restaurants that prepare food in less than sanitary conditions,
- banks that make poor investments,
- construction companies that don't know how to build things, and
- doctors who never attended medical school.
Let's take each of these notions (and a few
more) and break them down from a Libertarian perspective.
- Advocate for new laws or the continuation of existing laws...
- Laws are enacted in an effort to control behavior. We make
a law against murder in order to define murder as something we don't
want people to do. The same holds true for laws against
spilling crude oil into pristine wildernesses such as Prince William
Sound. Every single law ever made is an attempt by one or more
people to control the behavior of others. When you ask your
legislators to enact laws against anything, you are really asking
them to hire police officers to use force against people who do that
thing. Whether you personally commit the aggression, or you
elect/hire someone to do it for you, doesn't matter, it's still an act of aggression against another person.
- When the law in question is against rape and the police are
arresting rapists, then it could be called self defense.
Rapists aggress against their victims and we have a right to defend
ourselves (or hire people to defend us) against such monsters.
But what if the law is against building
covered patios without a contractor's license? Someone wants a covered patio, he finds someone
he believes can do the work, and they both agree on a design, price,
time-frame, etc. If you advocate for the
establishment or continuation of that law, you are committing an act of aggression
against them both. Using armed law enforcement officers, you
have intervened in an agreement to which you are not a party,
preventing two people from conducting their lives as they
see fit.
It is you who have
initiated force.
- more examples...
- Vote or otherwise participate in the democratic process...
- When you show up at the ballot box, you legitimize a process
that results in aggression against others. This is just an extension of the idea above. Electing
people for the purpose of making laws on your behalf, is no
different than sticking a gun in your neighbor's face and telling
him (or her) that he can't make a deal with a contractor to build
his covered patio until you approve of the contractor's
qualifications. If we aren't trying to control our neighbors
through force (by making new laws), there isn't much need to elect
legislators, or vote for referenda or initiatives.
- Expect the government to protect you from various risks...
- Another extension of the first idea. If you ask the
government to protect you from eating at a restaurant that doesn't
have a sanitary kitchen, you lose the freedom to eat wherever you
want or to start your own restaurant. I know for a fact
that some of the most skilled and qualified construction
professionals, cannot get contractor's licenses because of the cost
and time investment required. These brilliant, hard-working
men and women are forever condemned to working for some fat-cat,
using their hard-won skills and experience to make that person
richer. And, adding insult to injury, you pay the extra money it costs to keep the
fat-cat comfortable, while the hard working person who would have
done the work for 20% less, barely feeds his family on the meager paycheck
he gets from the fat-cat.
-
-
- little tiny bit of oppression. We don't mind being
"oppressed" when the freedom taken from us prevents us
from doing something we wouldn't
do anyway, but what about the law against disconnecting the airbag
in your car? Shortly after the first airbag-equipped cars
rolled off the showroom floor, there was a rash of minor accidents
(e.g. bumping into another car in a parking lot), that resulted in
the deaths of the drivers. The airbags were deploying with
such force, the driver would be decapitated in a fender-bender.
Millions of people were forced, by law, to drive around in
what was essentially a government-mandated, explosive guillotine.
There are two basic types of laws: the ones
that define various kinds of aggression, and the ones that control
non-aggressive behavior. Examples of laws that define
aggression would include murder, assault, theft, vandalism,
trespass, etc. Examples of laws that control non-aggressive
behavior (the so-called "victim-less crime" laws): zoning
ordinances, sale/possession/use of drugs, prostitution,
contractor/professional/business licensing, etc.
The arguments in favor of "victim-less" crimes
tend to fall into a few simple categories.
- "We need laws against [insert your favorite], because
those laws protect people from dangerous [things/people/consequences]."
- Laws that prevent you from making certain choices (for instance to hire an
unqualified contractor) because those choices may lead to
undesirable consequences to you, take away your freedom because
someone is afraid you might get hurt. By this line of
thinking, we might consider making [something] illegal.
That way we could save scads of people from getting hurt.
of what you might do. Most of the arguments in
favor of drug laws fall into this category. "We need a law
against marijuana use because we need to send a message to our
children that this society will not tolerate such a harmful
activity. Plus, it's a gateway to harder drugs like
methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin. We don't want people to
even get started down that harmful road."
- "We need laws against [insert your favorite], because when
[insert your favorite] is present, the rate of other crimes goes
up."
- Laws that prevent you from making certain choices (for
instance to buy sex instead of relying on your charm or good
looks to get it) because those choices may lead to other
undesirable behavior, take away your freedom because someone is
afraid of what you might do. By this line of
thinking, we might consider making anger illegal. Most
impulsive violence is committed by an angry people. Why
don't we just have Johnny Law cruise the streets looking for
angry people. "Excuse me sir, why are your teeth clenched
and your hands balled into fists?" "The price of gas has
me hopping mad, officer. I can't afford to drive to work
but I also can't afford to lose my job. I'm caught between
a rock and a hard place and I'm very frustrated." "Sir I'm
placing you under arrest and charging you with being angry. You
angry people are the cause of over half the violent crime in
this city and we're cracking down!"
- "We need laws against [insert your favorite], because we don't
want to send a message to our children that [insert your favorite]
is morally acceptable in our society."
While I am in complete agreement regarding the
harmful effects of drug use, I don't see where it's any of my
business what my neighbor does behind closed doors.
In a Libertarian world the government would be VERY limited*. It
wouldn't do things like
inspect restaurants, audit banks, or license contractors and doctors. To be a
Libertariaopn, you have to change the way you think.
Libertarians have come to realize that anything the government
"protects" us from is a freedom that has been taken away.
For example, if you want to buy tamales from the Mexican lady next
door, current laws forbid such transactions. Why? To protect you
from her potential unsanitary cooking methods. No matter that you've
known her for ten years and trust her completely. Until the
government inspects her kitchen and issues her a restaurant license,
you are not allowed to buy food from her.
How about the enterprising young man who lives one block over?
He installed a sprinkler system for his parents at their home.
You need a sprinkler system. All the quotes you've gotten from
more experienced contractors are WAY out of your price range.
He says he'll do it for a price you can afford. You paid him
for a couple hours labor to design a system for your yard, and it
was actually better than the designs proposed by the contractors.
You'd like to hire him to do the work, but you can't. Why?
Because he could be arrested, jailed, and fined for contracting
without a license.
Are you beginning to see how a government that protects
you from things, also limits your freedom. As a
Libertarian, I believe I should be allowed allowed to enter into any
agreement I find acceptable. I should not have the government
hovering over my shoulder protecting me.
May I ask you something? If there were no
law against stealing, would you start stealing? What about
heroin? Would you try heroin and become a junky if there were
no law against it? For most of us, the answer is clear: No!
Now let's look at it from the criminal
perspective. Does the existence of a law against stealing,
keep thieves from taking your property? Does the law against
possession and use of drugs prevent drug users from ingesting their
drugs of choice? Again, no.
Although I am one of the radical Libertarians who believe humans
can function without any laws, I am going to focus, here, on the
kinds of laws that control others simply for the sake of it.
Let's be honest. Most of the time when we
are in favor of a new law (or opposed to changing or repealing one
that already exists), the application of that law generally
restricts the activities of others, or requires certain behavior
from others. For example, most people support laws against
stealing. By having a law that restricts us from stealing, we feel
that our property is safer from thieves.
* Some Libertarians, including me, advocate something called
"Personal Sovereignty" where no person is subject to any authority
except their own. in such a system, there would be no
government.