A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Yesterday's post clearly struck a nerve with several of you, both libertarian and non-libertarian. I'd like to engage in a bit of follow-up to clarify a thing or two.
First, regarding my comment that libertarians have never amounted to anything as a political movement. I intended this to be a distinction, but perhaps I should've given it more emphasis. Instead, I'd argue libertarians have amounted to a great deal as a policy movement. Where political movements demand tent-construction and coalition-building to achieve a critical mass of votes from the electorate, movements designed simply to win a particular policy argument within a legislative or legal arena have more to do with the intellectual and historical strength of the argument advanced. Here, libertarians have thrived.
A perfect example is about to come down from the Supreme Court, within the health care policy space where I work. It was libertarians like Randy Barnett, and libertarians alone, who advanced the (much-mocked) argument that the individual mandate was unconstitutional, something even many conservative Republicans didn't believe at the time.
Yet time and again, we see libertarians function as their own worst enemies when it comes to building support for ideas, forming factional lines which prevent them from working with other people of like mind on a significant portion of their policy views, often because of cultural divides over hot button social issues.
These cultural differences have lead some libertarians into ill-thought alliances with the left - the short-lived liberaltarian movement was an example of this, but so are the voting patterns of many in the libertarian movement. Much as I respect my friends at Reason, I am still aghast at the number of them and their colleagues who voted for and ardently supported Barack Obama in 2008. These libertarian commentators pronounced McCain-Palin as due for punishment for "eight years of military adventurism, unfettered executive power, and disregard for civil liberties" as representing "a southern-centered party based on social division and cultural resentment", one "in thrall to troglodytes".
Here's a general rule of thumb: if your votes over the past decade were for Ralph Nader, John Kerry, and Barack Obama - as more than one of those prominent libertarians admitted - stop fooling yourself about which tent you're in.
I once had a conversation with a fairly prominent urban libertarian who went on a lengthy discourse about how the future of the right in America depended on the Republican Party finally getting its act together and rejecting the "Bible-thumping fetus-obsessed" in order to achieve political victory. I let him go on for a bit before pointing out the error of his calculations, from my perspective - that in fact, without the support of the faith and freedom folks, the Republican Party would've gone the way of the Whigs, that Ron Paul himself has been a strong and consistently pro-life leader in the Congress, and that if he'd like to see how a fiscally conservative pro-choicer would do at the box office, he should use the Gary Johnson campaign as a barometer.
Libertarians are often absolutely correct about the direction of policy because they alone are willing to ask the right questions - questions such as, "should government even be doing this thing?" - whether or not they have the right answers. Those who I work with in the activist movements at the state level are also often socially conservative themselves, or at least traditionalist "leave us alone" types, and therefore are more pragmatic about cooperating with conservatives to achieve policy change. My hope is that more of these individuals will rise through the ranks to prominence within the libertarian movement. Without that happening, I suspect it will remain limited by this unfortunate factionalism, and instead, the more pragmatic types will stick to what they've been doing: trying to win arguments within the Republican Party, not outside of it.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Abortion is a unique issue. Even if one believes it might be more effectively fought at the state level, one might still believe a national condemnation absolutely necessary.
Like the slavery debate, the abortion debate centers on the definition of a human person inherently deserving of legal rights. Once, people asked if an African was equal in moral and legal considerability to a European. Now, we ask if a fetus is equal in moral and legal considerability to an adult.
Suppose it was believed that slavery would be fought more efficiently at the state level. Would it then be foolish to seek a national ban in addition to state-by-state bans? Would wise men content themselves with local petitions?
Who is or is not a human person inherently deserving of life and liberty is a question of the utmost national importance. It reflects on all Americans, as a community. We social conservatives won't shut up about abortion, even on the national level, because the legal killing of innocent children is a violation too terrible to be ignored at any level.
If someone is being murdered nextdoor, I won't wait for my neighbor to defend that person.
Apr '12
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Just that, as problematic as self-control is for many of us, it is still less problematic than government control, particularly for more minor vices.
That the government can enforce laws against the major vices as well as it does has a lot to do with the fact that, imperfect as our self-control may be, we can at least sort of succeed at keeping ourselves from the major vices most of the time. If we didn't, what police force on earth would be powerful enough to tame us? · 7 hours ago
Not exactly a radical realization that somethings aren't worthy of laws; the benefit has to outweigh the cost.
So that boils down to "my kind of libertarian doesn't think the cost of most laws is worth it," especially when you're the one defining minor!
Laws work because we largely agree on what they should be-- as poorly as gov't often is, it's still a group effort. (yeah, solid gold understatement)
Rephrased, Libertarians want to short-circuit the group agreement on this or that "vice"-- which really pisses people off.
Aug '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Foxfier
Not exactly a radical realization that somethings aren't worthy of laws; the benefit has to outweigh the cost.
You're right. It's not really radical. Nonetheless, a libertarian ought to be more attuned to counting those costs than most people, especially the average politician.
So that boils down to "my kind of libertarian doesn't think the cost of most laws is worth it,"
When you consider all the laws that could be made, all the times someone somewhere gets PO'd and mutters, "There oughta be a law," yes, most laws aren't worth it.
In my case, this doesn't mean believing that SoCons are obsessed with worthless laws (especially in comparison to Progressives!), or that SoCons are only concerned about minor vices.
For example, as Aaron said, abortion is a unique issue. There is probably no form of killing as easy to get away with, even when it is illegal, which deceives people into thinking it's less serious than it is, but also means laws against it are harder to enforce than laws against killing, well, bigger people.
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Aug '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
A law that is hard to enforce is always going to be dissatisfying, especially when it involves a dire moral issue. Whatever the actual law, we must resign ourselves to living with some dissatisfaction, even on tragic issues.
One of the posts I'd like to write this summer is about what laws against abortion should be like if we have them. What should the burden of proof be? What should the punishment be? Who would have jurisdiction? I should do some historical digging first, though.
Foxfier
Rephrased, Libertarians want to short-circuit the group agreement on this or that "vice"-- which really pisses people off.
Still, there are some things that folks think of vices that shouldn't be treated as vices before the law, because treating them like vices is actually not an effective control. Environmental pollution is my canonical example.
We don't get sane and effective environmental laws by treating pollution as a vice. Rather, pollution problems are better viewed as nuisances (in the legal sense) that often can be resolved by a more thorough understanding of property rights.
And you bet a property-based understanding of pollution pisses a whole lotta people off!
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Apr '12
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Driving home, realized that we've burned a half-dozen posts that can boil down to "people make laws to fix problems."
If you don't think there's a problem, you don't try to fix it; if you think a law won't work, then it's not a way to fix a problem.
That's not a libertarian thing, that's just basic human reasoning. Libertarians seem much more likely to declare things are not a problem or expect perfection from the fixes.
Apr '12
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
(FWIW, I like a property-based understanding of pollution.)
Aug '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Foxfier: Driving home, realized that we've burned a half-dozen posts that can boil down to "people make laws to fix problems."
If you don't think there's a problem, you don't try to fix it; if you think a law won't work, then it's not a way to fix a problem.
That's not a libertarian thing, that's just basic human reasoning.
It is just basic human reasoning, but people play differing roles when reasoning among each other.
In court, someone assumes the role of defense attorney. His job is to challenge whether the prosecution or plaintiff has met the burden of proof necessary to show guilt.
Likewise, in politics, it's useful to have people who are willing to adopt the role of law challengers. Somebody ought to be asking whether a proposed law is likely to work, whether an established law is actually working, and somebody has to compile evidence on laws' failures.
It's hard to beat the efficiencies of division of labor, so it's not surprising that some people habitually adopt this role and become libertarians. In that sense, libertarianism is more a role than a moral vision.
Jul '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
The flamboyant stoners get a lot of attention, but I think another reason many libertarians find social issues uninteresting is because they themselves lead unusually humdrum personal lives. It's harder to take a vice seriously when it doesn't interest you much to begin with. · 6 hours ago
Actually, I think the social issues are fascinating. I just don't think that the ideal ends are achieved through state action but, rather, through strong voluntary associations such as families, churches, etc. The bigger the state, the weaker these institutions.
Careful, you'll find yourself on a list of American Whigs (ca. 1776) with SEIU tracked terrorists like me. Having the complete works of Edmund Burke and Thomas Jefferson on you personal digital device is just one sign. (Hey! Pseudo! Added the complete Summa Theologica on Kindle today for 99¢. I hate abridged versions. And just when I had overcome my problem with quibbling with every diction choice in any conversation.)
Nov '11
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Skyler: I'm a religious conservative who definitely wants the State (e. g. Kathleen Sebelius, et al.) to keep its nose out of my business....The alliances forged in the last 45-50 years or so haven't borne out as expected, to say the least. I'm glad people of faith - and of none at all - are beginning to wake up.
Jul '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Making general comments on libertarians or libertarianism is not terrifically useful. While there are far fewer registered Libertarians than Republicans, there are far more Libertarian factions than Republican factions. In fact, there may be more Libertarian factions than Libertarians. It seems almost tautologically so.
In any given issue of Reason, I might find 30% brilliant and 30% insupportable foolishness. Sometimes in the space of a paragraph. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was Reason's response to 9/11, reflexively decrying the statist call to defend the nation. The next renewal notice went unanswered, and I found myself moved firmly into the National Review camp.
The discovery of a brand of Libertarians that try to use the Tea Party name to intimidate local Republican law makers was an unpleasant non-surprise as well.
Jul '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Foxfier: Driving home, realized that we've burned a half-dozen posts that can boil down to "people make laws to fix problems."
If you don't think there's a problem, you don't try to fix it; if you think a law won't work, then it's not a way to fix a problem.
That's not a libertarian thing, that's just basic human reasoning. Libertarians seem much more likely to declare things are not a problem or expect perfection from the fixes. · 3 hours ago
As a libertarian, I know that perfect fixes are unachievable, whether you want to ascribe it to "man is fallen" or Hayek's "the data are far beyond the reckoning of humans, much less bureaucrats or committees (not a direct quote)," and that broad debate on the crippling stupidity of our huge stinking pile of laws and regulations has been vilified by the Parties of Washington and their lap dog media, despite the unavoidable stench downwind.
Apr '12
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Likewise, in politics, it's useful to have people who are willing to adopt the role of law challengers. Somebody ought to be asking whether a proposed law is likely to work, whether an established law is actually working, and somebody has to compile evidence on laws' failures.
That's not just a Libertarian thing, though; if it were, I wouldn't mind the habit of various evangelical Libertarians who keep declaring that "so and so is really a Libertarian, they just don't know it."
That is what everybody does. Libertarians just have a much, much, MUCH longer list of stuff that's bad enough to remove.
Apr '12
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Sisyphus-
the laws and regulations get made because someone wants them. Those people are usually very willing to fight to keep them, while those who don't want them seldom are motivated enough to fight for removal. Saying "this is stupid" isn't incredibly helpful-- especially when it's an instant's work to think of laws that aren't stupid. Of course such a declaration isn't going to get the time of day with anyone whose job depends on a broad range of folks.
Apr '11
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Foxfier
Tom Meyer
For what it's worth, about a third of libertarians are pro-life
Problem being that every libertarian I have spoken to that says they're pro-life, savetwo, have actually been "personally opposed" in practice. (Those two were Catholics who basically said: "Um,duh all humans are people and should be legally treated as such. It's philosophically insane to not take that as a starting point.")
Even Ron Paul has come out as saying that what measure a man isn't a federal matter, which is pretty dang crazy if you believe that all humans are people. Imagine a state announcing that all animals born in the US of voting age have a vote in national elections for a notion of how crazy it is. · 23 hours ago
To be fair to him, he does vote for laws that he believes to be Unconstitutional on this subject (the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, for example). Since his loyalty to Life is stronger than his much trumpeted loyalty to the Constitution and to his view of the appropriate role of government, I think it fair to call him genuinely pro-life.
Aug '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
It's hard to beat the efficiencies of division of labor, so it's not surprising that some people habitually adopt this role and become libertarians. In that sense, libertarianism is more a role than a moral vision.
The way this discussion is going, I'm inclined to believe libertarianism as defined by Ricocheteers is just a convenient label for a preset belief spectrum.
(If you dropped all political positions into 3 categories--fiscal, social, foreign policy--measured along a spectrum ranging from conservative to liberal, then the libertarian quadrant of the Venn diagram would be conservative/liberal/Not Applicable, respectively.)
But there is a whole line of libertarian thought and theory that is a moral vision, very much so. To crudely condense it all into one slogan, it seems to be "apply the non-aggression principle everywhere". Thinkers like Murray Rothbard and Walter Block have crafted deep, well-argued moral frameworks. They have written careful analyses of man's interactions with each other, with groups, and with governments.
There is a coherent, cohesive moral vision behind the libertarian grab bag of beliefs. I suspect it's the hardcore, "Puritanical" libertarians causing the disharmony Ben Domenech bemoans.
Edited on June 18, 2012 at 1:46amAug '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Foxfier
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Likewise, in politics, it's useful to have people who are willing to adopt the role of law challengers. Somebody ought to be asking whether a proposed law is likely to work, whether an established law is actually working, and somebody has to compile evidence on laws' failures.
That's not just a Libertarian thing, though...
True, it's hardly an exclusively libertarian (much less Libertarian) occupation. But I do think that libertarians tend to be more preoccupied with it than average. Or at least more obnoxious about it, right? :-)
Foxfier
Libertarians just have a much, much, MUCH longer list of stuff that's bad enough to remove.
Well, yeah. Some people collect a life list of the birds they've seen. Libertarians tend to collect lists of the bad laws they've encountered. Some of us have such long lists -- and filled with dry material, to boot -- because nerdly stuff like the cost of regulatory overreach really interests us.
OK, I lie. I don't have a list. More like a vaguely-defined museum of bad law in my personal library.
Aug '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
BlueAnt
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
It's hard to beat the efficiencies of division of labor, so it's not surprising that some people habitually adopt this role and become libertarians. In that sense, libertarianism is more a role than a moral vision.
But there is a whole line of libertarian thought and theory that is a moral vision, very much so.
Yes. Which is why I said, "In that sense, libertarianism is more a role than a moral vision." I really did intend to communicate that I was choosing one sense out of several senses, one of the others of which was a moral vision.
BlueAnt
The way this discussion is going, I'm inclined to believe libertarianism as defined by Ricocheteers is just a convenient label for a preset belief spectrum.
Isn't that what most political labels are?
Aug '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Isn't that what most political labels are?
Yes, but some labels are shorthand for a potentially unrelated set of positions, while others represent an underlying belief system that informs political positions.
It's the difference between, say, an environmentalist and a generic liberal. The liberal may favor a bunch of environmental laws without really thinking about it, because they want to leave a cleaner Earth for their kids or they don't like smog blocking their view of the beach. The environmentalist, on the other hand, values the ecosystem more than the humans who use up resources. That underlying preference will inform all other voting positions.
Or consider the difference between a "Marxist" and the average European "socialist". The socialist may vote for redistributions that benefit him personally, while the Marxist votes for things that destabilize society's economic class structure. The socialist has some favored positions; the Marxist chooses his positions based on his ideology.
It's not a perfect (or even important) distinction, but it's useful in explaining political alliances and maneuverings. A generic holder of positions changes according to what benefits/inspires him; the ideologue only changes when his ideology changes.
May '12
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Blue Ant,
I am on weaker ground here than I'd like, but recall my Scottish friend (I got involved in a RPG he designed, and met an English political scientist - a deep thinker & often very gloomy economist of the Austrian school) telling me that during the 19th Century, there was an exclusive group of businessmen in Glasgow.
They may have played golf together, but they also built orphanages, hospitals and almshouses. They used the same craftsman and materials as they used for their own houses. The designs were scaled back, but nonetheless not drab or too austere.
They did business with each other, and if you wanted to join the club, you had to join in on the good works.
That amounts to the threat of shunning those who did not share their Presbyterian view that if you prosper, you give back, and no stinginess.
If this story is true, and there are a lot of almshouses and orphanages and old trade schools in Britain, does this jibe with how you define Libertarianism?
Jul '10
Re: A Few More Thoughts on Libertarians and Tents
Foxfier: Sisyphus-
the laws and regulations get made because someone wants them. Those people are usually very willing to fight to keep them, while those who don't want them seldom are motivated enough to fight for removal. Saying "this is stupid" isn't incredibly helpful-- especially when it's an instant's work to think of laws thataren't stupid. Of course such a declaration isn't going to get the time of day with anyone whose job depends on a broad range of folks.
Actually, staying silent on the point is what is not particularly helpful. Americans have a traditional and justified disdain for Congress and the general quality of their work product. It is an instant's work to think of laws that are woefully disastrous, that fail to come to the fore simply because their disastrousness is eclipsed by that cataclysmic law poster child, ObamaCare.
I run into examples every day as I help clients navigate those waters. The laws of unintended consequences and perverse incentives pound any sense these laws may have intended into dust. And the bigger Congress' output, the bigger the need to lobby Congress and the smaller the room for liberty.