Everyone Is Half-Libertarian

Like most Libertarians, I am occasionally asked what Libertarians believe, what they stand for or against.  Since this is my only chance to make a positive Libertarian-first-impression, my preferred response is that Libertarians believe the same things they believe, since after all they are half Libertarian.

To explain, I propose the following thought experiment:  imagine that your worse case, your most feared, politician is in the White House, and that the same types of politicians have taken control of the Senate and House.  What is it that you want to be forced to do or prevented from doing?  How much power over your life do you want this government to have?  Do you want your access to abortion taken away, or perhaps your access to guns?  Do you want to be forced to donate through your taxes to building a border wall, or perhaps to donate to Plan Parenthood?  Do you wish to have your speech limited if you form a corporation or forced to support speech you don’t agree through involuntary contributions to unions?  Which of your rights do you wish curtailed, trampled, and ignored?  Which of your ideals, thoughts, goals, or dreams do you wish outlawed?  Remember, this is the ideology of your nightmares that is now in power and that will be doing this? 

All of this, they will tell you, is of course done for your sake.  

You are told that while you may think you are the victim of the new laws, actually you are the beneficiary.  Though you might not have realized this you were the victim before the new laws but now you are protected.  In some cases, it is true, you are protected from yourself but that is part of the nature of protection after all.  Drugs can hurt you so you can’t take them.  Sex with the same gender partner will destroy your soul, but luckily that’s illegal.  Getting a job that pays less than the government thinks you deserve is outlawed for your own good.  They tell you that lamentably you are in the best position to judge these things.  There are experts that have thought these things out for you.  These experts, they assure you, have considered the issues without bias and arrived at recommendations that the benevolent law-makers will now implement on your behalf.   This is all to make the world better for you.  This is undeniable since public service is their calling and helping you their moral goal.  

They condescendingly let you know that there is no way for you to have all the information required to make the best choices.  You haven’t the time, the knowledge or that unbiased point-of-view needed to make the right judgments.  Lucky for you, they are your servants looking out for your needs.

You protest that there is no such thing as an unbiased point-of-view when the very experts themselves are selected by biased human beings and that perhaps if different human beings selected different experts the “right” decisions may have been different.  You point out that in the process of establishing recommendations these experts are necessarily making trade-offs.  You agree that breast cancer research is important, but so is diabetes research.   How can one possibility make an unbiased decision that one should take priority when it comes to tax funding and resource allocation? Did the expert have a son with diabetes?  Did you have a mother with breast cancer?  Did that invalidate the definition of unbiased for the expert or for you?  Within this framework, how could there possibly be a one-size-fits-all “right” answer?  Since there can’t be a set of “right” trade-offs, you tell them, why should you be forced to follow their choices?

You proclaim that if they want to convince you, they can use reasoned agreements.  You ask them to tell you WHY they think they are right.  If they convince you, you will support them voluntarily.  If they fail to convince you, then using the force of government to make act as if you support something you do not agree with is morally repugnant and beneath the functioning of a free society.  After all, if their ideas were good, they wouldn’t have to force you to follow them.  Force, you tell them, is a confession that their reasoning is faulty.

If you are like most people I believe you feel disgust, concern, perhaps a bit of righteous indignation.  “I don’t want to be forced to do ANYTHING,” you’d say in response to the original question.  Libertarians would agree with you.  This is exactly how Libertarians feel and what they also believe.  You see you are after all, at least half Libertarian.  You understand in a very personal and moral way, what it means to be Libertarian.  You get it.  You understand the angered-amusement that Libertarians experience when people are forced to act against their will, but for their own good.  You understand what Libertarians feel when they think that the government has too much power over their lives.  

That’s really all there is to it.

Well, almost.  Half the picture is still missing.  We need to ask the opposite but unavoidably interlocking question.  Now imagine that those politicians you DO agree with were in control of the White House and both houses of congress?  What you do wish the government to force others to do or prevent them from doing?  How much power do you want the government to have over the lives of others?  In light of prior question, this one should give everyone cause to introspect.  A moment ago you were that other person, facing what you viewed as a government hostile to your freedoms, but now YOU have the political power.  How big is the whip now that it’s your hands?  How big would you want it to be?  You didn’t want to be oppressed, but do you feel equal moral chastity to switching roles to be the oppressor or what is equally bad, the supporter of the oppressor?  You don’t see yourself that way?  Of you don’t, but then neither did your oppressors in the prior question.  They were your friends, your benefactors, looking out for you. 

Remember?

So now I can provide the full explanation of what Libertarians believe.  A Libertarian answers both 

questions the same, I don’t want to force or be forced.  I don’t want the power of government used against me nor do I want it used against those who disagree with me.  Yes, I want a government that has limited powers when it disagrees with me but I want it just as limited when it agrees. 

Too often the explanation of what it means to be Libertarian gets muddled in economics.   The thoughts of Hayek, Friedman or von Mises are used to explain Libertarian positions.  The economic arguments may be true but they do Libertarianism a disservice.   They do little to convey that at its core, Libertarianism rests on a foundation of morality.  It is a belief in a moral symmetry.  It is based on a morality that applies looking inward as well as looking outward.  It is to my understanding, the only political belief that can make this claim.