There’s nothing more dangerous than being a heretic. No matter the philosophy, ideology, group, party, religion, or creed, everyone in the in-group will punish someone who distances themselves from the tribe. Not even libertarians are immune.
But when it comes to questioning libertarian dogma, very few people will usually attempt it. Yes, libertarians are quick to throw one another under the bus for perceived slights against the philosophy, but most people don’t openly rebel within the group. Instead they usually slink away quietly, or write Salon articles that prove they were never really libertarians in the first place, just confused liberals.
Libertarian tribalists have a hard time figuring me out. Or perhaps I should say, they have a difficult time putting me in a box. Here’s why.
Labels are funny things. They can help you understand where someone is coming from. The problem with them comes in when you realize that terminology can sometimes mean different things to different people. For example, the word liberal itself means different things to different people. So when I use labels to describe myself, I’m aware that I am going to sow at least a moderate amount of confusion. Still, here goes.
I am a socially liberal, fiscally conservative, hedonistic, agnostic, constitutional minarchist. But I don’t want to force these views on anyone else. I’m socially liberal because I enjoy carousing, drinking strong waters, cussing, and hanging out with rough crowds. I’m fiscally conservative because I don’t think the government should spend one penny more than required to handle the very limited job it has to do. I’m a hedonist because I prefer a life seeking pleasure, and avoiding pain. I’m agnostic because I don’t know if there is a higher power, and I don’t think it’s possible to know. I’m a constitutionalist because I believe that individuals have the right to contract with one another via democratic processes in order to decide how best to maintain civil order. I’m not necessarily for the constitution as it lies, but a constitutionalist in general. And I’m a minarchist because I believe whatever government is formed from those processes should be as small as possible, and there are areas where no government is necessary, including roads and even courts and police in many cases.
That in itself doesn’t even come close to encompassing all of my views. All it does is set a basic framework to start with. Many libertarians are confused because they would rather I fit into one of their predetermined boxes. Left libertarian, conservative libertarian, feminist libertarian, et cetera, et cetera. But I don’t fit into these boxes. I think that there are problems with libertarian ideology and with almost all of its subsets.
For instance, feminist libertarians. My attacks on the dogmatic tribalism of the left libertarians, and their social justice philosophy has them painting me as some sort of conservative, which I am not. Generally the left libertarians are characterized by being socially liberal. And while I personally am socially liberal, being a strong proponent of gay rights, for civil rights and against the drug war since it unfairly punishes minorities, I believe the rhetoric and behavior of their consequentialist viewpoints necessarily leads to bigger government. For example, their belief is that the government should step in to make gay marriage the law, since all should be equal under the law. I sympathize, but ultimately don’t agree. My belief is that government should get out of the marriage business entirely. That’s the fight we should be engaged in.
Left libertarians also have a chip on their shoulder, believing that in first world countries like the United States that somehow women are still suffering under the conspiracy of the patriarchy. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. They believe that women are oppressed by our society. But I say all of humanity is oppressed by nature, and in life… no one gets out alive. Woman are not special, oppressed flowers. Instead they play the card of being strong when they wish to be strong, and acting weak when the Titanic begins to sink. Men contribute to this damning dichotomy, and it should stop. Our differences in gender are our strengths.
They also engage in their own form of discrimination, ridiculing the “trivial” complaints of men’s rights activists who point to very real problems with false rape accusations, child custody battles, and the cruel resistance to paternal input into the reproductive process. “My body, my choice, his wallet.” But I say, where men have no rights, they have no responsibilities.
Pacifist libertarians, or isolationists as many of them are, have their own problems. Non-intervention on a national level is all well and good… sometimes. But when it comes to the issue of existential combat, or of true humanitarian acts, then there is a problem. There are differences between pacifist libertarians, who are in essence a variety of Quakers, and non-interventionist libertarians, who tend to be something of isolationist nationalists (America First). Not all are these exactly, but let me break down why I question their form of libertarianism.
First and foremost, it’s perfectly legitimate to be a pacifist libertarian. Amish and Quakers and anti-war activists in the vein of Gandhi or MLK deserve their respect and right to be left alone. If they do not wish to act even to defend themselves from violence, then assisted suicide/homicide is their absolute right. If you refuse to take up arms, and wish to lay down in front of the tank treads of dictatorship, then I will not stop you. But it is not wrong to take up arms in your own self defense. And it is not wrong to band together with fellow citizens to take the fight to the enemy if that enemy declares war against you, such as ISIS has done.
Pacifist libertarians recoil in horror at the idea of preemptive strikes. But they misunderstand the true nature of self defense. The word preemption itself means “to come before something.” So in essence, you are striking before you are struck. A preemptive strike is perfectly justified, even under the dogmatic non-aggression principle. If someone points a rifle at you, must you wait until they fire before firing first? No, of course not. But, if North Korea were to place a Taepaedong nuclear missile on the launchpad and aim it at Southern California, must we wait until they fire it to blow it off the face of the map? Must we allow, as Hillary Clinton did in Benghazi, for ISIS terrorists to overrun our embassy in Libya before we stem the threat of theocratic totalitarianism?
No. We must not. Self preservation and self defense mean that sometimes we must band together and act preemptively. Otherwise, waiting until the enemy makes the first strike often means that there will never be a chance for retaliation. You will be dead.
Pure non-intervention presents itself with similar problems. Most of the intellectuals who consider themselves non-interventionists when it comes to foreign policy will argue, correctly, that the government often blunders its attempts to perform humanitarian interventions, whether militarily or otherwise. But that is not always the case, as the Berlin Air Lift was a very successful intervention that sustained life and hope to people suffering under a hostile, interventionist, anti-libertarian regime. Intellectual non-interventionists also argue, correctly, that the government’s ulterior motives in such actions are rarely humanitarian, and present a strong case for why it does nothing but increase the size of government at home. The means of spreading freedom overseas will often have the ends of stamping on civil rights here at home. On these points I agree with them.
But from a moral and ethical standpoint, non-intervention does not always hold true. In the case of government intervention, their case holds some water. But on an individual basis, there is none. If you hear your neighbor beating and raping his wife, should you not intervene? Would calling the police be acceptable, or is the only acceptable course of action to take your rifle, intrude on his private property, and stop him from violating his wife’s bodily integrity? If you are a pure non-interventionist, then perhaps you will argue that it’s none of your business? And if you don’t believe the government should intervene overseas, should it not intervene in those matters? Or, should the government only act to protect its own citizens? If that’s what you believe, you are more likely a nationalist isolationist, than a non-interventionist.
The reason that America has not had a non-interventionist foreign policy since World War 2, is likely because the American people saw the interwar years between the Great War and the second World War as a blunder. Yes, the Treaty of Versailles was overly punitive, but the failure to properly rebuild Europe after the war’s devastation directly led to the vacuum which brought about the second conflict. The Marshall Plan after World War 2 is almost universally despised by libertarians, and yet, if you are a consequentialist, you cannot argue that it was successful in stemming a major third conflict, if not a Cold War. Post war occupation of Japan and Germany resulted in creating peaceful, first world nations has benefited not just the United States, but the world.
These are problems which we must grapple with, and they are the reason why I question libertarian orthodoxy. I’m not saying I disagree with much of the dogma, but I am saying it is dogma. As a good friend of mine once stated when I asked him if his conservative positions were inconsistent, he replied bluntly “the world is inconsistent.”
Very true.
Indeed one of my favorite quotes of late has been that of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who argued:
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
I’m not comparing myself to these geniuses of course. I am however arguing that it is perhaps not so bad to be inconsistent, with the understanding that the world itself is not a constant. We are forced to deal with changing circumstances, and sometimes we must shift our positions when the facts do not line up with our philosophy. That is the way of the world.
Although I am often misunderstood, I take solace in knowing that while more people hear my unique views on liberty and philosophy, that I am at least being intellectually honest. The older I get, the less sure I become about things. That’s because with age and experience I can see the scope of the gaps in my knowledge. Only the youth, the insane, or the cultists can ever believe that they have the one, true path. Sooner or later, such thinking inevitably leads itself to tyranny and authoritarianism. For why would you not want to punish heretics, and shun the non-believers in the one true faith?
I question orthodoxy because I prefer to think for myself, because I don’t believe any one man or one philosophy necessarily holds all the answers to life’s problems and mysteries. I question our dogma because I want to see if my philosophy holds up to the test of real problems we face in the real world, not just some test world we deal with in theory. I do not fear being seen as a heretic because I have no faith. I have only facts, clues towards facts, and the reason and logic necessary to piece them together into a misshapen, ill fitted belief system. If you believe that it doesn’t wear well on me, well I shan’t apologize. Because to me, it suits me well.
