Living Everyday Life as a Libertarian

[Originally posted to Facebook on February 6, 2011]

It is incredibly difficult to be credible as a libertarian these days. It's easy to chant the mantra, "government bad, government bad" when one receives a fair amount of government support just by sitting still. As a Big-L libertarian in the '90s, I could certainly talk the talk. My Libertarian Party of Oregon compatriots typically found it difficult to walk the walk, and it's not hard to see why.

As Libertarians, we certainly understood that if one of our number were actually elected to office, they would be single term public servants only, for two reasons. One, both of the entrenched parties would be gunning for us, and they have lots and lots of money. Two, if we were to actually implement our policies, nearly everybody would be pissed off. After all, the unofficial slogan of the Libertarian Party was, "the party with something to offend everyone". Imagine if in an insanely serendipitous world, the Libertarian agenda was implemented. Within the course of a single term, chaos would ensue. Let's see, we repealed Medicaid and legalized marijuana. So people can't afford any health care but they can smoke weed. Imagine the re-election campaign races that would come out of that.

If the Tea Party Republicans are earnest in their election claims (of which I am highly dubious), we should see a reduction in government budgets. Is that good? Well, it depends. People seldom vote for what hurts them but is otherwise "responsible". The knee-jerk assumption that all government regulation is bad, leads to a festival of irresponsible behavior. I want to ask a question, and I want you to be completely honest in your answer:

Why are industries regulated?

Your answer says more about you than you think. On the one hand, Libertarians can certainly trot out all sorts of examples that things like licensure and other barriers to market entry exist purely to protect the profits of the established players. Sure, that's the case in a great many cases. But if you think a primary motivation of "the government" is its thirst for control of as many parts of society as possible, you've obviously drunk the Kool-Aid of conspiracy nutjobs. As one who has worked for "the government" a couple of times, I can tell you that "the government" isn't nearly as unified as that to pull it off. That's a favorite of Obama critics right now: "He doesn't care about America. He hates America and wants to destroy it and expand its POWER(power power power)." (Read that as if you were hearing the announcer for a monster truck rally at the local arena next weekend....you know, SUNDAYsundaysundaysunday....!)

True, some regulations are proffered by overzealous do-gooders who will lie in order to get what they want (which is authority over you, because you're too stupid and greedy to do the right thing) but what is more likely is that the industry in question acted so stupidly and selfishly and unethically that it DEMANDED REGULATION. That was true of timber companies in the '80s (I know this because I worked for one), it was true of the banks and Wall Street companies this decade, and its undoubtedly going to inspire government intervention in the future.

One thing that all Libertarians agree on is the Principle of Non-aggression. Most of you probably aren't aware of this, but it is the bedrock upon which the Libertarian Party's platform is based. It goes like this: "I oppose the initiation of force and/or fraud in order to achieve societal goals." Quite simple, actually. One would actually find it hard to find someone who would, on its face, oppose it. It drives the entire rest of the party's ideas. It's powerful stuff.

It leads to rather surprising policy stances. It actually interfaces quite nicely with a quote from someone on the other end of the political spectrum, Mao-Tse Tung: "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun." Many Libertarians will gleefully explain to you how this comes from just about every portion of Federal, state, or local government. Many people, when confronted with this, don't know how to react. Then Libertarians act all smug and tell you to vote for their obvious political truth in the next election, which no more than 2 percent ever typically do.

This is one reason why the Tea Party should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. If they're earnest, they'll accomplish precisely dick in office, because everyone else is arrayed against them. If they're not, then they'll pursue the typical ultra-conservative agenda of Christian totalitarianism.

The best thing to do is to make a conscious decision that you will do what you can for yourself and your family, initiate force against no one, and hope for the best. A libertarian society will only emerge if a critical mass of people do this. The problem is, both "conservatives" and "liberals" have a vision of their perfect society and are perfectly comfortable with initiating force to achieve this. "Liberals" can be forgiven for this more because, I think, they make the mistake of thinking emotionally, which is where their cracked economic ideas come from. They feel bad that some people have stuff and others don't, and want to "help people" and "make the world a better place", which inevitably involves initiating force on everyone to achieve this. The far more virulent form of profligate denial is on the part of "conservatives". They have convinced themselves that forcing Christian asceticism on everyone is the ideal, while at the same time clothing themselves with "freedom". Uh huh. Freedom to obey the Christian god, which involves the freedom to be punished for thinking otherwise. Freedom to be a good, docile employee. Freedom to suffer nobly. Freedom to think like they do.

Am I wrong? Argue with me in the comments.