I Quit Libertarianism

JL Wilson of Independent Country and Mona at Unqualified Offerings both touch on the often silly and unfair criticisms of libertarianism from the right and the left. JL Wilson addresses paleo-conservative criticism, while Mona addresses criticism from liberals. In each case, the critics frequently attribute positions to libertarianism that aren’t necessarily held by all or even most libertarians.

I blame the Vulgar Libertarians so aptly described by Kevin Carson in his series of posts. They’ve done a lot of damage to the brand. And when Rudy Giuliani can be called libertarian, if only by Eric Dondero and his ilk (if he has an ilk), the brand has no value at all. The co-opting of the brand by the GOP finished it off. I’m not sure it’s redeemable at this point. I am going to stop calling myself a libertarian. Doing so evokes too many inaccurate presuppositions in my liberal and conservative conspecifics, and I spend way too much effort disabusing them of these.

My politics derive from my religious beliefs. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, and I don’t see how I can do this by applying coercion or using force against them or supporting the use of or threats of force against them by others even for their own good or for some widely perceived common good. It is my preference that all good things inure to the benefit of my neighbors and that this be accomplished in all cases through non-coercive means. I suppose that I could call myself a Christian when asked to categorize myself politically, but this leads to problems itself because that brand has been so debased by the religious right. Maybe I’ll just describe the basic principle outlined above and leave it at that.

All I ask of my conspecifics is that they acknowledge that government action ultimately involves coercion and the threat or actual use of force and that they consider whether their proposed government action or program is important enough that they would be willing to see their neighbors hauled away to jail or dispossessed from their homes to accomplish it. I realize that this is asking a lot. I don’t bother with problematizing the state itself except to point out its coercive nature because that just leads to arguments about a hypothetical stateless society and what kind of dystopia it would be. I aim to stick to arguing about real proposals or existing programs.

So I ask a few questions about every proposal or program: 1. Is it important enough to you that you would set goons on your neighbor to bring it about? 2. If so, is it really necessary to organize and finance it coercively, or is there a way to accomplish it through peaceful means? Or, like Montgomery Burns, do you just like the personal touch of a good old-fashioned goon? 3. Have peaceful means even been tried or considered and on what basis have they been ruled out? 4. Does the program also include free ponies and a monthly allowance for their upkeep? 5. What has filled you with so much hate? 6. What if Clinton/Bush had proposed this? 7. Did you know that Hitler had the same idea? 8. Why stop there?