WASHINGTON One of the main problems with an unremittingly hostile view of government held by many associated with the tea party, libertarianism and constitutionalism is that it obscures and undermines the social contributions of a truly conservative vision of government.

Politics requires a guiding principle of public action. For popular liberalism, it is often the rule of good intentions: If it sounds good, do it. Social problems can be solved by compassionate, efficient regulation and bureaucratic management which is seldom efficient and invites unintended consequences in complex, unmanageable systems (say, the one-sixth of the U.S. economy devoted to health care). The signal light for government intervention is stuck on green.

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A yellow light for government

Americans like to see themselves as rugged individualists, a nation defined by the idea that people should set their own course through life. Think of Clint Eastwood rendering justice, rule-bound superiors be damned. Think of Frank Sinatra singing My Way.

The idea that personal liberty defines America is deeply rooted, and shared across the political spectrum. The lifestyle radicals of the 60s saw themselves as heirs to this American tradition of self-expression; today, it energizes the Tea Party movement, marching to defend individual liberty from the smothering grasp of European-style collectivism.

But are Americans really so uniquely individualistic? Are we, for example, more committed individualists than people in those socialist-looking nations of Europe? The answer appears to be no.

For many years now, researchers worldwide have been conducting surveys to compare the values of people in different countries. And when it comes to questions about how much the respondents value the individual against the collective that is, how much they give priority to individual interest over the demand of groups, or personal conscience over the orders of authority Americans consistently answer in a way that favors the group over the individual. In fact, we are more likely to favor the group than Europeans are.

Surprising as it may sound, Americans are much more likely than Europeans to say that employees should follow a bosss orders even if the boss is wrong; to say that children must love their parents; and to believe that parents have a duty to sacrifice themselves for their children. We are more likely to defer to church leaders and to insist on abiding by the law. Though Americans do score high on a couple of aspects of individualism, especially where it concerns government intervening in the market, in general we are likelier than Europeans to believe that individuals should go along and get along.

American individualism is far more complex than our national myths, or the soap-box rhetoric of right and left, would have it. It is not individualism in the libertarian sense, the idea that the individual comes before any group and that personal freedom comes before any allegiance to authority. Research suggests that Americans do adhere to a particular strain of liberty one that emerged in the New World in which freedom to choose your allegiance is tempered by the expectation that you wont stray from the values of the group you choose. In a political climate where liberty is frequently wielded as a rhetorical weapon but rarely discussed in a more serious way, grasping the limits of our notion of liberty might guide us to building Americas future on a different philosophical foundation.

The image of America as the bastion of libertarianism is a long-established one. Our Founding Fathers stipulated a set of personal rights and freedoms in our key documents that was, by the standards of that day, radical. The quintessentially American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Self-Reliance, extolled the person who does not defer to outside authority or compromise his principles for the sake of any collectivity family, church, party, community, or nation.

This quality in the American character struck observers from overseas, including Alexis de Tocqueville, who in his 1830s book, Democracy in America, famously tied the relatively new word individualism to what seemed so refreshingly new about the Americans. Popular culture today reinforces this image by making heroes of men (its almost always men) who put principle above everything else, even if perhaps especially if that makes them loners.

But in modern America, when you look at real issues where individual rights conflict with group interests, Americans dont appear to see things this way at all. Over the last few decades, scholars around the world have collaborated to mount surveys of representative samples of people from different countries. The International Social Survey Programme, or ISSP, and the World Value Surveys, or WVS, are probably the longest-running, most reliable such projects. Starting with just a handful of countries, both now pose the same questions to respondents from dozens of nations.

Their findings suggest that in several major areas, Americans are clearly less individualistic than western Europeans. One topic pits individual conscience against the demands of the state. In 2006, the ISSP asked the question In general, would you say that people should obey the law without exception, or are there exceptional occasions on which people should follow their consciences even if it means breaking the law? At 45 percent, Americans were the least likely out of nine nationalities to say that people should at least on occasion follow their consciences far fewer than, for example, the Swedes (70 percent) and the French (78 percent). Similarly, in 2003, Americans turned out to be the most likely to embrace the statement People should support their country even if the country is in the wrong.

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Sweet land of... conformity?

Why does Libertarianism seem so Radical?
vlog001.

By: Phillip Taylor

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Why does Libertarianism seem so Radical? - Video

My gripes on libertarianism and Laissez faire

By: warobsessive

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My gripes on libertarianism and Laissez faire - Video

Ben Carson nails libertarianism in one concise statement

By: AFRTALK

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Ben Carson nails libertarianism in one concise statement - Video

BILL MAHER ON LIBERTARIANISM AND DRUGS
One of the many Larry King interviews with Bill Maher on CNN.

By: nick charles

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BILL MAHER ON LIBERTARIANISM AND DRUGS - Video

Aaron Swartz in Miami Beach in 2009. He died Jan. 11, 2013 at age 26 in New York City. (Michael Francis McElroy/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON The pushback by some in the Republican Party against the Obama Administrations embattled defense of secrecy and surveillance is well-documented. Tea Party champion Rand Paul, with a strong libertarianism strain, has promised to file a class-action suit aimed at the National Security Administrations massive snooping operations.

Sen. Ted Cruz, another of the movements bannermen, has kept mostly quiet so far on many of the issues that have so riled up Paul and a small band of others.

But on Thursday a very different kind of Republican, Sen. John Cornyn, weighed in on a related issue, raising his own objections to what he called the reckless way in which the Department of Justice under President Obama has wielded its powers against individuals.

It was an interesting move for Cornyn, who as a former Texas Supreme Court justice and attorney general is about as conservative, as law-and-order as any senator in Washington.

He engaged the debate by evoking a name that hasnt been much discussed in Texas political circles, a name I first heard a year ago this Saturday.

I was sitting in funky little coffee shop in San Francisco trying to make sense of a piece of fiction that I had begun. I was on leave, and it was a year for trying new things. Across the table was a young guy in his late 20s looking like he had lost his iPad somewhere or dropped one of the gadgets that seemingly everyone in Northern California carried like ammunition. I asked him how he was. His response: Im just devastated by Aaron Swartzs death. I cant believe it.

Aaron Swartz. I had heard a report of his suicide at age 26 that morning on the way into the city from my home in Palo Alto, and seemingly alone in that tech-juiced city, hadnt recognized the name. Turns out, seemingly everyone I met that day and the next was reeling from the news.

Aaron was the computer wunderkind who as a teenager had emerged as kind of a hacker white knight and thinker that made the computerati take notice. One of his earliest achievements was to help write the code for what became RSS newsfeed software. His close mentors as a teen were MIT professor Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the, well, the Internet, and Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig. The New Republic would write in a February obituary that Swartz was welcome on any e-mail thread or chat room populated by the worlds leading hackers before he could shave.

But of course all that had seemed like an eternity ago for Swartz in January of last year, when he killed himself. He had been pursued for two years or more by the Department of Justice for the crime of illegally downloading 4 million articles from an academic database and making them available to the public. Trouble was, none of the articles belonged to him. That Friday a year ago was the first day I had heard his name.

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John Cornyn again questions feds' pursuit of late hacker-activist Aaron Swartz

Fair warning: This is about the Duck Dynasty controversy. Yes, I know. Im sick of it, too.

Still, relying upon my First Amendment right to freedom of speech, I will make a few observations about Phil Robertson, the grizzled Louisiana duck hunter turned reality TV star whose comments about black and gay people recently got him suspended and then unsuspended by A&E. If you find my observations disagreeable you may, relying upon your own First Amendment rights, protest to my employer. Assuming enough of you bring enough pressure, my employer may dump me. Feeling angry and betrayed, I might heres that First Amendment again blast my now-former bosses for defects of character, courage or cognition.

But one thing I could not say at least not credibly is that theyd violated my First Amendment rights. There is nothing in the First Amendment that says a private company cant fire you.

Well return to the First in a second. Right now, let me offer the promised observations about Mr. Robertson: The man really needs to wake up and smell the 21st Century.

His comments, made in an interview with GQ, are almost cartoonish in their stupidity. They sound less like they were made by a backwoods ignoramus than by someone doing a takeoff on a backwoods ignoramus.

For instance, Robertson explains his aversion to homosexuality by discoursing on the comparative merits of the male anus and the vagina. For good measure, he invokes bestiality and the Bible. He also notes how black people were singing and happy when he was young. Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare they were godly, they were happy; no one was singing the blues.

Ahem.

So anyway, A&E was shocked shocked, I say, shocked! to learn that a self-described redneck from the Louisiana woods harbored such illiberal views. It suspended Robertson, thereby igniting a scrum of conservative pols jockeying to express newfound love for the First Amendment.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal says he can remember when TV networks still believed in it. Sarah Palin calls free speech an endangered species. Mike Huckabee says, Stand with Phil and support free speech.

Yeah. Because freedom of speech means you can say any asinine thing you want and nobody can call you on it or punish you for it. Right?

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Leonard Pitts Jr.: Idiocy is not a First Amendment offense

One of the main problems with an unremittingly hostile view of government held by many associated with the tea party, libertarianism and constitutionalism is that it obscures and undermines the social contributions of a truly conservative vision of government.

Politics requires a guiding principle of public action. For popular liberalism, it is often the rule of good intentions: If it sounds good, do it. Social problems can be solved by compassionate, efficient regulation and bureaucratic management which is seldom efficient and invites unintended consequences in complex, unmanageable systems (say, the one-sixth of the U.S. economy devoted to health care). The signal light for government intervention is stuck on green.

Michael Gerson

Gerson writes about politics, religion, foreign policy and global health and development in a twice-a-week column and on the PostPartisan blog.

Archive

For libertarians and their ideological relatives, the guiding principle is the maximization of individual liberty. It is a theory of government consisting mainly of limits and boundaries. The light is almost always red.

Conservatism (as Peter Wehner and I explain in our recent National Affairs essay, A Conservative Vision of Government) offers a different principle of public action though one a bit more difficult to explain than go or stop. In the traditional conservative view, individual liberty is ennobled and ordered within social institutions families, religious communities, neighborhoods, voluntary associations, local governments and nations. The success of individuals is tied to the health of these institutions, which prepare people for the responsible exercise of freedom and the duties of citizenship.

This is a limiting principle: Higher levels of government should show deference to private associations and local institutions. But this is also a guide to appropriate governmental action needed when local and private institutions are enervated or insufficient in scale to achieve the public good.

So conservatism is a governing vision that allows for a yellow light: careful, measured public interventions to encourage the health of civil society. There are no simple rules here. Some communities disproportionately affected by family breakdown, community chaos or damaging economic trends will need more active help. But government should, as the first resort, set the table for private action and private institutions creating a context in which civil society can flourish.

This goal has moral and cultural implications. Government has a necessary (if limited) role in reinforcing the social norms and expectations that make the work of civic institutions both possible and easier. Some forms of liberty say, the freedom to destroy oneself with hard drugs or to exploit other men and women in the sex trade not only degrade human nature but also damage and undermine families and communities and ultimately deprive the nation of competent, self-governing citizens. (The principle applies, more mildly, to softer drugs. By what governing theory did the citizens of Colorado surveying the challenges of global economic competition, educational mediocrity and unhealthy lifestyles decide that the answer is the proliferation of stoners?)

Continued here:

Gerson: How the tea party undermines conservatism

One of the main problems with an unremittingly hostile view of government held by many associated with the tea party, libertarianism and constitutionalism is that it obscures and undermines the social contributions of a truly conservative vision of government.

Politics requires a guiding principle of public action. For popular liberalism, it is often the rule of good intentions: If it sounds good, do it. Social problems can be solved by compassionate, efficient regulation and bureaucratic management which is seldom efficient and invites unintended consequences in complex, unmanageable systems (say, the one-sixth of the U.S. economy devoted to health care). The signal light for government intervention is stuck on green.

For libertarians and their ideological relatives, the guiding principle is the maximization of individual liberty. It is a theory of government consisting mainly of limits and boundaries. The light is almost always red.

Conservatism (as my co-author Peter Wehner and I explain in our recent National Affairs essay, A Conservative Vision of Government") offers a different principle of public action though a bit more difficult to explain than go or stop. In the traditional conservative view, individual liberty is ennobled and ordered within social institutions families, religious communities, neighborhoods, voluntary associations, local governments and nations. The success of individuals is tied to the health of these institutions, which prepare them for the responsible exercise of freedom and the duties of citizenship.

This is a limiting principle: Higher levels of government should show deference to private associations and local institutions. But this is also a guide to appropriate governmental action needed when local and private institutions are enervated or insufficient in scale to achieve the public good.

So conservatism is a governing vision that allows for a yellow light: careful, measured public interventions to encourage the health of civil society. There are no simple rules here. Some communities disproportionately affected by family breakdown, community chaos or damaging economic trends will need more active help. But government should, as the first resort, set the table for private action and private institutions creating a context in which civil society can flourish.

This goal has moral and cultural implications. Government has a necessary (if limited) role in reinforcing the social norms and expectations that make the work of civic institutions both possible and easier. Some forms of liberty say, the freedom to destroy oneself with hard drugs or to exploit other men and women in the sex trade not only degrade human nature but damage and undermine families and communities and ultimately deprive the nation of competent, self-governing citizens. (The principle applies, more mildly, to softer drugs. By what governing theory did the citizens of Colorado surveying the challenges of global economic competition, educational mediocrity and unhealthy lifestyles decide that the answer is the proliferation of stoners?)

But conservatives also need to take seriously the economic implications of this governing vision. Just as citizens must be prepared for the exercise of liberty, individuals must be given the skills and values human capital that will allow them to succeed in a free economy.

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Michael Gerson: A yellow light for government

Anarchism and Libertarianism

By: LuckyShitZu

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Anarchism and Libertarianism - Video

Right-wing libertarian that he is, Rand Paul isnt much for using the federal government to make the world a slightly less terrible place. It was hardly a surprise, then, to find out the Kentucky senator opposed extending emergency unemployment compensation, preferring instead to let it expire for some 1.3 million in late December, with millions more to come after that. EUC is a federal government program, after all; and worse still, its one whose primary beneficiaries are the unemployed, a population with little political influence or social standing. Youd expect, in other words, Rand Paul to leave these people shuddering in the winter cold. Its what his rigid vision of libertarianism requires.

What was less predictable, however, was Pauls stated justification for opposing EUC. Rather than talk about makers and takers and the economys winners and losers, Paul attempted to repackage his laissez faire absolutism as a kind of tough love empathy. He pointed to a study that, he claimed, showed those on EUC had a harder time reentering the workforce (an interpretation one of the studys authors subsequently differed with). He talked about how those advocating for an EUC extension were doing a disservice to Americas long-term unemployed workers. He made kicking millions to the curb sound like nothing less than an act of benevolence, bordering on charity. Whether it was a feat of self-delusion or chutzpah, only Paul can really say. (My guess is somewhere in-between.)

But as is so often the case with right-wing libertarianism, Pauls flimsy moral reasoning simply disintegrates once it comes into contact with the facts on the ground. Implicit in Pauls formulation is the idea that there are jobs to be had, if only the long-term unemployed would stop relying on government checks and go and have them. Considering that the total number of long-term unemployed set to be sent adrift by the expiration of EUC is somewhere in the vicinity of 5 million, its quite likely that, in some instances, this is true. But for the vast, vast majority of those on EUC, the reality is that there simply are not enough jobs to go around. A Bureau of Labor Statistics study found the ratio of job seekers to job openings to be nearly 3-to-1, and thats the national figure in many regions, the chances of finding employment are considerably worse.

Whats more, Pauls understanding of the long-term unemployed also betrays a shameful ignorance as to what life on EUC is actually like. People on EUC arent collecting their former paycheck while sitting around and waiting for work to come to them. Theyre receiving a mere fraction of their former salary and are under constant pressure to prove that they are indeed searching for new employment. As Kim Merryman, a former water quality technician for an Indian reservation who was laid off in April, told me, Its not like [EUC] allows me to live this comfortable, cushy life. In 2012, the average weekly compensation for those on EUC was $300.

What EUC does do for Merryman and millions like her is allow her to have a roof over my head, have gas in my car, get down to the employment agency, [and] to get my rsums out. Rather than keep Merryman out of the workforce, in other words, EUC keeps her in it by helping her to continue to search for a job. Thats why economists believe ending EUC will lead to many of the unemployed simply giving up on finding a new job and dropping out of the workforce entirely. While this would technically reduce the unemployment rate, it would do little to actually improve the labor market or the economy on the whole. In fact, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, because recipients of EUC tend to, out of necessity, spend the money right away, the expiration of the program could deprive the economy of as many as 200,000 jobs and 0.2 percent of GDP.

For these both moral and technocratic reasons, extending EUC is the mainstream position. A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans support an extension, while only 34 percent oppose one. The Rand Paul school of thought, that those on EUC are layabouts turning down work in order to bask in the glow of their government-provided largess, is, thankfully, an outlier. And theres concrete political action taking place in Washington, too. With the White Houses backing, Democrats like Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed are already trying to pass a three-month extension of EUC that will keep the 1.3 million cut off on Dec. 28 afloat while Congress hashes out a longer-term agreement. Nothings ever certain with Republicans in Congress, of course, but its in the GOPs self-interest to move the issue to the political sidelines, so theres reason for optimism that such a deal will ultimately pass.

All the same, that 1.3 million Americans have been forced to greet the new year with little to no idea how theyll next make ends meet is still a national disgrace. That so many Americans have been left to suffer through the hell of long-term unemploymentis itself a national disgrace. And even if this round of economic Darwinism proves to be short-lived, the reality ofa joblessrecovery meanstheres little doubt that millions more will soon find themselves in the impossible situation now confronting Merryman and so many like her. If thats the case, lets hope the long-term unemployed continue to have better friends in high places than the junior senator from Kentucky.

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Rand Paul is totally, shamefully wrong about the long-term unemployed

Krauthammer #39;s Take: Other than Obamacare, Biggest 2013 Story is Rising Libertarianism

By: National Review

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Krauthammer's Take: Other than Obamacare, Biggest 2013 Story is Rising Libertarianism - Video

Libertarianism isn't all that conservative.

The Gadsden Flag

That's the argument former Bush Administration officials Mike Gerson and Pete Wehner offer in a new -- and important -- essay in National Affairs that posted today. Here's the key paragraph from that piece:

Responsible, self-governing citizens do not grow wild like blackberries, which is why a conservative political philosophy cannot be reduced to untrammeled libertarianism. Citizens are cultivated by institutions: families, religious communities, neighborhoods, and nations. Parents and spouses, churches and synagogues, teachers and coaches, and the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are among the foremost shapers of citizens in our republic. But government has a necessary (if limited) role in reinforcing the social norms and expectations that make the work of these civil institutions both possible and easier. That role can involve everything from enforcing civil-rights laws, to saving the elderly from indigence, to restricting the availability of addictive substances.

The Gerson/Wehner piece is an argument for government (albeit it in a limited role) and a rejection of the so-called constitutional conservative/libertarian/tea party movement that has been organized around the principle that the government that does least does best. The essay lands at a time when libertarianism is very much on the march within the Republican party -- as evidenced by the rise of both Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz within the party not to mention the fact that a majority of House Republicans voted for a measure last summer to significantly curtail the government's spying powers.

Sentiments -- voiced by Paul and others -- that the U.S. needs to rethink its role as world policeman, for example, would have been unthinkable in the Republican party of even a decade ago. (George W. Bush was re-elected 10 years ago in large part due to his focus during the campaign on his ability -- and willingness -- to do what it took to keep Americans safe in the world.) Now, Paul's views are held by an increasing number of people who identify as Republicans including, most interestingly, young people (30 and under) who have abandoned the GOP in droves in the last two presidential elections.

Gerson and Wehner, on the other hand, are part of what can be described as the establishment wing of the GOP. And, their essay is the latest sign that the establishment is striking back -- rhetorically and policy-wise -- against a libertarian/tea party movement that, they believe, has run amok over the past four years and threatens to badly damage the party's prospects heading into 2014 and,especially, 2016.

"The alternative to government overreach is not the dogmatic disparagement of government but the restoration of government to its proper and honored place in American life," Wehner and Gerson write at one point. At another, they insist: "Conservatives should offer a menu of structural reforms that do not simply attack government but transform it on conservative terms."

The broad conclusion of the piece? A philosophy that rejects government will never prevail -- no matter how much the American public dislikes the direction that President Obama has led the country. "Conservatives are more likely to be trusted to run the affairs of the nation if they show the public that they grasp the purposes of government," write Gerson and Wehner. So, from health care to immigration to education and beyond, the duo argue that the party needs to be for something rather than against (almost) everything.

Little of that argument is new or unknown to party strategists looking toward not just the 2016 presidential race but also the long term electoral sustainability of the GOP. The problem for the Wehners and Gersons of the world is that the energy of the Republican party at the moment lies with those most willing to move in complete and total opposition to Obama, not those who want to make a nuanced argument about how government isn't always bad (or good). What's an easier stump speech to rile up the base: One that savages Obamacare and the growth of government or one that argues that true conservatism is a belief in some government when and where it's necessary? You already know the answer.

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The Republican rejection of libertarianism. And why it probably won’t work.

Libertarianism Spreads through Social Media
John Stossel interviews Julie Borowski and Matt Kibbe from Freedomworks, who explained that the new social media on the internet is spreading new ideologies ...

By: borisgaydos

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Libertarianism Spreads through Social Media - Video

As Mediaite readers may recall, Glenn Beck recently appeared on CNN for a full hour of talk with S.E. Cupp. Buried within that interview is one especially interesting nugget: Beck said he would gladly stand with GLAAD in the fight against Russias hetero-fascist laws criminalizing public homosexuality.

Beck told Cupp that he finds it ridiculous that Americans were debating Santa Claus race and a comment made by a Duck Dynasty star while, over in Mother Russia, laws have criminalized public homosexuality and a well-known TV celebrity actually called for the burning alive of gay people.

Hetero-fascism, Beck called it. And he said hed gladly stand with GLAAD in taking a stand against Russias anti-gay legislation.

So why is that so interesting?

Ive long been tough on Beck for suggesting hes sympathetic to libertarianism while openly supporting the likes of Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann two of the most un-libertarian GOP candidates in the 2012 cycle. And then he started to make some progress on many issues, including surveillance and the warfare state.

So Id consider this an even greater step forward. With this one soundbite, Beck has done more to speak out against Russias war on homosexuality than any of his conservative radio colleagues, thereby showing clarity of his belief that while his religious views may say one thing about homosexuality, he does not believe any government has any place legislating such morality. Not only that, but he mentioned fighting arm-in-arm with GLAAD, one of the rights biggest bogeymen.

Bravo.

Watch below, via CNN:

>> Follow Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) on Twitter

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Glenn Beck: ‘I Will Stand with GLAAD’ Against Russia’s ‘Hetero-Fascism’

What is Libertarianism?

Libertarians see the individual as the basic, most essential element of society. The word roughly means believer in liberty. Libertarians believe that each individual owns his or her own life and property and has the right to make his own choices about how to live his life as long as he respects the rights of others to do the same.

Liberty is one of the central lessons of world history. Virtually all the progress the human race has enjoyed during the past few centuries is due to the increasing acceptance of free markets, civil liberties and self-ownership.

Libertarianism is thus the combination of liberty (the freedom to live your life in any peaceful way you choose), responsibility (the prohibition against the use of force against others, except in defense) and tolerance (honoring and respecting the peaceful choices of others).

Click here to view some definitions of libertarianism.

Libertarians are not left or right or a combination of the two. Libertarians believe that on every issue you have the right to decide for yourself whats best for you and to act on that belief, so long as you simply respect the right of other people to do the same.

How does this compare with the left and right? Todays liberals tend to value personal liberty, but want significant government control of the economy. Todays conservatives tend to favor economic freedom, but want to use the government to uphold traditional values. Libertarians, in contrast, support both personal and economic liberty.

Libertarianism is the only political movement that consistently advocates a high degree of both personal and economic liberty.

Modern libertarianism has multiple roots, but perhaps the most important one is the minimal-government republicanism of Americas founding revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson and the Anti-Federalists. The core ideals of libertarianism that all men are created equal and are endowed with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness can be seen in the Declaration of Independence and in the limited government established in the Constitution.

Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill are among the most famous of the 18th and 19th centuries classical liberals that developed theories on the invisible hand of free markets. More recently, libertarian philosophy has been explored and defined through Ayn Rands ethical egoism and the Austrian School of free-market economics.

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Libertarianism - Frequently Asked Questions - The Advocates ...

From New World Encyclopedia

In English-speaking countries, libertarianism usually refers to a political philosophy maintaining that every person is the absolute owner of their own life and should be free to do whatever they wish with their person or property, as long as they respect the liberty of others.

Libertarianism can also be an ethical theory or stance that holds that the besti.e., best ethically speaking, or what "ought to" or "should" exist or be upheldpolitical, social, economic, and/or governmental system is the one that governs least, that provides for the greatest individual liberty, initiative, entrepreneurship, etc. Libertarian theory advocates minimizing social and governmental power, action, control, and regulation, and maximizing individual liberty and freedom. Libertarians are suspicious of the ability of government and bureaucrats to make good, wise, and informed ethical, social, or economic choices for people. Libertarians believe, instead, that people are the best judges and masters of their own self-interest, and that they make the best choices when they choose freely for themselves.

Libertarianism can be contrasted with socialismthe two are more or less opposite in their political, social, and ethical stances.

Some libertarians (as explained below) are anarchists. But it is important not to assume that libertarianism implies or is synonymous with anarchism because most libertarians do believe in and accept some minimal government and governmental powera view sometimes called the "night-watchman theory of the state."

There are broadly two types of libertarians: consequentialists and rights theorists.[1] Rights theorists hold that it is morally imperative that all human interaction, including government interaction with private individuals, should be voluntary and consensual. They maintain that the initiation of force by any person or government, against another person or their propertywith "force" meaning the use of physical force, the threat of it, or the commission of fraud against someonewho has not initiated physical force, threat, or fraud, is a violation of that principle. This form of libertarianism is associated with Objectivists, as well as with individualist anarchists who see this prohibition as requiring opposition to the state to be consistent.

Consequentialist libertarians do not have a moral prohibition against "initiation of force," but support those actions that they believe will result in the maximum well-being or efficiency for a society. Though they will allow some initiation of force by the state if they believe it necessary to bring about good consequences for society, they believe that allowing a very large scope of individual liberty is the most productive way toward this end. This type of libertarianism is associated with Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek.

Libertarians generally do not oppose force used in response to initiatory aggressions such as violence, fraud, or trespassing. Libertarians favor an ethic of self-responsibility and strongly oppose the welfare state, because they believe "forcing" someone to provide aid to others is ethically wrong, ultimately counter-productive, or both. Libertarians also strongly oppose conscription, because they oppose slavery and involuntary servitude.

Critics of libertarianism may point to its unrealistic view of human nature. Since human beings are fallen and prone to selfish behaviors, lacking in self-control and greedy to promote themselves at the expense of others, a condition of unfettered liberty will necessarily result in inequality and oppression of the many by a privileged few who are stronger and more ruthless. The state, in this view, has a positive role to regulate selfish and immoral behavior and to provide redress to those oppressed by economic or social circumstances. This is the essence of Jean-Jacque Rousseau's social contract, which founds the sovereign role of government on an implicit contract in which citizens surrender a measure of individual liberty for a measure of protection and greater social equality. On the other hand, elements of libertarian policy can succeed if non-governmental organizations in a society were to deliver widespread moral instruction to encourage citizens to practice self-control and embody divinity within themselves, support healthy families in which such virtues are most readily cultivated, and encourage voluntary charity to care for the less fortunate.

Note on terminology: Some writers who have been called libertarians have also been referred to as "classical liberals," by others or themselves. Also, some use the phrase "the freedom philosophy" to refer to libertarianism, classical liberalism, or both.

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Libertarianism - New World Encyclopedia

libertarianism,political philosophy that takes individual liberty to be the primary political value. It may be understood as a form of liberalism, the political philosophy associated with the English philosophers John Locke and John Stuart Mill, the Scottish economist Adam Smith, and the American statesman Thomas Jefferson. Liberalism seeks to define and justify the legitimate powers of government in terms of certain natural or God-given individual rights. These rights include the rights to life, liberty, private property, freedom of speech and association, freedom of worship, government by consent, equality under the law, and moral autonomy (the pursuit of ones own conception of happiness, or the good life). The purpose of government, according to liberals, is to protect these and other individual rights, and in general liberals have contended that government power should be limited to that which is necessary to accomplish this task. Libertarians are classical liberals who strongly emphasize the individual right to liberty. They contend that the scope and powers of government should be constrained so as to allow each individual as much freedom of action as is consistent with a like freedom for everyone else. Thus, they believe that individuals should be free to behave ... (200 of 4,037 words)

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libertarianism (politics) -- Encyclopedia Britannica

Walter Block is at his finest when he subjects the most loathsome jobs and nastiest behaviors to a logical and libertarian scrutiny. Blocks Defending the Undefendable has needled and irritated an entire generation of readers and compelled many to re-examine long-held beliefs in favor of the logic of libertarianism. Now comes volume 2, Defending the Undefendable: Freedom in All Realms (with a foreword by Ron Paul) that promises more such irritation for future generations.

The introduction is a short course in libertarianism. Block explains that libertarianism is a political philosophy that shows when the use of coercion is justified or not justified. The book examines 30 cases that are often seen as illegal, immoral, or unethical. Block analyzes each case by subjecting it to a libertarian standard, and ultimately exonerates each from punishment by government.

Please note: the author is only defending these cases by the political standard of libertarianism and whether they should face coercive threat from the state. It does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that this implies approval and commendation. It simply means they should not go to jail for their behavior.

The examination of these hard cases is what helps us sharpen our understanding of libertarianism and our ability to debate and defend the free society. I agree with the author that studying hard cases strengthens libertarianism and improves the likelihood of achieving a free society. Much of my own research has been on such hard cases, such as drug dealers and smugglers. People, particularly college students, find such cases interesting and often convincing.

Speaking of hard cases, one of my colleagues recently visited South Africa. He saw that private security was everywhere. He was told that he and his belongings were safe with private security, but not safe where government police was in charge. My colleague noted that a nation that understands that the market provides a better service for security, the hardest of all cases, is going to be more easily convinced that the market can provide a better garbage collection service.

The book is divided into seven sections. The first, on trade, contains five short chapters: The Multinational Enterpriser, The Smuggler, British Petroleum, Nuclear Energy, and The Corporate Raider.

British Petroleum is a good hard case because everyone knows about the accident in the Gulf of Mexico, the 200 million gallons of oil that was spilled, and that BP has been vilified by the media pundits and politicians because of it. Block begins by calling the people at BP heroes in part because they do the dangerous work so we can comfortably drive across town at 10 cents a mile.

Block asks if BP knew the dangers of deep water drilling. Of course they did, but government regulations prevent shallow water drilling near the shoreline and provide incentives to drill in deep water far out at sea. Meanwhile government regulators were not doing their job, goofing off, taking bribes, and they failed to upgrade safety standards to account for the new deep water drilling.

As BP was vilified for negligence and as the oil continued to seep into the the gulf, the U.S. government turned down offers of assistance from foreign companies that specialized in such spills and who had more experience than U.S. firms. Ships from foreign countries also offered their assistance, but like after Hurricane Katrina, the volunteers were turned away. Block argues persuasively why such disasters are very unlikely to happen in a libertarian society and that this tragedy was the result of government intervention.

The second section on labor looks at the cases of The Hatchet Man, The Home Worker, The Picket-Line Crosser, The Daycare Provider, and The Automator. In the case of automation, it does destroy some jobs, and creates new jobs, and this should be celebrated by society, not denigrated or sabotaged. Technological advance is the main source of rising prosperity and job creation. Machines can increase our productivity and free up labor to produce other goods that are in short supply. The chapter does a wonderful job of showing how this process takes place and how we all benefit from automation and robots.

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Walter Block Is Still Defending the Undefendable