Will Wilkinson has a good post up about libertarianism and coercion from which I extracted this delicious nugget:
These libertarians are also notoriously guilty of pretending that their favorite kinds of coercion aren’t. Threatening force to deny another person use of one’s land, or one’s house, is coercion. A system of private property is a system of coercion. It may be justified coercion. It is justified coercion. But then the question is: What justifies it? The coercive protection of property is justified because people do better with it than without it. If people do better in a system that defines rights to property a bit less strictly, and coercively guarantees an economic minimum, then that is justified coercion. It’s not really a philosophical question whether it is or not. Justified coercion, like the coercion in the protection of property, isn’t wrongfully liberty-limiting, but it does limit liberty.
If libertarianism is the view that coercion is never social or emotional, and that coercive limits to liberty are justified only in defense of private property, or in the enforcement of contracts, then libertarianism is false, and I am not a libertarian. If libertarianism is the view that human well-being is best promoted by ensuring “that every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty to every other man,” then I am a libertarian. If this is a libertarian view, then the goal to minimize or abolish wrongfully liberty-limiting social norms is a libertarian goal.
I find myself in complete agreement. Living in civilization, I enjoy the benefits of being a short walk from a downtown metropolis and put up with what I consider a reasonable level of freedom-shackling. I certainly make efforts to minimize it, though, by a) not owning a car, b) renting, c) living in a state with no income tax. I also further voluntarily tax myself by trying to buy local when possible.
While this is all well and good, there are great (large, not good) ills which afflict us as a majority-rules society. One of them is taxes which target income rather than consumption. The so-called “progressive” tax is especially wrong-headed, but even the income tax pales in comparison to the horrifying ways that our tax money is used — the Iraq war, corporate welfare, and the destruction of our civil liberties with wiretaps and ever more overreaching federal agencies.
..which leads to this interesting snippet from a link in Will’s above post:
Free people do all sorts of things you won’t like, and they are no less free (in any libertarian sense) for it. Claiming free people aren’t really free until you see certain patterned outcomes you like is the root of all tyranny and rhetoric unbecoming a libertarian.
I must admit that I fall into this trap occasionally — perhaps frequently — because I don’t understand how people would a) not want the best (read as: most free) for themselves, or b) voluntarily give up rights of their own in order to make sure that party B doesn’t have them.
In the case of public education and school choice, while there can be state-sponsored alternatives like public schools they should not be forced upon those who would rather choose to send their children to a [better] private school. Doing so limits choice — freedom — for the sake of a lower quality product for all, and seriously limiting the ability of lower/lower-middle class parents from giving their children a higher quality education and enabling them to not be locked into that (for lack of a better word) caste.
I don’t understand why opponents of education privatization (or at least vouchers) would willingly give up MY freedom to affordably send my kids where I want so that they can shut their brains off and not worry about where their kids will go. I can’t understand the motivation of those who openly admit to being okay with sacrificing my rights. Come into my home yourself and do so rather than hiding behind a ballot. Want to force me to fight your war? You are going to have to do so with a gun to my head and my hands tied behind my back. I suppose it is easy to cowardly vote away the rights of others when you don’t have to look them in the face while you are doing it, when the victims are nameless and faceless statistics.
So sayeth former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr:
“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”
When it comes to religion, I think it is reasonable to expect religious organizations like the LDS to respect others’ rights and not just those of its members. Particularly if they wish to retain their tax-exempt status (which I think is bullshit to begin with.) You would think that a religious organization — particularly one which has been persecuted for their own unconventional take on marriage — would understand the golden rule and at least pretend to abide by it.
As my buddy Will states, we still have quite a ways to go..
America becomes no worse as it becomes more secular. And American atheists would be both happier and more cooperative if we were less marginalized by our culture.
Also, the fact that non-religious Americans (who don’t lie about it) are basically disqualified from high public office ensures that many of the most rational and intellectually accomplished people in our society cannot participate in electoral politics.
In closing, enjoy some wise words (and, caution, some eye-roll-inducing corniness) from a guy I typically dislike hearing the voice of: