Political Moderation is Not a Virtue

Politics is "the use of violence in society", according to Murray Rothbard, and coercion is the "political means" of getting gain according to Oppenheimer. I don't believe for a minute that "moderation" in politics is a virtue. What prompted this? A discussion on intellectual property with a colleague. He said he thought that the current state of IP law over-reached and needed to be fixed, but was against it's complete abolition. He touted moderation.

It's a question of justice. If someone is committing an act of injustice, only promoting complete abolition can be seen as virtuous. Calling for moderation or a middle ground is not virtuous. That's not to say we shouldn't move things from injustice in the extreme to a middle ground, but we shouldn't stop there. If there was no injustice, would we call to create a moderate amount of injustice? Of course not.

Is IP enforcement injustice? Absolutely. It's a violation of property rights. Nothing short of it's complete abolition, a complete righting of a wrong, can be seen as trying to create justice. Consider slavery. Should we have settled for a middle ground? Moderate slavery? NO! Only it's complete abolition should be sought for, and the more immediate the better, the more virtuous. Moderation in politics, moderation in the use of violence in society is no virtue, but a vice. And radical libertarianism is the only virtuous political position.

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