Are You Libertarian Enough?
Anthony Gregory asks some great questions, consider:
1. Is there any war – in all of history – that I have a romantic attachment to, and is it possible that this war was nothing but a murderous and fraudulent escapade, like all the rest? Perhaps I have been right about which state was the greater aggressor in this war – am I being too soft on the other state?
2. Is there any state action I defend that is morally indefensible? Anyone’s rights I’m ignoring?
3. Is there any gradualist position I take, on maintaining the police, or the military, or the welfare state, that lacks moral legitimacy or is otherwise an equivocation with evil?
4. Do I put way too much hope in electoral politics yielding a good result, when hundreds of years of U.S. history provide virtually no examples of it doing so?
5. Are there areas of political theory – national borders, militarism, police powers, parental and children’s rights, public schooling and compulsory attendance, regulation, Social Security, monetary affairs, sexual liberties, drug freedom, intellectual property – that I have been lazy in considering deeply in light of the radical implications of libertarianism?
6. Is there any political structure or figure in human history that I am too soft on – Thomas Jefferson, English common law, the Constitution, and so forth?
7. Just because something would be OK for the private sector to do, does it mean we can countenance the state doing so in the meantime? (To this question, I break with the implicit reasoning of the minarchists. I find the more violent expressions of state power – policing and militarism – to be more important to abolish instantly than many "illegitimate" functions such as roads and parks.)
8. Which state services is it permissible to exploit, and which is it immoral to use?
These are more for self-reflection, so I'll answer them in my head, but I'll say I'm definitely libertarian "enough".
1. Is there any war – in all of history – that I have a romantic attachment to, and is it possible that this war was nothing but a murderous and fraudulent escapade, like all the rest? Perhaps I have been right about which state was the greater aggressor in this war – am I being too soft on the other state?
2. Is there any state action I defend that is morally indefensible? Anyone’s rights I’m ignoring?
3. Is there any gradualist position I take, on maintaining the police, or the military, or the welfare state, that lacks moral legitimacy or is otherwise an equivocation with evil?
4. Do I put way too much hope in electoral politics yielding a good result, when hundreds of years of U.S. history provide virtually no examples of it doing so?
5. Are there areas of political theory – national borders, militarism, police powers, parental and children’s rights, public schooling and compulsory attendance, regulation, Social Security, monetary affairs, sexual liberties, drug freedom, intellectual property – that I have been lazy in considering deeply in light of the radical implications of libertarianism?
6. Is there any political structure or figure in human history that I am too soft on – Thomas Jefferson, English common law, the Constitution, and so forth?
7. Just because something would be OK for the private sector to do, does it mean we can countenance the state doing so in the meantime? (To this question, I break with the implicit reasoning of the minarchists. I find the more violent expressions of state power – policing and militarism – to be more important to abolish instantly than many "illegitimate" functions such as roads and parks.)
8. Which state services is it permissible to exploit, and which is it immoral to use?
These are more for self-reflection, so I'll answer them in my head, but I'll say I'm definitely libertarian "enough".
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