May 25, 2007
THE CRIPPLED PHOBICS (via Matt Murphy):
Live Free or Else!: A walk on the libertarian side. (Jonah Goldberg, April 27, 2007, National Review)
Obviously, every political movement has its own problems, conservatism included. But if you had to identify libertarianism’s Achilles’ heel, it would almost certainly be its tolerance for zealots, purists, mavericks, and, well, whack-jobs. Since the libertarians don’t see themselves as Left or Right, one can’t use the phrase “no enemies on the left [or right]” to explain their stance. But “love me, love my whack-job” gets close to the heart of it.The revolutionary ardor of libertarianism combines with its fetishization of rationalism and consistency to make a soft spot in the libertarian heart for intellectual extremism. Murray Rothbard, the genius father figure of modern libertarianism, converted to anarcho-capitalism from classical liberalism when someone asked him: If the social contract can justify a small government, “why can’t society also agree to have a government build steel mills and have price controls and whatever? At that point I realized that the laissez-faire position is terribly inconsistent, and I either had to go on to anarchism or become a statist.” Now, there are good answers to this social-contract question — though obviously none of them satisfactory to Rothbard. The point is that only something akin to inconsistency-phobia would force someone to believe that one must endorse a Soviet Five-Year Plan if one is willing to enjoy the protection of police or courts. But Rothbard was a highly unusual type: He refused to vote for president for fear of being conscripted into “compulsory jury slavery.” Indeed, while Doherty treats him lovingly, he notes that Rothbard was a man of “crippling phobias” of such things as “traveling, bridges, and planes.”
Or consider the Libertarian party, once the repository of libertarian dreams of social transformation and now little more than an ideological chum bucket for the political refuse of the American two-party system. As Doherty notes, there is now a high wall of separation between libertarianism’s best and brightest intellectuals and policy experts and the party that ostensibly speaks for them. Gary Greenberg, the founder of the New York State LP, tells Doherty that any attempt to be relevant to electoral politics amounts to “selling out.” The “very idea of worrying about the LP becoming a major force is essentially selling out,” he explains, “because hardcore libertarianism has no mass constituency. And if you are constantly covering it up you are just playing games. There is no mass constituency for seven-year-old heroin dealers to be able to buy tanks with their profits from prostitution, and once you face that the LP has to decide: Are they compromising their principles for votes, or are they running candidates for the opportunity to educate people?”
Libertarians are the guys who think being in the AV Club in high school was the peak moment of their lives and just want to go on living it, blissfully ignoring fact that everyone else in school thought them a bunch of closeted losers. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 25, 2007 7:29 AM
As a proud former AV geek, I must strongly protest your insulting me by comparing me to libertarians. The libertarians were not the AV geeks, because AV meant you had to obey The Man and the tyrrany of conformity. (After all, it was Big Government that bought all those 16mm projectors!) The libertarians were the pothead stoners who spent their days collapsed on the bathroom floor in a marijuana haze.
Posted by: Mike Morley at May 25, 2007 8:01 AM"...he notes that Rothbard was a man of “crippling phobias” of such things as “traveling, bridges, and planes.”"
Uh-oh, Mr. Judd, this description sounds a lot like you and your time zone rule and train fetish.
Posted by: Buttercup at May 25, 2007 8:01 AMits tolerance for zealots, purists, mavericks, and, well, whack-jobs
Tolerance for? That's the entire movement.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at May 25, 2007 8:33 AMDraft-dodgers, the libertines are draft-dodgers.
Shirkers and cowards, their position is that of enjoying rights and freedoms without paying for them.
The puerile nonsense they pass off as their ideology is a complex rationalization for their dishonor.
Posted by: Lou Gots at May 25, 2007 8:38 AMDamn, Buttercup beat me to it.
Posted by: Bryan at May 25, 2007 8:42 AMNothing more fun than going over a bridge on a train. Remember Harry Potter?
Posted by: oj at May 25, 2007 8:59 AMAt the risk of belaboring the obvious, if Mr. Greenberg admits there is "no mass constituency" for self-defending drug-dealing gigolo minors (i.e., almost nobody wants a world like that), what makes him think that's a goal to aspire to?
Posted by: John Barrett Jr. at May 25, 2007 9:58 AMI thought the stoners dropped out of libertarianism when they heard we didn't believe in free lunches and realized that applied to free munchies.
Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at May 25, 2007 11:23 AMI thought the stoners dropped out of libertarianism when they heard we didn't believe in free lunches and realized that applied to free munchies.
Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at May 25, 2007 11:30 AMAny political movement has its eccentrics, especially among the most vocal. How about the case of an American Christian conservative blogger who's pro-Hezbollah, anti-automobile, thinks Impressionism is crap and that anyone who objects to illegal immigration is a racist? Now there's an ideological group I'll bet you could fit on one of OJ's beloved trains. It makes the national LP look like a huge mass movement filled with sensible types.
What you sneerers aren't acknowledging is that there was a strong strain of what would now be called libertarianism in the Founding, and that non-extremist, commonsensical, "leave me alone" libertarianism (fiscally conservative and socially liberal) is actually a moderately popular position among the American electorate. I remember the figures as being roughly 30%. The GOP had most of those voters for decades, and lost enough of them to lose Congress in the last election.
Posted by: PapayaSF at May 25, 2007 7:49 PMAh, 'socially liberal'. That's a term the founders could get their arms around. The precise problem with self-described libertarians is the inability to come to grips with Federalism as originally intended as well as globalization and it's effects. Four thousand miles of ocean ain't what it used to be and the founders would have little trouble coming to grips with that simple fact. Religion as the basis of morality and republican character was considered essential for the maintainence of ordered liberty and minimal government. Libertarians seem to consistently skip over that little tid-bit. Most of the libertarins I've known are fixated on pot and their right to smoke it regardless of the local temperment and seem to want the feds to pass a law. Hardly the sentiment of a originalist.
Posted by: hugh at May 25, 2007 8:48 PMThe Founders believed in liberty, libertarians don't. They believe in freedom. The movement is eccentric, not its fringe characters. That's why it is insignificant politically.
Posted by: oj at May 25, 2007 8:53 PMThey don't call themselves "freedomtarians," now do they? But I suppose you'll say it's all just hype.
And insignificant politically? I doubt Goldwater, Gingrich, and the many Republican Congresscritters who have used research from libertarian-leaning thinktanks would agree.
Posted by: PapayaSF at May 25, 2007 9:15 PMHype? No. Ignorance? Yes.
One doesn't expect wisdom from teenage boys.
Posted by: oj at May 25, 2007 9:56 PMFriedman and Mises and Hayek are hardly "teenage boys" and not short of wisdom.
In sum, I think you are confusing libertarians with anarchists.
Posted by: PapayaSF at May 26, 2007 6:58 PMThat's exactly what they were, instances of arrested development. It's why their theories are ultimately incoherent.
Posted by: oj at May 26, 2007 9:24 PM