Let “Freedom Watch” Ring
Denouncing libertarianism as not true conservatism is like saying The Rolling Stones somehow dethroned Elvis Presley. There’s no questioning that both acts sound very different-there’s also no questioning that both are rock n’ roll personified. The philosophies of libertarianism and conservatism are no doubt particular and distinct, as the loudest voices for each will eternally argue; but both brands have also been virtually inseparable in the history of American conservatism. Perhaps Ronald Reagan said it best in 1975: “I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism… The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”
Judge Andrew Napolitano’s FOX Business program “Freedom Watch” now brings to a wide audience this integral conservative ingredient that has long been missing in the right-wing media-pure, unadulterated libertarian philosophy. Sure, there are conservative hosts who spend hours explaining the many different ways in which they don’t like this president or his party. There are even right-wing hosts who claim to be libertarian yet enthusiastically support unprecedented civil liberty intrusions so long as the intruder is Republican. But what talk radio or FOX News “Reagan conservative” actually consistently advocates for the Gipper’s basic concepts of both conservatism and libertarianism: less government interference, less centralized authority and more individual freedom?
At precisely the moment the Tea Party is raising questions related to these concepts, particularly concerning the practical limits and sustainability of our current government, Napolitano’s show is a custom fit for what’s brewing on the grassroots Right. In April, a Tea Party poll conducted by The Politico showed the movement split evenly between the more socially conservative Sarah Palin and libertarian hero Ron Paul. The television debut of “Freedom Watch” was billed as a “Tea Party Summit” and featured both figures, as Paul suggested that the gap was exaggerated and Palin reinforced this point by surprisingly agreeing with the Judge on marijuana legalization and the unconstitutionality of government snooping. Predictably, the largest divide was on foreign policy, where Paul and Napolitano advocated a strict and thorough non-interventionism and Palin subscribed to Reagan’s “peace through strength” axiom, keeping the details of her position vague. But no matter-where else are such issues being raised, before mainstream conservatives, Tea Partiers and people like Palin? It’s hard to imagine changing the conversation on the Right from partisanship to principle without first starting conservations about said principles, and Napolitano’s program shines a much needed libertarian light on the Republican darkness that has become mainstream conservatism.
Compare Napolitano’s efforts to get conservatives to think outside the GOP box to his fellow FOX host Sean Hannity’s most recent effort to stuff the Tea Party back in it. Reviewing Hannity’s new book, Conservative Victory, the Charleston City Paper‘s Chris Haire writes: “Hannity has nothing but disdain for the Tea Party’s No. 1 goal: to vote all the bums out, Democrat and Republican alike. Hannity wants to keep those bums in power, as long as they’re members of the GOP and their last name isn’t Paul… Even worse, like many of his talk radio and Fox News brethren, Hannity pays lip service to the Tea Party movement, but only for so long. For the talking head, there’s nothing more disastrous that could happen to the GOP than for the Tea Party to become a true force within the Republican Party.” Hannity’s partisanship and Napolitano’s principle paint a stark-and new-contrast for FOX’s conservative audience. Hannity closes his radio show each day promising a “conservative” line-up of regulars like Karl Rove and Mitt Romney, where these men do little more than nitpick Democrats and excuse Republicans. Napolitano closed his program’s television debut with the following: “The American public needs to know and understand that the government that serves best is the one that serves less.”
First debuting as an exclusively online program, then moving to weekend TV, and just recently graduating to weeknight, prime time programming, Freedom Watch is poised to become a powerhouse of conservative and libertarian thought, providing a mainstream forum on the Right where viewers can reexamine what they believe and why they believe it. For former Bush Republicans who’ve now become Tea Partiers or are at least trending toward a more substantive conservatism, such a reexamination is not only overdue but necessary-particularly considering that such intellectual travelers won’t get any help from the Republican spokesman who pose as conservative pundits, most of whom want their audiences to reexamine nothing. Refreshingly, on Freedom Watch there’s no reflexive support for war, big government and loss of liberties simply because a Republican is in charge-and neither is there a distaste for each simply because a Democrat is doing the damage. Almost alone among his FOX brethren, the Judge has always been comprehensive in his critique of the state, reminding us that hating liberals is no substitute for loving liberty-and he now has his own, prime time show on which to prove it.
While I am not one of those left-libertarians, I see libertarianism as a subspecies of liberalism. Liberalism can be social, classical, or left…libertarianism just happens, in my eyes, to be a particularly purist subspecies of classical liberalism, sometimes going as far as rejecting the need for government at all. The whole fusionism thing is merely an unsustainable historical accident. FDR has been dead for a long time, and the Cold War is over. There is little of substance to hold the two together besides opposition to the so-called “left”, which is all but absent from the Democrats. I’d give an arm and a leg to have Kucinich types running the Democrats.
Elvis Presley could, and did, sing in virtually every musical genre available to him whereas the Rolling Stones only sang in a few. Elvis did sing rock ‘n’ roll but the Stones mainly sang hard rock and blues and were not really rock ‘n’ roll as most people understand it. Just for the record no-one has dethroned Elvis Presley, even to this day. He remains the Greatest Entertainer of all-time and his like will never be seen again – truly ‘sui generis’.
Mr. Hunter,
I agree with much of what you’ve said here; yet, I feel the judge, like most libertarians, carries his ideology to nonsenical extremes.
Fred Reed posted a column a few weeks ago on his site titled, “Commentator’s Disease,” which pretty much sums up how I feel about libertartians. Reed points out that many libertarians argue about abstract constitutional principles and concepts while negleciting to consider the real world effects of said principles and concepts on people.
Based on what I’ve seen and heard from the judge, I think he is guilty of the aforementioned abstract reasoning. His views on Social Security are perhaps the most glaring example of what I’m talking about. To the judge, Social Security is some sort of assault on freedom and constitutional principles. However, to the average working class stiff, Social Security is the very definition of freedom. For people like those that I grew up around, Social Security means that at some point they might be able to stop working, and enjoy life for a year or two before they pass on.
Like I said, I think the judge makes some good points, and as you pointed out, his arguments are even handed and coherent, which is saying a lot for Fox. Still, I would like to see someone at least acknowledge the fact that freedom is an all but undefinable concept.
Robert,
First of all, I am impressed by the thoughtfulness of your post. You clearly have given a lot of thought and consideration-you make an excellent point. I think your right when many libertarians (of which I am one) argue from abstract points (which I do). However, my diagnosis is different. The problem is not so much that it flies in the face of reality, but that many of my colleagues are poor at prioritizing and ranking issues. Some offenses are clearly, by objective standards, worse than others. Social Security and other welfare programs are small potatoes compared to war and the military-industrial complex. We cannot, in practice, repudiate the debt. China and the IMF will come and break our legs if we do-I mean, that’s why the UN is causing so much trouble for the Somalians. Basically debt collection.
Am I against social security? To be sure. Am I against regulation? Sure, but government help to business (big and small) are damaging distortions to the market, whereas regulations are merely irritating obstacles. In the main, taxes are nuisance-while inflation is a horror.
I do, however, think freedom is precisely definable. Negative freedom consists in an absence of intentionally placed legal obstacles. Positive freedom consists in active assistance to carry out desired actions. Negative freedom means absence of interference, positive freedom consists in helpful assistance.
Excellent reply Roberty
Sincerely,
Tristan Band
Robert,
It is not abstract reasoning that leads a libertarian to vigorously oppose Social Security – it is moral and logical consistency. There is no freedom in Social Security; though one may be “free” to while away their golden years at the expense of others, a very elementary understanding of liberty obviates that concept of “freedom” – freedom does not exist when it enslaves others, you see. It is – in FACT – not an indefinable concept; it is the absence of coercion. Unfortunately, the “average working stiff” who believes that Social Security is “the very definition of freedom” is very sadly mistaken. It’s not up to libertarians to forfeit the moral and logical high-ground. It’s up to those who don’t get it, to… get it.
Freedom and Liberty are indissoluble concepts.
Tristian,
Thank you for considerate and thoughtful response. Obviously, I disagree with you, but perhaps not so much as either one of us might think. I too, abhor the warfare state and the corporate welfare that accompanies it.
Still, I stand by my original point that much of liberatarian thinking glosses over the realities of life. I think Hayek recognized as much when he pointed out that there are unknowns for which no individual can conceivably prepare. And while it has been a while since I read Hayek, I think he even went as far as to suggest that government might play a role in helping people deal with these unkowns.
Sicerely,
Robert
Scott,
I’m happy to report you have set me straight, and shown me the limits of my meager reasoning abilities. My stupidity and slavish obedience to the state were contemptible. No more. I will now go forth and inform everyone I meet that they are nothing more than leeches and ignorant, unenlightened bafoons, who fail to understand the very essence of freedom. Furthermore, I will seek to tear down all semblances of community, wherever they may be found, as we all know that community is the teat from which unformed and incomplete individuals feed.
I cannot believe that a patriotic pro-American pro-freedom anti-terrorist network like FOX airs this “Freedom” Watch program. Freedom for who Mr. Napolitano? The terrorists and drug dealers? The Patriot Act, the war on terrorism, and the drug war are some of the most important and essential things to ever happen in America to keep this great nation a free and safe democracy. If you have nothing to hide because you are not a terrorist or a pot smoking drug addict who beats their wife and kids then how could you possibly be against these things? Do you want drug dealers and Jihadists running our streets? “Freedom” Watch is really just all about promoting isolationism and appeasementism of terrorism. It is just wrong, so wrong, and it makes me literally sick to my stomach just watching one second of it. This show is absolutely repugnant to anyone who truly identifies as a patriotic Reaganite moral conservative and we should petition FOX to have this crap banned from it’s airwaves.
When one looks at where the neocommunists have taken the US and where the neoconservatives have taken the US then libertarianism really does capture where the center once was under say Taft, Eisenhower and to a certain extent Reagan.
Lets just take for an example…your cellphone and tv…studies have shown that the more we are entertained…the more isolated, alone and powerless we are becoming. One person islands.
Lets take unions which are today a parasite without a head. Oh yes they once had a purpose before the government took over and legislated all the benefits of unionism.
Lets take religion, particularly the dominant christian religion which is like a castrated animal because the government took over and legislated its social, moral and ethical components toward education, medical care, orphanages, etc.
Lets take feminism, which is like a parasite without a head much like unions. The roles of mothers and fathers which were once free to society are now absorbed by the government. Fathers and family are now optional and quaint. Once government day care is passed mothers will be little more than resident shelters for children and fathers treats for special occasions.
Social Security, the parasite without a head where the cost of the elderly was once shared between family and church it is now a government service.
In each case…the very elements that made a country successful…its social glue…was usurped by government…until we have a government controlled by foreign lobbies such as Israel who demand foreign wars and foreign/military aid, until we have uncontrolled immigration who want those social services without the burden of social responsibilities, until we have the banks and corporations who want the immigration and offshoring for their interests and we have the municipal county state and federal government broke and indebt
Nate,
Please calm down and explain, logically, what is wrong here? Please explain your position. I’m very curious about what you have to think. Explain how terms like “appeasement”, which are clearly holdovers from WWII, apply to a decentralized terrorist organization? How, exactly, does WWII apply to our times? We don’t live in an age of factories and big show tunes anymore you know. The “values” of the “Greatest” Generation haven’t survived the 1960′s very well. Americans aren’t so gung-ho and team-oriented these days. Bosnia failed as a nation building excercise. Why would this region be any different? Assume that America truly is incapable of:
-protecting Israel
-creating democracy from the top-down
-surviving in the process
-creating peace in the middle east
Would it be the end of the world? Is it not conceivable that Israel and Iran, the most well-developed countries in the region, could hold a balance of power via a nuclear arms race? Could not fear of each other’s power prevent all out war?
BTW, Rupert Murdoch once sat on the Cato Institute. Naturally, he would not be adverse to a libertarian perspective on the issues.
-Tristan
I doubt whether the judge will attract much of an audience. I caught part of the show last week with Neil Cavuto as his guest. To me, it seemed as if Cavuto was smirking a bit when he sparred with the judge. The judge kept repeating “freedom agenda,” “freedom agenda.” It’s just cant (no apostrophe).
My own opinion of libertarianism is that it is a bizarre form of liberalism although I am in complete agreement with their anti-war stance. By the middle of this century, the population of the USA will reach 450 million citizens of diverse backgrounds. More government and more control are inevitable if the USA is maintain some semblance of stability.
Nate,
After reading your post, I’m wondering to myself if you are lost so I feel compelled to point out that this is the American Conservative website. The url for the Weekly Standard is http://www.weeklystandard.com. Perhaps you “shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque”? I’ll drop a note to Bill Kristol and let him know that you’ve wandered off and they need to send someone to come collect you.
Seriously, it’s because of guys like you that I am a former “conservative” republican turned “Freedom Watch” loving libertarian. In one short paragraph you’ve summed up about 3/4′s of what is most repugnant to me about the republican party and so-called conservatism as a whole and why I left it in the run-up to the 2004 election.
To equate that trifecta of abominations (the Patriot Act, the war on terror, and the war on drugs) with the word “freedom” is to illustrate how that word has lost all meaning in republican circles. It for this reason that I stopped using it altogether and have substituted the word “liberty” in its stead. It is beyond me how someone who refers to himself as a patriot doesn’t understand how those three monstrosities cut at the very heart of what made America great. Have you read the Declaration of Independence lately? I’m guessing no so I’ll remind you that in it the colonists justified their separation from Mother England primarily because the king and parliament refused to honor the over 600 hundred year old traditions of liberty given by the Magna Carta and English Common Law.
From the war on drug’s asset forfeiture and military-style no-knock raids, to the Patriot Act’s dissolving of the writ of habeas corpus and due process, to the war on terror’s executive privilege of spying, torture, and abitrary executions, the so-called conservative movement has been nothing but a 40 year exercise in tearing down the very foundations of what made America and western civilization so special and worthy of emulation and preservation.
Oh, and then you go and put the cherry on the top by demanding that the Judge be censored. Yup, you are the very face of the “socially conservative” republican party.
Good riddance…
Well said Dave G. I am having a hard time telling if he’s even serious myself. It’s just almost too much to be real, all the worst aspects of those who currently have a death-grip on the reins of the Republican party just hell-bent on running it off the cliff all wrapped up into one person?
Surely he’s being ironic, or trying to poison the well by pointing out the foolishness of each of those areas he touches on. I mean, at least there’s a coat of whitewash on it with most people.
But then my cynical side woke up and snapped me back to reality…
Robert,
With all due respect, your claim that libertarianism is somehow disconnected from reality couldn’t be more wrong. Libertarianism is the only political philosophy that I know of that truly and honestly attempts to deal with reality, rather than taking comfort in childish myths and fairy tales (e,.g. the state is the basis of freedom, war is the basis of peace, etc.). In the case of Social Security, libertarians see that a Ponzi scheme is a Ponzi scheme, no matter what imaginative titles it’s given, or how much your friends happen to like it. They do not engage in the wishful thinking that somehow the laws of economics do not apply to the government, or that hard work justifies theft.
In fact, libertarians apply this type of sober, “eyes wide open” analysis to all areas of political and economic life. Thus, they see that murder is murder, even if you call it “war”; that slavery is slavery, even if you call it “conscription”; that theft is theft, even if you call it “taxation”; and so on. In short, they deal with the world as it actually is, not as they might wish it to be.
On the other hand, those on the left and the right (and especially those in the middle, who usually adopt the worst of both sides) live in a fantasy world, pretending that the sheer strength of their beliefs can somehow overcome human nature or the laws of economics, thus allowing government to work miracles and solve the problems that persistently vex mere mortals who are not imbued with the benevolent omnipotence of the state. Ironically, they fail to realize that the vast majority of these problems were caused by the state, as the unfortunate byproducts of its past attempts to perform miracles. Such is the price of turning a blind eye to the way the world really works.
Meethinks Nate has done some very effective sarcastic trolling. At least, I hope so. I can’t believe anyone could seriously write those sentences without tongue firmly planted in cheek.
Dave G.,
Couldn’t have said it better.
Dave G., Like I said if you have nothing to hide and are not an evil drug using criminal or radical Islamofascist terrorist why are you against laws and government power to stop those things? Do you love drugs and terrorism? If the answer is yes maybe you should go post at a more liberal website where others share those opinions. No Reagan moral constitutional conservative in their right mind would appease druggies and terrorists.
Nate, you really don’t get it.Take “asset forfeiture” for instance. This is a tactic used in the so called War on Drugs. If you own a rental property, and your tenant sells drugs, YOU can lose YOUR personal property, even though you did in no way participate in the crime. How does that equal Freedom in any way? Say you sell your newish car, cash the check, and are coming to buy a car from me. I won’t take your check, gotta be cash. In your excitement to get a different car, you speed on a public highway. The officer searches your car, because of course YOU don’t do drugs, and have nothing to hide, and like the GOP drone that you must be, you consent to the search. The officer finds your envelope full of cash, and presto. Gone. seized by the LAW. Guess what Nate, it happens a lot. Gee you have no reason to have that much cash, so it must be ill gotten gains. So, How does that expand freedom? The Patriot act, the American KGB, these things are unconstituional at the very least. How do you explain away the TSA naked body scan searches of your wife or daughter? It’s OK, you have nothing to hide… Wake up, you are part of the problem The “mainstream” Republicans are as much of a dinosaur species as the Democrat party. And like the dinosaurs, they will soon be gone. Don’t you get it Nate, We the People are waking up. The lame stream media has been replaced by Citizen Media, and no matter how Hannity spins it, a new day is dawning. Freedom, and all that goes with it is spreading in America. The old lies, spins and the destruction of our Constituion, by both “wings” of the vulture that our government has become have been pulled aside, like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of OZ. Things will never be the same. We are all better off for it.
Nate,
While some less…enlightened commenters (mainly paleoconservatives) might toss verbiage to the effect of telling you to go into an oven, I am not one of them. I just think you need to get your head out of your ass, little neocon. It’s been nearly 70 years since Pearl Harbor. America isn’t a nation of patriots and factory workers off to fight Hitler. (By the way, I am increasingly of the opinion that we should have stayed neutral during WWII. Open borders to Jewish immigrants, but no active intervention. The Soviet Union could have taken care of Hitler without us.)
Americans don’t want the responsibility of being the indispensable nation. We want to have regular lives; we don’t care what happens in some damn sandbox where two fanatical religions are trying to kill each other. (yes, Judaism is fanatical. And Christianity too) The whole world could tear itself apart for all we care.
Just as long as we can send our children to school, go to work, and have fun-the world could go up in flames. That’s right, you little Wilsonian; you guys are the only Americans who give a rats ass about spreading democracy. Fuck. That. Shit. WE DON’T GIVE A FUCK!
-Tristan Band
Nate, You must enjoy entertaining us on this site as I for one do not believe that you think that the war on drugs ,war on terror and patriot act are examples of what most readers here, or for that matter elsewhere want our gov’t to go broke pursuing. Unless Osama or a like minded despot pays us another visit it seems to me that we’re thankfully headed in the opposite direction
Here comes the persistent hasbarat Nate Weinstein blabbing about how Freedom Watch is communism, and Israel is our “greatest ally” [sic]. What he personifies is the widespread delusion and hysteria of the public that the two characteristic traits of American conservatism are unabated war, and servility to Zionism.
For any of those interested, libertarianism is the political philosophy that places individual liberty and personal responsibility above the power of the government. I6 holds that government exists to secure and maintain those rights. It is today’s version of the classical liberalism represented by Jefferson. And the Libertarian Party was founded by disaffected Republicans who left the GOP in reaction to the wage and price controls levied by Nixon. So far, Judge Napolitano and John Stossel are4 the only people on TV who use the word libertarian properly.
Nate,
I’m kicking myself for even bothering to take the time to respond to your post, and I can’t believe that I’m going to do it again but here goes…
You, like most of the hyper-nationalist “socially conservative” republican knuckle-heads that surround me here in central Texas, are irredeemable. You mistakenly equate your misguided nationalism with the founders zeal for individual liberty and think that you are preserving their patriotic legacy.
If you are still so effectively propagandised by the 70+ year old “Reefer Madness” scare, what hope can one have in helping you understand the misguided nature of the government’s policies that it justifies with the more contemporary “scare” in the form of the war on terror. In the not so distant future even you will wake up to the realization that you live in a bona fide police state, and will go through the mental exercise of trying to blame your awful condition on Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, LBJ, FDR, the commies, the hippies, and the gays. I’m sure Hannity and O’Reilly will help you connect the dots, so I doubt that you’ll have to work very hard at it.
Hell Yes, I have something to hide! But it has nothing to do with drugs or Islamic terrorism. As the lawyer and author, Harvey Silvergate (among many others), has chillingly pointed out in his book “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent”, because of the passage of such a multiplicity of broadly written laws over the past few decades all of us commit multiple felonious acts every single day. Parents, senior citizens, students, blue collar stiffs, white collar executives… all of us… commit multiple federal, state, and local crimes every single day by just going about our daily business in our normal, everyday, mundane lives. The only thing that keeps any us out of jail is our anonymity and privacy. We are left unmolested by the “law” only because we haven’t fallen under the gaze of some law enforcement official or some bureaucrat doesn’t have a hard-on for us. Most of these laws were created as prosecutorial weapons that were “needed” to fight the largely manufactured crises of the war on drugs, the war on terror, etc, but have routinely been used outside of their original intent. Only the truly uninformed and dim witted among us can’t see the danger in where we find ourselves with regards to this. I really do hope that neither you or I ever fall victim to what you so eagerly support.
As for finding myself a left-leaning home on the web… They don’t want me. You see, I believe that economic liberty is inseparably tied to civil liberty (and vice versa). This is why libertarians, such as myself, have no place in either party and cannot be assigned a position on the current left-right scale. I feel some sense of kinship to paleocons such as Jack Hunter but I have nothing in common with the Marxists, Leninists, Stalinists, Maoist, and Trotskyites (that’s you) that dominate America’s political landscape.
-Dave G
Libertarianism is equated with the extremist wing of the liberal tradition, and has nothing to do with conservatism.
Libertarianism is, just like classical socialist revolutionaries, an ideological system that evaluates everything through the prism of a single value, in this case “freedom” (from the State, namely). Conservatism is beholden to considerations of tradition, authority, order, stability, etc., which produce societal attitudes very far from liberal/libertarian obsessions. That does not mean the two traditions always disagree, but when in agreement, they each have their own rationales. Both may oppose radical socialism, but one because it threatens its conception of “freedom” and the other because egalitarianism is unnatural and threatens social order. Both oppose neoconservatism, but one because it leads to a larger State and the other because it is imprudent, and its stated goals are ultimately liberal (installing market economy and constitutions in other countries) or radically leftist (womens rights, “democracy”). All the same, even Thomas Jefferson still made the Louisiana Purchase, for which there was no constitutional provision. Even Madison approved higher trade protection.
Ron Paul and Judge Napolitano are from the liberal tradition, but they are first and foremost constitutionalists. In this, their focus lies somewhat on preserving the traditions of the nation, and, most importantly, its sovereignty. That is not a liberal/libertarian concern. Both are also religious men. But overall, they are more liberal than conservative. They are not paleoconservatives of the Pat Buchanan type, but paleoconservatives should ally with them. If they are opposed to NAFTA, it is because of the intricacies of the treaty, not because they disagree with the false principle of “free trade”, the nemesis of Old Toryism and Buchanan Brigaders. If they are opposed to abortion, it is related only to when they personally believe human life begins, not because of wider considerations of responsibility, family policy, and religious tradition, which they would consider “none of the government’s business”.
The average libertarian is young, secular, and relatively tolerant (or loose) in behaviour and behavioural expectations. The average conservative is old, religious, and more traditional. Please don’t take offence if you feel you don’t fit those boxes, but that is generally true, and natural, as it reflects the attitudes and goals of each. There are very few real conservative pundits or politicians in the United States, since the US has increasingly emphasised the liberal element in its founding documents and the (I think false and unconservative) idea that America is a “credal nation”. Both Republican and independent conservative names tend to be conservative-liberals, focused on “freedom” from the state but occasionally interested in defending traditions (a schizophrenic and self-defeating position). Among the middle and working classes, there is a mass of people with generally conservative attitudes and dispositions who will have nothing of Paulite libertarian ideas vis-a-vis the role of government. A Buchanan could lead them, a Napolitano could not.
Traditional conservative Christians know that our freedom is freedom in Christ Jesus, freedom from sin. The State can neither grant that, nor take it away.
langa,
“Libertarianism is the only political philosophy that I know of that truly and honestly attempts to deal with reality, rather than taking comfort in childish myths and fairy tales (e,.g. the state is the basis of freedom, war is the basis of peace, etc.).”
—There is a very large conservative problem, however, with the libertarian concept of “freedom”. What is the basis for their claims about freedom and its origins? Well, they cannot agree on this. The purist libertarians, typically religious sceptics, will either argue that “freedom” from the State produces the best outcome or they are forced into a more hedonistic and anarchistic arguement, that they simply demand this freedom because they deem it better for themselves and see no right of others to take it from them.
Paleoconservatives typically deal with the religious argument that there are natural rights that stem from God. Really? Where are they? They are not in the Bible, the Qur’an, the Torah, nor in Greek or Sanskrit writings! Here, Judge Napolitano, a self-described pre-Vatican II Catholic, should know better. His Church catechism touches on social policy (and has for well beyond VII), and, while it claims private property is a right, nowhere does it define property rights in the libertarian manner, which appears to be: any regulation or taxation of property implies the government owns it. The Catholic Church catechism is conservative; it is geared towards creating a self-sustaining society based on the values of the Church. It does not see some abstract freedoms as emanating from God directly, as these are nowhere to be found in Scripture or Tradition. They are entirely made up, firstly by Locke-type untraditional (but nominally Christian or Deist) philosophers, and now by some evangelical preachers with no value for Tradition and the inability to read Scripture properly.
Freedoms or rights from authority, which cannot be taken away on ideological principle, are neither conservative nor particularly rational. For these non-anarchist libertarians believe in a State to protect property. But in whose power is this privilege to be entrusted? In the judges and justices of courts of law. Judges and justices are to be more powerful than elected representatives. But who can enforce their decisions? Who physically protects “freedom”? The police, military, militias (i.e., guns). To whom do they answer? Various levels of executive authority. What is the nature of executive power, according to libertarians? To expand. Isn’t there a temptation then for the executive to expand? Yes, but the courts can stop them. But who enforces the courts’ will? People who work for the executive.
And who controls the executive? Well, the US has deregulated the financial sector, and they give the most for presidential campaigns. Obama’s macroeconomic planners are in a revolving door with Goldman Sachs. Why would that be different under a more extremely unregulated economy? So oligarchic factions capture the government. And they won’t expand the State’s power?
Right, then. At least under other systems, the State is not meant to be value-neutral, and at least some pretence of the social responsibility of public officials can be maintained.
“Nate Weinstein” has to be joke poster someone is using to demonstrate absurdity by being absurd. At first I rolled my eyes and saw my former neo-conned self, but now I almost fall out of my seat laughing. Nate, this is all a big joke, right?
[...] Let “Freedom Watch” Ring [...]
Yes, social libertarianism is Webster’s “liberalism” – not the Marxist, control-freak philosophies that have been hiding behind the once-respected word for so long. The Democratic Party of our fathers no longer exists – replaced with “progressive,” wiser and better than thou perspectives of the spoon-fed children of wealth. Since the Republican Party lost its way, fiscal conservatism’s only remaining bastion is fiscal libertarianism.
Can today’s leftists tolerate something without sanctioning it under force of law? Can today’s “conservatives” ignore what we may do in the privacy of our homes – without making it illegal and prosecuting “to the full extent of the law”? Social Security comes with certain costs and benefits: dependence on government and lessening of individual charitable obligations – requiring ever more government theft and redistribution of wealth (without explanation or responsibility of what gets lost in the process). Where there’s no government “safety net,” we see generations living together as the norm; here we see our elderly living and dying in nursing homes, alone, while their children hire baby-sitters. Our “Drug War”? What were the FBI’s earliest last-century estimate of addicts? What was that number when Richard Nixon began the “War on Drugs”? What are they today – and what has been the financial and human costs? It’s easy to look-up, but as Francois Voltaire noted: “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”
I stand with Judge Andrew Napolitano – a worthy American we ALL need to hear!
Thomas,
Freedom is the defining characteristic of humanity. Everything that separates humans from lower forms of life can ultimately be traced back to free will. To deny a person’s free will is to deny their humanity, and reduce them to nothing more than an object with no intrinsic value, a means to an end. In short, to deny that people are born naturally free is to deny that they are people at all, as opposed to mere organisms.
As for your claim that there is no Biblical justification for libertarian philosophy, that is incorrect. The central tenet of libertarianism, the Non-Aggression Principle, can be directly deduced from the Golden Rule. Since no one desires to have aggression committed against them by others (e.g. no one desires to be murdered, enslaved, robbed, etc.), it necessarily follows that no one has a right to commit aggression against others. For a much more detailed discussion of the Biblical support for libertarianism, see this article: http://www.anti-state.com/redford/redford4.html
One area where I will agree with you, however, is your point that libertarians who believe in “limited government” (i.e. minarchists) are clinging to an irrational belief system. In fact, the only logically consistent form of libertarianism is free-market anarchism, or anarcho-capitalism.