L I B E R T A R I A N I S MPersonally, I am of the opinion that he made the basic mistake of generalisation, in that his suggestion, that codes of behaviour, whether religious or legal, were counter to the will of the individual, assumed that society was made up of like individuals. This we know not to be so.
Libertarians, I have found, tend to have two distinctive features: They are generally very bright, and they
usually are extremely independent-minded. This combination results in persons who look around them, deduce
principles for good living, and hold themselves to those principles without recourse to external constraints
such as religion.
The problem is that they have a bad habit of then making an unwarranted assumption: "If I can live like this,
so can everyone else."
As you say... this, we know not to be so. For many people, good living is not solely the province of the
individual to decide; other members of our shared society have reasonable expectations, too. It's not enough
for some persons to simply think, "I'm right." They feel a need for someone to verify their beliefs as to
what constitutes good living by saying, "Yes, you're right," or for someone to set limits by saying, "No,
that's not right." Some people live better with external structure.
Blake--and modern libertarians--dismiss these persons. I don't think that's a wise decision, particularly
considering that they far outnumber these Rationalists. *grin* This is why my flirtation with libertarianism
ended. Once I realized that reason does not hold the same power for others that it does for me--and, more
vitally, that it never will and possibly even cannot--I was forced to consider new models for
society-wide good living. In other words, I needed to figure out some system of government that provided
the maximum amount of liberty to individuals while still retaining enough structure to guide those who prefer
confirmation of right and wrong. I wanted to try and find a break-even point between individual (internal)
liberty and social (external) order.
What I came up with was... the family. Specifically, whatever increases the power of a family to live well
in community with other families should be supported, and whatever diminishes that ability should be fought.
Libertarians don't like this because it asserts a power higher than that of the individual... but for the
reasons given above, I think such a higher power is necessary. Liberals don't like this view because they
trust centralized government more than they do local families... but experiments in socialism have shown us
that overcentralized power does more damage when it corrupts than more diffused power does when it
corrupts.
And while this view is somewhat palatable to conservatives, it also makes them nervous... because it posits
a social control scheme that may not necessarily respect traditions. If families are truly free to choose
for themselves, well, who knows what they might do?
As I see it, the system that makes the most people nervous is probably the one with the best chance of
working. *grin*
|