Tuesday, February 9, 2016

50 Questions You Need to Answer to Determine If You are a Libertarian?

By Laurence M. Vance

Who are the real libertarians? Conservative Republicans who want to sucker libertarians to get their votes often describe themselves as libertarians or libertarian-leaning. Hollywood actors who favor the legalization of marijuana are sometimes referred to as libertarians—no matter what else they believe.

Here are fifty questions about who should decide certain things that people, as individuals or as business owners, do or might want to do. The answers should make it abundantly clear who the real libertarians are.

  1. Who should decide whether you sell one of your kidneys?
  2. Who should decide whether you smoke marijuana?
  3. Who should decide to whom you sell your house?
  4. Who should decide for whom your business bakes a cake?
  5. Who should decide the dress code for customers at your business?
  6. Who should decide the dress code for employees at your business?
  7. Who should decide whether you manufacture crystal meth?
  8. Who should decide whether your business sells alcohol?
  9. Who should decide what kind of plants you have in your house?
  10. Who should decide what kind of wedding you photograph?
  11. Who should decide how much cash you deposit at one time?
  12. Who should decide how many cash withdrawals you make each month?
  13. Who should decide to whom you rent an apartment?
  14. Who should decide whom you pick up in your cab?
  15. Who should decide whether you snort cocaine?
  16. Who should decide whether you make moonshine?
  17. Who should decide against whom and for what reason you discriminate?
  18. Who should decide how much water the toilets flush that you manufacture?
  19. Who should decide whether you open a gambling establishment?
  20. Who should decide whether you gamble for money in your own home?
  21. Who should decide whether you give your kids wine with meals?
  22. Who should decide whether you sell drugs?
  23. Who should decide whether you send your children to school?
  24. Who should decide how much beer you are allowed to brew at home?
  25. Who should decide what size soft drink you drink?
  26. Who should decide at what age your child gets a job?
  27. Who should decide whether you have a smoking section in your restaurant?
  28. Who should decide how many handicapped parking spaces your business has?
  29. Who should decide whether and how you commit suicide?
  30. Who should decide whether your business’s restrooms are handicap accessible?
  31. Who should decide whom you hire and don’t hire?
  32. Who should decide whom you fire and don’t fire?
  33. Who should decide what you pay your employees?
  34. Who should decide what vaccines to give your children?
  35. Who should decide whether you vaccinate your children in the first place?
  36. Who should decide whether you purchase health insurance?
  37. Who should decide whether you smoke crack?
  38. Who should decide whether your store sells beer on Sundays?
  39. Who should decide at what hours your store sells beer on Sundays?
  40. Who should decide whether you exchange sex for money?
  41. Who should decide whether you exchange money for sex?
  42. Who should decide whether your refinery mixes ethanol into its gasoline?
  43. Who should decide whether your business offers health insurance?
  44. Who should decide what kind of gas mileage the cars get that your company manufactures?
  45. Who should decide whether you consume trans fats?
  46. Who should decide to whom you sell a gun?
  47. Who should decide whether you shoot up heroin?
  48. Who should decide what hours your business is open?
  49. Who should decide by how much your business increases its prices during a natural disaster?
  50. Who should decide whether your business is open on Sundays?

If you answered that you should decide these questions then you are a libertarian—whether you call yourself a libertarian. If you answered that the government should decide these questions then you are a statist—whether you call yourself a Democrat, a Republican, a liberal, a conservative, a moderate, a progressive, a populist, a neoconservative, a democratic socialist, a centrist, an independent, or non-partisan. If you answered that the government should decide most of these questions then you are simply an inconsistent statist.

This does not mean that you decide these things in a vacuum. Just because you decide does not mean that you don’t consult your family, friends, club, church, pastor, priest, minister, physician, psychologist, psychiatrist, coworkers, and/or acquaintances. Ultimately, however, the decision is yours to make. This does not mean that that things are all safe, healthy, moral, or a good idea. And this does not mean that anyone or everyone should do any or all of these things.

It simply means that in a free society, you decide. In an authoritarian society, the government decides. Libertarians believe in a free society. Statists believe in a society heavily controlled by legislation, laws, regulations, judges, bureaucrats, ordinances, prisons, violence, force, aggression, coercion, badges, and guns.

I will take the free society.

Laurence M. Vance  writes from central Florida. He is the author of King James, His Bible, and Its TranslatorsThe War on Drugs Is a War on FreedomWar, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism and War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy. His newest book is The Making of the King James Bible—New Testament. Visit his website.

The above originally appeared at LewRockwell.com and is reprinted with permission of the author.

22 comments:

  1. I'm a huge Laurence Vance fan. His essays cut to the quick and pull no punches. That being said, I now consider an essay like this to be "entry level" libertarianism. It doesn't address the issue of "property, police courts, national defense" style minarchist libertarianism. Does he identify as an an-cap? I would be curious to hear his position on the PPS property owner/child/trespassing/stolen/apple "controversy."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Who should decide whether you sell drugs or shoot heroin? Not you. The property owner decides.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Can't a libertarian be perfectly consistent and abrogate many of those to another if he wishes? You can let your employees decide their dress code, etc. But of course then he has decided to abrogate.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Here's where I fall on this:

    - Generally, yes, no unprovoked aggression.

    - When it comes to children, I don't believe they are the property of their parents. The parents are care takers. If you aggress against your children, someone may decide to defend them whether you like it or not.

    - Unfortunate accidents happen to douchebags, whether or not they technically aggressed against the other person first or not. You may have a right to cook meth next door and sell it to the kids on my street, but nobody would be there to enforce your rights, because you're poison to society.

    The NAP matters only as a means to protect life and increase human flourishing. In almost all cases adhering to the NAP leads to flourishing, but not always. The disagreements are mostly around children and humans who are not fully sovereign. In those cases there is no need for the government to decide what's right, vigilantes will do a good enough job to keep douches in check.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yossi,

      "When it comes to children, I don't believe they are the property of their parents. The parents are care takers. If you aggress against your children, someone may decide to defend them whether you like it or not."

      Who are children property of if not their parents?

      Delete
    2. Yossi,

      Children are a creation of their parents- is the the only creation one cannot consider property, or are there other you can think of?

      Delete
    3. Rick,

      I think all humans, transform from being essentially non-human animals (in the sense of Mises's definition for what it means to be human - be able to plan and act) to fully self-owned humans. As they make this transition, they move out of the sphere of being owned by their parents into the sphere of being owned by themselves. Because this process is gradual and murky, I think there is a lot of judgement call here when it comes to how to interpret the NAP or the principle I consider higher priority to the NAP - the "life is precious" principle.

      Delete
    4. Yossi,

      "When it comes to children, I don't believe they are the property of their parents."

      "...humans, transform from being essentially non-human animals...to fully self-owned humans. As they make this transition, they move out of the sphere of being owned by their parents into the sphere of being owned by themselves."

      So, at first children are owned by the parents but then they transform into self-owned entities over time.

      Although I disagree, I am glad you say this:

      "...there is no need for the government to decide what's right..."

      That is the only thing that we need to agree on, as far as I am concerned!

      Delete
    5. Rick,

      I did refine my statement, but I fail to see why you'd disagree:
      - You say kids are the property of their parents.
      - I imagine you believe that adults are the property of themselves.

      How and when does this transformation occur?

      Btw we should get coffee together some time.

      Delete
    6. Yossi,

      "How and when does this transformation occur?"

      The "transformation" occurs when the parents (owners) say it does. They release the children from their status as 'owned'.

      Delete
    7. Rick, this doesn't make sense. Are you saying that the Austrian monster who locked up his daughter all her life in a dungeon is within what you'd consider acceptable, desirable and liberty-minded legal behavior?

      Delete
    8. Yossi,

      No. That is not what I am saying.

      Delete
    9. I thought you were saying that children are unencumbered property of their parents, hence, I presumed, their parents would be entitled to do with them whatever they wanted. If this is not what you believe, then please explain what encumbers the parent's property in the child, in your view.

      Delete
    10. Yossi,

      "I thought you were saying that children are unencumbered property of their parents, hence, I presumed, their parents would be entitled to do with them whatever they wanted. If this is not what you believe, then please explain what encumbers the parent's property in the child, in your view."

      I am not trying to be sarcastic or flippant- I don't understand what you are asking above. I hope this gets at it:

      A child is the creation of the parents and is, thus, property of the parents until the parent frees them.

      Delete
    11. Hmmm... Ok, let's try with an analogy. When I own a cow, I can make steak.out of it. When I own a child, can I do the same? If not, then is it because my property in my child is somehow constrained and if so, where did this constraint come from? What makes impermissible in your view for a parent to cannibalize on their child? Or you see no problem if a patent did?

      Delete
    12. Yossi,

      People "can" do many things- that is a given. Even in Nazi Germany, there were those who hid Jewish people in their walls. If there is a way to stop something as you describe above, it is not through government.

      Delete
    13. Rick - right, we have no argument about the no need for government, that was never the topic of disagreement. We both want to live in a society where free people abide by natural law *which makes sense and is actually natural*. Hence, your interpretation of the NAP when it comes to children is unsatisfying and people would not want to live in a society that embraces this as law. They would want to live in a society where people who cannibalize their children could be stopped without that being considered an unprovoked aggression. Rather, they would want to live in a society where this is considered the most egregious aggression. Fortunately, that's not a problem at all. All you have to do, is realize that kids own themselves and their parents are caretakers who enter into implicit contract with the kids, similar to how a medical doctor enters a contract to provide for their patient. Then, the parent not only not own the kids, they are actually indentured to the kids, by their own volition. That's how most people intuitively understand the deep commitment that parents have towards their children, who are obviously human and sovereign. (Thank you PK for explaining this to me offline in more detail than was initially clear to me.)

      Delete
    14. Yossi,

      I do not agree that "that kids own themselves and their parents are caretakers who enter into implicit contract with the kids" and that "the parent not only not own the kids, they are actually indentured to the kids." Mystical concepts, these.

      Children are the creation of the parents, so they are the property of the parents.

      Delete
    15. Rick, okay. You are just repeating the same assertion without really paying any heed to the argument I presented - namely, that law that allows for horrific crimes to happen (cannibalization of children) is not a great law. Nobody would want your law, and it's not clear why you think it's valid or beneficial (either from a natural right or utilitarian point of view).

      Do you have kids? Have you explained your views to them - that they are basically legal slaves of yours until and if you choose otherwise? What was their response? I'm really curious about how this might work in practice. I don't believe you could have good relationship with your kids unless you recognize their sovereignty from a very early age.

      Based on your initial comments I think you're trying to be fully consistent with the idea that any creation belongs to its creator. It's unsatisfying to have an exception to the principle but the reason we need an exception is because we are talking about humans and a human is the only entity that can *own* anything.

      So we have two categories: "entities who can own entities" and "entities and can be owned by entities" and humans are the only potential entities who can exist in the intersection of these categories. So it's not terribly inconsistent to have a special consideration for humans and the ability to own them, and whether they are born owned or not owned.

      However, if you're still game, let's look at this from another angle. In your view, which organism was the first to have self-ownership in the evolutionary chain from single a cell organism to a human being, and how did they become self-owning?

      Delete
  5. Btw I believe that kids very quickly begin to have property in themselves - i.e., third trimester at the latest - and hence someone who actresses against them is violating the NAP and thus doesn't enjoy the reciprocation of the NAP. In addition, even if they just willfully neglect their kids, which is not a violation of the NAP, aggression against them by vigilants should be treated with leniency, because life is precious. So while the NAP is the only "constitutional" law we need to accept as a formalism, we should be flexible in how we treat violations of it concerning conflicts with the "life is precious" principle. The "life is precious" principle, while morally superior to the NAP, is not a good basis for formalb law because of its subjective and situational nature.

    ReplyDelete