My chief complaint against libertarianism is that it is a convenient hiding place for people unwilling to take on the Left. If you reject central planning of the national economy, but are afraid to be called bad things by the local lunatics, calling yourself a libertarian is a nice safe haven. It’s most obvious in the homosexual marriage debate. Libertarians choose a third option with no basis in reality, one that makes them sound like anarchists, rather than face off against the Left.
In war, you have to know the guy next to you will do his job, have your back and fire his weapon at the enemy. In the culture war, libertarians will never go over the top and will, once in a while, turn their weapons on their comrades. You just can’t trust them to fight with you. I recognize that’s not a critique of the ideology, but of the ideologues, but I’ve never figured out how to separate one from the other.
And maybe that’s it. Libertarianism is fine. It’s libertarians that are the problem. A good example that comes to mind is the uncommonly dim Alex Tabarrok.
How does a stop for jaywalking turn into a homicide and how does that turn into an American town essentially coming under military control with snipers, tear gas, and a no-fly zone? We don’t yet know exactly what happened between the two individuals on the day in question but events like this don’t happen without a deeper context.
First off, we know it was not a stop for jaywalking. The giant was walking in the middle of the street. That’s not jaywalking. Second, the giant slugged the cop. As far as the deeper context nonsense, most of life has no “deeper context.” Shit does, in fact, just happen – a lot. In this case, the giant punched the cop because he felt like it. Poor people lack self-control and often do crazy shit for no reason. This is the sort stuff a fully formed adult needs to know.
He then quotes himself:
Debtor’s prisons are supposed to be illegal in the United States but today poor people who fail to pay even small criminal justice fees are routinely being imprisoned. The problem has gotten worse recently because strapped states have dramatically increased the number of criminal justice fees….Failure to pay criminal justice fees can result in revocation of an individual’s drivers license, arrest and imprisonment. Individuals with revoked licenses who drive (say to work to earn money to pay their fees) and are apprehended can be further fined and imprisoned.
This guy tends to get the vapors over stuff that most of us just shrug at. That’s not uncommon with hot house flowers. Regardless, if you don’t pay your fine, the fines get bigger and the risk of prison increases. That’s the point. If it did not work that way, no one would bother paying the fine. How can he not know this?
This is the line that makes my eyes bleed.
You don’t get $321 in fines and fees and 3 warrants per household from an about-average crime rate. You get numbers like this from bullshit arrests for jaywalking and constant “low level harassment involving traffic stops, court appearances, high fines, and the threat of jail for failure to pay.”
What an idiot. The people with the warrants don’t have an average crime rate. They commit a lot of crimes, which is why they have all of those fines and warrants. You can be sure that the black crime rate in Ferguson is something like the black crime rate nationally. That’s seven times the white crime rate. The reason the cops spend all of their time in the ghetto areas is that’s where the crime happens.
But, throwing a fit and stomping of in a huff is the libertarian way out of addressing the elephant in the room. That elephant is the massive disparity in crime rates between whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians. As soon as you notice that well known bit of reality, you risk being called bad things by the screeching harpies on the Left. That defeats the purpose of being a Libertarian.
Your description of Libertarianism is right on; wish I’d said it. A hiding place. It’s always seemed like just so much talk, and every political Artful Dodger I know tells me all about their “Libertarian leanings” the way they might describe a taste for certain kinds of dessert. Political dilettantes they are. Democrats and Republicans aren’t respectable in my view, but they run the country because they have both shed much of their own blood, sweat and tears, figuratively and literally, to earn a place at the table. Can you imagine a Libertarian taking a bullet for anything he believes… Read more »
It seems to me that Libertarianism is merely a vapor put off by a well functioning right-wing society. It’s better ideals are but a necessary part of the tension in the balanced flywheel of a healthy creed. As you say, it is a posture for people who do not wish to undergo rejection by their friends or run against the buzz saw of the universal narrative.
At least they are not a stalking horse for the left. Neocons come to mind.
An interesting take on this is a book called Arrest-Proof Your Life. He talks about how the criminal justice system perpetuates itself and makes money for groups of constituents by recycling people who commit petty crime and are chronically disorganized. He said that one of the differences between whites and blacks has to do with organization — whites have an old lady to call and bail them out, for example, and more often do drugs at home. In any case, it’s crime, but it’s also understanding that in some of these neighborhoods, some of the people are essentially pre-literate hunter-gatherers.… Read more »
Like Liberalism, Libertarianism is a cult. Like Marxism, Libertarianism is excellent as a critique, but is disastrous upon implementation. Like all cults descended from the original Rousseau cult, Libertarianism fails because its primary existential assumption, that man is born free and good in nature, and enslaved and made evil by civil society, is false. A serious attempt to realize a Libertarian society will end up looking like Somalia. Of course, there are very few real Libertarians in the world. Perhaps Murray Rothbard was the only one. Ayn Rand hated Libertarians. Von Mises was a kind of Austro-Hungarian aristocrat. At least… Read more »
Actually, most folks in local jails are for driving while suspended. (I did notice one guy in jail for two months for illegally sleeping in a park.) In fact, the jail roster can be pretty entertaining. What happens typically is this, someone does something stupid driving a car. They can work off the fine but usually can’t get themselves to do it without driving there. They get popped again for driving while suspended, more fines tacked on, repeat until they decide you should spend time in jail. If you are a young stupid kid, you are more likely to get… Read more »
Make no mistake, not ALL folks, “calling” themselves Libertarian, or even libertarian, 1. Know, or adhere to, what that actually means. SEE: “Card carrying” members of the American Communist Party, community “activists”, (anything)(hyphen)Libertarians, rent-seekers. 2. Are. SEE: RINO, NIMBY, “Neo”(hyphen) something-or-other, and again, rent-seekers. 3. Have outgrown a “hipster” (by any other name) stage in adolescence*, DESPITE attaining the age of emancipation, OR been required to demonstrate a minimum IQ of 85. (Let alone 100) SEE: *Up to age 26 for “adult children” of “health insurance” “policy” holders. IOW, just like folks who align with EITHER contemporary “popular” party, there’s… Read more »