We Use Laws...

or "Why I'm Not a Libertarian." Wow this got long, sorry! I have read Libertarian theory, I have read Libertarian economics, I have talked with Libertarians. I like the idea of Libertarianism, and for the most part it is very attractive to me. But there is a great amount of disconnect between the theory of Libertarianism and the people that would live under it. First of all, most of those who call themselves libertarian, and can get past the drug haze to define it when asked, are good people. More than that, they are people with strong principles, and, often, well thought out views on ethics and morality. Giving them freedom would be great, because they are self-regulated people that do what they want anyway. But the world isn’t made up of a majority of self-regulators, no matter how much Libertarians might extrapolate from themselves. Most people in the world are sheep, and they need direction. They have limited thoughts on morality, they can’t define right or wrong cogently in a given situation, and they are often confused. (And this isn’t elitism, I am a sheeple, I require and seek advice on almost everything from authority structures all around me. In no way take me as saying that I and a few like me are better than all of the Many Too Many. I admire the Libertarians that make their own ethics, knowing full well that I won’t and that I am far more like the rest of humanity than they are). Most people require short-cuts to help them find right and wrong, they don’t have time to research every option available to them to make a completely rational decision about what is right. The two biggest short-cuts available to people at large are their Law and their Culture. So most people have a broad and indistinct idea of right and wrong that doesn’t come from themselves and this is what they use to muddle their way through their life. And it works for them because they are busy doing something else with their lives. (This brings up another observation, most of the hard-core libertarians I am acquainted with where students, academics or housewives. Nothing wrong with them, I have been one, would like to be another and am precluded by my ethics from becoming the third, but they all have more time on their hands for the research a true Libertarian life requires). So they rely on the framework of Law and Culture to make quick decisions that they don’t have time to look deeply into. But Law and Culture tend to be inversely proportional, the more inclusive and strong the Culture, the fewer Laws are needed, the less inclusive and week the Culture, the more Laws that are needed. (Where the balance is, and when the laws become too numerous and invasive, that they become immoral is a discussion for a book not a post. I agree we are well past the line of necessary laws and are now into superfluous legislation. I don’t have space to talk about this subject). What has happened in the most populous places in America for the last 50 years has been an active attempt to undermine an inclusive American culture and build up niche cultures. This has made the need for new laws where culture once was sufficient. (The drug laws are a great example of this. As youth and youth culture have been strengthened since the ’60’s the external pressure on young idiots to listen to the wisdom of their elders has almost disappeared. One of the things that young people like is getting high, and so more and more the youth have assumed the normalcy and benignity of drug use. They also have no reason to listen to their elders’ advice, and so dangerous behavior becomes encouraged, not stigmatized. As an example of this: I teach at a very conservative Christian school, and the fact that I smoke tobacco and drink alcohol is more controversial than the fact that some of them smoke pot). Culture is far better for these types of things, because it can be persuasive, rather than coercive (can be but often times isn’t) whereas government must be coercive by its nature. Be that as it may, where persuasion fails, coercion must be brought in, particularly when a sub-culture is perpetrating something the larger culture finds dangerous, but has been able to persuade the weakest from migrating to that behavior. I agree with Libertarians, that this is a failure, but it is a failure of humanity, not the systems, and the Law and Culture are there to try and ameliorate the crookedness of human timber. (Oops, I’m a Christian and I think Romans 13 and 1Timothy 2 prove that strong and coercive government is legitimate). So finally the conclusion, I think the Law is important and necessary in human society. Most men are governed by outside forces, and a coercive government is legitimate in this. As a conservative, I like that government small at the federal level, and more specific as you get more and more local, but humanity needs government.