Why I Am Not A Libertarian

When it comes to picking winners, I never win. In the 2008 Presidential election, I voted for McCain-Palin. Obama won. In 2012, I voted Romney-Ryan. Obama won again, though by a smaller margin than his first election, which has never happened in the history of American Presidential elections, which indicates to me that he is nothing but hype. Even in the primaries, I wanted Rick Santorum over Romney, and before she dropped out, Michelle Bachman over Santorum. I did not vote for Scott Brown, I was shocked then terrified when Elizabeth Warren was reelected, I was almost in tears when Star Parker wasn’t elected, I was furious when Alan Lowenthal won the congressional seat, I rooted for the Lakers these last three seasons, and to top it all off, I’m a Raiders fan. I just can not pick them.  

Imagine my frustration to learn that in a recent straw poll Mike Huckabee hosted (whom Chuck Norris endorsed for President) for who we would like to see be President, Rand Paul won. I voted for Bobby Jindal. Jindal didn’t even make the top three (though Santorum was at one point in third place). That’s really upsetting since my Conservatism means a lot to me because it played a significant role in my conversion from Atheism to Christianity and Rand Paul is a Libertarian, which I see as a significant threat to Conservatism or at least to the Republican Party, which is a vehicle, if not at least in name, of Conservatism. So I’ll briefly explain why I am not a Libertarian since I have a couple of smart Libertarian friends and this explanation is probably long over-due.

There are a couple different stripes of Libertarianism, like the anarcho-capitalist and the minarchists, but since the Libertarians I am mainly concerned with are also Christian, I am going to assume that because of Romans 13 and its declaration of the legitimacy of government, anarchists will not be this kind of Libertarian.

I think Libertarians will agree with the following: In some crucial way, we have self-ownership. We own ourselves in a legitimate way like we might own a piece of property. Whatever we do on our property we do without interference. Government cannot tell me what I can or cannot do to my property, whether it is to garden it, build a house on it, hunt on it, etc. In the same way, since we own ourselves, government and no body else can tell us what to do with our bodies. Many Libertarians might say it is wrong to take drugs in principle, but government shouldn’t make it illegal. Whatever we choose to do with our bodies, we justly reap, whether it be income or disease. Because of that, government cannot take away what fruits we reap, hence things like taxes are, generally, unjust. 

I also think Libertarians will agree with the claim that there is an attractiveness to Libertarianism in that is remains neutral in a pluralistic society. In other words, in a place where there may be competing worldviews, so long as everyone leaves everyone else alone, and no one is forced to do anything, everyone can co-exist despite their religious or moral differences. It not only is impartial on social and philosophical issues, but on economic ones as well, since Libertarians seem to think that impartiality in the market basically means a free market without government interference (though in this post, I won’t be focusing on the economic aspect of Libertarianism). 

I reject both the idea of self-ownership and neutrality, both of which are major tenets of Libertarianism. If one rejects both those ideas, I think it can be said justly that one is not a Libertarian. 

Is the right to self-ownership absolute? Most think not, but this may already be an inconsistency. Why isn’t my rule to self-ownership absolute? If it is not, then does that pave way for interference?Maybe not as a radical as some Socialists or Communists would like, but even then this is arguable. A much more modest type would be the involvement government has under the Conservative view, but then, why not just be Conservative at this point instead of a Libertarian? 

How far will this premise of self-ownership take us? Not too far. It is counter-intuitive to the Libertarian that one can have so much self-ownership that he can agree to enter a master-slave relationship. If a Libertarian would bite this bullet, then suffice it to say, I didn’t miss my point. So, the law would actively prohibit slavery, whether slavery existed by force or by consent. But this is exactly the type of morality imposing government behavior Libertarians decry. Many of my Libertarian friends will also (likely) say that Physician Assisted Suicide, or just suicide in general, is immoral. It was the rallying cry of Jack Kevorkian that a person has a right to death. Many conservatives, rightly in my opinion, opposed the man popularly known as Dr. Death. This too is the superimposition of morality that Libertarians claim to be free from. It is impervious to me though as to why one cannot mutilate oneself or even murder oneself if one has complete self-ownership. So this moral premise is not one that seems completely absolute. Though if it is not, then Libertarian doesn’t seem to stand on such consistent grounds as opposed to Conservatism. 

Divorce seems to follow from Libertarianism and I am one completely against divorce, just like I am completely against gay marriage (gay marriage is never going to be a real marriage and a divorce is never going to be a real divorce). If I own myself, and the more moderate Libertarian who says this right is not absolute will agree, then why can’t I divorce? I can’t completely give myself over now anymore, as philosopher and sexual ethicist Karol Wojtyla defined it as, and so, I cannot in any metaphysical sense become “one flesh” with my spouse. There will always be some degree of separation. What then is divorce but a splitting of the two persons? How is this not allowed under the rule of self-ownership? It does seem allowed, and one needn’t see the harm done both socially and spiritually. A system that allows such injustices to occur should be rethought. 

What then of child neglect? If Libertarianism allows for divorce, then it has little regard for children. But it needn’t begin there. A single mother, with complete self-ownership owes nothing to no one, so that would include the state. What is her self is her property and so she can do whatever she wants with her property, which, as I stated, is the basis for little to no taxes on Libertarianism. However, we come to another counter-intuitive situation, that of a single mother with no sense of obligation to her child. If she does not want to share the fruits of her labor, her money, with her child, for something like food, why should she be forced to? She owns her property, not her child. She then starves her infant, and the infant dies. How could the infant, like any other citizen of the state, demand anything of another individual in a Libertarian scheme? But if the infant does rightfully demand something of her mother, then so can other citizens, and the state can enforce this, just like it would rightly punish the mother for neglecting her infant. But if this is the case, then you’ve effectively stepped into Conservatism, enforcing and encouraging the behavior it desires. 

I also know that many of my Libertarian friends, and prominent Libertarians, are against abortion. Ron and Rand Paul are well known for their pro-life views. But I also think that is inconsistent. Again, the principle of self-ownership is king, even if not absolute. A woman may interpret a child, her child, to be intruding into her body. This is the view put forth by Judith Jarvis Thomson and her Violinist argument. But one of the more powerful critiques of her argument is that she has a prima facie duty to her child and that her womb, by natural law, belongs to her child, even though in some other sense, the womb is entirely the mothers. But that flies in the face of Libertarianism, which is mutually exclusive to the views of Natural Law. Natural law applied to the law does enforce moral codes and is teleological. Libertarianism on the other hand is not teleological but much more subjective, to “be and let be”. In certain cases then, Natural Law does seem to reign as a superior governing philosophy as opposed to the maxim of self-ownership. But Natural Law leads you to Conservatism, not Libertarianism, and is antithetical to Libertarianism.  

I forget where I read this, but this is not my analogy, though I find it a persuasive one against Libertarianism. Assume, once again, self-ownership. We owe nothing to no one else. We mustn’t harm another. We mustn’t deprive another. Now, imagine two men get stranded on an island, all of which is virgin territory. While one is asleep, the other then builds a fence completely around this other man, to mark his territory, which is rightly up for grabs, and is merely protecting himself and his property from the other man. The other man wakes up, with hardly any room to move. Under Libertarianism, the first man did absolutely nothing wrong. But what has happened here does seem to harm the second man who could barely move. He was not, strictly speaking in the Libertarian sense, harmed. He was not deprived of anything. He was not touched. But he has become, essentially, imprisoned. This should suffice as a reductio for Libertarianism. A convenient way out of this mess would be to argue that man has an end, and it is the purpose of the government to make sure such opportunities are at his disposal to secure that end on his own, be it property or proper environment. But this is Natural Law, which leads to Conservatism, and is once again antithetical to Libertarianism. 

Then there is the second tenet, that Libertarianism is neutral among philosophies. This is more obviously false then self-ownership. Once again, Libertarianism cannot be absolutely neutral, as we cannot absolutely own ourselves. I do not know of any Libertarians who are so neutral that they’ll allow Nazi’s and Jihadists to compete for political power, for those philosophies desire the annihilation of other groups of people. So there is some tension between these two tenets of Libertarianism, so one must be modified. We’ve already experimented with self-ownership, so let’s experiment with neutrality. 

If Libertarianism wants to claim to be neutral among philosophies, but then exclude those who disagree with its first tenet of non-harm or self-ownership or negative rights or whatever you want to call it, then really it only allows those philosophies which already agrees with Libertarianism, and so is…well…I don’t really know what to call it. Circular? Tautological? Redundant? Whatever it is, we see that it isn’t fooling us. Libertarianism allows only for Libertarianism. Not so neutral then, is it? 

There are also cases where neutrality simply isn’t possible. There are cases where to deny a thing is injustice to one crowd, yet to allow it is injustice for another crowd. Abortion, for pro-choicers, is a fundamental right and to deny it is to deny fundamental rights, and so is not just. For pro-lifers, to allow abortion is to allow the slaughter of innocent children, which is obviously not just. When these two parties are in contention, one cannot possibly be neutral. To say, “do whatever you like” is to actually cede over to the pro-choice groups, and the pro-lifers believe they’ve been served an injustice. 

Same-sex marriage is another example. Gay couples believe that to deny them marriage is to deem them second-class citizens while those opposing say that it is an injustice to the institution and to society, upon which is rests. You be and let be is to allow same-sex marriage, and to serve an injustice to those who support the Natural Law view of marriage. 

Slavery is another example. People in antebellum south will say that Negroes are their property and so government cannot intrude upon them (sound Libertarian? I’ll return to this point), and even if they weren’t, they had to care for them and they still allowed them to marry, and since they were inferior, it was their duty to care for them. Those who opposed slavery believed one man was ruling over another equal by force and so long as slavery existed, injustice had occurred. Clearly, you cannot remain neutral between the two, for a "be and let be" philosophy would allow slavery to occur and thus serve injustice to the abolitionists. 

A Libertarian might object that my last example would never occur because they respect the autonomy and self-ownership of each individual. However, that is to beg the question. What is in question in the case of slavery, and in the present day with abortion, is, “Who counts as a person?” Libertarianism, if it is to remain neutral, must also be silent on this issue as well. But if it is silent, then it is possible that it does not recognize the self-ownership and autonomy of everybody. Here we have a self-contradiction at worst, or a fatal ambiguity at best. 

Basically, by rule of excluded middle, you cannot be neutral between being neutral and non-neutral, therefore, in many (important) cases, you cannot logically be a Libertarian since Libertarianism claims to be neutral between competing philosophies. 

I am not a Libertarian because I’m an American. I love that in declaring our independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that I have a God given right to pursue happiness. I don’t find anything remotely resembling that philosophy of Natural Law anywhere else. But with Libertarianism, such a phrase is barely intelligible and entirely subjective. Maybe happiness is what Mill and Bentham thought it was, minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure. Maybe it means realizing my end, like Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas thought. Who knows and who really cares, according to Libertarianism. Just don’t mess with other people. No, that would never fly with the Founding Fathers, and so should never fly in America. Freedom is not the right to do whatever I like; rather, freedom is the right to be excellent, therefore, freedom entails a responsibility to do the right thing, and we mustn’t abuse it by allowing Libertarian philosophy. It has been said that in order for evil to prevail, all it takes is for good men to do nothing, and that is exactly what Libertarianism is; good men doing nothing.