Cato Institute scholar Brink Lindsey, a major originator of “liberaltarianism,” may have given up on the idea. But not all libertarians have. Julian Sanchez and Tim Lee have both written interesting responses to my recent post criticizing it. Sanchez argues that libertarians and liberals can cooperate with each other an issue-by-issue basis when they happen to agree, and also engage in a philosophical dialogue. Lee has a broader vision of potential left-libertarian collaboration.
I. Issue by Issue Cooperation.
In Sanchez’s view, “Libertarian individuals and institutions should make whatever tactical alliances on specific issues that best suit their dispositions and concerns.” On issues where we happen to agree with liberals, we should make tactical alliances with them. I don’t disagree with that. Indeed, I myself have noted areas of agreement with liberals such as Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich. To my knowledge, hardly any libertarian thinker disagrees with the idea of making whatever tactical alliances are likely to be effective in a given situation. Liberaltarianism, however, is more than that. At the very least, it calls for a strategic political alliance that cuts across a wide range of issues. In Lindsey’s original formulation, it entails a broad philosophical fusion of the the two ideologies, a “new progressive fusionism.”
Sanchez also points to instances of issue-specific cooperation between liberals and libertarians and suggests that they refute my claim that there is little liberal interest in liberaltarianism. My claim, however, was not that liberals are opposed to any and all cooperation with libertarians, but rather that most have little or no interest in the sort of broader political alliance or philosophical fusion that liberaltarianism requires.
I also agree with Sanchez’s call for a dialogue between the two groups. However, that dialogue has already been taking place for many years. Libertarian scholars and intellectuals have been in constant dialogue with liberals and leftists since at least the days of Hayek’s debates with Keynes in the 1930s. Libertarians have devoted far more effort to understanding and analyzing left-wing ideas than conservative ones. That dialogue has produced many interesting arguments and ideas, and will no doubt produce more in the future. But it is unlikely to produce a political or philosophical coalition any time soon.
II. The “Liberaltarian Institute”: A Possible Program for Broader Cooperation?
In contrast to Sanchez, Tim Lee has a potential program for much broader liberaltarian cooperation. One might call it “the Liberaltarian Institute”:
In 2005, I was a founding employee of the Show-Me Institute, a “free market” think tank. What we meant by “free market” is that the organization devoted itself exclusively to those issues where conservatives and libertarians agreed. We wrote about taxes, school choice, property rights, health care policy, and so forth. We had an explicit policy that we didn’t do work on “social issues,” which in practice meant any issue where libertarians sided with liberals….
And the Show-Me Institute is hardly unique. There’s a nationwide network of think tanks called the State Policy Network, with member organizations in almost every state, that are built on this same premise….
Crucially, the basis of the alliance isn’t that libertarians and conservatives agreed on some kind of compromise position on “social issues,” we just didn’t talk about them on the job. And this works remarkably well. When you work at a “free-market think tank,” you pretty quickly get used to the fact that tax policy is on the agenda and gay rights are not….
So conceptually speaking, it wouldn’t be hard to create a liberaltarian movement. All you’d have to do is create a mirror image of the “free market” think tanks. Hire people like Radley Balko and Glenn Greenwald. Pay them to write about all the issues that “free market” think tanks don’t: foreign policy, civil liberties, gay rights, the drug war, immigration, torture, the death penalty, and so forth. Don’t hire anyone to write about taxes, school choice, guns, or other topics where libertarians and liberals have strong disagreements.
If you build a Liberaltarian Institute, Lee suggests, they will come!
There are at least two major problems with Lee’s idea. First, many libertarian organizations do in fact devote a lot of time and effort to issues such as drug legalization, immigration, and criminal justice where we agree more with liberals than conservatives. The Cato Institute – the most prominent libertarian think tank, and Reason, the most prominent libertarian publication – are excellent examples.
Even some of the organizations Lee lists as focusing exclusively on on libertarian-conservative issues are more complex than he thinks. To take just one case that I happen to be familiar with, Lee claims that the Institute for Justice is “is a libertarian law firm that focuses almost entirely on issues where libertarians and the ACLU disagree.” In reality, many of IJ’s clients are poor and minorities who have been victimized by various government regulations and property rights violations. Kelo v. City of New London, IJ’s most famous case, attracted a great deal of liberal support. When I wrote IJ’s amicus brief in a previous major property rights case, we successfully solicited one from the ACLU on the same side. IJ also advocates many legal theories (e.g. – reviving the Privileges and Immunities Clause) that annoy judicial conservatives, and deliberately avoids the issue of affirmative action so as not to alienate potential liberal and minority supporters.
These and other libertarian efforts at outreach to the left have produced some useful cooperation on individual issues. But it is significant that they haven’t produced anything approaching a broad alliance.
Second, the range of issues where libertarians and liberals genuinely agree is narrower than Lee assumes. Most liberals do not in fact agree with libertarians on civil liberties, the war on drugs, and gay rights. Certainly, both groups decry many conservative policies on these issues. But they don’t really agree on the alternatives to them. On civil liberties, for example, many liberals favor hate speech laws, restrictions on political speech by corporations, wide-ranging sexual harrassment laws that infringe on freedom of speech, and so forth. On gay rights, libertarians favor laissez-faire, while liberals tend to favor antidiscrimination laws that restrict the freedom of private organizations. On the War on Drugs, only a minority of liberals favor anything close to the full-blown legalization advocated by libertarians. Foreign policy, of course, is an issue that divides both liberals and libertarians among themselves.
The conservative-libertarian free market think tanks Lee points to succeed because the conservatives and libertarians there agree not only on rejecting liberal economic policies but also on an affirmative agenda of severely restricting government’s role in the economy. It would be much more difficult to run an economic policy think tank that brought together libertarians with “compassionate conservatives” who want to replace liberal economic interventions with conservative ones.
None of this precludes tactical alliances between liberals and libertarians on particular issues. But it does make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to create the sort of broader “liberaltarian movement” that Lee advocates.
Nonetheless, it would be wrong to reject Lee’s idea for a liberaltarian think tank out of hand. Let’s try it and see. If you’re a left-leaning libertarian or libertarian-leaning liberal with a lot of money on your hands, I urge you to fund Lee’s suggestion. Establish the Liberaltarian Institute and hire someone like Lee as its president. I fear that the project won’t work because of the sorts of problems discussed above. But if it did succeed, it could potentially make a valuable contribution to public debate.
yankee says:
I agree that American liberals would be strongly opposed to attempts to weaken sexual harassment protections or allow corporations to spend freely on political activism. Activist and advocacy groups from all corners of the progressive movement would come together on those points. But American liberals are not generally supportive of bans on hate speech and liberal civil rights organizations don’t support them either. You can find individuals who do but they’d meet a lot of intra-movement opposition and the level of institutional support isn’t remotely comparable.
I do agree with you that the degree of libertarian and progressive overlap on social issues is often overstated though.
July 16, 2010, 3:37 amObserver says:
I agree with Somin. There are issues where liberals are in agreement with *some* libertarians, including foreign policy, the death penalty, abortion, homosexual marriage, etc. But these are all issues that do not clearly fall on the libertarian/non-libertarian divide. A libertarian can very well be pro death penalty, pro-war, anti-abortion (if he believes the fetus is a human with rights of its own), against redefining marriage, pro-enforcement of immigration laws (even more so given how open immigration works with the very un-libertarian welfare state in which we live). By contrast, the issues where libertarians and conservatives are in agreement (economic policy, spending, free speech, the right to bear arms, freedom of association, freedom of religion) are all issues where there is a clear libertarian position that happens to be the same as the conservative position.
July 16, 2010, 3:57 amBilly Blackstone says:
I wonder whether there is an even more fundamental obstacle in the way of a broad libertarian “movement” such as the article contemplates. That is, the proposed movement appears to be one built around a coherent political philosophy, whereas successful political movements often require the somewhat awkward integration of multiple interests and ideologies. Conservatism, for example, as the word is commonly used in modern political context, does not refer to a political philosophy, but a patchwork of different ideological groups with some conflicting and some shared interests. If Libertarianism is a distinct political philosophy, then it would be a mistake to speak of it as competing with liberalism or conservatism. Rather, as the cited material clearly recognizes, it is a component of both. One explanation for this is might be that it is the effect of a plurality voting system on an ideologically heterogeneous population. To command a plurality of votes, political movements have to accommodate such a vast array of interests that they end up revolving around strategic alliances rather than ideological coherence. Having a successful, independent libertarian movement might then require either proportional representation or else mass conversion to the cause, neither of which seem likely in the near future.
July 16, 2010, 4:24 amShag from Brookline says:
Can we expect libertarian splinter groups on the left:
” If you’re a left-leaning libertarian or libertarian-leaning liberal with a lot of money on your hands, …”
as well as on the right? If so, the label of libertarian is like claiming to be a little bit pregnant, isn’t it?
July 16, 2010, 7:01 amBrett Bellmore says:
As I understand the history, today’s “liberals” are the intellectual descendants of a bunch of Fabian socialists who stole the term “liberal” from the folks we now are forced to call “classical liberals” to avoid confusion. (On a larger scale, similar to what Jack Balkin is trying to pull with “originalist”.) We wouldn’t even be calling ourselves “libertarians” were it not for that, we’d be the ones called “liberals”.
So, yes, I’d expect some small, tactical areas of agreement, but nothing more. Even on subjects where ‘liberals’ actually support liberty, it’s only for tactical reasons, and they’ll go all authoritarian on you if they decide the tactic isn’t working. Anybody who deals with modern liberals on a regular basis quickly notices that actual “liberty” has very little to do with their views. They abandon their interest in liberty as soon as they notice people not freely doing what they, the ‘liberals’, wanted them to do.
Areas of conservative-libertarian agreement are more fundamental, though the areas of disagreement are hardly insignificant. For instance, there’s the whole area of economic liberties, which ‘liberals’ have no use at all for. Due to the fact that the Constitution is a somewhat libertarian document, (More libertarian than what the courts have given us in it’s place, anyway!) there’s also the matter of the rule of law. While liberals wouldn’t mind having a Constitution which actually supported their aims, they’re currently committed to making sure the Constitution we actually have doesn’t get in their way, which means, rule of law out the window.
Alliance between libertarians and conservatives has mostly been troubled by the fact that most Republican politicians aren’t the least bit conservative, but only play conservatives on TV commercials. Between libertarians and liberals, the fault lines are more basic.
July 16, 2010, 7:12 amArthur Kirkland says:
Sure, because everyone is entitled to craft a unique bag of preferences, but opposing same-sex marriage is nonetheless an anti-libertarian position.
Unless supporting reasonable restrictions on gun possession is also the libertarian position.
That someone “believes” a couple of unimplanted cells to be a person doesn’t turn an anti-abortion position into a libertarian position, either. The case for a libertarian death penalty also seems strained, particularly with the demonstrably unreliable system currently used to implement the death penalty. A libertarian defense of the invasion of Iraq also seems more soothing to conservatives than legitimate.
July 16, 2010, 7:36 amNick says:
Maybe we should try to get leftists to be less naive about government. As simple as that.
They must be sort of open to the idea that they’re giving politicians and bureaucrats too much credit and too much faith. Leftists already understand that armies have huge problems trying to get things done.
Nobody wants to look gullible. Nobody wants to be embarrassed about this enormous blind spot called “how politics actually works.” But leftists just take it for granted that if you have a plan, then it all works out.
July 16, 2010, 7:47 ambill-tb says:
So how do we expunge the liberals taste for tyranny?
July 16, 2010, 7:50 amSlocum says:
Anybody who deals with modern liberals on a regular basis quickly notices that actual “liberty” has very little to do with their views. They abandon their interest in liberty as soon as they notice people not freely doing what they, the ‘liberals’, wanted them to do.
This, I think, is the core of the problem. About the only issues where liberals profess to care absolutely about liberty are ones where conservatives have tried to impose restrictions — abortion in particular and sodomy laws, for example. Liberals stand 100% behind a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body when it comes to reproduction, but not when it comes to smoking, drinking, or–hell–even eating salty foods. On free speech, too, I believe most American liberals would readily accept European and Canadian style speech controls on ethnic/cultural/religious ‘hate’ speech (just as they have done on college campuses). And we have seen that where such codes exist, it does not take much to be harassed and even to up in a ‘human rights’ commission star chamber (as with Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn in Canada or any number of U.S. university examples of the kind that F.I.R.E. works on). On state power, although a minority of liberals did join libertarians in opposing the taking in Kelo, most wanted to preserve the scope of state eminent-domain power. Similarly in Raich, the liberal justices all voted in favor (because of a desire to preserve the federal power associated with an expansive reading of the commerce clause).
I believe liberals, too, if given the chance, would make serious hash of freedom-of-the-press in the U.S. They would license journalists, require particular education and credentials, impose restrictions on unaffiliated, unaccredited bloggers, and provide government funding for favored, ‘official’ news organizations (it’s not at all unimaginable that liberals would deem newspapers an essential service that must be converted into a government-supported agency because of ‘market failure’).
So I’m just not seeing a lot of possibility for more than limited, tactical alliances between libertarians and liberals.
July 16, 2010, 7:50 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
No, it isn’t. The entire issue of same-sex marriage, after all, is about government benefits. (All other issues can be handled privately, pretty much by definition.) The libertarian position is the separation of marriage and state, not the expansion of the relationship.
Yes, it does. Libertarians are against murder — and, indeed, in favor of laws against murder.
While one might argue that libertarian sensibilities might lean towards being anti-capital punishment, there is no libertarian principle against the death penalty; nothing about libertarianism says that execution isn’t the appropriate sentence for certain crimes.
July 16, 2010, 8:18 amSlocum says:
That someone “believes” a couple of unimplanted cells to be a person doesn’t turn an anti-abortion position into a libertarian position, either.
An unemplanted embryo is not just a few cells, it’s a potential human being. Just as an emplanted embryo and 3rd trimester fetus are and even a newborn baby (who not yet having any memories, language, hopes and dreams, etc, is less a person that it will later become. The ‘semi-personhood’ of a newborn is reflected in the fact that we don’t feel as bad about the death of a newborn as, say, a 5-year-old child and don’t regard infanticide as as serious a crime as the murder of a 5-year-old).
There’s no obvious ‘libertarian’ position on where to draw the necessarily arbitrary ‘personhood’ line in the continuous development from embryo to baby (or even embryo to kindergartner). I say this as a non-religious libertarian who would draw the legal line to allow embryo research and early term abortions, but I don’t see that position derives from being a libertarian.
July 16, 2010, 8:23 amSarcastro says:
Wow. Seems the main issue with liberaltariansim is how evil and fascist liberals all are. I mean, when I speculate on what they would do if given the chance, the answers are all sorts of evil fascist stuff. The sky’s the limit with those guys, in my mind.
And they stole their name! Can’t trust anything whose very name is a lie.
July 16, 2010, 8:27 amElemenope says:
Nobody wants to look gullible. Nobody wants to be embarrassed about this enormous blind spot called “how politics actually works.” But leftists just take it for granted that if you have a plan, then it all works out.
I know a goodly number of leftists. None of them believe this. In point of fact, they tend to be a bit cynical and fatalistic, and look down at libertarians for being too idealistic and naive.
July 16, 2010, 8:29 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
sex. I’m not being sarcastic here; the common thread behind all the issues where liberals really oppose government intervention (even “for our own good”) is sex. (Gay rights, abortion, birth control, etc.)
There’s no other topic area where you can be read out of the liberal movement for taking an anti-liberty position. As you note, there are anti-free speech liberals (from ‘hate speech’ to campaign finance restrictions). While some liberals support marijuana legalization, many do not, and they favor the drug war in general. (At most, they believe that it should be fought through forced medicalization rather than incarceration.) Self-defense? Ha! Freedom of religion? Not if it clashes with the sex rule (see, e.g., the attempt to force the Catholic church, or religious individuals, to provide birth control or support gay adoptions).
July 16, 2010, 8:37 amSarcastro says:
Amazing that social norms have so much to do with sex. I guess that’s why they call them “social libertarians.”
And the drug thing doesn’t count, since not every liberal is for total legalization of everything!
Aaaand voting. Sex, drugs, voting. You know, vice in general.
July 16, 2010, 8:47 amRicardo says:
One could equally say it’s the common thread behind all issues where conservatives really support government intervention. You don’t seem to acknowledge that it takes two to have a culture war.
This is why you have the spectacle of the Texas GOP — which purports to support “freedom,” “limited government,” and “rugged individualism” — explicitly support re-criminalizing sodomy, strictly enforcing laws against pornography, calling on the FCC to pull broadcasting licenses of stations that air indecent material and touching on all the other sexually-related culture war issues.
So why aren’t you asking why the Texas GOP is so sex-obsessed?
July 16, 2010, 9:29 amwm13 says:
It seems rather meaningless, whether the 1% or so of Americans who hold elite libertarian views choose to join with the 20% or so who call themselves liberal. In practical effect, it’s about as important as having your Gramsci reading group reach a consensus on optimal childcare arrangements after the Revolution.
(There is a sort of populist libertarianism, currently expressed in the Tea Party movement, which attracts more than 1% of Americans, but the sort of blogospheric writers who might work for a think tank are totally disdainful of that strain of thought.)
July 16, 2010, 9:31 amAdam Berkowicz says:
Considering that libertarians are constant swing voters (assuming they vote for a major party), I think the discussion holds a bit more meaning than you give it credit.
That being said, your analogy was sexy good.
July 16, 2010, 9:51 amSlocum says:
I mean, when I speculate on what they would do if given the chance, the answers are all sorts of evil fascist stuff. The sky’s the limit with those guys, in my mind.
The proposals for government intervention to support newspapers is not a libertarian fantasy (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575324782605510168.html), nor is the idea of special rights for officially recognized professional journalists (federal shield laws have been introduced at various times in both houses). Nor is regulation of bloggers (which do not apply to ‘official’ news sources) a crazy idea — in fact, it has already happened: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/ftc-bloggers/
The point is not that these things — if they were all implemented — would bring on the dawn of a fascist state. Rather the point is that they are things that liberals, by-and-large, support and that libertarians oppose AND that reveal fundamental philosophical differences between liberals and libertarians when it comes to state power and speech and press freedoms. So even outside the economic sphere, libertarians and liberals don’t see eye-to-eye. Which really doesn’t leave a lot of room for grand alliances. That’s unfortunate, but I don’t see much value in pretending otherwise.
July 16, 2010, 9:51 amJoseph Slater says:
It’s hard to add to what Sarcastro has posted, beyond saying that it might be interesting to see if any of those describing liberals with ridiculous caricatures in this thread were among those objecting to ridiculous caricatures of libertarians in previous threads on this and related topics.
David M. Nieporent. You can do better. Liberals are also in favor of “liberty” or “freedom” in a host of other areas, including, e.g., rights of those accused of crimes. More generally, liberals believe that civil rights / civil liberties are an essential part of liberty and freedom. You are entitled to disagree that, say, Title VII helps ensure freedom and liberty, but you do no one any favors pretending that liberal support of that law doesn’t come from an intellectually honest and defensible vision of freedom and liberty.
And of course it’s belief in those ideals that lead to, e.g., concerns about sexual or racial harassment done through speech. Pretty much all liberals I know think that the competing values of free speech and anti-discrimination raise tough issues. Just like some libertarians sometimes find that competing values (see, e.g., threads about laws preventing employers from banning employees from having guns on the employer’s property) raise tough issues.
And of course the vision that laws such as Title VII promote freedom and liberty is shared by the overwhelming majority of the country. It’s fine if you dissent, but if you want other folks to take your position seriously (and not just yell “racist” at you), you should take the positions of others seriously (and not just claim liberals only care about freedom with regard to sex).
Finally, speaking of support of, say, Title VII being an overwhelming majority position, it really is true that as a mattr of practical politics, it doesn’t matter how libertarians deign to vote or ally themselves. There aren’t very many even by self-description, and when you get to the “repeal Social Security, Medicare, Title VII, the NLRA, immigration laws, health and safety regulations on business” etc. stuff that folks on this blog seem to think define libertarians, not only are there vanishingly few of those folks, but I doubt that either liberals or libertarians would consider then an asset.
July 16, 2010, 9:55 amSG says:
So why aren’t you asking why the Texas GOP is so sex-obsessed?
Of course they are and I don’t think anyone here denied it, it’s just not germane to the topic at hand – are there areas of agreement between liberals and libertarians?
I also disagree with the notion that same-sex marriage is a libertarian issue. The de-criminalization of homosexuality was a libertarian issue – what consenting adults do is not (well, ought not be…) a criminal matter – but same-sex marriage is about using the power of the state to compel others to recognize those relationships and grant governmental benefits the people in them. That’s a very different proposition.
July 16, 2010, 10:06 amSG says:
Title VII helps ensure freedom and liberty, but you do no one any favors pretending that liberal support of that law doesn’t come from an intellectually honest and defensible vision of freedom and liberty.
I disagree – the liberal support comes from an intellectually honest and defensible vision of equality, but not liberty. Liberals are motiated by a desire for equality, not liberty. The two ideals, both admirable, are often in tension.
July 16, 2010, 10:10 amRicardo says:
It’s an interesting argument and an interesting issue. Freedom of speech is actually the one issue where libertarian ideas have had the most influence in the U.S. Someone once pointed out the irony of liberals talking about the “marketplace of ideas” when some of those same liberals didn’t have much sympathy for other kinds of marketplaces.
But Lee Bollinger raises a genuine concern. What if anything should we do about the decline of newspapers, especially local newspapers serving small markets that are rapidly declining in profitability. The model of charging for advertising space no longer works because of the internet. Do you really want everyone in the U.S. to depend on one or two national newspapers for their news? Will national media outlets devote enough attention to local issues to serve as a check on corrupt big-city machines? David Simon — who created “The Wire” — had a very good article about how local press can serve as a powerful check on local officials who refuse to obey the law.
I don’t see libertarianism having any obviously good answers to these questions. And Bollinger is making an argument that could have just as easily come from a conservative:
Sure, there are dangers to public subsidies to the press. There’s also a pretty clear danger in allowing too many media outlets to fail and being left with one or two conglomerates at the national level providing all the printed and broadcast news in the country. There will still be bloggers, of course, but then bloggers depend on the scoops provided by the broadcasters and newspapers.
July 16, 2010, 10:26 amSlocum says:
Pretty much all liberals I know think that the competing values of free speech and anti-discrimination raise tough issues.
Exactly — and libertarians absolutely don’t. Liberals, but not libertarians, think it would be a good and proper thing if the state were allowed to limit free speech rights in order to find the right ‘balance’ with other competing issues (as in Elena Kagan’s widely quoted remark about balancing free speech against ‘societal costs’).
There is a fundamental difference between 1) thinking of free speech as a good thing generally, but one that can and should be limited by the state as necessary to balance against other values and 2) thinking of free speech as a fundamental right that the state may not infringe upon except in the narrowest and most compelling instances (shouting ‘fire’ in a theater).
Consider campaign finance/speech laws and Citizens United. Libertarians believe there is no clearer case — that the very last thing that the government should be able to restrict is political speech near election time. And most liberals believe such restrictions are desirable.
I do not accuse liberals of holding these views insincerely or out of malice, but I believe these view are dangerously wrong.
July 16, 2010, 10:35 amSteveMG says:
It seems to me that even on those narrow specific issues where libertarians can join, however briefly, with liberals that the overarching difference between how liberals and libertarians view rights and how the state should secure those rights still remains. That is, Berlin’s negative and positive liberties.
Libertarians are the quintessential negative liberty promoters. Liberals are the quintessential positive liberty promoters. One calls for a withdrawal of the state in people’s lives; the other calls for an extension of the state in people’s lives.
There’s simply no way that difference can be bridged.
July 16, 2010, 10:38 amRicardo says:
I was responding to the meme that liberals mostly care about freedom when it is sexual freedom. In reality, a big chunk of the liberal civil and political rights agenda has already been enacted in the U.S. The one area where liberal support for personal freedom is most controversial is in the sexual realm. So that’s the area where liberals double-down. The only point I’m making is that libertarians ought to support them rather than making pointed remarks about why liberals care so much about sexual freedom.
I can think of at least three privileges that married individuals have that are unavailable to gay people: spousal privilege, the ability to inherit a spouse’s property tax-free, and the ability to petition on behalf of a foreign spouse for a visa. Depending on the particular state and whether it recognizes civil unions, that list may be a lot longer.
This is not consistent with libertarianism at all. It involves giving special privileges and exemptions to some people but not to others in an arbitrary manner.
July 16, 2010, 10:43 amL says:
A libertarian opposing gay marriage because the government shouldn’t be involved in marriage is like a libertarian defending whites-only public drinking fountains because the government shouldn’t be involved in providing drinking fountains.
On its face, it’s consistent with libertarian principles, but it’s actually using libertarianism as a cover for discrimination. The issue of whether tax money should fund the construction of drinking fountains is separate from the issue of whether the government should restrict access to the fountains based on race. The issue of whether the government should recognize marriage is separate from the issue of whether the government should restrict access to legally recognized marriages based on sex.
Recognizing the reality that neither marriage nor public drinking fountains are going to be abolished any time soon (and reserving the right to work for their abolition), what is the principled libertarian defense of discrimination?
July 16, 2010, 10:56 amJim Nichols says:
I think there should be more attention paid to distinctions between left and right libertarianism .
July 16, 2010, 11:14 amBill says:
Didn’t you leave something important out? In Kelo, it was the conservative wing of the court which sided with the “liberaltarian” outcome.
Nearly caused a liberal friend’s head to explode when he realized which of the justices he agreed with and which ones he disagreed with..
July 16, 2010, 11:27 amShane says:
Doesn’t a prominent, influential “liberaltarian” organization already exist in the ACLU?
July 16, 2010, 11:29 ambyomtov says:
Joseph Slater hits the nail on the head at 9:55, as does sarcastro in his earlier comments.
If you want to have a two-minutes hate directed against liberals go ahead. Unlike conservatives, we’re all for freedom of speech, you know. But don’t pretend you’re actually making sense.
July 16, 2010, 11:33 amyankee says:
The ACLU takes “liberaltarian” positions on many issues, but its consistent support of laws that protect people from non-governmental discrimination and harassment is very non-libertarian.
July 16, 2010, 11:40 amSarcastro says:
Other things liberals By-and-large support, due to one example: communism, being Kenyan, pedophilia. Remember, if the FTC does it, it must be liberal. Because Obama’s policies are liberal by definition.
Because for the libertarians to take you, you had better not acknowledge any tradeoffs!
Those narrow and compelling instances may look like tradeoffs, but they’re not. It’s anything not narrow and compelling that’s the tradeoff! And you can tell what those are because liberals like them, at least sometimes, which is a lot like always!
July 16, 2010, 11:41 amyankee says:
“Seem to think” aside, you’re not much of a supporter of small government if you don’t at least support large cuts to a lot of that stuff.
July 16, 2010, 11:54 amSlocum says:
Unlike conservatives, we’re all for freedom of speech, you know.
Except when you’re not because other competing values are more important. Conservatives have their own problems on speech (the idiotic flag-burning stuff comes to mind), but it was, after all, the conservative wing of the court that got Citizens United right (from a libertarian perspective) and the liberal justices (and presumably now including Kagan) who were on the anti-free speech side (again, from a libertarian perspective). That being the case, libertarians have good reason to believe that a Republican president’s nominees are likely to be more supportive of free speech as a fundamental, unabridgeable right (as opposed to a limited right to be balanced against other interests).
If you want to have a two-minutes hate directed against liberals go ahead.
Reading this thread and seeing it as a ‘hate fest’ is pretty over-the-top (but consistent with liberal tendencies to consider critical speech as ‘hate speech’). I think liberals are seriously wrong on many issues–including free speech. But I don’t think they are insincere in their beliefs and certainly don’t hate them (this, BTW, is a courtesy that’s often not reciprocated — many liberals, for example, don’t think it’s possible to take the libertarian position on Citizens United without being some kind of paid or unpaid corporate stooge).
July 16, 2010, 12:05 pmSarcastro says:
The rare self-refuting sentence, folks!
July 16, 2010, 12:08 pmAssistant Village Idiot says:
PJ O’Rourke: “I tend to vote for Republicans because they have fewer ideas. But not few enough.”
July 16, 2010, 12:17 pmbyomtov says:
Slocum,
Even on subjects where ‘liberals’ actually support liberty, it’s only for tactical reasons, and they’ll go all authoritarian on you if they decide the tactic isn’t working. Anybody who deals with modern liberals on a regular basis quickly notices that actual “liberty” has very little to do with their views. They abandon their interest in liberty as soon as they notice people not freely doing what they, the ‘liberals’, wanted them to do.
So how do we expunge the liberals taste for tyranny?
While liberals wouldn’t mind having a Constitution which actually supported their aims, they’re currently committed to making sure the Constitution we actually have doesn’t get in their way, which means, rule of law out the window.
I’m not being sarcastic here; the common thread behind all the issues where liberals really oppose government intervention (even “for our own good”) is sex.
But leftists just take it for granted that if you have a plan, then it all works out.
I believe liberals, too, if given the chance, would make serious hash of freedom-of-the-press in the U.S. They would license journalists, require particular education and credentials,…
This is simply not reasonable criticism of liberal views. It’s melodrama with evil liberals twirling their moustaches as they tie sweet young Liberty to the railroad tracks.
July 16, 2010, 12:21 pmAngus says:
Just want to make sure I understand what you are saying. Hypothetical: a boss goes to a female employee and says, “Give me sex or I’ll fire you and give you bad references,” the libertarian positions is to side with the boss since he’s just exercising his free speech rights?
July 16, 2010, 12:27 pmL says:
Well, but the last one was sort of real. There was a proposal here in Michigan to license journalists, including requirements of particular education and credentials. I think there might have been a post about it here on VC. Some might like to read the article and then play guess-the-party.
July 16, 2010, 12:30 pmMark Field says:
Those shaking their heads at Brett’s fanciful comments on the origins of modern liberalism might be interested in this. While I would dispute some of the points made, it’s generally accurate.
July 16, 2010, 12:33 pmyankee says:
And his right to freedom of contract. She’s an at-will employee, so he can impose any conditions he wants!
July 16, 2010, 12:33 pmKen Arromdee says:
Yes, it does. Libertarianism is about giving people rights. How to define “people” is not part of libertarianism, it’s a premise separate from libertarianism.
Libertarianism is also consistent with the death penalty. Once you accept that the government has the right to punish people at all, whether a particular punishment is too harsh is not a libertarian question.
July 16, 2010, 12:36 pmThorley Winston says:
I think it’s more insidious than that. Not only do they favor the drug war in general, they’ve moved to expand to include tobacco through bans on smoking on private property, confiscatory tax levels and lawsuits against tobacco companies (the theory of which was also used to go after firearms companies and eventually anyone else they don’t approve of).
July 16, 2010, 12:39 pmKen Arromdee says:
Actually, I’d say that it’s probably fraud, unless he hired her with the understanding that sexual activity is part of the job. If he did, it’s prostitution, and libertarians think prostitution should be legal.
If she has an at-will contract, then it would be allowed, but an at-will contract would be the equivalent of having a contract saying “and occasional prostitution as well”. Nobody would willingly work for an employer who demands an employment contract which allows prostitution. And no employer would refuse to hire someone, even for a low paying job, for insisting on an employment contract containing a no-prostitution clause.
Also, anyone checking out someone’s references would be stupid if they did not ask questions that took this scenario into account. If they asked if it had to do with prostitution and the boss said “no, it wasn’t sex, she didn’t type fast enough”, he would be committing fraud, and that would be illegal even in a libertarian world.
July 16, 2010, 12:49 pmChrisTS says:
I love these threads.
I think I am a liberal – of a moderately comprehensive rather than neutralist bent. But, here, I discover that calling myself ‘liberal’ means that I am in favor of tyranny, hate speech laws, the drug war, and any kind of sex anyone wants to dream up. I want to control the media. I want to ban smoking and drinking [despite the discomfort the latter will cause me, personally].
I am a socialist, or at least the progeny of socialists. In fact, ‘liberal’ really means ‘leftist totalitarian.’ Even Locke’s Proviso was socialistic.
Indeed, contrary to all my mistaken beliefs, it is American conservatives who adore free speech, freedom of religion, liberty in general, and – I suppose – drug legalization.
I think ‘liberaltarian’ is a horrid coinage. On the other hand, I’ve got to find something to call myself.
July 16, 2010, 12:52 pmSlocum says:
Criticizing liberals for seeing hate speech where it does not exist is NOT itself ‘hate speech’. But you really don’t grasp the difference between criticism and hate speech, do you? Or are you just putting us on?
As I documented, liberal proposals for regulating bloggers, shield official journalists (and only official journalists) and providing government funding for official news organizations is not some paranoid, melodramatic fantasy. The FTC has already regulated bloggers, Lee Bollinger of Columbia (home of the Columbia School of Journalism) has proposed government funding of news organizations. Libertarians believe these are really bad ideas that would make hash of freedom of the press. Saying so is not ‘hate speech’ and doesn’t create a ‘hate fest’.
July 16, 2010, 12:53 pmSteveMG says:
Sidebar: One would think that the moniker “Sarcastro” would be a hint as to how one should read his posts.
And the winking Castro is another clue.
Back to the proceedings.
July 16, 2010, 12:55 pmwm13 says:
Different libertarians have different answers, no doubt, but it isn’t unthinkable for a libertarian to allow a cause of action for defamation on account of the bad references. As to the discharge, if you can fire someone for no reason, presumably you can fire them for a bad reason. That doesn’t seem to me less coherent than the current position in most states, that some bad reasons are actionable and some are not.
July 16, 2010, 12:59 pmrequird says:
And what would you’re reaction be if you hire a prostitute and she refuses to have sex with you?
As long as sex with the boss is part of the contract for employment the boss has the right to actually require employees to do their job. If sex with the boss isn’t part of the employment contract then there are lot of factors which go into determining the libertarian position, for example it is fraud to give a bad reference unless the employee was actually bad at her job (unless it were a truthful “bad reference” that the employee refuses to have sex with her boss under duress absent a contractual obligation to do so). there are many factors that go into determining the position, is the boss the owner of the firm or merely another employee and what does his contract say about his duties to the owner with regards to employing others?
July 16, 2010, 1:01 pmMetamorf says:
It’s hard to know how many dimensions political space truly has, but, like any ecology, it clearly has niches that make certain alliances much easier to form and maintain than others. One such is the alliance of small-government conservatives and libertarians, since that allows people to differ over particular issues while agreeing on ways to address them (or on ways not to address them).
Libertarians and liberals, on the other hand, may agree from time to time on a particular issue, but since they differ on the underlying meta-issue of the use of state power to enforce one’s views, values, beliefs, etc. on everyone, this difference will always threaten to destabilize any such alliance. For this reason, such an alliance is never going to have much more than opportunistic appeal to those who think of themselves as contemporary liberals. And since those who explicitly label themselves “libertarian” represent such a small voting bloc anyway, even the payoff for opportunism here is minimal. Just the same reality is what makes libertarians chasing after liberals merely look desperate.
July 16, 2010, 1:01 pmbyomtov says:
L,
There was a proposal here in Michigan to license journalists, including requirements of particular education and credentials…
Yeah. One state Senator. No co-sponsors. Doesn’t sound like there’s exactly a wave of liberal support (or other kinds) for this.
And that’s the point, really. You pick this out and it becomes the basis for a wild generalization. Tell me, are there any libertarians who have advocated positions you think are foolish? If I found one, somewhere, would you accept that as evidence that “libertarians advocate position X?”
July 16, 2010, 1:06 pmwolfefan says:
With regard to byomtov’s post @1:06 pm, go to http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com and start reading random posts and comments related to the Libertarian Party or Libertarian party candidates. It is not hard to find libertarians who advocate positions that go beyond “foolish” well into “insane”, including those in the leadership of the Libertarian Party. When one of the most sober, responsible guys in your party is Wayne Allyn Root, you know you’re in trouble.
July 16, 2010, 1:22 pmMark Field says:
Wait a minute. You’re asking this of Sarcastro?
July 16, 2010, 1:26 pmbyomtov says:
Slocum,
I was referring to the entire list, not just the one item.
I read the two items you linked to as “documentation” of the idea that liberals want to make a hash of freedom of the press. Using these items to support that is pretty hysterical. In fact, I’d agree that the disclosure business is sort of silly, though it’s hardly a threat to the Republic.
On Bollinger’s proposal, I’m willing to hear more, though I start out skeptical. Regardless, though I think your comment is seriously overwrought.
July 16, 2010, 1:28 pmSlocum says:
Providing particular privileges for officially designed journalists and journalistic organizations is inherent in a number of liberal-favored initiatives. So Citizens United would have had to distinguish between corporations that are bone fide news organizations (e.g. the NY Times) vs those that aren’t (e.g. Boeing). Many (but not all) proposed journalist shield laws apply only to ‘professional’ journalists. The FTC regulations regarding revealing corporate relationships apply to bloggers but not the N.Y. Times (Walt Mossberg doesn’t have to reveal whether the producers of products he reviews ever provide them for free or buy advertising in the Times). There have been liberal proposals for limiting press by reinstating the ‘fairness doctrine’. And then, of course, there are the proposals that have been floated for government funding for newspapers (not just from Bollinger). There may not be much action in ‘de jure’ licensing of journalists right now, but there’s rather a lot that would amount to ‘de facto’ state recognition of who is and is not a legitimate journalist or news organization and, therefore, who is deserving of special protections and funding (or, on the other hand, who is NOT a professional and therefore will face additional restrictions and regulations).
July 16, 2010, 1:34 pmyankee says:
At-will employment is indistinguishable from allowing either party to demand changes to the terms at will. The difference between “I’ll fire you if you don’t have sex with me” and “your employment contract is terminated , but I’ll offer you a new one on the same terms + you have sex with me” is a distinction without a difference. And it would only be fraud if the employer represented that there would be no changes to the contract involving demands for sex; if no statement of the sort was made, there’s no fraud.
And while demands for sex weren’t that common before sexual harassment laws, things like ass-grabbing were very much the norm in American business until feminists demanded changes enforced by sexual harassment laws.
July 16, 2010, 1:34 pmL says:
I think you missed my point – but that’s probably my fault, I was not being clear, kind of on purpose. I was agreeing with you.
The bill’s sponsor was (spoiler alert) a Republican. Although I don’t mean to suggest that Republicans or conservatives in general favor such measures, I think (as you do) that it’s wrong to generalize liberals as being in favor of them, or to generalize the proposals themselves as “liberal” in nature.
And I’m not a libertarian at all, though I lean that way on certain issues (only sex; after all, I’m a liberal!), so yes, there absolutely are some libertarians who have advocated positions I find foolish. :)
July 16, 2010, 1:38 pmSarcastro says:
The key here is the quantity of press-regulatory policies random liberals have mentioned, not the quality of the support they get from other liberals!
Similarly, I heard Bork hates freedom of speech. Thus, conservatives all support regulation of art!
July 16, 2010, 1:39 pmJess says:
Nice attempt to update the Liar’s Paradox (on two levels! how meta!), Sarcastro, but with the quote to give it context that was actually two sentences.
July 16, 2010, 1:43 pmbyomtov says:
L,
Thanks. You’re right. I obviously misunderstood.
Slocum,
There have been liberal proposals for limiting press by reinstating the ‘fairness doctrine’.
OK. That’s it. You’re officially in fever swamp territory. I’m sure you can point to some statements. But if you think this is a standard liberal position you need to follow a personal “fairness doctrine” and not just listen to Limbaugh, etc.
July 16, 2010, 1:47 pmyankee says:
Not how I’d characterize liberals’ meta-position, but then I’m a liberal. But if you’re opposed to enforcing one’s views, values, beliefs, etc. on everyone, you’re not going to get along with conservatives either. See, e.g., conservative positions on unpatriotic speech, obscene speech, drugs, politically incorrect sex acts, using the state to promote Christianity, and using the state to promote their favored view of gender roles and the family.
July 16, 2010, 2:00 pmNickM says:
That bill wasn’t a good example (1 lone idiot, even though in a position of some power), but the Hugo Chavez ball-washers over at Free Press have a big following at the FCC and FTC – including placing some of their people in important policy positions.
These guys and the “hate-speech” ban advocates are a significant part of the liberal political coalition in the U.S., which makes it really uncomfortable for libertarians to align there (much as the pornography ban advocates, etc. in the conservative political coalition make it uncomfortable for libertarians to align there).
Nick
July 16, 2010, 2:07 pmbyomtov says:
As to the discharge, if you can fire someone for no reason, presumably you can fire them for a bad reason. That doesn’t seem to me less coherent than the current position in most states, that some bad reasons are actionable and some are not.
Why is that necessarily incoherent? “Bad” and “good” are not the only ways to categorize reasons to fire someone. Why shouldn’t firing someone for refusing to submit to violations of personal dignity – which would cover the sex example – be actionable while other bad reasons – “I don’t like the color of the car you drive” – are not?
Anyway, it’s good to know that libertarians think it’s fine for the owner of a business to fire an employee for refusal to have sex, but see the idea that a blogger reviewing products should have to disclose that he got some freebies as a threat to free individuals everywhere.
As a liberal I’ll bear that in mind when I consider the possibility of making common cause with libertarians.
July 16, 2010, 2:11 pmSlocum says:
Let’s just consider Citizen’s United. I don’t think there’s any doubt that 1) This was an enormously important decision, 2) That the vast majority of liberals (very much including President Obama) decried it (though full marks to Ed Glaser of the ACLU for getting it right, but he was an exception among liberals), and that 3) That the vast majority of libertarians supported the court decision.
I think there are a number of worrying issues, but the strong and widespread liberal reaction to Citizen’s United is sufficient, in itself, for libertarians to think that liberals aren’t trustworthy on free speech.
July 16, 2010, 2:18 pmSlocum says:
Sorry, make that Ira Glasser:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ira-glasser/understanding-the-emcitiz_b_447342.html
July 16, 2010, 2:26 pmKen Arromdee says:
Yeah, and? Nobody would take a job with an employment contract that has a clause “and occasional prostitution”. You’ve demonstrated that at-will employment is equivalent to a contract saying “and occasional prostitution”. So then why would anyone take an at-will job? Surely you’re not claiming that if someone (even a low paid person) said “I won’t take this job unless you write up a contract with a no-prostitution clause”, the employer would refuse to do so and would hire someone else instead.
An alternative would be to allow people to contract to become prostitutes but to require it to be explicitly stated in the contract. It would not impinge on employer freedom (as long as the process of putting that into a contract is easy), but it would help when transitioning to new laws. It would also mean that the employer would have to specifically say “at will, and that means including prostitution”. Do you think any employer would do that?
July 16, 2010, 2:37 pmptt says:
Whenever I hear a libertarian say the government should get out of the marriage business, I always wonder how high his alimony payments must be to cause him to advocate such an unlikely development.
(not you personally, just a general speculation)
July 16, 2010, 3:02 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Do you mean expansion of the relationship in the sense of the range of persons entitled to benefit from it, or the breadth of the relationship? Can a libertarian position tolerate the entitlement of heterosexual spouses to spousal immunity, inheritance rights, hospital visitation privileges, tax benefits, etc. while gays are denied those benefits? Is there any principled way in which a libertarian could side with the conservative position rather than liberal position on this one?
By that standard, why couldn’t one stretch the libertarian label to cover a ban on condoms, because the egg and sperm are destined to reach one another, which is about as reasonable as the position than an unimplanted set of two cells is a being entitled to all of the protections of a person? (And, by the way, that could make a woman who jogs too strenuously, causing an early miscarriage, guilty of homicide or manslaughter.)
David M. Nieporent: While one might argue that libertarian sensibilities might lean towards being anti-capital punishment, there is no libertarian principle against the death penalty; nothing about libertarianism says that execution isn’t the appropriate sentence for certain crimes.
If there is no libertarian principle that opposes a system of capital punishment that regularly put innocents on death row, there may be no libertarian principles. Or, viewed another way: A libertarian who trusts government prosecutors with the death penalty, and elected officials with the ability to conduct an unprovoked military attack, and government agents to conduct surveillance and suspend habeas corpus in the name of national security, may not be so distrustal of government as one can reasonably expect a libertarian to be, generating skepticism concerning selective libertarianism born of convenience rather than principle.
July 16, 2010, 4:01 pmArthur Kirkland says:
So are sperm swimming around an egg (or perhaps restrained by a condom, or about to hit a mass of spermicidal foam). Or maybe a particularly enticing date next Saturday night. One could argue that the sperm has a right to find its egg and become the next Nobel Prize winner, just as two cells that are looking for an implantation spot have that right. Heck, a libertarian could argue that sperm have rights not to be deposited in a location from which reaching their personhood destiny would be impossible, or even unlikely!
Which would make at least some men serial murderers.
July 16, 2010, 4:10 pmklp85 says:
L, Arthur Kirkland,
Exactly. I find it interesting that the content of most of these lists about areas where there’s “no clear libertarian” position (gay marriage, immigration, etc.) tend to leave leeway for people to call themselves “libertarian” while taking standard conservative positions.
July 16, 2010, 4:11 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Sure there are — they both believe that social conservatives, as exemplified by Texas Republicans, are nuts, and that other conservatives are to be faulted for enabling the nuts to press their objectionable positions.
July 16, 2010, 4:12 pmTPP Weekly Rewind : The Public Philosopher says:
[...] Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy had something else to say about [...]
July 16, 2010, 4:33 pmyankee says:
Conservatives: the Fed should run a creditor-friendly low-inflation monetary policy. Libertarians: no or highly restricted central bank.
Conservatives talk a good game on spending, but I’ve never seen them demonstrate any interest in cutting any specific programs (though Bush did try to cut Social Security). They’re mostly interested in cutting taxes on the rich.
Unpatriotic speech, obscene speech.
I’ll grant you this one.
Thankfully, most conservatives (unlike libertarians) still favor restrictions on private-sector race and sex discrimination, though they want them to be less robust than liberals do.
Freedom to discriminate against gays on religious pretexts, sure. Freedom to smoke weed in your religious ceremony? Not so much.
July 16, 2010, 4:45 pmKen Arromdee says:
You’re not really arguing that capital punishment is inconsistent with libertarianism, you’re arguing “capital punishment is bad, and libertarianism doesn’t allow the government to do bad things”.
July 16, 2010, 5:29 pmKen Arromdee says:
Who is to say you couldn’t? Of course you could.
Libertarianism isn’t a complete guide to life. Someone with libertarian principles can apply them to absurd premises, and come up with absurd results. If you have a skewed enough definition of “people” to believe that condoms kill people, you could be a libertarian opponent of condoms. Heck, if you believed that roaches are people, you could be a libertarian who thinks it should be illegal to kill roaches. Libertarianism is not a cure for insanity.
July 16, 2010, 5:35 pmbyomtov says:
I find it interesting that the content of most of these lists about areas where there’s “no clear libertarian” position (gay marriage, immigration, etc.) tend to leave leeway for people to call themselves “libertarian” while taking standard conservative positions.
It goes even further. On the one hand, libertarians are quite happy to live with policy disagreements among themeselves. They won’t deny that those they disagree with on these types of issues are libertarians, yet bridle when someone says, “Libertarians believe X.” Yet, as we see in this discussion, they grant no such freedom to those who hold other political views. This despite the fact that the number of people who call themselves liberals, and the number who call themselves conservatives, are both many times the number who call themselves libertarians, so it is almost inevitable that there will be more disagreements within those groups than among libertarians.
July 16, 2010, 5:44 pmDilan Esper says:
Let’s just consider Citizen’s United. I don’t think there’s any doubt that 1) This was an enormously important decision, 2) That the vast majority of liberals (very much including President Obama) decried it (though full marks to Ed Glaser of the ACLU for getting it right, but he was an exception among liberals), and that 3) That the vast majority of libertarians supported the court decision. I think there are a number of worrying issues, but the strong and widespread liberal reaction to Citizen’s United is sufficient, in itself, for libertarians to think that liberals aren’t trustworthy on free speech.
You could write almost the exact same thing about conservative reaction to Johnson v. Texas, substituting Justice Scalia or Mitch McConnell for Ed Glaser.
July 16, 2010, 5:45 pmyankee says:
Also a lot of so-called “libertarians” are really completely ordinary conservatives.
July 16, 2010, 5:48 pmR says:
I’m not sure I follow your thinking. Knowing that some innocent people spend the rest of their lives in prison, should the principled libertarian position be against life sentences as well?
From a liberal’s perspective, if the Welfare system occasionally awards someone with money who isn’t entitled to it, does that mean that mean that liberals should be against welfare as a principle?
I’m not trying to be a smart ass here. The differences in the examples are obvious. From a practical standpoint, the risks vs. the rewards with capital punishment could be seen as too great a chance to take with human life, and I think that is the position that many libertarians take. But as a general principle, once you acknowledge that it isn’t anti-libertarian to allow the state to send murderers to prison for life, I don’t see how it is any more anti-libertarian to allow the state to execute murderers.
I have a question for the anti-death penalty liberals out there: Is your position that the death penalty is wrong because the state often screws it up and it’s not worth the risk of killing innocents, or is it wrong in and of itself?
July 16, 2010, 5:57 pmMark Field says:
Both.
July 16, 2010, 6:36 pmSeattle Law Student says:
I don’t claim to speak for all, but for me a little from column A and a little from column B. I would add in a third reason which is that it is unreliably enforced. Convict A is open and shut, and there is lots of evidence so he gets death. Convict B is the green river killer, and it’s a bit shaky and he can provide more info to prosecution, so he gets life. That is ridiculous. If the death penalty means anything, the most gross violators should be punished, not the easiest to convict.
WRT the above two choices, I’m not opposed to the death penalty in the abstract because I believe there are cancer cells in the body politic, cells which should be excised for the good of all. We’re just so damn lousy at getting the right one with enough certainty, that for me it’s not worth the risks. Also I think eye for an eye is vengeance not justice.
July 16, 2010, 6:40 pmleo marvin says:
How do we expunge the anti-Liberals’ taste for straw?
July 16, 2010, 7:19 pmleo marvin says:
It was her idea.
July 16, 2010, 7:20 pmKen Arromdee says:
That’s not so much an argument against the death penalty, as it is an argument against plea bargaining (and as such it does have a lot of merit to it).
July 16, 2010, 9:28 pmObserver says:
Arthur Kirkland: The truly libertarian position on marriage would be that the state should stay out of it, private religious and secular institutions can define marriage however they want (a man and a woman, two men, a man and a tree, a man and a basketball, etc.), and private employers, hospitals, etc., can decide what kinds of marriages they want to recognize. But as between the traditional definition of marriage and the homosexual definition of marriage, I don’t see any basis for deciding that one is more libertarian than the other, especially since homosexual marriage also denies the same benefits to, say, two friends or brothers who would want to be entitled to the same government benefits to which married couples are entitled.
July 16, 2010, 9:51 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Perhaps you can’t, if you’re a conservative. In which case, one would also find consistent with libertarianism a statute enabling only left-handed citizens to purchase automobile, or restricting permits to use a public park to those able to twirl a basketball to citizens with a first name longer than seven letters.
Does libertarianism find the spousal testimonial privilege unacceptable? The default position that favors a spouse in inheritance? Tax advantages provided to married couples? Hospital visitation entitlements restricted to spouses? If so, libertarians are remarkably quiet about their objections. If so, how could a libertarian not object strenuously to denying those rights to homosexual couples while making them available to heterosexual couples?
July 16, 2010, 11:45 pmChrisTS says:
R:
Insofar as no human system will ever be perfect, the fact of the former obviates need to respond to the latter.
July 16, 2010, 11:48 pmChrisTS says:
Sick, sick puppy.
July 16, 2010, 11:49 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
I’m not asking why the Democrats are sex-obsessed; I’m asking why they’re only sex-obsessed.
(Anyway, people aren’t claiming that libertarians should agree with the Texas GOP, or conservatives generally, about social issues, so it’s not an issue.)
July 17, 2010, 6:34 amSlocum says:
You could write almost the exact same thing about conservative reaction to Johnson v. Texas, substituting Justice Scalia or Mitch McConnell for Ed Glaser.
(First, since I incorrectly wrote ‘Ed’ instead of ‘Ira’, let me fix it again). But there are couple of things that make that case different. First, it did not break on clean ideological lines. Scalia voted with the majority and Stevens with the minority. Having that decision go the wrong way would have been bad, but not half as bad, not 1/10th as bad, as Citizens United which would have allowed restrictions on political speech that mentioned candidates by name near election time – full stop. It’s clear in the Johnson dissents that had the minority prevailed, it would have been a very narrow opinion that applied to the flag and only the flag and would not have given Congress the power to regulate any other kind speech (or symbolic speech). It would have been an unjustified, unconstitutional restriction on speech, a blot on the constitution, but a narrow one at least.
And, as a libertarian, I don’t want to leave the impression that I have no problems with conservatives. I absolutely HATE the drug war (a topic upon which I would be perfectly willing to provide all the ‘hate speech’ I could muster) — the billions upon billions it has wasted, the countless lives it has ruined, the chaos, corruption, and destruction it has caused in Mexico, Columbia, and other countries, the way it has filled our prisons, militarized our police forces and invaded our privacy. I don’t think it’s any kind of exaggeration to call it ‘evil’. But it seems to me that, unfortunately, liberals really aren’t any better on the issue. ‘Progressive’ eagerness to nanny us all even to the level of salt in our snack foods suggests they’re not going to leave people alone to make their own choices about drugs any time soon (or ever — not until they become a different sort of political party). There are some liberals as well as libertarian-leaning Republicans who criticize the drug war, but so far these criticisms have no real impact when either party is in power.
July 17, 2010, 9:08 amL says:
In the discussion threads about the Civil Rights Act, the libertarian line was that maybe outlawing private discrimination was bad, or maybe outlawing private discrimination was good, but of course libertarians believe government discrimination is bad and that’s not what we’re talking about anyway so don’t say libertarians think government discrimination is good because they don’t they think it’s bad.
Now we find out that it’s not clear whether it’s more libertarian to have government discrimination, or to not have government discrimination.
If I were more cynical, I would deduce that in 2010 “libertarians” simply find gays more icky than blacks. But hopefully there’s something else going on here.
July 17, 2010, 10:04 amRicardo says:
I think what is going on is that some libertarians who have invested emotionally and politically in the (supposed) libertarian-conservative alliance don’t want to be too harsh in their criticisms of conservatives. An amusing if very “inside baseball” piece of evidence on this is the extremely shoddy way that a supposed up-and-coming young conservative commenter was treated for not being sufficiently “on message.” A college kid who has now found protection under David Frum’s wing was fired from David Horowitz’s NewsRealBlog for criticizing Ann Coulter too harshly.
I’ve seen this from personal experience. Libertarians go to D.C. all wide-eyed and idealistic, start working in the conservative think-tank or commentator world and pretty soon realize their careers will be in serious jeopardy if they risk crossing certain godfather figures in the conservative world like David Horowitz. (Former?) libertarian-conservative Bruce Bartlett lost his job with National Center for Policy Analysis and had trouble finding new employment after writing extremely harsh attacks on George W. Bush. Conservatives don’t mind if you criticize their own. But please, be gentle.
July 17, 2010, 10:48 amRicardo says:
I’m not so sure about that. If Texas v. Johnson had gone the other way, I think the government would have a stronger case in the current military medals case. And from there, it’s not unreasonable to think we might edge down a bit more on the slippery slope.
That was really the main issue in the flag-burning case. There really is nothing unique about burning the American flag that makes it fall outside of the protection of the First Amendment. Any exception carved out for the flag inherently presents the risk of future exceptions being carved out for other forms of offensive speech.
To put it another way, everyone knows Oliver Wendell Holmes’ canard about falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater. They tend to forget that example was used to help uphold the criminal convictions of socialists who were arrested for distributing anti-WWI leaflets. People in practice simply cannot help point to exceptions to freedom of speech and arguing that those exceptions should be broadened. It’s an area where — as I think Eugene Volokh has argued — slippery slope arguments are often valid.
July 17, 2010, 11:01 amKen Arromdee says:
Arthur Kirkland isn’t a libertarian. His belief that libertarians would allow governments to discriminate in buying cars or using a park are his, not libertarians’.
July 17, 2010, 11:03 amL says:
I know that. And I take libertarians at their word when they say they oppose government racial discrimination in buying cars or using a park. Although I was quoting “Arthur Kirkland,” I was really responding along with him to Observer, who appears to be a libertarian, and who wrote:
So that’s where I’m coming from. Discussing some issues, the libertarian position is that arbitrary government discrimination is bad. Discussing another issue, there is no clear libertarian position on whether arbitrary government discrimination is bad. It strikes me as inconsistent, and makes me wonder if there is some animus behind the discrepancy.
As for “Arthur Kirkland,” although I find myself agreeing with him a lot because we both happen to be liberals, I disagree a lot as well and find myself taking pretty much everything he says with a big grain of salt. So don’t worry about that.
July 17, 2010, 1:45 pmSG says:
When did the lack of legal gay marriage become an injustice of the highest order? As recently as 15 years ago, I don’t believe I had ever heard a single expression of concern about the issue. I’m sure that people’s current concern is sincere, but the sanctimony is obnoxious. Is it just the fervor of the newly converted?
And the tortured analogies to racial discrimination? Completely invalid. It’s not like racial discrimination; it is gender discrimination. It’s not like whites-only drinking fountains, it’s like mens and womens rest rooms, and I don’t hear much decrying of the injustice behind that.
I don’t see any compelling governmental interest in how adults (without children) have chosen to couple (or triple or quadruple or …); certainly not to the point of subsidizing those relationships. Were I in charge, I’d split marriage into two pieces. The part that has no public subsidy associated with it (hospital visitation rights, etc.) and the part with financial implications (tax free inheritance, etc). Any couple could get the first, but do get the second you’d have to be parents. In neither case would the gender of the people involved matter, but just practically there would be far smaller percentage of same-sex couples in the second category.
July 17, 2010, 2:31 pmL says:
When did the legal recognition of marriage become an injustice of the highest order? As recently as 15 years ago, I don’t believe I had ever heard a single expression of concern about the issue. I’m (not entirely) sure that people’s current concern is sincere, but the sanctimony is obnoxious. Is it just the fervor of the newly converted?
July 17, 2010, 2:44 pmSG says:
Discussing some issues, the libertarian position is that arbitrary government discrimination is bad. Discussing another issue, there is no clear libertarian position on whether arbitrary government discrimination is bad. It strikes me as inconsistent, and makes me wonder if there is some animus behind the discrepancy.
I think you overlook the outcome of legalized same-sex marriage. The issue is whether the government must subsidize same-sex couples (anti-libertarian) and compel other private individuals/organizations to recognize same-sex couples (also anti-libertarian).
I don’t think anyone can claim to speak for libertarians, and I no longer consider myself libertarian anyway, but I see this issue much like abortion – basic libertarian principles (minimize governmental interference with individual liberty) don’t resolve the issue unambiguously. No one calling themselves libertarian opposes a couple’s right to hold a ceremony of their choosing, wear rings, and call themsleves married. The question for libertarians is, what business is that of government?
That said, animus likely explains some of the opposition too.
July 17, 2010, 2:51 pmL says:
I don’t doubt that the libertarian position (with the caveat that nobody can speak for all libertarians and that you and I are not libertarians) is that, given the choice of (a) legal recognition of same-sex marriages and (b) legal recognition of no marriages, (b) is preferred.
But that’s not the question. The question is: among the choices of (a) legal recognition of marriage without regard to sex, (b) legal recognition of only opposite-sex marriage, and (c) legal recognition of no marriage, what is preferred? And if a libertarian picks (c), can’t that libertarian also tell us that (a) is better than (b)? Or, why not?
And, if we accept that “politics is the art of the possible” and that there’s not going to be a lot of support for abolishing marriage as a legal institution, the real choices are just (a) and (b), so again, why can’t a libertarian tell us that (a) is better than (b)?
Anecdote, just for whatever it’s worth: although I don’t know the personal lives of the people I argue with on the internet, in face-to-face discussions about same-sex marriage, four people who consider themselves (and whom I consider) libertarians have expressed to me opposition to same-sex marriage on the grounds that it would be better to abolish the legal institution of marriage entirely. Three of them are (legally) married and one is engaged (to be legally married).
July 17, 2010, 3:21 pmSG says:
And, if we accept that “politics is the art of the possible” and that there’s not going to be a lot of support for abolishing marriage as a legal institution, the real choices are just (a) and (b), so again, why can’t a libertarian tell us that (a) is better than (b)?
Well, I’m sure some libertarians would say that. Whereas others might conclude that increasing the constituency of an illegitimate governmental function just further entrenches that governmental function, making it all the harder to get rid of.
Your same argument implies that a libertarian who has resigned themselves to Medicare should have to support universal single payer health care. To be consistent. I hope the fallacy is obvious.
July 17, 2010, 3:37 pmL says:
I have absolutely no problem discussing tactics, but let’s not get them confused with principles. If a libertarian wants to choose (b) over (a) for tactical reasons, that’s fine (seriously), but that doesn’t say anything about which choice is more consistent with libertarian principles.
It is, but not in the sense you meant. Having Medicare without having universal single-payer health care does not require the government to arbitrarily discriminate against one group based on animus toward that group and without furthering a legitimate state interest. Having opposite-sex marriage without having same-sex marriage does. So that’s not a good extension of my argument at all.
July 17, 2010, 3:49 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I, sir or madam, am a somewhat left-leaning libertarian. I learned that here, where “libertarian” is a label that covers nearly everyone.
July 17, 2010, 3:59 pmSG says:
Having Medicare without having universal single-payer health care does not require the government to arbitrarily discriminate against one group based on animus toward that group and without furthering a legitimate state interest. Having opposite-sex marriage without having same-sex marriage does.
You’re assuming your conclusion. What’s the legitimate state interest in marriage? If you believe that the state’s interest in marriage is in providing a stable environment for children then how do same-sex couples further that interest?
July 17, 2010, 4:12 pmArthur Kirkland says:
This discussion of how opposition to same-sex marriage can be a libertarian position is illuminating.
By the same reasoning, were an Alabama statute to direct that public universities admit solely whites who swear at orientation that they believe in baby Jesus, a libertarian (at least, a “libertarian” by VC-conservative standards) could stand on principle and say, “I oppose public universities, and if the state were to be required to admit the non-whites and/or non-believers, that would just expand the scope of the public university problem by increasing enrollment, so my libertarian principles incline me to find no fault with that statute — and please don’t haul out that tiresome ‘racist’ talking point, because I am merely standing on libertarian principle.”
Similar examination of the conservatarian positions on government surveillance, abortion, the War on Drugs, unprovoked military attack and occupation, government secrecy, limitless detention, the death penalty, torture, flag-burning and similar issues should be equally illuminating and fun!
July 17, 2010, 4:20 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I do not believe libertarians — unless that label is perceived to include conservatives in drag, Instalibertarians and the like — would tolerate government discrimination in sale of cars, use of a park, or recognition of marital benefits (testimonial privilege, inheritance entitlement, and the like).
But conservatarian logic appears to lead conservatarians to those positions.
July 17, 2010, 4:25 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Neither position is libertarian; the libertarian position is that personal relationships are a private matter, that neither require government sanction nor special treatment.
Actually, no, it’s not. But in any case, few people have abortions when their fetuses are “an unimplanted set of two cells,” so it’s rather a moot point, don’t you think?
Well, good luck proving mens rea and causation.
Your argument proves too much. If the fallibility of the justice system is a libertarian argument against capital punishment, then it’s a libertarian argument against the justice system in toto. Wrongfully locking someone up isn’t libertarian, either.
July 18, 2010, 2:34 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
“Hospital visitation entitlements” are a contractual matter between patient and hospital; they’re not a government issue.
Of course libertarians oppose “tax advantages provided to married couples.” What are those tax advantages? Well, one is the (lack of the) death tax — but I think most libertarians oppose the existence of the death tax. The other is the special tax treatment applied to health care benefits for spouses — but libertarians would argue that income is income and (to the extent that we have an income tax at all) should be taxed the same. (For marriage generally, there’s just as likely to be a disadvantage (hence the term, “marriage penalty”) as an advantage, but that’s an artifact of the so-called ‘progressive’ tax, which libertarians would also oppose.)
I don’t know that libertarianism has anything to say about the “spousal privilege[s],” per se, but a libertarian would say that whether someone is a spouse is a private decision, not a governmental one. Ditto for the inheritance question. (There needs to be a default, but it should always be alterable by the individuals in question — no elective shares.)
As for being “remarkably quiet,” the government spends about 40% of the GDP in this country, and prosecutes and/or locks up many hundreds of thousands of people for victimless “crimes.” I hardly think the issue of hospital visitation is the particular issue to be loudest about.
July 18, 2010, 3:00 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
1) Your own link says that this is not why he was fired.
July 18, 2010, 3:14 pm2) What on earth does any of this have to do with libertarians? Are any of the three people you named even in the same galaxy as libertarians? (Is David Horowitz relevant to anybody at this point in his professional life?)
Arthur Kirkland says:
If libertarians believe the government, when apportioning benefits, is entitled to draw lines along bigoted (racial, sexual orientation, ethnic or similar) lines without objection, that would be very unflattering to libertarians. But I do not believe that to be true. I think it is more likely a clumsy dodge devised by bigots who wish to be labeled libertarian.
July 18, 2010, 3:28 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Try that one with a judge.
If a privilege is available to one person, should not a libertarian require that it be made available on equivalent terms to a similarly situated person, with “similarly situated” unaffected by homosexuality or heterosexuality?
July 18, 2010, 3:34 pmBob says:
When I first heard of “marriage equality” in the 1990s, I thought, sure, about time, why not? It wasn’t until I’d considered the issue for a while that I realized why not. (This is how you know I didn’t come to my current position out of mere traditionalist-authoritarian conservatism, latent or otherwise.)
Marriage predates both the state and the church. No way to tell how far back it goes, but probably continuously to well before the existence of biologically modern humans. It was eventually recognized by both the state and the church. Like language and common law, it is a product of custom, a spontaneous order, and the crux of the issue is the relationship of marriage to language and common law. When people use the words “spouse”, “married”, and so forth, they have in mind a certain meaning derived from custom. All current attempts to impose “marriage equality” now, regardless of whether the means be legislation, judicial decree, plebiscite, or administrative edict, require the usurpation of the language and legal documents using the language.
Such action is not unprecedented, but the precedent that comes to mind does not inspire support. Monetary terms such as “dollar/thaler”, “pound”, “drachma”, and “peso”, all referred to agreed-upon weights of certain metals. But then the sovereigns usurped the common law meanings of those words, and declared that certain parties would issue money by those names which would by decree be accepted as the equivalent to what had been by the previous understanding of those words.
I understand the disadvantages experienced by those who would like to “marry” a spouse of the same sex, comjpared to those who marry conventionally. But trying to fix this by commanding a new meaning of the relevant words would be like trying to create equality of the races before the law by decreeing all persons to be of a single race, or creating legal equality of the sexes likewise.
July 18, 2010, 5:14 pmBob says:
I also like working for causes in coalition with those I’m in only partial agreement with, “left” or “right”. I’m enrolled in the Conservaive Party in NY, and I think the physics analogy holds up, that you have the greatest effect on moving the body at its center of mass, which politically would be where you agree with them 50%. With those you agree with much more than 50%, you waste effort preaching to the converted; with those you agree with much less than 50%, you don’t have enough traction to move them.
However, I do get from my experience and that of others that, apparently because of activists’ temperament, it’s easier to work in coalition with those on the “right” than those on the “left”. I saw this in anti-draft coalitions in the USA 30 yrs. ago. The “left” tends to be very fractious and have an inordinate interest in control — in rule or ruin. Grover Norquist’s said his “leave us alone coalition” hardly ever included those with a “liberal” interest because they’re not as interested in the give-and-take that coaligning requires as are those with “conservative” interests. Look at the number of “left” splinter parties here or abroad in comparison with those on the “right”; the “right” just isn’t as prone to splinter.
July 18, 2010, 5:33 pmSeattle Law Student says:
I wonder though – since the “right” tends to mean different things in different places if this is true. The right typically seeks to return back to some imagined time when things in nation X were perfect. The “left” rejects that and says things will be perfect in country X in the future. The number of different “right” groups globally may be greater than the number of “left” groups when you consider that each country may have a dozen left groups but there is a lot of overlap. While among the “right” groups there is little overlap because they all adhere to a different narrative of what they are trying to conserve.
July 18, 2010, 10:56 pm