How Libertarianism Erodes Individuality (and Makes Government Bigger)

In a brilliant essay in Salon, David Masciotra distills Libertarianism down to its selfish, anti-intellectual core—and in doing so makes the case for why the movement is neither contrarian, independent nor a foundation for liberty.

While I don't agree with all of Masciotra's analysis (his dismissal of the ideas and efforts of the Founders is both over-simplistic and anachronistic), his indictment of the deep conservatism and social conformity at the root of the post-Ayn Rand cult of individualism is spot on.

Libertarianism is Anti-Populist

"Libertarians," Masciotra writes, "proclaim an anti-government position, but they are only opposing the last measures of protection that remain in place to prevent the government from full mutation into an aristocracy." The dismantling of social programs, regulations and campaign finance rules empower the establishment at the expense of the have-nots and "transform the legislative process into an auction."

Libertarian Small-Government Goals Achieve the Opposite

Individualism tied to a sense of contributing to the collective good is the driving force of social progress. It also creates more autonomous souls. The "me first" mentality of simplistic bootstraps capitalism leads not to individual liberty but to a what-can-I-get approach that, ironically, fails to contribute to the Libertarian's goal of making government irrelevant. We see it in tax evasion among the wealthy and public benefits fraud among the less well-off. We see it in government bailouts and selfish, short-term policies (such as defunding infrastructure, robbing pension funds and neglecting schools) that lead to huge social costs—and government interventions—later on.

By rejecting the idea of an activist government, Libertarians do not eliminate it—they simply make it less efficient, less strategic and more crisis-bound. Investments critical to the future of the public and private economy are left unmade.

Libertarianism is Anti-Responsiblity

Libertarianism devalues the individual's responsibility to the greater good. Paraphrasing the philosopher Charles Taylor, Masciotra notes that ideas of personal freedom are "empty and meaningless without connections to 'horizons of significance'… bonds of empathy and ties of solidarity with people outside of one's own individual pursuits."

Libertarianism erodes the idea of a general sense of societal responsibility—public or private—leaving ideologically-driven largesse a pursuit and privilege of the rich (in nearly every case, aimed not at encouraging social solidarity but in reinforcing a "maker-taker" worldview).

Libertarianism: A Step Backward

How different we are as a nation from when John F. Kennedy famously said in his 1961 inaugural, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Kennedy's idea encompasses individual responsibility—to self and others—as well as public activism and service. It's a mid-20th century notion that helped launch a host of social initiatives—from the Peace Corps to the Voting Rights Act to Freedom Riders to Sesame Street—driven by something other than the profit motive.

Though Masciotra seems to believe otherwise, this approach is as native to our culture as free markets, dating back at least as far as the social movements of the 19th century. We should not let modern perversions of the idea of individual liberty—such as Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's attempts to strike public service from his state's public university charter—stamp it out.

It's the First Amendment For a Reason

I come across a lot of Second Amendment types. Here's why I'm a First Amendment guy. 

To my right-leaning and/or libertarian friends on Facebook:

For all your flag waving, sometimes I really don't think you guys care much for America. You certainly don't appear to have much faith in our system of government. To hear you go on, our weak and rotten political structure leaves us forever teetering on the brink of serfdom. "We must be doing something right to last 200 years," sang Haven Hamilton. You seem to think it's a wonder we've made it this far.

A Self-Correcting System

You point to government overreach as the smoking gun. What you fail to appreciate is that public institutions in this country are subject to near-constant scrutiny and vetting. Each “scandal” exposed in the media as an example of menacing authoritarianism is actually a victory for our system of checks, balances and watchdogs—the very things that prevent such nightmare scenarios from taking place. When malfeasance is uncovered and prosecuted, it proves the system, while flawed, works.

Civil society: the true bulwark of freedom.

They key to effective democracy is to protect and shore up the institutions and practices of civil society, the "third pillar" of the social order independent of government and business. This is what countries like Afghanistan, China and Iran lack. This is what was stamped out in Germany and Italy in the 1930s and is under attack today in Russia, Mexico and elsewhere. Wherever you see freedom under threat, it has something to do with weak or ineffective social systems that fail to act as a foil to plutocracy, corruption and arbitrary expressions of power.

"But we have guns!"

All this emphasis on guns = freedom misdiagnoses both the problem and the solution.

Private ownership of guns, either independently or in aggregate, does not prevent the government from doing what it's going to do. It never has and never will. (During the fight against British rule, gun owners were militia members called to serve under officers as active-duty military—the original, limited intent of the Second Amendment.) The frontiersmen of the Whisky Rebellion had plenty of guns. So did bootleggers, counterfeiters, bandits and paramilitary groups (such as the KKK and the James Gang) and every single returning confederate soldier. More recently, the mafia, the Branch Davidians, MOVE, Jim Jones' cult (which committed mass suicide after realizing it was not going to get away with murder), the Symbionese Liberation Army... the list goes on.

Lots of countries have lots of guns. Afghanistan and Pakistan have loads of them, as well as liberal gun laws. They do not keep the peace nor guarantee any other freedoms.

Keep a gun if it makes you feel safer, but don’t delude yourself into thinking it's what separates “citizens from subjects,” as the phrase goes. Only the institutions of civil society, from the Courts to NGOs to school boards to voting registration drives, nonprofits, town hall meetings and public displays of protest, solidarity and disobedience—and most critically, a free press—can do that. Guns, to the extent they create fear in the streets, can actually work against these essential bulwarks of our freedom.    

Why the Right’s Fixation on ‘Rules For Radicals’ is Absurd

“Rules For Radicals” is one of those books few had heard of before Fox News (specifically, Glenn Beck) started promoting it as a central tenant of modern liberalism, one of many efforts of the Right to define the opposition on their terms (liberals, seeing themselves for the most part as simply the mainstream, do not do this nearly as well). 

It’s been given the name “The Liberal Bible,” ironic given that author Saul Alinsky, according to Forbes’ Ralph Benko, was “an aggressively anti-communist, anti-big government populist with a healthy contempt for liberals. He seemingly would be more at home in the Tea Party than the Democratic Party.”

Ironic, too, that one of Alinksy’s precepts—promoting caricatural enemies to rally groups around a cause—is a central tactic of the Right (immigrants, homosexuals, Muslims, Obama and his supposed secret agenda, etc.).

Lucifer's Way: Alinsky or Cliven Bundy?

Maybe you’ve heard the claim that Saul Alinsky dedicated “Rules For Radicals” to Lucifer. While this is not true (he dedicated the book to his wife, Irene), there is a shout-out to Old Nick written by Alinsky himself on a page of quotations that also includes Thomas Paine and Rabbi Hillel:

“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history... the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”

In the era of Yippies, W.I.T.C.H. and levitating the Pentagon, this was no doubt meant to be deliberately jarring, and fits right in with the acerbic politics of the day. There’s not too much that needs to be said about this except that the action credited to Lucifer—rebelling against the establishment and winning his own “kingdom”—could just as easily be attributed to Myles Standish, George Washington, Sam Houston and John DeLorean—a pretty un-devilish bunch (though some might disagree about DeLorean). 

It certainly does not describe Barack Obama, who decided to join ‘em rather than beat ‘em. Describes Cliven Bundy pretty well, though. 

A Glimpse Back at SEPTA's 'Dark Days'

For anyone (OK, I know there aren't many) who has ever wondered what the argument was back in the '80s for truncating all those SEPTA regional rail lines, I've finally come across a blog post detailing the thinking back then.

The Souderton Train Station, on the old Bethlehem Branch of the Reading Railroad, has been closed since 1981.

This is the era when the R3 Media/Elwyn, R8 Fox Chase, R6 Cynwyd and R6 Norristown lines were shortened. Passenger service was also discontinued on the Bethlehem Branch north of Lansdale. The principal reason given at the time was that SEPTA wished to discontinue operating diesel railcars, which meant abandoning all passenger service on track without overhead catenary wires for electric trains.

When SEPTA Regional Rail Lines Were Shortened

The Media/Elwyn line ran to West Chester until September 1986, The Fox Chase to Newtown until January 1983, the Cynwyd to Ivy Ridge until October 1986, and the Norristown line extended commuter service all the way up the Schuylkill Valley to Reading and beyond until July 1981.

Most of the discontinued service could not be restored today without major capital funding. The line with the best chance of restoration is the route to West Chester; there are currently plans to extend service beyond Elwyn to a new park-and-ride station at Wawa, which will capitalize on the population boom in Chester County and planned redevelopment of the old Franklin Mint property.

Read more about SEPTA's "dark days" of, um, shrinkage in the Crossing the Lines blog.

The Chronicles of Blarney—Ah!

A quote from C.S. Lewis has been making the rounds on Facebook and right-leaning websites of late. It purports to show Obamacare, and/or welfare policies in general, to be something last century's favorite Christian apologist would have disapproved of. My own comment, left yesterday on the Facebook page of The Independent Institute, follows the Lewis quote, below.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

- C. S. Lewis

Lewis continues, "To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason." Yet I think anyone with reason agrees disease is disease. I doubt Lewis was talking about the NHS (tyrannizing those British dupes for nearly 70 years). Even less likely he's thinking of subsidized private insurance (aka "Obamacare").