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September 17, 2007
Making freedom a dirty word
The first stage of identity politics is using a word to describe yourself. Thus, I've always hesitated to call myself a liberal or a conservative, and I've just about reached the same point with the word "libertarian." Ron Paul hasn't helped much, and I can think of no one who has done more to discredit the word. It's a real pain in the ass to call yourself something which is more and more evocative of paranoid beliefs, if not outright 9/11 Trutherism. But Ron Paul is only part of the problem. Putting on any word which goes to your identity word is a bit like putting on clothes. Right there, I would have said "political identity" but the personal has become so increasingly political that what's the difference? Increasingly, people (even respected authors and journalists) are unable to distinguish between advocacy and conduct. So, a libertarian who thinks the government should stay out of the bedroom and pornography should be legal becomes a "hedonist." Or, in the latest terminology, a "freedom fetishist." (Parenthetically, I do think that it was a very clever rhetorical move to dirty up the word "freedom" with a little sexual innuendo, and my congratulations to Ms. Hymowitz, or whoever thought of it first. Freedom was probably in need of sexualizing, because so many people pay more attention to the latter than the former. Rather than rant about the "war on sex" again, I should try to take a broader, more general view.... If freedom is successfully sexualized, perhaps more people will support it!) But doesn't this beg the question of what is freedom? Might the focus on sex be muddying the waters? What I have never been able to understand is how opposition to laws against something is seen as support for whatever conduct the law would prohibit. I try to be polite to people, but I oppose criminalizing rudeness. For example, I would oppose the criminalization of words I would never use. How does that mean I advocate using them? There's a movement to criminalize the "n" word which I oppose. Does that mean I believe in what they call "license" to use the word? Not at all. I'll give a recent example of the kind of thing that rankles me. There's now a proposal for a mandatory federal bank dress code -- and I do not mean for bank employees, but for customers. Bank robbers often wear sunglasses and hats, so the idea is to stop the crime by stopping criminal attire from the get go, and make it illegal for banks to serve customers wearing hats or sunglasses. When I heard about this on the radio last week, it was reported that the banking lobby is solidly behind this legislation. Unfortunately, I can see why. Banks (like most businesses) are not free to do things like enact their own dress codes for customers. Think about it. Customer walks in wearing a hat and sunglasses. The guard or the clerk tells him it's against the bank's dress code. Angry scene erupts, in which the authority of the employee is challenged, and he is subjected to insults. The bank manager then has to step in and explain that it is the bank's policy, etc. If they're lucky, the ill-attired customer will merely leave (and maybe take his account to a competing bank which does not have the dress code). If they're not lucky, the customer will go straight to the ACLU and file some sort of civil rights lawsuit. So, there's no question that implementing such a dress code would tend to create many unpleasant scenarios. But with a federal law, the banks could point to signs reciting the law, and it would be a situation of "Our hands are tied!" I'm not blaming the banks for wanting a legal solution. My complaint is with a society that has become so paralyzed that individuals and businesses are increasingly unable take any individual initiative. It leads to grotesque big brotherism, and I think the rise of the nanny state is directly related to the mentality that only the government can prohibit anything. What this means is more silly and crazy laws. ("Children are free to use the "n" word! The government must get involved!") Does this mean I am in favor of some "freedom" to wear hats and sunglasses in banks? Absolutely not. I don't think this is a question of freedom, as I think banks should be allowed to ask customers wearing sunglasses and hats to take them off or leave. If anything is a question of freedom, it is the right of banks to decide with whom they do business, and how. But that is a freedom they have lost. That's what's being missed. Banks are not allowed to have dress codes. It is not so much a question of what is forbidden and what is permitted so much as it is a question of who gets to decide. Increasingly, only the government gets to decide. It might be a minor point, but I'd rather have the banks decide what their customers should wear. The problem is that it's a right the banks don't want. There's something creepy about the abnegation of duty and responsibility involved. It's almost analogous to parents (fearful of the nanny state and child protection police) demanding a statute requiring them to spank their children for certain conduct. Whether this is a freedom fetish or not, I don't like seeing personal autonomy and individual rights destroyed in the name of individual rights. At the rate things are going, they'll say I have a right to health care, and that "right" will translate into forcing me to pay for insurance I don't want, while making it illegal to go to whatever doctor I want. How dare the government pretend to give me such "rights"? This touches on the conflation of rights and freedom. The more the government gets involved, the more the definitions of both are blurred. Rights are seen as government-bestowed largesse, and freedom is seen as official license. Pretty soon no one will know what these words mean, and everyone will look to the government, which will be in charge of freedom and rights. The more they give, the more they take away. Anyway, I'm less and less interested in conforming to someone's definition of "libertarian," so I think I'll just let other people call me that if they want to, and not let it alter my thinking. But I should probably not call myself that, lest I fall into a trap of having to live up to the standards set by anti-libertarians as well as libertarians. Drug-crazed, foul-mouthed hedonistic libertarianism can be exhausting, especially when you're trying to be a libertarian war supporter. (Can't I just think what I think without having to be in a three-way with Larry Flynt and Ron Paul?) UPDATE: Thank you Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a very warm welcome to all. As this post is an attempt to think out loud, the comments are very much appreciated. (So far, I can't beat Arnold Kling's suggestion that "civil societarian" might be the right term.) UPDATE (09/28/07): My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post a second time, in his discussion of Ms. Hymowitz' Commentary article which characterized as a "taunt" Glenn's statement that libertarians"can even think that traditional childrearing and marriage are generally a good thing without insisting on social mores that punish those who live differently." Well, I've criticized bloggers for dressing as slobs, but I'm against punishing them for it. If that's a "taunt," I would think it would be a taunt directed against the blogger slobs, right? Unless all disagreements constitute taunts, I think it's a real stretch to call it a taunt against those who believe in punishment when I don't. As Ms. Hymowitz pointed out in an email to Glenn, that the word "taunt" was not hers but was inserted by an editor. I think the editor saw a taunt where none exists. This was not a taunt, and Glenn does not taunt people. (For those who really want to see what real taunting looks like, I suggest reading what Amanda Marcotte and her commenters said about me.) posted by Eric on 09.17.07 at 10:05 AM
Comments
I prefer the term "civil societarian." It defines itself pretty well, without the connotations of libertarian. Arnold Kling · September 17, 2007 09:44 PM I think with Flynt, the third member of that triad would be a chicken. Buster · September 17, 2007 09:45 PM Thank you for giving voice to one of my political pet peeves: the obsession with labeling. Bob K · September 17, 2007 10:10 PM You may have picked a poor example; I believe a bank could have a dress code (if a night club can have one, why not a bank?). The bank would lose business, but that is another matter. mockmook · September 17, 2007 10:15 PM Thank you for that vivid mental image. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go rinse my eyes with bleach. Mitch · September 17, 2007 10:17 PM Forget about a dress code for bank patrons, just make a pump-action shotgun part of the required dress-code for bank employees. Ever wonder why we don't hear about many daylight robberies of gun stores? Junk Science Skeptic · September 17, 2007 10:19 PM I use "postliberal" for myself now. It seems to get in a little more information. Assistant Village Idiot · September 17, 2007 10:21 PM As a Libertarian myself, I too object to those who proclaim that only the nutball extremists like Ron Paul get to define the term. But when I say I'm a libertarian, I am invariably asked how I feel about those nasty EEEVILLLL drugs. I say that I fully support complete drug legalization, and that I hope that society's worst elements will quickly OD and perform their proper evolutionary function of DYING OFF. After all, "Cocaine is God's way of telling you that you have too much money." As a Libertarian, I support the war - but I would oppose a draft. I think abortion is wrong - but not my business. I think smoking is stupid - but I would oppose tobacco taxes. I _do_ think that health insurance companies ought to charge smokers more. I oppose seat belt laws - but if life insurance companies wanted to rule that dying unbelted in a traffic accident was actually suicide, I wouldn't fuss. Ditto helmet laws. There isn't much difference between liberals and conservatives; they just want to ban different things. Ken Mitchell · September 17, 2007 10:22 PM As to Libertarianism, Ken Mitchell has it well-defined in two short paragraphs. Similar to the evolution statement, I've frequently referred to some laws and the legal system as attempts to "cheat Darwin from his just due." Unfortunately, just as the anti-tax party has been taken over by religious nuts that make the neocons look pagan, every candidate who has ever been associated with Libertarianism seemed like they'd been thrown out of the tin-foil hat crowd for being too weird. So while Libertarianism is probably the best model for government, so far it has sucked as a political party. Junk Science Skeptic · September 17, 2007 10:49 PM One of the more insidious attacks on freedom that you'll find in academia is the habit of whining about the lack of certain "freedoms" in the constitution ... freedom from lack of healthcare, freedom from poverty, etc. Guess it never occurs to them that if you're going make a document to run a gov't and put "freedom from's" into it, then it'd make sense to make them various freedoms from said government (just as, say, the 1st amendment protects speech against the gov't) But no. And in the meantime, they label the freedoms *to do* things "negative freedoms" How the hell does that work? Maybe in the same way that tax cuts consist of the gov't giving you money. Tim in PA · September 17, 2007 11:40 PM "Civil societarian" is really good, as it's as descriptive as it is optimistic. (I have to admit, it's a distillation of my aspirations.) The problem is that "libertarian" has been around for so long and reveals itself in so many of the self tests I've taken that much as I'd like to get away from the word, it's tough to ignore; hence the post. What I tire of is being called something in order to tell me my perceived ideological shortcomings. (Not that I don't have shortcomings; it's just that I don't need the added aggravation of failing to live up to a label used that way.) Eric Scheie · September 17, 2007 11:46 PM If you're able to discuss the distinctions between liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, you understand that political views are not arrayed on a one-dimensional ("left-right") spectrum, but distributed throughout a multi-dimensional space. At a minimum, there are the axes of economic and personal liberty (The World's Smallest Political Quiz has explicitly used these for decades), but there are a few issues that seem to be at least somewhat orthogonal to those. One is abortion; another is foreign policy. If you are looking for a name that has yet to be loaded down with negative connotations, a promising candidate is 'minarchist'. It encapsulates Jefferson's dictum: "That government governs best which governs least". Some take it to the apparently logical conclusion that "none" is least of all (anarchist), but that leaves out of the calculation the forces that spring up to fill the vacuum, governing people by force every bit as much as a nation-state with flags, badges, and other trappings of legitimacy. The trick is to find that 'sweet spot' where the total amount of force used to constrain behavior in a society is minimized. That is generally done by deferring to property owners (such as banks) broad authority to define proper conduct, which is checked by the freedom to take one's business elsewhere. What no one has ever been able to explain to me is how a person who allegedly isn't competent to choose from these sets of rules to regulate his own behavior, magically becomes able to legislate everyone's behavior by entering a polling place. The Monster · September 18, 2007 12:22 AM Well, if you're for bottom-up emergent order in your own mind as well as in society, then you probably don't want some bossy label dictating your thoughts from top-down anyway. ArtD0dger · September 18, 2007 12:37 AM Freedom and independence are two different things. Maximum individual freedom is anarchy and unworkable. We're paying the price right now, but won't realize it until we've gone too far. Independence requires discipline, standards and rules. However, it also assures the maximum amount of sustainable freedom. Too many libertarians want freedom of action without consequences. AST · September 18, 2007 12:39 AM I'm an anti-idiotarian. Pat · September 18, 2007 01:25 AM AST: Agreed completely. The way I put it is "personal freedom requires personal responsibility". Gary Rosen · September 18, 2007 02:32 AM Sorry guys, "civil societarian" won't fly. The first impression the phrase emits is as egoistically smelly as "progressive." Brett · September 18, 2007 07:04 AM Increasingly I use the term "libertarian" less and less, and instead substitute a term that the late, great Leonard Read of the Foundation for Economic Education like to use: "pro-freedom." Simple, but says it all. Bilwick · September 18, 2007 09:33 AM So, those of you who find yourselves using the word "libertarian" less and less to describe yourself...what did you think it meant when you started calling yourself a libertarian in the first place? Anonymous · September 18, 2007 12:59 PM English has the distinction that it has two words for something that in many other cultures is only described by one: Freedom and Liberty. However, it appears that even in the English language these two terms are used interchangeably. These words are used so often and their definitions have become so broad that they have become almost meaningless. Uhlenspiegel · September 18, 2007 02:05 PM "There isn't much difference between liberals and conservatives; they just want to ban different things." So they're the same, only different? Geez. "What no one has ever been able to explain to me is how a person who allegedly isn't competent to choose from these sets of rules to regulate his own behavior, magically becomes able to legislate everyone's behavior by entering a polling place." You're mistaking the tail for the dog. Kent · September 18, 2007 02:25 PM If we can't use Libertarian, how about Freedomite? Kinda conjours up a tag-team image of Freemasonry with Sodomites. Freedomarian? Why don't we just name the movement "Bob" since the power isn't in the name but in the idea and ideals. -cp cold pizza · September 18, 2007 03:00 PM My bank has a dress code for its customers that does not allow sunglasses or hats. Yours, Wince and Nod · September 18, 2007 11:10 PM "libertarian" has been getting polluted anyhow by the msm referring to american criminal liberties union types as "civil libertarians". i like to label msm types as liars. joe yowsa · September 19, 2007 07:19 AM The way I describe libertarianism is in 4 words -- "Get Off My Land" (Actually, I stole that line from writer John Scalzi) Anthony · September 27, 2007 07:44 PM Ha ha - 'freedom fetishist', that's a good one! Don't take it personally, I sincerely doubt it was intended as a comment on you personally. But it perfectly captures the perversity of hard-core Libertarianism. The perversity that, for example, denies people the freedom to shape their own communities. That blights society with prostitution (in my country), drugs, gambling and pornography -- even though we long live free of these scourges, in fact we cry out to be liberated from them. As left and right libertarianism causes our communities to be overrun by vice and taken over by criminals, we cry out, "we want to be free!". But our Left and Right libertarian-dominated masters don't hear us. "They call for freedom, then give them more vice", and the more we are enslaved. ...not to mention the mundane side of libertarianism, the one that seeks 'market forces' as the answer to everything, and conflates the properly expressed will of the people -- and there are certain matters where only government can produce action -- with 'big brotherism' (both are real, but they are not the same). Man, Libertarianism has nothing to do with real freedom -- 'freedom fetish' is exactly what is is! I hope that term catches on. Kip Watson · September 27, 2007 08:09 PM I'm not sure why, but this reminds me of the Libertarian, Mesa, AZ city councilman named Tom Rawles. He refused to pledge his allegiance to the U.S. at a city council meeting, to protest the Iraq war. http://www.azcentral.com/community/mesa/articles/0122mr-rawles0123.html At the time, he was supported by Libertarian governor candidate Barry Hess, who supported this misguided protest. Apparently, they could not differentiate a pledge to one's fellow citizens and a pledge to one's government. Or, perhaps they could and failed to make their case clear. Either way, they turned me from a Libertarian to a libertarian. I no longer support any official party. Streaker · September 28, 2007 12:00 AM Every few weeks I get an email from Zogby asking me to fill out a survey, and there are no less than three questions on political identity -- what party are you a member of, what do you consider yourself to be, what party do you vote for the most. And I still manage to feel grumpy and dissatisfied at the end of it, as though they failed to capture my actual position on things. Though the part where I get to say I'm not a fan of NASCAR (that one is ALWAYS there,) does make me feel a little better. I have a clearly defined opinion on racing (it's hideously boring), though regrettably that doesn't have anything to do with anything. If everyone would take the smallest political quiz, I'd be able to walk around calling myself a "+5/-2.15" and leave it at that. I'm stuck with saying I'm a libertarian and then following it with a gazillion qualifiers, instead -- but it's better than what I'd have to do if I called myself a conservative or liberal, and WAY better than what I'd have to do if I called myself a Republican or Democrat. Most of my friends already know I'm not typical -- nearly everyone I know has at least one issue that they completely agree with me on, and two or three that we're complete opposites on. They're used to it, the ones who call themselves "Very Liberal" and the ones who call themselves "Very Conservative" alike. And the general public doesn't need to have an opinion about my political stance, thank goodness. I could, I suppose, call myself a Tchaikovskiite, since he's usually the famous person who's closest to me in those silly "where would dead people appear on this graph" political compass websites. Sarah · September 28, 2007 02:34 AM Thomas Jefferson: "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." M. Simon · September 28, 2007 05:50 AM Post a comment
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I once met Jefferson "F**k" Poland. Fully clothed.
Now there was one Freedom Fetishist. Evidently he went too far. He is now a registered sex offender. Some people don't get the difference between liberation and license.
So I guess you will now have to worry about a four way.
BTW the Ron Paul line on foreign policy is fully in accord with that of the Socialist Workers Party. Funny thing is I joined the Libs to get away from those very kinds of influences.