Deciding who decides what's good for you.

Pileus, a leading libertarian website associated with fellow travellers whose point of gravity is the University of Buffalo, ties itself in knots on the question of criminalization of Nevada's legal brothels. 

 
Which, literally interpreted, means liberty to rape, sack and pillage, shelter the orphans and cure cancer. Practically interpreted, it means liberty from oppression, as determined by laws devised by a majority of your fellow citizens. That's not quite how libertarians see it. 

As you know, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wants his state to outlaw brothels. He recently called on state lawmakers to have an "adult conversation" about the impact of legal prostitution on Nevadans and the state's reputation.

Here's the Pileus post in full:

Local Option

February 23, 2011 by Grover Cleveland

Harry Reid of Nevada wants to outlaw brothels state-wide.  Not surprising given that he is a scold and centralizer - among the worst combinations in an American politician (though scolds on their own have a place to play in a free society in which social change should come from the use of reason, speech, and disapprobation).   Critics of Reid’s speech point to the state’s respect for local option in the case of prostitution.  For example:

“When I initially heard he was going to mention it I was very surprised, just because it hasn’t been an issue for many [legislative] sessions and there haven’t been any problems,” said Senate Minority Leader Mike McGinness, a Republican with brothels in his district. “It’s always been a local option, and I think that’s where we ought to leave it.”

But is local option really the first-best policy option for those who believe that adults should be allowed to engage in any consensual activity even if others believe it to be immoral?  There is a large danger of “grassroots tyranny” in giving localities too much power to regulate various occupations and activities.  However, local option is clearly preferable to centralization in many cases as it allows people to vote with their feet and to live in approximations of Nozick’s “utopia of utopias.”  It is also a bulwark to one size fit all ”solutions.”  I think libertarians are rightly torn on this issue. 

If they're torn, it's because these particular self-described libertarians are struggling with an indefensible concept. Indeed, libertarianism itself - a fancy term for naked self-interest - is indefensible in a caring society. It's also unworkable in any group of people numbering more than two. A marriage, for instance.

"Local option" and "states rights" have an unsavory record, most notably as the device by which Southern states implemented segretation - in a de facto manner, disregarding every civil rights advance from the Emancipation Proclamation to Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

By deferring to the states, a principle and practice in recent decades associated almost exclusively with the GOP, states were granted the right to starve their school boards, put creationism on the curriculum, interpret federal gun-control laws with extreme laxity, ban selected books from libraries and schools, and in Nevada's case legalize an activity that is widely illegal elsewhere in the U.S.

The dilemma for libertarians is that, while devolving power downward to states and localities is their best hope of seeing their anything-goes orthodoxy realized, sometimes those darned independent-minded local folks will surprise you and take away your rights just like Uncle Sam does. Your right to drink and drive, for instance, or ignore seat-belt laws, or welsh on your debts (a convincing reason, at last, for moving to Texas, if you're that kind of person).

Suddenly, when states and localities get uppity, their status among liberatrians as cradles of unfettered freedom becomes "grassroots tyranny." By that definition, an election for dogcatcher is grassroots tyranny, a group of people expressing a collective opinion that may leave a minority sore-headed with the outcome.

Libertarianism has always struck me as so transparently selfish that I wonder how it has currency in any advanced society. And in this example we see that it's also deeply hypocritical.

On strict libertarian principle, a man should have the freedom to pee on the street in front of your house every day. He's doing so not on your private property, but in the "commons." But a fair number of libertarians would be enraged, I expect, if a "grassroots tyranny" of locals successfully fought at city council to enshrine the right to relieve oneself in public places including a spot 20 paces from your front-room picture window. 

At that point, even in the libertarian view, the heavy hand of the state would be justified in rendering illegal this behavior.

So, in the libertarian view there are times when government - the common will of the people, as expressed by a majority of their elected representatives - is evil. (Taxing me, restricting my firearm use, requiring me to make child-support payments and the like.) But there also are times when government is a necessary brake on the behaviors of others that give me offence.

Obviously this doesn't jibe at all. One seeks either "government stripped to the buff," as Mencken called it; or a "caring society" government whose principle is "one for all, all for one." Which, with notable exceptions, is what the U.S. and other advanced nations have opted for, in varying degree.

If it's to mean anything, "libertarianism" must be the defense of individual liberty, the right to be left alone, at all times regardless of the behavior at issue. Full stop. Once people believing themselves to libertarians call on the state - or a vigilante group, there is no other alternative - to suppress the will of what it fancies to be a "grassroots tyranny," the notion of libertarian is revealed as a crock.

What libertarians are saying, always have, is "Leave me alone unless and until I need help stopping someone from interfering with my liberties."

We already have a system for doing precisely that. It's called democracy. Democracy exists - with the mandate of a majority of the people - to balance one person's freedom against another's. The result is that many of us will endure restrictions on our behavior, for the good of us all, while also being guaranteed certain freedoms under law. With the object, always, of not causing others discomfort or worse.

You cannot selectively call on the state to infringe on the freedom of others - whom on such occasions you demonize as a "grassroots tyranny" - and call yourself a libertarian.

Well, you can, of course. But you're deluded. And when we see you coming we know we have more important things to do than entertain your illogical, hypocritical worldview.

   

Comments

[Rob Graham]

My own take is that they are anarchists who have pulled off one of the most brilliant product rebrandings in history.

Anarchy has a deservedly bad name and people don't want to be anarchists any more. So they came up with the term, "libertarianism." This had two advantages.

The first is it cut them off from history. They can't be linked to the anarchists of the past.

The second is that they set the field for debate in their favor. By using 'liberty' as a root word for their new name it now becomes difficult to argue against them. To argue against them is to argue against liberty itself.

Clever of them. Unethical but clever.