"You're Not A Libertarian If ..."

Published 01 July 2002

(word count: 750)

WorldNetDaily Editor, CEO and columnist Joseph Farah recently offered his thesis on “Why I'm not a Libertarian.”  But once the final exam is graded, we’re left with two reasons why people are not libertarians.  First, they simply can’t tolerate the idea that they, or a proxy like Big Government, don’t have the right to coerce others into acting the way they want those others to act.  The second reason is that they simply don’t understand libertarianism.  Joseph Farah checks both boxes.

Like answers to a pop quiz, Farah posits that libertarianism is just a political movement:

a. “that [libertarian] political movement will never resonate with the American people”

b. “Libertarians who expect to build such a society through politics alone make a fundamental error”

c. “there's more to life than politics”

d. “When the libertarians add such a provision [George Washington’s “pure and immutable principles of private morality”] to their national platform, let me know”

Which is why most of his arguments are political.

BORDERS

Farah gives an F to libertarians who favor open borders.  It would mean that “anyone and everyone can become an American simply by relocating.”  Like Farah’s Arab forebears?  Furthermore, “Borders are also critical to maintaining the distinct culture of a nation.”  Without borders “we lose everything our founding fathers established.”  But we already have.  Today’s culture would be unfathomable to our founding fathers, as our great great grandchildren’s would likely be to us.  Our “distinct culture” is distinct because it’s dynamic, for the very reasons that Farah bemoans, that “anyone and everyone can become an American simply by relocating.”  Which is why we have soccer and pizza and salsa music and French fashions and German beer.  American culture is, and always has been, immigrant culture.

DRUGS

Farah agrees with libertarians that our national drug laws are abusive and unconstitutional, but his solution is to have local governments administer them.  Which would do what, magically make them pleasant and constitutional?  Then he falls for the classic trick question, that legalizing drugs is the same as condoning drugs.  Homework assignment - study these simple exercises:  Adultery is legal but I don’t condone it.  Gambling yourself into poverty in Vegas is legal but I don’t condone it.  Getting falling-on-your-face drunk is legal, but I don’t condone it.  Making something legal will not stampede people into doing it any more than outlawing it will stampede people away from doing it.

DEFENSE

Farah erroneously flunks libertarians because a strong defense “is a reality many libertarians don't accept.”  But then he orates exactly like a libertarian with “We spend mega-billions not on defense, but on offense.  We deploy tens of thousands of troops in more than 100 countries around the world as if America was the world’s policeman.  That is wrong.”  That is right.  Libertarians believe that is wrong.  Debate class over.

MORALITY

Farah falls into a muddle puddle when he switches to morality.  “Libertarians, more often than not, fail to understand the moral dimension so critical to self-government.”  He goes for extra credits with “Libertarians make a fundamental mistake about the nature of man.  Man is not inherently good.”  False.  That’s exactly why libertarians demand a severely limited government.  Farah further expounds, “We cannot ignore that a libertarian society devoid of God and a biblical worldview would quickly deteriorate into chaos and violence.”  As opposed to what?  A non-libertarian society of God and a biblical worldview that produced centuries of Inquisition and witch burnings, a Northern Ireland of Christians killing Christians, decades of American pedophile priests?  Guess that’s why the Libertarian Party’s web site says “individual liberty and personal responsibility” instead of “God and a biblical worldview.”  But Farah already knows this, as though he cribbed it from libertarians: “Freedom can only be experienced and maximized, though, when it is accompanied by personal responsibility.”

Farah’s parting lecture is, “Libertarians don’t have all the answers.  Not by a long shot.”  But that is precisely libertarianism’s strength, not its weakness.  Libertarians know that nobody has all the answers.  Knowledge is dispersed throughout society.  Individuals have the answers.  And none of those answers is “one size fit all”.  The more freedom we have, the more answers we’ll find.

Libertarianism is not merely a political party.  It’s a philosophical movement.  There’s room for Farah’s “God and a biblical worldview” alongside a nonbeliever’s “individual liberty and personal responsibility” and everyone else who understands that the principle of non-coercion applies to governments as well as to individuals.

Sorry, Joe.  You flunk Libertarianism 101.

- by Garry Reed