I was looking at internet videos the other day when I came across one of a well-known political pundit talking about libertarians. His first words described libertarians as a faction of the Republican Party.
And he couldn’t be more wrong. I’d venture to guess that most every American in their heart is a libertarian, whether you identify with the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Party, or the Socialists. We’re just libertarians in different ways, as we see fit to be.
What’s a libertarian? Well, all political science is about who has control over whom, and this can be broken down into one of two camps. There’s the camp of people who want to make their own decisions, and there’s the camp of people who want others to make decisions for them. To illustrate this in your mind, imagine a straight line running from left to right. On the far left, 100 percent of a person’s actions is controlled by the government, and there is no right of individualism. We used to call those places “absolute monarchies,” but being that it’s the 21st Century we can just label that point North Korea. On the right, 100 percent of our actions are controlled by ourselves as individuals. We call those places “anarchist states,” but in this day and age it’s pretty much Somalia holding that end down.
If you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of space on our imaginary line between North Korea and Somalia. Everything in between those two points represents how much control we want another person having over our own lives. It’s easy to peg where the Tea Partiers would be with many of their pet issues. Gun rights, control over their own money, health care, environmentalism: All of these would be points on the far right side of our imaginary line of control, reflecting their desire to control their own personal affairs. But consider the Tea Party when it comes to the military and infrastructure such as roads and water works. Those points would probably be just as far off to the left of the line, reflecting their belief that government should handle those things. Their opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage would also be very decidedly un-libertarian.
It’s the same things for those who classify themselves as liberal Democrats. On their line of who should hold the power, they’d predictably put health care and other social initiatives to the left. But consider their many other signature issues, and it becomes apparent that they’re not as leftist as they may want to make themselves out to be. Liberal Democrats have a very libertarian stance towards marijuana, an example of their desire to let the individual – and not the state – decide whether he or she should use the substance. Their support of abortion is extremely libertarian, as is their support of paroling non-violent offenders. Should we even mention where their support of same-sex marriage would be? Yep, off to the far right, almost in Somalialand.
The truth is, regardless of what we claim to profess on our voter registration cards and on social media boards and to our families and friends, we Americans all have a very, very strong libertarian bent to our psyches, and through that to our personal politics. We are confident in making our own decisions and don’t like others telling us what to do. So why do we identify with being Republican or Democrat or Tea Party or Socialist? I don’t know, but it probably has something to do with our human desire to belong to a group.
Funny enough, however, despite our individual confidence at running our own lives, we sure don’t have any problem thinking we have the right to tell others what they can do. Maybe a lot of the political divisions we’re experiencing these days could be torn down if we just let ourselves trust that maybe, just maybe, other people are capable of making their own decisions.
Written by Matt Haarington, MPH
SJS Writer
Sources:
Our authors want to hear from you! Click to leave a comment
Related Posts
Can’t agree with you, Matt — too reductive. While I’m akin to libertarians in their mistrust of government, of authority, I rather regard them as individualists, often narcissistic, who ignore and invalidate communitarianism and communitarian impulses. Further, libertarianism has become almost a code word for white supremacy — as witness the Tea Partiers. I personally would regard myself as a communitarian — opposie pole — and an anarchist — closest I get to libertarianism . Orthodox socialists would probably reject both. So please, don’t lump us all together. Thanks.
Jack, that is almost word for word what I said to Matt as well. I just cannot take an ideology seriously if it completely ignores the cultural forces that help to shape the individual and the macro forces that pressure the individual once shaped. It just leaves us with a series of weak. anecdotal arguments.
And that’s exactly my point! We see things as we wish to see them. I could have just as easily titled this “We’re All Socialists.”
You lost me at “white supremacy.”
The area called Somalia is actually ruled by gangs of thugs, and so no an individual isn’t free to make basic decisions about their life. It belongs pretty close to North Korea on your scale.
For example, do you believe that a man would be allowed to live a gay life style in Somalia? or do you think they would kill him?
Somalia is an anarchist state, pure libertarian and lacking a government. Therefore, an individual would be free to make his or her own decision to be engaged in a gay marriage, free from the government saying no, simply because a government doesn’t exist. Whether or not that decision would be respected by the individual’s peers is besides the point.
Somalia is not libertarian at all in that Libertarians have a live and let live attitude. Hardly the case in Somalia, a very conservative group of people that kill gays on sight.
Too bad this rag can’t get some one who understands libertarianism to write for them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/gay-teen-stoned-somalia-sodomy_n_2916655.html
Stephen – please note that in my article, “libertarian” is spelled with a lowercase L. It therefore refers to a political philosophy, and not to the platform of the Libertarian Party.
You’re well off-track here. Somalia? You kidding me? That nation isn’t even legitimate; terming it third-world gives it too much credit. There’s no ideology present there you can point to and frame as legitimate.
Your line left-to-right I’d change to reflect the two extremes in today’s ideology: far-Left would be those who are of Marx; that gave rise to Stalin’s Communists, Mao’s Maoists, and rapidly approaching that Left-stop, today’s Democrats.
The Democratic Party is seeking to control every little thing about every American’s lives that they can control by whatever means necessary. They’ve succeeded in infiltrating our schools (even before Common Core, with the NEA) the same way they succeeded in infiltrating our colleges and universities; molding the minds of our citizens as far Left as they can get away with.
The Loyal Opposition to these new American Democrats-Leftists can’t be described as the GOP, who’ve seemingly joined with the Democrats as the ‘Ruling Class’. Occasionally we have a spark of true opposition to the leftwards drag make it in the GOP (Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin come to mind) but for the most part the elite GOP tags right along with the Democrats (McCain, Jeb Bush and Christie, as examples).
The TEA Party represents the only true impediment to the leftward shift this Republic is suffering. Accordingly, they are hammered by both the Leftist Democrats and the Elite GOP. But they are the only hope this Republic has, and that’s fading very quickly, as this Republic’s chances of sustainability is fading quickly. Mind your fiat currencies, gentlemen.
For an accurate summation of what the TEA ‘Party’ really is, I’ll refer you to Jeff Goldstein. http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=29785
Okay, yes, you had me at Somalia. I was trying to figure out whether to use Somalia as my example because by it’s anarchist, which by definition means it isn’t a state. But I couldn’t otherwise come up with a country that was truly libertarian, so it was kind of like deciding whether to start my number line at 0, or 1?
Why do some people seem to think that extreme liberalism = authoritarianism and extreme conservatism = anarchism? How does one arrive at such a wacky conclusion? By making an over-simplified comparison between North Korea and Somalia?
If you ask me, I think it is based on grossly hyperbolic right-wing media claims that “The Democratic Party is seeking to control every little thing about every American’s lives that they can control by whatever means necessary.” People can be so easily manipulated…
In modern political philosophy, extreme liberalism is communism. Extreme conservatism is fascism. Both are authoritarian.
Matt, I think I see what you are getting at. And I agree that we have strong desires to label ourselves, to be a part of groups and create that sense of community and kinship with our fellow believers. And you’re right, most of us have some libertarian tendencies. Just as most of us have some socialist ones. Democratic ones. Anarchist ones. But like it or not, pragmatically we don’t like to define ourselves as hybrid political thinkers but rather we label ourselves in accordance with our primary structural modes of thinking. Because labels need to be simple in the society we have created. We can’t think about complex things.