I am always mystified by people who never seem to change. Perhaps they decide at 10 that they want to be lawyer and get married and have 3 kids and live in the suburbs and they actually go on to do all those things. Are these people so prescient that they really understand who they are and what they want so early in life? I’m also slightly frightened by these people. They seem to me to be more likely than most to just suddenly “crack” at some point and chop up their whole family with a set of Ginzu knives. The nature of human beings involves change and growth. I don’t think you can get around that regardless of how you may try. Even our highest search for knowledge is subject to it.
I am certainly not the exception to that rule and nothing I write here will ultimately solve all the “problems” I will discuss. I can only hope they will contribute, in some small way, to the discussion. I harbor no illusions that my thoughts will significantly change the course of public debate and they are not necessarily intended to do so. They are intended to provide a framework for discussing issues of interest to those who, for better or worse, are usually referred to as libertarians.
I suspect I have always been a libertarian. My early exposure to this political philosophy was in no way akin to a conversion experience. It was more like the discovery that there actually were others who thought the same way that I did and were smart enough to have thought it through and written it down. In those early days I was quite the missionary for my new philosophy. I would share it with anyone, gleefully outraging them with some of the more extreme ideas that seemed to follow from it. There was a youthful naivite to it all, the belief that all I had to do was show people how perfectly logical and rational my ideas were and they would embrace them as I had. Like most youthful delusions, this one was wrong.
I have taken a long and confusing path since those early days. So have my ideas. Surprisingly enough, most of those ideas have ultimately come full circle. My political philosophy today is probably closer to what it was when I was 16 than it has ever been. I am also more optimistic about the receptiveness of others to these ideas than I have been in many years. I hear more and more voices saying many of the same things I am saying and I am genuinely hopeful about the future. I truly believe that the prosperity and even the survival of this nation and the world depends on a greater recognition of the rights of the individual against the powers of the State.
However, I no longer believe that people will happily concur with my conclusions if I simply show them how logical and brilliant they are. There is a disconnect in the “real world” between political philosophy and political activism. What makes one a great philospher does not make one a great leader of men. For too long, libertarianism has attracted great philosphers but not great leaders of men. I believe this is, however slowly, changing. Some might argue that the last thing we, as libertarians, need to do is get involved in the messy world of politics. With all due respect, I have to disagree. We cannot not be involved. If we chose to opt out, we are simply guaranteeing that those forces most opposed to our ideas will dominate. Furthermore, there is simply no place left to hide. We cannot live in caves in the wilderness or on platforms in the sea. We are a part of this often bloody and unfree world and we will only make it moreso if we refuse to be a part of the political process.
That being said, this book is not (mostly) about political activism. It is mostly about political ideas and their consequences. There are as many (if not more) points of disagreement within the libertarian movement than there are with those outside of it. We can’t simply brush these differences under the rug. We must study them, learn from them and ultimately move beyond them if we are to hope to achieve any significant political objectives. They are not trivial. Many are matters of life and death. I am not at all certain that some of them can be solved by a simple exercise of good libertarian reasoning. But can we (or should we) try to move beyond “pure libertarianism” and, if we do, how do we do it?
My personal pursuit of libertarian goals has led me along some very strange paths. I spent several years closely identified with the Democrat party and supported many of its objectives. How is it possible for someone of my leanings to have done so? I’ll discuss that in some detail. On the other hand, many of my fellow-travellers have spent years invested in the Republican party which history shows has rarely been identified with libertarian causes, though it has often used libertarian rhetoric to its own political advantage. Few libertarians in recent years have identified themselves with the Libertarian Party. Is the party irrelevant or can it be a useful tool for political change? Libertarians it seems are very often the homeless of American politics and we are often willing to crash on someone else’s couch if it feels reasonably comfortable rather than doing the hard work that might be required to build a place for ourselves.
Political philosphy can not tell us exactly how to build our political home but it can provide either a shaky or sturdy foundation. Too often our foundations have been very shaky indeed. In this work, I will discuss why and and provide some possible solutions. It will be up to others to take this work and move beyond it.
