It's Inaccurate to Call Libertarians "Socially Liberal"

Mar 21 2007

While I generally identify as "conservative"...

I sometimes like to call myself "Libertarian" to signify to others my departure from the strongly "Southern Conservative" wing of the Republican Party (even though I personally like Southern Conservatives). While I note that I'm strongly economically conservative and emphasize small government, I very much hesitate to call myself a "social liberal". When I think of people who are socially liberal, I think of people who aggressively pursue left-leaning social policy and want to use government as a tool to bring such left-leaning social policy to fruition.

In contrast, I don't see libertarians as pursuing a leftist or conservative view of social policy but rather seeking a "social free market policy". In other words, we really don't want the government screwing with social policy, which includes the implimentation of aggressively socially liberal and socially conservative policies; or at the very least, government should work towards socially free markets, where policy is dictated by what works best for the majority (and what they desire). We opine that neither Jerry Falwell's opinions nor BAMN's/CodePink's opinions belong anywhere near government. For the most part, we feel society is pretty much fine and not in need of dramatic social overhauls. I personally have a strong distaste for people who try to radically legislate cultural change against the will of the people.

So some "social free market" examples:

1. Gun control (side with conservatives).

It's a socially liberal policy to advocate high levels of gun control, or on the far left, complete abolition of firearms. Whether such policy works is highly debatable.

However the libertarian position is far different. We don't believe it's the government's right to tell you what objects you can and cannot own; you're not guilty until you do anything with a dangerous object. That being said, we believe in very strict punishment for people who abuse those freedoms, and none of that rehabilitation instead of punishment nonsense.

2. Gays (side with moderates)

It's preposterous of the far-right to think that gays just don't exist. If you do a sociological calculation, there's no way in hell (no pun intended) 10% of the population would choose a path that mainstream society views as socially aberrant. I'm totally cool with gay people; I'm not cool with flamboyancy from either gay or straight people.

Religion and religious ethos is totally fine as long as it's not used to guide governmental policy. It's not appropriate to say that gays can't have civil unions because Jerry Falwell thinks that gay is a choice (and a bad one at that). If someone is placed in a situation beyond their control, like being gay, it is appropriate to make civil union legislation to ensure non-discrimination and equality under the law.

That being said, marriage is a religious institution that just happens to be issued by the government to propagate family and stability. If the majority of US citizens don't find gay marriage acceptable, and gays have equal marriage rights in the US with civil unions, then libertarians should not be proponents of legislating against the majority. If gay activists need a piece of paper telling them how much they love each other and want to break with the traditional framework on which our society was built, I don't take much stock in their cause. (In the near future, I do want to blog on my discomfiture with radical gay politics, and how they hurt any gay causes).

3. Affirmative Action (side with conservatives)

BAMN (a violent far-left fringe group entitled "By Any Means Necessary") needs to look up the definition of "racism". Racism, as defined, means making decisions or judgments based on race. If BAMN chooses to use the technical definition, then they are one of the most racist groups in the world, second only to Hitler and the KKK. They just do it backwards by taking radical legislative and physical action to enact discriminatory policies to benefit groups that they stereotype everyone in them to be disadvantaged (while no white people are ever disadvantaged). Libertarians and Republicans are not "racist" at all because they want a society with racially blind and non-discriminatory government and private sector decisions. It's not the place of a government institution to correct what they see as social ills if it discriminates against anybody. The governments shouldn't have opinions; they are required to regard every citizen as unequivocally equal (apart from financial issues, of course).

Anyway, my point is that previous discrimination cannot be righted with reverse discrimination. Libertarians also believe that disadvantaged groups suffer with handouts because it does not incentivize them to overcome shortcomings by outdoing peers. In other words, if you reward mediocrity, the disadvantaged group will have no incentive to overcome mediocrity and will remain mediocre. When I was six and learning how to swim, I swam beautifully in the shallow end but refused to ever enter the deep end. The swimming teacher's method to correct this was to have herself and my parents collectively restrain me and throw me into the deep end. I believe we have to throw disadvantaged groups in the deep end and force them to swim, cause they can, and it will change their lives.

I'm living proof that Affirmative Action is flawed. I'm 50% lumped in some kind of Latin American group just because my mom was born way down there (even though we have Arabesque, Basque, Galacian, Italian, Spanish, Indian, Sephardic etc roots), which entitles me to check the "Hispanic" category on anything if I want, and benefit from any affirmative action policies. At the same time, I look reasonably white (most guess Greek or Italian...okay), I talk totally white, I was raised societally very white, I was raised upper middle class, I went to a private rich high school that costs 2.5 times my Berkeley tuition, I never had a roadblock or a disadvantage, and besides my corruption and wildness (and my Aunt Pay's heavy accent), I have no vestiges of any kind of "Hispanic/Latin" cultural or racial structures; and yet, wow, I can benefit. When I told my college counselor this, he basically said, "Sweet. Whore it up for all it's worth." Is that right?

When it comes right down to it, there are not many issues that libertarians can really say they're actually liberal on. If libertarians say they side more with liberals on the issues or vote more with liberals, then they're not libertarians. They're, uh, liberals!

Western Conservatism all the way baby!

Republicans in Congress and The White House are making some horrible anti-conservative policy decisions, but that doesn't mean that it's smart to vote for the other party if they're doubly worse. Unfortunately, the Democrats have marked their return to Congress with useless and wasteful bickering over foreign policy decisions over which they have no juristiction. If they continue wasting time and being even more divisive than the Republicans just for the sake of being posturatively divisive, they're going to sink themselves again.

USA love.