I often introduce myself as a recovering libertarian. It is not an
entirely serious introduction, but it is not entirely frivolous either.
Why “recovering”? Sad experience teaches that any ideology, even a
sound one, like libertarianism, is intoxicating. The appeal of ideology is the
appeal of elegance. Just as Newton reduced all motions from the orbits to
apples falling to three expressions, every intellectual craves a simple formula
to explain the human condition. Libertarianism is based on a single principle
that limits the state’s use of force to retaliation against fraud and trespass.
Nearly all the natural moral rules all men carry in their hearts
are satisfied by the simple rule that you may do as you like provided you leave
your neighbor free to do as he likes. No neighbor may rob, defraud nor attack
another.
The intoxication comes with each case that fits neatly to the
theory. Natural morality agrees that wars to defend the innocent are
permissible, as is killing in self defense. Natural morality agrees that a man
should keep his contracts, and so on.
The theory says the state must remain carefully neutral in all
cultural and moral questions: the use of intoxicating drugs for recreational
use, suicide assisted or no, polygamy, prostitution, gambling, pornography,
duels to the death (provided only all participants fully agree!) or, for that
matter, copulating with a corpse on the roof of your house in plain view of the
neighbors’ children playing in their backyards, and then eating the corpse, all
must be legal.
For me, the intoxicating spell ended in three sharp realizations,
each one as forceful as a thunderbolt.
Raising children
The first was when I had sons, and I realized that I could not
maintain libertarian neutrality on how to raise my children. I had to teach
them right from wrong, virtue from vice, and teach them prudence, justice,
courage, and fortitude. Most of all I had to teach that morality is an
objective truth. But teaching virtue is not like teaching geometry. Such things
can only be taught by example. It has to be part of the mental environment. The
culture always teaches the fundamental values of the culture, parents or no,
because virtue is a habit.
Every moral lesson I wished to inculcate into my children was
contradicted by a thousand examples in modern media. They tried their damnedest
to teach my children error, to make their filth seem normal and cool. They were
trying to addict them to vice, greed and lust most of all, but also to moral
apathy disguised as tolerance, and envy disguised as equality. In states where
marijuana has been made legal, it’s being offered in candy and soda pop, in
order to lure the young and make customers for life.
I realized that the culture surrounding me was my enemy. Imagine
being an antebellum Southern abolitionist trying to raise children to believe
that all men were created equal, but with the entire slave-holding society, by
a thousand silent examples, teaching the opposite. Even with the best will in
the world, it is not possible for a mortal man to shield his children from
everything in the culture. Should I live in a cave?
Libertarianism says my neighbors do me no wrong by exposing my
children to child pornography, provided only force or fraud is not used. There
is no public and objective standard of decency, honesty, prudence, and justice
present in the libertarian theory: but a libertarian commonwealth could not
stand were its children not trained from infancy to be decent, honest, prudent
and just. It is, in short, a self-eliminating theory. It is a theory for
bachelors.
Turning to Catholicism
The second thunderbolt fell when I became Catholic. Libertarianism
says the state must remain neutral in all questions of morals. It must be
amoral. But in practice, an amoral society will not remain neutral. A
libertarian Catholic should be willing to leave homosexuals alone to form
private civil unions in their own way, as long as we are left alone to practice
our faith in our own way – but everyone from wedding photographers to wedding
cake bakers who do not wish to participate in desecrating our sacraments will
be harassed or forced into compliance.
In other words, the state cannot remain neutral between the Church
and the Left because the Left will not allow it. As a practical matter,
libertarianism is unilateral disarmament in the culture war.
Going to war
The final thunderbolt fell when the Twin Towers fell.
Libertarianism simply cannot be used to decide what is prudent and just to do
in war.
Example: A village of farmers are about to be attacked by 40
bandits. The villagers, at the command of the old man leading the village, have
hired seven samurai. The terrain says the only defensible spot is the canal.
There are three houses on the far side of the canal. Military prudence says
those three houses be burned, lest they give concealment and cover to the
enemy.
The three houseowners, hearing this, break ranks, throw down their
spears, and declare that they will go defend their houses themselves,
separately, without helping or being helped by the village. Kambei, leader of
the samurai, draws his sword against those three and chases them back into
ranks.
Libertarians must call Kambei’s action indefensible. But by any
stretch of common sense, his action is laudable, and is not only excused, it is
demanded by his mission to save the villagers. Hence, libertarian logic in this
wartime case leads to a false conclusion, nay, an utterly false
conclusion: not merely untrue, but the exact opposite of truth.
As a father, as a Catholic,
as a patriot, I realized that the self-interest crowing libertarian theory by
its very nature applies only on sunny days, among adults, in peacetime. It is a
peacetime philosophy only, and only among men who adhere to certain basic
ideals springing from the Western cultural tradition, that is, men who adhere
to Christian cultural norms even if not themselves Christian men.
