The other day, I quoted from Bruce Bartlett’s editorial about libertarians. It’s worth quoting more:
Libertarians’ views on social policy and national defense make them sympathetic to the Democrats, while their views on economic policy tend to align them with the Republicans. If one views social, defense and economic policy as having roughly equal weight, it would seem, therefore, that most libertarians should be Democrats. In fact, almost none are. Those that don’t belong to the dysfunctional Libertarian Party are, by and large, Republicans.
The reason for this is that most self-described libertarians are primarily motivated by economics. In particular, they don’t like paying taxes. They also tend to have an obsession with gold and a distrust of paper money. As a philosophy, their libertarianism doesn’t extent much beyond not wanting to pay taxes, being paid in gold and being able to keep all the guns they want. Many are survivalists at heart and would be perfectly content to live in complete isolation on a mountain somewhere, neither taking anything from society nor giving anything.
An example of this type of libertarian thinking can be found on the Web site of a group called the Campaign for Liberty. It pays lip service to the libertarian philosophy on foreign and social policy, but says little about them. The discussion of economic policy, however, is much greater. But its only major proposal is abolition of the income tax. No ideas on how government spending would be cut to make this possible are put forward except to eliminate the congressional pay raise. Perhaps this group really believes that will be enough to abolish the income tax, but I suspect not.
Naturally, this reminds me of one of my cartoons:
Bartlett points out that the libertarians you meet in Washington, D.C., aren’t goldbugs or survivalists, but they still seem focused on economics above all else. Ezra argues that it comes down to who pays the bills:
But if the country’s libertarianism is a reaction to taxes, D.C.’s libertarianism is a response to subsidies. And it turns out there are rather a lot of folks interested in subsidizing libertarian arguments against regulation and progressive taxation and not a lot of folks interested in subsidizing libertarian arguments against abortion restrictions. And that’s because libertarianism in D.C. is more of a tool than a movement. It can’t command votes and so can’t wield broad power. But it can summon funds to apply direct pressure to discrete issues of interest to, well, funders.
Rad Geek and Roderick Long both argue that Bartlett unfairly ignores those libertarians who do, in fact, argue quite a lot about foreign policy and civil liberties — although Long concedes that the Libertarian Party has pretty much the focus Bartlett describes. I also think that Bartlett’s case about CATO is fair. Since CATO and the Libertarian Party are hardly small and irrelevant parts of American libertarianism, I don’t think it’s true that Bartlett’s argument is, as Rad Geek says, a “ridiculous strawman.” But it’s true that there are some kick-ass libertarians (like Rad Geek and Long) who aren’t all about how paying taxes is just! like! being! mugged!, and those folks deserve more notice and acknowledgment.
Thanks for the plug! But in fairness to the folks at CATO, it’s not as though people there haven’t had a lot to say about foreign policy and civil liberties.
And it’s not the whole story about the LP either: the Republican Bob Barr just barely won the nomination, after multiple ballots, against his main challenger, the decidedly left-libertarian Mary Ruwart.
Libertarians’ views on social policy and national defense make them sympathetic to the Democrats, while their views on economic policy tend to align them with the Republicans.
I don’t agree with the points in your cartoon about social policy and foreign policy. Clinton put U.S. soldiers in the war in the Balkans, without even claiming that Milosevich posed a near-future threat to the U.S. Why would he look better than GW Bush? Also, federal laws regulating the private sector — which is what the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, etc. are — are not social policy with which libertarians agree.
You keep insisting that civil rights laws enlarge liberty, but they enlarge positive liberties at the expense of negative ones. As a WoC, I now have the positive liberty of being able to get hired and not getting sexually harassed, and I can enforce this liberty through the state. But as a business owner, my liberty is restricted: I am forced to hire people of a sex or race or religion that I don’t want to be around. I have to run diversity trainings and be ready to fire anyone who is sexually or racially or religious harassing of others, even if she is otherwise the best employee I’ve ever had and worth 10 of the others. You simply cannot gain positive rights without someone else sacrificing some of their negative rights and being forced to do something. I think the trade-off in the case of civil rights, public education, welfare etc. is the right trade-off, but I am not going to pretend that it is without a cost to anyone else.
However, Ezra Klein is correct that some of the D.C. think tanks base their advocacy on who is paying the bills, though I don’t think he gets that some of these groups have quite a long-term strategy. For example, I find it incredibly unlikely that anyone who donates to the Institute For Justice actually cares about whether African braiders can have their braiding business without having to get a cosmetology license. But the principle behind that case, which is that government regulations should not apply unless what the government requires clearly would be necessary for that business to run well, is one that IfJ’s supporters believe in, and it’s also one that could be useful for them as well.
Or to look at a conservative rather than libertarian think tank, I doubt that many of the Becket Fund’s donors actually like the idea of Satanists in prisons being able to practice their faith freely. But the principle that restricts the government’s ability to regulate what you do if you can say, “I’m doing it for my religion” is a useful one. If they can get the precedent for the Satanists in prison, it will come in handy someday for the Catholic hospital.
I sense that many libertarians are deeply skeptical of political promises. They value tax cuts because they have some experience with seeing tax cuts implemented. They may find other political promises less persuasive, not because they don’t value what is being promised, but because they have less confidence that other promises will be implemented.
Looking for liberal libertarians? Visit your local ACLU.
I had the pleasure of hearing a speaker from the Becket Fund, an organization dedicated to “the free expression of all religious traditions.” The speaker praised a Quaker (?) martyr that insisted on proselytizing in colonial Massachusetts, even though she had repeatedly been expelled, because her religious tradition compelled her to do so.
Now, can you think of any people who have felt compelled to speak their truths even at great personal risk? There are secular guys from Socrates to Thoreau. There are all kinds of Old Testament guys. There are Protestants from Martin Luther to Martin Luther King. John the Baptist. And, oh yeah, there was that Jesus guy. So why would the Becket Fund hunt for some obscure colonial era person to praise?
Because mostly we praise people who follow their conscience to REBEL against the traditions of their era, who proclaim that we must rise above the calcified conventions of the day. In contrast, the Becket Fund doesn’t support freedom of conscience; they support freedom to conform to the calcified conventions. In the trial of Jesus, they would have been on the side of the Sanhedrian, condemning Jesus for violating the traditions against working on the Sabbath, or consorting with tax collectors and prostitutes.
Asking non-libertarians why libertarians tend to side with Republicans is like asking men why women tend to be pro-choice.
If you want to learn why libertarians behave the way they do, ask libertarians! You might find that their Republican leanings aren’t as strong as you think. You might find that we have various and sundry reasons for siding (or not siding) with Republicans. You might not be able to make so many self-serving caricatures of libertarians, though.
Personally, I don’t pay attention to whether a politician is described as a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, Independent, etc. when voting or making some other judgment on them. I find that I might sometimes be more sympathetic towards conservatives than towards liberals because it seems to me that the liberal mind cannot conceive of a solution to any sort of problem that involves less government power, while conservatives at least occasionally entertain the notion that the best course of action might be one that involves greater freedom, personal responsibility, and individualism.
Amp:
Thanks for the link, and for the kind words.
Well, I don’t dispute that CATO and the LP are significant parts of American libertarianism. But you don’t have to find some crazy-ass Red-card-carrying left-mutualist anarcha-Dworkinist like me to find self-identified libertarians who speak out vocally and repeatedly on the specific political issues that Bartlett claims libertarians aren’t speaking out about. You can find that standpoint among many people in the LP (including pretty much all LP presidential candidates prior to Bob Barr), or in any issue of Reason, which is not even remotely a radical publication, which you can find on the newsstand at any Barnes and Noble, and which is, as far as I know, the highest-circulation libertarian publication in the United States. These aren’t small or irrelevant parts of American libertarianism either, and if Bartlett can’t find the kind of libertarians that he’s looking for, then my suspicion is that he’s not looking very hard.
The claim that libertarians don’t speak out often enough about the War on Drugs, of all things, strikes me as particularly loopy and ill-founded.
[confession: I am a Canadian (read: socialist? O_o)]
It’s funny — what always struck me as sensible about Libertarianism was exactly the opposite: while I couldn’t really care less about the government’s tax policy, the little Libertarian in me wants the government (all governments) to leave my social life the hell alone. In fact, I’ll pay whatever taxes are necessary to ensure that I have the freedom to live my life the way I choose to, marry whoever I choose to, love whoever I choose to, and, frankly, use whatever intoxicating substances I choose to. So long as I’m not doing anyone harm, I don’t see how my personal life is the government’s — any government’s — business. So how come the Republicans are getting the Libertarian vote?
If it’s any consolation, most of my self-described libertarian friends supported Obama over McCain, and none, that I know, were fans of Bush, even back before that was cool. One voted for Barr, but only because he’s from the state of New York; he expressly told me he’d have voted for Obama if he was from a swing state. (My Ohioan libertarian friend likewise voted for Obama.) So this phenomenon isn’t universal.
I do see this phenomenon online, however, as well as among the libertarian intelligentsia and elite as embodied by organizations such as CATO.
Well, at least you agree that the Civil Rights movement is incompatible with negative rights, without trying to mangle semantics to force the issue. (Come to think of it, that means most of my latest post on the other libertarianism thread doesn’t apply to you – though other negative rights proponents are free to respond as they wish.)
But also, expanding “negative rights” comes as a cost too. The right to not be raped by your husband, for instance, came at a cost of freedom to the husband. I mean, business owners who’ve had a man who was worth 10 of the others will have to see him go to jail. (On a side note, is this a governmental “taking” of value? Does the state now owe money to the rapist’s employer?) Just another example of why many of us see this whole positive/negative thing as a semantic distinction without a difference.
Iraq.
JK Prufrock:
sylphhead:
Gay Marriage.
—Myca
JK Prufrock:
sylphhead:
Myca:
Torture.
The War on Drugs.
sylphhead:
Myca:
Ampersand:
Erik D.
Police powers.
sylphead, what was the liberal “solution” to the problem of Iraq? If you mean that there are situations where liberals simply don’t want to deal with a problem, or don’t consider it a problem in the first place, that’s one thing, but I don’t recall having heard of a liberal “solution” to Iraq that did not involve government. Indeed, it generally was government working at a much less direct level: the UN, NATO, etc.
And Myca, how is gay marriage not a government intervention? If you’re talking solely about gay marriage in a religious/social sense, that already happens: if your church voluntarily wants to marry you, or your neighbors voluntarily want to recognize you as married, the government doesn’t do anything about it. Marriage in the legal sense, however, is very much a government intervention. It’s a legal status that the government can regulate, require that you pay a fee to obtain, require that you go through certain procedures to dissolve, etc. On what basis is it claimed that SSM is a manifestation of government non-intervention? Because it sure looks like all of these lawsuits to obtain it are lawsuits against the government. This is different from the sodomy laws, where the government was busting into people’s bedrooms. You can’t call marriage part of a right of privacy; it is an inherently public status. Marriage is useful only inasmuch as you can tell people about it and be accorded certain rights and responsibilities.
I think that it is reasonable to consider the government actively privileging one class or gender of people over another when it comes to marriage as a greater manifestation of government power than not.
—Myca
In the same sense, incidentally, I’d say that segregation was a greater imposition of government power than not, even though the government still regulates who can ride a bus, eat in a restaurant, or attend school.
I think that libertarianism lumping something like “you can’t attend college here because you’re black” in with something like “you can’t attend college here because your grades are abysmal and you’re naked” as basically equivalent exercises of government power is a basic flaw in it as a political philosophy.
—Myca
While there are intelligent, well thought out libertarian philosophies (as proven by Rad Geek and others), most non-libertarians aren’t going to go looking for libertarians or libertarian thought at all. We’re simply not attracted to or interested in it. For most of us our exposure to libertarianism will be through friends, acquaintances and people running for office under the banner of the LP.
It’s much the same as how most of us aren’t going to go looking for democratic or republican philosophies at all. However, we are exposed to D & R positions & philosophies via the mass media (as well as friends, acquaintances and folks running for office under those banners).
As a result, what most of us see from libertarianism is not the writing of those like Rad Geek. Instead we mostly see ill-formed, simplistic and often illogical ideology. That is what we respond to because that forms at least 98% of what we see.
I feel badly for libertarians like Rad Geek because they have to spend most of their time trying to overcome those half-baked, ill informed libertarian ideas that one is much more likely to run into.
I disagree with libertarianism from first principles on, but I can actually have substantive conversations about positions, reasoning, commonalities and differences with libertarians like Rad Geek. I cannot do that with any of my RL libertarian friends or acquaintances.
Myca,
The existence of marriage is the manifestation of government power. So long as marriage is a legal status at all, it’s a manifestation of government power. If we get rid of marriage, we’ll have decreased the manifestation of government power. I don’t see how having more people get married decreases the amount of government power involved. Certainly one can count up the number of regulations involved, such that a state that bars first cousins and people of the same-sex from marriage has more regulation than a state that doesn’t, but I don’t think that once something is established as a state institution, that this or that regulation changes the amount of government power exerted.
A similar point can be made about government-run schools: they are built and run by government power, and whether they are segregated is an additional regulation, not an increase in power. However, if schools are private and the government had had nothing to do with them, then pushed into those private schools and began mandating what they could do in terms of curriculum, admissions, etc., then that would be an increase in government power.
Jake,
Have you not heard of Reason? I have no interaction with Libertarian Party candidates, and I don’t see such candidates in the media, but Reason magazine (print and online) is something I probably see at least once a week due to links from Slate, NYT, WaPo, etc. I often disagree with them, but I do find them very, well, Reasonable. Ditto my friends and acquaintances who identify as Libertarian.
PG,
I had never heard of Reason until this thread. I’m not the most politically aware person around, but it appears I’m above the 90th percentile in the US. If I haven’t heard of Reason, I can pretty well guarantee that almost none of my extended family and only my friends who are more politically educated than me have heard of it. I can probably count on one hand the number of my friends who would know what Reason is, but I’ll ask this week and report back on whether or not I’ve just missed something that everybody else knows about.
Jake,
But a lot of people aren’t even clear on what libertarianism is, assuming that they’ve even heard of it. I recommend that before you survey your friends on Reason, you first ask, “What do you think libertarian philosophy stands for?”
I remember my first month at college, the campus libertarian group had put little tent-style cards on all the tables in the dining hall advertising their next event. One of my friends picked it up and said, “Why is there a College Librarians group having a debate about public universities?”
I wouldn’t want to depend on my Green friends and that one Nader rally in D.C. I attended in 2000 for all of my knowledge of the Green Party, but that seems to be what you rely upon to understand libertarianism. And if you don’t care about libertarianism because it’s a marginal political group and ideology, that’s fine; I haven’t kept up with the Reform Party’s convulsions in the last decade or so. But I wouldn’t speak as though I did understand the Reform Party, either.
No, that is an entirely inappropriate summation. You seem to think you are winning the argument with this analysis, so let me clarify:
Just because something is desirable does not mean it is (or should be a right.)
Just because something is not a right does not mean it is not (or should not be) desirable.
You can have certain behaviors enshrined in law, you can have them enshrined in a moral code, and/or you can have them subject to market forces. The desirability of such a behavior and whether or not such a behavior meets your own personal ethical standards is unrelated to where and how it is so enshrined.
One of my friends in years past was the chairman of the Libertarian Party of Oregon, who better to rely on wrt libertarianism in the US?
As of the end of the evening, the score is as follows.
Heard of Reason magazine:
Zero family members
1 friend
I’ve heard from nearly all family members. I’ve heard from very few friends, so we have a 33% success rate from friends so far. The one friend who answered in the affirmative couldn’t remember where he had heard of it until I reminded him what it was. This friend was a self-proclaimed libertarian for over two decades.
[EDITED: at first, I didn’t understand the nature of PG’s argument.]
At first glance, this read to me like simple moving the goalposts. JK Prufrock alleged that liberals cannot conceive of a solution to a problem that involves less government, which I took to mean less government than the counterpart conservative position.
I suppose it could be read as, independent of the counterpart conservative position, does the proposed liberal solution involve less government than was currently operating the moment before the proposed solution was being applied. In which case, no, the liberal position on Iraq did not do this, in the banal sense that the government dealing with a potential threat is doing more than the government not dealing with a potential threat. (Although, it *does* apply to the liberal position on what to do with Iraq right now – as in, phase out of the occupation versus staying there indefinitely.)
Given that our topic is why so many libertarians choose to vote Republican over Democrat (or even Libertarian), however, ignoring the counterpart conservative position seems to be a tad disingenuous. As is considering the liberal and conservative positions on Iraq circa 2003 to be a mulligan – since both involve some government – so the Republican “libertarian” can get back to more pressing question of who supports an extra 1.5% percent more income tax on the highest bracket. I mean, simply considering the scale of human lives involved. If Republican libertarians* don’t consider the US government *not* killing tens to hundreds of thousands needlessly with taxpayer-funded arsenals of weapons costing billions of dollars, with the requisite no-bid contracts to mercenary companies and secret prisons that the fighting of this war has necessitated, to be anything other than “more government” than containment, isolation, and diplomacy – if they even consider the two to be in the same ballpark – then allow me to continue coldly ignoring the cries of “government tyranny” when a bunch of upper middle class white CompSci majors are forced to pay for a new school lunch program costing them an extra buck in taxes. If I were a libertarian, I’d consider the pointless deaths of so many people by government hands to have me abandon the Republican Party for a generation. Then again, I’m a liberal, so obviously I’m not bringing an unbiased opinion here. *shrugs*
Of course, there’s no law that says the type of moderate conservative drawn to libertarianism has to be anti-government in the realm of foreign policy. But then, they’re not practicing libertarianism as it is advertised; the statement “liberals favor government intervention in the economy! Conservatives favor it in your social life! We’re the only ones who are consistent!”, already dubious in its definitions, will be shown to be false for them. They’ll have to use another elevator pitch.
*Not to be confused with all libertarians.
I said the “Civil Rights Movement”, not “treating Black people better”. Anyone can do the latter, no matter what the political philosophy. The former involved a lot of laws forcing many white property owners (let’s start with restaurant owners, to use an iconic example) to conduct business with people with whom they wouldn’t have wanted to if left to their own devices.
If you agree that something like the CRM should have happened (eventually), but disagree with the method, then that is not incompatible with anything.
If you think the way the CRM actually took place in America was fine, then that is an issue if you otherwise purport to believe in negative rights.
An update…
0 out of family members has heard of Reason
2 out of 8 friends have heard of it, but only 1 (Amp) knew what it was.
Do you mean “believe that negative rights are the preferred solution” or do you mean “believe that negative rights are the best language we have at the moment to describe our own rights structure?”
I am not trying to be difficult here, I am really having trouble following what you are saying. You obviously think you’re saying it clearly, so perhaps it’s me: but what exactly does the CRM disprove? How exactly do you see it as a wholesale rejection of negative rights, so that they are incompatible?
In my view, CRM was negative rights. Compare “you cannot discriminate” (prohibition) against “we will supply you with enough resources so that you are brought to the same level (positive.)
Jake,
And what does your friend who was the chairman of the state Libertarian Party think that libertarianism stands for? Does your friend’s philosophy fit with Amp’s cartoons about libertarianism?
No government interference, no or nearly no taxes, privatization of roads, a definition of freedom that doesn’t match mine. But his two big issues were decriminalizing drugs and eliminating taxes. This from a guy who claimed to have been living off of disability payments for the last 15 years. You can see why I might have a problem with the LP and US libertarians in general.
Except for the fact that he wasn’t callous when discussing real issues affecting* people he knew, yes, he matches Amp’s cartoons pretty well. Oh, and I don’t believe that he’d ever vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate.
* I am incapable of understanding the use of effect vs affect, I think.
As a self described libertarian (it’s not a perfect fit, just better than democrat or republican), here’s an explanation of why I sometimes prefer republicans to democrats. When examining current government policies, I encounter problems with left wing government programs more often than with right wing one. In the areas where I vehemently disagree with republicans and not democrats, it’s mostly in areas where they seem to be losing control such as censorship, while my disagreements with democrats occur in areas where they are gaining ground, such as ever expanding federal control of education. On a semi related note, I have had better luck personally convincing conservatives that it’s better to keep the government out of whatever their pet issue is than I have had with US liberals. On average, republicans are individualists who think that there are some specific areas where the governmenta/nation/society come first, and democrats are collectivists who would graciously allow individuals to control their own lives ins specific areas. If you prefer, default-allow versus default-deny.
On issues like SSM, I don’t think the government should be involved in defining marriage at all, including altering tax rates for couples, adoption rules, etc. But I would go further than SSM advocates and allow single individuals to adopt, and for anyone to name any other one person with default inheritance, visitation, etc. I would prefer to make traditional married couples explicitly decide what privileges their partner does or does not have than extend the same bundle of privileges to gay couples. It makes far more sense to put all marriage contracts under standard contract law than to continue supporting a default contract which is subject to change by government fiat.
This is all based on the people I have met and talked to and the blogs I read, and I’m certain there are individuals who have the opposite experience. I live in Montana, and both parties are more individualistic here than they are in some other states, so YMMV.
Great cartoon – but at the same time, it makes me think of how little choice there is in terms of voting across the political spectrum. The fact that no third party has emerged in the past century is pretty astounding.
Our electoral system is set up more or less specifically to make third parties unworkable. I’d love to see that system change, and in 2000, my hope was that Nader would bargain with Gore in order to get Gore to endorse some of those changes.
—Myca
It seems possible that if the Democratic Party hadn’t taken a lot from the Socialists in the teens and twenties that the Socialists could have become one of the Big 2. But I am totally willing to be corrected on that.
Unfortunately, Nader turned out to not be that guy.
It is ironic that one dig against libertarians that they are nerds. Most people won’t vote for Ralph Nader because they don’t want a president telling then they shouldn’t eat hotdogs and French Fries or should be required to drive a hybrid Volvo at 55 mph. Who’s a nerd, now?
The tax phobia argument against libertarians doesn’t hold up either because most of them aren’t rich, so don’t pay much tax.
I am no libertarian because many are principled to the point of being nuts. (Private armies, private fire departments, no public schools, no elections, no government.) However they point out many things liberals need to consider.
Are there limits on the proper government function other than protection from unjust force and fraud?
Don’t most taxes go to support massively powerful interest groups rather the downtrodden?
If not how do you explain massive bailouts of banks, investment brokers and automobile makers by a liberal government? Some like farmers don’t need bailouts because they are already covered by massive subsidies like the $ 25 billion ethanol subsidy Obama supports.
Libertarians, if they support a minimalist government at all think that government action inevitably encourages “rent seeking.” In other words, powerful private interests vie for privilege, protection, and subsidies backed by smooth talking lobbyists, public relations firms and campaign contributions. It is hard to see how an ever expanding public sector, no matter how smart and well intentioned can avoid these problems.
If libertarians say limited or even no government is a solution, why should they be dismissed with a few ill targeted insults? The left which tacitly supports an ever expansive but ineffective government will not seriously address their critique.
Hi, Dave!
Before you wander in and crap out a few stupid stereotypes, please bother to read the two threads in which we’ve been seriously discussing and addressing Libertarian beliefs for two weeks now.
Kay?
Thanks.
Love and kisses,
—Myca
Thanks Myca. I didn’t see the other posts. I will read them and give them my serious consideration.
Apologies for the delay; I’m in between wifi networks at the moment.
The first could simply be restated into a positive statement “we will ensure you will receive the same treatment as a White person”. Which is right? Let’s find a more formal definition of what’s a positive and what’s a negative right. This Wikipedia definition seems as good as any:
There is no question that the CRA obliged individuals to do certain actions. Under the CRA, if you operated a business that was deemed to accommodate the public (essentially everything except “private clubs”, which weren’t well-defined), then you had to serve Black customers. Even if you owned the business, and even though a critical tenet of private property rights is that you get to choose who, when, where, and how you trade with others. Barry Goldwater, who is often described today as a “libertarian Republican” (though this is somewhat simplistic), objected to this part of the CRA as violating individual liberty of business owners. Earlier in this thread, PG, who’s definitely a liberal but seems otherwise sympathetic to conservative anti-positive rights arguments,
I’ve quoted this before, but it’s relevant to your question, and it really does seem that you simply skipped over it the first time, if you really must ask how Civil Rights could conflict with negative rights.
I mean, “believe in the current bundle of negative rights as defined by center-right-libertarian types are the only rights there are, and believe any and all positive rights as defined by the same group to be legally and morally invalid”. While that’s kind of a long explanation, I had hoped context would make my earlier shorthand clear. Evidently not.
Also, are you arguing against “positive rights”, or were you just curious about my arguments about the CRM? If the former, how do you reconcile, for starters, universally available public education, the right to vote, and basically any (often pricey) accommodations society makes for disabled people? If the latter, ignore the preceding question.
Finally, it feels like a waste of time to even have to say this, but this is the Internet, where trolls from anywhere can pop in and try to make a retarded “Gotcha!” argument, so let me re-iterate that for argument’s sake, I’m using “positive” and “negative rights” as would be used by those who believe in the clear distinction between the terms. That doesn’t mean I believe in them any more than I did a couple posts ago.
There is no federal Constitutional right to public education or to vote for president (though there is an enumerated right to vote for the House and Senate). These are rights only of equal access: if the government is running public schools, it must allow all of a particular age range to attend without regard for race, sex, religion, etc. If there is to be a presidential election, and one’s state chooses electors based on the voting of people within the state, then all must have equal access to the ballot, but there’s no requirement to have people vote in the first place. I’d say that these therefore are closer to negative rights: there’s no requirement for the government to provide something, but if the government does provide it, then it cannot obstruct people from using it (whether “it” means schools or ballots).
Depends on what “arguing against” means ;) I think that generally they are a poor framework to describe current U.S. rights; i.e. we don’t really HAVE many positive rights, if any. But I am not arguing that they should not exist at all.
Not a right.
A constitutional right with limitations as set out by PG. What reconciliation w/r/t this are you looking for?
Not a right unless–as the USSC has generally held–it’s necessary to allow another right (e.g. providing sign language translators for criminal defendants.) But generally not a right.
Sailorman,
I’d consider the ADA to create a statutory positive right to accommodation for the disabled. A private sector business does not only have to stay out of my way if I want to enter; it has to put up a ramp so I can get in on a wheelchair. We certainly have established a few positive rights through statute (like the Civil Rights Act); they’re just fairly recent developments.
Incidentally, many state constitutions, including that of New York, guarantee a right to an education.
Yes, I certainly agree–however, unless I am recalling incorrectly, “right” as sylphhead is using it is defined as “constitutional” and not “statutory.” So i did not classify it as a positive right.
I was trying to figure out whether this is universal: Do you think that there is significant difference in enforcement between positive and negative rights? One interesting thing about the negative rights is that they seem to be fairly universally enforced. The positive rights mentioned here (ADA and civil rights) do not. The negative rights don’t have “so long as it’s not too inconvenient for you” or “so long as you are a certain minimum size business” appended to them; the positive rights do.
As an example: If you live in one unit of a duplex home and rent the other, you can discriminate very freely under U.S. law, including openly discriminating on the basis of sex, race, age, and marital status. (you can’t advertise it, but you can discriminate.) You can also be a solo business owner and discriminate openly in hiring. You can own a restaurant and get an exemption from the ADA requirements if they are too onerous for you to meet.
I have a hard time applying the word “rights” to things which can be so easily escaped. In my view, rights are a level above that sort of thing. Does that make sense at all?
Sailorman,
But surely that’s true of negative rights as well. For example, Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech… unless it’s speech that would disclose troop movements or other information that poses an imminent threat to national security. The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed… except I bet it would be even by the Second Amendment brigade if my particular “arm” is a nuclear weapon. There are always exceptions, even to negative rights.
yes, it’s a difficult line to walk. and of course a lot of it has to do with the commerce clause loophole.
But for me the “but no machine guns for anyone” 2nd amendment limitation still seems different, because it is equally applied to actions.
Let me try again: Joe Bigot can’t own an operational battle tank if he’s a private citizen, generally speaking, no matter who he is. It is a rule defined with some care, which is affected by both the object (battle tank) and the owner (is Joe the U.S. Army?) The criteria for making the decision are directly related to the results of the decision.
But the question of whether Joe Bigot can refuse to hire you because of your gender doesn’t depend on who he is, or who you are. It depends on how many other employees Joe has. If he has many employees, he can’t discriminate. If he has few employees, he can.
Joe can pay you the same amount; can like or dislike you just as much… whether or not he is permitted to discriminate, your rights and the enforceability of them are dependent on criteria which are not directly related to the question of whether or not the right is enforceable.
Hmm. i’m having a hard time explaining this.
Myca, I did go back to the older posts concerning libertarianism.
Well, I was surprised that I agreed with your defense of voting and democracy. You seem pretty moderate in most of your comments. The way you came across with your not very nice and unsanitary sounding way of describing my comments, made me think you would be all for street fighting and throwing fire bombs as the primary means of governance.
Yes. We need government and regulation. The question is how to balance the equation. Can there be too much government? After all where does government get funds, other than the profits of companies and the wages of workers? How many regulations must be complied with in a business before one iota of productive work gets done? How many employees, exist only to handle government required forms and reports? It keeps getting worse. The question needs to be asked, what are the secondary, unintended, negative consequences of government activity? This was not discussed in the thread.
Nor was the cronyism and between big government and big special interest groups mentioned. You think there is a choice between governments imposed “green” programs and greedy private interests that promote global warming and pollution. Now everyone is “green.” I pointed out how the farm lobby has insulated farmers from the recession with alcohol subsidies. This is artificially pushing up land prices, increasing cultivation of marginal land, consuming ground water, and driving up food prices, while doing little or nothing to slow global warming.
Then Boone Pickens wanted billions in subsidies to build wind power infrastructure, which he would supplement with gas powered turbines, when the wind wasn’t blowing. Guess how much gas he owns? Without subsidies these projects would be built only if they were sound investments with a prospect for a good profit. Just because it is a political decision presumably reflecting the will of the people, this does not mean it is laudable. Leftists think these issues could all be solved by smart people with good intentions. Libertarian theorists deny this. They believe that this hubristic idea will ultimately fail, just as it did in the Soviet Union.
They think big government encourages cronyism. It must be limited. Aren’t they right sometimes?
Libertarian ideas are far more subtle than just a bunch of privileged white men trying to justify their greed. I think many of their ideas should be respected or at least should be understood. The crew at Alas wants to take a generally oppositional approach to them. Oppositional thinking is the curse of most all political and philosophical blogs and is the reason you can learn only so much from them. All blogs mostly stake out a rather dogmatic stance and don’t want to learn about anyone else.
Liberals general exhibit hostility toward libertarians. This is partly deserved, since libertarians can be doctrinaire and sound nutty, unlike the sweetly reasonable left. I don’t think you mind how pervasive government is. For example you said “I don’t want the government to be in charge of selling me televisions,” Yet government constantly interferes with the content of TV programs and the way it is broadcast. I could fill up pages here, but I hope you get my point.
Seriously? Okay, so the government provides health insurance to all, and as long as everyone gets to have it, without regard to race, sex, religion, etc., it counts as a negative right? And since we’re allowed to subdivide the citizenry to provide services for a subgroup, as long as we’re providing equal access to everyone within that subgroup – i.e. free education provided only to those of a certain age – we can pretty much justify any social welfare program in the book.
Now THAT’S a definition of negative rights I can get behind.
I don’t want to get too into this now that I’ve come back to find this a stagnant thread… but yeah, you are recalling incorrectly. I defined it as either as rights that are covered by the Constitution as interpreted through the years, or as those recognized by the general consensus of free democracies worldwide.
That the right to vote is clearly a positive right. (Do you dispute this?) And moreover, it’s a right that’s pretty fundamental to the very makeup of the modern liberal state, reaching back to some very core Enlightenment ideas – something not easily mocked as a recent moral development.
Dave, your ideas sound reasonable and I don’t disagree with them categorically – I only suspect we disagree on specific issues around the margins. However, it is stuff like this:
… this is where you’ve been rightly called out on using stupid stereotypes.
No, liberals don’t rely on “smart people with good intentions” any more than libertarians have a pitiably romanticized view of the Great Business Leader, and neoclassical economics as written in those textbooks in colleges their white upper middle class parents bought their way into. Liberals recognize that local control and self-regulation is preferable – when it works. In some cases, such as certain safety and labor regulations, it does not. But still, we want only the minimum level of regulation necessary to achieve the goals we want.
No, liberals don’t support government cronyism, any more than libertarians support Enron.
Yes, liberals see the need to limit government. We just disagree – both with you, and amongst ourselves – over where the limit should be said. In general, it can be said that liberals are more concerned with limiting government of the sort that commits actual violence to people (in war, in police brutality, etc.). The consistent push for expanded civil liberties over the past century has largely been the work of liberals, such as those in the ACLU.
And no, no matter how much libertarians insist, repeat, and clamor, “we’re against ALL government! We’re the only ones that are consistent!”, it doesn’t make it true. Everyone has priorities. If you consistently vote for Republican over Democrat or vice versa, you’ve made it clear where those priorities lie. (Now, if you always vote third party, that’s a different matter.) Be prepared to defend them, because you will be criticized if it happens your deeds don’t match your rhetoric.
We know that there are downsides to government. That we don’t weigh the cost/benefits the same as you does not mean we are not aware of them.
Oh yes? Who is Obama? OK, I agree that he is better than a senile guy with good intentions. Besides I’m not a libertarian. Many libertarians don’t even believe in voting. I have voted for Democrats and Republicans. For example I voted for Bill Clinton, twice.
Nobody supports cronyism, but with so much of the economy under federal control, legislators routinely vote for things that benefit special interests in their district, and “we” can’t do anything about it. Thus even democratic government has inherent incentives for corruption.
In the private market a product maker at least has to get individuals to freely exchange money for a product, unless the company can get a subsidy or bailout from the government. At some point this systemically harms all of society. Look at Argentina and Cuba which used to be the second and third wealthiest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Just because these are generalities does not make them untrue. It benefits people to become familiar with the various ideas to avoid becoming a tool of one political party..
No. Did you actually read PG’s comment?
The decision to provide health insurance is not a positive right unless we make it one by enshrining a right to provide it in the Constitution, etc.
Whether or not it is a positive right, we can elect to provide it (there’s no positive right to have the government do most of the stuff that it does.)
IF IT IS PROVIDED, you have a general right not to be barred from a government program based on certain protected characteristics. That “right not to be excluded” is a negative right. You can’t force the government to provide health insurance, but if it provides it you can generally force it not to exclude you because of your race.
Probably because it’s not actually a definition, nor a description of negative rights.
Which wouldn’t make any difference there. The ADA and the provisions/requirements for benefiting disabled people are neither Constitutional nor, i believe, “recognized by the general consensus of free democracies worldwide.”
Sorry I got your definition wrong, but it makes no difference here.