Pussies, not pansies. But the higher powers tell me Ann Coulter
is allowed saltier language than our headline writers.
If you missed it, Coulter appeared on John Stossel’s Fox
News show last week to discuss libertarians, and specifically
why she wasn’t one. Asked about the drug war, Coulter exclaimed,
“You libertarians and pot!” Pressed by Stossel, she added, “Look,
this is why people think libertarians are pussies.”
The video quickly went viral and sparked an internet discussion
on the merits of libertarianism. Nick Gillespie of the decidedly
libertarian Reason.com
pinned the p-word to his coat: “It may not have the rhetorical
power of ‘I am Spartacus!’ but I’m happy to declare ‘I’m a pussy!’”
Glenn Beck discussed how he was coming around to the idea of
“maximum freedom” before blasting the libertarian movement for
being too exclusive. Alexander McCobin, president of Students
for Liberty, then wrote an
open letter to Beck, questioning the radio host’s libertarian
street cred.
Verbal warfare between conservatives and libertarians feels
strange since, over the past two years, the two groups have often
marched shoulder-to-shoulder against the left’s statism.
Libertarianism saw a bubble of interest in 2008 thanks to the
Ron Paul Revolution, the pack of libertarian activists who gathered
behind Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. After years of
both political parties neglecting individual liberty in favor of
war and breakneck government growth, libertarianism suddenly seemed
a fresh alternative. The Tea Party, which sprang up in opposition
to Obamacare in 2009, is regarded as a conservative movement. But
many of its ideas found voice for the first time with Paul’s
presidential campaign, leading Joshua Green to
dub Paul the Tea Party’s “intellectual godfather.”
This created some intellectual shifting on the right, as many
conservatives became more libertarian in their outlook. A CBS News
poll taken in November 2011 found that nearly half of Republicans
thought that the
Iraq war wasn’t worth it. And many conservatives are
increasingly uneasy about the Obama Administration’s civil
liberties abuses and endless drone strikes.
Libertarianism, then, acted as a third path for disgruntled
conservatives, allowing them to maneuver around the government
activism of both the Bush-era Republicans and Democrats. Were it
not for the Ron Paul-inspired Tea Party, Republicans never would
have found their way out of the political wilderness in 2010. And
as the economy crashed and debt piled up, libertarianism seemed a
rational solution. Rolling back government is, to borrow one of the
commentariat’s most grating phrases, an idea whose time has
come.
Libertarianism and conservatism are often grouped under the same
tent. The most consequential definition of modern conservatism came
from political philosopher Frank Meyer, who saw it as a fusion of
traditional and libertarian values. But while Meyer rapped thinkers
like Russell Kirk for not putting enough emphasis on individual
liberty, he also called on libertarians to admit the existence of
an “organic moral order,” defined not by government, but by God,
community, and objective truth.
There are, then, crucial distinctions between conservatism and
libertarianism that stretch down to the most theoretical level.
Libertarians tend to see politics as a dichotomy between the free
individual and the oppressive government. The purpose of state
power is to protect the individual’s rights, nothing more.
Conservatives believe in individual freedom too, but see it as a
product of order. People can be free, but they’re not born that way
as Jean-Jacques Rousseau surmised. Instead they become free under
the architecture of good institutions that educate men and tamp
down their worst impulses. These institutions include families,
churches, and local communities. They also include what Edmund
Burke called “little platoons” and Alexis de Tocqueville called
“voluntary associations” – the local groups and organizations that
provide our lives with structure. When this structure, along with
Meyer’s “organic moral order,” start to recede, big government
creeps in to fill the void.
This leads conservatives to examine not just the relationship
between the individual and his government, but also the body
politic as a whole. Is it healthy? Does it strive for virtue and
elevate our best values? Russell Kirk, citing Eric Voegelin, argues
that our
great political division “is not between totalitarians on the
one hand and liberals (or libertarians) on the other: instead, it
lies between all those who believe in a transcendent moral order,
on the one side, and on the other side all those who mistake our
ephemeral existence as individuals for the be-all and end-all.”
This distinction can be seen on many social issues. While
libertarians almost always select the position of individual
liberty, conservatives tend to weigh that against the cost to civil
society. Thus libertarians tend to favor marijuana legalization not
to accommodate their “liberal friends,” as Coulter puts it, but
because they see it as an individual choice, while many
conservatives worry it will make civil society more indolent and
expensive. The line is even more emblazoned on prostitution.
Libertarians see no reason why a woman shouldn’t be able to sell
her body. Conservatives might point to Amsterdam, where legalized
prostitution has led to a degeneration of public morality, as well
as unintended consequences like human
trafficking and organized crime.
To illustrate the distinction further, consider Ayn Rand, the
thinker and novelist lionized by many libertarians, and her view of
the family. Conservatives consider the family to be perhaps the
most precious unit of civil society and a necessity for individual
freedom. Rand saw forced familial relations as a shackle on the
individual. In Atlas Shrugged, she portrays steel tycoon
Hank Reardon’s family – his cloying wife, his scolding mother, his
leech of a brother – as an irritating obstacle to his success, “an
unreality that would not become real to him” for whom he feels
nothing but “the merciless zero of indifference.” Elsewhere Rand
derided “the worship of the family” as “merely racism” and
something that “places the accident of birth above a man’s valor
and duty to the tribe above a man’s right to his own life.”
Many conservatives would shudder upon reading those quotes. So
why have so many of them flirted with libertarianism and even
embraced Rand?
Because, given our current problems, these differences seem
abstract. Our most immediate political issue is a rampaging federal
government burying its citizens in debt. This gives conservatives
common cause with libertarians. We may have different philosophical
foundations, but right now our houses are on the same side of the
street. And when Republicans set our garage on fire, libertarians
helped with the hoses, muttering acerbically.
They’re not pussies. They’re allies and they’ve been right about
a lot. But there are differences between us and we should make sure
we understand them.
Photo: UPI
