Now, Paul criticizes libertarianism on the grounds that people
have the right to choose their own path [sic] in life, but they they [sic] must understand that their actions have consequences. Even private actions may have a bearing on the overall community. This is not true in all cases, but in an organic community each individual contributes to the overall atmosphere, and in ways they may not have thought of.
Note the reference to the “organic community.” In Paul’s view, an individual’s private actions are his own only insofar as the “bearing” they have on the “overall community” is an acceptable one. Rights, to him, are therefore not rights, but permissions, to be exercised only insofar as they are consistent with Society’s health. (A “health” established on what criteria?)
Of course Paul isn’t a totalitarian, right? ‘Cause “[t]here is a limit to how much the government can regulate private behavior.” Just what are those limits and why do they exist? Well, he doesn’t tell us, but he does tell us that “individuals have a moral duty to take cognizance of their neighbors, and to act in whatever way possible to contribute to the greater good.” What are the limits of this duty to live your life for the sake of other people? Paul tells us later that “[i]t does not follow that one must necessarily sacrifice their [sic] happiness for the greater good.” Well, that’s a relief. Because for a second there, it sounded like Paul was saying that you owe a moral duty to act in whatever way is possible to contribute to the greater good—that is to say, that you must live your life in servitude to other people, which would seem to involve sacrificing your happiness. That’s a pretty funny definition of freedom, especially for those of us who believe that every great thing in life comes from the creation of some individual pursuing his dream, regardless of the naysayers; that we owe all that is wonderful in human creation, not to the selfless servitude of folks unafraid to disrupt the allegedly common good, but to strong individuals who acted on their own, clinging to truth even when the world was against them.
Fortunately, Paul clears up his seemingly contradictory statements by saying that
There is much space to act in accordance with the dictate’s [sic] of one’s conscience. One certainly has the freedom to take up the crackpipe, but do understand that this supposedly self-regarding behavior has consequences that touch the lives of many people.
Okay, suppose I want to take up the crackpipe. I hereby state that I understand that this self-regarding behavior has consequences that touch other folks’ lives. So what? I want to smoke anyway. Now what?
Well, we have two possible answers: 1) I have the right to smoke it anyway, because it is my life, and even though my act (like every human action there is) has attenuated social consequences—and even though smoking crack is stupid and wrong—my life is mine to do with as I please; 2) I am to be forbidden from smoking, because I have a moral duty to act in whatever way is possible to contribute to the greater good. Now, which is it? Here’s a hint: the first answer is the libertarian answer; the second answer is a conservative answer.
Now let us replace Paul’s crackpipe example with another:
There is much space to act in accordance with the dictate’s [sic] of one’s conscience. One certainly has the freedom to [refuse to attend church], but do understand that this supposedly self-regarding behavior has consequences that touch the lives of many people.
Or
There is much space to act in accordance with the dictate’s [sic] of one’s conscience. One certainly has the freedom to [refuse to sell his house to the city redevelopment agency], but do understand that this supposedly self-regarding behavior has consequences that touch the lives of many people.
Or
There is much space to act in accordance with the dictate’s [sic] of one’s conscience. One certainly has the freedom to [sell a banned book], but do understand that this supposedly self-regarding behavior has consequences that touch the lives of many people.
The point is that once you contend that a person has the moral duty to live his life for the sake of others, you have sold the individual into slavery. All the rest is just bargaining over the terms of the deal. Although Paul says he only wants you to “understand” that your acts have social consequences, the way he uses that word “understand” sounds an awful lot like the rattlesnake shaking his tail, doesn’t it?
Paul ends his statement with the usual sort of conservative puffery, that transforms the rattlesnake tail into a peacock tail: “no one can pretend we’re all saints here on this mortal realm. But such an attitude as Sandefur [sic] casts aside eternal norms. All well and dandy, but such actions have consequences unforeseen.” Yeah, yeah, eternal norms, nobody’s a saint, libertarians just want to have sex with dogs…same old tune. So old, in fact, that the great Christian libertarian Algernon Sidney replied to it four hundred years ago:
Our author’s next work is to shew, that stability is the effect of this good order; but he ought to have known, that stability is then only worthy of praise, when it is in that which is good. No man delights in sickness or pain, because it is long, or incurable; nor in slavery and misery, because it is perpetual: much less will any man in his senses commend a permanency in vice and wickedness. He must therefore prove, that the stability he boasts of is in things that are good, or all that he says of it signifies nothing.
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