Why Libertarianism Loses Me

I just read a pretty interesting article on Ron Paul. It was a lengthy article in a glossy magazine and, after reading it thoroughly, I gained a greater appreciation for the man, his beliefs and his appeal. But I’m not here, really, because of Ron Paul. To me, the bigger concern is Libertarianism and the fact that it sometimes makes complete sense but, overall breaks down along some rather simple premises.

I have a lot of friends who hold themselves out as Libertarians. Their basic philosophy, at least as they espouse it, is “to each his own.” However, when I question them about their beliefs, what they’re really angry about is taxes and regulations. Which is understandable. Very few people actively ENJOY paying taxes and even those who do it with a glad understanding (or at least a glad belief) of what their taxes are for, feel a certain sting when they see how much goes to the government. Even I, an unreconstructed, big government, bleeding heart, tax and spend liberal, have felt the ol’ mid-April sting, so I understand why my Libertarian-leaning friends THINK they’re libertarians. But I don’t think they actually are Libertarian. They’re actually conservatives who want to pay less in taxes and feel that governmental regulation causes a multitude of problems. Oh, and they want to end the Fed because they think that paper money is useless and that only gold (or paper backed by gold) is the thing of value and the appropriate basis for our economy.

Let me talk about the gold thing first. And I fully admit that I am not an economist. In fact, one of my great regrets is that I never took so much as a single class in economics during all of college. But the idea, as I understand it, is that paper money is a sham, an illusion and must be backed by gold or that our entire economy will simply and inevitably crumble. To me, the point of ANY currency, whether gold, silver or paper is that the currency in question only has value because we all, as a society, fundamentally AGREE that those things have value. To say that a currency is backed by gold is only valuable because, societally, we have agreed that gold is intrinsically valuable. Which is silly. We could just as easily agree that beard hairs from Kenny Rogers ought to be our universal currency, although, candidly, I’m not sure how I feel about making Kenny Rogers the wealthiest man in the world. While I think that this whole gold standard thing seems a bit goofy, as I said before, I’m not an economist so, for all I know, returning to the gold standard might be the best thing that has ever happened to the United States. So let’s just, for now, say that Paul is right about the gold standard.

So now we go to the Libertarian’s ideas about foreign entanglements and the wars we fight. Here I can find some common ground with Ron Paul and here is where I think Paul finds a lot of his appeal to college kids. People are pretty tired of war although even I, a liberal, believe that some wars are just and proper. Still, most of my far right friends seem to lose touch a bit with Paul and they want to keep fighting wars that have been started or desired by Republicans but detest wars started or fought by Democrats. Still, I can find some agreement with Paul and with Libertarians on the issue of war and, thus, I can find no reason here to fully eschew libertarianism.

Then we get to the issues of personal conduct. I speak, of course, of drugs and sex. Again, here I see some of Ron Paul’s appeal to American youth. God knows, when I was in college I would have been one who “experimented” with chemical substances but for the fact that I 1) believed everything my parents told me about drugs; and 2) I was terrified of being caught. Furthermore, I am an adamant proponent of gay marriage and I believe I have some common ground with Libertarians on this front. Although I must admit that I find it odd that all of these people waving the Gadsden Flag and screaming “don’t tread on me” (as well as the politicians so eager to suck up to them) are still adamantly opposed to gay marriage. I guess the takeaway here is “don’t tread on me, but tread on the homos all you want.”) Still, I’m going to give Libertarianism, the philosophy, credit for getting this one right even as I see individual people who call themselves “Libertarians,” not really living up to these principles.

So, let’s see... I’ve found some, SOME mind you, common ground with Libertarians on the issues of taxes (admittedly, our common ground is a skinny plot with room for only a few sprouts of grass), foreign wars and personal liberties. While their desire for a return to the gold standard seems wrong to me, I lack the education necessary to view the issue critically and am willing to cede it for the purposes of this long-winded post.

So, even though I’m still a liberal Democrat, you’d think I might be willing to at least consider voting Libertarian and embracing a guy like Ron Paul as a presidential candidate, wouldn’t you? In a word: No. In two words: Hell no. Even if I could see my way to embracing Libertarianism (and I do embrace at least a few threads of it), Libertarianism loses me on Friday nights.

“Friday nights?” you ask. What the hell does that mean? Here’s the thing. I’m a committed omnivore. While we don’t do it every Friday night, one thing my wife and I enjoy is getting the kids off to bed or out of the house and cooking up a steak, opening one of the good bottles of wine we collect and enjoying each other’s company or a movie or something we’d TiVo’d from earlier in the week. Putting Libertarians in charge would wreck it all for me. Steak night would have to go.

The reason steak night would have to go is because Libertarians want to eliminate the Department of Agriculture. Given that the USDA is responsible for meat (and other food) inspection, a complete removal of food regulation would lead, I think, to a dangerous food supply and to eat a steak would be flirting with disaster. Libertarians, the real ones, want deregulation of industries and, god help us, food is an industry. Agriculture is an industry. To deregulate it would mean that the risk of tainted pork increases by an untold factor. That juicy rib-eye steak I love to have on Friday nights? I’d never be able to eat it with the feeling of security that I have right now.

Of course, my problems with deregulation go far beyond just my Friday night steak. Imagine a world where airplanes no longer had to be inspected for flightworthiness. Consider a Libertarian utopia where buildings not only didn’t require inspection to verify their safety, but didn’t have to be built with fire exits or sprinkler systems. Imagine Triangle Shirtwaist factories cropping up in cities all across the country.

Personally, I don’t want to live in a world like that. I know that there are plenty who do. Some people will tell you that the marketplace and legal remedies will sort out the bad actors. If a ranch or store sells tainted meat, sue them. Well, that’s all fine and good except how do I sue a farm that isn’t required to have any kind of bonding or insurance? And even if I can sue them, what can they possibly give me that will remedy my loss of a loved one who ate one of their tainted steaks? (This totally ignores the fact that all these so-called “Libertarians” and “states rights advocates” are also the ones who vote for alleged “tort reforms that limit my access to the courts and to the remedies offered therein.)

I’m sure there are some people who are willing to pay these prices for their “freedom.” They want to be free to use their land in any way they see fit, even if that use pollutes a stream that travels off their land and eventually winds up in my daughter’s glass, full of waste and poison. These people, some of whom are named Koch, can, of course, afford to have all the clean water they want and don’t really care about what my daughter drinks. But I do, and while I’m no more in favor of the “nanny state” than the next guy, I do believe that government exists to protect the common good and that allowing completely unregulated commerce does little to help the common good. I’m just fine with the freedom to sell me rotted pork being limited and it’s probably not a freedom that should exist in the first place. Will regulation and inspection sole this completely? Of course not, but think of how many stories you hear about foodborne illnesses and then imagine a world where no food gets inspected.

I once got in a pretty heated Facebook argument with my friend Rick. Rick is a hardcore conservative, one who enjoys Rush Limbaugh and a really great guy. I once saw him do something in high school that has become absolutely legendary. Rick, like many of my conservative friends, holds himself out as something of a Libertarian (Rick, if you’re reading this and I have mischaracterized your views on Libertarianism in the least, let me know and I will gladly change this). The thing is, I have started thinking that there is no such thing as “something of a Libertarian.” You’re either a Libertarian or you aren’t. You can’t say that regulation is bad, except when it’s good, and still believe Ron Paul’s message. To truly be a Libertarian, one has to get comfortable with the idea of old people, currently living on Medicare and Social Security, literally being turned out on the street, forced to beg for everything. Ron Paul is okay with this because he values our fundamental freedoms more than damn near anything on the planet. And that’s okay. I don’t agree with him, but that’s really what he believes.

But when I was arguing with Rick a year or two ago, Rick said that (and I am paraphrasing here because I don’t want to dig all the way through my Facebook timeline) there was a long way between his stance on regulation of industries and inspection of meat. My question to Libertarians has been “OK, where do you draw the line? When is regulation acceptable?” (Actually, that’s two questions, but you get my point.)

So, let me ask you Libertarians (and Rick H., David S., Gregg S., all Libertarians) where do you draw the line? Is all governmental regulation inherently bad? Or is food inspection okay? And if food inspection is okay, why not the Clean Water Act? And if the CWA is acceptable, than isn’t, really, any regulation okay? Because once you lose your Libertarian virginity, it strikes me that you’ve crossed the great expanse into Libertarian whore and you are okay with regulation as long as its regulation with which you agree. Ron Paul, to his credit, is very pure in his thinking. But Rick, who has a daughter a little older than my own, has already told me that meat inspection is okay. But apparently some regulation is bad.

Some Libertarians will say that I’m missing the point. They’ll say that they don’t want the FEDERAL government making these regulations, but if a state wants to, fine. Let them do it and let them pay for it. Here is where I call bullshit. First, it totally ignores the reality of interstate commerce and, even more important, it’s STILL a governmental regulation. Ayn Rand and Ron Paul may dread a powerful central government, but please tell me how it advances liberty to say that the USDA can’t inspect my meat before it gets in the stream of commerce but that the State of Kansas can certainly do so if it wishes?

So, even though I might find room in my philosophy to agree with Ron Paul and Ayn Rand, to me, Libertarianism is a non-starter. I just keep thinking of how I like to cook dinner for my little girl and every time I think of serving her arsenic-laced fruit and meat washed with e.coli, I cringe just a little. And a man shouldn’t cringe when he provides nourishment to his kids.