Comments About Libertarians Brought On By Opus Debut

Expressed by readers at CalPundit.

Libertarianism has two virtues for its adherents, folks who tend to have a high degree of spacial, analytical intelligence and an extremely low degree of empathetic, emotional intelligence:

1. It is simple and clean, architecturally speaking. It offers a small set of building-block axioms with which you can construct political positions--like legos!
2. It makes a virtue of saying "leave me alone," which is what you say when real, messy, emotional interactions with other people baffle and unsettle you. "Just leave me my bubble where I have complete autonomy and no ambiguous obligations." -
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The libertarian types I've known have all *thought* they controlled their own destinies, and they all thought they got where they were strictly through their own personal efforts, no relation to the state of society, tax-supported public schools and universities, public highways, anything like that. But why do so many of them work for one or another government agency?
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* No government agency has ever asked me to pee in a cup or tried to tell me what sorts of jobs I could take. Private employers, on the other hand, have asked me to take drug tests and sign insane non-compete agreements. In actual practice, the worst threats to my liberty have involved pointy-haired bosses, lawyers, and economic recessions.
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Okay, the from-first-principles argument may lead to some economic theories of questionable morality, but it also leads to a firm humanist position on individual social freedoms. (Not all Libertarians are in it for the abolish-the-tax-code stand, I promise.)

If you care about getting more people in your corner to take on the Bush juggernaut -- as you should -- then start from those points of agreement, hold the line on a principled social stance, ACLU style, and gradually chisel away at the economic theory fortress with real-world facts and a solid demonstration that getting the government out of capitalism doesn't always make us freer, happier, or less ripped off.

One hard-left friend of mine in particular has done this patiently to me for a year or two now, and it's really starting to sink in. It also helps, I suppose, that I've been living in California and seeing what a disaster the "starve the beast" stance has become when put into practice.
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Both religion and libertarianism impose and reduce rather than remaining open and receptive. Both settle for impoverishment while surrounded by riches.

I looked around and realized that the people I truly admired, the ones who were happiest and who created the most good in the world, were those guided by the instinct to be generous and forgiving rather than the instinct to be correct and consistent at all times. They focused less on what they had to do, on duties and laws, and more on what could do, on what uptight male philosophers call "superogatory" acts. They viewed living among people, in a community and a culture, being bound by a whole web of obligations and restraints, as comforting, not as a drag. They enjoyed being rooted rather than longing for some sort of ideal, airy, unbound--and ultimately empty--libertarian 'freedom'.