What's a civil libertarian?

[David]

In a post in one of the Marley Williams threads, WhyPhilWhy responded to WPT's tongue-in-cheek comment about me being a "commie" with the following:

[stui magpie]

There you go. I always thought a civil libertarian was one who wasn't rude.

[Tannin]

A libertarian is one who regards the provision of personal liberty as the paramount aim of civil society.

To a libertarian, personal liberty transcends most or all other aims of social organisation. When thought through thoroughly - I repeat, when thought through thoroughly - this leads directly to an enlightened position on many, perhaps most social issues. Obviously, liberty (or freedom, the two terms mean the same thing) involves the maximum of free choice on the part of the individual. Less obviously, but equally vital, freedom requires that the individual be protected from unwelcome harm so far as possible. This in turn requires a strong, well-run state to (among other things) defend against invasion from abroad; ensure peace and safety from bandits and murderers at home; prevent epidemics of disease; and so on.

To anarchists, the role of the state in defending freedom stops right there, or even before that point. Anarchists are scarce at present, but it has been a popular view in the past and doubtless will be again; it seems to come into and go out of fashion.

Then there are the simple-minded "libertarians" (the IPA provide a perfect example), who (very sensibly) regard the right to own private property as a fundamental part of freedom, but (very stupidly) (a) fail to properly respect the equal right of others to the same thing, and above all (b) fail to recognise that the forceful private appropriation of or destruction of property belonging to the community as a whole is not remotely beneficial to freedom, it is simply unpunished theft. When, for example, you bulldoze a nature reserve in order to extract coal to sell to China, you are simply destroying a present benefit (the nature reserve) and stealing an invested long-term future benefit (the coal) in order to squander both of them on your own private wealth accumulation.

This is the fundamental error in IPA-style libertarian thought: it utterly fails to think through its own rhetoric and consider all the consequences to all of the people. "Freedom", for the IPA and American-style libertarians, largely consists of the freedom of a small minority to rape, plunder, and destroy the property and freedom of other people.

Finally, there are the libertarians who try to think things through properly. These (sadly rather rare) people recognise the essential and eternal truth of the view that liberty is the fundamental goal which, if pursued energetically and intelligently, requires (almost as a by-product) that nearly all other valuable goals will be met also. To be truly free, people must necessarily have decent health, reasonable safety, at least some education, a fair and effective justice system, and nearly all of those other things we strive for. Simply focusing clearly on liberty as the primary, vital social aim, it soon becomes clear that most (all?) other worthwhile aims are also achieved.

[HAL]

Are you free people must have decent health reasonable safety some education a fair and effective justice system and all of those other things we strive for ?

[Jezza]

[think positive]

I still don't know

[swoop42]

Looks like TP is pissed again.

[think positive]

Nah sober, the fridge is too far from the couch, I'm just being lazy til the new tv show come on at 9