Libertarian Dilemma

US citizens not interested in Freedom (Slashdot) started off a conversation on Slashdot recently that aired some common arguments for and against the libertarian political system.

Libertarians want a world with as little government regulation as possible, including drug and weapons use. The basic philosophy goes along the lines of “if it only affects your own self, you should be able to do it”. No more laws imposing a morality inherited from religion or from less enlightened systems. If you want to smoke pot all day long, go ahead. On the other hand, there is also no government program to keep you in food stamps and subsidized rent so your stoned ass doesn’t starve to death. That’s the flip side of the libertarian coin. You want that, you’ll have to be a socialist.

Assume the following example about gun control:

“…if Timmy is a [m]eth-head who won’t go to jail for [m]eth now that there [are] no [d]rug [l]aws, can he go buy a full auto M-4…?”

Non-libertarians would say that Timmy should not be able to buy the weapon because he’s a meth-head. Though users of this particular drug are well-known for a propensity for violence, it’s debatable just how dangerous they are in most cases. The propensity for violence has been attached to every fad drug in the last 40 years. Except ecstacy: they attached the propensity for pregnancy to that one; and marijuana, to which they attached the propensity for being a socialist. But heroin, cocaine, crack, LSD, etc. have all been associated with violence in the past.

The history of drug violence notwithstanding, assume that with meth it’s true. Timmy has a propensity for violence, but the damned libertarians are going to let him do his drugs and buy his weapons. Murder, however, since it affects other people, is illegal under a libertarian system. This opens the way for a classic riposte from non-libertarians:

“That it’s illegal won’t stop Timmy from wreaking havoc with his arsenal (since he is a meth head), and his sentence won’t bring back to life the ones he killed. … [I]n this libertarian world there exists no system for preventing mentally unstable people like Timmy the Meth Head from slaughtering innocent people.”

It’s a terribly seductive argument and sounds quite reasonable. How can you possibly sanction a society in which a meth-head like Timmy can just fly off the handle and kill people. As they mentioned, nothing will heal the damage wrought by Timmy—and all because of the freedoms he was given by a society that valued the rights of a meth-head to bear arms over those of an upstanding citizen to live and breathe. It’s very convincing stuff and is the kind of argument that often governs political discourse.

There’s a pretty clear problem with this line of reasoning though. The argument prejudges Timmy for “break[ing] societal norms by taking drugs and ruining his own life”. Doing drugs is not illegal because it only affects Timmy. The argument putatively grants Timmy that right, but forces him to “automatically relinquish … all other “rights” because he is a “potential” threat to “others””. This preëmptively punishes Timmy for crimes he is thought to be likely to commit. It’s only when he actually commits a felony that he should have his rights stripped. There is already plenty of law covering pre-meditated homicide (the crime pre-attributed to Timmy).

“[Even] accidental killings that occured while he was under the influence would face stricter penalties and in many cases be treated as pre-meditated (willingly took the chemicals, willingly operated the device impaired).”

Libertarians, in effect, would not punish Timmy by taking away rights (like the right to bear arms) because he’s a danger to himself (in the eyes of many).

It’s an interesting counter-argument in that it reminds us that, in the US at least, you’re supposed to be guilty until proven innocent. What does a libertarian think of drunk-driving laws? The person is committing an act that has a much higher chance of harming another individual, but hasn’t actually harmed anyone yet. Simply driving drunk doesn’t harm anyone, but it increases the risk in society in general. Should it be forbidden or just made incredibly unpalatable with harsher punishment? The libertarian model allows much more personal freedom, but requires the occasional sacrifice of an innocent when someone abuses their freedom. At any rate, harsh punishment and incarceration has not been proved in any way to be a detriment to recidivism.

In the other direction lies a different kind of madness, allowing the government to prejudge and pre-punish disagreeable segments of society. The drug laws are one such travesty, locking up millions for what are even called “victimless” crimes. A meth-head should be allowed to be a meth-head, if that’s what he (or she) wants. The job of society is to offer far more palatable alternatives, so that ruining one’s life with drugs is no longer such an attractive means of forgetting the day-to-day drudgery. If you’re free to buy your fourth iPod in the last year, Timmy should be free to buy his drug of choice too. Though a strict libertarian society would likely be a wonderland for the amoral, its basic tenets are sound. It’s a hard sell for most societies, as it involves the most difficult of concepts, succinctly stated below:

“The trouble with true freedom is that you have to give it to people you don’t like.”