(recommended Artist: Karsh Kale – Distance)

REMINDER: I use “liberal” in the original sense of the term, so those who identify liberalism as “the left” — a mistake common in the United States and English Canada — should perhaps see it as being roughly (roughly) equivalent to “libertarianism” or “classical liberalism”. Read more about this detailhere (though I see liberalism a bit differently than the author of that page).

Reminder #2: This is a bit of a rant.

I have an issue with people who spout ideological garbage about individual rights and refuse to go further than that when looking at issues. Individual rights goes just as much for the person who wants to own a pit bull as the person wanting to paint his house pink; as the person wanting grow opium poppy in his backyard as the person wanting to dress as he wants; as the person wanting to masturbate on his front lawn as the person who wants to drive without a seatbelt; as the person who wants to have an abortion as the person who wants to own a gun; as the person who wants to live in a shaky house as the person who wants to let his grass grow tall.

It is extremely easy to argue in favour of each of these cases from an “individual liberty”, “personality responsibility” standpoint; such liberalism, stripped down to its core, makes individuals the sole agents responsible for their what they do to themselves and on their properties; and even, to a certain extent, on public property (such as dressing as one wants and perhaps such as walking naked in public).

People pick and choose what they want others to be able to do and what they do not want others to do, which punishments should be imposed and which rewards should be granted and they usually have pretty descent reasons for deciding to infringe upon individual rights — though I may or may not agree with these reasons.

For example, there’s little reason to convince us that people’s dress should be moderated. Some might be opposed to the right to wear a t-shirt that is obviously racist. Some might be opposed to a man walking around in underwear because it might make women and children feel unsafe. It’s usually illegal to walk around naked. True “individual rights” would allow all of these and it does bring us comfort to think that the principles of liberalism can easily and neatly be applied to a great variety of issues.

But those who deal in absolutes — including in the absolute righteousness of individual liberty — often seem to be little more than hypocritical. We’re all pragmatics; the issue is those who pretend that they are not, who speak of principles to which they do not truly adhere, condemning certain laws they detest with the same arguments that could be used against those rights which they hold dear.

I use individual rights as the default state of how things should be, but if I am shown that it is in the greater interest to limit certain rights, then I will most definitely agree to limit these rights. We may not all agree here — “what is the greater good?” is more complex than it first seems — and this is why we have democratic processes that are put in place by the natural power of the majority over the minority; we do not have to like it, but a thousand people are stronger than a dozen and they can do what they wish with this minority if this is what they see fit.

However, because we are all minorities in some respects, it is not always in the interest of the majority to limit the minority and this is why we institute certain principles to guide our society, such as we do when creating a constitution.

It remains important to acknowledge the limits of our principles and test them by seeing how they could be used in favour of things which we oppose — do those who claim that it is none of the government’s business if we purchase a firearm, as long as we harm no one with it, believe that it is none of the government’s business if we purchase cocaine, as long as we harm no one with it? Do they believe that we should abolish seatbelt laws? Do they believe that we should be able to own any form of armament? Or do they draw a line somewhere between a knife and a nuclear weapon, using arguments that go well beyond principles of “individual rights”? For some clear reasons, it is not in the greater interests of society for a private entity to use its individual liberty for the sake of constructing a nuclear weapon and selling it on the market, to whomever has the money. This is why it is illegal, and this is why it is right to at least consider banning things such as other forms of armaments, drugs, abortion and so forth. We have to dig deeply into these issues rather than form conclusions based on our values, screaming one-liners about “liberty” and such words that are, without a proper context, meaningless.

Oh well: people get stuck in their ways, get old and die and can no longer hamper progress towards what society truly favours. This is the beauty of our inevitable death; it is necessary. We grow stagnant and one day, we fall asleep and never wake up, allowing another to fill and improve that position we will leave vacant. I would of course wish to be immortal, but I’m fearful of a society where this would be possible, though when that time comes, it will be up for that generation to decide what to do with this technology.

-Dussault

1 Comment »

1. Some good points. A condition of total liberty obviously is anarchy – which is distinct from true classical liberalism. In America both the major parties are contradictory where government power is concerned. Get the government out of my womb but you over there – put your seatbelt on. Keep the government out of my kid’s Bible reading but stop that gay couple next door from getting married. Freedom from government intrsuion is claimed as a blanket belief but quickly discarded when there’s expectation of some entitlement or other.

   For my part, the line depends on the circumstance. Obviously we need some amount of government. The problem with mankind is that we are incessantly driven to mind each other’s business. Since that will never change, we need a government that is designed to be restrained in its actions. This core principle has been almost entirely abandoned in America.

   Comment by Bell Tower — May 4, 2009 @ 9:36 PM

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