Can Government Protect Your Liberty?

Joseph Kexel asked this question on Libertarians Unleashed, his blog talk radio show, this evening. It is an interesting question.

We know that governments historically have never protected the liberty of their constituents. They have always done the opposite: led (or driven) them into slavery—short of revolution or collapse.

I can confidently predict that no government ever will protect the liberty of its constituents. Considering the record of government, that is a fairly easy prognostication.

But can government protect your freedom? Is it even possible? That's a tougher question, and an answer I think worth pondering.

If we start with the caretaker-charge paradigm, it is pretty obvious that the patient does not tell the caretaker what to do. It is quite the other way around.

Work that paradigm into the government-constituent relationship, incorporate that into what we see around us in what is commonly referred to as "the nanny state," and...well...the concept of governmental capability of the protection of individual liberty does not hold a lot of promise.

Walker Puts It On the Line for Local Government

Scott Walker is giving local taxing agencies a great big tool to help them balance their budgets. He didn’t have to do that, you know.  He could have simply reduced Shared Revenues (money to municipalities and counties) and State Equalization Aid (money to school systems) without helping those systems out at all.  That is exactly what Jim Doyle, Walker's predecessor, had planned to do.

But Walker refused to leave local governments out on that proverbial limb.   Instead he put his neck on the block and got the law passed that demanded—ordered!—the local governing systems to replace that lost state subsidy with money saved through long overdue, reasonable contributions by employees to their pension funds and health care benefits.

That was a gutsy thing to do.

No one in government is going to give up their piece of the pie happily.   And when you take a large section of the public sector and force them to do just that—all at once—you get the phenomenon we recently observed in Madison.

There aren’t very many men or women with courage that get that high in office.   Most attain those lofty heights through cowardly demagoguery.

We have a real jewel here in Wisconsin with Scott Walker as our governor.  He is upsetting thousands who have been leaching unjustly off the labors of hard working Wisconsinites.   But he will be appreciated by millions who deserve to keep the fruits of their labor and use their energy to rebuild a prosperous state in the place of one that is on the verge of bankruptcy.

The Right to Say, "No!"

I often get questioned by conservatives about the difference between conservatives and libertarians. I have had difficulty coming up with a needed sound-bite type of answer that is fundamentally correct and easy to understand.

But I think I have found one. Here it is: The Right to Say, “No!”

We know this not the totality of the differences between libertarians and conservatives. But it is a start.

Check out this video of a man who did not have the right to say, “No” to being taken to the hospital. He represents a microcosm of the abuses heaped on people for saying, “No!”

This right covers a lot of ground when you think about it, some of them big ticket items: Taxes, recycling, using renewable energy, who to allow to come into your business, who to hire in your business, how much to pay your employees, sending your kids to school, giving your kids vaccinations are some of the bigger ones. Painting the house, mowing the lawn, who to hire to rewire the house or put in a new bathroom, what to eat, what do drink, what to smoke are some of the smaller ones.

When someone says, “You must,” do you have the right to say, “No I don’t?” Libertarians think so.

Under a conservative regime, people are expected to follow the orders issued by Authority. Conservatives create armies of government inspectors housed in impressive sounding bureaucracies such as Building Departments, Health Departments, Electric Department, Food and Drug Administrations, Property Tax Collectors, Income Tax Collectors, Occupational Safety Administrators, Police, Fire and Sheriff Departments, ad infinitum whose purpose it is to monitor our activities and issue orders.

All these bureaucrats exist, according to conservatives, for our own good, for our own protection and safety. According to conservatives bureaucrats are needed to protect the majority from the unthinking minorities who fail to comprehend “proper behavior.”
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Well, there you have it. A nice one-liner to that nagging question that attempts to make libertarians look like some kind of bedraggled dissidents to the conservatives who know how we all should be comporting ourselves.
I don’t expect any conversation beyond the quick reply. But if I get a follow up, I’ll mention a couple of the minor ones listed above. Then, if they are still listening, I might follow up with a couple of those big ticket items, especially Taxes!!

Give it a try. If you do, please post a comment on how it worked.

I will be trying it. If it shuts them up, or makes the smile, I don’t care. I just want to make the point—quickly—that there is a difference.

I don’t expect agreement. It gives me a quick “one liner” to their query

And it may give them something to think about.