Positive Liberty

Dispatches from the Culture Wars has a well-considered post on the so-called “free speech zones” that are now common around political conventions and other high-profile meetings. This opinion piece is definitely not for the faint of heart, but here are a couple of selections anyway:

…And now you see why so many of us libertarian-minded folks don’t see much difference between the two major parties. They each relentlessly attempt to censor the other side when it serves their purposes. All of the talk from Republicans about “smaller government” and being a beacon of freedom and liberty to the world is simply bullshit, empty words that mean nothing to them. And all of the talk from Democrats about their passionate support of individual rights? Also bullshit. Don’t believe anything either one says about civil liberties. They will sell you out in a heartbeat.

…So frankly, I don’t care which party it is, when they start talking about the glories of free speech, I start loading my gun. They will take it away in a heartbeat if they can, and in times of war, officially declared or not, both the courts and the public will roll over and play dead rather than stand up to such intrusions on the bill of rights. So when John Kerry gets up there tonight and reads eloquent words from the teleprompter about how America is a shining beacon of freedom to the world, remind yourself that his party and his convention has stifled free speech and penned up protestors in a cage surrounded by razor wire a half a mile down the road. And when Bush does the same thing in New York, remind yourself that he’s been doing the same thing for 4 years now.

Who gets my vote in the upcoming election? Frankly, I’ve never been less motivated to decide. The pundits who are by turns applauding and condemning the Democrats’ convention have failed to impress me in either direction. None of them merits so much as a link as far as I’m concerned.

In the interests of honesty, I have to admit that I’ve given money to the Kerry campaign, if only because he might defeat the worst president we have had in a very, very long time. But to take the step of actually voting for Kerry… Well… I suspect I’ll have to agonize a little further. There is a difference, however slight, between giving money and giving a vote.

To decide how I vote–and indeed how I think on most issues–I follow one simple rule: I absolutely never watch conventions, debates, or major speeches on television. I read them, with a good hot cup of non-partisan coffee as my only companion. Just as I would not attempt doing calculus in my head, I would not want to try the even more difficult work of political thought without resorting to the written word. To decide what to think, I read; then I write.

I have to say, though, after reading the speeches from the Democratic convention so far, I am thoroughly unimpressed. Barack Obama started well–I’ve never seen a Democrat so critical of government and so favorable toward individual enterprise–but then he blew it with this line:

It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper, that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family.

Sadly, Biblical references are still de rigeur if you want to win an election. But why did he have to pick this particular one? (Incidentally, I think we all knew that Howard Dean was doomed when he couldn’t name his favorite book of the Bible… As it happens, mine is the Book of Esther. But I digress.)

The story of Cain and Abel–where a vicious murderer becomes a strawman for individualism–has done more to slander individualism than anything else in Western culture. Were I to rewrite the Bible, Cain and Abel would be the very first thing to go.

We tend to forget it, but if Cain had only let his brother alone, then he would have been perfectly justified in asking what he did. The true individualist is not his brother’s keeper, but nor is he a killer. Neither murder nor enforced servitude is a proper picture of what individuals owe to one another. In virtually all cases, the right to be let alone is enough. Benevolence is welcome, of course, but turning benevolence into a life-destroying duty–and positing murder as the only alternative–This makes a sham out of benevolence itself, a gift that is only sincere when it is free, and never so when it comes from the compulsion of a State or a God. The day that any political party appreciates this, it will win my permanent support. Until then, it’s always going to be a choice among evils.

I guess this is my problem with politics in general: It’s hard for me to feel very strongly about any candidates or mainstream policy positions because I start from premises that are so far removed from the mainstream itself. In the mainstream, we have freedom of speech–but our opponents can always be restricted. In the mainstream, we may soon have the right to take someone else’s money for health care–but the right to bear arms is steadily disappearing, even if we buy them with our own money. In the mainstream, merely slowing the growth of the welfare state is “paleoconservative.” That is, when the paleoconservatives are not in fact increasing it at a rate undreamed of by the liberals. We now lack even a term for someone who would shrink the growth of government.

But then, in the mainstream, individualism is murder. Just look at Cain and Abel, and you’ll know why I can’t stand mainstream politics: We all have to pretend to like a story that offers nothing redeeming at all to the present day, a story that gives even theologians headaches as they try to salvage the goodness of their God, a story that is perfectly irrelevant to governance of a modern, technological, and frequently non-Christian republic–a story that at its heart is implacably against the very individualist spirit that makes America great. Pretend to like all of that, and welcome to the mainstream.

My home state of Maryland is certain to go to Kerry, and I imagine that on balance there will be some slight improvement if he wins. If nothing else, redividing the government between the two major parties will probably slow its rate of growth more than continued Republican control. And at any rate, it can’t be much worse. The only people who would seriously reduce the size of government are the Libertarians, and even in the astronomically improbable event of a Libertarian victory, I simply don’t trust them to restrain their own lunatic fringe.

Where, oh where, is the party for pluralist, capitalist, small-government, secular, civil libertarian voters? Why is it that these positions, which to my mind seem so naturally dependent upon one another, are set against one another so implacably by the political powers that be?

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