In a recent post discussing Charlotte ‘The last libertarian in the Lib Dems’ Gore, The Devil points to her writing
I do actually remember the days when I’d say, “The Government should stop people from doing X” and think, you know, the people who want to do X? They’re scum, aren’t they? Who cares what they think? Sure a lot of people won’t like it, but the greater good will be served.
I used to think like that. Over time, however, as I found myself more and more in the ‘X’ category at the hands of this Government, I began to become more and more uneasy about this sort of thing. Who am I to impose anything on anyone? What if I’m wrong? The reasoning that you had to be a bit fascist if you wanted to be properly liberal stopped making sense. The best way to fight fascism is to promote liberalism, and that means using liberalism as your weapon of choice.
This is a path I have myself taken. Being the sort of chap who enjoys things like shooting, martial arts and other dangerous activities I am exactly the sort of whom Nanny does not approve. Having been on the wrong end of more bans than I care to recall I find that Libertarianism is the only moral choice.
Despite that it was the Hunting ban that really decided this for me. I don’t particularly like fox hunting, I find the people who take part in it often rude, boorish and lacking in the chin department. However the unedifying spectacle of a bunch of champagne socialists forcing through a law to ban it, based purely on class prejudice was stomach turning. Seeing politicians debasing their position and the instruments of Parliament to get at some people they didn’t like showed me that no-one should be able to inflict their personal morals, or what is more often their personal prejudices on anyone else.
DK sums all this up perfectly:
whilst you might think that the taking of drugs is bad and wrong, I do not. Why should you be able to employ force to make me comply with your morals?
Whilst your beliefs might tell you that having sex with lots of people is immoral, I think that it is great fun. Why should you be able to employ force to make me comply with your morals?
Whilst you might think that giving people oodles of cash simply because they have chosen to have children is a good thing, I do not. Why should you be able to employ force to make me comply with your morals?
And whilst you might think that stealing people’s property to fund your vision of society is an a priori good, the society that I wish to see is somewhat different from yours. Why should you be able to employ force to make me comply with your morals?
I only have one moral absolute—that forcing everyone to comply with my personal morals is wrong. Which is why I am a libertarian.
