A Stitch in Haste

A libertarian relegates himself — and all his confreres — to the (supposedly noble) role of court jester:

So maybe the moral question isn't, what use can libertarians be to liberals, but what use can libertarians be to anybody? We are not going to bring about either a minarchist or anarcho-capitalist society anytime soon, where "soon" can be translated as ever. Truth be told, I'm not convinced that a purely minarchist society would be all that great to live in. As for anarcho-capitalism, I think even a lot of an-caps agree that it requires a long-term project of learning how to live that way as society. I think libertarians are, rather, the court jesters of politics. I mean that in a good way. We whisper to Caesar that that he is mortal. We caper about, turning ourselves blue if necessary, reminding everyone that government power is inescapably violent and inescapably self-interested. You're probably not going to care, but we're going to make you actively decide not to care. And sometimes, maybe you'll care after all. As a class, we can be stupendously silly people, believing and saying the most absurd things. But our rulers are silly people too, in different and more malignant ways. And as fools, we have the freedom to say so.

I would have preferred "Don Quixote" to "court jester." Just as inaccurate, but less insulting.

As I commented at the blog that brought this "stupendously silly" post to my attention:

This is the classic anti-libertarian straw man argument. How sad to see it come from a self-professed "libertarian."

Not all policies are binary; indeed almost none are.

Libertarians can argue for, work for, and achieve incremental change, not just asymptotic (i.e., never-achievable) "ideal states."

Maybe we can't ever bring about "separation of economy and state" — but we can bring about deregulation of this industry or that.

Maybe we can't ever bring about a taxless society — but we can bring about lower tax rates based solely on funding legitimate public goods rather than on controlling behavior or bringing about somebody else's subjective notions of "social justice."

Maybe we can't ever bring about perfect individual autonomy — but we can show why the war on drugs is a disaster and work towards its curtailment.

Maybe we can't ever bring about the abolition of the public square (or public schools), but we can keep the theocrats from turning them into their auxiliary pulpits.

One final thought: Libertarians don't need, either morally or pragmatically, to win over a single voter or politician — just judges (compare Lawrence v. Texas to Kelo v. New London). And, net-net, we're pretty good at that (not infallible, but pretty good).

This (utterly libertarian) framework is both legal and just — and why, in the very long run at least, libertarians tend to win.

It's quite simple really: Ignoring futility is not a virtue. But libertarianism is not futile.