But couldn't a democracy reserve some inalienable rights which cannot be taken away by the majority. Say freedom of thought and exp<b></b>ression, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly.
I have a very shallow understanding of libertarianism. Unless it promotes complete freedom for everybody, who, if not the majority, decides on which freedoms are restrained?
Bob
The problem with a democracy is that it is controlled by people. Indeed, that is the problem with every government that has existed up until this time and most likely those which will continue to exist.
The founders of the US were smart men, all of them. Those whom I admire most were students of men such as John Locke and Francis Bacon and their ilk, men who believed in such things as tolerance (particularly religious, during one of the most bloody times in Europe and the battles between Protestantism and Catholicism) and the sovereignty of the individual and such concepts as Social Contracts.
As was stated by the US' Declaration of Independence, we are born with freedom of thought and exp<b></b>ression, freedom of religion and choice, the freedom to assemble where we would and with whom we desire. It is men and women who take those rights away from us, often their actions armed with the very same words that the US Constitution uses to declare such freedoms. The US Constitution was meant to be a restriction on government, not a restriction of personal liberties, nor a means to justify such actions. Yet it is used to justify the creation of such things as the Patriot Act, which gives the US government far more power than it had before - whether that power has yet been used toward tyranny or not. Or used to force the population of the US to purchase health care under a restricted system set up by the government or face fines. (just to choose two items under two different, supposedly polar-opposite presidents and their parties)
The Constitution sounds good, and for its time it was perhaps one of the most brilliant documents ever created to provide a framework for a more just governing of humans, but look where it has ended up - in a country divided down the center, supposedly, on how to govern itself, with its inhabitants shouting past each other, blaming each other for their troubles, while the rich and powerful laugh their asses off, shake the reigns of power and collect the gold flakes that fall off.
I could go into deep analysis of why things such as Obama's health care act or Bush's Patriot Act are the opposite of freedom, but here's one simple concept: How would you feel if your neighbors showed up at your door one morning, armed with rifles, while an unarmed spokesman leading the group knocks on your door and asks to discuss a serious matter with you? The spokesman, who is someone you vaguely know and don't even necessarily approve of his lifestyle choices (in fact, he's a preacher who has been preying on the people of your community and convincing them they are all going to hell unless they figure out a way to appease God), tells you that your neighbors have taken a vote and have decided that the guy down the street who drinks himself to oblivion every day needs the help of the community and the group is at your door to collect money to give to him. Of course, they will be taking out of that money the cost of their rifles, the cost of their clothing, and even the cost of their time, all pro-rated and apportioned properly, indeed, in order to ensure that everything is done in a fair and just manner.
My first question would be - why doesn't the guy just stop drinking and go get a job? And before anyone starts telling me what a bad man I am, and that these sorts of charities are meant to help those that can't help themselves - get real. The government itself is too big and unwieldy to be able to keep such charity to only those who really need it and often that choice of who should get a person's charity is a personal decision, not a community one, unless they so choose to follow the community's desires. It certainly isn't a free country who backs up its requests with guns and the threat of violence if you don't comply with such things, and if you think you can object to the IRS taking your money to giving it to people who you don't think should get it - well, you will end up in jail literally at the end of a gun to require you to stay there. A criminal.
But we are all taught that we must follow the social contract like good little ants or we will have anarchy.
Where exactly is the social contract in the US at this time? Where is the justification for the actions that the government is taking, at any level except, possibly, locally? I never signed the US Constitution, personally. Those guys that voted and ratified the Constitution some 235 years didn't consult me and I had no opportunity to object or put in my own 2 cents' worth. It is a good document, for its time, and is meant to be a living document that can change with the times. The problem with that is that you get lawyers and others, who become politicians to enact the laws that benefit them and the people who support them, to completely change the face of what is called freedom.
It may takes time, decades or centuries, but the original intent will indeed rot to nothingness and irrelevancy.
Governments collect and concentrate power. There can be no doubt about that. Anyone who has sensory organs and sees and hears the events that occur all around them surely can put those data inputs together into a cohesive picture of this fact. The problem is that people have been infected by various memes and they think their meme is "the correct one" and that it fits for all. Politicians (narcissists and sociopaths and their ilk) are drawn to such concentrations of power as annoying mosquitoes are drawn to light in the darkness - or as sharks are drawn to the scent of blood in the water - and use those memes to manipulate people into forcing others to bend to their will.
Democracy is doomed by the very people it is supposed to protected. The founders of the US had the idea that people would continue to fight for liberty, yet even in my relatively short lifetime I've watched people change from being independent, proud people to scared little ants running around after someone smashed their anthill - and surely people who came a half century before me would laugh at me, thinking the same thing about a comparison between their time and mine.
This is too complex of a subject to write in a short forum response, and people already think I'm too long-winded here and most probably won't read past the first paragraph of what I've written, if they read at all. People hear the word "libertarianism" and they start thinking of anarchy, people roaming the streets with guns and looking for slaves to capture and sell to others, etc, because after all, how could we possibly survive without government to "protect" us? The majority of people who have this thought won't even bother to read what libertarianism really is and how it works. Nor how things like the "Wild West" were mostly a manipulation of the Eastern press to worry people into forming state political systems that would adhere themselves to the growing US governmental behemoth, where before people voted to form a state and join the Union they self-organized and protected themselves without the need for a huge centralized tyranny to do it for them.
Libertarianism, I will admit, is a fantasy at this point in time. As much as democracy and the self rule of the masses was a fantasy in the 1500s and 1600s when Bacon, Locke and others were talking about social contracts and self governance. But it is a meme that holds the promise for the same level of advancement that democracy held some 240 years ago when people in the Colonies decided to try a gigantic social experiment that did indeed change the world from the way it was, and in many place it changed it into something better than it was.
Some reading, if you're interested to learn something about Libertarian concepts:
- For a New Liberty - Murray Rothbard, 1977
- Libertarianism: A Primer - David Boaz, 1997
- Human Action - Ludwig von Mises, 1949
- The Law - Frederick Bastiat, 1850
Some of these guys who wrote many decades ago, you have to take some of the things they believed in as far as what they considered good social behavior, with a grain of salt. Remember that even while writing the US Constitution, the founders left in how to divvy up votes and such based on the slave population, even while creating a document to ensure freedom for their people. We are all creatures of our times.
The big difference I see is that while some of the guys that wrote about libertarianism a while ago might think women should be in the home raising kids and having more babies (as an example), they expound the desire, no the necessity, for every person to be free and make their own choice and associate with those with whom they desire to associate.
