Lessons Learned

I’ve been writing A Beginner’s Guide to Freedom for just over three years now. (I’m sure it seems much longer than that to my regular readers, but thanks for sticking with it for so long). My goal for the site was simple. I wanted to refine my understanding of the libertarian philosophy by writing short pieces about the issues of the day.

They haven’t all been gems.

Nevertheless, I’ve enjoyed writing and I feel that I’ve learned a lot over the past few years. Without rehashing all of the previous posts, I thought I’d take a moment to summarize some of the lessons learned. So without further ado (and in no particular order), here they are:

• No economics, no political theory. Know economics, know political theory.
  


• We seem to be at a strange crossroads in our societal development. Everyone condemns slavery as wrong, but very few people are convinced that freedom is right.
  


• There are two major political parties in the United States today - the “The Road to Hell Party” and the “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition Party.” Arguing over which is better is like taking a stand on arsenic over cyanide. Both are harmful and neither is going to cure what ails you. If these people were serious about making things better, they’d first have to admit that we’d all be better off without them. And there’s very little money or power to be gained by doing that.
  


• Though there may be some minor philosophical differences between the left and the right, it’s nothing that can’t easily be overcome in favor of increased statism. For example, if I told a leftist friend of mine that I stubbed my toe this morning, he’d immediately demand the creation of a Federal Department for the Prevention of Stubbed Toes (and the department would already be woefully underfunded). For my right-wing friends, this is not their first instinct. I would have to tell them that a terrorist stubbed my toe instead. Then they’d be all for getting the Federal government involved. Anyone who opposed the idea would then be accused of blaming the victim or having a pre-toe stubbing mindset.
  


• Government itself is the great unfalsifiable premise. If governments were to launch a nuclear war and kill 99.9% of the population, the few surviving humans would pull themselves out of the rubble, dust themselves off, and say, “Man, we really need to elect better representatives next time.” Then some bureaucrat would emerge from a hardened bunker in an undisclosed location and tell them, “Not to worry, citizens – your government is still here to maintain order. Just imagine how bad it would be if you didn’t have us around to protect you!” And finally, one of the few remaining reporters would write a story explaining how all the rebuilding that will have to be done by the survivors will create jobs, and as everyone knows that’s good for the economy.
  


• Humans interact through either voluntary or coercive means. The voluntary means finds its expression in the free market. If I want you to behave in a certain way or to give me something you have, I have to persuade you by offering something of value in exchange. You’re free to take it or leave it, or to negotiate for something you value even more. The coercive means is best illustrated by government. If I want you to behave in a certain way, I force you to do it by threatening you with fines, imprisonment, or even death. If you have something I want, I take it from you. If you try to prevent me from taking it from you, I fine you, imprison you, or kill you (and then I take it anyway). The voluntary means is characterized by a wide range of choices and options, and the coercive means is one-size-fits-all. The voluntary method gives us food, clothing, shelter, cars, personal computers, cell phones, HDTV, and a whole host of other goodies that make our lives more enjoyable. The coercive method gives us prisons, the IRS, the DMV, and the Post Office. I prefer the voluntary means.
  


• An understanding of property rights usually clears up what at first seems to be an insoluble conflict.
  


• Most Americans don’t want to be free, and they sure don’t want anyone else to be free. “Live and let live” is not nearly as popular an idea as we might like to believe. At the end of the day, people really do want to push each other around and dictate how others may live. Libertarians should probably come to grips with that.
  


• I think the most pressing question of the day for libertarians is not how to move society en masse toward greater individual liberty, but rather how to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the onslaught of statism and the declining standards of living that will accompany it.
  


• The term “American exceptionalism” gets thrown around a lot, but what made the United States an exceptional place was the philosophy of individual liberty broadly (if inconsistently) held by its inhabitants. It was not due to an overwhelming military machine or to a suffocating nanny state. For at least a century the US has being sprinting down the path of ever-larger government, with some periods characterized by a greater emphasis on the welfare state and other periods characterized by a greater emphasis on the warfare state. But no matter which element happens to be favored by individual politicians at any given time, the end result is an expansion of both the welfare and warfare states, and an outright rejection of the values that made America exceptional in the first place.
  


• Bush, Paulson, Obama, Geithner, Bernanke et al are wrong. You really can’t spend your way to prosperity. You can’t borrow your way out of debt. You have to produce before you can consume. Consumption is the result, rather than the cause, of prosperity. Try as it might, the government cannot repeal the law of scarcity.
  


• Bush, Paulson, Obama, Geithner, Bernanke et al are right. The easiest way to secure and retain political power is to promise people something for nothing. The state really is the great fiction through which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else. They’re living proof.
  


• Since the beginning, mankind has searched in vain for the one person who can pull the sword from the stone and use it to rule over others wisely and benevolently. The King Arthur myth is an enduring one, but it’s still just a myth. It is not possible to initiate force against others wisely or benevolently.
  

And finally,

• I’m not going to change the world by making the knock-down libertarian argument to end all arguments. That’s all right. Even if I never change another person’s mind for as long as I live, I have changed my own. That’s enough for me.
  

(Picture from

here).