adam@npois.UUCP (Adam V. Reed) (04/16/85)
>> As long as you're on the subject, perhaps you can answer a question >> for a fellow Libertarian. Does the ERA contain provisions requiring >> private sector employers not to discriminate against women or other >> anti-liberty clauses? >> >> Thanks in advance, >> Mike Sykora >What a perverse notion of liberty: the freedom to discriminate against >women. With these sorts of ideas, no wonder Libertarians are such a >small minority party. > >Mike Kelly Actually, a libertarian's notion of Liberty is even more "perverse" than that: it includes a junkie's right to mainline heroin, and a masochist's right to get beaten to bloody shit by a consenting sadist. It would be difficult to locate a tyrant who denies his subjects the freedom to do things he approves of. You don't qualify as a defender of freedom until you stand up for the right of all people, not just to actions you can empathize with, but even to actions you hate, as long they do not infringe the equal freedom of others. Adam Reed
carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (04/18/85)
In article <> adam@npois.UUCP (Adam V. Reed) writes: >Actually, a libertarian's notion of Liberty is even more "perverse" than >that: it includes a junkie's right to mainline heroin, and a masochist's >right to get beaten to bloody shit by a consenting sadist. It would be >difficult to locate a tyrant who denies his subjects the freedom to do >things he approves of. You don't qualify as a defender of freedom until >you stand up for the right of all people, not just to actions you can >empathize with, but even to actions you hate, as long they do not >infringe the equal freedom of others. It's still more perverse than that, Adam. Libertarians hold that the only kind of freedom worth defending is freedom from direct coercion by individuals. They further maintain that the highest good, or perhaps the only ethical good, is the maximizing of this particular kind of freedom. If this isn't perverse it is at least arbitrary; I haven't yet come across a persuasive or plausible defense of this view. Thus when libertarians describe anti-discrimination laws as "anti-liberty," we must understand "liberty" in this particular sense, and that such laws are *eo ipso* unjustified according to the libertarian philosophy. As Barry Fagin writes: >It seems to me that if people have the right to think their own >thoughts, to own property, and to form voluntary associations, then >they may not be prevented from discriminating against anyone in any >manner they please....In any case, since non-coercive techniques are >available to combat the perceived evils of discrimination, why use >coercive ones? This is written in the standard libertarian question-begging mode. The question being begged is whether the only standard for judgment should be the minimizing of coercion by individuals. >It is the Free Economy that will benefit victims of discrimination >the most, and not more coercive legislation. The attribution of apparently magical powers to free market systems leads some of us to suspect libertarians of dogmatic habits of thought. I think that markets can do some important things but not others. Let us have some demonstrations of claims such as the one quoted above; let us first have a definition of a "Free Economy," since I am not sure I understand exactly what this is. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes