Secular Café: Which Freedoms are Libertarians For?

Secular Café For serious discussion of politics, political news, policy, political theory and economics and events happening round the world

Which Freedoms are Libertarians For? Apr 15th 2012, 01:10 I'm talking mainly about US right-libertarians. When I.F. Stone wrote The Trial of Socrates, he first thought of writing about the idea of freedom. But he concluded that it was so broad and conflicting that he decided to restrict himself to freedom of speech. That's because some kinds of freedom conflict with some other kinds of freedom. Freedom to play music very loud conflicts with freedom from other people's loud music, for instance. That brings me to When Libertarians Stand for Medieval Control Instead of Freedom | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet Quote: There's recently been an eruption in the United States over the question of birth control. The controversy was initially prompted by the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which mandates that employers provide insurance that covers birth control prescriptions. Earlier this year, right-wingers began to charge that that provision of the ACA threatens religious freedom - the freedom of employers, like universities and hospitals that are run by the Catholic Church, not to be compelled to pay for their employees' birth control. A compromise was quickly reached. But that didn't stifle the controversy. It has continued to play a major role in the Republican primaries, and states like Arizona are now moving toward legislation that would not only exempt employers from having to provide birth control if they have religious or moral objections to it, but would also allow those employers to interrogate their employees about why they use birth control. Corey Robin then got into the question of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises and the views he had expressed in his 1922 book Socialism. Quote: Mike's larger point - that Mises was neither in favour of women's sexual autonomy nor was he in favour of other kinds of autonomy that would free women from the dominion of their husbands - still stands. To which some libertarian responded that libertarianism is about freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom. Which misses the point. CR quotes Mises: Quote: Free love is the socialists' radical solution for sexual problems. The socialistic society abolishes the economic dependence of woman which results from the fact that woman is dependent on the income of her husband. Man and woman have the same economic rights and the same duties, as far as motherhood does not demand special consideration for the women. Public funds provide for the maintenance and education of the children, which are no longer the affairs of the parents but of society. Thus the relations between the sexes are no longer influenced by social and economic conditions… The family disappears and society is confronted with separate individuals only. Choice in love becomes completely free. He continues: Quote: Sounds like a libertarian paradise, right? Society is dissolved into atomistic individuals, obstacles to our free choices are removed, everyone has the same rights and duties. But Mises is not celebrating this ideal; he's criticising it. Not because it makes people unfree, but because it makes people - specifically, women - free. The problem with liberating women from the constraints of "social and economic conditions" is that... women are liberated from the constraints of social and economic conditions. CR then noted some more recent Mises-like statements, like about Virginia's ultrasound bill: Quote: ... libertarian luminary Tyler Cowen tweeted the following: All of a sudden requiring consumers to be informed is extremely unpopular on the "pro-regulation side". As if the "pro-regulation side" is a mirror image of theirs. He also noted that one of the writers of that bill defended it with the argument that the recipients of that probing had agreed to be "vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant". He then compared it to a long-time legal doctrine that men cannot legally rape their wives. CR then mentioned Conservertarianism: Still Dead - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money An opponent of abortion proposed Quote: I think that abortion should be legal, but I also think that it should be a last resort, and I'm all for the government using any non-coercive methods it can to encourage women to carry their pregnancy to term, including things that will make them feel bad about aborting. I think, for example, that sonograms should be mandatory before termination, I'm in favor of waiting periods and parental notification laws, and I'm agnostic on spousal notification. A rather narrow definition of coercion, it seems. CR then linked to Why the Left Gets Neoliberalism Wrong: It's the Feudalism, Stupid! « Corey Robin He concludes that many right-libertarians are strong believers in feudalism, private entities acting as governments, and authoritarian governments at that. That may be why many self-styled libertarians' professed love of freedom seems so hollow to me -- it's often only freedom for those they like.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions