As a libertarian, I maintain a soft spot in my heart for conservatives. This is partly because I once was a conservative. In fact, in many ways I still consider myself a conservative, although not one as defined by most modern conservatives.
The other reason is that there seems to be a lot of common ground between libertarians and conservatives. Conservatives speak the language of liberty, profess devotion to the Constitution and proclaim the virtues of the free market. They, on the other hand, decry the growing nanny state, violence against innocent people and government barriers to capitalism.
Despite all this, I’ve just about had it with conservatives. I’ve had it with their excuses for why they can’t always follow the Constitution. I’ve had it with their reasons for why it’s ok for some innocent people to be killed. Most of all, I’ve had it with explaining to them why they should support freedom on every issue, regardless of what the media mouthpieces of so-called conservatism tell them.
With the rise of libertarianism over the last decade or so, there have been many attempts by libertarians to convince conservatives that they should think differently on the issues.
We have attempted to convince conservatives that the United States’ foreign policy not only opposes what America’s founders said it should be, but that it, more importantly, tramples on the conservative notions of family, community and limited government.
We have argued that it is impossible for conservatives to favor economic freedom and personal choice while supporting the war on drugs – and, indeed, prohibition of any kind.
We have worked to show them that their perspective of the federal government – their over-emphasis on the office of the president, their forsaking of the local for the national, their vision of the states as an indivisible union – reflect the principles of not the American Revolution they say they revere, but that of the French.
We have tried to show that our nation’s incessant meddling in other countries’ affairs brings about unintended consequences that are impossible to predict, much less control.
More recent events have led libertarians to try to convince conservatives that the militarization of police and the problem of police brutality are problems that need to be confronted, not explained away. We have argued that the attempts to justify the deaths of non-violent people represent a callous disregard for life – certainly not a conservative principle.
Additionally, conservatives have recently been told why the 50-year embargo against Cuba should end, on both humanitarian and free market grounds, both principles which conservatives allegedly revere.
I truly don’t mind explaining the libertarian perspective on these issues. I only arrived at libertarianism through years of reading and thinking, and I hope that explaining my beliefs—and how I arrived at them—can be instructive to others.
But it is tiresome to observe the adherents of a political philosophy that claims to value freedom so consistently give the benefit of the doubt to government. I understand that many points of view that conservatives hold are long-held and deeply-ingrained. But it drives me absolutely bonkers when people who so often deride others for philosophical inconsistency unquestioningly accept their own preconceived notions without a second thought.
H. L. Mencken once wrote, “The fact is that the average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely.”
I fear that this accurately describes conservatives. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t need to have the principles of liberty laid out for them on every issue. While I don’t expect conservatives to become libertarians overnight, or even at all, I do expect them to be able to ask themselves if the positions they hold ultimately support or undermine freedom.
If you say you believe in freedom, then at some point you need to start giving freedom the benefit of the doubt. Conservatives’ consistent failure to do this is increasingly leading me to the conclusion that they might not hold freedom in any higher regard than do the liberals they despise.
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