Will Excesses Really Neutralize Each Other under Libertarianism?

[The Iron Boot]

There is a tendency among libertarians to argue for more individual
liberty and freedom as the key to societal good. This isn’t because
everything people do with freedom is good but because bad things will
cancel each other out. It’s like a vision of humanity as economic,
social, or emotional billiard balls. There is a rational argument here
but one minimizing the moral sense of limits and conscious self-
control. The libertarian argument is essentially the Satan-ist
argument. No, Satan doesn’t exist, and libertarians aren’t committed
to evil. Still, libertarians seem to believe that vices naturally
cancel each other out in an utterly free social order. Do they
really?


I once came upon a book by some funny Jewish guy of the church of
Satan or some such. In it, he argues that the seven deadly sins are
nothing to be afraid of. Instead of resisting them, we should indulge
them because they cancel each other out. For instance, take vanity and
gluttony. Gluttony is pleasurable, but it’s bad because it turns us
into gross fatties. But, not to worry since vanity is there to balance
it out. In other words, a person may want to pig out, but his
narcissism will control his appetite or push him to exercise. So, we
need not fear these vices. If we indulge them, we not only gain
pleasure but also arrive at some kind of equilibrium. Somewhat true to
be sure. But, would it be sufficient? Can we have a good society where
vices simply cancel each other out? (Also, what about people who are
so ugly to begin with that they would gain little by controlling their
appetite or exercising? Despair & self-loathing in the looks
department may lead the person to eat like pig since to at least find
some pleasure in life.)


Libertarian philosophy comes pretty close to such kind of thinking–the
notion that vices, if let loose, will cancel or balance each other out
and make for a decent society. While such ideas may have some macro-
social or psycho-individual validity, there is no substitute for
individual virtue and moral character in the maintenance of a healthy
society. (Libertarians, of course, aren’t anti-morality, anti-virtue,
nor anti-self-restraint, but they hardly emphasize such values in
their preference of theory of freedom). Indeed, the beauty and power
of virtue unite the individual with the community–other individuals.
Individual freedom is something we all prize and seek, but it has no
inherent moral value(except in the vaguest and broadest sense; man
needs freedom to choose good or evil, but freedom isn’t synonymous
with the good; nor, can we expect the bad to simply balance out the
other bads).
And, freedom is often socially destructive for the simple fact that
people indulging in excessive behavior–even in private–are likely to
cause problems spilling over into rest of society. Fat people, for
instance, make healthcare costs rise for everyone. And, people who
gamble away their money become burdens on their family and rest of
us.
The libertarian argument is most compelling when law enforcement
against certain vices aren’t not effective or counter-productive. This
was certainly the case with prohibition in the 20s and 30s. The
problem in a free society is that even criminals enjoy rights and
protections which give cover to much of their criminal activities.
The only effective way to eradicate such behavior is by eradicating
freedom itself, but that would be throwing out the baby with the bath
water. So, a free society simply has to allow certain kinds of
freedom. We cannot legislate ourselves at every turn into a healthy
society, and it almost impossible to legislate virtue in a democracy
(and such don’t do much good even in a theocracy).

Nevertheless, who can deny that certain vices are extremely
destructive, and we simply cannot expect other vices or virtues to
naturally or organically balance them out. Though being fat is not a
crime–and of course shouldn’t be–, the rise of fatassness among
Americans shows us the serious shortcomings of the balance-of-vices
theory. Though it’s true that people want to enjoy both food and look
goods, narcissism simply isn’t powerful enough to neutralize excessive
gluttony in many people. Fatsos know they don’t look good fat, but
they keep pigging out. Why? Because eating is fun and exercising is
strenuous. People know they should eat less but they want to eat more
and more. This is why so many Americans are fat-tards. Gluttony and
narcissism are both vices, but one is much easier to indulge than the
other(at least in modern society; gluttony would have been just as
difficult long ago when procuring food was the hardest task of all.)
It’s quite obvious that people need another mechanism to eat less:
shame. There is a thing called self-shame, but the most effective kind
of shame is social shame. But, as we move away from a shame culture–
due to both liberalism and libertarianism–, we have people who indulge
in behavior that is immediately gratifying but harmful or
destructive. In our politically correct, sensitive, and litigious
society, we are not allowed to call fatsos ‘fatsos’. Some states are
even considering protecting fatties from the evil of ‘weightism’. Now,
I’m not recommending that we call fatsos ‘fatsos’. That would be rude.
But, would it be so bad if there was some degree of social pressure or
ostracism against fatsos? Indeed, it would be best for the fatsos.
Fatsos are not victims. They are self-created self-indulged
monstrosities. If they are shamed out of fatness, they would be
better off and so would be–lower all-around healthcare costs.
Fatasses eat too much shit and don’t exercise enough. Sure, some
people have slower metabolism, but then they should eat less. But,
they pig out like the fatsos that they are.
Now, a fatso may not like being fat and may want to lose weight. But,
many people simply cannot control their eating habits. They know they
are fat and ugly and would like to look better(vanity factor), but the
food is just too irresistible. Without strong external pressure
associated with shame or a strong philosophy of frugality, freedom and
liberty themselves are not going to create some miraculous
equilibrium. Without a strong set of moral values or shame culture,
there is only the strong arm of the state to enforce and maintain
social balance/stability. This is truer in some communities than
others. Blacks, for instance, tend to be wilder and more aggressive.
So, freedom and liberty for blacks naturally lead to more excesses
than freedom and liberty among other races. We can even see this when
we contrast whites with ‘whiggers’. ‘Whiggers’ are white people who
emulate blacks, and they happen to be far trashier and more
problematic than regular white folks.
At any rate, we don’t want the state to interfere too much with our
lives, so we must prevent bad conditions that arise from freedom and
liberty. Shame and morality are central to social stability. The idea
that more freedom and liberty will fix the problems through an organic
process of counter-actions is just wishful theorizing.


There is also the cultural factor. A traditional society with newfound
freedom and liberty still holds an internal mechanism–handed down
through centuries or even millennia–that restrains excesses of
individual freedom or liberty. Such mechanism, apart from the law and
government, play a crucial role in curbing wanton excesses of freedom.
But, as the generations pass, as youth culture develops, as cultural
traditions and norms weaken, and as more kids listen to stuff like rap
music & other junk, individual freedom and liberty take on a different
color altogether; they lose the connection to the roots of
civilization. Freedom and liberty go from liberation to decadence.
Compare blacks in the 50s to blacks today. Many blacks in the 50s
still had what we might call ‘family values’. Freedom and liberty for
folks in ‘Raisin in the Sun’ had different implications than freedom
and liberty for black kids who grow up today to hip hop, nigga
culture, jiggety doo, yabbity ho-di-di-do. Of course, black community
had always been more problematic than the white community, but its
freedom had been restrained by moral sense and order prior to the 60s.
No longer.
So, the libertarian idea that black community will make progress
through more freedom and liberty is nonsense. This isn’t to suggest
that bigger government is the solution either as it has, indeed, made
things worse by encouraging destructive behavior among blacks–welfare
checks for teen mothers and such. But, the main problem of bigger
government was pumping in all that money without social controls. If
anything, the problem is that bigger government led to more freedom in
the black community for people to do as they pleased. The problem was
not the government taking away freedom but encouraging and supporting
too much freedom in the black community–a dangerous policy because
blacks, being wilder, are tempted to abuse freedom. All that welfare
money allowed blacks to do as they please in terms of having loose
sex, dropping out of school, and so on. Every black girl knew that if
she messed up and acted crazy, the government would give her money.
The problem wasn’t big government per se but a big government that
gave but demanded nothing in return. If big government is bound to
fail all the time and everywhere(as libertarians contend), Sweden and
Canada would be giant Detroits, but they are not. Of course, one could
argue nothing would have worked with blacks because too many of them
are just too crazy.

* * * *

Suppose we apply libertarianism to gun ownership. A libertarian might
argue that the best way to deal with gun violence is allow easier and
freer sales of guns to more people. Eventually, things will balance
out. If more people own guns, they would be able to protect one
another. Criminals would think twice about robbing people. A sudden
spike in gun violence may eventually drop once everyone has guns and
an equilibrium is reached. There is some degree of validity to this
argument, but let’s not fool ourselves. This kind of ‘equilibrium’
will be violent, crazy, and tension-filled. (Actually, stability or
lack thereof in any society may depend more on its system of laws,
moral values, and racial make-up than on gun laws. A Yugoslavia
divided by ethnicity was a dangerous place for guns since Serbs shot
Croats, Croats shot Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Muslims shot Serbs, and
etc. Guns and ethnic diversity can be a deadly mix. But, once you
have stable communities dominated by one race or ethnicity, there’s
likely to be greater peace, with or without guns; indeed, each of the
former Yugoslavian nations are safer now after the breakup and
population transfers even though many people still own guns. On the
other hand, a society dominated by blacks may not be safe with lots of
guns cuz so many blacks be acting crazy. Indeed, fear of blacks has
become the number one reason why whites want to own guns. In the past,
it was fear of Indians and wild animals. If the wild frontier was
being tamed by white folks in the 19th century, today the urban jungle
dominated by blacks is encroaching on white folks who want guns. Rich
liberals who can afford to live in safe neighborhoods lose nothing
when they yammer about the evil of guns and promote interracism since
they don’t practice what they preach, but many common white Americans
see the dangers all around.) If easy availability of guns is the
solution, then why is there so much gun violence in the inner cities?
Since just about every negro has a gun, he or she would be reluctant
to use it; there should be mutual apprehension and respect. And,
gangs would not shoot one another since all sides know the other guys
have guns to retaliate with. But, the equilibrium and stability
brought upon by guns in the inner city isn’t much better than the
state of animal nature.
Bad and aggressive people will find ways to do bad things, and they’ll
be far more willing to use guns. Bad people are more likely to be
daring, reckless, and dangerous. In the long run, they are likely to
end up younger than most people, but such idiots don’t think of long-
term; even if they know of the dangers of crime and violence, they
still prefer emotion over sense: the glamorous ‘badass’ life to one of
sobriety; they don’t heed to the advice of ‘live a long life eating
rice gruel’(Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa).
Ever see a Western movie? Why do certain individuals or gangs gain
great power over others when everyone has guns? Consider the movie
“High Noon”. In truth, most people are chicken or ‘don’t want any
trouble’. In other words, most people aren’t bungee jumpers.
So, if we ramp up the freedom for individuals, those with reckless
tendencies will push them to excess and get in the way of those who
tend to be wimpy. The so-called organic equilibrium will vary society
to society based on how many crazyass knuckleheads it has. A
community of 1000 with 10 people like Mike Tyson will be saner than a
community with 100 people like Mike Tyson.
And, in all cases, in a random crowd of people inside a hall doing as
they please, the result will be some individuals gaining the attention
and dominance over others.


This is why we need many good laws and effective enforcement. To be
sure, bad laws may be worse than lax or no laws.
It is the failure to have and enforce good laws that leads to the
excesses that eventually lead people to call for draconian, intrusive,
or even oppressive laws(out of anger or in need for security). The
best bulwark against the growing power of the state is to allow the
state to play a constructive role in enforcing and regulating social
order. Letting people do as they please can lead to social chaos, in
which case people fall under the sway of demagogues or ideologues
seeking great expansion of state power in the name of ‘bread and
peace’..


Consider guns and the recent financial mess. If we have very loose
guns laws and too many people have guns, there are likely to be more
shootings and bloodbaths such as the Virginia Tech shooting.
http://groups.google.com/group/neo-fascism/msg/a491ffaa4f7a7035?hl=en&
That will lead to an outcry for truly draconian guns laws by people
who react EMOTIONALLY than rationally to such things. Emotions matter
in society, especially in relation to who controls the media. In the
US, the media is controlled largely by liberal Jews, and they don’t
want guns in the hands of white Americans. Horrible gun tragedies will
be played up by the liberal media in order to push forth their agenda.
Sometimes the image or story is so powerful that the media will have
to fall in step whether it wants to or not. Consider the effect that
the images of dead Palestinian children had on the world community and
peace processes in the 1990s. Those images played a key role in
pressuring US and Israel to go for major peace deals with little
likelihood to succeed. When things get bad, people will grab at
anything, especially if some news story crystallizes in iconic sound &
image the urgency and desperation. Of course, not all such crises are
caused by lack of laws or social stability; in the case of Israel and
Palestinians, the cause of the tensions is nationalisms. In any case,
the problem exists due to impossibility of effective political control
and stability in that part of the world. But, even in a nation such as
US or Iceland, we can have end up with major social crisis if pillars
of society crumble. Too much gun violence resulting from too many
guns is one form of crisis. The financial collapse in the US and
Iceland is another. When things like that happen, people grow angry
but they also feel helpless. They fall into the hands of those who say
they can fix the problem if they’re given tremendous government power.
People ‘think’ with their emotions than with their minds. (When times
are too good, same can happen, which explains why so many upbeat
people in the late 90s ‘thought’ they were all going to be
millionaires thanks to owning internet stocks.) Same can be said of
the political and social thinking during the Civil Rights Movement in
America. It was the emotional power of watching ‘helpless’ and
‘innocent’ blacks being bullied and attacked by ‘vicious’ whites
(especially on TV) that added tremendous momentum to the movement.
Also, the gravity and complexity of the racial problem made people
desperate and anxious; they just decided to hold their breath and take
a leap of faith off the cliff into the water they hoped was be deep
enough. Alas, the water wasn’t deep enough and we’ve broken many bones
since.
Americans–and the rest of world–ignored the complexities of the social
problem and just chose to believe in simple good vs wrong, a scenario
where heaven on earth would be achieved if white folks only embraced
the negro(when in fact the negro had many biologically rooted problems
regardless of whether white folks embraced him or not). And, this
sort of thing continues to hold sway over us because the liberal Jews
who own and run the media and academia still employ those images via
movies, PBS documentaries, and school texts to EMOTIONALLY inculcate
us into being ‘virtuous’ people according to their agenda.


The point is terrible crises and incidents can be exploited
emotionally by the enemy. So, if freedom lovers push for too many
guns and easy access, the series of gun-related bloodbaths can be
emotionally exploited to turn the majority of people against ALL guns
and ALL gun-owners. This is why people who oppose all gun laws will
eventually end up with no guns. Zero gun control will lead to more and
more horrible acts, which will be exploited by the liberal media to
shock people. More and more people will EMOTIONALLY support tougher
gun laws, not only in fear of gun violence because the majority moral
pressure says, ‘you must oppose guns to be a good honorable decent
person’.

By now, we should all know that thought is really steered by emotions.
Prevalence of incidents that stir people’s emotions against gun
violence will shape their minds against guns. Consider the impact of
liberal media on racial violence. They cover up or under-report news
of black-on-white violence, but still remind everyone of the killing
of Emmit Till or some random white-on-black violence. White kids grow
up reading about or watching that stuff(white ‘racism’) through the
various media; their emotions are stirred first, and then the thought
follows. In boxing, you hit the head and the body follows. In
education and culture, you grab the heart and the mind follows. This
is why people think Holocaust was worse than other mass killings. Our
hearts have been targeted with heart tuggers like Diary of Anne Frank,
Schindler’s List, and Angel on the Fence. In contrast, we know of the
other killings through the head than the heart. We know Stalin killed
millions but through dry books, not through movies, music, tv, heart-
tugging documentaries. We think of the history of communism; we FEEL
about the Holocaust.


The great backlash against drugs happened because pro-drug folks
failed to understand the emotional impact of bad horrifying news.
Drug advocates of the 60s would have done better to call for strong
laws keeping drugs legal but seriously regulated and controlled.
Instead, people like Timothy Leary said it would be no problem at all
if all the kids smoked pot, tripped on acid, or whatever. Of course,
such attitude led to drug orgies and terrible excesses(easily
exploited by the media and alarmists), which led to public outrage and
tough drug laws that totally banned most drugs.
And, liberals messed up too with crime. By apologizing for all black
crime and naively believing that the crime problem would go away if
government provided more welfare, love, and job-training for blacks,
liberals ended up creating a scary social reality. With cops’ hands
tied behind their backs, with criminals being let out through
revolving door system, many cities became uninhabitable, and white
folks fled for the suburbs. Though conservatives didn’t control the
media and have the means to portray proponents of laxer crime laws as
fiends or louts, many people saw the reality and simply voted with
their feet. Because of liberal control of the media and academia(the
power to control the heart), many white folks–even liberals–who took
flight from blackening areas felt guilt and, self-loathing. On the
ground, they readily saw black lunacy and crime all over, but the
forces that controlled their hearts(thus minds) said, ‘shame on you
for running from the wonderful negro(who, in reality, wasn’t so
wonderful)’. This explains the popularity of Oprah and Obama among
gulli-wullible white people. All those white folks who ran from ‘bad
blacks’–but were afraid to admit their fear of blacks–wanted to prove
that they aren’t ‘racist’ after all. So, they go gaga over Orpah and
Obama.


What’s true of guns and crime is also true of economics. Reagan did a
lot of good things for the economy, but the libertarian economists who
pushed the envelope on deregulation were asking for trouble. It led to
excesses in the financial sector which led to the current crisis which
is paving the way for socialism. Deregulation and free market
economics were not the only or even the main cause of the crisis, but
they played essential roles. Had conservatives been more interested
and invested in good government, its operations, and what it can do
against market abuses, then the current mess could have been avoided,
and we wouldn’t be on the road to socialism. But, free wheelers and
dealers got the green light to do whatever clever crazy stuff–all the
more dangerous because they got intertwined with forces and policies
that had little or nothing to do with the free market. Instead of
opposing anti-free-market policies on principle and employing the
necessary instrument of government to regulate the financial sector
and enforce laws, conservatives got ideologically and politically lazy
and thought more and more deregulation and wheeling and dealing would
fix all problems and be good for the economy. It led to excesses, and
excesses led to the current meltdown.
And, it’s been EMOTIONALLY exploited by Obama and the liberal Jewish
media that made him. And so, we are headed to socialism.

Ancient Greeks valued moderation. Libertarianism is the very anti-
thesis of moderation. It is inherently supportive and bolstering of
excessive behavior in the belief that all the excesses will counter
and balance each other out. But, do we want an ‘ecological’ society?
There is ecological balance in nature brought upon by ugly processes.
We humans cannot live like that. The balance in nature is achieved by
animals fighting and devouring other animals, by forest fires, by all
sorts of crazy stuff. Animals act excessively, and the ‘natural
balance’ is the outcome of all these competing excesses–constant
warfare.


Humans, on the other hand, can maintain order and balance through self-
control, shame, laws and enforcement, understanding, virtue, etc.
Libertarianism mocks all that and says everyone should just do his or
her thing to excess and not worry since the excesses will be balanced
by counter-excesses of others or by internal psychological mechanism
(like vanity neutralizing gluttony).
It’s no wonder that Ayn Rand had no use for morality as we know it. It
was all about ‘me, me, me’. I’m not arguing for altruism or
socialism. If anything, I think the individual is of paramount
importance. But, an individual must be a person of virtue, with
respect for others, and such. Also, every individual must realize
that he or she is a link in a long chain of humanity. No individual
was created by himself or herself. Nor, did he or she leap out of a
theory or book. He or she is the product of union of man and woman and
part of a long line of history and society. Individuals need freedom
to explore and find his or her place in society and history, but there
is no such thing as a pure individual, which is just an abstract
theory.