I am writing this post as an open letter to a
particular friend of mine so that, while addressing him as an individual, I can
hopefully bring a “teachable moment” to the masses who daily cling to every
word of this blog for knowledge and guidance (hey, I don’t mind making myself
the butt of a joke). :)
Also, when I speak of the libertarian perspective, I
mean THIS libertarian.
________________________
Dear Friend,
I am happy to learn that you have an open mind and
are at least willing to listen to what I have to say. Our subject is an old one: whether people
should view the needs of society from the individual or collectivist point of
view. You place yourself firmly on the
side of the collectivists and have said that, in order to adopt my
individualist philosophy, you “would need to know the mercy and kindness in it,
rather than the callous indifference and self-centeredness that is apparent on
its face.”
I’m glad you said, “…that is apparent on its
face.” If you’ve read much of this blog,
you will know that I am definitely in favor of looking below the surface of
things. When I last wrote you, I
suggested that “we are more of kindred spirits than you may believe when it
comes to caring about other people.”
To generalize, I am typically viewed as a
libertarian, and you are viewed as a liberal.
One point we can agree on and boast about is the fact that we view
liberty as belonging to every person equally.
We do not see liberty as something we dole out only to people who look,
believe, or behave as we do. We accept
diversity and do not discriminate where the enjoyment of liberty is
concerned. “Freedom” is the root of our
party names, and we take to heart the idea that “all men [people] are created
equal,” and should therefore enjoy freedom on an equal footing. We also recognize that, unfortunately, it has
not been played out as such on the world stage.
But this has not caused us to give up on the idea!
“Individualism” has been given a bad name by many of
the people who espouse it. To those on
the left side of the political spectrum, the philosophies coming from the right
can look very callous and self-centered.
Libertarians themselves have also been known to shoot individualism in
the foot. I recently had a conversation
with one who had a problem with me saying that “liberty is for the common
good.” He wouldn’t accept “the common
good” because it smacked of collectivist ideology. He said that liberty went beyond the common
good and was essential for humanity’s very existence. I replied that nothing says “common” like the
word “humanity,” and that there was no need to fear the word “common” – it does
not contain communist cooties.
There seems to be fear on both sides: the left fears
that the masses will needlessly suffer if we don’t address them as a
whole. The right fears being controlled
by faceless bureaucracies who don’t respect them as individual persons – they fear
being reduced to a cog in the bureaucratic machinery. It is my view that the fears on either side
are legitimate. These fears should not
be discounted or written-off merely as the products of baseless and blind party
ideology. These fears are based on
something that is undeniably common to both sides of the political spectrum:
our shared humanity.
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