by Matt Barr

Incompatibilities

Via the Corner comes this post which explains why conservatives and libertarians are incompatible, and one cannot be both.

I would argue that any attempt to give a moral foundation to libertarianism (e.g. utilitarian, Lockean) will inevitably end up either favoring moral conservatism to such an extent that it fails to count as genuinely “libertarian” at all (since it will end up denying that we can, strictly speaking, have a “right” to do many of the things libertarians want to claim we have a right to), or it will succeed in being genuinely libertarian, but in a way that rules out the possibility of moral conservatism. In short, there is no coherent way to be both morally conservative and strictly libertarian.

I don't see why not, when you consider what the poster doesn't: distrust. If we're going to make everything immoral illegal, the obvious question is whose definition of immoral we are to follow. If we're going to make some "immoral" things illegal and not others, the question is who decides which list things are on.

You can (and we generally do) say that it's whatever a working majority of people, or their representatives, decide, but given the choice to opt in to a system like that, most of us wouldn't, because we understandably regard our neighbors and especially our representatives as mostly scary, irrational boobs. No offense.

Instead, you can construct a system where the bright line lawmaking rule is whether the action or transaction someone wants to ban harms any third party who doesn't have the choice whether to participate. Harm is not only less subjective than immorality, it's the basis of most laws already. This kind of rule would make all sorts of things that are currently illegal legal, but law isn't and shouldn't be the only guide for our behavior.

The idea that no one deserves to rule another without the other's consent is, or should be, common to both libertarianism and conservatism. The difference is that conservatives generally base this on their respect for the dignity of the one to be governed, while libertarians base it on their contempt for the one trying to govern. Comes out the same either way, or should: I don't trust you to make the rules, you don't trust me, but we need rules, so let's make them objective, and unobtrusive, as possible.

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