Were Ben Franklin and Jesus “Libertarians with Limits”?,
WHAT COULD RAND PAUL LEARN FROM THEM, AND WHY NOT BE A LIBERTARIAN LIBERAL? At first, Ben Franklin and Jesus may seem an odd pairing, yet both have much in common. They are both beloved, hold a high degree of ethics, are American icons, and IDEAL EXPONENTS OF LIBERTARIANISM! In fact, they may represent the purest form of Libertarianism, in a way that is noticeably absent today. Who will pick up this forgotten Libertarian mantel and restore the United States to greatness?
Ben Franklin, more than anyone, defines the American moral construct. He and other Founding Fathers believed in “Natural Law”, and helped create our Nation on the premise that fewer laws were better. Franklin set a vigorous example of civic ambition, and coined proverbs to buttress his ethical premises. Jesus wasn’t a big laws guy, he was more about methods and ethics. He pretty much conceded that we were all doomed to sin (after all, we’re human) and he just wanted us to acknowledge this and pursue forgiveness and redemption. He also established a heroic example, standing up to usury, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and zealotry and paid with his life. A Libertarian Party exists today, but can hardly be called “Libertarian” anymore, as it simply exists as a government hating variant of Conservativism. As a nation, we desperately need to restore our Libertarian premises and return to our foundational origins. Here is the current “Libertarian Party” spin on issues of the day, and what Jesus/Franklin might have to say:
Alcohol and Drugs: Laws regarding alcohol are perhaps the defining American Libertarian statement. We tried Prohibition and it didn’t work. Now, alcohol is “legal within reasonable limits”, which means you can’t drink while driving if you’re over 0.08, or drink if you’re under 18 (in most States). Nobody is saying that alcohol is a great thing, just that policing one’s intake is mostly a matter of free will. Similar thinking may soon apply to marijuana, cocaine, and perhaps even opioids. The latter three may soon be categorized as medicine, and controlled by the pharmaceutical industry, another “legal within limits” construct.
Guns: It might be safe to say that Christ/Franklin wouldn’t own guns personally, but might want weaponry to be legal and rather self-policing (oops! I just remembered that Jesus was a Pacifist, so he probably wouldn’t own a gun, maybe “hate the sin (gun) love the sinner (gunowner) kind of thing). That said, they would also recognize the potential abuse by the underaged, mentally ill, or those intent on mass murder (akin to the drunk driver). They might also recognize the importance of the words “well regulated militia” in implying that the big weapons were meant for some kind of coherent military force (hint: not the Capitol Riot squad). They would advocate background checks, waiting times, and assault-weapon bans for ordinary citizens as reasonable limits.
Abuse: Anything from a verbal insult to murder might be considered “abuse”. Franklin and Christ might take a “sticks and stones” approach, realizing the practicality of “turning the other cheek” at a verbal abuse, while physical abuse would cross the line into a call for reasonable limits. Of course, some verbal abuse can potentially ruin the victim, so there are libel, slander, and extortion laws. The point here is that “hurt feelings” shouldn’t cross the legislative line, for fear of the resultant legal clutter. This forces us to be strong and defend ourselves (a virtue). A fine line develops with hate speech (leading to violence), which just happened with Trump et al before the Capitol Riots. You might say that Trump’s “right to free speech” overlapped Twitter’s “right to carry reasonable content and not get sued by Capitol Riot victims” and so shutting Trump down was an easy call (his actions bordered on libel and a kind of extortion too). Hate speech peddlers are testing the limits of free speech, but these limits were fairly well-set by the framers. The same free speech limits would apply if a Larry Flynt/Hustler person went so far as to show porn that incited a sex crime.
Abortion: Abortion is the “alcohol” of childbirth. No one could say that it’s a good thing, only that if it were banned, it would go underground to the detriment of society and perhaps be double-trouble (like prohibition, which didn’t stop people from drinking and gave rise to organized crime). A reasonable limit might be within 2–3 months after conception (when there is a heartbeat). I’m sure Jesus would hate abortion of all forms, but appeal to the faith/free will of the “sinner” to recognize and avoid the sin. He darn sure wouldn’t advocate an army of Pharisees and Sadducees with police uniforms and speculums. All of this recalls the wise words of a law enforcement official many years ago, after learning that his jurisdiction had passed sodomy laws: “how will we enforce that?” he mused, “drive around in the middle of the night in a van with a loudspeaker shouting ‘NOW CUT THAT OUT!’”
LGBT: True libertarians have no problem with an innately LGBT person who simply wishes to assert their rights as a citizen and be left alone. The trouble starts when LGBT essentially wants to crash the gates of the church, which is protected by “religious liberty” which is a very libertarian device (it pretty much says you can believe in any weird kind of thing, as long as you don’t hurt anyone and you call it a “religion”). This religious protection is a safety valve, since it removes the clutter from business and government so they can conduct rational transactions. The Supreme Court decision to protect the religious bakery owners against having to make a gay wedding cake seems appropriate, given the rights of religions and business owners. After all, to do otherwise would overlap rights, plus our free market system surely will produce another bakery that can happily make that cake.
Pornography: The “libertarian with limits” rule here says everything should be legal except child and violence related porn, and if you don’t like it don’t look at it…a good fit for a free market society in which some theaters show only Disney and others only XXX content.
Pandemics and Vaccinations: Bill Maher (a libertarian and a liberal) said something like “I don’t get this Trump-led movement that is fighting for the right to run stop lights”…exactly! Vaccinations have always done a great job, but have some small risk. If you want to attend a public school, you must have certain vaccinations, and if you don’t like that, get home schooled or attend some sort of Christian School (seems fair). Not infecting others seems a basic “don’t let your rights overlap the other person’s rights” thing, and not wearing a mask seems a petty libertarian statement, if not a “libertarian without sensible limits” statement.
The Economy: True Libertarians are generally “laissez-faire” advocates, believing in a free-market economy (as you’d expect). Unfortunately, the modern Libertarian Party has been infected with far right-wing thinking, which protects captive markets such as some elements of Agriculture (subsidies for grain farmers), Big Oil (subsidies for oil, which is “good for America” (?)) and the Military, which gets government money while being far from a free-market. In fact, you could say that Republicans are the ultimate Socialists in this regard. A true libertarian party would advocate ag that is forced to compete (which would favor unsubsidized fruits and vegetables over partially subsidized meat, dairy, and grain), energy products forced to compete and pay for cleanup (unsubsidized energy with a carbon tax for CO2 emissions?), and a military supplied by more that a few favored vendors. Of course, the “libertarian with limits” would acknowledge that in emergencies, the government would need to make some of these services captive, to best serve the country (as in World War II).
The Role of Government: Libertarians want limited government, and many voters agree. However, there is controversy in the details (often, where the “reasonable limit” line exists). Libertarians disagree among themselves on levels of government protections such as anti-trust, healthcare, and consumer protection. But big government is in a way the fault of big religion, who can’t get it together long enough to create peace and take care of the poor. They can’t even field things like same-sex marriage, and then punt to the government (who darn sure doesn’t want these unwieldy issues either). When you think about it, if religions were cohesive, relevant, and highly effective, we would need few government safety nets, and very little military. So if you’re Ben and Jesus, you want religions to start acting religious for a change as the ultimate libertarian construct? Jesus might also wonder “why do so many people that say they believe in me, but not follow my example nor do what I ask?”, or he might add “it’s about thy poor and sick, so get thee off thine rear-end!”. He famously said “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”, but I don’t think he meant shoving everything onto Caesar. Ben might think “why do so many that say they believe in the founding fathers, not even knowing who the founding fathers were and what they represented?” Thomas Jefferson might say “I advocate state’s rights, but Republican libertarians want selective state’s rights… Federal Laws that ban abortion and legalize all guns, state’s rights for everything else” (Stoehr,2018)
Masturbation: Sorry to bring up the M-word here, but the issue does present an interesting Libertarian-liberal thought-experiment (and get your attention at a point when this article was stalling). Nobody really thinks masturbation is very bad, and if it is a sin, its must be a very minor one. Yet a society that encouraged frequent masturbation would surely be a compromised one (and have levels of accomplishment down there with Bonobo Monkeys). Jesus might say “thou shalt not discuss-eth asturbation-may”, and Franklin (a randy sort) would handle the subject (haha), yet create cryptic homilies to keep it reasonable (“never put off ’til tomorrow what you can do today” and “he that is in love with himself has no rivals”).
Libertarian Liberals: Libertarian liberal politicians include Sen. Cory Booker, Candidate Andrew Yang, Rep. former Governor Jerry Brown, and feminist Camille Paglia. Often, they are Democrats that want to maintain 2nd Amendment rights for gun owners, prevent warrantless surveillance, simplify taxation, maintain church state separation, legalize marijuana, and maintain abortion rights. They often differ from conservative libertarians on consumer protection, health care, anti-trust laws, and overall levels of government protection.
Conclusion: So-called Libertarians Ron and Rand Paul are staunchly anti-abortion, while Rand is more or less in lockstep with Donald Trump and Alex Jones on anti-vax, anti-government conspiracy theories (hint: this is not Libertarian). As much as we all wanted to like Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson in 2016, he came across uninformed (he didn’t know where Aleppo was, nor could he name the leader of North Korea…non-interventionist yes, but also naïve…helpful hint: Aleppo is not the forgotten 6th Marx brother, it is an important city in Syria). Johnson was also too anti government, almost sounding like a spit-in-your-eye Trump clone. He was anti-climate change, anti-entitlement (yes, Social Security, Medicare, the whole thing) and against all “gun control”. It is not clear how science-denying, cutting people off from pensions/health care money pools, and arming the populace to the teeth is “Libertarian”, but in any case, Trump seems to have gobbled up Johnson’s platform and made him irrelevant. Apparently, Libertarianism has become “acting like 2 yr old who won’t drink his milk” and putting government/moderate Democrats in the position of the parent. It might be good to return American Libertarianism to the realm of “freedom with reasonable limits”, which might include minimal safety net entitlements (with age adjustments and incentives for personal savings), foreign intervention in extreme cases (like WW II), consideration of national cooperation (and some suspension of personal/business freedoms) in times of pandemic and war, and some ways to keep nuts from stalking elementary schools with Uzis. As Jesus and Ben Franklin might say, “we want freedom and less government, but not the freedom to be drunken, poor & immigrant-hating, gun-toting, science-denying, obstructionist slobs who advocate uterine police, and by the way, remember to be ambitious, loving, forgiving, and charitable” (Herreria-Russo,2016)
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