Reflecting on Liberty

Regarding the article, I’d say that Victor’s second argument (illegalized drugs impose a greater social cost than legalization) supports his first (adults should have freedom over their bodies). I initially skipped the first because I didn’t think it would say anything new or interesting. And it doesn’t, really, becasue it assumes the reader is “pro-freedom” for some values of “freedom”. The second argument provided enough justification for why freedom might be important, that I looked read the “freedom” argument for insight on what “freedom” means in context.

The words “freedom”, “liberty”, and “liberal” have lots of meanings. In the essay, liberty is equated with full personal freedom relative to others. So a strictly liberal (let’s call it a libertarian) government is enabled (and restricted) to limiting an individual (or organization’s) antagonistic acts towards another. For me, examples of antagonistic acts include murder, theft, torture, extortion, and spam. I’d say a libertarian government isn’t required outlaw all kinds of antagonism. This allows a libertarian government to have freedom of public speech and public expression (as differentiated from free public and free private). The important thing in libertarian government is that policy must be justified by how it limits antagony and promotes liberty.

The US (and many other governments) are not libertarian in this strict sense. Thy do both more (and sometimes less). They have armies and embassies for interaction with other countries. They fund and regulate civil projects: roads, power, eduction. They redistribute wealth: welfare, health care, social security, subsidies. They enforce social policy by regulating marriage, family, religion, and by providing tax incentives. A libertarian government would not have the power to do some of these things.

It’s hard to say what a libertarian government would be like. Could a libertarian government have strong contract, copyright, licensing, and/or patent laws? Can we even say what the society would be like? After all, social issues would fall outside of the government’s scope. Or would they?

Abortion is an industry standard social issue. It’s often viewed antagonistically: the mother against the unborn child. Some might require I phrase it: the woman against the fetus. The antagony debate endures because it’s about a philosophical question: what does it mean to be human and to have human rights?