Crazy Libertarian Thought Summary

As Americans become more paternalistic in their acceptance of government, I get more concerned about our freedom. Not the freedom that prevents government from enforcing important laws and catch bad guys. I don't care if the government reads my library records. It is really stupid, if they think I might be making a bomb, to not let them see if I rented a bomb making book rather than going through my house looking for one I bought.

No, I'm talking about the everyday stuff. But Americans aren't really eager to give up freedoms. They are hoodwinked into it through socialistic policies. One mundane example is seat belt laws. Walter Williams discusses this in a recent column. He asks the very simple question every libertarain takes for granted: who owns you?

Let's start with the question: Who owns Walter E. Williams? Is it President Bush, the U.S. Congress, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, or do I own myself? I'm guessing that any reasonable person would agree that I own Walter E. Williams. The fact that I own myself means that I have the right to take risks with my own life but not others'. That's why it's consistent with morality to mandate that my car have working brakes. If my car doesn't have working brakes, then I risk the lives of others, and I have no right to do so. If I choose not to wear a seatbelt, then I risk my own life, which I have every right to do.

I am now old enough to have seen this slippery slope encrouchment. They started out, in just about every state that passed them, as a "secondary" offense. This means that you couldn't be pulled over just because you weren't wearing your seat belt. You could only be ticketed if you were pulled over for a different reason.

Why this strange exception? Because Americans weren't eager to let government mandate something, though a good idea, that did not have any discernable victims. So how was it passed? Through slight of hand (the "secondary" offense idea) and "to save tax dollars." You see, it may be true that people wearing seat belts only hurt themselves. But then they go to the hospital with more serious injuries. If they don't have adequate insurance, then we end up paying for their health care - either through higher medical care costs because of unpaid bills, or through tax dollars. By introducing socialistic tendencies, we make something formerly just our business everyone's business.

Some might rejoin by saying, "Williams, if you're not wearing a seatbelt, and don't do us the favor of dying in an accident and become an incapacitated vegetable, society will have to bear the expense of taking care of you." That's not a problem of liberty and self-ownership. It's a problem of socialism.

There's no moral case for forcing anyone to care for me for any reason. When we buy into socialism, we buy into paternalistic government. It reminds me of what my mother used to say during my rebellious adolescent years: "Boy, as long as you're living in my house and I'm paying the bills, you're going to do what I say!" Paternalism is OK for children, but is it suitable for adults?

Seat belt advocates were never going to be satisfied with the secondary offense idea though. This was truely a slipery slope event. Get one foot in the door, wait until everyone is used to it, then take what you really want. So now states have removed the secondary offense status of seat belt laws and made them a primary offense. They do a great job to raise revenue as well.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an office within the U.S. Department of Transportation, just finished its annual campaign to get us to wear our seatbelts under a program called "Click It or Ticket." States receive federal subsidies to ticket drivers if they or their passengers are not buckled up. Some states, such as Maryland, are so eager that they've equipped their officers with night vision goggles, similar to those used by our servicemen in Iraq. Maryland state troopers bagged 44 drivers traveling unbuckled under the cover of darkness. The NHTSA's "Click It or Ticket" program is another step toward making Americans serfs of the state.

People who tire of the freedom chant of libertarians often complain that there is no burden of responsiblity to go with it. Of course the claim is false. The responsibility is obvious. Moreover, I am not so hard hearted or politically naive to think that no security and safety nets are in order for society. But as we demand more and more security, more and more entitlement from tax dollars, we hand over more power to our neighbor to control our lifestyle.

Where government has not taken over through legislation, juries have taken over as defacto legislatures. Tobacco companies were sued over and over again before juries finally decided to hit them. Now the flood gates of this type of new age regulation are in order. Courts will eventually let fast food companies face a jury for obesity claims. The first several will likely lose. But then someone will win, and the money will start pouring out. Guns have been on the lawsuit block for years. Some other industry will be next

Living in the nanny state, where government has a claim over one's health, also has no limits. Why do we allow anything with no health benefits to be legal at all? Salt? Grease? Tobacco? Why not make it a crime to consume more than one glass of red wine per day? These laws are all easily justifiable under the theory that gives us seat belt laws. And if they aren't passed by the legislature, they will eventually be passed through the lawsuit regulatory machine.

I have never been one to accept slippery slope arguments against a change in the law that I found just. Sometimes you should draw a new line because it is the right thing to do. But it really seems, the longer I live, that no change is ever the end in itself. It is always just the first step -- it is the frog in the water that is being heated slowly. And neither side of the political spectrum can really be trusted to tell you where they intend to stop.