This is a follow up post to my previous post reviewing the first episode of "The Pragmatic Libertarian podcast." As I mentioned in that post, the description below the title of the podcast on the site reads "Because Liberty Works" indicating that Shawn (the creator of the podcast) believes that individual liberty will lead to good results. The purpose of this post is to discuss what my view of putting libertarianism into practice would be if liberty did not work and specifically how I would feel about it on a personal level.
My main point here is that I really care less and less about the supposed negative results that could happen in a society based on libertarian principles. Both Conservatives and Liberals warn of the dire prospects for society if their plan to control society is not put into practice, but the question I would ask is why care that much about these horrible consequences in the first place. My reason for this is that most people say that I, and the majority of people over college age (high school age for some) am past the supposed "best years of my life." Now, that may or may not be true, the hopeful part of me would like to believe it not to be so, but the pessimist inside is inclined to accept it. As unhappy a conclusion that may be, the happen to see a silver lining in giving up one's hopes and dreams.
That is that it really does not matter as much what one does in the present as future consequences are not as important as they would otherwise be. That's one of the reasons that I don't understand why when people are adolescents and they are doing things (smoking weed, drinking, having sex,skipping school etc.) that are disapproved of, they are told that they should not do those things because it might wreck their future. When it comes to people that are older and have passed the time when they can realistically accomplish their life goals and the people in question are still doing the aforementioned activities, they are scolded for not having grownup and are admonished to act their age. To me, that makes no sense from an individual perspective, perhaps from a societal perspective, but who cares about that. It seems rather sensible to be careful about how one acts when one has one's whole life ahead of them and a whole world of possibilities open, but when these things end, it makes sense to not care as much.
When it comes to libertarianism, Conservatives (and others) are convinced that it is a movement for youth who don't appreciate consequences, but older adults will realize the importance of these things and will abandon that "youthful ideology." I don't know whether a libertarian society would be better or worse, but for me it really doesn't matter as much, if anything, I have the opposite perspective of the conservatives, I think that the societal consequences of policies should matter less as one gets older because you won't be around as long and the best part of your life is already behind you.
Take all the things that these types worry about, who really cares that much, If everyone becomes a crackhead, children aren't taken care off, etc etc. well that would worry me at one time, but about how much more life do I want anyways. That is one thing that you would definitely be able to do in a libertarian society that you cannot do (for the most part) now and that's kill yourself. In that respect, it's actually a lot worse if everything goes to hell under a non-libertarian system because in that case you would not have the ability to end your life in a painless way most likely. On the other hand, if there were a bunch of marauding savages around your home prepared to kill you, at least if you had some drugs, guns, whatever, you could either fight it out or blow your head off à la Kurt Cobain (ecstasy before death).
Anyhow, many people predict that the next century is going to be pretty horrible anyways, so if they're right, why would anyone want to stick around that long anyways. I happen to think that it makes much more sense in such a scenario, to have our sex, drugs, and rock and roll well we can instead of worrying about a future that is going to suck anyways.
No comments:
Post a Comment