Rand Paul and Positive Law in a Stateless Society
I’ve previously mentioned one of the biggest drawbacks of a reformist approach to implementing libertarian ethics is that politics makes you stupid — because by looking at things in terms of government policy, you tend to lose the ability to explain and advocate something very important. Now Rand Paul is getting his nose rubbed in it — and I’m quite pleased by this, because electoral politics is a wrong turn for the libertarian movement and the sooner libertarians realize this the better.
That something is this…
Libertarian ethics add another layer to thought about society, by describing the circumstances when violence is appropriate and when it isn’t (as well as by contributing the related recognition that the state is institutionalized violence). By focusing solely on what state policy ought and ought not be, what gets ignored is the ability to build positive law in a stateless society. Positive law in a statist society is tyrannical because it is imposed coercively. Positive law in a stateless society would be libertarian — built contractually and through free association in response to non-violent methods of persuasion.
In other words, the serious libertarian (i.e. agorist) recognizes not only that social evils such as racism ought to be opposed, but that an important principle must shape the character of that opposition — resulting in use of either violent or non-violent means as may be appropriate to the particular case under consideration.
ADDENDUM, 5/21/2010: See also this comment by RadGeek.
Share This
I agree w/ your negativity about electorical politics and selling out, but being pleased that Paul is being attacked *for what he is good on* is misanthropic. He should just lie about his views on the CRA. Screw the media.
re: “misanthropic” — I have an opinion on strategy and wish for failing strategies to fail as quickly as possible.
“It falls, it decays; who would preserve it? But I — I even want to push it!” — Nietzsche
Also, strictly speaking, I’m not pleased that he’s being attacked for what he’s good on. I’m pleased that he is illustrating that his chosen context (electoral politics) makes him tend towards incompetency at defending against such attacks.