The split of positions within the libertarian party is quite telling. One faction is libertarian because they don’t want the moralists telling them what to do. They want freedom from religion in government. The other is libertarian because they don’t want the immoralists telling them what to do. They want freedom from secularism in government. To get to heart of the difference you have to ask an additional question.
The underlying question behind this is “what is freedom”? If a man falls into a large hole, he may still have lots of room to move around, but is he really free? Or conversely, what if you haven’t fallen into the hole at all, but you can see the hole – do you really have the freedom to fall into it or are your freedoms being restricted by avoiding the hole to begin with? Both of these scenarios are in essence where these two stripes of libertarians differ. The former wants the freedom to do whatever he wants. The latter wants the freedom to self-govern without interference. So then, the question is, “Can you really be just a libertarian?” The answer is no. Choose your side. Are you a lawless libertarian or a self-governing libertarian?
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Author: D. Carl Hoos
