One of my disappointments in Gary Johnson’s version of libertarianism lies in what many (erroneously in my opinion) call the question of religious liberty. Or, more colloquially, the gay wedding cake issue. His position, elaborated in a Reason article from earlier this year, rests in the premise that public accommodation has been part of American law for over a century.
That’s a political dodge, not an argument from principle, and it’s a muddy one. He draws (well, fabricates) a line of distinction by observing that a bakery should have to sell a cake to a Nazi but does NOT have to draw a swastika on it. Therein lies the problem.
Once we step away from core principles of liberty because we fear that there will be instances that produce unsavory outcomes, we now require that a line be drawn. And – that in itself mandates that someone draw the line.
The quick and cheap answer to that is that society, through representative government, draws that line. There are obvious problems here. First – society is not monolithic, and this argument is in essence that the majority gets to impose its will on the minority. Second – individual rights are not based on majority opinions. The latter can change over time, but our rights are both eternal and inalienable. They’re not subject to the changing whims of society.
Critics of “principle” tend to trot out obvious examples to support their arguments, as do those who want carve-outs for their favored positions. In the case of the gay wedding cake issue, the straw man is the aforementioned baker (or, more specifically, a Jewish baker) being forced to make a Nazi-themed cake. I presume that we are meant to see how refusal to bake the former is obviously wrong and refusal to bake the latter is obviously right, but the obvious aren’t where we run into trouble.
Consider a recent story about three Walmart employees refusing to bake a Blue Lives Matter cake for a retiring cop. Is there an obvious answer here? Some see it as racist, some see it as mocking the Black Lives Matter movement, some see it as taking sides in the cops-vs-blacks issue that’s been at the top of the news the past few months. Others see it as insulting to law enforcement, as a breakdown in societal values, or as racist in the other direction. Who’s right?
Government’s role regarding our rights is to defend them against infringement, blindly and without value judgment. The moment value judgment enters into the equation, self-interest becomes paramount, and people fight for ascendancy in the grievance hierarchy. Those fights, which should properly be waged apart from the all-powerful hand of government, become about who wields the bigger hammer. A society that forces behavior is not a free society. Nor is it a harmonious one. You don’t adjust people’s opinions and views by forcing them to act against their beliefs, even if those beliefs are wrong.
Cultures advance all on their own, without some solons at the top of the heap deciding (and forcing) the direction in which they should go. Cultural avulsion for Nazism and cultural acceptance of gay relations have, apart from some outliers, been moving in the right direction for decades. This movement is, ironically, jeopardized by those who seek to force faster movement. Resentment is a nasty cancer, and it is fed when people are forced to act against their will. You don’t unite people by force and expect them to stay united.
As for Gary Johnson’s position? It works with his apparent strategy: to draw disaffected liberals into voting for him instead of Clinton. It’s not, however, libertarian, no matter how he spins it.
On a final note, many on the Right seek to defend the rights of the aforementioned baker by invoking a religious liberty exception to the public accommodation concept of which this forced association is born. This isn’t an argument from principle, either. It leaves in place the idea that engaging in economic liberty (opening a business to the public) comes with an automatic burden and automatic acceptance of a particular social contract. That’s not the way of liberty, it’s merely another attempt to climb the grievance hierarchy. The proper rebuttal to “bake that cake” is the assertion of our right of free association. Yes, it’ll produce repugnant outcome from time to time, but just as we defend the rights of racists and assholes to say repulsive things, we must defend the rights of such people to peacefully live as they wish. If we don’t, if we attempt to force harmony, we’ll not only fail, we’ll eventually find our own rights destroyed.
Loading ...
Active Comment Threads
Most Commented Posts
Universal Background Checks – A Back Door to Universal Registration
COVID Mask Follies
When Everything Is Illegal…
An Anti-Vax Inflection Point?
“Not In My Name”
The Great Social Media Crackup
War Comes Through The Overton Window
The First Rule of Italian Driving
Most Active Commenters