In the past couple months, I unfriended two people on Facebook over politics. They were both “friends” only via politics – one was invited by a friend of a friend into my blog, and the other friended me because of my political postings – so I didn’t actually end friendships or insult anyone I knew personally.
Nevertheless, taking this action bothered me a bit, because I’ve long been vocally opposed to the blocking or censoring of individuals on message boards and comments pages, even those with whom I deeply disagree and even those that are offensively wrong. I’d much rather people expose their ideas and thoughts for all to see so that they can be rebutted than push them into the darkness where their ideas can fester unchallenged. It took a lot to drive me to the point of actually clicking the button to get them out of my life, and part of me was troubled by it.
Then I processed the facts a bit. I defriended one because he started deliberately acting like a jackass towards me and everything I wrote, a behavior rooted in his apparent antipathy for all things libertarian and because he seemed to consider libertarian ideas a dangerous threat. I defriended the other because the majority of his posts were insulting garbage that picked out supposed examples of anti-semitism in the Libertarian Party and projected those examples into blanket condemnations of libertarianism as a whole and of barely-veiled accusations against all libertarians. None of my responses or rebuttals made a dent in either of them, there was nothing to gain from maintaining either “friendship,” there was no exchange of ideas to be had, and I was under no obligation to subject myself to continued nonsense. Furthermore, I did not petition to have them or their ideas blocked or censored from Facebook, and they remain free to post whatever silliness they wish.
My point? Sticking to principles requires neither counterproductive absolutism nor tolerating assholes. And so it goes with libertarianism itself.
I’ve written before about how the favorite activity of some libertarians is to denounce others as not “true” libertarians. It’s silly, it’s distracting, it’s damaging to the liberty movement and it’s self-destructive. It also fosters in others the notion that libertarians are kooks, uncompromising absolutists and extremists, and the belief that they can argue down libertarian positions by reductio-ad-absurdum arguments (like declaring that libertarians would oppose fighting back against enemies that attacked the US, or announcing that libertarians would do away with all regulation of anything). It’s easy for libertarians to feel cornered by such attacks, because the political philosophy is rooted in an ideological philosophy. This makes it different than liberalism, conservatism, Republicanism or Democrat-ism, because all those are amalgamations of policy plans with only a generalized and loose adherence to a guiding principle (if that). In other words, libertarians’ principles can be libertarians’ obstacles.
My experience in unfriending the two acquaintances reminded me about priorities. Selling the message of liberty doesn’t mean you have to suffer fools or be a liberty absolutist. Even if you “concede” a non-absolutist point here and there, you’re still fighting the good and proper fight.
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