"[I]n light of how the past year has unfolded, consider cutting your friendly neighbourhood libertarian some slack. After all, we did try to warn you.
"On immigration, speech and trade, Americans are living in a libertarian’s nightmare. ... a terrifying pattern and an undeniable vindication of the long-held libertarian view that the steady growth in the size of the federal government and executive power would lead to precisely this kind of runaway authoritarianism.
"Libertarians have argued that the only way to prevent such abuses is to reduce the power of the federal government itself — abolishing unaccountable federal agencies, scaling back the administrative state, cutting spending — and to restore the balance of powers by reining in the executive. This path has generally been treated as hopelessly naïve at best, and morally suspect at worst. ... Yet it has never been more obvious that the grab-and-grow approach to power is a destructive and self-defeating way to conduct politics.
"To see why, consider how we got here.
"The Department of Homeland Security arose with very little opposition in the wake of Sept. 11 ... As the years went on, Homeland Security — and especially Immigration and Customs Enforcement, within it — got comfortable operating under a series of exceptions to the Constitution ... So it can be no surprise that ICE officers are roaming the streets of American cities today with an unclear mandate, overpowered military-style gear and a dire misunderstanding of the constitutional limits on their behaviour. ...
"Trump 2.0 has made the libertarian case more obvious ... But it would be a mistake to treat President Trump as the origin of the ultra-powerful presidency. He is merely picking up the weapons that previous administrations left lying around and waltzing through the loopholes they opened.
"Mr. Trump has a record of threatening media and platforms under various statutory and emergency authorities. He recently mused that when '97 percent' of media coverage is negative, it ceases to be 'free speech.' ...
"But the project of growing executive power has been bipartisan. On speech, officials in the Biden administration leaned on social-media platforms to take down what they deemed Covid and election misinformation without explicit action from the F.C.C. The Supreme Court disposed of a case, Murthy v. Missouri, challenging this “jawboning” ...
"And Mr. Trump’s tariffs — levelled and removed at will and without the participation of Congress, where the Constitution places the primary power — have disrupted and destabilised the global economy and undermined America’s role in it. ...
"Mr. Trump’s tariffs depend on a legally dubious claim that trade deficits and ordinary commerce constitute a national emergency, allowing him to bypass Congress under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. (Jimmy Carter once invoked it to freeze Iranian assets.) Mr. Trump’s tariffs are not an aberration so much as the latest example of how emergency powers, once normalized, become a standing invitation to rule by fiat.
"One thing immigration, speech and trade have in common is that in recent American history, the power to control each of them has settled into the hands of the executive. ... The Supreme Court is reviewing the limits of the president’s control over tariffs and executive agencies. ... The libertarian prescription, now and always, is to scale back the size and scope of the federal government. Devolve power to states and individuals. Cut spending. And rebalance power away from the executive branch. ...
"The good news is that Americans are increasingly waking up to the dark reality of [an] overbearing federal government. ... Similarly, Americans of all stripes have turned dramatically against Mr. Trump’s ICE enforcement actions. There could be — a libertarian can still dream — a grass-roots movement to shrink government that doesn’t end up co-opted by one of the major parties, as the Tea Party was. ...
"But this glimmer of hope is faint. ..."Instead of a winner takes all approach to power, it’s time to consider working toward a system where there is much less power for the winner to take. No one wished events would prove libertarians wrong more than libertarians themselves. There’s nothing more annoying than an 'I told you so.' But if more Americans are now ready to limit power before it is abused again, they are welcome to join us."~ Katherine Mangu-Ward from her New York Times free-access op-ed 'Libertarians: We Told You So'
Wednesday, 11 February 2026
Americans? Libertarians did try to warn you
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Objectivists! The late Ayn Rand did try to warn you about libertarians. She did not recommend them. She considered them unprincipled.
Henry J
Whatever Ayn Rand's criticisms of the libertarians around 60 years ago, Henry J can't credibly appeal to her authority to counter this argument, nor support his views. One of her main criticisms of libertarians was their commonly isolationist stance when it came to foreign affairs. The same isolationist stance Henry J promotes when it comes to aggression from his mate in Russia.
MarkT
Ayn thought libertarians unprincipled. Her view was they lacked a coherent consistent philosophical system. She argued that libertarians focused only on politics and public policy. They ignored the moral, rational, and metaphysical roots necessary for free society. That is, their arguments (on politics and public policy) had no basis, nothing to rest on, no foundation.
Ayn criticised libertarians for trying to defend capitalism and freedom without adopting a rational, egoistic morality. Instead of her systematic integrated approach, their method was often amoral (or non-moral) – fundamentally different.
That was not the end of it either. She concluded that libertarians were taking her ideas, stripping them of their philosophical grounding (rational egoism), making them weak and superficial ( as well as easier to rebut). That was an unprincipled behaviour to do. She considered this extremely damaging. Damning behaviour on their part.
Summing it up. Ayn did not believe libertarians held a genuine, principled commitment to liberty, but rather a confused, stolen version of her work- one that lacked intellectual integrity. Hence, she concluded they were unprincipled. She warned Objectivists of this and was uncompromising about it. Ayn Rand did try to warn Objectivists about libertarians, just as I reported.
Ayn supported a civilized nation's right to self-defense against barbarism, especially when the threat was existential. She also concluded that war was caused by statism- a virulent and extremely toxic form of collectivism. Some libertarians agreed with her and some of them did not. There were a variety of reasons offered by libertarians who concurred with her. There were a variety of reasons offered from those who concluded against her. Reading libertarian literature and correspondence demonstrates that there were many separate arguments- often not compatible with each other or even with other aspects of libertarianism. There were (and still are) many separate views of what the libertarian position was or ought to be about this.
Ayn’s insight was the identification of the cause for the differences. She cut right through the noise and went straight to the issue. A lack of underlying principles supporting libertarianism was the problem. Hence the wide range of positions from total pacifism right through to militarism, on to out-right statist warmongering as well as everything in between. They all claimed to be libertarian and many still do. It illustrates exactly the pitfalls of lack of principle throughout the libertarian movement. That was what Ayn was getting at with her warnings.
Apply Ayn's test to these United States. Is there an existential threat to these USA from the SMO? No. Is the RF attacking these USA? No. Is it in the direct interest and to the benefit of the citizens of these USA to go to war against the RF? No. It does not benefit US citizens for the US military to go over there to engage in another of Europe's wars. There is no valid moral argument to do it. Did you get that? There is no valid moral argument for the USA to get involved or to be involved. There is no existential threat to the USA and its citizens. Staying out is the right conclusion. Call that isolationism if you must but name calling is not an argument.
Summing it up. Staying out of these hostilities is the only choice. A libertarian arguing the opposite demonstrates the lack of consistent coherent principle within libertarianism. A libertarian arguing the opposite also demonstrates that they personally are unprincipled- very possibly a statist nonce. Heinous.
Henry J
I can see why you’re such a fan of AI (it probably helped you write that).
MarkT
You're playing the man again. That's a tell.
Henry J
Post a Comment