Back to Basics 14

            In a CNN/Tea Party debate on Monday, 12 September 2011, libertarian Republican candidate Ron Paul was posed by Wolf Blitzer with a hypothetical case where, in an Los Angeles Times summary,

          “A healthy, 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides: [… not to buy] health insurance, because I'm healthy […]. But you know, something terrible happens […]. Who's going to pay for it, if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?”

          “In a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him,” Paul replied. Blitzer asked what Paul would prefer to having government deal with the sick man.

          “What he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself,” Paul said. ”My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not before —"

          “But he doesn't have that,” Blitzer said. “He doesn't have it, and […] he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?”

          “That's what freedom is all about: taking your own risks,” Paul said […].

          “But congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die,” Blitzer asked.

          “Yeah,” came the shout from the audience. That affirmative was repeated at least three times. Paul, who has always had a reputation for being a charitable man, disagreed with the idea that sick people should die, but insisted that the answer to the healthcare problem was not a large government.

Paul would have churches and other elements of society pay for such health care, not government — but I don’t want to get into the healthcare issue here.

            First, I support single-payer, National Health on pragmatic grounds: we Americans spend way too much time and money on the current system and need a system that’s simpler for ordinary people to use and much simpler for a relatively small number of bureaucrats to manage. Second, Paul Krugman has already covered Paul on health care, and my musings on the subject aren’t needed. And third, what I can talk about intelligently and want to discuss here is Paul’s philosophical assertion, “That's what freedom is all about: taking your own risks.”

Well, I'm going to deal with that statement plus two quick comments on Paul and philosophy more generally. First here, I highly respect Ron Paul for his intellectual honesty and philosophical consistency. Second, Paul is a prime example that Plato was wrong about the ideal of rule by philosopher kings; a Philosopher King is a bad idea, at least a philosophic ruler of the Platonic variety or of the Ron Paul variety: guys and gals who will govern by theory, wherever theory leads, even if applying theory leads to nice guys’ committing acts of cruelty.

            Don’t vote for Ron Paul for President, but do appreciate his getting us back to basics, specifically the very basic problem of defining “freedom.”

            I’m going to go behind Paul to the classic statement of liberal/libertarian theory in Chapter 1: Introductory of John Stuart Mill’s long essay On Liberty (1859). 

            On Liberty is out of copyright, and Mill’s principle is worth quoting at length — and I shall quote it. But it is lengthy and has problems.

            Mill talks about his principle not applying to children or peoples in “any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.”

            A student of mine once asked what “anterior to the time when” meant, and I answered, “’Before.’ It means ‘before.’”

            And then there was a longish silence, a silence I broke with, “If you’re expecting me to defend that phrase, don’t; it’s indefensible. Mill’s editor should have just changed it to ‘before’ and sent Mill a nasty brief note telling him not to waste words like that again.”

            The more serious problem is that the idea of childlike peoples can be applied not only to our ancestors — which is bad enough — but to peoples I’ll describe in a Victorian way as “than whom we have more lethal weapons and can colonize,” and justify our colonization by saying we’re helping to civilize them.

            For commentary on such civilizing missions, don’t go to a Victorian radical like Mill but to a curmudgeonly 18^th-c. Tory Christian like Jonathan Swift, whose mad Gulliver renders sane and severe judgment on your average “execrable crew of butchers, employed in so pious an expedition,” as establishing “a modern colony, sent to convert and civilize an idolatrous and barbarous people!”   

            With those warnings in mind — The goal of his essay, Mill writes,

is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control […]. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. […] Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. [¶9]

          […T]his doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. […] Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves), compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security of others. [¶10]

          […] If any one does an act hurtful to others, there is a primâ facie case for punishing him, by law, or, where legal penalties are not safely applicable, by general disapprobation. There are also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence in a court of justice; to bear his fair share in the common defence, or in any other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which he enjoys the protection; and to perform certain acts of individual beneficence, such as saving a fellow-creature's life, or interposing to protect the defenceless against ill-usage, things which whenever it is obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to society for not doing. […]. [¶11]

            On of my students responded to this passage by asking, “So freedom is the right to screw yourself?” I responded then and assert now, “Yeah, basically — so long as you don’t screw others.”

            Note, though, that Mill also insists on, when necessary, compelling people when it comes to “positive acts for the benefit of others,” including participating in "joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which" we enjoy "the protection." Note also that Mill embedded his simple principle in an essay of over 100 pages. The Principle of Liberty is straightforward and elegant; applications are complex.

            Traditional liberals are right to affirm the rights of individuals to be left alone to do our own things; traditional conservatives are right to affirm with John Donne, that “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

            If I’m old enough and competent enough to drive a car, I’m old enough to decide whether or not to wear a seat belt. But I can be required, justly, to put a young child in a car seat or not move my car until my dumb-ass sixteen-year old passenger buckles up.

            If I’m competent to drive or ride on a motorcycle, I’m competent to decide whether or not to wear a helmet; but people who sell motorcycles can be required to include helmets in the price. And the costs to my fellow citizens of caring for the class of cycle riders more injured than they might have been because of refusal to wear helmets should be defrayed by that class of cycle wearers.

            I can resolve that last issue neatly, solving two problems with one philosophically sloppy compromise. “You don’t want to wear a helmet? Fine; that’s your right. But your fellow citizens want something in return. American hospitals need organ donors. We’ll give you a license plate/tag that guarantees you won’t be hassled for not wearing a helmet — but which identifies the driver and any passenger as organ donors, whether wearing helmets or not. Sign here, and accept our thanks.”

            And so forth.

            We Americans can work out such issues, and libertarians have an important role to play.

            Ron Paul is right that freedom is indeed about risks; freedom always involves risks. Unfortunately, periodically in our history, Americans become fearful and give up too much liberty to avoid risk.

            Americans wimped out with parts of the USA PATRIOT Act and with the “security theater” of much that passes for terrorism prevention at airports. We tend to get hysterical when performing the obligation of grownups to protect children: in some areas we’ve protected the kids so much we’ve harmed them with obesity and learned incompetence.

            Americans need to listen to libertarians on such matters. Libertarians need to listen to liberals and traditional conservatives on individual obligations to society, of the “many positive acts for the benefit of others, which” individuals “may rightfully be compelled to perform,” and actions for the good of society that its members may be urged or even compelled to perform.

            And that does include paying taxes and sometimes includes buying insurance.