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 Interview with a Libertarian [6:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A few days ago, I decided I wanted to interview a libertarian and make a blog entry about it. There’s a local radio personality (that’s DJ in case you couldn’t decode me) who I would love to talk to, so I’ll try to make that happen sometime if he’s willing. But some readers may not want to wait so I tried to figure out who I could interview on a much shorter notice. Then it came to me: me!

Now, I realize that interviewing myself may not be fair. After all, won’t I know the questions and answers in advance? Well, to be honest I actually end up surprising myself a little bit every time I put fingers to keyboard, and this time proved to be no different. Some might also be concerned that I’ll only throw myself softballs. So, you will have to be the judge of that.

FB: Many people may be a little confused by the term “libertarian.” Just what does it mean to you to be a libertarian?

Ed Snyder: To me, it means that my foremost concern politically is the preservation of freedom. Now, freedom can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people so maybe it would be best to define freedom. In the context of libertarian politics, freedom pretty much means an absence of coercive force. That means that people are left with the ability to make decisions regarding their own lives. The thing to keep in mind is that when an individual decides that they have a right to live without coercion, they must also accept that every other individual has that same right. Because if it isn’t universal then it isn’t a right. So, in a nutshell, it means that I first accept that I have no “right” to demand things from other people. I can ask, barter, or even beg–but I can’t demand, coerce, or defraud.

FB: What about things like freedom from hunger, freedom from poverty, freedom from illness? It seems to me that if you’re hungry, poor, or sick you really aren’t very free. Freedom from coercion seems like a pretty narrow definition of liberty.

Ed Snyder: That depends on your perspective. I’m speaking of freedom as a right. The difference between my definition and some broader social definition is that “freedom from hunger, poverty, or illness” can’t be rights. This is because the nature of a human right is that it is universal, meaning it applies to all humans and not just some small group. That’s not to say that such rights are always universally available, because unfortunately there are plenty of people who simply don’t care about yours or my rights and wrongly use force to violate rights.

FB: I’m still not sure I’m following you. Why can’t freedom from hunger, poverty, or illness be applied universally?

Ed Snyder: Simply put, a right can’t be a right when someone else is forced to provide it for you. Freedom from coercion doesn’t require anyone to do anything for you–it just requires them to not use force against you. There are only a couple of ways that you can be free from hunger, though. One is to produce your own food, whether that’s done by working the land, raising livestock, or using something else you’ve produced to barter for food. The other is to demand that someone else give you food. Clearly the second option can’t be a right since it would violate someone else’s basic right to produce goods and keep or trade the fruits of their labor. Similarly, you have a right to trade your labor for money or goods to work your way out of poverty provided you can find someone willing to trade; but you don’t have a right to steal from them to get out of poverty. Finally, health care is not a right because someone else has to provide it for you.

FB: That sounds fine, but what about people who simply don’t have the capacity to take care of themselves? Should they just be left in a ditch to die?

Ed Snyder: No, not at all. Charity has existed in the nation long before the social welfare programs of the 20th Century became so prevalent. It should be up to a person’s family or private charity, provided by churches, voluntary community programs, and other volunteers, to help get people through hard times. I don’t know if this holds true for everyone else as it does for me, but I think it does for many–I hate to see people suffering. I want to help them. But it becomes harder and harder to dig deep when there are so many hands already in my pockets taking what I’ve worked so hard to make. With the system the way it currently is, it’s easy to say to yourself “isn’t the government supposed to be taking care of that problem with all the money they take from my paycheck?”

FB: It sounds like your bitter about having to pay taxes. Do you think taxes should be abolished?

Ed Snyder: I think the income tax should be abolished. I think that it is one of the root reasons why the Federal government has grown so large. Currently I’m a big fan of the “Fair Tax” but ideally I’d like to see the government shrink to it’s chartered size so that such large percentages would be unnecessary.

FB: Chartered size?

Ed Snyder: When I speak of our government’s charter, I’m talking about the Constitution. Contrary to what a lot of people today believe, the Constitution isn’t a list of rights that people have. Rather, it’s an instruction sheet on how the Federal government is to run. In our form of government, it is where the people delegate power to the government. Delegated power is an interesting thing to think about because when you do you start to wonder how people can delegate powers that they themselves don’t possess. For example, I don’t have the power to go to my neighbor’s house and take money from them to educate my other neighbor’s kids, and really no individual has that right. Yet somehow the government, which in this country is supposed to be “the people,” seems to have found that power somewhere.

To be continued…