Libertarians and Objectivists

Here is the letter that I referred to in my post below. I've gotten permission from Paul McKeever, who runs the Freedom Party, to make this available on my blog. I'm putting it here in it's entirety, uncut.

I'm also embedding an interesting video by Paul McKeever on the David Kelley/Leonard Peikoff split in Objectivist circles. For those not in the know, David Kelley is affiliated with the Atlas Society (formerly The Objectivist Center), and Leonard Peikoff heads up the Ayn Rand Institute (and was declared Ayn Rand's intellectual heir by Ayn Rand... you make whatever you want out of that sort of declaration). I intend to respond to both, but it might have to wait until after the Seminar.

You can also refer to an earlier post of mine on what you need to believe to be a libertarian. It might have some relevance here as well.

Hi Peter:

I will not be in attendance. For the record, my reasons are as follows (and you can quote me on this if you would like to do so):

1. As an advocate of committing to reality and to rationality, I think it is a vice to use drugs to escape reality, but I do not think it a vice to use drugs per se. As Canada's marijuana laws apply to consenting adults, I regard those laws to violate a person's life, liberty and property, and I condemn them as wrong. I openly advocate repealing said laws, and I regard Marc Emery's arrest as being a vicious act, and an act for which the governments of Canada and the USA deserve moral condemnation. I oppose, in no uncertain terms, the extradition of Marc or any other Canadian to the USA in respect of marijuana cultivation, purchase, sale or use (whether medical, recreational, or other). In these senses, Marc and his colleagues have my unmitigated support.

2. I openly support the ultimate goal of eliminating government intervention in the economy: I am a capitalist, and my party is unapologetically pro-capitalist. Freedom Party takes the view that just as today's level of collectivism was decades in the making, the feasibility of restoring individual freedom and a capitalist social system necessarily will take some time. Accordingly, Freedom Party proposes not revolutionary, overnight change of all collectivist policies and laws, but changes - at as fast a rate as is feasible - to policies that could actually be implemented at this point in time. As an example, we are in favour of eliminating the Ontario government's health insurance monopoly, and - simultaneously - eliminating Ontario's income tax. The reverse - imposing the monopoly and the tax - both happened in 1969. What is feasible one way is feasible in reverse.

3. Unlike the libertarian movement, Freedom Party rejects anarchism. We believe and fully promote a government the role of which is solely to defend life, liberty and property, and to remedy violations to same.

4. We reject the libertarian idea that the non-initiation of coercive physical force is axiomatic: we regard the non-initiation of coercive physical force as a principle that is the logical consequence of a commitment to reality and reason.

5. We reject the idea tolerated by libertarianism, and promoted by many libertarians, that individual freedom and capitalism are founded upon the whim of a supernatural being, upon the greater good, or upon the consensus of the governed.

6. We do not agree with the libertarian idea that life, liberty and property can be defended effectively by a government that has no particular commitment to reality, to reason, and to the idea that every individual's highest purpose is his own happiness. Ensuring freedom and capitalism are a government's legitimate ends, but commitments to reality and reason are its means. Those ends do not justify those means. Rather, those means lead to just ends. Freedom Party takes the view that if, and only if, government takes care of its own commitment to reality and reason when making decisions about governance, then justice, individual freedom and capitalism will be inescapable logical consequences.

7. Freedom Party rejects libertarianism's attempt to promote one or more conceptions of "liberty" as a political value that need not be justified on any particular metaphysics, epistemology or ethics. We will not put the cart - liberty - before the horses: reality, reason, and rational selfishness. If one advocates freedom on grounds of obedience to an alleged supernatural entity's alleged commandment, or on grounds of deference to popular consensus; or if one implicitly or explicitly treats such grounds as legitimate - the effect, if any, of the effort to promote freedom on such grounds can be nothing but tyranny. Individual freedom cannot be achieved by giving sanction to ideas that are dismissive, even scornful, of the facts of reality or of rational, independent thought.

8. Similarly, for an advocate of reality and reason to attend an event known to be a libertarian one - one which brings together people who share a commitment to a political principle, but which includes expressly accepts the notion that liberty can be grounded upon obedience to the whims of a supernatural being, or upon deference to popular will, the advocate of reality and reason necessarily implies that liberty does not depend upon a commitment to reality and reason; he effectively gives irrationality a pass, and an unwarranted reputation as a rationale for individual freedom. Yet, all the while, the enemy of the freedom he seeks is the very irrationality that he implicitly sanctions by his participation.

As an advocate of freedom, and as the leader of Freedom Party, I choose to withhold that sanction, because I think that justice demands it of me.

I trust you will understand my reasons, even if you disagree with them.

Sincerely,

Paul McKeever
Leader, Freedom Party of Ontario