Consensuality

Last week, in between surfing Reddit and downing gallons of milk (more on this later), I happened across a post over at Uncle SPAM tackling the, ahem, ins-and-outs of the black market sex industry. Kudos to Mr. Spam for writing up a primer on the arguments for legalizing prostitution; it’s an issue that deserves more attention than it gets.

His post moved me to reflect on the kinds of fun questions that first roused me to pursue an education on the principles of liberty, and one of the earliest lessons I’d learned in that education: the necessity of protecting individual rights from encroachment by popular mores, even if (aye, especially if) such pressures are grounded in value judgments. The question of Prostitution encourages a discussion on the notion of Moral Offense, and whether that notion constitutes a legitimate (read: rights-encroaching) Harm. Can the rational person defend the prostitute’s “right” to conduct business if that business happens to “offend” the sensibilities of his or her neighbor?

If we hold any regard for individual rights whatsoever, we must contend that chief among such rights is the right of adults to make their own decisions, and the contingent right to act upon those decisions insofar as those actions leave undisturbed the rights of our neighbors. It is this freedom to choose that is held so highly within the libertarian tradition, and this essential freedom that comes under attack when the state enacts policies criminalizing contractual agreements between consenting adults. By this basic argument, it follows that the position held by most American states on the matter of prostitution is untenable by virtue of its interference in the private matters of consenting adults.

This gets us to the real question: what of prostitution’s Offense to Sensibilities? After all, there are those that defend their “right” to live in a society where they may rest their consciences, unburdened by the sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere, is paying for a good time. Cato Institute senior fellow Roger Pilon walks us through a similar conflict in the following passage, in which he defends the individual’s right to engage in the offensive behavior of flag-burning:

“It is this fundamental principle…of equal freedom, defined classically by our rights to life, liberty, and property, that consitutes the core of the American vision and serves as well to order systematically the countless examples of those rights–from speech to religion, contract, due process, and on and on. Far from being mere value or policy choices, when rationally related, those rights reflect a moral order that transcends our contingent values and preferences. …[W]e are born free and equal, with equal moral rights to plan and live our own lives–even, by implication, when doing so offends others. Call it tolerance, call it respect: it is the mark of a free society that individuals are left free to pursue their own values, however wise or foolish, however enlightened or benighted, however pleasing or offensive to others.”1

And so it seems we’ve resolved the issue. Because that which offends is, as a matter of fact, that which offends values, the “offense defense” is flawed in its attempt to elevate values (read: tastes) to that inviolable echelon occupied by the rights to life, liberty and property. The “right to be free from moral offense” is an imagined one, and certainly does not take precedence before one’s right to live as he or she sees fit.

Of course, there is always one question we can count on to appear that we have not yet satisfactorily addressed: What about the children?

We’ll leave that one for next time.

1  Pilon, Roger. “The Right to Do Wrong.” The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Readings from Lao-tzu to Milton Friedman. Ed. David Boaz. New York: Free, 1997. 197-201. Print.

Lew Rockwell: Fighting the Good Fight

On some frightening future day, I may treat you to the meandering chronicle of how I came to adopt liberty, individual rights, and non-aggression as my guiding political principles.  In anticipation of that action-packed tale, let us first explore more consequential subject matter: the work of the men and women whose material I regularly consult in my education “in the scholarship of liberty”.  One of these men, Llewellyn “Lew” Rockwell, bears particular mention as a contemporary crusader whose tireless critical analyses of the state and its machinations continue to set him apart as a public intellectual of integrity and influence.  If we are to praise the public intellectual’s social function as a vocal check against the many institutions and individuals seeking to meddle in our affairs, then we must certainly recognize the anti-state, anti-war, pro-market Mr. Rockwell for his academic work and institution-building in the pursuit of truth and liberty, a task to which he has devoted himself without regard for the fleeting fancies of establishment accreditation or popular validation.

As summarized in an article for Reaon magazine by Senior Editor Brian Doherty, today’s mass libertarian movement is synonymous with the so-called Ron Paul movement: “the largest popular movement motivated by distinctly libertarian ideas about war, money, and the role of government we’ve seen in the postwar period… [a] mass anti-war, anti-state, anti-fiat money agitation” that has emerged as a major oppositional voice within our nation’s institutionalized two-party system.  As such, it reveals much to trace the origin of the Paul movement’s critiques and argumentation, and to understand how such a large assemblage of voices continues to stand so unified and ideologically consistent.  Doherty offers an answer: “[A]s I learned from my reporting on the movement during Paul’s primary campaign, a majority of [Paulites] are pretty much learning their libertarianism directly from Paul himself, and the Internet communities surrounding Paul.”  He furthermore cites the website of the Mises Institute and the personal site of the Mises Institute’s founder–one Lew Rockwell–as being centerpieces of the Paul Internet community.

Indeed, the line between the Ron Paul Revolution and Lew Rockwell is a blurry one.  Paul, for example, has famously cited Rockwell’s site as being the first he reads every morning, making Paul himself one of the 606,571 unique visitors that lewrockwell.com receives monthly, and counting amongst the site’s 1.8 million total monthly visitors.  Given these statistics, Rockwell’s anti-establishment arguments are certainly being read and re-reported, with the Paul movement being Rockwell’s most visible and organized–if not outrightly acknowledged–proponents.

Beyond the vast reach and output of his personal website and academic writings, Rockwell directs considerable energy into the maintenance of the academic organization known as the Ludwig von Mises Institute.  Rockwell, its founder and current chairman, has imparted much of himself into the Institute, directing its anti-statist mission and the publication of thousands of mainstream papers, articles, and books attacking the state as a coercive entity and criticizing the U.S. government’s policies both historical and contemporary.  In living up to the Institute’s namesake, Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises, the Institute champions as its motto Mises’ own lifelong principle: “Do not give in to evil but proceed more boldly against it”.  Rockwell, himself confronted by a dearth of academic institutions favorable to his views, proceeded by boldly constructing the Institute as a way to produce research and scholarship within political and economic schools of thought whose precepts fundamentally oppose those policies and persons that seek to move the state toward wealth destruction and unjust coercion of the individual.  Today, students of Austrian School economics can turn to the expansive online resources, real-life conferences, and scholarship awards provided by the Institute, and collaborate with kindred souls in the pursuit of truth.

An ideological revolution is afoot, and central figure Lew Rockwell is finally receiving the academic appraisal and approval he so richly deserves.  In a recent article on his personal site, Rockwell compares the life’s work of his mentor and friend, the late Murray Rothbard, to the more-famous and less-ingenuous existence of Alan Greenspan; however, he might as well be speaking of himself when he says:

“Many have said that Rothbard was his own worst enemy. People said the same of Mises. The idea here is that they could have helped their career by going along to get along. That is true enough. But is getting along all we really want out of life? Or do we want to make a difference in a way that will outlast us?

“At some point in all our lives, we will all come to realize that all the money and all the power and goods we can accumulate will be useless to us after we die. Even large fortunes can dissipate after a generation or two. The legacy we will leave on this earth comes down to the principles by which we lived. It is the ideas we hold and the way we pursued them that is the source of our immortality.”

Don’t be evil, readers.  And don’t let the evils of institutions go unchecked.  As Lew Rockwell and the libertarians of yesteryear remind us (indeed, as do all public intellectuals), it is the citizens’ duty to confront such entities with frequent and passionate critique.  Until next time, keep fighting the good fight.