Note: A slightly different version of this appeared in The Farmers Independent as my weekly column.
“The spirit of liberty is one that is not too sure it is right.”
– Judge Learned Hand
Because I’m not God, I make it a practice to cultivate acquaintances outside my comfort zone.
By that I mean I don’t think I have all the answers, I don’t think I’m competent to run anybody else’s life, but I do think I’m probably wrong about some things. And by the way, I think that goes for you too.
Accordingly I try to listen to people who have different opinions.
Once upon a time that meant arguing with other people. I don’t do that much anymore, it’s seldom productive. Although just last night I found to my surprise I was expressing opinions with some
heat on an emotion-charged issue. So sue me.
At this point in time in this election cycle, with our country more dangerously polarized than any time I can recall I think it behooves us all to remember the injunction in the Torah that the first duty of a man in a dispute is to hear the other out.
So what have I heard?
Nothing that brings me much comfort I’m afraid.
But what worries me is not so much positions one could support or oppose, but a set of attitudes, held mostly but not exclusively on the “progressive” left. These include:
– Taxation is morally superior to voluntary giving.
A progressive friend supports universal government-supported health care. I disagree with his contentions it would be cheaper, fairer, etc. But at one point he said he supported it because, “People shouldn’t have to start a GoFundMe campaign to save their lives.”
What? Disregarding the desirability of socialized medicine for a moment, isn’t it inspiring that anyone can start a fund for friends, acquaintances and even strangers of good will to support someone in a time of dire need? Evidently some consider charity vaguely disgusting.
And in fact we now have a presidential candidate who has expressed his dislike of the whole idea behind charity.
– Unwillingness to live and let live.
Nobody can fail to notice there are gay marriage advocates who not content to have won the legal battle are now seeking out Christian business owners to drive out of business for not hosting same-sex marriages?
It doesn’t matter if you support same-sex marriage or not, this should scare you.
This is not the case of a hypothetical scarce good, there are plenty of people who will take your money. They are punishing you for your opinion, and claiming it is right and proper they should do so.
This leads to a question; why would you go where you are not wanted?
And the question itself suggests the answer; to show them that you can.
– Disdain for experiment.
There are demands for changes to long-established law and custom. Well perhaps some should be changed. And perhaps some laws and customs are long established for reasons we have forgotten.
So why not try it out locally and see what happens?
This seems to be unworthy of consideration. Everything must be changed everywhere, right now!
– Impatience with procedure.
The Founders put together a system in which innovations had to move slowly through the constitutional process, to insure changes were not forced upon society by ill-considered passions or passing fads. They understood that even with desirable change, how something is done is at least as important as what is done. Because unchecked power to do good can do harm just as easily.
Now many are possessed with the spirit of reform, procedure be damned! May I point out this is also the spirit of a lynch mob?
Hey, if we know he’s guilty why do we need a trial?
– Contempt for experience.
Beautiful theories of how to set everything right often conflict with experience. Theory without experience drifts into fantasy.
The reaction of those intoxicated with utopian theories is to dismiss objections based on experience. Worse, they often reject any suggestion they get some experience.
Recently I suggested to a couple of acquaintances who uncritically accept every, literally every, charge of police brutality that they read Rory Miller’s book, Force Decisions.
One rejected the suggestion out of hand as “propaganda.” I actually bought the book as a gift for the other. He hasn’t read it.
On another occasion I suggested to someone contemplating a run for congress as a libertarian that he start with more modest ambitions by attending city council and county commission meetings to observe and learn how government works at the local level.
“Learn what?” he sneered. “How to sit around and shuffle papers?”
This is one reason old codgers like me are so cussed.
– Unbearable self-righteousness.
All of us are of have been prey to this at some time in our lives, it’s one of the less attractive facets of human nature.
But today too many people seem convinced they are not only right, but morally superior to those they disagree with. Unwilling to even consider that someone not any worse than themselves could disagree in good faith.
Does that scare you? It does me.