For Traditionalists

As I noted in an earlier post, another meaning of "conservative" is "traditionalist," and I do not subscribe to such a philosophy.

In the past, this sort of conservative has accused me of dishonesty and other vices and character defects because I am a libertarian, and so an anarchist.

All libertarians are anarchists. I'll address this at the end of the post.

I want to offer the insights of a great man to these traditionalists who insist I surely must abide by the laws and agreements of "my fathers!"

...Each generation is as independent as the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances in which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and it is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity of doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided by the constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time, if anything human can so long endure.

It is now forty years since the constitution of Virginia was formed. The same tables inform us, that, within that period, two-thirds of the adults then living are now dead. Have then the remaining third, even if they had the wish, the right to hold in obedience to their will, and to laws heretofore made by them, the other two-thirds, who, with themselves, compose the present mass of adults? If they have not, who has? The dead? But the dead have no rights. They are nothing; and nothing cannot own something. Where there is no substance, there can be no accident. This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation. They alone have a right to direct what is the concern of themselves alone, and to declare the law of that direction...

The bastard liberal who (rightly) wrote that our fathers' contracts are not binding upon us?

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.


On the necessity of anarchism (or, more properly, autarchism) in libertarian political theory, I offer this simple proof.

Libertarians are those who believe in, and so choose to maximize, human liberty. They recognize states as a boundary placed upon such liberty, and so oppose states.

Some people (who are not libertarians) think that a certain amount of government (defined at their discretion) is okay. A libertarian, as one who believes in maximizing liberty, believes in minimizing the state. A true libertarian believes in reducing the state to its smallest practical level, including and especially if that level is ZERO. Any true libertarian, if given a workable way to eliminate the state, would take it.