Real Libertarians

Who are the real libertarians? Conservative Republicans who want to sucker libertarians to get their votes often describe themselves as libertarians or libertarian-leaning. Hollywood actors who favor the legalization of marijuana are sometimes referred to as libertarians—no matter what else they believe.

Here are fifty questions about who should decide certain things that people, as individuals or as business owners, do or might want to do. The answers should make it abundantly clear who the real libertarians are.

1. Who should decide whether you sell one of your kidneys?
2. Who should decide whether you smoke marijuana?
3. Who should decide to whom you sell your house?
4. Who should decide for whom your business bakes a cake?
5. Who should decide the dress code for customers at your business?
6. Who should decide to whom you sell a gun?
7. Who should decide whether you shoot up heroin?
8. Who should decide what hours your business is open?
9. Who should decide by how much your business increases its prices during a natural disaster?
10. Who should decide whether your business is open on Sundays?

If you answered that you should decide these questions then you are a libertarian—whether you call yourself a libertarian. If you answered that the government should decide these questions then you are a statist—whether you call yourself a Democrat, a Republican, a liberal, a conservative, a moderate, a progressive, a populist, a neoconservative, a democratic socialist, a centrist, an independent, or non-partisan. If you answered that the government should decide most of these questions then you are simply an inconsistent statist.

This does not mean that you decide these things in a vacuum. Just because you decide does not mean that you don’t consult your family, friends, club, church, pastor, priest, minister, physician, psychologist, psychiatrist, coworkers, and/or acquaintances. Ultimately, however, the decision is yours to make. This does not mean that that things are all safe, healthy, moral, or a good idea. And this does not mean that anyone or everyone should do any or all of these things.

It simply means that in a free society, you decide. In an authoritarian society, the government decides. Libertarians believe in a free society. Statists believe in a society heavily controlled by legislation, laws, regulations, judges, bureaucrats, ordinances, prisons, violence, force, aggression, coercion, badges, and guns.

I will take the free society.

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