The Aleppo Question
This will not be an article about the tragedy that is occurring in Syria generally, or specifically about the death and destruction being rained down upon the ancient city of Aleppo itself.
It will instead be a bit more self-serving.
To many people, Gary Johnson stands in as an alternative voice to the caustic voices on the left and the right. Generally unknown, he is the favorite uncle visiting on Christmas who tells quaint stories and takes you out for pizza and a movie. You like him better than Mom and Dad who insist you finish your homework and go to bed at a reasonable hour.
He’s a bit of a cypher, whatever you want him to be. You like drugs? He’s for drugs! End the drug war, now! You want people to stay off your property? He’s for property rights. Although he won his terms as governor in the state of New Mexico as a Republican, he’s never been right enough for Newt Gingrich (is he still on the right?) or left enough for Bernie Sanders. And calling him a moderate is an insult, right? Damn it, he stands for something! We’re not always sure what that is, but we’re sure he does indeed stand for something.
To me, Gary Johnson’s foibles represent my disappointment and disillusion with libertarianism itself.
Libertarianism sometimes comes across as the poor cousin of classical liberalism. It takes some of the ideals of the left, mashes them up with some of the ideals of the right, and you get an abstractionist painting in the middle. While Jackson Pollack made a career out of chaos, it’s hard to run a country that way. And some folks are just fine with making a country difficult to run.
Libertarianism suffers from a lack of focus, but that sometimes seems like the point. Too much discipline is bad for the soul, I suppose. It’s as if every avenue to sainthood is a Damascus Road and Jesus never called anyone minding the nets. Although wafts of enlightenment are spectacular, even Paul was on that road for a reason. He was doing his job as a Pharisee stamping out this new religious sect which he thought was threatening Judaism.
It’s impossible to describe something as diverse as Libertarianism in an essay this small, of course. I suppose, to boil this down to brass tacks and to mix my metaphors with the foreknowledge that this will be unlikely to be read.
Libertarianism sometimes comes across as that rebellious eighty year old, still sticking it to the man when he’s been the man for forty years. Rebellion is cute when you’re young, but life is a series of progressions. If you skip one, you might not be getting everything out of it that you can.
Come on Libertarianism, grow up. Please. I like all that youthful fervor and the quest for freedom. But please try and live in the real world, the one where consequences are global.
We all love the potential for peace that having easy communication gifts to us. But the same potential for calamity is also there. Find out about Aleppo, if it’s the word of the day; please.
Libertarians preach responsibility and awareness as a path to freedom. Let’s try that one on for size, okay?
