Dean's World

At one time, I considered myself a socialist. At some point in my youth, I came to reject that and, in reaction, for a brief while, I considered myself a radical libertarian.

After a while I settled down and, to make a long story short, in the wake of 9/11 I came to the conclusion that what I am is a liberal democrat and a conservative republican--and a bit of a rational anarchist perhaps, but only around the edges.

I bring this up because I often get into arguments with socialists, marxists, anarchists, hard-core libertarians, and Ayn Rand-style objectivists and their fellow travellers. I tend to annoy all such people because, while I often agree with some of what they say, at root I radically disagree with most of them.

In one of their better books, Lucifer's Hammer, Jerry Pournelle & Larry Niven discuss a hypothetical future in which a meteor strike wipes out most of human civilization, and the aftermath for those who survive. It's a very good book that works on multiple levels, both as a terrifically gripping story and as a great rumination on the nature of civilization, with a lot of thought-provoking philosophy mixed in when you aren't looking (i.e. it's there but it's not intrusive).

Part of the story involves a small community of American survivors who've banded together under the leadership of an old politician, who in effect becomes both their mayor and their judge in legal disputes--i.e. a quasi-dictator, followed by general consensus because he's the only one who seems capable of maintaining order and ensuring that their small community will survive the harsh winters. The old man takes a tight grip, and often does some pretty tough things to make sure that as many people as possible survive. At one point he gets into an argument with someone who starts angrily yelling that the politician is violating his rights, and the old man lays out what is one of the most devastating rejoinders I've ever seen:

"You only have any rights because the rest of us pretty much agree that you have them."

That's a paraphrase as I don't have the book handy, but it's close enough. It's a line that's always stuck with me and, while I didn't like it at all the first time I read it, the more time's gone on the more accurate I've found it.

America was founded on an idea known as "natural rights," at least as part of our founding myth. In truth not all the Founders believed in the concept, but most went along with the general idea. This concept of "natural rights" is helpful as a frame of reference, but really, it's nothing but an intellectual tool. It's a good way of getting people into the spirit of protecting each others' rights, but ultimatey it's nothing but sentiment.

Thomas Jefferson wrote these words, and they are quite apt:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

As a matter of faith some may cleave to the notion that their rights come "ultimately" from God or some other higher source, or perhaps from an elaborately worked out system of rationalization. But as a matter of pragmatism that is all superfluous; unless you believe that your Creator is going to take a direct hand in everyday affairs for you, you are utterly dependent upon our fellow men to protect your rights. To get your fellow men to do that, you're going to have to get most of them to agree on what your rights are or, failing that, get them to agree that the system of government which protects those rights should be obeyed--which is six of the one and half a dozen of the other.

Go on, try to get around it. Quote the Magna Carta at me; I don't care. Quote Ayn Rand for me; I still don't care. Quote Karl Marx or Rousseau for me; then I definitely don't care. Indeed, take any political philosopher who has written at length about any of these issues, and consider: it only takes enough of us who say, "that's a crock!" to expose any such intellectual edifices as castles made of sand.

Your rights do not exist unless your fellow men agree that they exist. You and I will live with that. Regardless of how we feel about it, it is empirical reality.

This is why I have come to the conclusion that liberal democracy within a constitutional republic is the most reliable protection for human rights that mankind has created to date. It is also why, as time goes on, I have little patience with radical libertarians, monarchists, objectivists, marxists, socialists, anarchists, old-school conservatives, theocrats, or anybody else who claims that constitutional republicanism informed by liberal democracy (or what some might call "bourgeois parliamentarianism") is irrelevant or pernicious.

Honestly, I think that most such people are guilty of taking a sledgehammer to the very soapbox upon which they stand.

Discuss.