The Libertarian Party is a tiny political party in the USA having been around for decades. The members of this party claim to be for liberty rather than totalitarianism. To most Americans that should sound pretty good since the Democrats and the Republicans seem to pass ever more laws, which looks ever more like American-branded totalitarianism.
Yet it is little wonder why most Americans ignore the Libertarian Party? Big "L" LPers seem quite confused about liberty — the absence of law in the presence of government — and right — diminished liberty of others on one's behalf.
Libertarians pride themselves on what they call the non-aggression principle (the NAP) though some call it the zero aggression principle (the ZAP). To them, the initiation of force against persons or property is illegitimate. Who could disagree?
A review of official Libertarian Party platform reveals a muddled mess and incoherency. Early on in the platform one can read this bit of Libertarian Party comedy gold:
We believe ... that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships...
How do they propose to banish? Banishing requires force, that which is against the NAP / ZAP! To banish means to proclaim as outlaw, to forbid. It's late 1300s Old French into English.
What good anyone can find in the Libertarian Party platform is merely a re-wording of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, but a re-wording that lacks clarity. A deeper reading of the platform reveals troubling Libertarian Party thought.
Under the heading titled 3.5 Rights and Discrimination, the Libertarian Party reveals contradiction. In the second sentence, the party platform is:
"We reject the idea that a natural right can ever impose an obligation upon others to fulfill that "right.""
which follows the first sentence:
"Libertarians embrace the concept that all people are born with certain inherent rights."
There can be no right without duty. That is the reality of more than 799 years of Anglo-Norman and American jurisprudence.
Obligation means duty. One must fulfill duty by either doing X or not doing X so that another can exercise one's right. That is jurisprudence.
The right to life is a natural right. The right to life imposes the duty on everyone else to not violate that right of anyone. The natural right to one's life imposes a duty upon all others to not murder.
Doing one's duty of not violating another's right fulfills one's duty. One can only enjoy the right of living, of not being murdered if everyone does his or her duty, fulfills his or her duty of not killing.
If a right is inherent, it is natural. That which is natural is by birth. That which is inherent is closely connected as with those qualities arising from being born and alive.
Claiming that a natural right cannot ever impose an obligation upon others to fulfill that right and then claiming that people have inherent (natural) rights is contradiction. There can not be right without duty. It's impossibility.
If one supports the LP belief that a natural right cannot ever impose an obligation upon others to fulfill that right, then one must support the the idea of murdering anyone on a whim for any reason, any time in the absence of government and criminal law. From the LPs own manifesto, they reject natural rights because they reject natural duties.
If one supports 3.5 of the LP manifesto, that no one has duty to fulfill the natural right of another, then one supports anarchy. In anarchy, no one has duty not to kill another. Thus, no one has a natural right to life. Only under anarchy, does anyone not have any rights as no one has duties.
Before there is government, there is society and before society, only individuals. If there were but one individual on earth, that one would be free to go and roam wherever, live wherever, eat whatever. He would be free even to kill himself. He would be right to do all of those acts.
Anyone can conceive of there being the best land on earth, the most productive, yielding the best food and the best climate.
As soon as two exist, there can be contention for that best land. As both have equal rights in themselves as described in the foregoing, both can not occupy the same land at the same time and derive the same benefit.
One fix for this is for one to murder the other. As both have the right to live, with the advent of both, both have the duty to not murder the other. So while murder would solve one guy's problem, he could not do so without failing in his duty while at the same time violating the right of another in an egregious manner.
The only failing of this, of course, is that if only two existed, there would be no one left to punish the murderer, in any manner including banishment (ostracism) from those in society of property.
So rather than resort to murder, they could agree that one would take the next best land and the one taking the best land would compensate the one taking the second best.
Now we can see this scenario happening as more individuals arise on the earth. As each cannot occupy the same land at the same time and derive the same benefit, each succeeding one could agree with all others occupying better land to be compensated. The alternative is murder and the more who exist, the greater the scale of that murder.
However, if one murders another with better land, rejecting compensation, the rest who are in this society of property, where property means right of ownership and never the thing owned, could impose upon the one disrupting harmony, banishment at minimum or death at maximum.
It seems that some libertarians reject the belief that fulfilling duty means not doing an act as well as doing an act. One can fulfill a duty by not doing X.
You have a duty to not trespass on my land. You fulfill that duty every day you refrain from trespassing. You have a duty not to steal the fruit growing upon my trees. You fulfill that duty every day you refrain from stealing my fruit.
I have the right to have my land free from trespassers. I have the right to have my fruit not stolen by others.
My property, that is my right of ownership in my land and my fruit, makes it so, whether I live with others in society of property under customary law or in conjunction with others in society, also with government, which establishes civil law and criminal law.
Civil law requires court in administration of justice. It is a creature of legislators. Customary law, or law of society, that which proceeds government is a creature of agreed upon custom of persons. Where there is law, whether civil law or customary law, and where there are rights, there must be duties.
It's impossible to support natural rights and then reject natural duties. To do so is to be muddled in mind, to live illogically, to live absurdly.
LPers are free to reject reality and jurisprudence. Who should stop them? Who should violate their NAP/ZAP?
It's no wonder why they can't make headway in America. Stupid is as stupid does or so said Forrest Gump.
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