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.
- Who should decide whether you sell one of your kidneys?
- Who should decide whether you smoke marijuana?
- Who should decide to whom you sell your house?
- Who should decide for whom your business bakes a cake?
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- Who should decide the dress code for employees at your business?
- Who should decide whether you manufacture crystal meth?
- Who should decide whether your business sells alcohol?
- Who should decide what kind of plants you have in your house?
- Who should decide what kind of wedding you photograph?
- Who should decide how much cash you deposit at one time?
- Who should decide how many cash withdrawals you make each month?
- Who should decide to whom you rent an apartment?
- Who should decide whom you pick up in your cab?
- Who should decide whether you snort cocaine?
- Who should decide whether you make moonshine?
- Who should decide against whom and for what reason you discriminate?
- Who should decide how much water the toilets flush that you manufacture?
- Who should decide whether you open a gambling establishment?
- Who should decide whether you gamble for money in your own home?
- Who should decide whether you give your kids wine with meals?
- Who should decide whether you sell drugs?
- Who should decide whether you send your children to school?
- Who should decide how much beer you are allowed to brew at home?
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- Who should decide at what age your child gets a job?
- Who should decide whether you have a smoking section in your restaurant?
- Who should decide how many handicapped parking spaces your business has?
- Who should decide whether and how you commit suicide?
- Who should decide whether your business’s restrooms are handicap accessible?
- Who should decide whom you hire and don’t hire?
- Who should decide whom you fire and don’t fire?
- Who should decide what you pay your employees?
- Who should decide what vaccines to give your children?
- Who should decide whether you vaccinate your children in the first place?
- Who should decide whether you purchase health insurance?
- Who should decide whether you smoke crack?
- Who should decide whether your store sells beer on Sundays?
- Who should decide at what hours your store sells beer on Sundays?
- Who should decide whether you exchange sex for money?
- Who should decide whether you exchange money for sex?
- Who should decide whether your refinery mixes ethanol into its gasoline?
- Who should decide whether your business offers health insurance?
- Who should decide what kind of gas mileage the cars get that your company manufactures?
- Who should decide whether you consume trans fats?
- Who should decide to whom you sell a gun?
- Who should decide whether you shoot up heroin?
- Who should decide what hours your business is open?
- Who should decide by how much your business increases its prices during a natural disaster?
- 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.