Sunday, January 27, 2013

George Jonas: I'm an "old-fashioned liberal"

George Jonas: Don’t call me a libertarian | Full Comment | National Post:

January 16, 2013 - "I’m not a libertarian. Nor am I a libertine, in case you wondered. I’m just a liberal, an old-fashioned liberal, therefore often mistaken for a conservative. I’m committed to individual freedom, as liberals used to be in the 18th and 19th centuries. That was in the days when liberalism saw itself as a force for liberty, and liberty a value equal to life. “Give me Liberty or give me Death,” said Patrick Henry and presumably he meant it.

"Those days are long gone. By the time I was born in the mid-1930s, the state had staged a triumphant comeback. Even in western-style democracies, statism was the only game in town. People shopping for a non-statist choice in political philosophy were limited to anarchy and nihilism....

"I preferred to gnash my teeth as a 19th-century liberal rather than as a libertarian, anarcho-libertarian or nihilist. Why couldn’t I accommodate myself to statism? I’m allergic, I suppose, to what Shakespeare called 'the insolence of office,' a.k.a. the normal speaking voice of government.

"Perhaps what I resent in the state most is my own need for it. Government is like medicine, only more so. Anything strong enough to help is strong enough to harm, and government’s capacity to hurt is at least equal to its capacity to cure. Just like medicine, government is poison outside its therapeutic dosage, and it can be toxic even within therapeutic limits because of anticipated side effects poorly tolerated or unexpected side effects not tolerated at all."

Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/19/george-jonas-dont-call-me-a-libertarian/
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