Thursday, February 13, 2003

More Rules

John Ray posts that libertarians aren't much different from conservatives, except that conservatives are uptight about sex or have some other axe to grind. Actually, the difference is more than that. Libertarians have a master value, or rule, that trumps all others: liberty. Conservatives have many values and do not take any of them as a trump value.

As the link in John's post says, "Libertarianism is simplicity itself. It proceeds from a single, quite beautiful, concept of the primacy of individual liberty...." Which is why it's untenable. It is obvious that no value trumps all others, for the reasons I stated below ("More on Rules").

UPDATE: John posts a reply (see his Feb 14 post).