Blogging has been light this past few days. A drive through France back to Blighty, followed by a migraine left me somewhat disinclined. Still, in the meantime, the Devil’s Kitchen has been having a fine old rant about Monty Don. I think, on balance, Monty’s comments may have been taken slightly out of context, but that’s another matter and not one I want to get into; DK followed up his rant and it was this that I wanted to comment upon, because in there is the kernel of the problem libertarians face. He talks at a tangent about drink driving, and I think this is an excellent example of the problem:
If you would like a concrete example (rather than my anecdotal ones) of the scandal that defending such a practice engenders, just look at the outrage that accompanied Gavin Webb‘s pointing out that a drink-driver has not harmed another human being and thus should not be criminalised for said action.
And, of course, public attitudes to smoking is going the same way: within a few generations, smoking may not be illegal—it will simply be something that is sinful and which You Just Don’t Do.
The justification for criminalising both of these actions (yes, smoking indoors is criminalised) is the possibility that you might harm other people—the possibility, note, not the certainty or even the probability.
The justification for driving actions based on the spectre of climate change is the same as smoking or drink-driving—there is the possibility, however remote, that your actions may harm others (in this case, the entire population of the planet) and thus anything that might bring this about is to be frowned on, if not actively proscribed.
And, like drink-driving or smoking, this possibility is communicated through statistical manipulation, relentless propaganda, enjoinders to guilt (think of the chiiiiildren! Or, in the case of climate change, think of our chiiiiiildren’s chiiiiiiildren!) and, when all else fails, outright lies.
There’s plenty more where that came from. I’ve discussed in the past the desire to micro-manage our lives – for example the ban on mobile phone handsets while driving when there is perfectly good law in place that covers it. DK is taking Sean Gabb’s approach to drink driving here; punish the offender for causing harm using existing law. In this case, the offences against the persons act, which carries a far more severe punishment than the drink driving laws.
It sounds so reasonable. In a logical and reasonable society, no one would drink and drive because we are fully aware of the likely outcomes and the punishment for killing someone would be harsh – and, frankly, driving a motor vehicle while under the influence is so potentially dangerous that a reasonable person would refrain. Why should we need laws that specifically prohibit it? Laws do not stop people from doing things, or do they? Are we really so stupid that we need laws to tell us that drink driving is a really bad idea? Really?
Yet… Yet… Yet… Try suggesting what Sean Gabb, DK and Gavin Webb have done and watch the outrage from the assembed righteous as they deliberately misunderstand and misrepresent what you have said. You will be accused of condoning drink driving and child murder – even though that is not what you are saying; even though, in fact, you are proposing much harsher penalties for the offence should it occur.
The problem, I think, is that we do not live in a reasonable, logical society. We live in a society that has been dumbed down and indoctrinated by the righteous. It takes a degree of maturity to trust others to behave according to conscience and to behave so oneself; to refrain, not because it is illegal, but because the outcomes would cause harm. Such a society would not need anything like the laws we currently have on the statute book – why have a dangerous dogs act if people manage their animals appropriately and if they don’t, they can be prosecuted under the offences against the persons act or for manslaughter?
People like laws and rules. How often do you hear them bleat about the need for government to do something rather than take responsibility for their own actions? Only last week, a teenager burned herself on a sunbed. The fault was entirely hers. She was too young to be using one anyway. Yet the immediate response from the righteous is “more regulation” on the industry. That, my friends, is what we are up against and that is why it sometimes feels to me that DK is pissing in the wind.
This is a really great post.
Sean Gabb is also right that if the Right and particularly the Liberal Right want to change these things we will have to destroy the left wing establishment’s strong holds as soon as we get the chance.
And that means the education system, the BBC and a host of other institutions.
“and that is why it sometimes feels to me that DK is pissing in the wind.”
You aren’t the only one…!
DK
The more I read of Gabb’s work, the more I am inclined to agree with him. Removing the Righteous’ bastions of strength would only be a start – it will take generations to undo the indoctrination that has been put into place over the past forty odd years.
I concur.
There is however no alternative to trying. There is a desperate need to reach out beyond the echo-chamber of the libertarian blogs and to start persuading people of our case.
I think that this issue is one of the hardest to square with the ideals of liberty. Whilst I generally agree with the concept, of only punishing if harm is done, this particular case leaves a nagging doubt.
The core of the issue is your sentence “It takes a degree of maturity to trust others to behave according to conscience and to behave so oneself; to refrain, not because it is illegal, but because the outcomes would cause harm.”.
Now I think we’d all agree that we do not currently live in such a society. The question is, is it possible for such a society to exist? Are we too immature because we have “been dumbed down and indoctrinated by the righteous.”? Or is it because many people are just dumb, and will always be so? Does the threat of heavy penalty work to prevent people doing stupid things, or does the “I’ll get away with it this time” always win out?
Out of interest, the same argument might be applied to the driving test (I know there are issues with the current test but bear with me).
In a pure libertarian world, there would be no test, but people would take instruction on their own account because of the possible consequences of not doing so.
Do we really think that this would happen though? You only have to look around the world to see that it does not.
I’m fully aware that this leaves us back at “where do you draw the line”. But I think that idealism has to be tempered at some point with rationalism in order to be practical. Put it this way, I don’t think that abolishing dd laws are a good way to persuade others to your cause, simply because *most* people don’t have a problem with them.
Where to start?
You make some good points here and ones with which I cannot disagree. No, I don’t believe that individually people are too stupid. I do, however, recognise that the indoctrination runs very deep. While I am instinctively libertarian, I did a double take the first time I read Gabb’s ideas, my instinctive reaction was highly negative. I had to seriously challenge my preconceptions – that’s how deep it runs. Is such a sea change possible? Who knows? But there will always be people who break the law – just look at the people who still defy the mobile handset while driving legislation. So making new laws doesn’t really work, and can unjustly penalise the majority for the sake of the stupid.
I don’t believe that a driving test is un-libertrian in principle. Put aside the flawed nature of the current arrangements (or we’d be here all night) and look at what it is asking for; that people demonstrate a basic level of competence in handling a piece of machinery before being allowed to use it unsupervised. We do it with other machinery for perfectly sensible reasons; an incompetent user is dangerous to both themselves and others. A responsible approach is, therefore, to ensure adequate training until a basic level of competence is achieved. Some form of assessment following that training make perfect sense. On another occasion I might enlarge about how small the state’s role in such a process might be, but that’s for another day.
I guess from that, you may deduce where I draw my line 😉
Agree, generally. I think the problem I have is that, as we know that an untrained driver has a high probability of being a danger to others, so does a drunk driver.
In both examples, we are dealing with probabilities. An untrained driver *may* not cause any harm; equally, a driver whos had a few *may* not cause any harm. However, the probability that they will cause harm is higher than for a trained, sober driver.
Both drink driving AND driving licence laws are based on the ability to arrest someone who hasn’t caused harm, because there is a definately increased probability that they will.
You can go further and say that driving erratically isn’t even a crime, unless someone else is affected. But we’d probably all agree that it was ok to stop someone who was swerving around all over the place.
Should it be possible to prevent someone whos staggering drunk from getting in their car and driving? Or do you have to wait for them to actually crash / drive badly?
It’s good to discuss these issues, and Gabb makes a thoughtful argument, but I do maintain that it is not a helpful issue to pick in order to garner support for his cause.
Sorry for the lengthy ramblings!
I approach the untrained driver from a different angle – possibly because training and competence is what I do for a living. Without training an untrained driver will be a danger to self and others and cannot control the vehicle adequately. I used to be a driving instructor, so I speak from experience. Also, the roads are a shared resource, and I see nothing wrong with having an entry level qualification in order to share them. If we were to do away completely with licensing, it would be a matter of when, not if, someone is killed as a consequence. Equally, once you decide that there is to be an entry level qualification, you have to have both training and some form of independent assessment. The law that follows is, as you say, not based on outcome, but I still don’t see a problem with it in this instance. But, then, the world is not black and white and libertarianism taken to logical extremes would result in anarchy.
The drunk driver is a different kettle of fish, for me. This person is (presumably) qualified, but is temporarily incapable. As I understand Gabb’s reasoning, people will refrain (in an ideal world) not because there is a specific law, but because if they do cause harm, the penalties are severe – and, one would hope, because they care about the effects they have on others. I think Gabb used this to be deliberately provocative and to make people think a little more deeply. It certainly had that effect on me.
Incidentally, I have no problem with the police investigating and stopping an erratic driver before they cause harm – that seems perfectly sensible to me. The driver may be unaware or taken ill, for example. There is a difference between proactive risk management and heavy handed legislation.
A couple of thoughts, I’ve read quite a few libertarian bloggers making comments along the lines of Bishop Hill’s :
“There is a desperate need to reach out beyond the echo-chamber of the libertarian blogs and to start persuading people of our case.”
I don’t know to what extent such outreach is happening, but it _is_ happening. Until very recently, I had no idea there was such a thing as the LPUK for instance, and had only a vague idea of what a “libertarian” was, having in fact mostly conceived of them as some form of frothing at the mouth US survivalist gun nuts, based, I suspect, on several depictions in fiction and my direct experience of the likes of Eric S Raymond (I am an IT geek), who _is_ a frothing at the mouth gun nut, and whom I personally dislike for many reasons.
I came across a link to a blog which was exploring some libertarian ideas, I forget which one, and what I was doing at the time, found links to others, read them, and hey presto, frankly I’m convinced, or at least largely convinced.
As an aside, I’m also astounded at the quality of political blogging in the UK, having previously believed that bloggers were a tedious bunch of self obsessed morons with nothing to say and a lot of time to spend in saying it. I used to roll my eyes and groan when people banged on about blogs and ‘democratisation’ and suchlike, but I am now also a convert to that idea, and have a massive list of blogs which I am currently reading every day.
So the message _is_ getting out, and I would imagine that at a time when people are finally beginning to understand that the current political set up in the UK doesn’t actually offer them a choice other than which bunch of liars and thieves have the best campaign posters, more people will discover the various excellent polemics, diatribes, rants &c provided by your good self and others.
It is the case though, that I only discovered all this through the medium of blogging, IRL there would have been no chance, and I am one of those tedious buggers who at least skims all the political news every day, consumes multiple news programmes (on different channels and media, I like to see how their agendas differ) and so forth. So I guess there is definitely some IRL legwork that needs doing.
I’ve just discovered this blog via Dunhill Monster and I think I’ll be back regularly, based on what I’ve read so far.
I read a bit about Gabb and his views and I’m in agreement with earlier comments about the shock value and challenging preconceptions, but I think he makes perfect sense. I’d never thought about things that way before, in spite of a similar argument I’ve encountered in another sphere.
One often encounters smug god-botherers who sincerely believe that atheists are immoral, would-be rapists, thieves and murderes, because without religion, where do they get their morals from? They have no morals!
The correct response, of course, is “what sort of person doesn’t commit rape, murder or theft ONLY because their god tells them not to and threatens punishment, why do you need to be told that these things are wrong? Don’t you have any in-built sense of right and wrong?”
In exactly the same way as “It takes a degree of maturity to trust others to behave according to conscience and to behave so oneself; to refrain, not because it is illegal, but because the outcomes would cause harm.”