Moral Liberty

Last night, I attended a kick-off meeting of volunteers who will be working on independent presidential candidate Black Ashby’s 2008 campaign, and was interested to learn more specifics about Ashby’s goals for this campaign. Obviously, it would be basically impossible for a relative unknown independent from St. Louis to have a shot in presidential race, so why run, right? I was most impressed by his desire to act as a springboard, expressing tougher opinions and addressing difficult issues in order to hopefully bring discussions of fundamental political decisions such as the basic desired goal of the government in our society to the forefront of the upcoming election.

During a discussion about the problems caused by the extreme social conservation faction of the Republican party, Ashby mentioned the necessity during this election of political discussions concerning the role of the government and the responsibility of the individual. What should we as a nation consider the responsibility of the individual? What is the role of government?

He went on to discuss measuring and evaluating our governmental effectiveness at providing equality of opportunity as opposed to equality of outcome, and point out the problem with government assuming responsibility for choices that should instead be made at the individual level.

In my own opinion, if one desires a free and democratic society, many social decisions are too subjective to be made by anyone but the individual, regardless of whether we all agree that an individual is making positive or correct decisions or not.

Coincidentally, a blog posting featuring the entire essay, penned by Lysander Spooner in 1875, “Vices Are Not Crimes, A Vindication of Moral Liberty,” which addresses some of these very ideas in an interesting manner. (Thank you Rob for the link.)

Although the piece is about virtue and vice, words we don’t commonly even hear in today’s world, the ideas about the nature of individual choice remain apropos, and while Lysander was radical and subversive, I found the logic of his treatise impeccable and his thoughts to be what I consider, as George H. Smith, libertarian author and educator, coined in his introduction to The Lysander Spooner Reader, quintessentially American… old school. (Nah, not like early ’90s old school, you know, like founding fathers kinda old school.)