Anthony Gregory hits a couple out of the park for Libertarianism

on Lew Rockwell.com with his articles, The Cultural Contradictions of Statism, a takedown of Kay Hymowitz's article, Freedom Fetishists: The cultural contradictions of libertarianism. in Opinion Journal a couple weeks ago, and Do We Worship the Market?

On the latter question, he says, not really, but you could do worse - you could worship the State.

Here's the butt-kickin' quote (from the first article):

The statist conception of libertarians as having a totally amoral ideology is flawed from the very beginning. In a classic example of such misunderstanding, Hymowitz says the libertarian idea that "‘People ought to be free to do whatever the hell they want, mostly, as long as they aren't hurting anyone else’. . . is not far removed from 'if it feels good, do it,' the cri de coeur of the Aquarians."

But it is indeed incredibly far removed, not the same thing at all. Saying someone has a right to engage in whatever peaceful behavior he chooses is not an endorsement of what he might choose. Just because we think it immoral and socially destructive to use violence against someone doing something peaceful doesn’t mean we have to approve what he does. Drinking three bottles of whiskey a day is legal now. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Is this really that hard to understand?

Ayn Rand made the point, in the early '60s that we ought to be free to do whatever we want, provided we harm no one else's person or property, but we ought not be allowed to shift the consequences of our actions onto others. The risks (and potential consequences) and the rewards must be on our own shoulders.

Back to Gregory:

Yes, we oppose aggression – that is the baseline of civil conduct. This is the baseline of civil morality. And aggression is not a very good solution to social problems, however real. It is not that drug abuse, marital cheating and broken families are not real social problems. It is simply that threatening to lock people in cages or to steal more of their hard-earned money is even worse. We consider such immoral coercion against peaceful people, however misguided or short of divine they might be, to be out of the question. Virtue without free will is impossible – another truth that statist conservatives and leftists will obscure even at the cost of believing extreme contradictions.

What kind of contradictions? The belief that killing an innocent person is wrong but the state can kill a million in a war and at most be considered mistaken. The belief that stealing is wrong but taxation is not. The belief that it is more acceptable to lock a frail teenager in a cage where he might be raped and beaten, rather than let him learn, through experience and family guidance, the perils of drug abuse. The belief that the youth must be protected from the sin of drinking until they are 21, unless they are on a military base and working as a hired killer for the state. The belief that without a $3-trillion-dollar organization of pillaging, killing, prevarication and ubiquitous corruption, we would have no moral example to look up to.

Ah, but if only the Clintons were in the White House, all would be well.