Do You Hate The State - Revisited
Murray Rothbard wrote in 1977 that we should not judge individuals based on their pursuit of minarchism or anarchism or by where their exact beliefs in tax code minutia but rather by one simple question: Do you hate the state? He explained this saying:
Perhaps, the word that best defines our distinction is “radical.” Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the state with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and antistatism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul.
This has long been my litmus test for the views of others. I have always supported someone if their core interest was diametrically opposed to the state. However, recently, I’ve felt this needed to be reevaluated. When Rothbard wrote this in the 70’s he had no intention of telling people to mindlessly hate the state for the sole intent of hating the state. Rothbard hated for a very specific reason:
Libertarians make no exceptions to the golden rule and provide no moral loophole, no double standard, for government. That is, libertarians believe that murder is murder and does not become sanctified by reasons of state if committed by the government. We believe that theft is theft and does not become legitimated because organized robbers call their theft “taxation.” We believe that enslavement is enslavement even if the institution committing that act calls it “conscription.” In short, the key to libertarian theory is that it makes no exceptions in its universal ethic for government.
This is the essence of why libertarians are supposed to hate the state. Not for the sake of hating the state, but rather because the best of libertarianism treats all the same and it just so happens that the state is the agent that acts in most opposition to natural law and thus it is where libertarians focus their hate.
For this reason I am revisiting Rothbard’s “Do you hate the state?” and instead taking it to its next level: “Do you hate evil?” Rothbard looked down upon libertarians who “merely arrived at the conviction that anarchism and competing private police forces are a better social and economic system than any other alternative. Or, more fully, that anarchism would be better than laissez-faire, which in turn is better than the current system.” But there is no reason to stop there. Ask yourself further: do you hate the state just because of a burning passion against the state and perhaps against authority or do you hate the state because you truly hate evil?
This seems like a distinction without a difference - especially to a libertarian who would quickly argue that the state is the largest purveyor of evil there is. However, even just looking at recent news it is easy to see libertarians being so blinded by pure hatred of the state that they fail to fight against - or even actively on the side of evil. The obvious example of this is the abortion issue. On the Libertarian Party Mises Caucus’ website it is stated that
It’s evident that for a healthier and more prosperous tomorrow, we need to move beyond issues like abortion that go nowhere and only continue to divide us. It is only then that we can actually start to fix some of the systemic problems associated with the United States
There is no issue more important than abortion. Just as Rothbard fights against the use of euphemisms by replacing terms like “war,” “conscription,” and “taxation” with terms like “mass murder,” “slavery,” and “robbery,” it is important to remember that abortion is nothing more than the mass slaughter of babies. If presented with an issue such as the war or the Federal Reserve, a libertarian would never say that because it gets divisive, we should move past it so we can fix other systemic problems.
This is the outcome of hating the state more than hating evil. Ask yourself, the Federal Reserve is private (technically), if the state could end it would you be okay with that? If the war in Yemen were conducted by a private army would you still be violently opposed to it? And if not, then what excuse is there for not being hideously outraged by abortion simply because there is yet to exist a non state means of eradicating this evil?
This isn’t to call the Mises Caucus evil. In fact St. Thomas Aquinas regularly claimed that it is not even possible for one’s nature to be evil. Rather evil occurs per accidens due to corruptions in secondary causes. So at worst my claim would be that they are striving for good and falling short. We must remember that God does nothing by accident and these evils that we fight against have happened on purpose and for a reason. St. Thomas Aquinas explained that “If evil were completely excluded from things, much good would be rendered impossible.” This evil that they have allowed is in potency but there is plenty of opportunity for them to move towards being good in act by one day taking a firm stand against this.
While I deeply hate the state, having that as your core motivation leads to having corrupt motives from those intended in you by the First Mover. Instead we must look at our core principles of what we truly strive for and not allow for the privation of the good. No longer do I ask “Do you hate the state?” - though I truly hope you do - but rather my litmus test is one level deeper, “Do you hate evil?”
Connor Mortell