The is an increasing tension in our county between the rights and desires of individuals and the demands and responsibilities required for a functioning, complicated society. In many areas, such as drug use, gay marriage, and abortion, the increasing demands of proponents are coming into contact with the innate conservatism of the body politic (or the over-reach of the proponents have lead to a serious back lash). There are good arguments on both sides of the issues. For proponents, the arguments are couched in terms of individual rights.
For example, why shouldn't gay couples have the same rights as heterosexual couples to get married? At first blush, it is difficult to construct an opposing argument based on anything more than the discomfort of the larger population, which is hardly a reason to deny rights to a certain group. After all, at one time marriage between white and black was illegal and made many uncomfortable, yet clearly, the ban was wrong on many levels.
Abortion is another contentious issue usually couched in terms of rights. In this case, the focus is on the woman's right to choose or to control her own body. (As a result, even the unborn third trimester baby must be dehumanized and thought of as a "fetus" so that it can be denied the right to life that a living baby would have.)
My third example is in the realm of drug use. Specifically, why shouldn't individuals have the right to use Marijuana, a drug whose dangers are well recognized but tend to be relatively minor (except for the rare individual who develops a dependence on the drug and manages to ruin his life.)
In all three case, the arguments against the individual's right to do what he wants (a simple, easy to state argument) are much more difficult to articulate and delineate. Nonetheless, I think the arguments in all three areas are compelling and (eventually) would like to cautiously suggest a way to resolve some of the tension.
When considering the affect on a society of a major shift in a basic paradigm, the issue must always be to focus on the unintended consequences of the change. By definition, the unintended consequences are likely to show up in some near or more distant future, and by the time the society becomes aware of the costs of the change, it has already become much more difficult to undo the damage. As one example, the Amendment to outlaw Alcohol was easy to articulate, compelling in many ways, and seemed to be an easily accomplished good. Unfortunately, the proponents of Prohibition neglected to factor in the element of human nature. Since people like to drink, and some REALLY like to drink, the ensuing disaster of prohibition, with its impact on our legal system, the corruption of the political system, and the growth of organized crime, in retrospect, should have been predictable. How can we resolve these current impasses, with powerful constituencies pushing for "progressive" agendas and a growing "push back" from the other side?
In the case of Gay Marriage, John Hawkins hosted a long and excellent piece on the subject of unintended consequences ~ 3 weeks ago, A Really, Really, Really Long Post About Gay Marriage That Does Not, In The End, Support One Side Or The Other By Jane Galt. From the point of view of a Libertarian, she was troubled by the opposition to gay marriage, and equally troubled by the potential consequences. The article is long, but well worth worth reading. Galt looks in some detail at the unintended social consequences (costs) of three major political shifts. The first was the the enactment of an income tax:
When the income tax was initially being debated, there was a suggestion to put in a mandatory cap; I believe the level was 10 percent.
Don't be ridiculous, the Senator's colleagues told him. Americans would never allow an income tax rate as high as ten percent. They would revolt! It is an outrage to even suggest it!
Many actually fought the cap on the grounds that it would encourage taxes to grow too high, towards the cap. The American people, they asserted, could be well counted on to keep income taxes in the range of a few percentage points.
She does similar work on Welfare and the liberalization of divorce laws, all done with the best of intentions, with significant unintended consequences. Marriage as an institution has been severely weakened by these changes. We have half our children growing up with a single parent, and a large part of the younger generation terrified of commitments because they have no real faith that a marriage can last "til death do (we) part." Divorce and single parent homes are traumatic and damaging for children. That doesn't mean that all children who grow up in broken homes are irreparably damaged, or that people should stay in abusive relationships "for the sake of the children" but it does mean that in our haste to make life better for adults, many children have paid a high price. She concludes:
This should not be taken as an endorsement of the idea that gay marriage will weaken the current institution. I can tell a plausible story where it does; I can tell a plausible story where it doesn't. I have no idea which one is true. That is why I have no opinion on gay marriage, and am not planning to develop one. Marriage is a big institution; too big for me to feel I have a successful handle on it.
However, I am bothered by this specific argument, which I have heard over and over from the people I know who favor gay marriage laws. I mean, literally over and over; when they get into arguments, they just repeat it, again and again. "I will get married even if marriage is expanded to include gay people; I cannot imagine anyone up and deciding not to get married because gay people are getting married; therefore, the whole idea is ridiculous and bigoted."
They may well be right. Nonetheless, libertarians should know better. The limits of your imagination are not the limits of reality. Every government programme that libertarians have argued against has been defended at its inception with exactly this argument.
The first of our "Values" conundrums leaves us with the feeling that the competing issues are difficult to resolve and that much of the potential damage is currently non-quantifiable. Legalizing Gay Marriage will have unintended consequences, we can't know what they are (though feel free to speculate) and any societal damage will likely prove to be exceedingly difficult to unravel.
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