Beware of all isms except for prisms, as the fellow said. This goes double for libertarianism, and I would point you to Denny Burk’s applause of Michael Gerson’s critique of Ron Paul. Since I have praised Paul in this place before (and will no doubt do so again), I should perhaps offer an explanation of what gives here.
There are different kinds of libertarian approaches. One is when liberty itself has become the standard, and an attempt is made to apply that standard wherever practically or theoretically possible, and sometimes when impossible. This kind of liberty is an abtraction, divorced from any particular Word from God, although it is often assumed that God generally likes liberty. Christians like Ron Paul can mistakenly go for this, and it leads them to sometimes take surprising stands, such as Paul’s support for the legalization of prostitution.
But there is another variant of a libertarian approach, one that is consistent with social conservatism, and one that I would like to argue for here. When God, as it were, “leaves us alone” with one another, we should take note of the temptations that Scripture describes under such circumstances. This is a libertarianism that is based on a scriptural understanding of what power and privilege tend to do to the hearts of men.
“And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath. But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more” (Luke 12:42-48).
Notice what happens to men who are given “rule” over others, and who abuse their position by not following instructions. One of the reasons the ending of The Odyssey is so satisfying is that it addresses a very similar kind of scenario. And one of the reasons that Ron Paul’s message resonates with many thoughtful Christians (even though he does not ground it on Scripture as he ought to) is that we live in a time when such abuses are gargantuan and grotesque. While many Christians are unsettled by Paul’s idea of legalizing drugs, for example, I am far more concerned about the millions that have gotten themselves addicted to the crack cocaine of other people’s money, and who need a daily fix of their power and privilege, paid for by beyond ridiculous economic policies.
Compare the money spent on hard drugs, and the damage it causes (which it does), to the money spent on keeping our federal masters fat and sassy. It is easy to keep the populace convinced that “something must be done” with our wars on terror, or on poverty, or on drugs, but it all boils down to a war on us. But if you are going to fight all threats against us, the least you could do is fight the biggest ones first, for pity’s sake.
If a man is given rule over others, this means that he has been given the power of coercion. If he is a godly man, he is going to be extremely chary of using that power in ways that violate the spirit and tenor of the wishes of his master. If he takes it upon himself to beat the others, help himself to the wine cellar, and to generally carry on as though his master were never going to return, then he is a fool. If he thinks that no one is ever going to review the accounts, then the parable was told to him so that hearing he might not hear, and seeing he might not understand. A good man given power for rule over others ought to be a man who says to himself in the next breath, “I must be a minimalist.”
Coercion is a big deal, and so it ought not to be applied without warrant. This principle applies to everyone who has a position of rule that could be abused. It applies to princes and preachers, parents and patrons. The Bible is authoritative with regard to everything it addresses, Van Til taught us, and it addresses everything. It especially addresses the federal functionaries and meddlers, whose hearts are fat like grease (Ps. 119:70).
The Bible does not spend a lot of time telling men who rule over others to be careful not to underdo it. That is a possible sin, but it is not the normal one that comes with the territory. Sometimes rich people are excessively humble, but that is not the sin that Scripture generally warns them away from. In a similar way, those with power are repeatedly told not to be greedy, overbearing, cruel, autonomous or idiotic. They are not generally warned about the dangers of excessive libertarianism in their rule. I grant that there is such an excess, but this “rule over others” car generally veers toward the oppressive ditch when you let go of the wheel, not the laissez faire ditch. If we go into the business of aligning front ends, we need to learn at a minimum which direction the alignment usually requires.
Scripture tells the magistrate what to restrain, and that is what should be criminal. It is not the case that if Scripture tells us that something is sinful, that Christian political theory is therefore justified in immediately declaring that “there ought to be law.” Is lust a sin? Sure. But should the sheriff be charged to arrest those guilty of it? Covetousness? The magistrate is not even close to being competent to do this. Under Mosaic law, could a man go buy a couple of six packs, and drink more of those beers than he ought to have? Sure. Should that be against the law? Of course not, even if he was seventeen. Now if he drove down every sidewalk downtown in that condition, should he be arrested? Of course. Not all sins should be crimes, but because individual liberty is not the source of the standard, certain crimes remain.
Adultery was a crime in ancient Israel, and a great deal of that activity is committed with prostitutes, and so, there you go. But smoking dope was not a crime under biblical law, and so there you go. And lest you think this would create a vast population of lotus eaters, the Bible does not give us warrant to create a great network of welfare payments that enable people to live like irresponsible potheads, getting dope from friends and their dinner of Cheetos from their food stamps. If we didn’t fund it, we probably wouldn’t have quite so much of it. Just a thought.
One last comment. Many of our modern statist do-gooders and bedwetters think they do not fit the description of the abusive rulers in the Lord’s parable because their intentions (viewed under the magnifying glass of their very own wisdom) are so clearly good and full of the waft of sunny uplift. But they are the ones who created the wastelands of the modern American inner city, filled our American penitentiaries with millions of men, who live out their lives in the greatest dog pound ever, and who choked the economy that could feed the world by harassing hard-working men and women all day every day with niggling restrictions, regulations, and rules. Morever, they are impervious to any evidence that would actually demonstrate to them the desolations caused by their pride and officiousness. So in our little betting pool, good intentions or not, the most you will argue me down to is “few stripes.”
I think it is fair to say that this outlook and set of assumptions make me, generally speaking, a libertarian, albeit not a RonPauline one. “Look,” I might say. “If you are not God Almighty Himself, and if you don’t have a Word from God Almighty Himself, or an applicattion drawn from that Word by good and necessary consequence, then leave the man alone.”