Monitor Board of Contributors: Libertarian ideals may look great on paper, but in practice they erode freedom

By AYN WHYTEMARE

For the Monitor

Last modified: 5/28/2015 12:54:22 AM

I have a question for the Libertarians out there: What exactly do you mean by harm?



I was intrigued by material I read on the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire website that stated “as long as they are not harming anyone else, people have the right to do as they please.” This sounds great. In fact, it is the stuff of sibling-rivalry solutions that I have been teaching my kids for years.



However, it seems to me that the crux of the argument many have with the Libertarian Party comes back to this question: What degree of harm are you talking about?



You see, I am currently caught in one of those quandaries right now. I run a plant nursery out of my home and am open only five weeks a year. My neighbor recently commenced to log his land, which is on two sides of my property. The processing area is 100 feet from my house. It is sometimes so loud from 6:30 a.m. to as late at 10 p.m. (on one memorable night) that you must be within five feet of someone to hear what they are saying – and even then it takes a raised voice.



Initially my neighbor was civil, conceding me the right to keep the trees on our property line that he didn’t cut 17 years ago. However, on the same night my kids could not sleep because of 9:30 p.m. logging activity, he hung up on me when I told him the reason for my call. It has impacted my business as fewer people stop by and those who do don’t browse as long. It also drives me crazy. So if it is his land to do what he pleases, and we are in an R-3 rural zoned district, what right do I have to be upset? Do my eardrums have to burst to be considered harm? Is it unreasonable of me to draft a warrant article for town meeting asking for reduced logging activity hours?



Now I imagine this is just the kind of law that Libertarians would rail against, but it is my only option in a case where my neighbor did not talk to me about it first and make some concessions. You see, any other three weeks of the year would have been preferable because of the impact on my business, and if he had asked I would have told him so. However, because he did not choose the commonsense, community-minded way of solving the problem, all I am left with is changing the law so this doesn’t happen again to me or other people. In short, the Libertarian view on this would work as long as everyone has 20-acre lots and does not have to interact with one another for anything else in town.



The notion of harm causes me to think about Libertarian positions on other issues, such as motorcycle helmet laws, zoning, gun rights and, in a puzzling turn, their anti-abortion stance.



As the wife of a traumatic brain injury survivor, I can say emphatically that the person who refuses to wear a helmet and receives a head injury is not the only person harmed in the incident – and that is not even counting the additional costs society bears to care for those who were uninsured or under-insured. For those who claim to want lower taxes, why not embrace the concept that preventing catastrophic injury is so much cheaper for society as a whole? You can claim that no one but the motorcycle rider is harmed, but the rest of us pay as well.



The stance against zoning is a curious one for me.



Why would anyone want to buy a house in an area that could become an industrial park tomorrow? How long would your Libertarian values last if someone put an adult entertainment club next to your church or dumped hazardous waste next to your children’s school? It all comes down to a matter of degree, and this is why we debate the creation and implementation of laws so much. You might be able to get away without zoning in rural Grafton, but it doesn’t fly so well in Pembroke. Like it or not, if you are going to live with other people, we need laws to keep us from being jerks to one another.



The right to carry a gun with you wherever you have a right to be is a cause the Libertarians are all over. However, it has unintended consequences, and the harm it does others is subtle yet has the power to overturn the very basis of democracy in our country. The fact is, when I am talking to someone other than a police officer who is carrying a gun, I am very careful in what I say. If you are carrying a gun, my life depends upon your state of mind. Since I want to stay alive, I am careful not to say anything that might upset you. If someone at Sam’s Club finds it necessary to carry a pistol while they shop, I go to the other end of the store. Extreme? Not if I don’t know the person. Though it may be statistically rare, the danger of being shot by an unhinged person carrying a gun is real and there are more incidences every day.



Do you know where we get the term “board,” as in board meetings? It comes from the ancient Irish practice of not bringing your weapons with you to the table, “bord” in Gaelic, when negotiating. They recognized that honesty is in short supply if someone feels threatened. A meeting with weapons was a potential battle where a different set of rules applied. Carrying a gun is an implied threat and affects everybody the gun wearer is in contact with, whether they realize it or not. You simply cannot count on everyone to be honest with you if you are wearing a gun. That takes a toll on democracy.



The abortion debate is one that affects me personally because I have had an abortion as well as two children. I also come from a family that has experienced the gamut of reproductive success and failure: stillbirth, miscarriage, IVF, and national and international adoption. Not one of my relatives has ever told me I was “wasting” a life. This is because we are all acutely aware that the creation of a human life depends on a partnership, not a cluster of cells. I firmly believe that abortion is not murder, because there must be a viable life snuffed out. If motherhood is to succeed, it must be a voluntary relationship. And let us remember that the male in the equation pays very little in terms of physical contribution to the entire pregnancy process.



If Libertarians consider it okay to force me to pay for someone’s bad decision in head protection and think it is okay to limit my ability to speak freely, it starts to follow that they would also wish to tell me how my body should be used.



I imagine that Libertarians have stock answers for me having to do with freedom from oppression and limited government. What I want you to consider is this: There are more areas of gray than black and white in society. Maybe the reason we are where we are today with our laws is because we no longer live in Colonial America. Life is richer, more complicated and more populated then it was in 1776.







(Ayn Whytemare of Concord teaches environmental science at NHTI and owns a certified organic plant business, Found Well Farm, in Pembroke.)





