In these trying times, I decided to go over a few short points I may have covered before, in a different format. A refresher, if you will.

There has been speculation in some libertarian circles of the effect the pandemic will have on liberty. Some see new minted libertarians with every government abuse and protest. But for every one of those, there are two new minted authoritarians hating those damn wreckers from preventing the virus from going away under the awesome might of government magic. For every anti lockdown protester there are 10 true believers calling them brainwashed morons or, in Romania, Putin trolls. And looking at the direction of things, 2020 will end up a net loss for liberty. Which is, to be sure, the expected outcome most years.

Libertarians are fully aware that, in general, liberty is a hard sell. They may not fully get the why, but understand the basic fact. What is generally frustrating to me is that the general non libertarian world is not honest about it. Few people say outright they don’t want liberty. Sure they do, they just define it as non-liberty. So the word liberty is a much easier sell than the actual concept behind it.

Some are all for liberty for themselves, but not so much for others. Others could not handle it at all. If different people want to do different things, liberty should, in general, cover the full variety of human experience, not just the part I like or approve of. All this was debated at length on libertarian sites, and I don’t want to go over it again. Just as the fact that liberty does not mean liberty to harm / infringe upon others, something libertarians have to keep reminding people, even though it is part of the concept and goes without saying. Liberty is inherently about lack of constraints from other humans. Liberty is not “I do what I want” it is “I choose my action within the limits of nature, my possibilities and the rights of others.”  Boilerplate stuff, really.

A major thing about liberty that reduced the appeal is that it is not without danger. It is risky, and each person has a different risk management preference. This is an important part of its lack of popularity. It is natural for some people to want to impose their particular risk aversion on the world. But in my view, this part is the essence of the thing.

Some say what is liberty on an empty stomach? Well it is the same as on a full one, as the fullness of one’s innards is not part of liberty. In the end, some actions one may take will lead to an empty stomach. And if you are not free to take the decisions that lead to empty stomach, you are not free. And if you take those decisions and force someone to feed you, than that other person lacks liberty. Supporting liberty in its purest form is supporting it as an end in itself, not as means to an end. The ends may vary.

What I want to point out is that danger is not an unfortunate side effect, but in a way an integral part of the concept. The spice of liberty. The whole point of wanting liberty is that you accept things can go wrong and want it nonetheless. There is no great feat in saying, “I want liberty as long as nothing can go bad.” Sure. Why wouldn’t you? But what if things can go bad? Do you want to go skiing? Only with zero chance of injury… Well it would not be as fun in that case…

Everything in this world has a cost and it is easy to want things as long as they don’t cost anything. If someone offers me a bottle of Laphroaig 30 for nothing, I take it, but for $1500 I will pass.

I believe, for example, that liberty to play somewhat unsupervised and explore and such is good for children. But if you let children climb a tree, they may fall and get hurt. Is the alternative of not allowing them out of the house better? I doubt it. And a very small but non zero number of kids may even die playing. But it is a minor risk worth taking. I want to do only what I want, but nothing should ever go bad is no kind of liberty. Except in the minds of small children who do not understand the world, but soon will if the parents allow a few injuries here and there, a risk parents need to take so that children learn to manage their own risks. In the end, risks exist even if you helicopter parent them. And helicopters are for commies, not kids.

Furthermore, what most libertarians believe but sometimes do not stress sufficiently, an aspect of liberty is not necessarily in simply doing whatever you want, but in having the choice to do whatever you what and doing the cost benefit analysis and deciding for yourself. Another part of it is doing what is right, even when it is not the most pleasant thing. There is little virtue in doing something that costs you nothing, and in fact quite the opposite – see the NBA attitude in the US vs China. There is little virtue in involuntary charity.  Voluntarily sacrificing to do the right thing, even if having the choice not to, that is virtuous.

Liberty is the possibility of making bad decisions. You should try not to, but you will anyway. And some suffering may come. To you or others. Which is a part of it. A strenuous life and all that.