Samizdata

Charles Dodgson takes aim and fires at Libertarians and our ideas which he clearly regards as ill-conceived and even harmful.

Mr.Dodgson uses an article from the Boston Phoenix exposing the slave trade in Pakistan.

“The bidding starts quickly. About 15 minutes into the bidding, one of the buyers asks for an inspection. The elderly woman removes the girls tunic, fingers the childs breasts, and then shines a flashlight into her open mouth to show that she has a good set of teeth. Bidding resumes with a certain intensity; some of the men can be seen rubbing themselves.”

The article paints a truly pitiful vista and I share Mr.Dodgson’s revulsion. What I do not share, though, is his rather strange conclusion that this is the kind of thing that Libertarians approve of:

“Libertarians argue for a society in which people solve their problems by making whatever commercial bargains they can, and the government takes an enforcement role, if that. The more radical among them suggest that society would be best off without any government at all, with nothing but private trade to regulate their interactions.”

Not quite right, of course, but it is an indication of where Mr.Dodgson is going wrong and he is definitely going wrong even according the article he has used as his source which, further down, advises us:

“Precious few Americans know anything about the history of Pakistan, much less that ul-Haq’s reforms consolidated conservative Islam’s stranglehold on the national imagination. Fewer still know that, in the process of imposing Islamic law on the land, he created a culture of servitude for the poor.”

Ah, that explains it then. Would all those Libertarians who are going around advocating the imposition of Conservative Islamic Law please stop doing it because you are distinctly off-message and giving people like Mr.Dodgson the wrong impression. Thank you.

Any genuine Libertarians could tell Mr.Dodgson that our ideas are based on the sovereign rights of individual human beings. A concept which, in both theory and practice, may lead to all manner of interesting and even exotic consequences, all of which are the very antithesis of slavery.

It is often said that a little learning is a dangerous thing. I don’t know about that and I don’t think that Mr.Dodgson is a man of little learning. The rest of his posting is devoted to taking our Johnny Student to task for his interpretations of the US Civil War in a lengthy rebuttal which appears to be both well-researched and informative.

No, I prefer to think that its a little misconception that is a dangerous thing and, of course, a big misconception is a really dangerous thing. Yes, I ‘m happier with that.