This letter is in response to Ryan Hagemann’s celebration of “the libertarian doctrine” (“The libertarian doctrine: live and let be,” Jan. 31, p. 9). Hagemann begins his perspective by criticizing the ideological publications of the left and the right, claiming that both seem to offer a false solution to the country’s problems and poor models for political thought. The perspective reads like it’s supposed to be a breath of fresh air from the current state of politics.
However, the article reflects exactly what is wrong with the politics of a complex country that is too often over-simplified for the sake of argument. According to Hagemann, the Democrats want “to consolidate control of the economy and centrally direct it, because Americans are too stupid to manage their own finances,” whereas the Republicans want “to restrict your civil liberties in exchange for a more comprehensive security state because [they] don’t trust you.” Is that really a fair characterization of each party’s intentions? A less juvenile understanding of the American political debate would find that both sides have more substance to their arguments than that.
Where the author subconsciously hits the nail on the head is in revealing the damaging power of ideology. I’m sure if you asked a loyal Democrat or Republican, both would strongly disagree with Hagemann’s description of his own party, but would strongly agree with his description of the other one. That Hagemann is equally closed-minded to both sides only reveals that he is only a part of a third ideology, one that is as extremist in “not caring” as the others are supposedly overzealous in caring.
I need only use the author’s own words against him. In the opening of his article, he criticizes liberal and conservative authors for each being “resolute in his assumption that his respective political outlook is the warden of American virtue and that the party he supports is the one to deliver America to the Platonic Utopia of republican peace and stability.” Only paragraphs later, he is doing the very same thing: “Hopefully, one day they’ll come around and help the rest of us make this country into the ideal republican paradise envisaged by the Founding Fathers.”
Maybe the “Founding Fathers” were successful because they spent time thinking about the issues and engaging with the world around them. As caught up in political maneuvering as they likely were, I assume none of them would have ever dismissed the widespread desire to re-distribute wealth as simply caring that “Kevin is making too much money.”
Libertarian ideas — not “doctrine” — have a lot of merit. But when they get oversimplified and packaged in the form of Hagemann’s article, all I can see behind the words is a very lazy college kid who has cracked the system from the comfort of his dorm room. Hagemann is right that the answers don’t lie in the minds of just the Democrats or just the Republicans. But to suggest that “doing nothing at all” is somehow the end-all answer to making the world a better place is just another lazy form of extremism that eschews dialogue for the comfort of “doctrine.”
Jason DiMedio
CAS ’08
