17 Oct 2015

Why Don’t Women Like Libertarianism? More Responsibility, More Accountability And Less Free Stuff

By 40 years of feminism has successfully taught most women, even those that don’t identify as feminists (the overwhelming majority of women), they should have rights without responsibilities, someone else is always to blame for their personal failings, and they are entitled to free stuff, because vagina!
On the day he turns 18, every American man receives a crystal clear message from the powers that govern him that he is required to give his life in service to liberty; his freedom comes with a price. It’s not free. He must sign a Selective Service card and register his whereabouts until he turns 26, on penalty of a felony conviction, which carries the added insult of disenfranchisement in some states. He cannot vote without agreeing to die. An American woman turns 18, and heads to the ballot box, enfranchised with the right to elect the men and women who can send her brothers, her father, her uncles, her nephews, her friends, to leech their blood and lives into the ground, with no obligation of any kind to offer her body in service to the same ideal: freedom. Her freedom is free.
It shouldn’t be.

The draft is the ultimate denial of personal liberty and freedom. A just war, supported by the majority of the populace, will have no shortage of volunteers. Supporting mandatory military service for either men or women is incompatible with libertarian ideals, but since we must live in the world we have, and not the one we wish we had, the libertarian spirit of equality dictates that if young men are required to pay a price for their liberty, then so, too, should women. This does not necessarily mean military service. Women could be subjected to a birth draft, to replace male citizens lost in action. If freedom is not free, then it should be free for no one.
Rights come with responsibilities, for all, or for none. Take your pick.
Aided and abetted by feminism, we have created a culture in which women find it perfectly acceptable to blame others for their own poor choices and bad decisions. Young women demand the right to go to school half naked, oblivious to the impact their attire might have on the learning environment for others, including other non-heterosexual women. Middle school girls demand the right to wear crop tops and yoga pants to math class, with cleavage and camel toe on full display. If other people have a problem with that, well, that’s their problem. It’s always someone else’s problem. Women are not to blame if they go out to a bar alone, drink alcohol to the point of incapacitation and end up getting raped. Women have no obligation to defend themselves, by making smart choices and managing risk factors. Rapists are at fault. Hint: rapists don’t care. That’s why they’re rapists.
In the modern, feminist world, if evil exists, it is the responsibility of evil to address that. Just stop being evil, mmmmkay? How’s that working out for you, feminists? Libertarians demand that everyone accept personal responsibility for themselves, their own safety and well-being, and understand that there is evil in the world. Individuals can manage their own behaviour, and no one else’s. We live in a world where freedom for women is nominally free, but that is deeply, profoundly illusory. Freedom is free for no one. In a libertarian world, both women and men will understand that the sweeping majority of their fellow citizens are kind, decent, hardworking people who want what almost everyone wants: happiness, health and the ability to feed their children and provide them with a future filled with opportunity, should they choose to take advantage of that. A small minority wish them harm, and will visit harm, given the opportunity. Don’t give them that opportunity. Responsible, accountable adults manage environmental risks to the best of their ability. They don’t blame ‘rape culture’ for stupid choices that would make anyone vulnerable to predators. Don’t want to get attacked by sharks? Don’t swim at sunset with hunks of bleeding meat strapped to your torso. Most sharks will ignore you, but some won’t. And it just takes one. Libertarianism requires women, like men, to be accountable for their actions, and offers no convenient scapegoat women can blame when they make poor decisions. Make smart choices, or face the consequences.
What happens to the social safety net when libertarians govern? It’s still there, but it depends on your embedded relationships in the community in which you live. Robert Putnam chronicled the demise of tight, community based social networks for support and safety in Bowling Alone; libertarianism would restore the primacy of those relationships. No person will be an island. Libertarianism is often cast as a radically individualistic ideology, but in fact, the opposite is true. Individuals are safest when they exist in a tightly knit community of humans, to whom they have reciprocal obligations, responsibilities and duties, with minimal interference from the state on how to govern those relationships. That community has no right to make unilateral decisions about how individuals live within that community, as long as those individuals are able to meet their obligations and do not infringe on the rights of others.
The most basic unit of any community is the family, whether extended or nuclear. From its earliest incarnation, feminism has vowed to destroy the family unit, replacing it with women and children supported by the state in the form of taxpayer-funded benefits. The function of men is to provide the tax-base, which is distributed to women, independent of any accountability or mutual obligation to the state. Women are entitled to state money to raise children without fathers, but under no obligation to produce the high-functioning, productive citizens that typify children raised in intact family units. Thus far, single women raising children without the involvement of the child’s natural father have done very poorly, and the feminist solution to that is to provide more money, more support and more free stuff. The libertarian solution is to hold women who have children outside an established, functioning relationship accountable for their choices. The state has a vested interest in supporting these children, who have no control over the choices that brought them into existence, but it also has a vested interest in penalizing women who have made poor decisions. Welfare, in a libertarian state, would be extended to children only (with exceptions for bona fide physical and mental disabilities), with a clear message that upon reaching the age of 18, individuals are responsible for supporting themselves, usually accomplished by developing deep bonds with the community in which they live. Libertarians do not punish children for the mistakes of adults, but neither do they incentivize adults to make poor choices by rewarding them with state benefits.
Libertarianism requires women to accept that rights come with responsibilities, to understand that maintaining functioning, mutually beneficial relationships with an entire community is essential to well-being and safety, and to come to terms with the fact that bad choices will not be rewarded, but penalized. In other words, libertarianism requires women to be held to the same standards as men. Adult women are required to behave as adults, and not infantilized subjects of an expanding state, funded by the work of mostly male taxpayers.
40 years of feminism has effectively taught women they are children. Libertarianism holds that adults are adults regardless of their gender. If women are interested in genuine equality, they will find it in a libertarian world. And that is the heart of the problem: women are have no interest in actual equality. They are interested in loud proclamations of independence and demands for complete moral autonomy, while depending on the state for funding. The absence of women in the libertarian movement is a testament to women’s sense of entitlement to men’s money and protection. It’s time for women to grow up. Choose liberty. Choose freedom. Choose equality.
Choose libertarianism.
Lots of love,
JB

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