United Liberty

I know this seems like somewhat of a stupid question, especially given the magnitude and images of the human tragedy in Haiti, but it’s one that we should be asking nonetheless.  Many of us would say “well of course we should be donating to the Haiti relief efforts; why wouldn’t we?”  However, there are parts of libertarian philosophy and some libertarian thought leaders who would argue that not only do we have no obligation to donate to the relief efforts in Haiti, but that in fact we should not donate.  Ayn Rand was anti-charity (remember the discussion of borrowing a friend’s car after Dagny Taggart first arrived in Galt’s Gulch), but the most eloquent defense of not donating to the Haiti relief came from one of my listeners via Facebook:

“We don’t owe Haiti anything. There is no moral obligation to aid a nation that squanders all it receives on meeting the “needs” of its people rather than developing the free market enterprises to become self-sustained.”

I will not argue about the obvious and numerous problems in Haiti; as GA-8 candidate Valerie Meyers pointed out to me (also on Facebook), the United States has sent $46 billion in foreign aid to Haiti in the last 35 years.  Obviously, Haiti has had bad leadership (which the people have, at the very least, not opposed) and there is no such thing as a free market, as made evident by the recent story about cruise ships still docking in Haiti after the earthquake (providing jobs for Haitians via a small tourism industry, which should be strong considering its geography):

It has been observed that the up-and-coming generation of young people are more socially conscious than their spoiled Baby Boomer parents and their SUV-driving, yuppified older siblings.

This new generation is keyed into world affairs and world suffering and is doing something about it. They march against the War in Darfur; they do fund drives for AIDS Orphans; and they largely vote for candidates who pledge to recruit the government (i.e. the taxpayer) to solve these problems.

Increasingly, these young people are voting more and more Democratic. Of course, liberal Democrats have always enjoyed the majority of the youth vote - what little there was. But today’s socially conscious youth are making up an increasing percentage of the electorate and are going to play a larger role in certain elections.

Now that I have alienated all of the conservatives that read my articles, it is only fair that I explain how I should not be classified as a liberal either. I made my case for most of the tenets of liberalism I support in part one, so let’s see how I stack up against “the other side.”