Guns and Dogs

[tsalkonocii]

Generally, criticisms of libertarianism are shallow and stupid, attacking a version of “libertarianism” that few, if any, libertarians adhere to. That doesn’t mean that libertarianism is perfect, in fact, far from it. But knowing the weaknesses of your own philosophy helps you defend it better — by knowing when to stop.
A week or two back, I saw a dog sticking its head out of the back window of someone’s car. It was wearing a plastic cone around its head (likely to prevent it from licking a recently acquired scar). Seems rather innocuous doesn’t it? To me, however, it brought to mind some important ethical considerations, particularly as they pertain to libertarianism.
The cone on the dog’s head is administered without the dog’s consent to prevent it from causing harm to itself. The “owner,” being principally concerned for the welfare of the dog, made a decision to physically restrain the animal for its own benefit. Technically, we could argue about whether the cone actually is in the best interest of the dog, but let’s just take it as given that the dog, without the cone, would harm itself. From both the “owner’s” standpoint and from mine, this seems like a perfectly reasonable abrogation of the dog’s liberty....

But the door always swings both ways. As I was explaining, a young age does not necessarily demonstrate ineptitude and a older age does not necessarily demonstrate competence. It seems perfectly reasonable to keep the qualitatively unfit “on a leash,” so to speak, to prevent them from causing harm to themselves and to others. When some libertarians veer off into a natural rights dogmatism of “anything goes,” they really beg the question about who has rights and under what conditions they deserve those rights. The notion that all humans “are equally” endowed with a specific set of rights is fairly preposterous. Equal rights require equal capability. To attribute a property right to a person who will use that property in a way that will ultimately harm others would be masochistic. Were British Petroleum to put a ten-year-old in charge of their oil rig, would society at large, the rest of the interested parties, have no right to obstruct such a decision? It would seem foolish to deny such a right. Why would it be different if BP put someone less than capable in charge? The same principles apply. Incompetence is incompetence; the age is irrelevant.

read the full article here

thoughts?