Please Don't Shoot My Baby

[from 5/5/10]

Let's talk about the alleged moral neutrality of economic recklessness!

Some time ago, Anitra "She Who Gives Up Teasing Conservatives For Lent" Freeman got into an extended on-line debate with a self-described Libertarian. I'll call him Larry. Larry the Libertarian argued that not only should it be legal to carry firearms everywhere in public, including privately-owned but open-to-the-public spaces, but it should also be legal to fire them randomly. The theory was, if I understood it correctly, if a 50 caliber bullet from an assault rifle hit something it shouldn't, like somebody's ill-placed baby, or some Liberal's unfortunately-parked precious Prius, THEN you can go ahead and charge them with reckless endangerment of life or property. But if the bullet lands safely in a planter, recklessness could not in fact be assumed to have occurred.

"Random my ass" would be the legal plea in court. One man's random is another man's intended. But Larry argued it should not go to court at all, because to charge a crime when you know no harm was done is harassment and violates the constitutional and human right we all have to do anything we want up until someone gets hurt, without being bothered.

When you lay it out like I just did, as taking a chance with babies and such, the argument sounds terribly wrong somehow, and I'd say 4 out of 5 people would say Larry the Libertarian is an immoral freak.

Personally, I agree with Larry, insofar as agreeing that you can't charge someone with recklessness who hasn't done harm. That's just good clean philosophy, and I've been to college so I'm all for good clean philosophy. But, not being a 100 per cent total nutter for libertarianism, or for any other ism, I have a simple non-Libertarian way out of that difficulty. I'm fine with a few very carefully thought-out laws spelling out where and when it is not OK to fire off a firearm. So you don't have to charge recklessness, you charge violation of the regulation. Too bad 100% Libertarians can't take that leap.

I think it's a wonderful thing, by the way, to not subscribe 100% to any given ideology. I recommend it to everyone. Instead of being 100% Capitalist or 100% Socialist, try being (or thinking in terms of) what works best for each set of problems. Wear the hats, don't let one of the hats wear you.

Here's an opinion I cling to and revolve around my head. 100% of any ideology destroys that ideology. In this regard ideologies differ from salads. You can have a salad that's 100% croutons. It won't be a good salad, especially if the "dressing" also consists entirely of croutons. But you can have it, if that's the salad you want. You can have all of it, and probably no one will complain when you don't share. But you can't have a 100% socioeconomic ideology, because it will destroy itself on its own terms.

Example: 100% Unregulated Free Enterprise creates the conditions in which it is never reckless to build off-shore oil rigs until they sink and spill thousands of gallons of oil. But when those conditions lead to the inevitable massive spill, they also lead to the inevitable natural limits on the Free Enterprise of the crab and oyster fisherman, not to mention the end of the Free Enterprise of many a turtle, who was not bothering anyone, and who was going to make a fine Creole soup.

Totally Managed Economies don't work either. I don't want five-year plans and bread lines. I don't want to have to read from Mao's Little Red Book at mandatory social-re-education classes during my breaks at the state shoelace factory. I don't like Heroic Social Realist art. The fact is, Totally Managed Economies don't stay managed, while everything else gets over-managed.

But I also don't want your Untrammeled Capitalism to shoot my baby, and it would be sweet, too, if I could find me some sardines that didn't taste like petroleum.