I recently wrote about the problem I have with the authoritarian wing of the social conservatives, but I feel maybe I should explain a bit more.

Most often, when one argues that the state should not be enforcing rules against certain acts, the criticism is leveled that the libertarian side does not believe in morality. But that is just absurd. It is as if I said I was against government dictated menus and was accused of being against eating. I have strong moral beliefs, I just do not think the government is the proper tool for encouraging moral behavior.

Why not?

As I suggested below, we are all of us fallible humans, even the majority opinion can be wrong as often as right. We may all agree on certain standards of behavior we should exercise when interacting, that is the point of a social contract. But I do not want to surrender my conscience to majority vote. And for those who think the state should enforce morality, I ask them, if they moved to a nation where the majority was made up of polygamists or pedophiles or cannibals, would they then adopt those practices? Would those Christians who want to impose Christian morality convert to Islam if they had to move to an Islamic nation? No? Yet they argue that a simple majority of votes should take the place of my own conscience?

Nor do the changes proposed by the social conservatives resemble in any way the laws which are properly the realm of government. Yes, the state does enforce morality when it tells us not to kill or steal, but that morality is enforced because we can do harm to others. When others will suffer from our misdeeds we need to be restrained. Most of what the social conservatives propose is not to restrict actions which would harm others, but acts which they claim will "harm ourselves". If we are the only ones who will suffer because of our acts, there is no need for restraint, as we have obviously chosen to accept whatever harm may come.

Of course, the authoritarian social conservative will reply with the usual stand-by argument, the one they share with the left, it is "for the children". That is also a highly hypocritical argument. The same people who argue against the majority forcing sex ed on their own children are now interested in forcing their view of morality on mine. They are for complete parental control, unless the parents decide to break with their view of morality, and then it is back to despotism.

And if we reject the "for the children" argument,t hey will fall back on sociology and statistics. People who visit prostitutes tend to become rapists. Of course, there is no proven causal link, and even if there were, so what? Almost all criminals have substandard educations, should we imprison those who fall below a 2.0 GPA? We imprison people who commit crimes, not those who do things which indicate they may commit crimes. Or they fall back on sob stories reminiscent of Upton Sinclair, talking of the despair and horror of the life of a prostitute. While that is probably true, the life of a professional dishwasher, cab driver or part time laborer is pretty desperate as well, yet none of those professions are never brought up for banning. Again, because an act tends to lead those who engage in it into a bad state does not mean it is illegal.

All of this does not mean I think prostitution, drugs, or anything else are good ideas, I would discourage anyone from engaging in most acts the social conservatives oppose. My objection is to imprisoning people to protect them from themselves. It just makes no sense to me. The state is not the tool for helping people to better themselves.

Actually, after writing all of this, I have noticed one thing. From their belief that the state should make people better themselves, from the belief that without the state nothing would improve, their use of "for the children" arguments, and the argument that people are so bad that they would not act without the state forcing them to, and their belief that their specific views are the only possible truth which must be forced on everyone else, the social conservatives, despite their self-bestowed name, really do resemble more than anything else, the more authoritarian wing of the left.

POSTSCRIPT

I am obviously not speaking of all social conservatives here. Many simply wish to see an end to the left's social engineering. In this essay I speak specifically about those who want to use the state as a tool to force one specific brand of morality on everyone. I just cannot accept the designation of conservative for someone who accepts the state as the ultimate power, or who wants to use the state to force their will on others. I know it is unfashionable to say it, and I will probably draw some critical responses, but we need to review what we call conservative, and I would suggest that those, of any stripe, prone to authoritarian theories should not be designated conservative. If conservatives all, at least, share a reverence for the Constitution and the founding principles, we cannot in good conscience allow some of the theories proposed by this particular type of social conservatives. Of course, when this came up during Huckabee's run for the Republican nomination, there was quite a bit of hostility against those who argued that Huckabee's social conservatism was not conservative, so I don't expect this essay to get a very favorable reception either.