Libertarian Answers to Post-Patriarchal (a.k.a. feminist) Values

Libertarian Answers to Post-Patriarchal (a.k.a. feminist) Values

How can we replace the cultural ethics of dominance and control with more cooperative ways of interacting?

Government is the primary patriarchal institution in our culture. It is based on the ethic of dominance and control. Reject the culture of government and cooperation will blossom. Free the schools. Free the airwaves. Withhold your support of government and avoid dependence on it. If your goals can only be met by dominance and control (government action), it is time to re-evaluate your goals.

How can we encourage people to care about persons outside their own group?

By removing barriers to trade, travel, and charity. By abandoning the myth of the government safety net. Caring grows where there is no exploitation or restriction, but through taxes and regulations we exploit and restrict each other needlessly.

How can we promote the building of respectful, positive, and responsible relationships across the lines of gender and other divisions?

Respectful, positive, and responsible relationships cannot be created by law. Laws which now dictate our (personal and economic) relationships destroy respect, responsibility, and harmony. They should be repealed. Merchants everywhere compete to build positive relationships with their customers in spite of natural and artificial divisions.

How can we encourage a rich, diverse political culture that respects feelings as well as rationalist approaches?

Libertarians welcome voluntary social experimentation and the diversity it brings. Government seldom encourages political diversity or shows respect for feelings.

How can we proceed with as much respect for the means as well as the end (the process as much as the products of our efforts)?

Libertarianism is means-oriented. Libertarians reject the initiation of force as a means of achieving any social or political goal.

How can we learn to respect the contemplative, inner part of life as much as the outer activities?

Only if we have the leisure time generated by a free and prosperous economy.

--Harry Reid, The Liberator, page 9, Winter 1993

Currently listening: Under the Pink By: Tori Amos Release date: 01 February, 1994