Libertarian Morality

There is no better way to create the conditions necessary for a strong centralized government than to deny the two preeminent accomplishments of America's Founding Fathers:

• They created a Christian nation
• They created a Libertarian nation

It wasn't perfectly Christian.
It wasn't perfectly Libertarian.

But America was dedicated to becoming "a more perfect union" by striving toward these two goals.

America's Founders believed that measurable progress toward those ideals was possible.

Benjamin Rush, who signed the Declaration of Independence after first being highly incredulous at the idea of building a society without a king, based only on "the consent of the governed," believed that

the events surrounding the creation of the Republic marked nothing less than a turning point in the course of human history. "I was animated constantly," he reflected in later years, "by a belief that I was acting for the benefit of the whole world, and of future ages, by assisting in the formation of new means of political order and general happiness."
Lawrence Cremin, American Education: The National Experience, 1783-1876, NY: Harper & Row, 1980, p. 114-15, quoting from The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, edited by George W. Corner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948), p.161.

Perhaps some who oppose the "anarchism" of the Libertarian pledge lack the confident optimism of America's Founders.

But what was it that gave the Founders such confidence? Why did they believe that a society without a king -- a change every bit as dramatic in their eyes as a change to "anarcho-capitalism" would be in our day -- would not collapse into chaos and disorder? Why do I believe that we could abolish the government the Founders created and not degenerate into "a warlord society?"

First of all, I am convinced that America's Founding Fathers, if they were here today, would advocate the complete abolition of the federal government. The government they created is no longer bound down by the chains of the constitution (to use Jefferson's phrase). Christopher Bentley has compiled an updated version of the Declaration of Independence in his article, "It's Not Just a Piece of Paper."

Second, the Founders' confidence in "the People" presupposed a Christian morality among the people. That morality is reflected in the Libertarian Pledge:

I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.

But not just in the negative ("I do not believe in . . . force") , America's Founders believed the People possessed a positive morality, as seen in such concepts as "The Protestant Work Ethic," or even in what Objectivists call "altruism." Here is an introduction to this morality and to the Founders' confidence, which explains why those who defend the Libertarian Pledge are confident that social order can be maintained without the institutionalization of the initiation of force:

Social Order: Morality or The Sword?