Preaching to Normies

Often I’ve found myself in discussions with people who are more sympathetic to government action than I. Being a good libertarian, my instinct has been to convince them of the non-aggression principle. There is nothing wrong with this, but I never found my interlocutor particularly persuaded by the end of the conversation. The NAP, it seems, was just too big a chunk of philosophy to digest. I can’t really blame them. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that we are indoctrinated to support the state, and casting doubt on the validity of almost all state action will likely get you raised eyebrows rather than changed minds.

Moreover, there are fairly intuitive responses to the NAP. For example, even if someone agrees that all government action is violent action, they might think it’s justified when leveraged to save a child dying from cancer. Many would consider the violent action of an individual justified in such a situation, so why not the state? I might have a deeply reasoned response to this line of reasoning, but my friend will likely have a hard time hearing anything but I don’t care about children, the poor, or the sick.

So, what’s the alternative? I call it the presumption of non-aggression. The first step is still to show that government action involves coercion. This should not be difficult, and I trust anyone reading this article will have experience arguing this point. The second step is to argue that the coercive nature of government implies that when the outcomes of government policies are uncertain, it is unacceptable for the government to implement them. This is because if government action is akin to pointing a gun at someone and demanding their money, then the government should only act when its policies will almost certainly have significant positive effects. In the same way that the only time such an action might be acceptable for an individual is when their life or the life of someone they love is clearly under threat, the state should at least have to show clear proof that their policies are—beyond a reasonable doubt—going to affect their citizens in a significant and positive way. This does not completely eliminate the possibility of government action beyond the protection of basic rights, but it does suggest a government that is severely limited.

Of course, what certain, or beyond a reasonable doubt, means is up to interpretation. Probably 70% isn’t enough, but 80% or 90% might be. Regardless, it doesn’t need to be defined. We’re not trying to create a rule for a real policy, we’re trying to pull at an intuition that will help people see the moral pitfalls of an expansive government.

The upshot of the presumption of non-aggression is probably similar to the NAP. Proving that legislation will actually have real-world, net-positive effects is incredibly difficult. The reason I use this argument is because it is intuitively more palatable than the non-aggression principle, and predicts some tricky counter-arguments. Some libertarians will of course think that it’s giving too much ground to statists. I think this points to a larger problem with how libertarians present themselves. We can come off as rigid and uncompromising in a complicated world. Whether this is true or not, the movement could do with some more people who are willing to show a little give and take.