Liberty For All

I detest Ayn Rand and a certain brand of so-called libertarianism that has seeped into our culture. I suspect that Rand and her admirers have done more to pervert the understanding of liberty in the minds of Americans than anyone else. They reduce liberty to property rights, so the more property you have, the greater your liberty. Of course, the more money you have, the freer you are given the way our economy is set up, but these people sanctify this kind of freedom. They promote the idea that to curtail property rights is an attack on everyone’s liberty. They’re basically saying that if you have yours, you can tell everyone else to go to hell.

I even see this idea at work in the debate about who should be required to serve LGBT customers. This brand of libertarianism now has such long roots that some LGBTs, without even examining what they’re promoting, will say that florists and bakers who advertise to the general public and have shops open to the public should be allowed to turn away LGBT customers even if they want the exact same products that are being sold to other customers. It’s their shop, they say. In other words, the florists and bakers own something, something belongs to them, and that’s all that matters. Ownership trumps everything else. I do not subscribe to this understanding of liberty.