June 17, 2005

Sunday is Fathers' Day; added kind of as an afterthought to May's Mothers' Day (Mothering Sunday in British sectors), it is intended to honor our fathers. It is always a good time to think about the importance of fatherhood, and who IS a father and is not.

Recent articles on Fathers' Day, a barrage of advertising for "Gifts for Dad", and Walt Williams' column on last month's "Click-it or Ticket" campaign all led me to this column of general thoughts, to share with other libertarian friends and readers.

Libertarians need dads, too, you know. My own father, though not truly a libertarian himself (perhaps a 70-70 libertarian on the Nolan chart) was one of the major reasons I am a lover of liberty today: he taught me to appreciate it and fight for it, and taught me how our ancestors had done the same, and that he expected future generations to do likewise.

In the past, it has been common to refer to the regulation-ridden modern state as "paternalist," but increasing the term "nanny-state" has gained (deserved) favor: the modern state is much more "maternalist" than "paternalist" – the kind of suffocating mothering caricatured by the alternate "people-personality" of the Heart of Gold on the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." In the past, at least, fathers were more often charactized by Heinlein's hero Felix in "Beyond This Horizon" – "the bunghole theory of child-rearing." Mothers hug and sympathize, fathers use switches and boots (to boot them out, not beat them). Mothers worry about risks, fathers worry about guts.

This year's "Click-it or Ticket" highway safety campaign is an example of the worst of both parents. This campaign (of which I heard several ads several dozen times on radio, as well as flashed on electronic highway signs and billboards – most paid for as "public service" announcements) makes it clear that today's federal and state governments gladly welcome our subservience to the state as both "Motherland" and "Fatherland." As Williams says, it is about socialism – about the state (or Bush or the governor or Congress) owning us, and therefore with an interest in not damaging their "property." This is motherhood and fatherhood taken to the extreme – far beyond what that relationship should be. Williams in fact calls it paternalism, but it is even more than that: it is a combination of the worst of both parents' "responsibilities" taken to ridiculous limits: a smothering fear that we are doing something that is bad for us (no one else) by people that think that we haven't grown up and can't be responsible for our own actions.

And of course, it softens us up for more of the same: how far can we push this "parentalism" today?

A few days ago, my commentary for 6/16/05 featured a news article about a 21-year-old "kid" who killed himself on his bike doing more than 100 mph on a downtown street in a western Colorado town. Tragic. Maybe he was drinking (or high on something else) or maybe not. "But we must prevent such things." The MADD/DADD approach is to raise the legal age for operating a motorcycle to a "reasonable" age, like 25 or so (and there are already efforts to raise such ages to 21, at least – but that wouldn't have done anything for poor Max Montoya and his being lured to his death by the evil motorbike). MADD/DADD/SADD's argument is a typical Parentalist one: the human brain isn't mature at age 18 (or 20, or whatever) and therefore is more affected by things that "adults" are capable of handling. So what can be done? How about a governor on all bikes – limiting them to the highest legal speed in the country (75 mph, I think). Or even better! A GPS-controlled governor, that limits the bike's speed to the registered speedlimit for the road/street on which the bike is being operated (in Dolores, as I recall, that was a 30-mph zone).

Why not apply the seatbelt-mandate idea (as Williams asks) to mandating limits on calorie consumption – does ANYONE (except maybe authorized law enforcement and military personnel) need more than 2000 calories of food per day? Or apply it to outlawing beverage alcohol? Or "excessive" consumption of caffeine, which leads to false hopes of staying awake on long drives? Or gambling more than, say, $500 per day, or $5 per bet? (Or just outlawing it completely.) Or donating more than a "reasonable" 2.5% (after all, we can't offend Muslims, who are supposed to give that much) to religious or charitable institutions, so that we don't deprive our families and communities of our money and spending? There are so many areas – and as you can see from the list, not all are my fevered imaginings.

We already have such prohibitions on both tobacco and beverage alcohol, of course. The state has stepped into and onto the parent's responsibilities and authority, a doctrine called "in loco parentis" (Latin for "your parents are crazy and so we will tell you what to do since they aren't saying what we want them to.") and applied more and more not just to 17- or 20-year-olds but to 25- and 35- and 65-year-olds. Social security is an example of that depraved paternal/maternalism; just as Prohibition and the 55-mph speed limit were. (Speaking of which, some governors' conference this week also called for more strict enforcement of speed limits and an end to "5- or 10-over" before ticketing.) It makes us all children, and then we wonder why the next generations have poor role models in their mothers and fathers, and make lousier and lousier parents each year.

This kind of paternal/material/parental-ism is a fact of life today, as is another problem: materialism. I suppose it is the general idea: just as Romans kept the ruled classes under control with bread and circuses, today we have much more to keep us distracted from our lost liberties, and to encourage us to be treated like children. That may be why I was particularly bothered this year by the torrential flow of advertising for Fathers' Day gifts. I recall that Father's Day presents consisted of a card and some small item: ties (but who wears ties much today), handkerchiefs (look it up in the dictionary), a book, or something to honor – a token. Not in 2005! Today's touted gifts are far from token: items ranging into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars. I suppose a cell-phone might be an expensive but suitable gift for your father, if it allows you to stay in touch with him better. But a big-screen television? A jet-ski? A hundred other big ticket items? Perhaps these are ironic gifts for their fathers from a generation that seemingly was often bought off by material gifts to make up for the effective or real absence of their fathers in childhood. But they probably don't mean as much, or have half the symbolic value of a smudged tie, a handwritten note, or a book with a "To Dad for Fathers' Day" note scrawled in it.

But today I also want to look at the positive side of fathering and fatherhood. I may get a bit spiritual or religious in this, but bear with me. Why do even libertarians need fathers? What should we show to fathers? And why are fathers (human) so much better than government (the state)?

1. Fathers are respected when they provide leadership to their children. It is children, not adults, who need this kind of leadership: loving, teaching, setting an example of goodness and patience. By providing leadership to their child, they teach that child to in turn become a leader when they grow up. The state claims to lead, but in reality, state leadership is destructive, in part because it replaces the natural father leadership. Father's leadership IS different than a mother's, for both boy- and girl-children: the father's tends to be more physical, more outward, more risky; and both kinds are needed.

2. A father is honored when he provides care for his children. Children are, by definition, immature and in need of much care, unlike adults who are supposed to be mature and able to care for themselves. But fathers provide their children's basic needs (including especially physical needs); not the state, not the village. By meeting their obligations to care for those they brought into the world, and for those they freely accepted responsibility for (the adopted child), the father provides an example to the child when they grow up – then they are expected to care for themselves. The state only shows that it has to be done "their way" and without regard for individual needs, orly what can be provided.

3. A father is blessed when he provides time for his children. If there is ANYTHING that the state is less capable of doing, it is providing time with children, not just to lead and care for, but to provide love and comfort and discipline until the child can learn to provide that discipline for themselves. No material gift in the world (not even one stolen from someone else, as government does) can match the gift of minutes and hours and days. One of the faults of modern government is that policies have treated the father and mother as interchangeable, and at least one (all too often the father) as therefore unnecessary. Another fault of modern government is that taxes have in effect removed both parents from their children, by demanding so much that two incomes are the normal requirement today.

I could go on, but this is enough to show that on this Father's Day, we need to both honor our own fathers, allow those of us who are fathers to be honored by our children, AND remember that the State is no substitute for a Dad.

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Police Biker Gangs In Wyoming

Part 2

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