Are You Libertarian Enough? by Anthony Gregory

Are You Libertarian Enough? by Anthony Gregoryo-called political compromise is upheld as a high virtue. To be an ideologue is a great vice. The old mantra that the problem in American politics is everyone is an extremist and no one is willing to meet halfway persists, despite its transparent inapplicability in the real world. The distance between the two political parties is small enough to smother a gnat.
For many libertarians there is no worse a sin than to stick stubbornly to purity of principle, to make the perfect the enemy of the good. We never get anywhere because we refuse to budge. We want the whole loaf. This is an old theme.
I wish to address those who fancy themselves libertarians of one kind or another. For these purposes I will define the term broadly. Whatever kind of libertarian you are, I contend that there is a question you should be asking yourself every day: "Am I libertarian enough?"
This is obviously something that moderate libertarians – pragmatics and the mere libertarian-leaning – should consider. For this group, the danger of straying too far toward statism is obviously present, since moderation is built into their self-identity. And it should be a concern to these folks no less than to others by virtue of the fact that they consider themselves libertarian-leaning at all. If you find liberty worthy enough to endorse much or most of the time, how do you know you’ve struck the right balance? You obviously think statism is a problem and libertarianism is a proper orientation, even if in moderation. If this is the case, you are well aware of the danger of sliding toward the statist extreme, and thus you should be asking yourself constantly if you’re libertarian enough. Even a moderate libertarian thinks the government is too big, presumably, and so he wishes for society as a whole to question its own dedication to libertarian principle. It would be unfair to expect others to consider moving toward libertarianism without constantly being willing to consider it for oneself.
Whatever reasons someone has for leaning libertarian – economic, practical arguments, moral attitudes toward personal freedom and the state – they certainly at least potentially apply to situations and issues previously unconsidered. A soft libertarian might recognize that drug laws don’t work, but will still hold out for ID checks to buy marijuana. But why? All the arguments against the one apply to the other.
Yet another group does not always ask itself whether it is libertarian enough – radicals. To be a radical libertarian is to be in a small minority. And when someone finds himself in this company, it is all too easy to become complacent, to assume that one’s radicalism relative to others, including other libertarians, is perfectly sufficient. The attitude becomes: "I have paid my dues; my radicalism is beyond reproach." Yet again the same arguments apply: If the economic and moral principles that brought you this far are valid, at what arbitrary point do they no longer apply?