[SOC]

I have been rethinking a lot of things in my life, and one of those things is libertarianism. The catalyst for this rethinking is something very unusual, but it is the public restroom. Public restrooms are a real pain in the ass for merchants and the like to keep and maintain. Yet, most of these places are required by law to have these things. Any libertarian will tell you that these requirements violate the non-aggression principle or NAP. Libertarians on principle are supposed to oppose the mandatory public restroom facility. In addition, they are also supposed to defend things like pay toilets. But it struck me that pay toilets just lead to shitty sidewalks. This shitty sidewalk argument shows the inherent flaw with libertarian thinking.

In case you didn't know this, I will remind you of a very basic fact of life. Human beings shit and piss. We seem to forget this when someone else has the bubble guts from last night's meal at the Mexican restaurant, and we act as if defecation and urination are things that afflict other people. But they are the most common of bodily functions. Everyone has to take a leak and take a dump. This inescapable fact of life should automatically make us charitable in regard to others. We might pull the liberty card when it comes to providing a toilet to someone else, but we immediately want to revoke it the moment when we have the shits.

Public restrooms tend to be filthy and nasty as a result of the tragedy of the commons. But this is preferable to people urinating and defecating in the streets, alleyways, and doorways. You can see the disease that would run rampant as a result of this last resort of people desperate to relieve themselves. Pay toilets are one answer, but they don't do anything for the guy in desperate straits who lacks change for the door. As such, restrooms are public goods provided at private expense, and they have to be. Even state created and maintained toilets still require taxes collected at the point of a gun. Like it or not, we have a public restroom welfare state going on.

Public life as we know it would be impossible without the public restroom. You couldn't travel anywhere because you wouldn't have anywhere to go potty. Plus, you would probably be too sick from hepatitis and cholera to do anything. Libertarianism can't handle this sort of thing. The arguments I hear to the contrary are weak compared to the reality.

I am someone who regularly uses public restrooms. The ones I count on are the ones required by law. This would be the restrooms at fast food places and convenience stores that serve hot food. The worst ones are the locked ones at stores run by Indian skinflints who would charge for the air you breathe in their stores if they could. The world is a better place for everyone because of that law requiring public restrooms, and the world is a worse place because of the free market response on this matter.

This may seem like a humorous and silly argument, but it cuts to the crux of much deeper issues. We can apply the same logic to roads and other public goods. Like it or not, we owe our fellow human beings a certain minimum of things required to function and live. The libertarian world is not the sleek shiny clean shitter of a fast food place but the disease ridden shithole with no toilet paper and a locked door at the back of the Indian grocery.

This argument extends to accommodations for handicapped people. Not everyone is handicapped, and it probably makes no sense to have handicapped spaces at the climbing gym. But everyone could potentially become handicapped at any time, and it is nice that those accommodations are there. But would they be there if there was no law mandating them? Probably not.

Libertarians like to argue that businesses love to do the right thing because doing the right thing is good for business. This isn't the case. The fact that Walmart would have dozens of cameras and a greeter in their stores to go after shoplifters but not a single security measure in their parking lots to protect customers against rape, assault, and theft shows that companies largely don't give a fuck until they are either forced or shamed into doing the right thing. Walmart does have those handicapped spaces though.

So much of our quality of life depends on human decency. Governments don't create racism. It has been largely government in the USA that has worked against racism. Libertarianism is fundamentally an Enlightenment philosophy, but the Enlightenment was largely a secular affair. It is individualism elevated to the realm of politics. The Catholic Church teaches that all people have individual rights and worth even down to the fetal level. But the Church also teaches that people have individual responsibilities, and it is this part that makes libertarians howl.

I admit that I chafe against this responsibility aspect of moral teaching. The idea that I am supposed to care for the sick or feed the poor is one that I have grown to hate mainly because of freeloaders and moochers on one end and moralists on the other. But then there is that public toilet thing. I'm sorry, but I think we need to make sure people have a place to relieve themselves. Otherwise, it would be a really shitty world in the most literal sense.

The Allegory of the Long Spoons applies here as well. Even the most ardent of libertarians will admit that freedom depends largely upon the goodwill of others and also on the efforts of other libertarians to not only strive to achieve liberty for themselves but also for others. This is selfless activity on the part of people dedicated to a selfish aim. There is an inherent contradiction here. It's like an ethical vegetarian that feeds meat to his or her pets.

Burke said that we remit some liberties, so that we may enjoy others. In addition, there is no freedom without some subsequent duty and responsibility to go with it. As such, I think the freedom and human rights we see in Western Civilization owes more to the Christian ethic than to the Enlightenment ethic. So many "isms" came out of the Enlightenment like utilitarianism and communism. Every single one of them has been a disastrous failure. The Enlightenment has been nothing more than a secular detour in human history.

You can't make a good society out of bad people. You can't make good people out of bad people without God. There is no liberty without charity. There is no charity without love. God is love.

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