Conservatives and Libertarians

Conservatives believe that (limited) constitutional government is essential "to secure these rights"— to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Libertarians repudiate this insight of the Founding Fathers. They oppose all government, and they repudiate the need for social cultivation of the social bond, for public authority, and of legally enforced rules. They are opposed to the Constitution and to the American heritage. Indeed, libertarians repudiate essential elements of civilization as it has historically developed everywhere. To paraphrase Lord Keynes, they "repudiate all versions of the doctrine of original sin, of there being insane and irrational springs of wickedness in most men. [They are] not aware that civilization [is] a thin and precarious crust erected by the personality and the will of a very few, and only maintained by rules and conventions skillfully put across and guilefully preserved. [They have] no respect for traditional wisdom or the restraints of custom. [They] lack reverence . . ." They are a belated offspring of the eighteenth century Enlightenment, of rationalism in its most virulent form. They believe that we can do away with the perennial tension between the individual and the group by denying the legitimacy of any social authority.

United States v. Timothy Emerson, Potowmack Institute, amicus curiae, Appendix G