If you don't step on my toes, I won't step on yours

Leaving health care and returning to the matter of the aged pension, it should be noted that in Australia, the government has already legislated means to attempt an end to the aged pension - mandatory superannuation. Now, mandatory superannuation is not particularly libertarian in nature - individuals should be given the choice to save or not - but here is where the power of public education comes into play.

For example, a libertarian believes people should be able to smoke tobacco if they choose - however, it is not "un-libertarian" to tell those people who choose to smoke that tobacco could conceivably kill them. Also, second-hand smoke most certainly intrudes upon the rights of those who do not choose to smoke, and as such restrictions on where an individual can and cannot smoke tobacco reside well within the realm of libertarian thinking.

Some of you will point out that by telling people smoking is harmful, you are infringing upon the rights of the tobacco companies. Libertarianism does not give rights to corporations - by definition, it is a political philosophy strictly concerned with the rights of the individual. Further, the right of the individual to know the potential harm that can be caused by a product overrules the right of a company to keep that information from them. Their right to life overrules the corporations right to sell them a deadly product without providing adequate information.

Let me use another, more 'concrete' example. Let's say I was selling someone a house in Queensland that resides upon a ten-year flood plain. Although it damages my liberty to sell the house for prospective buyers to know this information, it would damage the liberties of the buyer more if they bought the property unaware of this knowledge, and then found themselves unable to use it the way they wish for weeks at a time every decade due to flooding.

Now, back to pensions. If public education encouraging individuals to voluntarily contribute to superannuation funds does not work in some cases, it then becomes up to the community to house and care for those who become destitute in their old age. Perhaps they do not have the means or ability to manage such a facility themselves. Can the community vote, then, to ask the government to tax them in order to fund such a facility?

Here's another very important point: Yes, they can. A libertarian politician can run for election on a platform that dictates that the citizens they represent will be taxed in order to provide services, assuming the expenditures are comprehensively detailed and every penny can be audited and accounted for. That politician is simply brokering a service between the community, and the entity that ultimately provides the service. Assuming it is all spelled out in detail, and the majority of voters support it, it is not outside the realm of libertarianism to then proceed to tax those voters and facilitate the spending of their money. The same goes for governments.

It is taxation without representation (in this case, representation means informed consent) that libertarians detest - not taxation itself. Libertarian governments need only be completely transparent, honest and forthright with their citizens in order to comply with the libertarian philosophy. (Hey, don't laugh. After all, I never said libertarianism was entirely practical. The major difficulty in all of this is that any government still involves politicians. One more hurdle to solve.)

So, given all of the above, is Ron Paul a libertarian? Not particularly. He appears to think that libertarianism gives him the right to hate-speech - it does not. He seems to be under the impression that libertarianism gives him the right to be a bigot, or to have racist policies - it does not. Libertarianism does not give you the right to intrude upon the rights of others - it is a pure, simple philosophy that has been used time and time again through the ages that states only, "If you don't step on my toes, I won't step on yours."

Ron Paul seems to step on a great many toes.