The Secular Right

I considered myself to be leaning towards libertarianism, but am probably more of a “libertarian socialist” if anything coherent can be gleaned from such a concept.

Depends on how one defines “socialist.” As David Boaz suggests in Libertarianism: A Primer, a fairly good definition of what the word SHOULD mean is “one who prefers acting through society instead of through the state,” in which case all libertarians are socialists (although of course almost all Socialists wouldn’t be). Or, if you’re suggesting that large corporations become like quasi-states, I can see an argument for using a minimal state to ensure, say, privacy protection, as long as you restrict it to prevention of aggression. And both Milton Friedman and Charles Murray have suggested some variant on a negative income tax, which while less desirable (in my analysis as well as Murray’s; don’t know about Friedman) than a pure libertarian system would preserve most of the important benefits while being more realistic politically. The way I see it, libertarianism is about tolerance for different beliefs so long as you don’t try to force them on other people (with the exception of preventing them from forcing their beliefs on you/others). Personally, I’ve got five or six adjectives I can throw on to ‘libertarian.’ As long as you don’t think it’s proper to force your beliefs on people who disagree, “libertarian socialist” is indeed a coherent position.

But I hate the whole left-right continuum. A whole bunch of arbitrary ideas grouped together that probably appeal to same set of human cognitive biases

Left-right has always confused me, especially since they tend to shift over time. Currently, I think it actually is possible to define them in a non-arbitrary way:

Left: Believes in placing secular non-political group identity over individual identity. Thus, you get a lot of talk about “group rights” and oppression, as well as attempts to force people into group labels, mandatory “sensitivity training,” and legislation against non-religious hate speech, in favor of racial and gender based “affirmative action,” and class warfare between the rich and poor.

Right: Believes in placing religious and national identity over individual identity. Thus, you get Ten Commandment monuments, blasphemy laws, public moral standards, and wars/imperialism inspired by “national-greatness” (which, other than the cowardice of the Democrats is the only reason we didn’t leave Iraq years ago).

Libertarian: Rejects forced group identity in favor of primacy of the individual (although individuals are free to voluntarily label themselves, as long as they don’t expect special privileges from those who don’t care about the label). Thus, you get support for free speech, opposition to victimless crimes (including possession of most anything), support for open immigration, and opposition to (almost) all wars.

Populist: Group politics on all levels: religious, national, racial, gender, etc. A wise cadre of leaders decides what’s best and everyone toes the line or else.

Important to note is that the last two are completely distinct from left and right. In my experience, self-identified right-libertarians are more often actually Republicans that are looking for a chicer word.

I have done a lot of analysis of political-quiz scores, and I have noticed that there is a sizable demographic of atheist/agnostic/nonreligious right-libertarians. They are sometimes vehemently pro-capitalist, but they are usually socially moderate to liberal, unlike members of the Religious Right with similar economic opinions.

Hemant – thanks for letting folks know about the secular right blog.

As a secular right winger myself, I enjoyed reading some of the articles.

It’s hard for me to believe that atheists could be left-wing. Simply replacing a supernatural deity with an exalted head-of-state makes no sense.