Dave, I don't necessarily disagree with your positions. It's just that I'm not sure anything you've said is really contrary to liberterian philosophy. A liberterian doesn't say that smoking isn't wrong. He simply says that you own your own body. The government doesn't own you. So the government can't dictate what you do with your own body. Or your property. Want to burn your own money or skip changing your oil? It's a stupid thing, but it's your property, so you should be allowed to do it. I'm a liberterian myself.
In college I had a room mate who smoked two to three cigars each month. (He didn't smoke inside.) That's not a choice I would make, but I don't believe there is any sin in it at all.
Clearly, he wasn't addicted to cigars, anymore than I who have two to three drinks in a month, am an alcoholic. Obviously, he enjoyed smoking cigars, just as I enjoy an occasional beer or scotch.
I acknowledge there is a difference -- clearly the cigar did him harm with each puff, while it is less clear whether an occasional drink hurts, or possibly helps. Even given that difference, I think that one can argue there's no sin in it, since the natural goods of pleasant (to him) taste and mood-calming were his goals, and not outweighed by the relatively mild damage he did to himself in the process.
On a separate point, I think you should have considered tattoos in your article. As best as I understand Catholic teaching, it is acceptable to get a tattoo or two for aesthetic purposes, but it would be a sin to get a tattoo that intentionally disfigures the body, as this amounts to mutilation. That would be a very Catholic answer that is incomprehensible to nominalists and their progeny.
A liberterian doesn't say that smoking isn't wrong. He simply says that you own your own body.
This, of course, is one of the fundamental errors of libertarianism, indeed of libertarianism's parent Liberalism. We do not own our own bodies -- we are temporary stewards of our bodies, which belong to God.
Libertarianism is fundamentally irreconcilable with Catholic social doctrine.
The government doesn't own you. So the government can't dictate what you do with your own body.
The government does not have to own our bodies for the government to have the right to dictate, to a certain degree (not at all in an absolute degree) what we can and can't do with our bodies. If the government had not that right, we couldn't have government at all. Frankly the reductio ad absurdum of libertarianism is anarchy.
Or your property. Want to burn your own money or skip changing your oil? It's a stupid thing, but it's your property, so you should be allowed to do it. I'm a liberterian myself.
Sure, we can burn our money, but we shouldn't use our money as fuel to start a major fire that destroys our house or threatens or damages or destroy our neighbors' houses. We can skip changing our oil, but when our car starts billowing smoke, we cannot point the exhaust at our neighbor's face.
Jordan, the purpose of government is secure rights to life, liberty, and property. So of course the government should restrict the things we do, but only in so far as it is necessary to protect the liberties and property of others. You can't billow smoke into your neighbors yard (or even pollute the air for that matter) because it is not your yard or air to pollute and others need it. That's not inconsistent with liberterian philosophy, which is why liberterians are not anarchists.
If you think God owns you, then fine. But the point being the government doesn't own you. You don't derive your freedoms from the government, but you have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by virtue of the nature of creation, not by virtue of the benevolance of your government. When the government starts telling you how to live, what you should drink and eat, etc it is stepping beyond it's intended purpose, and inevitably leads the government to infringe on more of your freedoms and remove more of your liberties.
Jordan, the purpose of government is secure rights to life, liberty, and property.
That's true as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. The reason God instituted human government is to direct the members of society to "strive earnestly for the common good," as Pope Leo XIII said in Immortale Dei (1885).
So of course the government should restrict the things we do, but only in so far as it is necessary to protect the liberties and property of others.
Ah, there's the rub -- not everyone agrees on what is necessary to protect the liberties and property of others. Furthermore, there are some things that cannot be permitted even if they do not directly impinge upon the liberties and property of others.
You can't billow smoke into your neighbors yard (or even pollute the air for that matter) because it is not your yard or air to pollute and others need it.
Actually even if it is your yard and your air, and even if you were the only one immediately harmed by it, it still would be wrong and a criminal act to do that.
One weakness of libertarianism is the way it tends to predicate civil and criminal law on personal property rights. But morality and law cannot rightly be based upon "ownership."
That's not inconsistent with liberterian philosophy, which is why liberterians are not anarchists.
They're not anarchists because 1) they're not logically consistent, and 2) we all know in our heart of hearts that anarchism is unacceptable and unworkable.
If you think God owns you, then fine.
Well, I don't "think" He owns me. He in fact owns me, and everyone else, unquestionably.
But the point being the government doesn't own you. You don't derive your freedoms from the government, but you have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by virtue of the nature of creation, not by virtue of the benevolance of your government.
Again, that's true as far as it goes. We need to remember, though, that government itself exists by virtue of the nature of creation.
When the government starts telling you how to live, what you should drink and eat, etc it is stepping beyond it's intended purpose,
Not necessarily. Government does have a role in telling us how we should live and what we should drink and eat. Not usually an immediate or an intrusive role, of course.
If there were ever a patron saint of libertarianism, particularly in the modern era, it would probably be the Catholic political philosopher Lord Acton, who famously stated that "Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end." While Acton holds such a high view of liberty, it should be noted that this view does not go beyond what is political. In other words, Winters is correct when he says "[Catholics] do not value human autonomy..."
Naturally, the human person is more than just some automaton living out an existence of extreme independence. From birth, we are dependent on parents. At extreme old age and infirmity, we are dependent on our children and our siblings. In our economy, we are interdependent on the actions of our fellow man by making mutual gains from exchange, trade. Most importantly, as Catholics we are dependent on God. Without, the Lord the Giver of life, we'd have no life. Without the sacrifice of the Son on Calvary, we'd have no Resurrection. And so we come to the highest end of humanity, to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and all our souls. Thus, it is not a necessary condition that libertarian political ideal need be construed to encompass all facets of a persons life beyond its practice politically.
Libertarian political thought can be summarized as the Golden Rule in negative form, do not to your brothers as you would have not done to you. This ideal should be seen as a bare minimum for human interaction, and not as a complete universal to human interaction. Caritas to our fellow man is still required, but it does not follow that it is to be carried out through means of brute force and coercion. The Catholic or Christian libertarian simply looks to follow the Golden Rule in negative form regarding political interaction, and in positive form for the balance of his human interaction. Read authors like Locke and Cicero, as well as to Catholic sources like John of Salisbury and the Spaniards at Salamanca of the Late Scholastic period to get a sense of where libertarians might be coming from.
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