Rare News Desk
Former Congressman Ron Paul and the American Liberty Association’s Justin Machacek
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Kurt Wallace: How much do libertarians and social conservatives have in common? During a speech to the American Principles Project, Rand Paul said “Libertarian, or Liberty, doesn’t mean libertine, to many of us libertarians, means freedom and liberty. But we also see freedom needs tradition.” Does promoting liberty also mean we’re promoting morality? Here to discuss is Justin Machacek, Executive Director of American Liberty Association. Justin, it’s great to have you with us today.
Justin Machacek: Thanks for having me on.
Kurt Wallace: Tell us about the American Liberty Association and what your goals are.
Justin Machacek: The American Liberty Association is a non-profit organization committed to renewing society through the understanding of liberty. We want to utilize education, events, campaigns, and other modern means to forward the focused concepts of limited government, fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty. We want to do that by promoting libertarian political philosophy through the context of Judeo-Christian values. It’s basically Biblical libertarianism.
Kurt Wallace: Well it seems that there is an atmosphere out there now where we can see these cousins in the conservative arena coming together with the libertarians and the social conservatives. One way that you’re talking about it is promoting the essence of liberty, and how that affects society as a whole in relationship to Christian values. Is that correct?
Justin Machacek: That is correct. Thomas Jefferson said that “liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue: and that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free.” In essence, we promote the idea that the freer a society is, the more moral and the more virtuous it can become. On the alternate side of the coin is that the more oppressive the government becomes and the less freedom people have – the more dependence that we receive, more dependent we become as a society – the more immoral and corrupt we become. Because there’s, and if you want to dig into that a little further, it really comes down to this idea that when we no longer have consequence for our actions – when we’re no longer held responsible for our decision – then we can make any decision that we want based on our own selfish nature. Therefore, there’s no consequence because there’s always a safety net in place.
That’s how the downward spiral of society happens. When they implemented The New Deal – when they implemented more welfare programs, implemented more food stamps, more dependency upon the state – people are less responsible for their own decisions: their own financial decisions, their own family decisions. They become less and less responsible, and there are fewer and fewer consequences for their poor decisions, therefore choosing right is now irrelevant. They can just choose to do what they want to do based on not consequence, you know, to their decision, but based on their own selfish desires. So you see a society that becomes more and more immoral as time progresses. I think that’s where we are now.
Kurt Wallace: People who admire liberty, promote liberty – libertarians – they are always talking about that the state needs less power. They’re trying to encourage people that they’re in kinship with on a political level of the same thing. How do you see that?
Justin Machacek: This is a great point. This is a great thought. Where does true authority lie? I think when we start talking about social conservatism – pro-life, gay marriage – these kind of issues that are near and dear to Christians and people of faith like myself, the authority – if you’re saying “Okay, the government needs to shrink” but what that means is the authority and the power then shifts to the church and to the parents and to the people. And so just because you might adopt a policy that says that the government doesn’t have the authority in these areas, does not mean that the church is not having an authority.
If you take gay marriage, for instance, there’s a lot of churches right now that are looking to write into their bylaws that they only have to marry a man and a woman. What that would do then is it says, “Okay, this church – through its bylaws and its religion is free, through freedom of religion – to define marriage as they see fit.” What’s happened is that we’ve given the authority to the state to define marriage. We’ve given the authority further – if we have a constitutional amendment – we give more authority to them and say “Yeah, this is the government’s responsibility to define it rather than the church.”
So, “Where does the authority lie?” is a very important idea in the libertarian philosophy to say that it lies with the people and with the private entities – like the church and like the charities. That is a much better approach to a moral society than in leaving it with the state, which will ultimately become corrupt and take us where we are today.
Kurt Wallace: There’s a commonality, also, in the messaging that can be attractive to progressives as well, and independents, and minorities.
Justin Machacek: Well, this is the beauty of freedom, right? The message of freedom and equal rights and equal protection under the law is it brings all parties together. No matter what your agenda is, you want to be able to be free, to be able to promote that agenda. I think that the times when we get in trouble is when we see progressives, or communists, or socialists that want to force others to adopt their ideas or their government through force and not through equal protection under the law.
But yes, as far as the messaging goes, there’s absolutely commonality and key points that appeal to a large group of people. Equal protection under the law means justice for everyone. Every individual is treated equally, and therefore the libertarian philosophy reaches all kinds. Liberty and freedom unites all peoples.
Kurt Wallace: Senator Mike Lee is working with Dick Durbin on a bill that would reduce and eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent drug offenders. This is kind of a new idea for social conservatives, but it’s something that Republicans and conservatives are taking a look at. It’s something libertarians have been working on for quite a long time.
Justin Machacek: This is something that’s been needed for a long, long time. I think the misconception has been, for a while, that decriminalization or less harsh penalties or these kind of things will promote the use – or somehow endorse – the use of a certain substance. Whereas, again, just because you’re free to choose to do it doesn’t mean you will do it. In fact, if you look at Portugal in a case study, as they began to decriminalize it and focus on rehabilitation rather than on incarceration, what happens is that the drug use among all people groups tended to decline. So, again, as people became more free in those areas and saw the consequence of the action of ingesting certain substances, they said “I don’t necessarily to be a part of that, and I’m going to choose a more moral route.”
So, in social conservatism we have to realize that just because you’re saying this is a better policy from a government standpoint, it does not mean that somehow now the church or the parents or society, in general, is not responsible to educate people on the problems of substance abuse and using illegal substances and these sort of things. The opting policy is not endorsing use, I guess is the easiest way to put it.
Kurt Wallace: Justin Machacek, Executive Director of American Liberty Association. Thank you for spending time with us today on Rare.
Justin Machacek: Absolutely. Thank you sir.
