Alpha Mail: representation is not liberty

A commenter yesterday asked me several questions related to democracy, women's suffrage, and liberty:

Don't you believe that women should not be allowed a say in government?

Yes. That is the libertarian position. I can anticipate the flaws in your thinking. First, you are incorrectly conflating democracy with liberty. Second, you are failing to grasp that libertarianism concerns maximizing liberty. This cannot be done when women are permitted a voice in government, because they favor security over liberty.

How do you reconcile this position with the lack of agency above?

I don't claim women have a lack of agency. I never have. It is the equalitarians who insist that women must be held irresponsible for their decisions and actions.

So what's the point of any kind of representation then, except for you and your ilk? Eventually people who don't find that the system works to their advantage will advocate for a different one. Women will want security over liberty, the poor redistribution, minorities special consideration, etc. So it boils down to libertarian tyranny. Liberty for all, ruthless repression for those who oppose it, and ultimately, liberty for the powerful, paternalism (at best) for the rest. Might as well be clear about it.

The commenter is hopelessly confused and is conflating several distinct concepts. Let me first make a few obvious statements:

1. Voting is not liberty. Voting is merely a tool. Liberty is an end. And as the Founding Fathers' distrust of democracy aka "mob rule" shows, the expansion of voting privileges is not synonymous with the expansion of liberty. Quite the opposite, as it happens.
2. Not being permitted to vote is not a lack of agency. A new US immigrant does not have voting rights, and yet he remains fully responsible for any crimes he commits as well as any taxes and debts he must pay.
3. Most people observably act against their own best interests. The number of obese and overweight people proves that people do not eat to their own advantage, therefore it is naive to the point of foolishness to claim that they always vote to their own advantage.

Now, all government is about "paternalism" in one form or another. The question only concerns what priority is going to be forced on the governed. Is it ideology? Is it servitude? Is it security? Or is it liberty?

Maximizing liberty for all does not mean maximizing liberty for every single individual, for the obvious reason that many individuals hate human liberty and wish to constrain it. If you would have liberty, then, it is necessary to distinguish between those who love liberty and will defend it, and those who hate liberty and wish to destroy it. There is no contradiction there, in fact, logic absolutely dictates that maximizing liberty can only come about by actively defending liberty against its foes.

For various reasons, most women are naturally opposed to liberty. They instinctively attempt to restrict the actions, speech, and even thoughts of others. Therefore, they cannot be permitted influence in any society that wishes to remain even remotely free for long. Past political philosophers understood this, as do modern politicians; it is not an accident that women's suffrage and proportional representation is literally the first point in the Fascist program.

And it does not take either a genius or a PhD to recognize that there are few movements that hate human liberty more thoroughly than feminism.

Women were able to vote in the Soviet Union and Ba'athist Iraq, but how much liberty did they enjoy? I want women to be free, which is precisely why I assert that they should not be permitted to vote. They are far too inclined to vote themselves into chains. Besides, in a West that is presently ruled by an unelected European Commission on one side of the Atlantic and an unaccountable bi-factional ruling party on the other, it is ludicrous to pretend that anyone's vote, male or female, counts for anything anymore anyhow.