Published in the Western Standard, March 14, 2005, p. 30. (Also available in a pdf scan.)

Lifestyles of the Tacky and Vulgar
by
Pierre Lemieux

One difference between libertarians and conservatives is that the former have nothing against people enjoying sex, booze and tobacco—the good things in life. Some libertarians would rather define the good things as gastronomy or plinking or whatever. The point is that every individual should be free to indulge in the good things of life according to his own preferences. On Feb. 4, the general assembly of Virginia voted on house bill 1981, adding to the Code of Virginia a new section entitled “Indecent display of underwear.” The new section read: “Any person who, while in a public place, intentionally wears and displays his below-waist undergarments, intended to cover a person’s intimate parts, in a lewd or indecent manner, shall be subject to a civil penalty of no more than $50.” After the whole world had laughed for a few days, a committee of the Virginia senate killed the bill. In the meantime, a bill increasing fines for indecency on radio and TV is making its way through the U.S. Congress. This sort of moral intrusion by the state is not new in the history of mankind. In his famous book, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville reports that, in the 1650 Connecticut Code, “there was scarcely a sin which was not subject to magisterial censure.” Sometimes, he adds, “the zeal for regulation induces [the legislator] to descend to the most frivolous particulars; thus a law is to be found in the same code which prohibits the use of tobacco.” One argument for moral intrusion by the state relates to what economists call “externalities”: individuals who show their underwear in public places impose subjective costs to individuals who don’t like to see this. The problem is that what are negative externalities for some are positive externalities for others. Some individuals will consider sensuous scenes a benefit, not a cost. Except in the most extreme cases, like murder, assault or theft, there is no reason for the state to take sides for some individuals’ tastes against other individuals’ preferences. Another argument is that the state may legitimately preserve us from vulgarity. Now, I hate vulgarity as much as any conservative, and I tend to think that the American civilization is generally vulgar. But then, perhaps we cannot have redneck liberty without some vulgarity. And who is to define vulgarity, anyway? The cops? The politicians, who have been elected by the crowd? Latin for “crowd” is “vulgus,” from which “vulgar” comes. If it were legitimate for the state to impose aesthetic standards, I, for one, think it should be forbidden for men to bare their breast in public, and compulsory for women. At any rate, trying to impose moral or aesthetic standards often has the opposite effect. Forbidding alcohol provides a good example. Coming back from his Paris lycée, my oldest son entered McGill University, the great English-speaking institution in Montreal. He could not understand why his classmates liked to get dead drunk at student parties. Since he was perhaps 13, wine had been freely available to him on the family table. Interestingly, he had come to prefer milk! To his credit, though, I think his tastes have changed since. Don’t entrap the young into criminalized sins. Why does the state want to outlaw indecency in the U.S., the gun culture in Canada, fox hunting in England, “hate speech” in France, or religion in China? The common denominator is the natural tendency of the state to favour the lifestyles of its most useful clienteles, and to crush the lifestyles that these clienteles don’t like. The state naturally promotes the lifestyles that are consistent with the aggrandizement of its power, and attacks the lifestyles that, in the circumstances of a given country, threaten it. What does the state have against politically incorrect minority habits? It’s the lifestyles, stupid! Moral coercion is tyrannical and divisive. The only way someone’s liberty to do things he likes can be protected is if he agrees to respect the liberties of people who do things he does not like.