Oregon: Where Libertarianism Goes to Die
6th April 2024
On April 1st, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed a bill into law that ended her state’s more than three-year-long experiment with legalization of so-called hard drugs. The choice of day notwithstanding, her decision to sign the bill that reintroduced criminal penalties for the use of those drugs was no joke. It was a badly needed end to a reckless experiment in childish libertarianism with humans as guinea pigs.
Fox News referred to Governor Kotek’s decision as a “U-turn on a short-lived liberal policy,” which is a fair description insofar as the policy move is concerned. However, the big losers here are the libertarians who wanted legalization in the first place. As far as they are concerned, the Oregon reversal raises an existential question for their very ideology.
As we will see in a moment, libertarians who celebrated the Beaver State’s legalization when it was implemented are now strikingly silent. To the extent that they do offer comments, they only reinforce the impression that the Oregon reversal has the potential to become the death knell of American libertarianism.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy for solipsists. They use the term ‘statist’ where proglodytes use the term ‘racist’ but the mindset is much the same.