Morality can never be imposed from the outside—only independent choices can be considered truly moral

Morality can never be imposed from the outside—only independent choices can be considered truly moral.

The reasoning behind these ideas is not simple, but it includes one crucial fact that immediately refutes the claim that libertarianism is utopian. That is that human beings are in fact incapable of being forced to be morally good. It is up to them whether they will, or whether they will fail in that all-important task. We have free will, and we ought to excel at being human individuals, but there is no formula by which that goal can be guaranteed. Indeed, one reason government must be limited is that it wields a very dangerous weapon, namely, physical force, a weapon that may only be used by people who know their limits clearly and well; otherwise, those in government, who are just like us, become despotic, tyrannical. Utopia, in contrast, is a form of society wherein morality is guaranteed, where everyone is going to do what is right and be happy and fulfilled. Shangri-La is a good example, as were Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and Karl Marx’s communism. In those proposed societies the objective is to secure for everyone, by means of political organization and action, perfect fulfillment. (That is why Marx could envision the withering away of government itself, since once utopia has been reached there will be no need for law enforcement – all of us will be law abiding, automatically.) It is clear from just this brief contrast between libertarianism and utopianism that the two are opposites. No, libertarianism is not dystopian – not, that is, based on the view that social life must turn out terribly. It is entirely noncommittal about how good people will turn out to be, with the one provision: when people are free and their rights are protected, the chances that they will be good and decent are better than if they can dump their mistakes on their fellows with impunity (as they can, for example, in the welfare state that we live in now). There is no doubt, of course, that libertarianism is demanding. But all standards are demanding – they require of us to do our best, according to certain terms. However, libertarianism recognizes that doing our realistic best requires freedom and also runs the risk that we will fail. So there can be no guarantees as far as the libertarian is concerned when it comes to how good people will be once they are free. They are, however, more likely to be better than they are when they are oppressed, regimented, and ordered about in their daily lives. The bulk of challenge of human life, in all realms, should be tackled without aid of coercive force, something that critics of libertarianism seem to reject.

Individual rights are key to a value to life- government programs reduce humans to animals by destroying dignity

Tibor Machan, Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University, 1995 “Private rights and public illusions” pg.65

The legal system that promotes human dignity most successfully is the one that supports every individual's natural human rights. That is because such human rights, when fully respected, secure for everyone the full opportunity (within the bounds of nature) to act as a moral agent rather than as a subject of another moral agent. The most vital social condition for any person is the honoring of his or her dignity. If someone's dignity is destroyed, all other benefits that person reaps from others amount to very little and certainly serve as no compensation. Trading one's dignity is akin to selling one's soul; it takes away one's essential identity as the human being one is.

To be sure, numerous familiar public programs, such as entitlements (to services and goods secured at public expense) superficially appear to benefit recipients. In fact they are crucially flawed in large part because they erode respect for human dignity. So while certain features of a legal system may protect an individual's dignity, others familiar within the welfare state are harmful to it.

There is no value to life in the affirmative’s framework

Hayek, 60 (F.A., Nobel Prize winner for Economics, The Constitution of Liberty, 1960, p.20, JMP)

By “coercion” we mean such control of the environment or circumstances of a person by another that, in order to avoid greater evil, he is forced to act not according to a coherent plan of his own but to serve the ends of another. Except in the sense of choosing the lesser evil in a situation forced on him by another, he is unable either to use his own intelligence or knowledge or to follow his own aims and beliefs. Coercion is evil precisely because it thus eliminates an individual as a thinking and valuing person and makes him a bare tool in the achievement of the ends of another. Free action, in which a person pursues his own aims by the means indicated by his own knowledge, must be based on data which cannot be shaped at will by another. It presupposes the existence of a known sphere in which the circumstances cannot be so shaped by another person as to leave one only that choice prescribed by the other.
Impact – Linear – 1
Each new step of coercion must be resisted – it moves us one step further along the road of oppression

Browne, 1995 (Harry, Former Libertarian Party candidate for President and Director of Public Policy for the DownsizeDC.org, Why Government Doesn’t Work, p.65-66,

Escalation Each increase in coercion is easier to justify. If it's right to force banks to report your finances to the government, then it's right to force you to justify the cash in your pocket at the airport. If it's right to take property from the rich to give to the poor, then it's right to take your property for the salt marsh harvest mouse. As each government program fails, it becomes "necessary" to move another step closer to complete control over our lives. As one thing leads to another - as coercion leads to more coercion - what can we look forward to? • Will it become necessary to force you to justify everything you do to any government agent who thinks you might be a threat to society? • Will it become necessary to force your children to report your personal habits to their teachers or the police? • Will it become necessary to force your neighbors to monitor your activities? • Will it become necessary to force you to attend a reeducation program to learn how to be more sensitive, or how not to discriminate, or how to avoid being lured into taking drugs, or how to recognize suspicious behavior? • Will it become necessary to prohibit some of your favorite foods and ban other pleasures, so you don't fall ill or have an accident - putting a burden on America's health-care system? Some of these things - such as getting children to snitch on their parents or ordering people into reeducation programs - already are happening in America. The others have been proposed and are being considered seriously. History has shown that each was an important step in the evolution of the world's worst tyrannies. We move step by step further along the road to oppression because each step seems like such a small one. And because we're told that each step will give us something alluring in return-less crime, cheaper health care, safety from terrorists, an end to discrimination - even if none of the previous steps delivered on its promise. And because the people who promote these steps are well-meaning reformers who would use force only to build a better world.

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