“All laws are coercive and take the following form: do this, and don’t do that, or else. Or else what? Or else men with guns will arrive at your door and take you away to prison. Yes, it would be wonderful if we did not need to be corralled and threatened in this way. And many uses of State power are both silly and harmful (the “war on drugs” being, perhaps, the ultimate instance). But the moment certain strictures are relaxed, people reliably go berserk. ”
While the rest of the quote does make it pretty clear that Harris isn’t a libertarian, the first part—where in he acknowledges that laws ultimately derive their authority from men with guns say they do, and only from “the consent of the governed” (as in Lockean social contract theory) to the extent that “the will of the people” is capable of influencing the guys with guns—wouldn’t sound too out of place in a libertarian argument. Of course, most libertarians go on to add that this state of affairs is suboptimal, and could be improved upon, which Harris explicitly doesn’t believe. Still, he probably has more in common with libertarians than your average politically interested person does.
While the rest of the quote does make it pretty clear that Harris isn’t a libertarian, the first part—where in he acknowledges that laws ultimately derive their authority from men with guns say they do, and only from “the consent of the governed” (as in Lockean social contract theory) to the extent that “the will of the people” is capable of influencing the guys with guns—wouldn’t sound too out of place in a libertarian argument. Of course, most libertarians go on to add that this state of affairs is suboptimal, and could be improved upon, which Harris explicitly doesn’t believe. Still, he probably has more in common with libertarians than your average politically interested person does.