When people find out what I do for a living, they either end up with mistaken views of my politics, or if they do know my politics, they get confused as to why I would do the work I do. I'm a social security disability lawyer. I represent people who have applied for disability benefits and have had their claim denied. I gather and interpret medical records and make a legal argument as to why they should receive disability benefits. I'm also a libertarian.
Overview of libertarian thought:
There are multiple strains of libertarianism, but the one belief that is common across all strains is the non-aggression principle. This principle states that it is immoral to initiate the use of force against anyone. Using force against someone who has initiated (or in some strains of thought credibly threatened) force is acceptable, but it's not acceptable to be the one to start it. Force can come in many forms - the usual way, such as with violence, but also by using the might of law or government to take something that belongs to someone else. It is for this reason that many libertarians, myself included, view taxation as immoral. It is using force to take property from individuals. [1]
How my job is compatible with libertarianism:
Libertarians, in general, are suspicious of taxation and believe that most social services are better and more efficiently provided by the private sector. However, I have a pragmatic streak as well. I don't like the idea of people being taxed, but if they are, I want to make sure they get every dime of their money's worth. The government initiated force against my clients by taking FICA taxes out of their paychecks. The way the social security system is set up, those taxes are really more like insurance premiums, albeit involuntary ones. We're all insuring ourselves against long-term disability, whether we like it or not. (The program even calls itself Social Security Disability Insurance.)
If your car was damaged in a car accident and your insurance company refused to pay, you might need a lawyer to help you sue the insurance company to get what you were contractually owed. When it boils down to it, I'm an insurance lawyer. Instead of suing State Farm or Geico, I sue Uncle Sam on behalf of people who paid their insurance premiums, suffered the loss they were insured against, and aren't getting the payments that their insurance is supposed to provide. If I were in charge of the universe, I might prefer disability insurance to be voluntary and private, but that's not the world we live in. So until then, the government taketh, and I help my clients take back.
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[1] In my first draft, I included a lengthy discussion about the different strains of libertarian thought, comparing and contrasting them. But I decided to leave a footnote instead. Three major varieties are classical liberalism, miniarchism, and anarcho-capitalism. They differ in how much government they find acceptable. Classical liberals want a small government that protects individual liberties but also provides a small level of social services and infrastructure, though the exact nature of these services is up for debate. Miniarchists want an even smaller government that is dedicated only to protecting individual rights with some minimal infrastructure like roads. Anarcho-capitalists want no government. I'm somewhere between miniarchist and classical liberal. Philosophically, I'm more on the miniarchist side, but pragmatically, I think classical liberalism is more palatable to more people, so I think it's a good start toward increasing liberty because even a classical liberal state would be more libertarian than what we have now.
