Did Libertarianism Kill Philip Seymour Hoffman? Conservative Ben Shapiro Thinks So at NRO

Who
killed Philip
Seymour Hoffman? ‘Twasn’t heroin, ’twas libertarianism.

So speaketh conservative writer Ben Shapiro, editor-at-large at
Breitbart.com and a Harvard law grad who proudly works his
association to that damnable liberal crucible into just about
everything he writes. Writing at National Review Online,
Shapiro argues

Philip Seymour Hoffman[‘s] self-inflicted death is yet another
hallmark of the broken leftist culture that dominates Hollywood,
enabling rather than preventing the loss of some of its greatest
talents. Libertarianism becomes libertinism without a cultural
force pushing back against the penchant for sin; Hollywood has no
such cultural force. In fact, the Hollywood demand is for more
self-abasement, less spirituality, less principle, less
standards.

No one knows what sort of demons plagued Seymour Hoffman. But
without a sound moral structure around those in Hollywood who have
every financial and talent advantage, the path to destruction is
far too easy.

The whole thing here.

Shapiro’s implication that libertarianism is the root
cause of Hoffman’s overdose isn’t simply churlish and uninformed by
anything resembling knowledge of Hoffman’s life, thoughts, or
circumstances of death (though it is that). It is
nonsensical.

What does libertarianism mean in
this context? The freedom to walk the streets of Manhattan
and
buy black-market junk? A political philosophy or
self-identifying phrase espoused by the likes of such Studio 54
habitues as Milton Friedman, Fredrich Hayek, and, on
occasion National Review‘s own

William F. Buckley? Sure, whatever.

If Shapiro thought about it for a minute, he might ask
what sort of drug policy might lead to better outcomes. Generally
speaking, people have enough trouble admitting substance-abuse
problems without also having to admit that they are criminals too.
Maybe legalizing or decriminalizing drugs would lead to an
environment in which abuse would be minimized along with the ill
effects of the black markets spawned by prohibition. That’s
something another conservative Harvard law grad, Sen. Ted Cruz
(R-Texas) can grant is at least worth discussing (see video
below).

As Jacob Sullum noted yesterday, despite all sorts of
reports about heroin use “soaring,” the plain fact is
that it
isn’t, either in “Hollywood” (a state of mind that covers
all of the United States, as Hoffman died in his New York City
apartment) or anywhere else in the United States.

Watch Reason TV’s interview with Ted Cruz on Obama and
Drug Policy.
More details, vids with Cruz here.