Value-Free Government?

Libertarians sometimes speak as if government could and ought to be value-free.  But value-free government is as impossible as value-free education.

Education cannot be value-free for the simple reason that all education, assuming it is not confused with indoctrination, presupposes that knowledge is a value and ignorance a disvalue.  If knowledge is a value then so is the pursuit of truth.  And if the pursuit of truth is a value, then the habits of mind and character the cultivation of which are conducive to the pursuit of truth are values as well.  Among these are truthfulness and intellectual honesty.  But truthfulness and intellectual honesty cannot be brought to bear in the quest for truth without diligence and self-control and respect for those who know better.  We could continue with this reflection but we have gone far enough to see that the notion of value-free education is nonsense.

Equally nonsensical is the notion of value-free government.  One would not be much of a libertarian if one did not hold liberty to be a value and (material) equality to be, if not a disvalue, then at least subordinate in the axiological hierarchy to liberty.  So libertarians have at least one value, liberty.  They advocate a government that allows its richest expression.  Anarchists, conservatives, liberals, fascists -- they too have their characteristic values which they hope to promote when and if they gain power.

What I have said suffices to show that the notion of value-free government is nonsense.  The question is not whether values but which values.