Liberty

Ron Paul, Change Agent

henrymoore Books, Liberty , , , , , , ,

From what I can tell, a “change agent” in the lingo of the conspiracy theorist is a person who seems alright on the surface but in reality is bought and paid for by the New World Order/Illuminati/Bilderbergs and whose primary function it to co-opt the opposition and channel their frustration into fruitless endeavors, so that the powers that be may effect the change they desire with virtually no threats to their plan. If someone like Ron Paul can be accused of this, of course, then no one is safe. Which is why using the term “change agent” in this way has little effect. But as an actual agent of change, Ron Paul’s record speaks for itself, I think. No, I don’t mean his legislative record, for this is rarely something anyone should be proud of, and at best serves only to condemn the person in question for the misdeeds they have committed in the name of making law and doing the will of the people. I refer to his other record. His list of achievements in public life outside of the halls of Congress.

The man has single-handedly convinced thousands upon thousands of people to adopt a more freedom-oriented outlook on life, if not also to utterly transform their worldview. And he continues to do so with his latest book, which I received in the mail today not more than a few hours ago. I’m already reading it and in the first chapter he is keen to stress the ideas that liberty and personal responsibility go hand in hand (one might term this a “Virtuous Voluntaryism“) and that an education’s structure and content must be consistent with one another in order to be effective.

I hope that thousands if not millions of people read this book (and/or others like it) and come away from it with a fresh or reinforced opinion on what needs to be done with our education system (hint, the bulk of the fight takes place outside of “the system”), which is in a complete shambles. Because that’s just how many people it is going to take to reform fix restructure completely uproot the current establishment. Doing this is an end in itself, of course. But it is also a means to a far greater goal. Children raised by the state cannot help, on the whole, but to be children raised for the state. Ron Paul forcefully drives home the point that the status quo cannot be successfully challenged without first addressing the wholesale brainwashing of what many deem to be society’s greatest asset: the children. Stop the elites and bureaucrats on this front and victory over them in perhaps every other field of battle is all but assured.

So I encourage you to read this book, to suggest to others that they read it, and once done, to share (your/their) copy with still others (could be wrong, but I think it’s WAY easier to do this with a hard copy than with a Kindle or iPad). That is what I intend to do with mine. I hope and expect to be finished with it within the week.

The Israeli-American Friendship: A Myth Debunked

Brandon Christensen Liberty , ,

While browsing through a number of Right-leaning blogs over the past couple of hours (I don’t start work until Monday) I have noticed that more than a few of them have those cheesy “I stand with Israel” tabs on their sidebars. I don’t think I would have paid much attention to them had I not read this article by Fania Oz-Salzberger in the Daily Beast titled “What America Means to Israel.”

The article basically tries to explain why a non-existent relationship resonates so deeply with both Americans and Israelis. The reality of the situation is far different. Large swathes of the Israeli Left harbor views that are more in line with the European Left concerning the United States, and large swathes of the American public are either indifferent to Israel or (falsely) consider the state to be a nuisance with more leverage than it ought to have. This got me thinking and as such I thought it’d be a good idea to debunk the myth of Israeli-American friendship. This is a myth that is largely perpetrated in right-wing corners of both Israeli and American society, although I would guess it is implicit in the center-left coalitions of each state as well.

In terms of international relations, Israel is no more a friend to the United States than is North Korea or Italy, and vice-versa. Is Israel important to the United States at the moment? Of course, but this strategic value is a far cry from friendship. In a world of states, “friendship” means absolutely nothing.

For example, Germany, Japan, the UK and South Korea are our valuable allies. Saudi Arabia is our most important ally in the Middle East. Germany and Japan have the third and fourth largest economies in the world. The UK is seventh. South Korea’s economy is fifteenth. Saudi Arabia sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves. Canada and Mexico are the US’s most important trading partners, as well as being longtime neighbors. These states are examples of allies and trading partners. Are they friends? No. There is no such thing.

What I can answer in the affirmative is if these states are important allies, and they are.

Strategically Israel has been, and continues to be, an important regional ally in the US’s post-9/11 Near East strategy, but with the war in Iraq over and Washington’s shift in focus to the Far East beginning to be implemented, Israel is becoming less and less relevant to the United States.

Since Israel means next to nothing to the United States why does it get so much attention?

I think anti-Semitism plays a small role, but that this does not sufficiently explain why Israel seems to get more attention than it warrants, especially when one considers the strength of the Israel-friendly Christian lobby here in the US.

I have come to the conclusion that the strategy of Israeli lobbies is responsible for the myth of Israeli lobbying power. That is to say: The Israeli lobby knows that Israel is not important to the United States so it invests massive amounts of time and effort into ensuring that Israel remains relevant to any conversation the US has on foreign affairs. This, of course, is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, if the Israelis don’t heavily invest in procuring good relations with the people of the United States it will forgotten. On the other hand, all that investment produces the illusion that Washington is under the spell of some sort of *sigh* Jewish cabal.

Pay careful attention to what I am saying. In terms of policy-making, the Israeli lobbies don’t have any special leverage over politicians in Washington. The various Israeli lobbies all know this, so in addition to fighting it out in Washington for influence they have taken measures designed to foster cultural relations with the American people, which in turn enhances the view that Israelis are somehow more important than they really are to US relations abroad.

If I were the Israelis and had no knowledge or understanding of libertarianism, I’d do the same thing. Yet it does Israelis no good to pretend that their state has some sort of special friendship with the United States. It makes them look like lackeys of American imperialism to their Persian and Arab neighbors and “sneaky Jews” to their anti-Semitic (and mostly Leftist) Western detractors.

Reaching out to the American people is a good thing, but if the Israelis don’t want to be bitten in the ass they would do well to make a clear distinction between state and society. Given the socialist underpinnings of Israel’s founding, this may be harder to do than one realizes. As the US shifts its gaze away from the Middle East to focus on containing China, the Israelis would do well to heed that distinction.

A Note on Taxation

Tibor Machan Liberty

I have found it sensible to characterize taxation as a form of extortion. This is what it was when monarchs claimed that they owned the realm and everyone who occupied a part of it had to pay them for the privilege of utilizing it. Monarchs–at least many of them–believed that they own the country they happen to rule (because, some argued, God appointed them the caretaker of it). So if you make use of any portion, you need to pay them (taxes). It was just a “fee” extracted in return for the privilege of dipping into the monarch’s property.

Mundane economic speculations: Oil changes

Rick Weber Liberty , , ,

Fair warning: this post isn’t about anything in the news, or even anything particularly liberty related. This is just some economic musings about the motorcycle I just bought. I feel pretty darn free when I ride it, but ultimately this post is just (“just”) economics and just (again with that “just”) for fun.

When I got my bike, the mechanic I bought it from suggested that I get the oil changed every 3000 miles. The owner’s manual suggests 8000 miles. The first number feels a bit like when you leave the dentist’s office (“We’ll see you in two months for your next check up!”). It’s obviously in my mechanic’s interest to have a steady income, and an oil change is an easy job. On a machine that can be replaced for $4000, it’s a much more certain income than if I trash the engine and just buy a new bike. So is he just profit maximizing?

What about Honda’s number? What do they want? If they wanted my bike to last forever, they might say something like 3000 miles, but they also want me to buy a new bike at some point. But that isn’t all they want. They want me to enjoy my bike enough that I buy another Honda. And they want a reputation for selling reliable machines. And they want a healthy used bike market to bring in new riders (like myself… I bought a used Honda Shadow). On the one hand they want my bike to eventually die, but they want it to go in such a way that I’ll go back to them for my next bike. On the other hand, they want their bikes to last longer than their competitors. So it’s some form of oligopolistic competition on a non-price margin.

If it’s a Cournot-Nash equilibrium (and all manufacturers have about equivalent quality), then by suggesting 7000 miles their bikes would last longer, bringing new riders to the Honda fold, but reducing demand for new Hondas. If they suggest 9000 miles, riders will need new bikes sooner, but reduced longevity would reduce demand by a greater amount. The implication: I should change my oil more frequently than 8000 miles.

If it’s a Bertrand equilibrium, then they’ll give it all away to the consumer implying that 8000 maximizes my experience. But then competition among mechanics must be Cournot (unless the conditions in Lubbock are really awful)! When I took my industrial organization class, as a young libertarian economist-in-training, Bertrand was appealing (“companies always have our best interests at heart! See, they strive for the lowest price by assumption!”), but not terribly compelling. There are two lessons here: 1) Bertrand is taking the easy way out of our critics’ questions and will hurt us in the long run (take note fellow econolibertarians!). And 2) static/neoclassical economics, useful though it often is, doesn’t get us far enough: study your Austrian economics!

Why Roe v. Wade isn’t nearly as relevant as you’d like if you’re a grating ideological drone

muricaderp Current Events, History, Law, Liberty, Links, Politics, Religion

Titles like that are why I don’t cater to ideologues, except to troll them. One side swears that the least regulation of women’s access to abortion throughout their pregnancies is the work of the bastard love child of Anthony Comstock and Jack the Ripper, the other side swears that women’s lawful recourse to abortion as individuals under the post-Roe regime is tantamount to the gas chambers of Birkenau (often with helpful illustrations of the Nazi genocide infrastructure), and the silent majority has another pint of Franzia, since any other response would be futile. 

How does one even try to reconcile competing, irreconcilable policy interests? How can the self-determination of women facing unwanted pregnancies be squared with the welfare of the babies they are carrying or the demographic health of society? Maybe by attaching felony penalties to Godwin’s Law (everything else is already a federal felony, after all). If nothing else, we can remember that even in times of darkest derp, demographic statistics abide, although maybe not so much in the debate about abortion itself, because that frothy milkshake brings all the braying nuts to the yard.

To wit, from a Nazi-allusion-free article not about abortion at the Demo Memo: 

Baby Bust Update: 8% Birth Decline

 
According to preliminary estimates for 2012, the baby bust continues but the decline is slowing. The nation’s 2012 fertility rate was 63.0 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, the lowest on record and 9.4 percent below the 2007 high of 69.5. The fertility rate of women under age 30 is at a record low, but the rate among women aged 30 to 34 climbed slightly between 2011 and 2012 as those who had been postponing childbearing played catchup.

Overall, 3,952,937 babies were born in 2012. This was 8.4 percent below the 4,316,233 born in the peak birth year of 2007. So far, the Great Recession baby bust is not as deep as the 10.7 percent Great Depression bust, and it’s not likely to reach that level because the decline is slowing. For some perspective, keep in mind that the decline in births from the peak year of the baby boom in 1957 to the trough year of the baby bust (Generation X) in 1973 was a much larger 27 percent.

Did you notice that? It was subtle. In the course of not yelling about misogynistic sex scolds or murdered babies, Cheryl Russell mentioned that dreadful watershed year of 1973. That was the year in which American women started killing their own flesh and blood en masse with the government’s blessing and disposing of it as medical waste, except for the part about their finally starting the next year to carry more babies to term after nearly a generation of deliberate barrenness. 

It appears that what Roe really did as a policy (in contrast to its excellent service as a lodestone for acrimonious derp unto ages of ages) was to regularize a common medical procedure that had proven impossible to eliminate, even with criminal penalties. There aren’t reliable records of abortions in most states for several decades prior to Roe because no prudent physician would have documented a procedure that could have subjected him and his patient to felony prosecution. As birth records from 1957 show, sex was invented at some point prior to 1973, and for purposes of demographic analysis, it’s reasonable to assume that a constant, and very high, percentage of women of childbearing age was sexually active. That’s why Russell used data on live births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44.

These are rough bounds, but they’re accurate enough for demographic purposes. In demographic terms, the celibate minority of adults is static, mere background noise obstructing the thumpy signal of the rumpy-pumpy. The clerical celibates (sic?), of course, are especially noisy. The vulgar truth is that you and me, baby, ain’t nothing but mammals, although personally, I prefer Nature documentaries, and I find bears to have the most dignified and heartwarming mating practices this side of the quaking aspen. 

That paragraph was kind of gross. So is pretty much the entire debate on abortion in the United States since 1973. It takes a special kind of person to insist that late third-trimester abortions present no ethical or existential concerns and are totally cool. It takes a really special kind of person to march down the National Mall with a sign showing a photograph of a fetus next to one of Dachau. Centrists do not enjoy hanging out with such people. Bring out the grrrrrrlll power wimminz in shoddy crew cuts and Randall Terry with a gas chamber picture, and the substantial portion of the silent majority that doesn’t have a prurient interest in the macabre spectacle, the people who should be asserting themselves as policy stakeholders, shrink into the woodwork at warp speed. 

To a great extent, this four-decade abortion shouting match is a major front in the war between K-strategic libertines and r-strategic authoritarians for the demographic soul of the nation. Neither of these factions should be given a voice as stakeholders in the childbearing decisions of individuals. Granting legitimacy to either faction as an arbiter of individuals’ reproductive decisions is collectivist madness.

Both sides have developed a habit of becoming insufferable concern trolls. The barren libertine left concern-trolls women who genuinely want to raise families on the basis that they aren’t devoting enough time and energy to the stuff of feminist liberation. The authoritarian breeder right concern-trolls poor, defenseless babies, and at its shrillest extremes unimplanted embryos, with no thought to the gruesomeness of the alternative means of population control that eventually will assert themselves: consistently some combination of war, disease and famine. (If they think American women’s attitudes towards their infants in utero are amoral, they should consider a famine afflicting a burgeoning population. A failed wheat crop never cares.)

Neither extreme really wants competent individuals to make their own free, informed decisions, because have it all/children are annoying and le hard/baby murder!/invading proliferative Muslim hordes. Do it in the name of Carrie Bradshaw, or do it in the name of Charles Martel, but whatever you do, don’t make your own decision; make ours. 

The Eagle wept. 

To be Perfectly Frank, on Today of All Days

henrymoore Liberty

You listening, NSA?

Today is the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. If you are like most and fit into one or both of two categories — Patriotic Americans & Americans who have eyes and ears — you don’t need to be reminded of this by me. You either already started thinking about it on your own a week or more ago or in the last few days have been unable to avoid the subject, as reminders have sprung up everywhere, for example:

  • Your neighbor recently hoisted his colors. To only half-mast.
  • Google is doing that weird thing again with the black ribbon at the bottom of their homepage. Wait, it didn’t even merit a graphical transformation of their logo? Pffft! Those haters.
  • While surfing the cable, you can’t land on Fox News or MSNBC for more than five seconds without some vain idiot bursting a blood vessel — hold up, that’s any old time you surf the cable, so you might have to stop for more like ten seconds before someone says, “when I saw the twin towers collapse…”
  • That one obnoxious friend who likes to waste your time on the phone just casually brought it up the other day. Just like he did last year. And the year before. You talked for over an hour.
  • Your calendar says “September” and one of the little boxes says “11.”

Well, it just so happens that I think all of this is completely absurd. I mean, who cares?! Let me state that another way: This all happened 12 years ago, to people I don’t know, in a place that, practically speaking, is on the other side of the world and I don’t really care any more than I would about any other event that can be similarly described. And I think that were it not for generations of being spoon-fed American Exceptionalism and related propaganda, no one else in their right mind would care either, except, of course, those still dealing with their injuries or their losses.

What happened in New York City (and Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, PA) to 3000 random people more than a decade ago should have little more impact on my way of thinking or doing than what might have happened, say, in Western Siberia to 10 random people more than 3 millennia ago. The only important difference between these two events, in terms of how they relate to me, is that the former has been taken up as a cause for the erosion of my liberties and the destruction what’s left of my country. But I’m sure that if 9/11 didn’t happen there still would have been plenty of other means to that end, so like I said, the event itself is of no particular importance.

Please do not misunderstand and take any of this to mean that I don’t care and that no one else should care that innocent people were murdered on September 11th, 2001. It’s just that I realize that violent, cruel, wanton, unjustified murder is an every day occurrence and there was hardly anything special about it in this case. Besides perhaps the circumstances leading up to it (religious extremism, blowback, the incompetence of the intelligence community, strange coincidences, etc.) or the disgusting way in which the crisis was taken advantage of. Quoting Josef Stalin* never made me any friends, but here goes: “when one man dies it is a tragedy, when thousands die it’s statistics”. It is easy to read too much into those words, especially given who allegedly said them, but there is much truth to them, I think.

Is it a given that you are or that you should be more sad when two (or 10 or 10,000) people die than you are when it is only one? And by how much, exactly? Maybe if you personally know and love those who died it makes sense to be more devastated when they die in droves, but that has more to do with the positive impact those people had on your life when they were living and the way your life is going to be without them. It has little to do with numbers. Is a serial killer with 12 victims somehow more evil than a serial killer with 11 victims? More skilled, more insane perhaps, but more evil? How much harder is it to answer such questions in the affirmative when it involves complete strangers, perhaps thousands of miles away?

It certainly makes sense for society to collectively hate greater amounts of death and destruction more than it does lesser amounts. However, this is not because greater amounts are somehow objectively more evil, but simply because society is made up of individuals who are each more likely to be harmed in these greater tragedies than they are in the lesser ones. The state and the media know this well enough and so are able to play to the fears and emotions of the people all the more easily. Throw into this volatile mix some patriotic fervor and an opportunistic president (the very last person on earth I would ever give a bullhorn to), and you can begin to understand why this awful tragedy, this mere statistic, became cause for war and the many evils that accompanied it. And continue, even to this day.

Some people maintain that we should be particularly mindful of the 9/11 attacks because they were an act of war by Islamic Terrorists against the United States. This is debatable (no, laughable), but even if it wasn’t it has no bearing on whether I should have a quarrel or an alliance with one side or the other. These two imaginary entities are mere labels for establishing collective guilt and responsibility. Everyone is expected to pick a side or have it chosen for them, even though it does not follow that an attack on “the United States” is necessarily an attack on them, or that they have some duty to aid, to sympathize or empathize with the victim (which, again, is only a figment).

If anything, 9/11 was an attack on a very specific set of targets. The World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the Capitol Building. These may have represented “America” to the planners and perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, but none of them have anything to do with the vast majority of self-styled Americans. I’d even go so far as to say that the latter two targets had it coming. And they’re just going to keep on making the same mistakes and expect a different outcome. There went Iraq. There go Afghanistan and Libya. Here comes Syria. Next up Iran. What other hornets’ nests can we lob some rocks at and not expect to get stung? Do not those who live by the sword also tend to die by the sword?

*Likely misattributed, as are most of the good ones, it seems.

Editorial Duties

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Liberty, Links

Hello all,

I apologize for my lack of posts lately. I’ve been busy getting ready for my big move from LA to Santa Cruz. I’m also writing one last paper for school (it’s due on Friday).

I hoped you liked the article that Dr Machan generously provided for the blog. If so, you may be in for a bit of a surprise; stay tuned!

I’ve got some stuff I’d like to pull from the ‘comments’ section and riff off of in a little bit, so look for that beginning next week. I know Andrew is keeping everybody on their toes, and Rick is currently getting settled down in Texas. Don’t know where the heck Hank is at.

A little bit of libertarianism from the young. A little bit of libertarianism from the wise. This is turning into one hell of a blog (if I do say so myself).

Toward A Selfish Left

Against Symbolic Killing

Some reflections on the Right to Private Property

Tibor Machan Current Events, Liberty , , , , , ,

[Editor’s note: the following is an essay by Dr Tibor Machan, professor emeritus in the department of philosophy at Auburn University, and current holder of the R. C. Hoiles Chair of Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics at Chapman University in Orange, California. He is also a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a former adjunct faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Machan is a syndicated and freelance columnist; author of more than one hundred scholarly papers and more than thirty books. We are extremely grateful for his generosity in regards to sharing this article.] 

Private Property Rights

The first step in the destruction of capitalism must be the abolition of the right to private property. Marx and Engels were clear about this in The Communist Manifesto. And many who sympathize with his idea of a socialist political economy agree. This is one reason many such thinkers and activists are champions of land use, eminent domain and related legal measures that render even the most personal of real property subject to extensive government control.

Of course, there are others who have argued that the right to private property is not only the basis for vigorous commerce but also the foundation of other individual rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. It is arguably, in a somewhat roundabout way, the conceptual foundation of the right to freedom of political participation. Without some safe haven, one’s private domain, to return to after the vote has gone against one’s way, one will be vulnerable to the vindictiveness of the winners! And political advocacy without exclusive jurisdiction over one’s domain is difficult to imagine since advocacy, support and such political activities could not be carried out independently of other people’s permission.

Accordingly, it is no mere academic curiosity whether the idea of private property rights is well founded, sound, or just. Within American political and legal history there has been some confidence in the soundness of this principle but the basis of it has not gone unchallenged over the last two centuries. One need but consider the recent work by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, The Myth of Ownership, Taxes and Justice (Oxford University Press, 2001) to appreciate how vulnerable is that confidence. Indeed, it is mostly members of the discipline of economics who see merit in the idea of private property, and then not as a feature of justice but more as a feature of an efficient system of resource allocation.

Yet, there is reason to think that the right to private property is a good idea, that everyone should be understood to have this right and that the institutions built upon it should be preserved. Indeed, they should be extended into areas where other ideas have held sway (for example, environmental public law). Let us consider this idea, then, and see whether we can be confident in its validity as a sound political-legal concept. 

From Mixing Labor to Rewarding Good Judgment Continue reading →

I Supported Ron Paul Because of Weed… So What?

nickfong2013 Current Events, Liberty , , , ,

When Ron Paul campaigned for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, I had no idea who he was nor did I care much for politics, let alone his. Like many recent high school grads, the extent of my interest in politics didn’t go much further than the U.S. Government class I was required to take to graduate. I was what you would call a single issue voter.

The only issue that I really cared about at the time was, admittedly, marijuana legalization. Yes, I was one of the kids that spent his days before–sometimes during–and after school smoking weed. I literally sat through school sleeping until I could leave and go smoke. You could say I was bored with my education. I tired of listening to teachers and their sometimes ludicrous assignments and consigned myself to sitting in the back of the classroom so that I would be allowed to sleep, undisturbed. Apathy dictated my high school years. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy learning, but I was bored and didn’t really give a shit.

Fast forward to the 2012 Republican primaries. It was campaign season, and the debates between Republican candidates Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul were just starting to heat up. To be honest, I was mostly interested in seeing if any of these candidates embraced marijuana legalization. President Obama had never actually opined for the plant’s legalization, but his pro-marijuana statements were enough to get many young peoples’ votes, crucial to his being elected in 2008. This somehow led to the erroneous belief that Obama would push for legalization of the plant, which never happened.

Personally, I wasn’t disappointed. I mean, it’s not like he had promised to legalize. No promises were broken. With the Republican primary race in full swing, I wanted to see whether I actually had any real hope of seeing marijuana legalized, or if I would have to wait yet another four years to get my hopes up. It was soon after that I started to pay attention to Dr. Paul.

Here was this stoop-shouldered, old Texan with a slight stutter who spoke with such passion and reason I couldn’t help but pay attention. Mostly, he talked about economic and foreign policy issues that I had little knowledge of. Even before I knew his stance on ending the War on Drugs, for some reason Dr. Paul’s honest delivery and conviction stood out to me. I knew that he had been in Congress for years, but beyond that I defected to my parents’ opinion of him: crazy.

I started to do some research on Dr. Paul’s background and found that he was a man of extremely reputable character. He was an anomaly from the get-go. Defying conventional opinion of politicians; a brief look at his voting record betrayed the saying that all politicians are liars. With voting records now published online and easily accessible, I would have been able to find out right away if he had voted contradictorily to what he said. Here was a politician that held an ideology that sometimes went against his personal views, yet defended it to the death because of his conviction in its power to affect widespread positive societal improvement.

I suppose at this point it’s important to iterate my own opinions on liberty. Mostly, I don’t think it’s proper to glorify the idea of liberty to the extent that some do, and I think that it even hurts the movement as a whole when some consider themselves missionaries of the ideology. I don’t worship liberty, but I do see it as a fundamental right for humanity—and liberty to me means the ability to make decisions regarding your own social, economic, and political lifestyle, as long as they’re peaceful.

I researched Dr. Paul online, found YouTube videos of him speaking, and was instantly hooked. Beyond marijuana legalization, I found that I agreed with everything that he pushed for: his main issues that stood out to me were a non-interventionist foreign policy, ending the War on Drugs, returning to some semblance of budgetary balance, accountability of the Federal Reserve, and free markets. As I know now, these very ideas form the primary backbone of the liberty movement. Before, liberty was just something I included in the Pledge of Allegiance and was told that it was somehow crucial to being American. I had never bothered to ask why. Once I did, I came upon entire organizations devoted to spreading the ideas of liberty. They’re dedicated to educating any who might listen on the importance of social, economic, and political freedom.

Since initially paying attention to Ron Paul and happening upon the liberty movement, I feel like it is almost my civic duty to at least inform others of these ideas, even if they disagree. These ideas are founded in reason and logic. These days, you’ll find me telling any like-minded friends who will listen how a lazy stoner like me was motivated by liberty not only to get off my ass, but to learn. I’ve come to the conclusion that the ideas are ultimately important beyond me. Although I find it wrong to tell others they hold erroneous opinions, all I can do is to try to help inform and see where that takes them. I don’t think I’m alone in finding Dr. Paul’s passion contagious. At the same time, I’m not glorifying the man, but the ideas that he manages to deliver are powerful, and it’s these ideas that are worth paying attention to.

Even though Dr. Paul did not win the 2012 Republican primary, he instilled something far more important, affecting an entire generation still in its intellectual infancy. I truly believe that these ideas will come to reach more people in the future and will affect many in the same way that they have moved me.

I think it’s only fitting that I end this article in Dr. Paul’s own words:

Ideas are very important to the shaping of society. In fact, they are more powerful than bombings or armies or guns. And this is because ideas are capable of spreading without limit. They are behind all the choices we make. They can transform the world in a way that government and armies cannot. Fighting for liberty with ideas makes more sense to me than fighting with guns or politics or political power. With ideas, we can make real change that lasts.

First World Camping Problems, USDA Tyranny, a Fish Story, and Some Epic Snapshots

henrymoore Liberty , , , , , , , ,

[A slightly updated version of a post that first appeared on The Libertarian Liquidationist]

I went on a 50 mile hike in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness (Montana) the week before last. The trail is called “the Beaten Path”. That doesn’t really mean much. It wasn’t rock climbing or cliff scaling, but it wasn’t far removed at times. Or at least it seemed that way with our heavy backpacks and the average of ten miles we covered each day. Two good friends (from Cheyenne, Wyoming) and I camped below the mountains on Saturday night (August 3rd). A $9 fee and the roads on the way there were still super-crappy. What gives? Wasn’t that supposed to be one of the things governments were good at?

Add to that my $26 fishing license (right in the middle of the year-long season, and just past the height of that season) and we’ve already been taken for 35 Federal Reserve Notes. I understand the need for wise management, but does licensing really solve it (to say nothing of the natural right to catch fish)? I’m not so sure. Charging everybody the same fees for what end up being different costs imposed by them can’t be anything but inefficient. In my case, it incentivizes me to go out and fish more than I otherwise would, imposing more costs, just to make it worth getting the license. Considering that I never catch anything, I have a lot of fishing to squeeze between now and the season’s end.

Just how bad is my fishing? I brought a nice little pole that comes with a cast reel and a fly reel. I stimulated the local economy by purchasing several fancy new lures (having temporarily misplaced my other good ones). What could go wrong? Well, within the first five casts my lure got snagged on a rock at about 6 feet depth. I had to wade out to three feet of depth and alternately jerk and loosen my line from several positions to get it unstuck. Nothing I hadn’t had to do before.

I should have quit while I was ahead. Maybe another five casts later I outdid myself. If it weren’t for the fact that my reel had become loosened from the rod I know it would have been my farthest cast yet. Instead, the entire reel went flying out into the lake and the rest of the line hung up on the rod. Not wanting to lose my reel, I panicked and dove in after it. I figured, “8 feet? This will be a cinch!” After going head first to the bottom (the sun was behind the clouds and I was stirring up the mud, so I couldn’t see it) four or five times I decided it would be best to pull on the line until it was completely unraveled and hope that it was tied to the reel. Luckily it was. I was happy to recover all my gear, but I was soaking wet and the sun wasn’t out. Luckily no one witnessed my floundering. No doubt my friends would have gotten a kick out of it.

On my way back to camp, dripping, shivering, holding my tangled line and my dismembered pole I was stopped by some ranger chick (the US Forest Service is an agency of the US Department of Agriculture). Just what I needed. She detained me for about five minutes to ask me where I was from, where I was going, how far away our campfire was from the lake, whether we knew not to burn our soup cans, etc. She was at least nice about it (heck, she didn’t even mention the Glock 40 belonging to my friends’ brother, strapped to my belt, or ask to see my fishing license) and eventually realized how uncomfortable I was and said she would come to our campsite later to finish her lecture. Which, of course, she did. She had no problem telling us that we were her worst demographic, three young men. Can you imagine a police officer saying that to a black teenager in a large urban area? I’d say that’s profiling, but I digress. She told us she was going to be off for the next two days but when she came back she would be checking up on us. Add to the profiling some harassment. We had yet to be told or to admit that we had broken any “rules” (which, of course, we had). Luckily we managed to evade her the rest of the hike, but we made sure not to have any extra fun lest we incur her wrath.

So I was basically done fishing on the first day unless I wanted to fly-fish or untangle my other line. I did try a little fly-fishing at one lake a few days later but didn’t catch anything. Luckily, four or five gentleman from Chicago (with thick former-Soviet bloc accents) whom we camped near saw I had no luck and offered us some of their surplus. Five fresh trout. Of course, we had to gut them ourselves, but it was worth it. I wrapped them in aluminum foil and seasoned with lemon juice, garlic, dill, black pepper, red pepper, and salt. Then I put them on our grill over our camp fire for 20 minutes. If I swallowed any bones, I didn’t notice. As a courtesy, in the morning we gave them a package of noodles we would have otherwise eaten the night before. Does that qualify more as reciprocal gifting or as barter? I hope for their sake those boys had their Montana fishing licenses (better yet, that they didn’t have them but managed to dodge the rangers), though as out-of-staters it would have cost them an arm and a leg.

We camped again the night we got back down. Another $9. 46 FRNs total. Roads were still pretty bad. No hand sanitizer or lights in the bathroom facilities. Almost no good firewood other than some dead, dried pine boughs and a giant old stump which we put set aflame around 7:30 PM. It took two of us to drag it to the fire and all three of us to lift it into the fire. A lot of the weight came from the few large stones that the root system had wrapped itself around. It was 3:30 AM before I decided to douse the fire. The stump was still there. It was a lot smaller, and in two pieces, but still could have burned another hour or two on its own. My one friend had turned in around 11, the other one was up with me until about 2. I knew if I went to bed as early as they I would be awake, tossing and turning after only a couple hours’ rest. Plus, being a night owl, I couldn’t help it.

I’m not sure what our backpacks weighed, but even a week after we got back (on August 9th), my shoulders were still a little stiff, and even now, two weeks later, my right knee aches when I straighten my leg out. Even with all this, I had a great time.

What Obamacare is Really About

Warren Gibson Liberty ,

The good folks at the Reason Foundation, who have the stomach to follow such things, tell us that the bureaucrats entrusted with implementing Obamacare have missed half their deadlines. Even well-connected consultants, they tell us, remain largely in the dark. And for sure, the general public is totally in the dark and generally suspicious.

This I can predict with confidence: there will be train wrecks but some parts will work well. Some people will be happy and others won’t. Republicans will holler I-told-you-so while Democrats will hail the successes and call for patience while the glitches are fixed. How could it be otherwise? Such a complex piece of legislation, even as it falls way short of Obama’s initial promises, will inevitably stumble into a few successes, if only for the short term.

But does anyone believe the perpetrators of Obamacare didn’t know that? While playing up its seeming successes, feeble as they might be, they will blame its failures on the greedy private sector. A mixed system won’t work, they’ll say, and they’ll be right. (A central theme of the great Ludwig von Mises was the instability of a mixed economy.) They will then trumpet the slogan they’ve kept under wraps for some years: single payer!

Single payer, of course, means total government seizure of the health care sector. Having already achieved near total control of the education and financial industries and a heavy grip on energy, they will be one step further along the road to their real goal: the extinguishment of the last of our freedom and prosperity and the establishment of total fascist dictatorship. That’s what Obama, Hillary, et. al. are really after, folks.

What are valid criticisms of libertarianism? What are libertarian ideas that you don’t agree with?

Brandon Christensen Liberty

This question was posed to libertarian redditors the other day.

I found this answer, and the threads it spawned, to be the most interesting so far. There is, for example, this:

but I think we are going to strongly disagree on which groups those are.

That’s okay. To disagree in a public forum like this is to perform the fine-stitching of a free society.

Which groups do you think the US government favors? Please, use data to back up your claims. I’m going to use income levels, life expectancy rates, education levels, incarceration rates and employment rates.

Before you answer, though, I think it would be pertinent to remind you that we are now discussing society in terms of groups rather than as individuals. You and I know this is not a good thing, but – I would argue – it is nevertheless where we are at today.

Part of this is because of libertarian intransigence when it comes to discussing the gross historical injustices of chattel slavery and ethnic cleansing. Were we to treat these injustices for what they are – and for what they have done – rather than focusing on who they were done to, we may be able to make inroads in the fight against racism and injustice.

Any thoughts out there?

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , , ,

Why Dr Delacroix, I am flattered. Usually only Leftists change the subject when they are stumped. This argument must hold a special place in your heart.

As I said in a response you may have missed, our discussion is probably useful. At its heart lie the issues of credibility and criticality.

Fair enough.

Congressman Paul; volunteered in a debate that the armed forces spent “30″ billions on air conditioning in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Um, I guess it’s up to me to let you know that you gave yourself an extra ten billion to work with here. Awwwkkward! You originally stated that Ron Paul used $20 billion, not $30 billion. It is of little concern to me that you fudged this number, though, because I know you are a dinosaur rather than a cheater. Your new criteria, once it is restored to the original $20 billion, states that air conditioning and all of the costs associated with it in both Iraq and Afghanistan account for around five percent of the 2010 budget.

That’s absurd? Really? Have you ever heard of the United States Postal Service? What about the Department of Housing and Urban Development? How about Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac? Five percent.

I note that if the US armed forces spend 6 or 7 % [or even 5%!!!] of the money I give them for military operations on air conditioning, they might have some explaining to do. That fact in itself sure wouldn’t be an argument for pulling out of either country.

You are absolutely right about that. Now, did Ron Paul use the air conditioning numbers to argue that our troops should come home, or did he use them to argue that Washington’s spending is totally out of control?

The reason I think you are desperate, Dr Delacroix, is that you are focused on such an irrelevant statement. I mean, for Christ’s sake, I Googled “Ron Paul air conditioning statement” and got a few right-wing webpages screaming that Ron Paul wanted to stop letting troops have air conditioning. Notice that they didn’t actually argue about the number Paul cited. You are quite possibly the only person on the planet who is fixated on this number.

Accusing libertarians of being dogmatic because they will vote for Ron Paul is disingenuous, too. All one has to do is go over to the ‘comments’ section of Reason magazine’s webpage to find out all sorts of opinions on Ron Paul’s policies. I suspect I know why you accuse libertarians of being dogmatic, and I will get back to this shortly.

But first, I want to make it crystal-clear that you are free to vote for whomever you like. You can vote for the guy who thinks that ObamaCare has been great for Massachusetts. You can vote for the guy who thinks the Taliban will be a part of Libya’s next government. You can vote for the guy who thinks that the earth was created six thousand years ago. Or you can vote for the guy who thinks that a national energy plan would reduce the world’s supply of oil coming from the Middle East.

Secondly, I want to make it crystal-clear that I don’t agree with everything Ron Paul says or does. I think criticism is a good thing. Instead of making an ass out of yourself by hooting and hollering about an air conditioning number he cited, though, I think it would be more constructive to talk about his opposition to NAFTA as being “managed trade.” Or his calls to eliminate birthright citizenship from the constitution. Or the racist newsletters that circulated through the South under his name in the 1990′s. Perhaps these things are enough for you not to vote for him. I hope you will be happy with one of the alternatives that the GOP offers.

But let us speak no more of intellectual dishonesty. Nor should we speak anymore of Ron Paul’s confidence in himself and his dogmatism. Allow me to illustrate this in a not-so-nice-but-illuminating-nevertheless kind of way. You said:

Your rebuttal of my answer to the constitutional issue about who can start a war makes no sense. If two joint resolutions of Congress embodied in two public laws are not constitutional measures, I don’t know what is and I am not equipped to pursue the topic.

*sniff* *sniff*

I smell something…

*sniff* *sniff* *sniff*

I. *sniff* Smell. *sniff* BULLSHIT!

I am not quite ready to make you bleed yet. I do not want to make you bleed, but your dogmatic insistence that we fight every fight around the world and your intellectual dishonesty (or cowardice) concerning the constitutionality of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are too dangerous to let pass. But first:

Congressman Paul’s carelessness in this matter he chose to discuss however is enough of a reason to mistrust his judgment. And, of course,there is always the option of saying quickly,” I misspoke in the heat of the discussion.” This kind of admission usually endears candidates to the general public doing them more good than harm. However, Paul has no doubt. I suspect he has no doubts about anything.

Yours is probably the most articulate criticism I have heard yet regarding Ron Paul’s political positions, so it merits a good, thoughtful response. Keep in mind your newfound ignorance regarding The Rule of Law and your incessant calls for an active – no matter what! – overseas presence when I present my case. Also, keep in mind that you and your readers are free to vote for the guy who wants to implement a national energy plan to reduce the world’s supply of oil from the Middle East.

The idea that Paul knows everything about anything is one that sure does look a lot like dogmatism at first glance. But Ron Paul will be the first to claim that he does not know everything. That’s why he insists that everything go through the Constitutional process – including overseas activities. That is to say, Ron Paul’s idea of dogmatism is to adhere to The Rule of Law. Imagine that!

If you can provide me some examples of him suggesting otherwise, or that he knows better than everybody else and is therefore qualified to flaunt The Rule of Law, then by all means provide it here. Otherwise, I think it would now be a good idea to focus back on the calls made by you to go to war in Rwanda, or the Balkans, or Iraq, or North Korea, or Venezuela at the first sign of trouble.

I want to take us back to issue of dogmatism and intellectual dishonesty really quickly. In a previous reply you stated the following:

On moral responsibility, I chose Rwanda of an extreme case where it would have been easy to intervene productively at little cost or risk. That’s what this country did we respect to the beginning genocide of Kosovars against a much more powerful and sophisticated oppressor.

Your words speak for themselves on the Rwanda genocide.

Your moral indignation towards those of us who would leave the problems of others to themselves may be understandable, but first I have to ask you a quick question (this will be the second time I have done so): which side of the Rwandan war should we have intervened on behalf of? I think it would be pertinent to remember that you are answering the question against the backdrop of a conversation that is centered around dogmatism and intellectual dishonesty. And please, remember that this is a conversation that is also trying to gauge the level humility that each of us has when it comes to recognizing the sheer ignorance that each of us has on any number of issues.

Or would you just simply send our troops to Rwanda with no clear-cut goals, except to stop the fighting between the Hutus and the Tutsis? I think that a demand from libertarians for our politicians to adhere to the Rule of Law hardly qualifies as dogmatic. I think that a demand from hawks for our politicians to do more overseas regardless of the Rule of Law does qualify as dogmatic. Thus to the hawk, the libertarian is dogmatic because he demands that the hawk adhere to the Rule of Law. I can see how you have become confused on the issue now.

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , ,

As I said in a response you may have missed, our discussion is probably useful. At its heart lie the issues of credibility and criticality.

Congressman Paul volunteered in a debate that the armed forces spent “30″ billions on air conditioning in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Mr Paul as a congressman and as a presidential candidate is responsible for anything he choses to say. It matters not if the thinks he got this info from a reliable source. You and I equally do not care much about the substantive meaning of the figure. However, if it’s absurd on its face is absurd on its face, his repeating it speaks to his criticality or to his intellectual honesty. Both qualities are important in a presidential candidate, I think. And, of course, I am leery of the dogmatism of Libertarians. Sometimes or often, it makes them unable to spot absurdity. Thus, the discussion of this Paul affirmation is not absurd.

The $30 figure for air conditioning needs to be applied to operational costs of the DOD, not to the total budget. The latter includes research and development and big obligations to military personnel not connected to any campaign, veterans’ benefits, for example. Operational costs properly defined constitute about 60% of total budget. Applying these figures to 2010, a high budget year, I find that the alleged air conditioning expenses cited by Ron Paul amount to 6% to 7 % of military expenditures in Iraq and in Afghanistan, not the 3% you state. That is absurd.

I note that if the US armed forces spend 6 or 7 % of the money I give them for military operations on air conditioning, they might have some explaining to do. That fact in itself sure wouldn’t be an argument for pulling out of either country.

Congressman Paul’s carelessness in this matter he chose to discuss however is enough of a reason to mistrust his judgment. And, of course,there is always the option of saying quickly, “I misspoke in the heat of the discussion.” This kind of admission usually endears candidates to the general public doing them more good than harm. However, Paul has no doubt. I suspect he has no doubts about anything.

I suspect that Congressman Paul’s enthusiastic rigidity accounts for the fairly high poll figures he regularly enjoys. I am guessing that it is also responsible for the fact that his numbers have not moved in months of campaigning. There are zealots and there are others. Again, I regret this situation because we have so much in common in about every other area.

Your rebuttal of my answer to the constitutional issue about who can start a war makes no sense. If two joint resolutions of Congress embodied in two public laws are not constitutional measures, I don’t know what is and I am not equipped to pursue the topic.

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , ,

What price for imperial peace?

Is it the case that you endorse and confirm the statement Ron Paul made voluntarily, on his own that he armed forces spend $20 billion a year on air conditioning in Iraq and in Afghanistan?

Dude, this is the most absurd subject to be talking about. You’re splitting hairs. You’re getting desperate! However, if I must, I endorse his claim. I cannot confirm it because I do not think I have the resources to do so. If I do have the resources to do so, I do not have the skills necessary to do so. Let’s put this in yet another perspective, since you won’t take a former Brigadier General/West Point graduate/logistician’s rough estimate seriously.

The Department of Defense’s 2010 base budget was almost $664 billion. The former Brigadier General said that $20 billion is spent on air conditioning (he included raw fuel, transport, and security in his estimate). My calculator is telling me, then, that the total amount of money spent on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes about three percent of the DoD’s annual budget (if we are to take the former Brigadier General’s estimates seriously). Given that we have been occupying a state that is located in one of the hottest areas of the world, I do not think that this is such an absurd estimate. However, if you able to provide me with some official figures then I will retract my endorsement of this statement and condemn Ron Paul to a demagogic hell.

About Gingrich’s alleged misstatements, I don’t know what you mean. Please, stop treating as obvious what others may not have seen, heard of, or noticed or may not exist at all.

I confess that I have not watched any of the debates. I go to school all day and work all night. There is no rest for the wicked! Since you want some sort of proof that Newt Gingrich is an ignoramus, I will refer you to his campaign page on foreign policy – oops! I mean national security – for an example. Number 5 on his list of things to do is “implement an American Energy Plan to reduce the world’s dependence on oil from dangerous and unstable countries, especially in the Middle East.” Got that Dr Delacroix? Implement an American energy plan to reduce the world’s dependence on oil from blah blah blah. I am deliberately choosing to bypass the absurdities associated with his calls for “energy independence,” of course.

Just for your readers’ sake, I think it would be a good idea to contrast this with Ron Paul’s official statement on dangerous and unstable sources of oil. First of all, I had to go to the “Energy” page, not the “National Defense” page, to find out about his thoughts on foreign sources of oil.
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There was nothing at all said about foreign sources of oil. Not a goddamn word, Dr Delacroix. Yet you slander him as an isolationist.

However, they take us a long way from your original statement on the illegality, the unconstitutional character of these wars.

I’m going to ask you for a third time (not that I’m keeping track or anything): what part of “only Congress can declare war” don’t you understand?!

Perhaps a different angle can be used to illustrate my point on this issue: the Department of Education was created by an act of Congress, so does that make it constitutional? It’s a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question (unless you’re a Leftist, of course).

On moral responsibility, I chose Rwanda of an extreme case where it would have been easy to intervene productively at little cost or risk. That’s what this country did we respect to the beginning genocide of Kosovars against a much more powerful and sophisticated oppressor.

Your words speak for themselves on the Rwanda genocide.

Your comparison between the mess in the Balkans and the mess in the African Great Lakes region is, like your comparison between the U.S. and Libya, superficial at best.

I’ll keep this brief. The Balkans are in Europe and neighbor a sizable number of allied states, and we picked sides (losing Russia in the process) before we started bombing.

I may be willing to concede that non-intervention is an immoral doctrine if you can answer me this simple question: which side of the Rwandan war should we have picked?