civil liberty

Cool PDF on the Dishonesty of Debate

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law, Liberty, Religion , , , ,

From one of the concluding paragraphs:

We have therefore hypothesized that most disagreement is due to most people not being meta-rational, i.e., honest truth-seekers who understand disagreement theory and abide by the rationality standards that most people uphold. We have suggested that this is at root  due to people fundamentally not being truth-seeking. This in turn suggests that most disagreement is dishonest.

This reminds me, mostly, of debates about the illogicality of more federal gun control laws or using American military power to intervene in a foreign conflict that has nothing to do with national security (see, on this last point, my recent post “Imperialism: The Illogical Nature of Humanitarian Wars“).

Why, just the other day I was deleted by a female FB acquaintance for pointing out to her that her facts were wrong on gun control and that the numerous, hastily Googled  studies that she threw at my feet contained either errors in statistical reasoning (“saying that ‘more guns equals more crime’ is like saying ‘the black cat is a cat because it is black'”) or simply wanted to inflame passions rather than discern truth from tall tale.

On this second point, I even went so far as to suggest that since the piece did not contain any quantitative reasoning whatsoever, it would be safe to agree with me that it was merely an attempt to inflame passions rather than educate. The female (a UC Santa Cruz alumni, in her defense) did just the opposite: after acknowledging that the piece contained no intellectual argument whatsoever, she stated – matter-of-factly – that the piece was an attempt to document all 62 mass shootings over a 30 year period with visuals (posting the killers’ faces to a timeline) and explain that most of the guns used were obtained legally. Therefore, it was quantifying the evidence and proving that mass murders were on the rise, federal gun control is proven to work, and that bans on certain types of guns have been proven to work.

Indeed. This is the face of the enemy of freedom, and it’s not Satan. It’s the bimbo next door.

Read the whole PDF. Grab a cup of coffee or hot tea first.

A couple of tips for figuring out if you are on the right side of the facts or not:

  1. If you are defending somebody else’s words – especially the words of a politician, a religious leader or even an intellectual, there is a good chance you are on the wrong side of truth.
  2. If you attempt to justify the horrible crimes committed in the past by looking at the virtuous deeds that were accomplished because of the crimes, then you are most likely on the wrong side of the facts. For example Franklin Roosevelt’s policies did absolutely nothing to get the US out of the Great Depression. All economists are in agreement on this. Where they disagree is on whether or not his policies exacerbated the Great Depression – as most libertarian economists argue – or simply that the New Deal did absolutely nothing (Left-wing economists generally see World War 2 as the economy’s savior). Yet many people give Roosevelt credit where credit is not due. They even go so far as to overlook his ruthless campaign to rid the West Coast of citizens with Japanese and German ancestry (locking them up in concentration camps), copying Hitler’s policies of cartelizing the economy, banning Jewish refugees from entering our shores, and raising taxes to unjustified levels in order to carry out his worthless policies. Fidel Castro is another good example of this.
  3. If you take the argument personally, then you are on the wrong side of the facts. If you have a tendency to delete people on social media sites because they failed to acknowledge your genius, then you are on the wrong side of the facts.

Hope this helps!

The Absurdity of Security in an Age of Fledgling Liberty

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law, Liberty , , , , , , ,

I’ve been refraining from commenting on the Boston Marathon bombings because I feel like don’t yet have enough information. Dr Delacroix speculates here. Law professor and Russian immigrant Eugene Kontorovich has more on Chechens and Boston’s fall here.

I have found this piece by Clark over at Popehat to be the most illuminating yet. I can’t excerpt the good parts because the whole thing is really, really good.

Update: the Wall Street Journal has a great profile up on the Tsarnaev brothers.

Débat sur le menteur.

Jacques Delacroix Comments, Current Events, Politics , , , ,

Mon essai “Un Menteur bien français” affiché sur ce blog le 9 Avril a aussi été affiché sur le blog-copain Notes On Liberty oùil a donné lieu à cette réponse indignée:

Je ne connais pas ce type, mais avant de taper sur les Français il conviendrait de ne pas oublier les tonnes de calomnies dégueulasses racontées par une certaine presse américaine ( un grand nombre !) contre la France après 2003 et l’Irak . Au point qu’aujourd’hui tous les Américains qui n’ont pas fait d’études les croient encore . En termes de proportions, mettre en parallèle les idoties de deux ou trois journalistes et le lynchage au rouleau compresseur lancé par Fox News et autres détritus n’est pas juste .

D’autre part les tabloïds n’existent pas en France . Tout ce que balancent le Sun et ses copains en Grande-Bretagne est bien plus énorme que ce que dit ce type de TV5 .

Alors oui la presse est un problème en France, mais c’en est un bien plus honteux chez les Anglophones .

S’il n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer! (Je jure que je n’ai rien fait de semblable. Pourtant, c’ était tentant.) Continue reading →

Thoughts about “sofa fascism”

Evgenii Grigorev Books ,

Привет, подписчики и читатели сообщества!

На днях перечитывал одну книгу Харуки Мураками. Так вот, в книге был эпизод, связанный со студенческими восстаниями в Токио в 1970 годах. Вся суть вопроса состояла в том, что после того, как восстания были подавлены силами правопорядка, вчерашние бунтари спокойно и без лишних слов вернулись к занятиям как ни в чем не бывало. Возникает вопрос: зачем тогда было орать с баррикад про какие-то права и свободы, если в конечном итоге они так легко отказались от своих идей? Это понятие называют в России “диванный фашизм”. Человек будет сидеть дома, до одурения орать про какие-то права, свободы, законы, расовую нетерпимость, про необходимость поменять текущий государственный режим и прочее, прочее – при этом сам человек ничего не будет делать. Человеку страшно или лень что-либо делать. Не хочется покидать свою зону комфорта, ограниченную стенами квартиры, привычного жизненного уклада. И таких у нас треть населения. Так вот, к чему я все это пишу тут. Эти овощи на диванах, табун овец, формирующий пресловутое “общественное мнение”, на деле откажется от всех своих убеждений и продаст Родину за новый iPhone, лишь бы не посягнули на его личный комфорт. Время идет, а “стандартный электорат” почему-то не меняется. Сколько еще нужно войн и насилия, чтобы до народа наконец дошло, что если чего-то желать и при этом не прикладывать усилий для достижения целей – будет так, как хочет “действующее меньшинство”. Спасибо за внимание.

Lies and Untruths – Part Two

Jacques Delacroix Law, Politics , , , , , ,

This is the second part of a two-part mini-essay. See part one here.

The first common untruthful practice I observe among liberals consists in turning factual decisions into moral ones.

The second mendacious practice I catch frequently among liberals is related to the first but it’s more egregious. It consists in shutting off debate in the name of compassion. Dorothy Rabinowitz, the wisest commentator in the Wall Street Journal, gives a wonderful and blood-curdling example on 1/15/10.

As everyone knows now, the race for the seat of the late Senator Kennedy has turned into a referendum on the Democratic health care reform project. The Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, is the standing Attorney General of Massachusetts. Earlier in her career, when she became a District Attorney, she had to make a decision about an appeal by a convicted child molester, a Gerard Amirault. The man had been convicted among other beauts, of sodomizing a five-year old with the blade of a butcher knife. There was never any physical evidence. (Read this sentence again because you may have missed its stark, clean meaning.) The whole trial had been of the same ilk. Judges wanted to reverse the decision. Ms Coakley declined to help and instead, went into high gear to prevent Mr Amirault ( and his sister and his old mother) from ever going out free and clear. Continue reading →

The Revolution That Was Naught

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law, Liberty , , , , , ,

One of the most dangerous causes that conservatives and Leftists alike have aligned themselves with over the past few decades has been that of democracy-promotion abroad. They all fail – usually out of omnipotence – to understand that representative democracy is a byproduct of  a private property rights regime, much like everything that is good in this world.

In Egypt, the newly elected Islamist president has been clamping down hard on opposition movements, an obvious barrier to the democracy that many occupiers of Tahrir Square had called for. The latest target is Egypt’s version of Jon Stewart. I made a bet with Dr. Delacroix in October of 2011 concerning the Arab Spring. I wrote:

Time will tell, of course, which one of our predictions comes true. In two years time, Tunisia, which did not get any help from the West, will be a functioning democracy with a ruling coalition of moderate Islamists in power.

The Egyptian military will be promising the public that elections are just around the corner, and Libya will be in worse shape than it is today. Two years from today, Dr. J, you will be issuing an apology to me and making a donation to the charity of my choice.

Since you are very good at avoiding the facts on the ground in the name of democratic progress, I think we should establish a measurement rubric by which to measure the progress of Libya. How about GDP (PPP) per capita as measured by the IMF?

He declined to accept my challenge. As of today, I have only been wrong about the Egyptian military, but with Morsi (a former engineering professor at Cal State-Northridge) turning the screws on non-Islamist opposition as fiercely as he has, I wonder how much longer the secular military will tolerate his already shaky rule.

Liberty is the mother of democracy, not vice-versa. Hawks like Dr. Delacroix and Nancy Pelosi would do well to remember this (but they won’t; they believe themselves to be omnipotent).

Homosexual Marriage

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Law, Liberty, Politics, Religion , , , , , , ,

I don’t care much if homosexuals, a small percentage of the population, gain the right to marry. (The right to marry? What kind of a right is this?) In general, I don’t like the idea that an activist minority can use the armed power of the state to force a cultural change at all, on a well identified majority. (Why no thave a court decree that lies are now included under the definition of “truth,” subject to fines and even to jail terms for recidivism?) I also don’t get all that agitated by the realization that civil union contracts can achieve the same objective, concrete ends, as marriage without hurting deeply the many.

At the same time, I think that both fear of the new and a simplistic reading of the Bible motivates many opponents of homosexual marriage. (By the way, given the California large majority vote on Proposition Eight, it has to include many Democrats, not just Republicans.) I am no theologian but I have trouble imagining a God who loses sleep over the fact that some men love men (and act upon it) or that some women love women (and act upon it). After all, that was His indifferent design that did it.

I am not much concerned either about the example it will set if the right to homosexual marriage becomes the law in the whole country as it is already in several states. I don’t think we are on the eve of seeing a woman marry her two Chihuahuas, one male, one female, for example. The spread of polygamy is a greater possibility. One form, polygeny, might turn out to be OK because there is a shortage of functioning males, I hear. I do believe in slippery slopes though. I have to because I am a three-times former smoker.

Whichever way the Supreme Court decision comes down, I will easily live with it. My friendship for the homosexuals of both sexes I have known and who care about the decision makes this acceptance even easier. (That’s the way it is: Principles regarding abstractions tend to melt a little in contact with the warmth of flesh and blood of real people.) Homosexual activists are not, however making friends with me by their insistence of having the Court (or the courts) overturn the results of a well established democratic process. I mean California Proposition Eight (against which I voted).

Deep inside my brain, there is also a vague notion that the issue does not reduce to morality or to tolerance. It has to do with some very basic structures of human thought based on dualities. I don’t have a good grasp of this. I will wait until I do to discuss the topic (unlike some visitors on this blog who will say anything twenty seconds after it comes to mind.)

Humanitarian Wars can be Unjust too

henrymoore Liberty , , , , , , , , ,

If you hate evils committed by individuals as much as you hates evils committed by institutions, and vice versa, as I think most people who are even remotely libertarian — wait, no! remotely human! — do, does it truly follow that you must condone one in order to combat the other? Maybe it does, at least in the short term, in a place and time where relationships between all these things have been so distorted. In this case, the distortion is caused primarily by the monopolization of not only judicious force, but very nearly all force, initiative and responsive, at every level, by a single institution (with many manifestations and interlocking jurisdictions). If you haven’t guessed already, that institution is the state.

Taking my cue (I swear there was no collusion!) from Brandon and going with the flow. Jacques Delacroix of Facts Matter and Notes on Liberty has this to say:

No one doubts that the Taliban, both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, and Islamists in general, want to implement barbaric policies and that they do implement them whenever they have a chance. (Remember, their harsh, extremist rule in parts of Iraq contributed to turning the Sunni population against them.) Among other rolling atrocities, the Taliban close, and often firebomb schools, overwhelmingly girls schools. They are overtly working on perpetuating obscurantism and the savage treatment of women that is undeniably common in much (but not all) of the Muslim world.

He then asks: Continue reading →

Some introductory links

muricaderp Law, Links, Politics , , , ,

It’s a great privilege and honor to be invited to write at Notes On Liberty. Brandon’s invitation for me to join the team actually came as something of a pleasant surprise, since my economic politics tend to fall pretty far to the left of the consensus here. I cast a straight libertarian ticket in the 2000 general election (the first election in which I was eligible to vote) and I voted for Gary Johnson last year, but I much more often vote for Democrats, generally because I find the social and civil liberties policies advanced by their Republican opponents absolutely frightening and the economic policies advanced by their Libertarian opponents naive, unduly dogmatic and hence unfeasible.

That said, I believe I’m what one of my favorite bloggers, Fabius Maximus, usually regards less as an accurate self-description than as a self-serving pretension: a true nonpartisan. Fabius occasionally posts survey data indicating that the incidence of nonpartisanship in the electorate is exaggerated, an exaggeration that he attributes largely to voters’ desire to be hip. By contrast, one of my most common reactions to the two major US political parties (probably to the annoyance of many of my Facebook friends) is that they’re both overdue for the federal death penalty, and that there’s room for both of them on the prison van to Terre Haute. There’s a certain facetiousness and poetic license to my peddling of this imagery, but it does not exaggerate the disgust and exasperation that I all too often have with the behavior of both parties, and especially that of their leaders.

I’ll probably have more on that theme in future posts. Tonight, however, I’m going to devote the rest of this post to links that I’ve found inspirational, resonant, or too ghoulish to resist, from various corners of the internet. The only caveat is that the links are going to have a more disjointed appearance than they would in a standard list format; I like to provide some context for links that I include in my writing, especially since the links themselves can be longer than some readers have time to read, so tonight I’ll be providing a synopsis for each.

Fabius Maximus

Fabius Maximus is the pseudonym of a geopolitics blogger who, as far as I can tell, is based in the Washington, DC area and employed in something pertinent to the federal government, although he is extremely coy about himself. His tone can be authoritative and brash, rather like a less screechy literary version of John McLaughlin, and he can be very cynical. But cynicism, I’d say, is warranted in times such as ours, particularly as an antidote to the saccharine earnestness that many mainstream journalists and commentators seem to regard as the only appropriate approach to the world.

The liberty of local bullies

This piece by Noah Smith is one of the most provocative broadsides on Ron Paul and libertarianism that I’ve found. It takes a more strident tone than I’d be inclined to take, but I have to support any essay that includes the phrase “my freedom to punch you in the face curtails quite a number of your freedoms.” That’s a pretty succinct articulation of one of my longstanding critiques of the libertarian movement and likeminded classically liberal movements abroad: that they all too often ally themselves with thieves and other unsavory, predatory characters. These unholy alliances strike me as a big reason that libertarianism has such trouble gaining popular traction as an alternative to the two-party status quo, manifested by the tendency of Libertarian Party candidates to win less than five percent of the vote in three-way contests. This is a very unfortunate situation, if for no other reason because libertarians are damn near the only people willing to take a serious stand against the erosion of civil liberties in the United States.

The Lazarus File

A Case So Cold It Was Blue

Dateline NBC, formerly a respectable news magazine, has taken to devoting Friday nights to lengthy reviews of sordid murders, a great thing for those of us who find that Keith Morrison’s hushed tones and ever more skeletal face appeal to our dubiously maudlin tastes. I don’t see why I shouldn’t do the same, especially for a case involving Brandon’s fellow Bruin, LAPD Detective Stephanie Lazarus.

I actually don’t remember whether I’ve ever seen a Dateline NBC special on Lazarus or just saw the 48 Hours version, but the pieces above, in the Atlantic and Vanity Fair, respectively, are better in any event. (I can’t exactly recommend my own television viewing habits.) The Lazarus case wasn’t spectacular just because the suspect (since convicted and sentenced to 27 years to life in prison) was a highly regarded police detective. The intricacy and sensitivity of the investigation were also far beyond what I’ve ever seen a broadcast account do justice. The investigation was started by a cold case squad at the Van Nuys Division (in the provinces by LAPD standards) before being reassigned to the Robbery-Homicide Division, the elite squad at LAPD headquarters that is responsible for high-profile murder investigations. That posed an even touchier problem: Stephanie Lazarus worked across the hall from RHD at Parker Center and was friendly with many of the division’s detectives. The detectives ultimately chosen for the case, Dan Jaramillo and Greg Stearns, were in effect chosen because they were out of the loop socially. (Judging from their portrait in Vanity Fair, Det. Stearns is also out of the loop sartorially, and proudly so. The portrait suggests that those two are classics, and know it.) On the morning of the arrest, teams were posted in Simi Valley, Lazarus’ hometown, with sealed envelopes instructing them to execute search warrants on her house and car. One of their colleagues surreptitiously trailed Lazarus downtown on a Metrolink train. It was the LAPD at its best, in contrast to the original investigation of Sherri Rae Rasmussen’s murder, which was the LAPD at its most incompetent. Lyle Mayer, the lead detective in the original investigation, will be forever remembered as the idiot who let a murderer stick around at the LAPD for another 23 years after telling her victim’s father that he watched too much TV. (Unless he was crooked. Reasonable people disagree on this point.)

Glenn Greenwald on the Hypocrisy of the Left

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics , , ,

Writing in the Guardian:

Meanwhile, a large bulk of the Democratic and liberal commentariat – led, as usual, by the highly-paid DNC spokesmen called “MSNBC hosts” and echoed, as usual, by various liberal blogs, which still amusingly fancy themselves as edgy and insurgent checks on political power rather than faithful servants to it – degraded all of the weighty issues raised by this episode by processing it through their stunted, trivial prism of partisan loyalty. They thus dutifully devoted themselves to reading from the only script they know: Democrats Good, GOP Bad.

Greenwald, a Leftist himself, is of course writing about the vitriolic attacks from the Left on Rand Paul’s filibuster the other day. There is more (it’s Greenwald after all):

That phrase – “engaged in combat” – does not only include people who are engaged in violence at the time you detain or kill them. It includes a huge array of people who we would not normally think of, using common language, as being “engaged in combat”.

Indeed, the whole point of the Paul filibuster was to ask whether the Obama administration believes that it has the power to target a US citizen for assassination on US soil the way it did to Anwar Awlaki in Yemen. The Awlaki assassination was justified on the ground that Awlaki was a “combatant”, that he was “engaged in combat”, even though he was killed not while making bombs or shooting at anyone but after he had left a cafe where he had breakfast. If the Obama administration believes that Awlaki was “engaged in combat” at the time he was killed – and it clearly does – then Holder’s letter is meaningless at best, and menacing at worst, because that standard is so broad as to vest the president with exactly the power his supporters now insist he disclaimed.

Read the whole thing.

Rand Paul for President!

Warren Gibson Current Events, Politics , , , , ,

By now everyone knows about Rand Paul’s thirteen-hour filibuster on the Senate floor. He succeeded in his short-term goal, as Attorney General Holder finally produced a memo affirming that the President has no right to murder American citizens who are not engaged in hostilities against the U.S. Senator Paul drew more support from colleagues than I would have expected, including Senator Minority Leader McConnell and Democratic Senator Wyden of Oregon.

But it’s not just his short-term success that has me excited. This might just be the start of a couple of very favorable longer-term outcomes.

First is the prospect that RP may run for President in 2016. He has dropped hints to that effect. He is an attractive candidate for libertarians because of his generally solid stands for economic liberty, civil liberties and non-interventionism. OK, maybe he’s a bit more conservative than some of us would like, and he endorsed Romney last year. And by traditional standards, he’s young and inexperienced.

Yet he just might be electable. He should be able to draw on the army of Ron Paul supporters who are mostly young and energetic. By 2016 the Obama administration will be in shambles and the Democratic candidate will have to distance himself from Obama. A minority party could emerge and siphon off Democratic votes. People will be looking for a fresh face, and Rand Paul does have a boyish, fresh face which doesn’t hurt. And he’s a bit less caustic and perhaps a bit more articulate than his dad.

Best of all, he could be the catalyst for a realignment of politics in this country. One side would be centered on the libertarian principles just mentioned: economic freedom, civil liberties, international peace. The first principle would attract some fellow travelers from the right and the other two would attract some from the left. On the other side would be statists of various stripes including “progressives,” who should be classified as fascists, as well as bloodthirsty warmongers like Senator McCain.

The political realignment just outlined will be familiar to anyone acquainted with the World’s Smallest Political Quiz, formerly called the Nolan chart. Millions of people have taken the quiz, and it has gained considerable respect (“The Quiz has gained respect as a valid measure of a person’s political leanings,” says the Washington Post.)

A lot can happen between now and then. RP’s rising start could fade. He could get co-opted by the Republican establishment. We’ve been disappointed before and it could happen again. But the idea does give one hope. Rand Paul for President, Gary Johnson for Vice President?

(Footnote for anyone shocked by the f-word: There are two aspects to fascism. The economic aspect leaves ownership of the means of production under nominal private ownership but with the government calling all the shots. That describes the program of the “progressives” to a tee. The other aspect is racism or nationalism, echoes of which are seen these days in the forms of affirmative action, multiculturalism, and “diversity” programs.)

Opiates: Hillbilly Heaven or God’s Own Medicine?

Warren Gibson Liberty , , ,

I offer an essay written by a student in a beginning college English class. I was moved by the story she had to tell of how the drug warriors inflicted so much suffering on her terminally ill boyfriend and on her. Her manner is reserved but it the anguish comes through loud and clear.

These days the documentaries and media reports are hard to miss. Opiate and opioid abuse has become epidemic in many of our poorer states. In an attempt to get high, people have begun illegally buying prescription pain medications such as Oxycontin, and creating new and unusual ways to snort, shoot and shove in to places it was never intended to go.  According to the media the drug dealers are no longer the creeps on the street corner pushing to kids, but rather the pharmaceutical companies, patient advocacy groups and doctors who have managed to improve on and promote what many are convinced is a curse on society.I guess you can’t blame the media for telling a good story complete with tragedy, multibillion dollar villains, and clever names such as “hillbilly heroine” for this country’s current drug of choice. What bothers me is how one sided these stories have become. Rarely do you see the people who are in so much chronic physical or emotional pain that these types of drugs can be life sustaining despite the physical addiction that comes with it. I guess the media does not find these people sensational enough to focus on, but when the dust settles they will likely be the ones who end up losing the most from this “epidemic”. Thanks to our fears and the media that plays on them the majority of Americans have been convinced that all drug addiction is bad, and should be avoided at all cost even when it can ease the severe pain of some. I have seen the good that these strong pain relievers can offer the right people and would like to explain the other side to the opiate’s story.

The source of our modern day opiates is the opium poppy, a plant whose existence and use actually predates written history. Often called, “God’s own medicine” ever since people discovered that it was more than just a pretty face; mankind has had a love-hate relationship with the opium poppy. Similar to the way our endorphins work the active ingredients in opium trigger the opioid receptors in the brain, central nervous system and throughout the body.  This creates not only pain relief, but also a strong sense of pleasure, and well being. For many who are in severe pain these results can bring life to a person who otherwise would be forced to live in a world without relief. Several years ago I knew little about opiates, and like most people I believed their use was only for those who simply no longer cared. It was not until I met my boyfriend that I understood what a positive effect it could have for some.

My boyfriend Dave lived with chronic pain. His doctor had put him on a regular supply of Vicodin which helped to not only relieve that pain, but also gave him energy, so he no longer had to spend all his time in bed. Unfortunately when opiates are taken regularly the body will build up a tolerance, and physical addiction will develop. A good doctor will understand that their patient will eventually need an increase in their dosage, and no patient should ever be put in a position where they are forced to withdraw abruptly from their medication without professional help. Well that is the way it is supposed to work isn’t it? Dave’s doctor either was not aware of how addictions can form, or more likely was simply afraid to increase the dose due to the scrutiny put on doctors who are thought to be too generous with the pain medications they prescribe. When we finally accepted that his doctor hands were tied we went looking for an alternative.

I will never forget the first time we went to buy Vicodin off the street. There were actually people who had walked straight out of the hospital still attached to IV poles selling their prescription drugs. Heroin addicts hung out on the corners trying to fund their habits by helping newbies like us connect with the right people. Sometimes they were very helpful most of the time not, but Dave always tipped them anyway knowing that the pain from withdrawal is still the same regardless of how you get there. This was an end station for many. With the risk of arrest, or assault running high, most of the people there had nothing left to lose. The fact that my boyfriend had to spend the final years of his life going through so much to get some relief will always anger me. It nearly ruined him financially, and the stress alone likely took time off his already short life. Dave was a person who believed you should always work hard to get ahead, and play by the rules. He did what he could to help others, but when the time came there was no one there willing, or able to help him.

I would never underestimate the power of opium, and the drugs it has produced. Call it what you wish: “hillbilly heroine” or “God’s own medicine” — this is a drug that can give life just as fast as it can take it away. I am sure that some will argue, where is the line drawn? If our laws were to allow easier access to opiates wouldn’t most of the addicts simply claim that their use is medical? I guess if we lived in a perfect world a well-informed adult would be allowed to decide for themselves what substances they put inside their body, and accept responsibility for the choices they have made. We clearly do not live in such a world, so the next best thing is to make sure that the people who have a legitimate reason to take these drugs will still have access to them.

My ultimate fear is that with so much controversy surrounding them, opiates will eventually be made illegal. People like my boyfriend have enough challenges without having to spend all of their time and finances chasing down a drug that they should have legal access to.  Maybe it’s time to turn the typical Oxycontin story on its head, and shine a light on the other side. If people can learn to stop thinking in black and white maybe then our medical community will finally be able to do their job, and start offering the support and resources that these people are entitled to.

Election Reform: a Modest Proposal

Warren Gibson Politics , , , , ,

Texas and other states have passed laws requiring voters to present valid ID at their polling place.  How could this be controversial?  These days we have to present ID to get on Amtrak, pick up mail at the post office, transact with a bank teller, etc., etc.  Is proper ID any less important for voting?  But a court recently struck down the Texas law saying it impacts minorities disproportionately.  Hummph.  If laws against aggravated assault affect minorities disproportionately should those be overturned also?

But why bother about this issue?  There surely is some voter fraud happening, but how much does it matter?  The real problem with democracy is simply the results.  The worst get on top, as Hayek put it, Exhibit A being, of course, the Sewer Rat in the White House.  As the electorate has broadened, starting with white male landowners at the Founding all the way down to today’s situation where anyone with a pulse who is at least 18 and claims to be a citizen can vote, and with direct election of senators in between, the quality of elected officials has gone steadily downhill.  Barack Obama!  Harry Reid!  Mike Huckabee!  Nancy Pelosi!  Compare this crew with George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson.  Are you sick at your stomach yet?

Herewith a modest reform proposal:

  1. Raise the voting age to 30
  2. Disqualify all government employees and all recipients of any government entitlement: social security, medicare, etc.
  3. Adopt a stiff qualification exam, to be re-taken every five years
  4. Mandate a poll tax sufficient to cover election expenses

Let’s now consider objections one by one:

Objection: people would feel disenfranchised. People who lost their vote would be bummed, no doubt, but they would still have the prospect of earning a vote to aspire to.  Voting would be seen as a privilege to be earned, and the quality of votes cast would skyrocket as would the quality of campaign rhetoric.

So as not to cause too much upset, the voting age could be raised gradually and the poll tax raised in steps.

Objection: corruption. It might be worthwhile for special interests to track down individual voters and offer them bribes or intimidation.  But if the voter roles were shrunk by a factor of a thousand, for the sake of argument, that would still leave a hundred thousand or so voters nationwide.  That leaves quite a bit of effort for lobbyists and other crooks to track them all down.

Besides, corruption is proportional to the amount of power that resides with government.  Regulation of lobbyists, campaign reform and all that will never mean anything as long as so much money and power are at the disposal of politicians.  My voter reform proposal will lead to a drastic shrinkage of government and thus drastically reduced rent-seeking opportunities and incentives.

Furthermore, as things stand with campaign promises.  How much worse would outright cash bribes be?

Objection: bias. Outcomes would be skewed toward the viewpoints of the eligible voters, which would not be representative of the general population.  Exactly!  The whole point is to restrict voting to an elite who can think and act rationally and not be swayed by the sort of demagogic appeals we hear from the aforementioned politicians and their ilk.

Is this idea likely to gain traction?  Not any time soon, but it’s fun to speculate.  An interesting alternative is Fred Foldvary’s “cellular democracy.”  Perhaps he’ll be moved to post that idea here.

Lester Maddox, Hero or Bum?

Warren Gibson History, Politics , , , , , , ,

Ask anybody outside Georgia who Lester Maddox was and you’re likely to get a blank stare.  I’m not from Georgia but I remember the attention he got in the late 1960’s.  Aside from Alabama Governor George Wallace, Maddox was the best known rear-guard defender of racial segregation in the South at that time.

Mr. Maddox and his family operated a modest restaurant called the Pickrick adjacent to the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta.  The fried chicken must have been good, because he prospered.  He gradually became interested in politics and began to express them bluntly.

Maddox was incensed when the Civil Rights Act became law in 1964.  Among other things, the Act outlawed racial discrimination in “public accommodations.”  He did not welcome black people as customers, and when three black men tried to enter his property in July of 1964, he reportedly waved a pistol at them and shouted: “You no good dirty devils! You dirty Communists!”  He believed that as owner of the restaurant, it was his prerogative to decide whom he wanted to serve. The pick handles that were initially decorations in his restaurant became symbols of his defiance, and he sold them as autographed “Pickrick drumsticks” in his souvenir shop.

Maddox consistently defended his stand as an issue of property rights. Continue reading →

Bad Idea of the Year: Raise the Minimum Wage

Warren Gibson Current Events, Economics , , , , , ,

Who can live on $8 per hour these days? Surely, in a country as rich as ours, no one who is willing and able to work should suffer the indignity of such paltry wages. The solution is simple and obvious: pass a law. If you work, you get at least $10 per hour, period.  Anything less is downright indecent. And so we have a ballot initiative to make this happen in San Jose, California.

It’s anything but simple and obvious if we stop and look and think about what’s happening in the real world. Today I went to a small family-owned sandwich shop near my house. They are very popular and so four young workers, probably students from the nearby college, were jammed in the tiny shop with the two owners. The sandwiches are great but I also enjoy watching them hustle at lunch time. I’m quite certain the helpers were all earning minimum wage but had other sources of income or support. Far more important than their wages, which will quickly be spent, is the work experience that will last them a lifetime – and the confidence that comes from knowing they are earning their money by doing a job in the very best way they can.

The McDonald’s near me employs a few senior citizens, likely at or near minimum wage. They almost certainly have other income. Just being active and involved in productive activity gives their lives meaning and may well enhance their health and longevity.

The sandwich shop operates on thin margins which are being squeezed by rising food prices. If they had to pay their young helpers $2 more per hour they would probably close. But the nearby Safeway store, which has a sandwich bar, would very likely absorb part of the wage increase and pass the rest on to customers, which would be easier to do with their family-owned competitor knocked out. Continue reading →