Neolibertarian - Libertarianism

Reactionary 'Libertarian' Ron Paul

by neolibertarian

The old Ron Paul scandal that a number of bigoted and paranoid statements were published in a newsletter bearing his name has resurfaced. Apparently this came up Monday or Tuesday, in time for the NH primary. I'd heard of this one a while back, but nobody thinks Ron Paul will win no matter how much money he raises (you can't buy a free and fair election without a good candidate - see Mitt Romney on that one) so nobody bothered to publicize it or research it.

Why trash Ron Paul? His biggest function is to sit there in debates, and (despite being earnest in trying to answer questions instead of spinning them) let the other Republicans look good by trashing his wacko beliefs. He's sort of like Don Knotts was to Andy Griffith: a loser goofball who makes you look good by comparison.

Ron Paul says he takes moral responsibility but that he never wrote it or believed it and somebody else used his name with permission, but without oversight. Whatever, I was never very comfortable with Ron Paul on race anyway; his casual way of defending his interracial appeal by saying that "blacks" and "Hispanics" come to rallies struck me as too overtly racial. But is he a racist? I don't know. Regardless if he is, I can't support the guy.

Don't get me wrong, I've always admired Ron Paul to some degree, if only because he was the lonely libertarian in Congress. Although he's probably accomplished almost nothing in his terms of office, he was at least a voice for sanity. When Congress was debating whether to pass the Patriot Act and other restrictions on freedom for four years or for five years (basically, not whether the Constitution should be suspended but for how long it should be suspended) it was Ron Paul who pointed out hwo crazy it all was.

I knew I'd have trouble voting for him, though, even though he's a pro-life libertarian. His thinking has always come from a rules-oriented, state-focused consitutionalism, rather than a freedom-oriented, individual-focused minarchism. Ron Paul might be ideologically libertarian, but his political positions are almost entirely based on his view of the Constitution. And that's great, but I'd rather have somebody who can argue why freedom is so good instead of bitching and moaning that we aren't following the rules. Ron Paul argues 98% for the rules and only 2% for why the rules need to be there.

I want a candidate with an abiding passion and faith in the Constitution and laws of the US, but I want him to be able to articulate and convince people why those rules are in place. Simply arguing that the rules are the rules is not very persuasive. It doesn't create a real constituency for freedom. It also means that if they merely managed to change the rules, you'd have no further objection to use.

Ron Paul is also overly focused on sovereignty, to the point where it's ridiculous. He wants states to have the authority to decide whether murder is a crime, he wants foreign powers to have the power to murder, rape and destroy their citizens with absolute impunity (provided they don't kill Americans or cross an imaginary line). I could chalk this up to an anarchist's purity (something I'm also afflicted by, though differently from Ron Paul-itarians) except that Ron Paul is happy to deviate from total anarchism in some rather anti-libertarian ways:

- he supports tariffs as a means of raising revenue (sure the Constitution supports is taxing foreign businesses any less immoral than taxing Americans? and Americans just have to shoulder the extra cost anyway)

- he supports clamping down on the border by 'any means necessary' because Americans are supposedly losing work (so Americans being displaced as hotel maids is a justification for a vast military presence in TX, NM, AZ and CA but the unchecked tyranny and genocide in Afghanistan and Iraq is insufficient justification for a benevolent military presence elsewhere)

- he wants to rejigger citizenship rules by amending the Constitution in order to exclude children of immigrants from the benefits and protections of citizenship, even if they are born here (if he were an anarchist, he wouldn't buy so completely into borders and he wouldn't be so gung-ho on using citizenship to exclude people with the wrong parents)

- he opposes the War on Terror, the Civil War and is shaky on World War II (Japan probably would have ignored us if not for our embargo against them)

That last one is more important than you'd think because it's an indication of a libertarian's larger views. Among libertarians, the paleolibertarians are against the Civil War - paleos don't care about the effects of the Civil War, any justifications or the fact that the South obviously and admittedly seceded simply for slavery. Most paleos just care about the size of government becuase of the war and the fight for black civil rights. They almost always judge the Civil War negatively because in a few ways the government expanded its power afterwards. Perhaps not coincidentally, a lot of prominent paleolibertarians are from the South, like Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul. Many, however, are not Southern and simply apply an isolationist or anarchist viewpoint to the Civil War.

Neolibertarians, or at least those libertarians whom I'm claiming as neolibertarian for the purpose of this discussion, are more willing to accept that, though the government did not start out with the most libertarian argument at the outset, the Civil War was decidedly about slavery and achieved many good things. The expansion of government was unfortunate but if a federal government is to exist at all, surely it must police oppression within its own border instead of merely watching for foreign armies invading.

Most paleos and other anti-Union, anti-Lincoln libertarians trend closer to anarchism than Ron Paul, though. Ron Paul is not much of a libertarian, but rather more of an extreme conservative. He ends up very close to libertarian, but he thinks the Constitution is the highest goal, not liberty.

Since almost all libertarians operate largely on the principle that people precede laws, they end up arguing one of three things:

a) freedom is morally paramount, so laws must be created to protect it
b) freedom is most utilitarian, so laws must be created to protect it
c) freedom is morally paramount, and laws must not be created as they would hinder it

Ron Paul is in a different category, which isn't strictly libertarian in the philosophical sense:

d) the Constitution exists, so we must follow it

Rather than a discussion of why, how and when the laws come into place, Ron Paul just cares that the Constitution is here. This is a conservative argument, that the rules must be followed for their own sake. While he takes it in a libertarian direction for the most part, his argument is not philosophically libertarian. It's philosophically conservative - follow the rules, follow tradition. Coupled with his reactionary (even socialist-compatible) views on immigration and globalization, Ron Paul is very conservative. He's much more reactionary and anti-trade than most of the Democrats and much more reactionary and anti-immigration than most of the Republicans.

If Ron Paul just said that the Constitution should not change, but society can change and be fluid, that would be a libertarian political stand. But Ron Paul says that he wants the Constitution AND the society to stay unchanging. That's a very conservative stand.

He's also clearly appealing to those with anti-libertarian motivations and aims. Appealing to anti-globalization, anti-capitalist, anti-trade, anti-war, anti-immigrant types is a pretty depressing and even spiteful campaign strategy. Accepting the support of 9/11 Truthers and various Bircher/neo-Nazi types with a wink is worse. This is not the kind of campaign I want to support or be associated with, no matter how good a President Paul would be on taxes or privacy.

A vote for Ron Paul will be interpreted as a vote against free trade, a vote against immigration, a vote against the war on Muslim fascists, a vote against engaging the world in a meaningful and effective way. Ron Paul is pushing some good ideas, but whenever he gets a chance to decide for himself what he wants to say and choose to emphasize, he'll always focus it in a pessimistic, anti-change, anti-status quo.

Good libertarians need to realize that Ron Paul is not our salvation or even a step in the right direction. He is WORSE on issues where's it's comparatively easy to be pro-capitalist and anti-state.

Ron Paul may be a libertarian in some ways, but he's the reactionary-conservative candidate in this race. A vote for Ron Paul is a vote against modernity and against a dynamic society.

Posted on January 10, 2008 at 1:07pm. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

The NL Philosophical Basis

by neolibertarian

In an e-mail from a reader named Don, we received a few questions. One of them was about the philosophical grounding of neolibertarianism. I've reproduced most of my response here.

Without speaking for others who call themselves neolibertarian, I know Adriana and I personally find the philosophical side of politics more interesting than any other aspect. It's unfortunate that one of the first discussions the QandO writers had on neolibertarianism was to say that Locke was right domestically and Hobbes was right with regards to foreign policy.

Hobbes' Leviathan, of course, was a massively powerful, irrevocable state with the sole purpose of warding off disorder and chaos. The Leviathan-state is supposed to be swift in punishment and liberal only in its application of fear. It would be dystopian if not for the fact that Hobbes actually advocated it personally. He hoped that the creation of an uber-state would make life just barely good enough to avoid rebellion and revolution. That is a poor model for libertarians. Hobbes didn't even believe in natural rights - the only 'right' he acknowledged was an observation on human behavior that people are self-interested. Unfortunately, unlike the Scottish Enlightenment (Smith, Hume, etc.) he argued that self-interest would be bad because people are short-sighted and would do things in their short-term interests to betray their long-term interests. He thought that self-interest would ultimately destroy human economy, rather than create and sustain it. He also didn't really believe in social contracts; once a contract was started, it was not supposed to be revoked.

That would be one of my pet peeves, then, about neolibertarianism as a few others have defined it. If anything, I would take it the opposite direction; we need to have greater application of Lockean ideas into all spheres of public policy. Rather than nativistically and narrow-mindedly restricting the presumption of freedom to Americans, it should be expanded so that all people are recognized as free. Being born across a line on a map shouldn't change your rights - whether that means the right to migrate into the US or the hope of assistance in escaping a tyrant's grasp.

Rather than an expression of statism, this internationalism is a facet of a larger perspective that is, for lack of a better word, anarchist. Unlike the typical libertarians, who are minarchists that oppose intervention for the sake of others' freedoms, Adriana and I are philosophical-anarchists who support intervention for others' liberty. The practical strategies and the payment plan are separate issues, but when it comes to the question of whether it is moral or constitutional for the US to intervene on the side of foreign freedoms, we say 'yes.'

We're not anarchists in the pragmatic sense; since there's nothing inherently immoral about military force or courts of justice, we don't oppose government's existence entirely. But we don't see government as being at all morally remarkable. Government is just a club - a group of people organized into an abstract entity to police morally arbitrary lines.

You essentially never hear anti-war libertarians argue that people who don't pay taxes to the government should be left open to attack from foreign powers or hostile Americans. Why should foreigners be treated differently, then? If paying for the protection service isn't required of Americans, then it needn't be required of foreigners.

Obviously this doesn't solve the case entirely; policing duties, whether a city or a planet, can be expensive. Expecting Americans or anyone else to be robbed is immoral, even if it is for a moral good like saving people from torture or oppression. So the funding side of the issue must have a liberty-friendly solution (say, voluntary contribution or selling off some of the stuff you take from the deposed, though that smacks of piracy). But the actual act of using force against a dictator is morally A-OK.

It is philosophy that leads us to these conclusions, and so it is out of philosophical anarchism that our brand of neolibertarianism comes.

For more on this theme: What does neo-libertarian mean?

Posted on January 21, 2007 at 1:12pm. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Libertarians On Liberty

by neolibertarian

Some leftists are just dumb. Case in point: trying to out-advocate libertarians on liberty.

This post from AnonymousLiberal attacks QandO contributor McQ on libertarians choosing the Republican Party over the Democrats. McQ responded here.

I'm not saying that I find myself in constant agreement with the QandO guys (for example, the hesitant endorsement on QandO of CA ballot Prop 88 -a $50 parcel tax on property that's opposed by the unions, the corporations, the CA Democratic Party and the CA Republican Party, didn't seem like a good idea to me), even though we're all self-styled neolibertarians. But I have to agree with them and with virtually all the rest of the libertarian bloggers who called out Kos on his libertarian-wooing techniques. The Democrats are just not ready to make the sort of concessions needed to truly embrace a limited-government constituency.

But what really pissed me off was this comment to AnonymousLiberal's post:

Anonymous said...

Libertarians are a strange breed. Most of them don't seem all that concerned that Jose Padilla, an American citizen, was literally deprived of his liberty for years without any charges or any access to an attorney. Maybe if the government has seized Padilla's property or raised his taxes, they'd be concerned.

9:58 AM

I've written and argued in different places about the blatant illegality of the treatment of Padilla (he was kept as a material witness and under federal statute held against his will, even though the feds never identified any case he was supposed to testify in).

I blogged on Hamdi when the decision came out. Unlike Padilla, Hamdi (also an American citizen) was captured in Afghanistan - not exactly a good sign for his innocence. But I still made my opposition known.

I've also blogged on the Patriot Act's unconstitutionality and general creepiness (here and here, for example).

On the other hand, how many Democrats voted for the Patriot Act? Democrats use it for political gain, to seem tough or to not seem so cravenly anti-American (as I pointed out here).

Blanche L. Lincoln Democrat Y
Dianne Feinstein Democrat Y
Barbara Boxer Democrat Y
Joseph I. Lieberman Democrat Y
Christopher J. Dodd Democrat Y
Thomas Richard Carper Democrat Y
Joseph R. Biden Democrat Y
Bill Nelson Democrat Y
Daniel Kahikina Akaka Democrat Y
Daniel K. Inouye Democrat Y
Thomas 'Tom' Harkin Democrat Y
Richard J. 'Dick' Durbin Democrat Y
Evan Bayh Democrat Y
Mary L. Landrieu Democrat NV
John Forbes Kerry Democrat Y
Edward M. 'Ted' Kennedy Democrat Y
Paul S. Sarbanes Democrat Y
Barbara A. Mikulski Democrat Y
Debbie Ann Stabenow Democrat Y
Carl Levin Democrat Y
Mark Dayton Democrat/Farmer/Labor Y
Max S. Baucus Democrat Y
Byron L. Dorgan Democrat-NPL Y
Kent Conrad Democratic-NPL Y
E. Benjamin 'Ben' Nelson Democrat Y
Jon Stevens Corzine Democrat Y
Jeff Bingaman Democrat Y
Harry M. Reid Democrat Y
Charles E. 'Chuck' Schumer Democrat Y
Hillary Rodham Clinton Democrat Y
Ron Wyden Democrat Y
John F. 'Jack' Reed Democrat Y
Tim P. Johnson Democrat Y
Patrick J. Leahy Democrat Y
James Merrill 'Jim' Jeffords Independent Y
Patty Murray Democrat Y
Maria Cantwell Democrat Y
Russell D. Feingold Democrat N
Herbert H. 'Herb' Kohl Democrat Y
John D. 'Jay' Rockefeller Democrat Y
Robert C. Byrd Democrat Y

Now how many leftists are pleading Martha Stewart's case and the deprivations of her liberty? She was convicted of pleading her innocence, a freedom guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and of lying, despite not being under oath. But since she's 'rich' and 'corporate' they don't give a damn about her liberty. How often do leftists complain at the treatment of Khodorkovsky? How much energy did Democrats and leftists spend fighting Bush judicial appointees on the grounds that they believed in Lochner-esque substantive due process?

Yes, fine, the Republicans have a lot of work to do on disproving the prejudices some of them appear to hold about gays and immigrants. They've got a lot of problems in a lot of areas.

But do the Democrats honestly believe they can claim even mild commitment to a pale shade of hypocritical, social libertarianism? Because as a party they've shown little more than a commitment to winning elections and increasing the federal budget. Even leftists aren't more than a hair better - they'll cry for gay marriage, but what about polygamy? Hypocritical bastards.

Related Posts (on one page):

Libertarians On Liberty
Fusion Democrats
Good Effort, No Forethought

Posted on June 9, 2006 at 6:55pm. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

You're Not A Libertarian

by neolibertarian

Kos just came out as a Libertarian Democrat. Of course, remember that the Kossacks in general don't stand for much except hating Bush and hating the GOP; they're not exactly left-wing or socialist, but they are anti-moderate to the extent that moderates are less anti-Bush. Their big thing is Democrats winning elections, and if they have to do some triangulation to get there then they're all for it.

Here's his 'definition' of a Libertarian Democrat; note that I'm quoting very liberally here because it's a superficial, rhetoric-saturated, fluff piece that scratches the surface of a new paradigm without having the guts to cross the threshold:

The problem with [the mainstream] form of libertarianism is that it assumes that only two forces can infringe on liberty -- the government and other individuals.

The Libertarian Democrat understands that there is a third danger to personal liberty -- the corporation. The Libertarian Dem understands that corporations, left unchecked, can be huge dangers to our personal liberties.

Libertarian Dems are not hostile to government like traditional libertarians. But unlike the liberal Democrats of old times (now all but extinct), the Libertarian Dem doesn't believe government is the solution for everything. But it sure as heck is effective in checking the power of corporations.

In other words, government can protect our liberties from those who would infringe upon them -- corporations and other individuals.

So in practical terms, what does a Libertarian Dem look like? A Libertarian Dem rejects government efforts to intrude in our bedrooms and churches. A Libertarian Dem rejects government "Big Brother" efforts, such as the NSA spying of tens of millions of Americans. A Libertarian Dem rejects efforts to strip away rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights -- from the First Amendment to the 10th. And yes, that includes the 2nd Amendment and the right to bear arms.

So far, this isn't much different than what a traditional libertarian believes. Here is where it begins to differ (and it shouldn't).

A Libertarian Dem believes that true liberty requires freedom of movement -- we need roads and public transportation to give people freedom to travel wherever they might want. A Libertarian Dem believes that we should have the freedom to enjoy the outdoor without getting poisoned; that corporate polluters infringe on our rights and should be checked. A Libertarian Dem believes that people should have the freedom to make a living without being unduly exploited by employers. A Libertarian Dem understands that no one enjoys true liberty if they constantly fear for their lives, so strong crime and poverty prevention programs can create a safe environment for the pursuit of happiness. A Libertarian Dem gets that no one is truly free if they fear for their health, so social net programs are important to allow individuals to continue to live happily into their old age. Same with health care. And so on.

The core Democratic values of fairness, opportunity, and investing in our nation and people very much speak to the concept of personal liberties -- an open society where success is predicated on the merit of our ideas and efforts, unduly burdened by the government, corporate America, or other individuals. And rather than always get in the way, government can facilitate this.

Of course, this also means that government isn't always the solution to the nation's problems. There are times when business-government partnerships can be extremely effective (such as job retraining efforts for displaced workers). There are times when government really should butt out (like a great deal of small-business regulation). Our first proposed solution to a problem facing our nation shouldn't be more regulation, more government programs, more bureaucracy.

First point: you're not a very good libertarian if you draw a bright line between what corporations do to people and what individuals do to people. Corporations are just groups of people arranged for purposes of profit (and in a courtroom sense, corporations ARE individuals, but that's not the point). Why bother drawing a distinction between what a single person does and what a profit-seeking group of persons does?

Simply put, it gives you the pretense to restrict economic liberties. Making special rules to harass businesses is a great excuse to hang onto all that command-economy policy work. And making a new category of people who can hurt you lets you argue there's a new way to hurt you. If the rules barring individuals from trampling your liberties were merely extended to businesses, then the same things would be banned - force and fraud.

But acting like there's this whole new category of wrongs let's you expand the list of things the government can intervene to stop.

Second, that paragraph list of things that makes libertarians into libertarian Democrats is not at all different from what Democrats believe anyway. The only distinctions from mainstream Democratic thought were the 2nd Amendment, the 10th Amendment, and small business regulation. The small business regulation is the most important part, since the government seriously fucks over small and medium sized businesses disproportionately to larger ones (who get more attention and oversight, but who have larger bank accounts so it's proportionally less harmful - though no less immoral because of that).

The worst things government does to small business are taxes and permits (bureaucracy in general). At the federal level, a pro-small business policy (not to mention a libertarian viewpoint) would be gung-ho for ending the estate tax. It forces businesses and ranches to close when on-paper holdings like product or land retain huge value but the actual profit and cash flow of a business can't possibly cover taxes. Never mind that it's giving special rights to the government to tax and imprison - it hurts the small businesses and owners that Kos claims to care about.

I'm willing to wager that the 2nd Amendment thing is tempered somehow (maybe being claimed as a community or communal rights) and the 10th Amendment thing is probably little better. I don't know either, but it's hard to be terribly optimistic with a libertarian statement like this piece.

Third, what's described here is little more than a Democrat who doesn't fear guns and runs a small business. This is a useless fluff piece intended to make the Kossacks seem to grab onto some original idea or perspective, but in reality it's all in how you say it.

A utilitarian libertarian would look at an issue and ask if in practical effects government intervention would heighten or lessen individual freedom. A principled libertarian would look at the means being proposed and ask if it's legal and if it's moral. A Kos-defined Libertarian Democrat looks at the Democrat's answer and then supports it on the pretense that it's about individual freedom. Ooh, big stand you're taking, there.

Of REAL left-libertarians, I've observed essentially three kinds.

The first kind is a libertarian that doesn't believe corporate charters are legitimate, having come from government and having no basis in the state of nature. That's a philosophical objection to a given government policy; often, though, they tend to engage in rather irrational rhetoric here and there about how corporations are bad. But otherwise they're libertarian and take libertarian or anarchist approaches to issues. This kind, actually, is somewhat prone to libertarian anarchism in general.

The second type is basically just a Green who thinks he's libertarian. They're often prone to anarcho-socialism and all types of local-economy garbage. They get into globalization and issues like that. They're not especially libertarian on economic issues, and aren't very good libertarians. They mostly exist to argue that left-libertarians are the only real libertarians.

The third type is socially libertarian in attitude but Democratic in politics, and is fairly apathetic about economics in general. This type isn't really libertarian except in a broader sense of the word.

Kos' explanation comes closest to that third type, but I wouldn't put it there. Actively campaigning for command and control healthcare policies is not apathetic about economics, it's overtly hostile to the free-market.

His philosophical foundation for libertarians and libertarian Democrats is two threats versus three. The problem is that that's all window dressing. Here's how I see it:

Individuals comprise everything in human society. Whether we invent rules or acknowledge contracts is irrelevant. Everything in human society is individuals, acting alone or (much more commonly) in concert. I am an individual. A birdwatchers' club is a group of individuals. A corporation is a group of individuals. A government is a group of individuals. Individuals are part of anything.

No law or piece of paper infringed on anybody's liberty. The conspirators and enforcers of laws or pieces of paper infringe on liberty.

Making up this idea that somehow the government and individuals are two separate threats is avoiding the root problem and the root issue. The root problem is people infringing on your rights - people acting alone or people hired by the government. The root issue is that the government shouldn't be getting special rights to do anything to us.

Government isn't special, it isn't superhuman. The humans who comprise government have no claim on superhuman rights to tax, to steal, to harass, to invade, or to kill. They possess only those rights that a) humans possess naturally, and that b) other humans expressly concede.

Government isn't a separate threat. Government is the same threat - liberty-stomping individuals - dressed up with a flag and a royal stamp.

Simply stating, "Of course, this also means that government isn't always the solution to the nation's problems" doesn't make you libertarian. If he really thinks that bureaucracy and government regulation should be held back until necessary, then he'd oppose the Education Department, the Commerce Department and so forth. He'd also oppose something so ridiculous as agricultural subsidies and tariffs that just impoverish foreign farmers and make food more expensive.

There's a lot more to being a libertarian than pretending you'd consider other alternatives before the government. And for faking libertarianism, I've seen state-worshipping socialists make far more convincing arguments than Kos.

Kos, the only type of libertarian you could pass for is the "anti-" variety.

Posted on June 8, 2006 at 11:31pm. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Harry Browne, 1933-2006

by neolibertarian

The 1996 and 2000 presidential candidate of the LP died yesterday of neurological illness. He was 72. Here's to you, Harry.

Posted on March 2, 2006 at 4:12pm. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Chest-Beating Republicans

by neolibertarian

A lot of conservatives are getting creepingly aggressive about the Patriot Act, and are trying to assert some connection between it and security. But what's more disturbing is when they say that warrantless invasions of privacy are constitutional.

This is absolutely ridiculous, and it shows why the Republicans have so much trouble holding the line on spending and so forth. The libertarian principles that undergird the GOP are not really held by a majority of its members. While spending holds some emotional reserve with many conservatives (probably out of their affection for Reagan, who did hold libertarian principles in high regard) other principles are far higher.

Many conservatives believe what they believe without a libertarian system of self-policing ethics (by which I mean, certain basic principles that dictate one's wider beliefs, and that would override contradictory beliefs in the same way the Constitution invalidates laws). Since there's a lot more emphasis in conservative circles to "get the terrorists" than to "obey the Constitution," any question of liberty versus security often gets framed by the value of an aggressive foreign policy.

But there are plenty of things we would never do that certainly could be of use to the government in fighting terrorism. We could put cameras in all homes, all businesses, all bathrooms and all bedrooms in order to catch crimes, plotting and so forth. We could put every Muslim in the country or in the world in concentration camps or death camps, which (if instituted universally) would end Islamic terrorism. We could nuke a half-dozen countries around the world. I'm sure there could be any number of things - immoral, illegal, unconstitutional, imprudent, or any combination thereof - that we could do to potentially fight terrorism. That doesn't mean we run out and do it.

But more importantly, just because you're not willing to subvert all resources, values and energies to fighting terrorism doesn't mean you're against fighting terrorism. We could probably end terrorism by establishing a federal martial law force, erecting thousand-foot walls around the entire contiguous 48 states, instituting a travel bad on leaving or entering any county, and enforcing a 6pm-10am curfew.

But I wouldn't call you weak on the war on terror for opposing any of those measures, and it's unfair that libertarians get lumped in with the socialists and postmodernists just for sticking up for warrants and the 4th Amendment.

Posted on December 20, 2005 at 10:14pm. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Conservatives Shafting GOP Libertarians

by neolibertarian

Conservatives in the GOP are overtly trying to shove off the libertarian aspects of the GOP agenda that the highway bill and Medicare entitlement didn't already destroy. An article in the Weekly Standard on Sam's Club Republicans (also covered by Michael Barone) urges that the GOP shed free market views in favor of what is essentially a market-neutral, utilitarian perspective tailored to meet the whims and desires of 'pro-family' moderate conservatives. Tax credits, concumption taxes and trade policy would all be geared to favor childbearers, married couples, and working class Americans. Single people, unmarried people, wealthy people, beneficiaries of freer trade, immigrants, and foreign workers would all be targetered negatively, by default.

The authors, who are not regular writers for the Weekly Standard, are not expressly free trade or CAFTA; no, they occupy a wishy-washy middle ground that admits globalization is on balance good for the country, but believes that supporting it is politically damaging. They think that rather than focusing on the (male-dominated) fusionists and libertarians in the GOP, a good policy would woo the (female-dominated) social conservatives. That means jettisoning personal retirement accounts entirely, abandoning plans for accomodating immigrant workers, and stopping public work on free trade deals. In other words, the few idealistic, forward-looking domestic poliies Bush has left. Of course, the guestworker plan will probably go through the Senate just on the momentum of Senators, CAFTA is already law, and personal retirement accounts are more or less dead for now. But the ideas matter for 2008 and beyond.

Social conservatives are increasingly feeling as though they are the ones who re-elected George Bush in 2004, and coming off the rejections of gay marriage in statewide initiatives a year ago, they really don't see why keeping capitalists around is so necessary anymore. They'd rather grab more Southern working-class whites, and the union-dominated rump of white Democratic voters.

Well, let's recall that George W. Bush didn't win 2004 because there was some resurgent emphasis on social values. The fact is that, despite massive post-November reporting that traditional values were a major factor in the election, roughly the same number of voters listed values as important in 1996 and 2000. The numbers that changed dramatically were foreign affairs and national security - specifically Iraq and the Gobal War On Terror. And in an atmosphere of dramatically heightened interested in IR, it was the Republicans who won. Just like in the Cold War, when a hawk won every election but 1976 (a year when the Cold War was in a huge rut of detente, and Watergate and Vietnam dominated the public mind).

Social conservatives may want to duck out on good fiscal governance, but the fact is that people are far more concerned about the government's role in the economy (whatever they hope it to be) than they are with the government's role with social matters. Social policy only really matters when the government is involved in some objectionable thing - and abortion, school prayer, immigration, the death penalty, evolution and state-sanctioned gay marriage all fit that bill. If the government isn't involved from the start, it usually doesn't become much of a voting issue to speak of.

Good economic policy (sound money, low inflation, expanding markets, predictable tax policy) is a surer way to keep voters than playing to their prejudices, biases and fears.

I don't blame people for wanting to influence a party in their political direction, but by the same token the atrgeted party ought to know about it.

What I do lay blame on is manipulating the tax policy to force some Americans to support the activities of others. Why should single people have to pay for the children of strangers? Single people often already take a hit for childrearing couples, like when salaries are reduced in order to pay for daycare. Taxes already force no-child singles and families to support the education of other people's children, including local, state and federal (grants for college education included). It's simply not fair and not right to make some people subsidize the activities of others in this way.

Though the authors classify their muddled thinking, inspecific rhetoric, and technocratic 'pro-family' utilitarianism as a bold, forward-facing way to greet the future, I see it more as a short-term, politically-motivated attempt to shed ideals and freedoms in order to appeal to a nebulous and ill-defined constituency. I also see it as a sure-fire way to make conservatives and libertarians throw more support to the Club for Growth in order to prevent this type of thinking.

Ultimately, under our two-party system, the Democrats are going to remain tied to a socialist, 'working man' mentality, and the Republicans will be stuck to a more market-minded, prosperity mentality. Social conservatives and liberals might change sides at will, but economics is more defining than anything else (even foreign policy is less crucial to the parties' identities, since Democratic hawks and Republican internationalists used to be not uncommon sights).

Posted on November 19, 2005 at 2:21pm. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Brown for SCOTUS

by neolibertarian

I have to restate my support for Janice Rogers Brown after seeing this post yesterday from Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy. He pointed out that a lot of bloggers were really hoping for her nomination, even if it seemed an unlikely confirmation.

While we shouldn't expect orthodox anarcho-capitalist rhetoric and decisions from her track record, but she has a good grasp on the decades-long decline of the Supreme Court. She sees its failures in a broader and more fundamental context than vulgar social trends to the left (or right).

The courts, especially the Supreme Court, often ignore or downplay the Bill of Rights, especially the 2nd and 4th Amendments. The right to property, given explicit protection in the 5th and 14th Amendments and implicit protection by the 4th and 9th Amendments, has been cut from the herd of constitutional rights and allowed to be repeatedly trampled by all levels of government. I believe that Janice Rogers Brown has a real grasp on these long-term problems.

While social issues like gays and religion animate a lot of politicians on both sides, the real issues of our natural and constitutional rights are far more important. I think Janice Rogers Brown is one of the best nationally-prominent judges to bring a libertarian perspective to the court.

She might not ever get confirmed, but just calling the New Deal "our own socialist revolution" puts her miles above other candidates.

Posted on October 17, 2005 at 8:47pm. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

The Libertarian Movement

by neolibertarian

With spending looking to rise further and further into the sky, tax cuts being possibly delayed or canceled, tax hikes coming into sight, and bloated programs like the Medicare drug benefit, highway bill and Katrina relief sailing through the legislative process, libertarians aren't feeling happy at all about this administration - even pro-war, pro-life ones like myself. Jon Henke at QandO has a good roundup on the recent complaints by the capitalist right over these developments and the fact that President Bush is far more enemy than ally on most of them. Henke ends with these three thoughtful paragraphs (except for the bit about Center for American Progress, which if I recall is basically a Clintonite group set up in 2003) :

I'd like to do something about that. I'd like to turn our efforts toward political activism—toward aggregating the tendency to liberty in the US public and leveraging it on the electoral, political stage. I'd like to work with CATO, with the Heritage Foundation, with the Center for American Progress, with the Reason Foundation/Reason Magazine...with whomever...to provide a political home for those "small government, fiscal restraint, a strong national defense and a hands-off attitude on social issues" voters who don't know where to turn.

I'd like to create that organization that can represent practical, political libertarianism on the national stage. The Moveon.org of the libertarian movement, as it were. But that's a tall order. The Porkbusters effort being spearheaded by Glenn Reynolds and NZ Bear is a good example of ad hoc libertarian organization. But real change requires more than just occassional agitation. The Social Conservatives have organization....they get Supreme Court appointments and legislative policy. Libertarians have ad hoc rabble-rousing...and we might get a few hundred million cut out of one budget.

So, the question: How can the libertarian entropy be reversed, and an effective libertarian political organization created? What is our business model? I'd like your ideas.

I have an idea here.

The policy process is incredibly long, multifaceted and open-ended. There are a lot of shortcuts and a lot of ways to bulk up. In general, you need to have:

the philosophy, the moral reasons to do it
the research and evidence to show a harm, a cause and a solution
the crafted policy proposals to make into legislation
the support of the public to move it
the support of decision-makers to pass it
and the bureaucratic structure (however limited) to bring it about

We clearly have the philosophy - if anything we're burdened by an overemphasis on philosophy, which divides us into irrelevant and counterproductive opponents.

CATO and to a lesser degree Heritage and others have the research, evidence and policy proposal angles down and any improvements to be made here are more in scale than type.

The last three, I believe, can be accomplished by getting public officials into office to persuade the public, to move legislative and executive opinion, and to hold the bureaucracy's feet to the fire. We need libertarian-friendly lawmakers in enough numbers and with enough drive to make this stuff happen. That means Jeff Flake can go into a press conference and say he has the vigorous support of X number of Congressmen when he bashes Sarbanes-Oxley or rampant pork spending. It means that similar attempts could be met with immediate opposition from more elected officials, rather than waiting for Republicans to be convinced down the road (often in retrospect) that these are bad ideas.

My suggestion is to create a new libertarian group in the GOP, call it whatever you like, with two express purposes: 1) recruit candidates for office, both by finding good libertarians to run for first office, and by helping elected libertarians move up in office, 2) provide a rallying point for discussion of various freedom-related issues and priorities through such means as annual conventions (based on the ACU's CPAC), mail and e-mail lists, as well as blogs and discussion boards. Candidate blogs run through the group's website or linked from there would also be a great way to communicate the campaign's progress to the blogosphere.

We need to focus on getting libertarians, especially charismatic, energetic people, into office. There was far less of a think-tank world twenty-five years ago, but that didn't stop Reagan from being perhaps the most fiscally libertarian (or least fiscally anti-libertarian) President of the last century. He was charismatic, he was a good politician, and he generally pushed most things in the libertarian (or even neo-libertarian) direction. He obviously satisfies the foreign policy requirements, as well.

It's clear to me that a group of good politicians to draw on for office and run in GOP primaries would help us. We should be looking at the Club For Growth especially, which arguably focuses on the GOP primaries more than general elections. If we can get libertarians to win GOP primaries then we've got a platform from which to convince Republicans to stick to their small-government guns more often than they currently do.

Given how many districts these days aren't competitive, a lot of the relevant Congressional election battles will be for the Senate and the primaries. Primaries are the difference oftentimes between a decent Republican and a bad one. By putting our weight into the primaries and then working to promote and improve the candidates in our organization, we can gain a lot of influence over the policy-making process. This is especially relevant since, as Henke noted, libertarians are between one-tenth and on-sixth the political population; that percentage goes up when you limit it to Republicans, and it goes way up when you limit it to GOP primary voters.

Building our own party is wasteful and doesn't work well unless you're working off of one issue or off of a neglected group (like the West in the Gilded Age), so we shouldn't keep trying to make the LP work. Our system allows for far more subtle and varied factions within each of the two big parties; the Republicans and Democrats have all sorts of factions and sub-groups. We need to be a far better organized and more articulate sub-group within the GOP, rather than banging on the doors of the two-party system from the outside.

The Republican Liberty Caucus just doesn't seem to do very much on this front. Rather than trying to reform the RLC to this purpose, we can ally with them but make a new group with a distinct, yet completmentary purpose to the RLC (thus allowing people to be in both groups easily). It's also good to have a new organization to go along with a new idea.

The biggest problem is finding a pool of people that could be recruited as libertarian candidates. They'd need to be articulate, proven libertarians, somewhat learned in the ways of elections, and they'd have to be at least marginally photogenic, without a lot of controversial statements as baggage. Except for the last bit, bloggers would be the best and easiest place to start. This is probably the most important and most difficult part of the process, since finding charismatic, electable libertarians is both challenging and rewarding.

If we want to get our ideas respected and remembered when it comes time to write the budget or make laws in Washington, then it's a matter of getting the candidates in there to forcefully support our views, working to get them elected to higher and higher offices (you can't build most Senators out of nothing), and keeping a focus on an achievable libertarian agenda (hammered out by group discussions online and in conventions).

Otherwise, we've got a lot of amazing ideas without enough elected people to present them to the country.

Update: And on a sidenote, the Club For Growth's strategy of challenging big-spending Republicans in primaries is a sound one. It would be great to send Republicans a message that big spending gets you kicked out of office.

Posted on September 28, 2005 at 8:44pm. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Firefly & Serenity

by neolibertarian

I had heard from various blogs that the show Firefly had a lot of libertarian themes. Until today, when they seem to be showing an all-day marathon type deal, I'd only seen part of one episode. It struck me as strange that it looked a lot more like a Western than a sci-fi show.

But that odd mixture really is a critical part of the show. The main characters are somewhere between cowboys and pirates, running from the law, working as low-level smugglers and transporters. But the show entirely about freedom, independence, privacy and doing the right thing. In fact, a lot of the show is about how a lot of people, alone or in governments, can be pretty rotten and exploitative, but the main characters always end up being (largely) decent to each other.

I only have two real complaints at this point. One, the science is unclear. Sometimes they say that there are hundreds of planets in one system and other times they say it's in the whole galaxy. I assume it's supposed to be galaxy, but then you have the problem of space travel: it could take years and years to get between systems. There's no cryogenics system, and there doesn't seem to be warp drive or hyperspace or anything like that. Also, they appear to use some kind of artificial gravity that works even when the ship's life support fails. Unless they some kind of ultra-dense material in the bottom of the hull, they'd all be floating around in spaceflight.

However, I can excuse both of those as poetic license. It makes the show more interesting that they can roam freely from planet to planet, and it would be weird if they were just floating everywhere all episode. I can also say that the show actually does pay attention to the rule of vacuums; when there's something happening in space or a vacuum (at least a few times) they don't use sound effects. That type of realism is most often ignored by every form of sci-fi entertainment, even though sound can't make waves in a vaccum (there's nothing to wave). But anyway, it doesn't make the show unwatchable, it's just something that's not addressed. It's also cool that they have a lot of Mandarin characters, styles and language in it; given how many Chinese there are, it's inevitable that Chinese will be more prominent in the future.

There are a lot of libertarian themes. I wouldn't say it's explicitly or devoutly libertarian, but that helps keep it unpredictable and interesting. But the captain does say that a government's job is to get in a man's way, and the point of keeping the ship flying is the freedom of the skies.

It's a good show. The entire series is on DVD, currently on sale (14 episodes, 3 of them unaired) at Amazon. The movie Serenity comes out this Friday based on the show (which was prematurely canceled after less than one full season, mostly after FOX mishandled several aspects of the marketing of the show).

Posted on September 27, 2005 at 7:28pm. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Anti-War Blind Cynicism

by neolibertarian

link (tip to FD)

The Buchananite faction of the libertarians have decided to attempt to cast as much doubt as possible onto any aspect of the war. Their negativity at times ignore facts and at other times is grossly overblown.

First of all, the continued argument that there was no Iraqi conenction to Al Qaeda has been disproven repeatedly by Stephen Hayes. The Baathist-Al Qaeda connection has been shown; there were multiple links between AQ and IIS operatives, including joint missions, diplomatic cooperation and even listing Osama as an IIS asset as early as 1993. It's a token of blind ignorance of the anti-war left that there was no AQ-Iraq link. The fact is that the Iraqis were linked to many terrorist groups and to many notorious terrorists, Al Qaeda included.

Second, the unabashed negativity about the prospects for democracy in Iraq are as unattractive as they are pessimistic. While it's true that the Iraqis still have a ways to go before they get a working democratic government, it's also true that the US doesn't have all the answers yet. Raimndo and Knappster criticized a number of provisions in the Iraqi bill of rights, but apparently they forgot that every one of their criticisms of the Iraqi constitution is a problem in Western democracies as well. Western governments often let 'greater good' or 'public morals' rationales disrupt individual liberties, Western courts often seal records for various reasons, and conscription and firearms licenses are pretty much the standard for democracies and non-democracies.

The problem is that even after a stunning electoral outcome that all the naysayers predicted would fail, after working out a collective government that's ethnically inclusive when all the naysayers foretold of civil war, and after the crafting of a bill of rights that's very roughly equivalent to many democracies around the world all they can complain about is the fact that it has a lot of the same problems other countries do.

They conveniently don't put any real weight on the fact that the Iraqi bill of rights repeatedly and explicitly bans all physical and mental torture. It guarantees a fully independent judiciary and the prsumption of innocence. The Iraqi bill of rights even has a guarantee of private ownership.

Of course, somebody should point out to Raimondo that his 'critique' of the Iraqi constitution is actually of the old draft, not the new one. Many of the more problematic sections were edited or removed entirely, including an anti-Israeli populist tossback.

In a wider sense, the anti-war people in general should not be so harsh and dismissive of opportunities for democracy in Iraq. Nobody should expect a perfectly functional, perfectly libertarian constitutional republic in Iraq to be established by Aprial, 2003. These things take time, especially since democracy is so foreign (thus far) to Arab political culture. Lebanon and Iraq are the two closest examples to Arab democracies (Turkey is Turkic, Israel is Jewish, Iran is Persian) and believe it or not it takes some effort to fit together old customs with new politics. We have decades and centuries of parables, cliches and traditions to back us up, from free speech and trial protections to simple adages about voting and writing your Congressman.

We've been expecting a lot from the Iraqis, and so far they've performed quite well. I realize it plays into the perfectly closed view of the world that many anti-war people have to doubt every aspect of the Iraq war but a reasonable person would have to agree that the good outweighs the bad and that the progress currently being made can be built on in the future. Or I suppose we could resort to sensory-abusive propaganda, selective evidentiary foundations and ridiculously exaggerated expectations in order to innoculate ourselves from any serious philosophical self-examination.

Posted on July 25, 2005 at 12:54am. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

The Philosophy of Liberty

by neolibertarian

I really enjoy this flash animation from the International Society for Individual Liberty. The music might throw some people off but I find the arguments very well reasoned, very corrdinated, very well ordered and creatively animated. It's an excellent way to explain the fundamental philosophical precepts of libertarianism.

You might not be able to tell by modern political discourse, but classical political rhetoric hinged on philosophical precepts. Are people good or bad? Is knowledge benign, malignant or neutral? Is there free will, pre-destination or instinct and to what degree are we responsible for our actions? Do groups or objects have real moral value or only individuals? Who is qualified to make what types of decision and why? And so forth.

A lot of people don't really follow the philosophical connections to politics (as observed in journalistic political coverage, which resembles a horse race and a succession of pandering to interest groups, rather than an expression of moral, philosophical or social values). That's too bad, because only when we identify the basic principles we believe in can we set about forming a truly ethical response to a given situation.

I like the flash at ISIL because it does exactly that - set up all the philosophical precepts about life, liberty and property, then explain the necessary ground rules that follow from those beliefs. It's syllogistic; if you accept the precepts then you must accept the ensuing ground rules.

I have only a couple additions I'd mention on top of the video, though for reasons of display it might not be practical to include them. The first is that it's often useful to point out that, while people are not always perfect at managing their own lives, it's insulting to think that other people ought to run their lives for them or that they'd do a better job (in addition to unethical to allow it). I would also say that the problems around the world part of the flash is correct but only in part. It's true that many dictators and world problems start when people encourage or allow the bad actions of their leaders, but many problems come from dictators who were not encouraged by the people. I might add to the animation something about the legitimacy of defending against these aggressors, just as earlier in the video aggressors are defended against mutually. It almost sounds like a "you asked for it; it's your fault" sort of thing, though they didn't actually say that. Some clarification might help show the distinctions.

It's an entertaining little video and a brief but helpful introduction to the principles of liberty.

Posted on June 13, 2005 at 8:51am. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Spiffed Up WP Article

by neolibertarian

I just spiffed up the Wikipedia entry Neolibertarian. I was doing a google search, in part to see if I have regained my page rank, but also to see if it would turn up anything interesting, and I saw the wikipedia entry. It was pretty short, probably because somebody had done it quickly and wasn't sure what else to put. I added some stuff about the subject, meaning I added most of the text there. I tried to keep it kind of balanced; I'm a little spoiled by blog and website writing, which can be as biased and rambling as I want it to be.

I also added my own description of what it means to be neolibertarian. I've put it up on my webpage, too. It's available here and also as a tiny-text link on the home page. If you see errors on the wiki I made, go ahead and fix it (click 'edit'). If you disagree with my take, then please first remember that you're wrong.

Posted on June 7, 2005 at 8:30am. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Federalism AFTER Liberty

by neolibertarian

link (tip to DF)

In a rambling, tortured piece on federalism and interventionism from LewRockwell, we're treated to (punished by) an explanation for why nobody should intervene in the bad or evil actions of other government jurisdictions. Of course, I'd suspect this is partly due to the neo-Confederate sympathies known to come from the site, since it would justify the 'leave slavery alone' thesis if it were in fact a 'leave everything alone' thesis.

What's funny is that, despite an over-emphasis on the illegitimacy of states (states can't be illegitimate prima facie until they start initiating force, which is separate from the fact that every existing government seems to initiate force) the conclusion is fundamentally anti-vigilante, anti-humanity and anti-freedom. They believe that it would be a horrible thing if people started protecting the freedom of others, that it would lead to horrendous chaos and that the world would be one big warzone.

I remember that from somewhere. Oh yes, that was Hobbes on the state of nature: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. That old totalitarian-lover believed that we're all mean, greedy and stupid and only by submitting irrevocably to a mega-monarch could we avoid the fate of choas. In other words, we're too evil and dumb to be free.

A good anarchist, which the authors seem to fancy themselves, would realize there's some inherent value to vigilantism. After all, if they wish to live in a stateless world, should we just allow women to be raped as long as it's not us? That seems like a pretty harsh view of things. While the libertarian question of whether you should be obligated to live for another by fighting for them is unquestionably that intervention is optional, the libertarian answer for whether it's morally acceptable to use force against force-initiators is laughably uncontestable.

In other words, while nobody should force you to help others under attack, there's absolutely no moral reason why you can't meet force with force.

Their objection, ultimately, is that it's bad in implementation. That for unrelated reasons, it's bad to use force to help others. The argument, though relayed in a mangled and confusing manner, seems to be mostly based on the practical side effects and the hypocrisy of breaking law or sovereignty to serve freedom.

Well, the practical side effects are an important consideration. In that case, though, the authors would have to support in principle the intervention in Iraq while opposing on the margins the damages done to civilians. Of course, then we get into the question whether it's better to risk accidentally harming or killing a few thousand Iraqis or to knowingly let Saddam arrest, rape, murder and terrorize the millions of Iraqis that were under his domination. Once we get into the practical side effects, things get a little messy for philosophers. But either way, the authors ought to stand with the coalition in principle. Ten bucks says they don't.

The hypocrisy argument is unpersuasive twice over. First, the tu quoque fallacy; just because somebody is a hypocrite doesn't mean the act in question is wrong. I could say that all Iraqis deserve to be raped bu then save a Kurd woman from being raped. I'd be a hypocrite but I'd still be right. Second, it's insane to suggest that we should obey a law or principle that doesn't have us doing the right. The response shouldn't be resigned inaction but aggressive reform. If a law has us protecting slavery, defending Jim Crow or ignoring genocide, then it's the law that needs changing, not the intervention to defend liberty.

The article has clear confederal overtones and places the idea of federalism, limiting government's structure, above liberty, limiting government's power. It's a fallacy of paleo-libertarians that it's somehow more principled to have the government ignore slavery and ignore genocide than to risk it intervening to protect the freedom fo the victims. Beyond the obvious selfishness of not caring for the liberty of others, and the rank, stinking hypocrisy, it's not really libertarian.

Federalism is not more important than freedom. It is good if the federal government intervenes to stop infractions from the states, be it slavery and Jim Crow or wine tariffs and rent control. The fact that it doesn't give the state's a blank check to abuse liberty is why it's good, not why it's bad. The LewRockwell paleo-libertarians would have us believe that this sort of federal government reaction against the states or intervention in Iraq is bad because the power to do good is the power to do bad. While it's certainly true that doing good can easily lead to doing bad, the question of morality is found in liberty, not in federalism.

They seem to argue that if the feds intervene to stop wine tariffs between the states, it's bad because federalism is good. I would argue that it's good if the feds intervene for liberty, and the power to intervene is only bad when it serves to trample on or weaken liberty.

Federalism is not liberty; states do not have freedom. Federalism is practical, while liberty is ethical. Practical considerations should not masquerade as ethical ones.

Posted on May 29, 2005 at 10:32am. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Yaron Brook: The Pro-War Ward Churchill

by neolibertarian

Perhaps in a case that will help explain to the loony left just how freaking wacko those on the fringe truly are, Yaron Brook, Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, said at Tufts University last night that George Bush ought to dispense with democratization and simply kill all the enemy - including civilians who are normally regarded as non-combatants.

Without relying on the tortured, anti-capitalist machinations of Ward Churchill, Brook said in effect that in a war any enemy is a valid target, even regular people. He called them part of the war machine and said that chemical or nuclear weapons would be morally necessary to use if they were necessary to win the conflict.

He criticized Just War theory, which sets specific conditions which any conflict must meet to be morally justified, and more broadly blamed altruism for the failure of policymakers to implement his ideas. Apparently we're acting out of an effort to be nice, rather than any sort of moral objections to wholesale slaughter of an innocent populace. Gee, you'd think an Objectivist would understand morality is more than an attempt to be generous.

From the Tufts Daily article:

"All Americans today owe their lives to leaders who do whatever it takes to win the war - [those past leaders] were willing to kill anyone. Civilians of enemy nations are part of the [enemy] war machine," he said.

...

He also criticized just-war theory's idea that combatants should be distinguished from non-combatants. "Directly targeting civilians is perfectly legitimate," Brook said. "If it's possible to isolate the truly innocent - such as children and freedom fighters - at no military cost, then do so. But insofar as the innocent cannot be isolated ... they should be killed without any moral hesitation."

So obviously he either has mild autism or he's a sociopath. He's got a few screws loose, however.

I like what one of the feedback comments says:

What is Objectivism? Some sort of collectivist/socialist ideology?

I find it monstrous to kill innocent civilians for the crimes of their leaders and their armies. That's nothing but collectivism at its most ugly. Morality and justice pertains to individuals, not to collective entities like the state.

Right on the money. If you can be killed for the misbehavior of others then you have no freedom. You're nothing more than a member of tribe in a collectivist war. Objectivism is supposed to be individual-focused, and this sort of thing is fundamentally anti-individual and anti-freedom.

These ideas are absolutely despicable.

Posted on April 24, 2005 at 10:34am. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Purism and Principle

by neolibertarian

link

As a libertarian, I've been in many a discussion purism and principle. The debate ends up dissolving into insults between incrementalists and anti-incrementalists. The problem is defining the terms.

First, I have to affirm that principle is absolutely integral to politics. Politics without principle is not only pointless but dangerous and potentially lethal. The issue is that nobody wants politics to be unprincipled.

The anti-incrementalists, who are sometimes called purists, always accuse the incrementalists of being moderates, sell-outs and hypocrites. The incrementalists accuse the anti-incrementalists of ivory tower irrelevance, which is why the incrementalists are often confused for moderates. While moderates are going to stick with the incrementalists, not all incrementalists are moderate.

The problem, again, is defining the terms. While the anti-incrementalists present incrementalism and compromise as selling out, this always includes a hidden premise: that incrementalism's goal is to stop at an unfree or less-free world than a doctrinaire libertarian would want. That's not necessarily so.

There are TWO issues here: speed and destination. While a lot of the intra-libertarian dispute is over destination, the incrementalist debate is about speed. But just because you want to travel at 60 mph instead of 125 mph doesn't mean you still don't want to get to the same destination. Speed is NOT the same as destination.

The anti-incrementalist libertarians need to realize this fact. I might suggest we pursue medical marijuana instead of immediate legalization, or suggest tax cuts instead of abolishing the IRS on day one, but that doesn't mean I have a different hope in the end. Now, obviously the incrementalists are prone to accepting the status quo for much longer than the anti-incrementalists are and that causes friction over destination as well. But we should all agree on the speed.

Trying to pass everything at once a) won't happen and b) will only give our opponents ammo to use against us. Trying to pass everything as a sensible pace and allowing enough time between reforms for people to see their efficacy is not an ideological issue (or shouldn't be). It's just a strategy, and a particularly effective one. There are other problems getting in the way of libertarian electoral success, but speed OUGHT to be an easily solvable one.

McQuain hit the whole point on why anti-incrementalism is so popular (not just in the LP, either) - "To purists like my friend Billy, its more important to be right than be effective." It's about self-identity; being extreme, pure and revolutionary gives a self-image of someone ethical, moral, righteous and correct. It can be hard to abandon this cuddly ideological shield and expose it to pragmatism, even if you end up changing nothing more than your strategy.

PS - I should point out that I'm a registered libertarian and a member of the Free State Project.

Posted on April 4, 2005 at 6:30pm. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Federalism and Schiavo

by neolibertarian

Based on the continuing feuding over Schiavo among those on the economic right, I just wanted to remind everyone of the nature of federalism.

Federalism does not mean "states do whatever they want." It means that states are given leeway to do as they will, absent violations of right or constitutional authorizations to the contrary.

In this case, both exceptions apply. In a matter of right, both to life and to due process, the federal government has the obligation to act where states are failing to protect liberty. And the Constitution authorizes the Congress to constitute tribunals (federal Court), to control the jurisdiction of the federal courts and Supreme Court, and to protect the right of habeas corpus. The Congress even has the right to control the trying of both fact and law, so the de novo hearing was explicitly authorized by the Constitution.

Unless suddenly we have a group of people who think the Constitution is too weak and that a return to the Articles of Confederation is needed, I think it's safe to say the principle of federalism served, not rejected, by the Terri Schiavo move.

Federalism is a balance between the feds and states; it's not a blank check to the states. That's why the Fourteenth Amendment and the civil rights laws are there. It's not 'ignoring' federalism to act constitutionally to protect liberty; it's the highest act of federalism.

Posted on April 3, 2005 at 7:50pm. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

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