Category: Libertarian

Buying Michael Kinsley’s libertarianism is no better than buying Ron Paul’s.

I didn’t have much respect for Michael Kinsley’s understanding of libertarianism going into today. I have less after reading his opinion piece in today’s Saturday’s Washington Post, titled “The Church Doctrines of Pope Ron Paul.” (Clever in its truthiness.) Consider:

Libertarians get patronized a lot. Chipmunky and earnest, always pursuing logical consistency down wacky paths, they pose no real threat to the established order.

If a path is logical, it is by definition not wacky. It may be different from what average citizens accept, but the average citizen believes that common and normal are synonyms. They are not. It is common to be circumcised¹ as an American male. The circumcised penis is not normal.

So what is wrong with the libertarian case for extremely limited government? Economics 101 teaches some of the basic justifications for government interference in the economy. Some things, such as the cost of national defense, are “public goods.” We can’t each decide for ourselves how much defense we want. We have to decide that together.

National defense is a very poorly chosen example. And I believe that Mr. Kinsley is smart enough and familiar enough with libertarianism to understand that it’s a poorly chosen example. This is intentionally deceptive, presented to make the main line of libertarianism appear much less reasonable than it is.

But assuming a naive grasp of basic libertarianism, there are quite a few libertarians who actively accept that national defense is a legitimate government function. Apart from Mr. Kinsley’s justification, which is valid, it’s also in the United States Constitution. Small-l libertarians may disagree that it should be there, believing instead that private markets can handle defense. But only crackpots deny that it’s in our Constitution. Mr. Kinsley incorrectly implies that such nonsense is a fundamental tenet of American libertarianism.

Then there are “externalities,” which are costs (or, sometimes, benefits) that your decisions impose on me. Pollution is the classic example. Without government involvement of some sort to override our individual judgments, we will produce more pollution than most of us want.

He’s on slightly firmer footing here, but he still ignores the possibility that free, private markets could produce a solution. To accept his position completely, we must accept that individuals would willingly choose a slow-burn suicide through environmental destruction, past the point at which any fix could be achieved. Perhaps this is so, but Mr. Kinsley provides zero evidence that his favored position is any more likely than what he rejects. He relies solely on a belief that individual men are evil, while collective men are wise.

There are “market-oriented” solutions to this problem, but there is a difference –often forgotten, especially by Republicans — between using market forces and leaving something to the market. The point of principle is whether the government should intervene at all. How it chooses to intervene is purely pragmatic.

Libertarians have a fondness for complex arrangements to make markets work in situations where the textbooks say they can’t. …

He is off the rails here. Libertarians do not pretend to know what solutions will look like. We have ideas about how they “should” look, but we’re smart enough to know that others have ideas, too. Imposing ours blocks what might be better. Competition has a way of shoving less efficient solutions to the side. Free-market thinkers understand this.

The United States Postal Service, by virtue of being a “public good” (and in the Constitution), demands that the government handle this work. Everyone believed that until Fred Smith proved that belief to be dated nonsense. Some still believe the USPS should stick around, even though it clearly isn’t the best at what it does. Such thinking wandered long ago into irrational.

Libertarians also have a tendency to see too many issues in terms of property rights (just as liberals, they would counter, tend to see everything in terms of discrimination and equal protection). Pollution, libertarians say, is simply theft: you are stealing my clean air. Settle it in court. This is a really terrible idea: inexpert judges, lawyers and juries using the most elaborate and expensive decision-making process known to humankind — litigation — to make inconsistent decisions in different cases. …

What about “inexpert” politicians? Politicians believe that ridding ourselves of incandescent light bulbs will cure global warming. Politicians believe that manipulating Daylight Saving Time on the calendar will somehow decrease the amount of energy we use, rather than shifting around when we will use that energy. Politicians believe that subsidizing biofuels will save us from dependency on foreign oil, even though biofuels as currently subsidized by the United States is inefficient, expensive, and pollutes the environment.

More importantly, a decree from a judge when reviewing property rights generally means you can or can’t continue doing X, the action under consideration. Politicians see these actions and decide not only whether you can or can’t continue doing X, but they will also mandate the use or prohibition of Y, Z, A, H, K, P, and S. Inexpert politicians, through the elaborate and expensive decision-making process of legislation.

… And usually there is no one “right” answer: There is a spectrum of acceptable answers, involving tradeoffs (dirty air versus fewer jobs, etc.) that ought to be made democratically — that is, through government.

Earlier in the piece, Mr. Kinsley wrote this:

Furthermore, democracy and majority rule are no answers. Tyranny of the majority is a constant danger.

No kidding. So now we’re praising inexpert voters along with inexpert politicians instead of inexpert judges. Brilliant. What could go wrong?

So yes, a Rube Goldberg contraption of capitalism could replace a straightforward government regulation. But what if you aren’t interested in turning your grocery shopping into an ideological adventure? All that is lost by letting the government take care of it is the right of a few idiots to be idiots. That right deserves respect. But not much.

He is writing of unpasteurized milk. Notice that choosing to drink unpasteurized means the individual is an idiot. This is the classic central planner’s argument. His subjective evaluation of an issue is the only valid evaluation. By virtue of his certainty, its subjective nature becomes objective, enshrined in rules. It is the central planner’s job to protect everyone from themselves.

For what it’s worth, I don’t drink milk, pasteurized or not. Should I get to regulate everyone’s diet to exclude milk because I think drinking it is unwise? If you will not subject yourself to my opinion, why must I subject myself to yours?

Essentially, Mr. Kinsley seeks to indict libertarianism as a belief-system centered in a fantasy world in which everything works out efficiently and effectively, while asking that the reader accept that government is efficient and effective, generally as a result of its benevolence. But libertarians do not believe that capitalism is perfect. We know only that it’s superior to every other system tried by mankind. We know that government is inefficient and ineffective at every task it undertakes that don’t involve destruction. It is also operated by politicians who will sell any constituent to win a “better” constituent. Evidence demonstrates that, whether it’s taxes targeted
to “the rich”, forcing consumers to higher-margin fluorescent light bulbs, higher food prices so that gas doesn’t rise to a price that would force people to seek out alternative energy sources, or any other readily available example in which government acts to impose the subjective will of one onto another.

More thoughts at East Coast Libertarian.

¹ Speaking of circumcision, following the logical consistency that we don’t normally amputate healthy body parts from children, it is not wacky to denounce the giant exception applied to infant male foreskins.

On Rejecting the Dear Leader

Writing on the Ron Paul newsletter mess, Wirkman Virkkala writes a reminder worth remembering:

It is an odd thing, trying to be a civilized person in the libertarian movement — or in modern society. You have to keep some independence of mind. You cannot allow yourself to become part of any cult. For all the leaders will betray you. All the prophets will prove false. All the gems will prove brummagem.

There’s probably some valid expansion on that idea about the individual not seeking to lead is the leader to “follow”, but for now, I just like that quote. No leader can effectively manage the individual’s life. It’s the skepticism inherent in what libertarianism rejects.

Link via Publius Endures, via Timothy Sandefur.

The public knows best. It doesn’t need facts.

I don’t support the death penalty. I think it’s immoral, but I also do not believe that any government process is capable of 100% certainty in its justice system. The possibility of executing one innocent individual more than outweighs any alleged benefit from using capital punishment. I’m uninterested in utilitarian claims about the value of individual rights.

It’s clear that many death penalty advocates value it for its ability to achieve retribution. People we execute are barbarians who deserve it. When made honestly, I can appreciate that sentiment even though I’m not willing to be a barbarian myself. I’m only bothered when advocates pretend that state-sanctioned murder is not barbaric.

The current case before the Supreme Court, Baze v. Rees, is the perfect example of this. From the New York Times:

When the Supreme Court hears arguments on Monday in Baze v. Rees, the Kentucky case that has led to a de facto national moratorium on executions, it will mostly be concerned with the question of what standard courts must use to assess the constitutionality of execution methods under the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment.

But beyond that is the more practical question of why all 36 states that use lethal injections to execute condemned inmates are wedded to a cumbersome combination of three chemicals.

The answer, experts say, seems to be that no state wants to make the first move. Having proceeded in lock step to adopt the current method, which was chosen in part because it differed from the one used on animals and masked the involuntary movements associated with death, state governments would prefer that someone else, possibly the courts, change the formula first.

Self-denial is very powerful. As long as we appear to treat people better – by treating them differently – than animals, nothing terrible is happening. As long as we don’t see involuntary movements, nothing terrible is happening. We’re being compassionate for barbarians who deserve nothing good from us. I can’t be excited by this because it’s dishonest.

I like this better:

“The departments of correction are dug in,” said Deborah W. Denno, an authority on methods of execution at the Fordham University Law School. “There’s safety in numbers. But if one state breaks from that, the safety in numbers starts to crumble.”

“If you change,” Professor Denno continued, “you’re admitting there was something wrong with the prior method. All those people you were executing, you could have been doing it in a better, more humane way.”
…

Some experts on executions say the debate over which chemicals to use is the wrong one. States have adopted a process that appears humane because it looks like medical treatment, Professor Denno said. But looks can be deceiving, she added.

“To me,” Professor Denno said, “the firing squad is the most humane and perceived to be the most brutal.”

If we’re going to have capital punishment, we need to remember that the Constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment protects the individual right of the accused/convicted. It does not protect the accuser from having to feel bad. And as long as innocents may be condemned, which they will, we must follow principles, not fantasies of that vengeance can achieve for the victims of heinous crimes.

**********

On a tangent, to what else might we reasonably apply Professor Denno’s logic? If you change, you admit there was something wrong with what was done in the past? A process that appears humane because it looks like medical treatment? The human mind is very good at self-denial, but apparently quite unimaginative at wrapping it in unique packages.

“Mr. Tilney! Have a care with my name – you will wear it out!”

James Kirchick’s article revealing the many instances of racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic commentary in Ron Paul’s newsletters over the last two decades is damning. I’m willing to consider the possibility that these were ghostwritten without his input, although the best conclusion is that he has very poor skills in exercising judgment and oversight. Those are not winning attributes for a president. Regardless, since I haven’t supported Rep. Paul’s candidacy, I feel no need to justify or defend him further. I’m more interested in the larger issue.

From Radley Balko, at Hit & Run:

Of course, Paul was never going to win. So the real concern here is what happens to the momentum for the ideas his campaign has revived. The danger is that the ignorance in those newsletters becomes inextricably tethered to the ideas that have drawn people to Paul’s campaign, and soils those ideas for years to come.
…

I also fear that newly-minted Paulites on sites like Reddit, Digg, Slashdot and the like—whose first exposure to libertarianism was Ron Paul—are going to click over to the New Republic piece in the coming days, become disillusioned, and assume that this is really what libertarianism is all about.
…

Paul’s success and media coverage have exposed a large portion of the country to libertarian ideas for the first time. Before yesterday, that was a good thing. But now I’m not so sure. If this new audience’s first exposure to libertarianism now comes with all of this decidedly unlibertarian baggage—that many may now wrongly associate with libertarian ideas—maybe it would have been better if Paul’s campaign had sputtered out months ago, and we waited a cycle or two for someone else to come along to tap the sentiment.

From an Andrew Sullivan reader:

The backlash from all of this will be harsh, no doubt. It might even leave a long-lasting mark on libertarian conservatism. I think we deserve it.

Sensible libertarians do not deserve any such backlash. I have not run wild promoting Rep. Paul just because I wanted to see what I value reflected in his campaign when it was never there. Maybe it’s a cynicism I’ve developed from looking at how government works and how people with illiberal, anti-liberty positions manipulate the government that made me skeptical of Paul. I’d say it’s probably more a wonkish desire to know details. I can’t claim perfection there because I do have a filter. But when a candidate like Paul espouses ideas that are flawed so close to the surface, I’m not willing to set aside critical thinking in favor of enthusiasm and hope.

I don’t think the problem has been libertarians supporting Rep. Paul. We all make compromises at some point. But we must be honest about them. We should talk about ideas, and when something makes them more possible to discuss in public forums, we should seek to use that opportunity. Still, labels matter. With even a cursory look at his positions, it was always clear that Rep. Paul is not a libertarian.

So now the careless have hitched our principles to an unstable vehicle of political expediency. Why? We knew that we weren’t getting a libertarian president in November, even if Rep. Paul was a libertarian. We’re often accused of being too rigid in adhering to how little government should do. There is no justification for abandoning that rigidity at the first whiff of minor success in the public consciousness. First impressions.

Now I’m angry at being forced into guilt-by-association. Thanks.

P.S. Title reference here.

Proxy consent is a valid concept, in the proper context.

I’ll leave the libertarian angle of this story to others, Radley Balko among them because that’s where I found it first. I have a different analysis to make.

An armed law enforcement team broke down the door of a family home with a battering ram and took an 11-year-old to a hospital after authorities feared he was not getting proper medical care for what turned out to be a minor head injury.
…

Jon’s father, Tom Shiflett, 62, told paramedics he didn’t want them to treat Jon and asked them to leave. He told them he had served as a medic in Vietnam and he had the skill to treat his son.
…

Following the raid, a doctor recommended Jon be given fluids, Tylenol and ice to treat the bruises, according to a copy of the child’s patient aftercare instructions.

This is an example of where proxy consent for parents is appropriate. This is the determination of medical need, based on actual evidence to suggest that injury might exist. It is logical to determine whether or not intervention is necessary. Contrary to other decisions we incorrectly permit.

Wii have a disagreement, but only one side is correct.

In this Boing Boing story on successful efforts to hack the Nintendo Wii – allowing independent, non-sanctioned games to work on the Wii – Cory Doctorow writes:

Incredible as it may seem, there are still companies that think that they should have the right to tell you what you can and can’t do with your hardware after you pay for it.

They have such a right. It’s called a contract. The customer agrees to it, admittedly without negotiation, when he buys the hardware.

I agree that companies who insist on this are stupid. I wouldn’t run the business that way. But Nintendo’s executives run the company, not outsiders seeking to impose a different set of decisions. If the consumer doesn’t like the terms attached to the hardware, he should refrain from buying the product until the terms change. Anything else is insolent whining.

Whither common sense?

The article I cite here is from the 19th. I wrote this entry last week, but left it to marinate in my brain because I wasn’t sure I said anything worth publishing. This needs to be fleshed out more, and I’m not sure I’ve convinced even myself. I’m posting it raw for future possibilities to build on the idea.

Megan McArdle asks a question:

Assume, for the nonce, that come January 2009, there will be a Democrat taking the oath of office. What will the blogosphere look like?

Compared to the netroots, right now, the rest of the political blogosphere is a demoralized and listless place. Libertarians are abandoning their mild preference in favor of Republicans, not for the Democrats, but for despair. On the conservative side, even ardent supporters of the president have tired of him. Everyone is out of plausible policy proposals. What is there to be in favor of? More tax cuts? An even more aggressive foreign policy?

Her answer is good and worth reading. Blogging is mostly a response, so it’ll morph into something new and interesting as the world changes. I think mostly is the key, though. What will blogging do to politics.

If nothing else, blogging has better shown how ridiculous political debates are, how unprincipled the arguments and, particularly, how despicable the players are as leaders. There is no audience that won’t be sold to a higher bidder. Only the most rabidly blind partisan doesn’t know that. (Admittedly, that’s a large-ish group, but the point is basic.)

What is there to be in favor of? This concerns me. I think we’re already seeing the future of this problem, represented by Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, and Barack Obama. Not all of this is bad, probably, but the potential is dangerous.

Candidate Huckabee is a creation of the blogosphere. Without a swell from whatever corner his support crawled¹ out of, his candidacy wouldn’t be news. He’d still be a no-name governor from a bottom-ranked state who pedals too much Jesus and too much nanny-state socialism. In the end this will probably be his undoing, as the blogoshpere invokes some of the corrective potential inherent in the American readiness to knock down those it builds up. A little extra light shows him to be the calculating politician he clearly is. And there’s a large segment of the population that hasn’t seen his shtick up close yet. (The blogosphere giveth, the nation taketh away?)

Ron Paul is a more compelling example. He is selling a set of solutions, which too much of the blogosphere is buying without sufficient skepticism and investigation. Too many of his ideas are simply wrong (gold standard) or worse, morally indefensible (immigration). The blogosphere is not as good at delayed, thought-out responses as it is at offering immediate, emotional defensiveness. The latter builds short-term momentum.

Carried on for too long, this becomes a phenomenon. I don’t think we’re there yet in the blogosphere’s influence, but it could happen. Support for the candidate centers on what his supporters claim he represents, not what he offers. With Ron Paul, he is the libertarian candidate while holding very few libertarian positions. His appeal rests on a dream of what might result that is neither claimed nor implied by what he’s saying. Unintended consequences fall on non-sober, well-intentioned dreams as easily as they fall on sober pandering.

Barack Obama is the most compelling example of what might happen, although compelling does not necessarily mean good. He’s changing the rhetoric of our current political climate by focusing more on optimism and change. That’s a winning formula, as the blogosphere’s reaction seems to embrace his effectiveness at speech-making with little-to-no concern for the sense of what he’s actually saying. His policies are little different from any of the other Democratic candidates, yet he gets a free pass on dumb. The search for the appearance of leadership explains this, I fear.

What is there to be in favor of? Huckabee’s supporters look to his faith in Jesus. They do not worry that saving people from themselves and for Jesus isn’t the job coming open next November. Paul’s supporters look to his lack of faith in the federal government. They do not worrying that he’s not against the states violating the rights the federal government violates. Obama’s supporters look to his faith that government can help people if it has the right leaders willing to solve the problems. They do not worry about how much this will cost or that it be the most efficient solution as long as the leader makes the government appear to care more. None of these approaches is good for us.

I admit I’m cynical about politicians and what they promise. But I can still react to what they say with a fair analysis of each proposal. On solving the issues, every candidate is awful. Of course I’m biased in thinking that the government shouldn’t be involved, but supporters of the government intervention every candidate promotes² should explain why each solution is the best solution, with details that do not rely on moral platitudes involving the poor, the rich, public health, family values, or our children. How will each solution help individuals without doing so at the expense of another?

Instead, each part of the blogosphere is promoting an atmosphere of unquestioning built on receiving from the Dear Leader it chooses. As I mentioned, I think there’s a corrective built into the American psyche. But I’d be happier if we engaged pro-actively in solutions rather than reactive adaptations to flawed ideas after they’ve come into ugly, morphed reality.

¹ Maybe I shouldn’t use a term that implies evolution. Without a wave of His finger from the entirety of Heaven that God created Huckabee’s support in His universe, to enable the Huckabee/Christ ticket…

² Spare me the rhetoric about how Rep. Paul is not promoting government intervention.

“Your home” requires ownership or contractual permission.

Government bans on smoking in public [sic] private places are antithetical to liberty and basic property rights. I will not change my view against them, but I find it impossible to get worked up about this story out of Seattle.

… The King County Housing Authority is banning smoking in all units at Plaza 17, the 70-unit apartment complex where [Jackie] Brooks has lived for 14 years.
…

In addition to the Plaza 17 in Auburn, the authority banned smoking at its 70-unit Northridge 1 in Shoreline and its 82-unit Nia Apartments at Greenbridge project under construction in White Center. The ban starts next month.

Some residents are upset, some are happy. The article also talks about the “strong national movement” to ban smoking, as if such populist demands matter. And the only mention of rights completely ignores property rights, the primary factor involved and so readily violated. None of this surprises.

Still, as a libertarian, I can’t get upset about a smoking ban in public housing. Whether or not government should be providing housing, sure. But it does. That’s the playing field we’re on. So the rules the government sets for our its property is its decision. Don’t like the smoking ban? Buy your own property or rent from an owner who does not mind smoking on her premises. Get it in the lease.

The article doesn’t mention any specifics of the current rental agreement between the tenants and the housing authority. If such a prohibition is an illegal alteration of the existing contract, argue that. I’ll support such an argument against this ban. But this issue is about property rights. Always has been, always will be, even when it leads to an outcome we wouldn’t choose for our property.

Via Radley Balko.

Rejecting a collectivist concept of human rights.

Following up on my entry questioning Dr. Richard Shweder’s analysis in defending subjective justifications of male genital cutting by eliminating any consideration for the individual. He responded with more:

In an earlier comment (comment #59) I made brief note of some of the weaknesses in the standard human rights discussions of this topic (both there and here I am recounting published material in the two essays for which links were provided on the November 30 and December 5 Tierneylab). What I did not note in my earlier comment was that one of the more problematic aspects of a human rights argument for those engaged in the global eradication campaign is that the global eradication campaign itself appears to violate several recognizable or conceivable human rights. A short list of such rights includes the right of peoples and nations to autonomy and self-determination, the right of parents to raise their children as they see fit, the right of members of a family to be free of government intrusion into decisions that are private, the right of members of a group to favor their own cultural traditions in the education and socialization of their children, even the right to freedom of religion. …

I can only believe that Dr. Shweder is making this up as he goes along. He has a desired outcome. When no map to his outcome exists, he’ll create one and pretend it represents reality. Note the key foundation he uses, “recognizable or conceivable human rights.” He’s on an island with his conception. The whole notion is absurd.

Conceivably, conceivable could work. Standards of civilization progress, as evidenced by so many changes mankind has brought about demonstrate. Two hundred years ago, slavery fit within the widely accepted notion of a natural order. Today we not only know that to be false, we do not pardon those who believed such blasphemy over what they should’ve known. We understand the context, of course, but it doesn’t alter the fundamental problem.

Dr. Shweder doesn’t seek to progress properly. He ignores the individual’s supreme role in the existence of competing rights. Should the individual’s right face conflict from the group’s alleged claim on his body, Dr. Shweder does not dismiss the latter as subservient. The individual may choose to submit, but choice must exist. Dr. Shweder leaves as reasonable that the group may legitimately override the potentially contrary wishes of the individual. If enough people agree, the majority owns the minority. Unless we’re resurrecting the notion that slavery has a place in mankind, the conflict Dr. Shweder imagines is a mistake. Without medical need, it can never be correct to force bodily modification on another person. The “right of members of a family to be free of government intrusion into decisions that are private” does not grant members of a family to harm other members of the family.

Dr. Shweder writes of the “right of peoples and nations to autonomy and self-determination,” but only the individual has such a right. Collectively groups must reach their own outcomes. Extraneous, subjective input may be provide guidance, but it must never dictate. Still, that outcome must be a never-ending series of individual choices resulting in macro-level reality within society. Dr. Shweder’s suggestion leaves open the question of whether or not it’s legitimate to force downward from within, when that question is a settled “no” beyond the realm of the individual.

The uniquely American love of baseball throughout the 20th century is an example. Citizen or immigrant, rich or poor, white or black, distinction didn’t matter; Americans loved baseball. It inspired heroes and poetry, dreams and faith. The individual who did not embrace baseball may have faced scrutiny, but attempts to force him to love baseball would’ve violated a core more valuable and basic than baseball. No man is less an American if he fails to include baseball in his life.

The same truth exists for the individual who wishes to reject the surgical alteration of his or her genitals. He may not exercise his right to reject it, but he must be given the choice. Any category of supposed rights that excludes this is a fallacy not consisting of actual rights. Such a category must be discarded from the debate.

Good Riddance

I commend this news, even if it doesn’t become a trend:

New Jersey lawmakers on Thursday became the first in the nation to abolish the death penalty since the Supreme Court restored it in 1976. Opponents of capital punishment hope the state’s action may prompt a rethinking of the moral and practical implications of the practice in other states.

New Jersey’s Democratic-controlled General Assembly voted 44 to 36 on Thursday to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole. The action followed a similar vote by the state Senate on Monday. Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat and a death penalty opponent, has said he will sign the legislation.

The repeal bill follows the recommendation of a state commission that reported in January that the death penalty “is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.” …

Indeed. But how this happens is a useful lesson, whatever the topic.

… But equally persuasive to lawmakers was not saving lives but money — it costs more to keep a prisoner indefinitely on death row than incarcerated for life.

There can be a hierarchy of valid reasons to undertake (or prohibit) an action. But what the advocate deems most important is irrelevant in a debate. Convincing others is a better achievement than demonstrating one’s own brilliance.

But mostly, ending the death penalty is great.