Category: Libertarian

Principles of Liberty vs. Politics of Selfishness

To stay on the Michael Kinsley theme, his new essay in Time discusses libertarianism. Calling Ron Paul a libertarian isn’t the only mistake (omission?):

To oversimplify: Democrats are for Big Government; Republicans are against it.

This is a slam-dunk, so no need to feel like it’s an oversimplification. Mr. Kinsley is correct about the former, but he should’ve replaced against with for in that sentence.

To oversimplify somewhat less, Democrats aren’t always for Big Government, and Republicans aren’t always against it. Democrats treasure civil liberties, whereas Republicans are more tolerant of government censorship to protect children from pornography, or of …

Selective, no? Democrats do not treasure civil liberties any more than Republicans. They treasure different civil liberties, but Democrats are no more prepared to defend what they dislike than Republicans. You can look at pornography, as long as it doesn’t offend your neighbor’s feelings that you like only heterosexual caucasian pornography in which the man works for a living before coming home to have sex with his stay-at-home-mom wife. I exaggerate, of course, but how many First Amendment issues do Democrats cave on at the first hint that someone is offended?

Many people feel that neither party offers a coherent set of principles that they can agree with.

The first truth in the essay.

… For them, the choice is whether you believe in Big Government or you don’t. And if you don’t, you call yourself a libertarian. Libertarians are against government in all its manifestations.

Followed by an oversimplification. Anarchists are against government in all its manifestations. Libertarians (with a small-“l”) recognize that the government has a legitimate function, represented by powers expressly given to it in the Constitution.

Mr. Kinsley continues with more oversimplification, which I will ignore through ommission. Picking up later in the paragraph:

… And what is the opposite of libertarianism? Libertarians would say fascism. But in the American political context, it is something infinitely milder that calls itself communitarianism. The term is not as familiar, and communitarians are far less organized as a movement than libertarians, ironically enough. But in general communitarians emphasize society rather than the individual and believe that group responsibilities (to family, community, nation, the globe) should trump individual rights.

Both Democrats and Republicans behave as “communitarians”. Democrats treat wealth as community property. Republicans treat marriage as a collective right for two people rather than an individual right. Need I continue?

Like the AMT entry, I think Mr. Kinsley mostly gets it. The second half of his essay is good, apart from the “Ron Paul is a libertarian” part. I recommend the essay if you have any mistaken notion that libertarians are anti-social loners who think we should each command our own army and trade little children as day laborers so we can all save one penny on a pair of shoes. I just wish he didn’t play loose with the truth about communitarians Democrats and Republicans to set up his conclusion. He could’ve gotten there with the truth.

I’m sure the Left wouldn’t politicize this office.

How far off the rails we’ve gone:

The Bush administration again has appointed a chief of family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who has been critical of contraception.

Susan Orr, most recently an associate commissioner in the Administration for Children and Families, was appointed Monday to be acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs. She will oversee $283 million in annual grants to provide low-income families and others with contraceptive services, counseling and preventive screenings.

Why do we need an Office of Population Affairs? Since when is it a right to have everyone else pay for you to have (mostly) consequence-free sex? I don’t recall seeing that in the Constitution as a federal power.

The furor, of course, will be about Orr’s presumed position on birth control versus abstinence, as she seems to be an ideal political bone to toss to the social conservative base, as if this will suddenly improve our nation’s morals.

Update: I do not want to remove this because it was here when I first posted the entry. But I can’t find a link to this alleged statement from Orr, via Think Progress. Until I can verify, the quote shouldn’t be here. See comments for more explanation. See this rundown at Think Progress, via John Cole. Particularly this (emphasis in original):

In a 2000 Weekly Standard article, Orr railed against requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives. “It’s not about choice,” said Orr. “It’s not about health care. It’s about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death.”

Wonderfully intellectual, no?

Something in Orr’s past intrigues, similar to her position above.

From the Washington Post article:

In a 2001 article in The Washington Post, Orr applauded a Bush proposal to stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees to cover a broad range of birth control. “We’re quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease,” said Orr, then an official with the Family Research Council.

I support the goal to stop requiring insurance to cover it, although I would aim for a full reversal rather than just for federal employees. Government should not mandate coverage for any particular service or product. Still, within her limited scope here, Orr gets a temporary pass.

However, she’s an intellectual joke if she wants to pander that fertility is not a disease, by which I think she means “it’s not worth covering under insurance”. There are more ways than just heterosexual, missionary-position intercourse to create a family, and none of them are any less moral or Godly. There are many people who need fertility services and want that coverage. The market should decide whether or not it’s covered.

Even if it’s just normal, boring contraceptive services, government has no justification for interference. Since people need and want these services, there is inevitably a market for it, at some price. Maybe that price isn’t conducive to a deal for some services, but that’s economics, not theology. Covering it shouldn’t be mandated, but it shouldn’t be prohibited, either, which is what I think social conservatives want.

This is the problem with the Bush administration specifically, and politics in general. It can’t ever do the right thing for no other reason than it’s the principled action. It can’t control itself from using its own subjective, selfish reasons. Occasionally it’ll hit the correct bullseye, but usually there are intended consequences that are incorrect. Shameful.

P.S. Think Progress bolds Orr’s “fertility is not a disease” comment without reflecting on the validity of such a mandate for insurance. That’s probably an indirect comment on what Think Progress believes about that validity, but I’m not familiar enough with the site to draw a definitive conclusion.

Political theory is a portion of life theory.

Megan McArdle has a concise explanation of how libertarian is not the same as libertine, despite the flawed, determined hopes of morals enforcers in control – or aiming for control – of government:

Being a libertarian means recognizing the limits of the formal legal system to regulate human behavior–not recognizing the formal legal system as the only limitation on human behavior.

Consumer choice refers to an individual consumer.

Via Major Nelson, here’s a story on ten features that should be in every video game. My personal pet peeve:

4. Always let players skip cut scenes no matter how important they are to the story.

What a predicament cut scenes create. As a designer, you want all your hard work to be acknowledged, even the cut scenes. Sadly, interactive entertainment is the name of the game, and it always comes first. That’s why gamers play these things. So rather than assume every player wants to watch your story-telling chops, allow them to bypass cut scenes, tutorials, and even speed up the showing of logos when a game boots up. Tell your story through engaging gameplay, and you’ll easily be remembered and praised regardless of what you accomplished in a cut scene, tutorial, or start screen branding.

I agree. I generally watch the cut scenes the first time through a game, but I do not need to see them every time. It’s tedious and wastes my time. I have a memory, so the second time through, I know what’s going on.

More specifically, never put the cut scene after a saved checkpoint. Barring that, never make the cut scene mandatory. If my character dies before the next checkpoint, I do not want to watch the same (long) cut scene over. Many games make this mistake, but Blazing Angels has been the biggest offender I’ve played so far. I actually stopped playing the game because I couldn’t get past a mission that made me watch the long cut scene every time I started the mission after dying. My incentive disappeared because it wasted too much of my life.

As intuitive as this opt-out seems, the desire to apply one’s personal preference to everyone extends itself to so many spheres. From the comments at Major Nelson’s entry:

You should always be forced to watch cutscenes, if you’re not watching cutscenes you’re not playing the game as it was intended.

As intended. Someone else’s determination is the only way to play the game. No individual thinking or preference is valid. Really?

And:

Nice list, but I disagree with number 4. I’d like the cutscenes to be unskippable the first time. There’s too many times that I’ve pressed a button just because I want to see if it skips or not…

Because this gamer can’t prevent himself from tasting the forbidden fruit, we must all be subject to his whims. No doubt he’ll run for political office at some point.

A private enterprise creating a video game which does not offer complete freedom for preferences is not the same as the government dictating prohibitions for non-favored choices. I can vote with my dollars. Readily conceded. But the mentality that leads to the latter is what’s exhibited in those statements. The central planner knows best or can’t control his impulses, so it’s supposedly wise to limit everyone. They do not care that a view of liberty for all includes the opportunity for self-imposed restrictions and mechanisms to control impulses. I get what I want, you get what you want. Instead, the solution is always to limit everyone.

It’s 4:00 am and I can’t sleep.

I’ve been meaning to blog. Really, I have. But … There’s always a “but”, isn’t there? Of course there is. And it’s always something ridiculous like “I had to watch one more episode of Battlestar Galactica” or some other time-sucking necessity. I know. It’s true.

So, I’ve meant to blog. But tedium got in the way. Danielle’s needed help with a flat tire. Then the flat tire had to be replaced. Being the only person in the house with an abundance of free time meant I got to search dealerships for the best rates and wait with the car while all the necessary stuff was inflated and rotated and stuff.

Also, my car ran into a minor, self-inflicted issue. The check engine light appeared, alleging that the coolant temperature sensor was busted. The part was $7 and easy to replace, so I replaced it. Except I left the old o-ring in the tube, so the sensor was not secured by the clip. I knew something was wrong, but chose the moron path. The first time I drove after this repair, being cautious to verify that everything was good, I journeyed no more than one mile from my house before my car had spilled all of its coolant. I caused no damage to the car, but more days lost with getting everything back to normal.

I also bought a new car. I ordered it, actually, but it isn’t here yet. It ships today. More on this later.

Most importantly, reports that joblessness will lead to a significant increase in productivity for hobbies and long-buried dreams are all false. At least for me. I needed a break when this stretch started in April. I needed it into May and probably beyond. But at some point, I tipped from regenerating to degenerating. That point snuck by me unnoticed. In the future I’ll pay more attention should this scenario arise again because now I know it’s part of this fun.

This time around, though, wow. Now I know what it’s like to let nearly 6 months pass and have not nearly enough to show for it. This is not bad, but it must stop. If that makes sense. I want to write more, both here and not here. I must accomplish tasks for my house. There’s missing drywall in my garage from a leak many months ago, for example. Cold weather isn’t that far away, my garage is a mess, and a new car needs to park where there is now just a mountain of disorganized uselessness. And so on.

Since I’ve done nothing but scour the Internet with a less-than-focused attention, I’ll start refocusing. The internet is wonderful but only a low level of mindless wandering is worth the expense. If I’m going to surf for the blog, I should blog. I’m going back to work soon, so I expect my overall productivity will increase. I want to do more, too.

For starters, to ease back in, I liked this post from Scott Adams on freedom:

Thanks to religious restrictions on freedom in the United States, we have a long list of things you can’t do (at least whenever you want): prostitution, marijuana, euthanasia, gambling, polygamy, and on and on. You might argue that the law is just trying to protect people from harm. But if that were the case, bicycles would be illegal.

The details on some of those list items are important, but yes. Yes.

The short version of this entry is that I’m still here and plan to be here for a long time. Even though I don’t demonstrate it sometimes. Still, blogging at 4:00 am must count for something, right?

Self-interest doesn’t have to match an altruistic goal.

A reader writes to Andrew Sullivan about capitalism and same-sex marriage (emphasis mine):

One of the most astonishing (and underreported) instances of this phenomenon is the defeat in committee of the marriage ban in the Indiana legislature. This past April a group of major corporations (Cummins Engine, Wellpoint, Dow AgroSciences, Eli Lilly, and Emmis Communications, etc.) lobbied against the measure and won.

While I’m not surprised at the lack of coverage, I think it’s important to note smaller victories like this in the civil rights movement. … But it’s also one of the few remaining conservative states remaining that did not write discrimination into its constitution. As a progressive Democrat with a strong populist streak, (as much as it may pain me to admit it) I really have to give credit to big business for doing the right thing on this one.

It’s a nice thought, but is that how it happened, big business doing the “right” thing? The story:

Eli Lilly and Co., Cummins, WellPoint, Emmis Communications and Dow AgroSciences spoke out against the amendment in the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote. All five companies argued that the amendment would send the message that Indiana was not inclusive and hurt their ability to attract top employees to the state.

The additional quotes in the article leave open an interpretation that these businesses behaved in a strictly altruistic manner, but that interpretation is strained. They acted in self-interest. Businesses, like individuals, will behave in a manner consistent with achieving what they desire. Eli Lilly wants to continue attracting talented employees, so it opposed a policy that could alienate some of those employees.

Partisans selectively remember that incentives matter. As Mr. Sullivan’s reader indicates, he normally doesn’t give credit to big business. I won’t presume to know exactly what the reader believes about big business, but I am willing to guess that it involves big business failing to act in a specific manner consistent with the reader’s beliefs. If a business values something else, it’s wrong.

Government incentives are then designed to accommodate inconsistent ideals. Big business should care about making their employees part of the middle class rather than paying them a fair wage based on merit, for example¹. When its incentives don’t match the goals of the government, surprise, a partisan concludes that the business does not respond as it “should”. The new expectation is that it’s evil because it ignores what’s “right”. The entire process is perverse and results in a ceaseless cycle of new incentives, often in the form of restrictions. But it remains the fault of the business, not the policy dictated by the government which is inconsistent with incentives.

The other side of the partisan spectrum acts in an identical manner. Those who believe individuals should not ingest certain substances or read certain material follow the same cycle of being so shocked anyone would defy what’s “right” that more legislation is necessary. The manner in which more legislation skews the incentive toward different evasion rather than compliance is ignored because the intention is what matters. They know how you should behave.

This is where libertarianism excels. There is a minimum expectation of civility, but beyond that, each person decides what’s best for his life. Libertarianism understands that incentives matter. Because it’s impossible to know what the incentive is for everyone, or anyone, libertarianism doesn’t direct anyone to a specific goal or outcome that she “should” pursue for herself. It will not push for the manipulative affect of government intervention on the individual.

¹ I’m assuming a specific belief here, but of a generic progressive partisan, not Mr. Sullivan’s reader. A fine distinction, I know, but my later example of a generic social conservative partisan is meant the same way.

Who dreams of being Rich Uncle Pennybags?

The National Association of Broadcasters issued a press release yesterday, quoting NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton:

“XM and Sirius have spent upwards of $20 million trying to bamboozle the Beltway into believing that a monopoly is good for consumers. Yet when you cut through all the distortions displayed by XM and Sirius, you are left with one undisputable fact: Never in history has a monopoly served consumers better than competition.”

The NAB conveniently leaves out any facts to corroborate this bold statement. I’m not interested in challenging it directly, because the basic gist is fine if unrevealing. Competition is good. I believe that. I just wish the NAB believed it.

The existence of press releases and lobbying demonstrate that the NAB knows that it competes with satellite radio. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t spend millions to defeat this merger. It is not acting solely in the best interest of consumers. Incentives matter, and here the incentive is to reduce the strength of all providers of competing technology.

I rarely listen to terrestrial broadcast radio anymore. There is a sameness that is pre-packaged and unimaginative. It’s simply not interesting. I’d rather listen to the artists I enjoy and discover new artists through friends, blogs, and iTunes. Even the limited broadcast offerings I enjoy are available as podcasts, which demonstrates that terrestrial broadcasters agree with the Sirius-XM view of the radio industry’s competition model.

Satellite radio didn’t turn me away from NAB’s clients. Sirius and XM existed when I went looking for an alternative. To be fair, I don’t listen to the music channels on Sirius that often. The repetition of a limited playlist exists there, as well. Maybe it’ll cost Sirius my subscription in the future. Maybe they’ll change. But for now, it has Howard Stern, which is what I want.

The NAB’s press release includes a list of groups and lawmakers opposing the proposed merger, which is its only support for the validity of its position. It takes a little more than that, unfortunately. Instead of putting out pointless press releases calling for competition with a list of politicians, it could actually query those politicians and ask why they abhor the Constitution’s First Amendment, as just one action in the interest of consumers. Or does the NAB not actually care about consumers as much as it cares about remaining partnered with politicians to limit its need to compete?

California bans force. Mostly?

California is addressing the possibility of forced RFID implantation:

California’s senate passed a bill last week that would protect people from having RFID tags forcibly implanted beneath their skin. All that’s left is for Governor Schwarzenegger to sign it, and then the state will become the third to pass such legislation (after Wisconsin and North Dakota).

The motivations for the bill were to prevent people from being forcibly tracked and to protect them from identity theft should someone electronically sniff data stored on the tag.

Kip already debunked the flaw in this plan:

It’s quite simple really: Only the government (or an armed thug) can “force” anyone to do anything. No employer can ever “force” an employee to accept any rule, policy or prerequisite.

I have nothing to add to that, but in light of what I wrote last week, there is another component. First, a word from the bill’s sponsor, Senator Joe Simitian:

“At the very least, we should be able to agree that the forced implanting of under-the-skin technology into human beings is just plain wrong,” he says.

I’ve read through the bill (pdf), and it clearly addresses what to do in the event a minor (or dependent adult) suffers a forced RFID chip implantation, but I can only find this for the possibility that it’s the parent forcing the child rather than an outside party:

This section shall not in any way modify existing statutory or case law regarding the rights of parents or guardians, the rights of children or minors, or the rights of dependent adults.

I’m not an attorney, so it’s possible, probable even, that I’m missing something in my analysis. But I doubt it. I have a strong suspicion that no one in the California legislature is much interested in the ethical issues posed by parents implanting an RFID chip into their children. Obviously it’s better to address a nearly impossible scenario with a new law, while leaving the entirely plausible scenario unprotected in order to guarantee parental “rights”.

I’m worth mass redistribution. Or maybe it’s just my vote.

I’m a few days late on this, thanks to being wrapped up in fantasy football, but John Edwards cares about me.

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

“It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”
…

“The whole idea is a continuum of care, basically from birth to death,” he said.

If I’m going to be in the system… How quaint. Do I have a choice? If and when I choose not to be part of the system, do I get to keep that part of my taxes devoted to covering me, as well as the portion that is my charitable “gift” to everyone else in this scheme?

Obviously he wouldn’t emphasize the womb-to-tomb feature bug if the answer to any of my questions was yes. Also obvious is the basic fact that, being unable to understand that government is the problem in health care, his proposal relies on reducing everyone to a lower level rather than working on (effective) ways to enable the unintentionally uninsured minority to mitigate their financial risk. Note, of course, that Edwards – and every other health care nanny currently running for president – misses this true issue in his quest for womb-to-tomb government services. That won’t earn my vote.

More thoughts at A Stitch in Haste and Cato @ Liberty

**********

I wouldn’t expect anyone else to have mentioned it, but a side issue from Edwards’ proposal involves routine infant male circumcision. As I’ve written, a liberal, progressive argument for universal health care and/or coverage is that the government will cease paying for unnecessary male circumcision. This will not stop.

Governments already fund unnecessary circumcisions today, when resources are limited. There is no significant push among politicians to redirect those funds into medically necessary expenditures (or taxpayer pockets). They do not care about the necessity of any particular intervention, or even health care in general. Universal health care is simply a means to create a new, dependent constituent group. If that constituency wants infant male circumcision, politicians will cover it. (I’d make an argument that bureaucrats will make the decisions, but doctors make the same mistake in an effort to please their constituents constituents’ parents.)

Politicians believe there is always another group to demonize and tax to fund whatever gift needs to be made to voters for their votes. I am unwilling to hope that any government run by these fools will miraculously reverse its stupidity. Such short-sighted adherence to self-interest is inherent in government whenever it’s controlled by those interested in the exercise of power. Neither rights nor logic plays any part.

Now add the context of a politician like Edwards who wants to mandate that you and I will undergo preventive care. Is it really a long leap to assume that such a stupid person could read the splashy headlines about male circumcision and HIV and ignore the context of voluntary and adult, as well as the truth that condoms remain far more effective at reducing the risk of HIV? Almost everyone in our culture has ignored these last three points in the two years since the first preliminary results were announced, so the answer is a clear “no”.

Politicians will continue to make the erroneous, incomplete argument that the cost-benefit analysis of infant male circumcision is a one-sided consideration, with benefits the only deciding factor. They rarely even recognize potential before the word benefit. If there’s a potential benefit to chase, they will assume that means one less disease to pay for out of the collective in the future. That is incomplete and morally defective, since it ignores the risks, the complications, and the rights interest of the child in making this subjective, medically unnecessary decision. That politicians, parents, and doctors make this error every day proves the fallacy of trusting in the economics of universal health care to rectify an ethical failing.

Should government miraculously reverse itself and stop funding infant circumcision, I still argue that this is largely irrelevant. Many parents will just pay for it themselves. I’ve read too many blog entries of parents fretting over the hundreds of dollars it will cost, yet, considering genital cutting either an “investment” in their son or a “necessary” expenditure so that the boy will be normal common, they proceed anyway, out of their own pockets. To be fair, there will be a long-term reduction, as fence-sitters will decide unnecessary surgery isn’t worth the money, but there will still be many boys facing the knife who should be protected. I’m not okay with that.

Anyway, who will make the argument that politicians embrace the individual rights of their children and refrain from removing healthy body parts from their own sons? I’ll theorize that at least one candidate running for president with a universal health care platform has ignored the violation of his¹ son’s rights and circumcised the boy, to say nothing of the members of the theoretical decision-making apparatus should a universal health care scheme be implemented.

¹ This ignores Sen. Clinton because I assume she did not have her daughter’s genitals cut. However, she should be included in any consideration of politicians and bureaucrats willing to perpetuate the violation of the genitals of male children.

Equal Opportunity Pandering

I think lingering on identity politics is bad news for any sort of legitimate and effective approach to leadership. It should be irrelevant whether or not a voter is male, female, black, white, and so forth. I’d much rather politicians focus on a coherent agenda based on principles of limited government and equal, guaranteed rights. But every one of them seems incapable, so in the world we live in, I mostly agree with this editorial from today’s Opinion Journal discussing how Democrats actively court female voters while Republicans don’t explicitly do so.

The rest of the female population has migrated into 2007. Undoubtedly quite a few do care about abortion rights and the Violence Against Women Act. But for the 60% of women who today both scramble after a child and hold a job, these culture-war touchpoints aren’t their top voting priority. Their biggest concerns, not surprisingly, hew closely to those of their male counterparts: the war in Iraq, health care, the economy. But following close behind are issues that are more unique to working women and mothers. Therein rests the GOP opportunity.

The “close behind” issues involve a better way to look at traditional topics. The author’s primary example is the tax impact of income for single versus married women. Like I said, I mostly agree, because at least it’s a step away from past thinking.

Still, the essay annoys me because it assumes an unrealistic fact about today’s Republicans.

For that matter, when was the last time a GOP candidate pointed out that their own free-market policies could help alleviate this problem?

Name one Republican candidate who’s interested in free-market policies. The author only implies economic, of course. The current Republicans fail even that narrow test, but I’m not going to accept such a limited view. Free-market policies involve liberty. Politicians do not get free-market credentials for proposing one policy on a platform that pays limited respect to such liberty. Free is free, not a degree of free.

There’s a bonus in the essay – unintended by the author – that underscores the hypocrisy politicians show in shunning restraints for themselves while restricting liberty for everyone else. Especially Even Republicans.

Republicans should customize their low-tax message to explain how they directly put more money into female pockets.

I’m naming the “Republicans put more money into female pockets” meme the David Vitter Plan.