Story Number One:
An eight year old girl spends every day of her life subject to seizures. Sometimes, she would experience a dozen a day, making any kind of normal childhood impossible. She cannot go to school, or play dates, or sleep overs. The doctors have no answers, though they try every drug they know to relieve the symptoms. The approved treatments are useless. The parents are getting desperate.
They stumble on a report that says stem cell treatments may provide a permanent solution to the seizures. However, the treatments are not available in the U.S., and the insurance company will not pay for a trip to Germany. The total bill for the first round of treatments is expected to be around $40,000, but it may as well be $40 million as the parents are strapped and already deeply in debt. What to do?
There are no government agencies to turn to. No programs. No institutions. No charities. The family is all alone with their plight, it seems.
Not entirely. The parents put out a call for assistance. They organize events for family and friends, and friends of friends, to attend and help pitch in toward the little girl's treatments. Through extended connections with hundreds of people, some of whom only have a passing connection with the family, donations start coming in. Event upon event the bank account grows until the total amount needed is assembled.
The little girl goes to Germany, receives treatment for two weeks, and comes back to the U.S. No more seizures. She begins to make developmental progress. She has a chance at a real life.
Story Number Two:
An elderly woman is living alone a dozen miles from the nearest town. She has been blessed with a lifetime of good health, but she is beginning to feel the frailty of her years. One evening, during a particularly bad snowstorm, she has the overwhelming feeling of being trapped and experiences her first panic attack. Since all of her grown sons are out of town, she calls the one who is driving a truck somewhere in Midwest and asks for help. The son calls a neighbor who then runs a snowplow through the old woman's driveway to help ease her mind. When a fuse blows that night, another neighbor stops by to change it. A third neighbor stops in with some cooked food. The woman's mind is eased, her house is lit, and her food needs are met.
The Web of Connections:
In both stories, it was the rich web of social connections that identified the need, assembled the resources, and solved the problem. One was a sustained event that took months to complete, the other was an instant problem that needed prompt attention. Human beings, one at a time, some with only a minor relationship with the victims, stepped up to fill the gaps until the needs were met. No institutions or government programs were contacted, applied to, or enlisted to assist. This was man helping man.
I tell these stories partly because we forget that real social security comes from our social network. We can, and often we do, watch out for one another. That natural compassion that we all (except perhaps sociopaths) feel for each other is our surest, most effective, and most dependable form of security. Government programs can be cut, modified, re-defined, understaffed, defunded and otherwise made unreliable, but the human social network is always there. Indeed, the social network doesn't take a day off. Nor does it have application fees or waiting periods. There are no queues, nor are there waiting lists. The network does not rely on one politician, or one bureaucrat. The network is a sticky web of intersecting concern and compassion by an unknown and unknowable number of people.
The network of social security and welfare has one vulnerability, however. It is susceptible to apathy, the feeling that it's not my problem...that's what we have (name your favorite institution) for. The more powerful the institution (the Church, United Way, the Federal Government) the more apathetic the network. An apathetic network of friends and family is like having no friends or family.
The irony of a compassionate people setting up institutions, especially government institutions, is that it tends to remove the need for the individual to act on behalf of a person in need. Let the government do it, we think. That's what we pay taxes for. But then little girls aren't sent to Germany for needed treatment, and old women don't get their driveways plowed out, their fuse changed, and a hot meal delivered to them late at night.
Privately funded organizations, like the United Way, at least have private commitment to their missions to help people. While an individual contributor may feel that 'they gave at the office' when their assistance is most needed, it takes a conscious effort to agree to support them and their mission. In a pinch, contributors may be tapped to give some more, or to volunteer, or assist in some other way. Government run institutions do not have public participation. They are funded by forced extractions that are often resented by the taxpayers, and they exercise their power rigidly and bureaucratically. They form a wide grid that, while very sturdy, has major gaps between the girders. What's more is that the typical taxpayer comes to believe the government institution has plenty of resources at its' disposal, no matter how meager that funding really is or how dire the needs really are. The people, though concerned about their fellow man, become apathetic about becoming personally involved. The web is no longer sticky. It becomes slick with apathy and needy people start falling through.
Ironically, if there were fewer institutions, and in particular government programs, to deal with human problems, we would naturally have to watch out for each other more. Each and every one of us would become another sticky strand of the network that would catch people as they fell. True caring. True compassion, and determination to use it.
That is what I call real social security.
I wonder how my neighbor is doing...I haven't seen him for a while.
(p.s.--both stories are 100% true)
Showing posts with label libertarianism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label libertarianism. Show all posts
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Faith Based Economics
A person makes an product he doesn't need but that he is willing to trade for things he does need. There is a faith, a deep assumption, that there will be other people making products for which he can swap. He offers his products and other people offer theirs. Trades are made, and everyone is richer. Repeat, and the economy rolls on.
I have just turned Keynesian Economics on its' head.
How so? Because I have not relied on the manipulation of the money supply to make trades possible. I have simply concentrated on a simple truth: there must be production before there can be trade. Keynesian theory holds that there cannot be production without demand, and thus the need for a surplus money supply to always be hunting for more goods to buy, which then 'stimulates' production. Get it? Keynesianism says production comes second, and the clammoring for goods comes first.
But that is not how it really works. People may say they need or want a good, but, until they actually lay their money down to buy it, producers can only guess. Consumers rarely contract for their purchases in advance of production. The farmer does not take orders and prepayment first, then plant the crops to be delivered in the future. No, the farmer takes a chance...he has faith...that he will be able to exchange his crops for money or goods someone else produced that he wants more. The demand is in the production; the demand is the supply.
But the Federal Reserve, and the Keynesian academics, have said that they must manipulate the money via low interest rates to spark consuming in order to encourage production. One can make the observation that goods not sold or exchanged will clog the market place and cause the producers of those goods to stop producing, thereby causing the entire chain of production to slow down or cease altogether. People will lose their jobs. Companies will go bankrupt. So the Federal Reserve must provide 'liquidity' via inflating of the money supply to keep the goods flowing through the marketplace.
But think about it...in their theory traders are coming to the market with nothing to trade. They have no goods or services to offer, just pieces of paper with which they garner some of the marketplace's goodies. They have a sweet deal. No need to sweat to produce, say, a chair to trade for a wheelbarrow. Instead, they can cheaply print up (or borrow) some paper with numbers, and exchange that paper for the wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow makers is impressed with the quick sales. The market seems to be booming, but in fact it is short one chair. The traders who accepted the new money have less to choose from, as there is no chair in sight. As the wheelbarrow maker tries to spend his new money on the limited numbers of goods available, he will bid up prices and end up with less than he expected from his original trade.
The faith that underlies the entire market is an expectation of the availability of tradable goods. To produce a wheelbarrow with no hope of trading for a chair means there is no reason to produce the wheelbarrow in the first place. Production is an act of faith in other's production. If that faith is disrupted, then the amount of produced goods dwindles and the economy declines.
Ahem...I just Googled "supply side economics" on a hunch that I was not the first to think of the market economy as a place where people brought their goods to trade. Sure enough, the description for 'supply side economics' in Wikipedia is almost exactly what I have written above. I was pleased to see that the article referenced the Austrians and Classical economics as the ultimate 'supply siders,' but I was less happy with the general impression that the theory had been disproved. In fact, a tertiary belief, that tax revenues would go up as tax rates went down, was pretty convincingly disproven except in certain circumstances. The rest of the theory, stands.
So much for my 'original' thoughts.
I have just turned Keynesian Economics on its' head.
How so? Because I have not relied on the manipulation of the money supply to make trades possible. I have simply concentrated on a simple truth: there must be production before there can be trade. Keynesian theory holds that there cannot be production without demand, and thus the need for a surplus money supply to always be hunting for more goods to buy, which then 'stimulates' production. Get it? Keynesianism says production comes second, and the clammoring for goods comes first.
But that is not how it really works. People may say they need or want a good, but, until they actually lay their money down to buy it, producers can only guess. Consumers rarely contract for their purchases in advance of production. The farmer does not take orders and prepayment first, then plant the crops to be delivered in the future. No, the farmer takes a chance...he has faith...that he will be able to exchange his crops for money or goods someone else produced that he wants more. The demand is in the production; the demand is the supply.
But the Federal Reserve, and the Keynesian academics, have said that they must manipulate the money via low interest rates to spark consuming in order to encourage production. One can make the observation that goods not sold or exchanged will clog the market place and cause the producers of those goods to stop producing, thereby causing the entire chain of production to slow down or cease altogether. People will lose their jobs. Companies will go bankrupt. So the Federal Reserve must provide 'liquidity' via inflating of the money supply to keep the goods flowing through the marketplace.
But think about it...in their theory traders are coming to the market with nothing to trade. They have no goods or services to offer, just pieces of paper with which they garner some of the marketplace's goodies. They have a sweet deal. No need to sweat to produce, say, a chair to trade for a wheelbarrow. Instead, they can cheaply print up (or borrow) some paper with numbers, and exchange that paper for the wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow makers is impressed with the quick sales. The market seems to be booming, but in fact it is short one chair. The traders who accepted the new money have less to choose from, as there is no chair in sight. As the wheelbarrow maker tries to spend his new money on the limited numbers of goods available, he will bid up prices and end up with less than he expected from his original trade.
The faith that underlies the entire market is an expectation of the availability of tradable goods. To produce a wheelbarrow with no hope of trading for a chair means there is no reason to produce the wheelbarrow in the first place. Production is an act of faith in other's production. If that faith is disrupted, then the amount of produced goods dwindles and the economy declines.
Ahem...I just Googled "supply side economics" on a hunch that I was not the first to think of the market economy as a place where people brought their goods to trade. Sure enough, the description for 'supply side economics' in Wikipedia is almost exactly what I have written above. I was pleased to see that the article referenced the Austrians and Classical economics as the ultimate 'supply siders,' but I was less happy with the general impression that the theory had been disproved. In fact, a tertiary belief, that tax revenues would go up as tax rates went down, was pretty convincingly disproven except in certain circumstances. The rest of the theory, stands.
So much for my 'original' thoughts.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Atlas Shrugged: a Reconsideration
I am rereading Atlas Shrugged.
When I was in high school, a couple of self-described 'socialists' verbally pinned me to the wall and peppered me with questions to which I had no answers. My mile wide/inch deep opinions were quickly exposed, and my stuttering confusion was obvious to everyone. Growing up in a conservative Republican household does not really prepare one to do intellectual battle with the forces of evil...hell...I would have lost an intellectual fight with a stone.
So, in my embarrassment, I had three choices: shut up, accept the 'socialist' arguments (this was during the Cold War and this was NOT going to happen), or find some answers on my own. My visit to the local library yielded almost nothing on the subject of free markets or capitalism. The only book I found in the card catalog, circa 1973, was "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal," by Ayn Rand.
What a mind-blowing treasure trove! The book was not just a defense of capitalism, it was an attack on all non-capitalist systems. The logic was direct and powerful. It gave me live ammunition to use against my socialist tormentors...but it also opened up a divide between myself and mainstream conservatives.
At seventeen, I took on "Atlas Shrugged." If any book ever ruined a young man, this was it. The novel is over 1100 pages long, but I remember being so caught up in the story that I was disappointed when I had finished it. I had gotten sucked in. Life in the book was more real than the life I was living. This is not an uncommon phenomenon among young readers of Rand...that's how most 'Randoids' are created. I spent several years believing the answers to damned near any question could be found in one of the innumerable speeches, especially Galt's speech. I was insufferable to my friends and anyone unfortunate enough to be caught around me. I had the worst intellectual disease one can have: absolute certainty.
The circles I travelled in, however, did not think highly of Rand. She, her philosophy, and her novels, were denigrated as elitist, doggerel, simplistic, and unreadable. Though I initially vehemently disagreed, I faced three of decades of dismissive statements by uncountable academics, friends, pundits, and family. I ultimately came to believe that Rand was a flawed philosopher with mediocre writing skills. Whenever I dared to come to the defense of Atlas Shrugged, I usually started with "I know it is a deeply flawed novel, but...."
Let me apologize to Rand, post mortem. Atlas is a wonderful story. It is written with power, and color, and depth, and sensitivity. Contrary to what her critics claim, the story is internally consistent, the characters are complex, and the prose is direct...with pejorative power. This latter trait...the derogatory words used to describe commonly accepted political, economic, moral, and philosophical positions...makes her entertaining and enlightening to those who agree with her, but utterly disgusting to those who do not. Thus she is a lightning rod.
While I am always surprised at the intensity of the venom directed at Rand and her writings, I should not be. To a great extent, Rand gets back what she gives. She labels those who advocate for a welfare state "looters." Ok, I get it. Just like looters, they take from rightful owners, so they are morally and functionally little different from a common thief, albeit with the goal of "helping" people. Nevertheless, using the term "looters" virtually guarantees that advocates of the welfare state will cease to seriously consider the arguments put forward and instead strike back with their own put-downs. If Rand was intending to win over the people she thought were wrong headed "looters" with the force of her logic and the power of her words, she might have considered reading 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' before deciding how to label them. "Looters" and "moochers" was not a good place to start, because the push back resulted in similar name calling, such as "fascist," "Darwinian," "power worshipper," "egotistical," and "cult leader." Discussion of Rand usually gets no farther than this. The vocabulary gets in the way.
Her abrasiveness toward the people she believed held a faulty ideology aside, what about the other accusations? Prose style? Character development? Plot line?
Prose:
Rand's writing style is unique. Some people don't like it. I do. Hemingway had economy of words. Carlyle had biting verbosity. Shakespeare had poetry. Rand had an argument. She worked her ideas over with argumentative insistence, drilling down, down, through her characters and through their language to find the underlying premises. The style, therefore, seems to be direct, and as I said earlier, pejorative. If you agree with her, her language is celebratory. Yes!, you say, finally someone calling a spade a spade! If you disagree, however, it is doggerel. Eleven hundred pages of doggerel.
Characterization:
I used to believe Rand wrote two dimensional characters. Good guys. Bad guys. Stick figures spouting philosophy. Upon rereading Atlas, however, nothing could be further from the truth.
How did the critics miss it? How did I miss it? The self-torture of Hank Reardon. The crushing loneliness of Dagny Taggart. The conflicting loves of Francisco d'Anconia? One must understand their inner lives if one is to understand the things that they do and say. Far from being purple prose, the language these characters use provides the clues to their thoughts as they attempt to reconcile their inner conflicts. Rand leaves us the bread crumbs to follow, but we, the readers, must be willing to follow. Without understanding the inner conflicts, we cannot make sense of Hank's coldness and his inexplicable insults toward Dagny, the woman he loves, at Wyatt's house. Or Francisco's aloofness punctuated by tears. Or Dagny rejecting Hank. Many readers will refuse to follow, for reason's mentioned above, so the characterizations seem strangely stiff and bizarre. For example, they often refer to the sex scenes as sadistic/masochistic rape scenes because they cannot understand the push and pull going on in the characters' psyches. There is more to the characters than appears on the surface. It's a pity it has taken me many years to fully appreciate the depth of the characterizations, and it is unlikely the negative critics will ever discover it.
Plot:
When viewing a play, it has been said that an audience member has an obligation to suspend belief or the play cannot work. I think the same is true for reading a novel. I will admit that I have read novels that I could not 'get into' because for one reason or another I refused to suspend my disbelief. I never had that problem with Atlas Shrugged. Viewed from the inside, the plot development is internally coherent. Actions and events flow from their antecedents and further the story and the themes. I find the plot to be illustrative of the process by which societies go into decline, and so from that standpoint it is also coherent outside the story. Critics have dissed the plot as 'contrived' because it involves things that haven't happened (the collapse of the economy), or unlikely to happen (new source of energy from static electricity, or the disappearance of the most productive members of society...correction...that DID happen in Eastern Europe during the Brain Drain after WWII). Yet critics forget that fiction can do this...all it demands is internal consistency, not scientific proof. I cannot fault the plot. I find it an acceptable frame on which to hang the characters and the themes.
My new-found, or re-found, appreciation of Atlas Shrugged, and Ayn Rand, comes at a time when much of what she warned of is coming true. The corporatism, or crony-capitalism, of our modern society (Think G.E., Halliburton, Boeing) looks eerily like Orren Boyle's Associated Steel, or Paul Larken's mines. Government 'experts' on energy, the environment, and technology sound like Dr. Ferris from the State Science Institute, and the executive orders of Barack Obama sound like the pronouncements of Wesley Mouch. Is life imitating art? Or was Rand onto something when she said the primary evil in the world is the acceptance of the creed that we must give up our selves for the good of our communities and the country. President Obama recently opined how it is good to sacrifice some people (the rich) for the common good (a balanced national budget). This could have come directly out of the pages of Atlas...but the critics would have considered it nothing but exaggerated 'tea bagger' paranoia. Rand anticipated Obama because she recognized, and named, the principle under which he operates. Obama is just the latest in a long line of men who saw it as their right to demand sacrifice from others...then to stand there and collect the booty.
If Rand was right, and I believe she was, then the lessons of Atlas Shrugged have not yet been learned. Collectivism is still on the march. Our lives are not our own, from the assertion of government power to extract any tax they wish, to the power to regulate any behavior they don't like, to the power to lock away and torture people they fear (Bradley Manning?). I know we will not have learned our lesson until we can say "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will not live for the sake of another man nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine."
When I was in high school, a couple of self-described 'socialists' verbally pinned me to the wall and peppered me with questions to which I had no answers. My mile wide/inch deep opinions were quickly exposed, and my stuttering confusion was obvious to everyone. Growing up in a conservative Republican household does not really prepare one to do intellectual battle with the forces of evil...hell...I would have lost an intellectual fight with a stone.
So, in my embarrassment, I had three choices: shut up, accept the 'socialist' arguments (this was during the Cold War and this was NOT going to happen), or find some answers on my own. My visit to the local library yielded almost nothing on the subject of free markets or capitalism. The only book I found in the card catalog, circa 1973, was "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal," by Ayn Rand.
What a mind-blowing treasure trove! The book was not just a defense of capitalism, it was an attack on all non-capitalist systems. The logic was direct and powerful. It gave me live ammunition to use against my socialist tormentors...but it also opened up a divide between myself and mainstream conservatives.
At seventeen, I took on "Atlas Shrugged." If any book ever ruined a young man, this was it. The novel is over 1100 pages long, but I remember being so caught up in the story that I was disappointed when I had finished it. I had gotten sucked in. Life in the book was more real than the life I was living. This is not an uncommon phenomenon among young readers of Rand...that's how most 'Randoids' are created. I spent several years believing the answers to damned near any question could be found in one of the innumerable speeches, especially Galt's speech. I was insufferable to my friends and anyone unfortunate enough to be caught around me. I had the worst intellectual disease one can have: absolute certainty.
The circles I travelled in, however, did not think highly of Rand. She, her philosophy, and her novels, were denigrated as elitist, doggerel, simplistic, and unreadable. Though I initially vehemently disagreed, I faced three of decades of dismissive statements by uncountable academics, friends, pundits, and family. I ultimately came to believe that Rand was a flawed philosopher with mediocre writing skills. Whenever I dared to come to the defense of Atlas Shrugged, I usually started with "I know it is a deeply flawed novel, but...."
Let me apologize to Rand, post mortem. Atlas is a wonderful story. It is written with power, and color, and depth, and sensitivity. Contrary to what her critics claim, the story is internally consistent, the characters are complex, and the prose is direct...with pejorative power. This latter trait...the derogatory words used to describe commonly accepted political, economic, moral, and philosophical positions...makes her entertaining and enlightening to those who agree with her, but utterly disgusting to those who do not. Thus she is a lightning rod.
While I am always surprised at the intensity of the venom directed at Rand and her writings, I should not be. To a great extent, Rand gets back what she gives. She labels those who advocate for a welfare state "looters." Ok, I get it. Just like looters, they take from rightful owners, so they are morally and functionally little different from a common thief, albeit with the goal of "helping" people. Nevertheless, using the term "looters" virtually guarantees that advocates of the welfare state will cease to seriously consider the arguments put forward and instead strike back with their own put-downs. If Rand was intending to win over the people she thought were wrong headed "looters" with the force of her logic and the power of her words, she might have considered reading 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' before deciding how to label them. "Looters" and "moochers" was not a good place to start, because the push back resulted in similar name calling, such as "fascist," "Darwinian," "power worshipper," "egotistical," and "cult leader." Discussion of Rand usually gets no farther than this. The vocabulary gets in the way.
Her abrasiveness toward the people she believed held a faulty ideology aside, what about the other accusations? Prose style? Character development? Plot line?
Prose:
Rand's writing style is unique. Some people don't like it. I do. Hemingway had economy of words. Carlyle had biting verbosity. Shakespeare had poetry. Rand had an argument. She worked her ideas over with argumentative insistence, drilling down, down, through her characters and through their language to find the underlying premises. The style, therefore, seems to be direct, and as I said earlier, pejorative. If you agree with her, her language is celebratory. Yes!, you say, finally someone calling a spade a spade! If you disagree, however, it is doggerel. Eleven hundred pages of doggerel.
Characterization:
I used to believe Rand wrote two dimensional characters. Good guys. Bad guys. Stick figures spouting philosophy. Upon rereading Atlas, however, nothing could be further from the truth.
How did the critics miss it? How did I miss it? The self-torture of Hank Reardon. The crushing loneliness of Dagny Taggart. The conflicting loves of Francisco d'Anconia? One must understand their inner lives if one is to understand the things that they do and say. Far from being purple prose, the language these characters use provides the clues to their thoughts as they attempt to reconcile their inner conflicts. Rand leaves us the bread crumbs to follow, but we, the readers, must be willing to follow. Without understanding the inner conflicts, we cannot make sense of Hank's coldness and his inexplicable insults toward Dagny, the woman he loves, at Wyatt's house. Or Francisco's aloofness punctuated by tears. Or Dagny rejecting Hank. Many readers will refuse to follow, for reason's mentioned above, so the characterizations seem strangely stiff and bizarre. For example, they often refer to the sex scenes as sadistic/masochistic rape scenes because they cannot understand the push and pull going on in the characters' psyches. There is more to the characters than appears on the surface. It's a pity it has taken me many years to fully appreciate the depth of the characterizations, and it is unlikely the negative critics will ever discover it.
Plot:
When viewing a play, it has been said that an audience member has an obligation to suspend belief or the play cannot work. I think the same is true for reading a novel. I will admit that I have read novels that I could not 'get into' because for one reason or another I refused to suspend my disbelief. I never had that problem with Atlas Shrugged. Viewed from the inside, the plot development is internally coherent. Actions and events flow from their antecedents and further the story and the themes. I find the plot to be illustrative of the process by which societies go into decline, and so from that standpoint it is also coherent outside the story. Critics have dissed the plot as 'contrived' because it involves things that haven't happened (the collapse of the economy), or unlikely to happen (new source of energy from static electricity, or the disappearance of the most productive members of society...correction...that DID happen in Eastern Europe during the Brain Drain after WWII). Yet critics forget that fiction can do this...all it demands is internal consistency, not scientific proof. I cannot fault the plot. I find it an acceptable frame on which to hang the characters and the themes.
My new-found, or re-found, appreciation of Atlas Shrugged, and Ayn Rand, comes at a time when much of what she warned of is coming true. The corporatism, or crony-capitalism, of our modern society (Think G.E., Halliburton, Boeing) looks eerily like Orren Boyle's Associated Steel, or Paul Larken's mines. Government 'experts' on energy, the environment, and technology sound like Dr. Ferris from the State Science Institute, and the executive orders of Barack Obama sound like the pronouncements of Wesley Mouch. Is life imitating art? Or was Rand onto something when she said the primary evil in the world is the acceptance of the creed that we must give up our selves for the good of our communities and the country. President Obama recently opined how it is good to sacrifice some people (the rich) for the common good (a balanced national budget). This could have come directly out of the pages of Atlas...but the critics would have considered it nothing but exaggerated 'tea bagger' paranoia. Rand anticipated Obama because she recognized, and named, the principle under which he operates. Obama is just the latest in a long line of men who saw it as their right to demand sacrifice from others...then to stand there and collect the booty.
If Rand was right, and I believe she was, then the lessons of Atlas Shrugged have not yet been learned. Collectivism is still on the march. Our lives are not our own, from the assertion of government power to extract any tax they wish, to the power to regulate any behavior they don't like, to the power to lock away and torture people they fear (Bradley Manning?). I know we will not have learned our lesson until we can say "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will not live for the sake of another man nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine."
Sunday, January 23, 2011
A Light Came On
A light came on in my head. A moment of insight that still has me reeling. No, it's nothing profound that has never been thought of or said before. It's my own little spark of connection, simplification, and...awe.
My entire adult life has been spent reading about, thinking about, and talking about libertarianism, always struggling with the issues of public policy and 'how we get there from here' kind of subjects. The reason for all of the study, thought, and discussion is that the world is full of people who discount libertarian ideas as false, impractical, or idealistic. Of course, my argument has been that the ideas are true, eminently practical...and what's wrong with idealism if the ideals are right?
With a few notable exceptions, hardly anybody changes their minds during an argument or discussion. Usually people, especially poorly informed or misinformed people, bury themselves deeper into their belief system when they are challenged. I suppose this is natural. Nobody wants to be wrong. It strikes too close to our definition of ourselves, and we fear recanting, looking foolish, losing face, and believing we are lesser persons for having been corrected by another. The longer we hold a position, the harder to admit it has been proven false.
I have been operating under the assumption that if I could just find the right words...words...words...to comfort and convince, and...and...convert. So I played with words and arguments, forming them the way a never-satisfied wannabe sculpture artist tortures clay, to make all men into libertarians like me. Always failing. Always trying again. And again. I can be a bore at parties.
It was all so unnecessary. The light that came on was the realization that, without any argument, all men were already libertarians. All men and women, universally, around the world and across cultures and across national boundaries and regardless of religion, race, occupation, or gender, are naturally libertarians. Civil society could not exist if they were not, for libertarianism is nothing more, and nothing less, than treating other people and their property with respect. We all do this everyday and everywhere. Human interactions are overwhelmingly made up of personal contacts between equals. We live near, sell to, buy from, trade with, and leave alone others every single day. At no time do we feel it is our right to steal, maim, intrude, or kill. Those things are wrong in all cultures and all political systems. A society in which killing and stealing is every one's right is doomed to failure as it descends into war and flight. A non-libertarian society will not be a civil society, it will be a wasteland.
The struggle is not to sell libertarianism, but to illustrate the disconnect between our personal morals and our political convictions. It is no more right for me to put a gun to my neighbor's head and demand forty percent of their cash than it is for me to vote for someone to hire someone to put a gun to my neighbor's head and demand forty percent of their cash. Proxy politics removes the thought of moral culpability, but it does not remove the reality. Voting for politicians who vote for an aggressive war in which ninety percent of the casualties are civilians has the same moral dimensions as personally shooting an innocent, cowering Afghan peasant woman. We cannot be excused from the crime because our vote was filtered through politicians, generals, layers of military officers, until it arrived in the hands of a half-boy-half-man with an attitude and a gun.
Personal libertarianism must be reconnected to public libertarianism. That is our most urgent task and our moral duty.
My entire adult life has been spent reading about, thinking about, and talking about libertarianism, always struggling with the issues of public policy and 'how we get there from here' kind of subjects. The reason for all of the study, thought, and discussion is that the world is full of people who discount libertarian ideas as false, impractical, or idealistic. Of course, my argument has been that the ideas are true, eminently practical...and what's wrong with idealism if the ideals are right?
With a few notable exceptions, hardly anybody changes their minds during an argument or discussion. Usually people, especially poorly informed or misinformed people, bury themselves deeper into their belief system when they are challenged. I suppose this is natural. Nobody wants to be wrong. It strikes too close to our definition of ourselves, and we fear recanting, looking foolish, losing face, and believing we are lesser persons for having been corrected by another. The longer we hold a position, the harder to admit it has been proven false.
I have been operating under the assumption that if I could just find the right words...words...words...to comfort and convince, and...and...convert. So I played with words and arguments, forming them the way a never-satisfied wannabe sculpture artist tortures clay, to make all men into libertarians like me. Always failing. Always trying again. And again. I can be a bore at parties.
It was all so unnecessary. The light that came on was the realization that, without any argument, all men were already libertarians. All men and women, universally, around the world and across cultures and across national boundaries and regardless of religion, race, occupation, or gender, are naturally libertarians. Civil society could not exist if they were not, for libertarianism is nothing more, and nothing less, than treating other people and their property with respect. We all do this everyday and everywhere. Human interactions are overwhelmingly made up of personal contacts between equals. We live near, sell to, buy from, trade with, and leave alone others every single day. At no time do we feel it is our right to steal, maim, intrude, or kill. Those things are wrong in all cultures and all political systems. A society in which killing and stealing is every one's right is doomed to failure as it descends into war and flight. A non-libertarian society will not be a civil society, it will be a wasteland.
The struggle is not to sell libertarianism, but to illustrate the disconnect between our personal morals and our political convictions. It is no more right for me to put a gun to my neighbor's head and demand forty percent of their cash than it is for me to vote for someone to hire someone to put a gun to my neighbor's head and demand forty percent of their cash. Proxy politics removes the thought of moral culpability, but it does not remove the reality. Voting for politicians who vote for an aggressive war in which ninety percent of the casualties are civilians has the same moral dimensions as personally shooting an innocent, cowering Afghan peasant woman. We cannot be excused from the crime because our vote was filtered through politicians, generals, layers of military officers, until it arrived in the hands of a half-boy-half-man with an attitude and a gun.
Personal libertarianism must be reconnected to public libertarianism. That is our most urgent task and our moral duty.
Friday, January 7, 2011
A Simple Statement
The core idea of the libertarian philosophy is simple:
That all persons are equally free to live their lives as they see fit.
The "equal freedom" principle has a corollary: no person is entitled to initiate force against another.
Both statements, taken together, form a philosophical yin and yang, an image of positive and negative in the same way the dark image in an Escher print is the outline of the exact same image in the white space.
As an organizing principle for a society, libertarianism supports the rule of law, limits on government power, fairness in jurisprudence, and property rights. If a society attempts to operate without this as an organizing principle it leads to unlimited government power, pressure group politics, plastic rules of fairness in court, and no security of person or property. Many of the great democratic/republican convulsions of the 1700's and 1800's had a strong libertarian core. They were revolting against the despotism of kings and dictators who respected no rules of human fairness. Today, there is only a faint shadow of libertarian principles in old words, barely understood, written on faded parchment. The recent reading of the Constitution by the House of Representatives was a concrete demonstration of pious recitation without comprehension.
On a personal level, however, libertarianism is alive and strong. I would go so far as to say that most people, regardless of where they live, understand and practice libertarianism in their personal lives. In fact, I doubt any civil society can long survive without a firm foundation in the interpersonal respect for each other's person and property.
Wherever you go, the rules of interpersonal relations are the same:
Don't hit, don't hurt, don't murder.
Don't steal.
Don't cheat.
Flush.
The world continues to function because people everywhere practice these rules. A homeowner can keep a nice lawn because of the reasonable assurance no one will drive on it and do 'donuts' in the middle of the night. A shop owner can put goods in easy reach of strangers because he is reasonably sure the strangers will pay for them instead of steal them. An employee will do work for an employer for two weeks because of reasonable assurance they will be compensated at a specified time in the future. A pedestrian will walk down a sidewalk with the reasonable assurance he will not be accosted by thugs.
All of this is possible because each person carries within him a small voice saying: treat others and their belongings with circumspect respect. When enough of a society practices this principle, there is civil tranquility.
There are examples, however, of places where 'reasonable assurance' is not so reasonable. East St Louis. Detroit. Liberia. Why? It's not because people in general have rejected the idea of personal libertarianism. If that were the case, there would be a free-for-all of stealing, assault, and murder without a regret expressed. But because the majority of people living in those cursed places recognize the gross unfairness imposed on them by crooks and thugs, it can be said that their repugnance at the violence and criminality is their statement of desire for libertarian civility. Even most crooks realize what they do is harmful to others and try to hide their actions from view. Only the sociopaths have no consideration for others.
If people took their personal libertarianism and extended it to politics, the resulting government would concern itself only with protection of persons and their property from violence, theft, and fraud. The courts would focus on restitution to victims where possible, not vengeful punishment or coercive behavior modification. Incarceration would be limited to those who cannot be safely allowed to walk the streets: sociopaths. Unless a society is dominated by sociopaths, it is unlikely to need much of a government.
Why is it our politics is so unlibertarian? Because the people have been taught for over 100 years that there is something magical about governments and government officials. The Progressive Era included a faith in experts, bureaucracy (not always a pejorative word), and concentrated government power. The result was a disconnect between our personal lives and our political lives. We would never, personally, put a gun to our neighbor's head, take half of his money, and consider it our right to do so. However, we have accepted the idea that we are justified in doing the same thing as long as we have our 'representative' do it for us. We know it is not our business to force our neighbor to live only in a manner that we approve of, but we feel righteous demanding that our representative licence, tax, regulate, and punish personal lives. We would call it murder if we personally pulled the trigger to intentionally murder an illiterate farmer on the other side of the earth who has never done us harm, yet we demand our representatives put in motion a killing machine that accomplishes the same thing, and we wave flags and 'support the troops' in their misbegotten mission. Personally we respect each other and our property, politically we cancel that respect by endorsing government theft and murder.
(It should be no surprise that the people who tell us these actions are right and justified are themselves sociopaths. See the parallels between politicians and sick sociopaths below:
http://www.rejecttheherd.net/forum/big-brother/ministry-truth/politicians-are-psychopathssociopaths
I will blog on this angle another time.)
Personal libertarianism, practiced consistently, leads to a political system and policies very different from the ones we currently live under. I venture to say that only personal libertarianism can save us from the continued confiscation and despotism we are enduring.
That all persons are equally free to live their lives as they see fit.
The "equal freedom" principle has a corollary: no person is entitled to initiate force against another.
Both statements, taken together, form a philosophical yin and yang, an image of positive and negative in the same way the dark image in an Escher print is the outline of the exact same image in the white space.
As an organizing principle for a society, libertarianism supports the rule of law, limits on government power, fairness in jurisprudence, and property rights. If a society attempts to operate without this as an organizing principle it leads to unlimited government power, pressure group politics, plastic rules of fairness in court, and no security of person or property. Many of the great democratic/republican convulsions of the 1700's and 1800's had a strong libertarian core. They were revolting against the despotism of kings and dictators who respected no rules of human fairness. Today, there is only a faint shadow of libertarian principles in old words, barely understood, written on faded parchment. The recent reading of the Constitution by the House of Representatives was a concrete demonstration of pious recitation without comprehension.
On a personal level, however, libertarianism is alive and strong. I would go so far as to say that most people, regardless of where they live, understand and practice libertarianism in their personal lives. In fact, I doubt any civil society can long survive without a firm foundation in the interpersonal respect for each other's person and property.
Wherever you go, the rules of interpersonal relations are the same:
Don't hit, don't hurt, don't murder.
Don't steal.
Don't cheat.
Flush.
The world continues to function because people everywhere practice these rules. A homeowner can keep a nice lawn because of the reasonable assurance no one will drive on it and do 'donuts' in the middle of the night. A shop owner can put goods in easy reach of strangers because he is reasonably sure the strangers will pay for them instead of steal them. An employee will do work for an employer for two weeks because of reasonable assurance they will be compensated at a specified time in the future. A pedestrian will walk down a sidewalk with the reasonable assurance he will not be accosted by thugs.
All of this is possible because each person carries within him a small voice saying: treat others and their belongings with circumspect respect. When enough of a society practices this principle, there is civil tranquility.
There are examples, however, of places where 'reasonable assurance' is not so reasonable. East St Louis. Detroit. Liberia. Why? It's not because people in general have rejected the idea of personal libertarianism. If that were the case, there would be a free-for-all of stealing, assault, and murder without a regret expressed. But because the majority of people living in those cursed places recognize the gross unfairness imposed on them by crooks and thugs, it can be said that their repugnance at the violence and criminality is their statement of desire for libertarian civility. Even most crooks realize what they do is harmful to others and try to hide their actions from view. Only the sociopaths have no consideration for others.
If people took their personal libertarianism and extended it to politics, the resulting government would concern itself only with protection of persons and their property from violence, theft, and fraud. The courts would focus on restitution to victims where possible, not vengeful punishment or coercive behavior modification. Incarceration would be limited to those who cannot be safely allowed to walk the streets: sociopaths. Unless a society is dominated by sociopaths, it is unlikely to need much of a government.
Why is it our politics is so unlibertarian? Because the people have been taught for over 100 years that there is something magical about governments and government officials. The Progressive Era included a faith in experts, bureaucracy (not always a pejorative word), and concentrated government power. The result was a disconnect between our personal lives and our political lives. We would never, personally, put a gun to our neighbor's head, take half of his money, and consider it our right to do so. However, we have accepted the idea that we are justified in doing the same thing as long as we have our 'representative' do it for us. We know it is not our business to force our neighbor to live only in a manner that we approve of, but we feel righteous demanding that our representative licence, tax, regulate, and punish personal lives. We would call it murder if we personally pulled the trigger to intentionally murder an illiterate farmer on the other side of the earth who has never done us harm, yet we demand our representatives put in motion a killing machine that accomplishes the same thing, and we wave flags and 'support the troops' in their misbegotten mission. Personally we respect each other and our property, politically we cancel that respect by endorsing government theft and murder.
(It should be no surprise that the people who tell us these actions are right and justified are themselves sociopaths. See the parallels between politicians and sick sociopaths below:
http://www.rejecttheherd.net/forum/big-brother/ministry-truth/politicians-are-psychopathssociopaths
I will blog on this angle another time.)
Personal libertarianism, practiced consistently, leads to a political system and policies very different from the ones we currently live under. I venture to say that only personal libertarianism can save us from the continued confiscation and despotism we are enduring.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Sometimes, There's Hope
I have spent an adult lifetime talking to myself. I listen well. I even comment to myself on my comments, and sometimes I even tell myself I am full of it. I am grateful for my own company because at least I take myself seriously.
I can't say as much about my relatives, friends, and aquaintances. Often I am considered to be the strange one. "Oh, that's just Ron being Ron," they say as they giggle at my convoluted attempts to give them a concise rendition of some obscure aspect of libertarianism. Conversation quickly moves away from the Great Questions of our day and on to sports, or personalities, or music, etc.
Such is life. At times, I get a little down at my inability to engage others in serious and enlightening conversation. How, I ask myself (because I am the only one listening) are the problems of our society, our country, or the world to be dealt with if we fail to discuss them seriously, at some depth, and with some integrity? I have been told, and I have told myself, to not expect much because I am looking for what never will be.
But this year, on Christmas night, I saw something interesting happen. A couple of friends that I generally disagree with on all Great Questions, but whom I genuinely like and respect, were having sport with me over the blurb on the back of "The Creature From Jekyll Island." The blurb was fron Ron Paul, someone my friends have only cursory knowledge of and whom they consider just another Republican. One friend, the wife, read the blurb aloud in a faux dramatic voice as a way of poking at me. I did not take it personally, but I also was not sure how to respond to the sarcasm.
Then inspiration struck. I went to my book pile and found "End the Fed," by Ron Paul. I handed it to the husband, while his wife was still reading the other blurb, back cover first. Then I watched as his face went from neutral to wide eyed surprise and leaning back in his chair as if a force had reached out and pushed him backwards suddenly. He recovered, leaned forward, and showed his wife the front cover.
"Ron Paul, 'End the Fed,'" she said. "So?"
The husband flipped the book around and she read the blurb. She threw herself back in her chair. "No way! No fucking way!"
The blurb as by Arlo Guthrie, one of her counter-culture heros.
"We're taking the book home, and my husband is going to read it!"
My words, no matter how carefully chosen, had been unable to open a serious conversation about free markets or libertarianism for 20 years. Yet a simple sentence by Arlo opened the floodgates of interest and passion.
I trust our next gathering will be interesting.
There can be hope, even twenty years too late.
I can't say as much about my relatives, friends, and aquaintances. Often I am considered to be the strange one. "Oh, that's just Ron being Ron," they say as they giggle at my convoluted attempts to give them a concise rendition of some obscure aspect of libertarianism. Conversation quickly moves away from the Great Questions of our day and on to sports, or personalities, or music, etc.
Such is life. At times, I get a little down at my inability to engage others in serious and enlightening conversation. How, I ask myself (because I am the only one listening) are the problems of our society, our country, or the world to be dealt with if we fail to discuss them seriously, at some depth, and with some integrity? I have been told, and I have told myself, to not expect much because I am looking for what never will be.
But this year, on Christmas night, I saw something interesting happen. A couple of friends that I generally disagree with on all Great Questions, but whom I genuinely like and respect, were having sport with me over the blurb on the back of "The Creature From Jekyll Island." The blurb was fron Ron Paul, someone my friends have only cursory knowledge of and whom they consider just another Republican. One friend, the wife, read the blurb aloud in a faux dramatic voice as a way of poking at me. I did not take it personally, but I also was not sure how to respond to the sarcasm.
Then inspiration struck. I went to my book pile and found "End the Fed," by Ron Paul. I handed it to the husband, while his wife was still reading the other blurb, back cover first. Then I watched as his face went from neutral to wide eyed surprise and leaning back in his chair as if a force had reached out and pushed him backwards suddenly. He recovered, leaned forward, and showed his wife the front cover.
"Ron Paul, 'End the Fed,'" she said. "So?"
The husband flipped the book around and she read the blurb. She threw herself back in her chair. "No way! No fucking way!"
The blurb as by Arlo Guthrie, one of her counter-culture heros.
"We're taking the book home, and my husband is going to read it!"
My words, no matter how carefully chosen, had been unable to open a serious conversation about free markets or libertarianism for 20 years. Yet a simple sentence by Arlo opened the floodgates of interest and passion.
I trust our next gathering will be interesting.
There can be hope, even twenty years too late.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Has the Sleeping Giant Awakened?
I used to wonder what it would take for Americans to rise up, enmass, and confront their government. If the news reports are any indication, it is the stories, the voice recordings, and the video of people, some as young as three years old, or as infirm as a disabled cancer patient, being put through a full body scanner or being groped as a prior condition for getting on an airplane. One man, to prove a point, refused the scanners, then refused the pat-down, but willingly stripped to his bike shorts so the TSA could see he had nothing to hide. He was told to put on his clothes so they could pat him down! Then they arrested him for not following instructions!
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/21/gun-crusader-strips-down-shorts-hauled-out-san-die/
Indignation at the overreach of the TSA has gone viral. Someone started the call for a National Opt-Out Day, and over the course of two weeks it has snowballed into a fearsome threat to on-time air travel on the day before Thanksgiving.
The TSA reacted this past weekend. They stated that anyone who disrupts the scanning process or the pat downs will be arrested and fined $10,000. The pat-downs and the scans would go forward as planned, said Mr. Pistole, the head of the TSA. His tough guy attitude struck the exact wrong cord, and the calls for opting out of the naked body scanners intensified. Today, he was somewhat more concilliatory by saying they were looking at procedures to see if they could be made more palatable, and pleading with air travellers to cooperate with the TSA out of consideration for other travellers.
On my way home tonight, my Congressman, Russ Carnahan, got some airtime by saying he was reviewing TSA procedures to see if they couldn't be modified. Russ has never demonstrated the slightest concern for the Constitution. His concern was strictly to make TSA procedures less of a lightning rod. He doesn't want to kill the beast, he wants to tame it.
Debates have raged on TV between civil libertarians, who oppose the very idea of the TSA as well as the security measures they have put in place, and the Safety First crowd that repeats the mantra "anything for safety." One of their best critiques is "if you (libertarians) don't want the TSA to do body scans to keep us safe, what would YOU do to keep us safe?" The best response to that critique is: "it is not the government's job to keep us safe in the air, it is the airlines job to keep us safe in the air." That doesn't directly answer the question so much as it tries to reframe the debate: it's not WHAT will keep us safe, but WHO. I'm not sure most viewers get this.
Nevertheless, there is extensive buzz on the internet and in the mainstream press. We'll know in two days if it has any teeth. It seems to me that the easy way for the TSA to defang the entire threat is to turn off the machines for a day. No machines and no pat downs means no opt-out. The whole protest fizzles. They can always put the rules in place at another time when everyone has gotten a little tired of the arguments.
Personally, I hope the TSA sticks with its' hardline position. That could be the catalyst for a nationwide reality check, some citizen activism, and maybe for some citizen empowerment. If people see the TSA run away from one of their cherished programs because of an incensed public, maybe the public will sense their own power and continue spontaneous challenges to other programs, bureaucracies, and government institutions.
I wonder if the sleeping giant has awakened.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/21/gun-crusader-strips-down-shorts-hauled-out-san-die/
Indignation at the overreach of the TSA has gone viral. Someone started the call for a National Opt-Out Day, and over the course of two weeks it has snowballed into a fearsome threat to on-time air travel on the day before Thanksgiving.
The TSA reacted this past weekend. They stated that anyone who disrupts the scanning process or the pat downs will be arrested and fined $10,000. The pat-downs and the scans would go forward as planned, said Mr. Pistole, the head of the TSA. His tough guy attitude struck the exact wrong cord, and the calls for opting out of the naked body scanners intensified. Today, he was somewhat more concilliatory by saying they were looking at procedures to see if they could be made more palatable, and pleading with air travellers to cooperate with the TSA out of consideration for other travellers.
On my way home tonight, my Congressman, Russ Carnahan, got some airtime by saying he was reviewing TSA procedures to see if they couldn't be modified. Russ has never demonstrated the slightest concern for the Constitution. His concern was strictly to make TSA procedures less of a lightning rod. He doesn't want to kill the beast, he wants to tame it.
Debates have raged on TV between civil libertarians, who oppose the very idea of the TSA as well as the security measures they have put in place, and the Safety First crowd that repeats the mantra "anything for safety." One of their best critiques is "if you (libertarians) don't want the TSA to do body scans to keep us safe, what would YOU do to keep us safe?" The best response to that critique is: "it is not the government's job to keep us safe in the air, it is the airlines job to keep us safe in the air." That doesn't directly answer the question so much as it tries to reframe the debate: it's not WHAT will keep us safe, but WHO. I'm not sure most viewers get this.
Nevertheless, there is extensive buzz on the internet and in the mainstream press. We'll know in two days if it has any teeth. It seems to me that the easy way for the TSA to defang the entire threat is to turn off the machines for a day. No machines and no pat downs means no opt-out. The whole protest fizzles. They can always put the rules in place at another time when everyone has gotten a little tired of the arguments.
Personally, I hope the TSA sticks with its' hardline position. That could be the catalyst for a nationwide reality check, some citizen activism, and maybe for some citizen empowerment. If people see the TSA run away from one of their cherished programs because of an incensed public, maybe the public will sense their own power and continue spontaneous challenges to other programs, bureaucracies, and government institutions.
I wonder if the sleeping giant has awakened.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Ten Thousand Indignities
St Louis Lambert Airport has installed full body scanners in the terminal I usually use when traveling for business. I knew it was coming, ever since the rush-job purchase of the scanners (lobbied for by the former Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, who just happened to represent a company that sells the machines) after the incident with the crotch bomber in Detroit last December.
The whole idea that strip searches of all passengers traveling by plane is a reasonable precaution against the danger of a terrorist event is...well...a real head scratcher. Does it make travellers safer? Not really. Terrorists, like any motivated criminal, look upon fixed solutions, such as metal detectors, bomb sniffing machines, xrayed luggage, etc., as just another wrinkle to be overcome. As was pointed out by one security expert, if the terrorist is on a suicide mission, they may as well have the bomb installed inside their bodies...as supposedly has already been documented:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247338/Terrorists-plan-attack-Britain-bombs-INSIDE-bodies-foil-new-airport-scanners.html
The fact that planes have not been falling out of the sky for the last ten years is not because airports have done a superb job 'keeping us safe,' because the FBI has noted, repeatedly, that the failure rate of TSA at catching test weapons, even weapons barely concealed, is abysmal. Something like 40% are not detected. Since a motivated terrorist is going to be far more creative than a civil service bureaucrat, I have to conclude they haven't attacked the planes because they don't want to.
Are the scanners safe? The manufacturers say they are, but no independent testing can verify it. There is significant debate by xray technicians and engineers about possible damage due to improper calibration, focus, and training. Do the scanners save the naked photos? The government says 'no,' but they lie. The government specifications for construction require that the machines have the ability to store images, even though that function may be turned off. Do the scanners blur the 'sensative' areas? No. If they did, then that would be a prime place to hide a bomb, right? So forget blurring.
None of these issues cause me to lose sleep. If someone in another room somewhere gets herself in a sweat seeing me in the all-together, I consider it a compliment. But that's just me. On the other hand, if it's a guy...I'd rather not think about it.
No, the issues that haunt me are: Does it violate the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, and does this open the door to even more invasive surveilance? Unqualified yes to both.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. (4th Amendment, U.S. Constitution)
Ok, so the counterargument is that we live in a new era and that the Founding Fathers could not have understood 21st century terrorism. To keep us safe, full body scanning is a reasonable measure. As one pundit put it, the Constitution is not a suicide pact, meaning that if it gets in the way of making us safe, then it should be discarded as needed.
I don't have to tell anyone how much this distresses a civil libertarian. It is not in the times of peace and ease when we need to worry about our civil liberties, but in the times of stress and conflict. Infact, during hard times it is more important than ever to jealously guard our personal liberties, such as our rights to due process and protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Tyrants have always used times of distress to impose themselves upon their people under the guise of protecting them. Hermann Goering said all governments bring the people to the bidding of the leaders through crisis. Rahm Emmanual is famous for his phrase "Never let a good crisis go to waste." So in times of difficulty, we need to guard our civil liberties even closer.
The argument from civil liberties, however, generally fails in the face of the argument from 'safety.' As a nation, we crave absolute safety in everything and in the process we have steadily given up our freedom to be armed, to travel, to write and speak freely, to consume what we wish, to take risks, to keep our privacy. All intrusions, ten thousand if there is one, are treated individually as no big deal. Indeed, we usually give the restrictions on our privacy and our independence no serious thought, as they seem to be more of a nusance than anything. Sometimes, however, in moments of clarity, as we stand in line for a permit, license, or other official government approval before going on to do what we would have done anyway, and we sense the oppressiveness of the situation. We see the government functionary behind the desk and feel the uselessness of the paper-shuffling, stamping, stapling, collating, and filing that our lives have become. We wish we could find the words that would make the petty bureaucrat sit back and say...you're right sir, no need for approval, I am interferring with your life, you can go about your business.
That's not the way it works, however. The System is a self-reinforcing network of laws, social norms, and expectations, glued together with 'safety' as a common denominator. Objecting to any given mandated rule, like the need for a building permit to install a new water heater, or the requirement to have a virtual a strip search to get on a plane makes you sound somewhat looney because, after all, it's for your safety. Remember, this is a society where police have announced random voluntary bag searches (NY subway) and people have approached the cops and asked to participate, then THANKED the officers for searching the bag they have been carrying all over town. What? Yes! Or requiring a background check on everyone who wants to buy a gun from a dealer...so only the law abiding go through the process while the scofflaws don't bother...yet the gun laws make us safer because the people who were no danger to anyone are still no danger to anyone? The norm is lunacy. Anyone who calls out the lunacy is the nut!
I am planning to travel via plane out of Lambert Airport in the next few weeks. Though I am conflicted about the process of going through security to get on the plane, I know I have only two choices if I wish to fly: get into that full body scanner, or let a TSA agent give me a hands-on full body pat-down, including a probing of the genitals. Either way, I have to submit or I don't fly. By itself, this latest intrusion into my life does not make or break me...but it is the totality of the experience of life in America, the "freest nation on earth," that is weighing heavily on my mind.
I will not go to the barracades over this. Any protestation will fall on deaf ears, or worse, will get me put on a list with no possible positive outcome. My fellow travellers will not sympathize; TSA agents will continue to 'just do their jobs.' I will either fly or not fly and the TSA could care less. One way or the other, they win this one. Just add it to my list of indignities to be endured.
We think we can pick and choose the indignities we will object to or endure. The truth is: It is all of a kind. We will either reject the 'safety' argument and choose to live with uncertainty, or we will take the 'safety' argument to its' logical conclusion, one little indignity at a time. If we want a different kind of society, we will have to do it from a principled conviction that the grand experiment in human freedom is due for a major 'reset.'
The whole idea that strip searches of all passengers traveling by plane is a reasonable precaution against the danger of a terrorist event is...well...a real head scratcher. Does it make travellers safer? Not really. Terrorists, like any motivated criminal, look upon fixed solutions, such as metal detectors, bomb sniffing machines, xrayed luggage, etc., as just another wrinkle to be overcome. As was pointed out by one security expert, if the terrorist is on a suicide mission, they may as well have the bomb installed inside their bodies...as supposedly has already been documented:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247338/Terrorists-plan-attack-Britain-bombs-INSIDE-bodies-foil-new-airport-scanners.html
The fact that planes have not been falling out of the sky for the last ten years is not because airports have done a superb job 'keeping us safe,' because the FBI has noted, repeatedly, that the failure rate of TSA at catching test weapons, even weapons barely concealed, is abysmal. Something like 40% are not detected. Since a motivated terrorist is going to be far more creative than a civil service bureaucrat, I have to conclude they haven't attacked the planes because they don't want to.
Are the scanners safe? The manufacturers say they are, but no independent testing can verify it. There is significant debate by xray technicians and engineers about possible damage due to improper calibration, focus, and training. Do the scanners save the naked photos? The government says 'no,' but they lie. The government specifications for construction require that the machines have the ability to store images, even though that function may be turned off. Do the scanners blur the 'sensative' areas? No. If they did, then that would be a prime place to hide a bomb, right? So forget blurring.
None of these issues cause me to lose sleep. If someone in another room somewhere gets herself in a sweat seeing me in the all-together, I consider it a compliment. But that's just me. On the other hand, if it's a guy...I'd rather not think about it.
No, the issues that haunt me are: Does it violate the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, and does this open the door to even more invasive surveilance? Unqualified yes to both.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. (4th Amendment, U.S. Constitution)
Ok, so the counterargument is that we live in a new era and that the Founding Fathers could not have understood 21st century terrorism. To keep us safe, full body scanning is a reasonable measure. As one pundit put it, the Constitution is not a suicide pact, meaning that if it gets in the way of making us safe, then it should be discarded as needed.
I don't have to tell anyone how much this distresses a civil libertarian. It is not in the times of peace and ease when we need to worry about our civil liberties, but in the times of stress and conflict. Infact, during hard times it is more important than ever to jealously guard our personal liberties, such as our rights to due process and protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Tyrants have always used times of distress to impose themselves upon their people under the guise of protecting them. Hermann Goering said all governments bring the people to the bidding of the leaders through crisis. Rahm Emmanual is famous for his phrase "Never let a good crisis go to waste." So in times of difficulty, we need to guard our civil liberties even closer.
The argument from civil liberties, however, generally fails in the face of the argument from 'safety.' As a nation, we crave absolute safety in everything and in the process we have steadily given up our freedom to be armed, to travel, to write and speak freely, to consume what we wish, to take risks, to keep our privacy. All intrusions, ten thousand if there is one, are treated individually as no big deal. Indeed, we usually give the restrictions on our privacy and our independence no serious thought, as they seem to be more of a nusance than anything. Sometimes, however, in moments of clarity, as we stand in line for a permit, license, or other official government approval before going on to do what we would have done anyway, and we sense the oppressiveness of the situation. We see the government functionary behind the desk and feel the uselessness of the paper-shuffling, stamping, stapling, collating, and filing that our lives have become. We wish we could find the words that would make the petty bureaucrat sit back and say...you're right sir, no need for approval, I am interferring with your life, you can go about your business.
That's not the way it works, however. The System is a self-reinforcing network of laws, social norms, and expectations, glued together with 'safety' as a common denominator. Objecting to any given mandated rule, like the need for a building permit to install a new water heater, or the requirement to have a virtual a strip search to get on a plane makes you sound somewhat looney because, after all, it's for your safety. Remember, this is a society where police have announced random voluntary bag searches (NY subway) and people have approached the cops and asked to participate, then THANKED the officers for searching the bag they have been carrying all over town. What? Yes! Or requiring a background check on everyone who wants to buy a gun from a dealer...so only the law abiding go through the process while the scofflaws don't bother...yet the gun laws make us safer because the people who were no danger to anyone are still no danger to anyone? The norm is lunacy. Anyone who calls out the lunacy is the nut!
I am planning to travel via plane out of Lambert Airport in the next few weeks. Though I am conflicted about the process of going through security to get on the plane, I know I have only two choices if I wish to fly: get into that full body scanner, or let a TSA agent give me a hands-on full body pat-down, including a probing of the genitals. Either way, I have to submit or I don't fly. By itself, this latest intrusion into my life does not make or break me...but it is the totality of the experience of life in America, the "freest nation on earth," that is weighing heavily on my mind.
I will not go to the barracades over this. Any protestation will fall on deaf ears, or worse, will get me put on a list with no possible positive outcome. My fellow travellers will not sympathize; TSA agents will continue to 'just do their jobs.' I will either fly or not fly and the TSA could care less. One way or the other, they win this one. Just add it to my list of indignities to be endured.
We think we can pick and choose the indignities we will object to or endure. The truth is: It is all of a kind. We will either reject the 'safety' argument and choose to live with uncertainty, or we will take the 'safety' argument to its' logical conclusion, one little indignity at a time. If we want a different kind of society, we will have to do it from a principled conviction that the grand experiment in human freedom is due for a major 'reset.'
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Oh, How The World Has Changed
This YouTube got me to thinking about the Bush/Obama "free speech zones," and how far we have come in just one generation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP3kJwjG0RE
And then there was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djlWmg8wDj0
I was a freshman at the University of Michigan in the 1975-76 school year when Gerald Ford decided to announce at his alma mater his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President.
The event was held at the basketball arena not too far from Central Campus. I, and thousands of other U of M students and local residents, flooded the streets as if we were going to a sporting event. I remember reaching the door to the arena and being surprized that every single person was given a once-over and a bag check before being allowed inside. They even took my umbrella and examined it closely (it was a rainy day). I'd never been exposed to official paranoia before. I remember thinking how silly it was.
The arena was packed. I don't remember exactly, but I think it held about 15,000, and since this was not that long after the Nixon pardon, it was not a friendly crowd. When the president finally appeared at the podium for his speech, the place went nuts. There was little chance of actually hearing Ford over the screaming, yelling, chants, insults, and general mayhem. At one point, someone lit a string of firecrackers (remember, Ford had been the target of two prior assassination attempts) and Secret Service agents came out of the woodwork, tackled Ford, then dashed out into the audience to look for the perpetrator. A half minute later, Ford stepped back to the podium and continued speaking through the renewed chants and cat-calls.
I'm sure Ford could not have picked a worse place to launch his candidacy. The opposition to him was fierce. He must have left Ann Arbor with a very bad feeling about his political future.
Contrast that event 35 years ago with the Bush/Obama era of "free speech zones." Shunted off to fenced-in locations blocks away from the President, the protesters shout but no one hears. They wave signs, but no one sees. How in heaven's name is our government to know when the people are angry? This cannot end well.
I'm afraid our children will come to think of this as normal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP3kJwjG0RE
And then there was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djlWmg8wDj0
I was a freshman at the University of Michigan in the 1975-76 school year when Gerald Ford decided to announce at his alma mater his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President.
The event was held at the basketball arena not too far from Central Campus. I, and thousands of other U of M students and local residents, flooded the streets as if we were going to a sporting event. I remember reaching the door to the arena and being surprized that every single person was given a once-over and a bag check before being allowed inside. They even took my umbrella and examined it closely (it was a rainy day). I'd never been exposed to official paranoia before. I remember thinking how silly it was.
The arena was packed. I don't remember exactly, but I think it held about 15,000, and since this was not that long after the Nixon pardon, it was not a friendly crowd. When the president finally appeared at the podium for his speech, the place went nuts. There was little chance of actually hearing Ford over the screaming, yelling, chants, insults, and general mayhem. At one point, someone lit a string of firecrackers (remember, Ford had been the target of two prior assassination attempts) and Secret Service agents came out of the woodwork, tackled Ford, then dashed out into the audience to look for the perpetrator. A half minute later, Ford stepped back to the podium and continued speaking through the renewed chants and cat-calls.
I'm sure Ford could not have picked a worse place to launch his candidacy. The opposition to him was fierce. He must have left Ann Arbor with a very bad feeling about his political future.
Contrast that event 35 years ago with the Bush/Obama era of "free speech zones." Shunted off to fenced-in locations blocks away from the President, the protesters shout but no one hears. They wave signs, but no one sees. How in heaven's name is our government to know when the people are angry? This cannot end well.
I'm afraid our children will come to think of this as normal.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The Escape Clause
Most Americans are sympathetic to the libertarian ideas of small government, low taxes, equality before the law, innocent until proven guilty, and self-reliance. Many a Tea Party speech has begun with a quote from Jefferson, Madison, and Thoreau. The Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights are enshrined as near perfect documents. Why, then, are people repelled by the term 'libertarian?' Why do some of the advocates of small government attack 'libertarianism' with terms like 'juvenile,' or 'moronic,' or worse? Even regular posters at the dailypaul.com are dismissive of libertarianism, though Ron Paul himself describes himself as a libertarian. How could it be libertarianism could come to be so reviled among people who would otherwise be considered fellow travelers?
I think it's because there is no Escape Clause.
There are different approaches to the origins of libertarian philosophy, but the most common one is the 'non-agression' principle. Stated simply, you may do as you wish with with your life and your property as long as you do not initiate aggression against anyone else's life or property. Nearly everyone says, 'this is all fine, but...'
But what about the poor...we need to steal from some people to give wealth to others.
But what about drug users...we need to take control of their lives because we don't like what they are doing.
But what about health care...we need to force people to value it as much as we do.
But what about (your favorite cause)...we need to enslave others because the results will be good.
Everyone has their Escape Clause. They are happy to agree to the non-aggression principle...as long as they are exempt from it. Everyone seems to have a little larceny in them. Of course, and entire society built around larceny quickly becomes a free-for-all for pickpockets. That, I think is the society we currently live in. Many of my friends would say, "So...?" They accept the idea that everyone is out to steal from everyone else...that's just the way it is.
Yet these same people are the Tea Partiers who decry the confiscation by taxes of their hard earned money. I believe they are concious of their hypocrisy...they just can't help themselves. They feel they need the legal option to steal or enslave, at least a little, if they feel like it. They WANT their Escape Clause.
So they have it. And they have the society that results from it, and they are not happy. What these Tea Partiers can't fathom is that once it is accepted that robbing, maiming, and killing others for what they consider necessary reasons, they have essentially muttered the open sesame that makes all other reasons acceptable. The tepid conservatives, who mouth the words about individual liberty, hand to their big-government, big spending, high tax, regulate-them-'till-they bleed, opposition all the justifications for every confiscation, imposition, and oppression known to man. The big government people don't need an escape clause. They just need the small government people to agree there must be one. Or one hundred. Or seventy thousand (the number of pages of Federal Regulations, minus the sixteen thousand pages of the Tax Code).
This is the essence of the Escape Clause. It is the escape from morality, the blessing of the cruel, and the justification of the unjust. It is the purposeful breaking of our moral compass so we can be freed from the dictates of universal principles that cross over all cultures and epochs: It is wrong to rob, injure, enslave, or kill another human being. Indeed, an entire class of educated, attractive, and engaging people argues that not only are these actions acceptable, they are necessary and noble. Psychology labels these people 'sociopaths;' they label themselves 'public servants.'
Libertarianism does not have Escape Clauses. It says you should not rob, nor is it acceptable to get your Congressman to rob for you. You should not injure, nor should you get the police to do it for you. You should not enslave, and no government should force other's to live for your sake.
So because libertarianism advocates individual liberty, but does not twist itself in a knot creating moral loopholes, it is considered moronic.
Got it.
I think it's because there is no Escape Clause.
There are different approaches to the origins of libertarian philosophy, but the most common one is the 'non-agression' principle. Stated simply, you may do as you wish with with your life and your property as long as you do not initiate aggression against anyone else's life or property. Nearly everyone says, 'this is all fine, but...'
But what about the poor...we need to steal from some people to give wealth to others.
But what about drug users...we need to take control of their lives because we don't like what they are doing.
But what about health care...we need to force people to value it as much as we do.
But what about (your favorite cause)...we need to enslave others because the results will be good.
Everyone has their Escape Clause. They are happy to agree to the non-aggression principle...as long as they are exempt from it. Everyone seems to have a little larceny in them. Of course, and entire society built around larceny quickly becomes a free-for-all for pickpockets. That, I think is the society we currently live in. Many of my friends would say, "So...?" They accept the idea that everyone is out to steal from everyone else...that's just the way it is.
Yet these same people are the Tea Partiers who decry the confiscation by taxes of their hard earned money. I believe they are concious of their hypocrisy...they just can't help themselves. They feel they need the legal option to steal or enslave, at least a little, if they feel like it. They WANT their Escape Clause.
So they have it. And they have the society that results from it, and they are not happy. What these Tea Partiers can't fathom is that once it is accepted that robbing, maiming, and killing others for what they consider necessary reasons, they have essentially muttered the open sesame that makes all other reasons acceptable. The tepid conservatives, who mouth the words about individual liberty, hand to their big-government, big spending, high tax, regulate-them-'till-they bleed, opposition all the justifications for every confiscation, imposition, and oppression known to man. The big government people don't need an escape clause. They just need the small government people to agree there must be one. Or one hundred. Or seventy thousand (the number of pages of Federal Regulations, minus the sixteen thousand pages of the Tax Code).
This is the essence of the Escape Clause. It is the escape from morality, the blessing of the cruel, and the justification of the unjust. It is the purposeful breaking of our moral compass so we can be freed from the dictates of universal principles that cross over all cultures and epochs: It is wrong to rob, injure, enslave, or kill another human being. Indeed, an entire class of educated, attractive, and engaging people argues that not only are these actions acceptable, they are necessary and noble. Psychology labels these people 'sociopaths;' they label themselves 'public servants.'
Libertarianism does not have Escape Clauses. It says you should not rob, nor is it acceptable to get your Congressman to rob for you. You should not injure, nor should you get the police to do it for you. You should not enslave, and no government should force other's to live for your sake.
So because libertarianism advocates individual liberty, but does not twist itself in a knot creating moral loopholes, it is considered moronic.
Got it.
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