Who Plans Whom? » crime

Re: People who Piss me off: Free Market Anarchists

Justin Oliver — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Ad hominem attacks aside, YouTuber hawanja’s video on free-market anarchists seems to make the point that people “naturally organize themselves into hierarchies” that require violence to be maintained, so anarchism runs counter to the human condition. It is left unstated why violence is needed or ethically justified to maintain these hierarchies if they were so natural. He further claims that a state is the historically necessary “institution that enforces order through violence.”

The first of hawanja’s misunderstandings has to do with his definition of “state.” A key distinction I and Barack Obama would make is that a state claims a territorial monopoly on its enforcement of order through violence. The insinuation of hawanja’s definition, which ignores the territorial monopoly claim, is that any enforced order necessarily signifies the presence of a state. Throughout the entire video, viewers are presented with this false dichotomy: statism or chaos. Anarchists do not oppose order. The etymological origin of “anarchy” means no ruler (not no rules), similarly how “monarchy” means one ruler. Regardless, statists generally insist on conflating “anarchy” to mean a conflict for rulership that takes place in a failed state. Anarchism recognizes that rulers are not justified in their actions and are counter-productive to a peaceful, productive existence.

Another unfounded assertion is that “this natural hierarchical structure to human beings” is justified in using force to maintain its power. After all, just as a good majority of people naturally like ice cream, I hardly think that would justify “natural hierarchical structures” enforcing the consumption of ice cream.

The Enemy of My Enemy

Another tried and true fallback in defense of the state is the canard that a state is necessary to protect us from corporations, which hawanja rightly pointed out are creatures of plutocratic state protections and subsidies. They are granted limited liability by governments and are under a legal obligation to pursue the interests of shareholders, not employees or the environment or the public. However, should the blame rest with corporations or also with their architects (governments) that created them and shield them from accountability?

He cites laws prohibiting discrimination and child labor and food safety and consumer protections as examples of good government. Of course, governments have historically been used to promote all sorts of racial discrimination, child labor, and made food and consumer protections harder to come by and more expensive. hawanja unintentionally, I presume, confirmed this point when he showed a picture of Rosa Parks, the civil rights heroine arrested for disobeying a segregationist city ordinance that ordered she give up her seat to a white passenger, when he mentioned government laws prohibiting discrimination.

I think it is all well and good that government-enforced slavery and Jim Crow apartheid, the more overt government measures used to uphold discrimination, have been removed. However, that does not do so much to help those past victims of discrimination. All the ways that governments prohibit wealth creation has meant that past victims of government-enforced discrimination continue to suffer at the hands of government-enforced poverty. As Charles Johnson summed up in his “How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It” essay, “The poorer you are, the more you need access to informal and flexible alternatives, and the more you need opportunities to apply some creative hustling. When the state shuts that out, it shuts poor people into ghettoized poverty.”

Governments are not responsible for ending child labor. As a thought experiment, just consider what would happen if child labor was prohibited by law in Nepal. It would have the same effect as enacting California-style building codes in Haiti: absolutely none, because there is no wealth to implement those laws. The credit for the advancement of human civilization rests with the grandest form of human cooperation, the wealth-creating division of labor.

Coincidentally, I would think the issue of discrimination would create another dilemma for supporters of the state. Historically, racism, sexism and slavery would have been considered “natural hierarchical structure[s] to human beings,” just as the state is said to be. Yet, left-liberals, as I suppose hawanja is, do not propose that the enforcement of racism, sexism or slavery was just. Based on what principle though? And how would that principle not equally apply to racism, sexism and slavery?

hawanja also appears to be under the impression that governments were responsible for the abolition (or near abolition) of child labor, neglecting the fact that child labor is still legal in the United States under some circumstances. More to the point, mass child labor was an example of a problem exacerbated by the heavy hand of government. Had it not been for mercantilist and protectionist Robber Baron economic policies of the 19th century, wealth creation for the average family would have been realized much more broadly and quickly so that parents could afford to send their children to school sooner. Many social problems, including institutional discrimination, that governments are credited with fixing were largely already successfully being addressed through direct action before legislative interventions took place.

Consider consumer protections against price fixing. Historic examples of consumer protection during the Progressive Era were done at the behest of business interests. As noted liberal historical Gabriel Kolko wrote of the implementation of the Federal Trade Commission, in “The Triumph of Conservatism”:

The provisions of the new laws attacking unfair competitors and price discrimination meant that the government would now make it possible for many trade associations to stabilize, for the first time, prices within their industries, and to make effective oligopoly a new phase of the economy.

He called it a triumph of conservatism because federal intervention into the economy was able to secure the existing economic structure, what Kolko called “political capitalism” and what we know today as “crony capitalism” and “corporatism.” In Kolko’s conclusion, he said:

The varieties of rhetoric associated with progressivism were as diverse as its followers, and one form of this rhetoric involved attacks on businessmen—attacks that were often framed in a fashion that has been misunderstood by historians as being radical. But at no point did any major political tendency dealing with the problem of big business in modern society ever try to go beyond the level of high generalization and translate theory into concrete economic programs that would conflict in a fundamental way with business supremacy over the control of wealth. It was not a coincidence that the results of progressivism were precisely what many major business interests desired.

Kolko’s book is something, documenting how nearly every aspect of the Progressive Era legislation — from food inspections, environmental conservation and banking reforms, for example — were used as covers to cement the existing cartelized trusts already in power.

The book does a great job of documenting the problem with hierarchical institutions, that the people who already have the most access to the government are going to have the most influence in shaping what solutions are offered, how they are interpreted and how they would be implemented. Regulators — like all self-interested creatures — are sure to implement solutions that preserve their power and prospects for future employment, since their interests closely align with those of the regulated. If regulators or politicians are corruptible with bribes, the powerful can leverage their influence to a greater degree than they could in a freer market. For just a fraction of the cost, favorable regulations worth millions of dollars can be bought with campaign contributions. On a free market, it would be more costly to bribe someone who did not have the luxury of using taxes, as government regulators can, to pay for the enforcement of regulatory or legislative cronyism.

Making More Trouble

Next, the video documents social problems that libertarians typically attribute to government. In the past, I might have been guilty of short-changing why those problems are a consequence of government intervention, so I will take the time below to make the points clear.

Food prices — Yes, governments subsidize cattle and meat production at the expense of healthier, more natural forms of food, and place restrictions on the importation of those products. It is not a market phenomenon that it costs more to purchase a salad than a hamburger. All the resources devoted to feeding cows and other animals and creating bio-fuels like corn-based ethanol could have been used to produce food for organic diets. In addition, the federal government has sealed off arable land that could be used to farm, and city ordinances often place restrictions on mixed-use property, some of which could be used for home or community gardens on abandoned property.
Low wages — The ways in which labor organizing is discriminated against is too long to list. Just to list some examples, I would point to the ’35 Wagner Act, which was championed by business interests and conservative unions to clip the more wildcat unions like the anarchist International Workers of the World. Typical demands, like collective bargaining and calling for limited strikes, that unions are legally permitted to make today are pretty meek by comparison. Before the era of having to get government recognition, when most of the historic gains of the labor movement were actually realized, unions could call for general strikes and indirect boycotts, opened union hiring halls, signed closed-door contracts or demanded worker management of the firm. Other government interventions are through occupational licensing laws, use-restricted zoning regulations, legal tender laws, capitalization requirements and capital-favored taxation policies that mean more people have to work for wage labor in the first place.
College expenses — It is not a coincidence that college tuition expenses increase at the same time that governments actively encourage people to go into debt by providing low-interest loans and restricting the establishment of new higher education options. The government and the corporate credentialism fetish is also partly to blame. One major expense of college is the cost of textbooks, which are artificially marked up do to the enforcement of artificial intellectual property claims.
Environmental conservation — It is also no secret that common law environmental tort protections were removed from courts in the 1900s, which is how pollution problems were handled until environmental legislation that legalized greater environmental damage took power out of the hands of property owners. That is not to mention that the largest polluter in the entire world is the United States federal government.
Drug safety — Yes, illicit drugs are more dangerous because of government. They cannot be made under true laboratory conditions; there is no possibility of any legal redress for fraud; and every year millions of people acting consensually are terrorized by government agents and hundreds if not thousands are killed by those government agents. The crime and escalated costs associated with drugs are a consequence of prohibition.
Terrorism — See “Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire” by Chalmers Johnson.

At the beginning of the video, hawanja criticized the favoritism that governments grant corporations, only later to praise the cronyism of farm subsidies for multimillion dollar farm conglomerates. He said that government protection has led to stable food prices in the United States, which is not so true of late. However, the relative stability has only come because Americans already pay much higher prices for foods like sugar than do residents of developing nations. In terms of dollars, the average American family transfers an additional $146 to large agribusinesses every year because of these policies, which do not include the approximate $300 per family given directly to mostly multimillionaires through the federal budget. The costs of milk, butter and meat products would be deflated if trade restrictions on international markets were abolished, helping to reduce poverty overseas.

Looking at the unintended consequences of those subsidies, the abundance of corn, some of which is used to sweeten sodas, has been linked to increased obesity in Americans. There is also the problem that developing nations wanting to compete in farm production are constantly being underpriced by subsidized farmers, leading developing nations to become dependent on subsidized farmers for food. That is something developed nations hold over developing nations as part of “Open Door Imperialism,” but it is not a fact I would cheer. Without government protectionism, land use could become more environmentally friendly, as well. A Reason magazine article said:

The distortions and perverse incentives of U.S. agricultural policies have encouraged practices that damage the environment. Trade barriers and subsidies stimulate production on marginal land, leading to overuse of pesticides, fertilizers, and other effluents. A central if unstated purpose of American farm policy is to promote production of commodities that would not be economical under competitive, free market conditions. This often means emphasizing crops better grown elsewhere, requiring more chemical assistance.

The conclusion of the video makes a laundry list of mandates that hawanja thinks the free market could not provide, like affordable housing and health care, public transportation, environmental and consumer protections, expanded broadband internet coverage, protection for the homeless, protection of endangered species, food and medical safety and national security. He said that the free market cannot do these things; “we do these things because we need them to survive.” His unstated argument is that these are public goods that markets cannot provide for.

I have argued in the past that with a little creativity, public goods can be provided, assuming there is public support for those goods, which would also have to be the case in a democratic government. To quote Kevin Carson, “As always, it’s not a question of what we’ll do when the state stops solving the problem. It’s a question of how to stop the state from creating the problem.”

The problem becomes that regardless of the possibility of providing those public goods on an open market, those goods become harder to achieve with a government in place, which creates an entirely new set of obstacles for achieving those original public goods governments were purportedly created to solve in the first place. Public goods, like security and safety, are not impossible for governments to provide, just costlier and more difficult than they would be on a free market. The first new public good created by the presence of a democratic government would be an informed electorate. It is not in the average person’s economic interest to know much about the issues at hand or the candidates running for office. That is because a single individual’s vote has almost no significance in the outcome of an election, and even if a single vote could turn an election, a voter has no method of holding a politician to his or her campaign pledges. It gets worse. A single politician in Washington, D.C., is one of 535 votes in the legislature. The idea that a citizen’s vote would make any noticeable difference to the his or her life is almost inconceivable.

The second public good that must be provided for in order to solve the original public goods problems is the creation of just laws. When thinking about it, there are thousands and thousands of pages of legislation and regulation under discussion. It would be next to impossible and meaningless to read every line of every bill introduced or regulation proposed in order to find out if some special benefit is being given to this or that special interest lobbyists. Even if we could decipher what the legislation or proposed regulation meant and its impact in the future, which would be difficult enough, contacting a congressman or regulator is going to have a negligible impact on influencing policy. Even if we could change the policy, it most likely only means a savings of a few dollars or cents per voter. Special interests who stand to gain millions or billions are always going to have the time and money to devote to gaining special favors.

Since human beings are not perfect or all-knowing, market failure is possible, but as David Friedman notes, “In the political system, market failure is the norm. If you think of the political system as a marketplace, we cannot expect individual rationality to produce group-rational results.” So the idea that government would work if we could only get the right people in charge is a failed strategy in practice and beyond naïve in theory.

When a government does try to address public goods that allegedly cannot be provided by the market, policies are going to serve the powerful and wealthy. Seeing how I would actually like to see those public goods provided to people, I cannot support a government, because a government makes those products less attainable for the people who most desperately need them.

Explaining Why Taxation Is Theft

Justin Oliver — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:00:53 +0000

I recently saw a video clip of Michael Moore calling other people’s money “a national resource.” I have to agree that in some cases other people’s money is not truly their own. For example, the wealth of Moore and others who benefit from government privileges, in Moore’s case intellectual property laws, would belong to others had it not been for the enforcement of arbitrary property claims. The executives of Halliburton and other government contractors benefit enormously from their relationships with politicians.

However, most people are not on the positive end of government privilege, and taxing wealth acquired without the use of government aggression (protections or subsidies) would be theft. Calling taxation theft can sometimes offend people. After all, by alleging that taxation is equivalent to the moral crime of theft, libertarians could be thought of as condemning supporters of taxation, many of whom, including Michael Moore, hold their belief out of an honest moral conviction. For them, not supporting taxation is the height of cruelty.

The purpose for making such a charged statement that taxation is theft (besides being true) is that it challenges conventional political beliefs. It is a contest of values, and libertarians who oppose taxation make this point in order to highlight the inconsistencies in political ideologies. They are demanding some explanation as to why people in governments should be held to different principles than others. Supporters of taxation know this, so they have weaved farcical tales for why taxation is voluntary. Some may call it a social (read: imaginary) contract, which conveys that people residing within a certain geographic territory implicitly agreed to support it. As I will explain below, even if such an explicit contract existed, it would give no credence for taxation.

From what I recall, there are at least six explanations as to why taxation is theft (extortion more precisely). These explanations are often fused together in some arrangement or another, and some are simply incompatible with one another. I do not happen to agree with every one, but I wanted to offer a complete array of moral arguments against the support for taxation. Before I begin, I will note that contemporary argument that an individual consents to the social contract or constitution simply by remaining within a territory or accepting services presupposes what it is trying to prove, that the social contract or constitution is legitimate, the very thing in question. It is a circular, invalid argument.

Taxation is founded on the belief that the exercise of an inalienable right is a privilege, a self-contradiction. People who refused to remit taxes for performing a particular right (e.g. owning property or earning an income) would no longer be able to exercise that right without coercion being enacted upon them, which would undermine from the outset the stated purpose of forming a government. If an implicit contract or written constitution did exist that permitted taxation, it would be unexecutable and invalid from the beginning since one’s (inalienable) natural rights cannot be suspended, making the contract unexecutable and thus void. In a previous post, I explained why I believe rights are inalienable for the fact that free will, a basis for the formation of rights, is inalienable. One way to think of inalienability is that rights are in effect moral obligations on others to refrain from using force against someone. That moral obligation is not for another to give away, so signing away one’s inalienable rights is a self-contradiction. A contract to give up one’s inalienable rights could at most be seen as a (non-binding) promise, just as a slave contract would be.
The central tenet of government, the final decision-making authority to resolve disputes within a territory, is illegitimate, nullifying the legitimacy of government altogether, let alone the power to tax.
Taxation is premised on the claim that the item being taxed is the property of the state or society, as Michael Moore believes. The reason someone might reject that idea is because governments or societies have no rights over citizens; legitimate governments act by permission (which can be revoked), not by right, and nor for that matter could voters grant permission to someone else’s property; therefore, government would never be justified in using coercion to extract payment for taxes. Similarly how a power of attorney can sign contracts on behalf of a client, an agent (the government) is under the authority of its principals (the citizens).
Without the liberty to refuse to consent, expressing consent is impossible. So by preventing the option of withdraw by means of secession, it is not possible to express consent to delegate any powers to government.
Almost all governments in existence came about by exploiting the existing property claims of land owners, and those who did explicitly consent are no longer alive.
Anarchists who adopt the occupancy-and-use theory of land tenure reject the enforcement of rents, which would include taxes, against people in possession and use of a property.

In light of all this, many still defended taxation on the basis that a tax is the fee that must be paid for government services. But this is fallacious. Existing ways that services are provided for include borrowing funds and counterfeiting the government-mandated currency. From a libertarian perspective, taxes could be coerced from people who acquired their wealth by ill-gotten means like government aggression, but only if the taxes were paid to victims as direct payments whenever possible or as services otherwise. For as long as a government did exist, it would not have to be limited to raising revenue by issuing taxes. It could just as well sell off assets, charge user fees for performing services customers ordered (assuming there were no monopoly privileges in place) or just ask for donations.

Even if the handful of above objections were overcame, taxes are demanded whether a service is provided or not. It is true that governments do provide services, but they do so out of concern for maintaining popular support, not because there is any legal obligation to do so. In a voluntary transaction, a buyer is entitled to a refund if the service fails to be provided accordingly, which is plainly not the case with government.

In the above post, I gave six explanations as to why taxation might be considered immoral and unworthy of support. I also rebutted the idea that taxes are owed for the performance of government services, which is usually the final objection raised by tax supporters. In many ways, taxation is worse than extortion. When people have wealth taken from them without their consent, that is likely the last time the thief will harass them. But taxation is altogether more insidious. As Lysander Spooner said:

The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.

The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a “protector,” and that he takes men’s money against their will, merely to enable him to “protect” those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these.

Moral Failings of the Biblical God

Justin Oliver — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 18:00:07 +0000

Putting aside the question of whether god is a logically valid concept, there are a handful of reasons that no person should consider oneself a Christian even if the Biblical god plainly revealed himself to exist. The simple fact is that his moral failings would be so rampant that no person should grant him praise or admiration.

Committing Genocide — In the first book of the Bible, God decides Man is so evil that almost all living things must be killed in a worldwide flood, including children and animals. There is little discussion of why such a step is taken, and no convincing explanation is offered. Also left unanswered is why it was necessary to kill so many animals, which could have provided some value to the poverty stricken people of that time. It is inconceivable that it could be. Unfortunately, this would not be the last time God was responsible for the premeditated murder of children.
In Egypt, the Israelites were being held as tax slaves to the state. Following a series of plagues that God commanded in an effort to besiege the pharaohs into freeing the Israelites, God concluded by killing the firstborn child of Egyptian families. By comparison, the American government’s economic sanctions and illegal invasion of Iraq, which together have resulted in more than a million deaths, seem tame.
Condoning Chattel Slavery — I have never heard of a respected living conscious being that has ever condoned slavery, save for God. Surely, he must have seen the shift in public opinion coming.
Throughout the Bible, though, slave owners are told how to conduct themselves but not that slavery is evil, that the pretense of the ownership of another person is evil. Sickeningly, slaves are even told to obey their masters.
Enforcing Inherited Guilt — A central tenent of Christianity is that everyone is evil as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve from God’s grace in the Garden of Eden. The early parts of the Bible display cases of people being punished for the sins of the father. Really, what sense does that make?
Morality is a matter of choice. To say that human beings are inherently evil (or good) would mean that they are not responsible for their decisions. It would be like a doorman forcing me into a casino to play craps only to find out during my roll that I have no choice but to play with the trick dice provided by the casino. I then have to pledge my unquestioned support and offer remuneration to pay off the inevitable debt I have incurred. The whole idea is mad and undermines a proper conception of morality.
Punishing Victimless Crimes — For not supporting god, according the the Bible, I can expect eternal punishment. The belief as to what exactly such a punishment consists of spans across a wide spectrum. Some believe this punishment will consist of unspeakable torture, while others say an unbeliever remains in an oblivious unconscious rest.
A central tenant of a civilized legal theory is that a crime has only occurred when a non-consenting individual has sustained an articulable injury to one’s person or property. Refusing my allegiance to the Bibilical god can in no way be an injury to a living person, much less to an immaterial entity. For example, even if I refused to acknowledge that Michael Jordon existed or if I believed that he was a terrible basketball player, I am not causing an injury to his body or property. A further difference is that Michael Jordon exists in material reality, while believers in the concept of god concede that god exists only in an immaterial supernatural realm that I presently am not able to experience.

Since I can pose no possible injury to a god, I have a pretty strong case of being a victim of extortion since this almighty god has purposefully made such an ambiguous threat of eternal torture against me.

These are just some of the more egregious moral failures of the Biblical god. Even for those who believe the concept of god is valid, the tyrannical god described in the Bible could very well be a test of a believer’s moral code. So even if we played Pascal’s wager, there is at least as much reason to not lend your support for such a vile creature.

A Brief Argument Against Theft

Justin Oliver — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 18:00:09 +0000

Even if someone derived material satisfaction from a theft and never provided restitution for the crime, you might think that person would be happier or better for it. Not so. Material satisfaction is only one aspect of happiness. Self-esteem is also a component of happiness. A major factor of self-esteem is self-reliance. So long as a person gains material values from the productivity of others, his or her self-esteem will suffer and, consequently, so will his or her happiness.

That is not to say trade is immoral. A person who can produce values that others desire is living independently in the sense that person is consuming only what others have consensually agreed he or she earns.

Since productivity is a necessary component for life, thiefs who willfully refuse to provide restitution for their crimes despite an ability to do so understand that they are able but not willing to survive on their own. At a fundamental level, they know they are not worthy of the life they have. These (for lack of a better word) spiritual values mostly pertain to consciousness, and so they contribute to one’s reasoning ability in the immediate and long term.

The mistake often made when examining the consequences of an action like theft is to take a snapshot of time, as if that represents the full picture of the circumstance. I would not argue that a starving person who steals a loaf of bread is worse off. However, it does seem self-evident to me that the person would maintain a happier life by taking actions to be able to live independently so that he or she is in the position to compensate the original owner.

The ‘Terrorism’ Creep

Justin Oliver — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:00:38 +0000

The response from politicians to the WikiLeaks dump of American embassy cables has been almost universal condemnation, save of course for Ron Paul, who somewhat facetiously made a public request of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to release undisclosed Federal Reserve agreements with foreign governments.

Predictably, you have the Obama administration calling the release of classified documents a danger to national security and agents in the field (a demonstrable canard). Joseph Lieberman, with the federal police at his disposal as head of the Homeland Security Committee, successfully lobbied Amazon Web Services (AWS) to sever ties with WikiLeaks after Lieberman introduced legislation to target WikiLeaks for espionage. AWS said it terminated WikiLeaks’ hosting service after citing a rather weak case of terms of service violations. Under pressure from the federal government, PayPal leveled nearly the same charge (promoting illegal activity) for terminating its donation services for WikiLeaks.

That was not the last of WikiLeaks’ troubles. AWS had only temporarily provided hosting after a massive cyber attack Nov. 28 crashed the site’s previous servers. Later, EveryDNS too stopped its support, effectively taking WikiLeaks offline for anyone who didn’t have access to the site’s IP address. And Twitter is reportedly preventing WikiLeaks-related tweets from populating its Trends list. Most recently, the Swiss government shut down a bank account, and an Interpol arrest warrant has been issued for Assange for alleged “sex crimes.”

Republicans are calling Assange a “high-tech terrorist” who “should be treated as an enemy combatant.” Sarah Palin is asking why Assange is “not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.” Even if Palin got her way, history thankfully indicates that Assange would be free for another 10 years. Having continued their support for wars and occupations, Obama, Lieberman and Republicans have a lot more to answer for than Julian Assange, whose critics obviously do not understand where their argument is leading. Since if disclosing the truth about the government’s actions is an act of terrorism, just imagine what that reveals about the government’s actions.

To tell the truth is now considered terrorism by some. The week before, there was an unconfirmed report that anyone who demonstrated to inform passengers of the invasive and ineffective Transportation Safety Administration’s policies would be considered domestic extremists, which is just a few rungs below a domestic terrorist.

The denotation of “terrorism” is the use or threat of violence against civilians for political or religious purposes. In less than a decade, the government has manipulated the “war on terrorism” to be an attack against peaceful people who expose government misdeeds. That is inevitable, I suppose. Out of a simple inclination for job security, a monopolistic entity tasked with providing safety is going to spend a great deal of its time heightening the perception of new threats to justify expanding its powers.

The Internet has already provided a glimpse of the response from WikiLeaks supporters. Hundreds of mirror sites have sprung up. A new decentralized DNS service is in the works. Donations are being made, and Anonymous has mobilized Operation Avenge Assange, the tactics of which I do not necessarily support. The government and the media are going to get a quick lesson why you can bet on networks topping command and control every time.

Escaping the Poverty Abyss

Justin Oliver — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:00:46 +0000

A resurgence of scholarship documenting the structural causes of poverty has been surfacing, according to the New York Times. I think researchers are making some valid insights into the causes of poverty, which sits atop a 15-year high and reaches 44 millions Americans, but they have a huge blind spot for the underlying reasons for the generational poverty of those in the inner cities.

Some of the latest studies have concentrated on the “culture of poverty,” which predominantly has been the domain of conservatives for the past 40 years to rest blame for the plight of the poor. As the Times reported, today’s studies differ in that they assign blame for the “destructive attitudes and behavior not to inherent moral character but to sustained racism and isolation.”

Though I am not one to reject the historical legacy of racism that denied blacks equal opportunities and equal treatment under the law, I tend to reject both conventional liberal and conservative explanations for poverty. That is, I do not believe poverty is a result of the market, nor is it the result of laziness.

Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson said the “poverty trap” is “related to a common perception of the way people in a community act and think,” again according the article. Sampson conducted a study whereby he dropped stamped, addressed envelopes in different neighborhoods to see how many were returned. The results were dramatic. In a former housing project, no envelopes were returned, but more than half were returned in another neighborhood with a similar income demographic. He said the differences were due to cynicism people had about their communities.

Others are looking into how growing up in a violent neighborhood reduces socialization and hinders the development of linguistic abilities by some six IQ points. Family structures are also an important piece to understand the persistent state of inner-city poverty. One-parent families are much more commonplace today than ever before, which reduces the level of parental development and caretaking.

I have to say that these latest studies are a blessing, even if the researchers are not yet hitting on the root of these problems — statism.

A lot of the cynicism stems from a genuine distrust of the law and the people trusted with enforcing the law. Those trapped in poverty have no alternative justice services to support, as allowing competing justice services would compromise “what essentially sets a nation-state apart, which is the monopoly on violence,” Barack Obama acknowledged.

Just in Dallas County alone, a dozen people who were serving prison time have been exonerated based on DNA evidence. These are just a few of the thousands of cases in which DNA evidence was available. Most people languishing in prison are there for petty, non-violent crimes in which no one was put in danger. The drug war has disproportionately hit black men more than any group, so of course there will be more single-parent homes in predominantly black neighborhoods. Welfare programs also incitivize mothers to stay single, according to Mary Ruwart’s book “Healing Our World.” In fact, a Heritage study said that children who recieved aid show “cognitive abilities 20 percent below those who had received no welfare, even after holding family income, race, parental IQ, and other variables constant.”

Additionally, if you do not expect to receive justice, what good is there to care about the law, particularly when the law itself if so unjust? What hope could there be?

Drug prohibition, just like alcohol prohibition, is the cause of rampant amounts of violence and corruption among the police and politicians. For instance, during alcohol prohibition, the murder rate roughly doubled from its pre-war high. Since the war on drugs began in the 1970s, murder rates have nearly doubled again. Correlation is not necessarily causation, but it does put to the rest the idea that prohibition lowers crime.

Well-intentioned welfare-statism is not helping the poor much either. Most liberals recognize the income disparities and economic distortions created by government intervention on behalf of corporate interests. Instead of focusing on doing away with those government actions, in the name pragmatism most liberals insist on creating further distortions with the hopes of balancing the playing field, heaping further counterweights on an already unsustainable system that mostly benefits the program administrators. Economic distortions like the minimum wage do little to provide a safety net, but instead place a hurdle in which young people must leap.

That attitude, though counterproductive, is somewhat forgivable. It is nearly impossible to shrink the state; people in a monopoly government are more inclined than most to expand power and deflect blame in order to amass more control. It becomes evident that two wrongs cannot make a right.

While petty handouts are contemptuously put forth as a show of compassion, the big-ticket criminals who run this cartel can waltz home with a clear conscience. That is what the state does. “It bites with stolen teeth,” as Friedrich Nietzsche explained. You might too say it gives back your bootstraps but only after taking your boots.

Image credit: DG Jones, with a Creative Commons license

War on Drugs and Handgun Licenses Impair Self-Defense

Justin Oliver — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:00:30 +0000

The number of people in North Texas obtaining a concealed carry license has been on a dramatic rise the past two years. Across the state, 40 percent more women last year, 31,000 in all, successfully applied for a permit than the previous high in 1996, when legislation took effect allowing residents to carry loaded handguns if they obtained a license and completed a safety course.

Contrary to popular perception, Texas is one of the more restrictive states when it comes to self-defense. In fact, open carrying a handgun is effectively illegal as it runs the probable risk of being charged with disorderly conduct.

According to a Dallas Morning News story, the current crop of applicants are younger and more often from the suburbs. Part of that is a response to the decreased expense of attending a state-licensed training school.

Concealed handgun licenses in Tarrant County nearly double the number issued to Dallas residents. According to state records, Tarrant is one of the more gun-friendly counties, with nearly one permit issued to every 173 residents.

The article cited some reasons why that may be. Alex del Carmen, chair of the University of Texas at Arlington’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, said there are more affluent people than in Dallas, so more people are able to afford them. Also, people in Tarrant are less likely to have a criminal background that would legally preclude them from carrying a firearm.

He also said that property ownership ties closely to gun ownership because people have a greater interest in defending themselves and their land. This last point seems to be more of a correlation than do the other factors, like criminal history and wealth.

In Texas, possession of more than three ounces of marijuana is a felony under state law. In some counties, one in seven adults have been arrested for marijuana possession. Arrests for simple possession are increasing at three times the national average [PDF], costing approximately $655 million in 2006 alone. Marijuana accounted for about half of the drug-related arrests, meaning the drug war expense in Texas runs more than a billion dollars per year.

There are also social impacts from Texas drug laws. By population, blacks are three times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than are whites. Meanwhile, blacks are only half as likely to own a concealed carry permit than are whites. Part of that disparity is because of their greater likelihood to be charged with a drug crime.

A second major factor impeding the right to self-defense is the cost of obtaining a permit. It can cost between $250 to $350 to attend a training class and obtain the license, which must be renewed every four years.

Gun ownership may not necessarily lead to lower crime, but there is strong evidence that at least increased gun ownership does not lead to a net increase in crime, as is made evident from a recent article, “Gun Ownership Rises to All-Time High, Violent Crime Falls to 35-Year Low.”

The distribution of gun ownership is also relevant for determining if violent crime will be diminished. If the poor and defenseless are systematically denied access to a means of protection, those with the means of enacting force — such as the police — will feel more inclined to escalate that imbalance of power in their favor. The best we can hope for is that access to gun ownership is made as widely available as possible.

Whether you think guns are the best tool for self-defense or not, it would be rank hypocrisy to use the guns of government to prevent otherwise peaceful people from using guns for their own protection.

Image credit: Robby Mueller, with a Creative Commons license

Idle Tea Party Politics

Justin Oliver — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:00:37 +0000

I attended the Wake Up America Tea Party in Fort Worth on Saturday as part of a nationwide tea party event. While volunteering at the Campaign for Liberty booth, I got a lot of positive reaction talking with attendees about conventional constitutional ideals.

I knew there would be a fair share of Republicans hitching onto the liberty message, so I thought it was important to present a more comprehensive small-government message, even if I do not subscribe to those views myself. Mostly, I emphasized the importance of decentralizing political power and scaling back American foreign policy.

I was there with Debbie McKee, the CFL state coordinator in Texas, and her daughter Adrienne. Our most popular item was CFL’s newly released pocket constitution that included the Declaration of Independence and the Kentucky and Virginia nullification resolutions written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, respectively.

A few people scoffed when the saw Ron Paul’s Revolution or End the Fed on our table. We also had Bruce Fein’s new book American Empire. (I have not read Fein’s book, but here is an interview with Scott Horton on Anti-War Radio.) However, many more I spoke with expressed that they thought the government’s belligerent foreign policy was doing more harm than good.

The most talked-about speakers were Bridgette Gabriel, who preached the dangers of “Islamic supremacism,” and conservative commentator Ann Coulter. They received the loudest applause lines I heard from the booth outside the auditorium. From a post on “The Whited Sepulchre,” Gabriel asked all the military veterans to stand and take an applause, which garnered a thunderous applause. The veterans obediently remained standing well into her speech.

Debra Medina, the founder of We Texans, spoke of the declining freedom in Texas. She said that Texas has went from a top-10 state in terms of economic freedoms and has fallen 23 spots to 31st in the nation since Rick Perry has been in governor’s office. Despite an impressive showing against establishment candidates in the Texas Republican gubernatorial primary, Medina had a distinctly less friendly reception because she highlighted that conservative rhetoric does not match the empirical evidence of a decade of Republican rule in Texas.

A few minutes before I was planning to leave, a man who described himself to me as a “constitutional conservative” wandered to the CFL booth and said he did not want to listen to Coulter. I gave a sympathetic nod. He said that he wanted nothing do with the Coulter and went on the explain that she attends meetings with pro gay-rights groups. That, he said, was unacceptable.

He talked about the source of this information, and how a website had been tracking Coulter for the past 18 months. As I recall, he went on to say “There is no place in the Republican Party for homosexuals or anybody with them.” From my reading of the state party platform, he is probably right. I guess he felt comfortable confiding this nugget of bigotry with those of us at the booth.

I kindly asked if he supported making it illegal to practice homosexuality. Without hesitating, he said he would and that it already is according to the Bible. I asked, then “would you think that all sins should be made illegal under political government?” So I asked about divorce. I went on the say that the Bible calls divorce a sin, and I asked if he thought it should be illegal too.

He danced around the question, so I asked again. He said that couples who have underwent counseling before marriage and before splitting up should be allowed to divorce on the condition that they would forfeit custody of their children to already-married couples.

After some prompting, he reiterated that the Republican Party was a party for Christians only, and that I would have to do some “soul searching” before becoming a genuine Republican, which I have no desire of becoming anyway. He said I should become a Democrat instead. I didn’t bother telling him, but neither sound that appealing. I should have told him, “Fuck You (Very Much).”

Completely devoid of historical evidence, he then went on to explain for a second time that libertarianism and socialism were spawned by Karl Marx in “his communist books” and the political environment of revolutionary France.

Tea Party Reflections

The tea party has no founding principles on which the movement is based, and most of its grassroots members are political newcomers who have a deep-seeded resentment for the direction that the country is going. It does not take long to realize that the government has been royally screwing up, and not just for the last 20 months.

Originally, the tea party movement was focused on excessive government spending as a reaction to the bailouts of the same large financial bodies that enabled the current economic collapse. The loudest voices were crying “Socialism” when Barack Obama was just adding to the same policies of his predecessor. Even still, so long as the movement was a reaction to fiscal mismanagement, there was some possibility that it would affect positive policy changes. But more and more, the tea party has less to do with battling run-away spending than it does with embracing cultural conservatism. The undertones of the currently embodied movement are based in the fears of white Christians of losing political power, fear that the same government many white Christians have exploited to their own advantage will be turned against them. “To take back our country.” That is the root cause for the present wave of backlash against Muslims and immigrants.

A poll [PDF] published in March from the University of Washington said that those who strongly support the tea party had more hostile views of gays, racial minorities and immigrants. On average, tea party supporters consistently thought less of the intelligence, trustworthiness and work ethic of blacks and Latinos than did the average Republicans. In a separate poll [PDF], and for all their talk about liberty, supporters of the tea party were far more likely to favor indefinite detention without trial of anyone accused of a crime, less privacy, and racial profiling. They were also less supportive of equal rights.

Even for the self-described constitutional conservative I talked with, he was more than willing to set aside any pretence of a modern society for an opportunity to enforce his morality on peaceful people. The momentum I witnessed Saturday will springboard into big electoral gains for Republicans, including many of the same responsible for this mess, in the mid-term elections. It will not amount to many policy changes for more liberty. No major tea party candidate is calling for cuts to any of the largest expenditures, not the military empire nor entitlement programs like Social Security.

It is a sad reality, but the ditching of any libertarian sentiments is inevitable so long as tea partiers are concerned with gaining the reins of power instead of abolishing that power altogether.

Constitutional Arguments for Open Immigration

Justin Oliver — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:15:44 +0000

For context, I have written before why libertarians, and particularly libertarians committed to small government, should support open immigration as a matter of principle. Further, I have given a consequentialist argument for open immigration and what that entails.

For me, the least impactful line of argument I would think is the constitutional argument. That so many constitutionalists nevertheless support uniform immigration restrictions demonstrates how meaningless the constitution is if its most ardent defenders conveniently pervert it so far from the original meaning.

As an Implied Power

A common line is that the Naturalization Clause, which gives the legislature the power to make a uniform process of becoming a citizen, implies the power to regulate immigration in context with the Necessary and Proper Clause.

That is an interesting idea, and it would have been worth mentioning by the Federalists since immigration had been under the domain of the states during the existing constitution. Yet, the framers who supported the constitution never so much as hinted at that idea during ratification. In fact, “Agrippa,” the Anti-Federalist who is supposed to be John Winthrop, lamented that congress would have no such power under the then-proposed constitution.

It was not until 1875, after congress had passed four separate naturalization bills, did the Supreme Court discover the new-found power to control immigration.

As a Protection from Invasion

Further in Article 1, Section 8, congress is also given the power to summon the militia to “repel Invasions.” This line of argument has been given by Ron Paul and other less distasteful politicians as a reason to resist open immigration.

For this to be true, we would need to look at the meaning of the word “invasion” at the time of ratification. The widely circulated Johnson’s Dictionary defined an invasion as “a hostile entrance, an attack.”

I have defended extending open immigration, at a minimum, to peaceful, honest people. Obviously, that would exclude violent criminals who have not offered restitution for their crimes. With that said, peaceful, honest people entering the country to better their lives should not fall within the scope of “a hostile entrance” by any means.

As a Limit on Slavery

I do not encounter this argument often, but the constitution does provide for the prohibition of “Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit” after to 1808 in the 13 original states. Ironically, this was meant as a check on congressional power to control the importation of slaves.

In all other cases, immigration control should be reserved for the states, according to the constitution. However, as a practical matter, any federal immigration controls like that would break down under political pressure within a generation, so soon enough all the states would be setting their own policy. After all, it is unlikely that the other 37 states would be willing to pay for the immigration enforcement of others states.

Lessons from History

Mary Ruwart once wrote, “We reap as we sow. In trying to control others, we find ourselves controlled. We point fingers at the dictators, the Communists, the politicians, and the international cartels. We are blithely unaware that our desire to control selfish others creates and sustains them.”

The decentralization of power is a good thing. For one, it would slow plans for this New World Order that so many constitutionalists tell me about. The expansion of immigration controls follow closely with the expansion of government power in general.

For the most part, peaceful, honest foreigners are trying to escape exploitation so they might live somewhere they do not have to get permission to create wealth. It is a false choice to have to choose between our own happiness and abundance and that of others. All interests are served by practicing non-aggression. By refusing to aggress against others, the special interest groups and politicians in government have no authority over of us.

Image credit: Jaume d’Urgell, with a Creative Commons license

Melting(pot) Rallies in Dallas

Justin Oliver — Sun, 02 May 2010 23:10:01 +0000

I don’t make it to Dallas all that often for activism events, but the May 1 event was worth the effort. We had a marijuana re-legalization rally at high noon and an immigration rally in the same afternoon.

Well, we had parked the car and were walking up just as the local Worldwide Marijuana Rally that took place in some 300 cities was just beginning. I would guess there were about 300 to 400 people there. Katy and I distributed almost every flier we printed. The basic message was that consensual behavior should not be the domain of government. We explained that the only way to enforce laws against consensual behavior, such as drug use, would be to instill a massive police state that intrudes on our privacy. The flier said, “We don’t need to change the law. We just need to make it irrelevant.” It said that “ultimately to disarm government coercion,” we need new strategies and social arrangements for how society is organized. It seems that at least one of us talked with or handed fliers to most of the people.

After a half an hour or so, we began marching to the famous grass knoll on Elm St. Some people from DFW NORML, the group which organized the effort, talked for about 20 minutes. I didn’t smell anything in the air, but some did report seeing people light up. When we got back to the original rallying point, people were milling around. We got honks from bus drivers, other drivers and even a thumbs-up from a Dallas traffic enforcement officer on his bike. Everybody seemed to like our message about getting government out of our personal lives.

We tried framing the issue in terms of just letting people be free. We talked with Emo kids, a guy who said he was undergoing chemotherapy (that was really touching) and business owners. It was a really diverse crowd. I’ve uploaded some pictures to Meetup. I even got a photo of an unofficial Ron Paul 2012 shirt.

One disappointing thing happened just as we were leaving about 1:30 p.m. We crossed the street and were on the sidewalk next to the Cabell Federal Building. We were not there more than 30 second while deciding where to get lunch when were approached by a Dallas police officer. She told us that we could not stand on federal property, which apparently includes the sidewalk. The short discussion, in which I was threatened with arrest, is on YouTube now. I was planning to ask her if she was aware of Oath Keepers, but she rode off on her bike.

After a brief lunch, we headed to the immigration rally just a few blocks away. We didn’t march as originally planned, but we met at the endpoint at Dallas City Hall. From a distance it was difficult to say which side was which because the pro-amnesty side had more American flags.

Immigration Rally

The rally was sparked by the passage of a new draconian anti-immigration law passed in Arizona. We went in hopes of promoting a pro-liberty spin on open immigration.

Many people asked to take a picture with Katy’s sign, which said, “The principles of liberty have no borders.” (She was expressing that the principles of liberty apply to all people, regardless of their heritage or place of birth.) We arrived before the marchers, so there were just a thousand or so people there. I counted at least a dozen mounted police and maybe 30 other officers around the event.

Katy and I began passing out our flier, and the police were immediately suspicious of us. I think they were trying to overhear what I was saying to make sure we were not starting a confrontation.

We handed out nearly 400 immigration fliers, which read, “Immigration restrictions usurp the natural right of individual autonomy …. Most immigrants escaping tyrannical governments know firsthand the importance of liberty, and they remind us all of the importance of preserving that liberty.” It continued, “This new Arizona law is rewarding government failure with more government power.” When talking with people, our basic lines were that resources should be spent to investigate violent people who have violated the rights of others and that we wanted peaceful families left alone.

I think it was important to bring a liberty message to that crowd. We wanted to express that these ideas are friendly to all people. It was a really festive atmosphere. People were having a good time with their families, the weather was perfect, and music was playing in the background. Once the marchers arrived, the whole place swelled with people, and it was easy to get lost in the crowd.

The counter protest was also entertaining, though the police prevented us from crossing sides. My favorite sign said, “Illegal immigrants are not legal.” One guy’s sign said, “Illegal is a crime.” Another listed the snitch hotline to “Report Illegals.” A few times, I saw they had huddled around some speaker, I presume. It was difficult to understand what they were saying.

All in all, we passed out about 600 fliers, took lots of photos, and met even more friendly people.

Free State Project Tops 10,000 Signers

Justin Oliver — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:25:14 +0000

As I write this, the Free State Project has topped just over 10,000 signers.

The goal of the FSP is to recruit 20,000 liberty lovers who agree to migrate to New Hampshire and see what happens. There is not much more to it, but it could have major social and political influence.

The idea is credited to Jason Sorens, then a Ph.D. student at Yale in 2001 who studied the historical impact of American migration patterns. He concluded that the reason libertarians had failed so miserable was that they were too dispersed among the population. He proposed that the solution would be to concentrate our numbers.

New Hampshire — the “Live Free or Die” state — was chosen by a wide margin for its general pro-liberty disposition and its relatively small state population, only 1.3 million. New Hampshire has the lowest local and state tax burden in the continental United States, the lowest record of violent crime per capita, and the second-lowest dependence on federal spending. There is no seat belt law for adults, no mandatory car insurance, permit-free open carry.

As a FSP signer, I have agree to move within five years of the FSP reaching its goal of 20,000 signers. The only goal of the FSP is to move liberty activists who believe the “maximum role of civil government is the protection of life, liberty, and property.” Approximately one thousand have already made the move. The population of New Hampshire and its citizen legislature reduces the burden of entry for political activists. Several “Freestaters” have been elected to the state legislature and several more have been elected to local office.

Several others have worked outside the conventional political process in promoting liberty. Notably, Free Keene, with the tagline “Peaceful Evolution,” is focussed on promoting a stateless society. One of the earliest movers, Dave Ridley, has long documented just such an evolution.

The FSP hosts two major social events annually. The New Hampshire Liberty Forum, which features leading speakers from around the world, is taking place this weekend. The Porcupine Freedom Festival (PorcFest) takes place one week during the summer. Why the porcupine? Because its quills do no harm unless it is being aggressed against.

Some of the most active FSP members have come from North Texas. In addition to Ridley, Sam Dodson and Russel and Kat Kanning are all locals to the DFW Metroplex.

Anyone looking to achieve “Liberty in Our Lifetime,” no small feat, should give the FSP a look.

Condolences and Condemnation

Justin Oliver — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:10:41 +0000

The life of Joseph Stack, the man the FBI believes flew his single-engine airplane into an office complex housing the Internal Revenue Service, ended in tragedy Thursday. It has been reported that at least one other man inside the Austin building was killed following the impact and many others were sent to the hospital to treat injuries.

To the loved ones of Mr. Stack and his victims, I offer my condolences. For Stack, I have nothing but condemnation for his acts. His brutality was needless and heartless.

I agree with Stack that what the IRS does is evil. Taxation is extortion.

What is easy to overlook is that the vast majority of people who advocate for government intervention into peaceful people’s lives do not see it that way. That’s just the way it is, they say.

Part of it is a lack of education. They have not read the books we have or heard the speeches we have. They have never studied agorism or read How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne. And so they are still indoctrinated in government slavespeak.

Part of it as well is they believe that with enough government intervention and threats of violence, they can overcome circumstances they dislike in society. The only practical solution they see is violence. To offer voluntary and consent-based solutions to their problems seems so foreign them. In fact, in Stack’s suicide note of sorts, he said “[V]iolence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.”

So if the news reports are accurate and this man did do this, then he would have been acting under the same failed premises as those he intended to attack. He was a frustrated, desperate man who was willing to take his life rather than become a victim of the IRS any longer. But that is not how he will be remembered. He did not advance the cause of liberty one inch. He set it back. I’ve written before why violence is not the path to liberty.

For those of us whose highest political end is individual liberty, I believe one of our missions is to explain why violence and threats of violence are at best temporary antidotes to social ills — like heroin to an addict. Luckily, most everyone lives by the non-aggression principle everyday; it only takes making them aware of this and convincing them that the same principle applies to government too.

I would suggest reading Stack’s letter. An excerpt is below.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

He was obviously an intelligent and lucid man. He was angry at an unmerciful system that cripples ingenuity and compassion. He hoped to be a martyr in the revolt; but really, he is just a killer.

Image credit: News 8 Austin

The Pragmatism of Principles

Justin Oliver — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:40:51 +0000

Leonard Read, the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, said principles are not compromised; they are abandoned. Principles, by their nature, are utilized or they are not.

That is an important reminder for those who believe the maximum role of government should be the protection of life, liberty, and property — which I think, logically construed, means self-government; however, I respect that others disagree. Our time is going to be most wisely spent improving ourselves and building relationships with like-minded liberty people. Even still, while the conventional political process is still dominant, there are ways for principled people to use political tools for their own benefit.

The conventional political dichotomy is a struggle between short-term opportunism and long-term progress. I think there is a simple reconciliation that can be made between the two camps. That is, under no circumstances, never ever, should we ever support an expansion in the role of government or a further restriction on a peaceful person’s liberty. Second, any policy support should be done with the explicit purpose of decreasing the role of government and directly benefiting peaceful individuals.

Any strategy or policy goals that we recommend or follow should be consistent with the purpose of restoring individual liberty and responsibility. I understand the importance of intermediate goals or markers to help fully achieve our ultimate purpose. But our means of achieving that purpose should not be contradictory to that end. For example, a lot of politicians try to justify tax cuts because they believe it will actually increase the total revenues to the government treasury. I believe this is wrong and sends an inconsistent message.

The goal of a tax cut should be to reduce the burden of government. Again, we should not advocate the re-legalization of cannabis on the grounds that it will raise tax revenues, but because prohibition is immoral and counterproductive. Expanding government and further restricting the liberty of others to correct another ill-fated government policy is an abandonment of principle. As Ron Paul said, “Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive.” Reducing the level of coercion in people’s lives is a worthy goal.

Principles in Practice

The goals that we have should be radical — not liberal- or conservative-lite. This serves two purposes. First, it provides cover for not-so-radical views to be considered more mainstream, thus limiting the fear of ostracism people might have for holding these slightly less radical views. It provides an objective guidepost — like a lighthouse — for gauging the success of our efforts during darker times.

I would also like to suggest two methods of communicating these ideas. We should definitely take the time, on an intellectual basis, to refute anti-liberty or collectivist ideas. But we must acknowledge that the people advocating these mistaken ideas are not dimwitted. In fact, many know exactly how they benefit from these policies. They are ripping us off, so we must make direct, populist appeals that reveal that fact.

By its nature, government is crude and unaccountable, so there will be an infinite supply of aggrieved individuals. Ideally, that means that we don’t have to convert individuals fully to the virtue of liberty before taking action together. Over time, I hope that those who are “liberty minus one” or “liberty minus whatever” come to see the error of their ways.

Some Ideas to Bat Around

Sometimes, pick losing issues to get the message out by presenting a pro-liberty analysis. I’m not saying be a stick-in-the-mud. The situation might provide an opportunity to get some free media publicity or lay the groundwork for winning progress on the issue in the future. Liberals have deployed this technique by pushing socialized health insurance and environmental regulations.

Now, I don’t even know how possible this next one is. Those arrested for committing consensual crimes could be high-target prospects for the liberty message. When I’m passing out Fully Informed Jury Association literature on jury nullification, those called for jury duty are naturally receptive to the material I am providing. I’ll usually stay a little past the time when potential jurors are due to report in downtown Fort Worth in order to catch any stranglers. When I do, I just happen to pass out literature to defendants, and they are just as interested in the concept of jury nullification as potential jurors, if not more so. There has got to be a way of contacting those folks by getting ahold of some public records.

Image credit: john curley, with Creative Commons license

We Are All Anarchists Now

Justin Oliver — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:14:39 +0000

Not only are we all anarchists now, there are abundant examples of anarchism working fabulously well. However, instead of opening anarchic relationships to everyone, governments have worked to abolish them from the private sphere and instead centralize anarchic relationships into the hands of politicians. I know it sounds strange that anarchy exists internally within government. My point here is to demonstrate that anarchic relationships are omnipresent.

Before beginning, I want to note that critics of market (or individualist) anarchism will point out that the market functions best with an impartial judicial system ruling on comprehensible law. I readily agree. Supporters of government also claim there needs to be a final body, such as the Supreme Court, which entails a supreme law that settles disputes once and for all. I don’t think it matters either way, especially since the political system does allow for disputes to continue in the legislative process even after the final court proceedings. I also don’t believe that a monopoly could provide an impartial judicial system or a comprehensible law. However, for the sake this discussion, I will concede all three points.

In “Two Treatises on Civil Government,” John Locke said there are two things wanting in a “state of nature”: “established, settled, known law” and “a known and indifferent judge” (emphasis in original work). To clarify, my understanding is that a government functions as a third party that provides ultimate dispute settlement within a given territory. Again, for the sake of this discussion, I will concede that an “established, settled, known law” exists. So without an “indifferent judge” whose decisions are commanded, by force if necessary, anarchy exists. For the sake of this discussion, I will concede that there is always sufficient force to command a judge’s decision. So really, the question is if there is an “indifferent judge” or not. (I’ve written a little here and here why I believe a market-based legal system is more able to provide equitable justice.)

The first basic anarchic relationship is between government and its citizens. The second is among different governments. The third is between citizens and foreign governments. The fourth basic anarchic relationship is among citizens of different governments. (More elaborate anarchic relationships can be read about here.) With this understanding, it becomes abundantly clear that government cannot eliminate anarchy; it is ever-present. Government can only centralize and transform it, many times with devastating effects.

The first form of an anarchic relationship is between the United States federal government and American citizens, for example. There is no “indifferent judge” when the federal government comes into conflict with individuals or groups of individuals. In those cases, the federal government prohibits a third party from resolving the dispute. It is helpful that a different branch hears the case, but that branch is appointed by and subject to the pressures of another branch of government responsible for enforcing the court’s decisions. Supposedly, that is the purpose of the constitution’s checks and balances — to bind the federal government, yet the federal government is also responsible for interpreting and enforcing its own limitations. Politicians also act in a state of anarchy with each other. There is no external agency that enforces rules among them, and so they exist in a form of “political anarchy” as opposed to natural “market anarchy,” according to Alfred G. Cuzan, who said:

[I]n their relations among each other, they remain largely “lawless.” Nobody external to the group writes and enforces rules governing the relations among them. At most, the rulers are bound by flexible constraints imposed by a “constitution” which they, in any case, interpret and enforce among and upon themselves. … In short, society is always in anarchy. A government only abolishes anarchy among what are called “subjects” or “citizens,” but among those who rule, anarchy prevails.

Since governments get to decide conflicts, they are so inclined to create conflict and then rule in their own favor, expanding their authority.

To give some state governments credit, there have been calls throughout the years to nullify particularly outrageous federal legislation. But those states can only do so much because the federal government controls the currency and can hand out goodies to those states willing accept expansive federal powers. In the United States, the federal government’s dispute authority is not as centralized as, say, North Korea, where the final authority is given to a single person. In effect, Kim Jong-il has abolished anarchy is North Korea for everyone but himself.

In the second form of anarchic relationships, the federal government also exists in a state of anarchy with all other governments around the world. There is no mandatory final arbiter of disputes between Canada and the United States, for example. If the Canadian government is accused of price fixing, the disagreement is settled by the World Trade Organization, per their membership agreement. Both governments had a mutually agreed-upon dispute resolution process. The United Nations is the closest thing to a world government, but even its membership is voluntary. The United States government could even opt out and no longer be responsible to funding it or abide by UN resolutions within its territorial borders so long as the federal government did not threaten to aggress against other UN member governments. National governments voluntarily cooperate by honoring visas and legal documents (like marriage certificates and drivers licenses) and ratifying all sorts of treatises. So empirically, there is no need for a world government for other governments to peacefully coexist. But of course, nations do not always interact so peacefully.

There are a couple of reasons why violence committed by governments have been so devastating. Mainly, it has to do with the imbalance of power between governments and citizens. That is the reason cited by many constitutionalists for their defense of the right to keep and bear arms, as recognized by the Second Amendment. Some of the greatest genocides in history have been perpetrated against an unarmed populace. If the theory holds, it would seem that the greater the imbalance of power the more deaths that have resulted, while greater peace would occur as a result of a more evened balance of power. In fact, the figures seem to say just that. In the past 100 years, 262 million people were killed by their own government. (I am using “own government” very loosely.) Approximately 35 million others were killed in combats with a foreign government. (It was unclear how many were civilians and how many were soldiers.) In a fourth form of anarchic relationships, foreign citizens are in state of anarchy with citizens of other nations. The largest foreign civilian murderer was Osama bin Laden, who allegedly orchestrated the death of 3500 people in part to demonstrate his grievances with the foreign military occupation of the Arabian Peninsula. Interestingly, nuclear-armed nations, which have nearly an equal capability for destruction, have never been in direct conflict. (That may be because the political leaders are in direct harm’s way.)

We can conclude that civilians face the greatest danger from their own government, where the balance of power is so astounding. Equally powerful governments are relatively peaceful toward one another. And civilians face the least danger from other civilians. To be fair, that could be because governments are in place to punish lawbreakers. That effect seems marginal, at best, because most people do not have reasonable access to a functioning judicial system for civil cases, nor do they have much confidence in police apprehending criminals who have victims.

According to the FBI, less than 20 percent of reported burglaries, property crime, theft, car theft, and arson are “cleared.” Keep in mind, that only includes reported crimes, and not all “cleared” cases result in conviction. Police can pin crimes on deceased or incarcerated suspects. Murders are cleared about 60 percent of the time, forcible rape about 40 percent of the time, aggravated assault about 55 percent of the time. Keep in mind, those figures include wrongful convictions based on faulty eye-witness testimony, unimpartial juries, fabricated evidence, and incompetent public defenders.

Citizens have no constitutional right to have their rights protected, which is allegedly the entire purpose of forming a government according to the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “That to secure tnhese rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ….” The United States Supreme Court justices have ruled multiple times that federal, state, and local governments have no positive obligation to provide protection from “killers or madmen.” So if police do respond to a 911 call, it is solely out of the good will put upon by social pressures within the community or from commanders conforming to social pressures.

A second reason governments are capable of so much more violence is because those people supporting escalation do not have the full burden of paying for their military adventures, but can channel the benefits of their policies to themselves and their supporters. Basically, the costs can be socialized, and the benefits are privatized — like any other government program.

Successful Anarchism in Practice

The political process is a perfect example of how market anarchism can work even under the most crippling conditions. (I lifted this from Stefan Molyneux‘s video “The Proof of Anarchy.”) It is fairly well known that political contributors and lobbyists are some of the biggest recipients of special treatment by the government. Year after year, the government increases in size and power. Pork-barrel spending and corporate bailouts are never-ending. Upwards of 80 percent of Americans support greater restrictions on campaign finance contributions, so people have an innate sense that those in power are pretty rotten. Yet — even though politicians and political contributors cannot make written agreements, contributors can never have their agreements enforced by a functioning legal system, no one can be made aware of a politician’s broken agreement, the government will violently punish anyone who can be proven to have made such an agreement, and media reporters are paid good money to uncover such agreements — politicians are repeatedly re-elected about 90 percent of the time and lobbyists receive more and more handouts and exemptions from the law. Under the worst market conditions, lobbyist and politicians continue to work harmoniously. If lobbyists were able to publicize broken quid pro quo agreements or have them enforced by a legal system, then lobbyists would have an even greater effect. As it stands, politicians are not forced into compliance with their lobbyists; the only threat to the politician is that the lobbyist will support his or her opponent in the next election. You have the market process flourishing even in the face of significant obstacles.

Building Liberty

As I’ve tried to demonstrate, government cannot totally eliminate anarchism. Cuzan said:

We have shown that anarchy, like matter, never disappears — it only changes form. Anarchy is either market anarchy or political anarchy. Pluralist, decentralized political anarchy is less violent than hierarchical political anarchy. Hence, we have reason to hypothesize that market anarchy could be less violent than political anarchy. Since market anarchy can be shown to outperform political anarchy in efficiency and equity in all other respects, why should we expect anything different now? Wouldn’t we be justified to expect that market anarchy produces less violence in the enforcement of property rights than political anarchy? After all, the market is the best economizer of all — wouldn’t it also economize on violence better than government does, too?

One method capitalizing on the anarchic relationships formally denied to citizens is the practice of agorism, which emphasizes working within black and gray market industries as a way of building alternatives to government-imposed services. In that way, the government — a so-called necessary evil — will no longer be seen as necessary. In time, it will be seen for what it is, just evil.

Image credit: Joe Gratz, with Creative Commons license

‘Natural Law’ by Lysander Spooner (Part 2 of 2)

Justin Oliver — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:39:10 +0000

This is the follow-up to the first post of memorable lines from Lysander Spooner’s “Natural Law or the Science of Justice.” Spooner may be more widely known for his refutation of the legitimacy of the United States constitution or his challenge of the American postal monopoly. However, this may be his more lasting work because it demonstrates a third way, a natural law discoverable by the human intellect, to establish a legal framework that does not rely on past customs or the ad hoc dictates of those in control of the state.

Chapter III – Natural Law Contrasted With Legislation

Section I

Natural law, natural justice, being a principle that is naturally applicable and adequate to the rightful settlement of every possible controversy that can arise among men; being too, the only standard by which any controversy whatever, between man and man, can be rightfully settled; being a principle whose protection every man demands for himself, whether he is willing to accord it to others, or not; being also an immutable principle, one that is always and everywhere the same, in all ages and nations; being self-evidently necessary in all times and places; being so entirely impartial and equitable toward all; so indispensable to the peace of mankind everywhere; so vital to the safety and welfare of every human being; being, too, so easily learned, so generally known, and so easily maintained by such voluntary associations as all honest men can readily and rightully form for that purpose—being such a principle as this, these questions arise, viz.: Why is it that it does not universally, or well nigh universally, prevail? Why is it that it has not, ages ago, been established throughout the world as the one only law that any man, or all men, could rightfully be compelled to obey? Why is it that any human being ever conceived that anything so self-evidently superfluous, false, absurd, and atrocious as all legislation necessarily must be, could be of any use to mankind, or have any place in human affairs?

Section II

The answer is, that through all historic times, wherever any people have advanced beyond the savage state, and have learned to increase their means of sub-sistence by the cultivation of soil, a greater or less number of them have associated and organized themselves as robbers, to plunder and enslave all others, who had either accumulated any property that could be seized, or had shown, by their labor, that they could be made to contribute to the support or pleasure of those who should enslave them.

These bands of robbers, small in number at fist, have increased their power by uniting with each other, inventing warlike weapons, disciplining themselves, and perfecting their organizations as military forces, and dividing their plunder (including their captives) among themselves, either in such proportions as have been previously agreed on, or in such as their leaders (always desirous to increase the number of their followers) should prescribe.

These tyrants, living solely on plunder, and on the labor of their slaves, and applying all their energies to the seizure of still more plunder, and the enslavement of still other defenceless persons; increasing, too, their numbers, perfecting their organizations, and multiplying their weapons of war, they extend their conquests until, in order to hold what they have already got, it becomes necessary for them to act systematically, and cooperate with each other in holding their slaves in subjection.

But all this they can do only by establishing what they call a government, and making what they call laws.

… And their laws, as they have called them, have been only such agreements as they have found it necessary to enter into, in order to maintain their organizations, and act together in plundering and enslaving others, and in securing to each his agreed share of the spoils.

All these laws have had no more real obligation than have the agreements which brigands, bandits, and pirates find it necessary to enter into with each other, for the more successful accomplishment of their crimes, and the more peaceable division of their spoils.

Thus substantially all the legislation of the world has had its origin in the desires of one class—of persons to plunder and enslave others, and hold them as property.

Section III

In process of time, the robber, or slaveholding, class—who had seized all the lands, and held all the means of creating wealth—began to discover that the easiest mode of managing their slaves, and making them profitable, was not for each slaveholder to hold his specified number of slaves, as he had done before, and as he would hold so many cattle, but to give them so much liberty as would throw upon themselves (the slaves) the responsibility of their own subsistence, and yet compel them to sell their labor to the land-hodling class—their former owners—for just what the latter might choose to give them.

Of course, these liberated slaves, as some have erroneously called them, having no lands, or other property, and no means of obtaining an independent subsistence, had no alternative—to save themselves from starvation—but to sell their labor to the landholders, in exchange only for the coarsest necessaries of life; not always for so much even as that.

The purpose and effect of these laws have been to maintain, in the hands of the robber, or slave holding class, a monopoly of all lands, and, as far as possible, of all other means of creating wealth; and thus to keep the great body of laborers in such a state of poverty and dependence, as would compel them to sell their labor to their tyrants for the lowest prices at which life could be sustained.

The result of all this is, that the little wealth there is in the world is all in the hands of a few—that is, in the hands of the law-making, slave-holding class; who are now as much slaveholders in spirit as they ever were, but who accomplish their purposes by means of the laws they make for keeping the laborers in subjection and dependence, instead of each one’s owning his individual slaves as so many chattels.

Thus the whole business of legislation, which has now grown to such gigantic proportions, had its origin in the conspiracies, which have always existed among the few, for the purpose of holding the many in subjection, and extorting from them their labor, and all the profits of their labor.

And the real motives and spirit which lie at the foundation of all legislation—notwithstanding all the pretences and disguises by which they attempt to hide themselves—are the same to-day as they always have been. They whole purpose of this legislation is simply to keep one class of men in subordination and servitude to another.

Section IV

What, then, is legislation? It is an assumption by one man, or body of men, of absolute, irresponsible dominion over all other men whom they call subject to their power. It is the assumption by one man, or body of men, of a right to subject all other men to their will and their service. It is the assumption by one man, or body of men, of a right to abolish outright all the natural rights, all the natural liberty of all other men; to make all other men their slaves; to arbitrarily dictate to all other men what they may, and may not, do; what they may, and may not, have; what they may, and may not, be. It is, in short, the assumption of a right to banish the principle of human rights, the principle of justice itself, from off the earth, and set up their own personal will, pleasure, and interest in its place. All this, and nothing less, is involved in the very idea that there can be any such thing as human legislation that is obligatory upon those upon whom it is imposed.

Natural law is rooted in the fixed nature of human beings. It is universal, constant, discoverable, and tangible. When not implemented, it still offers an unyielding examination of the status quo, of what “ought to be, irrespective of what is,” as Lord Acton might say.