Last week’s election results are official, and by a vote of 31-7, prohibition of any substance has been overwhelmingly abolished in the geo-political entity known as Free Grafton.

Bob “Weeda Claus” Constantine (Free State Party) easily defeated Misty the Cat (Maoist Party) to become ambassador-elect to unfree Grafton and other coercive forms of [...]]]>

Last week’s election results are official, and by a vote of 31-7, prohibition of any substance has been overwhelmingly abolished in the geo-political entity known as Free Grafton.

Bob “Weeda Claus” Constantine (Free State Party) easily defeated Misty the Cat (Maoist Party) to become ambassador-elect to unfree Grafton and other coercive forms of government, announced Emperor Evan. Free Grafton sovereigns — who pledge to refrain from the initiation of violence — gave Constantine 16 votes, with Misty the Cat only garnering nine supporters.

I do not like it any more than anyone else. Most voters will gleefully cast their ballots for politicians openly seeking the legal sanction to aggress [...]]]> On Nov. 2, tens of millions of Americans will exercise their political franchise to play their part in shaping the future of the country, or so the story goes.

I do not like it any more than anyone else. Most voters will gleefully cast their ballots for politicians openly seeking the legal sanction to aggress against others. It is enough that the state is illegitimate even if its sole purpose were to defend individual rights, but politicians across the spectrum make campaign promises to increase the level of state predation.

Indeed, “Law is force,” Frederic Bastiat said. This “legal plunder, organized injustice,” as Bastiat called it, has two sources. “One, as we have just seen, is in human selfishness; the other is in false philanthropy.”

Many libertarians take the stance that electoral activism, in and of itself, is an act of aggression since political power is vested in violence. As understandable as the anti-voting stance is, self-defense is ethically justified if I can support candidates who I believe will aggress less than another credible candidate. Still others say that voting either grants consent to the political system or at least gives the perception of consent. This is also dubious. For how can consent be granted if there is no credible opportunity to withhold consent? It is true that some could perceive voting as consenting, but so could choosing not to vote be viewed as apathy for whatever policy wins out. The solution would be to educate why libertarians participate in electoral politics despite not viewing the government conducting the election as ethical. Another objection is that it is fine to act in self-defense, but it would be unjust to elect a representative who would presume to rule someone else.

Now, I certainly do not think anyone is ethically bound to follow or support legislation simply because it is has received the majority’s support. A point Lysander Spooner makes is that no one in government can represent anyone but him- or herself. He said,

They say they are only our servants, agents, attorneys, and representatives. But this declaration involves an absurdity, a contradiction. No man can be my servant, agent, attorney, or representative, and be, at the same time, uncontrollable by me, and irresponsible to me for his acts. It is of no importance that I appointed him, and put all power in his hands. If I made him uncontrollable by me, and irresponsible to me, he is no longer my servant, agent, attorney, or representative.

If elected officials are personally responsible for their actions, what then are the ethics of holding office? Would it be necessary to only support an immediate abolition of aggression or a phased withdraw of government services?

Roderick Long argues that government aggression “lies in the fact that the services are funded by stolen money (taxation), and that competitors are often prohibited or severely restricted (regulation). Hence a gradual phase-out of government services (as opposed to immediate abolition) involves no violation of libertarian principle, provided some solution can be found to the problems of taxation.”

Except in those cases where private firms have been granted a monopoly on a product (or another artificial advantage in the market), a libertarian acting consistently with the non-aggression principle would have to advocate for a complete dismantling of regulatory controls. In those cases of that firms have been given a market advantage by government aggresion, any barriers to competition should be removed immediately, but pricing or other regulatory controls could be phased out gradually.

In order to raise funds for some of the more redeeming services performed by government, there are a few options that Long favors so long as a government regrettably were still in place.

1. Raise money by selling off government assets
2. Charge user fees for government services
3. Solicit voluntary contributions
4. Use non-coercive measures to get people to pay their taxes
5. Tax the beneficiaries of state privilege
6. Restrict the franchise to taxpayers

As an immediate matter, it most likely will not be possible to implement these methods. It would still never be ethically justified to vote in favor of any level of aggression. There are obvious pitfalls to avoid and cautions to take to prevent libertarian corruption or political backlash.

I do not support electoral politics as the primary method of political change. In fact, it is probably the least important factor compared to educating the population, leading by example, and raising emotionally healthy children. If libertarians have done the work necessary to spread these ideas, getting these policies implemented would be more of a formality.

The first thing I want to know is if it would be better just to save my breath. I first have to know if the person I am are communicating with [...]]]> I was asked how I might resond to a political liberal sincerely concerned with the plight of the less fortunate in a liberatian society.

The first thing I want to know is if it would be better just to save my breath. I first have to know if the person I am are communicating with would want the message I am selling if the facts bear out my case. If the facts support it, would they want it? If not, then I tell the person that he or she sounds pretty happy with his or her current political beliefs and move on.

Assuming a person would like liberty if his or her concerns could be addressed, the first thing I would try to do is establish that I share his or her concerns for those in need. That is why I put more emphasis on cutting government programs like the military, which is far more destructive and wasteful than welfare.

However, the best books for these types of questions are Mary Ruwart’s “Healing Our World,” which is free online at Free Keene, or Harry Browne’s “Why Government Doesn’t Work,” also free at Liberty Activism. A recent podcast about mutual aid from Sheldon Richman is also good.

Initially, I might say something like this:

I understand how important to you to help those in need, and that is important to me as well. But let us suppose that tomorrow you won the lottery and decided to give half of your winning to help the poor. Would you give that money to a private charity whom you had thoroughly researched or would you give it to the government welfare department?

The answer is obvious and speaks for itself. Ruwart talks about how so-called intellectual property laws and other types of government intervention increase the costs of drugs and other life-saving devises (by causing artificial scarcities). I tend to get brushback from liberals, in particular, that these ideas are utopian or not realistic. To that, I think Kevin Carson of a Center for a Stateless Society sums up my own views when he said:

But apparently, in the mainstream liberal view of the world, it’s not utopian at all to believe that simple procedural rules and paper restrictions can prevent the state from being controlled by the same ruthless people for their own ends. …

It’s utterly naive and utopian to believe a majority of the public can exert meaningful control over the state apparatus. A minority of insiders will always have an advantage in time, attention span, interest, information, and agenda control over those of us on the outside. The average person on the outside only has a limited amount of time or energy for maintaining an interest in politics, after dealing with the primary issues of work and family, friends, and local community. But for the elites that control the state, politics IS a major part of their daily work and social life. Can anything be matched for sheer naive optimism with the belief that, in the long run, we can maintain a higher degree of vigilance over the functioning of the state than they can? …

So anything done by the state to make our lots more bearable will be done, not because the state is “all of us working together,” but as a side-effect of plutocratic and managerial elites pursuing their own self-interest. Apparently the same people who cannot be trusted in the economic sphere become fully trustworthy when they’re sitting in the “executive committee of the ruling class.

I always try to emphasize that I want more money to go to those in need, but unfortunately so much of it wasted on middle class social workers. So practically speaking, I do not expect the government to solve government-created problems. Proven alternatives like mutual aid societies are tangible solutions to the conditions of poverty and a whole host of social problems. The principle is that the social benefits of decentralism outcompete hierarchy all the time.

I tend to be patient though. Many people have never given consideration to how a market-based society would provide for people. One idea to get someone’s mind rolling is to ask how he or she might solve some of those problems in the community in the absence of a government to lean on. If he or she refuses to answer, then you know you are wasting your time and politely move on.

In a roundabout way, Schiff admitted that his support has less to do with self-defense than with winning Connecticut’s upcoming Republican primary, saying “If [...]]]> In an interview with Alex Jones on Monday, Connecticut senatorial candidate Peter Schiff, a long-time Ron Paul supporter, repeated comments made last year in support for pre-emptive war with Iran.

In a roundabout way, Schiff admitted that his support has less to do with self-defense than with winning Connecticut’s upcoming Republican primary, saying “If I was going to take a position that a nuclear Iran was okay with me, I couldn’t get elected.”

Martin Hill of the LA County Libertarian Examiner has the full report of the exchange.

Schiff is hopping to follow Rand Paul’s primary success earlier this year by playing what Sarah Palin called “the war card.” But as Adam Kokesh found out the hard way, soft-selling your anti-war stance is no guarantee of winning.

I’d want to disband the military or abolish the CIA. Maybe the government entirely? That would be ideal.

But what effect would it have? If we had some round robin presidential selection system, the [...]]]> If I could only make one presidential decision, for practical and moral reasons, I’d have to resign. It only makes sense.

I’d want to disband the military or abolish the CIA. Maybe the government entirely? That would be ideal.

But what effect would it have? If we had some round robin presidential selection system, the odds are that the next president would be some statist. Even if I did abolish the CIA with my only decision, the following president would just re-enact the agency.

You could argue that would leave one less statist presidential decision to inflict upon everyone. I thought about that too. But if I did some radical move like that while working within the system, it would lead to calls for more centralized command and control. It would leave people confused. In turn, they would look to expanding government power to prevent such occurrence in the future.

Any change I made would just be ignored if it did not meet with the intersubjective consensus of the government bureaucrats.

There will always be political opportunists flocking to the next thing, so electoral success will come. But it is a lagging indicator of political progress. Society is currently arranged (not to say in an preconceived way) based on fear of others, which is a projection of the lack of honor people have for themselves.

That is why the government is as large as it is. Government is never responsible for reducing violence. It is constantly aggravating or inducing conflict at home and abroad. And so it aggregates power to itself. (I’m using government as a metaphor to mean the actions individuals take as representatives of the State.)

The only way it seems I can reduce government would be to change the minds of individuals, one at a time. If I want to promote individualism, I have to use the methodology of individualism. If, however, I wanted to promote collectivism, then using the collectivized abstraction of government would be ideal. Not so for liberty lovers. Put another way, if I want to abolish the authority some claim over me, I cannot do that from an inherently authoritarian position as president. Are you listening, Ron Paul?

The police are only enforcing the law. If you want it changed, lobby the legislature, said the serf to the slave. After all, it is not the military’s fault they [...]]]> It is easy to dislike politicians and what they do. It is not so easy to publicly oppose their henchmen: the police and the troops.

The police are only enforcing the law. If you want it changed, lobby the legislature, said the serf to the slave. After all, it is not the military’s fault they are being ordered to invade nations that pose no threat to the American government’s security, what they call “national security.” It is the commanders and the politicians who got them into this mess.

I agree somewhat. But the troops are the ones who chose to join the military — for the adventure, or for self-improvement, or for whatever lie their recruiter fed them. Soldiers are the ones who bomb wedding parties, who torture other indoctrinated men, and who massacre families. Of course, I bet a good number of troops perform a lot of heroic missions to save their comrades in the field. Most of the troops are just there to do their part to fight for a country they love. I am friends with a handful of them, so I know they are probably in the majority.

We are constantly fed guilt that we should support the troops — and by extension the politicians and bureaucrats who put them in danger. But how should I support the troops?

Should I pay taxes to buy their overpriced toys? Should I support their immoral occupation of countless countries? Or, should I support the hegemonic government of which they play an integral part? I know a more moderate position is to support the troops by insisting they be returned home. But is that much better?

Even if the troops were not abroad, they would be that much easier to deploy in our cities. Conceivably, it would become more difficult to scale down government spending once an influx of soldiers boosted depressed local economies.

With all that said, I believe we should support the troops. I support troops who stop following orders and take personal responsibility for their behavior. I support the troops who stand down and refuse to deploy.

So here is the background. Tom and Rafael joined Katy and me downtown at the Tarrant [...]]]> Monday’s Fully Informed Jury Association event for the Campaign for Liberty — Tarrant County went beyond expectation. We passed out close to 400 trifolds, had some good conversations and met a total apologist for government aggression and discrimination.

So here is the background. Tom and Rafael joined Katy and me downtown at the Tarrant County Justice Center on Monday morning. I had never seen such a large jury pool. The line stretched into the street. We were not approached by any law enforcement, and everything was going as expected. Although, one uniformed officer asked what we were doing while waiting for the signal to say walk. I asked if he would like to know about the rights of jurors. He said he already knew about them.

Well, about the time we were passing out our last few trifolds, around 7:50 a.m., another group of people walking toward the Justice Center found their way to our intersection. They appeared to be led by this woman with an official-looking placard around her neck. In the video, she identified herself to be a licenced attorney. She was instructing the group of people with her about the location of restaurants in the neighborhood.

At first, the lady said she did not want any literature. However, once people around her started reading our paperwork, she asked for a copy. Tom said something about judges not informing jurors of their rights to examine the law, and the lady butted in and said that that was illegal for jurors to do.

By that time, I got my camera and asked if she would talk about it. That is when the video started rolling.

Tom then asked her a hypothetical about the obsolete three-fifths clause in the constitution which counted blacks as just a fraction of their actual population for congressional representation. In the clip, she admits she would be willing to enforce racial discrimination laws, among other laws. Tom then turned in disgust to her answer. What you don’t see in the video is that she quickly yanked on his elbow to get his attention. It was not a rough yank, but it was something that would have gotten some fierce retaliation had we done that to a government employee.

She suggest that we try to change the law through the legislative process rather than practicing jury nullification. She did acknowledge she does not like many of the laws either.

I asked her to respond to Martin Luther King’s line that “An unjust law is no law at all.” She said, “Generally, yes, an unjust law is not law.” (So I don’t understand her reasoning about enforcing obviously discriminatory laws.)

Tom further asked, “What if I don’t agree with the law that Jews are no longer persons?” She said, “Then you don’t sit on a jury that is judging that question.” I cringed. I could not believe her response. She again insisted that we respect the rule of law and work within it to affect change. Rafael started to question her if the US PATRIOT Act was just, but she must have misunderstood him and said something about a trade law.

Tom then gave us some historical examples that we was talking about, but I had to cut him short because YouTube videos can only be so long.

As I have been informed, the Texas constitution does have some language somewhat favorable toward jury nullification. [Update: See Chris's comment below for a more detailed explanation.] In the Texas Bill of Rights, it states that “in all indictments for libels, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts, under the direction of the court, as in other cases” (emphasis added).This would seem to lend itself to support for the right of jurors to determine which laws they wish to have enforced in their communities.

What we plan to do is to prepare and practice delivering talking points about some common objections and questions we get during our outreach events. I think that may help overcome some common concerns and also encourage more people to attend the events.

The abiding question of government is “Who watches the watchers?” That is the question Cass Sunstein, the current regulatory czar in the Obama administration, never quite addressed in his book The Cost of Rights. In essence, the question points to an observation that if people cannot be trusted to govern themselves, they certainly [...]]]>

The abiding question of government is “Who watches the watchers?” That is the question Cass Sunstein, the current regulatory czar in the Obama administration, never quite addressed in his book The Cost of Rights. In essence, the question points to an observation that if people cannot be trusted to govern themselves, they certainly cannot be trusted to govern others. And if people can be trusted to govern themselves, there is no need for a monopoly government.

Sunstein claimed that, much to the chagrin of libertarians, an expansive government is necessary for rights to function. After all, if there are no police, what good are property rights if no one is present with the power to enforce them? Furthermore, for police to function, there needs to be an effective oversight mechanism to make sure police procedures are followed. And governments have costs, which must be recouped with taxes if they are to be maintained.

I have two responses to Sunstein’s justification for the state. First, even in the absence of government, individuals do not have to be defenseless bystanders. In fact, in the absence of gun control laws, more people would be in a better position to defend themselves and their property. Second, Sunstein unknowingly is making a case that rights do not exist in practice. If police and an oversight panel are necessary for the defense of rights, then another oversight panel is necessary for the first oversight panel and so on and so on at infinitum. Again, we are left dumbfounded answering who will watch the watchers.

Furthermore, Sunstein’s leap to a justification for taxes is a non-sequitur. A drowning man who is rescued by a well-dressed businessman should, if he has the least scant of courtesy, offer to pay for his rescuer’s dry cleaning or perhaps a new suit. But would the good Samaritan be justified in holding a gun on the man who he just rescued if he was not compensated? Of course not.

Possibility of Electing Moral Representatives

For a moment, let’s grant Sunstein’s premise that government is necessary for rights to function. Who is to govern?

One remaining solution to the question is that select people are of sufficient character to govern others, including themselves. Fair enough. But is it plausible? Lousy entrepreneurs are flushed from the market all the time. It is easy to not do business with someone. You just ignore them. And those with minority opinions are free to act on their beliefs. That is the difference between the free market, an open-ended process of discovery, and one-size-fits-all monopoly government.

The important point is that you cannot keep out people of low character. Character is not a black or white, all good or all evil proposition. Character is along a gradient. And in an appeal to votes, someone closer along the lines of low character may appeal to the unrepresented immoral class. Second, those in power have no obligation to uphold their promises, so low-moral people can get into office on the promises of doing good. The institution itself can be corrupting. Power corrupts, as Lord Acton stated.

The Myth of the Vigilant Voter

So if moral representatives can elected, why are they so scarse? You will sometimes hear that voters are to blame for not keeping politicians honest. This is even less convincing since government has been in the control of the education system for the past century.

It also is hard to imagine that voters ought to be vigilant. The costs of some outrageous corporate welfare is just a few dollars per voter. How much time is it worth to research and compare competing regulatory proposals? For the beneficiary of that regulation, it could mean millions of dollars.

All the things that allow for the efficient blending of capital and management are lacking in government. Government’s “customers” have no real alternative. The best they can do is choose new management every few years. The managers can never really be certain why they were put in charge, and they can never be held liable for any broken promises. At most, they can lose their job (and keep their pensions) if enough people agree a less-worse manager is available.

The people who rise in government are those who like to exercise power, since that is what government is, an exercise of power. That individual was not randomly chosen; he or she worked deliberately to rise through the ranks to get in that position, probably toiling many years for such an opportunity. Knowing that someone has worked in obscurity for the opportunity, what is the likelihood that someone in power would use that power solely for the benefit of others?

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 [...]]]> 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.

It is all a great start, in [...]]]> I was reading Rep. Ron Paul’s plan to restore his interpretation of constitutional law to the nation had he been elected president in 2008. He wants to massively curtail the federal bureaucracy, reduce or eliminate several cabinet departments, not just agencies, and slash spending on foreign interventions.

It is all a great start, in my book. Part of the plan is to begin “the orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan.” I was surprised to learn how pivotal that would be for Paul to carry out the rest of his agenda. He believes that he can divert 50 percent of the savings from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to offset reductions in entitlement programs, and the other half of the military savings would go to pay down the debt. Both would be politically difficult to manage, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

But before that could be done, troops would have to start coming home. It is an interesting thought experiment of what would happen.

Don’t beat me up too bad, but it is plausible (I stress “plausible”) more troops could have occupied Iraq and Afghanistan at the end of Paul’s first four years in the White House.

The foreign combattants in those countries might react to a planned withdraw with an escalation in the degree and tally of attacks. The purpose of the 9/11 attacks, as I understand it, was to lure American troops to the Middle East like how the Soviet Union lured into Afghanistan and subsequently into bankruptcy. If the number of attacks did increase and Paul continued course for withdraw, high-ranking generals and any Pentagon and CIA holdovers might threaten to resign out of protest for “cutting and running.” The families of killed soldiers would blanket the news and say that their husbands and sons had died in vain. I hope that Paul would stick to his principles, but he has yielded to political pressure even this past election cycle by agreeing to support Republican congressional incumbents in Texas. If he were elected with only a popular vote of around 40 percent, congressional opposition might be able to secure the two-thirds vote necessary to over ride any presidential vetoes.

Of course, if Paul were elected, other pro-liberty candidates would probably be in office to help. But how much support could he expect if he couldn’t keep his first priority and reduce the overseas empire. Even if a strict interpreter of the constitution like Paul were elected, I don’t know how much support he could expect from long-time government expansionists. The landslide election of Barrack Obama hasn’t won over any staunch Republicans even though he is carrying out George W. Bush’s nearly identical foreign policy. They have become more partisan.

I also suppose that Paul could refuse congresses demands to deploy more troops. Would the “champion of the constitution” defy the legislation of the House and the senate? I don’t know, but it would be an interesting constitutional test.