Getting laws from children / Matt Ridley on government

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WARM_BEER?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

A state senator wants to force Missouri stores to sell warm beer. Under a bill by Sen. Bill Alter, grocery and convenience stores would risk losing their liquor licenses if they sold beer colder than 60 degrees. The intent is to cut down on drunken driving by making it less tempting to pop open a beer after leaving the store.

(...)

He said the idea came from a fifth-grade student in Jefferson County who was participating in a program to teach elementary students about state government. He sought their suggestions for new laws and chose the cold beer ban from a list of the top three ideas.

Never let it be said that making up imbecilic laws is child's play...


Matt Ridley on government

In all times and in all places there has been too much government. We now know what prosperity is: it is the gradual extension of the division of labour through the free exchange of goods and ideas, and the consequent introduction of efficiencies by the invention of new technologies. This is the process that has given us health, wealth and wisdom on a scale unimagined by our ancestors. It not only raises material standards of living, it also fuels social integration, fairness and charity. It has never failed yet. No society has grown poorer or more unequal through trade, exchange and invention. Think of pre-Ming as opposed to Ming China, seventeenth century Holland as opposed to imperial Spain, eighteenth century England as opposed to Louis XIV's France, twentieth century America as opposed to Stalin's Russia, or post-war Japan, Hong Kong and Korea as opposed to Ghana, Cuba and Argentina. Think of the Phoenicians as opposed to the Egyptians, Athens as opposed to Sparta, the Hanseatic League as opposed to the Roman Empire. In every case, weak or decentralised government, but strong free trade led to surges in prosperity for all, whereas strong, central government led to parasitic, tax-fed officialdom, a stifling of innovation, relative economic decline and usually war.

Take Rome. It prospered because it was a free trade zone. But it repeatedly invested the proceeds of that prosperity in too much government and so wasted it in luxury, war, gladiators and public monuments. The Roman empire's list of innovations is derisory, even compared with that of the 'dark ages' that followed.

Currency crises / Markets for status

I have two great articles from two great bloggers for you today. First, Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution has a sound theory on why third-world countries have currency crises, and why governments in the third-world have no interest in maintaining a sound currency :

The country as a whole is poorer, if only because the currency collapse disrupts economic activity. The first class of asset holders [representing the poor citizens of a third-world country] is much poorer and many are wiped out altogether. Non-tradeables are oriented ever more toward wealthy, sophisticated demanders. Culture will boom, non-shippable foods will improve in quality, and perhaps the women will become more beautiful. Relatively wealthy vacationers will find that this place is just right for them. Yet the streets will have more litter and there will be more beggars than before.

This is no conspiracy theory, but it does explain why we do not see greater domestic pressures for fiscal stability.

As I said before, so much for the "it's not their fault" theory of foreign aid. Also yet another way in which government hurts the poor.


Will Wilkinson, at the Fly Bottle, thinks that people's craving for status can co-exist with a peaceful society, as long as we get government out of it :

The obvious point to make about status, then, is that it is domain relative, and that the number of domains does not seem to be fixed. (My example may tempt you you to confuse status for fame. Don’t.) One of my favorite documentaries, Word Wars, goes inside the fascinating world of competitive Scrabble players. Naturally, this being a human endeavor, there is a ladder of status among Scrabble players, and for the people who devote their live and energy to the game, this is the kind of status that matters. Now, it may seem to you that Peyton Manning is a bigger deal than Joe Edley, but it doesn’t seem that way to Joe Edley.

(...)

So what to we do about the fact that people are status-seeking? What we do is encourage a decentralized entrepreneurial culture where status domains without number may bloom. Where the president of the Tuscon YMCA, the world’s Scrabble champion, Tony Hawk, the best fusion jazz guitarist in Miami, and the first and only audio/olfactory immersive ambient concept assemeblagist can sleep sweet dreams, secure in their well-deserved status.

The TV show inJustice

The new TV show "inJustice" is something that all individualists should watch. In this show, a small group of investigators look into doubtful convictions and find out how the imprisoned person was railroaded into a guilty verdict, and what they didn't look at in their investigations. This show clearly shows how the police and justice systems are utilitarian tools of the state (like anything else that is co-opted by the state), and that without accountability there can never be "law and order". It exposes the lies perpetuated by the media that the justice system and the police are "searchers for the truth".

Also check the documentary "Capturing the Friedmen", which is just one real-life horror story out of millions.

How should we preach libertarianism ?

Libertarianism has, for all intents and purposes, failed. It's been eighty years since Von Mises published his seminal Socialism, which predicted the flaws and eventual fall of communist nations. Proof has been given again and again that libertarianism is the only correct way to understand political and social relationships - by economic studies, by the utilitarian actions of the ruling class, by conceptual understanding.

And yet, libertarian ideas are unanimously rejected by anyone outside of the economic academia and a very small circle of individualists.

Furthermore, consider that everyone understands that politicians are corrupt, that government is inefficient and twisted, that government institutions are bloated and have no incentive to accomodate demand, and that even the basic functions of government - the police, the military, the justice system - need profound reform... and yet they still ardently believe that government is moral and that democracy is righteous, enough to go out and vote even though they know that their vote is worthless.

Why is that ? The answer is that morality runs the world. Arguments of efficacy, however numerous or powerful, cannot convince someone who earnestly believes that he is morally right. This belief can overcome the most atrocious facts - genocide, mass murder, racist hatred - as the belief systems of Christianity, Islam, Nazism and Communism have demonstrated in the past. Once moral concerns are pushed aside in the name of the moral superiority of one's belief system, then a man can have no qualms in committing the worst atrocities. What would his personal values matter if he diligently obeys a belief system which he believes has absolute moral standing ?

The way to preach any position, including libertarianism, is to show that it is morally right and that its opponents are morally wrong. I know many people are afraid to point out moral facts - that they assume collectivist systems do indeed have the moral high ground and that no one could ever say otherwise, or that to be "fair" we should not question the morality of our opponents, but rather give them a fair evidential hearing.

This approach has never led anywhere. The opponents of slavery did not argue on grounds of efficacy, or give their opponents the benefit of the doubt on moral standing. They did not try to pacify slavers. They did not argue that stopping slavery would raise economic efficiency by that much, or help the enslaved by this much. They reiterated again and again that slavery was morally wrong, until enough people broke from their belief systems and realized that this was indeed correct.

So how do we win the political moral debate ?

* By presenting natural moral assumptions and how collectivists break those assumptions.
(Everyone agrees that war is wrong / Taxes give government the power to wage war to bolster their own power / Taxes are morally wrong)

* By talking about the immorality of belief or collectivism itself.
(To believe in a political ideology just because you were raised in it is morally wrong)

* By practical moral comparisons.
(Politically unfree countries are the most corrupt - the most warmongering - the least safe - the most cutthroat)

In all cases, in trying to deconvert someone, one must never get bogged down in details of evidence, always keep in mind and come back to the basic points : government is morally wrong, political power is morally wrong, taxation is morally wrong, democracy is morally wrong.
(Now of course if you were seriously debating someone or writing an article for your fellow libertarians, you would want to talk about evidence, but a debate is not a debunking - both serve different purposes)

Here are some examples :

Q: Capitalism is bad.
A: It's moral for people to produce resources and make them available to other people. It's immoral for government to prevent that and take those resources to feed itself. Government is morally wrong.

Q: Wal-Mart is bad.
A: Wal-Mart makes stuff available to people who could not afford them otherwise. Wal-Mart commerce is moral. People who oppose Wal-Mart are against the poor and don't want resources to be available to everyone. People who oppose Wal-Mart are immoral.

Q: Government is necessary.
A: In a free society, people want to trade with each other and provide useful products. We can cooperate to provide necessary things to each other. Government does not produce anything. Government takes from society, fulfills its own needs, and uses force to impose those needs on everyone. Government is morally wrong.
Government is a win-lose system (govt does not produce anything, so whatever it gives you is taken from someone else). Libertarianism is a win-win system.

Q: Taxes are needed to maintain society.
A: Taxes are immoral because they give government power to control your life and gives it the power to make war. Taking taxes down is moral because it reduces the power of government, which hurts everyone and corrupts society. It's not moral for any group of people to steal.

Q: Democracy is the best system.
A: Hurting people is immoral, even if most people agree. Might does not make right. Civil disobedience is noble. Democracy is vile.
Democracy lets popular ideologies and beliefs, the rich, and the powerful control government, because they can give politicians more money and support than others. Democracy is not the government of the people : it is inherently elitist. The individual's vote is worthless. Democracy is anti-individualist and morally wrong.

Q: I understand that government is coercive, but I don't care.
You are willing to use violence to solve social problems. That is immoral, and makes you immoral. You are no different than a terrorist who wants to kill people of a different race or religion to solve political problems.


In all cases, keep your replies as close to the moral arguments as possible. Never concede any moral ground to your opponents. Statism is morally bankrupt and only by pointing this out will we succeed.

Toll Roads

In Today's Los Angeles Times, there is an article that says that "The Governator" wants to expand toll road use in California. So far so good right? Well, a little further into the article it says that Californians have always been very turned off by the idea of toll roads. I could only shake my head in disappointment.

Californians are generally very turned off by the idea of toll roads. Californians don't want to feel like they are paying money every time they drive on a road. The problem here is that Californians have a perception problem. To a Californian, if they aren't paying for the road directly, then they aren't paying for the road at all. Of course, this is totally untrue. Californians pay for all their roads 100% of the time. The difference is that Californians usually pay for their roads indirectly through taxes, so they don't notice that they are actually paying for the roads.

At this point I want to let out a little disclaimer: The toll roads that the Governator is proposing would not be privately owned roads, but publicly owned toll roads. So he isn't really being that libertarian, but merely having a toll road is still a step in the right direction. And for the sake of argument, in this article I am going to discuss the Governator's toll road concept as if it were a private toll road idea.

Imagine a toll road only world, where no roads were public and every road you drove on you had to pay for using it. Cringing, are you? Before you jump to conclusions, consider this: There are no public gas stations; all gas stations are private "toll" stations. There are no public auto repair shops (at least none that the private citizen can use); all auto repair shops are private "toll" repair shops.

Would you rather have gasoline and auto repair that you didn’t have to pay for when you received it, but instead paid for it in advance through taxation? Because that is what we are doing right now with our public roads. We pay for public roads indirectly through taxes, rather than pay for them directly through tolls. And as any Californian knows, public roads are a major issue. Roads in California are in a state of disrepair, with a huge backlog of work and repaving that needs to be done. The State can't keep up with road deterioration, nor with congestion.

Californians cringe every time they hear the word "toll." This is a shame, because if you think about it, "toll" is just another way of saying "free market." And the free market has been so thoroughly embraced by Californians that we have managed to get our mere state to be ranked as the 6th largest economy in the world! That's right folks: my home state competes as if it were one of the top ten actual countries of the world.

Undoubtedly, the free market has been very, very good to California. So why do Californians not embrace a toll road system? Ignorance, that's why.

Think about it: When gas prices went soaring, Californians started talking about price caps. Ignorance. When health insurance prices went soaring, Californians started talking about increasing government health programs. Ignorance. When energy prices soared, Californians blamed deregulation instead of legislation. Ignorance.

Californians know far too little about the free market system that has transformed their precious state into a global economic powerhouse. Californians also know far too little about taxes, and about the differences between public and private resources. The fact that most Californians think that public roads are "free" while toll roads are not, exposes the depth of their ignorance. Systems of indirect payment, like public health care and public roadways, have an advantage in that the user of these systems feels like the services are free when they are used. It feels to me like using the freeway is truly free every time I drive on it, because I don't pay any money when I drive up the on-ramp. But of course, I am paying for those roads and I am paying for that healthcare. It's just that I pay for it indirectly through the taxes out of my paycheck.

Awareness of this misconception is key, I think, to correcting people's aversion to private economic systems such as toll roads. People have to be made aware that they are usually paying more for services through an indirect public system than they would if they paid directly through a private system.

Imagine if Californians were given a bill to vote on where, if passed, the bill would make every Californian split the cost of all gasoline consumed in the state through a public gasoline tax system. The bill would say that all gasoline consumed in California would be tallied up, and then the cost would be split through the taxing of every Californian's paycheck. Californians would howl in rage at the bill and it would be shot down quicker than the Governator's propositions in his recent special election! So if it's obvious that Californians wouldn't support a public gas-tax payment system, then why do they want to stick to the one already in place for the roadways? Again, ignorance. Californians have a free market perception problem, and it needs to be addressed.

Terrorism is...

Every day is Buy Something Day

Anti-consumeurism is bullshit. Buy Nothing Day is bullshit. To me, every day is Buy Something Day.

I am a normal person. I need to eat. I walk a couple blocks to the store. I enter the gocery store. That grocery store has a large array of foodstuffs of all kinds - meat, fish, fruits and vegetables, pasta, soups, ice cream, cakes... whatever I desire or need for my dinner.

The grocery store exists as a mediator between the producers and me, the customer. They draw foodstuffs from all around the continent in one place so I can buy them. And I buy them so I can "consume" them.

The Greenies have made "consume" into an evil, dark word. Consuming is what the greedy humans do when they are not in harmony with nature. Other species, or more primitive societies, hunt and fish, but they are not inherently evil, and so they don't "consume". But I'm a human being with clearly-defined values and defending human progress, therefore I am an evil consumer, unlike the noble Greenie who preaches undefined "natural" values and attacks human progress in the name of "sustainability", "culture" and "harmony".

On the other hand, no one can live without consuming resources. So the anti-consumeurist movement is predicated on one giant contradiction. But as I said in "The Greenies and their beliefs", maybe they think it's okay as long as you can brainwash your children to become "caring" Greenies like they are. I don't feel like knowing one long enough to figure that out.

The Greenie ideology is predicated on repressing human instincts and needs, as well as compassion towards the least fortunate, in order to fulfill a vague idea of social and environmental "harmony", which is really nothing more than self-righteous sacrifice which accomplishes absolutely nothing. Even though they resent this assessment, Greenies are inherently amoral and anti-humanist : to them human values are inferior and must serve higher ideals.

I'm willing to bet that most Greenies have never lived in a third-world country, never had to shop at Wal-Mart or eat at McDonalds for monetary reasons, and never had a primary sector job. I'm not playing holier-than-thou here (even though I am, in fact, holier), as I'm not part of those categories either, but I'm not advocating hurting the least fortunate, so I have nothing to feel guilty about.

Consumption, on the other hand, fulfills basic human needs. In modern society, it is the most basic expression of value. It is by "consuming" basic goods that we express our values, from the simplest like eating, to the most complex like social visibility. Even Greenies "consume" to fulfill these values, they're just dishonest about it. I find it hard to talk about Greenies and "sustainability" fanatics because I think their position is a basic contradiction, and that only the greatly dishonest or the outright insane could possibly adopt it. There's just not much to say beyond "you're lying".

Consumption and gift-giving are also the greatest expressions of voluntary action. The fact that anti-consumeurists strenuously argue against them (in fact, right now a "Buy Nothing Christmas" image has been slapped on the Buy Nothing Day page - the idea is so sacrilegous and disgusting that I'm not even going to dignify that) shows that what they are after is not a better lifestyle or worldview, but the basis of cooperation itself. Of course, this assumes that they are intelligent enough to think their position up to that point, which sadly is not true.

When I buy my foodstuffs, there are a few rules I follow. I buy the store brand unless there is an important difference in quality with more expensive brands. And I don't buy any vegetarian, "organic" or low-fat food. Unlike the first rule, this one is purely a matter of principles - I do not subscribe to the anti-scientific bias inherent in "organic" goods, I do not subscribe to vegetarian propaganda, I don't subscribe to the obesity scares, and I don't want to contribute to any of these ideologies and sacrifice any enjoyment of life.

And in the end, that is the real issue. All the anti-globalization, vegetarian, anti-scientific rhetoric is just rationalization that they don't even understand anyway, and certainly don't want to think through. The real reason why they align themselves as our cultural enemies, and on the side of primitivism, is a simple question of values. We value life, comfort and pleasure, science and human progress. They preach ascetism and the "natural", and reject human values as evil and corrupt. In short, our ideology is about the reality of human life, and their ideology is about submission to a higher, unreal, non-human ideal. Greenie collectivism, like religious collectivism and political collectivism, should be relegated to the trash heap of history.

At least that's what I think about when I come back from the grocery store, every single day : thank Providence my ancestors weren't Greenies. Happy Buy Something Day everyone !


Oh, and by the way, the Carnival of the Green doesn't want entries that are about anti-consumeurism. Apparently anti-consumeurism is not Greenie. What-ever...

Why You Are a Libertarian

Why You Are a Libertarian - A moral article by Harry Browne.

You’re a libertarian because you abhor violence . . .

When a neighbor isn’t willing to contribute as much to a social project as you are, you’d never think of:

Using a gun to force him to contribute;

Hiring an armed gang to threaten to kidnap him or confiscate his money if he didn’t contribute;

Using the government in place of the armed gang if he didn’t contribute — because every government program, in the final analysis, involves violence against those who don’t comply.

If two people have agreed to engage in voluntary behavior between them, with no violence involved, you’d never think of:

Using a gun to stop them;

Hiring an armed gang to threaten to kidnap them if they didn’t stop;

Using the government in place of the armed gang to stop them.

If a company and an individual have agreed to engage in voluntary behavior between them, with no violence involved, you’d never think of:

Using a gun to stop them;

Hiring an armed gang to threaten to kidnap them if they didn’t stop;

Using the government in place of the armed gang to stop them.

If a foreign government is not attacking America, you’d never support the idea of initiating violence against the foreign country.

As one who abhors violence, you’re willing to tolerate anything that’s peaceful, and you practice the principle of live and let live — opposing the initiation of force (violence) against anyone for any purpose.

That’s why you’re a libertarian.