Political, philosophical, and theological reflections from a Christian idealist with libertarian leanings and a professional interest in science and mathematics.
I saw a fascinating and disturbing excerpt today from a new book entitled, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces. Here's a passage that caught my eye:
The political reaction to the Occupy crackdowns was interesting to watch. In the 1990s, it had been the right wing—particularly the far right—that was up in arms over police militarization. Recall the outrage on the right over Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the raid to seize Elián González. The left had largely either remained silent or even defended the government’s tactics in those cases. But the right-wing diatribes against jackbooted thugs and federal storm-troopers all died down once the Clinton administration left office, and they were virtually nonexistent after September 11, 2001. By the time cops started cracking heads at the Occupy protests, some conservatives were downright gleeful. The militarization of federal law enforcement certainly didn’t stop, but the 9/11 attacks and a friendly administration seemed to quell the conservatives’ concerns. So long as law enforcement was targeting hippie protesters, undocumented immigrants, suspected drug offenders, and alleged terrorist sympathizers, they were back to being heroes.
That sounds familiar, actually. As noted at the NYT, a majority of Americans are okay with NSA wiretapping, as long as it's their party in charge:
In 2006, when George W. Bush was president, just 37 percent of Democrats said the N.S.A. surveillance program was acceptable, while 61 percent said it was not. Now those numbers are 64 percent and 34 percent respectively.
Republicans appear to be fair-weather fans as well. In 2006, 75 percent said the program was acceptable, and 23 percent said it was not. Now 52 percent find it acceptable, and 47 percent unacceptable.
Blatant partisanship, it seems, is slowly yielding to more and more authoritarian government in America. When one half of the country refuses to stand up for the rights of the other half--and this is reciprocated--the rule of law slowly erodes.
I was infuriated (but perhaps should not have been surprised) to read an article by Joe Carter (in the Acton Institute's blog, of all places!) explicitly defending the idea of harnessing bias in governmental institutions. Summarizing the difference between the conservatism he wants to defend and the libertarianism he wants to critique, he gives the following quote:
Libertarians believe that neutrality between the various spheres of society—and especially between the government and the individual—are both possible and desirable, and so the need for bias toward a certain outcome is not only unnecessary, but contrary to liberty.
Religious conservatives, in contrast, recognize that such neutrality between individual and social spheres is illusory and that bias is an intractable aspect of human nature.
The application of this position came today, in a follow-up article he wrote in agreement with state intervention in aiding start-up companies:
As Derek Thompson, a senior editor at The Atlantic, says, “It would be naive to think we can cleanse the law of all biases. But what if the law were biased, not toward the oil and gas industry or the cotton farmers, but toward the creative, the self-employed, and the entrepreneurs?”
You can watch Derek Thompson explain himself on the Alyona Show here.
Carter and Thompson both have intentions which are pure enough. After all, it would be a great thing to see more young entrepreneurs contribute to our prosperity instead of watching all of it go to CEO's of big corporations.
But as Milton Friedman said, good intentions are highly overrated.
What I cannot comprehend is why "religious conservatives" have completely forgotten the ideal of impartiality, an ideal which is commonly attributed to God throughout the Bible. It would be one thing if Carter had merely said, "I think government will always have some bias in it." What he is actually saying is that we should direct this bias toward ends we desire. Does this really pass for a defense of liberty? Are we really now to believe that it is the well-meaning free-market activists who really know the ends toward which society should move?
Whichever intellectual forces brought us to the point where we believe in embracing institutional bias in government deserve to be burned in the fires of hell (and please do not construe "intellectual forces" to refer to people; hate the sin, love the sinner, as they say). A free society is unique among all other forms of social order in one crucial sense: in a free society, the ends to which members of the society strive are never determined by human authority. Thus the end to which government ought to strive is strictly one of defense: preserving the social order from those who would seek to impose their will on others. When the government is in the habit of imposing its own will on others, I call that tyranny.
I acknowledge that what Carter and Thompson are suggesting is benign. It is their way of thinking about the issue that poses a serious long-term problem to freedom. They are not the innovators, of course; they are simply imitating the status quo. As long as people who wish to defend freedom keep imitating the status quo, we will never get justice.
So let me say it plainly: anyone who utters the words "bias is inevitable" is defending tyranny. There is nothing inevitable about a government which picks winners and losers, which defends its own interests at the expense of others, which takes from some to give to others, and which compels all members of society to contribute to particular goals. In other words, the status quo is not inevitable. We must examine how we got here, and seek to move in a new direction.
Let's be clear on what I am not saying, before we go accusing "Mr. Libertarian" of being a cold-hearted bastard who believes in a society consisting every man for himself. I am not saying there should be no cooperation between people in order to help those who may want to take risks and start a new business. I am not saying that young entrepreneurs don't need encouragement. I am simply saying that the strong arm of the state doesn't need to be part of this, and more generally coercion doesn't need to be the instrument by which people help each other.
But the goal of having more entrepreneurs and less power in corporations is an admirable goal. One way you could help entrepreneurs is by defending them from the overreaching powers of the government. The Institute for Justice is the only organization I know of that tries to raise public awareness about the problems with over-regulation and actually do something about it.
Freedom is about protecting the individual conscience, and I believe conscience will drive many people to do great things to change society for the better. What we must never do is succumb to the temptation to force others down a path we believe is just. The ends do not justify the means. The injustice of coercion trumps the justice of any one cause (unless that cause is itself to prevent coercion, which is a case that must be dealt with separately). If we surrender the ideological battle to the "inevitability of bias," then in the long run freedom has no chance.
Here is, finally, a Republican explaining true free market principles (the link is here). I listened to the whole Bloomberg debate from the other night. All of the other Republicans (beside Ron Paul) were touting the virtues of having private sector experience, claiming this makes them better equipped (than Obama) to "manage the economy."
Let's think about that for a moment. Do we need businessmen with their experience "managing" the economy?
No. In the first place, the government is not a business, as Ron Paul expresses quite well. Its purpose is not to maximize profit. Its purpose is to execute impartial justice and protect the American people. It sounds so sensible and even conservative to insist that government ought to act more like a business and balance its budget. But the important thing actually is not balancing its budget, but minimizing coercion.
In the second place, businessmen are likely to be biased toward businesses. "Corporate welfare" is no less part of big government policies than actual welfare. Who wins when the government gives big bailouts? The "little guy"? In the sense that he may not have to change his current employment, maybe...but in terms of justice it is, of course, the rich and powerful who benefit at the expense of the poor when government "manages the economy." And in the long run this management will make us all poorer than we otherwise would have been.
It is a myth that supporters of the free market must be people who appreciate business sense and buy into the attitudes of business culture. It is often quite the opposite. If businessmen are allowed to use political means to pursue their own interests, this is a perversion of justice and not a free market. Political means are coercive. The only legitimate market means for making a profit are non-coercive activities.
That Republicans are generally the party of businessmen makes them less, not more, attractive to a free market libertarian.
Given that nearly everything Rick Santorum says is absurd, this one really takes the cake. Rick Perry is a "big government moderate" because he opposes building a fence across the Mexican border?
Seriously?
Honestly, how much more "big government" can you possibly get than building a fence across the border between two countries? Maybe the Reaganites owe an apology to all those small government conservatives who were in charge of East Berlin during the 1980's.
You won't catch me supporting Rick Perry very often, but on the immigration issue, at least he, in his own words, "has a heart."
Which is nice and all, but I confess I prefer Ron Paul, who also has a head. Don't build a fence; it's a waste of money, it's an infringement on liberty, and there are much more practical ways of dealing with the immigration issue.
If you look at conservatives like Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, it's not clear to me they have either hearts or brains on this issue. (And I thought Mitt Romney was "liberal.")
Even including Ron Paul, I'm not quite sure any of the Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) quite represent my views on immigration. (Ron Paul would perhaps be the closest.) I simply don't see why immigration shouldn't be free and open. End the quotas. Stop talking about a fence. Let people come here if they want, but don't subsidize their doing so. Obviously drug cartels are a problem, but that's a problem for law enforcement generally and is not specifically immigration-related.
(And while we're on the subject of drugs, we could probably save a lot of money and lot of lives by just letting them be legalized.)
But no matter what your opinion on immigration is, at least have the common sense to realize that in fact, the "conservative" view on immigration is in fact a big government view. If you favor the government building a fence along the border of Mexico, then you favor bigger government. If you favor a national identification system, then you favor bigger government. If you favor politicians deciding who is allowed to immigrate to this country, then you favor bigger government. If you favor tracking down small businesses to see whether or not they hire illegal immigrants, then you obviously favor bigger government. It's really not that hard.
Anyone who professes to be a "small government" conservative and yet wants more restrictions on immigration, well...hypocrite doesn't even begin to describe such a person.
From Chapter 9, "Best Management Practices," in Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal:
"You see, the government can never be creative, because by definition it must satisfy 51 percent of the population. And the majority is never on the cutting edge of innovation. Any study of innovation reveals a common thread: it's really lonely out there at the breakthrough point. The early discoverers do not have majority backing; they receive sneers and catcalls from the majority."
I wish I had time to discuss this whole chapter tonight, but it cannot be.
Every chapter in this book seems to leave me with that feeling. So I'll just give a quick recommendation: read this book.
Government regulations apparently required police to abstain from saving a man's life in California:
Most astonishing quote: "Well, if I was off duty I know what I would do, but...[if I were on duty] I'd have to stay within the policies and procedures..." This is a police officer's response to what he would do if a child were drowning off shore.
The fear of litigation is a deadly poison to society.
A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area. The product in question: unpasteurized milk. It’s a battle that’s been going on behind the scenes for years, with natural foods advocates arguing that raw milk, as it’s also known, is healthier than the pasteurized product, while the Food and Drug Administration says raw milk can carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.
A sting operation. To stop whom? The Amish. From doing what? Selling milk.
