Tag: Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals

On the Colorado School Shooting

I’m not going to spend much time discussing the recent school shooting in Colorado since most of the facts aren’t in yet. But I do want to quickly mention one important aspect: the extent of time the shooting lasted:

In less than 80 seconds, Karl Pierson “fired one random shot down a hallway,” then entered an area where 17-year-old Claire Esther Davis was seated with a friend, “and shot the female victim point-blank” in the head. “There was no time for the victim to run from the shooter,” Robinson told reporters on Saturday.

Pierson then fired another round down a hallway, then entered the library, where he fired again and ignited one of the Molotov cocktails, according to Robinson.

That ignited at least three bookshelves, causing smoke to pour into the library.

He then fired a fifth round and ran to the library’s back corner, “and there took his own life.”

By 12:35 p.m., it was all over.

[…]

The rampage might have resulted in many more casualties had it not been for the quick response of a deputy sheriff who was working as a school resource officer at the school, Robinson said.

This event shows that a lot of damage can be caused in a mere 80 seconds. It also shows that having the ability to respond quickly to school shootings is critical. In most of these shootings the shooter has committed suicide upon meeting armed resistance. That means having armed individuals on site is an effective way to reduce the amount of damage cased by a shooter. I’m not a fan of having uniformed officers on site because it both creates an obvious point of failure and reinforces the prison-like environment that schools already reflect. I would far prefer schools allow teachers and faculty to carry a firearm is they so chose. That would add uncertainty to any plan to shoot up a school and would remove an obvious point of failure.

There will never be a perfect solution to prevent violence but we can work to mitigate its effects. One of the most effective ways of doing so is to have a more widely armed populace.

Bitcoin Versus Gold: Or How I Learned to Stop Caring About Economic Internet Arguments

I think it’s time we took a moment to chat. If you pay attention to economic, crypto-anarchism, libertarianism, or other similarly intersecting online forums you have probably picked up on the recent Bitcoin versus gold debate that has been raging on. The latest exchange started with Peter Schiff posted this video touting gold over Bitcoin:

This kicked the Bitcoin community into holy crusade mode. The most well written counterargument to Schiff’s video, in my opinion, is this one from Reddit.

I have a problem with both sides of the argument. There is no reason one has to win. We, as a species, are actually capable of using more than one thing as a medium of exchange. For example, gold and silver have historically been found together as mediums of exchange in markets based on precious metals. Today we see the use of dollars, yuan, yen, pounds, euros, and many other currencies used to facilitate transactions. In fact I would submit that having a single medium of exchange is just as dangerous as any other monopoly.

Bitcoin is a new and exciting newcomer. It’s attractive to us neophiles, in part, because it’s an unknown quantity that could greatly shake the foundation of the current monetary systems. Neophobes tend to shy away from Bitcoin because it’s new and unproven. For them gold is a better option because it’s been around forever. I’m a fan of diversification. If Bitcoin takes a dump and gold excels then I’m happy to have gold. If the opposite happens I’m happy to have Bitcoin. If both excel as currencies I’ll be happy to have both. The only way this debate will be determined once and for all is when time leads us to a result. I just hope that whatever result we arrive at is unexpected by all involved interests. Nothing is worse than minds not being blown.

A Total Lack of Accountability

I believe one of the biggest problems with modern policing, besides the job description, is the almost complete lack of accountability. We see this whenever an officer is accused of using unnecessary force and receives a paid vacation. But some of the ways cops are unaccountable go unnoticed. For example, if police officers negligently shoot a bystander in response to a 911 call the perpetrator can be charged with the shootings:

An unarmed, emotionally disturbed man shot at by the police as he was lurching around traffic near Times Square in September has been charged with assault, on the theory that he was responsible for bullet wounds suffered by two bystanders, according to an indictment unsealed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday.

The theory goes that the perpetrator was responsible because he caused the situation. It’s a bullshit excuse. Consider a slightly different situation. Let’s say you’re at home one night and somebody breaks in your back door. The man is armed so you grab a rifle and fire at him. Now let’s assume the worst and say that one of your rounds exits your house and hits one of your neighbors. In all likelihood you’ll face a civil lawsuit for negligently hitting your neighbor. Even if you’re legally in the right you will still face the expenses involve of merely being accused of wrongdoing.

Cops, as the state’s enforcers, are imbued with special privileges. They can break the law in pursuit of enforcing the state’s decrees. These special privileges mean police officers are unaccountable. Even when they do something illegal they generally have department lawyers that are paid with tax money to deal with the legal aftermath. Without accountability it’s easy to see how modern policing has become little more than thuggery with a state issued costume.

Politicians Should Give Stock Options to Volunteers

Have you ever been approached to work on a political campaign? I’m guessing a notable percentage of those of you reading this post have. What form of compensation was offered? Probably nothing.

Political campaigns are always looking for volunteer labor. They want people to work on phone banks, do door knocking, march in parades, work booths at local fairs, stuff envelopes, and other menial tasks. If a volunteer asks to be compensated for his or her time they usually receive one of several excuses. The most popular excuse is that the campaign needs every penny in order to get its politician elected. That may be true but in many cases a surplus of campaign funds exist after the election. Furthermore, most politicians receive a salary if they’re elected.

This raises a question. Why don’t campaigns offer volunteers a form of stock option? Politicians could offer to use part of their salary to compensate their volunteers if they are elected? Why don’t campaigns offer to divide any surplus funds amongst volunteers after an election concludes?

I’ll tell you why. Politicians are interested in expropriating wealth. In other words they’re thieves. And any good thief knows you don’t pay for something that you can steal.

Consider this the next time you’re approached to work on a campaign. The politician, if elected, will likely receive an excellent salary and benefits package. Meanwhile you will receive nothing. In fact you will receive less than nothing when you consider the amount of time and money (because politicians, being thieves, also ask you to donate money to their campaign in addition to your time) you sunk into the campaign. Don’t be a sucker. Demand the campaign grant you stock options paid out of surplus campaign funds and the politician’s salary if he or she is elected.

Happy Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving, which is soon to be known as Black Friday Eve. But as long as we still have Thanksgiving some people are probably interested in the holiday’s history. A couple of years ago I wrote a post detailing that Thanksgiving was really brought on by a failure of socialism. This year I’m going to present an alternative viewpoint courtesy of Kevin Carson, a mutualist whom I greatly respect. According to Mr. Carson there is one key element many libertarians have ignored when using Thanksgiving to rail against socialism. Namely, the Pilgrims were victims of statism and its beloved tool incorporation:

The Plymouth story is sometimes compared to that of agriculture in the last days of the Soviet Union, where most of the food consumed came from private family plots — essentially kitchen gardens with some small livestock thrown in. Had the entire Soviet population been forced to subsist on the output of State and collective farms alone, the result would have been mass starvation — exactly like in Plymouth. This parallel is entirely accurate. What the received version of the Plymouth story leaves out, however, is that the role of the “collective farm” in the little drama is played not by the naive Puritan zealots seeking to “hold all things in common” but by a private corporation chartered by the English crown.

And as Curl describes it, the system of private plots adopted after the rebellion against the Merchant Adventurers wasn’t much like modern fee simple ideas of “private property,” either. It sounds more like the open-field system the settlers had experienced in Nottinghamshire: The family plots were ad hoc, to be periodically redivided, and not subject to inheritance.

So the proper analog to what almost killed off the Pilgrims is not, as Stossel says, “Karl Marx” or “today’s [presumably left-wing] politicians and opinion-makers.” It’s the lord of an English manor — or a Fortune 500 corporation. But the story as it actually happened is still a testament to the evils of statism and the benefits of voluntary cooperation. The Merchant Adventurers, like the Fortune 500 companies of today, was a chartered corporation that depended entirely on benefits and legal privileges conferred by the state. The living arrangements it attempted to impose on the Plymouth settlers were the same as the extractive arrangements that prevailed on an English manor, enforced by the legal privileges the state conferred on the landed nobility. And the new system the Pilgrims replaced them with were the age-old open field system that peasant villages had spontaneously created for themselves, in the absence of coercive interference, since neolithic times.

Anyways it’s something to think about while you’re scarfing down Turkey. Now you’ll have to excuse me. I plan on gorging myself and doing nothing productive for the remainder of the day.

Using the State to Crush Competitors

What do you do when you’re a large pharmaceutical company and some new product comes to market that challenges your supremacy? Get your friends in the state to regulate that competitor out of existence:

This fall, the European Parliament considered new rules regulating e-cigs. E-cigarette manufacturers, of course, lobbied like crazy to block the proposal, and it seems they won. But the drugmakers fought for stricter regulations, for obvious reasons: E-cigarettes compete with prescription drugs that are supposed to help people stop smoking.

GlaxoSmithKline sells Nicorette gum and Johnson & Johnson manufactures nicotine patches. The New York Times reported these companies helped lead “strong opposition” to e-cigarettes.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration is about to announce new proposed rules on e-cigarettes. Big Pharma’s shadow hangs over the rule-making.

It’s a time honored tradition that has been used by monopolists since the beginning of statism. Here in Minnesota there is already talk of regulating e-cigarettes the same as tobacco cigarettes. Why would a far safer alternative be regulated the same as a far more dangerous product? Because the far safer alternative stands to cut into the profits of some very powerful lobbyists and the state is generally quick to protect those that have scratched its back.

3D Printed Firearms and the Undetectable Firearms Act

Talk about a panty wadding combination of events. Firearms that can be printed on 3D printers are becoming more advanced and the Undetectable Firearms Act is set to expire on December 9th of this year. That can only mean one thing. Chuck Schumer is going to step up to the plate and attempt to perform the impossible act of prohibiting the advancement of technology:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — As the technology to print 3-D firearms advances, a federal law that banned the undetectable guns is about to expire.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer says he’s seeking an extension of the law before it expires Dec. 9.

He said the technology of so-called 3-D printing has advanced to the point anyone with $1,000 and an Internet connection can access the plastic parts that can be fitted into a gun. Those firearms can’t be detected by metal detectors or X-ray machines.

I don’t think Schumer realizes how incredibly stupid he sounds at the moment. He states, truthfully, that firearms that are undetectable by metal detectors and X-ray machines can be created on 3D printers. Then he claims that the Undetectable Firearms Act must be renewed to prevent these firearms from becoming available. Of course the law hasn’t expired yet and the plastic firearms are already being created. In other words, the Undetectable Firearms Act is pointless. People are already creating firearms that cannot be detected by metal detectors or X-ray machines even though the law hasn’t expired yet. Renewing the law is a moot point.

To borrow a famous Taoist saying, no one rules if no one obeys. The advancement of technology is leaving the old hierarchy in the dust. We are outpacing their ability to control us. While people like Schumer are arguing for a need to extend the Undetectable Firearms Act people are already creating firearms that violate that act. To make matters better, the people creating the blueprints for these unlawful firearms can remain anonymous. Creating one of these firearms carries little risk since it can be done by a single individual from the comfort of his or her own home. Without a target to attack the state cannot enforce its decrees. Since the threat of state violence is beginning to become less of an issue fewer people are seeing a need to obey, which means the state’s power is slowly crumbling.

We Need a State to Protect Us from a State

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. While discussing anarchism a statist pops in and says “Guys, if we don’t have a state some war lord is going to take over and enslave everybody!” The anarchists look at the statist baffled. One of the anarchists looks to another and asks “Did he just say we need a state to protect us from a state?” The other anarchist slowly nods his head and response “I think he did.”

Claiming that we need a state to protect us from war lords is circular reasoning. Consider what a war lord is. A war lord is nothing more than a man with an army who goes from area to area and uses his army’s capacity for violent to coerce people into obeying him. In other words a war lord is nothing more than an individual who uses coercion in an attempt to acquire a monopoly on the use of force. What is a state? An organization that uses coercion in an attempt to acquire a monopoly on force.

After hearing that reasoning the statist is likely to rebut with the claim that his or her preferred system of government is somehow different. A vast majority of the time the statist will be advocating for a currently or historically existing form of government that has already proven his or her claim false. Fans of constitutional republics will claim that a properly written constitution will protect the people form a tyrannical government. The United States is proving this claim false every day. Even though a large majority of fans of constitutional republics claim the Constitution is a properly written document it has failed to protect us and people abroad from government tyranny. Socialists will often jump in and claim more democracy will fix an problem. But when they say more democracy they almost imply that too much democracy will be detrimental. You see, a society where every person has an equal vote in matters is a form of anarchy and that’s possibly work. But if people are allowed to vote on certain governmental positions and certain laws then tyranny can be avoided. Just ask the former Soviet Union! Then there are the fans of limited socialism. These are the statists that aren’t ballsy enough to jump into the deep end of the socialism pool and too scared to take a dip in the constitutional republic river. In their mind striking the right balance between socialism and republicanism will solve all of the world’s ills. Norway is the commonly cited example of a functioning social democracy. Of course advocates of social democracy often overlook Norway’s foreign engagements. I’m sure things will become even more interesting once Norway’s vast oil supply runs out.

How are war lords supposed to protect us from war lords? I guess one could argue that a slightly less violent war lord is preferable to a more violent war lord. But history has demonstrated that most of those less violent war lords become more violent once they have conquered their competitors. Whenever you hear a statist claim we need a state to protect us from war lords just remember what he or she is really saying: we need a war lord to protect us from war lords. I’m sure there’s some way to use fire to protect one’s self from fire but the outcome seems to be little but ashes either way.

The United States Government Promoting Poaching

The federal government has amasses a rather sizable amount of ivory. Its intention is to crush the six tons of illegally gathered elephant remains. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS):

We’re sending a message to ivory traffickers and their customers that the United States will not tolerate this illegal trade. We’re standing with nations that have already destroyed their illegal ivory and showing our commitment to working with partners around the world to stop this trafficking and save elephants.

Leave it to the government to think destroying illegally acquired materials will convince people to stop illegally collecting that material. The supply of ivory is quite limited since its sole source is from a very small portion of the body of a slow growing mammal. Ivory’s status as an illegal material and its relatively scarcity makes it quite valuable indeed. So what happens when six tons of it are crushed into useless dust? It becomes more scarce and therefore more valuable. With the potential for higher profits poachers are willing to take higher risks.

What the FWS is doing sounds good on paper but will only exacerbate the problem. It would be no different than the Drug Enforcement Agency capturing tons of cocaine and burning it. All that would do is cause an increase in the price of cocaine and encourage more production and sales.

Poaching, being an illegal activity, can’t be fought by making the value of poached animal remains more valuable. That further encourages poaching, especially in poorer regions where a subsistence farmer could stand to greatly improve his life by selling a single poached animal carcass. Instead of creating incentives to poach animals we should think of ways to disincentivize poaching. The only way to do that is to devalue the materials. Ivory, for example, could be devalued by finding a viable replacement, such as an indistinguishable synthetic, which could increase the overall supply without requiring the poaching of elephants.

The Beginning of the End for Pharmaceutical Monopolies

My love of 3D printer technology expands far beyond the firearms field. Being able to build complex things in the comfort of our own homes stands to upset the balance of power in many markets. One of the most valuable aspects of 3D printers is their ability to put an end to many monopolistic practices. If you’re able to download designs for an item and print it in your own home then patents become irrelevant, which is why this story about 3D printers capable of making drugs interests me:

He shows me the printer, a nondescript version of the £1,200 3D printer used in the Fab@Home project, which aims to bring self-fabrication to the masses. After a bit of trial and error, Cronin’s team discovered that it could use a bathroom sealant as a material to print reaction chambers of precisely specified dimensions, connected with tubes of different lengths and diameters. After the bespoke miniature lab had set hard, the printer could then inject the system reactants, or “chemical inks”, to create sequenced reactions.

The “inks” would be simple reagents, from which more complex molecules are formed. “If I was being facetious I would say that to find your inks you would go to the periodic table: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and so on,” Cronin says, “but obviously you can’t handle all those substances very well, so it would have to be a bit more complex than that. If you were looking to make a sugar, for example, you would start with your set of base sugars and mix them together. When we make complex molecules in the traditional way with test tubes and flasks, we start with a smaller number of simpler molecules.” As he points out, nearly all drugs are made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, as well as readily available agents such as vegetable oils and paraffin. “With a printer it should be possible that with a relatively small number of inks you can make any organic molecule,” he says.

The real beauty of Cronin’s prototype system, however, is that it allows the printer not only to control the sequences and exact calibration of inks, but also to shape, from a tested blueprint, the environment in which those reactions take place. The scale and architecture of the miniature printed “lab” could be pre-programmed into software and downloaded for use with a standard set of inks. In this way, not only the combinations of reactants but also the ratios and speed at which they combine could be ingrained into the system, simply by changing the size of reaction chambers and their relation with one another; Cronin calls this “reactionware” or, because it depends on a conceptualised sequence of flow and reorientation in a 3D space, “Rubik’s Cube chemistry”.

Large pharmaceutical companies enjoy an advantage in the medical field. They can patent chemical compounds and effectively enjoy a monopoly on producing that compound for two decades. During that two decade period the consequences of monopolies afflict everybody who wants or needs that drug. Namely the pharmaceutical company enjoys the ability to jack the price up to whatever it desires since no competition is allowed to enter the market until the patent expires. 3D printers capable of producing drugs could overcome this issue. Suddenly people capable of reverse engineering the drug (say, by looking up the patent and going from there) could post blueprints online for all to download.

Another potential for these printers is the ability to drastically lower the cost of developing new drugs. Individuals with the proper background could develop new drugs on their person computers and perform tests by printing the new drugs. The overall costs would likely drop considerably, which would almost certainly cause a major leap in innovation.