Tag: Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals

They’ll Fit Right In

If you’ve been paying attention to Greek politics the name Golden Dawn has likely surfaced a few times. Golden Dawn is Greece’s fascist party that has been slowly gaining political influence. A recent article on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) has revealed that Golden Dawn plans to expand into the United States:

Golden Dawn members in the United States have told CBC News they plan to open chapters shortly in Chicago, in Connecticut and in Toronto.

All I can say is that they’ll fit right in. The United States is, in a practical sense, a fascist state ruled by two fascist political parties. The marriage between private and state interests is overt, rampant nationalism is apparent, and the use of military power to expand cannot be denied. Golden Dawn should find a great deal of inspiration in this country and may be able to use the history of America’s political system to bypass many mistakes commonly made by aspirant authoritarian regimes.

The Importance of Educators in the Gun Rights Movement

A movement is only successful if public opinion can be swayed to favor that movement. This is true of the civil rights movement, the movement to repeal marijuana prohibition, and the gun rights movement. Often people mistakenly believe that political action is the most important pillar of a movement but political action only manifests when sufficient public support has developed. Consider the movement to repeal marijuana. On November 6th the voting public of Washington and Colorado voted in favor of repealing marijuana prohibition. This outcome was only made possible because educators managed to sway public opinion against marijuana prohibition. What isn’t seen by many is the fact that repealing marijuana prohibition is also unnecessary. So many people oppose marijuana prohibition that almost anybody wanting to smoke it can do so. In fact public opinion is so opposed to marijuana prohibition that individuals who smoke it can openly discuss their violation of the state’s decree without concerning themselves with repercussions.

Let’s consider the gun rights movement. During, what I will refer to as, the dark age of gun rights laws restricting gun rights were being passed into law without much resistance. A prohibition against certain semi-automatic rifles was passed as was a law restricting who federally licensed dealers could sell firearms to. Few individual states allowed non-state agents living within their borders to carry firearms. Eventually things began to change. When the “assault weapon” ban expired no serious effort was made to renew it. Few efforts have been made to make firearm sales between non-federally licensed individuals illegal. All but one individual state (which will almost certainly join its 49 brethren within 180 days) have some mechanism for non-state agents to legally carry firearms and the number of states with no restrictions on who can carry a firearm has been continuously increasing. What we’re seeing is a manifestation of public opinion being swayed from favoring gun control to opposing it.

How was public opinion swayed though? People living in the United States didn’t just wake up one day and say “I now oppose gun control.” The swing in public opinion was accomplished through the diligent efforts of educators in the gun rights movement. When I say educators I don’t me K-12 teachers or college professors, I mean the individuals who dove through all data pertaining to gun rights and presented logical deductions derived from that data. Gun rights educators studied and presented historical and legal arguments for gun rights, gun-related crime statistics, and issues relating to self-defense and gun safety. Through their tireless efforts arguments made in favor of gun control were demonstrated to be false. More and more people were beginning to realize that gun control was a folly and either began to support gun rights or held no strong feelings either way. Without the efforts of gun rights educators things today would likely remain as they were during the dark ages of gun rights.

Political action was merely a manifestation of the change in public opinion. In fact political action would have been rendered almost entirely unnecessary in due time. This is because as public opinion began to turn more towards gun rights laws restricting or prohibiting the exercise of those rights would have been rendered irrelevant. What could the state do if a majority of individuals began carrying firearms without getting state permission? The state would attempt to punish a handful of individuals here and there to set an example but they would leave the vast majority of carriers unmolested. This is what the state has been relegated to when enforcing the marijuana prohibition and speed limits.

As I stated before most people who want to smoke marijuana do so in spite of the law and are even willing to publicly say that they disobey the state’s prohibition against marijuana. Most people seem to be willing to exceed the speed limit as well. Driving with “the flow of traffic” usually implies exceeding the speed limit since most drivers exceed the speed limit. Police officers often don’t bother issuing citations unless a driver is exceeding the speed limit by at least five or ten miles per hour. Such excesses are generally higher than the amount most drivers are exceeding the speed limit by and therefore can be enforced to some degree. Outside of those cases very few people out of the total number of people exceeding the speed limit receive any kind of punishment from the state.

I argue that education is far more important than any form of political action because political action will never even manifest without education. Education is the catalyst to change whereas political action is merely an officiation of a change in public opinion. In actuality political action usually ends up being an admittance by the state that enforcement of one of its decrees is no longer possible. This was the case with alcohol prohibition, is currently the case with marijuana prohibition, and will eventually become the case for gun rights if educators in the movement continue performing their task successfully. At some point in our future laws restricting gun rights will be repealed because they are no longer enforceable. Most states will enact, what is commonly referred to as, constitutional carry in response to the public’s general support for individuals right to carry a firearm. Items currently regulated by the National Firearms Act, likely starting with suppressors, will no longer be so restricted. Even the requirement that federally licensed dealers only sell to state-approved individuals will eventually go away.

The gun rights movement must strive to make the enforcement of restrictions against gun rights unenforceable. Whether restrictions become unenforceable through political action or because a majority of individuals blatantly violate those restrictions is unimportant. A change in public opinion will lead to the latter and the latter will lead to the former. It is the job of gun rights educators to encourage that change in public opinion that will make the rest of the dominos fall.

The Last Domino Standing Against Legalized Firearm Carry Fell

Zerg593, via Twitter, informed me that Illinois, the last individual state to completely prohibit non-state entites from legally carrying firearms, now has 180 days to craft legislation to allow non-state entities to legally carry firearms:

In a huge win for gun-rights groups, a federal appeals court in Chicago Tuesday tossed the state’s ban on carrying concealed weapons and gave Illinois’ Legislature 180 days to craft a law legalizing concealed carry.

“The debate is over. We won. And there will be a statewide carry law in 2013,” said Todd Vandermyde, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association.

In a split opinion (see below), the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling in two cases downstate that upheld the state’s longstanding prohibition against carrying concealed weapons.

The court’s decision can be read here. This case further demonstrates the value of innovation as it was made possible by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), the organization that decided to use the court system to advance gun rights instead of relying on political lobbying. I think it also demonstrates the general swing of public opinion from supporting gun control to either opposing it or holding no strong feelings regarding it. Something people often fail to consider is the value of public opinion. Even though judges are supposed to ignore public opinion and rule on the letter of the law their rulings are generally crafted in manners that at least attempt to appeal to public opinion. Consider the ruling in McDonald v. Chicago where the Supreme Court rules that Chicago’s ban on handguns was illegal under United States law but didn’t rule out “reasonable” restrictions on gun rights. Although the decision granted gun rights activists what they wanted it didn’t ignore the desires of gun control advocates. Public opinion is swinging in the direction of expanding gun rights but hasn’t reached a point where most people are willing to oppose all restrictions on gun rights.

Even though I don’t want to denigrate this victory I feel the need to point out two caveats. First Illinois could still maintain a prohibition against legal carry by carefully crafting legislation. Making carry permits $10,000 would effectively ensure only the wealthy enjoy the right to legally carry a firearm in Illinois and a restriction against recognizing any other state’s carry permits could make this ruling irrelevant for everybody living outside Illinois. Only time will tell and any such restrictions can be challenge in court if they arrise. Second the defense has 180 days to appeal the decision, which would take the case to the Supreme Court. This victory hasn’t been finalized yet but it’s certainly a move in the right direction and overall I believe it’s extremely positive. Illinois has been one of the most entrenched holdouts in the fight for gun rights and a hole has just been made in their armor. The trick will be turning that small hole into a massive one, which I believe will inevitably happen in time.

Price Controls Lead to Shortages

Price controls are a mechanism that the state often employes to prevent market forces from setting prices on goods or services. Generally the state fixes prices below market value in order to incentivize the use of a good or resources. One of the recent alarms that has been raise as of late it a purported shortage of helium. The problem has become notable enough that some individuals are demanding a ban on helium-filled balloons:

Dr Peter Wothers, a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a University of Cambridge chemist, will use this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures to argue that there will be “serious problems” in 30 to 50 years’ time if the lighter-than-air gas continues to be wasted in party balloons.

Helium is a non-renewable gas that is used to cool magnets in MRI scanners in hospitals. It is also mixed with oxygen to make breathing easier for ill patients and can help save new-born babies’ lives.

However, there is currently a global shortage of the gas, which cannot be synthesized. The gas has to be extracted from beneath the earth’s crust and 75 per cent of the world’s helium comes from the US.

If helium is in short supply then the price should be going up. As we know the more scarce a good becomes, with all other things remaining equal, the higher the price will go. So why hasn’t the price gone up? Because the United States government, the worlds largest supplier of helium, fixes the price:

The federal government, which sets helium prices, announced in April that helium prices would spike from $75.75 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) in FY 2012 to $84 per Mcf in FY 2013. (Last year, prices rose only 75 cents.) This price spike, along with uncertain federal policy (and a peculiar industry setup to begin with), is threatening to create a shortage. Here’s what’s going on.

There is no need to ban helium-filled balloons in order to conserve the gas, simply remove the state’s meddling in helium prices. If helium is in short supply and in demand the price will increase and therefore the gas will be conserved. Let’s say the cost of a helium-filled balloon goes up to $10.00, would more or fewer people buy them? Fewer. Now let’s say the cost goes up to $50.00 per balloon, what will happen? Fewer helium-filled balloons will be purchased. People wanting to buy floating balloons will look for alternatives to helium which will free up the supply for other uses.

Conservation is a side effect of market prices, which is why I always roll my eyes when a so-called environmentalists demands the state enact prohibitions against the use of scarce resources.

The State Incentivizes Illiteracy

Most people believe the state wants to promote literacy. If the state was actually interested in promoting literacy you would think it would avoid incentivizing illiteracy but the opposite is true:

THIS is what poverty sometimes looks like in America: parents here in Appalachian hill country pulling their children out of literacy classes. Moms and dads fear that if kids learn to read, they are less likely to qualify for a monthly check for having an intellectual disability.

Many people in hillside mobile homes here are poor and desperate, and a $698 monthly check per child from the Supplemental Security Income program goes a long way — and those checks continue until the child turns 18.

“The kids get taken out of the program because the parents are going to lose the check,” said Billie Oaks, who runs a literacy program here in Breathitt County, a poor part of Kentucky. “It’s heartbreaking.”

When an employer wants to attract top talent they generally do so by offering incentives in the form of money and benefits. If you’re a company that wants to hire away a top employee from another company you generally approach that employee with an offer for higher pay and improved benefits. Money is also a common tool to incentivize good behavior. Parents may make their children’s allowance dependent on good behavior, which includes performing chores satisfactorily. Not surprisingly money can be used to incentivize bad behavior, which is what the state does when it makes checks dependent on poor performance.

If a child can net a family a check for being illiterate then that family has a direct interest in preventing their child from becoming literate. Human action is performed in self-interest. When it’s in the interest of the parents to keep their children ignorant they are likely to keep their children ignorant. By rewarding illiteracy the state demonstrates that it doesn’t care whether or not a child remains illiterate, it does demonstrate a desire to keep people dependent on the state though.

Corporate Cronies are Rewarded

In general self-identified leftists support the state and oppose corporations while self-identified rightists support corporations and oppose the state. What both of these groups fail to see is that the state and corporations are married. When a corporation does something for the state the state rewards that corporation and when the state does something for a corporation that corporation rewards the state:

Whatever one’s views on Obamacare were and are: the bill’s mandate that everyone purchase the products of the private health insurance industry, unaccompanied by any public alternative, was a huge gift to that industry; as Wheeler wrote at the time: “to the extent that Liz Fowler is the author of this document, we might as well consider WellPoint its author as well.” Watch the five-minute Bill Moyers report from 2009, embedded below, on the key role played in all of this by Liz Fowler and the “revolving door” between the health insurance/lobbying industry and government officials at the time this bill was written and passed.

[…]

Now, as Politico’s “Influence” column briefly noted on Tuesday, Fowler is once again passing through the deeply corrupting revolving door as she leaves the Obama administration to return to the loving and lucrative arms of the private health care industry:

“Elizabeth Fowler is leaving the White House for a senior-level position leading ‘global health policy’ at Johnson & Johnson’s government affairs and policy group.”

Now that Fowler has fulfilled her duty of pushing Obamacare through she is returning to her seat in the corporate world. Not surprisingly she will be working in the government affairs and policy ground so she can leverage all the connections she made while working for the state.

It’s not turtles all the way down, it’s corruption all the way down.

Reducing the Cost of Inflicting Violence on Employees

AutoZone employee Devin McClean used his personal firearm to protect his employer’s property. Such a deed would be seen as noble to many but the higher ups at AutoZone rewarded the diligent work of their employee by firing him:

After AutoZone employee Devin McClean stopped a serial thief from robbing the local auto parts store in York County, Virginia, some hailed him as a hero, but not the head honchoes at AutoZone. They saw McClean’s actions as a reason for termination.

[…]

An Autozone representative told a local news channel that the company has a zero tolerance policy for employees bringing weapons into their stores.

I’m not going to spend a great deal of time chiding AutoZone. Their stores are their property and that means they get to make the rules. What I am going to spend time discussing is the ramifications of AutoZone’s actions.

AutoZone has officially notified the world that their stores can be generally considered weapon-free zones. This means that individuals wanting to rob AutoZone stores or to inflict physical harm against AutoZone employees can be reasonably assured that little threat exists to them. The cost of committing violence in AutoZone stores has been reduced meaning the likelihood of violence being committed in those stores has increased.

What are the negative consequences of allowing employees to carry weapons at their place of work? There is the potential of frightening customers if the weapon is seen by there is no risk of any harm coming to an employee or the property. The possibility of customers being frightened by an employees weapon could be handled by a policy that states all employee carried weapons must remain concealed at all times. A mandatory concealment policy would alleviate the risk of frightening customers while keeping the cost of performing violence up. Unfortunately the higher ups at AutoZone have decided to opt for the lose-lose scenarior where employees that arm themselves must face the risk of being fired while criminals know that AutoZone stores are unlikely to offer much in the way of resistance.

Charges Against Sung-Ho Hwang Dismissed

Earlier this year police arrested Sung-Ho Hwang for legally carrying a firearm. What made the case even more interesting was Mr. Hwang’s status as a lawyer. Not surprisingly, considering Mr. Hwang was a lawyer and partaking in an entirely legal activity, all charges against him have been dismissed:

Sung-Ho Hwang, president of the New Haven County Bar Association, was charged with breach of peace and interfering with police after officers said they found a loaded handgun in his waistband. Police say he had a permit to carry the weapon but didn’t comply with their commands.

Hugh Keefe, Hwang’s attorney, said prosecutor David Strollo agreed to drop the misdemeanor charges Monday. Strollo cited his clean record and that although police were yelling to put his hands up, Hwang didn’t know they were police because of the flash lights in his eyes, Keefe said.

[…]

Hwang said he brought the gun to protect himself late at night. Hwang, 46, said he was cooperative.

“When baseless breach of peace and interfering charges are brought against people that have a right to carry, it really threatens our constitutional right to bear arms,” Hwang said in August.

I think Mr. Hwang’s situation demonstrated two things. First it demonstrates how reactionary police officers are. Although Mr. Hwang wasn’t doing anything illegal or even showing signs of aggression the police decided to overreact, storm the theater, and hold him at gunpoint because of the situation in the Aurora, Colorado theater that happened slightly earlier in the year.

Second it demonstrated that the police will find something to charge you with if you’ve caught their eye. Since Mr. Hwang was carrying a firearm lawfully the police couldn’t charge him with illegally carrying a firearm so they did the next best thing. They charged him with breaching the peace because he didn’t cooperate with unwarranted police aggression. Even though there were no grounds to hold Mr. Hwang at gunpoint the police did so and then charged him for not submitting to their unwarranted, and I would say unlawful, aggression.

You Keep Using that Word

Do you find something amiss in this excerpt:

More than 200 women’s rights groups are calling for laws to make paying for sex a crime across the European Union.

More than 200 women’s rights groups openly acknowledge that women have many rights but having sex for money isn’t one of them. This stance seems contradictory to the advancement of women’s rights. Women’s rights groups generally fight against the idea that men own women, which is still prevalent throughout the world. One would think that a rights group fighting the idea that one person can own another would fight that idea that any entity can own a person. By demanding the state use its monopoly on violence to prohibit women from having sex for money these groups are stating that they believe the state owns women. If the state owns women then the state has the right to do with women as it pleases including transferring its ownership to another entity either temporarily or permanently. Supporting the idea that the state can own women also supports the idea that men can own women so long as the state gives its blessing.

Claiming to be a rights group while campaigning to restrict voluntary behavior through coercive force is hypocritical.

Who Will Haul the Trash

When discussing anarchism with statists you must expect to have a wall of tired arguments hurled at you. The most common criticisms of anarchism come in the form of questions such as “Who will build the roads?” and “Who will haul the trash?” These criticisms rely on the idea that people are unwilling to perform actions in self-interest if those actions may benefit more than just themselves. Fortunately such criticisms are easily addressed by looking at the actions of individuals who have found alternatives to the state for basic infrastructure maintenance and trash disposal:

When the lamps illuminating Ralph Kelly’s street were switched off, he and his neighbours together paid the city about $100 to “adopt” a streetlight and reignite a shared bulb. There was also an “adopt a trash can” program, where the city supplied the bin but residents hauled the garbage to privately run participating dumpsters.

[…]

So when the government shut off the landmark fountain in America the Beautiful Park three years ago, non-profits and residents banded together to raise $25,000 to keep it flowing. When the city considered closing the innercity’s Westside Community Center, the Woodland Valley Chapel offered to manage it with only limited municipal support. That partnership, and others like it, continues to this day.

When the police force was slashed and Chief Pete Carey “needed to get innovative,” as he put it in an interview, volunteers became community service officers. They cost 60% less than police officers and can respond to non-injury traffic accidents or even burglaries so long as the thief has left the scene.

[…]

“What happens is that neighbourhoods with money started providing these services, while poorer neighbourhoods didn’t,” said Bob Loevy, a retired Colorado College politics professor who paid $80 to turn on his streetlight.

And when the city slashed park services, people noticed.

“I live near a park,” one Grade 8 student told the mayor during the recent townhall meeting. “The bathrooms there are ruined. There are no stalls or doors or anything. So when I go to the park in the summer and I want to go to the bathroom, there are no doors. It’s really awkward. Is there any chance you could maybe clean up the bathrooms in the parks? Make them a little nicer and maybe even supply some toilet paper?”

Statists will point to the streetlights in poorer neighborhoods not being lit and park restrooms not being clean or stocked with toilet paper as support for their claim that the state is necessary. Such a claim entirely ignores the fact that streetlights in poorer neighborhoods and well-maintained restrooms in parks are not actually desired. Consumers have to make numerous economic decisions every day. They have access to a scarce amount of means that can be employed to achieve their ends. As they don’t have enough means to achieve all of their desired ends they must prioritize. Consumers will essentially make a list of their wants and order them from most wanted to least wanted. There are many things I want including a Glock 21 Gen4, a Surly fat bike, and a functioning laptop. Since I don’t have enough means to achieve all of my desired ends, at least not all at once, I have prioritized my wants. The first ends I want to fulfill is getting a new laptop because I use my laptop to perform work. Second on my list is a Glock 21 Gen4 because it’s more attainable (i.e. cheaper) than the bike. Streetlights and park restrooms are ends and people must decide whether or not those ends are of sufficient value to delay or forego other ends.

Obviously people in Colorado Springs’s poorer neighborhoods haven’t given streetlights a high priority nor has anybody living in the town given a high priority to park restrooms. This demonstrates how the state distorts markets. Under the state’s rule streetlights were lit on every street and park restrooms were clean and had toilet paper stocked even though there wasn’t sufficient demand from the affect communities for either. On the other hand the people had enough desire for hauling away trash and security to implement systems to provide both.

When statists ask “Who will light the streetlights in poor neighborhoods?” or “Who will clean park restrooms and stock them with toilet paper?” the answer is nobody because there isn’t enough demand from the affected communities. On the other hand when statists ask “Who will haul away the trash?” or “Who will protect the community?” (I would like to know who protects communities now, but I digress) the answer is those who desire the services. Individuals will cooperate to achieve their desired ends. Few people enjoy living in squalor and will invest means to achieve the ends of a clean living space. Sometimes this involves hauling the trash to a dump yourself, sometimes it involves you hauling your neighbor’s trash away to avoid it affecting you, and sometimes it involves individuals volunteering to haul away trash for the entire community. Regardless of the means chosen the ends will be accomplished without coercive force.