Tag: Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals

Regarding the Supreme Court

With the upcoming election the most common scare tactic being used by those who advocate gun owners support Romney are possible upcoming Supreme Court nominations. For those who don’t know the president of the United States gets the privilege of nominating Supreme Court justices and those justices serve a lifelong term. Currently Romney’s camp are trying to scare people into voting for Romney by saying Obama will likely nominate Eric Holder as a Supreme Court justice. Honestly, if possible Supreme Court nominations weren’t on the horizon these people would likely come up with some of justification of why you should vote for Romney.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you who to vote for, that’s your business if you even bother to vote at all. What I want to consider is the Supreme Court itself and its implications for liberty. Many of the same people encouraging gun owners to vote for Romney are also individuals who think the Constitution is some kind of biblical document that was brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai. I hold a different view, I don’t actually like the Constitution all that much. Yes, it is better than most constitutions but I find the Article of Confederation far more desirable than the United States Constitution. Part of the reason I dislike the Constitution involves the judicial branch and the Supreme Court itself. The United States Constitution establishes the judicial branch in Article III:

Section. 1.

The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Section. 2.

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;–to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;–to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;–to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;–to Controversies between two or more States;– between a State and Citizens of another State,–between Citizens of different States,–between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

Section. 3.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

From this single article of the Constitution has arisen a court that has the power to rule what rights individuals do and do not have. For example, the Second Amendment guarantees “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” To laymen that wording seems very straightforward, everybody enjoys the right to own and use firearms without any infringement agains that right. The Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, allowing restrictions against this supposed right.

When the Supreme Court makes a ruling it becomes the law of the land. If the Supreme Court ruled that the state held the right to confiscate any firearm at any time would people role over and submit to the state agents going from house to house taking arms? Those who subscribe to the idea that the Supreme Court is the ultimate authority of the matter of individual rights should, less they be hypocrites. To individuals like myself, who believe in the absolute right of self-ownership, the idea that nine men wearing robes can determine what my rights are is comical.

What if the Supreme Court did rule that the right to keep and bear arms was a collective right that could be violated by the state? It’s an interesting thing to consider. If you don’t recognize the state’s authority the ruling of the Supreme Court becomes irrelevant outside of the fact violence will be brought against your person if you should violated their decree. If you do recognize the state’s authority then you must also accept their ruling and comply with it believing it is right.

Those who recognize the absolute authority of the Supreme Court must then admit that they believe rights are not rights but state granted privileges. At any point these privileges could be taken away by the ruling of a mere five people (since Supreme Court rulings are always based on the majority out of nine). If one judge had ruled against incorporation of the Second Amendment every state would have the right to prohibit the ownership of firearms. If that had been the case then the Second Amendment, which states the right to keep and bear arms can not be infringed, would have been a temporary right stripped by a single Supreme Court ruling. In essence, the five judges who ruled in favor of incorporation each held the power to strip a supposed right from the people of the United States. Think about that for a minute, five people in this country held the power to determine whether or not those of us living in the United States had a right.

To me, the idea that five individual can legitimately determine what my rights are is absurd. Could the Supreme Court then rule that the First Amendment isn’t actually applicable? They did, in seven court cases. If the Supreme Court had rules opposing in any single mentioned case we would not enjoy the supposed rights we do today.

Believing that the Supreme Court holds some kind of authority necessarily means you believe rights are not only privileges but temporary privileges. Even though the Second Amendment has been incorporated by the Supreme Court people are afraid that one of Obama’s nominees may reverse that decision in another case. Stop and think about that for a moment. The Supreme Court holds the power to determine what rights you do and don’t have and that determination can be changed at any time. Why isn’t anybody pissed about that? Aren’t rights supposed to be absolute? Doesn’t the Constitution protect our rights? What happens when a clause in the Bill or Rights opposes a ruling by a court established by the Constitution?

I don’t think people spend enough time considering topics like this. Perhaps we should spend less time worrying about Supreme Court nominations and more time getting pissed off at the fact our rights are temporary privileges that can be granted to taken by the state whenever five individuals in robes decide so. Frankly I don’t give a shit who is on the Supreme Court because I find that entire court to be a sham. They no more hold a right to determine what my rights are than I have a right to determine what your rights are.

Before somebody posts a comment saying, “Yeah the situation sucks but it is what it is so you have to vote for Romney” let me just say this: no I don’t. The situation sucks because people kept voting for the “lesser” or two evils. Every time somebody justified voting for the “lesser” evil they have been responsible for the situation we face today. I’m not going to be part of the problem and I sure as the hell am not going to be the guy who has to explain to his children why their life sucks so much. Do you know what really sucks? People who cow to the state. Something isn’t so just because the state says it. If the state said you had to kill your neighbor would you kill your neighbor? What if the state decided to reverse its decision on abolishing slavery, would you help round up fellow human beings to be sold as slaves? How far are you willing to be pushed until you finally say “No?” I’ve already reached that point, I’m down cowing to the state, and I’m no longer going to be an obedient little dog whose only decision is whether I should put a checkmark next to the (R) or (D). I urge those of you reading this to join me. Whether you vote for the Libertarian Party, Constitution Part, Green Party, Independent Party, or don’t vote at all is irrelevant to me. My only request is that you think and stop relying on the state to do your thinking for you.

If the Supreme Court rules that I no longer have the right to keep and bear arms I will disregard that ruling just as I would disregard any ruling stating I no longer have the freedom of speech. Because of this I don’t care who the justices are nor will allow myself to be suckered into voting for Romney based on what amounts to a ghost story.

Government Monopolies are Malinvestments

Since the turn of the century it has become common practice for the state to use its monopoly on force to expand its monopoly on natural resources. Canada and Norway both maintain a monopoly on minerals through state ownership of extraction companies and required licensing for any extraction by third-parties. Even the State of Minnesota has maintained mineral rights on most property sold after the state of the 20th century. Unfortunately the state, lacking the market feedback system, is unable to extract resources efficiently and usually squander any monetary gains from resource extraction on nonproductive uses such as expanding bureaucracy, maintaining a powerful military, and giving handouts to cronies. In fact many countries with abundant natural resources end up in worse positions than countries without such resources, a happening so common the term resource curse was coined to describe it.

Peru is a perfect example of this. During the 1840s an island off of Peru was discovered than held a great deal of guano:

In 1839, Peru was a devastated nation. Debt and destruction in the aftermath of both the War of the Confederation (1836–1839) and the War of Independence (1822–1825), a crushing debt default in 1826, and several hundred years as a Spanish colony had left its economy small and craft dominated, without even a banking system.

But in the early 1840s, explorers made an exciting discovery. Due to an uncharacteristic lack of rainfall and the unique variety of birds nesting there, Peru’s Chincha Islands were found to be covered by mountains of bird excrement several hundred feet high in places, which had accumulated over many centuries. They were thought to be the most enormous guano deposits in the world — and of a particularly high quality — at a time when guano was used worldwide for fertilizer. So, out of nowhere, a valuable natural resource was found, one which promised — if managed properly — to produce wealth that could “stagger the dreams of Oriental imagination,” possibly ushering in a new era of development and progress.

At the time guano was almost like gold since it was used by almost everybody as fertilizer. Guano was so valuable that the United States passed the Guano Islands Act:

Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other Government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other Government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States.

The act was used by the United States to lay claim to some 100 islands, so this wasn’t a law used sparingly to claim one or two islands. Needless to say with guano being such a valuable resource at the time the Peruvian government decided to law monopoly claim to their newly discovered treasure trove. Money made from selling the guano was used as money obtained by a state is usually used, for mostly frivolous projects:

Public works and private prebends remade the city … with stately museums, parks, plazas, academies, boulevards, mansions, and theaters, not to mention the latest in potable water systems and Italian opera. Imports — everything from workaday textiles to lavish accessories and vintage French wines [arrived in the city].

Since the state doesn’t have to concern itself with market feedback it is always apt to dump great deals of money into unwanted projects. How useful is a museum, mansion, or theater in a country where a majority of the population live in poverty? No very useful, which is noted by the fact no entrepreneur invested money in any of those enterprises. Unfortunately the more of those things a country has the longer its political dick is and countries love political dick measure competitions.

As these investments never return any profit they lead to economic ruin. We see this in the United States today with all the spending on Medicare, Medicaid, offense defense, bailouts, etc. have failed to return any profit and are leading to the slow collapse of our sham economy. When you keep dumping money into failed enterprises the only possible outcome is total failure, something Peru experienced when that state’s meddling in the guano market lead to other sources of fertilizer being sought out. At some point all resources become more expensive than people are willing to pay and at those times alternatives are researched by individuals wanting a piece of the pie from currently disgruntled consumers. When you can pay $5.00 for a pound of fertilizer or $50.00 for a pound of fertilize the choice of which one to choose becomes obvious:

The European crisis hammered the Peruvian economy in two ways: first, because the Peruvian government had incrementally (and with disregard for competitive substitutions) increased guano prices so much, stricken farmers turned to other, lower-priced fertilizers; demand for shipments from the Chincha Islands dried up. Second, with London money and commodity markets frozen, lenders had little appetite for extending additional credit to once-again-debt-encumbered Peru.

Peru’s gravy train came to a screeching halt. All of the sudden the worthless investments being made by the state became impossible to continue as money was drying up. What’s a state to do in such a situation? The only thing a state knows how to do, use violence in an attempt to maintain its monopoly:

In response to the economic crisis, in 1875, Pardo — now president of Peru — ordered the military to seize the southern nitrate fields on the border with Chile in an effort to offset the decline of the guano business with another source of fertilizer revenues. Even though the state hastily expropriated land and facilities from private investors, it was too little too late. Work on the railroad projects halted in August of 1875. Over the next few months, a variety of other government projects defaulted amid a widening financial contagion culminating in January 1876, as Peru defaulted on its sovereign debt for the second time in a century: mountains of loans from European banks in stark juxtaposition against diminished avian dung heaps.

This should be a familiar formula for anybody who pays attention to foreign affairs. Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait because their cheap oil flooded the market and challenge Iraq’s primary source of income. The United States has a history of invading or otherwise intervening in countries with vast natural resources including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. In fact the British and United States lead overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 happened shortly after the country nationalized its oil resources (which was previously controlled by Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a British owned company). Peru demonstrates such tactics are nothing new, the state has a long history of military invasions to seize natural resources.

Meanwhile the free market allows for peaceful distribution of natural resources to productive uses, since entities that invest resources into unproductive uses face insolvency in a hurry. On top of that the threat of insolvency prevents private entities from squandering resources on massive frivolous endeavors. The state, being free of market feedback, has no such worries and thus ends up dumping massive amounts of money into enriching itself:

In hindsight, “guano … proved a great ‘lost opportunity’ for [Peruvian] development … [as] state investments stymied possibilities for national entrepreneurs, diversification, and gains in domestic productivity.” In roughly four decades, under the supervision and at the direction of the government, between 11 and 12 million tons of excrement fertilizer were shipped, earning $500 million in revenues. (Another estimate holds the number at more than 20 million tons shipped and $2 billion in revenue.) But in the end, 53 percent of all of the guano revenue was spent on expanding the bureaucracy and the military, 12 percent on direct transfer payments, and 7 percent on reducing tributary impositions. Twenty percent had been spent on railroads.

Peru’s politicians spent 53 percent of all guano revenues on enriching themselves, creating more dependency on the state, and enhancing the military so they could steal other country’s stuff. None of these things are valuable for anybody besides the state and its cronies. That’s what states do and we should keep it in mind. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from either. Whether the state gets money from a monopoly on resources, taxation, or tariffs it will be spent mostly on worthless things. If we listen to those demanding the rich be taxed heavier where do you think that additional money will go? It won’t be Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security; it’ll go to funding the military, hiring more government employees, and lining the pockets of state cronies.

When the state gets money it’s lose/lose unless you’re tied to the state. This is because any money obtained by the state is stolen. In the case of Peru’s claim of the guano filled island the property was stolen from individuals who could have put the guano to productive uses in the free market.

Tales of the Bloody Obvious

In order to get people to believe the state is wise they were trying to make us believe the bailouts were a great idea because they would make the United States money. Guess what? They lied (shocking, I know):

US taxpayers are unlikely to get all their money back from a $700bn (£432bn) bailout of the country’s stricken banking and automotive sectors, according to a report.

[…]

The Office of the Special Inspector General for Tarp has published its latest report to Congress.

It said: “After three-and-a-half years, the Tarp continues to be an active and significant part of the Government’s response to the financial crisis.

“It is a widely held misconception that Tarp will make a profit. The most recent cost estimate for Tarp is a loss of $60bn. Taxpayers are still owed $118.5bn.”

This was the only possible outcome. In the business world failing is a sign that the business was not fulfilling the wants of enough individuals. When this happens there are only two options: change the business or face insolvency. At least in a free market those are the only two options, when the state gets involved there is the third option of receiving stolen money. That third option removes responsibilities from politically well-connected entities. They know failure isn’t a big deal because their friends in the political body will merely hand out some money and all will continue… for a while. Eventually the house of cards collapses as the number of bad decision makers increase and the state is no longer able to shovel enough money to keep their friends afloat.

When a company fails it’s time for it to go away. If it looks possible to turn around a failing business then investors will enter the game, if it doesn’t look possible then investors will stay out of the game. Investors, unlike the state, earn their money by giving capital to those who look like capable money makers so they’re more careful who they invest in. Sometimes they make bad investments and, like any other service provider, when they make too many bad decisions they have to exit the capital market when their money runs out.

It’s too bad the same conditions don’t apply to the state. If the state had to go away when it ran out of money we’d have rid ourselves of the federal government ages ago (and quite a few individual state governments as well).

According to Krugman We Need More Inflation

Paul Krugman decided to make a fool of himself again by claiming we don’t have enough inflation. The man is an idiot but I repeat myself. Thankfully the boys over at the Mises Institute website called Krugman out on his idiotic rambling:

In an Austrian framework, as in a natural-rate-of-unemployment model, monetary expansion and a low (relative to the natural rate) interest rate may increase employment; the policy may appear to succeed. But, as Hayek and Mises emphasized long before the development of modern macroeconomics, the employment created by stimulus, whether monetary or fiscal, and whether implemented when an economy is near full employment or initiated at a point where significant unemployed resources are available (Hayek 1939 and Ravier 2011) is unstable. Such employment, if it is to be maintained, will require ever-increasing distortions to the spending stream. A policy that uses inflation to generate employment hence contains the seeds of a return to stagflation, and if continually attempted every time unemployment begins to increase, ultimately, to the choice whether to end the inflation or move forward on a wrong path to a eventual crack-up boom.

[…]

More inflation now would just repeat the mistake, trading some lower unemployment now for more unemployment and more inflation in the future. To avoid holding a tiger by the tail avoid inflation now. The crisis and slow recovery should not be an excuse to revive failed Keynesian policies but instead to examine critically a denationalization of money.

Krugman continues to be the idiots’ goto person for economic advice. Mind you the man has been wrong about almost everything he’s stated.

Let’s consider inflation for a moment. Very few people ever take the time to analyze what inflation is, they usually just accept it as a natural thing that happens and is unavoidable. Inflation is theft performed by the state, plain and simple. Scarce goods have a tendency to be worth more than abundant goods and money is no different. If there exists only 100 ounces of gold in the world then each ounce is going to be valued extremely high whereas if gold was as abundant as water nobody would give it much thought. The United States dollar is similar, when the state prints more of them each dollar becomes less valuable as they are now more abundant. The inflation of the United States dollar is directly controlled by the state who could choose never to expand the supply and thus save those holding dollars from having that holding constantly devalued. Instead the state prints money willy nilly, which devalues the value of dollars and thus punishes those who hold them.

Why does the state do this? Easy, their cronies don’t suffer the affects of inflation. Inflation of the dollar doesn’t kick in until those dollars begin to circulate. The first receiver of newly printed dollars actually has more purchasing power since the supply hasn’t increased as those dollars haven’t begun circulating. Once the first receiver spends those newly printed dollars they being entering circulation and that is when they devalue already circulating dollars. Basically, if you’re the first receiver of newly printed dollars you have a tremendous advantage and the first receivers are those politically well-connected. It’s a corrupt little system where politicians can exchange purchasing power for whatever it is they desire at the expense of everybody else.

This is why it’s smart to convert your dollars into something valuable. Every day you hold a dollar its purchasing power is reduced. Keynesian economists like Krugman claim constant devaluation of money urges people to spend it more quickly and that somehow is better for the economy. What those idiots don’t see is that inflation discourages individuals from saving money to be invested in larger projects down the road. Instead of relying on debt individuals would have the option to save their money unti they have enough to make a big purchase such as a home or factory.

When Krugman says we need more inflation he really means we need more theft. What he advocates is stealing purchasing power from individuals who hold savings of any amount. Policies like this encourage debt spending. Why save money to purchase a television if that money is constantly going to be worth less and less? Why not just put that purchase on a television and repay the debt over time with constantly devaluing money? Keynesian ideas are what got us into our current economic mess and if we continue following those ideas we’ll be in complete economic collapse before we know it.

Even Israel Doesn’t Think Iran is Developing Nuclear Weaponry

When I argue that Iran developing a nuclear weapon is inconsequential to the United States somebody usually brings up that it’s still consequential to Israel. Why should we threatening to kill people for the sake of Israel is beyond me but if Israel isn’t concerned about Iran developing nuclear weapons why should anybody else be concerned:

The head of the Israeli military has said he does not think Iran will develop nuclear weapons.

Chief of Staff Lt Gen Benny Gantz made the statement in an interview with the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.

[…]

Gen Gantz says this pressure is beginning to bear fruit.

He added that Iran “is going step by step to the place where it will be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb. It hasn’t yet decided to go the extra mile”.

And speaking of the supreme leader he continued: “I don’t think he will want to go the extra mile. I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people.”

The story points out that the Israeli Prime Minister disagrees with the General’s assertion but I would be more apt to believe a military general about military matters than a prime minister. Either way I plan to shove this in the face of every person who tells me we need to start killing Iranians to stop their government from developing nuclear weapons. If the head of the Israeli military isn’t concerned I sure as the hell am not going to be.

Heicklen Ruled Innocent of Jury Tampering for Advocating Nullification

Reader plblark was good enough to send me this story from Say Uncle about a judge who ruled advocating jury nullification isn’t a crime:

Yeterday a federal judge ruled that distributing pamphlets about jury nullification—even in front of a courthouse—is not jury tampering. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood dismissed a 2010 indictment against Julian P. Heicklen, a retired chemistry professor who was accused of violating Title 18, Section 1504, of the U.S. Code, which authorizes a jail sentence of up to six months for anyone who “attempts to influence the action or decision of any grand or petit juror of any court of the United States upon any issue or matter pending before such juror, or before the jury of which he is a member, or pertaining to his duties, by writing or sending to him any written communication, in relation to such issue or matter.”

I wrote about Julian P. Heicklen’s situation last year. He was passing out pamphlets in front of a courthouse informing potential jurors about their right of nullification.

For those of you unaware jury nullification is a side effect of jury trials. Namely juries aren’t punished for their decision or asked to justify their ruling so they can find a defendant innocent based solely on the ground that the law he’s being tried for is unjust. Unfortunately this right of jurors is no longer covered in school and judges outright lie to jurors by telling them that they must rule based on the letter of the law, not what they think the law should be. Thankfully there are organizations like the Fully Informed Jury Association and individuals like Heicklen working to raise awareness of nullification rights.

Good on you Julian P. Heicklen for being an advocate of liberty and not backing down when the state threatened to throw you in a cage.

Why I Like Ron Paul

There are many reasons I like Ron Paul including the fact that he’s the only candidate who opposes war, doesn’t want to use the state’s gun to enforce behavior, and recognizes the right of self-ownership. He’s also the only candidate who doesn’t cover in fear at the name Lysander Spooner and is willing to admit that the Constitution isn’t perfect but merely an effective tool available at the moment to reclaim liberty:

Why Libertarians Oppose Romney

With the likelihood of Romney’s ascension to presidential nominee becoming more likely by the day it’s not surprising that friction is developing between self-proclaimed conservatives and libertarians. We’re being bombarded with self-proclaimed conservatives demanding libertarians get behind Romney because the alternative is so much worse. When libertarians say they will only support Ron Paul they’re seen a whiners who are upset because they didn’t get their way. Truth be told libertarians refusal to support Romney has nothing to do with Ron Paul losing the nomination, it has everything to do with the very foundation libertarianism is based upon. There is such a vast difference between so-called conservatives and libertarians that they will likely never come together politically:

A simple way to demonstrate the chasm that separates libertarians from “conservatives” of the 21st century is to use news incidents and media images as Rorschach inkblots and consider how differently each would respond.

When a libertarian witnesses an emaciated destitute, confronted, seized, and roughly rifled by the constabulary under dubious pretenses on “reality” TV, he is not immediately elated. Most of us question the necessity of such an action even if a joint, crack pipe, or penknife is found. We are offended by the image of a man abject — on the ground and in the clutches of enormous, armored, and heavily armed men — without substantive evidence that he has harmed someone else. That these same public servants can bust into people’s homes, terrorize their children, kill their pets, shackle their persons, and destroy personal property on the flimsiest of pretexts is repellent to anyone placing even a modest value on the word liberty.

This debate is no more prevalent than in the gun community. Many gun owners are now backing Romney because they perceive Romney as “less” evil than Obama when it comes to gun rights. Other gun owners, such as myself, won’t back Romney because he opposes the vary foundation of libertarianism, the non-aggression principle.

First and foremost I’m not a libertarian because I support gun rights, I support gun rights because I’m a libertarian. Above all I strive to bring forth a world as free of coercion as possible. I don’t see gun rights as an isolated issue but as a right derived from self-ownership. As a self-owner I have the right to choose what I want to expend my labor to achieve and I also have a right to defend my person and property. If I want to purchase a firearm it is my right to labor to achieve that goal. Nobody has a right to prevent me from purchasing a firearm just as nobody has a right to prevent me from purchasing a car or television. The non-aggression principle opposes the initiation of force but not the return of force in self-defense, so ownership of firearms in no way violates the foundation of libertarianism. As a libertarian I also cannot justify coercing others into providing me security so I must provide my own and a firearm is a tool that allows me to do so.

When you boil it down all people are single-issue voters. If you’ve studied Austrian economics you’ve learned value is subjective and ranked. Each individual has a ranked list of things they value with more valued things appearing higher on the list than less valued things. At the very top of our list we have our most valued thing and, ultimately, that thing is our single issue that we will forsake all other issues for.

Here is where the main philosophical difference comes in between libertarians and those claiming we must support Romney if we have any hope of preserving gun rights. Libertarians’ single issue is the non-aggression principle whereas those demanding gun owners support Romney have gun ownership as their single issue. In order to support Romney I would have to forsake my single issue because Romney favors the use of force and coercion to control the actions of others. He supports war outside of self-defense, which is nothing more than forcing other countries to bow to the will of the United States. Romney also supports drug prohibition, which is a use of force to prevent individuals from deciding what manufacture, sell, and use. Let’s also not forget his support for the “assault” weapons ban, which is the use of force to prevent people from buying certain firearms. Asking a libertarian to support Romney is like asking a proponent of gun rights to support Sarah Brady.

Libertarians aren’t refusing to support Romney because we’re butt hurt over Paul not getting the nomination, we’re refusing to support Romney because Romney opposes the non-aggression principle. If you’re a proponent of gun rights who is angry at Paul supporters for not getting behind Romney you need to put yourself into our shoes and imagine yourself being asked to chose between Michael Bloomberg or Sarah Brady for president. Let’s further expand the situation and say you were supporting John Lott during the presidential nomination process but he lost to Bloomberg. Would you back Bloomberg because he is the “lesser” or two evils? I would certainly hope not. If you would then gun rights are not your most valued issue.

Italy Joining Greece

Watching the European Union slowly crumble is an unfortunate but inevitable thing. First Greece’s economy collapses and now Italy is moving to join them. Italy has already cut spending a minor amount and that means entities previously receiving government money are pissed:

A museum in Italy has started burning its artworks in protest at budget cuts which it says have left cultural institutions out of pocket.

Antonio Manfredi, of the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum in Naples, set fire to the first painting on Tuesday.

“Our 1,000 artworks are headed for destruction anyway because of the government’s indifference,” he said.

The work was by French artist Severine Bourguignon, who was in favour of the protest and watched it online.

Mr Manfredi plans to burn three paintings a week from now on, in a protest he has dubbed “Art War”.

A scorched Earth policy never really accomplishes much. Honestly, these individuals are probably making the life of Italy’s future fascist state easier by burning much of the art before the state decrees it to be done. Either way I’m not sure how destroying art is going to make an argument that museums need more money, I would say it’s probably time to get any important works of art out of the museums before some asshole torches them (and without pieces of art nobody is going to go to a museum so they’ll receive even less money). On top of the hissy fits being thrown by those who used to receive government money Italy has also admitted it won’t be able to balance the budget by 2013:

It was previously predicting a 0.4% contraction in the economy, but has cut that to a 1.2% contraction.

The government has also admitted that it will not be able to meet its target of balancing the budget by 2013.

It now says that it will be able to balance the budget by 2015, which is still more optimistic than the IMF, which says Italy will not have a balanced budget until at least 2018.

The only ways to balance a budget are to spend less money of bring in more money. This means Italy will either have to take funds away from more entities or increase the amount of money they steal from the people in the form of taxation. No matter what route the Italian state choose people are going to be pissed. That’s the kicker about government programs, eventually the state runs out of peoples’ money to steal and reality must be faced. It’s far better for everybody involved when the state doesn’t get involved in anything. Another interesting story coming from Italy that could be a sign of dire times is the rise in Italy’s gold exports:

Italian exports of gold ingots to Switzerland have soared in recent months, data has shown.

Exports to Switzerland were 35.6% higher than in February 2011 “mainly because of sales of non-monetary raw gold”, statistics agency Istat said.

This could mean any number of things. One possible reason people are buying Italian gold is because they’re trying to liquidate their holdings of Italian bonds or currency. Since Italy uses the Euro it’s most likely the former. If the Italian state is looking to go into insolvency it’s best to rid yourself of any Italian state assets, like bonds, while they’re still worth something. With the collapse of the euro looking more likely it would be foolhardy to convert those soon to be worthless Italian bonds into soon to be worthless euros. Thus converting those soon to be worthless Italian bonds into gold, which has traditionally held its value, is a much better option.

Italy is looking to be the second Greece.