In a recent Facebook argument I was called out for equating taxation to theft and calling it an act of aggression. "That was the way of the Kings and of taxation without representation," I was told. Any reader of my blog will recognize that I don't care if taxation is with or without representation because the root feature of taxation is the extraction of wealth from individuals with or without their consent. My blog post with the R.C. Hoiles quote is particularly relevant. The absurdity of representation seems so obvious to me that I have to give the state a gold star in propagandizing the Boobus Americanus.
There are roughly 300,000,000 people in the United States and there are 435 members of congress. I could expand this to 536 if we include all elected federal politicians, but since congress has the power of the purse let's start with them. That means that roughly one member of congress represents over a half-million citizens. Some are minors but the congressman has no qualms about spending their tax money without representation via deficit spending. Some are criminals and have lost their "right" to vote. But there are many political prisoners (non-violent drug users and tax evaders) who have not violated natural law so denying criminals a vote further pushes the agenda of those in power. So lets say 200,000 citizens come out to vote for a representative. The winner does not need a majority to claim power, just a plurality. Those who disagreed with his policies are now out of luck and are at the mercy of this new overlord. But even then, this is a federal official so if you're lucky to get a liberty fighting congressman you're now doing battle with the other 434 congressmen representing the other 299.5 million other citizens (but mostly the representatives).
Making matters worse in this lonely fight against the horde is that the congressman has no obligation to fulfill his campaign promise. Sure impeachment is an option, but no congressman has ever been impeached ... ever, yet approval of congress is around 12%. Additionally, each voter probably made his decision between two (very) imperfect candidates on a small handful of policy stances, or maybe just one. Yet, the voter must suffer through all the policies he disagrees with because that's how our system "works".
This is "representation", an Orwellian term if I've ever heard one, and it sucks. It's a tool of the state, and as with all means of the state it's an abomination of civilized man.
Oh, but we have very strong protections for the minority. This is the second part of the argument as to why taxation is not theft. The same people who say this also claim that the constitution is a living document and many call themselves "believers in mob rule" i.e. democrats. (I realize that "believers in mob rule" is hyperbolic to most, but "rule of the people" does not capture the point that this "rule" includes legitimized theft and murder which is indicative of a mob, not of a civilized people) These democrats have Nancy Pelosi as one of their representatives who openly mock questions of constitutional authority. They also abuse the general welfare clause until it's ashamed and crying in a ditch.
But what minorities are they talking about? The rich are a minority and every democrat I know is willing to get line with a Louisville slugger to make sure this minority pays "their fair share". What about the minority (majority?) of drug users who get their civil liberties trampled? Non-citizens foreign and domestic are a minority/majority that are routinely imprisoned, robbed, or killed by the state.
I've done an amateur job describing the absurdity of the state as a representation of the people's will, for a brilliant analysis please read "How to Win an Election" by Mark Brandly.
Ironically, this facebook argument concluded by acknowledging that my ideas will never be represented because I'm part of a minority. I'm part of a minority that believes in liberty, that believes in unanimous representation as happens in the market. I am against aggression of any form and would seek restitution in a free or in an un-free society. It sucks to be in a powerless minority in the United States of Fascialist America.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Children are a problem
Nothing has been more life changing than the study of Austrian economics and natural rights philosophy. Some would put marriage or children at the top of the life changing experiences list, but to me those seem gradual in comparison. In "The Matrix", Neo wakes from his bullet wounds and sees the world for what it is and agent Smith for what he is; he has decrypted the matrix. There is order to the chaos, to the world that he couldn't quite understand before this revelation. What a perfect analogy for the man who opens "For a New Liberty" -- Rothbard is my Morpheus. This doesn't stop Smith (the state) from coming after Neo. After all, Neo is threatening the crops of humans Smith feeds from... the analogy is almost literal. But Smith can no more put bullets in Neo's head than the state can put collectivist propaganda in mine. It probably sounds conceited to claim such enlightenment, and no doubt I come off as sounding like a know-it-all. In this post I'm trying my best to open myself up to doubts and expose the questions I have. Unfortunately, I don't think I can just take the blue pill.
There is a small handful of cases where objective moral reality has left me scratching my head. It hasn't deserted me, but in these cases it becomes more of a guide post than the goal. Non-homesteading adults and children is where the libertarian has to stand-up from his armchair and look at a reality beyond non-aggression. Unprovoked violence is never okay, but since unconsented physical force must be used for the survival of babies and often children, non-aggression looks very different. Walter Block uses a theory of homesteading whereby the parent earns homesteading right by feeding, clothing, sheltering, and I assume not abusing children. They can at any point give up these homesteading rights and allow another individual to homestead the child. Block takes a similar approach to abortion where the mother can choose to stop homesteading the fetus and let someone else care for it; viability of the fetus is beside the point. And here we quickly see the dilemma of libertarians. According to this approach we can be justified in the death of a child if we simply stop feeding him and do not exhaustively search for another willing human to take up homesteading rights. This would be the extreme "armchair libertarian" approach.
On the other hand, I do not believe the state can intervene. I cringe at the idea of the state owning or homesteading children. It conjures images of Sparta (which is synonymous with the movie "300" in my poorly educated mind) and modern day African child soldiers. But pondering for another second what state ownership of children looks like I realize it looks a lot like our current education and military system in the United States. Children stand up and recite a pledge of allegiance to a state, they sing songs about the state, they learn how their state protects them and has protected them throughout history, these lessons are taught by agents of the state in a forced monopoly of education, then army recruiters come on school campuses and snatch up the poor souls who have been told for 13-15 years how honorable it is to serve and die for the state. If the state is in dire straights it will look to its draft list that it has coerced every 18 year old male to sign and then kidnap them, give them guns, and send them to die for the state.
The armchair libertarian slightly wins out in these two desolate scenarios. But there is a huge gray area in which we can think of individuals acting in a way to improve the lives of children who may be marginalized or abused.
I'm leaving the answer to the homesteading of children open and switching to what our societal norms contribute. A brilliant commentary on this subject is the "Whale and Dolphin" episode of South Park. (http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s13e11-whale-whores). You'll have to watch it to get it, but I love how it asks (1) why do the Japanese not hate the U.S. for killing 200,000 citizens, and (2) where does the U.S. get off telling the Japanese how to be civilized. Underlying these points is the question about how history and our personal experience skew what is normal. And this is where I get back to the problem of children.
There are many-a-activist working to end female circumcision. Societies that participate in the practice are supposedly barbaric, religious nuts, and hate women. Female circumcision condemns them to a life absent of sexual pleasure. What patriarchal backwards people they must be. Yet, look at the practice of circumcision of males in this country. This practice also reduces sexual pleasure and it is totally unnecessary, but it is extremely common even among my libertarian friends. It seems to exist only because it has always existed. If the practice of cutting off a baby's finger or performing an appendectomy at birth was introduced would we be so quick to accept it as a reasonable post-birth procedure? So what does this mean? Do I detest the actions of my friends who circumcise their children (I certainly don't) or do I say, "they homesteaded the child therefore they can mutilate his genitals?" To tell you the truth, I have no clue. If you do, please share.
There is a small handful of cases where objective moral reality has left me scratching my head. It hasn't deserted me, but in these cases it becomes more of a guide post than the goal. Non-homesteading adults and children is where the libertarian has to stand-up from his armchair and look at a reality beyond non-aggression. Unprovoked violence is never okay, but since unconsented physical force must be used for the survival of babies and often children, non-aggression looks very different. Walter Block uses a theory of homesteading whereby the parent earns homesteading right by feeding, clothing, sheltering, and I assume not abusing children. They can at any point give up these homesteading rights and allow another individual to homestead the child. Block takes a similar approach to abortion where the mother can choose to stop homesteading the fetus and let someone else care for it; viability of the fetus is beside the point. And here we quickly see the dilemma of libertarians. According to this approach we can be justified in the death of a child if we simply stop feeding him and do not exhaustively search for another willing human to take up homesteading rights. This would be the extreme "armchair libertarian" approach.
On the other hand, I do not believe the state can intervene. I cringe at the idea of the state owning or homesteading children. It conjures images of Sparta (which is synonymous with the movie "300" in my poorly educated mind) and modern day African child soldiers. But pondering for another second what state ownership of children looks like I realize it looks a lot like our current education and military system in the United States. Children stand up and recite a pledge of allegiance to a state, they sing songs about the state, they learn how their state protects them and has protected them throughout history, these lessons are taught by agents of the state in a forced monopoly of education, then army recruiters come on school campuses and snatch up the poor souls who have been told for 13-15 years how honorable it is to serve and die for the state. If the state is in dire straights it will look to its draft list that it has coerced every 18 year old male to sign and then kidnap them, give them guns, and send them to die for the state.
The armchair libertarian slightly wins out in these two desolate scenarios. But there is a huge gray area in which we can think of individuals acting in a way to improve the lives of children who may be marginalized or abused.
I'm leaving the answer to the homesteading of children open and switching to what our societal norms contribute. A brilliant commentary on this subject is the "Whale and Dolphin" episode of South Park. (http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s13e11-whale-whores). You'll have to watch it to get it, but I love how it asks (1) why do the Japanese not hate the U.S. for killing 200,000 citizens, and (2) where does the U.S. get off telling the Japanese how to be civilized. Underlying these points is the question about how history and our personal experience skew what is normal. And this is where I get back to the problem of children.
There are many-a-activist working to end female circumcision. Societies that participate in the practice are supposedly barbaric, religious nuts, and hate women. Female circumcision condemns them to a life absent of sexual pleasure. What patriarchal backwards people they must be. Yet, look at the practice of circumcision of males in this country. This practice also reduces sexual pleasure and it is totally unnecessary, but it is extremely common even among my libertarian friends. It seems to exist only because it has always existed. If the practice of cutting off a baby's finger or performing an appendectomy at birth was introduced would we be so quick to accept it as a reasonable post-birth procedure? So what does this mean? Do I detest the actions of my friends who circumcise their children (I certainly don't) or do I say, "they homesteaded the child therefore they can mutilate his genitals?" To tell you the truth, I have no clue. If you do, please share.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
An eye for an eye
Libertarian punishment theory is a muddy, sticky area that I don't much care to discuss. However, in comparison to state punishment theory, the choice is black and white as to which is superior. As Rothbard discusses in "The Ethics of Liberty", the state is concerned with retribution, seeing that the criminal is punished at any cost, even at the cost of the victim. Here's the text from "The Ethics of Liberty" (Ch 13)
Restitution is the focus of libertarian punishment theory. The $15,000 ought to be paid back and so should the cost of capture and prosecution. These latter costs are a difficult subject that I'm not attempting to tackle here -- economics gets a bit muddled when coercion is necessarily involved. Whatever the market comes up with, true justice would be served only when the victim bears no cost of being made whole again. When I hear statists proclaim how concerned they are about justice I wonder, "if justice is what we seek via the state, then why the hell does it cost so damn much?" Justice should cost nothing to anyone who has not initiated force via fraud, theft, or violence. And yet we're stuck paying taxes under the threat of violence to ensure "justice" is served; Orwell could not have written it better himself.
Restitution becomes more difficult to define when violence is involved because of the irreversible nature of violent actions. Recently I heard Walter Block give a compelling explanation for the death penalty. And before I paraphrase it, let me point out that in a market society it would be up to the victim or the victim's family to determine whether or not they want violent punishment. There would be no district attorney making sure bad guys are hurt for the satisfaction of the state and at the cost of the people.
Block said that in the case of murder, the perfect restitution scheme would be a machine that could transfer life from one person to another. If this machine could bring anyone back to life then death is kind of a moot point, but if it transferred life then the just thing to do would be to transfer life from the murderer to the victim. Since we don't have such a machine, the murderer is still required to give up what he has taken, and thus restitution theory lies on the side of violent punishment. If a violent criminal has tortured then it is permissible to torture the criminal in a similar fashion. If he has raped then he also should be raped. It gets a little gruesome and this is why dealing with violence in libertarian punishment theory is debatable and divisive. But again, held up to the state, it is at least saner because it allows for the victim or victim's family determine whether or not punishment will be sought.
Proportionality is also central to restitution. Critics say, "libertarianism is the idea that you can shoot someone for walking on your lawn." This is one of the top 10 greatest signs of libertarian ignorance. If the examples above don't illustrate it well enough, punishment that is extremely out of proportion to the crime is not restitution, it is retribution and vengeance. Unproportional punishment is Achilles' desecration of Hector's body; it is not justice, and it is not libertarian.
For more on libertarian punishment theory, here's a round about reference. Walter Block gives a good introduction starting at 1:17:48; this does not include the scifi machine discussed above. The other hour is also great to watch where he makes a case for private roads and highways.
Now that I've outlined restitution and retribution, let's turn back to the title of this blog post: "An eye for an eye." I chose this title to invoke a self-righteous attitude that conjures up the common extension "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." If only we were concerned about victims of violent actions that sought restitution via violence. Instead, we live in a society that proclaims, "I'm taking your eye because you have two of them, why are you being so greedy wanting both?" We are quickly blinding our society, crippling human innovation, and squelching human flourishing. It's not always through direct violence but through the threat of violence from the state. It's economic blindness that we're promoting. I'd draw an analogy here between blindness and the political dogs in Washington, but I feel that would be insulting to the incredibly helpful and well trained seeing eye dogs.
I want to end by drawing the continuum of violence. The state and its supporters (Republican and Democrat) are the most willing to use violence to achieve their ends. They initiate force and promote a type of barbarism in our world. Libertarianism asks one question, "when is it justified to use violence?" And it returns one and only one answer "in the instance of a prior use of violence or threat thereof". Pacifists refuse to use violent punishment and some refuse to use any physical resistance towards an aggressor.
It's clear to me that anyone calling themselves Christian must lie between libertarian and pacifist. I conclude this because of the Christian's mandate to forgive and to seek reconciliation. Therefore, any Christian promoting state policies such as welfarism, the war on drugs, bans on gay marriage, social security, medicare, the war on terror, even the U.S. justice system are hypocrites. I do not consider them Christian, but rather some kind of modern crusader blinded by their own ego and self-righteousness. No doubt they're sincere, which makes it all the more difficult to convince them of their error. I've spent two Sundays now talking to Mennonites and have been encouraged by their consistency. Although my sampling pool is quite small, the ones I've talked to don't believe in America's "just" wars, in state power, or its welfare system. I still find pacifism a bit creepy, but I can at least respect it knowing they're on the same side of the non-aggression principle.
What happens nowadays is the following absurdity: A steals $15,000 from B. The government tracks down, tries, and convicts A, all at the expense of B, as one of the numerous taxpayers victimized in this process. Then, the government, instead of forcing A to repay B or to work at forced labor until that debt is paid, forces B, the victim, to pay taxes to support the criminal in prison for ten or twenty years’ time. Where in the world is the justice here? The victim not only loses his money, but pays more money besides for the dubious thrill of catching, convicting, and then supporting the criminal; and the criminal is still enslaved, but not to the good purpose of recompensing his victim.
Restitution is the focus of libertarian punishment theory. The $15,000 ought to be paid back and so should the cost of capture and prosecution. These latter costs are a difficult subject that I'm not attempting to tackle here -- economics gets a bit muddled when coercion is necessarily involved. Whatever the market comes up with, true justice would be served only when the victim bears no cost of being made whole again. When I hear statists proclaim how concerned they are about justice I wonder, "if justice is what we seek via the state, then why the hell does it cost so damn much?" Justice should cost nothing to anyone who has not initiated force via fraud, theft, or violence. And yet we're stuck paying taxes under the threat of violence to ensure "justice" is served; Orwell could not have written it better himself.
Restitution becomes more difficult to define when violence is involved because of the irreversible nature of violent actions. Recently I heard Walter Block give a compelling explanation for the death penalty. And before I paraphrase it, let me point out that in a market society it would be up to the victim or the victim's family to determine whether or not they want violent punishment. There would be no district attorney making sure bad guys are hurt for the satisfaction of the state and at the cost of the people.
Block said that in the case of murder, the perfect restitution scheme would be a machine that could transfer life from one person to another. If this machine could bring anyone back to life then death is kind of a moot point, but if it transferred life then the just thing to do would be to transfer life from the murderer to the victim. Since we don't have such a machine, the murderer is still required to give up what he has taken, and thus restitution theory lies on the side of violent punishment. If a violent criminal has tortured then it is permissible to torture the criminal in a similar fashion. If he has raped then he also should be raped. It gets a little gruesome and this is why dealing with violence in libertarian punishment theory is debatable and divisive. But again, held up to the state, it is at least saner because it allows for the victim or victim's family determine whether or not punishment will be sought.
Proportionality is also central to restitution. Critics say, "libertarianism is the idea that you can shoot someone for walking on your lawn." This is one of the top 10 greatest signs of libertarian ignorance. If the examples above don't illustrate it well enough, punishment that is extremely out of proportion to the crime is not restitution, it is retribution and vengeance. Unproportional punishment is Achilles' desecration of Hector's body; it is not justice, and it is not libertarian.
For more on libertarian punishment theory, here's a round about reference. Walter Block gives a good introduction starting at 1:17:48; this does not include the scifi machine discussed above. The other hour is also great to watch where he makes a case for private roads and highways.
Now that I've outlined restitution and retribution, let's turn back to the title of this blog post: "An eye for an eye." I chose this title to invoke a self-righteous attitude that conjures up the common extension "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." If only we were concerned about victims of violent actions that sought restitution via violence. Instead, we live in a society that proclaims, "I'm taking your eye because you have two of them, why are you being so greedy wanting both?" We are quickly blinding our society, crippling human innovation, and squelching human flourishing. It's not always through direct violence but through the threat of violence from the state. It's economic blindness that we're promoting. I'd draw an analogy here between blindness and the political dogs in Washington, but I feel that would be insulting to the incredibly helpful and well trained seeing eye dogs.
I want to end by drawing the continuum of violence. The state and its supporters (Republican and Democrat) are the most willing to use violence to achieve their ends. They initiate force and promote a type of barbarism in our world. Libertarianism asks one question, "when is it justified to use violence?" And it returns one and only one answer "in the instance of a prior use of violence or threat thereof". Pacifists refuse to use violent punishment and some refuse to use any physical resistance towards an aggressor.
It's clear to me that anyone calling themselves Christian must lie between libertarian and pacifist. I conclude this because of the Christian's mandate to forgive and to seek reconciliation. Therefore, any Christian promoting state policies such as welfarism, the war on drugs, bans on gay marriage, social security, medicare, the war on terror, even the U.S. justice system are hypocrites. I do not consider them Christian, but rather some kind of modern crusader blinded by their own ego and self-righteousness. No doubt they're sincere, which makes it all the more difficult to convince them of their error. I've spent two Sundays now talking to Mennonites and have been encouraged by their consistency. Although my sampling pool is quite small, the ones I've talked to don't believe in America's "just" wars, in state power, or its welfare system. I still find pacifism a bit creepy, but I can at least respect it knowing they're on the same side of the non-aggression principle.
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