How lockdowns could work

Imagine a group of people who want to play tag. They know they risk tripping or being bumped into by someone else. Once they're tagged, they sit out for awhile and join the game later. The game requires physical exertion and risk of injury, therefore the sick and feeble will stay home to protect themselves from the game's perils.

Now imagine games of tag have to be played indoors. You can run into someone else's house, run around, but then you have to move to another house. Playing tag in the street is now outlawed, because it's just too dangerous to play tag that way. 

The game will take much longer. It might go on for months or years. But this new restriction aimed at protecting people now puts the sick and feeble in the same path as those playing the game. The vulnerable population hasn't been protected.

This is why lockdowns don't work. They put everyone inside. When healthy people get "tagged" they recover; their immune system protects them from getting hurt and hurting others. But if they're forced to play indoors, the game drags on so long that the vulnerable have to expose themselves to the game one way or another.

Martin Kulldorff, epidemiologist from Harvard Medical School, supports an age-based approach to COVID-19. Since the young and healthy are orders of magnitude safer from the virus, it makes sense to develop herd immunity in this population.

Anti-lockdown advocates discredit themselves by saying "look at the numbers, there's nothing you can do to stop this." It's true, many of the patterns look very similar to past flu seasons. Perhaps in the modern world, our lives are so intertwined that it's impossible to slow the spread of a virus. On the other hand, you can imagine someone living on a self-sustained plot of land miles from anyone else where the virus can't reach. This scenario is exceedingly rare in the modern day, and maybe that's why the lockdowns have been so unsuccessful.

If there were a chance lockdowns help, it'd be to make them as short as possible. The only way to do that is through herd immunity. Let the vulnerable lock themselves away for a month. Let life go on as normal so the human immune systems can do the work of ending the pandemic. 

This is not what happened. New York and Sweden were hit hard and 40-60% of deaths came from their inability to protect nursing homes. This population is small and isolated and could have been protected. They weren't. So the mortality numbers are higher than they should have been. And due to the lockdowns, deaths caused by untreated illnesses, suicide, and abuse have increased as well. The exact wrong lesson was learned. To limit the movement of healthy individuals to reduce deaths in the vulnerable only prolongs the exposure of the population we needed to protect.

It's shocking to see the devastating rule of unintended consequences find its way into a pandemic. It underscores, once again, outcomes are much better when individuals are allowed to choose their own risks. Government works with a set of uncertainties when assessing the data. Individuals do as well, but the range of choices that are allowed naturally reduces that uncertainty quickly whereas government mandates puts us in a world of pure theorizing. The range of possible choices and actions allowed are forbidden, and the opportunity to use scientific analysis is lost.

A Masked Perspective

Rosa Parks was inconvenienced. She was told to sit in the back of the bus. Why did she have to make such a fuss over a minor inconvenience. She probably just wanted to be first off the bus for her haircut. Wasn't she thinking about all the white people who felt better about themselves knowing blacks were in the back? What a whiny, entitled, disrespectful person.

No, I am not equating wearing masks to systemic racism. No, I am not equating the plight of 1950's blacks to the plight of middle class white people who have to wear masks. What I am doing, is pointing to how civil disobedience is the only viable response for many who are otherwise powerless.

Rosa Parks didn't own a business. She couldn't stand up to the government by letting whites and blacks sit at the same counter or use the same drinking fountain. Business owners who did would be in violation of the government's Jim Crow laws and risked their livelihoods being destroyed. She couldn't make a statement like Elon Musk did when he defied state lockdowns. She probably sat at the blacks-only counter so she wouldn't put businesses at risk of fines or shutdown. What she did do is defy government orders on a government owned bus.

Today, governments have shutdown businesses ruining the lives of millions. Some of that ruination is temporary. But suicides have increased and those lives have ended permanently. Domestic abuse has risen leading to life long trauma. 55,000 excess deaths are attributed to the lockdowns because people delayed care.

The average person has been helpless to do anything. Most are not business owners, and those who are cannot risk fines when revenue has been cut off already.

What the individual has been mandated to do is wear a mask. And so the individual has been given an opportunity to resist. Critics of mask-haters have a case to make that masks can prevent droplets from spreading to others. But these critics miss the point. Regardless of the effectiveness of masks, it's a chance for individuals to symbolically stand up for those hurt by the lockdown and to declare enough is enough

Risk and benefit

COVID is dangerous, but sometimes the medicine is worse than the disease. Defending that statement will have to wait for a different blog post. What can be said is that some people have looked at the data and have decided normal life is worth the risk. This decision making has been taken out of our hands.

"But your decision is irrational." Bungee jumping to me is not worth the risk. I wouldn't tell people who want to participate in bungee jumping they can't; that's their risk/benefit assessment to make. They are not irrational. As Mises put it

'If a man drinks wine and not water I cannot say he is acting irrationally. At most I can say that in his place I would not do so. But his pursuit of happiness is his own business, not mine.' - Ludwig von Mises

That last sentence should be taken literally. Allow businesses to set safety policies. Those with higher restrictions will attract the risk adverse. Those with fewer restriction will attract those less fearful. But we're not given a choice and this is what's causing the overreaction to mask mandates.

Rosa Parks didn't sit in the front of the bus because she liked the view; she did it because of government edicts that restricted freedom. Mask protests aren't motivated by the discomfort; they exist because government edicts have stolen the lives and livelihoods of millions by suspending liberty.

Why thank the military

This past Memorial Day weekend I saw posts on Facebook saying how appreciative people were for their freedom in America. This was obviously tied to the men and women that have died in war, and somehow they think those two are related. That same weekend I was called a piece of shit for not standing during the national anthem; I clearly didn't understand the sacrifices made that allowed me to attend a baseball game, the man said.

In this post I want to elaborate on two questions.

1. What is freedom?
2. Why is violence necessary for freedom?

I won't go into the technical definition of freedom, and I won't be an absolutist here – meaning I'll leave libertarian theory at the door. Instead, I'm wondering what makes America so much freer that people feel they need to be appreciative of the military for it.

First I acknowledge things could be worse. North Korea is worse, I'd prefer not to live under Sharia law, freedom of speech is a big one that – while under constant attack here – is better than the majority of other nations. But really, what would a free people look like? let's consider these questions:

Would a free country...

• have the largest prison population filled with non-violent "criminals"?
• punish you for creating wealth with your labor via income tax?
• punish you for deferring consumption and investing via capital gains tax?
• punish you for consuming through sales tax?
• punish you for owning a home through property tax?
• have one of the highest corporate income tax in the world?
• punish you via taxation for other sins/indulgences such as alcohol, tourism, soda, fuel, cigarette taxes?
• take essentially 40-50% of your income through the previous 6 punishments?
• be the only country in the world that continues to tax you when you move away?
• restrict access to common goods from other countries such as sugar through embargoes?
• limit freedom of trade by imposing tariffs to make foreign goods more expensive?
• ruin your life for ingesting substances the government disapproves of?
• raid your place of business for using labor or selling goods the government doesn't approve of?
• end your life by restricting access to medicine the government hasn't approved of?
• have compulsory monopolies such as in first class mail, education, defense, and regulatory organizations like the FDA, EPA, FAA?
• destroying your business through antitrust for having prices too high (price gouging), too low (predatory pricing), or just right (collusion)
• prevent you from doing business with other countries or hiring from other countries through sanctions?
• force you to pay for health insurance
• force you into a Ponzi scheme for retirement
• force you into late-life medical care too mismanaged to be viable?
• have a monetary system where savings is constantly diluted by increasing government fiat for purposes of war and expanding government reach and scope?
• have a secret kill list that results in the death of American citizens via drone strikes? 
• have a massive spying apparatus on all phone call and email metadata?
• have a government that spends 4 trillion dollars of the tax payer's money?
• have unrepresented taxation through massive debts that can only be paid by citizens too young to vote?
• end up as the 26th freest country on the economic freedom index?

Yes it could be worse, but the above list doesn't look like freedom to me even relative to other countries. So what freedoms do we enjoy, and more importantly what did the military have to do with it?

In order to keep this blog post short, let's restrict the scope to the past 60 years. What war in the past 60 years ensured our freedom? Or in what way did the military preserve our freedom? The only attack on US soil from foreign invaders was 9/11 and that was fueled by the unnecessary actions of the US military. We would have been better off without foreign military action during those 60 years and a hell of a lot more financially stable.

Our freedoms are constantly eroded from within our borders. If the military were protecting us with violence (their MO) then they'd be attacking Washington, Sacramento, Austin, not Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, and Yemen.

But this brings up question #2, why is violence necessary? There have been peaceful revolutions. Iran and India come to mind. The British lost hold of India by the Indian people resisting not fighting. Gandhi used non-violent means to protest the Indian rulers. Americans, though, are taught "might is right." Our military our police, while violent and very often unjust, are good says the average American. Why are they good? Because they can destroy? Why do Americans continue to believe it with all the blood on their hands? Is it Stockholm Syndrome or just plain brainwashing from the 24-hour, corporate news, propaganda machine? If that sounds conspiratorial, just look at the list again and ask "is this what freedom looks like?"

I don't believe violence is necessary to have freedom, and it's not necessary to start the revolution that brings about that freedom. As Etienne de La Boetie says

Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.

I'm no Gandhi, but I don't stand for the star spangled banner because it's non-violent resistance to the war machine that song celebrates.

An anarchist case for Trump

Right out of the gate, I need to point out that in no way do I support the policies of Trump – if any coherent policies exist. This post is about strategy not support of his agenda.

Before January 2009 there was a lot of anger over the multiple wars, drone bombings, and interventions. Post inauguration though, that anger went silent. While Bush was a monster bombing 4 countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Somalia), Obama upped that to 7 (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Syria). Drone strikes increased and war crimes continued. What changed? Why was Obama let off the hook? Presumably the left thought his actions were legitimate, and their respect for him helped them acquiesce to disastrous US foreign policy.

Bernie might be better than Obama or Hillary, though with his support of the war in Afghanistan and the trillion dollars spent on the F35, I'm not convinced he's much better. Hillary, we know to be a hawk. For evidence of this, see Queen of Chaos. Hillary is part of the establishment and a "respectable" political figure. Her use of force would be just as accepted as Obama's. And it goes without saying there's no hope of Cruz and Rubio being non-interventionists.

But what happens if Trump becomes president? He's not "respectable", he doesn't have as many friends or people in his pocket as Hillary. He's not as connected as the other candidates to the DC machine. He's laughed at by the media; he's made fun of everywhere. But this is exactly how every anarchist wants a president to be treated: like a crank, a loser, someone who shouldn't be given power over 310 million people. This is the appropriate view of the presidency.

If Trump takes his belligerent rhetoric to the White House and into his policies, every media outlet, court, and legislator will be scrutinizing his actions. War without a declaration from congress might be called out as being unconstitutional. The same double-tap war crimes of the Obama administration might actually be called such under a Trump administration. Signing statements and executive orders might initiate the impeachment process. The system of checks and balances might actually be worth a damn under a Trump presidency.

There's also a chance that Trump might be the most noninterventionist candidate we have to choose from. While he's said one of the most despicable things a candidate's ever muttered: "We have to kill [the terrorists'] families" (which the administration does anyway, they just don't "man-up" to it), he has also said "they lied us into war" and wouldn't it be nice if we could just get along with other countries. These latter words are not uttered by any other candidate but should be!

So yes, I "support" Trump for president, because Trump becoming president is the best possible way to delegitimize the presidency and the ever expanding powers of the executive branch.

Our Anarchist Atheist Thanks Giving

Today we are thankful.  We are thankful for the farmers and ranchers that made this meal possible.  We are thankful for the laborers and their back breaking work.  They make a better life for themselves and for us.  We are thankful for the logistics companies that invest capital and plan routes in order to make sure that our food arrives unspoiled and undamaged.  We are thankful for the entrepreneurs that innovate new business strategies to improve the use of scarce resources.  We are thankful for the grocery store clerks that choose their low-income over living off the government dole.  We are thankful for the speculators and their role in futures markets; without them these seasonal food prices would be volatile and likely uneconomic for us; they risk their wealth so that we enjoy stable prices.

Today, we think of the boarder agents that stop goods from entering this country.  We beseech these employees of the state.  End your wicked ways and open the market to trade.  We think of the lawmakers placing embargoes and sanctions on countries.  You evil, evil men, stop your aggression and free the market.  We think of those of the armed forces who enforce the edicts of powerful men.  You naive, weak, morally bankrupt individuals, abandon your post, turn on your masters, regain your dignity.

But today, we are most thankful for ourselves.  We are thankful for Amy, for her culinary skills, her respect for her children, and her adherence to reason.  We are thankful for Eric, for his entrepreneurial investment in a degree that netted him a job serving others in ways most people are unable.  We count ourselves fortunate that illness is not a burden.  But we also recognize our investment of time to search out alternatives that are more fruitful, healthier, and more beneficial than those courses recommended by government whims and subsidy.

We are cognizant of our own successes and failings.  We pray hope that our friends and family come out from under the yoke of mysticism.  We want them to experience the freedom and joy of striving after self-interest.  When self-fulfillment, pleasure, and joy become goals, life is brighter, more enjoyable; it's far better than striving to live up to some other person's or sky tyrant's supposed ideals of what life ought to be.

This thanksgiving we are thankful.  We are thankful that in every aspect of life reason is our M.O.  We are thankful that we have taken ownership of our lives and made them our own.  We are thankful for the complexity of the market and the unimaginable benefits of the division of labor.  We are thankful for friends who refuse to fall victim to spurious economics and wishful thinking.  And we are thankful for each other.  Perhaps all this is best summarized with the quote

“Anarchy is all around us. Without it, our world would fall apart. All progress is due to it. All order extends from it. All blessed things that rise above the state of nature are owed to it. The human race thrives only because of the lack of control, not because of it. I’m saying that we need ever more absence of control to make the world a more beautiful place. It is a paradox that we must forever explain.”

 thus spake Jeffrey Tucker.

Let's make business accountable

Politicians are held accountable to the people.  Every 2, 4, or 6 years they face reelection.  If they do not serve the people then they face the chance of being voted out of office.  Businessmen, on the other hand, seek profits; if they do not serve the people those profits will fall and the stock holders will vote him out. I think it's fair to say that some people believe that politicians are held more accountable to the people than businessmen.  To check this let's use proof by contradiction.

Say a new law is passed that requires all presidents, vice presidents, and board members of all businesses to be elected in a general election.  In fact, a law like this already exists that the SEC regulates that says stockholders must have the right to vote for board members.  But let's put Washington and GE on the same basis of accountability: one person, one vote.  We'll ignore problems of practicality or solve them by using electronic voting.

Another objection to this system might be, "you can't possibly know enough about each company to make an informed decision."  Putting aside the fact that this alludes to the pretense of knowledge problem, you only vote for the businessmen/women you know about or want to vote for.  Many of us don't know enough about the local judges or sheriffs to make an educated vote there either.  I simply refrain from voting for these people as that seems to be the responsible thing to do.  But it's the people's "right" to vote so they can straight-ticket vote or pick the prettiest sounding name.

So now we've done it, we've made business accountable to the people!  That was easier than I thought it would be.  So after the vote, just like in Washington, the businessmen can go to work for the people with a new and feared sense of accountability.  But just like Washington though, they aren't bound to fulfill their campaign promises and only have to worry about reelection in a couple years.  Furthermore, around election time they only have to make themselves look better than their opponent to win.  At that point, the election becomes a vote for the lesser of two evils.

But even with the vote, there is still a difference between government and business.  Businesses are allowed to compete with one another, and even more importantly, the people can withdraw their patronage.  What good is a company that has no subscribers and has no income?  When people withhold their vote and withhold their money from a company it ceases to exist.  So once a new CEO is appointed he might have the people's vote, but he does not necessarily have their confidence.  He is still in danger of losing his power at any moment.

How then will the CEO calculate the people's confidence?  It must come from their demonstrated preference for his services over competitors' - and a preference over no service at all.  And this means he must make his service desirable and his prices attractive.  He must keep costs low and quality high.  At the end of the day he'll look at the people's willingness to pay, subtract off his expenditures, and calculated his profit ... Wait, no, that can't be right, profits are what greedy capitalists seek, not public servants, and not people elected into office.  The vote!  The vote is what matters... isn't it?

Why does the vote matter in politics and why is it next to worthless in business?  The vote matters in politics because that's all they have.  Once in office they impose themselves on the population.  Then the only choice for the people, other than becoming refugees, is to comply with the new leaders.  Taxes are coercively extracted and spent to government favored parties.  Competitors are forcibly removed from the market.  Participation is compulsory and competition is illegal.

What now is the politician's motive?  The first is job security.  Of course, Politicians don't care about money so they don't care about their salary.  If it's a choice between serving the people or keeping their job, they'll put service before their own interests.  However, if that's true then it discounts the whole point of elections.  Service to the people supposedly equals re-election so to reiterate, job security is the politician's top priority.

How is the politician going to increase his chances of reelection?  Well, the people that rely on the politician are likely to be important voters.  If he can expand that base then he is doing himself a favor.  By expanding the role of government, by pushing out businesses and imposing bureaucracies he is going to create a lot more dependent people.  Once he dismantles an industry creating cabinet members and government employees instead of businessmen and workers, he will have just put an entire sector of the economy under his wing.  He will promise budget increases - or at least pension increases - because that's the tried and true way of getting reelected by the union members.  But he doesn't actually have to fulfill any promises, he just has to make himself look better than his opponent at reelection time.  This pattern feeds on itself with little to no regard for wasted resources.  The calculation problem that the businessman faces doesn't worry the politician; after all calculation is impossible and allocation of resources is irrational when funds are coercively extracted.

What can we conclude?  Perhaps I exaggerate the importance of the free market, by which I mean the freedom to pay for a business's services or refuse it, and the freedom to compete with other players in the market.  I am willing to admit I'm biased.  Let's then strip the labels "government" and "business" away from the analysis above.  Instead, presume Group A is made of men: flawed and self-interested.  Group B is also made of men with the same pitfalls.  Group B must compete, must persuade you to follow them.  Group A demands your compliance under threats of force.  What system would ever justify the actions of Group A?  No rational ethics could, thus we must reject it.  All goods and services provided by Group A must immediately be subject to the voluntary and moral system of Group B.  In fact, if Group A were to exist, isn't it likely to attract the most unscrupulous of people?  The ones willing to lie to garner votes, the one who think themselves so superior that they ought to be granted the power to rule over people?  While starting with a random distribution of men in Group A and Group B, it is Group A will attract men who believe themselves above other men.  And to see who will gravitate to Group B consider that those best able to serve, manage, and persuade (not coerce) will rise to the top by the nature of the profit and loss system.  Thus the most proficient and people-serving men lead group B whereas the most vain and deceitful men lead Group A.

Finally, it should be clear than any civil society should legalize competition, let no man have rule over another, and let there be equality under the law with no exceptions.  This system is called anarchy; it is peaceful persuasion and the absence of legitimized coercion.  It is strange that such concepts are so strongly rejected or as Joseph Sobran put it, "The measure of the state's success is that the word anarchy frightens people, while the word state does not."

I Wish the Troops were Welfare Whores

There's a group on Facebook called "The Troops are Welfare Whores".  They post good information at times, but I'm not a fan of the name.  Other than it being inflammatory, I don't think it accurately reflects what most people believe in the group.  I posted the follow on their page:  Why this group should be called: "I Wish the Troops were Welfare Whores"

I've liked this page for a while, but haven't liked the name for two reasons (1) because it opens the door for the eternal statist cry "You use government services, you hypocrite" and (2) it's demeaning to "welfare whores"

The second objection is easy, welfare whores only consume their welfare checks.  Welfare whores receive less than military personnel, and they do not use airlines, humvees, food, or weapons provided to them by the government on top of their welfare checks.  They also do not get state approval to destroy and murder.

The first objection about government services is more subtle.  When competition is outlawed or participation is mandatory, then choices are restricted by force and thus those who care about freedom have no choice but to use the government monopoly.  So I say the libertarian should use government services as needed and perhaps even abuse them to quicken their demise.  Use roads, use free school lunches if you can, use the parks, withdraw social security, and even become a public school teacher.  Just don't support them by voting for them, or raising funds, or using any political action enabling their expansion.

The point about being a public school teacher is controversial on this page.  I advocate you doing what you're good at.  If that means being a school teacher go ahead and see how you can change the public schools from within, you'll have more power than any voter, and there will be at least 1 non-brainwashed nationalist in the school teaching children.  There's no need to stick only with private schools; the system is rigged; it's unfortunate, but you can do good in the public schools.  Just don't vote for their expansion or continuation.

The troops are different, in no imaginable way are they doing what they're supposed to be doing "protecting our freedoms".  In fact, if that is indeed the definition of the soldier's job, than it is a conceptual impossibility to perform.  It's impossible because in order for statist military to exist they must first, by definition, coercively take income from those who do not want their services.  Thus the very first action the troops need to take is antithetical to their ends, the troops are a contradiction.

Teachers can teach, researchers can research, and they can do so with principles and integrity.  One who is good at defense cannot achieve any usefulness to that end by joining the U.S. military; it is impossible with the current state of affairs.  Thus, if you're good at defense your only options are private militias or private security.

The police are another story, they fall somewhere between the school teacher and the soldier.  In the vast majority of cases, they're like the soldier i.e. worse than welfare whores.  The drug wars, drinking regulations, traffic laws (on government monopolized roads), truancy enforcement, etc. etc. cannot be enforced by anyone interested in true civil defense.  Thus, it's nearly impossible to join the police and not do harm, same goes for the soldier but to a worse degree.