President Obama – The bright side
Okay, I've slammed Obama plenty on his apparent desire to use the guns of government to take from Peter and give to Paul (while government itself keeps a hefty cut). His economic policies, if carried out, will likely prolong our recession and are, quite simply, morally repugnant.
But I also want to acknowledge the bright side of this situation: Obama's foreign policy disposition.
But first, let me lay out a premise: there is a direct relationship between true national security and individual liberty. The safer we are, the less excuse the government has to crack down on personal freedom in the name of catching bad guys. Inversely, as we have seen over the past 8 years (and in other periods of war), increasing numbers of people threatening violence against us leads to increasing government infringements of our liberty.
Now, on to Obama and his foreign policy.
Generally, Obama seems much more willing to sit down and talk with our international interlocutors than McCain would have been. Thinking optimistically here, I can see a President Obama treating states like Iran, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela like adults (even when they don't deserve it) and opening dialogue instead of opening fire (literally or figuratively). Some of the basic rules of conflict resolution are to make the other side feel like an equal, keep them from losing face and getting defensive, and move them from an adversarial position on the other side of the table to a co-problem-solver position on the same side of the table jointly attacking an impersonal problem. I have a feeling Obama has a relatively well-developed understanding of these principles. Hopefully, his talk during the campaign about unilaterally going into Pakistan was just a miscalculated attempt to prevent McCain from painting him as a sissy. Basically, foreign relations is like raising children. Children don't respond well to screaming and beating, and neither do the child-like despots that control the countries we call our "enemies." You praise the positive actions and use negative actions as opportunities to talk about why the action was wrong. Such an approach will drastically reduce international tensions and eliminate potential military conflicts, thus making us safer.
One other key point is that Obama is not in bed with Israel. He won't likely be bending over backward to support a country that's perfectly capable of defending itself. Since our foolishly unconditional support of Israel is one of the main rallying cries for recruitment of new anti-Western terrorists (I know, it doesn't really make sense to us), cutting or reducing the U.S.-Israel military and financial umbilical cord would go a long way toward enhancing our overall security.
One negative aspect of Obama's foreign policy that shouldn't go unmentioned is his probable continuation and increase of all kinds of foreign aid. Not only is foreign aid another immoral instance of government using force to transfer wealth from one group to another, but it has the added disadvantage of giving ammo to various countries and groups calling for violence against Americans (as in the case with Israel).
So hopefully the foreign policy of the Obama administration will actually improve both our short term and long term security and do so by following the libertarian principles outlined above.
What thinkest thou?
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Libertarian take on Veterans’ Day
I'll say right up front that I'm not going to win many friends with this post, especially among those with whom I served.
It's that time of year again: Veteran's Day. The time when we all go around patting the troops on the back and thanking them for their service and for fighting for us and defending our freedom.
There's just one little problem: they're not actually defending our freedom.
There's a case that could be made that they're defending Iraqi freedom or Afghan freedom, or that in times past they defended South Vietnamese freedom or South Korean freedom or the freedom of various European nations. But they were not defending Americans' freedom. But to make the case that our troops are defending OUR freedom, you would have to show that they repelled or resisted an unprovoked invasion of person or property. But as far as I can tell, the only two times that's happened was the Revolutionary War and the Civil War (in which the Confederate forces legitimately attempted to resist the aggression of the Union forces following the South's perfectly Constitutional secession). After perusing the very long list of conflicts in which America has been involved since its birth, I found no other instances of major unprovoked aggression by a state actor with the exception of Pearl Harbor (and leaving aside the possibility that Roosevelt may have allowed the attack to happen in order to get the American public to support a declaration of war, our entrance into WWII had nothing to do with protecting Americans from another imminent attack).
So, the military isn't in the business of defending our freedom. But what about enhancing our security? Now that seems to make more sense. Except that nearly every U.S. military action, being offensive rather than defensive, actually tends to reduce our security by creating rallying cries for lunatic terrorists. After all, even us non-lunatics would be pretty pissed off if Iran started bombing our neighborhoods to try to kill someone who had flown a plane into an Iranian building. Now think about that situation except the bombing country is a big, intimidating superpower, and the bombed country is a primitive, impoverished country loaded with fundamentalist Muslims. Uh oh.
So, it turns out that the military doesn't defend our rights or keep us safe. Now I don't blame them for these shortcomings. The troops are doing what they think is right. They're following orders. They're eating up all that stuff about defending the Constitution (I certainly did). Unfortunately, they're just like any other national military - they're one of the tools the state uses to maintain power and enlarge itself. The troops are good people who just happen to believe that elected officials know what they're doing and have good intentions (neither of which is generally true in actuality).
And, in theory, they could actually keep us safe (at least from foreign aggression) by actually remaining stationed only in America and only engaging in purely defensive operations. They could also theoretically defend our freedom by standing up to the government when it tries to confiscate our income or property or restricts how we run our businesses or forces us to get insurance or prevents us from trading with certain people. But of course that would be considered a rebellion, just like Lincoln called the southern states' decision to secede a "rebellion" (so rebellion was good enough for the Founding Fathers but not for anyone that comes after them apparently).
If you want to thank someone who really defends your freedom, thank a defense attorney. After all, they're entire livelihood is based on holding the government feet to the fire and keeping it from violating rights. We may not like a lot of the people they defend (and trust me, they don't like them either), but they're probably the only reason we still have even a semblance of personal liberty in America.
Just to be clear, I'm perfectly fine with honoring veterans. Just like I honor anyone else who goes to work and performs the tasks they had agreed to, although I strongly affirm the rights of our troops to terminate their service to the state at any point if they come to the conclusion that they're not okay with being used to further the immoral ambitions of a coercive government. And I look forward to the day when society goes out of its way to honor those who produce goods and services that people actually need and get paid voluntarily rather than by taxes taken from people against their will.
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On Libertarianism
As promised, I want to talk briefly about libertarianism, the philosophy of the Libertarian Party. Most people call themselves conservative, liberal, or moderate. Only a few of us dare call ourselves libertarian. But I believe that is due in large part to simply a lack of information about the philosophy. To put it simply, it's the only political philosophy that doesn't contradict itself.
In modern American terminology, conservatives advocate freedom in economic matters (but not always) while advocating the initiation of force in many "social" matters (such as reproductive issues, marriage issues, drug use, gambling, prostitution, etc) and in foreign policy (usually). Liberals advocate freedom in social issues (but not always) while advocating initiation of force in economic matters and foreign policy (unless the other party has the White House, as we've seen over the last 8 years). And no one really knows what a "moderate" believes, but one might be fairly disturbed by the implication (perhaps they prefer initiation of force in ALL matters??).
Now libertarianism, on the other hand, is based on the non-initiation of force principle--the idea that it is wrong, no matter what, to initiate force or fraud against other people (including invasion of property), whether done by an individual or a group, even if that group calls itself a 'government' and says it has the 'right' to initiate such force. And it is all based on the axiom of self-ownership, the idea that we each own our life. If you own yourself, then any unowned resources you find and put into productive use are necessarily your just property and cannot be taken or invaded by anyone else (otherwise, humanity would degenerate into violence and poverty). Obviously, you can enter into any voluntary exchange with anyone else, exchanging your just property for their just property. Anyone who came along and forbid such an exchange would be guilty of aggressing against both parties (this is what happens, for instance, when government sets minimum wages--it aggresses against both the employer and the employee by using force to prevent their voluntary exchange). There's obviously much more to libertarianism, but my purpose is not to re-derive the philosophy on my blog.
If you don't quite understand libertarian philosophy, or if you think you do and believe you can't subscribe to it, I'd encourage you to take this opportunity (now that the passion of the election season is over) to learn more about libertarianism by reading at least the first five chapters of The Ethics of Liberty, by Murray Rothbard:
1. Natural Law and Reason
2. Natural Law as "Science"
3. Natural Law versus Positive Law
4. Natural Law and Natural Rights
5. The Task of Political Philosophy
Another classic explanation of libertarianism is the Philosophy of Liberty animated movie.
I promise you'll find that the logic and morality and beautiful consistency of libertarianism is, at the very least, a new way for you to look at the world.
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NC Libertarians Keep Ballot Access!
The Libertarian Party of North Carolina succeeded in getting more than 2% of the vote in the gubernatorial race, thus meeting the state government's oppressive requirement for staying on the ballot for the next four years without having to complete another obscenely time consuming and expensive petition drive!
Mike Munger, Libertarian candidate for Governor, received 2.87% of the vote. Along the way, he managed to spread the message of liberty to all corners of the state. He showed people fed up with the state-sponsored parties that there is another choice.
The Republicans and Democrats have worked for decades to make sure the public doesn't hear other voices. They don't want people to know that there is a philosophy out there that is based on cooperation and achievement rather than coercion and pandering. Now we have a good four years to focus on breaking through the government's barriers to our message and helping North Carolinians get to know the libertarian philosophy--the only philosophy that's built on freedom in ALL areas of life, not just certain select categories. More on that in my next post.
Again, great job by Dr. Mike Munger and all our candidates across the state!
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Half Black Dude New Ruler of America
So, Obama has won. America is going to have our first half black President. I could only shake my head as I watched his blubbering, vapid supporters crying their eyes out as he gave his victory speech. Now, it's not lost on me that this a momentous occasion for race relations in our country and probably will do wonders for black kids' self esteem and our perception around the world. But it's also not lost on me that Obama is a statist and does not believe in protecting natural rights. He believes that it's good and proper to rally part of the population together and use violence to aggress against the rest of the population. With a Democratic White House and Congress, we are likely to see an acceleration of oppression and socialism in America the likes of which we haven't seen since FDR and the New Deal. I can only hope that it's so swift and painful that the American people will finally see statism (both socialism and fascism) for the inhuman, destructive force it is and react against it so strongly that our country will be forever purged of the popular desire for such schemes as wealth redistribution, minimum wages, socialized health care, subsidies, regulations, central banking, and so many other terrible things that Obama ran on.
Democracy is how the rulers of a country make their subjects believe they're not being oppressed. And the American people totally fell for it yet again.
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Vote Libertarian
The farcical puppet show known as Election Day is upon us. As I've said before, if you're going to participate in this charade that seems to have many people convinced that they are somehow living in a free country, at least take an actual stand for freedom by voting for Libertarians. No, they may not win this time around, but don't be a short-term thinker. Even if you aren't necessarily in love with the Libertarian Party (you know who you are), I'm sure you like the idea of political competition and having additional voices in the debate to keep the major parties from completely getting away with murder.
So think about these very awesome reasons to vote Libertarian today:
The more votes Libertarian candidates get, the more they'll have to be given a voice by the media outlets. They won't be so easy to ignore in news stories, debates, and polling. The conversation will be much richer and more focused.
The more votes Libertarian candidates get, the greater the chance that they'll win next time or the time after that. There's no need to mince words. Weaker-minded people prefer to vote for winners over the candidates they actually agree with and will be increasingly willing to vote for Libertarians as they see others doing so.
The more votes Libertarian candidates get, the harder it will be for state governments to keep them off the next ballot. In North Carolina, if we can just get 2% for our presidential or gubernatorial candidates (Barr and Munger, respectively), we're automatically allowed on the ballot for the next election. There would be no need for us to spend our entire war chest just to collect petition signatures for ballot access.
And, of course, you should vote Libertarian because you believe in voting on principle rather than for the lesser of the two evils, and you agree with the Libertarian principle of not initiating force or fraud against others--the principle on which every plank of the Libertarian Party platform is built.
Now this appeal wouldn't be complete if I didn't also acknowledge and promote libertarian individuals who are running under the banner of another party and not competing directly with Libertarian Party candidates. To that end, most of the "Ron Paul Republicans" around the country are probably worth looking at. In the Triangle area of North Carolina, a really impressive guy trying to unseat 'the great and powerful' David Price in the U.S. House is B.J. Lawson. The guy is sharp, personable, and very libertarian (so much so that he has been thoroughly rejected by the local party establishment, whose big-government, neocon "Chosen One" Lawson soundly defeated in the primary). But you do have to be careful with some of the Ron Paul Republicans as their views on immigration, abortion, and gay rights can sometimes be rather unlibertarian. At any rate, B.J. Lawson and others like him could certainly shake things up in Washington and would likely garner increased attention to the libertarian philosophy that they mostly adhere to.
So as much as I feel that voting gives sanction to an inherently unjust system, as long as there are those of the libertarian philosophy on the ballot, I guess you should get out there and cast a vote for human freedom.
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