I first heard about all this on Jeffrey Goldberg's Atlantic blog (about a week before any of the events mentioned in this article). I wonder if Goldberg knows he's a minion of the Koch Brothers (remember to use a spooky voice whenever you say their name!)
I just got finished reading that article as well. I checked my mailbox again: still no check from any of the Kochs.
If I had a better pair of waders I'd go see how many times the Nation lampooned truthers and birthers, but I'm afraid some of it might get on my good undies and I'd be mortified at the airport. Do Kochers wear tin foil Birkenstocks?
I like how they ignore the Washington lobbyists who are in favor of the TSA scanning, and who directly profit by it, unlike the Kochs.
I also like their idiocy of "well, this story is important and we would otherwise agree with the objections, but we won't simply because we disagree with the fact that libertarians are spreading the complaints."
"What we should not do is assume that, in the midst of the worst recession in decades, when untold thousands of families are being thrown out of their homes in fraudulent foreclosures, that the biggest most pressing issue facing Americans is the “porn scan” at airports."
Is The Nation really saying our civil liberties aren't worth protecting right now?
So your comment was more along the lines of those who dismissed the antiwar protests because ANSWER and other socialist front groups helped organize them?
Socialism and communism have killed more people than the war in Iraq, so let's just mock opposition to the war in Iraq because some of the people organizing protests were pro-socialist and communist?
If we're asking people to wear the uniform and put their lives at risk overseas we shouldn't retreat to our fainting couches when confronting minor inconveniences at home.
--- Socialism and communism have killed more people ---
The US Civil War killed a significant percentage of the male population, so you should add corporatist/capitalist slave-holders to your list.
I'm not sure which "we" is asking people to wear the uniform and put their lives at risk overseas in this case, but that wouldn't include me.
But regardless, I do view even minor inconveniences to be unacceptable when they trample rights explicitly protected by the constitution from which America derives its laws.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Personal searches at random - not based on probable cause - clearly violates this amendment.
There are obvious ways of getting around 'unreasonable searches and seizures'.
For example, the Reagan administration decided that since the government couldn't force everyone to be drug tested, they'd get their corporatist/capitalist shills to have millions of people urinate in a bottle as a condition of employment.
I'm guessing the functions of the TSA could be turned over to the airlines to avoid any constitutional challenge.
"I'm guessing the functions of the TSA could be turned over to the airlines to avoid any constitutional challenge."
Yep. That'd do it. And I'd support that solution, providing the airlines could freely compete for various levels of the security/efficiency/dignity/liability trade-offs.
Most companies choose to drug test if they think it might lower their liabilities, yet still let them hire enough employees who will put up with the intrusion. I've never heard of any extra-constitutional federal force being used, just at-will employment. However, I'd join you in opposing any corporatist collusion in the form of lobbying for laws.
As long as labor choices are voluntary on both sides, it's none of my business who chooses to urinate for whom. When those specimen cups become federal rules, I get, um...pissed.
When they decide to search citizens walking on the sidewalk at random (no articulable suspicion of criminal activity), your option will be not to walk on the sidewalks? How small will your liberty need to be before it's no longer liberty?
I would join you in condemning the war on (some) drugs, if that was your implication. As for a private company making you piss in a bottle as a condition of employment, I'm assuming you make them pay you as a condition of employment. Though I'd express it as what both parties "agree to", since either party can decide not to participate.
Personally, I avoid accepting employment from companies that pay me in scrip. I also avoid traveling back to the 1800's, even if it would be useful as a straw man.
Of course, none of this justifies federal laws or bureaucratic rules which clearly violate the Fourth Amendment.
--- I also avoid traveling back to the 1800's, even if it would be useful as a straw man. ---
Anyone advocating a return to the small-government we had in the 19th century should be able to explain why those policies would lead to more desirable outcomes the second time around.
"Anyone advocating a return to the small-government we had in the 19th century should be able to explain why those policies would lead to more desirable outcomes the second time around."
Did I advocate a return to the small-government we had in the 19th century? Or did some straw fellow?
So far, I've advocated constitutionally enforcing the Fourth Amendment, airlines providing competing models of airline security, and employment at will. I've opposed the current wars, unconstitutional random searches absent probable cause, corporatism, and the war on (some) drugs.
I've begun to explain why I think each of the values I advocate is desirable to me.
As far as I can tell, we may only disagree on two issues so far. Do you support a relaxed standard of for searches and seizures in America? I don't. Do you support forcing employers to hire a given employee or forcing people to work for a given employer? I don't.
If you do support these things, could you help me understand why?
--- Do you support forcing employers to hire a given employee or forcing people to work for a given employer? I don't. ---
Conscription forces you to choose Uncle Sam as your employer. Not only that, but you can't negotiate salary or any other terms of employment.
Conscription also exposes the fact that there are some public goods that many libertarians are willing to resort to slavery to achieve.
Conservatives, liberals and libertarians just disagree on what public goods are desirable enough to warrant government intrusion.
Another point: in the same way that you claim that I'm free to pick and choose my employer, you are free to pick and choose a country whose political environment you favor.
Ah, I see your point now. Pardon me; I wasn't seeing your equivalence of conscription with employment. I oppose conscription. Thankfully, the last draft ended nearly 40 years ago, just as I was becoming subject to it.
I cannot say where most libertarians stand on conscription, but I imagine most oppose it. An all-voluntary military has worked well over the last four decades, though I'd be happier with a much smaller standing army, magnitudes fewer foreign bases, and a Department of Defense rather than a Department of "U.S. Interests Overseas".
Rather than enslaving the citizens, the federal government has enticed citizens with benefits like education. This seems like an admirable compromise that functions well.
I think you'll find that a vast majority of libertarians agree that national defense is one of the core functions of federal government. They may disagree on what constitutes a proper defense, but conservatives and liberals do that amongst themselves (in the very few instances where those groups disagree on foreign adventures these days).
And we're all free to try to pick a country in which to live. I'm happiest with America; it's still the least intrusive. And one of the larger reasons it remains the least intrusive is because it's structured as a constitutional republic and annoying people relentlessly bang that constitutional restraint drum.
--- I'm happiest with America; it's still the least intrusive. ---
The liberal viewpoint is of course that both government and corporations are capable of restricting personal freedom.
The Pinkerton's didn't exist to enhance the freedom and dignity of the individual, nor did the issuing of scrip. These weren't governmental actions, they were pathologies of a system that allowed concentrated monopolistic entities to impose their interests on other more diffuse economic actors.
Competition is much more important to the average person than untrammeled freedom.
Given that monopolies are much more profitable than competitive entities, there's a powerful incentive for companies to achieve monopoly status.
That was one of the big lessons of the 19th century and libertarians need to explain why they believe this type of economy is more desirable than the mixed economy we have today.
The line of demarcation for most libertarians is the use of initiated force. If McDonalds could jail me for not buying a Big Mac, libertarians would oppose that power. If I choose not to buy that Big Mac, and buy a Whopper instead, no force is used - and libertarians would not support any intervention by government.
When corporations initiate force, or hire agents to do it (Pinkertons or congressmen) they cross that line. Pinkertons as private defensive security did not initiate force. As long as that was the case, libertarians would not oppose their actions. When they were proven to initiate force, libertarians would oppose it.
Anarchists reject the concept of a mixed economy because the reject the authority of a state in any mixture. Libertarians (or Minarchists) accept the state as an agent of the citizenry. This was well summarized by Jefferson: "...all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed," Governments are instituted to defend rights.
Any mixing of government into the economy of free country described as Jefferson did should be to secure these rights. Any time that mixture expands to attempt to enforce equal outcomes, regulate non-violent and non-fraudulent business practices, or attempt to enforce moral standards, this agency oversteps its charter. Mix an economy with enough government force, and it can be crippled and destroyed. This is what happened to the Soviets.
Government has good purpose, but it is not the tool for every problem. In fact, because it's licensed to initiate force, its use should be very tightly constrained in order to keep a free country free.
Libertarianism presents a superficially appealing process argument whose concrete implementation produces an aggressively sub-optimized economic environment.
Apparently it's perfectly acceptable to libertarians to have a dozen Standard Oil Trusts Balkanize and eviscerate the economy of the US.
The West rejected this outcome a century ago with good reason.
Newtonian physics presented a simple and intuitively appealing theory of how the world works; too bad that simple theories aren't always useful in the real world.
Communism presents a superficially appealing process argument whose concrete implementation produces an aggressively sub-optimized economic environment. So does Socialism.
The only alternative in all these that has proven to create wealth and lift even the poorest of that economy to relative affluence compared to the poor in the rest of the world is capitalism. Free markets, free trade, free people make wealth. Dinesh D'Souza likes to quote a man in Bombay who wanted to immigrate to America: "I really want to move to a country where the poor people are fat."
Government has a role in defending rights. If it fails to do this - say, allowing Pinkertons to initiate force - then it fails in its role. If it oversteps its charter (its Constitution), then it also fails in its role. The protector becomes the enforcer, no better than a corporate-hired private security agency.
Which part of constitutionally-limited government offends? What would you change? If force is invited for other than securing rights, whose wishes are to be enforced? And upon whom?
I lived through a large part of the Cold War. I remember the "Iron Curtain", and the "Free World". Too much government killed the Soviets. Too much government spending just nearly killed Zimbabwe, Greece, Ireland, et. al. Too little government is destroying Somalia. How much government "optimizes" an economic environment? How much impoverishes it? How little will destroy it?
If you reject Jefferson's line, and mine, where is yours?
--- If force is invited for other than securing rights, whose wishes are to be enforced? ---
Rights are typically in conflict and it's up to the three branches of government to decide whose rights take precedence.
--- How much government "optimizes" an economic environment? ---
Texas and Canada imposed more restrictive financial regulations and suffered less when the bubble popped.
That would seem to be a step in the right direction.
--- If you reject Jefferson's line ---
Jefferson believed he had the right to own human beings, a condition created by laissez faire economics that was only corrected through the government's use of force.
I should have been clearer. The rights I refer to are limited to negative rights, e.g. the right to be unmolested. I don't recognize any positive rights, e.g. the right to someone else's output in seeking health care. In this context, where do you see rights in conflict?
Many factors were at play in Texas: regulations, recent memory of a similar 80's crash there eliminating any moral hazard, easy land access for new development rather than flipping existing homes, stronger base economy, no state income tax, etc. But I don't pretend to understand *the* cause.
Ad hominems to Jefferson and the norms of the era really don't address Jefferson's assertion in the Declaration. If you reject that, what is your alternative? A benevolent, omniscient, and perfect state? As power is transferred to the monopoly power of the state, what are the incentives? What checks those powers? How are those powers more or less responsive than firms dependent on voluntary patronage?
35 comments:
The Citizens Guide to American Morality and the GWOT
4ooo dead US soldiers and ~100k dead Iraqis? No problem.
TSA touching your junk?
Why, it's an outrage!
I first heard about all this on Jeffrey Goldberg's Atlantic blog (about a week before any of the events mentioned in this article). I wonder if Goldberg knows he's a minion of the Koch Brothers (remember to use a spooky voice whenever you say their name!)
I just got finished reading that article as well. I checked my mailbox again: still no check from any of the Kochs.
If I had a better pair of waders I'd go see how many times the Nation lampooned truthers and birthers, but I'm afraid some of it might get on my good undies and I'd be mortified at the airport. Do Kochers wear tin foil Birkenstocks?
Ames and Levine are acting surprised that a congressman is trying to get hisself associated with a popular movement.
It seems that 89 doesn't know that libertarians oppose the wars, too.
As far as I can tell, 'ol 89 is not just ignorant but willfully so.
It makes sense. We all like to do what we are good at...
I like how they ignore the Washington lobbyists who are in favor of the TSA scanning, and who directly profit by it, unlike the Kochs.
I also like their idiocy of "well, this story is important and we would otherwise agree with the objections, but we won't simply because we disagree with the fact that libertarians are spreading the complaints."
My other favorite absurdity is that UNC is still somehow ranked in the basketball poll.
"What we should not do is assume that, in the midst of the worst recession in decades, when untold thousands of families are being thrown out of their homes in fraudulent foreclosures, that the biggest most pressing issue facing Americans is the “porn scan” at airports."
Is The Nation really saying our civil liberties aren't worth protecting right now?
Wasn't this on KPC the other day about how attitudes towards civil liberties are swayed based on whoever is in the White House?
Time to go dig up all of the "our world is ending" stories from the Bush years...
And to be fair, time to dig up the stories from Republicans after 9/11 telling us that giving up freedom was necessary for security sake.
The Nation should have gone with the "I told you so" angle, except maybe they really do believe that.
---
It seems that 89 doesn't know that libertarians oppose the wars, too.
---
That would be a real zinger but for the fact that the word 'libertarian' never appears in my comment.
89,
So your comment was more along the lines of those who dismissed the antiwar protests because ANSWER and other socialist front groups helped organize them?
Socialism and communism have killed more people than the war in Iraq, so let's just mock opposition to the war in Iraq because some of the people organizing protests were pro-socialist and communist?
That was a zinger.
A coincidence that my word verification is "reeson"?
---
So your comment was more along the lines
---
If we're asking people to wear the uniform and put their lives at risk overseas we shouldn't retreat to our fainting couches when confronting minor inconveniences at home.
---
Socialism and communism have killed more people
---
The US Civil War killed a significant percentage of the male population, so you should add corporatist/capitalist slave-holders to your list.
And of course slavery itself should be on the 'crimes against humanity' list.
I'm not sure which "we" is asking people to wear the uniform and put their lives at risk overseas in this case, but that wouldn't include me.
But regardless, I do view even minor inconveniences to be unacceptable when they trample rights explicitly protected by the constitution from which America derives its laws.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Personal searches at random - not based on probable cause - clearly violates this amendment.
There are obvious ways of getting around 'unreasonable searches and seizures'.
For example, the Reagan administration decided that since the government couldn't force everyone to be drug tested, they'd get their corporatist/capitalist shills to have millions of people urinate in a bottle as a condition of employment.
I'm guessing the functions of the TSA could be turned over to the airlines to avoid any constitutional challenge.
"I'm guessing the functions of the TSA could be turned over to the airlines to avoid any constitutional challenge."
Yep. That'd do it. And I'd support that solution, providing the airlines could freely compete for various levels of the security/efficiency/dignity/liability trade-offs.
Most companies choose to drug test if they think it might lower their liabilities, yet still let them hire enough employees who will put up with the intrusion. I've never heard of any extra-constitutional federal force being used, just at-will employment. However, I'd join you in opposing any corporatist collusion in the form of lobbying for laws.
As long as labor choices are voluntary on both sides, it's none of my business who chooses to urinate for whom. When those specimen cups become federal rules, I get, um...pissed.
The scotus has said that the standard for searches & seizures are different when operating a motor vehicle on public roads vs occupying your home.
You have a choice with the TSA as well: if you don't want to be frisked, don't use public airports.
---
As long as labor choices are voluntary on both sides, it's none of my business who chooses to urinate for whom.
---
We had an experiment like that; it was called 'the 19th century'.
Paradise on earth it was not.
When they decide to search citizens walking on the sidewalk at random (no articulable suspicion of criminal activity), your option will be not to walk on the sidewalks? How small will your liberty need to be before it's no longer liberty?
I suppose my freedoms are enhanced when every major corporation decides to make me piss in a bottle as a condition of employment.
How about companies paying me in scrip to only be used at the company store or to rent company housing?
Should I feel better that it's the Pinkertons who come knocking on my door as opposed to the FBI?
I would join you in condemning the war on (some) drugs, if that was your implication. As for a private company making you piss in a bottle as a condition of employment, I'm assuming you make them pay you as a condition of employment. Though I'd express it as what both parties "agree to", since either party can decide not to participate.
Personally, I avoid accepting employment from companies that pay me in scrip. I also avoid traveling back to the 1800's, even if it would be useful as a straw man.
Of course, none of this justifies federal laws or bureaucratic rules which clearly violate the Fourth Amendment.
---
I also avoid traveling back to the 1800's, even if it would be useful as a straw man.
---
Anyone advocating a return to the small-government we had in the 19th century should be able to explain why those policies would lead to more desirable outcomes the second time around.
"Anyone advocating a return to the small-government we had in the 19th century should be able to explain why those policies would lead to more desirable outcomes the second time around."
Did I advocate a return to the small-government we had in the 19th century? Or did some straw fellow?
So far, I've advocated constitutionally enforcing the Fourth Amendment, airlines providing competing models of airline security, and employment at will. I've opposed the current wars, unconstitutional random searches absent probable cause, corporatism, and the war on (some) drugs.
I've begun to explain why I think each of the values I advocate is desirable to me.
As far as I can tell, we may only disagree on two issues so far. Do you support a relaxed standard of for searches and seizures in America? I don't. Do you support forcing employers to hire a given employee or forcing people to work for a given employer? I don't.
If you do support these things, could you help me understand why?
In the event of a foreign invasion of the US, do we implement forced conscription?
Should people be able to form organizations to advance their economic interests? ie, unions, guilds, public corporations?
Should such organizations have any limits on the involvement of foreign entities?
Should we allow capital to easily cross our borders?
Should we allow labor to easily cross our borders?
I'd say no, yes (absent force), possibly, yes, yes.
Were your questions an attempt to answer my questions?
---
Do you support forcing employers to hire a given employee or forcing people to work for a given employer? I don't.
---
Conscription forces you to choose Uncle Sam as your employer. Not only that, but you can't negotiate salary or any other terms of employment.
Conscription also exposes the fact that there are some public goods that many libertarians are willing to resort to slavery to achieve.
Conservatives, liberals and libertarians just disagree on what public goods are desirable enough to warrant government intrusion.
Another point: in the same way that you claim that I'm free to pick and choose my employer, you are free to pick and choose a country whose political environment you favor.
Ah, I see your point now. Pardon me; I wasn't seeing your equivalence of conscription with employment. I oppose conscription. Thankfully, the last draft ended nearly 40 years ago, just as I was becoming subject to it.
I cannot say where most libertarians stand on conscription, but I imagine most oppose it. An all-voluntary military has worked well over the last four decades, though I'd be happier with a much smaller standing army, magnitudes fewer foreign bases, and a Department of Defense rather than a Department of "U.S. Interests Overseas".
Rather than enslaving the citizens, the federal government has enticed citizens with benefits like education. This seems like an admirable compromise that functions well.
I think you'll find that a vast majority of libertarians agree that national defense is one of the core functions of federal government. They may disagree on what constitutes a proper defense, but conservatives and liberals do that amongst themselves (in the very few instances where those groups disagree on foreign adventures these days).
And we're all free to try to pick a country in which to live. I'm happiest with America; it's still the least intrusive. And one of the larger reasons it remains the least intrusive is because it's structured as a constitutional republic and annoying people relentlessly bang that constitutional restraint drum.
---
I'm happiest with America; it's still the least intrusive.
---
The liberal viewpoint is of course that both government and corporations are capable of restricting personal freedom.
The Pinkerton's didn't exist to enhance the freedom and dignity of the individual, nor did the issuing of scrip. These weren't governmental actions, they were pathologies of a system that allowed concentrated monopolistic entities to impose their interests on other more diffuse economic actors.
Competition is much more important to the average person than untrammeled freedom.
Given that monopolies are much more profitable than competitive entities, there's a powerful incentive for companies to achieve monopoly status.
That was one of the big lessons of the 19th century and libertarians need to explain why they believe this type of economy is more desirable than the mixed economy we have today.
The line of demarcation for most libertarians is the use of initiated force. If McDonalds could jail me for not buying a Big Mac, libertarians would oppose that power. If I choose not to buy that Big Mac, and buy a Whopper instead, no force is used - and libertarians would not support any intervention by government.
When corporations initiate force, or hire agents to do it (Pinkertons or congressmen) they cross that line. Pinkertons as private defensive security did not initiate force. As long as that was the case, libertarians would not oppose their actions. When they were proven to initiate force, libertarians would oppose it.
Anarchists reject the concept of a mixed economy because the reject the authority of a state in any mixture. Libertarians (or Minarchists) accept the state as an agent of the citizenry. This was well summarized by Jefferson: "...all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed," Governments are instituted to defend rights.
Any mixing of government into the economy of free country described as Jefferson did should be to secure these rights. Any time that mixture expands to attempt to enforce equal outcomes, regulate non-violent and non-fraudulent business practices, or attempt to enforce moral standards, this agency oversteps its charter. Mix an economy with enough government force, and it can be crippled and destroyed. This is what happened to the Soviets.
Government has good purpose, but it is not the tool for every problem. In fact, because it's licensed to initiate force, its use should be very tightly constrained in order to keep a free country free.
Libertarianism presents a superficially appealing process argument whose concrete implementation produces an aggressively sub-optimized economic environment.
Apparently it's perfectly acceptable to libertarians to have a dozen Standard Oil Trusts Balkanize and eviscerate the economy of the US.
The West rejected this outcome a century ago with good reason.
Newtonian physics presented a simple and intuitively appealing theory of how the world works; too bad that simple theories aren't always useful in the real world.
Communism presents a superficially appealing process argument whose concrete implementation produces an aggressively sub-optimized economic environment. So does Socialism.
The only alternative in all these that has proven to create wealth and lift even the poorest of that economy to relative affluence compared to the poor in the rest of the world is capitalism. Free markets, free trade, free people make wealth. Dinesh D'Souza likes to quote a man in Bombay who wanted to immigrate to America: "I really want to move to a country where the poor people are fat."
Government has a role in defending rights. If it fails to do this - say, allowing Pinkertons to initiate force - then it fails in its role. If it oversteps its charter (its Constitution), then it also fails in its role. The protector becomes the enforcer, no better than a corporate-hired private security agency.
Which part of constitutionally-limited government offends? What would you change? If force is invited for other than securing rights, whose wishes are to be enforced? And upon whom?
I lived through a large part of the Cold War. I remember the "Iron Curtain", and the "Free World". Too much government killed the Soviets. Too much government spending just nearly killed Zimbabwe, Greece, Ireland, et. al. Too little government is destroying Somalia. How much government "optimizes" an economic environment? How much impoverishes it? How little will destroy it?
If you reject Jefferson's line, and mine, where is yours?
---
If force is invited for other than securing rights, whose wishes are to be enforced?
---
Rights are typically in conflict and it's up to the three branches of government to decide whose rights take precedence.
---
How much government "optimizes" an economic environment?
---
Texas and Canada imposed more restrictive financial regulations and suffered less when the bubble popped.
That would seem to be a step in the right direction.
---
If you reject Jefferson's line
---
Jefferson believed he had the right to own human beings, a condition created by laissez faire economics that was only corrected through the government's use of force.
I should have been clearer. The rights I refer to are limited to negative rights, e.g. the right to be unmolested. I don't recognize any positive rights, e.g. the right to someone else's output in seeking health care. In this context, where do you see rights in conflict?
Many factors were at play in Texas: regulations, recent memory of a similar 80's crash there eliminating any moral hazard, easy land access for new development rather than flipping existing homes, stronger base economy, no state income tax, etc. But I don't pretend to understand *the* cause.
Ad hominems to Jefferson and the norms of the era really don't address Jefferson's assertion in the Declaration. If you reject that, what is your alternative? A benevolent, omniscient, and perfect state? As power is transferred to the monopoly power of the state, what are the incentives? What checks those powers? How are those powers more or less responsive than firms dependent on voluntary patronage?
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