Libertarianism

If you'd told my hardline libertarian, militantly atheistic Objectivist self of the past that I'd be ever write a defense of socially conservative political views, I'd probably have called you crazy in between fits of laughter and remarks about how that particular group of people was a roadblock to human evolution. Which goes to show that everyone must sometimes eat crow.

There's been a lot of talk about how Governor Sanford's recent scandal impugns the authority of social conservatives to discuss how terrible infidelity, abortion, homosexuality and post-1960's sexual morality are. The usual suspects have already got in their obligatory sneers, but what's more surprising is how quick various members of this website have jumped on the bandwagon. No accounting for taste, but they're wrong.

As I never tire of reminding people, most of the conflicts on the Right today have happened before. The desire to rid our side of social conservatives is no exception. Frank Meyer actually wrote an essay entitled "A Rebel in Search of Tradition" in which he savaged Russell Kirk for being culturally authoritarian and thus socialist by proxy. Friedrich Hayek leveled the accusation that "conservatism has compromised with socialism and stolen its thunder" at traditionalists. In the end, Meyer's fusionism resolved the dispute, but the tensions remained, to the point that Murray Rothbard and Russell Kirk both tried to write each other out of the movment in the same issue of the same magazine. Kirk accused Rothbard's libertarians of being "chirping sectaries" who could never agree and were Satanic in their opposition to authority, whereas Rothbard wrote that fusionism was really a "libertarian manque" intended to keep those stupid traditionalists quiet. And even though any time social conservatism was dumped, it resulted in disastrous political alienation (see also the rise of the New Right in response to Gerald Ford), and anytime fiscal conservatism was dumped it resulted in political failure and division on the Right (George W. Bush), people still try and write both sides out.

But enough about history. Let's deal with the question at hand - why should the infidelity of Mark Sanford merit the expulsion of social conservatives? Perhaps I'm being willingly obtuse, but I can't remember a single time when any socially conservative Senator, Representative, Governor, President or dog-catcher has suggested that adultery be made illegal. I've also never heard a single Democratic Representative, Senator, Governor or President advocate adultery as a social good - in fact, unlike Sanford, some of them will even put themselves at the risk of impeachment to avoid admitting to it. Hypocrisy? You bet. But if we threw out every political idea that had a high profile hypocrite advocate it at some point, then we'd have nothing left to advocate at all.

The impulse to throw hypocrites out is a healthy one. The impules to throw out everyone but the hypocrites is not - it is a symptom of desperation. Suppose the Republican party followed the advice of all the people who said abandoning social conservatism because of the Mark Sanfords of the world was a good idea. Imagine the message that sends - "Alright, you've got us, husbands can't keep their pants up and we're not going to claim they should." Imagine the fun Robert Gibbs would have with that. Imagine how many voters, both socially conservative and otherwise, we'd never be able to get on our side again.

The mere fact that Sanford's so-called "hypocrisy" is getting so much airtime is the best argument for believing in a politics of morality one could ever want. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out yesterday, "Hypocrisy does two things, both at the same time: Hypocrisy shows -- and you're not going to want to hear this. You're not going to want to agree with me on this.  I know you're not.  But hypocrisy shows that there are moral values in a culture.  Without moral values in a culture, it would not be possible for anybody to be a hypocrite.  The fact that we are calling Sanford a hypocrite is the proof that there are still standards of dignity and morality that apply in our society." Or, to put it even more bluntly, hypocrisy is the one thing which liberals have not been able to turn into a lifestyle choice. 

It's true that social conservatism puts us in a difficult position. You never hear about the pro-choice Democratic "hypocrites" who forbid their daughters from getting abortions. You never hear about the college professors who are rich and still say property is theft. Even when you do, it doesn't do anything. You don't see the Democrats arguing that they should drop opposition to corporate corruption because Chris Dodd got caught. When Bill Clinton cheated on Hillary or when Elliot Spitzer paid to become "Love Client Number Nine", you may notice there was just as much outrage, if not more, than what has accrued in response to Governor Sanford. Whatever we may do on blogs, putting partisan spin on a personal tragedy alienates average people because it looks cynical, heartless and petty. Making partisan spin on a personal tragedy the basis for a massive philosophical shift is politically and philosophically counterproductive because it makes your party look like a collection of gutless wimps who allow the worst members of their party to dictate moral standards.

In his article, Max Borders argues that while cheating on one's wife is a morally disastrous act, "there are egregious moral acts the discovery of which no politician should survive...legal bedroom behavior between consenting adults ain’t one of them." It is lucky, therefore, that nobody on the Right, Left or anywhere in between is suggesting government rationing or regulation of sex. They simply suggest that sexual habits and character may be linked. It may be true that, as Mr. Borders says, Jerry Falwell's form of public moralizing has caused the GOP more harm than good. This is not an argument for abandoning one's argument. It is an argument for changing the rhetoric and presentation of it, because we no longer live in the age of moral panic that characterized the 80's. Pro-choice advocates do not abandon their argument because Margaret Sanger once took their side on the grounds that blacks should be exterminated. One can be right for the wrong reasons, and there are plentiful examples of more "libertarian" Republicans who are anti-abortion or even anti-gay marriage who are not cheating scum.

In short, it is political suicide to abandon social conservatism at a time when our most zealous supporters are socially conservative, and when a good majority of even the fiscal conservatives hold socially conservative views. It is also logically fallacious to suggest that because one person violates a set of standards, the standards are therefore invalid. Finally, it is philosophically disastrous to conflate a refusal to regulate certain things because they are not capable of being regulated with abandonment of the moral arguments against them as reflections of an individual's character.

I'm usually pretty dismissive of conspiracy theorists, not being one of the those "black helicopter" Republicans thinking every meeting of the Council of Foreign Relations is a dangerous cabal.

But, sometimes people simply start getting out of hand. You know, the ol "slippery slope" idea.

Which is why I was a little unnerved by this article in Time magazine

How Obama Is Using The Science of Change

Two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama's campaign was mobilizing millions of supporters; it was a bit late to start rewriting get-out-the-vote (GOTV) scripts. "BUT, BUT, BUT," deputy field director Mike Moffo wrote to Obama's GOTV operatives nationwide, "What if I told you a world-famous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists wrote down the best techniques for GOTV scripting?!?! Would you be interested in at least taking a look? Of course you would!!"

Moffo then passed along guidelines and a sample script from the Consortium of Behavioral Scientists, a secret advisory group of 29 of the nation's leading behaviorists. The key guideline was a simple message: "A Record Turnout Is Expected." ..

The existence of this behavioral dream team — which also included best-selling authors Dan Ariely of MIT (Predictably Irrational) and Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago (Nudge) as well as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton — has never been publicly disclosed,......

President Obama is still relying on behavioral science. But now his Administration is using it to try to transform the country.

Stop me for a second. Does the name "George Orwell" spring to mind?

Read the whole article. I want you to reflect then on the utter arrogance that pervades the concept that the American public are in need of what amount to behavior modification, not appeals to rational self-interest or national self-interest.  And that the answers to what is best for Americans are already known to the Obama administration.  Therefore, we must be conditioned to accept the pre-ordained answers.

Democracy. Who needs it. The voters might make mistakes. We'll deprogram them

  But Obama is no therapist changing individuals one at a time. He's an organizer trying to build community and inspire collective action through house parties and Facebook as well as rhetoric about shared values. In other words, he's trying to create social norms — behavioral change's killer app....

The research proves change can come about when it's easy and popular, but making it lucrative — or even mandatory — can make sure it happens.

Hmm, wasn't that why we got rid of King George III?

Now I acknowledge governments here and elesewhere have used pretty subtle and pervasive means to foster their agenda. But generally campaigns against drunk driving and for racial tolerance are means to promote already agreed upon social policies. Same with appeals to patriotism to bolster domestic support for a nation's foreign policy.

 What the Obama people here are seeking to do is a quantum leap forward and away from the concepts of individual liberty and representative government.  There's no political consensus on fixing entitlements or heath care or the energy system. And by seeking to impose social conformity on the "appropriate options", the Obama camp seeks to subvert the need to obtain the consent of the governed.   No wonder they've kept it all secret.

Time identifies this problem, and then adopts an "ends justify the means" defense.

  The idea of public officials, even well-meaning ones, trying to engineer our private behavior to produce change can seem a bit creepy.

But face it: Obama is right. Our emissions are boiling the planet, and most of our energy use is unnecessary. Our health expenditures are bankrupting the Treasury, and most of our visits to the doctor can be traced to unhealthy behavior. We do need to change, and we know it.

  So much for debating what we ought to do.  Just follow what "The One" has decided is best.

I'm slightly familiar with the science of behavior modification, having a son who is on the autistic spectrum.  It's ironic that concepts like Applied Behavior Analysis are used to help children with an expressive disorder properly communicate their wants and needs.

The Obama Behavior Modification agenda is designed to prevent typical adults from communicating their needs and wants; since more and more choices will be taken away from us and replaced with a government approved "default option", and tremendous peer pressure brought to bear against those with undesirable nonconformist choices.

Now, if this didn't leave you a little queasy, I refer one to Hot Air, and Ed Morrissey's fear that the Internet will now be legally subject to appropriation by the administration. 

The bill addresses the need to protect vital networks from cyber attack, but it gives a lot of power to the executive branch — perhaps too much power.

 I don;t know if the  Cybersecurity Act of 2009, S.773 would provide unfettered power to the Obama Administration to shut down the Internet. Morrissey suggests the bigger problem is   "that the bill essentially repeals the Fourth Amendment." 

If the Obama Administration wanted to quell some ad hoc "tea party" national civil protest movement, certaintly screwing with the World Wide Web would be one way to do it. That is how it is done in China, isn't it.

Again, I'm not big on conspiracy theories. But putting these two things in juxtaposition also doesn't leave me with warm feelings about the good intentions of the current administration. This keeps up, this RINO may go libertarian yet.

===Update===

While I was thinking about this, I realized that there had been a behavioral scientist who had written extensively on topics related to human choice.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform,[1][2]and poet.[3] He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.[4] He invented the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism,[5] and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which has recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings.[6] He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement.[7] [8] In a recent survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.[9] He was a prolific author who published 21 books and 180 articles.[10] [11]

OK, so why does this matter that Skinner is the major influence on contemporary behavior sciences. Well, what did he have to say about permitting individuals make decisions?

This was his little dissertation of applying behaviorism to society.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity is a book written by American psychologist B. F. Skinner and first published in 1971. The book argues that entrenched belief in free will and the moral autonomy of the individual (which Skinner referred to as "dignity") hinders the prospect of using scientific methods to modify behavior for the purpose of building a happier and better organized society.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity may be summarized as an attempt to promote Skinner's philosophy of science, the technology of human behavior, his conception of determinism, and what Skinner calls 'cultural engineering'.

"Almost all major problems involve human behavior, and they cannot be solved by physical and biological technology alone. What is needed is a technology of human behavior. 

Skiiner wrote another book Walden Two, "an earlier novel in which Skinner depicted a utopian community based on his ideas regarding behavior modification. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity Skinner extends his argument for explicit cultural engineering of which Walden Two may be seen as an example."

Accordingly to Wikipedia, Noah Chomsky took a big swipe at Skinner's efforts to apply behavioral psychology to societal reform.  I'm not sure I'm accustomed to having him as an ally, but when a hard lefty like him and a RINO like me are going libertarian, well, hmmmm

Michael at the PoliGazette has embarked on a couple of exciting opportunities in his native country of The Netherlands, one of which landed him on national TV there today.  Congrats to Michael for his hard-earned and well-deserved success!

Michael's call to action for his countrymen is simply, "Let’s conservatize this country!", a great message that could serve equally well in the United States as a rallying cry for conservatives and libertarians to come together and reclaim this country.

Doing so won't be easy.  While they agree on many fronts, conservatives and libertarians do not always see eye-to-eye on important issues such as drug legalization and the use of the military.

This was made clear to me yesterday during a conversation with a Christian friend with whom I often agree.  I was flabbergasted to hear him say that not only was he giving Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt - a wise choice, in my view - but that he felt as though it was time for the liberals to "have their say", particularly  in the court system.  I was stunned.  While those on the left would undoubtedly agree with my friend, additional movement to the left on the part of our courts is the last thing this country needs.

Judicial activism is rampant at all levels of the justice system and the Supreme Court is hardly immune.  Indeed, liberal excesses such as the 1960s Affirmative Action and the 1970s Roe v. Wade are still in place, upheld by the high court's rulings, many of which are based on what can only be called dubious interpretations of the Constitution.  This despite the fact that Republicans have controlled the White House during most of the last 30 years.  Do liberals "deserve" even more control over the judiciary branch?  Absolutely not.

That's why it's imperative that libertarians and conservatives find ways to work through contentious issues and form a coalition based on traditional, Constitutional values in order to restore what remains of the social fabric of this country, the strongest threads of which have been severely damaged by the left's misguided, radical takeover of the social agenda.

If this can be accomplished, perhaps the phoenix that is America will rise again from the ashes left behind by the liberal left's burning down of personal responsibility, the Christian church, marriage, and the nuclear family.  If not, the fire that burns in the belly of many Americans will go out completely, for liberalism offers nothing but all-consuming, destructive change that will stop only when there is nothing left to burn.

I saw an ad on the Metro this morning from Econ4U.org, a project of the Center for Economic and Entrepreneurial Literacy (CEEL) ...

It got me thinking: gambling is one of those issues where there are two distinct opinions on the Right. Libertarians argue that all forms gambling should be legalized. Social conservatives argue that the negative externalities and social consequences overwhelm any argument for the freedom to gamble. Some states have extensive licensing for gambling (like Nevada and New Jersey) and other states have strict restrictions or prohibitions on it (Utah and Alaska).

Both sides have valid arguments on gambling itself. But what about government-run/government-monopoly gambling for the purposes of raising revenue for their general funds?

Last November, Maryland passed a ballot initiative allowing for government-run video lottery terminals to raise money for education. Gerald Prante and Alicia Hansen of the Tax Foundation wrote opposing views on government-run slots a day before the election. Prante argued for passage, saying that while "under an ideal fiscal system in Maryland, slots would be permitted to operate freely and the rate of return in the marketplace would be close to competitive," the current prohibition is an implicit tax and passage could eventually lead to a free market for slots. Hansen argued against passage, noting that any government-run gambling is actually a hidden tax that's regressive and non-neutral.

With many states in fiscal crises, lawmakers are looking for new ways to raise revenue. Aside from any of your feelings on gambling itself, how do you, as someone on the center-right, feel about government-run gambling as a way to raise revenue? I look forward to the answers.

Consider this definition of social conservatism:

Traditional values, customs and ways of viewing the world have withstood the test of time, hence they should be given deferential treatment over newer values or customs that have not survived the same level of temporal scrutiny.  Moreover social change often leads to unintended consequences, most of the time deleterious ones, so change by itself should be regarded skeptically and, if deemed beneficial, should happen slowly, cautiously and methodically, so that any unintended consequences can be recognized and overcome.  Finally, individual liberty is only beneficially meaningful when it is conjoined with a moral people; hence policies that promote moral clarity should be favored over those that create moral obfuscation or relativism.

Where in this definition do you see the word government power? In other words, if there is social freedom, won't the rewards and punishments of cultural markets be enough to let some behaviors/traditions “survive” and others fail? Won't cultural evolution proceed by Darwinian processes, rather than Intelligent Design (read: inculcation by bureaucrats with a bible under one arm and the Complete Works of Edmund Burke under the other?) 

Customs survive or go extinct in one of two ways—either a) they’re protected by the force of powerful elites (witness slavery, Jim Crow), or b) because they ‘work’ within the environment in which they attempt to function. You may call b) relativism. So be it. But a) gets to be called “moral” by those who hold the power. It’s no different from leftish moralists with some “social justice” bee in their bonnets.

In any case: nothing under a liberty umbrella precludes social conservatism from being a personal cultural disposition that we all, as members of a free society, must tolerate -- like any other disposition or form of expression.

I'm a near RINO from the suburban Northeast who supported Rudy Giuliani and the Patriot Act.

So when my back is up about a proposal as being destructive of civil liberties, maybe this is something that might resonate with the apolitical general public

Oregon looks at taxing mileage instead of gasoline

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/03/AR2009010300412.html

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Oregon is among a growing number of states exploring ways to tax drivers based on the number of miles they drive instead of how much gas they use, even going so far as to install GPS monitoring devices in 300 vehicles. The idea first emerged nearly 10 years ago as Oregon lawmakers worried that fuel-efficient cars such as gas-electric hybrids could pose a threat to road upkeep, which is paid for largely with gasoline taxes. ......

In Oregon's pilot program, officials equipped 300 vehicles with GPS transponders that worked wirelessly with service station pumps, allowing drivers to pay their mileage tax just as they do their gas tax.

Whitty said the test, which involved two gas stations in the Portland area, proved the idea could work.

Though the GPS devices did not track the cars' locations in great detail, they could determine when a driver had left certain zones, such as the state of Oregon. They also kept track of the time the driving was done, so a premium could be charged for rush-hour mileage.

Another concern is that such devices could threaten privacy. Whitty said he and his task force have assured people that the program does not track detailed movement and that driving history is not stored and cannot be accessed by law enforcement agencies.

"I think most people will come to realize there is really no tracking issue and will continue to buy new cars," Whitty said, noting that many cell phones now come equipped with GPS, which has not deterred customers.

Well, Mr. Whitty, last time I checked Verizon didn't bill me based on where I made my calls. I also can turn off my cell phone, now can't I.  Verizon also is not the government.

Let's look at this extraordinary proposal. I'm sure Oregon needs money to fix roads and maybe the gas tax is obsolete. Fine. But do we need to respond by creating a system where the location of every vehicle in the state is tracked every moment of every day on whatever road it gets driven on?

I have an EZ Pass to speed my way through toll booths in NY State, NJ  and MA. They've been very effective in divorce litigation to puncture alibis.  This would be taking that de minimis privacy violation (one can choose not to use EZ Pass) and placing it on steroids.

I'm not buying "the technology is primitive" argument. I've seen pictures of my house on Google Earth where the color of my car in the driveway was easily visible. I have little doubt a GPS tax tracker will become equally detailed.

There is also the fact that once the American public buys into allowing their cars to be tracked morning, noon and night by the government all you fans of the Second Amendment will find this puts limits on gun registration on the road straight to Heller.   (yep, you can't ban guns but we'll put tracking chips on all of 'em)

I recall Chris Dodd shut down the Senate when the FISA act was used to "invade the privacy" of a few terrorists calling overseas. I'm sure now the Senator will voice outrage that technology would be used to track the whereabouts of every law abiding citizen in a, ahem "Countrywide" fashion?   Right? It's one thing to trade some freedom for security. See Justice Jackson's take on this. 

 Trading our liberties to make the taxman's job a bit easier? What of that, our liberal friends?

There's a reasonable , less intrusive way to implement this. If the state wants to tax the use of certain roads and do "time of day' pricing in congested urban areas, just put up old fashioned toll booths and let people get EZ Pass if they choose. And if they want to do a mileage tax, make it like the 1040 and require drivers to self assess annually. The shortage (if any) can be paid at sale or trade in of the car by checking the odometer and collecting the shortfall then at time of transaction.

Simple, proven and no privacy concerns.

But the bigger implications here is that liberals want to change behavior and know about behavior. It's not about collecting the most money the most effiicient way possible to pay for their stuff.  Many people in government aren't mercantilists, they are social engineers.

And a database of personal whereabouts is a virtual treasure trove for them to correct our behavior. Maybe I should trust the goverment with this personal data.  After all, this stuff is never used to harass political opponents, now is it? 

Now , you might think... this is just some tree hugging state on the Left Coast out to impose itself on its populace. Not so. This is gonna to be , as ZZ Top sang, bad, and nationwide. 

There is kind of a coalition that's naturally forming around this.....

Congress is talking about it, too. A congressional commission has envisioned a system similar to the prototype Oregon tested in 2006-2007.

The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing is considering calling for higher gas taxes to keep highways, bridges and transit programs in good shape.

But over the long term, commission members say, the nation should consider taxing mileage rather than gasoline as drivers use more fuel-efficient and electric vehicles.

As cars burn less fuel, "the gas tax isn't going to fill the bill," said  Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committeehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/03/AR2009010300412.html

 

We are likely to see a tsunami of lefty social engineering proposals try and blitz a dazed public in the first weeks of the Obama Administration. I would like to think this is one socialist vehicle that ought to be disabled in the driveway before it gets down the road and runs down the Fourth Amendment.  

Who's with me?

One of my favorite non-political blogs is The Future of News. Steve Boriss wrote a fantastic piece titled The Fight for Free Speech: Will We Be the Greatest Generation? about the idea of net neutrality. Referring to a NYT editorial, he says:

The Times ignores the fact that the First Amendment is designed to protect us against suppression of ideas by the government, not the private sector, which has neither the power nor the motive to suppress ideas.

This mistake that Boriss points out is, I think, the liberaltarian fallacy. It assumes that government action is going to protect you from business, rather than get coopted by business. Libertarians intituitively understand that this is absurd, but conservatives and, recently, Republicans, have been unable to make that argument. I suspect that we will not be able to achieve a majority until we have both an intellectually and politically serious critique of both government and big business. Read on.