Stop SOPA

Those who wish to rule must rue that the government ever created the internet. It has, since it branched beyond military use, become a big thorn in the side of the political class. In terms of shopping, it has enabled people to bypass sales taxes and to find bargains from a great distance as well as purchase used items at deep discounts on sites such as eBay. In terms of news it has allowed non-mainstream providers and their audience to find each other, and allowed greater dissemination of stories that the mainstream media would prefer to bury. In terms of law enforcement, incidents of an individual being mistreated are no longer considered isolated incidents local to one area but are instead indicative of a pattern with each new "isolated incident" feeding into the general outrage of the people being mistreated by the police. In terms of political activism, it has created the Ron Paul campaign as well as other issue focused campaigns that in the past would have died for lack of coverage.

Various attempts at "net neutrality" have been a topic of conversation, in which the cover of safeguarding the net is used to control the net. While there is some merit to some aspects of the discussion in favor of net neutrality measures, the discussion as a whole lacks much merit. It is obvious by the way the internet was constructed that it was a government project initially, as the methods of allocating bandwith are somewhat crude compared to how one might design the internet if one was starting from scratch.

But "net neutrality" keeps getting a justified defeat, so false claims of fairness have proven to be far insufficient. So in the name of stopping piracy a bill has been introduced to congress that will effectively shut down large swaths of the internet for those who access in the United States. It is the Stop Internet Privacy Act. A better, although more biased and more vulgar link can be found here although it would be a bad idea to open that link at work.

This bill has the potential to, in the name of stopping piracy, shut down many sites that contribute the value to the internet today. Any site that has user-provided content is at severe risk lest one of the users provides copy-righted content. If the content falls under fair use, the burden of proof is on the accused. Currently, under DCMA, if someone sees copyrighted material they must submit a letter to the site requesting the material be taken down. Under the SOPA bill, a site must instead actively monitor all content lest something be copyrighted, and failure to do so is a crime. YouTube, which receives a vast number of videos every day, could not handle the burden and would have to shut down. That would stop the embarrassing videos of police abusing people from surfacing and spreading.

Other sites that share content, such as Rational Review News Digest and Freedom's Phoenix which excerpt portions of an article and link to the original article at the original site may be considered to be at risk if the original provider does not want their article shared with a particular audience. Righthaven was shut down for their abuse of copyright law, but this new bill strengthens the position of similar copyright trolls.

The internet has been a force for freedom in this increasingly oppressive world. Given how many content provider websites are headquartered in the US, and disputes are supposed to be settled in the US no matter where the content provider website is located, this amounts to world-wide censorship. Currently this bill is in committee, but given what it could potentially accomplish this is bill should be stopped.

The Democrat Argument for Ron Paul

If one must waste their vote by voting for a major party candidate instead of a third party candidate, there is no law saying that one must do so in an unintelligent manner. It still can pay to be smart and think ahead.

Most people who vote major party do not do that. Comments such as "I hope Bachmann wins because that would mean an easy victory for Obama" are common enough. The problem with such a wish is that it can too easily backfire. People saying such a thing should remember that whoever wins the Republican nomination does stand a good chance of winning the presidency.

It is therefore much smarter to hope that the best person wins the Republican nomination instead of the worst person. And if both parties are having a primary, as happened in 2008, it is better to hope that the best person in each race wins so that no matter which party wins the ultimate winner is better than he would otherwise be.

Although there are plenty of short-sighted reasons for the Democrats to support various candidates, the list of candidates that a Democrat could positively support is much shorter. It comes down to two candidates; Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Which candidate the Democrat should choose depends on whether the Democrat is a liberal or a progressive.

Progressives, if thinking strategically, would prefer Governor Romney. He is typical of a "moderate Republican" in that he supports the worst aspects of both the Republican agenda and the Democrat agenda.

Liberals, on the other hand, have every reason to support Representative Paul. He wants to end the wars in the Middle East. He would achieve the greatest advancement in civil rights since granting minorities the right to vote by ending the war on drugs. Although he is pro life, he would do more for guaranteeing the right to choose by sending the issue back to the states than either Romney or Obama. But most importantly he will end the wars, bring the troops home, and stop wasting money spent on these adventures, money that is currently being taken from the poor through inflation.

Democrats can influence who will be the Republican nominee, and if they honestly assess what they stand for they should admit that Ron Paul actually is the best in the Republican field. An honest answer should be "if we have to have a Republican as President, then it might as well be Ron Paul." For that reason they should help him win instead of participating in the blackout.

Local Politics is also the most Corrupt

Local politics is not only the most intense, local politics is not only the most blatant, local politics is also the most vicious and corrupt in its pettiness.

In Los Angeles County there are many rural town councils to help the county administrate the rural area of the county. These boards, although elected by the communities they represent, do not have any legislative power. The best description for these boards is that they are elected lobbying firms, lobbying the county on behalf of the communities.

They do have the power to write the rough draft of the zoning laws, but the rough draft is then turned over to the county to implement, and the county does rewrite them before they implement them. They collect community complaints and relay them to the county, whether it be road conditions or any complains that the community may have with regards to law enforcement and other county services.

Given the importance of these boards, one might think that they are not important enough for political corruption. That would be an unfair assumption.

The political intrigues that go on, although on an amateur level, are vicious. There are attempts to stack committee meetings and council elections, taking advantage of the low involvement in general at politics.

At higher levels of politics, the corruption actually eases the activity. Democrats and Republicans will vote for each others programs in order to get votes for their own programs, since they have exempted themselves from the laws and they are not paying for the programs themselves.

At local levels, things get mean. On condo boards, people do sue each other. On town councils people have been known to lodge baseless police complaints against each other, calling law enforcement to harass the competition.

The stakes are so small, the fights are so vicious, and most of the people involved have no intention of using the local boards as a stepping stone to higher office.

Why are things so vicious? Some people sarcastically answer that it is because the stakes are so small. Others point out that there actually are some results. Whatever the reason, local politics really is the meanest.

The Supposed Campaign against Bullying

A seventh grade student is reading his history book. The subject is the Cherokee constitution and Cherokee law from early in United States history. He runs across a line stating that if man is attacked, and in the act of defending himself he kills the person who attacks him, that man is not to be punished.

The student is amazed. He tries to point out to adults around him this unique concept.

Their reaction puzzles him further. They see nothing amazing. They are confused as to why he is amazed. They react as if he is telling them how amazing it is that the sky is blue and the water is wet. Of course people are allowed to defend themselves.

Why is he amazed? Because self defense is not a protected concept in his world, the very artificial world of public schools.

The current focus of public schools, as expressed through public service announcements that run as if they were commercials, is a campaign against bullying. News stories hit the press about people who, unable to suffer any more, kill themselves. Teachers give occasional sermons about how school children should treat each other more kindly.

The problem is, students in school have figured out how the game operates. Those who would be cruel to their peers know that as long as the teachers don’t see it then it didn’t happen. As long as any cruelty ceases as soon as an authority figure enters the room then nothing happened.

Now if a victim actually stands up for himself, then it becomes a fight. The victim has to be taught a lesson, and that overrides the desire to stay out of trouble. Then the two students are brought to the school authorities, and both are punished for fighting.

Speaking to actual teachers about the need for them to do actual policing of bullying, how they need to determine who is the aggressor and the victim, leads to the cop-out that they are not police officers. And yet they are indeed given disciplinary authority, authority they could use to intervene if they desired.

The system, as it is currently set up, creates people who are supposed to be docile, to take any punishment, to never stand up for oneself. Some people take advantage of that system by aggressing against those who are being trained to be docile. The docility is a desired end by a government that doesn’t want anyone to stand up to the government. The bullying is a byproduct.

It is possible for the schools to determine who is an aggressor and who is a victim. The schools could curb bullying easily if they tried. The principle that both participants are equally guilty is what makes bullying possible, because refusing to acknowledge the difference between bulling and self defense is the only way to encourage docility. It also explains why the student would be surprised at a law that authorizes self defense.

To Be a Real Radical

It disconcerts progressives to learn that libertarians enjoy and appreciate Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. For a very long time they have tried to equate the term "progressive" with "radical" - but only sometimes - to try to portray their demands as daring, avant-garde, leading edge, or in some other way innovative.

For an example of this viewpoint, just peruse any comparison of the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement that is written by a progressive. Libertarians understand that the two movements, when at their best, are very nearly identical in meaning. The demands of those Occupiers that are less appealing to libertarians are the same demands progressives have been making for decades, and are considered "revolutionary" by the progressives commenting on the Occupy movement.

From a progressive point of view Saul Alinsky is supposed to be "left" and libertarians are supposed to be "right," whatever those terms mean. Plus libertarians support capitalism, therefore libertarians "can't be radical," ignoring the many and profound differences between corporatism and capitalism.

This must be made clear: the twentieth century was the century of government. That means advocating government is advocating what currently exists. That means there is nothing radical about seeking governmental solutions to society’s problems.

Everything that the progressive has to offer is a governmental solution to society's problems. Their only defense of that single track argument is to engage in the fallacy that if the government is not acting then nobody is acting to solve those problems.

The radical wants something different from the status quo. The conservative is comfortable with the status quo. The political and economic situation of the United States is a mix of mercantilist and Keynesian economics with a near-limitless government. The status quo is "progressive," and that means progressives are not only conservatives, they are arch-conservatives.

The real radical doesn't support more of the same. There are real radicals in both the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement. Anyone who claims that one is good and the other bad is in support of "keep them divided" and thus in support of the 1% of the population that is composed of elected and appointed government officials with actual power - the real ruling class. The real danger is that the radicals in each movement might discover a common cause with each other.

Macroethics and Microethics

It is common, upon finding out that libertarians oppose coercive wealth redistribution, to accuse libertarians of opposing charity as a whole. This is due to a basic confusion between macroethics and microethics.

Macroethics is the ethics of the macro scale, much like macroeconomics. It encompasses two fields; politics and economics. Microethics is ethics on the personal scale, the more traditionally understood field of morality. Of course the distinction between the two is as artificial as the distinction between microeconomics and macroeconomics, but doing so is useful to understand how the macro and the micro are different, just as in economics.

The two fields do relate, as is to be expcted, and holding certain macroethical positions will necessitate holding certain microethical positions, and vice versa. It is impossible to consistently hold a political belief opposing the initiation of force without also holding the moral belief opposing the same.

But the connections aren't direct and easy to misinterpret, much like how the connections between microeconomics and macroeconomics are not direct and easy to misinterpret. One can point out how microeconomically it doesn't matter to an individual whether his wage comes from the government or from the private sector, as long as he is working he will have both the satisfaction of a job and the satisfaction of an income. It takes looking at the matter from both the micro and macro perspective to notice the essential difference.

And it takes looking at ethical activities from both a micro and macro perspective to correctly identify them. Accusing a libertarian of wanting people to starve (microethics) simply because he opposes wealth redistribution (macroethics) is an unwarranted extension. It is quite clear that the two positions are in the two different fields. Having identified that they are in different fields, one can then challenge the person claiming there is a connection to substantiate the claim.

Since the extension is unwarranted the claim cannot be substantiated. But a converse claim can be made. This converse claim will be a lot harder for the critic of libertarianism to defuse because it invokes the critics own logic. By claiming that force of government is needed because otherwise old people will be starving in the street, the person making the claim is admitting an unwillingness to care for family members if not forced to by the government. It is also a spurious claim.

The ability to distinguish between the macroethcial and the microethical, between the political and the moral, is important. The ability to point out the different is also important. It enables one to put away the fallacies that libertarians often face.

Ron Paul and the Progressive Dilemma

There have been a series of articles explaining exactly why Ron Paul should appeal to progressives, and counter-arguments by liberals and progressives as to why Ron Paul should not appeal to them.

• The Progressive Critique of Ron Paul: He Isn't Libertarian Enough


• Why Do Some Progressives Support Ron Paul, Even Though He Is Anti-Woman, Anti-Civil Rights, and Anti-Equality?


• I'll take the reactionary over the murderer, thanks


• 5 Reasons Progressives Should Treat Ron Paul with Extreme Caution -- 'Cuddly' Libertarian Has Some Very Dark Politics


• Ron Paul hates women and minorities; Obama just kills and imprisons them

Given that Ron Paul is not the leading Republican candidate, that the nomination is more likely to go to Mitt Romney, then why is there so much frenzy, both for and against, for Ron Paul?

There are two potential reasons. The first is that it actually is possible that Ron Paul will win the Republican Party nomination. He is the true second place candidate in the primary in spite of being eclipsed by various temporary other "flavor of the month" candidates.

The other reason is, for all the reasons explained by Charlie Davis, he does have reason to appeal to liberals. Charlie Davis uses the word "progressive" but there are reasons why “liberal” would be a better term.

Some people are led by their ideology to choose a political party, and because they are idealists are willing to reject the party when the party strays from what it is supposed to stand for. Some people are led by their party to choose an ideology, and if the party changes they change along with it. For some, ideas come first. For others, power and party come first.

Because of all the reasons detailed by those authors who wrote in favor of Ron Paul, he has some very strong appeal to those who place ideas as their primary motivation. And Barack Obama has very weak appeal to those same people. He could easily enough steal the support of those idealists from the Democratic Party where they are more often found, and therefore away from Barack Obama.

Those who place party first recognize this as a very real threat. Since their primary motivation is victory for their party, they are out to nullify Ron Paul before he becomes an actual threat. And that means convincing independents and Democrats that they have no reason to vote in Republican primaries for him.

The Occupy Wall Street Tea Party

Watching the activities of Occupy Wall Street is quite like watching the history of the Tea Party played at high speed.

Both movements started out grass-roots, comprised of a diverse range of ideologies. Both are spurred by the excesses of the collusion between the banking system and the government and the abuses contained therein, and therefore have appeal to libertarians. Both started under presidents that it is assumed the movements would support. Both were ignored by the media at first, until the country's political leadership decided it was time to co-opt the movement by sending in a stooge to claim to be in charge of and represent the movement. Both have a big name partisan speaking for the group, Michael Moore as the analogue to Sarah Palin. Both are being fully Astroturfed, with the Tea Party being taken over by theocons and Occupy Wall Street being taken over by unions.

Whereas this is working faster, Occupy Wall Street has already reached certain end conclusions that took the Tea Party years to achieve. Already leaders have appeared to present lists designed to discredit any participants who aren’t amenable to being steered in an appropriate direction. Given the two party paradigm, the effort is to shoehorn them into the Democratic Party.

Apparently the Tea Party proved to be a lesson for those in charge. It was ignored too completely, and became an actual movement before there was an opportunity to capture it and control it. Diligent work was required by Sarah Palin and Glen Beck in order to slowly co-opt the movement, and for a while there was a strong conflict between the "Sarah Palin faction" and the "Ron Paul faction" over control of the Tea Party. Even then the Tea Party did partially steer the 2010 mid-term elections, although they did “deliver the vote” as required by the Republican Party,

The Tea Party movement was ignored for one year, and it took two years to tame. Clearly the political elite do not want to go through that again. After ignoring the Occupy Wall Street movement for one week and determining that it is not going way, they moved in quickly to ensure that this movement doesn’t get away from them. Until then, the Democrats finally have their own Tea Party to go to.

Phony Arguments

"If you removed EPA regulations on BP, does that mean they will suddenly become good citizens and not pollute anymore?" That is an example of an argument used against libertarians when the subject of regulation comes up. It contains many premises not shared by libertarians: under current law individual land owners were not able to file legal suits against BP, the state of Louisiana was not able to take independent action to protect coastal properties from the spill, and the owners of BP were not held liable for the damage caused by the company.

"If you change this one little point, and leave everything else exactly the same, doesn't that prove that libertarianism doesn't work?" Pointing out all the unshared premises, that "everything else exactly the same" is not something libertarians agree to, does nothing to those making the argument. The response, over and over, is to say that anyone who points out it is a loaded question is actually ducking the question.

Does the argument represent a misunderstanding about libertarianism? Or is it a deliberate distortion of what libertarians believe? Given the refusal to allow any discussion of unshared premises it seems like a shallow attempt to conflate the corporatism and capitalism, a conflation that can only benefit the progressive belief in a thoroughly regulated economy.

People who make that argument forget that libertarianism is indeed comprehensive. Changing just one point, the endpoint regulation that appears to be necessary because of all the prior interventions, does not negate the theory that would deny all the previous interventions as well.

That leads to another, even worse argument used against libertarianism: the Somalia argument. Given all the times libertarians object to government interventions that make the situation worse, both in economic and civil matters, those who favor an activist government argue that libertarians should move to Somalia where they would be more comfortable. The argument also implies that the chaos that takes place in Somalia is exactly what libertarians advocate.

History clearly and easily shows the truth about Somalia, in which it was the fallen government of Somalia that brought the country to the lowest point a country could possibly reach. Those in the government forgot that a parasite is not supposed to kill the host, and proved that it takes a government to create the degree of chaos normally thought of as anarchy. Once the government fell, the people started to rebuild. Occasionally some government sends in a peace-keeping force to break everything again and install a temporary government that will fall once the foreign troops leave. The resulting destruction is considered further proof of how lack of a government is unworkable.

Given those facts, then why is that argument made? Like the loaded question, it is not made for the purpose of genuine discussion. The thing to do is, as always, to point out the facts, but there is no reason to suppose that doing so will actually work. Those making the two arguments are not interested in facts, they are merely hoping that others witnessing the argument will be more impressed with the argument than the facts.

No Official Accountability

Troy Davis has been executed for killing a police officer. There appear to be a large number of people convinced of his innocence, but the courts did not stop the execution. Some even claim that they have a confession by the actual murderer.

Assuming those protesting this execution are correct, then what does that mean? It means that the prosecutors, police, and a few other officials are guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. But what does that mean? Tragically, that means nothing.

First, the state holds a monopoly on criminal prosecutions. It is impossible to hold anybody in the law enforcement apparatus responsible unless they agree to do so. In the case of Kelly Thomas of Fullerton, CA, the worry of many was that the District Attorney would decline to prosecute entirely. That particular case had the population so enraged that it was impossible to bury without damage to the government structure, so two of the six police were charged. That case was very much an exception. In other cases where a criminal member of the law enforcement apparatus was held accountable, Mike Nifong got a single day in jail because neither the prosecutor nor the judge could believe that a prosecutor was being held accountable.

Second, assuming there was sufficient evidence to prove that an innocent was executed there is no guarantee that in a civil court these people could be held accountable. The law enforcement apparatus have granted themselves immunity for their actions. It takes a significant effort to prove that those responsible were acting outside what is legally allowable for them, and prosecuting someone who they have reason to believe is guilty at the time and then later ignoring the case when contradicting evidence comes to light is considered allowable. Refusing to reconsider a case is not forbidden.

If Troy Davis is innocent, as many claim, that means that there are several murderers in Georgia, from the police to the prosecutors to the judges, and it also means they have gotten away with it. Meanwhile in Fullerton there are four police officers who are accomplices to murder who are getting away with it. Both cases emphasize the need to reform the whole of law enforcement by stripping prosecutors of their monopoly on criminal prosecutions and severely diminishing the nearly all-encompassing protections of official immunity. Essentially there is no accountability anymore, and that is the indicator of a police state.

TSA won't molest kids anymore ... maybe

The TSA has recently changed the rules for subjecting minors to the highly invasive pat-down that is given to those who opt out of the Advanced Imaging Technology (formerly Whole Body Imaging.) The problem is, according to the TSA, this doesn't mean anything is actually changing.

Please understand that this isn’t a free pass. TSA will always incorporate random and unpredictable security measures and nobody is guaranteed expedited screening.

The procedure is changing except for when it isn't?

Another problem with this announcement is that it is not the first time the TSA has made this announcement. There seems to be a real recidivism problem with the TSA, their policies, or their agents. The stories about the TSA and the invasiveness of their pat-downs are coming faster and more detailed, with the comments the stories receive showing the public gives more credibility to the passengers than to the TSA.

There is something deeply wrong when an agency has to promise to not molest children. There is something even more deeply wrong when an agency has to promise to not do it anymore. The recent rule change is the TSA promising to stop molesting children - unless the front line agent feels it is absolutely necessary.

Who Is a Libertarian (and won't admit it)?

Given the different people and groups trying to attach themselves to the libertarian label in spite of there being no actual connection, it may seem odd to find that there are people who fit neatly within the basic definition yet often wish to deny that label for themselves. Such is the case with Objectivists.

Libertarian and Objectivist are not synonyms. That is one of the reasons Objectivists like to not use the term. Objectivism is a fairly comprehensive philosophy, touching on all five major branches: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, Aesthetics, and Logic. Libertarianism is a political philosophy, which means it exists really only within the realm of Ethics, and mostly within macro-Ethics.

Also the major concern of each varies slightly from the other. Libertarians are concerned with the relationship between the individual and the state, while Objectivists are concerned with the relationship between the individual and society. These two causes overlap significantly, but not entirely.

Even so, when a basic definition of libertarianism is given, such as calling it a political philosophy that seeks to maximize the rights of the individual, or a philosophy that objects to the initiation of force, there really is no discord between Objectivism and other schools of libertarian thought.

Objectivists try to argue that because other libertarians arrive at similar conclusions from different basic premises that the agreement is more coincidental than based on common ground. The problem with that is twofold; first it argues that agreement is basically issue specific instead of philosophy based as the two above definitions would show, and second it neglects that the basic definition of a political philosophy is based on agreement on certain core principles without regard for how those core principles were derived.

Given that second argument, Objectivists try to argue that since the derivation is unimportant it means that libertarian has no actual definition and can mean anything. That's clearly not the case given that two non-conflicting definitions were already given that effectively describe what it is to be a libertarian. The term does have a meaning, and Ayn Rand had some pretty choice words to describe those would shy away from the meaning of a word. Objectivists, if they want the term "Objectivist" to have meaning, should heed her position on the meaning of words and realize that "libertarian" also means something.

When they do admit that "libertarian" means something, then they will have to confront what it does mean. That means that Objectivists, if they are true to their philosophy, are indeed libertarians in the political sphere

More War on Home Business

There are two ways a person can go into business, and that is either providing a good or providing a service. Based on two laws, the Food Safety Modernization Act and the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, it is potentially impossible for an individual to sell a product as a means of earning a living.

But there is no consistent regulation of providing services instead. The Institute for Justice has detailed many instances of local regulation regarding taxi service, interior decorating, or hair cutting. One area that has been ignored until now has been house cleaning or babysitting.

The state of California is now making an inroad on this means of augmenting a family budget - it has introduced Assembly Bill 889 that covers "persons who engage in specific types of domestic service." It leaves out those who provide health care through various state programs.

There are exemptions from those covered in the proposed law. Those under 18 are not covered by it, and family members who provide those services are not covered by it. This will not impact the income bondage of teenagers forbidden from earning a real living since it is unlikely they would ever earn much through babysitting, and so they are exempted. The bill requires extensive record keeping and benefits to accompany domestic employment and the fines are per violation per day so can quickly add up.

This will not impact the wealthy who hire domestic help, as they are capable of affording the paperwork that the bill demands. But a maid who works for several different middle class clients will find those clients have a hard time keeping up with the paperwork. It also creates a disincentive to do this without paperwork on the grounds that only the employer is liable and the employee is not. Therefore it sets the scene for a domestic employee to be able to turn around and threaten to report the employer unless unreasonable demands are met. Finally those who depend on babysitters will have a harder time having their needs met.

It is obvious who will be hurt by it; all who make money from babysitting or house cleaning, and those who depend on the services but are not wealthy enough to afford the employee paperwork. Who will benefit from it though? The bill sponsor claims that it is to protect domestic laborers, many of who are poor, minority, and even illegal aliens. That is not a politically powerful group. Who actually benefits from it?

House cleaning services, babysitting services, and day cares all benefit on the financial side. It will drive out the independent operator as those in the middle class who would hire domestic help will be forced to contract with the agency that handles the paperwork. On the political side the government will definitely benefit from more and more people being employed instead of self-employed and thus easier to track and record in accord with the war on home based businesses.

Why Monetarism?

Although Monetarism, as an interventionist economic policy, clearly isn’t libertarian, people continue to consider it as such. The basic difference between Keynesian Economics and Monetarist Economics is that one favors fiscal policy while the other favors monetary policy as a way for the government to manage the economy through the manipulation of aggregate demand.

And yet many people do consider Monetarism to be more libertarian, to the point where if a spectrum is arranged Monetarism is listed as basically a midpoint between Keynesian and Capitalism.

Considering Keynesian Economics, a reason to consider it as such is because all Keynesians are both Monetarists and Progressives, they believe in both monetary policy and in regulation as ways to manage the economy. A textbook Keynesian is no closer and no farther from libertarian than any Monetarist.

So there is reason to make a spectrum. But why go so far as to insist that instead of being a midpoint between real Keynesian and libertarian Capitalism, Monetarism is so often wrongly lumped with Monetarism?

It would best be described by Rothbard’s Law. "people tend to specialize in what they are worst at. Henry George, for example, is great on everything but land, so therefore he writes about land 90% of the time. Friedman is great except on money, so he concentrates on money." Rothbard went farther to describe Friedman in even harsher terms, saying "And so, as we examine Milton Friedman’s credentials to be the leader of free-market economics, we arrive at the chilling conclusion that it is difficult to consider him a free-market economist at all."

Then perhaps there is one reason left why people would consider Monetarism to be libertarian in any respect. It is because the current center of United States politics is so far devolved towards the regulatory state, with the government enmeshed in so many aspects of the American economy that to embrace textbook Monetarism is to embrace a reduction in the government's role in the economy.

Unfortunately there is a lot of room between slightly decreasing the role of government and actual libertarianism. Being in favor of slightly less regulation, slightly less control, slightly less taxing and spending, does not make one a libertarian.

And there goes the Power

The United States economy is crumbling. The Federal Reserve has a program of inflating the currency in an effort to stave off much needed deflation. Instead the stagnant wages of those outside government are being stretched farther and farther to cover rising costs of food and energy, two of the highest costs in a household budget yet also items underrated in the official inflation rate.

So what is the newest interesting activity by the government? A phony jobs project? A new subsidy that does more harm than good?

No, it is shutting down power plants and raising the cost of energy.

And with much of the nation in a heat wave, this could lead to rolling blackouts when people need their air conditioners most.

It is true that there is a rationalization, although not a justification, for this. Given that the law no longer is about providing a level playing field and is instead about begging favors and granting favors there is no reason that the government cannot waive any EPA regulations that force these closures. Moreover since the government wrote these rules there is no reason they cannot be rewritten to allow the plants to save open.

It is unlikely that this is done deliberately to hurt people. Instead it is more likely that this is an example of gross incompetence combined with tunnel vision on the part of EPA regulators.

Even so, it is simply an interesting detail in the greater picture of the decay of the United States.

The Downfall Begins in Earnest

The economy has been in a state of flux ever since the recent debt showdown. Before the deal was made it was obvious that Keynesians would use the lack of a deal to describe any downturn that might have occurred had no deal been made. But there was no indication as to what Keynesians would blame for a downturn if a deal is been made.

A deal was made at the last minute. There were some attempts to blame the lateness of the deal, but those attempts fell rather flat. Then S&P downgraded the credit rating of the United States from AAA to AA+. As Lew Rockwell pointed out, this would not cause a crash unless people knew matters were much worse.

Are matters worse? A trip to the grocery store can answer that. Prices on food are going up. The official inflation rate is measured by a basket of goods that underrates the impact of food and energy. Those are the areas that are more important on the budget of the middle to lower classes. As Gonzalo Lira pointed out only some prices rise in an hyper-inflation. Food, energy, medicine all rise in price, while the price of everything else collapses.

The creditors of the United States did not view the increase in the debt limit, without any actual accompanying reforms, as a financially sound thing to do. The view was instead that the Unites States continued to live beyond its means.

Food prices are rising. This is obvious to anyone who actually have to consider the price of food. Utility prices are trending upwards as well. The cost of health care is in an even greater state of uncertainty due to the phenomenon called “regime uncertainty.”

Although the decline has been going on for a long time, and the point of no return was passed a long time ago, the decline has started to accelerate to the point where the average person is beginning to notice. And they notice just as it has started to accelerate in earnest.

Why the Budget Won’t be Cut

On a message board an experiment was tried. A very precisely worded question was posed to the members of this board.

Imagine you are in congress. Public pressure to cut the budget has grown so strong that the leadership of both parties has decided to actually at on it. Not with reductions of planned future increases, but with actual cuts. A special bi-partisan committee has been assembled, with the membership equally divided between the two parties. In order to keep argument to a minimum, the co-chairs have established one rule.

You can only suggest cuts to programs you support.

The theory is each party would support cutting the other party’s programs, and all it takes is one person to break ranks to get a majority in favor of cutting a program.

So, what program will you offer up to the chopping block?

It is a very difficult question for many people. The test was to see if Republicans would be willing to sacrifice any aspect of their many and multitudinous wars, or if Democrats would be willing to sacrifice any entitlement giveaway program. After all, the question was designed to eliminate any partisan cuts, cutting the programs of "the other guy."

The results were not encouraging. There was only one program that achieved any sort of consensus for cutting, and that was NASA. Strangely enough, both sides claimed it as one of the programs favored by "their side," and both sides were willing to put it on the chopping block.

There was no touching of the real budget eaters, the wars or Social Security and Medicare. Yes, every little bit helps, but the cuts that would help the most were left out.

When faced with a hypothetical scenario, partisans who aren’t elected to any office, with comments that would have no impact on the real world, were unwilling to admit that the real consumers of the budget should be cut. How much worse can it be for those in congress who will be voting on actual budgets and are locked in to special interests who forbid any cuts to their particular programs? If thinking people cannot even make hypothetical cuts, politicians cannot make any cuts.

Eliminate the Debt Ceiling

The official position of the Libertarian Party is to say "No" to raising the debt limit. It is a perfectly sensible position, because the alternative is the destruction of the dollar through inflation, and then hyper-inflation. The federal government is going to have to adopt austerity measures someday, whether by choice or by circumstance inflicted on the country. Of all the major party presidential candidates, only Ron Paul and Gary Johnson have spoken about the need to bring the finances of the government under control, and have spoken about how if the hard choices aren’t made now they will be made for the country later.

The problem is, the sane voices won't be heard. The Keynesians and Monetarists who control fiscal and monetary policy in the government will never accept that anything should actually be cut, other than a few token items of window-dressing. Their plan is to keep raising the debt limit every time it is reached. The entire show is Kabuki Theater because the Congress and the President know that the voters are actually watching this time and actually demanding that something be dome about the excessive spending.

But they do not believe in restraint. So perhaps the opposite approach should be taken on the debt ceiling issue. Give them exactly what they want, but give them more of what they want than what they are asking for. Eliminate the debt ceiling. Pass the necessary legislation to tie all government debt issuances to the budget, so that the Department of the Treasury can automatically sell debt as needed when needed without any restraint other than the budget passed by congress.

As crazy as that idea sounds, it has some advantages. The first is that, since sane voices are not able to engineer austerity measures directly, this would be a way to engineer them sooner rather than later, perhaps avoiding the final stage of hyperinflation. Although the Keynesians and Monetarists will never understand it, eliminating the limit entirely will signal to lenders that the United States government has no intention of getting spending under control and therefore is not a good risk for lending. This will cause the austerity measures to start sooner rather then after hyperinflation ruins the country.

Another benefit is that it ends what is a side-show, albeit a side-show that is much closer to the real issue than those in charge would like. Even after two congressmen in a row have resigned over sexual misconduct issues the attention of the public is still on excessive spending. Since the public is actually watching the government instead of the tabloids the debt limit is what is being debated instead of the actual imbalance. A "ten year plan," reminiscent of Soviet five year plans, is introduced with back-loaded spending cuts, and the public isn't buying it. Tax increases, which will eventually be necessary, are proposed without actual cuts, and the public isn't buying it. So everyone in Washington is debating the debt limit, and how the government will shut down without an increase to the debt limit. Eliminating the debt limit will force discussion on the budget instead of on an artificial self-imposed limit.

Although it would be disaster, there is a disaster coming anyway. So perhaps the best thing is to be intentionally wrong so that when the San Sebastian Mines are seized, the truth about them is laid bare for the world to see.

Why the Government is out of Money

Recently the University of California has provided a microcosm of what is wrong with the government budget. The University system is cutting back programs and tuition is going up to pay for the budgetary shortfalls. Of course, that is not all there is to the story. Not all programs are being cut. The diversity programs are thriving.

Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing. The University of California at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time "vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion." This position would augment UC San Diego’s already massive diversity apparatus, which includes the Chancellor’s Diversity Office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, the assistant vice chancellor for diversity, the faculty equity advisors, the graduate diversity coordinators, the staff diversity liaison, the undergraduate student diversity liaison, the graduate student diversity liaison, the chief diversity officer, the director of development for diversity initiatives, the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Committee on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Issues, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion, the Diversity Council, and the directors of the Cross-Cultural Center, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center, and the Women’s Center.

The University of California San Diego is cutting its master's degree programs in computer and electrical engineering, showing that according to the leadership of that university it is not engineering that will lead to a productive and prosperous future but it is diversity training that is what students need most to succeed after graduation. Meanwhile prize faculty are being bid away to other schools, such as three professors from the biology department who were offered a 40% raise to teach elsewhere.

Already it is apparent that college education is the most recent bubble to start to go down in an economy composed almost entirely of bubbles. Due to unemployment and underemployment as well as due to the ever accelerating increase in costs, the lifetime earning differential of a college education is falling below the cost of that education. In general college education is becoming a bad investment.

This one example from the University of California San Diego combines many of the problems with government today. Diversity programs are emphasized at the expense of science programs in an education that costs more and delivers less. The political is emphasized at the expense of the economic to deliver high cost solutions that fail to solve anything and due to their cost interfere with actual efforts to solve society’s problems.

What does "Environmentalist" mean?

One of the greatest challenges in political discussion is undefined terms. Not all terms are undefined, but those that are generally are deliberately undefined. Being deliberately undefined, it enables the speaker to shift between definitions whenever it is advantageous to do so. One such term is "environmentalist."

The term can mean anything from "someone who wants a clean environment" to a specific ideology. But if a critic uses the latter definition, those criticized default back to the former definition in an effort to use the government fallacy to prove the critic desires a dirty environment.

But if one tries to start by defining the term ahead of time, those who use the term "environmentalist" as a self-descriptor complain bitterly about how the critic is defining terms in a negative way.

The best approach seems to be in the way of Socratic reasoning to narrow down the show the distinction between hyphenated environmentalists (such as libertarian-environmentalists) and those who use the term without any modification.

The first thing to do is to ask what is an environmentalist, pointing out that by the basic meaning of the word it would indicate someone who wants a clean environment. Then point out the problem with that definition: it includes people who want one but not badly enough to do anything about it, and it includes people who want one but consider pollution the price to pay for progress.

That will get the unhyphenated environmentalist to agree that definition is too broad, and that it should be narrowed to "someone who wants a clean environment badly enough to do something about it."

This is where it gets tricky, and the critic of the unhyphenated environmentalist must stay on the offensive. The thing to do is to point out that according to most who use the term "environmentalist" as a self descriptor, libertarians are not considered to be environmentalists. Then challenge the statist environmentalist to deny that point.

If the statist environmentalist does deny that point, then the critic can call himself an environmentalist without fear of contradiction, and then put forward free market solutions to environmental problems as environmentalism.

More likely the statist environmentalist will not deny that point, meaning that the critic can now say "therefore the definition includes 'and advocates certain solutions' to environmental problems." That turns the definition into a political definition instead of concern about the environment itself. That is the definition that would be hotly denied without the Socratic lead in, and in order to prevent referring to free market environmentalists as environmentalists the statist environmentalist will have to agree.

A clear and concise definition is exactly what is needed to argue with statist environmentalists. The Socratic elimination is one of the most effective ways to achieve that definition.