Psychopolitik 2.0

Shorter Brad Reed: “If you have a chance in hell of political power, you are part of the elite.  Calling other elites ‘elitist’ is horseshit.”

Of course they’re the elite.  For the most part they generally come from the same narrow spectrum of US life, and operate as if no other people exist — or worse, as if those other people just need to be beaten into submission for their own good.   By definition the average Joe has no say, because 1) there’s really no such thing in a functional sense (blahblahopinionsdifferblah) & 2) whatever else non-elites disagree on, they tend to agree on general grounds of fairness that their sweat should benefit them & not people who happen to be friends with elite types.

So…why do the elites have authorization to use force to get their way again?  I forgot that excuse.

Moving sucks.  Heavy stuff long distances…

More coming soon, I’z back.

Vache Folle, using a classic joke setup, lays out exactly why organized religion sucks balls.  Read the whole thing.

BTW: Note what the bartender says in the story — great minds think alike, eh?

“If you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band.” -Murray Rothbard

Shorter Sudhir Venkatesh: “…and vice versa, for that matter.”

The link above is to the Amazon listing for Sudhir’s book “Gang Leader for a Day”, which I recently bought. I remembered the story mentioned in “Freakonomics”, about how somehow through the course of his grad studies he ended up on the inside with a Chicago street gang and the projects they operated out of, saw his book at the store (LOL @ the B-Boy stance on the cover, btw) and couldn’t pass it up.

As cliche as it sounds, the review blurbs are right: it really is in turns sad, yet funny in others. One thing I came away with though that particularly amused me was how the gang actually operated. Their self-portrayals — sometimes as misunderstood businessmen (the gang sold crack), other times as if they were community organizers — were understandable and delusional at the same time, downplaying the negatives and playing up the positives. They even at one point started joking about Sudhir being their director of PR. However, the one comparison that fit best was the one that the gang never brought up, and even Sudhir himself only glanced at: government.

Laid out in the book are details of the responsibilities the gangsters took on beyond selling drugs. It seemed like most of the tenants were running black- or grey-market businesses out of their apartments, everything from selling food via a side-deal w/ a local grocer, to fixing cars in the lot outside, to renting extra space to squatters and prostitutes, and every single one of them had to get prior approval from the gang. There were fees paid to the gang members for the right to operate, and for security purposes, with penalties if anyone hid their activities. On top of this, the drug dealers expected favors as well. Combine this with the fact that, due to the reputation of the projects, ambulances weren’t even worth calling in an emergency & police generally stayed away, and you have in the form of this gang a self-anointed authority that extracts rents and taxes from people, who they treat with disdain mostly, except for the occasional display of condescending paternalism for their own purposes. They rule by fear, and consider whatever the hell they feel like taking as proper payment for “protection” and for mediating disputes. They constantly worry about conspiracies to take them down from rival gangs, when most conflicts start because of some random idiot and not a plan. The gang members that actually live there being largely mere foot soldiers taking orders from outside, the gang has no legitimate claim to the property that they make rules for, their only recourse being “well, we have guns”.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Considering the factors that contributed to such an environment — the escalating “War on Drugs”, the promotion of suburbanization & funneling of poor people into ever-shrinking areas, the political intersection of paternalism & elitism — it’s highly ironic that in response these people basically formed a mini-state. Definitely something to chew on for awhile…

Due to the existence of Ron Paul this election cycle, Michael Kinsley decides to put out an “examining libertarianism” column (a few months to late, if you ask me).  He starts off awkwardly friendly at first:

The libertarian perspective is useful, and undervalued. Why does the government pay farmers not to grow food? Why are medications for fatal diseases sometimes held off the market in case they aren’t safe? (Compared to death?) Legislators and regulators should ask themselves far more often than they do whether some government activity or other expands freedom or contracts it.

Furthermore, democracy and majority rule are no answers. Tyranny of the majority is a constant danger. How would you like a law requiring that people with odd Social Security numbers have to give $1,000 to people with even Social Security numbers? To libertarians, much of what the government does is essentially like that.

A realization that even people who he thinks of as kooks may have a point?  Who are you, and what have you done to Mike?

After this, he says “alright, enough with the pleasantries” and gets to aggressively missing the point:

So what is wrong with the libertarian case for extremely limited government? Economics 101 teaches some of the basic justifications for government interference in the economy. Some things, such as the cost of national defense, are “public goods.” We can’t each decide for ourselves how much defense we want. We have to decide that together.

The type of libertarians that still vote aren’t calling for an end to the concept of national defense anyway, they just oppose how it’s done.  That he mentions this shows he sees no real difference between limited-government libertarians and no-government libertarians.  Ironic thing about that is, the deeper you look into what the military is actually used for, the more the end-the-state types have a point: when was the last unprovoked war that was purely for self-defense reasons?  The decision making mechanism for whether or not collective force is necessary seems to have a severely stuck “yes” button”, thanks to weapons manufacturers & oil companies slamming it so hard.  If this is “deciding together” then I’d hate to see what unilateral nuttiness looks like…

Libertarians have a fondness for complex arrangements to make markets work in situations where the textbooks say they can’t. Hey, let’s issue stamps, y’see, and use the revenues to form a corporation that sells stock to buy military equipment, then the government leases the equipment and the stockholders vote on whether to user it — and so on. The point becomes proving a point, not economic or government efficiency. (emphasis mine)

Um…WTF?

I have NEVER heard any remotely serious libertarian propose this, ever.  The minarchists wouldn’t bother with such a radical departure since it’d be even more roundabout than preventing war the usual way, and the anarchists would have alarms going off in their heads at the word “corporation” in that phrase and ask what the hell the difference would be.

Libertarians also have a tendency to see too many issues in terms of property rights (just as liberals, they would counter, tend to see everything in terms of discrimination and equal protection). (emphasis mine)

Only if by “libertarian” you mean Neal Boortz.  Actual libertarians have generally come to see conservatives as the greater evil these days, since they tend to see everything in terms of “tradition” & maintaining their personal definition of order at all costs.  Hell, in the short term, even anarchists acknowledge the tradeoff.

Pollution, libertarians say, is simply theft: you are stealing my clean air. Settle it in court. This is a really terrible idea: inexpert judges, lawyers and juries using the most elaborate and expensive decision-making process known to humankind — litigation — to make inconsistent decisions in different cases. And usually there is no one “right” answer: There is a spectrum of acceptable answers, involving tradeoffs (dirty air versus fewer jobs, etc.) that ought to be made democratically — that is, through government.

Of course, if Mikey dug deeper he’d encounter many libertarians that would argue the reason there is more pollution than is acceptable is because of systematic subsidizing of it.  I’m not doing his research for him though, so we’re moving on…

Sometimes libertarians end up reinventing the wheel. My favorite example is an article I read years ago advocating privatization of highways. This is a classic libertarian fantasy: government auctions off the land, private enterprise pays for construction and maintenance, tolls cover the cost, competition with other routes keeps it all efficient.

Or you could take a Rothbardian approach to it: consider property taken via tax dollars as abandoned, and acknowledge legitimate ownership via occupancy & use.  Rather than being corporatized, the roads would be owned by the people that live by them.  Say what you will about the feasibility of this approach, but you have to admit there’d be a HUGE incentive to keep things in working order.

And what about, um, intersections? Well, markets would recognize that it is more efficient for one company to own both roads at major intersections, and when that happened the company would have an incentive to strike the right balance between customers on each highway. And stoplights? Ultimately, the author had worked his way up to a giant monopoly that would build, own, and maintain all the roads, and charge an annual fee to people who wanted to use them. None dare call it government.  (emphasis mine)

Please Mike, tell us who this “libertarian” is that proposed this pointless parallel monopoly so they can have their head examined.

Something similar goes on when the government forbids or requires people to do something for their own good. Why shouldn’t people, at least adult people, have the right to decide for themselves? Libertarian thinking has been useful, for example, in making it easier to get prescription drugs through the maze at the FDA. The Terry Shiavo case of 2005 was libertarianism’s greatest moment so far, as the entire nation rose up in defense of her right to die.

The trouble here is that libertarians tend to analogize everything to a right to die. If you have the right to end your own life, you must have the right to do anything else you wish, short of that. If you’re allowed to shoot yourself through the head, why aren’t you allowed to drive without a seat belt? (emphasis mine)

Let me guess: because the costs of your potentially more severe injuries in the case of an accident tend to be passed on to others?  Or because the feds threatened to withhold highway funding from the states if they didn’t require them, like they did with speed limits & raising the drinking age?

The answer is that it’s a bad analogy. When you drive without a seat belt, you are not motivated by a desire to die, or even a desire to take a small risk of dying. Why should your motive matter? Because your death — especially your death in a car crash — does impose externalities on others. I would pay good money not to have to see your bloody carcass lying beside the highway, or endure the traffic jam, or pay the emergency room costs. A serious right like the right to die may be worth the cost, while a right to be careless or irresponsible is not.

Well, I was half right.  His bit about motive is awkward though: you mean to tell me that an act that virtually guarantees death is OK, but an act that merely raises the likelihood of it isn’t?  Of course no one skips a seatbelt because they want the extra risk, IMO they do it because either they find it uncomfortable or they’re just lazy.  I personally wear one every time, and I still don’t see where an adult should have to be told this.  If an act simply being reckless, solely to the person doing it, is enough to justify criminalizing it, then how long until we start locking up skydivers?

Llibertarians are quick to see hidden costs of ignoring libertarian principles and slow to see such costs in adhering to them. For example, Tucker Carlson reports in the Dec. 31 New Republic that Ron Paul wants to end the federal ban on unpasteurized milk. No one should want to drink unpasteurized milk, and almost no one does. Paul himself doesn’t. But it bothers him that the government tells people they cannot do something they shouldn’t do.  Libertarians would say that if most people want pasteurized milk, the market will supply it. Firms will emerge to certify that milk has been pasteurized. These firms will compete, keeping them honest.

So yes, a Rube Goldberg contraption of capitalism could replace a straightforward government regulation. But what if you aren’t interested in turning your grocery shopping into an ideological adventure? All that is lost by letting the government take care of it is the right of a few idiots to be idiots. That right deserves respect. But not much.

In case you hadn’t noticed though, containers of milk at the grocery store have these things on them called “labels”.  They say relevant things like the fat content, amount of sodium, carbs, and oh yeah whether or not it’s been pasteurized.  This despite the fact that selling unpasteurized milk is so strictly regulated that it might as well be illegal, so one can assume that if you see milk at the store it’s been pasteurized.  Sure, the labels are a government thing, but it does not follow that the information would suddenly disappear if raw milk were legally no different form the current kind.  More likely, raw milk would be an enthusiasts niche, a higher cost product for the few who care that much about it, and the rest would go about our business like usual — kinda like how w/ beer most people just get Bud or Miller, meanwhile I’m looking for something from here.

A similar flaw affects libertarian thinking about government-mandated redistribution. Extreme libertarians believe this is immoral or even unconstitutional, and even more moderate libertarians disapprove of government social welfare programs as an infringement on the freedom of taxpayers.

If this is still seen as such a huge split, then he hasn’t heard of Georgists or Mutualists — or, for that matter, taken a look at the federal budget.   By far, the majority of redistribution is not for the poor, but for the rich to get even more money — corporate bailouts, subsidies, narrowly targeted tax breaks that end up being more than they paid, the constant goosing of the housing market, the watering down of the dollar for the benefit of Wall Street…oh yeah, did I mention those weapons manufacturers?

The way Michael Kinsley reacts to libertarianism makes me think his exposure to it begins with Ron Paul (an inaccurate representative, in that he’s more of a constitutionalist conservative who happens to make some libertarian points) and ends with John “hack artist” Stossel.  I’m sure he has the time to dig deeper, as his column doesn’t seem particularly labor-intensive.

In response to my comment here, concerning support for Ron Paul by white supremacists, one responded with a post exclaiming “Make no mistake, racism is VERY libertarian!“.  Ugh…

Eh, I’m bored & this seems amusing, so I’ll bite.  Taking it point by point.:

Racism was opposed by socialists and communists because it was what they hated along with the discrimination based on wealth. Those who have no respect for property have no respect for how it is distributed, thus they find racial preferences the same as capitalistic greed.

He stumbles from the jump, since there’ve been examples of self-described socialists & communists being racist themselves, from mere expressions of hate to (in the case of communist heads of state) actually attempting purges.  Hell, Marx himself was a raving bigot!

As for respect for property, opinions differ even among libertarians, as the closer one agrees with Locke on what makes property legitimate the more of current holdings that come into question.  Murray Rothbard at one time took this to a conclusion that, though based on the strictest defense of property rights, sounds like an anarcho-Left revolutionary platform; Kevin Carson proposes using it as just that.  Just because statists criticize the advantage of some doesn’t mean that advantage was earned.

The government should defend the rights of every human being from being hurt, harmed, but it should not protect people from being laughed at, rejected from buying goods or obtaining housing.

Of course, as an anarchist I’d argue the government can’t do this because it inherently violates those rights anyway, but going with the immediate term I don’t see the conflict here.  The only reason it currently does those things is because enough people saw a power imbalance and really didn’t know what else to do about it.  My own feeling is that we sacrificed long-term liberty & handicapped the drive for self-sufficiency for a desire of immediate results, and while our lives HAVE improved since then the damage is still there.

Why is it ok for black people to sing about killing police and white people, but not ok to have white power bands sing about stomping Jews and lynching blacks?

It’s actually not OK in either case, if by OK he means “socially acceptable”.  The amount that do this is minuscule, despite the fuss whenever one comes out.  That said, the 1st example happens more often because of the power imbalance mentioned above: whites have had plenty of opportunities to act out these fantasies over the years, whereas the lack of restraint on the part of blacks is relatively recent.  If the tables had been turned, and blacks went to Europe & enslaved whites, then followed that up by systematically holding them at 2nd class status, who knows what white musicians would’ve been saying by now?  Every action has a reaction, whether we like it or not.

This is not to say it’s justified, only why it is the way it is.

It is ridiculous how today “You’re a racist” is the code word for “You’re a criminal worse than murderers and child molesters” (Am I alone?).

Condemnation of racism in public is not — NOT!! — equivalent to desire to criminalize it.  Anyone saying they would approve of making it a crime is just fanning the flames they think they’re trying to put out.

Remind yourself, it was not racists who got us into the war, it was not racists who introduced the USA PATRIOT Act, it was not racists who want to tax us more by the day, it was not racists who want to do away with the Constitution this country was founded on, it certainly was not racists who want NSA wiretapping or the National ID card.

Admitted racists?  No.  Yet it’s not hard to read between the lines when it comes to the constant fear-mongering these days.  The foundation of it all is that there’s an alien “other” so devious they can destroy our society on a whim, and this “other” is overwhelmingly made up of people darker than the majority of the US.  The political elite don’t have to spell it out, there’s enough among us that fill in the blanks themselves.

It was racists who killed the British tyrants to give us this country

Point being?

it was racists who killed Indians to roll the red carpet we step on today.

That much is obvious, considering they, um, killed the natives for their land.  They shouldn’t have, I am not going to praise armed robbery, no matter how long ago it was.

Can you honestly love this country’s traditions, values, and selfish individualism and oppose racism as form of thought and speech completely?

Yup.  If not, then what’s that say about “tradition”?

To reverse the old (pseudo-)quote, I will defend to the death your right to say whatever the hell you want, but that doesn’t mean I agree with it.

According to this quiz, found via Sullivan, I’m a “book snob”:

Not really, I just read because I’m bored as hell with most things. Books are underrated as entertainment, even when concerning serious subjects — for example, the last book I finished was a freakin’ “biography” of Cocaine. How many snobs have that kind of book?

BTW: I kinda had to fudge one response, in that I don’t actually have a bookshelf; those cost more money than I have. What I did was set some storage containers that kinda look like milk crates on their sides, stacked against a wall of my room, and put books in that.

Jon Wilde: “Teachers are basically irrelevant, kids are innate self learners”.

Sam Bagwhat: “You say that because you hang around a ton of self-learners.  It ain’t that easy“.

Me: I think there’s a chicken-vs-egg thing underneath the surface here.  If libertarian circles are overwhelmingly made up of self-learners, at least enough so that it couldn’t be coincidence, then which was the beginning trait?  Were we just naturally learning outside of traditional authority because we already rejected it in principle, or is it a matter of self-learners realizing along the way “well if I don’t need coercive authority over me for this, there’s really no reason to accept it for anything”?

Apparently what caused all the problems was a domino effect of sorts from yet another defective part, this time the heat sink for the processor. It wouldn’t fit properly, so the slightest shift (I have a super old desk) moved it enough for the CPU to overheat & the motherboard to fry. The last thing to replace is the CPU, and I am 99.999% POSITIVE that the mothership will be back on track. Once that thing works I’m not opening it again.

That out of the way, here’s something that might or might not become a regular feature: in-progress book reviews. Right now I’m reading “Radicals for Capitalism” (their term, not mine), Brian Doherty’s history of the libertarian movement. So far, I do find it interesting for all the people that I still hadn’t heard about, like the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education. One story in there that’s particularly amusing is Lysander Spooner apparently having had a rival letter carrier service back before it was illegal to do so on a level playing field, only to be ran out of business by the State. Sometimes it really is that simple.

Doherty does slip up in one respect: of the anarcho-Left roots of libertarianism are kinda glossed over, with only a passing mention of Benjamin Tucker, meanwhile Rand gets a shout in two three different sections. This doesn’t ruin it, but it does sorta tip off his particular bent, though in the immediate term I don’t nitpick. It’s worth finishing, so I will.

Shorter WaPo: “What? People don’t equate politicians to saints? OH NOES! I CAN HAS ARMAGEDDON!!!”

In a week in which an argument between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) dominated the political headlines, a new survey offers a warning to all politicians that the American people have come to this campaign with a wholly cynical view of the political process.

The Battleground Poll is a long-running bipartisan project that has regularly taken the temperature of the electorate. The newest report, issued by Republican Brian Tringali of the Tarrance Group and Democrat Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners, includes several startling indicators of a political system in distress.

Majorities of Americans believe that most politicians are not trustworthy, and they hold an unfavorable view toward them in general. That was in line with what many surveys have shown.

Even more striking was the answer to the question of whether Americans believe that their own member of Congress puts partisan politics ahead of constituents’ interests. Fully 71 percent said yes, and 63 percent strongly held that view. (emphasis mine)

Of all the things to complain about, they’re worried about people approaching politics cynically. IMO, that’s a GOOD thing, the more cynical the better.

For anyone out there who is having brainfreeze from that statement, think of what that term “cynical” means. The first definition in the dictionary says the following:

Believing or showing the belief that people are motivated chiefly by base or selfish concerns; skeptical of the motives of others.

Like it or not, this is how most people are by default. In everyday life, human beings mostly go about their business with the intent to help themselves, this is why it is considered such a pleasant* surprise when we help each other. Also, last time I checked, politicians were human beings, regardless of the power they claim. So naturally, it’s logical to assume that they have interests of their own. Unfortunately, as their positions within the State mean they’re assumed the right to use force to reach certain outcomes — in reality that’s all a government is — that means they can get what they want on your back, and have you punished for resisting them.

Now, remove yourself from the context of modern mainstream politics for a moment. Imagine you’re on an island with a few other people, and you want something. You can’t get what you want without hurting everyone else there, but you’re strong enough to kick their asses if they try to stop you. What would you do?

This is how government works. Consequently, this means that the type of people attracted to such power are the types that wouldn’t take anywhere near as long as you would to decide to use it. Some fool themselves into thinking that their interests are yours, and take offense to you complaining — “what is it with these peons? Can’t they seem I’m doing the People’s Work?” — while others admit they’re screwing you and do it as hard and fast as possible. This reality begs quite the question: why would anyone in their right mind assume that a collection of selfish people, with force behind them & no qualms about using it, would work in the interests of people that aren’t them?

Government never was, is not, and never will be a tool of the selfless, or even the merely generous. People who truly want to help others do not need men in uniforms with guns behind them to carry out such a desire, they do it themselves or with other like-minded people. The more that this is realized, and we stop assuming of politicians that they’re monks or something, the better, as we will take the initiative ourselves.

Cynicism is not a disease. It’s the cure.

(* - contrary to what some may think, libertarianism is not synonymous with Objectivism. I don’t think helping others is a sin.)