Let's not mince any words here, the Indiana "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" is nothing of the sort. It is more plausibly named "the Bigotry in the name of religion restoration act" as it seeks to license wanton discrimination by invoking the codswallop of "religious freedom". But even Hitler and his Nazi henchmen knew implicitly how much could be done to turn people's brains to mush merely by clever wordplay. (The most clever being the greeting sign at Auschwitz, "Arbeit Macht Frei", or work makes one free.)
This law, going into effect in July, ostensibly "protects the right of people or businesses to follow their religious beliefs" in terms of any civil exchanges, interactions or trade. But in fact, it gives license to chaos and widespread discrimination based on one's perceptions of his or her "religious principles". Most intelligent people - including the Indiana Chamber of Commerce - know if unleashed this stupid law will create havoc hence the mass demonstrations we saw yesterday in Indianapolis.
Though technically aimed at the LGBT (gay) community, there is absolutely no assurance the discrimination would halt there, given how dogmatic and widespread religious memes and beliefs are. For example, many pharmacies could refuse serving people they regarded as 'sinners' - say denying birth control pills to young, single women or couples that they knew were living together but unmarried.
Owners of home improvement stores might decide that they want no Jews around because after all, they "killed our Savior". Private hospitals -operating as businesses - might decide that they will serve the needs of no declared atheists, or known pro-choice folks or gays on their premises either. Restaurants would feel free to bar anyone who might wish to celebrate a known pagan festival at their venues.
In other words, you'd invite a society bordering on chaos, and don't think for a moment that the thousands of excluded folk would just sit there and take it! And let's note one more thing, in principle this is no different from Walter Block's argument (described in my Jan. 11, 2014 post) that the Woolworth's lunch counters in the South in the early-60s were free to discriminate against blacks because "No one is compelled to associate with people against their will."
But, in fact, they are IF they are engaged in commercial trade! To paraphrase my reply to a Block booster in that earlier post, bringing it up to date with the subject of this post:
The restaurateur or trader is afforded certain privileges (via licensing) to trade or provide services (such as food) in the public domain. Hence, the so called "freedom" is limited to do whatever they want - and hence that can't include refusal of service unless there are extenuating circumstances, i.e. the customers enter drunk and disorderly. The trader doesn't have the latitude to refuse service on the basis of skin color, the other person's own beliefs, sexual orientation, pro-choice stance or nationality. Sorry!
And I damned well stand by that in the case of this Indiana law as well! One Indiana custom leather maker, Casey Sampson - interviewed on CBS last evening - clearly doesn't get that. He began his ignorant comment saying:
"We're not here to discriminate. We're here to serve anybody we can".
Errr.....no, Roscoe. You're there in the public, commercial domain as a trader, to provide services to anyone who wants, provided they act the part of decent citizens on entry to your establishment, and their project is not beyond your resources or capabilities.
Not content with his lamo initial statement he goes on:
"Just as they have the right to live their life their way, I believe we should have the right to live how we want to."
And you do, provided the "living of your life" concerns the private sphere and doesn't include the domain of public commercial trade - which you were licensed to do. (And I note, BEFORE this new law came in,) Thus, "living one's life" does not include the realm of commercial trade or services, which the people he refers to certainly aren't engaged in. They merely seek to purchase trade or services they are due as citizens of one of these United States.
What they do in their own private lives should be no concern of Casey's or the law's, or any other religious personae who stood by while it was signed.
Mike Pence, the Indy Guv, is equally ignorant claiming the law is "about protecting business owners" which is blatant nonsense. From what? Having to serve people whose beliefs or lifestyles they may not agree with?
He added: "This isn't about legalizing discrimination but about restricting the government's ability to intrude on the religious liberty of our citizens".
Translation: "This is about the state government restricting the federal government's ability to defend the rights of minority citizens in our state"
The truth is hard to spell out, eh guv? So don't mind if I do it for you!
National businesses (like Apple, Starbucks etc.), meanwhile, do not intend to subscribe to this foolish law, and other businesses are reconsidering moves to Indiana - which is good. The best way to teach these knuckleheads is to not move new businesses into the state, and also for right-thinking citizens to boycott all those businesses that are inclined to go with this ridiculous law.
Let them all see what happens when their overhead overtakes income at the end of the year. Wanna bet most will be shuttered because the numbers of bigots alone won't support them?
Showing posts with label Walter Block. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walter Block. Show all posts
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Why Libertarians Will Never Win a National Election
While the political philosophy of libertarianism remains popular, especially among a specific demographic - mainly young 'up and coming' professionals and a segment of high I.Q. societies - such as Intertel and Mensa- the fact remains it is a bankrupt engine for real political change. There are sundry reasons for this which I'd like to examine more closely in this blog post, which will show why the 'Libbies' can never win any national election.
For a fairly generic idea of the core libertarian principles we can consider Charles Murray's statement in What it means to be a Libertarian (p. 6):
“It is wrong for me to use force against you, because it violates your right to control of your person....I may have the purest motive in the world. I may even have the best idea in the world. But even these give me no right to make you do something just because I think it's a good idea. This truth translates into the first libertarian principle of governance: In a free society individuals may not initiate the use of force against any other individual or group”
Of course, this is also undoubtedly where the pet libertarian canard that “taxes = theft’ comes from. But look at it objectively (not to be confused with ‘Objectivism’) this is arrant twaddle and illogical to boot. Further, it takes no note of actual political and social reality which may make these perceptions even more egregious.
I mean “libertarian principle of governance”? This is an oxymoron! Governance presumes and demands the non-passive act of governing, which means the projection of force for enforcement of laws. Someone is invariably and actively setting standards of expected action, and also providing the means to uphold the standards. In other words, force inevitably backs up governance. Why do you think cities maintain police forces, and the nation a large volunteer standing army - along with assorted weapons to control crowds? It is to sustain coherent and FORCE-ful governance. The libertarians, then, espouse a philosophy which cannot possibly work in the real world - because that world implicitly recognizes and declares government the primary agent of force, i.e. to enforce laws. Look around for a "force-less" government, i.e. which retains adherence and respect for its laws with no use of force. I defy you to name one!
If governments aren't enabled to enforce their laws , what’s the point? It’s all an exercise in mental masturbation. People can do whatever the hell they want! Set up sex store emporiums or pot shops next to schools, or sell cocaine and semi-automatic weapons in open stalls on the sidewalks of major cities! Freedom thereby becomes perverted into a veritable "free for ALL". In other words, unless governance declares limits to actions - and someone (coercively) enforces governance, a functional society becomes impossible. Now, maybe there IS a docile libertarian principle of “governing suggestion”- but this in no way is the same as “governance”! I also warrant such "suggestion" will always remain that and never be adopted.
One of the examples assorted libertarians invoke is that public tradespeople ought to be free to decide with whom they trade. Thus, the druggist, the restaurateur, the hobby store, the home renovation store --- whoever- ought to be free to decide themselves with whom they trade. Of course, this is a prescription for absolute chaos. If every person, corporation, etc. could decide with whom they trade we'd have market bedlam. Economics would be in an even worse predictive position than it is presently.
One libertarian actually wrote in a blog comment several months ago:
"If it is morally wrong to force someone to work for you against their will, how is it any less wrong to force someone else to trade with another against their will? I'm sure you will disagree on this point, but it is really about extending the same freedom to everyone, even if they choose to use that freedom in ways that you do not approve of."
The error the Libbie commits is conflating slavery ("making someone work for you") with making someone trade with you. But this is mixing chalk and cheese. Free trade is regulated by licensing from the local community, county, state or nation (commerce clause). The restaurateur or trader is afforded certain privileges (via licensing) that a slave is not. These include the ability to manufacture goods and create services that can be publicly offered for sale in the market realm. The trader's so called "freedom" is thereby limited to do whatever the trader wants - and hence he can't include refusal of service unless there are extenuating circumstances, i.e. the customers enter drunk and disorderly. The trader doesn't have the latitude or "freedom" to refuse service on basis of ethnicity, skin color, or sexual orientation. It does not matter what personal likes or dislikes the trader has, or his preferences. If he is to trade in the licensed public domain he is obliged to put these aside. If he can't handle that, then his only resort is to create a "black market" where he can choose as he sees fit. Or he can barter on the individual level and decide with whom he'll trade to his heart's content.
But to do otherwise in the PUBLIC regulated domain flouts Civil Rights legislation passed in the 1960s which again is an example of government force to assert and promote citizens' rights. The impetus of any trader to willingly impose racial or ethnic bias to delimit with whom he does business is thus rightfully outlawed. Meanwhile, the government's right to forcibly shut down any trader - say selling knockoffs of trademarked products, or selling harmful products or marijuana (in a non-legalized state) or illicit sexual services, is preserved.
Again, traders are delimited and can't do whatever the hell they want. Their freedom is naturally circumscribed by the state. Any state!
Let's bear in mind that anti-statism is a central tenet of libertarianism, but it rests on no foundations, other than the so-called libertarian principles babbled by Murray and others. For example, Frank Chodorov, quoted by David Boaz of CATO Inst. in ‘Libertarianism: A Primer’, goes so far as to write:
“Society is a collective concept and nothing else; it is a convenience for designating a number of people... The concept of Society as a metaphysical concept falls flat when we observe that Society disappears when the component parts disperse”
Boaz himself joins in on what the “individual” means:
“For libertarians, the basic unit of social analysis is the individual.... Individuals are, in all cases, the source and foundation of creativity, activity, and society. Only individuals can think, love, pursue projects, act. Groups don’t have plans or intentions”
But, as Prof. Ernest Partridge puts it in his 2012 article, ‘Liberals and Libertarians’:
“Now consider the implications of this denial of the "independent existence" of "the public" and "society." If there is no "public," then there are no "public goods" and there is no "public interest." If there is no "society," then there is no "social harm," or "social injustice" or "social (and public) responsibility." It then follows that government has no role in mitigating "social injustice" or promoting "the public interest," since these terms are fundamentally meaningless. Poverty and racial discrimination, for example, are individual problems requiring individual solutions”.
I can assure the Libbies here that if Boaz’ concept held sway and government force was not used in Alabama in Sept. 1963 (JFK nationalizing the Alabama National Guard to enforce school integration) and the later passage of the Civil Rights Act we would still be a segregated nation, with blacks sitting in the back of the bus, ‘colored’ water coolers and restrooms, and the rest. Only someone totally divorced from reality would claim individual African-Americans could have obtained their civil rights with mere individual effort and no government input.
Meanwhile, The Libertarian Party Principles state:
“We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.”
Again, more inherently contradictory twaddle and piffle: Interference with the lives of others is permitted, so long as it’s not “forcible interference”? This is incredible! So, if a neighbor has a "rape room" where teen girls are regularly taken - so he can "live in whatever manner he chooses", we are obliged to not forcibly interfere? And what if it comes to attention that he's making bombs of assorted types, we're still not permitted to forcibly interfere - or notify law enforcement to do so?
Their definition also excludes much that others would see as coercion. For example, to me, the TABOR law in Colorado is coercion, because it continuously and aggressively scales back tax support for the public domain (based on the past year’s population and growth) under a rigorous "formula" that is never subject to alteration - whether in good economic times or bad. Thousands of disabled people across the state may stand to lose their services thanks to TABOR and controls like it. all with the best intentions of course. The perverse basis of this law is that we not “take by force” those hard-earned gains of the filthy rich bastards ensconced in one of several of their 45.000 square foot mansions in Aspen!
As one critic has put it (to do with libertarians’ convoluted principles):
“Libertarians make exceptions for defense of property and prosecution of fraud, and call them ‘retaliatory force’ But retaliation can be the initiation of force: I don't need force to commit theft or fraud. This is a bit of rhetorical sleight of hand that libbies like to play so that they can pretend they are different from government”.
Libertarianism clearly posits initiation of force for what it identifies as its cosseted minions' interests and calls it righteous retaliation, and uses the big lie technique to define everything else as “evil initiation of force". (As they would certainly call JFK’s nationalization of the AL guard in ’63 to force school integration) They support the initial force that has already taken place in the formation of the system of property (e.g. the seizure of Native American lands and violation of umpteen treaties), and wish to continue to use force to perpetuate it and make it more rigid. It is this inchoate ethics that translates into the system’s weakness and exposes libertarians as true hypocrites.
I warrant libertarianism and its fanciful world of minimal force might work, in a fantasy parallel universe where all citizens are equally educated and have equal access to facts and information, and equal opportunities to advance their social-economic station. But that is emphatically not the world we inhabit, whether the Libbie concedes it or not. This is why libertarianism will remain the province of the very few, though it is disturbing to behold all the inroads it’s made into the high I.Q. societies like Mensa and Intertel. To read some of the letters or articles is almost like witnessing a collective mind-virus unleashed, and by people whose “bible” is ‘Atlas Shrugged’.
More sobering, it is virtually impossible to reason with these individuals. They have so bought into the airy fairy ideations of Libertarianism they won't deign to remotely entertain the notion that it simply can't work in the real world. For this reason too, since it is so useless to debate, I no longer accept comments from libertarians on this site, even say in response to this post. They will have to set up their own blogs and make their rejoinders there!
Of course, for all these reasons libertarianism will never garner more than the 2 percent or so it barely manages in national elections. Even in local elections one seldom sees libertarian candidates running on their own (not aligned to either party) barely reaching the 5 percent level. The reason is clear: most voters see that the Libertarian principles can't work in the real world humans inhabit. The presumptions libertarians hold are simply untenable, unworkable and non-existent in the real world.
Thankfully, there are still many of us- certainly in Mensa and Intertel - who don't buy the resident Libbie bunkum, no matter who tries to peddle it. Call us proud “statists” (or "liberals") if you will, but we will continue to advocate expanding government so that it serves all citizens – not merely the corporations, the rich, and not so rich, or any who can afford the luxury of Libertarian codswallop. And luxury it is, because I guarantee you that if you poll the homeless in Denver, Baltimore or San Francisco you won't find any libertarians there. You won't because it is a creation for and by the cosseted and privileged few, including pampered academics of the Walter Block mold, who never have to worry about THEIR precious properties or rights taken away - unless in some pseudo-political realm fabricated within their own paranoid brains.
Finally, to anyone out there whose mind hasn’t been infected by the libertarian mind virus, I commend Paul Kurtz’s excellent Editorial ‘Overcoming the Global Economic Tsunami’ in the ‘Free Inquiry’ magazine, e.g.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/articles/2989
Kurtz has it exactly right in his proposals, especially when he avers:
“Effective regulation must be reintroduced to protect the public interest”.
This is antithetical to libertarianism because it recognizes no public interest, since it recognizes no "public". As Ernest Partridge put it: If there is no "public," then there are no "public goods" and there is no "public interest." If there is no "society," then there is no "social harm," or "social injustice" or "social (and public) responsibility.
We have to thank the libertarians for creating a reflection of a fantasy world which will never come to pass, other than in their own deluded craniums. Hence, for exposing "principles" that the true rationalist can never accept - because it would mean he has detached himself from any grounding in reality. This is a service because one can then concentrate on making other, existing political systems more workable.
Have they "over thought" political ideals or extended a concept of "freedom" beyond any reasonable bounds? Very likely! This is why I commend to all Libbies the excellent book by David M. Potter, Freedom and its Limitations in American Life, (Stanford University Press, 1976)
See also:
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/14/why_i_left_libertarianism_an_ethical_critique_of_a_limited_ideology/
Excerpt:
"Anarchism was libertarianism fully realized. Political libertarianism was a deformation of the ideology, only attractive to those who valued the sentiments of libertarianism but weren’t principled enough to carry it to its logical (and moral) conclusions."
For a fairly generic idea of the core libertarian principles we can consider Charles Murray's statement in What it means to be a Libertarian (p. 6):
“It is wrong for me to use force against you, because it violates your right to control of your person....I may have the purest motive in the world. I may even have the best idea in the world. But even these give me no right to make you do something just because I think it's a good idea. This truth translates into the first libertarian principle of governance: In a free society individuals may not initiate the use of force against any other individual or group”
Of course, this is also undoubtedly where the pet libertarian canard that “taxes = theft’ comes from. But look at it objectively (not to be confused with ‘Objectivism’) this is arrant twaddle and illogical to boot. Further, it takes no note of actual political and social reality which may make these perceptions even more egregious.
I mean “libertarian principle of governance”? This is an oxymoron! Governance presumes and demands the non-passive act of governing, which means the projection of force for enforcement of laws. Someone is invariably and actively setting standards of expected action, and also providing the means to uphold the standards. In other words, force inevitably backs up governance. Why do you think cities maintain police forces, and the nation a large volunteer standing army - along with assorted weapons to control crowds? It is to sustain coherent and FORCE-ful governance. The libertarians, then, espouse a philosophy which cannot possibly work in the real world - because that world implicitly recognizes and declares government the primary agent of force, i.e. to enforce laws. Look around for a "force-less" government, i.e. which retains adherence and respect for its laws with no use of force. I defy you to name one!
If governments aren't enabled to enforce their laws , what’s the point? It’s all an exercise in mental masturbation. People can do whatever the hell they want! Set up sex store emporiums or pot shops next to schools, or sell cocaine and semi-automatic weapons in open stalls on the sidewalks of major cities! Freedom thereby becomes perverted into a veritable "free for ALL". In other words, unless governance declares limits to actions - and someone (coercively) enforces governance, a functional society becomes impossible. Now, maybe there IS a docile libertarian principle of “governing suggestion”- but this in no way is the same as “governance”! I also warrant such "suggestion" will always remain that and never be adopted.
One of the examples assorted libertarians invoke is that public tradespeople ought to be free to decide with whom they trade. Thus, the druggist, the restaurateur, the hobby store, the home renovation store --- whoever- ought to be free to decide themselves with whom they trade. Of course, this is a prescription for absolute chaos. If every person, corporation, etc. could decide with whom they trade we'd have market bedlam. Economics would be in an even worse predictive position than it is presently.
One libertarian actually wrote in a blog comment several months ago:
"If it is morally wrong to force someone to work for you against their will, how is it any less wrong to force someone else to trade with another against their will? I'm sure you will disagree on this point, but it is really about extending the same freedom to everyone, even if they choose to use that freedom in ways that you do not approve of."
The error the Libbie commits is conflating slavery ("making someone work for you") with making someone trade with you. But this is mixing chalk and cheese. Free trade is regulated by licensing from the local community, county, state or nation (commerce clause). The restaurateur or trader is afforded certain privileges (via licensing) that a slave is not. These include the ability to manufacture goods and create services that can be publicly offered for sale in the market realm. The trader's so called "freedom" is thereby limited to do whatever the trader wants - and hence he can't include refusal of service unless there are extenuating circumstances, i.e. the customers enter drunk and disorderly. The trader doesn't have the latitude or "freedom" to refuse service on basis of ethnicity, skin color, or sexual orientation. It does not matter what personal likes or dislikes the trader has, or his preferences. If he is to trade in the licensed public domain he is obliged to put these aside. If he can't handle that, then his only resort is to create a "black market" where he can choose as he sees fit. Or he can barter on the individual level and decide with whom he'll trade to his heart's content.
But to do otherwise in the PUBLIC regulated domain flouts Civil Rights legislation passed in the 1960s which again is an example of government force to assert and promote citizens' rights. The impetus of any trader to willingly impose racial or ethnic bias to delimit with whom he does business is thus rightfully outlawed. Meanwhile, the government's right to forcibly shut down any trader - say selling knockoffs of trademarked products, or selling harmful products or marijuana (in a non-legalized state) or illicit sexual services, is preserved.
Again, traders are delimited and can't do whatever the hell they want. Their freedom is naturally circumscribed by the state. Any state!
Let's bear in mind that anti-statism is a central tenet of libertarianism, but it rests on no foundations, other than the so-called libertarian principles babbled by Murray and others. For example, Frank Chodorov, quoted by David Boaz of CATO Inst. in ‘Libertarianism: A Primer’, goes so far as to write:
“Society is a collective concept and nothing else; it is a convenience for designating a number of people... The concept of Society as a metaphysical concept falls flat when we observe that Society disappears when the component parts disperse”
Boaz himself joins in on what the “individual” means:
“For libertarians, the basic unit of social analysis is the individual.... Individuals are, in all cases, the source and foundation of creativity, activity, and society. Only individuals can think, love, pursue projects, act. Groups don’t have plans or intentions”
But, as Prof. Ernest Partridge puts it in his 2012 article, ‘Liberals and Libertarians’:
“Now consider the implications of this denial of the "independent existence" of "the public" and "society." If there is no "public," then there are no "public goods" and there is no "public interest." If there is no "society," then there is no "social harm," or "social injustice" or "social (and public) responsibility." It then follows that government has no role in mitigating "social injustice" or promoting "the public interest," since these terms are fundamentally meaningless. Poverty and racial discrimination, for example, are individual problems requiring individual solutions”.
I can assure the Libbies here that if Boaz’ concept held sway and government force was not used in Alabama in Sept. 1963 (JFK nationalizing the Alabama National Guard to enforce school integration) and the later passage of the Civil Rights Act we would still be a segregated nation, with blacks sitting in the back of the bus, ‘colored’ water coolers and restrooms, and the rest. Only someone totally divorced from reality would claim individual African-Americans could have obtained their civil rights with mere individual effort and no government input.
Meanwhile, The Libertarian Party Principles state:
“We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.”
Again, more inherently contradictory twaddle and piffle: Interference with the lives of others is permitted, so long as it’s not “forcible interference”? This is incredible! So, if a neighbor has a "rape room" where teen girls are regularly taken - so he can "live in whatever manner he chooses", we are obliged to not forcibly interfere? And what if it comes to attention that he's making bombs of assorted types, we're still not permitted to forcibly interfere - or notify law enforcement to do so?
Their definition also excludes much that others would see as coercion. For example, to me, the TABOR law in Colorado is coercion, because it continuously and aggressively scales back tax support for the public domain (based on the past year’s population and growth) under a rigorous "formula" that is never subject to alteration - whether in good economic times or bad. Thousands of disabled people across the state may stand to lose their services thanks to TABOR and controls like it. all with the best intentions of course. The perverse basis of this law is that we not “take by force” those hard-earned gains of the filthy rich bastards ensconced in one of several of their 45.000 square foot mansions in Aspen!
As one critic has put it (to do with libertarians’ convoluted principles):
“Libertarians make exceptions for defense of property and prosecution of fraud, and call them ‘retaliatory force’ But retaliation can be the initiation of force: I don't need force to commit theft or fraud. This is a bit of rhetorical sleight of hand that libbies like to play so that they can pretend they are different from government”.
Libertarianism clearly posits initiation of force for what it identifies as its cosseted minions' interests and calls it righteous retaliation, and uses the big lie technique to define everything else as “evil initiation of force". (As they would certainly call JFK’s nationalization of the AL guard in ’63 to force school integration) They support the initial force that has already taken place in the formation of the system of property (e.g. the seizure of Native American lands and violation of umpteen treaties), and wish to continue to use force to perpetuate it and make it more rigid. It is this inchoate ethics that translates into the system’s weakness and exposes libertarians as true hypocrites.
I warrant libertarianism and its fanciful world of minimal force might work, in a fantasy parallel universe where all citizens are equally educated and have equal access to facts and information, and equal opportunities to advance their social-economic station. But that is emphatically not the world we inhabit, whether the Libbie concedes it or not. This is why libertarianism will remain the province of the very few, though it is disturbing to behold all the inroads it’s made into the high I.Q. societies like Mensa and Intertel. To read some of the letters or articles is almost like witnessing a collective mind-virus unleashed, and by people whose “bible” is ‘Atlas Shrugged’.
More sobering, it is virtually impossible to reason with these individuals. They have so bought into the airy fairy ideations of Libertarianism they won't deign to remotely entertain the notion that it simply can't work in the real world. For this reason too, since it is so useless to debate, I no longer accept comments from libertarians on this site, even say in response to this post. They will have to set up their own blogs and make their rejoinders there!
Of course, for all these reasons libertarianism will never garner more than the 2 percent or so it barely manages in national elections. Even in local elections one seldom sees libertarian candidates running on their own (not aligned to either party) barely reaching the 5 percent level. The reason is clear: most voters see that the Libertarian principles can't work in the real world humans inhabit. The presumptions libertarians hold are simply untenable, unworkable and non-existent in the real world.
Thankfully, there are still many of us- certainly in Mensa and Intertel - who don't buy the resident Libbie bunkum, no matter who tries to peddle it. Call us proud “statists” (or "liberals") if you will, but we will continue to advocate expanding government so that it serves all citizens – not merely the corporations, the rich, and not so rich, or any who can afford the luxury of Libertarian codswallop. And luxury it is, because I guarantee you that if you poll the homeless in Denver, Baltimore or San Francisco you won't find any libertarians there. You won't because it is a creation for and by the cosseted and privileged few, including pampered academics of the Walter Block mold, who never have to worry about THEIR precious properties or rights taken away - unless in some pseudo-political realm fabricated within their own paranoid brains.
Finally, to anyone out there whose mind hasn’t been infected by the libertarian mind virus, I commend Paul Kurtz’s excellent Editorial ‘Overcoming the Global Economic Tsunami’ in the ‘Free Inquiry’ magazine, e.g.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/articles/2989
Kurtz has it exactly right in his proposals, especially when he avers:
“Effective regulation must be reintroduced to protect the public interest”.
This is antithetical to libertarianism because it recognizes no public interest, since it recognizes no "public". As Ernest Partridge put it: If there is no "public," then there are no "public goods" and there is no "public interest." If there is no "society," then there is no "social harm," or "social injustice" or "social (and public) responsibility.
We have to thank the libertarians for creating a reflection of a fantasy world which will never come to pass, other than in their own deluded craniums. Hence, for exposing "principles" that the true rationalist can never accept - because it would mean he has detached himself from any grounding in reality. This is a service because one can then concentrate on making other, existing political systems more workable.
Have they "over thought" political ideals or extended a concept of "freedom" beyond any reasonable bounds? Very likely! This is why I commend to all Libbies the excellent book by David M. Potter, Freedom and its Limitations in American Life, (Stanford University Press, 1976)
See also:
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/14/why_i_left_libertarianism_an_ethical_critique_of_a_limited_ideology/
Excerpt:
"Anarchism was libertarianism fully realized. Political libertarianism was a deformation of the ideology, only attractive to those who valued the sentiments of libertarianism but weren’t principled enough to carry it to its logical (and moral) conclusions."
Sunday, March 2, 2014
And The 'Best Picture' Oscar SHOULD Go to: '12 Years a Slave'
To my mind it would be damned near a crime - almost as bad as the Academy passing over 'Avatar' several years ago (for Hurt Locker) to award any nominee other than '12 Years a Slave', 'Best Picture. For those who don't know, the film is a British production, directed by Steve McQueen from an adaptation of the 1853 memoir of the same name by Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free negro who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery. He worked on plantations in the state of Louisiana for twelve years before his release.
This movie has all the elements of a Best Picture, except perhaps one: it is very difficult to watch. It is definitely not a film you will see for "entertainment". But it is riveting history. My wife and I were so taken up by the drama that we weren't able to leave our seats for the entire screening time, to use the restroom. That is how captivating it was.
The most appalling scenes occur when Northrup is taken to the Louisiana plantation to work the fields. The scenes of the whippings -beating are so realistic that it was hard to get them out of your head. But the memory - from the film- of what happened to this courageous African-American will burn into every engram and stay with you and also (should) arouse you to fury if you see balderdash written by simpletons that, "Hey, slavery wasn't that bad'. See:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/walter-block-another-libertairn.html
from a Loyola prof libertarian blockhead.
Thus, the only reason '12 Years' may not move to the winners' circle is the unrelenting gravitas of the film. In this case, the Academy may well veer to the space flick 'Gravity' - which to be sure, is also a terrific film, e..g. see:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/gravity-space-flick-to-keep-you.html
So, to be truthful, I wouldn't be terribly disappointed if 'Gravity' won instead and I'd understand it. The Academy may simply opt not to choose a film that is so unremittingly intense and which may also not sit well with some of its members (mainly the 'over 65' group, as pointed out by MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Friday night).
But at least the choice would be tolerable compared to 'American Hustle' or god forbid, 'The Wolf of Wall Street', both of which, imho, glorify criminals and sleaze bags - the last thing we need in Neoliberal America! If either of these flicks gets the Best Picture, I will really be pissed, but hey - who can account for such anomalies especially after the dissing of 'Avatar'?
As for Best Actor, I'd like to see Bruce Dern get it. He's labored in the movie mills for many decades (e.g. 'Silent Running', 'The Two-Headed Transplant' etc.) without getting much acclaim though he's a top notch actor. This would cap off a life of intriguing, contrarian roles and set within a compelling drama about an older guy on the brink of losing it to Alzheimers, in 'Nebraska'. (The award will probably go to Matthew McConaghuey. )
For 'Best Actress', my pick is Sandra Bullock with Best Supporting Actress going to Jennifer Lawrence, star girl from 'The Hunger Games'.
Anyway, we will see. At least the Oscars should be a temporary diversion from what's going on in Ukraine.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Walter Block - Another Libertarian Blockhead! ("Slavery wasn't so bad!")
Where in the hell do these economic blockheads come from? What regressive pit of offal breeds them and then disgorges them into the world to posture like madmen, confuse their students, and undermine polity in the name of some misbegotten theory? I've already expounded on one branch of these cretins, the bunch that pushed Pareto-based economics, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/06/modern-economics-its-evil-basis-pareto.html
This was the work of none other than Vilfredo Pareto, who invoked the example of a "collectivity" of a wolf and a sheep - with the wolf only happy unless he could eat the sheep. (Else, only the sheep remains happy grazing on its patch of grass - while poor Wolfie starves) Thus was born modern economic theory which inverts everything sensible, such as Greenspan arguing back in 2003 that Bush tax cuts were preferable to Social Security benefits. The poor little rich folks would use the money saved from those cuts to invest and help the economy, while Social Security could be collected merely because a guy could breathe.
Pareto's model translated into the argument that the buck is worth more to the rich man, and hence, any transfer from the rich to the poor hurts the rich more than it helps the poor (especially as the 'utils' for the poor man is also rather smaller by comparison). E.g.
From this degraded bollocks, it became possible to argue - for example - that it makes more sense to give the prospective patient or person to be screened (say for colon cancer) $1,499 NOT to get the colonoscopy, than to let her get the test and consume valuable specialist time and resources via $2,000 subsidy. (Bestowed by whatever insurance allows it, say Medicare or Obamacare, or even high flier private) .
In a similar vein, these dregs argued that having 1,000 - 10,000 average Joes and Janes die each year from climatic catastrophes (or fouled water from pollutants) is more tolerable than having oil speculation losses for the rich, because then they will also pull back on their investments in ETFs (exchange traded funds), hedge funds, and all the rest ....ultimately ending in less investment banking profits and perhaps another financial collapse.
By a similar line of perverse Pareto reasoning, it made more sense for the impoverished billions in the third world to breathe filthy, polluted air than clean air. The reason is obvious: it is inefficient because if they had to pay for it, they couldn't afford it. By the same token, it makes more sense to dump the toxic wastes from advanced nations in poor nations than vice versa, because the same reasons apply: the 3rd worlders would never be able to afford their own clean up costs, so what's an extra five million gigatonnes of waste in the overall scheme of things?
Hence, from this "Libertarian-ish" style of bunkum it is not surprising that a Prof named Walter Block could spring, though I'm amazed he's at Loyola- where I studied in the 1960s (before transferring to Univ. of South Florida, where I could do astronomy with some of the best names in the discipline - including Heinrich Eichhorn, Sabatino Sofia and James Hunter).
According to a Jan. 26 New York Times Sunday Review article on the 'Rand Paul Political Brand', Block actually had stated that "slavery wasn't so bad" - taking up the long standing libbie trope that, after all, the blacks were cared for, got their 3 squares a day and some time off (Sundays) and so long as they behaved themselves they weren't flogged by the overseer. (Block ought to be forced like 'Alex' - the character of 'Clockwork Orange' - to be strapped to a seat with his eyelids fixed in place and forced to watch the whipping scenes from '12 Years a Slave' in an endless loop for at least a day)
That may cure him of his delusions, but maybe not. Most hard core libertarians are so detached from reality that they inhabit a land of delusion of their own. (In one argument some three years ago, one actually argued that the gov't had no business interfering to interject civil rights legislation, and if the blacks really wanted it they ought to have struggled on their own to achieve it.)
In a similar kind of vein, Block - in an interview response to the author of the Times piece (p.21) observed that in the 1960s:
"Woolworth's had lunchroom counters and no blacks were allowed. Did they have a right to do that? Yes, they did! No one is compelled to associate with people against their will."
But consider the consequences if this bat shit crazy meme was extended willy-nilly so that anyone could apply it. Pharmacies could refuse serving people they regarded as 'misfits' - say denying birth control pills to young, single women or not even permitting blacks to cross the doorway.
Owners of football teams could decide that they want no Jews, blacks, or gays entering their stadiums and they might put that into place. Private hospitals -operating as businesses - might decide that they want no blacks, Jews or gays on their premises either. Restaurants would feel free to bar anyone they think is marginal, including those who look like 'thugs' - or whoever doesn't fit flitty criteria like hair length, or quality of dress.
In other words, you'd invite a society bordering on chaos, and don't think for a moment that the millions of excluded folk would just sit there and take it! It is no wonder that Block describes himself as an "anarcho-capitalist". No surprise that Block's ideas were hatched from the "Austrian School" of Friedrich von Hayek. See below:
Recall that von Hayek's austerity solutions led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism. The Wehrmacht soldiers I met in May, 1985, all agreed that Hitler would have had little chance to attain the Chancellorship had austerity measures not been implemented in the late 1920s - such that most people had to beg, borrow or steal just to get bread or feed their infants. Hitler offered a promise of plenty for all, via his concept of Lebensraum - or expanded living space. Of course, these riches would come at the expense of other nations taken over by the Nazi expansion of the Third Reich!
Today, the seeds of this aberrant thinking remain, as voting rights laws are gutted state by state and even portions of the civil rights bill are placed in peril. Meanwhile, billionaires like Peter G. Peterson want to impose austerity via cuts to Social Security and Medicare, so he and his wealthy pals - like Tim Perkins - can live high off the hog, buying up 18 giant yachts instead of 2 and fifty giant residences from Curacao to Monaco while homeless citizens have nada.
To the extent we let these fools succeed, we will all regret it, and the decline of our nation will be accelerated.
To read some of the reactions of the Loyola community to Block's bollocks, go to:
http://www.loyolamaroon.com/search-1.2265630?q=%22Walter+Block%22
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