Monitor This, Brownback Staffers

So a high school student tweets about the governor and everybody throws a fit. His staff monitors social media and caught the post, released a statement, and it was picked up by everyone. About half were incensed by the remarks; the other half came down on the side of free speech.

In Dave Helling’s coverage in the Kansas City Star he quotes a lawyer, Anthony Colleluori, who says “I am not asking her to agree with Brownback, but respect for our institutions is an important thing for schools to teach.” I have several bones to pick with Colleuori on this.

1). Sam Brownback is not an institution; he’s a guy holding political office. The tweet was personal in nature, and not directed at the institution of government. Not that disparaging remarks against the government are wrong either, they’re perfectly legitimate, too.

2). Perhaps Colleuori meant that children should be taught to respect the office, but not necessarily the person holding the office. This is fairly common doctrine. It is also wrong.

This concept is drilled into soldiers during basic training, which is nothing more than a high-intensity indoctrination program. Recruits are conditioned to instinctively react to orders, never think for themselves, and above all, never question authority. The concept is reinforced throughout one’s time in the military.

One way they do this is by demanding that the subordinate judge the superior not by his actions, but solely by virtue of his position. “You don’t have to respect me, but you do have to respect the rank!” is usually followed by disrespectful epithets and an order to perform some kind of degrading punishment.

Requiring that people respect the office, and not the man, gives a certain legitimacy to whatever “official” actions are taken by the office holder. It absolves him of personal responsibility for any injustices that result. He now has special authority by virtue of his position, and you don’t have to like it, but you do have to abide it. Individuals should be judged by their actions, regardless of what position they hold.

3). Schools do in fact teach “respect for our institutions;” that’s a big part of the problem. Not just in this case, but with the bigger picture as well. Students are indoctrinated to love the State from the first time they pledge their allegiance to it. From this point forward nothing they’re taught in school objectively questions the omnipotence of government. Sure, children are taught that on rare occasions bad politicians come to power, but this is never framed as the systemic problem it truly is.

This is to be expected, though. Why should a government-run school, or the government-educated faculty, ever be critical of itself? When you’re in employ of an organization and draw special privileges from it you don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you. Instead, you promote it as the source of all things wonderful.

When the sacred institution is questioned, or in this case when a high school student tweets a joke to a couple dozen friends, everyone flies off the handle. The Governor’s agents inform the teachers, who report to the principle, who demands a written apology to the guy who, it just so happens, approves school budgets. If Colleluori had meant students should learn respect for social institutions such as the family, marriage, the market, churches, fraternal organizations, etc, I would have agreed. These are the true sources of wonderful things, and where prosperity is derived from.

Lastly, Steve Rose’s piece in the Kansas City Star addresses the real issue here, which is Brownback’s thought police. Almost entirely ignored is the fact that government agents are employed trolling facebook, searching for disloyal remarks, who then report them to authorities. Why isn’t this the main story? It should be.

Compulsion in The Volunteer State

This past Thanksgiving weekend we visited relatives in Tennessee. I had forgotten to pack an eyeglasses kit, so I stopped into a Target to grab one. While waiting I overheard the employee leave a voicemail with one of their customers, informing her that her prescription was available for pick-up.

The employee noted that according to Tennessee state law, only a licensed optician may give out a new pair of specs. She described the optician as a “pharmacist for glasses.” The caller provided the schedule of when an approved cashier would be present, and encouraged a phone call beforehand to “prevent a wasted trip.” I got the impression she’d dealt with many such wasted trips herself.

I don’t know how common this is, for all I know its uniform throughout the states, though I’ve always been able to just walk in and pick up my glasses. It’s completely insane nevertheless. As if it weren’t bad enough that a politically appointed board is empowered to decide how many eye doctors may practice, which drives up the cost of eye care, but they also get to decide how many cashiers may dispense the product. Setting aside the obvious abridgement of liberty this represents, its economic impacts are damaging enough.

Medical licensure (or any licensing requirements for that matter) drives up costs for consumers to the benefit of the politically well-connected. Politicians, at the behest of rent-seeking lobbyists, make it unlawful to operate without a license. This includes insurance sales, teaching, practicing medicine, painting nails, or hanging drywall, among hundreds of others. Naturally, this limits the number of individuals who may provide these services.

The licensing boards determine how many schools are accredited, and under what terms. This allows the industry insiders to protect themselves and their friends by controlling or restricting potential competitors. The reduction in the supply of service providers contributes greatly to the high costs of labor, and ultimately to consumer prices.

Some licenses are cheap and fairly easy to come by. You fill out a few forms, pay some fees, maybe take a test or two, wait a few weeks, and your license arrives in the mail: you’re official. Others are much harder to come by. You have to go to college first. Then you have to be accepted to and graduate from an accredited school. Then you have to take more tests and pay more fees. Finally you’re legally allowed to go to work.

All of this is done in the name of protecting the consumer. But who better than the consumer to decide where he should go for services? After all, it’s his money he’s spending, it’s his property he’s granting them access to, and it’s his body they’re doing the work on. The bureaucrats on the board aren’t risking their money, their property, or their bodies.

Absent licensure requirements individuals would be free to enter whichever industry they desired. Customers would be free to choose whichever provider they wanted. Contrary to popular thought, this would not result in wanton loss of life and property.

Detractors would say “Oh, but then people will pose as doctors and harm their patients. People who don’t know anything about teaching will be allowed to educate children. Bridges won’t be maintained properly and will fall apart. Without benevolent regulators swindlers will defraud investors of their savings.”

Note that all of these happen in spite of massive government regulations and oversight. And each failure inevitably brings more regulations and more bureaucratic agencies to implement them. The market is always blamed, never the institution tasked with protecting us all.

The market on the other hand does a remarkable job of weeding out substandard performance. It does this naturally, without the need for coercion or violence. Businesses want to protect their customers to retain their patronage and attract more.

Firms would (and presently do) exist that test products, offer reviews, and maintain records to ensure that scurrilous behavior is checked. Do we really believe that people would be so ignorant and lost that they would choose Bubba’s ‘I’ Surviss over Dr. Jim Smith, Acme Eye School graduate? And even if they did, it’s their choice.

That’s how freedom works. The nature of voluntaryism is that no one is coerced into acting, or not acting. Volunteers are free to come and go, to act or not act. Tennesseans (and all peoples) should reject the state’s infringement on our freedom to exchange in voluntary trade.

Iran’s Double Standard

 

[Update: I apologize for the original version of this post; it was first published from a computer without a word processor, and thus had an odd format]

 

During Tuesday’s final half hour of Shanin & Parks, KMBZ’s afternoon talk radio show, two Ron Paul supporters called in. This is quite rare; in the past the hosts have limited calls to only one Ron Paul supporter per topic. The discussion was foreign policy, in anticipation of that night’s CNN national security debate, and Iran was the focus. Mike Shanin, a self-described moderate republican, and Scott Parks, a devout neoconservative, were both towing the typical lines about an axis of evil and an existential threat.

The first caller brought up the sordid history of U.S./Iranian relations, beginning with the CIA-lead coup against a popularly elected president in 1953. He noted the consequences of such actions are blowback, and mentioned that continued meddling in Iran’s affairs would only aggravate her people further. This would inspire more hatred toward the American people, in whose name the government carries out its machinations.

As expected, they refused to acknowledge that actions do in fact have consequences, and that a foreign policy of belligerence only breeds more hatred from those forced to live under the U.S. thumb. In response to the caller’s points, Shanin justified current U.S. aggression in the form of economic sanctions and other acts of war because, essentially, the 1950s was a long time ago. He argued further, that Iran has become increasingly threatening to the U.S. and her interests, and this is unacceptable.

Parks, in a fit of self-righteous indignation, lambasted Iran for its alleged assassination attempt against the Arabian ambassador in Washington D.C. Never mind that many important questions about the plot have been left unanswered. He raised quite a fuss over the fact the would-be assassins supposedly referred to potential civilian casualties as collateral damage.

The fact that Iran’s current anti-western stance might have a tiny connection to sixty years of oppression is somehow lost on Shanin. Consider for a moment how we might feel if another nation’s spies had instigated a coup in order to restore foreign control over our natural resources. And that a ruthless puppet-dictator were installed, whose secret police terrorized us for a quarter century. We probably wouldn’t take too kindly to that. But it doesn’t end there.

Following our revolution, and the expulsion of their “diplomats,” this foreign government chose to back a hostile neighbor during an eight year war. Several hundred thousand are killed, chemical weapons are used on civilians, and the economy is left in shambles. For the next two decades harsh economic sanctions ensure that recovery never happens.

This country that initiated hostilities on us never leaves. They invade the bordering countries to the east and west, station troops to the north, position a naval fleet off the southern coast and arm our two most hated enemies. The whole time we’re the ones made out to be the bad guys. You begin to see why we might not be so willing to just go along to get along.

I wasn’t sure I heard Parks correctly at first, because I couldn’t believe someone could actually be so blinded by nationalism. What does he think the U.S. government calls the 225,000 men, women, and children it has killed in the past ten years alone? Collateral damage has been the calloused euphemism used for the murder of foreigners for decades.

This jingoistic moral relativism is morally and intellectually bankrupt. It’s become the national religion, shared by both the left and right and we must end it before it ends us. We cannot pretend that people born in other countries are without value and expect to be viewed by them as anything but tyrants.

Thoughts on a Third Party Run

The GOP establishment is afraid of an Independent Ron Paul ticket. Their denial that he’s a serious candidate is belied by their fear that such a run could split “their vote” and ensure that Obama wins a second term. If he’s not a legitimate candidate, why does he pose any threat to them? Below are some thoughts on what a Ron Paul third party might mean.

First, I’d love to see Paul shrug off not getting the republican nomination, run anyway, and win. It would be the ultimate repudiation of the false Left/Right dichotomy. I know that such a thought is pure fantasy, but its still fun to imagine.

Second, I’d be happy if he pulled a Ross Perot: ran independently and split the vote. This is not to say that I want Barrack Obama to have a second term. But let’s be honest, Mitt “Plastic Man” Romney, and all the rest of the charlatans in the GOP, don’t represent anything different. It would serve those sociopaths right to lose another election.

The problem with number two, as I see it, is that the American people would fail to understand what happened. The party leaders would lie to everyone and say that Paul cost them the election. In fact, the opposite would be true.

The reality would be that by rejecting the liberty candidate, the GOP would have sealed its fate. If the GOP loses, it won’t be because of Paul; it will be of the GOP’s own doing. By scorning the one candidate who can draw sufficient independents, and pull democrats behind him to boot, the GOP is ensuring they take a back seat for another four years.

The Violence Inherent in the System: UC-Davis Edition

This morning Greg Knapp, host of the KCMO Morning Show, defended the use of pepper spray on non-violent protestors at UC-Davis. Video of the incident has been widely viewed, and has sparked outrage by Occupy sympathizers, and a sort of sadistic contempt by the movement’s detractors. Knapp and his listeners, and presumably others on the Right, believe the police are justified and the protestors are getting what they deserve.

I had not seen video of the students being hosed with pepper spray, who were described as blocking the entrance to the school, and who quickly moved after being hit with the chemicals. The video does not depict this at all. It shows a dozen or students blocking a footpath, and only move after being dragged away by police brandishing batons.

In order to justify such abuse, Knapp appealed to an authority on the issue – a police officer – who wrote the book on “use of force.” Well of course this guy’s going to say that everything’s perfectly fine. His guidelines were followed. He can’t condemn the behavior; he suggested it in the first place! In this officer’s opinion, pepper spray is a “compliance tool.” How Orwellian a name is that?

Such appeals to the State provide a veil of legitimacy to the violence being perpetrated. This post sums it all up very nicely: “Sorry Libs […] the pepper spray incident was standard operating procedure.” Who cares if it was the standard? If the standard itself is corrupt, nothing which relies on its authority can be pure. What’s never questioned is whether the law in question is itself legitimate. Just as with immigration, the Law and Order conservatives never stop to ask these fundamental questions, let alone consider the possible consequences.

This is because the prospect that such treatment would ever be used against them never seems to occur to conservatives. They still don’t think any of them will ever be hauled off to some secret prison, tortured, or be made an unperson. Their blind devotion to the State and its para-military police forces prevents them from ever looking at a case such as this objectively. It’s as though they never stop to consider what might happen if they were on the other side of the gun.

The whole incident reinforces the wisdom behind this picture that made its way around the internet in recent weeks.

Official justification notwithstanding, the militarization of the police forces represents a threat to society far greater than any protest movement ever could.

I’ve decided to remain neutral with the OWS crowd. Many are ignorant of the true source of their frustration, which is government, from whom corporations draw their power. I’ve spoken with a number of folks at Occupy KC, and most of them fall into this category. However, there are also a number of individuals who see the problem for what it is. They are principled anti-state, anti-war, pro-market types, who reject central planning and embrace freedom.