Peter Schiff's "The Real Crash"

Anyone who knows anything about my regular media consumption habits probably has a good basis for suspecting that Peter Schiff is my favorite pundit, radio show host, and writer.  (That suspicion would probably be correct, although I hesitate to pick favorites.)  I don't remember where I first heard of Peter Schiff, but I think it was when he ran for Senate in Connecticut in 2010.  He was one of the few Republican senate candidates across the country in that election that I thought was really carrying the banner of liberty.  I ended up donating some money to his campaign and also making a few hundred phone calls on his behalf as a volunteer.  Yeah, I guess you could call me a regular "Schiff-head."

Peter's most remarkable quality has been his ability to speak what he thinks is the truth to any audience, without any fear of conflict, and without any regard for hurt feelings (although he rarely, if ever, makes it personal).  This has lead to some hilarious interviews, congressional testimony, and speeches.  Probably my favorite was his speech before the Mortgage Bankers Conference in Las Vegas in 2006.  He laid out, in stunning detail, exactly why most of the members of the audience were about to go belly up financially.  In the Q&A period one of the questioners even asked, "So are you just saying I should slit my wrists?"  Obviously Peter wasn't advocating suicide, but his thesis was proven correct a year later.  The housing market collapsed, and we're still (unfortunately and unnecessarily) reeling from that shock.

But Peter doesn't think that the housing bubble was the worst of what's in store for America's troubled economy.  Not even close.  In the first two chapters of his latest book, "The Real Crash:  America's Coming Bankruptcy, How to Save Yourself and Your Country," Peter argues that the government's actions in response to the housing bubble (TARP, Stimulus I and II, Quantitative Easing I, II, and potentially III, etc.) have led to unsustainable levels of government debt, and that either the banking sector will be wiped out when the government defaults on it's debt if interest rates rise, or the economy will be wiped out by hyper-inflation if the Fed decides to fix interest rates at perpetually low levels.

The next nine chapters are focused on what the government can do in order to fix the economy with minimal pain.  I say "minimal" pain, because the fact is there is going to be a lot of pain no matter which course we choose to go.  We may have more or less pain, sooner or later, but the pain is unavoidable at this point.  Peter's prescriptions for the economy are more or less the standard laissez-faire policies that any free market type would advocate:  sound money, deregulation, and better tax policy.  He specifically advocates for the FairTax, which would throw out the entire federal tax code and all the taxes within it in favor of a single national sales tax.  I like that idea a lot.

Peter takes special care in advocating the destruction of the "third-rails" of politics:  Medicare and Social Security.  It's obvious, to anyone who has bothered to look at the numbers, that these programs are unsustainable.  They simply can't continue as they are currently structured forever, or even much longer.  Medicare alone will bankrupt this country in short order if it is not changed.  Peter advocates means testing these benefits so that they only apply to the people who really need them, instead of feathering the nests of well-off seniors.  As he points out, the benefits end up as just a subsidy for whoever inherits these wealthy seniors' wealth since the seniors themselves can afford to pay for their medical expenses out of pocket or purchase some kind of insurance product (and if they can't, means testing obviously wouldn't apply to them).

The final chapter, as well as little blurbs throughout the book, focuses on how to position your investments to prepare for the collapse that Peter thinks  is coming.  I don't really have any assets to invest so this is not really applicable in my case, but it was a really interesting read.  He recommends a "three-legged stool" of quality dividend paying stocks chosen for their ability to profit from the collapse, cash and bonds in countries with sound monetary and fiscal policy, and gold and gold mining stocks.

Perhaps the most interesting part in this book was an appendix which briefly reviewed the history of monetary policy in the United States, including numerous Supreme Court citations.  There's been a huge argument lately over whether it is even legal for the government to produce paper money, since the constitution declares that states can only make gold and silver legal tender and prohibits government from emitting "bills of credit."  I think Peter shows conclusively and indisputably that paper currency is illegal according to the constitution.  Of course, it doesn't matter because the Constitution today says whatever a few robed political appointees say it says.  Ah well...

As (I think) with all books I read, I have a couple areas of disagreement with this book.  The biggest one was on the issue of birthright citizenship.  Peter went through advocating a bunch of great reforms that would move the US much closer to an open and rational immigration policy, and then in a final paragraph he decided to just throw in (what felt to me like) "Oh, and by the way, we should end birthright citizenship."  He doesn't really defend it at all, or even argue why it's necessary.  It's just thrown in there as a solution without a problem, and I happen to think that government solutions to non-existent problems are very dangerous.  Ending birthright citizenship would visit massive bureaucracy on every birth in the US.  It would be a boon for attorneys.  We'd need to have a national registry of citizens and/or a national ID card.  We'd end up spending a fortune to figure out who is and who is not a citizen.  And for what?  No benefit whatsoever that I can see.  A lot of people, I think Peter included but I don't remember for certain, argue that the 14th Amendment made birthright citizenship the law of the land.  This is just not true. There has been a long tradition of birthright citizenship in the US before the 14th Amendment, and going back to the common law of England and continental Europe.  It's a wonderful, unambiguous, bright line rule.  It needs to stay.  Check out this presentation at the Cato Institute for more information on the pitfalls of ending birthright citizenship.

But despite that minor criticism, I thought the book was very sound.  For someone who likes their public policy reading spiced with a little bit of investment advice, I think it's probably the only way to go.  And, by the way, Peter's dad, Irwin Schiff, wrote a fantastic comic book decades ago that you can now get online for free here.  So if you don't have money to pick up "The Real Crash," be sure to at least check that out.

Conversation With An Immigration Restrictionist

Immigration is an issue that, in my opinion, a lot of libertarians still have trouble coming to grips with reality on.  Even libertarian paragons like Milton Friedman and Murray Rothbard held relatively restrictionist views (in practice, anyway, not necessarily in theory) when it came to immigration.  Even Ron Paul (who I think is fantastic on virtually every other issue) wants to put armed troops on the border with Mexico!  Don't think for a minute they'd just be playing poker...

I, myself, am an almost completely open immigration type and it's an issue that I love to debate.  I even managed to convince a Libertarian candidate running for congress to change his position on birthright citizenship earlier this year.   

A few months ago I had an interesting conversation with an immigration restrictionist, who also happens to be a fellow member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Washington and supporter of Ron Paul, over facebook.  Here is the exchange:

                                                                                                 

RLC Person: Can we talk about immigration? I'd like to try to understand why some of you seem to think the US has no right to prevent citizens from other nations from crossing our borders to live and/or work.

Me: I don't think the US has *no* right to restrict immigration, but I think that the burden of proof should be on those who seek to prevent peaceful people from trying to improve their lives rather than on those who would allow it. I think if you take that view there are only really two reasons why you should prevent someone from immigrating (and please, if you've got another one let me know):

1.) They have a criminal background.
2.) They carry a deadly and contagious disease.

That's it. Get rid of quotas, and let all peaceful people immigrate and it will be much easier to catch those who would do us harm.

RLC Person: Kyle, do you think America belongs to the American people?

Me: What do you mean by "America"? Americans own most of the land in America. But that doesn't mean immigrants couldn't rent an apartment (which is a mutually beneficial trade). I don't accept the argument that one person, or group of people, should be able to prevent a mutually beneficial trade without overcoming a significant burden of proof.

RLC Person: I mean, do you think this nation belongs to Americans, as in US citizens.

Me: I believe in a limited government. Regardless of who controls it (and yeah, I guess theoretically US citizens control the government but I tend to think of the government as "them" rather than "us" since they generally don't represent anything I stand for).  Regardless of who the government belongs to, there should be limits on its power. One of the limits should be on their ability to prevent peaceful people from working to improve their lives.

RLC Person: OK, so do you think you have some sort of natural right to move and work in Australia or Mexico or Denmark if that's what you'd like to do? You don't think the people of Australia and Mexico and Denmark have the right to decide who gets to live and work in their nations?

Me: The only right they have to prevent me from doing so is derived from the barrel of a gun. It is not any kind of natural right.

RLC Person: Do you have the right to prevent other peaceful people from entering your home and sleeping in your bed, rocking in your chair, or eating your Quaker Oats?

Me: Yes, I own my home. But this is a false analogy. Immigrants do not break into people's houses. They generally rent apartments from people who enjoy collecting the rent. If no one would rent or sell them a place to stay, they could not come.

RLC Person: No, it is not a false analogy. America is home to Americans, not Australians.

Me: Yes, it is a false analogy. Here is a closer analogy:

Do you have the right to prevent your neighbor from renting his basement out to other peaceful people? Do you have the right to prevent those peaceful people from purchasing food at "your" local grocery store?

The answer is no because your neighbors house is not yours, even though it is in your neighborhood, and the local grocery store owner is the one who owns the grocery store.

RLC Person: That would be all well and good if the neighbors new tennents weren't using the local ER for medical treatment they can't pay for, sending their ESL students to the neighborhood schools etc...

Me: Ok, so now what you are asking is a totally different question. Do we have the right to prevent immigrants from using government services? The answer is an *emphatic* "yes." [In retrospect, I should have pointed out that this may not be a great idea in every case, but ah well... live and learn.]

RLC Person: Even if all of the other issues are worked out...government services, and taxes the issue of limited resources will continue to exist. So, unless we're going to acquire additional land, water, energy etc we still cannot allow everyone who would like to live and work here come without diminishing the quality of life of future generations.

Me: Limited resources is not an issue. You need to understand economics. These people produce things. Every dollar they earn represents more than a dollar of goods or services that they provided to the market. And anyway, the market prevents things from becoming scarce. Scarcity means increased prices and profits, more room for entrepreneurs to enter the market and keep everyone happy. It is NOT an issue.

The price of resources goes down over time, and has for hundreds of years. This reflects the decreasing scarcity of these resources. In fact, the only factor of production that reliably becomes more expensive over time is labor. What does that mean? We have a scarcity in people (and it's created by the government preventing people from immigrating!).

RLC Person: If there is one thing this country is not facing a scarcity of it is people. Additional people require additional space, water and energy. They produce additional trash and pollution.

Me: Additional people also produce clean water and energy, they build places to live (and if you lived where I do, in rural Eastern Washington, claiming that we lack space would not pass the laugh test), and they clean up trash and pollution. The cleanest places in the world are also the most advanced.

People produce more than they consume. Every dollar they earn represents more than a dollar of goods or services that they provided.

RLC Person: Tell it to the trees, the wolves, the rivers, the bears, and all of the other species threatened or endangered by loss of habitat to human activity and the people inhaling the air in San Bernardino and other areas plagued by smog.

Me: Do you think that people create more pollution in poor countries (where they literally do their laundry in the rivers) or in an advanced country like the United States? Isn't it better for the environment to have these people living in a prosperous country than in poverty?

RLC Person: Kyle, the answers to these problems cannot be solved by letting them all come HERE. The answers to the problems of the citizens of other nations rest with them. We cannot house the world any more than we can police the world.

Me: Who are you to decide whether they should be allowed to go anywhere? If they are coming here and renting an apartment from someone who wants to rent it to them of course they can be housed here.

RLC Person: You need to read my previous statement and consider the truth I just stated, Kyle.

Me: It's not a truth. It's just a slogan. It's like saying "We can't police the world so we can't feed the world." Well, we already feed the world. It doesn't matter if they're here or not. These are problems of economics, not government, and the market solves these problems very well.

RLC Person: The problem isn't just economics. What did you read a couple of books or articles and now everythings about the free market? The world is a complicated place and living in it requires more than just a sound economy.......which in case you hadn't noticed......we don't have to share with all of these people you want to throw the doors open to.

BTW, we do not "feed the world". Hell, we don't even feed ourselves. Go to a supermarket, a big one.....say Walmart or other large chain and look at the produce, check out all of those country of origin labels. Go on and look at canned and bottled foods like mushrooms and garlic and see what nation produced them. Head over to the seafood and check out just how much of the shrimp comes from other countries.

I don't know where you've spent your young life, in school I hope but you need to get out in the real world and live a little and see the way things actually are instead of the way you think they are or wish they would be.

                                                                                                 

At this point a lot of other members from the RLC started jumping in and arguing with her.  After a while, she ended up posting a link to a schoolhouse rock song about "elbow room." I think that gives you a pretty good picture of the level of thinking we're dealing with on the restrictionist side.

Additional arguments in favor of a more open immigration policy can be found here, here, here, here and here.

Libertarian Feminism

I recently came across a new sub-species of libertarian that I did not know about before:  libertarian feminists.  Now, obviously I have known that there are libertarian females (although, not that many, unfortunately) but libertarian feminists?  From my, admittedly meager, knowledge of the subject, the term "libertarian feminism" seemed almost oxymoronic, at least in connotation if not in practice.

But despite the vaguely socialist reputation of feminism these days, the early history of feminism was apparently dominated by, mostly little known, "libertarian" feminists (at the time called "liberal" feminists, "liberal" being used in the classical sense).  Born out of the anti-slavery movement, many of the libertarian types, like William Lloyd Garrison, who had worked to bring equal rights to blacks felt that women should have equal rights as well.

A broad definition of feminism would be the idea that women should be treated the same as men.  Libertarianism holds that all individuals own themselves, and should be treated equally under the law.   From these, perhaps imprecise, definitions it would seem that the term "libertarian feminist" is not oxymoronic at all.  Quite the opposite, it seems redundant.  In fact, libertarians would oppose, on principle, all of the laws that originally sparked the feminist movement:  the problems with marriage law, divorce law, suffrage, etc.  A wife who left her husband, for example, could be forcibly returned, not unlike a runaway slave.  A man who assaulted or raped his wife wasn’t considered a criminal.  There were lots of restrictions on property ownership for women.  These kinds of laws are not compatible with the libertarian principle of self-ownership, or the non-aggression axiom.

Now, at this point in history, my impression is that practically all of those objectionable laws are gone.  There are probably still a few remnants, and I'm sure any libertarian worth his salt would oppose them if he was made aware of them, but it seems to me that they're a pretty rare find and certainly not currently the most egregious fault of the state.  What libertarian feminists deal with at this point are laws that are not explicitly anti-female, but implicitly anti-female.*  Veronique de Rugy wrote an article for April's edition of Reason magazine listing many of the most important examples of these kinds of laws.  Included are things like tax law, which punishes lower earning spouses by taxing them at their spouses' rate.  Since most women earn less than their husbands (this is rapidly changing, but still technically true for the moment at least), women end up paying a higher tax rate, in practice, than men.  The myriad laws that restrict workplace mobility also have a disproportionate effect on women, who leave and re-enter the workforce much more frequently than men because of childbirth.  Restrictive immigration laws prevent low-wage labor from entering the country that could be used in child care, and end up forcing working mothers to pay more for daycare.

But today's non-libertarian feminists don't really focus on ending laws, hence the socialist reputation.  Instead they seem to rally around passing laws to turn women into a protected class.  That strategy is doomed to backfire, as it has for other protected classes.  Just take one law intended to benefit women:  mandatory paid maternity leave.  As de Rugy explains, this law actually hurts women more than it helps by leaving all women, whether they choose to have a child or not, with a lower wage:

Government mandates that force employers to approve lengthy maternity leaves make hiring women of childbearing age less appealing. As a result, women are more likely to be unemployed or to see their compensation reduced, whether they want to have children or not. Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber has shown that real wages for women in the 1990s in states that require comprehensive maternity expenses fell, compared to states that don’t.

And, on his radio show, Peter Schiff has frequently pointed out that provisions such as free birth control and the liability that comes with hiring a woman (the risk of a lawsuit from a woman who finds the workplace offensive or sexist) reduce wages and job opportunities for women in a similar way, while purporting to help them.

Another frequent refrain of the socialist feminists, as I guess I've dubbed them, is "equal pay for equal work."  Libertarianism doesn't really have much to say about this, except to say that there shouldn't be laws against paying people unequally since it's a voluntary transaction.  But economics does have something to say about "equal pay for equal work": as long as there is unequal pay for equal work, employers who hire workers from the less equal class will benefit and employers that discriminate will be hurt.  This doesn't mean that racist or sexist businesses will go out of business, necessarily, but they will end up paying a price for their racism or sexism in the form of higher than average wages.  So why do women only get paid 70 cents on the dollar (or whatever the current bogus figure is), compared to a man?  They actually don't.  The discrepancy is an artifact of how you slice up the numbers.  If you look at similarly qualified men and women, none of whom have ever married (apples to apples, in other words), you find that women actually earn a few cents more per hour than a man for the same job.  This makes intuitive sense to me, since all I hear my male friends complain about is how there are too few women at their workplace and how they wish there were more.  I have never heard of a guy who complains about having too many women around (I'm sure he exists, but I have no sympathy for him).

The one area where some libertarians may have a principled objection to libertarian feminism would be on the issue of abortion.  So far as I can tell, in order to be a libertarian feminist you have to be radically pro-choice.  Most libertarians don't have a problem with this, but 30-40% of libertarians are pro-life on the principle of self ownership.  There's really a divide in libertarianism on this issue and it has to do with what you define as a person, when a person obtains rights, etc.  It's a complex issue, and one that probably deserves it's own post, so I'll leave the nuts and bolts of it for another day.  Suffice to say, I think preventing the murder of ~650,000 female fetuses each year would be pro-woman, but I can understand how libertarians who do not think a fetus is entitled to rights would think of anti-abortion laws as anti-woman.  In general I think pro-life libertarians seem to have a great amount of respect for the pro-choice position of other libertarians, and vice versa.  Progressives and conservatives, for the most part, just end up talking past each other on the issue. 

Anyway.  In conclusion, libertarian feminism is way more awesome than socialist feminism.



*Many would argue that today's laws, and even culture, are more anti-male than anti-female. I don't really have too much of an opinion one way or the other when it comes to that, except to say that bad laws will always benefit certain groups at the expense of others, and there is no shortage of bad laws.

Rose Wilder Lane's "The Discovery of Freedom"

I'm not sure how I came across this book, but I'm honestly quite surprised that I hadn't heard of Rose Wilder Lane sooner.  Daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder (author of the "Little House on the Prairie" series of books that later inspired the TV show of the same name), Rose was a prolific writer in the first half of the 20th century.  She wrote books and articles, traveling all over the world to find source material.  She, along with Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson, is considered one of the founders of modern libertarianism.

She really loved freedom. And also (apparently) hats.

Like a surprising number of libertarians, she identified with the communist ideology before eventually turning to libertarianism.  Her conversion came on a trip she took to Soviet Russia as a volunteer with the Red Cross just after the first World War.  Speaking with local villagers and witnessing the inefficiency and stupidity of central planing first-hand, she left Russia no longer a communist.  She was instead instilled with a new found respect for the personal freedom that most of us take for granted in the United States.  She vehemently opposed the New Deal, and published a pamphlet entitled "What is this, the Gestapo?" that was meant to remind Americans to guard their liberties even in the midst of WWII.

But however interesting her personal story is, her book "The Discovery of Freedom" focuses instead on the history of liberty in the world.  She begins by establishing that the belief that an Authority (always capitalized in the text) is responsible for a people's welfare is a pagan religion.  It is a belief in group morality, which is radically different than a belief in individual morality.  And she shows that throughout history this belief has been pervasive; that the ancient leaders from all over the world were either supposed to be divine themselves, or supposedly possessed a divine duty to guide and care for their citizens.

Lane then points out that the first instance in history of an attempt to establish individual morality came from Abraham, who said there was only one God and espoused a belief in individual morality.  She traces this line of thinking forward until the Jews finally anoint a King and belief in individual morality was once again smothered (but later was reignited for a time, she claims, by Jesus Christ).  My favorite example here is the Old Testament story of Gideon who famously refused to become king of the Jews, telling them that only God was their ruler.

She then writes that the second attempt at establishing individual morality came with the advent of Islam.  Mohammed, she says, was also a believer in monotheism and individual morality.  His teachings crushed the local pagan religions and brought about a long period of prosperity and innovation for that region.  She traces this civilization forward until the Crusades, which she documents as a horrific time for liberty.  It was a time where the Kings of Europe believed they were even morally responsible for the thoughts of their subjects.

The third attempt at establishing individual morality, she documents, is in America.  And it is only a few generations old. (A few more than since she wrote the book, I suppose, although a strong argument could be made that this attempt has already ended.)  She talks extensively about the American Revolution, focusing specifically on Thomas Paine.  She then explains how our Constitution is written much differently than the Magna Cartas of the Old World, that the enumerated powers within are delegated to government, as opposed to rights oh-so-graciously granted by government. Democracy, she also points out, is not what this is about.  Belief in democracy, rule by majority opinion, is just the same ancient pagan belief in Authority dressed up a little differently.

I have to say, I really enjoyed this book.  The prose was so clear and full of life (as it seems to be from many writers of that era).  It went a little slow at first, but once I got into it I couldn't put it down.  It's also really cool, in my opinion, that she really links religion to libertarianism.  Many libertarians, mostly in the Ayn Rand tradition I suppose, spend a lot of time condemning religion or at best ignore it.  I have a few quibbles with some of Rose Wilder Lane's interpretations of the Bible, but overall I think she does a fantastic job of linking the moral beliefs of Christianity to a moral belief in capitalism, maximum individual freedom, and the minimal state.  (She probably also does a pretty good job with regard to Islam, but I don't know a lot about Islam so I can't really say for sure.)

The only thing I didn't like about this book is that she seems to have a thing against Germans.  I guess it's understandable, since was writing during the time of WWII, but as a person of German heritage I was slightly offended at times.  But that's ok.  It's easy be wrong about Germans and right about liberty.

If you haven't read this book already, I would highly recommend it.  You can find a pdf for free here, or pay a few bucks and get a nicely formatted version for your kindle here.  (Or for other e-readers here.)  Inspired by this book, I added Isabel Paterson's "The God of the Machine" to my list of books to read.

We Need to Legalize Drugs. Seriously. (Also, Prostitution.)

So lately I've been watching these documentaries on drugs.  They're pretty disturbing.  Watching someone stick a needle into themselves makes me cringe every time, but even at a higher level it's so sad to watch people destroy their lives.  And yet I guess it's like a train wreck (or so I've heard):  I just can't turn away.

But as disturbing as these activities are, should they be illegal?  As a libertarian, I say no.  The only things that should even be considered for prohibition are those things which have negative third-party effects.  And even then, those negative third-party effects need to be substantially greater than the negative third-party effects of the prohibition. (As Milton Friedman said, "There is a smokestack on the back of every government program."  Which is to say, every government program has negative third-party effects:  taxes, regulations, limits on human freedom, and unintended consequences.)

Are there negative third-party effects from drug use?  Absolutely!  Drug abuse destroys families and social institutions.  Pregnant mothers who do drugs put their unborn children at risk of disease and deformity.  Someone's got to treat an overdose (and drug addicts rarely have health insurance) or bury an addict who has overdosed to death.  Those are all horrific third-party effects that would exist whether drugs were legal or illegal.  But most of the third party effects normally associated with drugs, such as violence, disease, and property crime, are not third-party effects from the drugs themselves.  They are artifacts of prohibition, they are the smokestacks on the back of the "War on Drugs."  They are side-effects of the supposed cure and they are worse than the disease.

How does prohibition cause these things?  Let's take a step back and go back to the documentaries.  Much of their focus is on the production of drugs, which I find to be quite interesting as a chemical engineer.  Most of the product gets made in Afghanistan or the jungles of South America.  These people are using car jacks and wooden beams to press out water.  They're mixing this stuff up in square wooden boxes and stirring it with sticks. As an engineer, I'm just watching this and thinking to myself, " This is ridiculous! Think how cheaply Pfizer or Merck could make this stuff with some modern equipment!" (Of course, they'd probably want to patent troll it and jack up the price, but that's another blog for another time.)

Guy adding "chemicals" to the raw opium in the process of refining it into heroin, other guys stirring it with sticks.

Afghans pressing the water out of "refined" opium using a wooden plank.

But shouldn't we want to keep the price high?  No!  The reason drug addicts are committing property crimes isn't because of some inherent property of the drugs, it's because they need to find ways to get a lot of money quickly and the only ways to do that are illegal.  A heroin addict (apparently) needs about 3 hits a day to stay normal.  That's about $100 per day at these inflated prices.  You can't work a normal job and get that kind of money, especially when you're high all the time.  But what if the price was $20 a day?  Or $5 a day?  (Like the average American's Starbucks fix?)  As a junkie, you still won't have a normal life or career obviously, but your addiction suddenly becomes a lot smaller problem.  Instead of having to steal car radios or break into houses, you can beg for some money from your neighbor or a charity.  You can sweep floors for a few nights a week.  Something like that.  At the very least, you have to steal a lot fewer car radios.

Another thing you'll notice, if you watch the documentaries, is how many of the female addicts eventually turn to prostitution.  Why can prostitution pay for an expensive addiction?  Because their "goods," so to speak, are being sold at inflated, prohibition prices!  If prostitution becomes legal, suddenly addicts can't just turn to it when they need some extra cash.  They'd need to jump through all the hoops (health checks, job interviews, etc) just to be able to become competitive in the prostitution marketplace, and even then to command prices as high as they can today they'd probably have to be relatively professional about it.  Would you buy an apple from some grungy looking girl on the corner?  Of course not!  But you might have to if you really wanted apples and apples were illegal.  And you'd also probably have to pay through the nose even for an apple of questionable quality.

Back to drugs.  Another problem with making these drugs in the most primitive way possible is that they become dangerous.  In one of the documentaries there is a doctor who runs a heroin clinic that gives out free heroin to junkies who have a prescription.  He describes the heroin found on the street as "soupy" whereas the medical quality heroin is completely clear.  It's much safer.  The heroin for sale on the street has probably been "stepped on" (diluted with junk like baking soda, sleeping pills, drywall, or even rat poison) over a dozen times along the way.  It's of questionable quality and strength, and because of that a junkie can inadvertently take too large a dose (because he has no idea what is actually in one dose) or end up injecting a lot of harmful trash into himself along with the heroin.

Would you rather buy your heroin from this guy (he's diluting it with sleeping pills right now)...

Or this guy?

You might say you're glad it's dangerous to do heroin.  After all, less people will do it if it's dangerous.  Well... you might be right about that, but if my brother (for example) had a heroin addiction I would much rather he be able to use it (relatively) safely than have to buy junk on the street.  I would rather my brother get clean, but if he's not going to get clean I don't want him to die from an overdose or inject himself with harmful chemicals.  I would want him to be able to get his fix in the safest possible way. The other up-side to letting people get their heroin at a clinic is that they can be checked for diseases like hepatitis, syphilis, and AIDS while they are there and get treatment.  This reduces third party effects from the spread of disease.

Of note to the citizens of Cascadia, Washington state is going to have Initiative 502 on the ballot this fall which would basically decriminalize marijuana in the state of Washington.  I've been talking about hard drugs in this blog, but they are a much harder case than marijuana.  Marijuana is more or less a drug like alcohol, in fact it probably has fewer third party effects than alcohol.  Treating it like alcohol seems extremely prudent.  Prohibition of alcohol didn't work, why do we think prohibition of marijuana will?

Charles Murray’s “What It Means to Be a Libertarian”

In my first blog post I mentioned that the first book I read on libertarianism was Charles Murray’s “What It Means to Be a Libertarian.”  It wasn’t coincidence that I mentioned that particular book, or that it was on my mind.  I was just going through some of my old stuff at my parents’ house and found that book tucked away in a box in a closet.  So I re-read it.*

The broadest possible definition of libertarianism, as I see it, is this:  The belief that the most important political value is the individual liberty of each citizen.  Personal liberty as well as economic liberty.  Each libertarian comes at this from a different angle, but the goal has to be individual liberty.

Dr. Murray’s foremost concern is maximizing the long-term happiness of individuals.  He’s not concerned, necessarily, with the momentary happiness that might come from finding a $20 bill in your pocket or sipping on a cold coke on a warm day.  This kind of happiness is fleeting.  Dr. Murray is primarily concerned with the sense of satisfaction that one can expect to have when looking back on a life well lived.  And that sense of satisfaction, he argues, can only be found if a man can look back and find good things that would not have been otherwise accomplished but for his effort.  It appears to Dr. Murray that in order for a man to be able to get this kind of satisfaction, he must be allowed to fail or succeed on his own merits.  Whatever status a man reaches through life, he should, and most likely would, be able look back with satisfaction if he knows that he has earned it.  This is, in a nutshell, the ethical basis Dr. Murray gives for placing his highest political value on the personal and economic liberties of the individual.

The meat of this book is really focused on defining the framework of Murray’s ideal government and defending that framework.  Murray’s ideal government is sort of a minarchist-plus government:  One that defends the individual rights of people with police, courts, and a military but also provides “public goods” such as roads, utilities, and even school vouchers so long as the administration of these goods is controlled at the most local level of government possible.   His defense is constructed by taking on the hardest possible cases for libertarians (the environment, public safety, public welfare, discrimination, healthcare, etc.) and showing why it is reasonable to believe that his ideal government would handle these problems better than the current government. 

Ultimately, Murray claims that a return to a government like the one he describes is possible when people begin to think of the government as “them” rather than “us.”  I think he’s right.  In fact, a good definition of “what it means to be a libertarian” might just be this:  thinking of the government as “them” rather than “us.”

*I hardly ever re-read books.  In fact I can’t even think of another book I’ve ever re-read cover to cover.  So just that fact alone should be interpreted as a ringing endorsement of Dr. Murray’s manifesto.

Tom Woods on Gary Johnson (The Peter Schiff Show 5/17/2012)

On today’s edition of The Peter Schiff Show, guest hosted by the great historian Tom Woods, a caller asked what Tom’s opinion was on Libertarian party presidential nominee Gary Johnson.  Now, I’m a huge Gary Johnson supporter so I was saddened by Tom’s answer.  Tom basically acted disappointed in Governor Johnson, saying he was “too wonkish” and needed more charisma… *sigh*

Maybe, being the kind of person who watches videos of all the events at the Cato Institute and reads books about monetary policy and zoning laws for fun, I’m just more of a wonk myself but I tend to identify more with a guy like Gary than a pitchforks-and-torches kind of candidate.  And I think the fact that Gary Johnson has a great record as a former governor is a huge comparative advantage, even if he doesn’t necessarily have the charisma of a Ronald Reagan or even a Michael Badnarik.  His credentials give him credibility, and that credibility can hook people who might ordinarily ignore the Libertarian candidate, assuming he’s a kook.

 

Think about it.  If I tell one of my non-libertarian fence-sitting friends about Michael Badnarik (a software engineer who has, for all I and my friend know, never run anything larger than his own household) and get him to watch a youtube speech or, if I’m some kind of a miracle worker, get him to come out to a Badnarik event he might sense the charisma and look more closely into the libertarian principles Badnarik is talking about.  Maybe.  Or maybe he’ll realize that Hitler also had quite a bit of charisma but his ideas were obviously very bad.  But either way he’s going to be pretty hesitant going into the whole thing.  A guy like Badnarik really has not done anything to show that he’s ready for the job of president, and so his ideas probably won’t get a fair shake.

But with a record like Gary’s, I have ammo to ply my friend’s sense of logic.  I can say, “Look, Gary Johnson cut 1,200 government jobs and New Mexico did fine.  They did better than fine!  They created 20,000 private sector jobs, and had a balanced budget to boot. Let’s bring him to the national government where he can do the same thing!”  From there we can get into a discussion of the issues, and I can point to a youtube video or a website once my friend is interested.  I don’t have to drag him around and hold his hand to get him to come.  And once he comes he’s going to be there because he’s genuinely interested in the ideas, not because he wants to experience some new and different sub-culture of America; not because he wants to observe us like he would some kind of strange species at the zoo.  On top of that, this is the more likely scenario.  Let’s face it, I’m not going to be able to get him to watch a speech.  I’m not going to be able to get him to come out to an event.  It’s going to be me and him talking about the issues, and Gary Johnson’s record brings credibility to the ideas I’m going to put forward.  If anything, it's my charisma that's going to matter, not Gary's.

This perception that our libertarian ideas need to be sold by some charismatic demagogue...  I mean, sure, it would be great if we could have a charismatic candidate who also has a stellar record of governing as a libertarian, but it would also be great to wake up and find $50,000 in cash dropped on my doorstep by the tooth fairy.  I doubt either scenario is going to happen, so why complain when it doesn't occur?  We should be focusing on what we’ve got to work with here:  A stellar record, built on libertarian principles, that easily beats Mitt Romney’s abysmal record in Massachusetts and Obama’s appalling record of economic stagnation.  Maybe Gary Johnson’s red meat speeches aren’t quite as red and juicy as libertarians would like them to be (although I thought his speech at the convention was pretty good), but I think his record is a much bigger asset than charisma if we choose to use it wisely.
    

But anyway, while Tom was on a rant about the kinds of things he wished Governor Johnson would say, he did come up with an awesome line that I’ll leave you to ponder: 

“The problem is not that the government is 7% too inefficient, the problem is that the government is composed of sociopaths who have no sympathy for the average person and who simply want to make a living on the backs of working people doing jobs that not only accomplish nothing, but are positive hindrances to growth in this country.”

Amen, Tom.