In Defense of Rand

Recently Rand has said that he’s not going to end the war on drugs. This has caused a barrage of Paul bashing by libertarians. I want to try and sway libertarians back into Paul’s camp.

Before libertarians unfollow me or bash me, let me explain what I am NOT saying: I am not saying that Rand Paul is a libertarian. I am not saying that I don’t disagree with him on ending the war on drugs. Hell, I am not even saying that I like him. When he first came onto the scene of politics, I didn’t like him. I still don’t particularly like him. However, Rand Paul doesn’t need to be a libertarian to have some decent beliefs. Nor should your entire focus be on him ending the war on drugs. Nor do you even need to LIKE him.

I want whomever is reading this to do a little thought experiment.. I want you to imagine if India had acted like many libertarians have before 1991 when economic liberalization occurred. What if Indians refused to vote for Narasimha Rao because he didn’t fully support capitalism. After all, India is still far from a capitalistic country. Rather, they are a mixed economy. They still have many regulations in place. Now make that comparison with how libertarians are acting today. Rand Paul doesn’t want to end the war on drugs, and libertarians don’t like that. That’s fine because I agree with libertarians on that. The war on drugs SHOULD be ended, but libertarians are not interested in making small steps forward. This is the mistake that libertarians make. Rather than take the incremental steps like India took for making a more liberal economy, libertarians want all or nothing. They refuse a MORE libertarian society because they want a PURE libertarian society. This is a mistake because it’s not going to happen immediately. It is a mistake because incremental steps must be taken in order to get a libertarian society. Evolution happens slowly. Ideas change slowly.

Now the libertarian might say, “well, how is Rand Paul any different from any other Republican?” That’s a good question, and is something that libertarians should ask about any Republican. Luckily, in the same piece that Reason put out to cause all of this unnecessary controversy, Reason writes that Paul wants to reduce sentences for people caught with drugs, especially the mandatory minimums which expands the criminal code to include more crimes and does away with federal parole (funny enough it’s the same author that wrote Paul wants to reform mandatory minimums that wrote the article that got everyone upset about Paul). Paul teamed up with Pat Leahy, a well known Democrat, to try and pass this bill. This wasn’t 2 or 3 years before he’s making his presidential bid. This was in March of 2013. I don’t know of many, if any, other Republican Senators are doing this.

Another thing to remember, though, is that, according to the same author that caused all of this controversy, only 214k, out of the 6.98 million people locked up overall, are in a federal prison. Out of the 214k people, roughly 100k of them are drug offenders (not necessarily nonviolent drug offenders, simply just drug offenders). If he is correct about this, that leaves more than 6.5 million people are in state jails. According to the ACLU, half of the people in state jails are nonviolent drug offenders. This is important because we see that drug reform needs to happen at a state level rather than federal level.

There is some good news. For the first time in a long time, marijuana is legal in a few states. What if libertarians had used the same kind of reasoning as they are with Paul against Massachusetts whom only legalized medicinal marijuana? Hardly any libertarian would say that it was not a step in the right direction or that it should never have even happened. The point is public opinion on many of these social issues are becoming more libertarian. Social issues and freedom are just as important as economic freedom. There is absolutely no doubt about that, but because social issues are becoming more liberalized, it may be time to pay more attention to economic issues. Paul is still fine on economic freedom. So what is the last remaining argument against Paul?

“Paul is not a libertarian!” Well, that’s a terrible argument. In that same manner, neither is Ron Paul or Gary Johnson. Libertarianism does not coincide well with politics because it is the anti-politic.

The war on drugs needs to be ended. There is no doubt about that. It wastes too much money, it causes cartels which in turn causes violence in other countries, and the mindset it creates for people who depend on government to tell them what is good and what is evil in turn creates laws that hurt innocent people. The war on drugs is a terrible, evil thing. However, if we cannot end it, we should at least take a step in the right direction. Much like India did with their liberalization policy in 1991. I don’t think any libertarian would argue that India should never have become a mixed economy simply because it wasn’t purely capitalistic. Furthermore, the drug reform on a state level is certainly just as, if not more, important than the federal level.

Paul is not perfect. However, there is no perfect libertarian. There is also no perfect politician. Libertarianism will only take hold if we make incremental steps. As catchy as a phrase might be like, “we run before we walk,” there is an even truer catch phrase that libertarians might think about adopting, “lead by example.” Libertarians like theory. This is good because so do I. However, instead of trying to hypothesize of what a libertarian society coud look like, perhaps it would be more effective in winning the hearts over of other people if we actually began to implement incremental steps to a MORE libertarian society. That way we can point to the successes of freedom and win the hearts over of all the naysayers.

distri:

 

I’m not trying to debate hun. Like generalizations for libertarians are pretty true. Like you don’t run into many PoC or women libertarians. lololol.

And wow, you really do wanna debate. I’m just pointing out contradictions in the ideology that is libertarian thinking. It’s just relaly fun ppl people can’t really defend their shit. Like let’s break it down. I for one did not say that there is forced freedom. That’s putting words in my mouth. The situation in question is total freedom where it literally contradicts. Like what if there is a guy who just wants to go on a shooting spree and kill everyone? They’re actively oppressing other people in said ‘free’ society. What do you do when people encroaching on others?

You don’t run into many libertarians in general. However, I bet if you asked what some people’s beliefs are, they’d lean pretty libertarian. They just don’t know about libertarianism. In any case, many of the generalizations are wrong about libertarians, much like many of the generalizations about black people, women, and many other groups of people are wrong. Besides, isn’t generalizing considered a form of discrimination or demeaning behavior? Yuck.

In any case, you will always beat a libertarian if you represent a straw man like that. What libertarian do you know that believes we should have absolute freedom to do whatever someone wants? Now that I know your position, we can agree on something: nobody wants everyone to be free to run around murdering other people and getting off with no repercussions. NOW that being said, IF you’re really asking me about this, and IF you really don’t have an idea of what a libertarian anarchist might say to this, then you’re proving what I first said: people that criticize anarchism, generally have never read anything about it. It’s not typical we get a knock down arguments in political arguments, but I think I just had one.  

distri:

theangrylibertarian:

distri:

theangrylibertarian:

It is so obvious that the people who critique anarchism are the ones who have never read anything about it.

Or you know, people with common sense, critical thinking skills, and an understanding of how oppression works and how anarchy fails to solve many problems. Also dialectical reasoning

I am not entirely white, by the way. So, I am a little annoyed by your hashtag. I am also not rich by any means so your assumptions show a little ignorance. Ironically enough, you made that assumption without using any “dialectical reasoning”. Oh, have you read anything by any anarchists of libertarian thought?

You def look white passing and you def are easily mistaken as a white person and libertarians tend to be white males. Sorry if it offended you.

Anyway, I did not say you were rich. I have no idea where the fuck you got that from what I was saying. Like I didn’t mention money at all. But then you can grasp at straws.

But then again, who needs to. In a free market where everybody is ‘free’, there will be people who are stronger and force their version of freedom on others therefore full libertarian ‘freedom’ isn’t really free. It’s sorta simple logical contradiction. Like are you really free when others can encroach on your freedom and oppress you anyway? Think about it.

Not a kid, by the way. Secondly, you were making generalizations about libertarians. One of those generalizations is that they are white rich males. I was just getting it out of the way before you accused me of that, too. Implying that I was creating a straw man is funny because that’s how you started off the conversation.

Anyway, forcing someone to be free is not forcing them to do anything. That’s a conceptual contradiction. You can’t force somebody to be free. So, libertarians aren’t forcing anyone to be free. If people truly wanted a government, they could create a voluntary “government” but by no means should they force others into it. Saying that libertarians are forcing people to be free is like saying that someone who is defending themselves is aggressing the aggressor. If libertarians are fighting coercion to make people free then they aren’t forcing people to be free. Also, your question is a self-defeating one if you’re using it to argue for government. Are you really free if the government encroaches on your freedom and oppresses you anyway?

distri:

theangrylibertarian:

It is so obvious that the people who critique anarchism are the ones who have never read anything about it.

Or you know, people with common sense, critical thinking skills, and an understanding of how oppression works and how anarchy fails to solve many problems. Also dialectical reasoning

I am not entirely white, by the way. So, I am a little annoyed by your hashtag. I am also not rich by any means so your assumptions show a little ignorance. Ironically enough, you made that assumption without using any “dialectical reasoning”. Oh, have you read anything by any anarchists of libertarian thought?

Mark Twain teaches economics to the protectionists (some politicians might want to read)

The king got his cargo aboard, and then, the talk not turning upon battle, conquest, or iron-clad duel, he dulled down to drowsiness and went off to take a nap.  Mrs. Marco cleared the table, placed the beer keg handy, and went away to eat her dinner of leavings in humble privacy, and the rest of us soon drifted into matters near and dear to the hearts of our sort—business and wages, of course.  At a first glance, things appeared to be exceeding prosperous in this little tributary kingdom—whose lord was King Bagdemagus—as compared with the state of things in my own region.  They had the “protection” system in full force here, whereas we were working along down toward free-trade, by easy stages, and were now about half way.  Before long, Dowley and I were doing all the talking, the others hungrily listening.  Dowley warmed to his work, snuffed an advantage in the air, and began to put questions which he considered pretty awkward ones for me, and they did have something of that look:

“In your country, brother, what is the wage of a master bailiff, master hind, carter, shepherd, swineherd?”

“Twenty-five milrays a day; that is to say, a quarter of a cent.”

The smith’s face beamed with joy.  He said:

“With us they are allowed the double of it!  And what may a mechanic get—carpenter, dauber, mason, painter, blacksmith, wheelwright, and the like?”

“On the average, fifty milrays; half a cent a day.”

“Ho-ho!  With us they are allowed a hundred!  With us any good mechanic is allowed a cent a day!  I count out the tailor, but not the others—they are all allowed a cent a day, and in driving times they get more—yes, up to a hundred and ten and even fifteen milrays a day.  I’ve paid a hundred and fifteen myself, within the week.  ’Rah for protection—to Sheol with free-trade!”

And his face shone upon the company like a sunburst.  But I didn’t scare at all.  I rigged up my pile-driver, and allowed myself fifteen minutes to drive him into the earth—drive him all in—drive him in till not even the curve of his skull should show above ground.  Here is the way I started in on him.  I asked:

“What do you pay a pound for salt?”

“A hundred milrays.”

“We pay forty.  What do you pay for beef and mutton—when you buy it?”  That was a neat hit; it made the color come.

“It varieth somewhat, but not much; one may say seventy-five milrays the pound.”

“We pay thirty-three.  What do you pay for eggs?”

“Fifty milrays the dozen.”

“We pay twenty.  What do you pay for beer?”

“It costeth us eight and one-half milrays the pint.”

“We get it for four; twenty-five bottles for a cent. What do you pay for wheat?”

“At the rate of nine hundred milrays the bushel.”

“We pay four hundred.  What do you pay for a man’s tow-linen suit?”

“Thirteen cents.”

“We pay six.  What do you pay for a stuff gown for the wife of the laborer or the mechanic?”

“We pay eight cents, four mills.”

“Well, observe the difference:  you pay eight cents and four mills, we pay only four cents.”  I prepared now to sock it to him.  I said: “Look here, dear friend, what’s become of your high wages you were bragging so about a few minutes ago? ”—and I looked around on the company with placid satisfaction, for I had slipped up on him gradually and tied him hand and foot, you see, without his ever noticing that he was being tied at all.  ”What’s become of those noble high wages of yours?—I seem to have knocked the stuffing all out of them, it appears to me.”

But if you will believe me, he merely looked surprised, that is all! he didn’t grasp the situation at all, didn’t know he had walked into a trap, didn’t discover that he was in a trap.  I could have shot him, from sheer vexation.  With cloudy eye and a struggling intellect he fetched this out:

“Marry, I seem not to understand.  It is proved that our wages be double thine; how then may it be that thou’st knocked therefrom the stuffing?—an miscall not the wonderly word, this being the first time under grace and providence of God it hath been granted me to hear it.”

Well, I was stunned; partly with this unlooked-for stupidity on his part, and partly because his fellows so manifestly sided with him and were of his mind—if you might call it mind.  My position was simple enough, plain enough; how could it ever be simplified more?  However, I must try:

“Why, look here, brother Dowley, don’t you see?  Your wages are merely higher than ours in name , not in fact .”

“Hear him!  They are the double—ye have confessed it yourself.”

“Yes-yes, I don’t deny that at all.  But that’s got nothing to do with it; the amount of the wages in mere coins, with meaningless names attached to them to know them by, has got nothing to do with it.  The thing is, how much can you buywith your wages?—that’s the idea.  While it is true that with you a good mechanic is allowed about three dollars and a half a year, and with us only about a dollar and seventy-five—”

“There—ye’re confessing it again, ye’re confessing it again!”

“Confound it, I’ve never denied it, I tell you!  What I say is this.  With us half a dollar buys more than a dollar buys with you—and therefore it stands to reason and the commonest kind of common-sense, that our wages are higher than yours.”

He looked dazed, and said, despairingly:

“Verily, I cannot make it out.  Ye’ve just said ours are the higher, and with the same breath ye take it back.”

“Oh, great Scott, isn’t it possible to get such a simple thing through your head?  Now look here—let me illustrate.  We pay four cents for a woman’s stuff gown, you pay 8.4.0, which is four mills more than double .  What do you allow a laboring woman who works on a farm?”

“Two mills a day.”

“Very good; we allow but half as much; we pay her only a tenth of a cent a day; and—”

“Again ye’re conf—”

“Wait!  Now, you see, the thing is very simple; this time you’ll understand it.  For instance, it takes your woman 42 days to earn her gown, at 2 mills a day—7 weeks’ work; but ours earns hers in forty days—two days short of 7 weeks.  Your woman has a gown, and her whole seven weeks wages are gone; ours has a gown, and two days’ wages left, to buy something else with.  There—now you understand it!”

He looked—well, he merely looked dubious, it’s the most I can say; so did the others.  I waited—to let the thing work.  Dowley spoke at last—and betrayed the fact that he actually hadn’t gotten away from his rooted and grounded superstitions yet.  He said, with a trifle of hesitancy:

“But—but—ye cannot fail to grant that two mills a day is better than one.”

Shucks!  Well, of course, I hated to give it up.  So I chanced another flyer:

“Let us suppose a case.  Suppose one of your journeymen goes out and buys the following articles:

  ”1 pound of salt;    1 dozen eggs;    1 dozen pints of beer;    1 bushel of wheat;    1 tow-linen suit;    5 pounds of beef;    5 pounds of mutton.

“The lot will cost him 32 cents.  It takes him 32 working days to earn the money—5 weeks and 2 days.  Let him come to us and work 32 days at half the wages; he can buy all those things for a shade under 14 1/2 cents; they will cost him a shade under 29 days’ work, and he will have about half a week’s wages over.  Carry it through the year; he would save nearly a week’s wages every two months, your man nothing; thus saving five or six weeks’ wages in a year, your man not a cent.  Now I reckon you understand that ‘high wages’ and ‘low wages’ are phrases that don’t mean anything in the world until you find out which of them will buy the most!”

It was a crusher.

But, alas! it didn’t crush.  No, I had to give it up.  What those people valued was high wages ; it didn’t seem to be a matter of any consequence to them whether the high wages would buy anything or not.  They stood for “protection,” and swore by it, which was reasonable enough, because interested parties had gulled them into the notion that it was protection which had created their high wages.  I proved to them that in a quarter of a century their wages had advanced but 30 per cent., while the cost of living had gone up 100; and that with us, in a shorter time, wages had advanced 40 per cent. while the cost of living had gone steadily down.  But it didn’t do any good.  Nothing could unseat their strange beliefs.

It is so obvious that the people who critique anarchism are the ones who have never read anything about it.

I just updated my UI! Woo! I will be posting something about Rand Paul later tonight. It’s going to be extremely unpopular opinion, but I figure that the libertarian movement needs a little diversity, and less dogmatism.

P.S. It’s not done yet, but I wanted to hurry up and post about Rand Paul.

The “Capitalism Institute” vs Anarchy

Shaun Connell runs the “Capitalism Institute” and the whatiscapitalism blog here on Tumblr. I, myself, started out following the Capitalism Institute Facebook page, but was extremely turned off by what was frequently posted. I was reminded of that again when I had seen what someone reposted of his (as a critique). Shaun believes he has an argument against libertarianism anarchism (or anarcho-capitalism, from here on out will just be “anarchism”). He says that libertarians should reject anarchy. Lets see his reasoning, and why it’s wrong:

“Anarcho-capitalism is a fundamentally contradictory philosophy. Coercion is not part of the market, so having coercion dictated by the market completely misses the point.

This shouldn’t even be controversial. Heck, most anarchists —daily— make the point that “coercion messes up the market so we shouldn’t do it”, only to turn around and say that coercion should be dictated by the market.

Anarcho-capitalism asks the market to do the one thing that it can’t do: facilitate coercion. 

Markets are great at facilitating trade, helping people use prices to direct who does what work where, who gets to own what, etc. Markets are horrible at deciding what happens to pedophiles, what happens to unpopular bankers, and what happens to Muslims in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack. ”

Here Shaun is using coercion extremely vague. Is he talking about coercion against an individual or coercion to gain an advantage of a market? He switches back and forth about topics. When he says coercion messes up the market, it would appear as though he is referring to.. well, markets. Then he goes on to talk about what happens to criminals. It is fairly clear that he hasn’t read much anarchist literature. Regardless, his main claim that anarchism is contradictory does not hold. First, he does not differentiate between defense and coercion. This mistake creates a confusion. Anarchists are most certainly against coercion (if they weren’t, they would believe in the state.. hint, hint Shaun), so when he claims that anarchists want the market to facilitate coercion, he truly believes he has a knock down argument. Unfortunately because he can’t differentiate between defense and coercion, he has no argument. Anarchists would love for markets to facilitate protection agencies. The only thing I could think of that he may be talking about is if somebody used his protection agency to go after other people (which I think he states in his response somewhere), but there’s no reason why we should believe that this is true. Why would a protection agency try to go after somebody with no base of a claim? Furthermore, they’d have to prove that the defendant somehow violated the plaintiff, but this seems impossible if the defendant was innocent. He might claim that the agency is a corrupt one, but this is the exception not the rule. He’d also have to show why it would almost always be corrupt. Good luck, Shaun.

Lastly, this quote is ridiculous:

“Anarchy is to politics what pacifism is to self-defense: a philosophy that misses the point, demonizes the protectors of society, and leads to destruction.”

“Protectors of society”? Protectors from what? Coercion? That is a bit contradictory. “I shall use coercion to fight coercion!” This makes no sense, Shaun. Another issue is that there seems to be a recurring tone that coercion is bad in the post, but then he goes on to defend government which is the biggest coercive entity ever. The only way that government could not be the biggest coercive entity ever is if there is a malevolent god. 

Shaun may not even warrant a response (I read some other very questionable things you said, but didn’t want to make this post too long people would get bored). Perhaps I am giving him too much credit. However, what made me even more frustrated is his ad hominem on anarchists by even mentioning anarchists in the same post, on the same topic, of saying that Rothbard is anarchists god, and Rothbard was a rape apologist. A subtle ad hominem by implying that anarchists would approve of rape apology. Secondly, it becomes abundantly clear when Shaun expresses ignorance by saying that Rothbard is the god of anarchists. This shows he has not read, or delved at all, into anarchist literature. Message to Shaun:

Read Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman & The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer. Linked is the entire book by David Friedman (Milton Friedman’s son) & the first chapter of The Problem of Political Authority (which is different than Friedman’s consequential/utilitarian approach, as well as Rothbard’s radical natural rights approach). Cheers to actually reading anarchist literature rather than reading what Stefan Molyneux fans say on your Facebook page!

Why Libertarians Should Reject Anarchy

whatiscapitalism:

Anarcho-capitalism is a fundamentally contradictory philosophy. Coercion is not part of the market, so having coercion dictated by the market completely misses the point. 

This shouldn’t even be controversial. Heck, most anarchists —daily— make the point that “coercion messes up the market so we shouldn’t do it”, only to turn around and say that coercion should be dictated by the market. 

Anarcho-capitalism asks the market to do the one thing that it can’t do: facilitate coercion. 

Markets are great at facilitating trade, helping people use prices to direct who does what work where, who gets to own what, etc. Markets are horrible at deciding what happens to pedophiles, what happens to unpopular bankers, and what happens to Muslims in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack.

Anarchy is to politics what pacifism is to self-defense: a philosophy that misses the point, demonizes the protectors of society, and leads to destruction.

Perhaps worst of all, the anarchists are mostly unchallenged by self-professed libertarians, because being “for” the government isn’t edgy, requires admitting that sometimes you can’t get to nirvana, and losing one’s “libertarian outsider” street cred.

I know plenty of non-anarchist libertarians — but few are willing to spend any time at all on why anarchy isn’t justified. This is horrible, and endangers the entire liberty movement, because it allows the fringe to define the middle. Until people understand that liberty isn’t anarchy, the libertarian movement won’t be mainstream.

Here’s to a constitutional government, regardless of what the “market” is begging for.

“Anarcho-capitalism is a fundamentally contradictory philosophy. Coercion is not part of the market, so having coercion dictated by the market completely misses the point. “

This does not show that it is contradictory. At best you can argue that minarchism is more efficient than anarchism, but there’s not a lot of reason to believe that.

“Markets are great at facilitating trade, helping people use prices to direct who does what work where, who gets to own what, etc. Markets are horrible at deciding what happens to pedophiles, what happens to unpopular bankers, and what happens to Muslims in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack.”

How do you know this? Furthermore, you’re missing the point: governments do it worse.

“Perhaps worst of all, the anarchists are mostly unchallenged by self-professed libertarians, because being “for” the government isn’t edgy, requires admitting that sometimes you can’t get to nirvana, and losing one’s “libertarian outsider” street cred.”

Minarchists frequently criticize anarchism. Maybe you just haven’t read much of the literature.

I would highly recommend reading some anarchist literature. I really don’t think you have. At best you’ve just read what some people on Facebook have said about anarchism. Even if you were to copy and paste all of those statuses and comments together, you still would not be as enlightened as if you read Rothbard, Friedman, and Huemer. 

Michael Huemer, the professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, argues that people have a prima facie (at first value) right to immigrate where ever people please (including the United States).

There are a few audio problems occasionally so please don’t blare this while listening on your headphones. I don’t recommend blaring it at all.