Libertarian Leverage

Via Liberty Maven, Ron Paul Forums member 'Peace&Freedom' made an excellent post summarizing five ways that the Barr-Root ticket advances the rEVOLution. In a nutshell, the Barr-Root ticket will:

1. Ensure McCain's defeat, making it easier for Ron Paul Republicans to take over the party in the next cycle.

2. Pressures the GOP to move towards a pro-liberty position from within and without

3. A strong LP showing will prevent the GOP faithful from blaming the Paulites for the loss

4. Barr will continue Paul's themes, keeping Paul's campaign alive past the convention

5. Keeps alive the possibility that the GOP could choose to throw McCain overboard at the convention

Of all these benefits that the Barr-Root ticket provides, none is more intriguing than the possibility of the GOP rejecting a McCain candidacy that is 15 or 20 points behind in the polls at convention time. If McCain is down 55-35-10 (Obama-McCain-Barr) at the convention, couldn't the GOP libertarian caucus propose a joint Paul-Barr ticket in order to avert disaster in November? Although such a scenario is not likely to unfold, it remains a possibility.

Although we focus on a McCain-Paul swap-out at the convention, I wouldn't count out a McCain-XXX change. As I've stated before, I think that this race has the potential to become a lopsided victory for Obama. Although still in a primary fight, Obama is already leading in key swings states, and polls far better when Hillary's name is not included in the questioning. If he's down by 20 points at election time, what prevents one of his numerous health problems from being an excuse to drop out and the GOP going with Romney or Huckabee. Even without a backroom deal to have him drop out, what prevents the GOP from just throwing him overboard if he's down by 20 points? His only appeal, after all, to the GOP is his 'electability'.

At InTrade, McCain is currently trading at 95.5 for getting the GOP nomination. That's a 20-fold profit for anybody who has the foresight to short the contract if the GOP ends up dumping McCain.

Libertarian Leverage

Via Liberty Maven, Ron Paul Forums member 'Peace&Freedom' made an excellent post summarizing five ways that the Barr-Root ticket advances the rEVOLution. In a nutshell, the Barr-Root ticket will:

1. Ensure McCain's defeat, making it easier for Ron Paul Republicans to take over the party in the next cycle.

2. Pressures the GOP to move towards a pro-liberty position from within and without

3. A strong LP showing will prevent the GOP faithful from blaming the Paulites for the loss

4. Barr will continue Paul's themes, keeping Paul's campaign alive past the convention

5. Keeps alive the possibility that the GOP could choose to throw McCain overboard at the convention

Of all these benefits that the Barr-Root ticket provides, none is more intriguing than the possibility of the GOP rejecting a McCain candidacy that is 15 or 20 points behind in the polls at convention time. If McCain is down 55-35-10 (Obama-McCain-Barr) at the convention, couldn't the GOP libertarian caucus propose a joint Paul-Barr ticket in order to avert disaster in November? Although such a scenario is not likely to unfold, it remains a possibility.

Although we focus on a McCain-Paul swap-out at the convention, I wouldn't count out a McCain-XXX change. As I've stated before, I think that this race has the potential to become a lopsided victory for Obama. Although still in a primary fight, Obama is already leading in key swings states, and polls far better when Hillary's name is not included in the questioning. If he's down by 20 points at election time, what prevents one of his numerous health problems from being an excuse to drop out and the GOP going with Romney or Huckabee. Even without a backroom deal to have him drop out, what prevents the GOP from just throwing him overboard if he's down by 20 points? His only appeal, after all, to the GOP is his 'electability'.

At InTrade, McCain is currently trading at 95.5 for getting the GOP nomination. That's a 20-fold profit for anybody who has the foresight to short the contract if the GOP ends up dumping McCain.

Why Obama-Hagel Makes So Much Sense

As I mentioned earlier today over at LRC, an Obama-Hagel ticket is making more and more sense. After taking a look at the electoral college calculator, the Democrats win if they (1) win Iowa, (2) win Colorado, and (3) win Omaha's Congressional District (Obama could also win w/ NM and NV if they lose CO). Based on that, Hagel will deliver at least one of Nebraska's 5 electoral votes (maybe even take 4 out 5 there) and help shore up Obama's support in Iowa, where he is strong but could always use more help. Hagel could also add a couple of points across the board for Obama (and maybe even help in MO), giving Obama a lock.

From Jonah's Lips to God's Ears

Yesterday, I fantasized about McCain running on a unity NeoCon ticket, a ticket that would be a political windfall for the Libertarian Party. Today, NRO's Jonah Goldberg calls for the very same thing:

Meanwhile, a national-unity ticket would, among other things, expose Obama’s fraudulent claims to be a post-partisan uniter and reformer. The party-line, left-wing Democrat has done almost nothing in his short political career to support either claim. He is a product of the profoundly corrupt Chicago machine, not an enemy of it. And his definition of bipartisanship amounts to welcoming the unqualified support of Republicans who support his liberal agenda. The most liberal member of the Senate in 2007, according to National Journal, wasn’t even a member of the bipartisan gang of 14.

Such a daring move on McCain’s part would also signal that the country might enjoy a timeout from partisan rancor. Even the Obama-sycophantic mainstream press would have to admire such a profound gesture. The benefit for Republicans might be substantial. The party could rightly claim to have the bigger tent and the stronger commitment to serious reform. And for movement conservatives, the next four years could be a time for much-needed rebuilding. Obviously, a Joe Lieberman or Sam Nunn would not be the presumptive front-runner for the GOP nomination in 2012. And the lack of an heir apparent would encourage a healthy and vigorous debate for the future of the party.

I sure hope Mr. McCain reads Jonah Goldberg's editorials. For one, if McCain picks Joe Lieberman as his running mate it will tear the GOP asunder. The pro-lifers, (remaining) fiscal conservatives, and foreign policy realists will walk out the party in disgust; the GOP will be left in a pile of rubble, eaten from the inside out by NeoCon termites. And after a disastrous loss in the fall, they will be looking for new leadership. A second reason I yearn for a unity NeoCon ticket is that it will serve as a realigning event: the new paradigm will be the war party vs. the (relative) peace party. When the GOP is stripped of its attractive facade of pro-lifers and fiscal conservatives, it will be seen as nothing more than the ghoulish monstrosity that it is: a collection of warmongers, corporatist hacks, and shills for the redistributionist state. Post '08, the GOP (or a successor party) would have to re-build a coalition of freedom-minded individuals.

NRO: 'Barr is Irrelevant'

So irrelevant that the NRO brain trust had to put together an editorial excoriating Barr for changing his mind on the Patriot Act, the War on Drugs, and the Global War on Tactics:

We don’t begrudge anyone the right to change their views, and applaud Barr’s change on medical marijuana. But on the war on terror, he’s simply wrong, opposing laws that have updated and rationalized the government’s powers to counter terrorism, and doing so while balancing respect for constitutional liberties with the need for public safety. Barr has resorted to the most demagogic arguments against the laws, including hysteria over the “library search” provision of the Patriot Act.

In a close presidential race, every vote is important. The press is speculating that Barr could be John McCain’s Nader. We doubt it. It will probably be Barr’s fate to be ignored, and those libertarians who care about the credibility of their cause should be glad of it.

Guys, if he's irrelevant, why devote an entire editorial to attacking him for "flip-flopping", while you've never mentioned Romney's? The party hacks are scared – Lowry, Frummy, Kristol, and the rest of the Lincoln cult over at NRO (except for Derb, their token rEVOLutionary). When Rush Limbaugh talks about McCain 'crossing the aisle' to talk to conservatives', something is foul in the GOP air. They know they have a revolt on their hands as they're driving the GOP off an authoritarian cliff. This editorial was nothing more than an attempt to tell the kiddies to lock the doors, buckle up, and ignore all the other vehicles slamming on their brakes...

(thanks to Daniel McCarthy for first seeing the absurdity of loudly announcing the "irrelevance" of a candidate)

Update: More on Obamanomics

Update: I received an e-mail from a reader who did not buy the ends/means argument, but Murray Rothbard sure did. From his essay "Left and Right: Prospects for Liberty" (1965):

Thus, with liberalism abandoned from within, there was no longer a party of hope in the Western world, no longer a “Left” movement to lead a struggle against the state and against the unbreached remainder of the Old Order. Into this gap, into this void created by the drying up of radical liberalism, there stepped a new movement: socialism. Libertarians of the present day are accustomed to think of socialism as the polar opposite of the libertarian creed. But this is a grave mistake, responsible for a severe ideological disorientation of libertarians in the present world. As we have seen, conservatism was the polar opposite of liberty; and socialism, while to the “left” of conservatism, was essentially a confused, middle-of-the-road movement. It was, and still is, middle-of-the-road because it tries to achieve liberal ends by the use of conservative means.

In short, Russell Kirk, who claims that socialism was the heir of classical liberalism, and Ronald Hamowy, who sees socialism as the heir of conservatism, are both right; for the question is on what aspect of this confused centrist movement we happen to be focusing. Socialism, like liberalism and against conservatism, accepted the industrial system and the liberal goals of freedom, reason, mobility, progress, higher living standards for the masses, and an end to theocracy and war; but it tried to achieve these ends by the use of incompatible, conservative means: statism, central planning, communitarianism, etc. Or rather, to be more precise, there were from the beginning two different strands within socialism: one was the right-wing, authoritarian strand, from Saint-Simon down, which glorified statism, hierarchy, and collectivism and which was thus a projection of conservatism trying to accept and dominate the new industrial civilization.

So, we're down to choosing a candidate (Obama) that pursues liberal ends (freedom, reason, mobility, progress, higher living standards for the masses, and an end to theocracy and war) by statist means (statism, central planning, communitarianism) with the chance that he is open to liberal methods, or a candidate (McCain) who pursues statist ends (statism, hierarchy, and collectivism) by statist means.

More on Obamanomics

As I mentioned yesterday, the nuts and bolts of an Obama economic policy is much more market-oriented than the MSM has led us to believe -- to the economic right of Clinton for sure and possibly to the right of McCain (depending on whether you see another tax cut paired w/ a debt orgy as market-oriented or not). Now, David Friedman (the anarchocapitalist son of Milton Friedman) is coming out favoring Obama over McCain:

Perhaps I am too optimistic about Obama, but I do not think he is going to turn out to be an orthodox liberal. There is a group of intellectuals connected with the University of Chicago who have accepted a good deal of the Chicago school analysis but still want to think of themselves as leftists. They are, as I see it, trying to construct a new version of what "left" means. Examples would be Cass Sunstein and Austan Goolsby, both at Chicago, and Larry Lessig, who used to be there.

Sunstein describes himself as a libertarian paternalist, meaning that he wants to take advantage of elements of irrationality in individual decision making to nudge people into making what he considers the right decisions, while leaving them free not to if they so wish. Goolsby, judging by webbed pieces of his I've read, is a pro-market economist who happens to be a Democrat, rather like Alfred Kahn, who gave us airline deregulation under Carter. He is also Obama's economic advisor. I do not agree with all his views—for details of one disagreement see an earlier post—but I like them better than the views usually supported by Democratic politicians and their advisors.

Obama himself, while obviously constrained by the fact that he is trying to get nominated, has occasionally let things slip that suggest a more libertarian view than typical of liberal senators. At one point he said something mildly favorable about school vouchers, retreating rapidly under pressure from the teachers' unions, and similarly with marijuana decriminalization. His most visible disagreement with Clinton is over her plan to force everyone to buy health insurance. He appears uncomfortable with that degree of coercion, even though he is willing to use the less direct version—taxation to subsidize the insurance that he thinks people ought to have.

Bush was elected on a pro-market, small government, platform and proceeded to greatly expand the size of government—and not only in the form of military spending. His view of the legitimate power of the executive branch, including the authority to deliberately violate federal law, I find frightening. Perhaps, if we are lucky, Obama will turn out to be the anti-Bush.

Personally, I don't see any political reason why Obama wouldn't take market-based approaches to achieve liberal goals, as (1) it would capture centrist voters wary of intrusive government programs and (2) be more likely to be a policy success. Examples of possible "market-based approaches" (I apologize if I'm using the term too loosely) could include carbon surcharges paired w/ tax cuts (the Gore "green tax shift", his only half-decent policy idea) instead of carbon caps/bans (the McCain approach), payroll tax cuts, make savings and investment tax-deductible from the bottom bracket up (tax savings are based on the payer's lowest tax bracket, not the highest), hard money (inflation is a tax on the poor), eliminate corporate taxes and regulation that favor big firms and drive up the cost of consumer goods, replace the patent system with a prize system or patent buy-outs (the latter advocated by the Independent Institute), and a host of other policies.

As Mark at Publius Endures recently wrote, the difference between classical liberals and modern liberals is a question of means, not ends -- and Obama's history indicates he is willing to consider alternative approaches to achieve his liberal goals.

Obamanomics

After I read the great review of "Nudge" at LvMI this morning, I started doing a little reading on the subject and I stumbled upon this upcoming NYT review of the book.

According to the article, Obama and his economic team oppose outright bans and strict regulations, but instead prefer the "nudging" approach. After reading the article, I've came to the conclusion that Obama is to the right of Clinton on economic issues (opposed to the narrative that he's to the left of her) and pretty close to McCain, with McCain possibly favoring more outright bans and restrictions on economic activity than Obama would -- and I include the environment in that category; McCain favors capping total economic output (by capping industrial CO2 emissions), while Obama favors CO2 taxes that would allow CO2 emissions to grow, but at a higher cost to them. Neither are good options, but an Obama CO2 tax paired with a payroll tax cut is far preferable to McCain's anti-growth plan that erects massive barriers to entry for new market participants (under his plan, emitters get credit for current emissions, while new producers have to pay for the carbon credits).

Combined with his opposition to the war and his support for civil liberties, Obama is far, far preferable to McCain, although I'll still be casting my vote for Barr (who I see as a flawed Paul -- similar in many ways, but nowhere near the real thing) if he gets the nod.

Barack Gorbachev?

David Seaton of TPM asks if Obama is the American Gorbachev:

What can we expect from an Obama presidency? If he gets a huge mandate and a Democratic Senate and Congress, there are two possibilities that I can see, either he doesn't try to really change anything... a lot of disappointed kids and a lot of wasted time. Second possibility, he does try to change things, and it all falls apart....

The secret of much of what is happening today is that America was almost as badly damaged by the cold war as the Soviet Union. Like the Soviet Union, while others were learning to build good cars and TVs, airports and roads, Americans only built 'intelligent' munitions. People are waking up to reality and in true American fashion, they are reaching for the tranquilizer... the man with a plan, the change they can believe in... Not that dumb? We are talking about the same people who reelected George W. Bush, now with buyer's remorse... Wheeee! The USA is just waiting for an amateur to tinker with it.

If you buy the argument, either Obama ends the war and does nothing as far as legislation goes (much better than McCain's endless war and energetic domestic policy on climate change and free speech restrictions), or he tries to implement major, system-wide reforms and it all collapses. Gorbachev tried to reform a system that couldn't be reformed, and it collapsed. What's so different about what Obama's selling?

General Election Prognostications

I really don't think it's going to be that close. For one, the polling data does not reflect the severely-depressed GOP turnout that we'll see in the fall, the anti-GOP sentiment, the energized democratic base, or the massive black voter turnout we'll see if Obama is the nominee. The Obama camp has said that their strategy is to capitalize on the resurgence of the party in the Mountain West to capture the presidency. If the '04 map stays the same, Obama wins if he turns CO, NM, and NV -- all close in '04 and all of them are far more blue in 2008. If Obama "goes west", he will focus his message to woo mountain state libertarians, probably more numerous in the belt that runs from Montana to the Mexican border than anywhere else in the country. He will probably pledge to protect gun ownership rights, offer a payroll tax cut with part of the money saved from ending the war, promise wind and solar energy tax credits (solar for AZ, CO, and NM, wind for CO, WY, and MT), and reluctantly support oil shale production as long as the energy companies (1) find their own water source and (2) are fully liable for any environmental damage; McCain's immigration policies will also severely depress the turnout of usually-reliable GOP voters in the region as well. Outside of the Mountain West, there's no way the GOP will win another squeaker in Iowa, nor will they edge out the Dems in Missouri, which has been blue-ing as well. Throw in a possible win in Virginia or even a Deep South state (especially in Georgia if Barr is running), and you have a democratic landslide. On top of that, the temporary lull in violence that the surge facilitated is collapsing rapidly, and McCain is wedded to that policy more than any other American politician, including Bush.

What you reap is what you sow, and 7 years of Red State Fascism will come back to bite them in November; It could get ugly...

Will the GOP Lose the South?

Probably. Throughout the south, McCain remains very unpopular amongst GOP supporters -- if it wasn't for Romney and Huckabee splitting the dixie vote 50/50, McCain would have lost every southern state except for Louisiana (which Ron Paul won anyway). Throw in the tidal wave loss for the GOP that's coming in the house (and we saw a glimpse of it last night) and a massive, heavily-energized black voter block, McCain could lose large swaths of the south to Obama -- giving us a massive realignment of the US political map. If Bob Barr indeed wins the Libertarian Party nomination, Obama could even win Georgia by a significant margin.

Southern Republicans are not going to show up to the polls to vote for a leftist who sees the Confederate flag as a symbol of hatred (I'm talking about McCain), but blacks WILL show up in records numbers to elect Obama in a landslide victory.

Rebuilding The GOP From November's Ashes

As I've mentioned before, SC Gov. Mark Sanford is the highest-ranking libertarian in the United States, agrees w/ Dr. Paul on 99% of the issues, and provides the best near-term hope of getting a libertarian in the White House. Despite his stances, the MSM has been floating the idea of McCain picking Sanford to prevent libertarians from defecting to the LP ticket (if it's Barr) or Obama. Today, TNR's The Plank pointed out how absurd such a notion would be:

McCain, of course, has also voiced displeasure with some aspects of Bush's record in this regard, so perhaps it's not as implausible a choice as it might seem. But given that the Republican Party's intellectual establishment has wedded itself to a theory of untrammeled executive power as a response to the ongoing war on terror, one wonders if the fiscal conservatives championing Sanford realize that in many respects, when it comes to the role of the state, he's a quasi–civil libertarian who's closer to Ron Paul and Bob Barr than to any other major figure in the party.

TNR Also had a short interview w/ Sanford after a recent CATO event, where he called 'liberty' the 'ultimate homeland security':

TNR: What sort of sacrifices is it reasonable to ask citizens to make in the war on terror, in terms of privacy? Is there anything that citizens will have to give up, compared to what they were used to before 9/11?
MS: I don't see 9/11 as a seminal event in that regard. Liberty is the ultimate homeland security, and anybody who promises, 'I can take care of this problem for you,' at the end of the day, I don't think is telling the truth. … Tragically, post-9/11, there's been a lot of earnest, well-intentioned but ultimately destructive activity that expanded federal power inappropriately and encroached upon state authority.
TNR: How would you assess President Bush's record in the realm of homeland security and the war on terror?
MS: History will be the ultimate judge. I will say, though, that I unabashedly come from the conservative side of the ledger. I think that some of his policies not been particularly conservative in their approach. In the long run, I believe that that undermines both homeland security and liberty.

After the GOP implodes in November, the Ron Paulians and the Huckabites will rebuild the party -- they are the only GOP grassroots left. If McCain does indeed lose (he may still win while the GOP loses 6 Senate seats and 15 - 20 House Seats), we should be able to utilize the rEVOLution for a Sanford 2012 run. But a McCain loss may require Bob Barr on the LP ticket to sandbag McCain in key swing states by taking 5 - 10% of the vote away from him -- making the LP race all the more important.

Can Government be Consensual?

Can Government be Consensual? In my opinion, yes.

Take, for example, the phenomenon of homeowners' associations (HOA). Can anybody deny that HOAs perform similar to a state? They (1) regulate behavior, (2) can restrict membership, and (3) provide community services. HOAs are voluntary -- 100% contractual; any member can choose to sell his or her property or lobby to get the rules changed.

Of course, HOAs are a natural reaction to the decline of the state -- local governments cannot provide community services effectively (or at all), so private entities emerge to offer demanded services. And since they merely augment the state -- and do not replace the state -- they are not performing as many services as they would otherwise. If a local municipality allowed residents to "opt out" of public services, HOAs would become much more dynamic.

When I say "opt out of public services", I am of course talking about residents (1) refusing to accept public services and (2) keeping their tax payments for doing so. If municipalities were to make such offers, HOAs would step up to provide critical goods and services, such as co-op power, water, sanitation, security, fire coverage, etc. (although the later two could be purchased from a private agency through a subscription, as discussed here). As the local state withers away as private entities began to competitively provide community services, HOAs will join together to offer common services. These voluntary HOA groups can then voluntarily join together with other HOA groups and -- viola! -- government is re-born, only in a voluntary, 100% contractual form.

Now some anarcho-caps will take issue with such private community services, arguing instead that people will "buy their law as one currently buys soap", as David Friedman once wrote. That may very well be the case, but what evidence is there that such a system would occur -- and do such systems have any basis in history? After all, before the existence of the modern state, such services were provided -- not like consumer goods -- but through voluntary organizations, like voluntary community schools, community medical clinics, fraternal organizations, churches, neighborhood watches, community defense, levies, dikes, roads, etc. etc.

We could go a long way towards winning over our statist friends by merely arguing for peaceful, contractual relations instead of advanced markets that many may not be able to grasp.

The "Conservative" Nanny State?

In his recently-published book entitled The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (available free online), Economist Dean Baker from the Center for Economic and Policy Research excoriates the Corporate Right for phony support for free markets. Although Baker is thoroughly statist, he makes a lot of good points. For one, he points out how the Corporate Right loves cheap immigrant labor, but vigorously opposes the immigration of tens of thousands of well-qualified foreign professionals, like the thousands of well-qualified Indian and Eastern European physicians. He also points out the sham of intellectual monopoly grants; he asserts that Microsoft gains more from their intellectual property monopoly grants every year ($40 billion) than the US government spends on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) welfare program doles out every year ($18 Billion); He also does a good job of exploding the myth of “big business”-“big government” animosity

An argument he made that I had never heard before was in regards to corporate taxation. Baker made the argument that corporate taxes are completely voluntary, since people don't have to incorporate. Furthermore, he states that corporate taxes must be cheaper than the alternative or individuals wouldn't incorporate in the first place. Baker concludes that the corporate tax is a fee paid by individuals for the privileges of limited liability and tax-deductible merger and acquisition (M&A) debt, among other things.

One of the sections that Baker really misses the boat, however, is his examination of the Federal Reserve. Baker regurgitates the old leftist claim that the Fed is designed to "throw workers out on the street" when they get too "uppity" by raising interest rates. While that may happen, he completely avoids examining how the Fed really transfers wealth from the middle class and poor to the rich -- through monetary inflation, investors and bankers further up the monetary food chain gain enormous profits while the rest of the country gets saddled with price inflation and increasingly-unaffordable property prices; the middle and upper-middle classes eventually catch on to the game an invest in the bubble, but they are the ones who are left holding the bag when it goes bust.

Presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has recently made this argument, and I think it could resonate with the majority of Americans.

Bottom line: Baker’s book is a misnomer; true conservatism is the defense of free markets, tradition, non-interventionism, and the natural order. True conservatism is best exemplified in Presidential Candidate Ron Paul, Barry Goldwater, Robert Taft, Howard Buffett, and many others. Labeling corporate shills for moneyed interests as “conservatives” does the entire Right a disservice.

On Euthanizing Public Education

A couple of years ago, I supported school vouchers. I thought "hey, why don't we get our local, state, and federal governments to give vouchers equal to the average education cost to parents. The parents can then use the voucher to go to private school." Since then, I've realized that any such program would be a de-facto socialization of all private schools in the country; the government would only allow vouchers to go to pre-approved schools with pre-approved curriculum; in order to capture the multi-billion-dollar windfall, private schools would conform to government guidelines, perhaps even unionizing in some states.

Today, I believe that the only real way to reform education is through tax credits -- tax credits for pulling your kids out of school.

This can be best accomplished by simply dividing up the Department of Education's annual budget among all K-12 schoolchildren who are not enrolled in public school. With about 6.5 million K-12ers either in private school or homeschool, the $65-billion dollar Dept. of Education Budget would give a $10,000 tax credit to parents for each student in the first year. Millions of Americans would pull their children out of public school in year two in order to get a piece of the tax credit money. If the number of K-12ers outside of public school increased 20% every year, the tax credit would decrease from $10,000 in year one, to $8,300 in year two, to $7,000 in year three, to $5,800 in year four, $4,800 in year five, to $4,000 in year six, etc. With a 20% annual increase in the number of K-12ers out of public school, there would be about 16.5 million K-12s out of public school after year 6, about 2 and a half times as many as there were before and about 1/3rd of all K-12 students. 1/3rd of our children would be freed from the government indoctrination and daycare centers, instead getting a real education.

With a 20% drop in the number of students enrolled in public school, state and local governments should be able to carve out their own tax credits to leave the public school system. If the level of education spending dropped in proportion to the number of students who left the system, the ~$500 billion a year state and local governments spend on education should drop to about $400 billion a year. With the $100 billion-dollars in savings, state and local governments could offer and additional $6,000 in tax credits to parents for pulling their students out of public schools. If parents flock to the tax credit like they did before (with 20% increases every year), over 2/3rds of K-12ers would be out of public school within five years.

At this point, only half of the remaining $400 billion in savings is being used. The State and local governments can then offer a $200 billion-dollar tax credit and cut the rest.

All students will be on a tax credit of about $6,600, and taxpayers will save $200 billion dollars a year.

An Anomaly in the Warfare-Welfare thesis?

As many may know, there is a strong correlation between the size of government and the occurrences of wars and emergencies. Looking solely at American History, major wars and "emergencies" result in bigger government:

• The Global War on Terror - Big Government "Conservatism", Bush-style. Non-defense spending is skyrocketing and we have the largest new entitlement program, the Medicare Prescription Drug Act
• Vietnam - "Guns n' Butter"; The Great Society
• Korea - Death of the Old Right ( the birth of "Buckleyism"); New Deal programs cemented into permanence
• WWI - Progressivist programs, such as the Income Tax, the Federal Reserve, and the 17th Amendment
• WWII/Depression - The New Deal, price controls, income tax withholdings
• The Civil War -- Legal Tender laws, the Income Tax, centralized banking, etc.
• The War of 1812 - Hyperinflation, price controls
• The Revolutionary War - Hyperinflation, price controls
  

What is missing from this list is the Mexican-American War. The Polk Administration radically reduced the size of the government in domestic affairs (an independent Treasury, a massive tariff cut, etc.) while at the same embarking on a period of massive imperialist expansion. If the more hawkish members of his administration had gotten their way, Western Canada, Baja California, and Cuba would all be part of the US.

Furthermore, we saw a progressively-freer economy emerge from 1840 - 1860. The US experienced a hard money standard (harder than it had been), the Walker tariff enacted in 1846 paired with British repeal of the corn laws had a strong liberalizing effect on trade, and the Tariff Act of 1857 further reduced taxes and liberalized trade. So, the beginning of war in 1846 sparked a progressively liberalizing effect on the domestic economy for 15 years. According to Scott Trask at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, commodity prices only rose 4% from 1847 to 1860. This is all the more amazing with the California gold rush (and the Australian gold rush) going on; the US should have experienced hyperinflation, but instead experienced nearly flat prices.

So, how did it go wrong? Well, the still-Jeffersonian Democratic party suffered a period of massive instability from 1854 to 1860. They lost almost 1/2 of their House seats and the majority in 1854, only to recover half of those lost seats and the majority in 1856. The Democrats used the 1856 recovery to pass the last gasp of the Jeffersonian Democrats: The 1857 Tariff. In 1858, the Democrats lost all of their seats they gained in 1856 and suffered an even more stunning loss in 1860. Liberalization and de-liberalization nicely coincide with the power of the antebellum democrats.

But what does this tell us about the link between warfare and the size of government? Before the Civil War, periods of warfare, whether they were associated with wartime liberalization or de-liberalization, always followed a liberalizing trend after the war ended. It was only after the Civil War that the Warfare-Welfare link really materialized.

Here's my explanation: prior to the Civil War, there were enough Constitutional limits on the Federal Government that the States and the People were able to reign in the Federal Government after the Fed's wartime power spasm. After the Civil War, peripheral sources of power were not strong enough to counter expanded national government.

In fact, the more centralized the government is, the more likely it is for wartime government expansion to stick around. That's why more WWI measures stuck around (or were re-created) than the Civil War, and more WWII wartime measures stuck around afterwards than in the previous conflict. The pattern fits, IMHO.

So, the axiom should not be that "warfare permanently increases the size of the federal government". Instead it is that "short-term increases in Central Power, whether it be wartime or emergency measures, recede over time as long as peripheral powers have the ability to counter them. The weaker peripheral powers are, the more likely wartime/emergency measures are to stick around".

Based on the hyper-centralized structure of the current United States, it is highly probable that measures taken during the Global War on Terrorism will be made permanent, or at least be with us for a long, long time.

re: Different Kinds of Libertarians

Complicated Visionary posted a piece a while back that categorized different types of libertarians. The author put libertarians into 10 broad categories:

1. Randians/Objectivists/Egoists - Meet John or Jane Galt. While most card-carrying Objectivists assert that they are not libertarian in name, the movement started by Ayn Rand (author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) was and is an important influence on the thought of modern American Libertarianism (Cathy Young says that “Libertarianism, the movement most closely connected to Rand's ideas, is less an offspring than a rebel stepchild.”). They imagine an individualist/collectivist and egoist/altruist dichotomy and put it at the heart of their entire worldview as the supreme good vs. evil (along with some peculiar axioms like “A is A” and “existence exists”). According to those influenced by Randian Egoism, greed is a virtue, while compassion is a deadly sin. The word capitalism can stimulate a spontaneous orgasm. They are prone to histrionics and delusions of grandeur.
2. Dominionists - Business giants and empire-builders, moguls, magnates and tycoons who don’t want antitrust laws, industry watchdogs, trade unions or environmental, worker, or consumer regulation to get in the way of their ambitions. They often fund libertarian and right-wing think tanks and organizations. Silicon Valley had many Dominionist younglings in the 90’s until most of them perished tragically in the bursting of the dotcom bubble.
3. Market Fundamentalists - Focused on libertarian theories of economics/political economy, Market Fundamentalists believe the capitalist free market is best for the common good, and any interference with said market is contrary to the common good. They frequently use concepts like “the wisdom of the market” and “the invisible hand,” etc. Austrian and Chicago schools, neoclassical economics, neoliberalism, etc.
4. Naïve Libertarians - This was a hard to name category (I also considered “propagandist libertarians”). Naïve Libertarians are like Market Fundamentalists, except they usually parrot Market Fundamentalist arguments and harp on “how liberals are weakening America” instead of coming up with arguments and ideas of their own. They believe hardship doesn’t befall people who do what they should do, the environment isn’t in any real trouble and environmental/pollution problems are negligible, and big corporations are really responsible and good on their own (“Greenhouse gas emissions? Those are just ‘unrequested carbon surpluses’”). They are likely to listen to/host right-wing talk radio or do/follow right-wing journalism, and usually amount to little more than apologists for the Right.
5. “Liberty” Libertarians - Their libertarianism arises primarily from their ideas on the metaphysics of personal liberty, around concepts like “non-aggression” and “self-ownership.” Libertarian philosophers are usually in this category, some of whom were founders of the modern American libertarian movement.
6. Libertarian Republicans - More traditional conservatives; Republicans who are against neoconservative big government and/or the religious right; conservative critics of the Bush administration. They consider themselves the true conservatives, and usually base their libertarian ideas on their perspective on the U.S. Constitution. “Goldwater conservatives;” Republican Liberty Caucus.
7. Crazy Libertarians - Primarily concerned about gun rights and privacy. Many survivalists, conspiracy theorists, tin-foil-hatters, etc. tend to fall into this group. They are likely to live in a rural area, with an impressive arsenal and weeks worth of food stocked up to secure against a New World Order threat.
8. Lifestyle Libertarians - Like the Crazy Libertarians about guns, but also for drugs, sex, alcohol, uncensored material, not having to recycle, driving without a seatbelt, driving without a seatbelt at 100mph, driving without a seatbelt at 100mph while receiving oral sex, etc. They are basically people who want to do whatever they want. If conservatives want government to be your daddy, and liberals want government to be your mommy, Lifestyle Libertarians want to get rid of daddy and mommy and stay up all night eating ice cream and watching after-dark cable.
9. Localist Libertarians - Anti-Federalists, they would rather have autonomy distributed to the community level, like town halls, local school boards and churches, than a strong federal government or any centralized power. More Main Street than Wall Street, they are communitarians and traditionalists, largely Catholic, often Scouting enthusiasts, people with Norman Rockwell paintings throughout their homes, etc. More compassionate and worker-oriented than other libertarians, and more likely to be concerned with local environmental problems.
10. Left-Libertarians - A special category. Left Libertarians believe big, powerful government is as oppressive and bad as big, powerful corporations. They are anti-war (including the War on Drugs), pro-choice, and against government favors for corporations (or against large corporations altogether). They usually favor participatory action and mutual aid over government for social justice and environmental causes, as well as smaller, more local businesses and community-centered marketplaces. They may caucus with right-libertarians (“vulgar libertarians” is a commonly used phrase) for strategic purposes, which is the primary reason they are on the list at all. They are also likely to work with Green parties. Often Georgist on physical property and against extensive and restrictive intellectual property (and a major front behind Open Source), they are related to others of the broad libertarian left--agorists, mutualists, libertarian socialists, cyberpunks and anarchists; also “Buddhist Economics.”

The Overall, I think it is a good run-down of different types of libertarians and exposes the various differences between different libertarians. I do have a few comments on each section, however.

Randians/Objectivists/Egoists - I've always seen the Randoids as similar to "Naive Libertarians". Randoids quickly accept many of the primary functions of the state: the need for state police services, a state military, state court systems, intellectual property, etc. etc. I believe that any true libertarian should at least question the basic underpinnings of the state. I am personally not fond of their hostility towards religion, but that's another matter

Dominionists – I wish there were more dominionists. Sadly, many dominionists conform to the opinions of the state in order to get through life. You've gotta play by the rules if you want to play the game, I guess.

Market Fundamentalists - I wouldn't necessarily put the Chicago school in this category; the Chicago School has lobbied for government intervention in the markets since its founding: fiat currency, price controls, a negative income tax, antitrust regulation, etc. Chicagoites are useful at convincing socialists of free market principles in general, but they themselves are not the real deal. I would restrict the Market Fundamentalists to the Austrian School, period.

Naive Libertarians – As a former Naive Libertarian myself, I can see the appeal of being in this school of thought. Like Chicagoites, however, they are useful in convincing others of the merits of the free market. They are particularly useful because they have more interaction with non-libertarians, especially in the political realm. Naive libertarians are frustrating to me, because I "know" that they don't really believe half of what they say: the Heritage Foundation calling a $3T budget from Dubya "Conservative", Rush Limbaugh supporting the War on Drugs even though he personally believes it is fruitless, The near-total conservative (and mainstream, for that matter) blackout of Ron Paul's presidential run, etc. Their skepticism of environmentalism is useful, particularly since there are so many holes in the global-warming-is -caused-by-man-theory that most Americans never hear about.

“Liberty” Libertarians – The Hoppes, the Rothbards, and others are the bedrock, the foundation, for libertarianism. Their work on theoretical principles of self-ownership and property rights are necessary for libertarianism to exist at all. Perhaps that is part of the reason Rothbard has such widespread appeal across the political spectrum.

Libertarian Republicans – I consider my own views similar to those of the Libertarian Republicans: Against big government, against senseless foreign adventures, etc. But I am not opposed to the Religious Right in general.

Crazy Libertarians – This seems like an unfair criticism. They are totally within their right to suspect the government to grow totalitarian over time and arm themselves accordingly, although I don;t buy their conspiracy theories.

Lifestyle Libertarians – "ACLU Libertarians" are NOT Libertarians. How could one clamor for a constitutional right to public sodomy while at the same time denying all others the right to live free of government economic and religious repression. These "libertarians" are all to quick to cede authority to the federal government and deny any role to local government, which they have more control over.

Localist Libertarians – I am a "localist" libertarian. I believe that the Articles of Confederation were superior to the Constitution, that the latter was a move towards centralization by Hamilton & friends. I am also a decentralist, believing that states have the right to nullify federal laws and local governments have the right to nullify state laws. I think that taxes, to the extent that they exist, should be burdened on the undeveloped value of land (i.e. Georgism). I see problems that the Left complains about, such as environmentalism and big business, are not the result of private power, but state power.

Left-Libertarians - Although I consider myself on the Right, Left-Libertarianism is legitimate. My beef with them is their obsession with non-state forms of coercion: racism, feminism, etc. etc. They think society would be flatter than it would be without the existence of the state. More likely, I believe, would be a hierarchical structure to a stateless society, based on the different ability levels of human beings. Also, luck and poor decisions would play a huge factor. But on the whole, it almost seems like the political spectrum is circular, with the Far Right and Far Left having a lot of things in common at the fringes.

Thoughts on Land Value Taxation (LVT), Georgism, and "Good Greens"

I have recently been reading literature on Georgism. Georgists believe that everything an individual creates is their own personal property and the government has no right to take possession of it. Separating Georgists from anarchocapitalists, however, is the georgist belief that land cannot be truly owned, only "rented" from the community. As a result, georgist assert that all forms of taxation, whether they be on labor, capital, or improved property, are unjust. Taxation on the unimproved value of land, i.e. the value of a piece of land if there were no improvements on it, is taxable.

Georgists assert that this land-value tax (LVT) is merely rent paid back to the community. As a result of a tax on only a piece of property's land, the growth of communities will be natural (no urban sprawl), and wilderness will be preserved without the coercive power of government.

While reading up on georgism, I couldn't help but think about Ward Republicanism, a "Confederation of Confederacies", and Direct Democracy. I began to think about what could be achieved if local governments in a "confederation of confederacies" exercised a pure LVT, with 100% of tax revenue being raised from land and 0% from labor, capital, and improvements.

The fusion of ward republicanism and georgism also negates the primary criticism of georgism, which is that land values cannot be accurately valued and are arbitrary.

In a ward republic that practices total direct democracy, an accurate land value can be determined by a bidding process:

All citizens would enter an undisclosed bid on the per acre price of land in the ward, with the median bid being chosen as the land valuation price.

• Since land prices should be quite similar throughout the ward, the median bid should be very close to the true, self-assessed value of the land
• By picking the median bid, extreme bidders on either end of the spectrum will be marginalized. large landowners who wish to avoid paying taxes will be cancelled out by small landowners or renters who covet their neighbors' wealth
• For example, an agrarian community a low per acre valuation would be chosen, while a high valuation would be chosen in urban areas
• The valuation will remain in effect until a majority of the polis elects to re-cast bids; however, individual citizens can change their bid price every year, generating a new land value

After all bids are cast, the bid will be revealed. After the community is made aware of the land prices, citizens will again cast bids, this time to determine the tax rate, anywhere between 0% and 100%, with the median rate chosen. The rate will remain in effect until a majority of the polis elects to re-cast bids; however, individual citizens can change their bid price every year, generating a new tax rate.

If for some reason a rate too high or too low was chosen, the misappropriation of revenue will be reflected in dropping property values. As property values fall, citizens can elect to re-cast bids to lower their tax burden. If the ward limited its scope to basic record-keeping, sewage, water, etc., property values would rise accordingly.

Over time, however, land valuations and tax rates would fall:

• If land prices fall, citizens will move away; new owners will not want to pay the high yield (LVT/market land price) and will change their bid accordingly. If the government is mismanaged to a large enough extent and there is a severe drop in land prices, a majority of the polis will elect to lower their land valuation and/or tax rate
• If land prices rise, new citizens who buy in will enjoy their new, low tax yield; word of low tax yields will encourage further immigration into the community and even higher land prices. Current owners, if they are happy with the status quo, will leave values and rates unchanged.

Under a georgist system of taxation, market prices for property will act as a self-regulating mechanism for the local governing authority.

What surprised me most about my readings is the discovery that not all Greens are neo-pagan statists. On the contrary, some of them have a deep suspicion of government and a respect for individual rights to life, liberty, and property. Green opposition to government subsidization of urban sprawl and automobile-centric lifestyles and the state-sponsored destruction of rural agrarian life is no different than conservative opposition to government subsidization of illegal immigration and the state-sponsored destruction of the traditional family and religious life through cultural marxism.

Interesting Results from CPAC

Although I usually place little hope for Old Right libertarianism in the modern Republican party, there were some interesting Results from the 34th Annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Straw Poll. The first reassuring piece of data from the Straw Poll is that the grassroots of the GOP has not completely bought into the big government conservatism of President G.W. Bush. When asked "All things being equal, would you be MOST likely to support a Republican candidate for President who called themselves a 'Ronald Reagan Republican' or a 'George W. Bush Republican'", only 3% of those polled responded with Bush, and 79% responded with Reagan:

From CPAC Results

In another straw poll question, respondents were asked "Which of the following comes closest to your opinion regarding America's foreign policy?", with answer choices being "America's foreign policy should be based on protecting its own economic and national security interests" or "America's foreign policy should be based on spreading democracy around the world." Surprisingly, those polled appear to prefer a traditional foreign policy and reject neoconservatism:

From CPAC Results

Only 17% of respondents choose the Wilsonian answer; This can be interpreted in one of two ways: either respondents feel that the U.S. should only act when directly threatened/attacked, or the respondents have a quite loose interpretation of "economic and national security interests".

In another question, respondents were asked "Which ONE of the following comes closest to your core beliefs and ideology?", with the choices loosely correlating to "Reducing the size of Government and promoting individual freedom", "Promotion of traditional values", and "American security at home and abroad":

From CPAC Results

Surprisingly, A majority of respondents (50%) feel that reducing the size of government and promoting individual liberty is the most important goal, while only 18% gave the neoconservative answer. When asked for their candidate preference based on their ideology (libertarian, traditional, or neoconservative), "libertarian" respondents chose candidates who are quite statist; Romney (21%) introduced socialized medicine to Massachusetts and Giuliani (20%) is to the left of Hillary Clinton on gun control and is accused by some of partially causing the 1990-1991 recession through excessive regulation as New York State Attorney General. Traditionalist conservatives favored Brownback (29%) to Romney (22%), while NeoCons favored Giuliani (25%), Romney (21%), and McCain (18%).

Now, for the polling on candidate preference...

Candidates were polled on both (1) their first choice for president and (2) their second choice.

Here are the respondents' "first-choice" preferences:

From CPAC Results

And here are the combined first and second choice numbers:

From CPAC Results

As is seen above, there is no clear-cut front-runner among the GOP grassroots. In addition, many of the candidates (such as McCain, Giuliani, Gingrich, and Romney) have similar policy positions, and would cancel each other out in a primary. Furthermore, the grassroots support for Romney is probably grossly overrepresented in the straw poll, as Romney spent $350,000 at the conference, far more than any other candidate. Romney had 200 supporters bussed in, paid their way, and only got 350 votes. That works out to $1,000 per vote, or $1,750 for every paid vote.

If we adjust for the paid voters, Romney only receives 10% of the first-choice vote, with Giuliani receiving 19% of the vote, Brownback receiving 17% of the vote, and Gingrich with 16%.

So what can we take out of the meeting. Well, as DailyPundit pointed out, the grassroots will not support the "Big 3" (Giuliani, McCain, Romney) long-term. And John Fund, writing in the WSJ Opinion Journal tells us

"...a third of RNC members expressed no preference for president--a high number given the intensity of the race. That leaves hope for a posse of second-tier candidates, ranging from Mr. Huckabee to former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, that they can capture the attention of voters."

Hopefully, the wide-open field will allow Old Right candidate Rep. Ron Paul to get his message out to a grassroots base that is leery of American foreign policy based on "based on spreading democracy around the world". And, perhaps, the mainstream conservative base is not too far gone, as Llewellyn Rockwell believes.

A Confederation of Confederacies?

I Recently Re-read Thomas Jefferson's Letter to Samuel Kercheval (1816). In the letter to friend Samuel Kerchavel, Jefferson intended to provide advice to his friend on the proper administration of Virginia's counties. In the process, he introduced his somewhat famous idea for "Ward Republicanism":

"Divide the counties into wards of such size as that every citizen can attend, when called on, and act in person. Ascribe to them the government of their wards in all things relating to themselves exclusively. A justice, chosen by themselves, in each, a constable, a military company, a patrol, a school, the care of their own poor, their own portion of the public roads, the choice of one or more jurors to serve in some court, and the delivery, within their own wards, of their own votes for all elective officers of higher sphere, will relieve the county administration of nearly all its business, will have it better done, and by making every citizen an acting member of the government, and in the offices nearest and most interesting to him, will attach him by his strongest feelings to the independence of his country, and its republican constitution. The justices thus chosen by every ward, would constitute the county court, would do its judiciary business, direct roads and bridges, levy county and poor rates, and administer all the matters of common interest to the whole country.

These wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self—government, and for its preservation. We should thus marshal our government into, 1, the general federal republic, for all concerns foreign and federal; 2, that of the State, for what relates to our own citizens exclusively; 3, the county republics, for the duties and concerns of the county; and 4, the ward republics, for the small, and yet numerous and interesting concerns of the neighborhood; and in government, as well as in every other business of life, it is by division and subdivision of duties alone, that all matters, great and small, can be managed to perfection. And the whole is cemented by giving to every citizen, personally, a part in the administration of the public affairs."

So, Jefferson believes that each layer of government should be as decentralized as possible:

1. The Federal Government, for foreign affairs
2. The State Government, for issues relating exclusively for the citizens of said state
3. The County, for issues relating exclusively for the citizens of said state
4. The Ward, for all other issues

Jefferson's ideas amount to decentralized direct democracy. While direct democracy is considered unworkable with a population size larger than a few thousand, Jefferson's "Ward Republicanism" makes it feasible.

I am no fan of democracy, as it is tantamount to legalized theft and coercion. The more widespread it is, the more expansive and thorough the level of theft. According to Hans-Hermann Hoppe, author of Democracy: The God that Failed:

"Imagine a world government, democratically elected according to the principle of one-man-one-vote on a world wide scale. What would the probable outcome of an election be? Most likely, we would get a Chinese-Indian coalition government. And what would this government most likely decide to do in order to satisfy its supporters and be reelected? The government would probably find that the so-called Western world had far too much wealth and the rest of the world, in particular China and India, had far too little, and hence, that a systematic wealth and income redistribution would be called for. Or imagine, for your own country, that the right to vote were expanded to seven year olds. While the government would not likely be made up of children, its policies would most definitely reflect the 'legitimate concerns' of children to have 'adequate' and 'equal' access to 'free' hamburgers, lemonade, and videos."

What Hoppe fails to consider, however, is a far preferable (possibly even to to privately-owned monarchical government) form of democracy: decentralized democracy. In a decentralized democracy, the small polis size only allows theft from one's neighbor, limiting its size. The more expansive and centralized a democracy is, the more expansive and thorough the theft of total strangers can be.

This brings me to the possibility of a "Confederation of Confederacies", a model for true anarchocapitalism (or minarchocapitalism) to emerge in the 21st Century. Under such a system, government systems cannot tax individual citizens or corporations, but can only tax the treasuries of their own political sub-units. If applied to the United States, the system would look like the following:

1. The Federal Government can only levy a tax on the treasuries of the states
2. The State Governments can only levy a tax on the treasuries of the counties
3. The County Governments can only levy a tax on the treasuries of the Cities and Towns
4. The The City and Town Governments can only levy a tax on the treasuries of neighborhood associations
5. The Neighborhood Associations can only levy a tax on their voluntary members

Since taxes can only be raised on the treasuries of the political sub-units, local entities can opt for anarchocapitalism/minanarchocapitalism by simply reducing their own tax intake. The members of a Town, for example, could decide that they no longer need government and reduce their taxes to zero. As far as government composition goes, all government members above the lowest level will be appointed by their political sub-units, i.e. a state legislature comprised of county representatives voting to elect the state's representative at the federal level. Majority requirements, whether they be 50.1% or 100%, will be determined by each political unit. restricting democracy to the lowest level will prevent the widespread theft we now see in the present day.

Although I consider myself a right-libertarian, a "confederation of confederacies" should be quite appealing to those on the libertarian left as well as decentralized socialists. One could simply relocate to the place they feel most comfortable at: left-libertarian envionmentalist envlaves, right-wing anarchocapitalist cities, Theocratic counties, etc. etc. Statism for the majority, minarchy for some, and anarchy for others.

Return of the Blog

After being busy with school and deploying to Iraq for six months, I've decided to re-start the Blog I never started.