This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won.
“We’ve spent a trillion dollars prosecuting the war on drugs,” Norm Stamper, a former police chief of Seattle, told me. “What do we have to show for it? Drugs are more readily available, at lower prices and higher levels of potency. It’s a dismal failure.”
Spending on Food At All Time Historical Low in America
NY Times: Why we must ration healthcare
The famous phrase in judges is:
In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes (judges 21:25).
I have yet to hear a single sermon describing this phrase as anything other than a moral phrase - that is, interpreters have taken the phrase as making a moral statement about the hearts of men at the time - that they were particularly wicked, selfish or sinful.
This always struck me as problematic.
Theologically, we know that man is inherently sinful. He is not more or less sinful based on particular deeds he does or because of circumstances around him. But rather, sin comes from within a man as part of his natural condition. In this sense, Judges cannot be telling us that man was particularly sinful - as though sin were judged in shades of grey - rather than black and white, as scripture tells us. There is sin, and then there is holiness. There is no in-between.
But I think if we also take the bible at face value, we have to consider the context of the phrase, and the words surrounding it. Namely, that “there was no King in Israel.”
This statement is the qualifier of “every man did what was right in his own eyes.” In other words, this phrase is a political one, not describing men’s hearts, but describing the fact that man did not have secular authority over him. Man did not have a king bossing him around, so he could do what was right in his own eyes.
The bible does not make a moral statement about the anarchy during the period of the judges - it just says, this is how it was. And, ironically, man’s hearts were no different than was Israel had kings - they wavered back and forth between following God and indulging in sin. In other words, political anarchy had no bearing on the natural moral rebellion of man.
Part of my inspiration to address this comes from this article over at the Mises Institute, which, though theologically questionable, does a good job dealing with the political economy of this portion of scripture:
It was a conservative society; adherence to proven principles was the only way by which the pursuit of happiness could be furthered. That which was “right” in the tribesman’s eyes was “right” by custom, tradition and the laws of Yahweh, to the enumeration of which the Old Testament, before the Book of Joshua, devoted much space. Freedom is not license.
Nor was there lack of leadership before the coming of the kings. Someone had to plan strategy and improvise tactics for the wars the tribesmen engaged in during their march to the Promised Land, and someone had to adjudicate disputes so as to prevent the chaos of internecine struggles. So came the judges, men and women esteemed for their wisdom and integrity, the leaders provided by nature for the instruction of the rank and file.
The evidence leads to the conclusion that these judges ruled by natural selection and common consent, much like the chiefs of American Indian tribes. It was agreed that the authority of the judges was sanctified by God, but the proof of their anointment was the manner in which they exercised authority. They were leaders by virtue of their proven gift of leadership.
The important thing about the rule of the judges is that their office was not endowed with the power of coercion. “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes” meant that no man was compelled to do otherwise; and, since “in those days there was no king in Israel,” it must be presumed that there was no constabulary to enforce rules of behavior. The sole enforcement agency upon which the authority of the judges rested was public opinion. “So said Yahweh” had the force of “so say we all.”
For man’s earliest beginnings, he has attempted to form secular authority on the model of pure, holy and all-knowing authority of God. This leads to the dangerous (both politically and theologically) thinking that Government should be obeyed as God is obeyed - that somehow such structures are always God-appointed and that advocating limits on government or even its abolition is something demonic and anti-God.
But, as Judges and the kingdom afterwards demonstrates, man will make an idol out of authority. God’s people, in their impatience to see order, justice and rightness in this life, attempt to help God out by making rulers to do good. But only God is good.
Obama is less popular than Bush … at the six month point of their first terms. Obama is at 55%, Bush was at 56%
Faith healing couple from Oregon whose daughter died found not guilty of manslaughter
Spending on Food At All Time Historical Low in America
Podcast from Libertarian Christians Dot Com: Spurgeon on Christian War Fever
Bernanke grilled by congressman other than Ron Paul:
This is the second and final article in a series on how to basically lose an argument before you start it [part 1 here]. This line of reasoning is based on the premise that people who engage in an argument are doing to so in order to discover and communicate truth.
Hence, four more ways to sabotage your argument:
Ascribe Nefarious Intentions and Motives to the Other Side
This is quite prevalent in large, seemingly irreconcilable debates: abortion, religion, left versus right, etc… People who are pro-choice are not seen as intelligent people who are making a self-ownership case for abortion (although this would be wrong), but as “baby killers” or people who “support murder” or “do not support life.”This is ridiculous. Aside from the negligible portion of the population who are homicidal, no one else wants to see babies being killed. These people are not wrongly motivated - rather, they are wrong in methods.
Political leaders are called evil all the time - some of them are. George W. Bush has been hailed as the great Satan for the last seven years or so (and Obama has not been treated any different - except by the media), but it is very realistic that Bush has pursued what he has out of good motives and intentions. He has been sincerely wrong, probably criminally so, but he is not necessarily out there to thwart humanity and bring about apocalypse.
Attack the Personal Actions of Your Opponent
This line of reasoning follows from a very valid principle - practice what you preach. But at the same time, for the purposes of arguing things that aren’t always liveable (or if they are, aren’t lived anyway) it is completely useless. Ron Paul was attacked in the 2008 election for being one of the higher proposers of appropriations (earmarks) in congress. It was alleged that because Paul put forward earmarks, that someone this discounted what he said about fiscal responsibility. But truth isn’t dependent on our acting it out (Paul also voted down every single earmark he proposed). Just because someone doesn’t stop at stop signs, doesn’t mean they would be wrong to suggest that stopping at them is a good idea.
Become Self-Righteous About Your Arguments, Facts and Case
This is an easy mistake to make. After all, if we didn’t think we were right, then why would we argue? But this is not a problem with being right, it is a problem with believing one is infallible or that a morally neutral position is somehow “right” in the sense that it is good, while the other side is bad/evil. But more than that, it is a condescending attitude toward your opponent and/or his ideas. This is presuming a certain argument before your opponent makes it. With your own ideas, it is a blind refusal to allow them to be penetrated by other’s reason, logic or facts.
Forget That You Are Speaking With A Person
This is the most important thing, and the summary of the article. We aren’t arguing with robots, with brainwashed automatons, with ideologies - we are arguing with people. People deserve to be respected and treated as people - they are intelligent, rational beings - despite how silly, ignorant or radical their worldview is.
The “southern avenger” does a great job summarising the hypocrisy of some conservatives and also reveals who seems to be on board with what is happening in the country’s current paradigm shift, and also those who still have no clue:
Let me also add that pragmatists who were/are willing to throw away their (so-called) conservative ideals for an election (i.e. voting the lesser of two evils) are hopefully willing to see that 20% of the vote for a “loser” candidate (but more ideologically sound) seems to do a lot more than a majority or near majority voting for a McCain/Bush/Huckabee/Romney type.
Chuck Norris now on board with a Fed Audit
Ron Paul and Barney Frank team up to decriminalise MarijuanaChurch-ish?
Did Stephen Harper Steal Jesus?
The latest in the state religion’s takeover of Christianity - the American Patriot’s BibleHurt Mail, The New Hate MailBishop NT Wright on what the Episcopal Church just did
In part, this piece is a response to these posts written a couple of months ago, to which I never fully responded in the comments.
Describing Government in Anarcho-Capitalist Terms
Where Anarchists Respond Wrongly to Government
But it is also meant to be a stand-alone argument for why coercive force is never “free market” regardless of the purpose, intents or motivations of those advocating or initiating force.
Government Arising From Anarchy?
Before I believed that a purely voluntary society was at least possible in theory, I took the position that governments were a natural creation of “anarchy” sometime in humanity’s past, and therefore were, at least in an empirical or pragmatic sense, legitimate. I may not have liked the way in which any governments work (none of them do “work” in any imaginable sense of the word) but it seemed that a lack of government had its chance and governments are obviously as inevitable as death and taxes.
But governments are not free market or capitalistic in any way because they are not voluntary. Any “government” that is voluntary ceases to be a government - that is a coercive monopoly on force. If a “government” does not prevent other agencies from providing services, individuals to provide their own services - than it is no longer a government.
Freeriders
The first argument that then comes into play is the freerider. This person benefits from defence services either directly or indirectly without paying for them. But the freerider is not aggressing against the service provider in order to steal service, rather he his being gifted this service by the imprecision of the provider.
The solution to the freerider is not to charge everyone because it is most likely that they benefit anyway. This is the provider’s problem - not the freerider’s.
The TVLA as an Example
In England, television is a public good and is paid for by a licence fee - about $240 per year. the TVLA is a corporation that has been empowered by the state to collect licence fees and also to investigate people who are “stealing” tv. Because tv is broadcast rergardless of payment, the TVLA has had to use draconian measures of intimidation, deception and fraud in order to seek out an prosecute non-licence payers.
All people in living in England are expected to prove that they are innocent of watching tv without a licence. Until they satisfy the TVLA, they are subject to constant harassing visits, letters, threats and searches.
But the fact that the tv is broadcast so widely is the government’s fault, not people who do not break any ethics by buying a tv, a box to receive tv and subsequently watching it. These freeriders are benefiting for free -but the fact that the government is losing its services and people are “salvaging” it from the commons is perfectly defensible.
The solution to the freerider problem is not a presumption of freeriding by all people until they prove they are not. Rather it is for the provider of any good or service to make explicit contracts with individuals and enforce those contracts accordingly. If a good or service cannot be profitable because of insufficient technology or infrastructure to handle freerider problems, then the solution is not to substitute force for this lacking - it is to abandon the service.
On Contracts
Regardless of the freerider problem, the basic ethics of voluntary society do not change. Contracts cannot be “presumed” or “implied” they must be explicit. Contracts with a large amount of people or a collective group, must be unanimous - otherwise they are not valid.
Llysander Spooner, great abolitionist, labour advocate and criminal for his daring to compete with the US Post office declared:
These facts are all so vital and so self-evident, that it cannot reasonably be supposed that any one will voluntarily pay money to a “government,” for the purpose of securing its protection, unless he first make an explicit and purely voluntary contract with it for that purpose.
It is perfectly evident, therefore, that neither such voting, nor such payment of taxes, as actually takes place, proves anybody’s consent, or obligation, to support the Constitution. Consequently we have no evidence at all that the Constitution is binding upon anybody, or that anybody is under any contract or obligation whatever to support it. And nobody is under any obligation to support it.
For a contract to be valid - regardless of whether it is verbal, written or even implied - there must be consent from all parties of the contract. For example, four of my neighbours could not all sign a binding contract giving them shares in my property if I do not sign it. If they brought such a contract and attempted to enforce it - I would be legitimate in protecting myself despite their “contract” or the democratic principles behind their action (four”votes” out of five).
However there are examples of purely voluntary contracts for millions of goods and services all over the world. Wal-Mart doesn’t bring me baskets of products without my asking - rather, they advertise their contracts and I only become responsible for the goods when I consent to purchase them. Just as Wal-Mart can’t force me to buy their groceries, I cannot stand guard outside of Wal-Mart all night, even defending it from thieves and vandals, and then expect that they must pay me the next morning.A government, of course, could make a contract with every single one of its citizens - but it has to be consented to unanimously for it to be valid. Every new immigrant or birth in the country would also require a new contract.
To my knowledge, there is no government on earth which has done this, and there never will be. This is because government, by definition, uses aggressive force. Its very existence breaks the non-aggression axiom (regardless how small or limited it is). Government is hardly “free market.”
Reason just did a small blog on this question. I thought I would repost their source-text for everyone:
1. Cato-influenced (for lack of a better word). There is an orthodox reading of what “being libertarian” means, defined by the troika of free markets, non-interventionism, and civil liberties. It is based on individual rights but does not insist on anarchism. A ruling principle is that libertarians should not endorse state interventions. I read Palmer’s book as belonging to this tradition, broadly speaking.
2. Rothbardian anarchism. Free-market protection agencies will replace government-as-we-know-it. War is evil and the problems of anarchy pale in comparison. David Friedman offered a more utilitarian-sounding version of this approach, shorn of Misesian influence.
3. Mises Institute nationalism. Gold standard, a priori reasoning, monetary apocalypse, and suspicious of immigration because maybe private landowners would not have let those people into their living rooms.
4. Jeff Friedman and Critical Review: Everything is up for grabs, let’s be consequentialists and focus on the welfare state because that’s where the action is. Marx is dead. The case for some version of libertarianism ultimately rests upon voter ignorance and, dare I say it, voter irrationality.
5. “Hayek libertarianism.” All or most of the great libertarian thinkers are ultimately compatible with each other and we have a big tent of all sorts of classical liberal ideas. Hayek and Friedman are the chosen “public faces” of this approach. “There’s a classical liberal tradition and classical liberal values and we can be fuzzy on a lot of other things.”
I might add a few more:
Left-libertarian - sceptical of capitalism and corporatism, and possibly even private property.
Ron Paul bots - these guys are “libertarians” in that in their support of Ron Paul - probably because he was against the war - has blossomed into a general hate of the federal reserve. These are big on the constitution and “patriotism” and can be seen yelling at rallies or harrasing border guards.
Fake libertarians - Guys like Larry Elder and Ronald Regan. Anyone who calls themself a “republitarian.” Conservatives who happen to be a little more “free market” than your standard compassionate religious nut.
Libertarians who don’t know it or won’t admit it - People from the left and right who don’t to be associated with libertarians because of one of these groups, but hold a lot of libertarian beliefs.
Objectivists - Generally pro-war, radically atheist. Argues for “objective” standards of value (rather than subjective as in the Austrian school). Big on selfishness and a sceptical of utilitarianism.
Penn and Teller libertarians - Slightly left-ish, cynical and embracing libertarianism at least, in part, for it’s hedonistic/rebellious appeal. This is who conservatives think of when they realise we don’t like the war on drugs.
I’m somewhere in-between Mises Nationalism and Rothbard myself - but also having some left-ish views regarding immigration. But, then again, throughout my own libertarian journey, I felt allied with many of these camps.
What kind of libertarian are you? What kind of libertarians have I missed?
Take a look at these two videos to see Washington DC hypocrisy at its best.
This first one is of Senator Jim DeMint (R) attempting to get a vote on S 604, the Senate companion to Ron Paul’s HR 1207 bill auditing the Federal Reserve. DeMint outlines why the bill is important, highlights its bipartisan support and explains why the American people are interested in an audit of the Federal Reserve:
At this point, Senator Ben Nelson (who suddenly has an interest in helping out Ben Bernanke and Co.) recites with an almost practised clarity that the amendment violates “Rule 16″ - a rule that attempts to prevent legislation being attached to an appropriations bill. The Senate president hastily agreed and shot the bill down in one sentence.
I would like to consider the surgical nature of this exchange. It is not my intent to suggest that politicians aren’t smart people - but I am shocked that all of this happened so quickly. It seemed more like a play, with actors taking cues from one another in order to read their lines than it did honest and open debate Senate of the supposedly most “free” nation on the planet.
Then, and this is the comical part, DeMint went through and read several other portions of the bill - audits identical to the one which S 604 requests that did not get the ire of Senator Nelson or the Senate president. DeMint goes one step further and asks the Senate president to confirm that these audits also violate Rule 16 - which she grudgingly does.
He then, and this next move is pure genius, highlights a $200,000 earmark that that Senator Nelson has put into the bill for a Museum in Durham Nebraska. The Senate president admits this also violates Rule 16 and is legislative - granted this strike by DeMint seems to hit a little close to home and the president attempts to defend the earmark by arguing it is “germane” to the language of the bill.
See the rest of the exchange here:
I’m not one to give any credit to conspiracy theories, but this all strikes me as one giant game played the Democrats (and others, I’m sure) in order to block a Federal Reserve Audit. Kudos to DeMint for exposing the myth of fairness and integrity in Washington.
Here’s DeMint’s money quote:
The other side cannot stand behind a rule that they have flagrantly violated themselves.
Before I take a look at the meat of this article, I want to use a situation common to most of us to try and lay out my argument.
When I get upset with other drivers on the road, regardless of how “legitimate” my case is, and I actually become angry (as opposed to simply annoyed) it is often because:
In many ways, this is a microchasm for human interaction when it comes to debate in general - especially intellectual discourse. Our base instinct, in discourse, if often to act like this with people with whom we are arguing. As the debate wears on, the chances of seeing the implosion of the discussion increase as instinctual techniques begin to take over and our very own words and ideas start to lose the argument before we begin.
I want to lay out a few common ways to sabotage your argument (this often happens early in the argument) by way of tactics I have seen on this site, other sites and mistakes that I myself have made over the years. Feel free to add your own thoughts on items I have missed or not explained well enough.
Not Understand What “Winning” and “Losing” Mean in Debate
In some ways, this is starting with the basics. What is the point of debate? If it is to convince others that I am right and they are wrong, then I’ve already “lost.”
The point of debate is not intellectual conquest, or the winning of hearts and minds to your cause. Debate should be a cooperative exercise that discovers, communicates or clarifies truth between individuals. When I am arguing about capitalism, or if I am witnessing to someone who is sceptical, it should not be my hope to decimate their current thinking and replace their conclusions with my own. Rather, I hope that I am contemplatively leading them to understanding that they were yet unaware of, while, at the same time being aware that I don’t know everything myself, and can learn from their counter-points.
Winning a debate doesn’t mean that each side comes away agreeing with the other side. But in a “won” debate, each person has new information to add to their own frame of reference, and hopefully has made a meaningful contribution to the collected knowledge of another.
Make Your Argument an “Us Versus Them” Battle
At times, I do feel like I am on a crusade when it comes to debating about certain ideas about which I am passionate. Take Ron Paul supporters in 2008. I felt a lot of solidarity with these people and I found myself more agitated over certain issues than I normally am. I was so zealous about what I viewed as my “us” (big-tent libertarianism - from the libertarian GOP to newly converted democrats supporting Ron Paul) that it became easy to believe that those who were arguing against me were part of a “them” (Neo-Cons, Compassionate Conservatives, Theocrats, etc…). But the moment that collective motives and group activism are attached to our debating - are we really sharing the intellectual road to discovery with someone, or are we stereotyping, classifying, dismissing and attempting to “war” with them as if defeating an “enemy” rather than working with an ally, albeit one very different than ourselves.
A tale-tell sign of this is ad hominems and other demonisation tactics. The second I begin painting my opponent with broad brush strokes is the moment where I’ve stopped seeking truth, and started zealously proselytising and regurgitating some kind fo party line.
Ascribe an Entire Ideology to Your Opponent Because of One Point, Line of Reasoning or Word
This could be viewed as a sub-point of the”us versus them” problem because it uses the same categorisation, stereotyping and dismissal - but it is different. Allow me to explain.
We all have certain words, phrases and concepts that conjure up past experiences (perhaps even traumatic ones) or simply evoke knee-jerk reactions based on philosophical or intellectual dislikes. Some of these for me are:
There are lots of different reasons that these words are more likely to reveal argumentativeness in me. But the point is that when someone uses these phrases (and others) I get a quasi-instinctual urge to correct them in ways that vary - from merely making a face, to opening a canned lecture and going on for half an hour.
But worse than that - it is part of that process of making uninformed conclusions and ascribing entire ideologies to your opponent because they’ve used language that triggers something in you. In other words, they may have meant something completely different (and the unique perspective of each individual almost guarantees that this is the case) but in one fell swoop, all of your own prejudices have been heaped onto their argument.
Aside from my own blunders in this area, I see this a lot with traditional hot-button issues for people such as abortion, feminism, supporting the troops and drugs. I think there are a lot of people in the academy, for example, who can accept my classical-liberal economic views. But if I spoke very loudly about my views on abortion or feminism, I might be practically blacklisted. By the same token, there are a lot of left-leaning bible-believing Christians who have trouble finding places in conservative churches because they might be anti-war or for universal healthcare.
Belittle/Disparage the Credentials/Lack Thereof of Your Opponent
I hope to do a whole piece on this soon, but one place where I see this being commonly practised is in the pulpit and some churches. Because of the heresy coming out of the academy (this has been a problem for thousands of years, by the way - it is hardly a “post-modern” phenomenon), it has become fashionable to broadly criticise education, theologians and academics.
A PhD doesn’t automatically make someone arrogant, proud, idolatrous, humanistic or a heretic (among other words I’ve seen). It simply means that someone has spent a lot of time specialising in a certain area of a specific field. If an academic (perhaps even one who went to a bible college) who researched Israel in 750-735BC wants to then go and talk about why Jesus didn’t exist and all religions lead to God - it says nothing, absolutely nothing about formal education, other academics or academics and Christianity. By the same token, I have seen some well-educated clergy and church leaders dismiss men who, with little formal bible education, were able to do great works from God, start large churches and write edifying books.
But the broader point is this - the other side in an argument has education and experience that is different that yours - and this is going to lead them to different conclusions. Rather than judgementally classifying and then dismissing their experience and education, try to come to grips with thier findings and consider that they might have an angle on things that you have missed. Where their experience and education are misinforming them - correct it.
In the second half of this series [go to part 2], I hope to look at more ways to sabotage an argument, including issues of motives, practising versus preaching, self-righteousness and the fact that were are debating with people (which may seen self-evident, but you’ll see what I mean).
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