Positive Liberty

Leitmotif: Frankly, we are running out of organisms with short attention spans to complete the increasingly necessary “the attention span of a/an —-.” Goldfish, rabbits, and puppies are just too focused. – Jim Anderson

First, the important stuff: Before your attention wanders, let’s let Thoreau (not that one) tell it like it is:

The Senate has subpoenaed records relating to the illegal wiretaps that Stasi NSA conducted. If they hand the records over, we’ll probably have incontrovertible proof of violations of FISA and grounds for impeachment. If they don’t hand it over, the matter will go to court. And if the courts tell them to hand over the records, Dick Cheney will get to offer his bullshit excuses (”I’m not in the executive branch!”) to armed men with no discernible sense of humor (”Well, we are in the executive branch. Now open the safe.”).

Here’s hoping. Maybe someone in the VP’s office will refuse to cooperate, and then we’ll have to think about extraordinary interrogation techniques.

Devolution: Mark Olson and I so seldom agree that it’s worth noting when we do:

The problem Mr Kuznicki alludes of the loss of “rule of law” is in my view, a symptom not a cause. That is, the cause behind this problem is generations in coming … and we have been warned. For generations now, power has been moving “upward”. More and more decisions are being made from the “top”, either at the state level or higher. Local politics impact our lives less and less when compared to the politics and policy generated at the state and federal level. As a result, our personal democratic instincts have atrophied.

U.S. citizens have more technical and economic capacity than ever before, thanks to specialization, division of labor, and the free market. Perversely, these three factors, and our growing — if sometimes inarticulate — appreciation for them leads us to reason as follows: “If I let someone else govern, then I will have more time to 1. specialize in what I’m really good at 2. make more money 3. sit around the house watching American Idol (or, erm, playing World of Warcraft).

The trouble is, “governing” is not an activity just like any other, and it may require virtues that lie outside those of enlightened self-interest (a theme I have discussed in the past). In the short term we’ll all have more time for ourselves if someone else does the job for us, but sooner or later, these people we’ve asked to govern are going to realize that no one is watching them. Most workers get lazy when this happens. Rulers get ambitious.

Meanwhile, the local government is the place that most Americans should have learned about the rule of law, checks and balances, basic civil liberties, and the like. But local governments these days are so much the puppets of the state and federal governments that it’s hard to be too excited about them at all. Meanwhile, the amount of influence that any of us can have on the federal government is negligible. The result? Apathy.

It would be interesting to quantify this. Are there any surveys of per capita letters to the editor received by local newspapers, say? Even just readership of local papers might be revealing, although both these methods have some obvious methodological drawbacks too. How many people, particularly in small towns and suburbs, can name their local mayor and one or more of his notable accomplishments? Can anyone think of some other measures for the kind of local civic education that we’re talking about?

Olson and I probably disagree about the things that no government, federal, state, or local, may ever be allowed to do. Where Olson (or at least an Olsonian) might oppose, say, federal recreational drug laws, I would oppose all recreational drug laws. The fight between us, though, would be conducted at the state and/or local levels, where there is already considerable diversity of opinion.

From my perspective there would be two payoffs: First, polities like Oregon, which don’t mind if sick people use marijuana, and like San Francisco, which might not even mind if healthy people used marijuana, would finally be able to let them. We would have more sick (healthy) people being able to get the medicine (recreation) they want, with no federal agents to arrest them. This offers an immediate utilitarian payoff for both users and uninvolved bystanders.

Second, and in the longer term, places like Texas, which pride themselves on being “tough,” might actually learn what I believe is the error of their ways. They might learn that, on the whole, “tough” isn’t always the answer. Likewise, local experimentation might also teach me something, and with greater diversity of local experiences I might abandon some of my own beliefs. (To be perfectly fair, and also to make this an attractive argument about process for those who favor different policy outcomes, I think everyone who supports devolution really needs to acknowledge this.)

Some things must the same everywhere, of course: No religious oppression, no state churches, no slavery, very broad protections on speech and the press, no arbitrary detentions. (I could go on.) The really big things have to be the same everywhere — and by this I mean the things without which we couldn’t plausibly be said to have a free society. Of course, within this framework my strong inclination would still be toward greater personal and economic liberty than we now enjoy. But as a way of living with our differences until everyone is convinced, devolution remains a pretty good idea.

Bizarre Google Result: I searched the other day for the following words: Scottish Enlightenment theory spontaneous order. I was hoping to find the book by Ronald Hamowy of that title (once you add “The,” “and the,” and “of”).

Reasonable enough, right? The first link seemed to point to Amazon, but I got this bizarre warning message instead:

We’re sorry…

… but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.

We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we’ll see you again on Google.

To continue searching, please type the characters you see below:

Let’s hear it for those libertarian computer viruses.

Wait, What?

Teens everywhere just love Wait Wear. Once they’ve decided they want to save themselves for marriage, they buy some suitably chaste undies from Wait Wear which proudly proclaim: “No Vows No Sex”, or “I’m Saving It!”, or “Traffic Control: Wait for Marriage”. Then, when their boyfriend or girlfriend asks why they’re all reluctant, they can simply unzip their jeans and let their underwear do the talking.

Hmm… surely there’s a flaw here somewhere?

Sounds like something an overzealous parent would buy for a teenager. Said teenager would promptly discover the virtues of going commando.

Words to live by: Champion. Runner-up. Honorable mention.

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