Positive Liberty

When I wrote my earlier endorsement of a voting strategy, it seemed like there might still be a close election. Now it’s looking like a sure victory for Obama, and there seems no possibility that any group of voters whom I might influence could form the marginal, election-changing coalition.

In other words, the strategy needs to change, and I now have a message for anyone who cares to be influenced by my opinion: My advice now is to vote for Bob Barr, regardless of where you live. Obama has this one locked up, and there is no longer any need to attempt to be the marginal coalition that will prevent the worse of the two front-runners from winning.

Instead, use your vote to declare in favor of the candidate who most stands for individual liberty. If you want the strongest case that Barr is the candidate, consider his own words, as in this Reason interview.

Yes, he’s done some things in the past that I consider deeply wrong, but he appears to have repented, and it will be very difficult to make the case that a vote for Barr is really a vote for all those old, un-libertarian policy positions he used to hold. Instead, it declares that even a latecomer to libertarianism is better than a flat-out, unrepentant nonlibertarian, as are the candidates of the two major parties.

I know that for some the temptation will be strong to back a winner, but I think this temptation should be resisted. Is there some pleasure to be had in voting for someone whom we already know will win? Perhaps. But it’s not clear that there should be, at least, not any more than there should be pleasure in paying for a product when we are already getting it for free. Instead we should put our voting capital toward encouraging candidates who will actually support individual liberty and reductions to the size and scope of government, rather than just limiting the damage.

Here are some other recommendations.

Vote no on all new taxes. Reject even those new taxes dedicated to purposes you find appropriate. The government already takes more than enough money already and should learn to live within its means.

Vote no on all bond issues. Ultimately, bond issues are just promises to raise taxes in the future.

Vote yes on any move, however incremental, toward dismantling the war on drugs. Decriminalize marijuana, make it a lower law enforcement priority, even allow medical marijuana. As paltry a freedom as it is, clearly the sick need marijuana more than the rest of us.

Vote no on the marriage amendments, if you live in states considering them — especially California. If we lose California, the future is grim indeed.

But you knew I’d ask you to do all that. Here’s something you maybe didn’t expect… Continue Reading »

I’ve said no, and I’ll say it again. If an idiot, a scoundrel, or a lunatic happens to like causes, or candidates, or anything else that you happen to like, you’re not obliged to change your mind. That’s some sort of reciprocal voodoo-fascism that I’d sooner have no part of.

You ought at least to consider whether you’re going the direction you’re going because you are like the idiot, but the answer need not automatically be “yes.” (How this isn’t obvious is puzzling to me, but it’s election season, and, as usual, I’m the only sane person left in the country, apparently.)

On that note, I’d like to call your attention — very briefly — to the unfortunately titled blog Atlas Shrugs. Way to ruin my favorite novel. And to drag so much of what’s good and right about this world through the mud.

Seriously, check this shit out:

HOW COULD STANLEY ANN DUNHAM HAVE DELIVERED BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA JR. IN AUGUST OF 1961 IN HONOLULU, WHEN OFFICIAL UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON RECORDS SHOW HER 2680 MILES AWAY IN SEATTLE ATTENDING CLASSES THAT SAME MONTH?

I understand that Sarah Palin knows a thing or two in this department.

À la recherche du Treehouse of Horror perdu…

I allowed my students to play presidential election lotto for extra credit.  Whomever equals or surpasses me in predicting how states goes will get extra credit points.  As they had to turn theirs in by today, I also must go on the record with my prediction.  I am particularly uncertain about Missouri, North Dakota, and North Carolina, so there’s a good chance I’ll have to give out extra credit this year, unlike in ‘04, when I got 49 right and no student equalled me.

A reminder that it’s only politics; it’s not like it’s really important.

While reading Jason Kuznicki’s latest post, Counting Past Two, I thought of other recent conversations and blog posts where the speaker or writer, respectively, winced at the lack of intellectual consistency, fair play, or open-mindedness that occurs during this partisan campaign season, and I became tempted to delight you with some George Will, in his now famous appearance on the Colbert Report.

In this wonderful, laugh-out-loud interview (which I can’t post here because Comedy Central and Word Press have yet to achieve détente), Mr. Will explained that partisan politics isn’t about rational thought. He declared that, “[Political] parties help us organize our animosities.” Will was drawing upon Henry Adams, who wrote in his novel Democracy, “Politics is the systematic organization of hatreds.”

It is wrong to expect thoughtful, empathetic discourse from the hate-filled and the mentally ill. The political arena is a place where humanity is the furthest from those ideals that we admire in academia (or at least pretend to), or dare I say, even at this blog.

When it comes to politics, special pleading, selective listening, fear-mongering, lying, and ad hominem attacks are the rule, not the exception.

I’m in solidarity with those who feel it their duty to continue to point out the absurdities of our system.

Personally, I believe that awareness of these special pleadings, combined with the will to act by shaming those who engage in these sick behaviors, is a civic virtue. As R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr said, “Ridicule is the compliment lively intelligence pays to jackassery.”

But we’re at our very best when we refuse to tolerate such uncivilized behavior from all quarters, including — especially! — the side we favor.

Special pleading is loathsome. And that’s a big part of why I close my blog posts by saying, “Hardball delenda est.”

I’m Jonathan Rowe! This is what you get when you combine two different people into one. There is a more prominent established writer named Jonathan Rowe with whom folks commonly confuse me. I actually got paid $500 or so to write an article — never published — under the mistaken impression that I was him. The publisher never admitted this or returned my email when I asked when my article would be published, but I’m almost certain this was the reason. If you look at the top of my http://jonrowe.blogspot.com website you see that I self identify as a libertarian. The other guy is the furthest thing from a libertarian. That alone should give folks a heads up. I’d much rather folks confuse me with this Jonathan Rowe.

…says Brian Doherty. While Brian is a wonderful writer and an accomplished scholar, I can’t say I agree.

First — I know this is pedantic — our right to complain is in the Constitution. It’s right there, in the First Amendment. We have a right to complain about (and complain to) the government, and it’s not conditional on voting.

Voting is a tricky thing, since it’s a positive, or government-created right; you don’t have a right to vote in the state of nature. The social contract creates voting.

By entering into society, you surrender a distinctly limited number of your natural rights, for instance the right to extract restitution forcibly from those who have wronged you. In compensation for giving these up, the state gives you some other rights (like voting, and trial by jury). All the other rights not clearly mentioned in the deal are yours to keep, at least in theory. And there’s no sense in saying you’ve given up more than you really have.

Second — and this is slightly less pedantic — if voting means we can’t complain about the outcome, then picture this scenario:

A man walks into a shoe store to buy a pair of running shoes, size 12. He tries them on, likes them, pays for them, and… when he returns home, he finds that they’ve been switched, somehow, for a pair of stiletto heels, size 7. So he returns to the store to complain.

“I’m sorry,” says the clerk, a man of ironclad consistency, “you paid for shoes, so you have no right to complain. Your participation in the process validates every aspect thereof. Besides, we asked all your neighbors, and these were the most popular shoes around. So that’s what you get, too.”

“But,” the customer protests, “it’s not what I asked for, not what I was promised, and not even close to my first choice.”

“That’s just too bad,” says the clerk. “We’re the only shoe store for hundreds of miles around, and no one’s allowed to open another one.”

The analogy is perfect in every respect, I’d submit.

This post by Andrew Sullivan belongs in a much broader context, but it’s worth reading all by itself. Fox News executive vice president John Moody wrote the following about the McCain campaign worker who faked a perhaps politically motivated attack by a black Obama supporter:

Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama’s campaign is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party’s presidential nomination.

That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans, and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.

If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.

It did turn out to be a hoax, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or disgusted. Sullivan replies, wisely:

Just think about that for a moment. Why would a random mugging by a black man of a white victim prompt Americans to “suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.” How does this incident tell us anything about Obama’s past or associations? You have to find an association between a Pittsburgh mugger and Obama’s organization. No one but a racist of massive proportions could possibly make that inference.

The fact that a mugger purportedly shared Barack Obama’s skin color says nothing about Obama himself. Indeed, the fact that the mugger purportedly shared Obama’s politics says nothing about Obama himself. Al Qaeda seems to have endorsed McCain this time around; last time the rumor was that they were for Kerry. Why any of this should matter is beyond me; as I wrote back then, an asylum for the criminally insane isn’t always the best place to get informed political analysis.

Radley Balko offers reasons to reject the Republicans and to hope for their defeat — and this, according to his readers, makes him a socialist and worse. To my face I was recently called a member of the John Birch Society; all it took was to mention where I work. And even explaining — at great length — the areas of public policy where the Cato Institute diverges radically from the John Birch Society was not enough to convince my interlocutor that we weren’t “really” on the same side.

The algorithm seems to be this: Lump the world into “us” and “them.” Improbability and inaccuracy don’t matter, so don’t bother to check. Whoever scares you goes over there. Carry this “us-v.-them” thinking to its worst possible end. And behold, you have found the truth, without ever having to count past two.

The broader context for Sullivan’s post, and for all of this, is that human beings are very bad at individualism, although individualism is good for us. Binary thinking gives a profoundly false picture of the world. And yet it is, apparently, attractive.

Not votes plural really, just one: mine.  I’ve reached the point where I want to make a decision on whom to vote for, but I can’t.  I have voted Libertarian in all but one presidential election, even voting for the ridiculous Ron Paul on the reasonable basis that I was voting for the party, not the man. 

But that reasoning isn’t helping me overcome my revulsion toward Bob Barr, a politician I deeply despise.  Meanwhile McCain has thoroughly disappointed my early expectations, appearing erratic and rash, and Obama–while surpassing my expectations and impressing me in many ways–remains too antagonistic toward free markets.  I joke about voting Peace and Freedom or Natural Law party, but I’d have to go home and throw up afterwards to purge the bad humors.   As a political economist (hey, that’s me!) would put it, I do not have a transitive preference ordering, such that I prefer A to B, B to C, and A to C.  I am effectively, it not technically, indifferent among my alternatives. 

So why not sell my vote to someone who cares more?  “Because it’s illegal” isn’t a very satisfactory answer to me, either as a libertarian or as a political scientist.  The problem with our voting system is that it doesn’t allow people to express strength of preference–the person who loves Obama and fervently believes he’s the savior of the country gets only 1 vote to cast for him, the same number as I, who may only grudgingly give him my vote.

Given that my presidential ballot is of almost no value to me this year, but is of much greater value to someone else, it would be economically efficient to sell it.  Perhaps it would be democratically efficient, too.  After all, despite our romanticization of one-person-one-vote, isn’t there a democratic logic to representing <em>strength</em> of preference?  I’m almost at the point where I could cast my vote randomly and still ensure I maximized my preference, and how democratic is that?

The question is how much my vote would go for.  Certain people, who have told me how evil I am for saying one vote isn’t worth much, would presumably find it very valuable.  Of course that value would go down if they thought there was a good chance I might vote their way anyway.  And of course that value goes down if the election does not appear to be close (or at least it should; the every vote is crucial crowd has demonstrated poor math skills, so maybe they won’t recognize that a lopsided election diminishes the value of my vote).  And even in the best case scenario, they would only pay a discounted rate because they wouldn’t be able to verify how I voted (cursed Australian ballot!), and who would trust me, especially as I’d have to keep it uncertain so I’d have plausible deniability if hauled into court?

Still, it ought to be worth something, so someone ought to be willing to pay me to vote their way.

Or perhaps I ought to just vote in the way that all the Syrians I met last June would want me to vote.  The president is, after all, the leader of the free world, and the Syrians that I met just want to be free and to have good relations with the U.S.  The next president’s actions may affect them as much as they affect me, so why shouldn’t I use the vote that’s nearly worthless to me and give them just a tiny little bit of representation.  Can anyone really plausibly argue that doing so would not be democratic?

There’s an email making the rounds called, “The Ant & the Grasshopper in 2008.” The person who sent it to me is a Republican. Perhaps you’ve seen this GOP joke. Well, I’ve edited it, just a bit, to achieve greater accuracy, and to provide a much more helpful moral.

Old Version: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter.

The grasshopper dies out in the cold. Continue Reading »

As the years go by, I’m sure eventually I’ll produce a book or two that relates to the Founding & religion. Right now, I’m 1) too busy, and 2) haven’t yet found my novel angle. I won’t self publish or write a book that no one will read. If it won’t show up at Borders or Barnes & Noble, I doubt I’ll write it. I’m thinking of a title like “Noble Pagans: America’s Founding Heretics” or just “Noble Pagans.” A provocative title that will catch people’s eye is a must. Continue Reading »

At American Creation Brian Tubbs left an apt comment on my long post that tried to put Washington’s religious beliefs into perspective.

Good post, Jon. But, you’ve only cast some doubts here and raised some questions. You have not shown that GW rejected the Trinity or the deity of Jesus.

I think all we’ve established here is that there’s an element of mystery to GW’s Christian doctrine. This much, I readily grant.

And Tom Van Dyke left the next comment about “burdens”:

Well, Brian, I must admit I don’t see much “Christian” in GW’s doctrine either. Claiming him for Christianity by default—by what he didn’t say, which seems to be Liliback’s argument—doesn’t rock for me. Burden of proof must be shared, and made by affirmative argument.

Continue Reading »

I noticed someone uploaded the audio to Steve Hackett’s song Narnia (he was the guitarist for Genesis during their classic era). Prog rockers have had a problem in that ten minute long suite form songs aren’t exactly “radio friendly.” So they may throw in some radio friendly songs to classic prog albums in an attempt for a hit. They may try to make radio friendly songs that still incorporate prog elements. I think Rush were the best at doing this; think of all of their hits that are both prog and classic rock at the same time. Sometimes the groups (Genesis for example by the time they got to “Invisible Touch”) might change in a more commercial oriented direction in an attempt to get more hits, more airplay, more money. Narnia is one of those prog tunes that could have been, in my opinion, a commercial hit (it wasn’t). It has Steve Walsh from Kansas as guest vocalist (and my favorite rock vocalist) whom Hackett was reported to say possessed the “perfect white rock voice.” From the album Please Don’t Touch I think this tune perfectly captures what the book was about and if there were a rock soundtrack to the Narnia movie series could have served as its central track:

Ben Franklin is one key Founder most likely conceded as “Deist.” And indeed once in his biography he noted he identified as such. However, from the research I have uncovered, more often throughout his adult life, he thought of himself as a “Christian” — a “rational Christian.” Like Jefferson, Washington and the other key Founders, he attended Trinitarian Churches and sought communion (not in the Lord’s Supper sense of the term!) with them. Though the “rational Christians” politely hoped the Trinitarians with whom they worshipped would eventually come to reject such “irrational” doctrines as original sin, the Trinity, and the infallibility of the Bible. It was the Trinitarians, especially the Calvinists, who thought such “rational Christianity” to be not Christianity at all but heresy or infidelity. Indeed, they would actively disfellow themselves from the “rational Christians” and lump them in with strict Deists like Thomas Paine. Hence the need for the key Founders to tread cautiously while dealing with the orthodox Trinitarians, speak in abstract lowest common denominator terms with them (like “Providence”) and only reveal their secrets to “safe” friends, else have their public reputation damaged. And whether what the key Founders believed (a “rational Christianity” that rejected most of the fundamentals of orthodoxy) qualifies as “Christianity” is debatable. Continue Reading »