Pardon the dust, centralization in progress

A couple of weeks ago, California became the 8th state, joined by the District of Columbia, to pass a law that will give all of its electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide, popular vote. In order for this law to take effect, however, a number of states whose combined electoral votes total 270 (enough to win in the electoral college) must all pass similar legislation. If that happens, then the electoral college, while (likely) still in place, would be rendered moot.

Disturbingly, this change seems to have broad appeal and public support. According to Gallup surveys in 2001 and in 2004, about 60% of the population supports electing the president by popular vote. Editorial writings seem to hold an especially dim view of the federal government's presidential election process, stating that "[i]n a country that purports to be the world's greatest democracy, the Electoral College is an undemocratic embarrassment." Politico says that the bill signed by (California's) governor Jerry Brown is "designed to fix our broken presidential election system." And according to nationalpopularvote.com, 2,110 state legislators have endorsed the change.

I say disturbingly because this represents a serious misunderstanding of the nature of the design and history of the federal government. There is evidence for this in Ali Velshi's comments on Jon Stewart's show from earlier this week (starting at about 4:50, specifically 5:18) in which he complains that members of congress are representing their constituents instead of the "entire country":

In his comments, he explicitly states that he believes that there is some solution to our problem(s) that benefits everyone. For someone who reports on business and markets, this is a surprising position. It has a very "central planning" ring to it. That is, if we would all just trust the government, they'll do what's best for us because they know best. But a discussion of (the evils of) central planning is for another article. More to my current point, who should representatives represent if not their constituents -- the very people who elected them? Representatives are not sent to congress to do what's best for the country. They're sent to represent the interests of their constituents -- apparently much to the chagrin of Mr. Velshi -- and in doing so, the ideas that move forward are the ones shared by a majority of the people. (Don't get me wrong; I'm no fan of democracy or what has become of our republic.)

This misunderstanding extends beyond the punditocracy, though. I found this comment (repeated in a blog by an author who took issue with it for a different reason):

...no federal protections for us is just a wee bit troublesome too; we're either one country or fifty different ones. You can't have one State treating minorities as equals while another treats them like dirt.

The fact is that the United States are (or were intended to be) fifty different countries. Because these countries are small and share a common geography, they decided to form a federal government that would allow them to act together for mutual benefit in areas like defense and economics. This federal government was never intended to regulate individuals so much is its function was to govern the states. The states would in turn govern their individual populations. (I've written previously about the sovereignty of the states.)

If the federal government were kept small and limited to its original intent, then

dysfuctional state policies are constrained by the possibility of "voting with your feet." If a state imposes overly high taxes, adopts flawed regulations, or provides poor public services, people and businesses will tend to migrate elsewhere, thereby incentivizing the state government to clean up its act in order to preserve its tax base.

Instead, as the federal government grows and the states weaken, this ability to vote with one's feet will be no more. If you think that the taxes, regulations, or public services of a particular state are bad, wait until they are uniform nationwide. Make no mistake, giving the presidential election to the winner of the popular vote has nothing to do with furthering democracy or preventing what happened to Al Gore in 2000 (something that has happened only 3 other times in the 200+ year history of the U.S. federal government). It's ultimate effect will be to push state power and sovereignty further and further into obscurity until all political power is fully centralized at the federal level.

* * *

I didn't have the space to delve more deeply into the evils of central planning or other problems with the proposal to elect the president by popular vote. Some of those are addressed in an editorial by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. In that editorial, I found a reference to a doctrine often (incorrectly, it would seem) attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler. It reads:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.

It sounded very apropos and also reminded me of this quote, attributed to George Washington:

The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury.

* * *

Wikipedia also summarizes some of the theory behind indirect election of the president.

I can haz liberty now?

Late last week the New York state senate passed a bill allowing same-sex marriages in the state. A few years ago, I would have seen this as a great leap forward. When California had its big argument about Proposition 8 -- which sought to constitutionally declare that only a marriage between a man and a woman would be recognized by the state -- I argued with anyone and everyone that its passage was wrong because, at its core, it denied to one group of people rights that were granted to another group. I still believe that to be true, today, but what happened in New York last week caused me to see things a little bit differently.

Coincidentally, a blog post at mises.org, today, links to an article that argues that libertarians should support New York's action:

[W]hile agreeing that the long-term goal is separation of marriage and State [...] given the slim chance of separation happening any time soon, classical-liberal principles require the State to treat all citizens as equal before the law.

The author of the original post sees it differently:

[O]ne needs to separate rights from privileges and [...] increasing the relative size of a privileged group does not constitute a step in any valuable direction (at least from a libertarian point of view). [...] Equality under the numerous government laws is not only impossible (since pretty much all of them constitute privilege), but may be directly counter-acting the cause of liberty.

There was a time when I subscribed to the former view. Somewhere along the line, I came to embrace the latter. Let me explain.

Rights vs. Privileges

Up until I embraced this latter view, the difference between a right and a privilege never entered my mind. In reality, my conception was that a right was something that one had or acquired under the law. My definition of "right" was closer to that of "privilege". Since the two are going to be treated as separate from here on, it is worth defining them:

right: a just claim or title, whether legal, prescriptive, or moral
privilege: a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most

A right exists independent of any governing body. One has a just claim, for example, to his/her own body. After all, it doesn't make sense for anyone else to own it. Therefore, as the owner, one has a right to do with his/her body as he/she wishes. A privilege, on the other hand is something that is granted to one person or group. Voting is an example of this. While women and non-whites got the privilege long ago, it is still denied to felons in a number of states. This brings up an important distinction between rights and privileges. Privileges are granted and, therefore, can be (legitimately) taken away; rights are preexisting and cannot be (again, legitimately) taken.

In addition, it is worth distinguishing between positive and negative rights. At its simplest, "a negative right forbids others from acting against the right holder, while a positive right obligates others to act with respect to the right holder." Libertarianism says that no person has the right to use or threaten another with force. This is, in fact, a negative right. Every person has the right to be free from the aggressive violence of another. In fact, civil rights such as freedom of speech and association and the right to bear arms all arise from this notion. None of these acts, in and of themselves, are aggressive in nature.

Under the idea of negative rights, two people have the "right" to voluntarily associate with each other in whatever manner they wish. Absent a government (and/or a church), a "marriage" is simply a compact or contract between two people and has no meaning beyond the participants in the contract. That is, I may welcome you into my house, but your marriage does not obligate me to also welcome your spouse. On the other hand, when someone says that he/she has a "right to marry" under the (government) law, he/she is asserting a "positive right". What that person is really saying is that he/she wishes -- is entitled by right -- to be afforded the privileges conferred upon other married people.

The problem with all of this, of course, is that these privileges eventually obligate others to act in a certain way, under penalty of government force, with respect to the marriage contract and its participants even though these "others" have nothing to do with the contract. The solution is equally obvious: leave government out of marriage completely.

But what of the first author's view that the goal should be equality under the law? Shouldn't gays who love each other and, if not for existing law, would marry be granted the privileges that accompany that marriage? Let's look quickly at the "spousal privilege" as it relates to testifying in court for an answer. The spousal privilege refers to the idea that a person cannot be compelled (via government force) to testify against his/her spouse at trial. But what of people who don't wish to marry? What of close friends? This "privilege" does not extend to them. Therefore, in this context, while gay marriage brings gays on equal footing with straights -- and doctors of various types, I might add -- it leaves a very sizable portion of the population out in the proverbial cold, still subject to being compelled to testify. Other benefits not granted to unmarried people include tax breaks, visitation rights, special immigration status, inheritance, etc. There is still no equality under the law, yet nobody that I am aware of is questioning this inequity.

Liberty as a privilege

Now that I've, I hope, made the right vs. privilege distinction clear, I think it is safe to say that, by and large, the rest of the population does not readily acknowledge this distinction. Instead, most of the population views the right to associate (via marriage, gay or otherwise) as indistinguishable from the privileges that come with the state recognition of that association. As such, arguably, this entire situation could be viewed as a group of people begging an even smaller group of people -- politicians -- to please, please, please grant them their liberty when it was the very institution for whom those politicians work that took it away in the first place.

Maybe marriage is a bad example, though. By that I mean, we can't rightly infer the intentions of all people who demand "marriage equality". Having muddied the waters by giving state sanction and privilege to marriage, the government has inextricably linked liberty/rights to privilege such that the population no longer recognizes the difference. And now, we arrive at the real reason I am not head over heels about the recent happenings in New York. The government has transformed liberty and natural rights into privileges.

Marriage, admittedly, is possibly not the best example. So, let's turn our attention to the right to keep and bear arms. In California, among other places, the right to carry a gun in public has been all but completely denied. Open carry of a loaded gun has long been illegal. Open carry of an unloaded gun has been legal by virtue of the legislature not realizing that it had not forbidden it, but it is quickly working to rectify that. Concealed carry is only an option if one lives in a rural area or is buddy, buddy with the sheriff of his/her county. Carrying a gun in an urban area of California is, no doubt, a privilege reserved to government officials and those that donate to them.

Let's go a step further. Earlier, I mentioned that each person is the proper owner of his/her own body (if for no other reason than because no other owner makes any sense) and can do whatever he or she wishes with it so long as the action does not violate another's ownership of his or her body. If this is true -- and it would be impossible in my mind to argue differently -- then one has the right to put whatever one wants into his or her own body. This includes not only so called illicit drugs but prescriptions as well. Why should one have to obtain permission from a doctor who has in turn been granted permission from the state to get a prescription?

Maybe drugs aren't your thing. Perhaps you like milk? I hope it's not raw milk. The FDA doesn't like raw milk and has even gone so far as to say that individuals do not have the right to eat what they wish. The FDA is quickly moving in the same direction against mothers who share breast milk.

All of these liberties have been transformed into government-granted privileges. As if that wasn't bad enough, the system is self perpetuating. As a monopoly provider of law and enforcement, the government has been put in the position of having the power to deny a right by law and enforce that denial through its police power, thus rendering it a privilege. Citizens are left with two options, neither of which is appealing: 1) ignore the law and risk ending up in jail, or 2) beg the government to recognize/grant their liberty.

The latter option seems to be the government's approved method of attempting to maintain/regain one's liberty, and there is a very simple reason for that. To utilize this method is to implicitly acknowledge that liberty is a government-granted privilege.

The legitimacy of voting

With Ron Paul running for president again, much is being made about the legitimacy of voting. In fact, my wife asked me the other day if I would vote for Ron Paul either in the primary or in the general election, should he succeed in getting the Republican nomination. I honestly wasn't sure how to answer. I oppose voting on the grounds that 1.) participation in the system may be (mis)construed as consent to or legitimization of the system, and 2.) voting is the attempt to impose one's own will on another.

Tom Woods addressed the first objection in a blog post the other day:

If you were stuck in a prison camp, and the guards let you vote on whether you were to have gruel or prime rib for dinner, would you be “consenting to the system” to vote for prime rib, or would you simply be doing the best you could under the circumstances to improve your material condition?

His question implies that the two options -- consenting to the system or doing the best you could to improve your material condition -- are mutually exclusive. They are not. Can you vote for the prime rib (or the gruel, for that matter) and still oppose the system? Absolutely. Will your captors acknowledge this distinction? Doubtful.

The problem with these types of thought experiments is that they are directed at the wrong audience. The title of Mr. Woods' blog post is "Why Even an Anarchist Should Vote for Ron Paul". The content is clearly directed at anarchists of various stripes who have made a conscious decision not to vote for whatever reason. They, typically, understand the nuances of voting but not consenting. That is not to say that statists don't also understand that nuance. However, whether they understand it or not, they will not acknowledge it.

When one is born into this world, he or she cannot be said to have consented to any government. In fact, even adhering to the laws of any particular government cannot be said to constitute consent. A person breaking the law often enough would quickly find himself in a situation akin to the prison camp described by Mr. Woods. Therefore, the only position we can reasonably ascribe to such a person is a desire to avoid the government force threatened when the law is broken. The same applies to paying taxes. Paying taxes also cannot be said to serve as consent because, again, government force is threatened if taxes are not paid. While adhering to the laws and paying taxes are sometimes used as a measure of consent, even the most ardent government supporter cannot claim that these are completely free choices made by an individual.

How then can we measure whether a person consents to his government? It can only be by an affirmative participation with government in which a person can freely choose whether or not to participate. This participation must also not be predicated on some prior interaction with the government. An example of this latter condition is the acceptance of a government benefit by a taxpayer. The taxes were appropriated (for the sake of argument) without the consent of the person, and the courts refuse to hear any case in which taxes are purported to be theft. Therefore, the only recourse for the taxpayer to try to recoup his lost property is by accepting some kind of government benefit, be it through the use of public roads or schools or accepting payments from programs like Social Security. (This ultimately leads to the problem described by libertarian class analysis, namely that there exists net tax payers and net tax beneficiaries, but that is another topic entirely.)

What we are left with to determine consent is voting. (Technically, voluntary military service could also serve in this role, but this is applicable to a very low percentage of the population and therefore not suitable for this discussion.) Again, it is possible to vote and not consent; it is even possible to make the argument that voting for lower taxes (or against higher ones) is a form of action predicated on a prior government action: theft via taxation. However, voting is the "most free" interaction with government allowed, and as described previously, those in government and those who support it will construe voting as consent. Sure, one can disagree with the outcome, but one still consented to it. In this way, voting for a candidate who most favors libertarian ideals -- who outright wants to abolish government -- could be the most damning act of all (in a statist's eyes) because one will vote most earnestly and without reservation to give his candidate the power of government, even if the goal is ultimately to turn that power against itself.

To illustrate my second objection to voting, let me alter Mr. Woods' example slightly:

Let's assume again that you are stuck in a prison camp, this time with two others. The prison guards again offer a choice of gruel or prime rib. One of the others becomes violently ill when eating red meat, and one is tired of eating gruel to the point of violence.

Do you vote for the prime rib, forcing the one who will become ill to go without? Do you vote for the gruel risking the possibility that the other one will become violent and hurt either you or the allergic one? Do you work out some kind of system in which you vote for prime rib sometimes and gruel other times leaving the allergic one without food on occasion?

It's very easy to look at a situation like that proposed by Tom Woods and assume that there is nothing wrong with voting because the situations presented are such that no one would oppose them. Roderick Long, in an article I highly recommend, makes the same leap by analogizing that it would be right for Lana Lang to take control of Lex Luthor's Juggernaut Beast and prevent the destruction of Smallville -- you really have to read the article. (Long eventually shoots his own argument in the foot by saying that there is nothing wrong with a libertarian wielding government power so long as he doesn't use it for "evil". Why isn't the same true of Lex Luthor? Lex has not aggressed against anyone merely by flying around in his Juggernaut Beast, at least not any more so than the mere existence of government constitutes aggression.) Real life is never so cut and dried. The choices required in voting are more often like the example of the prison camp that I described.

In summary, voting is not, in and of itself, an immoral or aggressive act. Furthermore, it is possible to vote for (or against) something and still object to the system within which the vote takes place. However, no matter how one rationalizes his act of voting or not voting, he must be aware of how that action will be perceived (particularly by those with whom he disagrees) and if/how that action will affect others.

Why democracy? (continued)

After my last post, I received a few replies decrying what some saw as my advocating of gay rights. Looking back on that post, it doesn't seem to me an unreasonable inference on the reader's part to make that leap. I admit that the misunderstanding is probably, at least partially, my own fault for using the word "rights". These responses missed the point of the post, though. The point was not to advocate for legalization of gay marriage or marijuana use. Rather, it was to point out that democracy is not the cure-all that people believe it to be. Democracy will always be a tool by which a majority will oppress a minority and ultimately the individual. The particular issue(s) in which this phenomenon occurs is not relevant. That said, let me expand on the issue of gay rights, marriage in particular, further to answer the questions I received.

First, there seems to be a lot of hoopla surrounding the word "marriage". Some believe that a marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Some believe that it is the union of a man and a woman, blessed by God (these people, by and large, seem to have no problem, though, with a state performed marriage absent any church). Others believe that it can be the union between two people of the same sex inside or outside of a church. Still others believe that it is not limited to two people at all. I have no particular affinity for the word "marriage", and I use it fairly loosely in the following paragraphs. If the use of the word marriage in this post offends you in this context, please feel free to replace it with "civil union" or whatever other phrase best suits your ideology.

Marriage is, or should be, from the state's perspective, nothing more than a contract, a property arrangement. Obviously, marriage means much more to the actual participants, but the state has no business beyond the property arrangement. For example, the state doesn't penalize one spouse for failing to sufficiently love the other spouse(s). However, the state does have laws for how property transfers occur between spouses when they die or dissolve their marriage, pre-nuptial or other agreements, notwithstanding. Not only that, but marriage also confers special privileges upon spouses like receiving benefits of various kinds, tax deductions, making medical decisions on behalf of an injured spouse, and protection from being compelled to testify against a spouse in court.

In the U.S., these privileges are only applicable to male/female unions under the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996. Under this act, our democracy has, for all intents and purposes, discriminated against a significant portion of the population by denying them the ability to form a marriage contract between themselves and their chosen partners. To my earlier point, the majority has oppressed the minority by denying a specific group of people the ability to voluntarily engage in a specific type of contract and receive the benefits afforded by that contract.

It seems obvious, then, that the solution is to legalize gay marriage. However, doing so would only grant more power to and further legitimize the state. To argue for legalization would legitimize the act of having made it illegal in the first place. It would give credence to the idea that one person has the right to impose his views on another via the coercion of law; it would legitimize the idea that that the government (or the majority via the government) has the authority to grant or deny permission for private parties to voluntarily enter into a contract. So we are left with a Sophie's Choice of sorts. Either, let the majority continue to oppress the minority or grant ever more power to the state. Let me suggest a third alternative: the state should cease involvement in all marriage and stop granting benefits on the basis thereof. People should be free to marry whomever they choose without having to ask permission from anyone or pay for the privilege, and the state, to the extent that it exists, should simply honor the contracts.

"Saving" capitalism

[I wrote the following in response to a friend who posted this article on his Facebook page. I apologize for the lack of annotated links in this post.]

The article starts by blaming Bush for a declining market. That's not really fair. Obama is doing exactly what Bush was doing when he left office (stimulus/bailouts). That is, if Bush had been President for two more years, the economy would likely be in the exact same place it is today. 9/11, coupled with the bursting tech bubble, is what originally sank the economy. Greenspan then held interest rates down, and the Dow Jones was back up to around 14,000 in late 2007. (How's that for one-sided reporting on the author's part... only pointing to the Dow at 8,500 on Bush's last day.) Greenspan's plan backfired, though. The low interest rates created a bubble in the housing market leading to all kinds of crazy gimmicks on the banks' parts. These fell apart in late 2007, and the market tanked again.

In response, the government began bailing out banks, the auto industry, anyone who could get get their hands into the proverbial cookie jar. Bush and Obama both did it, and it was a bad idea both times. Neither of them "saved" capitalism. The problem is that neither of them (or anyone in the government) has the backbone to let capitalism do its job. Capitalism means failure for those who can't compete and for those who do it fraudulently. The bailed out auto companies fall into the first category; the banks and insurance companies subsidizing their schemes fall into the second. Of course GM and Chrysler are making cars again! The government gave them the money to do it, and the government did it because it was politically better to try to save jobs (or at least that was the thinking at the time). Nothing about that investment other than the perceived political upside was a good thing at the time. To argue now that the fact that the government made (or possibly will make) money means the investment was a good one is to argue that the ends justify the means. That is the last argument anyone should apply to the state in any of its dealings.

The problem with the economy now is that Bernanke is making the same mistake(s) that Greenspan made. He's holding interest rates down at zero. (Remember the housing bubble? Why does no one see that Bernanke's cure is actually more of the poison?) Bernanke's got huge problem, though. The low interest rates aren't working. Banks are hoarding the cash because they still have more toxic assets on their books. What's his solution? He's turned on the printing presses and is using the new money to buy U.S. Treasuries in the hopes of bringing down long term interest rates. He claims he can do this because inflation is tame. That's because banks are hording the cash he's printing. Gold is continuing to rise in price, though; the market knows what is going on. Look also at other commodities like cotton, oil, etc. They're fairly stable now, but that's because producers hedge their bets by buying futures. Come Spring/Summer of next year, prices of those items are going to skyrocket (the same effect could probably be achieved by banks finally beginning to lend again all at once), and Bernanke won't be able to stop it. He can't raise interest rates like Volcker did, because unemployment is already high. (Volcker had the luxury of being able to drive unemployment up with interest rates so he could tame inflation.) The other alternative is that China stops buying up U.S. Treasuries (it's already making noises about doing that very thing) or the entire market just loses faith in the entire system (i.e. the government's ability or intention to repay its debt). When, not if, one of those things happens, the economy is going to collapse, not just tank. Think hyperinflation like in Chile in the 70's.

Yes, it would have been bad if the government had not intervened in the economy, but the government's "saving" of capitalism makes each attempt by the market to flush out the bad stuff even worse than the previous one because it (the government) won't actually let the bad stuff be flushed out. The government isn't saving capitalism. It is destroying it by making everyone think that what we have is capitalism.

[Here are some other witticisms that I sprinkled later on in the thread.]

In response to a comment that Democrats lost the midterms because Obama/they failed to get the message out:

Getting the message out is not leadership. It's politics. And we don't need either.

And in response to a comment that Americans "got it right" in this most recent election:

Americans never get it right in any election. The government keeps getting elected.

Just... hold on a second

I came across a number of weird/wacky news stories this morning, and since I didn't really feel like writing very much, I was going to just post a few links with some commentary to accompany them. Then a friend of mine posted a link to an opinion piece entitled "Just Stop" over on the Mesa Democratic Club's website. Well, I loves me some politics, so I went over to read it. The article started out well enough (read: I agreed with it), but then it lost me. Since this friend of mine and I have agreed not to discuss politics over our social network of choice, I decided to write this post.

The article starts out pointing out that Sarah Palin is not a "political outsider", that the Tea Party is not an independent group, and that John McCain no longer has any discernible political positions outside of whatever it takes to get elected. These are all excellent points with which I could not agree more. It's at this point that our respective positions diverge.

Stop pretending that the deficit we’re all facing is the fault of President Obama and the Democratic Congress. During the Bush administration, we went from a surplus to a massive deficit, largely thanks to two wars that were never (until Obama) added to the federal budget—wars, in other words, fought entirely on credit. We compounded the problem with tax cuts that largely benefited the wealthy, and a huge Medicare increase, and all those were also on credit. When the economy tanked in fall 2008, Bush quickly pushed through the TARP bailout, adding to the deficit (but pulling the economy back from the cliff).

President Obama is not entirely responsible for the deficit. He is quickly adding to it, though. Yes, Obama added the wars to the federal budget, but that does not change the fact that they (along with the much of the rest of the budget) are still paid for on credit. And while Bush may have pulled the economy back from the cliff, he did not change it's direction; it is still headed that way under Obama.

Stop pretending that the near-ruinous economic crash that we’re still reeling from was Obama’s fault, too. The root causes stretch back decades, to a continued process of deregulating financial institutions, allowing them ever more leeway to prey on the vulnerable, to sell mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, and to manipulate financial products that were ultimately guaranteed to fall apart.

And stop pretending that Obama and the current Congress should have been able to fix the two above problems in 18 months, when it took eight years to create the first one and literally decades of foxes guarding financial henhouses to create the second.

Again, the author is correct that the economic crash was not caused by Obama, and that it is unrealistic to think that the government would be able to fix it (I would argue, in any amount of time). The author implicitly places the blame on the private sector, however, when he talks about mortgages and financial products. Those mortgages that people couldn't afford were promoted and backed by the government in the form of Fannie and Freddie and FHA and VA loans. Obama has continued this process with the homebuyer tax credit and the HAFA and HAMP programs. For non-mortgage related financial instruments, look no further than the Federal Reserve serving as the "lender of last resort". Even though the Fed is nominally a private entity, it's ludicrous to think that they really are, and when banks get into trouble, the Fed bails them out via the power of "printing" money, a power that Congress abdicated to it long ago.

Stop pretending that saying “No” is the same as governing. We pay our legislators good money to go to Washington and make difficult decisions that keep the country moving. By voting “No” on every bill, by refusing to negotiate in good faith, by deciding that short-term political advantage was more important than the everyday lives of Americans, the Republicans set back our recovery, made needed reforms fall short, and put our lives and our economy at unnecessary risk.

I hate the idea that governing means "doing something". Saying "no" is a legitimate act, one in which all politicians engage because nobody can agree on the exact role of government. In this way, saying "no" is doing something. That is not to say that Republicans are not being obstructionist for political gains; however, the author would be better advised to point out Republican hypocrisy on things like expanding Medicare under Bush but railing against the PPACA, now.

Stop pretending that the economy is magic. You can’t continue to give millionaires and billionaires huge tax cuts, make tiny, cosmetic cuts at the margins of things, and still reduce the deficit. You can’t create jobs without spending money. Tax cuts for millionaires and up are not stimulative because those people don’t spend the money from the cut—it’s not like you’re giving them a wad of cash and sending them to the store. When you put an unemployed person to work or give a tax cut to a poor or middle class family, that’s exactly what it’s like—they go buy things they need and those dollars flow through the economy, creating jobs and wealth everywhere they go.

I'm not sure anyone is pretending that the economy is magic; however it is far more complex than most imagine. Not only that, but the government via regulation or the Fed often arbitrarily moves the market in ways that could only be predicted by magic. The author is correct that tax cuts (to anyone) won't balance the budget. He is mistaken, though, if he thinks that tax increases will do the job, either. Federal spending is out of control, and the only way to save this country's economy, over the long term, is to start cutting Social Security, Medicare, the military, everything.

And stop talking about stimulus. It's too bad that people believe that Keynesian economics preaches deficit spending. Keynes, mistaken as I believe his theories to be, spoke of stimulative spending out of savings. Yes, it takes money to create jobs, but it also takes money to keep those jobs. To think that the government (or anyone) can throw a one-time bucket of cash at the economy to "unstick" it is ridiculous. It will only lead to the government having to throw ever increasing amounts of money at the economy. It's amazing to me that most people agree that easy credit was the proximate cause of the economic conditions in which we all now live and at the same time believe that if the government just borrows more from China that that will fix the problem. We will end up back in this very situation again, only it will be much, much worse.

The things that Pelosi and Reid have supported these past 18 months have been programs that will help America move into the 21st century. Health care reform, in spite of great efforts at pretending, is not a “government takeover” of health care—it institutionalizes, in law, the presence of the health insurance industry, and gives that industry millions of new clients.

Whoa! Stop right there! Did you catch that? The government, under Democratic control, via the coercion of law, just delivered millions of customers to the health insurance industry. It's not just the Republicans that are in bed with big business.

It will, in the long run, reduce the deficit and create a healthier nation, by allowing more people to get preventive care and long-term care and keeping the sick and impoverished from turning to emergency rooms when there’s a crisis.

This entire problem was created by the government in the first place, though.

Stop pretending that “lifelong politician” is some kind of curse. Most people who hold public office do so because they genuinely want to help people, they genuinely want to make government responsive to the needs of their fellow Americans, and they’re willing to put themselves on the line every few years to get the chance to do so.

Here's a thought experiment: If "most" people who hold public office genuinely want to help people and make government better, why hasn't it happened?

Stop pretending that “big government” is the problem. When’s the last time you were seriously inconvenienced or injured by something that big government did?

Gay rights, TSA body scanners, highway checkpoints, the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretaps, extra-judicial assassinations, indefinite detentions, inflation, etc. Don't tell me that (some of) these don't affect me. When one person's rights are trampled, everybody's are, and that's just at the federal level. Not only that, but all of this ignores the fact that every year I have to fill out a number of forms figuring out, on the government's behalf, how much money they want from me, and then send them that amount under the threat of force if I either figure wrong or don't send the right amount.

Stop pretending that anybody’s going to come and take your guns away. [...] There’s no truth to it, there’s never been any truth to it, and if you actually believe it, you just might be so simple-minded that you shouldn’t be trusted with a firearm.

They may not be trying to take them away, per se, but the laws (at least in CA) are clearly not conducive to gun purchases or ownership. One must wait 10 days to purchase any gun, even if one already owns one or one hundred of them. AB962, once in effect, will make the mail-ordering of handgun ammunition illegal and require fingerprints be taken of law-abiding citizens when they do purchase ammunition. It is illegal to actually carry one's gun in a manner that would actually allow it to be used effectively in self-defense, and many counties around the state deny CCW applications to all but the wealthy and connected.

Perhaps the author can explain to me why the BATFE and the state of CA keep records of gun sales if not to retain the possibility of rounding up guns in the future. I realize that that has a bit of a "tin foil hat" sound to it, but it is a legitimate question.

The author goes off the rails at this point with a lot of name calling. He tries to bring it home at the end, though.

Finally, stop pretending that voting doesn’t matter, and don’t let the 2010 Class of Crazy take office and convince you otherwise.

A variation on the previous thought experiment I proposed is apropos here: If voting mattered, why is government the way that it is? Perhaps it's because we've gotten the very government for which we voted. Voting doesn't matter and arguably does more harm than good. A voter is statistically more likely to be killed going to or coming from his/her polling place than to cast the deciding vote in an election. I refer the reader my previous posts on voting and the nature of government.

If you vote, you're a statist

I began reading a book called Moral Politics last night. (It can be found on Google Books, here.) I plowed through the first two chapters which basically comprise an introduction for the rest of the book relatively quickly. So far, it appears that the author divides politics, and those who participate in them, into two basic camps: conservative and liberal. He then introduces the idea that the nation, the U.S. in particular, is a family (or at least that it is viewed this way by its citizens) with the government acting as a parent and the citizenry as its children. Finally, he lays down his main thesis that people's view of government comes from the moral structure by which they live their own lives. Ultimately, he arrives at the conclusion that conservatives view the government as a "strict father", and liberals view it as a "nurturing mother" (or "parent").

The strict father model holds that the government's job is to give "tough love" to its citizens to prepare them to be self-sufficient. As such, it should be tough on crime and make sure that discipline is swift and decisive. It should also not get involved with "entitlement" programs like social security, health insurance, or unemployment benefits. The strict father view is not heartless. Social programs may have their place for short periods, but the emphasis is always on discipline and self-reliance.

The nurturing parent model holds that the role of government is to support its citizens by understanding their problems and the causes of them and helping them work through them so that they can become self-sufficient. In this role, the government would provide rehabilitation programs to criminals while they "do their time". It would be understanding that people's economic troubles are not necessarily of their own doing and that things like health insurance and unemployment benefits are necessary to help people get "back on their feet" and become self-sufficient. In short, discipline and self-reliance are good things, but the emphasis is always on helping people find their way back to those ideals.

As I read these first two chapters, I couldn't help but feel that I didn't fit into either category. And maybe that's not the point. I think the author's purpose is not to help people fit into one camp or the other but to explain why the two camps think the way they do. Nevertheless, I couldn't help trying to fit myself into some neat little box so that I could then decide how I felt about what the author was saying. Eventually, I realized that my problem with this book (at least so far) is that the author never questions the existence, legitimacy, or authority (moral or otherwise) of the government (or as I like to refer to it in these types of discussions, the State). (I'd like to explore this in later posts.)

In the context of the book, the conservative and liberal labels only apply insofar as they describe political views. As far as I am concerned, conservatives and liberals are the same. While they disagree about the means (strict vs. nurturing) by which to achieve their ends (a disciplined and self-reliant society), they do agree that those means are best carried out by the State. They're statists. I imagine that statism is most closely associated with fascism in many people's minds and therefore typically associated with conservatives and those on the political right. Statism, though is the belief that the State has a major role, economic or otherwise, to play in people's lives. Given this view, statism can be equally associated with socialism which is a commonly associated with liberals and those on the political left.

Now, let me connect the dots between the title of this post and everything I've written up to this point. When a person participates in the electoral system and votes, he legitimizes the system. As such, he agrees to be bound by the outcome, and regardless of which person is put into power or which law is enacted, the result is always the same: the State is legitimized. No matter which person or law a person votes for or against, that person is always voting for the State. The only way to vote against the State is to not vote at all.

If you're still reading, you've probably realized that I don't vote. If you were paying attention, then you'll realize that the old line, "if you don't vote, you can't complain" is exactly backwards. By voting, you agree that the process and the outcome are legitimate and to be bound by them. I, on the other hand, by refusing to vote lend no such legitimacy to the process or the outcome. Therefore, I'm actually the only one who can complain.