Detailed Abstractions

In an email discussion with a very interesting new friend, an idea I’ve heard before came up:  Libertarianism is sort-of childish; a Utopian dream that’s nice in theory, but not practical in reality.

It might be trivial to write at this point, but I of course disagreed.  To be fair, I believe this is completely true on foreign policy.  Libertarianism seems like a domestic political philosophy only, but more on that in the future.

On the childish part – in some ways I can see why that perception exists as well.  I’ve jokingly said before the reason libertarianism has a bad name, is because of libertarians.  The cultural norm in libertarian thinkers who draw large numbers of readers seems to be to take one basic principle and stretch it to infinity.

For instance – it’s your property, you can do with as you please.  So you can put a brothel next door to an elementary school and the only recourse should be neighbors buying the lot to out price the brothel.

To many, including me, this is stupid.  The point in giving as many freedom to others as possible, simply can not include a dissolution of society itself by subjecting populations to things they don’t want.  Also, I think they already have this type of vision in local government using SOME zoning laws.

Additionally though, libertarians do believe in contracts.  So if a bunch of people bought tons of land, they could sell those plots with any caveat they want – even religious requirement.  By buying the lot, you are signing the contract and therefore willingly entering into that agreement with those constraints.

While I firmly believe this is possible, legal, and potentially preferable, it seems like that’s a community/town.  Their issue however with government control is one of the use of force, but I think that’s due to too much centralization.  Studies have shown, more decentralization, IE – more local control, leads to better outcomes (here).  What this would mean, if we were to ever take it seriously, is that while New York might maintain 18 million people for the economic possibilities that provides, government spending and programs should be on a much smaller level.

Please note – this doesn’t mean that no federal government should exist or that taxes should only exist on a very local level, just to say that smaller communities providing for their own fire, police, education, etc, etc, etc works better than 3 million people trying the same thing.  The idea is a state tax or federal tax would be required for things such as national defense, but the majority of expenditures should be directed more locally by a mayor or city manager at a much smaller level.

So it’s not that I believe the community should completely dissipate, it’s that I firmly believe that when the government gets involved, it actually distorts the system to the point where people simply don’t take care of themselves…. or their neighbors.   I think this is backed up by basic human behaviors and thinking as well as all of our uniquely “urban” problems.

One of the human conditions which helps this continue is that of group think.  By safely removing yourself far away from the negative results the government produces with its Wars on poverty, terrorism, obesity…. kids?  People can insulate themselves in larger communities due to increased anonymity by blaming society at large, instead of assuming any direct responsibility.

Listen carefully when people argue about police abuse, or crappy government inefficiencies with social spending, or politician’s lack of values…. they place blame it lots of places, but never on themselves and usually, oddly enough, never on the voters either.

Going further, the government exploits our fears with the media willing accomplices (Politics of Fear) into giving up more control to the government and thereby reinforcing the notion that the government is the answer, when it fact it’s people.

For instance.. violent crime is down a great deal since 1990 (uptick recently, but very small and declining again), but the reporting of crime has increased on average around 500%.  Thanks to multiple 24 hour news shows, combined with a finite amount of news, sensational stories about very rare events influences people’s fears about those events.

We humans aren’t that good at evaluating risk as it is, without doing so in a very methodical way, but with the government’s various wars on everything: AIDs, H1N1, Poverty, Terrorism, Obesity, Smoking, Drugs, Cancer…. kids?  All with the media willingly pushing these sensationalized news stories, people have exaggerated fears towards rare events and minimal fears towards much more likely catastrophic events (great video here ~20 minutes).

Add to this, a general lack of skepticism and critical thinking, most people never take the time to see if their fears, concerns, or core set of understanding of the world is accurate.  I believe this is due to a lack of appropriate priorities for most people, but more on that later.*

Looking at society, you can see the fear we have in our neighbors.  For example, in lots of neighborhoods in lots of places, people will more quickly call the cops on a loud neighbor than just walk over and ask politely.  We go to court when cutting down a tree that crosses property lines, we call the cops when we think the neighbor has too many dogs, we…. we just call the cops because people are scared of their neighbors.  & not because they know about the bunker with a year’s worth of rations and ammunition, but because we continue to allow our human frailty in risk assessment to be exploited by those only seeking more power.

Additionally, we willingly take away rights from others.  The most consistent comment from friends, colleagues, strangers who accidentally started a conversation with me…. but for those I did talk to around carry conceal laws during a vote in MO had, by definition of a binary question, one of two answers. Yes or No

The interesting part of the nos was almost all used the same basic reasoning when talking to me:  “You’re fine. It wouldn’t bother me a bit if you carried a gun, you were in the military and trained.  I just don’t know about everyone else.”  Other than showing a lack of knowledge of how little an electronic technician trains on weapons, I think it shows our general distrust of others.

Not surprisingly, even when confronted with the stats that prove FL, TX, and other states did not turn into the Wild West (not that the West was truly all that “wild”) where horn honks during rush hour turned into shootouts between soccer moms & insurance salesmen, were all safely ignored.

I guess the cognitive dissonance was too much to handle because stats like those in FL & TX demonstrate that our 99.9% of our neighbors who might get a carry conceal permit are not planning to emulate Rambo on the morning commute did nothing to waver the opponents.

With all that being said – I’m proffering the idea that in an odd, perverse, but easily understandable way, government involvement, even in very charitable actions, can actually reduce our incentive to live together peacefully and take responsibility for our communities.

*On the lack of priorities, I don’t believe all people should run out and research everything I know because I think everyone should read what I read.  I think the very first rule in critical thinking that all trying to be honest analysts have to understand is that like all other humans, even those trained and educated in analysis, will still have the same frailties in their thinking process.  Potentially less pronounced, but never completely mitigated.

Therefore, when writing that peoples’ priorities seem to be off, I think our failure isn’t with not reading what I read – but in being a well rounded person by honestly reflecting and actively deciding their core values.

As a corollary to that – I believe society is teaching people right now that this is a good thing. Valueless employees ask fewer questions and do more as their told without contemplating reality and what the decision’s effects most likely are. & Even if they do contemplate and know it’s wrong, they do it anyway. Therefore people who don’t make waves, get promoted. Those who ask pertinent questions, even if necessary and correct, get ostracized.

This is not only true of our business leaders, Bernie Madoff, Enron, MCI, but our politicians as well.  Unethical leaders leading secret lives, even the corrupt politicians among us, seem to get a reprieve from the voters… so long as you’re on their side and they’re not mean.

Additionally the leadership selection process seems perverted for the same reasons the leaders aren’t what we should expect.  Someone who is arbitrary, but polite and educated, is someone a lot of people like.   In a deep seeded wish to reduce not only any discomfort we might experience, but for civility’s sake try to prevent others’ discomfort, society has conflated the ideas of social skills with leadership to the detriment of society as a whole.

On the whole, it seems our desire for civility has the unintended consequence of making us less civil and more prone to failure.

Sorry for the respite….

• Two great articles in Reason’s February issue:  One by staff science writer, Ron Bailey discussing health care (here), which starts with something everyone should know who’s interested in high price of medical care:

According to the conventional wisdom, the United States faces a massive medical bill thanks to our use of pricey new treatments and equipment. “About half of all growth in health care spending in the past several decades was associated with changes in medical care made possible by advances in technology,” a 2008 Congressional Budget Office report declared….

Don’t be fooled however, some of our more interesting intellectuals think this is reason enough to retard medical advance:

…This is familiar territory for [bio-ethicist Daniel] Callahan, who for decades has advocated reining in medical innovation to reduce health care costs. He also favors limiting the life-extending treatments that older people receive, on the grounds that most of them will “have lived a full and fruitful biographical life prior to age 70.”….

Who like most people that wish to control every thing in your life, including how you’ll die – refuses to take his own medicine:

…Interestingly, Callahan, age 79, underwent a life-saving seven-hour heart procedure in August that cost upward of $100,000….

So out “bio-ethicist” wants to tell your grandmother tough crap, while he does as he pleases.  I’m guessing his title was self-anointed as this is a one-way trip to genocide…. all genocidal societies started with this premise – the young, but very sick & the old, they are burdens on us… what a disgrace as a human being.

But going forward… the second article, written by staff writer Radley Balko… generally disliked because all his articles contain bad news about law enforcement abuses angering most readers and this case is no different.   Read about LE & justice system abuses when they are allowed to seize assets they believe were used in a crime or bought with criminal proceeds (here).  One more thing the state is actively doing to subvert true freedom.

• PysBlog has a good post on reasons we desire and try for conformity (here).

• The IRS, one of the most hated government agencies, is now allowed to bring armed guards into your home if they find you a possible threat (here).  The Christian Science Monitor seems to think this is warranted due to anti-government violence, but tries to prove it with numbers that are likely on par with the rest of society:

…The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), which oversees the IRS, handles an average of 918 threats made against IRS employees every year, according to the agency. Between 2001 and 2008, court cases resulting from those threats have resulted in 195 convictions, according to TIGTA….

Even if out of all the hundreds of thousands of people who worked for the IRS between those 7 years, it seems like this is overkill.  Having said that, I also have no faith in their numbers at all.  Months ago we were told to stay away from 10% unemployment, we have to spend money.  We spent, we’re at 10% (here).

Additionally, organizations like MADD routinely exaggerate their findings.  For instance, in their version of “alcohol related accidents” – if you had too much to drink and just want to sleep it off and someone, completely sober, runs into your parked car – that’s an alcohol related accident.

I’m not saying he’s lying, I’m just saying that in my personal experience while studying, believing a government agency is telling the full and accurate truth, especially when that truth gets them extra funding, is highly unlikely.

• Lastly, an oldy but a goody.  My 13 year old daughter heard this on an economics talk I was watching, told one of her friends parents about it & they refused to believe.  You might refuse as well…. but remember, we are all entitled to our opinions, but not our facts (here).  Basic thesis:  Seat belt laws did not reduce driver fatalities significantly, because it increased the number of overall accidents and worse still, it has resulted in more deaths of pedestrians.  Proving once again, that almost all governments laws intending to prevent some result, do more harm than good.

Over @ The Economist’s new-ish debate section, they are currently debating the proposition This house believes that China is showing more leadership than America in the fight against climate change and currently, 74% believe in this proposition.

I know I’m unlikely to change many minds, but it’s always seemed to me that when trying to evaluate one country’s international progress on any one specific ideal, we end up narrowing the debate to such an extent as to make the question irrelevant.

In what seems to be a strong desire to answer questions objectively without respect to questions of ethics or other governmental policies, the intelligent ones among us miss the forest for the trees.

Towards that end – my two cents:

Dear Sir,

It seems maybe we should define leadership to an extent that either includes ethical behavior or can exist without ethics. For as long as the term leadership includes some notion of ethics, “ability to move fast” or the ability to put up light rail for the Olympics, simply can not matter in light of governmental policies designed specifically to limit the freedom of the individual and make the peasant serf work for the state.

Even *if* one wants to make the argument that ethics aren’t integral to the question, it’s still useful in evaluating “leadership”. For instance, when China starts implementing new green policies and initiatives, what’s the likely source of technology they will use? American? German? British? Swedish?

& Why? Because when people are allowed opportunities to flourish through a system that protects them with basic contract rights, innovation will flow much more easily. This is why China might manufacture most of the toys and basic electronic gadgets in the world, but the design process certainly came from someplace else.

An an example, they only recently successfully launched a satellite into orbit.  Prior to 1996, 2 out of 3 attempts ended in massive failures, meanwhile those freer countries had hundreds of them for various purposes including GPS, with even private companies using the technology successfully as well.

& lastly – it’s unlikely China would even admit a problem at all if they still retained the control that was possible just a few short decades ago. Today, they try to control press from earthquakes, the forceful removing of millions to make Olympic Village, their crime rate, and any number of other things they consider “bad” press.

Due to the explosion in the sharing of global information however, China finds it difficult to hide as much as they used to. Even the very closed off North Korea is finding this difficult as well.

So long as they continue to hide bad press, there’s no reason to think this “leadership” is anything other than a play at international recognition while hopefully strengthening their core domestic support.

In strategic thinking, this is known as a two-fer.

Either way – both goals have only one thing in common – staying in power and retaining as much control over the population as possible.

Removing ethics and the results of their standard operating procedure seems the only way to think of China as leading the world in anything.