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.

Anyone remember when Halloween was about running around the neighborhood, staying up late, and eating too much candy?  Remember when selling lemonade was easy?

Well, thanks to how enlightened we’ve become, things like that are no longer allowed… by law in some places.

In Bellvile, IL the law encompasses ages of those allowed to trick-or-treat, whether children over 12 should be allowed to wear masks at all, and of course the all important curfew.

I don’t know about you, but it’s odd to me that this many ordinances are required for a fake holiday.  Even the explanation shows how little the mayor grasps what a police state this is becoming (@Fox2News):

…Mayor Eckert said “We had listened for many years to our residents, particularly seniors and single moms who said it was kind of scary many times when high school aged kids, people who are as tall as you and me, 6-feet tall, coming to their door late at night.”

“We firmly believe that trick or treating is for children, and when they get to be an age, if their parents aren’t sensible enough to tell them they’re getting too old, you’re getting too big, then we feel that the ordinance is in tact for our police officers to not have to tap them on the shoulder telling them to knock it off,” explained Eckert….

With all due respect to the mayor, I don’t honestly care what you “firmly” believe about Halloween.

Honestly, I tend to agree that 16 year olds running around for candy is stupid.  But I’m not sure that if parents allow their kids to do things I “firmly believe” are stupid equates to a government attempt to micromanage behavior on Halloween.

It’s instructive that the mayor doesn’t even seem to grasp the long term consequences of these actions.  Maybe someone should ask, “What if you firmly believed Halloween was evil?  Would you ban it altogether?”

Of course since they’re all busy dealing with youth crime, maybe they don’t have the time to answer.

It’s not kids and Halloween messing things up, but kids & unlicensed businesses.  It’s so bad in some places, that neighbor’s are calling the cops  (whole thing here):

…Juveniles, seven of them, on a quiet residential street, selling an uncontrolled substance: lemonade. A neighbor had dimed them out, and a Haverford Township police officer responded in a hurry. When he arrived at the two-story brick house on Maryland Avenue, he dutifully informed Dana Kleinschmidt, mother of four of the reputed offenders, who included 5-year-old triplets, that they were violating the law. They were selling lemonade without a permit….

Which in and of itself is dumb enough, but wait… after scaring little kids, it turns out what they were doing actually wasn’t against the law at all.  Enter John Viola, Deputy Chief of Police, to explain things:

…The responding officer – who was unavailable, whom Viola would not identify, and whose name and badge number were blacked out of the police report – invoked a township ordinance against vending without a permit. What the officer didn’t realize, Viola said, is that the law doesn’t apply to anyone younger than 16…

So there you have it – the War on Kids just had an innocent casualty due to a simple misunderstanding.  It’s just another  training opportunity really.

Or at least that’s as it appears.  In a stunning admission by the Deputy, he explains how they will continue to harass anyone they want, even if it’s not really illegal.  Seriously – how are they supposed to know the law?

…“The police officer would have no way of knowing this on the street,” Viola said. “He acts on information he has available.”…

It seems obvious to me, that if cops aren’t required to know the laws they are enforcing, we might have a problem, but I admit I’m not a cop.  I do recall something from school about ignorance being no defense, but I guess that’s only if you are charged with a crime, not if you’re being harassed for breaking a non-law.

Welcome to (NEW) America:  Home of the criminal, land of the state.