At this season of
THE WINTER SOLSTICE
may reason prevail.

There are no gods,
no devils, no angels,
no heaven or hell.
There is only our natural world.
Religion is but
myth and superstition
that hardens hearts,
and enslaves minds.

I fully agree with the bit about religion, but I am not a strict atheist, I simply don’t let the possibility of such supernatural unknowables affect my personal decisions.

Hopefully whatever small-minded jackass stole this sign is thoroughly lashed for denying thousands of their fellow citizens of their first amendment rights.

These libertarians are also notoriously guilty of pretending that their favorite kinds of coercion aren’t. Threatening force to deny another person use of one’s land, or one’s house, is coercion. A system of private property is a system of coercion. It may be justified coercion. It is justified coercion. But then the question is: What justifies it? The coercive protection of property is justified because people do better with it than without it. If people do better in a system that defines rights to property a bit less strictly, and coercively guarantees an economic minimum, then that is justified coercion. It’s not really a philosophical question whether it is or not. Justified coercion, like the coercion in the protection of property, isn’t wrongfully liberty-limiting, but it does limit liberty.

If libertarianism is the view that coercion is never social or emotional, and that coercive limits to liberty are justified only in defense of private property, or in the enforcement of contracts, then libertarianism is false, and I am not a libertarian. If libertarianism is the view that human well-being is best promoted by ensuring “that every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty to every other man,” then I am a libertarian. If this is a libertarian view, then the goal to minimize or abolish wrongfully liberty-limiting social norms is a libertarian goal.

I find myself in complete agreement. Living in civilization, I enjoy the benefits of being a short walk from a downtown metropolis and put up with what I consider a reasonable level of freedom-shackling. I certainly make efforts to minimize it, though, by a) not owning a car, b) renting, c) living in a state with no income tax. I also further voluntarily tax myself by trying to buy local when possible.

While this is all well and good, there are great (large, not good) ills which afflict us as a majority-rules society. One of them is taxes which target income rather than consumption. The so-called “progressive” tax is especially wrong-headed, but even the income tax pales in comparison to the horrifying ways that our tax money is used — the Iraq war, corporate welfare, and the destruction of our civil liberties with wiretaps and ever more overreaching federal agencies.

..which leads to this interesting snippet from a link in Will’s above post:

Free people do all sorts of things you won’t like, and they are no less free (in any libertarian sense) for it. Claiming free people aren’t really free until you see certain patterned outcomes you like is the root of all tyranny and rhetoric unbecoming a libertarian.

I must admit that I fall into this trap occasionally — perhaps frequently — because I don’t understand how people would a) not want the best (read as: most free) for themselves, or b) voluntarily give up rights of their own in order to make sure that party B doesn’t have them.

In the case of public education and school choice, while there can be state-sponsored alternatives like public schools they should not be forced upon those who would rather choose to send their children to a [better] private school. Doing so limits choice — freedom — for the sake of a lower quality product for all, and seriously limiting the ability of lower/lower-middle class parents from giving their children a higher quality education and enabling them to not be locked into that (for lack of a better word) caste.

I don’t understand why opponents of education privatization (or at least vouchers) would willingly give up MY freedom to affordably send my kids where I want so that they can shut their brains off and not worry about where their kids will go. I can’t understand the motivation of those who openly admit to being okay with sacrificing my rights. Come into my home yourself and do so rather than hiding behind a ballot. Want to force me to fight your war? You are going to have to do so with a gun to my head and my hands tied behind my back. I suppose it is easy to cowardly vote away the rights of others when you don’t have to look them in the face while you are doing it, when the victims are nameless and faceless statistics.

So sayeth former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr:

“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

When it comes to religion, I think it is reasonable to expect religious organizations like the LDS to respect others’ rights and not just those of its members. Particularly if they wish to retain their tax-exempt status (which I think is bullshit to begin with.) You would think that a religious organization — particularly one which has been persecuted for their own unconventional take on marriage — would understand the golden rule and at least pretend to abide by it.

As my buddy Will states, we still have quite a ways to go..

America becomes no worse as it becomes more secular. And American atheists would be both happier and more cooperative if we were less marginalized by our culture.

Also, the fact that non-religious Americans (who don’t lie about it) are basically disqualified from high public office ensures that many of the most rational and intellectually accomplished people in our society cannot participate in electoral politics.

In closing, enjoy some wise words (and, caution, some eye-roll-inducing corniness) from a guy I typically dislike hearing the voice of:

As I was walking him to his apartment after the [superb!] meal, the news broke that Obama won the election. There was cheering in the streets, cars honking, etc. I couldn’t help but smile at people as I passed them while they celebrated. As a libertarian I had no horse in that race but was happy by proxy, that they felt hope for change and felt their hopes would now materialize.

I called Adam to give him the news, as he was looking forward to finding out who had won. Then, I got home and looked at the ballot measures.

Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage in the state of California, is currently passing with a wide margin. A similar proposition in Florida passed with 62%. Both blue states which voted for “change” and “hope.” A gay marriage ban in Arizona also passed with 57% and a gay adoption ban passed in Arkansas passed by another wide margin — both red states. As if there is any distinction when it comes to civil rights it would seem.

I’m glad that so many people can now be proud of voting for an African American President. It says a lot about how far we have come when it comes to race, right?

Unfortunately, the success of the gay marriage bans says more about the American people than whether they voted for or against McCain. They still don’t understand civil rights and the evil of taking them from others. Prop 8 is something I was particularly invested in opposing, and seeing the degree by which it passed was truly heartbreaking.

This energetic party in the streets, powered by the hope for positive change, was a celebration that I am not invited to because I am not heterosexual and have the audacity to want to be treated equally. My friend and I can only look on while success is declared — continue to wage war for our basic civil rights while Obama and his differently-bigoted minions give flowery speeches in front of his very own “Mission Accomplished” banner.

That tells me that counting Michigan and Florida would disenfranchise a large number of voters who did not vote, because there was no campaigning and/or the voters there thought the contest would not count and so did not bother to vote.

So, voter disenfranchising now extends to voters who don’t vote? In that case, what about the 50% of the vote-able populace who don’t vote for Republican or Democrat candidates? Surely THEY are being disenfranchised as well, right?

I’ll humor this line of thinking with a counter-argument.

If voters being disenfranchised really mattered to Mr. Sullivan, I think he would examine this beyond the OMG-OBAMA-IS-TEH-WINNAR context. Clearly there is a massive percentage of people who do not find Democrat or Republican candidates to be worth the time to vote for them. Why is this, and what can be done to change the trend?

When Jesse Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota he was a clear underdog but awakened a lot of non-voters who voted him into office. Unfortunately he was a failure of a Governor for a variety of reasons not related to his party affiliation, but the point was proven that there is a serious possibility of bringing “new” voters to the table by offering a clear and different third choice.

No 2008 Democrat or Republican candidate entertains more than roughly 25% of the voteable populace. Starry-eyed singing of “yes we can” and talk of “bringing people together” makes for a good campaign ad, in reality that 75% opposition is not going to budge.

It’s disturbing how many people have been sucked into the notion of a presidential candidate as a product, packaged brightly for consumption by the largest target market possible. We no longer are Americans, we are Black Americans, White Americans, Female Americans, Male Americans, Poor Americans, Rich Americans, Christian Americans, Jewish Americans. We are market-segments, not individuals. We are consumers of a product, not voters of a leader. The insurgence of marketing into politics, our perfection of its methods, and the dumbing-down of the general populace all work hand-in-hand towards the goal of the annihilation of personal liberty and individual thought. The dumbest 51% will hold all of us in shackles, as the lowest common denominator will rule over us.

In the free market, if a product is put forth people either buy it or don’t. If no one purchases it, the product is a failure. Imagine if our currency were our votes, and if the product that is already being marketed to us could be rejected by our saving our vote for a better product. 25% of the population (half of the voting populace) would no longer be able to buy a shoddy product on behalf of the rest of us who choose not to waste our money. No more could clinching narrow market-segments mean victory or defeat — a candidate would have to appeal to ALL Americans as individuals.

…this week, which will see the fifth anniversary of the start of the war, Code Pink plans to “step up the pressure,” as its leader Medea Benjamin said. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “Code Pink has a full roster of activities planned for the week, including: yoga every morning at 8:30; organic potlucks every noon; nightly movies and popcorn; a bike ride around Berkeley on Tuesday; an open-mike musical jam on Wednesday; and a ’send-off’ to the Marines on Friday, when protesters will bring suitcases and pink berets for traveling.” How the Bush administration will be able to resist is anyone’s guess.

Any effective political movement has to engage its participants in a way that makes them feel their contributions are meaningful and redefines their sense of self. But if those contributions aren’t actually meaningful, if they amount to an extended series of circle jerks that accomplish nothing, then the movement will inevitably be confined to a small group of self-deluding members with a lot of time on their hands. There are tens of millions of Americans who want to end the war in Iraq. But how many of them see something like Code Pink protesting a Marine recruiting station and say to themselves, “I want to be a part of that”?

Ridiculous, pointless nonsense can in fact do more harm than good, and more harm than nothing would do. It can create sites like this that attempt to intentionally reverse the original pointless stupidity with more pointless stupidity. Occasionally it is countered as Berkeley’s marine recruiter debacle was, with stripping of federal funding, resulting in the City Council backing down in response.

We see the cry for “something, anything!” often when there is a tragedy of any scale. School shooting? We must do “something, anything!” to fix it by banning Doom and Marilyn Manson. One deranged individual shooting up a college campus does not require a response, and certainly not an ill-reasoned “something, anything!!1!” response.

If you want to feel good about yourself by flailing your arms about so that mass-media will see you, at least be willing to put your money where your mouth is.

“I mean, think about what these last few election cycles have been about,” the Senator said. “We argue about immigration, but we don’t try to solve the immigration problem. It’s an argument that is all about people’s passions instead of trying to figure it out.

“We argue about gay marriage. You know, in the meantime the planet is, you know, potentially being destroyed. We’ve got a war that is bankrupting us. And we’re going to argue about gay marriage? I mean, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Yeah because, I mean, you know, civil rights are, you know, I mean, kind of a waste of time.

Bullshit.

Relative to action required by government, Obama is totally off-base. Global warming is a non-issue. The war in Iraq is a non-issue. The immigration “problem” is a non-issue. All three of these talking points would be solved with inaction, and require no direct government interference. Without government interference, the most clean, effective, and efficient form of energy will bubble to the top and state governments will handle the rest. Without (further) government interference, we will not be able to afford empirical activities in Iraq and will be forced to withdraw our troops. Without government interference, our immigration “problem” will cease to be interpreted as a problem.

The basic civil right of having social contracts recognized, however, requires government to defend it and so is a much more important issue than global warming, the war in Iraq, or immigration. It’s a shame that Obama doesn’t see basic civil rights as something that makes sense.

There, I said it.

Our country is a loose federation of states, all of which are intended to handle matters not specifically allocated to the federal government in the Constitution. Things like healthcare. If the California state legislature wants to attempt to enact a universal healthcare program, they are perfectly free to. However, if Alabama doesn’t want to they should not be forced to enact their own or to pay for California’s.

What about those Alabamans(?) who don’t have healthcare and want it for free? They can move to California. Surely, you say, that would cause an influx of non-tax-paying people to California to leech off of their universal healthcare system and that would be awful! Indeed — that is a major downside of providing something to everyone at no cost to the recipient.

Assuming that tax-paying individuals found universal healthcare coverage to be something valuable, they will flock to states who provide it and reinforce effective policy with the movement of their tax dollars. Hey, that sounds a lot like competition?! It certainly does — make states compete for the tax dollars of its citizens just as they do for businesses (case in point, the $75 million tax break Washington (state) is giving Microsoft for a server farm to keep it in the state.) Competition is good, it sparks innovation and necessitates efficiency.

One behemoth federal system will be garbage, and we will see no other option other than to deal with it. It will be a drain on the economic and physical well-being of our younger generations for the sake of the prescription drugs and hip replacement surgeries of the same baby boomers who are destroying Social Security (another result of no competition and federal government overreaching.)

States’ rights is hugely important, and should be considered anytime that programs like universal healthcare are considered. The federal government has their fingers in so many pies already that they simply have no right to be in — education, healthcare, drug enforcement, agriculture, steroid use in sports, the list goes on. We need to cut out all of the federal fat and get back to the basics, leaving the states to decide those really important issues like whether or not Roger Clemens is a liar and how much money to give people to not grow anything on their farm land.

We’ve all heard the above phrase, and for many it summons forth an image of a “White Only” water fountain, and a “Colored Only” fountain 50 feet away. There are certainly those who may still argue that “separate but equal” works, but I doubt many of them are proponents of gay marriage today, which is fundamentally the same concept.

Gay marriage, by means of “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships” is harmful to the spirit of equality unless it is applied universally to gay and straight couples alike. What about committed partnerships between a man and two women? A woman and two bisexual men? Will they need to wait another sixty years for their “separate but equal” union?

Why is a social contract — that’s what marriage is at its core — being limited in number and gender by the government? Why is it ever? Why, to legislate morality, of course. The people who want to limit marriage to one man and one woman (either directly or by supporting “separate but equal” options) are the same people who want to prevent you from smoking marijuana or paying that nice Korean masseuse $20 for a happy ending.

The solution, as with the “drug war” and taxes, is abolition. Strip marriage from the tax code and let social institutions handle social contracts. Strip marriage from legal documents and let the association be known for what it is — a contract between two (or more) people to share responsibility of and for assets, including each others lives.

Stories like this in The Olympian disgust me:

Pond suffered the aneurysm just before the R Family Vacations cruise ship left Miami for the Bahamas in February, Langbehn said. After Pond was taken to the emergency room, Langbehn said she was informed by a social worker that they were in an “anti-gay state” and that they needed legal paperwork before Langbehn could see Pond.

Even after a friend in Olympia faxed the legal documents that showed that Pond had authorized Langbehn to make medical decisions for her, Langbehn said she wasn’t invited to be with her partner or told anything about her condition

To what end was she prevented from being at her dying partner’s bedside? What was gained?

Patrick Appel points to a very interesting debate about Intelligent Design at The Corner. (To put my cards on the table, I believe ID to be pseudo-science.)

The debate about evolution is a great example of the kind of sucker play that often ensnares conservatives. Frequently, conservatives are confronted with the assertion that scientific finding X implies political or moral conclusion Y with which they vehemently disagree. Obvious examples include (X = the Modern Synthesis of Evolutionary biology, Y = atheism) and (X = increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 will lead to some increase in global temperatures, Y = we must implement a global regulatory and tax system to radically reduce carbon emissions). Those conservatives with access to the biggest megaphones have recently developed the habit of responding to this by challenging the scientific finding X. The same sorry spectacle of cranks, gibberish and the resulting alienation of scientists and those who respect the practical benefits of science (i.e., pretty much the whole population of the modern world) then ensues.

In general, it would be far wiser to challenge the assertion that X implies Y. Scientific findings almost never entail specific moral or political conclusions because the scope of application of science is rarely sufficient. In fact, for the two examples that I provided, I have tried to show in detail that X does not come close to implying Y.

Conservatism has often been called (by intellectuals) the “stupid party”. But I think it is more precise to say that healthy conservatism from Burke onwards has been the party of “facts trump theories”. Naturally, if you are in the business of spinning theories – that is, if you are an intellectual – this can be pretty frustrating, and it will often be to your advantage to characterize this as “stupid”. But this is what makes contemporary conservative ideology that refuses to engage seriously with the scientific enterprise so damaging: it sacrifices the key conservative virtue of empiricism.

I wholly agree. Accepting evolution implies nothing but that we likely evolved from less-developed beings to what we are today. Examples of evolution and adaptation in many forms are omnipresent. To ignore the evidence just to blindly cling to theism is ridiculous. You can be a theist and believe in the likelihood of evolutionary theory just as well, you’ll just have to think rationally as you determine the difference between literal and figurative teachings in your various religious texts.

As for global warming, I also agree that accepting a warming globe does not require one to be for cap-and-trade / carbon-credit systems. Are we making a direct impact on the Earth’s climate? Sure. Should that mean that we halt our technological advances and regress to living in caves? Of course not. Efforts for cleaner energy should certainly be made, but not at the expense of the amount or reliability of that energy. While hydroelectric and wind power make a lot of sense, those solutions are not practical everywhere. Burning coal is technologically retarded and we definitely need to move away from it as a major source of power. All signs point to nuclear power as being the answer — let’s move forward with that.