God Damn Hippies

So, to quote one of my favorite free thinkers, Eric Cartmen, "God damn hippies!". The citizens of Boston are all for the preservation of your rights as an American when it comes to the war on terror and illegal wiretaps amid all the other wonderful things the Bush administration has been called out on. And this is part of being a hippy that I'm fine with. What is absolutely unacceptable however, is that they have taken a page from Bush's book and are using public health concerns to push their restrictive agenda in much the same way as the executive branch has done with terrorism. Recently a law was passed that will make it illegal for cigarettes to be sold on college campuses and even more devastatingly that smoking will be illegal in all indoor work spaces come next Monday, Dec 22, 08. These may even sound reasonable. We all know the dangers of smoking and even problems of second hand smoke. However, the clause about "any indoor workspace" includes bars, restaurants, and nightclubs, around 700 establishments total will have to rethink their business plan.

This is an atrocity. America in my eyes is about freedom of the individual, to be able to do things that other people don't agree with so long as your actions aren't trampling on their rights. If someone chooses to never smoke out of concern for their health, or to avoid other people smoking, that is perfectly reasonable. Bars, restaurants, and nightclubs have never been required to let people smoke, it is a choice the owner/manager makes to attract certain clientel and people then have the choice to patronize these establishments based on the environment they are looking for. With the number of bars in this town finding a suitable choice, no matter what your preferences, should not have been a problem for anyone. I refuse to waste my own or your time pontificating about second hand smoke and why in a private establishment it isn't infringing anyone elses' right to make healthy decisions. Either you agree with me or you are too paternalistic to be reasoned with.

Taking that paternalism to a whole new level we have the wonderful world of college, where everyone, young and old, is a dependant of the system, subject to restrictions on freedom of speech, and a myriad of other depressing restrictions. It turns out all the paternalistic coddling that goes along with preventing underage drinking doesn't do shit, so why is changing where you buy your cigarettes going to change anything? Well, it wont. It will just make students who do smoke go out of their way and further inconvenience them. Should be also make students get std checks and submit paperwork everytime they want to fuck? Right now it is a witch-hunt for smokers, I have no idea where they will turn next.

In short, dirty hippies are getting their way and undermining exactly what America stands for. They overlook one very important fact of life and it only contributes to the problems we are going to have over the next few years. That fact is that people need to take personable responsibility for their actions and that their actions do in fact have repercussions concerning their reputation. Reputation and responsibility, two of the most important factors in being a useful human being. Dictating choices for people lets them abdicate their own responsibility over little things like this but sets a trend that is remarkably dangerous. On a similar note, people understand that reputation is important. Look at the international community and the way they view the States right now because of President Bush and his recent tactics. Traveling abroad has recently become much less fun. If someone understands the cost benefit analysis of smoking and their reputation and decides that relaxing with a smoke is worth whatever social ramifications come with it, I sure as hell hope that they are smart enough to make that choice for themselves. I choose to try and keep an optimistic outlook on life, that people are inherently awesome, creative, intelligent beings. Look at all that we have accomplished in the last 5, 10, 100, 1000 years. Those advancements were not made by having one hivemind making everyone's decisions for them, they came from thousands and millions of people all working as autonomous, responsible entities. To see what happens when you let paternalism run a society, look no further than the church; it was known as the dark ages. I, for one, sure as hell would rather live in a society defined by statues of David, theories of helio-centrism and Higgs-Hosons, whether I think they are worthwhile or not, than one defined by Malleus Maleficarum.

On the Market

A friend told me that the internet punditry was telling him that "deregulation" was to blame for some of the recent stock crashes and financial institutional tankings. He asked for my free-market alternative explanation.

Problem is, I agree. But not in the way that much of the punditry would like. Regulation's a tricky thing. When you put regulation down, you place an arbitrary restriction on a system, and the system adjusts to compensate. Think about putting a rock down in a river--it flows around. That's problem one--changing regulation forces changes in the economy. But the second problem is weirder--often, regulation causes perverse incentives or weird economic effects, and more regulation is slapped down on these perverse incentives/ weird economic effects to try to prevent them from happening. A good example is in rent control. Large cities have huge swaths of zoning/safety/health/fire regulation--as well as large property taxes on landowners--for residential buildings in the city. With all these regulations and taxes, the landowner incurs a higher cost, and thus raises the rent. With these increases in rent, poor people can't afford rent, and become homeless. Many city governments deal with this by using rent control--they force rent to go only so high. In most models, they control middle-class or upper-class rent; but wherever they control the rent, it causes some apartments to no longer make money, and thus not rent out. Sometimes, the costs are just higher than the government-approved rent. These apartments won't be used, which reduces the supply of apartments. Without an independent change in demand, prices everywhere go up--the poor get hurt hardest. So then the government started subsidizing the rent for these guys... it keeps going. Anyway.

When you have this massive, complex structure of regulation on a system, suddenly stripping some away is clearly going to create problems. The first problem is that an economy does not change as seamlessly as a river--when you yank the rock back out, the system has to adjust, and sometimes that adjustment is violent. But the other side is that if you yank out some of this regulation, th problems caused by other regulations become manifest, in ways that are extremely complex and difficult to predict. I'm not even going to pretend to know exactly what regulated-market problems caused the recent tank--I've heard a lot of jabber on it, and none of it has made sense.

But if this is an adjustment, then a bailout won't help in the long-term--the new equilibrium is one with fewer financial institutions, fewer investment banks, more modest loaning and investment policy. Bailouts to get these guys back on their feet won't magically create a new equilibrium--it's just a use of tons of energy to force them away from the equilibrium.

Looking for the Stalemate

So we small-government folks often talk about the "stalemate" situation in government, usually between the executive and the legislative branches, but more ideally with even a legislative branch too divided to do much. One of my favorite bloggers, Divided We Stand, is dedicated to just this idea.

Why stalemate? Why not a united government? Well, we generally think a mandate to do wild and crazy partisan things is bad. Itl eads to lots of spending, and new government institutions that don't go away, and use decades of bureaucratic politics to control more of your money and your life.

Look back to the 1990's, we say: people were pretty thrilled. We had a balanced budget. Why? Because a divided government couldn't add new spending to keep up with the growing economy. We had a massive economic boom. Why? Because a stagnation of regulatory behavior meant confidence in long-term stability for investments, and investor confidence rose. Congress was popular. Why? It did nothing at all.

So I say: Seek the stalemate in the next eight years. Put away your idealism--you don't want to hand a junior senator a mandate and a veto-proof majority in congress; a lot will happen that you're going to regret later. You're drunk and lonely, and she's attractive, but there's no one-night-stand in the presidency, only marriage.

For the sake of stalemate, I say vote for Mr. McCain. Don't stress too much about his domestic policy--he won't get to do any of it in office; the Democrats will block him. His foreign policy? Much like Mr. Obama's, except not stupid.

Want to feel good about your government in the next 4 years? Seek the stalemate.

Getting the Great Depression Right

The Great Depression was one of the toughest economic times in US history, and we should be clear that we should never want it to happen again.

Sadly, most of us have taken away the completely wrong lessons from the Great Depression. Most of us think that FDR's New Deal had a positive effect on the economy... that continued to crash for nine years after he got into office. The Washington Post has a wonderful article describing five ways that government interventionism worsened the Depression and prevented a recovery--and why we must now be weary of getting into a similarly suicidal mindset.

In short:
1) Protectionism won't make it better, promise. See: China of the 1950's-1978, Argentina and Venezuela now. Also, when you raise tariffs, so will everyone else, and your paltry exports will drop to zero.
2) Punishing the stock market whenever it turns down scares companies away from risk-taking (that is: investment).
3) Jacking up taxes during a downturn doesn't stimulate the economy, seriously.
4) When the government tries to run the economy, the rich retreat and sip martinis, watching it all crash down.
5) "Bold, persistent experimentation" will scare the crap out of anyone trying to invest capital. Companies like environments that are going to stay the same, markets that are going to stick around, regulations that are not going to come out of the woodwork and make their operations arbitrarily difficult without warning.

The Artistic Value of the Cum Shot

So, I came across this fairly amusing article about a porn star who is also working on a law degree. Apparently the reason she has embarked on this unusual career path is because she wants to campaign for worker protection- specifically for STDs:

According to a recent study Traci cites, for example, the rates of Chlamydia infections alone among adult film actors are about fifty-seven times higher than what state officials consider epidemic proportions. And she can vouch for the problem firsthand. “I haven’t seen a dick with no bumps on it in a long time. It’s gross.”

Fighting for increased health and safety rights and other legal protections for adult film performers has been a major part of Traci’s life for the past few years, and is part of the reason she decided to go to law school in the first place.

I've run across the idea of condom-only porn before, but objections have included (mostly jokingly) the artistic value of the cum shot. And again, I reveal myself to be a libertarian of convenience... I wouldn't be that averse to porn producers having to screen their actors for STDs/using condoms if it meant that the mastrubatory fantasies of teenage boys would no longer have to include a strange burning sensation after the act...

:)

Though I think part of the problem is that the actors in the porn industry don't have that much power. Would this be less of an issue if porn production were legal in more states? If the whole thing weren't questionably legal in many places?

I hope so, because I prefer my porn herpes free. And angry kitten friendly.

What do You Know About Drinking?

Apparently our lawmakers are under the impression that our college professors are wholly inept at being able to decide whether or not students are ready to drink at 18--or whether it might help our binge drinking problem. After all, they're stuffy professors in ivory university towers.

Want an Awesome President?

Want someone that would be willing to call the Europeans "girly men?" A Republican that will carry California? Looking to laugh at a presidential campaign instead of cry?

Arnold Schwarzenneger for President.

Seriously: the "Native-born only" clause in the US Constitution is actually pretty silly for a country built by the tired, sick, and downtrodden immigrants of Europe (even, perhaps, its bodybuilders) and other illustrious regions of the world. I understand the point in the past was that European nobles couldn't show up and take power in the US, even if the US people were foolish enough to want it, but it's a rather antiquated piece of supreme legislation that we could really do without.

Back to our humble roots

Exciting news- LA has decided that banning new fast food restaurants in poor neighborhoods is an awesome idea. This is such a silly idea that even William Saletan, the hopelessly bleeding heart liberal who writes Slate's Human Nature blog, thinks it's a terrible idea. Somewhat adorably, he says:

I assumed this idea would go nowhere because we Americans don't like government restrictions on what we eat. You can nag us. You can regulate what our kids eat in school. But you'll get our burgers when you pry them from our cold, dead hands.

How did the L.A. City Council get around this resistance? By spinning the moratorium as a way to create more food choices, not fewer. And by depicting poor people, like children, as less capable of free choice.

The thing that actually made me angry, like a kitten denied a cheeseburger, though, was the response one of Slate's XX Factor bloggers, Amaka Maduka had to say in response-

Shouldn't a poorer neighborhood have the option of an actual organic market or a restaurant that offers fresh ingredients? The higher cost of these healthier foods isn't necessarily prohibitive either; it may just mean that families will be exchanging quantity for quality. That means smaller portion sizes and a healthier meal.

(Luckily, at least her colleague has a bit of sense) But it's exactly this kind of condescending and rather misguided attitude that makes me glad I don't identify as liberal. Do people honestly think that at a time where businesses like Whole Foods are struggling to make a profit because their food is so expensive, organic markets are suddenly going to set up shop in poor neighborhoods? Seems highly unlikely. I mean, I eat like a hippie*, and I still try to avoid shopping at Whole Foods. I hardly think people who lack parental lifestyle subsidies would make a decision different from mine.

*No, really. My favorite food these days is Greek Quinoa and Avocado Salad. And I never eat fast food.

Now for something more exciting than budget balancing

As you may have read in the Volokh Conspiracy, the Fifth Circuit is holding its ground in maintaining that banning the sale of dildos in Texas is totally unconstitutional. Luckily for us (or not), the Seventh Circuit thinks that Alabama's ban on them is all good, so presumably the Supreme Court will be hearing it sometime soon. I look forward to hearing what Scalia has to say on sex toys. Perhaps that the Founders felt no need for sex toys, because they were virile and manly?

On a more serious note, though. I can't quite understand what kind of stick you would have to have up your ass to want to ban sex toys, but it bothers me slightly that substantive due process is what we turn to when we try to justify some libertarian ideas as constitutional. I do think that people have a broad right to sexual privacy, but I feel like substantive due process is just a random phrase for whatever the Supreme Court thinks are "rights that you should probably have that the writers of the Constitution didn't really envision." I mean, on one level I know that amending the constitution is probably just a little harder than it should be, but this seems like a pretty silly hack to fix that problem.

Worried About High Taxes Under Obama?

If you're middle class, you don't need to worry! He'll give you more tax rebates to offset the cost of your energy bill. So, how are we paying for his massive spending campaign?

We'll tax the rich more, of course. I'm sure they can handle it. It's not like they have as much of a right to their property as you do, so don't worry about anything like that.

Budget Fail

Well, Mr. Bush announced today that we'd have the biggest dollar-by-dollar defecit in history in 2009 (although as a % of GDP, it's 3.3%, compared to 6% in 1983). If the Bush presidency has done one thing for the Libertarian party, it's been that small-government fiscal conservatives have grown so upset with the Republican party that many have fled--some becoming independents, and some Libertarians.

But the Libertarians aren't going to win, and the Republicans are going to lose even more seats than in 2006, so they won't have any chance to fiscally redeem themselves for a long time. Luckily, Mr. Obama (who's likely to win the election), has a concrete plan of domestic policies in line with smart government and balancing the budget.

Oh, he doesn't? Well, we're fucked.

Calling All Angry Kittens

Fellow Libertarians,

Unlike my mostly-private foreign policy blog, I'm hoping Angry Kitten Blog will be a place for fellow Libertarians to be able to post and discuss the stuff that interests and angers them. We're looking for a few good Angry Kittens; but nothing too serious is required.

Feel free to email me (follow the "profile" link) if you're interested.

Meow.

--Erik