the forgotten man.

climategate

I haven't read Crisis and Leviathan by Robert Higgs, but I feel like he could issue an updated edition with at least a few pages on Climategate.  To recap: hackers released data from a major climate research center that show that scientists have been somewhat less than forthright with climate change data.  It appears that data that didn't fit the climate change story was massaged, and research that challenged the status quo was silenced.  More analysis is here, including the following:

The damage here goes far beyond the loss of a few billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus scientific research. The real cost of this fraud is the trillions of dollars of wealth that will be destroyed if a fraudulent theory is used to justify legislation that starves the global economy of its cheapest and most abundant sources of energy.

It always seems to work that way, doesn't it?  Climatologists, conservationists, sociologists, physicians, economists... some group of "experts" scream that the sky is falling; statists listen, get excited, send taxpayer dollars their way, and introduce some new freedom-restricting laws; and we, the forgotten men, pay for it.  Stricter emissions standards mean more expensive and less reliable cars.  Nature reserves prevent use of natural resources like timber and oil.  Subsidies for ethanol production simultaneously increase the deficit (and thus taxes) and the cost of food.  Bailouts reward risky business practices and lobbying efforts while punishing fiscal discipline and accurate forecasting.  

Then--surprise, surprise--we learn that the "experts" were less than completely honest!  No one (except a few "crazies" who had to be silenced for the sake of "progress") could have imagined that ANWR is covered in ice, corn doesn't make an efficient fuel, bailouts don't cause net job growth, and man-made global warming is a hoax.  History suggests that the chances of this latest debacle being enough to stop Cap and Trade are slim.  But no matter--even if the do-gooders fail today, they'll be back in a few years with a different set of "experts" proclaiming a different crisis--to which the only solution, they will assure us, will be to regulate us to death.

off to a great start...

On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.

A libertarian Glenn Beck certainly isn't.  Restoring our great country at the foot of one of its most committed enemies?  Someone needs to get that man a copy of The Real Lincoln or Lincoln Unmasked.  And an appreciation for states' rights, for pity's sake.

the right to be unhappy

You know it's a popular dystopian novel, up there with 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.  You may have skimmed it in high school, but have you actually read and digested Huxley's Brave New World?   Huxley wrote it in response to H. G. Wells's absurdly utopian Men Like Gods, and shows the emptiness of entertainment and the "perfect" life.  It's a fairly quick read, and definitely worth it:

"I like the inconveniences."

"We don't," said the Controller.  "We prefer to do things comfortably."

"But I don't want comfort.  I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness.  I want sin."

"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."

"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."

"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind."

There was a long silence.

"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.

Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders.  "You're welcome," he said.

So how much actual difference is there between the vision of today's statists and Huxley's society?

regressive = traitor

"Any man who refuses to back the President in this crisis is worse than a traitor."

Rush Limbaugh, circa October 2001?  No.

William F. Buckley, on Ronald Reagan?  No.

Who?

Answer: Clarence Darrow, a leading progressive and an early supporter of the ACLU, on Woodrow Wilson's critics. (New York Times, Sept. 16, 1917)

conflicted conscience

Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative is, sadly, just another politician's manifesto, making sweeping statements in support of individual rights in one breath and in the next sacrificing them at the altar of government. He believes in individual property rights, sure:

One of the foremost precepts of the natural law is man's right to the possession and the use of his property.

But, naturally, individuals must pay for their government out of their... uh, property:

But having said that each man has an inalienable right to his property, it also must be said that every citizen has an obligation to contribute his fair share to the legitimate functions of government. Government, in other words, has some claim on our wealth, and the problem is to define that claim in a way that gives due consideration to the property rights of the individual. 

Goldwater declines to provide any defense for this claim; at least he knows he can't rely on natural law this time.  The problem as he states it is irreconcilable; absolute property rights and absolute obligation to the government are inherently contradictory, "due consideration" notwithstanding.  As expected, Goldwater's sense of justice is much more easily appeased than is indicated by his initial defense of property rights — if only the rich were taxed at the same rate as the poor, if only all were coerced equally, he'd be happy.

The award-winning contradiction, however, is found in his divergent approaches to handling intrusive big government.  On one hand, we have the overreaching and unconstitutional US federal government:

The Congress and the States, equally with the Supreme Court, are obliged to interpret and comply with the Constitution according to their own lights.  I therefore support all efforts by the States, excluding violence of course, to preserve their rightful powers over education.

Of course! No violence, no way. That's crazy talk!

On the other hand, the imperialist and nonconstitutional Soviet government:

If we tell ourselves that it is more important to avoid shooting than to keep our freedom[,] we are committed to a course that has only one terminal point: surrender.   We cannot, by proclamation, make war "unthinkable."  For it is not unthinkable to the Communists: naturally, they would prefer to avoid war, but they are prepared to risk it, in the last analysis, to achieve their objectives.  

Huh.  American history indicates that "Communists" in that last sentence can be replaced by "tories" or "unionists" without any loss of truth.  And at the end of the day, are the objectives of these different varieties of statist substantially different?

poverty is the best policy.

A new maxim of judicious living: Poverty is the best policy. If you get wealth, you will have to support other people; if you do not get wealth, it will be the duty of other people to support you.

—William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other

It's the new American Dream.

i aim to misbehave.

As sure as I know anything, I know this: they will try again.  Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground, swept clean. One year from now — ten — they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. I do not hold to that. So no more running — I aim to misbehave.

Just finished watching Firefly and Serenity. For a TV show, Firefly isn't bad — it has the same plot continuity issues as most shows, and is hopelessly cliched in its treatment of religion, but it manages to integrate criticism of oppressive governments. It's a shame that its plot and characters weren't further developed in later seasons, but considering how statist the shows are on the major networks these days, it shouldn't be a surprise.

Serenity follows Firefly with an interesting story while maintaining the attitude and personality of the TV series.  Once more locked in battle with the government that would control him, the protagonist follows through on his plans to misbehave.  The villain is the ultimate utopian fascist — defending the murder of millions as necessary to bring about the perfect society.

Unfortunately, the ending is reminiscent of V for Vendetta and every other "revolution" movie made these days: the freedom fighters manage to beat the tyrants with only the tiniest bit of bloodshed. In the climax of this movie, the freedom fighters don't actually kill a single member of the tyrant's force. Do such bloodless, pro-liberty revolutions have any historical precedent or future likelihood? I'm skeptical.

a sumner reader

William Graham Sumner was one of the great classical liberals of the postbellum 19th century, and he wrote extensively.  Much of his work is available online in .pdf format, but more and more of his essays are being published on mises.org and wikisource.  The following is a small sampling of his work:

• The plight of the man who just wants to be left alone: "The Forgotten Man"
• The effect of government involvement in society: "State Interference"
• Book-length treatment of social classes: What Social Classes Owe to Each Other
• The destruction of the middle class: "What Makes the Rich Richer and the Poor Poorer?"
• The folly of imperialism: "The Fallacy of Territorial Extension"

I'll continue to update this post with more of his works as they become available in easy-to-read online editions.  For a good dead-tree edition, see Liberty Fund.