Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad

There is an assumption in both conservative and libertarian circles that anything that the private sector is inherently better at doing things than the government. And on many things, this philosophy is, I think, correct (it is also something that liberals/Progressives agree with more than they get credit).

But where it gets tricky is when you get to the concept of "privatization" of various things. Libertarians and conservatives hear the root word "private" and they reflexively think that it is better than "public." But "privatization" is different from "free market," and in many cases "privatization" can mean the worst of all worlds.

For instance, if by privatization, you mean the contracting out of various government services and needs, you are often just asking for trouble. Why? Because this is a setup for the epitome of "crony capitalism." Sometimes, to be sure, this kind of "privatization" is a necessity in instances where the government is seeking to obtain products or services that it simply has no ability to provide on its own. Frequently, however, where the government is contracting out a product or service it already provides or can easily provide, this kind of "privatization" at best has the effect of doing no more than adding an extra layer of bureaucracy. At worst, though, it is an invitation for corruption and a particularly convenient means of avoiding government accountability. Far from allowing market forces to take over, this kind of privatization creates a market that would not otherwise exist, in which firms seek to please only one customer: the government. And contrary to popular belief, "the government" is not synonymous with "the people," but is rather more frequently synonymous with "elected and/or appointed government officials." What privatization does in this context is to make the purpose of the service provider to please the government official who awarded them the contract - not to offer "the people" with the best possible services at the lowest possible price. Oftimes, pleasing the responsible government official means nothing more than shielding the official from responsibility for the implementation of that official's policy preferences.

The other type of "privatization" that libertarians and market conservatives should fear is anything that suggests a public-private "partnership." Such partnerships all too often take the form of placing the risk of loss on the taxpayer while placing the benefits of profit on the private ownership side of the equation. To say the least, this creates frequently undesirable market distortions best exemplified by Amtrak, and, now, the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The bottom line is that "privatization" only works if it actually allows genuine, basic market principles to play out. Where "privatization" simply means that the government will seek to make purchases in a market that would not exist at all without the government intervention, it is a virtual guarantee that the "privatization" will result in no more and no less than something resembling the much-maligned and ever-expanding military-industrial complex. Where "privatization" means a "partnership" under which government agrees to back what would otherwise be a purely private entity, the government is both granting that company an unnatural market advantage and virtually begging that company to engage in really, really bad business practices. Finally, I would add that the manner in which government has incentivized employer-based health insurance is another example of a "public-private" partnership gone terribly wrong.

This isn't to say that "privatization" is always bad - far from it, and I remain a firm believer that market forces are the far superior manner of economic policy. Indeed, where "privatization" literally means the selling off of a government asset to the highest bidder, no strings attached, I would rarely disagree with it. But when it creates a situation where the entire raison d'etre of a firm is to serve the government or where the government has immunized the firm from market realities, the effects of privatization can often be worse than the disease.

The fact is that as between public ownership of an asset and the fictional "privatization" of that asset, I think public ownership is superior (again, if the choice is between public ownership and actual private ownership in a free market, then the free market wins hands down). At least where a service is entirely provided by the public sector, you know who to blame (and how to blame them) when things go wrong. In a representative democracy, this can be a non-trivial power. But when that service is provided by the private sector on behalf of the public sector, the question of who to blame and how becomes much more muddled....and frequently I suspect that's the point.

So as far as libertarian blind spots go, the belief in the private sector is often the "four legs good, two legs bad" of large segments of the libertarian movement.

About that Freedom of the Press...

Libertarians know well that oftimes all that is necessary to restrict an essential freedom is the mere threat of force. So, for instance, to restrict political protests it is necessary only to arbitrarily arrest a handful of people in order to chill the willingness of others to protest - even if you release those you arrest without ever charging them with a crime.

Chris Hedges (Colgate '79) wrote an outstanding piece in the Friday LA Times that explains how the FISA bill passed this week, with its legalization of much of the President's warrantless wiretapping program, could have precisely that effect on the freedom of the press. To be sure, there are many things about which I disagree with Hedges in other contexts; but there should be no doubt that the man is a true journalist who is willing to place himself in harm's way in order to understand his subjects. Hedges writes:

" I contacted someone who was on the ship at the time of the alleged incident and who reportedly had photos. His first question was whether my phone and e-mails were being monitored. What could I say? How could I know? I offered to travel to see him but, frightened of retribution, he refused. I do not know if the man's story is true. I only know that the fear of surveillance made it impossible for me to determine its veracity. Under this law, all those who hold information that could embarrass and expose the lies of those in power will have similar fears. Confidentiality, and the understanding that as a reporter I will honor this confidentiality, permits a free press to function. Take it away and a free press withers and dies."

It is entirely possible - perhaps even likely - that Hedges is being a bit too apocolyptic about the effects of this bill. And in some contexts I disagree that confidentiality is necessary to a free press (I am largely opposed to reporter shield laws). But the thrust of his argument strikes me as deeply important, especially at a time when the "press," such as it exists for most Americans, has reached an almost unimaginable level of vacuity. There are relatively few quality journalists of note left who are capable of reaching a wide swathe of people; the FISA bill, to the extent it permits warrantless eavesdropping on the conversations of journalists, could well terminate a substantial portion of quality investigative foreign affairs journalism. Perhaps the bill is not the end of the world as we know it; but it certainly represents an infringement on civil liberties for a lot more than just "terrists."

Big H/T: Kathy at CFLF, whose work in recent weeks has consoled me over my grief at my friend Kyle's semi-retirement.

The Utilitarianism of Torture Chic

Responding to Matthew Yglesias' snippet on conservative torture fashion, Daniel Koffler at AOTP finds his outrage lacking:

"I say, let’s maximize the total utility of the world by making sure everyone who would “rather be waterboarding” has her preference realized. Indeed, if an appropriate form of utilitarianism is correct, one might have an obligation to
see to it that those who would “rather be waterboarding” get waterboarded."

As they say, read the whole thing (it's not very long).

...While I'm here I may as well throw out yet another plug for Art of the Possible, which is as interesting and unique a blog as they come (without being, you know, bizarre).

Also, John Schwenkler has some typically astute notes on this.

As for me, I agree with John that this view of waterboarding as being a criterion for modern-day conservatism must be fought vociferously by the dissident elements of conservatism. But I would add one thing - although this ideology of the political Right that views support for waterboarding as a litmus test is considered to be "conservative," the reality is that it is really just an example of how coalitions can distort the views of coalition members. Frankly, almost any truly conservative (in the Burkean sense) ideology - whether it be the conservatism of doubt of an Andrew Sullivan, the more traditional conservatism of a William F. Buckley or a Russell Kirk, etc. - would be disturbed by the concept of waterboarding as not only defensible but actually a badge of honor.

Instead, the idealization of waterboarding is merely a symbol of how "conservatism" has become viewed as simply a synonym for "agreeing with the Republican base," much as "liberalism" is viewed as synonymous with "agreeing with the Democratic base." In reality, however, actual conservatives were never more than one element of the Republican coalition, albeit the dominant element in the post-Goldwater era. The problem is that conservatives alone were not enough to win an election, and so the Republican party needed to seek out other groups who had relatively little philosophical connection with Buckley-style conservatism. To accommodate these groups, who took up the moniker of "______ conservatives," the Republican Party had to take up their issues, which were of perhaps lesser importance to the more philosophical conservatives.

Unfortunately, most people today - including most self-styled conservatives - view conservatism as an ideology that simply means "the dominant views of the random mish-mosh of groups supporting the Republican Party." This isn't conservatism - it's just pu-pu platter partisanship masquerading as conservatism. Moreover, it is perhaps exhibit A1 of how partisanship can have more impact on interest groups than interest groups have on the party (my fifth rule).

To be sure, there are a number of young, talented true conservatives (or not really Burkean "_______ conservatives") who are seeking to reclaim their philosophy from the jaws of political coalition pragmatism. But they will first have to develop and create support for those philosophies independent from the confines of either political party, especially the Republican Party. Given the synonymity of "conservative" with "Republican," I also suspect that they will have to come up with a new label for themselves to have much hope of success.

Liberals won't leave us alone. (Conservatives won't leave us alone.)

Mark mentioned a few days ago, as he has many times, that he believes a left/libertarian alliance is coming. I think he's right, to an extent. It's coming, but I don't share his optimism about it, nor do I suspect it will last particularly long. For many of the qualifications he suggested, the Left is just a different form of the Right. Political gain matters more than any principle could ever matter, not that I think the far Left recognizes the rights libertarians understand. Any party with animosity to property rights - or an unprincipled willingness to bow to the blathering of constituents with animosity to property rights - isn't bound to keep a sizeable number of libertarians in the fold for very long.

Mark's proposition is worth pursuing in more detail, so I'm sure it'll be a theme for me, as well, as we get closer to the election. Here, I'm only going to explore a narrow piece of this question. A recent post by science fiction author John Scalzi on Bob Barr exposes my position a bit because I disagree with Mr. Scalzi's analysis. Or, rather, I think it's incomplete.

When Barr announced he would seek the LP nomination, Mr. Scalzi wrote about how Barr might affect McCain in the election. This is a worthy question, of course. I just don't think it's the entire equation, so I wrote a response raising the question of how Barr would change the vote for Sen. Obama. I stand by my assertion that it would matter. You can see my theory in action here with Mark's writing on the left/libertarian alliance.

I would never vote for Sen. McCain. (There was an unfortunate time when I bought the lies.) Sen. Obama should have no problem getting my vote. I've voted Democrat for president in every election since I turned 18. (Clinton, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry) I didn't consider myself a libertarian for the first three because I didn't realize I am a libertarian. My positions haven't changed, only my awareness of how they fit into the world and who among politicians supports them. I cared more about social issues than economic issues because I didn't have money to care about. The denial of equal rights for gays, for example, was clear to me in 1992. I'm not gay, but if another's rights could be denied, so could mine. That was always clear. I just didn't connect economics to property rights.

With the power of the Internets, more libertarians can now identify as libertarian and better understand how hostile liberals and conservatives are to much of what we care about. Any alliance going forward will fail to have the strength to stand as the conservative/libertarian alliance stood. They will have to change to meet us closer to where we are.

So, Barr versus McCain and Obama. Mr. Scalzi wrote a few days ago about how he donated his $6.10 stimulus check to the Barr campaign:

So what do you do with a stupid, frivolous amount of stimulus money? Well, you spend it on something stupid and frivolous, of course!

Bob Barr has about as much chance of being president as I have in getting a tomato plant to spontaneously erupt out of my forehead, but he does have a teeniest bit of a chance of peeling off just enough disgruntled GOPers to be a pain in John McCain’s ass come the general election, which at this point works for me as an ersatz protest vote and the GOP economic stewardship of the country (note that this statement will undoubtedly cause some delusional conservative/Republican to opine in the comments that it will be Obama whom Barr will peel voters off of, not McCain. Dear delusional conservative/Republican commenter: Just because you’re apparently huffing acetone from the inside of a paper bag doesn’t mean the rest of us are). That said, I don’t actually want to spend real money on Bob Barr; I don’t want anyone to get the idea he’s actually my guy, presidentially speaking. I mean, really. Speaking of huffing acetone. For what I want to do here, six dollars and ten cents is almost exactly the right amount to send the dude.

I am neither delusional nor conservative, yet I've made the argument that some votes for Barr will come from Obama's projected voters. I don't think I implied the numbers would be the same, which would make me delusional¹. They won't be because it is probably true that a majority of Barr's support from non-Libertarian Party members this year will be from conservatives/Republicans. But. There are libertarians who've pondered a vote for Sen. Obama because they would never vote for Sen. McCain and the current Republicans need to go. Now we may also consider a vote for Bob Barr. I am, in fact, considering it. And those numbers might be meaningful. If Democrats wish to prosper with libertarians, they'll consider it.

Ah, but I already said there's no way I would vote for Obama. Indeed. So what? I'm discussing the mindset of potential Barr voters in the context of a left/libertarian alliance. I think Obama is the lesser of two evils in this election, if barely. If I hadn't become so cynical skeptical, I'd follow my history and cast a vote for him. Yet, here I am considering a vote for Bob Barr. Yes, former Republican Bob Barr. That does not automatically mean I'm arriving from the right. There are many roads to Hell. This might be the scenic route worth taking.

I doubt I'll vote for Barr because I don't think he's genuine. However, since he will not win the presidency, a vote for him may be useful as a signal to both parties that libertarians exist. Which is what Mark is saying at the core of his argument, I think. Republicans have clearly abandoned the libertarian vote. Some progressives have made overtures about an alliance. Generally this has been "join us and you'll see how wonderful redistribution really is". Obviously we're not quite at an equitable alliance yet. A vote for Barr might signal that, while we're ready to mingle, we're not conceding our principles just to be in the new popular crowd.

The Democratic embrace of President Bush's unconstitutional warrantless wiretapping suggests they don't care about what libertarians care about.

¹ Not that I'm arrogant enough to imagine that Mr. Scalzi noticed my original entry, nevermind the possibility that this could be directed at me.

Proof in the Pudding

One final post for the day on centrism in light of today's Rasmussen polling data. The data show that over the last month and a half, Obama's "move to the center" has worked, at least insofar as it has resulted in significantly fewer people perceiving him as a "liberal" and more people perceiving him as a "moderate." But the data also helps to disprove the notion that "moving to the center" inherently increases a candidate's potential support. Comparing the change in the perception of Obama's "centrism" with Rasmussen's daily election tracking poll, you will see that Obama's lead over McCain has barely budged since Hillary Clinton dropped out of the Dem race on June 7- the entire time. Except for a few days in mid-June, Obama's lead (without leaners) has consistently been between 5 and 7 points and his overall (without leaners) support has held steady between 45 and 48 percent. If you include leaners, the analysis remains exactly the same.

Although I have no idea how much change there has been in the composition of Obama's 45-48 percent in that period, what is clear is that the increased perception of him as a "centrist" and the decreased perception of him as a "liberal" have done nothing to increase the overall size of his supporting coalition. And that is precisely the point of my previous posts decrying the utility of "centrism."

(Via memeorandum)

UPDATE: Chris Bowers at Open Left noticed the same thing.

The Center Will Not Hold

Perhaps not surprisingly, the topic of Obama's sudden "centrism" and its political value is getting some more attention today at memeorandum, at least regarding this Bob Herbert column. Herbert, more than most pundits, seems to understand that "moving to the center" is not necessarily a wise political move, writing, with respect to Obama that:

He seems to believe that his shifts and twists and clever panders — as opposed to bold, principled leadership on important matters — will entice large numbers of independent and conservative voters to climb off the fence and run into his yard.
Maybe. But that’s a very dangerous game for a man who first turned voters on by presenting himself as someone who was different, who wouldn’t engage in the terminal emptiness of politics as usual.

As much as my analysis in my essay this morning (I'd call it a must-read essay, but that would be too egotistical) applies as general political theory, it is probably particularly true of Obama, whose primary campaign and political style showed great promise as a vehicle for forging a new, more ideologically coherent coalition. I suspect that the result of Obama's "move to the center" will only be to more or less retain the existing coalition of the Dem Party by giving wavering coalition members (whose priority issues have perhaps faded in relevance to the Dem Party) a reason to remain in the coalition. In the process, though, it will also probably temper the enthusiasm that so many independents had for him. He'll still win in all likelihood, but if he does it will be a result of McCain's failure to generate enthusiasm from the established elements of the Republican coalition and the strong Dem fundamentals this year, much as the last several Presidential campaigns have largely been won by minimizing turnout from the opposing party's coalition base. That is something that no one, left, right, centrist, or otherwise, should be particularly happy about.

The Myth of the Moderate - Why the "Political Center" Is Meaningless

There has been much discussion of late regarding Obama's long-awaited "move to the center," (essentially his break from his party's so-called "base") as well as to a lesser extent McCain's tilt right on various other issues. Most notably of course has been Andrew Sullivan's praise of Obama's position shifts.

The implication is that this is smart politics by Obama because in so doing, he is seeking to increase his appeal amongst so-called "moderate" or "centrist" voters who are allegedly unaffiliated with either party, or are at least more independent-minded than more ideological voters. The problem is that this argument, which is so often taken for granted in the press and by many people who should know better, has very little basis in reality. At its base, this conventional wisdom assumes a one-dimensional politics in which we are all just varying degrees of liberal and conservative and/or Democrat and Republican. Under this view, American politics consists of exactly three factions, with a couple of radical extremists on the fringes: center-left Democrats, center-right Republicans, and moderate independents. By "moving to the center" a politician in theory succeeds in getting more votes by expanding the portion of the spectrum willing to vote for him, or at least unwilling to vote for the other guy.

But this ignores political reality: independents and "moderates" or "centrists" are two very different things. For instance, libertarians and populist Lou Dobbs supporters would both be smack dab in the middle of any linear conception of politics - these days, both are about equally likely to support the Dems as they are the Republicans on any given issue, and neither could be remotely consider "moderate." But the views of libertarians and populists are almost completely opposite to each other. This is equally true of many - probably even most - of the other groups in the so-called "center." By "moving to the center," a politician isn't necessarily winning over the support of many of those groups, and may even wind up hurting his standing with a majority of those groups.

When pressed, I suspect many of the advocates of this conventional wisdom would concede that a linear conception of politics is worthless (except as a measure of a politician's level of partisanship - but that is a different issue entirely), and would instead turn to something akin to the Political Compass or the Nolan Chart. To be sure, this two-dimensional view of the political spectrum is much more useful - but it still has plenty of limitations since it fails to account for views on international relations, provides only a minimal measurement of intensity of political beliefs, and tell us nothing about a person or group's actual positions on specific issues - ie, someone who opposes gay rights but favors gun rights can score precisely the same on the Authoritarian/Libertarian axis as someone who favors gay rights but opposes gun rights. Despite these limitations, the two-dimensional view is enough of an improvement that it can provide a better understanding of the political spectrum - but only if you understand these limitations. The problem is that too many of even those who prefer the two-dimensional view of the political spectrum fail to understand these limitations.

The result is that the two-dimensional Political Compass is used to justify a view that is only minimally different from the linear view of the spectrum. In essence, the Political Compass (and related grids) is used to conceptualize the political parties as falling in either the top right quadrant (Republicans) or the bottom left quadrant (Democrats) of the American political spectrum (which itself falls primarily within the upper right quadrant of the global political spectrum). Under this conception, "moving to the center" is still logical because it positions a politician closest on the political spectrum to the maximum number of people. Unfortunately, there are some major problems with this view:

1. It assumes that people in the same area of the grid have similar views on any given issue, and that the "center" specifically is essentially monolithic - but as I noted above, this is simply not the case. Therefore, by "moving to the center" on a given issue, a politician might - and often does - wind up alienating many of the very voters he is trying to reach (some of whom may have been in his camp already on the strength of the politician's original stand on the issue). Think of the so-called "Obamacans," many of whom support Obama because of their anger at the GOP on civil liberties issues, and who would certainly fall close to the center of the average Political Compass - by abandoning those positions, Obama may be sacrificing this group's support just as he seeks to gain it since it may effectively remove the issue as a primary motivation to support Obama.

2. It assumes that the Democrats fall squarely in the bottom left quadrant and the Republicans in the top right quadrant, and mainstream independents in a separate block in the center for the parties to fight over. Put another way - it makes the assumption that political parties have coherent ideologies when, as I have said repeatedly, they are really just coalitions of various interest groups. In fact, the rank and file of these interest groups (as opposed to their leadership, which often consists primarily of party hacks whose views are on average indistinguishable from the group's preferred political party's leadership) tend to have views that deviate wildly from the party's established norms - they just tend to vote for that party because it happens to be better for them on their most important issue(s). If the membership's most important issue(s) change, then their support of a given coalition/political party may change as well.

3. It assumes that all issues are created equally for all voters/interest groups, and does not account for the relative weight that a voter/interest group will give to an issue. This is particularly important because "moving to the center" usually involves making one's views appear less "extreme" and more "moderate." The problem is that people with "moderate" views on an issue are extremely unlikely to vote on that issue. So "moving to the center" accomplishes little to nothing in terms of gaining votes. It may, however, drive down turnout as it forces voters to feel like they have little choice in the election.

This isn't to say that flip-flopping or moderating one's position on an issue is always a bad idea - just that it is frequently not a particularly good idea. In Obama's case, his capitulation on FISA, and his shift rightward on Iraq have significantly reduced two of the main reasons he was getting a tremendous amount of support from traditionally Republican-voting libertarians; to be sure, I expect he will still do better than McCain amongst libertarians, but I also expect that his moves on these issues will drive down libertarian turnout and/or force more libertarians to Bob Barr. So by "moving to the center," Obama may have actually hurt his position with a good number of independents - which is precisely the opposite of the conventional wisdom that arises out of the one and two-dimensional understanding of the political spectrum.

The bottom line, as I have written and suggested many times before, is that the Dem and Republican party establishments don't fit neatly into any ideological divide because ultimately they only represent the top priority issues of their constituent interest group/coalition members at any given time, often under the umbrella of one or two primary priority issues about which most or all coalition members are highly motivated. But when push comes to shove, the rank and file members of any given interest group are individuals whose loyalty to a political party only goes so far as that party can represent their top priority issue(s). Although we consider these groups to be either "conservative" or "liberal" based on whether they are most commonly associated with Democrats or Republicans, the fact is that this is a tremendous oversimplification- many political beliefs of so-called "neo-conservatives" are both economically "liberal" (as that word is used today) and deeply unconservative to the extent they wish to pursue an activist foreign policy; similarly the social policy views of many union members and "blue collar" workers are often quite at odds with Dem Party orthodoxy. In reality, true philosophical "conservatives" and "liberals" are difficult to find; instead, these words usually represent nothing more than the existing conventional wisdom of a given political coalition's rank-and-file.

Similarly, political "moderates," "centrists," and "independents" are not a monolithic group. While many may well vote for a candidate they think is a maverick from their party's orthodoxy, the fact is that this group of voters does not have their own platform - the individuals within this oft-cited block of voters simply do not have a unifying issue on which you can say a politician's "move to the center" is necessarily likely to bring many of these voters into the politician's fold. The only real difference between "independents" and partisan voters is that independents don't belong to a group that is firmly entrenched in one of the major party's coalitions. Put another way - independents are largely people whose primary issues of concern are poorly represented by both parties, and so they are forced to vote on issues of lesser importance to them. As such, the way to capture the "center" (if we define independents as the "center") is for a politician to hit on the issue or issues that are most important to these groups. Rarely will an attempt to blur the distinctions between a politician and his opponent accomplish this - if the independent really preferred the opponent's position to begin with, then that independent is either already voting on the basis of that issue (in which case he has no incentive to vote for the flip-flopping candidate, whose position is by definition simply weaker than the opponent's position), or has already decided that the issue is not important enough to form the basis for his/her vote (in which case flip-flopping accomplishes nothing).

All of which is an extremely long way of saying that the so-called "political center" is a myth, at least in the sense of being a group worth pandering to. Indeed, I would even argue that pandering to the "political center" - by both parties - has major potential long-term consequences that result in the country as a whole moving in a less centrist, and more statist direction. But alas that is a story for another time.

(NOTE: I made an extremely minor edit in the first paragraph to soften the tone).

(UPDATE: Thank you to the folks at RealClearPolitics for featuring this post on this morning's "Best of the Blogs," as well as on their Cross Tabs blog.)

Bringing Back an Oldie But Goodie

This is a repost of something I wrote back when I started to focus my writing more on my specialty area of coalitions, interest groups, and corruption. Since I didn't have the readership then that this blog has now, and because it is directly relevant to a lot of what I've been writing about in terms of the shifting coalitions of the Left and Right (and also to a post I'm hoping to make in the next day or two), this seems like a good time to repost my rules of interest group politics and corruption, which explain a lot of where I'm coming from. The original post is here. It is my opinion that you cannot understand why political parties and coalitions act the way they do without understanding these rules.

The Laws of Interest Group Politics and Political Corruption

1. There are no such things as "special" and "public" interest groups: anyone seeking a particular outcome in a particular government action is an interest group, pure and simple.

2. Interest groups, even self-described "public" interest groups, seek nothing more or less than the advancement or protection of their leaders' and members' preferred outcomes.

3. Political parties are merely vehicles for the election of interest groups who have chosen to unite under a single coalition. They have no independent ideology of their own; only the collective ideologies of coalition members.

4. The fewer political parties there are relative to the size of the overall population, the more varied the interest groups that make up each political party, and the less coherent the political party's ideology.

5. The larger a political party and the less coherent its ideology, the more the political party affects the ideology of its constituent interest groups and the less the constituent interest groups affect the party's ideology.

6. Politicians, both elected and unelected, cannot remain in power long if they lose the support of a sufficient number of their core interest groups.

7. A politician cannot implement his preferred policies if he is not in power; thus, remaining in power or obtaining power is the primary goal of any rational politician.

8. Corruption cannot exist without government by definition. The more government you have, the more powerful government is, and the more government controls access to scarce resources, the more corrupt the government will be.

9. Most anti-corruption reforms either legitimize corruption or make it worse by driving it underground. In some cases, anti-corruption reforms backfire by creating a never-ending political campaign, increasing the number of favors a politician must grant in order to remain competitive.

10. There is an inverse correlation between corruption and freedom.

11. All politics are interest group politics.

UPDATE: In the comments, Kip points out that my original number 10, "The smaller a relevant population, the less significant corruption will be," is a bit problematic. As I replied there, I did a poor job re-reading my original post. Looking at the original point 10 again, it was very poorly worded, and did an exceptionally poor job of getting its point across. Looking back at it, the point it was trying to get across requires far more nuance than I gave it, so it is a poor candidate for these rules. As a result, I have taken number 10 out. Of course, if I think of a more appropriate way of getting at that point, I will add it back to the list.

Ivan Drago, Civics Teacher

I tried reading The Corner for a short period of time, last year I think. I couldn't take the absurdity, so I now let others do the heavy lifting for me. This time, via Andrew Sullivan, Kathryn Jean Lopez offers a prime example of what I can only hope is an attempt at witty sarcasm. I fear it's self-parody.

A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn't George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn't it be something if his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service? How's that for a model? Who needs Harvard visiting chairs and high-end lectures? How about Crawford High? (Or wherever?) Reach out and touch the young before they are jaded, or break them of the cynicism pop culture and possibly their parents have passed down to them. Whatever you think of President Bush, he's a likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share.

Forget the insane part, if you can. Rather, consider what this says about her understanding of conservatism as it should be practiced in America today. Family matters most, it's the building block of society, etc. We don't want (liberal) propaganda from our educators replacing teaching in the home. Oh, wait, except where teaching in the home strays from what family should teach, as defined by... Kathryn Jean Lopez. Then it's good to have Right knowledge pushed on our children by someone more knowing. If we can farm out that work to George W. Bush, it's a win-win all around.

Post Script: By now the title should be obvious, but if our teachers must break our children, I guess we'll need a cage match between George W. Bush and Rocky Balboa to find out who is best qualified to be Civics-Teacher-in-Chief. Since they're both superheroes, they'll, of course, duel to a tie. That leaves Drago with the chutzpah to take charge.

Rise of the Liberaltarians

I'm not going to rehash all of my arguments about why a liberal-libertarian coalition is inevitable (DISCLAIMER: for purposes of this argument, the word "libertarian" is relatively broadly defined based on the definitions used in David Boaz's 2006 report on the libertarian vote), but this latest poll from Montana suggests that such a coalition is further along than I ever expected (I have argued that the Dem Party is not quite ready to accomodate libertarians).

To summarize: Montana is currently leaning to Obama over McCain by five points. That a Republican Presidential candidate is trailing in Montana (a state Bush won by 20 points in 2004) is a particularly strong indication of how alienated libertarian-ish voters now feel from the Republican Party. As Dave Weigel writes at Hit & Run:

This is a state that elected a Democratic senator in 2006 who told voters "I want to repeal the PATRIOT Act." This is a state whose governor gave Homeland Security Michael Chertoff a rhetorical kick in the teeth when he opted out of REAL ID. This is, finally, a state whose Republicans gave Ron Paul a quarter of their primary and caucus votes, and where the balance of power in the state House is held by the Constitution Party.

I think it's safe to say that Montana voters have stronger libertarian leanings than just about any other state.

It may be that Montana's libertarian-ish voters are more Dem-friendly because they have a relatively libertarian Dem governor who is extremely popular. But I frankly don't know enough about Gov. Schweitzer to say that he's more libertarian than the average Dem - I just know that he's really popular.

More at memeorandum.

Questioning Smears

This James Kirchick piece has attracted a fair amount of attention the last day or two. In it, he essentially argues that despite conventional wisdom on the Left, Obama has been complicit in far more "smears" than John McCain. The piece is, to put it bluntly, silly. Frankly, any debate over who "smears" who more is beyond trivial, and is a particularly strong example of how dumbed-down politics are (I won't say "how dumbed-down politics have become" - they've always been pretty dumbed-down, though the internet provides for my dispersal of this trivial sniping). Of course, Kirchick is no stranger to the art of smearing politicians himself, having authored the piece that brought Ron Paul down (not to be read as an endorsement of the actions Kirchick documented in that piece; just pointing out that Kirchick is no stranger to making personal takedowns of politicians, however justified or unjustified).

In any event, I just want to express my wholehearted agreement with every word in this James Joyner post. Money quote:

Do I think there’s a concerted effort on the part of Democrats to call into question the degree to which John McCain’s military service makes him more qualified than Barack Obama to step in as commander-in-chief? Of course. Are some of the attacks over-the-top? Yup. Have they reached the worst levels of the Swift Boat attacks against John Kerry in 2004? Not yet.

Is there a smear campaign to undermine public confidence in Barack Obama’s patriotism and that of his wife? To say that he’s a Muslim and might be terrorist-friendly? Yup. Were they promulgated by Republicans? No, by Hillary Clinton supporters, actually. Will Republicans pick up the ball? Probably.

In other words: both sides, quit yer bitchin' - you're both pretty devious.

I think I agree with Mark, Jeff and Kip...

It may (or may not) have been more appropriate to insert my own thoughts on Mark's comments on John's post at the bottom of Mark's post, but I thought I'd put them up here since I'd rather not be poking around the work of others, even if the idea is well-intentioned. Mark, please feel free to move it anywhere you wish if you disagree.


John is right. Both the Left and the Right do take morally authoritarian positions on certain issues that matter to them, whether it be sexual activity or freedom of contract and seek to resolve matters through regulation or outright prohibition. I have never suggested otherwise. To be fair, I know John's comment to this effect was geared towards the discussion toward a libertarian alliance with the Left. If anything, it is a useful reminder. Another useful reminder is David Bernstein's recent op-ed, written in light of the Heller decision comparing liberal and conservative views of individual rights.


Mark is right. I say this because differences between libertarians and liberals (or conservatives in the days of fusionism) on state regulation of "virtue" is not enough to disqualify the possibility of an alliance. Substantial differences in opinion between traditional conservatives and libertarians (or perhaps classical liberals) did not keep Frank Meyer from attempting to seek common ground between traditionalists and libertarians. A strong enough issue or set of issues could be the impetus for an alliance today. As with fusionism, any liberal-libertarian will have its critics. This will be neither new nor surprising.

Kip is right. While I have not completely worked through the possibility of a left-libertarian alliance, I am skeptical because:

1) the notion of limiting the power and reach of government is still important to us and goes beyond issues involving surveillance or national security. This was, I think, the fundamental reason why the right-libertarian alliance has been severely undermined, if not fatally; and,

2) if David Bernstein's article is any indication on the differences between conservatives and liberals on individual rights, it is almost obvious who holds the upper hand and it is not the Left. I take no pleasure in this assessment. If we assume "civil liberties" as some subset of individual rights and people wish to run with it, so be it. If lefties start to take matters like economic liberty (freedom of contract) and private property rights more seriously, then I would be more enthusiastic than I am protecting a limited basket of rights one political persuasion believes is worthy of protecting above all else.

This is not to say that my mind would not change with further analysis, the passage of time or changing circumstances, but my quick take on the idea raises many questions. Mark has written more about this and I should probably take some time reading those arguments before I go any further.

(Ed. Note: Time of post edited by Mark to reflect actual posting time)

I'm ready for this election to be over.

I take John Cole's view on Wesley Clark's statement regarding the relevancy of being shot down and tortured to an individual's ability to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. In short, General Clark is correct on the specific statement. That makes all the ranting border on the hysterical. Predictable, perhaps, but still strange.

The worst example I've encountered, which is a key distinction here because I've actively avoided the outrage machine, comes from Andrew Sullivan in response to a reader's dissent. Mr. Sullivan writes (my emphasis added):

Strictly speaking, it is irrelevant for the presidency if someone was shot down and tortured. It doesn't make anyone a better potential president. But there are plenty of ways to put this and to frame this without descending to a default position that seems to devalue McCain's service. Clark is a dreadful politician and his off-the-cuff response, while technically true, is terrible politics and about the last debate Democrats need or should want to have. It has dominated a news cycle in ways that help McCain not Obama and drowned out Obama's patriotism speech. The only silver lining is that the small chance that Clark might be an Obama veep is now zero.

General Clark is correct in his statement. Mr. Sullivan is correct in acknowledging that General Clark's statement is "technically true" and terrible politics. I'm not here to refute the latter point because the rest of Gen. Clark's interview with Bob Schieffer was classic shill. So what? The question is whether we're really interested in an election that puts good politics ahead of the truth? Our unwillingness to deal with the truth because it's politically unpalatable is why we're in so many of the national messes we're in. I'm not interested in enabling that further by pretending like this matters. It's bad enough that we all have to play the game.

But what about the politics of this? The media has engaged itself in the long-standing narrative that Sen. McCain is a Hero™, so we can't question him. Why? One need not question his heroism, patriotism, or sacrifice to get at the present reality. His history is a facet of his application for the office of President. Because his experience is (thankfully) rare does not give him a free pass. If getting shot down and tortured contributes something to the merit of his qualification, let him explain why. But do not treat it as a given. There is a viable thread that his experience gives him unique, applicable experience. There is also a viable thread that it's not a requirement for the job. If one wants to be feisty, maybe his experience is even a knock on his fitness to be president because of how he processes it.

----------

Semi-related, today Mr. Sullivan posts this general defense of Sen. Obama.

But Obama's post-primary pivot to neutralize all the usual GOP attacks - and reintroduce himself to Middle America - has been more than usually pronounced. He can live with FISA telecom immunity; he's flexible on troop withdrawal from Iraq; he's happy with executing child rapists; he doesn't need public financing; he'll out-patriot the Right; he's touting his support for welfare reform; he'll expand Bush's faith-based programs; and he's okay with the Supreme Court's view of the Second Amendment. Oh, and he'll reduce taxes on the middle class, while hiking them for the rich or successful or whatever you'll let me call them.
...
It's been clear for a long time: A man who beat the Clintons is as ruthless as they are. Just smarter, and less susceptible to losing his grip on the core principles he still believes in.

I don't question that Sen. Obama is an effective politician. This is why I think he'll be more ineffective in office than some want to believe. Being a gifted politician means getting what you want, but it also means making enemies. Hopefully he'll make enough in the Congress.

But I'm not able to decipher a coherent, consistent set of core principles in Sen. Obama's growing spectrum of public declarations. The telecoms broke the law. He won't advocate repealing campaign finance regulations. Faith-based programs miss the point of the First Amendment, among other problems. Adjusting the mix of financial "winners" and "losers" - a rejection of the idea that merit should mean something - ignores property rights and equal treatment under the law in favor of his idea of more equal outcomes. Narrow that down in a way that each set of facts can be filtered through through the same idea and I'll retract my criticism that he is not acting from core principles. Until then, let's not confuse winning with correct. Manipulating the message is great marketing, but it's hardly proof of a statesman.

Can Liberals "Leave Us Alone"?

John Schwenkler cautions that despite the concerns ECL and I have raised about social conservatives being part of a "Leave Us Alone Coalition," similar concerns can be raised on social issues about many/most mainstream liberals.

Before responding to John's thoughtful post, I want to say two important things: first, my various posts regarding my prediction of, and optimism about, a left/libertarian alliance are written on my behalf alone - I honestly don't know the extent to which ECL or any of my new co-authors agree or disagree with those sentiments. Second, I want to promote John's blog, Upturned Earth, of which I was unaware until just yesterday, but which is easily one of the most thoughtful conservative/libertarianish blogs around.

Turning back to John's critique, he observes:

"There is a whole host of issues near and dear to the hearts of many religious conservatives and other traditionalist types - from homeschooling and gun ownership to sex education, vouchers for parochial schools, and the freedom not to violate one’s own convictions in dealing with same-sex unions - where liberals and secularists decidedly are not willing to take up the same sorts of “tolerant” stances that they demand (with sadly little success) in response to their own choices."

He then goes on to argue that any left-libertarian coalition will need to account for this in order to be successful, and that in the process it may wind up, ironically, bringing social conservatives into the fold. I want to make a few points in response:

1. Although I firmly believe that a left-libertarian coalition of some sort is inevitable, I do not believe such a coalition will be permanent any more than the right-libertarian coalition is or was permanent. Political coalitions are constantly shifting; so the question isn't whether a coalition will be permanent or even particularly long-lasting, but rather whether it can exist in the foreseeable future.

2. The areas John identifies are most definitely areas where liberals are inclined to interfere with peoples' lives in a way that is quite unlibertarian. However, I don't think they are large enough issues to prevent some form of left-libertarian coalition, which would be primarily centered on civil liberties and foreign policy much as the Republican coalition that included libertarians was centered on anti-Communism (and, after the fall of Communism, on the Contract with America, which by its nature could only be a temporary unifier). In the Republican coalition, libertarians sacrificed quite a few values on secondary and tertiary issues in order to protect their then-primary issue of fighting socialism and central planning (broadly defined). As such, they were more willing to go along with foreign adventurism and social conservatism. Now that anti-Communism and the Contract with America no longer serve as very good umbrellas for protecting most libertarians' primary issues, those formerly secondary and tertiary issues (such as civil liberties and foreign policy) have moved or are moving to the forefront for many libertarians. Just as libertarians sacrificed some secondary and tertiary values to advance their then-primary values within the Republican coalition, they would inevitably sacrifice some secondary and tertiary values to advance their currently-primary values in the context of a liberal coalition. It may be that the issues John mentions would eventually destroy a left-libertarian coalition - but only if and when civil liberties and foreign policy ceased to be the unifying issue behind which libertarians and liberals could unite.

3. Despite point 2, above, I think the issues John mentions are issues on which Dems and liberals have been getting significantly better over time or which are likely to be non-issues in the long run.

On guns, the Heller ruling largely ends any fears that there would ever be a nationwide gun ban; moreover, the reaction amongst younger liberals to the Heller ruling was surprisingly calm, and as far as I could tell the majority of younger liberals were either ambivalent about the ruling or in many cases even supportive of it (older, dyed-in-the-wool liberal newspaper columnists were a different story).

On homeschooling and vouchers, I would point to David Friedman's support of Obama in part because he believes Obama is more sympathetic to those issues than previous liberals have been; I would also point to the debate I had this past winter with Kyle from Comments from Left Field, which shows that liberals are more flexible on the issue than perhaps they get credit for (this is not to say that they do or will soon support parochial vouchers, just that there is more flexibility on the issue than is widely perceived).

Sex education is not really a national issue. Moreover, once we accept that some sort of publicly mandated curriculum is going to exist no matter what we do, the exact strictures of that curriculum are not really a libertarian issue, though they may certainly be an issue for conservatives (for instance, most libertarians I know of think that abstinence education as an alternative to traditional sex ed is an awful idea).

Finally, on the issue of compelling government officials to preside over same-sex marriage or civil unions, I don't think the libertarian position is at all clear. To be sure, public officials do not give up their religion when they join the government. However, longstanding law (which no one has sought to overturn, and which is partly the result of liberal anti-discrimination laws) makes clear that government employees are entitled to "reasonable accommodation" of their religious beliefs. So, if someone else is available to perform a ceremony to which a government official is religiously opposed, the government official cannot be forced to perform the ceremony. However - and this is important - a government official's duty is to the law as it exists. If the official is so religiously opposed to the ceremony as to be unable to perform it, then he has no right to hold that position with the government if the result of his doing so is that a gay couple is unable to obtain their civil union. In refusing to perform the legal ceremony, the official - who, again, represents the government in his official capacity - is placing his religious viewpoint above the law, and is thereby violating basic church-state principles. Put another way - a government official, acting in an official, non-discretionary capacity, may not act in a way that favors his religious views over another's. But this is not an infringement of the government official's liberty, either: the official is still free to believe as he wishes; he is just not free to use his capacity as a government official to impose those beliefs to the detriment of others. Finally, I would add that a government official's presiding over a civil union cannot, in and of itself, violate that government official's religion, as civil unions and civil marriage are not religious institutions, but are rather legal contractual relationships.

4. There are still issues where liberals take a clear position in favor of government intrusiveness, and ultimately these issues may be areas that cause a split in any liberal-libertarian coalition. But these areas are not areas that are primary issues for most libertarians right now. The examples that come to mind first right now are the the War on Fat and smoking bans.

Gods and Generals

The blogosphere is going nuts over Wesley Clark's comments about John McCain's military service, and Obama's speech on patriotism in which he rebuked Clark's comments. I can't say I care a whole lot about either, but the whole overblown controversy led my friend Kyle at CFLF to make some really important points about McCain's concept of the relationship between the President and the military that I think hits on something that is just about always missed by commenters of all stripes. In the process, he also takes the opportunity to point out that much of the criticism of Gen. Petraeus' testimony on Capitol Hill is unfairly directed at a man whose job is not to tell Congress what he personally thinks. (I wish Kyle had also pointed out that much of the reliance on Petraeus' testimony by war supporters is misplaced for the exact same reasons).

Key 'graphs:

...McCain’s military experience doesn’t even necessarily seem to translate into a respectable understanding of how the military works. This as evidenced by one of
the most frequent attacks he launches at Obama for not being willing to “listen to the commanders on the ground.”

In a nutshell, that seems to be all that McCain’s foreign policy truly entails; listening to the commanders on the ground. But this gross misunderstanding on where the President sits in relationship to the military chain of command can only result in the kind of dangerous circular logic that got us here in the first place.

When we look at the military as a whole, it is a tool tha tis to be used at the discretion of the President, with the body of Congress acting as an important check on power.
It is the president who sets policy, congress that approves policy, and the military that enacts that policy.

The particulars are a little more complex than that, of course, but for the sake of brevity, that’s how it is supposed to work, with the President being the ultimate decision maker. What John McCain’s rhetoric essentially promises, though, is that McCain will hand over the decision making to the military.

That’s not their job, and we’ve already seen the kind of negativity that can result when you put the military in what is essentially a politician’s job in General David Petraeus. Petraeus, has taken much criticism, mostly from my friends on the left, for going to congress and delivering his testimony. But what many people fail to understand is that Petraeaus was given a task to perform. It’s not his decision to decide whether the task is doable, that rests completely with George W. Bush. Petraeus’ job is to accomplish the task by any means necessary.

Thus, when you remove the decision making prerogative of the President, you create a perpetual machine with no safety stop.

(My emphasis)

Read the whole thing.

A Liberal for Barr?

Ron Beasley at Newshoggers hints that Obama's recent capitulations on civil liberties and foreign policy will likely lead him to either sit the election out or vote for Bob Barr for substantially the reasons I suggested liberals should vote for Barr the other day. Beasley writes:

I disagree with the Libertarians on many issues but on what I consider the two most important issues they and Bob Barr are the only ones who get it right. The first of the issues is the occupation of Iraq but even more important is the erosion of civil liberties and the slide into a totalitarian state.

Ron is even more glum about the future of civil liberties and foreign policy under a President Obama than I am, but this is precisely the reason I think a liberal vote for Barr would have a substantial effect. Were Obama to lose or only win narrowly due to a substantial number of liberals (perhaps 2 or 3 percent is all it would take), the Dems in Congress would be forced to finally start resisting the temptation to vote like Republicans on these issues. In order for Dems to grow a backbone on these issues, they need to first know that they face a greater risk of defeat without the backbone than they do with the backbone.

The fact of the matter is that in any left-libertarian coalition, as in any political coalition of any sort, each group will have to make its share of sacrifices on secondary and tertiary issue sets in order to advance its primary issue set. In the short run, however, the primary issue set of many liberals and libertarians is precisely the same: civil liberties and foreign policy.

In the short run, Obama's capitulations may foreclose a meaningful coalition of libertarians and liberals within the context of the Dem Party. But that coalition can still exist, at least in the very short term, in the context of this election if liberals are willing to make short-term sacrifices of secondary and tertiary issues in order to send a message on their primary issues of civil liberties and foreign policy. In the long-run, the Libertarian Party probably could not sustain such a coalition; however, in that long-run, it is still my argument that the Dem Party will become more hospitable to libertarians, provided that the Dems first grow a backbone on civil liberties and foreign policy. In so doing, it is likely that (small-"l") libertarians, broadly defined, will sacrifice a large number of their secondary and tertiary issue sets as long as the Dems are willing to push the issues of civil liberties and foreign policy, and maybe throw libertarians a bone on a few other issues that may be of significance to libertarians but are of relative unimportance to most liberals.

My liberal case for Barr is, at its core, an argument that a vote for Barr will result in minor potential short-term losses for liberals, but will also ensure far more important long-term gains by forcing Dem politicians into stronger positions on civil liberties and foreign policy.

Right Wing Political Correctness Strikes Again

This has to be the funniest example of right-wing political correctness I've seen in days.

"The far-right fundamentalist group replaces the word “gay” in the articles with the word “homosexual.” I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there. The problem, of course, is that “gay” does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. My friend Kyle reported
this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed” the article. That means — you guessed it — the track star was renamed “Tyson Homosexual.”

Read the whole thing, including the magnificent screen grabs they link to.

When you start using auto-replace to remove "offensive" words from legitimate news stories, you play with fire. For all that I hate left-wing political correctness, I can't imagine a Lefty news article being this idiotic. Of course, the fact that the word "gay" is offensive at all is beyond amusing in and of itself.

More at memeorandum.

UPDATE: This is the gift that keeps on giving. Not surprisingly, this is hardly the first time there has been trouble with the auto-replace feature and the word "gay." New York Newsday's Spin Cycle observes another magnificent example of this, involving the NBA Draft last week and the shortlived pairing of Kevin Love and Rudy Gay on the same team, with Love later traded for former USC Star OJ Mayo. I don't want to spoil it, so click on the link.

About that Leave Us Alone Coalition

My colleague East Coast Libertarian wrote a critique the other day of Grover Norquist's utterly silly argument that the Republican Party, including its constituent social conservatives, are the "Leave Us Alone Coalition." As ECL pointed out, social conservatives are far from interested in "leaving us alone," but instead are quite insistent on imposing their worldview on others. Of course, it is generally assumed that at least social conservatives are willing to "leave us alone" on economic matters in a way that liberals allegedly are not.

An article the other day by Dem Congressman Barney Frank helps demonstrate that even that assumption is bitterly false, and that the social conservatives even control Republican thought on economic issues. The article discusses a recent attempt to reduce the regulations and restrictions on the free market related to internet gambling. Specifically, the bill sought to reduce the restrictions and regulations on banks, who the previous (and utterly ridiculous) law made responsible for the decisions of their customers who chose to spend a few dollars leisurely placing bets online. The bill did not seek to repeal the ridiculous anti-internet gambling law entirely, but rather only sought to ease the regulations on banks. It was introduced by Republican congressman Peter King and supported by the entire pro-market establishment, including, I should say, Grover Norquist himself.

Congressman King's bill went up for a vote before the House Financial Services Committee, and failed to escape committee after a tie vote. In the vote, representatives of one party voted better than 7 to 1 in favor of this entirely reasonable, pro-market bill that was introduced by the committee's senior-most Republican. Meanwhile, representatives of the other party voted more than 9 to 1 against this bill and, in essence, in favor of tighter financial regulations on banks. Except that the party voting against the free market by more than a 9 to 1 margin was the Republicans; the party supporting the free market by better than 7 to 1 was the Democrats.

As Congressman Frank wrote:

In other words, the leading economically conservative organizations and representatives of financial institutions who are argued that the proposed regulations would interfere with the functioning of our financial system had the support of less than 10% of the Republicans. 90+ % of the Republicans voted along with the social conservatives to maintain the position that the federal government should be restrictive of individual choice in the matter of gambling and should compel the banks to be the banks to be the enforcers.

I regret the fact that this became partisan. I was hoping that it wouldn't be, and I have been working closely with some of those most dedicated to economic deregulation of the appropriate sort. But it became partisan because the religious/social extreme conservatives continue to be in control of the Republican Party on a whole range of issues, and they demonstrated once again that it is they and not those dedicated to what they believe are free market principles who have the upper hand in internal Republican Party disputes.

And then people wonder why I say that the Republican Party no longer has any claim to the support of libertarians. After being defeated like this by his own party, I have to wonder if Norquist is re-thinking whether he should have written that book.

Songs of Freedom: The Return

A few weeks ago, I promised to post weekly videos of the late, great South African reggae star Lucky Dube. Sadly, I didn't live up to that promise. But that doesn't mean that I forgot about it, either. So rather than finish off your week with this underappreciated and profoundly libertarian-ish artist, this week I will allow you kick your week off with him.

To recap briefly, Lucky was a passionate and outspoken opponent of apartheid. After the end of apartheid, he became a regular and frequent critic of the ANC-led government's policy on taxes, affirmative action, corruption, and of course the government's inability to do anything to stop or slow down the unspeakable level of violent crime in South Africa. For all of his criticism of the government, he was above all an advocate of non-violence and peace. Sadly, he was murdered in a carjacking in front of his own children while dropping them off for school last October.

In my previous post, I embedded the music video for "Taxman," perhaps the most libertarian song I've ever known. This morning, we'll switch gears a little bit and turn to Lucky's landmark anti-apartheid "Together as One," the first anti-apartheid song to ever get airtime on South African radio. Added bonus: Cheesy '80's synthesizers!

A Liberal Case for Bob Barr

I have blogged extensively in recent months about what I view as an inevitable alliance between the American Left and libertarians that will eventually replace the longstanding alliance between libertarians and the American Right that existed in the context of the Republican coalition. I have also said, however, that I don't think that the Dem Party coalition is quite ready to accommodate libertarians in its fold, at least as long as it contains a considerable populist element (best represented by the pro-Hillary elements of white, "working class" voters). I expect these voters to slowly move towards the Republican Party, with its emphasis on American exceptionalism and power, so-called "traditional values," and increasing nativism. As these voters leave the coalition of the Left for the coalition of the Right, Dem Party politics will be less anchored by these elements, and able to stake out stronger positions on social and civil liberties issues.

The Dems' - and Obama's - recent capitulation on warrantless wiretapping and telecom immunity should, I think, be viewed as much as an attempt to appease these wavering voters as anything else. To be sure, campaign contributions from the telecoms certainly helped, but those contributions would have been meaningless if there were no elements of the Dem coalition that support warrantless wiretapping and telecom immunity. This is being portrayed by some as a "move to the center," and to a certain extent it is - socially conservative, economically liberal populists have become very much a "swing vote" that has become increasingly Republican in recent years, just as economically conservative, socially liberal voters (sometimes roughly and somewhat inaccurately described as "libertarians") have become increasingly Democrat. But as Glenn Greenwald correctly points out, this "move to the center" doesn't necessarily help Democrats, and may even hinder them in the sense that it forces Democrats to portray themselves as just "Republican-lite." To make matters worse, though, it results in policy decisions that are virtually indistinguishable from Republicans on issues like civil liberties and foreign policy, as well as cultural issues. But by standing strong on civil liberties and foreign policy issues, Dems actually wind up forging a new coalition of sorts - one that appeals to lots of disaffected Republicans (such as libertarians) even as it turns off the so-called "white working class."

Principled Dems who long ago accepted the death of socialism (ie, most Dems under the age of 40) should not resist this changing coalition, but should instead embrace it, as it allows them to actually push forward proposals consistent with their political beliefs.

As long as Obama continues this so-called "move to the center," what he is really doing is simply seeking to maintain the existing Dem Party coalition, hoping that the more ideological liberals continue to support him as simply the "lesser of two evils." In so doing, it is likely that the end result - even if Obama wins - will be simply more of the same, and a style of government that is substantively very little different from McCain. If that will be the end result, then what, exactly, are liberals voting for?

It is my belief that liberals would instead do well to try to push the Dem Party into a position where they have no choice but to grow a backbone on civil liberties and foreign policy. After all, it is beyond dispute that the Dems will maintain control of both houses of Congress this year. Wouldn't liberals be happier if they had a Republican President who was actually being thwarted in his attempts to restrict civil liberties and engage in an aggressive foreign policy than a Dem President who was indistinguishable from a Republican, except that he was unrestrained in his attempts to restrict civil liberties and engage in aggressive foreign policy in the name of "moving to the center"?

To be sure, some liberals will say that it may be true that Obama is only the lesser of two evils on foreign policy and civil liberties, but at least the Dems will be able to push through Progressive economic policy. And if you are really that concerned with pushing through a more "Progressive" economic policy, then I really can't say much, although the combination of aggressive foreign policy, abuse of civil liberties, and more interventionist economic policy is a really disturbing nightmare for libertarians; on top of that, it seems very few Dems are actually all that much in favor of large-scale economic interventions.

Which brings me to my point: liberals/Progressives whose top priority this election is to restore civil liberties and put a halt to neo-conservatism ought to throw their weight behind a candidate whose entire campaign is built around the restoration of civil liberties and putting a halt to neo-conservatism. It may be that candidate will not win; however, if Obama loses or wins only narrowly, the vote for said third party candidate will send an effective message to the Dem Party that it needs to start taking a stand for civil liberties, in much the same way that the huge vote for Perot in 1992 sent a message to Republicans to start adopting stronger anti-immigration policies (few recall that until the mid-1990s, both parties were quite split on immigration), and to become bigger budget hawks (in which they succeeded for a few years). The result was a Republican Party that few would say cow-towed to the Dem President; indeed, I would even argue that the result was a Dem President who was forced to be the most economically conservative President in recent history.

And that is the opportunity I think Bob Barr may present to principled liberals - the opportunity to force the Dems to actually fight for issues like civil liberties and a less aggressive foreign policy. To be sure, most modern liberals may be ideologically closer to Ralph Nader than Bob Barr (though perhaps not as much as they think). But I do not believe that a vote for Ralph Nader would actually push the Dems to act more strongly on civil liberties and foreign policy - the man is too closely associated with economic issues for a Nader vote to be viewed as primarily a civil liberties and foreign policy vote. Barr, on the other hand, has made civil liberties and foreign policy the primary focus of his campaign, and a vote for Barr can only be interpreted as a firm rebuke of Republican assaults on civil liberties and foreigners, as well as Dem capitulations thereto.

More on the "move to the center" silliness at memeorandum.

**UPDATE**

Thoreau has a slightly, umm, different take on what to do about Dems who don't stand up for civil liberties:

"...[F]rom now on I’ll keep kicking them until they reflexively lash out at Republican hawks, and reflexively buckle under to the ACLU. “Bad Pelosi!” (KICK!) “Bad Pelosi!” (KICK!) “Refuse to hold that vote!” (KICK!) “I said REFUSE TO HOLD THAT VOTE!” (KICK!) “CAN’T YOU F*CKING HEAR ME? I SAID REFUSE TO LET THAT BILL COME TO A VOTE OR I’LL KICK YOU AGAIN! DON’T MAKE ME DONATE MONEY TO THE GREEN PARTY, YOU LATTE-SIPPING CAPITULATION-MONKEY!” Eventually, they’ll be so habituated to being kicked that they’ll fold at the merest hint that a civil libertarian might say something mean about them."

Heh.

Also- John Schwenkler responds to this post, saying:

"I’d certainly be happy to see this happen, though I am sadly sure that it will not. That so many generally clear-headed progressives have been so incredibly soft on Barack Obama’s frequent slides into foreign policy “centrism” and capitulations to the Bush Administration on such things as telecom amnesty - not to mention his support for disastrous domestic policies like ethanol subsidies - has been deeply disappointing, and the fact is that if it keeps up the Democrats are very quickly going to find that they have become the very same sorts of blind, knee-jerk, unthinking supporters of “their guy” as those who drove the GOP coalition into the ground."

Religious Right = A Leave Us Alone Coalition?

I haven't paid much attention to Grover Norquist although I can respect some of his views on limited government and the idea of a "Leave Us Alone" Coalition. However, in a recent article in the Financial Times, Norquist writes:


Social conservatives – the so-called religious right – are a parents’ rights movement that wishes to be left alone with their faith and families. They organised in the late 1970s when the government threatened Christian radio stations and Christian schools with new regulations.

This is what Norquist in his most in his most recent book Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government's Hands off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives. It is also why I could not continue reading his book, especially after the brief and appallingly bad discussion on gay rights. While there are perhaps some (or very few) social conservatives, like my father in-law, who genuinely believes in live and let live (i.e. believes in marriage as being between a man and a woman but would never support a ban on same-sex marriages), it approaches absurdity to suggest that social conservatism as a political force has primarily been a "leave us alone" bunch when:

1. They have advocated amending our Constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman (hence, using government to define marriage is for the rest of us - that's hardly leaving me alone).

2. Demanded that the federal judiciary intervene in a case that was solely within the jurisdiction of the State of Florida, and when that failed, a vicious and mostly misguided assault on the judiciary ensued. Of course, it didn't seem to occur to many of them that the federal government really does have no jurisdiction over these matters leaving (us alone?) the matter to the states. I should note that the whole Justice Sunday mess did not help matters.

3. Similar to Point 2 above, believe that it is perfectly legitimate for a majority to use government to violate the rights of others at will, even when such prohibited actions or arrangements in no way shape or form violates the rights of anyone. This is hardly a characteristic of a group that belongs in a "Leave Us Alone" coalition.

I could go on, but I think I've made the point.

One has to have their head in the sand to think that the group of people he associates with the "Leave Us Alone" coalition really belong. I think it's somewhat of an affront to libertarians or limited government types who have witnessed the likes of Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum, and others running roughshod over those principles to see them being described in this way.

Norquist can put as much lipstick on that pig as he likes but it will still be a pig no matter how hard he tries to hide that fact.

Major Announcement: A Libertarian Supergroup

As some may have already noticed, I am proud to announce a major change here at Publius Endures. Effective today, I am happy to say that I am no longer the sole author of this blog. Instead, I am now joined by the anonymously named, but always thoughtful, East Coast Libertarian of the site of the same name (his excellent first contribution to this site is here). But that's not all! Also joining us at Publius Endures will be Nick Bradley of Confessions of a Right Wing Libertarian (and, notably, occasional contributor at LewRockwell.com) and the equally outstanding Tony from RollingDoughnut.

I am proud to have these three joining me here - all of them are outstanding bloggers in their own right, all are libertarians, and all have a history of making cogent, logical arguments that tend to avoid the demagoguery that is all too typical of the blogosphere. To paraphrase Andrew Sullivan, they are all what you might call "libertarians of doubt." There will nonetheless be plenty of issues on which we disagree, but the respectful disagreements I have had with each of them are a major reason I am so proud to have them join me.

So what drove this change? First of all, there was the decline in my own blogging that resulted from the birth of my daughter and my career change. At the same time, I found that the quality of my blogging is best when I stick to what I know best - i.e., the discussion of factions, interest groups, and political coalitions. So for me to maintain a blog that had frequent (daily or bi-daily), high quality posts was becoming increasingly difficult, and I decided that it would make sense for me to join or create a group blog.

Oddly, at the same time as this was going on in my life, I learned through various postings and discussion threads that these three bloggers were going through very similar changes in their personal lives that would likely reduce their blogging output. Since all three were already among my favorite libertarian bloggers, it only seemed natural to me that we should combine our forces to create something of a libertarian blogging supergroup. Thankfully, they all agreed, and the resulting merger should make this site relatively unique in the libertarian blogosphere, with each of us able to focus our posting on areas where he have a particular interest.

So welcome to ECL, Nick, and Tony, and thank you all for growing this little corner of the blogosphere.

A couple of thoughts on the death penalty and Kennedy v. Louisiana

Regarding Kennedy v Louisiana, Ilya Shapiro at Cato-at-Liberty writes:


I won’t say much about Kennedy, other than that, as he has so, so many times in the past, Justice Kennedy again shamelessly substituted his own policy preferences for the will of the people. Regardless of one’s views on whether certain types of crimes short of murder(aggravated rape, child rape, treason, etc., etc.) warrant the death penalty, this is an issue properly left to the people and their elected representatives in state legislatures. We do not pick nine (left alone five) black-robed lawyers to be our moral arbiters, philosopher-kings, or bureaucrats-in chief. Kennedy versus Louisiana indeed!

Two (somewhat long) thoughts:

First, reasonable people can (and do) disagree on the outcome. Shapiro's comment on leaving these matters up to the states is likely the position I would have taken in the Roper v Simmons ruling, which addressed the death penalty for 16 or 17-year olds. As for the rest of his post, I do believe that Justice Kennedy was accused of "shamelessly substituting his own policy preferences for the will of the people" in the very libertarian-oriented Lawrence v Texas so I don't know if I would go down the "will of the people" road because libertarians understand, rightly, that the "will of the people" is a far greater threat to liberty than any so-called judicial tyranny.

Second, I would have rather seen this decision "flow" from Coker v Georgia (see Kipesquire's analysis on the issues here and here) rather than the "evolving standards of decency". On principle, I wouldn't want any branch of government making the determination of what is decent and what is not. I rarely spend time studying Eighth Amendment jurisprudence so I am admittedly out of my element here, but if Coker describes a theory of justice and punishment that is consistent with the text of the Eighth Amendment, then why not build off of that?

Otherwise, the subjectivity of making a "national consensus" determination just makes a mess of things. For example, Justice Alito's dissent argues that "misunderstandings" of previous case law (specifically Coker v Georgia, which addressed the unconstitutionality of the death penalty for rape of an adult woman) has worked to prevent a "national consensus" because states that were considering the death penalty for child rape decided not to pursue these laws because of a (possible) misunderstanding of Coker. Also, Jim Lindgren over at the Volokh Conspiracy posts old poll data that suggests a different "national consensus" different than the one put forth by Justice Kennedy. Why base a legal opinion on a concept that can be so widely disputed that it can completely undermine the decision? Again, these are questions for lawyers and not people like me.

For the record, I make two disclosures:

1. I oppose the death penalty on practical grounds. I do believe, however, that capital punishment is a just punishment for the taking of another human life.

2. I believe that the taking of another life is the only justification to administer the death penalty, and I think it can become incredibly problemmatic. Punishment should be proportionate to the crime committed. While I have no problem with locking up child rapists and throwing away the key (for good), I can not accept that the death sentence for child rape, adult rape or any violent crime where the victim survives is somehow proportional. Revenge and, as Kip puts it, "naked bloodlust" are not legitimate reasons to elevate crimes that understandably shock the conscience to capital offenses.

Maybe these views bias me on the issue, as I think the Court did reach the right conclusion although I think the legal reasoning is a bit suspect.

Last, I want to thank Mark for inviting me to post over at this blog. As I love his work, I do take it as an honor and I'm glad to be here.

Zimbabwe: A Proposal

(Revised version of a cross-posted comment at Matt Yglesias' blog)

I apologize for the lack of blogging lately - the baby's been keeping me busy, plus I've had a case of writer's block.

In any event, the rapidly deteroriating situation in Zimbabwe has inevitably resulted in the question: what, if anything, should be done?

In my view, this is a clear case where the need to defend others against the brutal oppression of their government - which the people have actively and openly fought against - justifies humanitarian intervention of some sort. But what sort? Sanctions don't work (and if you subscribe to a free trade theory of democracy, as I do, are actually counterproductive); resolutions, even when allowed to pass by Russian and China, are toothless; the US military is stretched to thin to attempt yet a third military occupation, and any direct American or Western military intervention would lead to (justified) cries of neo-colonialism/imperialism; and eliminating sanctions would have little effect because Mugabe would probably not take advantage of the eliminated sanctions in a way that would rapidly increase freedom (ie, there would not be a sudden restoration of free trade). Even if Mugabe did re-open Zimbabwe's economy to the world, the re-opening of the country would still require years before it would result in a hypothetical restoration of freedoms, during which much more political oppression and murder would occur.

The only answer that really makes sense to me is the answer that most goes against every fiber of my libertarian being: "regime change." Before I get chastized for this idea by the entire non-interventionist wing of the libertarian movement, let me make clear that I am NOT arguing that the US military should undertake this venture. Indeed, I believe doing so would be extremely ill-conceived and would primarily result in driving support to Mugabe and further legitimizing already valid concerns of neo-colonialism and imperialism. Instead, I advocate seeking intervention to remove Mugabe, by force if necessary, by either the African Union or by independent African nations.

I believe this because, if ever there was a country where "regime change" would actually work, it would be Zimbabwe. First, it is a country with a relatively weak military and an increasingly unpopular leader. But, then again, compared to the US, Iraq's military was very weak and Saddam Hussein was obviously deeply unpopular amongst the majority of Iraq's population. Yet Iraq was an extraordinarily bad candidate for "regime change," as we have found out, and as I frankly believed at the time. The difference, however, is that in Zimbabwe's recent past, it had a relatively strong civil society (Mugabe's turn to totalitarianism occured largely in this decade), the remnants of with are apparently still in enough operation to permit someone like Tsvangirai to pose a threat to Mugabe. Furthermore, intervention by a coalition of neighboring, non-Western nations would largely overcome any local fears about neo-colonialism and imperialism. In essence, what I am advocating is what should have been done in Rwanda.

As I said, the key factor here is that Zimbabwe has or until relatively recently had a relatively strong civil society. A strong civil society is usually a pre-requisite for liberal democracy, even if that civil society is largely non-politically based - this is why, say, Spain's transition to liberal democracy was rather smooth, while the transition in much of Eastern Europe and the former USSR has been marked by outright civil wars in the former Yugoslavia, low-scale civil war and a decade of authoritarianism in Georgia, a reversion to authoritarianism in Russia, widespread corruption in Ukraine, etc.

My point is this: at the moment, Zimbabwe would not fall into chaos like Iraq did if Mugabe was forcibly removed and his army disarmed. But the more that he continues his crackdown, the weaker Zimbabwe's civil society will be as practicing the freedom of association becomes increasingly dangerous. Mugabe's crackdown the last few weeks is designed to accomplish precisely the effect of destroying free association and civil society. In so doing, he will not only make open dissent impossible, but he will have the perhaps unintentional effect of making a peaceful succession to anyone of whom he does not approve nearly impossible. So the longer the world allows Mugabe to remain in power, the less outside military intervention will be a viable option and the more chaotic will be the aftermath of his or his successors' eventual fall from power.

But again, neither the US nor any other Western nation can or should be involved in any military intervention except perhaps to provide logistical support. Anything more would simply have the effect of feeding into deep-seated resentment of colonialism that would rally support to Mugabe. Instead, I would argue that we should do what we can to encourage a large-scale intervention by either the African Union (unlikely to succeed, unfortunately) or by Zimbabwe's neighbors and other African countries. If that results in the successful removal of Mugabe, then a UN peacekeeping force would be appropriate and would probably need to remain for only a brief period of time, perhaps a year or two.