"Bipartisan Capital"

I have my first guest-post up at Upturned Earth, and it re-explores a lot of the ground I covered in my "Myth of the Moderate" post. The inspiration for the post is the way in which the Administration-to-be has been less than encouraging on the very issues upon which so many relatively prominent libertarians, conservatives, and disaffected Republicans found Obama appealing.

The post is pretty well summed-up with this 'graph:

Now, in the case of scuttling investigations into potentially criminal abuses by the Bush Administration, it would again be bad politics. Why? Far from being a precious waste of “bipartisan capital,” it is these very potential abuses that, more than anything, led Republicans and disaffected former Republicans to vote for Obama. I am, after all, quite certain that Republicans and disaffected former Republicans who voted for Obama did not do so because they favored his health care plan or his support of the bailout, to name a few. Instead, they voted for Obama over fundamental issues of executive power and excessive war-making. To thus
talk about risking “bipartisan political capital” by investigating Bush-era abuses of power is to ignore the base upon which Obama received whatever “bipartisan political capital” he obtained in the first place.

Please read the whole thing here. And, while you're at it, add Upturned Earth to your RSS feeds.

Can Federalism Be the Seat of the Stool?

Writing at Culture11, John has a post that serves as an almost-perfect springboard for my guest-blogging at his usual homepage beginning tomorrow, where I am hoping to put forward some lengthy thoughts about secessionism, federalism, and individual liberty.

Regular readers of mine will be well aware of my argument that the so-called "Three-Legged Stool" of the Republican coalition has become philosophically incoherent to the point that it no longer has a common theme that serves to bind all elements of that traditional stool. For about the last year, I've been arguing that the only logical result was that libertarians no longer have enough in common with Republicans to be part of the Republican Coalition, to the point that the Dem Coalition will eventually be (though is not yet) more palatable to libertarians than the Republicans. Simultaneously, the Republican Party will be better off, electorally, without libertarians because this would allow them to present a more coherent worldview centered on something akin National Greatness Conservatism, which is entirely consistent with two of the three legs of the stool, and which could accommodate fiscally liberal, socially conservative "working class" voters. Various forms of this argument seem to be becoming something of a conventional wisdom within the libertarian blogosphere over the last few weeks.

John, generally speaking, disagrees with this assessment, arguing that even if GOP economic arguments must move slightly to the left towards the Grand New Party arguments of Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat, those arguments are relatively compatible with libertarianism. Underlying his disagreement, I might add, is the assumption that Republican willingness to invade foreign countries will of necessity fade (as long as this does not fade, there is no hope for libertarians to remain or return to the fold). I think this assumption is unlikely to come to pass, but even if it does, the dominance of religious conservatives on the national level is just too much to overcome. At best, I think this leaves libertarians as something of political free agents. And while Salam and Douthat may have good policy proposals palatable to libertarians, those proposals are far too specific to form the "seat" of a diverse political coalition. Instead, they are best seen as a way of bringing new voters into the GOP coalition without altering the coalition's "seat" (whatever that may be).

In any event, John's post today at Culture11 looks at the numerous remaining successful Republican governors and finds a long-overlooked potential "seat": federalism. He argues, correctly, I think, that the relative success of Republican governors does not provide a blueprint for success on the national level, as is the conventional wisdom. Instead, he says, the success (or lack of failure) of Republican governors is much more an endorsement of federalism, noting that Republican governors are extremely diverse from an ideological standpoint. By emphasizing federalism over all else on the national level, the Republican Party can accommodate any number of viewpoints. John then says "Presenting themselves, not as a single-minded party with an inflexible platform and no place for disagreement, but rather as a group that is focused on enabling local governance and a consequent sensitivity to regional particularities, can help Republicans to overcome their internal conflicts without having to throw the dissenters overboard."

I think, insofar as this goes, John is fundamentally right. While federalism as contemplated by the Constitution is far from perfect and too susceptible to local majoritarianism,* the local flexibility it permits can accommodate a diverse number of conceptions of freedom and liberty. The problem, as he acknowledges, is that uniting around federalism would require Republican conservatives "abandoning the attempt to make federal policy decisive on issues like abortion, marriage, drug policy, and euthanasia." For libertarians, of course, this is probably a feature rather than a bug, and I think John does a good job arguing why this would actually be good for social conservatives as well. In this sense, then, John has I think identified a viable "seat" to put the Three-Legged Stool back together. (But see Joe Carter's response, which raises a bunch of issues that I will probably address in my post at Upturned Earth on my proposal for improving federalism).

But after the last eight years of Terry Schiavo, medical marijuana raids, and attempts to prevent assisted suicide laws, I simply don't think federalism is a philosophy around which social conservatives are willing to rally any more....even if it is probably in their best interest in the long-run.

*Much of this can be alleviated through rigorous and expansive enforcement of the 14th Amendment, at least from a libertarian perspective - I don't think social conservatives would be too keen on that solution, though.

Proud Mary Keep on Burning

First, I want to announce that effective Thursday, I will have the privilege of being one of several guest-bloggers for the always-outstanding John Schwenkler at Upturned Earth. I am, to say the least, excited at the opportunity of reaching John's substantially wider audience. I will try to cross-post a good chunk of my work over there at this site, but I would encourage my readers to comment at the Upturned Earth posting, where there is guaranteed to be substantially more conversation. My co-guest bloggers will include JL Wall, blogger and Culture11 contributor, William Randolph Brafford of williamwrites, and Nathan Origer of Nathan contra Mundi. We will be joined by Kyle Erickson, a PoliSci grad student at Georgetown, who will no doubt keep me honest with all my cockamamie political theories.

And while I'm here, now is as good a time as any to recommend some outstanding posts from our own blogroll that I've been meaning to write about.

First, if you're not reading Wirkman Virkkala, then I don't know what to tell you. There is no one more intellectually challenging or with a more independent voice on the internets. At least not that I've run into. You can start with his take on Roderik Long's take on a left-libertarian coalition.

Good friend Kip points out something truly evil in the Progressive blogosphere that puts a little bit of a crux into the idea of a left-libertarian coalition.

The Whited Sepulchre on why we could have done much, much worse than Barack Obama.

Social Service for Feral Children documents the thirty conspiracy theories of the 2008 elections.

Turning to the political Left...

I meant to note awhile ago that longtime PE commenter (and polite gadfly?) Dynamic finally has his own site. Dynamic is always good for an interesting, good faith debate.

Last but by no means least, good friend Kyle, now semi-semi-retired from poliblogging, writes about "No Drama Obama." He argues, accurately I think, that Obama will not govern as a Progressive ideologue but rather will take a considered, deliberative approach to decisionmaking.

Proof that the Dems are the Future Party of "Free Markets and Free Minds"

I don't think one could find a more ringing endorsement of the theory that the Dems are going to (eventually) replace the Republicans as the party of "free markets" than the fact that the Great Scotsman himself appears to be a Dem:

On CNBC this morning, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said that Congress shouldn't bail out companies that are poorly run, and said he would prefer that they go into bankruptcy and using the "bailout" money to retrain the workers.

Music to my ears. I of course oppose any "bailout" money. But the point is, on the whole, abnormally supportive of the "invisible hand" for a Dem, no?

One Ring To Bring Them All and in the Darkness Bind Them

Via John and Mona.

The last few days - and really months - have brought much hand-wringing amongst the political Right as to how to rebuild the coalition of the Right. Part of that of course involves figuring out where, exactly, Republicans went wrong. Participating in this debate have primarily been the more intellectually-honest Righty bloggers such as Ross Douthat, highly regarded economist Greg Mankiw, and Patrick Ruffini, amongst several others. Because none of these figures are about to leave the Republican coalition anytime soon, their thoughts give a pretty good picture of where that coalition is likely to head. Some blame social conservatism, some blame insufficient social conservatism, while others blame Bush-style big-government conservatism and still others blame too much small-government conservatism. The thing is - there is one thing none of them are willing to blame or are at least willing to dispense with. It's safe to assume that one thing will therefore act as the "glue" for the future Republican coalition... the One Ring, if you will. And what is that one thing?

No one seems to have described it quite better than Brad at the lefty blog Sadly, No!:

Here’s something none of them mentioned: our current foreign policy of starting wars for no reason. I’ll put it to you like this: in the aftermath of 9/11, I had a few friends join the army out of what they felt was their patriotic duty. Now, if a commie from Massachusetts like me had friends join the army after 9/11, I’ll wager that lots and lots of politically neutral people my age from across the country had friends who did the same thing. What’s more, I’ll bet a lot of these people were sent off to Iraq in 2003.

After it was revealed that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, a lot of people who saw that their friends and loved ones had been put in danger over a non-existent threat were pissed. What pissed them off even more were apologists within the conservative movement who said that it was no big deal if we never found a single weapon of mass destruction anywhere in the country.

I don’t think you guys can begin to understand the sheer amount of damage [the Iraq war] did to conservatism’s reputation. Sending people to war for bogus or fictitious reasons is one of the most heinous things any government can do — after all, why should anyone agree to make the ultimate sacrifice if they can’t be sure that their government is telling them the truth? If an entire generation of voters holds this against the Republican Party for the foreseeable future, I can’t say I’ll blame them.

And therein lies the crux of the matter. As much as anything else, the Republican foreign policy of the last eight years has destroyed the GOP's appeal to wide swathes of people, particularly in the younger generations. It is also, however, the one thing that still unites both the remaining Republican intellectual establishment and the socially conservative Republican "base." And so it is the one thing with which the Republican Party cannot dispense if it wishes to remain viable in the short-to-intermediate term. On the other hand - it is something around which a new, electorally viable coalition may be formed in the long-term if Obama governs in a more dovish fashion than Bush. Indeed, the demographics in which McCain did comparatively well included essentially pro-war constituencies that ordinarily would vote for the Democrat (to wit: older voters, which McCain won, and union voters, with whom McCain made some inroads).

So the point is, I guess, that the fundamental unifying factor of the Republican Party is going to be its view on the use of American power. While folks like Mankiw may wish that it move in a less socially conservative direction, this is unlikely to happen or to do much electoral good given the socially conservative nature of the Republican "base." The party may continue to pay lip service to fiscal conservatism....but so long as it remains the party of American Power, with all the spending that entails, it will practice a form of big government conservatism. It may (or may not) be that in the short term its electoral survival will hinge on adopting something akin to Douthat and Reihan Salam's "Grand New Party" vision. This would give the Party some appeal on economic issues that could draw in some of the remaining foreign policy conservatives who are economic statists. Their vision is also comparatively inoffensive to the nominally small-government sensibilities of intellectual conservatives.

And while I agree with John that Douthat and Salam's vision is economically superior to the vision of most Dems, I disagree that it will be enough to bring libertarians back into the GOP fold. As long as the expansive use of military force is part of the GOP platform - and for the foreseeable future, it must be - the spending this will entail (not to mention the other problems it poses to libertarians) will far exceed the comparative superiority of "Grand New Party"-style economic proposals, at least to libertarians.

Joe Must Go! Joe Must Go!

After Joe Lieberman endorsed John McCain despite his already fragile relationship with the Democratic "base," it was pretty clear that his future with the Democratic Party was tenuous at best. Today, it would seem, he has begun to reap the rewards for his disloyalty, being informed that he will likely no longer be able to hold his position as Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. He was offered the ability to chair a lesser subcommittee, which it would seem he rejected. As a result, it is increasingly unclear whether he will be allowed to remain a member of the Democratic Caucus (presumably he would then caucus with the Republicans if he is kicked out).

The prospects of this move are nothing but music to my ears - and should be music to the ears of all libertarians. First - and most important - Lieberman is perhaps the single most pro-Global War on Terror Senate Democrat; there is thus no worse Senate Democrat to chair the Homeland Security Committee from a libertarian (or liberal) perspective. Indeed, his views on foreign relations can pretty much only be described as "neo-conservative." Whoever his replacement may be, that replacement is guaranteed to be an improvement.

Second, if Lieberman is indeed removed from the Dem Caucus (as he should be), then that will marginally increase the ability of Senate Republicans to filibuster Dem legislation. In other words - it marginally increases the chances of a successful filibuster on any given issue. From a libertarian perspective, frequent filibusters are almost universally the best we can hope for whenever there is single-party rule in Washington (regardless of which party that may be).

Although less relevant to the moral implications of rooting for Lieberman to be sent packing to the Republicans, it's worth noting that his departure would play a significant role in the slight reformation of the political coalitions. Specifically, Lieberman is quite left-of-center on economic issues. I would expect that his switch of coalitions would hasten the gravity pulling the Republicans to the economic left, while also removing some small modicum of the inertia keeping the Democrats from slowly moving towards the economic right.

The bottom line - there are few things that are, in the long run, more beneficial to libertarianism than the immediate departure of Joe Lieberman for the ranks of the Republican Party. Meanwhile, because of Lieberman's apostasy on foreign relations and the Global War on Terruh, his departure would be a huge victory for liberals as well.

For what it's worth, Jane Hamsher - a powerful voice for civil liberties - has put forth a petition asking the Senate Democrats to strip Lieberman of any committee chairmanships. Liberals and libertarians alike can sign it here.

More at memeorandum.

The (Slow) Rise of the Left-Libertarian Coalition

I've written time and time again (see, e.g., here) that I think the future of libertarianism will be inextricably linked with the Democrats (the nominal coalition of the Left) more than the Republicans, with whom libertarianism has been most associated for the last few decades. The fundamental basis for this argument has been that the Republican Party coalition has become untenable (see, e.g., here) , creating a situation in which the modern Republican Party can no longer be reconciled with any conception of libertarianism beyond lip service to "lower taxes" and "lower spending." In order to form a coherent but electable coalition again, the Republican Party will have to reach out in new directions. Huckabee-style conservative populism, and McCain's National Greatness Conservatism, are the natural ideological viewpoints around which to build this new coalition, as they combined are capable of retaining virtually all of the remaining coalition while also bringing in some traditionally Democratic voting blocs (and/or swing voters), to wit: the elderly and working-class whites with relatively little education. As this happens, and as socially liberal, fiscally conservative people (the broad definition of "libertarian") become an increasingly Democratic voting bloc, my theory holds that the Dems will become more fiscally conservative while the Republicans will become more fiscally liberal.

What we saw the other night was the beginning of this. Indeed, as Will Wilkinson points out, despite the conservatives fears about Obama's "spread the wealth" theme, the wealthiest voters switched their votes from Republican in 2004 to Democrat in 2008 at an unusually high rate. Meanwhile, the only demographic group where Obama actually lost support compared to 2004 was the elderly. I think there was also some evidence of a minor PUMA effect, as - despite the extremely favorable political environment, Obama did no better than Kerry amongst self-identified Democrats - the only other group where Obama failed to outperform Kerry. If you will recall from the primary campaign, PUMAs tended to be more socially conservative but fiscally liberal Hillary Clinton voters.

If the above shifts do represent a semi-permanent change in the electorate - and I obviously think they do, since that's the whole point of what I've been arguing lo these many months - then we can expect the Dems to slowly start moving in a more fiscally conservative direction just as the Republicans slowly start moving in a more fiscally liberal direction (actually, they won't have to do this slowly, since Bush pretty much already put them there). Thus, Wilkinson is I think clearly right when he states:

In the short term, this might make for a decrease in polarization on economic policy, which may produce bipartisan support for policies that will horrify libertarians. In the long term, the Democrats will continue to become ever more “socially liberal and fiscally conservative,” despite the attempt of the ideological left-leaning media and academic opinion elites (who are full of New New Deal ideas) to prevent this.

That said, although Wilkinson is right when he says that "The GOP is now pretty clearly the party of the religious, white, middle-aged and elderly middle class–not a group with a shining political future," I don't think this means the GOP is permanently a minority party. Instead, if indeed Huckabee populism and National Greatness Conservatism are the future of the Republican Party, then we can expect an end to Republican anti-immigrant rhetoric. This will only be hastened by the troubled economy, which will necessarily reduce immigration (both legal and illegal) without any further government intervention. If I'm correct, then I think this election will have represented the high-water mark of Latino voting for Democrats, who will over time become increasingly Republican.

More at memeorandum.

The Right's Busted Gamble

One of the sad ironies that I think may play out over the next several months is that the "Obama is a big government socialist" meme is going to come back and bite conservatives and libertarians (even those of us, like myself, who took issue with the meme). The fact is that Obama ran his general election campaign as a centrist, particularly with respect to government involvement in economic issues. Indeed, he even made the argument for a cut in net government spending, something that most congressional Democrats would likely take issue with. Moreover, too many tend to forget that this was how he ran in the Dem primaries as well, to a certain extent, with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards regularly attacking him from the left on economic issues (remember the controversy when he was forced to flip-flop on NAFTA?). Indeed, his relative centrism on economic policy was largely what led to my qualified endorsement of him during the primaries and to my briefly considering voting for him in the general election.

So Obama campaigned largely on a form of economic centrism that would have hardly represented a drastic change in government intervention in the economy, particularly once mitigated by the political realities of governing. This is something that conservatives and libertarians should have recognized, and ignored at their own peril. (The irony of doing so while so many supported a candidate that "suspended his campaign" to push for the bailout package that was classic socialism seems to have been lost on them).

They also should have recognized that the fundamentals of this election - a weakened economy, a deeply unpopular war, and an even more unpopular Republican President, left it virtually guaranteed that the Republicans would be unable to keep the Presidency even if they had a perfect candidate. They didn't. Instead, they decided to throw a political Hail Mary by painting Obama as a radical left extremist unparalleled in the annals of American history, even while Obama was campaigning as a pragmatic centrist on the vast majority of issues.* This Hail Mary never had any chance of changing the inevitable outcome of the election, which like all elections was always going to be a referendum on the current state of the country.

But by actively pushing the meme that "Obama is a radical, far left socialist," the McCain campaign (and more often its supporters) ensured that the election would be interpreted as a referendum on a clearly liberal worldview, particularly on economics....even though Obama was not running on that economic worldview. And that is now exactly how liberals and progressives of all stripes are interpreting the victory, as well they should - even though the victory is more easily explained as simply being a result of a slight change in the mood of the electorate due to the current state of economic affairs. Which means that Obama now has a mandate, if he so wishes, to put forth some fairly radical economic policies that will be completely unpalatable to believers in the power of the free market. In other words, by painting Obama the Centrist Candidate as a socialist demon, conservatives and some libertarians may have actually created Obama the Socialist Demon President.

The one hope I have - and it is a strong hope - is that the pragmatist and consensus-builder that Obama ran as will reflect Obama's style of government. In fact, I continue to expect that Obama - who is a more prudent and wise candidate than we've seen in some time - will govern much the way that Bill Clinton governed, except with less risk-taking in the early-going. But if he doesn't, conservatives and libertarians who pushed the "socialist" meme will have no one but themselves to blame.

Via memeorandum.

*I'm aware that progressive organizations have called his platform the most progressive presidential platform "in at least 15 years." Seeing as the Dem Presidential candidate just over 15 years ago was Bill Clinton, who is now univerally acknowledged as a true centrist, this supports rather than refutes the notion that Obama ran as something of a centrist.

UPDATE - Not really the same topic, but while we're here, please do go read Will Wilkinson on romanticism, Obama, and the Cult of the Presidency. (H/T: John)

Odd Thought of the Night

If you're looking for sweeping statements about the impact of this election and what it means for the future of this country, you probably came to the wrong place - this is a libertarian blog, after all. All I'll say on that is that: 1. the clearly less-bad candidate won, which is about the best I could have hoped for; 2. there's no denying the symbolic importance of Obama's victory, and for that alone, I am extremely happy he prevailed over McCain. But if you want much more than that tonight, then I would suggest you go to one of the thousands of other blogs with deep reflections on what kind of "mandate" Obama now has, and what we can expect from him. I might go into that topic some other time, but tonight is not the time to look at that.

Instead, I just want to write about one thing that strikes me as deeply interesting and anomolous about this country. For all of our talk about the virtues of military service, in every election since 1980 (with the obvious exception of 1988), the Presidential candidate with the more extensive military record has lost. What this means, I'm not exactly sure, but it's pretty clear that being a war hero has long ceased to be a legitimate qualification for office.

Ron Paul Jumps The Shark

I received an e-mail late last night from the Ron Paul re-election committee (which now controls the leftovers from his Presidential fundraising) with the following message:

As Americans head to the polls for this historic election, I want to ask for your support for a fellow supporter of Liberty, Representative Scott Garrett.
I need my friend Scott Garrett in Congress with me to vote against big government and the further erosion of our Constitutional rights. Scott recently voted with me against the massive taxpayer-funded bailout of Wall Street and has stood with me so many issues over the years.
Tomorrow promises to be a tough day for supporters of liberty, and big government forces threaten to further their influence in Washington. Scott Garrett needs your help. Please support him in any way you feel comfortable, and most importantly, make sure to get to the polls and vote.

If Scott Garrett (R-NJ) is a "fellow supporter of Liberty," then the word "Liberty" has no meaning. More importantly, if Scott Garrett is the type of person Ron Paul thinks is a "supporter of liberty," then I think we can officially end any illusion that Ron Paul is a libertarian. While Garrett's opposition to the bailout is commendable, it hardly compensates for his theocratic positions on social issues (he consistenly earns dizzyingly low marks from the ACLU and 100 percent ratings from the Christian Coalition and Family Research Council) and foreign relations (a more reliable vote for non-stop war would be hard to imagine). Simply put - it's virtually impossible to distinguish Scott Garrett from any other "conservative" currently serving in Congress. If this is who Ron Paul is spending his primary campaign riches on, then I think it's time to retire the notion that the Ron Paul campaign was a net positive for liberty in this country.

How I voted.

I have a full recap of my voting analysis/strategy at my site. The quick summary of my ballot:

President: Bob Barr (Libertarian)

Senate: William Redpath (Libertarian)

House: Myself (libertarian)

Since there are no ballot initiatives in Virginia to vote against and my vote will have no affect on the outcome of any of my three national races, I had no compelling reason to vote. I don't even think Barr is a libertarian. I just like the process, probably out of conditioning. And this is the first election I've voted for a candidate other than one of the big two. That's monumental in my small world.

I reached that conclusion after offering myself the common answer of civic duty. I've long abandoned that as silly, although I hadn't identified why. Studying libertarianism helped me realize the fallacy of that. Now I roll my eyes when I hear someone say "If you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain." Nonsense. Where anyone violates my rights, any and every complaint I voice is legitimate. I need to evaluate no other considerations.

I didn't vote for Obama or McCain, but whoever wins will violate some of my rights over the next four years. Those rights aren't based on my involvement in a democracy. (Not that I want to be involved in a democracy.) I possess those rights for no reason other than my existence. I would be a bore if I complain but do not do something about a violation. But voting is not the exclusive option in the Do Something domain. Advocates of democracy don't seem to grasp that.

Vote. Or don't.

Democrats Can Play Dirty, Too!

My Congressional race here in NJ is considered one of the seats most likely to be a pickup for the Democrats this year. The Republican Congressman is retiring after four terms and after barely surviving in 2006 due to the anti-Iraq War wave (which the Dems seem to have misinterpreted as a pro-Dem economic wave). The race to replace him pits an long-time state senator, Leonard Lance (a Republican) against the Dem candidate who barely lost in 2006, Linda Stender. There is also an independent candidate who is running to the right of Lance, Michael Hsing, primarily it would seem on social issues.

Lance bills himself as a fiscal conservative who has a reputation for being a social "moderate." In reality, though, Lance's views on social issues are virtually indistinguishable from Stender's, making him a fiscal conservative and social liberal, which has led him to get endorsed by literally every newspaper in the area including the undeniably liberal New York Times. He seems to have been a supporter of the Iraq War and the "surge," but also now favors withdrawing from Iraq on the grounds that the surge has worked. Anyways, the race has drawn lots of attention from both parties' national committees and has featured some high profile guest campaigners (including, unfortunately, the President). Lance is far from a libertarian dream, and I have more than my share of problems with him, but in this day and age, a fiscal conservative/social liberal is about the closest thing you can get to a libertarian; plus, with a Dem President an absolute certainty (and with McCain being far less palatable than that Dem President), trying to keep the margin in the House as close as possible is the only way to have any chance at blissful gridlock in the next 2-4 years. But I didn't decide who I would vote for until I received a couple of pieces of mail that can only be described as blatantly fraudulent and/or deceptive.

Only when you look closely do you realize that they were sent by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Nowhere on either of the pieces is Linda Stender mentioned by name. Instead, the first piece is what is facially a hit piece on the independent candidate, Michael Hsing. The piece asks "Is Hsing just too conservative for your family?" The thing is - it was sent to me, who likely only appears on mailing lists idiotic politicos still consider "conservative" (ie, libertarian). When you actually read the piece, moreover, it becomes clear that it is a rather soft hit piece. In fact, it's a blatant attempt to get conservatives (of which I am obviously not one) to vote for Hsing instead of Lance, including such "attacks" as saying that he "wants to lower taxes on American and create a simpler, fairer tax system which could require cuts to important government programs."

The second piece is far worse, though, keeping in mind that it is paid for by the DCCC. It is entitled "For Congress the Choice is Clear." Below is a comparison of Lance and Hsing, with Lance labeled "Trenton Insider" and Hsing labeled "Fiscal and Social Conservative." What makes this a particularly deceptive piece is that it contains clear endorsements of Hsing positions that liberals, as well as the nominally liberal DCCC, obviously do not hold - endorsements of Hsing's "simpler, fairer tax system," his "pro-life," anti-stem cell research record, and his support of a ban on gay marriage.

Now, I have no problem with the DCCC being allowed to do this - and I would fight tooth and nail any attempt to prohibit them from doing so. But that doesn't change the fact that it is brutally dishonest and deceptive in its endorsement of positions that are supposedly antithetical to the Dem platform. It also doesn't change the fact that it shows that the Republicans aren't the only ones who can soil themselves in mud, a fact that too many of my liberal friends seem to deny. In my case, though, it backfired horribly - most of what they rip into Lance on are social issues where I would find Hsing unpalatable and where I usually find the Republicans unpalatable. In telling me that Lance is a social liberal, the DCCC has just made Lance an acceptable candidate in my eyes.

Bleg

What's a good Halloween costume for a libertarian couple this year? The only criteria are that costumes be: 1. Satirical; 2. Irreverent/Politically incorrect; and 3. Timely.

The Perversity of Employer-Based Health Insurance

I wrote yesterday and this morning about the problems underlying the liberal arguments against individual-based health insurance, the conservative/libertarian arguments against single-payer health insurance, and the far greater problems underlying liberal arguments in favor of the current employer-based health insurance system. I argued that the only solution to the problems of health insurance and care in this country lies in moving to individual-based insurance while simultaneously - and contrary to libertarian doctrine - permitting a sizable expansion of government safety net programs along the lines of Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP.

Responding to the same article to which I was responding, Ron Chusid, another blogger for whom I have massive respect (and who is also a doctor) cites with approval an argument that de-incentivizing employer-based health insurance, as the McCain plan seeks to do, will not only discourage employers from providing health insurance, but also that it will increase the costs of insurance to individuals because individual insurance plans are more expensive.

There are several problems with this latter argument, which is premised in the notion that employers are able to negotiate lower rates and better policies due to their large size. First, the fact is that most Americans currently have employer-based health insurance, yet our health care system is about the most expensive in the world, which suggests that employers don't do a very good job negotiating better rates.

Second, to the extent employers are able to negotiate better rates, those gains are lost because the insurance company has no need to treat the end consumer as a customer since the employer is the real customer. This creates an incentive to deny or restrict benefits or to create administrative hurdles to the granting of claims (all of which raise the final costs to the individual); indeed, Ron himself has indicated that under the current system, it is usually a worse bureaucratic hassle for doctors to receive payments from insurance companies than the government (he alludes to this here, although I know he specifically made the point in another post). But this perverse incentive is eliminated when the customer and the consumer are the same thing. Third, employer-based health insurance has a lot of deceptive costs to the employee; specifically, although an employee may nominally only need to pay a percentage of the insurance costs directly out of their paycheck, the fact is that employers may (and, I know from experience, effectively do) largely shift their "share" of the costs back onto the employees by simply paying lower initial salaries and wages. Indeed, employer-based health insurance largely arose as a way of replacing pay raises during WWII, when wage and price controls prevented pay raises.

This isn't to say I support the McCain proposal. For the most part, I don't, and many of the ways it seeks to achieve individual-based health care are extremely wrongheaded. His attempts to argue that he wants to preserve the employer-based health insurance system are either dishonest or completely moronic. But at the same time, liberals are wrong to now argue for the superiority of employer-based health insurance to individual-based health insurance. On this point, they should keep in mind the fundamental truth that, as Ezra Klein said yesterday, employer-based health insurance has "arguably been among the most costly and perverse mistakes in the history of American public policy." And of course Klein is right - it combines the worst elements of socialism and capitalism, without any of the mitigating effects of either. So terrible is the existing system that I would actually prefer a complete single-payer system to the existing one, at least if that is the only choice we have (and, thankfully, it isn't).

A Libertarian Argument for (Limited) Single Payer Health Care (UPDATED)

Yes, you read that title correctly. Before all the hate-mail starts pouring in, let me first make the caveat that all other things being equal, I would vastly prefer a truly free market approach to health care over either outright single payer or our current employer-based approach to health care. But depending on the goal of the health care system, single-payer health care might be a vast improvement over our current system. More likely, though, the absolute ideal would be a system in which almost all elements of the system were private and individual-based and other elements of the system were public and government based, with a very clear and recognizable boundary between the two.

First, this post is inspired by this CNN article, which seeks to create a panic by implying that McCain's health insurance proposal would be the death of employer-based health insurance. Seeing this, as well as an admission by the McCain campaign that individual-based health insurance would be less comprehensive than employer-based health insurance, much of the left side of the blogosphere, including some I hold in extremely high regard, has been in effect celebrating the employer-based health insurance system as the last bastion against the collapse of decent health care coverage.

In the course of reading these various discussions, what has become clear is that the arguments in favor of employer-based health insurance are essentially:

1. Employer-based health care is important because the participation of younger workers reduces the health care costs of older workers (implicit in this is the obvious fact that younger workers pay far, far more into the health insurance system than they get out of it); and

2. Younger workers who choose individual-based health insurance (including high-deductible insurance) will receive less than full insurance coverage.

The second of these two arguments is something of a red herring - younger workers will largely receive less than full insurance coverage because they're younger and therefore are not in need of as much insurance coverage. I don't think anyone is entitled to say that those workers should be required to spend more on health insurance than they need to, especially when they could use their resulting savings on more worthwhile pursuits.

That leaves the argument that employer-based health care is important because it creates a situation in which younger workers in essence subsidize the health care of older workers. The problem is that this rationale is the identical rationale that underlies just about every conceivable system of wealth transfer or social safety net. If, indeed, this wealth transfer/safety net is the primary goal of a health care system, then employer-based health insurance is nothing other than a privately run welfare system. If that is the case, then health insurance should not be in the private sector at all - government is uniquely qualified to run welfare programs due to the economies of scale involved plus the fact that it is not charging a premium to pocket a profit (I'm hardly against profits, but there's no reason in the world that younger employees should pay a premium for the "privilege" of sending a good chunk of their paychecks to older employees' health care). And then, of course, there is the fact that you are never going to be able to get everyone enrolled in a privately-run health care system, mandates or no mandates - a fact that was the subject of much discussion throughout the Dem primaries.**

Simply put, if the primary goal of our health care system is to make sure that older employees have their health care at least partially subsidized, then the solution is not to worship at the altar of employer-based health insurance and try to get more people enrolled in employer-based health insurance. The solution is to advocate for government to run the program.

Alas, I don't think anyone this side of Hugo Chavez would argue that the sole goal of a health care system should be to ensure that everyone has the same health care coverage. Quality and availability of care is pretty important as well. And on that issue, I don't think there can be much argument that the competition and incentives provided in a free market system are the best way of encouraging innovation and creating more doctors, to say nothing of the additional problems of regulatory capture that would inevitably appear in a purely government-run system. Additionally, a free market system in which costs are reduced from their current levels is a system that will be able to cover more people than are currently covered (albeit less than would be covered under single payer).

The problem with a pure free market approach to health care - beyond the argument that it doesn't go nearly far enough in increasing equality of access - is that a purely free market approach has some unusual flaws in the context of health care (and yes, I know that this concept comes up whenever someone doesn't like the results of the free market). For example, as John and I discussed the other day, the problem of pre-existing conditions (amongst other things) can completely eliminate consumer choice on a micro-level even in an individual-based insurance regime. And it is truly a complete elimination of consumer choice - we're not talking about a situation where the result of you choosing to end your relationship with the provider just means you can't get cable TV any more, but rather one where ending that relationship means either death or a drastically shortened life span. I would think that all but the most die-hard Objectivist would find such a result unacceptable.

In the end, though, our current system of employer-based health insurance combines the worst of socialist planning and the worst of free market capitalism, with only limited benefits of either (to the extent socialist planning has any benefits). As in the worst socialist systems, individual choice is severely limited, and the individual's ability to receive medical care is a function of the "central planning" of a nameless, faceless bureacracy. Meanwhile the profit motive, normally a driving force behind innovation and quality customer service, becomes perverted due to the dearth of consumer choice and thus treats the problems associated with socialism as features rather than flaws. The result? Higher costs and unequal access to care. Fortunately, these problems have not affected the amazingly high quality and quantity of doctors in this country - but then again, the employer-based health care system at least largely leaves in tact the need for doctors to have good relationships with their patients in order to be financially successful.

Any attempt to fix the problems of health care needs to recognize that employer-based health care in many ways represents the worst of all worlds. But it must also recognize that a purely free market approach will have some results that are unacceptable in a civilized society, while a purely socialized approach will necessarily result in a drastic reduction in the quality and quantity of medical care. I'm not enough of a regulator to even suggest what the exact delineation between public and private should look like. But those contours must be abundantly clear so as to ensure the Rule of Law. At a minimum, I suspect that any solution worth its salt will involve a sizable expansion of social safety net programs like SCHIP, Medicare, and Medicaid; but it will also involve putting an end to the insanely expensive system of employer-based health care and replacing it with an actual free market for the vast majority of consumers, which would more than make up for the difference (of course, bringing our troops home and drastically cutting military spending wouldn't hurt either).

** All of this says absolutely nothing about the perverse incentives created by employer-based health insurance, in which the insurer's customer is not the end consumer but is instead the employer.

(More at memeorandum).

***UPDATE*** Ezra Klein, unlike the Obama campaign, keeps his eye on the ball and maintains intellectual honesty, arguing that short-term strengthening of the employer-based health insurance system is not an end in itself but instead only a necessary political step to eventually transitioning to a universal system. He writes that "recognizing the political necessity of that strategy is very different than trying to convince people that employer-based health care has been a "success." Quite the opposite. It has arguably been among the most costly and perverse mistakes in the history of American public policy." But why complicate things? I'm less knowledgeable in this area than Klein, but why not just push for a gradual expansion of Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP while simultaneously phasing out the incentives that make the employer-based system more viable than an appropriate individual-based system?

Know Your Audience: The Ineptness of the McCain Campaign

The National Law Journal is probably the most widely circulated periodical in the legal world, reaching many tens of thousands of attorneys every week (at least in theory . . . . it has a tendency to stack up and get ignored by busy junior associates). But it is read almost exclusively by attorneys, which are hardly what you would term a core Republican demographic.

Well, it seems that John McCain was asked to write a piece in the NLJ describing his views on "the rule of law, the federal court system, judicial appointees and priorities for the U.S. Department of Justice." The piece is, to say the least, underwhelming. It begins promisingly enough, though:

Our nation needs a new direction — different from the path pursued by the current administration, and also different from the failed liberal policies of the past proposed by Senator Barack Obama. We face enormous challenges and you, the voters, deserve more than platitudes. I feel it is my duty as a candidate to tell you specifically how my presidency would improve our government and our country.

Unfortunately, "platitudes" are exactly what we get, and the "different path" from the Bush Administration turns out to be the Bush Administration on steroids, with one exception.

Rather than discussing "the rule of law, the federal court system, judicial appointees and priorities for the U.S. Department of Justice" in any kind of depth, what we get are vacuous platitudes about "strict constructionist" vs. "liberal activist" judges, counterterrorist operations (but not even the slightest mention of civil liberties issues implicated thereby), and the need to double down on the War on Drugs, not to mention the Nixon-era claim that Dem-appointed judges will "coddle criminals."

To be sure, there is a brief, one-sentence mention of the need to de-politicize the Department of Justice, but beyond that, McCain's commentary reads like a Mitt Romney stump speech rather than an attempt to convince thousands of overly-educated, mostly left-of-center professionals to vote for him. In other words - McCain is writing for the "base," even when the only audience is about as far from the "base" as you can get.

I am not saying that McCain should have written a column that does not reflect his actual viewpoints or that throws the Republican "base" under the bus. I am simply amazed that he made absolutely no attempt to explain, in detail, why he thinks he would do a better job at, say, appointing judges but instead simply throws around buzz words like "strict constructionist" and "liberal activist" that both make most attorneys' eyes glaze over (because they are meaningless terms) and gratuitously insult judges as a group, who are quite well regarded within the legal profession.

For instance, would it have been so difficult for McCain or, more likely, his ghost writer for legal affairs, to put forward an honest and meaningful description of his judicial philosophy? If he sincerely wants to make a push for increased enforcement of banking rules and tighter banking regulations, couldn't he have discussed how he wishes to do this, particularly in light of the dramatic effect of Sarbanes-Oxley on the legal profession? Simply put, McCain's piece demonstrates a complete lack of seriousness or intellectual rigor about legal issues, two traits one needs to display in order to get the support of any well-educated group interested in a set of issues.

This isn't just a function of McCain having disagreements with the vast majority of the legal profession - it's about him nominally seeking our support while refusing to engage us on terms that have actual meaning to us, instead addressing us on terms better suited for convention speeches. In other words - it's not just bad policy, it's bad politics. And therein lies the rub. Here we are, just one week from Election Day, and McCain is still focusing almost all of his campaigning on mobilizing the "base," even when he is not speaking to the "base." To be sure, a Republican would have little chance of winning in the current economic and anti-war climate no matter what; but for someone who was always portrayed as a "moderate," whatever that means, McCain has been forced to spend the last 7-8 months trying to convince the "base" that he's one of them. That's not a good way to compete in an election.

(via Memeorandum).

The Fall (and Eventual Rise) of the Conservative Intellectual

(via Memeorandum)



For all the problems libertarians should and do have with David Brooks (who is as unlibertarian a conservative as they come), the fact is that he is a gifted writer who makes a sincere attempt at intellectual honesty capable of getting well beyond standard political talking points. His column yesterday is typical of that intellectual honesty and, I think, describes one of the GOP's central problems right now to a "T." It's tough to pick one quote that does the whole piece justice, but this quote fairly well sums up his point:

But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads. Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts. What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole.

As a result, says Brooks, the GOP has completely alienated the educated classes through a form of class warfare at the same time as its economic policy views have alienated large segments of the working class. In a thoughtful response that thoroughly supplements Brooks' piece, publius at ObsidianWings writes that the real problem that has pushed intellectuals away is the GOP's "nasty embrace of social views that [intellectuals] find stupid and repellent."



I think they're both right. But more importantly, I think they both put in perspective not only how the coalition of the Right is withering away, but also (perhaps inadvertently) provide some useful insight into how the coalition of the Right will be restructured in the aftermath of this election. What little intellectual infrastructure the GOP had was a combination of Burkean conservatives like Buckley or Kirk, libertarianish economists, and neoconservative intellectuals. Of course, coastal intellectuals don't translate into votes in the Southeast and Middle America - former Dem strongholds that didn't start moving to the GOP until the 60s. And so entered the rise of religious-based conservatism, which was - at least initially - relatively compatible with the GOP intellectual elite on the leading issues of the time. Of course, issues change, and eventually that compatibility began to crack, a topic on which I've written extensively before. Since the (inherently anti-intellectual) religious-based conservatism most easily translated into votes, it was only natural that appeals to it would become increasingly central to any electoral strategy. But as the GOP philosophy became less coherent, the party was forced to turn to something that would allow religious conservatives to ignore the incompatibility while still maintaining enough of their other positions to keep the other philosophical strains in the fold: fear (and yes, the Dems are no less willing to deploy fear as an electoral strategy when it suits their purposes - they just deploy it on different issues). The problem, however, was that there are a lot of unintended consequences when you deploy fear as an electoral strategy - most notably, as publius says, the religious conservatives (and really movement conservatives as a whole) became the brooms from the Sorcerer's Apprentice. The increasingly heated rhetoric coming from these stoked flames inevitably took on a hateful and anti-intellectual tone, causing conservatives of the more Burkean and neo-conservative variety, including Brooks himself, to become increasingly lukewarm in their support of the GOP. The more libertarian intellectuals have increasingly left the GOP coalition entirely.

However, that is not to say that GOP intellectualism is permanently dead, replaced by a purely theocratic vision of the world. Neo-conservatives and Burkeans have largely remained within the fold even as they have been less vocal in their partisanship. Their problem with the party, I suspect, is more a problem with tactics than philosophy - neo-conservatism as a philosophy plays particularly well with others, and Burkean conservatives largely agree with many of the prescriptions of the more theorcratically-inclined, if not their tactics and rhetoric. Instead, these intellectuals have begun to push for something akin to a new type of "movement conservatism" that more properly reflects the current makeup of the GOP coalition and can help the party's standing with the working class.

With libertarians leaving the party in droves, the remaining GOP opinion-makers are increasingly free to abandon free market rhetoric; put another way, they have become smaller and thus have to please fewer groups. The result? National Greatness Conservatism and so-called Sam's Club Republicans, two worldviews that are 1. intellectually honest; 2. capable of appealing to the GOP base; 3. capable of eventually bringing in groups not currently in the GOP coalition; 4. are currently quite compatible with each other; and 5. are completely incompatible with any version of libertarianism.

In many ways, the reason I was unsurprised by - and correctly predicted - the success of McCain and Huckabee in the primaries was that they each represented one of these (coherent) worldviews, allowing them to appear "authentic" and "sincere," traits that are required to get votes from thoughtful voters. Romney, who tried to represent each leg of the Coalition's so-called "stool," including libertarians, came across as insincere and robotic and, as a result, completely untrustworthy. But Romney was always going to garner a lot of support from the GOP "base" because his worldview was identical to theirs, defined not by a coherent philosophy but rather by the GOP's Frankenstein's Monster philosophy that was simply a bizarre mish-mosh of various strains of conservatism, libertarianism, and religion.*

So, if McCain actually does represent a coherent philosophy that is capable of both keeping the GOP coalition mostly intact and appealing to other groups, why is he getting beaten so badly by Obama? Several reasons: 1. The fundamentals in this election are really, really bad for any Republican; 2. Although he has largely succeeded in keeping movement conservatives in the fold, this has come at a price of having to sound an awful lot like Romney at times, not to mention doubling-down on fear tactics; 3. New political movements take time to gain steam, especially when they are taking the place of a movement that has fallen into disrepute; 4. He made a really bad choice on his running mate.

All of this is to say that I think Brooks' column (and publius' response) correctly diagnoses what has happened to the GOP. But it is also to say that the GOP's decline is not a death - it will rise again, with the once-dominant ideology of Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley subsumed within the ideology of not only Bill Kristol, but also people like Ross Douthat and Brooks himself. Despite publius' hopes, Sarah Palin - who represents the increasingly small segment of Romney-style movement conservatism - will not stay long in the GOP spotlight, at least not in a position of honor. Instead, I think we can expect a GOP in which Mike Huckabee becomes the party sage, delivering the final blow to the last vestiges of libertarianism in the GOP while at the same time stealing ever-more working class (and more importantly, populist-leaning) votes from the Dems. Naturally, this will also make the Dems increasingly less hostile to libertarianism as they trade their least libertarian supporters for libertarianish former Republicans.

*I have written before how adherence to such a "pu-pu platter" philosophy is the inevitable result of becoming overly loyal to a political party, whose policy positions are inherently the result of tradeoffs and logrolling amongst member coalition groups.

UPDATE: More on Brooks' column from Schwenkler, who thinks the current state of the party stems largely from a combination of bad ideas and bad candidates. For the reasons I lay out both above and in the comments to John's post, I respectfully disagree with this explanation without disagreeing that the GOP's main Presidential candidates were astoundingly bad. I just think it was no twist of fate that left the GOP with astoundingly bad candidates like Romney and Giuliani.

We Done All Lost Our Minds!

(Via memeorandum)

Last night, I mentioned to my wife that I thought nationalizatin of the banking industry, at least in the near term, was "highly unlikely." I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

What most disturbs me about this is that, after the last 8 years of warrantless wiretapping and various other abuses of government power through proxy corporations and private enterprises (Blackwater, anyone?), it is many liberals and progressives most loudly supportive of this move (notably, I do not at this moment believe Obama has expressed support for it, and I have noticed several prominent lefty bloggers who appear openly skeptical of it).

Liberals/Progressives ought to rethink their support of nationalizing the banking industry. If we are talking only short-term nationalization, then so be it, as long as there is a clear date by which government dumps its ownership (not that I support even short-term nationalization; I just don't think it would be completely disastrous). But if we are talking about something more long-term, then this creates a severe potential for true corporatism/fascism.

To demonstrate, I simply point out how the warrantless wiretapping program began - the administration approached the phone companies about instituting the program. Those who agreed to do so were rewarded; those who didn't, not so much. Now imagine the danger created when government decides which businesses do and do not get credit, which is so often a necessary requirement for business growth and survival, both large and small. Isn't it rather easy to imagine large corporations getting loans conditioned on their willingness to go along with the ruling administration's "Policy X"? Nationalization of the banking industry, in this sense, allows the ruling administration to do an end run around the Constitution by getting corporations and business to "voluntarily" do things on behalf of the government that the government would otherwise be prohibited from doing itself.

At a minimum, long term nationalization of the banking industry creates a situation that is rife for corruption. Take a look at some of what occurred in South (yes, South) Korea in the 1980s, where, IIRC, only one of the 30 largest corporations refused to play along with the ruling party's demands (for bribes, kickbacks, and IIRC compliance with party policy preferences). That one corporation suddenly found, amongst other things, that it was no longer able to obtain credit.

Perhaps a President Obama would be rather benevolent in his use of these powers afforded by nationalization, and maybe he would try to ensure that his underlings were in fact fair and neutral in making determinations on the issuance of credit. Problem is that: 1. there is no guarantee he will win, 2. we have no idea who will be in power 4 or 8 years from now, and 3. even the most benevolent of leaders will be tempted to use this tremendous power as a way of serving his concept of the "greater good" under the view that the ends justify the means.

Indeed, point 3 is precisely what has been the problem the last 8 years. While I think the Bushies have dramatically overstated the threats we face to national security, I also don't doubt that they believe those threats are real and severe. And therein lies the rub - because they view the "greater good" of national security as so important, however honestly, almost anything done in service of that "greater good" can be justified.

Admittedly, the details of the takeover plan have not been announced yet, and it does not appear that the government will be taking a controlling interest in the banks (as the Fed did with AIG). If the details contain a plan to divest the government of whatever interest it takes in the banks over a period of time (and that plan is complied with) and it does not exercise control over day-to-day decisions on issuance of credit, then perhaps there is not much to worry about. But if the details are otherwise....well, Switzerland is looking better by the day.

(Cross-posted at RCP Cross-Tabs)

A Government Failure. Nothing Else.

Professor Steven Horwitz's "An Open Letter to My Friends on the Left" is a must read. An excerpt:

Consider instead that the problems of this mess were caused by the very kinds of government regulation that you now propose. Consider instead that effects of the profit motive that you decry depend upon the incentives that institutions, regulations, and policies create, which in this case led profit-seekers to do great damage. Consider instead that the regulations that may have been the cause were supported by, as they have often been throughout US history, the very firms being regulated, mostly because they worked to said firms' benefit, even as they screwed the rest of us. Consider all of this as you ask for more of the same in the name of fixing the problem. And finally, consider why you would ever imagine that those with wealth and power wouldn't rig a new regulatory process in their favor.

Long story short, what we are seeing in the credit markets is a government failure, not a market failure. The same people who want us to embrace "government as coolness", who, not uncoincidentally, are naive in their opinion that a belief in free markets comes from some knee-jerk response to government, seem to think that this problem was caused by deregulation. Maybe Horwitz's piece will at least sway liberal bloggers, who may ultimately disagree on the cure to this issue, to back off on their position on the cause because it is, I believe, incorrect. Also, a change of heart, not that I expect it, would go a long way to strengthening the possibility of the sort of left-libertarian alliance Mark tends to favor.

For more on how those subject to regulations end of being able to rig the game in their favor, I strongly recommend this post by Mark or this post over at the Amateur Economist (the Baptist and Bootleggers Dilemma).

Note: It doesn't necessarily mean that we oppose regulation (most libertarians support certain forms of regulation), but rent seekers make us very skeptical towards regulation, as it should be determined whether such regulations serve a valid public purpose (health, safety, welfare, etc.) or seek to prop up some favored interest group at the expense of others (i.e. labor unions). Most of us would support the former and deplore the latter. It's hardly a reflexive knee-jerk reaction to regulation.

Ron Paul's free-thinking followers receive their orders.

Allow me to begin with a statement of fact: Rep. Ron Paul is not a libertarian. He is a registered Libertarian, an aspect of his political career rendered moot by his policy stances. I could join the Justice League, complete with membership card, but that won't make me a superhero. Merit alone determines credibility. While I stop short of endorsing any libertarian purity test, if Rep. Paul is a libertarian superhero, his power is the ability to tie trash bags really, really fast. Perhaps useful while substantially improving nothing. He is on the fringe, with minimal credibility.

With that stated, Rep. Paul announced his endorsement in the presidential race. He supports Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin. The Constitution Party's platform is ridiculous, including such anti-liberty stupidity like this nugget on drug abuse:

The Constitution Party will uphold the right of states and localities to restrict access to drugs and to enforce such restrictions. We support legislation to stop the flow of illegal drugs into these United States from foreign sources. As a matter of self-defense, retaliatory policies including embargoes, sanctions, and tariffs, should be considered.

Drugs should be legal, although I don't personally care. Legalize every drug tomorrow and my cumulative lifetime intake will continue at zero. So, don't get distracted by the drug issue.

The important point is the mention of state and local rights. This is, at best, a poorly-written talking point. No government has any rights. Governments have powers granted to them by rights-possessing people. This matters. As Rep. Paul shows with his blather on issues like same-sex marriage, he is not interested in promoting liberty by limiting government. He is interested in promoting government by limiting liberty, as long as the government involved is not the federal government. Local majoritarianism is no improvement on the national variety.

The Constitution Party's platform gets no better for libertarians.

Also, consider the proper analysis of Rep. Paul's decision (link via Hit & Run):

Two weeks ago the Libertarian nominee pulled out of a press conference Ron Paul had called with the four leading third-party candidates (Barr, Baldwin, Nader, McKinney) to highlight their common ground. Barr decided to hold a press conference of his own down the hall. He also sent Paul a snide note — transmitted to Barr’s e-mail list as well — suggesting that Paul ought to replace the hapless Wayne Allyn Root as Barr’s running mate. This ploy could hardly have been more ham-handed: if Barr wanted to appear generous, he should have offered Paul, obviously by far the bigger attraction, his own slot at the top of the Libertarian ticket. Paul would not have accepted, but Barr at least would have received credit from some libertarians (note the small “l”) for making a serious offer.

After the press conference, Paul’s supporters, not to say Paul himself, were furious with Barr. And now, as a result of all of this, Paul is officially giving his blessing to Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin. Here’s Paul’s statement. I don’t think Paul wanted to choose between Baldwin, who faithfully supported Paul’s Republican presidential bid earlier this year, and Barr, the nominee of the party whose ticket Paul had headed in 1988. But Barr’s behavior forced a decision, and the Libertarian Party is the loser for it.

If that educated guess is correct, and I suspect it is, who could reasonably propose that an individual who makes such a petty, unprincipled decision is qualified to represent libertarians, or to be President of the United States? What would he have chosen as his slogan if his revolution had succeeded in earning the Republican nomination, "Maverick Change You Can Believe in from the Next Decider"? I'll pass.

Note: I'm not particularly interested in the Libertarian Party politics, or Bob Barr's place as a libertarian. I've come back to my original skepticism. Bob Barr isn't a libertarian.

More thoughts at A Stitch in Haste and Timothy Sandefur.