Category Archives: Libertarianism

As Mediaite readers may recall, Glenn Beck recently appeared on CNN for a full hour of talk with S.E. Cupp. Buried within that interview is one especially interesting nugget: Beck said he would gladly stand with GLAAD in the fight against Russias hetero-fascist laws criminalizing public homosexuality.

Beck told Cupp that he finds it ridiculous that Americans were debating Santa Claus race and a comment made by a Duck Dynasty star while, over in Mother Russia, laws have criminalized public homosexuality and a well-known TV celebrity actually called for the burning alive of gay people.

Hetero-fascism, Beck called it. And he said hed gladly stand with GLAAD in taking a stand against Russias anti-gay legislation.

So why is that so interesting?

Ive long been tough on Beck for suggesting hes sympathetic to libertarianism while openly supporting the likes of Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann two of the most un-libertarian GOP candidates in the 2012 cycle. And then he started to make some progress on many issues, including surveillance and the warfare state.

So Id consider this an even greater step forward. With this one soundbite, Beck has done more to speak out against Russias war on homosexuality than any of his conservative radio colleagues, thereby showing clarity of his belief that while his religious views may say one thing about homosexuality, he does not believe any government has any place legislating such morality. Not only that, but he mentioned fighting arm-in-arm with GLAAD, one of the rights biggest bogeymen.

Bravo.

Watch below, via CNN:

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Glenn Beck: ‘I Will Stand with GLAAD’ Against Russia’s ‘Hetero-Fascism’

Walter Block is at his finest when he subjects the most loathsome jobs and nastiest behaviors to a logical and libertarian scrutiny. Blocks Defending the Undefendable has needled and irritated an entire generation of readers and compelled many to re-examine long-held beliefs in favor of the logic of libertarianism. Now comes volume 2, Defending the Undefendable: Freedom in All Realms (with a foreword by Ron Paul) that promises more such irritation for future generations.

The introduction is a short course in libertarianism. Block explains that libertarianism is a political philosophy that shows when the use of coercion is justified or not justified. The book examines 30 cases that are often seen as illegal, immoral, or unethical. Block analyzes each case by subjecting it to a libertarian standard, and ultimately exonerates each from punishment by government.

Please note: the author is only defending these cases by the political standard of libertarianism and whether they should face coercive threat from the state. It does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that this implies approval and commendation. It simply means they should not go to jail for their behavior.

The examination of these hard cases is what helps us sharpen our understanding of libertarianism and our ability to debate and defend the free society. I agree with the author that studying hard cases strengthens libertarianism and improves the likelihood of achieving a free society. Much of my own research has been on such hard cases, such as drug dealers and smugglers. People, particularly college students, find such cases interesting and often convincing.

Speaking of hard cases, one of my colleagues recently visited South Africa. He saw that private security was everywhere. He was told that he and his belongings were safe with private security, but not safe where government police was in charge. My colleague noted that a nation that understands that the market provides a better service for security, the hardest of all cases, is going to be more easily convinced that the market can provide a better garbage collection service.

The book is divided into seven sections. The first, on trade, contains five short chapters: The Multinational Enterpriser, The Smuggler, British Petroleum, Nuclear Energy, and The Corporate Raider.

British Petroleum is a good hard case because everyone knows about the accident in the Gulf of Mexico, the 200 million gallons of oil that was spilled, and that BP has been vilified by the media pundits and politicians because of it. Block begins by calling the people at BP heroes in part because they do the dangerous work so we can comfortably drive across town at 10 cents a mile.

Block asks if BP knew the dangers of deep water drilling. Of course they did, but government regulations prevent shallow water drilling near the shoreline and provide incentives to drill in deep water far out at sea. Meanwhile government regulators were not doing their job, goofing off, taking bribes, and they failed to upgrade safety standards to account for the new deep water drilling.

As BP was vilified for negligence and as the oil continued to seep into the the gulf, the U.S. government turned down offers of assistance from foreign companies that specialized in such spills and who had more experience than U.S. firms. Ships from foreign countries also offered their assistance, but like after Hurricane Katrina, the volunteers were turned away. Block argues persuasively why such disasters are very unlikely to happen in a libertarian society and that this tragedy was the result of government intervention.

The second section on labor looks at the cases of The Hatchet Man, The Home Worker, The Picket-Line Crosser, The Daycare Provider, and The Automator. In the case of automation, it does destroy some jobs, and creates new jobs, and this should be celebrated by society, not denigrated or sabotaged. Technological advance is the main source of rising prosperity and job creation. Machines can increase our productivity and free up labor to produce other goods that are in short supply. The chapter does a wonderful job of showing how this process takes place and how we all benefit from automation and robots.

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Walter Block Is Still Defending the Undefendable

The night before the 2008 Nevada Republican convention, the Ron Paul delegates all met at a Reno high school. Although Id called myself a libertarian for almost my entire adult life, it was my first exposure to the wider movement.

And boy, was it a circus. Many members of the group were obsessed with the gold standard, the Kennedy assassination and the Fed. Although Libertarians believe government is incompetent, many of them subscribe to the most fringe conspiracy theories imaginable. Airplanes are poisoning America with chemicals (chemtrails) or the moon landings were faked. Nothing was too far out. A great many of them really think that 9-11 was an inside job. Even while basking in the electoral mainstream, the movement was overflowing with obvious hokum.

During the meeting, a Ron Paul staffer, a smart and charismatic young woman, gave a tip to the group for the upcoming convention.

Dress normal, she said. Wear suits, and dont bring signs or flags. Dont talk about conspiracy theories. Just fit in. Her advice was the kind you might hear given to an insane uncle at Thanksgiving.

Then next day, I ran into that same operative at the convention, and I complimented her because Ron Paul delegates were being accepted into the crowd. I added, Were going to win this thing.

Bring in the clowns, she said, and smiled before I lost her in the mass of people.

I will never forget that moment: Bring in the clowns. At the time, I considered myself a thoughtful person, yet I could hardly claim to be one if you judged me by the company I kept. The young lady knew something I had not yet learned: most of our supporters were totally fucking nuts.

I came by my own libertarian sensibilities honestly. I grew up in a mining town that produced gold, silver and copper; but above all, Battle Mountain, Nev. made libertarians. Raised on 40-acre square of brown sage brush and dead earth, we burned our own garbage and fired guns in the back yard.

After leaving my small town upbringing, I learned that libertarians are made for lots of reasons, like reading the bad fiction of Ayn Rand or perhaps the passable writing of Robert Heinlein. In my experience, most seemed to be poor, white and undereducated. They were contortionists, justifying the excesses of the capitalist elite, despite being victims if libertarian politics succeed.

If you think that selfishness and cruelty are fantastic personal traits, you might be a libertarian. In the movement no one will ever call you an asshole, but rather, say you believe in radical individualism.

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Why I fled libertarianism — and became a liberal

Libertarians believe that strict determinism and freedom are incompatible. Freedom seems to require some form of indeterminism. "Radical" libertarians believe that one's actions are not determined by anything prior to a decision, including one's character and values, and one's feelings and desires. This extreme view, held by leading libertarians such as Robert Kane, Peter van Inwagen and their followers, denies that the will has control over actions. Critics of libertarianism properly attack this view. If an agent's decisions are not connected in any way with character and other personal properties, they rightly claim that the agent can hardly be held responsible for them. A more conservative or "modest" libertarianism has been proposed by Daniel Dennett and Alfred Mele. They and many other philosophers and scientists have proposed two-stage models of free will that keep indeterminism in the early stages of deliberation, limiting it to creating alternative possibilities for action. Most libertarians have been mind/body dualists who, following Ren Descartes, explained human freedom by a separate mind substance that somehow manages to act in the physical world. Some, especially Immanuel Kant, believed that our freedom only existed in a transcendental or noumenal world, leaving the physical world to be completely deterministic. Religious libertarians say that God has given man a gift of freedom, but at the same time that God's foreknowledge knows everything that man will do. In recent free will debates, these dualist explanations are called "agent-causal libertarianism." The idea is that humans have a kind of agency (an ability to act) that cannot be explained in terms of physical events. One alternative to dualism is called "event-causal libertarianism," in which some events are uncaused or indeterministically caused. Note that eliminating strict determinism does not eliminate causality. We can still have events that are caused by indeterministic prior events. And these indeterministic events have prior causes, but the prior causes are not sufficient to determine the events precisely. In modern physics, for example, events are only statistical or probabilistic. We can call this soft causality, meaning not pre-determined but still having a causal explanation. Still another position is to say that human freedom is uncaused or simply non-causal. This would eliminate causality. Some philosophers think "reasons" or "intentions" are not causes and describe their explanations of libertarian freedom as "non-causal." We can thus present a taxonomy of indeterminist positions. It is claimed by some philosophers that libertarian accounts of free will are unintelligible. No coherent idea can be provided for the role of indeterminism and chance, they say. They include the current chief spokesman for libertarianism, Robert Kane. 1 The first libertarian, Epicurus, argued that as atoms moved through the void, there were occasions when they would "swerve" from their otherwise determined paths, thus initiating new causal chains. The modern equivalent of the Epicurean swerve is quantum mechanical indeterminacy, again a property of atoms. We now know that atoms do not just occasionally swerve, they move unpredictably whenever they are in close contact with other atoms. Everything in the material universe is made of atoms in unstoppable perpetual motion. Deterministic paths are only the case for very large objects, where the statistical laws of atomic physics average to become nearly certain dynamical laws for billiard balls and planets. Many determinists are now willing to admit that there is real indeterminism in the universe. 2,3 Libertarians should agree with them that if indeterministic chance was the direct direct cause of our actions, that would not be freedom with responsibility. Determinists might also agree that if chance is not a direct cause of our actions, it would do no harm. In which case, libertarians should be able to convince determinists that if chance provides real alternatives to be considered by the adequately determined will, it provides real alternative possibilities for thought and action. It provides freedom and creativity. Libertarians should give the determinists, at least the compatibilists, the kind of freedom they say they want, one that provides an adequately determined will and actions for which we can take responsibility.

For Teachers

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Clarke, R. (2003). Libertarian Accounts of Free Will, Oxford University Press.

Dennett, D. C. (1978). Brainstorms : philosophical essays on mind and psychology. Montgomery, Vt., Bradford Books. (see "Giving the Libertarians What They Say They Want.")

Kane, R. (2001). The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. Oxford ; New York, Oxford University Press.

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Libertarianism - Information Philosopher

Western Democrats on the ballot in 2014 are strongly condemning the National Security Agency.

Montana Lt. Gov. John Walsh, a candidate for Senate who is likely to be appointed when Sen. Max Baucus (D) becomes ambassador to China, is the latest in a long line of Democrats to protest, releasing a statement Friday that blasted a federal judges ruling that the NSAs bulk collection of phone records is legal.

Outspoken criticism of NSA programs allows potentially vulnerable incumbents to distance themselves from a president whose popularity is sagging while scoring points with liberals and appealing to the regions libertarian streak.

The NSAs massive collection of law-abiding Americans phone records chips away at our fundamental right to privacy, Walsh said. Fighting decisions like this is why I am running for the U.S. Senate because Montanans deserve a leader who has the courage to secure our nation without sacrificing freedoms.

Alaska Sen. Mark Begich (D) is building his mailing list with a petition on his campaigns web site urging Congress to immediately stop the call-collection program.

(Also on POLITICO: Judge rules NSA phone tracking legal)

This is an enormous invasion of every Alaskans right to privacy, Begichs web site says. The government should not have the ability to collect our information without a warrant.

Colorado Sen. Mark Udall (D) went on ABCs This Week Sunday to urge President Barack Obama to consider all 46 of the recommendations in a report addressing the collection of phone data.

It doesnt fit the standard in the Fourth Amendment of unreasonable search and seizure, he said of the program.

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) has been one of the most vocal boosters of more congressional oversight of NSA. Hes pushed legislation, with bipartisan support, that would prevent the government from keeping FISA court interpretations of the law secret.

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Western Dems blast NSA surveillance

Is Rand Paul and Libertarianism the GOP #39;s Future? Nick Gillespie on Hardball
Is Rand Paul and Libertarianism the GOP #39;s Future? Nick Gillespie on Hardball.

By: Arnab Goswami

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Is Rand Paul and Libertarianism the GOP's Future? Nick Gillespie on Hardball - Video

Left-libertarianism (or left-wing libertarianism) names several related but distinct approaches to politics, society, culture, and political and social theory, which stress equally both individual freedom and social justice.[1] The original school of left-libertarianism is libertarian socialism.[citation needed]

Left-libertarianism can refer generally to three related and overlapping schools of thought:

Libertarian socialism (sometimes called social anarchism[6][7] or left-libertarianism)[8][9] is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic society without private property in the means of production. Libertarian socialists believe in converting present-day private productive property into common or public goods, while retaining respect for personal property.[10] Libertarian socialism is opposed to coercive forms of social organization. It promotes free association in place of government and opposes the social relations of capitalism, such as wage labor.[11] The term libertarian socialism is used by some socialists to differentiate their philosophy from state socialism,[12][13] and by some as a synonym for left anarchism.[6][7][14]

Adherents of libertarian socialism assert that a society based on freedom and equality can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian institutions that control certain means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic elite.[15] Libertarian socialism also constitutes a tendency of thought that promotes the identification, criticism, and practical dismantling of illegitimate authority in all aspects of life.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22]

Accordingly, libertarian socialists believe that "the exercise of power in any institutionalized formwhether economic, political, religious, or sexualbrutalizes both the wielder of power and the one over whom it is exercised".[23] Libertarian socialists generally place their hopes in decentralized means of direct democracy such as libertarian municipalism, citizens' assemblies, trade unions, and workers' councils.[24]

Political philosophies commonly described as libertarian socialist include most varieties of anarchism (especially anarchist communism, anarchist collectivism, anarcho-syndicalism,[25] and mutualism[26]) as well as autonomism, Communalism, participism, libertarian Marxist philosophies such as council communism and Luxemburgism,[27] and some versions of "utopian socialism"[28] and individualist anarchism.[29][30][31]

Mutualism emerged from early nineteenth-century socialism in the work of writers and activists such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in France and William B. Greene and Dyer Lum in the United States. It is generally considered a market-oriented strand within the libertarian socialist tradition. Mutualists typically accept both individual and co-operative ownership of land and means of production, with trade of products representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market.[32] Mutualists typically connected their proposals with the establishment of a mutual-credit bank that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high enough to cover administration.[33] and with ownership of land limited to usufruct, or to personal use and occupation.[34] Drawing from a labor theory of value, mutualist economic writing argued that, in a market freed from privileges to capital, when labor or its product is sold it should receive goods or services embodying "the amount of labor necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal utility".[35] Thus mutualists argued that wealth deriving solely from the ownership of land or capital, rather than from labor, would be replaced by reciprocal trade between laborers. Thus, though Proudhon opposed individuals receiving an income through loans, investments and rent, he wrote that he never intended "...to forbid or suppress, by sovereign decree, ground rent and interest on capital. I think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and voluntary for all: I ask for them no modifications, restrictions or suppressions, other than those which result naturally and of necessity from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity which I propose."[36]

The primary aspects of mutualism are free association, mutualist credit, contract (or federation/confederation), and gradualism (or dual-power). Mutualism is often described by its proponents as advocating an "anti-capitalist free market," and mutualist economic writing was heavily influential in the development of American individualist anarchism[37] and the development of contemporary left-wing market anarchism.[38]

Mutualists argue that most of the economic problems associated with capitalism each amount to a violation of the cost principle, or as Josiah Warren interchangeably said, "Cost the limit of price." It was inspired by the labor theory of value, which was popularized, though not invented, by Adam Smith in 1776 (Proudhon mentioned Smith as an inspiration). The labor theory of value holds that the actual price of a thing (or the "true cost") is the amount of labor that was undertaken to produce it. In Warren's terms, cost should be the "limit of price," with "cost" referring to the amount of labor required to produce a good or service. Anyone who sells goods should charge no more than the cost to himself of acquiring these goods. Proudhon also held that the "real value of products was determined by labour time, and that all kinds of labour should be regarded as equally effective in the value-creating process, and he advocated therefore equality of wages and salaries."[39]

Anarchist communism (also known as libertarian communism) is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, private property, and capitalism in favour of common ownership of the means of production,[40][41]direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".[42][43]

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Left-libertarianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 2001, the German parliament almost totally deregulated prostitution. The majority, left-wing coalition of Social Democrats and the Green Party trumpeted the new law as a reform that would end prudishness about sex work and bring the business into the open so prostitutes could bargain for higher pay and claim social insurance.

Things havent quite gone according to plan. Large brothels have popped up in various cities, packed with women and girls lured by human traffickers from poverty-stricken Eastern Europe and handed over to pimps upon arrival.

Charles Lane

Lane is a Post editorial writer, specializing in economic policy, financial issues and trade, and a contributor to the PostPartisan blog.

Archive

Sex tourists from around the globe flock to German establishments that offer unlimited sex for a flat rate of 100 euros (about $135) or, sometimes, gang-bang parties, according to extensive exposs of what some in the German press call modern slavery. Meanwhile, there has been no increase in prostitutes signing up for social benefits.

Amid a growing backlash from womens rights advocates, Chancellor Angela Merkel is promising tougher rules. A likely reform is the elimination of flat-rate brothels, though how that would be enforced is anyones guess.

Now the Supreme Court of Canada is trying its hand at prostitution reform. The justices unanimously struck down the countrys prostitution laws and ordered parliament to rewrite them within a year. Will this experiment end better than Germanys, or will it confirm that theres something inherently exploitative about prostitution that neither market forces nor enlightened legislators and judges can eradicate?

Prior to the courts ruling, Canadian law took a characteristically middle-of-the-road approach. Performing sex acts for money was not a crime. But it was illegal to solicit customers, operate a brothel or live off the avails of prostitution Canadian for pimping. Basically, prostitution was permitted but contained.

To the Supreme Court, however, this arbitrary scheme imposed dangerous conditions by preventing prostitutes from working indoors, from hiring drivers, receptionists or bodyguards, and from talking to would-be clients ahead of time to screen out potential abusers.

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Lane: Legalizing prostitution doesn’t make it safer

The Department of Justice has indicted three men who it suspects helped run the Silk Road, an online drug marketplace that was hidden through the Tor anonymous Web-surfing network.

The three menAndrew Michael Jones of Charles City, Virginia; Gary Davis of Wicklow, Ireland; and Peter Phillip Nash of Brisbane, Australiaare alleged to have worked with suspected Silk Road owner and operator Ross Ulbricht, who was arrested in San Francisco, CA earlier this year. Jones and Nash were arrested last week, Davis is believed to be in Ireland, authorities say.

What he wouldn't give for a holocaust cloak.

Specifically, Jones, who is 24, and Davis, who is 25, were employed as site administrators, which entailed "monitoring user activity on Silk Road for problems, responding to customer service inquiries, and resolving disputes between buyers and vendors, the Department of Justice press release said. Nash, who is 40, was employed as a forum moderator, "monitoring user activity on discussion forums associated with the site, providing guidance to forum users concerning how to conduct business on Silk Road, and reporting any significant problems discussed on the forums to the site administrators and to Ulbricht.

The three men are each charged with one count of narcotics conspiracy, one count of money laundering conspiracy, and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

Meanwhile, news of the arrests have hit the Silk Road community hard. Wired points out that rumors of the arrests had surfaced on reddit (a sister company to Wired and Ars Technica) earlier last week. A reddit user who went by PrincessBtcButtercup (and who later deleted the name) wrote:

"I'm not sure what his login name was, all i know is that apparently he was an admin and then a mod and that he also ran the book club. He is a wonderful person and has been supporting me (due to my chronic pain), so to say the least my world has been turned inside out and upside down. They told me they were making arrests all around the world at the same time.can anyone give me any info on who he was? i'm hoping he was well liked and respected because even though i didn't know he was doing this, I can guarantee he was doing it out of his passion for Libertarianism and for the idea of a free marketplace. Just thought i would pass on the message..

The post was accompanied by a copy of a search warrant and a copy of a business card from FBI Agent Christopher Tarbell, Wired wrote.

On r/silkroad, users are left trying to explain what happened to the site and its second incarnation, which sprang up after the Feds shut the first one down in the wake of Ulbricht's arrest. Libertas, Inigo and Synergy (aka, SSBD) have been arrested, user vytvy wrote in the thread "Stay The Fuck Away From Silk Road." "They were likely found because they handed over their dox to DPR1, aka Ulbricht. All three of them are irresponsible and jeopardized the safety of EVERYONE here by continuing to promote a black market when their 'boss' is incarcerated. It is absolutely shocking that their hubris and greed allowed them to take such a risk. They literally handed over their real life identities to Ulbricht then went on to create/support SR2, despite knowing full well that they were COMPROMISED. That's right. Libertas, Inigo and Synergy KNEW THEY WERE COMPROMISED the day SR1 was taken down.

The Department of Justice notes that its investigations are ongoing.

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Feds indict three alleged Silk Road forum moderators and administrators

At least three alleged moderators of the forums for the Silk Road online drug marketplace have been indicted on federal charges, according to a document unsealed today.

The three suspects -- Andrew Michael Jones, Gary Davis and Peter Phillip Nash -- have been indicted in the Southern District of New York on conspiracy charges related to drug trafficking, money laundering, and hacking,according to the document(.pdf).

All three allegedly worked for Dread Pirate Roberts, the owner and operator of Silk Road, who authorities say was 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht was arrested last October in San Francisco after a years-long investigation that brought down the Silk Road, which facilitated the marketing and sales of illegal drugs.

Jones, who allegedly went by the name Inigo, is accused of being an administrator on the Silk Road site since at least October 2012. Davis, who allegedly used the name Libertas, was also an alleged administrator on the site since at least last June.

Nash, who allegedly used the aliases Samesamebutdifferent and Batman73, among others, allegedly served as the chief moderator of the Silk Road discussion forum since at least last January. The forum was a place where users discussed the sale of drugs and exchanged advice about taking drugs, eluding the feds, and other topics.

Silk Road administrators were responsible for monitoring user activity on the site and handling customer disputes. Forum moderators were responsible for providing guidance on how to use the Silk Road site, monitoring discussions, and reporting problems discussed in the forums to Silk Road administrators and Dread Pirate Roberts, the owner of the site.

Moderators and administrators were paid between $50,000 (30,000) and $75,000 (45,000) a year by Dread Pirate Roberts, according to the indictment.

Word of the arrests began swirling online when a user of the Reddit forum (which is owned by Wired's parent company) posted a message indicating that her boyfriend had been arrested. The user, who posted under the name PrincessBtcButtercup before deleting the name, wrote that the person with whom she was in a relationship was an admin on Silk Road and had been the subject of a search warrant in the Eastern District of Virginia.

"I'm not sure what his login name was, all i know is that apparently he was an admin and then a mod and that he also ran the book club. He is a wonderful person and has been supporting me (due to my chronic pain), so to say the least my world has been turned inside out and upside down. They told me they were making arrests all around the world at the same time.can anyone give me any info on who he was? i'm hoping he was well liked and respected because even though i didn't know he was doing this, I can guarantee he was doing it out of his passion for Libertarianism and for the idea of a free marketplace. Just thought i would pass on the message.."

She then posted a copy of the search warrant along with a copy of a business card from FBI Agent Christopher Tarbell.

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Three alleged Silk Road moderators indicted on federal charges