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Libertarian Saturday
Author: TriSec    Date: 03/15/2008 12:47:22

Good Morning!

Cub Scout Pack 250 (Waltham, MA) had it's annual rite-of-spring last night...our pinewood derby! A fine time was had by all, and as our chairman said, "I only saw two kids crying", so it was a good night. The Cubmaster's son fared well, taking 5 first place ribbons out of 6 races, but that wasn't quite good enough to finish first in his den.

So, on to the news at hand...


You know we all love to complain about Congress and the ridiculous laws that they often focus on to the exclusion of all else. Do you ever wonder if congressmen themselves think the bills stink? One of the more libertarian members (no, not Ron Paul) has recently expressed his opinion on the 3 worst bills in recent memory:

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ.) is one of the most libertarian, or libertarian-leaning, members of Congress. The four-term congressman is a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus, which pushes for libertarian ideas within the GOP, and he is earning a national reputation for his outspoken and controversial opposition to GOP drunken-sailor-type spending. In fact, the small-government lobbying group Citizens Against Government Waste recently dubbed him a "taxpayer superhero." Prior to entering Congress, Flake was head of Arizona's free-market Goldwater Institute.

In January, the libertarian magazine Reason asked Flake to name the three worst bills recently inflicted upon us by Congress.

Here are Flake's choices and explanations.

1. The Farm Bill: "Both the House and Senate versions of the farm bill extend subsidies, distort markets, and hamper future free trade agreements, and the final bill is only likely to get worse in a conference committee. Sugar growers who didn't get what they wanted in the initial legislation are urging conferees to repeal portions of NAFTA."

2. The Omnibus Appropriations Bill: "Congress rolled 11 appropriations bills into one massive package and passed it in late December. House members had less than 24 hours to read the legislation before we voted on it. We're still finding out what's actually in the bill. But we do know it contained nearly 12,000 earmarks. That was reason enough to vote 'no.'"

3. Economic Stimulus Package: "Any time Republicans and Democrats can so easily agree on legislation as expensive as this, it's not a good sign. Rebates look to me like an admission by Congress that perhaps the federal government shouldn't have taken that money in the first place. Hopefully, Congress will keep this in mind as the Bush tax cuts get set to expire."

(Source: Reason magazinehttp://reason.com/news/show/124973.html )




Charley Reese has an interesting column this morning. What do you think are the rules of citizenship? I think things like "obey the laws", "pay your taxes", "vote", and "stay informed" belong near the top of that list. But Mr. Reese hase a different opinion, and his rules are a little deeper...
Here are some rules for being a good citizen. They date back to the American Revolution, but most Americans today have forgotten them.

Rule No. 1 is that people given power will tend to abuse it. This applies to everyone from local government to national government. It applies to Democrats and to Republicans. The reason it is so universal is because it originates in human nature, which is the same today as it was 10,000 years ago.

That's why the Founding Fathers labored so hard to devise a basically weak national government. Not only does the Constitution divide power between the three separate and equal branches of the federal government, it also divides power between the federal and state governments. Unfortunately, we have removed many of these safeguards.

Not everyone in government abuses power, and one of the duties of a citizen is to recognize those who don't and to reward them.

Rule No. 2 is that politicians have an inclination to lie. The Bush administration lied us into a war. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The regime of Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with al-Qaida or with the attack on the U.S. It is also a lie that "everyone believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction." The U.N. weapons inspectors had never said, after 1995, there were weapons. They said there was a paper discrepancy. One part of the government said x amount had been destroyed; another branch said it was y amount. You will find paper discrepancies in practically every government in the world. Witness, for example, the numerous weapons and large amounts of money our own government cannot account for in Iraq.

Nor, it should be added, did Saddam pretend to have weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi government said repeatedly that it did not have them.

Lying by American politicians has become so pervasive, it is the rule rather than the exception. Lies destroy credibility, but because they are so pervasive today, few people get punished when they are caught lying. Citizens should consider a lie a mortal sin in the realm of civics, for lies are an attempt to deceive the people about very important matters. Lies are a direct attack on the American system of self-government, which is based on the premise that if the people know the truth, they can make the right decisions.

Rule No. 3 is to always oppose excessive government secrecy. Common sense tells us that government is entitled to some secrecy, primarily military in time of war. Recent governments, however, have gone overboard and promiscuously classify practically any piece of paper that comes across their desk. Usually the only thing they are protecting is our own government from embarrassment or possibly criminal prosecution.

National-security letters are a good example. These are demands by the FBI for information about citizens for which there is no search warrant. The institutions receiving them are threatened by criminal prosecution for revealing to anyone that they have received one. These warrantless searches went from 8,500 in the year 2000 to 47,000 by 2005. The current government conducts all kinds of "data sweeps" that involve our use of the Internet, including Web pages we visit and e-mails we write or receive, along with telephone calls, our spending habits, the flights we take and our bank records. The right to privacy for all practical purposes is as dead as a beached whale.

But are you being spied upon? Sorry, that's classified. Thus, invasion of privacy and secrecy go hand in hand. The only remedy I can see for this is to vote out of office the politicians who have tolerated it and to avoid electing anyone who might reasonably be expected to continue these practices. They are all done, of course, in the name of security, but Benjamin Franklin said it well when he wrote that those who prefer security to freedom deserve neither.



Ok, I know this has nothing to do with libertarianism, but I couldn't resist posting it anyway. It's Pi Day!
It's Pi Day, a celebration of the mathematical ratio that man has been trying to unlock for millennia. But why are we driven to find the answers behind it?

As we're all taught at school, pi represents the number you get when you divide the distance around a circle (its circumference) by the distance across (the diameter).

With just a string and a ruler you can quickly measure that pi must be just over three-and-an-eighth (3.125). With more precise measurements, you may be able to narrow it down to 3.14.

However, if you ask a typical maths nerd, you'll get an earful of pi - 3.14159265 and so on. A surprising number of students have memorised 50 or even 100 digits after the decimal point.

The rough ratio of pi 3.14 gives us the date for Pi Day. March 14, or 3/14 in American dating style, makes sense for a celebration of this famous constant.

Coincidentally, Pi Day is also the birthday of Albert Einstein, who no doubt knew more than a little about pi. Pi Day celebrants, usually children with an enthusiastic teacher and a varying degree of personal interest in the subject, learn about pi, circles, and, if they're lucky, eat baked pies of various sorts.

Famous constant

Some classes offer prizes for memorising the most digits of pi, or for creating interesting mnemonic devices. Count the letters in each word of this classic poem:

Sir, I bear a rhyme excelling
In mystic force and magic spelling.

Pi, more commonly known by the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet, is the most widely-known mathematical constant in the world. Even long after people forget their school lessons, they still recognise the symbol.

Pi conjures a sense of mystery, so the symbol makes regular appearances in popular culture - it's the secret code in both Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain and the Sandra Bullock vehicle The Net.

And while pi is a number, its importance goes far beyond simple geometry. Pi represents a deep universal mystery - how is it that something this basic, this fundamental to maths and science, could turn out to be so incredibly difficult to pin down?

In fact, it's literally impossible to know what pi is, because its digits rattle off into infinity.

While there are many infinitely long numbers in maths, pi is the only one in which an infinitely simple idea - the circle - unfolds into an infinitely complex value. This paradox drives many people to distraction.



OK, back on track, we'll finish up today with our long-running feature, "Why aren't YOU a Libertarian?" I haven't posted the World's Smallest Political Quiz in a while (check it out!), and of course we'll leave you with the wit and wisdom of Dr. Mary Ruwart...

QUESTION: Since libertarians believe taxation is theft, shouldn't libertarian politicians all be volunteers? Shouldn't they refuse to accept tax-funded salaries for their offices? Are there enough wealthy libertarians committed to the cause to help elected libertarians refuse tax-funded salaries?

MY SHORT ANSWER: Libertarians have often debated this, and disagree among themselves. A number of elected libertarians have indeed refused compensation because they regard taxes as money stolen from their neighbors. Even when they have qualified for matching funds, Libertarian Party presidential nominees
have always refused them for the same reason.

Dr. Ron Paul (R-TX), the Libertarian Party's 1988 Presidential candidate, currently running for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, refuses to participate in the lucrative pension program offered to Congressional representatives.

However, some libertarians see the compensation offered to candidates and elected officials as a way to recover what the government has forced them to
pay over the years.

For example, the Libertarian Party and its candidates, incredibly, are forced to spend up to 90% of their resources re-qualifying every 2-4 years for ballot access -- something that the Democrats and Republicans don't have to do. And of course, these requirements were passed by Democrats and Republicans.

Most elected libertarians and their supporters are not sufficiently well-off financially to replace government funding for salaries. Because libertarians don't court special interest groups looking for government largesse, they are largely responsible for funding their own campaigns and ballot access drives. Thus most are faced with additional expenses, not enriched, by their efforts to create a better world.

In contrast, many, if not most, non-libertarian politicians, especially at the national level, leave office much better off financially than when they went in due to special interest "payoffs." Libertarians generally don't enjoy this "perk," because they aren't willing to support legislation that favors one group over another.

* * *

QUESTION: My friend tells me that most people are too stupid for libertarianism. What can I tell him?

MY SHORT ANSWER: The desire for freedom, to make one's own choices in life, has little to do with intelligence. Many "dumb" animals die in captivity, simply because they have been deprived of freedom.

If we want liberty for ourselves, we must allow others their freedom too. We can't be free from aggression if we practice it ourselves, for we teach and encourage others by our example. This simple concept is surely within the grasp of virtually everyone!

Specific libertarian positions sometimes require explanation because we are taught that majority rule, taxation, and regulation preserve freedom, rather than destroy it. We are not attempting to counter stupidity, but to counter propaganda. Understanding this important distinction will help us to share libertarian concepts more effectively!



:peace:

 

17 comments (Latest Comment: 03/16/2008 04:37:14 by livingonli)
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