Economic Royalism Is Not Libertarianism

by Gerard Emershaw

Many make the erroneous assumption that if someone supports big business and opposes taxes on the wealthy that that makes him or her a libertarian. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such attitudes simply make one an economic royalist. The term ‘economic royalist’ was brought into American discourse in the June 27, 1936 speech of President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Democratic National Convention:

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital-all undreamed of by the fathers—the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small business men and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.

While FDR was a progressive tyrant whose policies were an unhealthy mix of fascistic corporatism and Marxism, he did make an interesting point in this speech. Economic royalists are akin to today’s crony capitalists. They are corporatists who use their wealth and influence to give themselves unfair advantages. Typically the economic royalists are rent seekers who use the government to regulate and tax their smaller competitors out of business when they can.

The economic royalist attitude has spread among conservatives, Objectivists, and pseudo-libertarians. In their eyes, big business can do no wrong. Large corporations and wealthy individuals should not be taxed, but it does not matter whether the lower socioeconomic classes are taxed to death. While the minimum wage is a counterproductive concept and increasing the federal minimum wage would be a job killer, economic royalists seem to savor that there are so many Americans earning a low wage. Economic royalists assume—like the embarrassing Herman Cain—that anyone who is not wealthy is simply stupid or lazy. They erroneously believe that the United States has a free market economy when in truth it is a corporatist economy. They erroneously believe that all large corporations and titans of industry did it all on their own. While President Obama was incorrect in his “you didn’t build that” rhetoric, many economic royalists have only succeeded because progressive taxation and business regulations have been used like cudgels against their small business competitors. Economic royalists blame the victim. They attack the neo-progressive policies of President Obama yet also attack the victims who have been harmed and made dependent by the welfare state. One cannot have it both ways. Economic royalists believe that the unemployed and poor are lazy and do not want to work. However, what jobs could they get if they wanted to work? Nearly one in four is unemployed or underemployed. Decades of rule by neo-progressives, neoconservatives, and other enemies of economic freedom have destroyed the economy, and there are no longer enough jobs to go around. Illegal alien workers and foreign workers on visas have driven down wages. “Free trade” which is anything but free and fair and which only benefits other nations at the expense of the United States and “outsourcing” have ensured that the United States economy is a shell of what it once was.

The United States economy has been taxed and regulated nearly to death. It is so far from being a free market that an order of operations is required to cure all its ills. Lower taxes for the rich and more “free” trade simply will not fix things. Unemployment insurance, welfare, and all other progressive social programs simply cannot be ended as a first step. There are not enough jobs thanks to progressive policies. The private sector needs to be reinvigorated through lower taxes and fewer regulations. A jobless recovery will only ensure social turmoil and tyranny down the road.

In short, true libertarians do not play class warfare as communists, progressives, and economic royalists do. Freedom means that everyone gets an equal opportunity. Crony capitalists get no special favors from government.

Why Are There So Few Women Libertarians?

by Gerard Emershaw

Libertarian and YouTube sensation Julie Borowski of FreedomWorks has posed the interesting question of why there are so few women libertarians. Before considering this provocative question further, it is important to attempt to ascertain whether the perception is reality. For example, it could be that there are a large number of women libertarians but a small number of women libertarian activists. It could be that professional responsibilities and family responsibilities make it more difficult for women to engage with libertarian organizations than their male counterparts. Or it could simply be that thee are a large number of women libertarians but not a large number of passionate women libertarians. The Public Religion Research Institute has recently provided a good barometer for how many women libertarians there actually are. Its 2013 survey In Search of Libertarians in America used a random sample of 2,317 adults. According to this survey, 68% of libertarians are men. Therefore, there is empirical support for the statement that there are not as many women libertarians as would be expected. Why?

Borowski postulates that the reason there are not more women libertarians is because the libertarian view is not that mainstream (yet). She claims:

Compared to men, women tend to be more social and care more about what people think about them. They are usually very concerned about being socially accepted and fitting in with their peers.

She further elaborates:

I assume most people found out about libertarianism on the Internet. Women are more likely to visit popular culture websites and connect with their peers on social media. Men are more likely to look at “nerdy” websites that discuss views that are outside of the mainstream like libertarianism.

The first issue to consider is what constitutes being “mainstream.” Borowski acknowledges that the number of libertarians overall and the number of libertarian women have been growing since 2007—which is roughly the time since former Congressman Ron Paul first gained national prominence. However, the question is whether libertarianism is now mainstream. In Search of Libertarians in America found that 7% of Americans are libertarian and 15% of Americans “lean libertarian.” In contrast, the survey found that 7% of Americans are communalist, 17% “lean communalist,” and 54% of Americans have a mixed ideology. 

Libertarians have become somewhat notorious for applying a “purity test” for libertarianism that may be too strict. If one is to claim that only “pure” libertarians are libertarians at all, then making up only 7% of the American population would leave the ideology way outside the mainstream. However, there are likely few “pure” progressives, neoconservatives, communists, fascists, social conservatives, etc. Therefore, it seems fair to lump in both the survey’s “libertarian” and “leans libertarian” groups under the libertarian banner. If one considers this to be a legitimate move (and trusts the methodology and results of the Public Religion Research Institute survey), then roughly 22% of Americans (with a claimed 2.5% margin of error) are libertarian. 

Does 22% make an ideology mainstream? One cannot really use political party affiliation as a comparison. Both major political parties in the United States are fairly broad coalitions. However, even if one does use them as a point of comparison, 22% appears to qualify as being mainstream. According to a January 8 Gallup poll, 42% of Americans identify as Independents, 31% identify as Democrats, and 25% identify as Republicans. Therefore, if Republicanism is a mainstream political affiliation, then libertarianism is a mainstream political ideology. 

It is unclear whether most libertarians learn about the ideology on the internet. Perhaps many younger libertarians did. However, recent libertarian popularizers such as Congressman Ron Paul and Governor Gary Johnson have been active on the internet, on television, in newspapers, and in books. It is unclear whether women are more likely to visit “pop culture” websites. If they are, is it clear that these websites do not espouse or at least discuss libertarian views? In general, a lot more of pop culture is libertarian than one might initially think. For example, blockbuster films such as Hunger Games (as well as its sequel and the novels on which they are based) have many libertarian qualities. One could claim that most men frequent sports or pornographic websites and that they are unlikely to be exposed to libertarian ideas (or any political ideas at all) on such websites.

In her blog post, Julie Borowski links to several other libertarians who present rival theories on the issue of the paucity of women libertarians. Caitlyn Bates suggests that libertarians should focus more on social issues like gay marriage in order to attract more women. However, women in general do not overwhelmingly support gay marriage. For example, a May 2012 CNN poll found that 56% of women support gay marriage. While it is true that libertarians should focus more on social issues, no social issue seems to be one which will necessarily attract more women. Like men, women seem to be divided on issues ranging from drugs to gay rights to reproductive rights.

James Padilioni, Jr. believes that there are not more women libertarians because libertarians lack empathy. He claims that libertarianism is “predominantly a boy’s club for white, middle-class-and-above men” because libertarians “rely on the strength of economics alone to convince others.” At fist blush, this seems wrongheaded. To lack empathy is to be a sociopath. While libertarianism and sociopathy are not mutually exclusive, collectivist ideologies such as fascism and communism seem to attract far more murderous and genocidal humans devoid of conscience. However, what Padilioni seems to mean is that libertarians must be passionate and employ emotion as well as reason in their message in order to attract not only more women but more blacks and more Hispanics:

In a word, libertarians need empathy. We need to make compelling intellectual and aesthetic arguments for liberty. Our rhetoric for liberty needs to be rational enough to convince the head, yet piercing enough to arrest the heart. Our classical liberal ancestors cared equally for ideas of social and economic justice, and they were able to craft rhetoric that led to liberalism sweeping the world in the nineteenth century. Libertarians today cannot ignore sentiment and still expect to see our movement grow more diverse in all aspects. The human desire for freedom is not merely abstract, but a lived reality for many people in this world who daily suffer under political and social oppression and coercion. Their stories are real and their struggle urgent. If libertarians can’t, or won’t tell these stories, then who will?

The first issue which must be addressed in order to analyze this interesting hypothesis is whether it is true that libertarians exclusively or even primarily rely upon intellectual/economic arguments to justify their ideology. This is difficult to empirically determine. Some of the more widely publicized libertarian pundits such as Congressman Ron Paul, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Governor Gary Johnson, John Stossel, Lew Rockwell, etc. tend to use rational and logical argumentation. However, is this a bad thing? Would it be preferable to appeal to emotion and use fallacious reasoning? Should libertarians attempt to win others over using the same techniques used in Madison Avenue advertising?

In terms of what Padilioni calls “aesthetic arguments”—an example of which he provides as Stowe’s Uncle Toms’ Cabin—is it true that libertarians lack such types of argument? Do libertarians lack engagement with aesthetics and pop culture as he claims? Sometimes it is difficult to determine if works of art or pop culture are libertarian or merely anti-authoritarian. However, there is no shortage of art with libertarian themes. Libertarianmovies.net provides an interesting list of films with libertarian themes. The aforementioned Hunger Games certainly fits the libertarian mould. While perhaps libertarians should be more open to using art and pop culture to illustrate ideological points, it should not do so at the expense of logical argument. It is also not necessarily clear that women (or blacks or Hispanics or gays) are more easily convinced via emotion that reason.

A problem may be that while the anti-authoritarian, pro social liberty prong of libertarianism is easy to portray in an aesthetic/emotional manner, the economic liberty prong is not. Therefore, it will be difficult to sway those who wish to hold the inconsistent view of social freedom and economic statism. Economics is quite difficult to make emotionally gripping. Perhaps Ayn Rand tried in Atlas Shrugged, but even the strongest admirers of that novel would not say that it is an emotional novel. If it is true that such aesthetic/emotional arguments are what attracts women to a given intellectual position, then it could be that libertarian artists will at best be able to encourage women to be 1960’s style progressives. Nevertheless, it may be inaccurate and even sexist to claim that women cannot be swayed by logic in the economic realm. 

Kelly Barber postulates that there are few women libertarians because women have been historically oppressed. Barber interestingly claims: “Most libertarians theoretically acknowledge that oppression can come from society and not just the government, but in real life, libertarians rarely talk about social oppression.” She continues by noting the interesting connection between oppression and statism:

If a group is socially oppressed but no one recognizes this oppression, it will be much more likely that they turn to the state for what they perceive as their only way of getting help to level the playing field. If we can eliminate or reduce social oppression, governments themselves will lose some of their support and power.

There is no doubt that women have been historically oppressed. There is also no doubt that the government is typically the oppressor. When the government is not the oppressor, it empowers the private sector oppressors. The federal government did not grant women suffrage until 1920. The government at the federal, state, and local level instituted and enforced unfair laws which at times attempted to make women into second class citizens socially and economically. Government has never proven to be a friend to women, and any positive things that government has done for women in recent decades was only a matter of making amends for wrongs which it itself committed against women.

Barber’s argument is very plausible. It explains why white affluent males have thus far been the most likely to espouse libertarian views. Members of this group are least in need of the government. While it is true that high taxes, stifling regulations, and the Federal Reserve’s “inflation tax” are most detrimental to economic health, when one is in immediate need, even knowing this is of little benefit. The economically needy require immediate help. It will take a good deal of time and effort to scale back the machinery of the disastrous welfare/warfare state, and even if this is accomplished, it will take a while for the economic benefits to flow to everyone. Therefore, even if members of oppressed groups realize that the government is harming them, if they are in immediate need of food, shelter, health care, etc., then they have no choice but to rely upon the government. Furthermore, the illusion of benefit that the government creates when it is in fact fostering dependency and harming those it “helps” is so powerful that the oppressed cannot recognize that it is the government who is oppressing them and/or allowing society to oppress them.

Bryce Covert, writing for Forbes, responded to Julie Borowski with an article entitled “Women Don’t Like Libertarianism Because They Don’t Like Libertarianism.” Following liberal feminist philosopher Susan Moller Okin, Covert claims that “if brought to its logical conclusions, libertarianism runs up hard against children and childrearing.” Covert notes that the Lockean analysis of owning those raw materials with which one mixes his or her labor does not apply to children. However, it is difficult to believe that women instinctively grasp Lockean arguments anymore than men do. Women often do invest much of themselves in their children, however, it a woman is convinced of the benefits of economic and social freedom, then she would certainly wish her children to experience these benefits.

Again following Okin, Covert makes a second more intriguing argument. She claims that because women and minorities often begin in a lower socioeconomic place than affluent white males, they are less likely to embrace the message of libertarianism:     

Women and minorities know perhaps better than anyone that a lot of life is determined not by what you’re able to do, but where you start out. By assuming the mythical even playing field at the beginning, libertarianism ignores the disadvantages some have to climb out of or the advantages others enjoy to get those raw materials in the first place. Someone who’s born into poverty has a lot of cards stacked against her compared to someone born into more affluence. How do you account for those challenges in libertarianism if the government’s regulations are an intrusion on liberty?

In many ways, Covert’s argument shares affinities with Kelly Barber’s argument above. While Covert seems confident that this perception that she claims women and minorities share is justified, the truth is that it is an illusion. Statism does not allow for social mobility. If it did, then 50 years after LBJ’s Great Society began “the War on Poverty,” one would expect all of the statist programs to have economically benefited blacks. They have not. Social freedom and a true free market economy—which has not existed in any way, shape, or form since the late 19th century—are the only true ways to foster social mobility. Nevertheless, the suffering members of oppressed groups unfortunately often look to their oppressors for relief. This is not some weakness inherent in women or minorities or individual members of any social group. This appears to be a universal human tendency. Had things been different and had white affluent males been oppressed, then it is likely that they would now be statist collectivists instead of libertarians.

In the end, it appears that in order to attract more women—as well as more blacks, Hispanics, gays, and members of lower socioeconomic classes—to libertarianism, libertarians must make convincing arguments that the government created the harms which afflict members of these groups and that the “help” that the government provides to address these harms is typically nothing more offering a Band-aid to treat a sucking chest wound.

Hipster Communism

by Gerard Emershaw

George Santayana famously said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In a similar vein, Peter Allen sang: “Everything old is new again.” Trends have proven to be cyclical. Tight jeans are in fashion for a while, then baggy jeans, and then tight jeans again. Skinny ties are hip for a while, then wide ties, and then skinny ties again. Even bell bottoms came back in fashion for a time in the 1990s. Perhaps one day leisure suits will be the “it” look again. There are certain things which each generation discovers anew—Catcher in the Rye, Atlas Shrugged, Star Wars, The Godfather, etc. In a sense each generation must discover and learn certain things for itself. This seemingly includes the lesson that communism does not work. The fact that communism has been a failure in each and every place where it was tried is not hidden. Communism’s death toll of roughly 100 million is not an obscure fact tucked away in a footnote in a dusty old tome in some far off foreign library. It is well documented. So why do college students still sport Che t-shirts? More importantly, why is Rolling Stone publishing the inane and insane ramblings of a young communist?

On January 3, 2014, Rolling Stone published “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For” by Jesse A. Myerson. In a sense, the article can be seen as The Communist Manifesto if it were written for Pajama Boy and his pals. It is Marx for the ADHD-addled and hipper than thou. Myerson acts as if his ideas are new and as if communism had not died a miserable death and dragged down 100 million people with it.

The five economic reforms that Myerson cajoles millennials to embrace and support are nothing but Marxist ideas repackaged and given a Starbucks hipster coating. Each proposed reform is wrongheaded and what is even more worrisome is the implied powers that the state must be allowed to possess in order to enact such reforms. Young radical idealists rarely notice such dangers.

1. Guaranteed Work for Everybody

Myerson claims: “The easiest and most direct solution is for the government to guarantee that everyone who wants to contribute productively to society is able to earn a decent living in the public sector.” These guaranteed jobs would pay a “living wage.” According to Myerson, “would anchor prices, drive up conditions for workers at megacorporations like Walmart and McDonald's, and target employment for the poor and long-term unemployed.” He considers the possibility of running such a job guarantee program through the non-profit sector. Presumably such a program would resemble the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), Public Works Administration (PWA), and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) on steroids. These New Deal programs were largely ineffective and filled with corruption. They did not help bring about the end of the Great Depression, but only made it worse. The Great Depression dragged on longer in the United States than in other countries.

The United States federal government currently has a debt of $17 trillion. How would the government find the money to pay for this massive jobs program? The first thing to consider is just how expensive this program might be. How many American workers are in need of jobs? Using government statistics to determine this would be wrongheaded. The federal government has a bad habit of claiming that workers have “left the workforce” when in fact these workers have simply become discouraged and given up looking. Unless an unemployed worker is actually collecting unemployment benefits, the government assumes that this person is either employed or that he or she does not exist. While the government claims that the unemployment rate is 6.7%, the true percentage of workers who are unemployed or underemployed is probably closer to 23%. The number of working age Americans who are not in the labor force has grown to 91.8 million. To be conservative, let us assume that a bit under half of these individuals will require work under Myerson’s job guarantee program—45 million. What is a living wage? This would, of course, depend on where one was living. A living wage—one that would allow a worker to provide those things necessary to sustain his or her existence along with those of dependents—is context dependent. It would be much higher in Manhattan than it would be in West Monroe, Louisiana. Let us again be conservative and set it at an average of $12 an hour. At 40 hours a week and 52 weeks, this would be a cost of $24,960 per worker. And this does not include the costs of health care and other benefits. Obamacare and Medicaid are disasters whose discussion are far beyond the scope of this post. The cost for one year of this program would be $1.123 trillion. Oddly, this figure is roughly the size of the 2014 federal budget in its entirety. Where will the government find the money to pay for this? It cannot balance a budget as it is.

The consequences of such a program must also be considered. A “living wage” of $12 will mean that those workers earning less than that will either demand a raise or will quit their jobs in order to get guaranteed government jobs at the $12 rate. Many small businesses will simply not be able to find workers and will have to increase wages. Many of these businesses will not be able to afford this. Even well moneyed big corporations like Walmart will likely lay off workers or at least hire fewer if they are forced to pay significantly higher wages. Therefore, the number of workers in this guaranteed jobs program will likely grow significantly at least over the first few years.

What will these workers be doing? If they are put to work doing tasks which compete with private sector employers or even existing public sector workers, then more workers will be put out of work and this program will have to increase even more in scope and cost. It is likely that most of these jobs will be unproductive and dehumanizing. Perhaps they will be digging holes and then filling them in again. Somewhere in Hell, Keynes is grinning.

In order to pay for this program, the federal government will need to raise taxes. This will likely increase the size and cost of the program even more. Ultimately, it will try to pay for the program by having the Federal Reserve “print” even more money. This will cause inflation to skyrocket. The cost of living will rise. The “living wage” will have to be increased. More workers will be forced into the program. The cost will increase even more. The Federal Reserve will “print” even more money. Inflation will skyrocket. Hello, Weimar Republic. Buy your wheelbarrows for your useless dollars before the cost rises to $100,000 in the brave new world of hyperinflation American style. One hopes that Obamacare will pay to treat cases of cipheritis.

2. Social Security for All

Myerson appears to recognize at least one problem with his first proposal. No, not the fact that the federal government cannot afford it. No, also not that attempting such a program would turn the United States into the Weimar Republic. Myerson recognizes that most of the jobs that are produced by his ridiculous jobs program will be dehumanizing. Marx and Engels put it thusly:

Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of the machinery, etc.

The ever-eloquent Myerson puts it thusly: “Because as much as unemployment blows, so do jobs.” So, instead of paying the unemployed to work, he would have the government pay the unemployed not to work— “the government would just add a sum sufficient for subsistence to everyone's bank account every month.”

For many individuals, the rational thing to do will be to quit their jobs and just collect this “universal basic income.” Some will be able to collect it while supplementing their income under the table. Others will realize that they are unlikely to acquire the skills necessary to earn significantly more than this basic amount through work. Others may simply conclude that leisure is a greater good for them than any additional money that they may earn through working a job. Assuming that Myerson’s “universal basic income” is the same amount as a “living wage,” we can assume that an individual can earn nearly $25,000 for doing nothing. How much more would one have to earn in order to make it rational to spend an average of 40 hours a week toiling away? Many will realize this and quit their jobs. The size and cost of this program would be even greater than that of the guaranteed jobs program. Hello, economic collapse!

3. Take Back The Land

Like Marx and Engels before him, Myerson has no use for private landowners. Myerson, who appears to have an unnatural obsession with fellatio, asks:

Ever noticed how much landlords blow? They don't really do anything to earn their money. They just claim ownership of buildings and charge people who actually work for a living the majority of our incomes for the privilege of staying in boxes that these owners often didn't build and rarely if ever improve.

Rather than suggesting that the bourgeois landowners be rounded up and have their property seized, Myerson suggests a “simple land-value tax.” While such a tax—as part of an alternative to and not an addition to the federal income tax—is actually a good idea, the reasoning that Myerson uses is flawed. Landlords do not simply “claim ownership of buildings.” They either buy them or legally inherit them. Landlords often improve the buildings that they own. If they do not, their tenants may choose to live elsewhere. Certainly there are many “slum lords.” However, the only reason that they can attract tenants at all is because the economy is in such awful condition thanks to the Federal Reserve, regulations, and high taxes. Under the Tenth Amendment, states, cities, and other local governments are free to impose laws mandating habitability. Therefore, it is not the responsibility of the federal government to deal with this issue.

4. Make Everything Owned by Everybody

Comrade Myerson really has no use for the bourgeoisie. In his gorgeous prose: “Hoarders blow.” He laments that the top 10 percent “control 80 percent of all financial assets” and suggests an easy way “to collectivize wealth ownership.” Rather than stage an armed Marxist revolution—which would likely “blow” since it would be too much like work—he proposes that the federal government buy up private assets and form a sovereign wealth fund similar to the one run by the state of Alaska. Such a fund would “buy[ ] up assets from the private sector and pays dividends to all permanent U.S. residents in the form of a universal basic income.” At least the lad is considering where the money for the universal basic income would come from. But it would require yet more money be spent by the federal government. Money that it just does not have. So, the government would need to spend enough money to buy up enough assets which would produce a dividend that could pay tens of millions of Americans not to work. This would cost far more than the $1.123 trillion that the jobs guarantee program would cost for a year. The government is so good at making wise investments—Solyndra anyone?—so no doubt this scheme is foolproof. One wonders where Mr. Myerson learned this brand of unicorns and rainbows economics.

5. A Public Bank in Every State

The silver-tongued Myerson claims:

You know what else really blows? Wall Street. The whole point of a finance sector is supposed to be collecting the surplus that the whole economy has worked to produce, and channeling that surplus wealth toward its most socially valuable uses. It is difficult to overstate how completely awful our finance sector has been at accomplishing that basic goal. Let's try to change that by allowing state governments into the banking game.

It is not true that the finance sector has any responsibility to finance “socially valuable uses” of surplus capital. Instead, its fiduciary duty is to maximize economic profitability for shareholders or owners. Nevertheless, Myerson’s idea is surprisingly not terrible. The Constitution neither gives the federal government the power to form a bank—despite what the ridiculous reasoning of the Supreme Court in McCulloch v. Maryland—nor forbids state’s from doing it. Therefore, under the Tenth Amendment, states are free to experiment with banking in ways similar to what North Dakota does.

Strangely, Mr. Myerson does not mention the Federal Reserve. Such a proposal would not be likely to succeed unless the Federal Reserve were abolished. Does he know that the Federal Reserve is a private central bank? Does he know that the Federal Reserve is responsible for a reverse Robin Hood scheme by which money is stolen from everyone and given to the wealthy banks? Does he believe that the Federal Reserve “blows?”

Hipster Communism Blows

Do you know what really blows? Communism. Even if it is sitting in a Starbucks wearing a Che t-shirt. Myerson’s proposal would lead to a total economic collapse which could very well lead to fascism in the United States as it did in Germany following the economic collapse of the Weimar Republic. Fascism really blows. If somehow one could avoid the laws of economics and make Myerson’s proposals work, it would require a mighty federal government. This government would need to be even bigger and mightier than the Soviet Union at its height. In between not ever being elected president and falling down, President Gerald Ford said: “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” This is quite true. A government that is strong enough to provide a “universal basic income” would also be strong enough to take away all natural rights. Such a paternalistic monster would be ready, willing, and able to dictate every aspect of everyone’s lives. No more free action. No more free speech. No more free thought. The best that can be expected is that the nation will be turned into a land filled with sedentary slaves who are living out a subsistence existence. If anything blows, that does. Totalitarianism, economic stagnation, oppression, and death. Those are the results of communism. So what if Myerson’s new communism would be drinking a Red Bull and wearing a hoodie? Totalitarianism is totalitarianism, dude! And yes, it blows.

Can We Put Away the Race Card Now?

by Gerard Emershaw

President Obama recently told New Yorker magazine that the color of his skin encourages some to dislike him: “There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president.” However, he also acknowledged that there are some who like him precisely because of the color of his skin: “Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black president.”

It is quite true that there will always be some racist collectivists who love or hate simply on the basis of race or ethnicity. However, it seems that these two minorities cancel each other out. Therefore, logic dictates that one assume that most Americans support or oppose the President and his policies for reasons that have nothing to do with race. Most of the same individuals supported or opposed similar ideas held by President Bill Clinton for reasons that had nothing to do with race. Chances are that one day most of the same individuals will support or oppose similar ideas held by Hillary Clinton or some other future Democratic Party President who is not black for reasons having nothing to do with race. Playing the race card is illogical and simply ends the possibility of any rational discourse on a subject.

It is so unlikely that conservative opponents of President Obama would suddenly support Obamacare, gun control, or climate change control policies if the President were white. It is also unlikely that progressive supporters of these policies would suddenly stop supporting them if the President were white. At this point, it is justifiable to just tune out and stop listening to any pundit the moment that he or she attempts to play the race card. Reverend Martin Luther King said: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” When will the President and his most zealous backers start judging their opponents by the content of their character and not the color of their skin?

Dictatorship, Freedom, and Efficiency

by Gerard Emershaw

The United Nations’ chief climate official Christiana Figueres has recently claimed that China is dealing with climate change better than democratic nations. According to Figueres, this is because China has avoided some of the “legislative hurdles” that are present in the American system. These “legislative hurdles,” of course, are elected representatives in the House and Senate who often disagree, often debate, and often block legislation. China’s dictators can simply push through any “reforms” that they wish.

There is little or no reason to believe that climate change is a real problem. Global temperature appears to have stopped increasing over a decade and a half ago. However, the issue is bigger than that. Take any problem that you believe is genuine and grave. Maybe that problem is air and water pollution. Maybe it is cancer. Maybe it is childhood poverty. Maybe it is obesity. Maybe it is child pornography. It does not matter what scourge you have in mind. The issue is that a dictatorship will always be able to handle some specific problem like these in what might be deemed a more efficient manner. President Obama has often lamented not being a dictator for this very reason.

What a constitutional republican democracy like the United States might lose in the short term ability to deal with a problem most efficiently it more than makes up for with the stability and protection of individual rights that comes from being slow and less efficient legislatively. The checks and balances of the three branches of federal government against one another and the added check of state governments providing another bulwark against federal power provided by the Tenth Amendment guarantees that neither tyranny of the dictator nor tyranny of the majority will threaten the individual rights of all Americans. When it comes to legislating, the slower the better. If climate change were a real problem, having a federal government with the ability to quickly do drastic and draconian things such as banning the use of fossil fuels would threaten individual rights and threaten the nation as a whole. The American form of government allows cooler heads to prevail, and cooler heads are more likely to solve real problems. More importantly, a limited government that cannot easily infringe upon the natural rights of its citizens is less likely to create problems in the first place.

President Obama has recently threatened to again act like a dictator if Congress does not pass the economic legislation that he desires. “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” the President warned, hinting that he would use executive orders and other means outside of Congress to establish policies. While executive orders have been commonly used by all presidents, the power to issue them does not appear among the enumerated powers of the President in Article II of the Constitution. Therefore, the President does not have the power to use them. This is especially true when the President uses an executive order in order to establish a pseudo-law which Congress could legislate but has chosen not to. Will President Obama use executive orders to reignite his failing administration? Will he use it to establish economic reforms, gun control, amnesty, climate change legislation, etc.? If he does attempt to do it, chances are an impotent Congress will do nothing to stop him.

Highlights and Analysis of President Obama’s Appalling NSA Speech

by Gerard Emershaw

President Obama’s January 17, 2014 speech on NSA surveillance may cause some devoted progressives to claim that the Commander-in-Chief has seen the light on civil liberties. However, anyone who listened to the speech with his or her ears rather than a deaf progressive heart understands how the President said nothing encouraging in terms of willingness to fulfill his duty to defend the Constitution. 

1. Isn’t spying on our enemies different from spying on our citizens?

President Obama pointed out that the United States government has a long history of employing various types of surveillance in an effort to keep the nation and its citizens safe:

At the dawn of our Republic, a small, secret surveillance committee borne out of the “The Sons of Liberty” was established in Boston. And the group’s members included Paul Revere. At night, they would patrol the streets, reporting back any signs that the British were preparing raids against America’s early Patriots. Throughout American history, intelligence has helped secure our country and our freedoms. In the Civil War, Union balloon reconnaissance tracked the size of Confederate armies by counting the number of campfires. In World War II, code-breakers gave us insights into Japanese war plans, and when Patton marched across Europe, intercepted communications helped save the lives of his troops. After the war, the rise of the Iron Curtain and nuclear weapons only increased the need for sustained intelligence gathering. And so, in the early days of the Cold War, President Truman created the National Security Agency, or NSA, to give us insights into the Soviet bloc, and provide our leaders with information they needed to confront aggression and avert catastrophe.

However, what the President failed to note is that spying on the Confederacy, the Axis Powers, and the Soviets were different than spying on American citizens with the NSA through the bulk collection of metadata. No rational American would criticize spying on dangerous enemy governments. The NSA and other American intelligence agencies can spy on China, Russia, and even allies such as Germany. These agencies can also spy on terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. But why do they need to spy willy nilly on American citizens?

2. Don’t bring up a cautionary tales if they don’t make you proceed with caution.

President Obama discussed the Constitution, the checks and balances built into the American form of government, totalitarianism, and past abuses by American intelligence agencies:

Throughout this evolution, we benefited from both our Constitution and our traditions of limited government. U.S. intelligence agencies were anchored in a system of checks and balances—with oversight from elected leaders, and protections for ordinary citizens. Meanwhile, totalitarian states like East Germany offered a cautionary tale of what could happen when vast, unchecked surveillance turned citizens into informers, and persecuted people for what they said in the privacy of their own homes.

In fact, even the United States proved not to be immune to the abuse of surveillance. And in the 1960s, government spied on civil rights leaders and critics of the Vietnam War. And partly in response to these revelations, additional laws were established in the 1970s to ensure that our intelligence capabilities could not be misused against our citizens. In the long, twilight struggle against Communism, we had been reminded that the very liberties that we sought to preserve could not be sacrificed at the altar of national security.

But what is the point of bringing up cautionary tales if these tales do not make you cautious? One of the most important checks against tyranny from the federal government has been the Fourth Amendment, yet President Obama did not refer specifically to it even once during his speech. He brought up Stasi East Germany, but he failed to recognized that the NSA, FBI, and CIA are beginning to resemble East Germany’s Stasi and that the Department of Homeland Security’s “see something, say something” campaigns have attempted to turn Americans into informers. The fact that the United States government has used its vast spying apparatus against its own people on so many occasions—COINTELPRO, Operation CHAOS, Nixon’s “Plumbers,” Project Shamrock, Project MKUltra, Operation Northwoods, etc.—should lead President Obama to realize how close the nation can come to becoming a totalitarian surveillance state.  It is one thing to say that “the very liberties that we sought to preserve could not be sacrificed at the altar of national security” and another thing entirely to mean it. Meaning it requires being ever-vigilant in preserving natural rights regardless of what threats—even if existential—the nation faces. Being truly aware of “cautionary tales” such as Stasi East Germany and the various violations of rights by American intelligence agencies which the Church Committee revealed in the 1970s means making it a priority to oversee these executive agencies. President Obama has at most given lip service to this responsibility. At worst he has cynically pretended to do it while in fact helping these security agencies violate Constitutional rights.

3. Neoconservative in Progressive’s clothing?

President Obama sounded like Vice President Dick Cheney or some member of a 1990s neocon think tank when he said:

If the fall of the Soviet Union left America without a competing superpower, emerging threats from terrorist groups, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction placed new and in some ways more complicated demands on our intelligence agencies. Globalization and the Internet made these threats more acute, as technology erased borders and empowered individuals to project great violence, as well as great good.  
     

Terrorist threats are overblown. Threats of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are also overblown. Unlike something from Fox’s “24” or a novel by the late Tom Clancy, “suitcase nukes” do not grow on trees. Nuclear weapons are difficult to create and difficult to maintain. Hostile or potentially hostile nuclear nations have every reason to avoid allowing any proliferation. While the United States has shown caution in getting involved with military confrontations with nuclear powers, does anyone doubt that if terrorists obtained and used a nuclear weapon and this weapon could be traced to North Korea, Pakistan, etc, that the United States would not respond with a “shock and awe” military strike against such a nation? Terrorism does not pose an existential threat to the nation as did the Axis during World War II or the nuclear armed Soviet Union during the Cold War. If anything, the United States should be doing less spying and not more. If anything, the American people are finally owed the peace dividend from the ending of the Cold War.

Like the ruthless yet clueless neocons in the administration that preceded his, President Obama shamelessly invoked 9/11:

The horror of September 11th brought all these issues to the fore. Across the political spectrum, Americans recognized that we had to adapt to a world in which a bomb could be built in a basement, and our electric grid could be shut down by operators an ocean away. We were shaken by the signs we had missed leading up to the attacks—how the hijackers had made phone calls to known extremists and traveled to suspicious places.

Adapt? How about not escalating the Afghanistan War? How about not unconstitutionally attacking Libya? How about not trying to gin up a war against Syria? How about watching China and Russia—who actually probably can shut down the electric grid—instead of watching ordinary Americans? How about paying attention to obvious signs like memos stating that Al Qaeda is poised to strike?

President Obama even shamelessly evoked the debunked lie about how 9/11 could have been prevented if the NSA had been bulk collecting metadata at the time:

Why is this [NSA bulk collection of metadata] necessary? The program grew out of a desire to address a gap identified after 9/11. One of the 9/11 hijackers—Khalid al-Mihdhar -- made a phone call from San Diego to a known al Qaeda safe-house in Yemen. NSA saw that call, but it could not see that the call was coming from an individual already in the United States. The telephone metadata program under Section 215 was designed to map the communications of terrorists so we can see who they may be in contact with as quickly as possible.

Without the bulk collection of metadata, the United States knew the identity of Khalid-al-Mihdhar well before 9/11 and knew exactly where to find him. They just failed to do so. The NSA, FBI, CIA, and their sister intelligence agencies in the federal government were all negligent prior to 9/11. Should negligent actors be awarded more power? If too much was slipping through the cracks then, why give these agencies even more hay—in the form of metadata—to obscure the needles for which they are searching?  

4. Pot, meet kettle.

President Obama pulled out one of his favorites from his bag of tricks—blaming President Bush:

And yet, in our rush to respond to a very real and novel set of threats, the risk of government overreach—the possibility that we lose some of our core liberties in pursuit of security—also became more pronounced. We saw, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, our government engaged in enhanced interrogation techniques that contradicted our values. As a Senator, I was critical of several practices, such as warrantless wiretaps. And all too often new authorities were instituted without adequate public debate. 

As usual, the President did not let the facts get in the way of a good story. Enhanced interrogation? What is the difference between doing it and having some ally do it in a secret prison overseas after you have allowed terror suspects and others to be whisked away using extraordinary rendition? How was Bush’s warrantless wiretapping any worse than what the NSA has done on President Obama’s watch?

5. President Obama’s War on Whistleblowers will continue.

President Obama has been notoriously hard on whistleblowers. He assured us that he will continue to fight this war in earnest: 

And given the fact of an open investigation, I’m not going to dwell on Mr. Snowden’s actions or his motivations; I will say that our nation’s defense depends in part on the fidelity of those entrusted with our nation’s secrets. If any individual who objects to government policy can take it into their own hands to publicly disclose classified information, then we will not be able to keep our people safe, or conduct foreign policy. Moreover, the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out has often shed more heat than light, while revealing methods to our adversaries that could impact our operations in ways that we may not fully understand for years to come.

Without whistleblowers, how would the people ever learn of abuses done by clandestine government organizations? One wonders if President Obama believes that Woodward, Bernstein, and Deep Throat should all have been prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act.

6. Friend of false dilemma.

President Obama implied time and time again that one can either accept that the NSA must violate Constitutional rights or one believes that the nation should disarm its intelligence agencies. This is the kind of black and white thinking that made President George W. Bush infamous. It turns out that President Obama is also skilled in such fallacious thinking:

First, everyone who has looked at these problems, including skeptics of existing programs, recognizes that we have real enemies and threats, and that intelligence serves a vital role in confronting them. We cannot prevent terrorist attacks or cyber threats without some capability to penetrate digital communications—whether it’s to unravel a terrorist plot; to intercept malware that targets a stock exchange; to make sure air traffic control systems are not compromised; or to ensure that hackers do not empty your bank accounts. We are expected to protect the American people; that requires us to have capabilities in this field. Moreover, we cannot unilaterally disarm our intelligence agencies.

Who was suggesting that the United States disarm its intelligence agencies? This is like saying that anyone who opposes unnecessary and unconstitutional uses of military force believes that the United States should disarm its military and throw up the white flag to its enemies around the globe. President Obama again and again misses the point. Surveilling foreign governments and terrorists is necessary. Nobody is denying that. But why does that mean that the NSA should be collecting information on citizens domestically without probable cause or even suspicion? Why is the federal government targeting American citizens at all when all the 9/11 plotters were foreign?

7. No such thing as double standards.

President Obama claimed that employees of the NSA and other intelligence agencies can be trusted because they are just like us:

Second, just as ardent civil libertarians recognize the need for robust intelligence capabilities, those with responsibilities for our national security readily acknowledge the potential for abuse as intelligence capabilities advance and more and more private information is digitized. After all, the folks at NSA and other intelligence agencies are our neighbors. They're our friends and family. They’ve got electronic bank and medical records like everybody else. They have kids on Facebook and Instagram, and they know, more than most of us, the vulnerabilities to privacy that exist in a world where transactions are recorded, and emails and text and messages are stored, and even our movements can increasingly be tracked through the GPS on our phones.

Uh, members of the Gestapo, the KGB, and the Stasi were just like ordinary Germans, Soviets, and East Germans. So why did members of those organizations not “readily acknowledge the potential for abuse?” Could it be that members of spy agencies have the ability to exempt themselves and their family members? What is to prevent members of the NSA from formulating a policy of not surveilling employees, friends, and family of the agency? If Obamacare has taught us anything, it is that the President has no trouble with making unjustified exceptions to rules. So why not here as well?

8. Okay, I’m a crook, but look at that bigger crook over there!

President Obama essentially acknowledged that the federal government is violating the privacy of its citizens, but he distracted his audience by pointing to another culprit:

Third, there was a recognition by all who participated in these reviews that the challenges to our privacy do not come from government alone. Corporations of all shapes and sizes track what you buy, store and analyze our data, and use it for commercial purposes; that’s how those targeted ads pop up on your computer and your smartphone periodically. But all of us understand that the standards for government surveillance must be higher. Given the unique power of the state, it is not enough for leaders to say: Trust us, we won’t abuse the data we collect. For history has too many examples when that trust has been breached. Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power; it depends on the law to constrain those in power.

It is no secret that President Obama the corporatist does not like business—unless it is a business that gives campaign contributions to his party. He basically said: “Hey, the corporations are violating your privacy, too!” So what? He claims that the government should have a higher standard. But the thing is that the government is becoming unaccountable. One has a choice whether or not to do business with a corporation that violates privacy. If you do not like the policies of Facebook, then you can delete your account. If you think that Google is probing too much, then you can use other websites and online services. If you think that Amazon is spying too much on your internet activity, then you can shop elsewhere. The bottom line is that there is at least a small check against private businesses in that angry customers and others can boycott them. The two major political parties are two sides of the same rotten penny, so “throwing the bums out” will not do a thing.

9. Playing the King card.

President Obama, as he often does, referenced Martin Luther King:

In fact, during the course of our review, I have often reminded myself I would not be where I am today were it not for the courage of dissidents like Dr. King, who were spied upon by their own government.

How are those like Snowden and Manning not dissidents? At this point it seems likely that if Martin Luther King were still alive, President Obama would be spying on him. It is also plausible that Reverend King might be facing a charge under the 1917 Espionage Act or living in forced exile.

10. Fox guarding the hen house.

President Obama promised greater executive oversight:

First, I have approved a new presidential directive for our signals intelligence activities both at home and abroad. This guidance will strengthen executive branch oversight of our intelligence activities. 

President Obama has hardly proven himself to be a friend of the Constitution. The centerpieces of his presidency—Obamacare and the Libyan “kinetic military action”—both involved egregious violations of the Constitution, so how can he be trusted to provide adequate oversight?

11. Most transparent administration.

President Obama also claimed that there will now be more transparency:

Second, we will reform programs and procedures in place to provide greater transparency to our surveillance activities, and fortify the safeguards that protect the privacy of U.S. persons.

The President has claimed time and time again that his is “the most transparent” administration ever. Repeating this claim over and over does not make it any more true—or any less ridiculous. The Obama administration has been anything but transparent with its army of lawyers fighting Freedom of Information Act requests, its War on Whistleblowers, its secretive drone campaign, etc. However, even if he does turn over a new leaf, transparency is not enough. Being transparent about the violation of rights does not make those actions any less unconstitutional.

12. Whatever happened to probable cause?

The Fourth Amendment states that warrants shall not issue without probable cause. President Obama defended the NSA bulk metadata collection program by stating:

This brings me to the program that has generated the most controversy these past few months—the bulk collection of telephone records under Section 215. Let me repeat what I said when this story first broke: This program does not involve the content of phone calls, or the names of people making calls. Instead, it provides a record of phone numbers and the times and lengths of calls—metadata that can be queried if and when we have a reasonable suspicion that a particular number is linked to a terrorist organization.

In sum, the program does not involve the NSA examining the phone records of ordinary Americans. Rather, it consolidates these records into a database that the government can query if it has a specific lead—a consolidation of phone records that the companies already retained for business purposes. The review group turned up no indication that this database has been intentionally abused. And I believe it is important that the capability that this program is designed to meet is preserved.

Reasonable suspicion? Whatever happened to probable cause? It is the reasonable suspicion standard which causes the greatest problem. If the government has all this data in a big database and can dig deep into it with merely a claim of reasonable suspicion, then there is simply no way to protect the rights of American citizens. Unless and until the Fourth Amendment is fully restored and probable cause is again treated as the exceptionless standard it was intended by the Founders to be, then no safeguards will help.

13. Fascism or corporatism? Take your pick.

President Obama suggested two possible reforms to NSA bulk collection of metadata:

The review group recommended that our current approach be replaced by one in which the providers or a third party retain the bulk records, with government accessing information as needed. Both of these options pose difficult problems. Relying solely on the records of multiple providers, for example, could require companies to alter their procedures in ways that raise new privacy concerns. On the other hand, any third party maintaining a single, consolidated database would be carrying out what is essentially a government function but with more expense, more legal ambiguity, potentially less accountability—all of which would have a doubtful impact on increasing public confidence that their privacy is being protected.

Six of one, a half dozen of the other. What difference does it make if the NSA itself has this data or some third party does? Furthermore, such collaboration between government and private entities in such nefarious matters just stinks of fascism or corporatism. When government and corporations collaborate in such a manner, the only question is which one is steering the unconstitutional bus that is about to run over the people. This all begins to feel like a shell game. The NSA will unconstitutionally get this data and will be able to access it on demand. What does it matter where it is stored or who is storing it?

14. Didn’t you hear my lies the first time?

President Obama began to wind up his speech by again repeating a dubious claim:

The bottom line is that people around the world, regardless of their nationality, should know that the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don’t threaten our national security, and that we take their privacy concerns into account in our policies and procedures.

The NSA is collecting metadata on essentially everyone. That is the definition of spying. And since everybody is not threatening American national security, the President’s statement is simply not true.

15. Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.

President Obama concludes with some language which in another context would be inspirational:

As the nation that developed the Internet, the world expects us to ensure that the digital revolution works as a tool for individual empowerment, not government control. Having faced down the dangers of totalitarianism and fascism and communism, the world expects us to stand up for the principle that every person has the right to think and write and form relationships freely—because individual freedom is the wellspring of human progress.

However, President Obama and all future presidents must take heed. The United States did in fact help defeat the evils of fascism and communism, but there is the danger that fighting such monsters could turn the nation into such a monster. Perhaps it has already happened.