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Friday, January 31, 2020

Post #4447 M: Tom Woods' Greatest Hits; Happy Brexit Day!; McClanahan on Political Aspects of Coronavirus

Quote of the Day

I phoned my dad to tell him I had stopped smoking. 
He called me a quitter.
Steven Pearl  

Woods' Greatest Hits



Happy Brexit Day!

Note that I don't subscribe to Scruton's issues with the free market and immigration.



McClanahan on Political Aspects of Coronavirus



Choose Life





Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Pat Cross via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

David Bowie (with Mick Jagger), "Dancing in the Streets"

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Post #4446 M: Bureaucrats vs. School Choice; McClanahan on the Cult of Personality; Food Trucks in Baltimore

Quote of the Day

To forgive is to set a prisoner free 
and discover that the prisoner was you.
Lewis B. Smedes  

Bureaucrats vs. School Choice



McClanahan on the Cult of Personality



Food Trucks in Baltimore



Choose Life



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Robert Ariail via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

David Bowie, "Fashion"

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Post #4445 M: Stossel: More Free Stuff 2020; Unalienable Rights; Cherokee Lizzie's Son Went to Private School and Other Hypocrisies

Quote of the Day

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.
Golda Meir

Stossel: More Free Stuff 2020



Unalienable Rights



Cherokee Lizzie's Son Went to Private School and Other Hypocrisies



Choose Life


Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

David Bowie, "This is Not America"

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Post #4444 M: Wood on Fascism; Classroom of the Future; Infinite money?

Quote of the Day

Waste your money and you're only out of money, 
but waste your time and you've lost part of your life.
Michael Leboeuf  

The mathematician in me loves the symmetry of all 4's in this post sequence.

Woods on Fascism

See here for Steele's title essay.



Classroom of the Future



Infinite Money?



Choose Life



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Pat Cross via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

David Bowie (with Bing Crosby), "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth". One of my favorite duets ever.

Post #4443 Commentary: The Libertarian Split Over Trump

My purpose in this essay isn't to establish new ground or to resolve the schism between libertarians on Trump but to explain and document it. Others have also noted the same, and I am not asserting my description is comprehensive.

My own stand against Trump is well-defined across dozens of posts and thousands of tweets. This includes, but is not restricted to:

  • his unprovoked trade wars. Even pro-Trump libertarian icon Walter Block has distanced himself from Trump's protectionist impulses. I've seen estimates that Trump's tariffs are trimming a half percent or more off economic growth.
  • his massive spending and deficits. Trump has taken the true budget cost drivers off the table, i.e., mandatory spending, including senior entitlements. Although he takes credit for tax cuts, he did not cut spending accordingly, especially defense spending. He did away with sequesters, has added trillions to the national debt, and we're on track to a $1T deficit in a robust economy, for the first time since Obama's first term.
  • his neo-con military interventionism. Trump has supersized Obama's unconstitutional drone wars. His military strike in Syria was unprovoked. His recent assassination of an Iranian general was a war crime that could have triggered a regional, even global war. Despite "America First" rhetoric, even a suggestion of a Syrian withdrawal, Trump's actions contradict his rhetoric: he has hired neo-cons like Bolton, Pompeo, and Mattis into influential positions.
  • his violations of individual rights. I have in mind here a variety of things, such as violations of the rights of Bergdahl, Julian Assange, property rights of those on the Southern border where Trump wants to build his wall with eminent domain abuse, treatment of migrant families, travel bans, etc.
  • his unconstitutional abuses of power. This includes things like unauthorized transfers of military funds for use of border wall construction, his use of foreign relations authority to extort an investigation into Biden by the Ukraine government, his non-defensive military attacks, including the assassination of an Iranian general (when we were not in a state of war with Iran), drone wars, and a military strike on Syria. I would even include here things like granting war criminals clemency or pardons. He tried to end the Russia investigation. 
  • his growth of the imperial Presidency. Trump has inherited Obama's "phone and a pen" and issued constitutionally dubious sweeping executive orders. He defies the will of the Congress, e.g., vetoing constraints on Saudi Arabia's intervention in Yemen. He has seized constitutionally dubiously delegated powers by falsely asserting "emergencies". He has blocked Congressional oversight authority, including the impeachment inquiry. He has pressured the Fed into cutting rates in advance of his reelection effort.
Is all of the news negative? No, for instance:
  • Trump has slowed the growth of federal regulations. In particular, he has attacked the unconstitutional health insurance mandate, he has reined back creeping water regulations which have impacted personal property rights, and he has liberalized energy production and pipelines. His FCC repealed the net neutrality government toehold into Internet regulation.
  • His tax reform (although failing to trim spending to accommodate revenue losses) made business taxes more globally competitive and stepped away from a worldwide tax system towards more of a territorial model (like most of the developed world).
Now I think any taxonomy I might specify of libertarianism would probably be universally rejected by its adherents, but a useful practical distinction identified by Mitchell between individualists and paleolibertarians. At the risk of oversimplification, individualists are more practically oriented, accommodating over the existence of government and focus on individual rights within the context of limited government. Paleolibertarians tend to be more philosophic anarchists of sorts in the tradition of the Austrian school and Rothbard. The former are (not exclusively) represented by outlets like Reason and the Cato Institute, the latter popularized by the likes of Walter Block, Ron Paul, Tom Woods and the Mises Institute.

Where do I fit in this taxonomy? Well, I'll simply point out that I liberally sample content from both sides in my daily posts. I'm influenced by the Austrian School but not in the camp. I still consider myself a minarchist, not an ancap, although I am very receptive to market alternatives to government monopolies. I will say that on the topic of Trump, I'm probably more strident on Trump than either camp.

The paleolibertarians tend to be more sympathetic to immigration restrictions; I can point to multiple Ron Paul clips where he disingenuously suggests the corrupt welfare state is a lure to unauthorized immigration; this doesn't explain strong immigration in the nineteenth century without a central welfare state. For example, my immigrant ancestors had a difficult life working in textile mills or farms. However, generalizations are dangerous. Early Rothbard was very principled in accordance with free market principles and supported open immigration, like I do. Walter Block is also very good on immigration rights; you have to wonder how Walter ever got past Trump's initial candidacy announcement with xenophobic assertions of Mexico dumping violent criminals across the border.

Lew Rockwell, former Congressman Ron Paul's longtime chief of staff, was heavily involved in the development of the Mises Institute and has also had his own website. (I subscribe to his daily digest and frequently visit the website.) Lew Rockwell and Walter Block have been prominent libertarian backers of Trump; don't get me wrong. Rockwell is anti-war and hasn't been impressed with Trump's Middle East meddling. But he and others are ecstatic that Trump, among other things, has mainstreamed the concept of the Deep State and has at various times bashed the Fed. You really won't see much coverage of the impeachment kerfuffle, but as I write, there's a sample blog post on "Ex-Deep Staters and the Impeachment Hoax".

Tom Woods doesn't get into polemical discussions about Trump (I think I've heard him say like others, "Nobody agrees with Trump on everything."), but he has Rockwell to review the Dem debates and occasionally his political hero, Ron Paul (and notably is featured in  Paul's home school program). Still, when he has episodes entitled something like "what the Trump impeachment is really all about", you know it's not a discussion about the evidence of Trump's extortion of Zelensky.

Ron Paul has published multiple clips on the impeachment kerfuffle and I'm not implying the clip below (which I don't think I embedded in earlier posts) is representative. [They spend a lot of time discussing process, including Pelosi's footdragging in delivering the counts to the Senate. I generally agree Pelosi was playing a game she couldn't win, but I think this is Ron Paul's way of dismissing the impeachment as purely partisan.] One of the takeaways is that they argue that the "real" impeachable grounds include unauthorized military interventions, but Trump is not alone. McAdams is dismissive of anything from the Zelensky phone call (note he completely ignores Trump's "favor" involving having Ukraine investigate Biden, Trump calling the corrupt prosecutor Shokin a "very good" man, etc.). I wrote a set of 3 tweets over the weekend (embedded below), and I don't think Ron Paul would disagree with the second tweet.






I could go at some length on differing libertarian opinions on Trump:

  • here is a debate on Trump between Robert Wenzel (Economic Policy Journal) and Walter Block
  • Cox here  points out how Trump tried to cut the government bureaucracy, brought up a libertarian idea of selling US assets (land, buildings, etc.) in an effort to reduce the national debt, introduced our constructs of the swamp and Deep South, etc.
  • here is the divide between pro-impeachment libertarian Congressman Amash and anti-impeachment Rand Paul. I should include Thomas Massie (pro-Trump). I've become so alienated against Rand and Massie on this, I've stopped following them on Twitter.
I don't think most libertarians really give a damn about partisan politics; they see the Democrats and Republicans as mostly different flavors of Statism.

Once again, this essay is meant to give a bite of the apple over differing libertarian takes on Trump. I may expand on this topic in future posts.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Post #4442 M: Ron Paul on Iraq Embassy Rocket Attack; The National Anthem: The Latest Politically Correct Battle

Quote of the Day

Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. 
I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them 
and try to follow where they lead.
Louisa May Alcott  

Ron Paul on the Weekend Rocket Attack on Baghdad Iraq Embassy



The National Anthem: The Latest Politically Correct Battle



Kibbe on Gun-Free Zones



Choose Life



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of AF Branco via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

David Bowie, "Blue Jean"

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Post #4441 M: Block on Trump's Tariffs; Woods on Robots and Jobs

Quote of the Day

Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Samuel Johnson 

Walter Block on Trump's Tariffs

I'm currently writing a separate post on libertarians and Trump, and Walter Block is arguably the most venerable libertarian icon alive today. I have occasionally referenced him in the blog. To my dismay, Block led a group of Libertarians For Trump in 2016 (needless to say, Block did not convince me), which he acknowledges in this clip. No, Block is not a Trumpkin when it comes to basic economic constructs like free trade.



Woods on Robots and Jobs



Bob Murphy on Conservatives



Choose Life



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

David Bowie, "Modern Love"

Post #4440 Social Media Edition

Facebook















[My RN sister has two schoolteacher daughters. She published reference to a retiring teacher's rant which basically points to parents for our failing public schools. (I may republish this in a future one-off post and respond in more detail. This is what I commented to the post:]

No, that's an oversimplification. It's true parents can and should be involved, and aren't--for some kids. Other get involved in counterproductive ways. But there are a number of reasons for the failure of public education. Some of them deal with structural incentives, lowered expectations/standards, limited decentralization and administrative discretion (e.g., personnel), unenforced discipline and safety standards, etc. Trying to blame parents is an easy way to skirt responsibilities for one's teaching and administrative failures.

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