I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean…

~ Judas Priest, “Electric Eye”

England’s Daily Express reported on August 4 that “thousands of the worst families in England are to be put in ‘sin bins’ in a bid to change their bad behavior.” Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, has announced a 400 million pound plan to put Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras in 20,000 homes in Britain, says the Express, “to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.”

This “sin bin” program already operates in many parts of the country, and about 2,000 families are presently under observation by their betters in the local bureaucracy. But Balls wants the program to be universal. “There should be Family Intervention Projects in every local authority because every area has families that need support,” he says. 1984 isn’t just a novel anymore; it’s happening in England right now, complete with a “newspeak” vocabulary that equates totalitarian measures with “support for families.”

Should we care about domestic policy in England?

The American Revolution has been described as a “conservative” revolution, because so little changed. Unlike the French Revolution, which would usher in a reign of terror and a dictatorship, and the Russian Revolution, which followed the same course, the American fight was largely about reaffirming principles that had evolved under the British constitution — due process, habeas corpus, government by consent, limited parliamentary power, private property and, most important, personal privacy and individual rights.

The fighting had barely begun and Americans were establishing new governments in accordance with these same principles. It was to the ideal of English governance that American statesmen would repair.

Like the West in general, Britain has been riding a wave of “progressivism” for the last century, moving away from a limited-government tradition and towards government growing larger and taking over more areas once left to individuals, communities, churches, and other means of mutual aid. Taking a moral high ground surrendered by conservatives either afraid or ill-equipped to challenge such pretensions — and often aided and abetted by them, as in this present case — leftists there have created a Nanny State that proudly boasts of “cradle to grave” protection in the form of unemployment insurance, “family allowances,” national health insurance, government housing programs — the list goes on and on — alongside massive taxes on “luxuries” like automobiles and gasoline, incredible powers vested in labor unions, draconian gun control, and extortionate income taxation — to the point that government in the UK controls about 40 percent of GNP and touches just about every area of everyone’s life.

But it isn’t enough. It’s never enough. Those who crave power over others always want more, and when their attempts to remake society fall short of the intended mark, the blame is always laid on some alleged “lack” of power and legislation.

Poverty “justified” the welfare state. Then, when the economy subsequently floundered, more welfare was “needed.” When the welfare state had undermined individual dignity and a general sense of personal responsibility, rising crime ensued, and it was more police powers and surveillance of society that was demanded. And now, after Britain has reached the point where your DNA can be taken for a moving violation and there are more CCTV cameras in public places than any other country on earth, we hear, once more, that it’s not enough. Private places — people’s homes — will now feel the eyes of growing state power because little Tommy isn’t doing his homework.

The reason we should be concerned about Ed Balls’ actions “across the pond” is because they so closely mirror the actions of our own leaders, who seek more power to wage endless wars, take over industries, spy on the citizenry, detain people without trial, run our health care system, interfere in local matters, and use the military against our people. Strong and ancient principles that limit government power can and have been eroded beyond recognition in a “liberal democracy” like Great Britain, and they can be destroyed here too. Cameras may soon be coming to a home near you. Maybe even yours.

Scott McPherson [send him mail] lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He serves as a policy advisor to the Future of Freedom Foundation.

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One fact that seems particularly inconvenient to the editors of New Hampshire’s Nashua Telegraph is that the government of the United States is a limited government. Their specific complaint is against "HCR6," a resolution introduced in the New Hampshire House of Representatives re-affirming the principles laid out in the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution, namely, that the federal government exists to exercise delegated powers only, and that all other powers are retained by the states and the people.

A similar resolution was passed by the Oklahoma legislature last year, and about ten other states are considering sovereignty-related legislation. It makes perfect sense: following eight years of an Imperial Presidency like George Bush’s — not to mention 80 years of welfare-statism — state lawmakers should be anxious to tell Washington that they are not branch managers for the federal government. The people, in their sovereign capacity, established the governments of the states, and in turn, the people of the several states ratified the Constitution, creating the federal government. The states are equal agents in this compact, with relation to each other and the entity they created. HCR6 is an attempt to remind folks of this historic fact.

"Resolutions such as this," write the Telegraph’s editors, "exploit the democracy of the Legislature to pursue an ideological agenda with no practical impact on public policy." Resolutions stating broad principles or making grand declarations are far from unheard of, and are always used to "pursue an ideological agenda." That’s the whole point. But whether it has any chance of making a "practical impact on public policy" cannot be known unless and until the resolution is properly discussed and debated. What the Telegraph really means is that they just don’t like HCR6, so ipso facto it is a waste of time. What arrogance.

Worse, the editors betray an incredible ignorance, not just of history, but of the rules of basic decency. They write, "The notion that the Republic is a creation of the states and can be dissolved by the states may have been viable — until 1865…the Civil War settled the debate at the cost of more than 600,000 American lives." What the Telegraph is ultimately saying is that because the North won the war, the history of our government was automatically re-written and the deaths of 600,000 people — not to mention the jailing of state legislators, congressmen and newspaper editors(!) — are therefore justified. Like the main character in Orwell’s 1984, just burn that inconvenient little scrap of paper and a new truth is unveiled. The problem is, the little scrap of paper they wish us to burn is the Constitution.

Joseph Stalin oversaw the murder of millions in the name of protecting the Soviet Union. If body count is a measure of righteousness, he was an ideal leader. To quote Will Smith from the recent film Hancock, "Are you boys sure you want to ride that train?"

The Telegraph claims that "The Supreme Court of the United States gets to decide if the federal government has exceeded the authority granted by the Constitution, not the state of New Hampshire or any other state." As the Southern statesman and Senator — and Vice-President — John C. Calhoun consistently argued in the first half of the nineteenth century, the Supreme Court is an agent of the federal government; if the federal government gets to determine its own limits, then any idea of a limited government must logically be abandoned. No doubt this would suit the editors of the Nashua Telegraph right down to the ground. Or would it? New Hampshire governor John Lynch is the only governor in the Union who has said that he will not implement federal "Real ID" provisions under any circumstances. Maybe the editors would re-consider their position if federal troops marched up the Merrimack River Valley to tell him otherwise.

Endless accolades to "Honest Abe" cannot change the nature of our institutions. The Constitution, ratified by the people of the states, created the federal government. The people of the several states, operating in their sovereign capacity, are the final judges of the extent of federal power. The blood of 600,000 dead Americans only proves the lengths some political leaders will go to in their lust for power. Like it or not, HCR6 re-affirms the principles our entire system of government is founded on.

Scott McPherson [send him mail] lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and encourages anyone who can to attend the rally in support of HCR6 on the steps of the state capitol on March 4 at 8AM. He serves as a policy advisor to the Future of Freedom Foundation.

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Several months ago a good friend of mine told me that every time she goes to the supermarket she picks up an extra bag of beans and an extra bag of rice. Her husband, a Second Amendment enthusiast (to put it mildly), has the ammunition stash covered; she’s making sure the family has plenty of food if things should get really bad.

Following her advice, I’ve started doing the same thing.

But there’s another type of preparedness we should all consider.

My wife and I like music, especially live music. Last month we went to our favorite music venue in the world. Our neighbor has a band, which was opening up for another band that he highly recommended, so, funds and a babysitter being available, we had a night out.

Both bands were great. We danced and drank good beer. The low-point, however, came at the end of the evening. The headliner band, after playing one long set, dedicated their encore to "President Obama." The crowd, mostly young people from nearby University of New Hampshire, cheered enthusiastically. But it gets worse: the bass player stepped up to the microphone and, pumping his fist in the air, shouted "Obama Forever!" I’m not kidding. The crowd went nuts.

I don’t remember what song they played; I’d stopped listening at that point. I did shout "Long Live the King" at the top of my voice, but I doubt anyone heard, or understood what I was talking about, or cared, if they did. I walked to the back of the room and stood by the main exit. As soon as the encore was done the lights would come up, and everyone would start filing out.

I made it a point that night to look in the face of every single person that went past.

After a few minutes my wife spotted me and came over. "What are you doing?" she asked. "I want to see what evil looks like," I responded.

This isn’t partisan; I feel the same way when I see McCain’s Republican Robots chanting wildly and waving their fascistic "Country First" signs at their would-be Emperor.

On Tuesday and Thursday evenings I take a small class; I’m learning to play bass guitar, and gather with several others to play in an Ensemble coached by a local musician. Just a few days ago, when we were taking a break, me and one of the other students walked to the Panera next door for a coffee. I’ve talked to this guy before, and know he’s a Democrat; his frequent pontifications on the virtues of high taxes, government regulation, and universal healthcare was my first clue.

He also knows I’m a libertarian. We haven’t talked much, but I’m sure to inject a reasoned rebuttal everytime he fouls off at the mouth. As we stood in line, he said, "There’s something about New Hampshire. I feel different when I’m here." (He’s from Maine.) I didn’t really care what he meant; I was certain I wouldn’t agree with it. So I said, "Maybe it’s freedom. You live in one of the highest-taxed states in the union." He then proceeded to lecture me, sneering all the while, about New Hampshire’s high property taxes.

"Sure," I said. "It’s too high — especially when so much of it pays for services I don’t use! How’s about I get back that third or so that funds the public schools?"

In a classic deflection, he said, "When I lived in Florida I got so sick of listening to old people, whose children were grown and out of school, complain about the property taxes."

I didn’t hestitate. I said, "The difference is, I’ve never had a child in any public school. So can I have that money back now?"

More deflection: "So who’s going to pave that street in front of your house," he sneered, "the Road Fairy?" I wanted to stay on topic, so rather than get into a debate on private roads, I kept him focused. "If I use a service, I ought to pay for it," I said. "But what about those public schools?"

At this point he’d had enough. Turning his back to me, he said, contemptuously, dismissively: "We’re all in this together." No dictator ever said it better.

Later that evening, in class, I took a good, long look at that man. I wanted to see what evil looks like.

Be they Fascist Republicans or Marxist Democrats, one common thread runs through their thinking: there is no right or wrong. There’s only a desire to impose their will on the rest of us.

By all means, stock up on beans, rice, ammunition, fuel, and gold. If the Empire is crumbling — and I believe it is — you’ll need all of those things.

More important, though, is that we be mentally prepared for what is coming. When your friend, neighbor, colleague, or any passing aquaintance declares himself for evil, take him at his word.

Scott McPherson [send him mail] lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

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An interesting commentary, “Lincoln, Secession, and Slavery” by Tibor Machan, published by the Cato Institute on June 1, 2002, was recently brought to my attention. I should say at the outset that I have long been a fan of Machan, and have the utmost respect for his positions. I just think he got it way wrong here.

Machan writes that the secession of the Southern states was ultimately an illegitimate act because “there is that undeniable evil of slavery.” Despite Lincoln’s own racist views, he was allegedly acting in the interests of the slaves, who were “unwilling third parties” to the secession, and therefore was “a good American” for destroying the Confederacy and slavery.

According to Machan,

[W]hen one considers that the citizens of the union who intended to go their own way were, in effect, kidnapping millions of people — most of whom would rather have stayed with the union that held out some hope for their eventual liberation — the idea of secession no longer seems so innocent. And regardless of Lincoln’s motives — however tyrannical his aspirations or ambitious — when slavery is factored in, it is doubtful that one can justify secession by the southern states.

So we can safely ignore Lincoln’s motives — “however tyrannical” [!] — because the motives of the “Southern rebels” were allegedly worse?

“[S]omething had to be done about [slavery],” writes Machan. “And to ask the slaves to wait until the rest of the people slowly undertook to change the Constitution seems obscene.” Machan acknowledges that the offending action was legal under the Constitution, but advocates and cheers an illegal and aggressive policy to rectify it because the normal, slow processes of constitutional change “seem obscene.”

Doesn’t that sound familiar?

In a habeas corpus proceeding in 1771, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, ordered the release of a slave named James Sommersett who had accompanied his master on a trip to England. Mansfield reasoned that while slavery was legal elsewhere, England had no law “so odious.” Nevertheless, it would be almost 40 more years before the slave trade was abolished in the rest of the British Empire, and slavery was not outlawed altogether until 1833.

Great Britain’s slaves were very much expected to “wait … to change the Constitution.” Yet, slow as it came, change did come.

Following the wisdom of the Magna Carta reissued by King Henry III in 1225, which promised the benefits of legal custom to promote freedom, serfdom was eroded and eventually abolished completely over the course of 600 years by English courts.

On this foundation, Lord Mansfield took the same approach to slavery, stating that “Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say [slavery] is allowed or approved by the law of England; and, therefore, the black must be discharged.” With this ruling James Sommersett walked away a free man, as did other slaves held in bondage in England at that time. But, as stated above, this was only the beginning of the change. It would take sixty-two more years for England’s domains to be completely rid of the scourge.

The American colonies, and later the U.S. states, were following the same path. Throughout the 18th century, attempts were made by colonial legislatures to limit slavery and the slave trade. The obstruction of these laws by the King and Parliament were among the grievances of the colonists.

After the Revolution, the Northern states gradually began abolishing slavery. In the South, where slavery was much more entrenched, the process was moving more slowly. But it was moving. Major reforms to slavery were debated in the Virginia legislature in 1830. More important, throughout the first half of the 19th century Southern courts were chipping away at the evil institution — just as English courts and legislators had chipped away at villeinage and slavery. Moreover, by allowing the Southern states to secede, the United States could have accelerated the demise of slavery by providing a haven for runaway slaves.

However, this isn’t good enough for Machan. To ask slaves to wait would have been “obscene.” So the obscenity of hundreds of thousands of dead Americans — whites and blacks alike — as well as the total undermining of our constitutional Republic and the horrible destruction of war is somehow justified.

According to Machan, the Southern states could not legitimately secede because they were taking along “hostages” who would have preferred to stay in a “union that held out some hope for their eventual liberation.” Yet it is clear that “eventual liberation” was already on its way.

Machan has backed himself into a difficult corner here. If liberation was coming too slowly, then what about the those slaves who would have preferred the presumably quicker liberation that was coming under the British government but who were nonetheless swept away as hostages to the American Revolution? If, as Machan states, “secession cannot be justified if it is combined with the evil of imposing the act on unwilling third parties,” then wouldn’t Lord Mansfield’s ruling, coming 5 years before the Declaration of Independence, mean that American independence in 1776 could not be justified either?

Scott McPherson [send him mail] lives, reads, writes, plays music, and homeschools his children in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

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Forget your good ol’ days when Constable Smith
kept the peace on his beat all by himself. Now it’s pure strength
in numbers. Even when spotted at the roadside conducting something
as benign as "traffic control," i.e. a speed trap, there
will always be two or more policemen, waiting to pounce.

Like at the DMV.

New Hampshire, where I live, prides itself on its
small, efficient government. That’s why, after moving up from Virginia
two years ago, I was able to easily pop down the road just a few
miles and quickly get a new drivers license at the local DMV office,
and register my car at City Hall. The trouble is, my wife is not
a U.S. Citizen, and New Hampshire passed a law — after "everything
changed" on 9/11/01 — requiring non-citizens to get new licenses
at the state DMV headquarters in Concord, so they can show their
Green Card, along with the customary proof-of-residency. Apparently
local DMV employees aren’t up to the task — though no public official
would ever dare risk offending the sensibilities of a state employee
by suggesting such a thing.

So my wife took a day off work and I drove her to Concord last
month. Her Virginia license was about to expire (yes, she broke
the law — New Hampshire, like probably every state, requires that
new residents update their drivers license within a month or two
of moving here). She brought a few bills that are in her name, her
passport, her birth certificate, our marriage license, her Social
Security Card — but forgot her Green Card. Despite all the documentation
she did have, our bureaucrat-protectors at the DMV turned
her away. She lost half a day in pay for a pointless mistake — another
"hidden" price tag that accompanies government stupidity,
but I digress, and repeat myself.

Still needing to get her license, we went back
to the Concord DMV a few days later. This time the lines were much
longer, so we got to stick around for a couple of hours. While waiting
with our son as my wife stood in line, I noticed that one of the
lanes for "customers" (that’s right: according to the
parking spaces outside, we’re "customers") was marked
somewhat confusingly (imagine): there was a large sign which read
"Driving Test Appointments Here" or something like that.
But on the actual desk of the DMV employee in charge of this lane,
a much smaller sign read "This lane closed."

Well, several people waited in that lane for several minutes before
the bureaucrat — who looked none-too-busy, to say the least — finally
bothered to mention that he wasn’t going to help them. Understandably,
this irritated the people in the line, and one of them dared express
his irritation to the "worker." In a millisecond (a startling
contrast to the sloth-like response time of any other government
employee) a State Trooper was out in the waiting area, talking with
this upset "customer."

That’s how it works in this particular "business":
at Wal-Mart or Barnes & Noble customers talk to the manager;
at the DMV, the "manager" wears a gun and a badge.

The first thing I noticed was that despite being irritated, the
"customer" wasn’t irate; there was no raised voice; he
wasn’t flailing his arms about in gesticulation. He calmly, but
passionately, explained his problem to the Trooper, and to be fair,
the Trooper was calm and respectful as well.

Then another trooper, twenty-five feet away, saw what was going
on and had to get involved. Strength in numbers. She marched over
like a Drill Sergeant (complete with hat and ever-so-shiny shoes)
and stood, not next to the other Trooper, but off to the side and
back just a little, in the space between him and the "customer."
It was clearly a strategic posture; she was providing "back-up."
She didn’t say anything, just stood there with her hands on her
hips and stared, hard, at her "suspect." I’ve gotten used
to government inefficiency and mismanagement, but before me stood
a glaring and scary example of its ultimate consequence.

I don’t know how the issue was resolved — my wife
finished her "business" and we left — but that image has
stayed with me.

As has another experience. The New Hampshire legislature
sits from January to May each year; ours is a true "citizens
legislature"; our House of Representatives is the third largest
legislative body in the world, but represents only about a million
and a half people. With so high a proportion of reps it’s not uncommon
to bump into one, and they pride themselves on being "accessible."
When I went to Concord earlier this year to protest, along with
about twenty other homeschoolers, a bill being debated in the State
Senate that would affect our lifestyle, I had the opportunity to
address the bill’s sponsor, one Senator Iris Estabrook (D-Durham).

Standing outside the Senate chamber, I waited until Sen. Estabrook
approached and said to her, "Thank you, Senator." Thinking
me sincere, she stopped and turned my way. "Thank you for all
your hard work needlessly harassing homeschoolers," I said.
I didn’t shout; didn’t wave my arms about or gesticulate in a threatening
manner. Just said my piece and turned away from her.

"Officer," I heard immediately, "this man is harassing
me."

I turned back around to see her walking away, and a millisecond
later not one but two State Troopers were in my face, adopting the
same posture and positioning as the Troopers mentioned above. Strength
in numbers. They immediately informed me that "harassing"
a State Senator would get me ejected from the Capitol building.

"I wasn’t harassing her," I argued.

"What did you say," they asked, and I
told them.

"That’s sarcasm," one of them said.

"Yes it is," I replied, "but sarcasm is not harassment."
Then our conversation went just like this:

"She said you were harassing her."

"I’m saying I didn’t; why does she get
to define the term?"

"She doesn’t," I was told. "We
do."

Nothing good came from the experience, except for
this: when the "officers" walked away, I saw that my daughter
was standing next to me, glaring after them. "Let this be a
lesson to you," I told her then. "Anyone so afraid
to debate with you that they will call the police to end the discussion
is someone to be feared and hated." I stand by those words.

And just this week I got an alarming glimpse of
how the Police State mentality might be spreading. We live in a
Leftist city in a neo-con-but-slightly-libertarian-leaning state,
and one of its prides is a mandatory recycling program. Plastics,
glass, paper, cardboard (pronounced "cad-board" up here),
and newspapers are all picked up separately from what we used to
just call "trash." The plastics, glass, and cardboard
are picked up by one truck, the paper and newspaper by another,
the rest by yet another.

I always put the paper in empty dog food bags; they’re large and
holdup better under the drizzling rain that seems to more-often-than-not
accompany a New Hampshire morning, regardless of the season. And
I put the plastic, glass and cardboard (typically empty cereal boxes,
milk and juice cartons, and the like) all in the little green (of
course) bin provided by the city’s Department of Public Works (DPW).

In two years of living here, I’ve never had a problem
with any of this. Every week I look down the street and see that
my neighbors are doing the exact same thing. Two weeks ago, however,
my wife and I had a very large party, with about 50 to 60 people
showing up throughout the course of the evening. Needless to say,
the number of beer and wine bottles and soda cans was immense, far
too many for the little bin. So I stacked them all neatly to the
side. A few days later, they were still sitting there, purposely
left by the DPW workers, and I ended up taking them to the recycling
center myself. This week, by comparison, I had just enough recycling
to fill the bin, but the DPW workers still drove right by and left
it all sitting at the edge of my driveway. Confused, I caught up
with them and asked what the deal was. I wasn’t angry or gesticulating,
or acting aggressive. Just talking to them like I would any employee
whose actions were confusing me.

Our conversation went something like this:

"You have to separate the cardboard from the rest —
and we won’t pick it up off the ground," he added quickly.
"That’s why we left your recycling two weeks ago." They
clearly remember when a mere taxpaying citizen asks too much of
them.

"There was so much recycling that day, I couldn’t
have fit it all in five bins," I protested.

That’s when I became aware that there were two
of them. Of course.

Yes, there’s a practical case for this: one drives
the truck, the other hops off at the stops to pick up the recycling.

But the fellow driving that day wasn’t content
to serve that purpose alone. He had to join us. He got out of the
truck and walked around to position himself to the side and back
a little — like the State Troopers. Strength in numbers.

Now I was irritated. Turning to the second
one, I said pointedly, "I’m only talking to one of you at a
time."

A highly unproductive conversation then ensued, with me pointing
out that their "standards" were not only arbitrary but
completely inconsistent, because everyone else on the street mixes
their "cardboard" in with their plastics and glass. I
was then lectured about the relevant City Ordinance, and ended up
walking away in frustration, resolved to make things as difficult
as I can for the DPW in future — however small a gesture it may
be.

Don’t be fooled. We’re not the government’s "customers."
If a private business dealt with people like the DMV, it would be
out of business in a week; if the guy who bags my groceries at the
supermarket acted like the guy who picks up my trash on Tuesdays,
he’d be looking for work today.

And this is for certain: none of them would require
thuggish-acting "back-up" to deal with a "customer"
that just wants to get better service.

New Hampshire has a service called "Porc411,"
started by a Free State Project
member who wanted to help people more easily "participate in
New Hampshire’s growing liberty movement." The idea is simple:
once you’ve subscribed, you can call a designated phone number and
leave a voice message about "unusual or improper police activity,"
"distress calls," or "almost anything else of immediate
interest to liberty lovers." The messages are immediately sent
out via email to all subscribers.

Perhaps it’s time every state, city, town and village
had such a service. We need some strength in numbers ourselves.

August
29, 2008

Scott
McPherson [send him mail]
lives, reads, writes, plays music, and homeschools his children
in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

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The
increasing popularity and continued fund-raising success of presidential
candidate Ron Paul has a lot more people considering the previously
unthinkable: voting for the best candidate, rather than the "lesser
of evils".

At
the same time, though, this rising maverick is raising others on
his coattails. More people are looking at other political outsiders
and long shots, like Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, and wondering
if their outside-the-box ideas might be worth a look as well.

"Ron
Paul is great," I’ve heard. "He doesn’t compromise his
principles by pandering to special interests and voters." This
is certainly true. "But I also like Dennis Kucinich,"
some of the same people will say, "He stands up for what he
believes in and doesn’t compromise either."

I
can agree that Kucinich deserves some respect. Any politician that
can weather Washington politics and not lose his focus is truly
a unique individual. And his opposition to the Drug War, Patriot
Act and the Iraq War are certainly admirable — but there my love
for him ends. It’s like basketball: I can hate the sport but still
think Michael Jordan is a respectable athlete.

So
called "top tier" candidates like Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani,
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards give one the impression
that they will say just about anything to get elected. That
this is the norm in American politics means both good and bad when,
from time to time, we have the opportunity to choose a candidate
that speaks his mind and stands on principle.

The
good side is that a principled candidate will stand out like a sore
thumb.

The
bad side is that we can mistake having principles for having the
right principles. My fear is that not compromising is becoming
an end in itself. Is it too much to ask that we look at what it
is these men refuse to compromise about, as an indication of their
qualification to serve in the White House?

Dennis
Kucinich might very well bring the troops home from the Middle East,
but then again, he’d probably re-deploy them to Darfur or some other
Third World hot spot, embroiling us in yet another civil conflict,
putting our troops in harm’s way, and further draining our treasury.
("Why not," I can hear his supporters say. "Isn’t
foreign intervention a good thing — when it’s for a worthy cause?"
No doubt they’ll also tell me how it would likewise help our "standing"
in the "world community.")

Dennis
Kucinich wants to keep the United States in the UN (albeit a "reformed"
UN); he wants to "work with the world community" by forcing
the ridiculous Kyoto Treaty on the American people; he’ll "launch
a ‘Global Green Deal’"; he’ll boost foreign aid, further plundering
US taxpayers to pay for other countries’ mistakes; he boasts of
his "Yes" vote on the Cuba travel ban, restricting the
freedom of Americans to travel and do business where they wish;
wants to impose socialized medicine, restricting if not ending Americans’
ability to provide healthcare for themselves; he’ll "fight
poverty worldwide" — which will be as effective as the domestic
War on Poverty; he supports "stricter sentencing" for
Thought Crimes, er, "Hate Crimes"; because government-run
"education" has been such a success, he wants to expand
it — he even opposes moderate attempts at reform like vouchers;
he supports more federal gun control, boasting of his "F"
rating by the NRA; and finally, he wants to establish a Department
of Peace — what could more guaranty war than making peace a government
program?

The
list of his ambitions goes on and on.

It
may be considered in poor taste to say so, but Dennis Kucinich is
a Socialist. A principled, consistent Socialist, granted. But a
Socialist nonetheless. There seems to be very little he feels government
can’t accomplish — given enough power and other peoples’ money.
Which makes his consistency a "foolish consistency," what
Emerson called the "hobgoblin of little minds."

Now
compare him to Ron Paul, who consistently stands up for the
Constitution, a document designed to maintain peaceful existence
through the rule of law and by limiting the power of government
to reign over peoples’ lives. The Framers of that document understood
the importance of upholding individual rights — at the expense of
government power. Dennis Kucinich consistently wants to expand
government power — at the expense of individual rights.

One
man wants you to be free; the other wants to re-define freedom as
subservience. Is the difference between what these two men stand
for just a matter of opinion?

Joseph
Stalin stood up for what he believed in. Adolph Hitler stood up
for what he believed in. Benito Mussolini stood up for what he believed
in. Pol Pot stood up for what he believed in. Franklin Roosevelt
stood up for what he believed in. George W. Bush stands up for what
he believes in. Just because someone consistently says what they
mean, and means what they say, doesn’t mean they’re worthy of our
vote. (Note to the hyper-sensitive: I am not comparing Dennis
Kucinich to any murderous dictator.)

Principles
are best described as general truths, reached via rational, logical
thought, upheld with conviction and employed to reach and maintain
long-term goals. If we have learned anything from the last one hundred
years, it is that there is nothing rational or logical about granting
more power to government, and anyone who hopes to retain the ability
to make and realize long-term goals by expanding the power of some
to rule over others is demonstrating a dangerous ignorance of history
and human nature. Chanting "No Compromise" while marching
us to oblivion is no substitute for having something worth fighting
for.

November
12, 2007

Scott
McPherson [send him mail]
is a policy advisor at the Future of Freedom
Foundation.

DIGG THIS

The Framers
of the U.S. Constitution wisely advised a path of nonintervention
in the affairs of other nations. As students of history, America’s
first statesmen established peace and free trade as a wiser foreign
policy course over militarism, alliance-making, and empire. John
Quincy Adams, the sixth president, best summed up America’s
original philosophy on foreign-policy: “America … goes not
abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.”

For the last
century, the United States has strayed from its noble roots, marching
headlong into one war after another having no bearing on the security
of the United States and bringing us the massive armies, debts,
and taxes that James Madison warned of. These wars kill thousands;
destabilize entire regions; destroy economies, civilizations, and
cultures; engender resentments against Americans; put U.S. troops
in the middle of civil conflicts; build a large and expensive overseas
military empire; and alienate nations that would otherwise support
it.

Many people
argue that a foreign policy based on “peace, commerce, and
honest friendship” is ill-suited to the modern age. As they
march us to war, these folks often vilify anyone who objects to
their messianic desire to use bombs and bullets to shape the world.
The word “isolationist” is an easy pejorative label often
employed in this act. Presidential candidate Ron Paul was so labeled
in an October 5, 2007, editorial
in the New Hampshire Union Leader. Those of us labeled
“isolationists,” the editorial suggested, reject the wisdom
of the U.S. government’s role as global dragon-slayer. (Paul’s
response to the editorial is here.)

The Union
Leader’s editorial listed “decades of military
interventionism around the globe” as “critically important
components” of U.S. foreign policy.

The disastrous
U.S. interventions in Korea, Vietnam, and Lebanon were “critically
important”?

After a decade
of sanctions in Iraq had killed hundreds of thousands of innocent
civilians, the United States invaded Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein,
a brutal dictator who had been, by the way, supported by the U.S.
government for years as part of its interventionist foreign policy.
All that was “critically important”?

Shall we discuss
America’s man in Chile, the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet,
who, with the assistance of the CIA, ousted the democratically elected
president of Chile in a coup? That was “critically important”?

The U.S. government
propped up the shah’s brutal regime in Iran after the CIA ousted
the democratically elected prime minister of that country in a coup.
That was “critically important”?

U.S. officials
armed and equipped mujahideen rebels, fanatics who would later attack
New York City, to end the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. That
was “critically important”?

Is this what
the New Hampshire Union Leader claims is a rational
foreign policy?

“[Ron]
Paul’s repeated insistence that ‘there would be no risk
of somebody invading us’ is just what the isolationist Republicans
of the 1930s believed – right up until Pearl Harbor,”
was the final jab from the Union Leader editorial page.

Contrary to
the Union Leader’s suggestion, the Republicans of the 1930s
weren't “isolationist” – they were simply resisting
Roosevelt’s schemes to get America into another unnecessary
and destructive war. After all, don’t forget that President Wilson’s
“make-the-world-safe-for-democracy” debacle of World War
I was still fresh on their minds.

But Franklin
D. Roosevelt, like George W. Bush, was desperate for war. He engaged,
without congressional approval, in the “destroyers-for-bases”
deal, contrary to U.S. neutrality; he employed “lend-lease”
to ship military equipment to the Soviet communists and Great Britain;
he oversaw the use of U.S. military convoys to ship goods to Britain;
finally, he ordered U.S. ships to report German submarine positions
to the British – an act of war.

Failing to
lure the Germans into attacking the United States, Roosevelt looked
to the Pacific. While Japan was fighting in China, he prohibited
American companies from selling Japan oil, iron, and scrap steel,
and froze all Japanese assets in the United States. He refused to
meet with the Japanese prime minister, whose government fell, ushering
in the more hawkish prime minister, Tojo Hideki. An offer by the
Japanese to leave China in exchange for normalization of trade was
rebuffed. The “Flying Tigers” were a U.S.-backed air force
in Burma training to fight against the Japanese – before
Pearl Harbor.

There is nothing
“isolationist” about desiring free trade, commerce, and
honest friendship among all nations. It is quite the opposite of
isolation. While it has been some time since the United States followed
this path, a safer course for the future is one of strong neutrality,
not the thuggish militarism always desired by some at the expense
of peace and freedom for the rest of us.

October
13, 2007

Scott
McPherson [send him mail]
lives, reads, writes, plays music and home schools his kids in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire. He is policy advisor at the Future
of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia.

DIGG THIS

On
August 9 I
wrote about my wife's and my experience at the Meadowbrook concert
venue in Gilford, New Hampshire. The Nanny State atmosphere robbed
what should have been a fun and enjoyable evening of much of its
luster.

A
similar experience awaited us a few days later, at the Redhook Brewery
in Portsmouth, when we saw Robert Randolph and the Family Band,
a funk-rock jam band often seen opening up for the Dave Mathews
Band, play to an audience of about 1,000. Though a better experience
by comparison — we were at least allowed to carry our beers around
the grounds with us — the large, and, I should add, unnecessary
police presence again created that environment of authority and
watchfulness typical of a public school cafeteria.

Both
events, however, stand in stark contrast to our experience last
Saturday night at the Stone
Church in Newmarket, New Hampshire. Standing atop a steep hill
and overlooking this lovely New England village, the Stone Church,
a circa 1832 former Universalist Meeting House built on land donated
by the Newmarket Manufacturing Company, has all the charm one would
expect from a wonderfully preserved historical structure serving
spiritual and other enlightening pursuits for over a hundred and
seventy years. We were there to see another of our favorites, the
Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a New Orleans-funk-jam band, an eight-man
tour de force of trombone, sousaphone, trumpet and flugelhorn, electric
guitar, drums, tenor sax, baritone and soprano sax, trumpet and
vocals, that fairly blows the doors off of every place they play.

While
the band certainly makes the scene, it's impossible to disconnect
the pleasure of this occasion from the place where it happened.
With a maximum capacity of just 200, the Stone Church provides an
incredibly intimate setting for listening and dancing to good music.
Entering through a big wooden door and vestibule, the large, open
room holds a long bar to your left and a scattering of tables around
the floor and bar stools along the walls to your front and right.
The tables go right up to the stage at the far end of the room,
leaving only about ten square feet of space for an unofficial "dance
floor" — a space that quickly expands to accommodate a steadily
growing number of people on their feet as the music gets going.

The
staff Saturday night was just two bartenders and a waitress, friendly,
efficient, and competent enough to easily serve the small crowd.
The food is very good American-café-style stuff, and reasonably
priced. The beer selection is great; macro-brews like Sam Adams
are side by side on the row of taps with regional brews from the
Smuttynose Brewery in Portsmouth, Shipyard Brewery in Portland,
Maine, and a smooth and tasty microbrew called Rogue Ale from Oregon.

As
the small room began to heat up, the staff put out several large
coolers of ice water and plastic cups for patrons to help themselves.
Nobody cared if we took our beers into the small but wildly dancing
crowd in front of the band. Nobody checked my I.D. when I ordered
a drink. There isn't any silly "No Re-entry" rule at the
Stone Church, though they did check my ticket at the door — but
only once, despite the fact that I came in and out several times
over the course of the evening. It is a smoke free building, at
the insistence and preference of the business-owner — a preference
usurped by our newly elected Democratic legislature, whose smoking
ban goes into effect in the middle of this month.

All
in all, the Stone Church gives a little truth to the First Amendment's
promise that government "shall make no law…abridging…the right
of the people peaceably to assemble." While all around us statists
draw the noose ever tighter, this church-turned-music hall provides
a tiny sanctuary of peaceful, responsible association without a
lurking police presence to remind us that freedom is largely becoming
an illusion.

Sitting
at the bar before the show started, I struck up a conversation with
one of the bartenders about beer, which soon turned to the topic
of good music and bad concert venues. Telling him briefly of my
experience at Meadowbrook, he said, "Everyone's terrified about
loosing their liquor license."

(And
with good reason: the September 2 New Hampshire Union Leader
reported that the Aborigen Restaurant & Bar in Manchester had
its liquor license "immediately suspended" because of
a shooting outside the bar in the early hours of this morning.
The fight started initially inside the bar, "was broken up,
and then a subsequent fight broke out and went out the back door.
And then shortly thereafter, some shots are fired," is how
Detective Bill Davies explained it to the paper. Patrons act stupid
and the business-owner is punished. In the upside down world of
the Nanny State's definition of personal responsibility, that's
how it goes.)

"So
how do you guys handle underage drinkers," I asked him.

"We
use common sense," he said. "If we're going to be full
to capacity, we check ID at the door and don't let the underage
people in. But if it's a small crowd, we check ID if someone looks
underage. Maybe we'll mark their hand with some kind of identifier,
and we try to move around in the crowd to make sure kids aren't
drinking."

"We
check ID if someone looks underage." Like at liquor stores
and supermarkets, I thought. And that seems to be working out okay.
"Sounds pretty libertarian to me," I said, "unlike
at the big venues, where cops are everywhere standing around like
thugs."

"There's
a difference between doing your job and being an asshole,"
he said.

"Right,"
I replied. "I like the idea of security being there to make
sure no one hurts anyone else, but there's a big difference between
keeping the peace — "

"
— and actually causing the problems," he finished the sentence
for me.

When
we left that night I carried a cup of water out the door with me.
Everywhere else I've been you wouldn't be allowed to do that. We
took a midnight stroll around Newmarket before driving home to relieve
the babysitter. As we walked up Main Street to our car a police
cruiser rolled by, slowing down to eyeball me — no doubt hoping
I was carrying a cup of beer so that he could harass me for drinking
in public.

If
you want to be treated like a kid, eat bad, overpriced food, and
generally feel like you’re in school again, go to the big music
venues for your fun. But if you're in New Hampshire and want good
beer, good atmosphere, good music, good food, and good company,
I highly recommend a visit to the Stone Church. Especially if the
boys from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band are in town.

September
3, 2007

Scott
McPherson [send him mail]
lives, reads, writes, plays music and home schools his kids in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire.

DIGG THIS

A
few days ago my wife and I visited the Meadowbrook concert venue
in lovely Gilford, New Hampshire. One of our favorite bands, the
North Mississippi Allstars, was there opening up for the Allman
Brothers Band, and we wouldn't have missed it for the world.

We
entered the Meadowbrook grounds through a large iron gate after
being lectured — twice — by a staff member that we would all be
searched; that absolutely no "weapons" — including even
a small pocket knife or Leatherman tool — would be permitted; that
all concert-goers wishing to purchase alcoholic beverages would
have to provide adequate identification to prove their age; that
re-entry to the grounds is forbidden. (Before we even left home,
we'd received an email from the venue which stated that no alcohol
would be permitted in the parking area.)

Inside,
the first thing I noticed was the police presence. They were everywhere.
I've been to several concert venues in the last few years, yet I
had never seen so many cops. Typically they've stayed on the periphery.
At least, if there were more mingling around with us subjects they'd
had the decency to be out of uniform. Here, I felt like I was in
disaster area or an occupation zone.

We
were instantly assailed by a variety of vendors giving away free
stuff like backpacks, newspapers, and lottery tickets. United Way
was there, asking for donations. I wasn't interested in any of that;
I grabbed the first official looking person I saw and asked where
the beer was. He sent me to the wrong place. When I got there they
sent me to the "beer tent" at the back of the venue, near
the lawn-seating. This was perfect — we had lawn seats. When we
walked up there, however, we were told that it wasn't open yet;
we'd have to use the bar back near the entrance. Without noticing,
we'd walked right past this bar when we entered. Naturally, we had
to show our I.D. to get past the policeman "guarding"
the entrance-way to a fenced off area around the bar.

Finally,
I had beer. Content, I was now ready to walk up to the lawn and
find a spot to hang out and dance when the show started. Turning
from the bar and heading back out of this bar area, I was stopped
by the same large, militaristic-looking young policeman who'd stopped
me when I was coming in. "No alcohol beyond this point,"
he said. So we sat down at a table and sipped our beer.

"Let's
finish these and see if the beer tent is open yet," I said
to my wife a few minutes later. After walking back to the
lawn, we found — to our great pleasure — that the beer tent was
open. Again we had to show our I.D.'s to enter a fenced-off area.
Thinking that finally we'd grab a drink and find that spot on the
lawn, our illusions were quickly shattered: we were not allowed
to leave with our drinks.

Though
our beers had been put in plastic cups, we couldn't be trusted to
walk twenty-five yards and sit down on the grass; we had to stay
near the bar (and the six-dollar cups of beer). At least they had
good beer. Again, cops were everywhere. If you lingered too long
without a drink in your hand, some conscientious staff member would
encourage you step up to one of the many bartenders ready to serve
you. Of course, you'd have to drink the entire cup before leaving
the bar area. I couldn't help but notice how all of this encouraged
quick and heavy drinking. This would keep the many police officers
watching the roads around Meadowbrook in work.

We
finished another drink and found our spot on the lawn, where loudspeakers
blared a local radio station broadcast. Before the show started,
an instantly-irritating host announced the winner of the lottery,
plugged future Meadowbrook events, and informed the pavilion audience
that a select and favored few of them, if they were to look under
their seats, might find some "artist's" new CD, theirs
to have for free.

The
North Mississippi Allstars played for about an hour. After they'd
left the stage, the same irritating host returned to announce another
lottery winner.

Knowing
the place would quickly start to fill up for the Allman Brothers
Band, we decided grab a quick bite to eat. There's one decent and
expensive (and this is a relative term!) restaurant at Meadowbrook.
There were countless vendors selling bland burgers, cold chicken
tenders, cheese-covered French fries and pizza. We bought some of
the crappy food and walked around. Other than a few picnic tables
— which were already being used — there was nowhere in this massive
place to sit down. So we kept moving.

Before
heading back to the lawn we decided to answer nature's call, and
waded through a sea of policeman thuggishly glaring at anyone approaching
the restrooms. No doubt some malcontent had just smoked a joint
in the Men's Room, elevating our protectors to Threat Level Orange
or whatever.

My
wife and I have a long-standing policy in large public places: if
one or both of us wishes to use the restroom, we establish a meeting
point where we can rendezvous when we're finished. Whoever gets
there first waits right in that spot until the other returns.
This prevents us from getting split up in a crowd. Unwittingly,
the spot we picked was next to a predictable vendor at any place
where hippies converge: the banner across the front of their stand
read "Saving the World One Beat at a Time." Apparently,
music doesn't require fossil fuels.

Waiting
for my wife, I overhead a conversation between two nearby people.
A young man was trying to hand something to a young girl. I could
see them out of the corner of my eye; I'd have needed to wrap duct
tape around my head to not hear them. He was pushing something towards
her, and she kept pushing it away. After a minute or so of this,
the item — which turned out to be a t-shirt — fell to the ground.
Instantly, the young man howled at the top of his voice, "Litterer!
This girl hates the Earth!" It wasn't said maliciously. Obviously
he was goofing off. Yet the high volume startled me from my slumber,
and I reflexively looked in their direction. At this point I made
eye contact with the girl, who looked to be somewhere between 18–22
years old. I would guess her companion was the same age. Key voters
a healthy democracy needs, we're constantly told.

Do
you remember what it was like to be, say, 8 or 9? Elementary school
days? Invariably, a friend on the playground would try to embarrass
you by making a loud and scandalous allegation. "He plays with
himself!" some kid might shout at you. "He's gay!"
was a favorite when I was in school. "He likes girls!"
was almost as bad. The point is, the instant reaction of the now-mortified
victim of this verbal assault was to deflect any and all attention
away from himself — preferably back on the accuser. The standard
response was to point back and say, childishly, "No I don't
— he does!"

Well,
back to Meadowbrook. I was staring into the eyes of a now-mortified
young woman who had been accused of littering and "hating the
Earth." Doubtless she thought I was looking at her in reaction
to the accusation. Pausing only long enough to swallow hard, she
stared back at me fearfully. "No I don't," she said, hastily,
pointing back at her friend, "He does!" I didn't
care. I didn't say anything, just walked far enough away that I
could see my wife when she returned. Blissfully, this happened within
moments, sparing me any further contact with the Earth-hating couple.

It
was getting dark. The Allman Brothers started to play. The first
thing I noticed when the sun went down was the aroma of marijuana
all around me. With lots of people now on the lawn, the police and
security guards were hard pressed to identify individual offenders.
Safe in relative anonymity, the kids smoked away. Another lesson
from another flawed policy: prohibit something peaceful and you
merely drive it, literally, into the shadows.

We
got bored after about half an hour. We'd seen what we came to see,
so we decided to drive around a few of the nearby towns surrounding
beautiful Lake Winnipesauke before heading back home. Walking out,
we were scrutinized by staff members who were probably instructed
to report anyone appearing intoxicated to the police. They also
reminded us — again — that re-entry was prohibited. That was fine
with me; I didn't want to come back.

Reflecting
on this experience the next day, I thought how much it served as
an example of life in general. Police everywhere, watching our every
move; approved "areas" for particular activities (like
"Free Speech Zones"); the arbitrary limitation of choices
(and the accompanying artificially high prices); fast food; constantly
being shuffled around; mis-information; always having to show identification;
endless visual, verbal, and commercial stimulation; irrational fear
of everyone and what they might be doing; generally being treated
like a small, irresponsible child. It would be foolish to blame
all of this, as many are so tempted, on the excesses of capitalism.
Meadowbrook is controlled and regulated to every last detail by
government. Unsurprisingly, it resembles a public school more than
a bustling marketplace. "I feel like a kid again," I said
to one of the staffers that night. He smiled at me, probably thinking
I'd meant it as a good thing.

August
9, 2007

Scott
McPherson [send him mail]
lives, reads, writes, plays music and home schools his kids in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire.

DIGG THIS

Free
market advocates often refer to the danger of "unintended consequences."
They warn that prohibitions, regulations, and licensing schemes
— for all the alleged good they will do — can have negative side
effects.

It's
impossible to know every possible consequence. A few are
suggested; mostly I try to point out the general foolishness of
government micromanagement.

In
the February 2007 issue of Freedom Daily, published by the
Future of Freedom Foundation, my commentary "Taxicab
Absurdity" addressed my local government's ridiculous policy
of aggressively targeting and harassing unlicensed taxicab operators
within the city limits of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Considerable
energy, resources and manpower are being employed to reassure a
trembling public — apparently in need of constant reassurance —
that this menace will not be tolerated!

Words
like "crackdown" and "sting" were used in a
riveting November 30 story in the Portsmouth Times describing
the threat and the important service being provided by our local
police department in combating it. The news story reported that
the "now defunct" Lighthouse Taxi Company was "busted"
in 2005 for the heinous crime of "picking up a passenger at
a local hotel and taking the person to the airport."

"No
mention of how licensing ordinances such as this one — a protectionist
racket if ever there was one — actually contribute to a company's
becoming u2018defunct'," I wrote in response.

Look
past all the altruistic fanfare that surrounds licensing proposals
and it's not hard to see that limiting competition is often a major
motivator — and limiting supply is always the result. This works
out well for those who can pay all of the fees and jump all of the
bureaucratic hurdles, but the rest of us pay a higher price, usually
in the form of steeper fares and poorer service.

Imagine
my lack of surprise, then, when I saw the following in the July
13 issue of It's Portsmouth, another community paper, in
a story titled "City bars want help policing drinkers":

"More
than 50 city restaurant and bar owners who met with city police
and a State Liquor Commission representative Monday will form a
group to work closely with police to solve problems associated with
intoxicated customers," the paper reports. "The restaurateurs
and bartenders said they try to make sure those who are intoxicated
take taxis. However, they said, there are not enough taxis in Portsmouth
to take people home from the bars at closing time"!

Portsmouth's
central planners harass and run out of business taxi operators who
are just trying to make a living providing a truly valuable service
— and then wonder how an important demand is not being satisfied.
People ought to be responsible, and avoid drinking and driving.
The best way to do that is to take a cab, and the market was providing
plenty of those before City Hall got in the way.

The
next time some boozer looks around in vain for a taxi and then drives
home instead, thank the Portsmouth City Council and Police Department.
By limiting supply, the city government encourages drunk driving
and makes the roads less safe for everyone. The price of taxi service
just went up some more.

July
16, 2007

Scott
McPherson [send him mail]
is a policy advisor at The Future of
Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia.

I
say that as a small "O" objectivist. Like so many others,
I came into the Libertarian Movement largely due to the writings
of Ayn Rand. There were other influences, but Rand provided such
sharp insight into the immorality, psychology, and inevitable results
of statism that nothing, before or since, has had so profound an
impact on my thinking.

Simply
put, my view of metaphysics is grounded in objective reality; my
understanding of how human beings acquire knowledge of reality is
through their rational faculty; ethically, I believe the only sane
and healthy way to behave is via rational self-interest; and finally,
I consider laissez faire capitalism and libertarianism — peaceful
coexistence — as the only sane and healthy political system to live
under.

I
have a framed copy of the poster from Ayn
Rand: A Sense of Life (signed by the director, even) hanging
on my wall. My 165-pound Great Dane's name is Atlas Shrugged.

Basically,
I'm a small "O" objectivist because I endeavor to live
my life guided by Objectivist axioms, principles and premises. But
I do not accept the "official" Objectivist truth served
up by the Ayn Rand Institute and The Objectivist Center and (all-too-willingly)
swallowed by their rank-and-file members — especially on matters
of foreign policy.

Still,
through my objectivist roots and worldview I accept the Objectivist
position that nations have the right, and moral responsibility,
to attack, preemptively even, any other nation that poses a credible
threat to the individual rights of those living under their governance.
Any government that failed to protect the rights of its citizens
from a foreign power would be failing to carry out its most fundamental
duty.

This
is why I don't hate Objectivists who supported the launch of a war
against Iraq. For whatever their failings, they sincerely (I believe)
feared that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was an unstable dictatorship that
was attempting to acquire Weapons of Mass Destruction for possible
use against the United States.

Though
I tended then (as now) to dismiss the neo-con argument that the
"smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud" as cheap war rhetoric,
I understood that the principle of self-defense most assuredly supported
the principle of hitting first and hitting hard. Anyone who has
ever effectively dealt with a school-yard bully can understand the
value in that.

So
I want to emphasize that I don't hate Objectivists for backing the
neo-cons in their rush to invade Iraq — I just think they, like
so much of the rest of the country, were misled into believing that
a threat existed and it turned out to be false; and too, that like
the rest of the country, they've given up expecting such archaic
niceties from our government as a constitutional declaration of
war.

These
failings are serious, to be sure. But they don't make the Objectivists
my enemy; it just makes them wrong.

But
now it's time to come clean. It's not just that no WMD were ever
found; it's not just that thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians
have been needlessly killed; it's not just the 20,000 American casualties,
including 2,500 dead, providing America with its own version of
Northern Ireland; it's not just that the "mobile chemical weapons
labs" were non-existent; it's not just that the attempt to
acquire uranium from Nigeria never happened.

We
now know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Bush Administration,
and its allies in the Intelligence "community," willingly
and knowingly cherry-picked the information that would make their
case for war. We can speculate about their motives, but the evidence
appears almost weekly on my doorstep, courtesy of the Washington
Post.

Iraq
never posed a threat to the United States. Maybe a case could be
made that we didn't know that three years ago. No one, short of
a liar or a madman, can say that is so today.

So
come clean, all you war-cheerleaders at ARI and TOC. If you're dedicated
to reason, rational self-interest, peaceful coexistence, and justice
— as you claim — then admit you were wrong. There's nothing to fear.
Though I'm an atheist, my favorite quote is biblical: Proverbs 23:23,
"Buy the truth, and do not sell it." Give everything you
have to the cause of reality, and then don't part with it — regardless
of the price offered. By knowing and acknowledging the truth you
can better prepare for the future.

And
a future that is free of needless wars, over-bearing government
and an irrational fear of everyone requires learning first that
just because the government uses words and phrases that make you
feel warm and fuzzy ("evil-doers" springs to mind) doesn't
mean it can be trusted, that war is truly the health of the state
(noticed government getting any smaller?), and that rationality
best guarantees peace — not the whimsical, irrational thrashing
about the globe that has defined American foreign policy for over
a century.

My
Objectivist friends, stop fighting so passionately for the great
morals and values of our country under the leadership of a government
that has abandoned both. Admit you were wrong, learn from the mistake,
and help us steer our country back onto its once-noble and proud
course in the world, one defined by "Peace, commerce, and honest
friendship with all nations." Ayn Rand wrote that "justice
is the act of acknowledging that which exists" — and reality
has never been clearer.

June
26, 2006

Scott
McPherson [send him mail]
is a policy advisor at The Future of
Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia.

But when you
scratch below the surface of the typical conservative you find someone
whose principles are about as far from libertarian as the leftist
principles he condemns. As a friend of mine once said, “Conservatives
like to talk about ‘limited government’ – they just
never say what they want it limited to.”

In short,
conservatives are typically cowards who don’t have the courage
of their alleged convictions.

For example,
take the issue of immigration, a hot topic this election year for
Republicans. Unable to stand on principle against big government,
most conservatives have decided instead to pick on an easy target,
one guaranteed to rally their base: immigrants.

When you explain
the moral issue at stake, i.e., the right to immigrate and our country’s
history of open borders, the typical conservative avoids taking
a stand by attempting to muddle the issue. “You’re right,”
he’ll say, “but what about the welfare state? As long
as immigrants can come here and live off welfare we can’t have
open borders.”

For the libertarian,
this isn’t an issue at all. Abolishing the welfare state is
a number-one priority for principled libertarians. If there is in
fact a problem with immigrants’ using too much welfare (though
the conservative is silent on the issue of native-born folks’
using welfare, but we’ll get to that shortly) then that problem
can be easily fixed: turn off the spigot of taxpayer funds and those
who wish to loaf rather than work will stop coming here. Period.

This is particularly
interesting because, when it suits them, conservatives are big anti-welfare-state
types. The Republican Revolution of 1994 was characterized by rhetoric
in favor of reversing the nation’s welfarist trend, and Republicans
condescendingly sneered at liberals for their support of the welfare
state, thinking themselves so far above the redistribution of wealth.

But having
in (short) time retreated from that issue with complete indignity
(George W. Bush is the biggest social spender since Lyndon Johnson),
conservatives instead prefer to use it as an excuse to promote some
“big-government” programs of their own – and keep
voters on their side – and kick around the people they like
the least: immigrants.

Last fall
I had the pleasure of participating in an informal debate with a
representative of the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative
think-tank based in Washington, D.C. Every argument he made hinged
on immigrants’ ability to abuse the welfare state.

When I pressed
him long enough on the immorality of the welfare state itself –
regardless of who was using it – he threw his hands up in despair
and addressed the audience at large: “Who here thinks we’ll
ever get rid of the welfare state?”

So the jig
was up: Conservatives aren’t prepared to take on the unpopular
issue of abolishing the welfare state, so immigrants have to take
a bashing. That’s unprincipled and cowardly.

Conservatives
and the drug war

Another popular
issue for conservatives is the drug war. Despite their small-government
rhetoric anyone with a lick of sense can see the billions of dollars
expended, the militarization of law-enforcement agencies, and the
plethora of anti-drug laws enacted largely at the behest of conservative
thinkers, as the Republicans’ Achilles’ heel. For all
their talk about freedom and limited government, they like a big
government around to pick on those drug-users – who are probably
just liberals anyway, well except maybe for Rush Limbaugh.

So we return
to our earlier argument: The drug war is an immoral use of government
power to try to make peaceful and otherwise law-abiding people behave
in a way that the politicians can approve of.

“You’re
right,” the conservative will say, “but what about the
welfare state? If drugs are legal then drug-users will destroy themselves
and their families and taxpayers will end up footing the bill.”
(As if alcohol, which conservatives consume with a clear conscience,
weren’t responsible for a disproportionate amount of pain and
misery!)

“Wait
a minute!” the libertarian says. “I thought you conservatives
were for abolishing the welfare state. If we get rid of welfare
then drug users can’t make their bad decisions a burden on
society.”

“That’s
true,” the conservative says, “but it’s politically
unpopular to talk about getting rid of the welfare state.”

The truth
is, keeping the welfare state around a while longer makes it easy
for conservatives to avoid tackling difficult issues and standing
up for unpopular causes, all the while kicking around people they
don’t like. Meanwhile, another group of peaceful people take
a bashing because conservatives are unprincipled and cowardly.

Conservatives
and public schooling

A third example
is public “education.” Conservatives know that public
schools are a tragic and moral failure. They see the unthinking
products of this institution and react with horror. “See,”
they say, “government isn’t the solution – government
is the problem!” (Conservatives love to quote Ronald Reagan.)

What is their
solution? Vouchers.

That’s
right. When they see generation after generation of America’s
young marched off to the equivalent of the government indoctrination
camps found in Cuba or the former Soviet Union, Republicans are
so incensed that they demand that parents … have a choice of which
camp their child will go to!

Worse, the
few private camps (I say private schools still qualify as government-controlled
camps because they must, by law, conform to government “standards”)
that exist will become virtually indistinguishable from government
camps once subsidized attendance becomes widespread enough. (See
Wickard v. Filburn, 1943: “It is hardly lack of due process
for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizes.”)

Conservative
commentators rail continually against the failure of public education,
yet when the libertarian asks, “Why don’t we abolish all
publicly funded educational institutions?” the conservative
answers, “We would, but those evil Democrats would have a field
day denouncing us.”

Translation:
“We don’t have the courage to stand by our alleged convictions.”

Principle or
expediency?

And finally,
allow me to quote at length from a recent email sent out by the
conservative Leadership Institute based in Arlington, Virginia:

Whether we conservatives like it or not, Civil Service employees
have a lot of power. And they have good paying jobs and phenomenal
job security. Yet most conservatives never consider seeking a U.S.
Civil Service job. They should. Would you or someone you know consider
a job in the Civil Service? If so the Leadership Institute can help.
The Leadership Institute’s Civil Service Opportunity School
teaches conservatives how to get a job and succeed in the Civil
Service. That is why I invite you to attend the Leadership Institute’s
Civil Service Opportunity School on May 15–17 starting 06:00 P.M.
Whether you are a newcomer to Washington, D.C., or you are looking
for a career change, this intensive seminar can give you the tools
you need to begin your career in the Civil Service…. No longer should
conservatives allow liberals to monopolize the bureaucracy. Learn
from top Washington insiders how to break into the liberal-dominated
Civil Service.

Conservatives
may as well run up the white flag and issue a press release: “If
you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!”

This is the
truth of the matter: Conservatives talk a good game about the need
to rein in government spending, abolish particular programs, and
downsize the number of bureaucrats, but at the end of the day they
truly believe that a big government would probably work just fine
if only they were in charge.

No doubt it
would be an uphill battle for conservatives to change their big-government
ways and embrace the libertarian vision of a free society. We libertarians
know quite well how difficult it is to make the case for free markets,
private property, and limited government.

Yet a principled
approach to life requires doing the right thing, even when it’s
not popular. Whether they’re too cowardly to stand by their
principles or they don’t actually hold such views in the first
place is irrelevant. When a Republican tells you he just votes for
the “lesser of two evils,” don’t believe him –
he doesn’t see his side as evil at all.

June
5, 2006

Scott
McPherson [send him mail]
is a policy advisor at The Future of
Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia.

When the ADA was passed over a decade ago it was
lauded as a milestone in civil rights legislation. Advocates for
the handicapped claimed that disabled persons would finally take
their rightful place next to blacks, women, and other historically
"oppressed" groups in terms of getting special, oops,
"proper" treatment under the law. As the law was written,
employers would no longer be allowed to discriminate "against
qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures,
hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, job training, and other
terms, conditions and privileges of employment."1
In order to avoid litigation for "discriminatory" hiring
practices, companies not only must have handicapped persons on their
payroll, but they must also oblige those employees in every manner
possible.

However, the law allows for an arbitrary exemption
to its anti-discrimination objective: companies with fewer than
16 workers fall outside the law's reach, and Clackamas Gastroenterology
Associates claims to have just 15 people on its staff. Of course,
if the goal of the law is to end discrimination, then the number
of employees should be irrelevant. Never mind. In an era of ever-increasing
assaults on private property rights, advocates of limited government
sometimes have to take what they can get when it comes to winning
a victory for freedom in the federal courts. Let us wish the folks
at Clackamas our best.

Ideally, a private business wouldn't have to rely
on a legal loophole to exercise its basic right to manage its own
affairs, to hire or fire whomever it wants and for whatever reason
it chooses. Nor should a company be compelled to make alterations
to its private property for the sake of a handicapped employee.
Contemporary views on the subject notwithstanding, no one owns his
position at work – people have jobs solely at their employer's
convenience. Opponents of this position will agree that, yes, private
property such as personal residences should not be subject to ADA-style
micro-management, but that the workplace is a different matter –
regardless of the fact that it is still private property. This approach
is nothing more than a legal fiction – a rationalization, not
a competent rebuttal of sound property rights theory.

This isn't to suggest that discrimination in hiring
is a good thing. It is an illogical and spiteful way for a business
to behave. What anti-discrimination activists fail to realize, though,
is that it can often be as harmful to the perpetrator as it is to
the victim. To disqualify someone for a job solely because
of some physical characteristic means eliminating an entire block
of potential applicants. An employer who wants to hire from only
certain groups of people will run the risk of disqualifying highly
qualified people in the process. The person discriminated against
misses out on a job opportunity, true, but the employer's entire
business is at risk when he prefers fully mobile morons over wheelchair-bound
braniacs.

Nevertheless, "civil rights" advocates
will claim that the "economic power" of employers is so
great that they can evade the consequences of discriminatory behavior
and "cheat the market". For example, if every company
agreed to keep blacks out of the workforce, then no one would notice
when the skills of individual blacks were taken off the market because
they wouldn't be snapped up and put to use by a competitor. This
same flawed thinking is used to justify laws against price-fixing.
The trouble is, some member of the conspiracy can always be counted
on to secretly break the covenant and profit at his fellow-conspirators'
expense, until his compatriots find out and the entire scheme breaks
down. Thus, an environment of free market competition would tend
to undermine discriminatory practices.

The ADA itself could actually encourage discrimination
against people with disabilities. As indicated above, it isn't in
the interests of a businessman to discriminate – all things
being equal. Yet the ADA imposes costs on an employer that he cannot
recoup. With all other applicants, the boss must calculate the general
price of labor (including regulations and benefits). But when someone
who is "disabled" comes looking for a job, the employer
will have to factor in the massive expense of making his workplace
disability-friendly. To say the least, this adds tremendously to
the cost of hiring someone who is "protected," providing
a huge incentive for businesses to be prejudiced.

Something else to consider is that when a business
is forced to comply with ADA judgements requiring the installation
of wheelchair ramps, handicapped bathrooms, or elevators, the costs
of compliance for those businesses operating at the margin could
well mean the difference between staying afloat or going under.
If a company has to close its doors, then no amount of accommodation
will help someone like Deborah Anne Wells – she won't have
an employer left to sue. That is what's "seen". The "unseen"
consequences are the untold number of businesses that never materialize
for fear of government-mandated costs and obligations.

In light of the foregoing, doesn't it make more
sense for handicapped people to suffer the slight indignity of having
to ask a fellow employee or family member to help them up and down
the steps each day, rather than invite the inevitable problems and
frictions that accompany all such government edicts, and drive a
wedge between workers, co-workers, and employers?

In a laissez faire market disabled people could
pit their skills against every other applicant without any need
for special status and little fear of causeless discrimination.
It is unfortunate that irrational biases exist, but they are also
rare, and they are only exacerbated when the government attempts
to rectify what is ultimately a question of ethics by imposing its
own moral preference by force. With no outside forces interfering
in the terms of employment, workers and employers would easily negotiate
all of the conditions that were mutually beneficial towards satisfying
their respective needs.

December
11, 2002

Scott
McPherson [send him mail]
is a policy advisor at The Future of
Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia.

~
Frederic Bastiat, The
Law (1850)

In
July 1997, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) declared a unequivocal
cease-fire as a precondition to being represented in multi-party
negotiations on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland. After
months of delay, Sinn Fein, the so-called "political wing"
of the IRA, joined talks in Belfast's Stormont Castle. The resulting
Good Friday Agreement created a new executive and general assembly
to govern the battered province as a devolved jurisdiction of the
United Kingdom, with guaranteed seats on the executive cabinet in
deference to the Catholic nationalist parties. Peaceful co-existence
between the pro-Irish Catholic minority and the pro-British Protestant
majority in Ulster was finally a possibility.

Unfortunately,
it might just be the old-fashioned British love affair with gun
control that brings it all to an end.

Though
the IRA's cease-fire is still being observed and the four-party
executive is governing with relative success, the problem is disarmament.
Since the new government was formed both First Minister David Trimble
and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have been pressuring the IRA
to disarm in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement. The IRA
has balked time and again on this issue, showing great resistance
to turning over its weaponry. Now, Mr. Trimble has threatened to
dissolve the government and return Northern Ireland to direct British
control if decommissioning has not begun by January 18, 2003. Such
a move could well mean a collapse of the Agreement and a return
to the internecine warfare of the past.

Many
Irish republicans are understandably hesitant to part with their
guns. The social unrest produced by Northern Ireland's civil rights
struggle saw hundreds of Catholics driven from their homes in the
late 1960s, causing what at that time was the largest mass emigration
since World War II. The crisis grew to such ferocity that the Irish
Army was mobilized to set up field hospitals and refugee centers
south of the border; there was talk (though everyone knew it was
just talk) of an invasion of the north to protect Catholics from
a virtual genocide. In these early days of "The Troubles"
it was the IRA that defended homes and communities against violent
Protestant gangs and rampaging policemen. Eventually the British
Army was called in to halt the violence, but in the absence of protection
it was lone "Volunteers" standing in churchyards and on
street corners that stopped advancing rioters bent on burning down
houses and murdering Catholics – and they stopped them with
guns.

After
days-long riots and attacks against their neighborhoods in 1968
and 1969, the IRA established "Free Derry" in Londonderry,
Northern Ireland's second largest city, and other such "no-go
zones" in Belfast. These areas would remain "free"
of mobs, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (the provincial police force),
and even the British Army1 until the
summer of 1972, when the military occupied the Catholic districts
by force with tanks, helicopters, and massive numbers of troops.
Until that time, men with guns manned checkpoints and watched
over these harried communities.

The
IRA has been responsible for gruesome and unforgivable attacks in
Britain and Ireland; it is practically a model for underground armies
around the globe. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that
the IRA, after essentially disappearing as a political and military
force around 1960, re-emerged in 1969 as a defender of the Catholic
population, not as an offensive military organization. Its members
were welcomed as heroes in the neighborhoods they protected.

The
existence of armed, private groups is hardly unique to Northern
Ireland. They also play a major role in the cultural development
of our own country. In the early days of the American Revolution
private militias formed in defiance of the English Crown to deter
the British Army from encroaching on the rights of colonists. Obviously,
they too took this duty quite seriously. In April 1775, militiamen
in Concord, Massachusetts, fired on a British regiment that had
been sent into the countryside to confiscate suspected stores of
weapons and other military supplies (the people of Boston had already
been disarmed). Routing the soldiers all the way back to Boston,
a private army of approximately ten thousand men besieged the city.
This was the "shot heard ’round the world."

The
first American statesmen were so enamored by the value of an armed
citizenry that Amendment II of the newly-ratified Bill of Rights
enshrined forever the notion of private self-defense. Tench Coxe,
a friend of James Madison, wrote that "every…terrible implement
of the soldier [is] the birth-right of an American… [T]he unlimited
power of the sword is…in the hands of the people."

In
later years American blacks would avail themselves of the right
to keep and bear arms in response to racially motivated attacks
by a discontented white majority. In the early nineteenth century
there existed between the two groups considerable tension over economic
competition, which often exploded into outright hostilities. At
least seventeen dwellings occupied by blacks were destroyed over
a period of four days during the Providence Snowtown Riot of 1831.
In July 1834 mobs attacked churches, homes and businesses of white
abolitionists and blacks in New York, and a Boston mob of several
hundred attacked and beat every black person in reach in August
of 1843. These are just a few examples of the violence some northern
black neighborhoods were repeatedly forced to endure at the hands
of angry white mobs.

The
state's failure to adequately provide for the defense and security
of black neighborhoods inspired some free blacks to arm themselves
and form private militias. In Providence, Rhode Island, the African
Greys were formed in 1821, and an attempt was made by black Bostonians
to introduce a private militia company in the 1850s. Though not
an organized militia group, blacks in a Pittsburgh community nonetheless
acted as part of a larger interracial peacekeeping force to stop
a riot. Fearing mob violence, a black militia guarded around 100
black inmates for two or three nights in Memphis, Tennessee, in
1891, and only after the armed blacks felt the danger had
passed and left the area did the mob come and lynch three prisoners.

During
our own volatile civil rights era it was the Black Panther Party
that rallied around the Second Amendment and revived a spirit of
resistance in northern black communities, encouraging defensive
action against police abuse. In the South, black militias and ad-hoc
associations (National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's father
belonged to one of them) sprang up to protect members of the NAACP
and CORE, as well as their own neighborhoods, from state and private
violence in the 1960s.

In
light of society's indifference to and participation in the persecution
of blacks, it is clear that black people were more than willing
to defend themselves – and they did it with guns.

History
is replete with examples of peoples' defenselessness without personal
protection. Time and again the presence of firearms has served to
keep "the weak" from becoming "a prey to the strong"
and, if necessary, force has been met with defensive force.

Irish
nationalists, too, are a part of that history, and a new constitutional
government sitting at Stormont Castle outside of Belfast does not
assure an end to the bloodshed that has so stained Northern Ireland's
eighty years of existence. Far too many Catholics in Ulster have
seen the result of relying for their safety on a majority that hates
them. The pogroms of the 1960s and the later brutality of the British
Army is still fresh in their minds. Thus the old Belfast slogan,
"God made the Catholics, the Armalite made them equal."

Still,
the IRA and other armed groups did receive fair representation in
negotiations and should be expected to seek all future political
change through peaceful means. Demanding that antagonists conduct
themselves in a non-violent manner when differences arise is the
backbone of any civilized society. Northern Ireland's highly-democratic
electoral process, including proportional representation in the
Assembly for all parties, provides adequate means to settle political
disagreements in congress and not looking down the barrel of a gun.

This
is, however, an altogether separate matter from demanding that the
minority of British-controlled Ireland (or anyone else) succumb
to the anti-gun zealotry that has infected England, Scotland, and
Wales. If the IRA or other paramilitary organizations in Northern
Ireland refuse to surrender their arms while maintaining a firm
commitment to the democratic institutions they've agreed to respect,
then they have perpetrated no wrongdoing. It is possible to act
peacefully without offering oneself up for potential sacrifice.
While we condemn the use of terrorism as a political instrument,
Americans should not endorse the disarming of Northern Ireland's
minority population; nor should the people there feel morally bound
to surrender their best means of defense.

The
"People" described in America's founding documents, from
the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution, Federalist
Papers, and Bill of Rights, were the people of the world. The rights
espoused were the Rights of Man. Ironically, it was the great English
jurist William Blackstone who spoke of the "right of the subjects…of
having arms for their defense" as "the natural right of
resistance and self-preservation." As long as the IRA cease-fire
holds, the British government should stop trying to export its gun
control agenda across the Irish Sea. For our part, Americans should
wish to see no one impotent in the face of possible aggression –
it is totally contrary to our heritage. Let us support the right
to keep and bear arms in Northern Ireland.

1On
Sunday, January 30, 1972, soldiers of an elite British paratrooper
regiment went berserk on the streets of Londonderry, firing on a
crowd of civil rights demonstrators. After a twenty minute shooting
spree, thirteen people lay dead and eighteen were wounded (one of
the wounded would later die). The event came to be known as “Bloody
Sunday.”

October
11, 2002

Scott
McPherson [send him mail]
is a freelance writer in Fairfax, Virginia. He is married to a British
citizen and resided in Bristol, England, for two years. During his
stay in the United Kingdom the IRA ended its then-unprecedented
18-month cease-fire in February 1996 with a massive truck bomb in
London, followed just four months later by a similar bombing of
Manchester. His travels have taken him through Northern Ireland
on just one occasion, during the brief Easter Cease-fire of 1994.