But if you’re looking for something on libertarian history by a non-libertarian who tries to be fair, but is also relatively critical and who comes from outside of the libertarian echo chamber—it may be worth your time.

The author of this new book, wrote an article this week for The Hill entitled, “The Libertarian Party is Collapsing. Here’s Why.” The short answer he gives, near as I can tell, is “racism”.

In it, he credits Gary Johnson’s 2016 run as the Libertarian Party’s “greatest triumph”, so one would assume that he is referring to a collapse post-Johnson. Although he resists naming names rather than defining crowds, there are only so many new developments to point to during that time. He relies heavily on reporting from places like The Southern Poverty Law Center and The Nation for the generalizations—both of which have been highly critical of the Mises Caucus wing of the party specifically, which is mentioned in the article.

His attacks on libertarianism run from those that seem absurd at first glance (he sees big government response to COVID as a case for big government rather than for libertarianism), to those that are pedestrian (he claims government is necessary to address large challenges like climate change and healthcare), to more interesting fare (comparing arguments common of modern libertarians to great libertarian thinkers of the past).

There’s obviously plenty to disagree with from a libertarian point of view, but to a certain extent politics is just the art of disagreement, best played by engaging with competing ideas. The day his Hill article was published, I talked to him about all this, and let him make his case.

TLR: This is Gary Doan of The Libertarian Republic and I’m talking to Andrew Koppelman. He’s a professor of law and political science at the prestigious Northwestern University, who’s often focused on the intersection of those two disciplines. He hails from University of Chicago and Yale law school, was a fellow at Harvard and Princeton, and to be honest, he has too many educational bonafides to be wasting his time talking to The Libertarian Republic. I’m happy he is all the same. His new book is entitled “Burning Down The House: How The Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted By Delusion And Greed”. Andrew, thanks for talking with me.

AK: Thanks for having me.

TLR: You recently wrote an article in The Hill entitled, “The Libertarian Party Is Collapsing. Here’s Why”, which was critical of the most modern iteration of the Libertarian Party, especially the Mises Caucus wing, which recently took control during the Reno reset. It’s full of charges of racism, selfishness, and greed festering in that institution as well as implications of external manipulation by the alt-right. Seems to have upset the usual suspects. Before getting into the details, what’s a summary of the “why” that’s the general gist of it? And did you reach out to any of the members of the LNC or Mises Caucus leadership before publishing for comment, and if so what was their response to it?

AK: Just relied on publicly available sources that had been pretty thoroughly reported by others. I do political philosophy. I was trying to think about the very narrow question of what are racists doing in the Libertarian Party to begin with, because there’s something puzzling about this. Libertarianism is foundationally concerned with the liberty of everybody. Equality seems to be baked into libertarianism. And so there’s just something very weird about these folks being here at all. It’s like having vegetarians in a butcher shop.

And so you’ve got to have some explanation for what are they doing here. And that’s something that I thought that I could contribute something to, and something that I really hadn’t talked about at all in my book, because while my book is critical of libertarianism and talks about the most prominent libertarian thinkers, none of them are racists. There’s not a single major libertarian theorist, who, as part of their basic philosophy, appeals to racism in any way. And most of them explicitly and vehemently repudiate it. So it’s just puzzling. What are these people doing here?

And my explanation is that there is a certain emotional appeal, first of all, to opposing civil rights laws. Barry Goldwater was not a racist. But once he voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that became an attraction of libertarian ideology for many people who were much less admirable than Goldwater himself. As a general matter, the fantasy of separating yourself out from a population you don’t like, is part of the appeal of this ideology. I am not saying that libertarianism itself is racist. I try to make very clear that that’s not what I’m saying. And I quote Ayn Rand’s repudiation of racism, but there’s something going on here that demands explanation.

TLR: Let me hold on to that racism thing for a little bit there. You’ve described the party as being quote, torn apart by an alt-right insurgency with racist tendencies and that was where you seem to first go to with this. I guess you could call it an extension to your book, hitting libertarianism from another end—or at least some modern libertarianism or a faction of it. When you say ‘alt-right insurgency with racist tendencies’, are you referring to the Mises Caucus specifically? Assuming you are, are you referring to the entire caucus, some of their ranks, or their leader–

AK: There are elements that are concentrated within the caucus. But once again, I have not done original reporting. I’m relying on secondary sources that are already out there and not- you know, reporters who are, I thought, quite reliable. But this is my claim. If you want to interrogate that claim, you need to go to the sources that I was relying on.

TLR: Some more reliable than the others. You know, some of it’s just like, Southern Poverty Law Center, stuff like that, but I’m sure there’s more reputable ones as well, because… I actually don’t disagree that there is a problem to be addressed that you’re alluding to, but–

AK: So the libertarians I’ve talked to- this seems to be common knowledge in the libertarian community. And the tendency has been there ever since the Ron Paul newsletters and some of the stuff that Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard wrote. So, I mean, this is our long-standing problem. It’s not something that I was not aware that there was any controversy about the fact that there were such elements.

TLR: Yeah, I mean, part of it, you alluded to with pointing to loaded words like “moocher” from Rand’s writing and so forth that can be taken… Obviously, Lew Rockwell and the Paul newsletters, you know, at most charitable are tone deaf to their whistles. I’m gonna return to the racism critique in just a second, here.

But when I think of the Libertarian Party’s greatest triumphs, I think of things like shifting the conversation in ways that led to ending the draft, lessening the extant prohibition through state-led legalization and decrim efforts, reminding conservatives of their anti-war history, and a respect at least in the rhetoric for free markets and making their promotion acceptable to the right, presenting progressives with concrete proposals in the realm of criminal justice reform, and leading the way early on ending modern forms of discriminatory practices, like bans on gay marriage, offering serious proposals on entitlement reform and foreign policy realism—all through shift in the narrative. They’ve contributed to all this despite remaining on the fringe, both in the direct electoral numbers since it’s pretty low, and while being handicapped by a decent amount of in-house crazies. But they’ve–

AK: All that seems to me to be fair. I’m not sure how much of it is the party and how much of it is a more general shift in the culture. But one of the things that I try to make clear about in my book is that libertarians were right about quite a lot of things. But there is- I have a lot of admiration for Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, and Richard Epstein. And I think that even the more romantic varieties like Rothbard or Rand have some real attractions to what they have to offer. It really is the case that I don’t even need to go through examples because you just gave a lot of them.

The reason why I wrote the book is because there are books out there about libertarianism, which are sort of introductions, to the general reader. And they’re written by very smart people. David Boaz wrote a good book. Jason Brennan has a good book. But they’re not critical. They don’t try to sort out, alright, where did this come from? And what are the different forms? And how does it hold up as a political philosophy? Because that’s what libertarianism is—at its core, it is a political philosophy. It needs to be examined with the tools of political philosophy, which is what I have to offer. I’m a professor.

TLR: In your book. I mean, the title “Burning Down the House”. So you’ve described libertarianism as a philosophy that advocates of state power be absolutely minimized. When I’ve heard you talk about your book- I’m actually a huge fan of the history podcast that you were recently on, even though I know the hosts aren’t all that libertarian. But when I’ve heard you talk about your book, you began with a story about a partially privatized fire department, which looked on, let a house be burned down for non payment of fire insurance.

AK: And, right, the guy had, you know, he was getting old, he forgot to make his payment. The consequence was, the fire department came to his house and watched as it burned down. And the reason why it’s particularly interesting is that there was a debate in the public press about whether this was appropriate behavior on the part of the fire department. And it was happening in the middle of the debate about Obamacare. And so everybody understood that this was really a debate about Obamacare. The question was, should everybody be responsible for dealing for their own misfortunes? Or is it legitimate to have communal institutions to protect people? When unexpected bad things happen? Such as a fire?

TLR: Yeah. However, libertarian runs this spectrum, from anarchism to various degrees of minarchism. I know plenty of libertarians who are moderate (by libertarian standards, of course), including myself who aren’t calling to privatize the police or fire departments who aren’t all regular–

AK: Yeah, the question the book is trying to answer is how did we go from Hayek’s moderate attack on socialism, which was absolutely right, and I think really has carried the day. I don’t think there is anything in the Road to Serfdom that would be rejected by Joseph Biden, or Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders, or even Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. They all think that we want to have a free market economy. The question is how large a welfare state is appropriate. But none of them want to nationalize the means of production. And yet, the idea of letting a house burn down would have seemed really weird to Hayek.

And so another puzzle is, how did we get from there to what happened in Tennessee? And I think it’s because of the advent of more extreme ideas, such as the ideas of Murray Rothbard, which are increasingly influential. And so then we have to look at the ideas and ask well, so what do we think of Rothbardian ideas? Are they or are they not an improvement on Hayek? Because Rothbard understood that he had deep disagreements with Hayek, and that there was just a fundamentally different philosophy being offered.

TLR: You said that a libertarian focus on individual rights seems flatly inconsistent with racism. Do you believe that combating something as irrational and repugnant as racism is best achieved through a focus on individual rights or a focus on group rights and why?

AK: Well, I’m, myself, not much interested in group rights. Since group rights have not turned up in libertarian thought, which I focused on, except in something that was too esoteric to even get into in the column. There are people like Hans Hermann Hoppe who argued that we should look at national borders as a sort of property right. And illegal aliens as a kind of trespasser. There is a strange notion of property here that has some very odd entailments. So, Hoppe is the only libertarian I can think of that comes anywhere near to thinking about group rights.

But I’m an individualistic liberal. I think that groups are interesting only to the extent that there are people who suffer injustices as a member of a group, and that you can notice these group patterns and try to fight them. And there are questions about reparations and what you do about those, which is just a whole different set of questions. Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State and Utopia, cites a speaker’s book making a case for black reparations, with approval, saying, ‘Well, you know, maybe that’s possible’. But it’s a whole different set of questions than fundamental questions about what does a just society look like? Remedying past wrongs raises a distinctive set of problems which I haven’t gotten into at all in this book.

TLR: You just described yourself as a liberal. What do you believe is the difference between libertarianism and classical liberalism, if any?

AK: Well, the liberalism, as I identify with, does not have the kind of suspicion of the state of classical liberals like Richard Epstein and Milton Friedman. So you know, with what you’re trying to bring about, I want to bring about a world in which people are free to decide for themselves what their lives are going to be. And the fundamental difference between me and the libertarians is that they purport to want that too, but a minimal state will not deliver you that. A minimal state will deliver you conditions in which lots of people find their hopes thwarted at every turn.

One example that I think presents a real problem for a Rothbardian. And I end the book with an argument among old Rothbards about this is how do you deal with large misfortune that violates nobody’s rights, such as the outbreak of deadly disease. Such as COVID. And the way in which we managed to get COVID sufficiently under control that we could go back to our lives was through massive government taxation and spending. The government gave enormous amounts of money to pharmaceutical companies that would not have undertaken the vaccine research on their own because it was too risky. And as a result, we got a vaccine. And as a result, the death rate is far lower than it would have been if we had had an absolutely minimal state, or for a Rothbardian, no state at all. And so that suggests to me that if you want people to be free to conduct their lives as they like, a minimal state is not the way to deliver that.

TLR: Some of the people you seem to have chosen from that book, nobody can really disagree contributed a lot to libertarian thought. I mean, especially the Hayek, Rothbard, the Friedmans, and so forth. Hoppe I’m a little uncomfortable with, but makes sense. But one of the ones who you included was Ayn Rand, who was famously contemptuous of libertarianism. She called us a monstrous, disgusting group of people. She called us amoral plagiarists lower than Marxists.

AK: She was a very difficult person. (laughter) But, libertarians understand that she is enormously influential in the way that libertarians think. Someone once wrote a book about libertarianism, with the title, ‘It Usually Starts With Ayn Rand’. And that’s accurate. And she offered herself as a philosopher with strong affinities with libertarianism. She was extremely friendly for a while with Rothbard. Although, as with everybody else in her life, she eventually drove them away. And so I try to take her seriously as a writer and thinker. But, you know, as the person who was traumatized by living through the Russian Revolution, which involved massive corruption, incompetence, mass murder, and I think all her life, she was traumatized by that. But I try not to get into the biographical details, and I really tried to take her seriously as a thinker, because lots of libertarians take her seriously as a thinker. And so I try to look at her as a philosopher and ask – alright, so how good a philosopher is she? And the answer is not very good. But I think that you’re only entitled to say that if you take her seriously, seriously, look at her arguments.

TLR: There is a lot of overlap with objectivism, even past positions with a certain strain of respect for the kind of more individualistic anti-collectivism thrust of her work compared to what I see libertarian as, myself. Do you believe American libertarianism is right wing, left wing, neither, or something that draws for both?

AK: Well, it’s hard to classify because I mean, the the American right and the American left, both are clusters of the views in a two party system. People are going to have to form coalitions if they want to get anything done. And so each party clusters together all of us that don’t necessarily have anything intrinsically to do with one another? If you are in favor of tax cuts in American politics, you are probably against abortion. But those two really haven’t got anything to do with one another. So I just try to take libertarianism seriously as just the proposition that we’ll be freer if we reduce the state to little or nothing. And that’s a distinctive proposition. And I think it can be taken on its own terms without trying to locate it in a larger political currents.

TLR: One of the things you point out with the racism thing was that one of the changes to the LP platform that the Mises Caucus first made was to replace the words ‘we condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant’. And it’s presented as evidence of racism—as a reason for party defections of longtime members have been pretty strong since then. However, it was replaced with the words ‘we uphold and defend the rights of every person, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or any other aspect of their identity’. What in your view is a major difference between the two statements from an actual public policy standpoint that makes them significantly enough different to focus on?

AK: I think it was generally understood that the deletion was more important than the addition. And it is, in fact, the reason why there were these mass defections from the party—which, if I’m right, was one of the things that was hoped would occur.

TLR: I mean, I can argue that there’s been some success if that’s an actual strategy rather than outcome. You infer also in your article that the Republican Party donors have been promoting the LPMC as a strategy specifically to destroy the party, which has been draining away Republican votes. You point out that had Trump gotten 100% of the LP vote in 2020, he would have won. However, exit polling has been pretty consistent among presidential elections showing roughly a third of LP voters without the libertarian option would have voted Democrat, a third wouldn’t have voted at all. It tends to be a third, a third, a third in most elections, more or less. How do you square the fear you think the GOP has of the LP with those numbers showing that it takes pretty evenly from both major parties?

AK: I simply note and again, here I’m relying on much more experienced reporters than me, people like The Nation who said, these are the people who have historically been associated with Trump and are financing the effort. They seem to be under the impression that they’re hoping to accomplish by doing that.

TLR: You claim part of the appeal of libertarianism to some Americans is racism. However, libertarians have led the way on plenty of issues that have had disproportionate effects on communities of color. They’ve opposed the drug war, they’ve opposed qualified immunity and the militarization of police and as acting as agents of the state against peaceful people. They’ve opposed zoning policies that segregated cities, and occupational licensing restrictions, and supported school choice, which they believe improves access to quality education for those trapped in low income government schools separated by zip code. They supported increased immigration and oppose Trump’s wall. They’ve described the military industrial complex as rich people sending the poor off to die fighting in countries already at a socioeconomic disadvantage themselves. Are there any issues other than reducing some social welfare programs or adding in work requirements or thinking some portions of the Civil Rights Act in the 60s were antithetical to the freedom of association… in libertarian thought than in the various iterations of the Republican or Democratic parties?

AK: Again, I’m not attacking libertarian thought, which, as I say in the book, you know, I barely talk about racism because it is not a significant part of libertarian thought. But with respect to those issues, like opposing civil rights laws, opposing welfare—or some people, that’s really all they care about. And all of the other aspects of the libertarian platform, which really would benefit African Americans, they don’t care about those one way or the other. By that, I mean, no question, getting rid of occupational licensing with respect to many professions like hairdressing, braiding where it’s just silly to have licensing? That would benefit African Americans, no question about it. But the folks I’m talking about don’t care about that one way or the other.

TLR: One of the things that separates libertarians from libertines is they’re focused on concepts like responsibility and self reliance, right? However, I think most libertarians would agree that reducing the government as radically as they’d like would require communities, societies, voluntary organizations to replace that government intervention—that excessive government interventions have stunted those types of institutions, right? I mean, some libertarians may be overly optimistic about human nature being strong enough to drive charity and mutual aid that’s adequate enough to take over those government functions. But doesn’t this expectation they have of community over central control sort of speak against libertarianism being exclusively individualistic or selfish pursuit?

I think you used the word autarky. But an expectation that communities and societies are stronger and more resilient than governments, if left to thrive, doesn’t seem to be something at peace with the kind of view of libertarianism as solitary, lonely, uncaring. So I guess my final question is, if you could make your pitch, that placing stuff like communities and social organizations and families above or at least separate from government realms—is that something that is delusional or greedy or attracts people who are delusional or greedy?

AK: Well, the place where I think that the alignment of delusion, greed is most clear, is in the area of regulation. And the book concludes by talking about the climate catastrophe that is occurring, that has been abetted by petroleum industry led by Charles Koch, who’s the most important libertarian in the United States today. In which, simultaneously, rests on a philosophy that really doesn’t do a very good job of thinking about pollution, and industries that will benefit financially by the absence of regulation—and who aren’t particularly principled at all. And they work in tandem together. So that’s the alignment of delusion and greed.

But with respect to the capacity of communities to step up and help one another, and you know, quite a lot of libertarians do hope that if you were able to reduce the footprint of the national government that people would step up. I think that it is a bigger ask than you’ve ever given to voluntary associations. Well, first of all, it’s not clear how voluntary associations could possibly deal with pollution. It’s very hard- I mean, how do you sue somebody in tort for warming up the planet? It is not something that can be done with anything but regulation.

And then some of the redistribution involved health care for poor people who get really bad diseases is far more expensive than the charity care that existed in the early 20th century. Some illnesses cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat, and either there is communal insurance for it, or the private charity system will be overwhelmed. This is matter of prediction, and different people have different predictions. Richard Epstein is very smart guy and he thinks that private charity would step up and do it. I just don’t believe it.

TLR: I was going to have that be my last question. But now that you say that, I did want to touch on one thing with the climate concerns. Near as I can tell, at least in 2022—it seems like most people from the side of Republicans, Democrats and libertarians, although they might not agree with the degree, I think most people are generally on board with believing climate change is real, impactful and impacted by human activity. I think that’s pretty well understood by most serious people on all three sides.

And the way I see it, all three sides are are giving some kind of solutions about it, right? Like the libertarians would say, ‘Oh, well, one of the problems with carbon emissions is the federal government’s failure to timely give out anything for new nuclear permitting for fear of the science of nuclear power. Or they might say, Well, what about carbon credits that can be bought and sold on the open market as a way to have market input and trading done on pollution to impose external costs that exist, which, there might be some problems with how you quantify that or whatever. But it’s been one idea that’s been put forth. And one of the things you mentioned was property rights claims, which might be easy to do if you’re actively polluting a river that then goes downstream somewhere, but it’s harder to do if you’re releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

And then you have, you know, the left, which is- just throw money at a whole bunch of different alternate fuel sources, which may or may not turn out to be efficient ones. Shutting down drilling before we’re ready. Until gas prices started getting higher. They did sometimes talk about making gas more expensive to incentivize that. But they didn’t seem to like, hold to that when it actually came because it was unpopular. And then you have Republicans who are just like, ‘yes, we know, it’s a problem. But we think the technology will just advance on its own. And we don’t think there’s much to do worth doing’.

My point is, why are the solutions that libertarians have put up there to address climate change better or worse than the solutions put up by people who are more left of center trying to address the same problems that libertarians are by supporting nuclear power and things like that?

AK: Well, the solutions that are most promising that are going to work? Well, the classic Hayekian solution is a tax on carbon, which actually was seriously proposed in the first Bush administration, and had Koch and Cato not worked so hard to spread fake science denying that anything was happening, that might have gone through.

And that really is the best solution. You just get people to incorporate the real costs of what they’re doing. And then the market creates incentives for people to come up with better technologies, what actually seems likely to do some good… because you know, all over the world, people don’t want to stay poor, they want to raise their standard of living, and they’re going to burn coal if they have to, in order to achieve that. And so the only way to stop them from warming the planet themselves is to come up with better technologies, and hand them to them on a platter and say here, don’t burn coal, do this instead.

And that’s the kind of research supported by government that gave us the COVID vaccine. And you’ve quite a lot of that kind of research funded in the climate bill that Biden just pushed through. And I think that that’s our only hope. You are not going to build massive nuclear plants in countries that are too poor to afford them.

TLR: Could you remind anyone reading this of the title of your book and where they can find it?

AK: The book is Burning Down The House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted By Delusion And Greed. I’m Andrew Koppelman. If you go looking on the internet, you’ll find copies of the book, very affordably priced, I’m happy to say 28.99. And if you read it, and you’re not persuaded by it, I want to hear from you and I want to hear why.

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Musk went on to mock those in attendance by stating any Chief position, like CEO or CFO is a made up position. He stated that the only positions that matter when filing for a corporation are the titles of President, Secretary and Treasurer.

Elon also stated in the interview that the Federal Budget Deficit is “insane” and called for President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan to be “deleted.”

But the real highlight came when Elon stated that the government allocates capital very poorly, and capital allocation should be done by private people who can do it properly. He then described the government as a corporation with a monopoly on violence, a phrase that is popular with libertarian thinkers.

While in past years Elon Musk has described himself on Twitter as having socialist tendencies, it appears he’s had a degree of reconsideration. Especially considering socialism is heavily reliant on this monopoly of violence.

This shift in thinking was very noticeable during an exchange Elon Musk had on Twitter with David Beasely, the Executive Director of the UN’s World Food Programme. 

After claims that $6 billion of Elon’s money would solve world hunger were made by CNN, Researcher David Eli inquired why the UN couldn’t solve world hunger last year when it had amassed more than $6 billion. Elon replied that if the UN could prove how $6 billion could solve world hunger, and be transparent about how funds were used, that he would immediately sell $6 billion worth of stock and donate it.

David Beasely with the World Food Programme chimed in stating that CNN’s claim was not accurate (no surprise there), but essentially stated “it’s a start” while seemingly not accepting Elon’s condition of transparency and accountability.

Elon then replied “What happened here?” and linked an article about UN Peacekeepers forcing children in impoverished countries to perform sex acts on them for food.

Apparently government programs are only not very good at resource allocation, but they’re also incredibly sinister about it.

Watch the entire interview with Wall Street Journal below.

The post Elon Musk: “Government Is A Corporation With A Monopoly On Violence” appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Mary Rose Corkery on October 28, 2020

A British student agreed to pay around $8,500 after being arrested for violating self-isolation COVID-19 regulations, British outlet Metro reported on Tuesday.

Carys Ann Ingram, a 22-year-old college student, was arrested after being contacted and not answering the contact tracing team when they went to her home, according to the British outlet. It was revealed in court that the British student had been at a restaurant and posted a picture of herself on Instagram there.

The post British Student Agrees To Pay Around $8,500 Fine After Breaking COVID Quarantine appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

How government has suppressed business

The economy is an intricate system of individuals and businesses. Every industry is built upon other industries. When one of these industries shuts down, it affects the rest of the economy. It’s like sitting on a chair that’s missing a leg. The economy cannot function when we just start shutting down entire industries.

Businesses across the country have been forced to close their doors because they have been deemed ‘non-essential’. Being essential is subjective, though. Those businesses are essential to the people that own them and to the people who work for them. The barber down the road cannot afford to pay bills if they are shut down. Nail salons, hotels, restaurants, bars, and more are being forced to close. San Jose even forced a gun store to close. This has displaced hundreds of thousands of workers and has led to a need for the Trump Stimulus Bill. This is like having someone break both of your legs and then offer you a wheelchair, only to expect you to praise them for charging you ten times what the wheelchair was worth on the back end. 

Companies began to assist in the marketplace by sending out at-home testing kits for Covid-19. Unfortunately, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shut them down by discrediting their viability because these tests had not gotten FDA approval and had not used government approved testing permitted by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). This has been hailed as a major advancement after the initial testing was only done through the Center for Disease Control (CDC) at state and local public health labs. However, the testing would not have had such a slow rollout, had it not been for government suppression of private businesses offering Covid-19 at-home testing kits.

Another suppression of business is Certificate of Need (CON) laws. CON laws are restrictions on the amount of beds and hospital facilities that can be erected in a certain geographical location. This means that government believes that it can account for how many beds and hospitals that communities should have, and who can house and care for the sick. Despite being done away with on a federal level, over three-quarters of the states have some form of CON laws. This has placed a hindrance on companies and individuals to fulfill the need for treatment facilities. When the demand for beds increases, companies and individuals cannot open up business, like hotels, to help house the sick. This is resulting in hospitals having to allocate the available beds to those deemed most in need and turning away those who will more than likely survive the illness. This is the real-life result of rationing. If health care is a right, then why are people being turned away? Furthermore, companies should have the availability to help house these people, at least to help with the social distancing that we are attempting to achieve. 

Many businesses have begun to produce masks in order to help stop the airborne spreading of Covid-19. This, in conjunction with not touching your face and washing your hands, had been the idea for not spreading this virus. However, the government initially stated that masks didn’t help, despite using them in hospitals, and only after independent claims did they retract that statement and deem masks as a benefit. The reason that government made the first claim is believed to divert the toilet paper effect that we had just recently seen. The government wanted to allocate the masks to hospitals, but in effect actually caused many people to go unprotected, thereby spreading the virus even more through disinformation.

How the government has suppressed churches

The first amendment of the Constitution states that government will make no law hindering people’s ability to practice their religion, but it also states that the government should make no law hindering people’s ability to peacefully assemble. However, during this time the government has violated both of the tenants of the first amendment by arresting multiple pastors for holding church services amid this Covid-19 outbreak. 

In Florida, Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was arrested on two misdemeanor counts: unlawful assembly and a violation of health emergency rules. What is peculiar about this case is the freedom that people have to make choices to go out into the community. Howard-Browne was charged with these crimes because there would be a larger outcry if all the people had been charged with these crimes, which would seem to be the logical action for the state to take given the nature of the charges. However, the idea here is that the state takes out the “leader” and the followers will scatter. Idaho lawmaker and pastor of The Altar, Tim Remington, came under fire when he refused to stop holding church services. Authorities said that while churches are not deemed essential services, a police investigation showed that people were abiding by the social distancing parameters issued by the governor. 

In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio stated that he would permanently close any church or synagogue that refused to follow his orders to stop gathering. This is taking the violation of the first amendment to a whole new level. De Blasio is not just saying that he will arrest people or charge them with a crime, but he is saying that he will permanently close the doors on a place of religion. Furthermore, he seems to have targeted Judeo-Christian faiths as he did not mention mosques or other houses of worship. This would be an even further violation of people’s rights to peacefully assemble and worship in their faith. 

It is worth a mention that a few states like Ohio, Texas, and now Florida, along with a few others, have excluded churches from their stay at home order, citing 1st amendment concerns.

How government has suppressed the individual

This started with the suggestion of social distancing. Then we progressed to shutting down “non-essential” businesses. And now we are at a quasi-quarantine phase. Some state governments have made it a misdemeanor to leave your house for nonessential reasons or even associate with a group of ten or more people. This includes leaving your town. There are social pressures at play which are causing people who have been planning major engagements like their weddings to postpone them or even cancel them. Weddings fall under the prohibited forms of gathering, but Pastor Remington’s church was able to pull it off without penalty. 

States are beginning to really crack down on their stay-at-home orders. In California, a paddleboarder was alone in the ocean when a patrol boat pulled up, escorted him to the shore, and then arrested him. In New York, cops pepper sprayed a woman’s boyfriend and arrested her. She was taken to the local jail where she was housed with several other women for 36 hours. None of these women had been tested for Covid-19 and could have easily spread the disease to all of them, had one of them been infected.

A man in New Jersey coughed on a store clerk and told her that he had the coronavirus. The man was charged with making terroristic threats in the third and fourth-degree, harassment, and providing false information. What is scary about this is how much of a slippery slope we are on if this man is convicted of terrorism for this. With drones already beginning to monitor cities in California, what’s next? People being charged with terrorism for leaving their homes during quarantine after a drone catches them on camera?

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is looking to extend its power by further circumventing the fifth and fourteenth amendments and holding citizens indefinitely without due process. At the same time, Florida wants to arrest people without bail for violating the stay at home order. However, this is nothing new. Anytime there is a crisis, the first thing government tries to do is to extend its power. Kentucky has been putting ankle monitors on patients who ignore the self-isolation order. In Newark, NJ, it has become a crime to spread “fake news” about the coronavirus. This could lead to people being tried for crimes against the public for simply sharing articles. 

How Government made the problem worse

As usual, the government has no idea how to deal with such a crisis. This has been seen throughout history. The Civil War, The Great Depression, 9/11, The Great Recession, and it continues today. They place extreme burdens on us. They injure us and then attempt to make things better by placing a band-aid on the wound.

The government’s reaction to this was to force businesses to shut down, causing a spike in unemployment not seen since the Great Recession. The unemployed have a number of issues that most of the employed do not. During the Great Recession we saw 10,000 more lives lost to suicide than the previous year. The unemployed have a much harder time obtaining health care in comparison to their employed counterparts. Only 48% of the unemployed are insured, meanwhile 80% of the employed workforce are insured. This suppression becomes a dangerous combination that has the potential to increase the number of deaths in America, and even globally. 

Schools can’t even figure out what to do with students. Classes have been suspended indefinitely. College students are wondering if they will get a refund. Some students are moving to online classes, but not all are able to. There are thousands of seniors in high school that are supposed to be graduating. Many of these kids have military commitments. Will they need to take another semester to graduate? Will they be getting GEDs? Everything is up in the air and there is no way for government to lay out a solid plan, and even if they could it would take an extremely long time to effectively implement. 

This time the band-aid is suppression. There are several more smaller examples of things that the government has done to suppress the people. This has been a test to see how people will react to this type of forced shutdown, and so far, it has gone off without a hitch. 

We have a health issue that was at first suppressed by the Chinese government. Then the Federal Government couldn’t address the issues of trade and the spread of illness coming into the country. Now they lock everyone down, and after that they have come to realize that there is no way to keep the economy afloat this way. So next comes the stimulus bill which will inevitably hurt worse than it would ever help. Plus, we have to remember that government’s ability to even get the stimulus money out will take an exorbitant amount of time, including possibly being part of the 2020 tax year filings. 

The Great Suppression

We have had a number of fluctuations in the market. Some have been the cause of market failures and some the failures of government. Never have we seen this type of economic downturn. This recession, and potential depression, is not the result of a market or government failure per se, but rather the poor actions of government. The suppression of businesses, individuals, the Constitution, and more has led us to an otherwise avoidable recession.

Let’s help make this term stick so that it will be forever be equated with the failure of government. This is a way to make sure that future generations know the true root cause of this economic catastrophe; government suppression.

The post The Great Suppression appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Mary Margaret Olohan 

–  Health professionals said lawmakers should stay out of Washington, D.C., and vote remotely.

–  U.S. senators proposed legislation allowing them to vote remotely, and legislatures across the country have begun to examine and pass such measures.

–  But remote voting might not be entirely constitutional, said R Street Institute senior fellow James Wallner.

–  “It violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the constitution,” Wallner told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Health professionals said lawmakers should stay out of Washington, D.C., and vote remotely, but such remote voting might not be entirely constitutional.

As cases of coronavirus escalate across the country, D.C. Mayor Murial Bowser announced a stay-at-home order for the nation’s capitol Monday, saying residents of Washington, D.C., would face 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine if they violate the order. As of Tuesday, there were 3,405 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the DMV area and 495 cases in D.C.

The House of Representatives is scheduled to be out until April 20, Politico reported, but at least some lawmakers might have to remain in the city as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, bent on including Democratic initiatives in coronavirus legislation, refuses to move to remote voting and pushes action on legislation.

At least four members of Congress tested positive for the virus so far: Reps. Joe Cunningham, Mike Kelly, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ben McAdams.

‘Critical’: Health Experts Warn Against Congress Convening

Health experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that lawmakers gathering in the nation’s capitol pose serious health risks to themselves and others.

“At a time when we are increasingly shifting the workforce from the office to home — encouraging the adoption of teleworking where possible to lower the risk of further spreading the COVID19 virus — it would be critical for Congress to re-enforce the importance of this message by adopting remote legislative practices,” Dr. Dennis Carroll, president of the Global Virome Project, told the DCNF.

Carroll, who directed the pandemic influenza and emerging threats unit for almost 15 years at the Agency for International Development (USAID), said reconvening Congress would pose a “great risk to both the members of Congress but also to their staff.”

“Congress would become a viral national mixing bowl as people would coming from every corner of the country – and allow the virus to spread even more widely and rapidly,” he added. “Remember it’s not just those that are obviously sick who spread virus but those who are infected and a symptomatic. ”

Dr. Ron Waldman, Professor of Global Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, said he believes D.C. health regulations should pertain to everyone in the city.

“I think it would be highly advisable for people to avoid large gatherings, such as those that would bring a House of Representatives together at the same place and at the same time,” he said. “We already know there has been transmission between congress people and senators, and I don’t know why one would want to take the chance.”

Waldman added that he thinks teleworking is “highly advisable.”

“There’s no question that this outbreak is going to be brought to a more rapid end if people practice extreme social distancing,” he said. “We need to follow the epidemiology of the out break and the federal government, states, and localities need to be thinking hard and fast about when they will feel that the situation has relented to the point that they would be willing to lift the recommendations in place.”

He continued: “But that time is certainly not now. As a citizen who relies on Congress, I would feel much better if they were doing that at a distance from each other.” 

Senators Propose Remote Voting

Some senators proposed legislation that would allow lawmakers to vote remotely. Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and Republican Ohio Sen. Rob Portman introduced bipartisan legislation March 19 that would allow senators to vote remotely during a national crisis.

“We live in an age where national emergencies, public health crises, and terrorism can threaten the ordinary course of Senate business,” Durbin said in a statement at the time. “We need to bring voting in the Senate into the 21st century so that our important work can continue even under extraordinary circumstances.”

He added: “While I know there is resistance to changing a Senate tradition to allow for remote voting during national emergencies, I believe this is an important issue and worthy of robust discussion amongst our Senate colleagues.”

Across the country, state legislatures scramble to pass resolutions allowing themselves to meet virtually or maintain social distancing guidelines. Arkansas lawmakers convene six feet from one another on a basketball arena, while Ohio lawmakers vote from separate rooms and New York senators pass legislation permitting them to vote by “remote means, including but not limited to teleconference or video conference.”

Rachel Bovard, senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute, noted that though there are constitutional questions as far as remote voting is concerned, “Congress is considered essential.”

“Doctors, nurses, delivery drivers, and grocery store clerks are still showing up to serve others, Members of Congress should be expected to as well,” Bovard told the DCNF. “Representative democracy has survived wars, depressions, and terrorist attacks. This is the job they were elected to do, regardless of circumstance.”

Bovard added that most staff jobs can and should be done remotely, such as drafting legislation, responding to constituent concerns and policy research.

“Members should not be putting their staff unnecessarily at risk,” Bovard said. “Many coalition meetings I’m a part of that involve congressional staff have turned into phone calls or Zoom meetings, and I would expect that to increase. Staff can still get information to their Member of Congress without entering the building. Members should be the only ones on the premises. And, as this moves forward and another congressional response may be warranted, they should be prepared to show up and vote.”

Constitutional Or Not?

Remote voting might not be entirely constitutional, according to R Street Institute senior fellow James Wallner.

“It violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the constitution,” he told the DCNF.

The whole point of Congress, Wallner said, is to assemble together in the same place in order to conduct the business of the nation. He added that safety and responsibility “must be considered alongside the constitution obviously, but they can’t ended up themselves be grounds to violate the constitution.”

“If that’s the case, then the constitution means nothing,” he said. “I think that’s very important to keep in mind. Certainly there are concerns and safety concerns and health concerns associated with this, and I think trying to figure out how to balance those concerns and how to protect against them is critical. But it’s not impossible.”

Wallner pointed out that there are several provisions in the Constitution that suggest remote voting, or a virtual presence, is not sufficient.

“For example,” he wrote in a March 26 LegBranch piece with Timothy LaPira, “the Constitution stipulates that Congress must assemble at least once a year. And it bars the House and Senate from meeting in a different location from that at which they sit presently.  While the Congress has met in various places in its history, including Philadelphia and New York City, its members had to first physically congregate in the same place before they could approve meeting in a different location.”

“The Constitution assumes that members must travel to the same location and protects them from arrest “during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same,” he continued.

Grappling with the dangers of nationwide sickness is not a “new thing for Congress,” Wallner added, pointing out that Congress faced similar challenges during the 1793 Philadelphia Yellow Fever epidemic. At the time, Philadelphia had about 50,000 to 55,000 residents, Wallner said, and while 20,000 of those residents fled the city, another 5,000 died during the epidemic.

“So this is a very serious thing,” Wallner said. “Congress had adjourned in June of that year, but pursuant to the constitution, they were scheduled to come back in December.”

Former President George Washington’s cabinet was still meeting in Philadelphia at the time, Wallner said, and the president wrote to constitutional expert and former President James Madison for advice on what to do and whether he had the constitutional power to convene Congress in a different location during the dangerous epidemic.

“Madison said, no, you don’t have that authority,” Wallner said, adding that Madison advised Washington to write to members of Congress, warn them about the situation in Philadelphia, and suggest that Congress meet in another location as a recommendation. “Then Congress would have to assemble and decide if that is where, in fact, they wish to meet,” Wallner said.

“Congress can only act when Congress is together,” he said. “And so it’s Congress’s decision on where it meets, when it meets and what kind of rules it follows when it does meet. But in order to make those decisions, it has to actually convene itself.”

This article is republished with permission from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post How Should Congress Continue To Govern During The Coronavirus Pandemic? Here’s What The Experts Say appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Unfortunately, our understanding of the relationship between dependence and independence is often faulty.

Political independence from England that removed abusive powers and impositions of the Crown and Parliament was indeed good. But we do not escape political dependence by becoming independent of one power. Our dependence on the policies of the new government could have been an improvement, but could also have been more burdensome. That is why we adopted the Constitution, and then the Bill of Rights, to limit that possibility. Yet the extent to which government has power is the same extent that we are dependent on it, willingly or unwillingly.

Economic independence and dependence are also not the same as political independence and dependence. Economic independence is the power to choose the terms one is willing to cooperate with others on and to reject others. In that sense, political dependence is often what overrides economic independence by taking away citizens’ options. But economic independence—which at heart boils down to property rights over yourself and the fruits of your labor—does not eliminate economic dependence on those we deal with.

In other words, economic independence—the power to choose among offers to cooperate with you—is consistent with economic dependence on the exchange partner chosen—the risk that you could be harmed by changes in that party’s willing offers.

However, it is important to note the limits on potential harm. When arrangements are voluntary, others’ willing offers place an upper limit on damages from dependence on a particular “best” trading partner. To that extent, the potential “damage” only reflects the fact that the gains you were getting from a relationship, relative to your alternatives, may be reduced or eliminated in the future. It does not reflect a harm imposed on you, but the potential that future gains from a particular relationship may be less than they were before.

Voluntary arrangements—economic independence—prevent any “harm” beyond that. And it is important to note that such market arrangements create the only form of independence/dependence which offers that protection.

In contrast, consider dependence on government. Since governments have the power to coerce you, they can take away options that others would willingly offer you. And not only can this take away the best options you would have had, it can take away the alternatives that protect you from further harm in voluntary arrangements. It can take away everything.

So given that economic independence is consistent with dependence on trading partners who benefit us the most, and political independence from one government is consistent with dependence on another government, it is not a question of independence versus dependence, but of which form of independence/dependence will serve us better.

Other than by limiting robbery and fraud and the like, government cannot improve the offers we receive from others unless it coerces them. But that is an inherent abuse of self-owning individuals. And especially when we realize that we will not typically be the coercers, but the coerced, it can release a Pandora’s box of social evils on society.

The government can use that same coercive power to worsen or eliminate the offers we get from our preferred trading partners, harming us. They can also go further, worsening or eliminating the offers made by the various runners-up for our business. In other words, voluntary arrangements can only enhance our opportunities; government cannot enhance our mutual opportunities other than by better enforcing our property rights, but it can worsen or destroy them. Who would you rather be dependent on?

Further, note that policy arguments to “reducing our dependence” on someone else are excuses for imposing political restrictions that harm citizens. For instance, protectionism promoted in terms of “good” American producers versus “evil” foreigner producers ignores the fact we deal with others because they make us better off than our domestic alternatives. And taking those superior options away harms all Americans for whom that is true. It is really an arrangement between favored American producers and the government to harm American consumers and the suppliers that most benefit them.

Notice that dependence arguments are also defined as if it is not harmful to depend on other Americans, but harmful to depend on others. But do we really trust other Americans?

If so, why do we have so many laws and prisons to punish our neighbors if they act to harm us? The fact is that the primary thing that can allow us to trust our neighbors is denying them the ability to involuntarily impose arrangements on us. But that same defense of our self-ownership would also allow us to trust non-American trading partners. The damaging power of government coercion employed by some, necessarily against others, however, puts us almost totally at our rulers’ mercy, while at the same time giving us very little reason to trust them.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The post Voluntary Arrangements Are Essential to Social Trust and Independence appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

When I say “government”, I am talking about the forcible entity in which a series of officials are ‘elected’ to rule over a group of people and use said people’s finances in order to “maintain” systems such as defense, infrastructure, etc. I am not talking about a private entity or a private group voluntarily formed for the betterment of a community. 

Who Would Pay for Infrastructure?

Businesses

Business would most likely be the largest contributor to the cost of our roadways/infrastructure. While they wouldn’t be coerced into “paying their fair share” through taxes, they would be pushed to contribute through the laws of economics and business. In order to sell their goods, they must have customers, and they must have a supplier. In order to reach their supplier and customers, some degree of infrastructure is highly necessary, otherwise no money is made. 

In fact, businesses initially paid for much of our current railroad system, as private companies built them and maintained them. There would be many incentives to have infrastructure from a logistical standpoint, so why wouldn’t businesses contribute?

Suppliers

In the business world, your company either sells a service or supplies those businesses with the essential tools needed to sell a service. In order to sell a service, you have to have the supplies required. Such supplies are made and transported by outside companies that manufacture products for businesses, and those supplies are also delivered via infrastructure. That is why Libertarian theory also mentions the suppliers in the chain of payment to private industry. Companies like UPS, FedEx, DHL and many more would all have to contribute in order to make a profit and sell their services. 

Salesmen

Do you like buying new clothes or shoes? Do you have private insurance? Do you like ordering pizza? If you do, then you understand that someone has to sell those. Typically, salesmen work for a much larger operation than just themselves, but every so often, they are part of a small-scale business. Either way, they have to move their product, so sales people would be more likely to contribute an amount, however small compared to larger corporations. 

Tourists

Indirectly, tourists would pay for a small portion of the infrastructure through the costs of traveling and expenditures. Sure, that money would come directly from the business, but where did the businesses get their funds? From the tourists, who also need some source of infrastructure in order to travel from place-to-place. 

Homeowners/Common People

While the business world requires infrastructure through profit-motive, the everyday person will have to contribute in order to live their lives appropriately and comfortably. We use roads every day, whether it be for traveling to work, getting groceries, going shopping and so much more. In order for the common people to pay their share voluntarily, there could be sources such as GoFundMe or Kickstarter.com that allow someone to do the math on a project and its cost, and consumers could join those groups to pay a specific portion to ensure that the infrastructure is cared for and built appropriately.

Why Would Private Companies Want to Build Infrastructure? 

Private companies would have many incentives to build, maintain, and repair our roads and infrastructure. To start, it is highly profitable. For our failing system, billions of dollars are expedited every year. Construction and base companies could make major amounts of money from building bridges, buildings, roads, etc. 

Next, private companies would be held accountable by the consumer, who pays and uses the roads, to keep the infrastructure maintained and repaired as needed. Currently, this is where our government falls the shortest in the infrastructure category. You can hardly drive anywhere without seeing potholes, cracks, and other broken aspects of our highways, despite there being constant construction. If you switch over to the railways, private companies almost always uphold their rails, and keep them in the most usable shape possible. That is because of accountability. 

If the people are happy, they will keep paying for roads to be placed, maintained, and repaired, so that itself should be enough of an incentive. 

Otherwise, there would be no money going to the roads and companies/businessmen in charge of building such systems would go bankrupt.

The Advantages of a Private Infrastructure System

In a privatized, free market system without a coercive government in place, our infrastructure will be cleaner, safer, and more efficient than our current system. This is because the owners of the road would have their own self-interest at heart, along with profit-motive. 

Why, though? Because of economic competition and financial motivation. If Company A has a reputation for having the highest-quality, safest roads, then they will be making more of a profit than Company B, who makes roads that aren’t as dependable. If Company B wants to catch up with A, they will have to invest more time, money, and effort into their systems. If there are roads that are entirely unsafe, then you can simply not use them and they lose money, along with popularity. 

Privatizing infrastructure would also introduce new technology, similar to some things used by private businesses. You could have apps like ‘Yelp’, ‘TripAdvisor’, and much more. 

While most people cannot imagine a society without a gun to your head, it is not as complicated as it may seem. It just comes down to whether or not you want to cut out the middleman and keep asking yourself, “But Muh Roads?”

The post “But Muh Roads”: How a Governmentless Society Could Still Have an Infrastructure System appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Debt can be reduced in several ways – cut spending, raise taxes, inflate it away or default. Since paying it off is unlikely and the other options pose great risk, future generations face difficult options for dealing with it.

We must all keep in mind that complex societies collapse. Massively indebted societies collapse. Societies with their militaries deployed throughout the world collapse. Highly regulated societies collapse. We are all these combined, contentedly sitting on a bubble of debt, unable to address the serious risks it poses. We delude ourselves that collapse can’t happen here. It has happened to every major empire in the history of the world, and it will happen here unless the risks from debt are addressed.

As with all collapses, societies can live with risk for decades. At some point however, if not addressed, risk turns into disaster; society slips into the abyss. Once in the abyss, it can take centuries to reemerge as chaos rules.

To address our national debt, everything must be considered: taxes, spending, sale of assets, elimination of overreaching laws and regulations, and transferring to states the programs they can implement better than the federal government. These dramatic options may exceed the courage of today’s politicians. But there are smaller steps that could start the process of reducing debt and government.

Action: A Few Small Steps to Make a Big Difference

1.  Congress should not fund unauthorized laws. Many laws are authorized for a few years at a time. At expiration, Congress is to review how the law works to determine if it needs to be reauthorized, modified or repealed. Congress fails to undertake this process when it wraps all funding into an Omnibus appropriation or Continuing Resolutions. If Congress does not have the concern to review the workability of these laws, it should let them lapse. In the FY 2019 appropriations, Congress funded 971 expired laws at a cost of $307 billion.

2. Congress should enact a ban on government gifts to corporations. A prior article outlined tens of billions of dollars in government gifts to corporations. It proposed that elected officials serve as a fiduciary of public money and promise not to give, grant, or loan public funds or extend the credit of the public to any private corporation, association, or private undertakings.

3. Re-constitute the Joint Committee on Reduction of Non-Essential Federal Expenditures, which existed from 1941 to 1974. This committee was established after World War II to recommend ways to reduce a massive federal budget. Its goal was to identify non-essential spending. While the committee was only a study committee, requiring its recommendations be submitted to authorizing and appropriation committees, it had a major impact on budgeting in government. With the inability of Congress to control spending or the states to force a Balanced Budget amendment to the Constitution, an alternative would be to create a similar committee to make recommendations to Congress, but require its recommendations be voted on by Congress. This process creates accountability.

4. Enact a Base Realignment and Closure Commission (“BRAC”) that applies to general appropriations. Due to political pressure to locate the military in numerous congressional districts, the U.S. constructed an excess of military bases but was unable to close unneeded bases. To address the situation, Congress established BRAC; giving the Commission power to identify unnecessary bases and to send the recommendations to Congress. The key to BRAC’s recommendations to Congress is that they became law unless Congress passed a Resolution of Disapproval and the President signed it. Using the BRAC structure, Congress could apply the same concept to all recommended reductions as a means of reducing political support for unneeded programs.

Establish a Budget & Waste Reduction Director in every agency to identify unnecessary expenditures. Federal agencies have recycling and permit streamlining directors to help implementation of certain laws. Due to massive budget deficits, there should be a similar position to identify ways an agency can eliminate unneeded programs. The person should report directly to the head of the agency. All reports must be addressed by the head of the agency and reasons for “No Action” must be justified. Mandate each director to recommend a 10% reduction in expenditures. Give the director a big bonus for success.

The above are easy actions to get the debt reduction process started. After the initial phase, more stringent mechanisms can be debated, like firm spending caps, balanced budget amendments, and reducing appropriations through normal legislative processes. The larger reforms will require courage but the nation is not at that point. Until then, we need small reforms by our elected cowardly lions.

There is never a right time to start reducing the national debt; there is only now!

The post Five Easy Ways to Reduce National Debt and Shrink Government appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

This criticism is flawed for several reasons; the first of which is the atheist’s presupposition of an objective morality. By operating under the assumption that tyranny is bad, atheists are assuming there is an objective standard by which all actions should be measured. As I pointed out in a previous article, it’s impossible to establish an objective standard of morality without God. Any attempt to establish a secular moral framework inevitably leads to arbitrary rules guided by our feelings rather than reality.

There’s another problem with the atheist’s charge that may be more appealing to libertarians. If God exists, He owns everything, including us. If one is operating under a private property framework, then God is completely justified in setting the rules we should all live by. If He created us, why wouldn’t He have a say over how we live our lives? On a libertarian view of private property, God is justified in using His property as He sees fit. It would be incoherent to claim God should abide by our own morality when He is the source of any property we have acquired, including our own bodies.

Fortunately, for our sake, God is not a tyrant; He is the author of freedom—and not just under a libertarian theory of private property but because of God’s very nature. There is a biblical defense of free will—one of the many gifts God has given us. Romans 2: 6-8 is just one example, but I’d rather focus on how God’s nature points to freedom to head off any controversy over biblical interpretations, and because I believe appealing to God’s nature is a stronger argument in defense of free will for people who don’t belong to a particular faith.

God loves us by His very nature. If we define God as a maximally great being, it follows He has no imperfections. He is perfect love, which leaves no place for unrighteous hate. God is also omniscient or all-knowing. His moral perfection and perfect knowledge mean God knows true love requires freedom. Love cannot involve coercion. It would be illogical to claim God forces us to love Him because love requires an act of the will. It’s not just a feeling. It’s a choice.

While it’s a joy to know God gives us the freedom to love Him, we’re also free not to love Him. And this is an important insight into why hell exists. Hell is a place where we are eternally separated from God. Hell exists because God does not force people to love or unite with Him. Put another way, God does not send people to hell. People choose hell because of their own free desire not to love God. Imagine if a suspect claimed they kidnapped a random stranger because they loved the person—and used that as a defense in court. All rational people would find this defense ludicrous.

What political implications can we draw from God’s love for us? If God is unwilling to take away our freedom even at the risk of some people ending up in hell, then this should give us caution in constructing a political system that undermines our own freedom. If God permits free decisions that could produce eternal consequences, why should we be so eager to limit the freedom of others to avoid the problems of the temporal?

There’s an obvious objection to this: Government should order itself to ensure people make it to heaven, and that’s more important than a vague notion of freedom. It’s the noblest of goals. But I see at least two major problems with this view.

First, it puts government dangerously close to playing God. If God is willing to permit free choices—regardless of the outcome—why should we think the government of all institutions is in a position to organize society in way that will steer people to choices that will give glory to God?

Everything we know about government suggests it will fail to achieve its desired outcome, assuming there is an alternate universe in which government majorities primarily care about their constituents’ afterlife.

Government officials are ill-equipped to organize society in a way that will maximize the number of people who choose to love God. Given the law of unintended consequences, it’s reasonable to assume government direction of our behavior could lead to fewer people being saved. Good intentions are just not enough to justify government coercion, especially when the issue involves salvation of souls.

A government that protects our free choices—provided they don’t violate the rights of others—is the best political system we can devise. Whether we come to God is not a matter for government. Rather, it’s decision we need to freely make on our own or with the help of those prepared to give a defense of the hope that lies within.

The post Opinion: God, Not Government, Is the Author of Freedom appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Seattle has long been throwing money at the Homelessness problem to no effect. So they decided to throw their money at a Stripper instead. A black transgender stripper named  Beyonce Black St James for the extra woke points.

“The people in this video are in control of homelessness policy in the Puget Sound: do you trust them with your money?”

Beyonce Black St James wore pasties and went from table to table giving attendees lap dances and taking dollar bills with her mouth at the government event.

This took place at a summit on Homelessness paid for with taxpayer dollars. Watch the video below.

Christopher F. Rulo who has directed documentaries for PBS and Netflix was none too impressed. He took to Facebook and wrote:

“This is your taxpayer money hard at work.

Last week, Seattle and King County leaders hired transgender stripper Beyoncé Black St. James to perform at their annual conference on solving homelessness. As the video shows, the programming has nothing to do with helping people on the streets—it’s about affirming a radical ideology that puts identity politics above solving real problems.

For years, city leaders have claimed that they “need more resources” to solve homelessness, but apparently they find it totally appropriate to use their existing budget to pay for a transgender stripper to fondle, kiss, and grind on members of the region’s homelessness nonprofits and taxpayer-funded organizations.

Here’s truth: it’s not a lack of resources that prevents Seattle from solving homelessness; it’s a lack of leadership. According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, Seattle and King County spend more than $1 billion a year on homelessness programs—but have failed to deliver results for more than two decades.

The people in this video are in control of homelessness policy in the Puget Sound: do you trust them with your money?”

The Seattle Times reports that “Kira Zylstra, the Director of King County’s coordinating agency for homelessness is on paid administrative leave.”

The Times also notes that All Home, the agency that Zylstra directs, has long been criticized for being weak and ineffective.

Seattle’s solution to homelessness? Throw stripper parties for their ineffective agencies while telling the rest of us to be compassionate and understanding as we step over feces and needles.

I’d love to say we’ve reached peak Leftism, but they can do worse. Give them time.

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