Ilya Somin over at The Volokh Conspiracy, it seems, is no more a fan of Ron Paul now than he was four years ago. His criticisms remain about the same. This time around, though, he’s got a candidate to contrast Paul with in Gary Johnson. His conclusion? Johnson is a better libertarian than Paul. My first response to this was laughter. This is my second response:

To start, Somin nearly lost me in his first sentence when he suggested that Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was even on the radar for libertarians considering voting. If anyone thinks a hypocritical drug warrior, who might be most charitably described as untested on foreign policy issues (and much less charitably described as a propagandist for the Empire), should even be in the running, then they should probably be disqualified from commenting on the question of who the most libertarian candidate is. All that said, we’ll give him the benefit of his doubts about Daniels for now and move onto his criticisms.

Ron Paul’s Unlibertarian Positions?

Somin claims that Ron Paul “has very nonlibertarian positions on free trade, school choice, and especially immigration.” He goes on to criticize Paul’s views on the Fourteenth Amendment. He doesn’t spell these criticisms out in this piece, but rather directs us to an older article from 2007. We’ll take each one by one.

1. Free Trade

Anyone who knows about Ron Paul’s policy positions would be shocked to find this on the list of his deviations from libertarianism. Doesn’t Paul support complete, unrestricted free trade? Has he not always advocated this? Yes, and Somin admits as much in his 2007 article. But this is apparently not enough. Instead, Paul’s libertarian credentials are called into question due to his opposition to “free trade agreements.” These, Somin argues, must be supported because they are better than the status quo. But is this true? Somin fails to address Paul’s arguments that these are not “free trade agreements” at all – but that they are instead managed trade agreements. Instead, he merely dismisses Paul’s refusal to support NAFTA and similar agreements as some misguided focus on libertarian purity and perfection as the enemy of the good. But this is not so. As Murray Rothbard explained many times, managed trade agreements like NAFTA are not a step toward freedom, but rather an extension of government controls. So much for that.

2. School Choice

A similar story with school choice. Ron Paul, an erstwhile opponent of the government interfering with people’s educational choices, is thrown under the bus for opposing the reformist “solution” of school voucher programs. Somin’s objections to Ron Paul’s position here is the same: he admits Ron Paul has a libertarian position on school choice, but thinks that some attachment to libertarian purity gets in the way of Paul taking steps to improve things. And, again, Somin declines to address the serious and significant libertarian criticisms of this proposed policy. Laurence Vance has done excellent work covering this issue, and Ron Paul himself has voiced the same concerns. Stefan Molyneux has raised some major objections to the idea as well. Far from the obvious libertarian position being one of support for school vouchers, even just as a stepping stone, it seems that they might very well be a step in completely the wrong direction.

3. Immigration

Here, you’ll find no objection from me on the criticism of Ron Paul’s position. I agree wholeheartedly with the libertarian critics of immigration restrictions and I make no excuses for Ron Paul’s position here, and I won’t go into wild speculation about whether he “really believes” what he says about immigration (given his change of heart since 1988). What he “really believes” is not my concern, rather I will focus on what he says, which seems to be that we must dismantle the welfare state before dismantling the statist border controls. This is an odious rationalization, and one that could easily be turned on almost any issue – we can’t end the drug war until we get rid of welfare and government-provided healthcare (as Ann Coulter says); we can’t get rid of the Patriot Act until we have stopped our foreign policy that promotes terrorism; we can’t get rid of welfare until we stop taxing and regulating the economy enough to provide everyone jobs; we can’t lower taxes until we pay off the national debt; and so on and so on. So, yes, Ron Paul’s position on immigration is indeed unlibertarian.

4. Fourteenth Amendment

I must admit, I do not know what to say about this. Mr. Somin claims that Ron Paul “thinks the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states.” This position, Somin thinks, is just “theoretically libertarian,” and only if one thinks that the Bill of Rights should apply to the states, but believes that, as a matter of fact, it does not. I won’t go into what the facts of the matter are (though I’m very skeptical of the claim that “virtually all libertarian constitutional law scholars” believe that the Fourteenth Amendment is rightly interpreted as applying the Bill of Rights to the states – Kevin Gutzman and Thomas Woods both come to mind as scholars who might take issue with that claim, I would be surprised if there weren’t many others), instead I’d like to ask: is it the obvious libertarian position that the federal government should be empowered to impose the restrictions in the Bill of Rights onto the states? Gene Healy, Roderick Long, and fellow blogger Stephan Kinsella all have argued to the contrary. Ron Paul’s position here, at the least, certainly has support amongst libertarian scholars regardless of the fact of the matter.

Is Ron Paul more libertarian than Gary Johnson on any issue?

Somin has one last argument to go. He writes, “I can’t think of a single issue where Paul is more libertarian than Johnson, though I’m open to correction by people who know more about their records than I do.” Well, I might not know more about their records, but I have a few in mind. For the sake of argument, I’ll disregard the points I had above and call it a wash, except for that of immigration, and we’ll count that in Johnson’s favor. Here are three issues where Paul is head and shoulders above Johnson: 1) war, 2) sound money, and 3) torture.

1. War

Gary Johnson looks like a pro-peace candidate. He talks like a pro-peace candidate. But when it comes down to it, he is open to “humanitarian wars.” See here and here for the interview. So, as admirable as Johnson’s opposition to the current wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya is, the difference between him and Ron Paul on foreign policy remains stark. From my point of view, this alone would be enough to put Paul miles ahead of Johnson – there is no issue more important than war. It cannot be repeated enough: War is the Health of the State. I take it, though, that Somin will not be joining me in this judgment, given that he wrote, “I don’t agree with Johnson on everything. For example, I’m significantly more hawkish than he is on foreign policy.” Yikes.

2. Sound Money

Ron Paul has made no secret of his opposition to the Federal Reserve. Indeed, it was the keystone of his 2008 campaign, and likely will play a major role in his 2012 run. He has brought the message of sound money to the masses and introduced the Austrian Business Cycle Theory back into the mainstream. On this most important issue, Ron Paul is the standard bearer. What about Gary Johnson? Admirably, he calls for an audit of the Federal Reserve, and should be credited for that. That puts him way above most candidates. But let’s not kid ourselves. Gary Johnson is not calling for the Federal Reserve to be abolished. Gary Johnson is not making the Federal Reserve into a focal point for his campaign. Despite the supreme importance of sound money in arresting the growth of the State, Johnson has given the issue very little time and supports what is, compared to Ron Paul, a marginal compromise position.

3. Torture

This is one I couldn’t believe myself when it happened. On Freedom Watch of all places, Gary Johnson said that he would not close the torture camp at Guantanamo Bay, an absolutely appalling position. What was his justification? If we didn’t have it there, we would just have to open one elsewhere. Incredible. Why not at least give these men trials? Why not at least house them inside the borders of the United States where they might be afforded even the most minimal legal protections? This is a disgusting position. A few of my fellow bloggers commented to me that this does not represent a deviation from libertarianism on the part of Johnson, but rather makes him no libertarian at all. I could not agree more.

I could go on, but these three issues alone are more than enough to overcome any doubt on this issue. Gary Johnson has some great qualities – he supports marijuana legalization, he seems very serious about dramatically cutting spending, and despite his squishy position on it, he’s generally anti-war (for now). But more libertarian than Ron Paul? Don’t make me laugh.

Sen. Schumer on the Three Branches of Government

We have three branches of government: we have a House, we have a Senate, we have a President.

I guess passing civics class was not a requirement for becoming a Senator.

In a bold move that promises to prove the Republicans’ dedication to preserving the First Amendment and fixing up the federal budget, Senator Jim DeMint has introduced a bill to eliminate federal funding for NPR. This is following the great controversy over NPR’s decision to fire Juan Williams, who made some commentary on Muslims and air travel that his bosses at NPR didn’t quite like.

DeMint, I’m sure, of course has a heroic record of free speech advocacy. I assume, though I have not found evidence at the time of writing this, that he introduced bills and fought vigorously for an end to this ridiculous idea of “free speech zones” which were used during the Bush Administration to stifle free speech. Because, surely, Jim DeMint is all about free speech, and this latest move was not simply motivated by his approval of Williams’ commentary, but rather from a deep philosophical opposition to government restriction of speech.

Some might also think that the $420 million that defunding NPR (and PBS) would save is a bit on the paltry side as far as budget cuts go, given that federal spending for FY2010 was officially about $3.5 trillion, or, to use like-terms, $3,500,000 million. But hey, that’s something, right? And, after all, if you exclude Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt, all the other “mandatory” spending, and everything to do with the military, is there really that much else to cut?

So good on you, Jim DeMint. Keep up the good work.

Not labeled: The 0.00012% of the budget that NPR represents

I just recently watched The Daily Show‘s interview of Rachel Maddow from last April (embedded below) and couldn’t help but comment. She proposed two rules for public discourse: 1. “Don’t lie” and 2. “Don’t threaten to shoot people or encourage the shooting of people.” I was surprised – Maddow and I rarely end up in agreement, yet I couldn’t agree more that the world would be a much better place if everyone stuck to these two rules when speaking in public forums. I knew, of course, that Maddow could not possibly be serious or had not thought too hard about her second proposal. The implications of that rule, though perhaps not immediately obvious, are staggering.

Let’s try a few:

• “The United States should invade Iran” –> Soldiers should be instructed to shoot Iranians and should follow these orders.

Therefore, no one may (under Maddow’s rules) advocate the invasion of Iran (or any other country for that matter).

• “The possession/sale of cocaine should be prohibited” –> Police officers ought to find people who possess/sell cocaine and arrest them. If these people resist the police, as they would any other home invader or kidnapper, the police should shoot the resisters.

Again, the principle is clear: no one may advocate the prohibition of the possession or sale of cocaine (or any other drug).

• “The federal government ought to provide healthcare to all US citizens” –> The federal government should collect taxes to pay for the healthcare of all US citizens. Those citizens who refuse to pay taxes, rather than simply not being provided with the services offered (as it works with any business or voluntary organization), should be found and arrested by police officers. As above, if these people resist, the police should shoot the resisters.

Just as with the other examples, this principle implies that no one may advocate the government provision of healthcare (or any other such service, e.g. Social Security, Medicare, etc).

As the above examples make clear, the principle of not encouraging the shooting of people means that no one may advocate that the State does anything at all. For every action that the State takes necessarily depends on the threat of shooting those who disobey and resist. What Maddow has said is that the only legitimate position to take in public discourse is libertarianism! That’s a principle I can get behind.

Unfortunately, as much as I would love to see Rothbardianism make its way onto MSNBC, I fear that Maddow broke her first rule of discourse when she gave the second.

Ronald Bailey, over at Hit & Run, asks, “Should a person who is dying of an incurable illness be allowed to donate his organs before the disease kills him?” This strikes me as a very odd question to ask, especially given who is doing the asking. Hit & Run is the blog for Reason Magazine, a publication I have been led to believe has some libertarian bent. Yet, oddly, it seems they are still mulling over the most fundamental principle of libertarianism: self-ownership.

Once it is recognized that the fellow from the story, Gary Phebus, is a self-owner, the answer to Bailey’s initial question becomes blindingly obvious – a resounding yes. What would it mean to be a self-owner but be unable to use one’s body and its parts as one wished? Surely, any libertarian must recognize the right to commit suicide and the right to donate one’s organs after death, which is all this amounts to. Why the struggle?

But maybe what Bailey meant to ask is “should a person who is dying of an incurable illness donate his organs before the disease kills him?” Note the difference between these two questions: the former asks whether we should restrain someone by force from donating their organs, while the latter asks whether someone should choose to donate their organs.

On this question, I must part ways again with Bailey who says,

On the one hand, it is certainly wrong to take a vital organ, even if given voluntarily, from a healthy person. On the other hand, Phebus is not healthy. In any case, harvesting organs from Phebus would violate the medical ethical principle: “First, do no harm.” Phebus’ generous impulse moves me, but I fear that honoring it would create dangerous precedents.

First, I am not sure it is certainly wrong to take a vital organ, if given voluntarily, from a healthy person. What if a healthy, 60 year old grandmother has a 10 year old granddaughter who needs a new heart to survive, but the line to get a new heart is so long (thanks to government prohibition of organ markets, of course) that she has only a slim chance of surviving? Would it be certainly wrong for the doctors to take the grandmother’s donation to her ailing granddaughter? I cannot see why. Indeed, I would think that the grandmother is not only acting in a permissible manner, but in an admirable manner, and a doctor who refused to allow this would seem to be cold and cruel.

But this case seems even more in favor of the donation going through given the point that Bailey himself acknowledges: the donor is not healthy. He suffers from an incurable disease that will cause him to painfully waste away for the remainder of his shortened life. This is a case where even mainstream thinkers can often justify euthanasia, yet Bailey is balking at someone throwing in that he will also donate his organs? What’s going on here? How can adding beneficence and charity to the act harm the case in favor of euthanasia?

The last two sentences seem to take a swing at answering that, with an appeal to the principle of nonmaleficence and the “dangerous precedents” involved in breaking it. I think, however, even on his own terms, this should be permissible. I do not see what harm is done by the doctors in accepting the donated organs; this seems beyond question. What Bailey is really referring to is the ethics of euthanasia, a topic far too in-depth and complex for a full treatment in this blogpost. I will make one point on this though: it does not follow that by shortening someone’s life, you do them harm. Few people believe that we should extend our life at any cost and I doubt very much that Bailey is one of them. If one can live a shorter, more virtuous and happy life, that is preferable to living a longer, more vile and miserable life. So it cannot be said that a doctor who gives his patient the ability to choose the former over the latter does him harm, indeed, it would seem that a doctor who prevents his patient from taking that course is the one who does harm.

Finally, it would seem to me that the most dangerous precedent of all that can be set in this case is to prevent Mr. Phebus from doing with his body what he pleases and thereby denying the essential right of self-ownership.

Just less than one year ago, it was announced that the University of Michigan would institute a “smoke free” policy on all three of its campuses, finally banning smoking on all university property after incrementally banning it first indoors and then within fifteen feet of all entrances and exits to university buildings. The new policy is set to take effect on July 1st, 2011.

However, this proposed policy has caused significant and vocal opposition from members of the campus community. In particular, members of the University of Michigan College Libertarians, including myself, have led the efforts to reverse this decision.

Criticisms, up to this point, have focused heavily on the fact that this decision was made entirely from on high by President Mary Sue Coleman without the involvement of students, faculty, or staff. There have also been significant concerns regarding the justifications for the ban: representatives of the “Smoke Free University Initiative” have stated, interestingly, that the ban is not in response to concerns regarding second-hand smoke (the usual excuse for such measures), but rather for the purpose of creating a “culture of health.” This, it seemed, was particularly ridiculous: the university was engaging in blatant paternalism and trying to make personal health decisions for students, faculty, and staff. One of the most vocal opponents of the ban, Alex Biles, had a modest proposal of his own for promoting a “culture of health.” There were a variety of other concerns, of course, including the issue of enforcement, the costs of this policy to the university, the additional cigarette butt littering after the removal of butt huts across campus, and so on.

However, a massive break was made last weekend when it was discovered that President Mary Sue Coleman, architect of the policy, also just so happened to sit on the Board of Directors of the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, which is the largest producer of smoking cession products in the nation, and received an incredible $229,978 in compensation. The College Libertarians quickly wrote up and sent out a press release regarding this development and the issue has spawned two articles in the most-read campus newspaper, the Michigan Daily, this week. This significant and obvious conflict of interest has never been addressed by Mary Sue Coleman and it was only through independent investigation that this was discovered.

This, of course, does not constitute evidence that the policy was motivated by her affiliation to the corporate giant. But, as Murray Rothbard insisted, we should not shy away from investigating such relationships and always asking, “cui bono?” when examining the genesis of government policies. What appear to be disinterested and benevolent actions by “public servants” are often motivated by far more sinister and self-serving reasons.

Libertarians are often split on the issue of how to respond to government requests like the Census. It is plainly obvious that taking money from the people by force in order to engage in this glorified demographics survey is unjust, and many worry that the questions we are required to answer are far too intrusive. Therefore, many libertarians have chosen to refuse to participate in the census in one form or another – some tossing out their census forms entirely and others responding only to questions they feel are permitted to be asked by the Constitution (namely, the question regarding the number of persons living in the household).

Others argue, though, that while the census is surely unjust, one should follow the law anyway because, after all, it does not really do harm to anyone and you are unnecessarily exposing yourself to additional aggression by refusing to cooperate. I find this response persuasive – after all the taxation is a sunk cost and the aggression has already occurred, indeed, the money has already been spent to pay for the census, so the libertarian who responds to the census is in no way contributing to the aggression inherent in the process. Further, the threat of additional aggression is good reason to follow the law. Given that one does not contribute to aggression and that one can avoid additional aggression against oneself by filling out a similar form, this is a very powerful argument in favor of compliance.

However, as the title of this post suggests, I have chosen to be noncompliant with the census. But why, given the strength of the argument in favor of compliance?

First, let me say what my reasons are not. My reasons have nothing to do with the constitutionality (or, rather, unconstitutionality) of the questions. That argument, it seems to me, should not be relevant: the Constitution is a strictly utilitarian device for restricting government (a job at which it has failed spectacularly, but that is its nature regardless), whether we should act to promote it or not is only a question of whether doing so is conducive to our goals or not – the Constitution is not valuable for its own sake.

My reasons also have nothing to do with the intrusiveness of the questions or the time it takes to fill out. I participate in many surveys and studies that are sent to me – be they from researchers, event organizers, or even sometimes restaurants that I go to frequently. I have no problem helping people get this sort of information and it does not even bother me that it is the government that has information regarding my sex, race, and so on.

The reason that I refused to fill out my census form was simply an issue of dignity. The U.S. Census Bureau has decided that the way they would like to encourage people to participate in their demographic study is to order us to complete their forms or else. On the front of the envelop containing my census form, in huge, all-caps, bold lettering, it reads: “YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW.” This is a far cry from the approach nongovernmental surveys take – which all humbly ask for a few moments of my time to aid them in whatever it is they are trying to gather for. But the Census Bureau’s approach is not just impolite – it is an affront to my human dignity. That someone would dare to demand, at the point of a gun, that I fill out their silly survey is the height of arrogance and absurdity. This is an assault on my status as a being worthy of even the most minimal amount of respect.

But, of course, those who argue for compliance can respond, “ah, but is not taxation at least as much of an affront to your human dignity? Are there not a large number of government actions which far exceed the census by this measure, actions which include demands to which you comply?” And the answer, of course, is yes. I pay my taxes and comply with all sorts of requirements the government places on me. But, of course, the difference is in the penalties. For refusing to file tax returns, I could end up in jail and incur massive fines. The penalty for refusing to comply with the census? $100 maximum. Is protecting my dignity from the government goons worth the potential loss of $100? I think so. I would never look down on someone who thought otherwise, of course; but for me, $100 is far less valuable than my pride and dignity.