Join me on a trip into... The Libertarian Zone!

Great Debates
21

I think I’m on his train for a long, long ride. I’m not a member of the Libertarian Party (or any political party), but I believe in many of the same beliefs.

STOP 1: Some Thoughts and Observations

The WOD is pretty inefficient in IMHO, but I also think only a dunce would voluntarily use recreational drugs.

Private organizations and institutions would retain the right to restrict the use of recreational drugs by members. This would include employers. An employer can insist, if they believe that drug addicted employees create a business risk, on a drug free clause for its employees and whoever wants to be employed there must comply or face termination. The Market could decide in many cases. Just for example, let’s say there are two Banks vying for my investments. Bank One has a Drug Free clause and fires drug addicted employees. Bank Two allows drug addicted employees. If everything else where equal, I’d pick the drug free bank because I do believe drug addiction could negatively affect financial decisions. Some one else who doesn’t share my beliefs could invest with Bank Two. Other types of business, like drug free Fast Food Joint and drugs allowed Fast Food Joint may not be as important, but I still leave it up to the business to make the determination.

I would also allow increased health insurance premiums for recreational drug users, much in the same way smokers are made to pay higher costs, mostly because the continued use of drugs would probably create health risks. I could accept denying health insurance in some cases and even public access to hospital. If Joe Cool wants to use smack, that is his choice, but when his health falls apart I don’t want public money going to save his life.

Now let’s suppose drug addicts and recreational users default on loans at a higher rate than non-addicts or users. I’m not sure if it is true or not, but I suppose it could be: an addict buying cocaine before paying his car payment. If such were true, then it would be entirely appropriate to charge higher interest rates to recreational drug users to cover the increased risk. Loan Contracts would ask what if any drugs the user uses, then increase or decrease the rate as needed. A cocaine user may have to pay 10-12% on a car loan, whereas the drug free could get 2-5%, just to throw out random numbers. Lying about drug use for contractual proposes would probably be fraud and could result in the loan being canceled, fines, repo of property, et al.

I guess it could be summed up as: If you’re going to use recreational drugs, you better be ready to pay the heavy costs and consequences of your use.

STOP 5

I have no probable getting rid of needless Government agencies and would like to add the SBA as one of the first to be beheaded by the Axe.

22

Pity I am feverish, I would like to take a crack at these facile critiques of government spending and regulation etc. Rather we assume in a strangely willy nilly way that the idealized world of the neo-classical model simply obtains by magic.

However, let me make a comment on the truly silly proposition that “we have enough laws already.” Surely the OP and other intervenors have some grasp of the lack of logic or critical thought which goes into this statement?

Or that in fact the creation of laws and regualtions themselves are not truly the issue of “politicians” that wonderfully diffuse entity but rather public demand? Free contract and all that.

I get off after the first stop on this train, as it is stunningly poorly concieved based upon easy assumptions and poorly based nostalgia for simpler times.

23

OK, I think we can toss all “corporate welfare” programs into stop 2. The only people in favor of those are big corporations.

As far as the number of laws goes, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to require lawmakers to find something stupid to get rid of any time they want a new law. Survival of the fittest and all. Because we can probably rule out the intelligent design theory. But perhaps we could make life easier by allowing the allowable number to be the same as the number prior to the elimination of all victimless crime laws.

As for felons voting, here in Massachusetts, the people just last year voted to keep people in jail from voting (I think there are 2 or 3 states that still allow them to). Personally, I don’t think anyone should be disenfrachised for committing a crime, but that’s just me.

OK, now let’s start towards those sacred cows. First, and I’m writing off the whole Midwest here, let’s ditch farm subsidies, and ethanol. If this country can’t support farmers through a free market, let’s just buy our food elsewhere. This might be stop 6.

24

I meant people on this board…in which there is, I think, a higher average IQ than in the general population. Although, now that I think of it, pretty much everyone I know IRL is against the WOD too. Where is the support for it coming from?

Ummmmmm…ok…

I favor private roads in theory, but I can’t see how to make it work at every level IRL.

I would rather take a different approach. I think we should start by cutting the budget of every govt. agency to zero, and then ask ourselves which ones do we need? In wonk-speak, I think you would say, we are going to abandon “current services baseline budgeting” and adopt “zero based budgeting”.

I assume then that you support the DOE, so I hope Sam will forgive me if I execute a hijack here and ask you a question of fact that may be better off in GQ. What, exactly, does the DOE do?

25

Whups, I forgot…welcome back Pyrrhonist…hope you enjoyed your trip :smiley:

26

Hey, this train has GOT to be going in the right direction: Collounsbury got off at the first stop. Bye bye! Don’t forget to write!

Okay, we’re still at stop 5 for a moment… We’re here looking for wasteful government programs and agencies - the ones that would be first on the chopping block. I think I saw a bureaucrat hiding back in one of the cattle cars. We have to clean the train up a bit before moving on.

Here are some candidates: Discuss amongst yourselves, and then we’ll try to come up with a consensus for which ones to leave at this stop.

NOTE: I’m not suggesting that ALL of these be scrapped - I’m just going through the budget looking for likely candidates. Some of these programs may be reasonable, and I’d certainly entertain a defense of any of them. Also, there are some Turkeys in the budget that I’m not touching right now because they don’t cost that much, and I don’t want to divert the discussion away from the big stuff.

[ul]
[li]Farm Income Stabilization Programs - 32 billion dollars in FY2002[/li][li]Small and Minority Business Assistance - 581 million in FY 2002[/li][li]Community Development Block Grants - 4 billion in FY2002[/li][li]Area and Regional Development Programs (Tennessee Valley Authority, Indian Development Programs, etc) - 2.45 Billion in FY2002[/li][li]Housing Assistance Programs - 28.7 billion in FY2002[/li][li]Equal Employment Opportunity Corporation - 290 million in FY2002[/li][li]Federal Crime Victim’s Fund - 392 million[/li][li]Drug Control Programs - 392 million (DARE, etc)[/li][/ul]

The most interesting thing about this list is just how difficult it really is to cut the size of government. The budget for FY2002 is 1.788 trillion dollars. If we eliminated ALL of the programs listed above, it wouldn’t amount to 5% of the budget. Most of the federal government’s money goes to things that are simply politically untouchable: Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Defense, and interest on the debt. A big chunk of money goes to pay for previous commitments like veteran’s benefits, federal employee retirement, etc. So don’t fool yourself that we’re going to dismantle the government and live in some tax-free paradise. It ain’t gonna happen.

This is what frustrates me about the Libertarian radicals who talk about stuff like privatizing the police. You might as well talk about Terraforming Venus for all the good it’s going to do you. We won’t be privatizing the police in your lifetime or mine, so why waste all the effort talking about it? Sure, it’s fun as a thought exercise over beers but jeez, stop bringing nonsense like that up every time the rest of us are trying to get WORK done.

And that’s the whole point of this train - we’re going to see how far we can ride it before we run into absolutely untouchable programs and can go no further. At that point, we’ll take stock and see just what kind of society we have. This then forms a blueprint for a real Libertarian platform for where we can take the government.

Picmr: You’re not getting it. There won’t be a real ‘review panel’. Remember, for the purposes of this discussion I’m a DICTATOR. We’re all going to discuss just what we think belongs on and off the train at each stop, then I’ll get the pitchfork and throw it off if I think it’s even marginally politically feasible. So, the ‘review panel’ I’m talking about is US, here in this forum.

If you want to read the budget yourself, it’s here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/

27

Weird Al: That’s not a hijack at all. Each one of these stops is meant to let us debate the items at hand. When I think the debate is over, or stalled out, or heading in the wrong direction, then I’ll start up the train and we’ll head on. Anything we can’t come to agreement on we’ll just have to take along with us.

Excellent question on the Department of Education, BTW. I think a lot of people confuse support for Education with support for a Federal Department of Education, which isn’t necessarily the same thing.

For instance, the Department of Education will get something like 32 BILLION dollars this year. There are an estimated 3.1 million public school teachers in the U.S. If you folded the department of Education, you could give every one of them a $10,000/yr raise.

Or, you could take the 32 billion and create one million scholarships of $32,000 each, with only students from the worst 10% of schools being eligible. Or, you could give EVERY school in America a grant of almost $700,000 every year. Or take the bottom 10% of all schools and give each of them 7 million bucks a year.

It’s not enough to say that the Department of Education does good things. I’m sure it does. The question is, does it do enough to justify spending this kind of money? Could the money be better spend on other ways of improving education?

28

I like what Pyrrhonist had to say about the WOD. Sounds like he might have a better solution than the current mess. But after that I’ll follow Collounsbury and get off at stop 1. Interesting that no substantial attempt to address any of the points he raised was made.

Before I get off, though, I’ll scrawl a bit of graffiti on the seat, a quote from my favorite standup philosopher George Carlin:

“One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is “Libertarian”. People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable and, to the uninitiated, faintly dangerous. Actually, it’s just one more bullshit political philosophy.”

29

By Stop 5, wouldn’t the United States of America pretty much cease to exist? No federal agencies, a drastically shrunken (and continually shrinking) federal register, the constant abdication of a position on issues in favor of the state’s deciding?

What’s left? A national military?

Regarding the review of the federal register, and expiration dates on laws, I’m reminded of something my uncle the cop once told me about parole boards. To generalize, constant and high-volume review of anything leads directly to horse trading: “you want to keep that law that I haven’t read, and I think we should keep this one with which you’re unfamiliar, so let’s keep them both unchanged and make it home for the weekend.”

In favor of Sam’s train, the constant devolution of government to the states would shrink the federal register all by itself as the Congress and the Senate lost the ability to pass laws on different issues, and those already existing laws became invalid by suddenly being state issues.

30

For the purposes of our discussion here, do we assume that the status quo will remain in place unless a reason is found to change it, and thus we have to come up with reasons to eliminate these programs? Or will we be using my suggestion, and assuming that there needs to be a justification to keep them?

I for one think this is a fair point, even though laws with expiration dates would still be a definite improvement over what we have now. There is plenty of “horse trading” in the current system after all. I would go a step further and require suprmajorities, in whatever legislative body makes laws, to pass or re-pass restrictive laws. Or for that matter, increase the budget or levy taxes.

31

Yep, I think there is some real merit to the horse-trading argument. Well, let’s be pro-active then. Assuming we agree that it’s a good thing to lighten the regulatory burden on America, how do we go about it? We’re looking for practical, real-world solutions that might actually have a chance of happening one day.

32

There’s a fine line to walk, though, and I suspect that automatic expiry dates would cross it. We don’t want the government spending all its time reviewing and renewing laws either, do we? There’s a balance to be struck in any legislative body with making it difficult enough to pass a law to prevent trivial legislation from sliding through, and making it so difficult that passing even simple, useful laws is prohibitively difficult.

I don’t buy the claim that fewer laws=more just society. Remember, this is the country where legislators try to pass laws banning evolution from textbooks and vibrators from Georgia. The problem isn’t the system, it’s the variety of those in charge. Reduce the number of laws, and you reduce the number of good laws in effect (well, at least laws with which you agree). Do you think that restriction-minded interest groups are going to ease off, saying “well, these rules we have in mind just aren’t important enough to be enshrined in one of our few, special, exceedingly rare but well-thought-out laws”?

33

I don’t know how practical it is, but the best method I can think of would be to expand the constitution with amendments covering more bases in more detail, and include one that says “you must be a strict constructionist to be a judge”.

I think procedural controls on passing laws will never have the desired effect. The most effective way to limit laws is to force them to pass strict legal review, and give someone the power to strike the law down immediately if it doesn’t.

34

Ummmm…just how “practical” do you want these solutions to be? IANAPolitician, ya know. :wink:

Ummmmm…yes, actually, we do…or at least I do. What else should the government be doing?

True, although I think laws we really need, like laws against murder, would be passed by unanimous consent.

I disagree. I think it’s both, to some extent.

No, of course not…thta’s why we need to make things more difficult for them.

35

I’m still on the train. I especially want to scrap the war on drugs, and the wars on other victimless crimes, such as prostitution, gambling, assorted forbidden consenual sex acts, etc. And I want to scrap the a number of govt. agencies, esp. the Dept. of Education.

In addition to eliminating govt agencies, can we combine some of those we keep, so as to reduce duplication of effort and juristictional wrangling?

At some stop or other, can we have jury nullification? Judges would have to stop telling juries, “if you find that the defendant broke the law, you MUST convict, even if you disagree with the law, and even if you feel that applying it is unjust in this particular case – you are ONLY allowed to decide if the defendant did/didn’t break the law.”

Instead, we would return to the intent of the framers – juries would again be entitled to openly decide to return a vertict of “not guilty” if they believed that the law was a bad or foolish law that should not exist. Juries would also be entitled to give a vertict of “not guilty” if they decided that the law was okay, but in this particular case, the defendant’s actions were justified.

36

I typically find myself agreeing with libertarianism on a small number of specific ideological points but at the same time, I tend to disagree with the bigger (read: more important) points.

My biggest disagreement is on privatization of, well… darn near everything. As such, I figured that I’d be getting off this train pretty early. So my question to the conductor is where is the stop where public lands are gone?

Sam, you briefly mentioned building parks in stop 2 (Government Pork). Would money still be available for public lands so long as it was specifically requested (i.e. non-pork)? I guess, if we’ve still got public lands after stop 2, then I’m still on the train.

37

And so would Jim Crow laws, in the South at least.

My point was that forcing government into an endless cycle of navel-gazing at their own laws will just occupy them endlessly. If you don’t want them passing any laws, get rid of them. I’m sure the states would be happy to put their laws against murder to use.

Let me clarify: the problem isn’t the procedure. It’s already a byzantine maze getting a law passed federally. Make it more difficult, and the lawmakers will just spend more time, and wield more power in the process, especially those real power-holders like committee-heads. If you turn passing a law into a more kafkaesque process of gathering votes and making deals to pass another stage of the process, we’re going to get worse laws, not better.

The size and complexity of our legal system is inherent in our common law system, which naturally seeks finer distinctions on issues that come before the courts. If you want to reduce the number of laws, don’t fiddle with the machine: make the constitution a very strict, straightforward, and literal document, and let judges strike down laws as they see fit.

Well, do one more thing: punish legislators for every law they vote for that gets struck down–say, fines from the campaign war chest, for instance. That way, you’ve got judges continually tossing laws in favor of a very strict interpretation of the constitution, and you’ve got an incentive for lawmakers to avoid passing laws that will get struck down.

By the way, no one has answered my earlier question: at what stop does the United States of America effectively cease to exist? Once you gut the federal government of any authority and cohesive mission, all you’ve got left is a bunch of states that are already pretty different in character. At which stop does the various National Guards start eying their neighbours?

38

We already have jury nullification.

39

SS: *Assuming we agree that it’s a good thing to lighten the regulatory burden on America, how do we go about it? *

That’s a pretty big assumption, considering how many posters here have expressed reservations about the idea that there are “too many laws”, and how little their reservations have been actually addressed in this debate. Demanding to limit or reduce the size of the Federal Register may sound excitingly pro-active and libertarian, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense without putting the issue in context.

Yes, the number of federal laws has been steadily growing. So has the U.S. population, the number of patents issued, the amount of published scientific research, the number of educational institutions, the number and variety of medical treatments, the number of bridges, roads, and other infrastructure, the speed and variety of financial transactions, the overall size of the economy, and a whole bunch of other things. Why should we assume that the size of the Federal Register necessarily means “there are too many laws” rather than “an increasingly large and complex society requires increasingly large and complex regulation”?

I like the idea of having more legislative review, so we could actually prune some of the accumulated deadwood (though I think you exaggerate the burden it really imposes; plenty of laws that remain on the books but are no longer really useful simply don’t get enforced anymore—which I agree is kind of a klugey and unreliable remedy, but at least in practice it does remove some of the excess regulatory burden). But I remain skeptical about the suggestion that we should impose some kind of quantitative limits on the number of laws we’re allowed to have.

At the very least, I’d require such quantitative limits to be tied to the size and complexity of society, rather than being imposed in absolute numbers. In a society of only a few people, for example, having any laws at all instead of consensus decisions would probably be a tedious waste of time (which is why I always say that the type of society that libertarian political philosophy is truly well adapted for is the string quartet. Same goes for the communist political philosophy ;)).

Roughly speaking, though, the more people you’ve got, the greater variety of things they’re going to want to do and the greater number of social and technical innovations they’re going to come up with, some proportion of which will always require regulation. So, you think up a quantitative method for linking restrictions on legislation to the size/complexity of the legislating society, and/or a mechanism for encouraging legislative review without attaching quotas to it, and see if you can sell me on getting back on the train.

[Note added in preview: hansel’s suggestion for a non-quota mechanism to reduce frivolous legislation—fining legislators for voting for laws that get struck down by the judiciary—is an interesting one. Of course, it would make our society even more reliant—much more reliant—on judicial activism than it already is.]

40

Hey, I’m open to alternative mechanisms to keep the explosion of regulation at bay, but offhand I sure can’t think of one.

And pretty much all Libertarians think that we are over-regulated. The problem is, the average person doesn’t see just what a burden excessive regulation puts on us. They go to work, come home, and relax, never knowing how many tentacles the federal government had entwined around them. But every regulation has cost. In fact, some estimates for the cost of regulatory compliance in the U.S. are over 2 trillion dollars a year, which is more than the entire budget of the federal government.

There is another problem when you have such an immense number of regulations. They can’t all be enforced, and the average person can’t know all of them. So we go around all day violating all sorts of obscure regulations. What this does is turns justice on its head - the original idea of government being a system of laws, not men. They are supposed to apply to everyone equally, and remove the power of an individual to go on a witch hunt.

Well, what happens now is that if a bureaucrat gets a bee in his bonnet over something, he can go after you and start searching for regulatory non-compliance. And he’ll almost always find something. So the guy next door doing the same thing gets away with it, but you go to jail, because the bureaucrat doesn’t like you. And you may think this is far-fetched, but it happens all the time. A company in my city made a bunch of fuss about a proposed new environmental regulation. As a result, they were audited, and an empty aerosol can of a household cleaning product was found in their garbage. Unfortunately for them, their specific industry had some obscure regulation regarding the disposal of aerosal cans, and the company was SHUT DOWN. I imagine they probably had to pay fines and jump through some hoops before re-opening, and I don’t remember the final outcome. But whether they were still in business or not after that, the point was made - don’t fight with the federal government, or the big boot will land right on your head.

I just did a search in the Federal Register for ‘Chickens’, and came up with 127 different FEDERAL regulations, including one that limits how much water a company can use when freeze-drying Chicken. Want to bet that this regulation made its way into the register through the action of some politician who has as a constituent a Chicken manufacturer that uses a dry-freeze process? There are tens of thousands of federal laws like that on the books - laws that make no sense until you dig deep and discover who sponsored them and what constituency they support.

This process happens quietly behind the scenes, rarely makes the news, and is another way that politicians can be corrupted for special interests. Silly laws get passed behind closed doors as politicians swap favors to enhance their agendas. If Jim Jeffords had gone to George Bush and said, “If you want to keep me in the GOP, I want you to arrange support for a vote on my regulation to keep left-handed glassblowers from selling bowls in Wal-Mart”, then that law may have come to pass even though not a single Senator thinks it makes sense. It’s just a small price to pay to payoff someone important.