Jay Leno and Ron Paul

If you didn't see it last night, Ron Paul was amazing on Jay Leno's show. Link is here. Also, I agree with the author's analysis; while I like and respect the folks at Cato, Dr. Paul has done more in the last year to promote the ideas of liberty than any DC-based think tank or organization ever has. Ron Paul is truly a rock star (just ask the Sex Pistols!).

Club for Growth Assessment of Ron Paul: Fair or Hatchet Job?

The Club for Growth is a fiscally-conservative organization that attempts to elect people to Congress and the Presidency who believe in limited government and fiscal responsibility. They have been publishing analyses of each of the presidential candidates over the last few months and just recently published their analysis of Ron Paul's fiscal record.

I believe that the Club is fair to Ron as far as they go. Dr. Paul has a stellar track record on nearly all tax and budget issues. Under a Paul Administration there is no doubt that the federal government would be a fraction of its current size.

That said, as the report points out, Dr. Paul does indeed sometimes let perfect be the enemy of good. Some trade issues fall under this category although I don't share the Club's optimism about federal tort reform or the line item veto.

Not every trade agreement that comes down the pike is a good one, but I think it is hard to argue that NAFTA has not been a boon to both the US and Mexican economies. Also, NAFTA and other trade agreements are nothing but international treaties over which Congress has the final say. They would seem to pass Constitutional muster.

But the Club's major shortfall (and the shortfall of most DC-based free market groups) is the inability and unwillingness to take an honest look at the impact foreign policy has on the size of government. With the Iraq War having cost US taxpayers nearly $500 billion (just a down-payment on that war), not to mention the unnecessary creation of the Department of Homeland Security (gee...maybe the DEFENSE Department should be defending the "homeland," and dozens of other very expensive projects (Iraq embassy anyone) linked directly to our belligerent foreign policy, Ron Paul stands head and shoulders above the rest of the field. I understand why the Club and other fiscally-conservative groups don't take stands on foreign policy, but "War is the Health of the State" and anyone fighting for limited government must account for that fact.

For the Children

Please start smoking, if only for the children...

Missing Warren G. Harding

Mainstream rankings of American presidents always frustrate me. Like this one from US News and World Reports which ranks the 10 worst and includes some other rankings of the best Presidents, scholars don't seem to base their decisions on human freedom, rather who did the most to centralize power in the Executive Branch.

Into this debate steps Lew Rockwell with his excellent defense of Warren Harding (2nd on the US News worst list). Martin Van Buren is another President who does not get high marks from historians, but who freedom-oriented historians have given high marks.

If centralizing Executive power is the matrix preferred by historians, then George W. Bush might be considered one of the best Presidents in this nation's history. After all, FDR makes Bush look like a piker as far as abrogating the Constitution is concerned, yet historians love him.

No Rights?

"Where do you get off demanding services, rights and mandatory citizenship?" said Manassas resident Robert Stephens. "Who invited you? You cry for your rights? You have none."

This is from an AP wire article about Prince William County, Va's (where I live) unanimous vote to deny county services to illegal aliens.

A disturbing trend on the political right is appearing. George Bush and neoconservatives believe that foreign citizens have fewer rights than Americans. A foreigner has no right to the same due process, apparently. See Gitmo.

Does the pursuit of justice, due process, limited government, liberty, and "love thy neighbor as thyself" end at the border?

I hope not.

/KDR

A Legacy of Losing: JFK, Obama and Viet Nam

Andrew Sullivan raised a question. I've got an answer.

Q: Larison doesn't see any overlap:

Sure, superficially Obama and [Ron] Paul might seem to offer some similar themes, and both did oppose the Iraq war, but Obama is essentially an interventionist at home and abroad and Paul is diametrically opposed to both. One invokes JFK, the other invokes Robert Taft. Obama thinks everything on earth is tied to our national security; Paul thinks that there are very few things overseas that are tied to our national security.

A: JFK gave us the Viet Nam "Conflict," which served no vital national interest [poor grammar (perhaps a translation issue); accurate article]. Ron Paul would prefer that the Department of Defense actually be about defense and not about offending most of my veteran friends who signed up to "solemnly swear, (or affirm), that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter."

I didn't spend over a decade in the Army to build nations, police the world or install a freer election system (and they call this democracy?) than we have in the United States -- which was accomplished by the force of guns aimed at people who didn't have WMDs nor harbor bin Laden. I'll never forget the day "The Wall" fell in Germany. It was the only time I recall not being irritated by a traffic jam; people and luggage stacked up in broken-down Traubis to escape the totalitarian East was the perfect symbol that freedom had won this round.

Now we have the totalitarian West, where we remove our shoes for TSA agents in order to not recall that the concept of habeas corpus has existed since the year 1215.

An interventionist foreign policy doesn't work well for very long and the consequences are often dire. Coca-Cola, Levis and the Rolling Stones won the Cold War (to be sure, there was a military stick to the free market carrot). Instead, Obama proposes that we retry failed policy by following in the footsteps of the man who more-or-less brought us Viet Nam.

We all know how that one ended up.

Ron Paul on PBS NewsHour

There is a video on youtube, an excellent interview, split into two parts.

This is, by far, the best interview I've yet seen, and I hope a lot of people saw it. However, one thing that should be noted is who broadcast this video (on the air, not online): PBS. That is the Public Broadcasting System. It is somewhat ironic that PBS is among the organizations that, under a Paul administration, could see its funding cut yet further.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am an enthusiastic supporter of Dr. Paul. I am quite grateful for the coverage-so grateful, in fact, that I am probably going to convert some of the money I currently have going toward Dr. Paul's campaign to NPR when this is all over. (I'd donate to PBS, but I don't watch TV.) I hope many other Paul supporters will do the same, and as a result, PBS and NPR (both of which have done some excellent interviews) won't need government support, or will at least be even more independent.

There's government owned media and there's corporate owned media, and neither of them are all that great, when it comes to doing more than playing the same songs over and over again and selling trinkets-and the political establishment. Listener supported media is, in my mind, a very good thing.

Are you going to arrest me, Governor Romney?

If you haven't seen the video of Mitt Romney turning away from a man with muscular dystrophy, coldly stating, "I don't support medical marijuana," you are missing out on a clear moment of truth about this man who is running for president.

It really boils down to that simple moral judgment -- should a sick man in wheelchair and his doctors who are trying to help him be put in jail for attempting to alleviate pain? Apparently Romney is okay with that. That is his morality.

If the reality of the man's suffering was discomforting to him, perhaps he should reconsider his policy position. Otherwise, Romney has to live with knowledge that his pursuit of power hurts the man in the wheelchair and that every step forward he makes, his campaign is furthering injustice and cruelty.

/KDR

What is Libertarian Paternalism?

Paul Gessing discusses Jacob Hornberger's position on "libertarian paternalism" in the previous post. While they both offer valuable remarks on the matter, Gessing and Hornberger are having a debate over whether incremental libertarianism is libertarianism at all. But, I don't think that is what "libertarian paternalism" -- as an idea -- is really about. I chalk this up to the incorrect usage of the term by David Leonhardt of the New York Times, whom Hornberger references.

Libertarian paternalism is about whether there is merit in government helping out by setting a default choice for the option most beneficial to the citizen.

Cass Sunstein describes libertarian paternalism as such:

The basic idea is that private and public institutions might nudge people in directions that will make their lives go better, without eliminating freedom of choice. The paternalism consists in the nudge; the libertarianism consists in the insistence on freedom, and on imposing little or no cost on those who seek to go their own way.

In an interview with EconTalk, Richard Thaler compares the government's role to a cafeteria manager who benevolently makes fruit easier to access, while making candy bars harder to reach. He does not deny them the choice of the candy bar, but he helps them make a better choice.

In Econ Journal Watch, Dan Klein dismisses this approach:

But it seems odd to drag the terms “libertarian” and “paternalism” into matters like dessert placement. What they speak of could be more accurately, if less provocatively, addressed using such terms as benevolence, discipline, delegation, propriety, help, cooperation, and so on. The terms “libertarian” and “paternalism” reside naturally in discussions of political affairs and particularly in issues involving coercive government policy. The paternalism entry of The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought begins: “In modern use the term usually refers to those laws and public policies which restrict the freedom of persons in order that their interests may be better served”

Klein suggests that libertarian paternalism is an odd coupling and he suggests other absurd pairings:

It seems to me that Thaler and Sunstein pull “libertarian” and “paternalism” out of their normal context just to create an oxymoronic gimmick. If Thaler and Sunstein were to proceed with this kind of gimmick, we could anticipate the following papers:

“Libertarian Socialism”: A paper pointing out that sometimes patrons at a Chinese restaurant may decide to order a number of dishes and share them in common.

“Libertarian Communism”: A paper pointing out that sometimes adults such as the Jesuits at Santa Clara University live and eat and work together within a nexus of private property and voluntary association.

“Libertarian Dirigisme”: A paper pointing out that executives centrally plan the basic skeleton of activities at the worksite.

“Libertarian Interventionism”: A paper pointing out that condominium associations involve restrictions on members’ activities.

“Libertarian Repression”: A paper pointing out that, as described in Schelling (1984), individuals control their own behavior by repressing, subduing, or annihilating certain subordinate selves.

Cass Sunstein says it is not just a gimmick:

But it is not idiosyncratic to distinguish between approaches that respect freedom of choice and those that do not. Klein suspects "that the authors simply wish to reject the distinction between voluntary and coercive action upon which the very idea of libertarianism is based" (Klein 2004, 267). But that very distinction is pivotal to our argument, which opposes libertarian paternalism to nonlibertarian varieties, and which endorses the former over the latter.

Klein replies:

By adding “libertarian” to “paternalism,” Thaler and Sunstein make it seem like they affirm the libertarian distinction between voluntary and coercive. They use “libertarian”—a political call to depoliticize—to counteract the political meaning of “paternalism.” But “libertarian paternalism” is like “voluntary coercion.” Sunstein and Thaler concoct new meanings—of “voluntary” and “coercion” as much as of “libertarian” and “paternalism.”

The bastardization “libertarian paternalism” upsets people’s understanding of those terms in their critical function: highlighting the coercive nature of government intervention. In espousing government intervention, Sunstein would advance honest discourse by admitting that it is coercive and defending it as such.

The debate over libertarian paternalism is not whether incremental libertarianism is libertarianism, but whether "libertarian paternalism" offers a meaningful class of policy maneuvers and whether the very terminology undermines freedom.

/KDR

Libertarian Paternalism?

In a recent article, Future of Freedom Foundation President Jacob Hornberger whom I respect a great deal, argued that a wide variety of reforms offered by libertarian and conservative think tanks and policy organizations represent nothing more than "libertarian paternalism."

Reform efforts he attacks in his article include school vouchers, Social Security, and health care. What it all boils down to is that Hornberger is not an incrementalist and, he argues, those who are incrementalist shouldn't label these reforms "libertarian." That's fine as far as it goes, but I think Hornberger oversteps in calling these reforms "libertarian paternalism."

Some libertarians, like Hornberger, believe that any and all government intrusions are unacceptable and the only solution is to dismantle them immediately and completely. Government-run schooling, federally-managed transfer systems, and welfare are three biggies. I can see why Hornberger doesn't want incremental reforms labeled "libertarian" because they're not necessarily, but that doesn't make these reforms any less important or valid.

School vouchers may not be the best public school reform, but Hornberger had nothing but praise for Dr. Milton Friedman upon his passing...well, who came up with vouchers besides Friedman?

Social Security and health care reform follow the same basic lines. The ideas being proposed by Cato and others are not designed to completely eliminate government programs, but to maximize individual freedom and personal control. That's not a bad idea in a political environment in which political leaders and even the public are hostile to even modest reform, not to mention the radical reforms Hornberger prefers.

Paul Jacob Indicted

Free Liberal columnist Paul Jacob has been indicted by the state of Oklahoma for illegally petitioning to place a taxpayers bill of rights on the ballot. He has been threatened with 20 years in prison for this offense. I fully support Paul in his fight against this injustice. Paul has spent his life fighting for our freedom and right to check the power of the state. Now he needs our help. You can show your support by joining this facebook group: Free Paul Jacob -- 100,000 Strong for Constitutional Rights.

See also: FreePaulJacob.com.

Paul's statement follows here:

What Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson is trying to do to me is wrong.

In America, we cherish the right to engage in politics, to speak our minds, to promote our candidate, to work to pass a voter initiative, without fear of reprisal.

That is why today is such a sad day, not only for me, but for all of us who love the initiative process and the right of citizens to control their government.

This indictment unsealed today is not about the law, but rather 100 percent politically motivated. This is politics – very ugly politics.

The highest legal office in the state of Oklahoma seems bent on silencing citizens through harassment and intimidation, threats and coercion. The goal is to silence me, and to frighten you, from petitioning our government.

Those who attempt to put citizens in charge of government spending decisions, through initiatives like the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or any other issue that rankles the powerful political forces of a state, can expect to face an onslaught by the full powers of the government.This is yet another round in the age-old attempt to stop ideas by force, by harassment, by imprisonment, by anything except a better idea. Oklahomans, your attorney general is not practicing democracy. He is practicing the politics of destruction.

It won’t work.

This indictment will not stand. I will fight it with every fiber of my being. And I know that, in the end, those who misuse the power of their office for political advantage, employing ugly and un-democratic tactics, will ultimately face an indictment of their own.

My life, my family, my children are being threatened here…for what? For what?

I have committed no crime. Unless the heartfelt desire to place government under the control of its citizens is now illegal. But this cannot be so. There is much bluster in this indictment. Yet what is my actual offense but that of daring to help Oklahoma voters hold an election to decide an issue?

No, I don’t deserve to go to prison for being politically active. I know that. You know that. Mr. Edmondson should know that, too.

The State of Oklahoma threatens me and others with prison to prevent our involvement in political life and to chill the speech and assembly of others who might wish to become involved. Involved in working to hold an election. To give Oklahomans a vote on an issue.

One might expect this kind of repression in Egypt or Iran or China. But not Oklahoma.

We the People will not be intimidated. We will keep fighting to turn out-of-control government into government that is under citizen control. We will defeat this vicious attempt to criminalize honest political activity. And in the end, we will win.

Background

Let me address the so-called charge against me. I’m accused of violating the Oklahoma statute requiring petition circulators to be residents, a residency requirement currently being challenged in federal court. There seems little justification for this underlying law other than to restrict and hamper the petition process. I believe it will ultimately be struck down as unconstitutional.

Twice in the last quarter century—in Meyer v. Grant and in ACLF v. Buckley—the U.S. Supreme Court struck down similar restrictions, like regulating petitioners’ pay and requiring petitioners to be registered voters. As the High Court put it in Meyer, government cannot “reduce the available pool” of people to assist citizens in communicating with their fellow citizens and petitioning their government.

But regardless of how the courts ultimately rule on the constitutionality of the residency requirement, everyone I worked with on the TABOR petition sought to follow the statute as written. As an advisor to the petition drive, I worked to help Rick Carpenter and Oklahomans in Action obtain the best petition services at the best price, and then to monitor the drive’s progress.

Oklahomans in Action contracted with a petition company called National Voter Outreach, which had worked in Oklahoma on many successful petition drives before taking on the TABOR petition. That contract stipulated that the company was thoroughly familiar with the laws of Oklahoma regarding petitioning.

As the TABOR petition drive got underway, an aggressive campaign was launched to block and harass petition gatherers. Jeannie Berg, an expert in campaigns of harassment against petition drives, was brought in from Oregon to manage the multitude of blockers—many of them brought in from outside the state, and reportedly paid $100 a day.

These “blockers” used thuggish tactics, which have been documented. For example, gangs of them would stalk a petitioner, interrupting, yelling and creating a scene whenever a voter was being asked to sign the petition. There was an organized campaign of lying to store managers, alleging rude treatment from petitioners and asking that they be removed.

In response to all the harassment, many Oklahoma petitioners left the state to petition in other states. Given the difficult environment, not enough new circulators were being recruited and retained in Oklahoma to enable the petition to reach the ballot. Under such circumstances—and under the legislature’s (not the constitution’s) draconian 90-day petition window—I suggested to the petition company that the drive be scuttled.

I was then informed that under Oklahoma’s statutory residency requirement, people could move to Oklahoma and immediately declare residency, and thus be qualified to circulate the petition. The petition company felt enough people could be recruited to move to Oklahoma to gather enough signatures to bring the question to the ballot.

When I inquired as to whether the state officials had been asked for their guidelines on what constitutes residency, I was told that the petition company had indeed sought—and received—the advice and approval of officials in the Secretary of State’s office. Indeed, two separate individuals with National Voter Outreach spoke to government officials to determine the rules on residency. They were told that people could indeed come to Oklahoma, declare residency, and begin circulating a petition.

In good faith, the company acted on this information.

I also asked the folks at National Voter Outreach whether there had been any challenges of petition drives on the basis of residency, and whether any ruling on same had been issued by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. I received a copy of the court’s decision in a challenge to an initiative to ban cock-fighting. In that decision, circulators were challenged for being “out-of-state” circulators because they had moved to Oklahoma during the petition drive and because many lived in hotels during their residence in the state. According to the information I received, every circulator in the cock-fighting ban petition who declared him or herself a resident was ruled to be qualified to circulate the petition, regardless of how long he resided in the state or whether he lived in a hotel. The only circulator disqualified had listed an out-of-state address on the petition form.

In 1994 and 1996 I monitored ballot drives in Oklahoma for term limits. During those drives, circulators were required to be registered voters. Many people moved to Oklahoma, registered to vote, and circulated the petition. Often they would live with friends or at a hotel.

As long as it could be verified that a person was a registered voter in Oklahoma, a proponent could feel comfortable that that circulator met the statutory requirements and that his petition would count. However, that voter registration requirement was subsequently struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Buckley v. ACLF.

After the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision in the TABOR challenge, there’s a new interpretation of the residency statute. The new standard argues that no one who moves to the state to accept a job, no matter how long the duration, is a “genuine” resident unless he is committed to remaining in the state permanently. For example, in the challenge to the TABOR petition, the court ruled that a man who had come to Oklahoma in September of 2005 to circulate the petition and then continued to live in the state for the next ten months was NOT a resident. Thus, the Oklahoma voters who signed his petitions were disenfranchised.

Under the new requirement of residency there is simply no way for petition companies to adequately determine whether a petitioner is or is not a resident. Therefore, future petition proponents and managers can expect to face criminal prosecution depending on circumstances largely, if not entirely, beyond their control. This is certain to have a chilling effect on petition activity.

The underlying state statute here is an unconstitutional attempt to deny the First Amendment rights of Oklahoma citizens. I believe it will be and should be struck down. But even so, during the TABOR ballot drive we sought to understand this statute and to abide by it.

Let me say it again: constitutional or not, we obeyed the statute.

So, why the prosecution? I am told by many friends in Oklahoma that this outrageous prosecution is, sadly, very much in character for the Oklahoma Attorney General. They inform me that while Drew Edmondson shows an uncanny ability to miss the corruption taking place right under his nose by members of his own Democratic Party—such that a federal investigation must now be conducted—he tosses decency and common sense straight out the window to persecute his political opponents.

What’s at stake? The very process by which citizens can check their government—the right to voter initiative and referendum—is under attack in these prosecutions. When the powerful in government are threaten by citizens demanding reform, they have time and again sought to clamp down on the petition process.

After term limits swept the initiatives states, something I was very much involved in, legislatures throughout these states launched a barrage of legislation to hamstring and restrict he process and hamstring citizen efforts for reform.Now we see a similar backlash from politicians afraid of the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, which would give voters more control over state spending decisions.

Three-hundred thousand Oklahomans signed a petition to vote on giving citizens a veto on large spending increases. The state constitution says voters have the right to decide. But the Oklahoma Supreme Court said no.

Just months ago, the Oklahoma Supreme Court again found a flimsy excuse to block voters from considering another initiative—the so-called 65-Percent Solution. The court deemed the short statement that the legislature (not the constitution) requires proponents to place on petitions—i.e., to give petition signers simply the “gist” of the measure—to be insufficient. The voters supposedly didn’t know what they were signing.

Again, the highest legal authority in the State of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Supreme Court, tossed the petitions of hundreds of thousands of citizens into the trash.