Category Archives: Libertarianism

If the government cannot protect individual Australians from evil acts of the sort that occurred at Sydney's Martin Place on Monday, then it ought not to stand in the way of a rational discussion about the practical right to self-defence, Senate crossbencher David Leyonhjelm said on Thursday. The liberalisation of Australia's gun laws, for that is what Senator Leyonhjelm desires, is of a piece with his neo-classical libertarianism, but the timing of his proposition is awful, and its logic absurd.

In the still confused aftermath of the siege, many questions have been raised about how Man Haron Monis came to be in possession of a shotgun. Prime Minister Tony Abbott presumably better briefed than most about Monis' personal details and history said on Wednesday that Monis had a NSW firearms licence (despite being charged with a number of serious criminal and sexual offence charges) and that gun control laws might need to be changed as a result. NSW Police swiftly rebutted the suggestion that Monis was a licensed firearm owner. Ergo, he must have acquired the gun illegally.

For someone as determined as Monis, that would not have been difficult. The number of firearms stolen and never recovered in Australia is thought to number in the tens, possibly hundreds of thousands. Moreover, significant numbers of guns are smuggled into the country illegally each year, ensuring a plentiful black-market supply for professional criminals and the criminally minded.

Police forces and gun control organisations have on occasion highlighted the growing incidence of gun-related crime (particularly in cities such as Sydney) and the need for greater controls. But resistance to such efforts is well organised and effective, not least because of the lobbying of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia and the Shooters and Fishers Party.

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It would not be doing Senator Leyonhjelm a disservice to suggest that he aspires to nothing less than the complete rollback of the national firearms agreement enacted after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996. He has repeatedly claimed that those reforms of which a one-off compulsory buyback of automatic and semi-automatic weapons was the most prominent aspect have not noticeably improved public safety in Australia, and that he has statistics to prove it. But lobbying for a reversion to previous state-based firearms laws is one thing pushing for a discussion of US-style laws permitting the carrying of concealed weapons in public places, quite another. Not surprisingly, many people have questioned the basis for SenatorLeyonhjelm's thinking.

Not all US states allow their citizens to carry concealed weapons, and those that do (such as Florida) do not boast noticeably safer streets or neighbourhoods than those that don't. George Zimmerman, a native of Sanford in Florida, packed a gun for "protection" of life and property, which he used to fatally shoot an unarmed teenager he "suspected" of being an immediate threat to his personal safety. Under Florida's "stand your ground" law, moreover, Zimmerman was found to have acted lawfully.

As for Senator Leyonhjelm's contention, in effect, that the Martin Place siege would not have occurred had armed citizens been present, the supporting evidence is not strong. No right-thinking person, even one trained to shoot at individuals rather than targets, would lightly challenge a dangerous and armed individual like Monis. Nor, given the likelihood of accidental shooting, would police encourage such behaviour.

That the easy availability of guns tends to increase levels of homicide, suicide and unintentional injuries and deaths, has been pretty well established, but even the likes of Senator Leyonhjelm continue to dispute it with questionable statistics. The evidence that easy access to military-style automatic weapons results in mass shootings is near irrefutable, however. Australia has had no such atrocity since 1996, though Senator Leyonhjelm continues to lament the loss of his right to own weapons designed, not for hunting or target-shooting, but for killing people.

Senator Leyonhjelm's fascination with US-style small government and rugged individualism is understandable. Nowhere is the libertarian creed espoused by the likes of John Locke and Thomas Paine taken more seriously or given greater prominence. But in its attitude to guns, the US is hardly a paragon worth emulating here.

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Post Sydney siege idea by David Leyonhjelm over gun laws idea is absurd

If the government cannot protect individual Australians from evil acts of the sort that occurred at Sydney's Martin Place on Monday, then it ought not to stand in the way of a rational discussion about the practical right to self-defence, Senate crossbencher David Leyonhjelm said on Thursday. The liberalisation of Australia's gun laws, for that is what Senator Leyonhjelm desires, is of a piece with his neo-classical libertarianism, but the timing of his proposition is awful, and its logic absurd.

In the still confused aftermath of the siege, many questions have been raised about how Man Haron Monis came to be in possession of a shotgun. Prime Minister Tony Abbott presumably better briefed than most about Monis' personal details and history said on Wednesday that Monis had a NSW firearms licence (despite being charged with a number of serious criminal and sexual offence charges) and that gun control laws might need to be changed as a result. NSW Police swiftly rebutted the suggestion that Monis was a licensed firearm owner. Ergo, he must have acquired the gun illegally.

For someone as determined as Monis, that would not have been difficult. The number of firearms stolen and never recovered in Australia is thought to number in the tens, possibly hundreds of thousands. Moreover, significant numbers of guns are smuggled into the country illegally each year, ensuring a plentiful black-market supply for professional criminals and the criminally minded.

Police forces and gun control organisations have on occasion highlighted the growing incidence of gun-related crime (particularly in cities such as Sydney) and the need for greater controls. But resistance to such efforts is well organised and effective, not least because of the lobbying of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia and the Shooters and Fishers Party.

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It would not be doing Senator Leyonhjelm a disservice to suggest that he aspires to nothing less than the complete rollback of the national firearms agreement enacted after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996. He has repeatedly claimed that those reforms of which a one-off compulsory buyback of automatic and semi-automatic weapons was the most prominent aspect have not noticeably improved public safety in Australia, and that he has statistics to prove it. But lobbying for a reversion to previous state-based firearms laws is one thing pushing for a discussion of US-style laws permitting the carrying of concealed weapons in public places, quite another. Not surprisingly, many people have questioned the basis for SenatorLeyonhjelm's thinking.

Not all US states allow their citizens to carry concealed weapons, and those that do (such as Florida) do not boast noticeably safer streets or neighbourhoods than those that don't. George Zimmerman, a native of Sanford in Florida, packed a gun for "protection" of life and property, which he used to fatally shoot an unarmed teenager he "suspected" of being an immediate threat to his personal safety. Under Florida's "stand your ground" law, moreover, Zimmerman was found to have acted lawfully.

As for Senator Leyonhjelm's contention, in effect, that the Martin Place siege would not have occurred had armed citizens been present, the supporting evidence is not strong. No right-thinking person, even one trained to shoot at individuals rather than targets, would lightly challenge a dangerous and armed individual like Monis. Nor, given the likelihood of accidental shooting, would police encourage such behaviour.

That the easy availability of guns tends to increase levels of homicide, suicide and unintentional injuries and deaths, has been pretty well established, but even the likes of Senator Leyonhjelm continue to dispute it with questionable statistics. The evidence that easy access to military-style automatic weapons results in mass shootings is near irrefutable, however. Australia has had no such atrocity since 1996, though Senator Leyonhjelm continues to lament the loss of his right to own weapons designed, not for hunting or target-shooting, but for killing people.

Senator Leyonhjelm's fascination with US-style small government and rugged individualism is understandable. Nowhere is the libertarian creed espoused by the likes of John Locke and Thomas Paine taken more seriously or given greater prominence. But in its attitude to guns, the US is hardly a paragon worth emulating here.

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Post Sydney siege idea over gun laws is absurd

Mark Hornshaw: Libertarianism Parenting
Mark Hornshaw, from the University of Notre Dame (Sydney) discusses libertarianism and parenting at the 2014 Australian Libertarian Society Friedman Conference!

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Mark Hornshaw: Libertarianism & Parenting - Video

Libertarianism A Utopian Ideal?
This video challenges the view that libertarianism is utopian. The original text version is at http://duncanwhitmore.com/2014/12/06/libertarianism-a-utopian-...

By: Duncan Whitmore

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Libertarianism A Utopian Ideal? - Video

Amid last months Republican sweep of the 2014 midterm elections, there were some notable progressive victories. Marijuana decriminalization, gun control laws and minimum wage increases all passed on various states ballots. But perhaps the most inspiring initiative voters put into law was a ban on fracking in Denton, Texas. Unfortunately, Texas politicians, bureaucrats and business interests are pledging to fight, repeal and/or ignore it.

Texas Railroad Commission chairwoman Christi Craddick, who is responsible for oil and gas regulation which, in Texas, apparently means doing as little regulating as possible said, Its my job to give permits, not Dentons Were going to continue permitting up there because thats my job. Jerry Patterson, commissioner of the Texas General Land Office,wrote a lettersaying, While we applaud the citys efforts to promote the welfare of its citizens, we must make sure it is done in a manner consistent with existing state laws the Legislature has made regulation of underground mineral estates and the methods for producing them a matter of State agency regulation.

Residents of Denton made it clear, by a stern59-41 percent vote, that they do not want fracking in their town. Texas Republicans are telling them they have no right to such a declaration because the state that perennial foe of every right-wing principle is the only entity with a say-so in the matter.

Meanwhile,Texas is in perpetual conflict with the federal governmentover voting laws, healthcare and, particularly, environmental regulations. In 2013, former Texas attorney general and current Gov.-elect Greg Abbott boasted that hesued the Obama administration 25 timesfor perceived overreaches. Now, that cadre of state-hating Republicans is using Big Government to step on the little people of Denton. The hypocrisy might make you fall over backward, but the right-wing position all along has never been about individual freedom not unless that individual is trying to make a buck, anyway. Far from eroding the state, the Republican agenda is to build a very strong state that can be used to intervene in public policy on behalf of corporate interests.

With272 active wells in the cityand another 212 just outside the city limits, Denton residents ought to know as much as anyone about fracking. Yet another leading member of the Texas Railroad Commission, David Porter nominally a public servant and not a P.R. representative for the oil and gas industry suggests, Denton voters fell prey to scare tactics and mischaracterizations of the truth in passing the hydraulic fracturing ban. Such a dismissive attitude of a resounding victory at the ballot box is bad enough, but its downright silly in light of the overwhelmingpro-fracking propagandaDenton residents were subjected to. The main opponents of the ban, energy giants Chevron, Chesapeake Energy and XTO Energy (a subsidiary of Exxon), outspent the pro-ban group, Frack Free Denton, by almost 10-to-1 and still lost. Far from being the prey of scare tactics, Denton residents haveplenty of good reasonsto want fracking out of their town.

Fracking the process of shooting a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the earth to jostle natural gas loose from shale formations is well known to cause a myriad of environmental problems, most notablyair and water pollution. Dentons air is tied with Houstons as themost polluted in Texas, making it among the most polluted in the nation and well exceeding the limits set forth by the Clean Air Act. Thehealth effectsof exposure to thebevy of chemicalsused in, and released into the environment as a result of, fracking are only just beginning to be documented. Fracking has even been implicated ina rise in earthquakeswhere heavy fracking takes place. Property values around fracking sites are known toplummet. And just to tie all those concerns together, under current regulatory standards, fracking is allowed a mere1,200 feet awayfrom residential areas and, in many cases, goes on even closer.

Commissioner Craddick defended frackers, saying, Most of them are active in their communities where theyre doing business and trying to give some dollars back. Its a weak enough statement on its own, but even that minimal claim is dubious. Craddick herself asserts (in fact, its a key component of her argument) that Denton residents dont own the minerals underneath their homes and town,so we know they arent getting any money directly from their extraction. Adam Briggle, a University of North Texas assistant professor specializing in bioethics and a leader in Frack Free Denton, argues thatfrackings contribution to Dentons local economy is minimal, if not actually detrimental: Royalties paid to the City of Denton account for less than 1 percent of the city budget. Taxes from wells amount to only about 0.5 percent of all city property tax revenues. The biggest beneficiaries from fracking in Denton are out-of-town companies and absentee mineral owners.

When conservatives rail against government, what theyre really opposed to is democracy, and their swiftness to use state power against democratic action in Denton exemplifies this. They hold up the free market, a nebulous, pseudo-religious construct, as the only legitimate arbiter of right and wrong. But the most important part of living in a free market is the freedom of people to shape that market. In theory, this is done through responsible consumer choices, but the market doesnt always provide alternatives. Our transportation and energy infrastructure makes it almost impossible for millions of Americans not to patronize certain industries, particularly the oil industry. If people cant use their spending power to tell the market they want something else, they ought to be able to send that message with their vote.

Market action isnt sufficient to enact the widespread infrastructural changes that are morally incumbent as environmental degradation and climate change worsen. Elected representatives arent going to do it; most of them arein bedwith thefossil fuel industry. And the fossil fuel industry isnt going to do it when it can rely on state Republicans in direct violation of the very free market principles theyre so fond of espousing to keep itheavily subsidizedand come to its aid with legislative intervention whenever its threatened. With the system so corrupt and gridlocked, direct democracy of the kind used in Denton is the only way to make a change.

The fracking ban doesnt come close to addressing all the planets environmental needs, but more issues like it coming under the scrutiny of public referendum will get us where we need to go a lot faster than the free market or state officials ever could. Residents in Denton came together to make a decision in their communitys best interest and exercised their right to self-governance. They scored an important, inspiring victory for the environment and for their town. We can only hope that the Big Government Republicans of Texas and the industry titans they serve dont take it away from them.

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GOPs new fracking hypocrisy: What a Texas battle reveals about Republican dogma

Damon Roots new book Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court is an impressive account of the conflict over judicial review between conservatives and libertarians. Most books about the recent history of judicial review and constitutional theory focus on the opposition between conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans. By contrast, Root focuses primarily on the increasingly important faultline between libertarians and conservatives.

Libertarians and conservatives have cooperated on issues related to federalism, gun rights, and property rights. But they have also sharply disagreed on the role of judicial review in protecting the rights of gays and lesbians, limiting wartime executive power, and constraining police and prosecutors. As the leading writer on legal issues for Reason, the prominent libertarian publication, Root has covered many of these issues for years.

Root effectively traces libertarian-conservative disagreements over judicial review to their origins in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Progressives attacked nineteenth century natural rights-based jurisprudence for what they regarded as unjustified judicial activism in protecting both economic liberties and noneconomic ones. As he notes, many early Progressives opposed not only the Courts enforcement of economic freedoms in cases like Lochner v. New York, but also judicial efforts to protect free speech and enforce other noneconomic freedoms. For example, leading Progressive Justice Louis Brandeis praised the Courts notorious decision to uphold mandatory sterilization of the mentally ill in Buck v. Bell as an example of cases where judges should give state governments free reign to meet..modern conditions by regulations (though he gradually came to support judicial protection of some other civil liberties).

Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, political liberals gradually shifted towards supporting strong judicial intervention to protect noneconomic rights, even as they repudiated similar protection for economic freedoms and property rights. But, ironically, the original Progressive defense of judicial nonintervention was taken up by post-New Deal conservatives, including such notable legal theorists as Judge Robert H. Bork.

Root explains how the persistence of this tradition of judicial restraint on the conservative right has led to clashes between conservatives and libertarians in recent years. Even in some cases where the two groups agree on the outcome, there are important divergences over preferred rationales. For example, libertarians and conservatives worked together to expand judicial protection for Second Amendment rights in District of Columbia v> Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010). But, in the latter case, many conservatives opposed the libertarians efforts to revive judicial enforcement of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, fearing that this step would open the door to a new wave of judicial activism.

Roots book is probably the most thorough account of the libertarian-conservative debate over judicial review so far. The clash between the two may rise in importance, as libertarianism becomes a more important part of the political landscape. Younger Republicans are, on average, significantly more libertarian than their elders. The same is likely true of younger right of center elite lawyers and legal scholars. At the same time, it is unlikely that social conservatives will give up without a fight. Even as they fight over their differences, the two groups will also have to find some way to continue cooperating on the issues that unite them, especially since the legal left remains powerful and influential.

I do have two reservations about his otherwise excellent analysis. First, for some reason Root largely ignores the issue of same-sex marriage, which is one of the most important constitutional questions where libertarians and conservatives have differed in recent years. Though there are some exceptions in both camps, libertarian lawyers and legal scholars (including many here at the Volokh Conspiracy) have generally supported striking down laws banning same-sex marriage, while conservatives have forcefully opposed it. The issue is both important in and of itself, and an important indicator of the differences between the two camps.

Second, I think Root is too quick to characterize modern judicial conservatism as focused on judicial restraint. It is true that, since the 1960s and 70s, conservatives have devoted a great deal of time and effort to denouncing liberal judicial activism. But conservative judges such as William Rehnquist and Sandra Day OConnor have also long advocated stronger judicial enforcement of property rights and constitutional limits on federal power.

Root describes famed conservative legal theorist Robert Bork as a principled advocate of judicial minimalism. This was indeed an important element of Borks philosophy. But Bork was also a strong advocate of constitutional originalism, which sometimes requires aggressive judicial invalidation of legislation that goes against the original meaning of the Constitution. In his 1989 book The Tempting of America, Bork advocated judicial restraint, but also described New Deal-era decisions expanding congressional authority over the economy as judicial activism because they gave the federal government more power than it was entitled to under the original meaning.

Bork never seriously confronted the tension between his advocacy of originalism on the one hand, and his support for judicial deference to the democratic process on the other. For a long time, the same was true of many other judicial conservatives. Like Bork, they simultaneously advocated both originalism and judicial deference without giving much thought to possible contradictions between these commitments. The rise of libertarianism is one of several factors that have forced conservatives to devote greater thought to the issue in recent years.

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Volokh Conspiracy: Review of Damon Roots Overruled: The Long War for Control of the Supreme Court

An Introduction to Libertarianism with Marshall Fritz
HN: United States Political System Noam Chomsky - The Political system in the USA. US Elections -- How do they work? Chalasani Srinivas on A.P politics with NRIs - Varadhi - USA - Tv9 New York...

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An Introduction to Libertarianism with Marshall Fritz - Video

David Boaz Introduces Libertarianism: A Primer and The Libertarian Reader
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David Boaz Introduces Libertarianism: A Primer and The Libertarian Reader - Video

Book Review | Libertarianism: A Primer By David Boaz
BOOK REVIEW OF YOUR FAVORITE BOOK =--- Where to buy this book? ISBN: 9781470888596 Book Review of Libertarianism: A Primer by David Boaz If you want to add where to buy this...

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There is so much thats horrifying about whats now simply called the torture report, the redacted summary of the Senate Intelligence Committees investigation into years of unforgivable CIA abuse post-9/11. But one thing that recurs disturbingly often is anal rape imagery: examples of rectal feeding, of rectal exams that used excessive force, and at least one instance, according to the report, of threatened sodomy with a broomstick.

Am I the only one who thought about Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant who was not just threatened but actually sodomized with a broomstick by the New York Police Departments Justin Volpe in 1997? The torture reports release, in the wake of grand juries failing to indict police officers who killed unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and right here in New York, where Louima was tortured, reminds us of the danger of unaccountable state power.

Yet an undercurrent of authoritarianism in American culture and a particular American deference to authority figures who are supposed to protect us threatens to let it go unchecked.

To be fair, many Americans are horrified by the torture reports revelations. And many Americans believe police officers should be held accountable when they use excessive force and harm or kill Americans, of any race. But theres a disturbing impulse evident lately, to excuse abuses of power on the part of those who are charged with protecting us, whether cops or the post-9/11 CIA. I dont care what we did! former Bush flack Nicolle Wallace shrieked on Morning Joe Monday. And she spoke for too many Americans. (Though not for her former boss Sen. John McCain.)

I watched the debate over the torture report unfurl all day Tuesday, online, in print and on television. All the coverage focused on a few questions: whether Sen. Dianne Feinstein is right that torture didnt work; whether the report might produce blowback by our enemies; whether the CIA is being scapegoated for Bush administration decisions. There was shockingly little emphasis on the fact that torture is illegal and a war crime, banned by the Geneva Conventions, a U.N. Convention against torture ratified under a supportive Ronald Reagan, and by Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C of theU.S.Code.

So much in the torture report should appall Americans, above and beyond the many details of depravity. CIA officials lied about who they had in custody. They lied about what they were doing. They destroyed evidence. They tortured two of their own informants. At least 20 percent of the people they detained, as examined by investigators, were held wrongfully. They paid $81 million to two psychologists who knew nothing about al-Qaida, terrorism or the war against them. They didnt fully brief President Bush until April 2006, after 38 of 39 detainees had already been interrogated.

This should be an issue that unites civil libertarians on the left and the right as should excessive force by police but the authoritarian impulse is stronger on the right. Libertarianism also seems overwhelmed by the prevailing resentment of President Obama, and the changing America that he represents. Still, its amazing: Even as wingnuts deride Obama as a fascist and a tyrant, they applaud excessive force by police officers and CIA officials.

Its also amazing that its taken two years to get a redacted executive summary of the torture report released. Lets remember that were merely talking about sharing information about the Senates investigation into torture, not about indicting or punishing anyone. At least grand juries considered whether to indict Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo in the killings of Mike Brown and Eric Garner. There has been no such process regarding CIA torturers.

Which is not to say the grand jury process in Ferguson or Staten Island delivered justice to those mens families. Nor have the families of John Crawford and 12-year-old Tamir Rice, African-Americans killed by police while holding toy guns, even gotten a fair and clear accounting of how their sons died. Young black men are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than white men, yetwhite peoples confidence in police fairness, and doubts about cops racial bias, have never been higher, while African-Americans is understandably at a record low.

Thankfully Abner Louimas attackers were punished; Volpe is serving 30 years in prison, and Louima won a settlement of $8.7 million the largest police brutality settlement in New York history at the time. The Louima rape happened to take place under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has emerged as the chief defender of cops who kill in the last two weeks. Giulianis career is an example of how the authoritarian impulse in American politics often prevails.

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Authority crisis roils America: Police abuse, torture and authoritarianism run amok