Category Archives: Libertarianism

Te Cato Cato Institute has long issued areport card on the nations governors. The grades are based on what Cato thinks constitutes good fiscal policy. Governors who work for policy like that get As, and those who dont get Fs. Back when my libertarianism was still in the closet, I wrote critically of the Cato report card. I now regret my harsh critiques of the project because I believe Cato does the nation a great service by analyzing, assessing, and rating state executives.

That doesnt mean everyone does or should agree with Catos assessment of each governor. The report card serves as a marker representing the institutes views, and those views challenge liberal and traditional conservative thinking on fiscal issues. Reading the report card and other works by the institute may change some minds. But more importantly, it broadens the debate over the role of fiscal policy in particular and government more generally. So if you pray at the altar of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities or of Citizens for Tax Justice, I hope you wont reflexively dismiss the Cato report card. Rather, I hope youll seriously consider the arguments in it. I also encourage libertarians and conservatives to follow the work of theCBPP,Citizens for Tax Justice, andGood Jobs Firstclosely. Just because their political philosophy is different than yours doesnt make their fiscal arguments wrong.

Entrance to the Cato Institute in Washington, DC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now that I have everyone holding hands, lets look at this years report card.There were only four A students, which tells you that Cato is a tough grader. IndianasMike Pence(R), MainesPaul LePage(R), KansassSam Brownback(R), and North CarolinasPat McCrory(R) were rated the only excellent governors when it comes to fiscal policy.

I realize that picking those four will jeopardize the possibility of any liberals taking the report card seriously. All four significantly cut taxes and have fought for less government spending, so its not surprising that Chris Edwards and Nicole Kaeding of Cato put them at the front of the class.

I like most of those choices. I think LePage (who removed 70,000 low-income citizens from the tax rolls), McCrory (who led significant reform), and Pence (who should get an A for fighting to eliminate the personal property tax on business equipment) deserved their grades. However, I disagree with the Brownback grade. While I generally like the idea of income and business tax cuts, I think Brownback deserves a D for supporting a policy that exempts from taxation income from passthrough entities. Thats bad tax policy whether youre conservative, liberal, or libertarian. By the way, LePage and Brownback are seeking reelection this year, and right now the polls suggest they wont be coming back to the governors mansion.

Eight governors failed: MinnesotasMark Dayton(DFL), OregonsJohn Kitzhaber(D), DelawaresJack Markell(D), WashingtonsJay Inslee(D), IllinoissPat Quinn(D), MassachusettssDeval Patrick(D), ColoradosJohn Hickenlooper(D), and CaliforniasJerry Brown(D). That sounds harsh to most Americans. We dont fail. Kids get straight As, go to Ivy League schools, and eventually work in a profession their parents can brag about. The failing governors are what we used to call tax-and-spend liberals. None have met a tax (or a spending policy) they didnt embrace. So I generally agree with Cato on its assessment of the worst kids in the class. Of those up for reelection, only Quinn is in any danger of not retaining his position.

The one governor who should have gotten an F but inexplicably received a B isAndrew Cuomo. The Democrat from New York pushed the worst tax policy idea of all time: tax-free zones. Im disappointed Cato didnt call him on it.

This post is an excerpt of an article that first appeared inState Tax Notes.

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Schooling The Nation's Governors

Introduction

Earlier this year, when asked in an interview about his views on anarchism, Ron Paul expressed that he believed anarchism to be a good idea.

To some young libertarians in the liberty movement, this might come as a total shock after all, wasnt Ron Paul a constitutionalist and a former member of congress? But to those who understand the true origins of the Ron Paul Revolution, and in particular the influences of Ron Paul himself, such remarks should come as no surprise.

First, Ron Paul was a close ideological ally of Murray N. Rothbard, the renowned Austrian economist, historian, and political theorist. Murray Rothbard, the author of twenty five books and literally thousands of articles, is considered by many as one of the most important and prolific libertarian scholars in history. Furthermore, grounding his libertarianism in natural law theory, Rothbard came to the conclusion that government, even if limited in size, represents an intolerable moral evil. The State, Rothbard would argue, violates the natural law by merely existing, seeing as even basic state activities, such as national defense, must be funded though theft, i.e., through compulsory taxation.

Of course, while Paul has certainly not embraced the anarcho-capitalist vision of a stateless society, Murray Rothbard has had a profound impact on Ron Paul, who admired Rothbards writings tremendously. According toRon Paul:

It would be difficult to exaggerate Professor Murray N. Rothbards influence on the movement for freedom and free markets. He is the living giant of Austrian economics, and he has led the now-formidable movement ever since the death of his great teacher, Ludwig von Mises, in 1971. We are all indebted to him for the living link he has provided to Mises, upon whose work he has built and expanded.

Furthermore, Ron Paul not only recognized the important contributions set forth by Murray Rothbard, but also declared that Rothbard was an essential figure in his conversion to Austrian Economics and Libertarianism. He writes:

Years before I ever thought of running for Congress, I came across Rothbards Americas Great Depression. Before reading it, my thinking was clouded by the temptation to divide these issues and ideas in partisan terms. Rothbard fixed that. Americas Great Depression was a key book in my conversion to pure free-market, libertarian thinking. The confidence I gained with ammunition supplied by Rothbard encouraged my entry into politics, since I needed the reassurance that my intuitive allegiance to liberty was shared by great thinkers. Rothbard taught me to always keep the distinction between peaceful market activity and State coercion in my mind. It served as a constant guide once I was in office.

1. Natural Law

One clear example of Pauls Rothbardian roots, then, can be illustrated by his opposition to the income tax on the ground that it is a form of involuntary servitude. When Ron Paul claims that the income tax is theft, moreover, his opposition is not grounded in a cost-benefit analysis, i.e., that the costs outweigh the benefits. On the contrary, he understands it to be a moral issue above anything else. The income tax should not be abolished because it is fiscally irresponsible, whatever that means, but because it is a form of morally reprehensible robbery.

Read the rest here:
The Rothbard-Paul Message

Bear in mind we started in 2009 in Europe with 13 MEPs and we ended up with five, so there are dead UKIP bodies all over the place with knives quivering in their back so make sure its not yours.

The former MEP, who was first elected to Brussels in 2004, said: I was a founding member of Ukip and Ive been a significant donor.

But now I find that instead of being the libertarian party, the party of common sense, Ive been banned from speaking.

So, yes, its a very sad day for me. But the party seems to have gone astray."

He added: "Quite whats going on I couldnt say, but Ive had enough.

What kind of party are we supposed to be? The while point and the reason we are doing so well is because we were supposed to something different.

We seem to be drifting towards the politically correct mainstream like everybody else.

Ive had enough of party politics. I dont think party politics is for people who tell it like it is.

Mr Bloom caused an outcry in 2012 after saying that foreign aid is sent to "Bongo Bongo Land".

It came after he sparked accusations of sexism after saying: I just dont think they clean behind the fridge enough, a remark which ultimately led to his downfall.

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Former Ukip MEP Godfrey Bloom quits party because it is too 'politically correct'

Bloom said he was leaving with a 'heavy heart' but had 'had enough' He said he had been banned from speaking to Ukip activists Former MEP caused fury in past over remarks about 'Bongo Bongo land' Bloom also warned Ukip's new MP Douglas Carswell: 'Watch your back'

By Tom McTague, Deputy Political Editor for MailOnline

Published: 13:52 EST, 13 October 2014 | Updated: 16:49 EST, 13 October 2014

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Outspoken former Ukip MEP Godfrey Bloom has quit the party claiming it is now too politically correct.

Mr Bloom, a former flat mate of Nigel Farage, said he was leaving with a heavy heart but had had enough after being banned from speaking because of his controversial views.

He left with a warning for Ukips first elected MP Douglas Carswell that he could be knifed in the back by his new party if he was not careful.

Mr Bloom, who represented Yorkshire and the Humber for Ukip in the European Parliament for 10 years, added: Douglas, watch your back.

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Godfrey Bloom quits UKIP because it is now too 'politically correct'

Libertarianism and Derk Pereboom. Summer school "Free will and Moral responsibility". Part one

By: Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies

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Libertarianism and Derk Pereboom. Summer school "Free will and Moral responsibility". Part one - Video

Atheism and Libertarianism 12: Who Watches the Watchmen?
With religion, it #39;s priests and holy texts. With statism, it #39;s politicians and bureaucrats and police and laws. The problem is, you can #39;t have an infinite or circular succession of watchers...

By: Shane Killian

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Atheism and Libertarianism 12: Who Watches the Watchmen? - Video

Douglas Carswell, a libertarian, won the Clacton-on-Sea by-election after defecting from the Conservatives to Ukip(Reuters)

This is the Dawn of the Libertarian. Young people just don't love the state in the same way their parents and grandparents did.

Generation Y, the under-thirties, is far more liberal than past generations. If the polls are to be believed, they are the most liberal generation in Britain's history. In both social and economic senses: they believe not just in drug decriminalisation, but lower taxes too.

"We do not pretend to know what is best for everyone, and so we feel that decisions are ideally taken by the persons directly affected by them," said Mark S. Feldner, president of Cambridge Libertarians, a group for students at one of the world's best universities.

"This scepticism about concentrated power, central planning and top-down regulation also encourages individuals to accept responsibility for their own actions."

Feldner was one of the Generation Y libertarians interviewed for an IBTimes UKfeature on the rise of libertarianism among young people in the UK.

And Douglas Carswell, a libertarian defector from the Conservatives to Ukip, just increased his parliamentary majority in a Clacton-on-Sea by-election. He's now Ukip's first elected MP.

But what do you think? Take our poll and show us.

Excerpt from:
Douglas Carswell Wins Clacton for Ukip: Are You a Libertarian? [POLL]

Lew Rockwell discusses the life and works of Murray Rothbard with Tom Woods.

Tom Woods: In two minutes or less, why is Rothbard important to begin with?

Lew Rockwell: Well, Rothbard is important for a couple of reasons. First of all, because he was such a significant scholar as an economist, as an historian, as a political philosopher. He was an original thinker, and a very compelling thinker, a man who created, among other things, modern libertarianism, by combining nineteenth-century American anarchism and Austrian economics and natural law based in Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. And really its a durable and fascinating philosophy. It explains what we need to be concerned about; in a sense it explains how to proceed. Its extremely compelling. Everything of Rothbards was compelling.

If you speaking to the people listening to us havent read Rothbard, just pick up anything by Murray, and its all for free online at mises.org, and theres a lot at LewRockwell.com as well. Just take a look at any essay of Murrays, lets say The Anatomy of the State, which is one of his famous essays. Youre immediately pulled into it. Hes so clear. Hes so logical; hes so persuasive. Youll never be the same again. I mean, this is true of many, many of Rothbards works; they really are life-changing, based on the immense knowledge that he had.

And this is somebody, so far as I can tell, who knew everything. Now of course Im exaggerating, but only slightly. In the areas that he was interested in, he pretty much knew everything just such deep and well-analyzed and rigorous knowledge. He read everything; he remembered everything. If you were in his apartment which was full of books, almost humorously full of books and you were asking Murray a question, hed say, well, you know, thats covered in that particular book on that shelf, there it is, the third one from the left, chapter 3 and pages 29-36. I mean, he had that kind of knowledge.

Yet he was a humble guy, not at all arrogant, one of the most charming people you could ever meet, extremely funny; he was like a standup comedian in addition to all his scholarly abilities and his teaching abilities, very charming, very welcoming, and never put down students. I think of him in contrast to Milton Friedman, who was a brilliant guy, too, but was famous for humiliating a student who asked a question Friedman either thought was stupid or he didnt like the question for whatever reason. Rothbard was never like that. He was just a great human being as well as just, I think, no question one of the extraordinary men of the twentieth century, and maybe will in the future come to be seen as an extraordinary figure over a much broader time span.

TW: Before we get into the overview of his life, I want to say something, before I forget, about Rothbard that I dont think Ive ever said before. When you look at what he was engaged in doing in his scholarly work, as opposed to the various popular articles he would write for periodicals, he could write scholarly work that was respected by the academic community. For example, his book The Panic of 1819 got very good reviews in the professional journals, published by Columbia University Press, great. But a lot of the rest of his scholarly work, like Man, Economy and State, The Ethics of Liberty, a lot of this stuff, he knew for a fact there would be no academic audience for it; if there were, it would be only an audience that would condemn him. Theres no popular audience for this scholarly work either, so whos he writing this for? And the answer is he can only be writing for posterity, and I suppose to a lesser degree for himself, for the sake of the ideas. He did this knowing full well hes not going to be appointed chairman at the economics department at Harvard; hes already been purged from National Review, so libertarian economic ideas or at least his name expressing those ideas is not going to be welcome in that magazine, and yet he kept on churning out an enormous amount of output without getting the commensurate reward. And he kept on doing it and kept on doing it.

Today you and I have instant gratification: you write an essay it goes up on the Internet. The next day, people write you emails telling you how great you are. He didnt have that kind of feedback; he didnt have that kind of audience; he didnt have that kind of technology. And look what he produced.

LR: Well he really was such an extraordinary guy, and of course he enjoyed money; he loved buying books, for example. But money was not the chief motivator in his life. Of course this is one of the ways in which Austrian economics differs from mainstream economics: we dont think of man as homo economicus; there are other things that motivate people besides money, although again money is a great thing, its necessary. Murray taught for a very long time at a very minor school in New York, Brooklyn Polytechnic, only getting a job there because he was such an expert exponent of the case against the Vietnam War. And of course, like everything else Murray got interested in, he knew everything about it. He knew everything about the history of Vietnam, the previous interventions, all the people that were important on the North Vietnamese side, the Viet Cong, the South Vietnamese, the American government, the French government and so forth. He felt they were so impressed by him that he felt that they sort of overlooked or didnt really care about his other views. Later, when they realized what his other views were, they never would have hired him because it was pretty much a left-wing outfit. He made at the height of his income there at Brooklyn Polytechnic, $26,000 a year. So he never had much money, exactly like Mises when he famously told Margit, the woman who was going to be his wife: I just want to warn you Im going to write much about money, Im not going to have much of it.

TW: (laughs) Thats exactly it.

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Murray N. Rothbard: The Man and His Work

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt on the Libertarianism of the Tech Industry
"How Google Works" co-author and Good Chairman Eric Schmidt joins Glenn Beck to talk about how to run a business well, and the libertarianism inside the tech industry. See more: http://TheBlaze.co...

By: TheBlaze

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Google Chairman Eric Schmidt on the Libertarianism of the Tech Industry - Video

Christian conservatives are often the subject of study by academics, who seem to find their culture as foreign as that of Borneo tribesmen. And this is a particularly interesting time for brave social scientists to put on their pith helmets and head to Wheaton, Ill., or unexplored regions of the South. They will find communities under external and internal cultural stress.

It is fair to say some cultural views traditionally held by evangelicals are in retreat. Whatever the future of political libertarianism, moral libertarianism has been on the rise. This is perhaps the natural outworking of an enlightenment political philosophy that puts individual rights at its center. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy described this view as the right to define ones own concept of existence.

Traditional religious views involve a belief that existence comes pre-defined. Purpose is discovered, not exerted. And scripture and institutions a community of believers extended back in time are essential to that discovery. This is not the spirit of the age.

It was not really the spirit of any age. But many evangelicals believe it was, subscribing to the myth of a lost American Eden. There has certainly been a cultural shift in America on religion and public life. But it has largely been from congenial contradiction to less-sympathetic contradiction. There is more criticism of the veneer of Protestant spirituality in public places. There is also a growing belief that individual rights need to be protected, not only from the state but from religious institutions that dont share public values.

The reaction of evangelicals to these trends varies widely. They can accommodate to the prevailing culture, as many evangelicals have already done on issues such as contraception, divorce and the role of women. Or they can try to fight for their political and cultural place at the table, as other interest groups do.

A recent study, Sowing the Seeds of Discord, by a group of scholars associated with the Public Religion Research Institute, describes a mix of reactions. There is some evidence that younger evangelicals are more socially accepting of social outgroups, including gays and lesbians. But there is no evidence this shift is changing political allegiances. White evangelicals remain reliably and monolithically Republican.

My interpretation: Even as some evangelical cultural views change along with broader norms, the Democratic Party is still viewed as a hostile instrument of secularization.

But the most interesting finding of the study concerns where disaffection with conservative politics is developing among evangelicals. On a number of questions Should under God be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance? Does religion solve more social problems than it creates? evangelical millennials expressed more negative views on the social role of religion according to an unexpected pattern. Those who lack friends and ties outside evangelicalism are more critical of traditional evangelical views.

My interpretation: A desperate, angry, apocalyptic tone of social engagement alienates many people, including some of the children of those who practice it.

Conservative evangelicals are responding to a culture that does not always share their values. But a purely reactive model of politics is not attractive, even internally. And the problem is not only strategic but theological. A Christian vision of social engagement that is defined by resentment for lost social position and a scramble for group advantage is not particularly Christian.

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Michael Gerson: Introspection time for evangelicals