The Acceptable Politician

Mackay has taken a liking to one Joe Wilson, R-SC: What, he asks, is my opinion? My minimal requirements in policy stands for support of a politician:

• abolition of the Federal Reserve and the replacement of the US dollar with a private gold coin standard
• abolition of the income tax
• abolition of all public welfare
• abolition of all federal support for public education
• overturn of Roe v. Wade
• limited franchise

Given more time, I could probably think of a few more, but for the present discussion, these should suffice. There are several triggers that will begin the ticking of a time bomb which will eventually destroy any upstanding, liberty-oriented system. In the days of Solomon, there were acts of the king like the taking of foreign wives and the worship of foreign gods. Today's systems are more susceptible to items such as these. Note that the original Constitution as written upheld most of these proscriptions, and the culture of the day strongly discouraged violation of the others. Note also that each was overturned over the course of the last century or so: public education began in the late 19th century, the FED was established in 1913, the income tax a few years later, the franchise became virtually universal in the early 20's, major welfare schemes (Social Security, et. al.) began in the 30's, and on and on. Prior to this time, there wasn't all that much change to speak of, though some might include such instances as the Civil War and the centralization of power it brought about. Regardless, the process accelerated rapidly near the turn of the 20th century. Each breach in our legal armor led to accelerating erosion, both legally and culturally, and to further major breaches. Each breach has its mechanism of operation. Welfarism and the income tax set up internal conflicts and budgetary bloating that will eventually bankrupt any system, not to mention enormously detrimental effects on work ethic, thrift, and productivity and the corrosive effects of dependency. The expansion of the franchise inevitably leads to political debasement. Fiat currencies insidiously and nearly invisibly lead to a number of woes: economic instability, expropriation of property from individuals and aggregation of power with centralized government, cultural debasement, and more. "Cultural debasement?" you ask. Why, yes. Yes indeed:

But asset inflation—ultimately, the debasement of the currency—as the principal source of wealth corrodes the character of people. It not only undermines the traditional bourgeois virtues but makes them ridiculous and even reverses them. Prudence becomes imprudence, thrift becomes improvidence, sobriety becomes mean-spiritedness, modesty becomes lack of ambition, self-control becomes betrayal of the inner self, patience becomes lack of foresight, steadiness becomes inflexibility: all that was wisdom becomes foolishness. And circumstances force almost everyone to join in the dance... ...Inflation is not a bogey for everyone—not for those who wish to restructure society, for example, or for those who want government control of ever more aspects of people’s lives. But for the rest of us, the consequences of its full-blown return are not likely to be good: for inflation is not an economic problem only, or even mainly, but one that afflicts the human soul.

All are morally repulsive and inimical to liberty. One might take exception to my including universal sufferage, e.g. "democracy" on the list. Note here the change in how we define "democracy." In the days of Tocqueville, democracy referred to the right of each man to rule over his own life as he saw fit. Voting had little or nothing to do with it. Today, we take democracy to mean the right of all men to rule over one another as they see fit. All that matters is the vote. This is a very different proposition. In both cases, America strived to live up to the "democratic ideal," and as we are now discovering in the case of modern times, much to American's chagrin. The notion that there ought to be a universal right of everyone to "have a say" in his governance is laughably silly both in theoretical and practical terms. After all, what say did we have over the law of universal gravitation, or all ye Christians and Jews, the Ten Commandments? Do they not govern you behavior? Are they legitimate rules, or is God a tyrant? In other words, law does not derive its legitimacy from the democratic process. That some may argue that it does only illustrates their personal delusions. Legitimate law is legitimate law, regardless of how anybody votes on it. And now that you have your little vote, just how much influence have you had over your government? The answer: precisely as much as the other teeming millions who turn out to vote for the same set of goons every year, reliably sending 96% of incumbents back to their thrones. None. "Ah!" comes the retort, "but you miss the point! The role of the universal franchise is not to determine what is legitimate, but to ensure wisdom in our governance by tapping into the wisdom of the many." But if this is the case, then why must everyone have a vote, including such as the incompetent and the criminal? Clearly, this is not the point. In my view, the modern drive for universal franchise stems from issues of pride and recognition/acceptance, a warped version of the egalitarian instinct of the democratic ethos, wrapped up as it is in the so-called civil rights movement. Enlightened governance is completely beside the point. Rather obviously, I might add. But I've gotten off-topic. This was not supposed to be an essay on the evils of modern democracy. The point is this: all of these are essential policies, non-debatable, non-optional points for anyone who is committed to a libertarian/conservative/classical liberal social order, and anyone I'm to vote for in any election. To oppose any of them is to undermine the most fundamental aspects of what makes a civilization workably free, and, frankly, is to embrace eventual civilizational collapse. There is a self-reinforcing aspect to decline as well; once the ball gets rolling, it becomes difficult and then impossible to stop. Failure to hold the line leads inevitably to the horrors we now confront, or imagine we confront, in the form of Dear Leader Obama. Or, for you "liberal" types who managed to read this far, Bush before him. In this light, what am I to make of one such as this Joe Wilson, R-SC, the agitator with the audacity to call Mr. Obama a liar? Is he a champion for freedom? Well, calling Obama a liar simply isn't enough. What does he believe, and how does he vote? After all, gangsters don't just shake down passersby and hold up convenience stores. They beat up on rival gangsters as well. That we catch a glimpse of one such act doesn't make any of them redeeming characters to my mind. It takes a bit more than that. Fundamentally, the Democrats and Republicans (sans Ron Paul) are two sides of the same political coin. As far as I'm concerned, unless Joe Wilson or any other politician is in complete and unabashed support of certain fundamental principles now generally considered radical, he is functionally little more than a brownshirt beating up on a redshirt with his own idea of how the American totalitarian state should look (OK, so he's not a Nazi. But you get the idea: he's not exactly the opposite of a Democrat, either). He's not the solution, he's part of the problem. What do I care if his vision is different from Obama's? Who's to say that his vision is even remotely feasible, that his proposed policies would lead to the outcome he envisions? Without the points I have laid out (and obviously some others!), both paths inevitably lead to a centralized, fascist, and ultimately suicidal state, even if neither side intends it to be so. One will just take longer than the other to play out. It isn't enough that one is passionate. Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Mussolini were passionate. It isn't enough that one's heart is in the right place. Laws of cause and effect don't care if you are aware of them or how you feel. I'm glad that someone has the guts to harangue the President and the Democrats over their relentless fibbing, but I see very little practical difference between the men who reside in Washington these days, Ron Paul excepted. America likes to think it defeated fascism in the 20th century, but the truth is, the era has poisoned politics, possibly for all time. Very few of us can think outside the fascist paradigm; we think the state is naturally responsible for far too much, especially the obligation to "make things right." Too much of our identity is tied up in the state and its actions, and other institutions have been hollowed out. Our minds simply don't operate the way they once did, and our perspective has been permanently slanted. We can't very well hold our politicians' feet to the fire when our own minds are off in la-la land. What exactly will we hold them to? Squaring the circle properly? The fascist state is in our blood now, as liberty was once long ago. Is Joe Wilson, R-SC going to change any of that? I doubt it. When he decides to call for the FED to be abolished, to end fractional reserve banking, abolish the income tax and public schools, etc., I'll start taking him seriously. But by taking any of those political stances, he'd never hold elective office again. Unlike 99% of America, I don't want a politician who is passionate. I don't want a politician with vision or an agenda or goals. I don't want him to sponsor any initiatives. I don't want a politician who bases his decisions on the outcome he would like to obtain. He shouldn't like to obtain any outcome; he should uphold the law, defend the Constitution, stay out of my business, and let the chips fall where they may. The future of America should not be under the guidance or direction of any man or group of men, regardless of their elective status! It should be determined solely by the actions of free men, acting of their own accord, on their own behalf, subject to a just and disinterested law! That is the essence of a classical liberal social order, but it is anathema to modern America. To leave our fate open to chance is just too scary a proposition; there is no longer any faith in liberty. Sorry, Mackay, there really is no hope in national politics. It doesn't matter who wins the next election. We're circling the toilet bowl, and there is no turning back. The best we can hope for is a few more peaceable laps before the real nastiness begins. There is no salvation in politics. You are looking in the wrong place.

Societal Wealth and the "Freedom Fraction:" A Brief Statistical Study of the Relationship Between per-Capita GDP and Libertarian Economic Attitudes

Introduction Every year, The Heritage Foundation publishes the Index of Economic Freedom, a ranking of all the nations of the world on the basis of economic freedom. The ranking system is fairly complex, looking at everything from monetary policy and inflation, to government expenditure as a fraction of GDP, to ease of opening a business, and everything in between. There are ten main scoring categories, each with its own subdivisions and complex evaluation systems and rules. Though some of the evaluation systems become perhaps overly sophisticated, dredging up controversies of interpretation a bit unnecessarily, nevertheless, it provides a comprehensive look at virtually every national economy across the globe, and its authors probably deserve some leeway in their methodology as they have chosen quite a formidable task. Invariably, attempts are made at statistical correlations between the freedom ratings and societal wealth, which most agree is best measured by per-capita GDP. Undoubtedly, the trend is there: the top ten most-free nations are always some of the wealthier nations of the world, and the usual suspects are always lurking at the bottom of the curve: North Korea, Burma, Cuba, and an assortment of African economic basketcases. But from a quantitative point of view, the data provide a less-than-straightforward interpretation, as a graph of the 2009 data clearly shows: Speaking as a natural scientist, this scatterplot leaves much to be desired if the notion that societal wealth is a function of economic libertarianism is to be taken more seriously than some airy, idealistic notion. A true “natural law” ought to leave a mathematically visible fingerprint, and the haphazard spray of data points generated by this survey leaves enough wiggle room for considerable doubt, especially when there is not much suggestion of a specific, theoretically reasonable, mathematical model that might be tested for fit against the data. After all, a lot of scenarios could lead to such a graph which might have little to nothing to do with economic freedom per se. On the whole, it leaves the reader not already predisposed to the libertarian point of view asking the question: is there really something to the notion that freedom makes societies wealthy, or is it more an exercise in relatively stable, well managed democratic societies that only tend to be more free wagging their fingers at geopolitical bad-boys, who have managed to land themselves in poverty simply as a result of their generally bad behavior? Am I seeing a real effect, or am I being fed some ideologically driven line? Is there really an important natural law lurking somewhere in that data, or are some overly enthusiastic libertarians straining just a little too hard to find a pattern that is just not there? The question is an important one, and without a concrete theory capable of withstanding quantitative scrutiny, the case is less than watertight and graphs like this one tend to leave a lingering shadow of doubt hanging over the libertarian's case. In this brief study, I present a statistical manipulation that may help shed some light on the matter and suggests that a somewhat different interpretation may be more appropriate, with some surprising implications. Data Normalization and the Threshold Model The writer at La Griffe du Lion has come up with a powerful method for comparison of normal distributions and teasing out mathematical relationships based on variances in these distributions, which he applies in an effort to explain a variety of social phenomena, some of them quite politically controversial. Because the normal distribution is so ubiquitous in nature, the method finds useful application across a wide range of questions. In particular, La Griffe himself addresses the relationship between IQ and per-capita GDP, finding that there is a very strong statistical case to be made that the IQ distribution of a population is the main determinant of per-capita GDP. Even more impressive, he generates a mathematical equation to describe the relationship that closely fits the observed data, which he terms the “Smart Fraction Theory.” In summary, he postulates that per-capita GDP is directly proportional to the fraction of the population which is above a certain IQ threshold. He then develops the equations necessary to describe such a phenomenon and shows that the data closely fit the predicted pattern. A more detailed description of the method and its derivation can be found here. Could something similar be going on with the data compiled by the Index of Economic Freedom? It may be that the correlation the economists are looking for isn’t necessarily proportional to the freedom score itself, but is convoluted by a similar effect of population heterogeneity. Could a similar “liberty thresholding” of societies explain the bizarre data pattern seen here? Treatment of Data Unfortunately, the data presented by the Index of Economic Freedom lack standardized, normalized descriptions of the societies they describe, or a scale similar to the IQ scale for measuring human intelligence which has a statistically well characterized distribution. Fortunately, the second hurdle can be overcome by constructing an ad-hoc scale based on the distributions of the various nations. The first must be dealt with by making a few approximations and assumptions, which is clearly suboptimal, but the assumptions are not without substantial grounding in reality. Construction of the normalized scoring scale. Looking at a histogram of national scores, we can see that the dataset produces a roughly normal distribution, skewed slightly to the right, with an average score of 60.1 and a standard deviation of 10.4. Data for a few nations were thrown out, due to either a lack of data or to manipulations in getting the per-capita GDP data to line up with scoring data. This is not expected to substantially affect results, as the deletions were not systematic and the remaining data are more than sufficient to accept or reject a pattern. Subtracting the average score from each data point and dividing by the standard deviation, we arrive at a normalized distribution: which is obviously the same graph plotted on a different scale of axes. The x-axis is plotted in units of standard deviation (SD). This transformation makes later manipulations simpler. Likewise, plotting our per-capita GDP data on the new scale gives us the same graph using units of standard deviation: Approximating Individual Populations. Using the global distribution of freedom scores, we now have a normalized scale for quantifying proclivity towards economic freedom. Unfortunately, we have no direct measurements of individual populations. However, we do have the individual nation scores, which provide some insight. If we accept that government policies are a reflection of the beliefs and attitudes of their respective populations, as various and sundry worldly political machinations do their work bringing about at least the minimal necessary harmony such that the masses are quiescent enough that the powerful get to remain so, we can make the approximation that the individual national scores provide a rough measure of the likely median score of the respective nations’ populations. On the other hand, we have virtually no knowledge of the distribution of individual attitudes within nations and their respective scoring distributions. Here, we must make a larger statistical leap. I will use the approximation that the individual distributions have the same standard deviation as the global standard deviation. This is not entirely unreasonable. The global distribution is the aggregate of these same attitudes, so it stands to reason that subpopulations should not have distributions radically different from the aggregate, otherwise they would perterb the graph. The greater is the aggregate of the lesser, and thus should reflect its properties, so the two distributions should be within the same order of magnitude. Furthermore, excessively broad divergence in attitudes within nations would be expected to lead to civil strife, dividing said nation into smaller subunits with distributions more amenable to social cohesion. On the other hand, it cannot be handily rejected that population distributions might be somewhat narrower than the global distribution. But in the absence of such information, I will stick with the original approximation, keeping in mind that both the median and standard deviation approximations are rough and adjust our expectations of the precision of this study to reflect this. Determining the Threshold and Calculating the Approximation Curve The equation we will be fitting to the data takes the form

Per-Capita GDP = cf + d

where c is a proportionality constant (measured in dollars), f is the “freedom fraction,” the fraction of the population with freedom scores that exceed a specified threshold, and d is another constant representing baseline GDP in the absence of any “freedom fraction” at all, expected to be close to zero. Unfortunately, we do not know that threshold a priori, so we will try a number of thresholds to find best fit to the data. Using the Excel worksheetfunction NORMDIST calculates the integral of a normal distribution below a threshold expressed in standard deviations. The “freedom fraction” would therefore be the remainder of the curve, the region above the threshold, or the quantity returned by the NORMDIST calculation subtracted from one. The equation looks like this:

freedom fraction = 1-NORMDIST(threshold, median population score, SD of population, TRUE)

since we have normalized the national scores already, threshold and median scores are expressed in units of standard deviation (SD), and the standard deviation is by definition one, since the scores are normalized. The TRUE argument ensures that the function returns the integral, not the center of mass, and is just an artifact of Excel. Plotting “freedom fractions” vs. per-capita GDP with a range of thresholds generates the following series of graphs: Plotting per-capita GDP versus freedom fraction appears to linearize the scatterplot quite nicely, particularly for threshold values in the range of 1.0, giving an R2 vale of .54. While the data is still clearly scattered, the fact that it has been linearized suggests that our proposed equation, GDP = cf + d is a reasonably good mathematical approximation of a curve that would describe the pattern of the points in the original scatterplot. Using the linear equation of the trendline generated by Excel, we can extract our two constants c and d for the original equation, which now reads:

Per-Capita GDP = $42751*f + $2201.3

Finally, if we plot our newly created model equation against the normalized scatterplot, or the original scatterplot if the SD units are converted back to the original scoring system, we obtain the following graph: which, given a few outliers and some spread in the data due to the fact that we are dealing with relatively complex systems, appears to describe the data rather nicely. Results and Discussion The fit of the data to the model tends to support the contention that societal wealth is a function of the degree of embrace of a libertarian economic ethic by a society, at least to a rough first approximation. It is entirely possible that a more sophisticated model which attributes differential contributions of various slices of the “freedom curve” within a population might give a better fit, for example, by steepening the slope of the middle part of the curve and creating a sharper transition between the flat upper and lower regions with the sloping central region, but in any case, in the absence of better, more direct measurements, such an attempt would be even more speculative than this exercise. There are several important implications if this model is correct. The first, and arguably most important, is that societal wealth is not a function of governing economic policy per se. Rather, it appears that both economic policy and societal wealth are functions of the beliefs and attitudes of the population which makes up the body of the society, as these were the explicit assumptions made in the generation of the model. The distinction is important. It implies that top-down policymaking by governing bodies is far less important to improving the economic lot of a society than the actual embrace of libertarian principles by said society at large. Just as “societal wealth” is a measurement of aggregated individual human action, it appears that individual human belief and action at the lowest levels, not the highest, are responsible both for setting the prevailing ethic of the marketplace, and the resulting potential for expanding the productive capabilities and motivations experienced by individual economic actors. In short, human action looks to be the relevant factor here, not government policy. Another surprising set of implications, at least to this author when he decided to take up the subject, is that increasing wealth through embrace of economic liberty is bounded, as the flat, upper region of the curve implies, and that a fair number of real human societies actually appear to have reached the cusp of this plateau, as clearly visible by the data points at the far right of the curve. The threshold which was found to best fit the available data corresponds to a freedom score of only 70.5, which is to say, that individuals whose attitudes reflect this degree of economic freedom or better are part of the “freedom fraction” and contribute to per-capita GDP improvement at the higher level, while those below this threshold correspond to the baseline. This score corresponds approximately to the scores received by Spain, Sweden, Germany, Cyprus, and Norway, not despotic regimes by any means, but certainly not freewheeling capitalist societies either. The rightward skew of the national score histogram, which we noted earlier, coupled with this low threshold results in a few top scoring societies nearly “saturating” the effect of liberty on per-capita GDP, implying, for example, that over 99% of members of the top-scoring society, Hong Kong, would be above this threshold, though their failure to achieve the per-capita GDP predicted by their score would tend to suggest that there is a disparity between government policy and real public attitudes, assuming the model is correct. Is this the case? It is certainly a testable hypothesis. If the model is correct, it implies that the standard for maximization of human productivity is actually not all that high, at least with regard to economic liberty, as a few nations have actually come very near to achieving it. Though it might be more satisfying to libertarians if the upper end of the curve were boundless, continuing on into infinity, this is probably not reasonable. If not bounded by restrictions on liberty, it stands to reason that a man’s productivity is bounded by something, whether present-day technology, or the near satisfaction of desires at the cost of an additional increment of his time and effort, or simple, overwhelming complexity as the division of labor lengthens indefinitely. It is certainly a hopeful finding that it is within human capacity to achieve the minimal libertarian ethic that allows maximization of human potential, at least in one regard. This model produces a variety of testable hypotheses, as well as suggests further studies. It would be very interesting to determine the actual individual “freedom score” distributions of national populations to test the several assumptions of this study and further validate or refute the model. Perhaps this could be done through polling with a well designed questionnaire. It would also be interesting to combine this model with others, particularly doing a multivariate analysis to determine if the deterministic effects seen in this study can account for the “deviations” seen in another, particularly La Griffe’s IQ study, or vice versa. It could be that only a few determinants can effectively predict the observed economic distributions, if the relatively good fit found here and in his study are any indication. Conclusion A theoretical, mathematical model relating per-capita GDP to economic liberty which appears to have predictive value and real world implications is generated by relating the fraction of a population sympathetic to economic liberty, described by a simple normal distribution, with a proportionality constant. The success of this model suggests that increases in GDP are bounded in the limit of near universal individual acceptance of a certain minimal threshold of economic liberty, that the attitudes of individual economic actors towards economic liberty are more important than governing policy, and that several real-world societies actually approach the maximization of productive potential with respect to this variable. This simple approach appears to be a useful model for further investigations. ----Update!---- In case you are interested.... (click on the graph to enlarge)

Liberty and Isolationism

I have a rebuttal to Scott’s post on foreign workers.  Actually, some of this will coincide with his post, but there is one big BUT that I want to throw out there.

 The anti-immigration argument is essentially that if enough anti-freedom people move into a free country with pro-freedom citizens, eventually the anti-freedom folks will outnumber the pro-freedom folks.  The anti-freedom citizens will vote anti-freedom, and that will be the end of freedom.  I believe they also assume that the US is a freedom island in a sea of anti-freedomers.

 BUT, I always cringe whenever I hear libertarians talk about closing the borders, protectionism, and isolationism.  I’ve heard hints of this from Ron Paul, as Scott mentions, and I believe there is a certain faction of libertarians who are essentially isolationists.  Vox Popoli is apparently another.  They believe in liberty in the US, but the rest of the world can go to hell.  Constitutionist may be another name for them.

 I tend to be one of those “borderless” doctrinaire libertarians, or at least it appeals to me the most.  I can’t say I’ve been fully indoctrinated or even studied enough of it to be called an expert.  But, it appeals to me for one reason:  It seems to be logically and theoretically sound.  As Scott says, a priori, he is not opposed.  He only has practical reservations.

 I would argue first that the beauty of libertarianism is its theory, its logic, its simplicity and purity.  I would then argue that the vast majority of libertarian philosophy is highly impractical.  Let’s take one plank in the libertarian platform:  The Fed:  Shut it down, return to the gold standard.  Theoretically sound, extremely impractical.  “But we’re in a recession!”  Social Security:  Close up shop.  “People will suffer!” …..the list goes on.

 What I’m saying is if the libertarians start turning to pragmatism or practicality, they will lose their souls and end up as washed up Republicans, denouncing the free market (i.e. Alan Greenspan and GW Bush) at best.  At worst, fascists.

 Now to this notion that the US is a freedom island.  Take a look at the Heritage Foundation’s economic freedom list.  Guess what?  We’re NOT #1.  The US is #6, losing 0.3 points from the previous year.  Hong Kong is #1, followed by Singapore, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.  Another interesting list is the State of World Liberty Project (data from 2006), which factors in economic freedom, size of government and tax, as well as individual liberties.  On this list the US comes in #8, due to a dismal individual liberty score.  #1 here is Estonia.

 For now my only rhetorical question is:  do we believe in liberty or don’t we?

 

“Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”

-Walter from The Big Lebowski

Banks Want Foreign Workers

It appears that one way banks have been trying to fix their balance sheets has been to cut salaries by bringing in foreign workers, even as they cut their own American staffs:

The figures are significant because they show that the bailed-out banks, being kept afloat with U.S. taxpayer money, actively sought to hire foreign workers instead of American workers. As the economic collapse worsened last year -- with huge numbers of bank employees laid off -- the numbers of visas sought by the dozen banks in AP's analysis increased by nearly one-third, from 3,258 in fiscal 2007 to 4,163 in fiscal 2008.

I would generally describe myself as a libertarian, but this raises my hackles. Free-trade is fine with me -- so long as it is free trade. I am increasingly convinced that the system we have is NOT free-trade at all. And I am 100% against bringing foreign workers into this country, whether or not they are undercutting the wages of Americans. Most doctrinaire libertarians would say that there should be no borders whatsoever, and everybody and everything ought to be able to move about as they see fit. I am fine with this from a purely theoretical, pie-in-the-sky point of view. Which is to say, I'm not opposed a priori, but I very much have practical reservations in the not-so-pie-in-the-sky real world. I am certain that to be "borderless" with respect to people is libertarian suicide. The fact is, most of the world, whatever their reasons and motives may be, really isn't on the liberty-bandwagon. Seriously. Look around. If the world were so liberty oriented, it would be a very, very different place. The fact is that liberty has generally been beaten down wherever it has risen up throughout all of human history. Liberty is rare and precious, and the most fundamental characteristic that keeps it alive where it does manage to sprout up is a culture firmly committed to it and ready to make sacrifices to defend and preserve it. By whatever means and for whatever reason, at least 99% of all human beings who have ever lived have made choices which led them to reside under decidedly anti-libertarian regimes. Which is to say that these populations, by and large, do not have liberty oriented proclivities and are likely to undermine a culture of liberty if they find themselves suddenly transported into one. This is not true of every individual who comes here, of course, and it is not to say that they do it deliberately. But one need not be deliberate to have an effect. And at this point, we are not bringing in individuals. The volume of those entering our borders is so large that we are bringing in mass statistical samples. Moreover, there is little pressure or incentive for them to assimilate, so again, by and large, their home cultures are simply being transplanted here, and it should not surprise anyone that these folks are forming their own communities where their own values dominate. One would have to be quite naive to think that this does not show up at the ballot box. One would have to be quite naive to think that this is not influencing the future of this country in a decidedly anti-libertarian way. One would have to be just plain stupid to think that transplanting enormous numbers of, say, Pakistanis, or any number of other nationalities, would result in a harmonious, liberty oriented society, as if they would all change their minds about their long-held beliefs and customs as soon as they cross our borders and become just like us. I am not alone among libertarians in this opinion. Both Fran Porretto and Vox Day have expressed nearly identical opinions on the matter. They have many, many links and abounding examples and arguments demonstrating as much, far better than I could hope to present. Even Ron Paul, the most visible modern champion of small government and former Libertarian candidate for president, opposes open borders. That should make anybody think twice. If these companies want to realize savings by hiring foreign workers, that is fine. They ought to move their operations overseas. I have no problem whatsoever with that. But, naturally, they don't want to do that, because they know what they will find when they get there: corrupt, meddlesome, authoritarian societies where it is difficult to do business and make any money, which is the entire reason wages are so low in those places to begin with. So these businesses want to have their cake and eat it too, bringing the foreigners here. It doesn't matter to them that they poison the well, since the costs of their behaviors are incrementally small and borne in the aggregate, while the benefits to themselves are large and confined to their own company. That is, until the whole thing reaches critical mass and we all wind up losers. I don't care what Murray Rothbard, the folks at Mises.org, or any other libertarian thinks or has to say about the issue, whatever their supposed status as Austrians or small government types. They are wrong. Alas, this whole screed is probably an exercise in futility. In the estimation of many (including myself), we are already too far gone. Even the native population seems to have lost its commitment to liberty, preferring illusory comfort and security to the rigorous ethics, discipline, and responsibility required of them to make liberty work. We are no longer the pioneers of old. We are children looking for a sitter. It doesn't make much sense to object to others coming to our shores seeking the same thing. We seem to have given up on liberty. But that doesn't mean we've given up on opinions and ideas. I have a feeling that an awfully large number of Americans may have second thoughts on the way things have been allowed to go on in the coming years. I believe, perhaps naively, that a few may even come to their senses and see the wisdom of the Founders in the new light of the present predicament. Unfortunately, these old crusty ideas were never really a part of a lot of folks vocabulary, and a great many are outright hostile to them. In fact there are now quite a few competing ideologies vying with one another on the American political scene. Most are not favorably inclined to the changes desired by their rivals. But with a lot of different kinds of folks who have very different visions of how things ought to be get thrown together, it was bound to happen. So long as we basically agreed on liberty, we could muddle through and put up with the frictions generated by our differences well enough. But liberty now seems to be out of the picture. Then there was material prosperity. Even great ideological divisions can be covered over in times of prosperity. A flood of cash, good times and easy living can soothe hot tempers and keep the lid on things, at least while it lasts. But that, too, now seems to be evaporating in a very big way, and a lot of people aren't happy about it. Fred Reed has opined many times about the cultural divisions and near-hatreds simmering under the surface of America's cool, stable facade, much of it unrelated to immigration, but immigration is certainly a part of it. I fear many of these divisions may be coming to the surface in a big way in the coming years. The economic depression looks like it might just be the trigger, as the Great Depression of the 20th century triggered the following conflicts. It is an age old pattern in history; the binge, followed by the purge. In our case, it has the potential to get very, very ugly. I suppose I've gotten off track a little going from "Banks Hire Foreigners" to "Looming Civil War." It's not like these few newcomers will turn out to be the straw that broke the camel's back. His spine probably snapped a long time ago, he just has yet to hit the sand. But I do hope I've at least illustrated why folks shouldn't be coming here for jobs, they should be coming here because they believe in liberty as a philosophy and a way of life, and the banks shouldn't be allowed to bring them in as a way of "helping the economy" or whatever other nonsense their appologists are able to concoct. But, as I said, I suppose it's a little late for that.

Truth vs. Predilection

I have a confession to make: I don't really like libertarianism. I don't really like Austrian economic theory, either. Honestly, if I had my druthers, I'd rather be some kind of conservative socialist. I'm really not fond of the idea of people just doing whatever they want, with no real accountability to some higher authority. I don't like the idea of the possibility of an injustice going unpunished. I don't like the idea of injustice at all, and I want somebody in charge of making sure it doesn't happen. No, eternal punishment at the hand of God, sometime, someday, just doesn't do it for me. I want to see justice now, and I want it to be certain. And I really can't stand the thought or the possibility of people being left out in the cold. I'd like to think that everybody can be taken care of, that they'd all have regular access to a warm meal and a safe, comfortable place to sleep at a minimum. I don't like the idea of allowing people to fall through the cracks if that's just the way things happen to go, and I don't like the idea of just letting them do things we know will get them into trouble, like engage in drug use and prostitution. It has taken me a long time, but I have finally come to the realization that these very natural inclinations are wrong. Actually, I think most decent and reasonable people share these inclinations, and even most who are not all that decent or reasonable. The reality, though, is that this inclination is neither decent nor reasonable, as the history of socialism and authoritarianism has shown us. In a way, I envy people like my co-blogger Ben and Gary North and Vox Day, and even my kid sister Rebecca, who are instinctively "hands off my shizzle" type folks that I would call "attitude libertarians," who instinctively see this. That is, as opposed to me, who is only an "intellectual libertarian." Which is not to say that these folks aren't intellectually inclined (very much to the contrary), only that they didn't need it bashed into their thick skulls that libertarianism is the right and proper inclination the way I did. They just seemed to know it instinctively, from birth somehow. It's like a natural wisdom. I, on the other hand, am only a convert. But I have to say, I'm very glad I made the transition. The point of all this is to illustrate just how important it is to be able to overcome our predilections in favor of what is actually true when we are confronted with it. That is really what this is all about, and I would have to say that this is honestly one of the hardest things for human beings to do. We don't want to change in general, but we especially don't want to change our beliefs. But when they're wrong, and we are confronted with that fact and cling to our contrary notions, we do ourselves and those around us a grave disservice. Act in defiance of reality, and reality always wins. We know this. Yet how often we persist in our defiant ways, hurting ourselves and others in the process. Why do we do this? We can shake our angry fist at the heavens, demanding to know of God why he didn't act reasonably and make things the way we think they ought to be, but it won't change a thing. His world, His game, His rules. Play His way, or lose. Nothing could be simpler. And nothing could be more maddening to us prideful little beings. The simple fact is that, however it all works, whatever God's machinations are, ethical libertarianism (which I'm coming to be convinced is a redundant phrase) somehow leads to the best possible world. Its not a perfect world, which is an impossibility given the persistent and universal nature of human evil, and it is certainly not the world we want, as we have no say in how it turns out if it is out of our control, but I am convinced it is the best we can possibly achieve. Surely, the ethical half is the more important, but truth be told, ethical people leave others be, and respect their rights and their right to their own decisions, however things might turn out for them, and however much we may disagree with what they do. So the two really come hand in hand. To me, building a system on ethical libertarianism it is putting God in charge, and letting His laws work things out on their own as He intended. It doesn't matter if we don't like it. It doesn't matter if we don't like the rules, or especially if we don't like the results. This is probably the hardest of all for us to accept. It has certainly been difficult for me. But it is not our place to stand in judgment of His will or what is achieved within its bounds. It is our place to accept it. How much human misery has been inflicted in the name of the illusion of control? How often have our controlling mechanisms failed us completely, and left us far worse off than we might have been? And how often has our instinct for "compassion" been used as cover for inflicting horrific evils? Imagine you could travel back through time and visit ancient Egypt, before people understood things like basic algebra and had no inkling of economics. How crazy would you have sounded to tell the Pharoah that, honestly, things would turn out better if he would just forget about all his grandiose plans and let people alone to do pretty much whatever they wanted, so long as they didn't go around breaking basic ethical rules (thou shalt not steal, murder, etc.) How loony would you sound to tell him that this would make Egypt the richest kingdom on earth! You'd be taken for a fool. But you'd have been right. That is what liberty and free-markets are all about, and they work far better than the best planned economy ever did. How does it all work? A fair amount of space on this website has been devoted to answering this question in little bits and bites. And even so, we can only answer so much, as a great deal is a mystery far beyond what we could ever hope to know. But every so often I like to sit and marvel at it just for what it is, at face value: ethical people who respect the liberty of others prosper beyond their wildest imaginations, in ways they never could have foreseen, while those who try to plan every detail and have it "their way" wind up as paupers, and having it quite the opposite of "the way" they had intended. As C.S. Lewis might have said, put first things first, and second things usually take care of themselves. Put second things first, and we wind up losing both second things and first things. Who would have ever guessed? Though I am still just as prone to prideful defiance as anyone else, I cannot express how grateful I am to have overcome my natural predilection in favor of an inkling of the truth, at least on this one issue. I cannot express how much better I feel for having seen the current crisis coming and having been able to prepare for it, for myself and my little family. I cannot express how much comfort it has given me to have sought out guys like Gary North, Vox Day, websites like Mises.org, and friends like Ben and Mackay to talk to, to know that I wasn't a complete loon for being afraid when things looked mostly rosy to everybody else, and more importantly, for having a space to learn the truth, find support, and prepare for the future. And I cannot express how much confidence it gives me every day to be able to intelligently take steps to prepare for the situation ahead instead of cowering before economic demons I had as little chance of understanding as primitive man must have had for an erupting volcano, and being swept away by forces I could not hope to comprehend. Maybe it sounds kooky, or crazy, or unabashedly arrogant, foolish, or all of the above and whole lot more, to have written this piece, but I sincerely believe that the comfort and confidence I now have is a direct result of obedience and submission to God on these issues. I think it comes directly from Him, for having chosen Him over my own predilections, and having cared enough to spend the time to seek Him out when so many other voices were there to offer comforting words of untruth that would have been easier and more "popular" choices to accept. But they were wrong, as we are now finding out. I don't like the thought of a lack of control or of being at the whim of an uncaring unknown, but I now accept the fact that this is the way things were meant to be. It is the way they must be, for the only alternative is far, far worse. And the truth is, things really aren't, and never were, out of control. They were only out of our control. But however we feel about it, and whether we see it or accept it or not, they are in His control, to do as He sees fit. There is, and always has been, a Higher Authority, and real consequences for our actions, both in eternity and in the here-and-now, whether we understand them or not. Maybe it doesn't always look like it to us, and we are left scratching our heads at a lot of what we see, but He is here, and He is in charge, and He will do as He pleases whether we like it or not. I think the near miraculous practical success of ethical behavior is one such indicator that His Law is at work and in force. Gary North would call it "ethical cause and effect." Whatever it is, and whatever it is called, I have seen it. I believe in it.