Explaining Libertarian Bumper Sticker Philosophies

There are numerous short sentences and chants that come from libertarians. Most of them simple and direct but even the most simple in terms seems to get lost to some. So I am here to help work out what these few slogans for libertarian minded folks mean. To do this I will throw out my own definitions well as link into others who have written on these topics as well.  

End The Fed

This was a favorite of the Ron Paul followers (myself included) for almost the entire 2012 campaign. It is the title of a book authored by Dr. Ron Paul in 2009 and a position that Dr. Paul holds adamantly. To many outsiders (outside the libertarian mindset) it is a chant that holds very little weight as they may not comprehend the entirety of what the Fed is and what it does.

In brevity ending the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States would return money to a competitive and harder to manipulate tool of the economy. When the US Government needs money it borrows these electronic 1’s and 0’s from the ledger (with interest added) of the Federal Reserve, this debt is then sold by the Fed to foreign and domestic investors. The money supply is manipulated by the Fed by the practice of Quantitative easing and artificially held interest rates.

Paul says,”Inflation is the most vicious and regressive of all forms of taxation. It transfers wealth from the middle class to the privileged rich. The economic chaos that results from a policy of central bank inflation inevitably leads to political instability and violence. It's an ancient tool of all authoritarians. Inflating is never a benefit to freedom-loving people. It destroys prosperity; feeds the fires of war; & is responsible for recessions. It's deceptive & addictive, and causes delusions of grandeur. Wealth cannot be achieved by creating money by fiat. Depending on monetary fraud for national prosperity or a reversal of our downward spiral is riskier than depending on the lottery. Inflation has been used to pay for empires since ancient Rome. And they all end badly. Inflationism and corporatism engender protectionism and trade wars. They prompt scapegoating: blaming foreigners, illegal immigrants, ethnic minorities, and too often freedom itself for the predictable events and suffering that result.”

Source: End the Fed, by Rep. Ron Paul, p.134 Sep 29, 2010

End The IRS

The Internal Revenue Service, should be the most hated Government Bureau in existence, but it is anything but. It is actually one of the most protected and ideological inconsistent stances most American’s have. In essence most people want taxes, they feel they need taxes, they will in some cases say that one tax isn’t needed or warranted but will mostly follow it up with a new tax or higher tax somewhere else. It is this inconsistency that many libertarians try to remedy with the statement to Abolish the entire administration and codification of taxes across the board with no repentance. It is not an tenet of a free people to be forced to fund that which they see no value or that which they oppose on moral or other reason. Sheldon Richman of the Future of Freedom Foundation wrote in May of 2013, “One might propose to remove the government’s arbitrary power by ending tax exemption. But that would make the tax burden worse. And besides, politicians aren’t likely to agree, because they would be giving up the power to dispense favors that manipulation of today’s tax code affords.There’s a better way to go that’s demanded by liberty and justice. Since taxation is nothing less than the confiscation, under threat of force, of what belongs to productive individuals, it has no place in a free society. In other words, everyone should be exempt from income and other taxation. (Americans lived without income taxation for more than 125 years — except for ten years beginning during the Civil War.) If something can’t be accomplished through consent, contract, and cooperation — without aggressive force — we should ask whether it is worth doing.When the income tax was first proposed in America years ago, opponents always had the same word of warning: inquisitorial. How right they were.”

End The Wars

What can be said negatively about wanting to end all wars, but then there are some that would call us crazy and maybe we are, but if peace for all people isn’t worth the effort than nothing is. War is the most brutal display of nationalism and imperialism that this world has ever, and I hope will ever know. It is not the wish of every man to be at war with his neighbor as well as extended neighbors of the world. And it is not the wish of these men that they be pulled into a conflict of governments, to kill and to die, in defense of a government that has made enemies in the citizen's name. In 1973 Murray N. Rothbard sat for an interview for Reason Magazine. In this he responds, ” The State thrives on war – unless, of course, it is defeated and crushed – expands on it, glories in it. For one thing, when one State attacks another State, it is able through this intellectual bamboozlement of the public to convince them that they must rush to the defense of the State because they think the State is defending them.

In other words, if let’s say, Paraguay and Brazil are going to get into a war, each State – the Paraguayan government and the Brazilian government – is able to convince their own subjects that the other government is out to get them and loot them and murder them in their beds and so forth, so they are able to induce their own hapless subjects to fight against the other State, whereas in actual practice, of course, it is the States that have the quarrel, not the people. The people are outside the quarrels of the State and yet the State is able to generate this patriotic mass war hysteria and to call everybody up to the colors physically and spiritually and economically and therefore, of course, aggrandize State power permanently.

Most conservatives and libertarians are very familiar with – and deplore – the increase in State power in the American government in the last 50 or 70 years, but what they don’t seem to realize is that most of these increases took place in giant leaps during wartime. It was wartime that provided the crisis situation – the spark – which enabled the States to put on so-called "emergency" measures, which of course never got lifted, or rarely got lifted.”

With the call for the ending the wars the next point comes in...

Bring The Troops Home

It is well enough to call off the brutality and futility of war, from every angle, but yet another libertarian bumper sticker position is the return of all troops to their home countries. This is a call that comes from a few different angles. On the financial conservatism side it is not a strong position to say you oppose increased spending or taxation, and at the same time call for spending on the placement of military peoples or machines, bases and outposts. All of this of course comes with an enormous cost. The United States spends approximately $250 billion annually to maintain troops, equipment, fleets, and bases overseas. That includes the cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and the rebuilding afterwards as well as foreign aid to other nations.

From the standpoint of anti-imperialism one would have to look at the impact of having a base in every country and wars in many that do not yet have permanent residence. There are many that say that America is not Imperialistic but defined by the Merriam-Webster it makes the standard short saying true. Webster’s Definition : “the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas; broadly :  the extension or imposition of power, authority, or influence”

And of course with bringing the troops home the wars would naturally have to end and production could be diverted back into domestic consumables and international tradables instead of weaponry and foreign ventures.

End The War on Drugs

The War on Drugs, signalled formally by President Richard Nixon in 1971, has been the most costly war ever waged directly on the people of the United States. Costly not only in the monetary waste of enforcement but also in the lives ruined and ended in an effort to punish the decisions and behavior of the people. The War on Drugs is essentially by proxy a formal war of the freedom of people to harm them own self without harming any others. It is a war waged in suburbs, cities, towns and municipalities across the country and around the world. One of my favorite writers on this issue is Laurence Vance, he has written extensively on this subject and always seems to point out the obvious in new ways. An article published in August of 2011 laid out one of the best breakdowns of why the war on drugs is such an absolute failure in the effort to curb use or proclivity of possession and sale.

“ The war on drugs is a failure. It has failed to prevent drug abuse. It has failed to keep drugs out of the hands of addicts. It has failed to keep drugs away from teenagers. It has failed to reduce the demand for drugs. It has failed to stop the violence associated with drug trafficking. It has failed to help drug addicts get treatment.

But the war on drugs has also succeeded. It has succeeded in clogging the judicial system. It has succeeded in swelling prison populations. It has succeeded in corrupting law enforcement. It has succeeded in destroying financial privacy. It has succeeded in militarizing the police. It has succeeded in hindering legitimate pain treatment. It has succeeded in destroying the Fourth Amendment. It has succeeded in eroding civil liberties. It has succeeded in making criminals out of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Americans. It has succeeded in wasting hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. It has succeeded in ruining countless lives.

Clearly, the financial and human costs of the drug war far exceed any of its supposed benefits. Clearly, the drug war violates the Constitution and exceeds the proper role of government. And clearly, the drug war is a war on personal freedom, private property, personal responsibility, individual liberty, personal and financial privacy, and the free market.”

These are but a few examples.

All the one liner responses and bumper sticker philosophy libertarians share do have meaning behind them and if we are to effect real change we need to be prepared to expose that true meaning of what we are saying. Making sure those we interact and conversate with are left with more than just a vague slogan of what libertarianism is is vital to growing support and cooperation for these goals. If people don’t know what you support or why you support it they cannot make a connection and start to bridge their own beliefs to yours.

The Rights of Children in the Concept of Self Ownership

Recently the debate over vaccinations, and the possibility of the US government mandating them onto every person in the country, has been played out over the airwaves across the country and political figures and pundits have fueled the debate. Politically, scientifically and morally, points have been made for and against the idea of it all. But instead of questioning the effects of or validity of these points it left me with a string of questions. Questions that deal directly with the idea of self ownership and of our inherent right to not have our bodies violated by any outside person or entity. This issue doesn't just pertain to the vaccine debate, it includes all acts which introduce foreign substances into the body of another and the permanent alteration of a person's body without consent. It deals with children, their own rights of self ownership and the idea that parents are allowed to violate the body of another based on DNA similarities.

"When do rights start?" At what point in a human's evolution do the rights of the individual start to take effect? Are there any points in a person's life that their rights should be abridged or abolished, under what conditions and who decides these conditions, who decides when these conditions are met?

I conclude, for myself, that basic human rights begin at the beginning of life itself, the definition of that aspect remains in constant debate and we will assume that whatever degree in the biological chain of development you believe to be true is the starting point of what we will be discussing here.

First we should start by saying that the terms "Parent's rights" or "Children's rights" are in fact erroneous, there are only individual rights. The individual rights precludes any specialized terms used to differentiate groups or classes of people by regions, sex, martial status, sexual orientation, wealth, location, age or any other divisive term. When we speak of rights they are in the inherent nature of man's existence and are inalienable.

If an argument is made that an alteration of a child's body is for cosmetic reasons, it can be taken as a whole that any operation that altered the physical appearance of the body can and should be allowed. This is seen in the issue of child circumcision. For those that contend this point is true we can then point to tattoos, piercing, scarring, branding, bindings, implants, coloration or discoloration of any body part or the whole of the body and any other form of mutilation that subjectively enhances the appearance of the child to the parent as allowable operations as well under continuity of the argument.

If the argument is that an alteration of the child's body is for religious practice or observance, every religion should share the same immunity from violations no matter the extent of the alterations made. If one person's religious practice were to remove the external parts or portions of extremities (this is seen in the idea of circumcision as well) and another's did not, no form of abhorrence or abolition of that practice should take place. Where as some religions believe in the circumcision of females or of binding certain parts of the body, it is not a shared view that these practices should take place around the world.

If an argument can be made that alterations to the child's body be made based on medical reasons than all opinions and prescriptions made by the personal doctor of the individual, regardless of it being traditional medically, homeopathic, or any other alternative medical procedure or product. As we see right now some products than certain doctors have readily described as beneficial to fighting diseases and conditions are illegal under varying "state laws".

Parents and children share a unique relationship in life and dynamics of what boundaries can be placed on an individual and the abdication of a monarchical home structure. Advocates of "parental rights" that outweigh the child's individual rights often use the fact that children cannot make some decisions early in life as their hinge argument that parents of the child are able to violate the basic ownership rights of their offspring. Children are, in the easiest term to relate to, small versions of their future self, they will grow as other humans do and are born with the same inherent rights as all other humans are. These rights include the right of self ownership, the ability and function to do whatever they wish to their own body so long as it does not interfere with the rights of any other person. The issues arise in that children do not possess the capability to protect themselves or their rights from the intrusion by their creators or any others.

The child had no choice in the matter of birth, of placement in the family or the dynamics of such a system. The child then does not automatically become contracted unwillingly to, in a more widely known term, the "social contract" of the home or family. Since a child who, by admission, does not possess the capability to discern or decide on their well being they then do not possess the capability to discern or decide on who should be able to make those decisions for them or if those decisions should be made at all. The parent is in one instance the creator of life but not the owner of it, they are also not in possession of the capability to discern what can be construed as "best" for the life they have created, since what is seen as best in one man's eyes can be seen as harmful to another. Some that use the argument that the child, not being at it's fullest capability to rationally comprehend the affects of decisions, whether positive or negative, propose that the parent who is the "legal" guardian should step in to make those decisions. Contention can be made that any "legal rights" can be forfeited, relinquished, absolved, rescinded and seized by legal procedure and should not be a basis to measure who has responsibility to provide for any other person. If we look deep enough into the matter we can see that what is called natural law is in conflict to laws made by governance of majorities (what we will call state law for ease). A moral and non coercive ideal dictates that all interactions between people should be voluntary, that all relations should be made freely and association with others volitional. But in the "state legal" way by measure the child is not free to associate. The child is by "legal" definition a captive of the home and conscripted to the persons who created them. Though that bond can be broken through various means the state law gives parents the ability to violate the body of their own children for ambiguous and varied reasons and stipulations.

John Locke approached this issue in this way,"Children I confess are not born in this full state of equality (of right to their natural freedom), though they are born to it. Their parents have a sort of rule and jurisdiction over them when they come into the world, and for some time after, but 'tis but a temporary one. The bonds of this subjection are like the swaddling clothes they are wrapt up in, and supported by, in the weakness of their infancy. Age and reason as they grow up, loosen them till at length they drop quite off, and leave a man at his own free disposal." Two Treatises on Government, p. 322

Under this Lockean theory children are subjected to any violation of their person at the will of the parent based solely on the lack of experience in reason and result. This theory, if subscribed to, would allow any person who has more experience with a certain act to subject any others to violations against their own wills. This would then allow a government to force any number of medical procedures and vaccinations on the people based on the experience of doctors contracted to the government for their recommendation.

Murray Rothbard, leaves a legacy of the most brutally honest in his interpretation of this. Rothbard makes the case that a child, even though (s)he has not chosen the situation is guest to the property owned or rented by their parent(s). This property right to the parent allows, just as it allows every other property owner to decide on conditions and rules for sharing the space they own with any guest. "The child lives either in a house owned by his parents or in an apartment rented by them. Therefore, as in the case of any other “guest” living on someone else’s property, he must obey the rules set down by the property owners for remaining on that property. In short, the parents have the perfect legal and moral right to lay down rules for their children, just as they would have the right to lay down rules for the behavior of their longstanding house guest, Uncle Ezra. Furthermore, there is nothing morally wrong with laying down such rules. On the contrary, any property owner is bound to lay down rules for the use of his property." While the child is guest to the property owned by the parent(s) they are to abide by the conditions of being a guest laid out by the owner. This then gives another issue that may come as a negative to parents. "The focus on property rights also provides us with the solution to the thorny problem of when the child can own and regulate himself. The answer is: when he leaves his parents’ household. When he gets out of his parents’ property, he then removes himself from his parents’ property jurisdiction. But this means that the child must always have, regardless of age, the absolute freedom to run away, to get out from under. It is grotesque to think that the parents can actually own the child’s body as well as physical property; it is advocating slavery and denying the fundamental right of self-ownership to permit such ownership of others, regardless of age. Therefore, the child must always be free to run away; he then becomes a self-owner whenever he chooses to exercise his right to run-away freedom."

This unabashed approach to the freedom of the individual to freely associate or disassociate from others is a hinge argument for the case of individual freedom. In Rothbard's case I agree that children should have the capability to extinguish their association and conscription to their bearers. This taking into account the vulnerability of the child and the risk taken in doing so. The idea that a person may be subject to any other for reason of age or experience leads to progression of these ideas to all other people. Rothbard's position that children can only own themselves when they leave the place of their parent's, negates his argument for 100% self ownership. The rules set down by the property owners, the parents, may dictate actions that are or are not allowed , the child retains the ownership of his person and can choose to leave or remain under the regulations set down for as long as he wishes.

Walter Block, noted libertarian and Austrian Economist, Chair of the Economics Department at Loyola University writes in a 2013 article ,"In order to ferret out the libertarian perspective, we must get back to basics. Children occupy an intermediate ground between that of animals and other adult human beings. (I know, I know, this sounds a bit weird, but hear me out.) The former can be owned and disposed of at will. The latter, apart from voluntary slavery, cannot be the private property of anyone else. Children, in sharp contrast to both, may be controlled by parents, under a very different type of legal provision, not ownership, of course, but, rather, attainment and retention of guardianship rights. This means that as long as the parent is properly guarding, safe-guarding, caring for, bringing up, the child, he maintains his right to continue to do so."

Again he states,"For it is the biological parents who own these guardianship rights; the right to bring up their children as they wish, provided only that they continue to nurture and care for them, and do not engage in child abuse."

Block's position then is that a child is not property of the parent but the parent holds certain guardianship responsibility. That responsibility is to determine what is in the best interest of the child for health and it's future. Block also lays out a case that the guardianship role can be absolved if the parent(s) fail to act in the best interest of the child.

He says,"However, guardianship over children is not a sometime thing. Once the parent fails to fulfill this ownership obligation, he loses it. Entirely." This I wholly agree with.

Without laying out a clear definition, because one definition is not suitable for all people the next question is what constitutes appropriate standards of care for the child? It leaves the issue completely subjective and open for any sort of possible definition to be applied in various cases. According to state law certain definitions are applied to the appropriate level of care and wellness children should receive or be removed from the home by authorities and placed into the care of another.

Under the premise of Block’s statement, “...it is the biological parents who own these guardianship rights; the right to bring up their children as they wish, provided only that they continue to nurture and care for them, and do not engage in child abuse”, this would end the “ownership” of what he calls now the guardianship rights, what I will call responsibility, and would then place new guardianship responsibilities on these interim or semi-permanent guardians.

All of this is in the philosophical standpoint. There is the drive to try and protect children from harm and to grow to fully autonomous beings, but that should not preclude the inalienability of their natural rights. In Block's position I agree that the parents have a more guardianship role rather than ownership or rights to violate another person's body. The role to protect the child should not include stipulated circumstances that allow the violation of the child.

Using a justification for the interference or violation of a person based on those guardianship responsibilities would also leave open the child to violate the parent's body if and when the parent gets to an level of age and cannot tend to their own safety or health. Under this partial ownership based on age or cognitive ability theory, this would indicate that the parent now has lost the right of self ownership and is at the will of the child on how to proceed with the care of the parent. This idea though does not come to bear when referring to the old age parent in the care of the child or transferred responsibility to another through contract. In those cases where the child or hired caretaker has abused or mistreated the parent the state legal system recognizes the rights of self ownership of the parent over the wishes of the "child", in most cases.

To finish up I think is important for the idea of self ownership to take these contentions into account. If that ownership is temporary or limited in any way it opens the door for other possible transgressions against others. If the idea is held that the ownership of oneself is wholly unrestricted and unlimited to the stipulations of age, reasons of subjective value of benefits or of an as of yet unchosen religious custom, this idea expresses that the whole of the body of an individual is their own property and cannot be altered in any way without consent.

In the Rothbard tradition the child is the future autonomous individual, so self ownership is present even is self reliance or self regulation is not. Decisions to permanently alter another person’s body is a violation of the very basis of the idea of self ownership. Just as we should not perform these practices on other fully grown individuals we should not force small versions of the same individuals into any action of the same type.

The disconnection of this position in the parenting practice I think comes from the emotional senses and counters the belief in individual autonomy at certain points in the life span of humans. Again this can lead to other offenses against individuals in the name of safety, religion, and aesthetic enhancements.

Why Can't I Criticize Soldiers?

This week has seen the absolute pinnacle of nationalism and War Drum parades. All because of a movie, based on a soldiers life as he continued on an invasion of property and the killing of other human beings. My own view of it is to be critical of the act of War and the actions of those who were part of it, not everyone will share in this idea. Some will vehemently attack anyone who dares question the acts of soldiers. 

So I question: Why is it acceptable to criticize the act of war or the given reason for war, to criticize the politicians and Presidents who contrive the wars, but it is not acceptable to criticize the soldiers, who ultimately perform the actions in war? Why is it seen as unsavory or in the responses I usually get "unpatriotic" to criticize a person who has decided to cast off morals and principles, even religious doctrines, to do unspeakable things because they were ordered to do so?

I asked this question on my Facebook page and the responses varied from Emotional attachment, Mental Conditioning, Cognitive Dissidence and even it can be seen as a personal attack. I do agree with these answers but I add two more of my own; Nationalism and the Subjective View of Life and Foreign Ethnicity.

Personally I think the answers Emotional Attachment, Mental Conditioning and Cognitive Dissidence all go hand in hand. The mental conditioning that comes from what I wrote about last week; the War Culture. From the earliest of childhood all the way through the teenage years and into adulthood being inundated with images of war, compulsory deification of the war fighters and justification for their actions.It is almost mandatory to glorify the soldier and all that he does.
With slogans like "they are fighting for your freedom to say these things" and  " if it weren't for the troops we would all be speaking German/Arabic" (Whatever language the native speakers use in the particular region the military is engaged in at the time) Flag waving ceremonies, and recitation of the pledge of allegiance and the singing of the national anthem everyday for schoolchildren and even a host of other venues for those not in the schools. With that conditioning though comes the emotional attachment and in time the cognitive dissidence.
Of course we could include the point of Nationalism in this theory as well as it is the point of the conditioning and indoctrination to subvert any thought that the particular piece of ground you have been cosmically placed upon at birth is superior to all others and that all actions by the government or it’s military are somehow justified under the pretense of National Security or some other vague catchy slogan.

Cognitive Dissidence is a psychological term that refers mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values. It is in this area we see the backlash from speaking against or questioning the acts of soldiers, politicians and leaders who act in immoral ways or inhumane ways. Though it seems that more people have an issue with the criticism of soldiers rather than politicians or even the given reasons for war.

After all of these I think another aspect to be looked at is the subjective value of life and of different ethnic groups. Everything in life has a value attached to it by every individual, that value is subjective to each of us, and even the value of life cannot escape this process. The mental conditioning and Nationalism that is taught aims to place in the minds of individuals a value of one life over that of another based on where those certain people are located and the relationship between the governments they live under. We have, in the past, seen this subjective value lead to horrendous things as apartheid, slavery and genocide. We have seen it again and again lead to wars between people. It is this that I find the most dangerous aspect of nationalism and of the kinds of conditioning that is taught. Ethnic differences do exist in this world and will exist in this world until the day some men can justify to the rest that a reason exists to eliminate the differences. We have seen it in the past and I fear we will see it again in the future.

Images like this is why I believe there is room for criticism

The last reply was that of “some may see it as a personal attack”. It isn't a personal attack, it is criticism of the persons actions being moral or immoral, humane or inhumane, justifiable or unjustifiable, and it is exactly this criticism that needs to take place in order for the person and the public to see that no matter what uniform you may wear, no matter what orders you receive, you ultimately make a decision to do those actions and if those actions in any other setting are to be seen as immoral, illegal, wrong, inhumane, or atrocious, they should be seen the same way regardless of orders or uniform.  

This should not be taken as a general attack on soldiers. There are many who serve in the military that do not perform these acts, and there are some that refuse. Some countries military's actually give this instruction to their soldiers. "A soldier has the ability to refuse any act that can be seen as inhumane or immoral and report the officer who voiced the order to him." With that ability comes a choice, they can or cannot perform this or simply let it go and do as they are told.

It is a shame, I believe, that we cannot have a rational discussion on these matters without the name calling and shunning of the critic, without the threats of violence. It is a lack of logical thought that has led the world to wars, genocides, apartheid, slavery, segregation, holocausts, and the widespread demolition of native ways of life and indigenous peoples. We need to stop with the fear of criticism, and a stop needs to be made by those that justify atrocities with nationalism or government service and orders. The actions that take place that lead to barbarity and cruelty will never come to an end if we are silent about them. If we do not speak up and call out the inhumanity that is taking place it will forever continue.

Some further reading in the field of Psychology in relation to this issue.

The Milgram Experiment  sought an answer to the reason why people will perform functions or actions when ordered to do so by someone they see as authority, if authority has been placed in them, and when the responsibility for the results of their actions has been removed or placed into the hands of someone else. It is a fascinating psychological study.

Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. When inconsistency (dissonance) is experienced, individuals tend to become psychologically uncomfortable and they are motivated to attempt to reduce this dissonance, as well as actively avoiding situations and information which are likely to increase it.

In psychology, the Asch conformity experiments or the Asch Paradigm were a series of laboratory experiments directed by Solomon Asch in the 1950s that demonstrated the degree to which an individual's own opinions are influenced by those of a majority group.

Recently VeteransNewsNow.com released this story of the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Where US service members would engage in sodomizing Iraqi boys in front of their mothers and other women. It is this kind of treatment that causes such concern for what these soldiers mental states are that they would engage in this brutality. You cannot just sweep this behavior under the "for your freedom" rug.