Month: January 2021

From a FEE article by James Payne: Were the Capitol Rioters Really Libertarians? – Foundation for Economic Education (fee.org)

Excerpts:

“To call an ardent, violent Trump supporter a “libertarian” departs substantially from the traditional meaning of the term.

The confusion stems from two very different conceptions of what it means to be “against government.” In the typical partisan battle, the agitators are against the particular people in charge of the current government: they are challenging King George, Tsar Nicolas II, Nancy Pelosi. They do not question the idea of government itself. They believe that when controlled by people with good intentions—namely themselves—the government solves problems and improves the human condition. Once they displace the incumbents, the dissenters will set up their own government, giving it large, and growing, responsibilities.

The other conception of being “against government” is the position that government itself is not a moral, rational, and responsible problem-solving agency, no matter who tries to run it. Therefore, we should—prudently and thoughtfully—move away from our dependence on it. This is the libertarian perspective.”

Recently the Dearborn City Council voted to rename the Hubbard Ballroom.

Dearborn Removes Orville Hubbard’s Name From Ballroom | Dearborn, MI Patch

This action should be applauded not because of Orville Hubbard’s history, but because he did not donate the money to build or renovate the space.

Government should only name buildings/rooms after those who donate the money to pay for them. An objective rule takes political popularity out of the decision making process.

Jacob Hornberger highlights the folly of all proposed immigration reforms being considered by Congress and the mainstream media.

Immigration Pipe Dream at the Los Angeles Times – The Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org)

Excerpts

Let’s put the top 100 immigration reform experts in the county into one room, along with the Times’s entire editorial staff. Let’s give them the fastest computers in the world. Let’s assign three research assistants to each of the experts. Let them come up with the best comprehensive immigration reform plan in history.

What would be the result? A continuation of the immigration crisis, and perhaps even a worsening of it.

In fact, let’s pull together all the conservative-oriented libertarians who favor immigration controls. Let’s put them into a room with 50 of the top progressives and 50 of the top conservatives in the country, with the aim of producing an ideal comprehensive immigration reform plan.

It wouldn’t make any difference. The outcome would be continued crisis, perhaps even a worsening of it.

There is a simple reason for this phenomenon. It’s called socialism. Socialism produces crises and chaos. For more than a 100 years, there have been people who have tried to make socialism work. They have failed. They will always fail because socialism is an inherently defective system

…..

There is but one solution to America’s immigration morass: The free market and limited government, which, in the context of immigration, means open borders. I repeat: There is no other solution — no other way to finally bring an end to America’s decades-old immigration crisis. Freedom, free markets, and limited government are also the only way to bring an end to the death, suffering, tyranny, and police state that come with a socialist immigration system.

“But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love … Was not Amos an extremist for justice: ‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ … And John Bunyan: ‘I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.’ And Abraham Lincoln: ‘This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.’ And Thomas Jefferson: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….’ So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men…were [all] crucified for the same crime–the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth, and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”– Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

Perhaps you have heard people say “There is no substantive difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The leadership of both major parties are thugs. They compete with each other to see who gets to rule, sort of like the Bloods and Crips.

A January 2019 article from FEE offers an alternative explanation – fallacy of good intentions.

Jeff Deist on 1/1/2021 wrote Welcome to Post-persuation America

Here are some excerpts

… the information age makes us less curious and willing to consider worldviews unlike our own. We have access to virtually all of humanity’s accumulated knowledge and history on devices in our pockets, but the sheer information overload causes us to dig in rather than open up. Anyone who wants to change their mind can find a whole universe of alternative viewpoints online, but very few people do…

…

Because we can always find media sources which confirm our perspective and biases—and dismiss those which don’t—the notion of politics by argument or consensus is almost entirely lost. And no matter what our political or cultural perspective, there is someone creating content tailored to suit us as stratified consumers. Thus liberals, conservatives, and people of every other ideological stripe live in vastly different digital media worlds, even when they live in close physical proximity.

…

But because information is so abundant and readily available, it becomes worth less and less. Information is cheap, literally.

For our grandparents, knowledge was analog and came with a price. Gatekeepers, in the form of media, universities, libraries, and bookstores, acted as editors and filters. Walter Cronkite, the most trusted propagandist in America, delivered one version of the news every night. The local newspaper did the same every morning. Even just thirty years ago it was often no easy task, and there was no small cost, to obtain books and literature not easily found in local or university libraries.