https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/schizophrenia-bipolar-treatment-scientist-edward-scolnick-b412eb23?st=ptoWsD&reflink=article_email_share

from

https://www.betonit.ai/p/whose-standards-are-too-high

Prior to any call for government intervention, people should contemplate all of the following:

• No country approximates a free market, but almost all rich countries have a long history of relatively free-market policies.
• In contrast, dozens of countries have approximated full socialism. All of these countries have been abject disasters for human well-being. To quote an American politician in a rare moment of clarity, “We have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in.”
• Looking at the very freest economies in the world, there is little sign that they have taken a good idea too far. As far as we can see, the freer the economy, the better.
• People around the world attack the United States for having smaller government than Europe, yet people around the world also name the U.S. as the country they would most like to migrate to.
• “Monopolies” rarely arise on the free market by chance. Firms obtain monopolies by being — and staying — the best at pleasing their customers. When they stop being the best, they quickly stop being monopolies. Often, they stop existing entirely.
• One of the main functions of actual free markets is giving consumers enough information to make them comfortable. A good reputation is the foundation of every successful business. Thanks to the internet, word of mouth now works better than ever. Which explains the prevalence of 100% money-back guarantees — firms don’t want anyone talking bad about them.
• Developers cause some problems for surrounding homeowners — traffic, parking, and noise for starters. But they also provide notable benefits for surrounding homeowners — an array of social, shopping, job, and cultural opportunities. The fact that people pay large upcharges for density proves that the package of (all the good + all the bad) that development brings is highly positive.
• People rarely give large amounts of charity to strangers. But they also often refuse to give large amounts of charity to their parents, adult children, and siblings. When you hear about such refusals, you probably don’t reflexively take the side of the would-be recipient. Maybe the refuser has a good reason to say, “I’ve done more than enough for my brother.” Why then should we reflexively side against taxpayers who don’t want to fund redistribution to strangers?
• Illegal immigrants are one of the least-liked groups in the country, yet most people still fear that employers will hire them. Why? Because employers have a strong incentive to set personal prejudice aside and hire the best person for the job. Once you acknowledge this truism, how can you take the ongoing moral panic about race and sex discrimination seriously? If you’re paying attention, the real story is that government requires discrimination against whites, Asians, and males.

You needn’t agree with all of these bullet points. As soon as you grant that I’m making some plausible observations, politicians and voters suddenly look bad in a new way. While the free market isn’t perfect, their standards are too high. Instead of piling on even more regulation and government spending, they should be musing, “Laissez-faire seems pretty good. Maybe we should just live with it.”

An article from Future of Freedom Foundation 10/22/2024

The letter FDR should have written to Stalin

In a WSJ article Vivek Ramaswamy tries to distinguish between protectionism that is just for National Security, and protectionism for favored economic interests. It’s a fools’ errand when it will be the political process that determines what interference in the economy is for National Security.

I suggest:
Those who want to eliminate U.S. dependence on China in critical areas for U.S. security should consider an alternative to tariffs and trade restrictions. All that needs to be done is for the U.S. military to only obtain supplies and weapons from U.S. producers. If that requires the military to pay more, than at least the burden would fall on all Americans. Whether it be rare earth materials, antibiotics, or flags, if the military thinks it needs them then they should pay for a supply chain to produce them in the United States. If the military supply chain manufacturers are able to compete with global producers, then civilians would also purchase items from U.S. sources. Rather than have centrally planned subsidies to specific industries like chip manufacturers, the cost for U.S. military independence would be visible in the military budget.

Here is his article:
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-america-first-divide-protectionism-vs-libertarianism-trade-economy-policy-election-d5a6d91c?mod=commentary_article_pos3#comments_sector

The America First Divide: Protectionism vs. Libertarianism
On immigration, trade and the regulatory state, deep divisions underlie the Trump coalition. By Vivek Ramaswamy Sept. 20, 2024, 5:27 pm ET

What made Donald Trump so compelling as a political leader in 2016 was that he didn’t blindly parrot the GOP’s economic orthodoxy. He rejected the idea that immigration and trade are inherently good, instead asking what policies would maximize the well-being of American workers and manufacturers.

It’s now fashionable for Republicans to say things like “we need to make things here,” and “we’re the party of the working class” without stopping to ask what these phrases mean or why we’re saying them. That isn’t good. An important reason why the old consensus failed was intellectual laziness. For the America-first movement to outlast Mr. Trump, it needs to think through the principles that underlie its policies.

Are we protectionists or economic libertarians? The protectionist approach recognizes the security risks of increased dependence on adversaries like China, but commingles these risks with concerns about price competition for American manufacturers. In this view, we need less international trade altogether; we should use tariffs to stop even friendly countries from “flooding our markets” with their products; and we should use taxpayer funds to subsidize American producers to be more competitive with international competitors.

The national libertarian objective is to eliminate U.S. dependence on China in critical areas for U.S. security. Doing so, at least for the foreseeable future, requires expanding trade relationships with countries such as Japan, South Korea, India and the Philippines. If your top objective is to protect American manufacturers from foreign competition, you necessarily delay the national security objective vis-à-vis China.

On immigration, the historical neoliberal consensus was that if a company can hire foreigners for $10 an hour to do the same job at the same quality that an American would demand $20 an hour to do, the government should design policies that allow companies to hire the cheaper workers. The protectionist position is that the government should favor American workers earning the higher wage. Whereas the old neoliberal position viewed immigration policy as economic policy, the protectionist position views immigration policy as labor policy. Republican senators who support raising the federal minimum wage have stated that one reason is to prevent companies from replacing native-born workers with less expensive foreign-born ones.

The America-first libertarian position rejects the old consensus on different grounds: that the U.S. isn’t merely an “economic zone” but a nation of citizens bound by a shared civic identity. This view favors more-stringent screening of immigrants for knowledge of civics, fluency in English and loyalty to the U.S. through renunciation of foreign citizenship. That means turning many immigrants away, but not because domestic labor unions are afraid of foreign competition.

The deepest divide between protectionism and libertarianism is over the regulatory state. The protectionist camp believes in redirecting the regulatory state to advance policies that favor the interests of U.S. workers and manufacturers. The libertarians think this goal requires sharply curtailing the regulatory state’s power.

Protectionists seek to expand the scope of administrative agencies like the Federal Trade Commission. They believe the FTC’s job isn’t simply to promote consumer protection, but to focus more broadly on “fair” competition—a view Kamala Harris shares. Libertarian conservatives reject the idea that government regulators should pass judgment on what is or isn’t fair—especially if Congress hasn’t expressly authorized them to do so.

The same goes for other less-discussed agencies like the Transportation Department. Protectionists believe that the failure of poorly-run companies in regulated industries like aviation and railroads demonstrates the need for more regulation to protect workers and customers. Libertarians see the regulatory state as the root cause of those failures.

Libertarians oppose expanding the authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as a Republican senator proposes in the Capping Credit Card Interest Rates Act. The CFPB recently started demanding small-business loan applicants disclose their race, ethnicity, sex and even sexual orientation. Do America-first conservatives want the CFPB to have such power? America-first libertarians say hell no.

Or take the Education Department. Protectionists argue that education subsidies should be expanded to cover trade and vocational schools along with colleges and universities. Libertarians think the answer is to shut down the department and return the subsidies to states and their citizens.

The conditions have never been riper to curtail the regulatory state, following the Supreme Court’s rulings in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) and SEC v. Jarkesy (2024). That project would require an amenable U.S. president.

Donald Trump masterfully bridges the divide between these two policy camps within the America-first right: favoring federal intervention to halt Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel on one hand while committing to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education on the other; fighting to protect the wages of American workers while also proposing automatic green cards for foreign graduates of U.S. colleges. But his leadership of this coalition doesn’t permanently close the chasm between the protectionist and libertarian worldviews on legal immigration, trade and the regulatory state. For now it lurks beneath the surface of a presidential race, but the future of America first is still yet to be determined.

Mr. Ramaswamy is author, most recently, of “Truths: The Future of America First,” forthcoming Sept. 24, from which this was adapted. He was a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Instead of trying to use politics to determine if abortion is murder and when life begins, we should consider making it legal for a parent to kill their own unemancipated children.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/who-is-chase-oliver-libertarian-party-pick-president-1235099236

This Presidential Candidate Wants You to Be Able to Get an Abortion and Buy a Rocket Launcher

Meet Chase Oliver, the Libertarian Party’s 2024 candidate who says he’s no “spoiler”

By Tim Dickinson

September 10, 2024

Chase Oliver is not everybody’s cup of tea. The 39-year-old presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party has ideas that are by turns attractive, and grotesque, to nearly anyone on the traditional, left-right political spectrum. 

Libertarians want to radically downsize the federal government and entrust individuals (and corporations) with self-regulation, believing that the magic of the marketplace will resolve prickly problems of racial discrimination, air pollution, and corporate greed — perhaps with an occasional assist from the courts. This belief system leads Oliver to political positions that cut against the partisan grain, supporting both abortion rights and unchecked gun rights, or calling for an end to both the Environmental Protection Agency and mandatory minimum sentences. 

The hardline economic conservatism of Libertarians tends to draw more crossover from GOP-aligned voters, particularly small-government types who are discontent with MAGA populism. Trump was roundly booed when he spoke at the Libertarian convention in May. Oliver has secured a place on the ballot in about 45 states, including every significant swing state — positioning him as a potential spoiler. This is particularly true in his home state of Georgia, where Oliver is better known to voters, having previously run for Senate in 2022, helping force the Raphael Warnock/Herschel Walker contest into a runoff.The video player is currently playing an ad.

Rolling Stone spoke to Oliver at length on Monday. The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity. 

You’re not going to be on the debate stage, but give us your opening statement. 

First and foremost, the two-party system is broken. One of the reasons why so many people are so dissatisfied with our political system is the lack of choice. That leads us to further division and further polarization.

Unlike my two opponents, who focus on using the power of government to solve the problems — which ends up creating more problems — or using the power of government to push their viewpoints onto others, Libertarians are different. We seek to reduce the power of government and empower individual people to make their own choices in life, with regards to the education their kids receive and the medical choices they make. We want to remove government’s impact on our lives as much as possible. 

At the end of the day, if you’re not hurting anybody, your life should be your life. Your body should be your body, your business should be your business, and your property should be your property. Not mine, and not the federal government’s. So if I were on that debate stage, I would be showing that we can have a very different path that leads us away from partisanship and polarization, and towards a future that’s filled with possibility and prosperity.

Why is Trump the wrong guy, from your perspective? 

Look at his governing style, which is quite erratic, and chaotic. This is because he doesn’t stand on any one principled position. The last idea that gets whispered into his ear is the next idea that Trump comes up with. This is why you have erratic foreign policy. And you have economic protectionism. Take these tariffs, which he claims are a tax on China or others. The truth is that tariffs will always be a tax on the American consumer and the American businesses. I cannot stand somebody who makes false promises. Trump promised he was going to cut the debt in half in eight years. In his four years, he ran the deficits up more than any other president in a four year period. He is inherently dishonest. And that’s not good in a leader.

And why, in your perspective, is Kamala Harris’s vision not right for America?

I find much of Kamala Harris’ economic policies to be backward thinking. Things like price controls, which will always inevitably lead to shortages. 

She’s talking about outlawing price gouging.

That is its own form of price control. But regardless, the economic policies of the Democratic Party are rooted in the same old, “Hey, we’ll just tax billionaires, and we’ll fund everything we need from that.” The math just doesn’t math there. It still adds to the debts and deficits that are the primary driver of inflation. I find the Democrats to be just as much a part of this divisive system as the Republicans are. There are states where Democrats have been suing to keep candidates off the ballot. To claim that you’re wanting to preserve democracy, while at the same time trying to knock candidates off state ballots, rings hollow to me. 

People will call you a spoiler. How do you think about your role in presenting a third choice in what’s set up to be a binary election?

If you’re not running to try and win, you’re not doing it right. Absent a win, my role in this race is to provide voters an honest choice, to bring more voters in the process who just haven’t felt represented by Democrats and Republicans. In the long term, this is a stepping stone towards building up a true third party that can challenge the two-party system. 

I’m an advocate for things like ranked-choice voting. But I can’t give that to the voters because I’m just Chase Oliver the Libertarian candidate. But Republicans and Democrats in state houses all over the country could provide a better way for people to vote, which would remove the spoiler effect that Democrats and Republicans like to blame Libertarians for. Don’t blame us for the system that we have. Blame the people who are in power for the system that they provide us to vote — and then demand better. 

How much would you downsize federal government? You want to get rid of the Department of Education, for example. Are there any departments or agencies you would keep?

If I could wave a magic wand, I would bring us to the minarchist ideal.

I’m sorry, the what ideal?

The minarchist ideal. So you know anarchy? Minarchy is the minimum amount of government. In that ideal, you would have a military to protect citizens from invasion of their liberty from beyond the borders. You would have courts to adjudicate disputes between individuals, and you would have a law enforcement apparatus to secure civil liberties and protect people at home. That is the ideal. But I don’t think, even if I were president for 20 years, we would get to it. So I just want to cut government down as much as possible, as quickly as possible, so at least we’re having a balanced budget or actually creating a surplus. I would like to wholesale get rid of a lot of departments. What would I keep? The Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of State. Not much else, really.

The EPA?

No, I don’t think you need to have an EPA. A lot of the things the federal government does should either be done by the states or local governments, or are something that can be better facilitated through a private marketplace or through privatization. There’s nothing in the Constitution that empowers an EPA. If pollution wants to be checked, it has to be by government at a state or local level.

Don’t I have a liberty interest in having my neighbors not pollute?

Oh, there’s absolutely a need to have clean air, clean water, and stop pollution. One of the best ways to facilitate that is to remove tort caps [i.e. limitations on damages in lawsuits], so that way, when citizens do sue these companies for polluting, a citizen jury can bankrupt those entities that are poisoning the air, poisoning the water. Instead of giving them a slap on the wrist — boom — give them metaphorical punch to the face.

You’re in Georgia. And the state just had a school shooting. What is your policy solution to addressing that?

We need to address two things. One, we need to make our schools more secure by hardening the target. Secondly, we need to address what are the root causes of mass violence that cause people to shoot up schools? We’ve had guns in our society for a long period of time. Guns are nothing new to the American experience. But mass shootings at schools? Columbine — that’s when we really started seeing the growth of this. Much of this is a mental health issue that is really under addressed, particularly with young men in this country. Part of it is the dehumanization that has come about due to the rise of social media, anecdotally speaking, that you can just go online as a faceless avatar and spout all sorts of bile, and cruelty that you would never say in polite company — and the mental health effects that has on particularly young people who are committing these acts.

So gun regulation is not part of your menu?

No. I do believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in being a responsible parent. There’s some responsibility there for parents to have better purview over their kids. But no I don’t think there’s a need for outright gun bans because of this.

Are there limits to the Second Amendment, or is it absolute? Like if I can get a rocket launcher, is that cool with you?

Hey as long as you’re not shooting people with it, yeah. 

What about if I could get a pocket nuke? 

I get asked all the time about nuclear weapons. And I don’t think government should have nuclear weapons. So I don’t think people should either.

Is there no theoretical upper limit, is what I’m getting at. Can get my hands on an Abrams tank? 

As long as it’s not used to harm anybody. That’s the thing. The action comes when you harm people with it. Owning it, having it, merely, that does not necessitate a harm against somebody. The language of “shall not be infringed” has been stretched quite thin by some of the regulation that already exists. And any further regulation, you would have to amend the Constitution.

You mentioned that the federal government shouldn’t have nuclear weapons, but you’re a big booster of nuclear power. Why champion an energy source that’s expensive and at times dangerous? Take Fukushima as a recent example.

We have to examine why nuclear is so expensive. It’s due to the regulatory red tape that’s been put around it. As far as safety, nuclear power is far safer than coal, natural gas, or oil. It has far less environmental damage. Modern nuclear power plants have a much smaller footprint in terms of land usage than, say, solar panels or wind farms. Or look at the environmental damage of mining lithium to create batteries that is extremely harmful, not only to the earth, but to the individuals who are having to mine it. And so there’s a lot of areas where I find nuclear to be a really great alternative. 

If you look at the market economics behind renewables, they’re incredibly cheap and getting cheaper. I’m just curious why it is that the Libertarian of all people would be picking winners and losers by championing nukes?

I’m not championing one over the other. 

Your platform quotes you as saying, “Nuclear power is what we need to power the 21st century.” That seems like a championing.

What we do is we want to remove the undue regulatory hurdles around nuclear powers that can actually compete openly in the marketplace. Nuclear right now is under the thumb of the government regulatory agencies, making it artificially more expensive in a free marketplace. But may the best technology win.

You’ve blamed inflation on the federal money machine going whir. But we’ve recently learned that Kroger was using supply chain disruptions to gouge customers on basic goods. Don’t consumers deserve some protection, and shouldn’t that come from their government?

If a firm like Kroger is using supply chain interruptions to artificially raise their prices higher than market value, and we can know that as consumers, then you have other options to shop at. That’s why there’s Publix, that’s why there’s Walmart, that’s why there’s Amazon, that’s why there’s Trader Joe’s. True free markets would facilitate the lowest cost and most efficiency, and those who try to gouge prices would be met with competitors.

But the understanding is this behavior was pervasive. CEOs even bragged about it on their earnings calls. Customers have been hit with greed-flation in the extreme over the last several years.

That’s the brilliance of a marketplace, that if people are abusing the consumer, there’s going to be an opportunity for others to create space in the marketplace, to enter into it. We don’t need to be having government setting price controls, which is what anti-price gouging laws are. Anti-gouging laws lead to shortages in emergencies. That’s just the plain truth whenever we interject ourselves we create problems in the marketplace. I would like to keep the government’s hand out of it as much as possible. If you can prove a conspiracy to defraud consumers, there’s a legal avenue for that, but that is not something the government needs to be regulating via the heavy hand of central planning. 

Talk to me about your criminal justice platform.

So myself, and even my running mate, Mike Ter Maat, who’s an ex-police officer, recognize there’s a severe need for criminal justice reform. It starts with things like ending qualified immunity for police. I believe that law enforcement should have to hold liability insurance. In a local instance, this would mean, the lawsuit money would come from a private insurance policy. This has a free market incentive to get bad cops off the streets, because you become uninsurable if you commit too many offenses. It takes the politics completely out of it. Just, “Hey, you’re uninsurable, you can’t be a cop anymore.” This would create much better policing. 

I want to end mandatory minimums that tie the hands of judges, which often has defendants pleading down even if they haven’t done anything wrong out of fear of a lengthy prison sentence. We need to join most of the rest of the world, and outlaw the death penalty. It’s like us, China, North Korea, and a few other nations. We want to be on the list of the nations that don’t have a death penalty.

What’s your view about how people should relate to their government in terms of their health?

I’m a big supporter of medical freedom. Obviously, as a Libertarian, that should be no surprise. You should be able to control the vaccines you take that you have your children take. I am pro-choice, with regards to abortion, to the point of viability. Post viability, there’s the standard of health or life of the mother that should be honored and respected. 

In general we need to deregulate the health care marketplace. Things like being able to buy health insurance across state lines. Removal of caps for health savings accounts. Right now it’s at $4,500 for an individual, when we spend almost 15 grand a year on health care. Things like being able to buy drugs across international boundaries — that would lower the cost of drugs. Or if you were able to allow generics to come online, you would see the cost drastically reduced. I want people to have as much agency as possible, but also find steps in the marketplace to reduce the cost of health care, so more and more people can access it without the need of heavy handed government controls.

Your platform says “every state should have the right to exit from its present constitutional subjugation.” Is that an allowance for Texas to become its own country?

That is what I mean. I do believe that if the state wanted to leave, they should be allowed to voluntarily do so. I don’t think it’s really a good idea, personally, in most cases. But we do reserve the rights for states to exit out of the agreement if they want. So that’s not something that I really think most voters are really stressing about in 2024.

You also say that “every state should have the right to nullify any federal legislation that is not directly supported by the Constitution.” Sounds a little bit like Alabama could go back to Jim Crow if it wanted. 

That’s not true. There are definitely civil rights being violated under Jim Crow. There’s a reason why it doesn’t exist anymore.

Explain what you mean about nullifying federal legislation. If you were the governor of Georgia, what federal legislation would you nullify?

Again, not something most voters are super concerned about.

It’s on your platform and honestly it’s the most concerning idea in there.

The Libertarian platform, correct? 

It’s on your website. Is it not your idea? [Editor’s note: The call for nullification of federal laws appears as a bullet point in a document titled “What Chase Stands For.”]

If I were governor of Georgia I would want to nullify things like unconstitutional invasions of privacy. If federal law enforcement tries to come into Georgia and execute unconstitutional orders of search and seizure, we should be able to nullify that immediately. There are areas certainly where we have to use the power of government to nullify when the federal government is trying to abuse us.

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You’re the youngest person of the three primary parties running for office. What does your generational perspective afford you that a candidate that’s 20 years older, like Harris, or 40 years older like Trump, not have?

I’ve grown up during the War on Terror years. My worldview has been informed by how the government has been acting, mostly, since 2001. The candidates who are older are still living in the Cold War mindset. What makes it generationally different is that I’m going to be here for the next 30 or 40 years, God willing. Maybe I’m thinking more long term than some of our politicians today, who are just thinking about what they need to do to get through the next two years, the next four years to get reelected. 

If you don’t want to watch the video from the beginning jump to about 1:53

Keith Bilby recommended this interview with Donald Trump.