Category Archives: Featured

IRS scandal nothing new: Targeting dissenters is bipartisan

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TAMPA, May 16, 2013 ― The IRS targeting conservative groups for audits and enforcement actions is the latest scandal for a federal government that is so out of control that even the lapdog media are starting to sound libertarian while covering it. But targeting dissenters is nothing new and certainly not an innovation by the Obama administration. It is old as the federal government itself.

One does not have to go back as far as the Alien and Sedition Acts or Abraham Lincoln’s imprisonment of northern journalists who opposed the Civil War. One doesn’t even have to go outside the IRS. Just nine years ago, they were doing the exact same thing under Bush, going so far as to investigate a church because of an anti-war sermon which the agency said it “considered … to have been illegal.”

Ironically, for all of their talk about “small government” and “balanced budgets,” the tea party and patriot groups most recently victimized by the IRS are for the most part rabid supporters of American militarism. So, whether you’re pro-war or anti-war, you’re a candidate for predation, so long as you oppose any aspect of the federal monster.

Conservatives are obviously making this about Obama and Obama is doing his best to deflect blame, pointing out that the activity occurred while a Bush appointee was still IRS Commissioner. Sadly, most of the American public will likely jump on one bandwagon or the other and miss what is really important here.

This is the inevitable outcome of giving any government the kind of power that the federal government has, particularly the powers granted to the IRS. You cannot enforce an income tax without inviting the government into virtually every aspect of your life. Once there, it is going to defend itself against any attack, whether related to your tax liability or not.

Let’s not forget that one of the pillars of conservative attacks on Obamacare was the thousands of new IRS agents that would be necessary to enforce its individual mandate. Tea Party and Patriot groups were largely formed around opposition to this law.

That’s what pro-war conservatives in 2012 had in common with anti-war liberals in 2004. They opposed the growth of government: the addition of new government jobs and the increase in funding. Whether for a war or a healthcare program is really immaterial. The beast just wants to grow and when it encounters opposition it defends itself like any other organism.

If the American public wants to stop the federal government from laying waste to the entire country the way it did the City of Detroit, it has to stop taking the left/right, liberal/conservative bait. There are two sides to this struggle, but they are not liberal and conservative.

They are those who benefit from the parasitical federal government and those who are victimized by it. Both groups are populated by liberals and conservatives. Let’s not forget that the majority of the military establishment is just a right wing welfare program, for individuals and large corporations alike. And it’s not like there are no liberals among that 5% of the population that pays most of the taxes.

The federal government can’t be fixed by throwing the current bums out and replacing them with new ones. It is not a job for a monkey wrench or a surgeon’s scalpel. It is a job for a motivated public armed with sledgehammers.

Libertarianism, anyone?

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had right to remain silent only after he confessed

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TAMPA, April 24, 2013 – Civil libertarians seemed to have cause for relief on Monday as reports were released that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been formally charged with the crime, given a Miranda warning and assigned counsel.

Some prominent officials, including U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, had called for Tsarnaev to be treated as an enemy combatant. The Obama administration indicated that it would prosecute the U.S. citizen in civilian court, but would invoke the public safety exception to the Fifth Amendment in questioning Tsarnaev before reading him his rights.

It appeared that justice had prevailed. Major news outlets reported that a bedside hearing had taken place, presided over by a judge, with counsel for the defense present. A transcript of the hearing is available online or in pdf above.

The bedrock legal principles that make America the “land of the free” had been preserved. Tsarnaev would be presumed innocent until proven guilty. He would have the benefit of counsel to challenge the government’s case against him, examine the evidence and cross examine any witnesses.

He would not be subject to punishment until he had been proven guilty in an adversarial proceeding, rather than merely accused.

There was only one problem. We now know that Tsarnaev had already confessed to the crime.

So, Tsarnaev had the right to remain silent only after there was no longer any reason to remain silent. That defeats the whole purpose of the Fifth Amendment. One of the reasons it was established was the routine use of torture in obtaining confessions in the Middle Ages.

So, how did federal authorities obtain Tsarnaev’s confession? Was he tortured? All we know is he was alone with federal authorities and helpless in his hospital bed.

It’s not like this is some paranoid inquiry into impossible circumstances. This is a government that has already admitted to employing “enhanced interrogation techniques” many times in the past. It has tortured U.S. citizens. Now, it is finding ways around due process. This is another step in the destruction of American liberty.

This government had already claimed the authority to declare someone an enemy combatant and, based solely on that accusation by the executive branch, to indefinitely detain that person without charges, without access to a lawyer or the opportunity to petition a judge for a writ of habeas corpus. There is no substantive difference between this and being “black bagged” by the KGB in the former Soviet Union.

Now, you don’t even have to be an “enemy combatant.” Even the kangaroo procedure the Obama administration employs to so designate someone is no longer necessary. The precedent is now set that a non-enemy combatant suspect can be treated the same way.

There is no evidence so far that Tsarnaev’s confession was compelled by torture and no reasonable cause to suspect it was. It’s hard to imagine him being waterboarded in his hospital bed with nurses and other patients nearby. On the contrary, he seems to have been treated humanely, perhaps because he was already severely injured when taken into custody.

That doesn’t change the fact that this government claims the authority to do so under an ever-widening set of circumstances. Any suggestion that this may be dangerous is met with the obtuse reply that “terrorists don’t deserve due process.” That begs what should be an obvious question.

If due process is the way we find out that someone is a terrorist, how can we deny a person due process because he’s a terrorist?

It’s not as if no one has ever been wrongly accused of terrorism. As Glenn Greenwald observes,

“As so many cases have proven – from accused (but exonerated) anthrax attacker Stephen Hatfill to accused (but exonerated) Atlanta Olympic bomber Richard Jewell to dozens if not hundreds of Guantanamo detainees accused of being the “worst of the worst” but who were guilty of nothing – people who appear to be guilty based on government accusations and trials-by-media are often completely innocent. Media-presented evidence is no substitute for due process and an adversarial trial.”

The idea that torture and denial of due process are acceptable merely because a suspect is accused of “terrorism” turns the entire foundation of American freedom on its head. If the United States is truly freer than other nations, it is not because of its representative government. It is because of what that representative government is not allowed to do.

Americans once understood that the federal government was not allowed to exercise any power that was not delegated to it in the Constitution. Over time, the government has increasingly behaved as if it may exercise any power not strictly prohibited to it by the Constitution or subsequent amendments.

Now, it claims the authority to exercise even those powers strictly prohibited by the Bill of Rights. Today it does so against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Tomorrow it might be you.

Libertarianism, anyone?

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

How do we know Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a witch?

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TAMPA, April 22, 2013 – Predictably, neoconservative politicians have already called for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be treated as an enemy combatant, meaning that he would not enjoy the constitutional protections afforded criminal defendants in civilian courts. Pundits and blog commenters have echoed the sentiment that “terrorists don’t deserve due process” or other constitutional protections. According to this argument, they forfeited them when they decided to wage war against Americans.

This begs an obvious question. How do we know Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed the crime and therefore doesn’t deserve due process, when due process is the means by which we make that determination?

Neoconservative logic isn’t much better than Sir Bedevere’s in the witch scenein Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Sadly, many Americans are acting every bit the mob depicted in that satire.

Read the rest of the article at Liberty Pulse…

The Bill of Rights was written for Dzhokar Tsarnaev

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TAMPA, April 20, 2013 – 19-year-old Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev is in custody. Assuming that Tsarnaev is indeed guilty of these crimes, a very real threat to public safety has been taken off the streets. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the Tsarnaev brothers have taken the last vestiges of a free society in America down with them.

The Bill of Rights was already on life support before this tragedy. Before the dust settled after 9/11, the 4th Amendment had been nullified by the Patriot Act. The 5th and 6th Amendments were similarly abolished with the Military Commission Act of 2006 and the 2012 NDAA resolution, which contained a clause allowing the president to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens on American soil without due process of law.

Americans had already grown accustomed to having their persons and papers searched at the airport without probable cause and without a warrant supported by oath or affirmation. After a brief, politically-motivated backlash against the Bush Administration, Americans similarly resigned themselves to the government tapping their phones, reading their e-mails and generally spying on them wherever they went. Things were already very, very bad.

They just got a lot worse.

Not only did the militarized domestic law enforcement complex put the City of Boston under martial law, but nobody seems to have found it out of the ordinary, much less outrageous. Yes, a few journalists like libertarian Anthony Gregory raised a finger. But, for the most part, nobody seemed to mind that the entire city was under military siege, complete with paramilitary units in full battle gear, battlefield ordinance and tanks. Tanks!

How did we get here? 238 years ago to the day, the inhabitants of the very same city started a war and seceded from their union over a mere infantry brigade attempting to disarm them. Now they cheer those who violate their rights much worse than the British ever did.

When Lee Harvey Oswald was similarly suspected of killing a police officer after assassinating the President of the United States, Dallas was not put under martial law. No tanks rolled through the streets. Oswald was armed at the time of his arrest and attempted to shoot the arresting officer, whose thumb stopped the hammer of Oswald’s pistol from discharging the weapon at point blank range.

It is noteworthy that the military siege was called off several hours before Tsarnaev was captured. In the end, he was found and taken into custody by the same methods that any other criminal has been for most of U.S. history.

So, there was no cause and effect relationship between the state show of power and the apprehension of the suspect.

Now, the DOJ has announced that Tsarnaev will not be read his Miranda rights, citing the “public danger” exception in the 5th Amendment. But the language in the amendment doesn’t remotely apply to this situation, nor is it even related to the protection against being a witness against oneself. It reads,

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

First of all, Tsarnaev is not in the Army, Navy or militia. Even if he were, the language would only have applied if Tsarnaev had been observed with the bomb in his hands just before committing the crime. The exception gives law enforcement the power to arrest him without first getting a Grand Jury indictment under those circumstances. It doesn’t release the government from the prohibition against compelling Tsarnaev to be a witness against himself after his arrest, which is the basis for Miranda.

If Tsarnaev is guilty, then the public danger was over once he was arrested. The government has no authority to waive any of its obligations for due process. He should be read his rights and allowed to remain silent without molestation. He should have an arraignment where he is given the opportunity to hear the charges against him and enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. If he is unable to afford a lawyer, one should be assigned to him at public expense. His guilt should be decided by a jury of his peers, not the government or the media.

The Bill of Rights was written for Dzhokar Tsarnaev. It wasn’t written for those suspected of violating minor violations.

The Boston Marathon bombing was a particularly heinous crime. No one with a pulse could help but feel deeply for the parents of an eight-year-old boy killed by this senseless act or the others killed or permanently maimed. Most red-blooded men would have liked nothing better than to have been the one who found Dzhokar Tsarnaev, praying he’d resist arrest.

Those are perfectly healthy feelings, but the awful power of the state is not supposed to be set loose based upon feelings. It is supposed to be restrained by reason. God help us if we forget.

Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

 

Obama right: Boston Marathon bombing possibly not terrorism

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TAMPA, April 16, 2013 – Conservative critics immediately criticized President Obama’s initial statement about the Boston Marathon bombing because he did not classify the crime an act of terrorism.

“We still don’t know who did this or why, and people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts. But, make no mistake; we will get to the bottom of this,” said the president.

This libertarian doesn’t get to say this very often about any president, but Obama was right. The bombing was a heinous crime, but there is no way to know if this was an act of terrorism until it is determined who perpetrated it and, more importantly, why. That’s because a mass murder is not necessarily an act of terrorism, unless it is carried out for a political purpose. According to Title 22, Chapter 38 of the United States Code,

“…the term ‘terrorism’ means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents;”

Definitions vary internationally, but virtually all definitions distinguish terrorism from other crimes against life and property by its political motivation. When perpetrated by foreign agents, acts of terrorism are viewed as quasi-acts of war, carried out by enemies of the state who may not represent a foreign government but nevertheless believe themselves to be at war with the target country. Examples would include the perpetrators of both World Trade Center attacks.

Read the rest of the article at Liberty Pulse…

The absurdities of the income tax

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TAMPA, April 15, 2013 – Being a libertarian, I agree that all taxation is theft. I hope that someday the human race “progresses” to the point where coercion, even to purchase “protection” from the official mafia, is held in contempt. But of all of the possible ways to rob us, the income tax is by far the most insidious. Consider some of its absurd stepchildren.

There is some finite cost to defending the borders, running a court system, and administering “justice.” For those who believe that government should do more (like conservatives and liberals), there is likewise a finite cost for building roads, running healthcare programs and taking care of the poor. That cost doesn’t change significantly overnight or even from year to year.

But the income tax doesn’t reflect this. If productivity and therefore incomes double due to some new technology, the amount of money owed to the government doubles, even though there are less poor people, more private sector “infrastructure” projects and less crime (crime goes up during recessions, down during booms). The more productive Americans are, the bigger and more oppressive a government they get.

Talk about a bad incentive.

It also discourages productivity in general and encourages wasteful consumption. Anyone who has had any business success knows that at a certain point, additional income costs you money. You would rather stop producing more than allow the additional income to put you at the low end of a higher tax bracket. So you produce less to keep more.

The flipside of that is frivolous consumption. If you’re showing too much profit near the end of the fiscal year, you look for things to buy that you don’t really need so that you can write them off as business expenses. You’d rather purchase something that you’ll get some use out of rather than give that money to the government. If not for the income tax, you might have reinvested that money in producing even more goods or services and making society richer.

This is in contrast to a consumption tax, which although still a theft, at least provides relatively less perverse incentives. To the extent that it does influence behavior, a consumption tax encourages you to forego unnecessary consumption and, by omission, to produce more, as it does not tax productivity.

Then, there is the strange way in which the tax applies to government employees. In order to ensure “fairness” in the system, government employees must pay income taxes. But 100% of the salaries and benefits of military personnel, regulators and other government workers come from taxes. So, Americans have to pay taxes to support their salaries and benefits and then pay for additional government employees to collect back some of the money back. It is worth asking why government employees are not just paid less, tax free. But that could lead to other problems.

The current rhetoric about “closing loopholes” highlights the worst absurdity resulting from an income tax and the most hostile to liberty. It is the assumption that all wealth produced by individuals actually belongs to the government, which allows those who produced it to keep whatever portion the government doesn’t need. If the whole reason for establishing government is to “surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest,” then it follows that the portion surrendered would be a relatively small percentage. Otherwise, it would make sense to take one’s chances without government at all.

These are only a few of the perverse incentives and absurd outcomes that accompany an income tax. They don’t result from government bureaucrats merely failing to execute an otherwise sound policy effectively. They result from the violation of a fundamental law of nature: the right of every individual to keep the fruits of his labor and dispose of them as he sees fit in pursuit of his own happiness.

Right now, squirrels are more secure in this right than human beings are.

It’s not a coincidence that the positive trends in upward mobility, distribution of wealth, growth of the middle class and quality of life for the poor have all slowed and eventually reversed since the income tax was established.

Yet, a majority of Americans not only comply with the tax but fiercely defend it upon the grounds that civilization would collapse without it, despite the fact that the United States has still only had an income tax for 42% of its existence. Often, income tax apologists cite roads and other government boondoggles that aren’t even underwritten by the income tax as proof of its necessity.

Libertarianism, anyone?

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Korean fiasco highlights U.S. foreign policy failures

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TAMPA, April 9, 2013 – It would be the stuff of a Peter Sellers satireif there weren’t for nuclear weapons and 26,000 American troops needlessly in harm’s way. A tiny dictatorship that has to cook the books even to call itself “third world” has the world’s “lone superpower” dancing on a string. It is a fitting tribute to 100 years of U.S. foreign policy failure.

When you invade and occupy a country, it almost always ends badly, as the British found out before the United States and Napoleon found out before them. Napoleon’s exploits in Spain are particularly instructive in understanding the U.S. government’s boondoggle in Iraq.

But it is only after you have got yourself stuck somewhere for 60 years that costly and tragic turns to ridiculous. Having unintentionally kept a multi-generational dictatorship in power by rallying its people around it, the U.S. finds itself outsmarted and outmaneuvered by a despot whose father might have suffered Il Duce’s fate if not for the continued presence of U.S. troops on North Korea’s border.

Read the rest of the article on Liberty Pulse…

More anti-libertarian nonsense: libertarianism failed African-Americans

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TAMPA, April 6, 2013 ― If my colleague Chris Ladd had written the usual, libertarians-are-racists screed, it would be unworthy of a response. But he didn’t. In fact, his piece “How Libertarianism failed African Americans” is a thoughtful and philosophically consistent argument that clearly disclaims any accusation that libertarianism is inherently racist.

But it’s still nonsense. That it is eloquently stated makes it all the more harmful.

Ladd’s premise is that racism and Jim Crow presented libertarianism with a dilemma. Libertarians oppose all government interference with freedom of association and free markets, but blacks were being “oppressed” by the voluntary choices of white people not to serve them. Therefore, libertarians had to choose between staying true to their principles or supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which meant granting the federal government the power to override private decisions.

Most libertarians don’t oppose most sections of the Act, which prohibit governments from discriminating. They oppose those sections which allow the federal government to prohibit private decisions based upon race. Ladd recognizes this distinction, claiming “African Americans repression rose not only from government, but from the culture and personal choices of their white neighbors.”

First, Ladd’s history is completely wrong. Like many conservatives and liberals, Ladd sees libertarianism as a subset of conservatism, an “extreme” version of the conservative philosophy which supposedly advocates a market economy. For him, libertarianism traces back only as far as Barry Goldwater and became an independent movement in the early 1970’s when anti-war conservatives formed the Libertarian Party.

Libertarianism does not follow at all from conservatism. It is the philosophical child of classical liberalism, which struck an uneasy alliance with conservatism during a few, short periods in the 20th century, after the liberal movement completely abandoned individual liberty. The so-called “Old Right” should really be called the “Middle Right,” because conservatism has meant bigger, more interventionist government for most of American (and world) history.

Conservatives throughout history have favored an all-powerful government, usually aligned with a state religion, because they perceive man as Thomas Hobbes did. Man’s natural inclinations are so depraved that only a government that “keeps him in awe” can counter the natural state of “war of everyone against everyone.” Left to his own voluntary choices, man will always attack his neighbors, break his contracts with them, steal their property and oppress them.

Libertarians see the nature of man the way John Locke did. Locke recognized that man was capable of both good and evil. His natural state is a state of reason, but he will sometimes abandon reason and aggress against his neighbor. Government power should be limited to defending individual rights when one person or group aggresses against another.

During the early American republic, this was the central conflict in American politics. The conservatives at that time were Alexander Hamilton and his Federalists. Jefferson and his Democratic-Republicans were what we today would call “libertarians.” They are the true origin of the American libertarian movement.

Whenever asked about the proper role of government, Jefferson articulated the basic premise of libertarianism. “No man has a natural right to commit aggression against the equal rights of another and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.”

To refuse to sell your product to someone is not aggression and therefore beyond the authority of government, according to this theory. But libertarians find racism and segregation as distasteful as everyone else. Is there really a dilemma here?

Ladd’s argument proceeds from the conservative view of man’s nature and the Hobbesian solution to deal with it. Ladd argues that segregation would never have ended in America if the federal government was not given the power to override the free choices of individuals.

Actually, both liberals and conservatives base their arguments for the Civil Rights Act’s power over private decisions upon this assumption. While it may sound reasonable to the uncritical ear, it cannot withstand inquiry by the mind, because it begs an obvious question:

If segregation was the result of the voluntary choices of private business owners, then why were Jim Crow laws necessary to force them to segregate?

The question answers itself. Obviously, there were at least some business owners who wanted to serve blacks equally with whites. Perhaps they were a majority, perhaps a minority, but enough wanted to do so that racist legislators had to pass laws to stop them.

In other words, the libertarian perception of reality is more accurate than the conservative or liberal.

So is the libertarian solution. What if the Civil Rights Act were more libertarian, prohibiting governments from being racist but leaving private decisions up to individuals? That question also answers itself. Some business owners would refuse to serve blacks and some would serve everyone. Some employers would hire the most talented employees and some would turn down superior black candidates because of their race.

Anyone who has ever run a business knows which group the market would allow to survive. The Civil Rights Act actually gives racists cover because it doesn’t let the market weed them out. It has also spawned a whole new set of reasons for racial resentment because of affirmative action and other derivative legislation. Like all government solutions, it produces more of whatever it “declares war on.”

Libertarianism didn’t fail African-Americans. Government did, as it has failed us all.

Libertarianism, anyone?

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Even libertarians wrong on Monsanto Protection Act

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TAMPA, April 3, 2013 ― While the high priests in black robes were hearing arguments on gay marriage, President Obama quietly signed the continuing resolutions act that keeps the federal government operating in the absence of a budget. Buried inside the bill was language that has become notoriously known as “the Monsanto Protection Act.” The blogosphere exploded with cries of conspiracy, crony capitalism and corruption.

Liberals oppose the provision for the usual reasons: It lets a big corporation “run wild” without appropriate government oversight, free to (gasp!) make bigger profits on food. More thoughtful liberal arguments have suggested it may threaten the separation of powers by allowing the executive branch to override a decision by the judicial.

The lunatic fringe believes that Monsanto will control the world’s food supply through intellectual property laws and enslave us all, like the evil corporation did with oxygen in Total Recall. Of course, let’s not forget that old saying. “Just because I’m paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.”

The liberal reaction to this bill and Monsanto’s activities in general is not surprising. It’s the libertarian reaction that’s surprising and disappointing. Even the Ron Paul crowd sounds like New Deal Democrats when it comes to this corporate farming giant.

They say that regardless of how much he supports the free market, everyone has that one issue that he is hopelessly socialist on. For some, it’s roads and so-called “infrastructure.” For others, it’s intellectual property. For Thomas Jefferson, it was education. Apparently, for libertarians it’s farming.

Now, if libertarians want to argue that corporations shouldn’t exist at all, that the privilege of limited liability violates individual rights and leads to market distortions, that regulating the markets only insulates large corporations from competition, that’s one thing. I’ve been there, written that.

But that’s not what libertarians are suggesting. Believe it or not, even supporters of Ron Paul are suggesting that new government regulations be passed requiring Monsanto to label its packaging to indicate whether there are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) among the contents. This is as unlibertarian as it gets.

There are legitimate concerns about whether GMOs represent a danger to the public. Certainly, each person has a right to refuse to consume them, but they don’t have a right to force Monsanto’s shareholders to label their own property. Neither do they have a right to interfere with consumers who voluntarily purchase that property from Monsanto without a label on it.

The libertarian answer is for those concerned about GMOs to refuse to purchase food that is not labeled to their satisfaction. The market already provides those alternatives. There is no substantive difference between the possible safety risks in Monsanto’s GMO food and those inherent in any other technology that legitimizes government regulation of voluntary activity. Either libertarians believe in the market or they don’t.

We’ve been told that the “Monsanto Protection Act” allows the executive branch to set aside court rulings, with the implication that the president or his Secretary of Agriculture can allow growers like Monsanto to keep growing and selling a particular product even after a judge orders them to stop. We’re led to believe that this would apply in a scenario where GMOs have been ruled to have caused death or illness and a court has ordered the grower to cease and desist to protect the public. But that’s not what the language says.

“SEC. 735. In the event that a determination of non-regulated status made pursuant to section 411 of the Plant Protection Act is or has been invalidated or vacated, the Secretary of Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part, subject to necessary and appropriate conditions consistent with section 411(a) or 412(c) of the Plant Protection Act, which interim conditions shall authorize the movement, introduction, continued cultivation, commercialization and other specifically enumerated activities and requirements …”

Section 411 of the Plant Protection Act deals with the regulation of “plant pests,” which are widely defined in the bill to include protozoans, bacteria, fungi, animals, and generic categories like “infectious agent or other pathogen.”

So, what are we really talking about here? A court case to determine if a regulation that shouldn’t even exist can be used to disrupt the otherwise legal operations of a company whose product has been identified by someone as a “plant pest.” Who would bring such a charge? Most likely a competitor or a left wing group that opposes and seeks to disrupt all for-profit activity. It’s Standard Oil and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act all over again.

Libertarians are usually good at separating their opposition to crony capitalism from their support of the free market. That’s why you’ll find them attacking large corporations one day and defending them the next.

That means that when corporations use the government for illegitimate advantages, as Monsanto has in seeking intellectual property rights in its GMOs, the libertarian response is to oppose intellectual property rights. It is not to empower the government to further regulate the market and violate property rights. If it is, then why was FDR and the New Deal wrong?

 
Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

 

More anti-libertarian nonsense: Libertarians are heartless

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TAMPA, March 28, 2013 – This week’s anti-libertarian nonsense is “libertarians are heartless.”

There are many variations on this theme. Libertarians oppose government-run education so they must not want poor people to get an education. They oppose government-run healthcare so they must want poor, sick people to die. They oppose government-subsidized housing so they must want poor people to be homeless, too (if they aren’t already). Libertarians are selfish, amoral…You get it.

Libertarians also oppose state religions, but no one claims libertarians are against religion. I wonder why? It seems to follow.

The people who make these claims don’t understand what libertarianism is and don’t really understand the nature of government or their relationship to it, either.

Libertarians do not object to you helping the poor. They merely object to you forcing someone else to help the poor.

Libertarianism answers only one question: When is violence or threatening violence justified? The libertarian answer is only in self-defense. That includes defending your life from an immediate attack upon it or defending yourself against a previous theft of property or other crime.

This is where libertarians face reality and their opponents don’t. Libertarians understand all government action is violent action. That’s not because people in the government aren’t doing it right. It’s because that is what government is designed to be. Violence is its raison d’etre.

The philosophical justification for government in a free society is security. Because humans will sometimes invade the life, liberty or property of their neighbors (whether next door or in another country), there has to be some adequate means to force the perpetrator to cease his criminal activity and make restitution to his victim.

Government is supposedly the answer. Government is the pooled capacity for violence of everyone in the community. That’s all it is. That’s why Thomas Paine based his entire treatise Common Sense on one fundamental assumption:

“Society in every state is a blessing but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one;”

Why an evil? Because it is an institution of violence, nothing more. This is a foundational American idea. It is the reason for the entire Bill of Rights. Government must not be allowed to suppress speech because offensive speech does not justify violence. Government may not prohibit the keeping and bearing of arms because merely possessing arms does not justify violence against the possessor.

When intolerable? When it is used to initiate force, rather than respond to it. If one individual steals from another, the victim has a natural right to point a gun at the thief and demand his property back. In society, the individual supposedly delegates this power and the government points the gun at the thief for him. Almost no one would consider this unjust.

But what if no crime has been committed? Suppose I knocked on your door and demanded money from you at gunpoint. Would you drop the charges against me if you found out I had taken your money and paid some anonymous stranger’s medical bills? Do you believe that is the best way for human beings to solve the problem that the stranger can’t afford to pay them?

Almost no one would answer either of those questions “yes.” Yet, there is absolutely no substantive difference between that scenario and a government-run healthcare program (or education, or housing…). The only superficial difference is a government official is holding the gun. But most Americans can’t see it and will actually argue with you that it isn’t there.

There is an easy way to find out. Simply refuse to cooperate. Deduct the amount you owe for Medicare from your tax return next month and include a note waiving any benefits from the program. Or deduct the amount of your property taxes that underwrite public education and Medicaid (which is most of the bill) and indicate you waive the right to utilize either.

What will happen next? You will get some “reminders” about the oversight in the mail, followed by increasingly threatening letters. Sooner or later, someone in a black robe will write on a piece of paper. Then, men with guns will show up at your door. Don’t believe me? Test my theory.

So what do libertarians really say that is supposedly selfish or amoral? That initiating force against people is wrong. Period. You are free to help other people who need it, but you cannot force your neighbors to do so under a threat of violence if they don’t. You may build schools and hospitals for the poor and ask for contributions for anyone you wish. You just can’t pull out a gun if they decline to participate.

At one time, Americans believed so strongly in this principle that they seceded from their country and formed a new one based upon it. Imagine if they reestablished it again.

Libertarianism anyone?

 

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.