Category Archives: Libertarianism

Chris Dorner: A real life Frankenstein monster

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TAMPA, February 13, 2013 – “Are you to be happy, while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness? You can blast my other passions; but revenge remains, – revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die; but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery. Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. I will watch with the willingness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict.”

While far more eloquent, one cannot help but see the parallels between the declaration of war upon Victor Frankenstein by the monster he created and Chris Dorner’s erratic “manifesto.” Dorner’s entire story parallels Mary Shelley’s classic, with tragic results and ominous foreboding.

Like the monster, Dorner was “created” by the military-police complex. They may not have endowed him with life, but they made him into the trained killing machine that was both willing and able wage war upon them. Dorner felt wronged by his creator and swore to avenge himself, willing to exact that revenge both upon those he had self-pronounced “guilty” and upon innocents whose suffering or death would cause the guilty pain. Like Shelley’s demon, Dorner’s life ended in fiery death (more like the movie than the novel).

Shelley’s characters are more sympathetic than those of Dorner’s tragic story. The monster suffers years of real torment before resorting to the murder of Frankenstein’s loved ones, including his brother, an innocent child, and his young wife. The reader still doesn’t condone the murders, but at least sympathizes somewhat with the murderer. Not so with Dorner. Although some or all of his accusations against the LAPD may have been true, it is impossible to either understand or condone his disproportionate response.

The government falls short of Shelley’s title character as well. Unlike the targeted members of the LAPD, Victor Frankenstein does not cower in his house under paramilitary protection. He hunts the monster he created alone, unafraid to confront him, without endangering innocent bystanders. He also understands and admits that he was wrong to create the monster in the first place. In contrast, the military-police complex shot three innocent people in its panicky response and will likely push to be even more dangerously armed and empowered as a result of this tragedy.

READ MORE: The cops are a dangerous replacement for private gun ownership 

If the parallel to Shelley’s story stopped with the LAPD or even the law enforcement community in general, it would not be so ominous. But this little morality play is not simply a warning to law enforcement to “be careful who you train and what you train them to do.” It is a metaphor for our entire society.

As Anthony Gregory reminds us, “We are all Branch Davidians Now.” We are all subject to being monitored and hunted by drones, searched without warrant, kidnapped and detained without appeal to a judge for a writ of habeas corpus, and even summarily executed without a guilty verdict or even a jury trial. As Emma Hernandez and Margie Carranza can tell you, we may not even be the subject of the monster’s wrath but still be destroyed by its fury.

The monster’s reign of terror isn’t limited to our personal safety, either. It claims ownership of our property as well, taking what it deems it needs and letting us keep what it does not need…today. It claims the authority to tell us what we may and may not ingest into our own bodies, what activity we are allowed to engage in and what it prohibits as “unsafe,” what terms we make in voluntary contracts with others and what terms we may not, even if both parties agree.

It dictates the way in which our children will be educated and medically cared for and threatens to seize them from us if we do not comply. It then sends them on military missions thousands of miles away to kill or be killed by people who have never attacked us.

It is even more terrifying because it does not know it is evil. Most individuals who make it up believe that they are serving the public. Some cops join the force because they relish the license to bully, but most do not. Likewise for most soldiers. Rhetoric aside, I do not believe Barack Obama or George Bush are evil people.

On the contrary, an empowered state with the active or passive consent of the people makes good people do very evil things. Preemptive war, preemptive law enforcement, preemptive government in general – in other words, violence against the innocent – all become morally justifiable under the sacred mantle of the law. How easily we forget Thomas Jefferson’s warning that “the law is often but the tyrant’s will.”

The all-powerful state is a monster and we are its Frankenstein, whether we’ve actively taken part in creating it or simply stood idly by while others did so under our noses. We would be wise to dismember it now, before we meet the same fate as Shelley’s tragic hero.

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.

Obama has state of the delusion speech shovel ready

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TAMPA, February 12, 2013 — Pundits are already atwitter over tonight’s annual exercise in political posturing. The question many are asking is whether Obama will stay on the attack against his Republican opponents or attempt to use the speech to identify areas where he can work with them.

The real question is whether the president will make a single remark that bears any resemblance to reality.

The State of the Union address (SOU) has always been little more than a nationally televised stump speech. As all presidents believe that anything happening anywhere in the country is a direct result of their policies, none have ever wanted to paint a less than rosy picture about the supposed “state of the union.” After all, if it’s in a bad state, it must be their fault.

However, with the U.S. now in full-fledged collapse, the speeches have become so detached from reality that they should be called “state of the delusion” addresses.

The speech is interminably long, but let’s look ahead to the main areas it will cover and try to separate fantasy from reality.

The president will remind us that he inherited an economy in shambles, which is true. He will hope that listeners draw the inference that his predecessor was wholly at fault for this, but that isn’t close to true. Every president since at least Teddy Roosevelt contributed to the problem, with the largest contributions coming from Democrats.

It will really turn bizarre when Obama starts talking about “the recovery” that’s underway. We’ll be told that while we’re not out of the woods and there is still “a lot of work to do (i.e., more government meddling to accomplish),” new jobs are being created, new industries are flourishing and things are generally looking up.

In reality, the United States is in a depression, just like the one in the 1930’s, and it’s being prolonged for all of the same reasons. The official numbers say that unemployment has been hovering around 8 percent, but that’s only because they’ve changed the way unemployment is measured. If they measured it the same way that they did in the 1930’s, unemployment would be the same as it was in the 1930’s.

As an aside, there isn’t any substantive economic distinction between “recession” and “depression.” Politicians just decided to stop calling them depressions to con the public. After a while, they started believing their own bovine waste products.

Read the rest of the article at Communities@ Washington Times…

The cops are a dangerous replacement for private gun ownership

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TAMPA, February 11, 2013 – It would be the hilarious stuff of satire or black comedy if it were fiction, but it involves real people and it’s tragic.

Police officers in pursuit of one of their own gone bad shot 71-year-old Emma Hernandez in the back after opening fire on her newspaper delivery truck. Hernandez’s daughter, 47-year-old Margie Carranza, sustained a hand injury. Police apparently mistook Hernandez’s blue Toyota Tacoma for murder suspect Christopher Dorner’s dark-gray Nissan Titan. The two women were not warned or ordered to stop before the shooting.

“No command, no instruction, no warning. They just opened fire on them,” said Glen Jonas, who is representing Emma Hernandez, 71, and Margie Carranza, 47, in possible legal action against the Los Angeles Police Department.

These are the “public servants” that we are supposed to rely on to defend us against violent crime after we surrender our natural right to keep and bear arms. That obviously begs the question, “Who is going to protect us from the public servants?”

These are by no means the only circumstances in which you have good reason to fear the police.

In the fantasyland inhabited by gun control advocates, the use of firearms is delegated to police, who somehow defend innocent victims against violent criminals even in absentia. The victim need only dial 911 and the police will “respond within minutes.”

This is so preposterous that the effort shouldn’t be necessary, but let’s walk through the thought experiment nonetheless. Three criminals break into your home. They may be armed with guns, knives, or just superior strength and numbers. You have no firearms, so you dial 911.

Assuming that your attackers stand motionless for the “minutes” it takes the police to get there, they are thwarted just before killing or maiming you by police who burst through the door and dispatch them with pinpoint accuracy, perhaps even shooting a perpetrator who is holding a gun to your head. Those not killed by the police drop their weapons and surrender. You live happily ever after.

That might play well on a movie screen, but out here in the real world, exactly the opposite will likely occur.

First, even if the cops “respond within minutes,” it’s too late. They responded within minutes at Sandy Hook. They responded within minutes in Aurora, Colorado. Ten minutes is too long. Two minutes is too long. If you are unarmed, two minutes after you are attacked by a violent criminal, you’re dead.

Do the math.

If the cops do arrive at your home or place where you are attacked before you’ve been killed, your problems might just be beginning. As Will Grigg reminds us, the first priority for police responding to a 911 call is “officer safety.” More often than not, the officer attempts to secure his or her own safety at the expense of yours.

Charlie Mitchener learned this the hard way when he called 911 to report a break-in at his office. When the police officer arrived on the scene, Mr. Mitchener dutifully informed her that he had a firearms permit and was carrying a firearm. The officer responded by handcuffing and disarming him, to make certain “we were all safe.”

Read the rest of the article at Communities@ Washington Times…

Every law is a threat of violence

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TAMPA, December 29, 2012 – The new U.S. Congress will convene on January 3rd with two high profile issues to consider. There is zero chance that they will get either one of them right. The debates on both are already framed into a lose-lose proposition for the American people, as are virtually all “debates” on Capitol Hill.

One issue is “How should the right to keep and bear arms be further infringed?” The other is “How much less of their own money should Americans be allowed to keep?”

With a more enlightened populace, there is always some chance that pressure on the legislators could produce a more positive result. However, the gullible American public has already taken the bait that “something must be done” on both issues. “Something” means Congress passing a law, which means the perceived problem will be solved with violence.

Every law is a threat of violence. Americans used to understand that. In their present condition, they are aware of little beyond football on Sunday and Dancing with the Stars during the week. Fat, progressive and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

Government itself is an institution of violence. That’s not an opinion. That’s what it is. That’s all it is. Governments are constituted for the express purpose of pooling the capacity for violence of every member of the community.

Every law promulgates human behavior that is mandated under the threat of violence. It either prohibits certain activity or requires certain activity. Failure to behave as the law proscribes results in violence against the transgressor. He is kidnapped at best, killed resisting at worst.

Putting aside the question of whether this power should ever be invested in a regional monopoly, every society must first answer the question of whether this power should be exercised by anyone at all. Is violence ever justified?

In a free society, there is only one circumstance under which it is. Violence is only justified as a reaction to aggression committed in the past. Murder, assault, and theft are all examples. These justify the use of force against the perpetrator. Consider this statement.

“You are prohibited from committing murder against your fellow citizen. If you do, we will kidnap you at best, kill you while resisting at worst.”

Sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn’t it? Substitute “theft” for “murder” and that doesn’t change. The use of force is morally justifiable as a reaction to aggression. This proceeds logically from each individual’s right to defend himself. Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

Now, consider this statement.

“If you do not pay the medical bills of perfect strangers whom you have never met and never contracted any financial liability to, we will kidnap you at best, kill you while resisting at worst.”

That doesn’t quite work, does it? In fact, once the veneer of legitimacy is removed, it is apparent to any lucid person that the lawmaker in this case is committing one of the chief crimes he was given his power to prohibit. It is no less armed robbery if you substitute the words “education,” “housing,” or “food” for “medical.”

Since it is an absurdity that inaction can amount to aggression, no just law can mandate human behavior. Only laws prohibiting certain behavior are justifiable, that behavior being limited to aggression against others.

That’s why Thomas Jefferson said, “No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the law ought to restrain him.”

That even this minimal government activity requires finances is the reason that Thomas Paine called government “a necessary evil.” Many libertarians believe he was only half right.

The Bill of Rights was an attempt to limit, interfere with and retard the government’s ability to do the only thing it is capable of doing: commit violence. Those amendments do not grant any rights. They prohibit government violence, regardless of the wishes of the majority. “Congress shall make no law…”

That’s also the purpose of all of the supposed “checks and balances” in the Constitution itself. The framers attempted to construct a government that was incapable of doing anything unless violence was truly justified.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights were written to protect us from democracy.

These ideas have completely vanished from the modern American ethos. Instead of viewing government as a last resort, to be utilized only against an aggressor who refuses to interact peacefully with his neighbors, it is viewed as the first solution to every societal problem, most of which were caused by government in the first place.

That most insipid of all clichés, “There oughta be a law” is properly translated as “We ought to solve this problem with violence.”

That is American society today. A century of “progressivism” has reduced the average American to an unthinking, violent brute. He is both tyrant and slave at the same time. He can conceive of no other happiness than the satisfaction of his appetites and infantile amusement from base entertainment. He reacts to any interruption of this passive existence by calling on the government to commit violence on his behalf.

In the name of freedom, he not only acquiesces to but demands his chains.

 

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

 

The Newtown tragedy should not prompt a “national discussion”

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TAMPA, Fl, December 26, 2012 ― Perhaps 21st century Americans are not worthy of liberty. Reason is a prequalification of liberty, and Americans don’t demonstrate the ability to exercise it at all, at least not in a political context. It may be time to admit that a century of “progressive” education has transformed Americans into a herd of dependent, unthinking sheep.

Any person capable of even the most elementary reasoning would immediately conclude that not only shouldn’t the Newtown tragedy prompt a national discussion, but that there is no such thing as a “national discussion” in the first place.

Do Americans really believe that the 300 million people occupying this nation are actually participating in a discussion?

During the Republican primaries, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich often referred to “having a conversation with the country.” I assumed that I was not alone in rolling my eyes. Any lucid person would assume that Gingrich was either delusional, insincere or both to even suggest that any “conversation” he could participate in actually involved the wishes or interests of every individual in the country.

If most Americans believe there is a “national conversation” going on about guns, a reason to have one or even the possibility that one could be had, we’re in deep trouble. This is all just a well-orchestrated show to herd Americans to a place where they will accept being disarmed without raising too much fuss.

The debate is already framed. “Something must be done.” Now “we’re” just bickering about what that will be.

Think for a moment how idiotic this is. It is suggested that we pass a law that affects 300 million people because of the actions of a solitary lunatic. It’s happened before? So what? You could fit every person that has committed a similar crime during the past fifty years into the kitchen of a Greenwich Village apartment. Somehow we’re to believe that the actions of these few have some relevance to the rights of hundreds of millions.

The math doesn’t work.

Yet, this is only a secondary and utilitarian argument for rejecting gun control. The most important is that keeping and bearing whatever arms one wishes is a right, not a privilege. It is not granted by the 2nd Amendment. That amendment merely attempts to ensure that the right it refers to is not violated by the government.

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Merry Christmas: Mary gives birth to a great libertarian

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TAMPA, December 24, 2012 ― It’s not a surprise that libertarian themes pervade many iconic Christmas specials. After all, they celebrate the birthday of one of the great libertarians of all time.

In the Gospels, government is exposed as evil right from Jesus’ birth. A paranoid Herod is willing to kill all of the babies in the kingdom to try to eliminate the perceived threat represented by Jesus.

Tax collectors are considered de facto sinners, on a par with prostitutes. Libertarians would consider this unfair to prostitutes, but for the times this couldn’t land better.

Jesus himself doesn’t disappoint, either. From the moment he begins his ministry, he wages a nonstop verbal war against the hypocritical, oppressive, tax-devouring Temple priests. Jews at the time were required to pay annual taxes to the priests and were also expected to come and make sacrifices at the Jerusalem Temple. To do so, they had to buy the livestock for the sacrifices from the priests and deal with the priests’ money changers.

That’s why the libertarian from Galilee kicked the money changers out. This would have been considered a revolutionary act.

One can’t help but equate Jerusalem at that time with Washington, DC, an entire city of tax-fed, opulent wealth.

Jesus has no patience for excessive regulation, either. When he encounters a Jewish law that does not address actual criminal activity, he encourages his followers to break it. When the meddling scribes confront Jesus with allowing his disciples to eat without washing their hands, Jesus lets loose with his customary anti-government invective, calling them hypocrites and then instructing “the people” to ignore this idiotic law and focus on not committing real crimes instead. (Mark 7:1-23)

Jesus doesn’t have much use for social conservatives, either. When they bring a woman who has committed adultery before him to be stoned, he shames them into letting her go (John 8:1-7). He does not condone her sin, nor imply that she may not be judged by God for it. He makes the distinction between those actions which constitute harm to other human beings and can therefore be punished by men and those which do not constitute harm and can only be judged by God.

Jesus shows no such objection to the law against theft, committed by the men crucified with him. Unlike adultery, this constitutes actual harm against the property of another. One of the thieves says that he is justifiably punished and Jesus does not contradict him. He offers forgiveness but not escape from punishment (Luke 23:40-43).

Michael Moore seems to think that Jesus’ message is inconsistent with free enterprise. Perhaps Mr. Moore should actually read the gospels. The heroes in most of Jesus’ parables are businessmen and property owners. The villains, like the evil vinedressers in Mark 12:1-12, are those looking for unearned wealth. The beauty of this story is that it affirms property ownership on the literal level and simultaneously represents a symbolic shot at the corrupt Temple priests.

The third steward of Matthew 25:14-30 is punished for not being a capitalist. Again, there is a symbolic meaning here, but Jesus chooses a free enterprise-friendly vehicle to convey his message.

While Jesus says that wealth can be a distraction, he unambiguously states that it is not a sin in and of itself. Jesus has many wealthy friends, including the wealthy women who support him and his disciples during his ministry (Luke 8:3). He does not consider them sinners as he does those who derive their wealth from taxation. If only today’s “liberals” would learn this distinction.

While Jesus often encourages people to voluntarily give to the poor, he never once implies that this should be accomplished by forced redistribution, especially through the Jewish government he spends the rest of the gospels criticizing.

Even during his passion, Jesus continues to make libertarians stand up and cheer. Anticipating the 5th Amendment by over 1700 years, Jesus refuses to talk to the cops or give evidence against himself. In John 18:20 he basically says, “If you have some proof, present it. You’re not getting anything from me.” He likewise refuses to talk to Pontius Pilate.

The result? Acquittal. Pilate “finds no case against this man.” Of course, both the Roman and the Jewish governments break their own laws and Jesus gets crucified anyway, providing another libertarian lesson about the moral character of most governments.

Whether they believe in God or not, all libertarians have good reason to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. If only more Americans would be Christ-like by holding the government in contempt, resisting its ridiculous edicts, rebelling against its wealth redistribution and honoring free enterprise, we’d all be a lot freer here in the “land of the free.”

And if we observed the one rule this great libertarian gave us on dealing with one another, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” we’d live in a safer, more peaceful world.

Merry Christmas to all.

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.

Feinstein’s assault weapons ban would abolish the 2nd Amendment

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TAMPA, December 18, 2012 –U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein has vowed to introduce a bill to ban assault weapons nationwide, similar to existing legislation in California. In doing so, she will effectively abolish yet another of the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

To many, Feinstein’s argument might sound very reasonable. She isn’t looking to ban all guns. “The purpose of this bill is to get just what Mayor Bloomberg said, weapons of war off the streets of our cities,” the senator told Meet the Press.

Having weapons of war on the streets is the whole point of the 2nd Amendment. The amendment wasn’t drafted to ensure that Americans could hunt. It wasn’t drafted so that Americans could protect themselves, although the natural right to defend one’s life was never as compromised as it is in the modern gun control era.

Like most of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, the 2nd Amendment was drafted to prevent an abuse of power that American colonists had suffered under the British. The 4th Amendment was passed with Writs of Assistance in mind. Lexington and Concord inspired the 2nd.

The left loves to reduce the American Revolution to one issue: taxation without representation. That works for well for their agenda, because they can then say, “Well, you’re represented, so now we can tax the living daylights out of you.”

It wasn’t that simple, of course. There were many long term and short term causes for the American secession from Great Britain. But the straw that broke the camel’s back, the most immediate cause for armed resistance, was the British attempt to disarm the colonists.

That’s why the British marched to Concord. That’s the only reason the colonists cared where they were marching.

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The rights to life and to keep and bear arms are inseparable

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TAMPA, December 16, 2012 ― The right to keep and bear arms is not granted to Americans in the U.S. Constitution, nor in the “Bill of Rights.” The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right, inextricably linked to the right to life.

The 2nd Amendment recognizes this. It does not say the right “shall be granted.” It assumes the right already exists and says it “shall not be infringed.”

All rights are negative. We do not have a positive right to anything. Rights merely prohibit other people from aggressing against us. If someone is struck by lightning and killed, we feel bad about it, but we do not say his right to life was violated. Neither do we say so if he is eaten by a lion.

The right to life is very narrowly defined as the right not to be killed by another human being, other than in self-defense. The only way to exercise this right is to defend oneself if attacked. There is no other circumstance in which the “right to life” has any meaning.

Given that an aggressor may have weapons or may be a more capable fighter, individuals must be able to arm themselves sufficiently to overcome these disadvantages in order to exercise their right to life.

Natural rights preexist government. They exist in what Enlightenment philosophers called “the state of nature,” which is the state without government. These thinkers had different ideas about nature and society, but all agreed on one thing. Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

John Locke’s “Essay Concerning the true origin, extent and end of Civil Government (1690)” inspired the entire American philosophy, according to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson thought it so important that posterity understand this that he had a resolution passed to proclaim it.

This was due to the important differences between Locke’s philosophy and others. Unlike Rousseau, who claimed that when joining society man had to agree to “the total alienation of all of his natural rights,” Locke said that man entered society to preserve those rights. That’s why the Declaration of Independence says that certain rights are inalienable.

The only rights that man gives up upon entering society is the right to judge his own case in a dispute and to enforce that judgment. These he gives up to the government in return for the superior protection of his life, liberty and property the government supposedly provides.

However, these powers only pertain to crimes that occurred in the past. The government has no power over the future or the present. It cannot prosecute someone for a crime that he will commit tomorrow and it cannot protect the individual from a crime occurring right now.

Therefore, the individual retains the right to defend himself against aggression occurring in the present, even after giving up other powers to the government. Locke is very clear about this:

“Thus a thief, whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I may kill, when he sets on me to rob me but of my horse or coat; because the law, which was made for my preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my life from present force, which, if lost, is capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence, and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common judge…” [emphasis added]

Reason inevitably leads to this conclusion. The right to keep and bear arms exists in nature and is never given up in any social contract, because no government is able to defend its citizen in the present.

This also clears up a common misconception. Since the government is unable to defend you in the present, it is not true that by surrendering the right to bear arms you place care of your life in the hands of the government. You must be placing it elsewhere.

Since it no longer resides in you either, the care of your life must now reside in your attacker.

This is not some theoretical exercise only true in a classroom or lecture hall. This was the very real situation that defenseless teachers and children found themselves in on Friday. The school was a “gun-free zone,” meaning all who entered it agreed to surrender their right to keep and bear arms.

The government didn’t defend them because it couldn’t. The government was only able to respond after the attack commenced. The only one able to make a decision whether they lived or died was Adam Lanza.

One would think tragedies like this and in other gun-free zones like the City of Aurora, Colorado, Ft. Hood or Columbine High School would have taught Americans a very clear lesson. Do not put the lives of our children and their teachers into the hands of homicidal maniacs.

Instead, the hue and cry is for precisely the opposite. Not only should schoolchildren be deprived of their right to life, but all of society.

Locke called any social contract where the individual accepts even worse protection of his life and property than he had in the state of nature “too gross an absurdity for any man to own.” He would call most reactions to this latest school shooting downright insane.

*This article originally appeared in Washington Times Communities

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.

But aren’t right-to-work laws also unjust?

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TAMPA, December 13, 2012 ― As expected, the reaction to Monday’s column about Michigan’s right-to-work legislation inspired spirited discussion.

Weeding out both praise and invective that were unresponsive to my argument, there was a dissent that had merit. It was the libertarian argument that right-to-work laws also violate the rights of employers and employees to make a voluntary contract. An employer should be free to require membership in the union and/or payment of dues as a condition of employment.

Like most libertarians, I agree with that argument in principle, but one cannot evaluate right-to-work laws in a vacuum.

Right-to-work laws and the Taft-Hartley Act from which they proceed are wholly a reaction to the Wagner Act. The proponents of Taft-Hartley first tried to get the Wagner Act repealed. When the Supreme Court ruled Wagner constitutional, conservatives passed Taft-Hartley. If the Wagner Act were not already law, Taft-Hartley would be both unnecessary and unjust.

However, in the context of the Wagner act, neither is necessarily true. A brief allegory will illustrate.

Employer Smith sits down at the bargaining table with Union Jones. The two discuss potential terms of an employment contract, but are unable to reach an agreement. Jones wants more than Smith is willing or able to pay. Smith gets up to walk away.

Just then, Luca Brasi walks up and makes Smith “an offer he can’t refuse.” Brasi puts a gun to Smith’s head and invites him to sit back down, assuring him that at the end of the meeting, either his brains or his signature will be on a collective bargaining agreement.

Brasi is the Wagner Act.

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Michigan unions say no right to work

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TAMPA, December 10, 2012 – Lansing, Michigan is bracing for an onslaught of protestors following Republican Governor Rick Snyder’s indication that he would sign “Right to Work” legislation currently making its way through the state legislature. President Obama and Harry Reid have both joined Michigan Democrats in denouncing the bill.

As usual, both liberals and conservatives are already demonstrating their skewed perception of reality in weighing in on this debate. President Obama told workers at an engine plant outside Detroit that “what we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages,” as if the law would do any such thing.

However, Harry Reid surpassed all in obtuseness when he called the legislation a “blatant attempt by Michigan Republicans to assault the collective bargaining process and undermine the standard of living it has helped foster.”

Perhaps the senator should ask the residents of Detroit, an entire city laid waste by New Deal union legislation, how they are enjoying the standard of living it has produced.

Libertarians haven’t been able to say this in quite a while, but the conservatives are mostly right on this one, although perhaps for the wrong reasons.

The only troubling sentiment coming from grassroots conservatives is the animosity towards labor unions themselves. Many seem to believe that the mere existence of labor unions causes economic distortions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Labor unions themselves are not the problem.

Like virtually all human misery, labor market distortions are caused by the government. Specifically in this case, they are rooted in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (a.k.a. the Wagner Act).

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