Libertarian member of parliament
I don’t think we have any sitting member of parliament anywhere in Australia that could be called libertarian. However if the ALS was handing out awards for the “most libertarian sitting member of parliament” (state, territory or federal) then who would you nominate and why?
Please note that Ron Paul does not sit in any Australian parliament so you can’t nominate him.
Advertisement
66 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
-
Recent Comments
Catallaxy Files- Evaluating Rudd’s Fiscal Stimulus February 11, 2012I am just giving you a sneak preview of my piece in the Inquirer section of The Australian today. You will all have to run up to the newsagency or go on-line to read it. No doubt, it will make me popular with parts of the blogosphere! Gosh, at least Alesina’s paper was published in [...]Judith Sloan
- Should the RBA intervene to lower the Australian dollar? February 10, 2012I had this piece in The Australian during the week. I became interested in the topic during my visit to Switzerland. I conclude that the RBA will not, and probably should not, intervene but it is an interesting topic. The value of the Australian dollar is putting many of our trade-exposed industries under real pressure. [...]Judith Sloan
- Open Forum: February 11, 2012 February 10, 2012 Sinclair Davidson
- Evaluating Rudd’s Fiscal Stimulus February 11, 2012
- inCISe
- Oliver Hartwich:Greece’s austerity package February 11, 2012 Editor
- Amnesty on truth February 10, 2012I’m ashamed to admit I was a member of Amnesty International in high school. Back then I proudly wore an Amnesty badge on a black beret. Now I cringe at the memory of my naive self lapping up their hyperbole. The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported that Amnesty International is urging a parliamentary human rights watchdog to investigate the federal gover […]Sara Hudson
- More on PHI rebate means test February 10, 2012When I wrote in Incise yesterday, ‘Rebate should not be means tested,’ I did not expect events to move quite as quickly as they have. The government seems confident it has the numbers to get the means test through. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rob Oakshott and Andrew Wilkie have indeed swallowed the government’s nonsensical arguments, but it will be interestin […]Robert Carling
- IPA news
- Let European dogs lie February 9, 2012Australians will be surprised to learn that, apparently, the federal government now has responsibility to help the city of...
- It's time to bring back the thrift February 9, 2012Ted Baillieu plans to shave 3600 jobs from Victoria's bloated public service. The state of Wisconsin in the US, with a...
- We'll huff, we'll puff, we'll blow the budget into surplus February 8, 2012Bill Clinton famously said, "It's the economy, stupid". So it is. Unsuccessful politicians might be inclined to argue,...
- Let European dogs lie February 9, 2012
From Federal parliament I’d have to say Minchin (economically very good, one of the few remaining federalists, socially not brilliant though), in the State parliaments it’d be a member of one of the smaller parties but I’m not sure I could name them given the relatively low level of attention I give the parliaments of other states.
I know very little about Gary Humphries. He is the ACT federal senator. His website indicates that in his view socialism is a failed philosophy. And as a member of the Liberal party he did cross the flaw to oppose the Howard governments position on homosexual civil unions. This means he is willing to stand up against central government for regional independence, or that he believes sexuality should not influence basic rights or else both these things.
http://www.garyhumphries.com/Message.htm
Does anybody know much about this MP?
Minchin once said we couldn’t have tax cuts because they are inflationary.
Oh dear!
It is hard to know what to make of Nick Minchins admission last week that he smoked cannabis in his youth. The timing of the admission draws flak away from Peter Garrett and softens the tone of the media puritans a little. It seems so strange that so many politicians admit to such youthful “indiscretions” and yet they still preside over a state of prohibition and criminalisation.
Can we give Ron Paul homourary Australian citizenship, and then vote for him? Please, please, please?
As well as homourary, can we give him honourary (which is what I really meant. No wonder I’m not a wizard- I’m a lousy speller!).
I found it hard to think why Nick Minchin made that admission either — perhaps he’s a friend of Peter Garrett, or doesn’t really believe in all the crazy drug prohibition laws that we have. Obviously, he has to say the second of these to tow the party line, or perhaps just too many people know about his former drug usage.
An alternative is that there are lots of parliamentarians smoking dope etc. now and then, and that given the recent public calls for drug testing politicians, he wants to distract from that.
Maybe he didn’t inhale
As well as homourary, can we give him honourary (which is what I really meant. No wonder I’m not a wizard- I’m a lousy speller!).
How about honorary, Nicholas?
Could I suggest you, Terje and John H all use Firefox ver 2 as your browser? It comes with an in-built spell checker that works on blogs.
Ron Paul Revolution !
Even if there was a closet libertarian or libertarian-leaning politician in Australia, they don’t have the same internet craze status of Ron Paul, whose Facebook group is about to cross the 15k member mark today.
I might suggest the LDP start to build its efforts to get noticed on Facebook or Myspace but I don’t think the Aussie electorate is even 10% as hungry as young Americans, even though our election is no more than 5 months away !
Sure thing, David, suggest away!
Yes, the new Firefox spell check addition is pretty handy… except it has Americanised spelling.
If you to use explorer, then try the iespell plugin: http://www.iespell.com/
No idea about libertarians in parliament. Shooter’s Party members, perhaps?
David,
I don’t think firefox can run on a Nokia E61 mobile phone. When I am at a PC I almost always spell check words when I feel doubtful about the spelling. Sometimes when posting via the mobile I’ll live with mistakes that I actually see before submiting simply because spacing back 500 characters to correct them is way too exhausting and causes RSI.
Regards,
Terje.
No idea about libertarians in parliament. Shooter’s Party members, perhaps?
I wish it were so. Unfortunately Roy Smith and Robert Brown are old-style blue-collar conservatives. As evidence, they recently voted against continuing the drug injecting room in Kings Cross. Brown is a big supporter of government ownership of Snowy Hydro.
Information on their speeches and voting record is here: http://ausgunowners.wordpress.com/mlc-watch/
“And as a member of the Liberal party he did cross the flaw to oppose the Howard governments position on homosexual civil unions”
Civil unions are just adding a layer of government intervention to something which, afaik, is already well covered by the contracts system.
“Minchin once said we couldn’t have tax cuts because they are inflationary.
Oh dear!”
Best of a bad lot (I actually had a go at Smilin’ Pete about this same attitude last Friday), if it helps he also spoke to HR Nicholls saying that WorkChoices didn’t go far enough.
Cross the flaw?
It’s a pity John Hyde is retired. He is a true Libertarian.
Most members, probably all in Australia has probably supported something libertarian at some time, either because their party proposed it, or because the other party opposed it. None are supporters of the Libertarian cause except in those narrow areas where a libertarian concept coincided with a sectional interest that they are supporting.
This is not libertarian. Australia unlike the US was not founded on any concept of libertarian ideals, we have no “We the people”, no truths held self evident, no concept of the rights of man, nor any signs of ‘deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’
Our governments speak of freedoms, not liberty. Our freedoms are not inalienable rights but those things the state allows us, often grudgingly, and have little protection from being legislated on or being removed.
I visit many sites in the States, which see libertarian politicians everywhere, and indeed some of them are, but in their desire to have more of them, they have a tendency to find it in places where it is not really there. Lets not do the same here.
If you want Libertarian members of parliament, you are going to have to work hard at the next election so you can point to Senators Humphries and Tex.
I said “cross the flaw” because there was a floor in my spelling.
Jim,
One good libertarian in the Houses of Congress does not validate US libertarian history any more than the lack of one in Australia invalidates ours.
In the US the definitions of those liberties have allowed them to be circumscribed. The lack of definition in the UK (and, to an extent here) does not mean we are deprived of them.
The only reason they have not (yet) fully developed here is that people are not (as yet) voting for them.
Your last sentence may be part of the solution – but both of the mainstream parties are now so low on members that a good chance exists to get in through there.
Malcolm Turnbull
Malcolm Turnbull (Lib) & Craig Emerson (ALP)
Malcolm Turnbull is responsible for forcing us to adopt CFC light bulbs in the coming years.
If he has libertarian principles, then he is a sell-out.
Malcolm Turnbull is also currently plotting to foist on us a mega-bureaucracy controlling all aspects of water usage.
If these are Australia’s libertarians, god wotta sorry lot.
I second Jim in saying:
‘If you want Libertarian members of parliament, you are going to have to work hard at the next election so you can point to Senators Humphries and Tex.’
(By the way, the first Justin posting is not me.)
I shouldn’t have commented with one ear to GWS on TV. I missed making the point that Australia has essentially no libertarian tradition, with the result that all parties in parliament are statist.
When the election comes on listen to the language, they can’t even talk liberty and faith in the intellect of the electorate, even when they are sucking up. I suppose given that we keep voting for them they may be justified in this. Let me assure you that if any libertarian had found his way into one of the current parties he or she would have been weeded out a long time ago.
‘One good libertarian in the Houses of Congress does not validate US libertarian history any more than the lack of one in Australia invalidates ours.’
I recommend that you check out the Republican Liberty Caucus which assesses members and senators on a scale based on their votes. This is done on a personal and economic index and rates them accordingly.
http://www.republicanliberty.org/libdex/li_look.asp
I made the point in the previous comment that there is a tendency to look for libertarians through rose colored glasses as we appear to be doing ourselves on this post. The caucus is essentially looking for freedom supporting Republicans hence, they tend to allow more into the libertarian class than we would. It serves their purpose but I would use a higher cutoff.
Another problem is that in using a strict ‘average score’ in their assessment they tend to get mix ups when they get members with high scores on, say economic with a low score on personal liberty, they can be classed as ‘Libertarian’ when they are in fact right wingers.
Dana Rohrabacher, who is often referred to as libertarian is one of these, so the system is not perfect.
The point I was making is still the same; If we want to find Libertarian MPs here, we have to get them there. There is only us, and no help out there.
#9. Further to Davids suggestion I found this simple and free little add-in spell checker for IE7 that allows you to spell check comments within blogs.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Internet-Explorer-7-Spell-Checking-Application-32490.shtml
I agree that Malcolm Turnbull isn’t as good as Milton Friedman. But it’s all relative. Asking which current politician is the most libertarian is like asking who is the smartest person with down-syndrome. You’re not going to get a good answer, but still, somebody has to be the best.
‘Asking which current politician is the most libertarian is like asking who is the smartest person with down-syndrome. ‘
LOL
Even I think that one’s a big rough!
Jim, I think the US started with a ‘Liberal’ tradition, not a libertarian. A libertarian is unlikely to say ‘We, the people’. He/she would say, ‘I, an individual’. The USA started with two traditions- setting up governments at all levele was the other one. I put ‘liberal’ in quote marks because the term keeps changing meaning. It’s old US meaning was the same as our current one- a laid-back style of governing. But these were only traditions, not laws or constitutions, and traditions have changed.
America’s ‘Liberal Tradition was actually classical liberal, and here is what the ‘ultimate authority has to say about that: -
Perhaps I should include this issue in FAQ “is Andrew N a libertarian?” Andrew describes himself as a classical liberal and he believes in decreasing the role of government in nearly all areas. Libertarians are identical to classical liberals and believe in decreasing the role of government.
Comment by John Humphreys | June 2, 2007
No way, Nick. The American tradition had individualism has one of it’s highest tenets from the beginning. The Bill of Rights is all about individual rights. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is all about individual rights.
And more to the point, I think you have misconstrued the context of ‘We the people’ even though the preamble to the US constitution may seem collectivist. It means that government does not come from above, but comes from the people and was made in the context of individuals being thought of as subservient to a ruling elite under the British system. This is individualism in the same vein of ‘all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights….’ (from my head so may not be an accurate quote).
In fact, it just occurs to me really that the Declaration of Independence preceded this by a decade or so. That is all about individual rights, and how they had been violated by the British statist system. Then once independence had been achieved then the free people come together to form a state composed of individuals (in contrast to the previous system), thereby developing the instrument that gave them their individual rights in the constitution and subsequent Bill of Rights.
Actually upon doing a bit of research I would encourage everybody to reread the accusations against the British Crown in the Declaration of Independence. It is an excellent refresher on the dangers of big government and still relevant today.
Actually, Michael, the US has always been hypocritical. Even when penning the Declaration of Independence, with ‘all men are created equal’, they had slaves. Washington and Jefferson kept on being slave-owners. The major impetus behind the southern states joining in the rebellion was to ensure that the anti-slavery movement, then gaining ground in Britain, wouldn’t be able to impose anti-slavery on the plantations.
Anybody can espouse fine ideals- If the US had enforced non-slavery on the South, I would respect them more.
They also had references to God in there as well. I’m not saying it was perfect, just that it’s the best implementation of government in human history so far.
And to be fair, while slave ownership is probably the biggest single abomination to the ideals enshrined in those documents, in 1776 the world was a different place. You’ve got to start somewhere and it would have seemed logical to the people of the time that the open society could only be achieved in white European society for the forseeable future, most other developed societies still being highly tribal in nature.
In short, even with something as serious as slavery, I think it’s a bit rich to live in this day and age and claim the high moral ground with regards to pragmatic decisions required to build the first real open civilisation over 200 years ago, so that you can pass a critical judgement on something as progressive as the founding documents of the US.
But Britain ended up being a more liberal country than America, until after the American Civil War! And as for being a real open civilisation, the Americans just wanted to reaffirm the rights of Englishmen, to which they felt they had a claim.
I agree that it had some great ideals, and did ofter freedom to whites. And if they hadn’t so grandly claimed ‘All men are created equal’, there wouldn’t have been much to complain about. It’s just that their own words contradicted their actions when they wrote it, in regard to black rights AND the Indian possessors of the land they wanted, just because they’d be able to ‘use’ it better! America itself was divided over this, so it’s not retrospective morality.
Let’s take it as a warning- if we ever establish a libertarian society- we’d better make sure that we start off right! Our actions should match our stated ideals from the start.
Britain has never been nor will be a more ‘liberal’ nation than the USA, unless you accept the leftist concept of the word.
Slavery was an abomination, and the treatment of ‘original inhabitants’ was shared with Britain. The ideals of ‘all men being equal’ somehow didn’t translate to other races, maybe an 18th century cultural thing, but inexcusable.
The British ideal of freedom seems to be that the state allows it, a very dangerous and insecure concept. The American concept is “Liberty”, which is a natural and inviolable right protected by a constitution.
Classical liberalism did originate for a large part in Britian. And my understanding, despite there being a monarchy etc, was that the place did embrace these concepts to a large extent for a period in later part of the Enlightenment. There were some significant events putting to test important concepts, like the prosecution of Charles I, establishing in essence the concept of a negative natural right enforceable by law, in contrast to all law coming from the monarch. Then I guess it was all down hill from around the early 1800s.
Although I would argue the only true implementation of the free republic has been the US. Not perfect, but still a true implementation of the principles as much as is humanly possible.
Actually, in arguments I often say humanity reached our highest point of political thought when John Locke said ‘”Every man has a property in his own person.’ (The quote at the top of this page.) And that was in Britian in the late 1600s.
Not really a political scientist or historian, so I can’t really say it with full conviction, but I think you can leverage off the Enlightenment to say that probably was the pinnacle to date.
And the US a century or two ago is the pinnacle of putting that thought into action, to this point.
Also, Michael, something else to consider- the monarchs from the time of King James 1 have been invited in by Parliament, and undone by Parliament, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, with its’ Bill of Rights, also established Parliamentary Supremacy. Even though it has a Monarch, that was more by sufferance. The UK could be called a crowned Republic without being a tautology, since The House of Commons could dethrone any Monarch, and replace them with anyone it choose. It recently ended hereditary peerage without any rebellion!
And America after the Civil War became a very liberal country (classic liberal). However, before that war, when the British Navy was engaged in a crusade to ban the slave trade, many nations joined in, but the US Federal government wouldn’t, because of the South. So I still believe that Britain out-liberalled America, because of the slavery issue.
Fair enough, I’ll buy that. What about in the last 200 years? Do you agree that Britian took a turn for the worse while the US was still powering along until relatively recently?
Fair comment, Mike. I don’t know if it took a turn for the worse, but I think the other countries simply caught up with it. And Britain is being dragged down now by Brussels, and the EU.
And the US is less free than before. Is this because bureaucrazies always tend to grow, like weeds? Is it because, without a frontier, governments feel that the citizens will put up with what they dish out? Or could it be that war has fostered governments? (WW2, the cold war, the war on Poverty, Drugs, Terror, etc.) A good book to read is called ‘War and the rise of the State’.
The only way to stop government growing might be to insist that citizens, if they choose to be citizens, have to time-share defence functions. A few weekends spent in war-games might be worth it for deterrence value alone. And if we all have a direct share, and say, in government, it shouldn’t become an out-of-control monster.
I rarely admit it due to the fact I still believe Iraq is morally right, but war is definitely the most effective way for the state to justify enormous expenditure and massive growth, while reducing civil liberties, while still calling itself a democracy.
I’d say a well regulated milita, small standing military and use of state regulated military companies is one way to keep a general ongoing check on the state growth and expenditure. But I also reckon agressive use of intelligence services, strategic strikes and generally state condoned ‘underhand’ action would be necessary for this to work in the long run. And that kind of stuff is very unpopular with just about everyone.
Which is, I guess, why we spend so much on the military. If you want to hold the moral high ground by invading and occupying a place, rather than just assassinating Sadaam (or even Bin Laden) and otherwise using subversive methods to achieve your aims, it’s gonna cost you financially and in lives.
I don’t think a general war has the high moral ground over repeated high tonnage precision strikes on the brass and Government leadership.
Neither do I. I think telling Sadaam to hand himself over to stand trial or face assassination would have also be fine. However, it would appear that just effecting an outcome is not considered morally right. You’ve got to do the precision strikes and minimise collateral damage, but in order to be ‘righteous’ you’re supposed to invade, occupy and rebuild.
I also believe it’s a no win situation in terms of public scrutiny. If you do this you bear the risks of a long, drawn out, dangerous, expensive occupation which the public will criticise. If you use only the precision strikes you’re a bully just selfishly obtaining your own desired outcomes with no consideration for the local population, and the public with criticise. If you use underhand methods you’re a criminal, and the public will criticise. If you do nothing, you’re negligent with no consideration for human rights or defence of your own democracy, and the public will criticise.
I sometimes think a good political plan in the wake of something like 9/11 would be to claim the high moral ground and suggest a low level policing action with lots of reconcilliation and forgiveness. When the public outcry for justice gets to the point that they’re calling for blood then commit your military with extreme prejudice and strong bias to precision strikes and assassination of key figures. Relentlessly take whatever action is required to quickly deliver stability. Then after the smoke clears you’ve got a platform to work from in terms of rebuilding the society that gives you a good chance of maintaining success. If you have success then you’ll have public support. Everyone wants to take ownership of success and no one wants to take ownership of failure.
Michael, Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ has some good points in it. The Utopians believe that assassination of leaders is more moral than outright war, for one thing!
I have always thought it a pity that we don’t really have any Bond-James-Bonds to send into these situations.
Michael, I agree, I think the perception of how wars can be fought and won in general (not flukes like Kosovo) is very unrealistic.
In the Vietnam War, General Giap played on this, not actually defeating the US in open or covert battle.
I am inclined to agree. I said before somewhere that a solution to the Iraq situation would have been to encourage someone to pop Hussein, then remove the sanctions in return for a constitution guaranteeing human rights.
The Yanks out-liberalled the Poms, but both were considerably more liberal than the Krauts who ruined the classical liberal utopia of the anglosphere with their statist philosophies and their war. The Great War was the beginning of the end for the 19th century experiment with classical liberalism, with the Great Depression and the Second World War merely the last death rolls of free society.
The fact that the anglosphere has maintained the semblance of free societies is a tribute to the freedom loving nature of individuals and the ingenuity of the statists in not killing the host, a feat almost acheived in Britain and Australia in the 1970s.
Classical Liberalism is the revival of early 18th century liberalism circa 1930′s – 40′s (Hayek et al). Neo-liberalism is the revival of classical liberalism under Reagan and Thatcher.
Libertarians of a ‘Minarchist’ nature are conceptually identical to Classical Liberals, but the original definition of Libertarianism left no room for government, and thus is different from Classical Liberalism.
This is why Classical Liberals like to distinguish themselves from Libertarians, because the traditional meaning of ‘Libertarian’ leaves no room for minimum level of central governance, and thus traditional Libertarianism, especially in the USA, has a bad name as a bunch of nutters who want anarchy (as far as those who haven’t looked into its theory are concerned).
Minarchist Libertarianism is pretty much interchangeable with Classical Liberalism, as they both allow for some minimum level of governance – so far as it is necessary to provide for security of private ownership.
Two weeks late, but thanks, Stephen!
The trouble is, I have just come up with a new term to define minarchist libertarianism (Leonardarianism), and I don’t want to give it up! Leonardarians are inspired by the actual example of Prince Leonard, who successfully seceded in 1970.
Better late than never
I don’t drop by this blog all that often, hence the late reply. I still felt it was worthy of posting, because some people do have trouble understanding the different liberalism labels, and even fewer understand why Andrew Norton insists he is a Classical Liberal.
Liberalism in its current form is a very old idea now, its surprising a concept can have been around since the early 1700′s and still many people don’t ‘get’ it. Keynes has much to answer for.
Stephen & nicholas — can you please show me were the libertarian movement excluded the minarchists. The reality is that most libertarians are minarchists or moderates. The anarcho-capitalists make up a very small part of the libertarian movement. This has always been the case. Friedman & Hayek both said they would be called “libertarians” in the langauge of the time, though they were both also “classical liberals”.
The term ‘libertarian’ is just a modern way of distinguishing it from the perversion of the word ‘liberal’ in mainstream discourse. It was first used in America. ‘Classical liberal’ is the term with the history behind it (Locke, Smith, Bastiat) however it means exactly the same thing. Libertarian is an abbreviation for convenience.
But when you call yourself a libertarian you are espousing a philosophical position that is logically consistent. Some people are libertarian in some respects (e.g. economic freedom) and not others (social freedoms, such as gun ownership for self defence). As the idea implicit in talking of oneself as a libertarian is that you are arguing an internally consistent *ideology* it means those who can’t justify a certain position based on libertarian philosophical principles – to be found in a range of books, many of which are standard in political theory courses – are not fully libertarian. Hence this is the “Australian Libertarian Society”, not the “Australian Econometric Society With Libertarian Inclinations”. Such people are usually moderate libertarians. But the important thing is that all are moving in the same direction of freedom, whether because of philosophy or empirical study. For example, it would be impossible to be a ‘libertarian socialist’.
Ideally we would all call ourselves liberals. This is why Milton Friedman says in his book Capitalism and Freedom that he’s a liberal in the true (European) sense of the word. But liberalism has come to mean something different even in Australia, so we call ourselves libertarians instead.
David Friedman deals with the topic of whether ‘anarcho-capitalism’ is a sub-category – or more radical form – of the broad grouping of libertarianism in his book Machinery of Freedom. I can’t remember what he argued though.
Not the best source, I know, but the most accessable without flipping through endless books looking for pages to cite; here is what Wikipedia says:
Or more broadly, a long winded version of what I said.
It’s interesting that the Wikipedia article puts the Rights theorists into the camp that includes both Objectivists and anarchists. The mutual cooperation that anarchists envision is not the same as the individual rights that Objectivists espouse. And virtually all Objectivists are (very) small government people, and don’t have the same anarchist hatred of hierarchical organisations.
The reason Andrew Norton calls himself a classical liberal and not a libertarian is that he doesn’t want to be tainted as a rag-tag radical in contrast to a thinker, commentator and scholar! If that’s not the only reason it is definitely the dominant one. Same thing for the Catallaxy crowd.
For the Ron Paul fans, here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal that suggests he’s only better in relative terms. I’ve always had concerns about his social views so I now feel better about not joining the cheer squad.
Ron Paul’s Earmarks
August 6, 2007
Texas Congressman Ron Paul — libertarian gadfly and current Republican Presidential hopeful — has made a name for himself as a critic of overspending. But it seems even he can’t resist the political allure of earmarks.
After reporters started asking questions, the Congressman disclosed his requests this year for about $400 million worth of federal funding for no fewer than 65 earmarks. They include such urgent national wartime priorities as an $8 million request for the marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to fund shrimp-fishing research.
When we called Mr. Paul’s office for an explanation, his spokesperson offered up something worthy of pork legends Tom DeLay or Senator Robert C. Byrd: “Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked,” the spokesman said. “What people who push earmark reform are doing is they are particularly misleading the public — and I have to presume it’s not by accident.”
On the other hand, good libertarians should want to start cutting somewhere. The problem with earmarking is that each year the habit grows by leaps and bounds so that it now represents real money. It is also a gateway to political corruption — a la Duke Cunningham, and other Congressmen currently under investigation for trading favors for earmarks.
Mr. Paul is one of Congress’s better fiscal conservatives. So the fact that even he feels obliged to grab multiple earmarks is all the more reason to keep fighting for transparency in the earmark process, as well as for the line-item veto, which would give Presidents a chance to impose some spending discipline from outside Congress.
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118636043871288806.html
I had always thought the main dividing line in the libertarian camp was between those on the one hand who believe freedom is the only moral state of affairs and hence value freedom for its own sake, and those who adopt a more pragmatic view that freer societies are more prosperous.
I also hadn’t realised that the term was associated with kooks in the US. Doesn’t seem to be the case here. Does it??
I don’t see any divide between thinking that freedom is the only moral state of affairs and that societies that respect freedom are prospereous. There is no incompatibility between these two beliefs.
Terje
Yes, they are compatible. But the utilitarians would only pursue liberal policies because there is evidence that they work. For example, the studies on legalising prostitution show very mixed results. A natural rights libertarian would automatically favour its legalisation for moral reasons (girls have the right to sell their bodies if they wish). A utilitarian would hesitantly agree but also point to the rise in pimping and drug use associated with its legalisation.
Usually people have a moral position and then they convince others of the efficacy of that position through empirical evidence. Usually greater individual freedom is not only morally reasonable, but it also works out in practice.
That’s what Milton Friedman did when he argued for legalising marijuana. He pointed out that the literature supports his position, but he also based his strong views on personal moral beliefs (that adults of sound mind have a right to self-harm). And he self-identified as both a classical liberal and libertarian.
Regardless of whether they believe in ‘natural rights’ or not I think there are very few libertarians who are so dogmatic that they would try and impose their personal moral beliefs upon others, with no supporting evidence. Such people who exist in a vacuum of their own twisted logic without considering real world evidence are either philosophers (e.g. Peter Singer) or greenies (it’s morally right to do something preventively about global warming, regardless of evidence).
Thus, this attempt to find difference where no difference exists is nothing more than the human tendency towards factionalism. It’s also a waste of time, because the ideas are more important than the labels.
Pommy,
You seem to be starting your utilitarian outlook from a position of society being controlled and then applying a cost benefit analysis to decide what should be liberalised. This suggest that you are giving moral imperative to the status quo. This is the outlook of a conservative. I would prefer to give moral imperative to individual liberty and then to restrict it only as and when a cost benefit analysis suggests that doing so has significant overall utility. Where both control and liberty have significant costs and the case for either on a purely analytical basis is unclear I would liberalise.
As such I might characterise myself as a utilitarian liberatarian and yourself as a utilitarian conservative both of whom have recognised the utility of freedom in many economic and social domains. However I don’t really wish to get overly hung up on such labels.
Regards,
Terje.
This suggest that you are giving moral imperative to the status quo
Not really. Just being practical. Prostitution is generally illegal (though not everywhere) and hence your starting point has to be the existing status.
Another example. If i produced solid evidence that removing the compulsion to wear seat belts produced more road deaths, would you still be in favour?
Prostitution is not generally illegal in Australia. It is just regulated (and taxed).
I would not be against removal of seat belt compulsion (for adults) however I would not invest any energy trying to change this law either. Notionally the owner of the road should set the rules. Certainly if I drive a car on my own property it should be nobodies business whether I elect to wear a seat belt or not.
I agree that there is an element of pragmatism in maintaining the status quo simply because we can’t have a public debate and analysis of costs and benefits in relation to every law all the time. We do start from where we are. It’s just that once we do start I don’t think we should presume that staying where we are should be the default if the evidence is unclear either way. I would argue that when the evidence is unclear the decision should be to liberalise because we have a strong body of evidence about liberalism in general.
But the utilitarians would only pursue liberal policies because there is evidence that they work.
I agree Pommy.
One issue that illustrates very well the difference between moral and utilitarian libertarians is gun laws.
Utilitarian libertarians argue that gun laws don’t reduce crime or murder because only the law-abiding are affected by them, therefore they are pointless.
Moral libertarians argue that gun laws are immoral because they leave people unable to defend themselves against criminals and a tyrannical government, and therefore should not exist.
Mal Turnbull is crusading for same-sex couples rights. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/turnbull-tackles-gay-and-lesbian-rights/2007/08/12/1186857348360.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
It’s not flat tax but it’s definitely Liberal.