“I would be a liar and an idiot if I didn’t thank Sarah Palin for helping get me here tonight. My partial resemblance and her crazy voice are the two luckiest things that have ever happened to me. Politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women…unless you’re a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years — whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know, actually, I take it back. The whole thing’s a disaster.”
What a silly liberal! The disaster is that you and your kind continue to support Bush III’s empire of death, and have elevated the presidency even more after you claimed to hate the previous tenant. Sure, institutionalized prevention (and even support, because of the legislative baggage) of same sex marriages is indeed a problem, and not one to take lightly. Yet compared with the atrocities of war and empire, this rant is worthless, “Tina.”
By
Robert Wicks
/ November 5, 2010 / 1 minute of reading
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CTV Edmonton reports the case of a man convicted of “inciting racial hatred” when he burned a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple. This is a clear crime, but the crime is trespass and vandalism, not “inciting racial hatred.” Criminalizing some real or imagined scheme behind his criminal actions is not only unnecessary, it sows the seeds for more and more thoughts being banned. This is little different from prosecuting a religious extremist for inciting religious fervor. Moreover, as a friend pointed out, in this day and age, burning a cross does not even incite racial hatred. It generates huge outpourings of goodwill for the victims, and widespread condemnation of the ideology behind the criminal behavior. That reaction has far better effects on race relations than prosecutions for thought crimes.
One of the hot button issues in recent years has been gay marriage. Socially conservative people may well object to calling a gay union “marriage. That is, of course, completely understandable. Marriage and religion have been closely intertwined, and the most popular religions in the world today do not generally regard a same sex union as a marriage. I was considering the various positions taken by libertarians on gay marriage. I have seen opinions from libertarians that marriage licenses should not be issued to gays because a state marriage license enables aggression against third parties. That is true. Also, some, such as Stephan Kinsella, argue that it is a good that gays get the legal protections which come with a marriage license.
Second bests are divisive issues for libertarians. We all wish for the state to leave people alone, but we are all too painfully aware that it frequently does not, and that there are political debates raging around us where policies are promoted which have real world consequences for us all. Many of us seek to minimize the harmful effects of these policies by stating a preference of one over the other. Such is the case with gay marriage. Libertarians of varying stripes, mutualists, paleolibertarians, anarcho-capitalists, all agree that the state should get out of the way and not interfere with free interactions among people. Yet different ideologies among libertarians often cause us to differ wildly on what state policy we would prefer, from the likely choices being supported by the public.
I have long been of the opinion that state licensing should be extended to the point that it is meaningless. However, a license which allows aggression against others should give any libertarian pause. In order to consider the problem more effectively, I did a thought experiment involving a much more severe form of aggression than those normally associated with a marriage license: murder.
I was privileged to attend to the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society last week. It was held in beautiful Bodrum, Turkey at the Hotel Karia Princess, from June 3-7, 2010. The list of speakers may be found in the Program. This is my second, having also attended the inaugural meeting in 2006. I’ll put up another blog soon with more details about the event, but for now let me say it was without a doubt the best liberty related event I’ve ever attended. And two of my fellow TLS co-bloggers also attended–Gil Guillory and Juan Fernando Carpio.
Group photo from the Fifth Annual Meeting, June 2010, Hotel Karia Princess, Bodrum
Professor Hoppe’s opening address, “The Property And Freedom Society — Reflections After Five Years,” is published here on The Libertarian Standard today. It’s a fascinating, informative, and perceptive overview of various libertarian paleo- and related alliances over the years.
Hoppe surveys the mistakes of former alliances, and lessons learned; and also devastatingly illustrates how the state has coopted even most free market think tanks into serving the state’s aims:
The strategy of Hayek and of the Mont Pelerin Society, then, had to fail. Instead of helping to reform—liberalize—the (Western) State, as they intended (or pretended?) to do, the Mont Pelerin Society and the international “limited-government” think-tank industry would become an integral part of a continuously expanding welfare-warfare state system.
Indicators for this verdict abound: The typical location of the think tanks is in or near the capital city, most prominently Washington, DC., because their principal addressee is the central government. They react to measures and announcements of government, and they suggest and make proposals to government. Most contacts of think-tankers outside their own institution are with politicians, government bureaucrats, lobbyists, and assorted staffers and assistants. Along with connected journalists, these are also the regular attendees of their conferences, briefings, receptions and cocktail parties. There is a steady exchange of personnel between think tanks and governments. And the leaders of the limited government industry are frequently themselves prominent members of the power elite and the ruling class.
Most indicative of all: For decades, the limited government movement has been a growth industry. Its annual expenditures currently run in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and billions of dollars likely have been spent in total. All the while, government expenditures never and nowhere fell, not even once, but instead always and uninterruptedly increased to ever more dizzying heights.
And yet, this glaring failure of the industry to deliver the promised good of limited government is not punished but, perversely, rewarded with still more ample funds. The more the think tanks fail, the more money they get.
The State and the free market think tank industry thus live in perfect harmony with each other. They grow together, in tandem.
