Grey Matters

I came across http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html, “Critiques Of Libertarianism” and couldn’t hep but respond in some fashion. The following is what I sent to the site’s author.

Gotta tell ya, Mike, I haven’t seen such a rambling, disjointed, superficial critique of Libertarianism <http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html> in a long time.

You make the mistake of assuming that because we Libertarians don’t march lockstep, that it’s impossible to nail down just what libertarianism is. Too many different kinds of libertarianism, you say. Incoherent.

“This diversity of libertarian viewpoints can make it quite difficult to have a coherent discussion with them, because an argument that is valid for or against one type of libertarianism may not apply to other types.“

As “…ians” go, you’re obviously an authoritarian (pretty much the opposite of libertarian.) You gratuitously state that it’s difficult to have a “coherent discussion” with libertarians. Just try having a “coherent” discussion with authoritarians some time. One authoritarian says we should have prayer in school and another authoritarian says absolutely not. Some authoritarians want guns strictly controlled while others do not. Talk about incoherent! You authoritarians take the prize.

There’s your biggest mistake. You must employ the “left-right” or “liberal-conservative” dichotomy, which leaves libertarianism as some odd, way-out-there, doesn’t-really-fit anywhere philosophy. In actuality, “right” and “left” (or “liberal” and “conservative”) are just two sides of the same authoritarian coin.

If you must use a two-dimensional political spectrum, then picture one running from libertarian on one end to totalitarian on the other. Everything in between is just degrees of authoritarianism. The purposes for which government power is sought are irrelevant. It matters little to me whether you want to make me pray 12 times a day or want me to labor all day long for “society” so that government bureaucrats can dispense largesse to the deserving (who, coincidentally, turn out to be mostly bureaucrats).

Viewed as a spectrum of varying authoritarianism, you end up with “less government” types at one end and “more government” types at the other. Libertarians are at the “less government” end. All quite coherent.

“Many libertarian arguments are like fundamentalist arguments:”

“Fundamentalist?” Would that be Fundamentalist authoritarians? Fundamentalist Girl Scouts? Fundamentalist Muslims? “Fundamentalist” who or what? Oh, Bible thumpers. I’m sorry, you were revealing an anti-religious, or possibly just anti-Christian bias.

Too often you ask questions but then do not bother with answers: 

“If we adopt this libertarian policy, there will be benefits: but what will the disadvantages be? Are libertarians reinventing what we already have, only without safeguards?”

Libertarians are more than happy to address the “disadvantages” that the short-sighted may see in Libertarianism. [Forgive the gratuitous slap at those who don’t believe as I do. I just wanted you to see what it’s like since your piece is chock full of such insults.] One person’s safeguards are another’s straightjacket. The “safety net” can also be a snare.

Everything is hypothetical until it’s been tried. Your position is that since Libertarianism hasn’t been tried, we don’t dare! Too many unknowns!! Ooooohh, scarry! (“Libertarians …are utopian because there has never yet been a libertarian society… These two facts should not keep us from considering libertarian ideas seriously, however they do caution us about accepting them for practical purposes. “) I.e., let’s not actually try these out.

“Libertarians are a small group whose beliefs are unknown to and not accepted by the vast majority.”

Two points: 1) Libertarians’ beliefs can hardly be “accepted” if they are unknown. Being unknown is not the same as being either unaccepted (rejected) or unacceptable. 2) In truth, a great many people have Libertarian tendencies now and then, they just don’t know these as “libertarian.” “Live and let live.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “Mind your own business.” And, if I may quote Rodney King: “Can’t we all just get along?” These are all very libertarian ideas. 

Incidentally, lots of authoritarians are as “Utopian” as anyone ever. The belief, in the face of centuries of experience to the contrary, that government can make everything perfect for everybody, is quite persistent, utopian, pie-in-the-sky and, frankly, laughable.

As for your numbered “libertarian” assertions go, I’m only going to address a few. I don’t have the time that some of my libertarian friends do to address every one.

#1) You assert that the “original intent” of the founders has not been perverted because, well, there is no original intent; the founders opinions varied “…  looking to the founders for “original intent” is silly: it will vary amongst them.” Try looking at the founding documents, Mike, that’s where the original intent is well documented in plain English. No, the founders did not each get exactly what they would have preferred. They did, as you noted, compromise. The intent of that compromise was put into writing in the Constitution. You err in asserting that the “intent” is to be found other than in the Constitution itself.

“The Constitution leaves the method of its interpretation by the court entirely to the court to decide.” That’s a flat-out lie. Try reading Article III some time. There is nothing therein about the Supreme Court deciding constitutionality issues. That power was usurped by the court in Marbury v Madison. The court invented “judicial review” just as you seem to have invented a new constitutional provision.

#2) You assert that the U.S. government does not ignore the plain meaning of the constitution. Well, no, it’s more like you assert that there is no plain meaning. Or that there are an infinite number of plain meanings that can be divined, depending on the person doing the divining. (You seem to jump back and forth between these positions.) For some reason, you believe that libertarians’ understanding of the constitution is flawed. (‘Libertarian claims of “plain meaning” are often clearly shaped by their beliefs.’) Yet the judges you would have interpret the meaning clearly do so as influenced by their own beliefs — and you find no fault with that — presumably because you find no fault with their interpretation, based, of course, on your own befuddled beliefs.

The meaning of “Congress shall make no law…” does not change over time. The meaning is plain. It is only courts, looking to do something that is forbidden by the Constitution, that interpret this very clear prohibition to include “except when congress has a compelling interest. ” Why do you think there are so many 5-4 supreme court decisions. Why are they always carving out “narrow” opinions or exceptions? Because they are inventing ways around the plain meaning of the Constitution, that’s why.

#4) “The foremost defenders of our freedoms and rights, which libertarians prefer you overlook, are our governments.” Hardee-har-har! Governments throughout the world, and ours in the USA is no exception, are the leading violators of rights. Always have been, always will.

IBM and General Motors can’t deny citizens their right to a trial by a jury of their peers, only government can and does that routinely. All the corporations in the Fortune 500 can’t kick in my door in the middle of the night based on some anonymous tip; government agents can.

Who passed Jim Crow laws? Government. Who passed anti-Chinese laws? Who turned their collective heads and refused to enforce the laws once racial discrimination became unlawful? Government. Who uses racial profiling to stop people for “driving while black?” Government. Who broke countless treaties with American Indians? Government. And who is even now ignoring numerous Constitutional restrictions? Government.

I’ll make this my last one: “It would be foolish to oppose libertarians on such a mom-and-apple-pie issue as freedom and rights: better to point out that there are EFFECTIVE alternatives with a historical track record, something libertarianism lacks.”

One cannot help but wonder just how totalitarian you are. “Effective alternatives” to freedom and rights?

So, to sum up, you lie about what libertarianism is, you lie about the Constitution. You’re so deluded that you think government is the “foremost defender” of our rights when in fact the opposite is true. Oh, yeah, and you think there are “effective alternatives” to rights. Good grief. Get a clue.

“The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.” — Paul Johnson

The following was a letter to a writer, Florence King, whose work is featured in National Review. It concerned a piece she wrote for the September 27,  1999 issue concerning a condition for which Florence coined the term “lexophobia” — a fear of laws. Florence King is a self-described “misanthrope” and the article to which I was responding can be found on the web. I suggest reading it before proceeding beyond this point in my this posting. Go ahead, I’ll wait…..

Note: I have tweeked the letter a bit and added links to my recently published Laws of Government. 

—

Florence King
Fredericksburg, VA

September 28, 1999

Dear Florence,

 I am a long-time reader of National Review and have enjoyed your columns even though I do not share your misanthropy. Upon beginning to read your September 27, 1999 “lexophobia” column I initially thought myself lexophobic. It was only when I read further, to the second and final symptoms of lexophobia, that I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I am not so afflicted.

The first stated symptom, however, described me in spades. I do indeed see a great many laws as being camels’ noses leading to slippery slopes just down the road. To my great surprise, you apparently do not. And yet you certainly are well informed, very likely better informed than I. Given your considerable grasp of history, it is hard for me to fathom why you chide those of us who merely foresee the natural progression of things. There has probably never been, in the history of the world, a government that voluntarily made itself smaller and less intrusive. Governments invariably grow and must eventually be overthrown.

“Experience hath shewn,” Mr. Jefferson wrote, “that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” Each new law is a baby step in that direction.

You write, “Propose a law, any law, no matter how sensible and needed, and the air will instantly be filled with howls of despair…” Indeed. For today’s “sensible and needed” law will inevitably serve as a stepping off point to greater and greater intrusion by government. It has always been so. [See the Fifth Law, Second Corollary.]

Whether the income tax, which was so trifling a matter at its gestation, or a zoning code that permits government to place restrictions on your property, all laws grow from the initial germ to become something much more than ever anticipated. The income tax has grown in size and complexity to something very unlike anything the original proponents had in mind or could even have imagined. Create a zoning code that permits city officials to control appearance of your home and, next thing you know, they’ll be telling you what color roofing tiles you must use and how large your address numerals may be. (My city fathers permit a single sign not more than 1.5 square feet in area and bearing either the street address or the family name.)

Every law, once on the books, becomes something always grander than the law’s proponents originally had in mind. All it takes is a little “fine tuning” here, some “reform” there and let’s not forget to “close the loopholes” while we’re at it. Every law can be “morphed” into something unrecognizable and antithetical to the spirit which first inspired it.

I’m told that Lyndon Johnson, of all people, once cautioned that laws should be judged not on how much good they might do but on the harm they could cause if misapplied. This, I guess, is where we “symptom one” lexophobics come in. I am much given to skepticism regarding the ability of government to simply pass a sensible law and then let it be.

No law is above suspicion. Only a very few could have predicted that the sensible and needed Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbade discrimination and mandated color-blindness would, quite soon after enactment, be interpreted to require that which it specifically proscribed. How can anyone, having witnessed the transmogrification of so noble an act, fail to look askance at any and all laws, no matter how outwardly sensible they may appear? This healthy skepticism is quite rational and hardly phobic, given history.

It is ironic that you ridiculed “the midnight knock on the door” as though this can’t happen in the U.S.A. Actually, law enforcement of late is loathe even to knock, preferring no-knock warrants served by means of a “dynamic entry” in the wee hours of the morning when their victims can be assumed fast asleep. Forget the courtesy of knocking; you’ll be lucky just to survive the experience.

I once heard a police officer remark that, if he wanted to pull some driver over, he had only to follow this person for a few miles. No one, he opined, is a perfect driver and everyone will eventually slip up and break some traffic law. This is the way life has become owing to numerous “sensible” laws. I doubt that many of us can make it through a normal day without running afoul of some law or regulation. I view each and every new law as another potential reason to “pull me over” as I go innocently about my business.

In your column, you only inferred the existence of laws that are not in fact “sensible and needed.” Surely you agree that such laws should be opposed by all, yes? Since the designation “sensible and needed” is highly subjective, mightn’t we agree that one person’s phobia is another’s prudence?

Finally, you may wish to rethink this entire lexophobia issue. Perhaps a different term would be appropriate. It would seem that two of the three symptoms you list are in fact characteristic of those who embrace additional laws: laws to prohibit “profiling” and such. It is only through additional laws that such as profiling can be proscribed. Your lexophobe then is likely calling for, indeed, lobbying for the protection of the law. In fact, symptom three is “unquestioning support for laws that make people feel good about themselves.” This doesn’t appear to describe people who fear laws or the law generally.

In summary then:

1. It is reasonable to oppose bad laws;
2. All laws, even the good ones, have the potential to become bad laws though a combination of legislative tinkering, judicial fiat and executive orders or executive branch interpretation;
3. Given (1) and (2), lexophobia symptom number one seems quite reasonable and non-phobic;
4. You need a better name for the affliction than “lexophobia” since the symptoms mostly describe the opposite of a “fear of law.”

 
Aside from these minor points, I agree fully with your “lexophobia” column.

Prudently yours,

Warren Michelsen

Written April 14, 1999

Everybody knows that the tobacco companies make billions in blood money from the sale of deadly cigarettes, right? Would you like to know who makes even more profit on each pack sold? Government.

In 1998 the average tobacco industry profit on a pack of smokes was $0.23. Not to be outdone, the feds pocket another $0.24 a pack and the average state tax was $0.36. That’s right, with each pack of cigarettes sold, federal and state governments make more than two and one-half times as much profit as the tobacco companies themselves.  And are they satisfied?  No.  Cigarette taxes are rising. The federal tax will be $0.39 by 2002 and and the oh-so principled Bill Clinton wants to tack another $0.55 on top of that. State taxes are rising too. California’s cigarette tax rose by $0.50 a pack in January of 1999.

State governments, not content with their cigarette tax revenue, want the tobacco companies’ share of the loot too. They sued and won a settlement that will cost the tobacco industry some ten billion dollars a year. And Uncle Sam wants his share as well. Clinton says he wants to sue tobacco companies for hundreds of billions of dollars. Does this make sense?  For years the federal government has subsidized the tobacco industry and now they want to sue?  Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black or what?

Doesn’t it seem strange that government makes most of the profits from cigarette sales but the tobacco industry takes all the heat?  Isn’t there just a bit of culpability on government’s part?  And don’t government bigshots realize that by sueing tobacco companies they could be killing the tobacco industry?  

Of course, once government has successfully killed this Golden Goose, they’ll be looking for something else to tax to make up for the shortfall caused by the loss of cigarette tax revenue. Fatty Foods? Carbs?

[Written in email to my wife from my (former) place of employment — an all Microsoft facility.]

If I’m ever found in my office at work dead of a stroke or coronary, please sue Microsoft for wrongful death. I think I was very close to crossing over this morning. Certainly, there was a bright light burning hotly before my eyes but I resisted moving toward it and eventually regained my composure.

But it’s not getting any easier trying to do the day-to-day tasks of my job when saddled with Microsoft Windows NT (Workstation), Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Outlook and the assorted Microsoft doo-dads that plague the WinTel PC I’m burdened with at work.

This morning I was already pulling my hair out over Excel and Access and it was Outlook that had me seeing bright red.

Excel documents have been inconvenient to open for weeks now. The problem started when I tried to link to some Excel files on a web site. The “.xls” files started loading into the browser window as gibberish rather than being downloaded to disk to be opened with Excel. I stopped the download and used the browser to “Save Link As…”

The xls files had very long file names (70-80 characters) and double-clicking on the downloaded files resulted in Excel starting but putting up a dialog saying that the file xxx could not be found. Most curious since I’d just double-clicked it in the directory to which I’d saved them. Even more curiously, after dismissing the dialog, another popped up telling me the same thing. Upon closer examination I saw that the path name it showed as being not findable was only the latter portion of the entire path name.

Repeating the process I figured out that the first “Can’t Find” dialog was using the first part of the path name and the second was using the latter part of the file’s path. Clearly, Windows “New Technology” (NT) was choking on the very long file names so I shortened them to about 15 characters. When double-clicked, Excel still claimed that they could not be found to open them. So I shortened the names to 8.3 format and tried again. They still could not be “found” for opening.

Finally, using the File Open command In Excel I tried again only to find that the resulting spreadsheets were blank even though the files themselves were in the range of 60-70 K in size.

I returned to the directory to trash the files and noted that the Icons for the “xls” files were not proper Excel icons. I had previously been in list view of the download directory so I have no idea at what point this transformation took place. I hadn’t really noticed what icon was being used up to that point.

These events seem to have triggered a system-wide association problem with Excel files. From this point on, when I double-click an “xls” file, Excel starts but does not open the selected file. It simply presents a new, blank workbook. Thus it is that I cannot open Excel files by double-clicking them. Naturally, I tried to fix this by associating the “xls” file suffix with Excel but that proved impossible.

Looking through the list of file associations I can find no association for “xls” files and when I try to add one, NT tells me the extension ‘xls’ is already in use by the file type “xls_auto_file” but that type does not exist in the list of associations. And I’ve been through the whole list of associations and ‘xls’ does not show up anywhere.

Since I can’t open Excel files by double-clicking, when I received one as an email attachment this morning (curiously, files received as attachments display the proper icon within Outlook) and out of force of habit double-clicked it, I got an empty Excel workbook. I had to go back to Outlook and do a “Save As…” on the Excel file (since I haven’t yet figured out where Outlook hides file attachments it receives) and place a copy of it where I could quickly navigate to it when opening it from Excel’s File Open command. A minor annoyance, and one to which I am becoming accustomed.

Immediately after the minor annoyance with Excel, I had another brand new (today) problem with Excel. I have an Access database that uses tables linked-to from a network server. Primarily, I run queries on the data in the tables. Today my queries mostly don’t work, which is to say, the queries return no records. One or two of them sometimes return records but if I then apply a filter to the records and subsequently remove the filter, I’m left looking at no records whatever. I have to close the query and reopen it for a single shot at filtering and sorting before the query stops working when I remove the filter or sort. I had to close and reopen the query about a dozen times to gather the information I needed. Even more annoying than the Excel problem.

But it was Outlook that had me gnashing my teeth and trembling. Having been forcibly migrated from Eudora to Outlook for email, I’m still not adapting well. I routinely add to my reasons to hate Outlook and today was no exception.

On particular types of email, I am required to insert a notice — boilerplate language. I received the boilerplate in an email (in Outlook) which originated with the legal department and was forwarded to me by my project manager. At the time, I copied the text and pasted it into a Microsoft Word document and saved it. Today I had occasion to use it. So…

In Outlook, I created the email message and when it came time to insert the boilerplate, I chose “File” from the “Insert” menu. I navigated my way to the Word file of boilerplate I’d previously saved and selected it then hit “OK” at which point Outlook added the boilerplate as an attachment — a rather strange action for what is supposed to, after all, be an “Insert” operation. So I removed the attachment and tried again. This time I checked out the dialog box more closely and observed three radio buttons labeled “Text Only”, “Attachment” and “Shortcut”. I made sure that “Text Only” was selected and again pressed “OK”.

Now, You’d think that “Text Only” would mean that the text portion of the Microsoft Word document would be extracted by Outlook and inserted into the email, leaving behind the formatting information from the Word document. At least, that’s what I’d think. I thought wrong. Outlook instead inserted the entire Word document as if it were text. All the formatting and other data — most of which is gibberish when treated as ASCII text — was plunked right into my email message. I was looking at mostly those little square undefined character symbols with a sprinkling of yen symbols and characters with umlauts, tildes and the like.

So, trying to “Insert” the boilerplate caused it to be attached and trying to “Attach” a Word document inserted it into the body of the email. Gotcha. 

That’s when my head felt like it might explode. First Excel, then Access and now Outlook. My neurons overloaded. It was not even 8:30 in the morning and I’d already overdosed on Microsoft.

I’m betting that I can insert an “exe” file as “Text Only” and Outlook will obligingly convert the entire works to ASCII gibberish. I’m not going to try this; there’s no telling what might happen to this very fragile OS as a result. I just don’t trust NT/Outlook as far as I can throw Bill Gates’ mansion.

I had to go back to Word and save the boilerplate as a “txt” file so that the “Text Only” insertion really would be only the text. All in a day’s work when using Microsoft products.

Another quirk I noted later in the day: When attaching a document to a Microsoft Outlook email, an icon shows up on the outgoing mail to indicate the presence of the attachment. Curiously, the “attachment” is inserted at the cursor insertion point so that when I attached a document with my cursor in the middle of a word, the attachment icon broke the word in two. As noted above the attachment process is initiated from the “Insert” menu. One would have thought, however, that when choosing “attachment” as the method of inserting, it wouldn’t break up the document to which it is attached. After all, when I attach (staple) a document to another, the first document is not altered.

I marvel daily that Microsoft has so insinuated itself into Big Business selling products that behave the way they do.

September 30, 1998

The news media have reported numerous times that polls show that the American people do not think that President Clinton should be impeached. To a large degree, the people polled probably do not know what impeachment is. Let’s clear that up.

Many people equate “impeachment” with removing an official from office. While removal from office can result, the act of removing the official from office is not called impeachment. Impeachment is simply charging a public official with offenses. To be impeached is simply to be brought up on charges – indicted.

Once impeached, an official of the U.S. government must then stand trial on the charges. Under our constitution, if found guilty, the official must then be removed from office. It is possible to be impeached (charged), tried on the charges and not convicted. (One U.S. president survived his impeachment trial. Do you know which?)

Pop Quiz! Regarding impeachment: