You Keep Using That Phrase, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

An article published this week in Foreign Policy brought to mind the memetic line of Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, "You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means."

Writing under the headline "Economic Rights Are Human Rights," Yale University's Samuel Moyn shows by the second paragraph of his article that he doesn't know what he's talking about:

For 40 years, America’s human rights policy has focused narrowly on political and civil liberties and has been coupled with a free market libertarian agenda for the world. By neglecting social and economic rights and the vast disparities both within and among nations, U.S. policy has exacerbated many of the evils it set out to eradicate. It needs an overhaul.

A "free market libertarian agenda for the world" is exactly what has promoted economic rights and liberties for the past generation. By promoting free market policies around the world, poverty has been reduced to a tiny fraction of what it was only 40 years ago. People nearly everywhere are healthier, wealthier, and better educated than their parents and grandparents were.

Why only "nearly everywhere"? Because some countries have refused to liberalize their economies, thus perpetuating and deepening the poverty experienced by all but the political elites and their cronies in the limited business sector. Compare, for instance, Botswana and Zimbabwe -- neighboring countries but one is politically free and economically prosperous while the other is both politically oppressed and economically depressed.  The conditions on both sides of the Botswana-Zimbabwe border are inextricably intertwined.

Check out anything posted to HumanProgress.org if you are skeptical of my claims.

By the way, I clicked on the article;s link because I agree with the headline: Economic rights are, indeed, human rights.  In fact, I addressed that issue from a somewhat different angle way back in 1991, just as the economic freedom revolution began to advance around the globe.

From the Archives: Legal scholar Richard Epstein discusses new book ‘Design for Liberty’

Legal scholar Richard Epstein discusses new book ‘Design for Liberty’
February 23, 2012 4:01 PM MST

Already well-known for such works as Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain, How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution, and a widely used legal textbook on torts, New York University law professor Richard A. Epstein has just published Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration, and the Rule of Law (Harvard University Press).

At a recent Cato Institute event, Professor Epstein spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about his new book and his next project, a book about classical liberalism and constitutional law.

What is ‘Design for Liberty’?
Design for Liberty, he said, differs from his previous books in that “it’s a little bit more philosophical. It spends much more time talking directly about public administration, which I have not talked about much in previous books.”

Moreover, Epstein added, it reflects his “newfound interest in public administrative law, which is usually missing from the earlier works, and of course, it has material which I could never have covered earlier because things like the Dodd-Frank [banking] statute and the current health-care [law] are creatures of the last year or so and therefore I never spoke about them before.”

Digging further beneath the surface, Epstein pointed out that his new book contains “a fairly detailed explanation of first and second order rules, a sort of technical subject,” which involves the question of “when is it that you have to have to resort to reasonableness rules?”

That happens, he said, when “it turns out that hard-line rules don’t work and what you have to do in order to make the rule of law work is to understand that the mere fact that there’s a reasonableness in some legal system doesn’t disqualify from the rule of the law.”

“On the other hand,” he argued, “you can’t let reasonableness determinations overwhelm the whole system, so I try to develop protocols to how it is that you separate those things.”

Future project on classical liberalism
Also a columnist for the Hoover Institution's online journal, Defining Ideas, where he writes regularly as "The Libertarian," Epstein is working on his next project, which will be what he describes as “a very long book” with the working title “The Classical Liberal Constitution.”

That book, he said, is “about 90 percent done.”

In it, Epstein “takes the fundamental insights that I’ve developed over the years and basically gives a comprehensive analysis of every major constitutional area with a hell of a lot of compression, but it starts with basic theories of constitutional interpretation. It talks about the conflict between the progressive and the classical liberal visions. Those,” he said, “are things I’ve talked about before.”

Epstein’s forthcoming book “goes through systematically the judicial, the executive, and legislative branches, and then does all the various threads of individual rights, each getting a chapter.”

Unlike Design for Liberty, “which is slim,” The Classical Liberal Constitution “will be fat,” he said, with a likely publication date in late 2012 or early 2013.

“It’s been a book that’s been in the making for many years now,” Epstein explained. “It’s an effort to give a comprehensive way in which, if you take the positions that I do, various cases and various issues have to come out.”

Given Epstein’s past work, The Classical Liberal Constitution will have “some stuff on takings, but that’s not the main focus of it. It has things on freedom of religion and executive power and foreign affairs and so forth.”

Epstein concedes that his “knowledge base is not uniform across all these areas" but notes that "what makes it possible to do this project is that the Supreme Court doctrine generally tends to be comprised in a relatively few key cases.”

Consequently, “if you have a strong theory, and you pick the right cases to read, you can write the kind of book that I’m talking about.”


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on February 23, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Guest Post: Celebrating Cicero's Birthday

by Gary M. Galles

John Adams said of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) that “All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.” Anthony Everitt called him an “architect of constitutions that still govern our lives.” Thomas Jefferson said the Declaration of Independence was based on “the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.”

Cicero was a Roman Senator whose writings, as Historian Edward Gibbon put it, “breathed the spirit of freedom.” Particularly influential was his idea of natural law, echoed by John Locke and other enlightenment thinkers: Human nature included reason, which could discover justice, which was the basis of law. Voltaire said “He taught us how to think.”

Cicero stayed loyal to the Roman Republic against Julius Caesar. Antony had him murdered for his principles, and his head and hands were nailed to the Senate speaker’s podium as a warning to others, making him a model of resistance against tyranny to America’s revolutionary leaders.

Cicero’s ideas, particularly on justice, law and liberty still merit remembering, two millennia later, on his January 3 birthday.

Justice

Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues.
Justice consists in doing no injury to men.
Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives every man his due.
The foundations of justice are that no one should suffer wrong; then, that the public good be promoted.
Justice must be observed even to the lowest.
Justice does not descend from its pinnacle.
Justice extorts no reward, no kind of price; she is sought...for her own sake.

Law

True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application.
The welfare of the people is the ultimate law.
The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone else his due.
According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another.
The strictest law often causes the most serious wrong.
The more laws, the less justice.
The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled.
The administration of government, like a guardianship, ought to be directed to the good of those who confer, not of those who receive the trust.
When a government becomes powerful...it is an usurper which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance for votes with which to perpetuate itself.

Liberty

We are in bondage to the law so that we might be free.
The essence of liberty is to live as you choose.
Freedom is a man’s natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.
Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.
What is so beneficial to the people as liberty...to be preferred to all things.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
Only in states in which the power of the people is supreme has liberty any abode.
Peace is liberty in tranquility. Servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death.

Cicero was an important influence behind the American Revolution. He symbolized opposition to tyranny and his ideas on justice, law, and liberty inform our founding documents, which is why Jim Powell’s The Triumph of Liberty begins with Cicero’s story. Though he wrote two millennia ago, his understanding of why defending liberty requires tightly constraining government was thoroughly modern: “Never was a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves.”

If Americans are serious about their liberty, which is defended by treating our founding documents as more than mere words on paper, Cicero merits renewed attention today.



Gary M. Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University. His recent books include Faulty Premises, Faulty Policies (2014) and Apostle of Peace (2013). He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Guest Post: On December 7, Remember an English Libertarian Hero

by Gary M. Galles

December 7 has “lived in infamy” since Pearl Harbor. But that date was infamous before America was a country. On that date in 1683, Algernon Sydney, who opposed Charles II for overstepping his powers, was executed for treason after a trial so blatantly violating his rights that Parliament overturned his conviction in 1689. The key evidence was an unpublished manuscript arguing that kings were not above the law, which, 15 years later, became Discourses Concerning Government.

Sydney died for asserting citizens’ right of revolution against a king who exceeded his legal authority. That radical claim helped inspire the American Revolution, because, according to Thomas West, “His death as a martyr to liberty inspired [colonists] with a model in their own risky enterprise against the force of English arms.” On December 7, Sydney’s revolutionary words for liberty from government abuse merits reconsideration.

Our rights and liberties are innate, inherent....from God and nature, not from Kings…He who enjoys [liberty] cannot be deprived of it, unless by his own consent, or by force...In relation to my house, land, or estate; I may do what I please with them, if I bring no damage upon others.

Our natural liberty…is of so great importance that from thence only can we know whether we are freemen of slaves.

The liberty of one man cannot be limited or diminished by…any number of men, and none can give away the right of another…ambition...cannot give a right to any over the liberties of a whole nation. Those who are so set up…are rather to be accounted robbers and pirates than magistrates.

Government[s]...degenerate into a most unjust and despicable tyranny, so soon as the supreme lord begins to prefer his own interest…before the good of his subjects...such an extreme deviation from the end of their institution annuls it; and the wound thereby given to the natural and original rights of those nations cannot be cured, unless they resume the liberties of which they have been deprived.

Prerogative is instituted only for the preservation of liberty...governments...in which every man’s liberty is least restrained...would be the most just, rational and natural...

The supreme law…[is] the preservation of liberties, goods, lands and lives…all laws must be subservient and subordinate to it…if there be no other law…than the will of [government], there is no such thing as liberty. Property is also an appendage to liberty; and ‘tis...impossible for a man to have a right to lands or goods, if he has no liberty...overthrown by those who…ought with the utmost industry and vigor to have defended it.

Magistracy is not instituted…but for the preservation of the whole people, and the defense of the liberty, life and estate of every private man.

Is it possible that any one man can make himself lord of a people...to whom God had given the liberty of governing themselves, by any other means than violence or fraud...the most outrageous injury that can be done…We are free-men...no man has a power over us, which is not given...the ends for which they are given…can be no other than to defend us from all manner of arbitrary power.

Shall it be lawful for [rulers] to usurp a power over the liberty of others, and shall it not be lawful for an injured people to resume their own?...The people…cannot but have a right to preserve their liberty…Those who defend, or endeavor to recover their violated liberties…act vigorously in a cause that God does evidently patronize.

Algernon Sydney defended “the natural, universal liberty of mankind.” He helped inspire the American Revolution, because “a people from all ages in love with liberty and desirous to maintain their own privileges could never be brought to resign them.” However, it is unclear that Americans retain such beliefs, judging from government’s massive overstepping on our rights. We should revisit his understanding and commitment if we are to reclaim our heritage of liberty.




Gary M. Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University. His recent books include Faulty Premises, Faulty Policies (2014) and Apostle of Peace (2013). He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Guest Post: Anti-Trump backlash gags free expression at universities

James Turk, Ryerson University

We are living in difficult and worrisome times.

There has been a resurgence of racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and nativist nationalisms in many parts of the world — including Canada.

This renaissance of hate has been intensified by the actions of Donald Trump before and after his election. Fortunately, many have responded against the hate. For some, regrettably, part of that response has been to call for suppression of free speech.

As the director of the Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson University, I was deeply troubled when Ryerson recently decided to cancel a panel discussion whose topic, ironically, was to be “The Stifling of Free Speech on University Campuses.”

The panel discussion — scheduled to include University of Toronto psychologist Jordan Peterson and former Rebel Media journalist Faith Goldy — was not a march riddled with Klan and neo-Nazis. It was a group of three conservative academics and one right-wing journalist whose ideas are odious to many people, including me. But then, my ideas are likely odious to them.

The security excuse

Free speech wall in Charlottesville, Virginia

The university said it cancelled the event after a security review concluded it was “not equipped to provide the necessary level of public safety for the event to go forward.” The violent confrontation and deaths in Charlottesville may have both spooked Ryerson officials and made their decision seem prudent to many.

Opponents of the planned panel contributed to the fears — with their Facebook page headlined “No Fascists in Our City” adorned initially with a photo of a crossed-out swastika and a call for mass turnout to stop the panel. “This shit stops now. Either you’re with us or you’re not….”

In cancelling the event, Ryerson gave in to intimidation, prevented a panel discussion of difficult ideas and disagreement over deeply held views, and denied free speech rights to those with opposing views.

Part of freedom of expression is the right to dissent, protest and criticize, but that right does not extend to intimidation, harassment or violence that denies others their free speech rights.

Differences of views are the lifeblood of any university and essential to the mission of advancing knowledge and educating students. Most universities even have statements of principle that guarantee and support free expression.

Depriving views

Yale University’s statement says “to curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily also deprives others of the right to listen to those views.”

The University of Toronto’s statement of purpose guarantees the “rights of freedom of speech, academic freedom, and freedom of research. And we affirm that these rights are meaningless unless they entail the right to raise deeply disturbing questions and provocative challenges to the cherished beliefs of society at large and of the university itself.”

Ryerson’s decision to cancel the event violates its own Freedom of Speech policy which states:

“Ryerson does not avoid controversies, difficult ideas, or disagreements over deeply held views. When such disagreements arise within the University or within a broader social context, the University’s primary responsibility is to protect free speech within a culture of mutual respect. The right to freedom of speech comes with the responsibility to exercise that right in an atmosphere free of intimidation and in an environment that supports the free speech rights of those with opposing views.”

This is not a new issue. During the anti-Communist hysteria of the McCarthy period in the 1940s and early ‘50s, many universities abandoned their commitments to academic freedom and freedom of expression. Loyalty oaths were imposed on faculty and many professors accused of being Communists were fired.

The then-president of Yale University, Charles Seymour, famously said in 1949: “There will be no witch hunts at Yale because there will be no witches. We do not intend to hire Communists.”

In her book No Ivory Tower, Ellen Schrecker summarized the role of the universities during this period: “In its collaboration with McCarthyism, the academic community behaved just like every other major institution in American life. Such a discovery is demoralizing … . Here, if anywhere, dissent should have found a sanctuary. Yet it did not.”

Cowardice and complicity

That harmful legacy of university cowardice and complicity took years to overcome. We need to remember this past if we do not want to relive it, albeit in the name of new passions and different ideologies and concerns.

Instead, it appears as if we are starting down a dark road that threatens the raison d’être of the university and the fundamental rights to freedom of expression guaranteed by Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

If standing by its principles requires a university to make a greater investment in security personnel to protect freedom of expression, that must be seen as a proper cost of doing business.

If threats continue to blossom, then there needs to be discussions with governments to ensure universities have the additional financial resources to ensure free expression does not fall victim to intimidation.

Not only are censorship and suppression fatal to the purpose of the university, they undermine the foundation of democratic society.

When individual rights to freedom of expression are diminished or taken away for an allegedly good cause, they are necessarily invested in some higher authority that is given the right to determine what is acceptable.

The result is censorship from above — ultimately the state — with the likelihood that the champions of that censorship today are its vulnerable targets tomorrow.

James Turk, Director, Centre for Free Expression & Distinguished Visiting Professor, Ryerson University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

#StarWarsDay Guest Post: What's So Bad about the Galactic Empire?

by Sean Malone

Everyone familiar with Star Wars knows that the Empire is bad, and the Rebellion is good.

But, why?

Seriously. What makes life under Emperor Palpatine so unbearable, and what would make life under the New Republic so much better, for the ordinary citizens of the galaxy? The movies offer surprisingly little information as to what's actually wrong with Imperial rule.

Now, I'm not talking about blowing up planets or Anakin murdering Jedi children. I'm talking about the daily lives of ordinary citizens. People who don't have any connection to the Sith or the Jedi or the battle for the Senate or any of that stuff.

Sure, behind closed doors, Emperor Palpatine is secretly a Sith Lord who can shoot light bolts from his hands. That definitely seems evil, but, according to the movies, nobody but a few Jedi even knows about it. He doesn't walk down the street electrocuting random peasants.

For the most part, his brutality seems to be limited to confrontations with the Rebel Alliance.

And yeah, Darth Vader is one of the most intimidating villains of all time, and he's obviously a menace to Rebellion soldiers and the Jedi, but imagine you're just some ordinary moisture farmer going about his business on Tatooine. Unless your name is Owen Lars, Darth Vader almost certainly doesn't care about you. He's mainly interested in finding Luke Skywalker. So the question is, what would it mean to live in a Galaxy "ruled" by the Empire, and why is it the ultimate depiction of Tyranny in popular culture?

The more I've thought about this, the more I have struggled to come up with an answer based on anything actually depicted in the films themselves.

Part of the problem is that in most Star Wars movies, the characters are all fighting in a single political struggle. And apart from Padme's interminable dialogue about Senatorial procedure in the Prequels, there's almost no discussion of governing philosophy in the entire series.

Ask yourself: What does the Rebel Alliance stand for besides the destruction of the Empire, and what does the Empire stand for apart from maintaining power?

In A New Hope, Grand Moff Tarkin at least offers some insight into the Empires operation, when he explains that regional governors have “complete control” over their territories.

But, what does that actually mean? What policies does the Emperor want to be enforced across the Galaxy? What is it that he's actually imposing on his citizens that requires multiple planet-destroying superweapons to enforce?

I mean, I get that Palpatine wanted power, but, what does he actually do with it?

Once he acquired political control over the Galaxy, did he ban gay marriage? Droid marriage? Gay droid marriage? Did he ban books and restrict speech? Does Star Wars even have books? Did he nationalize (or “Galactize”) major industries?

For something that's so important to the story, Star Wars doesn't really even try to answer these questions.

When Liberty Dies

But here's what we do know.

First, there's a lot of smuggling in the Star Wars universe. And that probably means that there are a lot of laws and regulations making various goods and services costly or illegal. Prohibiting or restricting trade creates Black Markets, it can also impoverish many people and make their lives much harder when they can't access the things that they want and need.

Even though it's the invisible fabric of everyone's daily life, commerce doesn't really seem to exist in the Star Wars universe at all, but one way the Empire could be ruining people's lives is by controlling what gets bought, sold, or traded; dictating prices; or by taxing everything so much that even basic necessities become impossible to afford.

Another thing we know is that the Imperial military uses its power against citizens of the Empire, and not just in terms of collateral damage.

In Star Wars: Rebels, Storm Troopers and other Imperial agents are often seen conscripting innocent people into their armies and seizing their property without compensation. More recently, in Rogue One, we see a Star Destroyer hovering over a Kybur Crystal mine, and the Empire appears to force people to work in the mines in order to acquire key components of the Death Star.

We might assume that the Imperial military gets many or most of its supplies and resources through similar means – stealing from people around the galaxy, taking their property by force. But that assumes some kind of property rights, and that's never fully established in that world.

And there's one more terrible thing we know about the Empire from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Reformed Storm Trooper Finn (FN-2187) explains to Rey that he was actually taken from his family as a child, conscripted into the Imperial Army, and trained to be a soldier. That's a form of slavery that many real-world governments have used throughout history. Sadly even the United States government still has the power to draft its citizens into war, though that hasn't happened for decades.

Unfortunately, Star Wars never actually wrestles with these issues in any meaningful way.

It seems to assume that the major difference between a "good" world and a "bad" world is the presence of Democracy, but that's hardly a guarantee. Many Democratic leaders have created misery for their citizens and even used Democracy to amass power and become dictators themselves – just like Emperor Palpatine did.

I think the idea that a Senator becoming Chancellor becoming the Emperor works so well in the film because it's so true to what we actually see in real life. And when Padme says “This is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause,” she gets to the real issue here.

Liberty.

The only answer to this question that actually makes sense is that the Empire is an awful place to live because its people lack individual freedom.

Citizens of the Empire aren't secure in their possessions and property. They can't go where they want without being stopped by Imperial forces. They can be imprisoned or forced into an army without a trial or the opportunity to say no, and restrictions on trade and commerce make them poor and condemn them to getting what they need from dangerous black markets, smugglers, and gangsters.

If the Rebellion stands against that, then they are true heroes.

Sean Malone is the Director of Media at FEE. His films have been featured in the mainstream media and throughout the free-market educational community.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Guest Post: Easter Symbolizes a New Hope for Life and Liberty

by Jeffrey A. Tucker

Easter morning is filled with delight: bright colors, delicious foods, happy scenes of bunnies, and egg hunts. Above all, for those who are Christian, we are called to celebrate the joy of the resurrection of Christ from death to new life. The contrast between Good Friday and Easter could not be starker: with the quick turn of the calendar, we move from desperate sadness to unmitigated celebration.

It was not this way in the ancient Christian liturgy. Easter was the beginning of a process of discerning a new reality in the world. It was an entire season lasting five weeks, during which time the dramatic realization of what happened and what it implies for the world unfolds in stages, like spring itself. You can see it in the texts of liturgy and hear it in the chanted music from the first millennium. 

Spring Dawns Slowly
Initially, on Easter morning, there is not unmitigated joy, but rather an awe that approaches a kind of fear: the man who was dead is said to be alive again, which seems to lend credibility to those who said he was not a false prophet but rather the son of God. 

Listen to the melody of the Easter morning entrance song from the old liturgy, which isn’t celebratory but awe-struck and slightly frightened. 

What does this imply about the crucifixion itself, and what does this ask of those who stood aside as Jesus was put to death at the bloody hands of the civic authorities? 

In the second week after Easter, the ancient liturgy observes people’s dawning realization of the truth they have witnessed, and are thereby drawn by a sense of awe to a new faith, brought into the community of believers one person at a time. In the third week, you experience the first cries of joy, and in the fourth, the celebrations consist of new songs, songs that depart from tradition and introduce a new age. By the fifth, the experience of elation is completely unleashed and proclaimed to all the world. 

Life Moves Fast
But in modern times, the entire experience is put on fast-forward. Traditionalists regret this, but it is a defensible change that keeps track of the dramatic cultural shifts between the first millennium and the second. In the first, very few people experienced anything like what we call material progress today. The population barely grew and life was characterized by an unchanging tedium of survival. 

In the second millennium, over the course of hundreds of years, humanity experienced the first signs of the possibility of life improvement, longer and better lives even within a single generation, and modernity dawned with the gradual unfolding of freedom and the accumulation of material capital. Sickness and death gave way to health and life as a reasonable expectation. 

So, in this sense, it makes sense that stories about ourselves and even the past would speed up as well. Whatever it is today, we want it now and in the most time-efficient form of delivery possible. A website that sticks is abandoned. A book that is too long is not read. Even a sermon in church that drags on tempts people to leave their pews and find a better way to spend the hour. 

We have come to believe that life is about more than preparing our souls for eternity; it is about finding great experiences within the structure of time itself. Hardly anyone even questions this notion today. We carry it with us constantly. Our impatience with tedium is palpable.

This is a cultural change in us wrought by capitalism, and it is nothing to regret. The existence of “time preferences” – that we want to have what we desire sooner than later – is what might be called a Kantian category of action. It is baked into our choices as human beings. The material world either accommodates us or it does not. With the advent of capitalism, humanity experienced a realization of dreams that had been materially inaccessible throughout most of history. We are today surrounded by its blessings in ways we don’t fully appreciate.

It Needs to Happen Now
Let me just relay a story from this morning, which you might find trivial but is actually glorious.
I woke this morning determined to get my oil changed. Now, when my father was my age, he had to do it himself. There were no places where you can go and be in and out in 10 minutes. I, on the other hand, know that this is possible now, without fuss and without an appointment.

So I started driving, letting my mobile app guide me to the closest place and with full confidence that I could achieve my goal. I got my oil changed for $39 and they added fluid for my power steering, which fixed a whirling sound I’d been hearing. Then I got my car washed and the guy fixed my glove compartment that kept falling open. Somehow he just knew what to do, and he did it just to be nice.
Then I went to a car parts store and got some wipes that made my car smell great, and also some touch-up paint – yes, they happened to have the right color – that took away some scrapes on the paint. I did all this just by driving around and meeting nice people and engaging in beautiful commerce all designed to make my life better. I met fascinating, talented people and saw my life improve in real ways through human labor, courtesy, and commercial activity.

This is the way mornings should be. But of all the mornings in world history, it has only become possible to live this way in 0.00000009% percent of them (not scientific, but you get the point). But instead of celebrating how easy our lives are, what do most people do? They grumble about the traffic. They complain that they had to do this at all. They get upset that they are not otherwise at the office or languishing at home or huffing and puffing at the gym.

No matter how much we get, and however soon we get it, there is still something in us that aches for more. This too is a defensible impulse because it is that longing in us that causes us to act to make the world a better place through entrepreneurship, risk-taking, working hard, saving, and generally having the option as consumers to buy what it is that capitalists are selling us. So long as we are free in action and choice, our disgruntlement becomes a motivating force for improving the world. 

Politics Is a Different Matter
And yet, there is one space in life where wanting more sooner does not redound to our benefit. It is within the political sphere. We listen to candidates sell their nostrums and go to the voting booth to buy what they are selling. Then we are shocked when it turns out that they cannot and will not deliver on what they say. Then we do the same thing two years and four years later, never learning the lesson that the political marketplace doesn’t really exist to serve us but rather to serve an institution that, in so many ways, exists outside the sphere of social action. The state is different, radically different, from the marketplace. 

Because of this tendency to want more as soon as possible and to speed up life to accommodate our wishes, people tend to fall for charlatans in political life. Some dude comes along promising to make us great and we go for it, even if what he says makes no sense. Another person says he will deliver justice, equality, fairness, and goodness through taxing, regulating, spending, and war, and people figure that they will “spend” their vote and take the chance that it is true. 

Growing in Liberty
True maturity in political action requires two mental steps. First, we have to decide what it is we want. The burden of the liberal tradition has long been to convince people that the best possible world for us comes through voluntary action within a social setting we create for ourselves, and not from the imposition of someone else’s plan from the top down. Second, we have to cultivate patience that working for the long-term goal of humanity requires commitment, slow growth of intellectual communities, the persuasion of public intellectuals, and deep investment in an idea.

This is the only way it can work. Liberty is not something you can buy. It is something you must build through intellectual courage and hard work. It cannot be granted to you by a politician. It doesn’t even come from politics alone. The work of liberty is a cultural act, extended from the sphere you can control and working outwards to change the intellectual fabric of society. 

The work of liberty unfolds over time like the dawn of spring itself, or the unfolding of Easter in the ancient Christian liturgy. What is possible in this world is a slow realization, born first of awe, then turning to a new consciousness, unfolding in gradual celebration, and culminating in a message to the entire world. Liberty is what allows us all to cast off the old world of authority and imposition and sing a new song of freedom the world over.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also Chief Liberty Officer and founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, an advisor to the blockchain application builder Factom, and author of five books. He has written 150 introductions to books and many thousands of articles appearing in the scholarly and popular press.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

From the Archives: Barry Goldwater's 1964 'extremism' speech still defines conservatism 50 years on

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on July 15, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Barry Goldwater's 1964 'extremism' speech still defines conservatism 50 years on

Fifty years ago this week, Barry Goldwater accepted the Republican party's nomination for president at the GOP convention in San Francisco. Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign is almost universally credited with launching both the modern conservative and the modern libertarian movements.

In an acceptance speech most famous for its much misunderstood but biggest applause line – “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” – Goldwater laid out a definition for political conservatism without once using the word “conservative.”

Something of a précis of his 1960 book, The Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater's convention speech endeavored to explain conservatism – or what he called “Republicanism” on that occasion – to listeners who had not yet learned much about it.

In the same speech, Goldwater displayed a certain amount of prescience regarding the course of human history and offered advice to his fellow Republicans who, then as now, often found themselves among bickering factions.

In one, brief paragraph, the Arizona Senator summarized the conservative view of individual liberty and the proper role of government.

Private property and diversity
Conservatives, he said, “see, in private property and in economy based upon and fostering private property, the one way to make government a durable ally of the whole man, rather than his determined enemy. We see in the sanctity of private property the only durable foundation for constitutional government in a free society. And beyond that, we see, in cherished diversity of ways, diversity of thoughts, of motives and accomplishments. We do not seek to lead anyone's life for him - we seek only to secure his rights and to guarantee him opportunity to strive, with government performing only those needed and constitutionally sanctioned tasks which cannot otherwise be performed.”

Goldwater also drew a contrast explicitly to the communist, totalitarian vision and, implicitly, to big-government liberalism then in vogue.

“Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good,” Goldwater asserted, “are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.”

In a line that would be welcomed equally by the Tea Party and by the Occupy movement, Goldwater said that conservatives must “resist concentrations of power, private or public, which enforce such conformity and inflict such despotism. It is the cause of Republicanism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people.”

A vision of the future
And as if envisioning the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Empire a quarter-century later, Goldwater made remarkably accurate predictions in this paragraph:

“I believe that we must look beyond the defense of freedom today to its extension tomorrow. I believe that the communism which boasts it will bury us will, instead, give way to the forces of freedom. And I can see in the distant and yet recognizable future the outlines of a world worthy our dedication, our every risk, our every effort, our every sacrifice along the way. Yes, a world that will redeem the suffering of those who will be liberated from tyranny. I can see and I suggest that all thoughtful men must contemplate the flowering of an Atlantic civilization, the whole world of Europe unified and free, trading openly across its borders, communicating openly across the world.”

Toward the end of his speech, just before the famous line about “extremism,” Goldwater pointed out the factionalism in the Republican party was not new, but also was not necessarily bad.

Discord and hostility
The GOP, he said, is “a Party for free men, not for blind followers, and not for conformists.”

Then he quoted Abraham Lincoln in 1858 “because he probably could have said it during the last week or so: "[The Republican Party] was composed of strained, discordant, and even hostile elements.'”

As if he were anticipating the divide between the Tea Party and “establishment” branches of the conservative movement in the 21st century, Goldwater then admonished: “Let our Republicanism, so focused and so dedicated, not be made fuzzy and futile by unthinking and stupid labels.”

He explained that “the beauty of this Federal system of ours is in its reconciliation of diversity with unity. We must not see malice in honest differences of opinion, and no matter how great, so long as they are not inconsistent with the pledges we have given to each other in and through our Constitution. Our Republican cause is not to level out the world or make its people conform in computer regimented sameness. Our Republican cause is to free our people and light the way for liberty throughout the world.”

It was in that context – between “stupid labels” and the beauty of the American system – that Goldwater added:

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

He concluded with the modest thought that conservatives have “a very human cause for very humane goals.”

Barry Goldwater's nomination acceptance speech of July 16, 1964, can be viewed in its entirety on the C-SPAN web site.

SUGGESTED LINKS

Present at the creation: YAF co-founder Carol Dawson remembers the 1960 Sharon Conference
Amity Shlaes discusses significance of Calvin Coolidge at Heritage Foundation
Veteran journalist Evan Thomas draws contrast between Obama and Eisenhower
JFK was 'cautious, conservative' says UVA political scientist Larry Sabato
Current politics has Nixons but no Eisenhowers, says biographer Jeffrey Frank

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/barry-goldwater-s-1964-extremism-speech-still-defines-conservatism-50-years-on

From the Archives: Barry Goldwater 'absolutely' was a libertarian, his son explains

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on December 30, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Barry Goldwater 'absolutely' was a libertarian, his son explains

Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) “absolutely was a libertarian,” explained his son in an interview this year, adding that as a libertarian he believed “in less government and [that] government should not be intruding into our personal lives.” These views were "consistent" with conservative values, he added.

Former Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr., participated in a panel discussion about the his father's presidential campaign in November at the Virginia Film Festival. The discussion followed a screening of Bombs Away: LBJ, Goldwater, and the 1964 Campaign that Changed It All, a new documentary from the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Moderated by political scientist Larry Sabato, the panel also featured former Minnesota attorney general Skip Humphrey, son of Lyndon Johnson's 1964 running mate, Hubert H. Humphrey.

After the presentation, which marked the 50th anniversary of the Goldwater-Johnson contest, the younger Barry Goldwater spoke with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about his father's presidential campaign and how it launched both the modern conservative and libertarian movements that came of age in the 1970s and '80s.

“He was in there with his paddle in the water,” Goldwater said, “working hard to change the Republican Party from the East Coast liberal establishment to more of a conservative-libertarian philosophy that Americans were looking for.”

Gay rights and abortion
Goldwater, who represented California in Congress from 1969 to 1983, explained that his father remained an icon of the Republican Party despite differing from social conservatives on contentious issues.

In the senior Goldwater's view (and his son's, too), “whether you're gay or a lesbian is a personal thing. It's no business of the government. And abortion, a woman who is carrying this baby – that's her decision, not the government's,” said Barry, Jr. “He was pretty consistent with his libertarian and conservative views when it came to such things as social issues.”

Like his father before him, Goldwater, Jr., attended high school at the Staunton Military Academy, just about 30 miles from Charlottesville. He has pleasant memories of his time there in the late 1950s, though his Arizona upbringing did not prepare him for Virginia winters.

“I remember how cold it got here, and the leaves turning in the fall,” he said. “I remember the warmth of the people of Staunton. I remember the Episcopal Church that I went to every Sunday for four years. It's a beautiful part of the country.”

He also recalled the late Karl Hess (1923-94), an aide to Senator Goldwater who later in life was an activist in the Libertarian Party of Virginia. (Hess sometimes gets credit for the famous line, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice … moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”)

“I remember Karl Hess as one of my father's key speechwriters,” Goldwater said. “He became a good friend of the family. He was somewhat eccentric, colorful, entertaining to be around.”

'Tea Party behaved'
Goldwater also offered some thoughts about the current state of the Republican Party, which just days before this interview had won control of the U.S. Senate and expanded its majority in the House of Representatives.

“The Republican Party is alive and well. I think we came together quite well in 2014,” he said.

“Even the Tea Party folks behaved themselves and, I think, their success was due to the fact that they pretty much stuck to their core values of less government, less taxes, less regulation, more personal freedom and responsibility, and a strong defense.”

Those, he added, “have always been the Republican Party's core values – my father's and Ronald Reagan's.”

Asked whether the new Republican-controlled Congress can deliver on its promises, Goldwater displayed a wry grin and said, “Probably not but we'll sure give them a chance.”

The complete Virginia Film Festival panel discussion featuring Goldwater, Humphrey, and Sabato can be seen on YouTube. It was recorded November 8, 2014, on the grounds of the University of Virginia.

SUGGESTED LINKS

Author David Lampo brings gay-rights message to conservative Republicans
Porn king Larry Flynt defends free speech in Charlottesville
Amity Shlaes discusses significance of Calvin Coolidge at Heritage Foundation
Attacks on free speech provoke author Jonathan Rauch to defend 'liberal science'
GOProud’s Jimmy LaSalvia talks about CPAC and gay conservatives

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/barry-goldwater-absolutely-was-a-libertarian-his-son-explains

Marking Independence Day with John Quincy Adams and Ronald Reagan

At the Reagan Library

Twenty-six years ago, during the twin celebrations of Independence Day and the re-dedication of the Statue of Liberty on the occasion of its centenary, President Ronald Reagan made a series of speeches about American history and American values.

On Saturday, July 5, 1986, in his pre-recorded weekly radio address, President Reagan mentioned two issues -- immigration and taxes -- that remain salient today (and one name that he probably could not have predicted would still be in the news nearly three decades later):

The immigrant story has been repeated millions of times, stories such as that of one man who passed through Ellis Island years ago. A 15-year-old Italian immigrant who spoke not a word of English. Little did he imagine that his son, Antonin Scalia, would be appointed to the highest court in the land, there to uphold and protect our Constitution, the guardian of all our freedoms. Just one of many stories that shows us that every time we swear in a new citizen, America is rededicating herself to the cause of human liberty.

In these last couple of weeks we have rededicated ourselves to liberty in other important ways, too. Recently, the Congress has passed two landmark pieces of legislation that I'm sure put a smile on the face of our Statue of Liberty. The first was our historic effort to reform our nation's tax code, to make it simpler and fairer, to bring tax rates down, and to give families a long-overdue break. Throughout human history, taxes have been one of the foremost ways that governments intrude on the rights of citizens. In fact, as we all learned in school, our democratic American Revolution began with a tax revolt. Our forefathers knew that if you bind up a man's economic life with taxes, tariffs, and regulations, you deprive him of some of his most basic civil rights. They have a wonderful phrase describing economic liberty in the Declaration of Independence. They call it "the pursuit of happiness." Well, with tax reform, we're going to make that pursuit a lot easier for all Americans.

The night before, speaking from the deck of the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy in New York Harbor on Independence Day, Reagan remembered two of his predecessors:

All through our history, our Presidents and leaders have spoken of national unity and warned us that the real obstacle to moving forward the boundaries of freedom, the only permanent danger to the hope that is America, comes from within. It's easy enough to dismiss this as a kind of familiar exhortation. Yet the truth is that even two of our greatest Founding Fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, once learned this lesson late in life. They'd worked so closely together in Philadelphia for independence. But once that was gained and a government was formed, something called partisan politics began to get in the way. After a bitter and divisive campaign, Jefferson defeated Adams for the Presidency in 1800. And the night before Jefferson's inauguration, Adams slipped away to Boston, disappointed, brokenhearted, and bitter.

For years their estrangement lasted. But then when both had retired, Jefferson at 68 to Monticello and Adams at 76 to Quincy, they began through their letters to speak again to each other. Letters that discussed almost every conceivable subject: gardening, horseback riding, even sneezing as a cure for hiccups; but other subjects as well: the loss of loved ones, the mystery of grief and sorrow, the importance of religion, and of course the last thoughts, the final hopes of two old men, two great patriarchs, for the country that they had helped to found and loved so deeply. "It carries me back," Jefferson wrote about correspondence with his cosigner of the Declaration of Independence, "to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man, his right to self-government. Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead threatening to overwhelm us and yet passing harmless . . . we rowed through the storm with heart and hand . . . ." It was their last gift to us, this lesson in brotherhood, in tolerance for each other, this insight into America's strength as a nation. And when both died on the same day within hours of each other, that date was July 4th, 50 years exactly after that first gift to us, the Declaration of Independence.

My fellow Americans, it falls to us to keep faith with them and all the great Americans of our past. Believe me, if there's one impression I carry with me after the privilege of holding for 5-1/2 years the office held by Adams and Jefferson and Lincoln, it is this: that the things that unite us -- America's past of which we're so proud, our hopes and aspirations for the future of the world and this much-loved country -- these things far outweigh what little divides us. And so tonight we reaffirm that Jew and gentile, we are one nation under God; that black and white, we are one nation indivisible; that Republican and Democrat, we are all Americans. Tonight, with heart and hand, through whatever trial and travail, we pledge ourselves to each other and to the cause of human freedom, the cause that has given light to this land and hope to the world.

That last sentence echoed the words of another president, John Quincy Adams, who as Secretary of State had addressed the U.S. House of Representatives on July 4, 1821. (It's hard to believe today, but Congress in those days did not go home for a district work period to mark Independence Day with their constituents.)

The second President Adams took this opportunity to define America's role in the world in words that should be taken to heart today. The United States, he said,

has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

Then he added these admonitions and warnings:

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

As we Americans celebrate our independence this week, we would do well to remember the words of Presidents Adams and Reagan.

(Cross-posted to Bearing Drift.)

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