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The Importance of Free Speech to Human Progress – Article by Iain Murray

The Importance of Free Speech to Human Progress – Article by Iain Murray

The New Renaissance Hat
Iain Murray
January 10, 2015
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From Principia Mathematica to Charlie Hebdo

 

The massacre of 12 cartoonists and journalists at Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris this week should remind us to ask: Why is free speech so important?

It is more than an inalienable individual right; it is fundamental to human progress. That is why it is one of the most important institutions of liberty.

When we look at the history of the freedom of speech in the West, we see that early on it was tied up with the freedom of the press, which is why the terms are used interchangeably in American constitutional theory. Yet, for most of the West’s history, the idea of “publishing” was meaningless. Books were copied by hand, first by scribes hired by Roman nobles to copy books they liked, then by monks in medieval scriptoria, with the more ancient texts copied as practice for copying the more important religious texts. As a result, many texts were lost, with others surviving by mere chance.

Having assumed the role of guardian of learning, the medieval church was ill-disposed toward innovations that threatened its position. The suppression of early English versions of the Bible is a case in point. Information traveled slowly, impeding the progress of intellectual innovation.

The printing press changed all that, as it brought about the first series of real struggles over freedom of speech. Ideas could travel more quickly, and literacy exploded.

As people could finally read the Bible for themselves, Reformation movements grew all over Europe. Then they took to using the press to spread other ideas. In response, the church and its allies in positions of power took steps to restrain this new free press. In fact, early copyright law arose from efforts to regulate the production of printers.

It should not surprise us that early libertarians were often printers. “Freeborn John” Lilburne was first arrested for printing and circulating unlicensed books.

The great poet John Milton wrote perhaps the first great defense of free speech when the English republican Parliament reintroduced censorship via the Licensing Order of 1643 (censorship had effectively been abolished in 1640 along with the Star Chamber, which tried Lilburne). In his Areopagitica, Milton passionately demanded freedom of the press and tolerance of heterodox publications, saying, “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

The licensing order lapsed in 1694 as a result of the Glorious Revolution of 1685, which instituted a more liberal constitution in England and helped to inspire the American Revolution — and eventually the Bill of Rights and First Amendment. But the Areopagitica is still with us. Fittingly, the US Supreme Court cited it as an authority on the inherent value of false statements in the landmark case New York Times v. Sullivan:

Even a false statement may be deemed to make a valuable contribution to public debate, since it brings about “the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” Mill, On Liberty (Oxford: Blackwell, 1947), p. 15; see also Milton, Areopagitica, in Prose Works (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1959), vol. 2, p. 561.

The free press opened new communication channels for theoretical innovation. It is often noted that Sir Isaac Newton was born the day Galileo died. What enabled Newton to take Galileo’s experiments and turn them into modern physics was the printing press. Newton published Principia Mathematica in 1687, and revised it in 1713 and 1726. The book was published by the Royal Society, founded in Oxford in 1660, which essentially invented peer review (see this here fascinating series of videos on the society’s role in the invention of modern science). Newton’s book spread throughout Europe, which would not have been possible under earlier regimes where printing was tightly controlled.

Central to the principle of a free press is the right to be wrong — which enables peer review and criticism in the first place. It is also central to scientific and technological innovation and experimentation, and therefore also central to economic progress, which has led to the great explosion in human welfare we have seen over the last two centuries. Free speech allows more ideas to “have sex,” to use Matt Ridley’s phrase, and that is why societies that are frightened by the consequences of this ideological sexual revolution are those with the most severe censorship laws.

At this point, one might argue that it is absurd to compare a “blasphemous” cartoon to the Principia Mathematica. But that would be a mistake. As Stephen Law has written for the Center for Inquiry, the point of such cartoons is not to cause offense, but something far greater:

More often than not, the lampooning is done with intention of shattering, if only for a moment, the protective façade of reverence and deference that has been erected around some iconic figure or belief, so that we can all catch a glimpse of how things really are.

It is exactly that goal — to help us determine what actually is, rather than what is simply asserted — that free speech and free inquiry make possible. As an institution of liberty, free speech must be defended wherever it is attacked. (My colleague Hans Bader has written elsewhere about letting down our guard.) Those who seek to suppress free speech want to keep mankind mired in poverty and ignorance, subject to their own whims and beliefs. They cannot be allowed to succeed.

Iain Murray is vice president at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

This article was originally published by The Foundation for Economic Education.

Arguments Against Eminent Domain and Its Use for the Benefit of Private Parties (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Arguments Against Eminent Domain and Its Use for the Benefit of Private Parties (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 26, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2005 and published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  The essay earned over 8,300 page views on Associated Content/Yahoo! Voices, and I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
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~ G. Stolyarov II, July 26, 2014

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The power of eminent domain has had a lengthy history, first originating in the Middle Ages and becoming enshrined in British common law. It is included in the U.S. Constitution as a means of government appropriating private property if this appropriation serves a “public use.” However, under the 5th Amendment, the government is obligated to provide “just compensation” for any property thus taken, which is usually interpreted to mean that the government must pay the market value of the property to the owner from whom it is taken.

Recently, however, governments at all levels have begun to stretch these powers to encompass one private party’s land being taken for the benefit of another, especially if the other is a larger business that has the potential of bringing in greater tax revenues. This is a measure of questionable constitutionality, and even far more questionable morality. It is desirable to abolish such seizures of private land for the purposes of redistribution to other private entities, and to at least limit eminent domain powers to seizures that will only be directed toward benefiting government projects and infrastructure. That is, the power of eminent domain might still be invoked to build a public road or school, but not a shopping mall or apartment building. The arguments in favor of this restriction are overwhelming, even though it does not go as far as complete eminent domain opponents such as myself would like.

First, for somebody who values property rights, private property is an absolute, not to be contingent on “the public interest.” If the individual sees the benefits of keeping his property as outweighing those of selling it, he can either refuse to sell it or ask for more compensation. Anybody but the owner should be allowed to take the property only with the owner’s consent.

Often, current governments do not even give market value to “compensate” for seizures, but, even if they did, there are subjective values that owners associate with their property which are hard to quantify and which only the owners themselves can enumerate accurately. As the story of certain homeowners in the 2005 Supreme Court case of Kelo v. New London shows, some of them have built their dream homes out of places that were run-down when they first purchased them. And, after they had invested their lifetime’s work into those houses, the houses were condemned by the government. Surely, a coercive demand that they accept “market value” is not sufficient to compensate such a deeply personal investment.

Furthermore, “the public interest” is a collectivist notion, which ignores the fact that only individuals exist and that invoking “the public interest” in fact implies that the government should coercively back some private interests over others.

The policy of eminent domain has, recently, been used with blatantly power-hungry justifications. Business X brings in less tax money than Business Y might, so X must be demolished to give way to Y. Y is also a larger business that might create more jobs, so this justifies putting out of work those individuals who are currently employed by X. The flaw with this reasoning is that it views individuals as fungible, or substitutable for one another. It should not matter how many other individuals benefit from a government policy if it ruins the livelihood and property of even one innocent person. Individual rights are absolute.

Advocates of eminent-domain redistribution of property to private parties will attempt to state that the government can actually bring about “efficiency” through the use of eminent domain power to achieve “urban renewal.” However, economic theory from Adam Smith on has shown that the free market achieves any goal more efficiently than the government. A business that thrives because of government favors through eminent domain is not thriving because it functions better than others in market competition. As a matter of fact, that business might well not be favored by supply and demand, and has therefore not been able to acquire the land it seeks under a mode of free, voluntary market exchange. Therefore, its owners are seeking to gain what they have not earned by expropriating it from those who have earned it.

The kind of eminent domain supported by the Supreme Court in Kelo v. New London is pure legalized theft. It is time to recognize it as such.

 

Lesser of Two Evils: A Final Shot – Article by Charles N. Steele

Lesser of Two Evils: A Final Shot – Article by Charles N. Steele

The New Renaissance Hat
Charles N. Steele
October 26, 2012
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Mr. Stolyarov has responded to my twopart essay on Mitt Romney as a lesser of two evils.  Here I comment on his response .  I don’t want to rattle on endlessly, so this will be my final “shot” in the debate, unless Mr. Stolyarov asks for my response on specific questions.  I am grateful to him for the opportunity to discuss these issues in this forum.  I’ve found it useful, and hope others have as well.

Mr. Stolyarov’s part 1, “The Imperative of Libertarian Rejection of the Two-Party Trap,” is a reply to my part 1 “Is it Evil to Vote for a Lesser Evil?” in which I express doubt about his assertion that “in casting one’s vote” [one earns a] “share of moral responsibility in what would transpire if one’s candidate of choice (even half-hearted choice) gets elected.”

I’m suspicious of this “moral responsibility.” My piece explores whether someone who votes for a candidate has moral responsibility, and if so, what is the nature of that responsibility.  I take pains to keep it a general argument and avoid discussion of the 2012 election.  Unfortunately Mr. Stolyarov doesn’t really answer the questions I raise and instead addresses details of the current presidential candidates.  To the extent he does mention the moral responsibility of a voter, he simply asserts it.  At some points he asserts that a voter provides “moral sanction” in voting for a candidate, but this is something I directly challenged.  Elsewhere he claims to be a consequentialist, and that one bears responsibility only for contributing to actual harms.  I think this conflicts with his “moral sanction” argument.  It also fails to explain how a non-swing voter who votes for a winning candidate shares any moral responsibility at all, since his vote didn’t matter.  In short, I don’t think Mr. Stolyarov’s “Imperative” adequately addresses the philosophical issues I raised, and I remain skeptical of the “moral responsibility” one allegedly bears in voting for a lesser evil.

In part 2, “Why Mitt Romney Will Not Benefit Liberty,” Mr. Stolyarov really lets Mitt Romney have it (and does a good job of it).  We agree in our dislike for Romney.  I also share Mr. Stolyarov’s disgust at Romney’s unwillingness to attack Obama on important matters of principle.  But the question at hand isn’t “Is Romney bad?” but rather which candidate – Obama or Romney – is a lesser evil, or are they equally bad?  I gave four areas of fundamental importance in which Romney easily surpasses Obama, in my view.   I don’t think Mr. Stolyarov succeeds in showing that Romney and Obama are equivalent in these four areas.  Allow me to revisit them.

1. General Vision

Mr. Stolyarov discounts the differences between progressives and conservatives, and argues that conservative skepticism of government is a thing of the past.  This can’t be correct.  The Tea Party phenomenon is explicitly an anti-big-government phenomenon.  It was behind a crushing electoral blow to progressive and moderate Democrats and Republicans in 2010.  Regardless of any inconsistencies, confusions, or errors expressed by Tea Partiers, one can’t sensibly argue the movement isn’t exceedingly skeptical of government, often quite hostile to it.  Conversely, one can’t sensibly argue that progressives aren’t overwhelmingly enamored of ever more government solutions to problems in almost every aspect of life.  Mr. Stolyarov repeatedly refers to the Republican Party establishment.  It’s true that this “establishment” hasn’t welcomed the Tea Party, but the bulk of the support that exists for the GOP today is from people skeptical of big government, not people enamored of the Republican leadership.  To miss this is to miss one of the most important political developments of the last ten years.

Mr. Stolyarov missed my point about the “Peoples Rights Amendment” (PRA).  The PRA isn’t about campaign finance reform.  It is about ending all constitutional protections for all rights of any organization: a business firm, a non-profit organization, a church, a labor union, a political party, anything.  Among other things, it would mean that news organizations, publishers, internet service providers, YouTube, etc., would no longer be protected by any part of the Bill of Rights, and certainly not by the First Amendment.  Under PRA, Mr. Stolyarov will be free to stand on a soapbox in the city park and speak, but You Tube will have no legal protection if legislators decide to ban Stolyarov’s videos.  He’ll be free to publish The Rational Argumentator on a home printer, but his internet service provider will have no legal protection if legislators decide they disapprove of his essays.  Democrats have actually introduced this totalitarian nonsense in the House, with the endorsement of Nancy Pelosi; it’s not simply some pipe dream.  They are promoting similar proposals at the state level.  I cannot think of anything that Republicans are proposing that would so fundamentally change America’s political system to enable totalitarianism.  Regarding the examples Mr. Stolyarov provides (NSA, SOPA), I’m unaware of how Obama and Romney (or Democrats and Republicans) differ.  If Democrats aren’t demonstrably systematically superior, then it can hardly be said that these are relevant.

Regarding gun control, Mr. Stolyarov is simply misinformed.  The fact that no new gun-control legislation has been passed is beside the point.  The Obama administration has worked to undercut private firearm ownership, not through legislation but through regulation, subterfuge (“Fast and Furious,” for example), and international negotiations (which are on hold pending the outcome of the election). And the proposals for a renewed assault-weapons ban (AWB) are more draconian than the Clinton version, not less.  Proposed restrictions on ammunition sales, handgun ownership, semiautomatic weapons, etc., are more restrictive than anything we’ve previously suffered under, not less.  And Heller is not settled law, if Obama is able to appoint one more progressive to the Supreme Court.  Progressives would like to eliminate most privately owned firearms.  Their attacks on the Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground laws show that this hostility is directed at honest citizens and is not about crime prevention.

My examples suggest that progressives are seriously working to eliminate the Bill of Rights.  On the other hand, Mr. Stolyarov responds that he’s concerned about “Occupy” protesters being pepper-sprayed at UC Davis.  I’m uncertain what this event has to do with the Romney v. Obama choice, but he and I have very different definitions of “peaceful.”  My definition of peaceful does not include forcibly blocking public thoroughfares and occupying public spaces so that others cannot exercise their legitimate rights to use them.  It’s shameful that taxpayer money is now going to these “victims.”  But again, how does this indicate anything about the differences in the candidates or the issues I’ve raised?  I think it’s irrelevant.

2. Health-Care Reform

Mr. Stolyarov is probably correct that for Romney and the Republican leadership think of the political base primarily as a means for winning elections.  That’s exactly why Romney wouldn’t veto a PPACA repeal, were it presented to him.  It’s crazy to think he’d veto it against the will of everyone in the GOP and then “rely on political amnesia” to get him by in 2016.  He’d have nothing to gain, and everything to lose.

I didn’t discuss specifics of the PPACA, but I don’t believe the mandate is the worst part.  The mandate isn’t a giveaway to insurance companies.  Without a mandate, the requirement to sell insurance without regard for pre-existing conditions and without risk rating would trigger adverse selection that would eliminate private insurance almost overnight.  Other bad parts of the law include the Independent Payments Advisory Board (IPAB), a component that has the potential to do great harm to American health care.  But then, the PPACA is 2000-plus pages long; there’s lots of mischief in it.  (The Romneycare bill was only 86 pages.)  But this is all beside the point.  The President does not have a line-item veto, so if a Republican Congress repeals PPACA, Romney cannot pick and choose which pieces to preserve.  He’ll sign and we’ll be rid of it.  There’s no other way this can happen.

3. Supreme Court Appointments

Mr. Stolyarov sees a “clash of interpretations [legal philosophies] as too many steps removed from the outcome of a Presidential election. To be sure, the President may appoint Supreme Court justices, but that is all. How the justices subsequently rule is out of the President’s hands.”

It’s true but completely irrelevant that how justices rule is out of the president’s hands.  From a libertarian standpoint, progressive legal theories are worse than libertarian legal theories, obviously.  It’s also obvious to those who study the matter closely that Romney is far more likely to appoint justices sympathetic to libertarian theories than is Obama.  The two candidates are not even roughly similar in this regard.  This alone is sufficient to make Romney the lesser evil, and is a place where he might well do positive good.  Alternatively, if Obama appoints three Ginsburg clones, it will be a very dark day indeed.

4. Economic and Fiscal Issues

I’ll admit that this is the weakest part of my argument.  But still, on environmental regulation, Obama is clearly worse.  It even appears that EPA may have put new energy regulations on hold until after the election.  It’s very likely that an Obama victory will lead to much heavier regulation of one of the bright spots in our economy, the boom in hydrocarbon production.

On fiscal policy, neither candidate (and neither party) has seriously grappled with America’s looming sovereign-debt crisis.  It’s quite obvious, though, that Democrats would be much happier seeing government take a greater share of the economy in revenue than Republicans would – the recent battles over the debt ceiling are evidence of that.

Conclusion

I’ve made two very distinct lines of argument in this exchange.  Concerning the philosophical issues of a voter’s moral responsibility, I think Mr. Stolyarov has largely talked past my arguments.  In the end, I don’t think a voter should worry about “moral responsibility.”  My advice to a libertarian voter: study the principles, issues, and candidates carefully, and then vote (or abstain) according to whatever you think will do the most to further liberty.  Don’t waste any additional effort contemplating the moral responsibility you’ll allegedly bear.

Concerning whether Mitt Romney is the lesser evil, Mr. Stolyarov provides lengthy critique of Romney, a case for voting for a libertarian alternative such as Gary Johnson, and blistering scorn for the Republican leadership and their treatment of Ron Paul’s supporters.  In each case, he does so eloquently.  But these are tangential to the question at hand – is Mitt Romney the lesser of two evils?  I think that I’ve made a strong case that from a libertarian standpoint, Romney, bad as he is, is superior to Obama.  In the end, we’ll never know, of course.

Dr. Charles N. Steele is the Herman and Suzanne Dettwiler Chair in Economics and Associate Professor at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. His research interests include economics of transition and institutional change, economics of uncertainty, and health economics.  He received his Ph.D. from New York University in 1997, and has subsequently taught economics at the graduate and undergraduate levels in China, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the United States.  He has also worked as a private consultant in insurance design and review.

Dr. Steele also maintains a blog, Unforeseen Contingencies.

Romney v. Obama: Tweedledum and Tweedledee? – Steele’s Response to Stolyarov – Part 2 – Article by Charles N. Steele

Romney v. Obama: Tweedledum and Tweedledee? – Steele’s Response to Stolyarov – Part 2 – Article by Charles N. Steele

The New Renaissance Hat
Charles N. Steele
October 17, 2012
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In his article “Is Mitt Romney Truly a ‘Lesser Evil’?”, Gennady Stolyarov took issue with my contention that a Mitt Romney victory is preferable to another term for Barack Obama from a classical liberal standpoint.  In Part 1 I responded to Mr. Stolyarov’s arguments concerning the moral responsibility one might bear in supporting a bad candidate over a much worse candidate, a “lesser evil.”  Here I make a case that Romney and Obama certainly are not Tweedledum and Tweedledee: Mitt Romney is indeed a lesser evil compared with Barack Obama from a libertarian/classical liberal perspective.

I must emphasize at the outset that I am not arguing one should vote for Mr. Romney.  I am making a case that Romney is the lesser of the two major party evils, not that one must support him.  If in one’s judgment an abstention or perhaps a vote for another candidate, such as Gary Johnson, does more for liberty, then one should act accordingly.

However, I also think that our current political situation is quite precarious; if we confine our vision to the federal government and its policies, America is in an unusually dangerous position today, quite unlike anything I ever expected to see in my lifetime.  If current trends continue, I think there’s some not insignificant chance that the First and Second Amendments could soon have “dead letter” status – formally in effect but no longer valid nor enforced – and that the probability of this is much higher with a continuation of the Obama presidency.  I also think that America is on track for a fiscal and economic disaster unprecedented in modern history, and that the Romney-Ryan ticket is at least marginally superior to Obama-Biden in this regard.

I’ll address four areas in which I believe there are fundamental differences between Romney and Obama: 1. general vision, 2. health-care reform, 3. appointments to the Supreme Court, and 4. economic and fiscal issues.  I’ll close with a few qualifications that temper my argument.

1. General Vision:  This presidential election is not so much a choice between Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama as it is between two competing visions of the role of government.  Romney and Obama are both very poor standard bearers for this conflict of visions currently underway, but one would have to be oblivious to American politics of the past twelve years to miss the significance of this election.  There is, for a change, a real ideological difference.  On the one hand, there’s the progressive view that supposes the state is the fount from which all good things and all social advance flow (“You didn’t build that.”), and on the other, there’s the view that government is limited by the rights of the individual, and that most of civilization is built by free people acting in the market.

The progressive vision sees government intervention as the solution to every imaginable problem.  This was perhaps best stated recently in a Washington Post op-ed by E.J. Dionne.  There is no question that Obama and the Democratic Party represent the progressive-left view.  If they are sometimes loathe to admit it, it is simply because it is currently bad politics to do so – the Tea Party backlash was more than they’d bargained for.

Pitted against progressivism is the view that government must be restricted to certain limited functions.  American conservatives, for all their many and various flaws, do tend to understand this.  American voters outside the progressive/left camp certainly do, as the Tea Party arose out of anger over big government: government bailouts, exploding government debt, the general expansion of government in health care.  It was Ronald Reagan who observed that the “heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”  Whether one agrees or not, it is certainly true that conservatives are far more skeptical of government than are progressives.  Currently the Republican Party is the party of skepticism about government.

It would be a simple thing to expose the many cases of Republican hypocrisy on these issues – I often do so myself.  But let me ask this question – which party – Democrat or Republican – is more likely to propose legislation containing more and more interventions, programs, entitlements, and social engineering?  If the reader is genuinely uncertain (I doubt most are), read the respective platforms of the parties (here for Democrat  and here for Republican). The first platform contains proposal upon proposal for expanding the role of government; the latter refers repeatedly to specifics about restricting overweening government.  No one is bound by a platform, but the platforms do give the vision, and these visions are fundamentally different.

Does this matter?  For an example, consider how the two parties have responded to the Citizens United decision.  Republicans have applauded it on free speech grounds.  Conversely, Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic legislators have introduced in Congress a constitutional amendment, the “People’s Rights Amendment,” that would effectively eliminate the First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and press.  As George Will put it in Washington Post, “By proposing his amendment, McGovern helpfully illuminates the lengths to which some liberals want to go. So when next you hear histrionic warnings about tea party or other conservative ‘extremism,’ try to think of anything on the right comparable to McGovern’s proposed vandalism of the Bill of Rights.”  (Or, I might add, try to find anything in the Democrats’ platform even mentioning any threat to free speech from our government.  It certainly contains nothing even vaguely rivaling the Republican denunciation of speech codes, Fairness Doctrine, McCain-Feingold, and other restrictions of free speech.)

As another example, consider the right of the individual to keep and bear arms, and the protection of it by Second Amendment.  Republicans are supportive of this, while Democrats generally oppose it.  The Republican platform specifically defends the inherent individual right to keep and bear arms, applauds Heller, and explicitly opposes new gun controls, including the “Assault Weapons Ban.”  The Democrats relegate the right to “an American tradition” and imply it is created by the Second Amendment.  They then call for new gun controls and further restrictions on ownership.  If the Democrats should, at some point, manage to gain control of both houses of Congress and pass a new, more draconian “Assault Weapons Ban” or legislation to “close the gun show loophole” [i] as they promise, who is more likely to veto it – Romney or Obama?  For that matter, we already know that Obama has sought gun controls under the table by supporting U.N. negotiations for a treaty that would regulate and restrict private firearm ownership.  President Obama is more hostile to our rights to arms ownership and to self defense than any other president in history.  Romney’s record in Massachusetts was poor; he signed a state version of the AWB.  But unlike Obama, he has not argued in favor of banning all private ownership of handguns, all private ownership of semi-automatic weapons, civilian concealed carry permits, and outlawing self-defense.  As his base is generally very strongly opposed to an AWB, it is hard to believe he would betray them on this hot-button issue.

Again, it’s not that the Republicans are libertarian – they are far from it.  It is rather that the Democratic Party has gone so far to the left that they are the greater threat to liberty.  They would willingly destroy both the First and Second Amendments.  They’ve sponsored legislation to do it.  Without these two amendments it’s hard to see what checks at all we’d have on government.  It is the Democrats’ progressive vision that is the greater threat to liberty currently.  Romney might be a weak reed, but he’s at least on the side that opposes this progressive vision, and a President Romney would be beholden to his more conservative, anti-big government constituency.

2. Health-Care Reform:  Here’s a good application of my above argument.  The PPACA (a.k.a. Obamacare) is a terribly flawed approach to health-care reform.  It reduces, rather than increases, consumer choice.  It increases, rather than reduces, government interference in the health-care sector.  It will prove to be fiscally irresponsible and is likely to reduce the quality of health care.  If the Republicans manage to hold both houses of Congress, they will almost certainly repeal it.  (The Senate can do so even with a bare majority if Republicans are willing to end the filibuster, something legal scholars across the political spectrum have suggested is reasonable.)  A President Obama would surely veto a repeal.  A President Romney would sign it.

This would likely be the only chance we will have to get rid of this bad legislation, for the longer it stays in place, the more firmly it will be entrenched, with more special interests defending it.  On the other hand, if Republicans fail to repeal the bill, Romney would be far more likely to temper and slow the implementation of PPACA than Obama would.

Mr. Stolyarov has suggested Mitt Romney would veto a repeal because of similarities between the PPACA and the Massachusetts reform, but this makes little sense for two reasons.  First, the PPACA is much hated by the Republican base (for that matter the majority of Americans dislike it).  A repeal would be extremely popular.  It’s simply incredible to think that a President Romney would defy his party and practically 100% of his supporters in order to save Barack Obama’s hallmark program.  I can’t imagine anything else he could do that would make him more likely to lose the GOP nomination in 2016.

Second, it’s not clear that Romneycare and Obamacare really are the same thing, despite a similar basic framework.  The Massachusetts bill signed by Romney was different from that which was implemented.  Romney used his line item veto on a number of the more draconian parts of the bill.  The Democratic legislature overrode these vetoes, and the bill was implemented by a Democratic governor who further altered it.  Furthermore, at the time Romney signed the bill, the situation in Massachusetts insurance markets was far worse than perhaps anywhere else in the United States.  In this context, Romneycare – at least Romney’s version of it – was arguably an improvement over the status quo in Massachusetts.  Thus when Romney argues that the reform might have been right for Massachusetts but not for America in general, he’s not necessarily being disingenuous.  In short, it’s hard to believe that Romney is not key to any chance of repealing the PPACA and not superior to Obama on health-care reform.

3. Supreme Court Appointments: The next president will likely make as many as three appointments to the Supreme Court.  Whoever is president in the next four years will very likely have the chance to change fundamentally the makeup of the Supreme Court.  This might be the single most important reason for preferring Romney to Obama.

Obama and his party are closely associated with the new “democratic constitutionalism” movement in legal theory.  This movement seeks to “take back” the Constitution from “conservatives” and make it once again a “living” document, i.e. one without fixed meaning, permitting progressive politicians and judges to interpret it however they wish to favor their political agendas.  One common doctrine in this thinking is that the distinction between negative rights and “positive” rights is essentially meaningless, and one person’s “right” (to health care, housing, and whatnot) creates a similar obligation on others to provide it.  It’s unclear to me what sort of society would result from consistent application of this doctrine that replaces genuine rights with entitlements, but it would not be a free society, nor would it have a functioning economy.

Conversely, there’s also been a new interest in federalism in legal thought (it’s to this that the democratic constitutionalists are reacting) which favors strict Constitutional interpretation, separation of powers, strict limits on governmental powers, and the idea that individual rights are imprescriptable, rather than gifts from the state.  The movement has both conservative and libertarian aspects, and is in many respects libertarian.  Needless to say, Republicans are more closely associated with this movement than are Democrats.

If Obama selects nominees for the Supreme Court, it is likely that we’ll have justices who are in line with “democratic constitutionalism,” and with the notion that our Constititutional rights should not be considered “absolute” sense, but rather subject to international norms.  Romney is unlikely to draw from this crowd, and far more likely to draw from judges with at least some sympathy for the new federalism.

Ilya Somin of Volokh Conspiracy is worth quoting at length on this issue: “Republican judges are far from uniformly good on libertarian issues. But the Democratic ones are overwhelmingly bad. Moreover, cases such as Kelo and the individual mandate decision have sensitized conservatives to the importance of appointing judges committed to federalism and property rights. That reduces the chance that future GOP nominees will waffle on these issues, as some past ones have.”

“[Also] the younger generation of conservative jurists and legal scholars have been significantly influenced by libertarian thought on many issues. This is far less true of their liberal equivalents. Whether you choose to blame liberals for this situation or libertarians, it’s a crucial point. Other things equal, a party’s judicial nominees tend to reflect the dominant schools of thought among its legal elites.”

On this issue, it’s simply absurd to imagine that Obama and Romney are equal from a libertarian standpoint.  They are not.  Obama is far, far worse.

4. Economic and Fiscal Issues: On economic issues, neither Romney nor Obama is very good from a free market perspective.  But they are not equally bad.  Obama has a much stronger preference for activist regulation, including environmental regulations, health care regulations, labor regulations, and financial regulation.  Obama also is more likely to favor targeted subsidies to special interests – green energy for example.  Conversely, Romney is more likely to rein in regulatory agencies such as EPA, and less likely to favor extensive regulation.  Mr. Stolyarov suggests that Romney is anti-entrepreneur in practice, but it is small entrepreneurs who are most hurt by regulation.  Large established firms have teams of lawyers and accountants and frequently can benefit from gaming the rules; in practice, Obama is a greater threat to entrepreneurship.

On fiscal issues, I think Romney is at least marginally better than Obama.  Neither has any real plan to actually reduce spending.  But Romney and Ryan have been willing to put forward the idea that entitlement programs as they exist are unsustainable and must be radically restructured.  Obama assures us this won’t happen.  Yet it will.  Our entitlement programs are unsustainable and will be cut – it is simply a matter of whether we plan to make these cuts now, rationally, in such a way as to minimize economic disruption, or whether we wait until economic crisis forces the cuts, resulting in economic shock and great disruption.  On this matter I give a slight edge to Romney… although if Obama is reelected and then begins following a more “Republicanlike” path, it would not shock me – the unsustainability of entitlements is not in dispute, except in campaign rhetoric.

On taxation, the fiscal crisis will almost certainly lead anyone in office to seek more revenues.  Obama has stated a clear preference for increases in marginal rates on higher income earners, higher corporate taxes, and an increasing number of tax breaks, this last for purposes of social engineering (a.k.a. buying votes).  Romney has endorsed a reduction in marginal rates and a broadening on the base by eliminating deductions and exemptions.  The latter approach reduces the economic distortions of taxation and also returns it to the purpose of collecting revenue, rather than shaping citizens’ behavior to match politicians’ goals.  Again, Romney is preferable to Obama on this issue.  I fear it might already be too late for the United States to avert a sovereign debt crisis, and the record of politicians from both parties of fiscal responsibility is dismal.  But the approach Romney has laid out it preferable to Obama’s.

So there it is.  I am not a fan of Romney, nor of the Republican Party in general.  But after looking at these four areas, I think it’s clear that Romney is certainly the lesser of two evils compared to another four years of Barack Obama.  It should also be clear why I think the current political situation is dangerous.  Eight years of Bush ’43 followed by four years of Obama have empowered the federal government and put us well on the road to an authoritarian “soft despotism.”  If current political trends are not checked by some countering force, the near and medium future look rather bleak.  If a Romney victory would simply slow the trend and thus buy time for countering forces to take effect, that would make Romney the lesser of two evils.  With either candidate, the immediate political future will be a mess at best, but the mess will be much worse with Obama.

I’ll close with three caveats.  First, unless one votes in a swing district in a swing state, none of this matters anyway since one’s vote does not matter.  Second, it’s been observed that sometimes a politician from political party A finds it easier to pursue party B’s platform than politicians from party B do, because he faces little opposition from within his own party when he does.  Perhaps a second-term Obama will do the opposite of what I suggest above.  I have little reason to believe he would, but cannot rule it out.  The same might occur with Romney, although I suspect his interest in a second term precludes this.  Finally, Mr. Stolyarov notes that a vote for Gary Johnson “could be seen as a social statement, rather than a purely electoral one,” and signal increasing support for libertarian ideas.  In Part 1 I suggested that perhaps there is some merit in Mr. Stolyarov’s “strategic argument,” that voting for a third-party candidate who proves to be a spoiler might send a message to political parties; his “social statement” argument further strengthens this case.  (It is not clear, by the way, whose voters Gary Johnson “steals;” I know one erstwhile Obama supporter who is voting for Johnson as the only anti-war candidate.  I understand some polls suggest this phenomenon may cost Obama Nevada.)  Particularly given the shameful way the GOP treated Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, and its more libertarian members, it certainly deserves a comeuppance.  However, this seems to me an issue separate from whether Mitt Romney is the lesser evil.

I could say more, but this is sufficient.  I thank Mr. Stolyarov for the opportunity to make my case, and look forward to his responses.


[i] In fact, there is no such thing as a “gun show loophole.”  Firearms sales at gun shows are covered by the identical laws that cover sales elsewhere, including background checks for dealer sales.  “Closing the loophole” is progressive-speak for making it illegal for citizens to buy, sell, or otherwise trade firearms with each other; only federally licensed gun dealers would have this right.

Dr. Charles N. Steele is the Herman and Suzanne Dettwiler Chair in Economics and Associate Professor at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. His research interests include economics of transition and institutional change, economics of uncertainty, and health economics.  He received his Ph.D. from New York University in 1997, and has subsequently taught economics at the graduate and undergraduate levels in China, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the United States.  He has also worked as a private consultant in insurance design and review.

Dr. Steele also maintains a blog, Unforeseen Contingencies.

Is Mitt Romney Truly a “Lesser Evil”? – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Is Mitt Romney Truly a “Lesser Evil”? – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
September 6, 2012
******************************

Here, I respond to Dr. Charles Steele’s arguments that Mitt Romney is “clearly the lesser [evil]” when compared to Barack Obama. I hope to address each particular point made by Dr. Steele, but will first preface my remark by noting that even a true incrementally lesser evil is still evil and does not warrant one’s support. One key consideration in casting one’s vote is one’s share of moral responsibility in what would transpire if one’s candidate of choice (even half-hearted choice) gets elected. It may therefore be justified to vote for an imperfect candidate who could do some incremental good, but not for a candidate who would commit incremental evil – in the sense of reducing liberty compared to the situation that existed prior to his election. There is no doubt in my mind that Mitt Romney would commit numerous incremental evils – and there is no justification for supporting him in any way, even if his transgressions could be predicted with certainty to be less severe than Obama’s.

Dr. Steele writes: “1) If the GOP wins both houses of Congress and repeals Obamacare, Romney would sign. Obama never would.

I am not so sure that Romney would sign any such repeal – and I suspect that he would probably convince Congress to quietly smother the entire repeal effort behind the scenes. After all, the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) is modeled directly after the 2006 Massachusetts healthcare reform (“Romneycare”) – both ultimately devised by one, Jonathan Gruber – an economist who has used his training for ill and a prime example for the rest of us economists of what could happen if one is not careful about the direction of one’s influence. Romney has shown in the past to be utterly unprincipled, willing to take (and subsequently abandon) any position that would score him political points, depending on the attitudinal currents of the moment. And neither he nor Paul Ryan have any compunctions about uttering overt lies to score political points. How many of those lies might be in the form of promises regarding what they would do if elected?

Dr. Steele writes: “The next President will likely pick 2 or more new judges for SCOTUS. Obama is certain to pick anti Second Amendment judges who will reverse Heller and do other mischief. GOP nominees will tend to be noticeably better (although not perfect).”

Supreme Court justices rather frequently tend to depart from expectations after their appointment (witness Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts, among many other recent examples). Thus, the political party of the appointing President is no clear indicator of how a justice might subsequently vote. Furthermore, in some recent cases the “conservative” bloc of the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of gross infringements of civil liberties – upholding, for instance, the right of police to strip-search anyone taken to a jail, irrespective of whether they pose any material risk or whether they are even accused of a crime (see Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, which was decided by the “conservative” bloc plus Anthony Kennedy in April 2012). Do I want the Supreme Court to restrict people’s ability to own guns, or their ability to wear clothes? Neither! This is why I will not give my moral sanction to a candidate who would appoint justices who might make such heinous decisions.

Dr. Steele writes: “Obama and the democrats are overtly anti-entrepreneur & anti-business (despite their convention rhetoric). Romney is not.”

I think they both are anti-entrepreneur in practice. Romney is, in essence, a mercantilist and supporter of the anti-free-market “crony capitalism” – the sort that clamors for bailouts for the most politically connected “iconic” firms, which then use the political protection to defraud consumers (as the large banks have done since 2008, and before) and gain an artificial advantage over smaller, more innovative, less political competitors. Romney has largely favored the bailouts of 2008 and can be expected to continue the policy of insulating a chosen oligarchy of corporations (the ones with Republican connections and extensive lobbying operations) from the rigors of market competition.

Dr. Steele writes: “Paul Ryan is one of the very few politicians to talk realistically about our impending sovereign debt crisis and the need to genuinely cut…again, not perfect, but far better than Obama/Biden’s endless expansion of the welfare state.”

Yet, as his convention speech illustrates, Paul Ryan has no qualms about butchering the facts to win appeal in the eyes of certain Republican constituents. Even when the stories he tells may have didactic purposes with which I agree, I do not endorse the distortion of facts to achieve those purposes. It may be that Paul Ryan’s rhetoric is simply a device to appeal to the libertarian and libertarian-leaning elements that are still open to the Republican Party – an attempt to repair the vast reputational damage done by the RNC’s attempts to shut out Ron Paul supporters during the nominating season.  But if Paul Ryan can lie about the facts, he can surely also lie about his motives – and his rhetoric may, too, change rapidly if and when he secures office and does not need to care about libertarian support anymore.

My “Obomney 2012” video gives numerous examples to demonstrate that the choice between Romney and Obama is not much of a choice at all. Speaking in terms of the policies they support, a vote for Romney is a vote for Obama – and vice versa.

In another comment, Dr. Steele writes, “I look at the election as a chance to minimize damage. IMO Obama and the democrats are currently a much greater threat than the GOP.” And yet a single person cannot ultimately tilt the outcome of an election – especially given the Electoral College – but a single person can send a message by refusing to play along with the two-party system. If enough of us begin to think this way, then the libertarian voters will become a force to reckon with, a credible threat to the two main parties that unsatisfactory candidates will be disfavored no matter what. As an added bonus, if enough people in general begin to vote based purely on their conscience, then the whole “lesser of two evils” trap would disappear, the two major parties would need to rapidly evolve or would disintegrate, and government could become truly representative.

Obama will most likely win in 2012 anyway, because nobody truly likes Mitt Romney (except perhaps Romney himself – but then there is the question of which version of him he prefers). If one’s right to vote is to mean something this time around, that meaning can be found in the expression of one’s true highest preference (based purely on policy considerations) – and also in the steadfast refusal to accept the vicious two-party dynamic that has brought us the current massive fiscal, monetary, and civil-liberties abuses. I do ultimately agree with Dr. Steele that “real progress in expanding liberty will come from economic, technological and social processes, NOT from electoral processes. If elections and political processes do anything in this regard, it will be simply to respond to and formalize advances made by civil society.” But if this is the case, then there is no point supporting anything other than the very best available option in any election. That course of action could even be seen as a social statement, rather than a purely electoral one, and could signal the increased prevalence of certain attitudes to others in the general population.