Ahk! The should-have-been-obvious third reasons Libertarians will never have much power.

   I recently wrote about two reasons Libertarians will never have much political power. I forget a third.

Right-wing populism in America has always amounted to white identity politics, which is why the only notable libertarian-leaning politicians to generate real excitement among conservative voters have risen to prominence through alliances with racist and nativist movements. Ron Paul's racist newsletters were not incidental to his later success, and it comes as little surprise that a man styling himself a "Southern Avenger" numbers among Rand Paul's top aides.

   One of the reasons I find this to be true is because libertarian ideas in regards to topics such as charity sound a lot better in theory than in practice and the practice of these ideas benefit those who are more well-to-do and harm those who are not. As people of color tend to be more worse off than white people, libertarian ideas tend to benefit white people. It is no surprise, then, that white supremacist groups can be found to be strong supporters of libertarian-leaning politicians such as the Pauls. But as the white population shrinks, so does the potential voting base. Now, there could come a tipping point to where libertarian ideas will no longer be as advantageous to whites over persons of color, at which time libertarian ideas could become more appealing to persons of color. I suspect that point is well off in the future at this point.

And now a second reasons Libertarians will never have much power

   Just wanted to provide some quick thoughts on Libertarians. They're just so funny sometimes.

   The first reason they'll never have much power is because many insist on calling the purity police. To those Libertarians, Ron and Rand Paul are not "True" Libertarians. While I'll agree that neither man fits the mold of what an ideal Libertarian would look like (besides the fact that both are actually members of the Republican party, but they are Republicans who espouse Libertarian concepts), how do these Libertarians (who apparently believe they themselves are pure enough) think they'll ever have a successful political party if they won't accept people into the party for not being pure enough? That's going to limit membership (maybe this is why the Pauls are Republicans?) and, frankly, there is strength in numbers.

   And now just yesterday I came across another potential pitfall. A good number of Libertarians probably don't like giving their information out to groups in the name of privacy. Would they be willing to go against this ideology for the sake of the party? Maybe. But if not, that's going to limit the party's ability to raise money and recruit volunteers if Libertarians are unwilling to give the party their contact information.

Revisited: Should You Be Forced to Vote?

   Last night was my atheist social group's First Friday, a monthly social gathering held at someone's house — this time, mine! One of the many discussions involved a topic I just blogged about yesterday! (No, I was not the one to start the discussion.) That topic was about forcing people to vote.

   One of the points that was brought up is one I had considered while watching that video, but forgot about by the time I started writing the post. This point is that Australians, who are forced to vote (or face a penalty), at least have the option of "None of the Above." This is certainly an option that would need to be given if you were required to vote. It could also help reduce the impact of those uninformed voters if they were to choose that option in recognition of their own lack of knowledge. (But I would not expect all uninformed voters to do so.)

   Perhaps the best point made was one that I had not considered and that is the idea that if you force people to participate, it may make some of them want to become more informed. And that would be a good thing! It would certainly be better than the current state of things where we have Republicans trying to mislead voters to prevent them from voting.

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   As for another thought that came to me yesterday, I have to point out that more education does not actually work. I don't have my sources handy at the moment, but I seem to recall that, when it comes to those who deny human-made global warming, educated Republicans tend to deny it more and more passionately than less educated Republicans. There is a psychological concept — I don't know if it has a name — that I know some atheists have pointed out, often in regards to religious people who are smart. The concept is that, as one becomes smarter, they just come up with more clever ways to fool themselves. When you look at some global warming denialists, you can get suggestions such it the sun is in a cycle where it is burning hotter. My guess is that such suggestions are coming from the more educated folk. (Oh, and the political group that is biggest on denying global warming? Libertarians!)

   This leads me back to the update I added in that last post, where I talked about people having a skewed view of their "neighbor." Such as thinking homosexuality results from a mental disorder. Or that poor people are moochers. If people don't have an accurate model of the world, all the policy knowledge in the world ain't going to be worth squat.

   Oh, and one last thing...there was a part in that video where the presenter was saying we don't need to protect the disadvantaged from the advantaged because the advantaged aren't out to exploit their neighbor. If you haven't figured it out, let me be clear that this is bullshit; they do need protecting.

Learn Liberty - Should You Be Forced to Vote?

   So for some time I have subscribed to this Libertarian YouTube channel called Learn Liberty. I guess I like to torture myself once in a while... No, really, it's more that I want to "know my enemy" as there are a lot of atheists who hold Libertarian views. I've intended to comment on these every now and then, but I guess I've gotten lazy. Or there were more pertinent things on my mine. And maybe I'll go through the older videos to chip in my two cents...or maybe not. Anyway, for a quick "About" on the videos, they typically have some college professor from some various college talk about some specific topic for the entire video.

   Anyway, the latest video is about forcing people to vote. I guess I may be taking an interest in this one because I heard some coworkers talking about this very topic a few weeks ago. So, here's the video, with Prof. Jason Brennan from the University of Arizona, with my comments following below:

Penn Jillette when his is right.

   I wrote an earlier post where I was not pleased with a quote attributed to Penn Jillette. Now I have to turn the tables and post something from Penn that I find to be really great. Below is the video message he presented to the Reason Rally back in March. I'll highlight some of the great parts below.

It's about time we grabbed the moral high-ground. Many people who are religious—they are sometimes doing their good deeds: their charity, their kindness. Sometimes comes from reward and punishment—going toward reward and away from punishment. I can make the argument—and I have—that the only ones with true morality are us, the atheists. We are doing good because it is good and we are doing right because it is right and not for reward or punishment.

(snip)

We are the people who believe in this life. We are the people who believe in morality. If you are doing something for reward or punishment, you do not have morality. Morality must come from inside you—from your mind and from your heart. You can't say "Don't hit your sister and I'll give you an ice cream sandwhich;" "You must not hit your sister because it's wrong to hit your sister."

   My only thought is this is a bit contradictory to that quote from that earlier post. That quote implied getting "moral credit" and "great joy" from helping people. But aren't these rewards, especially the moral credit? The great joy is something internal, but could I not call that a self-reward? It would seem that either Penn did not say that quote or he is holding contradictory ideas. From my writings, it should be clear that the Penn in the video above is the Penn I agree with.

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UPDATE: I found the source of the quote from my earlier post. It appears to be a response to his interview with Piers Morgan back around August of last year, which is actually the interview from which I based some of my thoughts of Penn in that post, particularly with how he used anecdotal evidence during that interview. (I actually posted the first part of that interview on this blog. The video I embedded is apparently no longer available, but the links to other videos still work.)

Libertarians and Charity: A Follow-Up to the Follow-Up

   In my last post on this topic, I discussed what seemed to be liberal hypocrisy in regards to charity, but there was something that just wasn't setting quite right. It turns out to basically be two thing—local phenomenon and decline in giving with decline in need. If there is less of a need for charity, then it is not surprising that people might give less. If you then combine this idea with an idea that people will react more to their local communities as opposed to national needs, you may get a partial explanation of why liberals donate less.

   Take Mississippi, for example. It is generally a conservative state and is quite religious. Therefore we should expect the people of Mississippi to be quite charitable. But Mississippi also seems to have a lot of societal ills. I think they have a high poverty rate and I am quite sure they have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. So they have a great need for charity. Contrast this with Vermont, which is generally quite liberal. I think Vermont tends to rank fairly well as far as societal health goes. There is then less of a need for charity. So I'm not too worried if people are giving less in Vermont than in Mississippi. Actually, I would expect that!

   But, to be fair, this doesn't completely excuse the issue. There are things like cancer research (like I am helping donate to on the sidebar) that are pretty much a constant across the country. If people in Vermont have less of a local need, then they should probably be compensating that with larger donations to other needs like this. Or, as that article I had linked to last time addressed, liberals give less blood. There really isn't a good reason for this to be the case. So, there still seems to be some bit of hypocrisy, but it may be less than it appears when looking at it from a high level.

Libertarians and Charity: A Follow-Up

   In my last post, I mentioned Susan Jacoby speaking of some statistics on charity based on political alignment. Now, since it was said on a TV panel discussion, no source was given. So I went about doing a Google search to see what I might be able to find. And I found this article from four years ago written by George Will. There are a few interesting things to note in this article, some of which are surprising and others that are not.

• "The single biggest predictor of someone's altruism...is religion."
  
     This is not surprising. If people often go to a place that is asking for 10% of a person's income, potentially including threats of torture in an afterlife (or maybe just claims that they need the money to spread the "Good News" to prevent others from being tortured), then it's not surprising that some of those people will be quite giving. (And if a church doesn't use fear, they always have guilt.) If you don't deal with such an environment, then where is one to get constant reinforcement? Therefore it makes sense that liberal giving would be less. Like the article states, "the percentage of self-described Democrats who say they have 'no religion' has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s." Liberals such as myself have to be our own motivators, and it would appear we are failing at that.
  
     By the way, I should point out that Jacoby claimed that the religious give more to secular charities than do the secularists. So they are not just giving to church (which I don't count as particularly being "charitable"). This article does not address this point. Yet, I wonder how much of that money goes to religious charities that are disguised as secular. For example, if Focus on the Family is considered a charity (I don't know if it is), it would probably be considered "secular," yet many secularists know better. So I'd like to see some deeper investigation on that front. Though secularists still need to do better regardless!


• "The least charitable cohort is a relatively small one -- secular conservatives."
  
     This seems to line up with what Susan Jacoby said in that interview. (Interesting, too, is that George Will himself is part of this group.) It is something that does not personally surprise me, but when you consider this point and the next point together, there seems to be a disconnect.


• "People who reject the idea that 'government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality' give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition."
  
     This in itself isn't surprising. If you think private charity is the better way to go, then you'd better demonstrate your commitment to that idea, which is why I posed a challenge to Libertarians at the end of that last post. However, as I said before, there seems to be a disconnect with the previous point. It has been my impression of secular conservatives that they tend to be part of this group that rejects the idea of government having responsibility. So why are they so horrible at charity? Perhaps my impressions of secular conservatives are wrong; perhaps they are not as against this idea as I think.
  
     What would be nice to see is a breakdown of this group that rejects the idea of government responsibility between religious and secular conservatives. Heck, it may even be a good idea to know how many liberals are in this group. And it would also be very nice to know how many people consider themselves to be libertarians, instead of having a binary breakdown between conservative and liberal (that goes for the entire study). I hope I need not state that politics are more complex than this! (I myself score highly on the social questions on this quiz called the "World's Smallest Political Quiz.")

   The disappointing point about that last point is I would like to see that not be true. Much of the article is to point out liberal hypocrisy. It appears to unfortunately be true. As the article highlights, liberals should be donating to private charity until there are more government programs in place, as promoting such programs alone does nothing for those in need. There's not much else to say other than I am disappointed. Yet, I know one of the first places I need to start is with myself. Otherwise, when I complain about libertarians possibly being more talk than action, it's like the pot calling the kettle black.

Libertarians and Charity

   One area where libertarians (and a lot of conservatives can be included in this discussion as there tends to be a fair amount of overlap in this area) really upset me is in the area of charity. They often act like they are caring, compassionate people. However, their arguments tend to suggest otherwise. The general Libertarian position is that individual people should decide where to donate their money and that government should stay out of the process. An example to the right is from Penn Jillette (who I will refer to on a first-name basis, as that seems to be how he likes to be addressed). This particular statement is a bit more aggressive than typical Libertarian sentiments, but it should help give you an idea what such arguments are like. I'll go into Penn's particular argument later, but for now I'll cover the problems with the general arguments.

Sam Harris says (almost) everything I wanted to say eloquently!

(via pharyngula)

Apparently, Sam Harris has been taking some heat from his Libertarian fans from a post he made regarding the rich, and Harris recommended raising their taxes. I have been collecting notes for a post of my own on Libertarians and why their proposals won't work, but it seems Harris has covered many of the points I was planning to make.

Many of my critics imagine that they have no stake in the well-being of others. How could they possibly benefit from other people getting first-rate educations? How could they be harmed if the next generation is hurled into poverty and despair? Why should anyone care about other people’s children? It amazes me that such questions require answers.

This is something that I have encountered that bothers me everytime I see it. I once saw someone ask the question of why they should have to pay for other people's children to go to school when her and her husband were not planning to have kids. There are many examples of why they should, but the one I provided was that it was going to be other people's children taking care of her in a nursing home if and when she gets to that age. It's amazing how short-sighted people can be.

Why do we have laws in the first place? To prevent adults from behaving like dangerous children. All laws are coercive and take the following form: do this, and don’t do that, or else. Or else what? Or else men with guns will arrive at your door and take you away to prison. Yes, it would be wonderful if we did not need to be corralled and threatened in this way. And many uses of State power are both silly and harmful (the “war on drugs” being, perhaps, the ultimate instance). But the moment certain strictures are relaxed, people reliably go berserk. And we seem unable to motivate ourselves to make the kinds of investments we should make to create a future worth living in. Even the best of us tend to ignore some of the more obvious threats to our long term security.

(Bolded emphasis mine.) Libertarians tend to promote this idea that people have become dependent on government, taking away from their motivation to take care of themselves and making them lazy, with the implication being that if you get rid of government, people will magically become motivated, hard workers. It may be true that some people do become less motivated, but reality seems to be exaggerated by the Libertarians. Consider Ron Paul's comments on how we should get rid of FEMA and be like 1900. The reality is that 1900 is nothing to brag about. According to Wikipedia, the Galveston hurricane (to which Ron Paul was referring...and apparently they did not have a hurricane naming system yet) is cited as the "deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States," killing an estimated 8,000 people. Ron Paul, you can keep your 1900; I prefer living in the 21^st century! ***EDIT:*** In a slight defense of Ron Paul, I doubt there would have been much for warning or hurricane tracking systems back then. So, it's not quite fair to compare the impact of hurricanes of today to those back then, however, I still find that Ron Paul's policies would be a step in the wrong direction and would likely result in more disaster related deaths.

Or take Marco Rubio speaking about medicare and social security, claiming that these programs have "weakened our people." The reality is that it really hasn't. Again, there could certainly be people that have been "weakened," but these programs appear to do more good than harm. On a side note, Rubio claims that people had to no longer worry about saving for security because it "was the government's job." But, people do save for security! They are called payroll taxes. If he wants to bitch complain about government forcing people to save, he can do that, but claiming that people don't otherwise save is misleading. ***EDIT:*** I myself have a 401k in which I build up savings.

Many of us have been extraordinarily lucky—and we did not earn it. Many good people have been extraordinarily unlucky—and they did not deserve it. And yet I get the distinct sense that if I asked some of my readers why they weren’t born with club feet, or orphaned before the age of five, they would not hesitate to take credit for these accomplishments. There is a stunning lack of insight into the unfolding of human events that passes for moral and economic wisdom in some circles...

Many of the Libertarians I engage online seem to have this idea that people become wealthy because they are either smart, hard workers, good decision makers (which could be considered part of being smart), or--even better--a combination of the three. Harris's club foot example is exactly the type of ignorance these people exhibit. For example, those who claim their intelligence helped them out seem to have neither considered that they might be good learners nor any remorse for those with learning disabilities.

I have more to say on Libertarian ideas and how they are based on a world of fantasy, so keep an eye out for a future post.

One thing Harris said that I do want to address is this statement:

As someone who has written and spoken at length about how we might develop a truly “objective” morality, I am often told by followers of Rand that their beloved guru accomplished this task long ago. The result was Objectivism—a view that makes a religious fetish of selfishness and disposes of altruism and compassion as character flaws. If nothing else, this approach to ethics was a triumph of marketing, as Objectivism is basically autism rebranded.

I think it's a bit unfair to compare Objectivists to autism. My thought is that Harris was trying to make an analogy to the impared social behavior of autistic people, because that would be the result of selfishness. I could be wrong, but I do not believe Harris was trying to insult anyone with autism.