Llosa's "Confessions of a Liberal"

After I posted the article about Mario Vargas Llosa being a libertarian one reader very passionately disputed that. The dispute posted did not actually offer any evidence that Llosa was not a libertarian but merely accused me of imposing American labels on other parts of the world. Having actually lived in both hemispheres, five countries and four continents, I am rather aware of how words are used. For instance, in much of the world if you say you are liberal the term implies you are libertarian in your outlook. The same is not true in the United States.

In the US many genuine liberals use modifiers to distinguish themselves from the illiberal socialists who have dishonestly taken the label "liberal" to apply it to themselves. These genuine liberals may used modifiers such as I just did, "genuine," or others like "classical," or "old." When Ludwig von Mises wrote his defense of libertarian thinking in 1922 he called it Liberalism, When it was republished in the 1980s a subtitle was added, "In the Classical Tradition," to distinguish it from the pretend liberals on the radical Left. The famed libertarian Milton Friedman often referred to himself as a liberal. The libertarianish ACT Party, in New Zealand, has as its subtitle, "The Liberal Party."

I found that in places in Europe the use of the word libertarian had similar problems. When I was in Paris for the bicentennial, in 1989, I took some time out to meet with Pastor Joseph Duce at his church. Duce was an outspoken advocate for gay equality and did a lot of counseling on sexual matters. It was widely believed that some very senior government officials had sought him out on such matters, which may be the motive for his murder at the hands of mysterious "police" agents. Duce heard I was at a libertarian conference and told me libertarians didn't want him on the radio because he was a minister. I was baffled. The more we talked the more I pieced together. He used the word to describe far Left anarchists. When I said the term had another meaning in the US and explained it to him he was fascinated and called his church staff in to listen to the discourse. He was quite taken by the ideas. Not long after that visit uniformed police, with badges and ID showed up at his home and "escorted" him to the police station. He disappeared. Years later his body was discovered in a wooded area.

So, it is very true that the same word is used in different ways, in different places, at different times. So what did Llosa mean by the term "liberal?" Llosa, lucky for us has not be reticent to describe his beliefs. In one interview he said that he got interested in "liberalism" and then said that the branch of liberalism to which he referred was "libertarianism." He capped that off with the comment: "That's what I am."

When the far Left attacked him as " neo-liberal" he ridiculed the label. He said he was not a neo anything, just a liberal, and he meant in the same free market sense as Milton Friedman, who he admired greatly. That Llosa means libertarian in the same sense as it is used in the United States is absolutely clear. He gave a talk, Confessions of a Liberal, where he outlined his views.

He supports depoliticized, or free, markets. He wants separation of church and state, private property to be respected, supports legalized abortion, and wants gay marriage. His "liberalism" would be called libertarianism in the United States. His support for an economy free of political manipulation distinguishes himself quite clearly from his the socialist/progressive Left. He has, in fact, changed from being a socialist to being a critic of socialism. But he is NO conservative either. He doesn't assert a belief in a god, doesn't hate gay people, and certainly is not fearful of Hispanic immigrants. He does not hold to the conservative social agenda. Llosa's politics dispute socialism and conservatism. He wants freedom in both the economic sphere and the social sphere. That is the essence of libertarianism.

In 1988 Llosa penned the foreword to one of the the most important libertarian works in human history, at least in my estimation: The Other Path, by fellow Peruvian Hernado de Soto. In the foreword Llosa makes clear his commitment to depoliticized markets and praises the black markets of Latin America as reasonable response to the mercantalist policies of the governments. Llosa made the same points that I have made in this blog—that elites use political regulation to redistribute wealth and rights away from the poor to themselves. He wrote:

"The path taken by the black-marketeers—the poor—is not the reinforcement and magnification of the state but a radical pruning and reduction of it. They do not want planned, regimented collectivization by monolithic governments; rather, they want the individual, private initiative and enterprise to be responsible for leading the battle against underdevelopment and poverty.

Allow me to reprint some excerpts from his speech "Confessions of a Liberal." You will note that Llosa directly addresses the differing use of the terms that I discuss at the beginning.


"Here in the United States, and in the Anglo-Saxon world in general, the term "liberal" has leftist connotations and is sometimes associated with being a socialist and a radical. On the other hand, in Latin America and Spain, where the word was coined in the 19th Century to describe the rebels who fought against the Napoleonic occupation, they call me a liberal--or, worse yet, a neo-liberal--to exorcize or discredit me, because the political perversion of our semantics has transformed the original meaning of the term—a lover of liberty, a person who rises up against oppression--to signify conservative or reactionary, that is, something which, when it comes from the mouth of a progressive, means to be an accomplice to all the exploitation and injustices befalling the world's poor."


"With regard to religion, gay marriage, abortion and such, liberals like me, who are agnostics as well as supporters of the separation between church and state and defenders of the decriminalization of abortion and gay marriage, are sometimes harshly criticized by other liberals who have opposite views on these issues."

"Thus, the liberal I aspire to be considers freedom a core value. Thanks to this freedom, humanity has been able to journey from the primitive cave to the stars and the information revolution, to progress from forms of collectivist and despotic association to representative democracy. The foundations of liberty are private property and the rule of law; this system guarantees the fewest possible forms of injustice, produces the greatest material and cultural progress, most effectively stems violence and provides the greatest respect for human rights. According to this concept of liberalism, freedom is a single, unified concept. Political and economic liberties are as inseparable as the two sides of a medal. Because freedom has not been understood as such in Latin America, the region has had many failed attempts at democratic rule. Either because the democracies that began emerging after the dictatorships respected political freedom but rejected economic liberty, which inevitably produced more poverty, inefficiency and corruption, or because they installed authoritarian governments convinced that only a firm hand and a repressive regime could guarantee the functioning of the free market. This is a dangerous fallacy. It has never been so. This explains why all the so-called "free market" Latin American dictatorships have failed. No free economy functions without an independent, efficient justice system and no reforms are successful if they are implemented without control and the criticism that only democracy permits. Those who believed that General Pinochet was the exception to the rule because his regime enjoyed economic success have now discovered, with the revelations of murder and torture, secret accounts and millions of dollars abroad, that the Chilean dictator, like all of his Latin American counterparts, was a murderer and a thief.

Political democracy and the free market are foundations of a liberal position. But, thus formulated, these two expressions have an abstract, algebraic quality that dehumanizes and removes them from the experience of the common people. Liberalism is much, much more than that. Basically, it is tolerance and respect for others, and especially for those who think differently from ourselves, who practice other customs and worship another god or who are non-believers. By agreeing to live with those who are different, human beings took the most extraordinary step on the road to civilization. It was an attitude or willingness that preceded democracy and made it possible, contributing more than any scientific discovery or philosophical system to counter violence and calm the instinct to control and kill in human relations. It is also what awakened that natural lack of trust in power, in all powers, which is something of a second nature to us liberals."

"Defending the individual is the natural consequence of believing in freedom as an individual and social value par excellence because within a society, freedom is measured by the level of autonomy citizens enjoy to organize their lives and work toward their goals without unjust interference, that is, to strive for "negative freedom," as Isaiah Berlin called it in his celebrated essay. Collectivism was inevitable during the dawn of history, when the individual was simply part of the tribe and depended on the entire society for survival, but began to decline as material and intellectual progress enabled man to dominate nature, overcome the fear of thunder, the beast, the unknown and the other--he who had a different color skin, another language and other customs. But collectivism has survived throughout history in those doctrines and ideologies that place the supreme value of an individual on his belonging to a specific group (a race, social class, religion or nation). All of these collectivist doctrines--Nazism, fascism, religious fanaticism and communism--are the natural enemies of freedom and the bitter adversaries of liberals. In every age, that atavistic defect, collectivism, has reared its ugly head to threaten civilization and throw us back to the age of barbarism. Yesterday it was called fascism and communism; today it is known as nationalism and religious fundamentalism.

A great liberal thinker, Ludwig von Mises, was always opposed to the existence of liberal parties because he felt that these political groups, by attempting to monopolize liberalism, ended up denaturalizing it, pigeonholing it, forcing it into the narrow molds of party power struggles. Instead, he believed that the liberal philosophy should be a general culture shared with all the political currents and movements co-existing in an open society supportive of democracy, a school of thought to nourish social Christians, radicals, social democrats, conservatives and democratic socialists alike."

"Of course, I certainly do not like everything that occurs in the United States. For example, I lament the fact that many states still apply the aberration that is the death penalty, as well as several other things, such as the fact that repression takes priority over persuasion in the war on drugs, despite the lessons of Prohibition. But after completing these additions and subtractions, I believe that the United States has the most open, functional democracy in the world and the one with the greatest capacity for self-criticism, which enables it to renew and update itself more quickly in response to the challenges and needs of changing historical circumstances. It is a democracy which I admire for what Professor Samuel Huntington fears: that formidable mixture of races, cultures, traditions and customs, which have succeeded in co-existing without killing each other, thanks to that equality before the law and the flexibility of the system that makes room for diversity at its core, within the common denominator of respect for the law and for others."

"In my opinion, the presence in the United States of almost 40 million people of Latin American heritage does not threaten the social cohesion or integrity of the country. To the contrary, it bolsters the nation by contributing a cultural and vital current of great energy in which the family is sacred. With its desire for progress, capacity for work and aspirations for success, this Latin American influence will greatly benefit the open society. Without denouncing its origins, this community is integrating with loyalty and affection into its new country and forging strong ties between the two Americas. This is something to which I can attest almost firsthand. When my parents were no longer young, they became two of those millions of Latin Americans who immigrated to the United States in search of opportunities their countries did not offer. They lived in Los Angeles for almost 25 years, earning a living with their hands, something they never had to do in Peru. My mother was employed for many years as a factory worker in a garment factory full of Mexicans and Central Americans, with whom she made many excellent friends. When my father died, I thought my mother would return to Peru, as he had requested. But she decided to stay here, living alone and even requesting and obtaining U.S. citizenship, something my father never wanted to do. Later, when the pains of old age forced her to return to her native land, she always recalled the United States, her second country, with pride and gratitude. For her there was never anything incompatible about considering herself both Peruvian and American; there was no hint of conflicting loyalties.

Perhaps this memory is something more than a filial evocation. Perhaps we can see a glimpse of the future in this example. We dream, as novelists tend to do: a world stripped of fanatics, terrorists and dictators, a world of different cultures, races, creeds and traditions, co-existing in peace thanks to the culture of freedom, in which borders have become bridges that men and women can cross in pursuit of their goals with no other obstacle than their supreme free will.

Then it will not be necessary to talk about freedom because it will be the air that we breathe and because we will all truly be free. Ludwig von Mises' ideal of a universal culture infused with respect for the law and human rights will have become a reality."

I have mentioned three clear, explicitly political essays that Llosa wrote. They are the afterword that appeared in The Liberal Tide, the foreword that appeared in de Soto's The Other Path, and Confessions of a Liberal. All three essays, are defenses of a libertarian point of view. What I especially appreciate is that Llosa spoke truth to power. His essay, Confessions of a Liberal, was presented to the conservative American Enterprise Institute. That is the speech were he said he was an agnostic, supported separation of church and state, supported Hispanic immigration to America, was in favor of legalized abortion and gay marriage and opposed the war on drugs. Yet the talk was also a defense of the free market. This is classic, and classy, libertarianism. Llosa tells conservative opponents of liberty the same thing he tells Progressive opponents of liberty.

Libertarian wins Nobel Prize in literature.

The great Peruvian novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, won the Nobel Prize in literature.

Llosa began his career as a Marxist and was originally a supporter of Castro's revolution in Cuba. But over the years Llosa has become progressively more and more libertarian.

When Peru attempted to nationalize the financial system in 1987 Llosa led protests, drawing as many as 120,000 people to his rallies. He later launched a campaign for the presidency. After the first round of voting Llosa was in the lead but forced into a run of with Alberto Fujimora. Fujimora had the support of the Far Left as well as various evangelical churches and organizations who united forces in order to stop the common enemy of classical liberalism.

Facing constant death threats from the radical Left Llosa left Peru. Llosa's novels exposed authoritarianism and defended the individual. And it is for this that he was awarded the prize: "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat." While LLosa continues to write fiction he is president of the Fundaction Internacional para la Libertad. His son, Alvario Vargas Llosa is a libertarian writer living in the United States

Llosa wrote an essay, in response to attacks from the socialist Left that he was a "neo-liberal." In that he described how many Latin American Leftists, such as himself, "have evolved from being bitter enemies of economic liberty to embracing the wise confession of Vaclav Havel: 'Though my heart may be left of center, I have always known that the only economic system that works is a market economy... This the only natural economy, the only kind that makes sense, the only one that can lead to prosperity, because it is the only one that reflects the nature of life itself.'"

In that essay Llosa wrote:

The present battle is perhaps less arduous for [classical] liberals than the one that our teachers fought. In that battle, central planners, police states, single-party regimes, and state-controlled economies had on their side an empire that was armed to the teeth, as well as formidable public relations campaign, conducted in the heart of democracy by a fifty column of intellectuals seduced by socialist ideas. Today, the battle that we must join is not against great totalitarian thinkers like Marx, or intelligent social democrats like John Maynard Keynes, but, rather, against stereotypes and caricatures that attempto to introduce doubt and confusion in the democratic camp; hence the multiple offensive launched from various trenches against the monster nicnamed neoliberalism.

Llosa said that classical liberals must realize that "we are working toward an attainable goal. The idea of a world united around a culture of liberty is not a utopia but a beautiful and achievable reality that justifies our efforts."

Llosa himself says he was completely surprised by the award. Llosa long believed that his libertarian sentiments would exclude him from possible winning. As he joked: "I have taken all the precautions necessary for them never to give it to me." One bookie in England, who takes bets on such things said they would be sending Llosa a "crate of champaign" "because he's helped us dodge a massive payout." Llosa was an outsider pegged with a 25-1 chance of winning. Peru's president, Alan Garcia, said: "This is a great day, because the world has recognized the visionary intelligence of Mario Vargas Llosa and his libertarian and democratic ideals." Llosa himself said in an interview that "I became very enthusiastic with the branch of liberalism which is libertarian, so this is what I am."

Llosa's full essay in included in The Liberal Tide: From Tyranny to Liberty, which is well worth purchasing. Those who insist on using Amazon may purchase the book for $11.95 here. Those who wish to buy it directly for $11.95, given the full profit to a libertarian organization instead of giving 20% to Amazon, may order a copy by calling 480-684-2651.

The Coming Era of Liberaltarianism.

Lately there has been a lot of controversy over the liberaltarian moniker. It is not a term I use, nor is it one I find useful. I think I understand the reason it exists—to draw attention to the vast areas of common ground between classical liberals and progressive liberals. But when it comes to the libertarian label I just prefer using libertarian to say the same thing.

A libertarian is someone who believes in liberty and this broadly translates into three areas: civil liberties and social freedom, economic freedom and property rights, free trade and a non-interventionist foreign policy. It behooves libertarians to emphasize all three areas as they are interlinked.

Some libertarians, however, pander to the bigots on the Right in the hopes of attracting funding, or winning votes. So they truncate liberty: they amputate freedom by ignoring, or downplaying, civil liberties. Some actively try to appeal to the xenophobes by belittling immigrants and calling for measures that appeal to Tea Party types.

If a libertarian only spoke about social issues and foreign policy he would be doing a disservice to libertarianism by giving the impression that it is nothing but another version of left-wing ideology. Similarly if a libertarian ignores those issues to focus exclusively on areas of agreement with the Right he too does a disservice by giving the impression that libertarianism is just another version of right-wing ideology. Both commit the same crime.

Due to the rise of authoritarian socialism in the last century many classical liberals found themselves in alliance with conservatives. Conservatives, true to their nature of clinging to the traditional were, at that time, clinging to a tradition that was fundamentally classical liberal. So an alliance between libertarians and conservatives, in opposition to autocratic socialism made sense.

But things have changed. Both the Left and the Right have changed. The Left in most the world no longer has the same slavish dedication to dirigism that they once had. The political Left, to a large degree has shifted politically toward the center. The communist empire that attracted so many of them collapsed and so did the ideological assumptions of many on the Left. You now have former socialists like New Zealand’s Michael Moore, the former prime minister, writing in defense of globalization and free trade. This isn’t the Left of fifty years ago anymore. It isn’t even the “New Left” of the 1960s, which was just a more obnoxious version of the old Left.

Similarly the Right has changed as well. But where the Left got better the Right got worse. Gone are the Goldwater-Reagan types and what we have instead is a mishmash of theocratically inclined bigots of one type or another. Witness the Glenn Beck revival meeting appealing to Americans to return to God as one example. The Tea Partiers seemed more concerned about Mexicans than Big Government.

The Right got ugly. Goldwater and Reagan both had strong classical liberal sentiments. And these days there are a lot of people on the Left who should be bringing flowers to Ronnie’s grave. While he made some awful appointments in the judiciary he also made some brilliant ones. Judge Walker, who ruled against Proposition 8, was originally a Reagan appointee. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, who authored the decision overturning sodomy laws, was another Reagan man.

The Right of the 1980s was not obsessed with bigotry. What did happen, however, is that the Christian fundamentalists abandoned the Democratic Party. Until the 80s the fundamentalists were Democrats, since Southern Democrats were the most consistently hatefully, bigoted politicians around. But when the national Democratic Party adopted the civil rights movement white fundamentalists abandoned their natural home for the GOP. Unfortunately they brought with them the stilted, bigoted views that they always held. They eventually, for the most part, came to accept black people as their legal equals but they still harbor a natural tendency to find scapegoats to hate. At the moment their favorite targets are gay people and immigrants.

The reasons for the old libertarian-conservative alliance simply don’t hold true anymore. Sure, the Right is attempting to revive that alliance by inflating the “Islamofascist” threat. But the Right is always searching for bogeymen with which to terrify people into supporting them. Given that the political Left is the natural home of libertarians, given that the modern Left is today more libertarian than their fathers were, given that the threat of authoritarian communism is gone, given that the Right has adopted a policy of hateful theocracy, it makes senses that libertarians would return to their first political alliance: one with the Left.

When classical liberalism arose it was the opposition to the conservatives of the day. But classical liberalism scared people and a synthesis arose, which combined the desire for liberal ends with the use of the means of conservatives, state power. That new movement was the progressive or socialist Left. They shared the goals of classical liberals but wanted to use the state power that the conservatives had held for centuries. Classical liberals and socialists worked together to end the state/church alliance, reform property rights, and enlarge the franchise. But with the rise of the Soviet Union and its totalitarian/imperialistic form of socialism that alliance ended. The conservatives of that era were now clinging to the recent classical liberal past so an alliance made sense. It no longer makes sense today.

American critics of the “liberaltarian” agenda have argued that it is an illusion and can’t exist. This is the viewpoint of conservatives who fear that libertarians would desert them for sure. But this is not the case at all. There are many examples of working political parties that have this sort of emphasis.

The Democratic Alliance in South Africa was run for years by the libertarian-leaning Tony Leon, who inherited Helen Suzman’s Houghton seat when she retired. Helen herself was rather libertarian. The Free Democrats in Germany have a gay man as their leader, are pro-market, want to reduce the size of the state, reform welfare, and pursue a pro-peace foreign policy. They are in government today. In New Zealand an atheist libertarian, Rodney Hide, leads the ACT Party. ACT MPs helped put civil unions into effect for gay couples and voted for the bill that legalized brothels. They are in government today.

The current UK government is a hybrid of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. But the Tories are different from Tories of the past. They fully embrace equality for gay people and aren’t pushing some sort of Anglican theocratic agenda. It is not far off to call the current UK government a liberaltarian one. Alex Massie, at The Spectator, makes another important point about liberaltarianism. He says that any of the indexes of economic freedom show “there’s little to no necessary contradiction between social liberalism and economic freedom.”

He notes this is especially true if you get outside of America’s polarized politics. The Heritage Foundation’s Economic Liberty Index shows that various socially liberal nations are today considered more free market than the United States. He writes:

Heritage hammers Denmark and Sweden for high levels of government spending but both countries are ranked "freer" than the US in matters as non-trivial as business, trade and investment freedoms. Indeed, Sweden and Denmark each score better than the United States in seven of the ten areas measured. (Britain comes out 5-4 ahead of the US with the property rights fixture ending in a draw. Germany is tied 5-5 with the Americans. Canada, Australia and New Zealand also do better than America.)

Massie also points to the Free Democrats in Germany and the Lib Dems in England. He acknowledges that many hard-core libertarians would find plenty to complain about but says these groups “are much, much closer and friendlier to what I’d term real liberalism than anything on offer from either party in the US or from any of the alternatives in the UK and Germany.” I concur.

I would go so far as to argue that there have been strong cultural shifts in America toward libertarianism. The political process, however, is not showing that shift. The political process is going to be the last place where this shift will be noticed, at least in the US where bureaucratic inertia will keep the statists in power for a long time. The double-blow of hardcore authoritarians like Bush and Obama, one from the Right, the other from the Left, will hurt freedom. But the shift, at the ground level, has already taken place.

Here are the facts. Most Americans don’t like high taxes and heavy regulation. And today, most Americans want some form of legal recognition for gay couples. The hard-core statists have sifted themselves: those on the Left are Democrats while those on the Right are Republicans. But the largest group of voters say a pox on both houses and see themselves as independents. They tend to be relatively libertarian.

Long term I’m optimistic, the short term is a bitch however. Long term even the Republicans will eventually embrace social liberalism. The libertarian middle is gaining ground. The middle ground of American politics is libertarian, perhaps not consistently so, but libertarian nonetheless. Only the political system itself, which entrenches the two statist parties, hides this shift from public view. For the time being the libertarian middle shifts from Democratic to Republican. In the last election they abandoned the GOP because of Bush. This year they will flee to the Republicans in opposition to Obama. At some point one of the two major parties will discover that the libertarian middle can be attracted if they make some major concessions to freedom. They will discover that the few rabid statists they lose at the ballot box are more than compensated for and that it is worth making the change toward a freer society. The first of the two big parties that discovers that will have a long-term majority in office.

Maggie: The Revolution is Behind You.

It's just a song, but it is also a marker of the social evolution that inherently takes place in dynamic, free societies. Schumpeter discussed "creative destruction" in regards to markets, but the same process takes place within the social realm as well. This is especially true in depoliticized markets, where the political power structure isn't used to impede change.

In the debate on gay marriage something is too easily ignored and the conservatives get away with a lie. They claim state power is being used to force change. That is a lie. State power is being used to prevent change. The private sector already welcomes and accepts same-sex relationships to a degree that far surpasses that done by the governmental sector. Civil society accepts gay couples but the legal system rejects them. The change is over. I am reminded of something Garet Garrett wrote. While Garrett was speaking of something else the words apply here: "There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them."

The National Organization on Marriage thinks they are holding the pass against a social revolution that is coming up the road. But they too are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It has already transformed the social arena and all that is happening now is that government is slowly catching up with the change.

Private actions are inherently dynamic and quick to change and adjust according to various signals. Government is slow, ignores such changes, fights the signals or tries to distort them intentionally. And the marriage debate is just another example of this tendency.

But, just as it slaps down the conservative reliance on state power to prevent change in social arenas so does this theory slap down the progressive's dependency on state power to prevent economic dynamism. State power is inclined toward a static society. Power is inherently conservative and resistant to change.

The rotund bigot, Maggie Gallagher, doesn't understand that the revolution is behind her. Her NOM rallies may be funded by the Mormons but the public isn't showing up. The battle is over, Maggie. All that remains is for the state to catch up with society and there is little that will prevent that from happening.

This duet by John Barrowman and Daniel Boys is just another indication of how much society has changed. The fact that two well known British male entertainers sang a love song to one another, and that both are openly gay, just didn't seem to cause a ripple any more. Twenty years ago there would have been lynch mobs clamoring at the door. Yes, Maggie, the revolution is behind you. Get used to it, because you will be gone before it is.

The rest of the Storey

I just started reading M.A. DeWolfe Howe's book, Portrait of an Independent: Moorfield Storey 1845-1929. Storey was a fascinating man and ought to be a major hero to libertarians. Let us start with the fact that he was a Grover Cleveland Democrat, a defender of depoliticized markets, an opponent of protectionism and an advocate of gold. He was a leader in the New Democratic Party which opposed the policies of William Jennings Bryan. What makes Storey interesting is the rest of the storey, or in this case, the rest of the Storey.

Storey was also a major opponent to U.S. interventionism during the birth of American empire building: The Spanish-American War. Storey, a Boston lawyer, became the president of the The Anti-Imperialist League. In addition to that role he was the first president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. Storey was a defender of individual rights particularly the rights of minorities. He defended immigrants as well during the wave of anti-immigration hysteria that gripped the US in Storey's time.

I recently saw a signed statement by Storey, one I wish I could afford to buy, where he wrote:

"Between the principle of freedom, that all men are entitled to equal political rights, and the dogma of tyranny, that might makes right, there is no middle ground."

It was signed Moorfield Storey, March 2, 1920.

There are a few minor flaws in the statement but I like the intentions and spirit of it.

Storey fought a case before the Supreme Court in 1917 that overturned a segregation law in Louisville, Kentucky, on the basis of property rights. In Buchanan v. Warley, Storey argued that the law violated the rights of property owners to sell their homes to whomever they wished. The Supreme Court states Storey's argument well in their ruling. He said the law:

...violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, in that it abridges the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States to acquire and enjoy property, takes property without due process of law, and denies equal protection of the laws.

The Court also described well the views of the segregationists:

This drastic measure is sought to be justified under the authority of the State in the exercise of the police power. It is said such legislation tends to promote the public peace by preventing racial conflicts; that it tends to maintain [p74] racial purity; that it prevents the deterioration of property owned and occupied by white people, which deterioration, it is contended, is sure to follow the occupancy of adjacent premises by persons of color.

Disgusting, but this was 1917. However, Storey prevailed and the law was overturned. This was a victory for individual rights, property rights and for one libertarian lawyer, Moorfield Storey. The ruling was the first exception to state segregation laws and is now seen as a precursor to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling of 1954. Law Professor David Bernstein calls the case "one of the most significant civil rights cases decided before the modern civil rights era." Bernstein notes that the ruling impeded the attempts of whites to prevent blacks from moving to urban areas. He says that the "African-American urban population in the United States almost doubled between 1910 and 1929..." By coincidence 1929 is the year of Storey's death.

And it is possible that this relatively unknown libertarian lawyer, unknown in our modern age that is, may have turned the tide for the civil rights movement. Bernstein finds that between 1868 and 1910 the Supreme Court heard 28 cases regarding the rights of African Americans but that blacks lost 22 of those cases. From 1920 and 1943, after Storey's success, the court hear 27 such cases and African Americans won 25 of them.

Storey is someone I can admire, admire greatly. Here is an excerpt from Howe's introduction which eloquently describes Storey, but one that applies to any true libertarian.

The Independent in American life and politics is frequently a minority man. When the majority come over to his way of thinking, his instinct for unpopular causes, his habit of a Voice crying in the Wilderness, often induces something akin to loneliness in him—the well-know loneliness of the crowd—and off he goes to the espousal of a new minority cause. The great majority, to which, in the very nature of the case, most of us belong, regards this species of knight-errantry as a foolish, futile, and often troublesome thing. Why disturb the comfortable existing order? The last election , says the great majority, settled all that. If the country at large had not wanted to raise the tariff, to hold the Phillip pines, to keep out of the League of Nations, to endorse and enforce the Eighteenth Amendment—indeed, to adopt any of the courses approved by congressional majorities, it would not have chosen the legislators and executives who now control our national policies. Of course there must be an opposition—a conflict between the 'ins' who naturally want to remain where they are and the 'outs' who naturally want to take their place. This is to be expected. But the foolish, futile, troublesome Independent, never committed for more than a single campaign to any party, caring more for a cause than for a candidate and a label—what a nuisance he is! Out upon him!

This is not far from the popular view of the congenital Mugwump. Yet there is another view, and, with the considerable erasure of party lines which has taken place in recent years, others besides congenital Mugwumps have come to admit that there is something to be said for it. This is the view that the Independent, whether in the minority or for the moment in the majority, serves a substantially valuable purpose in present-day affairs. It is he who keeps raising awkward questions, who is not satisfied with leaving a second-rate well enough alone, whose conscience insists upon talking out loud instead of whispering the confidences that so many of us keep locked in our bosoms. He is doomed to many disappointments and disillusions. He is tempted, and, being no less human than mankind in general, sometimes yields to the bitterness against contemporaries who could accomplish many things that seem good in his eyes and in reality accomplish so few. Through the very fact of his frequent association with minorities, he forgoes the larger opportunities that fall to consistent members of the majority in giving the forms of finality to public policies. But it is through him that these forms, when they fall short of their highest possibilities, fall short also of finality. He is the man who embodies the idea that nothing can be settles until it is settled right. He is often a remarkably uncomfortable fellow to have about, but when you look at his activities in the large, at the tendency they represent, rather than at their frequently irritating details, you are bound to admit, not merely that the community would be much poorer and weaker without him, but that he embodies a positive element of its richness and strength.

Of the type of Independent to which Moorfield Storey belonged, there is at least one more thing to be said—a thing peculiarly applicable to him. It is the glory of the Independent, perhaps not least in his own eyes, that partianship is foreign to him, that he is free to detach himself from bonds that restrain others, to ally himself with any interest that seems at a given time entitled to his respect and support. He is inclined to look down upon the partisan, the man who clings through thick and think to any organization, especially in the field of politics. He would scorn the attribution of partianship, and reject indignantly the name of partisan. Yet often—and hardly ever more clearly than in the case of Moorfield Storey—he is a Partisan of Ideas. Allegiance to a political party may mean little or nothing to him. He may even look upon it as a sort of distillation of chauvinism from which his whole nature revolts. But an idea, like that of abstract justice of the defense and rescue of the under dog, may hold him for a lifetime, may sustain him in his adherence to any number of righteous causes, and make him so eminently, so victoriously, just such a Partisan of Ideas, as Storey was.

Great! I concur completely and confess that I too am a Partisan of Ideas

The limits of libertarianism.

Libertarianism is like being short. Just how tall do you have to be, in order to be short? Would a millimeter in one direction or the other be enough to move one in one direction or the other?

There is always an element of personal preferences involved in such definitions. And, it would be bad for libertarianism in general, to define the word too strictly, according to our personal preferences. Doing so could eliminate every one from this category but our individual selves. We would be similar to fundamentalist Baptists—each convinced he is a true believer, but suspicious of every other Christian he meets.

Similarly, if our definition is too loose, everyone is a libertarian. It makes libertarianism a meaningless term. To have no limits is to define libertarianism out of existence: to strip it of any substance. This is particularly dangerous since virtually everyone in Western, liberal, market-based nations is libertarian on one issue or another.

Very, very few people consistently oppose individual liberty and individual rights. As for limited government: everyone believes in limited government! Who actually says they want unlimited government? No one. Not even rampant statists such as Paul Krugman believe in the unlimited state. It might comfort my anarchist friends to know there are far more people in America (and probably most countries) who believe in no government, than who believe in unlimited government.

But I wouldn’t get too comfortable. I’m not sure the difference between “unlimited” government and the rampant statism proposed by some, albeit with some limitations, is actually all that meaningful.

What defines a libertarian? What is the core principle? Some argue that it is the principle of non-initiation of force—that no individual should be allowed to initiate force against another individual. That would encompass a violation of either their life, their liberty or their property. I do like the principle, certainly it is a good personal moral value for one to hold and should be used.

For most of everyday life, this principle will serve you well. But there are feasible situations where it wouldn’t. In libertarian bullshit sessions people invent creative scenarios to illustrate this. For instance: If you are on your 10th floor balcony and slip over the railing, grabbing the flag pole on the 9th floor balcony in order to save yourself. Are you violating the property rights of the tenant on the 9th? Are you obliged to let go in order to remain libertarian?

Very few of us are careless enough to fall over a railing, and those who are never seem to be lucky enough to land on the flagpole (except in Hollywood. But it illustrates a point. Are there times when the unusual circumstances justify a violation of the rights of another? If so, does one such incident mean you are no longer a libertarian?

I start with a relative loose definition for libertarian and then fine-tune it, hopefully reaching a place that is neither fundamentalist nor meaningless. First, a libertarian starts out with a presumption for liberty. In every situation a libertarian first assumes that the use of state coercion has to be justified on a case-by-case basis. Liberty is the default setting.

That alone removes the likes of Paul Krugman, Barack Obama and George W. Bush from the category. But, clearly having this, as a primary definition, is not sufficient. Some people would have very low thresholds for the proof necessary to justify coercive measures. But it is a good place to start.

From there I move to the three main categories of politics: economic, social and international. Economic areas of life are fairly well understood: it is all the buying, selling, exchanging that goes on in the realm of material goods, property, labor, etc. The international realm includes matters of foreign policy, international trade, and the international movement of people—though this latter category also falls into the social sphere. The social sphere is areas of individual life: matters like freedom of speech, censorship, sex laws, drug laws, prohibitionism, etc.

In the social sphere, there is almost always overlap with economic freedom. For instance, the conservative who wants to ban erotica is wanting to ban the production, distribution, sale and ownership of a product. Those are all economic activities. A social conservative, who wants to do this with things like porn or drugs, is clearly not in favor of a free market, at least in these areas. Similarly the conservative campaign to make it a crime to hire individuals who are in the U.S. without bureaucratic permission slips is a violation of labor contracts between willing buyers and willing sellers.

This is one reason that conservatives seem to endlessly betray their claims to support a free market. The free, depoliticized marketplace leads to results contrary to the centrally planned, social sphere that conservatives envision. Since depoliticized markets betray the conservative’s social goals, the conservative betrays free markets. They can’t achieve their social goals in a world with truly free, depoliticized markets. For conservatives, free markets are more rhetorical than real.

In actual existence, these three broad categories overlap constantly. Consider foreign policy: matters of war and peace. War is always accompanied by state attacks on civil liberties and economic freedom. There has never been an exception to that rule. As we saw, something like drug prohibition not only impacts civil liberties but is also a flagrant attack on free markets and property rights. The three main spheres of politics—economics, social, and international—overlap and are interrelated. Tinkering with one of them has consequences for all of them.

The libertarian, with a presumption for liberty, then would logically have to favor depoliticized markets, social freedom and a pro-peace, non-interventionist foreign policy coupled with freedom of movement for capital, labor and goods. The interrelated nature of these freedoms makes this a package deal, in this blogger’s opinion.

The two polar opposites then in politics are the authoritarian and the libertarian.

The authoritarian would have a presumption of state control. That would lead them to advocate a violation of social freedom, political control of the marketplace, and an aggressive, coercive foreign policy. Adolph Hitler comes to mind as a prime example of this sort of thinker. Similarly, so do Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mugabe, and Mussolini.

The conservative tends to support just one sphere of liberty: economic freedom, although they are forced to do so inconsistently by their other policies. Most conservatives are foreign interventionists and tend to oppose social freedom. Their support for free markets is tepid at best and usually no deeper than a campaign promise.

The progressive, often erroneously called a liberal, tends to oppose economic freedom, but claims to favor civil liberties, social freedom, and is usually pro-peace in foreign policy.

However, foreign policy is always the messy issue. There are conservatives who support non-interventionism in foreign policy—often they are called the “Old Right” or paleo-conservatives. Similarly, there is a history of people on the Left advocating empire-building and aggressive foreign policies. Many of the Progressives in America, during the “Progressive Era” were rampant imperialists; similarly socialists in England were often the most vocal advocates of British imperialism.

Realizing these exceptions doesn’t disqualify the general rule of thumb that I use. We can thus conclude that the four general political positions are as follows:

Libertarian: non-interventionist foreign policy, supportive of social freedom, advocates depoliticized markets.

Authoritarian: aggressive foreign policy, opponent of social freedom, advocate of heavily politicized markets.

Conservative: aggressive foreign policy, opponent of social freedom, advocate of less regulated markets.

Progressive: less aggressive foreign policy, supports social freedoms, advocate of politicized markets.

If you attempted to outline this as a bar graph you could put the Libertarian on the far left. Moving to the Right you would find the Progressive next, then the Conservative and finally the polar opposite of the libertarian: the Authoritarian.

In my mind, one deviation does not disqualify one as a libertarian. For instance, Ron Paul’s position on abortion is not sufficient to classify him as a conservative, though it does raise warning flags. However, a convergence of issues can place one outside this category. Paul’s consistent support for socially conservative issues does place him outside the libertarian camp. For instance, he voted to keep sodomy a crime in Washington, D.C., he says separation of church and state is a “myth,” supports a state’s rights point of view over individual rights, opposes equality of rights for gay people; and opposes abortion.

Collectively, Ron Paul’s record on matters of social freedom is weak, as would be expected from conservatives. His foreign policy record is mixed. He tends to oppose war, and is well known for that. But his record on the free movement of labor, capital and goods is not as good. His voting record tends to be protectionist, even if his rhetoric is not. And while I don’t automatically assume that opposition to open immigration disqualifies one as a libertarian, I do think a general voting pattern in opposition to easier immigration, does say something important.

There are always individuals who are good on an issue, contrary to their general political sentiments. William F. Buckley was the epitome of conservatism: bad on foreign policy, bad on social policy, and fair on economic policy. Yet he came to oppose the war on drugs.

This is why I don’t tend to use single issues as a litmus test for classifying someone politically. But I do use the convergence of evidence in each category. Recognizing exceptions doesn’t change general trends. The conservative will tend to be on the wrong side of social freedom issues, especially when in matters that impact minorities. I can pick any random Republican and tell you how he will vote on matters like marriage equality or immigration, and generally be right. It’s not that I’m psychic; it is the nature of conservatives to be the way they are. Similarly, I know how the Democrats will generally vote on such matters as well. From a libertarian perspective I know that Robert Mugabe will be disgustingly bad on virtually any issue you mention.

This sort of foreknowledge, based on understanding the principles of the individual, gives one a general understanding of the person. I know that the chances are that Paul Krugman will be horrendous on most economic policy. He’s into economic S&M: he loves bondage when it comes to markets. I know the Laurel and Hardy of politics—Michael Moore and Ann Coulter—will be shrill, hysterical, dishonest whatever they are talking about, and usually wrong.

I don’t exclude someone from the libertarian camp over one issue, for the most part. Of course, there are theoretical single issues that would do so. If someone were a “pure” libertarian, however you define it, with one exception, that they favored gassing Jews, then the rest pales in comparison to the one deviation. I don’t care how pure someone is; if they advocate the wholesale violation of the rights of a body of people who are peaceful and who are not violating the rights of others, then they have moved outside the libertarian camp.

How serious must be this violation of rights in order to put one beyond the pale? That can be open to debate. I would tend to say that anyone advocating the sort of policies being used today against immigrants sans permission slips is not a libertarian. Measures like SB1070 in Arizona are an example of those policies. Laws that require businesses to get state permission to hire someone, or prevent banks from opening bank accounts for these people, or landlords from renting to them are part of a general trend. The wholesale violation of the rights of individuals in a broad range of categories is enough, in my mind, to disqualify one as a libertarian, no matter how pure they are in other areas.

Again, I am not disqualifying someone on a single “deviation” or even random deviations here or there. But when the deviations from liberty are grouped in one of the three main spheres of politics then the person is not a libertarian. And when those deviations tend to make broad exceptions that are imposed on one class of people alone, provided it is a class of people who are not guilty of violating the rights of others (such as rapists), then that sort of systematic denial of rights moves one outside the libertarian camp as well.

So, for me, a libertarian is one who has a presumption of liberty in the three main spheres of politics. He or she would support economic freedom, support social and civil liberty, and advocate a pro-peace, pro-trade foreign policy. He would apply these principles across the board to all groups of people. Making exceptions that consistently fall in one sphere of liberty does disqualify one as a libertarian. And making exceptions that fall on one group of peaceful people also disqualifies one as a libertarian.

The Enforcement of Morality backfires on Christians

In my previous post I mentioned a book that has recently been republished by Liberty Fund, which is a direct assault on basic libertarian principles. While Liberty Fund has not been openly libertarian it was fundamentally classically liberal in nature and never, to my memory at least, engaged in the publication of books which were assaults on libertarian values. Their publication of The Enforcement of Morality by Lord Patrick Devlin is just that.

While they talk about the importance of this book in the debate on same-sex marriage it should be clear that Devlin was defending the criminalization of homosexuality. This means the arrest, prosecution and punishment of individuals who have violated the rights of no one. Devlin argued it, not on the basis that individual rights were assaulted but on the principle that some sort of "societal right" is violated. Packed into that is the assumption that "society" as a collective body has rights that exceed those of any individual member of that body. While my individual rights are not violated by someone's private sexual athletics, my rights as part of the collective called "society" is violated in the same manner as my individual rights would be if someone punched me in the nose.

What nonsense! If you punch me in the nose I feel direct pain. It may bleed. You may break it. You must do something to me for this to happen. But if you have a sexual liaison in the privacy of your own home, one I know nothing about, and was no party to, exactly how is it that my collective "social" right was violated? Hayek argued that the term "social justice" is an absurdity. He said: "'Social justice' is necessarily empty and meaningless." But so too is Devlin's concept of social rights, and for similar reasons.

Devlin, who had joined a Catholic order as a young man but left it, argued that widely held opinions, no matter how they are derived, are shared values that hold a society together. Any private activity that violates those values threatens the social fabric, in Devlin's mind. So even bigoted, and prejudicial views, if widely held would seem to warrant special legal protection. In Devlin's mind, because enough people in 1950s England thought homosexuals were disgusting, to not inflict legal punishment on people for being homosexual, is somehow an assault on all the people who are disgusted with the activity. I would wonder how Lord Devlin would respond if the prejudice that was so widespread was against Catholics like himself. Certainly, in the period of colonial America this was precisely the case, right down to having laws forbidding Catholics to reside in certain colonies. What I tend to find, however, is that people who hold Devlin's view always manage to exclude themselves from such categories.

It is important to cover what inspired Devlin to launch his defense of collectivist rights. In 1950s England there was a rash of gay men who were being prosecuted for being homosexual. Of course, this went back much further. One remembers that Oscar Wilde was charged with being gay in 1895 and sentenced to two years in prison at "hard labor." The sentence was harsh and destroyed Wilde's health. He collapsed and burst an ear drum and spent two months in infirmary as a result. After his release in 1897 he was in extremely poor health and eventually died as a result of it in 1900, at the age of 46. He was bankrupted and lost all contact with his sons, who he loved dearly, and who loved and missed him. Consider that this is what Devlin was defending!

The persecutions of gays in the 1950s revealed precisely how the law encouraged blackmail and extortion. This sort of victimization of gays by the criminal classes was portrayed well in the 1961 Dirk Bogarde film Victim. I have a clip here if you wish to see it.



The common moral thread that Devlin was defending actually made criminality possible. It encouraged the blackmailer and the extortionist. It lead to suicides and destroyed lives. This is Devlin's moral order.

As a result of these incidents the British government created a committee to study the matter of homosexuality and prostitution and what the law should say about these matters. Headed by Lord Wolfenden the committee of socially acceptable individuals held hearings, including speaking to individuals who had been victimized because of the laws in question. The committee issued its report arguing a classically liberal position: "It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behaviour. Even after this Report it took the British government another decade to abolish these laws, and in Scotland they remained in place until 1980. It should be noted that Wolfenden was himself quite anti-gay and that matters were not helped when his son, Jeremy, told him that he was gay himself.

Devlin believed that all morality must come from religion. He wrote that "Morals and religion are inextricably joined—the moral standards general accepted in Western civilization being those belonging to Christianity." He wrote that no moral code "can claim any validity except by virtue of the religion on which it is based." In other words, there is no rational code of morality, merely religious preferences all of which are valid merely because the proponents of those codes extol them in the name of an imaginary being.

Even crimes, Devlin said, are not offenses against the individual, but only crimes because they are offenses against the collective concept called society. "Now, if the law existed for the protection of the individual, there would be no reason why he should avail himself of it if he did not want it. The reason why a man may not consent to the commission of an offense against himself beforehand or forgive it afterwards is because it is an offence against society. It is not that society is physically injured; that would be impossible. Nor need any individual be shocked, corrupted, or exploited; everything may be done in private." What makes a crime a crime, says Devlin is "that there are certain standards of behavior or moral principles which society requires to be observed; and the breach of them is an offense not merely against the person who is injured but against society as a whole."

What it comes down to, for Devlin, is a crime is a crime because society doesn't like it. And what society doesn't like is the collective presumptions of people, based on religious precepts, without reason or logic, or any underlying principle. Morals are morals for no other reason than religious people say they are. Criminal law enforces moral principles, not because any right is violated, but because religious people want it that way. There have always been classical liberals who doubt the moral consensus of a society but that is irrelevant to the likes of Devlin. These dissenting opinions should be shunted aside in favor of the collective morality, as expressed by the common man of the era.

But look how pathetic that argument is. Consider the England of today, which is vastly different from that of Devlin's times. Today the moral consensus is not Christian. And there is a widespread social acceptance that discriminatory practices are wrong. By Devlin's own logic the Christian who discriminates against the homosexual today should be restricted by the law, and punished if he indulges is own personal judgment. Individual rights, Devlin argued, don't matter. Only the social consensus. Today that consensus would put the likes of Devlin in the docket for living up to their religious moral principles.

And who would defend Devlin from such prosecution?—the very classical liberals whom he castigates and attempts to refute in his book. The classical liberal or libertarian would argue that the Devlinite Christian, like the homosexual of 1950s England, has individual rights and that society as such does not. The liberal would argue, as John Stuart Mill did, that the function of government is to protect people from one another and otherwise leave them free to control their own lives. Proper liberalism would defend both homosexuals in a homophobic culture and Christians in a secular one.

Oddly it is Devlin's legal theories that dominate today in England; not those of the Wolfenden Report. Devlin basically won the legal battle. The law in England today does not protect individual rights, it protects the right of society to say what is acceptable and what isn't. And today that means prosecuting Christians for holding to the moral code that Devlin advocated. In other words, his own legal theory undermines the ability of Christians to follow Devlin's moral code. Sure, when Devlin argued his theory, he assumed his Christian morality would dominate. One has to wonder whether he would realize his errors, if he were alive today.

Devlin said "it is not possible to set theoretical limits to the power of the State to legislate against immorality." At the time he assumed his view of immorality would dominate. Today in England, it doesn't. So what are Christians clamoring for?—limitations on the power of the state to legislate against immorality. Except today the immorality is that of bigotry, prejudice and discrimination against gays.

Devlin says the power of the State is unlimited, at least not limited by any theory. This is why Liberty Fund's publication of his book is a violation of the very principles they claim to promote. Devlin has no objective definition of morality at all. For it is "what every right-minded person is presumed to consider to be immoral." So, in a secular world, if right-minded people believe faith to be an immoral means by which people evade thinking, then faith would be immoral and legally sanctioned. Devlin pretty much dismisses reason; he says: "It is the power of commons sense and not the power of reason that is behind the judgements of society." It is as if he is living up to the very worst of what Rand called the "whim worshipper."

Devlin says that because there is a "general abhorrence of homosexuality" and because people find it "a vice so abominable that its mere presence is an offense" he concludes, "I do not see how society can be denied the right to eradicate it." What does it mean to eradicate it? No law prevents people from being born homosexual any more than the laws of the Third Reich could prevent people from being Jews. But, what of the culture that now dominates much of Western civilization, where bigotry and prejudice is seen as abominable and inherently offensive?

Devlin may have thought he was defending Christian morality with his arguments. What he was defending was the concept that individuals do not have rights, that rights reside in collective bodies, and that the social collective has the right to use force against anyone who offends the majority opinion in that society. Devlin justified the very legal situation that Christians in England find themselves today. They may be his religious heirs, but it is Devlin's legislative heirs who are tormenting them. Classical liberal rights theories cut through that. Liberalism would have opposed the persecution of homosexuals in England in the 50s, and it would oppose the prosecution of Christians today. Devlin's religious descendants would benefit from a modern Wolfenden Report that once again called for a separation of private morality from the realm of the law.

The great irony of the Devlin/Wolfenden debate is that Devlin's ideas won but it is his religious heirs who suffer because of it, not homosexuals. Every legal structure should be built as if one's worst enemies would control it. If that is done, the rights of all will be protected.

Killing old women in the name of morality.

Helen Pruett is an 76-year-old woman living alone. As is often the case at that age her health is fragile. She previously had three heart attacks but in recent years was doing fairly well, all things considered.

But things took a turn for the worse quite suddenly, unexpectedly and unnecessarily—all thanks to the drug warriors and their ill-considered, counterproductive war on drugs.

While supposedly safe in her home, this elderly woman suddenly found armed thugs shouting and screaming, guns drawn, at every door and window. A swarm of men, with violent intentions, surrounded her. Included in this assault were local and federal agents.

During the raid Mrs. Pruett suffered a heart attack. The drug warriors said they had the house under surveillance for two years and that the "suspect" wasn't there. But Pruett lives alone so the "suspect" is never there. In other words anothe screw up by incompetent, adrenaline driven armed thugs put another innocent person in harms way all to protect us from the evils of drugs. Who will protect us from the evils of the war on drugs?

According to Pruett's daughter the woman is now in the Intensive Care Unit and is "not in good condition." The daughter said: "She was traumatized. Even the doctor said this is what happens when something tramatic happens. He said its usually like a death in the family or something like that just absolutely scares them half to death, and that is what has happened.

The daughter claims she recently learned of another such raid by the SWAT team and DEA thugs where they "went into some other elderly woman's home who was on oxygen and took her oxygen off of her and scared her half to death."

I am the first to say that illegal drugs are not good things. They do harm people, just not as much as the war on drugs. And the harm illegal drugs do to people are a direct result of the choices made by those who are harmed. The war on drugs is a threat to all of us, and Helen Pruett is a living—for now at least—example of that.

The police chief says he apologize for the mistake. That and $1 will get you a drink at McDonald's but it won't cover the cost of intensive care for the woman he scared.

Chief Kenny Dodd defends his decision to draw guns on the old woman. "These were considered high-risk warrants. These individuals are known drug dealers and they were looking at a lot of time in federal prison, when we serve those type of warrants, we usually go in with guns drawn just to protect ourselves." This is precisely the reason officers get shot by innocent people whose homes are attacked because of the constant errors made by these morons.

In a bizarre move Dodd is now claiming: "We didn't botch a drug raid." Instead he says "he and 12 officers went to the home and did surround it" because the suspect, Tim Washington, was thought to live there. But he didn't live there, Pruett did. That the armed drug warriors surrounded the house of an old woman, because they had it wrong as to who lived there, is a botched drug raid no matter how Dodd tries to spin it. Police confirm Pruett had no connection to the man they were looking for, but don't say they botched it. An even more twisted example of police logic is that Dodd says Pruett's home was never part of the investigation, but that it was listed on the warrant the police secured. So, they never actually investigated who lived at the house, got a warrant to raid the property, did so, an old woman has a heart attack as a result, but don't you dare call it a "botched drug raid." How stupid do you have to be to be a cop in Georgia?

Dodd is now trying to spin the claim that Pruett's heart attack had nothing to do with armed thugs surrounding her home. He says: "We were there to serve an arrest warrant. [Yep, on someone who never lived there.] While we were there, she had a heart attack. [And you don't think the presence of heavily armed, potentially violent, men on her doorstep had nothing to do with it?] We rendered aid. [I guess she should kiss your feet because you didn't shoot her on the spot.]" Dodd says: "I just want our citizens to know the truth." So do I. Here it is. Cops are a threat to you life. The war on drugs is now more dangerous that drugs themselves. Dodd botched the drug raid, Pruett is possibly dying because of it. But Dodd makes it sound as if Pruett was lucky the drug warriors were there since they could help get an ambulance for the heart attack they caused.

In the Cory Maye case it lead to the death of a police officer, and Maye's imprisonment. In the Kathyrn Johnson case the drug warriors managed to gun down the dangerous, terrified, and entirely innocent, 92-year-old woman. Annie Rae Dixon was 84 and bed-ridden when the drug warriors broke into her house by mistake and then, according to them, they "accidentally" shot her to death as she lay in her bed. Rudy Cardenas was out for a walk and happened to walk past a house as drug warriors were attacking. The warriors got confused, probably too many drugs, and thought he must be the suspect. Seeing armed men rushing at him he fled and was shot in the back multiple times, killing him.

Here are some facts. The war on drugs kills more people than the drugs do. Yes, the DEA is more deadly and dangerous than cocaine. And, as our cops militarized and turned into violent, armed gangs they have managed to drive out of the drug market dealers who themselves are not armed or dangerous. In other words, the drug warriors and their violence has resulted in the drug trade itself becoming far more violent. We are in arms escalation race between two armed gangs of violent criminals and innocent people like Helen Pruett, Corey Maye and Kathyrn Johnson get caught in the middle.

We witnessed the same sort of stupid violence when the moralists pushed through Prohibition in the United States. Alcohol production had been a peaceful activity until then. Suddenly we had shoot-outs in the streets and an escalation of violence. Government-sponsored, drug-war-related violence breeds more violence at all levels. This means more and more innocent people will die as a result of the escalation of violence, instigated by the drug warriors.

Keep in mind the premises behind the war on drugs and the damage it does to innocent people. And then consider a new book published by Liberty Fund. By consider I mean ponder, not consdier buying it. If anything you may wish to boycott Liberty Fund from here out. This blogger considers this new publication to be a total betrayal of the principles on which Liberty Fund was founded and a sign that the conservative rot in the libertarian movement is spreading. Please note that the arguments in this horrendous book would equally apply to the war on drugs—so the violence in the war on drugs appears to be something that Liberty Fund would have to endorse.

The book in question is The Enforcement of Morals by Patrick Devlin. Devlin wrote the book to attack the liberal principles of John Stuart Mill being used in the debate on legalizing homosexuality in. Devlin wanted it to remain a criminal offense. Liberty Fund's new book says that homosexuality "harm[s] society by undermining its moral structure" the same way that murder and assault" harm the individual. And we "ignore such behaviors at our own peril." They claim this assault on classical liberal vaues will "resonate and reverberate anew" with readers in light of debates on same-sex marriage. Devlin's arguments are an attack on classical liberal principles and marks a dramatic, troubling reversal, nay, a betrayal, of the liberal values once held by Liberty Fund.

This blogger wonders if Liberty Fund has gone to the dark side and certainly will be more hesitant to purchase any books from them. I also note that the results of the logic used by Devlin is what lead sto these deaths of innocent people due to the war on drugs. The principles that Liberty Fund is now pushing literally leads to killing people. Shame on them. For the record, the classical liberal reply to this blatant push for Big Government and collectivist principles is H.L.A Hart's work, Law, Liberty and Morality. Hart, not Devlin, upholds the principles that Liberty Fund formerly espoused.

What really bothers me is that the publication of this work degrades the wonderful books they do publish by mere association. Liberty Fund is not your usual publisher who publishes all sides of a debate. They supposedly, as their name implies, promote liberty. Thus they are putting a stamp of approval on a collectivistic, anti-liberal, statist argument and implying that this is actually liberty. That is is why it is more disgusting for them to do this, than it would be for Random House to do it.

The evolution of toleration in the West.

Have you ever considered why separation of church and state evolved, why we are more religiously tolerant today than in the past?

At one time, church and state intertwined and tolerance was a minority opinion. Even prior to establishment of a Constitutional Republic in the United States, there was quite a bit of church-state entanglement. The results were often bloody and always nasty. Even when only Protestant Christians had their rights respected, these Protestants frequently and repeatedly turned on one another. I have previously written here about how colonial America routinely attacked minority Christian sects, even to the point of killing people for being the wrong kind of Protestant Christian. There was never a Judeo-Christian heritage, because the colonies routinely excluded Jews and Catholics from having legal rights and some colonies refused to allow either to settle there.

Bloody persecution of Christians by Christians in the colonies was mild in comparison to the centuries of bloodshed in Europe over which form of Christianity should be imposed on everyone. Martin Luther explained: “In a country there must be one preaching only allowed.” Other forms of preaching were considered rebellion and Luther spoke of how to deal with such matters: “Let everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly and openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful or devilish than a rebel.” While the bloody history of Catholicism is well known, mainly due to publishing efforts of Protestants, the genocidal impulse in Protestantism has not been so duly noted.

Luther is a good example of Protestant intolerance. In 1525 he said Catholic mass should be forcibly suppressed as blasphemy. In 1530, he said Anabaptists should be put to death. In 1536, he said Jews should be forced out of the country. His view was that the State should enforce Christian teaching, more particularly Luther’s teachings, by force. “The public authority is bound to repress blasphemy, false doctrine and heresy, and to inflict corporal punishment on those that support such things.”

Most people today have no idea that Europe was plunged into a series of wars, over a period of about 150 years, all between competing sects of Christians intent on wiping out other forms of Christianity. The last such major war was the Thirty Years’ War, from 1618-1648. Direct and indirect casualties in the war amounted to between 15% and 30% of all Germans. In Czech areas, population declined by about one-third as a result of the war and as a result of diseases spread because of the conflict. It is thought that Swedish armies destroyed as many as one-third of all towns in Germany. Estimates are that this period of Christian conflict resulted in the deaths of 7 million people. R.J. Rummel estimates the death toll higher, at 11.5 million. An objective look at the history of Christian conflicts caused Prof. Perez Zagorin to conclude: “Of all the great world religions past and present, Christianity has been by far the most intolerant.” Even Aquinas, held up as an advocate of reason, said that if the state executed forgers it could “with much more justice” take heretics and “immediately upon conviction, be not only excommunicate but also put to death.” Zagorin says: “None of the Protestant churches—neither the Lutheran Evangelical, The Zwinglian, the Calvinist Reformed nor the Anglican—were tolerant or acknowledged any freedom to dissent.” [How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West, Princeton University Press, 2003.]

Just during the short reign of England’s Catholic Queen Mary I (1554-1558) some 300 Protestants were burned at the stake for heresy. And in 1572 Catholics in France went on the rampage over a period of several weeks, rounding up and massacring Protestants. Death tolls are uncertain, but believed to range from 5,000 to 30,000. Of course, in the name of Jesus, neither women nor children were spared the sword.

So what were some reasons that traditional intolerance and violence amongst Christians ended? There are several. One is that bloodshed had become intolerable and Christians grew weary of constantly slaughtering one another. While that played a role in the matter, it was not the prime reason.

Other explanations exist as well and each played a role. One is that the Enlightenment took place and there was a burst of rationality on the continent. This rationality not only lead to a rise in scientific progress, but it also meant that more and more Europeans had become sceptical of Christianity. Orthodox Christianity was being undermined from the inside, leading to a diminution of its influence. Within Catholicism, the Scholastic revolution of Aquinas had already revived an interest in reason.

Protestantism, however, was a very different thing. Much of the impetus of the Reformation was to attack these worrisome influences of human reasoning. Luther and Calvin both opposed the use of reason to draw conclusions about truth. Contrary to imaginations of Protestant apologists, the Reformation was the enemy of reason, not an ally. Prof. Frederick Beisner, in his important history, The Sovereignty of Reason [Princeton University Press, 1996], writes:

…The early theology of the Reformation cannot be regarded as the forerunner, still less as the foundation, of modern rationalism. Rather, it is its antithesis, indeed its nemesis, an attempt to revive the spirit and outlook of medieval Augustinianism. Luther’s and Calvin’s aim was to restore this Augustinian tradition—its teachings concerning faith, grace, sin, and predestination—by purging it of all its pagan and scholastic [Thomistic] accretions.

Beisner’s important book shows how the Reformation religions of the Protestants were themselves later reformed. Thomas Hooker, in his work Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie [1593], revived an interest in reason among Protestants. His defense of reason was the “revival of the scholastic, natural law tradition, and in particular that of Aquinas and Suarez, which had been cast overboard by Luther and Calvin.” Hooker influenced one of the great liberals of the Enlightenment, John Locke.

Later the circle of scholars and theologians who had gathered together, under the sponsorship of Lord Falkland, known as the Tew Circle, emphasized reason as well. While orthodox Protestants, they held reason as the only means of understanding religion. In fact, reason was allowed to judge religion and draw conclusions. These men became an influence on the more radical skeptics in the free thought movement later. They argued that faith could only come through reason, not from grace. They opposed the predestination theory of Calvin and Luther, believing salvation was obtained by good works, not by grace, and they believed in toleration of others.

They were followed by the Cambridge Platonists, a group of scholars at Cambridge, who “went several strides beyond Hook and Great Tew in the direction of a greater rationalism. To begin with, they were the first thinkers in the English Protestant tradition to develop a systematic natural theology.” Beisner writes that they “affirmed the principle of the sovereignty of reason. They saw reason as the final rule of faith, a standard higher than Scripture, inspiration, or tradition.” In other words, while the original Reformation was actually a step-backwards for modernity, the Reformation was later reformed by a series of thinkers who reintroduced the hated Aristotelian forms of thinking.

The forefathers of modern libertarianism, the classical liberals, first campaigned for freedom of conscience. They wanted to limit the power of the state because the state was the instrument by which intolerant church policies were imposed on the public. The church, preferring to not have blood on its hands directly, left the killing to the state. So the state imposed theological order at the point of the gun—or more accurately at the time, at the point of the sword. Transgressors would be identified and executed, often at the stake. But what the state was doing was entirely at the behest of the church. The church is pretty much a toothless dog when it doesn’t have access to state power. It can bark but it can’t bite.

As liberalism reduced state power, it directly reduced the ability of the church to impose theological conformity. What we saw, with the unleashing of human reason, was growth in skepticism, a desire for natural, scientific explanations for reality, limitation of the state, and the rise of a depoliticized, or capitalist, market system. As Sir Samuel Brittan put it: "The breakdown of theological authority, the rise of scientific spirit and the growth of capitalism were inter-related phenomena."

More and more, individuals began to think for themselves regarding religion. And the result was a splintering of the church. Instead of one “holy mother church” sitting astride Europe, numerous sects began to evolve. At first this splintering meant a bloodbath, as each sect tried to jockey for monopoly privileges and access to the swords of the state. This is precisely why the series of religious wars were fought, as an attempt to destroy diversity of thought and impose conformity.

This splintering reduced the power of the church as a whole by spreading it among various sects. No one sect was guaranteed enough power to successful grab control of the state. If it tried, it would face opposition from the other sects, not because they favored freedom of thought, but because they feared repression for themselves. Voltaire [Lettres philosophiques, 1734] noted: “If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace.”

We found that in the history of the United States. Prior to the formation of the constitutional union, each state was independent and free. And the states tended to be dominated by one sect or another. Using that dominance, the church would then use state power to oppress other, minority sects. Jews, Catholics, Quakers and Baptists were favored targets of the state sanctioned church.

Yet when the Constitution was written the First Amendment explicitly rejected a church-state alliance. This was not because the majority of founders had seen the light about the evils of a church dominating a state, but rather because none could be sure that their church would be the one that would dominate. No one sect dominated the nation as a whole. While Anglicans dominated Virginia they had no power in Massachusetts. The Congregationalists, who controlled Massachusetts, had no influence in Pennsylvania.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison worked to end state sanctioned religion in Virginia, but only succeeded when other faiths had immigrated to the state in sufficient numbers to undermine Anglican dominance. Freedom of religion came about, not because the various sects had adopted liberal values, but because each of them was unsure they could control the state when it came time to name the sanctioned church.

Capitalism is not just the result of more freedom; it is also the cause of new freedoms. Capitalism undermines the ability of the state to impose conformity. Technology encourages diversity of thought, which challenges any theological claim to monopolize what is true, or good for man.

There is a marvelous section in Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris [1831], where he depicts a printing press. Through the window we see the cathedral. Inside a man is standing. He points first at the press, and then to the cathedral, saying: “this will destroy that. The Book will destroy the Edifice.” Hugo wrote further:

To our mind, this thought has two aspects. In the first place it was a view pertaining to the priest—it was the terror of the ecclesiastic before a new force—printing. It was the servant of the dim sanctuary scared and dazzled by the light that streamed from Gutenberg’s press.

Free speech encourages diversity of opinion and directly leads to the splintering of sects and creeds. Capitalism encourages this process. Prof. Nicholas Wolfson noticed this:

It is no accident that capitalism and free speech are so frequently present together. The free flow of information, ideas and technology is essential in the modern age. We live in an age of information. The computer, the microchip, the fax, television, and cinema have created a universe in which the barriers to information and new ideas fail everywhere. Efforts to restrain free speech limit not only intellectual freedom, but result in a stultified and failed economic system. It is no accident that communism collapsed as this age came to fruition. Communist systems were unable to compete in the new technology and the new economies based upon the computer. The explosive mix of free speech, fax machines, and computers has created a universal knowledge and appreciation of the achievement of democracy and capitalism.

Capitalism also rewarded tolerance. This is important. Merchants found that the most beneficial trade they could make was often with someone of a different faith or creed. Refusal to trade with them meant lost opportunities and foregone profits. Again, Voltaire noticed this:

Take a view of the Royal Exchange in London, a place more venerable than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan [Muslim], and the Christian transact together, as though they all professed the same religion, and give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts. There the Presbyterian confides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends on the Quaker's word. At the breaking up of this pacific and free assembly, some withdraw to the synagogue, and others to take a glass. This man goes and is baptized in a great tub, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: that man has his son's foreskin cut off, whilst a set of Hebrew words (quite unintelligible to him) are mumbled over his child. Others retire to their churches, and there wait for the inspiration of heaven with their hats on, and all are satisfied.

Commerce rewards tolerance by increasing the number of trading possibilities. Trade undermines prejudice in all areas: be it religious, ethnic, racial or sexual. Bigotry flourishes when the bigot can pass that cost on to the entire society, but when he must bear the direct costs of his own prejudice he is more reluctant to do so. Some may still prefer to engage in traditional, prejudicial practices, but they are at a competitive disadvantage to competitors who fail to do so. Brittan said: Capitalist civilization is above all rationalist.’ The entrepreneur, as a profit maximizer is forced to ignore the “traditional, mystical or ceremonial justification of existing practices.” This rejection of the traditional, means depoliticized markets are inherently anti-conservative. The gay marriage debate is a good example. Private businesses have largely adopted measures to recognize gay relationships among their employees. It is the political sphere that is behind the times. The state rarely forces change. Most of the time it is an impediment to social changes and only plays catch-up once the cultural revolution is over.

Businessmen, who rely on voluntary exchange, have long been leaders of movements that undermine traditional prejudices. People who trade want more trading options, not fewer. And prejudicial policies limit the number of options available. Henry Kamen, in The Rise of Toleration [McGraw Hill, 1967], wrote:

The expansion of commercial capitalism, particularly in Europe’s two principal maritime powers, Holland and England, was a powerful factor in the destruction of religious restrictions. Trade was usually a stronger argument than religion. Catholic Venice in the sixteenth century was reluctant to close its ports to the ships of the Lutheran Hanseatic traders. The English wool interest spent the first half of the seventeenth century in energetic opposition to the anti-Spanish policy of the government. By the Restoration in 1660 it was widely held that trade knows no religious barriers; the important corollary that followed from this was that the abolition of religious barriers would promote trade.

In his Political Arithmetic, written in 1670 but only published twenty years later, Sir William Petty said “for the advancement of trade… indulgence must be granted in matters of opinion.” Even opponents of trade recognized this true, and said it was one reason to oppose trade. Samuel Parker’s A Discourse on Ecclesiastical Politie [1669], said “tis notorious that there is not any sort of people so inclinable to seditious practices as the trading part of a nation.” The chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley warned, “that the great outcry for liberty of trade is near of kin to that of liberty of conscience.”

Illustrations: 1) Quaker Mary Dyer being sent to her death in colonial America. 2) Painting of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre by Huegenot painter Francois Dubois [ca 1572-84]. 3) Voltaire. 4) Medieval marketplace.