Listener Generated Content

On Monday's brilliant episode of The Bob and Abe Show, which you can find right here, we discussed the controversy that was ginned up last week when Rand Paul went on the Rachel Maddow show and shared his views on the constitutionality of one part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Miraculously, this has generated an e-mail from a listener--a listener that neither Abe nor Bob has ever met! Here's the e-mail, from a gentleman who is called Jeff:

The article at the link below argues the libertarian case and Rand Paul's position better (or maybe just clearer) than you did. While I agree with much of the article, I disagree with your arguments in the Rand Paul podcast. From the article: "Ideally, government’s role is to foster an environment in which individuals can pursue happiness in any manner they please — provided they do not impede other individuals’ rights to do the same." The key word in that sentence is "rights". What is the definition? It obviously varies from person to person. For example, I would say that I have a "right" not to be discriminated against on the basis of race, gender, sex, etc. by any public or private party.

Bear with me for a second. In an extreme discrimination hypothetical, a green humanoid person would be discriminated to such an extent that the person would not have access to private businesses (non-profits and for-profits). Now lets go back to the quoted sentence above and apply it here. How can a person pursue happiness in any manner he pleases if that person is denied access to private enterprise? Imagine if you had to grow or kill all your food. Imagine if you had to supply your own water, build your house...the list goes on. My point is that my right to access the free market as a consumer or producer trumps any right to choose which group of customers to serve.

www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37703.html

As Jeff points out, the article that he links to does a helluva job outlining the libertarian principles at the core of Rand Paul's position. I highly recommend taking 5 minutes and giving it a read.

At the core of a lot of the more interesting discussions we've had on the podcast over the last year is a question that has been argued by many people through many ages. What, exactly, is a right? How one answers that question, and how one settles the constitutional issues that arise in corollary from answering that question, serves as the foundation upon which one builds a theory of the role of government.

That question, however, is of practically no consequence to a discussion within the framework of the US Constitution. Listen:

The Constitution of the United States rather succinctly defines the powers granted to the federal government. Our federal government is given its authority by the Constitution, and the government's power is strictly limited by that document. Any action taken by government that is outside the boundaries of power and scope established by the Constitution is therefore illegitimate.

It is important to note that the Constitution places absolutely no burdens, limitations, or boundaries on the action or inaction of citizens or any non-governmental institutions, associations, or entities of any kind. Absolutely none whatsoever. The Constitution was not designed to define or authorize or limit anything besides the scope of the federal government, and therefore has absolutely nothing to say about interpersonal interaction between or among non-governmental agents--including its citizens.

The Constitution only even recognizes the rights of private citizens inasmuch as it denies the federal government the power to infringe upon certain of those rights. It doesn't define or limit or authorize the rights of individuals--it says explicitly only what the federal government can and cannot do.

The Declaration of Independence, which has precisely the same binding legal authority as this here blog-post, says that humans have, among others, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Neither the Declaration nor the Constitution codify these rights into law--they merely acknowledge the existence of such rights and establish that the federal government cannot legitimately infringe upon them.

Before you even go there, let's talk about the 14th Amendment, which made the logical--and constitutional--leap of applying the same limitations on rights-infringement upon the state governments as already existed at the federal level. It said federal and state law must apply to all citizens equally, and that the rights of the people cannot be infringed upon without the due process application of those laws.

Again, even in the oft-cited 14th Amendment, the Constitution is only laying out the specific and limited powers of government, and not the rights of citizens, or the interactions among those citizens. The Constitution was written in such a way that it compels absolutely nothing of a citizen--it merely limits governmental power. If you can find a passage that suggests something to the contrary, send it my way. More to the point, the Constitution has absolutely nothing to say about the rights of citizens as they relate to other citizens. Not a word.

Therefore, a person may believe that he has the right to not be discriminated against by his fellow citizen for any of an endless number of specific classifications--race, religion, height, weight, acne, intelligence--and that person may well have a moral claim, but he certainly doesn't have a Constitutional claim.

This is the heart of why Rand Paul is 100% correct from a Constitutional perspective. The Constitution does not give the federal government the legal authority to regulate the private affairs of the citizens--it merely places limits on federal power.

The genius of the Constitution is as apparent in the silence between the notes as it is in what it actually says. As Jeff said, the definition of rights is likely to vary a great deal from person to person. The Constitution allows for these individual differences by utterly ignoring the problem. I'll say it in one final way--the Constitution is about the relationship between government and citizen, not citizen and citizen.

Hopefully we can agree that we are not, therefore, having a discussion of Constitutional import. I only make such a big deal of it because that is the crux of what got me so upset about this whole controversy in the first place--Rand Paul was giving his opinion on the Constitutional legitimacy of one part of the Civil Rights Act, and all anyone wanted to hear was that he thinks discrimination is totally cool, despite his constant cries to the contrary.

Moving right along. Jeff's basic point, slightly rephrased, seems to me to be the following: if a producer wants the privilege of access to the free market in order to sell his goods or services, than that producer gives up the freedom to choose to whom he sells his goods or services. Along those same lines, how can an individual consumer pursue happiness "in any manner he pleases" if he is not given unfettered access to purchase goods or services from anyone he chooses?

But we can't very well call it the "free market" if a producer is required to do something he doesn't want to do in order to participate, can we? The consumer is presumably still given the freedom to choose from which producer he will purchase goods or services--why shouldn't the producer be allowed the same freedom to choose to whom he will sell? If the free market is to be truly free, producers and consumers must be allowed to choose with whom they will do business. The consumer's right to pursue happiness cannot trump the producer's right to pursue happiness, can it? Are they equal, or aren't they?

The consumer does not have a right to pursue happiness "in any manner he pleases" because that would imply that his rights extend so far as to encroach on others' exact same rights in the society. Put classically, an individual's right to swing his fist ends where another individual's nose begins.

How about a few illustrative stereotypes?

Should a Jewish delicatessen owner be compelled to sell sandwiches to a guy who walks in with a Swastika plastered across his forehead? Should a private hospital, owned and operated by the Catholic Church, be forced to provide abortion services? Should a black guy who owns a barber shop be required to provide haircutting services to a guy who walks in and pulls a Ku Klux Klan hood off his mulleted head?

No, of course not. The neo-Nazi can go buy his tuna with extra mayo on white bread from somebody who won't be morally horrified by his existence. The pregnant woman can go to a hospital or a clinic where there aren't nurses and doctors who believe that by performing said procedure they are committing themselves and their patient to eternal damnation. The KKK loser can get his cousin/wife to trim his bangs.

When an individual applies a rights claim to economic (or any other sort of) interaction with another individual, he is effectively making a concurrent claim that the other individual is duty-bound to serve him. This is a violation of the very right to which the claimant is appealing, and therefore invalid.

Allowing bigots the freedom to reveal themselves for what they are affords me the freedom to choose to not give them my business. If there is a restaurant owner who refuses to serve Latinos, I value my freedom to choose to eat down the street.

As I said on the show, morality can only really exist when people are free to be immoral. If a person is only "acting morally" because of an authoritarian dictate that commands him to, then he's not really moral--he's just an actor. Free society must abide private discrimination because a free society values liberty above all else--and liberty must be applied to all individuals in the same way. Coercion, even in the name of something so laudable (if illusory) as fairness, is antithetical to liberty and is precisely that which cannot be tolerated in a free society.

Thoughts, Legion?

-Bob.

Thoughts on Austin IRS craziness.

Bob here, with first impressions of the attack on the IRS offices in Austin, Texas by a dude with a plane, a beef with the government, and a death wish.

Ron Paul, a man who I find to be correct about a great deal many things, believes that the United States must look to its own foreign policy decisions and actions when looking for answers to questions such as "why do the 'terrorists' hate, attack, and kill us?" or "why does so much of the rest of the world have such animosity for the United States?"

The idea, of course, is simple: United States interference, imperialism, and generalized war-making in the Middle East makes the people of that part of the world understandably upset at the United States. The power-hungry (and probably smarter) individuals of the understandably upset region then see a golden opportunity: they can capitalize on the anger and hatred that is being felt and provide a series of simple answers to the obvious problem presented by the United States. Thus, a radical is born.

Cause and effect, no? If the United States was not bothering to interfere in the affairs of the Middle East, angering whole generations in the process, they would have no reason to sacrifice their lives in a vain attempt to throw off the yoke of US asshole-ishness. Simplistic, but intuitive.

I tend to agree with Ron Paul on this, but such a philosophy has its own limitations, some of which have only been made plain to me as a result of today's events in Austin, and others that were more obvious all along.

First, there is an unintended consequence of such thought, which is that it can seem to let the individuals who actually commit heinous acts as terrorism or what have you off the proverbial hook. The kid who was molested when he was seven years-old is likely fucked up for life, and is considerably more likely to victimize someone else down the road because of what was done to him.

Cause and effect, no? But, then again, just because you can point to a cause or a trigger for someone's behavior doesn't grant the original victim clemency for future crimes. We still hold the individual responsible for the actions they take to harm others, regardless of how they've been victimized in the past.

Same goes for the pissed off Middle-Easterners. We can point to a series of terrible actions taken by the United States as potential triggers for a "terrorist's" point of view or even their vicious behavior, but this is not a justification nor an excuse for the individual's actions.

I know this is all somewhat obvious. But for whatever reason, whenever someone wants to point to United States foreign policy as a possible causal reason for global discontent, people start screaming about how "you're just trying to blame America!" or "why do you hate the troops?!" This is either very stupid or very intellectually dishonest. It is foolish to expect intelligence or honesty when it comes to politicians or those who discuss them at length in the media. I'm not that naive, and I doubt you are, either.

It is ultimately the responsibility of those capable of massive influence (such as the United States) to take an honest look at what their influence has in fact wrought. In this case, while the US has indeed been at times a force for immeasurable good in the world, American policy and actions have also very much had a negative impact on individuals, countries, and even entire continents. To entirely blame ourselves for the actions taken by others against our interests is of course ignorant and unjust, but to ignore our role or position in the causal chain of events is very much even worse, and leaves us looking to the rest of the world like a country of blind despots.

So what do we do? It wouldn't be humane, prudent, or even really possible to dismantle all institutions of US foreign influence in an attempt to avoid killing, hurting, or even offending anyone's sensibilities in the future. All we can do is try to change our policies in such a way that prevents the future victimization of individuals and their region. We can accept responsibility for what we've done without accepting the blame for what others have done in response to our mistakes, and it is incredibly important that we do so. All it takes is a little bit of intellectual honesty.

9/11 offered the United States a unique opportunity for self-reflection. In the years that followed, it would have been wise to figure out what we could change about our global positioning and policy to change the way we are perceived by our friends and enemies alike while at the same time seeking out those who attacked us and bringing them to justice. Instead, we went to war, which has had the net result of reinforcing many of the worst things the world already believed.

This has been a helluva circuitous route to get to where I'm going, but here we are, finally.

Joseph Andrew Stack flew his plane into a building that housed just shy of 200 employees of the Internal Revenue Service, seemingly because he believed the IRS to be an institution with which it was impossible to reason. He believed the tax code was immoral, unfair, and overwhelming, and felt that he had exhausted all reasonable and legal options available to fight the system. Thus, a radical was born.

It would be irresponsible and unfair to blame the IRS or the federal government at large for the actions and murderous intent of Joe Stack. But as with the "terrorists," it would be just as ignorant, and dangerous, to assume that the causal chain of events that led to Joe Stack's breakdown, radicalization, and ultimate violent recourse began and ended somewhere in his own mind.

No one is responsible for the actions of Joe Stack beyond the individual (deceased) called Joe Stack. The fact remains, however, that the massive tax code is often seemingly unfair, nearly impossible to fully understand, and backed by the full force and fury of a federal United States government that is increasingly acting in the best interests of its corporate sponsors, and not the people it purports to represent.

What Joe Stack did was wrong, pointless, and inexcusable--and he is entirely responsible for his actions. It's also an invaluable window into the mind of a man who represents a way of thinking that is different only in degree, and not in kind, from the thinking of what I think is a substantial swath of the American public. To write him off as a crazy person is to ignore a much greater problem, or even the possibility of such a problem.

The good ol' government teat.

Apparently the average pay of a federal employee is not over $70,000. That is nearly double the average pay of a non-government employee. To an extent, that's all good, right? I mean, these are no doubt long-serving government bureaucrats with specialties and niche-type jobs who are valuable assets to the function of our massive federal government, whether you agree with its size or ends or not.

I'm struck by the story, which can be found here, because of a slightly different reason than the typical outrage about the story will be, I think. My issue is this: We are increasingly a nation employed by or otherwise receiving a check from the federal government.

It's nearly to the point where as many people receive money from the IRS every year than actually pay out into the system. If you add in those receiving federally paid welfare or other social spending, plus the huge number of federal level government jobs--not to mention the millions of teachers in this country who may work for the state, technically, but are accountable to the federal government for performance if not being outright paid by it--we are a nation that will never choose to reduce the role or size of government.

This is because so many of us are on the payroll, or otherwise on the government dole. Who would vote to make it harder for themselves to maintain their lifestyle? Not too many people. The U.S. government is too big to fail, I suppose, and the tyranny of the majority will ensure the final nail in the coffin of the experiment that was limited government with enumerated powers.

We'll probably be talking about this on the show next week--post away and let us know what you think so we can include your thoughts.

Have a great weekend!

Later,
-Bob.