The Debatable Land

How many types of libertarian can there be?

Many, many, many. If the GOP increasingly suffers from a suffocating orthodoxy, the libertarian movement (if that's not an oxymoron) is amusingly/alarmingly/pedictably/irrelevently heterodox. As Brian Doherty explains:

Joining the former, and previous more or less useful classifications such as anarchist and minarchist, paleo and cosmo, utilitarian and natural rightsers, is the division between "policy libertarians" and "structural libertarians," explicated by Jacob Lyles over at "Distributed Republic."

Then again, since libertarianism is as much a sensibility as anything else, it's scarcely surprising it should be such a divided house.

UPDATE: Dave Weigel has a characteristically good - and entertaining! -  review of "a thrilling and dispiriting year for libertarian politics" under the never-out-of-fashion headline Where Did It All Go Wrong?

The Politics of The Wire

Jonh Goldberg says that The Wire should be more popular amongst conservatives. He argues that conservatives should love The Wire because it shows what happens when you let Democrats run a major, if declining, American city. Well! At a certain point this is too dull for words: have we really reached the stage where even TV programmes have to be apportioned between conservatives and liberals so that watching television becomes a dreary act by which one demonstrates ones political allegiance?

In any case, if you have to investigate The Wire's politics, it seems to me that you might be tempted to conclude that it endorses a libertarian view of local politics, rather than  conservative or liberal perspective. No wonder it's such a trendy show to like... The evidence is there: manifest failure of a crippling and immoral war on drugs? Check. Manifest failure of a school system resistant to reform and implicitly ripe, therefore, for real school choice? Check. Desperate consequences of the criminalisation of prostitution? For sure. Ghastly consequences of local government and planning regulations held hostage by rent-seeking? Yup, that too.

Factor in The Wire's popularity amongst educated pointy-headed Beltway-libertarian types and the fact that it wasn't very popular across the country as a whole and, yup, it seems clear that The Wire was probably too libertarian to be successful. Hence no EMMYs and precious few viewers.

The Libertarian Inquest

I'm a sucker for any story headlined "Where Did the Libertarian Party Go Wrong?" and sure enough Brian Doherty's Reason article is a fun read. I particularly liked his opening line:

From the outset, Bob Barr’s Libertarian run for the presidency was fraught with great expectations.

The biggest problems for the LP? Apart, that is, from the fact that libertarian ideas aren't all that popular? The failure to take advantage of the Ron Paul Revolution. That and the problem that Obama was a pretty good vehicle for protest votes this year - in a way that John Kerry never was.

MPs to Media: You're On Notice

This week's (latest) head-in-hands, what-the-hell-is-going-on? moment comes courtesy of the Intelligence and Security Committee at Westminster. The Independent reports that:

Britain's security agencies and police would be given unprecedented and legally binding powers to ban the media from reporting matters of national security, under proposals being discussed in Whitehall.

The Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary watchdog of the intelligence and security agencies which has a cross-party membership from both Houses, wants to press ministers to introduce legislation that would prevent news outlets from reporting stories deemed by the Government to be against the interests of national security.

The committee also wants to censor reporting of police operations that are deemed to have implications for national security...

The ISC report said the DA-Notice system "provides advice and guidance to the media about defence and counter-terrorism information, whilst the system is voluntary, has no legal authority, and the final responsibility for deciding whether or not to publish rests solely with the editor or publisher concerned. The system has been effective in the past. However, the Cabinet Secretary told us ... this is no longer the case: 'I think we have problems now.'"

Consequently, there are moves to make DA-Notices legally enforceable. That is to say, the government should have statutory powers to censor the media. Should this happen, then as sure as eggs is eggs you can guarantee that there will be a massive increase in the number of DA-Notices issued and that, furthermore, most of them will be designed to spare the government embarrassment rather than protect national security.

But, hey!, fundamental abridgments of liberty are OK if it's in a good cause, right? The great thing about "national security" is that it can be invoked to cover just about anything. Or rather, there are plenty of people who fold whenever the "national security" card is played, no matter how ludicrous or implausible the reasoning behind the bluff may be.

As you might expect, David Davis makes sense on the matter, here.

Tales from Brave New Scotland

Good grief. Needless to say, one of the more depressing elements to this story is the fact that it won't prove terribly controversial. That's to say, there won't be a fuss or a rumpus and you won't - alas - see any outrage from politicians in any party.

Pub-goers in Aberdeen are facing a drugs test before entering bars as part of a crackdown by Grampian Police.

Officers in the force will be the first in Scotland to use an Itemiser - a device which can detect traces of drugs from hand swabs in a matter of seconds.

The test is voluntary, but customers will be refused entry if they do not take part. They could be searched and even arrested if traces are found.

The device was trialled by the police force in the area earlier this year.

The Itemiser allows police officers or door staff to swab customers hands as they enter a pub or club. It can tell almost instantly if drugs are present - including cocaine, cannabis, heroin and ecstasy.

Customers who get a green reading are allowed entry to the pub, those who get amber are given a drug information pack and those who get red could be searched by police.

Det Supt Willie MacColl, national drugs co-ordinator for the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), said: "This project offers an opportunity for collaborative working to implement an alternative intervention that will help change attitudes and reduce demand for controlled drugs.

"We hope that over time the model can be developed and used by community partnerships in other towns and cities across Scotland to reduce the harm caused by drugs."

Ch Insp Innes Walker, of Grampian Police, said that as a result of the trial period in October "people had a greater confidence that they could enjoy a night out without fear of encountering drugs".

So, no need for anything like probable cause, no need for anything as quaint as the presumption of innocence and, naturally, it will be a "voluntary" scheme unless you want a drink. So, not so very voluntary. But, sure, it's only the people with something to hide who have anything to fear, right? Wrong. Who needs ID cards when we suffer this level of intrusion anyway? (Though ID cards will, of course, only make matters worse). Ghastly.

Quiz Time!

Yup, it's another game of answer-some-questions-and-discover-how-few-people-agree-with-you. This quiz is better than some, however. Apparently, like John Schwenkler (from whom I lift the format of this post) I am a "hardcore libertarian" but also a "social progressive" who "probably" considers myself a "citizen of Earth first rather than a citizen of my country". Additionally, I'm a "capitalist purist" who is a "moderate" on defence issues. Anyway, take it yourself and let me know how you get on...

After the jump: my answers...

Status: Enraged but Unsurprised

OK, this is from the Sunday Times so the usual weekend caveats apply. But a) this story does seem to be confirmed by official sources and b) it turns out it isn't actually April 1st:

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime.

Although the Tories will doubtless give them a run for their money it is hard to imagine how any government could actually be more enraging than the present shower. Mr Worstall has some good, old-fashioned suggestions for what the government should do next. And no, despite what the government says, none of this is actually for your own good.

PS: How long before some government flunky tries to make the (absurd) case that "Well, if we just had Identity Cards we wouldn't need to consider plans such as these"?

Plucky Honduras!

Meanwhile, there is good news from Latin America. Cato's Juan Carlos Hidalgo reports that the President of Honduras is the latest Latin American leader to call for an end to the "War on Drugs". Argentina and Mexico have made similar noises in the past. Some of this, for sure, is because the continent is turning to the left and is less concerned about upsetting Washington. Some of it, too, becase the failure of the "War on Drugs" is ever-more apparent. But Hidalgo suggests another reason too:

Another important factor is that many Latin American countries are now less susceptible to punishment from the United States, thanks in part to free trade agreements. A decade ago, all Latin American countries but Mexico depended on unilateral trade preferences to export to the U.S. market. Upsetting Washington could represent losing these preferences. Today, 11 Latin American countries have implemented (or are in the process of implementing) permanent trade agreements with the United States that ironically gives them more stability in their relationship with Washington.

This, I must say, is perilously close to a (rare) win-win situation for libertarian-minded chaps. As such I am, of course, suspicious...

42 Days: Jacqui Smith

Here's video of Jacqui Smith's contemptible performance in the Commons last night. Basically, she says that if you don't support giving the police carte blanche then you're on the terrorists' side. At the very least, if you dare to question the government you don't care about security. And of course all you yoghurt-munching civil liberties pansies also don't care about the liberty of "not being blown up". Seriously. As I say, contemptible.


Note too the bald-faced lies she tells. Apparently every security expert supports the government's proposals. Not so. Former policemen and, as I say, two former heads of MI5 opposed the government last night. So too, one should note, did two former Labour Lord Chancellors - Charlie Falconer and Derry Irvine. Lord Morgan, a former Labour Attorney-General also opposed the government.

42 Days: Gone But Not Dead

Peers reject the notion that it's fine to lock people up for six weeks without even telling them why and how does the Home Secretary respond? Well, yet again, by impugning the motives of those opposed to granting the state these extraordinary powers: "I deeply regret that some have been prepared to ignore the terrorist threat, for fear of taking a tough but necessary decision."

And so the Labour party adopts the bullying thuggery that characterises much of the modern Republican party's approach to security issues. Power corrupts, of course and Jacqui Smith should be ashamed of herself. Curiously, those ignoring the terrorist threat included not one but two former heads of MI5, the domestic security service, who, now appointed to the House of Lords, voted against the government.

Never fear, however: despite being rejected 42 Days hasn't gone away. No, it's being kept back in reserve for that happy tragic day when it can be rushed through parliament in the aftermath of another terrorist attack.

Coincidentally, a government minister pops up today to warn that "They [terrorist threats] are now building up again. There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this." What super and fortunate timing! Perhaps this is true, but must the government insist upon treating us as fools? Equally, the presence of a threat does nothing to advance the argument for why the state needs more than its already all-too-draconian powers.

What else? Well, the headlines say that the appalling plan to hold inquests in secret - sans juries, sans the public, sans relatives - on "national security grounds" (a great catch-all!) has been "dropped". Except it hasn't. It's been remove from the Counter-Terrorism bill bu will be brought back in a "forthcoming" coroners bill. You can't take your eye off these people for a second.

And no, I have little faith that a Tory government would necessarily prove much better on these issues.

They Haven't Gone Away You Know

The issue of whether the state can lock-you up indefinitely  for up to 42 days without even the courtesy of telling you why is back. Happily, the House of Lords seems certain to reject the government's plans, sending them back to the Commons where, again hopefully, they will finally die. Here's Labour MP Tom Harris, however, explaining that if you opposed giving the state these powers you're a "civil liberties" (feel the sneer with which he writes these words!) nutcase and if there's another terrorist attack on Britain, it will be your fault...

It’s no secret that, along with the great, wise majority of our nation, I support a radical extension of the length of time the police can detain terrorist suspects without trial. I don’t see it as a civil liberties issue at all - more of a civil protection issue. I won’t rehearse all the issues now because, unfortunately, most people have made up their minds about where they stand, and aren’t going to change their minds now. Not yet, at least.

So the Lords will knock it back to us in the Commons, and we’ll have another vote on it, which I hope we will win. However, given the arithmetic in the Commons, that’s not guaranteed. If it falls in the Commons, then it’s game over. But only for now.

Because events, sometimes terrible events, happen. At some point in the future, the government will receive enough support to extend pre-trial detention to 42, or even 90, days. I hope it is done at a time where the arguments can be aired and analysed in a calm, rational atmosphere.

My greatest fear is that if the current proposal falls, the next time we debate extending pre-trial detention will be in the aftermath of another terrorist outrage. Undoubtedly, that will be called scare-mongering, as were all the warnings that were heard in the run-up to 7 July 2005.

So, yeah, that's something to look forward to, isn't it? It's no secret that the government have failed to make their case for this change in the law, so all that's left to hope for is a massive bomb just so that Labour backbenchers and government ministers can say "I told you so". So, yes, this is scare-mongering and, of course, emotional blackmail of the lowest kind. Equally, oppostion to the government's plans is indeed based upon a calm and rational appraisal. It's the people supporting this measure who want to whip up hysteria and madness and fear and panic.

UPDATE: Of course, Labour MPs don't "want" a terrorist attack. They'll just use one as a cudgel with which to attack anyone who thinks the state should be expected to tell you promptly why you are being locked up. The current 28 days detention is reprehensible as it is; extending to the plucked-out-of-thin-air 42 days, utterly unjustifiable. And remember: these people originally wanted it to be 90 days. Anyway, the Lords said No by 309 votes to 119. Oh, and a reminder: if you think these powers might not be abused or extended from obvious terrorism cases, consider that the UK government seized Icelandic assets last week using anti-terrorism laws.

When Big Becomes Obese

Quote of the day comes from Chris Dillow:

Everyone knows centrally planned economies are a stinkingly bad idea. The lesson of the collapse of many banks is that centrally planned companies are also a bad idea. And they’re a bad idea for the same reason - that, in complex organisms such as economies or big companies, fragmented and tacit knowledge cannot be centralized, and “leadership“ often degenerates into mere rent-seeking.

I suspect there's quite a bit to be said for this view. Then again, I would say that since this perspective also accords with my view of politics. That is to say, I'm unconvinced politics can be be effective in large, fragmented countries.

Ministers have an inherent bias for sweeping, inclusive one-size-fits-all plans that presume that Whitehall Man or some Beltway Mandarin has the knowledge and, dash it, the wisdom to do it all himself. Yet, the larger the country, the more diverse or fragmented its population, the less likely it is that this policy model can actually be effective, let alone responsive to shifting circumstances or changing demands. By the time the centre has realised there's a problem, it's often too late for there to be a solution, least of all the one that emerges from the horse-trading sausage-factory (how about that, eh?) that is Congress.

Hence, I rather suspect, that further EU integration is a problem. Hence too, the United States is too integrated. The accumulation of power in Washington - envied by eurocrats in Brussels - has not necessarily been a success. At least, it's not clear to me that you can, these days and with the United States being the complex place it is, pass national legislation that is likely to be appropriate for Californians and Alabamans, Minnesotans and Virginians. At least that's the theory: subsidiarity, as it used to be known. Better by far, for instance, to let the individual states sort out their healthcare plans. They may make a hash of it, for sure, but they're more likely, at least in theory, to be able to tailor policy to real-time circumstances.

Caveat to this of course: you can run large countries from the centre if you don't care about anything as tediously inconvenient as the democratic process.

So, what's the optimum size for a country? Somewhere less than 200m but more than, say, 330,000?

Financial Crisis: All Uncle Milton's Fault?

Will Wilkinson has some fun with Naomi Klein's latest nonsense.

Naomi Klein says [the financial crisis discredits neoliberalism]. Or she wants it to. She thinks it discredits Milton Friedman in particular, because for Klein not a sparrow falls without Friedman’s having somehow strangled it. Hers is a tiny intellectual universe containing, on the one hand, the things she likes and, on the other, the baleful influence of Milton Friedman.

Did you know, for instance, that Paul Bremer was a Friedmanite agent of mass destruction in Iraq? Apparently so!

The Littlejohn Vote

As expected, David Cameron's speech has been well received. In the Telegraph, Iain Martin says this was the moment Cameron "came out as a Conservative".  Indeed so. But amidst the sobriety and the resolution, there were moments of populist blue meat too. The BBC's mini-focus group particularly loved this passage:

For Labour there is only the state and the individual, nothing in between. No family to rely on, no friend to depend on, no community to call on. No neighbourhood to grow in, no faith to share in, no charities to work in. No-one but the Minister, nowhere but Whitehall, no such thing as society - just them, and their laws, and their rules, and their arrogance. You cannot run our country like this.

It is why, when we look at what’s happening to our country, we can see that the problem is not the leader; it’s Labour. They end up treating people like children, with a total lack of trust in people’s common sense and decency. This attitude, this whole health and safety, human rights act culture, has infected every part of our life. If you’re a police officer you now cannot pursue an armed criminal without first filling out a risk assessment form. Teachers can’t put a plaster on a child’s grazed knee without calling a first aid officer. Even foreign exchanges for students…you can’t host a school exchange any more without parents going through an Enhanced Criminal Record Bureau Check.

No, when times are tough, it’s not a bigger state we need: it’s better, more efficient government. But even more than that we need a stronger society. That means trusting people.

Exactly. When you hear about this sort of stuff, you do not need to be a Daily Mail reader to scream "What is wrong with this country?"  I'd assumed that this nonsense about criminal record checks had to be made up. But no, it's actually true. Then again, why should I be surprised? This summer a school-teacher told me that "Health and Safety" regulations meant boys could no longer practice in the cricket nets absent adult supervision.

Cameron may have (mistakenly) disavowed libertarianism yesterday, but this is fertile territory for the Tories, appealling to the British version of the Leave Us Alone coalition. There are plenty of votes out there in Why-oh-Why land. Heck, even Tom Harris, Labour MP for Glasgow South, seems to despair of the culture his party's government has fostered. As I say, this is a subject the Tories should return to time and time again. Are you mad as hell? You should be. Are you going to take it anymore? You damn well shouldn't...

Just Say No

There are very good reasons for wanting to be rid of this shower sooner rather than later:

Identity cards could be handed out to children as young as 14, a home office minister has suggested.

The first ID cards are due to be offered to 16 and 17-year-olds from 2010 as part of a plan to introduce the controversial scheme in stages.

But Meg Hillier said the age range was still "up for grabs" and could be lowered "if they prove popular".

She also said the scheme might be too far advanced for the Tories to "unpick" if they came to power in 2010.

Lord knows, the Tories will find ways to disappoint us all too, but on ID cards they are at least fairly sound. At the moment. While they are in opposition. We wait to see if they change their mind once in office. I would not be surprised if they did. But that's a matter for another day...