Last week, my family went camping down in the wilds of southeastern Ohio. In addition to wonderful hikes and cookouts, each afternoon I set out on a scenic bike ride. One day, while peddling through the hills and hollows, I ventured along a state route that bisects a tiny hamlet.
Just on the edge of civilization, right before homes once again give way to pine trees, I passed a tavern and caught (what has become for me) the smell of liberty: cigarettes and fried grease.
As a cyclist, that mixture of smells is enough to send my stomach spinning. But as a libertarian, that very same fragrance is a sign of rebellion — a sign that liberty still has a place in the hearts of some men.
Now everyone in the area (including politicians, bureaucrats, and petty officials) must know the tavern allows smoking, in spite of state laws against it. Yet folks are silent, and smoking continues. Why?
Before I provide my reason, let me contrast this experience with one that occurred not too far from my home in suburban, central Ohio.
One weekend, my family camped at a local campground that has a party house serving burgers, beer, etc. The establishment also has a couple of pool tables and requisite television screens. Instead of eating the Dinty Moore meal we had prepared (heated) for our kids, my wife and I decided to drop in for a burger and pop. We entered, ordered, and waited for our takeout meal.
While waiting, we noticed a few burly men playing a rather loud game of pool. Just as we were paying for our meal, two of the men left to go outside. On our way out, we passed them smoking underneath the outside canopy. Sensing that moral outrage must be near, we stopped and asked them their thoughts on the then-new state anti-smoking laws.
Where we expected outrage, we heard indifference. One of the guys even stated that the law was good since it limited the amount of cigarettes he was able to smoke in a day. Wow, I thought, the nannies have reprogrammed the minds of those who were once free.
I attribute the very different reactions to the interventions of the state into the lives of the citizens of Ohio to one source: public education.
You see, the schools in my area outperform those of the wilds — outperform them on state-mandated tests of state-mandated curriculum.
In a very real sense, the state, through its schools and curriculum, has succeeded in squashing public dissent of the continued loss of liberties.
So while my locals champion a state that intervenes in their lives, those who attended supposedly poor-performing schools still hold onto remnants of liberty. And these folks have held the state at bay, with their local apparatchiks and nomenclatura too afraid to stop open rebellion — to enforce the state’s anti-smoking laws.
For those who think that government schools are about the threes R’s, I suggest asking any recent graduate of a so-called high-performing government high school some pointed questions on the rights of property — liberty. You will quickly learn that the three R’s are simply the diversion used to inculcate future generations.
{ 32 comments }
The future lies with the proles.
…maybe in 1984. today’s proles are a big disappointment.
This is silly. Many things, including human attitudes to various vices, change over time as a natural result of growing understanding of the hazards these vices represent. While it might be sad that our society is abandoning liberty in favor of the nanny state, it is even MORE sad that liberty’s proponents seek to build such a strong connection between liberty and the practice of vice, and celebrate when they witness their union.
Tina,
Attitudes to vices? The issue is property rights, not smoke.
As I stated, I dislike cigarette smoke and the smell of fried grease. But I champion folks who defend their property against any aggressor — including the state and its nannies.
And, keep in mind that your vice might not be a vice for another.
As an example: I never buy Butterfingers, except around Halloween. Then (or now), I tend to overeat these delicacies — really overeat them.
I’m certain that there exists an enlightened many who “understand” the hazard of too much sugar and too much chocolate. But do they ever have the right to take away my Butterfingers?
Something to consider before you impose your understanding of hazards on another.
Tina,
When government has become so fascist that it tells people that they can’t allow smoking on their own property, that’s totalitarianism. When people are grateful for that control over their lives, that’s pathetic. So it’s no wonder that when Jim comes across people who won’t bow down and say “I love Big Brother!”, but instead quietly engage in a little good ol’ American civil disobedience, he finds that encouraging. It’s not about celebrating vice. It’s about celebrating people whose balls haven’t dropped off.
I live in Northern Kentucky, and my friends and I never go to the bars in Ohio simply because of the smoking ban. There are quite a few ohioans who come to kentucky to go to the bars due to the Ohio smoking ban. The Bastards tried to pass a smoking ban here, but we fought it tooth and nail, and it got shot down. I can assure you, though, that the anti-smoking nazis will be back soon, though.
I wish the libertarians stop demonizing the public education. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the system either, but please, stop make it sound like it’s some kind of orwellian indoctrination apparatus.
The teachers and government educrats are not evil agents trying to brainwash our kids into docile and obedient citizens. That’s an absurd notion. I’ve worked in a public education system and I’m 100 percent certain the vast majority of teachers and educrats are well intentioned. They simply do what they believe is right, because they’ve never heard of any Mises or Rothbard. Sure, there are quite a few nasty bastards among the educrats as well, but they’re not evil because of their statist ideology – they’re just your typical parasites working the system for their enrichment. They don’t seek to indoctrinate, they just want money, that’s all.
I think Rothbard makes the same mistake. That’s probably my only beef with him. He makes it almost sound – especially in For the New Liberty – like the whole statist system, and particularly public education, is some kind of vast conspiracy designed to keep the populace dumb, blind and obedient. I don’t believe that at all. Everything that’s happening in the government and public education simply reflects the general worldviews and attitudes of the society.
Ron Paul often said that it’s not an accident we have a big government – we have it because people want it. And it’s exactly true. I for one believe the reason the great libertarian message hasn’t caught on yet is not because someone’s trying to suppress it, but simply because the society as a whole is not ready yet. It took us several thousand years to realize slavery is not something decent, civilized people should support.
As a fan of A. C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, I’m an humanist-optimist. I believe we are slowly progressing toward some kind of libertarian society, I believe the statist system, including public education, will gradually unravel, but it’ll take time. A lot of time. And it won’t come as a result of dethroning some kind of statist conspirational cabal manipulating society from above. It’ll happen because in time the society will recognize it as the only rational and sustainable alternative.
Response to Tina:
The smoking issue is but a single strand in the wider question of freedom:
Any activity undertaken by humans carries benefits and risks. Whether or not to embark on that activity is contingent on the individual’s estimation of whether the benefits outweigh the rewards. A further factor is the individual’s own time preference which discounts future costs and benefits to a present value. These calculations are done intuitively for the most part, and are not explicitly quantified, but nobody makes choices without considering them to some degree.
The point is that nobody, not me, nor you, and certainly not some bureaucrat armed with a law, is in a position to weigh up the benefits and costs of any choice, and making such a decision on behalf of any another person.
1. You have no insight into how much value any given smoker attaches to the benefits of his fix ( and before you jump to the erroneous conclusion that there aren’t any, consider that millions of people disagree with you on that point, and who are you to say they are wrong?).
2. You have no insight into how much any given smoker fears the health risks of his fix in relation to the benefits, and
3. You have no insight into any given smoker’s own time preference – the degree to which he mentally discounts the future to the present. ( Altho’ its a fair bet that the modern welfare state with its miltifarious interference has driven modern people to give less value to the future than ever before …..).
All of which gives you no basis on which to make a smoking/non-smoking decision on behalf of any other person, except in so far as his smoke has a directly deleterious effect on your own wellbeing. You can advoicate healthy living to your heart’s content if you feel strongly about it, and you can hope to convince someone by force of reason that the health risks are serious enough to warrant changing their preferences. But you have neither the right nor the moral grounds on which to stop other people doing the things you personally disapprove of.
Indeed, your own right to make the choices you do depends on that: However pure and right you think your own choices are, its a fair bet others will think at least some of them are rash, or ill-advised, or even morally wrong. Your right to make your choices freely requires that you refrain from constraining theirs. It really is that simple.
to tina brewer:
people who breathe mountain air, eat healthy and go to gyms all will die. some horribly. maybe you don’t understand the concept of letting people alone who aren’t causing violence.
SECOND HAND SMOKE IS A JOKE=WATER VAPOR
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
British Medical Journal & WHO conclude secondhand smoke “health hazard” claims are greatly exaggerated
The BMJ published report at:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057
concludes that “The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer are considerably weaker than generally believed.”
What makes this study so significant is that it took place over a 39 year period, and studied the results of non-smokers who lived with smokers….. meaning these non-smokers were exposed to secondhand smoke up to 24 hours per day; 365 days per year for 39 years. And there was still no relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality.
In light of the damage to business, jobs, and the economy from smoking bans the BMJ report should be revisited by lawmakers as a reference tool and justification to repeal the now unnecessary and very damaging smoking ban laws.
Also significant is the World Health Organization (WHO) study:
Passive smoking doesn’t cause cancer-official
By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent
” The results are consistent with their being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer. The summary, seen by The Telegraph, also states: ‘There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood.’ ”
And if lawmakers need additional real world data to further highlight the need to eliminate these onerous and arbitrary laws, air quality testing by Johns Hopkins University proves that secondhand smoke is up to 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations.
The Chemistry of Secondary Smoke
About 94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a slight excess of carbon dioxide. Another 3 % is carbon monoxide. The last 3 % contains the rest of the 4,000 or so chemicals supposedly to be found in smoke… but found, obviously, in very small quantities if at all.This is because most of the assumed chemicals have never actually been found in secondhand smoke. (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80).
Most of these chemicals can only be found in quantities measured in nanograms, picograms and femtograms. Many cannot even be detected in these amounts: their presence is simply theorized rather than measured. To bring those quantities into a real world perspective, take a saltshaker and shake out a few grains of salt. A single grain of that salt will weigh in the ballpark of 100 million picograms! (Allen Blackman. Chemistry Magazine 10/08/01).
- (Excerpted from “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains” with permission of the author.)
The Myth of the Smoking Ban ‘Miracle’
Restrictions on smoking around the world are claimed to have had a dramatic effect on heart attack rates. It’s not true. http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7451/
As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that:
“Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)…It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded.”
-Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
Carlos,
Who needs to demonize Prussian-style schooling at the point of a gun?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8cr0p9HaG8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ogCc8ObiwQ
harleyrider1978, the question of whether second-hand smoke is damaging isn’t even the issue; it’s the restrictions put on what a person can do (and allow others to do) on his own property. Since others voluntarily enter his property, they have no basis for complaint either, since if they don’t like second-hand smoke (for whatever reason, scientific or not), they can simply avoid entering his property. If this property is a restuarant they would otherwise like, then tough; they’ll have to make a tradeoff.
whoa whoa whoa guys!!! Relax! I too oppose smoking bans! I just constantly feel the need, because of the bizarre ways in which being FOR liberty always seems to translate into being FOR vice, to point out that this is a mistaken union. Let me illustrate with an example: When I first started dating my husband,he was a smoker. I hate cigarette smoke, and although I knew right away that I wanted to marry him, I also knew that the idea of spending my life with a cigarette smoker was going to be tense. So, I very gently approached the subject, saying “so, are you planning on smoking forever?” His immediate response was and embarassed, sincere apology and a promise to quit ASAP. This was an attitude which came from his OWN KNOWLEDGE that what he was doing was bad for his own body and gross for those around him. In other words, he felt a natural and healthy self-consciousness about his vice.
In my previous post, I was merely trying to address why the men referred to in the article might have SINCERELY expressed that for them, the law has had the beneficial effect of reducing the number of cigarettes they smoke. It is possible, just possible, that they really wished to reduce the number of cigarettes they were smoking, and lacking the initiative to do it themselves, have recognized that a coersive external force has actually benefitted them. Like a child might recognize that the ‘time-out’ he recieved for losing his temper “helped” him to calm down. Do I believe that adults should be given “time-outs” by the state? No. But I definitely believe that they shouldn’t need them, either. Getting happy because you see some fellow humans damaging their own bodies is like getting happy because you see an overgrown child who hasn’t learned to control his temper. I just wish liberty were championed for its creative, spiritually uplifting quality, rather than being constantly associated, by its proponents, with the glorification of vice.
Shay: but what about the bar owner’s wage slaves?
Just kidding…but…the mentality *is* real and widespread. There are masses of real drones churned out of the government indoctrination camps and they must be cared for. The entire fascist edifice must be taken down and no focusing on anything but the entirety of it can get us there. We are tied by a Gordian Knot and I can’t even imagine a coalition that can cut it.
Karlos,
I respectfully disagree that libertarians should leave public education alone. It should be demonized at every turn. My experience with public education was that it was, to some extent, an indoctrination center, mostly regarding history.
Very little criticism was given to the actions of the government in US history. I remember in my high school history class the evils of slavery had about a chapter in a 40+ chapter book. The genocide of the native americans was about a half a chapter. The illegal internment of the japanese americans in the 1940′s had about a page. The Gulf of Tonkin was taught as if it was a real incident. There was no mention of the guerilla war in the Philippines. Very little time was spent talking about the Korean war. There was no mention of other US military interventions throughout history. There was no mention of various regime overthrows engineered by the US government. Also, I was taught that the New Deal “saved” everybody and got the US out of the great depression.
My mother was a teacher and principal for about 20+ years. She told me several times that she noticed that the quality of education had fallen over that time. I don’t believe there is some conscious effort by some cabal to create this type of curriculum. I see it as what happens in a system that is socialist. Some planners somewhere are just trying to out-scientist everybody else, force their solutions on everybody else, instead of just leaving people to create their own means. It’s garbage in, garbage out. Only thing is, the garbage becomes more copious over time.
I remember being a teenager in high school and thinking that public education was a warehouse for kids. Looking back as an adult, I believe my conclusion was correct. Anything worthwhile I learned elsewhere, either by myself, or from my parents, my siblings, friends, a co-worker, etc. Before entering the school system, I remember sitting with my parents at the kitchen table learning to read. I remember learning basic math the same way. After entering the school system, I remember coming home with some new math concept I could not understand and having it explained easily and quickly by my parents and then wondering why the teacher couldn’t do the same thing. (My father, by the way, did not learn these things via the public system, as a kid, he was working in fields, picking tomatoes, lettuce, cherries, etc.)
This is not to say that there aren’t smart people that work in or come out of the public school system. But whether its an indoctrination process or not, overall, the system isn’t good and it would be better if people questioned its very existence.
Karlos siad: “I wish the libertarians [would] stop demonizing the public education. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the system either, but please, stop [making] it sound like it’s some kind of Orwellian indoctrination apparatus.”
Karlos, I believe that you have perhaps drawn your conclusion from a few who might misstate the problem; however, most libertarians I know do not believe that the problems we face in education today are a part of any vast conspiracy.
Most humans are not corrupt or evil and most try to be as moral as possible given their circumstances, but not all are equipped to deal with philosophic foundation issues either. Teachers today are certainly not evil, most are indeed very caring, well intended people but that alone will not keep them from doing far more harm than good in the end. They are mostly followers who are not equipped to challenge the system, nor teach the philosophic principles necessary to deal with the realities we face.
The problem is that flawed philosophical foundations lead to large cracks and weaknesses in the whole structure over time. And while many have certainly attempted to plaster over the cracks in the walls, the real problems have gone mostly unattended until now we face the fact that a wall, if not the entire structure, is in danger of collapse.
What we face in education today can be traced back and attributed to progressives such as John Dewey and his ilk and until something is done to remedy those errors we will only be patching over the ever widening cracks in the foundation of this country. There are very few institutions left that teach enough, in the classical sense, about proper economics, history, logic, or ethics and without such instruction we end up with men that can build rocket ships, run major corporations, and hold high offices, but who are to muddle minded to know if they are really working in the interests of the devils or the saints.
Re: public education. We spend more money on public education than any other country in the world, and we are ranked somewhere in the neighborhood of *last* among all industrialized countries in terms of math and science. Are we getting what we pay for? Why not? Because of a confluence of corrupt politicians and the teachers’ labor unions, especially the NEA, playing off that corruption. In other words, because education is public instead of private.
And if you think these people are not ideologoical, you’ve got your head in the sand. The average teacher may not be, but the people running the unions certainly are. When William Bennett was Secretary of Education, he was at an education conference in California and expressed his view that the educational system should focus on two things; 1) basic literacy/numeracy, and 2) basic moral values that pretty much everyone agrees on. State commisioners told him the purpose of the education system should be 1) making America a more “socially just” society; 2) helping students “cope” with life (like a good education won’t do that?), 3) increasing “global awareness”, 4) changing the “shape and focus” of America. In other words, the purpose of the public education system should be to further the left-wing agenda, not to furnish children with a basic education. Scary.
Keep in mind that all of the state’s nanny laws are, by definition, for the sole purpose of reducing some hazardous behavior. In Ohio, it’s smoking, drinking raw milk and using booster seats (including, now, booster seat for those up to age 8 or 10 or something). In NYC, it’s trans fats. In all other areas on the US, it’s these and more.
In essence, you are proposing that any act of civil disobedience directed against these laws is indefensible. If I championed those who drink raw milk in violation of Ohio laws, you (or a proxy) would make your very same claim once again.
So you have backed me into a corner. I cannot champion any act of disobedience without opening libertarianism to being attack as libertinism.
I assume you agree that the state wins on a rhetorical technicality.
It’s kind of funny. Those poor guys think they have a problem because they are addicted to nicotine, but they have a much more dangerous addiction to state intervention.
Now seriously, I think the issue of smoking bans deserves a closer libertarian look. Here in Spain they are about to introduce it, and some night club owners are worried about a loss of clientele. Proponents argue that no such loss happened in Ireland or Italy, and that many people who wouldn’t go to a night club because of the smoke will do so now, and while smokers prefer night clubs where they can smoke, if none is available they won’t stay at home. It didn’t sound so unreasonable, and many people agreed that they would behave as described, so I wondered what’s going on here.
I think it may be a typical case of high transaction costs. If the owner of a night club sets a smoking ban, clients will just go to another night club. Why? because people (at least over here) tend to go to several night clubs the same night, and the no-smoke advantage is largely lost unless *all* the night clubs one visits are smoke free. So the only way that night club owners could attract the nonsmoker clientele with a private smoking ban would be if a significant number of them, with the right geographical distribution in the city, agreed on such a ban.
So what’s stopping them from doing just that? Here starts the guessing. Maybe the government is lying and there’s net loss of clientele anyway, or maybe the risk is too high and they can’t compensate for it by paying lower staff wages (in exchange for the benefit of a smoke-free work environment), maybe the nigh club owners are afraid to agree on anything because of antitrust legislation.
Then, I think we should admit the possibility that the smoking ban (shock, horror!) happens to be beneficial. That is, maybe people are so used to state intervention that they just need a “nudge” to change their habits, and they are willing to accept from the state what they wouldn’t accept from night club owners. Maybe a new equilibrium is reached where, even if the smoking ban is removed, now smoke-friendly night clubs face the same problem smoke-free night clubs faced previously.
The possibility of “beneficial” interventions shouldn’t be surprising. This is analogous (sorry for repeating myself!) to the example of a king who mandates saving crops because of a coming drought, and he happens to be correct. The intervention happened to be beneficial, but his absolute power to intervene is harmful, and there’s no possible legislation that could preserve the “good” interventions while eliminating the “bad” ones.
In summary, the state engages in all kinds of random interventions all the time. Some of them may happen to have some beneficial effects, and a broken clock is right twice a day. Admitting this simple fact is in no way an endorsement of the opinion that a modicum of intervention is a good thing.
@Jim
you write;
In essence, you are proposing that any act of civil disobedience directed against these laws is indefensible.
Smoke! Do Drugs! Sleep with prostitutes! Drive drunk! Be a libertarian hero! Whaa??
I am saying nothing of the sort. I am only trying to say that any individual act, whether it is smoking a cigarette, drinking raw milk, driving without a seatbelt, etc., can be something which we as libertarians think should be legal without that act at the same time being any other positive thing, such as wise, moral, beautiful, good, lovely, helpful, etc. You name it. Its just legal. No more, no less. Therefore, it only contributes to the mistaken identification of libertarianism with libertinism to express approval when you see a bunch of people doing something essentially objectively harmful, just because you think it should be legal for them to do it.
I have known people who smoke a joint now and then. I have also known people whose entire lives are built around the experience of being high, and who are washed up and pathetic as a result of their use of marijuana. I believe marijuana should be legal. Do I feel a sense of libertarian elation when I witness the empty shells the latter group has become as a result of their drug use? Absolutely not. I experience horrified sadness that these people failed to make even remotely healthy choices in their use of a drug. And I still think they should be free to make these awful choices without legal consequences.
In the end who cares what I think. I just get the sense that libertarians damage the prospects of liberty when they constantly engage in the false consciousness of championing any thing, however gross or foolish, just because the state inappropriately discourages that thing or makes it illegal (like smoking or driving monstrously inefficient gas-guzzlers). They similarly damage liberty by blindly opposing any thing, no matter how inherently harmless or even beneficial, just because the state is for that thing (for example polluting less by driving an electric car, using reusable shopping bags, etc.) People read these articles and they come away thinking “if I want to be a libertarian I have to think smoking is great?”
People read these articles and they come away thinking “if I want to be a libertarian I have to think smoking is great?”
That’s a silly and weak argument. But, then, I trust that readers are just a little brighter than you seem to believe.
“That’s a silly and weak argument. But, then, I trust that readers are just a little brighter than you seem to believe.”
That phrase was also almost an afterthought, and doesn’t constitute the essence of what I was saying. I am not trying to be nasty or petty here, and from the tone of your response, that is where this is headed. I will just leave off with a confession, which hopefully will set the tone back to where I intended: When I first became acquainted with libertarian thinking, at the absurdly late age of 36, I had to push through SO MANY barriers from my past educational biases, and my own most deeply held convictions in order to accept certain concepts. I am a committed and passionate environmentalist and anti-war pacifist, who came to libertarianism from the left. I am sure I am not alone in this experience, and consider myself a “bright” person. Nevertheless, it was a difficult, thorny conversion made many times more difficult by my constant need to remind myself “okay, just because this bigoted libertarian thinks drug use is great, and smoking is great, and concern for the environment is communism, does NOT mean that this represents libertarianism PER SE…” I just wonder how many people turn away in disgust from such examples of making libertarianism something it is NOT, with the end result being that liberty as a concept is damaged. Maybe not too many. Maybe I am wrong.
Except for perhaps the line about “the smell of liberty: cigarettes and fried grease”, which was obviously meant to be tongue-in-cheek, I can’t find anything in Jim’s article that can be construed as celebrating unhealthy eating or smoking. And right after that line, Jim emphasizes that “As a cyclist, that mixture of smells is enough to send my stomach spinning.” The article certainly isn’t a celebration of unhealthy habits, and if you think it is, you need to re-read it. It’s a celebration of people who aren’t afraid to be free, even if it’s illegal, and a lament regarding the nanny state attitude.
Russ: I took the time to re-read the entire article, as you suggested. I appreciate the desire to be supportive of the courage it takes to do what one wishes in spite of the nanny state, and I agree with this basic sentiment. It is just going to come down to a different take on what Mr. Fedako terms “a sign that liberty still has a place in the hearts of some men”: What I mean is why is THAT some sort of cardinal sign of the presence of liberty? I think there are signs all around, positive signs, signs that have nothing to do with bad habits or even vices which indicate that liberty is alive in the hearts of men. They rarely, if ever, getrecognized and celebrated by libertarian outlets, though, and are in fact much more likely to be ridiculed.
My personal favorite are the constant, incessant attacks on environmental ideals. I am not referring to any specific article on this site, and don’t have time right now to research exactly where I have encountered these attitudes. However, just as an example, I have read, in many contexts explicit ridiculing of the act of carrying reusable grocery bags by fired-up pissed- off libertarians who are so horrified at the idea of having these bags forced on them by the state that they make the mistake of thinking there is something wrong with them in principle, and then they feel disgust when they see people using them…they see a statist conspiracy in the innocent, good, and perfectly voluntary choice by some people using their freedom to take upon themselves the extra cost/trouble of reusing something rather than throwing more plastic garbage onto the world. Why? It would actually be MUCH MORE libertarian to say “see all those people out there, who VOLUNTARILY take it upon themselves to purchase those reusable bags, in spite of the extra cost and trouble? What a wonderful force for positive change freedom is!” But no, such a thing will never be breathed, nor even noticed, when the orientation of libertarians is to see liberty primarily in the acts of rebellion against the state, rather than in the whole large realm of voluntary, free behavior.
It ts an old and dead horse, which I have now officially beaten to death. poor horse.
Tina,
I think one reason why grocery bag re-users are not held up as libertarian heroes is that it doesn’t take much courage to do something that is not only not illegal, but is considered by many to be immoral not to do.
There is also the notion among many libertarians that if plastic grocery bags were really such a threat to the human race, the free market would find a way to deal with the problem. The fact that it has not done so shows to such people that plastic grocery bags are in fact not a major threat to life on Earth as we know it. (I must confess that I am one of these people. I think that one’s re-using grocery bags is just showing that one is “holier” (or greener) than one’s neighbors.)
I understand that libertarians sometimes display a disconcerting tendency to be contrarian, sometimes apparently for its own sake. But I think part of this is a reaction to the politically correct, prudish puritanism that is running rampant on the Left, especially in environmental and health fascist circles. If something is forbidden, that makes it cool. That may be juvenile, but it’s also human nature. If the Left doesn’t want smoking to be considered cool, they shouldn’t make it the forbidden fruit.
BTW, you shouldn’t leave dead horses lying around. They’re environmental hazards, doncha know? *grin*
So the subtle distinction between ‘libertine’ and ‘Libertarian’ finally got aired.
In my view, a bona fide libertarian is required to also be a libertine by definition, in so far as he upholds the right of anybody to make his own choices, and hence claims no moral right to intervene when others indulge their appetites ‘to excess’. ( of course, its a rare person who considers his own appetite indulgences to be excessive – ‘excess’ is a value judgement necessarily applied to the behaviour of others, which renders the very concept of ‘vice’ moot).
Conversely, a libertine is not necessarily a libertarian. The Marquis de Sade was a the archetypal libertine, but since satisfying his appetites entailed coercively forcing others to bend to his will, or at least he had no regard for his behaviour’s consequences on others, he had no valid claim to be libertarian.
$0.02
Speaking of plastic bags, what follows was written about a year after the draconian South African plastic bag legislation was passed. I offer it here for its entertainment value:
When is a plastic bag not a plastic bag?
Laws are usually enacted in order to serve a purpose – to stop something being done, or perhaps to ensure that something else is done – allegedly to further the best interests of society at large ( But more likely to further the best interests of those framing said law, but we’ll let that pass here). However, once a law has been enacted, the intention behind it – the purpose for that law’s existence – becomes irrelevant, and the concern of everyone (potential transgressors, law enforcement authorities, lawyers and judges) is focused exclusively on what exactly the law says – the better to circumvent it, or the better to ensure conviction of transgressors, as the case may be. The letter of the law is paramount, and the spirit of the law means nothing, except in so far as it happens to correlate with the letter. This happens a good deal less than it should due to language limitations or hamfisted drafting. In law, it seems, form overrides substance.
Take the new retail plastic bag law. Huge volumes of plastic litter needed controlling and, seized with environmental zeal, the Ministry decided to do something about it. To encourage a more responsible and thrifty attitude to bags, laws were enacted to outlaw thin, flimsy free bags, and ensure that the plastic bags purveyed by retailers were both (a) more robust than before, and (b) were to be charged for. This was cleverly calculated to vest in them economic value, and hence create an incentive for customers to preserve and re-use them, rather than tossing them to the wind and allowing them to settle on barbed wire fences. Stringent enforcement followed, and, not surprisingly, both the yellow/red and blue/white species of South Africa’s national flower disappeared from the wild, almost overnight.
Consumers reluctantly accepted that they had to pay for bags, and many started to bring their own for the groceries. Of course, before long, supermarket checkouts came to realize that they were constrained in sorting their clients’ purchases in the professional manner they had previously used when bags were issued with carefree abandon. No longer could they place detergents and toiletries in one bag, meat products in another, and dairy products in yet another. The customers either bring their own bags in limited numbers, or they buy just enough new bags in which to cram their purchases, however incompatible the contents might be. This has generated a problem for the checkout staff, and the customer, who doesn’t want the Sunday joint leaking blood all over the cheese.
So how have the supermarkets responded? Entirely rationally, given the letter of the law. Each checkout operator is given supplies of two types of bag – the strong, valuable ones, and some extremely flimsy ones (even more diaphanous than the old, now illegal, supermarket bags – come to think of it, thinner than government-issue condoms). The wet or toxic purchases are then placed in the flimsies, the better to ensure that they don’t contaminate the rest of the groceries crammed into the paid-for, legal supermarket bag. All for no extra charge, mind. It would seem that the dispensing of these flimsy bags circumvents the law on the grounds that they qualify as wrapping for the individual product, rather than being plastic bags as such.
I’m not complaining – I don’t want my food to taste like washing powder any more than the next person – but one can’t help reflecting that all those flimsy see-thru bags walking out of the supermarkets for free, to eventually find their way to rest on barbed wire or thorn trees, do seem to nullify the entire legislative exercise.
I don’t carry those damn bags because I feel holier than thou, you can count on it. I just try to live my life as much in accordance with my own inner principles as is possible at a given time. I hate waste and excess, and I dislike the idea that any species produces garbage which just piles up and piles up and never goes away. It seems out of touch with natural processes, in which the inevitable waste-products of activity degrade and return to a state in which their constituent parts can be reformed usefully. I don’t see ecological insights like this as being in any way in conflict with libertarianism, and I think that people taking voluntary steps to alter their behaviors in a way which is maybe less convenient or cheap is a positive act, if not a heroic act.
There are also so many many instances in which the frank and dangerous degradation of the natural environment is harmful to OTHER species before it is harmful to humans. There is nothing unlibertarian or communistic about the desire to tread lightly and beautifully upon the earth. Nothing at all.
Dead horses are actually a benefit, by the way, as they discourage those who might wish to take up a tricky and controversial subject from harming themselves accidentally…
Tina,
There’s plenty of room for trash (some of the dumps even produce energy), don’t sweat it. As long as no one trespasses with their trash, there is no problem.
And, no offense intended, but you *do* understand that your time *may* be put to more productive uses than screwing around with old plastic bags, right? Maybe not, but it definitely can be for some people. (also: if a recycling operation can’t sustain itself it’s probably not worth the effort., that’s why the bums are in my alley grabbing the aluminum and leaving the plastic)
You reminded me of this theory as to why we are on this planet in the first place:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw&feature=channel_page
mpolzkill
while we are obviously WAY off into tangent land anyway, I might as well point out that in this particular regard (the quesion of why we are here) it will have to suffice for me to say I couldn’t more strongly disagree with the late great George Carlin’s ultimate view “it just is”. (which doesn’t prevent me from greatly enjoying his humor, by the way) This only matters because of my personal belief that I will be held responsible, in the ultimate sense, for the entire spirit in which I lived my life. Again, WAY off in tangent land…That’s okay, though. I can still lug around those reusable bags. I’m really not that pressed for time at this point, but some day, those 10 extra seconds it takes me to grab them and bring them along might pay off big in some other way!
Tina:
As you probably have realized, this blog tends to cultivate and encourage an in-your-face attitude towards the politically correct consensus. I find it refreshing up to a point, but there are issues where I thoroughly disagree, and I don’t feel any less libertarian or any more indoctrinated because of that. I find no intellectual merit in blindly opposing every widely held opinion; a black sheep is still a sheep. I think most people here also enjoy controversy and lively argumentation.
I celebrate that you are coming from the left; this makes the intellectual environment more varied and productive. I’d like to know what made you change your mind, what were the key points of disagreement which eventually disappeared, and how you would try to convince other lefties.
Now, regarding the subject matter, as I’ve said in other posts (sorry, guys, for the insistence), I think there are profound reasons why Rothbardians are uncomfortable with environmental issues, and they have to do with the homesteading doctrine, which I think should be revised. In Rothbard’s view, non-homesteaded resources are unowned, therefore they are subject to the tragedy of the commons until someone decides to homestead them.
In my opinion, while an excellent rule-of-thumb to protect the individual from predatory crowds who claim property on everything as a rationalization of hegemonic relationships, there must be more to the issue of homesteading rights than the standard “all you can fence” interpretation.
From a principled point of view, I see no reason why those who are quick to assert their ownership of as many resources as they can fence may have a higher moral claim on those resources than those who stick to what they need. From a utilitarian point of view, this policy could lead to a scenario where the most reckless, least reasonable, individuals rush to take up the most valuable resources and do with them as they please at the expense of everyone else.
Besides, if the value of a given resource lies in its beautiful and pristine status, incompatible with fencing or any signs of human labor, then there’s no way for anyone to assert ownership on this resource in order to protect it.
I believe that rules about homesteading (and also secession) are some of the first things a viable ancap society needs to agree on. The right to homestead resources should be a guiding principle in those initial negotiations, but some agreed-upon limitations could be in place to discourage an explosive homesteading race and to protect valuable “unowned” resources by, for instance, claiming a provisional communitarian ownership, possibly followed by a sharing-out scheme.
I think my position still qualifies as anarcho-capitalist, even if my support for the homesteading doctrine is more nuanced than usual.
Martin OB; interesting that you ask what made me change my mind. I guess when it comes down to it, I must admit that the real motivation for me was metaphysical. I believe utterly in the value of the individual human spirit as a free-will possessing, conscious entity endowed with FULL responsibility for its development toward self-consciousness in creation. It is from out of this basic view that I came to realize that it is only libertarianism, among all political philosophies, which allows for the complete unfolding of this necessary spiritual process. Leftists tend to be averse to the concept of personal responsibility. They tend (again this is only a tendency, not universal) to see humans much more as impressionable, malleable ciphers, who merely react to the chaotic and meaningless circumstances of their environments. This was probably the main thing which pushed me ultimately away from the Left.
While libertarianism is only a political doctrine, and as such a very limited source of insight in terms of morality, it is nevertheless, for me, a basic. I also differ on many interpretive issues with the more materialist libertarians. For example, I believe that world events are a developing expression of the spiritual volition of men. Therefore, in some not always transparent or temporally obvious way, our ongoing losses of liberty are, for me, a sort of karmic/natural result of the spiritual retrogression occurring; basically, be careful what you wish for, because the laws of creation will bring you the fruit of your volition! I experience that more and more humans WISH to be infantalized vis a vis the state. THey do not WISH for full self-responsibility. Therefore, they increasingly provide a fertile soil for tyranny.
When talking with other “lefties”, I usually try to keep it simple and as basic as possible, focusing on the natural rights of self-ownership and property. I also emphasize that the (in my opinion) best libertarian minds have always emphasized that the GOALS of human existence can be similar, statist or libertarian; it is the means toward those goals which must be non-coersive and voluntary. We can both want a clean environment and sustainable local economies (although we might not); how we ACHIEVE those goals differentiates us. I suppose this is why I find it painful so often to see libertarianism continually associated with the urge to shoot down and ridicule anything which attempts to rise above the low, low bar of “non-aggression”. It is logically flawed and self-destructive. But I suppose that will bear its karmic fruit as well!
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