I keep having these run ins with the law over my desire to unclog my nose. Earlier today I tried to buy Mucinex but was declined because my driver’s license is technically expired, only a few days ago. Now, just last week I was in the drivers license bureau doing some stupid tag thing and I asked about this expiration date. They said not to worry about it now; I have sixty days to get it renewed. But apparently the pharmacy doesn’t go along with that idea. They ripped the stuff right out of my bag and told me to go home with a stuffy head.
I shot off a remark about how all of this is George Bush’s fault. The teller shot back: “no it isn’t. It is the crazed meth heads who kept using the stuff to make drugs.”
I shot back: “They are still making their drugs even with the laws, and I really don’t care either way. All I know is that it is illegal for me to fix my stuffy nose.”
I left before I was reported to someone.
Just thirty minutes earlier I was in the doctor’s office (no, I’m not a med head; I was just checking things out) and all he wanted to talk about what the desperate need for more scanners at airports that can see through all of our clothes. I pointed out that people wouldn’t hate Americans so much if we would stop invading their countries and bombing people. He looked at me as if to say: “why, America has never invaded anyone’s country.”
Driving home, I wondered if there was any violation of human rights and liberties that Americans wouldn’t tolerate, provided it is sold to them in the name of security and right living.
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My license has been expired for a few months now (and no, I have not driven during that time), and the two times I used it to prove my identity, the person commented on how it was expired, as if I had suddenly became a different person (but would go back to being me once I renewed it). The second time, I was required to produce some other form of ID, which ended up being a passport (even though they had also already made an imprint of my debit card, in case I didn’t return the loaner equipment they gave me until they repaired mine). The second guy was acting as if I had some duty to renew my license/ID card, even though there is no point to it because it already serves to link my face to my name. These days you don’t even go in to get a new picture; you just pay $24 online for them to print a new card that probably costs under a dollar to make (but they say you have to wait up to two months for them to send it). It’s also odd because when you renew, I believe you can print out a temporary renewal right from your own printer that says your expired card is now valid again. What is the point in paying this every few years? Oh, right, because they say we need to.
And about a year ago, I had an awful cough that was literally keeping me up all night. I usually avoid medications, but broke down and got some cough syrup, since I thought it had some powerful agents. Didn’t do a damn thing, and after reading more about it, I learned how they were “forced” to use less-effective drugs and add something to make your stomach upset, becase otherwise someone somewhere might “mis”use it to have a good time. Imagine that! They sure succeeded in preventing me from having a good night’s sleep.
Sounds like the pharmacies are on a similar path to destruction as the airlines are, for our safety, of course.
Aren’t you thinking of the children?!
Jeffrey Tucker said: Driving home, I wondered if there was any violation of human rights and liberties that Americans wouldn’t tolerate, provided it is sold to them in the name of security and right living.
Personally, I think that for most statists, it would take pure totalitarianism for them to be irked enough to be drawn into action. It has to be something that actively causes them harsh and direct discomfort. Like say: the seizing of ones’ children for not meeting some contrived cultural and secular parenting standard; desert for not meeting established diet guidelines; or an intensive cavity search just to be allowed to board an airplane, train, or enter a building; or confiscation of one’s favorite cake.
That may be an extreme and pessimistic view. But you see, while I expect nothing less but either total failure or stagnation from 99% of all government policy, but for whatever reason, the current reality is that no politician, no bureaucrat, and very few voters can draw conclusions from these breakdowns as to what has caused them.
I made a Caplan-esque $1,000 wager with a colleague that we will see caloric restrictions by 2025 (as a result of socialized health care). Am I crazy? Is this a liberty infringement that the polity will not tolerate?
No slight to mises.org, which is a fantastic organization, but posts like this remind me why I would love to see a Jeffrey Tucker solo-blog. It could be lifestyle oriented, with libertarian commentary, but perhaps less hard economics than mises.org. Think Tom Knapp’s blog. Think about it!
…of course, since this was all my idea, I would naturally insist upon a 10% commission
I’m convinced most people are kind of dull, but have a lot of promise – until the public schools promptly kill it all.
In Ohio, my wife has seen two different banks refuse to give somebody their own money, because they presented an expired license as ID. One cited “a new law”, which I’ve been able to find no trace of. Since when were banks and pharmacists deputized as the enforcement arm of the BMV?
Mike D, I just can’t afford the royalties!
People don’t actually want freedom, by and large. They like to pretend they do. They feel the need to publicly appear that they do. But look at people’s actions rather than their self-serving, meaningless declarations — they opt for statism at just about every opportunity.
As for the bombings and invasions, those are bad enough, but the US also spends a great deal of money and time propping up third-world dictators without actual invasion. It’s usually done under the pretense of “foreign aid” or “military assistance in the War on Terror.” In reality, the US is merely bribing the local mafia dons to give US companies favorable (i.e., exclusive) access to various natural resources, and they then use our money and guns to brutalize the local people, in order to justify the continuation of the aforementioned “foreign aid” or “military assistance.”
It’s all right out there in the open for anyone to see.
Mr. Jeffrey Tucker,
This is probably some of the best writing you’ve done. (in the sense that it speaks to my heart)
I am also fed up with people’s attitudes towards the state. This is why I am relentless in arguing for libertarianism and some of the tenets of Austrian econ. I’m just sick of my life and liberties being curtailed by other people’s indifference towards evil & ignorance, and their passion for positive rights that limit the liberties of others.
Seems to me most people are basically libertarian in their interpersonal relationships. They understand, if only on an intuitive level, the value of private property. But when you raise the relationship to more than just a couple of people their sense of what is right and wrong goes completely out the window. I think it’s because they just don’t have an understanding of property theory (if I can coin a term). What is property? Where did the concept come from? Some wise old Greek dude? Is it even a human invention? What is the difference between legitimately and illegitimately held property? How do you tell the difference between right and wrong? They don’t have a basis for arriving at rational ethical conclusions and that makes them subject to all manner of statist beliefs. In the absence of theory only speculation and assertion exist. Mises was right about ideas.
My apologies if this comes off as me being a complete jerk. But after listening to a few of your talks I almost laughed at what I imagined to be your stuffy headed disgruntled/grouchy voice in the exchange at the pharmacy.
On the drivers license thing…the state I live in they clip the corner of your license and hand you a yellow copy of the paper work it took to get an unexpired one. Then you have to wait 6 weeks for them to mail you a new one. Which means I get to spend the next 6 weeks going into bars and asking the waitress or the bouncer if he really thinks I would fake my ID and clip a corner off of it. Fish out the yellow paper and ask “do you think this would be hard to forge?” OR yep its expired so they moved my birthday! I am younger than I ever have been!
‘I pointed out that people wouldn’t hate Americans so much if we would stop invading their countries and bombing people. He looked at me as if to say: “why, America has never invaded anyone’s country.”‘
The historical ignorance of Americans is immensely depressing.
Hume wrote:
“I made a Caplan-esque $1,000 wager with a colleague that we will see caloric restrictions by 2025 (as a result of socialized health care). Am I crazy? Is this a liberty infringement that the polity will not tolerate?”
I would not be surprised if, nothwithstanding current attitudes that anti-abortion laws violate the right of a woman to control her own body, that socialized health care will eventually lead to forced sterilization of those who have any sort of genetic condition, are overweight, are drug users, etc. After all, if “society” should pay for the health care of “society”, it stands to reason that “society” also has the right, nay, the obligation, to maintain the health of “society”, in order to control costs. Ideas have consequences.
‘I pointed out that people wouldn’t hate Americans so much if we would stop invading their countries and bombing people. He looked at me as if to say: “why, America has never invaded anyone’s country.”‘
I think I may just have to use that as a signature somewhere.
Perhaps the Mises Institute should open up their offices in Auburn, New Hampshire instead of Auburn, Alabama since the Free State Project has many liberty lovers that are enjoying their freedom to travel without state papers and others willing to support all when challenged by combative people dressed in silly robes and uniforms.
“Live Free or Die” or as Virgil and that Mises fellow stated: “Do not yield to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it.”
It seems a bit naive to think that Big Pharm would let this issue be forced upon themselves. From my perspective, that industry seems to be one of the coziest/cronyist in the world when it comes to getting their legislative way.
My suspicion is that one of the bigger players discovered that they can use a far less expensive, however less effective, ingredient and sell the end product for the same price; thus making larger margins. Of course, other competitors being able to use the more effective ingredient would cause a huge competitive disadvantage, so they decided they’d better get their buddies in DC to force everyone to use the same ineffective ingredient under the guise of saving the children. Just some wild speculation, but then again, maybe not so wild…
“They will only realize what is happening when a jack boot is kicking them in the face.” — Yuri Bezmenov, former KGB agent.
It is relatively painless and risk-free for us to stand up right now, as we still enjoy the remnants of a free society. For example, I have started insisted that each TSA agent with whom I interact show me his or her identification (especially if they request that I show mine). I have started calmly telling them, upon clearing security, that their agency makes me feel threatened, not safe.
“Right now, good people are running the agency,” I say, in order to disarm them a bit, “but someday, bad people might be in charge, and we will have constructed for them a physical and digital architecture of tyranny.” So long as I keep my cool and avoid threatening statements or gestures, the First Amendment guarantees me the right to voice my opinions.
-David
Although indirectly, this is one perfect example of the false assumption that the State GRANTS freedom, not that humans are innately free. In this case, Jeffery Tucker does not have an identity until the State grants him one. Interestingly, he was Jeffery Tucker until his “license” expired.
What’s ironic, is guaifenesin (the expectorant in Mucinex) can’t be used to make methamphetamine. In fact, it has no use other than as an expectorant. Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) is the stuff for making meth.
I had a similar run-in with a pharmacy clerk. When she asked for my ID, I asked why. She gave the same excuse, “oh, because kids are using is to make meth.” I said, that’s ridiculous, you’re thinking of Sudafed. She just shrugged and said “that’s how they train us here; we need to see ID.” I just shook my head in disbelief…
Hume,
Caloric restrictions are already taking place in public schools as we speak. And some teenagers are smuggling chocolate bars, soft drinks and candy and some make as much as $600 a week selling “illegal” candies. That’s even more than I earn.
It’s not too difficult to imagine that in a high-school of 4000 students, a popular student selling junk food can sell easily 600 bars, drinks, chips and candy per week.
Some officials even want to dezone restaurants and convenience stores in a wide radius around schools.
So yes, it’s already happening and it will get worse. Not to mention plastic bag bans, plastic water bottle ban, normal light bulb bans.
Is it normal for people to follow the directives of an overlord who is amorphous?
How many people can fathom that there is an unConstitutional coup in command?
That’s nothing to sneeze at, but then again when people are addicted to the ‘pharmaceuticals’ that we call interventionism it is these same feeble ones that have succumbed to the economic ignorance passed off by the economic terrorists that need to seek a real cure and a real education and a real Constitutional Republic.
A cnn.com poll today asks “Would you be willing to undergo an airport full body scan?”. With 364731 votes, 73% are for the nude shot.
Over at Reason.com they had a short video in their “Hit and Run” section about “security theater”. That’s pretty much what body scans and tough regulations on things like Sudafed or Mucinex are… “security theater”, or the illusion of safety.
In the video the former security chief of Israel’s El Al airlines was being interviewed on Fox News of all places. Being Fox, you might think it would be a call for more scans, searching, etc. But his viewpoint was not what the “conventional wisdom” in the U.S. would expect.
He said that things like body scans, searches, and using no electronic devices during the last hour of a flight was useless. “It shows fear and weakness,” he said. “It tells them to just set off a device one and a half hours before landing.”
In Israel – a place that knows a lot about Islamic terror – he said they use behavioral profiling rather than racial or ethnic profiling and no invasive searches that dehumanize and humiliate people.
Also, they actually pay attention to the list of passengers and the real security threats on that list. This is something U.S. security didn’t do in the latest case.
So the folks over at Reason.com are right, here in the U.S. it’s “security theater” and the illusion of safety. In my opinion, people are opting for this because it’s easier than something like behavioral profiling… something that would require intelligence.
It shows that the government “is doing something”. It’s aesthetic, but lacking rational thought… something that’s unfortunately very trendy at the moment but perhaps partially explains the willingness of too many to hand over their rights.
I’m not sure how to change this. I’m not sure it can be in the short term. But I think Tucker’s recent post about markets and culture is on the right track. The change has to be an intelligent and cultural one.
Rick:
Saw this on a rerun propaganda cop show and remembered it when I saw what you had to write about security theater.
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” — Helen Keller
Who ever posted that CNN poll…thanks you made me feel like there is no hope. But then again I was watching PBS news tonight and almost had to puke at the level of BS they were feeding people. If people believe half of this junk coming at them via the boob tube then 75% of people are going to want to be violated in the name of security.
I think if would be wonderfully if libertarians could take over an entire cable news channel. I think it would be easy to get people to watch it. I don’t know, I just feel bad for people that aren’t getting fed the right information. I mean its hard for me to blame them when all they have ever known has come from these propagandists and its not easy to look past them. I guess it my weakness on the whole self reliance end of things…I don’t like it when you brainwash people even though its up to them to think for themselves.
The economic equilibrium force that is swinging in the direction of wiping out the house of cards built by the empiricists and interventionists will cause difficulties traumatic enough to cause the indoctrinated and propagandized masses to wake up.
Our privilege and responsibility is to help them discover the magnificence of classical liberalism.
So the folks over at Reason.com are right, here in the U.S. it’s “security theater” and the illusion of safety.
Six years ago, I was with my young son going through airport “screening” when he asked me why we had to take our shoes off, I told him it was “theater, to make it look like they’re doing something.”
A TSA goon pulled us out of the line and reported us to the managerial goon, who interrogated me about my “resistance” to security procedures. I asked him what I had done that constitutes resistance, and he got angry, and left the room.
An hour and a half and one rescheduled flight later, we were told by a third goon that we were free to go.
If they had separated me from my son, there would have been an incident.
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