Via Conor, Gary Johnson answers the CNN GOP primary debate via Youtube:
It was wrong to exclude Johnson, however slim his chances might be. He’s a former governor with a successful track record and unique opinions on war and prohibition. The dinosaurs of network news are once again showing their age.
Kevin Carson has a brilliant post up at the Center for a Stateless Society on the problems with public services and public-private cronyism. This is all in response to Steven Cohen’s defense of public service workers.
Here’s Kevin:
Let me start by saying I’ve fallen afoul of many libertarians by defending public sector employees like those in Wisconsin against reflexive charges of parasitism. If they’re engaged in a legitimate function like teaching kids or delivering mail that would still exist on a voluntary basis even in a stateless society, and the state currently crowds out voluntary alternatives, they’re no more blameworthy than the workers in Soviet state-owned factories.
And I’ve argued that public sector unions frequently empower such workers against those at the top rungs of the state, and might be a useful tool for genuine privatization — i.e., Proudhon’s vision of devolving state functions into voluntary social relationships. That means, instead of the right-wing “privatization” agenda of auctioning off government functions to crony capitalist corporations, mutualizing them as consumer cooperatives owned by the recipients of services. Anyway, I’ll proudly back a teachers’ union local against a superintendent of schools, any day of the week.
Nevertheless, the term “public service” really activates my gag reflex. Like “statesmanship” and “reaching across the aisle,” it belongs in the kind of drinking game you play when you see managerial centrist hacks like David Gergen, Chris Matthews and David Brooks gathering to feed on a cable news talking head show.
He goes on to list the many problems with public servants including cops planting evidence, the fondling TSA and their captive “clientele”, and the prison guard and police unions and their efforts to sustain the Drug War; the politicians who start wars and the massive public-private partnerships that entrench many of the world’s largest corporations, sustain monopolies and duopolies, and the rentier class.
It’s not hard to be against the crony-capitalism, but it’s much thornier once you start talking about actual workers. Obviously even the police do a great deal of good, even if the system in which they work is heavily tilted to preserve privilege and keep the masses down. I think it’s good to differentiate between the workers and the system, as Kevin does with teachers. You don’t have to approve of the political force of the unions to understand that they’re in place to help protect workers against bureaucrats. Civil service laws were written to do the same thing.
But the system, the institutions, the cronyism – these all transcend the workers or the service being provided. Institutions seek self-preservation first and foremost. That’s why government and corporations team up to begin with. They scratch each other’s backs until the whole world bleeds.
Mark puts it well in the comments:
I think what Kevin is trying to get at is that the use of the phrase "public service" as a synonym for anything done in the name of the government winds up being a cover for all the things the government does that would be anything but a "public service" under any rational definition of the word. Moreover, I think Carson would say, a true "public service" is not rendered as such solely by virtue of the employer signing the paychecks.
The phrase elevates government work as being somehow inherently more noble than so-called "private sector" work when in fact, I think Carson would say, it is really not inherently any different (this implies that so-called "private sector" work is also no more noble than government work).
Ideally, in my perfect world, we’d never have had the massive fuel, road, car subsidies that led us to this predicament in the first place. In such a world, I would not bother to advocate spending on high-speed rail or lite rail or any other mass transit because I believe we would all drive a great deal less. We would all live a great deal closer to where we needed to be. Mixed zoning would be the norm rather than the exception. Suburbs would be a thing of fiction.
The problem as I see it is that we have invested in the burgeoning and destructive infrastructure that now exists and people and the economy have become quite dependent on roads, cheap gas, and cozy suburban lifestyles. When oil gets too pricey, the whole system starts to tremble and shake. Even if it should all come toppling down on us, there is not and never will be the political will to let that happen.
So we have to invest in something else, and mass transit seems like a good idea. Maybe high-speed rail will have limited use, but certainly expanding freight rail and lite-rail makes sense. If the electric car finally arrives maybe we’ll all just parade about in fancy electric cars until the coal runs out.
In any case, I basically think all subsidies of any form of transportation are a bad idea, but rail and other forms of mass transit strike me as a remedial investment, something to soften the landing of the very bad subsidization of a fossil fuel economy.
Conor has a good post up on the War on Drugs, and includes this handy chart:
Of course, this is just the DEA budget. The expansion of police departments, S.W.A.T. forces and the numerous other agencies at the local, state, and federal level has been even more galling.
Fortunately for us, the War on Drugs has led to the end of drug abuse in America and a new era of sobriety, peace and prosperity not seen since the days of alcohol prohibition.
Over at Forbes I talk about IP law and how it hurts the little guy.
I remember the first time I played Doom. I can honestly say no FPS experience has been as unsettling or as fun since. Part of this was the complexity of the maps, which made the levels even creepier. You really had to spend the time to get through.
Then again, I hate cutscenes, so I’m biased.
This is pretty hilarious. Really, though, thank goodness for Wikipedia. Think of all the gas we save not having to drive magic school buses every time we need to learn something.
…I have a long post up on the NCEE report on education reform. I think it’s full of good ideas that also happen to be pretty Utopian given the political and budget constraints we face.
Everything Scott Walker has done up to this point was only a foreshadowing:
Tucked into Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) much-discussed budget was a little-noticed provision to overhaul the state’s regulation of the beer industry. In a state long associated with beer, the provision will make it much more difficult for the Wisconsin’s burgeoning craft breweries to operate and expand their business by barring them from selling directly to restaurants and liquor stores, and preventing them from selling their own product onsite.
The new provision treats craft brewers — the 60 of whom make up just 5 percent of the beer market in Wisconsin — like corporate mega-brewers, forcing them to use a wholesale distributor to market their product. Under the provision, it would be illegal, for instance, for a small brewer located near a restaurant to walk next door to deliver a case of beer. They’ll have to hire a middle man to do it instead.
But more noteworthy than the provision itself is how it was enacted. The provision was quietly slipped in the massive budget legislation without any consultation from independent craft brewers, who are justifiably outraged by it.
That’s via Radley Balko, who has more thoughts on the “Prohibition-era artifacts” that are wholesaler requirements.
It’s always weird for me to travel to states with bizarre alcohol laws. Some states only allow alcohol sales out of licensed liquor stores. Others require government-run liquor stores. Still others only allow beer sales in bars (where you buy single bottles to go) or by wholesalers.
This is simply ludicrous. This doesn’t prevent drinking and may indeed encourage drinking and driving. It does create monopolies and stifle competition, however. So if you have a deep and abiding fear of quality craft brews, Scott Walker is your man. Buy the man a nice, cold flavorless Budweiser.
Matt is right about Pawlenty’s failure to distinguish himself from the pack. Also, Romney is taller and better looking than Pawlenty. You can’t underestimate how important this is to the electorate’s collective subconscious.
Taller candidates usually win. The only reason McCain beat out Romney the first time around is that…well honestly, I have no idea. Elections can be unpredictable affairs.
The only real threat to Romney at this point is Rick Perry. Alex is right to be concerned.