Tag Archives: logical libertarian

Libertarianism, Science & Skepticism, Social Issues

Vaccine Or No Vaccine: The Facts And This Libertarian’s Opinion

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The latest litmus test for politicians seems to be the idea of mandatory versus voluntary vaccinations. Even libertarians are somewhat divided on this, but the liberty-minded factions seem to support pro-choice, and the statist-leaning folks are going towards making them mandatory.

First, let’s point out that most people agree that vaccinations are one of mankind’s greatest medical achievements. Whether you’re pro-choice or not, I think we all agree that science has proven them to be overwhelmingly effective.

Rand Paul recently weighed in that he supported a pro-choice position, but he got himself into trouble when he stated, “I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.”

If I were to give Rand Paul the benefit of the doubt here, I would like to believe he was simply arguing that some people are afraid of vaccines because children have been diagnosed with mental disorders after being vaccinated, as a means to explain why people might not want to vaccinate, even if this is anecdotal evidence, which is definitively not scientific.

I would like to think he was not arguing that there was any causality, since studies have almost universally debunked this myth. But if he was, that is sadly a very unscientific position for someone who is currently practicing medicine to posit.

While it has been reported that some vaccines may cause temporary issues, I don’t think any credible studies have supported the notion that any permanent complications have arisen.

But either way, let’s explore what actually happens when you’re given a vaccine. A vaccine is essentially a dead, or severely weakened version of a real virus.

Influenza Virus
Influenza Virus

To over-simplify things a bit, living things introduced into your body that don’t have your DNA will be seen by your immune system as a threat, and your immune system will go about trying to destroy it.

This is the reason that your immune system must be suppressed when you receive a donor organ for instance, and why organs harvested from your own DNA are much safer and advantageous.

On a side note, as fantastic as this may sound, I don’t think I’m overstating this one iota when I say that this particular field of research will revolutionize the world of medicine forever; we are truly on the cusp of never needing organ donors again.

Think of the vaccine as a new first-person war-simulating video game you just bought. At first, you don’t know any of the levels, how to defeat any of the enemies, etc. So you play the game on its easiest mode until you learn the most effective means to slay your enemies. Once you’ve mastered it, you are ready for the more advanced levels.

Characters from Halo 5
Characters from Halo 5

This is what vaccines are effectively doing. Because the vaccine is a dead or weak form of the virus, it’s like the game on “easy” mode where it’s of little to no threat to you. In this state, your body can train itself to kill the virus so it’s better prepared to kill the full strength version down the road, if it’s introduced into your system.

So why does it not work sometimes? Well, what if the copy of the video game you received was Halo, but the real disease is Call of Duty? You’ve prepared for the wrong game. There isn’t just one influenza virus, there are various strains. So it’s important that the medical field do their research well and introduce a vaccine that prepares you for the influenza strain that is expected to be most prevalent.

Now, let’s also explore the effects on your body when you get a vaccine. Your immune system is not magic, it uses energy from what you consume—energy you would otherwise use to run, jump, and play.

So it’s not uncommon for some short-term effects as your body diverts its resources to the battle you’ve just entered it into with the vaccine. When you get sick, you get weak also, right? It’s because your body is diverting energy to fight the virus you have. Whether it’s a vaccine or a live virus, your immune system has a lot of work to do, and you will be affected in that moment.

Since every person is different, people’s reactions will vary. Some people might get the vaccine and feel almost nothing, others may get the vaccine and feel like their energy level has been reduced by half. It’s for this reason that Rand Paul suggested staggering these immunizations so that your body can tackle one virus at a time to keep the short-term weakening effects to a minimum. Plus, if your immune system is busy fighting one battle, it may not be well-suited to fight another, which should make basic sense.

Now that we’ve covered the facts, let’s get towards the opinion of whether it should be optional or mandatory.

Vaccines are rather effective, but they’re not bulletproof. Depending on the vaccine, you will see here that the CDC has found the effectiveness to vary anywhere from as low as 59% and as high as 92%. This is the single most important factor I used in forming my opinion.

Some people online have posted memes asking the question, “If vaccines work, and you’ve had one, why are you concerned if I get one?”58737535[1]

On the face of it, it seems like a fair question, but it’s one born out of ignorance. As I stated above, at best, they seem about 90% effective. So imagine a scenario that I am interacting with you, and you have the virus in question. If you haven’t been vaccinated, there’s a 1:10 chance I may get the disease from you. But if you’ve also been vaccinated, that means my risk now goes from 1:10 to 1:100 (1/10 x 1/10 = 1/100). The more people who get vaccinated, the more the odds go down.

If enough get vaccinated, the odds will eventually exceed the number of people in an area, and the disease will likely be eradicated. Meaning that if the odds of you catching it get to 1:1,000, but there’s only 900 people in your community, the odds would then favor eradication of the disease—basic math.

Assuming you’re not an anarchist, almost all of us believe government’s duties are to protect our rights. Statists think government has many more duties, but I don’t know of any non-anarchists championing government causes that don’t include protecting rights first. The most important of these rights? The right to life.

So if vaccines are anything less than 100% effective, which they are, government enforcing you to get one isn’t for your benefit, it’s to protect others from you if you catch the virus.

What so often happens is people want to create a paradox to sound smart, something no one should ever intelligently do. For instance, it’s like asking a Christian if God can build a wall so high even he can’t climb it—a purely nonsensical  question.

The Pet Paradox
The Pet Paradox

Arguing that vaccines should be a choice creates a similar liberty-paradox. Because while you’re giving liberty to one person, you’re effectively taking it away from everyone else they’ll come in contact with, which mathematically, is a net loss for liberty.

It would be no different from arguing that slavery should be legal because it gives liberty to the slave owner, or as Greg Gutfeld pointed out (I don’t want to take credit for his argument), it would be like legalizing drinking and driving because you’re restoring liberty to the future AA member.

The only way you are truly for liberty is if you champion the view that gives the greatest amount of liberty. Giving one person liberty while denying the rights of ten others, is not a libertarian position, it’s a selfish one, in my opinion.

Now, you can rightfully argue I’ve created my own liberty-paradox by denying the right of the anti-vaccine person, but I have an answer for that. If they choose to self quarantine in some way, then by all means, let them not vaccinate. I’m perfectly OK with that—problem solved, paradox gone.

Otherwise, I think the only fair libertarian position is that you cannot own a slave, you cannot drink and drive, you cannot drive a car without insurance to cover me if you hit me, and as much as I hate government mandates, I feel you should not be allowed to introduce yourself or your children into the public arena unless you vaccinate.

 

 

 

 

 

Science & Skepticism

Interesting Science Facts You May Or May Not Know – 02/02/2015

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Commercial Space Flight

It is well known that Sir Richard Branson has founded Virgin Galactic to eventually take civilians into space. At first, the space-tourists will go up and come back down again to the same port, simply going to see the view from space first-hand. But eventually, space flights will go from point A to point B. What are the advantages of this, besides the view?

Virgin Galactic's Space Ship Two
Virgin Galactic’s Space Ship Two

Currently, a normal flight from New York to Australia takes 21 hours in an airplane, which usually travel at around 500 mph. But when Branson’s space-plane achieves orbit, outside the Earth’s atmosphere, like the International Space Station, it will be traveling at around 17,500 mph, 35 times faster than the aforementioned airplane. Do a little math, and a 21 hour flight, 35 times faster, is reduced to 36 minutes.

Plus, there’s generally much less fuel used as well, which will make environmentalists happy. Whereas a plane will have to maintain 500 mph using its engines the entire journey, once the space ship is in orbit, it will coast the whole way until the moment the pilots slow it down and let gravity return it to Earth.

Safer isn’t always Safer

In 1975, professor Sam Peltzman outlined a theory referred to as the Peltzman effect. What it states is that when you increase the safety of something, people will engage in riskier behavior that will potentially offset any gains in safety, or even be more unsafe.

He based his theory on traffic, but it is a simple human behavioral analysis. It is the reason many people, including former Steelers great, Hines Ward, are championing the idea that if you got rid of helmets in football, there would be less concussions, not more. This is buoyed by the fact that rugby, a sport nearly identical to American football, has far fewer head traumas.

Imagine, I were to ask you to walk a tight rope between two buildings, assuming you’re not part of the Wallenda clan, you’d probably say no. But put an airbag or safety net underneath the tightrope, and now you’re far more likely to do it.

Nick Wallenda
Nick Wallenda

If you had initially said no, you were in no danger whatsoever, you said no after all. But if you walk across with the safety net, you could still fall and hurt yourself if the net failed, or you didn’t land right, thus increasing your danger.

 Navy Rail Guns

Ever hold two magnets together, and have them repel away from each other? That’s the science behind the Navy’s latest weapon, a rail gun. Using electromagnets, the guns repel the projectile out of the barrel at a staggering 4,500 mph, or 6 times the speed of sound. Why so fast?

This has to do with kinetic energy, which is calculated as 0.5 x mv². M = mass, V = velocity. So the faster something is traveling, the more energy it will impart on something when it hits it.

Think about it this way, would you rather get hit by a 10-ton truck moving 10 mph, or a 1 ton car doing 100 mph? Assuming you would choose the item that is ten times faster, not heavier, why? The fact that the velocity in the equation is squared tells you velocity is significantly more important, something you instinctively already knew.

Current Navy warship guns, the 5″ 62 caliber Mark 45 mod 4 delivers about 18 megajoules of muzzle energy, whereas the new rail guns can deliver 32 megajoules.

Notice the fire coming off the projectile in the video, that’s not because explosives or gun powder were used to fire it, that’s because wind resistance is burning it up, just like when space ships return to Earth and generate heat, or how comets become fireballs when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere.

Not only is this more destructive power, but the rail gun’s projectiles are inert, with no explosives in them, they’re just a metal projectile. So sitting on the ship waiting to be shot, there’s no chance they might accidentally get detonated, making it safer for the ship’s crew to handle them.

They do significantly more damage because of their velocity, so they don’t need to be explosive.

Hybrid Vehicle Technology

Thinking of buying a hybrid vehicle? There are some things to consider. Hybrids effectively have two engines, a gas engine, and an electric one. Why both? Because electric engines don’t have a very good range at the moment, and where you can fill your gas tank in about five minutes, an electric car takes overnight to charge.

But here’s the problem; since hybrid’s have two engines, They are much heavier than a normal car, and therefore require more energy to lug around the added weight of the electric motor? So how do they make it up? Regenerative braking.

When you apply your brakes on a normal car, two pads in a fixed position, clamp down on a spinning rotor inside your wheel, not that different from the hand brake on your bicycle. What this does from a physics perspective is converts kinetic energy into heat energy through friction. Your brake rotors will sometimes get glowing red if used often and hard. See this Corvette C6.R race car below, it’s brake rotors are glowing from the massive heat created, and this is normal.

Corvette C6.R
Corvette C6.R

This heat is a large amount of energy being wasted. Think of it this way, a 3,000 lbs. car is barreling down on you at 60 mph, and you have to stop it with your bare hands, how much energy do you think you’d need to do so?

Since brakes convert this energy into heat, they’re basically just wasting that energy, venting the heat into the atmosphere around them. But hybrids put electric generators on the driveline of the car so that when you apply the brakes, instead of pads and rotors converting kinetic energy into heat, the electric motor is essentially placed into reverse and the electric motor charges the batteries as it slows the car.

What does this mean to you, a potential buyer? If your driving mainly consists of highway driving, and you don’t do much braking, such as you might do if you do mostly in town driving, a hybrid vehicle is a very bad idea for you, since you won’t be taking advantage of what makes hybrids more efficient. You’d be better off with something like a Volkswagen clean diesel.

Science & Skepticism

Some Interesting Science Facts You May or May Not Know

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Being the science buff that I am, I thought it would be fun to assemble a few basic science facts you may or may have not known. Wherever necessary, sources are cited. Enjoy.

Nuclear Energy

One atom of carbon, such as petroleum fuels, under combustion such as in the engine of your car, produces 1.4 eV of energy. One atom of uranium converted to energy via nuclear fission, such as a nuclear reactor from a nuclear power facility?fission[1] 210,000,000 eV. (No, that is not a typographical error). The same amount of fuel is literally 150,000,000 times more efficient.

The “Observable” Universe

Ever hear the term, “The observable universe?” The “observable” part has to do with the speed of light. If you look up in the sky, you are seeing light that has had time to reach you. So if something were 1 light year away, and it were a year old, it’s in the “observable” universe. If it is 1.1 light years away, and only one year old, it would NOT be in the observable universe. How could you observe it when its light hasn’t gotten here yet?

How Orbits Work

Many people believe that astronauts on the space station, the moon, the planets, etc., are floating in space with no real understanding of why they’re in orbit. Orbit just means that they are actually falling towards other objects they’re orbiting.

Imagine Earth as a big ball, which it is, and you’re standing on top of it. You hold a gun  horizontally and fire it. The bullet, like the ball’s shape, will have an arc to its trajectory. Gravity will pull the bullet to fall towards the ball. If the bullet goes too slow (Figure A), the bullet’s trajectory arc will be shorter than the shape of the ball’s arc, and the bullet will fall onto the ball. Orbit

But if the bullet is too fast, the bullet’s trajectory arc will be larger than the ball’s arc (Figure B) and it will go away from the ball as the ball falls away from it.

Get it just right however, and the bullet will circle around the ball, falling forever. This is what constitutes orbit.

So when astronauts in orbit are ready to return to Earth, all they do is decrease their speed (They are doing about 18,000 mph while in orbit), and gravity does the rest.

Obedience

After the holocaust, many people were skeptical of Nazi soldier’s claims that they weren’t necessarily in support of the movement, they were just doing what they were told. How could acts so heinous be done by people for no other reason than they were just following orders? Stanley Milgrim, a psychologist at Yale University, in 1963, aimed to find out.

He devised an experiment with “teachers” and “learners.” The teachers were the experiments, the learners were just actors playing a part.

Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram

The teachers were to ask the learner a question via intercom in a separate room (the teachers could not see the learners, only hear them). If the learner got the answer wrong, the teacher was to administer a shock. The shock wasn’t real, but the teacher’s didn’t know that, since they were part of the experiment. The learners got the questions wrong of course, and the teachers started shocking them, upping the voltage with each successive wrong answer as instructed by the person running the experiment.

As the learners cried out in pain, some learners even indicating they had a heart condition (remember, this was all a rouse, there were no actual shocks), the teachers kept shocking them. Some teachers expressed concern, and a few did stop, but most indeed did as they were told.

Unlike Nazi soldiers, the experiment directors were neither armed, nor threatening the teachers in any way, thus demonstrating that many Nazi soldiers indeed may have not been doing anything more than doing as they were told.

Sonic Booms

So why the boom? This has to do with the speed of sound, obviously. Imagine a plane were stationary, and sound was emanating from it. That sound is actually waves of energy hitting you at very fast intervals. We’ll say a thousand times a second for convenience’s sake, but that interval changes with frequency.F-14 Sonic Boom

That sound takes time to get to you, and in that moment between the sound being created and you hearing it, you’ll hear nothing, even though the plane is making a sound, because the sound hasn’t gotten to your ears yet.

Now imagine the plane is coming to you at the speed of that sound (the speed at which a sonic boom is created). So its sound waves are traveling at you at a thousand times a second again, but each successive wave of that one thousand waves per second is 1/1000th of a second closer to you than the last one. Therefore, the plane, and all of those one thousand waves in that second are going to hit your ears at exactly the same time, instead of 1000 times over the course of one second, and BOOM!

Gravity

Imagine you were to drop a bowling ball and a feather, which will hit the ground first? Everyone knows that the bowling ball, and the belief is because it’s heavier. But this isn’t really true, instead it’s about wind resistance. Gravity pulls on all items equally, and if there were no air to slow the feather down, which the bowling ball bores through much easier, the two would strike the ground at exactly the same time. Don’t believe me? See below.

Libertarianism, Logic & Reason, Social Issues

What Constitutes A Fair Share?

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As the president’s State Of The Union speech came and went, we were again reminded how he feels that everyone should get their “fair share;” he brought it up twice.

I couldn’t agree with him more; each person does deserve their fair share. But here’s the rub, he isn’t actually promoting policies that would garner us citizens our fair share.

Your fair share consists of two things: that which you have earned and that which you are entitled to.

What you have earned is simple enough, you work forty hours, you make $20 an hour, you’ve earned $800 of your employer’s revenue stream that week.

If you want more, you must either negotiate for more, find an employer willing to pay more, or start your own company and make more, but you agreed to $20 an hour when you were hired, so that’s all you can rightfully lay claim to.

What you’re entitled to however, is any amount people have voluntarily directed towards you, or which you are owed; a somewhat more complex amount to explain, as there are many possible examples.1151px-Wounded_Warrior_Project_logo.svg[1]

If you’re a soldier who has lost a leg in battle for instance, and you were to contact the Wounded Warrior Project for help, you would be entitled to your fair share of what the WWP receives in donations, since helping soldiers like you is their raison d’etre.

If you own stock in a company that pays dividends, you’re fair share are the dividends your shares in that company earned.

But one example I think is most egregiously violated by government would be if a relative gives you what they earned or inherited, either through death or good will. It was their property, and they wanted you to have it. Yet Uncle Sam, via death taxes, feels that they are entitled to a portion, which is upsetting since this money was already taxed when your benefactor earned it.

So what isn’t your fair share? Despite Obama’s best efforts to convince us otherwise, what someone else has earned or is otherwise entitled to. That is their fair share, not yours, and you have no reasonable claim to it.

Barack Obama
Barack Obama

When Obama suggests people aren’t getting their fair share, he’s actually proposing legislation to equalize shares. He wishes to close the gap between the richest and the poorest under the guise of compassion. While this is a noble goal, so long as people are inherently different in intellect, skill, luck, and motivation; this type of equality can never fairly exist.

Statists feel that definitions of “fair” and “equal” are synonymous. But equal implies a like amount, fair applies an amount that you can fairly lay claim to. So why does Obama use the word fair instead of equal?

As I pointed out in my last post, tests with Capuchin monkeys showed that humans aren’t the only animal with the innate understanding of a fair share.

These monkeys were trained to give the researcher a piece of granite. In return for this bit of “work,” they were given their “pay;” either a cucumber, or a grape. The grapes being significantly more preferable than the cucumbers to the monkeys, were effectively the “greater” share for purposes of the experiment.

As you can see, when the monkey’s weren’t given their “fair share,” they reacted as anyone else would act—they were furious. They did equal work, but didn’t get equal pay.

What Obama’s doing by using the term fair share, is appealing to that sense of fairness instilled in our genetic code. But he’s doing so behind a fallacious argument.

If I were to walk up to you, put a gun to your head, and demand you give your money to the person next to you, whether they are poorer or not, it’s a felonious crime. Yet somehow, when we vote for government officials to do that exact same thing (the IRS is armed after all), it’s miraculously, and rather contrarily, deemed compassionate.Statism-c-c[1]

There is no feasible argument one can make to explain away this blatant hypocrisy by statist-minded politicians and their supporters—ideology has tainted their sense of reason here.

I don’t profess to know what is in Barack Obama’s mind. Maybe he feels that “equal” and “fair” are synonymous, and therefore isn’t purposefully being misleading.

While the experimenters tested the monkeys for their concept of fairness, they didn’t test to see if the monkeys have statist instincts. But, do you believe that the monkeys, if given two grapes for their work, would just give one of the grapes to a random third “Welfare-monkey,” who could have done some work, but chose not to? I doubt it.

But wouldn’t giving money to the needy help them and therefore make society better as a whole? That’s the argument being made.

We all know that it takes money to make money. You give Warren Buffett $100,000, he will very likely double it in seven years or less. You give a career welfare earner the same amount, you will likely find that they’ve spent it on frivolous items that will eventually lead to them no longer having $100, nevertheless $100,000.

Don’t believe me? In 2010, researchers from Vanderbilt published a study showing that people who won between $50,000 to $150,000 were far more likely to file for bankruptcy than those who won lesser amounts, such as $10,000 or less.

What does this show? Even if you take money from earners and give it to the non-earners, that money will eventually just find its way back to the earners, because…they are earners.

Removing those who are truly disabled for purposes of this discussion, the only way to help the non-earners of society is to force them into a sink or swim situation where they are forced to either be productive or face societal banishment, shaming, isolation, and possibly death. Much like electricity and water, people will choose the path of least resistance. Give them something they didn’t earn, and they often won’t bother to earn for themselves.

Income redistribution is not fair, it does not advance our species, nor is it logical. So I am all for fair share, I just wish Obama and his supporters understand the term better.

 

Capitalism, Libertarianism, Logic & Reason, Social Issues

Money Is Not The Root Of All Evil

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“Money is the root of all evil.” How many times have you heard this phrase from someone?

There’s a number of reasons why people might feel this way, but none of the arguments amount to anything more than a logical fallacy. But let’s examine the different truths and psychological aspects of this sentiment.Burning Money

One reason for such a belief is from the idea of overt greed that is assumed to go with people who have money—one person, trying to collect it all, often at the expense of others. It’s a popular Hollywood storyline, but is it true?

It’s certainly consistent with dictators who take it all by force, but that’s usually one sociopath ruling over many victims. And I say they’re sociopaths, because they are often committing genocide, or at least routinely kill their ideological components.

But applying that sentiment to CEO’s and other rich people in a free country is usually just the product of jealousy and ignorance. Firstly, America’s richest make their money by providing a product the rest of us voluntarily buy—not compelled to buy, such as the services offered by a tyrant. But also, the rich have historically been quite charitable. And this makes perfect sense.

Bill Gates
Bill Gates

Humans have two qualities that are fairly consistent among all of us—competitiveness and empathy.  Sociopaths lack empathy, but as near as I can tell, there is no word for people who lack a competitive spirit, but I suppose they could be called competipaths for the sake of our discussion. It is believed sociopaths make up a mere 4% of the population, but who knows about competipaths? No such research exists.

But nonetheless, I highly doubt they’re in greater numbers. Competition fuels adrenaline and provides a rush, leading us to strive to earn more. If you have ever competed in a sports activity and were upset about losing, or mad that a coworker earned more than you, you have a competitive spirit. But even if you’re very competitive, at some point empathy causes us to want to help those when we can.

Many of us want to win, but we don’t necessarily want others to lose. Ever watch two fighters in the UFC’s octagon beat each other to a pulp, then hug each other when the match is over? Then you’ve witnessed what I’m referring to.

While we have an innate self-preservation instinct that keeps most of us from being too giving, some people don’t even seem to have that; exhausting themselves and their resources trying to solve other people’s problems.

Rich people are not a different species, they just have more drive, luck, intellect, or any combination of the three. Some are sociopaths and will never be charitable, but the rich are no more likely to be sociopaths than the poor—they’re just more successful.

But moving from the psychology aspect to the facts, the truth is that money is nothing more than an instrument of trade. If we go back to a time without money, when the barter system would have been the norm, imagine you built wooden widgets from an oak tree you’ve chopped down out of the oak forest in your back yard. Your neighbor, however, builds stone gadgets carved out of rocks from a mountainside on his property.

Now imagine you find that you have a need for a gadget, and because you have an oak forest, you have an abundance of widgets you’ve made. So you go to your neighbor and offer him one of your widgets for one of his gadgets. If he has a need for a widget, transaction complete—all is well.

Bartering
Bartering

But what if you break your gadget? So you ask your neighbor if he’ll swap again, but you’re neighbor’s widget is still fully functional, and he has no need for another. Now you’re screwed if you have nothing else to offer him, and this is essentially how money was born.

Because your neighbor has no need for another widget, your widget has no value for him, but money is a universally accepted instrument of trade that has universal value to everyone.

In truth, money only has value because we all agree to it, which is an interesting thought in its own right. Some want us to return to the gold standard, but the fact is that gold only has value because we agree to it too. If I were to somehow stumble upon a lode of 50,000 tons of gold, or gold somehow otherwise became undesirable, gold’s value would plummet tremendously.

The reality is that the only things that will always have value are air, food, and water, because we need them for life.

But back to the subject of money. Now that we understand it’s an instrument of trade, let’s get back to the greed aspect.

I know that many in the religious community take issue with evolution, but I think most people understand the concept well enough, and accept the basic principle that animals have evolved. It’s not like we don’t have an abundance of proof. There are new species of animal discovered often, and a significantly great number of extinct species as well. Not to mention, DNA indicates we’re all descendents of what scientists call LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor).

The basic concept behind evolution is the advancement of our species, which means every life form that has ever existed, has instilled within its DNA a need to advance itself. So people think that greed is a uniquely human trait, but nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a completely natural trait in all living things, some more complex than others.

Certain trees grow taller than those around them so they can “steal” the sunlight from shorter plant life. My cats hiss at each other when one tries to eat the other’s food. Studies found that Capuchin monkeys would get mad when they felt they weren’t given their fair share. (See video above) But as long as they were given enough food to survive, why be greedy?

Many people want to believe that this monkey experiment showed a desire for fair share, effectively arguing the monkeys are socialist. But this is actually quite wrong. Yes they wanted a fair share, but the monkeys don’t want other monkeys who didn’t do anything to get free treats, and they certainly aren’t interested in giving the treats away to welfare monkeys. They want paid for the work they did and enjoy the fruits of their labor.  Those monkeys are capitalists.

So money isn’t the root of all evil, it’s an instrument of trade for people who are willing to produce and be a productive part of society. It’s the statists who exhibit traits we would sometimes call evil, they want money for what they didn’t do. If anything is unfair, it’s that.

 

Libertarianism, Logic & Reason, Social Issues

Anarchy versus Libertarianism

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I suppose it could accurately be said that all anarchists are libertarians, but not all libertarians are anarchists.

But I believe anarchists are to libertarianism what socialists are to Democrats. They are the extremists of the wing, and by no means the norm.

In my experience, most libertarians, including the Libertarian party, believe in the rule of law, and a government designed solely to protect rights, such as those enumerated in the United States Constitution. Anarchists of course, want no government nor laws whatsoever.

Libertarian Party Logo
Libertarian Party Logo

There are anarchists I’ll call the “Chaos Wing” who just want to “burn it all down, ” take whatever they want, kill whomever they want, etc.

Conversely, there are also anarchists I’ll call the “Utopian wing,” who are more practical. They think if we’re all free from any rule of law enforced by government, that we’ll all peacefully coexist.

As with anything in life, there are two sides to an opinion, and then there’s the middle ground that is likely closest to the truth. While I feel both anarchists are misguided in such beliefs, let’s explore the two sides, and what I believe to be the actual truth.

The Chaos Wing think it would be great to just steal whatever they wanted, but let’s think about this. Imagine you steal some rich guy’s Corvette, for instance. At first, it’s great, you have a free Corvette. But with a little critical thinking, it starts to display its problematic logical outcomes.

  • Why would anyone buy a Corvette if they knew that it was just going to get stolen, and they’d have to risk their life in an act of vigilantism to recover it?

    Corvette ZR1
    Corvette ZR1 executing a rather nice burnout
  • Why would Chevrolet build cars at all if they knew no one would pay for them or buy them because of the above?
  • Why would oil and gas companies dig oil out of the ground if they knew people would just steal it so you could drive the Corvette or any other car?
  • If you get shot or harmed in some way while stealing the car, where are you going to go for help? There won’t be hospitals with doctors in them, because they won’t show up if they aren’t getting paid.
  • Why would people go to work to earn money at all if stealing it were the path of least resistance?
  • If no one is working, who is going to build the things you want to steal?

Eventually, there would be no nice things to steal, no technology to enjoy, we would essentially be living the lives of cavemen.

While that seems silly, look at some third world countries that are largely defunct of any government. That’s effectively how they live, like modern day cavemen. The idea of such violent anarchy as a Utopia, is truly an delusional idea. I rarely take the chaos wing seriously, they lack the vision to understand the implications of their ideas. Many are simply violent psychopaths desiring to be unobstructed in life.

But more importantly, I think they are the more delusional of the two wings, because the evidence clearly shows that human nature is such that we’re typically not sociopaths like that. Humans are pack animals who have arisen on Earth as the most dominant species, in large part because of our inherent social nature.

Don’t believe me? How do you think democratically elected governments arose in the first place? It’s literally part of mankind’s natural evolution.

The more serious anarchists however, are of the Utopian wing. They are at least more thoughtful in their ideas, but I fear they are still eronious when considering the actual outcome compared to their desired and predicted outcome.

These folks believe that if people were free to do whatever they wanted, humans are inherently good and won’t harm others due to our genetic predisposition to be social creatures.

They rightly point out that many violent acts towards our fellow-man are because of government laws against things like drugs and prostitution, which encourage people to lash out because of the oppression of such laws, and to defend themselves violently against those who might infringe on their ability to do them freely.

They feel that if you get rid of victimless laws, certainly drug use, prostitution, gambling, etc., will occur, but will occur peacefully between two consenting adults.

In Colorado, where recreational marijuana was legalized, crime rates did indeed go down, despite the adamant belief by prohibitionists that the other would occur. It’s as if these folks forgot we had Alcohol Prohibition from 1920-1933. Not only did it not stop the consumption of alcohol; it drastically increased crime as well.

Marijuana Harvest
Marijuana Harvest

If you look at the number of violent crimes and people in jail because of marijuana consumption and distribution, the parallels to alcohol prohibition are so obvious, I can never fathom how any reasonable person could suggest that repealing alcohol prohibition was the right thing to do, but ending marijuana prohibition isn’t.

However, if I agree that humans are inherently kind to one another, why do I support a government to protect rights versus the rational anarchist system?

Because there are victimful crimes like murder and theft that occur all of the time, for one. And I don’t think the average citizen is capable of processing a crime scene for another. Again, let’s apply some logical thought to this theory.

  • If someone were to steal from me, I may be carrying a gun and shoot them. But what if I come home and my stuff is just gone? Are you really OK with me grabbing my gun and perusing the neighborhood, breaking into homes until I find my stuff? Because that’s the only way I can get justice in a governmentless community.
  • If I were to come home to a murdered relative, do I have the ability to process the crime scene, do a DNA test, and all the other staggeringly expensive investigative processes the police do? Maybe rich people could afford a private investigation, but most couldn’t. So do we want the poor having to resort to vigilantism where they just go after the person they think is guilty?
  • If there is no government to enforce contracts, how many businesses will willingly do business with another knowing there’s no recourse in case of a breach of contract? Most of the goods we have today are because companies have such contracts, so there is no doubt, we wouldn’t enjoy most of the technological advances brought to you by the cooperation amongst vendors.

In America, our government was established by the people and for the people. We have essentially agreed to pool our resources collectively for the purposes of protecting all of us from those who would do us harm. There are non-elected governments who oppress people, but by design, ours is supposed to essentially be an extension of our social nature.

Libertarians like myself, have a decent understanding of the ramifications of passing victimless crime laws, but we also understand the ramifications of anarchy. We want our rights protected honestly and fairly, something government is generally pretty good at in this modern technological era, and certainly better at it than your random individual. But we believe government would be better if it weren’t distracted by all the victimless crimes it’s currently far too involved with, which is why we non-anarchist libertarian fight our fight.

Libertarianism, Social Issues

Liberty Is The Only True Moral. The Rest Are Differences Of Opinion

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Republican staffer Elizabeth Lauten was recently under fire for making a moral judgment about Malia and Sasha Obama’s chosen attire. She rightfully resigned her position at the GOP; it was a stupid thing to do and would only hurt her party going forward if she stayed.

Lauten stated that the girls needed to show “a little class,” that they should “act like being in the White House matters to you,” and that they should “dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar. And certainly don’t make faces during televised public events.”

Elizabeth Lauten
Elizabeth Lauten

Certainly Lauten has the right to her opinion, but that’s just it, it’s her opinion. I saw the outfits in question, (see pic below)and considered them not even remotely offensive or suggestive.

Elizabeth Lauten is everything that is wrong with the GOP in a nutshell, because she is behaving like the Democrats that her party rightfully condemns for sticking their nose into people’s personal lives.

Lauten attempted to make a moral judgment, but there is only one true moral—liberty. The rest of these issues are differences of opinion.

If you look at laws that we all generally agree on, they’re laws against assault, murder, theft, and other victimful crimes.

But if a moral judgement in question is deemed by some people to be perfectly moral, that’s a good sign maybe your “moral” issue is not in fact affiliated with morality in any way.

Things like homosexuality, drug use, prostitution, and clothing choices are matters of opinion and have nothing to do with morality, except in the context of a particular religion—a belief system a growing number of us are not encumbered with.

Pic of Malia and Sasha Obama that Lauten was offended by.
Pic of Malia and Sasha Obama that Lauten was offended by.

So when politicians and their staffers are considering making a moral judgment about someone, then opt to share via social media or interviews, they need to think about what they’re about to say before they say it.

So I’ve prepared a simple checklist for politicians to consider before spouting off:

  1. Is the person I’m about to character-assassinate harming anyone in the act I’m about to criticize them for?
    1. If the answer is no, stop and don’t say a thing.
    2. If the answer is yes, have at them. Most people will agree if you can show causational harm being done. You’re on solid ground in such arguments
  2. Can science back up the thing I’m about to present as fact?
    1. If yes, cite sources. You’ve done your homework.
    2. If science refutes it, are you educated in science?
      1.  If no, stop! Don’t say a thing. You don’t know what you’re talking about, so let it go. Debunking controlled studies is not in your wheelhouse and you’ll look stupid doing it.
      2.  If yes, unless you can cite a study as noted above, feel free to point out the flaws in the study as you see them, but be prepared for other peers to either side with you or against you. Good luck.
    3. If neither you, nor scientists have done any properly controlled studies you can cite, it’s likely a matter of opinion, not fact, and you should present it as opinion with a clear omission of any intent whatsoever to impose that opinion on others. If you can’t handle that, then stop, don’t say a thing.

Sarah Palin was ridiculed for wanting schools to teach intelligent design. While as an atheist, I am not in favor of this in the science classroom (it’s OK for social studies), to her credit, she stated she was not pushing for this legislatively, it was just her belief. While I may not be Palin’s biggest fan, that’s how it’s done when speaking on matters of opinion—all credit to her.

Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin

The word moral is defined as concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.

So if something is immoral, it must contain an interaction between two people, where one of them is harmed. Unless Elizabeth Lauten wants to argue her eyes were intentionally damaged by Malia and Sasha while looking at these pictures, she should have kept her opinion to herself.

I think the majority of us feel Elizabeth Lauten showed a far greater lack of moral character by verbally attacking the two daughters simply because she didn’t agree with their fashion choice than Malia and Sasha ever showed with their fashion choices.

The issue here is a simple enemy complex. Those of us who are not hip to the president’s policies are split into two groups.

Logical people like me, who can offer praise to the president when he does something I agree with, remain neutral on things that I could care less about, and disagree when I feel like we have a moral dilemma we can never agree on.

But then there are people like Elizabeth Lauten who are so full of hate for the president, that they will latch on to any opportunity to bash the president, even going so far as to attack his children’s clothing choices. It’s as if she was going to make some brilliant argument about how the Obama’s are poor parents, but it failed miserably.

She became a blight on her party, thereby hurting her cause, not helping it. This was not that dissimilar to when Senator Todd Aiken foolishly spoke about “legitimate” rape; a comment that somewhat haunted the 2014 Mitt Romney effort.

Todd Aiken
Senator Todd Aiken

Such over-enthusiastic hate for the president, which results in an attack wherever one is seen possible, is no different than the nonsense Rev Al Sharpton brands as racism which usually isn’t. It’s the “crying wolf” dilemma where constant attacks from everywhere destroy your credibility, instead of targeted attacks when they are truly warranted.

Too often, those of us on the side of liberty forget that most voters are independent and could be swayed one way or the other. We will not help our cause be being the Al Sharpton’s of the right—people will run away from us in drives. Sometimes, it’s better just to shut the hell up. If you’re opponent is behaving in a way that many people do not like,  let them harm themselves. Most people will naturally take notice, you don’t always need to point it out yourself.