A Crucial Constitutional Fact

Tibor R. Machan

In my efforts to defend the free society and its basic principles, the idea of natural individual human rights, I run across the objection--advance by both conservatives and “liberals”--that once a constitution has been accepted, it overrides those principles. Putting it differently, while perhaps human beings do have the basic rights to life, liberty, property and so forth in, as it is called, the state of nature--that is, prior to the formation of a community with a legal foundation--once that state is given up and a community is formed, they no longer have those basic rights. Instead, they have delegated to government or the legal system the authority to limit the previous freedoms they enjoyed. So instead of the constitution limiting the legal authorities or government, it supposedly limits the rights and liberties of the citizenry.

There is some plausibility in this since in the case of contracts when people enter into them they often bind themselves to obligations and responsibilities they didn’t previously have--e.g., when they marry or lease an apartment. So perhaps the constitution is that kind of a document, through which people commit themselves to abide by rules, even serve rulers, they would be free to ignore prior to entering civil society. This certainly is one rationale being advanced in opposition to libertarians who hold that what the constitution achieves, if properly conceived and instituted, is to establish the protection and elaboration of the rights of the citizenry, something they arguably lacked outside civil society.

Yet even in the admittedly murky case of the U. S. Constitution and the founding of the republic, there is evidence any lay person, let alone legal expert, can detect pointing to the libertarian interpretation that a proper constitution does not give away but attempts to secure individual rights. First of all the Declaration of Independence makes it clear what the American founders set out to do with their efforts to institute a government via the U. S. Constitution. The precise road to the establishment of free government may well be complicated but once one realizes that at heart government is supposed to be institute so as to secure the rights laid out in the body of the Declaration, there is little reasonable doubt that the ensuring setting up of a constitutional government wasn’t meat to abolish individual rights, quite the contrary. Government was meant to give security to those rights in light of the plain fact that without a legal system and its competent administration the rights individual have would be at the mercy of anyone bent upon violating them. Yes, people do have those rights in the state of nature or prior to entering civil society but their security would be dependent entirely on how well individuals are able to defend themselves, without the benefit of a specialized body of men and women who could be counted upon to provide the expertise needed to make those right as secure as humanly possible.

If one then looks at the U. S. Constitution itself, there are other clues to reading it along libertarian lines. The Bill of Rights not only mentions several of the rights that are to be safeguarded by the legal system but makes explicit reference to non-enumerated rights, ones the citizenry retains even if they are not mentioned in the document. This, it would appear, makes it clear, unambiguous, that leaving the state of nature does not imply at all giving up the basic, natural, individual human rights all human beings have.

The point of joining civil society as far as the American system is concerned isn’t, then, to give up but to secure the basic and all the derivative rights human beings have. Those who argue otherwise aren’t on solid grounds. That much is pretty clear, so they must reinterpret the American founding to shore up their case for American statism. Yet some of the most influential legal scholars advance this untenable position--namely that the law in the American tradition aims to limit the liberty and rights of the citizenry--and numerous prominent law schools teach it as well.

Let me make a final point about rights. Much communitarian thinking from both Left and Rights laments that Americans are too fond of rights but not of responsibilities or obligations. Yet if one realizes that having rights also implies having obligations, this lament is quite misguided. Everyone has the legal obligation or responsibility to respect the rights to everyone else. And that is just as it should be, with other obligations and responsibilities left to be worked out in the private sector, mainly via morality and contract law.

Self-Debasement is Wrong

Tibor R. Machan

As a child and teen I had been very seriously abused, especially while in my father’s “care”. He had in mind to make me into a clone, forced me to do athletics relentlessly and when he detected any resistance on my part, beat me mercilessly. None of this resulted in major damage, fortunately, but his constant ranting at me about how worthless I am because I do not live up to his idiosyncratic expectations did have an impact, at least up to a point. I never quite bought into this view but did often feel uneasy for being rebellious, for insisting to follow my own lights. As if this may be a flaw, even as I insisted in carrying on in my contrary ways even when facing the menacing communists back in Hungary. But luckily I did have the wherewithal to run from my father’s home as soon as I reached the right age. And he only had me to tyrannize for a few years anyway. Still, when I began to read a good deal of classical philosophy and literature, what stood out for me most is the material that affirmed my own importance or value as a human individual.


This came to my mind recently when I ran across a review of a book about the sixteenth century French essayist, Michel de Montaigne because his essays were one of those books I devoured when I was about 19 and served in the US Air Force. At that time I discovered this library of Classic Books and bought them and among those was Montaigne’s Essays, as well as works by Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Locke, and a host of others, books I found fascinating as I did my rather mundane chores for the Air Force at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, DC. (It all got less boring when some friends and I on the base established a theater group, Andrews Players, with its regular slate of plays and even its Andy celebrations!)

In the review of the book about Montaigne I ran across a quoted passage that brought back to mind one of the reasons the Essays left such a strong impression on me. Not that all of Montaigne’s ideas appealed to me but his way of putting them certainly did. But this particular passage, which I am about to quote, showed why what Montaigne wrote helped me come to terms with some personal issues and laid the foundation for subsequent thinking and writing in my life. So here is the passage that brought back to me why I was attracted to Montaigne:

“It is against nature that we despise ourselves and care nothing about ourselves. It is a malady peculiar to man, and not seen in any other creature....It is by a similar vanity that we wish to be something other than we are.”

So my rebellion against my dad’s relentless belittling--supported sadly by much of the moralizing I have encountered in my youth from politicians, the pulpit and writings by theologians and ethicists--had some critics after all! That was a very welcome discovery. It inspired me to examine in more detail why so much of moral philosophy and ethics aims at besmirching human beings, why there is so much misanthropy in the air. After all, judging by the evidence surrounding us, people certainly don’t demonstrate some kind of uniform malfeasance. In fact, all in all--when all the science, technology, literature, poetry, entertainment, art and personal matters are taken into account--people come off to be quite respectable, accomplished, and at least decent. Sure there is much viciousness about, too, but it’s perverse to focus only on that.

Maybe worst of all is when some people, especially those in powerful positions over others--e.g., their children--insist on declaring it evil that others do not follow them in their chosen line of work, politics, economics, entertainment, athletics, and such and try to make the dissidents feel guilty for wanting to go it their own way.

I must tip my hat to Montaigne for setting me on a course that rejected what my father tried to inculcate in me, a hatred of myself.

What Western Elites?

Tibor R. Machan

Some avid supporters of the free market write a great deal about Western Elites who, among other things, want to impose democracy on the Middle East and are bent on controlling the world’s financial institutions and doings. Since no person or institution is named, at least so far as I am aware, where these Western Elites are mentioned, I am unable to figure out who are these people, what their broader philosophy or ideology amounts to, why they are doing the things they are doing, including attempting to impose democracy on the people of the Middle East and to control the world's financial affairs.

Nor, come to think of it, am I provided with enough information to learn what the people who make these points about Western Elites actually believe other than their broad commitment to the free market (of which, of course, there is no example anywhere on the globe).

The place where the missives making these references to Western Elites are made is a Web Site where some of my columns supportive of the fully free, libertarian polity are featured. These columns appear on my own websites and on some others, including in some newspapers and magazines. And those who edit the web site where the talk of Western Elites is so prominent have been very kind to me and have always published the columns they have chosen to feature without asking for revisions. (I have also been interviewed by them and all my answers to their questions have been faithfully included in the published interviews.)

I am not interested in getting involved in some kind of cat fight with anyone, especially not with folks who publish many valuable essays about financial issues, specifically about the U. S. Federal Reserve Bank and the banking system of many Western countries. But I am concerned about the fact that these references to Western Elites are so frequent and yet so vague. I am unable to check out for myself what these Western Elites say or think or write. Where are their works published, in what newspapers, blogs, magazines, and books can one find their positions laid out? From reading the discussions where the Western Elites are mentioned--just as “Western Elites”--I cannot go an research the positions of these folks, see if they ever answer the criticism leveled at them, etc.

This disturbs me somewhat because even in short discussions of other people’s views it would be appropriate to indicate what exactly those views are, how they are put by the very people who hold them (instead of by their critics). When some people’s ideas are discussed, it is always helpful to have at least a few direct quotes from the horse’s mouth--some primary as opposed to secondary references. This is why in scholarly treatments one offers footnotes or end notes or other indicators so that readers are able to follow up on the discussion and make sure they are grasping the positions being examined. It also enhances trust.

Of course, columns cannot produces all this--few would want to read a usual column with a bunch of notes at the end--yet even there a name or two could steer the reader in the right direction for purposes of more detailed study. So, I am hoping that the sentiments expressed in this brief missive will reach those who discuss the Western Elites--people who are evidently not friends of liberty, nor of ordinary and unsuspecting folks around the globe--and that they will help out readers of their essays with a few specifics that can be used by them to do one’s own research. I think this isn’t too much to ask for.

One may point out here that I, too, am failing to mention names here but I am not accusing anyone of being bent on imposing anything on anyone or belonging to some elite and, moreover, the folks who are making reference to Western Elites will probably know who they are if they read this missive and could help me out without at this point being named.

Revisiting Public Service Labor Unions

Tibor R. Machan

When one criticizes public service unions this doesn’t imply at all that one is critical of labor unions per se. Because public service is mostly monopolistic--only one first class postal service, only one Medicaid, only one DMV and road system, only one school system--and funded from taxes which are not voluntary, public service labor unions are themselves basically legally protected monopolies. If the teachers at the local elementary school demand something and the parents do not want to meet those demands, the parents have nowhere else to go to get their children educated unless they accept having to pay double--the taxes that go to the elementary school and the tuition that pays for a private alternative.

In contrast, if Toyota’s auto workers demand something from the company and costumers don’t believe they should receive it (for whatever reason), they can go to Ford or VW and not have to keep buying cars from Toyota. This is a huge difference. This is what permits public service labor unions to hold their costumers over a barrel--public school teachers will continue to be paid even if the parents of their pupils no longer want to deal with them. This is why some citizens are complaining about public service unions in particular, not about unionized labor in the private sector. And this is also why public service laborers are able to pull down such hefty pensions--there is no one else offering their service so their terms have to be met.

But from all appearances the members of the public service unions throughout the country, most visibly now in Wisconsin, speak as if they were members of plain old labor unions, comparable to unionized workers in the private, competitive market place (e.g., auto workers). This is an understandable tactic. Most Americans who give the matter any thought at all see unionization as a right all working people have. Not too many may exercise this right these days, admittedly, but they have it, just as you and I have the right to sing in our showers or travel to France even if we do not choose to do so.

So if the controversy were about whether Wisconsin’s and other states’ public union workers should have their right to be members of a labor union legally protected, they would be supported by most Americans. The fact is, however, that public service union members aren’t at all like private sector union members. They enjoy a legally protected monopoly. And that is a violation of the rights of their customers who have nowhere else to go to obtain the service that the public service unions provide.

Maybe a comparison will help to grasp the point. Imagine that those who work at the Department of Motor Vehicles in some state decide they want longer vacations or more pay or better retirement benefits. If they do not receive these, they threaten to walk of their jobs. (In many places throughout the country they are legally forbidden from doing this, precisely because they are so different from private sector union workers.) Drivers in those states have no alternative but to deal with the DMV so the workers there will receive what they demand. There is no other option. The option of banning strikes is for most people in the country a pretty harsh, out and out un-American measure!

Clearly the relationship between public service union members and those for whom they provide their service and the relationship between private sector union members and their costumers is entirely different. But if this is acknowledged, citizens may come to view the position of the public service union members, as well as the benefits they have managed to obtain in their collective bargaining with their public agencies, very differently from how they view it while thinking the two are alike.

Not even the news agencies that report on the current conflicts in Wisconsin (and very possibly in neighboring states) appear to appreciate the difference between public service and private sector unionization. Yet this is a vital fact and understanding it would change dramatically how the vast majority of citizens are perceiving the current controversy.

Censorship or Editorial Judgment?

Tibor R. Machan

The term “censorship” has apparently been quite corrupted. Watching a recent prime time broadcast of a number of recent Saturday Night Live shows I noticed now often those who discuss the program kept referring to the NBC quality control folks as "censors." As I see it, that's like calling a parent a censor for insisting that no pornography is watched on the home TV set. As a metaphor it might do but literally it is wrong.

Censorship is, strictly speaking, when a government (or some agent of it) bans the private showing of some program, like SNL. But when the producers of the show refuse to go along with the writers on what is to be broadcast, that’s not censorship.

I write a lot of columns and now and then--very rarely I admit--an editor of a blog or newspaper who uses these will ask me to revise a sentence or change a word or two in my initial draft, which I then either do or substitute another column.

The editor isn’t censoring me or my column but applying a standard to the material being published in the forum, one the editor is responsible to make as good as it can be (within all kinds of limitations).

So, if the producers or owners of SNL refuse to allow some skit to get on the air, claiming that it is too vulgar or offensive, this too amounts to nothing more than what editors and publishers have the full authority to do.

Now all this should be crystal clear except it is become obscured by the gradual invasion of the private realm by public authorities. Television, especially, is the victim of this because of the official fiction that the broadcast airwaves are public property. Indeed, in 1927 the US Senate, by an act of declaration, nationalized the airwaves. (This was done allegedly so as to help solve a problem faced by the Navy which didn’t like what it regarded the anarchy that prevailed in the electromagnetic spectrum and asked Congress to accommodate it, which Congress did by nationalizing the electromagnetic spectrum, something various experts have called the lazy way.)

Once something is public, in a democracy it is exposed to the dictatorship of the voting and represented majority, never mind any individual rights to liberty or property. So who really can tell who in the last analysis has the proper authority to apply quality control on “public” television?

Of course, these days there are politicians who have no compunction contemplating genuine censorship. Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia recently chimed in about this. And he was directing his censorial inclinations not at some iffy entertainment show but at two cable news networks, Fox-TV and MSNBC-TV. As the Senator put it, “I’m tired of the right and the left.... There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox and to MSNBC, ‘Out. Off. End. Goodbye.’” And he added, “It would be a big favor to political discourse; to our ability to do our work here in Congress; and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and, more importantly, in their future.” So the Senator's being tired of something justifies such censorial impulses?

Just observe how those in charge of public facilities like parks, forests, beaches, roads, sidewalks, and so forth eagerly intrude on the activities of citizens making use of these. Merchants whose shops open onto the sidewalk, for example, are forbidden to have a smoking section even on the premises that aren’t public because, as the legalese has it, they are “affected with the public interest.” Never mind that by this line of reasoning all those newspapers sold at kiosks and in boxes on street corners could be subject to censorship. (I assume there is some kind of loophole that makes it possible to escape this--for the time being!)

It used to be conservatives who were willing to refuse to conserve the principles of the Founders when it came to pornography or other things of which they disapproved but you can see that this is not so any longer--Senator Jay Rockefeller is a liberal of high standing!

The statist impulse needs constant resistance and opposition, from anyone eager to impose his or her standards on us all. And the recent US Supreme Court ruling protecting the free speech rights of that church that demonstrated at the funerals of American soldiers was a good example of such resistance and opposition. Those people are a despicable bunch, yes, but their rights need protection.

Free Speech is a Basic Human Right

Tibor R. Machan

The New York Times reported recently that "John Galliano, the talented and troubled designer who was fired by the fashion house Christian Dior for making anti-Semitic remarks in a drunken rant at a bar, will be put on trial for the offenses, the Paris prosecutors office said Wednesday." This is of interest to all those who realize that the right to freedom of speech isn’t merely some odd American idea, as some multiculturalists might maintain, but a basic individual human right. It is a basic right that is always under assault from dictators and also, sadly, from earnest but misguided champions of various causes.

For example, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said a while back, in a meeting with intellectuals and writers at [a] book fair’s opening: “There are freedoms, but they can’t contradict our traditions … We must guarantee that freedom of expression agrees with our values.” [From the Christian Science Monitor] Unfortunately such sentiments aren’t confined to dictators but are embraced by many who feel strongly about their values in a country, such as the United States of America, that provides the right to freedom of speech with strong legal protection.

Those who believe that American soldiers who fell in wars fighting for the country’s various objectives need to be honored have found the recent ruling of the U. S. Supreme Court upholding the rights of protesters near the funerals of such soldiers quite outrageous. But instead of directing their outrage at the perverse views of the protesters, they have targeted the Supreme Court for its correct interpretation of the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution (which aims to secure everyone’s right to freedom of speech).

It is in fact baffling that the the champions of the fallen soldiers would be so upset about the ruling protecting freedom of speech when what the soldiers supposedly fought and died for is the political system that includes as one of its central ideas that everyone has that right and may exercise it even if such exercise displeases or offends many people. The complaint with the ruling betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the principles of the American system as laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Having the right to speak freely has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of what is being said. Indeed, if speech has obvious merits, it hardly needs protection. Only when it prompts some people--who fail to grasp what it is to have such a right--to move to legally silence those whose views they find objectionable does the protection of the right achieve its central objective.

It is interesting to compare how American constitutional law deals with seriously objectionable speech and demonstration with how French law does. It seems that Mr. Galliano's human right to hold whatever despicable views he choose to hold, just like the views of those protesters who agitate at funerals of American soldiers--making the ridiculous claim that the deaths are God's punishment for the support American law gives to gays--are going to be ignored by French prosecutors. Surely if the maniacs here in America have rights--and I do believe they do (while I hold my nose)--so does Mr. Galliano.

Furthermore, if the French government doesn't recognize Mr. Galliano’s right to hold his opinions and express them, it may be time for The New York Times itself to criticize France's legal system, as it often criticizes the legal systems and practices of other countries--e.g., the former South Africa, Chile when it was ruled by General Pinochet, and others. It shows a lack of integrity when editorial writers at The Times stand up only for some people’s basic rights instead of for everyone’s.

But then, of course, The Times and others who share its political philosophy have been doing this for ages: loudly protesting rights violations of some citizens and ignoring such violations when others are the targets (such as those citizens whom the Obama Administration is attempting to compel to purchase health insurance and thus whose right to liberty is being attacked).

Tunisia’s Free Trade Revolt

Tibor R. Machan

In many circles it is a prominent mantra that property rights are not human rights. The rights to private property and to trade it are treated by many political thinkers and jurists as far from binding on us. So, for example, the US Supreme Court ruled in 2005, City of New London, CT, v. Kelo, that taking a person’s land for development by another private party--who might pay higher taxes on it--is just fine. In the current controversy about whether the government is authorized by the US Constitution to force citizens to purchase health insurance, the right to trade freely--or refrain from doing so--is at issue and defenders of President Obama’s position insist that the commerce clause--Article 1, Sec. 8--of the US Constitution should be so interpreted as to authorize such state coercion.

Then, of course, thousands of regulatory edicts, rules and commands from governments at all levels, are defended by many prominent academics as quite OK. This despite the fact that government regulations are tantamount to the unjust practice of prior restraint--interfering with people’s conduct not because it is illegal but because it might be.

The legal history of rationalizing such regulation--what should, in fact, be called regimentation--to authorize such unrelenting intrusiveness and interference in people’s lives is quite tortured. Initially “regulate” was taken to mean “regularize,” and sensibly so since the point was to eliminate tariffs and duties between states that had been colonies and as such used to engage in economic warfare. Once united into one country, all this made no sense and also undermined the free flow of commerce and its contribution to prosperity, so it was wise to regularize all peaceful trade.

In time, however, once interventionism became popular and the US Supreme Court started to back this up--in part because it was thought that such intervention was needed to abolish slavery and segregation--the term “regulate” was interpreted to mean “regiment” instead of “regularize.” And that is the dominant current reading of the clause, with only a few justices, legal scholars, and jurists critical of it. The recent rulings by a few federal judges invalidating President Obama’s health care policy because it orders people to engage in trade with insurance companies has made some use of the older rendition of “to regulate” but opposition to it has been frantic. (The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait referred to it as “laughable”!)

How ill conceived it is that government is thought to be authorized to regiment people’s economic activities and affairs should be plain to anyone who understands a thing or two about human liberty. But what happened in Tunisia to set off the recent rebellion might illuminate the point a bit. Here is what we find in the pages of THE WEEK (February 19, 2011, p. 48), originally published in The Times/N.I. Syndication:

“[Mohamed Bouazizi, the] young [street] trader had been in trouble with the authorities before....Under the dictatorship of President Ben Ali, permits were required for every form of business activity, often accompanied by a bribe. Bouazizi’s family would later claim that he had refused to pay the bribe demanded by the officials....According to other fruit and vegetable pedlars, vendors have a choice when faced with a municipal inspector: they can flee, and leave behind both borrow and merchandise; pay a fine equivalent to several days’ earnings, or fork out a bribe. Bouazizi, it seems, was not inclined to do any of these. When [a 45 year old female inspector] Hamdi began seizing his applies, he tried to grab them back, and she slapped him in the face....”

After this event all hell broke loose and escalated and ended, eventually, in the ouster of President Ben Ali’s government. So, by any reasonable account what brought about the Tunisian upheaval is the government’s intervention with freedom of trade, exactly the kind of conduct by government officials that a good many American jurists, political thinkers and politicians claim is constitutional and certainly not dictatorial. So then all those who try to rationalize such intervention based on a distorted fascistic or socialist ideological reading of the commerce clause, should by all rights defend President Ben Ali’s government, just as they are so willing to defend government’s commercial regimentation throughout America or, indeed, anywhere else where governments embark upon such policies. And it makes no difference whether the policies have the support of the majority, for the same reason that lynching is not justified even if the whole town supports it.

Multiple Universes Anyone?

Tibor R. Machan

An issue that has puzzled many philosophers and cosmologists is whether there is just one universe or might there be many. On first inspection the puzzle appears to be bogus. After all, by “universe” is meant “everything that is.” Other terms used for this are “existence,” “reality,” “the world,” and so forth. But leave it to the very bright men and women in some of the least accessible disciplines to come up with notions that are very odd, at least to those who like to be grounded on Terra firma in their thinking.

However, without some of these apparent flights of fancy certain valuable discoveries of the past would have been overlooked. So the question is, does the idea of multiple universes qualify as one of these apparent flights of fancy or is it per chance a bona fide and promising flight of fancy?

One way that some people come to believe in multiple universes is by considering whether there is anything contradictory in postulating it. Thus, for example, married bachelors or square circles would not qualify since these are outright self-contradictory. Nothing married can also be a bachelor, nothing that’s square can also be a circle. Impossible. So is the idea of multiple universes like these, out and out self-contradictory?

Arguably it is not but then perhaps it is almost. If the meaning of “universe” is “all that exists,” then multiple universes would be a self-contradictory idea since if some other thing existed that’s like a universe, it would just be part of the universe, not an additional universe. After all, “everything” means just that, everything without exception. But if “universe” means something specifiable, with borders or limits, like a playground or sphere, then it would not be out and out self-contradictory to suppose that there are others beside this one we are familiar with.

Yet, this latter approach relies on changing the meaning of “universe.” It no longer is used to mean “everything that exists” but, rather, whatever exists in a certain way and then, quite possibly, other things might exists that way too. Not that there is any reason to think they do only that there could be no objection to the possibility of their existence. As many cosmologists and philosophers would put it, multiple universes are logically possible--there is no formal contradiction in thinking they exist.

Yet, of course, that alone doesn’t establish that multiple universes exist, actually, in reality, as it were. They would be, instead, conceivable, thinkable, perhaps. Like three legged ducks on Mars are--thinkable but with no reason to believe they exist.


But some think that anytime one comes up with some idea that might--just barely might--be realized, it should be treated as in fact existent for in the long run, through eternity, everything possible would in fact be (at some time). Eternity is, after all, a very long time and that gives anything that’s even remotely possible some chance of being actual, at some time at least. Who could rule it out--no one could traps around the whole shebang to establish the matter once and for all.

Yet, are we supposed to form our beliefs based on such flimsy possibilities, ones that are deemed possible only because they cannot be ruled out entirely? It seems that the more reasonable thing to do is to regard such logical possibilities--of what might just be possible but no one knows if they are--as mere fancies instead of something worthy of belief. After all, by such reasoning the mere fact that someone might be guilty of a crime of which he or she is accused would justify regarding the person as possibly guilty. This could then lead to their being treated as suspects who should be investigated. Would that be justified? Would it not, instead, amount to harassment?

So the real challenge is what is reasonable to believe in. Many things that do not qualify might possibly be, at some point, somewhere, but unless solid evidence of their reality is at hand, we should most likely postpone any decision about whether they exist. Which, seems to me, goes for multiple universes.

“The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters”*

Tibor R. Machan

In basic reasoning courses one learns that certain ways of thinking are fallacious, others are sound. Sadly, most students don’t actually remember much of what they learn here because these courses are taught too early in their college years, just at the time they are still celebrating no longer being in high school. (Yes, for nearly two years many students pay hardly any attention to their studies, having been incarcerated in school for 12 years prior to entering college!)

Had they been educated about reasoning well versus badly, they might catch some of the howlers committed by members of the media (or anyone else). As a case in point, I had the distinct displeasure of watching Bill O’Reilly during the 2000 presidential election, when the mess in Florida with those hanging chads was going down. In his ponderous and pompous manner, which apparently many people welcome for some reason, O’Reilly announced in the middle of his coverage of the events that journalistic objectivity is a total myth, that everyone is biased, including him. And not just when they are voicing their particular viewpoint. Also, when they report on facts.

Now here is a good case of muddled and fallacious reasoning. It is inconsistent for a journalist to both make a report about journalism--e.g., that it is always biased--while also claiming that all such reports are biased, which is to say unreliable, distorted, one-sided, partisan or subjective. If the latter were true, than the former could not be treated as also true since it would also fall victim to distortion or bias. And why would anyone trust a journalist who distorts the facts he is supposed to be reporting to us? We could find something far more productive to do.

More generally, any kind of corruption in a profession, such as journalism, cannot be inherent. If it were, no distinction between distorted and dependable reporting could be identified. At least the possibility of credible reporting must exist. It’s like food--not all of it could be poisonous; nor could we all be sick all the time. These pairs of concepts, like poisonous versus healthy, corrupt versus honest, biased versus objective, etc., and so forth are meaningful only if both were possible. Just one of them on its own makes no sense. Like beginning versus end, or up versus down--they make sense only when paired.

Anyway, quite a few people get tripped up by forgetting these and many other elementary points of human reasoning. They will accept the idea, for example, that all human thought is fallacious; that everyone is always lying; that our minds are innately defective, etc. None of this could be so, in part because then these reports about us would themselves be unreliable since we made them with our human minds (and our human minds, remember, always distort everything, etc., etc.).

Why is there so much of this sort of babbling about when it is so flawed? (Another infamous case in point is “All property is theft” since theft presupposes the existence of untainted property.) One reason is that a great many people are misanthropes. They are very eager to demean humanity, to put it down as something worthless or inherently flawed. So they attack our most vital faculty, the human mind. (Maybe in fact they are projecting!)

The most prominent example of this is a certain version of the idea of original sin, in the form that states that human beings are basically and thoroughly sinful from the git-go. (If all it means is that human beings are capable of being wicked, well that’s no news!) Another source is the famous and famously misunderstood idea the comes to us from Socrates, the main character of all those great Platonic dialogues. Socrates is supposed to have said, if Plato is to be believed, that the only thing he knows is that he knows nothing (and that no one who thinks he is wise is really wise, including he).

These are very paradoxical claims to make and, most probably, their point is ironic not literal. They could be one approach to keeping hubris in check, making sure no one takes himself too seriously, no one gets carried away with his or her cleverness. This is also where the idea “sophistry” comes from, of cleverness masquerading as wisdom. Sophists in Plato’s time where those who pretended to be wise but in fact merely exhibited technical skill in argumentation, a bit like attorneys are reputed to do.

It would be nice if all those hours of sitting in basic reasoning classes actually left their mark on all students. But since you can become a famous anchor on TV while committing lacunae galore, I suppose many fail to see the benefit from it.

*Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes.

Democrats Against Democracy?

Tibor R. Machan

Am I alone in finding the Wisconsin Democrats who have been AWOL anything but democratic? Sure, they weren’t doing anything illegal like soldiers who go absent without leave. But that’s a legalism that makes little difference here. What counts is that these Democrats refuse to join their Republican colleagues in an effort to sort out how the state might be brought to its economic senses.

Just think of it like a household where enormous debts have accumulated because some members have spent and committed for future payment way more than the family resources and now something needs to be done so as to put the family back on some kind of manageable budget, which will entail reducing allowances and restricting what can be spent on food, household goods, entertainment, education and the rest. So some of the family call a meeting to discuss just how this should be accomplished but, alas, half of them refuse to show.

Except in Wisconsin it’s worse. In a household the few members who do stay to try to deal with the situation are usually authorized to make decisions without those who refuse to take part but in Wisconsin the rules of the process make this approach impossible--a quorum is required to do anything at all.

Now I believe those who take advantage of this and block the work by going AWOL are not serving their constituents properly at all. Because, remember, you cannot get blood out of a turnip. The coffers are empty. The only alternatives are to default or to impose such high taxes that it will kill Wisconsin’s economy--unemployment will increase, investments will vanish, shops and firms will close by the droves. And who wins? It is the Democrats who seem to have only one objective, namely, not to be legally associated with making cuts that will impact public workers. Why? Because by their lights the constituents are too stupid to realize that, well, you cannot get blood from a turnip! So these citizens will not see the effort to make cuts as a means to save at least some elements of the system, to make substantial retirement payments still possible. No. If you just reduce these retiree’s payments, they will certainly retaliate by voting you out of office.

It is at this point that one can raise the question, where is there some leadership around here? Why don’t the Democrats come back and teach their constituency some elementary accounting, like that one needs to makes cuts when one has no funds with which to keep paying the hefty pensions. Indeed, this is one of the more reasonable roles of politicians, to explain public finance to voters instead of to keep promising to deliver what cannot be delivered!

But the Democrats have chosen another path, at least for a long period until finally the Republican colleagues managed to come up with a few adjustments. As reported in The Washington Post,

“In Ohio, Republican lawmakers agreed to modify a bill that would have banned collective bargaining, allowing state workers to negotiate on wages. Michigan's GOP governor offered to negotiate with public employees rather than create political gridlock. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) called on GOP lawmakers to abandon their "right to work" bill that would have made it a misdemeanor for an employer to require workers to become or remain members of a labor union.

“Even in Wisconsin--where more than 60,000 demonstrators have camped out at the Capitol for the past week to protest a budget plan by Gov. Scott Walker (R) to end collective-bargaining rights for public employees--Republicans and Democrats took a small but significant step toward resolving their clash....”

It was about time. What is still a mystery is just how all these phony obligations to public workers, obligations that were known as impossible to fulfill from the git-go, seem acceptable to make in the first place. If you work for me and my budget goes to a certain level but you demand I pay you a lot me, is it not fraud for me to promise that I will pay you way beyond it? How come something like that isn’t the focus of the debate? Why is it even permissible to make such promises? It would seem to me even illegal to do so, no?

But it looks like politicians are held to a far lower standard of negotiation than we ordinary citizens are when we deal with one another. And the Democrats in many states would appear to be willing to corrupt their precious democracy itself so as to try to avoid the problems with their evidently reckless public finance policies. But then they have corrupted the idea of limited government all along, so this isn’t a stretch for them.

Are Public Unions Unjust?

Tibor R. Machan

Bona fide Labor unions work within a free market system where firms compete for customers who are normally able to switch from sellers of wares and services if they want to. Public works are noncompetitive, however. Workers who belong to public unions conduct their labor negotiations without their employers facing any competitors. The USPS, for example, has a monopoly over first class mail delivery; teachers at public schools are working for monopolistic employers--students must attend school and the funds are confiscated through taxation and not obtained through voluntary exchange. So, as the saying goes, public workers have the taxpayers over a barrel--there are no alternatives and in most cases one cannot refuse to deal with these workers.

So public workers unions are not genuine free market agents. As such they are able to have their terms met by the taxpaying public basically at the point of a gun. The public must deal with these workers otherwise they face legal sanctions. There is nowhere else to go apart from moving out of the state to another where the same situation obtains, where once again public unions possess monopoly powers and costumers have nowhere else they can turn to get a different deal or to avoid dealing altogether.

In a genuine free market place unionization would involve organizing workers in a firm that competes with others for costumers and with which costumers are free not to enter into trade. So the unions would not be able to engage in extortionist practices, making demands that must by law be met. If one’s child attends a public--or, as some prefer calling them, government--school, and teachers decide they want a higher salary or other benefits, the option of leaving the school doesn’t exist because one will be taxed to pay for it anyway. The same basic setup exists when it comes to any public work and unions. So for these folks to unionize is quite unjust.

Indeed, the rationale behind public works is not the same as behind private works. In the latter all the parties are involved so as to get the best deal they can find and bargaining occurs to bring this about. Public works, however, are supposed to amount to public service, something done not for profit but as a commitment to the public good or interest. Anyone who views public work as if it were the same as private work is suffering from a misconception or perpetrating a hoax.

Accordingly, all the people who work for governments, which are all supported through confiscatory payments--that is, taxation--are strictly speaking ineligible for unionization.

Public work in contrast to private business is something legally required and paid for involuntarily. So unlike going to the grocery store, of which there can be several in one’s neighborhood and which one can actually avoid if one decides to do with little food and household supplies, in the case of public services citizens are not free to deal with others or walk away from the providers.

Clearly, then, the original idea of labor organization into unions does not fit the public service situation. Unfortunately, this is rarely kept in mind. Thus when in Wisconsin or anywhere else for that matter public service employees are insisting on retaining the benefits they have obtained through bargaining with the government they were getting a very special deal. Public policy imposed their services on the citizenry and now the citizenry is no longer able to come up with the loot previously extracted from them via what comes to extortionist means. Yet, because much of the population--egged on by people who would very likely just as soon impose public services on everyone in every line of work (just check out Paul Kurgman’s column in The New York Times last Monday [2/21/11])--has sympathy for the usual laborer or worker when these are often dealing with powerful firms in a free market, the unions are getting a free pass in their current conflict with their employers.

This situation needs to be seriously reexamined. It may indeed imply that the entire idea of public service, let alone public service unionization, is misguided.

Making versus Owning

Tibor R. Machan

Now it is obvious to most of us that one need not make something so as to own it, fair and square. No one made one’s eyes, kidneys, and other organs and limbs yet they belong rightfully to the person who has them, no one else.

Beyond this of course one way to come to own something is by creating it, like a table or musical composition. So often making something makes it one’s own. But that’s not the only way one can come to own something. One can receive something as a gift! It then belong to one, no one else. One can find something that’s been abandoned or that’s just out there in the wilds. Unless someone else has come upon it and laid claim to it, one can come to own it this way, as well. Certainly if I find a gold nugget on an unowned desert or mountain, I can come to own this and no one may thereafter take it from me with impunity.

While all this would seem to be plain common sense, it needs often to be reiterated because the failure to keep it in mind provides would be confiscators of private property the warped idea that they may get stuff from us if only we didn’t make it. This notion of the public ownership of unearned or unmade holdings has tyrannical consequences.

Those who spread the ruse that we cannot own what we haven’t produced hope to persuade us that they, on the other hand, can. This is, of course, fallacious thinking, the fallacy of the non sequitor--it doesn’t follow! But because ownership and production or creation are so closely associated in our minds, it sounds like there may be something to the idea. There isn’t! And it is vital to remember it because otherwise the notion can unleash tyranny, Draconian and petty, all over the place. The promoters of the notion that you must have made it so as to own it would like nothing more than have you hand over to them whatever you didn’t come by via earning or making it. But it is clear, once considered carefully, that nothing like that follows. They have no right to any of it, you do.

There is, of course, no reasonable doubt that when one makes something one is very likely its owner, although there are quite a few exceptions. If I hire you to be my scout for valuable resources and you come up with such, it is very like that these will belong to me, not to you. What belongs to you is the salary I promised you for your scouting services. But what you discovered will rightfully be mine. (I might also have lost all my investment in you had you come up empty handed!) Also, if you came across some valuable item in my backyard while attending one of my festivities, what you found would not be yours but mine, although you need not call to my attention that you did find it.

Let’s just conclude from these minimal reflections that ownership--the right to private property--can be a fairly complicated matter. While its foundation is simple enough in most cases, its elaboration in a complicated society required a nuanced legal system, with a solid tradition of property law. This is why it is vital that no legislature or court be tolerated when it distorts private property rights (e.g., via misapplied doctrines like eminent domain). And in order to prevent the corruption of the principle of private property rights in a complex society, the citizenry--via research and scholarly centers, schools, punditry, think tanks and so forth--needs to be vigilant. Otherwise the sophistic enemies of freedom will triumph.

And those sophists are not resting, believe me. All one needs to do is read some of the publications--journals, magazines, newsletters, blogs, etc.--produced by these sophists to learn just how diligent they are in their efforts to unravel the private property rights system that had been developed over time under the influence of the classical liberals.

Krugman and Bias

Tibor R. Machan

In a recent column Princeton economist a regular New York Times columnist Paul Krugman claims that the economics profession--including the editors of scholarly journals and the staff at econ departments--is fraught with bias. This is a serious charge, impugning the integrity of those involved. Any scientist in any discipline who engages in biased thinking is disloyal to his oath of office, one might say.

Now if the bulk of those in a given scientific or scholarly discipline have reached conclusions in favor of certain systems or policies, this could be the result of bias but it need not be. Accordingly, the term "bias" may be severely misused by Krugman.

Suppose engineers favor lighter versus heavier materials in building skyscrapers. Would this be a bias? Only if they did so without a sound reasons. Taking a certain stance in economics need not be a bias by any means. It can be well grounded, supported by research and analysis.

All of the practical disciplines involve selectivity--e.g., in medicine safer and more effective drugs are selected over other ones. Again, only if the reason for this is unjustified would that amount to a bias. So when Kgurman advocates the injection of more stimuli into the economy this, too, need not amount to a Keynesian bias unless it is done thoughtlessly. And what other economists are doing when they defend public policies that are based on free market economic theories might but need not be a bias. It could derive from honest and competent investigation in their field of study.

But there is a difficulty about all this. Throughout the history of the social sciences there has been a problem with reaching policy conclusions, with making claims about what bureaucrats, politicians, and others who are responsible to propose what should be done ought to say and do. This is because of the powerful influence of value-free thinking in the epistemological foundations of these sciences.

The very influential 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume and later the positivist school of the philosophy of science that followed his lead insisted that no one can establish any solid foundations for what ought to or ought not to be done. As the point is often put, no “ought” can be derived from “is.” (Actually, Hume argued that none can be deduced but this has been widely misunderstood to mean that no argument can be given for normative conclusions based on observations and descriptions of facts. But that view, if true, would abolish all of the practical sciences.)

Because of the widespread acceptance of this epistemological stance, the overwhelming majority of social scientists took it as an article of proper science that all statements favoring how one ought to proceed, be this in private conduct or public policy, amounted to something unsupportable--a bias or prejudice--instead of something defensible by human reason and research.

Whether this outlook is sound is a very long story and cannot be explored in a brief discussion but it can be said that there is much debate about it. One very big problem with it is that it is self-defeating since it issues a conclusion about how scientists ought to do their work, the very thing that the position says no one can reasonably do. But, in any case, this idea that all value judgments, recommendations as to how people out to act, must amount to biases has been quite prominent.

Accordingly whether it is the free market or statism that is being defended by an economist, by the the tenets of the prominent underlying philosophy of science it will always amount to a bias. In short, no one can rationally defend some policy of action since these all involve saying what should or ought to be done.

What then is left for policy studies? Only the determination of whether a policy has widespread support. In a largely democratic society that means whether the voting public favors or opposes it. But that doesn’t do away with the theoretical problem--the majority’s choice of policy is still no more than a bias according to this view.

By now, of course, the philosophical case in favor of construing all policy proposals as expressing no more than a bias has been widely disputed but, sadly, this hasn’t had a major impact on how many social scientists think. Some tend to sense that there is something amiss with the idea but that doesn’t mean they have come up with a cogent alternative.

In any case, what Krugman is doing in labeling the free market stance a bias is either saying something that is obvious since all policy positions are biases from his perspective; or he is begging the question, which is a serious logical fallacy. He would need to show that the free market stance is unjustified, flawed, and advocated only as a matter of a personal prejudice, which of course he has not done.

So what Krugman has done instead is distort the meaning of “bias” to serve his own ideological opposition to--we could call it his own “bias” against--the free market.

Where Multiculturalism is OK

Tibor R. Machan

It is reported that France’s, England’s and Germany’s leaders have issued an announcement claiming that multiculturalism is a failure. But are they right? Or perhaps it is more likely that implementing multiculturalism the way it has been tried in these and many other countries cannot work? Multiculturalism requires a particular kind of legal system. Not any will do.

What is multiculturalism? For political purposes it is the idea that members of different cultures can co-exists within a given legal order. But what order might that be? (There is an untenable philosophical idea of multiculturalism which holds that every culture is equally sound, equally well suited to human community life, which is clearly bunk.)

Now if members of different cultures are expected to co-exists as in the same family or fraternity or church, there will be serious problems, irresolvable conflicts afoot. Take those who believe in polygamy or who think women must not show any skin in public. Surely close coexistence between such folks and others who don’t share these practices is going to be difficult. But impossible?

In a society that strictly upholds the principle of private property rights the potential for conflict among members of even radically different cultures and religions is drastically curtailed. This is fairly obvious--if you stick to your own place as you practice your culture’s edicts and principles, you are not going to run into much opposition. Frank can do his bull fighting in his arena but you need not join him and can ban it where you are in charge. I can marry as many women as will have me where I am the owner of the realm while you can insist on the practice of monogamy where you are.

Crisscrossing the various cultures in such a society would be by mutual consent. No one would be required to admit into his or her realm those of whose cultural practices one disapproves. Catholics would not need to accept the practices of Jews or Muslims or atheists where they are the proprietors. And the examples can multiply endlessly.

Now it has to be admitted that there are limits to what a regime of private property can make room for as far as diverse practices are concerned. It would not be permitted to intrude upon other people who don’t consent to such intrusion. One could not trespass on to other people’s land and various spheres either. So if one’s culture demands that one invade the spaces of others, that would not be permissible. But that is a restriction that everyone should be able to live with since if one’s practices are important, they would be important mainly to oneself and one’s fellow faithful or cultural mates. To impose these on non-believers could not be necessary so as to be loyal to the creed.

It was the late Harvard political philosopher Robert Nozick who called attention to this feature of a genuine free society. He called it “experiments in utopia”--innumerable different approaches to community life carried out side by side with the only common requirement that everyone’s basic rights, especially private property rights, are respected and protected. In his powerful book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Basic Books, 1974), he argued that while other systems demand a one size fits all policy for everyone to follow, in a free society there is room for a great variety of ways to live.

America in a way approximates this and has done so all along. Maybe more of that is what we need to create peace among people. And maybe that is one reason why some Americans hope that their ways are going to spread around the globe.

In contrast, consider the religious conflicts in Jerusalem where three different faiths are all laying claim to one realm instead of dividing it and living peacefully together. The public square can never be truly multicultural while a group of private ones definitely can.

Holding One's Nose for Principles

Tibor R. Machan

One of the difficulties with standing on principle is that often one is defending them when they are practiced by bad people. Or when bad conduct is involved. In both kinds of cases one may have no sympathy at all for the specific but still finds it important to defend the principle, as when one defends sleazy journalists or artists against those who would want to censor them.

In England recently a couple of homosexuals won a court case that forces bread and breakfast places to rent to them even when the owners disapprove of homosexuality. And, of course, the argument advanced was all about public accommodations, as if opening one’s establishment for rent somehow committed one to accept every prospective renter. Why is that supposed to be a knock down argument for forcing renters to rent to anyone? Presumably because commerce is a public action.

Now by this line of reasoning censorship, too, should be allowed since most material that’s the target of it is sold or viewed in public places or places that are adjacent to public places. This is how imposing government smoking regulations and bans on restaurants and bars is legally justified--these places all open on to public roads or sidewalks, so they are "affected with a public interest," a phrase first used in the USA by the Supreme Court in Munn v. Illinois (1877). Never mind that newspapers are often sold in kiosks and on street corners. But because of the explicit protection provided in the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, they are immune to government regulation. (This may not hold as statute in the UK but is more of a tradition there, while it is indeed a constitutional principle in the USA.)

Whatever the law is, the moral fact of the matter is that one’s sayings and writings may not be banned or regulated by anyone. Nor should one’s decisions as to one’s trading partners be subject to government regulation, however odious the terms are by which one accepts or rejects a trading partner.

Of course, in innumerable cases even if the government wants to regulate terms or trade it just cannot do so. One may decide not to purchase goods or services someplace because one knows that the owners are of a faith or political position that one opposes. Or they are of a race against which one is irrationally hostile. Millions of shoppers are free to engage in such unjust discrimination, while, of course, vendors are not (which, by the way, violates a cardinal feature of the rule of law, namely, that every one is equal under the law--shoppers and vendors alike).

Conceivably, however, having announced in an advertisement that one’s bed and breakfast place is available for rent does commit one to rent to any civilized person who comes up with the proper funds. Yes, that is a pretty good argument but in a free society it can be circumvented by making it clear, up front, that one does not accept certain people as prospective renters. So if you place a notice to that affect in the advertisement or by the entrance, there ought to be no objection to excluding those whom you don’t chose to deal with even if what you are doing is morally insidious.

The mere fact that one trades may not be used to subject parties to the trade to public micromanagement. After all, marriages are usually public--one must get a license--and so are many other noncommercial interactions with people. In a free society one must tolerate those who would deploy deplorable criteria for these as well as for doing business.

As much as it is a contemptible practice to reject homosexuals or blacks or whoever as prospective trading partners, it is even more contemptible to rob people of the liberty to determine whether they will do business with certain others. Yes, they need to be up front, otherwise by the standard of the reasonable person it is understood that anyone is welcome; yet if that is not one’s choice, however insidious that may be, one who openly opts out ought not to be made to embrace it. Let neighbors, colleagues, family, friends and others exert peer pressure or boycotts so as to change such people’s ways. But do not coerce them to do the right thing--it must be their free choice.

Unjustly discriminating against people isn’t assault or battery or some other kind of aggression, so the law must not interfere with it.

Besmirching Libertarianism

Tibor R. Machan

Now that libertarianism has gotten some publicity in mainstream forums, those who are convinced of its merit have much work to do. This is because of the well publicized distortions of the position in prominent forums, especially by well credentialed academics in law, political economy, ethics, philosophy, and other disciplines bearing a public policy. You see, the idea that no one ought to coerce another even for noble purposes is pretty much common sense in America. Sure, some folks disagree, among them many highfalutin academics with great skills at sophistry. But the bulk of those who vote pretty much agree that when you want something from your fellows, you need to ask them instead of robbing them. So when this is being denied, lots of fancy footwork needs to be deployed, which is just what’s being done by numerous pundits at The New York Times and other outfits that champion all kinds of coerced wealth redistribution. (Of course, wealth redistribution goes on peacefully all the time, but that’s not under these statists’ control, so they don’t like it!)

What you can expect from these people is fancy discussions about how, in fact, the American system gives the legal authority to Congress and others in government to take, take, and take anything they want from you and me, as well as to force you to do what they want you to, “for the public interest.” And to make their case more palatable, they need to make it appear that the libertarian reading of the US political tradition--that reading that made it exceptional instead of just a watered down version of feudalism--is callous, heartless, and bent on undermining the public good at every turn. By besmirching the position this way, the unsophisticated citizenry, whose members are libertarian at the gut or second nature level, might then get turned around and give the statists the power they clamor for.

But here is an important piece of information that one can use to rebut this underhanded effort to discredit human liberty and to empower the statists: the American political system has a very clear doctrine of the public good (or interest). It is stated in the Declaration of Independence and it consists of a system of laws that secure the natural rights of the citizenry. That’s the American version of the public interest, namely, protecting everyone’s liberty to live his or her life by his or her own judgment. That is why a legal system is instituted, not to serve other ends, the bulk of which are, of course, on the agendas of the statists. What the Founders did so brilliantly is discern the public good or interest correctly, based on what in fact all members of the public will benefit from. And this is their being free from aggression by other people even when such aggression would be deployed for high sounding objectives.

Now it is very tempting to designate everything someone badly desires as being in the public interest. Just listen to all those lobbyists who march to centers of power peddle their special interests as in need of being pursued for the public good. But this is a ruse and it is precisely in the proper public interest to unmask and resist it, which is everyone’s basic right to life, liberty and property. That is what everyone benefits from without any cost to anyone else. That is a bona fide public good, not some trumped up version which always amounts to ripping some people off so that the goals of some others get served.

All this is vital to remember as one witnesses the desperate efforts of sophisticated statists to discredit human liberty, to label it “fundamentalism” and other ad hominems. Sadly the prominent, prestigious forums are mostly in the hands of statists so there will not be much of a chance to do intellectual battle with these sophists on the turfs them dominate. Have you ever read anyone in The New York Review of Books who had a nice thing to say about individual liberty or free markets? Just like Karl Marx did with the right to property--which he dubbed a right of selfishness that makes all sorts of mischief possible (omitting all the wonderful things this right serves as well and depending on the nasty version of "selfishness" so popular since Hobbes rendered the self something nasty and brutish)--these statists only stress the relatively rare misconduct that men and women engage in when they are free. So they will not permit anyone to say otherwise in those forums they dominate (which, by the ways, they could not do without the right to private property being well protected).

Libertarianism is a sound political idea but it faces an uphill fight given how its embrace means the demotion of all sorts of tyrants, Draconian or petty, who are very reluctant to give up their well entrenched power.

Big Guns for Statism

Tibor R. Machan

Since some federal judges have ruled against the constitutionality of Obamacare, there has been a bit of panic in the ranks of defenders of American statism. Thus, for example, Harvard Law School's Lawrence Tribe has chimed in, on the pages of The New York Times, with the predictable observation that "Since the New Deal, the court has consistently held that Congress has broad constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. This includes authority over not just goods moving across state lines, but also the economic choices of individuals within states that have significant effects on interstate markets. By that standard, this law’s constitutionality is open and shut. Does anyone doubt that the multitrillion-dollar health insurance industry is an interstate market that Congress has the power to regulate?" Well, yes, those of us who champion individual rights as against collectivism do!

David Cole made his pitch in The New York Review of Books, claiming that these rulings were far too libertarian and thus not really consistent with the way the U. S. Constitution has been read of late. As he wrote, "The objections to health care reform are ultimately founded not on a genuine concern about preserving state prerogative, but on a libertarian opposition to compelling individuals to act for the collective good, no matter who imposes the obligation." Indeed, and that’s all to the good! Who on earth wants to defend state prerogative other than some crypto-monarchists!

Both apologists for statism are correct, of course, but they are also beside the point. Just because justices have been appointed who have favored expansive powers for the federal government--and, indeed, for governments as such--doesn't prove anything about whether that is how they ought to rule on, for instance, Obamacare's constitutionality.

In earlier years the courts have interpreted the constitution as limiting the power of governments, including the power to regulate--let's call it what it is, namely, to regiment--interstate commerce. They used to view Article I, Section 8, the interstate commerce clause, as authorizing Congress to regularize commerce, not to regulate it--that is to say, to establish uniform free market conditions for doing business within the borders of the country and across state lines. Prior to the formation of the union the states often behaved in highly protectionist ways but once united into one country this became a serious restriction on the exercise of individual property rights and an impediment to the free flow of commerce. Ergo, it had to be stopped, given the broad principles of community life laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. It was a revolution, after all, not a minor putsch.

In later times, under the reactionary influence of the populists and other statists, the courts started to reintroduce the principles of government that had been in practice for many centuries, principles that rationalized the power of government over the citizenry in contrast to what the revolution aimed at, namely, the demotion of the state, placing sovereignty in the hands of citizens rather than governments. Of course it didn't happen all at once, nor completely, radically, but more like changing the course of an aircraft carrier, gradually. The aim was revolutionary but the process was slow just as with the abolition of slavery.

Clearly some elements of the legal order of the new country needed major overhaul, such as the permission for the states to support slavery, a permission that contradicted the ideals of the revolution. To the extent that this required some temporary broad powers on the part of the federal government, it amounted to nothing more than carrying out the implementation of the ideals of the founding. State rights, while a good federalist idea in certain respects, also had the unfortunate side effect of standing in the way of a nationwide renunciation of slavery.

Because in this instance federal power was used for purposes of of expanding human liberty, those who champion statism jumped at the chance to argue that statism itself was consistent with the basic principles of the founders. Its like arguing that because it is permissible to deploy force against others in self-defense, it is perfectly OK to deploy it aggressively, too.

No doubt, some founders felt that way, such as maybe Alexander Hamilton. They were not all of one mind. But it is sheer sophistry to argue, as Tribe and Cole do, that the needed adjustments on America's legal system were meant to reintroduce into the country broad powers for the federal government under the distorted, albeit prominent, reading of the interstate commerce clause.

Nonetheless, these eager statists are continuing what has amounted to a counterrevolutionary legal trend, one that reestablishes the government--the king, Congress, the state--as the sovereign in the country, making the citizenry once again subjects, people who could be ordered by other people to purchase health insurance on the grounds that the public interest demands this. No wonder people ask if forcing us to exercise or to eat broccoli will come next, as per the enlightened polices of the Third Reich.

Such is the nature of statism, sacrificing the rights of individuals for some alleged public good, one that reduces, in the end, to the private agendas of the statists and has nothing to do with the public at large.

Can People be Objective?

Tibor R. Machan

Even to ask whether people can be objective suggests that they can be because such a question assumes that an answer can be given and what use would an answer be if it were not objective? But forever the idea that people can be objective, as they attempt to grasp what’s what, has been challenged. Never mind that such challenges would themselves be moot if objectivity is impossible--who would care to get an answer if it were just someone’s subjective opinion, one that’s no better or worse than the answer given by some drunk or mentally deranged individual?

But it is understandable, nevertheless, why the possibility of objectivity is widely doubted. For one, what counts as objective knowledge has often been confused with what is supposed to be absolute, timeless, unchangeable knowledge (the God’s eye point of view). This last is very doubtful, that’s true, since none of us who seeks to know anything stays around forever to make sure an answer will never change.

As the saying goes, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Perfect knowledge, as imagined by Plato, for example, is an impossible dream, kind of like the perfect mate or job. But there can be good ones, of course. Objective is what the good kind of knowledge must be, the knowledge untainted by prejudice, by preconception, by bias and the like. Objective knowledge need not be final or perfect, only the best and most dependable for the time being.

But some object to this by claiming that since we are all using our human faculties to figure things out, how could we expect objectivity?

That reply, however, embodies an unwarranted assumption. It is that using our minds and our senses, indeed all our tools of knowledge, turns out to be an impediment rather than a proper means by which knowledge is to be gained. It is like claiming that because to move sand, one must use some kind of tool, like a shovel, moving it is impossible. Moving sand, truly, would involve using no tools. Or claiming that if one wants to see things accurately, one must not use one’s eyes since the eyes will pose as an obstacle to true seeing!

Now this idea that objectivity is impossible because whenever one attempts to know anything, one needs to make use of various tools or instruments, such as one’s eyes, mind, a microscope or a telescope, is based on the belief that a tool must always impede the process for which it is used. But that’s very odd. Not only does it undercut the claim itself--after all, that claim, too, came from using one’s faculties of understanding--but it assumes that everything used to learn actually impedes learning. So true learning is a kind of mindless, senseless learning. Go figure!

Now, true enough, if one is careless, too hasty or insufficiently cautious, one can fail to notice impediments to how one best uses one’s faculties--that’s one reason to be especially careful when driving in fog. But such impediments aren’t necessarily a part of our approach to understanding the world. Moreover, even to learn that one’s faculties may have been impeded, it is necessary that they are not always impeded, at least not when one discovers such impediments.

Of course, with this issue, like so many others one needs to grapple with, is complicated and has been studied forever. But to resolve it for oneself it isn’t required that one reach a consensus about it. That would dismiss the work of many excellent scientist, researchers, thinkers who have been prescient. Yes, peer review is useful but it could express widespread bias, too. For example, in the debate about climate change--does it happen, how much of it, did people’s conduct make it happen, etc.--both sides tend to insist that their opponents are not objective enough! So back to the drawing board, one might conclude.

In general, the issue of objectivity is important because if one becomes convinced that one cannot be objective, how can one trust one’s own judgments, even carefully made ones, and how can one confidently reject bogus notions and pretenders to authority? After all, then everything could be bogus, which leaves matters to con artists.

Knowing versus imposing What’s Ethical

Tibor R. Machan

Among those who champion human liberty--the sovereignty of every adult when it comes to managing one’s own life--some hold that if one could know what good conduct amounts to, one would be authorized to impose it on others. Among those who thought this was the world famous classical liberal economist, Milton Friedman. Friedman, who was an avid champion of human liberty, denied that we can "really know what sin is". By this he meant that what for people is the wrong thing to do is not something anyone can know. And he also held that one could not reasonably champion human liberty, the sort that one enjoys when others must abstain from imposing their ideas of how one ought to act, "if you could be absolutely certain that you had the revealed truth." By the “revealed truth” he merely meant whatever it is that others ought or ought not do. If one knew such things, one "could not let another man sin."

Right away there is a problem here because the argument advanced is actually supposed to show how one should act, namely that no one ought to impose himself or herself on another adult human being. So others ought to be left free. And that is, of course, based on the moral knowledge that it is wrong to make people act in ways they don’t choose to. The only exception is when they choose to impose their idea on others. But that is self-defense, not any kind of imposition.

This point actually makes it evident that in some cases we do know what amounts to sinning or doing the wrong thing--for example, when one coerces peaceful others to act as one believes they should. But that is not all. We can pretty well know that when someone wastes away his or her life, say by becoming a junkie or a bum, this isn’t something the person should do. The details may vary but it doesn’t require rocket science to know that people who waste away their lives are normally misbehaving and ought to change. What is crucial here, however, is that it is they who must do the changing, not someone else. So imposing hard work or prudence on them simply cannot improve matters.

Some argue that if you impose worthwhile conduct on others and they later realize that this is indeed worthwhile and they should henceforth conduct themselves accordingly, your imposition is justified. This line of reasoning is advanced precisely because it is widely realized that to have moral significance one's conduct must be freely chosen. So those who want urgently to make other people moral--for example, Professor Robert P. George in his book Making Men Moral (Oxford University Press, 1993)--reject the moral right to act immorally, a right to do what is wrong (provided no one is being victimized). Yet, since morally significant conduct does have to be chosen, be it right or wrong, adult human beings do have such a right. It is not a moral but a political or natural right, however.

The contrary doctrine, namely, libertarian paternalism or nudging, applies only to children. It does not to adults. One is of course welcome to attempt to persuade people to do the morally right thing, maybe even implore or exert peer pressure to encourage another to do what is right. However, in the end an adult must make the choice and not be coerced to do so. That’s part of what it means to respect human dignity. In nearly all major religions this is fully acknowledged. One must choose to accept Christ, for example. Even Stalinists believed that good communists had to voluntarily admit their flaws or ideological crimes before they could be punished meaningfully.

The only serious challenge to the idea that morally significant conduct must be voluntary comes from those who consider all of morality bogus, meaningless. In every known era of human history, including ours, there are serious moral skeptics--a recent issue of the magazine Philosophy Now features five philosophers arguing this position. Today the basis of the case rests mainly with neuroscience which supposedly shows that people are never free to choose to take actions, so in effect nothing they do is really their own doing! (This is what many defense attorneys set out to show about their clients and there are major institutes at universities embarking on research that promises to make the case for them!) But this brings up a whole bunch of other issues for which there is no room in this short essay.

Forcing Us to Do what We Choose not to do

Tibor R. Machan

Over the last couple of years many conservatives have argued against President Obama’s health care program on the grounds that it unconstitutionally forces citizens to purchase something they may not want. Imposing this kind of force conduct, they have argued, violates the right of a citizen to refrain from doing something, the right to liberty or to freedom of choice. Generally this may well be a sound objection although I am doubtful about its violation of the U. S. Constitution.

In response, defenders of Mr. Obama’s health care project tend to point to the fact that state governments require citizens to purchase car insurance. That comparison, however, is fallacious: one only needs to buy such insurance if one drives on public roads and driving on such roads is not deemed to be a basic right but a privilege since government owns the roads. This seems to be a legal distinction with some teeth to it. Mr. Obama’s program requires one to purchase health insurance no matter what, just as a matter of one’s citizenship. And car insurance, some have pointed out, serves to protect fellow travelers and is thus not, like requiring one to buy health insurance, a paternalistic policy.

But there is another measure many conservatives fully embrace that compares with making people buy health insurance: making them check on the citizenship of prospective employees. In their vigilance against illegal immigration, many conservatives insist that those who employ people may be forced to check on whether those they plan to hire are in America legally.

Now this seems to be a clear case of forcing such employers to do something they may not want to do. It is also outsourcing a line of professional work to non-professionals. Checking on the legal status of prospective employees is detective work and should only be performed by authorized agents of the law, not by private citizens. Yes, in some cases one citizen may even arrest another, but usually only in special circumstances, such as when illegal conduct is clearly evident and not something one needs to detect through the scrutiny of someone else’s legal status.

In any case, forcing citizens to engage in law enforcement is not very different from forcing them to purchase insurance. In both cases citizens are required to perform something they may well not choose to perform. One may even regard this as imposing upon citizens involuntary servitude or force labor.

Of course, here too there is plenty of precedence. When the government forces employers to collect taxes from those they employ, that is forced labor as well. The collecting of the income tax throughout the year, the requirement that this be accurately and promptly reported to the IRS, are no less forcing people to do something they do not choose to do than is forcing them to buy health insurance.

It is thus a bit hypocritical of many Americans to be outraged with Mr. Obama’s and the Democrats’ health care law. If one consistently opposed making people do things they do not choose to do, many measures of municipal, county, state and federal governments would have to be declared wrong and maybe unconstitutional.

We live in a mixed system. There are elements of socialism, fascism, communism, capitalism, libertarianism and other regimes the American legal system includes. Cherry picking some and insisting that one is doing so as a matter of principled adherence to the U. S. Constitution may not be very credible. If one is going to object to governmental regimentation, to forcing people to act in ways they to not choose to (apart from abstaining from violating the rights of fellow citizens), it would have to begin with numerous measures way before getting to Mr. Obama’s health care policy.

As with the objection to restricting corporate contributions to political campaigns--based not on what this should be based on, namely, the violation of private property rights but on its alleged curtailment of freedom of speech--the objection to Obama care is a bit forced. People are made to do so many things by their various governments that to protest making them buy health insurance because this involves making them do something they don’t choose to do simply isn’t credible.

Democracy Wont Help Egypt

Tibor R. Machan

Even without being a Egyptologist I can say with reasonable certainty that it will not help to solve Egypt’s problems to make it into an unlimited democracy. What we are likely to get is Lebanon with the heavy hand of Hamas in charge there. In Egypt it looks like the Brotherhood is ready to jump into the position Hamas occupies in Lebanon.

In any case, in none of the discussions about what lies ahead for Egypt is there ever any mention of ushering in a limited--or bona fide liberal--democracy, with a constitution that would restrain all sides and leave the citizenry in peace to attend to its own affairs. Such pluralism isn’t very likely to take center stage in that country.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak became a virtual dictator after the assassination of the previous president Anwar Sadat, with hardly any credible and sensible resistance from the population and it’s only now, that a bunch of young people appear to be upset enough with the culture he has been heading up, that his his rule is seriously questioned. Nothing much that’s rational is evident in the current developments apart from the simple insistence on the part of a great many Egyptians that they’ve had it up to here with being ruled by Mubarek team.

Now this is not so surprising when one realizes that none of the leaders around the globe, including American presidents, nor indeed many intellectuals in Egypt itself, have made a serious pitch for Egypt adopting constitutional reforms that respect individual rights. That’s not the same thing as promoting the vague idea of democracy, which as history shows, has not managed to be a bulwark against tyranny, not in Western or Eastern Europe, not in Latin America, not even in the United States of America where nearly all the good ideas failed to get democratic support or bad ones got swept aside democratically. The American civil war was no triumph of democracy, nor the New Deal, nor again all the oppressive federal measures that are burdening the country, keeping its economy hostage to populist and egalitarian notions.

Very probably the reason the U.S.A. hasn’t gone under yet is that some of its better features gained solid momentum and despite the absence of sustained political and judicial support for them these are continuing to be fairly dominant--relatively free and competitive markets, civil liberties, private property rights, freedom of religion and speech, due process, etc. But they are all gradually being replaced with the widely championed ideology of activist citizens in higher education and media, people working in the most prestigious and invincible institutions in society, who not very surprisingly want to regiment us all into compliance with a vision of full equality. (The cautionary tale about this was written by George Orwell, in his brilliant fable, Animal Farm, who was anything but a Tea Party type but, rather, a rare sensible Leftist!)

When the mobs in Egypt, who have been treated as a bunch of unruly children by Mubarek’s regime, finally couldn’t take it any more and stood up to the dictator, there is little reason to think they would become a civilized citizenry that renounces the temptation to rule others once they gain power. Their call for democracy appears to have little to do with the kind of constitutional system that America’s founders favored. Even their call for freedom seems mostly to be about being free to rule instead of being ruled.

At the personal level my fear is that those expatriates from Egypt who in the last few years decided to return in the hopes that their country would move closer to a liberal democratic model are now packing their bags again, headed back to some more stable region of the globe so as to save their necks from chaos. I know a few such people and can only empathize with their disappointment.

True self-government isn’t the sort of democracy we have seen in the Weimar Republic, in Lebanon, in Venezuela, and being widely demanded now in Egypt. It is, instead, a polity that upholds the rights of individuals not simply to take part in the vote but to live as they choose in peace with their fellows.

Obama is a Socialist—A Crazy Thought?

Tibor R. Machan

Right after President Obama’s state of the union address several Republicans, mainly of the Tea Party faction stated that he is a socialist. This isn’t the first time the claim has been made. Indeed, based on his early schooling the idea that he may well be one simply cannot be dismissed.



Not that all of us inherit our parents’ political views, quite far from it. I myself had a father who was an avid champion of Hitler and a fierce Anti-Semite, whereas I grew up to embrace libertarianism in politics and a refined version of Objectivism in my general philosophy. A great many folks I know don’t at all think as their parents did. But there are those, also, who do and in the case of Obama it seems his socialist grandmother had considerable influence on him (judging by his own testimony).



When it comes to the allegation that Obama is a socialist CNN-TV anchor Soledad O'Brien quoted Webster’s Dictionary as evidence that he is not. The passage singled out the socialist view of property, namely, that everything important is to be collectively owned, that private property “in the means of production” must be abolished. (Which, by the way, for socialists means, human labor!) The Communist Manifesto makes this clear—Marx and Engels claimed the fist thing toward establishing socialism—the stage of history prior to reaching communism—is the abolition of private property. So it would seem that there is no way that Obama could be a socialist since he has said many nice things about the market place and hasn’t ever called for abolishing private property rights, only heavily regulating it and getting in bed with certain big businesses, which strictly speaking isn’t the same thing is collectivization.



However, looking a bit more closely, it needs also to be kept in mind that Mr. Obama has often declared his own pragmatism, which is a philosophical stance of not sticking by any firm principles. And such a policy could very well be deployed exactly when one wishes to disguise one’s actual political economic philosophy. And then there is this wonderfully instructive passage by Lenin himself, certainly a bona fide communist:



Only one thing is needed to lead us to march forward more surely and more firmly to victory: namely, the consciousness everywhere that all communists, in all countries, must display the maximum flexibility in their tactics…. [Lenin, "Left Wing Communism," 1920].



But this isn’t all. What is really central to socialism is the view that we all belong to society, that there are no genuine human individuals at all, that human beings are what Marx called specie beings somewhat on the order of termites or bees that exists as a collective, never individually. The collective ownership of everything that’s valuable and important is a derivative doctrine, not a primary one. This is one reason that some socialists are actually called “market” socialists. They recognize that as a matter of efficiency—or at times public relations—it is quite OK to give a nod to certain elements of capitalism.


It is not easy to tell what is in someone’s mind, especially not if that someone is convinced that the only way to advance his or her position is to keep its true nature obscure. Indeed, among neo-conservatives this is a prominent theme, learned from the political scientist the late Leo Strauss. He argued that it is only prudent for philosophers to keep their true views a secret, if only because it would scare ordinary folks to be told that brilliant philosophers have come o believe.


Surely this could apply in the case of Mr. Obama, as well: the American public would be very upset if he came right out and said, “Look, folks, I happen to believe that socialism is a sound political economic viewpoint and will do what I can to steer the country that way. I honestly think it is better than capitalism.” Not a way to win elections, so much better to keep it under wraps.

Government Regulations: Demeaning and Costly

Tibor R. Machan

Every time I am dealing with an organizations like the omnipresent TIAA-CREF--which seems to have a monopoly on handling retirements at colleges and universities across the country--I am put through a labyrinth of bureaucratic procedures. With each turn, of course, there is a quite lengthy average--say, 7 to 13 minute--wait, mostly on being on hold on the phone. This happens also when I make airline reservations or deal with banks and other financial institutions but there is some competition there, although these, too, appear to be heavily regulated by the government which imposes on them innumerable.

Whenever I voice a protest about any of these inconveniences--actually, more than that since my life-time is being consumed when these waits go on endlessly--I am told that they cannot help it, they are required to go through all these infuriating delays by the government. Forms need to be filled out and sent off just to satisfy the state! And those people who impose these requirements are, of course, nowhere to be found so one can give them one’s opinion of their handiwork. Instead hapless office personnel are confronted with outraged citizens and are, of course, exasperated when they cannot answer their complaints with any hope of relief.

Nearly everything the bureaucrats demand is farmed out to various administrative departments at colleges and universities, primarily the offices of HR, ironically called human resources (as if what HR did at these places had any productive function are all). And, of course, when it comes to payroll offices at nearly all companies, there, too, most of the procedures are controlled by directives of governments, including that odious, vicious practice of withholding taxes, something again that the government managed to farm out to the employers who then are the object of ire of all of us who are peeved about the various tax policies.

Round and round goes the bureaucracy, treating us all as if we were robots doing service to some far off master who cannot be contacted by any of us (except in a very iffy and indirect fashion when people cast their votes). Even then, while politicians can be dismissed, bureaucrats cannot.

The one time I had anything to do in Washington, as a founding member of the Jacob K. Javits National Fellowship Program -- http://smu.edu/nationalfellowships/javits.asp -- I was told that the bureaucrats at the Department of Education, where this program was administered, never changed no matter who got elected. If Washington had a Democrat regime, the same folks stayed in the various bureaus as when Republicans were in office. And in time this became evident to me quite directly through the arrogance of the staff whose members never feared being dismissed or demoted. Their jobs were secure! (This may not always be the case, just as treasury bonds aren’t so secure when major financial fiascoes occur at the federal level.)

Now all of this is, of course, infuriating and utterly demeaning--you must stay on hold because no one ever is authorized to make outgoing telephone calls! I always feel like a royal subject, tempted to stand at attention until I am spoke to by these folks who are doing the government’s work, work that, of course, should not have to be done. Are we all involuntary servants of these people?

Then there is, of course, the waste of time and money involved in all of this. Each year I probably spend 20 to 40 hours or more dealing with the bureaucracy, directly or indirectly, and if one multiplies this across the country, the wasted time piles up incalculably. The economic value of this time is difficult to estimate but when some try the numbers turn out to be beyond belief. (John Stossel did his very first ABC-TV special on the topic of government regulation and the cost that he estimated for it went way beyond virtually everything else the taxpayers are force to pay for.)

Maybe some people do not care about this just as some people do not protest spousal abuse. But no matter--it is still very demeaning to be subjected to all this and it costs a bundle to boot, money spent that could very well go to genuine productive task that might even ease the unemployment problem in the private sector.