Libertarians and Rand Paul

Kentucky Senatorial candidate Rand Paul is taking a lot of heat for his comments regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paul stated that the federal government should not be dictating how private businesses operate, and specifically said that businesses should not be forced to serve minorities. He added:

In a free society we will tolerate boorish people who have abhorrent behavior, but if we’re civilized people we publicly criticize that and don’t belong to those groups or associate with those people.

Paul is correct on this issue. The right to property is the right of use and disposal, the right to use one's property as one chooses. So long as a property owner does not use force against others, he may use his property as he deems best.

This of course, does not sit well with most folks. They don't like the idea that some bigot might refuse to serve blacks or prohibit gays from entering his business. They don't like the idea that some people might hold incredibly irrational ideas. Their response is to prohibit irrationality--or at least the ability to act on that irrationality--by using force against property owners.

Racism is vile. It treats human beings as animals, and those who advocate or practice racism deserve our scorn and condemnation. But using force against property owners is not the solution.

That Paul is being labeled a racist for his comments is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that the Libertarian Party of Kentucky (LPK) has condemned his comments.

Paul, like his father, Congressman and former Libertarian Presidential candidate Ron Paul, is often described as a Libertarian. Seeking to distance themselves from Paul's controversial comments, the LPK released a number of statements this week, including:

The Libertarian Party of Kentucky strongly condemns the hurtful comments of Republican senate candidate Rand Paul. (http://www.lpky.org/node/243)

Founded in 1971, the Libertarian Party believes in achieving liberty through economic freedom and social tolerance, and is the nation’s third-largest political party. (http://www.lpky.org/node/159)

“Liberty, freedom, and true economic prosperity cannot exist in a system which institutionalizes racism, bigotry, or other kinds of unfounded hatred,” said Ken Moellman, Chairman and Northern Kentucky native. (http://www.lpky.org/node/145)

The KLP doesn't explain how economic freedom and forcing businesses to serve minorities is compatible. It doesn't tell us why forcing individuals to act contrary to their own judgment is consistent with liberty. It doesn't tell us why their position on this issue contradicts their introduction page:

[L]ibertarianism is a philosophy that holds that a person should be free to live as that person so chooses, and accepting responsibility for their own actions, without forcibly effecting the lives of others.

A consistent and principled advocate of liberty would defend an individual's right to hold vile ideas. A consistent and principled advocate of liberty would hold that individual responsible by condemning those ideas and their advocates. A consistent and principled advocate of liberty would shun such individuals, rather than use force to compel "rational" behavior.

Despite superficial appearances to the contrary, Libertarians are not consistent, principled, or advocates of liberty.

When Will They Get It?

The world continues to sing its praises of Houston, with the most recent example coming from Joel Kotkin. In an article on Forbes.com, Kotkin writes:

Politicians in big cities talk about jobs, but by keeping taxes, fees and regulatory barriers high they discourage the creation of jobs, at least in the private sector. A business in San Francisco or Los Angeles never knows what bizarre new cost will be imposed by city hall. In New York or Boston you can thrive as a nonprofit executive, high-end consultant or financier, but if you are the owner of a business that wants to grow you're out of luck.

Houston, however, has kept the cost of government low while investing in ports, airports, roads, transit and schools. A person or business moving there gets an immediate raise through lower taxes and cheaper real estate. Houston just works better at nurturing jobs.

Unfortunately, Houston's "leaders" don't get it. They continue to push for more controls and regulations, whether it is outlawing "attention-getting devices", mandating tags on taco trucks, forcing taxpayers to subsidize home purchases, seeking to shut down businesses (such as Spec's and CES Environmental), arbitrarily opposing development, or any of a myriad other interventions that discourage job creation, destroy existing jobs, or both.

City officials act as if Houston is somehow immune to the laws of economics, that if the city trods down the same statist path as other big cities, it will somehow not wind up in the same place. They are wrong. The same cause--government intervention--leads to the same effect--high housing costs and a stagnant economy--no matter where it is enacted.

I do disagree with Kotkin's conclusion:

Houston, perhaps more than any city in the advanced industrial world, epitomizes the René Descartes ideal--applied to the 17th-century entrepreneurial hotbed of Amsterdam--of a great city offering "an inventory of the possible" to longtime residents and newcomers alike. This, more than anything, promises to give Houstonites the future.

Houston's success has not been the result of Cartesian ideas. The city's growth and economic prosperity has been the result of a general respect for property rights. Politically, this ideal was identified and defended by America's Founding Fathers. Its moral basis was identified and defended by Ayn Rand:

The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

If Houston wishes to continue as the city that others want to be, this is what city leaders must understand. But before that will occur, Houstonians must first demand that city government respect and protect the inviolate right of each individual to his own life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and property. When they do, and vote accordingly, city officials may begin to get it.

Doublespeak in the Chronicle

I recently finished reading 1984, George Orwell's tale of a futuristic totalitarian state. In the novel, leaders of the state engage in a thorough and constant effort to wipe out facts of reality. As one character states, reality exists in the "collective mind", and whatever the collective believes to be true is true. The individual is always wrong.

Many readers of 1984 likely believe that such irrationality can only exist in fiction, that actual human beings could not accept and advocate such nonsense. Yet, almost on cue, the Chronicle provides us with evidence to the contrary. In an editorial on the Houston Food Bank, the paper lauds the facility for its efforts to feed the hungry. Ignoring basic economic truths and observable facts of reality, the paper claims:

Food stamps are a bargain. The program is 100 percent federally funded, while administrative costs are shared 50-50 with the state. Not only does it immediately and significantly benefit the recipients, it just as promptly and efficiently benefits local farmers, grocers and other businesses.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that every dollar in SNAP benefits produces $1.84 in economic activity.

The editorial ignores the fact that any money provided by the federal government must first be coercively seized from taxpayers. The editorial ignores the fact that such theft is hardly a bargain for those who have their money taken by force. The editorial ignores the fact that those taxpayers must now forgo spending on the items that they desire, such as a new car, or a home, or a vacation, or a dinner out. The editorial ignores the myriad government interventions that have created the economic turmoil and hunger that it now wants government to correct. But in true 1984 fashion, the paper implicitly suggests that such facts can be wiped out of existence if we simply believe otherwise.

Contrary to the premises underlying the editorial and implied by it, reality is not a creation of consciousness. The facts of reality are immutable, no matter how many people believe otherwise. There is no collective consciousness--there is only the minds of individuals. And it is the minds of individuals that the Chronicle regularly seeks to control and subvert.

Whether it is calling for restrictions on billboards, or advocating land-use regulations, or supporting government control of health care, the paper consistently calls for regulations and controls on the actions of individuals. The paper consistently supports measures that will prevent individuals from acting according to their own judgment. And that is not a fictionalized fantasy--it is a fact that the Chronicle cannot wipe out of existence by pretending otherwise.