The following thoughts and feelings are ones that I’ve for quite some time regarding most politicians and political parties. Last night I was watching the Democratic Debate and these things were on such full display, that I was finally able to more fully crystallize them in my mind and put them into words. These thoughts don’t mention any policies directly, but you could probably guess what topic was being discussed when these thoughts came to mind.

The first thing I noticed was how arrogant these people are to believe they will be able to guarantee that something will happen exactly the way they say it will, with exactly the consequences they say it will have, just because they came up with the plan for it, and will tell officials and the general public to make sure it happens that way. They often say that they’ll also make it a law, but just because you make a law about something doesn’t mean it’s actually possible.

Another thought I had was how hypocritical it is for them to be so upset at how much wealth business owners steal from their workers. They themselves are in a field where political power and celebrity are the currency of their profession, and yet they give virtually none of that to their staff and volunteers. Talk about greed and exploitation.

Next, I realized how selfish it is that they have such a willingness to sacrifice the rights and privileges of other people, even though if they’ve committed no crimes, just so they can say they’re helping. I’d bet they even probably know full well it probably won’t actually save any lives. And they’re not sacrificing any rights. Their important people who need armed protection.

My next thought was more of a wonder. Do these people ever have their views challenged in private? Or have they so insulated themselves by surrounding themselves with people who agree with them that they cannot fathom anyone having a different view on how the world works? Is that why their only possible explanation for why anyone would propose a different policy is because that person must be evil and have ulterior motives? And is the media contributing to that problem? Because it seemed like they only directed questions that were made to seem like hard question (but weren’t really), at the candidate most likely to have a well thought out answer prepared in such a way as to come off sounding the best.

Then I noticed their belief that the political opposition is evil and corrupt because they work with and give favors to the people they like and agree with, even though they themselves work with and give favors to the people they like and agree with. They just seem to think its ok for them to do it because, well, they’re the good guys.

By this time I noticed something weird. They kept bringing up Obama like he was Jesus or something. Especially Biden. He was practically running solely on Obama’s record.

And then I thought of one last thing. They kept criticizing the heck out of each other for not bringing up their own failings and unpopular opinions. The whole point of a debate is for them to try and sell themselves and make themselves look good. Why would they want to bring up negative things about themselves? That seems like a pretty underhanded and mean spirited way to attack your opponents. Especially when it’s something you yourself are doing, and it’s kind of the nature of the whole event.

And that brought me to realize something about why I’m a libertarian. I’d probably have very similar criticisms for every single one of the previous thoughts about the Republicans. I think Republicans are a bit less self righteous about it and ask for a little less authority to tell people what they can and can’t do with their own lives and property, but they’re pretty much the same. The reason I’m a libertarian, is because libertarianism doesn’t try to pretend like these things aren’t a part of human nature. It doesn’t try to use them to impose its own views on people who disagree. And it realizes that the best safeguards against the negative consequences of these natural tendencies are small, limited governments which provide the most amounts of freedom to its people.

A conversation I had not long ago with a friend of mine revolved around the underlying philosophical underpinnings of social justice politics. His assertion was that social justice philosophy lies in the answer to a common philosophical thought experiment.

The basic premise of the thought experiment is as follows. Imagine a man dressed in a nice suit walking on a path near a pond. That man notices a small child drowning in the pond. If that man refuses to jump into the pond and save the child because he doesn’t want to ruin his suit, he is a terrible, awful, immoral human being.

I think most people would agree with that assertion. The social justice philosophy then asserts that anyone who is well off in a society and doesn’t want to contribute to a government run social welfare system is morally equivalent to that man refusing to jump in the pond. On it’s face and at first glance that seems like a reasonable assertion. If you can help, you should.

However, what would be the equivalent of a tax funded social welfare system be in the context of that thought experiment? I would equate it to another man standing on that same shore, pointing a gun at the guy and forcing him to jump into the pond. So my assertion is that the most immoral person in such a situation is the guy with the gun, forcing someone else to jump into the pond instead of helping out himself.

It was then pointed out to me that we were both making a rather bold assumption in any case; that it was possible for the man to save the child and not drown himself. And thus arises the fundamental problem with a large, taxation funded social welfare system. It assumes that it is possible for a government to force the wealthy in a society to contribute at gun point and save every needy person in the world without drowning all the productive members of society in the process.

So the fundamental question is this: Would you rather potentially destroy society, or learn to live with the fact the some people are ass-holes?

The magic words work. I was dismissed in the first round from jury duty this morning.

I arrived at the courthouse plenty early, just be sure I wouldn’t be late and holding up court. But of course, there were a couple of people who were late, so we had to wait for them before we could get started. And of course, we had to wait in the hallway, not the courtroom.

They did at least decide to do some of the individual questioning while we waited. There were several of us called in one-by-one, for only a minute or two. I was one of the ones called in, and the questions were only about my upcoming work trip, so I suspect the others were asked similar questions.

Once they were done with the individual questions, we re-convened and the defense attorney resumed his questions to the jurors. Once he finished, the prosecuting attorney began her questions. They were along the same lines of questions as the defense attorney.

After a while, she asked me to elaborate on my remark about Jury Nullification the previous day. Being nervous and a bit unprepared, I wasn’t particularly eloquent, but I stated that the concept of Jury Nullification was critical as a defense against an overreaching government, and that I would not be willing to convict someone for violating a law that I believed was unjust. She pressed me, indicating that would mean I would not be “following the law”.

After a few more rounds of questions, they sent us back out into the hall, so the judge and attorneys could discuss in private. After a few minutes, they called about a dozen of us in. After some grandstanding and propagandizing from the judge, we were told we were dismissed.

So, if you’re ever looking to get out of jury duty, just mention the words Jury Nullification, and you will be sent home pretty quick.

I was called up to do my civic duty. Today I reported for jury duty. The experience has so far been … interesting.

The summons stated that there was nowhere to park near the courthouse, and that public transportation was recommended. They would even provide vouchers for each day of service. But there is no way I could take public transportation and actually make it to the courthouse on time (7:45 am) from where I live. So I just drove into my office, which is closer, got a few emails sent, and took an Uber.

Getting inside the courthouse was of course the standard metal detectors and x-ray machines. Once inside the process was not well-organized. There were almost no signs giving direction, and nothing and nobody explaining what the process would be. Just go in, sit down and wait.

After some time, some projector screens came down, and somebody’s computer desktop was displayed, playing some reasonably innocuous propaganda. It talked about the important role that juries play in our justice system, and some testimony to  that effect was given by some former jurors.

After the video, a lady got up in front and explained to us that there were a 2-week and a 3-week trial on the docket for the day, in addition to their normal 2-3 day trials. We should mark availability for these trials on the bottom of the form, using what had previously been indecipherably labeled bubbles (LC for long case and VLC for very long case). We should fill in those bubbles if we were capable of serving for those trials, or provide our excuse on another part of the form if we were not.

I have a business trip coming up in two weeks, for which I have already purchased tickets and hotel. I thought this was a reasonable excuse, so I included it where appropriate on the form and did not fill in the bubble for the 3-week trial. I was called to report to some back window about an hour later and told by some nameless, faceless bureaucrat that this was not one of their pre-approved excuses. I must fill in that bubble, and if selected for that trial, explain it to the judge.

About an hour later, I was called, along with a long list of other names (74 to be exact I found out later) to report upstairs to a specific room. Once upstairs I find out, we are not supposed to go into the room, just gather in the hallway. Several minutes later a man finally came out of the room and announced himself as the clerk.

For the next 15-20 minutes the man called names and walked up and down the hallway passing out laminated and numbered copies of a “Juror Questionnaire”. Having finally ascertained that everyone was present, and that someone had mistakenly reported to the wrong place, he went back inside the room.

Once he comes back out, he lets the lost woman know where she is supposed to be, and starts the process all over again, this time with little name tags on strings, with just numbers on them. The same numbers. Which could have been handed out with the questionnaires. Government efficiency at its best.

At least, as he hands us these numbers, he sends us into the room we’ve been waiting outside. Turns out, this is the courtroom. And by the time we’re all inside, it’s 11:30. I’ve been there going on 4 hours, but finally we have a pool of jurors in a courtroom.

The judge starts by reading the charges in the case, and gives some basic instruction. And this trial is likely to take – you guessed it – 3 weeks. And by now it’s noon, so the judge sends us to lunch. For an hour and half. Yep, that’s the pace of government.

So after lunch we start with some basic questions about: do you know anybody involved, do you have any previous history that might make you impartial, etc.

Then the judge asked a very important question. Would any of you, having heard the facts of the case, and a reading of the laws involved, be unwilling to follow my instructions and rule based on solely the facts and the law, if you felt that the law was unjust? Ding! Ding! Ding! My hand goes up. “No. I believe that Jury Nullification is an important part of our process.”

The judge let that go for a minute, but then made a statement to the effect, “I must remind you all, that your job here is not to interpret or judge the law. You are here to follow the law, and give a judgement based solely on the law and the facts, regardless of your interpretation of the US Constitution or our justice system.”

We go over a few more questions, and finally start to go around the room and one-by-one give answers to the questionnaire out loud. We get a little over half-way around and then we take a 20 minute break (that actually takes 30 minutes). We finish up the questionnaire and finally the defense attorney gets start questioning the jurors.

He only gets a few questions in before the judge decides it’s time to adjourn for the day. It’s 4:30, and we haven’t dismissed a single juror, or really started to narrow down the jury pool at all. The prosecuting attorney hasn’t even gotten to ask any questions. So we must all report back to the courtroom at 9 am promptly the next morning.

I have a feeling I’ll be dismissed pretty quickly tomorrow, having uttered the unspeakable phrase, “Jury Nullification,” but either way I’ll probably have something to write another blog post about tomorrow.

Most libertarians will point at the Second Amendment (which I’ve already written about) and say “… shall not be infringed. End of discussion. We don’t believe in any form of gun control.” I’d like to make sure I really am thinking through all the possibilities.

Continue reading “Libertarian Gun Control”

You occasionally hear people use the phrase “there ought to be a law” or “the government should …”. But what does that actually mean? What does it imply?

To give people the benefit of the doubt, what they probably think they mean is, “I think the world would be a better place if [something].” But what does it actually imply when we bring government into it?

When we bring government into the equation, a statement like that basically translates into something like the following:

I wish X. I’m not actually willing to put my own time, money, effort, etc. into actually achieving said thing, but I am quite happy to have other people be forced to comply with whatever our rulers decide is required to make my wish come true.

So next time you or someone you know says “the government should” or “there ought to be a law” remember, that implies the use of force.

In the news and on social media recently, there have been lots of people arguing about whether a certain group of people should be standing or kneeling during some specific renditions of the Star Spangled Banner. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see how this in any way directly impacts the lives of anyone I have seen be upset about it.

Let’s look at this from the point of view of our Liberty Framework. Does this activity in any way violate anyone’s rights? Has it killed or harmed anyone? Has it damaged anyone’s property? No. And since it hasn’t negatively affected anyone’s life at all, I don’t know see why anyone would be so upset about it as to call for boycotts and people being fired.

So are these people breaking some code of patriotism? Maybe. If you believe standing and saluting the flag is required for you to be patriotic, by all means, do exactly that. But don’t forget that one of the principles that patriotism is supposed to stand for is that everyone has a right to express themselves in whatever manner they see fit; including not standing or saluting a flag during a song. So is it really worth coercing people to salute a flag and stand during a song? Even if that coercion doesn’t come from government or actual violence?

I still salute the flag, and stand during the national anthem, because I still respect and believe in the principles it once stood for. But I am in no way upset about anyone who doesn’t wish to do so. Because our government, and the people who would like to force everyone to “be patriotic”, no longer represent those principles.

Is any who wishes to boycott a sporting league within their rights to do so? Of course they are. And if that league wants to set some rules regarding this issue of the national anthem and what its players must do during it, and fire any players who failed to comply, they would be fully in their rights to do so as well. But if that is what you would advocate, you are no longer a patriot. You have become part of the propaganda wing of a tyrannical government that is wholly antithetical to the founding of this country.

P.S. The tradition of the players standing on the field during the national anthem didn’t even start until the Department of Defense started paying them to do it [1]. If that isn’t a demonstration about how this whole thing is propaganda and not patriotism, I don’t know what is.

Net neutrality has been in the news again recently. Most people don’t seem to understand what it entails. Let’s take a closer, more logical look at what it means.

First of all, what is the internet? Who owns it? The common answer is that the internet is a network of computers, and no one owns it. That answer is mostly true, but if no one owns the internet, what are you paying for when you buy it from your provider?

When you pay for internet service, you’re paying for access to that network of computers. You need the line that they ran to your house to access that network. Also, they own the computer(s) that all those lines they ran connect to. The computers they own are in charge of making sure that when you want to watch a movie, the request your computer sends, makes it to Netflix, and that Netflix’s response, the movie you wanted, makes it back to your computer.

All these computers that your internet provider runs are really fast, but they’re not infinitely fast, and they cost money to run and maintain. At some point, all those movies, and websites, and whatever else goes flying across the internet, starts to bump up against the limits of how many requests these computers can actually process. When that happens, they need to buy more, or faster computers to keep up.

So who pays for these upgrades? Some would argue that the internet provider should eat these costs. But eventually the numbers of requests and the numbers of customers will rise to the point that they will have to raise prices somewhere to stay in business.

Then the question becomes, in what way should prices be raised? The fairest way would probably be to charge the customers who send and/or receive the most requests (i.e. use the most bandwidth) more. That would mean large companies like Netflix, or Google, or Facebook would be charged more, and your average consumer or startup could be charged less. But under the rules of “net neutrality” the internet service providers (ISPs) aren’t allowed to discriminate between types or the amount of traffic. So the only option they have is to raise prices equally for everybody.

So, who does net neutrality really help, and who does it hurt? It helps the big companies avoid paying for the large amount of internet traffic they use. It hurts the small consumers and companies, because the ISPs have to cover their operating costs somehow, and under net neutrality it has to be everyone’s rates equally.

What about the ISPs? Isn’t net neutrality supposed to keep them in line? Why would they care? They weren’t trying to discriminate between traffic before, and now they don’t need to bother figuring out how. Also, they don’t have to care about what their rate structures look like so long as they on net cover their costs, so now they don’t need to figure out what a new rate structure would look like. Finally, any additional cost of conforming to these regulations makes it even harder for competitors to get started. So even if you are mad that they raise your rates to pay for it, what choice do you have? Any competition they would have had encouraging them to keep their prices low has now been prevented.

But won’t ISPs be able to restrict what you can and can’t access on the internet without net neutrality? No. The technology already exists to circumvent any restrictions they would try and impose. People are already using VPNs to circumvent restrictions that governments try to impose on the internet, and it would be no different with ISPs. Besides, why would they want to? If they prevent their customers from using their product the way the want to, aren’t they less likely to buy it? It’s pretty hard to stay in business if you drive your customers away.

So the next time someone says we need net neutrality rules to keep ISPs from sticking it to the little guys, remind them, we didn’t have any net neutrality rules in place until 2015, and the ISPs weren’t doing it before that, and net neutrality wouldn’t allow them to go after the big companies for driving up their operating costs. So in reality, net neutrality is what sticks it to the little guys and prevents the big companies from paying their fair share.

Robert Reich just can’t stop making bad economic arguments (which is pretty bad for a professional economist). His latest mistake comes in the form of an argument that industrial automation is grounds for taxing the rich into poverty, so that the wealth can be redistributed in the form a basic universal income.

You Can’t Tax Your Way to Prosperity

Putting aside the obviously contrived example of the iEverything, Mr. Reich forgets one of the key basic economic facts about taxation: the government doesn’t put all of those resources it takes out of the economy towards productive use. In so doing, these resources are now no longer available for productive use, and the amount of wealth in society decreases, or at least cannot grow at a rate that would have been possible.

A common argument for taxation, especially in this instance, is that while the total amount of wealth in society may grow, that wealth will only go to small subset of the population, even to a degree that the wealth of other portions of the population will actually decrease. But how could that possibly occur?

In order for the wealthy to continue to build wealth legitimately, they must have a continuing supply of income from customers. In order for these customers to continue purchasing, they must perceive they are gaining something from the exchange. So in their eyes their wealth is actually increasing, not decreasing as others would have you believe.

Also, if the iEverything is such a fantastical machine that it can produce things so cheaply, won’t lots of people have the incentive to buy one and go into business for themselves? After all, the barriers to entry would only be the cost of a single machine. All these new business would tend to drive prices down as they competed for market share. Thus, the simple incentives of the free market would mean that, even if wages fell, the cost of living would tend to fall even farther. This results in higher standards of living (i.e. greater wealth) for everyone, no government intervention required.

Additionally, the argument that we’ll all be at a disadvantage because we won’t be able to afford to buy an iEverything assumes that we all should buy one. But this also misses a key economic principle, the division of labor. We don’t all need to have one to enjoy its benefits. We can simply trade with people who do have one. In the same way that people with different skill sets trade with one another in order to enjoy the benefits of those skills, so too can people with access to different resources trade with one another to enjoy the benefits of those resources.

In the same way that employing automation to make cars resulted in a greater standard of living for everyone because the quality of cars increased and their prices decreased, allowing ever poorer people the ability to purchase ever improving cars, so to will the automation of other production processes increase our standards of living.

Wealth Redistribution Isn’t Compatible With Freedom

Let’s also look at the situation of automation and the proposed universal basic income from the stand point of our Liberty Framework. Who’s rights are violated by companies employing automation instead of labor, and how does this justify the confiscation of profits it might produce?

The typical argument is stated as though by employing automation, companies are depriving workers of jobs. But are those workers entitled to those jobs? If a worker is fired for poor performance, do we consider his rights to have been violated? If a company stops its operations entirely, do we consider the rights of all its employees to have been violated? No.

An employee/employer relationship is a mutually beneficial arrangement in which an employee sells their services to the employer. If at any time either party no longer views the arrangement as beneficial, they are free end it. Just as we wouldn’t say the rights of the company have been violated if an employee decided to stop working there, we wouldn’t say the rights of a worker have been violated if a company decides they no longer wish to employ them.

So whose rights are violated in a system of taxation? The rightful owners of the property that was taxed. And who are the rightful owners of property? The entities which produced or voluntarily traded for said property. And who are the rightful owners of property that is produced? The owners of the resources and tools employed in producing it.

Since taxation is not voluntary, in order to fund a system of universal basic income, we must first violate the rights of the people producing the goods the people in favor of said universal income desire. And since stealing from someone is generally a poor way to convince them to continue trading with you or producing the things you want at all, maybe we shouldn’t violate the rights of the producers in a society.

Having demonstrated that a universal income is both a bad idea from an economic stand point, and that it is a violation of individual rights, I am going to suggest that once again Robert Reich is wrong.

The debate about nuclear waste has been starting to heat up a bit recently. A google search of “Yucca Mountain” turns up dozens of articles from just the last few weeks. Being a nuclear engineer myself, I have a decent understanding of the science involved, and have kept myself abreast of the developments and arguments on both sides of the issue. Being a libertarian, I also have a bit of a unique perspective on the issue.

Some History

First, some history. In the early days of nuclear power, the federal government was concerned about the possibility that nuclear fuel, new or used, could be diverted towards the production of nuclear weapons without their knowledge. As measure of protection against this threat, they passed very strict regulations concerning the tracking of nuclear materials. Down to the milligram.

Also, in the name of public safety, they required that all facilities with the potential to generate radioactive materials, have money set aside, up-front, designated for the decommissioning and restoration of the site to “green field”, with no residual traces of radioactivity above background levels.

Finally, the Department of Energy (DOE) placed a high tax on all commercial nuclear fuel, under the proviso that they would be responsible for its final disposal. But the DOE has thus far not made good on its promise to dispose of the fuel, and has not taken possession of a single bundle. Which brings us to today’s argument.

Current Status

As of now, some decommissioned nuclear plants have shipped fuel off site, and managed to return to green field status. But most used fuel remains at the plant sites were it was used to generate electricity. Much of it is stored in pools, that act as coolant to keep the highly radioactive material from melting itself, and to act as shielding from the radiation. Some of it has cooled off enough and been placed into large concrete canisters for temporary storage. But none of the fuel is in a place that could be considered permanent storage.

Some utilities have begun suing the DOE for return of the funds they collected for the purposes of used fuel disposal, since they have failed to fulfill their end of the bargain. But thus far, no rulings have been made, and no funds have been returned.

The Battle

So why is this article titled Govt v Govt v Govt? Well, decades ago, the DOE chose a site called Yucca Mountain, as there intended location for permanent disposal of the nuclear fuel. The site is located in the desert of Nevada. Geologic studies have been done to determine if the site is stable enough to keep the waste entombed for thousands of years, and construction has been performed to get the site ready and it is nearly complete. But the state of Nevada has blocked the site from opening, claiming they refuse to be the countries nuclear waste dump.

As libertarians, we tend to come down of the side of state’s rights. That the Federal government shouldn’t be allowed to bully states into doing things their citizen’s don’t want. But there’s a twist. The local, county government is in favor of opening the site. Their county commissioner has stated “The county’s official position has been the same for years, it is that we want to hear the science.” and “It gets frustrating, you know, as an elected official, we need all the facts before we make a decision, and for the state to continue to stick their fingers in their ears and say ‘no,’ puzzles me,”

What Should Be Done

So who’s right? What should we think about this situation? Well, whose rights have been violated? Technically, the rights of the owners of the nuclear power plants were violated by the DOE, when it extorted money from them and failed to hold up its end of the bargain. So what should be done with the nuclear waste? The DOE should return the money it stole, and individual site owners should be allowed to decide how it is disposed of.

We could hold individual companies liable for any damages caused from the release of radioactive material, and then a business case can be made for a private nuclear waste repository, probably in Yucca Mountain. A private company could purchase the site, and accept the liability of storing the waste, for a fee from the utility. This would probably amount to a sizable investment, and the owners of such a site would want to purchase insurance to protect themselves financially in the event of accidental release of radioactive materials. The insurance agency would then have a strong incentive to require strict regulations and safety precautions to prevent such a release.

This is another example of how federal government intervention has created a battle, this time between three separate government entities, where the problem could have been solved by private companies in a free market with a just system of compensation for damages.

Additional Reading

Energy chief Perry tours Yucca Mountain nuclear site

Decades-old war over Yucca Mountain nuclear dump resumes under Trump budget plan

Nye County still interested in Yucca Mountain Project