Liberal Judgement

There have been partisan boos and hoorahs abounding over the result of the Supreme Court deeming the Patient Protection and Affordable care Act constitutional. The liberal non-interventionist does not advocate nationalized healthcare nor an increase in the organized confiscation of capital, taxes. The one modicum of hope is to be found in a news bite from Ben Swann. Chief Justice John Roberts has ordained that President Obama's healthcare measure is a tax, regardless of the proponents calling it a penalty. Uncharacteristically, I agree. It is a fact, but there is ambiguity as to what would make it an unenumerated power. As a liberal I know that economic intervention, whether constitutional or not, runs into the immovable barrier of economic law. The post office and patent/copyright laws are examples of this. Ben Swann points out that taxes originating in the Senate are patently unconstitutional. History will illustrate that praxeological axioms are to be adhered to, and that the healthcare debate is far from over.

A Liberal Lense

Last night I went to the cinema house and watched Wes Anderson's new film "Moonrise Kingdom." Prior to this, the only Anderson film I was familiar with was "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." I appreciated that film, and was thus enticed to view this one. My perspective is not of a long time fanatic, but of a new admirer of his work.

The movie has an indie feel due to the stylized cinematography, yet it maintains an A list cast. Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman to name a few. There are a few moments of hyperbolic action scenes, but the emotion of the youthful protagonists remains ever authentic throughout the experience. The presence of a bearded historian, Bob Balaban, narrating creates the vibe of an intimate play. He takes a moment here and there to address the audience, as a visible narrator, with anecdotes about the history of the island of New Penzance. Besides the protagonist Sam Shakusky, the historian's visage appealed to my desideratum to apprehend every facet of Anderson's gem of a fictional world.

It may be the case that my spectacles have lenses with the ability to highlight the non-interventionist leaning elements of our world more keenly then the average Joe. Perhaps you saw "Moonrise Kingdom" and thought naught of liberalismus. However, without any spoilers I will reveal some concepts that I want you to think about while viewing "Moonrise Kingdom".

The division of labor and how essential it is to the characters' fulfillment of life, as opposed to the solitude of the loneliest number, 1. A goon from the apparatus of coercion, Social Services, hunting an enemy of the state. Individuals attempting to live free pushed into the act of self-preservation. A pure mutual agreement between man and woman, marriage, divorced of sanction from the conglomerate of compulsion. Last but not least, the pioneers' art of homesteading bringing about the title of the story.







Post Scriptum: To anyone who does not have a bible handy to look up Gary North's claims on the division of labor or for any seeker of the truth, I humbly suggest visiting the bible gateway.

Being a Liberal

There seems to be confusion regarding labels in the political environment. Left, right, liberal, conservative, progressive, neoconservative, paleoconservative, neoliberalism, libertarian, bleeding heart libertarian... these labels are overbearing to the apolitical and even politicos apply them with definitions as unstable as a freshly dumped teenager.  

One day a "liberal" is that person which decries governmental intrusion into the marriage selection processes of individuals, while the next day a "liberal" is that person which calls for governmental intrusion in the business of education. One day a "conservative" is that person which wants to cut governmental spending, while the next day a "conservative" is wailing over a decrease in the growth of the military industrial complex.

To weed out the contradictions and remain intellectually honest we need to revert back to the historic/classical approach in labeling. The classical liberal, as Dr. Walter Block points out here, believes in negative rights, military isolationism and that the unhampered free market is the most effective economic system to uplift the masses from poverty. This is a decentralized system based on the individual. By contrast the classical conservative believes in the accumulation of central power. This ideology is based on the belief that an enlarged State apparatus does the body politic good. Proponents of this philosophy include the original central bank, the Sun King and the Kaiser.

The conservative wants to accumulate central power in order to intervene in the market economy. Conservatives believe that a war on drugs needs to be perpetrated by the State in order to lower drug usage by individuals. Glenn Greenwald answers that here.  They believe that a central bank is necessary to set the price of money and interest rates. Murray Rothbard's thoughts on the subject.  They believe in the use of drones to take the lives of boys err I mean militants in Pakistan. They believe that 6 year old girls and 85 year old women in walkers pose such a dire threat to their republic, that they need to be strip searched by the Transportation and Security Administration.  They believe in subsidies for corporations, and Rand Paul does not. It is not that conservatives intend for negative consequences to occur, but rather that they believe they are bringing about a preferable state of affairs through interventions. Everyone from Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton to George W. Bush and Rick Santorum is a conservative, because a conservative is simply an interventionist.

Liberalism is the ideology that says no to interventionism. Liberalism is against war,eminent domain abuse, subsidies, taxes... Liberalism is for private property, free trade, voluntary exchange, competing currencies... Liberalism is non-interventionism. To ask for an embargo or sanction is merely to intervene in the affairs of individual producers finding individual consumers. The vast majority of Democrats and Republicans are not liberals. The vast majority advocate for interventionism of many sorts, and are thus conservatives. What the liberal wants is simple. To have the market economy left alone by the apparatus that has a monopoly on the use of compulsion via gun-toting goons and fiat currency.

I am a liberal and what I want is laissez-faire, holus bolus