I keep seeing people who are generally libertarian write about how crazy it would be to vote for Ron Paul for president, and cite reasons like his votes against “free” trade agreements. They understand that he supports free trade and has principled reasons for opposing these agreements, but they say that he should recognize that the agreements are better than the status quo, and that he’s a fool for letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.

I just find it interesting that these people seem to be making exactly that sort of error by favoring candidates who are much worse for liberty, because Ron Paul isn’t perfect.

He sometimes makes me cringe when he talks about immigration, or the gold standard, or some other issues. But Ron Paul is so much better in terms of libertarian principles than any other candidate that he’s obviously the best choice for someone who would like to use his vote to express support for those principles.

So, should we let the perfect become the enemy of the good, or not?

I haven’t posted much lately, so I thought I’d take you on a tour of a recent stream-of-consciousness of mine.

It was Thanksgiving, recently, and I started thinking about what to be thankful for, and to whom. Then, I thought about whether it made sense for an atheist, like myself, to celebrate Thanksgiving, since most people thought of it as an occasion to thank God. I decided that it was appropriate, and that I was thankful for The Enlightenment, and for the ideas of political liberty that have helped to free so many of us from all sorts of tyranny, and for the explosive growth of knowledge and wealth and happiness that civil and economic liberty have enabled. I was thankful that people in many places in the world (like China) that have recently been severely oppressed are now starting to experience the fruits of liberty as well.

Then, I thought about what sorts of things people were expected to express thanks for. It seems that we say we’re thankful for things that we are not responsible for. You don’t often hear people saying that they’re thankful for things that they have created or cultivated through their own hard work; i.e., for things that they’ve earned. It seems to only be appropriate to express thanks for things that others have done, or for random luck.

Then, I thought about the flip-side (sort of) of expressing thanks: apologizing. When people demand an apology, they won’t be satisfied by someone just saying “I’m sorry” about the fact of their unhappiness. They are expected to be sorry that they screwed up, made poor choices that caused the unhappiness.

So, we’re supposed to be happy (thankful) about things that we didn’t do, and sad (sorry) about things that we did do. That seems pretty twisted and unhealthy to me.

Then, I started thinking about famous examples of people apologizing, and remembered how strange I always found the lyrics to the John Denver song: “I’m Sorry.” Especially this line (the first time in the song that he says “I’m Sorry”):

I’m sorry for the way things are in China.

That’s bizarre! If he was trying to win points with his girlfriend for a romantic apology, he just undercut it by making it clear that when he says “I’m sorry” he can mean that he’s sad about a circumstance that he may have had absolutely no part in causing. That’s not what she wants to know. And, some of his other examples are of this sort (I’m sorry things ain’t what they used to be, I’m sorry for myself cause you’re not here with me). But, then, he equivocates and starts being sorry for things that he is responsible for (I’m sorry for all the lies
I told you, I’m sorry for the things I didn’t say, I’m sorry if I took some things for granted, I’m sorry for the chains I put on you).

So, when he finally repeats:

But more than anything else, I’m sorry for myself for living without you.

We can’t be sure whether he’s taking responsibility or not (I think we’re supposed to believe he is).

Here’s a pretty funny post quoting Congressman Bill Sali proposing a bill to change gravity, to correspond with the passage of a Minimum Wage bill that Congress thinks will be immune to market forces.

Even better is the video link at the bottom of the post of a great interview with Milton Friedman, explaining the effects of such laws, and lot more.

Check it out.

A few days ago, a federal grand jury indicted baseball great Barry Bonds, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

I haven’t been following the situation very closely, but the whole thing reminds me of the ridiculous Martha Stewart persecution, where a public figure is punished for lying about something that the government could not prove to be a crime (certainly not one with victims).

Regardless of whether Bonds took steroids, or knew he took steroids, this does not warrant $1 of resources for the government to pursue. If it’s true that this is the most valuable use of federal crime-fighting resources of all available opportunities, then we should start cutting budgets dramatically, and start celebrating the end of serious crimes and threats to safety.

A lot of people seem to hate Barry Bonds, and want to minimize his accomplishments. It seems to be a common trait to want to tear down someone (or some company) that achieves dramatic success. I wish this trait was more widely recognized as a problem. We should certainly criticize actions that warrant it, but we should also praise great achievements.

Whether or not he took steroids, Barry Bonds is a great baseball player whose success on the field should be admired, and not despised.

Maybe he’s not a great role model in terms of character or personal choices (I’m not saying that this is true, I just don’t know). But, he can and should be admired as a great athlete anyway.

I started this blog by writing about a common thing that I had thought about in a way that most people I know don’t seem to have.

Recently, I was reminded of something else like that from my childhood.

When I went to kindergarten, I first encountered a rather strange procedure that kids used to choose “randomly.” When they were choosing from a small set of things, they’d point to them alternately while reciting:

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe (4 beats)
Catch a tiger by the toe (4 beats)
If he hollers let him go, (4 beats)
My mother said (3 beats)
To pick the very best one (6 beats)
And you are it (4 beats) or And you are not it. (5 beats).

And it wasn’t just kindergartners who were doing this! First graders, second graders, third graders, and more were doing this!

I remember thinking initially that it must be some kind of a joke. Were these people idiots?

I didn’t know the term “deterministic,” but I knew that this was a terrible process. It seemed obvious to me that if one used the same process each time, then it would follow the same pattern. Simple experimentation would surely indicate which choice would win. So, I did a few trials and realized that when choosing among 2 or 3 or 4 things, the choice pointed to on the first beat would always win (or with “not it”, the second one would lose). Later, I figured out that there were 25 beats which is 2n+1, 3n+1, 4n+1. I could have figured out the cases for 5, 6, etc., but 2, 3 and 4 were by far the most common cases.

But, nobody I knew gave any indication that they had figured this out. Did it not occur to them? Did they choose to remain willfully ignorant in order to preserve the efficacy of the procedure? Were people phenomenally incurious? Was there an unspoken agreement that figuring out the pattern was cheating (or breaking the spell)?

Eventually, I accepted the fact that many people didn’t think about things the way I did. They were happy to share common beliefs and practices without even wanting to know how they worked or if they made sense.

I know it now, but it still bugs me a little.

I’ve added Reason.TV to my list of Links to the right.

It seems like a great source of libertarian-related videos linked to (or produced by) the Reason Foundation (publisher of the great Reason magazine).

An important feature, currently, is the Drew Carey Project (a series of libertarian-oriented mini-documentaries hosted by Drew Carey). Check it out.

I think Drew Carey is a great spokesman. He’s well-known, funny, and has a personality and attitude that most Americans can easily relate to.

I’ll be checking out the latest videos at reason.tv regularly.

I agree with this NY Times opinion essay by Lawrence Downes about the counterproductive abuse of the term Illegal Immigrant.

I acknowledge that a country should be able to control its borders and to determine who may not enter (mostly to deny entrance to dangerous people). It can also be a problem that the system taxes citizens to provide benefits to those who aren’t subject to those taxes. But, I think the problem is with the taxes and the benefit policies, not the people.

If you think that our system makes it too easy for people’s money to be taken and wasted by inefficiently conferring benefits on many who are undeserving, and thereby creating perverse incentives for further abuse…well so do I. I’ve thought so for many years. Let’s undo our idiotic systems. But, we shouldn’t blame immigrants for our mistakes. If immigrants taking benefits makes the unsustainability of our benefit programs apparent sooner, then maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that will hasten the moral and practical solution.

Most people do things that are illegal (speeding, jaywalking, gambling, etc.) Some things that are illegal are very bad, but many aren’t. I’d say crossing a border to seek a better life in a freer, wealthier, land is generally a good and brave thing to do; not something that should generate the hatred and fear that many seem to give it.

I don’t understand why it should be so important to people where someone was born, or whether he complied with some arcane bureaucratic laws (that are probably much more difficult to comply with than what our ancestors faced).

I understand the fears of cultural changes, but I think they are overblown. People do assimilate, eventually. And, if they don’t learn English perfectly, their children probably will, and their children’s children almost certainly will. People all over the world are learning English, because it’s so valuable and important to be able to trade and communicate with us. Why wouldn’t people here recognize these advantages?

And, if our culture changes…so what? There’s nothing sacred about the way it is now, or was at some imagined perfect time in the recent past. Change is good, and inevitable in any case.

So, I have to agree with those who claim that calling people illegal is often a code for xenophobic racism.

I went to see Spamalot (the musical comedy play based on the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail) tonight.

As with Young Frankenstein (The Musical), I enjoyed it. Some stuff was changed, some stuff was skipped, some stuff was added. But, overall it was very well done.

If you’re a fan of the movie (and, really, who isn’t that matters?), I think you’ll like the play.

The stock market went down quite a bit last Friday.

I often notice that this upsets lots of people who, like me, contribute regularly to broad index funds for retirement savings.

Unless one thinks that the loss indicates a severe, lasting, problem with the economy, I don’t think that this makes much sense. I admit that I like to look at my balances, and reflexively prefer to see higher paper-values to lower ones. But, a little thought helps me get over this reaction and realize that these drops are nothing to worry about.

The way I like to look at it is that one should remember the adage that it’s good to “Buy low and sell high.” One should consider whether he expects his near-term trades to be predominantly buying or selling. If it’s buying, then a temporary drop in prices is a good thing, because you’ll be getting a bargain on your purchases. As long as one expects the market to rise in the long term, he should be happy, as a buyer, to see some low prices along the way.

Michael Kinsley is a smart guy, and has written an interesting essay for Time Magazine: Libertarians Rising. Go read it. It’s short and I’ll wait.

The good news is that the success (relative to most people’s expectations) of the Ron Paul campaign has caused many people to reconsider libertarianism and the benefits to the major parties of appealing to those of us who favor libertarian policies. I’m not ready to talk about anything like the historical inevitibility of libertarian success, but I’m always happy to see hopeful signs of progress.

I’m also happy to see Kinsley write disparagingly about “Communitarians” and positively about libertarians:

And every time the Democrats lose an election, critics scold that they must put less emphasis on the sterile rights of individuals and more emphasis on responsibilities to society. That is, they should become less libertarian and more communitarian. Usually this boils down to advocating mandatory so-called voluntary national service by people younger than whoever is doing the advocating.

Libertarians and communitarians (to continue this unjustified generalizing) are different character types. Communitarians tend to be bossy, boring and self-important, if they’re not being over sweetened and touchy-feely. Libertarians, by contrast, are not the selfish monsters you might expect.

I won’t quibble with everything I disagree with in the essay (which Kinsley acknowledges is generalizing), but I feel that I must point out that the opposite of libertarianism is not communitarianism. See this article about their compatibility. The opposite of libertarianism is statism. Many libertarians favor many of the communitarian values, and in contrast to Kinsley’s characterization of them as “Smart loners, many of them rich and some of them complacently Darwinian, convinced that they don’t need society–nor should anyone else,” they often sing the praises of civil society (you’ll find this in many Cato articles, like this one).

What we oppose is the idea that the way to promote these values is through coercive state action.