English-only Policy at the Atticus Bookstore

The Dallas Morning News devoted a good-sized column to Atticus Bookstore and Cafe up in New Haven, Connecticut, where the owner has issued a policy asking his employees to speak only English on the floor and behind the counters, to “make our customers feel welcome and comfortable.” The policy does not apply to employee-only areas, which would signify to me that the policy’s purpose really is for the sake of customers who may feel uncomfortable hearing someone nearby speaking a language they don’t understand (actually, that’s a bit rude anyway). Of course, a number of bleeding-hearts are outraged, so the DMN feels the event is newsworthy.

Predictably, the story focuses on whether or not such a policy is discriminatory or violates rules of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The concept that the owner may run his own store however he likes, or that unhappy employees are free to leave, is never mentioned.

Mark Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny”

I’m always reluctant to read anything published by the mainstream media, but since I’ve received multiple recommendations for Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, I decided to give it a shot over Winter Break.

Much like Glen Beck’s Common Sense, which I reviewed here, Liberty and Tyranny is best described as “mostly harmless.” Most of the book’s content is true enough, though there are a number of individual points I would disagree with in the chapters on immigration and national security.  His critique of the welfare state is pretty good, though. The main problem with Mr. Levin’s work is that he does not go far enough in his analyses. There are no original thoughts, no real challenges to the status quo, just a primer on the principles and policies of American Conservatism.

Again, that’s all well and good as far as it goes, but Mr. Levin has some serious misfires. For example:

• There is no chapter on monetary policy. In fact, money is just assumed to be a proper function of the federal government and little mention is made of the Federal Reserve, probably the most destructive institution in the United States.
• He fails to identify the historical sources of the country’s problems. Mr. Levin seems to be under the impression that the welfare state began in earnest under Franklin Roosevelt, even though this could be traced back at least to the Progressive movement at the turn of the last century (give Glen Beck credit for at least identifying that much in Common Sense). The destruction of federalism came under Abraham Lincoln, but Mr. Levin lists the “Civil War” as a fight that “we” are fortunate to have won!
• Mr. Levin is apparently fine with preemptive warfare. Though he does acknowledge that spreading democracy throughout the world is a fool’s errand, making him better than the average Neoconservative, he fails to consider the terms of any formulation of the just war doctrine that most Christian denominations accept.
• Related to the above, he also feels that Guantanamo Bay and the Patriot Act are fine and dandy morally and Constitutionally! (I recommend Judge Napolitano’s Constitutional Chaos for an extended refutation of this concept). He says, “How is banning waterboarding[...] morally defensible when a few minutes of simulated drowning [...] reportedly saved an untold number of innocent American lives?” First of all, the saving of lives is based on what the government tells us, and the government has plenty of reason to exaggerate this claim. More importantly, is Mr. Levin suggesting that for a Conservative the ends of an act justify the means?
• I’ll give him credit for using the term “Statist” rather than the more ambiguous “liberal” throughout the book, but he occasionally seems surprised when Republicans do not act as Conservatives, apparently failing to realize that the difference between the “liberal” Democrats and the Neoconservative Republicans is very minor. Neoconservatism is not a legitimate brand of Conservatism. On a related note, he also fails to differentiate between a “republic” and a “democracy.” (Again, Mr. Beck got both these points right in his book).

So, the book is mostly, not totally, harmless.

On Government Regulations and Plumbing

I generally avoid posts with little more than a link, but Jeffrey Tucker’s “The Relentless Misery of 1.6 Gallons” over at Mises.org deserves an extra link. Government regulations are pervasive, but it’s easy to forget just how pervasive they really are. Exhibit A: federal regulation of how much water can be used in a toilet.

Note also Mr. Tucker’s point about how the problem of too-weak toilets is exacerbated by patent laws that prevent manufacturers from improving on each other’s designs for fear of lawsuits.

End of Police Taser Immunity

A little bit of good news to start the new year. According to today’s Dallas Morning News, “a federal appeals court in California has ruled that the police can be held liable for using one of the devices [a taser] against an unarmed person during a traffic stop.” The ruling is effectual in most of the western United States.

So, for once we have a victory for common sense and decency. A basic requirement for the rule of law is that no man is above the law, even if he does have a state-issued costume. Granting immunity from prosecution for assault (excessive use of force) seems to be an invitation for abuse.

Of course, whether this ruling is actually enforced is a seperate issue altogether. After all, the US Constitution is still effective in theory, but in practice has been largely ignored for many decades; I would say the US has been effectively a fascist (that is, corporate) state since the Lincoln Administration’s blatant substitution of arbitrary rule over the rule of law.

Senate Passes New Hate Crime Legislation

From today’s Dallas Morning News, the Senate voted Thursday to extend the definition of “hate crimes” to include those against homosexuals – specifically, crimes committed on the basis of the victim’s gender or sexual orientation, but I doubt anyone is thinking of crimes like that against Jesse Dirkhising. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) described the measure with the words “Orwellian” and “thought crime.”

A senator saying something insightful is uncommon, but hate crime legislation is an obvious example of thoughtcrime. The accused is no longer convicted for just an act of violence, but for doing so with the wrong thoughts. Consider, the word “hate” in “hate crime” is redundant – who has ever robbed, assaulted, or murdered someone they admire? Merely increasing the severity of punishment isn’t a likely rationale, either, since I would guess (though I know assumptions are dangerous) that juries are more likely to recommend longer prison sentences, or capital punishment if that’s available, for particularly brutal or malicious crimes anyway. Increasing the severity of a crime’s maximum punishment is possible, but that would likely raise the punishment to a level beyond just compensation for the offense – though I wouldn’t put it beyond Congress to do that – and cases of homicide are already a capital offense.

Why, then, is hate crime legislation necessary? I can think of two reasons.

The first is mentioned in the DMN: the new measure would “give the federal government the authority to prosecute violent, anti-gay crimes when local authorities failed to [emphasis mine].” So, it’s another federal power-grab. There’s nothing new in that, though. The federal government has been expanding its legal (not lawful, mind you) purview to prosecute crimes for decades.

The second is to punish politically incorrect thoughts. Few civilized men (excuse me, “men or women”) would argue that bigoted attitudes are correct or anything but harmful to society; however, nobody – especially not the state – has the authority to deny someone the right to hold such beliefs, regardless of how foolish they are or how many people’s feelings may be hurt by them. If someone does commit a crime on the basis of his bigotry, let him be tried for that crime, and the judge and jury may determine how to weigh the motivation into their verdict and sentence.

So, will hate crime laws stop here? If the mere thought of racism or homophobia or whatever is so dangerous, surely the dissemination of such ideas must also be outlawed. In fact, the government’s policy would need to prohibit these dangerous thoughts outright. Will an Orwellian state come into existence in the United States? Perhaps not, but if it does, then hate crimes seem a likely entry point.

Review of Ron Paul’s “End the Fed”

If you haven’t yet bought a copy of Congressman Ron Paul’s latest book, End the Fed, why the hell haven’t you? Everything our favorite Republican does garners a lot of attention these days, so I’ll keep this review brief.

Congressman Paul covers a lot of ground in a fairly short book; the shady founding of the Federal Reserve, the threat of fiat currency to a free society, the case for a gold-backed currency, and the Fed’s role in creating the current economic crisis, among other related topics, are discussed clearly and concisely, all in layman’s terms. To those already familiar with Austrian Economics, or even libertarianism or (traditional) conservatism generally, most of this material will already be familiar, and those well-versed in the topic can, honestly, safely skip over the book. However, as an introduction to what is arguably the most dangerous single institution in the United States, End the Fed will prove and invaluable tool for those who have not paid much attention to such seemingly arcane topics as monetary policy.

So, buy a copy for yourself, read it, donate a copy to your local library, give a copy to all your friends and relations. With the possible exception of Murray Rothbard’s What Has Government Done to Our Money? (which is available here for free), this is the best introduction to the case against fiat currency I’m aware of, so take full advantage.

Census Bureau Cuts Ties with ACORN

Good news via today’s Dallas Morning News – the Census Bureau has cut ties with ACORN. Why the Census Bureau even considered such an organization is a good question, but at least the still problematic census is a little less odious now.

Christian Libertarian Blog Carnival

A good resource I found via LibertarianChristians.com – Christian Libertarian Blog Carnival. It links to several excellent articles, so check it out.

Are Mandatory Vaccinations Upcoming?

Mandatory vaccinations against Swine Flu have already been planned for members of the US military, and as the Obama Administration increases the budget for civilian Swine Flu preparations speculation abounds that vaccination may become mandatory for civilians as well. The World Health Organization has already recommended such a procedure should the virus turn into an epidemic and its recommendations are mandatory for member States. From section 1.5.1 of this 2005 WHO document:

During a pandemic, it may be necessary to overrule existing legislation or
(individual) human rights. Examples are the enforcement of quarantine
(overruling individual freedom of movement), use of privately owned build-
ings for hospitals, off-license use of drugs, compulsory vaccination or im-
plementation of emergency shifts in essential services. These decisions
need a legal framework to ensure transparent assessment and justification
of the measures that are being considered, and to ensure coherence with
international legislation (International Health Regulations).

Exactly how “existing legislation or (individual) human rights” are to be overruled within a “legal framework” is left unsaid.

Now, at first glance, such immunizations may seem wise, but problems soon appear – some obvious, like the logistics of such an operation, and the fact that such speedy development means that such an innoculation has not yet been thoroughly tested – and some less obvious. Such mandatory vaccination is plainly unconstitutional, of course, but the implications are wider than that. The main implication is that American citizens are public property.

If that seems like a stretch, consider: by what authority may the state compel a person to do something? If a man is truly sovereign over himself, then no one has the authority to order him to do anything.* That the state ultimately rests on force, meaning the threat of fines, imprisonment, capital punishment, and the like, renders its authority uncivilized, and, frankly, illegitimate. Actually, income taxes have the same assumption – that the state has a claim to the products of your labor, not much different from how a slaveowner claims the product of his slaves’ labor.

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*I am excluding, of course, divine authority, since the creator of a thing has a claim of ownership over it, and that would include the Creator of all things, but only the most devoted followers of our Dear ObaMessiah would claim that the state possesses a power of that magnitude.

Karl Marx, the 2010 Elections, and You

As a little exercise today, how about taking a look at the the federal government’s guiding document? No, not the Constitution, but the Communist Manifesto. If you think that’s just alarmism, consider that a quick web search for the “ten planks of the Communist Manifesto” yields a long list of results, almost all of them detailing how each of the ten planks are already at least partially, if not fully, in force in the United States. They vary in quality, of course, but go ahead and read a few. The best that I’ve found is this one by John Keller. Keep in mind that Keller’s commentary is about eight years old, and Marx’s vision has only been further advanced in that time.

Now, I don’t believe everyone in the federal government is consciously advancing a Communist agenda (though I have no doubt that a few, at least, are), but that does not excuse those who, for whatever reason, well-meaning or not, have aided the state down the Marxist, or at least collectivist, path. Perhaps it’s simply that the nature of a state is to increase its power. Perhaps over 50% of Americans are just stupid enough to vote for “change” by voting a for party that’s been around for over 250 years, and the rest are too unprincipled to realize that the “lesser of two evils” is still evil. Political campaigns have already begun for the 2010 elections, and once again I’ll beg my countrymen: please do not vote for Republicrats, or at the very least, do so only with extreme caution.