Conservative Libertarian Outpost

Freedom vs. Unlimited Majority Rule 

The concept of freedom rests on a government limited to the protection of individual rights, while the concept of democracy rests on a government run by unlimited majority rule; we need to stop confusing these two opposite ideas. 

By Peter Schwartz 

America’s foreign policy has led to a bizarre contradiction. President Bush claims to be pursuing freedom in the world, so that Americans will be safer. Yet this campaign’s results–a more zealous proponent of terrorism in the Palestinian Authority, and the prospect of theocracy in Iraq–are posing even greater threats to us. 

The cause of this failure is Mr. Bush’s hopeless view that tyranny is reversed by the holding of elections–a view stemming from the widespread confusion between freedom and democracy. 

Ask a typical American if there should be limits on what government may do, and he would answer: yes. He understands that each of us has rights which no law–regardless of how much public support it happens to attract–is entitled to breach. An advocate of democracy, however, would answer: no. 

The essence of democracy is unlimited majority rule. It is the notion that the government should not be constrained, as long as its behavior is sanctioned by majority vote. It is the notion that the function of government is to implement the “will of the people.” It is the notion we are espousing when we tell the Iraqis, the Palestinians and the Afghanis that the legitimacy of their new governments rests essentially on their being democratically approved.  

And it is the notion that was repudiated by the founding of the United States. 

America’s defining characteristic is freedom. Freedom exists when there are limitations on government, limitations imposed by the principle of individual rights. America was established as a republic, under which government is restricted to protecting our inalienable rights; this should not be called “democracy.” Thus, you are free to criticize your neighbors, your society, your government–no matter how many people wish to pass a law censoring you. But if “popular will” is the standard, then the individual has no rights–only temporary privileges, granted or withdrawn according to the mass sentiment of the moment. The Founders understood that the tyranny of the majority could be just as evil as the tyranny of an absolute monarch. 

Yes, we have the ability to vote, but that is not the yardstick by which freedom is measured. After all, even dictatorships hold official elections. It is only the context of liberty–in which individual rights may not be voted out of existence–that justifies, and gives meaning to, the ballot box. In a genuinely free country, voting pertains only to the particular means of safeguarding individual rights. There is no moral “right” to vote to destroy rights. 

Unfortunately, like Mr. Bush, most Americans use the antithetical concepts of “freedom” and “democracy” interchangeably. Sometimes our government upholds the primacy of individual rights and regards one’s life, liberty and property as inviolable. Many other times it negates rights by upholding the primacy of the majority’s wishes–from confiscating an individual’s property because the majority wants it for “public use,” to preventing a terminally ill individual from gaining assistance in ending his life because a majority finds suicide unpalatable. 

Today, our foreign policy upholds this latter position. We declare that our overriding goal in the Mideast is that people vote–regardless of whether they care about freedom. But then, if a Shiite, pro-Iranian majority imposes its theology on Iraq–or if Palestinian suicide-bombers execute their popular mandate by blowing up schoolchildren–on what basis can we object, since democracy is being faithfully served? As a spokesman for Hamas, following its electoral victory, correctly noted: “I thank the United States that they have given us this weapon of democracy. . . . It’s not possible for the U.S. . . . to turn its back on an elected democracy.” The Palestinians abhor freedom–but have adopted democratic voting.  

The Iraqis may reject freedom, in which case military force alone–as dismally inadequate as our efforts in that realm have been so far–will have to ensure our safety against any threats from them.  But if we are going to try to replace tyranny with freedom there, we must at least demonstrate what freedom is. We should have been spreading the ideas and institutions of a free society, before allowing elections even to be considered. For example, we should have written the new constitution, as we did in post-WWII Japan. Instead, we deferred to the “will of the people”–people who do not understand individual rights–and endorsed a despotic constitution, which rejects intellectual freedom in favor of enforced obedience to the Koran, and which rejects economic freedom and private property in favor of “collective ownership.” The consequence: looming neo-tyranny in Iraq. 

We need to stop confusing democracy with freedom. Morally supporting freedom is always in our interests. But supporting unlimited majority rule is always destructive–to us, and to all who value the rights of the individual. 

Peter Schwartz is a Distinguished Fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, California. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand–author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. 

[b]I received that in an email/newsletter. Seems like a windy way of repeating what Franklin said about “Two wolves and a lamb deciding on dinner.” Could this be a root part of the contemporary problem here in the United States? Have we unknowingly slipped from a  representative republic into the morass of unfettered democracy?[/b] 

My own feelings are that the politicians ( with but a notable handful of rebels) have taken the nation to it’s very knees.  

There has been, in my opinion, a veritable silent revolution going on for decades, if not longer. Rampant feminism (political not ethical) has twisted the entire concept of life and liberty. The authoritarians within our society have issued blanket pronunciations that require one and all to conform to their ideas of so-called freedom. Those chicken littles that so love the earth more than their own children have strangled innovation to the point of causing serious gaps in national security. The resultant collective guilt of the populace has resulted in a lack of national pride that turns us against our own with subdued viciousness. 

I believe that the sole purpose of any government is to ensure the rights of the individual and that all legitimate uses of government power derives from that  basic sense of purposiveness. Hence the necessity of law, military forces and so on. 

I believe in opportunity for all through ones own resourcefulness, not by government fiat. I believe that in free markets the source of wealth can be found. 

I believe that the Constitution of these United States is the expression of the Declaration of Independence and that the concepts within have never changed, or left. Only the twisted interpetations of certain lawyers and politicians with the express purpose of personal gain. That the rights granted within the Constitution are inalieanable rights, that is God given, and cannot be subrogated by any man, or group of men.

So much for so-called “Living Constitutions” and the Declaration of Independence!

Americans do not have to kiss butt to anyone, or anything.

Stereotyping Defended

by Ninos Malek

[Posted on Thursday, August 24, 2006]
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Most people feel that stereotyping is wrong and unfair.

Why should one person be affected by the actions or qualities of the rest of his or her demographic? Of course, people are individuals with their own moral values (or lack of), intelligence, and talents. Stereotyping is, however, a method that people use, consciously or subconsciously, as an efficient way of economizing on information costs.

For example, if somebody offered you $1 million to solve a complex mathematical problem and, furthermore, you could choose anybody on a university campus to help you, I doubt you would choose the Paris Hilton–type sorority girl or the Abercrombie and Fitch–wearing fraternity boy. Now consider the young man wearing glasses and a pocket protector in his short-sleeve, button-down shirt: would you not think that he is a better bet?

If you were a soccer coach and had to draft a player for your team and the only information you had was that Player A is from Brazil and Player B is from the United States, who would you choose?

Finally, assume that you are walking down the street and you have only two choices — either walk on the left side of the street or the right side of the street. Before you choose, you notice that on the left side there are ten tattooed, muscular men with shaved heads walking and talking together, while on the right side you see ten “clean-cut” men wearing dress shirts and ties carrying Bibles. Now, what would you do?

If you chose the “nerdy” student with the pocket protector in the first scenario, the Brazilian player in the second scenario, and the right side of the street in the third scenario, are you being immoral or “prejudiced”? In fact, what does the word “prejudice” really mean? One of the definitions that is normally overlooked is “a preconceived preference or idea.” In other words, prejudice simply means pre-judging.

Of course you may not be correct in your judgment, and your later judgments will be affected by the success or failure of the accuracy of your forecasts. But the alternative is to use a completely random basis on which to make pre-judgments, which is very silly and probably impossible.

In his article “Non Politically Correct Thinking”, my former professor and economist Dr. Walter Williams argued

“… that going to the word’s Latin root, to pre-judge simply means: making decisions on the basis of incomplete information. Here’s an example. Suppose leaving your workplace you see a full-grown tiger standing outside the door. Most people would endeavor to leave the area in great dispatch. That prediction isn’t all that interesting but the question is why. Is your decision to run based on any detailed information about that particular tiger or is it based on tiger folklore and how you’ve seen other tigers behaving? It’s probably the latter. You simply pre-judge that tiger; you stereotype him. If you didn’t pre-judge and stereotype that tiger, you’d endeavor to obtain more information, like petting him on the head and doing other friendly things to determine whether he’s dangerous. Most people quickly calculate that the likely cost of an additional unit of information about the tiger exceeded any benefit and wouldn’t bother to seek additional information. In other words, all they need to know is he’s a tiger.”

Acquiring information is costly. Moreover, we assume that rational people economize. As beings who want to get the “biggest bang for their buck,” people will apply this rational behavior to information as well. Assuming that I am that person who, when he sees a tiger running at him, gets scared and tries to run to safety, am I being unfair or prejudiced? If I hear there is a murderer in my neighborhood, am I prejudiced if I start looking around the neighborhood for a suspicious looking male rather than a female?

This topic of course has implications when it comes to social policy. After 9/11, the Transportation Security Administration agents at airports, to show that they were impartial, would pull aside old ladies and little children to make sure that they were not carrying dangerous items that could lead to terrorism.

I can recall that one time when I was traveling, a TSA agent pulled aside a young blonde girl for additional screening rather than checking the adult men that were going on that flight. Did it make me feel safer to know that politics and not security was foremost on the mind of the screeners? Not particularly.

Providing security requires the use of scarce means. In a world of imperfect knowledge, economizing on information is a tool that should not have to be defended.

In another important area, government’s interventionist policies in the labor market can make the bad kind of discrimination we normally think about more prevalent. For example, European Union countries have very strict laws on firing people compared to the United States. Because of this, it is more costly for a firm to hire somebody.

Now, if I am an employer and I know that I am stuck with a worker once I hire him, don’t you think I will be more likely to economize on information (i.e., discriminate) before I hire him? Conversely, in a free-market, I will be more likely to take a risk on somebody and give him a chance (and not indulge my initial “prejudices”) because I know if he ends up being a poor selection, I can easily fire him. Those who advocate “fair labor laws” had better be careful what they ask for.

The poster: $10

Economics affects our everyday lives. Economics can be viewed as the study of individual human actors making choices. Of course, people should not be rude to others based on looks, race, or gender. I also know that there are a lot of ignorant, mean-spirited people who assume things about others that are completely baseless. But in the market economy, they also pay a price for being wrong.

Let us remember that we live in a world of scarcity, that economizing on information can be efficient, and that sometimes the reason stereotypes exist is because, well, they’re true.

By the way, I am half-Hispanic and half-Middle Eastern. I am not your “stereotypical” WASP — but I’m sure you didn’t think that while reading my article … right?

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Ninos Malek is a graduate student in the Economics Department at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Send him mail. Comment on the blog.I think that this makes a pretty good case for some stereotyping/profiling.

Ayn Rand Institute Press Release
http://www.aynrand.org/
Stem Cell Breakthrough Won’t Satisfy Religious Conservatives
August 24, 2006
 
Irvine, CA–“The researchers at Advanced Cell Technology should be congratulated for their scientific breakthrough,” said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. “But their new method of creating stem cell lines will not stop religious opposition to scientific progress.”

In developing a method of extracting embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryo, the team was, in part, trying to address the concerns of those opposed to the destruction of embryos. As the team leader said: “There is no rational reason left to oppose this research.”

“But there has never been a rational reason to oppose embryonic stem cell research,” said Dr. Brook. “The opposition comes mainly from religious conservatives and is–by their own declaration–based on faith, not on reason. It is based on the irrational belief that a mere clump of cells is a full-fledged human being.”

“There is no rational reason to morally oppose this research, and its potential to produce treatments for such diseases as diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s is ample reason to morally support it.

“It is a mistake to try to appease religious conservatives on this issue. What they are opposed to, fundamentally, is science as such.”

My comments follow, the above came through bold-ed;

I happen to disagree. As a former member of Libertarians for Life I happen to believe that life begins at conception, and that destroying said life is akin to murder. Yes, I am well aware that most of our medical knowledge having to do with hypothermia comes from Nazi experimentation. Ethically, I am a Kantian, not Utilitarian. The ends do not justify the means.

Further, the author severely discounts, or ignores that those very same stem cells can be harvested from umbilical cord blood without killing any life form that could become a human being. Other stem cells taken from adults have actually led to more breakthroughs than embryonic cell studies have in any case.

I truly expect better argumentation from a top of the line Libertarian think tank, not to even mention an Objectivist one.