Sing It, Brother

On a recent episode of his podcast, Penn Jillette made the following point.

What troubles me about this... I think it's beyond hypocrisy. I think it's something to do with class. A lot of people have accused Obama of class warfare, but in the wrong direction. I believe this is Obama chortling with Jimmy Fallon about lower class people. Do we believe, even for a second, that if Obama had been busted for marijuana -- under the laws that he condones -- would his life have been better? If Obama had been caught with the marijuana that he says he uses, and 'maybe a little blow'... if he had been busted under his laws, he would have done hard f*cking time. And if he had done time in prison, time in federal prison, time for his 'weed' and 'a little blow,' he would not be President of the United States of America. He would not have gone to his fancy-a** college, he would not have sold books that sold millions and millions of copies and made millions and millions of dollars, he would not have a beautiful, smart wife, he would not have a great job. He would have been in f*cking prison, and it's not a god damn joke. People who smoke marijuana must be set free. It is insane to lock people up.

I like Penn Jilette.

15 April

I don't like taxes. Any of them. And I'm put off by people who are either ambivalent about them or think they are a good idea. A necessary evil, perhaps, but the operative word would be evil over necessary. I know government needs revenue in order to function, and though I admire and respect Murray Rothbard, I am not an anarchist. Anarchy may be a fine aspiration (mankind living harmoniously, with respect to human, civil and property rights without the need for government), but I don't think it realistic.

The establishment of government means that we all have to give up some liberty in exchange for order. But since some liberty must be sacrificed, and since liberty is something held dear, we should keep the amount we must sacrifice to the absolute minimum. And this requires keeping government to an absolute minimum. Which would keep the amount of revenue needed for the government to function as low as possible. Which would have the happy consequence of keeping taxes as low as possible.

People who say "I would gladly pay more in taxes" are, to put it mildly, idiots. That means that they quite obviously receive too much compensation for the work they do. Secondly, anyone who wishes to pay more in taxes can. Have your employer withhold the maximum amount from your pay and don't claim any deductions. And don't cash your refund check. It is obvious that anyone who would do these things is not a rational actor. And I don't want irrational people telling me what to do with my money.

Then we have those who say the "rich" should pay their "fair share." I have said it before and I will say it again: the easiest thing in the world to do is to spend someone else's money. Milton Friedman devotes a chapter to this in his book Free to Choose (Chapter 4, From Cradle to Grave, please see the video that accompanies the chapter here). Not only is it easy to spend someone else's money, it is just as easy to waste someone else's money. And government, every single government that has ever existed, proves exceptionally good at this.

So when you couple this almost genetic compulsion to waste money, even when the task at hand is a legitimate function of government and works to the best interest of all participants with no negative externalities, with the propensity to spend more money than taken in, you have what is known as a problem. And folks, we got a big problem. And the problem has gotten as big as it is because government, and people's expectations of government, has become unchained from what its legitimate function is.

In his speech on Wednesday, 13 April 2011, President Obama pointed out that he doesn't care for the spending plan for the 2012 budget laid out by the Republicans because "their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America."

Really?

Social Security was started in 1935 and Medicare and Medicaid were started in 1965, 76 and 46 years respectively. The country is 235 years old and the constitution is 222 years old. I don't think a transfer program that is one-month younger than my step-father can be considered a more important social compact than the constitution of the United States.

Realizing that people not only are responsible for themselves, but actually can be responsible for themselves in an anathema to most politicians, because what then would the politician be good for if not taking from the many to give to the few in order to remain in office?

Another point. Obama also said in his speech: "Part of this American belief that we are all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff, may strike any one of us. 'There but for the grace of God go I,' we say to ourselves, and so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security[.]" Pleasing rhetoric, no doubt, but utter nonsense.

No one I know "contributes" anything to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. It is taken from your pay by your employer and remitted to the government quarterly, along with the employer's matching "contribution" under penalty of law. Things tight this quarter? Need to pass on making that "contribution"? Guess what happens? You won't be discussing the virtues of government mandated compassion with the fellow with the pleasing rhetoric. You will be faced with fines and penalties and liens on any real estate you own. Decide to keep too much of your own money and you're looking at accommodations at some other federally run resorts.

We don't "give" to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid because we are compassionate towards our fellow citizens. We give to churches, the Red Cross, food pantries. We give our time and effort and money to others. That is charity. That is compassion. Because it is voluntary, it is not good, it is great. It is a very small step towards that Utopia of Anarchy. It is also something people have done since people have been around. It even precedes people. Evidence of altruistic behavior can be seen throughout the animal kingdom. But we "give" to these government entities, the ones that will spend the money foolishly while increasing the soul-deadening bureaucracy, because if we don't we will lose more money, lose our homes, go to jail or all three.

These programs throw the government-liberty balance completely out of whack.

Big and Getting Bigger

A great article by Robert Murphy on the growth of government under the current and previous administrations where he refutes evidence to the contrary promulgated fatuously by the World's Smartest Man.

The conclusion:

Experienced readers know that being a self-styled progressive means never
saying you're sorry. I know full well that Krugman's fans will be able to
explain away the above as a perfectly consistent record of economic
analysis.

Nonetheless, it's useful to periodically explain just how Krugman and other
proponents of big government try to frame the debate. Quite clearly, government
has been growing, particularly under the administrations of George W. Bush and
Barack Obama. Just as it is foolish for Krugman and other Democrats to deny the
obvious facts of the Obama record, it is likewise absurd when many conservative
Republicans make excuses for the Bush years. The only way to arrest this trend
is for Americans to oppose big government, period, regardless of an "R" or "D"
after a president's name.

Stanley Milgram, Peter Gabriel & Libertarianism

Another nice piece from the Ludwig von Mises web page on Stanley Milgram's famous experiment on obedience (here is another). It mentions the new TSA searches and the failed protest against the procedures that was to have taken place over Thanksgiving. The gist is that (some) people crave leadership and have a basic need to be told what to do.

Anyway, it's always a good reason to mention Peter Gabriel and his classic "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)."

How Did it Come to This

A cursory view of the 20th century shows the evil depredations of communism and socialism drawn down to their essence (e.g. Lenin, Stalin, Mao). The people either don't know what is in their own best interest or it is determined by the wise few that the masses can't provide it for themselves and that the state must provide it for them.

John Maynard Keynes wrote in the introduction to the German version of his General Theory that "[t]he theory of aggregated production, which is the point of the following book, nevertheless can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state [eines totalen Staates] than the theory of production and distribution of a given production put forth under conditions of free competition and a large degree of laissez-faire."

Thomas Friedman continues to extol the virtues of the "enlightened" autocrats that rule China, ostensibly wishing that America could follow the same route of totalitarianism.

None, absolutely none of the "right wing," so called, economists that I've studied over the years has embraced policies that have led to mass executions or even mass political detentions. They seem to realize that the state is good, very good, for very few things. The efforts and resources of the state should be directed fully towards those very few good things. And nothing further. Ever. Because when the state goes too far, liberty gets destroyed and there is no guarantee that it will come back.

Life and the market has away of self-correcting far more efficiently and effectively than any government regulation ever could.

Keynes himself wrote to Roosevelt that "[i]t is a mistake to think businessmen are more immoral than politicians."

The key difference is that businessmen can't make you buy, sell or do anything. Politicians can and do all of the time.

Yet it is the libertarian that is accused of not caring about his fellow man.

Funny, that.

Taxes, Spending and Deficits

The "Bush Tax Cuts" are set to expire at the end of this year. If allowed, is this a bad thing?

Generally yes. Because congress handled the tax law ham-handedly, it was passed with a "sunset." So the wording gets tricky. Is allowing the law to expire a tax increase? Yes, it is.

Is raising taxes during a recession a bad idea? Yes, it is a certifiably terrible idea. It should go without saying that I think any tax increase ever is a bad idea, but there is positive economics out there that backs the original point, the latter being a matter of personal norms.

But if the tax rate is kept where it is, won't deficits increase*? Yes. Yes, they will. But Democrats seemingly don't mind deficits and, well, neither do Republicans. But Democrats seem to enjoy taxing the "wealthy," however defined, so at least rhetorically, they want to balance things a bit. Republicans talk a good game about cutting spending, but whenever given the opportunity to do so, don't. They don't want the political fallout of having to tell people "no, the government will not do that for you or give that to you." Democrats, to their disgrace, whenever Republicans do actually rattle their sabers and threaten some sop or giveaway, bring in the people who may be "harmed" and get them to testify that were it not for the generosity of the state taking something from one person to give it to them, well their life would be difficult.

But do deficits matter? This question, posed to any sensible person, will get you a puzzled look and an answer approximating "of course, you dolt." But thankfully for Democrats (& Republicans) we have people like Ezra Klein and James Galbraith (son of John Kenneth Galbraith) who say that there is "zero" danger with long-term deficit spending. I won't get into all the minutiae (Robert Murphy at the Ludwig von Mises Institute gets into some here), but spending beyond means is not good, and our sensible person is right and Ezra Kelin and Galbraith and Keynes and Krugman and Romer** are wrong.

So, should the tax increase go into effect? No. Because deficits don't matter. And "progressive" tax rates are un-egalitarian, unfair and immoral. It is morally repugnant that income over $x should be taxed at a higher amount. This punishes that which we should want to foster in society, namely success. The tax code is used as a "levelling down" device. It is used as a tool to affect "social change." It is used to punish. It should be used to care of that which the state has a legitimate interest in; paying for that which the government was granted the authority to do, not whatever a majority of elected officials want to do at any one time. That is why we have a constitution.

Further, progressive taxation increases incentives to hide compensation and hinders productivity.

The federal government shouldn't be funding schools, meals, churches, museums, parks, military bases in dozens of countries, housing, drug wars, hot wars (except in certain extreme instances and then only briefly), cold wars, dictators, democracies, policemen, firemen, hospitals, sugar growers, corn growers, wheat growers, communications commissions, agriculture commissions, election commissions, equal employment commissions, blue ribbon panels, retirement funds, disability funds or medical care. Get rid of this nonsense and then you won't need a commission on how to reduce the deficit.


*Currently $14,000,000,000,000 (that's $14 trillion or 14 x 10^12-another generation or so and we'll be approaching Avogadro's Number). Not including future liabilities. N.b-there are no future assets to offset those future liabilities, only future taxes.

**Romer's argument: "Extending the high-income tax cuts would provide very little job creation in 2011." This is fatuous. Look at this from a moral perspective: the more successful you are, the more you are to be penalized because you keeping more of what you earn won't create jobs for someone else next year. First, Romer was one of the twits behind the notion that if the "stimulus" package didn't pass, unemployment might go as high as 9%. Well, they passed and pissed away almost $1,000,000,000,000 and unemployment went even higher than that, so, as always, consider the source. The government is not an employment agency and people shouldn't pay taxes to affect job creation (which, we've seen, it doesn't).

But Now It's OK, Because We're Doing It

The ACLU issues a report saying that all those mean, horrible, unconstitutional things George Bush did in the name of protecting us, Barak Obama is still doing them. But, near as I can see, only the ACLU has said anything about it.
Based on this report on NPR, Democrats think everything is fine because the Obama administration has "changed course." Allegedly there is now congressional involvement in the executive's perfidy.
But in the name of wasting my (and your) time, let's re-hash some old, boring stuff.

The constitution defines and limits the government. All of the government. All of the time. There is no "escape clause" for when communists or terrorists are running about. The government cannot, for example, conduct any unreasonable search or seizure without a warrant. Neither the Bush or Obama administrations claimed that the unwarranted wiretaps were reasonable. They claim authority under Article II of the constitution--where it is mentioned that the president is to be the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and so long as congress kind of nods in his direction can do whatever the hell he wants. Except the founders forgot to add that last bit. Being in charge of the army doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want. Despite your intentions.
I never thought Bush was acting in bad faith, and I don't think Obama is now. But good intentions don't give license to take away the birthright of the sovereign, the natural liberty that we are born with. And congress saying "we're now OK with it" doesn't cut the mustard. The Bill of Rights, or any constitutional provision, doesn't go out the window if 2 out of 3 branches want it to. They can't go out the window if 3 out of 3 think so. There is a defined way of amending the constitution. If you policy isn't popular enough or important enough to make it through that way, then guess what Charlie? It doesn't get done.
Would we be less safe? Perhaps. But we'd be free, and that is what our country was founded on and I hope still stands for.

The Remnant

I think I posted a link to this piece by Albert J. Nock previously, but I can't remember so I'm doing it again. Here Nock defines who the Remnant is:


In the year of Uzziah's death, the Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and
warn the people of the wrath to come. "Tell them what a worthless lot they are."
He said, "Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless
they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don't mince matters. Make it clear
that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong
and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you", He added,
"that it won't do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up
their noses at you and the masses will not listen. They will all keep on in their
own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably
be lucky if you get out with your life."
Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job -- in fact, he had asked for it -- but the prospect put a new face on the situation. It raised the obvious question: Why, if all that were so -- if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start -- was there any sense in starting it?

2
"Ah," the Lord said, "you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you
know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it".
What do we mean by the masses, and what by the Remnant?
As the word "masses" is commonly used, it suggests agglomerations of poor and
underprivileged people, laboring people, proletarians. But it means nothing like
that; it means simply the majority. The mass-man is one who has neither the force
of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane
life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming
majority of mankind, they are called collectively "the masses". The line of
differentiation between the masses and the Remnant is set invariably by quality,
not by circumstance. The Remnant are those who by force of intellect are able to
apprehend these principles, and by force of character are able, at least measurably,
to cleave to them. The masses are those who are unable to do either.

Speaker Pelosi

Has one hell of a view as to what the Commerce Clause and the 10th amendment mean.

The founders intended the commerce clause to ensure the free flow of goods and capital between the states, not as a crutch on which to depend to regulate every single aspect of our lives.

The problem is that far too many people of every political stripe seem to agree with Speaker Pelosi and her grotesque view of the constitution than what the founders meant and wrote. If this seems sclerotic or too strict an interpretation then so be it.

Who Gives What to Whom?

I read an article by Andrew McCarthy (may be restricted) in a recent issue of National Review where he takes Attorney General Eric Holder to task for bringing the 9/11 masterminds to New York for a jury trial. As is usually the case, Mr. McCarthy is tendentious and very fond of recalling that he worked on the first World Trade Center bombing case (I've yet to see a piece written by him that doesn't mention this in one way or another). Also he faults Mr. Holder for being overly political (!) in the AGs office.

I'm not going to address McCarthy's bromides against Holder, some of which have merit (the dropping of the investigation/prosecution of the Black Panthers harassing voters in Philadelphia is an embarrassment), others don't. But McCarthy repeats a meme I've heard over and over from all sorts of sources and political directions that I'd like to address. At one point he writes:

"In November, Holder announced what he insists is his own decision to vest
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other jihadists with the constitutional rights
once enjoyed by Mark Bingham and the nearly 3,000 other Americans they
massacred."

Again, let's leave aside the stridency of the statement and focus on, "to vest ... with constitutional rights."

Eric Holder can't give anyone constitutional rights. No one can. The constitution doesn't "give" rights to anyone, foreign or domestic, and the government that is established by the constitution and it's myriad bureaucrats and lackeys can do no such thing either. The constitution establishes, defines and limits our federal government. It separates three general functions of government into three co-equal branches and says what they are and can or can't do. Vaguely and with heaping doses of ambiguity to be sure, but that's really all it does. Now, the government doesn't give you, me or him the right to free speech or press or religion or guns, it merely specifies a few that the founders thought necessary to clarify. Otherwise it is understood then, as it should be now, that they set up a powerful but limited federal government saying that any powers not given to the government by the people herein are reserved to the states or the people.

You see, we are the sovereigns. The assumption should be, should always be, that we have all of the rights necessary to secure our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. We are free to do whatever we damn well please so long as we don't harm another or his property and are willing to accept any and all consequences for our actions. And the laws that we are to obey, such as they are, are to be promulgated and enforced by the states unless there is compelling federal interest and constitutional authority for the feds to be involved at all. The feds establishing rules for ingress and naturalization of foreigners would be a prime example of legitimate federal authority (being run quite poorly at the time being, by the way, but legitimate nonetheless). The feds telling the states what the speed limit or legal definition of drunk driving, say, isn't.

How do we treat foreigners held by our government? Well that depends. Are they here and did they violate any of our laws? Well then the appropriate authorities should detain them until the penalty is served and then, if here illegally or with a visa, they should be tossed home. What about those picked up overseas? Now we get into some murky areas. Are they picked up in the theater of war? If so, then they should be held pursuant to military rules and customs and under the auspices of any binding treaties. What about nasty people like the guys the CIA picked up in Italy that may or may not have been thinking about doing nasty things to us? Well, they shouldn't do that. No agent of our government has any authority to detain anyone in the world not on sovereign soil (except in the theater or war exception above).

Would that put Americans more at risk? Who knows? The job our security and intelligence agencies have done over the last few decades has shown, if nothing else, that we've pissed away a whole bunch of money and haven't been any safer or more secure, just less free. There is also some implied risk in living in a free and just society (see David Foster Wallace here).

I just wanted to get that off my chest. So now you know. Anytime you hear about the US giving rights to anyone, you'll know I just got a little bit more aggravated. I hope you will, too.

Nock Nock

A very good piece by Jonah Goldberg at National Review led me to read further into Albert Jay Nock. I had seen and heard the name around for a while, especially since getting more invloved with Libertarian history and it intellectual underpinnings.
His article led me to Nock's piece "Isaiah's Job."
Which led me to get Our Enemy the State from the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Can't wait to read it.

Ponuru's Juju

The increasingly bitter Ramesh Ponuru, apparently thinking that conservatism is in just dandy shape thankyouverymuch, decides to alienate further pretty strong, logical allies...

Last Word [Ramesh Ponnuru]

As long as libertarians continue to display the kind of pseudo-principled indifference to public opinion and political reality that you keep flaunting, Jerry, you'll keep enjoying the political irrelevance you do today.

05/18 02:10 PM

Maybe the end could have been seen coming in his daft, incoherent book fatally rigged with logical flaws, but the end is here. Ponuru demonstrates skill at being "politically" flexible by backing an administration and party that introduced (at the time) the largest increase in federal dependency ever--by the party allegedly in favor of reducing the federal government to its proper role--and intellectually retarded by lambasting libertarians for being out of touch.

If libertarians are politically irrelevant, I would like to be the first to welcome Ponuru's & Limbaugh's brand of conservatism to Siberia.

Stossel on reason.tv

Free-Market v Pro-Business

One of the great misconceptions I've noticed is the conflation of "free-market" ideals with "pro-business" methods.
One of the greatest ninnies in the history of American politics (the man who once said of the US budget that there's nothing left to cut) put tax incentives into a spending bill to entice oil companies to explore and drill for oil. Which is kinda what oil companies are supposed to do anyway. It's akin to providing incentives for McDonalds to find and harvest cattle and potatoes, but I wouldn't be surprised if the government doesn't do that as well.
A lot of this nonsense is put forward by Republicans under the guise of promoting the "free-market" which is absolutely, positively nothing of the sort.
Free-markets are free of government regulation that help specific firms gain an unfair advantage. People also claim that lobbyists perform a vital function in the protection of free-markets. They do nothing of the sort.
They carry out the right of corporations to assemble and petition the government, but as Adam Smith once said:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary

The last clause is as important as the first, especially to a libertarian. Government intervention in free-markets necessitates tradesmen to assemble to protect their rights and interests. This quickly devolves into chicken or egg argument as to which came first, but it doesn't matter.

Anyway, here is a great piece written by Roderick Long that looks objectively as to whether believers of free-market are apologists for corporations.

Gay Marriage

Since the debate over whether gays & lesbians have a "right" to marriage started brewing several years ago, my thoughts on the matter took time to coalesce. But coalesce they did and here's what I came up with:

Marriage is a legal arrangement between parties that have attendant legal rights; the ability to take title to property as "tenants by the entirety," is one small example and the one with which I am most familiar.

State legislatures have the authority to define legal arrangements in their respective states. Other states, under Article IV (full faith and credit clause) must abide by these arrangements unless otherwise proscribed by congress. Which congress took care of with the absurdly named "Defense of Marriage Act." I think the name foolish, but the authority of the congress to do this is without question. So it was fine to me the way things were going. And I thought a constitutional amendment trying to define marriage was/is an asinine idea.

The libertarian in me doesn't care about who wants to marry whom, but the small conservative in me (getting smaller by the day) prefers that the arrangement be handled by the state legislatures. I didn't think this an area where judges have the authority to decide that now things are different, and we now think that marriage can be between people of the same gender.
The past tense in that last sentence probably gave me away.

I was in traffic tonight pondering this (there was a news update on NPR about the California Supreme Court hearing challenges to the recently passed Proposition 8). I was going through in my head, again, that the states are well within their rights to decide who can engage with whom in certain contracts when it hit me.

No, they can't.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (for example only) can corporately dislike gay people and gay lifestyles and everything else gay. But the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has certain rules set-up affecting the establishment of corporations/partnerships/legal arrangements. If two or more people join together to form a Limited Liability Company or a Corporation, following the proper guidelines established by the legislature (a legitimate, if overwrought, use of government authority) no state or commonwealth can proscribe a particular class of citizens (however defined) from assembly--not including criminals (it seems reasonable to me to prevent certain types of convicted felons from participating in certain activities).

In other words, if the people of Pennsylvania tried to say, via legislation, that gays could not form a General Partnership, the legislation would be promptly (& rightly) rent asunder by any court worthy of the name. The same holds true for licensing authority. There is no compelling reason for the state to deny a gay person a driver's license, an insurance license or a license to do any of the other things that the state in it's infinite wisdom deem requisite of licensing.

The argument that "marriage is different" fails in that the same argument could have been made to justify and perpetuate any social change that is now taken for granted that wasn't explicitly sanctioned by legislature. For example, women were able to own, purchase and transfer property without express statutory authorization. Cultural norms, of which I'm typically a fan, slowly evolved from only white, Christian men being allowed to take title to everyone being able to, regardless of gender, creed, race or sexual orientation. It fails the reasonableness test to claim that gays can participate in every other form of legal contract, save this one. You know, because they'd ruin it.

If marriage (or our culture) can't withstand the "assault" of gays wanting to be married, then what good is it?

None of the above changes the fact that this is still entirely a state issue and of no concern of the federal government in any context.

reason

I get reason magazine (I got Bob Barr to autograph my November issue!) and their website is just great. They also have reason.tv where I caught this:



The Drew Carey Project is there also.

Libertarianism

From What it Means to be a Libertarian by Charles Murray:

Freedom is first of all our birthright. When all the philosophizing is put aside, what has made me a libertarian is a homely image and the answer to a simple question. The image is of an ordinary human being making an honest living and minding his own business--the kind of person who makes up the vast majority of adults around the world. The question is: What does this person owe the government other than to keep doing what he is doing?
The operative word in that question is government. Our ordinary person owes many things to many people and institutions--to family, friends, community, church, workplace. But an obligation to government is unique. When the government decides you owe it something, that obligation is encoded in law. If you break a law, a representative of the government can compel you by force, at gunpoint if need be, to do what the law demands. The right to initiate the use of physical force, usually called the police power, is what makes government different from all other human institutions.
What should government be permitted to demand of this ordinary person? Very little. Longer and more complicated answers constitute much of the rest of this book. But the short answer gets to the essence of the libertarian position. A person who is making an honest living and minding his own business isn't hurting me. He isn't forcing me to do anything. I as an individual don't have the right to force him to do anything. A hundred of his neighbors acting as a mob don't have that right. The government shouldn't have that right either, except for stringently limited conditions. An adult making an honest living and minding his own business deserves to be left alone to live his life. He deserves to be free.

all italics in original