Glibertarians.com 2017 Archive

Category: Rule of Law

  • Catalonia – “Our situation is one of stable instability”

    Don Swissxote checking in on Catalonia… Hmmm. Looks like another vote. When last we left this mess, the former Catalan Regional President, Carles Puigdemont, had fled to Belgium, to avoid the fate of other members of the regional government – imprisonment (which didn’t stop campaigning. *Chicago area politicians perk up*). Note, however, that the international warrant for Puigdemont was withdrawn (should he go back to Spain, I have no doubts the handcuffs would be on him in seconds).

    The scenarios for post-vote Catalonia are numerous. I will glibly lay out what they are:

    1. On the one hand, voters have been scared off from independence – by the use of force by Madrid (cops beating down people voting in the October referendum) or the number of business HQ’s fleeing Barcelona, or having second thoughts about being wholly responsible for themselves (in a national sense) now. So, they end up with MILFy Ines Arrimadas in charge….the independence movement returns to Quebec or Scotland levels of annoying/festering.
    2. On the other hand, independence favoring parties win small – but squabble while trying to form a coalition to govern, and accomplish little to nothing before collapsing and needing new elections (see post-war Italian and Belgian governments). Being the cynical SOB that I am, I think this will end up happening… and the sound of cans being kicked down the road will echo for years.
    3. Or, on the gripping hand, independence parties end up winning bigger – people get a case of the “fuck off, slaver” and one of the three independence parties gets enough of a mandate to lead a coalition….from exile, from jail or in Socialist person. Madrid would again suspend the regional government, send in the coppers and we would reach a decision point… give up under the force employed? Turn into a Basque style guerrilla type conflict? Start Civil War 2.0?
    Costa Brava, Catalonia

    As a libertarian type, I want force avoided. But, it ain’t my country/language/culture/self-determination at stake. I am not ready to go off and join the Reconstituted Abraham Lincoln Brigade as of yet. But this will be worth watching one way or the other.

    P.S. For those that Twitter, follow #catalonia for all sorts of opinion and news.

    UPDATE: Check here for results.

     

  • It is ON…Catalonia Says “Adéu” (Updated)

    Don Swissxote

     

    To Juvenile Bluster

    Looks like PM Rajoy has decided to crack down on Catalonia. [forestalling our commenters, I will ask…”You know who else cracked down on Catalonia?”]

    Catalan separatists respond with a good bye vote in Parliament [Note: this vote was boycotted by opposition parties, the result was : 70 in favor, 10 against and two blank ballots out of a 135-member parliament].

     

    So now what? The Catalan vote appears to be a reaction to the Spanish Central Government moving to impose direct rule over the area (Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution). Some interesting notes in this story.

    To those who think this is simply a bunch of Lefties who want to prog harder than Madrid:

    Marta Ribas of the leftist Catalonia Yes We Can party said “two grave errors” were being committed Friday.

    “First, the Article 155 which will take away our rights and impact all the country. But it is a grave error to respond to that barbarity with an even bigger error,” she said. “The unilateral declaration of independence won’t protect us against Article 155, you will only make the majority of people suffer.”

    One of the demonstrators in Barcelona was quoted as saying:

    “I am here today because we will start the Catalan Republic,” said 68-year-old protester Jordi Soler. “Madrid is starting with total repression — and there is no longer any (other) option.”

     

    So now we will have to see what Madrid will do when it invokes Article 155. I am expecting the National Police (the headcrackers from the referendum) to go in and arrest everyone they can. The Catalonian provincial police’s reaction will be key – if they resist, the Army will go in next, and I think it will get bloody.

    Does any of this change the view of a libertarian? To this minarchist, I am slowing moving further and further into the Catalan camp.

     

    UPDATE: Things moving along. Here is a good timeline. Article 155 invoked, looks like Madrid will at least charge Catalan President Puigdemont with “rebellion” (insert “You Rebel Scum” here)

  • OK, I lied…More on Catalonia.

    I thought the topic was done with. The Catalonian leadership had waffled, Madrid had growled and it looked like the whole thing was done. A bluff called and folded.

    Remember, Sully, when I promised not to talk about Catalonia anymore?

    But, as in many things…I was wrong. The Spanish central government appears to want this over with, once and for all. As I have been questioning – what does this matter to a libertarian? Is this a case of “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them“? Or just a bunch of whiny Socialists saying “What do we want? Socialism! Where do we want it? Here!” Should that even matter?

    And now my bid to win a Judge Napolitano Medal for Meritorious Question Marking:

    A good point Playa Manhattan had brought up – at what point is enough of the populace saying “we want out” enough? The referendum that trigger this shitstorm did not see even majority of eligible voter participation. Is there a number where you can draw a line and say “OK, there it is, enough to call it just”?

    What happens to someone who wants to remain Spanish? You see a lot about the Spanish Constitution saying Spain is indivisible – does that hold for people who were not even born, or of age when it was adopted?

    Will Madrid’s continuing crackdown push Catalans to say “hey, maybe the independence types are right…Madrid really does want to crap on us!”?

    Can we just airdrop STEVE SMITH or send Zardoz over there to solve the whole thing?

     

    I am torn…but if pushed, I would say that I would reluctantly back the Catalans. I do truly believe that Governments are instituted among Men,deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. But I can be convinced this is not the case here. Discuss, debate and snark, as you will.

  • Catalonia Blinks

    Looks like I have my answer as to what would happen with Catalonia…the separatist administration of the Province has blinked. The Madrid government is still making sure this isn’t a cutesy effort to avoid conflict and depart later.

    So looks like we won’t get a test case to see how Europe/the EU would react to secession hitting a core state.

    Oh…This makes it 0-2 recently, with Scotland, Catalonia not jumping ship. Calexit hardest hit?

  • A Catalan Follow Up

    Things in Catalonia could be coming to a head, soon. Actually, tomorrow. The central government in Madrid has not been shy about making somewhat pointed threats. As with any political strife, there are lots of stresses involved, beyond borders, laws and trade. Rumblings from some news sources are pinning this recent drive on the Left. But a small far-Left movement would not be enough to push this over the line, into a full blown secession. There appears to be a sizable part of the populace in the region does appear to want out of Spain.

    What this will end up looking like will have a possibly large impact on “Europe” – the EU, NATO and the like. I will be watching for several things:

    1. Will Madrid use force to prevent any formal breakaway? If so, in what manner – send in the Army and National Police, or just arrest the political leadership and lay off the ordinary people?
    2. If force is used, what do the Catalan people do in response?
    3. If force is employed, what will France do? [keeping in mind that the Basque ETA used to cross the border and hide in France]
    4. If Catalonia does break away – would the EU, NATO, et al ask them in? [Slovenia, as an example, comes to mind].
    5. Will crazed soccer fans demand that FC Barcelona continue to play in the Spanish League?

    Here is hoping the whole thing ends up a non-story and there is no violence…but that ain’t the way I am betting.

    Stay tuned, as they say.

     

    UPDATE: Splitting from the splitters?

  • Sunday Afternoon Mop Up

    I just wanted to hang up a post for people to catch up on hurricane/storm related things – need any help, offer any help, etc.

    Also, I just wanted to put a couple of links in on Catalonia – following the post I had written last week.

    • Some people don’t want to leave Spain.
    • Catalan government wants to be able to scram in 48 hours.

    And, of course, bat anything around you want until Zardoz or STEVE SMITH come around later with the links.

  • Catalonia….the silence.

    A “hot take” on Catalonia and the recent crackdown by the Spanish central government.

    The central government in Spain decided to use force to disrupt the independence referendum held by the Catalan regional government. Exact figures on the vote are not available – partially due to Spanish police seizing ballot boxes, and the lack of independent verification or accounting of the votes. However, the regional prime minister claims victory for the “yes” vote.

    The stance of the EU, normally ready to moralize at the drop of a hat, was muted at best. At worst, it was quite unhelpful. Worrying about the EU’s integrity came first. Unsurprisingly, France backed Spain. The US said something similar (NOTE: this was a bit ago, but current events have absorbed all attention here).

    The most interesting reactions, I figured, would be from Italy. Two of their regions are going after greater autonomy this month. There appears to be a bit of a split of opinion amongst the figures moving for autonomy in Italy…while the central government was quite silent.

    No official statement was made on the referendum by Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who told journalists the week before the vote that he considered it “a question for Spain”, or Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano.

    So we see little to no support from governments, or the extragovernmental bureaubehemoth EU. This leads me to some questions of you, the resident libertarians (or close enough to it).

    1. Should the Catalans (or Kurds or Lombards) be able to vote themselves out of the country?
    2. If their vote is not recognized, disrupted or such – what do they do next? Civil disobedience? Guerrilla warfare? Full on revolt? Grin and bear it?
    3.  What would you do if you were a Catalan, Kurd or Lombard who wanted out?

     

  • What are Rights? An Encore

    People seemed to enjoy the discussion in the original article, so I’m going to expand on it based on some of the conversation we had in the comments. As noted in the comments, August is employing the Socratic method. In real life, August is a Being your own Socrates | sHR.classmate from law school who was a philosophy major. He and I enjoy sipping bourbon, smoking pipes, and talking politics, philosophy, and theology.

    In the original article, I made the assertion that rights are meaningless outside of a relationship. I also asserted that rights are definitions of the boundaries of authority between co-equal entities (man to man; man to human institution). In this article, I will address some of the points brought up in the comments: conflicting rights, objective v. subjective rights, negative v. positive rights, how rights flow from self-ownership.

    The conversation picks up at the end of the prior article:

    AUGUST: So if rights are based on authority and the equality of man, are you saying that rights are attempts to prevent inequity between men and between man and institutions created by man?

    OSCAR: Yes! As with any co-equal relationship, there are certain things solely in the domain of the first, other things that are solely in the domain of the second, and some things that are in an overlapping domain between the two. For example, parenting.

    AUGUST: So, in this Venn Diagram description, your domain is your rights with respect to me, my domain is my rights with respect to you, and the shared domain is collective rights between us and conflicting rights between us. How can rights conflict if they are natural?

    OSCAR: Well, this is more of a semantic difference. Either you can paint with broad strokes (“right to life; right to play loud music; right to swing your arms”) and deal with conflicts of the rights (“my right to swing my arm ends at your nose”), or you can paint more carefully (“right to swing your arms in open portions of your personal space”) and not have to deal with conflicts. Either way, there is a limit to the extent of your rights where you begin to infringe somebody else’s rights.

    AUGUST: This still seems fuzzy. How do you know when you’re infringing somebody else’s rights?

    OSCAR: Well, we need to know how to identify a right in order to be able to tell if we’re infringing on rights. There are two things called “rights” these days. One is negative rights, and the other is positive rights. Positive rights are largely a misnomer in the context of strangers (including the government). The only relationship in which positive rights make sense is the dependent/caretaker relationship. This is why people refer to the “Nanny State” when government enshrines positive rights in law. Negative rights, however, are natural rights. They derive from self-ownership. Negative rights are things whose direct, tangible consequences are felt only by the rights owner and consenting others. In essence, you are the sovereign of your own vintage seminude woman reading by MementoMori-stock on DeviantArtdomain; only you have the authority to make decisions that result in consequences to only you. Thus, you are infringing on somebody else’s rights when you do something that keeps them from exercising sovereignty over themselves and their property.

    AUGUST: Direct, tangible consequences? Like economic externalities, emotional effects, and social consequences?

    OSCAR: No, usually rights violations are one of three categories: force, fraud, and coercion. Nobody forces you to feel a certain way. Nobody coerces the market to ripple when you make a transaction. Nobody forces society to react to your actions. All of these consequences to the exercise of rights may be of concern to people and to society at large, but they are outside of the authority of strangers and the government to resolve by infringing on the free exercise of rights.

    AUGUST: But we discussed before that there are times when you can use force, like in self-defense. It seems like you can’t use force until you can.. it’s all very arbitrary sounding.

    OSCAR: Not at all. There is a basic principle that you can respond to immoral force with force of your own, but you cannot initiate immoral force: the non-aggression principle.

    AUGUST: Ah, so when my neighbor accidentally steps on my side of the property line, I get to kill him?

    OSCAR: No, the NAP is better seen as a negative limitation than a positive one. The NAP tells you when you CAN’T use force, but doesn’t dictate HOW you can use force when it is not immoral to do so. There are rules of proportionality that are outside the scope of rights.

    AUGUST: That is all well and good, but I’m still not convinced that negative rights are a necessary consequence of self-ownership.

    OSCAR: Ownership implies control. If you own yourself, you have control over your actions. Ownership also implies exclusivity as to strangers. There can be co-owners of something, but co-ownership implies a consenting relationship. You cannot be a co-owner with a complete stranger. Therefore, absent consensual abdication of your self-ownership, your claim to your own body and to your actions is exclusive. As previously discussed, the only time this changes is when your actions cause direct, tangible consequences to non-consenting others.

    Part of your actions include your labor. You are the owner of your labor, including the economic value of your labor. Economic value of your labor can be traded for physical property, which makes you exclusive owner of capital. Throughout this entire chain, your exclusive ownership and control has not been severed unless consensually negotiated for. Therefore, self-ownership implies control over your actions, your labor, and your property, up to the point where you cause direct, tangible consequences to non-consenting others. It is important to note here that the direct, tangible consequences need to be caused against a legitimate claim of the non-consenting other. If I buy the Mona Lisa, I deprive you of being able to see it. However, you have no legitimate claim to the Mona Lisa because you have no grounds to claim ownership of the Mona Lisa.

    AUGUST: What’s the point of all of this if a “might makes right” government comes in and imposes its will on you?

    OSCAR: Rights are not subjective. Negative rights are natural outcroppings from the physical reality of self-ownership. Positive rights are natural outcroppings of the duties that are inherent in a caretaker role. Practical infringements of rights do not affect the ethical reality of rights.

    AUGUST: Do you have the right to do something that is wrong?

    OSCAR: In my definition of rights as authority boundaries between co-equal entities, the question is somewhat irrelevant. If your “wrong” thing does not involve using force, fraud, or coercion on a non-consenting other, then government has no rightful authority to stop you. However, this says nothing of the inherent morality of your actions. You could perpetrate a horrible evil against yourself (or against God, for those who believe), and it would no more be within the government’s rightful authority than if you did a great good for yourself (or for God, for those who believe).

     

    For a detailed treatment of this question and other related topics, I turn it over to Milton Friedman (1 hr youtube vid).

  • Coffee & Prohibition

    “Please sir, may I have some more?”

    I love coffee. I’m drinking a hot cup while I pen this article. Roasting and grinding coffees from around the world is my hobby. Experimenting with different brewing methods in search of the perfect cup of Joe is my holy grail. I even researched planting my own coffee trees here in Orlando so that I could experience the whole process from soil to cup. A hero of mine, Heriberto Lopez, had the same idea in 1985. Mr. Lopez, who owned a coffee plantation in Venezuela, came to the United States so his son could receive treatment for a rare heart condition. He gambled some of his family fortune on growing coffee in south Florida, so that he could work in the U.S. while his son got the treatment he needed. The experts said it would never work. Heinz Wutsher, a researcher with the U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Orlando said, ”I think the whole thing is a crackpot idea.” Well you know what? They were right. It failed. Coffee grows best in the bean belt, 25 degrees north, 30 degrees south latitude. Florida is technically in the belt, but has a deficiency of mountains on which to plant coffee. Mr. Lopez and I had our caffeine fueled dreams thwarted by geography and economics, but I still enjoy learning about coffee. Reading “Uncommon Grounds” by Mark Pendergrast, I was horrified to learn that coffee had been prohibited in various countries at different times. Why ban a harmless drink? Who could be so cruel? Don’t they know coffee is the elixir of Life? Well my friends, let us dive into when, where and why coffee was banned in history.

    1511, Kha’ir Beg, the governor of Mecca, was cruising past a Mosque and saw some dudes getting their caffeine on so they could do some endurance praying–much like some of you would do with Mountain Dew and an all night Dungeons and Dragons session. Beg got bent out of shape for some reason, so he banned coffee under the power given to him by the Koran prohibiting wine. I know you are thinking, “How in the hell is coffee, a stimulant, anything like wine, a depressant?” I’m sure the Saudis were thinking the same thing. So Kha’ir goes to some local Persian doctors, the Hakimani brothers, and buys some expert testimony. The Hakimani boys claimed that coffee was harmful and had no legitimate medical use–a conflict of interest since coffee was used as a natural, inexpensive cure for depression as opposed to whatever expensive pharmaceuticals they were selling. Finally, the Sultan of Cairo stepped in because people were getting cranky without their morning coffee, and declared governor Beg had exceeded his authority to ban coffee and the people rejoiced. Happily, Kha’ir was caught embezzling money and was executed. I guess he skipped the part in the Koran about stealing.

    Continuing in the 16th century, the next group anxious to wield the banhammer are the Italians. Christian Europe had been brawling with the Muslim Ottomans since 1591 and were a little salty. The Pope’s advisors wanted to ban coffee as the “bitter invention of Satan” because the drink was popular with the Turks. Ironic, considering coffee was banned in Mecca less than one hundred years before. Pope Clement the VIII requested a cup so that he may see what all this devilry was about and declared, “This Satan’s drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.” The Pope also believed that coffee was less harmful than alcohol and thus blessed the bean. Thanks to the Coffee Pope, modern Italians are free to sip espressos while riding vespas saying, “Ciao.”

    The 17th century saw a new Muslim anti-coffee zealot, this time in Constantinople. In 1623, Murad IV claimed the throne of the Ottoman empire, famous for making little couches you put your feet on. So Murad quattro was a new king and usually you become king by screwing people over and crushing dissent. Coffee has been blamed/credited with fueling rabble rousers, as the king was aware. In fact, one of the HQs for planning the American Revolution took place in the “Green Dragon,” a coffee house in Boston. Americans switched to coffee from tea because screw England, and the founding fathers would drink caffeine and write kick-ass constitutions. Back to Constantinople, Murad knew coffee angers-up the blood and fuels revolutions so he banned coffee. Turns out, people really love coffee and kept drinking it despite the first offense: catching a beating. Second timers got sewn into a bag and thrown into the Bosphorus. Even with these severe punishments, Murad still had no trouble going undercover with his big ass sword, surprise beheading people he caught drinking Java. The ban ended when Murad decided to have a one man drinking contest and died of alcohol at the ripe old age of 28. Maybe he should have had coffee instead.

    Coffee-making paraphernalia in Coffee World museum near Cairns.

    Moving into the next century, 1746 Sweden not only banned coffee, but coffee paraphernalia because people were abusing coffee. I don’t know how you abuse coffee other than by leaving a pot of coffee on a burner until it turns to tar. Gustav the third, king of Sweden, ordered a pseudoscience twin study to prove the harmful effects of coffee. One twin drank tea, the other coffee. They didn’t wait around to get the results because the twins lived into their 80’s. So the Swedes sent goons around anyways, kicking in doors and smashing coffee pots and confiscating coffee beans for evidence (totally not for them to consume or resell). Shockingly, people continued to consume coffee in spite of the ban. Eventually the Swedish government decided enforcement was unmanageable and repealed the bans in the 1820’s. Today Sweden has one of the highest per capita coffee consumption rates in the world.

    Another jerk from the 18th century is Frederick “the Great” of Prussia. In 1777, Fred was concerned that coffee consumption was cutting into the beer profits. Beer was a local product so profits stayed in Prussia. Coffee, being an import good, caused money to flow out of the country. So he proclaimed coffee banned and told the proles to go back to drinking beer for breakfast. In true Top Man fashion, nobles were allowed to continue to drink coffee. Fred liked to drink his coffee made with champagne instead of water, in true baller fashion. Rappers take note, that is how you stupidly waste money. Drinking a hot champagny cuppa in front of the people you are telling don’t drink coffee doesn’t inspire people to respect the ban. I thought ordering a bunch of Germans to drink beer for breakfast was an easy sell, but Fred screwed it up somehow. Freddie had to rescind his order and allow the Prussians their coffee.

    An article about coffee prohibition wouldn’t be complete without mentioning America, the largest coffee market in the world. Multiple attempts by moral scolds and busy bodies to shut down coffee have been mounted, but, luckily for us, they have all failed so I won’t bore you with the details. However, one man was moderately successful in cutting into American coffee consumption, C. W. Post. Post was not a mentally stable person, to put it mildly. He believed in all the quack cures of the day and Grandpa Simpson diagnoses. C.W. suffered from nervous breakdowns and became
    student of John Kellogg, another cereal Barron, that taught him the dark arts of healthy eating to cure his imbalanced humours. Kellogg was a Seven Day Adventist and shunned caffeine and advised C.W. to give up coffee. C.W. became a titan of the breakfast food world because he was the first to understand the power of advertising. He spent a tremendous amount of money pushing his health foods on the public using clever ads that weren’t always completely true. Post started an ad campaign warning about the dangers of coffee and how it is basically killing you every time you take a sip. Unbeknownst to the public, C.W. couldn’t start his day without his big mug of bean juice. That didn’t stop him from telling everyone else to drink Postum, the coffee substitute made from wheat bran, wheat, and molasses. Bizarrely the slogan of Postum was “There’s a Reason.” I guess that did something for the chumps of the 20th century because they bought the stuff. Postum sales surged during WWII as coffee was diverted to the front lines, because nothing kills Nazis better than a conscripted 18 year old with coffee jitters and a M1 garand. If you would like to try this
    abomination of a drink, you can still purchase Postum on Amazon.

    21st century America has not banned coffee, thank the Coffee Pope, but we do have prohibition of drugs. The arguments for caffeine prohibition of the past are the same arguments used to prohibit drugs today: “The money flows out of the country;” “ It makes God angry when you use an intoxicant;” “Undesirables use it and listen to music I find offensive;” “ It causes crime and dissent among the masses;” “Drugs have no legitimate medical use.” These arguments are as hollow now as they were 500 years ago and the banners are as big of hypocrites as ever. Three out of our four past presidents are known to have used drugs and yet happily continued the war on drugs. The true reason for drug prohibition is power and that is one hell of a drug. Currently in the 103rd year of drug prohibition, America has been slow to reverse course, but public opinion is changing and that is what ultimately lead to the reversal of coffee prohibition in Mecca, Sweden, and Prussia. So the next time you’re in the breakroom having a cup of coffee with a coworker, share what you have learned about the tyrants that banned the drink they are enjoying. Maybe you’ll help turn the tide of public opinion.

  • The (Small-l) Libertarian Case For a Non-Libertarian President

    What is libertarianism’s best strategy to gain a legitimate amount of power nationally (and then happily cede it to the people)?  Libertarians of the small-l and big-L varieties have sought to gain power by either co-opting one of the major political parties (See; Ron Paul Revolution that the GOP squashed) or by finding candidates to run as a Libertarian that appeal to establishment voters (see: Aleppo).  But I believe there is a third, and overlooked, option: get a candidate who does some libertarian things that irritate the major parties and the deep state apparatus, and allow those actions to result in political hysterics from ultra-partisans while average Americans see no net loss from the actions and in many cases a serious net gain.  I believe this will continue to set in motion a series of events where the government can be shrunk to a level that’s at least tolerable to minarchists and other run-of-the-mill libertarians.

    How libertarian is President Donald Trump?

    The answer is: not very. I think that’s been established.  The man swam in a pool of cronyism sharks his entire professional life. He, through desire or necessity, has been a rent-seeker. He has used eminent domain to further his projects. He has sought special treatment from political entities both domestic and foreign to further his interests.  The man is no altruist. But does that make him distasteful, or does it make the system in which he operated distasteful?  Personally, I will rarely fault someone for utilizing the same processes his competition would use, so long as it does not originate from a position of government authority.  And Trump never held office before his inauguration.  In other words, he never utilized political office for financial gain by, say, orchestrating government access to foreign actors that overwhelmingly donated to your personal foundation or for trade groups and banks that hired your unqualified husband to give speeches at ridiculously over-inflated fees.  In other words, I don’t hate the player, I hate the game.

    And yes,  Trump is allowing Jeff Sessions to wage the drug war, which is a sticking point to a lot of libertarian minds. But I ask you, is it better to wage a drug war and uphold the concepts of equal protection and the rule of law (while allowing Congress to do their job and vote to legalize drugs the right way)? Or is it better to arbitrarily enforce duly enacted laws based on the geography of a person and/or their willingness to bend a knee to the state and support legalization with a ton of unlibertarian strings attached?

    The sadder these people are, the happier I get.

    Some policy positives already achieved and in the works:

    So now we come to Donald Trump’s libertarianism or lack thereof.  The man, no doubt, will continue some of our military adventurism overseas.  But he has already stopped our policy of running guns to terrorists and terrorist-sympathizers in Libya and Syria after the previous admin established those programs and destabilized an entire region, while thoroughly destroying the likelihood that a rogue regime would abandon its weapons programs and try to re-enter the international community (read: we came, we saw, he died). There has been no resurrection of the programs nthe last two administrations ran to ship guns into Mexico through the drug cartels, for different motives yet still in gross violation of Mexican sovereignty.  And perhaps he will continue to not carry out targeted assassinations of American citizens that have never been charged with a crime, which the prior admin was all too happy to do in gross violation of the Fourth Amendment.  Furthermore, he has already started to roll back our country’s association with liberty-robbing agreements like the Paris Climate Accord and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Both of those agreements undercut the ability for American companies and consumers to freely negotiate what they were willing to exchange goods and services for. Removing our name from them is a step in the right direction, especially if it’s followed up with free trade agreements that haven’t existed in a century or more. That action is yet to be seen, but at least someone had the audacity to upset the globalist apple cart and stop a little bit of the insanity those agreements put us further along the path to.

    Get us out of this circus, please!

    As for civil liberties, Trump is still an unknown quantity.  His statement about “roughing up” suspects is problematic to say the least. And I can only hope it was hollow bluster. But even so, it sets a very poor example and he should correct it immediately.  Now, having said that, he has not furthered Obama’s policy of killing Americans without due process, but that’s not going to be enough.  His willingness to stop going after businesses that exercise what should be a fundamental right to free association looks good so far. As do his overtures to Second Amendment causes. As does his willingness to tackle Affirmative Action and Title IX insanity.  Holy crap, I just realized he’s been the best president on civil liberties we’ve had in recent memory. People that overlook the substance of these actions due to his boorishness need to reassess what their priorities are, in my opinion.

    Furthermore, our business climate has benefited greatly from having an outsider installed as the head of the regulatory apparatus.  Trump has already vowed, and started to carry out, a dismantling of the bureaucracies that stifle economic growth and freedom for Americans.  From the onerous EPA regulations to CAFE standards being rolled back or passed to the states, there has been a serious uptick in confidence from the business and manufacturing sectors that Trump will get the government out of the way of prosperity.  The hilarious irony there is that Trump was a crony his entire life, as I mentioned earlier.  But perhaps he had no choice but to play the game the only way that could lead to success: do what the government tells you and push others out.  Now, when given the reins, he seems to be more than willing to eliminate programs that he personally benefited from but that create barriers to entry for others.  Yes, he could have opposed the system while benefiting from it. But let’s not pretend he’s some awful hypocrite because he played the hand he was dealt. Business “leaders” like Elon Musk, Mark Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, etc, etc, etc have done the same thing and so did their forefathers like Ford, Carnegie, Mellon, and others on back through the ages as long as there was a government agent with a hand in their pocket.  So I’m willing to forgive that.

    Be happy for this.

    And lastly, he put what appears to be a strict constructionist on the Supreme Court in Neil Gorsuch.  That is a marked improvement on any names mentioned by establishment candidates on either side of the aisle during the last campaign.

    The other intangible positive results of a Trump presidency:

    Another thing libertarians have always sought is a diminished reverence for elected officials and other “public servants” whose goals are often at odds with those of the people.  Trump’s mere presence has caused probably 2/3 of the political spectrum to demand the reverence for the office be scaled back.  They are now calling for more power in the hands of the states or localities and even ::gasp:: the people, on occasion.  These are people that have been statists to the core. They are the Big Government democrats and NeoCon statist Republicans.  And they are finally unified in an effort to diminish the role of the Executive Branch.  This serves to re-establish the separation of powers that has become all-too-muddy with much of the congressional responsibilities being passed to Executive Branch agencies in an attempt to deflect responsibility and ensure easy reelection for entrenched politicians.  The more responsibility that is pushed back into the laps of our directly elected officials and down to the state or local level, the better for us.  It helps us create a more diverse political environment where “laboratories of democracy” are able to compete for ideas and human investment, rather than an all-powerful centralized state controlling everything. And one need look no further than minimum wage laws (since we have them, I’ll address it) to realize a top-down approach where the minimum wage “needed” in New York is imposed on small towns in New Mexico or Wyoming, where the cost of living doesn’t even come close, is a horrific idea.  The Trump era is returning us to an ideal the founders embraced in that respect.

    And he is returning us to another ideal the founders cherished: temporary service from business-people and non-careerist politicians.  The flood of people on Trump’s coattails from all sides of the political spectrum is refreshing. Sure, many are moneyed and or celebrity candidacies. But so what?  Its a step in the right direction any time we start to end political dynasties and careerists that sit in the Senate for 30 years as they grow further and further out of touch from average Americans.  More turnover from political novices has a much better potential upside of shrinking our government than does further entrenching those who have pushed us to near financial ruin and reduced individual liberty.

    Pucker up!

    The net result so far (in my opinion):

    So let us all embrace the non-libertarian president. For one of these reasons or for another I might have missed. But embrace it nonetheless, because it has already borne libertarian fruit, and I suspect it will continue to do so for many of the right and some of the wrong reasons. Its the best we could have hoped for and probably the most libertarian moment in America for a hundred years.