Libertarianism

How Many Pages does it Take to Choke a Country?

This entry was posted in Capitalism Democracy Law Libertarianism Regulation on by

I’m afraid we will find out before it gets better. From the Washington Post 2002 Federal Register Is Longest Ever:

The Bush administration, philosophically wedded to the idea of smaller government, issued a record-high number of pages of new federal regulations last year, according to a study to be released today by the Cato Institute.
…Federal Register boasted 75,606 pages of federal regulations in 2002, up from a high of 74,528 pages in 2000, when President Bill Clinton was still in office.

On the other hand:

A total of 4,187 rules were in the federal pipeline in 2002, down from 4,509 rules the previous year and from a 10-year peak of 5,119 in 1994,…..

For a full analysis see the 2003 Cato Institute report: Ten Thousand Commandments, An Annual Report of the Federal Regulatory State.
Via Bespacific.

Corporate Rights

This entry was posted in Capitalism Democracy Economics Libertarianism on by

Emma at Late Night Thoughts joins Dave Pollard and Thom Hartman, author of Unequal Protection, in taking on corporate personhood. A thorough fisking of these folks arguments would find some individual points to argue but I think the essence of what they are saying holds true:

our elected and appointed legislative, executive and judicial ‘public servants’ have enacted, approved and upheld laws that imbue corporations with rights that should belong only to natural persons*

Read Emma’s post and then the Pollard/Hartman material and give it some thought.

Emma observes that:

The screams you hear from the corner are coming from those conservatives that want to protect “capitalism” and “free markets”.

I can’t think of reasons why folks who truly support capitalism and free markets would disagree with the essence (see above) of this discussion. Capitalism does not thrive in an environment wrapped in special protections, subsidies, etc. Most likely those screaming are more of the statist variety and come from both the right and the left.

Thanks to Jeanne at Body and Soul for the pointer.
*orginal text read

our elected representatives have approved laws that imbue corporations with rights that should belong only to natural persons

Kerry, Edwards, Bush: who is a libertarian

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The democratic candidates are challenging Bush’s economic position from a variety of stances but at least one of them might do better to get some more education before continuing. It is clear that, as both David and Brian at Catalarchy imply, Kerry doesn’t understand Libertarianism and doesn’t understand Bush’s politics or economics:

Kerry also took questions from the audience; the last came from a glamorous young woman wearing a low-cut white dress who wanted to know how he felt about the charge

Balko slides ‘Left’

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Bush supporting libertarians should head right over to read this post from Radly Balko.

The only reasons this administration has given libertarians to support it come in the form of what it promises to do next term.

(I think everyone has a pretty clear understanding of Bush’s record regarding commitments to future actions that are not related to a pretty narrow constituency)

If you are primarily a left blogger Balko may not be on your regular reading list but this is one post that you should go read as many of his points will help in your discussions with right bloggers – at least the ones who are not lockstepped with Ashcroft, et al.

I don’t think Balko is actually sliding leftward as much as realizing that his views are generally orthogonal to both the republicans and the democrats and he comes close to realizing this when he says:

But my point is not that the Democrat Party is an acceptable alternative. My point is simply that Republicans aren’t acceptable anymore.

I’m pretty sure the republicans have never been acceptable to true libertarians and I have never understood libertarians supporting Bush policies which seem overwhelmingly to lead away from libertarian principles. Hopefully this is an indicator of a growing schism in the Bush ranks.