Voice For Liberty

Tag: Liberty

  • Haze surrounds Wichita smoking ban

    Remarks delivered to Wichita City Council, May 6, 2008. Listen here.

    Smoking ban supporters claim that they have the right to go to bowling alleys, bars, and other such places without having to breath secondhand smoke. That’s false. No one has the right to be on someone else’s property on their own terms. The property owner controls those terms. If the bar owner lets the band play too loud (or maybe not loud enough), or the restaurant is too dimly lit, or the floor of the steakhouse covered with discarded peanut shells, do we want to regulate these things too?

    Some have compared a smoking section in a restaurant to a urinating section in a swimming pool. This comparison is ridiculous. You can’t tell upon entering a swimming pool if someone peed in it. You can tell, however, upon entering a bar or restaurant if there is smoking going on.

    Some make the argument that since we regulate businesses for health reasons already, why not regulate smoking? Without agreeing with the need for these regulations, the answer is this: First, these government regulations don’t necessarily accomplish their goal. People still become ill from food, for example. But there is some merit here. Just by entering a restaurant and inspecting the dining room and the menu, you can’t tell if the food is being stored at the proper temperature in the restaurant’s refrigerators. But you can easily tell if there’s smoking going on.

    A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property. Markets -– that is, people freely making decisions for themselves -– will let property owners know whether they want smoking or clean air.

    The problem with a smoking ban written into law rather than reliance on markets is that everyone has to live by the same rules. Living by the same rules is good when the purpose is to keep people and their property safe from harm. That’s why we have laws against theft and murder. But it’s different when we pass laws intended to keep people safe from harms that they themselves can easily avoid, just by staying out of those places where people are smoking. For the people who value being in the smoky place more than they dislike the negative effects of the smoke, they can make that decision.

    This is not a middle-ground position, as there really isn’t a middle ground here. Instead, this is a position that respects the individual. It lets each person have what they individually prefer, rather than having a majority — no matter how lop-sided — make the same decision for everyone. Especially when that decision, as someone said, will “tick off everybody.” Who benefits from a law that does that?

  • It’s not the same as pee in the swimming pool

    In a column in the February 27, 2008 Wichita Eagle (“Smoking ban issue not one to negotiate”), columnist Mark McCormick quotes Charlie Claycomb, co-chair of Tobacco Free Wichita, as equating a smoking section in a restaurant with “a urinating section in a swimming pool.”

    This is a ridiculous comparison. A person can’t tell upon entering a swimming pool if someone has urinated in it. But people can easily tell upon entering a restaurant or bar if people are smoking.

    Besides this, Mr. McCormick’s article seeks to explain how markets aren’t able to solve the smoking problem, and that there is no negotiating room, no middle ground. There must be a smoking ban, he concludes.

    As way of argument, McCormick claims, I think, that restaurants prepare food in sanitary kitchens only because of government regulation, not because of markets. We see, however, that food is still being prepared in unsanitary kitchens, and food recalls, even in meat processing plants where government inspectors are present every day, still manage to happen. So government regulation itself is not a failsafe measure.

    Markets — that is, consumers — do exert powerful forces on businesses. If a restaurant like McDonald’s serves food that makes people ill, which do you think the restaurant management fears most: a government fine, or the negative publicity? Even small local restaurants live and die by word of mouth. Those that serve poor quality food or food that makes people ill will suffer losses, not as much from government regulation as from the workings of markets.

    But I will grant that Mr. McCormick does have a small point here. Just by looking at food, you probably can’t tell if it’s going to make you ill to eat it. Someone’s probably going to need to get sick before the word gets out. But you easily can tell if someone’s smoking in the bar or restaurant you just entered. Or, if people are smoking but you can’t detect it, I would image that the danger to health from breathing secondhand smoke is either nonexistent or very small.

    The problem with a smoking ban written into law rather than reliance on markets, is that everyone has to live by the same rules. Living by the same rules is good when the purpose is to keep people and their property safe from harm, as is the case with laws against theft and murder. But it’s different when we pass laws intended to keep people safe from harms that they themselves can easily avoid, just by staying out of those places where people are smoking. For the people who value being in the smoky place more than they dislike the negative effects of the smoke, they can make that decision.

    This is not a middle-ground position. It is a position that respects the individual. It lets each person have what they individually prefer, rather than having a majority — no matter how lop-sided — make the same decision for everyone. Especially when that decision, as Mr. Claycomb stated in another Wichita Eagle article, will “tick off everybody.” Who benefits from a law that does that?

    Other articles on this topic:

    Property Rights Should Control Kansas Smoking Decisions

    Testimony Opposing Kansas Smoking Ban

  • Property rights should control Kansas smoking decisions

    A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property.

    Not everyone agrees with this simple truth. Some ask why is there no right to clean air when there is the right to smoke. The answer is that both breathing clean air and smoking are rights that people may enjoy, as they wish, on their own property. When on the property of others, you may enjoy the rights that the property owner has decided on.

    It’s not like the supposed right to breathe clean air while dining or drinking on someone else’s property is being violated surreptitiously. Most people can quickly sense upon entering a bar or restaurant whether people are smoking. If people are smoking, and patrons decide to stay, we can only conclude that they made the choice to stay. The owners of bars and restaurants do not have the power to force people to stay and breathe smoke.

    Employees may make the same decision. There are plenty of smoke-free places for people to work if they don’t want to be around smoke.

    Some think that if they leave a restaurant or bar because it is smoky, then they have lost their “right” to be in that establishment. But no one has an absolute right to be on someone else’s private property, much less to be on that property under conditions that they — instead of the property owner — dictate.

    Property rights, then, are the way to solve disputes over smoking vs. clean air in a way that respects freedom and liberty. Under property rights, bar and restaurant owners will decide to allow or prohibit smoking as they best see fit, to meet the needs of their current customers, or the customers they want to attract.

    A property rights-based system is greatly preferable to government mandate. Without property rights, decision are made for spurious reasons. For example, debate often includes statements such as “I’m a non-smoker and I think that …” or “I’m a smoker and …” These statements presuppose that the personal habits or preferences of the speaker make their argument persuasive.

    Decision-making based on personal characteristics, preferences, or group-membership happens often in politics. Lack of respect for property rights allows decisions to be made by people other than the owners of the property. In the case of a smoking ban, the decision can severely harm the value of property like bars or restaurants that caters to smokers. This matters little to smoking ban supporters, but as we have seen, they have little respect for private property.

    By respecting property rights, we can have both smoking and non-smoking establishments. Property owners will decide what is in their own and their customers’ interests. Both groups, smokers and nonsmokers, can have what they want. With a government mandate or majority rule, one group wins at the expense of the rights of many others.

  • Testimony opposing Kansas smoking ban

    Submitted by John Todd.

    February 13, 2008

    Senate Judiciary Committee
    Kansas Legislature
    State Capitol
    Topeka, Kansas 66612

    Subject: My testimony presented in OPPOSITION to Senate Bill No. 493 concerning crimes and punishments relating to smoking.

    Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to you in Opposition to passage of Senate Bill No. 493 concerning crimes and punishments relating to smoking, aka the Kansas smoking prohibition act.

    My name is John Todd. I am a self-employed real estate broker and land developer from Wichita. I currently serve on the Governmental Affairs Committee and the Board of Directors of Wichita Independent Business Association. I am the Wichita Area Volunteer Coordinator for Americans For Prosperity—Kansas. I have been working with the Wichita Business and Consumer Rights Coalition in an effort to stop a smoking ban ordinance currently being debated by the Wichita City Council. I appear before you today as a private citizen, speaking only for myself and not for any other group.

    I do not smoke, but does that give me, or even the majority of non-smokers in our state the right to use state law to restrict the rights and freedoms of those people who choose to smoke? A Democracy is like two wolves and a sheep deciding where to go for lunch. The lone sheep would have to agree with De Toquiville who described that situation as the “tyranny of the majority.” The pledge of allegiance describes our country as a “republic.” Our founders established a republican form of government in order to protect the individual’s rights from the tyranny of the majority.

    The sale and use of tobacco products is legal in our state. The sale of tobacco products produces tax revenue for our state, and government officials think that is positive. And, our Federal Government still subsidizes the growing of tobacco in tobacco growing states.

    The passage of Senate Bill # 493 is not needed because the smoking problem has been solving itself, for several years on the local level, without government intervention by the natural and voluntary action of our free market economic system. Over the last two to three decades, restaurants, bars, and other businesses have been “voluntarily” regulating smoking and non-smoking in their businesses all over our state without the need for government mandated regulations, and without the need for government enforcement. This move to non-smoking establishments has been consumer driven, and businesses have voluntarily responded to this demand. Some businesses owners still choose to offer smoking for their customers since their customers demand the freedom to smoke. Freedom demands choice by business owner and customer. And, Private Property Rights are best preserved when property owners are free to use their property as they see fit. State government needs to stay out of the smoking debate.

    Several cities in our state have adopted smoking ban ordinances while others have not. There are studies that show smoking bans cause economic harm to some businesses, and I have heard testimony from business owners in Wichita who have or will be impacted negatively by the passage of a proposed smoking ordinance by the City of Wichita. Like most regulations, the ordinance is complicated to the point of making it unenforceable. And, who is going to enforce the ordinance? Will additional city staff and the resultant bureaucracy be required for enforcement? What is enforcement going to cost? Will enforcement be selective or arbitrary? What economic impact will the ordinance have on business? Is the ordinance even necessary?

    The proponents of the ordinance are voicing concerns about public health and public health costs associated with smoking. Will this same group be pushing for city ordinances dealing with obesity with mandated diet and exercise? What will the penalties for failure to comply? Who will decide the standards?

    The proponents of the proposed city smoking ban ordinance appear to be the same group who want to direct the lives of other people since they know what is best for them. They have no problem supporting law that limits individual freedom of choice, and private property rights.

    Milton Friedman says, “A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that…it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

    The “voluntary” and “market-driven” solution to the so-called smoking problem has been happening automatically all over Kansas without the need for additional state law that criminalizes and punishes people who are partaking in their freedom to enjoy a legal product and activity. Senate Bill #493 looks like another regulation on the backs of business and property owners with the potential for creating an enforcement process that will be impossible to police, but at the same time create another level of expensive bureaucracy for a non-existent problem. I ask you to oppose the passage of Senate Bill #493.

    Related articles:

    It’s Not the Same as Pee In the Swimming Pool

    Property Rights Should Control Kansas Smoking Decisions

  • Why I shall caucus for Ron Paul in Kansas

    A common theme of the various candidates for the Republican Party nomination for the Presidency of the United States is Ronald Reagan. Candidates compete with each other to be the true heir of Reagan and his legacy.

    Ron Paul, however, looks back to an even earlier time in American politics when the word “conservative” had a different meaning.

    Most Republican candidates favor a muscular American foreign policy advocated by the neo-conservatives who advise our current president. This is a far cry from the foreign policy our nation once had.

    What do World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, and our presence in Kosovo have in common? These wars or police actions were all started by big-government Democrats and opposed by conservatives. I don’t think that any of the current crop of Republican candidates would agree that these wars — by any stretch of the imagination — might have been unnecessary. Instead, these men argue at debates about who supported the surge in Iraq first and strongest.

    Ron Paul’s non-interventionist foreign policy is simply the policy that our party once had. Non-interventionist does not mean isolationist. It does not mean that we cower at home and hope that no one notices us and attacks us. Instead, it means that we honestly assess threats against us, and respond to those that are real. This is why Ron Paul was in favor of the efforts in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban, but against the war in Iraq. And we now know that the case for war in Iraq was fabricated largely from falsehoods.

    With regard to economic policy, most of the current Republican candidates admire Ronald Reagan because he cut taxes. That was the easy part. The more difficult thing to do, what Reagan couldn’t accomplish, is to drastically cut spending by government. This is something Ron Paul believes in and will do.

    As in foreign affairs, Ron Paul believes in an economic policy that is non-interventionist. You may be asking “Doesn’t someone need to manage the economy?” Well, there is someone managing — or at least attempting to manage — a large part of the economy: the Federal Reserve System. It is that system, though its policy of low interest rates, that is most directly responsible for the sub-prime mortgage crises we are now facing. Hundreds of billions have been lost in market value of securities and homes, and tens of thousands of families have lost their very homes. It is now believed that this crisis is leading our country into recession, and cries for even more intervention into and management of the economy are heard across the land, even from Republican presidential candidates.

    It is economic interventionism itself that harms the economy. The Federal Reserve System, which creates money from nothing with its printing presses and open market operations, creates the inflation — with its accompanying uncertainty — that harms our economy and prosperity.

    Further, the Federal Reserve System and its policy of inflationary money and credit creation provides extra income for government to spend without having to tax. That is quite lucrative, as printing hundred dollar bills is inexpensive, and creating money in computerized ledger entries costs even less. Even worse, he who prints the money gets to spend it first, before its value is diluted by inflation.

    Among Republican candidates, only Ron Paul recognizes this. Only Ron Paul calls for an end to the Federal Reserve System and its monopoly on the creation of money out of thin air.

    Non-interventionism in foreign affairs, non-interventionism in domestic economic policy — non-interventionism is a theme with Ron Paul.

    How so? In other ways:

    Stop government intervention in private property, through the taking of property from one party and giving it to another, more politically favored party through the process of eminent domain.

    Stop government intervention into the environment. Today, it seems as if environmental policy is written by those who are enemies to capitalism — the “watermelons” — green on the outside but red in the center. Instead, Ron Paul promotes reliance on property rights and markets to solve environmental problems.

    Stop ever-increasing government interventionism into education. Ron Paul supports freedom for parents to choose where and how to educate their children. That freedom should be backed up by tax credits, so that the freedom is a real choice that parents can exercise.

    Stop government intervention in the types of drugs people may use. The unwise war on drugs has created criminal gang empires that affect us all, as we have witnessed here in Wichita recently. The government response is more law enforcement, which only makes the drug trade more profitable and increases the violence on our streets.

    These policies of non-intervention that Ron Paul believes in may seem strange and incredible to some of you. That they may, however, is only an indication of how far we have strayed from the vision of freedom and liberty that this country was founded upon.

    If you believe in freedom, if you believe in liberty, if you believe that “we the people” can solve problems without the heavy-hand of government interventionism, you should cast your ballot for Ron Paul.

  • Let property rights rule Wichita smoking decisions

    A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking, as it is with all issues. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property.

    Not everyone agrees with this simple truth. Charlie Claycomb, co-chair of the Tobacco Free Wichita coalition, asks in The Wichita Eagle why clean air is not a right when smoking is a right. The answer is that both clean air and smoking are rights that people may enjoy, as they wish, on their own property. When on the property of others, you may enjoy the rights that the property owner has decided on.

    It’s not like the supposed right to breathe clean air while dining or drinking on someone else’s property is being violated surreptitiously. Most people can quickly sense upon entering a bar or restaurant whether people are smoking. If you do not want to be around cigarette smoke, all you have to do is leave. That’s what I do. It is that simple. No government regulation is needed: just leave. If you wish, tell the manager or owner why you are leaving. That may persuade the owner of the property to make a decision in your favor.

    Employees may make the same decision. There are plenty of smoke-free places for people to work if they don’t want to be around smoke.

    Some think that if they leave a restaurant or bar because it is smoky, then they have lost their “right” to be in that establishment. But no one has an absolute right to be on someone else’s private property, much less to be on that property under conditions that they — not the property owner — dictate.

    Property rights, then, are the way to solve disputes over smoking vs. clean air in a way that respects individual freedom and liberty. Under property rights, owners will decide to allow or prohibit smoking as they best see fit, to meet the needs of their current customers, or the customers they want to attract.

    A property rights-based system is greatly preferable to government mandate. Without property rights, decisions are made for spurious reasons. For example, debate often includes statements such as “I’m a non-smoker and I think that …” or “I’m a smoker and …” These statements presuppose that the personal habits or preferences of the speaker make their argument persuasive.

    Decision-making based on personal characteristics, preferences, or group-membership happens often in politics. Wichita City Council member Jim Skelton, evidently once a smoker and opposed to smoking bans, is now receptive to bans since he quit smoking. Mr. Skelton, I ask you for this courtesy: would you please publish a list of the things you now take pleasure in, so that if you decide to quit them in the future, I shall have time to prepare myself for their banning?

    Lack of respect for property rights allows decisions to be made by people other than the owners of the property. In the case of a smoking ban, the decision can severely harm the value of property like bars or restaurants that caters to smokers. This matters little to smoking ban supporters like Wichita Vice Mayor Sharon Fearey. But we should not be surprised, as her record indicates she has little respect for private property.

    By respecting property rights, we can have smoking and non-smoking establishments. Property owners will decide what is in their own and their customers’ interests. Both groups, smokers and nonsmokers, can have what they want. With a government mandate, one group wins at the expense of the rights of many others.

  • Featured thoughts

    Government is essentially the negation of liberty. — Ludwig von Mises

    A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that … it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. — Milton Friedman

    As the coercive power of the state will alone decide who is to have what, the only power worth having will be a share in the exercise of this directing power. — F.A. Hayek

    This was all before politicians gave us the idea that the things we could not afford individually we could somehow afford collectively through the magic of government. — Thomas Sowell

  • Additional libertarian reading recommendations

    Craig Bolton writes with these additional recommendations:

    Bob’s recommendations are great. But here are several more [with my evaluation of the “level” you should be at before you tackle them and how centrally or tangentially important they are in developing an accurate understanding of libertarianism].

    At some point, if you haven’t done so long ago, you should read some of the principal “classics,” such as:

    John Locke, Second Treatise On Government [elementary and essential]

    Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise and Political Treatise [intermediate and recommended]

    Thomas Paine, Common Sense and The Rights of Man [elementary and essential]

    Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth of Nations [advanced and requires a prior knowledge of Smith’s terminology; absolutely essential at some point]

    Herbert Spencer, The Man Vs. The State [elementary and recommended]

    Then you might try:

    (1) Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. [Intermediate and recommended]

    (2) Jim Powell, The Triumph of Liberty [Elementary and essential]

    (3) Frederic Bastiat, Economic Sophisisms and Selected Essays On Political Economy [two different books] [Elementary and essential]

    (4) William O. Reichert, Partisans of Freedom [advanced but marginal]

    (5) Pierre J. Proudhon, The General Idea of the Revolution In the 19th Century [Proudhon was certifiable, but a very interesting writer] [intermediate and marginal]

    (7) Jeffrey R. Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men [Intermediate and highly recommended]

    (8) Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism [Elementary and essential]

    (9) Ludwig von Mises, Socialism [Intermediate and essential]

    (10) F.A. Hayek The Road To Serfdom [new critical edition edited by Bruce Caldwell] and Individualism And Economic Order. [Intermediate and important]

    (11) F.A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order [Intermediate to Advanced and essential]

  • A libertarian reading list

    Rothbard, Murray: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto

    An absolutely awesome book. If you are interested in liberty and how we could thrive with less or even no government, this is, in my opinion, the most important book to read. I think Lew Rockwell, who I recently had the pleasure to meet at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, says it best about this book:

    Once you are exposed to the complete picture — and For a New Liberty has been the leading means of exposure for more than a quarter of a century — you cannot forget it. It becomes the indispensable lens through which we can see events in the real world with the greatest possible clarity. … Its logical and moral consistency, together with its empirical explanatory muscle, represents a threat to any intellectual vision that sets out to use the state to refashion the world according to some pre-programmed plan. And to the same extent it impresses the reader with a hopeful vision of what might be. … He never talks down to his readers but always with clarity. Rothbard speaks for himself. … The reader will discover on his or her own that every page exudes energy and passion, that the logic of his argument is impossibly compelling, and that the intellectual fire that inspired this work burns as bright now as it did all those years ago.

    And finally, from Lew again:

    The book is still regarded as “dangerous” precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, or sociology can be read the same way again. What was once a commercial phenomenon has truly become a classical statement that I predict will be read for generations to come.

    Learn more about this book and read it at http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty.asp.

    Read, Leonard: I, Pencil

    I, Pencil is one of the most important and influential writings that explain the necessity for limited government. A simple object that we may not give much thought to, the story of the pencil illustrates the importance of markets, and the impossibility of centralized economic planning.

    From the afterword to I, Pencil by Milton Friedman:

    Leonard E. Read’s delightful story, “I, Pencil,” has become a classic, and deservedly so. I know of no other piece of literature that so succinctly, persuasively, and effectively illustrates the meaning of both Adam Smith’s invisible hand — the possibility of cooperation without coercion — and Friedrich Hayek’s emphasis on the importance of dispersed knowledge and the role of the price system in communicating information that “will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do.”

    Link to a pdf of I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/I,%20Pencil%202006.pdf

    Link to Leonard E. Read reading I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/events/detail.asp?id=6239

    Friedman, Milton: Capitalism and Freedom

    Friedman, Milton, and Friedman, Rose: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

    James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight Lee: Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity

    See my review.

    Callahan, Gene: Economics For Real People: An Introduction to the Austrian School

    Click to access econforrealpeople.pdf

    Hazlitt, Henry: Economics in One Lesson
    http://www.fee.org/library/books/economics.asp

    A very important book that has inspired several generations of thinkers. See review at http://wichitaliberty.org/economics/economics-in-one-lesson-50th-anniversary-edition.

    Boaz, David: Libertarianism: A Primer
    http://www.libertarianism.org/

    Doherty, Brian: Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement
    http://radicalsforcapitalism.com

    This huge book is more about the people and the movement rather than the principles of libertarianism.

    Murray, Charles: What It Means to be a Libertarian