Category Archives: Democrats

Net Neutrality… Obama… Cruz… How About Oliver?

Cronyism, Democrats, Doublespeak, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Economics, Free Speech, Government Regulation, Intellectual Property Rights, Legal, Monopolies, Net Neutrality, Politics, Republicans, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, Technology

Today, Barack Obama(D) has announced that he will pretend to support net neutrality:

 

 

In response, Ted Cruz (RPDGC*), has announced that Net Neutrality is the work of the devil:

 

 

The idea that either Democrats OR Republicans actually support net neutrality is a joke.

The Democrats have (and still do) very strongly supported big media and big communications, who are largely anti neutrality. it’s only when net neutrality obviously became a big issue among young liberals (who were largely unmotivated to turn out this midterm election) that they have pretended to support it.

The Dems could have made it a campaign issue, except then they wouldn’t have had the huge media and communications industry money for the elections, that they needed to avoid getting spanked even worse than they did.

If Obama had actually supported net neutrality, he wouldn’t have appointed an anti neutrality industry stooge as FCC chair… but again, if he did that, the Dems would have lost that sweet sweet big media money.

On the other hand, the Republicans are largely anti “big media” and anti “big communications”, and only became anti-neutrality when the Democrats decided to take it as an issue.

What is Net Neutrality?

Frankly, any libertarian should support net neutrality as a principle (government regulation is another matter).

Net neutrality as a principle, is simple. All legitimate traffic should be treated equally, no matter the source or destination. No internet service provider should filter, censor, or slow down traffic from their competitors, their critics, or because of politics or national origin; or for any reason other than technical requirements for safe, efficient, and reliable network operation.

It’s how the internet has always been run, up until recently, without any government action necessary. There’s a famous quote: “The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it”. Any internet service provider that censored, filtered, or slowed down traffic from anyone (for anything other than technical reasons) was routed around, and cut out of the net, by its peers. It was a great example of independent action and peer enforcement working in the marketplace.

Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.

Why is it an issue now?

Large media and communications companies like Comcast and Verizon have been deliberately and artificially blocking or slowing down traffic to and from their critics and competitors.

Of course, getting government involved does generally make things worse. In fact, it already did in this case, since the government has been involved from the beginning, and it was largely government action that created the current problem.

In a rational and unbiased competitive environment, consumers would have a reasonable choice of internet service providers, and any ISP that chose to censor or limit access, would lose customers, and either correct themselves or go out of business.

Unfortunately, we don’t have anything like a free and competitive market in internet access. Government regulation and favoritism has created huge monopolies (or at best duopolies, and no, wireless access is not realistic and reasonable competition given the distorted market and cost structures there either) in internet access.

We’ve reached a point where the telecommunications monopolies that government created and support, are in fact deliberately applying anticompetitive, unfair (and in some cases already unlawful) restraint against their critics and competitors.

Since they are government supported monopolies, the market is not allowed to correct the undesirable private action.

This means that, unfortunately, government action IS required… and even if it were not required, it’s inevitable, because politics is politics, and this is now an “Issue”.

So what do we do about the problem?

Please note, I don’t trust either Democrats OR Republicans on the issue in general, and I don’t trust either, or the FCC to regulate neutrality at all. Cruz does have at least one valid concern, in that the history of government regulation of almost every industry, but particularly technology, is mainly a long record of suppressing innovation and other negative unintended consequences.

The ideal solution is to end the government created internet access monopolies that most Americans live under, and allow free and open market competition to correct the problem.

Without government limitations on competition in actual high speed, high quality internet access; competition will increase, prices will fall, and any provider that filters or slows legitimate traffic will lose all their customers and go out of business.

This isn’t just a prediction or libertarian idealism talking by the way. It’s been proved out in Korea, Japan… even in the UK. Everywhere that internet access competition has been allowed to flourish, everything has improved (conversely, in the U.S. where we have deliberately increased the power and scope of these monopolies, we have the worst internet access of any technologically advanced nation).

Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen.

The next best thing, is to mandate net neutrality in the least intrusive, least stupid way possible, and to react intelligently (and rapidly) to changes in technology and its uses, to avoid regulatory distortion and suppression of innovation.

Unfortunately, that isn’t likely to happen either…

That said, it’s remotely possible for us get closer to that, quicker, than we can to disassembling the thousands of federal, state, and local regulations, which have created these monopolies, and made the barriers to entry for competition impossibly high.

Of course neither Democrats nor Republicans support or plan to do that.

The whole thing is a spiraling charlie fox of disingenuous cynical idiocy.

Personally, I say forget Obama, forget Cruz, and listen to Oliver (or if you don’t care for Oliver, or can’t watch a video, there The Oatmeal):

 

 

*Reactionary Populist Disingenuous Grandstanding Cynic… not the Republican party, just Cruz

Edited to add a few paragraphs clarifying what net neutrality was, and why it’s currently an issue

Chris Byrne
I am a cynically romantic optimistic pessimist. I am neither liberal, nor conservative. I am a (somewhat disgruntled) muscular minarchist… something like a constructive anarchist.

Basically what that means, is that I believe, all things being equal, responsible adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do, so long as nobody’s getting hurt, who isn’t paying extra

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com
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Which Party Are Libertarian Party Candidates Drawing From? You’ll Be Surprised To Know Which One It Is

Democrats, Election '14, Libertarians, Politics, Republicans, Strategies For Advancing Liberty

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Conventional wisdom holds that Libertarian Party candidates draw votes away from Republican candidates. However, some exit polling from Tuesday’s midterms shows that wisdom may not be true.

Reason‘s Brian Doherty looked at the exit polling in North Carolina and Virginia and found that it’s not necessarily true.

It isn’t common for Democrats to accuse Libertarians of “spoiling” elections for them, but a look at NBC News exit polls show that Haugh voters indeed came more from people who consider themselves “moderate” (5 percent of self-identified moderates went Haugh) and even “liberal” (4 percent of liberals voted for Haugh) than from conservatives (only 2 percent of whom voted for Haugh). Those were the only three choices for self-identification.

Only 1 percent each of self-identified Democrats or Republicans voted Haugh, while 9 percent of Independents did. (Those again were the only choices.) (Independents otherwise went 49-42 for Tillis over Hagan.)

In other exit poll results, Haugh’s portion of the vote fell pretty steadily as age groups got older—he got 9 percent of the 18-24 vote, and only 2 percent of the 50-and-over crowd.

Haugh did strongest among white women in race/gender breakdowns, with 5 percent of that crowd, and only 1 percent of black men or black woman—and no polled number of Latino men or women.

Other interesting Haugh exit poll results: His overall man/woman breakdown was the same, 4 percent of each in the exit poll. Haugh’s numbers got progressively smaller as voter income got bigger—he earned 6 percent of the under-$30K vote but only 1 percent of the over-$200K vote. Libertarians aren’t just for plutocrats.

As Doherty points out in an earlier piece, Sean Haugh, the Libertarian candidate in North Carolina, ran as a left-libertarian who was generally opposed to cutting social services. As for Robert Sarvis, the Libertarian candidate in Virginia, Doherty believes that Sarvis may have cost Ed Gillespie the Senate race. However, Sarvis e-mailed Doherty and says otherwise:

One can’t assume the 3 percent Rs would be voting [Gillespie] in my absence—it’s quite likely these R voters would have joined the 7 percent of Rs voting for Warner. Polls throughout the race showed Warner enjoying double-digit support among Rs, and a fair number of Rs told us they can’t stomach voting for [Gillespie]. A lot of business-type Republicans consider Warner acceptable, so probably many Rs who really disliked [Gillespie] voted for me because I was preferable to Warner, but would otherwise have voted Warner not Gillespie. So those R Sarvis voters were “taken” from Warner not Gillespie.

Similar thing happened last year, with pretty high certainty. A poll in September showed that *among Sarvis supporters*, 60+ percent had a favorable opinion of Gov. McDonnell, but 70+ percent had an UN-favorable view of Cuccinelli. So I was a vessel for moderate, R-leaning, anti-Cuccinelli voters who preferred voting for me to voting for MacAuliffe, i.e., I “took” moderate R votes from MacAuliffe.

Moreover, my share of the Independent vote clearly skewed younger, so from voters not inclined to vote D than R.

I agree with Sarvis’s analysis of his own voters, that they’re moderate and left-leaning. Sean Davis at The Federalist analyzed the 2013 Virginia Governor’s race that Sarvis brought up in his e-mail to Doherty and found that Sarvis may have actually helped Democrats in that race. As Ben Dominich, also at The Federalist points out, Sarvis ran on some progressive-leaning positions on economics in the 2013 race. I’m sure Sarvis simply held on to some of these 2013 voters.

Back to the 2014 race, Davis tweeted this about Sarvis and Virginia:

This is the culmination of a progressive shift within the libertarian movement that is gaining traction, particularly within the Libertarian Party. Many so-called “second wave libertarians” and “millennial libertarians” are trying to merge progressivism and libertarianism to form a left-libertarian fusion of sorts. Also, most conservative-leaning libertarians and “conservatarians” (who are still the vast majority in the liberty movement) have already rejoined or never left the Republican Party.

So the party that needs to worry about the Libertarian Party, most of the time, are the Democrats, especially as the LP continues to shift towards the left.

Kevin Boyd
I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.
https://thelibertypapers.org/2005/11/22/a-bit-about-kevin/
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What Does Last Night’s Big Win For The GOP Mean?

Democracy, Democrats, Election '14, Elections, Independents, Libertarians, Politics, Republicans

ballot-box

The GOP gave Democrats a major ass-whipping across the country. As for writing, the GOP took the majority in the U.S. Senate and gained 7 seats, with a likely gain in Alaska and Louisiana going to a December runoff where the GOP is favored. The GOP also won 14 seats in the House as of writing to expand their majority there. Finally, where the GOP made unexpected gains was in the governor’s races where instead of losing governorships as expected, they gained 3.

Here’s what I think this big night means to the GOP.

1) A Clear Repudiation Of Barack Obama

The American people gave their verdict on President Obama and “hope and change” and they were not pleased. All Republicans had to do was play it safe and make “Obama sucks” their whole message and it worked. It was not only enough to drag good candidates such as Cory Gardner who defeated Mark Uterus, I mean, Udall in Colorado after Mark Uterus ran probably one of the most offensive reelection campaigns in memory. However, the real test of a wave is if it’s good enough to drag mediocre candidates across the finish line and it was. The mediocre Thom Tillis was dragged over the finish line as he defeated Kay Hagan in North Carolina.

2) The Governor’s Races Were The Surprises

Raise your hand if you had Republicans winning the governorship of Maryland and by almost ten points? That’s what happened last night when Larry Hogan defeated Anthony Brown in a stunning upset. Also, while this isn’t as big of an upset, Bruce Rauner defeated Pat Quinn, who is one of the worst governors in the country, in Illinois. Republicans also won in Massachussetts. Paul LePage survived in Maine, while Rick Scott won the battle of the scumbags in Florida. Sam Brownback also survived his reelection challenge in Kansas. Scott Walker won again in Wisconsin. Also, Wendy Davis was crushed in her bid to become governor of Texas.

3) The Initiatives Were A Mixed Bag For Liberty

Let’s get the bad news out of the way. Washington State approved mandatory background checks for all gun purchases. Maui approved mandatory GMO labeling. Florida rejected medical marijuana. Nebraska, South Dakota, and Arkansas voted to increase their state’s minimum wage to above the Federal level. Arkansas also rejected legalizing alcohol sales throughout the entire state. New Jersey expanded pretrail detention for criminal suspects and North Carolina weakened the right to trial by jury by allowing summary judgement. North Dakota rejected an initiative that eliminated the requirement the majority ownership stake in a pharmacy be owned by a pharmacist, which protects cronyism.

There were however some good news for liberty on the initiative front. Oregon and Washington D.C. legalized marijuana and Alaska is likely to do the same once the votes are certified. Tennessee banned their state government from imposing a state income tax. North Dakota banned the state from imposing taxes on the sale of real estate. Oregon defeated the “Top 2” primary system, so party affiliation still means something in that state. Massachussetts repealed a law that indexed gas taxes to inflation. Colorado defeated mandatory GMO labeling. Georgia passed an income tax rate cap which states that income tax rates cannot be raised past the current top rate. Colorado also passed a requirement that school board meetings having to do with collective bargaining must be open to the public. Finally, Alabama passed protections on the right to keep and bear arms.

4) Third Parties Are Still Not Here Yet

Last night was more disappointment for third party candidates. In most races, they failed to top 5%, if that. Unless the system changes, that won’t likely change. The two major parties act as coalitions and fufill the role that coalition governments play in other countries.

5) Now Is A Major Opportunity For The GOP

You can argue the GOP played it too safe this year. A more bold candidate than Ed Gillespie would’ve likely won in Virginia. Perhaps the GOP should’ve spent additional resources in New England.

Here’s what the GOP needs to do, they need start giving the American people reasons to vote for them in 2016. Start passing and forcing Obama to veto no-brainer bills on tax reform, spending cuts, healthcare reform, crony capitalism repeal, ending Common Core, etc. Also, the GOP must restrain the Ted Cruz types from picking unnecessary fights for publicity. They cannot let the Tea Party dominate messaging. Finally, Republicans must step up outreach towards minorities and young people, starting now.

All in all, I don’t expect much change to result from last night. After all, Barack Obama is still President. Republicans, if they’re smart, can start laying the groundwork for victory in 2016 though.

Kevin Boyd
I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.
https://thelibertypapers.org/2005/11/22/a-bit-about-kevin/
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Take A Stand! Don’t Vote At All!

Activism, Democrats, Election '14, Elections, Libertarians, Liberty, Point/Counterpoint, Politics, Republicans, Theory and Ideas

Today, my illustrious co-contributors have been making the case to you to vote. Sarah wants you to vote Libertarian, Matthew wants you to vote Republican, and Kevin doesn’t want you to vote Democrat, but drew the short straw and we made him argue it anyway.

Now I’m going to tell you why none of their arguments should make you vote for their parties.
Don't Vote!
First and foremost, the Democrats. Some might argue that if you vote Republican, you get big government AND social conservatism, but if you vote Democrat, you get big government and social liberalism. Frankly, it’s a lie. Democrats talk a good game about civil liberties, about ending the drug war, about being pro-choice, reining in the military-industrial complex, and ending foreign adventurism. Yet they change their tune as soon as they’re in power. Remember all those Bush-era domestic spying programs that Obama put a stop to? No, me neither. Remember when Obama closed Gitmo? No, me neither. Remember when Obama forced Congress to give him a declaration of War before bombing people? No, me neither. And it’s been his fellow Democrats defending his [in-]actions. Voting Democrat will never be beneficial to liberty.

As for the Republicans, one can make a very similar argument. Because if you vote Republican, you really do get big government and social conservatism. They talk a good game about small government and fiscal responsibility, but remember who was in office when TARP happened? Hint — it wasn’t Obama. Medicare Part D? No Child Left Behind? Yeah, not small government. Some might say the Republicans are the lesser of two evils, and that libertarians are more naturally allied with Republicans with Democrats, so you might as well pick them as your poison. There’s just one problem with allies when it comes to government: the alliance is forgotten the day after the election. Fusionism between libertarians and Republicans just isn’t going to work.

No, the reason not to vote Democrat or Republican is it truly has gotten very difficult to determine which of them is the lesser evil. And in our system of direct representation, does it really make sense to vote for someone who doesn’t represent you?

That leaves the argument that we should vote our conscience, and vote Libertarian. I’ll admit, of all three arguments, this is the one I’m most sympathetic to. After all, I would actually want to see Libertarians elected. I would trust a Libertarian candidate to represent my beliefs in Washington. And there’s one more argument for voting Libertarian, which Sarah overlooked: Since Libertarians never win, we don’t have to worry about being hypocrites when they then go to Washington and violate their campaign promises!

So why should you stay home? Why not “vote your conscience” and pull the lever for the Libertarian?

Because any vote, even one for the Libertarian, is an affirmation of the system.

But let’s face it. The system doesn’t work. And the reason it doesn’t work is that the system is rigged. The direct representation system with first-past-the-post voting is only stable with two parties. The two parties then exist to move as close to the center as possible and ensure that they don’t alienate voters. Parties don’t exist to cater to minority views.

But we’re libertarians. We’re not centrists. We are a minority view. Some suggest that we’re 15% of the electorate. But the other side of that 15% is 85%. We can NEVER expect the mainstream parties to represent our interests, no matter who we vote for, because the money is in the center, not at the edges.

The alternative is a parliamentary-style proportional representation system. If we truly are 15% of the electorate, we would be able to gain a sizable chunk of the legislative body and we would force the Republicans and Democrats to work with us to govern. In today’s system, they only work with us until the campaign ends.

No, you shouldn’t vote. Validating the system of direct representation with your vote is a losing strategy. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be active. I’m not saying you can’t make an impact. If I believed that, I wouldn’t be blogging. What I’m saying is that if you want to make a difference, focus everywhere except the ballot box. You actually have some likelihood of doing good that way.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/
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Yes, There Are Reasons Why Libertarians Should Vote Democratic

Democrats, Election '14, Point/Counterpoint, Politics, Strategies For Advancing Liberty

vote-democratic-button-94172

It’s no secret that there are very few issues that Democrats and libertarians can align on. The modern Democratic party is awful once they have a position of power. The Democratic party is reflexively hostile to free enterprise, embraces crony capitalism, has a strong nanny state component, is awful on civil liberties, have proven themselves to be even worse on foreign policy than neocons, and have contributed the current state of affairs which has created a Federal government that is highly dysfunctional. If you’re looking for a policy alignment between Democrats and libertarians, you won’t find it outside of very few social issues.

Having said all that, there are still some reasons why libertarians should consider voting Democrat, although I won’t be taking my own advice.

The Republicans are running on nothing:

What are the Republicans running on this year? Where is this year’s Contract With America?  The GOP released something last month called the Principles for American Renewal, which are essentially talking points. The only concrete pledge the GOP is making is to try and pass a balanced budget amendment. Why should a party running on nothing but “Obama sucks” be rewarded with control of the Senate?

The GOP Contains The Most Useless Politician In America:

The Republican Party is home to the most useless politician in America. That man is none other than Senator Ted Cruz. A vote for the Republican Party is a vote for Ted Cruz and to allow him to increase his power. Ted Cruz released his own set of talking points in October which reads like a reactionary manifesto. If you want to reform the Republican Party, you have to defeat Ted Cruz. The only way to defeat Ted Cruz is for him to lose power, which can only happen if the GOP loses the midterms. Just an illustration of how powerful Ted Cruz is, last year he shutdown the government in order to promote himself. As long as Cruz is in a position of influence, he can sell conservatives and Republicans on false hopes that Obamacare will be repealed, gay marriage can be stopped, and everything will go back the way they used to be. A vote for Democrats will help marginalize Ted Cruz.

If Republicans Fail, Maybe They’ll Have To Change:

Doug Mataconis wrote a good article over at Outside The Beltway about a what might happen if Republicans don’t take the Senate. Mataconis argues that it would the beginnings of a no holds barred civil between the hard-right Ted Cruz/Tea Party wing of the GOP and the establishment and more moderate conservatives. Unlike many liberty Republicans, I don’t view Ted Cruz and the Tea Party as allies because they’re pursuing a hard-right, exclusionary agenda. Perhaps this would make Republicans acknowledge the need to reach out and broaden the party’s appeal to more than just old white males.

Long story short, libertarians should vote Democratic to force the Republican Party into the 21st century and punish it for its lack of an agenda. At least with Democrats, you know what you’re getting.

Kevin Boyd
I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.
https://thelibertypapers.org/2005/11/22/a-bit-about-kevin/
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