Letitia,
Just getting around to responding to this. I also posted my commentary on IndependentPoliticalReport.com, which seems to be the main national Libertarian Party conversation forum right now, and some people also took issue with some of my designations.
Here's what I wrote in the comments there (http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2011/10/occupy-movement-shows-significant-pro-freedom-leanings/ ) in response to the issue:
In response to this and other comments about my designation of various terms as pro-freedom (+) or anti-freedom (-), I agree it’s not an exact science, and many of you have valid points. To clarify, my choices were based on what I thought was the most *likely* political sentiments of the folks using those terms. Yes, “equality” *could* reflect a libertarian agenda, just as “true freedom” *could* reflect a leftist agenda, but given the more frequent political associations of these terms, and the fact that respondents probably wanted to communicate their senses of what Occupy is about *in terms that would be accurately understood by others*, I don’t think those are the most likely interpretations in either case. I actually think “Social Security” was one of the more ambiguous ones, because the term *could* have originated with a young person concerned about the unsustainable nature of the program and wanting alternatives — but I think it more likely came from a statist-oriented person who wants the program shored up.
Some further thoughts below...
I'd like to ask the group to think about and discuss the following terms designated by Starchild as negative (-):
• Tax the rich
• inequality
• redistribution of wealth
or neutral:
• justice
• organic food
and about the protestors' failure to list anything related to:
• campaign contributions = bribes
• political corruption
• co-option of political process by wealth
• GMO crops (which I see as separate but related to "organic foods")
Wealth is needed to co-opt the political process. As long as we live in large groups, there will be politics. If we want to have individual freedoms, we need to fend off politic efforts to pass laws that take away individual freedoms.
There are many very poor countries in the world that also have very anti-freedom climates, so I don't think we can blame laws taking away individual freedoms on wealth.
If we don't tax the rich, they have money to co-opt the political process (via advertising, paying people to write and promote deceptive initiatives, and campaign contributions and less legal bribes) to get laws passed that benefit them, which means they get wealthier, which means they can co-opt more laws, etc. -- a vicious circle. The creation of monopolies and oligapolies is evidence of this effect.
But of course there are also rich people who are using their money to *oppose* bad laws, and promote libertarian ideas. I don't favor stealing from some people just because others who happen to share some characteristic with them are using their resources toward bad ends.
If we do tax the rich to prevent a few people from passing laws that take away the masses' freedoms -- not for the purpose of redistribution of wealth -- what do we do with the taxes? Well, if we redistribute the taxes to people with less money -- and therefore less power -- isn't this also a means of reducing the power of a few wealthier folks to pass laws that take away the masses' freedoms?
If the goal is to "prevent a few people from passing laws that take away the masses' freedoms" -- and I agree with you that this is a good goal -- taxing the rich seems like a poor way to achieve that, because taxing people just gives politicians more money and power. I'd rather seek to reduce the politicians' power directly, so that they are more constrained in what kind of laws they can pass.
In any case, "we" won't be the ones doing the taxing. It will be government, and I don't trust them.
I don't think "justice" is neutral, because one definition of justice is the equal application of laws to people regardless of factors such as wealth (and therefore justice is related to the ability to retain effect legal counsel, which IS related to wealth). For people to have freedom, they need justice, and justice is related to wealth . . .
Organic foods and GMO crops are related to the big picture. Wealth allows corporations to control politics, which lets them get laws passed that allows them to take control over plants as food and as medicine.
I think it is the present approach to government that allows corporations to influence politics. If government officials had fewer favors to hand out, less ability to regulate and interfere with the economy, etc., there would be relatively little money in politics, because there would be little incentive for special interests to give it to them, since they wouldn't be able to get any business advantage in return for the contributions the way they do now.
As long as governments have significant power to affect the financial fortunes of corporations, unions, and other special interests, money will keep flowing from those entities to governments, and criminalizing these flows of money, or trying to have governments take the money away from the special interests via taxation, before the special interests have the opportunity to give it to them voluntarily, won't stop the influence of money on government, only drive it underground. I think the only way to achieve anything close to stopping it is to take away government power.
If you control food and medicine, you control the whole human population. If you control people in that way, they no longer have real freedom. That is why the issue of control of the amassment of wealth cannot be ignored or treated as negative if personal freedom is important; if you want as much individual freedom as possible, you can't afford to take a hands-off approach to the amassment of wealth.
But if you control human wealth, you also control the whole human population, and they no longer have real freedom.
This stuff makes my head hurt, but I'm beginning to think we DO need to outlaw corporate personhood -- which was one of the big-type issues.
It is a complex issue, but I tend to agree with you about outlawing corporate personhood. I would like to see more conversation happen in the media and public discourse around what the legal status of corporations is, and what it ought to be.
I think in terms of human evolution, the corporation is one of those leads-to-a-dead-end paths that we need to abandon before we end up as dead as one of those evolutionary experiments like racks of antlers so big that they kept a species from being able to compete on the level of more important survival stuff. That book that was subtitled, "The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism," pretty much made it clear why the untrammeled profit motive leads to "bad" results.
Not to channel Herman Cain (watch the most recent GOP debate, if you haven't, the fur really flies!), but that's getting into apples and oranges. The "untrammeled profit motive" seems to be as human as the "untrammeled love motive" or the "untrammeled curiosity motive". Getting rid of corporations would not get rid of it.
Of course *any* motive not properly balanced by other considerations is dangerous. If you love someone so much, or are so curious about something, that you'd be willing to kill an innocent person to satisfy your desires, that's just as bad as wanting to profit so badly that you'd be willing to kill an innocent person.
Corporations are related to organic food and GMO crops and medicines - why there's pressure to redefine word "organic" to include GMO crops, and why there's a plot to "legalize," i.e., for Big Government and Big Biotech, Big Ag and Big Pharma to tax,regulate and control, cannabis, and to turn it into a monoculture, GMO crop so Big Biotech and Big Pharma can sell it to the masses and make even more money to be used to turn this into a One World Now place where people will have far fewer personal freedoms. (As an aside: and now a political message: in the interests of increased personal freedom and the reduction of wealth amassment by a few, please vote for Repeal Cannabis Prohibition 2012, and NOT for Regulate Marijuana Like Wine.)
What do you say to David's argument that the Repeal Cannabis Prohibition 2012 initiative would leave the door open to politicians to impose regulations on cannabis that are *more* restrictive than those imposed on wine? He wrote:
there's nothing in the repeal initiative to stop politicians from setting up regulations more monopolistic and less generous than the wine model, in fact it's part of the mandate of the RCP Act:
11423(a). The California Department of Public Health shall oversee the regulatory system for the commercial cultivation, manufacturing, processing, testing, transportation, distribution, and sales of cannabis. This shall include promulgation of regulations to control, license, permit, or otherwise authorize the commercial cultivation, manufacturing, processing, testing, transportation, distribution and sales of cannabis. These regulations shall include appropriate controls on the licensed premises for commercial cultivation, sales and on-premises consumption of cannabis including limits on zoning and land use, locations, size, hours of operation, occupancy, protection of adjoining and nearby properties, and other environmental and public health controls. These regulations may not include bans of the conduct permitted by this Act.
http://www.patientsforfulllegalization.org/news/2011/8/22/breaking-new-full-legalization-proposition-filed-in-ca-for-2.html
If you think politicians won't set up such a monopolistic model, you're sadly mistaken. Oakland and Los Angeles got their monopolistic models through politicians, and those same politicians will be waiting in the wings to set up the new regulations that the Repeal team were too timid to attempt to set up themselves.
That seems to me like a very reasonable argument. Like you, I would prefer to see no government taxes or regulations on pot whatsoever. But given the current political climate, I think I'd rather have a measure that ties marijuana regulation to wine regulation, than one that would let politicians impose regulations even more onerous than those governing wine, because given how they've treated marijuana to date, I have no doubt that is what they would try to do if given a chance.
On a related note, does everyone know what Codex Alimentarius is? It's directly related to loss of individual freedom at the hands of Big Ag, Big Biotech, Big Pharma and Big Government.
There's still time to stop this.
No, what is Codex Alimentarius?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))