Category Archives: Op-Eds

Op-Eds

“Progressives” Against (Economic) Progress

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One week it’s ride-sharing. The next week it’s home-sharing. The week after that, cryptocurrency.  There’s no end of economic change to perpetually wring one’s hands over or, worse,  demand government action against.

Most opponents of the sharing economy, the gig economy, the cryptocurrency economy, etc., posture as “progressives” even as they openly side with corporate dinosaurs and parasitic bureaucrats and  against  workers and the entrepreneurs who empower those workers.

Let’s call these self-styled “progressives” what they really are: Reactionaries.

They’re desperate to preserve a post-World War Two American economic order which they themselves admit hasn’t worked for regular Americans for decades, if it ever really did.

How often do we hear from these “progressives” about “wage stagnation” and “lack of family leave” and what “Americans who work hard and play by the rules” should get but aren’t getting?

But when a company like Uber comes along and makes it possible for people to make more per hour than those who drive for state-privileged “medallion” taxi monopolies, while setting their own hours and taking off any time they need to, our “progressive” reactionaries side with the monopolists and support legislation and litigation to force drivers back onto the wage labor plantation.

Oh, about that extra room in your house — don’t even think about renting it out by the night for extra income via Airbnb. The well-heeled hotel lobby hates that idea and their allies, the “progressive” reactionaries, want you cleaning rooms at Super 8 and waiting patiently for another decade or three for them to deliver on their “living wage” promises, not taking financial matters into your own hands. If that means you can’t afford to keep your house, too bad — they’ll slam you for contributing to “gentrification” when you sell it to someone who CAN afford it.

When it comes to reproductive rights, these supposed “progressives” are proudly “pro-choice.” But watch that support for “choice” evaporate the instant you choose money (cryptocurrency) that can’t be easily taxed to finance their schemes. They’re a lot less interested in a bigger pie for you than they are in preserving their own ability to take a slice of that pie at will.

The late William F. Buckley, Jr. defined a conservative as “someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” Sound familiar, “progressives?”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Op-Eds

Political Parties Should Say What They Mean. The Libertarian Party Does.

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The Stature of Liberty. Photo from MaxPixel's free collection.

Orlando, Florida, 2016, at the Libertarian Party’s national convention: “Jim Fulner (MI) moved that we adopt the following resolution: ‘Be it resolved, taxation is theft.’ Following debate, the resolution was adopted by a voice vote.”

Thus making a slogan much-loved by radical libertarians, and a claim implicit in the party’s Statement of Principles and platform, official party dogma.

Are Mr. Fulner and the convention delegates (including me) fire-breathing radicals? Well, he certainly is, and I certainly am, and a number of those delegates certainly were.

But here’s former Massachusetts governor William Weld,  whose reputation as a squishy moderate nearly cost him the party’s 2016 vice-presidential nomination (conferred on him by those same delegates), in a speech a decade earlier:  “I think coercive taxation is theft, and government has a moral duty to keep it to a minimum.”

Slightly weaker tea (“stealing car stereos is wrong, what say we cut it back on that a little, say to two or three a month?”) but the sentiment’s at least in the same ballpark.

So, let me say this again: It is the official position of the Libertarian Party that taxation is theft. It is also the official position of the Libertarian Party that we oppose theft (per our Statement of Principles, “[we] support the prohibition of robbery”).

Why do I bring this up? Because in recent discussions with some of my fellow partisan Libertarians, I get the impression that  they either honestly don’t understand that it IS the party’s official position, or else do understand that but think that it’s a bad idea to say so in public.

I disagree. A political party should always be completely honest and crystal clear about its positions when addressing the public.

Yes, we want the public to agree with us and to elect our candidates to office.

No, we shouldn’t try to trick the public into thinking it agrees with us if it doesn’t.

Nor should we let ourselves be pressured by internal factions to conceal or minimize positions that those factions find embarrassing or inconvenient. If those internal factions don’t like the party’s positions, they’re free to try to persuade the party to change those positions.

So, I’ll say it one more time:

Agree with us or not,  it is the official position of the Libertarian Party that taxation is theft. It is also the official position of the Libertarian Party that we are against theft. Vote accordingly.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Rubio and Warren Join Forces Against Working Folks

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World map showing the legal status of sex work by country (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In April, a year after its introduction in the US Senate by Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the US House of Representatives passed the End Banking for Human Traffickers Act, “an act to increase the role of the financial industry in combating human trafficking.”

Of four quick and easy tests for bad legislation, the bill passes three:

First, it’s “bipartisan.”  While many construe bipartisanship as a good thing, “the best of both worlds,” in practice the opposite is usually true. Each party gives the other the worst thing it wants — control of this or that piece of your life — in trade. In this case, no such trade is really required, because Rubio and Warren are aligned on both elements of the issue. Both of them want control of your genitalia and both of them want control of your bank account.

Secondly, it exploits moral panic to discourage scrutiny of its actual effects. In this case, the trending buzz word is “human trafficking.” In theory, that term means sexual enslavement of adults and/or sexual exploitation of children for profit. In practice, it always boils down to just another excuse for harassing adult sex workers trying to make a living and, contra all the “for the chillllllldren” posturing, taking food out of the mouths of THEIR children  (if not taking away their children entirely).

Thirdly, it doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that it’s yet another attempt to conscript supposedly private sector actors into conducting (and reporting on) intrusive search-like activity that, if done directly by government employees in similar en masse fashion, might be held accountable to inconvenient standards like probable cause, warrants, etc.

The only test the bill fails is the “warm, fuzzy, and/or patriotic-sounding acronym” test. EBHTA? No CASH (Cute Acronym Skills Hero) bonus for the congressional staffer assigned to come up with that title.

The bad news is that if this bill passes the Senate and is signed into law, sex workers —  already pushed to the economic margins  in various ways by law enforcement, social stigma, and the poverty that often precedes the sex work career path — are going to have an even harder time opening or keeping checking or savings accounts at traditional banks, and therefore a harder time successfully applying for credit lines or home or car loans.

The good news is that the bill, whether it passes or not, will inevitably strengthen the counter-economy. Sex workers will turn to (or remain with) barter, cash, and cryptocurrency rather than trust what wealth they have with institutions subject to regulation by the likes of Warren and Rubio.

That eternal counter-economy serves workers, traders, and entrepreneurs as opposed to empowering politicians and their cronies. The Soviet Union ruthlessly attempted, and utterly failed, to suppress it for 70 years, even when at times it was the only thing standing between the Russian people and starvation.

Rubio and Warren and friends will fail too. Unfortunately, working people are the eggs they break in pursuit of an authoritarian omelet.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY