Thoughts on Freedom

Some great news from the States via the latest Zogby poll.

UTICA, New York – As the race for President passes the Independence Day holiday and heads toward the dog days of summer, Sen. Barack Obama holds a 44% to 38% lead over Sen. John McCain in the horserace contest, but also leads by a substantial margin in a state-by-state Electoral College tally, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows.

The extensive national poll of of 46,274 likely voters also shows Libertarian candidate and former Congressman Bob Barr wins 6% support, eating into McCain’s needed conservative base of support.

The online survey was conducted from June 11-30, 2008. It carries a margin of error of 0.5 percentage points. After nearly a decade in development, the Zogby Interactive survey on a state level was remarkably accurate in the 2006 midterm elections. In 18 U.S. Senate elections polled two years ago, the Zogby online survey correctly identified the winner of 17 of 18 races. ….

 Pollster John Zogby: “Obama is in the driver’s seat right now, especially where it really counts - in the electoral votes. Bob Barr could really hurt McCain’s chances. McCain can’t afford the level of slippage to Barr we found among conservatives in this polling. While there has been plenty of talk about Obama’s recent emphasis on his centrist positions, he can get away with it during these dog days of the campaign as McCain finds himself still trying to shore up the conservative base. McCain will have to move to the center because right now Obama is clobbering him among independents. But there is the rub for McCain: Bob Barr has some juice among conservatives and is hurting him in several states. ”

Bob Barr receives the support of 7% of voters who identify themselves as conservative or very conservative voters. Barr gets 43% of libertarians and 11% of independents. McCain’s support among conservatives is 74%. On the left, Ralph Nader gets less than 2% nationally.

This indicates the possibility of up to 5-6 million votes, and there is time to improve on that as both Barr and Root are being taken seriously by a fair proportion of the media, a far cry from the norm.

The disappointing part of it is “Barr gets 43% of libertarians” which means the libertarian purity factor is worse than I predicted, although quite a few serious and dedicated Libertarians have swallowed their disappointment and are backing Barr/Root.

Regardless of the conservative origins of both members of the team, they appear to be bringing huge numbers of voters to pull the lever for Libertarian for the first time, after seriously considering LP policies for the first time. This has to be a positive.

The Garnaut report is out and climate change is back on the agenda. And Clive Hamilton and John Quiggin have been back to their usual game of vilifying people they disagree with as “denialists” and “delusionists”. They say the debate is over. I disagree.

I’m not an AGW-alarmist. But I’m not an AGW-denialist. I’m a sceptic… which means that I’m not quick to accept the story from any side. Some people seem to have a strong faith that the end of the world is nigh. Others seem to have a strong faith that nothing is happening and it’s all a leftist joke.

I don’t have faith (an opinion based on something other than reason) but I do have beliefs. Based on my reading of the science, I believe that human-induced global warming is a potential danger. But I also think that this danger has been blown out of proportion, that we should be very careful about introducing new government programs, and the debate has become so political that few people honestly consider the arguments of the “other side”.

I want to quickly mention one example where I think both sides have put politics before truth — and that is the issue of “no warming since 1998″. This is commonly said by AGW-sceptics and often dismissed as a distortion by AGW-proponents. Both have a point.

First, here is a graph of the temperatures over the past 30 years as provided by Climate Audit.

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As you may know, my parents grew up in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). The last of my extended family left Zimbabwe several years ago, and they are in the process of becoming Australians. But obviously we try to stay up to date with the current chaos. Here is a recent story:

Inside Mugabe’s torture camps: beaten, maimed and poisoned with weedkiller
By Daniel Howden in Harare — Tuesday, 1 July 2008

As Robert Mugabe sought recognition from African leaders yesterday, his police have been arresting the ‘dangerous’ opposition agents that Mr Mugabe accuses of fomenting violence in the country. Mrs Chigoro is one of them. She is considered such a threat she is being kept under armed police guard at a Harare hospital.

Seventy years old, her injuries are so horrific she can no longer lie on her back or walk unassisted. She can only huddle in a claw-like shape. The appalling chemical burns that have removed her lips and melted her right cheek come from an industrial weedkiller she was forced to drink. The widow can eat no solids and survives with the aid of a saline drip. Her crime was to survive the death squads that have roamed the rural areas of this bankrupt and terrified country. The police, armed with AK-47s, have been stationed on her ward to stop her from telling her story.

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I have been reading an excellent article from the Wall St Journal, “Anti-Americanism Is Mostly Hype,” By Foaud Ajami, who is a Bradley Prize recipient, and teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of “The Foreigner’s Gift” (Free Press, 2006).

This article reminds me of the time just after Labor gained office in Queensland for the first time in a generation and Wayne Goss was premier. One of his less memorable statements was to the effect that the southerners liked us now. I wasn’t aware until then that anyone cared whether they liked us or not, but of course lefties just have to be loved, (or at least approved of.)

 But of course I digress: -

 So America is unloved in Istanbul and Cairo and Karachi: It is an annual ritual, the June release of the Pew global attitudes survey and the laments over the erosion of America’s standing in foreign lands.

 We were once loved in Anatolia, but now a mere 12% of Turks have a “favorable view” of the U.S. Only 22% of Egyptians think well of us. Pakistan is crucial to the war on terror, but we can only count on the goodwill of 19% of Pakistanis. Read more »

In June last year the ALS hosted the first competition for best blogger. At the time it was “best solo libertarian blogger”, after after much vote-rigging it was eventually won by the self-described “classical liberal” Andrew Norton.

This year we’ve decided to broaden the category to “best libertarian blog” (to give catallaxy & thoughts on freedom a chance), and limited the options so that people are just choosing between 10 blogs.

The options include some of the big names of the Australian plogospohere (political blogosphere) — such as Catallaxy Files, Andrew Norton, Jennifer Marohasy and Thoughts on Freedom. It also includes a few blogs that deserve to be more popular with libertarians — Austrolabe and Liberty Whinge.

One important new option includes Helen Dale (aka skepticlawyer), who has broken away from Catallaxy & Thoughts and started her own blog at Skeptic Lawyer.

For the pro-war, pro-Republican libertarians there is Melbourne objectivist PRODOS, and McCain-apologist Jim Fryar at Real World Libertarian. And rounding out the options for this year is Double Think, by the mysterious Jono.

There are plenty of libertarian blogs that I didn’t include. Sorry to those authors, but I needed to keep the options managable. I tried to pick the most well-known and active to choose from. For the curious, some other libertarian blogs can be found at Fleeced, Wackingday, The Western Lines, Chris Berg, Australian Gun Owner & more if you follow the links.

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The last ALS poll question was “who are you”. Well, apparently you are an Australian libertarian male under 40. Of 127 responses, 88% were male, 81% were Australian, 80% were self-declared libertarian and 74% were under 40 (with 41% being in my age bracket of 20-29). Welcome.

Today we saw the first test of the Rudd government with the by-election in the rural Melbournian seat of Gippsland. It has traditionally been a safe National seat, but the Liberals and Labor live in hope of an upset.

After one hour of counting (and 43% of votes recorded) it looks like the Nationals will retain the seat with an increased majority. Antony Green has called it for the Nationals. Not sure what this means, except that Brendan Nelson (leader of the Liberal-National opposition) will keep his job for a bit longer.

But the more interesting information for libertarians is the performance of the LDP candidate Ben Buckley. At the moment he has 4.8% of the vote. This is above the magical 4% barrier which determines which political parties receive public funding.

(Note: While the LDP is opposed to the idea of public funding for political parties, it is not viable for us to be the only political party rejecting the money.)

7:30pm UPDATE: 55% counted; 6.3% swing to Nationals; LDP on 4.8%
8:20pm UPDATE: 65% counted; 7.3% swing to Nationals; LDP on 4.6%
03 July UPDATE:  87% counted; 6.2% swing to Nationals; LDP on 4.2%

I found the idea expressed in this review somewhat intriging. An extract;

These two dimensions come together to provide a simple 2×2 matrix: high grid and high group is hierarchy; low grid and low group is individualism; high group and low grid is egalitarianism; low group and high grid is fatalism. This simple model turns out to be a powerful tool for understanding social relations, and for making sense of how people see the world. We may like to believe that we choose and shape our own beliefs—but Douglas, drawing on the work of Emile Durkheim and others—suggested that it is much easier to understand societies by turning that assumption on its head: societies and institutions think through us much more than the other way around.

Within a hierarchical culture, the world is seen as controllable so long as the right structures are in place. Most governments tend towards hierarchy. It is the natural worldview of civil servants, political leaders and of most of the consultants working in and around big business and governments. To every problem there is a solution—so long as it is firmly enough implemented by a sufficiently powerful leader or elite.

In an egalitarian worldview, problems usually arise from too much hierarchy and inequality, and not enough bonding and solidarity. More discussion with more people is an unmitigated good, and any measures which widen inequalities are to be resisted. In an individualistic worldview, the answer to problems is more freedom—let people determine their own choices and things will come right. Dissent is to be celebrated; rebels are heroes, and the world is made, and remade, by the imagination and energy of individuals. The fatalistic worldview is most common among people with little power or experience of power.

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9600

Proponents of a private health care market often promoting compulsory private health insurance as some form of free market solution. It would only be a free market solution if you were free to go without insurance. Given an end to public health care I would not willingly take our private health insurance. It is a rip off and I’d rather pay my own way. I’m also unconvinced that making us pay for private health care via compulsory health insurance is hugely different from making us pay for public health care via compulsory taxation. The choice between compulsory private insurance and compulsory public insurance is only a marginal improvement.

The Rudd government has been criticised for lifting the threshold at which the tax system essentially compels private health insurance via the medicare surcharge. However if anybody really needs health insurance it is not high income earners. My family has been paying private health insurance for years but we still always use the public system and we always fib so that we get admitted as public patients. We do occassionally use private services (including a rather expensive private heart specialist) however these are still costs we could pay for ourselves. Rudd should not have just lifted the threshold at which the medicare surcharge applies, he should have abolished it outright.

If we must mandate a method of payment for healthcare under a system with less public sector provision then we should use some methodology similar to HECS. And yes I know that I’m guilty of repetition having essentially said this all before. 

… for gun-owners (and others, too).

This is the first I’ve heard of this idea, and it’s got me well stumped.

The food nazis sometimes mention the idea of a “fat tax” to penalise people who like to eat the “wrong” food. Japan has taken the idea one step further.

The Japanese government now requires all citizens over the age of 40 to have their waists measured every year… and if the waist is more than 33.5 inches (man) or 25.5 inches (women) they are referred to couseling and close monitoring. Any company that fails to slim down their workforce will face penalties.

The sad thing is that these measures will probably be supported by the wowser-brigade… and the wowsers seem to be winning the political argument in Australia. They have already marginalised smokers as a pariah group on the fringe of polite society and are now attacking the “three-beer-binge” drinkers, with new recomendations to increase the drinking age to 21, lower alcohol content in drinks and make it harder to buy alcohol.

One of the most disappointing trends in Australia (and the developed world more generally) is the trend towards paternalism in everyday life. We are steadily moving towards a society where everybody is “free” to do exactly what they are told by the Department of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — the lifestyle police.

In this podcast Craig Emerson outlines his political philosophy in a speech to the Sydney Institute on 13th June.

There is nothing revolutionary in the substance of what Craig Emerson says, but it is nice to hear a minister in government offer such a thoughtful commentary on the nature of government. And in particular to hear one say something intelligent about self interest and to talk about the importance of opportunity without banging on endlessly about “equal” opportunity.

Some response commentary here.

In these circumstances, last night’s speech to the Sydney Institute by the Minister for Small Business and Independent Contractors, Craig Emerson, outlining a vision for prosperity and fairness in a market democracy, is a breath of fresh air. Dr Emerson’s comments give some comfort that there is someone in the Labor Party who is prepared to argue for an intelligent way forward. This is no doubt due in part to Dr Emerson’s time spent working as an economic adviser to former finance minister Peter Walsh, who famously knew the difference between the truly disadvantaged and “rent-seeking spivs” and “hairy-legged Stalinists”.

I don’t agree with every detail of the speech however if Craig Emerson as epitomized in this speech was actually represenative of the entire ALP then I’d almost feel confident that the levers of government were in safe hands.

Despite angry farmer protests and a raft of Senate amendments, Australia’s 60-year-old monopoly system of selling bulk wheat overseas has ended.

The lower house on Monday accepted the opposition-controlled Senate amendments, bringing in to law the new wheat marketing arrangements.

Full article here.

The most disappointing thing about this reform is that we didn’t use the initiative to get a better deal during bilateral trade negotiations with the USA.

I was recently asked by the convener of this blog, Sukrit Sabhlok, to write a piece on a 2007 book by George Mason University economist, Bryan Caplan, entitled The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (MRV). This book has been discussed at length amongst the economics profession (including on my own blogsite), and it is my great pleasure to revisit my thoughts on this landmark book - including, on this occasion, to explore some implications for libertarian thinkers and activists.

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This was passed on to me by Viv Forbes. We need to find the originator of this document and have the constitution itself done by the same person. One thing we can safely assume is that there are other libertarians out there somewhere.

‘We the sensible people of Australia, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed-wetters. Read more »

If ya’ll were thinking about donating to a charity but don’t want to donate to Oxfam (because they’re anti-free trade) or Amnesty International (because they’re anti self-defence), then consider sending money to the School Choice Campaign in India instead. The campaign is run by the libertarian Centre for Civil Society (CCS) and gives poor kids a chance to escape from wretched government schools by offering them an education voucher redeemable at a school of their choice. The CCS doesn’t accept any government funds, which means it’s a genuine independent non-governmental organisation. And the President of the Centre, Parth Shah, is a supporter of free-markets and individual liberty from way back.

In related news:- My father, Sanjeev Sabhlok, has written a book where he talks about how a voucher program could work in India. He also draws on his economics and civil service background to suggest a range of other reforms that will help India’s 250 million people who live below the poverty line. The book, tentatively called Breaking Free of Nehru, is being published by Anthem Press later this year, and basically argues the case in favour of discarding India’s socialist past. I will post more info in a few months…

Apparently the Rudd government doesn’t think that some nice people should have to pay the same taxes as the rest of us. And the reason is simple because these nice people are also really good people. I’m all for taxing people less (even nice people) but this does kind of smell a little like dead fish.

The federal government has taken steps to address a controversial change to the fringe benefits tax (FBT) which would have seen charity workers lose up to $100 a fortnight.

Under changes introduced by the former Howard government, special rules exempting salary sacrifice packages from FBT would have been scrapped.

Families Minister Jenny Macklin on Thursday night said the government would move amendments in the Senate next week to reverse the changes.

Backroom Girl calls a spade a spade and looks at how the numbers stack up to allow welfare workers to receive a bigger personal slice of the government welfare pie. As she infers this is indeed rank hypocrisy.

By Robert Higgs

Well, the letter was actually addressed to me and my wife. The IRS people are great believers in family values, and my wife and I are what the tax collectors affectionately refer to as joint filers. It’s all pretty warm and fuzzy, in a creepy sort of way.

Anyhow, the letter was not nearly as bad as usual. It informed us that the government, acting under authority of the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, would soon be sending us $1,200. Usually it’s the other way around, and the agency’s letter invites us to send it more of our money than we have already sent. Well, we understand, of course: when the government identifies someone who deserves to get our money more than we deserve to keep it, simple justice requires that we pass it along to KBR (formerly Kellogg Brown & Root), Lockheed Martin, and other widows or orphans.  Besides, if we kept the money, we’d probably just end up wasting it, whereas the Department of Defense watches every cent with an eagle eye. Ditto for Health and Human Services. We don’t call those people “public servants” for nothing; they really put their hearts into their jobs.

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“We will also invoke the provisions of the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act if required.”

That would allow the Federal Government to declare a national liquid fuel supply emergency, allowing the Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, to control the production, transfer and stock levels of crude oil and other liquid fuel.

…

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson said he strongly supported the Government’s actions.

Full article here.

… and it wasn’t the bit about renewables.

Last week I attempted to show the effect of the low income tax offset (LITO) by creating an amended income tax table. Unfortunately I made a mess of the numbers by mixing the tax table for 2008-09 with the LITO numbers for 2007-08. I have fixed my errors and the revised table is shown below.

As indicated last week this only incorporates the effects of LITO and not the various other rebate schemes such as the Seniour Australians Tax Offset (SATO) or Family Tax Benefits (FTB-A and FTB-B).

For PAYG tax payers only half of the LITO rebate flows directly into their paypacket. The rest comes by the way of a refund after submitting a tax return at the end of the year. This would seem to be a mechanism for making people feel somewhat optimistic in relation to submitting a tax return. Perhaps a way to train young taxpayers to play the game.

I can’t help feeling that the point of all these rebate schemes is to make the tax system more obscure and to help people feel like they are special because there is a rebate scheme for their particular circumstances. If you’re old they give you a rebate (SATO), if you’re young they give you a rebate (LITO) and if you’re in between young and old and raising a family they give you a rebate (FTB).