Defunding Planned Parenthood Does Not Mean It Will Cease to Exist

For the umpteenth time, read this timeless quote by Frederic Bastiat. Read it well and let it sink in for a minute what he's saying and what still holds true today:

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.” ~The Law, 1850

Got it? Just because you don't want the government, i.e. taxpayers, to pay for something does not mean it will not exist. A modern and current example of this is the fight to defund Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood will not disappear if government funding all of a sudden were to vanish any more than art would disappear from society if we stopped funding the National Endowment for the Arts (and yes, let's defund that, too).

Planned Parenthood currently receives over $500 million dollars of taxpayer money or around 40% of its budget from Government Health Services Grants and Reimbursements. By law, none of that taxpayer money can be used for abortive services except in extreme circumstances of rape, incest, or endangerment to a woman's life so conservatives are just grasping at straws and waging a war on women once again, right?

Wrong. It doesn't matter whether that money goes directly to abortive services or not. There are huge swaths of people who disdain the fact that their hard-earned money goes toward an organization that performs abortive services at all, even if they don't directly fund the offending services.

Think of it this way, what if $500 million dollars of government funding went to a Christian organization that provided food and shelter for needy people? They had food banks and thrift stores, shelters for homeless people to get back on their feet, counseling for abused women and children, and job training programs. Yet also as part of their services, they had counseling sessions for LGBT youth that was tantamount to "pray away the gay" counseling in which they urged young people to renounce their sins and accept Christ as the Way and the Path forward. Even if it were just 3% of what that organization did and 80% of what they did was extremely valuable services for needy families across the nation, do you think liberals would sit idly by as their tax money went to fund such abhorrent practices? No! And they would have an equally valid grievance as those conservatives who are appalled that their tax money goes toward funding an organization that engages in what they see as nothing short of murder.

In both cases, defunding such organizations would not mean they would cease to exist. It just means that in neither case is there a gun being held to someone's head by Uncle Sam with his hand outstretched saying "Fund this organization that you find repugnant or else, Citizen." Those who do find value in those organizations can reach into their own pockets and fund it themselves instead of picking the pocket of their neighbors and forcing them to contribute to something they might find detestable. It's as simple as that. No, really, it is.

Lastly, defunding Planned Parenthood is no more a war on women than defunding the hypothetical Christian organization I mentioned is a war against Christianity. Women keep saying that they want the government out of their bedroom, then they need to accept that that means no longer making the government pay for her reproductive choices. You don't get to have it both ways. If you want the government out of your uterus, then you must reject government funding and all the strings that come attached to it. As a libertarian I can say this without hypocrisy because I would say the exact same thing for male reproductive choices as well.

Bottom line: Organizations like Planned Parenthood can and will exist without government funding. They do provide important health services for many women across the country and I myself have used their basic services when I was in college and my early 20s. If you find value in what they do, as is clear that millions do, then reach into your own pocket and make up the difference with your voluntary contribution to the organization. Don't hold a gun to your fellow citizen's head and make that person pay for something against their will. V is for voluntary. Use your money to voluntarily support causes you believe in. Let's get away from the 'V is for violence', the threat of which is used when Uncle Sam puts his imaginary gun in your ribs and says "Pay up or else," in the same manner a robber would. Learn the difference. Read Bastiat's "The Law" or just read the opening quote as many times as you need to until you understand that government =/= society and those organizations can and will exist without forcing those who don't support it to pay for it.

 

Shattering the Education Paradigm

If I have any readers left, I must apologize for my hiatus. Over the past 4 months I've finished building a house, moved cross country into the house, started a business, have been running that business, and have been otherwise occupied by all the other fun things that come with new business and home ownership. Needless to say, something had to take a backseat and my little hobby blog was it.

Truth be told, though, it's been nice taking a time-out from the everyday annoyances and outrages (real or imagined) in the political world. Trying to have an opinion all the time about current events is tiresome, emotionally and spiritually draining, and oftentimes it feels like you're yelling into the wind making you question why you even bother, especially when you're just little old me doing her thang without legions of followers. But onward we shall press and my One Small Voice shall keep singing her tune and making whatever small impact in the world it may.

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While not the outrage of the day, the topic of education has been on my mind a lot. There's still plenty in the news about education, even if it's not on the front headlines. There have been stories in the news about the lack of programmers and engineers in America, causing a need to give high-paying, breadwinner jobs to foreigners or outsource those jobs. The student loan and skyrocketing tuition mess is never far from the spotlight. The battle over Common Core and the recent re-authorization of the previously expired No Child Left Behind (although this time supposedly New and Improved!) is still making waves. And then there are the never-ending small battles that continually plague the public education system, like what to include in textbooks, to say the Pledge or to not say the Pledge, teacher salaries, merit-based pay, school testing, and on and on and on. 

What if there were a better way? What if we didn't have to constantly be fighting these battles? There's an old saying, "You can't solve a problem from the same thinking that created it." The problem with the problems is that everyone is trying to solve them by keeping everything 95% the same and just tweaking this or that. Vouchers, charter schools, busing kids in to different school districts, more testing, less testing. Ultimately, none of these solutions will work or have worked on any wide scale because the fundamentals of the government run and managed, top-down, one size fits all education model remains the same.

Nor are the problems that plague us in the classroom merely a matter of funding, as many on the left, who have yet to meet a problem in society that more government funding couldn't or shouldn't solve, are quick to point out. Despite having spent nearly $2 trillion dollars on education at both the federal and state level since 1970, end of high school test scores in reading, math, and science have remained unchanged over the past 4 decades.

Long ago I began to brainstorm ideas of how education could be run if it were completely privatized. Yes, that's right. No government run schools (some would say indoctrination centers) whatsoever. "But, but, how would we educate our kids? Why do you hate education? Why do you hate children?" is the cry I expect to hear, especially from the progressive left, who can't imagine how society functions without the fist of government forcing one size fits all solutions on everyone. It reminds me of a famous quote from the French philosopher Frederic Bastiat in his book, The Law:

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

Yes, if you ever talk about privatizing an area of life that has been taken over by government, many people will look at you as if you just murdered a kitten because they can't wrap their head around the fact that these institutions can, and historically have, existed without the aid of government. Receiving twelve years of government education in government run schools taught by government paid teachers from government approved textbooks and learning the government-approved version of history will unsurprisingly leave you with a citizenry that has zero imagination as to how society could ever function without government intrusion in all areas of life.

As I began to conceive of some of my ideas, I was surprised at how freeing it was to think outside of the box. I was giddy with the number of solutions I came up with. I relished the sense of freedom I felt merely brainstorming ideas completely outside of the current paradigm. Imagine what we could achieve if we could unleash the brainpower and ideas of millions of other people in shifting the educational paradigm.

The possibilities are endless once you free yourself from the mentality that school must be 7:30-3:30am, M-F, August-May, with these specific subjects taught (regardless of the child's interest in them) to this grade and age group only (regardless of a child's development), tested X number of times per year, and any child who can't adapt to this style of education is deemed a misfit and made to feel like a failure or a bad apple.

In light of that, here are just a few of the ideas that I came up with that shatter the current education paradigm.

Let businesses and corporations provide education
Wha...? I know this idea is about as tolerable as Kryptonite is to Superman for many liberals, to whom corporation is an evil word, but hear me out. There is clearly a mismatch of skills vs. needs in today's workplace. As I mentioned before, there is a shortage of engineers and programmers in America today. Imagine if Google, IBM, Apple, Shell, GE and the like ran satellite schools around the country where they would train groups of kids in the skills they anticipate needing in the coming years. Each school would be tailored to each company's need; some might provide a well-rounded education while still teaching them the skills relevant to their niche market. Others might do intensive training and apprenticeship in only their field requiring students who wanted to pursue other areas of interest to find other programs with which to supplement their education.

Businesses might very well provide education for free as an investment in future talent expecting their returns from a highly skilled and specifically trained workforce to more than cover the costs of educating them. Better yet, many of these students could walk straight into a well-paying job and not have to incur tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt by going to college after the fact. This is how we match skilled employees with marketplace needs instead of ending up with a generation of Women's Studies majors with no marketable skills to speak of trying to pay down $50,000 worth of student loans on the salary of a Starbucks barista.

At the grade school level, some corporations and businesses might open up schools of their own as a way to attract talent to their companies. All employees of XYZ Corporation, from the janitors to the executives, would have the option of sending their children to XYZ school.

Business-run grade schools would solve numerous problems: First, it would allow people of all income levels access to a quality education. The janitor's kid can attend the same school as the CEO's kid, instead of the stratification we see today between private and public education.

Second, teachers might actually make what they're worth if teacher salaries are paid for with corporate profits instead of the limited pool of taxpayer funds they are paid from currently.

Businesses and corporations could create a VP of Education position and they would be in charge of innovating in education just like a business must innovate in the marketplace to stay viable.

The best part is, none of this is compulsory, unlike government education. There is no one putting a gun to your head and saying your child must attend the school of the business in which you work. If you find the school is lacking, or if the thought of Goldman Sachs educating your kids makes you squeamish, there will be other innovators in education ready to pick up the slack.

In the current government run system, if you're unhappy with your child's school, you either have to pack up and move to another district because there is no school choice option, pay tens of thousands of dollars per year for a private education, give up part of the family income in order to homeschool, or be one of the millions who can't afford to do any of that and just have to settle for a sub-par education for your child.

"Hey, Haley. If this is such a great idea, why aren't corporations doing this already?" Well, they are in a limited sense. Multinational corporations that have headquarters and large operations overseas often provide schooling in their native language for the kids of the people who moved overseas to work. But otherwise, why would they? When the costs of school are currently socialized, meaning entirely paid for by taxes, why would they invest in education themselves? It's the same reasons you don't see these same businesses paying for roads to allow customers to get to their businesses. If the government is paying for it (meaning the taxpayers), why would businesses open their wallet instead?

In economic terms, this is called "crowding out". Socialized services like in education, roads, and healthcare crowd out private efforts other businesses might undertake because the citizens see the government services as "free" and will therefore, in most instances, utilize those "free" services over private services, which will require extra payment, even if the quality of the socialized public services is seen as inferior to private services.

If you eliminate government run schools entirely, you allow other enterprises to enter the marketplace in education and fill the gap left behind, but that won't happen while education remains socialized.

Private Teachers
With no government schools running the show anymore, teachers can choose to go into business for themselves. Like a small business owner, they can be their own boss and come up with their own curriculum and education plan, making their own decisions about how much they will charge, where they will be located, how many students they will accept, etc.

For instance, a teacher could choose to only educate 10-12 year olds. Her education plan might entail only accepting 12 students at a time to keep it manageable. She could do it in a classroom setting, with field trips, in her home, or a combination of all of them. To keep it affordable, she would charge only $100/week per student, less than what most people pay for daycare these days. That would earn her $1200/week and $60,000/year pre-tax based on a 50 week schedule that many Americans currently work.

50 weeks? Why would a teacher choose to work 50 weeks a year when they currently have 2.5 months off in the summer? Simple: freedom. She can set her own schedule. Gone are the days when she has to be up at 5:30am to get to school by 7am. She can choose to start her classes at 9am and finish at 3pm with 30 mins for lunch M, W, Th., F, and Sat. so long as the parents find this schedule acceptable.

Naturally, she could choose to charge more and work less, maybe only 45 weeks a year, in order to maintain the same level of income. That's the beauty of this system is that you have the freedom to make those decisions for  yourself.

Parents also get freedom this way where they can choose a teacher that fits their work schedule. If a parent works evenings, they could find a teacher who held classes in the evenings while they worked, eliminating the need for a babysitter with the added benefit of allowing the parent to be able to spend time with his child during the day.

If a parent had a job that was affected by the seasons, for instance with a business being most active in the winter and summer months, that parent could find a teacher that scheduled breaks and holidays in the fall or spring to better accommodate the parent's schedule so that they might actually get to take a family vacation together for once. It also provides the added benefit that not every single family in America is trying to take a vacation between the months of June-August, alleviating the overcrowding problem seen at many popular holiday destinations during those months and allowing those holiday destinations a more steady stream of business throughout the year instead of just being slammed for 3 months out of the year and dead the rest.

Once again, the possibilities are endless with an array of teachers ready to meet the various needs and demands of the parents and their kids. They could team up with other teachers, like often happens in the medical profession, and cost share on a building, educational materials and skill sets. One teacher could do English, art, and history while another would do math, science, and PE for instance. One would do the morning session with one group of kids and then the afternoon session with another.

There are too many options to even discuss here. When you start thinking of all the possibilities, it becomes exciting. A teacher or a program for every family and, most importantly, choices, choices for everyone.

The problems solved through this model should be evident: Any number of educational opportunities to suit every individual family's unique circumstances instead of a one size fits all model forced upon every family in one geographic area; accountability in the classroom whereby bad teachers are punished and good teachers are rewarded via the market; eliminating the need for endless public debate about tying teacher pay and tenure to test scores, dress codes, religion in school, etc.; flexibility for parents, students, and teachers alike; affordable options for families and money-making opportunities for teachers.

If a program isn't working for your child, you can switch them out to another teacher or program somewhere else. Either the teacher adapts or he goes out of business like anyone else. Teachers would also have the freedom to "fire" their students if they are a problem student or if the parent is repeatedly truant on payment. It's a win-win situation.

Private Schools
In the absence of government education, the traditional school model would not cease to exist. There are many benefits to the model; being able to educate many kids at the same time and in the same place is very cost effective. The social aspect is always a big factor. The structure appeals to many parents and students.

Private schools in the absence of government schools would be different, however. Instead of private schools almost exclusively catering to the rich, as is primarily the case right now, the door would be open for private schools to be able to cater to students of every income level.

Going back to the crowding out effect I spoke of earlier, most private schools only cater to the rich because the "free" government schools already have monopolized the market for low income students. It's a losing business model to try and open a private school targeting low income students while trying to compete with the "free" government education.

This all changes in the absence of government schools. Private schools can now develop models that will be able to include low income students. Whether through charitable funding, lotteries, scholarships, or grants, private schools would still be able to offer free or very low cost education to America's neediest families.

Given how high a priority education is to most people and how passionate many teachers and educators are across the country, you can bet that they can come up with any number of workable solutions to be able to educate the poorest and neediest among us. Once freed from the confines of government limitations, the human imagination can be unleashed to find solutions that work for everyone, not just the few.

Entrepreneurial Opportunities
Along with the decoupling of all things education from the State, entrepreneur opportunities will arise for those who know how to take advantage of them.

Transportation needs would still be required to get students to and from schools. No more big yellow buses, at least not paid for by the State. Private transportation services would pop up. Buses kitted out with A/V equipment showing educational videos on the way to and from school could replace the hollow Twinkies devoid of any creature comforts or even basic safety equipment like seat belts.

Uber, Lyft and other ride-sharing services might expand their businesses (so long as the government hasn't banned them from that city, an argument for another day) to be able to ferry students to their intended destination.

Lunches and snacks would still have to be provided at many schools. No more Grade E mystery meat slopped onto a plate. No more of Michelle Obama's starvation lunches to be Tweeted to the world. Indeed, nutrition would be put back into the hands of parents and communities and not government busybody bureaucrats. Most certainly there would be someone out there who would find a way to put together delicious, nutritious, school lunches using high quality ingredients. Schools could grow their own gardens with student help and be able to harvest those vegetables for healthy school meals.

Heck, maybe some schools would have their own kitchens where students could make their own meals. You could sign up in advance for a limited number of spots each day and choose one of 3 or 5 easy things you'd like to learn how to cook and you could make cooking part of the whole educational experience.

Each new business opportunity will open new doors for other businesses to refine or improve the existing model, like what happens in the marketplace everyday. New educational tools will be thought of that can be sold to schools across the nation. Small businesses could enter the marketplace serving only a small number of schools but still providing a healthy living for small business owners at the same time as huge enterprises find ways to service large numbers of schools and educational outfits. Jobs! Widening the income pie! Opportunities! Voluntary market solutions instead of coercive government mandates! Winning!

Conclusion
The challenge with advocating a more libertarian or free society is laying out a vision as to how things would work without government involvement. Government has infiltrated so many aspects of our society now that many generations have never experienced life any other way and therefore can't imagine any alternative ways of doing things. Some aspects of society are admittedly more difficult to free from government's trenches than others, but I believe education is one of the easiest and most obvious things we can start with.

Once people begin to re-imagine how a society would function without government intervention in this or that aspect of life, it becomes easier to take steps towards that vision. Shattering the education paradigm can't and won't happen so long as we continue to believe that government should be the fundamental provider and arbiter of education in this country and that the only so-called reforms we're allowed to entertain in education still maintain its role as such and only happen with the government's permission.

Truly shattering the education paradigm means imagining a world in which the government is not the sole or largest provider of education. Until we embrace that vision, battling government bureaucrats and politicizing everything that has to do with education with few victories that affect even fewer people will continue to be the norm. I'm ready for real changes and real choices in education, are you?  

Why I'm Not Buying Into the Improved Economy Hype

The nation is cheering. Unemployment has almost normalized at 5.5% (thanks, Obama!). It might have taken awhile but we clawed our way out of the depths of despair and are on our way to lift off. Or are we? When you dive into the employment numbers and look beyond them, the picture isn't so rosy.

While the media has been cheerleading the recovery and posting headlines about the unemployment numbers, they haven't been as vociferously posting the macroeconomic data. Whenever the mainstream media endlessly harps on one story, it's a good bet that they're trying to distract you from the real story somewhere else. In this case, it would be the terrible macroeconomic data that's been coming in since the end of QE3.

In fact, since February alone we've seen 48 data misses and only 8 beats. Let that sink in for a minute. That's not even close. And much of that negative data is the kind of misses or month after month negativity that is only seen during recessions, yet the stock market ignores that bad news and only seems focused on the employment numbers.

Labor force participation rate is at historic lows. Defenders of the government numbers will argue that it's because of all the Baby Boomers retiring, but there are plenty of people who have pointed out that "... the participation rate for those 55 and older is as high as it has ever been historically. The participation rate, unfortunately, for those in the 25 - 34 demo, that’s 4% lower than before the crisis." Recent college grads and highschoolers looking for their first jobs are still struggling to find work. Meanwhile, Boomers are finding that they can't retire and have to stay in the workforce for longer than anticipated. 

                                    

Meanwhile, we still have a record number of people on food stamps. A robust recovery would see record low numbers of people needing assistance, not record highs.

Yet another reason to doubt the BS coming out of the BLS has to do with the huge discrepancy in estimated job losses in the energy sector. According to last month's BLS report, only 1,100 energy sector jobs were lost in February. However, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a notable Chicago-based firm that specializes in outplacements, downsizings, and plant closures, claims there were 16,000 energy jobs lost in February. Sixteen thousand. That's a huge discrepancy. With the months long tumble that oil prices have taken and a recovery in prices far from sight, which number do you think is more believable?


                                  

Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary for the Treasury under Reagan, also threw cold water on the latest jobs numbers. Here's his assessment:

"The 295,000 claimed new jobs are highly suspect. For example, the report claims 32,000 new retail jobs, but the Census Bureau reports that retail sales declined in December and January. Why would retailers experiencing declining sales hire more employees?

Construction spending declined 1.1% in January, but the payroll jobs report says 29,000 construction jobs were added in February.

Zero Hedge reports that the decline in the oil price has resulted in almost 40,000 laid off workers during January and February, but the payroll jobs report only finds 2,900 lost jobs in oil for the two months."

Something isn't adding up. Noted economist Peter Schiff, who was out there early and often warning about the 2008 housing bubble, has been documenting weekly (his podcast on the latest jobs report is here) the lack of recovery we're seeing and predicting an even bigger crash in the near future than the one we've supposedly just recovered from. Why another crash? Because the Federal Reserve hasn't reversed course on anything and instead is doubling (tripling?) down on the same failed policies that crashed the economy in 2001 and 2008. But you can only reinflate the bubble so many times before it ultimately pops for good.

Sorry, folks, but you can't print your way to prosperity, which is essentially what the Federal Reserve has been trying to do since the inception of its quantitative easing programs. Only a gang of economists (or Congressmen) would think that piling debt on top of debt, borrowing trillions of dollars, and printing an endless stream of money won't end badly some day. They're just hoping it doesn't happen on their watch, like a game of hot potato and hoping they're not the ones caught holding the potato when the music stops.

For a further explanation of why what the Federal Reserve is engaging in will only lead to further pain down the road, I refer you to this short video of historian and Austrian economist (Austrian as in the Austrian school, not Austrian in nationality), Tom Woods, discussing how Austrian business cycle theory explains these economic booms and busts that everyone else, including and especially those at the Federal Reserve, seem to think just come from out of nowhere.

I'm not an economist but I've been doing a lot of self-study in economics over the last few years. As a former liberal, I realized how woefully uninformed about economics I was previously, which of course explains why I was a liberal. Perhaps I'm wrong and I'm subscribing to the wrong economic theory. But no matter which way you slice it, we're $18 trillion dollars in debt, that's $18,000 billion dollars to put it in different terms (by comparison, Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest men, is only worth $76 billion dollars), with no sign of slowing down.

We have placed the central planners at the central banks on pedestals, almost revering them as deities, and allowed them to perform experiments with unfathomable sums of money, usually in secret because we can't fully audit their books, and think that this small group of humans somehow has enough accumulated knowledge amongst them to make fiscal and monetary decisions for the other 310 million of us. If that seems absurd that's probably because it is. Along the way, your government has been lying to you about the real state of the economy leading people to believe in a recovery that wasn't real.

I hope I'm wrong but anyone with a wit of common sense can see that something ain't right, no fancy economics degree required (probably better that way as those with the degrees are the ones most blind to the realities of the situation!). I suspect in a matter of years, or sooner, we'll know one way or another. Maybe by then you'll be able to throw this blog in my face and I'll humbly eat crow. If not, watch out below!

The State of the Police: Part 3

In the first two parts of this series (here and here), I examined the relationship between the War on Terror and the War on Drugs and how that plays into police militarization and episodes like those seen at Ferguson. With renewed and intense scrutiny being directed at the police in light of these recent events, the final part of this series will explore if there are other options available to us that could do a better job of  "protecting and serving" everyone, since more and more people are recognizing the current (in)justice system clearly doesn't. 

I finished part 2 by introducing the Oath Keepers who, when the rioting was the most intense in Ferguson, were the only ones protecting private property while the police and National Guard were busy antagonizing protesters and protecting their own headquarters. For those who are unfamiliar, Oath Keepers is a national organization comprised of current and former law enforcement officers and military personnel who will uphold their oaths to the Constitution and defend her against all enemies foreign and domestic. More importantly, they have a list of 10 commandments that they will not obey, things like disarm the American citizenry, force Americans into any kind of internment camp, or infringe on the rights of Americans to free speech or to peaceably assemble and petition their government.

Obviously, everyone who goes into national service takes this oath, but given the encroachments on civil liberties we've seen from the vast expansion of the federal government since 9/11, founder Stewart Rhodes thought it was necessary to create this organization to remind these personnel that their oath was to the Constitution, not to any political figure. Oath Keepers draw a line in the sand and vow to not just "follow orders" as many soldiers and public servants in the past have done while committing great atrocities to some of their own people.

Interestingly, although perhaps not surprisingly, the St. Louis county police chief tried to oust the Oath Keepers for providing security "without a license". So the whole town is burning and the only people you're actually trying to hassle is one of the only groups of people who are doing anything at all to protect people and property from arsonists and looters? It's no wonder so many people have such a poor opinion of the police right now.

Yet despite sinking approval ratings of the police and Congressional approval ratings that have been near rock bottom for some time now, most people are at a loss for what to do to change things. Their best hope is that somebody somewhere will propose some minor changes to the law and then hope that enough people get behind the proposed changes that their legislators will vote for it.

Herein lies the problem with "public goods" is that nobody has ownership over them. Therefore, nobody can really enact any meaningful changes without a lengthy, drawn out political process and then they just have to hope for the best that the changes will be effectively implemented. Contrast this with private enterprise that can respond to market forces with relative speed and ease, especially with the threat of competition always looming over their heads. Government services have no such worries and this is nowhere more evident than within the law enforcement sector. If we generally recognize monopolies in business as bad can we at least, in light of the recent tragedies in Ferguson and New York as just two very recent examples, begin to recognize that government monopolies are equally bad if not more so because their monopoly is on force and violence?

This is why real life examples like the Detroit-based Threat Management Center are so important. The indispensable Will Grigg wrote a detailed piece on their security practices. In it, the TMC spokesperson explains,

"...[their] approach to public safety is “precisely the opposite of what police are trained and expected to do,” says the 44-year-old entrepreneur.  The TMC eschews the “prosecutorial philosophy of applied violence” and the officer safety uber alles mindset that characterize government law enforcement agencies. This is because his very successful private security company has an entirely different mission – the protection of persons and property, rather than enforcing the will of the political class."

He continues,

“Unlike the police, we don’t respond after a crime has been committed to conduct an investigation and – some of the time, at least – arrest a suspect,” Brown elaborates. “Our approach is based on deterrence and prevention. Where prevention fails, our personnel are trained in a variety of skills – both psychological and physical – to dominate aggressors without killing them.”

How novel. So if they see someone standing on the street looking suspicious you mean they won't just automatically put them in a chokehold and take them down for refusing to comply?

Naturally, law enforcement agencies see organizations like Oath Keepers and Threat Management Center as competition, hence why they were so quick to try and shut down the Oath Keepers in Ferguson. But it is because of the increasingly clear failure of the government agencies to do their job that grassroots groups and private security agencies need to exist in the first place. If private businesses, neighborhoods, and citizens already utilize private security for myriad security needs, is it really such a far cry for us to start transitioning over to such methods on a wider scale?

One of the things the Oath Keepers were trying to do while in Ferguson was educate the people there on the need for community preparedness and urged them to study the Oath Keepers' model to use themselves should the need ever arise in the future. They also advocate for neighborhood watches and for communities themselves to have more of a role in security and prevention warning that the federal government, even with all its military equipment and grants, can't keep everyone safe all the time.

There have also been numerous scholarly and more academic looks at how a society would function under an entirely private defense system. Most notable in this endeavor is the great economist Hans Herman Hoppe who has dedicated many pages to articulating just how such a society would work. His short book, The Private Production of Defense goes through a multitude of common counterarguments with scientific precision and logic and utterly refutes them.

Another book written in the same vein is that of Austrian economist Robert Murphy and his short treatise called Chaos Theory. Using Hoppe's work as a jumping off point, Murphy expands upon Hoppe's call for using market insurance in property security and extends the argument to naturally include security of person as well. Since no such society currently exists, many of the arguments rest on speculation but are no less thoughtful and carefully crafted. His book offers an intriguing thought experiment in taking the first step of envisioning how such societies might feasibly work some time in the distant future when another century of statism has completely and utterly failed yet again with even more untold tens of millions of people being murdered at the hands of state actors.

If you believe that monopolies are bad as you were taught in school regarding big, bad businesses then it is time to start doing some serious thinking about what it means to give a monopoly on force and violence to a single agency. It is because of our complete lack of imagination in this area that we accept and even defend the practices of the police no matter how many incidents of police violence against citizens we see on a daily basis. We think there are no better options out there so this is the best we've got and they're nobly putting their lives on the line to protect us daily so it's okay if there's some collateral damage along the way. That's like a battered woman defending her abuser because she thinks nobody else will love her and besides, he puts food on the table and a roof over her head and he only hits her every once in awhile so it's not that bad.

If you've been disgusted at the recent events in Ferguson, with Eric Garner, or with any of the other myriad cases we've been hearing about lately, it's incumbent upon you to start thinking outside the box for solutions. It is only because we think there are no other solutions and that this is the best we've got that the status quo prevails. Unfortunately, counting on the government to rein itself in has a pretty lousy track record. We must take the examples of the Oath Keepers and Threat Management Center and make options like that available in every major city. We must gradually start crowding out the police with private and/or community based non-coercive efforts until we ultimately render the police a non-factor in most situations. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." There will be no change until we first change our thinking. It starts with you. It starts by you not advocating for silly laws that give police an excuse to harass generally harmless citizens (like cigarette taxes). It starts with exploring ideas outside of your current paradigm.  And then it will take you acting on it even if it's something as simple as sharing this post or one of the articles I linked to in this piece. If we wait on the government to change itself, we will be waiting a very long time indeed. How many more people will have to be murdered by state agents at home or abroad before we start seriously considering there might be better ways?

The State of the Police: Part 2

In part one of this series, I started off talking about the long road we've taken where recent situations like the death of Eric Garner have become more and more prevalent. One of the major factors playing into instances like this is the "Rise of the Warrior Cop", the title of Radley Balko's best-selling book, where cops are becoming increasingly militarized in their efforts to double down on the failed War and Drugs. The outcome of this has been multiple generations of blacks and minorities being unfairly targeted and affected, a factor likely at play in the anger witnessed at protests resulting from the Mike Brown and Eric Garner decisions. In this part I'll discuss the role the War on Terror and our wars abroad have had in the militarization of our police here at home.

America as a Battlefield
Ever since 9/11, we have seen a massive growth in federal, state, and local law enforcement operations. After the failure to prevent 9/11, George W. Bush saw fit to create an overarching Department of Homeland Security that would supposedly streamline intelligence bureaus so that the interdepartmental communications failures leading up to those tragic events could be avoided in the future.

While this sounded heroic and noble at the time, what this has created is a national security apparatus that has put into irreversible motion the Big Brother state that George Orwell so presciently wrote about in his book 1984. It became the first step in a series of steps that might be akin to the "boiling frogs" analogy. This is the one where, if you put a frog in boiling water, of course it will jump out. But if you put a frog in cold water and gradually increase the heat, it will stay in the pot and not even realize that it's slowly becoming cooked to death. As we keep taking steps away from liberty and towards authoritarianism, our fate might soon reach the same outcome as the proverbial frog in boiling water.

If the creation of the DHS was the first big log in the fire, the next big increase in the water temperature would be the creation of the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, another federal expansion brought to us by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11. This is the department that now treats everyone as guilty until proven innocent, is allowed to physically molest your person, has been accused of hundreds of instances of theft, and generally makes airline travel miserable for everyone but still has yet to foil a single terrorist plot since its inception. While the TSA has mainly been confined to airport travel, since 2005 it has been expanded via the VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) program that allows the TSA to operate at sports stadiums, rodeos, music festivals, and other transportation hubs like bus depots and subway stations.

 The TSA and DHS are prime examples of what happens when you begin to paint America itself as a battlefield. While the politicians want you to believe that all the wars are being fought overseas, their rhetoric and their policies have predictably spilled over into domestic programs. Why is this? Because when people are fearful, they will happily trade in their liberties for promises of security. When they do this, it emboldens and enriches those tasked with providing our security, namely the federal, state, and local governments and they yet again ratchet up the heat on unsuspecting Americans who think the confines of the pot will keep them safe from any danger.

We are now commonly seeing local law enforcement agencies using federal grants from the DHS to purchase leftover battle equipment from our foreign wars to use here at home. Also, returning veterans from our wars abroad are now being recruited when their duty is over to serve on the police force. Why do tiny towns with populations of 50,000 or less people need military style mine resistant tanks to enforce the law? Why do the cops of Main Street, USA need full body armor, especially when the data shows that it's never been safer to be a cop?  What happens when you take people from one literal battlefield and transport them to a metaphorical one instead?

Combine this with the disturbing news article from several months back about the company providing law enforcement agencies with a line of "No More Hesitation" targets utilizing lifelike images of pregnant women, children, and elderly people for officers to use for target practice. The explicit purpose of the targets was to desensitize and accustom law enforcement officers to use deadly force to subdue non-traditional, threatening entities that might otherwise cause them to hesitate to shoot. This, of course, begs the question, who is the real enemy now? Have our politicians succeeded in transforming America into a battlefield and conditioning us, through privacy violating institutions like the TSA, to meekly submit to authority for our own safety's sake?

Putting It All Together
But how does this relate to the events in Ferguson? Well as I highlighted in my previous article, a heavy portion of this over-militarization of the police is going towards the enforcement of the War on Drugs with the SWAT style no-knock, flash grenade raids supplanting the traditional knock, we have a warrant to search your place, less violent and confrontational approach used once upon a time. All these tools and resources going to expand the War on Drugs further continues the cycle started awhile ago of the racial disparities that are readily apparent in the enforcement and application of the drug war. This has resulted in a long simmering anger in the black community of feeling unfairly targeted and punished by police for crimes committed equally as much by whites.

The simmer came to a boil after the non-indictment of Darren Wilson in the shooting of Mike Brown. While many people agree with the non-indictment and don't believe there should have been any protest or discontent associated with it, I made the point that perhaps these protests transcend just one case and are indicative of the latent feelings of a community as a whole sick of constantly being victimized while the victimizers are never brought to justice.

Enter the riot police. Of course looting shouldn't happen and it was the wrong response for those who were disenchanted with the Mike Brown verdict, but it was expected and so the riot police was called in. The role of law and law enforcement should be to protect persons and property. Instead, they seemed to be more playing the role of antagonizers than protectors. Their liberal use of tear gas at the Ferguson protests was directed more towards peaceful bystanders and on journalists than it was on any looters. It was also confirmed, after much speculation, that the no-fly zone enacted over the Ferguson airspace was indeed meant solely to keep news helicopters from flying around and not for the purported safety reasons they claimed. While nobody was condoning the tactics used by the looters in Ferguson, many people, including Senator Rand Paul, were equally as concerned about the militaristic and heavy-handed response from the police in trying to quell the violence.

Of course, when you arm your local police force to look like a standing army, what sort of affect do you think that has on the psyche of the police force? When you provide police agencies with targets designed to look like everyday Americans, what do you think that does to the psyche of a police officer? When potential violence is about to descend on an area, in light of all this hypermilitaristic outfitting and preparation, who do you think these police officers think the enemy is? It appears to be all of us, because in the post-9/11 era, America has indeed become the battlefield and we ordinary citizens have indeed been labelled the enemy. They are not here to serve and protect us but to keep us from getting in the way of carrying out the agenda set forth by the true people they serve and protect: their political masters.

While much of the narrative that has played out in Ferguson and the Eric Garner cases has focused on the black/white narrative, and to be sure there is certainly a great deal of that at play, what is getting missed in the meantime is that this does transcend race relations in that our police forces are directing their violence increasingly towards people of all ages, genders, races, and ethnicities. This is not so much about black vs. white as it is them vs. us and tyranny vs. freedom. We are all in danger when we allow our local police officers to take on the dual role of standing army, a predicament we were warned about by our Founding Fathers.

There is a small beacon of light in all of this. While the National Guard was busy protecting the police headquarters in Ferguson and the riot police were busy teargassing journalists and innocent bystanders, there were some other brave souls who stood up for the people and businesses of Ferguson against the would-be looters: the Oathkeepers.

In the third and final part in this series about the state of the police, we'll look at the role the Oathkeepers played in Ferguson and explore other alternatives to the government goon squad, also known as the police force, and see whether there is a role for private security in the future to possibly provide competition to the government monopoly system currently in place.  

 

The State of the Police: Part 1

Another day, another non-indictment of a murdering cop. This is sadly becoming* the norm in our political system. Despite clear video evidence showing Eric Garner non-violently resisting arrest with his hands up, the cops forcibly took him down with a headlock/chokehold and then continued to hold his face smashed into the pavement despite several pleas that can all be heard on the video, "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!", he managed to choke out.
*Becoming or has it been this way for awhile and we're only just becoming aware of it due to advances in technology and the internet?

After a series of high profile cases of cops being accused of using excessive force to subdue alleged criminals, the public is getting weary of this "shoot now, ask questions later" mentality that seems to never hold anyone behind the badge accountable.

The good news is, this has finally brought to the forefront conversations about police militarization, racial profiling, and a dire lack of accountability in the system that have long dwelled in the shadows. People are finally sitting up and taking notice that there is something very, very wrong with how the police do business. The veneer of your friendly, neighborhood Andy Griffith type police officer humbly abiding by the motto "To Serve and Protect" is crumbling day by day as more of these Cops Gone Wild videos surface on social media sites like Cop Block and Photography Is Not a Crime.

How did we get here?

Journalist Radley Balko documents in his blockbuster book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, the startling transition of our police force, from early arbiters of justice trying to capture real criminals, to warriors, perhaps even the standing army our Founders warned us about, that have become increasingly aggressive and militarized in the wake of the War on Drugs, War on Poverty, and War on Terror with each of these domestic "wars" bringing more power to the police while simultaneously eroding our civil liberties in the name of "security".

Balko documents that the number of SWAT team raids conducted has dramatically risen from just a few hundred a year nationwide in 1975 to 3,000 a year in the early 80's to 50,000 per year as of 2005. Not coincidentally, these SWAT team raids have increased ever since Richard Nixon introduced the War on Drugs, which in turn introduced the concept of no-knock raids (at one point deemed unlawful), which have become a main feature of SWAT team style tactics today.

The War on Drugs has been a boon to police departments. There is no shortage of grants and funding to make sure these departments have all the resources available to them to carry on the wasteful and failed War on Drugs. Combine this with the extremely immoral (but not illegal) practice of civil asset forfeiture, in which law enforcement agencies are allowed to seize the assets of a person who has not even been charged with a crime. More often than not, these searches stem from suspected drug crimes and are frequently later determined to be completely without merit but for which the victim still must sue the police department at their own personal expense to get their assets back.

This creates a perverse incentive for police to seize as much property as possible, as they often get to keep the seized assets for themselves to use or auction off for cash for the department. Naturally, this is particularly harmful to the poor and minorities, who cannot afford to fight the system to get their wrongfully seized assets back. This is but one of many byproducts of the war on drugs that has created a rift between minorities and law enforcement.

Of course, a larger problem of the war on drugs is the rate at which it disproportionately targets and incarcerates minorities. Blacks are nearly 4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites despite the fact that marijuana use for both groups is virtually identical. Mandatory minimum sentences for mere possession of drugs make blacks, who are much more likely to be arrested in the first place, a permanent fixture of the prison system, often requiring them to serve more time than people put in prison for real crimes with real victims like rapists, robbers, and batterers.

And many of us are all too familiar with the sentencing disparities between people caught with crack cocaine, primarily associated with poor minorities, and powder cocaine, much more expensive and frequently used by more well-to-do white people, including certain presidents of ours. After suffering through these injustices for decades, decimating generation after generation of black families in particular, it is not hard to understand why blacks have a natural inclination to be distrustful of the police, to feel victimized, and to feel targeted rather than protected through the perverse incentive system offered by civil asset forfeiture laws and the war on drugs.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the recent high profile cases of black men being killed by police officers, for reasons justified or unjustified, have ignited a slow burning fury within their community. The outrage that has emanated from the failure to hold anyone accountable for even more black lives lost has reached a tipping point.

Although the focus has been on Mike Brown, and certainly there are many who disagree with the grand jury's failure to indict, perhaps what the community is really protesting about is not simply a young man who was gunned down by a police officer, but decades of systemic targeting and destruction of their communities. This is not to confuse the issue with Darren Wilson's guilt or innocence or the actions that led up to Mike Brown's demise, but to say that there are much larger, long simmering issues at play here than just the death of one more black man.

The heavily militarized response from the police in trying to quell the demonstrations arising from Mike Brown's case brings to light yet another troubling trend in modern day policing and one in which I intend to shed more light on in Part 2 of 3 of this mini-series examining the state of policing today.

In part 2 I will take a look at how the Global War on Terror has led to the militarization of our police and painted America as a battleground and how that relates to the violence that happened in Ferguson. In part 3, we'll look at ways to move forward and possible alternatives to the government monopolized police system. Stay tuned for more good stuff to come!

I Shopped on Thanksgiving Day and Don't Feel One Bit Guilty

Yeah, I shopped today. My husband found some extra money tucked away, long forgotten about and wanted to buy me an early Christmas present from Bass Pro Shops. It was actually a pleasant experience. Much more pleasant, I presume, than being forced to wait until Black Friday to go shopping.

 We didn't have any family obligations until later in the afternoon so we went over late in the morning. We didn't have to fight our way through horrible holiday bottlenecks near the retail centers as traffic was light. While there were a number of shoppers there, it was not packed and I didn't have to push and shove my way around. We got service right away. I even asked a few associates who worked there how they felt about having to work on Thanksgiving Day. Most of them just shrugged. Nobody seemed particularly excited by it but then again, they all said that no matter what job they had, in their line of work they would have to work the holiday regardless. They all balked when I suggested they could quit and find another job that didn't "force" them to work the holiday.

I've seen just about as many posts as I can take from people decrying all these evil big box stores for opening up on Thanksgiving Day and "forcing" their workers to come into work to earn shitty wages rather than be able to spend time at home with loved ones.

I hate to say it, but I'm primarily seeing this from the liberal busybody do-gooders who seem to know what's best for everyone. This ire seems to be only directed at the perceived "evil", corporate, big box stores like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, JC Penney, and so forth. Apparently, these inherently evil corporations are even more evil for pushing consumerism to boost their profits on a day that should be dedicated to family for the celebration of a holiday that is also very racist and shouldn't be worshiped, according to some of the same people.

I think what irks me the most about this is how these people just automatically seem to know that these retailers are acting greedily and that every single person who was "forced" to work on a holiday hates it, is somehow being forced to act against her will, and would much rather be spending a whole day with their family carving turkeys and making polite conversation with relatives they see but once or twice a year.

My first job in high school was at a local supermarket. We were open for half the day on Thanksgiving days for those shoppers who needed last minute items. We closed early at around 2pm and it was always known that either my brother or I (we worked at the same place) would be working that day. I wanted to work on Thanksgiving because it was always very busy and I might make a few extra dollars in tips. At that age, I always appreciated the opportunity to make more money. We typically planned Thanksgiving around those shifts and didn't start dinner until 3pm or later. No harm, no foul. My mother never got mad at the supermarket for "forcing" me to work rather than allow me to spend the day at home. In fact, she liked it because it allowed me to make that much more money to be able to pay for gas for my car or insurance and take some of the burden off of her. And, at the end of the day, we still got to have a lovely meal together and quality time with one another. Win-win for all!

I was never "forced" to work. I was never threatened with my job if I refused to work due to family obligations. I was not kidnapped from my home in an unmarked van and ferried to work by my employers. Any of the employees who requested the time off got the time off and judging from the number of people who shopped there that day (we were always slammed) there was clearly some perceived value in our being open to accommodate these last minute shoppers. Was my employer, a regional chain supermarket, greedy and profiting off of consumerism? Was it tearing the family unit apart by trying to make a buck off of people's forgetfulness or procrastination? Hardly.

Not only did I go shopping today, I also went to a restaurant to eat Thanksgiving dinner. None of us have a permanent home in the area so nobody was equipped to prepare a large Thanksgiving dinner. I was thankful that there was a restaurant in the area offering a nice Thanksgiving buffet with all the traditional dishes one would expect in order to serve those of us who, for whatever reason, couldn't do a home cooked meal. Does that make me greedy for "forcing" those servers to work to satisfy my desire for a nice, traditional meal with family? I should think not.

I asked one of the staff at the carving station how he felt about working on Thanksgiving and he said he didn't mind at all. He said he'd been in the business for 40 years and it was expected and that there was plenty of time later in the day to spend time with family. Our server informed us she only started working there a few days ago. While I didn't ask her directly how she felt about working that day, presumably she would not have chosen to start work there if she was too terribly upset about having to work on a holiday.

These same arguments don't seem to apply to the numerous other professions that are required to work on holidays. Healthcare professionals, civil servants, soldiers, and other people whose work is seen as "necessary" are exempt whereas retail shops are not. The arguments also don't seem to apply to small businesses. I saw many small businesses open today but apparently it's okay for a small surf shop on the beach to be open and make someone come in to work to sell beachwear but not okay for Target to do the same? It's okay to go to the movie theater and make someone pop my popcorn so I can sit mindlessly in front of a huge screen filling my head with pretty pictures that make already rich people richer but it's not okay for Walmart to be open and selling products to people who might not even be celebrating Thanksgiving? It's okay for bars to be open for people to get drunk at but not okay for Best Buy to be open to sell a camera to a guy who forgot his so he could document his day with family? It's ok for concession workers and ticket takers to have to work football games but it's not okay for Sears to be open? I hope you're boycotting watching those football games as well in solidarity with the poor staff that are forced to work on a holiday.

By this same token, shouldn't we decry businesses for being open at odd hours on non-holidays? We should boycott every business that's open past 7pm because people should be at home with their family at that time, not having to work a shitty job at shitty hours. We should never frequent a fast food joint at 3am to get some drunk food because that is demeaning to the workers who have to stay up late to make it for us instead of spend quality time at home. We also shouldn't go shopping on Sundays because that's the Lord's day and we're supposed to be at rest, not forcing the rest of the world into godlessness by our endless consumer greed and making them work on the Sabbath.

The point is, we can't know for sure that we know what's best for these people. We cannot make a value judgement on the situation as a whole and apply it to every individual who is in that situation. We cannot substitute our judgement for theirs. Some people choose to work this day. Some people prefer the option of being able to make more money than not being able to. Some people don't have family around and are lonely and work keeps their mind occupied. We can't know, we don't know, and we shouldn't presume to know what's best for these people who are being "forced" to work on a holiday. And if you're going to get uppity about it, at least be consistent in how you direct your anger.

Just remember, none of these "evil corporations" held a gun to their employees' heads and kidnapped them from their homes kicking and screaming to "force" them to work today. Government is the only entity that's legally allowed to force people at the barrel of a gun to do things they wouldn't otherwise do (like purchase health insurance they don't want or need). No matter how much you hate corporations, even they can't do that, not even on Thanksgiving.