I do not grant you intellectual authority over me.  Nor do I seek intellectual dominion over you.  As such, I hold my right of conscience and the right to express my thoughts through language and other means as my right to take, not yours to grant me.

My words are mine to have, not yours to give.

If your position on this matter is in conflict with these basic demands, to respect these basic rights I claim for myself, then I will deem you to be my enemy. 

I will fight you. 

First I will fight you with words,  I will fight you through public appeal, I will fight in courts of law, I will fight you politically, and failing all this, if necessary, I will fight you with violence.

You will not silence me. 

Do not bother with diplomacy:  I am not amenable to being negotiated with on these rights. 

I seek only for the right to express myself.  I do not require you to listen.  I claim no dominion over you.

But if you, or others who represent you, seek to use force to silence me, then I promise you this: you will hear my voice.  It will be a thunderous and uncompromising thunder.  I will take this right for myself, by whatever means necessary.

I prefer that we can be respectful of each other.  That we may, through our mutual respect for this right, live peacefully together in both agreement and disagreement.

Thank you.

Cross-posted at the Western Standard

Over the past few days I have been receiving a, let’s say, more than modest amount of email from people.   Many of the emails have come from familiar names, and others have come from some unfamiliar names.

It seems that I touched a nerve with a lot of people.  But the nerve I touched seems to have been met with a decidedly positive response. 

What has really impressed me with many of these emails is that lack of brevity; a lot of people have had a lot of interesting and thoughtful things to say. 

I must confess that I have replied to very few of these emails so far, as I have found the whole thing a little unsettling.  Let me tell you why.

A good amount of these emails contain a theme which disturbs me a little.  Many people have used words like “brave”, “ballsy”, “courageous”, and “guts” in describing a post I wrote about Stephen Harper’s speech last Thursday night. 

As much as I like having my ego stroked, I think this speaks to a very, very, concerning element among conservatives.  And it left me thinking about what exactly these people mean.  

It didn’t take long to realize that, for many people, bravery is simply the act of challenging the status quo.  Bravery is having the guts to go to a speech by a politician and then open up your laptop computer and write a scathing rebuke. 

Of course, it’s more nuanced.  It’s not about criticizing people, it’s about criticizing people with whom you associate--you’re own kind.  It’s about calling yourself a conservative, and then feeling some sort of invisible pressure not to openly criticize the leader of the Conservative Party.

What I did was not brave.  It was just honest.  If being honest with ourselves and each other is associated with a rare form of bravery, then I’m depressed for humanity.

Here’s my reply to one of he emails that particularly bothered me:

Cross posted at the Western Standard

One of the significant shifts in the political landscape of late that I’ve focused on in particular, given my libertarian perspective, is the move away from small-government/fiscal-conservative tendencies by the Conservative Party of Canada. 

While many of been quick to view this move by the party, or maybe more specifically Stephen Harper as a step to “the left”, I think to say this is jumping the gun. 

Labels are fun.  People like labels--and we label everything.  I’ve got nothing in particular against labels.  Practically speaking, everything can have a label to describe it’s physical state.  Sometimes one-word is too ambiguous a label to convey the nuance of a particular state, but I think you get the picture. 

One of the underlying themes of the Manning Centre Networking Conference 2009 was the attempt to define the “conservative” label. 

Certainly, the word conservative means many different things to many different people.  In fact, the word can carry both left-wing and right-wing connotations depending on where you are in the world, and where you are in history.

Some people, including myself have started to coalesce around terms like the freedom movement as opposed to the conservative movement to try and break away from the outward ambiguity that the word conservativeimplies.  In fact, I think such distinction will become increasingly important as we move forward into the near future. 

The word populism means a great many things to a great many people, too.  Strangely though, it seems to carry with it a positive connotation among a great many people--especially in the conservative movement.  I’m not sure that these people have actually opened up an encyclopedia to fully understand the meaning of, and the history of, the word and it’s place in political history.  But anybody who believes in freedom and liberty as high ideals should pause before using the term in a positive regard.

I identify populism with a negative connotation because it is often broadly associated with collectivist tendencies.   It is also often very sinister, in that, populist sentiment is usually the product of intentional and intellectually vacuous political agitation.  Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Party is probably the most poignant example of populism in the twentieth century, and I assure you that I’m not trying to Godwin this argument but: I find it curious that a great number of conservatives also call themselves populists.

Perhaps it’s not so curious.  Conservatives do, in fact, rely heavily on populist appeal as a cornerstone of their modern platform; tough of crimebeing the most prime example of this. 

Naomi Klein’s book Disaster Capitalism attempted to promote the theory that neoconservatives were using disasters as an opportunity to back-end load deregulation and pro-corporate agendas in the midst of the rebuilding. 

In the recent economic meltdown, many on the right have been quick to point to what you might call Disaster Socialism: using the economic plight and apprehensions of the masses to spread collectivist socialist agendas.

The problem, I think, with Klein and even those who respond to her is that they are both missing the point.  The point is that when push comes to shove, the people in power almost always see disaster as an opportunity to use populist appeal to manufacturer consent.

The 9/11 attacks allowed a Bush Administration--filled with tough of crimegoons--an opportunity to convince the public that they were in need of a giant security apparatus that would untangle privacy rights, abridge due process and justify massive increases in defense spending.

The financial crisis, has allowed leftists to put forward agendas of mass government spending, nationalization of private interests, and increases in business regulation.

The last point is perhaps too specific, because it’s no longer just leftists pursuing that agenda.  Rather it’s both the left and the right, with the right championing it all as necessary whilst saying they would be far more measured in their government intervention than the left--the matter of degree argument.

Perhaps what was most stunning about the Manning conference was the degree to which Conservatives are eminently aware of the game being played.  Some of them even blatantly promoting using populist appeal/sentiment to maintain power; the placation of the masses so they can survive electorally.

The problem with populism is not that it’s about appealing to the masses by responding to the desires of the masses.  Rather, the problem is that the populist sentiment is reciprocal.  It is as much about leaders telling the masses what to think, as it is about the masses thinking it. 

Whether you like it or not, many average people look to their political leader of choice to educate themselves about the issues. When Stephen Harper says something is necessary for the survival of the Canadian economy, a great deal of people will buy into this implicitly, and then will proceed to demand action to that regard.  This is the problem with populism.

Hitler’s agitation of anti-Jewish sentiment bred and coalesced support for the Nazi Party on that ground.  They manufactured the support as much as they inherited it.

Once again--not trying to Godwin the argument--but the Conservatives have decidedly taken a populist path towards advancing their support.  It takes the form of fear, uncertainty and doubt.  But it is not decidedly ideological in and of itself.

Stephen Harper defines conservatism as the three Fs: freedom, family and faith--with the enemies to these three pillars being everyone else who’s not conservative.

Freedom is a good enough pillar, except for the fact that one must have some sort of lucid concept of it for the use of the word to be interesting in and of itself.  Coincidentally, socialists believe they’ve cornered the market on freedom as well.

Family has long been ingrained into the fabric of conservatives as a principle.  It’s quite hard to actually figure out, just how, conservatives promote and protect family.  Certainly, opposition to same-sex marriage, and favourable tax policy towards families with children have been typical examples.  In general, the idea that the concept of family is one to be politically advanced, maintained and protected falls distinctly into the populist category for me.

Faith is well, another element of populist appeal.  Don’t even get me started on that.

The implicit enemy to freedom, family, and faith is the Liberal and NDP party.  And the underlying message is now: sure we’re doing lots of stuff wrong, but they’d do worse. 

Personally I would prefer more specific policy planks like: less government, less taxes, and more choice. 

But the debate has become almost purely emotive.  You can just feel better that Harper is in charge.  Forget the fact he’s wholesale abandoned the classical liberal principles which in reality, were the underpinnings of the tenuous big-tent intellectual alliance that comprises the CPC.

It was the so-called fiscal conservatism that was the glue that held the social conservatives, Red Tories, and libertarians in a quasi-stable state.  But for Harper, fiscal conservatism is no longer essential to his populist message.  It is rather the opposite: government is hear to save you.  Government will help you.  Government will save the market from itself.  And we’ll promote and protect freedom, family and faith for good measure.

Harper is busy throwing libertarians and classical liberals under the bus as part of his move to re-brand the party as an aggressively centrist party that promotes false notions of pragmatism and steady governance.  He is, in fact, building a new house on the foundations that the Liberal Party of Canada is built on by building a populist mythos to replace the mythos of Trudeau’s Canada.  A senior Conservative Party strategist even went so far to say that “the Conservative Party is well on it’s way to becoming the natural governing party of Canada”.

Back in 2006, Conservatives were absolutely offended by the idea the Liberal’s had the tenacity to consider themselves the party of Canada.  Today, the Conservative Party is doing everything it can to transform itself into a centrist, populist apparatus that identifies with Canada, and Canada identifies with it. 

Fiscal conservatism will not be the only victim in this tirade.  There will be many more. 

The Conservative Party is in dire need of being saved from itself.  It is in dire need of being defeated so real debate, instead of naked partisanship and populism can be replaced by real principle again.

Cross Posted at the Western Standard

Standing in a room of conservative activists sipping a beer, there is a sudden silence and moment of confusion as a speaker at the microphone inexplicably stops speaking mid-sentence.

All the people at the front of the room have diverted their gaze to the entrance to the room.  Suddenly, the prime minister of the country comes blazing through the door with his RCMP security detail.

After a quick progression through the crowd, shaking hands and small formalities, Preston Manning takes to the microphone to introduce the prime minister.

Over the next twenty minutes or so, we would be treated to one of the most bewildering speeches I’ve ever heard Stephen Harper give.  After launching into a sweeping defence of conservatism he would direct his attention towards classical liberals and libertarians who he acknowledged, some of whom were in the very room he was speaking. 

The treatment to classical liberals and libertarians--of which I consider myself--was nothing short of stunning.  The condescension was literally dripping from his mouth.  Was this his response to the disillusionment that libertarians across the country have had to his government and it’s policies of late?  If it was, it did not build any bridges.  Rather, it burnt them right down.

Harper made clear that the free market was not a solution to this problem, pointing to Wall Street and comparing libertarian positions on deregulation as analogous to the position of Wall Street bankers, who abused a deregulated market, then turned around and asked the government for help, taking no personal responsibility for their actions.

The implication of Harper’s statements were stunning to me; when push comes to shove, libertarians don’t take personal responsibility. 

Harper also demonized the Liberal and NDP party’s “toxic coalition” of liberals and socialists.  But it was never particularly clear to me how Harper differentiated his policies from the “toxic coalition” other than to suggest that there would be more bureaucracy, and a court challenges program, if it weren’t for them.  The argument Harper seemed to be making--simultaneously attacking fiscal conservatives, libertarians, and socialists--was that his approach was the least bad.  He asserted his position as the most pragmatic and the most truly conservative.

The speech also contained a definition of what conservatism is.  In his words it is made up of the “three Fs: freedom, family and faith”--a definition which might leave some libertarians feeling even more uncomfortable with it’s social conservative undertones.

Harper took the gloves us last night.  He made it clear who’s in his tent.  The message was clear: libertarians need to get on board or get out of the way. 

Most social conservatives that I know equate liberalism with socialism.  That they are, in fact, two sides of the same coin.  It’s probably the single biggest piece of evidence to me, that social conservatism is vacuous to begin with, because the very idea that liberalism and socialism have anything in common is a silly as a box of bollocks.

Now, let me first start of by saying that many people who call themselves “liberals” are really “social democrats” or are really “socialists” in terms of their actual thinking.  So there is a problem with terminology here, and when I use the word liberal, I’m referring to liberalism in it’s purest form.  To clarify, I will quote Wikipedia’s definition of liberalism:

“Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Within liberalism, there are various streams of thought which compete over the use of the term "liberal" and may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for constitutional liberalism, which encompasses support for: freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, an individual's right to private property,[2] and a transparent system of government.“ -- Wikipedia.

Social conservatives are often quick to claim ownership of “freedom of thought and speech” and “small government” policy.  But the assertion that these ideas are in any way associated with social conservatism is an exercise of intellectual dishonesty.

Any serious look at the definition of socialism will help draw a contrast here:

“Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating public or state ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equal opportunities for all individuals, with a fair or egalitarian method of compensation.[1][2] Modern socialism originated in the late 19th-century working class political movement, and in an intellectual movement that criticized the effects of industrialization and private ownership on society. Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution, and would represent a transitional stage between capitalism and communism.” -- Wikipedia.

Social conservatives, mainly of the Christian persuasion, have always sought to group liberalism and socialism together for another reason: they are both seen as secular.  That’s the common thread.  That’s how they’re viewed as the same thing.  And it’s probably one of the largest leaps of intellectual dishonesty that exists today among mainstream social conservatives like Ann Coulter.

In fact, Ann Coulter has more in common with socialists.  How so? Well, let’s create a check list with a bit of a roll call.

Raise your hand if you think social society should have a strong morality buttressed by law.

Socialism:             Yes, socialist principles of collectivism.
Ann Coulter:         Yes, based on the teachings of the Bible.
Liberalism:            No, morality is not the business of the state.

Raise your hand if you think citizenship should be connected to moral systems?

Socialism:            Yes, those who do not accept socialism in a socialist society should not be full members therein.
Ann Coulter:        Yes, those who conform to the Christian traditions of society are fuller citizens.
Liberalism:            No, plurality of belief is not only acceptable, but healthy.

Raise your hand if you think adherence to moral codes are more important than outcome?

Socialism:            Yes. It is preferable to have fairness than some with more and others with less.
Ann Coulter:         Yes. Traditions like marriage should be maintained irrespective of any outcome.
Liberalism:             Perhaps.  In so far as the adherence is to the principle of respect of others equal rights.

Is one of the purposes of policing to enforce social moral codes?

Socialism:            Yes.  The use of police to quell political dissension and anti-social behaviour is important.
Ann Coulter:        Yes. More police! More jails! Arrest people who do drugs, and engage in perverse sexual activities!
Liberalism:            Absolutely not.

…

Hopefully you can see the pattern emerging.  The reality is that liberalism stands opposed to both social conservatism and socialism, and both social conservatism and socialism share a common love for strong moral codes, enforced by the state, with strong policing.

Liberalism in it’s original, enlightenment form is the antithesis of strong, centralized control.  

Social conservatives have appropriated love for liberty, but only so far as economics goes.  They want lower taxes and less government services, but they want strong laws, stronger police, more jails, and bigger militaries--which ironically, end up costing as much, if not more than the social services they detest. They support the idea of “big government” while pretended to support “small government”, through a redefining of the term “big government”.  

For them, it’s perfectly acceptable to have a humongous government.  As long as all the money goes into enforcing morality through strong policing of sexual activity and drug use, and going to strange foreign-lands to wage war.  That’s a perfectly acceptable “big government”.  In fact, for them, it couldn’t be big enough!  The US government’s $652 billion military budget is not enough.  And yet, social conservatives want lower taxes.  They don’t really care about economics.  They want their cake, and they want to eat it too. Social conservatives want big militaries they can't afford, like socialists want big social programs they can't afford. 

Give me low taxes, and huge militaristic, policing government with massive military and policing budgets.  Run a deficit, I don’t care! This is the same

Social conservatives believe in big government.  They just don’t call it that.  They are, with socialist, two sides of the same coin.

Question! Did Stephen Harper and the Liberal Party walk away from the lawsuit, with two sets of tight-lips, no costs awarded to the defence, and two happy parties willing "put it all behind them", because:

Yesterday Matthew Johnston posted an interesting article, suggesting that Canada should engage in a policy of radical free trade by unilaterally removing all import tariffs. Thereby, allowing Canadians to buy the products and services that are right for them. Specifically, the products that are the best price for them.

I think it's an excellent idea.

There is this funny assumption that runs around that, being a net importer of goods is a bad thing. That if you import more manufactured goods than you export, your economy is poorer. Therefore we must put up trade barriers to prevent trade imbalances.

Firstly, there is no such thing as a trade imbalance. There is only balance. Balance through the workings of the price system.

If China subsidizes the production of automobiles, which are exported to Canada and sold for cheaper than domestic automobiles, the price of automobiles will be pushed down. Yes, some auto manufacturers may go out of business, but there is no imbalance here. In fact, consumers are getting the benefit of buying a car below cost on the backs of the Chinese taxpayer. The price is adjusting based on supply.

As Milton Friedman said, "nobody ever speaks up for the consumer's interests". He wasn't talking about the typical "consumer's advocates" that call for more regulation and nanny-state policies. He was talking about what is really in the consumer's best interest: maximum choice.

The reality is that most people who call themselves consumer advocates are for minimizing choice through heavy regulation and licensing regimes. These people don't really stand up for the consumer (although they may think they do).

The formula for understanding why cheaper imported goods are a net positive for everyone is not really hard to understand. It's quite intuitive, but it's been distorted by an omnipresent onslaught of collectivist thinking and industry self-interest.

If the cost of a toaster is typically $100, and you need to buy a toaster, you spend $100 of your money to the exclusion of everything else on that toaster.

But if you can buy a cheaper, imported toaster for $40, then you have $60 more of disposal income to spend on other things.

It gets even better. Let's accept that, for the moment, that a massive exodus of manufacturing to other countries results in a massive reallocation of labour away from manufacturing to lower-paying service sector jobs (as opposed to high-paying unionize jobs). Let's say the average wage for one of those persons making a toaster drops from $40/hour to $25/hour as a result of the absorption of the competition.

The person--doing that particularly job--is less valuable then they were before, because someone in another country is willing to make the toaster for a lower wage. This sounds horrible, except that with economics everything has two components: an input and an output.

The input in this case is the cost of living, and the output is the productive value that person puts back into the economy, for which that person is compensated fairly.

If the cost of buying basic goods (like a toaster) have declined by 60% in this case, and this trend extended to other basic necessities, the end result would be that people can actually maintain a higher quality of life at a lower wage level then was possible before.

This is the part that people have a hard time getting their head around, because it's been filled with leftist rhetoric about false "fairness and equality". And this whole calculus is at the centre of the "Wal-Mart debate".

Wal-Mart has drastically reduced the costs of consumer goods, while at the same time reducing the value of the labour associated with producing those goods. The pricing system is sending a message. It's message is simple: shampoo is cheaper to make elsewhere, so unless you're willing to accept a drop in your quality of life, you shouldn't go into the shampoo business.

Labour unions and leftists reject the messages of the pricing system, and demand the government override those messages and push prices higher to accommodate their desire to continue making those products at prices desirable to them, the producer, not to you, the consumer.

The net result to all of this has not be a real decline in the quality of life, on average, for consumers. In fact, the net result to all of this has been a net increase in the quality of life. People in low-income brackets, contrary to popular belief, have far more access to what were considered luxuries years ago (computers, cellphones, television, etc) than they did before. The export of manufacturing to lower cost jurisdictions is what allows for the production of the $200 computer, or the $40 cellphone. If these goods were made here, they would be completely inaccessible to multitudes more people, as the extremely high labour costs associated with their production would make that $200 computer, a $1000 computer or a $2000 computer. And this is true because real wages for those people reallocated from those industries, on average, have not declined relative to the price adjustments for those goods. This truth is lost on most people.

The bottom line is that free markets provide increased choice for everyone. You are free to choose, to spend your money on a $200 computer instead of being forced to buy a $2000 computer, if you desire one. But protectionist policies demand the latter. They demand the $200 computer be blocked from the market, in order to preserve the jobs associated with building that $2000 computer, because they say that your right to spend your money as you wish, for your own betterment comes second to the rights of the computer manufacturers employees to have a high paying job.

Labour unions and leftists call for state-enforced oligarchies in industry, by artificially blocking the markets attempts to become more efficient and directing it's resources towards desirable goods. Your quality of life is secondary to their quality of life. They want to choose for you. And when governments put up trade barriers, that's exactly what they are doing.

I always find it amusing when socialist organizations like the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives delves into economic issues. For one, because they are always predictable in the sense they almost universally demand higher government spending, higher taxes on the upper-class, and even more ominously, protectionist policies

The rise of protectionism is not limited to left-wing think tanks. Among the populist tendencies of the masses, economic protectionism is often one of the first planks that people reach for.

Protectionism manifests itself in several different ways, with the most obvious being tariffs levied by states for the importing of goods. But it is also manifested in what economists refer to as home bias.

Home bias refers to the tendency of people, businesses and governments believing that by focusing economic activity at a local level, you will improve your local economy. For example: buy Canadian-made or American-made goods. In the case of government bailouts, many would like to see government tie bailouts to local-spending and labour guarantees.

This all sounds good and it would seem to make some sort of sense. Except it doesn't.

The nature of this economic downturn is global. And it must be solved globally. To deny this, is to simply ignore the nature of the division-of-labour between the developed and developing world, resource exporting nations (like Canada), and principally service-oriented nations (like the US).

Much has been made about the declining role of manufacturing jobs in the developed world, as the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in particular have precessed over the migration of low-skill manufacturing jobs to the developing world. But not much is made about the real improvement in quality of life in these nations in the same period.

The export of manufacturing jobs to developing economies, has provided a buffer of lower prices on consumables, helped foster a global financial system which ironically is the primary source of the US government's deficit borrowing, and transitioned the developed world towards a high-value, high-tech, service-oriented economy.

While it is true that some people have been adversely affected by the decline in low-skill, high-paying labour jobs, the real economic figures paint a different picture. That, in particular, quality of life using broad economic measure has been consistently ascendent since the 1970's. More importantly, it has been consistently and rapidly ascendant in the developing world in the same time period.

The gradual removal of barriers to international trade, starting at the end of the Second World War, and extending up until today have been broadly accepted by economists as contributing to a massive decline in global poverty. But this is lost of leftist economists, because they are morally opposed to the divisions of labour that provided the opportunities in the first place, wilfully ignorant of the infrastructure and education that these low-skill exports have brought. Which brings me back to the buy locally argument.

When you buy locally you are almost certainly reducing the productivity of your economy if by, buying locally, you are reducing choice, competition and the quality of the product. In fact, as protectionism has consistently demonstrated when applied, either voluntarily or by force, the economic effects are almost always a net negative.

When you buy a Chinese-made product, contrary to popular belief, you are not concentrating wealth in China, since most Chinese made products are made on behalf of international firms. Many of those international firms employ people in your country, and who's stock price forms part of your RRSP or 401(k). These firms employ the services of contractors, financial services, technology services, payroll services, and so on, that employ you, your family and your friends. The relationships in this global market are complex and interconnected on levels that are almost impossible to contemplate.

When you simply buy the best product for the job, for the price and most importantly: for you, you are helping the local economy through being part of functioning and vibrant global economy. And it's a good thing too. Many people in India and China who knew nothing but abject subsistent poverty 30 years ago, will be happy you do, and both you and them are the richer for it.

<p>We'll have the live stream going at around 8:00pm EST / 5:30pm PST tonight, with the show beginning at 8:30pm. Remember, we'll have the phone lines open tonight. We might also take internet-based calls via Skype tonight (if we can work out the kinks of screening Skype calls).</p> <p>On this first full day of World Peace, we want to hear from you. How many rainbows and unicorns have you seen? We'll keep a running tally of sightings.</p> <p>Remember, to catch the show: goto the Western Standard Shotgun Blog.</p>