Libertarian Girl

In response to my previous post on true libertarianism, I received a bit of positive feedback and a majority of commenters who simply didn’t get it.

To those who would make an argument like Anonymous on the post – Who has decreed that government force should only protect human liberty? Furthermore, how do you define human, and why does an animal have any less interest in being protected by government force than these humans you speak of? Here are refutations of pretty much all possible arguments you could put forth here.

1.) “Animals are not as smart as humans.” – What about a severely mentally retarded infant? What about, for that matter, a newborn baby, which certainly has less of a capacity to think than any factory farmed animal. What about an 80-year-old with Alzheimer’s disease, compared to the great apes or dolphins which have been shown in studies numerous times to have a huge capacity for sentience? What about any cow/dog/pig compared to Terri Schiavo, whose brain had absolutely no function nor hope of it, yet she had the legislative body of the most powerful nation on Earth falling all over itself to protect her right to life?

If the idea of subjecting any of the above-named human groups to a slow, prolonged death gives you a shudder, perhaps you should give a single thought to the literally billions of animals that are more intelligent (and possibly more capable of understanding pain) and put to death every week.

Anonymous, if you would classify a severely mentally disabled person as property, perhaps you can then state that animals should also be declared as such. But otherwise, there is no reason animals should necessarily be treated simply as property, as if they’re a bicycle or a chair.

Secondly, what if, for example, IQ tests showed that men are not as intelligent as women or white people are not as smart as black people? Would that be a sufficient reason to deny rights to men or white people?

2.) God created humans in His image, and they are therefore superior.

If you’re as much of a Jew or a Christian as you imply making this argument, take a look at what actually happens in factory farming and see whether that is part of God’s plan or if that is maybe part of humans’ evil free will that needs to be eradicated. Did God say “He makes me lie down in excrement”? Certainly not. A Christian who makes arguments involving God and animals should, at the very least, be a vegan or vegetarian and have nothing to do with factory farming, which is the antithesis of what happened on Noah’s Ark.

3.) It’s always been that way.

Any libertarian should be justifiably suspicious of something that has always been, and know that this is not a symptom of whether something is correct or not. In fact, it’s probably the opposite.

4.) Humans have “earned” our way to the “top of the food chain” due to evolution.

There are many animals that will eat humans if given the chance. I assume that you are in favor of tearing down all zoo walls and just shrugging any time you hear of a shark “attack”? (we’ll rename it a shark lunch, with the shark just having a delicious human sandwich)

By bringing evolution into the discussion, anyone who tries to use this argument also runs up against a few pesky facts: our DNA is extremely close to other primates, way more than, say, dogs, which are granted special protections by the law.

5.) Humans are different than animals, due to some sort of magic unspecified in the arguments above that I can’t give any arguments for.

Of course, this is the silliest argument of all, and goes straight to the [fill in the blank with random insult] Hall of Fame. It’s right there next to “giving more money to education will increase the graduation rate, although it never has it will still somehow magically happen nationwide next year” and “running the country into unprecedented deficits is really a sign of my fiscal responsibility, trust me it’s just magical, re-elect me and you’ll see”.

In other words, these arguments are all inherently idiotic (the next-to-last, when made by any meat-eating Christian) and unsupported by evidence.

Phoption and Rachel made similar comments: “I took a turkey’s life; you took a plant’s life. What difference does it make? For a human to live, life must die” and “plants are alive, and capable of both stimuli and thought” — these two commenters are missing the point entirely. It does not matter that animals are alive, humans are alive, or plants are alive. It matters that humans and animals are sentient. Plants are not, they do not suffer, (for that matter, they are not subjected to long, excruciating deaths in veal crates and battery cages, why not try that out, Phoption and Rachel?), and therefore they do not deserve to be put on the same plane of consideration as humans. That, above all else, is clear, and these comments were pretty disappointing to me.

You may have noticed that most of my recent posts are animal-related. I’ve been a vegetarian for a long time, but I’ve become more interested in these issues after looking more into it and realizing just how bad it is for these defenseless creatures– who collectively suffer what amounts to a Holocaust every hour on this planet. Yes, every hour.

Today is a day that many people “celebrate” in America by eating a turkey. Libertarians think about things, and so I’d like you to think about that.

Do you think that taxes are wrong because they are based on aggression and force? Well, what did the turkey ever do to you?

Not only did the turkey do nothing to deserve death at your dinner plate, it probably lived a thankless life stuffed in a cage in a shed, never seeing daylight while it was alive. Our basic rights are life and liberty, along with the pursuit of happiness. A turkey destined to be slaughtered has the chance for none of these things. So if you think you’re a real liberty lover and yet you are eating a living being raised on a factory farm this Thanksgiving, I’m pulling your freedom fighter card. And yes, if you bought it in a grocery store, your turkey was raised on a factory farm.

For those who say that they won’t take part in things that are massively subsidized by the government– that turkey would be pretty expensive if meat producers weren’t directly subsidized and protected by our very own United States government, to the tune of billions of dollars every year in subsidies.

For those who say that food simply must include meat, I used to think the same but I have never eaten a more delicious variety of foods than I have since going vegetarian. This is no argument, and in fact I’ve noticed that while turkeys get the headlines, the foods most people actually rave about on Thanksgiving are vegetarian– cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pies, casseroles, butternut squash.

Ever wonder why people want to drop bombs on third world countries? Why wouldn’t less educated (since I’m going to state for these purposes that non-libertarians are less educated than libertarians) people tyrannize unseen masses thousands of miles away when they are willing to celebrate a holiday by *eating a carcass*? What does it say about libertarians as a group that we are concerned about, say, unprovoked wars, but don’t demonstrate en masse against the government-subsidized, unethical slaughterhouses that are probably providing these Thanksgiving turkeys “red in tooth and claw”?

If you are a libertarian omnivore and I’ve lost you and you never want to read my blog again, I guess that’s just how it is and we’ll part ways agreeing on some things and disagreeing on others. But on libertarian issues, I’ve never minced words, and on this I won’t, either. And I won’t until sentient beings are not killed and suffering, paid for by taxpayer dollars.

And if nothing else, let me put it this way– Sarah Palin is eating a turkey this Thanksgiving. So is George W. Bush. So is Obama. Do you really want to follow that crowd and just do what the masses do?

My future posts might not be all about animals, but they will be about liberty, and animals definitely need some of that. You can help. And it’s something you can do today.

Even Matthew Yglesias admits it.

Rob Tornoe is collecting the reaction of cartoonists worldwide to Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize.

So far, it seems international cartoonists (with the exception of Thailand and Bulgaria) congratulate Obama without making a political comment, while American political cartoonists for the most part have riffed on Obama not expecting it and not deserving it, not to mention having to live up to it.

Last Sunday, at Festifall in Chapel Hill, NC, I met a peace/anti-torture activist, from the NC Peace Coalition. I asked her what Obama had done for peace (of course knowing the answer, but wondering if she would be honest about it). “Nothing… but I love him anyway!” she at least honestly replied.

So Obama “won” the Nobel Peace Prize.

In truth, he got it because he is a Democrat who espouses (follow-through doesn’t matter for these people) policies that this Norwegian group likes. No, it is not just because he is not George W. Bush (although you wouldn’t necessarily know that by viewing his policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, or for renewing the Patriot Act), because I can’t imagine John McCain receiving the Nobel if the election had swayed a few percentage points the other way. So, women’s rights activists, dissidents against the Chinese government, and political prisoners be damned, Obama got moved to the front of the line for what used to be considered a top honor.

The deadline for nominations was 10 days after Obama took office, which means most likely that the prize is awarded on his campaign rhetoric and paying for abortions in Africa (which he decided to do his first day in office).

Of course if Obama has any respect for actual peace activists, or for justice in this world, he’d give it back and say he hopes he can earn it later.

The National Review brings up an interesting hidden motive the Nobelites might have had: whether to bomb Iran (or even use nuclear weapons) to prevent Iran from getting them. Perhaps that could be a silver lining in a very dark cloud: actual deserving past and future Nobelists like Muhammad Yunus will find their prize means less now.

For the record, here is a list of Obama’s accomplishments on behalf of war and strife:

• He has not pulled out of Iraq, as he repeatedly promised during his campaign, or even done anything to decrease troops there.
• He may escalate things in Afghanistan.
• He wants to renew three provisions of the Patriot Act that Republican senators are for, Democratic senators are against.
• “vowed to pursue a world without nuclear weapons” – as everyone does, but of course he has not given up American nukes and hasn’t discounted using them against Iran. And of course, he has agreed to keep Israel’s nuclear stash officially secret.

“One thing is certain — President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.” – Michael Steele, RNC

First, how to win a debate with a Chomskyite:

Chomsky supporter criticizes Michelle Malkin.
Chomsky supporter then makes something up about Ron Paul out of the blue.
Point out to Chomsky supporter that Michelle Malkin attempted to fabricate these exact allegations about Ron Paul two years ago.
Chomsky supporter says nothing more about Ron Paul and moves on to how great Chomsky is, saying that his views are both consistent and logical.

So this is my great Noam Chomsky post, wherein I show just some of the inconsistencies and flaws in Noam Chomsky’s political arguments.

The interview my pseudo debater pointed to is one from a few years ago in which Chomsky discusses the “views” of Ron Paul (“views” in quotes because Chomsky often distorts Ron Paul’s actual political views into a caricature/straw man which Chomsky then has a less difficult time debating). Interestingly, Chomsky is an anarchist himself but the views he often knocks down in this interview are more related to anarchism than libertarianism. After describing something which is a cross between our current society and anarchism, Chomsky concludes it “would be a nightmare, in my opinion, on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding.”

First up is personal contracts. Ron Paul is for voluntary associations among people, otherwise known as “contracts.” To the idea of voluntary contracts between people, Chomsky replies:

Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.

First of all, it’s a bit disingenuous to argue against a purported worst case scenario, yet treat this as the natural endgame of anything as inauspicious as voluntary contracts. First of all, I would say that “democratic politics” did not get rid of this scenario at all, it just plays out in other countries of the world every day. Secondly, in countries with non-tyrannical governments, there will always be a choice in companies to work for or you can start your own as many poor people have done. Third, contracts enforced by law enforcement is what we have now, so does Chomsky think that we have already “entered a period of private tyranny”? If so, since Ron Paul is against pretty much all the current corporatist and financial system, he’s barking up the wrong tree.

The only reason someone would choose this General Electric job is because there is absolutely no other alternative. That situation certainly wouldn’t exist in a free market, because the enterprising person could start their own business easily. That’s very difficult to do today.

Of course, in the end, Chomsky sums up his views by saying that things in Chomsky World would be “worked out by free communities.” How is that much different than voluntary personal contracts or the libertarianism he tries so hard to set up as a strawman and criticize?

Let’s continue.

Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public (corporations are unaccountable, apart from generally weak regulatory apparatus)?

Yes, corporations certainly aren’t accountable when they bankrupt themselves and we wag our finger and bail them out easier than a poor person gets food stamps, but that wouldn’t exist in a libertarian government. Currently, regulations serve to do the opposite of what Chomsky says they accomplish, accountability: the corporations actually write those regulations (literally write the bills that Congress passes) and of course write them in a way that keeps themselves in business at the expense of any competitor or gives them a monopoly. Notice how Chomsky does not mention this tidbit at all, even though it is directly what keeps those hated cable, electricity, and telecom companies in business.

Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded? like what we’re now using, computers and the internet?

Did the economy collapse when R&D wasn’t publicly funded, or did many of those things he mentions (computers, the Internet) come from the transistor, which came from Bell Labs, the best R&D of all time (and privately funded!) What Chomsky doesn’t mention is that the Internet came from a military project which his anarchist society would not fund, and the project sat there for decades until it was released to private hands, which used it to create the Internet. Same for GPS, only when given over to private entrepreneurs was the public able to use or even glimpse these projects.

Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation?

If roads, schools, public transportation, and environmental regulation (of everyone but itself and large corporations, of course) are so important to Chomsky, why does he advocate for the government to do anything else? If in fact these things are the most basic and essential components of government, why not skim off all that fat and allow the government to concentrate on these and get them right?

Now, we have potholes, 50% graduation rates, virtually no public transportation outside of large cities, and of course, the government is our country’s own largest polluter. Sounds like the government isn’t doing too great on any of these accounts.

Since unlike Chomsky tries to imply, these things would all still exist and probably be better in a libertarian society with actual accountability, his argument is, as usual, groundless.

(Question) He defends workers right to organize (so long as owners have the right to argue against it).

Noam Chomsky: Rights that are enforced by state police power, as you’ve already mentioned.

How are these rights not enforced by “state police power” currently? How is Chomsky going to defend these rights, if it’s not some sort of central committee/groups/maybe even one person (Chomsky himself?) as “The Decider”?

There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources.

This is such a supreme generalization that I’m not sure where to begin.

Workers have absolutely no power over owners? Most people in America are employed by a small business. Try running a small business or working at one, and you’ll see quickly that an owner has every reason to keep his/her workers happy, employed, and doing their jobs. If a worker suddenly quits, an owner can be in a bad situation.

Saying that workers cannot “intimidate” owners may be true if one thinks that anyone doing any intimidating would get a worker fired, but I have seen the opposite. Some highly trained and specialized employees are extremely valuable to a business and can lord over (or completely run over or take advantage of) the owner if they choose to do so.

But perhaps Chomsky is only referring to large corporations, which deal more with unions. Chomsky apparently wants to correct what he sees as a power imbalance by allowing workers to join unions. However, many unions require workers to be members and forbid a company from hiring any non-union labor. Chomsky thinks the owner has all the power, but doesn’t his solution (AKA the status quo) just transfer all that power to the unions, still at the expense of the individual worker?

Let me give one pertinent example. My brother has a small carpenter’s business. To get big jobs (government, etc.) he would have to be a part of the local carpenter’s union. Well, just join the union, right? No, the union doesn’t accept new members. You have to “know” someone to become part of the union. Sounds to me like the union doesn’t care about workers in general, but merely protecting its own workers at other people’s expense. (In fact, that’s the very definition of a union!) Yet, it has achieved the power through government means (partly through rhetoric like that of Chomsky’s here) of saying that it is protecting its workers’ and the public’s safety by getting all the large jobs for its members’ choosing, without having to compete with more skilled, non-unionized workers.

And yet, giving workers and owners equal consideration and “putting them on a par” is forbidden by Chomsky, too. You just can’t win with this guy.

So what about foreign policy?

Chomsky, supposedly so against America’s foreign policy, really only wants to impose his preferred form of foreign policy on other nations. Ron Paul’s idea that we should let other countries govern themselves is “morally unacceptable.”

OK, then. Anyone who disagrees with Chomsky is immoral, with no specifics given.

Take Social Security. If he means what he says literally,

If Ron Paul means what literally? Notice how Chomsky gives no quote whatsoever. In fact, he’s literally making all this stuff up.

then widows, orphans, the disabled who didn’t themselves pay into Social Security should not benefit (or of course those awful illegal aliens).

When has Ron Paul ever said any of these groups shouldn’t receive Social Security? In fact, he is the only member of Congress who doesn’t raid the Social Security “lockbox” to pay for general accounting, and he is the only politician I’ve heard who has said Social Security and Medicare could be fully funded by simply bringing our troops home and closing our 900 military bases around the world. Notice how Chomsky isn’t even aware of Ron Paul’s position on this issue and is just turning this into a generalized rant.

His claims about SS being “broken” are just false.

Oh, really? Aren’t more people receiving benefits now than are paying in to the system? Where’s the money for this program?

He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based, the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need.

Here we come right down to it. Chomsky wants a “communal” decision, decided by, of course, Chomsky. Allowing a younger worker to not pay into the communal pot is verboten. But, you say, that younger worker is one of those starving workers with three young children who can’t afford to find a place to work other than General Electric and doesn’t even have a union but only an intimidating boss! Too bad, Chomsky says, everyone has to give up thousands of dollars a year to ensure Chomsky’s own Social Security benefits.

Never mind that the money won’t be there when the starving worker reaches SS age; Chomsky doesn’t worry about that, and forget about those charts and graphs. Social Security is not “broken.” It’s immoral to say so.

Also never mind that the situation Chomsky tries to speak of in which our starving worker is taken advantage of by an intimidating boss is actually often the case with an intimidating government, which not only takes money for Social Security and Medicare out of a young worker’s paycheck but income taxes, too. Forcibly. Notice how Chomsky’s sympathy for the workers does not extend to the big hand of government forcing them to hand over 40% of their paycheck.

He wants people to be able to run around freely with assault rifles, on the basis of a distorted reading of the Second Amendment (and while we’re at it, why not abolish the whole raft of constitutional provisions and amendments, since they were all enacted in ways he opposes?).

Funny, when Chomsky reads the First Amendment, he takes it to say what it means. When he reads the Second Amendment, he tries to say it doesn’t really mean what it really means.

And what is this about the Constitution not being enacted in a way that Ron Paul would agree with? Ron Paul bases every political position he takes on the Constitution. Chomsky is against just making stuff up here.

At the end, Chomsky says that he would support Hillary Clinton over Ron Paul (yes, the Iraq War-supporting, Drug War-supporting, current Israel policy-supporting, Patriot Act-voting, bailout-supporting, not-ruling-out-nukes-against-Iran Hillary Clinton.) Now that’s a principled vote!

So who’s the fundamentalist?

Amy King was just doing her job that day, like John William Perry and so many other people. She was a flight attendant on United Airlines Flight 175 bound for Chicago, which was crashed into the south tower that would ultimately collapse on Officer Perry. She was 29 years old and working the flight with a fellow flight attendant, Michael “Mac” Tarrou, who was her boyfriend of two years. They both loved music and flying. In Chicago during a layover, they were going to see her family, and they planned to move to Florida to be closer to his.

Amy often flew to Chicago to surprise her sisters’ kids. She loved fashion design, and her boyfriend had a 12-year-old daughter and “loved music and songs” and “lived a peaceful life.” King “was the person who would have thought of everybody else.” King and Tarrou were particularly close to the other United attendants based in Boston.

Some descriptions of the passengers on Flight 175 can be found here. There were seven flight attendants on the plane that day, and they will continue to be remembered as victims of a larger conflict that they had no part in, people who didn’t matter to the hijackers that day but do matter to us.

Eight years have passed since that day, a day we all remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news. So many lives killed, thankfully not as many as the initial estimates, but still so many lives, souls and people that it’s simply beyond comprehension. People generally have a difficult time processing large numbers and do better with individual stories. That is part of why I chose to participate this year in Project 2,996, in which bloggers memorialize some of these lives lost.

John William Perry was a police officer who, while not at the World Trade Center himself when the planes hit the towers, ran to Ground Zero to do what he could to help and gave his life trying to rescue people from the towers. Perry had graduated from New York University Law School and had been an activist in the ACLU and Libertarian Party, with a particular focus in the war on drugs and how misguided it is.

Incredibly, I did not choose John William Perry as my person, I was assigned to memorialize him, yet I had already independently come across a memorial site to him… a site in which he is remembered by a friend, as a good friend and a good person– “John Perry was one of my best friends and one of my all-time favorite people… He has made me laugh so much. I still miss him. I always will.” When you think about it, there aren’t too many higher, or more heartfelt, compliments someone could hope to receive beyond those simple yet important accolades, but I’ll try.

I came across Perry through a Google search because he was a libertarian and because he was interested in things libertarians in general are often interested in, such as cryonics. He was a member of the Libertarian Party and planned to run for office as a Libertarian, and like many libertarians, he believed in the power of private, unforced giving and practiced it.

Perry was also remarkable in other ways that are immediately evident to anyone reading about him. He was a police officer who obviously chose to be a police officer, who had graduated from a top law school and could have easily had a different career. He spoke multiple languages fluently, including Swedish, French, Spanish, and Russian (and was learning Albanian when he died!) He was a member of the National Guard and an avid volunteer, for the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children and as a board member for the New York Civil Liberties Union, which won so many important battles against Rudy Giuliani during those years. His regard for other people did not stop at the New York City area or even America’s borders: he donated bulletproof vests to Russian police officers who lacked equipment.

As a police officer based in the Bronx, he stood against police brutality, racial profiling, vice laws, gun control, the War on Drugs, police corruption, and other abuses of power.

September 11th was going to be an eventful day in Perry’s life no matter what; it was to be his last day as a police officer, and he was signing his retirement papers and turning in his badge at 1 Police Plaza when he heard the news and rushed to the World Trade Center a few blocks away. He refused to leave the building while civilians were still in it who needed his assistance. Eyewitnesses said Perry was in the midst of helping a middle-aged woman who had fainted from a heart or asthma attack when the south tower collapsed above him.

Perry is memorialized at his alma mater, SUNY-Stonybrook, along with other classmates and alums who perished in the twin towers. The town of Hempstead, in Long Island, named a street John W. Perry Avenue in the officer’s honor. At the 2002 National Libertarian Party convention, he was given a lifetime achievement award.

If you would like to help remember John W. Perry and his bravery that day, as well as do your part to help a cause he believed in, you can make a donation to the John W. Perry Fund in his honor. The fund gives scholarships to students who have been prevented by a 1998 federal bill from receiving any financial aid or even taking work-study jobs to get through school, due to even minor (non-violent) drug possession charges.

Officer Perry was survived by his parents, Patricia and James, siblings Janice and Joel, and nephew Jimmy. While Perry had an interest and hope in the possibilities of cryonics that was also sadly cut off by the September 11th murderers, it is a certainty that the memory of John William Perry’s life and heroism will remain in the minds of many, and will live on in the future through the actions and dreams of those inspired by his giving spirit.

The Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine recently launched an ad campaign on the DC Metro system featuring Jasmine Messiah, an 8-year-old Miami girl who is a vegetarian and says her school has no vegetarian options available for her.

From Animals

The ad garnered more attention for asking why Obama supports different policies for his children than for others’ children, and the White House asking for the ads to be taken down, than it did for its actual content or purpose. I think the ad serves its purpose well. The fact is, Obama has no idea what food is served in the lunchrooms of American public schools because his daughters have never attended one, and neither did he. He went to the most exclusive private academy in Hawaii.

As for the mission of PCRM– I’m a vegetarian, so I agree with their mission of showing that vegetarian diets are in fact healthy (as confirmed by the American Diatetic Association in a recent statement) and expanding them. However, the concurrent goal of having the federal government step in to provide healthier school lunches is not one I can wholeheartedly endorse. I don’t think the federal government, and especially the USDA which works in tandem with agribusiness lobbyists to buy gruel for the nation’s schoolchildren, should be in the business of providing lunches at all.

However, we currently spend billions of the USDA’s budget on school lunches and other subsidized lunch programs that will not end anytime soon. IF we’re going to spend the money anyway, we might as well buy healthy food and not contribute to an obesity problem poor children are already more likely to have due to our other food policies. While vegetarian food, strictly speaking, is not necessarily healthier than meat-based meals 100% of the time (think cheese pizza vs. salmon), most of the time it is. Spending billions on meals for children and not including fruits and vegetables is pretty much a crime. This is true especially if we get some sort of public health care system in place (of course, we do already have that for those over 65), where we’ll be paying for treatment for heart attacks, statins, and strokes of grown-up schoolchildren with clogged arteries from years of mystery meat.

And there’s always the possibility, too, that Malia and Sasha might take notice: the last young girl to live in the White House, Chelsea Clinton, was a vegetarian. The Obama daughters attend the same school as Chelsea, Sidwell Friends, which has a Quaker affiliation; Quakers have historically been very friendly towards vegetarian diets due to their teachings of non-violence.

Canada has been in the news lately primarily for its health care system, which may be wonderful or lacking, depending on who you ask and who’s telling you. But while Canadians may or may not be boycotting their own health system for Michigan’s, others are boycotting Canada due to its seal hunt.

Rarely have I found a cause which should be so in line with libertarian thinking, yet is so misrepresented. Some libertarians who oppose the seal hunt even neglect to mention the primary reason this is such an easy choice for libertarians.

From Seal Hunt

Canada’s polar bears are dying because they don’t have enough seals to eat, yet Canada’s government each year subsidizes the world’s largest slaughter of marine mammals, the Canadian seal hunt.

From Seal Hunt

This is a favorite cause of Paul McCartney, as well as many animal rights activists. It’s also a cause close to the hearts of Canadian MPs– not surprising when you see the seal hunt described as “a make-work project for out-of-work fishermen”; one can’t help but wonder why our own government hasn’t tried to import seals as part of Obama’s economic stimulus plan, since these plans are based on the same central idea as that failed plan is (and which many animal rights activists might support in our own country!)

Each year, Canada uses taxpayer dollars to attempt to sell seal meat internationally, even though no one from anywhere but Taiwan and South Korea is willing to buy it (including Canadians, if that tells you anything). Canada also spends “R&D” (again, tax dollars) to market “seal oil” as a source of Omega 3 fatty acids in an attempt to make some sort of successful product from the seal hunt, but to little avail. There’s one product that can actually be sold from the seal hunt, the sealskins, and 80% of the sealskin that’s purchased is bought from a Norwegian company that receives significant financial backing from Norway’s government.

From Seal Hunt

Finally, while the United States has banned the import of seal skin since 1972 and the European Union since a few days ago, it has been the boycott of Canadian seafood by American buyers opposed to the seal hunt that has damaged Canada’s economy and, I predict, will force Canada to eventually end the seal slaughter.

This is certainly a case where free market boycotts and education can make more of an impact on the ending of a practice consumers object to, rather than countrywide bans. Even if the United States had not banned seal skins in 1972, there wouldn’t be much of a market for seal skins in America today simply because most Americans are revolted by the practice. You can see if your grocery store is participating in the boycott of Canadian seafood here.