Libertarian Girl

Imagine that you had an Orthodox rabbi in Jerusalem, who called for massacres of Palestinian civilians. He was arrested by the Palestinians, and they let him go with the caveat that he stop calling for the massacres. He’s soon back at his same old spiel, praising Jews who kill Arabs and other such nonsense. Soon, he’s assassinated by Palestinian groups.

If you are against killing of any sort, there are two ways of looking at this. A killing is bad, simply because it’s a killing. Or, a killing is good if the person in question would have caused more killings through living. In that way, it’s a bit of self-defense. The problem is, the lines between these can be tricky to navigate sometimes.

As you might have surmised, the theoretical Orthodox rabbi doesn’t exist. The religious official in question was Sheikh Ahmed Hassin, killed by the Israelis in a 2004 airstrike, along with about nine or ten civilians. 200,000 Palestinians (half the city’s population) lined the streets of Gaza City for his funeral, so it’s clear he was loved by the Palestinians despite tendencies some of us might find quite objectionable. His killing might have spurred yet more of what seems to be endless violence. Or, the end of Hassin’s endless calls that annihilating Israel was a worthy calling and goal to work toward may have prevented some young Palestinian from being encouraged to blow himself up in a public square. We can’t really know. Isn’t it, then, a microcosm for this entire conflict?

“The first thought that enters an Israeli’s head when he wakes up in the morning is, Fuck you. It’s there before he even has an idea to whom he wants to say ‘Fuck you.’” -  Israeli academic Dan Schueftan

Of course, the above could be equally attributable to Palestinians, and I guess that’s really our essential problem.

One of the issues most pertinent to those interested in liberty in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not centered in the Middle East at all. Ironically, it’s easier for Israelis themselves to criticize their government’s policies (and many do) than it is for an American or really anyone from any other country to criticize Israel’s policies without a news release blasting them as anti-Semitic from what are usually American groups. While private groups have the right to say anything they want, that doesn’t mean they should. Yes, Jews have historically (and tragically) been victimized in countries around the world, for their beliefs or their culture, or their occupations they were forced into anyway. That doesn’t mean that everyone in the world is an anti-Semite or that the only reason someone would criticize Israel is because Israel is a Jewish nation. Even odder, AIPAC has itself disagreed with Israel. Is AIPAC therefore anti-Semitic by its own definition?

But aside from being too quick to judge anti-Semitism, is AIPAC really so bad? In some ways, I don’t think it’s any worse than some academics I’ve encountered who blindly back the Palestinian side no matter what develops in the conflict. It seems that for both sides, facts are less important than demonizing the other side.

While I don’t think members of Congress should pay any attention whatsoever to lobbyists, it’s clear lobbyists should be able to exist. At heart, and ignoring their often nefarious goals, they’re Americans representing a point of view to Congress. AIPAC says it represents support of Israel within Congress, and that’s fine in and of itself (although it has in the past been more hawkish than some Israeli governments, so it doesn’t limit itself to what the Israeli government wants, but what AIPAC wants.)

I think the best way to solve the issue is not for AIPAC to cease, but for the Palestinians to begin to develop their own equivalent American-based lobbying group (the American Association for Palestinian Equal Rights is trying to do just that). Whether you “side” with Israel or the Palestinians, it’s clear the Palestinians have been disadvantaged in a few important ways since the beginning– and it’s certainly clear that today, they are not the ones bargaining from a position of power. It’s undeniable that outside of American and European academia, the Palestinians have an image problem.

Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.  ~ George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address

America, the most powerful country in the world, by default tagged with fixing this problem, doesn’t have a population that sympathizes with the Palestinians, even moderate Mahmoud Abbas, who commands a 14% approval rating in the US. No doubt this stems from the primary images Americans received over many years about Palestinians– hijacking planes, killing Olympic athletes, refusing to negotiate. The Israelis are not just a powerful and wealthy state, but they can say that God chose them as His chosen people, a “light unto the world.” How can the Palestinians possibly compete with that, especially when their primary newsmaking consists of allowing terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah to undertake activities on their behalf? Sure, remaking the Palestinian image would be a tough row to hoe in America, but the thing is– the Palestinians have never even tried. Neither have the Arab states, with whom the Palestinian states tragically aligned themselves at the beginning of this mess.

At first, it seems almost an impossible task. How can the images of guns, black hoods, and militancy be overcome? There are actually a few ways I think Palestinians could market themselves that would have resonance with the American public.

1. Emphasize the lack of access Christians have to certain Jerusalem holy sites within Israel compared to pre-state Palestine. Of course, Palestinians themselves were not ncessarily in charge during pre-state Palestine, but that could easily be left out and give the appearance that the Palestinians (many of whom are indeed Christians) respect Christian holy sites and traditions more than the Israelis (who banned all Christian holy site tourists from the Church of the Sepulchre during Easter last year. Church members were prevented from praying (one of the things that set off pre-state Palestinian Jewish settlers against the Muslims who controlled access to the Wailing Wall), had to go through checkpoints, and were barred from “practicing ancient traditions” despite there never being a security problem in any site of Christian worship in Jerusalem. This would deal head-on with a few ongoing issues: making a case that the Palestinians should have East Jerusalem as their capital, that Palestinians might be better stewards in certain areas than Israelis are, that Palestinians are not just all Muslim extremists, and that Christians should support Israel just because Israel is Israel.

We can all relate to the suffering of a Palestinian child.

2. In the areas where public opinion has swayed to the Palestinians, it’s been because of the pictures of dying Palestinian children. To a libertarian (and a Christian, and to a human being…) a Palestinian’s life is necessarily worth the same as a Jewish life or an Israeli life, and it is especially easy to make this connection in the case of children. Children are not terrorists, can’t help where they live, can’t fight back, and since we were all children at one time, they’re easy to relate to. Often dismissed as “collateral damage,” Palestinian children are sympathetic figures.

Other libertarian-related issues I’ll address in future posts:

What happens to the foreign aid we grant to Israel — and the Arab nations? Why do we want to impose further economic sanctions on Iran through the front door while we enrich Iranian businesses through the back door?

What about Iran, and how is it different from North Korea?

What about Benjamin Netanyahu?

Why are settlements so important?

If you think you’ve ever been to a busy mall, shopping area, or highway, you’re wrong unless you’ve seen what awaits shoppers in Paramus, New Jersey along Route 17. I used to live nearby, and I hated having to buy anything because it meant dealing with the crowds and traffic on Route 17, which I understand takes in more money than any shopping area in the country (it’s right next to New York City in Bergen County, New Jersey).

The amazing thing about Paramus is that the Route 17 shopping corridor contains anything you would ever want in life, except if you’re wanting it on a Sunday. Everything except food is closed on Sundays due to Bergen County’s “blue laws,” pretty much the only ones left in the nation. The laws recently made national news because new NJ governor Chris Christie proposed ending them to help close the state’s budget gap (against some local opposition).

I’m reading some essays by the author/essayist Charles Chesnutt for a class. Chesnutt is fascinating because if you saw him today, you would immediately classify him as white without a second thought. However, by the “one-drop rule,” Chesnutt was black, and he self-identified as African-American even though he looked as white as anyone.

In his essay “What Is A White Man?”, Chesnutt writes about the laws deciding what composition of genetics made a white or black man, especially in the South: “Some day they will, perhaps, become mere curiosities of jurisprudence; the ‘black laws’ will be bracketed with the ‘blue laws,’ and will be at best but landmarks by which to measure the progress of the nation. But to-day these laws are in active operation, and they are, therefore, worthy of attention; for every good citizen ought to know the law, and, if possible, to respect it; and if not worthy of respect, it should be changed by the authority which enacted it.”

Isn’t it fascinating that Chesnutt wrote in 1889 as if blue laws were a quaint relic of ancient history, and yet, Bergen County is still clinging to them 120 years later?

The upside, of course, is that at least America has left behind the hideous practice of the government deciding what race we each are (and therefore what rights to bestow on us). The government may want you to choose a race for your census form, but you can self-identify as anything. Sometimes rather than focusing on how bad our current government is, it’s nice to reflect on how bad some things used to be and how in many ways, government has improved as time goes on. After all, that’s what every libertarian hopes for, right?

It’s a big question, perhaps the biggest of all those facing the world today. You hear about it all the time, and so many events are occurring right now in the region that they barely make the news unless they include the drama of CCTV images and a Mossad hit. Israel, Palestine, Zionism, the Arab question: is there a central libertarian view on this conflict or, like virtually every aspect of the conflict itself, are there always divergent viewpoints on the same events and actions which could easily lead to opposite interpretations?

I’m taking a class on Israel and Palestine now. Luckily, it’s taught by a knowledgeable and neutral professor who pretty much knows all the ins and outs of the conflict. I’m at least familiar with most of the major historical events at this point, but I was curious about past libertarian thinking on the subject.

One one hand, we have the idea that, while pretty much unspoken, is most likely the basis for American support of Israel to this day: Israel is simply superior to those who oppose Israel. Israelis produce some of the major medical advances in the world today, and Israel is a modern and prosperous society with a degree of freedom not seen in the Arab nations that oppose it so strongly. If the Palestinians regained part of Israel, what would they do with it? This view, sometimes exaggerated, is elaborated on by the Ayn Rand Institute.

Israel and those who attack it are not moral equals. Israel is, like the United States, a “mixed economy,” which retains a significant respect for individual rights. Its citizens, whatever their race or religion, enjoy many freedoms, including freedom of thought and speech, and the right to own property. The purpose of Israel’s military is only self-defense: to protect its citizens from aggressors. Consequently, Israel has a moral right to exist.

Those attacking Israel, by contrast, are terrorist organizations, dictatorships and theocracies, which deliberately violate the rights of their own subjects. Even if these organizations and regimes had never initiated force against Israel, they still would have no moral right to exist.

Although Israel is often accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of human rights, these attacks are rarely made in the same discussion against Arab states (including Jordan) and never in the United Nations, which Arab interests can dominate due to their plethora of countries. There was never any condemnation of the Palestinian National Authority under Arafat for its human rights violations.

I just met a Jordanian girl who said she had to leave because she simply had no rights in the country. Women couldn’t do anything or have jobs. Israel is certainly not perfect and can make progress in the areas of equal human rights for all its citizens (and those in the territories), but what’s the alternative? Have you ever seen a woman in Gaza who didn’t have a head scarf on? Do they all just choose to wear it? Is Hamas known for encouraging freedom of speech, assembly, and choice among the citizens it rules in Gaza? Even Jordan, with a majority Palestinian population, is ruled by a king who, while Americanized, doesn’t find it necessary to give his people democracy or property rights, or grant his country’s women equal rights, let alone gays or other maligned groups.

Forgetting the past, does Israel have a right to exist just based on the fact that it is a freer nation with more individual liberty than a Palestinian state would be?

An animal rights activist told me last July that a person from the animal rights movement had recently been hired by the USDA, and hopefully that would make the USDA’s policies more animal-friendly.

Chances– not likely. As Mother Jones writes, the USDA is “pretty much a trade group for agribusiness.”

In fact, the USDA is the largest purchaser of meat in the United States, virtually keeping these huge factory farms in business and consistently favoring huge companies like ConAgra over the little guy. It supposedly keeps Americans’ meat supply safe, yet it will not allow any company or farm to perform extra testing or certification to say, for instance, that a company’s cattle are free from mad cow disease. The USDA, by its actions, keeps these companies in business. However, by its existence, it keeps much of the meat industry rolling along, because people have no reason to look into what they’re eating themselves due to a false sense of security. The government says it’s OK, so this meat must be OK!

Incredibly, when the Humane Society released its investigative video of the Chino, CA Hallmark Meat Packing slaughtering plant, then-USDA Secretary Ed Schafer blamed the Humane Society rather than the slaughterhouse or USDA inspectors, supposedly for not telling the USDA sooner about the video (local California officials had requested more time from the Humane Society for their investigation). One of the slaughterhouse workers shown in the video, Daniel Ugarte Navarro, said that the abuse of downer cows had been going on for his entire 23-year slaughterhouse career and he never thought anything of it. That means the USDA, which supposedly inspected the plant multiple times a day, missed that abuse for 23 years. How safe do you feel with your meat supply with this kind of oversight?

Now, at least a few nationally circulated articles are revealing what anyone looking into it knew all along: the USDA not only keeps huge companies in business, it allows unsafe meat into the market and covers up slaughterhouse violations to make nice with these companies, creating “public health risks” in the process according to a USDA inspection veterinarian, Dean Wyatt, who just testified before Congress.

What abuses did the USDA allow to happen by ignoring their inspector, Wyatt?

“In one scene, a calf kicks after having one of its feet cut off and in another a calf vocalizes while being skinned, its head almost severed, Humane Society officials alleged.”

The abuses Wyatt was specifically referring to as being covered up occurred with baby calves that were destined for “organic veal” from the supposedly all-natural all-organic Bushway Packing plant in Vermont, uncovered by another Humane Society undercover investigation. Unsurprisingly, animal abuses of this type have never been uncovered by the USDA itself.

USDA veterinarian and inspector Dean Wyatt “describes being threatened with transfer or demotion after citing a plant for butchering conscious pigs, despite rules that they first be stunned and unconscious.”

(The USDA is the country’s largest buyer of meat for the national school lunch program.)

I hosted some guests last weekend, including a teacher in the Newark, New Jersey school system. She described to me how she is constantly having to buy school supplies for her students, especially notebooks– if she tells them they need a notebook for class, the kids’ reply (every single one) is “I can’t get a notebook. I can’t afford it. I’m poor.” Needless to say, this teacher isn’t exactly a trust fund baby, but she buys the notebooks so the kids can ostensibly learn.

The kicker? The kids all have flat screen TVs at home and other luxuries that their hardworking teacher can’t afford. But they are “poor” because they have been told that, because they receive reduced school lunches, and because they fall into the poverty level according to the government’s poverty calculators (which measure income, not what that income is spent on). The message to these kids is that because they are poor they can’t do certain things, even buy a notebook which can cost less than $1. Is this really how we’re raising the next generation?

I just heard an interview the other day with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who is looking into raising the level which is considered living in poverty by the federal government. Sure, there are poor people in the United States. I know a few of them, and they don’t have flat screen TVs, but they have houses, a car, clothes. They live a life that the actual poor in other countries could only dream of, and they probably consider themselves too poor to spare $1 in change to save a life in Africa. When you tell people they’re poor, they begin to really think so.

I can’t say how many times I’ve been caught in the line behind a woman in the grocery store with nicer clothes than me, perfect manicure and hair, who is using WIC (Women, Infant, Children) certificates to buy all her food. I’m sure there are people who need and use this program, but the ones who use it and don’t need it are not few and far between from what I’ve seen. I’ve even been greeted with surprise by a cashier who asks if I’ll be using WIC to pay for my purchases– I guess I’m the age where all young women pay with WIC. Don’t even get me started on the phenomenon of people who sell their food stamps.

It is sad when we as a society place more value on outside appearance of wealth (flat screen TV, manicured nails, nice clothes) than we do on food, benefiting society rather than it personally benefiting you, honesty, authenticity, and education. This problem is basically a microcosm of what is wrong with our entire American society.

I noticed when responding to a few comments last night on my post on responses from readers on libertarianism and animal rights that my post from last July about how selling one’s kidney can save lives (and should be legal) had attracted comments from blog readers actually leaving their email addresses in hopes of selling their kidneys.

While I am pro-choice and think it’s a person’s right to do what they want with their own body, all things being equal… I think it’s best not to facilitate the selling of black market kidneys through one’s blog. I’ve therefore unapproved the comments.

But it is an interesting question to think about. Would you allow the comments on your own blog?

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.