Drilling announcement mostly symbolic

I'll give Barack Obama a certain amount of credit for announcing that certain tracts on the Outer Continental Shelf could be opened to oil and gas seismic exploration and drilling. Although there's little chance any drilling will actually occur there anytime soon, he certainly has taken heat fro0m much of his base, and he had to know it was coming. It took me a while today, with help from Jerry Taylor of Cato, just what the legal status of his announcement is. As I understand it, it's an amendment to the moratorium he reinstated when he became president (see here for more of the history). It's more politically than geophysically calculated (of course), slated off the shores of states where it's likely to be popular and not off California, where it's not so likely. Jerry Taylor thinks it's his way of saying "I care" as gasoline prices rise this summer. He's probably right.

Who really opposes communism?

The 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall falling came and went with not much more than a slioght nod in the direction of an event that may have led to more people being liberated from tyranny than any in history. I've been thinking about this for a while -- sorry I didn't write it earlier -- but it seems to me that libertarians were almost the only ones to try to commemorate it properly. I did a column and Cato had Paul Hollander do a fairly lengthy analysis, and Paul also did a WaPo column. I think it's because only libertarians utterly reject the philosophy behind communism -- every assumption, every premise -- though Karl Marx is still worth reading for class analysis and much else. Almost every other political persuasion, including, American conservatives, who for decades centered their political program around anti-communism, has just a bit of the collectivist taint. They all believe that at least for certain issues and to some extent the individual should be sublimated to the collective and controlled by the wise and responsible elements in society. Bull!

Decriminalization reduces drug problems

Mexico has decriminalized possession of small amounts of formerly illicit drugs. In this column I wrote for the Register's Sunday Commentary section, I explain that it's a logical and constructive step. It is little known -- though becoming better-known since Glenn Greenwald did a paper for Cato -- that Portugal decriminalized possession, use and acquisition of all the "illicit" drugs amounting to about a 10 days supply. The results have been dramatic, but in the opposite direction of what most people predicted. Portugal, which had among the highest levels of drug use and ancillary problems -- transmission of AIDS and other diseases, deaths -- in Europe in 1999, now has some of the lowest levels. The levels of all the European countries are dramatically lower than the United States, which has among the strictest laws and the most punitive approach in the relatively developed world (Iran still has the death penalty and still has a growing problem). Decriminalization is likely to make an unmanageable drug problem somewhat manageable. Of course I'd still prefer full legalization, giving marijuana the same legal status as parsley, but any liberalization would be welcome.

Health care? Expect more taxes

As Matt Bai's article in the NYT Magazine explains in perhaps too much detail, the Obama administration has moved shrewdly in pursuit of getting something that can be called health care reform through Congress, nurturing relationships in Congress to an extent Bush and Clinton never approached. But the sticking point just might be new taxes. As this Register editorial points out, Obama is actively flirting with two notions: making health benefits taxable to employees and putting a cap in deductions the "wealthy" can claim, to raise at least some of the money that will be needed.

The notion that deepening government involvement will lead to saving money, as the administration and its lackeys keep trying to make us believe (and maybe to convince themselves) is chimerical. But they seem determined and savvy, and resistanbce is less at this point than in 1993. I think Mike Cannon at Cato is doing some of the best work being done on health care issues, including this paper just released delineating the failures of the Massachusettsmodel, and a steady rain of articles and blog posts. If reasoned argument cold do it more nationalized health care would be dead in the water. I suspect if the administration falters, however, it will be due to divisions in the Democratic party rather than reasoned argument.

Supremes fight: make it over the Constitution

According to this news story, observers expect a vigorous battle over Pres. Obama's Supreme Court nominee, whoever it may be. I think it would be a mistake to make it either personal or bitter. As I suggested in my piece a couple of weeks ago (which highlighted pretty much the same cast of probably top candidates), the most useful thing the Republicans could do would be to ask questions about constitutional interpretation that clearly establish them as limited-government constitutionalists. If the nominee has a more expansive view of the powers the constitution grants to different branches of government, they should ask pointed questions as to why, and demand a justification for interpreting the constitution to grant more power than the plain words seem to grant, especially to the executive branch, which has grabbed power shamelessly under both parties for the last 70 years or so.

Having made the recommendation, I seriously doubt it will happen. To be fair, Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute fleshed out the idea in more detail when I talked to him in preparing my piece. But he also said that his experience when testifying before congressional committees was that the Republicans were generally ill-prepared and could ask only the most general questions, questions that didn't betray much knowledge of subtleties or nuance. In addition, Republicans since Reagan have (generally, noit universally) become cheerleaders for a powerful executive, especially under Bush, with the notion of the "unitary executive." Politicians are fully capable of doing a 180 on almost anything, of course, but I doubt if many in Congress have the sophistication to do it credibly.

Too bad. The Supremes hearings will be the first time most of the public will have heard much more than sounbdbites from Republicans since November. A smart, principled-sounding performance could restore a modicum of credibility. But both parties are pretty much hopeless in these days of imperial decadence.

Nat Hentoff joins Cato Institute

Nat Hentoff, for 50 years a columnist for the Village Voice and in addition to being perhaps our best writer on jazz a persistent and tireless advocate of civil liberties, has joined the Cato Institute as a Senior Fellow. Years ago I had the privilege of introducing him at a Free Press Association conference, and I found him delightful. Good for him and good for Cato. I said most of what I wanted to say in this post over at the Register's Orange Punch blog.

R.C. Hoiles and the prospects for liberty

Here's a link to the piece I wrote for Sunday's Register, to commemorate what we call Founders Day at Freedom Communications -- R.C. Hoiles was born on Nov. 24. I tried to put the remembrance in reasonably current terms, noting that in part because so many choose to blame the financial crisis on the "deregulated" free market, and an administration explicitly determined to have a more activist government is coming into power, the prospects might seem somewhat bleak. But by comparison to what R.C. faced in the 1930s and 1940s, when there were no libertarian think tanks and precious few academics, our resources are much greater.

Hope you enjoy it and find it informative. Leave comments, here or there.

Fixing the financial mess

Well, it has certainly been a week, hasn't it? Here's the Register's take on it in today's editorial, for which I owe a great deal (not everything in it, but a good bit) to Bill Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute. I always find that Bill sees the big picture much more clearly than most, and brings a certain wisdom to his assessment of economic events. He was gracious enough to talk with me while lunch was being served at a Cato donors event, and he laid out his views in the most concise and organized manner possible.

The three big mistakes by government? Keeping Fannnie and Freddie in business with their inherently flawed business model, creating the market for subprime mortgages, which it did with the Community Reinvestment Act, and especially allowing Fannir and Freddie to securitize subprimes, and the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates too low from 2002-2005, creating the bubble that rather pridictably has burst.In the private sector, besides those who gamed the system, the various credit rating agencies failed completely, which has not been widely enough acknowledged, and they have not suffered any consequences for their failure.

End of free trade? Maybe not

The World Trade Organization's Doha Round of trade talks ended in failure last week, the first time since the establishment of the generally trade-promoting GATT regime after WWII that a round of talks -- these started in 2001 -- failed to produce some kind of liberalization agreement. This time they couldn't even come up with a token move. Editorials lamenting this failure rang out across the land. I think, however, that the Cato Institute's Dan Ikenson has convinced me that the death of moves toward freer trade has been exaggerated. As this Register editorial explains, while political leaders may denounce globalization and free trade in public, the record of recent years has shown that the countries that trade the most tend to enjoy the most economic growth -- so even as India undermined the WTO talks to popular acclaim in India, India has liberalized both its internal and external business and trade policies and begun to enjoy growth and some measure of affluence.

I still don't understand why free trade, which anyone who has ever taken Econ 101 or thought for more than a moment understands is long-term beneficial to the society that adopts it (though there may be short-term disruptions and losers, as always happens in a dynamic economy), is so easy to denounce in the political realm. Dan says, however, that some of same politicians who demagogue against free trade and globalization privately understand that the stance is stupid populism (maybe Barack Obama?) and in action take steps to increase trade. (Count on politicians to be hypocrites.) Dan sees a good deal of progress in the area of reducing bureaucratic impediments -- overlapping agencies demanding forms and doing inspections, sometimes soliciting bribes, consuming valuable time -- which can be more significant than outright tariffs at impeding trade flows.

Freedom's underlying principles

At the Freedom School here in San Antonio we held a session moderated by Tom Palmer of the Cato Institute, who was sent local-issue editorials from almost all the Freedom newspapers and asked to analyze them. Tom is a very smart guy and a good synthesizer, and he teased out the principles underlying the editorials he was given to read, with these results:

1. Freedom papers tend to support the widest scope of personal freedom consistent with equal freedom for all.
2. The rule of law is an important principle, meaning that societies should be guided by institutions that operate consistently rather than by the personal predilections of leaders or rulers — and that the law applies to the rulers as well as the ruled.
3. Economy in government — that the primary purpose of government is to provide justice and other genuinely essential services, that choices have costs, and that when services can be provided without coercive action, the voluntary route is better.

Not a bad set of principles. Having been to a couple of them, I can't help but think that the Freedom Schools, where top-notch scholars and speakers are invited to give presentations and lead discussions on applying freedom principles to everyday issues, have something to do with this kind of consistency. I'm very pleased that Freedom Communications thinks this is important and invests some of its profits in the endeavor.

A young Milton Friedman prize winner

For some reason the Register didn't post the editorial we did congratulating the Cato Institute for giving the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty (which comes with $500,000!) to 23-year-old Yon Goicoechea, the Venezuelan law student who was a key leader in defeating Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's bid to change the constitution so he could have even more arbitrary power and the potential to be dictator for life. That victory in the referendum in December was a surprise to almost all observers, and it's gratifying that it came mostly as the result of activism by young people.

The subject did come up, however, at Freedom Communications' Freedom School in San Antonio today, where I am sojourning. Cato President Ed Crane gave the luncheon speech, and it was preceded by a Cato video about Yon Goicoechea. Ed gave a brief overview of American history, noting that the country was originally about freedom and individual rights, but underwent what amounts to a revolution during the New Deal, after which government grew continually grew and freedom and individual rights retreated. He managed a smidgen of optimism, noting that people are onto the teachers' unions and ready for more choice. He thinks Bush blew it big-time on Social Security by talking about numbers rather than ownership, but reminded us that the numbers dictate that something will have to be done before the system goes into default. He also stressed that the freedom movement, as Nobel economist James Buchanan noted, can't hope to be successful if it's about economic efficiency more than the ideals of human liberty.

He would be the first to acknowledge that it isn't all his doing, but Ed has really done the remarkable with Cato. It has an annual budget of $25 million and gets 40,000 hits a day on its Web site. In talking with Ed the other night, I learned that it now has blogs in several foreign languages, much of it written by people in other countries. This is largely the work of Tom Palmer, who is also here this week.