Is libertariansim really classical liberalism?

The recent furore regarding Eliot Spitzers fall from grace has sparked the usual discussion on the right between conservatives and libertarians with respect to prostitution. Here is a sample, from NRO's The Corner, of the libertarian side of things.

I can't help but point out that the "businesses" most likely to have "CEOs" murder each other are those businesses that the state has declared illegal: drug lords, prostitution ring pimps, rum runners during alcohol prohibition. In other words, "organized crime." Where people do not have recourse to the law to settle their disputes, they will work outside the law. The Fortune 500 have lawyers and courts. Drug lords do not.

For me, this is yet another reason to legalize all this stuff and let disputes get settled in civil and non-violent ways. Market capitalism and the rule of law civilize us in precisely these ways.

I'm always amazed by how little libertarians understand those things which undergird their beloved markets. Goldberg's correspondent needs to read "The Theory Of Moral Sentiments", and probably needs to be less selective about what he takes in when reading "Wealth Of Nations".

Strictly from a "morals market" point of view I'm quite happy that pimps and drug lords bump each other off. And I'm confident Smith would have agreed.

Libertarians like to describe themselves as being "classical liberals". But the actual liberals they think they are emulating where not nearly as liberal on moral matters. In most cases they were not even as extremist about laissez faire in economics as the modern libertarians.


In many respects modern libertarianism is a whole new concept, without precedent in Anglo-American liberalism or conservatism. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of the movements founders were/are former communists. They simply inverted some of their old beliefs and substituted 'liberty' for 'equality'. But they never learned not to be rigid and dogmatic ideologues, and they retained their intense materialism and hostility for religion and tradition. These traits are almost the reverse image of the original 'classical liberals' like Adam Smith, or even Hayek in more contemporary times.

Liberals and dirty tricks

There is a fake news site called "cnnheadlienews" which pretends to report that "Radical Hispanic separatist[s]" have been responsible for the fires in California.

A WHOIS search on that site shows it is registered to;
Boy, Bleach bboy@bboy.net
701 Arbor Creek Way
Nashville, TN 37217-5053
US
(615) 260-4931

A little research shows that this same person or persons also owns the web site www.bboy.net.

Until today, that site featured an attack on cheap labor. He changed the content, but here is how it used to read.

not one cent to sweatshops

If your clothes carry the Gap label (including Banana Republic, Old Navy, and Baby Gap), chances are that they were produced by sweatshop labor in thousands of factories located in countries like the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador, Russia, Cambodia, Saipan, and the United States

Update: it appears the site bboy.net has a rotating front page. The "sweatshop" page is still visable about every fourth time you go there.

Calling the Senate.

Here is the list of Senators to call and express your opposition to the Dream Act. Area code is 202 in each case.

Murkowski 224-6665;
Stevens 224-3004
Lincoln 224-4843
Kyl 224-4521
Grassley 224-3744
Hutchison 224-5922
Harkin 224-3254
Cochran 224-5054
Cornyn 224-2934
Baucus 224-2651
Nelson (Ben) 224-6551
Byrd 224-3954
Webb 224-4024
Johnson 224-5842
Conrad 224-2043
Dorgan 224-2551
Domenici 224-6621
Lincoln 224-4843
Pryor 224-2353
Boxer 224-3553
Dodd 224-2823
Lieberman 224-4041
Biden 224-5042
Carper 224-2441
Martinez 224-3041
Craig 224-2752
Obama 224-2854
Bayh 224-5623
Brownback 224-6521
Collins 224-2523
Snowe 224-5344
Mikulski 224-4654
Levin 224-6221
Stabenow 224-4822
Coleman 224-5641
Klobuchar 224-3244
McCaskill 224-6154
Ensign 224-6244
Gregg 224-3324
Bingaman 224-5521
Domenici 224-6621
Brown 224-2315
Voinovich 224-3353
Smith 224-3753
Wyden 224-5244
Casey 224-6324
Specter 224-4254
Reed 224-4642
Whitehouse 224-2921
Bennett 224-5444
Warner 224-2023
Webb 224-4024

The New Third Rail of America Politics?

From the NY Post comes news that Governor Spitzer's move to grant drivers licenses to all of New York's illegal aliens is causing heartburn for the Democratc party.

"The driver's-license issue is a killer for us in the suburbs," a senior party strategist said.

"The Nassau County Legislature is in danger, and so are the big Buffalo races," said a prominent elected Democratic official, referring to election battles to retain slim, Democratic control in Nassau County and carry hotly fought contests for county executive and clerk in Erie County.

Another senior Democrat predicted that Sen. Clinton, who has repeatedly refused to say whether she backs Spitzer's plan, would soon be forced to reject it.

"The immigrant license issue is one of the most politically dangerous in the nation, and Hillary will have to come out against it," the Democrat said.

Through A Glass Darkly

Rasmussen are reporting that their latest poll shows Giuliani trailing Clinton in a hypothetical matchup, 48% to 43%.

The same poll indicates a Clinton lead over Thompson of 49% to 41%.

Several months ago Giuliani led Clinton in this matchup, fueling the notion that he and only he could defeat her in the general election. But it was always clear that his high positive approval numbers, a holdover from 911, could not stand up to the scrutiny of a campign.

As more people become aware of Giuliani's record, I expect his approval will continue to drop. His primary selling point was always his supposed ability to compete with HRC. Once that is exposed as an illusion we will see the true extent of his committed support.

Richard Nadler and the Latino Vote Myth

A long time Republican Party operative named Ralph Nader has a study which purports to demonstrate that "comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) is an electoral winner and that "enforcement first" withing an amnesty is an electoral loser.

However, there are a number of serious flaws in his methodology which undermine his conclusions. WHat is his methodology?


1) He singles out three House seats for examination, based on the criteria that that were seats which Republicans lost and that they were held (or in one case, was an open seat) by people who rejected the idea of comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). The three Congressional races he focuses on are those of Henry Bonilla (TX-23), JD Hayworth (AZ-05), and Randy Graf (AZ


2) Within the Congressional districts he has singled out, he goes on to again single out specific counties. In some cases these are majority Hispanic counties, in other cases not.


3) He then contrasts the election returns from the selected counties in selected districts for the year 2006 to the results from the year 2004.



Most of my analysis will focus on this last point. That is, I’m going to make only passing remarks on points (1) and (2) and spend most effort reviewing the data he presents.


As for point (1), there is some evidence that a strong border security stance was not a liability for Republicans in 2006. According to NumbersUSA, only 9.6% of GOP House members with an “A” rating from that organization were defeated, compared to 25% of those with an “F” rating.


Now let's look at his data. Consider the case of Henry Bonilla.

According to Nadler, Bonilla saw his support among Hispanics "collapse" in the wake of his opposition to CIR. “The collapse of his support in Hispanic-majority counties, including Dimmit, Maverick, Presidio, Val Verde, and Zavala, was abrupt and drastic. In a single cycle, his vote share was halved.”

As evidence, he cites the election returns from five largely Hispanic counties in 2004, and then in the special runoff election in 2006. But this is deeply misleading for both years.

First, in 2004 Bonilla was running in his heavily Hispanic district against somebody with the wonderfully non-Hispanic surname of "Sullivan". And he was doing so in a year in which Republican turnout was at an all time high around the country.

If you look back to 2002, the last non-presidential year election in which Bonilla faced a credible Hispanic challenger, he barely scraped out a victory. (I'll have more on the results in the counties highlighted by Nadler in a bit)

In 2006 Bonilla was not in a regular race, but in a Special election called as a result of redistricting. This race occurred on 11/7/2006 and Bonilla won 49% of the vote, a large plurality but not enough for victory according to the rules of the Special election.

Accordingly he faced the leading Democratic challenger, Rodriguez, on 12/12/2006. But at this stage the Republicans had just been routed in the biggest massacre since 1994. Virtually no Republicans showed up the second time.

Bonilla received 60,175 votes in November, but only 32,217 a month later.

Yes, his vote collapsed. But it collapsed because of the heavy defeat suffered by the party in November. It collapsed in every demographic. If two thirds of the people who voted for him in November had done the same in December, Bonilla would still be in Congress. And clearly, that drop off had nothing to do with CIR.

Here is Bonilla's share of the vote in the five counties mentioned by Nadler in 2002, 2004, and the November 2006 elections.

Dimmit – 31%, 49%, 32%.
Maverick – 27%, 59%, 29%.
Presidio – 34%, 50%, 39%.
Val Verde – 54%, 68%, 46%
Zavala – 24%, 35%, 33%.


In other words, between 2002 and 2006 Bonilla INCREASED his vote share in four out of five of these largely Hispanic counties. If that is CIR in action then we need more of it.

Nadler also cites Hutchinson running (slightly) ahead of Bonilla in these districts. But Hutchinson was running against token opposition and won her race going away against a political rookie. And Bonilla actually ran ahead of her in Zavala and Presidio counties.


The Texas election data I have referenced can be found here.

Immigration and the election.

Thee is a new Zogby poll (yes, the usual caveats for Zoby apply) covering several immigration topics.

Some highlights:

Immigration and border security was far and away “the number one issue facing the United States in terms of domestic security,” the poll results show. Fifty percent of all respondents chose it above port security, at 20 percent, transit security, 10 percent. Aviation security, the final choice, was picked by just 4 percent.

The perception of immigration and the border as the key domestic security issue was particularly notable among Republicans, of whom 75 percent picked it, and independents, 55 percent.

This seems to belie the general perception that imigration is just not that big an issue with the public or the Republican base. But remarkably, the Republican Presidential candidates believed to be most capable of dealing with the immigration issue were Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani.


It's possible that the people selecting Giuliani know and approve of his immigration stance, but it seems more likely that they are simply unaware that he has a similar position on immigration to Bush and McCain.