“Taxation is theft.” “War is murder.” “Citizenship is slavery.” If you’re a frequenter of libertarian circles like myself, then you’ve likely encountered some of these oversimplified statements before. They can be overheard at countless conferences and socials, usually overconfidently declared by some schmuck wearing a bow tie, as if his words were the divine dictates of the God he doesn’t believe in. While these statements may fly by unfettered in the libertarian echo chamber where everyone agrees with our bow-tied buffoon, I believe such claims of universal truth are detrimental to use in conversations aiming to convert non-libertarians.

Murray Rothbard rockin’ the bow tie

These oversimplified statements are most often inspired by the deontological strand of libertarianism led by late, great thinkers like Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard. Deontological libertarians believe that political ethics should be boiled down to protecting our natural rights of life, liberty, and property — the “non-aggression principle,” as Rothbard called it. Returning to my initial examples, deontological libertarians would say that governments initiates force in laying taxes, waging war, and setting citizenship requirements, and therefore all three are categorically immoral.

While the non-aggression principle is certainly admirable in its philosophical concision, what it has in simplicity it lacks in substance. What, after all, is the role of government in a society that categorically rejects the initiation of force? The only logical answer would be that the government has no role since its existence would necessarily require the initiation of force through taxation. While this conclusion may please anarcho-capitalists, the reality is that most people are not so quick to “smash the state,” rather having a deep-seated belief in a role for government.

Indeed, most people would find the conclusions of the non-aggression calculus to be outright absurd. To them, taxation is not categorically theft, but rather can be appropriate to provide for some necessary functions of government like the criminal justice system. To them, war is not categorically murder, but rather can be appropriate to defend against existential enemies. Certainly the government’s monopoly of force can be scary at times, such non-libertarians may think, but abandoning this monopoly for the state of nature is even scarier. Any attempt to force anarchism down such their throats will only cause them to vomit it right out. Thus, it would be futile to try to convert non-libertarians with the non-aggression principle, since it will only give them an anarchist answer that they are fundamentally uncomfortable with.

Friedrich Hayek rockin’ the shades, but not the bow tie

Granted, many deontological libertarians have advocated a role for government while maintaining a natural rights framework, like Ayn Rand and John Locke. To these thinkers, a limited government is a “necessary evil,” to borrow Thomas Paine’s famous phrase. It’s necessary in that it provides services such as police, courts, and the military that protect against the initiation of force; however, it’s evil in that these services paradoxically requires the initiation of force to exist.  Unfortunately, this contradictory acceptance of the initiation of force in the name of ending the initiation of force raises an uncomfortable question that leaves any libertarian evangelizer susceptible to argumentative attack. Namely, if the government’s initiation of force is acceptable for “the greater good” in providing limited services like police, courts, and the military, why couldn’t it have a larger role for the benefit of “the greater good” in providing even more services?

So, I suggest to you libertarian evangelizers out there to avoid the nebulous non-aggression principle for the graspable facts of government inefficiency. Economics and public choice theory are much more powerful persuaders than some imperceptible axiom that contains a fundamental contradiction.

Where: 87 Evans

The topic for tomorrow’s meeting led by Co-President Bobby Saxton will be “Government and Science.” We will be asking what the proper role of government is when it comes to funding science, whether through research at public universities or specific programs such as NASA. Many libertarians would likely instinctively say that the government should have no role, but can we really leave important issues such as space exploration or long term basic science research, up to the free market? These questions and more will make for an exciting discussion, so don’t miss it!

Hopefully all of you had an awesome time at the Ron Paul event last Thursday, and are inspired to become even more active in the fight for liberty! If so, you can all start by attending this week’s Students for Liberty meeting.

This weeks meeting will be led by Subha Rengarajan, who will be giving a brief presentation and “crash course on libertarianism.” This will be particularly timely since we will hopefully be welcoming many newcomers from the Ron Paul event. We will then open up to a discussion on different aspects of the presentation including things such as the history of libertarianism and its role, as well as hold “speed debates” on some potentially divisive topics within libertarianism.This is sure to be an exciting meeting, so don’t miss it!

Once again the meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday April 10th at 7 pm in 87 Evans.

See you there!

I hope you’re excited to see perhaps the strongest champion of freedom alive speak at the home of the Free Speech Movement! As a reminder, Congressman Ron Paul’s talk is scheduled for Thursday, April 5th at 7 PM in Zellerbach Auditorium at the University of California, Berkeley. Here are a few important details about the event to ensure that we accommodate as many people as possible in an orderly manner:

ADMISSION:
This is a high-demand event, so we encourage you to arrive early to secure your desired seat— especially if you are on the waitlist. Two lines will be begin to form at 4, one for attendants with early seating vouchers and one for those who are waitlisted. There will be Students for Liberty members with signs indicating each line available to answer questions. We will also have members passing out fliers, handing out literature, and answering questions to keep you entertained while waiting.

The doors will open at 6, at which time attendants with early seating vouchers will be admitted. We will be checking the IDs of attendants with vouchers to ensure that there are no duplicate tickets. At 6:30, if there is any space left, people on the waitlist line will be admitted. We’ve given away early seating vouchers for every seat in the auditorium, so it is unfortuantely very unlikely that many people on the waitlist will be admitted. To improve your chances, we encourage all waitlisted prospective attendants to arrive as close to 4 PM as possible.

SEATING:
Inside the auditorium, we ask attendants to move as close to the center of their aisle as possible and refrain from leaving any empty seats between yourself and strangers. To ensure that everyone will have a clear view of Congressman Paul, we will not be allowing signs.

DIRECTIONS, TRAVELING, AND PARKING:
Zellerbach Auditorium is located in Lower Sproul Plaza near the intersection of Bancroft & Telegraph. Because there will be several other events occurring simultaneously on campus with expected high attendances, we encourage everyone to either walk or take public transportation. However, if you must drive, you can visit this webpage for information about the nearest parking lots to the auditorium:http://calperformances.org/visit/parking/

If you have any questions before the event, please feel free to email them to calsfl@gmail.com or post them on the wall of the official Facebook event athttp://www.facebook.com/events/144067582386804/. Students for Liberty will periodically answer questions until 4 PM on Thursday. If you have any questions immediately before or during the event, please feel free to approach any Students for Liberty member wearing the club’s black t-shirt. We want to ensure that everyone is comfortable, engaged, and excited to see Dr. Paul!

See you tomorrow,
Students for Liberty

But, some of you may be asking yourselves or others, why should you spend your time listening to what he has to say on Thursday? Well, I’ll tell you why in three simple explanations that relate to issues that every American has been concerned with in recent history:

Ron Paul supports Internet Freedom, and a majority of Americans would agree with him.  Good luck convincing Obama or Romney of why Internet freedom is important to you, much less obtaining a promise that they will protect your right to it.  You almost certainly would not be reading this blog right now if it were not for that freedom.

Ron Paul is in favor of the right to choose what healthcare you purchase.  The healthcare legislation and its mandate dubbed “Obamacare” by both Republicans and now many Democrats is being challenged in the Supreme Court.  You will get to hear Paul’s perspective on why all Americans deserve the right to choose to purchase what healthcare they want or none at all.

Ron Paul is against the wars that both Democratic and Republican presidents have continued to support for the past 12 years.  Needless to say he takes a much stronger opinion on this, and draws more veteran supporters than any other presidential candidate.  All I am saying is Give Peace a Chance.

I have said my two cents for why it is important to attend Paul’s speech Thursday and listen to a man who supports the freedoms that have been achieved by countless generations of Americans.  Come and join the discussion, and see why Ron Paul really can follow through with his campaign promise to Restore America Now.

Students for Liberty and Youth for Ron Paul are excited to announce that congressman and presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul will be speaking at UC Berkeley next week! The event will be held next THURSDAY, APRIL 5TH at 7 PM in ZELLERBACH AUDITORIUM at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.

The event is free and open to the general public. However, due to capacity restraints, we encourage attendants to get an early seating voucher at the following link: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3267951531/efblike. The voucher is only good until 6:30 PM. After that, seating for the general public will be opened.

Please feel free to spread the news of this event. You can do so by visiting and inviting your friends on the Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/events/144067582386804/.

If you have any questions, you can check our club’s website for updates at calsfl.com or email me at caseygiven@gmail.com. I look forward to hopefully having you join us for an exciting evening with Dr. Paul next week.

Sincerely,

Club Founder Casey Given

This Tuesday, Students for Liberty, UC Berkeley will be holding perhaps one of the most exciting general meetings of its existence. After a long hiatus, co-founder Casey Given will be leading an interactive discussion for the first time in almost a year reflecting upon the club’s fond memories and planning for the future, with Chris Fox at his side.

So, get ready for an inspiring evening of brainstorming ideas examining the cornerstone of our club’s existence like the Founding Fathers did three centuries ago. I give you, Students for Liberty’s “Constitutional Convention!”

Classical political realists adhere to a theory of “Westphalian” sovereignty, which outlines the sovereign right of political self-determination and establishes the principle that no state has a right to intervene in the internal affairs of another state. Simply put, Westphalian sovereignty holds that every nation has a fundamental right to be left alone, irrespective of any other nation’s desire to meddle. In contemporary international relations, where interventionism is rampant, Westphalian political theory has been viewed as increasingly contentious.

Evolving out of the myriad of humanitarian crises of the 1980s and 1990s, a critique of the Westphalian philosophy known as “sovereignty as responsibility” has become prevalent. Sovereignty as responsibility seeks to re-characterize the simplistic Westphalian view of sovereignty into a more complex alternative: sovereignty is a system of rights that can be conditionally earned by achieving basic responsibilities. Namely, nations have a “responsibility to prevent” (i.e., a nation must prevent its own citizens from posing a security threat to other nations) and a “responsibility to protect” (i.e. a nation must protect its own citizens from genocide, mass murder, etc.) According to this theory, when a nation fails to live up to these responsibilities, the international community will be acting justly when they attempt to deliver security and human rights to those who are vulnerable.

Unfortunately, proponents of sovereignty as responsibility indiscriminately crown a host of interventionist policies with a glowing halo of “moral crusade”—despite how deleterious the outcome may prove to be under final analysis. The shameless rhetoric that surrounds many instances of interventionism certainly draws on the premise that interventionists are enlightened, superior, or, at minimum, better at maintaining their responsibilities of statehood, giving them the moral impetus to fix all that is broken. Non-interventionists are naturally skeptical of the sovereignty-as-responsibility framework. As establishing interventionist nations as saviors fulfilling their ethical duty, citizens assume that these policies are automatically justifiable due to their good intentions. Historically, a whole host of interventionist policies have been widely regarded as failures in terms of fulfilling their original objective. Oftentimes, the principle of unintended consequences leaves victims of intervention wishing these so-called “savior” nations would have done a bit more research before initiating their “moral” crusade.

But ironically, given the rhetoric being used to support interventionist policies, nations do not exhibit consistent standards of morality when they intervene—indicating ulterior motives. Historically, any pure moral impetus the U.S. government possesses has not been pervasive enough to incentivize significant military action in humanitarian cases where domestic interest is lacking. Nations chose to intervene in strategic cases in which domestic stakes are high and dependent on the foreign outcome. This is the reason, for instance, that the international community sat back and passively accepted the atrocious genocide of the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda in 1994. Why not play savior in this obviously deserving case of failed state responsibilities? Humanitarian assistance, after all, ought not be tainted by political objectives; its main objective is to maximize pre-political human rights. But as one ignored atrocity, after another, after hundreds more—unfold themselves, the government’s general apathy toward championing human rights is easily uncovered.

This begs for a cynical but practical realization: governments act under a heroic humanitarian façade while really trying to purely protect domestic interest. This is incredibly dangerous and to be avoided under all circumstances, because humanitarian interventions undoubtedly may be used as a deceptive pre-text for otherwise unacceptable political objectives.

Nonetheless, this discourse poses deeper philosophical questions. Hawks and doves alike can look at history and agree with cynicism that the government has not acted with pure intentions or with consistent moral standards. Interventionists really only differ from non-interventionists in how they see the future. Interventionists have an astoundingly idealistic perspective that history will not repeat itself. If an interventionist policy fails in one nation, will an analogous policy not fail in another? If unintended consequences are recurrent, and make the subjects of policies abhor their perpetrators, how can one not eventually begin to anticipate the “unanticipated”, concluding that no twisted morality can justify unwanted policies? If governments are inherently political and thereby clouded by their political objectives, by what precedent or reasoning can the government be forced to go against its nature, and act under an apolitical, humanitarian lens? One would have to be highly optimistic, or simply deluded, to believe that all of these objections could be sidestepped.

In some cases, such as in Kony 2012, the “rights” of sovereignty do not even come into question. The Ugandan government has voluntarily given up their “right” to non-intervention, desiring for outside assistance. But this complicates the story even more: now two sets of dubious government intentions must be evaluated. Perhaps the Ugandan government has pure intentions to prevent human rights violations; however, this might not be the case. The principle of unintended consequences would predict that, due to uncertain relations between actual and stated objectives, delivering weapons or a general tactical strategy is a risky move.

In truth, realism is dangerous as well when it treks too far in the opposite direction. A valid critique of realism would contest that accepting the status quo—that history always repeats itself—is so inherently defeatist and pessimistic that it prevents desirable outcomes like stopping massive genocides. How bad does history have to be before we begin to take some massive action to stop repeating it? Hopefully, at some point, the very worst of humanity’s mistakes will be rooted out. As is the case in all sorts of policy analysis, and in life in general—striking a balance can be the most theoretically legitimate stance. While preserving personal humanitarian goals, one should approach seemingly altruistic endeavors with healthy skepticism.

Is taxation theft? Or, a critical aspect of our social contract? Joseph Henchman of the Tax Foundation will give his two cents on this topic and so much more in an exciting and timely talk entitled “The Morality of Taxation.” Joe is a Berkeley grad and former President of Cal Libertarians, as well as an expert on tax policy and tax related issues.