My Quest for Truth and Liberty
Posts tagged The State
Path of Grass Needs Your Help
Apr 21st
From the Path of Grass blog:
I got an estimate today for typesetting Path of Grass. I would greatly appreciate any help in covering these costs. I am prepared for some of the expense, so my goal is to have $100 donated because I will be taking care of the rest. If more than $100 is donated, I’ll be using the extra funds to compensate the volunteers who have so kindly offered to help with various aspects of publishing Path of Grass.
Please consider making a donation to help publish Path of Grass. Why?
Path of Grass is part of a bigger cultural revolution that will change the way people think about government and liberty. This revolution isn’t coming from within government, we are changing the world from within society. There are many approaches to doing that. Path of Grass is one of them. People like novels. They like good stories. We can present them with the message of liberty in a non-threatening and enjoyable way. That’s Path of Grass.
Path of Grass is on the forefront of a new age. We are changing the way books are published and distributed. Instead of Marxist editors controlling everything, we are connecting the author and the consumers. Writing and publishing a book is no longer a lonely, solitary effort. It is a community project. It brings people together from all over the world. We can do this together. Will you help?
Head on over to PathofGrass.com to make your contribution.
To show my appreciation for your help, if you donate $25 or more, I will mail you an autographed copy of Path of Grass when it is published.
A Mises Weekend, Part 2
Apr 19th
So we finally got a table at the Berghoff and looked at the menu. I wasn’t terribly hungry, so we decided to get one appetizer, one main dish, and maybe something on the side, and we’d just split it. My dad wasn’t really interested in the German food, so we went with the seafood. I ordered a smoked salmon appetizer, he ordered stuffed sole, and we got potato pancakes on the side. When the plates arrived, my smoked salmon was served on a small wooden cutting board with pieces of salmon on a bed of lettuce and onions. My first thought was, “wow…that salmon is pink!” I inspected it closer and realized it was not cooked. Our waiter came back to the table and we asked about the salmon. He said it was not raw, it was smoked. But it wasn’t cooked. I guess there’s a very fine distinction between fish being raw and being smoked. But I knew one thing for sure: it was not cooked. Now this wouldn’t be a big deal for the people who have their hamburgers rare. But I’m really picky about this. I want my meat cooked. I hate making meatballs because I have to handle raw meat. At least I don’t have to eat them raw. So I sat there looking at my smoked (but not raw…lol) salmon wondering what I’d do. My dad tasted the salmon and said it was good. I was in an adventurous mood. Hey, I was in Chicago at this cool restaurant. I couldn’t walk out of there without even tasting the darn stuff. So I took a small bite, desperately trying to keep my mind off the fact that I was eating practically raw fish. And it was actually quite good. It did taste smoked. It had a wonderful flavor. And with the onions it was delicious. I think there were four or five pieces of salmon, my dad had a couple, and I had the rest…minus one bite which I just could not finish because I was so full. The lettuce which came with the salmon had this amazing vinaigrette dressing that was really, really good. And my dad’s stuffed sole was also quite good. It had little shrimp in it too. The first time I had shrimp was at Jekyll Island, and they were served cold with a cocktail sauce. I did not like them at all. But I liked them hot with the other cheesy, yummy, stuff in the, well, in the stuffing.
After dinner we went back to our hotel room where I sat eating fudge and watching Indiana Jones. I’ve heard a great deal about the show, but never seen it. At first I was intrigued by the oldness of the film, and at first I thought it was going to be interesting…but that was before the excitement started. For the next hour I was bombarded with these fantastical escapades and predictable last-second rescues from various deathly situations. We thought it would end at 9pm, so we watched until then. It kept going…till 9.15 when it seemed there would be no end at all, so I gave up on seeing the end because I knew what would happen anyways. 
My dad spent about 20 minutes setting an elaborate system of alarms, quiet enough so it wouldn’t scare the life out of me, and loud enough that we wouldn’t sleep in all morning. As it turned out, we both woke up before the first alarm even went off. We were some of the first ones downstairs at the Mises Circle. It took us a while to find a good table because there were these giant pillars scattered around the room that would completely block the view from certain places. We claimed a couple seats at one of the best tables and started talking to people. After a few minutes some of our friends from the Rockford Mises Circle showed up. Our table rapidly filled up. And more came. It was a really nice event for me because I knew quite a few people, but not everyone. There were enough familiar faces that I didn’t feel completely lost but enough new people to talk to that it wasn’t boring or just like a reunion. It was fun getting to know others, and after Doug French made an announcement about our Rockford Mises Circles, all sorts of people wanted to talk to me, so that was nice.
I had heard several of the speakers the day before, but Jacob Huebert was a new speaker for me. I had heard Roderick Long at Mises U, but never had heard Jacob Huebert. He was amazing! A very bright, intelligent, and talented speaker. While some afterwards were talking about how depressing his speech was, I found it very inspiring and yet realistic. It is easy for me, as a young person, to be swept away by grand and unrealistic ideas, so it is nice to have a balance. And yet we can’t give up on liberty, we can’t just surrender and ever try to achieve more freedom.
Lunch was delicious, and afterwards there was a spirited Q&A with the speakers. The question of immigration came up…and never left. I think nearly the whole time was spent discussing various aspects of the immigration debate, it was quite interesting.
Afterwards we stayed for a while. And stayed. And stayed. By the time we left, the only others there were Mises staff members clearing up the book shop and the recording equipement. We consulted our train schedule and found we could catch a 3.30pm train, and we were so ready to get home we didn’t stop for anything to eat. The train was packed when we got there. It took us some time to find our seats, and it was sweltering inside. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait long for the train to get started. However, it stopped at every little place along the way, so it took forever to get back to Harvard. But at last we got there, and discovered it was a beautiful day. Warm, sunny, springy, lovely. I got to drive all the way home, and we survived, as this blog post is proof of, and spent a couple hours filling the family in on all that we did.
So that was my Mises weekend
Path of Grass Excerpt
Apr 19th
“Nikolaus, please don’t leave—don’t go away now,” Margaret cried, wrapping her arms around him.
“Margie, it is for our country, it is for Germany, it is for the Fatherland. Otherwise, they will come and take our land. They will take away everything we know.”
“But I want you with me; I will be left alone,” she pleaded.
“Kneel down,” he said. “Feel this,” he put his hands on the earth. “This is our land, this is ours. If we let the British and the Russians and the Americans win, this will be gone. Be brave, Margie, for our country, for us, and for what we are protecting.”
He kissed her gently, stood up, and walked away.
She knelt there on the ground, weeping, until there were no more tears.
- From Part One, Chapter 4
Coming Soon: Path of Grass
Apr 16th
While progress was slightly delayed, I’m on track to get Path of Grass published in the next month or two. Actually, it might be more like two or three months, just because I have to be patient and wait for other people who can’t devote every waking moment to preparing my book for publication. Why is this exciting and why should you be excited about Path of Grass?
As a friend of mine at a recent Mises Circle said, we’re not going to achieve more liberty by voting for “better” rulers. Look at the “freedom loving” Tea Party candidates who got elected on a platform of limited government…and promptly voted for renewing the tyrannical Patriot Act. My friend said, rightly, that to change our situation, we must change the culture. We must not spread the message of liberty in Congress but in our backyards. In our towns. In our neighborhoods. This will be a highly decentralized grassroots movement towards liberty and it will start with the average American. That’s where Path of Grass fits in. We don’t have to give our neighbors “The Creature from Jekyll Island” to read…knowing full well they won’t tackle the 800+ pages of heavy reading. We can hand our neighbor a novel…how innocuous is that? But through that novel they’ll be introduced to the ideas of liberty and non-intervention. They’ll encounter these ideas in a way that will make it easier for them to understand your position and instead of feeling threatened by your persistence and foolproof logic, they’ll have the opportunity to accept these ideas in a positive way.
So that’s one reason to be excited about Path of Grass. But here’s another.
It is easy to get frustrated with the modern statist/Marxist entertainment out there. Why do authors and movie makers think capitalists are evil and government officials are angels? If you want to read a good libertarian novel, the options are pretty sparse, Ayn Rand being the main alternative to Marxist literature. And it is nice to relax with a good book after a long day of fighting against tyranny…without becoming outraged at the ignorance of the author. Path of Grass is another alternative to mainstream statist literature, and instead of reading a novel and being discouraged about the direction of our country, Path of Grass will leave you inspired to stand for what you believe regardless of those around you.
And even if all this doesn’t convince you to buy Path of Grass, it will be available for free online so you can check it out before buying your own copy. I plan to have a free pdf version, and hopefully epub and google books formats as well. And if you’re like me and you just want to hold the thing in your hands and feel the pages, there will be an old-fashioned version printed with real ink on real paper that you can really touch.
But that’s not all! I have a feeling this is beginning to sound like those TV advertisements I see when watching Star Trek. “But that’s not all! Order now and get TWO thingamajigs for $9.95 plus a whatchamacallit. A $100 value…your’s for $9.95. Order NOW!” I know a lot of my readers have blogs, or something similar. If you would be interested in promoting Path of Grass on your site, I will send you a free copy of the book when it is published. Or if you have a popular Twitter/Facebook account and post the link to my book or something like that. Let me know if you’re interested in this and we can work out the details. My goal is to get the message of this book to as many people as possible. Will you help me?
A Mises Weekend, Part 1
Apr 11th
On April 8th and 9th my dad and I went into Chicago for the Mises Institute’s Highschool Seminar and their Saturday Mises Circle. With my new job these events came up really quickly and I wasn’t thinking about it until that week.
Friday was extremely icky…rainy and cold, and of course windy. I didn’t get to drive all the way to the train station which was disappointing, but after driving a little in the rain/dark I was relieved to have my dad take over. He was worried about getting to our train on time (and not being run over by rush-hour traffic) if I had gone at a comfortable 40 mph the whole way. But I did get to drive all the way home on Saturday and the weather was beautiful.
Not a whole lot happened on the train…we sat on the second level for the first time which was fun at first and quickly became cramped because there’s really no room to stretch your legs. Suffice to say, on the way back we sat on the bottom level. On the bus to the Union League Club I met a fellow passenger who actually worked at the Club, so she was very nice to show us the way. We checked into our room…talked to Doug French and James Fogal for a minute, went to our room, recuperated from the trip for five minutes, admired the 12-story view we had, and then headed to the event. The Union League Club is really beautiful, they have all these gorgeous art pieces everywhere. There was even an original Monet I got to see. The highschool event was pretty fun, mostly because one of the speakers was Walter Block who is a riot to hear, and it was the first time I heard a lecture from Yuri Maltsev.
Then we had lunch at the Union League Club with Michael McKay, member of the Club and author of an Austrian econ book, Doug French, Walter Block, Yuri Maltsev, and another person who I’m sure is very nice but whose name I cannot remember. I don’t know about you but I’ve always had the idea that these leaders of the Mises Institute must be so into economics that they never talk about anything else, but I’m here to report that they are just like the rest of us and can carry on conversations about family, life, and so forth.
After lunch we went to Navy Pier and walked around (both inside and out). Last summer my friend went to Navy Pier with her awesome camera and got these beautiful pictures of the lake…birds…boats…lighthouses, etc…so I felt bad about my pictures being so inferior that I tried to make up for their lack of quality by taking more than my friend did. Some of them were actually quite good, in my humble opinion. I was getting tired in the afternoon and decided I needed a pick-me-up. Since I’m kinda cheap, we found a McDonalds at Navy Pier in the hopes of getting a nice coffee drink. However…McDonalds was right next to Starbucks and so the girl at McDonalds informed me that they had only straight coffee, no lattes or anything. I was desperate and adventurous, so we went to Starbucks and I got a caramel machiato. Now, I used to get caramel machiatos at Mary’s Market and they were much better than Starbucks. The Mary’s Market one was cheaper, and had whipped cream and caramel on top. The Starbucks version was only slightly sweet coffee and nothing on top. And it was more expensive. So while it was cool to walk around with a Starbucks coffee, I think that I’d suffer a physic loss if I did it again.
I had been a little frustrated with my dad for trying to plan our trip so thoroughly that there wasn’t anything spontaneous about it. So he didn’t let me get out the map on the way back to the Union Club, we just got on the right train and got off when it looked right. We walked around for a while to find a nice restaurant. We ended up in a rather bad part of the town and headed north a couple blocks till we got to the Berghoff which a friend had recommended. It is a neat restaurant going back to the Prohibition. While it is restaurant and bar now, it used to be a speakeasy which was cool to think about. All I could think about was Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead which was the first and only time I ever encountered the word speakeasy in a novel.
I’m so incredibly busy tonight (yep…so busy I’m going to watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie, lol…) so this will be a 2 part post. Please stay tuned for Part 2 where I describe my unexpected dinner.
Thus Begins My Second Weekend
Mar 12th
I may have said this before, but working every day gives the weekend a whole new dimension. “Oh…so that’s why people are so excited about Friday nights…”
I must say that my job has helped me have more sympathy for other people. In a sense, my job is bringing me out of the idealistic stage of youth. Don’t worry, it hasn’t made me entirely cynical yet, but it is slowly happening. For one thing, I understand now why some people don’t have the time to do things they like. Someone says they want to come to our Mises Circle, but doesn’t have the time, and now I can sympathize with them. When I get home from work (and I only work 12-5pm) I’m generally quite tired and ready to “chill” for a couple hours with the family while recuperating enough to give a webinar, study, or teach a class. I have my mornings to get things done, but I see how people with fulltime jobs wouldn’t have the time to do a whole lot, even though they may really want to do it.
Also, the last week or two have taught me some important lessons about life. It is way more complicated than I sometimes think. I have come face to face with a huge dilemma, my job or my liberty? And this life is no fairy tale, for I lost this battle. Let’s just say, the powers that be won out and I was forced to accept their system of legalized plunder, as Bastiat put it. However, notice what I said, “this life is no fairy tale”…but in the last few days, I’ve come to realize that there’s more to my life than just this life. No, I don’t mean reincarnation. I mean, the eternal life that is to come. And while there are imperfections, sorrows, and injustices in this world, they will be righted in the next world. If there was no injustice here, why would we care about going to Heaven?
So this whole struggle has helped me understand in a deeper, more personal sense that my eyes should be set on the next world, for we can’t expect things to go right here. Up to this point, I haven’t had that many “crisis” moments that would define my direction in life. I have met the enemy and he has won, for now, and I’m not ashamed to say that. Yes, it means that I’ve had to compromise on my strongest beliefs, it means the life I’m living no longer perfectly matches what I talk about, it means that I must now deal with the regrets and pains of knowing my own hard-earned money is going to fund murder (in the form of abortion and needless wars), corruption, tyranny, and all that I have philosophically rejected, but I can keep going and keep on hoping. Why? Not because I dream of a time in my life when all of this will be ended (although that is one of my hopes, and I’m still trying for it) but because I know that there will come a time with all tyranny will be punished and justice will triumph and in that time and in that place there will be no stealing, no pain, no injustice, no murder, and no tyranny.
I have two other points related to this (don’t give up yet…this post won’t be too much longer!):
If God’s justice had not already been satisfied, I would not be longing for that time of righting wrongs. For we have all wronged God. We have rebelled against His divine justice and His very character demands punishment. But because Christ has satisfied that justice and redeemed all those who will believe, I can look forward to the Day of Judgement.
When thinking about Heaven, I’ve been tempted to use the words “perfect liberty” to describe it. But I think that misses the point. The reason it is unjust for one person to steal from another is because they are both just people. The thief is no better than the victim. What claim does the thief have on the life of their victim? No legitimate claim whatsoever. However, in Heaven, it will be different. For there we will be living for the only One who does have a legitimate claim on our life and being, our Creator. In practical terms, God is the only One who has a right to our paycheck. In fact, if He wanted, He would demand the entirety of our weekly earnings, for He’s made us, made this earth, gave us a job, and is keeping us alive so we can work. He is the only One who deserves all that we are and all that we have. Not only does He deserve it, that is the reason for our existence. Just as artists make paintings to express the artist’s character, we were made to express and worship God and who He is. Of course, we do this imperfectly here, but in Heaven there will be ultimate fulfillment of the emptiness and dissatisfaction inside. Instead of being frustrated and discouraged, we will be doing what we’re meant to do! Imagine the frustration of a painting that is used as a coat rack…and imagine the complete bliss and joy of that painting when someday it is actually displayed as a painting that mirrors the artist who created it. It isn’t tyranny for the artist to hang the painting on the wall, it is foolish for the painting to try to be anything but a painting. That’s how I look at it, and what’s why these trials and troubles haven’t left me without hope.
A Working Girl!
Feb 28th
So today I’m officially entering the the realm of workers. No, it doesn’t make me chafe against the greed of the capitalist, I’m actually very thankful for capitalists who will employ me. So the details that everyone is asking me about…
I’ll working at Rockford ID Shop, they make hundreds of these little parts for airplanes. Apparently their parts are in nearly every plane, so that’s pretty cool. It is a family-owned business trying to keep afloat despite the pressure from super-big corporations. I’ll be answering the phone, doing computer work, and other stuff. While they’d like a full-time person, I will just be doing part-time for now, there’s way too much going on in my life to work full-time. It was amazing how the job came about, I didn’t apply or anything, it basically just fell into my lap. A mutual friend recommended me, they emailed me, we went to see the place, they looked at my resume, and offered me the job. God is good!
But I know all y’all aren’t really interested in all these nitty-gritty details, so I’ll make an application to economics. Given that I’ve lived and breathed economics for the last year or more, what impact will that have on how I work in the “real” world?
- Thanks to economics, I realize that in order to keep my job, the value I add to the business must be worth at least how much I’m being paid, or more. My marginal productivity must offset how much I cost to the company. So that means I’m going to spend my time wisely, i.e., not texting (considering that I don’t/can’t text anyways, this shouldn’t be an issue….) or browsing Facebook while I’m supposed to be working. This means I need to be thorough and motivated to do my job well. Instead of just getting by with the bare minimum, I should be doing the absolute best possible.
- Thanks to economics, I have a good understanding of what consumers expect from a business. In these days, consumers want an excellent product and they want it now. Part of my job will be analyzing the technology and production to find more efficient ways to get information to the buyers and trying to cut out any wasted time during the process of a buyer ordering a product, the production, and the delivery, be it a delay between the actual production of a good and the progress report online or whatever.
- Thanks to economics, I realize the importance of staying one step ahead of competitors. I know that a successful entrepreneur must be constantly improving and becoming more efficient to stay in business, or else a competitor will begin gaining ground on them.
I’m not only excited about my job because, well, it is a job, but because it will be a really great experience in seeing how the market works, from the perspective of the producer. It will help me understand the capital structure better, so that will mean even better lectures on the business cycle! It will also help me understand the negative impact government regulations have on businesses and production…but don’t get me started on that topic :-/ And I’m excited about my job because I’ll be doing something that’s really needed for the long-term success of the business (in other words, it is an important and significant job) and I’ll be part of this work to keep providing the best goods at the lowest price.
I plan to keep blogging at least once or twice a week, so don’t give up on me altogether. Haha, I remember the days when I felt really bad if I didn’t blog at least once a day. Yeah…
And I’m still going to do my webinars through March. I’m just taking it one month at a time, so we’ll see what happens after that.
But if you don’t see so many blog posts, and you don’t see me so much on Facebook, it is because I’m trying to increase my marginal productivity.
Review of “Taking Chance”
Feb 21st
This isn’t really a proper review, just my own rantings on the subject.
I was all excited to watch Inception tonight…but it was a little too chaotic for my parents, so we watched Taking Chance instead. It is the story of a Marine who volunteers to take the body or “remains” (as they say in the movie) from the East Coast to a little town in Montana.
As I said on Facebook, it was a heartbreaking movie. Why? Because the message was so clear: War is good. War is noble. Go sacrifice your life for the “greater good,” give up your individuality, your uniqueness, and join the ranks of others who must give all, for our “interests.” And when you die, you’ll come home a hero and everyone at the airports will pause as your coffin is being carried by. And the VFW groups will hold parties in your honor. And hundreds of people will come to your funeral. Everyone will admire your courage and bravery.
What really annoyed me is how they never showed the Marine’s face. Now, come on…Hollywood has no qualms whatsoever when it comes to obscenities (I’m using this in the classic Greek sense, of things that ought to stay “off scene” because they are too graphic or violent) and moviemakers never flinch when it comes to portraying blood and guts and gore. But no, when it is a soldier we can’t do that! We’ll only give some beautiful shots of his crisp and bright uniform, his shiny buttons and pure white gloves. But not his face, because after all, the government said it was not recommended for viewing. Since when does Hollywood care if things are too terrible to be viewed? But no, if young people saw the ugliness and the violence, they might not want to join the military! And then what good would the movie be?
So throughout the whole movie, every time the casket was being transported, people would stop and put their hands over their hearts. Airport workers stopped. Passengers on the planes stopped. Cars slowed down for them on the road. Come on? Really? That’s not realistic, it doesn’t seem. It is like everyone “sensed” something special and stopped. Since when does that happen in real life? Now I know, I don’t exactly get around much, but it just doesn’t seem right. Everyone was bending over backwards to honor this Marine. It seems that in real life people would just tend to ignore a person in uniform, treat them like everyone else, or say something negative to the Marine…if they were one of those awful leftist anti-war people (just being sarcastic…).
And none of the military officers seemed to understand the futility and tragedy of the war. Oh yeah, this is based on a true story of a soldier in the War in Iraq. That’s the specific war we’re talking about, Bush’s war. Anyways, either everyone was proud of their “service” or regretted that they had not given more to the cause. I think that in real life veterans come back either haunted by their experiences or disillusioned by the reality of war. There was none of that in this movie.
And I don’t think the government gives each fallen soldier such elaborate and detailed attention. It was really quite ridiculous to think of the all time spent on one body and coffin, when you multiply that by all the deaths that occur each month in the war. No wonder we’re not winning the war, everyone is too busy escorting caskets home!
However, I don’t want this to sound harsh or ungrateful. I have deep respect for anyone who is willing to give their lives in any way. I’m not that brave. The tragedy is that these poor souls got caught up in this great net of power struggles and government interests. This trap is deadly for many. And for those who live, the scars haunt them forever. The tragedy is that anyone has given their life for such a futile purpose. I mourn with the family of those who have fallen. I mourn so much for the dead that I wish to find a way to keep others from that fate. Instead of saying, “It is a terrible tragedy that Chance died. He was a good young man, he will be deeply missed. Now I’m going to go over there too” (in the movie Chance’s sister and her fiancee were both in the military) I say, “It is a terrible tragedy that Chance died. He was a good young man, he will be deeply missed. Let’s keep others from dying there as well. Let’s not go on repeating this tragedy ad infinitum, but stop the killing and stop the hatred.”
There is a very fine line between government-worship and disrespect for those who have died in the war. I wish to maintain a balance between opposing a pointless war and respecting the individuals who gave their all, no matter what their cause.
So I told my dad we need a good Ron Paul speech (I was thinking of the neat remix of his speech to Congress, “What If?”) to straighten things out again.
The Days Slowly Ebb Away…
Feb 17th
Firstly, the trackpad on my Mac stopped working this week. While this was really annoying and frustrating, it thankfully was not so much of a crisis since I have an external mouse which is doing a decent job right now. I miss the convenience of having a trackpad right there under the keyboard and I miss all the great finger swipes and shortcuts I was used to. Computer work is a bit more laborious, I feel like I’m almost using a PC again and not a Mac. And if you were at my Tuesday webinar, I think the problem was that my trackpad was not responding, instead of there being a problem with the webinar software.
The longer I live the more I realize this truth, make every day count and don’t waste a single moment. In highschool I rarely felt the urgency that surrounded me. I had such a limited time to devote all my time to learning and studying. I didn’t use my time like I should have. I wasted so much time because I wasn’t aware of how valuable that time was. And then this last year or so I’ve had the wonderful experience of being able to study whatever I’d like, give speeches, and basically pursue whatever I wanted. And I mean this in a good way, I didn’t waste all my days in reading novels and browsing Facebook (well, except for a few times…) but have done a lot of really productive and beneficial things. I’ve taught classes. Written a book. Given speeches. Studied economics. Read lots of good books. I’ve kept busy. But I’ve been thinking about needing to get a job to cover the expenses of driving (which I will be doing, Lord willing, in a little over a month). Like driving, I haven’t thought much about a job. I like my life right now so much I feel like it isn’t quite time to move on. Of course, in a couple months I’ll feel the same way. I’m not anxious to part with my hours of time for studying or teaching. But this week I’ve had two job opportunities come up, totally unsolicited and unexpected. While I’m not sure yet if both will go through, I’m quite sure that at least one will work out and so I’m beginning to think about how that will change my life.
I realize, very poignantly, that this is a season of my life that I will never see again. The days slowly ebb away and each one brings change and fresh opportunities. While this is good and to be expected, I want to cling to this season that I’ve enjoyed so much. It is a bittersweet thing.
I bought a bunch of books from the Mises Institute last fall, intending to read them in the coming months. I haven’t made much progress, and I’m afraid I won’t make any significant progress in the next couple months either. There will probably never again be a time when I can spend an entire day reading Man, Economy, and State. It is sad, but exciting. Who knows what this new time of life will bring?
It all brings me back to this same point. We can’t waste our days because we don’t have that many.
A Philosophical Dilemma
Feb 9th
Oddly enough, this post was inspired by an Andy Griffith episode I watched last night. Let me quickly summarize the story so this will make sense.
Ellie (works at drugstore) discovers there’s a girl living out on a farm near town who longs to have make-up, lipstick, perfume, etc…but doesn’t have any. So Ellie and Andy go out to the farm and give her a sampling of these items as a gift. The girl’s father walks up to them, discovers the items, and makes his daughter give them back to Ellie, saying that she doesn’t have any need for them. This infuriates Ellie (who faintly resembles a “liberated” woman of the modern age) and she persuades Barney to go back and confront the farmer and force him to allow his daughter to come to town and get “prettied up.” Of course Barney doesn’t have the guts to confront the farmer so he sneaks around the farm and steals the girl away to town, without the farmer knowing about it. Ellie pretties her up and reveals a very beautiful young woman under all the grime and overalls. They take her back to the farm, convinced that her father will realize how much all of this means to his daughter now that he can see her beauty. He is impressed but adamant; he has no sons and is struggling to keep his farm going. He needs his daughter not to parade around in high heels but put the overalls back on and get to work. Andy is very diplomatic and shows the farmer that if his daughter is all prettied up and attractive it will draw strong farm boys from all around and he’ll probably end up with a very productive and helpful son-in-law. So of course it all turns out happily ever after.
My immediate thought as I watched it was, “that isn’t any of their business!” and this is what Andy originally says too, before being swayed by Ellie’s pleading expression. But that doesn’t change that fact that this daughter is really none of their business.
However, I wanted to think through what would happen in this type of situation without any government. Granted, Andy wasn’t really acting on behalf of the law, but he was seen as a representative of the state and could have possibly arrested the farmer on some trumped-up charges to “free” his daughter. So I wanted to think about what would happen if there had been no state. What I came up with was this:
If Ellie had such a problem with this “cruel” farmer depriving his daughter of all these feminine luxuries then she perhaps should have talk to the community and raised this issue with them. She could argue her case with them and ask that if they disagreed with the farmer’s decision then they should refuse to trade with him or allow him to buy at their stores. In that type of situation I could easily see the other farmers siding with this particular farmer, as they understood his plight. And perhaps the younger generation in the city proper would side with Ellie. So Ellie might or might be successful in persuading the farmer to “liberate” his daughter. A couple points about this:
1) It would not be force against the farmer. No one would be coercing him into anything. It would simply be a withdrawal of exchange. “You don’t let your daughter wear lipstick, we won’t let you buy our _________.” This is where you can see the clear line between a free society and a society ruled by a state. The state is force and violence. The free society can only withdraw privileges. I say privileges because the farmer really has no “right” to trade with anyone. Just wanted to clarify that point. Some (including family members…) have responded with, “now, that’s absurd! That’s horrible! Just because this farmer has some reason why he doesn’t want his daughter to wear makeup doesn’t mean that people can isolate him and make him entirely self-dependent. How will he make a living if he can’t sell or buy things? He’ll have to move somewhere else and start all over again–just because of this rabble-rouser, Ellie.” But here’s why I don’t think that would happen, especially over such a trivial matter.
2) Trade and exchange is mutually beneficial. It is easy for us to look at the farmer and think that the rest of the community is doing him a favor by trading with him. But let’s say he sells a certain amount of corn to someone for $10. We’ll say X lbs. corn for $10. Haha, can’t escape from my algebraic past…these X’s are still haunting me! Anyways…the farmer says to the miller, “hey, I’ve got this X lbs. of corn, would you like to buy it?” Miller replies, “sure, that sounds great. I was needing some corn.” So they exchange goods. And who benefits? BOTH!! The miller has benefitted from the exchange just as the farmer did. And so then the farmer takes this $10 to the butcher and says, “I need a side of beef, can you sell it to me?” Just because the farmer initiated this exchange doesn’t mean that he’s the only one who needs the good. The butcher probably needs the $10 to pay his bills too. So the butcher trades with him. Side of beef for $10. Who benefits? BOTH parties!!
Imagine a businessperson who refused to do business with people who had a different religion than him. Or who didn’t wear a certain type of clothing. Or who wore glasses. Or…you get the point. It doesn’t make business sense to keep restricting your market like that. There would have to be a really, really good reason to convince someone not to trade with a particular person.
Back to the story. If Ellie were going to be successful in working against this farmer she would have to persuade everyone to give up the benefits they would receive through trading with the farmer. I think most of them would be unwilling to forfeit the sales of goods to the farmer just because his daughter didn’t wear makeup. I don’t think the extreme situation mentioned above would actually occur over something this small. But then I wondered what would happen if the problem was bigger. Let’s say the farmer beat his daughter. Then what?
I think this would definitely be too much for the people of the community to accept. While not being allowed to wear makeup is a passive act, being beaten is an active encroachment on her rights. And I doubt if anyone would object if the community began to isolate him and refuse to do business with him until he stopped beating his daughter and made some kind of restitution. And the same for a situation like murder.
So then the problem seems to be that there’s a disconnect between beating a girl and not letting her wear makeup. And this is a very subjective and “gray” area; I’m just going to give my own thoughts on it and you can think whatever you’d like about it.
The girl lives with her father. She eats the food that he helps to produce. She lives under the roof he has provided her. And so I don’t think it is wrong for him to ask her to do or not do certain things. She is under his jurisdiction. I assume that the girl is over 18 and could have run away if she had wanted to be “free” so badly. But no, she stayed with her father despite the toil and difficulties, and likewise he shared of his stores and food with her. It appeared that he had never explained to her why she wasn’t allowed to have the same things as other girls. I think that it would have been nicer if he had shown her how much he needed her help and how she was the only help he had. Instead of feeling and acting like he was forcing her into this servile position they could have worked together as a team, she sacrificing her own desires so that their farm would prosper and he doing likewise. This would have made their relationship better, but I don’t think he was obligated to tell her.
Question is, did the girl have the right to wear makeup and such things? Yes, she had the right to do whatever she liked…but by living under the jurisdiction of her father she forfeited certain rights in order to receive the privileges he gave her, such as a roof over her head, food to eat, and a father’s protection. We all give up certain rights whenever we enter any type of relationship. A mother gives up her right to read books all day long when she has a child, for the privilege of being a mother. A wife gives up certain rights when she marries for the privileges of a husband’s protection, leadership, provision, etc…This is part of life. We freely choose to forfeit certain things to gain others. And we are constantly engaged in acts of valuation, “is this privilege more valuable to me than this right?” And every time we choose one end we are giving up another less-valued end. The girl valued the benefits that came from living under her father’s jurisdiction more than the freedoms she could have had by living somewhere else.
I know that the feminists would probably kill me for this blog post, but hey, it is just my humble opinion. I thought it was an interesting situation and wanted to think it through a bit. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts as on this too!
