The Many Impositions of the State
“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
[See update below.]
Not that I’m keeping score, but just in the last few weeks the news has overflowed with examples of how much we are at the mercy of government edict. The three stories I’m thinking of, quite unrelated on the surface, are: the spreading but so far futile protests against airport body scans and frisking verging on sexual assault, the Federal Reserve’s announced second “quantitative easing” (QE2), and the FDA’s order that makers of caffeinated alcoholic beverages remove the caffeine or take their products off the market. The upshot is that the government arbitrarily subjects us to humiliating and possibly dangerous inspections without probable cause, robs us of our purchasing power, and prohibits us from buying drinks even when the ingredients are legal – just by issuing a command. Our power to protect ourselves against these invasions of freedom and privacy is severely limited if it can be said to exist at all.
Body Scans and Frisks
It is encouraging to see the spreading protests, and maybe they will force a reversal of the policy, but what’s at issue here is the bureaucracy’s power to subject us to this degrading treatment in the first place. Government officials dismiss our concerns cavalierly. Do what you’re told and stop complaining. But if we accept this passively, what’s next? In Saudi Arabia a man was found to have hidden explosives in a certain body cavity. (You know the one I mean.) Are we now to be subject to body-cavity checks? It’s distressing that one person’s action anywhere in the world can prompt the U.S. government to think of a new way to humiliate, violate, or at least inconvenience us. Maybe we should all be mandated to have colonoscopies at the airport. (They’re free under Obamacare.) Not only would we fly safer but the colon cancer rate would plummet. A twofer!
But seriously… Defenders of the government’s policy insist these measures are required for our own safety. We know what Franklin said about trading liberty for security. Jefferson put it this way: “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”
There are strong reasons to think that what such measures get us is not security but what’s called security theater. For one thing, each one looks backward to the last incident, while those who would do harm look forward. Bureaucracies are clumsy that way. No one can even say the full-body scanners (being sold to the government by former government officials) would have caught last year’s would-be underwear bomber. This Israeli security expert says they’re a waste of money. (Human beings didn’t catch the underwear bomber even when his father warned U.S. authorities.) By the way, why is the attention only on airports? If it’s such a good idea, why aren’t we being irradiated or groped at train and subway stations, shopping malls, and stadiums?
Although the odds of being harmed by a terrorist act are very small, it’s not as though we can do nothing to protect ourselves except to submit to the cold hand of the bureaucracy. The first thing we can do is turn security over to the airlines. We need competition and entrepreneurial discovery (tempered by consideration of the customer), not bureaucratic conceit, working to keep us as safe as can reasonably be expected. Let’s remember, however, that 100 percent safety is a chimera. In a big open country there will always be some risk of danger. The moment we set absolute safety as our objective, we embark on a road we will soon come to detest. Security technologist Bruce Schneier brings a badly needed level-headedness to this subject when he writes,
Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country’s way of life; it’s only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we’re doing the terrorists’ job for them.
Finally, we might start asking why people want to blow up American planes in the first place. No one has studied “suicide terrorism” more closely than Robert Pape, founder of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, so he deserves a hearing. Interviewed in The American Conservative, he said:
The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland…. Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies over there, if you would, is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us.
This suggests that the best long-run protection against such violence is the pacific noninterventionist foreign policy Washington and Jefferson prescribed. It also is consistent with limiting government power generally.
QE2
The Fed plans to create 600 billion dollars out of thin air in order to buy the government’s long-term debt. That inflation will be an implicit tax on our cash holdings — by decree. We victims have no recourse. The stated objective is to drive long-term interest rates down, stimulate investment, and create jobs, but this won’t be the outcome Conjuring up money creates no real resources, only new demand for existing resources and thus rising prices. Interest rates will rise, not fall, when people realize that the purchasing power of the dollar will be declining. Who wants to be repaid a loan in watered-down currency without being compensated through a higher interest rate?
As for reducing unemployment, any jobs created will be unsustainable once the inflation-induced investment errors are revealed. As Hayek wrote, “Such attempts to cure unemployment by further does of inflation will probably be temporarily successful and may even succeed several times if the inflationary pressure is massive enough. But this will merely postpone the problem and in the meantime aggravate the inherent instability of our situation.” Hayek was supposing an unanticipated inflation, but since our pending inflation is hardly unanticipated, it is difficult to see how even a temporary burst of activity can be expected.
We have stubborn, high unemployment thanks to past government-induced malinvestment, current government intervention preventing proper reappraisal of assets, and uncertainty over how the government will interfere in the market next. The Fed’s plan won’t work because it’s not what’s needed. What’s needed? The freed market.
[UPDATE: On November 19 Fed Chairman Bernanke told a conference in Europe, "Incidentally, in my view, the use of the term 'quantitative easing' to refer to the Federal Reserve's policies is inappropriate. Quantitative easing typically refers to policies that seek to have effects by changing the quantity of bank reserves, a channel which seems relatively weak, at least in the U.S. context. In contrast, securities purchases work by affecting the yields on the acquired securities and, via substitution effects in investors' portfolios, on a wider range of assets." Tampering with interest rates will distort the structure of production, but if the policy does not expand the money supply -- if, for example, the Fed buys Treasury securities from banks but offsets this by selling other, private-sector holdings -- the classic effects of inflation are not to be expected.]
Caffeinated Alcoholic Beverages
Is there much to say about this other than it’s none of the FDA’s business what we drink? Caffeine is legal. Alcohol is legal. Why wouldn’t caffeinated alcoholic beverages be legal? What’s next? A ban on Irish coffee and rum and Cokes?
When is enough enough? When do we say, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore”?
Comment by Libertarian jerry on 19 November 2010:
Sheldon’ The “average”American will take this anymore. Just like the average American uses their Social Security number,files their taxes,signs their kids up for the draft.Sends their kids to public schools or schools with a public school agenda, believes the main street media and hardly questions authority. The American people have turned into a nation of contented serfs. 3/4 of the population of America now live,directly or indirectly,off of the 1/4 who still are productive. You could no easier teach this majority of the population to be self reliant,self resourceful and to question authority than you could train a maggot to become a vegetarian.
Comment by Erik on 19 November 2010:
I like the comment about the colonoscopies.
Comment by Dennis on 19 November 2010:
Mr. Richman, I apologize for quoting Bill Clinton but I feel your pain. I hear people lament everyday that they wish they knew a logical recourse to fight for the liberties that are disappearing day by day in America. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
Comment by Willie on 20 November 2010:
I believe the TSA’s security screenings to be unconstitutional. They are a violation of the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable search and seizure. If you refuse to allow the scan and pat-down, you are denied access to the aircraft and face fines. The scan and pat-down are unreasonable searches and the denied access and fine are unreasonable seizures.
Not being a lawyer I don’t know if that will fly (pun intended), but perhaps someone wiser and better educated than I will pursue that concept.
Comment by Dr. Steve on 20 November 2010:
I did not fly for the first 30+/- yrs of my life. I guess I can do without it for the remaining yrs. There are a lot of places in this once great nation I would like to visit, but …..
I do not accept the idea, however, that Islamists just want the west out of their land. The religion/culture/governing system that is Islam wants world domination. It is aggressive/waring when ever it has sufficient strength advantage over those it wishes to subjugate. It has been that way for 1300 years and shows no interest in changing. Western concept of freedom in markets and society, limited government, are not acceptable.
As much as I’d like to believe that man’s natural inclination is to be free, I don’t think it true. It has to be learned, and once realized, protected from man’s nature. Followers of Islam have never learned the concept. Not accepting that is foolish and dangerous.
Comment by Brittney on 20 November 2010:
Sheldon, you stole my colonoscopy line! I’m glad my mother doesn’t read this, or she’d think I was copying you!
Steve, surely you know better than to believe that followers of Islam (which include many peaceful people and many Americans, mind you) are inherently incapable of enlightenment, freedom, democracy, or what have you. We are all human beings, and it would behoove us not to forget that.
And even were it the case, of course, the affairs of other countries and cultures would still be none of our national business and no reason to curtail our own liberties. Moreover, the only way to find out if the “Islamists” just want the west out of their land is to get out of their land for a decade or two and see how it goes.
I am taking the train home to West Virginia for the holidays from my new home in Chicago, even if it is financially unsustainable and therefore subsidized. There are still other ways to travel.
Comment by Bill on 20 November 2010:
The studies of Robert Page (referred to in the article), are thorougly researched and documented. The assertions of Dr. Steve above are not supported by the facts.
Just because Muslims may want to spread their religion does not infer that they want world domination any more than Christian missionaries who travel to distant lands to save souls want to take over the world.
Comment by Novista on 20 November 2010:
The government claimed that ~they~ hate us for our freedoms and values. This phrasing was not an accident. The government has acted on it and now we have less freedom and no values.
As to the latter, examples abound: deadbeats living in houses with no intention of paying the mortgage; conversely, mortgages ~servicers~ rorting the HAMP by milking fees, lying to borrowers, but with no intention of any loan modifications; and of course, the open fraud and looting from Wall St. generally, done hand-in-hand with government.
The latest TSA annoyance is just another brick in the wall of institutionalizing the public. When We the Sheeple cannot cope with ‘the outside’ any better than a repeat convict, the job will be complete.
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 21 November 2010:
Dr. Steve, I suggest that you investigate the work of Robert Pape. He shows, in fact, that suicide terrorism is not a monopoly of Muslims at all. The common denominator is a weak put-upon people striking out at a far stronger force. We Americans have a hard time looking at U.S. policy from the other side. To those on the receiving end, it is we who are trying to impose a way of life on them. “Terrorism” is the price of empire.
Comment by Dr. Steve on 21 November 2010:
We will have to agree to disagree. Islam is not just another religion, it is a political/cultural system and one I think is incompatible with the democratic republican government to which we aspire. I’m waiting for Islam to have it’s reformation movement. It is the desire of Islamists to impose sharia law throughout the world. I too do not wish to engage in imperialism, but do not think that by sitting back within our shores others ambitions will stop.
As to the TSA, well, I have taken my last plane flight. We certainly do have our own issues with authoritarian government on many fronts.
Comment by Recoveryless Recovery on 21 November 2010:
Poor Americans; suffering “Too Many State Impositions”. Perhaps there’s some small, defenseless nation you people can invade and bomb and torture in order to get some ‘relief’?
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 22 November 2010:
@Recoveryless Recovery You might reread the article. You seem to have missed the point.
Comment by Anonymous on 22 November 2010:
Time to seek out and utilize air travel options not affected by TSA B.S. — things like charter, local private pilots, small regional airlines that have structured their ops to avoid as much Federal B.S. as possible, etc… .
NOTE: Local private pilots can offer suprisingly affordable options and even private charter can be very affordable when done in groups. Another option (if you fly alot) is to get together with a local private pilot, and some friends, and set up a group ownership arrangement of an aircraft that meets most of the group’s needs. Some recommended, affordable, capable aircraft: cessna 206, cessna 210, cessna caravan, king air 100, and the king air 200 (most, especially non-aviator types, will be happiest with the caravan and king air aircraft).
Comment by Vince Skolny on 24 November 2010:
If Americans had been suitably outraged by sobriety checkpoints, perhaps the TSA abuse might have been prevented.
As it is, rights are often first encroached against those whose rights no one is willing to defend: drug traffickers, child molesters, drunk drivers. . .
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