A compare-and-contrast piece I'd like to see would be to examine the current woke brand of cultural ostracism to past ones. For example, Jim Crow was part legal, but even beyond Jim Crow, there were a lot of social and cultural taboos against dealing with blacks as equals. Likewise, and to a lesser extent, you could look at the social segregation of Catholics or Jews or several other historical groups and draw some parallels. From a historical perspective, there's no shortage of movements like this, and drawing on history can sometimes give a playbook to fighting the latest incarnation.
"As Zywicki points out, we [may] need some sort of legal protection for the right to obtain financial services. That is, banks would not be allowed to discriminate against individuals for their political associations."
To be on a FIT and score well, a public intellectual should be open minded and be able to articulate the general kind of case that could convince him to change his mind. That is the difference between dogma and reason. There's nothing wrong with dogma, unless one is falsely claiming it's not dogma.
So, I ask, what would it take to convince you that implementing such a legal measure would be preferable to the baseline scenario?
The benefits of such a legal measure would be as large as the danger to freedom we face, which is enormous. The cost is ... what, exactly? An insult to feelings? Offense against the principle of banks being free from government regulation (ha ha). That is bothers the nastiest, sadistic bullies in our society? Or, ok, in purely material terms, does it add up to anything at all?
Every time I look for costs, there is zero detail. None. "I think it would be worse." Ok. Specifically, how so? "I usually oppose government coercion." Ok. But if you are cool with it ever, then why, specifically, oppose it in this case?
I have been hoping to read the litany of this purported theoretical parade of horribles for years.
I suspect that it's obvious to most people that there is no cost. What is the cost of """forcing""" the phone companies to keep their lines open to all, no matter what even very terrible people want to say over them? Do phone companies allocate even a percent of a percent of their lobbying efforts to repealing such a measure so they can win back the precious freedom to kick off dissidents? Of *course* they don't. They are grateful they don't have to bother and can better focus on their core mission.
So, this and similar measures would have huge benefit and zero cost, and yet, what do we see from people who recognize and complain about woke abuses every day? Opposition, reluctance, hesitation ... why? What really is the case?
I don't think there is one. That is not being very charitable, I confess, but it's the most reasonable inference from not being able to discover one in hundreds of similar articles and posts.
Instead I suspect that they are just afraid of being seen by progressives as an enemy - which I admit is reasonable and smart, though neither forthright nor brave - and that they want to preserve the cheap grace of the 'zero tolerance' mindset, of no one being able to accuse them of making even the slightest exception to orthodox dogma even in the most compelling of circumstances. When some bureaucrat, official, administrator, etc. in engaging in zero tolerance thinking, without making case-by-case judgments, we think they are being lazy, evil, and dumb. "Zero tolerance for me, not for thee."?
Because, if people ever made an exception, then just imaging what ... well ... what, exactly?
That some progressive might argue, "Sure, libertarians *say* they are against state coercion, but that's just a lie and a cover story, because just look how they betray that principle when supporting state action to (checks notes) ensure people can speak freely according to their conscience and express their honest sentiments without worrying about getting shut out of essential commercial activities, which was not some hypothetical but actually happening! What's that got to do with liberty, huh? Nothing, that's what! Just like many libertarians have been supporting anti racial discrimination laws for decades! Such hypocrites!"
Agree with the your and Zywicki's sentiment. But wondering how well Zywicki has any FIT credibility. There are too many smart libertarians (including Boudreaux) who have burned so much credibility discussing issues around covid and "freedom" and public health. Even when they're right it comes across in a way that convinces nobody. It's sad to see these smart people become among those who can/should be ignored except in very narrow instances.
The terms Left and Right itself were created in 1789 by French partisans as way to frame, cancel, and eliminate the Right. The Right was tradition and monarchy. The Left was the new society. Poor you if you were Right in 1790s France. Surprisingly, even Time magazine understands how Marxists and Bolsheviks eagerly adopted the terms to define the opposition, polarize the masses, and eliminate the opposition--https://time.com/5673239/left-right-politics-origins/. Where do libertarians, liberals, and natural law adovocates fit on a simple one-dimensional continuum? They don't. They get canceled right out of the gate--as soon as culture and politics gets defined as a continuum from Left to Right.
Yes, blocking traffic is criminal. That's why civil rights protestors expected to get beaten and jailed, historically. Which was all part of the expectation. It's only 'modern' civil rights protestors who expect to break the law with complete impunity. However, civil forfeiture and most, if not all, the trappings of modern law enforcement are fundamentally unconstitutional - and in Canada, we would expect a similar sensibility even if they don't have the same constitution - that there are bounds put on the punishments for certain kinds of crimes. Traffic crimes come with maximum fines and jail terms, etc.
I think that strict application of traffic laws -- fines for continuing to block streets and charges for towing away illegally blocking vehicles would rapidly add up -- would have been enough to restore order.
"we made need some sort of legal protection [to ensure that] banks would not be allowed to discriminate against individuals for their political associations."
The greater the compliance burden, the less the competition. Alternatively, we might lessen the regulatory burden associated with starting and running a new bank. More banks, more options, more competition, more robustness.
Counterintuitively, regulating everyone by telling them they can't discriminate *lowers* the compliance burden, because it's always easier and cheaper to do nothing and deploy the valid excuse, "My hands are tied." The entire cost of such a policy is borne by those who would prefer more political discrimination, more opinion-based cancellation. Boo hoo for them, what an epic tragedy, where did I put that world's smallest violin.
By it being a general regulation, you don't have to worry about being put at a competitive disadvantage or face an adverse selection problem with your customer base.
If you are 'free' to discriminate, now you've got to worry about optimizing your customers who want you to discriminate in all kinds of different and inconsistent ways, pay attention to government and general public demands to cancel people, hire an army of investigators (or build some social credit equivalent AI) to scrutinize every customer for whatever the current minute woke or problematic issues are, and your legal bills will go up, to put it mildly.
These are, in practice, enormous burdens, and, as you might expect, only a few established giant players can afford to bear them. If you stand athwart business commanding, "Stop!", then business becomes a lot easier and new little guys have a better chance.
Fact is, the telecom companies can't disconnect people because it doesn't like what they talk to each other about over the phone lines. This is a good thing for everyone, customers, dissidents, and phone companies included. The sky did not fall, quite the contrary. If you deregulated the phone companies and allowed them to boot people, the results would be terrible for literally everyone except the woke mob.
Wait, you might ask, what about the anti-woke mob? Wouldn't they just build their own woke-excluding phone companies?
They might try, but here's another pitfall of 'competition'. When the factor of competition is ideological and social desirability, by setting up an alternative, one only makes oneself a magnet for the entire spectrum of folks who get booted by the mainstream giants for a variety of reasons, in a subpopulation in which genuine dissidents and civil heretics are drowned out by trolls, hater morons, con artists, kooks and cranks of all varieties, vice-peddlers, and, of course, actual criminals and foreign agents. We have already seen this a few times as an established fact of what always happens in real world experience, it is hardly some theoretical speculation.
In these two ways, 'competition' without more is not actually an answer. Competition is great and we should be trying to ensure more of it. However, this is a coordination problem which can only be solved by an entity with a monopoly on sovereignty which can stand outside the impersonal market forces and set the rules for everyone to follow. You don't need graduate level econ or political science to understand the arguments for that, if you wish to see its proofs, look around you.
Ultimately, you are fighting a rear-guard action to hold small positions where all the high ground is occupied by artillery. It seemed for a time that 'slippery slope' arguments were silly, fatuous, created only by bad people to protect wicked projects. The problem is - that's exactly what various restrictions on government are designed to protect. People who seem bad and wicked, from those who would make laws.
You personally are no longer allowed to define who is 'in your tribe' (free association) or say what you would like. The totality of the society, it is the state, it participates in enforcing the 'laws' and they are all-encompassing.
The Catawba tribe announced this project last week,
"The GEZ project began three years ago under Catawba Corporations, the economic development arm of the Nation. With the completion of the Zone’s own commercial and financial regulatory code, it represents the most advanced jurisdiction for digital services in the world.
“Special Economic Zones have been powerful instruments for economic development, enabling rapid economic growth. SEZs often rely on tax incentives. But with our status as a sovereign jurisdiction, we are also able to create a best-in-class regulatory climate for the digital, fintech, and blockchain sectors. Our plan is to allow these businesses to operate with certainty, and under regulations that protect consumers that help mature the industry. The GEZ will create tremendous economic opportunities for our people of the Catawba Nation”, explained Ronnie Beck, CEO of Catawba Corporations.
Using a model similar to Estonia’s eResidency, after completing the ‘know your customer' (KYC) requirements, anyone in the world will be able to set up an eCorporation online in the GEZ and enjoy policies and regulations that allow them to safely manage their digital assets, raise investment capital and offer digital-banking services. eCorporations are legal corporations, permitted to conduct business virtually from the GEZ, and can open bank accounts within the United States. GEZ eCorporations are ideal for online companies, software developers, remote workers, banking and finance, insurance, and firms involved in the creation, sale, or management of digital assets."
A compare-and-contrast piece I'd like to see would be to examine the current woke brand of cultural ostracism to past ones. For example, Jim Crow was part legal, but even beyond Jim Crow, there were a lot of social and cultural taboos against dealing with blacks as equals. Likewise, and to a lesser extent, you could look at the social segregation of Catholics or Jews or several other historical groups and draw some parallels. From a historical perspective, there's no shortage of movements like this, and drawing on history can sometimes give a playbook to fighting the latest incarnation.
WePay, owned by Chase Bank, denied financial services to a Conservative Group, forcing them to terminate an event featuring Donald Trump Jr.
https://www.newsweek.com/largest-us-bank-cuts-ties-conservative-group-canceling-donald-trump-jr-event-1650599
This isn't the only time this has happend in the US. Banks are increasingly punishing Republican affiliated groups.
Banks, are highly regulated entities, that blur the line between privately owned and public company.
Some Australian banks have announced they will not fund coal projects. Where is the line?
"As Zywicki points out, we [may] need some sort of legal protection for the right to obtain financial services. That is, banks would not be allowed to discriminate against individuals for their political associations."
To be on a FIT and score well, a public intellectual should be open minded and be able to articulate the general kind of case that could convince him to change his mind. That is the difference between dogma and reason. There's nothing wrong with dogma, unless one is falsely claiming it's not dogma.
So, I ask, what would it take to convince you that implementing such a legal measure would be preferable to the baseline scenario?
The benefits of such a legal measure would be as large as the danger to freedom we face, which is enormous. The cost is ... what, exactly? An insult to feelings? Offense against the principle of banks being free from government regulation (ha ha). That is bothers the nastiest, sadistic bullies in our society? Or, ok, in purely material terms, does it add up to anything at all?
Every time I look for costs, there is zero detail. None. "I think it would be worse." Ok. Specifically, how so? "I usually oppose government coercion." Ok. But if you are cool with it ever, then why, specifically, oppose it in this case?
I have been hoping to read the litany of this purported theoretical parade of horribles for years.
I suspect that it's obvious to most people that there is no cost. What is the cost of """forcing""" the phone companies to keep their lines open to all, no matter what even very terrible people want to say over them? Do phone companies allocate even a percent of a percent of their lobbying efforts to repealing such a measure so they can win back the precious freedom to kick off dissidents? Of *course* they don't. They are grateful they don't have to bother and can better focus on their core mission.
So, this and similar measures would have huge benefit and zero cost, and yet, what do we see from people who recognize and complain about woke abuses every day? Opposition, reluctance, hesitation ... why? What really is the case?
I don't think there is one. That is not being very charitable, I confess, but it's the most reasonable inference from not being able to discover one in hundreds of similar articles and posts.
Instead I suspect that they are just afraid of being seen by progressives as an enemy - which I admit is reasonable and smart, though neither forthright nor brave - and that they want to preserve the cheap grace of the 'zero tolerance' mindset, of no one being able to accuse them of making even the slightest exception to orthodox dogma even in the most compelling of circumstances. When some bureaucrat, official, administrator, etc. in engaging in zero tolerance thinking, without making case-by-case judgments, we think they are being lazy, evil, and dumb. "Zero tolerance for me, not for thee."?
Because, if people ever made an exception, then just imaging what ... well ... what, exactly?
That some progressive might argue, "Sure, libertarians *say* they are against state coercion, but that's just a lie and a cover story, because just look how they betray that principle when supporting state action to (checks notes) ensure people can speak freely according to their conscience and express their honest sentiments without worrying about getting shut out of essential commercial activities, which was not some hypothetical but actually happening! What's that got to do with liberty, huh? Nothing, that's what! Just like many libertarians have been supporting anti racial discrimination laws for decades! Such hypocrites!"
Well, let them say it. Who cares?
Agree with the your and Zywicki's sentiment. But wondering how well Zywicki has any FIT credibility. There are too many smart libertarians (including Boudreaux) who have burned so much credibility discussing issues around covid and "freedom" and public health. Even when they're right it comes across in a way that convinces nobody. It's sad to see these smart people become among those who can/should be ignored except in very narrow instances.
The terms Left and Right itself were created in 1789 by French partisans as way to frame, cancel, and eliminate the Right. The Right was tradition and monarchy. The Left was the new society. Poor you if you were Right in 1790s France. Surprisingly, even Time magazine understands how Marxists and Bolsheviks eagerly adopted the terms to define the opposition, polarize the masses, and eliminate the opposition--https://time.com/5673239/left-right-politics-origins/. Where do libertarians, liberals, and natural law adovocates fit on a simple one-dimensional continuum? They don't. They get canceled right out of the gate--as soon as culture and politics gets defined as a continuum from Left to Right.
Blocking traffic is certainly criminal. Why freeze bank accounts rather than just tow and fine the truckers is a different question.
Yes, blocking traffic is criminal. That's why civil rights protestors expected to get beaten and jailed, historically. Which was all part of the expectation. It's only 'modern' civil rights protestors who expect to break the law with complete impunity. However, civil forfeiture and most, if not all, the trappings of modern law enforcement are fundamentally unconstitutional - and in Canada, we would expect a similar sensibility even if they don't have the same constitution - that there are bounds put on the punishments for certain kinds of crimes. Traffic crimes come with maximum fines and jail terms, etc.
I think that strict application of traffic laws -- fines for continuing to block streets and charges for towing away illegally blocking vehicles would rapidly add up -- would have been enough to restore order.
"we made need some sort of legal protection [to ensure that] banks would not be allowed to discriminate against individuals for their political associations."
The greater the compliance burden, the less the competition. Alternatively, we might lessen the regulatory burden associated with starting and running a new bank. More banks, more options, more competition, more robustness.
Counterintuitively, regulating everyone by telling them they can't discriminate *lowers* the compliance burden, because it's always easier and cheaper to do nothing and deploy the valid excuse, "My hands are tied." The entire cost of such a policy is borne by those who would prefer more political discrimination, more opinion-based cancellation. Boo hoo for them, what an epic tragedy, where did I put that world's smallest violin.
By it being a general regulation, you don't have to worry about being put at a competitive disadvantage or face an adverse selection problem with your customer base.
If you are 'free' to discriminate, now you've got to worry about optimizing your customers who want you to discriminate in all kinds of different and inconsistent ways, pay attention to government and general public demands to cancel people, hire an army of investigators (or build some social credit equivalent AI) to scrutinize every customer for whatever the current minute woke or problematic issues are, and your legal bills will go up, to put it mildly.
These are, in practice, enormous burdens, and, as you might expect, only a few established giant players can afford to bear them. If you stand athwart business commanding, "Stop!", then business becomes a lot easier and new little guys have a better chance.
Fact is, the telecom companies can't disconnect people because it doesn't like what they talk to each other about over the phone lines. This is a good thing for everyone, customers, dissidents, and phone companies included. The sky did not fall, quite the contrary. If you deregulated the phone companies and allowed them to boot people, the results would be terrible for literally everyone except the woke mob.
Wait, you might ask, what about the anti-woke mob? Wouldn't they just build their own woke-excluding phone companies?
They might try, but here's another pitfall of 'competition'. When the factor of competition is ideological and social desirability, by setting up an alternative, one only makes oneself a magnet for the entire spectrum of folks who get booted by the mainstream giants for a variety of reasons, in a subpopulation in which genuine dissidents and civil heretics are drowned out by trolls, hater morons, con artists, kooks and cranks of all varieties, vice-peddlers, and, of course, actual criminals and foreign agents. We have already seen this a few times as an established fact of what always happens in real world experience, it is hardly some theoretical speculation.
In these two ways, 'competition' without more is not actually an answer. Competition is great and we should be trying to ensure more of it. However, this is a coordination problem which can only be solved by an entity with a monopoly on sovereignty which can stand outside the impersonal market forces and set the rules for everyone to follow. You don't need graduate level econ or political science to understand the arguments for that, if you wish to see its proofs, look around you.
Ultimately, you are fighting a rear-guard action to hold small positions where all the high ground is occupied by artillery. It seemed for a time that 'slippery slope' arguments were silly, fatuous, created only by bad people to protect wicked projects. The problem is - that's exactly what various restrictions on government are designed to protect. People who seem bad and wicked, from those who would make laws.
You personally are no longer allowed to define who is 'in your tribe' (free association) or say what you would like. The totality of the society, it is the state, it participates in enforcing the 'laws' and they are all-encompassing.
The Catawba tribe announced this project last week,
"The GEZ project began three years ago under Catawba Corporations, the economic development arm of the Nation. With the completion of the Zone’s own commercial and financial regulatory code, it represents the most advanced jurisdiction for digital services in the world.
“Special Economic Zones have been powerful instruments for economic development, enabling rapid economic growth. SEZs often rely on tax incentives. But with our status as a sovereign jurisdiction, we are also able to create a best-in-class regulatory climate for the digital, fintech, and blockchain sectors. Our plan is to allow these businesses to operate with certainty, and under regulations that protect consumers that help mature the industry. The GEZ will create tremendous economic opportunities for our people of the Catawba Nation”, explained Ronnie Beck, CEO of Catawba Corporations.
Using a model similar to Estonia’s eResidency, after completing the ‘know your customer' (KYC) requirements, anyone in the world will be able to set up an eCorporation online in the GEZ and enjoy policies and regulations that allow them to safely manage their digital assets, raise investment capital and offer digital-banking services. eCorporations are legal corporations, permitted to conduct business virtually from the GEZ, and can open bank accounts within the United States. GEZ eCorporations are ideal for online companies, software developers, remote workers, banking and finance, insurance, and firms involved in the creation, sale, or management of digital assets."
https://www.finyear.com/Catawba-Native-American-Tribe-Approves-First-Digital-Economic-Zone-in-the-United-States_a46898.html