To those who watched tonight’s presidential address, I have just two questions:

1) How much are Bush’s disaster relief and recovery proposals going to cost. The state is already massively in debt as it is and running massive budget deficits to boot. Bush’s proposals are only going to increase the strain on the economy and future generations who will have to pay off the debts of today’s generation. Indeed, the strain will not be merely monetary as the increased government involvement will interfere with, constrain, and erode social and market power. Let private charity and businesses deal with the recovery and rebuilding.

2) Is Bush a Republican or a Democrat? All right, this one is a rhetorical question. Tonight’s presidential address provides a good illustration of the claim libertarians have been making for years. The answer is that there isn’t much difference between the two major political parties in the U.S., especially where the neoconservatives are concerned.

Also, check out this recent post on the Survival of New Orleans blog (Thursday, September 15th, 2005 2:50 pm): “The tech from Liebert who was going to perform maintenance on our UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) for the data center was turned away since the President is here in the city today. Now I ask you, which is more important: a speech or the telecommunications infrastructure of New Orleans post Katrina?”

I’m a little late in posting this but better late than never. From the Mises Econ Blog:

“Readers will enjoy this interesting series of video shots from the Mises University, as put together by Chad Parish.”

I make one or more appearances in it. See if you can spot me. :o)

For the original post and some commentary, click here.

Kevin Carson has noticed our debate and gives a brief but useful summary of it. The debate about anarchism, particularly on market and non-market institutions within society, continues in the wake of his post as well as a deep discussion about time. Check it out.

Addendum (10:47 pm): Speaking of anarchy, check out this discussion on anarchy, minarchy, and (an/the?) Anarchism Anti-Defamation League at L&P sparked by Sheldon Richman. I just left a comment defending anarchy and anarchists from a rhetorical (one might say sophistical) trick by Irfan Khawaja. You’ll see what I mean when you read the discussion, but I say rhetorical or sophistical because like most minarchists Irfan seems to be readily dismissive of anarchy, makes unsupported assertions in favor of minarchy, and attempts to undermine anarchism by claiming there is a one-sided relationship regarding anarchists defaming the minarchist state using examples of failures by states minarhists wouldn’t support and statists defaming anarchy using examples of chaos to which anarchists deny the label anarchism. The anarchists, he claims, want to have their cake and eat it too; they simply like to defame the state but don’t like it when minarchists and other statists defame anarchy. The difference lies, I think, in the tendency among anarchists to appreciate and understand the moral and economic deficiencies of the state, but the veritable dearth of minarchists who take anarchism even half seriously. The relationship is actually the opposite of what he claims. The day I see minarchists making an effort to appreciate, understand, and deal with the moral and practical arguments in favor of anarchism is the day that the relationship will not be altogether one-sided.

Although I don’t know when Britain and other parts of Europe began setting up video and snapshot cameras all over their public spaces or how long the US and other countries have had hi-res satellite cameras, but the following lyrics from the 1982 song Electric Eye by the heavy metal band Judas Priest provide a telling commentary on the surveillance states of Europe and the growing US surveillance state.

Electric Eye
by Judas Priest

Up here in space
I’m looking down on you
My lasers trace
Everything you do

You think you’ve private lives
Think nothing of the kind
There is no true escape
I’m watching all the time

I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean

I’m elected electric spy
I’m protected electric eye

Always in focus
You can’t feel my stare
I zoom into you
You don’t know I’m there

I take a pride in probing all your secret moves
My tearless retina takes pictures that can prove

I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean

I’m elected electric spy
I’m protected electric eye

Electric eye, in the sky
Feel my stare, always there
There’s nothing you can do about it
Develop and expose
I feed upon your every thought
And so my power grows

I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean

I’m elected electric spy
I’m protected electric eye

Protected. detective. electric eye

I don’t know which is more disturbing, the growing surveillance state in the US or the growing trend of paternalistic surveillance parents. Libertarians often point out the encroachments of the State into our right to privacy (a corollary of our rights to life, liberty, and property), but few recognize or emphasize enough the growing trend of parents setting up video cameras in their children’s rooms and installing GPS trackers in their children’s cars. This trend has started making headlines recently. The overprotective and surprisingly prudish former wrestler Hulk Hogan in the reality tv show Hogan Knows Best comes to mind as just one example of the latter. Equally disturbing is the evidence of at least one kid in one of the tv news reports being complacent about it.

These three trends – growing statism, paternalism, and parentalism – are intertwined and mutually reinforcing. It thus should come as no surprise to see all three as growing trends in America. In America, the state has been particularly inept at providing security and other services – partly due to the highly heterogenous culture and relative decentralization of power within government between the various branches and levels of government, largely due to its monopoly on the legal use of force and ultimate decision-making – while at the same time, inevitably, divisive democratic politics and the spoils over which the various pressure groups fight (personal and corporate welfare in its various incarnations) have among other factors led to a deterioration of American social ties and mores. Faced with a semi-socialist state pushing paternalistic policies, it should come as no surprise that the American people, particularly those most dependent upon the state for their lives and livelihoods, will become less and less responsible, producing, generous, and trusting, indeed virtuous, individuals. But again, given the increasing parental abdication of childraising responsibility to the state accompanied by the general ineptitude of the state, small wonder that we see parents increasingly turning to technology as the “easy” way to monitor their children every minute of the day and night. Should we really be surprised to see children becoming used to it? And these children will grow up even more ready to monitor and regulate their own children’s every move as well as submit to the state’s policies to monitor and regulate their own and their children’s. Paternalism breeds parentalism breeds more paternalism in a vicious circle until we have a nation full of childlike adults being ruled by a handful of wealthy despots. Philosopher-kings? In your dreams.

Paternalism is dangerous, both in its statist and in its familial variety, as is parentalism, the other side of the coin. If we treat adults like children, they will eventually come to behave like children. If we do not teach children to behave like adults, then they will become childlike adults. Children need to be taught independence, initiative, self-responsibility, and other virtues. Moreover, they should be given a level of trust consistent with their level of development and aimed at their continued development into competent and responsible adults. They shouldn’t be treated as incompetent and untrustworthy unless they prove themselves incompetent and untrustworthy. Coddling them and not trusting them from the start is a recipe for failure when it comes to raising competent and responsible adults. Children need to be able to make their own decisions (within limits) and the mistakes that will inevitably go with them. Yes, one cannot stress enough that they need structure and a consistent system of rules consistently and fairly enforced, but this should not be mistaken with totalitarian monitoring and control. These modern surveillance technologies certainly have their uses, but let’s be careful about going overboard with them and abusing our fellow adult human beings and our children.

Note: See here and here for Judas Priest lyrics, and here for the official Judas Priest website.

Check out this picture on Michael Barnett’s blog. Even an NOPD car didn’t escape the looting. And speaking of pictures, be sure to check out the hundreds of other pictures linked to on Michael’s blog.

FEMA is attempting to minimize the damage to their reputation and status caused by their FUBAR handling of the relief efforts in New Orleans. They are attempting a cover-up, blocking media access to the search operations, therby preventing photos and videos of the bodies from being taken. Let’s not forget that Bush also prevented (or at least tried his best to prevent) photos and video of flag drapped caskets of fallen soldiers from being taken. That the government thinks it can get away with this, and even worse, that it probably will, is a distressing blow to liberty.

Michael Barnett: The Interdictor (a.k.a. the Survivor of New Orleans blog)

Mises.org: “The State and the Flood” (article, blog post); “New Orleans, State-Planning, and the Free Market” (blog post); “A Government Flood” (blog post); “Is this the first spotting of the ‘Broken Window’ fallacy?” (blog post); “A Price Gouging Reader” (blog post).

LewRockwell.com: “Conservatives on New Orleans” (blog post 1, 2)

David Heinrich: “LIVE from New Orleans with Michael Barnett“

Mark Brady at Liberty & Power: “The Economics of Looting in Devastated Areas“

Daniel D’Amico at Austrian Addiction: “New Orleans chaos and order“

Dappled Things: “What did they do to deserve the hurricane?“

Eric’s Grumbles Before the Grave: “Katrina – More on the Politics“; “Katrina – More on Libertarian Principles“; “Katrina – Economic Fallacies“; also, see his blog for relief efforts.

The Liberty Belles: “Katrina as Cash Cow“

Marginal Revolution: “How to leave town“; “A short recent history of FEMA“

The Austrian Economists: “Bastiat Spinning; Hazlitt Heaving“; “Catastrophe“

Vodkapundit: “Cluster-F“

I may compile more later if I get time.