Whipped is a documentary by Sean Holman.  Here is the write-up for it.

On May 14th, British Columbians will go to the polls and choose who they want to represent them in the legislature. But, for the next four years, most of those MLAs will only represent the wishes of their party leaders.
A new video documentary by Webster Award-winning investigative journalist Sean Holman reveals why, exposing the secretive system of party discipline that stops MLAs from voting their conscience or for their constituents.
For the first time ever, British Columbians will hear past and present MLAs – including Liberals, New Democrats, cabinet ministers and backbenchers – speak candidly about the personal and political costs of that discipline.
For the first time ever, British Columbians will hear specific examples of how that discipline has forced MLAs to toe the party line in the legislature.
For the first time ever, British Columbians will hear what really happens behind the closed doors of the provincial politics.

I have many issues with what I can only call sensationalism of this write-up (though I won’t go into detail here).  I like the following description better, also found on their website:  ”A documentary about the secret world of party discipline, which forces MLAs to vote against their constituents and even their own conscience.”  But even there I would have cause to disagree.  Since where in the system can we point to that shows force?  I don’t just don’t see that king of coercion.

After watching Whipped, the audience was given a chance to direct questions to the Director, Sean Holman, as well as two others, Vancouver city councilor Andrea Reimer and former Social Credit Party executive director David Marley.  Most of the people who had questions wanted to know what the panelists saw as the problem, how did this happen??  They also then wanted to know what the panelists saw as the solution, how do we fix this. (Queue integritybc.ca)

David Marley, answering both of those questions, mentioned the realities of the current system.  I’m paraphrasing him here, he said that there are some ridings where it doesn’t matter who the candidates are (and he suggested the candidate could be an inanimate object), voters will vote based on party affiliation rather than credentials.  He then continued on with his trail of thoughts; but I believe that this point isn’t as mundane as suggested.

Had I had the floor after him, this is what I would have said (and they asked for no comments, just questions from the audience):

Do you not find it problematic that you characterize voters as willing to vote for a pile of bricks, so long as it flies the right colour flag?  When talking of the problems of this system, shouldn’t this be considered as part of the problem rather than a fact to build conclusions on – that voters can and do, rubber stamp?  If MLAs aren’t allowed – by decision of the leader – to vote their conscience, then what is stopping the MLA from choosing to be independent in the legislature?  Rather than quitting … or refusing to give into peer pressure; is it too much to ask of these humans to act on integrity?!  And if the answer is yes, than what kind of system are we knowingly sending these good people of our society into??

 

If people, voters, citizens, really had a problem with The Whip, and how The Whip affected their voice in legislature, wouldn’t people vote for MLAs that weren’t under a Whip’s thumb?  Since they haven’t voiced their disdain, is it because they don’t care or don’t know?  And if it’s because they don’t know, shouldn’t we be looking at the system to see if the system inherently creates redacted history?  Since the people, voters, citizens are assumed to have the ability to elect good people to the system of governance in BC (and elsewhere) and this is what has been created, would you not say that, perhaps, it is the system that is inherently evil….and that the good ones leave and the bad ones naturally rise to the top?

 

It’s probably a good thing I didn’t have a chance to speak.  Most people aren’t ready to hear the questions I would ask; which again is another point against any system of governance “we” would force “everyone” to join.

The way I see it, once you force someone to join your system – a system based on needing 100% proactive, engaged people – these proactive kinds of people end up spending most of their time serenading the coerced apathetic – while the legislatures that had no intent on ‘listening to their constituents’ do what’s best for themselves.

More and more these days, the laws being created are based on “if you don’t have anything to hide, you shouldn’t worry”.  But if this motto were applied to government itself, they would be, and should be, very worried.

A government that cannot apply it’s own rules to itself is tyrannical.  Anyone who votes for a candidate that does not, before hand, explicitly state the circumstances in which they will vote according to the wishes of the constituence, themselves, and The Whip- is being negligent and, effectively, destroying the ‘democracy’ they hold dear.

Trailer http://www.vimeo.com/64337555

I’ve struggled with this topic most of my adult life, what to do with my passion for Liberty.  At 18 (in 2001) I discovered that I am a libertarian, I learnt this about myself as I was running for provincial office, trying to educate and bring awareness of cannabis, as well as the detrimental effects of government intervention via legislation in all areas of human activity.  Knowing at a young age that you are interested in political philosophy is usually a good thing – political parties are generally good as breeding the next generation to carry their flag.  Not so for a young politically inclined libertarian in Canada.

It’s not an understatement to say I’ve struggled with what to do with my love of liberty.  It turns out that my definition of freedom is vastly different than my neighbours in my community.

I don’t take my role as Leader of a Federal political party lightly.  So here are the reasons I have come up with, the reasons I have so far (in no particular order) that I use to explain my role at the Libertarian Party of Canada.

When shit hits the fan:  When I started reading libertarian material, every author has said for certain that, at some point, the system as we know it will collapse.  Hayek and Von Mises said this in some shape way or form.  Given this almost certainty, I asked myself these questions:

1. During a collapse, would it be better to have a government made up of politicians that think the best thing to do is more intervention or, would it be better to have a political party focused on getting government out of individuals’ lives ?
2. During a collapse, how could I best be prepared to see a ‘phoenix rise’ from the ashes?  Living in a community and in society has many advantages over a one-man hermit deep in the forest does.  My best shot to help build may be during the time of reorganizing that will take place at the end of the collapse.
3. Given my goal of wanting to help build or rebuild a society based on property rights, I will need to find like-minded people to work with.  Where do I go to find them?  How do I attract those kinds of people to me?

Here’s a fun thought experiment.  Let’s say you live in medieval Europe and you’re an atheist; a passionate one that wants to be part of the solution.  To advance science, to stop killing “witches”, for a  number of wrongs going on in the name of Christianity.  Yes, you can write books like Dawkins, Hitchens & Harris; but clearly going into the church yourself to attempt change wouldn’t be seen as a renouncement of your anti-theism.

Building the Society that I will live in:

1. As mentioned in my second point above, I’m going to need to know how to help build my community once this one has ended.  Sure, we can do it through trial and error, but I don’t want to waste that kind of time.  I’m not in too many positions where I can gain real-world experience working with other libertarians to create structured society.  And I like structured societies; the more division of labour we have, the more prosperous we all are.
2. If I invest time in this at the provincial level, I limit the number of Canadians I can collaborate on.  As well, many things I would define as important liberties and freedoms have implications at the federal level.  One quick swipe of the pen at that level and my work at the provincial level could become a waste.
3. Working at an international level is just not in the cards for libertarians yet.
4. Working at the city level is good, but my city is a difficult one to get involved in without a personal war-chest.

My second question asked myself about the governing style I’d want during a collapse.  I’ve heard many say it was a good thing Dr. Paul didn’t get the presidency.  Their reason: their system is past the point of no return, so when it collapses you don’t want a Libertarian government in power because people will blame the current administration.  Maybe yes, maybe no.  I’m willing to take that kind of risk – I don’t want the collapse to be called an emergency and used as an excuse to then solidify more powers to strengthen a dictator.

It took a lot for me to get back involved in politics.  Last time I was involved it was a decade ago.  Being a libertarian in politics, you get more flack from people (even from other voluntaryists) than support from people.  It’s not an ideal job if you’re someone who enjoys praise, someone who can’t shrug off negative comments, or you want to win a popularity contest.  While campaigning, I was told that my ideas were juvenile.  I was at the receiving end of a lot but I made it through the other side (after a long hiatus) – and I’m happy I took the journey.

If it wasn’t for Marc Emery’s BC Marijuana Party, there’s a chance I would have never heard about libertarianism.  It certainly would have taken a lot longer to discover it some other way.  I still would have held the same beliefs, but would be far less articulate and my arguments not as polished as they are now.  I’m a happier person because I can explain to myself, not just others; and understanding the world makes me feel safer because knowledge is like wearing armor.  No one has the ability to make me feel bad with labels such as “selfish” or “idealistic”.  Although I currently don’t need to be in politics to continue my personal growth as a libertarian, I can’t help but think of other young people out there who feel just as lost and confused without a way to explain themselves – as I once was.

The articulated and thought-out philosophy of anarcho-capitalism is probably the youngest of all political philosophies.  Even Ayn Rand, Mises and Hayek all advocated for the smallest of States, though I wonder what their position would be now after the huge body of work that now exists.  It’s going to take a while for the voluntaryist philosophy to catch on.  I see only two ways people will currently get it: a family member or friend, or if someone happens to really enjoy political philosophy.  Someone who enjoys political philosophy is not your average voter; it’s the average voter that we need to connect to.  Voluntaryism isn’t taught in schools, its barely in pop culture, and when it is, it’s mostly made fun of.  When kids are citing Dr. Paul as their gateway into libertarianism, there still is a place for our involvement in politics.

The major criticism I hear is “ we’ve tried that and it doesn’t work”.   My responses are:

1. What, exactly, has been tried?  What do you mean by “worked”?
2. What’s the alternative to politics?  Should we all do one thing?  Should we all write books, become academics?  What is The One answer?
3. Libertarian professors and their books have been around for longer than our Libertarian political parties; I don’t hear anyone saying to stop writing books because they don’t “work” by proof that we don’t yet live in a libertarian society
4. The unseen

Further to my first point, I see a cop-out; I don’t agree that getting involved in politics 1) has been tried & 2) doesn’t work.  As if there is only one way to get involved in politics.  As if the first car or plane ever attempted should be judged against one built now; or as if only one kind of car can exist.  People, times, places, and strategies change all the time.  To say that one kind of strategy, in one given time, to one group of people didn’t work and extrapolate this to all situations is, quite frankly, ridiculous.  Then, consider what the criticism “works” means.  Are we judging this by the fact you expect to see the party elected?  This may be one goal of a political party, but any successful movement does more than one thing well.  Being elected doesn’t have to be the one and only thing a political party does.  The fourth point is something all followers of Austrian Economics should understand immediately.  We cannot know what our current political situation would be like if libertarians weren’t involved in politics.  That is to say, we cannot know if the political climate would be better or worse if there were no libertarian-oriented political parties.
For example, a politician says “We spent X dollars on jobs, and we’ve created 100 new jobs” – the Austrian-economist knows that without this intervention there is a very good chance that more jobs would have existed.  How can we know that being involved in politics hasn’t worked?, show me the proof.

Lastly, there are the people who say NOTA is the way to go, that the low voter turn-out is a sign that non-voters are in agreement with libertarians.  While I wish this were true, to say this is a logical leap of faith is an understatement.  Going back to the religious example, to say that non-voters have a philosophy aligned with libertarians is akin to saying the church on fire is a sign of atheists.  When I talk to people who clearly have no interest in politics their most often response is “Libertarian, is that like Liberal?” or “Libertarian, is that like Libertine?” None of these people see government in violation of the Non-Aggression principle; they are simply overwhelmed by our current situation and choose not to discover the fundamental flaws we libertarians see.

In the end I’m left with a nugget of truth.  What’s the worst that could happen?
I asked myself: Where do I put my time and effort in if I want to be surrounded by like-minded individuals?  What skills do I most need to improve on that I will need after a collapse & which skills are most valuable if a collapse doesn’t happen?  Where can I be heard the loudest, where is the efficient place to put my voice?  And that’s really the key point, for me; I want to make sure my time invested reaches people who would not otherwise know about libertarianism.  Preaching to the converted isn’t bad, but its not a great way to grow the ranks quickly.  It’s not as easy and it’s not as fun as doing the circuit of libertopia, porc fest et all – but I truly believe it’s a valid way to express libertarianism.

On November 6th 2012 I spoke to Christina Yahn who does a Radio Programme in the Kootenays called EcoCentric on CJYL Kootenay Coop Radio.  Of the 5 or so hosts of this show, it is only Christina Yahn who seems to want to take the free-market approach to free-market environmentalism.

While we set up an interview time, I found out that her passion is about the bee problem that continues to this day.  This year at the Vancouver International Film Festival I got the chance to watch a documentary “More than Honey” and I recommend it.  Over course there are the anti-capitalist overtones that you’d expect, but I found that even the level-headed statist was able to see through the bias in the doc.  After watching this, and having a sister who studied Vancouver’s bee population this summer, I have been left wondering how culpable government regulation has been in the destruction of the bee populations around the world.  I asked Christina Yahn this, and she’s agreed to give me her perspective later.  Her facebook page on bees is here.

In the meantime I leave you with the interview I did for EcoCentric.  My interview starts about 5 – 10 minutes in and be sure to keep listening after my interview is done because Walter Block is interviewed as well!  He spends his time explaining how and why government is the worst polluter there is, by using the socialized garbage system.  He explains how the cost of garbage disposal isn’t able to be priced into the system, why this is a bad thing, and how it would probably work in the free-market.  For those of you who haven’t heard of the paper bag vs plastic bag scenario, this is a must-listen to example.

A question from Facebook: “Can you tell me, as a libertarian, how many baby bonus cheques, government-subsidized obstetric procedures, and child tax credits you have refused, in the interest of personal responsibility and small government?

My vote hangs in the balance, loony tunes.”
***

Fredrick Bastiat once said that “Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”

I’m going to answer this more thoroughly than I think is required, loony tunes.

Government is of the same ilk of a roving band of thieves.  They come up to you and ask you for (at first) 5% of your daily wages.  You may pay them because they are pesky violent people and not worth a confrontation over.  Or maybe you speak up and tell them you have issue with them.  Ah well, they have some responses for you.  First, your 5% goes to your protection, so that bad people don’t try to take 5% of your wages.  Second, you get to, through a voting system, choose who takes your money.  In this case the band of thieves are two men and a women: Michael John and Mary.  They each have a different % they plan to take, depending on the deficit and the social services they plan to run … and how much they’ll eventually pay themselves.

Now you say “well, I don’t want those services.”  And they tell you that’s not how society works; that you’ve implicitly signed a social contract for being where you are and this means that you must pay or leave.

So let’s say at this point you’ve tried to reason with them to the point of frustration and you see that by continuing to disagree with them they will throw you in what they call Jail.  Is it worth it to go through this over 5%?  Most said no; though some said yes and have created civil wars over this – and some others decided to join the band of thieves.  The more democratic a society is, the easier it is to join the gang.

Now that’s the age old story without all the bells and whistles.  We could touch on, how, as an objector, you are ridiculed for hating on the poor, for being a free-loader, for calling the band of thieves what they are instead of their cover name “government”.

Why is your list so small?  Government also subsidizes BC Ferries.  Why not find out if Art “freeloads” and takes BC Ferries to the Mainland rather than taking a private boat across the Georgia Straight?  Why not find out if he “freeloads” and sends his kids to public school?  Is the man who, by virtue of his understanding that taxes are theft, then punished by not being allowed access to the socialized systems that have been built with a portion of his money?  Roads are the best example of a government monopoly that no one can escape; they must be used unlike a book where one can buy from amazon rather than the public library.  Do you find him in contradiction to his personal responsibility of being a libertarian?

To be a libertarian is to correctly explain the system we currently find ourselves in.  In fact, to be libertarian is to simply ask for force to be taken out of the equation.  If you want 5 or 10 or 50% of your wage to go to xyz social programme, you are free to do so.  But, since you are not free (even now) to knock on your neighbours door to tell them to do the same – by that same logic you are not allowed to vote for Michael Mary or John to go to your neighbours home and demand the exact same thing.

Go back and read Fredrick Bastiat’s quote once more.  The Federal government just reached a 600 billion dollar debt.  Add your provinces & municipal debt too.  Debt is money owed by the future, by people who never voted for, nor will receive the social services that are being offered today.  Current society has mortgaged their future, and by your logic, this current system is the one of moral high ground – and the libertarian by accessing the obstetrician they’ve been told is paid for by their tax dollars is the moocher?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, so I thought I would post my most recent tête-à-tête I had with a friend.  I’m sure other libertarians have been in this situation before – you think you’re on the same page as someone and then they revert back to the government for “their” solution.  For a while they agree that things being done by the government are bad … but then they reason that “if just the right person were in power…” the government would work.

I have one such friend.  On top of it, this notion of ‘not government’ seems to offend her.  Perhaps I’ll revisit this idea later and think about what she has said in the past to more accurately explain what about ‘not government’ she doesn’t like, for those of you who are curious.  In the meantime, here is the email she send and then I have posted my reply.  If you have the time or inclination, I’d like to know how you think I handled her criticisms.

her email to me:

Published on Thursday, November 1, 2012 by Rolling Stone
Hurricane Sandy and the Myth of the Big Government-vs.-Small-Government Debate
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/01-6
by Matt Taibbi

“……But everyone lives off the government teat to some degree – even (one might even say especially) the very rich who have been the core supporters of both the Bush presidency and Romney’s campaign. Many are industrial leaders who would revolt tomorrow if their giant free R&D program known as the federal military budget were to be scaled back even a few percentage points. Mitt’s buddies on Wall Street would cry without their bailouts and dozens of lucrative little-known subsidies (like the preposterous ability of certain banks to act as middlemen in transactions when the government lends money to itself)……

….People who grew up in public schools, run straight to the embassy the instant they get a runny nose overseas, stuff burgers down their throats without worrying about E. Coli and sleep happily in planes they know have been inspected by the FAA (I regularly risked my life in Aeroflot liners for a decade and know the difference), can with straight faces make the argument that having to pay any taxes at all is tyranny. It’s almost as if people feel the need to announce that they don’t need any help with anything, ever – not even keeping bridges safe or drinking water clean.

It’s this weird national paranoia about being seen as needy, or labeled a parasite who needs government aid, that leads to lunacies like the idea that having a strong disaster-relief agency qualifies as a “big government” concept, when in fact it’s just sensible. If everyone could just admit that government is a fact of life, we could probably do a much better job of fixing it and managing its costs. Instead, we have to play this silly game where millions of us pretend we’re above it all, that we don’t walk on regularly-cleaned streets or fly in protected skies. It shouldn’t take a once-in-a-generation hurricane for Americans to admit they need the government occasionally, but that’s apparently where we are.”

My response:

I’ll answer the first point first.  Yes, completely, the most successful businesses today aren’t run by libertarians and the most successful businesses today fully have embraced the government to make regulation hinder their competition so they have none.  Without the military industrial complex, oil would not be in such high demand, & it might turn out to be even too expensive due to the risks associated to oil extraction, or shipping.  By allowing the market to actually price these risks into products, other technology to invest in would look much more attractive decades ago and I bet oil would not be such a large reliance by the average person.