Advice to Libertarians (Part 2): The Fence and the Field

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Part 2 of 2 (Read Part 1 here.)

Across America there are all kinds of fences. Tough sturdy fences designed to limit the movement of massive, beasts who could trample a lesser fence without even thinking Then there are those smaller, decorative fences, designed to look ice, but also to mark territory. The white picket fence has been a symbol of the American dream for a long time. It’s not a very sturdy fence, and most people could knock it over by just leaning on it, but it served as a suggested barrier, to be respected by those who chose to be civilized and respectful.

The image of the white picket fence has stayed with me because it captures something most political philosophies get wrong about the relationship between freedom and structure. The Collectivist looks at the field and sees animals that need to be penned and design their fences accordingly. The Anarchist looks at the fence and sees an offense against human nature. The Libertarian — the serious one, not the bumper-sticker variety — looks at both and understands that the private property only works because the fence is respected, and only holds because people mostly choose not to test it.

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Advice to Libertarians (Part 1): The Free-Range Steer

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There’s a concept in cattle ranching called “low-stress handling.” The idea is simple: you design the chutes and pens so the animals move where you want them to go without realizing they’re being directed. No prodding needed. No resistance. Just architecture that exploits the animal’s natural tendency to follow the path of least resistance.

The cow thinks it’s walking freely. The rancher knows better.

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Advice to Moderate Democrats (part 2): The Bitter Cup

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Part 2 of 2 

I just made myself a cup of coffee, French press, picked one up at an estate sale for a dollar. The instructions I found online were specific: let the grounds steep in the hot water for exactly four minutes. Any longer and too much bitterness seeps out, and you’ve ruined what should have been a good cup.

The power of Collectivism works the same way.

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Advice to Moderate Democrats (Part 1): The Wrong Threat

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Part 1 of 2 

George Orwell was a Socialist.

Not secretly or reluctantly or in a “well, technically” kind of way. He was a committed, vocal, lifelong democratic socialist who wrote that every serious line he’d produced since 1936 was “against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism.” He joined a Marxist militia in the Spanish Civil War and fought on the front lines for the “Republican”* cause.

And then he spent the rest of his life writing the two most devastating indictments of Collectivism in the English language.

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Straddling the Middle of the Wedge: The Peace and Prosperity Zone

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Over the past few weeks I’ve laid out a political framework, the Wedge, that replaces the broken Left-Right spectrum with something that actually describes how power works. Collectivism vs. Individualism on the horizontal axis, the Leader/Follower gap on the vertical, and a wedge shape that widens toward Collectivism because centralized control structurally requires hierarchy.

I also walked through every position on that wedge and named their weaknesses, including the weaknesses of my own tribe.

Now I want to zoom in on the middle.

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Thinking Is the Enemy of Compliance

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Here’s a line worth sitting with: Thinking is the enemy of Compliance*.

Not rebellion or protest or even armed resistance——thinking. The simple act of processing information for yourself instead of accepting someone else’s pre-packaged conclusion. That’s what every system of control, left, right, religious, secular or corporate, governmental, finds most threatening. Not because independent thinkers are dangerous. Because they’re unpredictable, and unpredictable people are very hard to manage.

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Walking the Wedge: Where Everyone Actually Stands

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Part 2 of 2 

Yesterday I laid out the Political Wedge,  a two-dimensional spectrum with Collectivism and Individualism on the horizontal axis and the Leader/Follower gap on the vertical. The shape is a wedge because Collectivism structurally requires hierarchy while Individualism structurally resists it. If you missed it, read Part 1.

This week: where does everyone actually fall?

Ground rule before we start. Every position gets its strength acknowledged and its structural weakness exposed. The credibility of any framework depends on the person using it being willing to apply it honestly to their own tribe. So that’s what I’m going to do.

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The Political Wedge: Why the Spectrum You Learned Is a Lie

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[Click to view detailed infographic]
Part 1 of 2 

Trump recently promised he wouldn’t get the U.S. into a war. It’s the kind of line every politician delivers, and most people nod along without thinking about it too hard. But this one stuck with me, not because of what he said, but because of what it exposed.

Republicans and Democrats don’t just disagree about war policy. They disagree about what the word “war” means.

Look at the pattern. Republican military engagements have historically come with specific goals, timelines, and exit strategies. H.W. Bush’s Gulf War had a clear objective, liberate Kuwait, a broad coalition and a withdrawal. Reagan’s Grenada was in and out. Democratic military engagements, by contrast, have a habit of becoming open-ended nation-building projects: LBJ’s Vietnam, Obama’s Libya.

Clean story. Except it falls apart the moment you say the name George W. Bush.

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The Handle Problem: Why Labels Are Weapons

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In yesterday’s article about Iran, a word kept showing up: handle. The War Powers Resolution is a handle. Tribal loyalty is a handle. But I used the term without properly explaining it, and it deserves its own treatment because understanding what a Handle is, and how it differs from a Principle, might be the single most important thing you can learn about politics.

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Ends, Means, and Dancing in the Streets of Tehran

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In Tehran, Iran, two women breathlessly climb to the top of a nearby building to watch, celebrate and cheer as they see smoke rising from the residence of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s self-styled “Supreme Leader” who we now know died in that blast. Meanwhile in other parts of Iran, bare-headed women, who have shed their legally mandated hijabs, light cigarette (also something outlawed by the now tumbling regime) with photos of Khamenei as a further sign of defiance. All across Iran, Iranians dance in the street as bombs continue to fall. Meanwhile 6,000 some odd miles away, American politicians frown and fret over the method in which the Iranian people, and the world has been freed from the number 1 source of terrorism across the globe.

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