Reflections  

Roadtrip of a thousand crimes — A couple of Brits, Richard Smith and Luke Bateman, plan to spend eight weeks and 18,000 miles traveling around the United States breaking as many absurd laws as they can. They plan to ride a bicycle in a pool in California, go whaling in Utah(!), sleep in a cheese factory in South Dakota, walk on their hands while crossing a street in Hartford, Conn., and engage in dozens of other activities some all-wise legislative body has decided at one time or another to outlaw. They hope to get a book deal to cover expenses. It's probably too much to hope they serve as a reminder that passing a law is not always the wisest course when an annoying or faddish practice haunts a community for a while. — Alan W. Bock

Backdoor flat tax — As a patron of Cato and many other libertarian outfits, I never thought I would say this, but I think doing anything to Social Security might be a mistake. Why? Well, first off, you have to decouple the name of the program from its real nature. It is just a tax. Sure, the politicians can have some geek claim there is a "Trust Fund," but we all know that is bullshit. I once had a vehement argument with my high school teacher about Social Security being a tax. I shut him up with the retort "Try not paying it and see what happens."

It is a tax, and it all goes into one big giant general fund so George W. can kill Iraqi babies and hassle Mexican immigrants and put all our black youth in prison. Of course it also funds the Social Security payouts and Medicare and welfare and other things that by some stretch of the imagination might be socially beneficial. So what is the Social Security "contribution" at its core? It's a flat tax. And a very nice one, because once you earn about 90 grand they figure you have paid for more than your share of government service, so you don't owe any more Social Security tax. So by privatizing some or all of it, we only put more burden on our insane progressive income tax, which kills savings, destroys small businesses, and generally screws the one segment of society that creates wealth. I propose not only do we not privatize Social Security, but we increase the Social Security tax to 10% (with the matching 10% from the employer) and then eliminate the income tax and all tariffs. Our growth rate would rival China's, and the great mass of people that benefit from government entitlements would actually have to pay for them. — Paul Rako

Celebrating Rand in the Death Star — I confess that the Ayn Rand Centenary event, held by the Objectivist Center at the Library of Congress on Feb. 2, isn't the sort of event I normally attend. Like many libertarians I know, I believe that Ayn Rand had many good ideas and some bad ones. I enjoyed "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" and think that "We the Living" has dated badly. I'm not as familiar with Rand's nonfiction as I should be.

Still, a centennial doesn't happen every day, and as a mushy-wushy anti-sectarian fusionist, I've always believed that any friend of liberty is a friend of mine. So I went to the Library of Congress to check things out.

The event was held in the "Members' Room" of the library, which is one of those grand secret Washington rooms you rarely get to see. The room was built at the turn of the century, and has somewhat ornate oak paneling with gold tint. There are two mosaics on each side, constructed by an artist named Frederick Dielman, that celebrate law and reason. It is a room that Rand would have liked (particularly the gold-tinted ceiling).

I missed the early panel, and walked in to see a typical dark-suited Washington crowd. The crowd was so formally dressed that I wasn't sure if I was attending Rand's birthday party or her wake.

I first heard a woman named Madeleine Cosman, who talked about how she was building a house and she demanded excellence, and she only hired the best contractors and her house had to be just the way she wanted it. I gathered that this woman was some sort of hero to Objectivists: she was full of energy, but I didn't know what motivated her. Cosman didn't just speak her lines, she declaimed them like she was Sarah Bernhardt.

The follow-up panel was much more conventional. Howard Dickman of the National Endowment of the Humanities talked about the importance of accurate business history. Cato's Ed Crane and the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Fred Smith both stressed the importance of think tanks in promoting liberty.

I spent some time talking to attendees about Rand. Most of them treated Rand like she was your favorite grandmother — you know, the one who gave you a lot of really good ideas and set you on the right path in life. Many of the people I talked to had favorite memories of hearing Rand in the 1970s or at her last appearance in 1981.

The people I talked to seemed like sensible people who had become stronger and more self-reliant as a result of reading Ayn Rand. I didn't come across any insufferable egotists.

I know enough about Objectivism to know that the Objectivist Center and the Ayn Rand Institute are deadly rivals. So it wasn't any surprise to hear rumors that the Ayn Rand Institute was denouncing the Objectivist Center's conference. Check out the institute's message boards, the rumor went. There you'll find that the Objectivist Center is being denounced for holding an Ayn Rand event in a government building! And inviting . . . politicians!

Afterwards, I duly surfed to the Ayn Rand Institute website. But I didn't want to register for their message boards, so I don't know if these rumors are true.

What I did find was that the Ayn Rand Institute centenary conference was far more elaborate. They had a multi-day symposium featuring all sorts of Objectivist eminences, of whom I only recognized Leonard Peikoff and Michael Berliner. Then they had a grand banquet. The conference cost $275, and the banquet was an additional $285. By contrast, the Objectivist Center's event was free. (Yes, I honored Ayn Rand with a free lunch.)

I can't imagine that the Ayn Rand Institute had as much fun as we did celebrating the life of a great American. And I bet our birthday cake was better too. — Martin Morse Wooster

Puttin' off the ritz — I am one of the minority of college-educated Americans whose jobs do not oblige them to wear a suit, sports jacket, or tie. That was not always the case. Twice in the past I was elected to offices in my university that required me to attend the meetings of its Powers and Dominions. Knowing my preference for blue jeans, a friend drew me aside after the first election and said, "Congratulations. Just remember that nobody will take you seriously unless you wear a suit and tie." I knew he was right, and I took his advice. But I no longer have that kind of job.

Not needing to spend an extra half hour dressing in the morning leaves me free to speculate about why tens of millions of Americans are still oppressed by the suit and tie. One might have thought that the 1960s would have ended that custom, as they ended the Obligatory Hat. (Look at any pre-1960 picture of gangsters, prisoners on their way to jail, young guys on a bender, or ditch-diggers headed for their jobs, and you are likely to see the Suit and the Hat on all of them.) But that didn't happen. The '60s wiped out pipes, horn-rimmed glasses, standard haircuts, and a reverence for law and order, but not the suit and tie. And now that businesswomen are dressing like businessmen, there are approximately twice as many people encased in uniforms.

Yes, I know, some people look good in a suit and tie. Those are the people who also look good in prison jumpsuits. Anything can be turned into a fashion statement, because the libido can attach itself to anything. But the idea that every year millions of otherwise intelligent people are forced to spend hundreds of dollars apiece buying trousers that constantly need to be cleaned and pressed, coats that are out of place in any known climate, shirts that choke them and make them sweat, and ties that — well, for heaven's sake, what would a Martian say about that tie you're wearing? How would you explain it to him, anyway?

And these are the clothes you must wear to be taken seriously?

It's true that priests in some churches wear garments modeled on those of late Roman antiquity, thereby expressing a reverence for tradition. Of course, the priest's clothing is seldom so ridiculous — or, I believe, so uncomfortable — as that of the modern businessperson. But the real issue is, What tradition is respected by the suit and tie? The tradition of 19th-century military officers? Because that's where the suit and tie came from, isn't it? And as for the idea that I need to be impressed by tradition when I confront the teller in my local bank . . . well, tell that one to the Martians.

So why is this abuse continuing? I don't know. I suspect it's the influence of Satan. Clearly, we feel guilty about the custom — why else would businesses have weekly "dress down" days? But those occasions are just the exceptions that enforce the rule.

You would expect libertarians to work to end this massive offense to individuality. No, it's not a political issue — but it is a moral one. Yet as I write these words, the newsletter of a prominent libertarian organization is open on the desk before me, and its every picture is filled with men and women dressed in what is euphemistically known as "business attire." It's a wonderful organization; I respect it deeply; I know and love many of the people in those pictures. If I were invited to one of their soirees, I would conform to their customs. But surely, this cannot be good for America. — Stephen Cox

Cheap Shots: How Authors Choose to Fail or Succeed — Every review I've read of Jared Diamond's "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" quotes three hypotheses that Diamond offers about the thinking of the "Easter Islander who chopped down the last palm tree" on Easter Island, thereby destroying the means of survival of that isolated island's entire population.

Here's how Diamond put his hypotheses at a recent lecture delivered in San Diego: "What do you think the Easter Islander, who chopped down the last palm tree, said as as he was chopping down that last tree? I've wondered if he said, 'Never fear, technology will solve our problems, we'll find a substitute for wood.' Or perhaps he said, 'Your environmental models are untested; we need more research, action would be premature, you are fear-mongers.' Or perhaps he said, 'This is my tree and this is my land, I'll do with it what I please, I'm here to maximize a profit, get the big government of the chiefs off my back.'"

The answers to Diamond's questions are obvious to anyone even remotely familiar with prehistoric Polynesian society.

Did the killer of the last tree say, "Never fear, technology will solve our problems, we'll find a substitute for wood"? Well, obviously he did not. The Polynesians were extremely primitive technologically. They lived basic, stone-age lives. There is not a scintilla of evidence that they made any effort to produce new technologies, let alone that the tree-fellers speculated about the potential impact of such things. Diamond, a scholar on the subject, surely knows this.

Did the tree-exterminator say, "Your environmental models are untested; we need more research, action would be premature, you are fear-mongers"? No, they didn't say that either. Again, prehistoric Polynesia was a primitive place, and there is no evidence that its members engaged in any scientific research, let alone environmental modelling. Diamond surely knows this as well.

Did the tree-assassin say, as Diamond surmises, "This is my tree and this is my land, I'll do with it what I please, I'm here to maximize a profit, get the big government of the chiefs off my back"? Land tenure in prehistoric Polynesian society was simple: the paramount chief owned all the land, and subordinated the rights of some of it to sub-chiefs. Ordinary people, the kind of people who would be doing the actual work of felling trees, were more or less chattel slaves; certainly none owned any land. The concept of private property was as unknown to the Polynesians as Einstein's theory of relativity. Again, as a scholar on the subject, Diamond surely know all this.

So why does he offer these hypotheses?

The answer, I am afraid, is that he wants to denigrate people who disagree with him about environmental policy. Are there scientists who are not convinced by models that predict catastrophic environmental degradation? They are no more credible than a stone-age worker who ruins his entire society. Are there people who think that technology can help replace dwindling resources? They are the same as primitive people who ignorantly sentence themselves, their friends, and family to death. Are there ignoramuses who believe that private property ought to be respected, perhaps on the ground that owning something makes people want to protect it? They are no different from a brute who takes a stone axe to the tree of life.

Diamond is an intelligent man, and many of his arguments are challenging and thought-provoking. By taking such patently idiotic cheap shots at those with whom he disagrees, he discredits himself before all thoughtful human beings and risks the credibility of everything he writes and says. — R.W. Bradford

Courtroom pajama party — A good friend once told me that he felt sorry for Elvis. At the time (it was the mid-'80s), Elvis' name was widely invoked in comedy clubs as an easy punch line to a fat joke. My friend believed that the fame Elvis enjoyed eventually became a curse. Elvis was so famous that any public appearance he made would draw swarms of people, so he had to be locked away from the real world. His "people" controlled everything he saw or heard, and they were afraid to be honest with him, because that might mean banishment from the inner circle. So when Elvis first modeled that overly tight white jumpsuit with the open front, and that sequined cape, nobody had the nerve to tell him what a jackass he looked like. Instead, they told him he looked great, and "the King" wore the outfit onstage, guaranteeing stand-up comedians decades of easy laughs.

Back then, my friend also predicted that Michael Jackson would end up the same way. Neither of us imagined he'd be proven so right.

Right now Michael is on trial for his life. Although the crimes he's accused of are not capital offenses, I highly doubt that Michael could survive prison. It is difficult enough for a man with his mental faculties intact to be imprisoned for child molestation, since inmates have a very special initiation reserved for freshmen with that rap.

Unfortunately for Michael, he is already considered guilty by most of America (myself included). There's a chance that he is completely innocent, but he's not really convincing anybody. I think his best defense would be to come into the courtroom in a conservative suit and tie, and state in a normal, gravelly, 47-year-old voice, "By the way, Your Honor, that Peter Pan routine was just a big act, orchestrated to keep my name in the tabloids. Hey, that's show biz."

Instead, Michael Jackson showed up to court in his pajamas and spoke in a voice reminiscent of Mickey Mouse's. I am certain that within his weird mind that seemed like a good idea, something that would generate sympathy among the jurors. Unfortunately, the jury might get other ideas. You just can't show up in bedroom apparel to a trial where you've been accused of child molestation. It would be like William Kennedy Smith showing up at his rape trial wearing a velour bathrobe.

At what point are you so distant from reality that you are no longer aware of how people regard you? That's a fear that I've been living with for a number of years now. I look down, and realize that I am also still clad in pajamas, at 5:30 in the afternoon. I doubt I would go to court like this (although I have gone to the post office, and the McDonalds drive-thru). Perhaps a pair of trousers and a trip to the hardware store might do me some good. — Tim Slagle

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