A Voice of Sanity - The Victimization Trap

A Voice of Sanity - RobertRinger.com

As every straight-thinking adult knows, a faulty belief system — i.e., a belief system based on false premises — leads to bad consequences. Perhaps the best example of this is a person who is caught up in the Victimization Trap.

It’s a trap that mentally paralyzes the afflicted person, because he comes to believe the deck has been stacked against him. Such a misguided individual tends to see himself as a helpless victim of an unjust world, which has the effect of removing the incentive to try to improve his life.

....

In order to escape the Victimization Trap, it is helpful to back up a step and examine its roots. A human being is a creature of infinite desires, and it is quite normal to want to fulfill as many of those desires as possible. However, he is aware that merely telling people that he wants something is not likely to produce results.

To overcome this problem, it has become popular to claim that whatever one desires is a “need.” The transformation of a desire into a need is an integral component of the Victimization Trap. Need, of course, is a subjective word; i.e., it is but an opinion.

In reality, there is no such thing as an absolute need. I may think that I need a Rolls-Royce; you may think I need a bicycle. Neither of us is right or wrong; we merely have a difference of opinion.

However, my desire for a Rolls-Royce is an entirely different matter. There is no opinion involved. If I desire a Rolls-Royce, that’s my business. It only becomes your business if I arbitrarily decide that you have an obligation to buy it for me on the grounds that it’s a “need” and that I am therefore “entitled” to it.

The fact that I may call my desire for a Rolls-Royce a need is, of course, semantic nonsense. I may just as well call it a wart, because, regardless of what word I assign to it, I still have no moral right to force you to help me acquire it just because I happen to want it.

However, this camouflage is only the first step in the semantics game that is part and parcel to the Victimization Trap. The second step involves the clever elevation of “needs” to “rights.”

All Western cultures now accept the belief that every individual has a “right” to an education, a “right” to a “good” job, a “right” to a “living” wage, a “right” to a “decent” housing, a “right “ to “good” healthcare, a right to virtually anything that a person can establish as society’s obligation to him. This is in direct contrast to earlier times in America when most people believed that no one had a right to anything except life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Unfortunately, Western civilization has devolved to the point where the use of force and fraud can be easily justified on the grounds that such measures are necessary to make certain that people’s “rights” are not violated, i.e., to make certain their individual desires are fulfilled.

When all is said and done, this is precisely what politics is all about. H.L. Mencken summed it up perfectly when he described an election as “an advanced auction of stolen goods.”

The problem with the desires-to-needs-to-rights game is the same as I described earlier about the Victimization Trap in general: In order to fulfill the perceived rights of one person, another person’s right to his liberty must be violated, because any product or service that an individual may desire must be produced by someone else.

And if the product or service (or the money to purchase it) is taken from a productive individual against his will, then that individual’s rights have been sacrificed to the desires of the person who receives the largesse.

The Volokh Conspiracy -- How Private Property Rights Saved the Pilgrims

Link: http://www.volokh.com/2012/11/22/how-private-property-rights-saved-the-pilgrims-2/ (via shareaholic.com)

Today is Thanksgiving, and there is much to be thankful for. Not least on the list is the institution of private property, without which the Pilgrims might not have survived, and we would not have this holiday. Economist Benjamin Powell recounts the story here
Tom Bethell gave a more detailed account in this 1999 article.
In my 2010 Thanksgiving post on this subject, I noted that Thanksgiving is also a good time to disabuse ourselves of the longstanding myth that Native Americans had no private property rights and opposed the concept when it was supposedly first introduced by whites. In that post, I also explained why the lessons of the Pilgrims' experience with private and communal property are in no way negated by the fact that the Plymouth Plantation was a corporation.

http://www.volokh.com/2010/11/25/how-private-property-rights-saved-the-pilgrims/

UPDATE #2: For the benefit of various commenters, it's worth nothing that, contrary to popular mythology, Native Americans made extensive use of property rights too. Other commenters try to defeat my point by noting that Plymouth Plantation was a corporation. However, corporations had a very different status in 17th century England than today. They were not purely private organizations, but individually chartered by the government to carry out purposes specifically mandated by the state. Until the establishment of general incorporation laws in the 19th century, it was not possible for any private party to form a corporation at will for the purpose of pursuing its own goals. More to the point, this corporation, like some others at the time, was specifically created to carry out governmental functions: it was given a monopoly of force, control of the justice system, and every other power typically wielded by the state. Local governments in England were legally referred to as "corporations" and regulated by such laws as the Corporation Act of 1661. The fact that a government is called a "corporation" for legal purposes does not change its nature. If the United States government changed its name to "USA, Inc." tomorrow, it would not thereby cease to be a government.

http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_03_15-2009_03_21.shtml#1237224869

Like many property teachers, I sometimes encounter the persistent myth that Native Americans don't believe in private property, had no concept of property rights before Europeans arrived, and so on. But, as Anderson explained in this 1997 article, many Indian tribes used property rights for a wide range of purposes long before whites arrived. Ironically, the myth of Native American hostility to property rights was first developed by 18th and 19th century whites as a justification for dispossessing Indians of their land on the grounds that they didn't really own it. In the 20th century, the myth was taken up by some left-wing environmentalists and others in order to show that Native Americans had a supposedly superior collectivist ethic that whites should emulate.

http://perc.org/articles/american-indian-collectivism

In the past, most if not all North American indigenous peoples had a strong belief in individual property rights and ownership. Frederick Hodge (1910) noted that individual private ownership was "the norm" for North American tribes.
Likewise, Julian Steward (1938, 253) asserted that among Native Americans communal property was limited, and Frances Densmore (1939) concluded that the Makah tribe in the Pacifi�c Northwest had property rights similar to Europeans.' These early twentieth-century historians and anthropologists had the advantage of actually interviewing tribal members who had lived in pre-reservation Indian society.
By the late 1940s, however, these original and fi�rsthand sources of information had died, and false myths and historical distortions began to take dominant shape. By the mid–1960s, the tone in many college history books, history-inspired fi�lms and novels, and even speeches had completely changed (Mika 1995). A typical historical distortion, for example, is found in Baldwin and Kelley's best-selling 1965 college textbook, The Stream of American History, where they write, "Indians had little comprehension of the value of money, the ownership of land . . . and so land sharks and grog sellers found it easy to mulct them of their property"(208).

Terry Anderson (1995) attributes the beginning of the myth to settlers seeking farm land in the Great Plains, who interacted only with nomadic tribes that did not view land as an important asset. These settlers mistakenly generalized the lack of interest in land to infer a lack of property rights among all tribes. We argue that this fi�ction was further propagated in the nineteenth century by a virtual army of East Coast newspaper journalists, dime novelists, and Washington politicians who, in spite of writing about Native Americans, often had little contact with tribal groups. Reported, retold, and unchallenged, these incorrect perceptions ended up as the basis for later laws and institutional codifi�cation.

PERC: Free Market Environmentalism in Action

PERC: Free Market Environmentalism in Action

via MasterResource by rwatson on 3/8/12

The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) is the nation's oldest and largest institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through private property rights and markets.
Founded 30 years ago in Bozeman, Montana, PERC began as a think tank where scholars documented how government regulation and bureaucracy have led to environmental degradation. At the same time, they sought to explain how markets could be harnessed to improve environmental quality. From this work originated the idea of free market environmentalism.
What is FME?
PERC senior fellow emeritus Richard Stroup has written a 2,400-word essay on free market environmentalism (FME) for the Library of Economics and Liberty. "Free-market environmentalism emphasizes markets as a solution to environmental problems," explains Stroup. "Proponents argue that free markets can be more successful than government—and have been more successful historically—in solving many environmental problems."
Stroup's 2,400-word essay is worth reading, but here are some excerpts:

"While [market failures] can be quite real, growing evidence indicates that governments often fail to control pollution or to provide public goods at reasonable cost. Furthermore, the private sector is often more responsive than government to environmental demands. This evidence, which is supported by much economic theory, has led to a reconsideration of the traditional view."
"For markets to work in the environmental field, as in any other, rights to each important resource must be clearly defined, easily defended against invasion, and divestible (transferable) by owners on terms agreeable to buyer and seller. Well-functioning markets, in short, require "3-D" property rights. When the first two are present—clear definition and easy defense of one's rights—no one is forced to accept pollution beyond the standard acceptable to the community."
"Environmental problems stem from the absence or incompleteness of these characteristics of property rights. When rights to resources are defined and easily defended against invasion, all individuals or corporations, whether potential polluters or potential victims, have an incentive to avoid pollution problems. When air or water pollution damages a privately owned asset, the owner whose wealth is threatened will gain by seeing—in court if necessary—that the threat is abated."
"Could parks, even national parks like Grand Canyon or Yellowstone, be run privately, by individuals, clubs, or firms…? Private individuals and groups have preserved wildlife habitats and scenic lands in thousands of places in the United States."

Ideas to Action
PERC researchers have carefully documented real world examples of FME in action. And to get from theory to action, PERC established a program to empower individuals – environmental entrepreneurs – by showing them how to use property, contracts and the market process to enhance environmental quality. PERC's Enviropreneur Institute attracts people from around the globe who are seeking to put FME to work.
PERC continues to grow with the newly created PERC University. As PERC seeks solutions to some of our toughest environmental problems, the university is a place where scholars, journalists, policy makers, and environmental practitioners can come together to share knowledge, refine their work, and engage in robust discussion. The university is flourishing as representatives of many disciplines inspire each other as they explore the possibilities for applying FME.
The late Julian Simon once said, "With every mouth to feed comes two hands and a brain." Ever the optimist, especially on environmental issues, Simon was alluding to the ability of human ingenuity to overcome resource scarcity in an increasingly populous world.
This sentiment is at the core of PERC's Enviropreneur Institute, a two-week educational program that empowers environmental entrepreneurs in the application of property, contracts, and markets to enhance environmental assets. Watch the video!
This year's Institute will run from June 24 to July 6, in scenic Bozeman, Montana. The curriculum features lectures in economics, business planning, marketing, and project management, field trips to nearby businesses that exemplify Simon's enviropreneurial ethic, and one-on-one mentoring from experts in free market environmentalism.
During the two weeks, fellows develop their own business plans for linking environmental conservation with economic opportunity. Successful applicants will be early to mid-career environmental leaders with an interest in innovative approaches to conservation. Those accepted will receive a $2,000 travel stipend. [1]
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[1] The curriculum, on-line application, and more details are available at www.enviropreneurs.org. The application deadline is March 12, 2012.
————————–
Mr. Watson (reed@perc.org) is Director of Applied Programs at PERC, as well as co-director of Enviropreneur Institute. His expertise lies in developing and promoting market-based solutions to natural resource conflicts, particularly for water and wildlife. Watson is coauthor (with Terry Anderson and Brandon Scarborough) of Tapping Water Markets (forthcoming, RFF Press/Routledge).
Watson holds a J.D. and M.A. in Environmental Economics from Duke University and a B.S. in Economics from Clemson University.

Mises Institute on Intellectual Property

Some recent links:

 

Here, here, and here.

The argument over ownership of intellectual property goes on.

About "rights"

The article I posted the other day about health care myths made a point about rights that I've seen made elsewhere. In particular, his point #6

Myth #6 Health Care is A Right

Nope, it's not....

luckily it doesn't take a superb philosopher to understand that health care simply is not a "right" in the sense we normally use that word. Listing rights generally involves enumerating things you may do without interference (the right to free speech) or may not be done to you without your permission (illegal search and seizure, loud boy-band music in public spaces). They are protections, not gifts of material goods. Material goods and services must be taken from others, or provided by their labor, so if you believe you have an absolute right to them, and others don't choose to provide it to you, you then have a "right" to steal from them.

All well and good, but if you ever watch crime shows and listen to people being "read their [Miranda] rights", you'll hear, among other things:

...You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense..."

That is giving the accused the right to the services of a highly trained professional. If someone is accused of a crime, he is guaranteed the right to the services of this professional, at no charge if he can't afford to pay, regardless of, among other things, public sentiment. Thus, Adolf Hitler, if he were tried in an American court, would have the right to the services of an attorney, paid for by you and me.

I think everyone reading this agrees this is as it should be, at least in principle.

But it seems to be an exception to the definition of rights given above.

Update

I e-mailed the author with these thoughts, and got the following in response (quoted by permission):

Thank you for reading my piece and writing to me.

Your example of government provided attorneys is a very interesting one, probably the most interesting of the many comments I've received, and the one that had me the most befuddled. But ultimately I don't agree it's damning. First, it's not in the Constitution as you said but a court interpreted "right". That doesn't eliminate your point but makes it somewhat less foundational (the founders weren't handing out others material goods). More importantly, the government only provides this "good" when you are accused of a unproven crime and they are trying to take away your freedom. The material good is only useful to combat a larger government imposition. Seems to me like not a "net" giveaway. Also, for instance, they do not provide attorneys for civil cases, so clearly something different is going on here.

Again, I enjoyed thinking about that, it was a hard one!

- C

I think he has a very good response. At least it parallels my thoughts for why the right to legal counsel would be an exception to the general rule.

I'll have to remember to run that point past Walter Williams next time he uses that definition of "rights".

Privatize the ocean to deal with pirates

Peter T. Leeson over at The Corner suggests:

One suggestion that isn't being considered, but should be, is to privatize the seas — especially those off Somalia's coast. As the old adage (at least among economists) goes, "What nobody owns, nobody takes care of." This is as true for oceans as it is for anything else. Piracy is just one manifestation of nobody taking care of what nobody owns when that "what" is the sea.

....

Rather than trying its hand at Somali state building, the international community should try auctioning off Somali's coastal waters. According to some Somali pirates, greedy foreign corporations are exploiting valuable resources in these waters, which is allegedly why they've resorted to piracy (the large ransoms earned from pirating are a happy but unexpected byproduct of pursuing social justice, I suppose). If this is right, Somalia's coastal waters should be able to fetch a handsome price. The international community can use the proceeds of the auction for humanitarian assistance in Somalia, or put it in a trust for Somalia's future government, if one ever emerges. The "high seas" should be similarly sold. It's not so important where the proceeds go. The important thing is that the un-owned becomes owned.

Establishing private property rights where they don't currently exist is the solution to about 90 percent of world's economic problems. Piracy is no exception.

A health care revolution in Africa...

...Mc Health!

...8,300 miles to the east, ... a quiet revolution is taking place - a revolution that is shoring up education, providing better health care, thriving through free trade, and, yes, even saving the family farm. It's a revolution spreading through the poorest communities in Africa, fueled by a force often brushed aside by promise-happy candidates: free markets.

Changing the Clean Water Act

Brown and Caldwell Water News has an exclusive article on the effect two cases before the US Supreme Court might have on the Clean Water Act (CWA).

At issue is, largely, the definition of "navigable waters".

The 1972 act states that the government has the right to protect "navigable waters," but justices must wrestle with how to define that term and whether the law includes smaller creeks that reach remote, navigable waterways. The U.S. government contends that the act extends to wetlands, small rivers and even dry creek beds.

In order to be protected, does a waterway have to be deep enough to float a boat, or is it "navigable" when you can walk through it?

Environmentalists want CWA protections extended to smaller streams, creeks, dry river beds and seasonal rivers, mud puddles, and the like because of the possibility of flushing contaminants into navigable waterways. When it rains, anything that may have been dumped into a dry creek bed will be washed downstream and impact a navigable waterway.

One thing I note in the definitions portion of the CWA:

(7) The term “navigable waters” means the waters of the United States, including the territorial seas.

I'm not sure what "the waters" means. Maybe it does mean that when someone leaves a hose running, that's a navigable water, according to the Act.

Chutzpah in New London

Tim Shaughnessy, in Division of Labour, reports on the latest newspaper story from New London.

The Fairfield County Weekly reports that the city of New London: a) claims that, thanks to the ruling vindicating the city's condemnation of their land, the homeowners have been living on city property and thus owe the city back rent, b) claims that said homeowners have been living on city property ever since the city condemned their property back in 2000, and c) therefore the city owes the homeowners "just compensation" according to the fair market value of the homes. But the fair market value in 2000, not today.

I'm almost inclined to suspect a conspiracy on the part of the New London bureaucracy to do away with eminent domain altogether. If they can make it sufficiently unpopular, it will be legislated out of existence.

Castle Coalition

Hat tip: Kenneth Harney of the Washington Post, via Volokh Conspirator Todd Zywicki

The Castle Coalition is a web page built to help people combat eminent domain abuse – the kind that became a lot easier with the Kelo decision. Among items on the page is a link to their Eminent Domain Survival Kit.

Hopefully, you'll never need this information.

Randy Barnett's Favorite Constitutional Opinion Sentence

My girlfriend asked me once what I consider to be great reading in judicial opinions. Here's one example (hat tip: Clayton Cramer).

In his dissent in Kelo (buried on page 14), Justice Thomas may well have written my all-time-favorite line of any constitutional opinion (perhaps, in part, because it does not seem to be written to be famous):

Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's interpretation of the Constitution.

Heh. (To coin a phrase.)

Eminent domain case

(Hat tip: ScotusBlug.)

Sometimes, there's very interesting (downright entertaining) reading in court opinions. Here's an example from the dissent to Kelo v. City of New London:

...continued in full post...

The Fifth Amendment provides:

...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

It is the last of these liberties, the Takings Clause, that is at issue in this case. Though one component of the protection provided by the Takings Clause is that the government can take private property only if it provides "just compensation" for the taking, the Takings Clause also prohibits the government from taking property except "for public use." Were it otherwise, the Takings Clause would either be meaningless or empty. If the Public Use Clause served no function other than to state that the government may take property through its eminent domain power–for public or private uses–then it would be surplusage.

Precedent holds that "no clause in the Constitution can be assumed to be without effect". That is, there are no surplus words in the Constitution. Of course, there's another possible effect these words could have. Taken at face value, and applying the rules of logic, we note the Takings Clause says that if property is taken for public use, the State must pay "just compensation". However, the statement is, technically silent about the taking of property for other uses.

Alternatively, the Clause could distinguish those takings that require compensation from those that do not. That interpretation, however, "would permit private property to be taken or appropriated for private use without any compensation whatever."

One wonders if that's where the law is headed.

Certainly this Justice considers the precedent set here a dangerous one.

The consequences of today’s decision are not difficult to predict, and promise to be harmful. So-called “urban renewal” programs provide some compensation for the properties they take, but no compensation is possible for the subjective value of these lands to the individuals displaced and the indignity inflicted by uprooting them from their homes. Allowing the government to take property solely for public purposes is bad enough, but extending the concept of public purpose to encompass any economically beneficial goal guarantees that these losses will fall disproportionately on poor communities. Those communities are not only systematically less likely to put their lands to the highest and best social use, but are also the least politically powerful. If ever there were justification for intrusive judicial review of constitutional provisions that protect "discrete and insular minorities," surely that principle would apply with great force to the powerless groups and individuals the Public Use Clause protects. The deferential standard this Court has adopted for the Public Use Clause is therefore deeply perverse. It encourages "those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms" to victimize the weak.

Pictures on the web

From the HTML Goodies newsletter:

How do you protect your pictures and graphics [on your website]? The answer is not popular. The answer is, "you don't."

It's the same problem Bruce Schneier points out with any sort of copy protection scheme. At some point, any information – text, graphics, audio, or any combination of the above – has to be made available in some form the user can perceive. Once it's in that form, it can be captured and saved. In the case of a web page, everything on the page exists in cache somewhere. Or, if the cache gets emptied somehow, you can view the source and access the direct URL of the image.

I'm sorry if this is bad news for you, but it is a basic fact of life. If this is a concern for you, you might want to refocus your efforts into the content on the site, and reduce the effort that goes into the graphics. If you want to have the pictures out there, but want to make it as hard as possible for somebody else to use your work, consider building a complex Flash or LiveMotion file, or something similar, that contains your identification information along with the pictures. This will help to stop all but the most hardened, and for them, it might just be too much work to be worth it.

Or tag it with enough identifying marks so there's no question as to who owns it.

The SF Chronicle on the Wiese decision

The news piece is a little more balanced than the editorial just examined. Out of 12 paragraphs, five cite reasons to oppose the ruling, two cite reasons to support it. The article cites one source favoring, and one opposing the ruling.

Who owns water?

Hat tip: Brown & Caldwell California Water News

The San Francisco Chronicle sounds off on the impending settlement by the Bush Administration in the 1990 case where the Federal government diverted water from farms in the San Joaquin valley to bolster populations of endangered fish.

The editorial sides against the ruling and worries that having to pay for any water taken from people who have bought the rights to it will lead to fundamental changes in the way water has been managed in the state.

...Joseph Sax, a UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law professor who helped prepare a brief against the water districts' claims [says that] Judge Wiese in effect ruled that the users of the water, through their local water districts, owned the water. He ordered the federal government to pay the growers $14 million in damages, which, with interest and attorneys' fees, has grown to $26 million. ''This could have a devastating impact on regulating water in the public interest in California,'' Sax told us.

The SF Chronicle urges its readers to send e-mail to John Ashcroft asking him to appeal the decision. For the sake of the Eighth Amendment, I hope he gets lots of mail asking him not to appeal.

(And notice how little difference there is between this editorial and the "news" articles cited here.)

Water rights

(Hat tip: Brown and Caldwell newsletter)

The Bush Administration is said to be close to settling a water rights dispute between the Federal government and California farmers. The government wanted to divert water from farm use to preserve some endangered Chinook salmon. A federal court ruled that diverting water over which farmers owned the rights was essentially a "taking", and the farmers deserved to be paid for the use of that water. Indeed, since they had planted crops in anticipation of having a certain amount of water in reserve, they were owed damages for economic losses.

The government wants to protect the environment and endangered species. Historically, courts have ruled that protection of endangered species trumps contracts with State and Federal government agencies. Many in and out of the government would like this situation to continue. If they have to pay for what they take, it will have a serious impact on their decisions.

You know what? It should have a serious impact on their decisions. The United States government was established on a principle of protecting individual rights, and that has to include property rights. Government powers were limited and few, and enumerated in the Constitution, any powers not explicitly given to the Federal government belonged to the States, or to the people. In particular, a government power to step in and take private property for what it believes is a better use flies in the face of the spirit of the Constitution.

The government can still take property for what it sees as a more beneficial use, but the fact that it has to pay for that property means it has to be more judicious. It reduces any inclination to "take a flyer" on any proposed beneficial use, and makes it more likely that any diversion of property rights will yield a benefit that is large enough to be worth what the government has to pay to divert those rights.

---

There are four articles linked from the newsletter. Let's see how they cover the story:

Washington Post

• Lead paragraph states that a settlement could cost the government millions and make it more difficult to protect endangered species.
• Out of 16 paragraphs in the article, four argue for the ruling, six argue against it, two are mixed.
• There are three sources each quoted favoring and opposing the ruling. The supporters and opponents appear in the order: O,O,S,S,O,S.

Los Angeles Times

1. The Times emphasizes the expense the government would incur if this ruling is upheld.
2. Out of 21 paragraphs, two support the ruling, eleven oppose it, one is mixed, and the remaining 7 are neutral.
3. Out of seven spokescritters cited, one favors the ruling (the judge who made it), one is neutral, and the remaining five are cited in opposition.

The other two require registration or jumping through hoops I don't feel like right now.

I know there are people working for organizations that lobby for property rights who could have been consulted for a quote. Doesn't the LA Times have access to Google?