Lex Americanorum, the King of America, passed away this afternoon on the Senate floor. Lex had been ill for some years and White House-ologists in Moscow have long suspected that one or more cabinet members had in fact taken responsibility for most major decisions. The exact identity of this person had not been firmly established, but most experts agree that it is Vice President Dick Cheney.
Lex was born on September 17, 1787 and became king shortly thereafter upon election by representatives of the 13 American colonies. Lex was able to survive and maintain power for nearly 221 years, despite numerous attempted coups such as those by Presidents Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon.
Lex is succeeded as King of America by former President George W. Bush, who will henceforth be known by the title Tyrant George I. Most White House-ologists expect former Vice President Dick Cheney, who will now be known by the title Vice Regent, to continue to be "the Decider" - the term used by White House insiders for the individual with ultimate decision-making responsibility. A sizable minority of experts think that the Decider will continue to be - and always has been - former Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, although he holds no formal position in the administration. Some White House-ologists suspect that his resignation was a ploy to distract attention from his actual governing actions.
Lex's illness and inability to govern had been noticed some time ago by White House-ologists who noted that his orders were disregarded by members of his government with increasing frequency. Although there were occasional attempts to prosecute those who disobeyed his edicts, these attempts were generally abortive, and none resulted in substantial punishments.
The circumstances of Lex's death are not entirely clear. Although he had been ill for some time, some suspect foul play, possibly at the hands of Tyrant George and his followers. Even prior to the panic of September 11, 2001, the Tyrant had been seeking to overthrow Lex's rule. Nevertheless, most experts agree that it is unlikely that Tyrant George will permit a truly independent investigation. The legislature has ordered such an investigation, but observers expect Tyrant George to be successful in significantly influencing the outcome.
Lex is survived by his wife, Libertas, and his brother Iudicia Libera. Mrs. Americanorum continues to be hospitalized and in critical condition after receiving a blow to the head when she and her husband were attacked by a panicked mob of legislators and government officials in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Doctors familiar with the case said that even if Mrs. Americanorum is successfully revived, she is not expected to survive the shock of her husband's death.
Allies of the Lex dynasty, including The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Congressman Ron Paul's Campaign For Liberty, have vowed to fight to place a member of the dynasty on the throne again as quickly as possible.
The most recent Electronic Frontier Foundation newsletter contains a couple of links on telecom immunity which allude to an argument against telecom immunity that I want to expand upon.
Many people think that the basic principle of democracy or of a free society more generally is "majority rule" or some such. However, this is not historically how the matter has been viewed, and history in fact furnishes plenty of cases in which majority rule has not been particularly consistent with freedom. Classic liberals - the early modern thinkers who gave us the foundations of western democracy - had a different view that comes out of the classical tradition. The fundamental principle of a free society, according to this tradition, is summed up in the Greek slogan isonomia or the related Latin slogan "lex est rex." The former is traditionally translated "equal justice under law" and in this form it is inscribed on the US Supreme Court building. It might be better translated by the more generic phrase "legal equality." The latter is translated "the law is king." Although this slogan is usually given in Latin, it too originates in the Greek tradition, in the following famous passage from Herodotus, in which the deposed Spartan king Demaratus tells King Xerxes of Persia why the Spartans fight so fiercely:
[The Spartans] are the equal of any men when they fight alone; fighting together they surpass all other men. For they are free, but not entirely free: They obey a master called Law, and they fear this master much more than your men fear you. They do whatever it commands them to do, and its commands are always the same: Not to retreat from the battlefield even when badly outnumbered; to stay in formation and either conquer or die. (Histories 7.104; from Samuel Shirley, tr., Herodotus: On the War For Greek Freedom)
So what is the problem with telecom immunity? The moment "Michael Mukasey said it was ok" becomes a valid defense in a civil lawsuit or criminal prosecution, the law is no longer king: Michael Mukasey is. None of us want that.
According to economic analysis recently published by Cambridge Ph.D candidate Rufus Pollock, the optimal term for copyright is 14 years. Presumably, this means that a 14 year term would maximize utility across society in an idealized free market or some such. This is of interest to me because I don't believe that one can hold libertarian property rights in information or ideas (or intangibles generally), and so I take copyright and patent law to be constructed in the social contract (which means that its enforceability by goverment is limited, in terms of what the government is morally permitted to do), and so I think we should define them in some way that is mutually beneficial to producers and consumers of content. The current system isn't beneficial to producers or consumers in most cases, but to middle men, and that is certainly bad. When the Constitution says that Congress may "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries," I think it is on the right track: we can define a social contract in this way that provides economic incentives for discoveries and creations, and we should, but the incentive should be placed in a structure as close to optimal as possible, in terms of its total benefit to society.
One thing's for sure: copyright terms are currently FAR too long.
(Note: the title of this post is an example of the "underhanded rhetorical technique" I recently discussed, but I bet it got your attention. Now that I have your attention I will, as usual, try to avoid rhetoric and emotional appeals in the actual text of this post, and show why the position of the Times implies support for the police state.)
An editorial appearing in today's New York Times finally, at least, more or less understands the position of supporters of the Second Amendment as written. That's close to all that can be said positively about this little article. It begins with this line:
By now, the logic is almost automatic. A shooter takes innocent lives, and someone says that if the victims had been armed, this wouldn’t have happened. The only solution to a gun in the wrong hands, it seems, is a gun in the hands of everyone.
The point is that, while it would be ideal if we could trust our trained police to defend us, there are cases even where simple defense against criminals cannot be entrusted to the police. Furthermore, if someone is breaking into your house, the police can't get there as fast as you can go get your gun.
The Times asserts,
Those gun advocates who believe that the Second Amendment confers the right to carry a gun in public are quick to point out that they are law-abiding, decent citizens trying to protect themselves and their families in a world gone mad. But, of course, the guns can’t tell the difference. Arming more people would be a recipe for disaster.
But this can't be true. The reason it can't be true is that we live in a (constitutionally limited) democracy so that (excepting constitutional limitations) the will of the majority is the law. The majority is by definition law abiding. We need the government to be strong enough to protect the rights of the minority, but at the same time we have to recognize that if everyone has equal power, the majority comes out on top. When we ban guns, we have the effect of taking them away from only law abiding citizens. I hate to use this as an example so soon after the fact, but Virginia is a state where it is singularly easy to get guns, and VA Tech has a policy against carrying guns on campus. This policy is essentially unenforceable, since the campus is open. This means that people who care about following rules are disarmed, while there is absolutely no effect on people who don't care about following rules. This is a problem.
Now, I want to say that I consider myself a moderate on this issue for the following reason: in general, I support banning guns in locations where there is good reason to do so and it is possible to effectively enforce the ban without violating rights. I do not, however, think that an area as large as a city or town could possibly meet these requirements. An airplane, for instance, does. There are three reasons for this: (1) boarding of the airplane is highly regulated/limited, so it is relatively easy (at least possible) to remove guns from people as they board, (2) if a bullet pierces the hull of a plane (so I'm told) it is likely that everyone aboard will die, and (3) people don't have to fly on airplanes if they don't want to. Now, I think this should be the airline's prerogative and not the government's, since it is private property, but that's another story. Of course, it is the right of the owners of any private property (including the administrators of VA Tech) to ban guns on their properties, but what I'm saying is that these are the circumstances where it's a good idea. Similarly, when the government is the owner of a piece of property (e.g. national park land, federal courthouses, etc.) it may ban guns on its property, and in cases like the ones described (and only such cases) it should. In these cases, though, it would be a very good idea to have armed security gaurds in case the security fails. In the case of airplanes, I would be a strong supporter of developing weapons that don't pierce the hull and issuing them to pilots. If there is a compelling reason for banning guns in a location, then there must be some sort of security risk, and you should have gaurds anyway. You might as well arm them.
The Times, however, seems to think that the entire United States is a case like this, which is clearly not so. It doesn't meet any of the conditions mentioned. There is no good reason why guns should be banned from the entire country (some people use guns to commit crimes - like some people use cars or kitchen knives to commit crimes), and it is not possible to effectively keep guns out of the hands of everyone without effectively instituting a totalitarian government.
But where the Times really gets things wrong is in its last paragraph:
True safety lies in the civility of society, in laws that publicly protect all of our rights and in having law-enforcement officers who are trained in the use of deadly force, then authorized to apply it in rationally defined situations.
A brief note is, however, in order to show my uncertainty about one aspect of this issue: one doesn't seem to have a right to private ownership of just any weapon. That is, the government seems to have the authority to, for instance, prohibit private ownership of nuclear warheads. Why is this, and where does the right to bear arms stop? Two parts of this answer are that the government can realistically keep nuclear warheads away from everyone, and that nuclear warheads are not useful for self-defense. But there are some more difficult cases. Why doesn't one have the right to privately own a rocket launcher, or a tank? I suspect, at any rate, that one doesn't have such a right, but I could be wrong. On a Nozickian scheme, the idea might be something like the following: private ownership of these items constitutes a risky behavior, and the government can prohibit behaviors that are at high risk of violating the rights of its citizens, but it must compensate those it prohibits for their loss of utility. Nozick argues that this compensation will usually be "in kind" - for instance, the government must, according to Nozick allow people whom he calls "independents" to "opt out," but it will prohibit these people from enforcing their own rights against its citizens, so it must (morally) enforce their rights against its citizens itself (in order to be protected by the government from independents and foreign nationals, you must "opt in" and pay taxes). This, however, generally only works where there is a risk of accidental violation of the rights of others. So in order to prohibit the ownership of some weapon, you must argue that its ownership constitutes a risk to those around the owner, even if the owner does not try to use it against them, and then you must compensate the would-be owner for his loss of utility. So, for instance, if someone wants a rocket launcher for self-defense, but this is deemed dangerous to those aroud him, the government, in order to prohibit him from owning it, must show that it can and will protect him in any situation where a rocket launcher might be required. I hold that you really can't make a case like this for any type of ordinary firearm, especially because the government can't necessarily be there to protect you in every case, and it would be a little scary if they could, but you certainly can for nuclear weapons, and you may be able to for rocket launchers and similar items, so these will be reasonably prohibited. I doubt if anything like this will hold for so-called "assault weapons." Drawing the line is, however, a difficult issue.
In sum it is my position that the best case is that you don't need protection at all, but if this can't be had then the next best thing is that the government is fair and effective in defending your rights when you have need. However, the very worst situation is the case (which has happened in, for instance, South Africa, and probably also in some neighborhoods of DC) where the government can't or won't protect you and prohibits you from protecting yourself (whether by actually prohibiting self-defense, or taking away the means necessary for self-defense). Note that this worst case clealry includes the case when it's the government that you need to be protected from. Since there will always be some cases in which a (non-totalitarian) government is unable to protect you, any general ban on firearms will necessarily lead to at least some instances of this worst case, and must therefore be opposed.
Update (6/2/07): Three minor changes: (1) the cost of the Home Maintenance Co. has been increased to $500. (2) A provision has been made (see under "Taking a Turn" and "Jail") to ensure that players going out do not gift their properties to other players to alter the course of the game. (3) Changes have been made to the selection order at the beginning of the (not yet play-tested) zero sum variant in the hope of increasing the fairness of the initial selection of properties. Also some clarifications have been made. I am considering removing the Petroleum Distribution Co., but I consider this a major change, so if I do I'll call it version 3. Please let me know in the comments if you try this game and if you have any suggestions.
After a second play test of Laissez-faire with Paul Ferree (who happens to be an economist), we decided that, while the original game was quite fun, a substantial revision of the rules was in order. The new rules are based heavily on (but not identical with) Paul's suggestions and, in addition to hopefully finally making the game such that it ends eventually, makes it more similar to an actual free market environment. The primary change is the addition of the section entitled "Overhead," though small changes have been made elsewhere. Things are getting slightly more complicated (the notary might want a calculator), but I don't think it's bad enough to interfere with playability. These new rules have not been play tested yet.
Laissez-faire is played on an Anti-Monopoly board. Additional title deeds must be made for "Home Maintenance Co." and "Petroleum Distribution Co." The Home Maintenance Co. has a purchase price of $500 and a "mortgage value" of $250. The Petroleum Distribution Co. has a purchase price of $200 and a "mortgage value" of $100. (The mortgage value is used, in Laissez-faire, not for mortgaging, but for calculating net worth.)
Setup
Money is distributed and pieces are placed on Start as in a normal Anti-Monopoly game. There are no competitor or monopolist roles. The competitor and monopolist cards are not used.
One player should be appointed treasurer, and another player should be appointed as notary. If possible, it may be desirable for a non-player to serve as a combined treasurer, notary, and arbiter of any contractual disputes (see the section "Contracts" below).
The players roll dice to determine who goes first (highest roll wins).
Taking a Turn
Each turn, a player must roll the dice and move the number of spaces indicated (unless staying in a house or apartment building, or in jail; these cases are explained below). Rolling doubles gives an additional turn only once, as in Anti-Monopoly (not as in traditional Monopoly).
If the player lands directly on a property, utility, or transportation company owned by the bank, he may buy it for the value listed on the board (in Anti-Monopoly, the value is also listed on the deed).
A player landing on one of the two tax spaces must pay the amount listed to the bank.
Players landing on the go to jail space go to jail (see the section "Jail" below).
Players landing on the other three corners may stay there for free. Additionally, a player landing on Anti-Monopoly Foundation may purchase the Home Maintenance Co. if it is owned by the bank, and a player landing on Start (not counting placing his piece there at the beginning of the game) may purchase Petroleum Distribution Co. if it is owned by the bank.
Players passing or landing on start receive $200 as in the traditional Monopoly rules (NOT $100 as in Anti-Monopoly).
When a player lands in a city (that is, on any space other than corner or a transportation company), he must find lodging in that city, by mutual consent with a property owner. This is the case even if the space landed on is covered by one of the cases listed above. A player may stay on his own property. A property owner may charge any rent to the player or refuse service. The bank charges the "monopolist" prices listed on the deed or twice the overhead (see the section "Overhead" below), whichever is greater, to rent properties it owns (be careful to note whether the bank has a monopoly or not). A player may not buy an unowned property just because he is staying there; he must land on it directly. Alternatively, the player may pay the transit company to transport him to the other city on that side of the board and find lodging there. The transit company owner may charge any price for his services, or refuse service. The bank charges the monopolist price (again, be careful to note how many transportation companies are owned by the bank), or twice the overhead, whichever is greater, to use its transportation companies. The player moves his token to the property he has rented. Ordinarily only one player may stay on a space at a time (but see the section "Houses and Apartments" below). This does not prevent another player from landing on that space and potentially buying it.
If a player fails to find lodging, he sleeps on a park bench and goes to jail.
In the period after landing in a city and before finding lodging there, a player whose cash on hand is less than the cost of spending one turn in jail may not make any trade which does not result in either (a) agreement to rent a property, or (b) the player having enough cash on hand to pay for spending the turn in jail.
If a player lands directly on a transit company (regardless of whether it is owned) he may move for free to either city.
Overhead
When a player rents out his property or offers transportation or utitlity service, he must pay "overhead" costs.
For properties, overhead is paid in order to make building repairs, etc., and is equal to half of the competitor rent, rounded down. If one or more houses or an apartment building is on the property, then an additional overhead equal to 10% of the cost of purchasing one house for that property must also be paid. Overhead is not altered by having a monopoly. This cost is controlled by local labor and materials markets (relatively stable factors outside the game). Overhead for properties is paid to the owner of Home Maintenance Co. These prices fluctuate as follows: if the bank owns the Home Maintenance Co., then each time the player who went first passes Start (not including the beginning of the game) he rolls one die. If a player owns the Home Maintenance Co., that player rolls one die each time he passes Start. The notary keeps track of a "Property Overhead Multiplier" (POM). Initially, the POM is 1. If the die roll is even, the POM is increased by 0.1. If it is odd, the POM is decreased by 0.1. The POM may not be less than 0.1 (further odd rolls do not change the POM), but there is no maximum. After calculating the overhead as described above, players must multiply it by the POM and pay that amount, rounded down. So, for instance, if a player rented out Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington with house(s) and the POM was 1.2, he would pay (28/2+15)*1.2=$34.8 rounded down to $34 in overhead. If the POM was .9, he would pay (14+15)*.9=$26.1, rounded down to $26 in overhead.
For utility services, overhead is determined by international petroleum markets (wildly fluctuating factors outside the game). At the beginning of the game, the player to go first rolls both dice (before his role for his turn). The overhead for the utilities is set as the product of the values shown on the two dice (the overhead will thus be between $1 and $36, with an expectation value of $12.25, if my calculations are correct). Rolling is done separately for gas and electric, and should be tracked by the notary. The player to go first rolls to set the overhead for each utility owned by the bank each time he passes go. When a utility is acquired by a player, whether from the bank or from another player, the current overhead remains in effect. However, that player now rolls to determine the new overhead cost each time he passes go.
For transportation services, overhead primarily accounts for fuel costs, which are determined by international markets. The transportation companies purchase their fuel wholesale, and so pay overhead directly to the Petroleum Distribution Co., in the following amounts:
Jail
A player goes to jail by either sleeping on a park bench or landing on the go to jail space. In order to get out of jail, a player must pay a "booking fee" equal to the house price on the side of the board from which he went to jail (listed on the deeds to the properties on that side of the board; the go to jail space counts as part of the $150 side), plus a "room and board" fee equal to 1/10 the house price times the number of turns spent in jail. Players may not buy out of jail on the same turn they go to jail, so they have always spent one turn in jail (thus if the player is on the $150 side of the board or the go to jail space and pays out at the first opportunity, he will pay $165). Players do not get out of jail by rolling doubles. A player in jail may collect rent and conduct other business in jail with one exception: a player who is in jail may not sell property for less than face value unless such sale results in the payment of the jail fee.
Being Eliminated
A player is eliminated if he goes to jail and does not pay his way out by the end of the third turn. If a player is eliminated, all properties and cash still held by that player revert to the bank.
Houses and Apartments
Players may buy houses from the bank for their properties on their turns for the price listed on the deed. A player does not need a monopoly to buy houses. A property may have up to two houses on it. If the house price is paid a third time, the player gets an apartment building. A player may not sell houses or apartment buildings. Houses may be demolished for 1/5 what it cost to build them.
If a property has one house on it, the player staying on it may, on his next turn, after rolling the dice, elect to stay on that property rather than moving. He must pay the utility company which is closest in the forward direction (the utility company owner may charge any price he wishes; the bank charges twice the overhead if it owns one utility, or three times the overhead if it owns both), and he must pay rent to the owner of the property again. The owner of the property may charge a lower rent than on the previous turn, but may not charge a higher rent or refuse service, unless he was specifically given the power to do so by agreement with the tenant before the property was originally rented on the previous turn. (Note: this is not rent control; rather, the government has defined a "default" lease, which the renter and the landlord may modify if they so choose.) Since the player stays rather than moving, he does not pass start if his roll would take him past start had he moved.
If a property has two houses on it, two players may stay there, and each player may remain there, as described above.
If a property has an apartment building on it, an unlimited number of players may stay there, as described above.
Contracts
Players may form any contract with any other player, provided that the contract does not require either player to do anything not otherwise permitted by the rules, and that the contracts do not involve anything outside the scope of the game. This includes exchanging ownership or property. The contracts should be recorded by the notary. Contracts may be attached to a property, in which case the property cannot be sold without passing those obligations along, or to a player, in which case obligations are not passed on to a new owner. Players must abide by the terms of contracts unless specifically released by the other party or parties involved.
Players may not mortgage properties to the bank or otherwise borrow money from it, but players may create mortgage contracts with other players.
Ending the Game
If the game is being played with objective 1, a player may declare that he has reached a net worth of $2000 at any time (provided that it is true), but is not obligated to do so. At this point, the other players may concede, and the player making the declaration wins. If the other players choose not to concede, players must proceed one more time around the board. A player who reaches the "Start" space takes his token off the board without collecting $200. He then continues negotiating and collecting rent until all players have removed their tokens. All players then calculate net worth as described below.
If the game is being played with objective 2, the play should continue, after time has run out, until each player has had the same number of turns (i.e., it should end immediately before the turn of the player who went first).
If the game is being played with objective 3, it ends immediately when either the second to last player is eliminated, or a stalemate is declared by a player (the stalemate must involve all players who have not been eliminated).
Net Worth
Net worth is the sum of the following:
Stalemate Conditions
When playing with objective 3, there is at least one known stalemate condition: If a player owns a property with a house and also the relevant utility company, he may stay in that house and not move, at no cost to himself. If two players do this, a stalemate has ben reached. There may be other stalemate conditions as well.
Optional Rules
The following are some untested suggestions for additional rules:
Note that it is also possible to create new rules mid-game by forming a contract between all the players.
An Alternate Game: Zero-Sum Laissez-faire
Make the following adjustments to the above:
If you try this game and like it (or don't like it), or have any suggestions for improvements, please comment below!
Note: the Creative Commons License which applies to this blog as a whole also applies to this game.
Update (3/10/07): there is now a second version of this game with substantially improved (we think) rules.
I received for Christmas this year a copy of the game Anti-Monopoly. The game has an interesting premise. Half of the players are "monopolists" who play according to rules similar to the original Monopoly, and the other half are "competitors" who must charge "fair" rents and obey laws and so forth. The competitors make up for their lower rents by being able to build houses without controlling a monopoly. If you are detecting a slight socialist bias here, you are right; the rulebook contains questionable and irrelevant interjections like "monopolists will destroy competitors in the absence of anti-monopoly laws." However, the game's political bias turned out to be much more moderate than I first thought. It's just that it takes place in the real world and not in some ideal political system; the monopolists maintain power by using money to manipulate the political system to protect their business interests, and the competitors subsist on government handouts (this takes place mostly through the "competitor" and "monopolist" cards which replace the "chance" and "community chest" cards of the original Monopoly).
The rulebook also promises that the rules have been tested by computers to be perfectly fair. Unfortunately, in order to do this, the rules limit the kinds of deals that can be made between players (for instance, players may not lend money to one another). Also, because of the need to make it fair between competitors and monopolists, there are no giant knock-out rents (Wall Street, NY with an apartment building, which is the equivalent of Boardwalk with a hotel, charges only $240, instead of traditional Monopoly's $2000). The net result is that, in the game described by the rulebook, the first hour of play, in which players first acquire properties, is a lot of fun, but after this is over there are five or more hours of waiting to see how the dice fall before a winner is determined.
I suspect the two hour rules described in the rulebook would make quite a good game. I haven't tried this yet. Instead, as a libertarian frustrated with excessive government regulation, I developed the following game, which I call Laissez-faire. It is designed to be played on an Anti-Monopoly set, but could easily be adapted to a traditional Monopoly game. The game has been play tested once and slightly revised after the play test.
Setup
Money is distributed and pieces are placed on Start as in a normal Anti-Monopoly game. There are no competitor or monopolist roles. The competitor and monopolist cards are not used.
One player should be appointed treasurer, and another player should be appointed as notary. If possible, it may be desirable for a non-player to serve as a combined treasurer, notary, and arbiter of any contractual disputes (see the section "Contracts" below).
The players roll dice to determine who goes first (highest roll wins).
Taking a Turn
Each turn, a player must roll the dice and move the number of spaces indicated (unless staying in a house or apartment building, or in jail; these cases are explained below). Rolling doubles gives an additional turn only once, as in Anti-Monopoly (not as in traditional Monopoly).
If the player lands directly on a property, utility, or transportation company owned by the bank, he may buy it for the value listed on the board (in Anti-Monopoly, the value is also listed on the deed).
A player landing on one of the two tax spaces must pay the amount listed to the bank.
Players landing on the go to jail space go to jail (see the section "Jail" below).
Players landing on the other three corners may stay there for free.
Players passing or landing on start receive $100 as in the normal Anti-Monopoly rules.
When a player lands in a city (that is, on any space other than corner or a transportation company), he must find lodging in that city, by mutual consent with a property owner. This is the case even if the space landed on is covered by one of the cases listed above. A player may stay on his own property. A property owner may charge any rent to the player or refuse service. The bank charges the "monopolist" prices listed on the deed to rent properties it owns (be careful to note whether the bank has a monopoly or not). A player may not buy an unowned property just because he is staying there; he must land on it directly. Alternatively, the player may pay the transit company to transport him to the other city on that side of the board and find lodging there. The transit company owner may charge any price for his services, or refuse service. The player moves his token to the property he has rented. Ordinarily only one player may stay on a space at a time (but see the section "Houses and Apartments" below). This does not prevent another player from landing on that space and potentially buying it.
If a player fails to find lodging, he sleeps on a park bench and goes to jail.
If a player lands directly on a transit company (regardless of whether it is owned) he may move for free to either city.
Jail
A player goes to jail by either sleeping on a park bench or landing on the go to jail space. In order to get out of jail, a player must pay a "booking fee" equal to the house price on the side of the board from which he went to jail (listed on the deeds to the properties on that side of the board; the go to jail space counts as part of the $150 side), plus a "room and board" fee equal to 1/10 the house price times the number of turns spent in jail. Players may only buy out of jail at the beginning of a turn, so they have always spent one turn in jail (thus if the player is on the $150 side of the board or the go to jail space and pays out at the first opportunity, he will pay $165). Players do not get out of jail by rolling doubles.
Being Eliminated
A player is eliminated if he goes to jail and does not pay his way out by the end of the third turn.
Houses and Apartments
Players may buy houses from the bank for their properties on their turns for the price listed on the deed. A player does not need a monopoly to buy houses. A property may have up to two houses on it. If the house price is paid a third time, the player gets an apartment building. A player may not sell houses or apartment buildings; they are permanently attached to the property.
If a property has one house on it, the player staying on it may, on his next turn, after rolling the dice, elect to stay on that property rather than moving. He must pay the utility company which is closest in the forward direction (the utility company owner may charge any price he wishes; the bank charges the price listed on the deed, which is based on the dice; take care to notice whether the bank owns one or both utilities), and he must pay rent to the owner of the property again. The owner of the property may charge a lower rent than on the previous turn, but may not charge a higher rent or refuse service, unless he was specifically given the power to do so by agreement with the tenant before the property was originally rented on the previous turn. Since the player stays rather than moving, he does not pass start if his roll would take him past start had he moved.
If a property has two houses on it, two players may stay there, and each player may remain there, as described above.
If a property has an apartment building on it, and unlimited number of players may stay there, as described above.
Contracts
Players may form any contract with any other player, provided that the contract does not require either player to do anything not otherwise permitted by the rules, and that the contracts do not involve anything outside the scope of the game. This includes exchanging ownership or property. The contracts should be recorded by the notary. Contracts may be attached to a property, in which case the property cannot be sold without passing those obligations along, or to a player. Players must abide by the terms of contracts unless specifically released by the other party or parties involved.
Players may not mortgage houses to the bank or otherwise borrow money from it, but players may create mortgage contracts with other players.
Ending the Game
If the game is being played with objective 1, a player may declare that he has reached a net worth of $2000 at any time (provided that it is true), but is not obligated to do so. Once this declaration has been made, players must proceed one more time around the board. A player who reaches the "Start" space takes his token off the board without collecting $100. He then continues negotiating and collecting rent until all players have removed their tokens. All players then calculate net worth as described below.
If the game is being played with objective 2, the play should continue, after time has run out, until each player has had the same number of turns (i.e., it should end immediately before the turn of the player who went first).
If the game is being played with objective 3, it ends immediately when either the second to last player is eliminated, or a stalemate is declared by either player.
Net Worth
Net worth is the sum of the following:
Stalemate Conditions
When playing with objective 3, there is at least one known stalemate condition: If a player owns a property with a house and also the relevant utility company, he may stay in that house and not move, at no cost to himself. If two players do this, a stalemate has ben reached. There may be other stalemate conditions as well.
Optional Rules
The following are some untested suggestions for additional rules:
Note that it is also possible to create new rules mid-game by forming a contract between all the players.
If you try this game and like it, or have any suggestions for improvements, please comment below!
Note: the Creative Commons License which applies to this blog as a whole also applies to this game.
In the very first Carnival of Citizens, there is a post at HeartFulls (a blog with which I was not previously familiar) in which the author wants to know how Christians deal with homosexuality. She seems to be particularly concerned with the question of gay marriage (which is presumably why this post was included in the Carnival of Citizens). She cites a few Scripture passages that are commonly used in arguments, but doesn't present a clear picture of how and why these arguments cause Christians to hold the positions they do (presumably, she doesn't know quite how these passages are interpreted, which is why this is part of her "I want to know" series). In this post, I will try to explain how these verses are interpreted, and how they should influence Christians' actions, especially in the political realm.
First, a word on where I'm coming from. My approach to Scripture is, in theory, held in common with virtually all those who call themselves Evangelicals. That is, I hold that the correct interpretation of the passage is the interpretation which, in the context, would have been the most obvious one to the originally intended audience at the original time of writing. I further believe that the correct interpretation of a passage of Scripture, in its complete content, always yields truth. (That is, I believe in Biblical inerrancy. On the problem of uncertainty about what the Bible actually teaches and what that means for inerrancy, see my post on the inerrancy of the autographs.) However, there are certainly plenty of cases where I think that the mainstream of Evangelicalism applies these principles incorrectly, and this especially happens in the case of Evangelicals who are heavily politically involved. My approach to politics is that of right-libertarian political philosophy; that is, I believe that there is a fundamental right of private property which is not created by the government or society, that the first thing an individual has ownership over is himself, that all other rights derive from these principles, and that the violation of such rights is never morally justifiable. As such, I believe (based on Scripture) that homosexual behavior is morally wrong as a matter of private or individual morality but that people nevertheless have a right to behave in this way without interference from their fellow human beings as a matter of public or political morality (on how I deal with matters of individual vs. political morality, see my post applying this distinction to the abortion debate). In other words, I think that the Church should continue to teach that homosexual behavior is wrong and should never perform or recognize homosexual marriages or civil unions, but that the government should mind its own business and not define marriage at all, one way or another. As a result of this, it can be seen that I really can't answer all of the question posed at HeartFulls, since I don't think gay marriage should be illegal, but I can provide a partial answer, by at least explaining why Christians (at least among those who believe in Biblical inerrancy) don't support it.
Now that we've got that out of the way, let's address the verses cited at HeartFulls. They are Leviticus 18:22, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and Romans 1:27. I think these verses, although not the only ones referring to homosexuality in the Bible, are sufficient to present the correct picture, if interpreted correctly. All quotes are from the Holmann Christian Standard Bible (HCSB).
You are not to sleep with a man as with a woman; it is detestable. - Leviticus 18:22
The first thing to note about this verse, is that it is part of the legal code of the Torah. This means that Christians in general do not (or at least should not) make direct application of it. This is not because we deny that the Torah is true or inspired or any such thing. Rather, we believe that the Torah is not addressed to us. What this means is that laws like this one, from a Christian perspective, simply record as a matter of historical fact that once upon a time (about 3500 years ago), God commanded the Israelites not to engage in homosexual sex. This doesn't tell us anything applicable to the present day unless we can understand why and under what circumstances he did this. Now, the phrase "it is detestable" might be thought to answer the question of why God did this. The Hebrew word, tow'ebah, does, indeed, seem to be applied only to sexual sin throughout the Leviticus. However, in Deuteronomy 14:3 the ritually unclean animals (e.g. pigs) are called "detestable" using the same word, and in 17:1 sacrificing an animal with a blemish is called "detestable to the Lord." So it doesn't appear that based only on the Torah text we can conclude that the prohibition is presently applicable. It is in a passage that seems at first glance to convey all or mostly universally applicable prohibitions (e.g. on incest and adultery), but the section does also, as was pointed out at HeartFulls, contain the prohibition on a man having sex with his wife when she is menstruating (v. 19) (by the way, it was asked whether this was still observed - certainly by Orthodox and Conservative Jews, beyond that I expect it is probably not seen as a moral obligation). In short, it would require quite a bit of research to determine whether this particular passage, taken without the aid of New Testament parallels, was presently applicable, and there would be a lot of uncertainty in the conclusion. Fortunately, we have NT parallels, so we don't have to do that.
Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit God's kingdom? Do not be deceived: no sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, or swindlers will inherit God's kingdom. - 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
There is a lot of confusion about the meaning of the words here translated "male prostitutes" and "homosexuals." The New King James Version has "homosexuals" and "sodomites," respectively, and a confusing footnote stating the "homosexuals" actually means "catamites" (what on earth is a catamite? The Heartfulls post includes the Webster's definition). Neither of these is very helpful. The original Greek words are malakoi and arsenokoitai, respectively. Malakos (the singular form of malakoi) literally means "soft." When applied to a man (as it is here - the grammatical form is masculine) it means "effeminate," which is indeed how the original KJV translated it here. (Interestingly, in modern Greek, malaka is a mild curse used as an interjection, roughly equivalent to the English "damn".) I will discuss in a moment how exactly that applies here, and why the translations say what they do. Arsenokoites (singular of arsenokoitai) is from the words arsen, meaning "male" and koite, which literally means "bed," but is a euphemism for sex. The grammatical form is masculine, so this word literally means "men who go to bed with men." Now, why are both words used here, what is the difference between them, and why do the translations say what they do?
Warning: the below section discusses some Greco-Roman sexual practices, and is slightly more explicit than anything I would normally post on this blog. I've tried to keep it as inoffensive as possible, but some readers may prefer to skip it.
I think it is clear that here malakos refers to the "passive" partner and arsenokoites to the "active" partner in anal intercourse between males. Why should Paul mention the two separately, and why should the NKJV tell us the first means "catamites" (by which they apparently mean willing victims of pedarests?) and the second "sodomites"? Why does the HCSB think the first means "male prostitute"? I think this links back to the Greco-Roman attitude and practice toward male homosexuality and is important in the cultural context in its differences from that practice.
It is abundantly clear from the literary record that pedaresty was a near universal practice among (especially upper-class) Greeks of the classical period (roughly 400 years before the NT - it is less clear what was going on in NT times in Corinth, but it is unlikely, I think, that the practice had completely disappeared). The older man was considered a sort of mentor to the younger boy, and the boy and his family were generally without objection to the practice. It was considered to be a normal part of the boy's growth and education. (See the speech of Alcibiades in Plato's Symposium, where in a role-reversal the Greeks must have thought humorous, a young Alcibiades attempts to seduce the older man, Socrates, and also Plato's Phaedrus where a speech attributed to Lysias attempts to convince a young man that it is better to have sex with an older man who is not in love with him than one who is, since love is a type of madness. Not all of the references to the practice are in Plato, it's just that I know Plato better than I know other writers.) Stories about "thigh rubbing" in connection with ancient Greek pedaresty can be disregarded (and are now disregarded by most scholars, I believe) as a prude fabrication of the Victorian era.
The practice was deemed no longer acceptable when a boy's beard began to come in. At this point, the boy became a man, and it was considered shameful for a man to be sexually passive. (In modern Greek the word pathetikos, which literally means "passive," has taken on sexual connotations and is considered highly obscene - I once heard a story of an argument in Greek between a native English-speaker and a native Greek-speaker which nearly came to blows when the English-speaker said this word thinking it had the same meaning as the English word "pathetic.") The ancient Greeks saw the sexual love between a man and a boy as of a higher order than that between a man and a woman (see the speech of Aristophanes in the Symposium). Note, however, that there was little or no stigma against homosexuality as such, but only against sexual passivity on the part of adult males.
While the Romans didn't engage in the pedaresty of the Greeks, they, similarly, had the attitude that it was not homosexuality as such, but sexual passivity that was shameful for men. So, in the Greco-Roman world, homosexual intercourse seems often to have been in some sense a form of dominance between males, as is seen in certain animals (e.g. dogs). It was also common in the tradition of Roman invective (for instance, in political mudslinging in the days of the republic) to label someone a passive homosexual. This is not to say that it was never consensual. I find it highly implausible to suppose that Paul means to say that men (or young boys) who were raped were somehow to blame for what happened to them, especially in light of the Torah law specifically stating that a woman who is raped is not to be held responsible for the loss of her virginity. (Specifically, a woman who did cry or may have cried for help cannot be punished for adultery or fornication - Deuteronomy 22:23-27.) This is probably the reason that the HCSB has translated the word as "male prostitutes." There were, indeed, homosexual male prostitutes, and consensual homosexual practice (and also heterosexual adultery) were quite common among Roman aristocrats (though, if I recall correctly, there is evidence that these things were frowned upon by the lower classes).
Based on these observations about the surrounding culture, it is my conclusion that Paul includes both terms in his list to make it clear that Christianity finds all homosexual practice equally unacceptable, rather than seeing the active partner as dominating the passive in a way that shows his strength or some such.
This is the end of the potentially offensive part.
So this verse does indeed object to (at least male) homosexuality, even if it is between consenting adults.
There is one more thing I want to observe before moving on, and that is verse 11: "Some of you [i.e. the Christians at Corinth] were like this, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God." Thus we can see that the individuals in the list are not irrevocably condemned by the text. Rather, Paul is saying that individuals whose identities are defined by these kinds of behaviors are still in need of salvation. They cannot inherit the Kingdom of God as long as they see what God regards as sin as being part of their identity. They must be willing to give it up to God. (Compare Romans 7:17 and surrounding verses.) Note also that we are talking about behaviors here. Certainly we must also cease to identify with the inclination, but we are not held morally responsible for our natural inclinations, only for what we do with them. A person is not guilty of being a kleptomaniac, he is guilty of being a thief. There is a big problem in a lot of debate about homosexuality that some people use the word to mean the actions, and others to mean the inclinations. Here we are talking about actions, and the Bible condemns those actions.
This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual intercourse for waht is unnatural. The males in the same way also left natural sexual intercourse with females and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty for their perversion. - Romans 1:26-27
The HeartFull post only quoted verse 27, but I think verse 26 is important because it is the only place I am aware of where the Bible talks about female homosexuality. I think this verse is quite clear. It consideres homosexual "passions" to be "degrading" and condemns the actions, whether male or female. It seems, in context, that these "passions" are punishment for the sin in verse 25: "they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served something created instead of the Creator."
There are two things which I think need clarification about this whole punishment for sin thing: the first is that the text does not necessarily teach that every person who has homosexual desires has them for the reasons in this verse. There may also be other reasons which apply in some cases. Secondly, the Bible teaches that human beings are inherently communal beings, and, because we live in community, one person's sin (or righteousness!) affects other persons around him (see, e.g., Exodus 20:5-6). Thus, for instance, we can say that AIDS is a punishment for sin in the sense that if nobody ever sinned nobody would have AIDS. This does not - I repeat not - imply that people who have AIDS have AIDS because they are worse sinners than other people. One individual person getting AIDS may have nothing to do with any sin of his own - he might get it from a bad blood transfusion, or a spouse who cheated on him, or any number of other things like this; in other words, he might get it as a result of someone else's sin. It should be noted that, according to the Bible everything that is wrong with the world, including every disease, is ultimately a result of sin (i.e. of The Fall - Genesis 3); I have only chosen the example of AIDS because it is easy to see where sin enters the equation (although, I should mention that not everything that appears to be wrong with the world to us is necessarily actually wrong). I hope the use of AIDS as an example is not unnecessarily offensive and I hope I have made it clear that I don't mean to add to the already quite significant suffering of those affected by AIDS.
At any rate, there is no reason to think that similar reasoning does not apply to the claim in Romans that homosexual desires are some kind of punishment for sin. For instance, I have been told (I don't study psychology, so I don't really know if this is true, but it seems plausible) that women who are raped are more likely to become lesbians because some of them develop a general fear of men. These people have been deeply hurt by the sin of others.
So, this passage teaches three things: (1) having homosexual attractions is undesirable, (2) homosexual acts are sinful, and (3) at least some people at least some times have homosexual attractions as a result of sin (their own or that of others).
Beyond the passages mentioned, there is also the Biblical definition of marriage, which is always unequivocally heterosexual. (See Genesis 2:24, which is quoted repeatedly by the NT.)
This, I think, is enough to say that people who view the Bible as authoritative on ethical matters must believe that homosexual behavior is immoral, as a matter, at least, of individual morality. What does all of this mean to politics? I've said already that I don't think it justifies the illegalization of gay marriage. However, one thing that should be pointed out is that Christianity has a definition of marriage by which marriage is between a man and a woman and is the only appropriate context for any sexual activity. If the government passes a law that defines marriage in any other way, the government is passing a law that says Christianity is wrong (about this issue). This may be one reason that Christians generally fight to have this definition of marriage included in the law.
This is, however, the wrong approach and a totally wrong way of thinking about the issue. Why? Because America is not (contrary to popular belief) a 'Christian nation.' There are lots of non-Christians here, and we do not have a Christian government. I believe that it is wrong (Biblically) to attempt to impose Christianity on others by force, which is what we do when we try to legislate it. Besides, if we give the government power, they are going to use it wrongly, like they always do. Last but certainly not least, other religions (not to mention atheists) have different definitions of marriage, and we violate their religious freedom if we include our definition in the law. Ultimately, civil marriage is a contract and religious marriage is, well, religious, so if the government has any legal definition of marriage it violates either freedom of contract, freedom of religion, or, more likely, both. It amazes me that so many Evangelicals go around emphasizing the importance of making a "personal decision for Christ," and then support political action to prevent people from making their own decisions freely.
In conclusion, Biblical Christianity teaches that all homosexual activity is morally unacceptable, and this means that people who believe in Biblical Christianity ought not to practice homosexuality or condone gay marriage. However, there is no justification for the application of coercive force in this area. Furthermore, Christianity teaches that everyone stands equally condemned under God's law apart from the sacrifice of Christ (Romans 3:9-10). If someone is practicing homosexuality and doesn't know Jesus, his real problem is that he doesn't know Jesus, not that he's gay. If it wasn't homosexuality, it would be some other sin, and he would be equally condemned. Our call as Christians is to love people and show them the way out of sin and condemnation. Jesus sent us just as the Father sent him (John 20:21). How was Jesus sent? "Not ... that He might condemn that world, but the the world might be saved through Him." (John 3:17)
This, I hope, is a step to answering HeartFull's question, but as to Christians who think homosexual marriage should be illegal, I'll let them speak for themselves, since I am not one of them and don't think their position is justified.
It seems, over the last few months, that the U.S. Mint has suddenly been out to get the Liberty Dollar. This after years of investigations by the Secret Service and others which concluded that there was nothing criminal about it whatsoever. In the latest Liberty Dollar newsletter, which will be available on their web-site shortly, we read that "'threatening' letters have been received via certified mail by all the [regional currency officers] and [monetary architect Bernard von NotHaus] from Daniel P. Shaver, chief counsel for the US Mint." Also, NORFED, the organization behind the Liberty Dollar, has had their bank account closed under suspicious circumstances. This after the U.S. Mint suddenly reversed its position a few months ago and issued a public warning about the Liberty Dollar on its web-site.
Now, let me first say that I do not unreservedly support NORFED. I often find information in their newsletter misleading, and it is sometimes outright false. In my opinion, their biased propaganda is sometimes almost as bad as the government's. Furthermore, their positions are often quite extreme. Sometimes they come off as basically conspiracy nuts. However, there is one thing that NORFED has never misled anyone about, and that is that the Liberty Dollar is not US currency, not "legal tender," and not in any way backed or supported by the US goverment. In fact that is the whole point of the Liberty Dollar. It is not backed by the US government, it is backed by precious metals in a warehouse in Cour d'Alene, Idaho. Thus when people 'spend' Liberty Dollars, they are engaging in barter.
There are a number of issues here that greatly trouble me as a libertarian:
Thus what we see here is a manifestation of the progressive power grab by big government. I don't want to be an alarmist, but at some point somebody has to be, or it will never stop. I won't stand for the government limiting my right to participate in barter transactions, and you shouldn't either. I'm still contemplating what, if anything, I can do about it. One obvious solution is, of course, to buy more Liberty Dollars and use them, but that's getting to be more and more of a hassle and there's a greater and greater risk of legal trouble. It's not a very good form of civil disobedience either, since most people don't relate strongly to it. If the government was interfering with a book exchange, or the ability to trade in your car at the dealer or something like that people would get upset, but the Liberty Dollar doesn't quite resonate. Hmm... What a mess. For now, I suppose, we'll just have to wait and see what happens next. Oh, and vote libertarian.
The New York Times has a piece today on conservative judicial activism. The article claims that, not only does conservative judicial activism happen, but it is more common in the US today than liberal judicial activism. However, I have to wonder if 'conservative judicial activism' is even possible. My disagreement with the Times is, I admit, in large part semantic, because the terms 'conservative,' 'liberal,' and 'judicial activism' are all horribly equivocal, but they are also all emotionally charged terms, and I can't stand the kind of rhetorical trick the Times seems to be trying to pull here.
The biggest mistake made is that the definition of judicial activism used is positively idiotic. The article says,
Because judicial activism is a vague concept, [the researcher cited] applied a reasonable, objective standard. In the study ... justices were considered to have voted in an activist way when they voted to overturn a federal or state law, or one of the court’s own precedents."
Again, as I said, 'conservative' and 'liberal' are horribly equivocal terms as well. 'Conservative' can mean either 'upholding the status quo' or 'right-wing,' and, likewise, liberal can mean either 'opposing the status quo' (i.e. 'progressive') or 'left-wing.' Now, obviously it is possible for any judge, regardless of whether we call him liberal or conservative, and regardless of what meaning of liberal or conservative we are using, to be an 'activist' in the Times's sense. It is also obviously possible for a judge to be an activist in the ordinary sense regardless of whether he is on the right or the left of the political spectrum. However, it is not trivially the case that a judge could be an activist in the ordinary sense regardless of where he was classified according to the other meaning of liberal and conservative. That is, a judge who is an activist in this sense is necessarily 'liberal' in the sense of 'opposing the status quo' because he is a judge who alters the meaning of the law, and the meaning of the law is a type of status quo. It may be objected to this that the law might be such that certain parts of it were supposed to change with time and circumstances without it being amended and a judge who resisted that might be both more 'activist' in the ordinary sense and more 'conservative' in the status quo sense than a judge who supported it. However, such cases in our system of federal law seem to be few and far between (one example, though, might be the meaning of the phrase 'cruel and unusual punishment' - a judge who said that placing an offender in the stocks was not cruel and unusual punishment might be a status-quo-conservative and an activist according to some reasonable theories, if the framers viewed putting someone in the stocks as not being cruel and unusual punishment).
I also highly doubt that right-conservative judges are more activist than left-liberals in America today, for simple historical reasons: the Constitution was framed by classic liberals - Lockeans - and this political ideology is certainly right-of-center in America today. For this reason, judges who respect the Constitution as written will generally make right-of-center rulings (of course, they could theoretically have a theory of judicial interpretation that met my standards for non-activism which would cause them to vote to the left of the framers' intent, but the three top contenders among such theories - originalism, original intent, and strict constructionism - will all entail right-of-center rulings). As far as the interpretation of statutes which they hold to be consistent with the Constitution, I would imagine, again, that non-activist judges would appear to be right-of-center most of the time, due to the fact that, despite the McCarthy and Bush eras, the twentieth century saw a net movement to the left. That is, I imagine that the country is probabaly today further to the left, on average, than it was at any time before 1960, so judges that interpret older statutes correctly will appear to be right-of-center. However, in interpreting the laws made during, for instance, the Clinton or Kennedy administrations, non-activists will probably take the leftward rulings more often than the rightward ones, since the 'center' has moved further right than it was in those periods. The same sorts of considerations will apply in the upholding or overturning of precedents.
In sum, the truth or falsity of the Times's claim that conservative judicial activism is today more common than liberal judicial activism is, unsurprisingly, highly dependent on the intended meanings of the highly equivocal terms 'liberal,' 'conservative,' and 'judicial activist.' However, on the most reasonable definitions of these terms, it is highly unlikely that the claim is in fact correct.
In the comments to my first post on NSA domestic spying, Jeremy said,
This is exactly why I think libertarianism is completely nuts. If it's going to place some absurd sense of an absolute right to privacy so much higher than the extremely important obligation of the government to protect its people, then I want nothing to do with it ... It just seems silly to me to complain that my rights are being violated simply because information the government can already get if there's reason to suspect me of any criminal activity is more readily available in the event that such criminal activity is terrorism-related.
There are a number of circumstances we must consider: the most important question is whether the phone companies gave the information voluntarily or under threat of coercive force. In fact they must have given it voluntarily, since nothing happened to Qwest when they refused, but since Jeremy seems to me to think that the government should have been able to legally force them, we must consider both. The case where the government forces them is the easy case, so let's consider that first.
When the government undertakes a criminal investigation, it certainly violates no one's writes by going around asking questions. However, when someone doesn't voluntarily respond, warrants, subpoenas, etc., are issued. This is an application of coercive force. What justifies it? In US law, the justification is the concept of 'probable cause.' I don't understand law well enough to know exactly what this means, nor am I prepared to give a comprehensive philosophical account of the correctness or incorrectness of the law, but the basic idea seems to me to be clearly correct and in keeping with libertarian principles. The government can take your documents or time or whatever from you if and only if it can show that there is good reason to suppose said documents are relevant to its criminal investigation, and, if you turn out to be innocent (or were never suspected of wrong-doing in the first place) the government (or, better, the actual perpetrator) must compensate you for your loss of utility. There are a number of ways in which the government's spying on phone records involve loss of utility:
Now, back to the real world: the government did NOT apply force in seizing these records; doesn't that mean that it's just like asking questions in an investigation and having them answered? After all, the records do belong to the phone companies, don't they?
It is true that the phone companies could voluntarily release this information, and no one's rights would be violated, in some hypothetical world. Of course, when the customers found out they might, again, go to a different company. However, in the actual world, the phone companies are (probably, see below) under contractual obligation not to release the data to law enforcement except under threat of force (i.e. "as required by law"). I wasn't able to locate online the telephone privacy policies or BellSouth, only the online privacy policy, so it is possible that they are not in fact breaching contract, but here are some excerpts from Verizon's "Telephone Company Customer Privacy Policy:
As a rule, Verizon will notify you and give you the opportunity to "opt out" when we disclose telephone customer information outside of Verizon. In fact, we generally keep our records of the services you buy and the calls you make private, and will not ordinarily disclose this information to outside parties without your permission. However, we do release customer information without involving you if disclosure is required by law or to protect the safety of customers, employees or property. This is further explained below ...
Examples where disclosure is required by law or to protect the safety of customers, employees or property:
- When you dial 911...
- Verizon must disclose information, as necessary, to comply with court orders or subpoenas. Verizon also will share information to protect its rights or property and to protect users of its services and other carriers from fraudulent, abusive or unlawful use of services.
- We may, where permitted by law, provide information to credit bureaus ...
- Verizon also occasionally uses contractors to do work for the company. These contractors have the same obligations as our regular employees concerning customer information.
Those are all the cases given. Now, there are a couple of loopholes here: (1) Verizon might argue that the clause "or to protect the safety of..." includes terrorism investigations, and that the list of cases given are merely "examples" and not an exhaustive list, (2) Verizon might argue that the information was released "to protect users of its services and other carriers from fraudulent, abusive or unlawful use of services." As to case (1), the terms of the contract seem to be vague enough that they might possibly get Verizon off the hook like this, but it is through sheer vagueness, and not an actual agreement from the user. As to (2), it apppears that this only implies actually breaking the law in the manner in which you use the services, for instance, phreaking and the like. So, I would conclude that, while there is some ambiguity, there is enough here that we can assert (barely) that Verizon represent to its customers that their records will be kept private whenever possible. If this is indeed the case, and these are the circumstances under which users purchase Verizon's product, and the government then convinces Verizon to cooperate in this data mining operation, we can assert that the government and Verizon conspire to perpetrate and act of fraud against Verizon's customers. If, on the other hand, Verizon didn't represent this to their customers, then nothing is wrong here, from a libertarian perspective, as long as the government doesn't apply force in order to maintain a monopoly among phone companies who release data to the government.
This brings up another issue: surprisingly enough, from a libertarian perspective, I believe one must assert that any laws which prohibit the phone companies from doing this (see the list of lawsuits against Verizon at Homeland Stupidity - all the lawsuits seem to allege violations of laws rather than terms of contracts) violates either (a) the phone companies' property rights over the data, or (b) the freedom of contract rights between the customer and the phone company. That is, if the government prohibits the phone company from sharing its data with the government (doesn't that sound kind of weird?), it tells the phone company what it can and can't do with its property, restricting it with regard to actions that vaiolate no one's libertarian rights (that is, if you give someone a piece of information, without entering into an agreement with that person to keep the information secret, their revelation of that information to a third party does not violate any negative right), and if the government requires that the terms of the contract between company and customer include a clause like that, then they violate the freedom of contract rights of both company (or, rather, stock-holders - corporations are legal fictions and have no libertarian rights as such).
The government could, of course, voluntarily restrict itself from asking for or otherwise acquiring this kind of information, but has no obligation to do so. If the government did place such a restriction, it could make a permissible law that no agent of the government could acquire such information and then charge the relevant people in the NSA and at the phone companies with conspiracy to break that law. Things get even more complicated from this point onward, so I'm going to leave off here, but I hope I've given some kind of coherent idea of a tenable libertarian position on why this is such a huge problem, even for those who have nothing to hide.
"For tell me, if you saw any two persons, one naked, one having a garment, and then having stripped the one that had the garment, thou wert to clothe the naked, wouldest thou not have committed an injustice? It is surely plain to every one. But if when thou hast given all that thou hast taken to another, thou hast committed an injustice, and not shown mercy; when thou givest not even a small portion of what thou robbest, and callest the deed alms, what manner of punishment wilt thou not undergo?" - St. John Chryosostom (Patriarch of Constantinople, c. 388 AD) on tax-funded welfare programs (ok, so he was actually talking about Matthew 27:6). Full text available from CCEL.
The April 2006 issue of the Invisible Hand Newsletter is now available for download. The publishers hope that libertarian groups and individuals at colleges and universities across the country - and perhaps even internationally - will print and distribute this newsletter on their campuses. This latest issue contains an article by yours truly entitled "What Rights Don't I Have?" and based on a blog.kennypearce.net post from last October entitled "Why 'Positive Rights' are Stupid." The whole newsletter is worth a read.
I was recently introduced to The Invisible Hand, a newsletter being put out by the Rutgers Libertarians (that would be Rutgers University, in New Jersey). The first edition came out last November and was distributed at two campuses in New Jersey. Now the group wants to get a wider distribution, by having individuals and groups on various college campuses throughout the country print the newsletter from the internet and distribute it. I am planning to submit an article on positive rights and why libertarians don't believe in them (based on this post) for the next issue, which is due out in late March/early April.
In the meantime, the the current issue has a couple of very good articles I would like to comment on.
First, the article "The Political Philosophy of Freedom" is a very good overall introduction to libertarianism. However, I have two problems with it: first, it makes it look as though libertarianism requires a very optimistic philosophical anthropology (that is, theory of humanity). This is problematic for me, because, while Christianity is very positive about what man was meant to be and what he can become with God, it is very negative about man's present fallen state, and I believe quite firmly that Christianity and libertarianism are compatible. I thought addressing this would require a whole separate post, but the end of the article came to the point and answered my concern quite nicely with this quote from Thomas Jefferson: "Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others? Or, have we found angels in the form of kings, to govern him? Let history answer this question." My second, less important, objection is that the author lumps 'anarcho-capitalists' in with libertarians, which I think may be misleading. In general, libertarians believe that the minimal 'night watchman' state is absolutely critical in order to protect us from force and fraud. It is just that when the government goes beyond this mandate and violates individual rights, it becomes fundamentally unjust.
Other articles explain why the government ought not to define marriage (at all) and why the only wasted vote is a vote for a candidate you don't actually want to see in office. The latter seems fairly obvious to me, but then I'm a third party voter, and an intense non-consequentialist. I think I have a moral duty to vote for the best candidate on the ballot regardless of his chances of winning. If you don't believe this, you should read the article, which will give some more pragmatic reasons for voting for third parties (if, that is, you are unhappy with the major parties - but who isn't these days?). The whole thing is worth a read.