Dear Bob: Sorry You Missed Our Annual Benefit

[A dear friend of mine missed Heartland’s annual benefit on October 6 due to an unplanned trip to the hospital. In lieu of my usual letter, I’m sharing with you my recent letter to him. His first name really is Bob.]

Dear Bob:

I hope you are doing better! Diane told me of your situation . . . she learned more about it than you told her, so don’t think we don’t know how serious it is.

You missed a marvelous event. Walter Williams and Tim Slagle were great, the food was excellent, and the jazz afterwards was just right. (Not too loud this time.)

The highlight of the evening for me was when Mae and Martin Duggan received their “Heartland Liberty Prize” for forty years spent working for school choice. They didn’t know about the award until they arrived and saw their names in the program!

Thanks for your recent letters and newspaper articles. As usual, I’ve held onto them and will now try to respond to some of the news you report and the questions you’ve asked.

Gangs and the First Amendment

You ask whether membership in youth gangs is protected by the First Amendment. Some libertarians will say ascertaining a person’s guilt based on his association with a group is always unjust and bound to lead to abuse. They can point to the ruined careers of some idealistic fellow-travelers during the red scare of the 1950s (although recent exposés show that many of those fellows were indeed committing treason) and the more recent misuse of RICO against the pro-life movement. They have a good point.

I see things a little differently. The free speech and assembly provisions of the First Amendment were written by the founders to protect political speech and assembly for the purpose of protesting unpopular political decisions. Because different types of speech are impossible to separate, freedom of political speech is possible only when all kinds of speech are protected. Different types of assembly, though, can be readily distinguished based on the conduct and statements of their members. A violent youth gang can be objectively distinguished from a Rotary Club, for example.

So extending the First Amendment to protect gangs is, in my view, a misuse of the First Amendment and a distortion of the founders’ intent, not to mention a poor way to protect the public interest.

Selling Human Organs

You lament the ban on selling human organs. I couldn’t agree with you more.

It is a tragedy that so many organs go to the grave that would have been donated had the donor been able to make arrangements to benefit his spouse or children, or (your idea) his favorite charity. This short-sighted policy has done great damage to the nation’s supply of blood for transfusions. It seems that our “caring elite” just can’t bear to see things done for money that it believes should be done out of pure love for strangers . . . and its members insist on that, no matter how many people die as a result.

I loved your quotation: “Death and taxes may be inevitable, but death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” Who is Joan I. Welsh?

Libertarian Party

You say you’ve joined the Libertarian Party “due of course to the education and enlightenment you have provided me.” Ha! You were born a libertarian. I just helped you remember what that means.

The Libertarian Party, as I’m sure you know, represents only a fraction of the (small “l”) libertarian movement, and Heartland is unaffiliated with any political party. Still, I usually vote Libertarian to let the Republicrats know I’m onto their tricks!

Tobacco Lawsuits

In April you sent me an article regarding a jury decision in Portland, Oregon, ordering a tobacco company to pay $81 million to the family of a heavy smoker who died of lung cancer in 1997. I have great sympathy for you and your wife [a heavy smoker suffering from emphysema]. But we do disagree on this issue.

Interfering in someone else’s life, even with the best of intentions, is always risky. Our intervention may undermine the liberty and autonomy of the person we are seeking to help.

Our attempt to help inevitably creates a small hole in the shield of rights that protects a person’s self-sufficiency and privacy. While our own intervention may be beneficial or at least harmless, we have little control over who or what will pass through that same hole after we’ve finished our work. Will the next intruder do good or harm? Will he make the hole just a little bigger? Will he be followed by another intruder, and then another, and still another?

These difficult questions most often arise when we doubt the competence of the person making the choice (a child, say, who is not yet able to decide or care for himself, or an addict whose judgment we see as being compromised); when we cross the line between offering aid to the needy and imposing it on them; and when we move beyond spending our own money or time providing assistance to using tax dollars or police powers to intervene.

I do not grant that smokers lack the judgment to decide how often to smoke. Too many smokers have quit–half of all long-term smokers–to say they don’t weigh the risks with the benefits and act accordingly. (I should say “we,” because I continue to smoke, though in moderation.)

Our choice isn’t necessarily irrational: Moderate smoking is not a proven health hazard, nor is second-hand smoke, and the number of deaths caused by heavy smoking is far fewer than the 400,000-a-year figure cited by some observers. More likely the true number is below 100,000, according to research by Robert Levy and Rosalind Marimont.

J.S. Mill’s Principle

We violate a cardinal rule of libertarian political philosophy when we assert the right to impose our help on those who do not want it. John Stuart Mill put it best: “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”

When we call on government–or, in the case of tobacco litigation, lawyers and judges–to intervene on our behalf, we start a chain of unintended consequences. We enrich a small group of trial lawyers, who use part of their wealth to attack other industries (gun manufacturers, fast food companies). We remove an incentive for smokers to quit or cut back. We discourage production of smokeless cigarettes. We place a disproportionate tax burden on the poor. We violate an industry’s right to free speech. And on and on.

Those who believe smoking is deadly and offensive ought to organize among themselves to intervene effectively in cases, such as those involving children, where judgment is clearly impaired and when their help is freely accepted and not forcibly imposed. They should foreswear the use of force either via the courts or through legislation that creates taxes and other penalties on smokers.

These limitations on action leave plenty to be done by those who wish to save smokers from themselves. [Editor’s note: Just ask Diane!] Yes, it is more difficult than simply advocating higher taxes or voting while on a jury for huge awards to smoking “victims.” But the easy way is not always, perhaps not even often, the right way.

Subsidizing Beer

Well, I got a little carried away there!

Enclosed is an article about plans to publicly subsidize a micro-brewery in Joliet, Illinois. It shows the complete bankruptcy of the “economic development” notion. I’m sure you oppose the idea, but knowing you just lost a fortune in that highly competitive business, it may bring a smile to your face.

Get well quickly, Bob. I look forward to seeing you soon.