Occupy vs. Liberty

Liberty Now 2012 - in the foyer UTVic...

Liberty

I apologize, no postings for almost three weeks. Other work, and family obligations have kept me very busy. Some of you will know that I have been involved with the "liberty weekend" here in the Toronto area, and in all modesty, a  very successful one.
First, there was Liberty Now on Nov. 3, 2012, then my party's Annual General Meeting the very next day, so some things, like blogging, had to go by the wayside.

Liberty Now was a great success; it may even have lived up to it's billing as "Canada's largest Liberty Event." We had two liberty-related themes that day, each one with 3 sessions opposite the other throughout the day, all were well attended, plus a keynote lunchtime address from the host of Freedomain Radio, Stefan Molyneux. There was a liberty-bazzaar of sorts (see picture) in the foyer of the beautiful Victoria College building at the University of Toronto. The whole event was designed to bring people from different parts of the Canadian liberty movement together for discussion and networking purposes, and it worked wonderfully. The only negative about the day for me, the media chose not to attend, I'll have more on that.
The next day, Nov. 4, was my party's AGM, a private affair. Over the course of weeks and months, I've assisted the efforts of our party's Campaign Director, who has put us on the path to a useable, workable, presentable Platform, designed to ready our candidates with a document to carry into the coming Provincial election battle, likely next spring. We'll be ready, and with some hard work, and determination, we will strive for a full slate of candidates across Ontario.

Occupy

You will recall that it has been about a year since the Occupy Wall Street movement rose up, seemingly spontaneously in cities around the world including Toronto. The local media were all over it, covering every inane chant, every emanation and demand from a besieged neighbourhood park in the heart of Toronto live and direct. I thought of that event while driving home from the event on November third.
Prior to Liberty Now I had notified some local media, radio and TV, about Liberty Now, once I saw that we could have a good crowd. As many as 115 people actually showed up that day to occupy Victoria College, of course they paid us, and we asked permission from the College, rented the space and paid for the day. Everything was done by mutual agreement. We did not squat in a public area, we did not disrupt a neighbourhood or force ourselves on the local citizenry. It was totally peaceful, no demands, no whining, no muddy mess left behind, on the contrary, Liberty Now came replete with solutions and suggestions to improve the lives of Canadians and all people. A positive event, attended by people no less sincere than the Occupiers of last year, but no media. We'll be back, bigger and better.   

Free Trade? at 25, USA and Canada

Charge!!!   

There is a scene from the John Candy movie Canadian Bacon, where American military types realize that 90% of Canada's citizenry live within 100 miles (~160 km) of the American border. They pretend to fear an invasion. The fact is Canadians invade the United States regularly, every weekend. But when Canadians 'charge,' they do it with a credit card.

This month marks the 25th Anniversary of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Reciprocity, as it was once called, pre-dates Canada, back then it was limited to raw materials, but in 1911 the terms were broadened and Reciprocity or free trade, was defeated when the Borden Conservatives rejected a treaty signed by the Laurier Liberals. The same arguments used against free trade then, were used in 1987, when ironically, the Mulroney Conservatives signed the FTA. A national election in 1988 confirmed the deal, which was apposed by the socialist NDP and left Liberals of the day. I'm sure Laurier would have been sickened by those modern era Liberals.

So if free trade has been around for a quarter of a century, why do Canadians in ever growing numbers choose to shop in the nearby border towns of the United States? Why are there services that provide "border wait times," for travellers - mostly Canadian - here, here, and here? The answer is simple, just have a look at the tariff chart below that was published in the National Post recently.

from the National Post

If all those items are 7 to 18% more expensive in Canada, AND, each province (except Alberta) has a sales tax plus a federal GST, you can see why many Canadians go on US shopping jaunts particularly since the currencies have been close to par for sometime now. Where I live in Ontario, there is a 13% HST (harmonized sales tax, federal and provincial) that may be avoided with a 90 minute trip to New York State. The potential savings on an item of clothing would be upwards of 30%! Lets not forget that shopping in upstate New York provides more selection and good sales too, because of "the economy of scale."

That phrase: "the economy of scale" is often used by Canadian wholesalers and retailers (as an excuse - but I'm not blaming them) to explain their higher prices. Yet the population of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is far larger than upstate New York, aren't we big enough here if we were part of that same New York State market? The simple answer is yes, we are big enough, and yes, we could be part of that market, but the invisible boundary that separates us from our neighbours in New York, adds various government costs to "protect" our industries here in Ontario. Some free trade.

So our political masters here in Canada try to protect the brassier and panty hose industry, while at the same time hurting the rest of the population and in particular those least able to afford brassieres and panty hose.

In that National Post article I've mentioned above, Terence Corcoran explains why free trade is due for a change.

BTW, for your enlightenment here is the trailer to Canadian Bacon, enjoy:

Ed & Ethan 0.5 are moving to a new format....

But, I made it to the final broadcast (in this format)...and some of the past broadcasts too. I like this one because I'm the only panelist along with Ed & Ethan. Have a listen:

Minarchy vs. Anarchy and the State

In libertarian circles the minarchy versus anarchy argument is ever present, and typically in a non-threatening way.

What I mean by "non-threatening" is that the anarchy is NOT the sort characterized by conservatives and liberals. You know the kind, rioters in black masks roaming the streets looting, pillaging, and causing general mayhem. That is not the libertarian view of anarchy, thats just rioting.

The libertarian view of anarchy coincides with the concept of spontaneous order. That concept describes how the unhindered the free market operates by imposing its own rules on itself, such that there is a "spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos." One of the biggest proponents of that sort of anarcho-capitalism, as it is called, was Murray Rothbard.

My background teaching biology made it very easy for me to accept spontaneous order in economics and society. Anyone that has ever studied biology will know that organisms, be they plant, animal or protist, live within "self ordered" ecosystems. There is a producer level, and various levels of consumer, and any external interventions often disrupt the order of the ecosystem. So, you see its not a huge jump to spontaneous governance among humans, and I have written about this before, here, here, and here.

In the ReasonTV video below, Stefan Molyneux is interviewed by Matt Welch at FreedomFest 2012. If you live in or near Southern Ontario, Stefan Molyneux will be the Keynote Speaker at Liberty Now on November 3, 2012. Why not come out and challenge the self-confessed  anarcho-capitalist on his home turf? I'll be there too.