Flight 253 Terrorist Fail More Proof Big Government Doesn't Work
One would have thought historical experience had made it crystal clear that free markets are superior to government planning. However, the last two presidents, a Republican, George Bush, and a Democrat, Barack Obama, have both massively expanded the size of government more than any president preceding them. In response to 9/11, Bush introduced a massive new bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security, to help combat terrorism. Both Obama and Bush intervened in the free market with bailouts, new burdensome regulations (as if regulation didn't help cause the current crisis), and stimulus packages that have failed beyond a reasonable doubt. Why have they failed? For the same reason government planning has failed everywhere else it has been tried. There is no one person or bureaucracy that can predict all the billions and billions of both rational and irrational decisions within in a free market or society every day. And that is exactly what would have to happen in order to regulate the system at all. As far as I know, there has been no such human yet, well, save Al Gore, the omniscient demigod (insert sarcasm).
The most frustrating thing for free market libertarians is that neither liberals nor conservatives seem to understand that they advocate the same exact thing, big government. Of course, the two sides differ in their approaches. Liberals refuse to trust individuals with their private property and wealth. Consequently, they burden society with more and more planning and regulation, all of which fails and hampers the economy. Conservatives call liberals socialists for their destructive and outrageously expensive planning. Conservatives, on the other hand, push for the growth of intelligence organizations and the military and seem to have no problem with a sort of moral big government. Liberals blast conservatives for this and call them fascists. So, who's right and who's wrong? Perhaps, they are both right. The point is that neither liberals nor conservatives have any problem with big government. They just disagree over what kind.
My question for my conservative brethren is do you support the free market and individual liberty or not? The Flight 253 failed terrorist attempt proves that big government planning in intelligence and counterterrorism is also a failure, just as much so as economic planning. All the expensive and burdensome bureaucratic planning in the world was inferior to one heroic man taking individual initiative, and this is unsurprising, for it has always been the case that individuals acting in their own self-interest work better than when their lives are planned for them.
I'd like to walk through some of the conservative reactions to the failed plot to demonstrate why increased government is no substitute for free markets and individual liberty.
1. Many sites have been quick to point out that former Gitmo detainees might have been behind the plot. Let's assume this is true. What is the conclusion? Of course, one could blame the ACLU, Obama, and anyone else for this failure. Even if they are to blame, this does not prove that more government would have solved this issue. It only proves that we cannot trust government with all of its self-interested politicians and bureaucrats to keep us safe.
2. Others have pointed to the incompetence and hypocrisy of Napolitano, who claimed that the system did work and then that it didn't within a mere 24-hour span:
Again, what does this hypocrisy prove? That we need a better king? No, it proves that government is too incompetent to stop rogue terrorists. It is not a problem of data; it is a problem of who collects the data.
3. Many have also focused their attention on the fact that the terrorist's father warned the State Department of his son's turn to radical Islam. Yes, this shows that our bureaucrats are incompetent, but is this a surprise?
4. How on God's green earth did the guy get onto a plane with bomb material? I don't think it's necessary to repeat that this was also due to incompetence somewhere down the line.
An argument for the free market:
What if we lived in a world where airlines had to be responsible for their own security? Would this have happened then? My guess would be that the terrorist-wanna-be never would've made it onto the plane, and here's why. Suppose all plane companies were private and responsible for screening passengers on their own. Would it be in the company's interest to allow terrorists on the plane? Imagine the loss in business if American Airlines allowed such a passenger on-board and then the plane exploded, killing hundreds of customers. Without government bailouts the company would go under, as it should, or at least lose enough business to realize that it should improve its security measures. With such a disastrous outcome in mind, airlines would be much more likely to keep the airways secure, and at a much lower cost than government. Now, however, we have the opposite situation. We have expensive, burdensome government intrusion into the market. The worst thing is that it relieves the private airlines of their duty to screen. They are more lax. And as we know, governments are bad at planning anything. So, we have the worst-case scenario, airlines depending on government for our security. As Ronald Reagan said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
What if we had a terrorist futures market? People could bet on the next attack. Yeah, it sounds implausible, and it mostly is, because governments would never allow it. But look how well it works for weather and politics.
An even crazier idea: allow private citizens to carry firearms on-board.
What conservatives should avoid:
The reflex that a lot of conservatives will have (I used to be one) is that they will want to believe that if we just had Republicans in power, this wouldn't have happened. What I am trying to do is show that this type of thinking is fallacious. As Samizdata points out:
The point is that bureaucracies are bad at exactly what we expect of them, to gather the right intelligence and put it in the right order. So, why not turn to the free market, which works so well in all other facets of our lives and streamlines intelligence in a much more cost-efficient and effective manner? I know it is a difficult concept to imagine. I'm just asking for a little consistency. If you want free markets, smaller government, more individual liberty, and lower taxes, then it is time to end our obsession with big government, even if it's politically advantageous.
The most frustrating thing for free market libertarians is that neither liberals nor conservatives seem to understand that they advocate the same exact thing, big government. Of course, the two sides differ in their approaches. Liberals refuse to trust individuals with their private property and wealth. Consequently, they burden society with more and more planning and regulation, all of which fails and hampers the economy. Conservatives call liberals socialists for their destructive and outrageously expensive planning. Conservatives, on the other hand, push for the growth of intelligence organizations and the military and seem to have no problem with a sort of moral big government. Liberals blast conservatives for this and call them fascists. So, who's right and who's wrong? Perhaps, they are both right. The point is that neither liberals nor conservatives have any problem with big government. They just disagree over what kind.
My question for my conservative brethren is do you support the free market and individual liberty or not? The Flight 253 failed terrorist attempt proves that big government planning in intelligence and counterterrorism is also a failure, just as much so as economic planning. All the expensive and burdensome bureaucratic planning in the world was inferior to one heroic man taking individual initiative, and this is unsurprising, for it has always been the case that individuals acting in their own self-interest work better than when their lives are planned for them.
I'd like to walk through some of the conservative reactions to the failed plot to demonstrate why increased government is no substitute for free markets and individual liberty.
1. Many sites have been quick to point out that former Gitmo detainees might have been behind the plot. Let's assume this is true. What is the conclusion? Of course, one could blame the ACLU, Obama, and anyone else for this failure. Even if they are to blame, this does not prove that more government would have solved this issue. It only proves that we cannot trust government with all of its self-interested politicians and bureaucrats to keep us safe.
2. Others have pointed to the incompetence and hypocrisy of Napolitano, who claimed that the system did work and then that it didn't within a mere 24-hour span:
Again, what does this hypocrisy prove? That we need a better king? No, it proves that government is too incompetent to stop rogue terrorists. It is not a problem of data; it is a problem of who collects the data.
3. Many have also focused their attention on the fact that the terrorist's father warned the State Department of his son's turn to radical Islam. Yes, this shows that our bureaucrats are incompetent, but is this a surprise?
4. How on God's green earth did the guy get onto a plane with bomb material? I don't think it's necessary to repeat that this was also due to incompetence somewhere down the line.
An argument for the free market:
What if we lived in a world where airlines had to be responsible for their own security? Would this have happened then? My guess would be that the terrorist-wanna-be never would've made it onto the plane, and here's why. Suppose all plane companies were private and responsible for screening passengers on their own. Would it be in the company's interest to allow terrorists on the plane? Imagine the loss in business if American Airlines allowed such a passenger on-board and then the plane exploded, killing hundreds of customers. Without government bailouts the company would go under, as it should, or at least lose enough business to realize that it should improve its security measures. With such a disastrous outcome in mind, airlines would be much more likely to keep the airways secure, and at a much lower cost than government. Now, however, we have the opposite situation. We have expensive, burdensome government intrusion into the market. The worst thing is that it relieves the private airlines of their duty to screen. They are more lax. And as we know, governments are bad at planning anything. So, we have the worst-case scenario, airlines depending on government for our security. As Ronald Reagan said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
What if we had a terrorist futures market? People could bet on the next attack. Yeah, it sounds implausible, and it mostly is, because governments would never allow it. But look how well it works for weather and politics.
An even crazier idea: allow private citizens to carry firearms on-board.
What conservatives should avoid:
The reflex that a lot of conservatives will have (I used to be one) is that they will want to believe that if we just had Republicans in power, this wouldn't have happened. What I am trying to do is show that this type of thinking is fallacious. As Samizdata points out:
This is the same problem that presents itself over and over in bureaucratic decision-making, especially in intelligence/antiterrorism efforts. Muhammad and Malvo's "snipermobile," the modified Chevy Caprice, was spotted and even apprehended at the scene of several shootings before authorities put two and two together. They received tips from thousands of disparate sources. Our intelligence agencies receive a ton of information, chatter, noise, whatever you want to call it, from sources all over the globe. The challenge for police and intelligence agencies is to refine that desultory information into a meaningful conclusion.
The point is that bureaucracies are bad at exactly what we expect of them, to gather the right intelligence and put it in the right order. So, why not turn to the free market, which works so well in all other facets of our lives and streamlines intelligence in a much more cost-efficient and effective manner? I know it is a difficult concept to imagine. I'm just asking for a little consistency. If you want free markets, smaller government, more individual liberty, and lower taxes, then it is time to end our obsession with big government, even if it's politically advantageous.
It's true, man. Conservatives are great with free markets. I just wish they would learn to see their hypocrisy on this aspect.
There is no compromise when it comes to liberty.
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I must disagree with your use of the word "conservative." Republicans have shown this hypocrisy; however, conservatives are more along the lines of Libertarians than are Republicans. At least this is how I see the conservatives around me; and I (being a conservative) see myself this way.
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