Feds throw down the Real ID gauntlet

"Come May 2008, [their] citizens . . . will feel the consequences" of the states' resistance, Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said Friday. To board a plane or enter a federal building, those residents will have to use a passport or other form of accepted identification, he said. [Los Angeles Times]

Those who thought the federal government was going to back down on Real ID have just gotten a rude awakening. Starting in May, those of us living in states that have refused to implement Real ID will be treated as foreigners, being required to show a passport to enter a federal building. This includes, I assume, at least government-owned post offices; I don't know if they'll still let us into post offices on rented property.

This is tyranny without disguise. I can't bring myself to say anything more just now.

Working for candidates vs. working for ideas

The growing weight of doubt about Ron Paul's associations has, as I discussed yesterday, dealt a serious blow to his campaign. It's not his vote totals that will suffer, but its significance as a push for libertarianism as a force in national politics. Many people who recently supported him are concluding that his candidacy is more an embarrassment than a step toward acceptance. So the question arises: What now?

For those of us looking for a serious change in the policies of our government, running an election campaign just isn't the way to go. Running nationwide candidates makes sense only for a group that already has widespread popularity. Otherwise it's a waste of effort grounded in self-deception. To win an election, you have to build a large coalition of people who agree with you on at least a few key issues. If you need to reach out to the lunatic fringes to do this, you're doing more harm than good to your cause. You're going to be the target of smears no matter what, but these allies will make it easy.

When you're in the mainstream (or mainswamp) of ideas, working to elect candidates can make sense. When you're trying to effect serious change, it's an ineffective strategy to go for votes. Working in the realm of ideas and issues is much more effective. It's an issue of leverage. A few people or even a single individual, presenting themselves effectively, can't get anyone elected on their own, but they can change the climate of opinion on an issue.

There are many levels on which people can work for liberty. They can reach out to the public and try to change opinions on an issue. They can present a broad philosophy and try to get thinkers to accept it. They can do scholarly work. They can educate the people who already have a basic agreement with the ideas of freedom. They can gain the confidence of leaders and try to sway them. They can speak at legislative hearings. They can talk with friends. They can donate money. Work on all these levels is necessary, and it provides opportunities for people with very different kinds and levels of persuasive and analytic skills.

Those who have worked on the Paul campaign, whether they are disillusioned now or stick it through toward the end, can find other opportunities afterwards, ones built around a more effective strategy than a desperate attempt to win the presidential election. I hope they don't just burn themselves out; the energy they've shown is very impressive. They could make a real difference for the future, but they need to know how.

Ron Paul and the Lew Rockwell crowd

This post by Ed Brayton discusses an article on The New Republic's site giving background information that ties together many of the things I find disturbing about Ron Paul and his associates at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute. The article is also discussed on The Volokh Conspiracy, Radley Balko offers some comments, and Steven Horwitz offers a defense of Paul, calling the article a "hit piece." I regularly gave money to the Mises Institute in the eighties, but stopped when I noticed the regular appearance in The Free Market of pro-Confederate articles.

Are Harvard's electronic locks secure?

The Crimson reports that a student has been accused of producing fake Harvard ID's, "including some that would have allowed access to campus buildings and Crimson Cash accounts."

This is very disturbing. Many Harvard buildings have electronic locks which are accessed by ID cards. Only people with certain ID's can open any given lock. I can get into my office, but not into parts of Harvard where I don't work. It makes me wonder just how much security there is in Harvard ID's, if this student was able to reverse engineer them.

A serious criminal with the same capability could, if I understand the story correctly, produce a card that would function as a key to locked buildings. Printing anything would be unnecessary, as long as it had the appropriate electronic information. Someone with the card could walk in at night and burglarize the buildings. Obtaining the ID number of someone who worked in a particular building might be necessary, but employees don't necessary take strict precautions to keep their numbers secret. This makes me nervous.

Thanks to Universal Hub for the link.

Update: More here from the Globe. Harvard's reassurances that nothing bad happened this time, so there's no problem, are really pathetic.

Farewell, G'Kar

I've already mentioned this elsewhere, but it's only appropriate that "The Blog of M'Gath" should cite the posthumous, final post of Andrew Olmsted, who often blogged under the pseudonym G'Kar. Olmsted was a Babylon 5 fan, as the many quotes make clear, and was a college friend of a friend of mine, though I never knew him personally. He was killed in Iraq on January 3.

In accordance with his wishes, I will not try to use his death to further any cause. I don't agree with all he says, but that's not the point right now. It's a moving piece, and I urge all to read it.

Ignore this post

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This is just a token effort to help frustrate a spammer.

None of the above

I'm sorry. I didn't stay for the Ron Paul talk at the NH Liberty Forum. But at least, after months of waffling, I've reached a decision about how to vote in the New Hampshire primary.

I will vote "No."

The entire ballroom at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Nashua was opened up into a single space for the closing ceremonies. First there were interminable thanks for everyone involved, which is inevitable. Then the first speaker was introduced: John McManus, president of the John Birch Society. I'd hoped that his comments would be brief and that he'd get a lukewarm reception, but they lasted about half an hour and the mob greeted them with enthusiasm.

His remarks were somewhat tailored to a libertarian audience. He didn't talk about two issues which the Birch Society pushes hard -- hostility to free trade and to immigrants -- but what he said was damning enough. He said nothing about the rights of the individual, but viewed the Constitution as granting unlimited leeway on all but a few matters to the states. He said flatly that the Constitution needs no interpretation (right after I sent a letter to Bill Wells saying no one holds that position). He gave a quote from Jefferson which plainly didn't take that position, claiming that it it did. He talked about the "scourge of abortion."

I expected all this. What I didn't expect was that the people in the hall would applaud enthusiastically. They clung to anything he gave a vaguely libertarian slant to as if it were the purest defense of liberty. I could have stood his talk; I couldn't stand the reception it got. I left while he was promising to wrap up and didn't stay for Ron Paul.

If he'd gone out on his own to make a speech, he might have gotten an audience of twenty-five. But the organizers of the Liberty Forum and of Paul's campaign gave him this audience and presented him to an unthinking crowd as a defender of liberty. As I left, I finally knew this: Ron Paul's campaign is harmful to liberty. I could support a flawed campaign, but this is worse than flawed. I'd seen many stories about 9/11 truthers, white supremacists, and the like giving Paul their support, and just as many rebuttals saying that he wasn't responsible for them, even if he wasn't being as forceful as he might in repudiating them. But in this case it was plain that his supporters were rolling out the red carpet for an organization which represents a pathetic form of conservatism. I don't know all the reasons, but the JBS's hostility to immigrants matches Paul's position, and its opposition to free trade matches that of Lew Rockwell's circle, which Paul is associated with.

Right now I'll admit to feeling very low. But this experience doesn't mean I've given up all hope; it simply reaffirms what I've said before, that hope doesn't lie in electoral politics. The money and effort which went into Paul's campaign could better have gone into focused organizations working for liberties. The time could have better been spent writing and speaking against wrongful government power.

The other candidates on the Democratic and Republican ballots in the New Hampshire primary, with the conceivable exception of obscure ones I know nothing about, are hopeless. In general, I do not vote, because the act of voting endorses a set of alternatives to which I am opposed. I have made a couple of exceptions, once mostly to see the mechanics of voting first-hand. I'll continue to do what I can by writing and speaking to change those alternatives. But the Ron Paul shortcut is worse than useless.