Austrian Economics Forum: Len Budney -

Daniel Solove has published an interesting paper entitled "I've Got Nothing to Hide" and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. I'm not crazy with his approach or his argument, though of course I agree generally with his conclusions.

I thought it would be particularly interesting to Donny, since Solove specifically regards privacy violations as an "emergent harm," in Donny's terminology. He likens it to global warming, even. He asserts that knowing something about me--such as that I purchased condoms last Tuesday--is in and of itself not a violation of my rights; anyone who was there at the store might have seen what I bought. But it constitutes one of those hard-to-pin-down "harms" when, for example, someone passes me in the street and says, "How did those condoms work out for you? Use 'em all yet?" The question will make me nervous and uneasy, yet under libertarian law it's in no way prosecutable. A separate "emergent harm" lies in what the author calls "aggregation," where knowing several innocuous facts about me can lead you to learn things about me that I wanted to keep secret; for example, knowing that I bought those condoms the same day I rented a hotel room outside my home state, while my wife's credit card records indicate she was home that week, might allow you to conclude that some hanky panky was going on. Again, this is not actionable under libertarian law--and worse, the any blackmail that might follow would also not be actionable.

Needless to say, I recognize these as psychological "harms," deny that they are "harms" in the libertarian sense, and argue that the correct response involves a combination of contractual arrangements and social sanctions.

Nevertheless, I post this link for Donny's enjoyment.

--Len.

As near as I can tell, it's impossible to read any postings on this forum without signing up, so linking to it isn't possible. Nevertheless, I found the experience interesting enough to mention.

I stumbled upon the forum because I'm in the waiting to receive the Saiga hunting rifle my wife ordered for my birthday. On the Saiga forum, I found instructions for converting the Saiga, which is made by Izhmash on the Kalashnikov pattern, into a semi-automatic AK-103. Following the natural chain of links, I ended up at WarriorTalk, a forum run by Gabe Suarez, where Kalashnikovs are a hot topic.

One of the first threads I encountered was provocatively titled, "Cultivating a Steely Mind." In it the poster advocates regular watching of videos of 9/11, the beheading of David Berg, etc., to "maintain your edge." A couple respondents agreed that it was a helpful way to "stay good and pissed," and thus motivated to keep a good sharp eye on any Ay-rabs they might run into. One stated that he no longer watches those videos because he had "already stored up enough hate to last a few lifetimes." One agreed with the preceding posters, but remarked that one should be circumspect in one's dealings with "those who have not taken on the role that we have," presumably meaning homemade homeland security ninja commandos.

Naturally I joined the thread promptly, and inquired whether it was characteristic of a "steely mind" to cultivate a generalized hatred of Arabs which would dull one's ability to distinguish friend from foe, and asked further whether they made similar efforts to keep a "sharp edge" when it came to spotting domestic enemies of liberty. The reaction was not very favorable, with several posters accusing me of "hijacking the thread," nicknaming me "Pudney" and other clever names (all involving "pud," for some reason). Gabe Suarez himself replied, indicating that any Muslim who doesn't want to be the enemy of Gabe Suarez had better demonstrate to his satisfaction that he isn't "with the terrorists." I asked him in turn whether he would agree folks taking a similar attitude to hispanics, requiring them to prove that they're not illegal immigrants or Aztlan invaders. I did my utmost to respond reasonably throughout the thread, but within a day I was greeted with this sight (misspellings and all):

Today's LRC Essay by Bill Bonner describes a boom-and-bust cycle that seems to operate independently of credit expansion. Namely, the tendency of farmers to overextend in response to good years, and then go bust. It seems to be driven at least partly by weather.

Admittedly, credit expansion could exacerbate this process by enabling farmers to overextend more than they otherwise could have.

Has this phenomenon been analyzed from an Austrian perspective?

--Len.

Reading a thread on another forum about an FBI report on armed assaults against police officers of all things. In it, a criminal is quoted as saying the following:


Call me a n00b, but I never fully appreciated before that the underworld is a full-fledged counter-economy, complete with a division of labor. You got your drug dealers, your breakers in, your illegal weapons dealers, and so on. So if you're a criminal, you would presumably subcontract criminal activities that are outside your area of expertise; similarly, arbitrageurs and middlemen would be expected to exist.

I wonder how thoroughly this has been studied from an economic (let alone an Austrian) perspective.

--Len.

Reading Massad Ayoob's columns and Boston T. Party's gun Bible, it seems a reasonable concern that if anyone ends up using deadly force against an assailant, he/she can expect, at least, to be thoroughly questioned by the police, and possibly charged with something. If that ever happens, one would want a good lawyer.

Since there are millions of people out there carrying, and a tiny fraction of them ever resort to deadly force, this seems like a situation tailor-made for insurance to cover lawyer's fees. Has anyone heard of such a thing? Or if not, does anyone know of similar arrangements that can be made directly with a defense attorney?

--Len.


Note: I own a 9mm handgun and intend to carry it after my permit is approved. I'm actually interested in such insurance, if it exists.