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Biden Blames Government’s Economic Failures on Big Business


covphotos198547

Biden continues to scapegoat American businesses for government-created problems. On Monday, President Joe Biden gave a public address during a meeting with his Competition Council, discussing an executive order he issued last July. Why now? Because inflation keeps getting worse, and the Biden administration needs somewhere to lay the blame.

Inflation has been hitting its highest levels in decades. In late December, for instance, gas prices were up 51 percent, beef prices up 20 percent, and furniture prices up 11 percent. Food prices are up. Clothing prices are up. Energy prices are up. Used car prices are up. Booze prices are up. And the list goes on.

Part of this can be blamed on the pandemic, which has contracted the labor force, increased demand for certain sorts of goods, and caused disruptions in supply chains.

But government policies have made things much worse. There’s been absolutely massive amounts of new government spending—and printing more money to pay for it. (The “supply of dollars has increased by nearly 40 percent over the past 2 years, which is an off-the-charts record,” Reason‘s Nick Gillespie noted in December.) Meanwhile, Biden and Democrats just keep trying to spend more.

While raising interest rates is traditionally a way to try and keep inflation in check, “America’s high levels of debt make the maneuver more fraught because higher interest rates will reverberate through the government’s own debt,” Eric Boehm points out.

Biden energy policies and the Trump tariffs he’s continued may also be worsening inflationary woes.

With Americans feeling the pinch of rising prices all around, Democrats have been looking for somewhere to lay the blame that doesn’t implicate their own policies. They’ve coalesced around blaming big businesses—a sort of “killing two birds with one stone” strategy.

Passing “antitrust” laws that give government regulators more control over tech companies and U.S. markets at large has been big on Democrats’ recent agenda. Blaming big businesses for inflation lends give a good cover to this push.

Rather than come across as control freaks who want a say in how all U.S. companies run, they feign concern for consumer welfare, asserting that lack of competition is what’s causing rising prices. “Lack of competition costs the median American family household… $5,000 a year,” claimed Biden on Monday.

Don’t buy it.

These type of claims are based more in politics than economic realities.

“As the president’s economic approval ratings slipped, his aides fielded increasingly alarmed messages from Democratic operatives urging the White House to adopt a new message on inflation,” The Washington Post reported earlier this month:

In November and December, at least four Democratic polling experts told senior White House officials that they needed to find a new approach as public frustration over price hikes became widespread and highly damaging to Biden’s popularity, according to three people with knowledge of the private conversations.

“What we said is, ‘You need a villain or an explanation for this. If you don’t provide one, voters will fill one in. The right is providing an explanation, which is that you’re spending too much,'” one Democratic pollster who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations, told The Washington Post. “That point finally became convincing to people in the White House.”

Corporate consolidation and corporate greed has become that villain. But economists across the spectrum are skeptical, including “some liberal economists in the administration’s orbit,” as the Post pointed out:

They point out that corporate consolidation is a phenomenon going back decades, so it is unlikely to explain this year’s sudden burst of inflation. …

“I don’t think corporate consolidation explains the jump in prices,” said Dean Baker, a liberal economist who endorsed Warren’s presidential candidacy in 2020. Baker said he had relayed this skepticism to the White House. “I don’t see a good story here in blaming inflation on concentration.”

Claudia Sahm, a liberal economist who worked at the Federal Reserve, added, “I don’t understand the strategy. It must have something to do with politics, but you’re not going to get many economists to back up the argument that it’s going to address inflation right now.”

The criticisms are even more pointed from less liberal economists. Larry Summers and Jason Furman, who both served in the Obama administration, have been dismissive of the notion that corporate consolidation explains the price hikes. But they said it makes sense for the administration to use price pressures to push their antitrust agenda.

This push was made clear by Biden’s meeting remarks yesterday. In addition to blaming businesses for rising prices, he touted his administration’s efforts to crack down on business mergers.

“Capitalism without competition is not capitalism. It’s exploitation,” he said.

Biden and his allies would like us to believe that only his preferred massive spending initiatives and economic policies can save Americans from rising prices. It may be good political messaging, but like so many American goods right now, the price of believing this is way too high.

FREE MINDS

Florida universities can’t bar professors from testifying in lawsuits against the state. A federal judge ruled against the University of Florida in a case brought by six professors at the school. “The stinging ruling, by Judge Mark E. Walker of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, accused the university of trying to silence the professors for fear that their testimony would anger state officials and legislators who control the school’s funding,” The New York Times reports.

“Judge Walker likened that to the decision last month by Hong Kong University to remove a 25-foot sculpture marking the 1989 massacre of student protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square by the Chinese military, apparently for fear of riling the authoritarian Chinese government. If the comparison distressed university officials, he wrote, ‘the solution is simple. Stop acting like your contemporaries in Hong Kong.'”

FREE MARKETS

Businesses in the Netherlands find a way around COVID-19 restrictions? Dutch museums and theaters—which are ordered to remain closed—”are temporarily turning themselves into hair salons and gyms to protest against what they say are unfair coronavirus measures,” Bloomberg reports. “The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is open to get a hair cut, and the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem is being used for gym classes.”

QUICK HITS

• The Supreme Court will take on race in college admissions in cases concerning Harvard and the University of North Carolina. “The case against Harvard accused it of discriminating against Asian American students by using a subjective standard to gauge traits like likability, courage and kindness and by effectively creating a ceiling for them in admissions,” notes The New York Times. “In the North Carolina case, the plaintiffs [say] the university discriminated against white and Asian applicants by giving preference to Black, Hispanic and Native American ones.”

• Prosecutors in Kansas are using a stand-your-ground law to shield juvenile detention center employees from prosecution in a case involving the death of a 17-year-old in their custody, Cedric Lofton. A lawyer for the boy’s family said the self-defense rationale makes no sense since the boy was unarmed and 135 pounds.

• President Joe Biden’s competition remarks yesterday weren’t all bad. For instance, he touted regulatory changes that allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter:

• Biden was overheard on a hot mic calling a reporter a “stupid son of a bitch.”

• An interesting new study looks at how declining U.S. mobility affects American culture in other ways:

• Fight Club gets a new ending:

• In Baldwin County, Alabama, people “are routinely forced to wear ankle monitors while out on bail even though they haven’t been convicted of crimes,” and pay $10 per day for these monitors, AL.com reports.

• New York’s statewide mask mandate has been struck down.

• A new bill in California would require all schoolchildren to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

• “A Wisconsin appeals court has temporarily blocked a judge’s order that would have banned the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the swing state,” reports NPR.

• “We talk a lot in my business about how younger, more diverse generations are changing politics and culture. But we often forget to think about the corollary: Older, Whiter generations disproportionately make up our workforce, and our customers,” writes The Washington Post‘s Megan McArdle. “If we don’t account for those generational effects when designing diversity initiatives, we’re setting ourselves up for frustration, or worse.”

The post Biden Blames Government's Economic Failures on Big Business appeared first on Reason.com.

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via IFTTT

Biden Blames Government’s Economic Failures on Big Business


covphotos198547

Biden continues to scapegoat American businesses for government-created problems. On Monday, President Joe Biden gave a public address during a meeting with his Competition Council, discussing an executive order he issued last July. Why now? Because inflation keeps getting worse, and the Biden administration needs somewhere to lay the blame.

Inflation has been hitting its highest levels in decades. In late December, for instance, gas prices were up 51 percent, beef prices up 20 percent, and furniture prices up 11 percent. Food prices are up. Clothing prices are up. Energy prices are up. Used car prices are up. Booze prices are up. And the list goes on.

Part of this can be blamed on the pandemic, which has contracted the labor force, increased demand for certain sorts of goods, and caused disruptions in supply chains.

But government policies have made things much worse. There’s been absolutely massive amounts of new government spending—and printing more money to pay for it. (The “supply of dollars has increased by nearly 40 percent over the past 2 years, which is an off-the-charts record,” Reason‘s Nick Gillespie noted in December.) Meanwhile, Biden and Democrats just keep trying to spend more.

While raising interest rates is traditionally a way to try and keep inflation in check, “America’s high levels of debt make the maneuver more fraught because higher interest rates will reverberate through the government’s own debt,” Eric Boehm points out.

Biden energy policies and the Trump tariffs he’s continued may also be worsening inflationary woes.

With Americans feeling the pinch of rising prices all around, Democrats have been looking for somewhere to lay the blame that doesn’t implicate their own policies. They’ve coalesced around blaming big businesses—a sort of “killing two birds with one stone” strategy.

Passing “antitrust” laws that give government regulators more control over tech companies and U.S. markets at large has been big on Democrats’ recent agenda. Blaming big businesses for inflation lends give a good cover to this push.

Rather than come across as control freaks who want a say in how all U.S. companies run, they feign concern for consumer welfare, asserting that lack of competition is what’s causing rising prices. “Lack of competition costs the median American family household… $5,000 a year,” claimed Biden on Monday.

Don’t buy it.

These type of claims are based more in politics than economic realities.

“As the president’s economic approval ratings slipped, his aides fielded increasingly alarmed messages from Democratic operatives urging the White House to adopt a new message on inflation,” The Washington Post reported earlier this month:

In November and December, at least four Democratic polling experts told senior White House officials that they needed to find a new approach as public frustration over price hikes became widespread and highly damaging to Biden’s popularity, according to three people with knowledge of the private conversations.

“What we said is, ‘You need a villain or an explanation for this. If you don’t provide one, voters will fill one in. The right is providing an explanation, which is that you’re spending too much,'” one Democratic pollster who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations, told The Washington Post. “That point finally became convincing to people in the White House.”

Corporate consolidation and corporate greed has become that villain. But economists across the spectrum are skeptical, including “some liberal economists in the administration’s orbit,” as the Post pointed out:

They point out that corporate consolidation is a phenomenon going back decades, so it is unlikely to explain this year’s sudden burst of inflation. …

“I don’t think corporate consolidation explains the jump in prices,” said Dean Baker, a liberal economist who endorsed Warren’s presidential candidacy in 2020. Baker said he had relayed this skepticism to the White House. “I don’t see a good story here in blaming inflation on concentration.”

Claudia Sahm, a liberal economist who worked at the Federal Reserve, added, “I don’t understand the strategy. It must have something to do with politics, but you’re not going to get many economists to back up the argument that it’s going to address inflation right now.”

The criticisms are even more pointed from less liberal economists. Larry Summers and Jason Furman, who both served in the Obama administration, have been dismissive of the notion that corporate consolidation explains the price hikes. But they said it makes sense for the administration to use price pressures to push their antitrust agenda.

This push was made clear by Biden’s meeting remarks yesterday. In addition to blaming businesses for rising prices, he touted his administration’s efforts to crack down on business mergers.

“Capitalism without competition is not capitalism. It’s exploitation,” he said.

Biden and his allies would like us to believe that only his preferred massive spending initiatives and economic policies can save Americans from rising prices. It may be good political messaging, but like so many American goods right now, the price of believing this is way too high.

FREE MINDS

Florida universities can’t bar professors from testifying in lawsuits against the state. A federal judge ruled against the University of Florida in a case brought by six professors at the school. “The stinging ruling, by Judge Mark E. Walker of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, accused the university of trying to silence the professors for fear that their testimony would anger state officials and legislators who control the school’s funding,” The New York Times reports.

“Judge Walker likened that to the decision last month by Hong Kong University to remove a 25-foot sculpture marking the 1989 massacre of student protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square by the Chinese military, apparently for fear of riling the authoritarian Chinese government. If the comparison distressed university officials, he wrote, ‘the solution is simple. Stop acting like your contemporaries in Hong Kong.'”

FREE MARKETS

Businesses in the Netherlands find a way around COVID-19 restrictions? Dutch museums and theaters—which are ordered to remain closed—”are temporarily turning themselves into hair salons and gyms to protest against what they say are unfair coronavirus measures,” Bloomberg reports. “The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is open to get a hair cut, and the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem is being used for gym classes.”

QUICK HITS

• The Supreme Court will take on race in college admissions in cases concerning Harvard and the University of North Carolina. “The case against Harvard accused it of discriminating against Asian American students by using a subjective standard to gauge traits like likability, courage and kindness and by effectively creating a ceiling for them in admissions,” notes The New York Times. “In the North Carolina case, the plaintiffs [say] the university discriminated against white and Asian applicants by giving preference to Black, Hispanic and Native American ones.”

• Prosecutors in Kansas are using a stand-your-ground law to shield juvenile detention center employees from prosecution in a case involving the death of a 17-year-old in their custody, Cedric Lofton. A lawyer for the boy’s family said the self-defense rationale makes no sense since the boy was unarmed and 135 pounds.

• President Joe Biden’s competition remarks yesterday weren’t all bad. For instance, he touted regulatory changes that allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter:

• Biden was overheard on a hot mic calling a reporter a “stupid son of a bitch.”

• An interesting new study looks at how declining U.S. mobility affects American culture in other ways:

• Fight Club gets a new ending:

• In Baldwin County, Alabama, people “are routinely forced to wear ankle monitors while out on bail even though they haven’t been convicted of crimes,” and pay $10 per day for these monitors, AL.com reports.

• New York’s statewide mask mandate has been struck down.

• A new bill in California would require all schoolchildren to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

• “A Wisconsin appeals court has temporarily blocked a judge’s order that would have banned the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the swing state,” reports NPR.

• “We talk a lot in my business about how younger, more diverse generations are changing politics and culture. But we often forget to think about the corollary: Older, Whiter generations disproportionately make up our workforce, and our customers,” writes The Washington Post‘s Megan McArdle. “If we don’t account for those generational effects when designing diversity initiatives, we’re setting ourselves up for frustration, or worse.”

The post Biden Blames Government's Economic Failures on Big Business appeared first on Reason.com.

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Authoritarian Governments Ban Bitcoin Mining. The U.S. Shouldn’t Join Them.


bitcoinmining_1161x653

If you are a government that wants to stop bitcoin, what can you do? Can you make people think it is killing the planet?

Authoritarian governments try. The Chinese Communist Party—ever the tree-huggers—clamped down on cryptocurrency last year in part because of environmental concerns. Russia is entertaining major controls on cryptocurrency because of the supposed threats to financial stability and Mother Earth. Both countries have been major mining centers, so energy usage is a convenient scapegoat to justify doing away with something that is good for the people but bad for the ruling party.

The United States leads the world in bitcoin mining. America absorbed many of the miners who fled the Chinese crackdown. We should expect Russian miners to tag along if their government follows through on these threats.

Is Uncle Sam far behind? Last week, a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a troubling hearing called “Cleaning Up Cryptocurrency: the Energy Impacts of Blockchains.” As the title indicates, the ruling party sees bitcoin’s energy use as a problem to be solved rather than an input to a liberating technology.

The politicians at the hearing might not have known much about bitcoin mining, but most of them know they don’t like it. For example, Rep. Frank Pallone intoned that “we cannot bring retired fossil fuel plants back online or delay the retirement of some of our oldest and least efficient plants in support of energy-intensive crypto mining.”

This is a bizarre statement to make about bitcoin mining considering that roughly two-thirds of its energy inputs come from sustainable power sources. (The United States as a whole boasts half as much).

Anyway, bitcoin mining constitutes some 188 terawatt-hours of the world’s 154,620 terawatt-hours, a measly 0.12 percent. Is this really our most pressing energy concern, or might there be ulterior motives?

Bitcoin allows peer-to-peer exchange by replacing a third party like a bank with a decentralized network of validators, called miners. Miners contribute computing power to run the network using a technique called “proof of work” (POW). They are incentivized to contribute as much energy as possible so they have the highest chance of receiving new currency units. The lower the energy cost, the higher the profit for individual miners. More total energy, or a higher “hashrate,” means fewer backlogs and a stronger network.

Is bitcoin mining economically efficient or wasteful? That depends on a concept called opportunity cost, or the value of the most highly valued alternative forgone. What are miners giving up to give energy to bitcoin? The great thing about mining is the prices are clear and the market is competitive. Miners have made an economic calculation that this is the most valuable thing on which they can expend energy—if it wasn’t, they would be losing money by not putting their energy elsewhere. Even better for us, that “thing” is good for society, too.

“Using energy” is value neutral. If we use energy to save lives or improve standards of living, that is a good thing. If we use energy to destroy wealth or immiserate others, that is a bad thing. Bitcoin improves lives by giving people access to a financial system without inflation, confiscation, or control. It is good that we expend energy to give people this freedom.

As with most debates over bitcoin, the topic of mining and the environment had been hashed out and settled over a decade ago. As Satoshi himself put it in 2010: “The utility of the exchanges made possible by Bitcoin will far exceed the cost of electricity used. Therefore, not having Bitcoin would be the net waste.”

But many bitcoin critics don’t think financial freedom is good. Any amount of energy we use on bitcoin is therefore bad. But it does not sound great to say you don’t think people should be able to save their wealth or freely transact. So they will disingenuously point to bitcoin’s energy expenditures as a problem in itself.

It is not surprising to see government agents take this approach. But it is very disappointing to see members of the cryptocurrency community promote bad energy rhetoric to tilt the policy field in their favor.

This is the unfortunate tack chosen by some advocates for a consensus mechanism called “proof of stake.” POS systems do not operate as a blind energy lottery like bitcoin does. Rather, the network is maintained by the people who own the most coins on the system. The theory is that stakeholders do not have an incentive to undermine their own network and therefore their own net worth.

POS advocates, like one of the witnesses at the hearing, maintain that POS systems are better for the environment and therefore superior to bitcoin. The implication, sometimes openly stated, is that POW systems like bitcoin should be suppressed or manipulated into adopting a POS model.

But everything has a cost. POS systems are more susceptible to capture by insiders. They may have an incentive to not completely tank the network, but they could make changes to benefit themselves in subtle ways. In that regard, POS systems do not sound so different from the dominant monetary mechanics we live with today. With a POW system, energy usage is protective against such insider subversion.

Perhaps POS systems can overcome these vulnerabilities. But if they do become dominant, it shouldn’t be because POS advocates convinced the government to clamp down on POW competitors. All those who care about cryptocurrency and freedom should condemn such attacks as they arise.

If we don’t, we could one day see a bitcoin mining “ban,” with American characteristics. The U.S. may not outright prohibit the use or validation of cryptocurrency networks. Rather, it could promote POS systems and engage in public campaigns against POW systems like bitcoin. It could lean on regulated entities and investors to favor POS systems over POW. It could pass environmental, social, and, governance rules that are de facto anti-bitcoin. No one is “banning” cryptocurrency! We are just “nudging” society to make the “green” choice.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Bitcoin would be fine, and miners would move to more hospitable countries. Some of them would stay in the U.S. too, as have the underground miners back in China. But the U.S. would miss out on an incredible opportunity to build a fast growth industry that is good for America and all people who want to use this technology for freedom.

Bitcoin critics don’t have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to mining and energy. Bitcoin mining is efficient, allows energy companies to limit waste, and is far more sustainable than other uses of energy.

But we shouldn’t allow ourselves to get lost in arguing over these weeds. Bitcoin is a good thing, and it’s good that we spend energy on it. We don’t have to apologize for freedom.

The post Authoritarian Governments Ban Bitcoin Mining. The U.S. Shouldn't Join Them. appeared first on Reason.com.

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Authoritarian Governments Ban Bitcoin Mining. The U.S. Shouldn’t Join Them.


bitcoinmining_1161x653

If you are a government that wants to stop bitcoin, what can you do? Can you make people think it is killing the planet?

Authoritarian governments try. The Chinese Communist Party—ever the tree-huggers—clamped down on cryptocurrency last year in part because of environmental concerns. Russia is entertaining major controls on cryptocurrency because of the supposed threats to financial stability and Mother Earth. Both countries have been major mining centers, so energy usage is a convenient scapegoat to justify doing away with something that is good for the people but bad for the ruling party.

The United States leads the world in bitcoin mining. America absorbed many of the miners who fled the Chinese crackdown. We should expect Russian miners to tag along if their government follows through on these threats.

Is Uncle Sam far behind? Last week, a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a troubling hearing called “Cleaning Up Cryptocurrency: the Energy Impacts of Blockchains.” As the title indicates, the ruling party sees bitcoin’s energy use as a problem to be solved rather than an input to a liberating technology.

The politicians at the hearing might not have known much about bitcoin mining, but most of them know they don’t like it. For example, Rep. Frank Pallone intoned that “we cannot bring retired fossil fuel plants back online or delay the retirement of some of our oldest and least efficient plants in support of energy-intensive crypto mining.”

This is a bizarre statement to make about bitcoin mining considering that roughly two-thirds of its energy inputs come from sustainable power sources. (The United States as a whole boasts half as much).

Anyway, bitcoin mining constitutes some 188 terawatt-hours of the world’s 154,620 terawatt-hours, a measly 0.12 percent. Is this really our most pressing energy concern, or might there be ulterior motives?

Bitcoin allows peer-to-peer exchange by replacing a third party like a bank with a decentralized network of validators, called miners. Miners contribute computing power to run the network using a technique called “proof of work” (POW). They are incentivized to contribute as much energy as possible so they have the highest chance of receiving new currency units. The lower the energy cost, the higher the profit for individual miners. More total energy, or a higher “hashrate,” means fewer backlogs and a stronger network.

Is bitcoin mining economically efficient or wasteful? That depends on a concept called opportunity cost, or the value of the most highly valued alternative forgone. What are miners giving up to give energy to bitcoin? The great thing about mining is the prices are clear and the market is competitive. Miners have made an economic calculation that this is the most valuable thing on which they can expend energy—if it wasn’t, they would be losing money by not putting their energy elsewhere. Even better for us, that “thing” is good for society, too.

“Using energy” is value neutral. If we use energy to save lives or improve standards of living, that is a good thing. If we use energy to destroy wealth or immiserate others, that is a bad thing. Bitcoin improves lives by giving people access to a financial system without inflation, confiscation, or control. It is good that we expend energy to give people this freedom.

As with most debates over bitcoin, the topic of mining and the environment had been hashed out and settled over a decade ago. As Satoshi himself put it in 2010: “The utility of the exchanges made possible by Bitcoin will far exceed the cost of electricity used. Therefore, not having Bitcoin would be the net waste.”

But many bitcoin critics don’t think financial freedom is good. Any amount of energy we use on bitcoin is therefore bad. But it does not sound great to say you don’t think people should be able to save their wealth or freely transact. So they will disingenuously point to bitcoin’s energy expenditures as a problem in itself.

It is not surprising to see government agents take this approach. But it is very disappointing to see members of the cryptocurrency community promote bad energy rhetoric to tilt the policy field in their favor.

This is the unfortunate tack chosen by some advocates for a consensus mechanism called “proof of stake.” POS systems do not operate as a blind energy lottery like bitcoin does. Rather, the network is maintained by the people who own the most coins on the system. The theory is that stakeholders do not have an incentive to undermine their own network and therefore their own net worth.

POS advocates, like one of the witnesses at the hearing, maintain that POS systems are better for the environment and therefore superior to bitcoin. The implication, sometimes openly stated, is that POW systems like bitcoin should be suppressed or manipulated into adopting a POS model.

But everything has a cost. POS systems are more susceptible to capture by insiders. They may have an incentive to not completely tank the network, but they could make changes to benefit themselves in subtle ways. In that regard, POS systems do not sound so different from the dominant monetary mechanics we live with today. With a POW system, energy usage is protective against such insider subversion.

Perhaps POS systems can overcome these vulnerabilities. But if they do become dominant, it shouldn’t be because POS advocates convinced the government to clamp down on POW competitors. All those who care about cryptocurrency and freedom should condemn such attacks as they arise.

If we don’t, we could one day see a bitcoin mining “ban,” with American characteristics. The U.S. may not outright prohibit the use or validation of cryptocurrency networks. Rather, it could promote POS systems and engage in public campaigns against POW systems like bitcoin. It could lean on regulated entities and investors to favor POS systems over POW. It could pass environmental, social, and, governance rules that are de facto anti-bitcoin. No one is “banning” cryptocurrency! We are just “nudging” society to make the “green” choice.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Bitcoin would be fine, and miners would move to more hospitable countries. Some of them would stay in the U.S. too, as have the underground miners back in China. But the U.S. would miss out on an incredible opportunity to build a fast growth industry that is good for America and all people who want to use this technology for freedom.

Bitcoin critics don’t have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to mining and energy. Bitcoin mining is efficient, allows energy companies to limit waste, and is far more sustainable than other uses of energy.

But we shouldn’t allow ourselves to get lost in arguing over these weeds. Bitcoin is a good thing, and it’s good that we spend energy on it. We don’t have to apologize for freedom.

The post Authoritarian Governments Ban Bitcoin Mining. The U.S. Shouldn't Join Them. appeared first on Reason.com.

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The Right to Defy Criminal Demands: The Heckler’s Veto

I’ve just finished up a rough draft of my The Right to Defy Criminal Demands article, and I thought I’d serialize it here, minus most of the footnotes (which you can see in the full PDF). I’d love to hear people’s reactions and recommendations, since there’s still plenty of time to edit it. You can also be previous posts (and any future posts, as they come up), here.

[* * *]

It is generally a crime—disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct—to engage in offensive behavior “tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others” in public. Police officers thus generally have the power to order people to stop such behavior, in order to prevent a fight.

This is the font of the “fighting words” doctrine, which allows people to be punished for personal insults that tend to lead to a fight. The Court has famously held that such “epithets [and] personal abuse” are constitutionally unprotected, because they both “tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” and “are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”

But the logic of the disturbing-the-peace theory could also apply to any speech that people find offensive enough to threaten a fight over, including political or religious speech that doesn’t include personal insults—for instance, sharp criticisms of Islam at an Arab International Festival, which led to audience members “throwing plastic bottles and other debris.” This in turn sometimes leads police officers to order the speakers to stop, on the theory that “you are a danger to public safety right now”: “your conduct especially is causing this disturbance and it is a direct threat to the safety of everyone here”; “part of the reason they throw this stuff … is that you tell them stuff that enrages them.” “If you don’t leave we’re gonna cite you for disorderly.”

But courts have generally rejected this latter theory, on the grounds that the theory would wrongly implement a “heckler’s veto”:

[P]olice cannot punish a peaceful speaker as an easy alternative to dealing with a lawless crowd that is offended by what the speaker has to say. Because the “right ‘peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’ is specifically protected by the First Amendment,” the espousal of views that are disagreeable to the majority of listeners may at times “necessitate police protection.” … [T]he natural order of law enforcement and crime mitigation are not upended simply because community hostility makes it easier to act against the speaker rather than the individuals actually breaking the law; this is true when it appears that a crowd may turn to rioting, or even in the face of actual violence that was indiscriminately directed.[1]

“If the speaker, at his or her own risk, chooses to continue exercising the constitutional right to freedom of speech, he or she may do so without fear of retribution from the state, for the speaker is not the one threatening to breach the peace or break the law,” at least unless the police are overwhelmed by a hostile crowd. The speaker is free to defy the hecklers’ threats, even when such defiance may lead to attacks, fights, and the need for more police protection.

And the rationale for such protection stems not just from the particular speaker’s free speech rights, but also from a desire to protect other speakers in the future:

It does not take much to see why law enforcement is principally required to protect lawful speakers over and above law-breakers. If a different rule prevailed, this would simply allow for a heckler’s veto under more extreme conditions. Indeed, hecklers would be incentivized to get really rowdy, because at that point the target of their ire could be silenced.

Here we see what is perhaps the most forceful form of the right of defiance—a right secured as a constitutional matter, as a facet of the First Amendment, rather than just as a common-law right in the negligence and nuisance cases.

[1] Bible Believers v. Wayne County, 805 F.3d 228, 250–51 (6th Cir. 2015) (en banc).

The post The Right to Defy Criminal Demands: The Heckler's Veto appeared first on Reason.com.

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The Right to Defy Criminal Demands: The Heckler’s Veto

I’ve just finished up a rough draft of my The Right to Defy Criminal Demands article, and I thought I’d serialize it here, minus most of the footnotes (which you can see in the full PDF). I’d love to hear people’s reactions and recommendations, since there’s still plenty of time to edit it. You can also be previous posts (and any future posts, as they come up), here.

[* * *]

It is generally a crime—disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct—to engage in offensive behavior “tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others” in public. Police officers thus generally have the power to order people to stop such behavior, in order to prevent a fight.

This is the font of the “fighting words” doctrine, which allows people to be punished for personal insults that tend to lead to a fight. The Court has famously held that such “epithets [and] personal abuse” are constitutionally unprotected, because they both “tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” and “are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”

But the logic of the disturbing-the-peace theory could also apply to any speech that people find offensive enough to threaten a fight over, including political or religious speech that doesn’t include personal insults—for instance, sharp criticisms of Islam at an Arab International Festival, which led to audience members “throwing plastic bottles and other debris.” This in turn sometimes leads police officers to order the speakers to stop, on the theory that “you are a danger to public safety right now”: “your conduct especially is causing this disturbance and it is a direct threat to the safety of everyone here”; “part of the reason they throw this stuff … is that you tell them stuff that enrages them.” “If you don’t leave we’re gonna cite you for disorderly.”

But courts have generally rejected this latter theory, on the grounds that the theory would wrongly implement a “heckler’s veto”:

[P]olice cannot punish a peaceful speaker as an easy alternative to dealing with a lawless crowd that is offended by what the speaker has to say. Because the “right ‘peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’ is specifically protected by the First Amendment,” the espousal of views that are disagreeable to the majority of listeners may at times “necessitate police protection.” … [T]he natural order of law enforcement and crime mitigation are not upended simply because community hostility makes it easier to act against the speaker rather than the individuals actually breaking the law; this is true when it appears that a crowd may turn to rioting, or even in the face of actual violence that was indiscriminately directed.[1]

“If the speaker, at his or her own risk, chooses to continue exercising the constitutional right to freedom of speech, he or she may do so without fear of retribution from the state, for the speaker is not the one threatening to breach the peace or break the law,” at least unless the police are overwhelmed by a hostile crowd. The speaker is free to defy the hecklers’ threats, even when such defiance may lead to attacks, fights, and the need for more police protection.

And the rationale for such protection stems not just from the particular speaker’s free speech rights, but also from a desire to protect other speakers in the future:

It does not take much to see why law enforcement is principally required to protect lawful speakers over and above law-breakers. If a different rule prevailed, this would simply allow for a heckler’s veto under more extreme conditions. Indeed, hecklers would be incentivized to get really rowdy, because at that point the target of their ire could be silenced.

Here we see what is perhaps the most forceful form of the right of defiance—a right secured as a constitutional matter, as a facet of the First Amendment, rather than just as a common-law right in the negligence and nuisance cases.

[1] Bible Believers v. Wayne County, 805 F.3d 228, 250–51 (6th Cir. 2015) (en banc).

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Today in Supreme Court History: January 25, 1819

1/25/1819: Thomas Jefferson charters the University of Virginia. 176 years later, the Supreme Court would decide Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995).

The Rehnquist Court

 

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Today in Supreme Court History: January 25, 1819

1/25/1819: Thomas Jefferson charters the University of Virginia. 176 years later, the Supreme Court would decide Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995).

The Rehnquist Court

 

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Photo: Little Amal, World Traveler


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From July to November 2021, an 11-foot puppet named Little Amal traversed eight countries and 65 towns and cities to raise awareness of refugee rights and celebrate human migration. A project of the Handspring Puppet Company and Good Chance Theatre, Little Amal, whose name means hope in Arabic, represented a 9-year-old Syrian refugee girl. Little Amal’s travels began on the Syria-Turkey border and ended in Manchester, England. She was received with warmth and vitriol alike. In Rome, she met the Pope. In Greece, protesters pelted her with stones.

The post Photo: Little Amal, World Traveler appeared first on Reason.com.

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Photo: Little Amal, World Traveler


topicsphotos

From July to November 2021, an 11-foot puppet named Little Amal traversed eight countries and 65 towns and cities to raise awareness of refugee rights and celebrate human migration. A project of the Handspring Puppet Company and Good Chance Theatre, Little Amal, whose name means hope in Arabic, represented a 9-year-old Syrian refugee girl. Little Amal’s travels began on the Syria-Turkey border and ended in Manchester, England. She was received with warmth and vitriol alike. In Rome, she met the Pope. In Greece, protesters pelted her with stones.

The post Photo: Little Amal, World Traveler appeared first on Reason.com.

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