Forget the Tea Party, I Want to Start the Lemonade Party

It's a horrifying development that one of the themes of the Summer of 2011 is the ongoing war being waged by local municipalities all across the US against kids and their lemonade stands. It's a regular occurrence to see outraged links to these news stories in my twitter and facebook feeds.

Over at Josh Blackman's Blog, he has a nice little post about a recent NPR opinion piece on the topic, which I recommend you check out. He starts out:

When NPR has an opinion piece in favor of the right to earn an honest living–let the kids have lemonade stands!–you know the statists went too far.

The NPR piece itself neatly captures the essence of the issue in its opening line:

If lemonade stands are symbols of the American dream, and if lemonade stands are under attack in the United States, then the American dream is under attack.

To be more specific, the lemonade stand issue represents the American dream under a 3-pronged attack by statists at all levels of government:

1. The ongoing erosion of Property Rights. A person has the right to use & dispose of his property as he sees fit, provided he does not violate the rights of others in so doing. If a person wants to invite others onto his front lawn for the purpose of selling them lemonade, its his right. For the police to show up, and prevent this harmless activity from taking place, is pure thuggery. The police officers who enforce these laws should be ashamed of themselves, and don't give me any of that 'he's just doing his job' crap.
   
   Let me say it again in a bigger font:
   
   The police officers who enforce these laws should be ashamed of themselves.
   
   
2. Denial of the Right to Contract. Parties have an absolute right to voluntarily enter into mutually beneficial agreements of their own choosing. If I have lemonade to sell, and you're a willing buyer, there is no proper role for government in initiating force against us to prevent the sale. Of course, you have the right to ask me all kinds of questions about the quality of my product, and even sue me in court if I misrepresent what I'm selling you. But, as long as the transaction is purely voluntary, the initiation of force by any outside party, government or otherwise, to prevent it, is immoral. Ayn Rand identified this concept as:
   
   The Trader Principle.
   
   
3. Attack on individuals' Right to Earn a Living.  Ever heard of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? Ever thought about what that really means, in a practical, nuts-and-bolts way? I think most people hear this well-worn phrase and picture, in a very lofty and abstract way, that America was founded as the place where you could follow your dream and do whatever you want to with your life. This is certainly true, but try thinking about it in a more concrete way. How about: A person has a moral right to earn an honest living by the means of his own choosing.
   
   How about one more time, with feeling:
   
   A person has a moral right to earn an honest living by the means of his own choosing.
   
   Of course, this concept has been completely turned on its ear these days. The slew of regulations, at multiple levels of government, that act as barriers to entry for new businesses don't just prevent new businesses from opening. They kill peoples' dreams. They prevent people from earning an honest living by the means of their own choosing. If you think that those regulations are actually necessary to prevent people from harming each other, I would refer you to point #2 above. The vast majority of regulation today is simple denial of the Right to Contract in the interest of furthering some political ends. I think that formulation deserves a Big Font, too.
   
   The vast majority of regulation today is simple denial of the Right to Contract, in the interest of furthering some political ends.

I think that today, the most critically abused aspects of Individual Rights are these three. The War on Lemonade Stands is a horrific encapsulation of what goes on every day, at all scales, when government oversteps its proper role of protecting our rights, and instead becomes the violator of our rights.

Although the Tea Party movement had its origins in a reaction to government abuses not unlike those described above, I and many others fear it will be (or has been?) co-opted by the Religious Right and their anti-Individual-Rights social agenda. Of course, the only real way to combat government intrusion is a robust, moral defense of Individual Rights, which the Tea Party has yet to embrace, and which is largely antithetical to any mainstream political thinking today.

I say forget the Tea Party, let's start the Lemonade Party! And while most appeals to take action 'for the children' make me retch, this is one I could actually get behind and advocate for.

Do it for the children!

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Update: 7/20/11

It looks like it's on! Turns out that Judy over at Consent of the Governed wrote this piece with much the same sentiment, and suggested August 20 as Lemonade for Freedom Day. Robert Fernandes has created a website called lemonadefreedom.com and facebook event page, and word is getting out. This is great!

Please help spread the word!

My Letter in Opposition to AB48

I saw this item in my twittter and facebook feeds this morning:

@Rob_Abiera:  An End To Flight Instructors http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=27353 Excellent comments.

Apparently the State of California has unleashed a whole new bunch of regulations and fees on private flight schools in response to the bankruptcy of one such enterprise and the (apparently) fraudulent loss of up-front fees paid by students. 

In typical fashion, this was stealthily smuggled into the somewhat routine re-authorization of an existing bill, and the flight instructors and schools were caught completely off-guard.  

They are now trying to play catch-up and salvage what they can of their livelihoods, before they are driven completely out of business (or out of state) by the onerous fees. I wrote the following to my representatives in Sacramento, and to Governor Arnold, this morning.

Dear _______,

This is in response to AB-48 which was passed and signed into law last year.  This bill imposed new regulations and fees on private flight schools in California.  Apparently this was done in response to the bankruptcy of Silver State Helicopters and subsequent loss of up-front tuition paid by students.

The proper response to a case of apparent fraud such as this, no matter how large, no matter how many victims, is to prosecute it vigorously as a case of fraud. 

It is horribly unjust to sanction an entire industry, simply because of the fraudulent actions of one party.  To do so is, in effect, to declare them all guilty.  The only people or corporations who should be the object of government action are those who have been proven guilty, in  a court of law, of a specific crime against another.  The idea that government is legitimate in taking regulatory action against innocent businesses, who have done nothing wrong, is the complete inversion of the American concept of 'innocent until proven guilty'.

The proper legislative response, if any, would be to examine the laws around fraud that exist already, in an attempt to determine if there are any legitimate failings, loopholes, or other weaknesses in the law, which might create difficulties for the investigation and prosecution of actual fraud.

Many flight schools will be forced to close as a result of this bill.  That this sort of action, which will cost hundreds of good jobs, and destroy the hard work and dreams of many individuals, is perpetrated by the State of California on its citizens during the worst econonomic downturn since the Great Depression, speaks to the viciousness of those in power.

This bill will do nothing to protect the innocent from the unscrupulous, and will only make it harder for honest, hard working people to puruse their own happiness.

I urge that this action be repealed immediately.

Sincerely,

Upcoming Raw Milk Event at Figueroa Produce

I just found out that there will be a special educational event on raw milk this week at Figueroa Produce.  I shop there often, and wrote a separate post about them here.  You can check out their website here.

The event will feature a powerpoint presentation by Mark McAfee, founder of Organic Pastures Dairy Company.  The event is free and will feature free samples.  Here is the info from the flyer at the store:

Location: Figueroa Produce Market, 6312 North Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Phone:  323-255-FOOD (3663)
Date:  May 5th, 2010 (Wednesday)
Time: 5:00 p.m.

Come learn how to build and nourish your immune system through raw milk!  Share the Secret is an exciting Raw Milk educational outreach program provided free to the public by Organic Pastures Dairy company and its founder Mark McAfee.

Share the Secret combines colorful power-point presentation, free raw milk samples and high energy speaking...to enlighten and inform.  Armed with the truth and knowledge your health will never be the same again.  Join the 50,000 raw milk consumers in CA that have made this choice and have never looked back.

I have purchased Organic Pastures raw milk on more than one occasion, and found it incredibly wholesome and delicious.  Raw milk advocates argue that it is healthier than regular milk, and that it contains beneficial nutrients and properties that are destroyed in the processing that regular commercial milk undergoes. 

Currently, the FDA seems to have stepped up its war against raw milk producers.  The truth is that individuals are capable of making their own choices about what is good for them and what is not, and they (we) have the right to make such decisions for ourselves, and we have the right to buy from and sell to each other freely, by mutual consent and to mutual advantage, without government intervention or coercion.  The FDA is in violation of these rights when it seeks to ban products like raw milk from the marketplace (in fact, the FDA is in violation of these rights by its very existence.)

Also, consider that regular milk can be produced under unsanitary conditions that make it drinkable only after it has been processed; whereas raw milk can only be successfully produced and sold under extremely sanitary and healthful conditions (otherwise, you would open the bottle, take a whiff of the contents, and promptly empty it down the drain.)  I'm not saying that all regular milk is produced under unsanitary conditions, but is does give one pause to consider the implications of this difference.

I'm looking forward to the presentation, and will give a full report here at C of P next week!

Environmental Envy: The Manhatta Project

New York City stands today as the crowning achievement of Western Civilization.  It’s population density of 71,201 residents per square mile is only possible because of the technologies of modern life.  The City’s rise to a global metropolis, housing and sustaining millions of people, in such density, in a relatively high level of comfort, would be a complete shock to the Europeans who settled there in the early 17th Century.

Recently, the Wildlife Conservation Society unveiled The Manhatta Project, led by Dr. Eric Sanderson.  They had undertaken a 10-year study to re-create Manhattan as it existed in its wilderness state, prior to its relatively rapid conversion to the thriving metropolis of New York.  Their results are presented on their website, or you can buy the book.

This project immediately begs the question: What’s the point of trying to figure all this out?  Why go to all the trouble to spend 10 years reconstructing a pre-civilized Manhattan, their “Manhatta”?  Surely there must be many other places where they could study the primitive coastal ecology of the Mid-Atlantic region, where they wouldn’t have to go to nearly so much trouble.  Why choose the one location that is the most highly developed of all possible locations, to fixate on the stark contrast between the undeveloped and the developed?  This last phrasing of the question answers itself.

In fact, this type of investigation - the recreation of a pre-civilized Manhattan -  is completly consistent with the view of environmentalism presented by Craig Biddle, over at The Objective Standard:

The basic principle of environmentalism is that nature (i.e., “the environment”) has intrinsic value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of the requirements of human life—and that this value must be protected from its only adversary: man. Rivers must be left free to flow unimpeded by human dams, which divert natural flows, alter natural landscapes, and disrupt wildlife habitats. Glaciers must be left free to grow or shrink according to natural causes, but any human activity that might affect their size must be prohibited. Naturally generated carbon dioxide (such as that emitted by oceans and volcanoes) and naturally generated methane (such as that emitted by swamps and termites) may contribute to the greenhouse effect, but such gasses must not be produced by man. The globe may warm or cool naturally (e.g., via increases or decreases in sunspot activity), but man must not do anything to affect its temperature.

From this perspective, it makes perfect sense that the environmentalists would go to all this effort to present a detailed image of the erasure New York City, and of all it represents:  the crowning achievement of the most technologically advanced civilization to have ever existed.

What do they say about their motives?  From their own website:

But why go through so much trouble to find out such detailed information about natural features that are long gone? Well, as you may have guessed, we at the Wildlife Conservation Society are interested inconserving [sic] wildlife. We know that many animal species are faltering because humans have taken over what was once wildlife habitat, converting it to cities, suburbs, farms, roads, mining operations, and other human-dominated landscapes. Of all of these types of development, cities are the most efficient at housing people. That is, cities concentrate people into a relatively small area instead of spreading them across the landscape. From a wildlife conservation perspective, that makes cities the best option for housing people. With more and more of the human population moving to cities, with several mega-cities of 10 million people or more on the horizon, and with a growing urban sprawl development pattern in the USA and elsewhere, we realize that we have the opportunity to “do” cities a better way . . . minimizing sprawl development between cities where the ecological gems, the “Mannahattas” of today, currently reside.

So, the project is aimed at coming up with new arguments for why human progress should be stopped: why "cities, suburbs, farms, roads, mining operations, and other human-dominated landscapes" should be prevented from being built.  This is what they mean by “minimizing sprawl development.”  (Sprawl is a myth, but that is another essay.)

The lesson is:  Look how great “Manhatta” used to be, before the civilized Europeans fouled it all up.  You humans should just be concentrated in cities, and all land-use decisions will be based on what’s best for the animals who live there now.

And again:

This is not merely an academic flight of fancy. Rather, . . . we will learn how to create cities that are more “livable” for people.

The Mannahatta Project began a decade ago, when landscape ecologist Dr. Eric Sanderson, a native Californian, moved to New York City to work for the world famous Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo. Dr. Sanderson realized that, to fully appreciate the concrete landscape of streets and buildings that was his new home, he would have to “go back in time” to recreate the its ecology from the “ground up.”

I would suggest a different type of historical analysis by which one could undertake to better appreciate the urban landscape of New York, which might also shed some light on the types of innovations that would make the cities of the future "more 'livable' for people".

How about an historical search for the inventors of those things and processes that made the construction of the city possible: of Bessemer’s steel; of Otis’ revolutionary elevator; of Eiffel and his mastery of structural steel engineering; of John Smeaton, the first civil engineer and an early pioneer of modern concrete; of Pilkington and the Float Glass Process.  Or how about all the untold engineers, surveyors, and builders who enabled the rugged, untamed landscape to be civilized and built upon.  What of the thousands of inventors and innvoators who created devices and refinements based on the ground-breaking work of these great men, without any of which the city would have certainly been very different than it turned out to be, if not impossible altogether.

To ignore all of these great men and the technologies they invented - all, one way or another, in the name of human comfort -- and instead spend 10 years in search of a pre-civilized “Manhatta”, denuded of all traces of Modern Civilization, and then claim that this study is for the purpose of discovering “how to make cities more appealing to people” is a terrible injustice, and an insult to the efforts of these great geniuses.

In The Return of the Primitive,  Ayn Rand defined ‘envy’ as “the hatred of the good for being the good.”  The Manhatta Project illustrates the anti-civilizaton, anti-man agenda of the environmental movement as what can only be defined as “environmental envy”.

On April 22, I will be celebrating Exploit the Earth Day.  I will spend the day reading about and toasting the achievements of the Great Ones whose hard work has enabled the transformation of vast wilderness areas into our thriving, comfortable, modern society. 

I encourage you to do the same.

I Passed My CSE!

I have hit a major milestone.  Last Saturday I got the letter.

"Congratulations.  You have successfully completed your recent California Supplemental Examination with the California Architects Board.  Enclosed is an Application for Licensure."

Then, further down the page:

"As a reminder, pursuant to Business and Professions Code section 5336(a) you may not represent to the public that you are an architect, put out any device that might indicate to the public that you are qualified to engage in the practice of architecture, or perform any architectural services in California until you are licensed by this Board.  A violation of this section is a misdemeanor."

So, as it turns out, after all the years of school and internships, after passing the 9 exams administered by NCARB, and finally passing the CSE (also known as the Oral Exam, because it consists of being grilled by a panel of 3 architects for roughly 2 hours) I am still not qualified to practice architecture.  Sigh.  The license will be issued in 6-8 weeks.

Even though the license is not required to design single-family residences, it is required to be able to call yourself an architect.  Most states, including California, take this very seriously and enforce it vigorously.  I have always been careful about this, even including a clause in my standard contract that acknowledges that I am not a licensed architect.

It also has me feeling a little overwhelmed.  I think that is why it took me until today to reflect a bit on it here at the blog.  I have been gradually working towards this goal for nearly 30 years, which is a long time.  And now, here I am (well, almost.)  It is definitely time to step back, evaluate things, and make some decisions about what to do next.  The little things are obvious: keep working on the furniture designs, keep practicing my piano, keep writing it all in the blog.

But in the big picture, I need a new focus.  I want to grow my practice and build lots of fabulous houses, and I want to do a lot more writing about design and the practice of architecture.  I need to sit down and spend the time to formulate 5- and 10- year goals.

Also, I feel like I am at (or nearing)  decision point about whether or not to stay in California, and if not, where to go.  The regulatory regime in California (and LA specifically) is pretty iron-fisted; you end up spending huge amounts of time dealing with it, and virtually always to the detriment of the owner and/or the project (not to mention the heartburn and frustration it causes me.)  I have often found myself caught in between my client on the one hand, who wants nothing more than to finally realize a dream that they have been saving for, and working towards for years, or even decades, and now they have entrusted me with helping them to realize this dream; versus: a bottom-feeding bureaucrat who will only say "No, you can't do that" and is unwilling to provide a reason at all as to how or why the particular issue in question would cause a threat, nuisance, or harm to my client or anyone else.

I take my role of "dream realization agent" very seriously.  It is an honor to be chosen by someone to design a house for them.  It's not just designing a house - it is the creation of a shelter for their lives.  It is a tremendous thrill to be involved in such a positive expansion of the life of another.  And, I take property rights very, very seriously.  To have the government telling you what you can and cannot do with your property is a horrible perversion of the proper role of government.  Combine all this together, and you can probably see that I get very upset at some of the stuff I have to put up with, in order to practice my art.

And, I think I would be much happier, in the long run, if I were practicing in a place where the role of government in my day-to-day work life were more limited than it is here in Los Angeles, or in California.

I should also point out that, although I disagree with the regulation of my profession and the restriction of property rights perpetrated by the government, these are not worth being sanctioned by the State Board or getting thrown in jail.  I will practice within the law, whilst agitating for change.

I chose to become an architect, and am on the verge of finally realizing that goal.

Hooray for me!