Visitation by Skype

In the case of Debra Baker v James Baker, 29610-2007, NYLJ 1202464436957, at *1 (Suffolk Cty. Sup., August 4, 2010), New York State Supreme Court Justice Jerry Garguilo conditioned a mother's right to relocate with her children from New York State to Florida upon providing online visitation between the children and their father three times a week through Skype.

The Petitioner, at her own cost and expense, will see to it, prior to re-location, that the Respondent, as well as the children, are provided the appropriate internet access via a Skype device which allows a real time broadcast of communications between the Respondent and his children. Thereafter, the Petitioner will make the children available three times per week for not less than one hour per connection to communicate via Skype with their father.

Can one be libertarian without being mean-spirited? An essay in progress

Can one be libertarian without being mean-spirited?

Must a libertarian sound like a paranoid and self-pitying whiner? Does the attempt to argue about principles, instead of about people, necessarily have to devolve into attacking those who do talk about people?

The tone of political discourse has never been remarkable for its politeness, but there are times when the accumulation of venom makes it nearly impossible to discern the principles behind the pettiness. Libertarians and conservative Republicans alike have fallen into such rhetorical traps in the past few years.

One of the main reasons why libertarianism is less attractive to young idealists than contemporary liberalism is the relentless negativity of the most popular arguments. Unfortunately, most of them sound to the twenty-first century ear very much like "Waaahhh! The Big Bad Black Man is gonna take away all my toys!"

I have recently found myself wondering why I feel a need to support a health care bill that I haven't actually read through. (Be honest, most of you haven't read it through, either.) The most compelling answer I find for myself is in the nature of the arguments made against it. Most of those arguing against it haven't read through it any more than I have, but merely label it as "THEY are going to try to take away what we have. We must fight THEM."

Many conservatives and libertarians assume that whenever a liberal talks about helping people, he really means "I want to control what YOU have." Everything is personalized as an attack upon the "haves." It seems impossible to believe that anyone involved in political activism could ever genuinely want to help others; such a posture is simply labeled without question as hypocrisy, with the assumption that short-sighted greed is the natural state of human beings, and that all else is pretense.

And yet - rational and enlightened self-interest DOES consider the long-term effects of actions, both upon oneself and others. Long-term planning is part of "rational selfishness." Grabbing for the immediate goodies, even if it happens to be the government giving them out, and disdaining all thought of the bigger picture, is not.

Conservatives, and many libertarians, often talk as if the Hobbesian state of nature, the "war of all against all," is an inevitable and even desirable condition. All other aspirations are rejected as the lies of thieves. How can such a world view appeal to anyone who wants to believe the best about people?

Merely reversing an argument is not the same as countering its premise. If the basic argument of many on the political left is, "Whoever does NOT have something deserves it, and whoever does have something doesn't deserve it," that argument is not correctly answered simply by saying, "No, we who already have deserve what we have, simply because we have it, and those who do not have it don't deserve it."

The answer needs to go deeper than a mere switch of positions, just as arguments about limited government cannot be confined to "we want our guys in and theirs out."

The rule of law needs to be about more than "who gets the goodies this year," and politics needs to be about more than "no, you shouldn't get a turn, that's not fair, it should still be my turn."

A rational argument on principles cannot be constructed upon mere fear of "the other." As long as most of the conservative and libertarian political talk boils down to an appeal to fear that "those other guys are gonna get what's yours," it is not really about principle at all.

Freelance writing

While I've been away from this blawg, I have been working elsewhere! I'm now writing for Examiner.com and FreeLegalAid.com, and about to start writing for Helium, Demand Studios, and probably some others as well.

I'm the Albany Church and State Examiner at Examiner.com.

Here's one of my articles at FreeLegalAid.com:

Grounds for Divorce in New York State

I'm working on some more articles, which should be posted soon.