A short post published here yesterday received a surprising amount of attention, so I feel I should delve more deeply into the topic of Oklahoma Senator Ervin Yen’s paternalistic authoritarianism, and why it has no place in Oklahoma.

In truth, Yen himself makes a pretty good case for being removed from elected office. His recently-created Twitter account is nothing more than a string of attacks on various freedoms that he deems offensive.  What’s worse, he appears to believe what he’s saying.  There are few things more terrifying than the authoritarian who truly believes he knows what’s best for us, and is more than willing to use the coercive power of the State to override our ability to choose what’s best for ourselves.

Perhaps the most outrageous action Yen has taken as chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee is when, in April of last year,he refused to even allow a hearing on a bill that would address the severe healthcare provider shortage here in Oklahoma. With 75 out of the 77 counties in this state experiencing a health professional shortage, his action is a scandal of gargantuan proportions.

He also is a firm believer in mandatory vaccination, and has roused the fury of parents across the state, who have organized under banner of the Oklahomans for Vaccine and Health Choice, and rallied to “yank” him out of office, replacing him with Joe Howell on June 26th, the day of the primaries.

Like some strange, autocratic Don Quixote galloping along in a Lynchian nightmare, Yen tilts at the windmills of personal choice, deems them to be evil, and then throws himself headlong at his target, sword swinging wildly. Oklahoma can tolerate this state of affairs not a second longer.

To attack the freedom to make our own choices is to attack the very foundation of the ideals that this country was founded on, to attack the foundation of liberty itself.  Strange how rarely we hear a politician or candidate speak of liberty anymore. How rarely do we hear a politician bent on expanding choice, rather than diminishing it.

Yen places far too much faith in the redemptive power of legislation, which is nothing new to Oklahoma. Our present, dismal state of affairs here is a result of too much faith in government power, too little in the power of liberty.  But only liberty can correct this mess.

The case against Yen is the case against authoritarianism, against the misuse of power.  He has been no steward of the liberty of the people, and must be removed. Removing him, though, should be seen as a small battle in a larger effort to transform the way we view the role of government in our lives.  If government is to exist at all, it should be to protect liberty.  It is not our caretaker from cradle to grave, nor that of our children.  It only has the power that we give it, and it’s time to remove our consent.

Yen’s brand of hyperbolic authoritarianism has run this state into the ground, and he is proof positive that we don’t need to focus our attention on Washington D.C. if we wish to restore liberty.  The tyrants are in our backyard, in our communities, and must be fought (in an ideological, non-violent sense) there.  As Ludwig von Mises said:

“Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way for himself if society is sweeping towards de­struction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. No one can stand aside with unconcern: the interests of everyone hang on the result.”

H/T Liberty Memes.

National Interest: Is NATO pushing Russia towards retaliation?

The Hill: PTSD awareness month– an average of 20 veterans per day commit suicide

The Intercept: The U.S. has taken more than 3,700 children from their parents, with no plan to return them

WSWS: Trump administration planning massive expansion of jails for immigrant children

Activist Post: “Where are the girls?” Child trafficking feared as DHS can’t say where immigrant girls are being held Ed: The pictures of immigrant children being detained only show boys.

New York Times: Stung by a boy’s suffering, UK reviews medical marijuana rules

The Free Thought Project: Taxpayers shell out $2 million after video showed cop kill innocent mother while attempting to kill her dog Ed: These videos are hard to watch, but we must. Why are stories of police gunning down pets so common? Another story that should be remembered is the brave woman who placed herself between her dog and trigger-happy cop intent on gunning it down.

The Daily Sheeple: Cops arrest protesters for desecrating Thin Blue Line flags

Reason: You might have a ‘uniquely compelling’ reason to find out whether your government has placed you on a kill list Ed: This story is insane. A journalist and American citizen has had five near-miss U.S. missile attacks, too improbable to be mere coincidence, so now he’s suing the government to get his name off whatever secret kill list that is endangering his life and hindering his work in Syria.

Mises: The cronyist origins of Social Security

The American Conservative: Common Core is a menace to pluralism and democracy

Motherboard: Verizon says it will stop selling US phone data that ended up in the hands of cops

OC Register: Strong encryption protects our data and our liberty. Don’t allow the feds to weaken it.

Antiwar.com: War-fighting and the loss of liberty

Gizmodo: The dangers of tech’s privacy promises

The Guardian: The war in Yemen is disastrous. America is only making it worse.

The Week: The government’s creepy obsession with your face

ABC News: Amazon shareholders to Jeff Bezos: Stop marketing facial recognition tool

Also ACLU: Over 150,000 people tell Amazon: Stop selling facial recognition tech to the police

Reason: Texas GOP endorses marijuana decriminalization

Zero Hedge: DOJ indicts suspect accused of “Vault 7” leak to Wikileaks, the largest CIA breach in history

The Federalist: 6 revelations from ‘The Swamp’ documentary show just how dirty DC is

BoingBoing: Microsoft employees pissed over company’s connection to ICE

Buzzfeed: Governors cancel their National Guard deployments to the border to protest Trump’s ‘inhumane’ separation of families

WSWS: Five die fleeing US immigration police as children spend Father’s Day in jail Ed: The illegal immigration that the US experiences is what appears to be ‘organic’. They have connections here, they have a place to go to, if they can only get there. And most have a job opportunity lined up, menial though it might be. This is good immigration, and it benefits our society greatly, They break their backs while on the clock, and keep to themselves when they feel they need to. Cracking down on this type of illegal immigration is the product of nothing more than the vulgar “law and order” style of politics. People eat it up, too. Those south of the border that come here are usually the decent people of the country fleeing their failed home states that are currently boiling over with a murderous level of corruption.

Reuters: Israel targets rights groups with bill to outlaw filming of soldiers

Truthdig: 25,000 have fled fighting in Yemen, according to UN numbers

High Times: Severely epileptic boy discharged from hospital after resuming CBD treatment

RON PAUL: Why can’t we sue the TSA for assault?

DiscoverMag: Ayahuasca, the psychedelic antidepressant?

ABC: Amazon, Microsoft, Uber donate to oppose the California Consumer Privacy Act

CNBC: Forget Facebook privacy, these companies are after your most private data: your DNA

Gizmodo: Google Translate can’t provide consent for police searches, judge rules

Activist Post: Michigan bans “material support or resources” for warrantless federal surveillance

The Guardian: UK police face legal action over use of facial recognition cameras

Zero Hedge: Are China’s “drone swarms” the military weapon of the future?

The Free Thought Project: Coward cop who hid from Parkland shooter had history of sexually harassing female students

The Intercept: The U.S. is exacerbating the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by outsourcing its Yemen policy

Boing Boing: Canada’s best weapon in a US trade-war: invalidating US pharma patents

GEORGE WILL: Congress’s shameful abdication of war-making powers continues apace

Reason: Why does the press routinely misidentify prostitution with “sex trafficking”?

Libertarian Institute: Libya “before and after” photos go viral

Liberty Fund: Why the Surveillance State is dangerous

An important passage from Chapter 3 of Law, Legislation, and Liberty:

“…where we rely on spontaneous ordering forces we shall often not be able to foresee the particular changes by which the necessary adaptation to altered external circumstances will be brought about, and sometimes perhaps not even be able to conceive in what manner the restoration of a disturbed ‘equilibrium’ or ‘balance’ can be accomplished. This ignorance of how the mechanism of the spontaneous order will solve such a ‘problem’ which we know must be solved somehow if the overall order is not to disintegrate, often produces a panic-like alarm and the demand for government action for the restoration of the disturbed balance. 

Often it is even the acquisition of a partial insight into the character of the spontaneous overall order that becomes the cause of the demands for deliberate control. So long as the balance of trade, or the correspondence of supply and demand of any particular commodity, adjusted itself spontaneously after any disturbance, men rarely asked themselves how this happened. But, once they became aware of the necessity of such constant readjustments, they felt that somebody must be made responsible for deliberately bringing them about. The economist, from the very nature of his schematic picture of the spontaneous order, could counter such apprehension only by the confident assertion that the required new balance would establish itself somehow if we did not interfere with the spontaneous forces; but, as he is usually unable to predict precisely how this would happen, his assertions were not very convincing. Yet when it is possible to foresee how the spontaneous forces are likely to restore the disturbed balance, the situation becomes even worse. The necessity of adaptation to unforeseen events will always mean that someone is going to be hurt, that someone’s expectations will be disappointed or his efforts frustrated. This leads to the demand that the required adjustment be brought about by deliberate guidance, which in practice must mean that authority is to decide who is to be hurt. The effect of this is often that necessary adjustments will be prevented whenever they can be foreseen.

What helpful insight science can provide for the guidance of policy consists in an understanding of the general nature of the spontaneous order, and not in any knowledge of the particulars of a concrete situation, which it does not and cannot possess.

It is not to be denied that to some extent the guiding model of the overall order will always be an Utopia, something to which the existing situation will be only a distant approximation and which many people will regard as wholly impractical. Yet it is only by constantly holding up the guiding conception of an internally consistent model which could be realized by the consistent application of the same principles, that anything like an effective framework for a functioning spontaneous order will be achieved. Adam Smith thought that ‘to expect, indeed, that freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain is as absurd as to expect an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established in it.’14 Yet seventy year later, largely as a result of his work, it was achieved.”

I post these long quotes because we must understand not only what we are against, but what we are for.  We are for the expansion of choice, of the complete legalization of every voluntary interaction among consenting adults. This will have the affect of unleashing Hayek’s “spontaneous forces”, or Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”, which means nothing more than that society will solve the economic problem by rapidly correcting mistakes, such as poverty, black markets, etc.  Prosperity will take hold, and society as a whole will dramatically improve.  But we can’t predict exactly how it will improve.  We only know that it will. And the fact that the changes will be unpredictable will be unsettling to some, some who would rather use the organized control of the State to alter or prevent that change.  But society should be allowed to evolve.  If the evolution emerges in an undesigned fashion from entirely voluntary behavior, then it is an evolution that we needed, although we didn’t know it.  This of course all makes perfect sense to me, in the middle of the night.

Not to say that Yen is the only authoritarian among Oklahoma’s vaunted governing body, but there is something refreshing about his candid disdain for personal choice among us peasants. For proof, just peruse his month-old Twitter feed for 30 seconds.

It seems his sole political goal is to restrict choice for the average, not-politically-connected person. He opposes high school football, medical marijuana, vaccine choice, alleviating the profound doctor shortage that afflicts all of rural Oklahoma. Etc.

Chances are, if it expands your ability to make your own choices and those of your children, Yen is casting a skeptical eye, and preparing a tweet.

 “Medical marijuana has no place in #Oklahoma. I encourage all citizens to vote NO on SQ788. Only doctors should be able to prescribe medications and when re-elected I will again introduce new legislation to ensure we continue to protect our children.”

That’s right, Yen sells his variant of authoritarianism under the rubric of “it’s for the children”.  He seems to envision a future technocratic utopia of the prairie, where the only ones making any choices at all are a cabal of “highly-trained professionals”…for the children, of course.

On the bright side, a highly organized group of activists is pushing to oust the Senator and Health and Human Services chair, through their “Yank Yen!” campaign.  The group, Oklahomans for Vaccine and Health Choice, have a pro-vaccine choice candidate lined up to topple Yen, Joe Howell.

Looking at Yen’s political career and public statements in another light, one could see that he’s probably just building his resume for what will almost certainly turn into a lucrative, post-political career nestled somewhere within the tangled web of Big Pharma. I can imagine that his public pronouncements are a siren song to those cronyist giants.

Tulsa World: State Question 788 foes report $453,000 media buy to combat medical marijuana ballot measure

ABC News: When, not if: US poised to quit UN Human Rights Council Ed: For “chronic anti-Israel bias”, meaning the members of the council choose not to ignore Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinians.

The Intercept: If a prosecutor breaks the law in secret, does the crime exist? Not according to Texas prosecutors.

Activist Post: Trump administration gifts Syrian terrorist-linked ‘White Helmets’ $6.6 million

WSWS: The seige of Hodeidah, Washington’s war crime in Yemen Ed: With a population of around 500,000, it is Yemen’s most crowded city, and a key port for food and aid. And the Saudis and the UAE are about to fire every First World weapon of war, purchased from Uncle Sam, the world’s largest arms dealer, at the heavily-populated port city.

National Review: The strange tale of how the FBI’s anti-Trump bias helped elect Trump

The Free Thought Project: “Cameras off”: New video shows Vegas shooting strike team being told  to turn off body cams

Axios: Scott Pruitt’s laundry list

Reason: Flynn Effect goes in reverse in Norway

Arch Paper: In upstate New York, a DMT-inspired temple rises

I’m not really planning on spinning out an entire article on this topic, the title itself basically says all I want to say on it, as it’s the only conclusion one can draw from James Lankford’s recent comment that medical marijuana would be “harmful to the social fabric of Oklahoma”. Well, no. It wouldn’t. It would be enormously beneficial to this state, not only by granting citizens access to a safe and effective medicine that treats all sorts of ailments and afflictions, but in taking a highly profitable product out of the black market and placing it in the free market.  Does Lankford not believe in free markets? He says he does, but only in the abstract apparently.  When it counts, he shrinks in horror at what the unknown effects of a free market would be.  He prefers control, because he naturally believes that not only can government control the market economy, but that the effect of that control would be more beneficial than the effect of giving us a bit more freedom.

Lankford’s opinion is based around the superstitious fear of the consequences of liberty, as well as the hope that his voting base shares that superstitious fear.

Lankford is a supporter of liberty only in the abstract.  But where it counts, where the real litmus test resides, is supporting liberty in those specific instances when liberty is actually at stake. Whether war, spending, regulation, etc., those are the moments that prove who really cares about liberty.  Sadly, unsurprisingly, Lankford is not an ally of liberty, nor of any ‘Liberty Movement’, if such a thing still exists.  He’s an authoritarian, albeit one of the “it’s for the children” variety. But authoritarian nonetheless. He masks it with religion and sweet nothings, but the effect that it has on State power and the suffering of the civilian class is just as merciless.

Reason: Encryption wars ramp up as Apple improves phone security

Motherboard: Cops are confident iPhone hackers have found a workaround to Apple’s new security feature

BoingBoing: Defense contractors already making millions off detention of immigrant children

The Federalist: FBI lawyer told colleagues to go easy on Hillary: ‘She might be our next President’

JAMES BOVARD: A politically weaponized FBI is nothing new, but plenty dangerous

The American Conservative: Real takeaway: The FBI influenced the election of a President

Zero Hedge: US Intelligence developing better storage to hoard your data based on human DNA

WSWS: Deadly siege of Yemeni port of Hodeidah begins with Washington’s aid and approval

Mises: Splitting up California into 3 pieces is long overdue

FEE: Why the intellectual dark web had to go dark

The Free Thought Project: “You’re not going to f—ing film us”: Raging cop spits on, arrests innocent woman for filming

ScienceAlert: We have the best evidence yet that psychedelic drugs can repair broken neural networks

From Chapter 4, Freedom, Reason, and Tradition, of his Constitution of Liberty: 

“The argument for liberty, in the last resort, is indeed an argument for principles and against expediency in collective action, which, as we shall see, is equivalent to saying that only the judge and not the administrator may order coercion. When one of the intellectual leaders of nineteenth-century liberalism, Benjamin Constant, described liberalism as the système de principes, he pointed to the heart of the matter. Not only is liberty a system under which all government action is guided by principles, but it is an ideal that will not be preserved unless it is itself accepted as an overriding principle governing all particular acts of legislation. Where no such fundamental rule is stubbornly adhered to as an ultimate ideal about which there must be no compromise for the sake of material advantages—as an ideal which, even though it may have to be temporarily infringed during a passing emergency, must form the basis of all permanent arrangements—freedom is almost certain to be destroyed by piecemeal encroachments. For in each particular instance it will be possible to promise concrete and tangible advantages as the result of a curtailment of freedom, while the benefits sacrificed will in their nature always be unknown and uncertain. If freedom were not treated as the supreme principle, the fact that the promises which a free society has to offer can always be only chances and not certainties, only opportunities and not definite gifts to particular individuals, would inevitably prove a fatal weakness and lead to its slow erosion.”