Is it legitimate for Donald Trump to exclude the Associated Press briefings?

When I was a youngster (about two centuries ago it sometimes feels like), growing up in Brooklyn, there were only four television channels: ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. Nowadays, it sometimes seems as if there are 500 or more of the little darlings. How many major newspapers were there in this neighborhood of mine? There were the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Herald Tribune, the New York Post, and the Daily News. That was it. There were a few popular magazines and some dozen or so radio stations. If you wanted to be considered as a journalist, you absolutely had to work for one of these organizations.

There has been a slight diminution thereof over the years; the Herald Tribune is no longer with us. However, if you want some news, opinions, to keep up with what is going on, there might now be not hundreds, nor even thousands, but probably tens of thousands of blogs, Substacks, emails, social media platforms, online forums, instant messaging apps, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, TikTok, and other such electronic sources available to you. Your present author even has a Substack of his own, the Lord help us.

So, who counts, nowadays, as a journalist, member of the press, participant in the fourth estate? I dunno. Maybe, everyone and his uncle? Perhaps all of us who have ever scribbled as much as a shopping list? This is not to say that even back in the day there were not millions of people offering others their opinions, advice, news, gossip. Folks wrote letters to each other, did they not?

This issue of who is a journalist and who is not came to the fore when President Trump excluded the AP from a press conference, since it refused to go along with his name change of that body of water to the southeast of the country from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Was he within the bounds of justice to do so?

The libertarian answer to this question is that whoever owns the relevant private property rights is the “decider” of who is a journalist and who is not. If a private company holds a press conference, it and it alone determines the invitation list. Gate crashers, after all, are trespassers.

However, this does not get us too far forward since there is no private property at all involved in the White House, nor on Air Force 1.

Mar-a-Lago is a different kettle of fish. When the Donald Trump invites a few friends, or even a hundred or more of them to his private home, and speaks to them in his role as private citizen, then all bets are off. He may do so, and remain within the bounds of propriety. But this is an extremely difficult bar to jump over, since it cannot be denied that even if he and his guests discuss nothing but football or the weather, still, it is all but impossible to keep these two roles apart.

According to the freedom philosophy, private individuals may discriminate on any basis they wish: race, sex, height, weight, beauty, whatever. May government do so? Absolutely not. It is supposed to be representing all of the people, and equally so.

My Substack should be treated no differently than employees of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Will this reduce the ability of government to get out the message? Yes. Good. It already has far too much to say for itself.

From the radical libertarian anarcho-capitalist perspective, this issue does not even arise. There would be no such thing as the President of the United States. However, from the more moderate libertarian point of view of classical liberalism, or minarchism, we are back at the same old lemonade stand.

What, then, is to be done? Zoom and its cousins is one answer. Let all the “journalists” who want to take part in the presidential press conference do so, all 100 million of them, of us, just to pick a nice round number out of the proverbial hat. That leaves the question of who gets to ask the questions. A lottery will take care of that in short order. Elderly spinsters with cats should have as much right to have a winning lottery ticket for this opportunity as anyone else. Of course, as the purchase price of such access rises, that will undoubtedly winnow out the field. We might have such “journalists” as Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Charles Koch and other zillionaires doing much of the heavy breathing in such a context.

Another way of so doing would be to define journalists on the basis of the number of their readership. That would leave the AP and its ilk in the cat bird seat, and most others out in the cold. Yet, there will be difficulties here too. A newspaper that is given away for free might well attain more readers, but should that be the only consideration that counts? Maybe, instead, or in addition, go by the number of employees of such literary periodicals.

If Trump can exclude the AP and other left leaning periodicals, then the next president, if he is of the Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders mold, can return the favor vis a vis Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page (writers for the news section of this paper would of course be welcome).

Of course there is always the alternative of licensing journalists. This is far and away removed from any vestige of freedom, justice, or libertarianism. The presumed function of the fourth estate is to keep an eye on the other three. And not just any eye; rather, a particularly beady one. Equally obnoxious if not more so is when the government owns and manages such media; virtually every country on the planet engages in such an execrable practice, ever relatively free ones such as the United States (PBS) and Canada (CBC).

Woe unto us.

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I of course refer to the New York City policy of charging a fee for entering certain crowded parts of Manhattan during rush hours. (You can still drive there for free at 3am for instance.)

The Big Apple is a blue city if ever there was one (shouldn’t we call them reds, or at least pinks, instead?). This jurisdiction has implemented that free market oriented policy which is the exact opposite of their usual socialist endeavors such as rent control, welfarism, egalitarianism, DEI (Didn’t Earn It). As a result the ordinary bumper to bumper traffic moves smoothly, saving hours and hours of productivity, and reducing motorist frustration and road rage.

Ordinarily, this would be considered price gouging by our friends on the left, and bitterly opposed by them. After all prices rose by an infinite proportion, from zero to something slightly less than $10. Of course this is disgusting, greedy, capitalist, profiteering! If this isn’t price gouging, then nothing is price gouging. And yet, during a storm or other such crisis when merchants raise their prices, nothing but howls of outrage emanate from this quarter. How now brown cow?

On the other hand, the Trump Administration is in so many important ways an advocate and embodiment of free enterprise and economic freedom. They are reducing government expenditure, firing entrenched socialist bureaucrats all over the place, decreasing government regulations.

Yet they are taking a hack saw at this New York City congestion-reducing initiative. Our mostly free enterprise president now cavils against perhaps the one good thing NYC has ever done from an economic point of view. He does so on the ground that this small fee will mitigate against the poor. C’mon, give us a break. Before this new policy, the rich and the poor alike, just sat there in hard to believe how bad it was congestion. Surely, the real poverty stricken people cannot afford a car in the first place. So, lighten up.

If Trump wants to attack the Big Apple, and they richly deserve a good spanking, let him threaten them over rent control, rent stabilization, public housing, and all other aspects of housing socialism. Let him demand that they privatize that disgusting subway system of theirs. He can excoriate them for their unemployment producing minimum wage law.

Most people do not realize that the IRT and the BMT (not the IND) were originally built by capitalists and managed by entrepreneurs for years). They were thus initially private railroads. Then these companies were contemplating raising their fares from a nickel to a dime (how’s that for price gouging? A 100% increase!) The then mayor was appalled. So he nationalized, municipalized, this capital good. And guess what he then did? He raised the fare from five cents to ten cents.

Someone ought to give a message to these people: hey, stick to what you do best. Democrats, it is your job to support socialism, dirigisme and regulationism. Republicans, you’re supposed to favor free enterprise. If you invert roles as in this case, it gets more difficult to tell who is who. So, please, cut it out.

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It’s biology, stupid. More exactly, it is socio-biology. What’s that? This is a theory that explains modern behavior on the basis of what it took millions of years ago when we were in the trees or caves, barely upright on two feet, to leave progeny to the next generation.

For example, why is it that men have a better sense of direction than women as a general rule? The cave man had to hunt for prey, sometimes dozens of miles away. If he couldn’t find his way back, he tended to leave fewer children than otherwise. Those who survived this long trip left their “selfish genes” to a greater degree than did others. Why is it that women are more meticulous and into cleanliness than men on average? They stayed home with the children. If the cave was dirty, or they couldn’t tell the difference between poisonous and healthy berries and mushrooms, they, too, spread their genes less effectively.

What in bloody blue blazes does any of this have to do with tariffs? It is this. In that bygone era, we lived in groups of 10, 15, maybe 20. All were relatives. We didn’t trade with each other any more than trade now occurs within the average small family. If one such group saw another, they didn’t trade with the other; rather, they tried to kill them. So, the “gene” for trade did not hardly improve genetic survivability.

The counter argument against this hypothesis is archeology. Dated tens and twenty thousands of years ago were found caches of hundreds, thousands, of pots, spears, cookware, etc. We humans still lived in small groups, tribes of only several hundreds of people each. The only way to account for such vast hordes of early capital equipment was specialization and the division of labor, namely, trade.

So, yes, there are some tendencies for trade within the human breast. But these are superficial, dated back only so far as the beginnings of human history. Lack of trade from millions of years ago is far more profound, deeply seated.

Not all of us are infected by this intellectual socio-biological virus as are others. There seems to be a strain of it residing particularly amongst Republicans. Pat Buchanan, George W. Bush, Willis Hawley, Herbert Hoover, William McKinley, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Reed Smoot, also suffered from this debility. There were the “McKinley Tariff of 1890 … the Morrill Tariff of 1861 and the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922.” The Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 put the word “great” into “Great Depression.”

Thanks to biology, Donald Trump can no more resist tariffs than can a dog refrain from howling at the moon, even though he is no longer a wolf. Yes, as he is so fond of repeating, America was prosperous during the McKinley tariff era, but this is to commit the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Just because A precedes B, or accompanies B, it does not follow that A causes B. No, the country did well during that time despite protectionism not because of it.

What is in it for us in the future, given that Trump will not listen to rhyme or reason on this matter? Some thousands of economists signed a petition to ward off the Smoot-Hawley debacle, to no avail. I predict the same will take place during this epoch of economic insanity. I predict that in less than two years, if this maniac cannot be persuaded to give up his biologically determined mishegas, virtually every Republican Senator up for reelection will lose, and lose big, and the House will turn strongly Democratic. Then and only then will we be able to put this economic stultification behind us, and stop Adam Smith from spinning in his grave.

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To review: libertarianism mandates that all people should be free to do anything they want, with but one exception: they may use violence to defend themselves and others and the property rights of all, but may not initiate any force against others or their rightfully owned property.

At first glance, that sound eminently reasonable, if I say so myself, as a libertarian. But a moment’s reflection will indicate that this is a very extreme view. It is not for nothing that libertarians are but a small part of the electorate, given that this is the basic premise of this philosophy.

For example, libertarians would legalize the right to ingest any drugs of our choosing, along with gambling, pornography, prostitution, homosexuality; so much for initiatives acceptable to the left. As for the right, in this perspective, minimum wage laws, rent control, anti-trust legislation, tariffs, zoning, the Fed, most government departments would all be repealed and racial and sexual discrimination would be legalized. Extreme laissez faire capitalism would be the order of the day.

What, then, is the weakness of this system? So far, everything sounds eminently reasonable, at least to the libertarian ear.

But there is at least one lacuna, at least from my own personal point of view. I find animal torture disgusting. I am not talking about killing cows, pigs, chickens, etc. I do not think that libertarianism implies, or requires, vegetarianism. In any case, they can be killed humanely, without imposing more pain than necessary to convert them into foodstuffs. Nor, even, am I discussing arranging dog or rooster bouts nor bull fighting. All of this can possibly fall under the rubric of natural law. At least in nature these animals all engage in physical combat with one another.

No, I am talking about despicable acts such as dousing a pet with gasoline and setting it on fire. Or chopping one up into little bits while still alive. It fairly turns my stomach to even write the previous sentences, let alone contemplate such appalling scenarios. I am fully aware that cats torture mice before killing them, but somehow I am able to forgive a feline, but not a human being, who emulates that species in this regard.

What does this have to do with libertarianism? Under the legal code of this philosophy, animal torment such as the aforementioned would be entirely legal. What I feel like doing to those who torment animals, at the very least, would be to punch them in the nose. And, maybe, subject them to a bit of agony to let them know how it feels to be on the receiving end. Maybe that would teach them the error or their ways. Even if not, they richly deserve such punishment.

However to do any such thing would be a crime under libertarian law. The NAP of libertarianism involves intra-species acts alone. If a vicious man legitimately owns an animal, he may do whatever he wishes with it, and libertarian law cannot say him nay.

I regard that as a weakness of this otherwise heaven-sent perspective. The only excuse for it is that libertarian law deals, only, with intra-human relations, and this issue falls outside of that purview.

However, there is more to be said about this intriguing issue. For example, are there any licit extrajudicial approaches to regulating behavior? Surely there is at least one: the boycott. Decent people, libertarians or not, can refuse to have anything to do with animal abusers. This may well not suffice in eradicating the problem, but at least it may well move us in a more civilized direction.

Then, there is the difficulty of statutorily defining the considerable gray area between unacceptable and unacceptable behavior towards animals. Surely, when training a dog, harsh words, sticking its nose in the mess it made, even a newspaper swat would not count as abusive. Setting the animal on fire certainly would. As on all such occasions, there is a continuum problem: where to draw the line. We know, for instance, that if you go to be with a five year old girl, you are properly a statutory rapist. Not so for a 25 year old woman. But where to draw the line? Should it be 18? 15? 17? The problem here, as in the animal case, is that no such dividing line can be deduced from the libertarian principles of the non-aggression principle, private property rights based upon homesteading and the right of free association.

We are often at sea without a rudder. Yes another unclear demarcation point arises when we consider which animals should “count”. One not unreasonable distinction would be between those that can feel pain and those which cannot. Although even here there are gradations, in which case we ask, well, how much pain?

No, we do not have all the answers, but hopefully these considerations will move us in the direction of a more satisfactory libertarian theory.

Vegetarianism:

Block, Walter E. 2022. “Animal Rights from the Perspective of Evictionism; Rejoinder to Cesario.” Studia Humana, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 10-19; DOI: 10.2478/sh-2021-0023;

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Who or what is to be justifiably blamed for this event and others like it? To hear left-wing environmentalists tell it, it is the fault of not global cooling, the cause of all weather evil in the 1970s, nor, yet, global warming, the bete noire in the 1990s, but temperature change, the guilty party nowadays. This, in turn, is the result of capitalism, greed and profits (but I repeat myself), failure to ban fuels such as coal and oil, and over population. It is difficult to maintain this explanation with a straight face, since there is no evidence that hurricanes are getting worse.

What then is the real cause of these horrendous events?

Government, of course, both directly and indirectly.

How, directly? One cause of these weather catastrophes is the fact that the oceans are heating up, and this is conducive to these deadly disturbances. How in bloody blue blazes is this the fault of government? It is due to the fact that these organizations preside over the situation in which such bodies of water are unowned. This gives rise to the tragedy of the commons. If these waterways were privatized, this problem could be directly confronted. I don’t say cured, certainly not overnight, but at least in this situation, our best institutional arrangements, free enterprise and private property rights, would be brought to bear on the problem.

How, indirectly? Government makes us poorer than otherwise we would be. The state takes roughly 50% of the GDP and pretty much wastes it all. If we had this back from this venomous institution, we would be twice as rich as we are. And what, pray tell, does this vile organization do with its half share of all that is produced? Why, it reduces the efficiency and effectiveness of the marketplace. It does so by engaging in useless unjustified wars, and by highly regulating the economy. This latter stretches from creating unemployment (minimum wage laws), housing crises (building regulations, rent control), inflation (thanks to a central bank which has somehow “mislaid” about 97% of the value of the dollar it was assigned to protect in 1913), reducing competition and creating economic inefficiency (anti-trust legislation), and decreasing labor productivity (public education, so-called “affirmative action,” general wokeness, etc.)

What does poverty have to do with weather conditions? Simply this: wealthier is not only healthier, but also allows us to be more and better protected from adverse weather conditions. It is not for nothing that two storms of equal intensity will play much greater havoc in a poorer than a richer country. The buildings in the latter nation will be built far more sturdily.

I do not say that if our wealth were quadrupled without the loving care of the state apparatus, that storms such as Idalia would be banished to the history books. Instead, it might well be that this increased prosperity would instead spell the end of cancer; or, possibly banish some other dread disease. Perhaps, instead, or in addition, we would have colonies on the Moon and Mars far sooner than otherwise would have been the case. Maybe the added affluence would end forest fires. It is like pressing down on the water in the bathtub: it is difficult to knew from whence the splashes will come onto the floor of the bathroom.

Who knows precisely which benefits would accrue to mankind were our wealth to quadruple? Not I. One way to estimate this is to compare our economic lifestyles with nations that are 25% as rich as we are. We have many more goodies than they do. All I know for sure that that if the government were out of the picture, it might well be that Idalia would be the last of her siblings to visit us.

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