When I signed the ONE Campaign pledge in 2005, I held more or less the same beliefs I hold now. I believe that the more government there is, the less freedom that government’s citizens have. I believe that more freedom for each individual is a good thing. I believe it’s healthy for society and for the economy. I believe that when the government constrains an individual’s ability to lead his life as he sees fit, it weakens society and the economy. I believe some government is necessary, but very, very little. Just enough, in fact, to mediate citizens’ conflicting choices. That is to say, my rights extend only so far as the next person’s.

I signed the ONE Campaign’s Declaration, because, at the time, I believed that the government could prevent future threats to our nation by helping countries that are more likely to devolve into terrorist havens. I was, and still am, offended by America’s failure to recognize that our civil liberties are inherent, and not something we have because we are Americans. As a reaction to that, I thought we ought to be doing more to recognize the lives of those living outside this land of milk and honey. And, of course, I’m deeply affected by the plight of people suffering the world over from poverty and disease.

Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about those motives. My government’s duty isn’t to protect me from the possibility of a threat. It’s duty is to protect me in the actual moment of danger. And, while my government is failing to recognize that our rights are unalienable, no balance can be struck by simply spending more money on the issues that force us to recognize the lives of those living outside our comparatively comfortable borders.

I’ve also faced up to the hypocrisy of condemning domestic welfare programs as ineffective and tyrannical while condoning international welfare programs that seek the same ends. These Third World countries, like many of my fellow Americans, need help. Many of them are in grave need. But paying their bills and sending them supplies that will merely be consumed is no real help at all from one government to another. The ONE Campaign’s motives are good, and I support their goals of ending the corruption that wastes these resources, but I believe their intended methods will never solve these problems.

For these reasons, I rescinded my ONE Campaign pledge earlier today by taking my name and e-mail address off the campaign’s list. Their form asked for a reason, and this is what I wrote:

After careful consideration of the issue, I’ve decided that foreign aid should consist of educational and diplomatic outreach to nations in need, rather than resources which will be continuously consumed with no explicit plan for solving the essential problems of poverty and disease. We should devote ourselves to helping countries that want our help, but not to supporting their continued state of insolvency.

Further, concerned Americans should send consumable aid (money, food, supplies, etc.) directly to the people in need, rather than to our own government (which is where any increase in government spending will come from) in the hopes that they will send it on to those countries in need.

As I wrote to ONE, I do believe there is a way that the United States can help. While flawed, our government is a model for how to build a sustainable nation that can resist collapse caused by either external or internal pressures. Traditionally, we devote a lot more diplomatic resources to countries that threaten us or from which we stand to gain. But, if our government were as limited as it should be, much of that kind of diplomacy would be unnecessary. On the other hand, struggling nations could benefit from a different kind of diplomacy through which we could offer needed guidance. As the expression goes, talk is cheap, and any country can afford it if we’re willing to extend it freely to governments wishing to develop under free, democratic principles.

And, still, my heart aches for those who live on empty stomachs and with bodies ravaged by disease. Many of them are children who will never know what it’s like to be my age. I’m not going to encourage my government to take more liberty from me under the guise of helping those who suffer elsewhere, because I believe that will only lead to continued suffering.

I will, however, make a more personal pledge. I will make a more concerted effort to do something about that suffering myself. I’ll encourage others to do the same. Real people, not amorphous governments with ulterior agendas, can make a difference. That’s you; that’s me; that’s each and every one of us.

Lawrence Lessig, champion of the Creative Commons licensing concept, and opponent of patent protection and intellectual property, has announced that he is shifting his focus to studying and helping to end corruption in the American political system. After spending the last ten years battling America’s (admittedly) corporate-inspired drive for extended copyright terms, Lessig evidently discovered that the underlying problem of public policy-making is corruption (Where the hell, exactly, is the rock you’ve been living under, Lawrence?), and, oddly, he arrived at the conclusion after listening to Barack Obama, Al Gore, and an “anonymous” dirty old “Republican of prominence".

I like the Creative Commons, and I’ve often found Lessig’s blog fascinating, but my initial reaction to this particular blog post is utter shock at the apparent obtuseness of this learned scholar and suspicion that his treatment of the subject of political corruption will be biased towards Democrats whom he admires. His posts following the announcement have referenced Barack Obama and John Edwards as examples of corruption fighters. Whether or not they are, I’m not going to get into, yet. I need time to think about this and arrange my thoughts. This is just my initial reaction. But, certainly, if Lessig is going to guide his study of the subject by focusing on people he already perceives to be above corruption, he is going to learn very little and do an incredible disservice to the members of academia who will eventually read whatever he writes on the topic.

Some people on the other side of the political spectrum who are immediately coming to mind are, of course, Ron Paul, who represents the polar opposite of Obama and Edwards politically, but whom no one could claim to be more principled or less corrupt when it comes to policy-making, and Senator Tom Coburn, who actually wrote a book all about corruption in policy-making. Will Lessig pay any attention to these guys? Or will he ignore them, because they may have valid philosophical objections to his positions on patents and intellectual property? If he does, all the next ten years of his life will amount to is a demonstration of the corruption of his own thought process.

It’s not as if Lessig’s immune to unreasonable arguments:

This is a thought I’ve often had in the debates I’ve been a part of, especially with respect to IP. Think, for example, about term extension. From a public policy perspective, the question of extending existing copyright terms is, as Milton Friedman put it, a “no brainer.” As the Gowers Commission concluded in Britain, a government should never extend an existing copyright term. No public regarding justification could justify the extraordinary deadweight loss that such extensions impose.

Yet governments continue to push ahead with this idiot idea – both Britain and Japan for example are considering extending existing terms. Why?

Well, gee, Lawrence, I’m sure it’s because they’re all idiots. I mean, it’s not like they could have any reasonable objections, since everyone operates under the same philosophy and no one thinks creators of intellectual property ought to be able to choose the nature of its use in the future.

I’m all for a scholar of prominence and widespread respect undertaking a thorough study of the corrupted process of policy-making in this country. That would be an extremely useful contribution to the (remarkably small) body of knowledge on the subject and of which most common citizens are unaware. But if it’s actually just some politically biased charade of that, well, then we have problem.

Edited July 3, 2007. Removed questions regarding Lessig’s reference to Milton Friedman and term extensions. Friedman, with other economists of note, filed an amicas brief in relation to Eldred v. Ashcroft arguing the lack of economic benefit of term extension.