The Supreme Court's "Declaratory Act"

The Supreme Court's "Declaratory Act": Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, wrote the majority opinion upholding the alleged constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare. Obamacare will compel, under penalty of a monetary payment, all Americans to purchase health insurance. This monetary penalty was never intended by the authors of the ACA to be a revenue-raising impost. It was never intended to be a tax, either, although the Internal Revenue Service was appointed the enforcer of the law and collector of the penalty. Further, proponents of Obamacare argued that Congress had the power to enforce compliance with the law under the Commerce clause of the Constitution, which bestows on Congress the power to "regulate interstate commerce."

Opponents of the law have argued that Congress does not have the power to force individuals to engage in such commerce. During initial arguments before the Court, the Court rebutted this argument to some extent, dismissing the Solicitor General's position that an absence from such commerce is no excuse for not complying with the mandates of Obamacare. The "individual mandate" – or the feature of force – became the bête noir of Obamacare.

Chief Justice Roberts, however, side-stepped the whole issue and, as some commentators have observed, "rewrote" the punitive feature of the individual mandate and called it a "tax," arguing that such a tax is not outside the bounds of Congressional power. In that single act, Chief Justice Roberts, in an act of evasion and moral cowardice, conferred upon Congress the power and authority to tax every human action and commodity.

Violating the Aristotelian law that a thing cannot be A and non-A at the same time, Roberts wrote that the punitive penalty can be treated as a tax. Worse, the Constitution can limit Congress's powers, and expand them at the same time, as well. He did not recognize the Commerce clause argument advocating compulsory engagement in the commerce of insurance. He recognized, however, Congress's power to enslave and destroy.

The Affordable Care Act is constitutional in part and unconstitutional in part. The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage in it. In this case, however, it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress's power to tax. (p. 58)

But many pages before Roberts' lop-sided logic, he begins with this reductio ad absurdum gem.

The Framers knew the difference between doing something and doing nothing. They gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it. Ignoring that distinction would undermine the principle that the Federal Government is a government of limited and enumerated powers. (p. 3, Italics mine)

So, rather than undermine the principle behind the Commerce Clause (which does not grant Congress the power to "regulate" business in terms of controlling it, but rather to bring objective law to chaos), Roberts elects to undermine the principle of limited and enumerated powers that constrain Congress.

This opinion is unprecedented in the Court's annals, because it does and does not uphold Obamacare. In his opinion, Roberts wrote, with the pouting, moral fervor of a scold, "It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices."

Charles Krauthammer wrote in his Washington Post column, "Why Roberts did it":

How to reconcile the two imperatives — one philosophical and the other institutional? Assign yourself the task of writing the majority opinion. Find the ultimate finesse that manages to uphold the law, but only on the most narrow of grounds — interpreting the individual mandate as merely a tax, something generally within the power of Congress.

Result? The law stands, thus obviating any charge that a partisan court overturned duly passed legislation. And yet at the same time the commerce clause is reined in. By denying that it could justify the imposition of an individual mandate, Roberts draws the line against the inexorable decades-old expansion of congressional power under the commerce clause fig leaf.

Law upheld, Supreme Court’s reputation for neutrality maintained. Commerce clause contained, constitutional principle of enumerated powers reaffirmed.

I do not think the advocates and supporters of Obamacare will much mind that Roberts, with the flick of his pen and a leap in logic, dubbed the penalty a tax. After all, the penalty and the tax will accomplish the same results.

Let us not say that Roberts's actions are, in a political context, unprecedented. There are historical precedents. We must go back to the pre-Revolutionary period to find them. The Proclamation of 1763, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Declaratory Act of 1766.

The Proclamation of 1763, on occasion of Britain's victory in defeating the French for possession of North America, was issued under the name of George III. It forbad all British colonials from escaping the mercantilist, regulatory and taxing authority of the Crown by crossing into the transmontane, or the Western wilderness beyond the mountain range from the settled colonies on the Eastern seaboard, and establishing new settlements. That was the overture.

In 1765, to defray the costs of the French and Indian War, and to fund the costs of maintaining a standing army in the colonies as well as maritime courts and a civilian bureaucracy to enforce Crown law, Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which imposed a tax, payable in Crown silver only, on most court and legal documents, newspapers, playing cards, and even university degrees. The pseudo-Solons of the Crown had observed two things: That colonials were insatiable readers, and the most litigious subjects in the Empire.

The colonials revolted against the Stamp Tax. Without going into details, except for a paltry amount collected in Georgia, the Stamp tax was a famous failure, the Crown not collecting a penny of the tax, and seeing its Stamp Tax collectors hounded from their royally appointed sinecures. The turmoil caused Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act exactly one year later, in 1766, rather than allow it to stand and exacerbate hostility towards the mother country. The American colonials celebrated their victory.

Most did not pay attention to the companion legislation that accompanied repeal, The Declaratory Act, which was:

AN ACT for the better securing the dependency of his Majesty's dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great Britain.

WHEREAS several of the houses of representatives in his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America, have of late, against law, claimed to themselves, or to the general assemblies of the same, the sole and exclusive right of imposing duties and taxes upon his Majesty's subjects in the said colonies and plantations; and have, in pursuance of such claim, passed certain votes, resolutions, and orders, derogatory to the legislative authority of parliament, and inconsistent with the dependency of the said colonies and plantations upon the crown of Great Britain: ... be it declared ...,

That the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be. subordinate unto, and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain; and that the King's majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever….

Note the stress on dependency. Congress wishes Americans to become dependent on it for every conceivable human action and relationship, in "all cases whatsoever" – by edict and fiat. There is no difference between Parliament's intentions and Congress's.

I have noted in past columns that Mitt Romney, the de facto Republican candidate for President, is no antidote to either Obama, Obamacare, or statism. He is a statist. Chief Justice Roberts (likely under some threat from the White House) has sanctioned the humongous expansion of federal power, aside from upholding the ACA. Romney is no friend of freedom, either. He signed MassachusettsCare into law, after all, and that was a miniature template for Obamacare.

Either way, Americans have just been put on notice that they are wards of the state. Two things should alarm Americans: Roberts's apparent last minute switch from a majority that would have struck down Obamacare (obviously a sign of White House arm-twisting, or Capone-style persuasion), and the expansion of federal tax-and-punish powers. Remember, the "tax" that's not a "tax" feature of the ACA is not a revenue-raising one, but a punitive one.

That is the hallmark of "conservatives" – to seek a "middle ground" that seems apolitical and non-partisan. That is, to uphold no principles at all, except that of "me-too." After all, we would not want to challenge the altruist nature of Obamacare, would we? We're nice guys at heart, just like the collectivists. And if it turns out to be a pernicious law, well, you people asked for it. It's not for a Chief Justice to judge.

Well, no we didn't ask for it. It was passed over the raucous and highly visible and exacerbated hostility of the Americans on whom the burden would fall.

The Court has never consistently upheld the Constitution, not in its entire history. The role of the Chief Justice, however, is not to evade judgment of an outrageous, looting, confiscatory law and blame the electorate for voting for the creatures who passed it. He and his colleagues are supposed to say: "This is evil, this violates individual rights, this is villainous and tyrannical, and we're declaring it unconstitutional." We are not paying the Chief Justice to collect a sumptuous salary and enjoy perks we can't afford. (Remember, ALL federal employees are exempted from ALL features and stipulations of Obamacare, as well as ALL members of Congress.) We are paying him to pass judgment on legislation. Sure, he can blame some of the electorate for voting the creatures from the Black Lagoon into office, but that is not his job, to place blame (except perhaps in an aside or a footnote to an opinion) and pass the buck. That feature of Roberts's opinion is, I think, unprecedented in the Court's annals. How low can you get?

Republicans, as "conservatives," consciously wish to “conserve” the status quo, which can mean any state of affairs in any point in time, as long as it means the welfare state, entitlements, subsidies, tens of thousands of regulations, all kinds of taxes and tariffs, central banking, and so on. Perhaps the correct term should be “preserve.” Now, that would make an appropriate designation of most Republicans: the Preservatives.

Seriously, however, the Conservatives cannot challenge the Left in any fundamental way, because they share the same morality, which is altruism. All they can say to the Democrats and Progressives, with the indignation of a priggish scold, “Not so fast!” The Right and the Left agree on the ends; the means and speed are open to bipartisan negotiation. That has been the history of Congress and the Executive Branch since the late 19th century.

Parliament meant what it said when it affirmed legislative and taxing authority over the American colonies. Beginning in 1764, Parliament passed over two dozen Acts to make the colonies dependent on Britain for its trade and sustenance. It made no finicky distinctions between taxes and penalties, between commerce and non-commerce.

President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and the Democrats meant what they said when they asserted legislative authority over Americans' lives, health and fortunes. They rammed Obamacare through Congress, blithely indifferent to or ignorant of Congress's enumerated powers. Little could they know that Chief Justice John Roberts would affirm their tyranny with his own Declaratory Act.

And we all know what the original Declaratory Act led to.

Well, not all. Congress is oblivious. And so is Chief Justice John Roberts.

It can happen again.

Political “Left” and “Right” Properly Defined

Political “Left” and “Right” Properly Defined:
I’m often asked versions of the following: Given that the political right is so corrupted by conservatives who seek to limit liberty in countless ways, wouldn’t it be better to abandon the language of “left” vs. “right” and adopt new terminology?
My answer is that, because the terms “left” and “right” are already widely used to denote the basic political alternative, and because that alternative is in fact binary, the best approach for advocates of freedom is not to reject the prevalent terminology but to clarify it—by defining the relevant terms.

The problem with conventional approaches to the left-right political spectrum is that they either fail to define the alternatives in question, or proceed to define them in terms of non-essentials.
One common approach, for instance, fails to specify the precise nature of either side, yet proceeds to place communism, socialism, and modern “liberalism” on (or toward) the left—and fascism, conservatism, and capitalism on (or toward) the right.
This makes no sense, at least in terms of the right. Capitalism—the social system of individual rights, property rights, and personal liberty—has nothing in common with conservatism or fascism. Take them in turn.
Conservatism is not for individual rights or personal liberty; rather, it is for religious values (euphemistically called “traditional values” or “family values”) and a government that enforces them. Although conservatism calls for some economic liberties, it simultaneously demands various violations of individual rights in order to support certain aspects of the welfare state (e.g., Social Security and government-run schools), in order to shackle or control “greedy” businessmen (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley and anti-immigration laws), and in order to forbid certain “immoral” acts or relationships (e.g., drug use and gay marriage). Thus, conservatism is utterly at odds with capitalism.
And fascism, far from having anything in common with capitalism, is essentially the same atrocity as communism and socialism—the only difference being that whereas communism and socialism openly call for state ownership of all property, fascism holds that some property may be “private”—so long as government can dictate how such property may be used. Sure, you own the factory, but here’s what you may and may not produce in it; here’s the minimum wage you must pay employees; here’s the kind of accounting system you must use; here are the specifications your machinery must meet; and so on. (Thomas Sowell makes some good observations about the nature of fascism.)
Another ill-conceived approach to the left-right political spectrum is the attempt by some to define the political alternatives by reference to the size or percentage of government. In this view, the far left consists of full-sized or 100 percent government; the far right consists of zero government or anarchy; and the middle area subsumes the various other possible sizes of government, from “big” to “medium” to “small” to “minimal.” But this too is hopeless.
The size of government is not the essential issue in politics. A large military may be necessary to defend citizens from foreign aggressors, especially if there are many potential aggressors—say, multiple communist or Islamist regimes—who might combine forces against a free country. Likewise, a large court system might be necessary to deal with the countless contracts involved in a large free market and with the various disputes that can arise therein.
A small government, by contrast, can violate rights in myriad ways—if its proper purpose is not established and maintained. Observe that governments in the antebellum South were relatively small, yet their laws permitted and enforced the enslavement of men, women, and children. Likewise, the U.S. government was quite small during the 1890s—even though the Sherman Antitrust Act had passed and was violating businessmen’s rights to liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.
The essential issue in politics is not the size but the function of government; it’s not whether government is big or small but whether it protects or violates rights. (Ari Armstrong addresses this issue with excerpts from Ludwig von Mises.)
The proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights by banning the use of physical force from social relationships and by using force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. A properly conceived political spectrum must reflect this fact. Whatever terms are used to identify the positions of political ideologies or systems must be defined with regard to the fundamental political alternative: force vs. freedom—or, more specifically, rights-protecting vs. rights-violating institutions.
Because the term “left” is already widely used to denote social systems and ideologies of force (e.g., socialism, communism, “progressivism”), and the term “right” is substantially used to denote social systems and ideologies of freedom (e.g., capitalism, classical liberalism, constitutional republicanism), the best approach for advocates of freedom is not to develop new terminology for the political spectrum, but to define the existing terminology with respect to political essentials—and to claim the extreme right end of the spectrum as rightfully and exclusively ours.
A notable advantage of embracing the political right as our own is that the term “right” happens to integrate seamlessly with the philosophical and conceptual hierarchy that supports freedom. This is a historic accident, but a welcome one. Although “left” and “right” originally referred to seating arrangements of 18th-century legislators in France—arrangements unrelated to anything in contemporary American politics—the term “right” conceptually relates to fundamental moral truths on which freedom depends.
Capitalism—the social system of the political right—is the system of individual rights. It is the system that respects and protects individual rights—by banning physical force from social relationships—and thus enables people to live their lives, to act on their judgment, to keep and use their property, and to pursue personal happiness. This observation grounds the political right in the proper goal of politics: the protection of rights.
Related, and still more fundamental, capitalism is morally right. By protecting individual rights, capitalism legalizes rational egoism: It enables people to act on the truth that each individual is morally an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others, and that each individual should act to sustain and further his own life and happiness by means of his own rational judgment. This observation deepens the significance of the term “right” and anchors it in the only code of morality that is demonstrably true.
In short, seen in this light, the right morality gives rise to the principle of individual rights, which gives rise to the need of a political system that protects rights, which system is properly placed on the political right—in opposition to all systems that in any way violate rights.
Observe the clarity gained by this conception of the political spectrum. The far left comprises the pure forms of all the rights-violating social systems: communism, socialism, fascism, Islamism, theocracy, democracy (i.e., rule by the majority), and anarchism (i.e., rule by gangs). The far right comprises the pure forms of rights-respecting social systems: laissez-faire capitalism, classical liberalism, constitutional republicanism—all of which require essentially the same thing: a government that protects and does not violate rights. The middle area consists of all the compromised, mixed, mongrel systems advocated by modern “liberals,” conservatives, unprincipled Tea Partiers (as opposed to the good ones), and all those who want government to protect some rights while violating other rights—whether by forcing people to fund other people’s health care, education, retirement, or the like—or by forcing people to comply with religious or traditional mores regarding sex, marriage, drugs, or what have you.
Importantly, on this essentialized conception of the political spectrum, the “right” does not entail degrees; only the left does. This is because degrees of force are degrees of force; violations of rights are violations of rights. Freedom and rights are absolutes: Either people are free to act on their judgment, to keep and use their property, to pursue their happiness—or they are not free; they are to some extent coerced. Either government protects and does not violate rights—or it violates rights to some extent.
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Journal for People of ReasonIf people are not fully free to run their businesses and voluntarily contract with others as they see fit, to engage in voluntary adult romantic relationships, to engage in their own preferred recreational activities, to purchase or forgo health insurance as they deem best, and so forth, then they are not free; they are victims of coercion.
We who advocate freedom—whether we call ourselves Objectivists or laissez-faire capitalists or classical liberals or Tea Partiers or whatever—should claim the political right as our own. And we should let conservatives who advocate any kind or degree of rights violations know that their proper place on the political spectrum is somewhere in the mushy, unprincipled middle with their modern “liberal” brethren. Perhaps such notice and company will cause them to think about what’s right.
The political right properly belongs to those who uphold the principle of rights—not merely in theory, but also in practice.
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Related:

• The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty
• Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society
• Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice
• The Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty

Institute for Justice Wins Victory in Bone-Marrow Compensation Case

Institute for Justice Wins Victory in Bone-Marrow Compensation Case:
On Monday the Institute for Justice (IJ) announced “a major legal victory for cancer patients and their families from across the nation.”

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder declined to seek Supreme Court review of a March 2012 decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that compensating most bone-marrow donors is not a crime. This decision will give doctors and their patients a powerful tool in the fight against deadly blood diseases.
“This decision will not only save lives, but also reinforce the principle that doctors and patients should have the freedom to make their own choices when confronted with deadly diseases,” said Jeff Rowes, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice and lead counsel on the case.

The problem is that the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984 “made it a serious crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to compensate someone for a human organ for transplantation. The Act defines bone marrow as an organ.”
This is a tremendous victory for those needing a bone-marrow transplant and for the cause of liberty in medicine. The Institute for Justice deserves our gratitude for taking up this vital fight.
Laws that criminalize compensation for organ donation violate the rights of donors and recipients to associate on voluntary terms; this results in the deaths of countless people currently unable to find donors. Such laws are profoundly immoral.
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Journal for People of ReasonObviously the government must ensure that no one is forced to donate organs against his explicit, sober consent. The government’s only proper role in this sphere is to protect the rights of consenting adults to exchange value for value in accordance with their own judgment. Although many donors choose to donate tissues or organs without compensation, many others will donate only if they receive compensation. Donors have a right to seek compensation, and recipients (or third-party charities) have a right to pay it. When government violates these rights, it causes needless suffering and death.
Kudos to the Institute for Justice for fighting for our rights to life and liberty—and may the organization have many more successes in the future. Your life may depend on it.
Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard.
Related:

• Laws Against Human Life and the Heroes Who Fight Them
• Steve Simpson on Continuing Threats to Corporate Free Speech

Image: Institute for Justice

ObamaCare Tax: A Sophistic Assault on the Rule of Law

ObamaCare Tax: A Sophistic Assault on the Rule of Law:
Rob Natelson, who taught law for 23 years and wrote The Original Constitution, blasted the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the ObamaCare insurance mandate under the congressional taxing authority. Although I do not always agree with Natelson’s views on political matters, his comments here are spot on.
When it takes effect in 2014, the mandate will force individuals who do not purchase government-controlled health “insurance”—policies that actually serve to transfer wealth from young and healthy workers to those with high medical costs—to pay a special penalty or tax to the IRS.
As Natelson demonstrates, this “tax” fails two Constitutional tests.

First: The court fails to understand the Constitution’s line of distinction between those exactions that qualify as taxes and those that are regulatory in nature. That line was critical to the Founding Generation—in fact, it was a basis for the American Revolution.
In Founding-Era parlance a “tax” is a measure adopted primarily for the production of revenue—that is, to raise funds “to pay the Debts and provide for the Common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” While it is true that the Founders recognized that a bona fide revenue measure could serve the subsidiary goal of influencing behavior, the principal purpose had to be financial for it to qualify as a tax.
On the other hand, an exaction imposed primarily to regulate behavior (such as the [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s] penalty for not buying insurance) is a regulation of commerce, not a tax, even if it might raise a small amount of revenue. As such, it is valid only if within the scope of the Commerce Power.
That the court misunderstood the distinction is clear from its statement that “[T]axes that seek to influence conduct are nothing new. Some of our earliest federal taxes sought to deter the purchase of imported manufactured goods. . . . ” If the Court was referring to prohibitory tariffs, then it failed to recognize that the Founders considered them regulations of foreign commerce, not taxes.

Chief Justice John Roberts ignored this distinction, opting instead to contort the meaning of both the ObamaCare law and the Constitution:

The most straightforward reading of the individual mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance. But, for the reasons explained, the Commerce Clause does not give Congress that power. It is therefore necessary to turn to the Government’s alternative argument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s power to “lay and collect Taxes.” In pressing its taxing power argument, the Government asks the Court to view the mandate as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product. Because “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality,” the question is whether it is “fairly possible” to interpret the mandate as imposing such a tax. [Citations omitted]

It is “fairly possible” to count the mandate as a constitutional tax only by obliterating the meaning and purpose of the U.S. Constitution.
The second reason that the ObamaCare tax violates the constitution is that it is a direct tax. Natelson explains:

The court failed to recognize that even if the penalty were a tax it would be a “direct” tax, and therefore subject to apportionment among the states.
My book, The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant (2d ed., 2011), pp. 159-61, contains what may be the most complete compendium of Founding-Era sources on the distinction between direct and indirect taxes. While there were some exceptions (for example, although taxes on ownership of capital and household goods were direct, excises on ownership of luxury goods were indirect) the usual line of distinction was that direct taxes were imposed on status, while indirect taxes were imposed on transactions. A tax that one must pay despite doing nothing is the quintessential direct tax.

To briefly review, Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution states, “No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” Of course this was modified by the Sixteenth Amendment, but only with respect to income taxes.
Thankfully, Natelson contributed to amicus briefs on the necessary and proper clause and the Medicaid mandate—and the court took his side on both of those issues. (See Dave Kopel’s description of the ruling’s implications for Medicaid.) Tragically, the court ignored Natelson’s work on the taxing authority.
In a June 29 speech in Denver, Natelson perfectly described the court’s “reasoning” as sophistry:

As someone who’s been a lawyer for many years, and an admirer of the Supreme Court despite its many faults, I’m sort of ashamed today. During the Founding era, there was a very common statement . . . about sophism, or sophistry. . . . The Greek philosophers used to go from town to town and show off their rhetorical skills. They could “prove” that black was white, or that you were a cow, or that your wife was a man. . . . And then they could turn around and use their rhetorical devices to prove exactly the opposite. That’s sophistry, the facile, misleading, deceptive use of language to advance a proposition that is untenable on its face. And that’s what we saw in the parts of the Supreme Court opinion that tried to uphold ObamaCare.

After offering additional details, Natelson continued, “The Founders themselves told us that sophistry could be the death of constitutional government. It could be the death of the rule of law.”
Americans must identify and reject the court’s sophistry as sophistry. We must demand that politicians, judges, and our fellow citizens uphold reason, constitutional liberty, and the rule of law.

Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard.
Related:

• How to Protect Yourself Against ObamaCare
• The Aftermath of the SCOTUS ObamaCare Ruling
• Supremes’ ObamaCare Ruling: Altruism In Politics
• Moral Health Care vs. “Universal Health Care”

Image: Ari Armstrong

Country Shares of World GDP

Country Shares of World GDP:

Here's a chart of world GDP, broken down by country share. (HT: Carpe Diem).

Careful with the x-axis, it is not at all to scale!

The basic idea is that India and China had large shares pre-industrial revolution, after which Europe rose. The U.S. shoots up, to over 40% of world GDP by 1950. Then, Japan begins to grow in the 1960s, and China in the 1980s.

Suppose countries end up with GDPs proportionate to their populations. What would that picture look like? I've added a bar to the right, showing the break-down of world-population. Look at the U.S. squished down, with less that 400 million out of a world population of over 7,000 million.

The biggest change is in the previously un-noticed 'rest of the world". If Africa, the Middle East and so on moved toward freedom, that could be the story of the century. 

What if they do not? Here's a chart with a new assumption. Suppose the "rest-of-world" does not increase its relative share significantly, but the shares of all the other countries did become proportionate to their populations? Here's what we would see: China and India would far outweigh all others, followed by the U.S.

None of this is a prediction, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm significantly more bullish on the U.S. in relative terms. Still, it's an interesting "what if". It also puts the so-called "U.S. decline" into perspective.

New Questions in the Queue

New Questions in the Queue:
As you know, on Sunday morning’s Philosophy in Action Radio, I answer four questions chosen in advance from the Question Queue. Here are the most recent additions to that queue. Please vote for the ones that you’re most interested in hearing me answer! You can also review and vote on all pending questions sorted by date or sorted by popularity.
FYI, I’m perfectly willing to be bribed to answer a question of particular interest to you pronto. So if you’re a regular contributor to Philosophy in Action’s Tip Jar, I can answer your desired question as soon as possible. (The question must already be in the queue, so if you’ve not done so already, submit it. Just e-mail me at diana@philosophyinaction.com to make arrangements.
Now, without further ado…
Should parents make empty threats to their children?

At the grocery store last week, I heard a mother threaten to throw away her daughter’s favorite toys unless the daughter behaved. That seems to be pretty common: parents make empty threats in an attempt to scare their kids into better behavior. They’ll say that it works, and perhaps it does. But what are the consequences? Are such empty threats a valid parenting technique?

How would the government protect the safety of food and drugs in a free society?

Would the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) exist in free society? If so, would food or drugs have to gain FDA approval to be sold? Would it have the power to remove food or drugs deemed unsafe from the market? If not, what would protect consumers from harm due to adulterated or otherwise unsafe food or drugs?

What is the value of marriage?

What is the value of marriage? How is it different from living with a romantic partner in a committed relationship? Is marriage only a legal matter? Or does it have some personal or social benefit?

Is it wrong for an atheist to refuse to attend a sibling’s religious ceremony?

I’ve decided not to attend the religious ceremony of my younger sister’s upcoming Bat Mitzvah. I’m an atheist, and while I don’t think attending would be immoral, I don’t want to support any kind of religiosity or connection to religion. Other family members have criticized me for that decision, saying that I should support my sister and not pressure her into agreeing with my own views. Should I attend? If not, how should I handle the family dynamics?

What is the relationship between personality and sense of life?

What is the difference between them? How does a person’s sense of life relate to his personality? Does understanding someone’s sense of life help us to understand his personality and vice versa?

What should a person do when part of his job involves dealing with looters?

I work for a company that promotes other companies. One of those promoted companies is extremely large, and it was bailed out with taxpayer money in 2009. In my view, my employer is profiting from theft. I’m having a terrible time dealing with this situation, and resent my job everytime I’m expected to perform for this customer. Is there another way that I can look at this situation so that it won’t be so distressing? Or is there something else that I could or should do?

Is it wrong to invent stories about yourself to tell to strangers?

In the past, I’ve made up stories about myself (basically assuming a character) and told them to strangers on the bus or in an airport. When I mentioned this to my spouse, I hadn’t really thought of this as lying until I saw his horrified reaction. Do you think this is wrong? If so, why? Would it be acceptable in some contexts, such as for an acting class?

Should minor girls be required by law to obtain parental consent for an abortion?

Normally, parents are legally empowered to make medical decisions for their minor children, and minors cannot obtain medical procedures without parental consent. How should that apply in the case of pregnancy? Should pregnancy and abortion be treated differently from other medical conditions? Should parents be allowed by law to force a daughter under 18 to carry a pregnancy to term or to abort against her will? Should minor teenagers be granted more power over their medical decisions? Should the law grant exemptions in cases of potential abuse or neglect if the pregnancy or abortion were discovered?

Should a person feel guilty for not acting selfishly enough?

According to rational egoism, a person ought to act selfishly – not in the sense of hurting others, but in the sense of pursuing his own good. If a person fails to do that, should he feel guilty for failing to act morally?

Is it moral to knowingly ignore or violate a website’s terms of service?

Suppose that during the sign up process for a website you are presented with some terms of service and a checkbox indicating that you have read them, and that the checkbox is disabled until you’ve scrolled to the bottom of the terms. Leaving aside the question of whether the terms should be enforceable in a court of law, is it moral to simply scroll to the bottom and click the checkbox without reading, or to later do something that you know was expressly prohibited by the terms? If so, what kind of obligations do you have when the terms aren’t presented so unambiguously (e.g. there’s just a link in the site footer that says “terms of service”) or are filled with complicated legalese? If not, is there (or should there be) any way for a site owner to communicate the terms of using the site, or does putting an HTTP server on the public network thereby permit anyone in as long as there are no technical barriers put in place?

Can open relationships be moral?

Can it ever be moral to have sex with someone else while in a relationship, assuming that you’re honest with everyone involved? If not, why not? If so, what might be some of the pitfalls to be aware of? For example, should the criteria for selecting sexual partners be stricter than if you were single? How should you navigate the tricky territory of opening a previously closed relationship? How might personality differences (especially with respect to sex and intimacy) affect the relationships?

When should a person speak up against bigotry toward gays?

My boyfriend and I were at a party at the home of one of his coworkers. One person at the party started using offensive homophobic slurs, so I asked him not to use that kind of language. He persisted, and the conversation escalated into an argument. My boyfriend did not take a position, and he later said he “didn’t want to get involved” and that it had been “none of my business” to stick my neck out against the bigot. I believe that silence implies acceptance. Though there may not be a moral obligation to intervene, it still seems like the right thing to do. What is the moral principle behind this? Is it important enough to end a relationship over?

How should I respond to an unwanted gift given by my in-laws?

My in-laws often give me presents that I don’t much like – like frumpy boring sweaters and books I’ll never read. I thank them kindly for the present, but I’m not effusive in my praise. Recently, they gave me something really pretty inappropriate for me – on par with giving a bacon cookbook to a vegetarian. I wasn’t sure whether it was just clueless or hostile. How should I respond?

How can I estimate the time required for work more accurately?

I’m self-employed, and I’m routinely frustrated by my inability to estimate how much time a project will require of me. For example, I’ll think that a programming project will require two days, but by the time I’m done with all the little unexpected details, I’ve spent five days on it. How can I be more accurate in my estimates?

Should I flirt with my friends?

I tend to be physically reserved around my friends, not touching them or otherwise physically displaying affection. Should I try to be more expressive? What would be too much? Are some of my friends giving the wrong impression by being flirty with their friends?

To submit a question, use this form. I prefer questions on some concrete real-life problem, as opposed to merely theoretical or political questions. I review and edit all questions before they’re posted. (Alas, IdeaInformer doesn’t display any kind of confirmation page when you submit a question.)

Operations Management

Operations Management: Seth Stevenson of Slate is writing a series of articles on operations management, which includes the article on Southwest Airlines I blogged recently. What is operations management?

[O]perations is the science of making things run better. Once you start thinking like an operations geek, it can transform the way you think about everything, from your workplace to your commute to the way you make a PB&J.

One important and enduring corner of the operations world--the one we'll be exploring today--is queuing theory. Queuing theory is the study of lines. All kinds of lines. The lines at supermarket checkouts, the lines at toll booths, the lines of people on hold waiting for someone, anyone, to pick up at the cable company's 1-800 number.

Operations management is not all about lines (or simply shortening or eliminating them), but they keep coming up, as the first article linked above indicates. It's also much more interesting than it might sound at first, and can come in quite handy in many unexpected places in everyday life. Stevenson's latest article, for example, is about applying ideas from operations management to grocery shopping, and includes reader-submitted tips. The teaser warns: "The deli counter is your enemy." I was pleased to see that I'd figured that one out, as well as a some techniques of my own, such as always including which section of the store has each item on my list. This allows me to completely avoid backtracking for items I may have added to the list late. (I've since made my lists always accessible via my smartphone, where I can now filter by section and shop from several very small lists.) My favorite hint from the article, which I don't need now, but might eventually come in handy is as follows:

I bring a large, wheeled plastic storage box from home and place it in the shopping cart when I get to the grocery store. I ask the checkout clerk to put the groceries in the box instead of in bags. Then I can wheel the box to the car, lift the groceries all at once to put them in the trunk, and make one trip wheeling the box into the house--instead of four or five trips back and forth from the car to the kitchen...

I have always been interested in making time-consuming chores take as little of my time as possible, but had not been aware that there was a general concept for this type of analysis. I had merely been applying common sense, inspired a little by the concept from chemistry of the rate-limiting step of a chemical reaction. And, yes, I am so much in the habit of asking, "What is the rate-limiting step?" that I once realized, at a family gathering, that I could make a bunch of sandwiches more efficiently, by toasting the top slices of bread while assembling several sandwiches at once. Now that I know about this field of study, I can look for examples of its application and learn other, related principles.

I also appreciate one reader's admonition against losing sight of why one strives for effciency:

In its essence, it is the art doing more of what you want and less of what you don't. So it's important to ask, "How does this streamlining help the bigger process?" It's great that you can peel bananas faster, but what did you get with that extra time? Were you able to make banana splits? Or did you just end up with more peeled bananas than you really need?

Man does not live to be efficient: He is efficient to live.

-- CAV

An Interesting Upset

An Interesting Upset: Yesterday's email brought me a missive from reader Dismuke bearing the following intriguing title, "Principle Apparently Pays off in Congressional Race". I found the story, about an unknown Tea Partier defeating a fifth-term incumbent heavily favored to win reelection, to be both encouraging and troubling.

First, the good news is that some pernicious conventional wisdom among conservatives has been turned on its head: You can make a stand against your district's own government favors and win, if that stand is part of a principled objection to government redistribution of private wealth:

Feeling comfortable in his home crowd, [John] Sullivan proudly defended his support for the NatGas Act during a debate two weeks ago. But Jim Bridenstine spoke to the inner-core of the conservative Oklahoma crowd. He called the bill a "big-government boondoggle" and boldly declared that "we ought not let Washington, D.C., control free markets with tax subsidies."

As they say, the rest is history.

The bill in question was an "alternative energy" scheme of subsidies related to natural gas-powered vehicles, backed by T. Boone Pickens, that would "benefit" the district. I agree with RedState's Daniel Horowitz that:

This must serve as an enduring lesson for those who desire to let the free market work - at least in the most conservative parts of the country.

But this leads me to the troubling part of the news, and to another lesson I hope free market conservatives learn: Bridenstine is extremely "pro-life". In one sense, this is no big deal since Sullivan is, as well: At least theocrats have no reason to crow about that issue leading Bridenstine to victory. So far so good, but such a stand represents a serious flaw in Bridenstine's understanding of individual rights. Should this misconception be common within the Tea Party or become common, it will ultimately undermine it, by alienating secular voters, inducing those who hold such a position to support government action that violates actual individual rights, or both.

Perhaps the Tea Party and GOP as a whole could stand to learn a lesson in addition to the above from the general electoral success of the Tea Party a couple of years ago:

As you know, as a result of the election which was held earlier this month, the Republicans will control the U.S. House of Representatives. Do you think the Republican victories in the House races are more of a mandate for Republican policies or more a rejection of Democratic policies?

The result:

The blue portion of the chart, clocking in at nearly three quarters of those polled, corresponds to the answer, "rejection of Democratic policies." "Republican mandate" is less than a fifth.

See the pie chart at the link immediately above.

Should the Tea Party fail to heed this lesson (or the GOP continue to do so), it will find its message of limited government compromised in the eyes of voters who want the government to quit groping us as well as stop picking our pockets, and its national electoral fortunes will suffer accordingly.

-- CAV

News

News:
by Jason Stotts
1. Republican Party Parodies Itself.
In what seems like it could only be a cruel parody of the Republican party, a representative in Michigan is being censured for daring to use the word “vagina” in a debate about…abortion.  You know, a medical procedure that involves a woman’s pudenda, unmentionables, and shameful parts.  Or, for those of us who don’t hate the body, a woman’s vulva, vagina, and uterus.  Frankly, if you can’t say the word vagina in legislative bodies, then you certainly shouldn’t be legislating about abortion.
2. Woman wins $900,000 for getting herpes.
Personally, I think that if you know you have an infectious disease, you do not disclose this fact to a sexual partner, and you do not even take the necessary steps to protect their welfare, then you should be liable for criminal charges of assault.
3. Ayn Rand’s Growing Popularity in India.  Apparently Ayn Rand is still very popular in India, which ranks second only to the US in interest in her.

Until 2007, Indians conducted more Google searches for the Russian-American novelist than residents of any other country, and in recent years have ceded the top spot only to Americans…

4. The Evolution of the Penis.
There are so many different kinds of penises in the world and a great variety of features and differences.  There’s not much else to say about this article, but I found it absolutely fascinating.

Not surprisingly, when physicians study penises, we tend to focus on the human variety. But our world is abristle with phalluses and has been for at least half a billion years. Today and every day since at least the early Paleozoic era, in meadows, oceans, streams and the air, many trillions of erections preceded trillions of copulations, which preceded trillions of ejaculations. Some erections sprouted readily and penetrated easily. Others flickered to life and abruptly terminated. Some were measurable in yards. Others were microscopic. Some were stiffened by blood; others by a similar fluid called hemolymph; others by skeletal supports made of cartilage or bone. Some erections culminated in mere seconds; others lasted hours.
It wasn’t always this way…

5. German Court Rules Non-Medical Circumcision of Minors Illegal.
I heartily support this decision.  There are very few circumstances where circumcision is medically warranted and these should remain permissible.  But the religious hatred of the body and their desire to destroy the body’s capacity for pleasure should not be inflicted on minors.  If adults want to mutilate their bodies, then that is their right, but they do not have the right to do it to minors.

BERLIN, Germany — The circumcision of minors for religious reasons should be considered a physical assault, according a district court ruling in the German city of Cologne.
Judges said that the procedure should be performed only when it’s medically necessary,the Financial Times Deutschland reported.
Otherwise, neither the parents’ rights nor the right to religious freedom can justify what constitutes bodily harm, the verdict states.

Government’s Proper Role Regarding Tuition Rates for “Illegal” Immigrants

Government’s Proper Role Regarding Tuition Rates for “Illegal” Immigrants:
Why is government involved in setting college tuition rates? The Denver Post reports:

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers on Tuesday said state-supported institutions of higher education do not have the authority to create discounted tuition categories for illegal-immigrant students without legislative approval.
The opinion came in response to a query from the Colorado Community College System after Metropolitan State College of Denver’s decision earlier this month to create a new tuition rate for such students.

This has led to a predictable debate between “liberals,” who say illegal immigrants shouldn’t have to pay higher out-of-state rates, and “conservatives,” who say government policy should in no way promote illegal immigration.
But both popular positions ignore the fundamental problem. Because government subsidizes various colleges by forcibly confiscating people’s wealth, government is involved in setting tuition rates. Those whose wealth is taken reasonably expect correspondingly lower tuition.
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Journal for People of ReasonIf government would simply stop forcibly seizing people’s money to subsidize colleges, the political debate over tuition rates would disappear. Individuals would be free to voluntarily contribute to colleges, or not, as they deem best, and colleges would be free to set their own policies without political interference.
Although there are many political complexities surrounding this issue, the fundamental problem is government involvement in education. We who care about higher education and individual rights must demand that the government get out of the education business.
The government’s proper role in all of this is zero role.
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Related:

• The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools
• The Government’s Assault on Private-Sector Colleges and Universities

Image: iStockPhoto

The Indecency of FCC Censorship

The Indecency of FCC Censorship:
The good news is that the Supreme Court threw out Federal Communications Commission fines against television broadcasters who let slip a swear word or image of partial nudity, Fox News reports. The bad news is that the ruling is restricted to the FCC’s notification practices. The ruling states:

Because the FCC failed to give FOX or ABC fair notice prior to the broadcasts in question that fleeting expletives and momentary nudity could be found actionably indecent, the Commissions’ standards as applied to these broadcasts were vague.

Fox reports, “The material at issue in Thursday’s decision includes the isolated use of expletives as well as fines against broadcasters who showed a woman’s nude buttocks.” For example, Bono from the rock band U2 said, “f**king brilliant” during an awards show.
The Supreme Court should throw out not only the fines in question, but the entire body of law that grants the federal government power to censor broadcasts. The government’s only proper purpose regarding the airwaves is to recognize and protect the property rights of those who develop the airwaves. By engaging in censorship, the government violates not only free speech but also the rights to property and freedom of contract. If people do not wish to watch television shows with curse words or nudity, they are free to change the channel or turn off the TV.
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Journal for People of ReasonUnfortunately, Justice Anthony Kennedy opined, “It is unnecessary for the court to address the constitutionality of the current policy.” But if it’s not the Supreme Court’s job to address the constitutionality of federal laws and resulting bureaucratic decisions, then why does that court even exist?
Perhaps the best way to respond to this case is to note that the contents of broadcasts, properly, are none of the FCC’s f**king business.
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Related:

• Fonda’s Call to Censor Limbaugh Stems from Government Control of Airwaves
• Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet

Image of Bono: Wikimedia Commons

Flashes of Soft Bigotry

Flashes of Soft Bigotry: Walter Williams ends a column about racial double standards by rightly stating that they are "in some ways worse than the cruel racism of yesteryear". I agree: It is patronizing not to expect, as Williams puts it so well, for "blacks [to] be held accountable to the same standards that whites are and [to] be criticized for conduct that we'd deem disgusting and racist if said or done by whites."

A couple of items on Williams's list caught me by surprise. First, I was disappointed by Morgan Freeman, who had impressed me years ago with his stand -- for what sure sounded like the right reasons -- against Black History Month.

Morgan Freeman said that the campaign to see that Obama serves one term is a "racist thing."

Obama's term has been such a disaster that many of his own past supporters are having trouble getting excited about him this time around. He only needs to lose a fraction of that support to lose his bid for reelection. Or was voting against him or abstaining the first time around also an act of bigotry -- or self-hatred?

I was also aware that there had been a few instances of mobs of black youths randomly attacking white people, and had heard of "flash mobs" attacking people. I had not, however made the connection between the two. Nevertheless, apparently, flash mob has become what would be termed "code" for black mob were the people using it not leftists pandering to black people:

Racial double standards also apply to how crime is reported. I'm betting that if mobs of white youths were going about severely beating and robbing blacks at random and preying on black businesses, it would be major news. News anchors might open, "Tonight we report on the most recent wave of racist whites organizing unprovoked attacks on innocent black people and their businesses." If white thugs were actually doing that, politicians would be demanding answers. Such random attacks do happen, but it's blacks preying on whites.

...

Similar episodes of unprovoked violence by black thugs against white people chosen at random on beaches, in shopping malls and at other public places have occurred in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles and other cities. Most of the time, the race of the attackers, euphemistically called flash mobs, is not reported, even though media leftists and their allies are experts in reporting racial disparities in prison sentencing and the alleged injustice of the criminal justice system.

I can't help but wonder how many white people Williams has just made aware of this serious failure in journalism. He deserves to be thanked for pointing this out, but will probably receive lots of flak. We live in a sad day and age when simply speaking the truth and standing up for justice are acts of courage.

-- CAV

Objectivist Blog Carnival

Objectivist Blog Carnival:
by Jason Stotts
Welcome to the June 21, 2012 edition of Objectivist Round Up!
This is the last time Erosophia will host as the Carnival as we know it is ending.  I want to thank Jenn for her efforts with it over the years and to all of my fellow contributors and hosters who have made it so successful.  For this week’s quote, I want to return to the essence of Objectivism. When asked one time to explain Objectivism “while standing on one foot”, Ayn Rand said that Objectivism is:
1. Metaphysics: Objective Reality

2. Epistemology: Reason

3. Ethics: Self-Interest

4. Politics: Capitalism
Without further ado, enjoy this week’s Carnival!
Darius Cooper presents The French Physiocrats on Natural Order posted at Practice Good Theory, saying, “I present a brief summary of the French Physiocrats”
Rational Jenn presents On Spanking and Limit-Setting and Keeping Kids Out of Traffic Already posted at Rational Jenn, saying, “This is my response to some recent internet discussions about spanking children.”
Diana Hsieh presents NoodleCast #141: Q&A Radio Podcast: Objectivity, Friendships, Child Labor, and More posted at Philosophy in Action, saying, “In Sunday’s Philosophy in Action Radio, Greg and I discussed objectively assessing yourself, friendships with subordinates at work, keeping up with the news, child labor laws, and more.”
Paul Hsieh presents The Nanny State And Universal Health Care posted at We Stand FIRM, saying, “My latest Forbes OpEd was on “The Dangerous Synergy Between The Nanny State And Universal Health Care”.”
Mike Zemack presents The Social Security Injustice posted at Principled Perspectives.
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of objectivist round up using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Ragnar Danneskjold’s Love

Ragnar Danneskjold’s Love:

After interviewing Bryan Larsen for the Summer issue if TOS, I reread my favorite part of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the scene in which Ragnar Danneskjold meets Hank Rearden on a road at night and hands him a bar of gold, returning some of the money that the government has stolen from Rearden over the years.
Their conversation begins, “I should like to speak to you, Mr. Rearden.” “Go ahead,” replies Rearden, “provided you don’t intend to ask me for help or money.” Ragnar proceeds to explain that he’s not here to ask for money but to return it. The following excerpt from later in the exchange pairs nicely with Mr. Larsen’s painting to the right, Justice.

“I thought that I had seen everything one could see and that there was nothing I could not stand seeing. But when they took Rearden Metal away from you, it was too much, even for me. I know that you don’t need this gold at present. What you need is the justice which it represents, and the knowledge that there are men who care for justice.”

Struggling not to give in to an emotion which he felt rising through his bewilderment, past all his doubts, Rearden tried to study the man’s face, searching for some clue to help him understand. But the face had no expression; it had not changed once while speaking; it looked as if the man had lost the capacity to feel long ago, and what remained of him were only features that seemed implacable and dead. With a shudder of astonishment, Rearden found himself thinking that it was not the face of a man, but of an avenging angel.

“Why did you care?” asked Rearden. “What do I mean to you?”

“Much more than you have reason to suspect. And I have a friend to whom you mean much more than you will ever learn. He would have given anything to stand by you today. But he can’t come to you. So I came in his place.”

“What friend?”

“I prefer not to name him.”

“Did you say that you’ve spent a long time collecting this money for me?”

“I have collected much more than this.” He pointed at the gold. “I am holding it in your name and I will turn it over to you when the time comes. This is only a sample, as proof that it does exist. And if you reach the day when you find yourself robbed of the last of your fortune, I want you to remember that you have a large bank account waiting for you.”

“What account?”

“If you try to think of all the money that has been taken from you by force, you will know that your account represents a considerable sum.”

“How did you collect it? Where did this gold come from?”

“It was taken from those who robbed you.”

“Taken by whom?”

“By me.”

“Who are you?”

“Ragnar Danneskjold.”

Rearden looked at him for a long, still moment, then let the gold fall out of his hands.

Danneskjold’s eyes did not follow it to the ground, but remained fixed on Rearden with no change of expression. “Would you rather I were a law-abiding citizen, Mr. Rearden? If so, which law should I abide by? Directive 10-289?”

“Ragnar Danneskjold…” said Rearden, as if he were seeing the whole of the past decade, as if he were looking at the enormity of a crime spread through ten years and held within two words.

“Look more carefully, Mr. Rearden. There are only two modes of living left to us today: to be a looter who robs disarmed victims or to be a victim who works for the benefit of his own despoilers. I did not choose to be either.”

“You chose to live by means of force, like the rest of them.”

“Yes—openly. Honestly, if you will. I do not rob men who are tied and gagged, I do not demand that my victims help me, I do not tell them that I am acting for their own good. I stake my life in every encounter with men, and they have a chance to match their guns and their brains against mine in fair battle. Fair? It’s I against the organized strength, the guns, the planes, the battleships of five continents. If it’s a moral judgment that you wish to pronounce, Mr. Rearden, then who is the man of higher morality: I or Wesley Mouch?”

“I have no answer to give you,” said Rearden, his voice low.

“Why should you be shocked, Mr. Rearden? I am merely complying with the system which my fellow men have established. If they believe that force is the proper means to deal with one another, I am giving them what they ask for. If they believe that the purpose of my life is to serve them, let them try to enforce their creed. If they believe that my mind is their property—let them come and get it.”

“But what sort of life have you chosen? To what purpose are you giving your mind?”

“To the cause of my love.”

“Which is what?”

“Justice.”

Now when I view this beautiful painting I will recall this beautiful scene. Thank you, Bryan Larsen; and thank you, Ayn Rand.
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Arthur C. Brooks’s Missing Moral Case for Capitalism

Arthur C. Brooks’s Missing Moral Case for Capitalism:
Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, rightly states, “To argue specific policies, free enterprise advocates need to be fluent in the moral case.” Unfortunately, if Brooks’s articles on “Policy Solutions” and entitlements are any indication of what he regards as the moral case for free enterprise, he is far from fluent in the matter.
First consider Brooks’s vague description of “the proper role for government in society”:

We want a government that protects from market failure when it can, as well as one that provides a proper safety net for those falling on hard times. We also want a government that fosters community by leaving many decisions and actions to the individual. . . .

The problems with this description are legion. To begin with, what is “market failure”? Who gets to define it for the purpose of government protecting (unnamed people or entities) from it? Why is government properly concerned with “market failure” at all? Why did the Founders never mention this aspect of the proper role of government? Observe that the left argues that the necessary remedy to so-called “market failure” is precisely today’s practically unlimited government.
Likewise, what is a “proper safety net”? Safety from what? From failure? What constitutes “hard times”? Hard times for whom? Who gets to decide such matters? Why is any of this a proper function of government? What justifies the government forcibly confiscating the wealth of some in order to turn that wealth over to others? How is that moral? Again, the left is happy to answer these questions and legislate accordingly.
And what on earth does it mean for government to “foster community”? Is that akin to community organizing? If government’s job is to foster community, what is to be done with individuals who don’t want to conform to the fostering? Which decisions should government leave to the individual, and which should it forcibly annul in order to “foster community”?
As a description of the proper role for government, all of this is hopeless.
Brooks’s views about the source of truths about the proper role of government is equally hopeless: “In order to win the debate,” he says, “we must learn to say what’s written on our hearts about what our ancestors struggled to give us and what we hope to leave for our children” (emphasis in the original). Appeals to emotion and tradition hardly constitute a moral case for free enterprise.
Nor does Brooks do any better in his discussion of the “moral case” for entitlement reform. His case?

It is wrong to make a promise you cannot keep. For decades, politicians have promised to support their constituents in old age, to provide their medical care and to pay for the medical needs of the poor. While the government has a duty to provide a minimal safety net, the current entitlement system creates dependence but still leaves 10 percent of American seniors in poverty.

Although it is usually wrong to make a promise you cannot keep, this fact is a far cry from the moral case for entitlement reform. Brooks’s assessment entirely overlooks the fundamental wrongs involved in entitlement programs. Who is making promises to whom and with whose money in such programs? The government is making promises to the community, the elderly, the poor—with other people’s money, money those people worked hard to earn. How is this money being collected? It is being collected by force. What is wrong here is not that the government is making promises it cannot keep, but that the government is forcibly looting some Americans and giving their money to other Americans who didn’t earn it.
Why does government have a “duty to provide a minimal safety net?” Where does this alleged duty come from? From our hearts? From the Bible? Why didn’t the founders mention this “duty” in the founding documents? Again, Brooks offers no answers.
To his credit, Brooks offers some sensible piecemeal reforms for Social Security, such as raising the pay-out age, reducing the growth of payments, and cutting payments through means-testing. But his “moral case” for free enterprise is simply missing.
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Journal for People of ReasonWorse, Brooks’s alleged moral case for free enterprise contradicts the actual moral case for capitalism. If individuals have a moral duty to hand their money to the government for redistribution, then they can’t have a moral right to their own lives and property. If the proper purpose of government is to “protect from market failure” and “provide a proper safety net for those falling on hard times” and “foster community,” then it cannot be to protect individuals’ rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.
Because the proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights by banning the initiation of force from social relationships, forced wealth transfers of all kinds and degrees are immoral.
Brooks promised to offer the moral case for freedom. He shouldn’t make a promise he cannot keep.
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Related:

• Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s Morality of Egoism
• Capitalism and the Moral High Ground

Image: Creative Commons by Gage Skidmore

John Hagee: Atheists Should Leave the US

John Hagee: Atheists Should Leave the US:
Pastor John Hagee is no friend of the separation of church and state:

As it happens, I discussed whether the United States is a Christian nation in a recent episode of Philosophy in Action Radio. It’s Question 4 of the 3 June 2012 Q&A. The question was:

Is the United States a Christian nation? People often claim that the United States is “a Christian nation.” What do people mean by that? Why does it matter? Is it true or not?

Listen Now

You can also download the MP3 Segment. It’s just over 14 minutes long.

Hsieh Forbes OpEd: The Dangerous Synergy Between The Nanny State And Universal Health Care

Hsieh Forbes OpEd: The Dangerous Synergy Between The Nanny State And Universal Health Care:
The 6/18/2012 edition of Forbes has posted my latest OpEd, “The Dangerous Synergy Between The Nanny State And Universal Health Care“.
A couple of excerpts:

The recurring theme: The government must limit our freedoms to limit overall medical costs. But this issue can only arise in “universal” health systems where taxpayers must pay for everyone else’s medical expenses…

It’s a short step from the government assuming responsibility for your diet to assuming responsibility for your overall health. Today, the government decides what you can or cannot eat. Tomorrow, the government decides what medical care you can or cannot receive.

Note that both Democrats and Republicans buy into the notion of limiting freedom to limit global health costs. One of the big proponents of this idea is former GOP Senate majority leader Bill Frist (who is a cardiac surgeon).
I also quoted a section from one of my favorite Bill Whittle’s essays, “Freedom“:

“The more your government restricts your options, the more you psychologically look to government to keep you safe, fed, clothed, housed and sustained.

(Read the full text of “The Dangerous Synergy Between The Nanny State And Universal Health Care“.)
Note: This is my second piece at Forbes, and I’m honored to once again appear on their website.  My first piece was, “Just Who Should Control Your Healthcare Spending?” (5/16/2012).

Pushed Down a Slippery Slope?

Pushed Down a Slippery Slope?: A sports columnist at the New York Times proposes, in all seriousness, that mountain and rock climbing, of all activities, be regulated.

I am not making this up.

Mountaineering and rock climbing have always been high-risk sports. The question now: As populations grow richer, as the globe grows smaller and adventure becomes more of a commodity, are people getting a bit carried away, risking life and limb for mere thrills? Should the authorities step in with greater regulation to promote safety?

The article goes on to cite statistics on the high rates of death and injury associated with these sports. (One study actually shows the activities to be safer than pregnancy, but rather than pooh-poohing it like the author, let's set it aside for the sake of argument.)

Doesn't everyone already know that climbing up the sides of rocks is dangerous? Even the article acknowledges this indirectly, as it notes that some climbers ignore the well-known risks and that, in one safety survey, greater climbing experience surprisingly did not mean a lower death rate from accidents. (It astounds and amuses me that the author would find this surprising, and yet simultaneously imagine that government-imposed safety measures would solve the problem.)

What does that translate to? Forty-seven percent of the climbers had been involved in accidents that resulted in multiple bone fractures, head and spinal injuries. Those injuries did not dissuade them from continuing with the sport. The rate of death from climbing was 8.2 percent over the period, something that Mr. Montasterio said was "alarming" and that "supports other evidence that climbing is a dangerous sport."

To which I say: So what? Nobody forced these people to risk their lives on the edge of a rock somewhere.

This cry for regulation omits two obvious questions: (1) Who is getting killed or maimed here? (2) Whom is the government protecting from whom? The whole idea of the government regulating an activity very few people participate in (for good reason!), and which puts only the participants at risk exposes the fashionable urge to regulate everything we do as collectivist.

By regulating this activity, the government would admittedly be adding no new knowledge to the equation (not that it is the government's job to teach). It would merely be overriding the decisions by some individuals to participate in an activity that harms -- no, might harm -- only themselves. What personal decision could be exempt once such a premise is accepted? Do we not own our own lives? If so, isn't the risk we partake with any activity our own to assess and judge acceptable or not? The government cannot protect the right of an individual to live his own life by his own best judgement -- by routinely butting in every time someone decides to do something.

Mountaineering is a steep slope I choose to avoid, but I recognize the call to regulate it as an attempt to force me down the shallower -- but slippery and more dangerous -- slope of government meddling.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected a typo.