Mailing out ballots to inactive voters is an open invitation to voter fraud. There's no telling who's going to receive and submit the ballot.
Therefore, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler sensibly told Denver and Pueblo Counties that they should follow Colorado law and not mail ballots to inactive voters.
In response to Gessler's protection of voting integrity, the left has waged a full-scale smear campaign against him, accusing him of racism and disenfranchisement. This is a major leftist strategy for the 2012 elections: smear all Republicans, conservatives, Tea Partiers, and free-market activists as racists, in order to raise sympathy support for Obama. It is a nasty, mean-spirited, intellectually dishonest tactic. If you want to understand why the left does this, read the article I coauthored on Saul Alinsky and Obama.
One basic issue is how an "inactive" voter can become "reactivated." It turns out it's trivially easy.
I called Andrew Cole about this; he is a spokesman for Gessler's office. (Michael Sandoval has also written a bit about this issue.)
Cole said, "To become inactive, you have to have missed a general election, not responded to at least one follow-up postcard from your county clerk, and not voted in any subsequent elections such as a municipal election."
So how does an inactive voter reactivate? Cole explained, "You can physically visit your clerk's office, you can go to GoVoteColorado.com and with a state ID card activate your status online, and you could also write a letter to your clerk, but you'd have to have a signature to verify who you were."
In addition, a previously inactive voter can get a ballot from the clerk directly "up until and including election day."
So this is pretty simple: if you have not voted in a recent election, and if you have not bothered to reply to your clerk's postcard, you can easily reactivate yourself online or by visiting or writing your clerk. Surely that's not too much to ask of those determining the future of the free world.
While he was on the phone, I also asked Cole about the controversy surrounding military voters.
Cole said that issue arose in Pueblo County under clerk Bo Ortiz. Cole said Ortiz asked the Secretary of State's office about the matter only this week.
According to Cole, Gessler's office told Ortiz that he "can't mail ballots to inactive voters." However, he "should have resolved this issue weeks ago." Cole said there are 80 inactive military voters listed in Pueblo County, and Ortiz has email contacts for 64 of them. In Cole's words, Gessler's office told Ortiz's office this week, "You should immediately email all 64" with known emails and send postcards to the rest. Moreover, Ortiz "should have done that weeks ago."
Cole summarized, "We're asking Peublo County to follow the law, just like we're asking Denver to follow the law."
Apparently following the law is not a concept the left easily wraps its collective head around. Instead, the left would rather play the politics of smear and character assassination.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Prop. 103. Would Hurt Working Families, Kill Jobs
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published September 30 by Grand Junction Free Press.
They're ba-a-ck, and they want to raise your taxes, again. They always do. Yes, it's "for the children." It usually is.
But Proposition 103, the tax hike brought to this fall's ballot by Boulder Democrat Rollie Heath and the teachers' unions, is really about taking more money out of the pockets of working families to enrich those unions. Throwing more tax dollars at government-run schools hardly would improve the quality of education.
If you really want to help "the children" (and everyone else), you will vote no on the job killer Prop. 103. Taking even more money out of the voluntary economy would only make it harder for working families to put food on the table and afford other necessities.
Perhaps you've noticed that the economy remains weak, with unemployment nationally hovering at around nine percent and Colorado not far behind. The mortgage bust and the bipartisan political bungling that followed hit Grand Junction especially hard. Politicians have already burdened the economy with myriad taxes and reams of controls -- how much more can it take?
Taking more money from working families for taxes would dry up private-sector jobs. While the cost of the tax hike would depend on the state of the economy, Legislative Council estimates the measure would suck around $2.9 billion out of the voluntary economy by raising sales and income taxes for five years. Think about how many salaries that represents.
Prop. 103 devotes the money to "public education" from preschool through college, taking the 2011-12 budget as the base level. Legislative Council estimates that base at about $4.3 billion (which includes only state funding, not local and federal). Thus, the added taxes would raise state spending by around 12 to 15 percent per year. Of course, how the legislature would adjust education spending absent the tax hike remains anybody's guess.
Even those who want to raise taxes may question a hike specifically for education. If you think state government should spend relatively more on roads and criminal investigations instead, you may not like Prop. 103 so much. On the other hand, those with particular ideas about how the state should fund education may not see the measure as specific enough.
We think state legislators should prioritize better, cut spending, and lower tax rates so people can keep more of the money they earn. Then people could spend their own money on what they find most important, whether education, a new business, health care, or whatever.
Would spending more tax dollars on education even improve the quality of education? We think not. The Joint Budget Committee notes total Colorado spending on education has jumped from just over $5 billion in 2004-05 to $7.2 billion in 2011-12, a 44 percent increase, while student enrollment has climbed 10 percent. Has education gotten proportionately better over that period? Hardly.
Taking a longer view, Ben DeGrow of the Independence Institute notes, "Since 1970 per-pupil spending in Colorado and the U.S. have more than doubled after counting inflationary changes -- even given the real modest freezes and cuts many Colorado K-12 schools have experienced over the past two years." (Note: Ari has written for the Institute, in one case on a contract basis.)
Coloradans already spend tons of money on education. The NEA recently estimated per-pupil spending here at over $9,500. Education spending already consumes around 37 percent of the state's total operating budget of $19.6 billion, dwarfing spending for corrections and transportation combined.
What do we get for all that spending? "Adding more tax dollars to K-12 systems on a large scale has no connection to improving academic results," DeGrow summarizes. As Andrew Coulson reviews for the Cato Institute, as U.S. per-pupil funding has skyrocketed over the last few decades, reading, math, and science scores have virtually flatlined.
Rather than throw more tax dollars at the teachers' unions and the political cronies they finance, we need to instead find better value for our education dollars. Schools need greater ability to fire dud teachers without incurring union lawsuits. Most districts can get by with fewer administrative paper-shufflers. Schools should stop following the latest expensive fads and get back to teaching the basics.
Over the longer term, we should look at ways to reduce political involvement in education, not expand it. We are heartened by the success of various charter schools throughout the state. Ultimately we'd like to see real choice in education. We prefer universal tax credits over vouchers. Eventually we'd like to see truly free markets emerge in education, with parents, educators, and voluntary charities assuming the basic responsibility for organizing and financing education. Get politicians and bureaucrats out of it.
This fall, though, we face an immediate choice. Should we divert even more money from the hard-pressed voluntary economy to the teachers' unions, or should we demand greater accountability and better prioritization for the tax dollars we already turn over? Only the latter option comports with economic sanity and your liberty to spend your money as you choose.
They're ba-a-ck, and they want to raise your taxes, again. They always do. Yes, it's "for the children." It usually is.
But Proposition 103, the tax hike brought to this fall's ballot by Boulder Democrat Rollie Heath and the teachers' unions, is really about taking more money out of the pockets of working families to enrich those unions. Throwing more tax dollars at government-run schools hardly would improve the quality of education.
If you really want to help "the children" (and everyone else), you will vote no on the job killer Prop. 103. Taking even more money out of the voluntary economy would only make it harder for working families to put food on the table and afford other necessities.
Perhaps you've noticed that the economy remains weak, with unemployment nationally hovering at around nine percent and Colorado not far behind. The mortgage bust and the bipartisan political bungling that followed hit Grand Junction especially hard. Politicians have already burdened the economy with myriad taxes and reams of controls -- how much more can it take?
Taking more money from working families for taxes would dry up private-sector jobs. While the cost of the tax hike would depend on the state of the economy, Legislative Council estimates the measure would suck around $2.9 billion out of the voluntary economy by raising sales and income taxes for five years. Think about how many salaries that represents.
Prop. 103 devotes the money to "public education" from preschool through college, taking the 2011-12 budget as the base level. Legislative Council estimates that base at about $4.3 billion (which includes only state funding, not local and federal). Thus, the added taxes would raise state spending by around 12 to 15 percent per year. Of course, how the legislature would adjust education spending absent the tax hike remains anybody's guess.
Even those who want to raise taxes may question a hike specifically for education. If you think state government should spend relatively more on roads and criminal investigations instead, you may not like Prop. 103 so much. On the other hand, those with particular ideas about how the state should fund education may not see the measure as specific enough.
We think state legislators should prioritize better, cut spending, and lower tax rates so people can keep more of the money they earn. Then people could spend their own money on what they find most important, whether education, a new business, health care, or whatever.
Would spending more tax dollars on education even improve the quality of education? We think not. The Joint Budget Committee notes total Colorado spending on education has jumped from just over $5 billion in 2004-05 to $7.2 billion in 2011-12, a 44 percent increase, while student enrollment has climbed 10 percent. Has education gotten proportionately better over that period? Hardly.
Taking a longer view, Ben DeGrow of the Independence Institute notes, "Since 1970 per-pupil spending in Colorado and the U.S. have more than doubled after counting inflationary changes -- even given the real modest freezes and cuts many Colorado K-12 schools have experienced over the past two years." (Note: Ari has written for the Institute, in one case on a contract basis.)
Coloradans already spend tons of money on education. The NEA recently estimated per-pupil spending here at over $9,500. Education spending already consumes around 37 percent of the state's total operating budget of $19.6 billion, dwarfing spending for corrections and transportation combined.
What do we get for all that spending? "Adding more tax dollars to K-12 systems on a large scale has no connection to improving academic results," DeGrow summarizes. As Andrew Coulson reviews for the Cato Institute, as U.S. per-pupil funding has skyrocketed over the last few decades, reading, math, and science scores have virtually flatlined.
Rather than throw more tax dollars at the teachers' unions and the political cronies they finance, we need to instead find better value for our education dollars. Schools need greater ability to fire dud teachers without incurring union lawsuits. Most districts can get by with fewer administrative paper-shufflers. Schools should stop following the latest expensive fads and get back to teaching the basics.
Over the longer term, we should look at ways to reduce political involvement in education, not expand it. We are heartened by the success of various charter schools throughout the state. Ultimately we'd like to see real choice in education. We prefer universal tax credits over vouchers. Eventually we'd like to see truly free markets emerge in education, with parents, educators, and voluntary charities assuming the basic responsibility for organizing and financing education. Get politicians and bureaucrats out of it.
This fall, though, we face an immediate choice. Should we divert even more money from the hard-pressed voluntary economy to the teachers' unions, or should we demand greater accountability and better prioritization for the tax dollars we already turn over? Only the latter option comports with economic sanity and your liberty to spend your money as you choose.
Labels:
PPC
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Hoiles Finalist
RELEASE
Ari Armstrong Announced as Hoiles Finalist for Regional Journalism
Colorado free-market writer Ari Armstrong has been announced as a finalist in the 2011 Hoiles Prize for regional journalism. The award, offered by the International Policy Network (IPN), takes its name from R. C. Hoiles, former head of Freedom Newspapers.
"I'm honored to be included in this impressive group of finalists," Armstrong said. "I'm also very pleased that IPN recognizes this important regional work. I've long believed that advocating liberty at the regional level forms the bedrock of a strong republic."
Armstrong joins six other finalists, and the three winners will be announced November 2 in New York. The same evening, IPN will also announce the winners of the prestigious Bastiat Prize.
Armstrong coauthored four of the six essays submitted for the contest with his father Linn for Grand Junction Free Press.
An IPN release announces the following details:
"Richard Fisher, president and CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve, will speak at the tenth annual dinner for the Bastiat Prize at the Four Seasons Restaurant... in New York on Wednesday, November 2, 2011. ... This year a new prize, the R.C. Hoiles Prize for Journalism, will be given for American work. The prize celebrates courageous journalists who explain the importance of free markets and risks presented by excessive government intervention. ...
"The seven nominated Hoiles finalists are: Ari Armstrong (Colorado Daily), Sara Burrows (Carolina Journal), Bill Frezza (RealClearMarkets.com), Steven Greenhut (The Orange County Register), Steve Malanga (Manhattan Institute, The Wall Street Journal), Bruce Ramsey (The Seattle Times) and Damon Root (Reason)."
The following six articles were considered for the prize:
'New energy economy' based on old fallacies
Colorado Daily, January 16, 2011
(Also published by Denver Daily and Summit Daily.)
How many criminals has Colorado use tax created?
Mountain Mail, May 25, 2011
(Also published by Denver Daily.)
Channel 11 piece peddles economic nonsense
Grand Junction Free Press, May 27, 2011
Colorado's Campaign Laws Throw Common Sense Out the Window
Grand Junction Free Press, May 13, 2011
Walter Walker Opposed Grand Junction's Socialists
Grand Junction Free Press, April 15, 2011
Time for a Free Market in the Alcohol Industry
Grand Junction Free Press, December 10, 2010
Ari Armstrong Announced as Hoiles Finalist for Regional Journalism
Colorado free-market writer Ari Armstrong has been announced as a finalist in the 2011 Hoiles Prize for regional journalism. The award, offered by the International Policy Network (IPN), takes its name from R. C. Hoiles, former head of Freedom Newspapers.
"I'm honored to be included in this impressive group of finalists," Armstrong said. "I'm also very pleased that IPN recognizes this important regional work. I've long believed that advocating liberty at the regional level forms the bedrock of a strong republic."
Armstrong joins six other finalists, and the three winners will be announced November 2 in New York. The same evening, IPN will also announce the winners of the prestigious Bastiat Prize.
Armstrong coauthored four of the six essays submitted for the contest with his father Linn for Grand Junction Free Press.
An IPN release announces the following details:
"Richard Fisher, president and CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve, will speak at the tenth annual dinner for the Bastiat Prize at the Four Seasons Restaurant... in New York on Wednesday, November 2, 2011. ... This year a new prize, the R.C. Hoiles Prize for Journalism, will be given for American work. The prize celebrates courageous journalists who explain the importance of free markets and risks presented by excessive government intervention. ...
"The seven nominated Hoiles finalists are: Ari Armstrong (Colorado Daily), Sara Burrows (Carolina Journal), Bill Frezza (RealClearMarkets.com), Steven Greenhut (The Orange County Register), Steve Malanga (Manhattan Institute, The Wall Street Journal), Bruce Ramsey (The Seattle Times) and Damon Root (Reason)."
The following six articles were considered for the prize:
'New energy economy' based on old fallacies
Colorado Daily, January 16, 2011
(Also published by Denver Daily and Summit Daily.)
How many criminals has Colorado use tax created?
Mountain Mail, May 25, 2011
(Also published by Denver Daily.)
Channel 11 piece peddles economic nonsense
Grand Junction Free Press, May 27, 2011
Colorado's Campaign Laws Throw Common Sense Out the Window
Grand Junction Free Press, May 13, 2011
Walter Walker Opposed Grand Junction's Socialists
Grand Junction Free Press, April 15, 2011
Time for a Free Market in the Alcohol Industry
Grand Junction Free Press, December 10, 2010
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Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Pajamas Reply to Elizabeth Warren
Pajamas Media has published my latest article, "Elizabeth Warren's 'Social Contract' an Ideological Fantasy." (The editors picked the great title.)
The article replies to a popular video of Warren in which she argues the "social contract" justifies hefty taxes on the wealthy.
I decimate her arguments, if I do say so. First, I point out, "Productive business leaders create the wealth that enables us to thrive, seek employment, and on the side pay for governmental services." Then I argue the proper function of government is to protect people's rights. I conclude:
Check out the entire piece!
The article replies to a popular video of Warren in which she argues the "social contract" justifies hefty taxes on the wealthy.
I decimate her arguments, if I do say so. First, I point out, "Productive business leaders create the wealth that enables us to thrive, seek employment, and on the side pay for governmental services." Then I argue the proper function of government is to protect people's rights. I conclude:
The notion that the likes of Nancy Pelosi can spend the money of Amazon's Jeff Bezos better than Bezos can is laughable on its face.
Warren contends "there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own." In a sense she's right: people get rich by providing enormously valuable goods and services to others who willingly pay for them. Warren and other politicians should not be able to dictate what "hunk" of the earnings of others they forcibly seize. ...[L]egitimate government does not loot "the rich" (or anyone else) but instead protects people's rights, including their rights to their earnings.
Check out the entire piece!
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Warming Prophets Create Climate of Smear
I like Skeptic magazine; indeed, I have written an article for eSkeptic about religion in Harry Potter. Healthy skepticism is about thinking for yourself, declining to accept "established wisdom" without good evidence, and rejecting pseudo-science and appeals to non-natural explanations about the world.
Unfortunately, the latest article by geologist Donald Prothero for eSkeptic promotes group-think and smearing the opposition. Prothero accuses "climate change-deniers" of ad hominem attacks, even though the very label contains two smears.
First, Prothero clearly means to attribute guilt by association with the term "denier," linking his opponents with other unassociated groups. Prothero explicitly likens his opponents to "evolution-deniers," and never mind that many critical thinkers accept evolution but question climate alarmism. Ah, but some "climate change-deniers" are also "evolution-deniers," and that's good enough for Prothero. The argument seems to be, "Some of my opponents are idiots; therefore, all of my opponents are wrong." But that's not good enough, not if you claim the mantle of science.
Second, Prothero's claim that his opponents "deny climate change" is simply a ridiculous lie. Nobody denies that the climate changes. Indeed, it is precisely the fact that the climate always changes and has been continually changing since the formation of the Earth that provides good prima facie reason to think that modern climate change is dominated by nature rather than humans. In all the climate-change literature, the single page that most impressed me was the page from Al Gore's first major book on the subject showing the pre-human cycles of climate change.
Only a fool would argue that modern climate change is due exclusively to human industry. (On the other hand, it is a tautology that, before humans evolved, nature was exclusively responsible for climate change.) However, nobody could sustain the view that human-caused CO2 emissions have zero impact on today's climate. Therefore, the real debate is between the views of "human-dominated climate change" and "nature-dominated climate change."
Given that nature obviously dominated climate change for nearly all of the Earth's history, the idea that nature continues to dominate climate change remains a highly plausible starting point.
As to Prothero's claims about the "scientific consensus" (which, incidentally, has been wrong before), there are a couple of good reasons to think that ideology drives much of the science. First, large sums of federal cash are awarded to scientists who promote the "consensus" view. Second, most advocates of "human-dominated climate change" advocate massive federal controls on the economy as a response, even though that political conclusion extends well beyond the scientific claims.
True skeptics will not be bowled over by the smear tactics and intimidation of the modern environmentalist movement.
Unfortunately, the latest article by geologist Donald Prothero for eSkeptic promotes group-think and smearing the opposition. Prothero accuses "climate change-deniers" of ad hominem attacks, even though the very label contains two smears.
First, Prothero clearly means to attribute guilt by association with the term "denier," linking his opponents with other unassociated groups. Prothero explicitly likens his opponents to "evolution-deniers," and never mind that many critical thinkers accept evolution but question climate alarmism. Ah, but some "climate change-deniers" are also "evolution-deniers," and that's good enough for Prothero. The argument seems to be, "Some of my opponents are idiots; therefore, all of my opponents are wrong." But that's not good enough, not if you claim the mantle of science.
Second, Prothero's claim that his opponents "deny climate change" is simply a ridiculous lie. Nobody denies that the climate changes. Indeed, it is precisely the fact that the climate always changes and has been continually changing since the formation of the Earth that provides good prima facie reason to think that modern climate change is dominated by nature rather than humans. In all the climate-change literature, the single page that most impressed me was the page from Al Gore's first major book on the subject showing the pre-human cycles of climate change.
Only a fool would argue that modern climate change is due exclusively to human industry. (On the other hand, it is a tautology that, before humans evolved, nature was exclusively responsible for climate change.) However, nobody could sustain the view that human-caused CO2 emissions have zero impact on today's climate. Therefore, the real debate is between the views of "human-dominated climate change" and "nature-dominated climate change."
Given that nature obviously dominated climate change for nearly all of the Earth's history, the idea that nature continues to dominate climate change remains a highly plausible starting point.
As to Prothero's claims about the "scientific consensus" (which, incidentally, has been wrong before), there are a couple of good reasons to think that ideology drives much of the science. First, large sums of federal cash are awarded to scientists who promote the "consensus" view. Second, most advocates of "human-dominated climate change" advocate massive federal controls on the economy as a response, even though that political conclusion extends well beyond the scientific claims.
True skeptics will not be bowled over by the smear tactics and intimidation of the modern environmentalist movement.
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PPC
Monday, September 26, 2011
What Is Individualism?
Many people hold a confused view of what individualism means. In this short talk, I seek to clarify the concept. Individualism does not mean becoming a loner or failing to help others; it does mean thinking independently and seeing the individual human being as the fundamental source of moral values. Obviously there is much more to be said on the topic, but I this was a good start for four minutes. (The original September 24 talk, delivered at a Toastmasters event, also included an introduction and ending, but those were too audience-specific to be of general interest.)
I mention the CNN debate in which Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul if "society" should let someone die who gets sick without health insurance; I have written on that topic elsewhere.
I mention the CNN debate in which Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul if "society" should let someone die who gets sick without health insurance; I have written on that topic elsewhere.
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Saturday, September 24, 2011
Health Responsibility (In My PJs)
Pajamas Media has published my latest article, "Health Insurance and Personal Responsibility," a reply to Wolf Blitzer's remark about letting people without health insurance die.
While my piece was in processing, several others wrote about the issue as well, including Mike Rosen and John Goodman (who in turn links to several other articles on the matter). See also my previous post, "Tea Party Crowd Cheers Voluntary Health Charity."
Following are some of my favorite quotes from the PJ article:
Check out the complete article!
While my piece was in processing, several others wrote about the issue as well, including Mike Rosen and John Goodman (who in turn links to several other articles on the matter). See also my previous post, "Tea Party Crowd Cheers Voluntary Health Charity."
Following are some of my favorite quotes from the PJ article:
... Blitzer's question presumes that the only three alternatives are overpriced insurance, letting him die, or forcing others to pay for his care. Thankfully, the real world offers us far better options. ...
"Society" has no right to violate the rights of minorities or of individuals. Doctors, hospitals, and individuals who wish to help pay for others' care remain free to do so, but they should not be forced by federal politicians to do so.
The deeper problem, the real reason a healthy 30 year old grows tempted to forgo health insurance, is that politicians have made the costs of health care and insurance ludicrously expensive. ...
Free-market reforms make it easier for people to live and pursue a healthy and autonomous life. In moving toward that goal, all that needs to die are the misguided political controls on health care and insurance that have so thoroughly debilitated those fields.
Check out the complete article!
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Friday, September 23, 2011
Reviewing Ayn Rand's 'Anthem'
Recently a local reading group I attend reviewed Ayn Rand's dystopian novelette Anthem. That book served as my introduction to Rand many years ago, and rereading it proved rewarding.
In our discussion, we explored a variety of topics:
* The romance between the two lead characters, Equality and Liberty, develops as Equality becomes an independent thinker and scientist. This anticipates Howard Roark's comment in Fountainhead, "To say 'I love you' one must first know how to say the 'I'."
* The way Equality values his scientific work anticipates the relationship between the heroes and their work in Atlas Shrugged. It illustrates Rand's view that material objects are not valuable in themselves, but only in relation to individual values and consciousness.
* For Rand, totalitarianism necessarily results, ultimately, in total economic collapse. The central reason for this is that political controls prevent individuals from acting on their own reasoned judgment, ultimately chilling reasoned thought as such. In the long run capitalism and technological progress cannot survive totalitarian controls. Contrast the primitive society of Anthem with the (in some ways) highly technical societies of other dystopias, such as Brave New World and, more recently, Hunger Games.
Now that I've reread Anthem, I very much look forward to reading Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem, edited by Robert Mayhew. I've read the similar compilation about Atlas Shrugged, and it is excellent.
Incidentally, I was thrilled to watch the documentary Rush: 2112 & Moving Pictures (Classic Album) and find an excellent overview of Anthem by John Ridpath. (Anthem helped inspire the story for 2112.)
Below are the review questions used for our group (and others are free to reproduce these for purposes of discussion).
1. What is the ego? (Peikoff's 1994 introduction)
2. How do the conditions surrounding the writing and publication of Anthem relate to the book's theme? (Peikoff's 1994 introduction, Rand's 1946 foreword)
3. What are the principles and laws of the story's society, and what are the emotional consequences of Equality 7-2521 breaking them? (Chapter I)
4. What is the connection between the collectivism and the technological regression of the story? (Chapter I)
5. Why does Rand place the budding romance between the discovery of the tunnel and the Unspeakable Word? (Chapter II)
6. What is the relationship between the advancing scientific discoveries and the building romance? (Chapter III, Chapter IV)
7. Why does Equality say "our new power defies all laws?" Is he right? (Chapter IV)
8. Why does Equality think "this wire is as a part of our body?" (Chapter V)
9. Why does Equality believe the Council of Scholars will accept his gift? Why is he wrong? (Chapter V, Chapter VII)
10. What is the significance of the observation that the electric light "would bring ruin to the Department of Candles?" (Chapter VII)
11. How does Equality's self-discovery connect to his love of the Golden One? (Chapter VIII, Chapter IX)
12. How does Equality's independence mesh with the Golden One's deference toward him? (Chapter X)
13. What is the "world ready to be born?" (Chapter X)
14. What does Equality mean when he writes, "I am the warrant and the sanction?" (Chapter XI)
15. What does Equality mean when he writes, "I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others?" (Chapter XI)
16. How does Prometheus retain his independence while learning so much from others? (Chapter XII)
17. How can one man stoke "the spirit of man?" (Chapter XII)
In our discussion, we explored a variety of topics:
* The romance between the two lead characters, Equality and Liberty, develops as Equality becomes an independent thinker and scientist. This anticipates Howard Roark's comment in Fountainhead, "To say 'I love you' one must first know how to say the 'I'."
* The way Equality values his scientific work anticipates the relationship between the heroes and their work in Atlas Shrugged. It illustrates Rand's view that material objects are not valuable in themselves, but only in relation to individual values and consciousness.
* For Rand, totalitarianism necessarily results, ultimately, in total economic collapse. The central reason for this is that political controls prevent individuals from acting on their own reasoned judgment, ultimately chilling reasoned thought as such. In the long run capitalism and technological progress cannot survive totalitarian controls. Contrast the primitive society of Anthem with the (in some ways) highly technical societies of other dystopias, such as Brave New World and, more recently, Hunger Games.
Now that I've reread Anthem, I very much look forward to reading Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem, edited by Robert Mayhew. I've read the similar compilation about Atlas Shrugged, and it is excellent.
Incidentally, I was thrilled to watch the documentary Rush: 2112 & Moving Pictures (Classic Album) and find an excellent overview of Anthem by John Ridpath. (Anthem helped inspire the story for 2112.)
Below are the review questions used for our group (and others are free to reproduce these for purposes of discussion).
1. What is the ego? (Peikoff's 1994 introduction)
2. How do the conditions surrounding the writing and publication of Anthem relate to the book's theme? (Peikoff's 1994 introduction, Rand's 1946 foreword)
3. What are the principles and laws of the story's society, and what are the emotional consequences of Equality 7-2521 breaking them? (Chapter I)
4. What is the connection between the collectivism and the technological regression of the story? (Chapter I)
5. Why does Rand place the budding romance between the discovery of the tunnel and the Unspeakable Word? (Chapter II)
6. What is the relationship between the advancing scientific discoveries and the building romance? (Chapter III, Chapter IV)
7. Why does Equality say "our new power defies all laws?" Is he right? (Chapter IV)
8. Why does Equality think "this wire is as a part of our body?" (Chapter V)
9. Why does Equality believe the Council of Scholars will accept his gift? Why is he wrong? (Chapter V, Chapter VII)
10. What is the significance of the observation that the electric light "would bring ruin to the Department of Candles?" (Chapter VII)
11. How does Equality's self-discovery connect to his love of the Golden One? (Chapter VIII, Chapter IX)
12. How does Equality's independence mesh with the Golden One's deference toward him? (Chapter X)
13. What is the "world ready to be born?" (Chapter X)
14. What does Equality mean when he writes, "I am the warrant and the sanction?" (Chapter XI)
15. What does Equality mean when he writes, "I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others?" (Chapter XI)
16. How does Prometheus retain his independence while learning so much from others? (Chapter XII)
17. How can one man stoke "the spirit of man?" (Chapter XII)
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Thursday, September 22, 2011
Let's Eliminate the Sales Tax
As my dad and I argued last year, Colorado should eliminate the sales tax (along with the use tax) even if done in a revenue-neutral way by increasing the income tax rate.
Consider a few of the many problems with the tax:
* Interstate commerce has created huge problems for collecting and administering sales and use taxes.
* Paying the sales tax over small-scale intrastate commerce is incredibly difficult. For example, I can directly sell my book, Values of Harry Potter, practically anywhere in the world, but I cannot afford the paperwork nightmare of selling it directly in Colorado. (You can still buy it on Amazon!) In my experience, many small businesses simply ignore the sales tax laws.
* Paying the use tax is an absolute nightmare, and the fact that hardly anybody does it turns most Coloradans into criminals.
* Sales taxes disadvantage local stores, yet forcing out-of-state businesses to collect sales taxes would create "as many as 15,000 tax rates to administer" -- a bureaucratic nightmare.
The obvious solution to all these problems is to simply eliminate the sales tax.
Thankfully, the Joint Budget Committee has placed the Colorado budget online starting with 2004-05. Looking at the budget for fiscal year 2011-12, we can learn what eliminating the sales tax would mean.
Page 6 of that document reveals that total "excise taxes" (sales, use, and related taxes) bring in $2,184,400,000 (let's say $2.2 billion). Income taxes bring in $4,692,200,000 (let's say $4.7 billion). So, very roughly, eliminating the sales tax in a revenue-neutral way would require an increase in the income tax of somewhere less than fifty percent. Of course I'd rather see net taxes decline, but I could live with a revenue-neutral shift in order to get rid of the onerous sales tax.
Consider a few of the many problems with the tax:
* Interstate commerce has created huge problems for collecting and administering sales and use taxes.
* Paying the sales tax over small-scale intrastate commerce is incredibly difficult. For example, I can directly sell my book, Values of Harry Potter, practically anywhere in the world, but I cannot afford the paperwork nightmare of selling it directly in Colorado. (You can still buy it on Amazon!) In my experience, many small businesses simply ignore the sales tax laws.
* Paying the use tax is an absolute nightmare, and the fact that hardly anybody does it turns most Coloradans into criminals.
* Sales taxes disadvantage local stores, yet forcing out-of-state businesses to collect sales taxes would create "as many as 15,000 tax rates to administer" -- a bureaucratic nightmare.
The obvious solution to all these problems is to simply eliminate the sales tax.
Thankfully, the Joint Budget Committee has placed the Colorado budget online starting with 2004-05. Looking at the budget for fiscal year 2011-12, we can learn what eliminating the sales tax would mean.
Page 6 of that document reveals that total "excise taxes" (sales, use, and related taxes) bring in $2,184,400,000 (let's say $2.2 billion). Income taxes bring in $4,692,200,000 (let's say $4.7 billion). So, very roughly, eliminating the sales tax in a revenue-neutral way would require an increase in the income tax of somewhere less than fifty percent. Of course I'd rather see net taxes decline, but I could live with a revenue-neutral shift in order to get rid of the onerous sales tax.
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Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Prop. 103 and Fungibility
Proposition 103 is the sole state-wide measure, a tax hike, for the November 1 Colorado ballot. I will have more to say about this elsewhere. For now, I want to investigate one particular aspect of the measure; the potential fungibility of funds under it.
Here's an analogy to introduce the fungibility issue. Let's say your daughter has $100. She wants to go to a concert, but she doesn't want to spend the $30 on a ticket. She also wants to buy a $30 book to help her get into college, and she wants to spend the other $70 on a trip to the mall. She comes to you and says, "Mom, I really, REALLY need this $30 book, because it's really REALLY important for me to get into college. Can, I can I, can I have $30 for the book, please please PLEASE?! I promise I'll use that $30 only for the book."
You say sure. So she spends $30 on the book, $30 on a ticket, and $70 at the mall. Otherwise, she would have forgone the concert ticket and spent $100 total. True to her promise, she spent your $30 on the book. But that's where the fungibility issue comes up: your gift allowed her to divert another $30 to the concert ticket. So even though you officially gave her the money for the book, you might as well have given it to her for the concert ticket. The result is the same.
So the question is, even though Prop. 103 raises taxes "to be spent only to fund public education," does that really mean it will require the legislature to spend more on education that it would have done otherwise?
The answer is yes. Consider the change to the statutory language, which is the primary thing that matters in court; see page 10 of the Blue Book. (I'd like to thank Carolyn Kampman of the Joint Budget Committee and Chris Ward of the Legislative Council for helping me understand this.)
The key line is the last one, which requires that the legislature spend whatever it spends in 2011-12, plus the proceeds of the tax hike. Legislative Council estimates that will be about $515 million the first year and progressively more after that, for a five-year total of $2.9 billion.
The question, though, is what the legislature otherwise would spend on education. If it otherwise would spend (say) $500 million more on education, and the tax hike brings in $600 million, then the legislature has $500 million to devote to other purposes.
Based on my conversations with Kampman and Ward, I conclude it is basically impossible to predict how the legislature otherwise would act, though I confess the intricacies of school finance surpass my mastery. It seems reasonable to assume, though, that Prop. 103 would add substantially to the education budget for the five-year period.
I think Prop. 103 is nevertheless a really horrible idea, but I'll present the reasoning for that conclusion elsewhere.
Here's an analogy to introduce the fungibility issue. Let's say your daughter has $100. She wants to go to a concert, but she doesn't want to spend the $30 on a ticket. She also wants to buy a $30 book to help her get into college, and she wants to spend the other $70 on a trip to the mall. She comes to you and says, "Mom, I really, REALLY need this $30 book, because it's really REALLY important for me to get into college. Can, I can I, can I have $30 for the book, please please PLEASE?! I promise I'll use that $30 only for the book."
You say sure. So she spends $30 on the book, $30 on a ticket, and $70 at the mall. Otherwise, she would have forgone the concert ticket and spent $100 total. True to her promise, she spent your $30 on the book. But that's where the fungibility issue comes up: your gift allowed her to divert another $30 to the concert ticket. So even though you officially gave her the money for the book, you might as well have given it to her for the concert ticket. The result is the same.
So the question is, even though Prop. 103 raises taxes "to be spent only to fund public education," does that really mean it will require the legislature to spend more on education that it would have done otherwise?
The answer is yes. Consider the change to the statutory language, which is the primary thing that matters in court; see page 10 of the Blue Book. (I'd like to thank Carolyn Kampman of the Joint Budget Committee and Chris Ward of the Legislative Council for helping me understand this.)
All revenues raised by the increase in taxes imposed pursuant to this measure... shall be appropriated by the general assembly only for the costs of public education from preschool through twelfth grade and public postsecondary education and shall be in addition to and not a substitute for moneys otherwise appropriated by the general assembly for the costs of public education from preschool through twelfth grade and public postsecondary education the amount of which appropriation shall be not less than the amount appropriated for such purposes for fiscal year 2011-12.
The key line is the last one, which requires that the legislature spend whatever it spends in 2011-12, plus the proceeds of the tax hike. Legislative Council estimates that will be about $515 million the first year and progressively more after that, for a five-year total of $2.9 billion.
The question, though, is what the legislature otherwise would spend on education. If it otherwise would spend (say) $500 million more on education, and the tax hike brings in $600 million, then the legislature has $500 million to devote to other purposes.
Based on my conversations with Kampman and Ward, I conclude it is basically impossible to predict how the legislature otherwise would act, though I confess the intricacies of school finance surpass my mastery. It seems reasonable to assume, though, that Prop. 103 would add substantially to the education budget for the five-year period.
I think Prop. 103 is nevertheless a really horrible idea, but I'll present the reasoning for that conclusion elsewhere.
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PPC
Why Netflix's Split Business Probably Makes Sense
[October 10 Update: "Netflix "has abandoned its unpopular plan to spin off its DVD-by-mail service and rename it Qwikster, saying it will continue to offer both services through its flagship web site." From Netflix: "It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. This means no change: one website, one account, one password... in other words, no Qwikster." Obviously this news renders moot much of my previous discussion, preserved below. -Ari]
As I indicated yesterday, I'm a little shocked by all the people sliming Netflix for the "crime" of offering customers amazing services for stunningly low prices.
No, the company did not handle the price hike well (though its real error was offering unrealistically low prices in the first place). And I do recognize that splitting the DVD rental from the online streaming (with two web portals and two bills) adds a minor inconvenience to customers using both services.
But many treat Netflix like its leaders had absolutely no reason for splitting the business other than to annoy customers. In other words, people utterly ignorant of the business's internal forecasts and long-range strategic plans think they can armchair-CEO better than those whose livelihoods and futures rest on the success of the company. I think that attitude is more than a little presumptuous.
Now, I don't know those forecasts or plans, either; however, I can take some educated guesses as to why Netflix decided to split the business.
1. The inconvenience is minor. Is it really that hard to maintain two accounts? No. It's extremely easy to log into two pages and maintain two queues. Until recently I used both of Netflix's services, and that required maintaining two lists, anyway. If something in my DVD queue appeared in streaming, I still had to manually rank the item in my streaming list and remove it from my DVD list. So the new system is trivially different. (That said, Netflix would do well to alert customers when DVD items become available for streaming.) [Update: Somebody pointed out to me that it was possible to maintain an integrated queue on the Netflix DVD list, as everything streaming is also on DVD, but I never found that helpful.] And two lines on one's credit card bill instead of one? Like, Oh, My, God, surely the sky falling comes next. Get a grip, people.
2. Most people will naturally gravitate to one service or the other. As I reviewed yesterday, I dropped the DVD rentals after Netflix announced the price hike. According to Henry Blodget, half of Netflix's customers used both services. (For those keeping track, that means half used only one service or the other.) But the figure for both services was inflated by the ridiculously and unsustainably low bundling price. If you wanted the DVD service, you could get streaming on the side for a pittance more, and vice versa.
Those running Netflix, not being as dense and short-sighted as so many of their critics have managed to appear, can see the technological trend lines. Streaming is getting progressively faster and cheaper. More and more people are buying iPads and other portable devices that can handle streaming. Ever more content is becoming available for streaming. At the same time, some people just prefer the older technology, can't get good internet connections, or don't want to tie up their internet with streaming. Thus, the two groups of customers seem to be diverging, not merging.
3. The split allows more tailored marketing. Assuming the above to be true, that the DVD and streaming customers represent very different demographics, a split company may have a much easier time tailoring its marketing campaigns to the two distinct groups.
4. Splitting the business allows easier adjustments to both sides. Not a single critic of Netflix can predict what's going to happen to the Post Office over the coming months and years. Perhaps Netflix's critics have failed to notice this little detail, but the USPS delivers Netflix disks. The USPS has been hemorrhaging billions of dollars, so delivery schedules or prices may change dramatically over the coming months. Netflix may have to change its DVD rental service accordingly. At the same time, while streaming becomes faster and cheaper, it could be that hot new content may cost Netflix more to secure. Splitting the business allows each side to easily and independently adjust pricing and details of service.
5. Splitting the services allows for splitting the company. Others have suggested this. With the services split within Netflix, the company could easy split legally as well, forming two autonomous corporations. Or Netflix could eventually sell off the DVD side. I can't imagine that the people running Netflix have never contemplated such possibilities.
Netflix can clearly see the model of what happens to companies that fail to adapt to changing technology: Borders. Netflix has chosen to take its lumps in the market now in the hopes of sustaining its long-term health. While sensible observers can debate whether Netflix made the best long-range decision, I think it's foolish and frankly mean-spirited to fail to recognize the plausible reasons supporing the company's shift.
As I indicated yesterday, I'm a little shocked by all the people sliming Netflix for the "crime" of offering customers amazing services for stunningly low prices.
No, the company did not handle the price hike well (though its real error was offering unrealistically low prices in the first place). And I do recognize that splitting the DVD rental from the online streaming (with two web portals and two bills) adds a minor inconvenience to customers using both services.
But many treat Netflix like its leaders had absolutely no reason for splitting the business other than to annoy customers. In other words, people utterly ignorant of the business's internal forecasts and long-range strategic plans think they can armchair-CEO better than those whose livelihoods and futures rest on the success of the company. I think that attitude is more than a little presumptuous.
Now, I don't know those forecasts or plans, either; however, I can take some educated guesses as to why Netflix decided to split the business.
1. The inconvenience is minor. Is it really that hard to maintain two accounts? No. It's extremely easy to log into two pages and maintain two queues. Until recently I used both of Netflix's services, and that required maintaining two lists, anyway. If something in my DVD queue appeared in streaming, I still had to manually rank the item in my streaming list and remove it from my DVD list. So the new system is trivially different. (That said, Netflix would do well to alert customers when DVD items become available for streaming.) [Update: Somebody pointed out to me that it was possible to maintain an integrated queue on the Netflix DVD list, as everything streaming is also on DVD, but I never found that helpful.] And two lines on one's credit card bill instead of one? Like, Oh, My, God, surely the sky falling comes next. Get a grip, people.
2. Most people will naturally gravitate to one service or the other. As I reviewed yesterday, I dropped the DVD rentals after Netflix announced the price hike. According to Henry Blodget, half of Netflix's customers used both services. (For those keeping track, that means half used only one service or the other.) But the figure for both services was inflated by the ridiculously and unsustainably low bundling price. If you wanted the DVD service, you could get streaming on the side for a pittance more, and vice versa.
Those running Netflix, not being as dense and short-sighted as so many of their critics have managed to appear, can see the technological trend lines. Streaming is getting progressively faster and cheaper. More and more people are buying iPads and other portable devices that can handle streaming. Ever more content is becoming available for streaming. At the same time, some people just prefer the older technology, can't get good internet connections, or don't want to tie up their internet with streaming. Thus, the two groups of customers seem to be diverging, not merging.
3. The split allows more tailored marketing. Assuming the above to be true, that the DVD and streaming customers represent very different demographics, a split company may have a much easier time tailoring its marketing campaigns to the two distinct groups.
4. Splitting the business allows easier adjustments to both sides. Not a single critic of Netflix can predict what's going to happen to the Post Office over the coming months and years. Perhaps Netflix's critics have failed to notice this little detail, but the USPS delivers Netflix disks. The USPS has been hemorrhaging billions of dollars, so delivery schedules or prices may change dramatically over the coming months. Netflix may have to change its DVD rental service accordingly. At the same time, while streaming becomes faster and cheaper, it could be that hot new content may cost Netflix more to secure. Splitting the business allows each side to easily and independently adjust pricing and details of service.
5. Splitting the services allows for splitting the company. Others have suggested this. With the services split within Netflix, the company could easy split legally as well, forming two autonomous corporations. Or Netflix could eventually sell off the DVD side. I can't imagine that the people running Netflix have never contemplated such possibilities.
Netflix can clearly see the model of what happens to companies that fail to adapt to changing technology: Borders. Netflix has chosen to take its lumps in the market now in the hopes of sustaining its long-term health. While sensible observers can debate whether Netflix made the best long-range decision, I think it's foolish and frankly mean-spirited to fail to recognize the plausible reasons supporing the company's shift.
Labels:
PPC
Monday, September 19, 2011
Thank You, Netflix
I'm a little surprised by the negative reactions to Reed Hastings's announcement that Netflix is splitting its services into online streaming and DVD rentals.
When Netflix announced its price increases a few weeks ago, I evaluated my streaming queue and my DVD queue, thought about the costs, and decided to dump the DVD side of the service. So now I pay $7.99 per month -- around 27 cents per day -- for continual access to a spectacular selection of streaming television shows and movies. For that pittance I can watch most of the Star Trek series, Charmed, The Twilight Zone, and tons of other awesome shows, films, and documentaries. In what universe is that not a spectacularly amazing deal?
If I wanted, for another $7.99 per month I could rent DVDs, one at a time, without monthly limits. At least where I live, the Netflix DVD cycle takes around three days, meaning I could rent as many as (around) eight DVDs per month with this plan. (Realistically I'd probably cycle through around four per month.) In what universe is $2 or less DVD rentals not a spectacularly amazing deal? However, it just wasn't quite a good enough deal for me, given the alternatives. Redbox rents new release videos for a dollar, we also use Hulu (the "free" version), and I purchased a couple seasons of House on used DVD. But I came close to dumping my other sources and going solely with Netflix and Hulu.
Think of it this way. If Netflix didn't exist, and a new company suddenly came on the market to offer what Netflix now offers, a streaming service plus a DVD rental service, each for a low monthly price, people would fall all over themselves signing up and lauding the new service. Apparently, given that Netflix has been offering its customers such amazing value for so long now, the company now deserves derision and scorn rather than praise. I think that's a little nuts and frankly a little ungrateful.
Now, I do see a problem with disconnecting the DVD queue from the streaming queue. The problem is that, when I (used to) put a DVD on my queue, and then the same item became available in streaming, the item appeared automatically in my streaming queue, and I didn't burn a DVD rental on it. Now, if you get both services, you'll have to manually add an item to streaming and delete it from the DVD queue.
However, Netflix seems to be anticipating -- and I think correctly -- that most people will come to want one service or the other, but not both. I think everything available for streaming is also available on DVD, and the opposite will increasingly become the case as time goes on. I can see why some people would prefer DVDs over streaming, though I definitely prefer streaming. I found this line from Hastings to be especially interesting: "DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible." It will be interesting to see what happens as streaming gets faster and cheaper and the United States Postal Service continues to struggle financially.
For now I will simply offer my gratitude to Netflix and stand amazed at how much better my life has become in the Internet Age.
When Netflix announced its price increases a few weeks ago, I evaluated my streaming queue and my DVD queue, thought about the costs, and decided to dump the DVD side of the service. So now I pay $7.99 per month -- around 27 cents per day -- for continual access to a spectacular selection of streaming television shows and movies. For that pittance I can watch most of the Star Trek series, Charmed, The Twilight Zone, and tons of other awesome shows, films, and documentaries. In what universe is that not a spectacularly amazing deal?
If I wanted, for another $7.99 per month I could rent DVDs, one at a time, without monthly limits. At least where I live, the Netflix DVD cycle takes around three days, meaning I could rent as many as (around) eight DVDs per month with this plan. (Realistically I'd probably cycle through around four per month.) In what universe is $2 or less DVD rentals not a spectacularly amazing deal? However, it just wasn't quite a good enough deal for me, given the alternatives. Redbox rents new release videos for a dollar, we also use Hulu (the "free" version), and I purchased a couple seasons of House on used DVD. But I came close to dumping my other sources and going solely with Netflix and Hulu.
Think of it this way. If Netflix didn't exist, and a new company suddenly came on the market to offer what Netflix now offers, a streaming service plus a DVD rental service, each for a low monthly price, people would fall all over themselves signing up and lauding the new service. Apparently, given that Netflix has been offering its customers such amazing value for so long now, the company now deserves derision and scorn rather than praise. I think that's a little nuts and frankly a little ungrateful.
Now, I do see a problem with disconnecting the DVD queue from the streaming queue. The problem is that, when I (used to) put a DVD on my queue, and then the same item became available in streaming, the item appeared automatically in my streaming queue, and I didn't burn a DVD rental on it. Now, if you get both services, you'll have to manually add an item to streaming and delete it from the DVD queue.
However, Netflix seems to be anticipating -- and I think correctly -- that most people will come to want one service or the other, but not both. I think everything available for streaming is also available on DVD, and the opposite will increasingly become the case as time goes on. I can see why some people would prefer DVDs over streaming, though I definitely prefer streaming. I found this line from Hastings to be especially interesting: "DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible." It will be interesting to see what happens as streaming gets faster and cheaper and the United States Postal Service continues to struggle financially.
For now I will simply offer my gratitude to Netflix and stand amazed at how much better my life has become in the Internet Age.
Labels:
PPC
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Fun at Ikea
I confess I was skeptical of the Ikea store when it first came to town. But it's a lot of fun, and the restaurant there has some great deals. We found a number of items throughout the store that were less expensive than what we've paid elsewhere. Unfortunately, a city water main broke the day we went, preventing us from buying the Swedish meatballs for lunch. Next time.
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PPC
Friday, September 16, 2011
The Saul Alinsky Connection: Obama's Unprincipled Class Warfare Threatens the Nation
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published September 16 by Grand Junction Free Press.
President Obama proves difficult to pin down. On the campaign trail, he opposed mandated health insurance; as president, he sought to impose it. He decried deficits even while ramping up federal spending. Obama answers the domestic jobs crisis by throwing ever more money at it; he answers the Iranian nuclear threat mostly with evasion.
What explains Obama's slipperiness? After all, this is the man who succeeded a wildly unpopular Republican president on the vague and still-undefined platform of "hope and change."
A hint to Obama's character comes through an examination of the original Chicago "community organizer," Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals from 1971, the Bible for many on the left. As Peter Slevin writes for a 2007 Washington Post article, Alinsky once offered Hillary Clinton a job (she turned it down), and "a group of his disciples hired Barack Obama" to implement Alinsky's vision.
We have nothing against radicals per se; indeed, many rightly see in us a radical bent. The term comes from the Latin word for roots; a radical is somebody who tries to get to the root of the matter. Our two favorite radical quotes come from Barry Goldwater -- "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice" -- and Martin Luther King -- "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
But the term "radical" doesn't reveal which roots a person seeks. On the good side, America's Founders became the best sort of radicals in their struggle for liberty.
But radicals can also bear deadly poison. A radical racist dyes the whole world a race-tinged hue; radical socialists slaughtered scores of millions of people during the 20th Century.
Our problem with Alinsky rests in his particular sort of radicalism of class warfare and character assassination.
Beneath his platitudes about democracy and the "importance and worth in the individual," Alinsky reveals his core goal: to "use power for a more equitable distribution of the means of life for all people." As Obama reformulates it, the goal is to "spread the wealth around" through political force.
In Alinsky's world, "Mankind has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots," and those in between. "Rules for Radicals," he explains, "is written for the Have-Nots on how to take [power] away" from the Haves."
Observe the unmentioned premises behind Alinsky's project. He presumes that wealth just somehow arrives around us, and some people unfairly grab it first. On such a premise, class warfare becomes inevitable, and forcibly redistributing "the wealth" becomes the radical's goal.
But in a free society that protects people's rights, individuals create wealth by reshaping aspects of the natural world using their intelligence and hard work, then trading on a voluntary market. In such a society, the "Haves" earn their wealth through productive effort, and they provide the employment (and at times the voluntary charity) that enables the "Have-Nots" to get ahead in life.
In a free society, some people produce vastly more wealth than others, and profit accordingly, while all remain free to live their lives by their own judgment and participate in a broadly prosperous economy. In a free economy all can prosper, though to different degrees. The mark of a free economy is peaceful and voluntary association, not the power struggles of class warfare.
Unfortunately, in the power-controlled world created by the presumptions that both Alinsky and Obama share, politicians forcibly transfer wealth from those who justly earn it to the politically-favored "Haves." We call such programs things like "bailouts," "stimulus spending," "quantitative easing," and "entitlements."
Alinsky preaches the dogma of class warfare while pretending he opposes all dogma. The community organizer, Alinsky writes, "does not have a fixed truth -- truth to him is relative and changing." You may read Obama's campaign slogan in Alinsky's line: "Man's hopes lie in the acceptance of the great law of change."
Alinsky's ever-changing world lacking timeless truths gives rise to his unprincipled pragmatism. He openly mocks those concerned about whether the ends justify the means. "The real arena is corrupt and bloody," he writes, so "one does not always enjoy the luxury" of upholding "individual conscience." Moral rhetoric on this view becomes a political weapon; "Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action," he writes.
Guided by such views, the left continually employs character assassination against its opponents; note the groundless demonization of Tea Partiers as violence-prone racists. Alinsky explicitly encourages such tactics; he writes, "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." He adds, "One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other." As for the truth, well, there's no such thing, and all that matters is the "moral rationalization."
Everyone who wants to restore American liberty should read Alinsky's book, not only to better understand Barack Obama and his allies, but to learn the tactics of the left and how to fight them.
President Obama proves difficult to pin down. On the campaign trail, he opposed mandated health insurance; as president, he sought to impose it. He decried deficits even while ramping up federal spending. Obama answers the domestic jobs crisis by throwing ever more money at it; he answers the Iranian nuclear threat mostly with evasion.
What explains Obama's slipperiness? After all, this is the man who succeeded a wildly unpopular Republican president on the vague and still-undefined platform of "hope and change."
A hint to Obama's character comes through an examination of the original Chicago "community organizer," Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals from 1971, the Bible for many on the left. As Peter Slevin writes for a 2007 Washington Post article, Alinsky once offered Hillary Clinton a job (she turned it down), and "a group of his disciples hired Barack Obama" to implement Alinsky's vision.
We have nothing against radicals per se; indeed, many rightly see in us a radical bent. The term comes from the Latin word for roots; a radical is somebody who tries to get to the root of the matter. Our two favorite radical quotes come from Barry Goldwater -- "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice" -- and Martin Luther King -- "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
But the term "radical" doesn't reveal which roots a person seeks. On the good side, America's Founders became the best sort of radicals in their struggle for liberty.
But radicals can also bear deadly poison. A radical racist dyes the whole world a race-tinged hue; radical socialists slaughtered scores of millions of people during the 20th Century.
Our problem with Alinsky rests in his particular sort of radicalism of class warfare and character assassination.
Beneath his platitudes about democracy and the "importance and worth in the individual," Alinsky reveals his core goal: to "use power for a more equitable distribution of the means of life for all people." As Obama reformulates it, the goal is to "spread the wealth around" through political force.
In Alinsky's world, "Mankind has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots," and those in between. "Rules for Radicals," he explains, "is written for the Have-Nots on how to take [power] away" from the Haves."
Observe the unmentioned premises behind Alinsky's project. He presumes that wealth just somehow arrives around us, and some people unfairly grab it first. On such a premise, class warfare becomes inevitable, and forcibly redistributing "the wealth" becomes the radical's goal.
But in a free society that protects people's rights, individuals create wealth by reshaping aspects of the natural world using their intelligence and hard work, then trading on a voluntary market. In such a society, the "Haves" earn their wealth through productive effort, and they provide the employment (and at times the voluntary charity) that enables the "Have-Nots" to get ahead in life.
In a free society, some people produce vastly more wealth than others, and profit accordingly, while all remain free to live their lives by their own judgment and participate in a broadly prosperous economy. In a free economy all can prosper, though to different degrees. The mark of a free economy is peaceful and voluntary association, not the power struggles of class warfare.
Unfortunately, in the power-controlled world created by the presumptions that both Alinsky and Obama share, politicians forcibly transfer wealth from those who justly earn it to the politically-favored "Haves." We call such programs things like "bailouts," "stimulus spending," "quantitative easing," and "entitlements."
Alinsky preaches the dogma of class warfare while pretending he opposes all dogma. The community organizer, Alinsky writes, "does not have a fixed truth -- truth to him is relative and changing." You may read Obama's campaign slogan in Alinsky's line: "Man's hopes lie in the acceptance of the great law of change."
Alinsky's ever-changing world lacking timeless truths gives rise to his unprincipled pragmatism. He openly mocks those concerned about whether the ends justify the means. "The real arena is corrupt and bloody," he writes, so "one does not always enjoy the luxury" of upholding "individual conscience." Moral rhetoric on this view becomes a political weapon; "Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action," he writes.
Guided by such views, the left continually employs character assassination against its opponents; note the groundless demonization of Tea Partiers as violence-prone racists. Alinsky explicitly encourages such tactics; he writes, "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." He adds, "One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other." As for the truth, well, there's no such thing, and all that matters is the "moral rationalization."
Everyone who wants to restore American liberty should read Alinsky's book, not only to better understand Barack Obama and his allies, but to learn the tactics of the left and how to fight them.
Labels:
PPC
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Tea Party Crowd Cheers Voluntary Health Charity
According to a YouTube video by Talking Points Memo about the GOP debate of September 12, the "Tea Party Crowd Cheers Letting Uninsured Die."
Here's how Curtis Hubbard, the editorial page editor of the Denver Post, describes the scene: "Cheering for people without insurance to die? Unbelievable." [Note: Please see the update below.]
Mike Littwin, a member of the Denver Post's editorial board, writes:
If "half the truth is a great lie," then Talking Points Memo, Hubbard, and Littwin are great liars. [December 1 Update: See my post, Belated Apology to Littwin regarding this line.]
So let's back up and look at the entire sequence.
Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul (whose candidacy I do NOT support):
Paul answers, "That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody..."
At this point, as the video makes clear, the audience interrupts with applause.
Blitzer cuts in, "But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?"
At that point, at least three idiots in the audience scream, "Yea!" Is this the "Tea Party Crowd?" No. Littwin at least gets that point right. The few chanting "Yea" are not representative of the crowd or of the Tea Party movement. (They are not even known to be self-identified Tea Partiers, though I suspect they are.)
Obviously every large crowd has its idiots. This is true of Tea Party crowds, leftist crowds, union crowds, etc. Notice that those leftists who wish to demonize the entire Tea Party movement based on the idiocy of a tiny minority at the fringe of that movement do not similarly wish to condemn the entire left when a few leftists call for (or enact) violence, racism, or other variants of destructive stupidity (even though such things are much more prevalent on the left). So how about some intellectual honesty here?
Notably, the Talking Points Memo video dishonestly cuts off at this point. But the transcript proceeds:
This combination of free-market policy reforms in conjunction with voluntary charity is more typical of Tea Party beliefs, and it is what I advocate. (I would also favor the hospital sending this man "who makes a good living" the bill once he recovers.) For Talking Points Memo, Hubbard, and Littwin to mention the moronic tiny few chanting "Yea" to the "let him die" line, then to ignore Paul's substantive answer and the general audience approval of that, is, as I suggested, less than fully honest.
But, hey, they're talking about the Tea Party, so any smear goes, right?
September 14 Update: After I posted this material, Hubbard added on Twitter, "You infer my comment was directed at entire audience instead of at those who cheered. But you have your defending to do..." Apparently, then, he is claiming that his original comment was not "directed at the entire audience," but only "at those who cheered." Fine. Fair enough.
But, as should be obvious, I am not "defending" those who cheered the "let him die" line; I thought calling them "idiots" and "morons" adequately conveyed my attitude. As for Paul's actual remarks on this issue, and the actual crowd's response to them (as opposed to the earlier response by the few idiots), those do not need defending, which was the point of the post.
I did hesitate to include Hubbard's remark with the other two. Talking Points Memo clearly smears Tea Partiers; Littwin ties the few idiots to the Tea Party, leaving to implication that they are representative. Hubbard, on the other hand, merely says that it is "unbelievable" that there was "cheering for people without insurance to die." He was right to make the criticism.
The problem, and it is a minor one, is that Hubbard neglected the broader context, which is that the overwhelming majority of the audience supported Paul in taking the opposite stand of the few idiots. I read Hubbard's subsequent Tweets, and he uttered not a word about that key fact, though he did manage to post numerous updates about a football game. I think if the first part of the story merits attention, then so does the second part, particularly as the second part reveals attitudes much more representative of the crowd.
Here's how Curtis Hubbard, the editorial page editor of the Denver Post, describes the scene: "Cheering for people without insurance to die? Unbelievable." [Note: Please see the update below.]
Mike Littwin, a member of the Denver Post's editorial board, writes:
I don't want to say the crowd was rough, but when Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul whether a doctor should refuse to treat a 30-year-old man in a coma who had failed to buy his own health insurance, some in the crowd shouted, "Yes, yes."
I'm serious. I'm a little shocked, but I'm deadly serious.
If "half the truth is a great lie," then Talking Points Memo, Hubbard, and Littwin are great liars. [December 1 Update: See my post, Belated Apology to Littwin regarding this line.]
So let's back up and look at the entire sequence.
Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul (whose candidacy I do NOT support):
Let me ask you this hypothetical question.
A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I'm not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I'm healthy, I don't need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it.
Who's going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that? ... He doesn't have [health insurance], and he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?
Paul answers, "That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody..."
At this point, as the video makes clear, the audience interrupts with applause.
Blitzer cuts in, "But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?"
At that point, at least three idiots in the audience scream, "Yea!" Is this the "Tea Party Crowd?" No. Littwin at least gets that point right. The few chanting "Yea" are not representative of the crowd or of the Tea Party movement. (They are not even known to be self-identified Tea Partiers, though I suspect they are.)
Obviously every large crowd has its idiots. This is true of Tea Party crowds, leftist crowds, union crowds, etc. Notice that those leftists who wish to demonize the entire Tea Party movement based on the idiocy of a tiny minority at the fringe of that movement do not similarly wish to condemn the entire left when a few leftists call for (or enact) violence, racism, or other variants of destructive stupidity (even though such things are much more prevalent on the left). So how about some intellectual honesty here?
Notably, the Talking Points Memo video dishonestly cuts off at this point. But the transcript proceeds:
PAUL: No. I practiced medicine before we had Medicaid, in the early 1960s, when I got out of medical school. I practiced at Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, and the churches took care of them. We never turned anybody away from the hospitals.
(APPLAUSE)
PAUL: And we've given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it. This whole idea, that's the reason the cost is so high.
The cost is so high because they dump it on the government, it becomes a bureaucracy. It becomes special interests. It kowtows to the insurance companies and the drug companies, and then on top of that, you have the inflation. The inflation devalues the dollar, we have lack of competition.
There's no competition in medicine. Everybody is protected by licensing. And we should actually legalize alternative health care, allow people to practice what they want.
(APPLAUSE)
This combination of free-market policy reforms in conjunction with voluntary charity is more typical of Tea Party beliefs, and it is what I advocate. (I would also favor the hospital sending this man "who makes a good living" the bill once he recovers.) For Talking Points Memo, Hubbard, and Littwin to mention the moronic tiny few chanting "Yea" to the "let him die" line, then to ignore Paul's substantive answer and the general audience approval of that, is, as I suggested, less than fully honest.
But, hey, they're talking about the Tea Party, so any smear goes, right?
September 14 Update: After I posted this material, Hubbard added on Twitter, "You infer my comment was directed at entire audience instead of at those who cheered. But you have your defending to do..." Apparently, then, he is claiming that his original comment was not "directed at the entire audience," but only "at those who cheered." Fine. Fair enough.
But, as should be obvious, I am not "defending" those who cheered the "let him die" line; I thought calling them "idiots" and "morons" adequately conveyed my attitude. As for Paul's actual remarks on this issue, and the actual crowd's response to them (as opposed to the earlier response by the few idiots), those do not need defending, which was the point of the post.
I did hesitate to include Hubbard's remark with the other two. Talking Points Memo clearly smears Tea Partiers; Littwin ties the few idiots to the Tea Party, leaving to implication that they are representative. Hubbard, on the other hand, merely says that it is "unbelievable" that there was "cheering for people without insurance to die." He was right to make the criticism.
The problem, and it is a minor one, is that Hubbard neglected the broader context, which is that the overwhelming majority of the audience supported Paul in taking the opposite stand of the few idiots. I read Hubbard's subsequent Tweets, and he uttered not a word about that key fact, though he did manage to post numerous updates about a football game. I think if the first part of the story merits attention, then so does the second part, particularly as the second part reveals attitudes much more representative of the crowd.
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Monday, September 12, 2011
Fun with the Dismal Science
I presented this talk September 10 for a Liberty Toastmasters meeting oriented toward humor. Funny isn't usually my thing, but I had a go with the "dismal science." So, yes, I'm exaggerating certain points; however, most of the underlying ideas are based in real economics.
I've written about the potty-training story from Freakonomics before, as well as the discussions about alien invasions from economists and environmentalists. Bastiat's essay about the candlemakers is reproduced in The Economics of Freedom.
I've written about the potty-training story from Freakonomics before, as well as the discussions about alien invasions from economists and environmentalists. Bastiat's essay about the candlemakers is reproduced in The Economics of Freedom.
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Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Denver Post Covers Liberty On the Rocks
If I didn't know any better, I'd think the Denver Post is trying to woo the center-right slash conservative slash libertarian slash free-market readership. What else explains the appearance of the Post's Kurtis Lee, recently a transplant from the District of Columbia, at this evening's Liberty On the Rocks' event?
The real purpose of the evening's festivities was to celebrate the third anniversary of the People's Press Collective (to which this post will feed). Allow me to add my congratulations here, and to thank the organizers of PPC for creating a wonderful platform.
But Lee attended to gather reactions to the GOP debate (which I could barely hear on the bar's echoing television sets). Lee wrote up an article that mentioned the event's drinking game (with the word "jobs" acting as the trigger) and that included some substantive and interesting comments.
Regina Thomson told Lee she's looking for a "constitutional conservative" and would favor Herman Cain if he had a chance.
I loved Santiago Valenzuela's response. He said he's looking for real immigration reform "that allows peaceful people" to work here and eventually earn citizenship. I agree with his position, as I've written elsewhere.
Valenzuela is a friend of mine, by the way, and he writes some great posts for Mother of Exiles. Interestingly, I also met a very nice fellow at the event who worked on Tom Tancredo's campaign for governor. And one thing that amazes me about Liberty On the Rocks is how well it facilitates social mingling and networking among people with such diverse views. (I should also note here that I run Liberty In the Books, a project of Liberty On the Rocks, and got paid a bit to do so.)
Valenzuela's reply about jobs was classic: "I'm also looking for a jobs plan that gets the government out of our busisness to allow job creators to do their thing." He added that he dislikes Romney because he is the Father of ObamaCare.
Lee's appearance is not unprecedented, however; last year, the Post's Chuck Plunkett actually spoke at a Liberty On the Rocks event -- something that perked up the ears of talented leftie blogger Jason Salzman.
The Post needn't worry; it's left-leaning credentials remain unchallenged. But I do appreciate the Post's willingness to broaden its coverage and its readership, and I think it's a much better paper for making the effort.
The real purpose of the evening's festivities was to celebrate the third anniversary of the People's Press Collective (to which this post will feed). Allow me to add my congratulations here, and to thank the organizers of PPC for creating a wonderful platform.
But Lee attended to gather reactions to the GOP debate (which I could barely hear on the bar's echoing television sets). Lee wrote up an article that mentioned the event's drinking game (with the word "jobs" acting as the trigger) and that included some substantive and interesting comments.
Regina Thomson told Lee she's looking for a "constitutional conservative" and would favor Herman Cain if he had a chance.
I loved Santiago Valenzuela's response. He said he's looking for real immigration reform "that allows peaceful people" to work here and eventually earn citizenship. I agree with his position, as I've written elsewhere.
Valenzuela is a friend of mine, by the way, and he writes some great posts for Mother of Exiles. Interestingly, I also met a very nice fellow at the event who worked on Tom Tancredo's campaign for governor. And one thing that amazes me about Liberty On the Rocks is how well it facilitates social mingling and networking among people with such diverse views. (I should also note here that I run Liberty In the Books, a project of Liberty On the Rocks, and got paid a bit to do so.)
Valenzuela's reply about jobs was classic: "I'm also looking for a jobs plan that gets the government out of our busisness to allow job creators to do their thing." He added that he dislikes Romney because he is the Father of ObamaCare.
Lee's appearance is not unprecedented, however; last year, the Post's Chuck Plunkett actually spoke at a Liberty On the Rocks event -- something that perked up the ears of talented leftie blogger Jason Salzman.
The Post needn't worry; it's left-leaning credentials remain unchallenged. But I do appreciate the Post's willingness to broaden its coverage and its readership, and I think it's a much better paper for making the effort.
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PPC
Friday, September 2, 2011
Nation Needs Shared Liberty, Not Sacrifice
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published September 2 by Grand Junction Free Press.
President Obama calls for "shared sacrifice" to address the nation's debt. But forcing individuals to sacrifice their present and future wealth to politicians' whims caused the problem. To restore economic prosperity, we need to stop sharing sacrifices and start sharing a respect for liberty and people's rights.
Obama's appeal depends on a basic confusion about the nature of sacrifice. The term shares the same root as sacred. Historically, a sacrifice involves a religious rite of giving a gift, often a slaughtered animal, to some deity. That's where we get the term sacrificial lamb. When viewed in this light, "shared sacrifice" presents an obvious problem: somebody plays the role of the lamb.
Over time sacrifice in popular usage came to mean giving up anything. But because so many things can be given up, and for so many different reasons, the term lost any clear meaning. Instead, often it functions to cloud people's thinking.
Some use the term to mean giving up something minor to get something better. Chess players call surrendering a piece to get ahead in the game a sacrifice. In baseball, a player makes a sacrifice bunt to allow a teammate to advance a base, though the hitter returns to the bench. In these cases, making a "sacrifice" is good for you: the narrow or short-term loss increases your odds of winning in the end.
Consider the student who stays home to study, rather than going to the movies or the mall, to earn a good education and career. Or a mother who cuts her own budget to expand the opportunities for the children she dearly loves. Or a soldier who risks his safety to defend his liberty and home. Or a fundraiser who supports medical research in memory of a loved one. Should we call these "sacrifices," even though the person achieves a greater value?
In other cases people use the term sacrifice to mean giving up something important for something trivial or even evil. Someone may sacrifice his career for a drinking binge, his marriage for a meaningless affair, or his savings account for a night of gambling. In extreme cases, various cultures murdered people for human sacrifices to appease some make-believe god, worship a ruler, or try to mystically gain the victim's strength.
When people apply the same term to earning a good job through hard work and slitting somebody's throat, that reveals a fundamental confusion.
So what does Obama mean by a "shared sacrifice?" He wants us to imagine that each of us needs to hit a sacrifice bunt so Team America can win the economic game. What he really means is that he wants to sacrifice the time, labor, and earnings of some people for the benefit or pleasure of his political supporters.
Obama clearly wants to raise taxes. From the left we hear envious snarls to further loot "the rich." Proposals on the table include raising tax rates for some and eliminating tax breaks for things like mortgages and health insurance, for the purpose of raising net taxes. (We approve of dumping tax deductions for special groups, but only to lower rates generally.)
A tax involves forcibly seizing people's wealth, usually for the benefit of some special interest. Ultimately, Obama threatens to send armed federal agents to your house to drag you off to prison to make you share in this sacrifice.
Other aspects of Obama's "shared sacrifice" involve reducing sacrifice, not increasing it. CNN writes of a farmer "sympathetic to the president's calls for shared sacrifice, even if that means cuts to ethanol subsidies." But a subsidy entails forcibly looting other taxpayers. Eliminating the subsidy means halting the sacrifice of some Americans to others. We're all for that!
If sacrifice means forcing some individuals to surrender their hard-earned wealth to others, then our goal should be to eliminate sacrifice entirely. A society that sacrifices some people to others relies on brute force and rampant injustice.
A civilized society does not demand sacrifices. Instead it protects people's rights, including their right to control their own wealth and property as they see fit. In a civilized society, people interact by voluntary consent, not coercion.
"Shared sacrifice" -- forcibly looting some for the benefit of others -- caused the debt crisis. The solution is to phase out shared sacrifice, not expand it. We should dramatically cut federal spending to balance the budget and then start paying off the debt.
If we care about solving the debt crisis and restoring America's economic strength, if we care about protecting the rights of each individual, then we must reject shared sacrifice and instead demand shared liberty.
Read also Jonathan Hoenig's article on a similar theme and Ayn Rand's treatment of sacrifice and rational self-interest.
President Obama calls for "shared sacrifice" to address the nation's debt. But forcing individuals to sacrifice their present and future wealth to politicians' whims caused the problem. To restore economic prosperity, we need to stop sharing sacrifices and start sharing a respect for liberty and people's rights.
Obama's appeal depends on a basic confusion about the nature of sacrifice. The term shares the same root as sacred. Historically, a sacrifice involves a religious rite of giving a gift, often a slaughtered animal, to some deity. That's where we get the term sacrificial lamb. When viewed in this light, "shared sacrifice" presents an obvious problem: somebody plays the role of the lamb.
Over time sacrifice in popular usage came to mean giving up anything. But because so many things can be given up, and for so many different reasons, the term lost any clear meaning. Instead, often it functions to cloud people's thinking.
Some use the term to mean giving up something minor to get something better. Chess players call surrendering a piece to get ahead in the game a sacrifice. In baseball, a player makes a sacrifice bunt to allow a teammate to advance a base, though the hitter returns to the bench. In these cases, making a "sacrifice" is good for you: the narrow or short-term loss increases your odds of winning in the end.
Consider the student who stays home to study, rather than going to the movies or the mall, to earn a good education and career. Or a mother who cuts her own budget to expand the opportunities for the children she dearly loves. Or a soldier who risks his safety to defend his liberty and home. Or a fundraiser who supports medical research in memory of a loved one. Should we call these "sacrifices," even though the person achieves a greater value?
In other cases people use the term sacrifice to mean giving up something important for something trivial or even evil. Someone may sacrifice his career for a drinking binge, his marriage for a meaningless affair, or his savings account for a night of gambling. In extreme cases, various cultures murdered people for human sacrifices to appease some make-believe god, worship a ruler, or try to mystically gain the victim's strength.
When people apply the same term to earning a good job through hard work and slitting somebody's throat, that reveals a fundamental confusion.
So what does Obama mean by a "shared sacrifice?" He wants us to imagine that each of us needs to hit a sacrifice bunt so Team America can win the economic game. What he really means is that he wants to sacrifice the time, labor, and earnings of some people for the benefit or pleasure of his political supporters.
Obama clearly wants to raise taxes. From the left we hear envious snarls to further loot "the rich." Proposals on the table include raising tax rates for some and eliminating tax breaks for things like mortgages and health insurance, for the purpose of raising net taxes. (We approve of dumping tax deductions for special groups, but only to lower rates generally.)
A tax involves forcibly seizing people's wealth, usually for the benefit of some special interest. Ultimately, Obama threatens to send armed federal agents to your house to drag you off to prison to make you share in this sacrifice.
Other aspects of Obama's "shared sacrifice" involve reducing sacrifice, not increasing it. CNN writes of a farmer "sympathetic to the president's calls for shared sacrifice, even if that means cuts to ethanol subsidies." But a subsidy entails forcibly looting other taxpayers. Eliminating the subsidy means halting the sacrifice of some Americans to others. We're all for that!
If sacrifice means forcing some individuals to surrender their hard-earned wealth to others, then our goal should be to eliminate sacrifice entirely. A society that sacrifices some people to others relies on brute force and rampant injustice.
A civilized society does not demand sacrifices. Instead it protects people's rights, including their right to control their own wealth and property as they see fit. In a civilized society, people interact by voluntary consent, not coercion.
"Shared sacrifice" -- forcibly looting some for the benefit of others -- caused the debt crisis. The solution is to phase out shared sacrifice, not expand it. We should dramatically cut federal spending to balance the budget and then start paying off the debt.
If we care about solving the debt crisis and restoring America's economic strength, if we care about protecting the rights of each individual, then we must reject shared sacrifice and instead demand shared liberty.
Read also Jonathan Hoenig's article on a similar theme and Ayn Rand's treatment of sacrifice and rational self-interest.
Labels:
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