The Principal's Son

Oh Captain My Captain

2012-02-05T14:40:00.000-06:00

I watched about 60 or 70 percent of the State of the Union address last week. The President definitely gave it the old college try, punctuating many of his statements with a throaty urgency that was calculated, I'm sure, to express just how much he cares about us and the country. Listen to me people, can't you tell how hard I'm trying to do the right thing!

At the end of the speech I played an interesting game with myself. Here is the text of the last paragraph:

"So it is with America. Each time I look at that flag, I'm reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those 50 stars and those 13 stripes. No one built this country on their own. This nation is great because we built it together. This nation is great because we worked as a team. This nation is great because we get each other's backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we are joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, and our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong."

I was reading the text of the speech as he delivered it, and as he read the sentences above, I added one word, several times.

So it is with America. Each time I look at that flag, I'm reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those 50 stars and those 13 stripes. No one built this country on their own. This nation is great because we built it together, voluntarily. This nation is great because we worked as a team, voluntarily. This nation is great because we get each other's backs, voluntarily. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we are joined in common purpose, voluntarily, as long as we maintain our common resolve, voluntarily, our journey moves forward, and our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.

Right there, one sees the prism through which the President views the world. He is correct when he says that no one built this country on their own, but the education, friendships, partnerships, negotiations, and collaborations it took to build this great nation were not all planned and facilitated by the federal government. He fails to understand that there is no Union unless the Union is voluntary. Johah Goldberg stated it clearly in this recent article in National Review Online. In reference to that same final paragraph he wrote:

This nation isn’t great because we work as a team with the president as our captain. America is great because America is free. It is great not because we put our self-interest aside, but because we have the right to pursue happiness.

Those of the liberal/progressive bent do not trust us to work together voluntarily, and they certainly don't want us pursuing too much happiness (they like to refer to it as greed), so they have undertaken to teach us all the error of our ways through the patient establishment of education and journalism professions that are largely sympathetic to their cause. But they will never convince everyone, and recent trends in talk radio, television news, and alternatives to traditional public schools have made their job more difficult. So the President's utopian vision will come about only if resort is made to those techniques that have worked before (and are the only ones that will ever work), totalitarianism and terror.

There was a moment in the speech when he used this quote from Abraham Lincoln:

"That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more."

Would that it were so! This President plans on doing everything for us, or at the very least, telling us how to do everything. Does he ever see a situation and think, you know, this'd probably turn out better if I just left things alone.

And this one's a howler. When he was talking about energy, and the vast quantities of natural gas and oil that companies have recently figured out how to liberate from shales and other "tight" rocks, he said this:

"And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock - reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground."

Now I'm sure that there have been some professors and graduate students around the country who have done some publicly funded research projects that have contributed to the discovery of methods and technologies that allow hydrocarbons to be produced from rock formations that were previously ignored. But to imply that they were a critical element is ridiculous. Smart men and women, working on their own or for companies like Chesapeake, EOG, EnCana, and Devon, driven by profit potential and the excitement of discovery, are the reason that the United States is now known to be the host of vast reserves of natural gas and oil that were virtually unknown less than a decade ago. To suggest otherwise is an insult. The President wants us to do big things, like Hoover dams, and Golden Gate bridges, and interstate highways. Finding enough natural gas to last the country for 100 years isn't big enough for you?

I'll leave you with this thought, formed freely and without coercion in my own mind. Commerce, conducted freely, among all activities conducted by men, is perhaps the greatest agent of tolerance and cooperation of them all. Given the propensity of this President to interfere, at every level, with the free conduct of commerce, is it any wonder that he is the most polarizing President I have known in my lifetime?

The Missing Link

2011-12-13T20:05:00.007-06:00

Several months ago, I started reading what has turned out to be one of the most intellectually demanding books I have ever opened. The book is a classic, "The Theory of Money and Credit", written by Ludwig von Mises in 1912, and first translated into English in the early 1930s by a British economist, Lionel Robbins, who learned Mises' business cycle theory from Mises' famous follower, Friedrich von Hayek. Much of the book is very technical and demanding on the intellect of a non-economist such as myself--so demanding that I often had to accept the fact that I was not going to sort out the meaning of certain sections and passages, and plunge ahead regardless. Part four of the book, entitled "Monetary Reconstruction" is the easiest to read, and the most related to all the previous writing I have done on this blog. It addresses the political importance of sound money and the gold standard. It is that which I plan to discuss.

Professor von Mises begins section four of his book by stressing the importance of a market economy and private property rights to the development of a prosperous and happy society.

The liberal doctrine sees in the market economy the best, even the only possible, system of economic organization of society. Private ownership of the means of production tends to shift control of production to the hands of those best fitted for this job and thus to secure for all members of society the fullest possible satisfaction of their needs.

It makes nations and their citizens free and provides ample sustenance for a steadily-increasing population.

He then acknowledges that in order to protect the contracts and the property of those citizens who are going about, participating in the market economy, from criminals within and enemies without, governments must be formed. In order to be able to enforce the laws which protect citizens, governments must be able to use force to punish aggression and deter attacks. But then there is a danger. How to keep those who are entrusted with the functions of government from turning their weapons, their instruments of compulsion and deterrence, against their own citizens. That, says Ludwig von Mises, is the essential theme of Western civilization.

Defence of the individual's liberty against the encroachments of tyrannical governments is the essential theme of the history of Western civilization. The characteristic feature of the Occident is its peoples' pursuit of liberty... All the marvellous achievements of Western civilization are fruits grown on the tree of liberty.

Economic organization based on private property and a free market may indeed "secure for all members of society the fullest possible satisfaction of their needs", but it will not provide everyone with everything. Every person, to varying degrees according to their wealth, must still make choices about which needs they choose to fulfill. This is the very nature of the science of economics, which the aforementioned Lionel Robbins defined this way: Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses. The reality of life is that there has never been enough to satisfy everyone completely. The place where every person is completely satisfied is not the Earth that we know, it is the Garden of Eden, where bad stuff went down despite the heavenly abundance. It is this essential aspect of life that governments, through their monetary policies, have attempted to suspend, at first, I will be charitable, out of concern for their fellow human beings, but lately out of concern only for the perpetuation and growth of their power over others. This is what Professor von Mises warned about. How does this relate to the gold standard? von Mises puts it this way:

It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights.

The excellence of the gold standard is to be seen in the fact that it renders the determination of the monetary unit's purchasing power independent of the policies of governments and political parties. Furthermore, it prevents rulers from eluding the financial and budgetary prerogatives of the representative assemblies. Parliamentary control of finances works only if the government is not in a position to provide for unauthorized expenditures by increasing the circulating amount of fiat money Viewed in this light, the gold standard appears as an indispensable implement of the body of constitutional guarantees that make the system of representative government function.

I would say it this way. The efforts and programs advanced by the progressive movement to improve society (so they say) and ameliorate suffering (so they say) have grown steadily since their first stirrings in the mid-1800s. Eventually they grew so large and costly that the financial restrictions imposed by the gold standard could no longer be tolerated, and so the gold standard was abandoned in order to pave the way for the inflation, credit expansion, and fiat money that would be used to pay for the programs that would not be supported by the citizens if they knew about, and were forced to pay their full cost. In the words of Professor von Mises:

It is not just an accident that in our age inflation has become the accepted method of monetary management. Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead towards totalitarianism.

I'll go further. Over and over again we are bludgeoned with the message that greed and unfettered consumerism are the logical result of a capitalist system that rewards individual effort and self-interest. Greed and consumerism are not the fault of capitalism. Rather, it is the largely successful efforts of the progressive movement, funded by inflation and credit expansion, to prevent the citizens, rich, middle-class, and poor alike, from ever having to engage in that most necessary, most natural, most real of all human activities--making a choice. It is the suspension of hard choices--a big house or a small house, a big car or a small car, an iPhone or a flip phone, to earn food or go hungry--that has led to the greed and consumerism we are saddled with. The progressives have largely succeeded in their quest; they have borrowed and printed enough money to suspend want; they have given us our Garden of Eden. But just like the biblical version, this garden has its serpents, and so we must either leave of our own accord, or, like the citizens of bankrupt Greece, be cast out by forces beyond our control.

No Soup For You, eh

2011-11-08T13:56:00.008-06:00

When it comes to the list of what government should do on behalf of citizens, the Liberal/Progressive list is long—a single payer health care system, financial security for the elderly, early childhood education, school lunches, and on and on. Progressives have argued that governments should provide these services because there is a need--elderly people would suffer without Social Security, people will die prematurely without the security of health care paid for by the government, children will go hungry without a school lunch program. While it is certainly true that there have always been, and always will be people who have difficulty meeting the demands of life, I have long believed that many government services and programs also provide an incentive that creates the need they are designed to fulfill. So if the programs themselves are at least partially responsible for the needs that they fulfill, it is fair to ask whether we would miss them, whether we would actually suffer if they were gone. The topic of school lunches might be instructive in this regard. And thankfully, the North American continent provides us with a laboratory in which to conduct an experiment. Or rather, in which an experiment has been continuously conducted since 1946, which is when President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act, and when Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King did nothing of the sort. The United States has a school lunch program.

Canada

, the control group, does not.

I doubt that comparison of official government estimates of the number of children who are "food insecure" in Canada versus the U.S., or of other official statistics would provide much in terms of definitive conclusions as to the results of this 65 year experiment. I trust that my personal experience, having lived the first 27 years of my life in Canada, and the last 19 in the United States, will be more instructive.

It is rare that people in America look to Canada for an example of a federal government that does less, but an article on the website www.parentcentral.ca states that “Canada is the only westernized nation without a national, federally funded school food program.” I grew up in Canada in the 1970s and 1980s, mainly in a small town in northern Saskatchewan, and I can confirm that my middle/high school contained no cafeteria of the sort that serves both breakfast and lunch to elementary and middle school children at the two Louisiana public schools that my offspring attend. Our school had a small kitchen with a lunch counter where classrooms and clubs could prepare lunches and sell them to students in order to raise funds for special projects or class trips, but that was small, local potatoes in comparison to the industry scale operation that is school lunch in the United States. Many of my friends carried their lunch to school in brown bags or lunch boxes, and since my family lived about a third of a mile from the school, my brother, sister and I would simply troop home for lunch where our English teacher mom and High School Principal dad would make chicken noodle soup and roast beef sandwiches for the five of us.

Our family, with its two steady incomes, was solidly middle class--as well off, perhaps even better off than most. We were never hungry. Given that, a critic might say that my experience does not negate the fact that there are people who are less well off who need government funded programs like school lunch. Not so fast. The town I grew up in had, and still has, a large First Nations population, approaching 50% of the residents. Some 2000 of those First Nations residents lived on reserves which border the town, and the problems which plague First Nations people everywhere were certainly present--alcohol and drug abuse, and poverty. And certainly those problems also existed among the general population. Daily, I shared my classrooms with children who undoubtedly came from households that had far less than we did. It may be that some of those students were hungry on occasion, but if they were, I don't remember it. Some of my school-age friends were not able to rise above the challenges of their surroundings and fell into depressing lives of drugs and crime. Others are healthy university graduates with spouses and children and promising, meaningful careers. I doubt that the absence of a school lunch program provided much impact either way.

Spending a few days in my old home town this past summer served to confirm my remembrances. The First Nations reserves do not look any more prosperous than they did 30 years ago, and there are still a few sad souls asking for money outside the liquor store, but chronic hunger does not look like a problem serious or pervasive enough to warrant the typical Fed response--"WE ARE HERE TODAY TO ANNOUNCE A WAR ON HUNGER!" In other words, the vast majority of Canadians are thriving, and would likely not be any more thriving had they been spared the chore of either fixing or eating bag lunches for the last 65 years.

So what's the point? Only that a modern, Western government that does not do every little thing for its citizens may still expect that those citizens will flourish. Critics might single out the Canadian example and argue that the otherwise comprehensive nature of the Canadian welfare state is what allows citizens to get by without suffering too much from the lack of a federal school lunch program. One could just as easily make the counter-case however, and suggest that the school lunch example demonstrates that without the other, often sacred elements of the Canadian and American welfare states, the citizens of both countries would be no less happy, healthy, and prosperous than they are right now.

The federal school lunch program in the United States costs about $10B a year. This is a small number compared to the tens and hundreds of billions that it takes to fund the big three—Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, but I’m sure that any attempt to do away with it would be met with resistance not only from a financial standpoint—“It’s only 10 billion dollars”—but also from an ethical position: “A hot school lunch is one of those things that a modern country should provide to every child who attends school. To do less would be cruel.” The Canadian example suggests otherwise.

It will be a huge challenge for any leader to muster the political courage and inertia required to cut or alter programs like school lunch, or Social Security, or Medicaid, and either return that money to the citizens to spend or save as they wish, or to spend it on items that fall more directly underneath the constitutional purview of the United States. Those who oppose such cuts or alterations will say that we cannot afford to burden our citizens so, or that such burdens are inconsistent with our values. But we can, and they are.

Once-Great Britain

2011-08-13T15:26:00.003-05:00

The airwaves are full of commentary on the ongoing riots in Britain. There are those who say it's thuggery, pure and simple, and those who say it's legitimate protest spurred by the division between haves and have nots. Me, I'm on board with the thuggery explanation, but you have to ask yourself, how does this happen? Don't these people care about their neighbors who own the shops and merchandise they are smashing and looting, didn't their parents teach them the difference between right and wrong, don't they have anything better to do? The answer, I'm afraid, is no. This is where a century of comprehensive welfare statism gets you.

At various times during the last 100 years the British government, through its policy choices, has indicated to the British people: don't save for the future, we'll take care of you. Don't worry about your aging parents, we'll take care of them. Don't worry about your children's education, we'll take care of it. Don't worry about your health care, we'll make sure you are well. Don't worry about protecting yourself and your property, we'll manage that (and in fact, if you attempt to protect yourself and your property, we'll prosecute you). Don't worry about your future employment, we will nationalize our largest industries and give you a job for life. Oh, and if you don't feel like working, don't worry about that either, we'll take care of you regardless. Don't worry about the liberties you've lost, just go along with us and we'll make sure this is a better place for all.

Some might protest that it's ridiculous to maintain that the establishment of old age pensions could in any way have contributed to the lawlessness that has been so vividly displayed over the last several days, and they're right, it's a tenuous connection. But add together old age pensions and all the other ways that Britain no longer requires, or actively prevents her citizens from being responsible, and the connection is no longer so tenuous. Here's how it works. During that first year of program X, there might only be a handful of people who figure out that program X allows them to shirk some responsibility that they could not have done previously. "I was planning for me aging mum to move in with us, but there's not really room for her, and she's got a pension now. She can afford to keep her own place." And then he tells two friends, and then they tell two friends, and then program Y kicks in, and 100 years on you are saddled with listlessness, envy, and disrespect (for themselves, for others, and for the rule of law) that affects millions. Human beings respond to incentives. If there is an incentive to behave in a fashion that requires less personal responsibility, which essentially means that the irresponsibility does not invoke a penalty, then some people will start to behave that way. The changes might be so subtle that no one even notices their occurrence, but take two snapshots 100 years apart, and thrift, propriety, and industriousness have been replaced by waste, vulgarity, and sloth.

The state cares about society, but it doesn't give a rat's ass about YOU. We don't need a village, we don't need an all-encompassing safety net to protect us from what is often characterized as a malevolent universe (it's not), we need someone who cares enough about us to tell us no, to smack us with tough love when warranted, to teach us right from wrong, to tell us and to DEMONSTRATE that if we strive and work hard and plan for the future that we can be successful and happy human beings. Traditionally, parents have fulfilled that role, but the widely varying ages of the British rioters are evidence that the rot is generations deep.

In 1960's America, one of the goals of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society was to combat the systemic injustices that were being committed against black families and allow them to take their place alongside white Americans in the pursuit of happiness. Instead, the incentives created by the various programs have wreaked societal destruction that a couple of centuries of slavery and discrimination could not accomplish. Once-Great Britain applied the same model, and it has brought them chaos in their streets.

p.s. Here's how a pro, the eloquent and witty Mark Steyn, expresses some similar ideas.

Hypocrisy

2011-07-17T20:18:00.000-05:00

Each side of the political spectrum accuses the other of being hypocritical. And they are correct. The hypocrisy of the left is that it will never acknowledge that their attempts to fix things, to solve problems for the American people are typically so loaded with negative consequences that the solutions are far worse than the disease. The hypocrisy of the right is that they claim to be the party that is faithful to the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and to the laws of the Constitution, but then, in the spirit of "compromise", they go along with virtually everything the leftists propose.

Is one hypocrisy worse than the other? Practically?, no, since both leave us in the same unpleasant spot--saddled with the expense and the moral hazard of a behemoth government incessantly penetrating deeper and deeper into our daily lives. The only good thing that can be said is that at least one side has the right ideas (I will leave you, gentle reader, to figure out which side I am referring to), and they might yet have the favorable circumstances and the gumption to fight for them.

Update On Stephen Harper from National Review

2011-06-07T11:39:00.002-05:00

My comments on Stephen Harper's achievement of a majority government in the Canadian election last month were similar to these (below, in italics) from National Review magazine. Note particularly the last sentence in the National Review article, and the second last sentence in my own.

Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, is an admirable Conservative, and conservative. He has led minority governments since 2006. Now he will lead a majority government. Election Day in Canada was astounding. The Conservatives gained 24 seats, going from 143 to 167. The Liberals, once the colossus of Canada, lost 43 seats, going from 77 to 34. They have never had such a low standing. To make this even sweeter, the Liberals' leader, Michael Ignatieff, lost his seat, personally. Further sweet news concerns the Bloc Quebecois, those separatist annoyances: They went into the elections with 47 seats; now they have just four--barely enough to call themselves a rump. The only fly in the ointment is that the New Democrats, like the Liberals a left-wing party, rose from 36 seats to 102. They are now the Official Opposition. But no matter: Prime Minister Harper will be able to govern with great gusts at his back. He made the elections a referendum on his economic policies. And now he will be able to pursue those policies--tax cuts, spending cuts, growth--with abandon. May the Canadian elections presage our own.

Amen.

Keith, Larry, Heather, and Stephen.

2011-05-09T21:30:00.000-05:00

Two things. I didn't think it was possible for me to dislike a pundit more than I dislike Keith Olbermann, but I was wrong. Somehow, Keith's replacement, Lawrence O'Donnell, has achieved a level of sanctimonious pretension that exceeds even those lofty heights set by the power-suit wearing master himself. Keith could at least work himself up into a lather, occasionally shedding some light on the bitterness and belligerence behind all the high-mindedness. O'Donnell, by contrast, never seems to break a sweat, and wears a permanent, irritating smirk that varies only according to the degree of derision he feels for his targets (Republicans, the Bush Administration), or, in the case of Democrats and the Obama Administration, the degree of adulation. And have you noticed that most of the anchors and opinion show hosts who are generally critical of President Obama have at least offered him congratulations for authorizing decisive action against Osama bin Laden, while Larry and his ilk have not offered one word of praise to President Bush for putting in place the intelligence gathering operation that ultimately led to the raid by Seal Team Six, and have instead focused only on the contrast, so they say, between the cowboy incompetence of the Bush administration and the cool, calculating customer who now inhabits the White House. Spare me.

And now for something completely different. Though no one has asked, I offer you my thoughts on the Canadian general election of a week ago and the welcome development of a CPC (Conservative Party of Canada)/Stephen Harper majority government. Third time's a charm.

Harper's victory has generated lots of hand-wringing and tooth gnashing on the left side of the political spectrum of course, with plenty of ordinary folks imagining a CPC majority as "frightening" and "scary", and those with more vivid imaginations like columnist Heather Mallick seeing Canada devolving into something like the apocalyptic wasteland in Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", with enlightened college professors and city dwellers cowering in their homes while bloodthirsty, simple-brained, gun-toting, early-to-bed rural folk roam the streets and break down their doors. Mallick, whose idea of sinister, "Stalinist" behavior has obviously been forged in a country perhaps too rich in politeness, can barely stand to watch when "Harper's goons accuse Ignatieff (Michael Ignatieff, leader of the Liberal party through the election) of being an aristrocrat passing himself off as a regular guy." WHAT? They didn't. Oh, the horror. Come on Heather, put on your big girl panties and learn to play, if not in the big leagues, at least in major junior.

I have a different vision. I think Canada, with a Harper majority government, will be ... successful. Canadians should, in general, experience a federal government that is focused on removing the barriers (taxation, regulation) between citizens and the opportunities that would allow them to create wealth and raise the standard of living for all. The end result will be greater prosperity and good will among the people of Canada, and a rising international stature as a country of freedom, economic and military power, opportunity, and hope. I pray that the United States will soon revert to its more historical ways and join Canada on her journey. Right on, eh.

A Conventional Mind.

2011-04-29T13:37:00.006-05:00

Apparently, my discomfort with our current President is easily explainable. He's just too smart! This, at least according to Dana Milbank of the Washington Post and a host of "leading academics in the fields of psychology and behavior." Here is the core of the Milbank article.

“What distinguishes Obama particularly is the depth and carefulness of his thinking, which renders him somewhat unfit for politics,” said Jonathan Haidt, a professor of social psychology at the University of Virginia. “He is a brilliant social and political analyst, which makes it harder for him to play hardball or to bluff.”

Obama’s strengths and weaknesses come from his high degree of “integrative complexity” — his ability to keep multiple variables and trade-offs in mind simultaneously. The integratively simple thinker — say, George W. Bush — has one universal organizing principle that dominates all others, while the integratively complex thinker — Obama — balances many competing goals.

Philip Tetlock, a professor of psychology with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, found that politicians on the center-left (where Obama dwells) tend to have the highest degree of integrative complexity, followed by politicians on the center-right. Politicians on the far left and far right are the most simple.

Oh puhleeze. The first red flag, among many in this article, is the astonishing coincidence that a professor of psychology who most likely views his own politics, and those of most of his ivory tower colleagues as center-left (this is an assumption, but fairly safe I think) discovers, to his great surprise I'm sure, that center-left politicians have the highest degree of integrative complexity. No bias here, nothing to see, just move along.

The second is this. If President Obama is so fantastically adept at "keeping multiple trade-offs and variables in mind simultaneously", why does he never integrate a shred of empirical, real-world evidence into his analysis of what government should do on behalf of the people. To the left, the good intention is the thing, results and costs never matter. And so they never ask why it is that the last time black unemployment was less than white unemployment was in 1930, which coincidentally was the last year in which there was no minimum wage law. Or why the rate of black children born out of wedlock, with all of the negative consequences that entails, has sky-rocketed since the expansion of welfare in the 1960's. To President Obama and the left, the programs themselves, and the incentives they create, are never the problem. When the programs fail, when the unintended negative consequences inevitably reveal themselves it is always external factors--racism, corporate greed, fraud, ineffeciency, not enough funding, that are the reasons for the failure. To me, this naive, ideological committment to "help people" and "solve problems" in the face of failure after failure is the very definition of a simple mind.

President Obama may be an adept politician, and skilled at advancing the causes of the left, but his mind seems pretty conventional to me.

p.s. This article, in which Dennis Prager takes note of the poisoned view of America held by a left-leaning professor of psychiatry, is just how I view the mind of President Obama. Mr. Prager writes this about his subject:

But at some point, perhaps in college, he assimilated the leftist world-view, with the dogmatic but meaningless phrases that appear in his column: “underlying forces of greed and hate”; “American imperialism”; “corporate avarice”; and “abuses of our power abroad.”

President Obama has also, I suspect, assimilated the leftist world-view, and it is his inability to move past this adolescent ideology that most compromises his so-called mega-mind.

Don't Need O'Reilly Lookin' Out For Me Either.

2011-04-19T21:19:00.001-05:00

Unless you live under a rock you most likely know who Bill O’Reilly is. His early evening opinion show on Fox News is the top-rated cable news show in the United States, and it has been so for many years. He prides himself in being a tough, but fair-minded interviewer who is always “looking out for the folks”, and I probably agree with his positions on a lot of issues. But not on the price of oil. Every time the price of oil goes up Bill goes on a crusade to illustrate that oil companies and speculators are fleecing the American people. The crux of his argument is always that increases in the price of oil are artificial because they are not “market based.” When he makes that statement he is implying that the fundamentals of supply and demand have not changed and that this reveals that speculators and oil companies are behaving in an unscrupulous and greedy fashion. What he fails or chooses not to recognize is that the amount of oil produced in the world on a given day, and the amount consumed on that same day are not the only fundamental aspects of supply and demand. The price that a buyer is willing to pay for a barrel of crude oil is also fundamental, and if a speculator is willing to offer more for a barrel of oil right now because he thinks the price will be higher in 30 days, then the fundamentals of supply and demand have indeed changed.

Speculation is a real part of any free market, and speculators perform the valuable service of transferring some of the inherent risks of productive activities (like finding and producing oil and gas) to those who are best equipped to handle those risks, the speculators themselves. In this case the inherent risk is the risk of price fluctuation caused by supply disruption in the Middle East, and the producers of oil mitigate this risk by signing futures contracts which guarantee them a certain price for their product. The owners of family farms do exactly the same thing with the wheat and the soybeans that they produce and sell. The prices they are paid are market-based and absolutely real because speculators and other buyers are competing with each other to offer these higher prices. Gasoline refiners, who need crude oil right now to supply feed stock to their refineries must follow suit and also offer higher prices to producers in order to be able to purchase crude from the spot markets. In order to maintain margins, it follows that the price of refined products must also rise. What Mr. O'Reilly portrays as insidious and harmful is the normal response of a free market to risk, and the normal behavior of companies (or farmers) who have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to manage business risks and maximize returns. If Middle East conflict continues to burn cooler rather than hotter the upward trend of oil and gas prices will soon reverse.

Though he claims to be “just lookin’ out for the folks,” he is in fact doing them a disservice by encouraging the voices of those who advocate for increased regulation of legitimate financial activities, and for price controls. The inefficiencies, unintended consequences, and political interference that would surely follow in the wake of such regulation and control would be much harder on “the folks” than any temporary, but real rise in the price of crude oil.

Why Didn't I Think Of That?

2011-03-25T18:59:00.003-05:00

So the geniuses (I love using that word sarcastically) at city government in San Francisco are about to implement what is described in an A.P. article as the "nation's toughest local hiring ordinance." The law will impose strict local hire rules on contractors who work on city-funded projects, requiring them to hire 20 percent of their staff from San Francisco residents immediately upon implementation of the law. That number will then escalate 5 percent per year until it reaches a 50 percent maximum.

Have none of these city officials thought beyond the rose-tinted fog of their good intentions (reducing unemployment) and considered the real incentives and consequences of their new law? Despite a long history of similar, ill-considered statutes on city, state, and federal books I think the answer is clearly, no. Like thousands of other pols before them they will go ahead and legislate based on political expediency and short-term, personal gain, without regard to the reality of their actions.

Let's examine a few of the basic economic rules and incentives that might give rise to outcomes that are different than what is planned. If you reduce the quantity of a thing (labor, in this case), the increased competition for those now scarcer resources will drive the cost up. So all San Franciscans will pay a premium on their city projects in order to achieve a goal which the city officials have determined is a good thing. "Very well," many residents might say. "We're prepared to pay a little more to put some people back to work." But putting people back to work is only what is seen. What is unseen is any alternative project or projects and any associated employment of city residents that could have been paid for by that same premium, that will not happen. When you consider what is unseen as well as what is seen, is the law likely to provide a net benefit?, or a net loss? Then there is the possibility that some projects, because of higher bid costs offered by contractors whose labor costs have risen, simply become unaffordable and so are not done at all. The last time I looked, 20 percent of zero jobs is still zero jobs.

In this case, we don't even have to wait for the economic incentives to percolate through the system to discover whether the law will have any harmful effects that are not currently being considered. According to the A.P. article, more than 60 percent of the approximately 15,000 construction workers currently employed in San Francisco live in surrounding counties where the cost of housing is lower. Since it is entirely possible that there are many contractors who obtain their employees primarily from outside the city limits proper, some of those people who live in surrounding counties but who nevertheless work and spend money in the city every day, will lose their jobs. Thanks, geniuses!

And finally, in what seems to be a predictable trend for legislation advanced by liberal lawmakers, the law already includes exemptions for two major projects--improvements to San Francisco International and to the city's water system. If laws like this are supposed to make things better for everyone (like Obamacare), why, when they are implemented, are provisions always made for certain people to flout them.

We Must Work Together to Craft Bipartisan Solutions For The American People.

2011-02-08T09:00:00.000-06:00

Over and over I hear politicians from both sides of the aisle talking about "working together to craft solutions that the American people need." In the approximate words of famous television dad Cliff Huxtable, "that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" The American people, and people everywhere, are entirely capable of crafting their own solutions to virtually every challenge they face. What they require is the opportunity space to find and pursue those solutions, and it is that opportunity space that is being made inexorably smaller by excessive taxation and regulation, by government mandates to use expensive electricity produced by windmills or solar panels, and by giant entitlement programs like Obamacare. Make the opportunity space larger, and get out of the way.

Don't Clip My Wings

2011-01-26T10:41:00.000-06:00

I didn't watch the State of the Union speech last night, but I read the transcript about 30 minutes before the President delivered it. Innovation was a big theme, and the President intends to offer the support of the government. He said this: Our free enterprise system is what drives innovation. But because it's not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research, throughout history our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need. That's what planted the seeds for the Internet. That's what helped make possible things like computer chips and GPS.

Notice what he does. "Free enterprise is great, BUT ..." I'm pretty sure he can't help himself. When writing about a gaggle of liberal columnists the other day, Kevin Williamson of National Review Online said this: they are ideologically beholden to the belief that people cannot thrive without a very robust and paternalistic state to mind them. According to the President, who is stuck in the same ideological ditch as those columnists, we should not only mind the people, but fund them.

When I read his funding innovation comments my thoughts went to the Wright brothers, a couple of bike shop owners who did not receive their high school diplomas. Starting in 1899, and armed only with their own, self-taught minds and their modest, bicycle shop incomes, they did their own basic research and arrived at the crucial scientific and mechanical insight, 3-axis control, that allowed for their history-making powered flights on the beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903.

In contrast to the Wright brothers, Samuel Pierpont Langley was one of the most prominent physicists in the United States in the late 1800s, with professional credentials ranging from Chair of Mathematics at the U.S. Naval Academy to Secretary of the Smithsonian. Langley started experimenting with aeronautics in 1887 and in 1896 two of his steam-powered, unmanned airships flew distances approaching one mile over the Potomac river. On the basis of this success he was awarded two grants in 1898, $50,000. from the War Department and $20,000. from the Smithsonian, to build a powered, manned aircraft. Despite his credentials, massive head start, and substantial government funding (the first Wright brothers plane cost less than $1000. to build), Langley ended up in a race with the Wrights to be the first to build and fly a powered, piloted, fixed-wing aircraft. Langley actually tried twice, on October 7th and December 8th, 1903, the last attempt just nine days before the successful flights of the Wright Flyer I on December 17th. On both occasions, Langley's airplane, which required a catapult for launching, had no landing gear, and two-axis control as opposed to three, plunged immediately into the Potomac.

No buts about it. Free enterprise is great.

I promise I'll only do good stuff!

2010-12-16T13:53:00.001-06:00

I am your dictator. But just for a year!

It had to happen sometime (playing the Nazi card)

2010-12-09T21:14:00.003-06:00

I was watching The O'Reilly Factor last night, and one of the early guests in the program was a cheerful woman who is the representative of a progressive/liberal organization that is disappointed with the tax policy framework that is being pushed by lawmakers and the White House. She voiced her dismay that the Senate had voted not to raise anyone's taxes, not even those who make more than $1 million per year. She then asked Bill if he knew how many people in the country made more than $1 million per year--the answer she gave was 375,000 people, which is a little more than one-tenth of one percent of the population. "So you see," she said, "this will only affect a very few people!"

At that point Bill proceeded to start asking questions about what level of taxation she thought was appropriate--to emphasize the arbitrariness of what is "appopriate" I suppose. But to my mind he missed a much juicier opportunity, and that was to delve into the philosophical issues that her statement raises. He could have said, "excuse me, do you realize what you have just advocated? You have just said that it's okay to treat a small group of citizens differently than the rest of the population, simply because there aren't that many of them."

The grand design of the government of the United States has as one of its over-arching goals the prevention of tyrannies of all kinds. One such tyranny is the tyranny of the majority, which is EXACTLY what this woman was spelling out in a very cheerful, matter-of-fact sort of way. Now I hate to throw down the Nazi card, since it tends to be WAY overused, and misused, but if you're okay with different treatment for a group of citizens simply because they are a minority and an easy target, well, then it's nothing but smooth, philosophical sailing all the way to Kristallnacht.

Though pretentious pundits like Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann often denigrate the ability of the American people to comprehend anything more complex than a Denny's menu, I think that millions of people are capable of understanding common-sense philosophical discussion, and I wish that more people, on television and off, would indulge in it.

postscript: This is what I'm talking about. These class warfare issues should not be addressed functionally, but rather from a moral and philosophical standpoint.

Night Soldiers

2010-12-07T19:56:00.005-06:00

A couple of times in the last week or so, I have heard liberal pundits lamenting the "unprecedented transfer of wealth and opportunity from the middle class to the wealthy", all caused, of course, by 30 years of government by conservative principles (Bill Clinton, with his centrist triangulation after the 1994 midterms, gets lumped in with Reagan and the two Bush's). The way I see it, it's not the limited government philosophy that's the problem, but the fact that the intrusiveness of government (taxation, regulation) has continued to get worse in spite of the philosophy of great constitutional Presidents like Reagan. Government intervention has decreased the global competitiveness of American industry, and THAT is the poison that is decimating the middle class. As for the rich getting richer, well, it's always easier to make money when you have money, and that's probably especially true when the rest of the population is struggling.

The solution is to advance policy (lower taxes, fewer regulations) that turns the United States, state by state, back into the land of opportunity that it once was. With opportunity will come jobs of all kinds, manufacturing jobs, management jobs, jobs in the service industries and the trades, and the ranks of the middle class will swell in numbers, prosperity, and happiness.

The left blames the right for the woes of the middle class, that is no surprise. But it is the desire of the left to fix things, well-intentioned I guess, with the resulting intrusions, restrictions, taxes, fines, etc. that has been the real killer. In the book "Night Soldiers", by the great Alan Furst, the hero of the story is Khristo, a young Bulgarian who is recruited by the Soviet secret service (NKVD) to be a spy. As Khristo matures he realizes he is not a committed communist, and when the insidiousness of the NKVD becomes all too apparent, he eventually runs. For the rest of the story Khristo searches relentlessly for that place on Earth where he will finally be left alone to live his life as he sees fit. Would that the lefty/progressive side of the political spectrum would grant the American public that same privilege.

postscript: I was listening to a discussion of tax policy on a local radio show this morning. Every Wednesday (today is Wednesday) the radio station hosts a panel of commentators, one conservative, one liberal, one grumpy. According to Mr. Grumpy, the income tax became law in 1913, and it was designed solely to take from the rich, as the threshold for tax liability was an income of $25,000 per year--substantially more than even doctors were making at the time. In response, the truly wealthy--Rockefellers, Morgans, etc.--had a law passed which allowed them to transfer their vast holdings into tax-sheltered foundations. Thus, the tax burden fell not upon the wealthy, but on the successful, and the result was to exacerbate, not narrow the gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the population. Quit fixing things! Leave us alone.

post-postscript: Again today I heard a pundit reference the transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy. Coincidence?, I think not. This is obviously a scripted talking point for the left.

Planning vs Planning

2010-11-27T08:39:00.003-06:00

Friedrich Hayek, in his landmark book, "The Road To Serfdom", distinguishes between the type of economic planning which is required to make a capitalist system as efficient and beneficial as possible, and the type of economic planning which is designed to replace a capitalist system altogether. The first type of planning, which is primarily the design of the framework of laws and regulations within which a capitalist system can function, if done well, is notable for something it does not provide, that being the ability to predict who will succeed, and who will not. In other words, opportunity is preserved equally for all, with success determined by ability, determination, and circumstance. The other sort of planning, which is designed to replace capitalism on the basis of providing a more equitable distribution of wealth, or any one of a million other, arbitrary goals, is notable because the success, or lack of success of different economic actors can be predicted. This, of course, because success, or lack of it, no longer depends on individual effort and ability. Instead, our lot in life is measured and weighed against the competing claims of every other economic actor, and our fates decided by a planning board, an economic council, or a dictator. What a depressing thought.

A friend and I have often debated the degree to which the first, or "good" sort of planning can progress before it becomes, de facto, the second sort. Because surely, the more onerous, punitive, and complex a framework of laws, even if designed to be applied generally, the more likely that the framework itself becomes an instrument that picks winners and losers as ruthlessly and unjustly as the aforementioned planning board or economic council. It certainly seems to me that we are approaching that situation in the United States today.

Why do we have so many laws such that we have gone far beyond a general framework designed to preserve opportunity for all, and entered the realm of a coercive monstrosity that divides and conquers. Because of two lines of thinking that often turn out to be misconceptions, or worse, just lies, one, that they are necessary, and two, that they are good. These misconceptions and lies are in general promoted by those progressives who purport to remedy some injustice, or by those collectivists who, faced with the inability to replace the capitalist system that they hate through direct, democratic means, have resorted to subterfuge instead. In other words, control and direct indirectly, through onerous, and punitive regulation.

A current example of this type of legislation is the "Paycheck Fairness Act", already passed in the House, thankfully not in the Senate, for President Obama would surely sign the bill. The reason for this bill, according to its sponsors, is that women earn 77% as much as men, and that this is evidence of discrimination on the basis of sex. Of course, the bill's sponsors never mention that their 77% number is completely unrefined by any sort of analysis that takes into account the different choices that men and women freely make in the mangement of their individual lives. Nevertheless, the PFA seeks to remedy this "injustice" by forcing employers to raise women's pay by dramatically reducing their ability to defend what they feel are legitimate pay differences based on merit. In addition, the PFA is a foot in the door for the application of "comparable worth", which is a term that describes the setting of wages according to an arbitrary theory of value rather than according to market forces. This is price setting, plain and simple, and it is not something that a few wise men (or women) can do without introducing market distortions that result in the misuse of a nation's scarce resources. The only injustice in this whole scenario is the PFA itself. Trial lawyers will feast on the lawsuits that will result, and women, the intended beneficiaries, will likely be harmed because the increased cost of hiring them will reduce the opportunities that are available.

We should have no doubt that legislation of this sort goes far beyond the general framework that is supported by Hayek in his book, and I pray that it remains on the wish list of the collectivists.

A Letter I Wrote

2010-10-25T16:15:00.001-05:00

One of the regular contributors to the local opinion column in our daily newspaper is an older woman whose politics are unabashedly left of center. Earlier this year she wrote an essay on the economic recession and what was required to get the economy growing again. She called for "grit and cooperation needed to reverse the current economic tsunami" and chastised those on the right who weren't interested in additional, federal "help" of the sort that had been dished out already. I wrote a letter in reply, but never sent it on to the paper. I stumbled across a copy of it earlier this week and liked what I had written. Here it is:

Ms. S refers to the "grit and cooperation needed to reverse the current economic tsunami," and I agree, grit is required. But not the grit to pass legislation that edges this country ever closer to a grim, nanny state where the fortunes of personal and corporate industry depend on their ability to suck up to and please their overlords in the federal government. Car czars, climate czars, banking czars--are you kidding me? Czars?

The grit that is required is the grit that will remake the country not in Barack Obama's far-left, utopian image, but largely in its original image, where grit implied the personal wherewithal to take care of ones self--to rise up through learning, not indoctrination, through creativity and invention, not confiscation, and through hard work, not envy.

Ms. S also references "great hypocrisy in knocking federal help." Yes, it would be difficult for an elderly person who depends on Social Security checks to refuse them. But all of these dependencies--on welfare, unemployment insurance, Medicare, Social Security, school lunches--are in many cases simply behaviors that have been learned as a result of incentives created by the government itself. If none of those programs ever existed, would we miss them? Not in my book; we would instead act differently in accordance with the incentives. This is not to say that the available services and safety nets are not welcomed and appreciated by those who use them, but if schools didn't serve lunch (I grew up in Canada, where they didn't, and they still don't), would children go hungry?, or would they carry a paper bag to school with a peanut butter sandwich, two cookies, and an apple?

The incentives contained in Barack Obama's vision of America are those that will create increased dependency, class warfare, racism, and a lowered standard of living for all. To avoid all this, and to "reverse the current economic tsunami", the culture of dependency must shrink, not grow.

It Just Ain't Right

2010-08-29T20:19:00.002-05:00

Despite Keith Olbermann's stern pronouncement (is anything that he says not stern) that "[The] country has begun to run on a horrible fuel of hatred", I am quite sure that opposition to the mosque is not powered by hatred, but by the sense of common decency that most people instinctively recognize. As in, "you know Marge, sure those people have the right to build that dang 'ole mosque there by Ground Zero, but even though they have the right, it just ain't right. Know what I mean?" And don't lecture me about America and her citizens needing to live up to certain ideals as an example to the world of the inclusiveness and tolerance of American society. Why do people continue to insist that the United States must prove its assertions of liberty and tolerance. Why do so many refuse to give the United States the benefit of the doubt? Would people from around the world clamor to come here if the United States was systematically racist, xenophobic, homophobic, islamophobic? The U.S. is none of those things. The city I live in has a prominent, long-standing middle-Eastern population, a bunch of middle-Eastern college students, and many middle-Eastern restaurants. I have not yet detected any convulsions of hatred.

Supporting the GZ mosque on the basis of setting an example for the world is ridiculous. It would be as naive as destroying all of our atomic weapons as an example to the world, and then crossing our fingers and hoping that other countries would do the same and not take advantage of the situation. It would be as self-destructive as imposing harsh penalties on all forms of carbon dioxide emissions, as an example to the world of course, and then hoping that others would follow suit and not grab the jobs and the wealth and the carbon-emitting industry that would migrate, post-haste, to more business-friendly locales. Why? Because if the GZ mosque is built as planned it will serve not as an example of American tolerance, but of American decline. People around the world will look and say, "we would NEVER have allowed that in my country." Conversely, if it is not built, the vast majority of people will not see intolerance, but rather the common decency of a proper outcome. And why is everybody talking only about the GZ mosque? A similar "cultural center" was planned for central London, right next to the Olympic stadium that is being built for the 2012 Olympics. Pressure from the community has halted those plans, for now at least. What awful, xenophobic, racist islamophobes those Brits must be.

There is another reason to oppose. The Imam who is leading the charge to build is moderate, so we are told, and only seeks to build bridges of understanding between Islam and the rest of American society. This may be true, but I believe that Imam Rauf seeks to build bridges in order to condition people to aspects of the Islamic faith that they currently reject. The Islam that is spreading around the world--and I believe the GZ mosque is a part of this--is not just a religion, serving only to facilitate and support the relationship between human beings and their God(s), but a political and legal system as well. This system, Sharia, with its dictates on the status of women, homosexuality, finance, etc., is incompatible with enlightened western culture. The two cannot co-exist. Islam must modernize, reject Sharia, offer up to civil and government institutions the processes of politics and justice as other religions have done. If Islam will accept that more limited role in secular societies, then it will be welcomed as all other religions are welcomed (though contrary to the horrible fuel of hatred that is supposedly consuming us, it is largely welcomed despite its political and legal ambitions), and people may be more willing to follow the letter of the law, and honor explicitly the RIGHT of Imam Rauf to build his mosque. Until then, I stand with the majority.

The More Shining Beacons The Better!

2010-08-19T16:47:00.000-05:00

Islands of Freedom! What a great idea!

As the father of two young boys, I often wonder if the world they inherit will offer them the same opportunities for fulfillment, prosperity, joy, happiness, and freedom that I have had. Lately, I've been thinking not, and there is nothing more depressing in the world than thinking of your beautiful children living their adult lives in a dreary, nanny-state world, bereft of opportunity and joy. Perhaps this idea of free cities will preserve for them the blessed life that mine has heretofore been.

You go, girl!

2010-08-10T16:04:00.000-05:00

Words of wisdom from Raheel Raza of the Muslim Canadian Congress by way of the Bill O'Reilly show. And in print here with Tarek Fatah by way of the Ottawa Citizen. Best part of the video is when she calls Mayor Bloomberg a "bleeding heart white liberal."

And check out the last sentence/paragraph of the article in the Citizen, where Raheel and Tarek reference how "the tyranny of Islamism ... is using liberalism itself to destroy liberal secular democratic societies from within." This is EXACTLY the point of my article below. The liberal left is overly tolerant of and blind, both wilfully, and through ignorance, to the danger of Islamic tyranny.

Intolerant? Only When Appropriate!

2010-08-03T19:53:00.007-05:00

One of the more frequently used labels slapped on conservatives is that they are "intolerant." I would, in fact, go so far as to say that many young people end up voting for Democratic candidates simply over the issue of "tolerance." They're not really all that sure about all the taxing and spending that the Democrats are advocating, so they've had a few dark thoughts about voting for a Republican, but then they have all these really interesting friends who are like, really artistic and thoughtful and not materialistic at all, and yes they're gay, but they're SO COOL, and you know, the Republicans are just against those people. And boom, they vote for the Democrat because of a perception that Republicans are staid and intolerant.

As in so many things, the devil is in the details, and the details in this circumstance are the meanings of words. As a group, conservative people are not intolerant. They may not care to indulge in this sort of lifestyle or that, and they might even disapprove, but they will most often tolerate different lifestyles, which is consistent with their general belief that people should be left alone to live their lives how they see fit. It is on the lefty-liberal side of the fence that one most often encounters the true meaning of intolerance; for them the tolerance of conservatives is not enough. Only approval, encouragement, and outright promotion of lifestyle alternatives other than traditional, western choices are sufficient evidence that conservatives are not racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and on and on. And if you don't plan to adopt these positions willingly, then by God (oops, Gaia) they'll use the government to force them upon you. So when it comes to live and let live in the good old U.S. of A., I submit that the right side of the political spectrum is more tolerant than the left.

The roles are reversed when it comes to evaluating the creeping threat of radical Islam. This article from National Review by Claire Berlinski is a brilliant assessment of exactly where too much tolerance on that front can get you. Given that radical Islam is so diametrically opposed to the left on issues such as the role of women in society, and homosexuality, where does this tolerance come from? Two places, I think. One is the moral relativism of the left, which suggests that no lifestyle, no culture, and no religion is any different, in a moral sense, than any other. The other is their shared hatred of the cultural traditions of the west, like capitalism, and the aforementioned freedom to choose how to live your life. It is a marriage of convenience, and should they ever succeed in their shared mission to supplant enlightened western culture with their own, they will fight each other for control just as the communists and the fascists battled for control of Europe in the 1920's and 1930's. As Ms. Berlinski's article concludes, we must draw lines.

I Rest My Case

2010-07-27T09:49:00.000-05:00

In my previous post I published my opinion that the Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico would not be the decades long environmental catastrophe that some constituencies tried to make it out to be. In the weeks following that post, while the well continued to flow largely unabated, and the flow-rate estimates kept rising, I second-guessed myself a time or two, hoping desperately for the day that seemed like it would never come--the day that oil stopped flowing into the Gulf. Finally, with the installation of "the cap", the flow was restricted, and then stopped. As of today, the final kill operation is still a couple of weeks away from completion, but I think it's fair to say that the Macondo oil spill response is now officially in clean-up mode.

And what's this? They can't find any oil to clean up? After a couple of weeks and a tropical wave the stuff has largely disappeared. Seems like the ocean is a big place (though Tony Hayward would have done better not to mention it), and wind and waves and sun and microbes have been doing their jobs. I do not intend to minimize the damage that has been done to human lives and the environment; certainly, damage has been done. But the damage will diminish to a low level quickly, in months not years, and the ways of life that were pronounced dead will be restored. I think we all ought to be optimistic about that.

Fishing Report

2010-06-22T10:09:00.003-05:00

"Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." Though the actual quote by the great Mark Twain was somewhat different, something along the lines of "the report of my death was an exaggeration," the "demise" version is likely the most popular, probably because it sounds better than the others. But I digress. Yesterday I visited with one of my co-workers about one of his recent fishing trips, and my point is to illustrate that the frenzy of reporting on the death of the Gulf of Mexico as a nurturing and hospitable habitat for wildlife, and people, is way, way overblown.

My friend, let's call him D, fishes regularly out of Breton Sound Marina, which is about 30 miles southeast of New Orleans on the east side of the Mississippi River Delta. The map below is from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) and shows a couple of areas closed to fishing, but most of Chandeleur Sound and Breton Sound open. The reasoning given for the opening of these large areas to fishing, which occurred on June 15, was as follows from the LDWF: "shoreline cleanup assessment ... indicates no oil in these areas."

D's most recent Breton Sound fishing trip was about a week ago, just after the opening, and they caught their limit of speckled trout (prime table fare down here on the Gulf Coast), plus assorted redfish and other species. He described it as one of those rare trips where the weather and water were gorgeous, and the fish were biting like crazy. They had their limit of speckled trout (25 per person) in two hours or less. After they caught their limit of trout they cruised through Breton Sound observing huge schools of mullet, dolphins galore, and as he put it, "if we saw one pelican we saw 10,000." The dolphins were terrorizing the schools of mullet from below, gorging themselves; the pelicans were dive-bombing them from above, also feasting.

The BP oil spill is a catastrophe that has caused the loss of eleven lives, and tremendous hardship for thousands of gulf coast residents. Poor planning and decision making by BP are the likely, primary causes of the disaster. BP will pay dearly for it, and they should. But I predict that in the long term, and by long term I don't mean decades from now, I mean months from now, at most a year, the shrimp will be fine, the fish will be fine, the dolphins will be fine, the turtles will be fine, the oysters will be fine, and the pelicans will be fine. Those who will suffer the most are not the creatures that live in the water, but the people whose jobs and businesses have been lost or suspended. Arbitrary drilling moratoriums will only exacerbate these losses. Those in the media and the administration who attempt to scare people with the spectre of a decades long environmental disaster in order to further their political agenda are sacrificing thousands of working class gulf coast residents at an altar that does not exist.

I'm back.

2010-06-06T22:03:00.000-05:00

I've been on vacation. I took my computer with me to blog my little heart out while we were off on our trip, but taking the computer turned out to be the same as taking my books home for the weekend when I was in college--didn't touch it. I guess my mind needed a break too. Now I'm feeling a bit lazy and out of shape, both mentally and physically, but since I'm back home I'm ready to whip both mind and body back to their normal, ridiculously high level of performance.

Here's a little tidbit to kick things off, from National Review's "the corner" blog. I saw it first at the Hyacinth Girl. A few months ago I wrote some paragraphs about Norman Borlaugh (here), the man who, through his efforts to spread the benefits of high-yield agriculture throughout the world was estimated to have saved one billion (yes, with a b) human lives. If he's looking down on this outrage, I bet he's pissed.

Federalism, please?

2010-05-17T14:37:00.001-05:00

Okay, I thought of something. A while back I wrote about the difference between political power and economic power. In my essay I wrote that there will always be businessmen who prefer the easy work of lobbying a politician for advantage to the hard work of building a reputation for good service and quality. I then went on to say that in that situation it is the responsibility of the politician to say NO. Now, I still agree with my statement, it is the politician's responsibility to deny special favors, but I left something out of my analysis. If I don't expect perfect behavior from all businessmen, how can I expect perfect behavior from all politicians? We are all flesh and blood. The answer, of course, is that I can't. So what to do? There will always be corrupt businessmen, and there will always be corrupt politicians, and they will always find each other. I gave a general answer in my original essay--regulate less, not more, but I could have been more specific. What is required is a return to the federalist system as originally conceived by the Founders of the country, with limited powers ascribed and assigned to the Federal government and virtually all public spending constrained to the state and local levels. Milton Friedman has this commentary in his book "Free to Choose", which was first published in 1979: "From the founding of the Republic to 1929, spending by governments at all levels, federal, state, and local, never exceeded 12 percent of the national income except in time of major war, and two-thirds of that ws state and local spending. Federal spending typically amounted to 3 percent or less of the national income. Since 1933 government spending has never been less than 20 percent of national income and is now over 40 percent, and two-thirds of that is spending by the federal government. ... By this measure the role of the federal government in the economy has multiplied roughly tenfold in the past half-century."

I am reminded of the line from the movie "Field of Dreams", "if you build it, he will come." In other words, when the federal government is spending trillions, what businessman wouldn't like to have a piece of that action? What politician wouldn't like to control it? Sadly, the current remedy for this situation as envisioned by politicians of all kinds, is a tweak to the system. If we just add a regulation here, take away this incentive, add in that incentive, then all will be well. No, it won't. A world-class skeet-shooting friend of mine once said that learning to shoot is like nailing down a warped piece of plywood--you fix one corner and another one pops up. So it is with government spending--no one person, or group of persons, no matter how well informed they may be, can account for all the outcomes, incentives, and loopholes that a population of three hundred million will unearth. The problem is the centralized system; the answer is decentralization, or, as I put it earlier, federalism as originally conceived by the Founders. When local and state governments are spending your money, every person has a much greater ability to understand the amount and reason for the spending, and if necessary, to effect changes. Until the federal government spends less, and controls less, the unholy combination of political and economic power can be expected to continue.

Ssshhhh, I'm reading.

2010-05-11T10:21:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know. Nothing new here in two weeks. I'm thinkin', I'm thinkin'. There's lots of stuff to write about, but nothing's really inspired me for a couple of weeks now. I will say this...after two years spent reading the books of many of the prominent, present-day philosophers of freedom like Jonah Goldberg, Mark Steyn, Thomas Sowell, and Mark Levin, with the notable exception of Ayn Rand, of course, whose non-fiction philosophy was decades, decades, ahead of her time, I've decided to step back about 20 years and have read through the first 100 or so pages of one of Milton Friedman's best known books, "Free to Choose." His writing on the banking system and the cause of the depression has been particularly interesting so far. I went back and forth over whether to buy his other, best-known work, "Capitalism and Freedom", instead of "Free to Choose"--I don't think you'd go wrong reading either of these books by one of the great, 20th century economists and thinkers.

Sandwich, Comrade?

2010-04-29T08:12:00.001-05:00

My friend Mary, who is currently living with her family in Caracas, sent me this gem, which describes an individual's experience at a state run arepera (sandwich shop). Apparently Mr. Chavez, and his Trade Minister, Eduardo Saman, created the place to demonstrate the superiority of socialism and to show how private areperas cheat customers by charging several times the true cost of an arepa.

So let me get this straight--millions of freely chosen, voluntary transactions have occurred over years of sandwich shop operations to arrive at prices that are acceptable to both the producer of the arepa, and the consumer of the arepa, and yet the trade minister knows, knows, that the greedy owners of sandwich shops are cheating their customers. I don't know about you, but I often lay awake at night wondering when the helpless people will finally rise up, and in the name of social justice bring those evil sandwich shop owners TO THEIR KNEES. What a buffoon--the trade minister, I mean. Well, Chavez too.

They should brush up on one of Adam Smith's key insights, taken from the pages of Milton Friedman's book, "Free To Choose". Mr. Friedman writes this: " ... if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another." This simplistic, zero-sum assumption is an insult to the intelligence and the productive capability of all of humanity, and it has been used to prop up tyranny and dictatorship for all time. Mr. Chavez uses it now, and it is being wielded ever more frequently here at home by the Obama administration.

The other interesting aspect of the reporting at the arepera is the descent, not profound but palpable, from the crowded excitement, abundance and variety of food, and honor system of Chavez's visit shortly after the opening of Arepera Socialista, to the dwindling patrons, bare trays, stewed hot dogs, harried staff, and not quite the honor system that exists less than a year later. Such is the descent that always occurs when a trade minister professes to know the sandwich business better than the man who owns a sandwich shop, and the people who buy sandwiches from him. If the Obama administration can be indicted for anything, it is that they are afflicted with the same disease as Hugo Chavez's trade minister--they profess to know what's in everyone's best interest (yours, mine, Arizona's, Israel's) better than each individual knows it for his or her self. They have had some success in enacting policy based on that principle. The degree to which they continue to succeed, or not, in that quest, is the degree to which we may expect the future to be a delicious arepa venezolana, or hot dog stew.

Deepwater Horizon

2010-04-23T21:18:00.000-05:00

Okay, this is NOT how I wanted to make my point. A few weeks ago, after the tragic explosion in the Upper Big Branch coal mine, I wrote a short essay entitled "Say A Little Prayer" (scroll down and you'll see it) in which I defended the coal industry against the type of attacks that were being levied against the Massey company in the aftermath of the disaster. One of the lines of defense I used was to describe the pervasive culture of safety that exists in the oil and gas industry and to speculate that things were likely the same in the coal mining business--the point being that despite efforts and incentives designed to prevent disasters, they still sometimes occur. Nature, and the nature of man, sometimes combine in ways that are virtually impossible to predict, and the outcomes can be deadly.

Like the coal miners, the men and women who work offshore on drilling rigs and production platforms are directly responsible for aspects of our modern lives that we would be loathe to live without. I would like to claim kinship with them, and I guess I can, but the most dangerous aspect of my day is probably avoiding tripping on the new carpet that was just laid in my office (it's a slightly longer weave). My heart goes out to the families of the lost, and to those who will, tomorrow, take this disaster in stride and climb on board a helicopter or a boat to go tens or hundreds of miles offshore to their work, my prayers and my thanks go with you.

Undercurrents

2010-04-19T21:12:00.002-05:00

I've been reading Thomas Sowell's newest (and excellent) book "Intellectuals and Society". One of the recurring themes in the book is how virtually anything that fits the narrative of what he calls "the vision of the anointed" is presented by the self-anointed intellectuals and their enablers (the media, left-leaning politicians, like-minded citizens) as a priori factual. In other words, any smart, reasonable, forward-thinking person ought to be able to see the truth and wisdom of their commentary, without any regard for or reason to appeal to actual, empirical verification of whatever self-evident "truth" they are advancing.

I witnessed a good example of this just today, while watching this exchange between Ann Coulter and Aisha Tyler (seems like just yesterday she was hosting "The Fifth Wheel") on the Larry King Live show. Aisha refers to the tea party movement as being "demonstrative", "aggressive", and having "an undercurrent of violence." This gross mischaracterization fits with the narrative that is being used by the political left in the country to discredit the tea party movement and so it is accepted and advanced uncritically by much of the media, despite overwhelming evidence at rally after rally of peaceful, inclusive, and principled dissent. Miss Tyler cites as evidence for her "undercurrent of violence" some of the threatening phone calls that were made to Democratic members of congress after their health care votes--no mention of similar phone calls that were made to Republican house members of course. And can you imagine the telephone calls that those same Democratic members would have received had they stuck by their principles and voted against the bill such that it failed. O.M.G.

My point is the same as Ann Coulter's--that despite the vision of the anointed, the actual violence that has occurred has been perpetrated by the left. There was the beating of a black tea partier in St. Louis by SEIU thugs, the egging of a tea party bus in Nevada by Harry Reid supporters, threats directed at Andrew Breitbart at the Nevada incident, and most recently, the beating of Allee Butsch and Joe Brown in New Orleans after they left a Southern Republican Leadership conference dinner. At this point, the perpetrators of that incident are suspected to be a few of a group of leftist protesters who were hanging about outside the event. Heard anything about it on the evening news?; of course you haven't. And then there's the regular protest, rioting and violence that attends every G8 or G20 gathering, every climate conference, and every lecture Ann Coulter gives in Canada (okay, just the one at the University of Ottawa). For some nice, violent undercurrents, try listening to the language of the left, with its insistence on revolution, its description of its principals as "revolutionaries", and signs that say "No Justice, No Peace." To top it off, no one can outdo the left for sheer numbers of people killed over the last 100 years. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Che', the numbers run easily over 100 million.

Unless reading this post is your first detour away from traditional media sources it's unlikely I've presented anything new or surprising. What is interesting to me is why the left has this subculture of violence, and I suspect its because they are consistently unable to win their case on its merits. The health care bill recently passed is a perfect example, not of violence, but of the left being unable to convince the public of the merits of the bill. Faced with this reality, the Democrats used the less-brutish tools in their arsenal--cutting deals, strong-arming when necessary, and procedural maneuvers. No one's head got knocked, but the principle is the same.

I have consistently maintained that unless the left is truly willing to cross the line and start knocking heads, or knocking people off, that they will be unable to advance their agenda in the United States to the same degree that it has been advanced elsewhere in the world. I don't think they have the stomach for it today, and I hope that increasing numbers of Americans continue to convince them that their time is not now, or ever.

The more things change ... the more things change

2010-04-13T13:47:00.001-05:00

Here is a very good climate change essay written by Richard Lindzen (Alfred P. Sloan professor of atmospheric science at M.I.T., which, as far as I know, is a pretty good university). I snagged the article from the science website, Watts Up With That.

Likes and Dislikes

2010-04-12T14:08:00.000-05:00

"People do not dislike equality. What they do dislike is tyranny. Unfortunately, the only way you get equality (of outcomes) is through tyranny."

Me

Say A Little Prayer

2010-04-10T20:58:00.003-05:00

It took me a long time to love the work that I do, probably fifteen years. For many years I identified more strongly with those aspects of myself that I used in my athletic pursuits, and dreamed of using through my aspirations of making my living as a writer. But then, about ten years into it I realized that I actually had some facility for my work, and at fifteen or sixteen years I started to understand how important my work was to the world around me, and now, coming up on twenty-one years in the business, I feel at home. What do I do? I look for oil and gas, or as I like to call it, the lifeblood of civilization. Crude oil and natural gas provide us with many things of inestimable value, but transportation, in cars and boats and trains and planes, is the most visible, the most enjoyable, and the most exciting. Crude oil is movement.

But if crude oil is movement, then coal is light. And for all you people who think that Earth Hour is cool and important, just remember that the only reason that it's fun is that you get to turn the lights and the television back on at the end of it. In very large part, all across the world, it is coal that allows you to do that. Which makes it all the more disgusting when, in light of the current tragedy that has occurred in West Virginia, I read articles with titles like this that attack the coal industry, coal companies, and coal executives.

I do not profess to know whether the Massey company, in its "relentless pursuit of profits" has neglected the safety of their workers. But knowing the amount of regulation and inspection that the oil and gas industry is subjected to, and knowing the incredible focus on safety that virtually all oil and gas operators have, especially the larger companies, I find it doubtful that Massey, described in the linked article as one of the nation's largest coal companies, does not have a similar focus. I think it more likely that a disaster of this type provides those who dislike the coal industry with an opportunity to advance a couple of their narratives. One of these narratives is that greedy executives, relentless in their pursuit of profits, will sacrifice anything, including miners, to get coal out of the ground. An unstated aspect of this narrative is that the miners are helpless pawns who have no choice in life but to go back into the mine at the bidding of evil executives, whether the mine is safe or not. This is part of what Ayn Rand called her "malevolent universe theory", where the forces of the world--big business, the rich, and nowadays even the climate itself-- are so all-powerful and so overwhelmingly stacked against the little guy that the only entity powerful enough to intervene on their behalf is the government. I think it's all hooey. If the critics of the industry are so concerned about the safety of the workers why does the story always disappear in between disasters? Why would miners, who are likely the most cognizant of the safety conditions in a mine, keep returning to an unsafe work environment day after day? Given the eagerness with which certain groups would shut down a mine, all it would take would be one whistle-blower to make a phone call about unsafe conditions and the media and inspectors would be on them in a flash. Could it be that virtually all mines, and all mining companies, are well-regulated, well-inspected, and safety conscious? Could it be that mining coal underground has certain inherent dangers that can be mitigated only to a point, and that miners freely, and proudly, assume these risks?

One thing I know, coal miners, and the companies who employ them, ought to be prayed for every day of the year, not just when something bad happens to a group of men underground. That brittle, black gold that they dig out every day is one of the great cornerstones of our modern lives, and that work is regularly done under conditions that are more inherently hazardous than just about every other work environment on the planet. Those men are heroes, and the companies that employ them are doing noble work. God bless them every one.

Still Learning

2010-04-10T18:29:00.001-05:00

If anyone out there (you know, out of the six or eight people who read this thing) has tried to leave a comment recently, and was unable to, I apologize. I may have had it buttoned down just a bit too much. If you want to try again, please do. I've changed some settings and it should be a little easier to get across the moat.

Thanks for your time,

The Management

Simple, really.

2010-04-05T13:39:00.003-05:00

Here's another question that I've heard often during the debates over health care. "How is providing health insurance for 30 million Americans who don't currently have it going to make the U.S.A. a "socialist" or "communist" country. Since this question is usually asked by someone on the left, it's often delivered with a bit of a self-righteous sneer, but not always. Some ask the question earnestly. Here is my earnest answer, much of it repeated from my post "A Life Of Your Own."

The essential meaning behind the phrase from The Declaration of Independence: "...certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", is that every person's life is an end in itself, and is not a subject of or subservient to the whims or desires of "society" or "the public." The source of those rights is life itself. The health care bill just passed, with its forced mandates, redistribution of wealth, regulations, racial quotas, etc., violates that principle. Socialism, statism, facism, communism, etc. are all variants on the same theme--that a person's life is secondary to the whims and desires of the state, the public, the worker, the volk, the ruler, etc. It is in that sense that people correctly describe the passage of the health care bill as moving the United States toward "socialism". It's just that simple.

Sweet Victory.

2010-03-31T08:20:00.004-05:00

A few months ago I wrote a blog entry titled "The Great Barrier Reef Has A Bright Future". In it, I referenced a National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) film that tells the viewer that increased CO2 in the atmosphere leads to increased CO2 in the oceans which leads to "ocean acidification" which leads to the catastrophic destruction of the entire ocean food chain. Feeling suspicious that this alarming scenario was yet another attempt by groups who despise western civilization to justify their regulatory and redistributive ambitions, I started to do a little research on the topic. Within about five seconds (gotta love the Internet) I found a number of scientific references that were completely at odds with the conclusions advanced by the film. After summing up what I had found, I wrote this sentence: "So more CO2 equals more phytoplankton and more calcium carbonate--if anything, the base of the food chain is enhanced, not hurt, by increased CO2."

Yesterday I discovered that a fellow named Dr. Craig Idso from the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) has published a paper that is a full-blown, 54 page critique of the NRDC film. You can download the full report in PDF format here:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/acid_test.pdf

Here is his final paragraph from the report:

Finally, if there is a lesson to be learned from the materials presented in this document, it is that far too many predictions of CO2-induced catastrophes are looked upon as sure-to-occur, when real-world observations show such doomsday scenarios to be highly unlikely or even virtual impossibilities. The phenomenon of CO2-induced ocean acidification is no different. Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations are not the bane of the biosphere; they are an invaluable boon to the planet's many life forms.

Told ya.

A Life Of Your Own

2010-03-24T15:57:00.000-05:00

Often, during the recent health care debate, (which, despite the deplorable passage of the Democrat's health care bill is far from over), a person would ask: "who can protest the ideal of ready access to quality health care for all?" What is nearly always left out of this query is the context that makes it a real question, and not simply a trap to make another party look callous. For of course, no one could protest that ideal if health care could be conjured out of thin air--as much as you want!, whenever you want it! But darn the luck, health care does not just exist, and reality demands the context. It is this: at what cost?, and to whom? "At what cost?" is sometimes difficult to figure out because everyone's answer will be different, but "to whom" is not. You and I are "whom." Oh sure, somebody might tell you that it's the "rich" that are going to pay for it, but you can bet that if they're sticking it to the rich today, they'll be sticking it to you tomorrow. And you won't be able to say "no", or opt out, or otherwise exercise the freedoms that are a cornerstone of justice and morality, and that is the heart of the matter.

The essential meaning behind that key phrase from The Declaration of Independence-- "...certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."-- is that every person, as a condition of their humanity, has a right to their own life, that every person's life is an end in itself, and is not a subject of or subservient to the whims or desires of "society", or "the public." The source of those rights is life itself. The U.S. Constitution, with its separation of powers, checks and balances, etc., is designed primarily to limit the role of government to that of a protector of those rights, though it has stepped far beyond that role in the last 100 years. Every one of those steps is in conflict with the premise that a man's life is his own.

The health care reform bill just passed is another giant, usurping step that will harm the country and the citizens through the stifling effects of taxation, regulation, bureaucracy, divisiveness, and dependency. Or, like I saw it written the other day, "beware of health care reform that promises fewer doctors and more IRS agents.

The only economic system that is consistent with those inalienable rights is laissez-faire capitalism, and that is the ideal toward which health care reform should be oriented. There are currently plenty of market distortions caused by state and federal regulations that, if removed, would go a long way toward reducing the cost of care, thus making it more accessible, and all without mortgaging the nation's future with a giant entitlement package. And, I might add, without polarizing the country in perhaps the most dramatic way ever.

The American people have largely rejected the model, the method, but not the idea of reform. The American people do care; they are as compassionate as any people, anywhere. Who immediately shows up on the scene whenever there is a natural disaster anywhere in the world? But because of the teachings of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they are, or have been, more fierce defenders of individual liberty and personal responsibility than most. The creativity, the prosperity, the generosity, and the generally sunny outlook of the citizens of the United States (ask a sample of Americans and Europeans about the future and see which group is more optimistic) are the direct consequence of that defense.

Economic Power versus Political Power

2010-02-27T07:43:00.000-06:00

A crucially important intellectual and philosophical mistake that is made by many, many people today, and for more than a century past, is to equate economic power with political power. Let me state clearly that they are not ACTUALLY the same thing, nor are they EFFECTIVELY the same thing. The crucial distinction between the two is the absence or presence of cooercive ability. Economic power, in and of itself, whether possessed by an individual or a corporation (which is nothing more than the free association of the individuals that comprise it), has no ability to force you, or I, or anyone, to do anything. Economic power is not coercive. Political power is coercive, or can be, because the government, in a civilized society, is the only institution that can legally use force against the citizens. Force, in the hands of the government, is the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death. And if you don't believe the government has the right to use force against you, try not paying your taxes.

The distinction between economic and political power is important because the misunderstanding has led to the criminalization of the most productive members of society, the businessmen, and the lionization of some of the most criminal members, those politicians who purport to save us, the little guys, from the evils and excesses of capitalist greed. The businessmen are "greedy industrialists", and the politicians are "public servants." Right.

Economic power is the power to invest, to pay wages, to expand production, to do cutting edge research, and yes, perhaps to bankroll the political campaign of a would-be politician. Left alone, in a free-market system, it is nothing more. It does not force me to shop at Wal-Mart, it does not force me to eat at Macdonalds, and it does not force me to vote for the candidate it supports. It is only when economic power combines with political power that it can acquire a coercive nature and force me to do something against my will. Many lament that the combination is exactly the problem, that big business lobbies the government, steers it, owns it, and by default, us. To that statement, one must ask two questions: Why is business intertwined with government?, and whose fault is it?

The answer to the first question is: for their own survival. The maze of regulation and taxation is so thick, and the nature of antitrust law so capricious, that businesses must have representation among lawmakers. If they do not, all it takes is for one ambitious senator or congressman to make an allegation of prices too low (restraint of trade), prices too high (monopoly), or prices the same (collusion, conspiracy), and a CEO who has worked his entire adult life to build the company of his dreams can be declared a criminal and sent to jail.

A recent example of this "trust-busting" involved Microsoft in the 1990s. Prior to charges being levied against Microsoft for various "anti-competitive" practices, which were nothing more than the company competing vigorously to put its products in the hands of consumers, Microsoft prided itself on how little it cared about the federal government, only keeping one lonely lobbyist in a spartan office on the beltway. After their unjust prosecution for being good at what they do, and faced with the unfortunate understanding that the antitrust laws allow for them to be punished at anytime, for anything, they now maintain a small army of lobbyists in Washington.

The answer to the second question should now be clear. Lobbyists, and businesses that are intertwined with government, are the fault of the government. This is not to say that businesses, left alone in a laissez-faire environment would never try to curry favor with a government. Many businessmen would prefer the easy work of lobbying a politician for advantage instead of the hard work of building a reputation for high quality and good service. Only that in that situation it is the responsibility of the politicians to protect the sanctity of the government, the reputation of the free-market system, and the liberty of the people by denying the request. The way to get rid of the army of lobbyists, and to eliminate the unhealthy combination of economic and political power is to regulate less, not more.

It is not the businessmen, but the politicians who have a greater measure of power over us. It is their political power that should be limited and checked, as the founders clearly recognized and intended. Economic power, or wealth, lacking the mandate or the power of force, requires no such limits in a free-market system. It should be left alone, in the hands of those who created it, to do whatever they wish.

At What Cost?

2009-12-23T11:00:00.000-06:00

Once every month or two I read a letter or hear an anecdote about somebody in the United States who encounters someone from Canada and then asks them what they think of their single-payer health care system. The inquisitor is typically curious about the Canadian system because the state of health care in Canada is often used as a blunt instrument to scare the citizens of the United States into rejecting the idea of additional government involvment in their own health care system. We hear stories primarily of pain and suffering caused by long waits for services or procedures that are readily available in America.

The Canadians, when asked about their health care system, usually respond that they are pleased with it, and so grateful that they don't have to worry about paying for it. Then they usually express their dismay that a country as wealthy and successful as the United States still has citizens who don't have health insurance, or people who are pushed into financial difficulty as a result of the cost of fighting a serious disease or healing from a serious injury. The letter or anecdote often ends with a final question: "if government run health care is so bad, why do these polite, intelligent people like it so much?

I have an answer. A single-payer health care system has been part of the Canadian experience for so long that people have forgotten even that this question should be asked: "At what cost?" For truly, Canadians pay a price for the health care system that many wish would be exported to the U.S.A. They pay actual money, of course, in the form of higher income taxes than their friends across the border. As an example, when I moved to the United States in 1992, my gross pay in U.S. dollars was a number that was 25% higher than my pay in Canadian dollars had been in Calgary. This was because the pay scale for geoscientists, within the same company, was higher in the United States than in Canada. Much more significant than the increase in gross pay, however, was my increase in take-home pay after federal and state taxes were withheld. That number increased by nearly 100% over what it had been in Canada, and it was in U.S. dollars which at the time were worth about 20% more than Canadian dollars. So a 25% increase in gross pay netted me at least a doubling of my take-home pay--money I could use to spend on consumer goods, or invest for the future, or purchase health insurance had I needed to. So trust me, Canadians pay money for their health care, month after month after month, for all of their working lives.

They pay in other ways, too. Foremost among these is the aforementioned pain and suffering (and sometimes death) experienced while waiting for services and procedures. Though some of the horror stories that are publicized in the United States are undoubtedly exaggerated or not understood in their full context, there is no doubt that this occurs, and there is also no doubt that the federal and provincial governments are essentially powerless to correct the situation if they choose to maintain the status quo. The health care services, professionals, equipment, and facilities are limited by the money the governments have to spend, and they only have so much. So every few years, when there is a public outcry about the ridiculous wait times one has to suffer through to schedule a hip replacement or an MRI scan, the government appoints a blue ribbon commission to study the issue and make recommendations on how wait times can be reduced. They can't actually reduce them of course, that would cost money, so instead of implementing a real solution like allowing individuals the freedom to open private clinics and offices to meet the demands of the public, they make proclamations vowing to reduce wait times from 18 months to 12 months. Then, three years later, when wait times are two years, they do it again. The practical effect is government mandated pain and suffering in the name of equality.

There is also the billions of dollars of private economic activity lost to the government monopoly, the thousands of jobs that haven't been created by that lost economic activity, the dreams and opportunities unrealized, the doctors and nurses educated in the country and then lost to greener pastures, and the raising up of citizens who, through abdication of a portion of their adult responsibilities to the government, inevitably lose a little bit of their mojo.

The issue of whether the trade-off (universal coverage vs. higher taxes, rationing, freedom lost, and all the other stuff) is worth it can be reasonably discussed. But for Canadians to represent their health care system as "free" is simply wrong. They pay a price.

Where's The Disaster?

2009-12-13T07:57:00.000-06:00

In September, I wrote an entry titled "If Only He Had A Dream." In it I imagined a dream of the President and some highly unlikely, but desirable consequences. Let me follow on that theme, but take it into the sphere of climate science and deception. Let's say a hacker or whistleblower uncovered a true, smoking gun (you know, as opposed to one that isn't smoking, but whose barrel is still too hot to touch). I'm talking about undeniable, systematic, voluminous evidence that not only destroys any notion of "consensus" or "settled science", but goes beyond that to demonstrate that the entire effort of climate alarmism is a political one, rooted in the desire of an unholy coalition of leftists for a recasting of the wealth and ways of the world (many would say that the hacked/whistleblower e-mails already meet that standard). Do you think they would 'fess up then?

They might confess, but they wouldn't apologize. "We are," they would say, "just trying to do what's right."

Hmph. Transferring billions of dollars to poor countries so that they agree to remain permanent wards of the states and not do anything so counterproductive as to strive to become wealthy enough to afford the comforts and joys of modern civilization. Meanwhile, Al and Tipper live in a 20,000 square foot house and jet around the world. Every time someone dares to even suggest that Al Gore might have a wee, teeny bit of conflict of interest, what with his lifestyle and the tens or hundreds of millions he stands to gain from his investments in "green technology", he fixes the assailant with a stare that seems equal parts scorn, indignation, and hatred, and answers to the effect: "I'm just putting my money where my mouth is." I have heard his actions described differently, and I think more accurately as: "putting his mouth where his money is." For Al, disaster, or more precisely, the fear of disaster, equals dollars. So he promulgates the myth that climate change will ruin the world for human habitation and bring misery and death to billions of people. Just what is the likelihood of disaster?

Increasing CO2, combined with warmer temperatures, increases the photosynthetic efficiency of most of the world's food crops. Also, the photosynthetic process of weeds is different than that of the aforementioned crops, and increases only very slightly with the increased CO2 and temperature, such that the food crops can compete more effectively against the weeds, which decreases the need for herbicide applications. And plants use water more efficiently under conditions of increased CO2 and temperature. So we can grow more food, using fewer herbicides and less water. Where, exactly, is the disaster?

In terms of sea level, the only polar ice that matters is that which is over land. Ice sheets over the oceans already displace water, so water levels are not affected if they melt. The ice that is over land in the polar regions is thickening, not thinning, so again, the water levels are not affected. Where's the disaster?

Just like with land-based vegetation, increased CO2 concentrations enhance the growing ability of vegetation in the oceans. In addition, many types of coral grow more robustly when CO2 in the oceans is increased. All talk of acid oceans, dissolving coral, and the total breakdown of the oceanic food chain is bunk. Where's the disaster?

Besides the thesis that continuing to burn carbon-based fuels will result in environmental destruction and disaster, the environmental lobby wants us to stop burning carbon-based fuels because failure to do so now will result in shortages in the future, which will cause, you guessed it, disaster. So what is their solution? Top down mandates that restrict and tax the use of fossil fuels, so that we'll adapt and innovate and get used to living without them. So artificial, top-down inflation of the regulatory and financial cost of using carbon fuels will spur adaption and innovation today, but real, market-based inflation of the cost of these fuels at sometime in the future will lead inexorably to disaster. Huh? Is there an expiry date for adaption and innovation?

And from the "oh puhleeze" department, the disaster demographic is in full court press at the moment, what with Al's poem, the "please help save the world" video that they showed at the beginning of the Copenhagen conference, and most recently, the posters of current world leaders like Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama, doctored with wrinkles, gray hair, and remorse to suggest the year 2020, with the accompanying statement: "I'm sorry. We could have stopped catastrophic climate change .... we didn't."

You know what those posters ought to read? "I'm sorry. Instead of spending trillions combating climate change and accomplishing nothing except the worldwide degradation of the condition of man, we could have spent ten or twenty billion on mosquito nets, DDT, and new therapies and saved millions of people in third world countries .... we didn't."

Ruler's Law

2009-11-23T15:52:00.000-06:00

So I started reading the book "The 5000 Year Leap", by W. Cleon Skousen, which is a review of the history of the making of America, and of the brilliant precepts discussed and set down by the Founders in order to facilitate and guarantee that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were the birthright of every American.

I am early in the book, so have not much to say about its overall impact on me. But I would like to share some interesting things from the first 20 or 30 pages. For instance, the Founders characterized governments on a spectrum that ranged from anarchy at one extreme, to tyranny at the other. Anarchy might be briefly described as "no law." Tyranny might be described as "ruler's law." Mr. Skousen then outlines about ten characteristics of "ruler's law." Two of them are:

1. Problems are always solved by issuing more edicts or laws, setting up more bureaus, harassing the people with more regulators, and charging the people for these "services" by continually adding to their burden of taxes.

2. Freedom is never looked upon as a viable solution to anything.

Does that bring to mind any of the recent activity in Washington?

Dogs and cats, living together!

2009-11-10T15:32:00.000-06:00

I wrote these two paragraphs about six months ago when I was feeling exasperated.

I'm confused. Lots of radical environmentalists harbor a dark vision of Earth with six billion fewer people that it currently contains. Why so many fewer people? So that the enlightened humanity of the future can live "sustainably", and so that Nature/Mother Earth/Gaia can be rid of the evil virus that is humanity today. Here's where things get confusing. These same radical environmentalists preach endlessly about the danger that "global warming" or "climate change" presents to humanity. Unless we quit burning coal, and quit driving cars, and quit flying on airplanes, and quit cooling our homes in the summertime, and quit buying large screen televisions, the inevitable result will be disaster!, disease!, floods!, wars!, drought!, killer storms!, famine! People will die by the millions, perhaps billions. ISN'T THAT WHAT THEY WANT?

If I was a radical environmentalist with an apocalyptic vision, I'd be doing everything in my power to hurry global warming along. I'd be driving a Hummer and living in the biggest house I could (or couldn't) afford and eating thick, well-marbled steaks and leaving the thermostat on 68 all day every day (except in the winter when I'd turn it up to 80). Because you see, if global warming was to get really bad, really soon, then they wouldn't have to actually kill people in order to rid the earth of the human virus. Gaia would do the dirty work. But wait, that's just silly talk. All these people who care so much about the earth--they wouldn't kill people, would they?

It seems others have been thinking the same way, and for good reason. Check out this entry by Brendan O'Neill in the Planet Gore blog at National Review Online.

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTRjODFlYmI3Y2M2ZjIxMWZmY2U5NDBkODQ2NDQ5OTY=

I ain't makin' this stuff up, people.

The Great Barrier Reef Has A Bright Future

2009-11-06T13:26:00.000-06:00

One of the latest scare scenarios being used by the climate alarmists to justify their desire for dramatic expansion of regulatory and redistributive policies, preferably on a global scale, is "ocean acidification." For a beautifully filmed explanation of why ocean acidification is such a problem you can watch this video produced by the National Resources Defense Council, narrated soothingly but seriously by Sigourney Weaver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cqCvcX7buo

If you don't feel like spending twenty minutes watching the video I can give you the short explanation. The burning of fossil fuels is pumping vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Because of the increased proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere, more CO2 is absorbed by sea water. The additional CO2 dissolved in water reacts with the water to form carbonic acid, which drops the pH of the sea water, making it more "acidic." The additional "acidity" of the sea water inhibits the growth of phytoplankton and the calcium carbonate that forms coral reefs. In addition, existing coral is bleached and dissolved at higher rates than normal. Since phytoplankton and the miniature life supported by coral reefs form the base of the food chain, ocean acidification puts the entire food chain at risk of mass extinction. The solutions are familiar and tired. We must drastically reduce our carbon footprints, we must live more sustainably, we must reduce economic growth, we must have fewer children, we must submit to a more enlightened, global governance, and we must transfer vast wealth to developing countries as payment for the sins committed against the earth.

The only problem? It's junk science. If you'd like to read a convincing refutation I would recommend you go here:

http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/ocean-acidification-scam/

and here:

http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/toxic-seawater-fraud/

Once again, if you don't feel like doing the hard work of reading the two articles (and the second one is actually pretty technical), let me lay a few things out (parsed primarily from the second article). Firstly, increased CO2 in the oceans increases the efficiency of photosynthesis in the oceans, as it does on land, which results in increased growth of plant life in the ocean, including phytoplankton. Increased phytoplankton means increased food for zooplankton, which is food for a huge range of sea creatures, including whales. Secondly, if all the fossil fuel reserves in the world were burned, with the associated increase in CO2, the pH of the oceans would not change enough to even approach the neutral pH of pure water, so all mention of "acid" oceans is ridiculous. Thirdly, when oceans dissolve additional CO2 as a result of higher atmospheric concentrations of CO2, there are not one, but two observable effects. One is the aforementioned decrease in pH, the other is increased concentration of carbonate available for combination with calcium--the exact opposite of what the "ocean acidification" scare mongers want you to think. So more CO2 equals more phytoplankton and more calcium carbonate--if anything, the base of the food chain is enhanced, not hurt, by increased CO2. There are numerous scientific examples attesting to this effect in the second of the two links above.

Why, oh why, would they lie?, or at the very least, distort reality to scare us? Well, besides keeping the precious grant money flowing, I think the narrative goes something like this. Nature is precious, and man (but for those enlightened few, and for those who still live primitively) is an abomination who has lost his way amongst the greed and self-interest of western civilization. So western man must be regulated and punished, through all the mechanisms mentioned above. And in this way, the enlightened few will bring justice to the world. But lets examine a bit of the historical record and see who has been more successful at easing suffering and dispensing justice.

The effort by the ecology movement to ban the pesticide DDT, which was/is the most successful anti-malaria weapon ever discovered, culminated in a set of EPA hearings in 1972. At the conclusion of those hearings, which involved seven months of testimony, EPA Administrative law Judge Edmund Sweeney stated that "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man. ... The uses of DDT under regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlife. ... The evidence in this proceeding supports the conclusion that there is a present need for the essential uses of DDT." Two months later, EPA head (and Environmental Defense Fund member/fundraiser) William Ruckelshaus, who admitted that he had not attended a single day of testimony during the seven months of hearings, nor even read the transcripts, overturned Judge Sweeney's decision. He declared that DDT was "a potential human carcinogen" and banned it for virtually all uses in the United States. Pressure groups have been attacking its use in other parts of the world ever since. The end result has been billions of preventable cases, and millions of preventable deaths, mainly of children and pregnant women. Those most afflicted of course, are the poverty-stricken populations of developing countries, who the caring, anti-capitalist, anti-industrial greens are supposedly looking out for.

On the other side of the coin, consider the case of Norman Borlaug. Mr. Borlaug is the man, who, in the late 60's and early 70's, defused Paul Ehrlich's "population bomb" by exporting his high-yield agricultural techniques to the world's poorest countries. In his book, "The Population Bomb", Mr. Ehrlich declared that widespread starvation was inevitable for the 1970s, and that it was a fantasy that India would ever feed itself. Six years after Norman Borlaug arrived in India with a staff of assistants and truckloads of high-yield seeds, India had transformed from a country largely dependent on subsistence cultivation of rice to being self-sufficient in the production of all cereals. In 1999, the Atlantic Monthly estimated that the worldwide efforts of Norman Borlaug had resulted in the saving of one billion human lives.

What was Mr. Borlaug's reception by the ecology movement for his monumental achievement? He was criticized, of course. High yield agriculture requires the use of some pesticides, and of fertilizer, and we have already seen that the movement prefers millions of human deaths over the use of a pesticide. Indeed, some went so far as to suggest that the use of tractors and other modern farming techniques were "inappropriate" for Africans. Aside from the obvious racism and contempt for human life contained in the previous statement, environmental criticism of Norman Borlaug was wrong for other reasons. First, high-yield agriculture has prevented the mass deforestation of the world. The world produced three times as much food in 2006 as it did in 1950, and this from the same number of cultivated acres. If yields were the same as they were half a century ago, the only way the world would be able to produce enough food to feed its growing population would be to drastically increase the number of acres under cultivation. Second, in almost every situation where high-yield agriculture has been introduced, population growth has slowed as the need for muscle power becomes less important to the success of a family than education and brain power.

So there you have it. Greens celebrate the banning of a pesticide and kill millions of people who are least able to protect themselves, and they criticize the work of a hero who saves hundreds of millions of those same people along with hundreds of millions of trees because he uses pesticides. So pardon me if I view this latest scare tactic with a large measure of scepticism. We've seen it before, and we've seen how it turns out.

Citizen vs Government

2009-10-28T15:52:00.000-05:00

The reason that the relationship between citizens and government is always, in general, contentious, is because the relationship is involuntary. We do not get to choose what tax dollars we pay or what government programs we fund with our tax dollars. Some of the functions of government are mandated by the constitution--defense of the country against enemies, the objective upholding of the laws of the land, the defense of individual liberty--and are likely supported by virtually every citizen. Those functions of government that are either not prescribed by or are prohibited by the constitution--probably as much as 75% of what Congress taxes us and spends our money on today--are the contentious bits. On any given issue, health care, bank bailouts, grants and endowments to support the arts, even public schools, you can find substantial numbers of people, and in some cases an outright majority of citizens who would prefer the freedom to make different choices than the ones the government is making for them.

The government's justification for their heavy-handedness is that they are trying to achieve that which is good. But the government has no resources of its own to attain its goals. So it reaches into your pocket and mine, forcibly if necessary. And if you don't believe that force is involved, try not paying your taxes. If a private person did the same thing, no matter how admirable the motive, he would be arrested and tried as a thief. The end result of this is Balkanisation. Citizen number one supports program A but not program B; citizen number two supports program B but not program A. The population becomes divided into special interest groups who are pitted against each other in a constant fight for the favors and the limited tax dollars that the government can bestow.

Individual liberty is the antidote to this constant conflict. The more voluntary relationships the better. When a person buys a car, does he or she drive home from the dealership, park proudly in the driveway to show the family, and then lament, "man, I just got screwed." That never happens! In a voluntary relationship, such as the one between a car dealer and a car buyer, implicit in the contractual agreement that is the sale of the car is the confidence that both sides gain from the exchange. The dealer values the cash more than the car, and the buyer values the car more than the cash. Voluntary exchanges typically benefit both parties; involuntary exchanges (bank robbery is a good example) typically benefit one at the expense of the other.

The current trajectory of the Obama administration and the Democratic majority in Congress is to dramatically increase the size and scope of government, and thus to dramatically increase the number and magnitude of the involuntary exchanges that occur between the citizens and the government of the United States. Their justfication is the promotion of that which is fair and just. Should they succeed they will achieve the opposite.

Shariah Financing in Minnesota

2009-10-15T14:31:00.000-05:00

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is undoubtedly on the short, short list of formidable Republican candidates for President in 2012. I don't know much about him, but in a recent appearance on Greta van Susteren's show on Fox News he came across as pleasant, articulate, and on the surface at least, committed to principles that have made the United States strong--liberty, opportunity, personal responsibility, and small government.

However, back in Minnesota, the state government is currently engaged in a practice that is a threat to those principles. I have not done the research to know who in the Minnesota legislature voted for this practice and who did not, or to know if the details were hidden in a larger bill that was important to the Governor, but he signed it, and he is the chief, so he is responsible. The practice I am referring to is government sponsored Shariah financing of house purchases for Muslim families or individuals. Basically, the state buys a home and resells it to a Muslim home buyer at a higher price which includes the interest that would be paid over the amortization time. The down payment and monthly installments are agreed to up front at current mortgage rates. Because the state makes the payment to the mortgage company and the individual simply reimburses the state, the Muslim prohibition against interest payments is "avoided." It's a charade. The other part of Muslim compliant financing requires that 2.5% of the amount financed be donated to Islamic charities, some of which funnel money to groups that sponsor terrorism. Isn't that nice. Given that a resurgent housing market is one of the cornerstones of economic recovery, I am certain that lawmakers anywhere in the country would be sorely tempted to sponsor anything that might expand the pool of prospective home buyers. But aside from the possible funding of terrorists, this practice is undesirable for other, more opaque reasons.

The immigrants of the 19th and 20th centuries often settled parts of the United States, or parts of the great U.S. cities, in blocs--Irish neighborhoods, Italian neighborhoods, Scandinavian farming communities. What these diverse populations shared upon arrival in the New World was an adoption of the American value system that emphasized liberty, opportunity, and self-reliance. Unfortunately that adoption process is out of fashion these days. In its place is the acceptance and promotion of a multi-cultural relativism which is loathe to proclaim the superiority of one value system over another. What this leads to is a creeping acceptance, in the name of tolerance, of value systems that are often highly intolerant, and not compatible with traditional western values. Shariah financing doesn't sound too dangerous, but once you accept Shariah financing, what's next? Separate Shariah courts for all matters within the Muslim community?; Shariah tolerance for the various ways in which women are subjugated and killed under Islamic law?; Shariah approved assassinations of critics of Islam and those who dare leave the faith? It sounds like a stretch to go from financing to assassination, but several of the things I mentioned are already being advanced in places like the United Kingdom and the province of Ontario. Shariah law is not compatible with western values and it must not be tolerated here.

How do we stop it? In one of Winston Churchill's famous pre-WWII speeches he said this:

Alexander the Great remarked that the peoples of Asia were slaves because they had not learned to pronounce the word "NO." ... There, in one small word; THERE is the resolve which we should take.

Churchill was speaking of the dangerous policy of appeasement, and of its antidote. If someone will stand up to Hitler now, he was saying, then he may be stopped. If not, then a holocaust may engulf the world. We know which way that one went. Here in the United States, when we appease those who promote Shariah law, we may not risk a holocaust, but we do risk some of our most important values--freedom of expression, the rule of law, and equal opportunity.

Tim Pawlenty might be the next President of the United States of America. If he truly wishes to perpetuate the values that have led directly to the power and prosperity of the United States, then he, and we, should have the courage to say "NO." Muslims in Minnesota, and anywhere else in the United States, who wish to purchase a house on credit, especially when they ask the government for help, must get over their delicate sensibilities and do it the same way as everyone else.

There's Always New Zealand!

2009-10-06T11:19:00.000-05:00

In the 20th century, the primo destination for those fleeing oppression and economic disaster was right here--the United States of America. In recent weeks and months, as the Obama administration has continually pursued policy that is both oppressive and likely to cause economic disaster, I have lamented that there is NO PLACE TO GO! As unsettling as things are here at home, it's still not as far down the road to disaster as Europe, or South America, or Russia, and there's still perhaps the time and energy and will to change course. But what if things got really bad? Is there a place in the world where the concepts of liberty and opportunity still hold sway?

Perhaps there is. Check this out: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjVlNzgxMGYyNzc4NDg3MjFhN2U2MmRmNTYyZDhhYjM=

Public or Private?

2009-09-30T13:00:00.000-05:00

Having grown up in Saskatchewan, in western Canada, people sometimes ask me, “what health care system do you think is better? The one in Canada?, or the one in the United States? I usually answer that both systems do a reasonable job of providing basic care to most of the people. The differences start to get more dramatic when the health problems get bigger—in Canada you’re at risk of not being able to get the care you need, and in the U.S. you’re at risk of not being able to pay for it. Having said that, let me be clear about which side of the fence I am on. I want the services available to me, and I’ll figure out how to pay for them. That is what most Americans want, and increasing numbers of Canadians want it too. Here is an article about that phenomenon from the Wall Street Journal on September 30, 2009.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574443253009607932.html

Feeling rather grown up and in the prime of my life lately, I have considered myself capable of leadership, even leadership on a big scale, dedicated to solving big problems. For example, in the province of Saskatchewan, there are no private health clinics, surgery centers, diagnostic facilities, or hospitals. Everything is run by the government. And since the government can only forcibly extract so many tax dollars from the citizens before they are at risk of getting tossed out, the main issue with health care in Saskatchewan is that health care services are limited—rationed—by the government.

If I were the Premier of Saskatchewan, I would tell the people that I could fix the problem in 30 seconds if given the mandate to end the government monopoly on the provision of health care. End it, and overnight you would have surgery centers, diagnostic centers, pediatricians, cardiologists, orthopedic docs, and ob-gyn’s opening up private clinics in the larger towns and cities, and family doctors attracted by the pleasant and inexpensive rural lifestyle hanging out their shingles in small, agricultural towns. Fewer of the young doctors, trained at great expense by the University of Saskatchewan, would leave the province for greener pastures. In one stroke of the pen there would be better health care for all, more freedom for all, more jobs and economic activity.

There would be protest, of course. One of the tired arguments for a complete government monopoly is that it forces everyone, rich and poor, to be invested in the system. So the government mandates unnecessary pain and suffering (like waiting two years for a hip replacement) so that everyone is invested in the system. “But that way everything is fair”, the protesters will cry. “Equal access for all. If private clinics are allowed, then there will be two health care systems, one for the rich and one for the poor.”

Does anyone really believe that things are fair under a government monopoly? If the artificially-limited-by-the-government number of pediatricians are booked solid for months, who do you think has a better chance of being “squeezed in.” The young professional couple who count doctors and lawyers and other professionals among their circle of friends, or the poor, young, single mother with no money and no connections. There is no fair. And as for one system for the rich and one for the poor; does the woman in the Wall Street Journal article sound like a rich person? Hardly. More like someone with a modest income who makes a financial sacrifice to improve the quality of her own life. That is fair. That is justice.

2009-09-25T16:27:00.000-05:00

IF ONLY HE HAD A DREAM

While there have been snippets of positive economic news lately—stock markets rising, housing starts up, various pundits declaring that the worst has passed—the overall economic outlook is still pretty dour. Who can really get excited about weekly job losses of 300,000, instead of the usual 500,000? That’s the sort of news that’ll make you double down on the weekly wad of cash that you stuff into a Folger’s can and bury in the backyard. It’s not the kind of news that sends you skipping down the road to the nearest Lexus dealership to pick out a shiny new ride for the Missus or the Mister. What troubles me is it doesn’t have to be this way.

Let me paint a scenario for you, far-fetched though it may be. President Barack Obama goes to bed one night and has a spectacular dream, a vision even. Upon waking, he considers the meaning of the dream and has an epiphany. In a sudden flash of insight, he sees all the lefty-liberal mumbo jumbo that he has spent his whole life absorbing and espousing for what it truly is, a failure. A failure, that is, if one’s motive is man’s welfare. The record of leftist philosophy and policy is much stronger, of course, when judged against other motives like the inducement of economic collapse, numbers of people enslaved, and the establishment of tyranny. But I digress.

Suppose that after this mind-opening incident the President was to schedule a State of the Union address and make a speech in which he announced that henceforth on matters of the economy, he was going to pursue legislation which, in general, would reduce taxation, regulation, and any other unwarranted government intrusion into the realm of private initiative and commerce. Suppose that to back up his words, he immediately stated that he would lobby for an extension of the Bush tax cuts that are due to expire in 2010, propose reductions in capital gains and corporate tax rates, announce that he would veto any cap and trade legislation that Congress brought to his desk, and ask Congress for market based health care reforms. In other words, he quits channeling FDR, and starts channeling Ronald Reagan. My friends, the economy would turn on a dime. Stock markets would avoid a double dip and continue to rise, factories and industries that have either been shuttered or constrained would open and expand, and citizens, more confident in the security of their employment and the size of their paychecks, would purchase goods and services that they have recently foresworn. Oh, and despite the loud and strident cries of betrayal from some of the more committed leftists in the Congress, the media, Hollywood, and the citizenry, the republican versus democrat polarization in the country would ease.

Why? Because thankfully, the majority of the people in the United States get uneasy when they realize that “fundamental change” has a whole different meaning for a leftist politician than it does for a small business owner already burdened by taxes and regulations. The American people, in whom the true meaning of “inalienable rights” still resonates more strongly than any other people on earth find it much easier to vote for legislation that increases freedom and personal responsibility, and decreases taxation and regulation. Cap and trade legislation, single-payer government run health care, and card check all do the opposite. If any of these initiatives pass in their current, Nancy Pelosi congress designed form, they will pass grimly, and we will all, in the long run, be the worse for it.

Is Health Care a Right?

2009-09-22T08:58:00.000-05:00

I recently read an article which referenced an OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) study on the state of health care in the United States. Needless to say, the article was critical; it made note of high per capita spending, the low number of people (as related to the whole population) that the spending is focused on, and the generally poorer health of all Americans as compared to all Canadians, or to the population of France and other countries with standards of living that are somewhat comparable to the standards enjoyed in the United States. If these statements are true, and there is probably some truth to them, we should indeed be having conversations about the ways that health care needs to be made more affordable and more effective. But the last sentence of the article caught my attention. It argued that if the United States is serious about transforming health care, and if the country views widely available health care as both a public good and a human right, as other advanced countries do, then much of the private ownership and profit motive of the health care system would have to be sacrificed.

Here’s where things get interesting. Undoubtedly, widely available health care is a public good (and there’s certainly more than one way to provide it), but is health care a human right? Can you provide it for yourself? No? If health care is a human right, then it belongs to each and every one of us as a condition of our humanity. If it belongs to us, then we must have the right to take it, by force, without any compensation due, from whoever possesses the learning and the skills to deliver it. If health care is a right, then health care workers are slaves. Any alleged “right” that necessitates the confiscation of the product of another’s mind and labor is not, and cannot be a right. We do not have any rights to anything that someone else provides for us, such as a home, a car, a job, or health care.

Having dispelled the notion of health care as a right, let’s go back to the philosophy behind its provision. The author of the article draws from the adoption of similar policies in a number of nations the conclusion that nationalized health care is superior to the system currently in place in the United States. This conclusion reminds me of the current global warming “crisis.” Global warming alarmists, most of whom have interests that are dramatically at odds with the general well-being of mankind, like to inform us that scientific analysis has led to a “consensus” that cannot be questioned, for fear of ultimate peril. What every person should consider is that there may be a “consensus”, but it may be entirely, utterly wrong. The same with health care—other governments may provide it, but it isn’t the best solution for this country, and maybe not for any country.

The United States of America is different from the rest of the world. It was founded on the notion of liberty—the freedom to pursue one’s own interests. The direct consequence of that freedom is wealth, productivity, happiness, and creativity on a scale that is without equal. It should not be abrogated by further expansion of government into the realm of private initiative and responsibility. Responsibility is a brother of freedom, and one of our responsibilities is to take care of ourselves.

President George W. Bush, though often guilty of various linguistic gaffes (remember “cinco de cuatro”, oh wait, that was President Obama), delivered a prepared speech as well as anyone, and a line from one of his State of the Union addresses has stuck with me for several years now. He said, “freedom is mankind’s elixir.” And he is right. Why else have people from around the world clamored to come here for centuries now? The United States is a shining beacon of freedom, and it should not be dimmed.