Job Creators

Which group creates the most jobs in an economy?

Group 1: 200 million households with an average of $50,000 each?

Group 2: 2 million households with an average of $5,000,000 each?

House Speaker John Boehner calls Group 2 members "job creators".

What is Group 1?

Both groups have the same amount of money (about $10 trillion in this hypothetical example). Group 1 members are buying food and clothing, washing machines, cars, computers, hairdriers, and microwave ovens. They go to movies, eat at restaurants, take vacations, use cell phones, get their hair cut. They seek doctors and plumbers and teachers for their children.

However, according to Boehner, they are not "job creators". Only people in Group 2 are actually "create jobs".

Well, maybe only those people in Group 2 get to be called "job creators" because they actually hire people. They are the employers. We are the employees.

But . . . what are they hiring people to do?

It would seem to me that they are hiring people to harvest and ship food, sell clothes, repair washing machines, build power stations, write computer software, build web pages, service bank accounts, wait tables, teach, provide medical care, build movie sets, provide cell phone services, cut hair, and the like.

But they wouldn’t be doing any of these things without people in Group 1 buying the things that these employees are working to provide.

When people are not buying these things, Boehner's so-called "job creators" become "job destroyers" as they lay off people and close businesses. That is if we adopt the "employer" definition of "job creators" as opposed to the "consumer" definition.

Now, it must be admitted that these 2 million people with an average of $5,000,000 are also job creators - along with the 200 million with $50,000 each. They hire people to design, build, and decorate large and expensive houses, buy expensive jewelry, collect expensive cars, buy personal jets, eat in the finest restaurants, buy tailor-made clothes, travel around the world, take cruises, build home-theater networks, and hire gardeners, maids, and chauffeurs, and secretaries to do their errands for them. Like Group 1, they create jobs. They just create different jobs.

While Group 1 makes up 1 percent of the population in this hypothetical community, they have half the wealth and, thus, create half the jobs. In other words, half of the productive power of this society caters to the interests of 1% of the population of this hypothetical community, and the other half caters to the other 99%.

Representative Boehner is giving us meaningless political rhetoric rather than meaningful political solutions. He is falsely asserting that Group 2 members are special, magical people who have supernatural qualities with the power to “create jobs” that the rest of us lack. This, he says, is why Group 2 deserves special protections - why we mere mortals must shoulder 100% of the burden of fiscal discipline and the special 1% must be spared even the slightest burden. If Boehner's gods are happy, then and only then will they bestow upon us their divine gift of employment.

This part of Boehner's political rhetoric is simply false. It plays well to the worshippers of the Ayn Rand "Objectivists" religion, but it is as much myth and superstition as another religion.

It is true that the average Group 1 person cannot, by herself, create as many jobs as the average Group 2 person by himself. However, Group 1 people are out there creating jobs. Putting the whole of the burden of balancing the budget on Group 1 because Group 2 are "the job creators" is simply a myth that aims - well, it aims to try to convince Group 1 to take on the whole burden while Group 2 takes on none.

Class Warfare

Well, it appears that President Obama is accepting one of my suggestions. To communicate that the government is taking the issue of the national debt seriously, he is proposing more than than the $1.5 trillion in cuts that the budget supercommittee is supposed to come up with.

From what I have read, his proposal will be for $3.5 trillion in budget cuts and additional revenue. Of this, $500 billion will be used to pay for his jobs package. Thus, the recommendation provides $3 trillion in net deficit reduction.

(See Obama to unveil $3 billion in debt cuts..)

Some of this will come from additional taxes on the wealthiest Americans. It's a move that many Republicans are calling "class warfare".

(See GOP calls Obama's tax plan 'class warfare'.)

So - let me make sure that I understand this. We have a deficit problem. Some sort of change is required. If we divide the burden up so that the poor and middle class shoulder 100% of the weight, that's fine. But if we divide it up so that the poor and middle class shoulder 99.9% of the weight and the rich get 0.1% of the burden, that is a declaration of war on the rich.

Obama's plan divides the burden more fairly than this, but I am interested in the principle here. What counts as "class warfare"? Many Republicans insist that the percent of the burden that shows up as increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans be 0% - that 100% of the solution must be found someplace else. This is their position.

This view is entirely incoherent. If putting 0.1% of the burden on the wealthy is a declaration of war against the upper class, then reason would seem to require that putting 0.1% of the burden on the poor and middle class is a declaration of war against the poor and middle class. And yet the percent of the burden that these Republicans insist be put on the shoulders of the poor and middle class is 100% - that this somehow avoids class warfare.

Somebody needs to explain how this can be made coherent.

Another argument that some Republicans are using us that the tax will cost jobs - that if the super-rich shoulder even 0.1% of the burden that this will cost jobs, but if the poor and middle class shoulder 100% of the burden this will not cost jobs.

I have a few points to make on this issue.

First, the rich have the money, and they are doing a horrendous job of creating jobs. In fact, if they were actually creating jobs we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Second, why is it that $1 in the hands of the wealthiest 1 million Americans "creates jobs", but that same $1 in the hands of any of the other 299 million Americans does nothing?

Third, a substantial portion of the economic stimulus that has driven up the deficit has consisted of tax cuts. So, while these Republicans are saying that increased taxes are economically harmful, they are also saying that tax cuts are economically impotent (Obama's stimulus package will fail). Again, this seems a bit inconsistent. Politically useful, perhaps, but intellectually bankrupt.

Fourth, what about the "economic stimulus" the Republicans passed when the economy turned sour during the Bush administration? The government literally wrote checks and mailed them off to people all in the name of stimulating the economy. Yet, I have not heard any of them apologize for what they must now consider to be their earlier mistaken beliefs - or what caused them to change their minds.

Fifth, if tax cuts for the wealthy is such a great way to stimulate the economy, why are we not swimming in new jobs right now? This was supposed to be the payoff from the 2001 Bush tax cuts. Where are those jobs?

Ironically, it is not the upper class that is actually making these arguments. Many are quite willing to have the upper class take on a fair share of the burden. They have a basic sense of fairness some Republicans seem to lack. The real perpetrators of this incoherence is not an economic class - but a political class that has learned over the years how to package this bundle of inconsistent rhetoric and turn it into votes.

These are scare tactics. "If the super rich shoulder even the slightest bit of the burden, you life if ruined. Your only hope for a better life is to do 100% of the work yourselves!" If enough people can be made to believe it - or to cower in fear over the possibility that it might be true - then we actually get 100% of the burden as our reward, and the wealthy get to keep everything they have.

Apparently, if we (those who make less than $500,000 per individual or $1 million per married couple) were to accept only 99.9% of the burden instead of 100% of the burden, we are declaring war on the class being asked to take up that 0.1%.

Governor Perry and Crony Capitalism

One of the accusations being leveled against Texas governor Rick Perry is that of "crony capitalism". This charge has been applied to Perry in virtue of his executive order mandating HPV immunizations. That order, if not stopped by the Texas legislature, would have provided a multi-million dollar benefit for Merck, a campaign contributor with whom Perry was connected through a major supporter and advisor, Mike Toomey.

The nature of this relationship is described below:

The ties between Perry and Merck run deeper still, according to the report. Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff, was working as an Austin-based lobbyist for Merck at the time Perry bypassed the Texas state legislature and issued his executive order. Today, Toomey is one of the founders of the pro-Perry PAC Make Us Great Again, which can accept unlimited donations and plans to raise upwards of $55 million dollars to help Perry win the GOP nomination.

(See Skate Perry has closer ties to Merck than he admitted)

One of the ways in which we might understand crony capitalism is in terms of straight-forward deals. "If you contribute $5000 to my campaign, I will sign this multi-million dollar benefit for your company." This is the interpretation that Perry used when he claimed - in answer to this charge at the Tea Party debate - to have been offended by the suggestion that he would sell his power for a mere $5,000.

But there is another way of interpreting crony capitalism.

Let me assume for the moment that I am an executive in a large company dealing with multi-billion dollar budgets. I discover that my company has or can obtain a relationship with a lobbyist who is a close friend and advisor with this idiot governor. This lobbyist is selling his influence over this idiot governor - that is the very nature of being a lobbyist. If I can get the idiot governor to sign an executive order requiring the use of my company's product - paid for by the state - I can add millions of dollars to the corporate bottom line. If I can spend $1 million in resources to get an order signed that will bring in $5 in profits - that is a great investment.

I could go to the idiot governor and offer a deal, "If you sign this order worth millions to my company, I will contribute $5000 to your campaign." However, that would show up in a bunch of mandated public campaign reports and certainly harm both my company and the idiot governor's political standing.

Instead, I am going to hire the idiot governor's close friend - or 'crony'.

With millions of dollars at stake, I can rationally offer the lobbyist a large amount of money. However, I can offer the lobbyist even more. The lobbyist's income depends on this idiot governor staying in office. Towards that end, I can offer the lobbyist a lot of non-monetary help.

I could say something like, "Lobbyist. Here is a list of people you can call to get campaign contributions for the idiot governor. I have already sent them letters telling them to expect a call from you. Many work for my company. They are executives and we pay them well - and they know that we can pay them even more if we had this additional income. Some are friends and neighbors of employees, and some are social contacts through church or the country club. They are, in other words, cronies. I think your talks will prove profitable for you, and beneficial to our joint project of keeping the idiot governor in office."

Unlike a direct campaign contribution, none of this will show up on any report. Yet, it is worth millions. Not only is it unregulated, it can't be regulated. What is the government going to do - read my private mail to friends and monitor my cocktail party conversations? Am I to be banned from saying publicly, "I am supporting the idiot governor's campaign and I think you should too?"

None of this requires that the idiot governor even know what is going on. All that is required is that he be an idiot and that he is capable of holding his seat as governor. He can honestly declare that he is offended at the suggestion that he will sell his vote for cash. He can honestly say that he has performed the action to realize some benefit. Under the influence of his cronies, he will even believe it. (See my posting on Bachmann, Perry, and What Counts as Evidence)

The idiot governor is not corrupt. What he gets is a lot of people telling him how great and wonderful he is and how important his work is. "Tell him he is God's gift to the state - that this is his divine calling. He'll eat that stuff up. Heck, he'll actually believe it, and he will carry that self-confident assurance throughout his public appearances, and that alone will increase his appeal to the voters."

The idiot governor has to have a few useful qualities of his own to pull this off. He has to look good on camera and have a nice smile and commanding stage presence. He has to actually have opinions that prevent him saying anything too stupid. Not just any idiot can rise to the position of idiot governor. It takes an idiot with special qualities.

Now, if the idiot governor had these qualities in sufficient quantity, it might be possible to get him into an even higher and more profitable position - the position of idiot President. If having influence over an idiot governor is profitable and useful, imagine having influence over an idiot President.

If a suggestion comes up - such as a suggestion to have the idiot governor host a huge religious gathering - I am well situated to make sure that this event has the resources it needs to be a huge success. I will work with the lobbyist, of course. And we would court resources with few direct ties to the governor or to my company - but that is not hard at all. We would get the right people invited to benefit the idiot governor's campaign, make sure it is well marketed, and make sure that there are people assigned to do all the leg work that will be needed. The purpose of the gathering is to promote the idiot governor's political standing before the religious right - a huge and financially well endowed voting block. But, here again, our campaign contributions will not appear on any official report.

I would like to add that this form of political effort simply is not available to the poor and the middle class. This takes wealth and power. Only the wealthy and powerful have the means to raise an idiot to the status of idiot governor and, if he has the right qualities, to the position of idiot President.

One of the ways that we can determine if this is the case is to see if there are other issues where the idiot governor adopts a different position - a position also profitable to people with huge amounts of money to spend to keep the idiot governor in office - but does so through inconsistent means. For example, the idiot governor who accepts the claim that HPV vaccines are necessary might accept the position that human induced climate change is a pack of lies - accepting science in the one case but rejecting it as a huge conspiracy to defraud the government of money in the other.

Something needs to explain these inconsistencies, and "crony capitalism" seems a useful working hypothesis.

Bachmann, Perry, and What Counts as Evidence

Recently, in addition to attacking Texas governor Rick Perry for the crime of protecting Texas girls from a severe - often fatal illness, Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann has included the claim that the vaccination is dangerous.

The morning after the debate, she reported on the case if a mother who came up to her after the debate, crying, claiming that the HPV vaccination caused her child's mental retardation.

“I will tell you that I had a mother last night come up to me here in Tampa, Fla., after the debate and tell me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter,” Bachmann said.

See: Washington Post Bachmann questions safety of HPV vaccine for girls

This raises the question for Michelle Bachmann: "What counts as evidence?"

If she wants to make national policy as President, how is she going to decide what to do? What is her ability to distinguish good data from bad data? In case if a potential natural disaster, or a potent rial pandemic, or rumors of a potential terrorist attack, or the effects of some chemical being put into the air or water, what is she going to count as evidence?

It would have taken no effort - in fact, it should have been considered obligatory - for her to have some staff member do a little bit of checking on the side effects of the HPV immunization. That researcher would have learned that the potential side effects include pain and redness at the injection site or flu-like symptoms (headache, fever, nausea).

But what counts as evidence in Michelle Bachmann's book is not the findings is not stacks of data gathered by the Centers fir Disease Control as a result of nearly 40 million immunizations, but a politically convenient fiction told to her after the debate. Instantly, she accepted what this mother told her was true. As for the findings of the CDC - they were not even consulted.

Why?

Because Bachmann was using her prejudice to filter the evidence. She knew what she wanted the facts to be. If the HPV vaccine is dangerous, then she has a politically potent case against Perry. Wanting the HPV vaccine to be dangerous, the claims of this mother became evidence that she took with her. Potential sources of information that might contradict those prejudices must be presumed to be flawed in some way, or simply not worth checking.

Besides the dangers of having somebody who thinks (to use the term loosely) this way as President, Bachmann is already doing harm and costing lives. Because of her statements, somebody is going to refuse to immunize their child. That child will get cervical cancer, and that child will die a horrible death. A child will die, because Bachmann is too full of herself to check anything other than her own opinion and political convenience in deciding what to tell people about matters that affect their health, their lives, and the lives of their children.

Ironically, every criticism that can and has been made against Bachmann concerning HPV immunizations can be applied to Perry concerning climate change. Here, it is Perry who has formed an opinion, looks only at the evidence that confirms his bias while dismissing contrary evidence as unreliable or - worse - lies and deception for the purpose of making money.

Perry's disdain for evidence tells us that his opinion on HPV infections almost certainly did not come from an examination of or understanding of the evidence. If he did not want to accept the conclusion, he would have simply asserted that the science was unsettled, that a mysterious "growing number of scientists" were questioning these findings, and that the conclusions were engineered by whatever special interest group would profit by misleading us - in this case, the pharmaceutical company, Merck.


Here, it is particularly interesting to note that while Perry can be suspicious of climate scientists worldwide being involved in a conspiracy to doctor data so they can get government funding, he raises no suspicions when the data comes to him through an employee of a company that will directly benefit to the tune of millions of dollars.

However, in the case of Merck, the evidence came to him through a trusted friend and advisor - Mike Toomey, who was a lobbyist for Merck.

The ties between Perry and Merck run deeper still, according to the report. Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff, was working as an Austin-based lobbyist for Merck at the time Perry bypassed the Texas state legislature and issued his executive order. Today, Toomey is one of the founders of the pro-Perry PAC Make Us Great Again, which can accept unlimited donations and plans to raise upwards of $55 million dollars to help Perry win the GOP nomination.

(See Skate Perry has closer ties to Merck than he admitted)

Perry's proven inability to discern fact from fiction and to conveniently dismiss evidence he does not like suggests that he would have likely believed Toomey said regardless of the evidence. If somebody like Toomey were to suggest that the science that the vaccines were dangerous was not to be trusted, then Perry's pattern of behavior suggests that he would have believed that and questioned the research and the scientists conducting that research.

The hypothesis that Perry was convinced by the evidence simply flies in the face of the fact that Perry has blindly dismissed evidence he does not like on other issues. He had to have been convinced by something other than the evidence - accepted something other than evidence as proof. In Perry's case, it was the word of a friend who happened to work for a company that profited by engineering Perry's beliefs in its favor.

With respect to both Bachmann and Perry, the question is: What counts as evidence? A crying mother with a politically useful story that flies in the face of years of known research? A friend working for a company that stands to profit by engineering one's beliefs? A consultation with genuine experts in the field who have spent their lives scientifically studying the issue - using all of the tools of science including those that correct for individual bias and personal preference?

In the case of Bachmann and Perry, it is certainly not the latter.

Bachmann on the HPV Vaccinations

Such is the state of the Republican Party these days that the greatest offense its candidates could find in Texas governor Rick Perry's political history is his interest in saving the lives of girls and young women.

In 2007, Perry signed an executive order to have Texas girls 12 years old and older immunized against human papillomavirus (HPV). This virus is known to lead to cervical cancer, and the vaccine significantly decreases the chance of getting this cancer.

Presidential candidate Michelle Bachman had this to say about the decision.

"I'm a mom and I'm a mom of three children and to have them make 12-year old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat out wrong. That should never be done. That is a violation of a liberty interest."

So, Ms. Bachmann, have you had your children vaccinated against polio, measles, small pox, or tetanus? Or, as a mother, did you leave your children vulnerable to these disease?

There are those who do not want their children to be vaccinated against HPV because they do not want to encourage their children to have pre-marital sex.

Let's set aside the fact that one can get the virus from a marital partner who turns out to be less than fully faithful, or from rape, and focus on this argument for a moment.

Morally, this argument shares a lot of moral ground with the practice in some culture of killing (usually by stoning) women and girls caught having sex outside of marriage. It even shares the fact that these executions sometimes involve the victims of rape. The one difference is that, in those cultures, the guardians of household "honor" are willing to kill the women and girls themselves and take responsibility for their actions. American honor killings by proxy involve setting things up for a virus to do the honor-killing, so the defenders of family "honor" can say, "I didn't do this."

However, we can trace the fact of the woman's death to facts about the moral character of those who did not care to protect her from that death.

"But I love my daughter," many of these defenders of honor would say. "How dare you say that I do not."

I would bet that parents in other cultures who intentionally kill their children for reasons of honor also claim to love their children. Indeed, they might even say that love is what motivated them to do the killing.

Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night, right?

I wonder if Bachmann recognizes that these liberty interests she talks about have limits. Parents have no liberty to best or rape their children. Nor do they have a right to lock their children in cages. Hey are obligated to see that their children get an education and are properly fed.

Children do foolish things, and one of the obligations of a parent is to make sure that the immature and poorly considered actions of a child do not get her maimed or killed. It is not a part of this description to cheer for or carry out her killing.

And now, let us bring back the fact that, in some cases, the woman or child has not done anything foolish. In some cases, she was the victim of a violent crime or of another person's careless disregard for her welfare.

Perhaps Bachmann's protest is not against forcing parents to protect their children from a potentially fatal illness, but the fact that Perry acted through an executive order rather than through the legislature.

I would agree - Perry should have gone through the legislature. he should have fought for it openly and he should have won.

However, the Texas legislature made clear their preference for honor-killings by viral proxy over child welfare when they passed revoking the executive order. Perry signed the law, saying that the legislature clearly had the votes to override the veto. This tells us how important honor-killing by proxy is to the people of Texas.

Now, Bachmann has added phony claims about the immunization causing mental retardation. I'll have more to say on what this tells us about Bachmann's moral character - and Perry's in my next post.

The Tea Party Debate

Tonight, we have a treat. The Republican Presidential candidates will vie for the support of America's Stupidest Voters - the Tea Party party movement.

This is not name-calling. This is reporting a verifiable fact.

A recent Yale-George-Mason poll shows that 66% of the Tea Party members deny the truth of global warming and evolution.

Really, on average, these people excel in stupidity. Interestingly, they also exhibit one of the primary characteristics of idiots - an inflated sense of their own intellectual superiority.

Tea Party members are much more likely [than Democrats, Republicans generally, and Independents] to say that they are “very well informed” about global warming than the other groups. Likewise, they are also much more likely to say they "do not need any more information” about global warming to make up their mind.

Golly, mister, I already knows everything there is to know. Why on God's green earth would I want to waste time learnin' stuff?

Questions about evolution are not policy questions. There is no "liberal" or "conservative" position on global warming or evolution, any more than there is a "liberal" or "conservative" position on the effects of feeding ground glass to a child of firing a bullet through a person's heart.

I think it is time to revive an idea that came out in the last Presidential election.

It is time for a science and technology debate.

If we can have a debate that panders to the egos America's Most Stupid, then I think there is room on the debate schedule for the candidates to field questions in the area of science and technology.

It will be a debate about medicine - such as preparing and handling a potential pandemic.

It will be a debate about natural disasters - such as a potential tsunammi, earthquake, ot hurricane.

It will be a debate about energy - energy technology, alternative sources of energy, and the technology of conservation.

It will be a debate about transportation - various ways of getting people and things from one place to another.

It will be a debate about the environment - what might be killing us and how do we avoid them?

It will be a debate about the communication infrastructure, computers, and the internet.

It will be a debate about terror - weapons of mass destruction and how to prevent their use.

It will be a debate about education. How do reduce the nation's obvious surplus of idiots?

There's plenty to be discussed in such a debate.

So why is it that we have no debate on science and technology, but only a debate where candidates grovel for the favor of American Most Stupid?

Intellectual Recklessness on Climate Change

We have more examples of people misunderstanding the science of climate change because it suits a political ideology.

This time, I am prompted to write in response to an article in the Wall Street Journal, The Other Climate Theory

Again, I am not objecting to the fact that people have objections to the science of climate change. I object to the fact - when it us a fact - that certain people don't care enough about the potential loss of life and well-being of others to actually understand the subject they are writing about.

A decent human being would say, "Okay, given these potential costs, I might make a mistake, but I will not allow it to be a dumb mistake. Or, if it is a dumb mistake, I will be acutely embarrassed and ashamed of myself. I have enough of a moral conscience to recognize, where lives and widespread destruction are the possible consequences of error, any self-respecting person will take pains to avoid dumb mistakes.

The dumb mistake I am referring to here involves claiming that, because of the potential effects of sunspots, cosmic rays, or the like, we can dismiss claims about the human contribution to climate change.

These people treat the issue of climate change as a crime scene investigator would treat the discovery of a body. In the latter case, the CSI agent has a body and searches for a cause of death. In the former case, the critic admits to climate change, and asserts a potential cause.

This is an understandable mistake for somebody just starting to learn about the subject. However, it is a mistake that a morally responsible person who actually wants to understand the subject will quickly discover and avoid – typically before that person even puts a finger to keyboard to write on the subject. Or, if that person failed this test, she would feel such acute embarrassment (and a severe blow to her credibility among morally decent human beings) that no amount of apology or regret would seem quite sufficient.

A more accurate way of depicting the science of climate change is not to imagine a body for which a cause of death must be discovered. Instead, one is looking at a study that shows, for example, if you were to move a lever (called a trigger) at the base of a gun, it will cause a hammer to strike a percussion cap, causing a chemical reaction that will turn solid gunpowder into a high pressure gas that will project a bullet into the body of another person in such a way that it would shred the heart and kill that person.

There is no body. Nobody has pulled the trigger yet. However, we know – or we have good reason to suspect – the possible consequences of pulling the trigger. And we have a person standing there, gun in his hand, claiming that he will shoot.

As he is standing there ready to shoot, we see just how stupid it is for somebody to jump up and assert, "But a person can also die if you pass a large current through his body." We would look at this person and think, "You are such an idiot. This has nothing to do with the fact that if the gun bearer pulls the trigger in these circumstances, he will kill the person struck by the bullet."

Another daft critic might assert, "Oh, look. Here's evidence of a whole bunch of people who died, none of whom were actually shot!" This describes those arguments that assert that there has been warming in Earth's past and on other planets that was not caused by human greenhouse gas emissions. The moral person's response would be, "Are you seriously suggesting that your evidence proves that it is okay for this man to pull the trigger? Are you seriously suggesting that your ‘evidence’ calls my prediction of what will happen when he pulls the trigger into question? You are SUCH an idiot!”

Or, in a perfect display of indifference over the fact that somebody could be killed, the critic asserts, "How can you say that pulling the trigger us dangerous? We don't even have a body yet." This is comparable to saying that the climate is not yet changing - a claim that, even if true (which it isn't), would not be relevant.

A morally responsible person, just starting to understand the subject, could think for a few days or weeks that these could be legitimate responses. This will last until she understands the subject she is writing about. Then, she will see them for the stupid irrelevancies that they are. Morally responsible people know that mistakes and misunderstandings such as these are possible, and will consciously set out to discover and avoid them. Morally irresponsible people do not care to go to the effort.

Yet another morally outrageous argument that doesn't fit in the categories above that we still often hear takes the form of, "It is my gun and I have a right to pull the trigger and all of this evidence about what might happen when the bullet enters his body just is not morally relevant. We are a talking about my freedom to pull the trigger. You people are trying to deprive me of my God given right to pull the trigger of my own gun. That is my right - regardless of the potential consequences."

Or, along the same lines, “I am going to consider it permissible to pull the trigger until you can demonstrate beyond all possible doubt that doing so will result in this person’s death. If there is even the slightest chance that he will live, then it is okay to pull the trigger.” We can imagine the drunk saying, “You can’t prove that I will kill somebody if I try to drive home, so it is perfectly legitimate for me to try to drive home.”

These are moral assertions that almost nobody actually believes, but which we still find in the climate science denial literature.

None of this implies that criticism of the science of climate change is itself immoral. There are legitimate criticisms that a morally concerned person on the other side of the discussion would have to consider. The two most applicable are, "Your model is mistaken - here is evidence that pulling the trigger will not kill or even injure the person struck by the bullet," or "Even though this person will be killed by the bullet, doing so will produce benefits that justify killing this person."

When I read these types of responses, I can at least give the critic the benefit of a presumption that she is a morally responsible person who has made an attempt to understand the subject matter and knows what counts as a legitimate response.

When I read anything containing the other arguments I described previously, I know that I am reading the work of a morally defective individual who does not even care enough about others to take the time to understand the subject she is writing about.

Texas Governor Perry's Divine Punishment

It appears to me that God is trying to send Texas governor Rick Perry a message – not to be such an idiot when it comes to the science of climate change.

God has provided us with all sorts of evidence that climate change is real and it is caused by human beings. But Perry has decided to close his mind to all of the evidence. I suspect that slamming the door of one’s mind in God’s face must have made him angry – and he decided to punish Perry with a drought that covers all of Texas.

Certainly, the drought covers Oklahoma and New Mexico as well. However, when it comes to sending divine messages, God has never shown himself to be all too concerned about precision.

Though he is both all-knowing and all-powerful, when it comes to smiting, God seems to prefer methods akin to throwing a hand grenade into a crowded train to stop a thief. While we would normally consider such actions to display a casual disregard for innocent life, God must be considered immune to these sorts of accusations. Yet, God can hardly claim that he had no choice in the matter – that he could not have possibly found a more precise way to inflict harm on those who were actually guilty. We must consider that a more precise strike was possible but, for God, considered unnecessary or unimportant, but in a good way.

When God decided to punish America by refusing to lift an omnipotent finger to thwart the 9/11 attacks, he killed a lot of devoted Christians. And the Katrina hurricane, aimed at New Orleans for the sin of allowing a gay pride parade, did not seem to distinguish well between those who supported gay pride and those who opposed it. Instead, God’s aim seems to have been directed more at those who were poor and black.

I do not know the political leanings of those of those who were killed or injured by Hurricane Irene - or who had their property destroyed - but I doubt that they were all Obama supporters.

That whole thing about killing all of the first born sons (and the other plagues inflicted on Egypt) struck a lot of people who had nothing to do with keeping the Jews in Egypt.

These events demonstrate that divine smiting is not a precise science. Consequently, the fact that the Texas drought has also hit Oklahoma is not evidence against the conclusion that God is angry at Perry for his scientific ignorance and closed mindedness. It's just God doing what God normally does when God wants to punish somebody or send a message.

Regulations and Job Creation

The Republican plan for creating jobs in this economy includes an intention to create jobs by reducing the amount of regulation – regulations that get in the way of hiring people.

I think that this is a wonderful idea.

If the decision were left up to me, I would start by eliminating those regulations that prohibit the use of hit men – paid assassins. Because of this prohibition, there are a number of potentially tax-paying workers particularly adept at killing others that are not able to find employment that puts their skills to work, at least not in this country. Currently, a lot of these types of jobs - and the tax revenue that could potentially come from them, are mostly exported overseas.

Permitting the employment of paid assassins will have a ripple effect throughout the economy. Not only will paid assassins become tax-paying contributors to society, when they complete an assignment they will often create a new opening in whatever job their target originally held. On executing a contract against a judge, for example, a new judge will need to be appointed. The successful execution of an ex spouse could open up a job as a secretary or factory worker.

Finally, permitting the use of paid assassins will mean that others – those who wish to avoid being assassinated – will want to hire body guards and security consultants to help ensure that they are not assassinated. This will create even more jobs. The market for Kevlar suits and other working or casual apparel will likely boom, as will the market for bulletproof glass, security cameras, and walls topped with barbed wire.

Along similar lines, we should eliminate regulations that prohibit the use of professional burglars, hackers, arsons, vandals, and thugs. Each of these regulations provide a bar to employment that, if lifted, would put people to work.

A company might have use for an entire department of professional computer hackers whose job assignments could range from breaking into the computer systems of competing companies and steal their ideas to shutting down those computers to interfere with their ability to compete. Companies will not only have a use for a Department of Corporate Espionage and Sabotage, they will also need a department of counter-espionage. We should not leave out the fact that these would likely be high-paying, technical jobs.

At the same time, less-skilled laborers could find employment in new job positions such as that of the corporate thug. Their job would be to perform such business-related tasks as convincing homeowners to sell a particular prized piece of property, convincing a competitor to pack up and leave, and collecting on past-due accounts. In some cases - such as a group of thugs working for a local hospital or ambulance service, the corporate thug can simply create a demand for their employer's good or service.

Some skills, like that of the professional arson, may need to be licensed. There is a risk that an unskilled arsonist – in working with dangerous chemicals – could pose a threat either to himself or to others if he is not properly trained. Arsonist licensing will ensure that any professional arsonists has received the proper training that will allow him to do the job efficiently - in ways where the only risks belong to those that the arsonist or his employer want to put at risk.

Many of the regulations that we have in place are, at least in a moral sense, much like the regulations that I mention above. They are regulations that prevent companies from putting poison into the air that others breathe, or into the water that they drink. They are regulations that prevent the battering of another person’s body that a poorly designed or improperly used piece of machinery might cause and, in many cases, to prevent the loss of life.

In the context of the current political debate, it is ironic to note that a set of regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, thus preventing a person in Texas from losing their home or their life to a fire caused - or made worse - by those who contribute to global warming. To the person whose home is a pile of ash, it doesn’t matter much whether the cause is some company making profits by contributing to global warming, or making profits by hiring professional arsonists. It is the same pile of ash either way.

When I hear a politician talk about promoting the economy by reducing regulation, this is the type of thing that I imagine. I imagine some business executive living off of $30 million per year who knows of a way that he can get $31 million per year if his company were only permitted to do something that potentially kills people. To him, the deaths of a couple dozen, when weighed against the possibility of having another million dollars of revenue just isn't that important.

To be honest, I do not imagine an executive who is told that his business practices have killed a couple dozen people shrugging his shoulders in indifference. Instead, he responds by denying - even to himself - that he caused the deaths. This allows him to continue to think of himself as a good guy even as real people lay dead and dying in the community.

This describes what has happened with respect to smoking and climate change. Corporate executives see a regulation as hindering their profits and turn a blind eye to the fact that the regulation aims to prevent them from profiting by killing and maiming other people and destroying their property. They close their eyes, shove their fingers in their ears, and shout loudly, "Your regulations are hurting the economy! Your regulations are hurting the economy!" loud enough to drown out all other information.

A lot of regulations are nonsense – put in place by stupid people for stupid reasons. Many do not aim at all to promote the public good but have been manipulated to funnel money from the general citizen into the bank accounts of rich people who can afford expensive lobbyists and campaign contributions. Certainly, an eye should be cast at finding these regulations and getting rid of them.

However, this is consistent with arguing that there may, at the same time, be a need for new regulations. New information and new technology - or even changes in the world in which we live - imply a constant stream of new ways to profit by killing and maiming others or destroying their property. Insofar as we morally frown on profitable killing, maiming, and destruction of property, we may find the use of these practices themselves to be morally illegitimate and justifiably regulated.

We do not need in the office of the President - or any place else in government - office holders who see things only out of one eye or hears with only one ear - be it the left or the right. These types of people are half-blind or half-deaf to what serves the public good.

There are some things besides jobs that help to determine whether or not a particular regulation is a good idea. And I have not even talked about regulations that aim to protect national security or to prevent information or weapons from flling into the hands of our nation's enemies. Those are regulations, too.

Creating Jobs?

I admit, I do not understand how this "job creation" is supposed to work.

President Obama is apparently wanting to spend yet another $300 billion in so-called "economic stimulus". This means selling $300 billion in treasury bills - promising to pay that money back in future generations - to "stimulate the economy". Some of that money will go to buy things directly (pay some construction company to refurnish a school). Some of it will be used to cover current expenses while the government cuts revenue elsewhere (extending the payroll tax credit).

Now, let's assume that I have $2 million that I could use to buy some of those T-bills.

What would I be doing with that money if I didn't buy T-bills with it?

I see three options.

Option 1: I could spend it - renovate the house, buy a car, order Chinese food, see a movie, upgrade my computer, buy a huge home theater system, and so forth. You know - stimulate the economy. Create jobs.

Option 2: I could pay off debt. For me, this would mean that I get to blow more of my future earnings on stuff I want instead of making payments. For the bank, it means that they have $2 million that they can use on whatever they want. They could lend it to somebody wanting to start a small business, or build a house, or have a wedding, or buy a car. You know - stimulate the economy. Create jobs.

Option 3: I could put it into savings. For me, this means turning it over to a mutual fund manager. She would then use the money to make me partial owner in any number of companies that her researchers expect will make money in the future. Who knows what the previous owner wants the money for. Maybe he wants to invest in some other opportunity that is expected to make even more money? Maybe he is retired - or unemployed - and needs the money to cover expenses. Or my mutual fund advisor could use the money to buy bonds from companies that are borrowing money for some project or other. You know - stimulate the economy. Create jobs. It could buy government bonds, but what is the economic difference between buying government bonds to pay for a government project, and buying corporate bonds to pay for a corporate project?

I do not understand how this type of government program is supposed to actually improve the economy. Instead, it seems to simply change the nature of the jobs that are being created, from those that I would create with that money, to those that the government creates with that money.

The economic downturn may well be attributed to weakened demand, but what reason is there to believe that the government will be drawing it's money out of the weakened demand? As opposed to, say, diverting the flow of existing demand?

If somebody were to just drop $2 million on my lap - that is, print 100,000 $20 bills and ship them to my home (or just change the balance on my checking account by adding a 2 and a string of zeros in front of my current balance), I can see how this will stimulate the economy. But, to borrow money to stimulate the economy? How does that work?

Heck, drop $300 billion in my bank account and I will stimulate the economy. I would build a space program that would construct an orbiting factory town that builds orbiting solar power satellites and beam the energy down to earth. I don't know if it is an economically wise project, but I would employ a lot of people - a lot of intelligent people. These would be good jobs.

We would never have to pay anybody back - because the money was not borrowed. It was created out of thin air just by logging into a computer and altering the balance in my bank account. Legally, of course - as a matter of government economic policy.

We would have to deal with a bit of inflation. My space project would bid up the price of certain goods and services - from raw materials used to make and launch the rockets to the skilled labor that creates and uses both the hardware and the software. Others would have to pay the inflated (bid-up) price. That is one of the costs of this method.

But that is not the option President Obama is proposing.

Maybe it is a placebo? It is supposed to make the patient think that something is being done while nature takes care of the problem itself.

Face it, a President cannot stand in front of a group of people and say, "Sorry, there is nothing I can do," even if it is true. The next person will come along with his or her snake oil that does nothing but promises everything and get all the votes. So, every candidate needs to bottle and market their own brand of snake oil. The best snake-oil salesperson wins the election.

In this contest, the incumbent has a bit of a disadvantage - we see that his snake oil doesn't work. The other snake-oil companies can loudly point this out to us while they give us untested promises on the effects of their own snake oil.

Remember those checks we got as economic stimulus under the Bush administration?

If there were a Republican President today, he would also be giving a speech selling his own brand of snake oil, against a screaming herd of Democrats telling us that it won't work and to put a Democrat in office instead.

The only question is, do we prefer the red snake oil, or the blue snake oil?

But this snake oil has side effects. They include $300 billion in debt that future generations will be forced to pay back. Another side effect is a misplaced labor force, because once the stimulus ends the economy - including the jobs - will have to shift again. Stimulus jobs die, and people become unemployed.

But let no President or candidate ever be allowed to stand before us and say, "We are going to have to ride this out." We can't allow that.

Anger and Claims of Mistake of Fact

I read an article today on why Muslims are still angry ay the United States. Rather than being a standard, "This is how the world appears to me from my armchair" article, this is allegedly the result of a five year study.

Trying to understand Muslims’ feelings toward America has been the focus of a five-year study I recently completed that included conducting focus groups and surveys throughout the Muslim world. I sat for many hours trying to understand as Muslims explained to me why they are so mad at America.

See Why Are Muslims Still Mad At America

While studies of this type are of widely different quality, what interests me is the relationship between premises and conclusions – regardless of whether we accept the premises as true or false.

Here is a quick summary of the conclusion: The mainstream view among Muslims is that they are seeking to create a culture that combines liberal democratic values and Muslim traditions and the west keeps getting in the way. In some cases, it is by promoting autocratic regimes, and in other cases it is by secularizing government - leaving no room for religious values - which is seen as hostile to religion.

Steven Kull, the author of the article, gives this advice:

But perhaps most fundamentally, America’s relationship is most likely to improve as it comes to understand, accept and embrace the whole of Muslim society and the course of development that it has chosen for itself. Muslims believe that they are on a different path than the West. This path is central to their notion of their freedom to practice their religion. When they feel that America is threatening their religion and their aspirations, they grow resolutely hostile.

Now, some things, like supporting brutal dictators because they are "pro-American" and it helps to secure oil fields - the people of the Middle East have the right to get angry about. But there is a realm of action for which anger is simply not a legitimate response.

One of my first thoughts is that some people need to figure out how to hear others say, "You are mistaken," without blowing a gasket.

I think that this is an often overlooked difference between the scientific mind and the religious mind – at least among some religions.

The scientific mind hears a claim that, for example, the sun is the center if the solar system, life evolved, T-Rex was not a predator but a scavenger, a lot of planets orbit stars in the direction opposite the rotation of the star (which conflicts with traditional beliefs about planet formation), without strong urges to kill those who question long-held assumptions. This is why science keeps changing its mind (even as individual scientists are often reluctant to give up a favorite hypothesis).

We can well expect that the scientist of 100 years from now will hold some significantly different beliefs from the scientists of today.

And that is perfectly okay.

This is the key point. Scientists are not bothered by the fact that future scientists will believe that they were mistaken – well, not bothered in the sense that they want to lock current thinking into dogma that no future generation will dare challenge. We are not going to see a science cult that wants to abandon the corruption of “modern” physics and return to traditional Newtonian physics, or return to the days before plate tectonics infested geology and go back to the time when people believed the continents were fixed.

Science just doesn't work that way.

But science has a way of resolving disputes - through appeals to predictive power (evidence).

Religion – for those who take it too seriously - must be awfully frustrating. There is nothing to appeal to that counts as real evidence. The only persuasive tools that religion has are psychological bullying, brainwashing small children, and killing or ostracizing anybody who does not accept the doctrine being presented.

Consequently, people respond to religious challenges by getting angry. Without evidence to offer in support if its conclusions, the best defense us to simply shout down the critic – deny them a voice – close down minds to whatever the critic has to say. Some small percentage takes this type of reaction to an extreme. There is more than one way to silence a critic.

Indeed, what is Kull's advice in the face of this Muslim anger?

We are supposed to "understand, accept and embrace the whole of Muslim society." In other words, we are to refrain from saying, "you are mistaken," precisely because people in that culture respond to such claims with anger. Indeed, Kull wants to tell us that it is immoral to say, "you are mistaken."

Unfortunately, the effect of this is to side with the cultural value that says it is permissible – perhaps even obligatory – to respond to “you are mistaken” with anger. The other option is to tell those who are angry at America for these reasons that anger is simply not an appropriate response.

Civilized people simply do not respond to the claim "you are mistaken" with anger. They respond with evidence. Or, where there is no evidence, they keep those beliefs out of the public sphere.

The Obama Administration: Compromise as Weakness

I have seen two criticisms of Obama in recent weeks.

The first, which was loudest during the debt debate, blames Obama for gridlock in the federal government that postponed a debt ceiling debate to the last minute that contributed to lowering the country's credit rating. This is after he went 75% of the way towards meeting the Republicans on a compromise budget, he refused to go the other 25% and concede everything to the Republicans. And for refusing total surrender, he is to blame for confessional gridlock.

The second, and loudest in the past few days, claims that he is weak and unwilling to fight. He made a request to speak to a joint session of congress. House Speaker Boehner raised objections, so Obama changed the day. Now, Obama is weak for accepting what some people claim to be a demonstration of contempt for the office of President.

It really is a "can't win" situation.

I wonder how these types of situations come into existence? What cultural forces are at play?

I support Obama for being willing to negotiate and go the extra distance, willing to go 75% of the way towards compromise with a Republican leadership that refused to move even 10% of the way to meet him, as I discussed in Dogmatic Arrogance: The Picture of the 2012 Presidential Election

And, on the issue of which night to speak, thus is such a trivial matter I don’t see how it would even be worthy of a news article, let alone all of the noise I have heard this week. It simply is not worth another fight that the American people, ultimately, will view as petty and trivial (because it is). If it were me, I would throw my arms up and say to Congress, “Fine, you be petty and trivial, I will focus on what needs to be done to help this country.”

But is it not clear that Obama's strength or weakness comes from us?

The Tea Party Conservatives became such a powerful voice in Congress because we allowed them to - because we refused to fight and challenge them. We said, "Go ahead. Take the House." And now Obama has them to contend with.

And we allowed Obama to take the blame for the debt negotiations, because - well, I didn't hear very much noise at all condemning the Republican refusal to go even 10% of the way towards compromise. At best, I heard that since no agreement was reached, Obama and the Republicans were equally responsible. Thus is in spite of the fact that no deal was even possible with the Republicans that fell even a fraction of a percentage short if complete capitulation.

Now, there are people claiming that Obama is weak because he agreed to move the speech away from a day that hosted a Republican Presidential debate and onto a day that had a football game. I mean, seriously, can’t Obama recognize the value of sticking to his guns and not risk interfering with the first football game if the season? This is football, after all! It’s important!

At this point, the cost of these failures, if they continue, will be to have Texas governor Richard Perry in the White House, the Tea Party in control of the House of Representatives, and a Republican majority in the Senate at the start if the next election.

I am not a partisan individual. If the Republicans were the moderate party willing to negotiate, and the Democrats were controlled by the so-called "progressive" faction (a faction that I consider to be no less irrational and ideologically blind than its Tea Party counterparts), I would side with moderation.

But the fact is, at this particular point in time, moderation and compromise rests with the Obama administration, and ideologically blind, foolish, and insanely stupid extremism dominates the Republicans (and certain ideologically pure uncompromising and arrogant Democrats).

Ultimately, if there is any group to be blamed for our current predicament, it is the "compromise is weakness" crowd - both in the Tea Party that insists on withdrawing support on Republicans who compromise (whom the Republican representatives are listening to), and in the Democratic side that also insists on withdrawing support form a President who compromises (whom the Obama Administration, so far, and thankfully, has not listened to).

I read somewhere a while back - I do not remember where, that Americans are sitting on their hands waiting for Obama's "American President" moment. This refers to the point at the climax of the movie American President at which President Andrew Shepherd (played by Michael Douglas) announces that he is going to fight. The movie script then invites us to imagine the world uniting behind him against a few die-hard Republicans to create heaven on earth all with the backdrop of emotionally powerful theme music. We cut to a few closing scenes, and everybody lives happily ever after, and we don’t even have to get off of the couch. The script writer has made it happen with no effort on our part.

But this is not a movie where a Hollywood script writer will guarantee us a happy ending. This is reality where it is quite possible that, if things continue as they have, we will end up with Rick Perry in the Oval Office and a Tea Party in Congress.

And that’s something to be worried about.

Limits to State Sovereignty

On the question of allowing different states to experiment with their own regulations, which I covered in my last post on Rick Perry's Anti-Federalism, Kristopher wrote:

The inefficiency aside, there are some things that are so important that they can not be left to each state to handle differently, slavery being one example.

This is true.

But, I gave a question.

Are there things so important that they can not be left to each NATION - like slavery? In other words, are there arguments for a federal prohibition on slavery - that would justify calling in the federal army against those states that ignored that prohibition that does not also justify attacking another nation?

I am an advocate of humanitarian wars. I have argued that relations between nations ought to be governed by the same principles as relations between households. What this means is that I and others in the community owe you a great deal of latitude in how you run your household. However, when those actions cross the line into abuse, then neighbors - acting through community institutions - have a right and a duty to take action against that abuse.

This justifies a federal stand against slavery imposed on all the states. But it also justifies joint international action against tyrannical regimes such as those in Libya and Syria, where the murder and abuse of citizens is ongoing.

A common objection to this stand is to argue that this would argue for sending armies into countries all over the world. However, these principles do not, in fact, imply that we act imprudently. We have limited resources and, as with all limited resources, we should apply them where they do the most good.

Also, we have to admit that we do not always apply this principle justly. We permit injustices against dark skinned people living in a desert without oil, while taking an exceptional interest in the events in countries with oil.

However, there are those who argue that this means we should do nothing about abuses that occur in or near oil countries - that we should do nothing.

If a community was discovered to be inconsistent - allowing some parents to abuse their children with impunity while ending abuses in households where we have something to gain from the prosecution, the correct answer is not to allow abuse everywhere, but to treat more seriously those abuses we currently ignore.

While some of us can't know about every abusive, murderous regime on the planet, we can insist that those international agencies involved in identifying and ending these abuses take a more impartial view of the matter. Just as I do not know about every abusive parent in my community, but I can demand that community services not give special treatment to certain classes within the community.

Then comes the question of where we are going to draw the line on allowing different states to experiment. Is gay marriage one of those things where there should be a federal standard? Abortion? Physician-assisted suicide?

We are going to dispute the answers to these questions. That is a fact. I would argue that there should be a national standard - one that requires each state to recognize gay marriages, that protects a woman's right to refuse consent to the unwanted use of her body by another person, and . . . .

. . . and, on the question of physician assisted suicide, I have to say that the right answer depends on getting some data I do not yet have. This is one of the implications of being a moral realist. Moral facts are facts about the world to be discovered. They do not automatically appear in the mind perfectly formed and totally accurate.

So, even where there is a national standard to be adopted - a right answer - it may take some state experimentation to determine what that right answer is.

Rick Perry's Anti-Federalism

Governor Rick Perry of Texas is too stupid to be a good President. But even the stupidest person can sometimes get something right - if only by accident.

One of the issues brought up in connection with Perry’s campaign is the idea of allowing each state to determine its own rules regarding education, health care, and other forms of regulation.

This issue also relates to what is said to be the relevant difference between Romney’s health care law in Massachusetts compared to Obama’s federal health care law. The two plans are fundamentally the same, except Romney’s law is at the state level (and is consistent with allowing each state to determine its own rules), while Obama’s is federal and imposed on all states.

The main argument in favor of federalization is efficiency.

It costs companies a fair amount of money to deal with different state regulations. It takes effort just to know what those regulations are, let alone design and build corporate products (insurance, automobiles, breakfast cereals, text books) to meet those standards. With one standardized set of federal regulations, these costs are reduced. Companies become more competitive, and savings can be passed on to the consumers.

I will not dispute any of this.

However, I will give two reasons to oppose federalization, and briefly mention a couple more.

Reason 1: Social experimentation.

How do we know what set of rules to adopt at the federal level?

I am a scientifically minded person. I like to base conclusions on data. One possible way to get data is to allow different states to adopt those rules that make sense to them and to observe the results. We can come up with theories to explain those results, and then use those theories to improve the regulations in each state.

In most policy debate, we are bombarded with propaganda telling us the catastrophic costs of adopting this change and the utopian benefits of that change - political propaganda tends to be somewhat exaggerated. Special interest groups love to scare us with stories of jobs that would be lost, threats to our health and safety, and other dire consequences that would follow upon failure to give them what they want. Or they paint a utopian picture of life after adopting a policy that favors their group, here want and suffering has been eliminated.

It would be handy, to say the least, to look at a state that has adopted that change and see if it has suffered catastrophic ruin or obtained a utopian ideal.

There is nothing in this that prohibits the possibility of certain standards being adopted on a national level. However, with state regulations, there is at least a chance that the reason a standard is universally adopted is because, with all of the comparing and contrasting of different state systems, a particular regulation actually has and was able to demonstrate its merit in those states that first adopted it.

Furthermore, the very costs mentioned in the pro-federalization argument will be drivers for states to adopt the standards of their neighbors - unless they think they have good reason not to. Regardless of whether they do or do not decide to go the same route as their neighbors, at least they will have more data on which to base that decision.

Reason 2: Harder to abuse.

In my last post, I argued that bureaucracies easily become agencies for transferring wealth in small amounts from a large number of households and concentrating it in large amounts in the hands of those who have the resources to game the system.

I used an illustrative example of a regulation that adds $1.00 per year to the cost of some product for 100 million households, but generates $50 million in profit for the company that makes that product. The company has a huge financial incentive to make sure that this interpretation gets adopted. The average person has almost no incentive to oppose it or even know of its existence.

Yet, thousands of these types of changes in a large bureaucratic system means that the average household loses a considerable amount of money, all of which gets concentrated and put in the hands of those with the resources to harvest it - to harvest us.

These types of manipulations are significantly more profitable on the federal level than the state level. If I wanted to exploit this type of manipulation, I would much rather manipulate a federal regulation that will take $1.00 from 100 million households and put it in my pocket, then a state regulation that affects only 2 million people.

While the efficiency argument for federalization is valid, in some cases - such as regulatory manipulations that divert wealth from many and concentrates it in the hands of a few - we do not want the system to be more efficient. Sometimes, efficiency is not a good thing.

Conclusion.

I have a couple more reasons I could throw out there. One looks to evolution and argues for the benefits of having a diverse population. Another respects individual differences in likes and dislikes and questions the idea of a one-size-fits-all government.

And there are obvious exceptions. National defense and international treaties are obviously powers that need to be federalized, and state regulations should not be the type that puts them in a state of war with other states.

However, it is not the case that just because an idiot such as Rick Perry says something that the idea itself is one that should be dismissed on those grounds alone.

A Problem with Government Regulations

In recent posts, I have probably establish the impression that I am an economic liberal.

I favor taxing the wealthy in part to provide aid to the poor. There is no natural right to property, but instead a set if institutions that a person with good desires (desires that tend to fulfill other desires - desires that people generally have the most and strongest reason to support through the moral praise and condemnation) and true beliefs would act so as to realize.

However, there is a significant problem with government solutions such that, whenever governments get involved, they will be strongly disposed to use this power to take from regular people for the benefit of the rich. Anything that has the appearance of helping the poor are a few bones tossed over the shoulder to appease the masses.

Perhaps the best way to protect the poor from this type of exploitation is to place limits on government - to identify a group of things that governments may not do.

Raise your hand if you can tell me the names of the Secretary of Transportation? Energy? interior?

Well, you can bet that every oil company (for example) has a team of people who know their names, the names of their suppose and children, their birthdays and anniversaries, their school transcripts, their entire work history, and has copies of every paper those people have written and transcripts of every speech they have given. They have people on their staff who were hired precisely because they know the people in power, or they know the people on the staff of those who are in power.

Now, imagine that an opportunity comes along to interpret some piece of regulation - the effect if which will take $1.00 per year out of the pocket of every household in America - over $100 million total. However, the company will obtain $50 million in benefits per year.

For the sake of protecting that dollar, it isn't worth it to you to even go to the effort of learning the names of these agency heads, let alone keep track of every regulation and interpretation the agency might come up with. And it certainly isn't worthwhile to maintain the types of intimate contact that can be used to guide the agency's actions even if you did know about these specific concerns.

For the sake of getting that $50 million, it is more than worthwhile for that company to create a department and hire a staff that does nothing but study the people in each department and the ways they do business - and to establish intimate contacts with those people. One way to do this, of course, is to find people in the department and offer them more pay than the government can provide to come and work for the company. Meanwhile, that person's replacement in the agency knows, "I had better play ball with these people or I can kiss that six-figure income goodbye."

They are not corrupt. You have seen how easy it is for people to believe what they want to believe. It is extremely common for people to use their emotions - their comfort level - as evidence for what is true. They like the ideas that the industry they are supposed to be regulating tell them to like. They embrace flawed reasoning and biased evidence as sound precisely because the conclusions are comfortable - and a comfortable conclusion must be true.

So each of us lives a life of a hundred thousand nibbles - $1.00 here, 25 cents there, 10 cents someplace else - all of which adds up to a considerable amount of money directed out of our pockets and into the pockets of the very rich. And it is not just time - it is labor. We spend our days producing the goods and services that the very rich consume. People who have the most money to spend, also have the most money to buy things. Thus, they have the power to direct the largest portion of economic activity towards the fulfillment of their interests and desires.

Take the food and drug administration, for example. Consider how much drug testing is done because it provides assistance to the public, and how much is required because it creates a huge barrier to new companies entering the field.

From the company's perspective, "Yes, I have to spend $100 million to get this drug tested, but I have $100 million to spend. These high costs lock out anybody who only has $50 million. Meanwhile, when my drug hits the market, I will have a monopoly. When people complain about the high prices, I can shout right back at them, 'But look at how much money I have to spend on testing!'"

For you and me, useful medicines are delayed and, when they finally get here, we pay more for them. However, if any noise should be made about lowering these barriers to entry, the drug companies themselves will fire up their propaganda machines to flood us with warnings about the dangers of these unsafe drugs entering the marketplace.

And they will believe what they say. They actually do convince themselves that they are angels serving the public good. It is a very comfortable belief to have. Though this belief is not driven so much by an objective evaluation of the evidence, but a dislike of the idea that they will lose money and a want to believe that what is good for them also benefits others.

While I was getting my hair cut recently, the staff was discussing the horrors that would result if hair stylists were not licensed by the State to cut hair. They truly believed that this would be a disaster for the public. Not a word was given to the absurd possibility that they simply did not want to have to deal with competitors who would charge a lower price.

And they contacted their lobbying group to make sure this measure was defeated.

For the sake of protecting a $50 million benefit, a company can spend $10 million in public relations (including some well-placed phone calls to friendly members of the press - with whom their public relations branches have also bought and paid for intimate knowledge relationships). For the sake of protecting that dollar you would lose, it is not even worth the time to write an email.

And yet this is for a hypothetical program that ultimately funnels $100 million from regular people to give $50 million to the super rich.

These are not problems that can be fixed by getting "the right people" in government. These are problems that suggest that we simply cannot get the right people into government. Human nature is such that this is an unreasonable expectation - meaning, an expectation that no reasonable person would have.

Some people may be comforted by the belief that these institutions will work in our favor. But, then, people do tend to believe that which is comfortable. Besides, the company that can get the $50 million benefit has both the means and the motive to make sure that we stay comfortable with that belief, don't they?

A "Bright" Leap of Faith on Climate Change

Just because somebody claims to be a member of the "brights", have a naturalistic view of the universe, and a respect for reason and science, this does not mean that he qualifies under any of these headings.

In this case, I am referring to Allen Small, whose blog Truth About AGW Is Becoming Cloudy

Small wants to argue that CERN has produced evidence that something other than anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for global warming - namely, cosmic rays.

Cosmic rays cause clouds.

This has been known since the early 20th century and goes along with the invention of the "cloud chamber".

Well, in common English, this is hugely misleading. Cosmic rays cause condensation that creates wispy cloud-like phenomena in cloud chambers. It is a huge stretch to say that cosmic rays cause clouds of the type you see up in the sky.

Maybe they do. Maybe they don't.

One suggestion is that changes in solar activity can bring about changes in the number of cosmic rays striking the earth, resulting in a change in cloud formation, resulting in a change in the global climate.

There is absolutely no evidence that this is happening. However, it might happen, and the idea is worth investigating.

So, some scientists at CERN have been investigating it.

At the start, we can see that none of this has anything to do with the science of climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Arguing that it does is like arguing that, since arsenic is a poison that can kill people, this calls into question the claim that gunshot wounds can be fatal. They are two distinct ways of killing people (or affecting the climate). Neither calls the science of the other into question.

However, like I said, simply because somebody claims to love reason and adopt a naturalistic view of the universe, this does not imply that the individual is immune to wild leaps of logic that support a favored politically motivated conclusion. Small does not have sufficient respect for logic and reason that would allow him to see this leap as invalid.

The article in Nature that Small cites says specifically:

Early results seem to indicate that cosmic rays do cause a change. The high-energy protons seemed to enhance the production of nanometre-sized particles from the gaseous atmosphere by more than a factor of ten. But, Kirkby adds, those particles are far too small to serve as seeds for clouds. "At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step," he says.

(See Cloud formation may be linked to cosmic rays)

In other words, there is no evidence of an effect.

But even if there was an effect, this would still be the case that we have an influence on the climate in addition to the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The claim that it calls the claims of climate change into question requires abandoning reason and using the type of thinking we see in religion and other anti-science circles.

It is important to note that these conclusions do not depend at all on one’s views on climate change. Somebody who rejects climate change but still has the capacity to recognize and respect the difference between good reasons and bad reasons would still see these as bad reasons. Such a person, if such a person actually existed, would argue that, whereas there are sound reasons for rejecting the claim of human-induced global warming, Small's reasons are not among them. Small's reasons are, in fact, the claims of somebody who has abandoned the quest for good reasons and has decided to grasp onto any apparent reason that floats his way, with absolutely no capacity to measure its quality.

In fact, the "arguments" we see against anthropogenic climate change are pretty much in the same class as the arguments we see against evolution. You know how we are constantly hearing that evolution has gaps and that contemporary research (misinterpreted and misapplied in ways that comfort the interpreter and applier) is creating a whole new of problems that evolutionists can't answer, and that evolutionists are hiding any evidence that does not correspond to their politically correct conclusion? Well, Small is applying the same way of thinking to human-caused climate change. In both cases, none of it qualifies as real science.

Small has adopted a favorite conclusion that he refuses to see questioned. He now filters and misinterprets all evidence in any way imaginable so that it appears to give support to this conclusion. If logic does not yield the conclusions he likes, he is more than happy to abandon logic and to make huge leaps that only faith could cross (even though he claims to abandon faith). But its just the same type of thinking.

It is a mistake to think that we are just going to find this type of behavior among the religious.

Respecting Reality

There was another opinion post in the Washington Post yesterday that touched on the idea that we should not elect an idiot - or anybody with a tenuous grasp of reality - as President.

Paula Kirby wrote:

In the real world, facts are stubborn beasts. They are supremely unmoved by whether we like them or not. We may sternly disapprove of the idea that stepping off the window ledge of an apartment on the 14th floor will result in our death; we may go further, and resolutely contradict all claims to that effect, clinging religiously to our belief that such activity is nothing more than an enjoyable and exhilarating way to spend an afternoon; but neither our disapproval nor our disbelief will make the slightest difference to the real-world splat.

See: Evolution Threatens Christianity

This is a very apt description of the dangers of electing somebody who cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction to the office of President.

It is one thing for a person, either disapproving of gravity or disbelieving in its power, to step off of a ledge. The only people he harms are himself and the potential person he might land on below.

But it is simple insanity to put the fate of the United States - and, indeed, the fate of the world - into the hands of such a person. When the splat occurs, do we want the person to take the whole nation - and the whole world - with him.

So, it is of utmost importance that the office of President be given to somebody who knows that there is a real world out there that does not yield to a person's blind faith. We survive by knowing about and understanding the world around us, and we depend on beliefs that we adopt independent of that reality.

Sorry, I do not want to see the U.S. or the world go 'splat' against the pavement.

This means that I do not want to see anybody in the office of President who does not fully respect the fact that "neither our disapproval nor our disbelief will make the slightest difference to the real-world splat." He or she has to respect the fact that reality is something out there to be studied, learned, and understood - and cannot be whatever that person wants it to be or decided it to be on the basis of faith or wishful thinking.

Oh, and the instrument by which we observe, measure, explain, and - most importantly, particularly for those who do not want to experience a splat against the pavement - predict real world events is that instrument known as 'science'.

Free Markets as Regulations

In comments on my post Penn Jillette's libertarianism, Rob wrote:

Exactly! The second someone decides some bit of matter is "property," unless we want to ascribe mysterious new properties to this matter, we pretty much need a referee to decide which bits of matter are whose. Well, sometimes we won't like the ref's decisions.

Dbonfitto wrote:

Regarding the use of force to redistribute food to the poor as bullying: Isn't it also bullying to use government force to protect private property?

This brings up an important point about private property.

There is a tradition of speaking as if free market principles represent an "unregulated" economy and that a "regulation" is something that goes against the free market.

This is a myth - a fiction - as much as any claim about gods or angels.

The fact of the matter is that what is called the "free market" is a set of regulations.

It is a set of rules that governs issues such as who owns what, how ownership gets transferred from one person to another, and what one may do with the things that they own. It comes with a set of requirements and prohibitions. It distinguishes legitimate ways in which one might reduce the value of another person's property (e.g., by opening up a competing business nearby) from illegitimate ways (e.g., starting a fire on one's own property that spreads onto one's neighbor's property).

And how are we going to decide issues that are in the gray area in between? What if I open up a factory that rusts your equipment? Or one that produces obnoxious smells or sounds that drives away your customers or prevents your enjoyment of your property? What if I build a building on mine that blocks your view?

And who gets to decide what counts as an obnoxious sound or smell anyway? Or whether a person has a right to a view if the view is the reason they bought the property to start with?

All of these decisions about what these rules and regulations are need to be decided in a set of government institutions and adjudicated in a court system. In short, it requires a huge regulatory bureaucracy. That bureaucracy gets to decide issues such as: What counts as a valid contract? What procedures should parties go to when they have a dispute over what a contract actually says, or whether its terms have been met? What should be done to somebody who fails to live up to their terms of the contract? How types of evidence should judges look for in answering these questions?

And, ultimately, the regulating bureaucracy is going to back up its decisions on what counts as the legitimate versus the illegitimate use and transfer of property from one person to another by force. In our contract dispute, you will take the contract to a judge that will make a decision - and will back up his decision with the power to direct violence against those who do not accept that decision. Either that or we end up with private wars - the soldiers of one company versus the soldiers of another, as each tries to force their interpretation of the contract on the other.

So the question, even when we are talking about the "free market" is not a question of whether we should adopt a regulated economy or an unregulated economy. The question is: Which set of regulations should we adopt?

Which invites the further question: What criteria are we to use in evaluating these different regulatory systems?

The position that all regulation is inherently bad and we should have a free market economy is simply incoherent. Regardless of whether or not a free market economy represents the best set of regulations, it is still a set of regulations - and a free market economy is a regulated economy.

Stupid for President

Most people who come to this blog will probably already know that Richard Dawkins has an opinion piece in the Washington Post today.

Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a Fact.

The point of the article is that intelligence should be considered a qualification for being President, and knowledge of evolution is a good litmus test for intelligence.

On that test, certain candidates for office clearly come out as unqualified. They are the types of candidates for a position as important as President that should not even be on the list - let alone the short list - of possibilities.

The population of the United States is more than 300 million and it includes some of the best and brightest that the human species has to offer, probably more so than any other country in the world. There is surely something wrong with a system for choosing a leader when, given a pool of such talent and a process that occupies more than a year and consumes billions of dollars, what rises to the top of the heap is George W Bush. Or when the likes of Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin can be mentioned as even remote possibilities.

I consider this to be an important point.

We need to make intelligence a qualification for President - or at least make stupidity a disqualifier. And it is true that a basic knowledge of reality is how you test for basic intelligence. People who do not know simple scientific facts - the earth is round, it orbits the sun, it is made up of atoms, it is 4.5 billion years old, life emerged through a gradual process of evolution - are just too stupid to be President.

Other tests of stupidity: Prayer in school is not a defense against terrorist attacks, gay marriage does not cause earthquakes or effect the course of hurricanes, and it is not the case that we need not fear the long-term consequences of our action because Jesus will be here any day now.

If we are not going to be concerned with the intellectual qualifications for president, why put an age limit on who can run for office? There are fifth graders that score higher on these qualifications than many of the people who have made it to the top of the Republican short list.

Regarding Penn Jillette's Libertarianism

I am taking a look at three claims that Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) made in a recent opinion piece on CNN.

"I don't know" - Penn Jillette

The first, which I covered in The Egotistically Arrogant Unwarranted Claim to Knowledge concerns the virtue of admitting that one does not know. The second, which I covered in Regarding Penn Jillette's Atheism concerned the claim that atheism can be founded on not knowing how the universe came into existence.

In this posting, I will discuss the that not knowing how to help the poor and sick justifies libertarianism.

Penn writes:

And I don't think anyone really knows how to help everyone. I don't even know what's best for me. Take my uncertainty about what's best for me and multiply that by every combination of the over 300 million people in the United States and I have no idea what the government should do.

JS Mill used an argument much like this in his defense of freedom in the book "On Liberty". Mill argued that each of us is the best informed and least corruptible agent regarding the fulfillment of our own desires.

If I were to be given control over your life, the first problem you would encounter is that I will continue to act so as to fulfill the most and strongest of my desires, given my beliefs. This means that when I make choices regarding what to do with your life, I will be directing your actions towards the fulfillment of my own desires.

You might be lucky in that my desires may included a strong desire that you be healthy and happy, or a strong desire to fulfill my duty with a belief they my duty is to serve your interests. The fact that I will act in such a way so as to fulfill my desires given my beliefs does not necessarily imply that will enslave and abuse you. Though nothing necessarily rules out the possibility either.

Even if I am a particularly kind person with a strong interest in your welfare, we have a second problem. I don't know what your welfare is. You have had a lifetime of data to use in figuring this out. Every conscious moment of every day you are conducting research as to what fulfills your desires. On the other hand, I can only acquire this information through observation, and only when I am not distracted by other concerns.

Think about the simple act of deciding what you would want for supper. I could guess at what you like, but the best way for me to know what you wanted for supper would be to ask you.

It would be foolish for you to trust me to run your life.

In fact, if I were truly a kind person interested in your welfare, I would want to turn the job of running your life over to the best informed, least corruptible agent available, and that would be you. If I have little or no interest in doing that, then I probably have little or no interest in your welfare.

However, this argument has limits.

First, it only applies where it is the case that the agent is, in fact, the most informed and least corruptible agent. It doesn't apply to small children, for example. They are not granted liberty precisely because they lack the information and experience necessary to determine their interests - particularly long-term interests.

Second, there are conflicts of interests. There are cases where one person, acting so as to fulfill his own desires, would act so as to thwart the desires of others.

Consider the following situation:

An airplane crashes in the desert. The pilots, seeing that the plane was going down, land it near a lush oasis in the desert.

As it turns out, the oasis is owned. The owner uses the water that the oasis provides to run a huge network of fountains, fill a half-dozen swimming pools, water a massive tropical garden, fill several aquariums, and water acres of green lawn. In other words, he has a lot of water.

The owner, like all agents, will act to fulfill the most and strongest of his desires, given his beliefs. However, he has no desire to help the survivors. When he is told that the people from the crash will die without water, he shrugs his shoulders with indifference.

Or, perhaps, he sees this as an opportunity to sell water to the passengers. The price that would bring the best profit, he thinks, would be $10,000,000 per cup. There are a few people on the plane who could actually afford this. Everybody else has to do without. If he provides any charity to those who cannot pay $10 million per cup, then those who can pay would refuse to do so.

Now, let us assume that you also live near the crash site. You would like to help the survivors, but you lack the resources to help much. However, you have the capacity to get water from the estate to the survivors of the crash. Perhaps you work at the estate. Perhaps you are its sole security guard.

Penn seems to be arguing that there is some rule written into the very fabric of the universe that demands that the airplane survivors stay on their sand dune than die, rather than redistribute the water-wealth from the oasis owner to the crash survivors.

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

If the debate over whether or not your action of getting water to the survivors would count as "compassion", then all we are doing is arguing about the definition of words. That is a conversation we can put off until after we make sure that the survivors get some water.

If, instead, the question is one of whether some mystical rule is written into the very fabric of the universe that condemns the act of getting water to the survivors as "immoral self-righteous bullying laziness," no such mystical rule exists. The people who need the water may have the water.

This does not contradict any of my earlier points that we are each the most informed and least corruptible agents in running our own lives. It simply adds the fact that what potentially fills the desires of one agent may thwart the desires if others.

In this example, I have also negated Penn's claim that we do not know how to help others. In this case, we clearly do know how to help the crash victims.

I would also argue that on a planet that has one billionaire, and a million people who need a $4.00 shot to avoid serious health problems, we also know how to help. We take $8 million from the billionaire (leaving him $992 million), and give the people their $4 shot, spending (in this example) another $4 million on administrative overhead and logistics.

Let us not pretend that we have to fold our arms and let a million people die because we "do not know" how to help them. We may not know beyond all possible doubt, but we know beyond all reasonable doubt.