In a recent New York Timescolumn, Frank Rich attacked and smeared the nascent tea party movement. While most of his diatribe received the fiskings it deserved, one significant fallacy went unchallenged. Perhaps it was overlooked because the left has committed it for so long now that it seems unquestionable. All the more reason to bring it to light.
The fallacy is the equation of violence with force. The error and its consequences are manifest in what the left condemns and condones...
By Diana Hsieh @ 7:00 PM
We got our census form today. It must be the short form, but I'm strongly disinclined to provide any information other than the number of people living at this address. I'm particularly disgusted with the questions on race, but I don't see why I need to give name, date of birth, or sex either. Yes, I know that the government already knows everything about me, but still, I find it intrusive and offensive.
Two questions:
What information is the government authorized to collect based on the Constitution?
And what will happen if I don't fill out the whole form?
By Paul Hsieh @ 8:00 AM
While reading a story in the New York Times about the Texas State Board of Education, I was struck by the parallels between special-interest lobbying that occurs with a mandatory school curriculum and special-interest lobbying that occurs with mandatory health insurance.
The February 14, 2010 New York Times Magazine published a lengthy article entitled "How Christian Were the Founders?" This article described in detail the ferocious political lobbying in Texas resulting from the fact that Texas has established a statewide curriculum guideline for all its schools. Hence special interest groups have a powerful incentive to have their point of view promulgated in this mandatory curriculum.
The NYT article focused primarily on the Religious Right, and their often-successful attempts to promote the theme that "America is a Christian nation" -- by which they mean that "the United States was founded by devout Christians and according to biblical precepts". This in turn has powerful implications for what they believe children should be taught about American history, the proper relationship between government and religion, and what they considered the dangerously flawed notion of "separation of church and state". And they have been successful in using the power of government to include their views within the textbooks in use throughout the state of Texas.
Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the various Religious Right theories of American history, the kind of lobbying they engage in is a completely predictable consequence of a government-mandated educational curriculum. In other jurisdictions, we might see hardcore environmentalists attempt to require school textbooks adopt a radical "green" perspective or leftists require teaching an anti-West, anti-capitalist curriculum.
Basically, the presence of a mandatory curriculum serves as a giant magnet for special interest groups seeking to have their particular viewpoint represented in the curriculum. It turns the educational curriculum into a permanent political football to fought over by the various interest groups.
Hence, there is a parallel with the lobbying that occurs under a system of mandatory health insurance. If everyone is required to purchase health insurance (as they are in Massachusetts), the government must necessarily determine what constitutes an "acceptable" package. This creates a giant magnet for special interests to have their particular pet benefit included in the mandatory package. In Massachusetts, residents must therefore purchase numerous benefits that they may neither need nor want, including in vitro fertilization, chiropractor services, alcoholism therapy, and hair prostheses -- raising costs for everyone to benefit the few with sufficient political clout.
Nor does the lobbying ever stop. As Michael Cannon noted in the August 27, 2009 Detroit News:
In the three years since Massachusetts enacted its individual mandate, providers successfully lobbied to require 16 specific types of coverage under the mandate: prescription drugs, preventive care, diabetes self-management, drug-abuse treatment, early intervention for autism, hospice care, hormone replacement therapy, non-in-vitro fertility services, orthotics, prosthetics, telemedicine, testicular cancer, lay midwives, nurses, nurse practitioners and pediatric specialists.
The Massachusetts Legislature is considering more than 70 additional requirements.
As with mandatory educational curricula, mandatory health insurance thus becomes a permanent political football for special interests to fight over.
Of course, the solution in both arenas is to eliminate the government mandate. Just as parents should be allowed to decide what kind of education their children should receive, consumers should be allowed to decide what sorts of health insurance they wish to purchase. The government should respect and protect these individuals' rights to make these decisions for themselves, rather than making that decision for them.
His plan would thus turn health insurance into an unfair game of permanent political football, where the politically strong perpetually pummel ordinary Americans who lack sufficient lobbying pull. Unless Americans want to become the permanent tackling dummies for the special interest groups, they should remain firm in their current opposition to the President's plan and not let down their guard yet.
In this piece, I criticize the latest Obama Administration proposal to convert some of our private 401(k) retirement money into government annuities in order to help prop up the failing Social Security system. I also attempt to make the moral argument for the phasing out and eventual elimination of Social Security.
The Obama administration has just solicited public comment on their proposal to take money from Americans' private 401(k) retirement accounts and convert it into government-backed annuities. In other words, they want to take your money now to purchase U.S. Treasury bonds, then pay you a monthly sum later after you’ve retired.
Although this proposal is being initially portrayed as a voluntary choice, Americans already have the ability to purchase Treasury Bonds with their retirement money. Moreover, the Obama administration is considering making these annuities the default option. And as analyst Karl Denninger noted, "'choices' have a funny way of turning into mandates." Nor is his concern unjustified.
In 2008, Professor Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School of Social Research testified before Congress proposing a similar scheme to convert private 401(k) accounts into government-run "Guaranteed Retirement Accounts" that would pay a 3% return. And in 2008, the Argentinian government attempted to nationalize private retirement funds to help cover its runaway deficit.
As the U.S. Social Security system moves ever closer to bankruptcy, the billions of dollars Americans have saved in their private retirement accounts will become an increasingly tempting target for our politicians...
By Paul Hsieh @ 8:00 AM
Although economic regulations in the US have become increasingly onerous, they're still relatively mild compared to other Western countries.
On January 5, 2010, blogger "DirkBeauregard" in France wrote:
Hooray, the sales start tomorrow in France. A chance to pick up a few bargains, if you actually have any cash left after Christmas. There again, you can always spend the credit note you got when you took your Christmas presents back, or you can spend all the money you made selling your unwanted gifts on E-Bay.
So, sales in France. Like everything else in this country, there is specific legislation relating to sales - laws designed to stop unfair competition and protect small shopkeepers from those "all year" sales by large stores who can afford to sell some items at a loss.
In France out of the sales period, it is actually an offence to knowingly sell goods at a loss, again a measure designed to protect small shopkeepers from large retail groups
Trading laws stipulate that there are two periods for sales in France. Winter sales from January to February and summer sales from June to July. In each case, the sales last for five weeks. All goods on sale must have been in the shop for a minimum of thirty days prior to the sale date - no buying in cheap stock and selling it as a sale item. Reuctions must be visibly displayed in percentage terms. Labels must also show the old pre-sale price and the new sale price. Retailers are allowed to reduce their prices three times in the sales - after the first fortnight, and again in the final week.
Outside the official sale periods, retailers are allowed two weeks in the year, to use at their discretion, for extra sales such as pre-Christmas sales or spring sales.
Shops are allowed to run "special offers" on certain items of stock throughout the year i.e. - a rack of cheap "end of line" clothing.
Shops that are closing down, or refitting are allowed to hold sales - "everything must go" with written permission from local authorities.
(I corrected a few typos in the original post, but otherwise quoted it verbatim.)
How nice of the French government to protect consumers from the danger of being able to purchase goods from willing merchants at low prices year-round!
By Paul Hsieh @ 8:00 AM
The January 9, 2010 edition of PJTV includes an interesting discussion by Yaron Brook and Terry Jones on the estate tax.
Apparently, due to a fluke in US tax laws, the estate tax for 2010 is zero percent. (It's scheduled to go back up to 55% in 2011.)
One of the points Yaron Brook discussed was this view expressed by Bill Gates, Sr. (father of the Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jr) that, "Society has a just claim on our fortunes, and that claim goes by the name estate tax."
As Brook notes, this battle is not just over economics but over fundamental philosophy. Does wealth properly belong to "society" or to the person who created it? The way our country answers that question will determine our future.
The segment on the estate tax begins at 8:35 minutes, but I enjoyed watching the whole video. (You can click on either image above to go to the PJTV video.)
The essence of a dictator's method is not to write harsh laws and enforce them rigidly. The world's most destructive thugs have wanted something different. They have wanted to impose their wills on a compliant populace using arbitrary power -- power not limited by laws or constitution, but power that was open-ended, ill-defined, and could be expanded based on the whims of the moment.
Well-written laws are the enemy of the dictator. As philosopher Ayn Rand put it, "When men are united by ideas, i.e., by explicit principles, there is no room for favors, whims, or arbitrary power: the principles serve as an objective criterion for determining actions and for judging men, whether leaders or members." Laws, properly formulated, are based on principles, and serve to translate those principles into firm criteria for judging particular cases. What a dictator wants is to be free of such principles and to use his power as he wishes.
Professor Lewis then proceeds to show how the current ObamaCare health bill gives an unprecedented degree of arbitrary power to bureaucrats to determine what sort of health insurance you may buy and what sort of health care you may receive.
Some examples:
If you are an employer, you will not escape punishment if a bureaucrat decides that your health plan is not "acceptable" and that you must be fined for your failure to meet his decision. If you are an individual who does not want to purchase full-coverage health insurance, but would rather buy catastrophic insurance that covers hospitalization only, your decision will not be "acceptable" and you may face a government audit and a new tax.
Do you have a serious disease? Does your doctor wish to readmit you to the hospital? A bureaucrat will decide whether or not you get treatment, based on a statistical analysis of the number of such readmissions by the bureaucrats: "excess readmissions shall not include readmissions for an applicable condition for which there are fewer than a minimum number (as determined by the secretary) of discharges for such applicable condition for the applicable period and such hospital" (Sec. 1151).
Congress' plan to cut the deficit by raising the debt limit now, then reducing spending later, is like trying to lose weight by eating a box of chocolate chip cookies now, then promising to exercise next week.
Paul Hsieh, Sedalia
(The Denver Post has a dedicated LTE section called "To The Point" for short LTEs. This one came in at 37 words.)
It's widely recognized that our government is in dire shape. Our annual deficits are in the trillions of dollars. Unfunded entitlement programs run many times that. Lobbyists and earmarking rule Washington. Special interests, including public-sector unions, environmental groups, the AARP, and countless others, vie against one another for exorbitant privileges -- all meted out at taxpayers' expense.
Our most responsible mainstream news venues, like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, often carry stories exposing the sobering facts. The analyses are penetrating, succinct, and eloquent. But the recommendations? Timid and trite. The best they can offer is to advise moderation: slow the growth of government here, cut back a program there, oppose a few details of the most onerous regulations, but basically resign oneself to the status quo.
It wasn't always so. When faced with more difficult problems, our Founding Fathers imagined, created, and then fought for a radically new idea of government. Why were they able to do so, when our modern leaders and pundits can't?...
This is Amit's third essay for PJM. His example again proves that a citizen-activist can gain nation-wide exposure, if he is willing to publicly advocate his ideas and to clearly articulate them in a fashion that others can relate to.
Steve Simpson of the Institute of Justice had the following excellent comments to make in response to some questions. With his permission, I'm reposting his remarks here.
With respect to the question that doctors know up front that they agree to certain terms before they accept a license, hence they've voluntarily contracted to any associated obligations:
First, doctors do not consent to medical licensing in the sense in which that consent could legitimately be said to impose further obligations on them, the way one consents to the obligations in a contract.
Doctors do not get to decide to practice with a license or without a license. They are compelled to practice with a license whether they want to or not. So it is wrong to claim that they somehow consent to whatever obligations come with licensing. The state offers them the "choice" of practicing with a license or not practicing at all. That is not a choice the state has to authority to impose upon doctors, any more than it has the moral authority to offer citizens the "choice" of being enslaved citizens or not being citizens at all. I could say much more about this, but I'll leave it at that.
With respect to the concern that private medical licensing groups would have a conflict of interest between setting high standards vs. retaining their members (and hence government would be better at protecting the public from shady practitioners):
Second, your view that private medical licensing would constitute an inherent conflict of interest because it would be doctors essentially engaging in self-regulation is wrong on many fronts. The fallacy at the root of your view is that individuals are capable of objectively governing the lives of others but not capable of governing their own lives because of their own self interest in the latter situation but not the former. There is much to say to this, and reading Atlas Shrugged would be a good place to start in learning why that view is the exact opposite of the truth, but let me say just a couple things.
You say that there is no guarantee that private medical boards will set high standards or improve them as necessary. But there is, and it's the best guarantee that has ever existed--rational self interest. Doctors are neither insane, nor irrational (indeed, if they were, I submit they would not be doctors now would they). Nor are their patients. Doctors have no desire to harm or injure their patients, for, among other reasons, if they do they will not remain doctors for very long, they will have no patients, they will get sued, etc.
Moreover, there is no guarantee that state regulatory boards will set high standards either. Indeed, state regulatory boards have no incentive whatsoever to keep current with the latest developments in medicine and to ensure that their standards are high. What is the cost to them if they do not do so? They are committees, and thus each individual can always shuffle off the responsiblity for their failures to someone else, and even if they are found to have failed to set high enough standards, they suffer no consequences whatsoever. Their income and careers are not on the line, they will never be fined or sanctioned for their failures, and rarely, if ever, are any regulatory boards ever held accountable for their failures.
But there's another mistake in your thinking about this that many people make, which is to consider any regulatory boards to be separate from the professions they regulate. This is flawed as a matter of both history and common sense. Historically, occupational licensing has typically been championed by the very professionals who are to be licensed. They do this both to "professionalize" their industries--because it is much better to be "state licensed" than simply to be qualified--and to make it much harder for others to compete with them.
As a result, all occupational licensing agencies or boards that exist today are composed of the very professionals that they regulate. This makes perfectly good sense when you consider that no one else is qualified to regulate them. Who is going to decide what the proper standards for doctors are but doctors? Likewise lawyers, plumbers, carpenters, engineers, architects, stenographers, morticians and funeral directors, barbers and cosmetologists, florists, etc. Do you know what standards even a licensed florist or interior decorator must meet to be qualified? I don't. So who, but other florists and interior designers are going to regulate the florists and interior designers?
The term for what I am talking about is "regulatory capture," which simply means that the idea that regulatory boards and agencies of any type are somehow "separate" from the industries they regulate and thus "objective" is utter, unbridled nonsense. It is a pipe dream. It is the sort of thing that we all believed in fourth grade when we thought that committees should run the whole wide world because that would be "fair." My point is not simply that regulatory capture is likely to happen.
My point is that occupational and industrial or economic regulation is virtually impossible without regulatory capture, and, indeed, the regulators actively want the participation of the industries they regulate because otherwise they would not know what the hell they were doing. So your view that regulatory boards are somehow more "objective" and less "conflicted" than private boards is just not true factually and by the very logic of what such regulation aims to do.
And with respect to occupational licensing in general:
I could go on about occupational licensing all day. At IJ, we've done quite a lot of work on the subject, so if anyone is interested in more concrete examples of how licensing evolves in a given profession, check out our website, particularly the economic liberty cases and some of our research publications (www.ij.org). Or just shoot me an email (or ask a question here) and I'll do my best to answer it or direct you to more information.
The idea that licensed workers voluntarily consent to the obligations imposed on them by states is really unjust in more ways than I mentioned. As a lawyer, I see this all the time.
The states in which I'm licensed are constantly imposing new requirements, like mandatory pro bono, additional "continuing legal education" and the like to which I never consented and that are burdensome, costly, almost always a complete waste of time, and useless from the standpoint of improving my qualifications. In fact, what does motivate me to do a good job is precisely the opposite of all of these (and more) unchosen obligations.
I am motivated by the chosen obligations I freely decided to accept when I became a lawyer. My own desire to produce excellent work, to give my client the best work I can, to win my cases or at least to outlitigate the other side at every step, and to constantly produce a better brief or better argument or better analysis than I did the last time out.
But even if those things didn't motivate me, I and every other regulated professional would be motivated by the desire not to be embarrassed or to develop a bad reputation (and I have both colleagues, clients, and judges to worry about) or the other things I mentioned in my last post. In fact, I have never in my 15 year career met anyone who was ever motivated to produce good work by the states in which they were licensed. I could produce consistently incompetent and crappy work for years before any of the three states in which I'm licensed would take notice. My colleagues, my employer, my clients, and all the judges I appear before would take notice long before the state bars.
So my point is that the notion that we voluntarily assume the obligations of our state licenses is both a classic moral inversion--because it is in fact the voluntary obligations that motivate professionals and regulated occupations to produce high quality work--and it is illogical in that it contradicts the supposed purpose of licensing, which is to impose obligations on regulated occupations that they did not choose, because, allegedly, they can't voluntarily regulate themselves. See the contradiction? On the one hand, the obligations of licensing are "voluntary." On the other, licensed occupations can't be self-regulated because "voluntary" regulation would not work. Heads they win, tails we lose.
Thank you, Steve, for this great impromptu analysis!
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Wow: A police officer refuses to handle the repeated 911 calls of a panicked young woman as her father has a seizure on the kitchen floor. Why? She used the f-word to express her frustration -- before the officer even answered the call. He scolds her, refuses to hear about her emergency, hangs up on her repeatedly, delays calling for rescue, lies about the calls, and then arrests the poor girl.
Based on this report, the officer ought to be fired, not merely suspended and trained. He behaved infamously -- in a way thoroughly inexcusable to a police officer in a free society -- not merely once but repeatedly. (Via The Agitator.)
I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I'm in substantial agreement with the abstract:
In anticipation of pandemics and other mass disasters, several states have enacted little-known laws that authorize government officials to order health care professionals to work during declared public health emergencies, even when doing so would pose life-threatening risks. Health care professionals who violate these orders could face substantial penalties, ranging from license revocations to fines and imprisonment. The penalties would apply even to individuals whose jobs do not normally involve clinical responsibilities, as well as to health care professionals who are retired or taking time off from work to care for their families. This Article argues that these laws impose burdens that exceed the ethical commitments individuals make when they accept a professional license. In so doing, they compel health care professionals to engage in what is normally considered supererogatory behavior -- i.e., acts that are commendable if done voluntarily, but that go beyond what is expected.
In making this argument, the Article rejects commonly-made assertions about health care professionals' ethical obligations, including the claim that health care professionals assumed the risk of infection; that a social contract requires health care professionals to work despite potential health risks; and that individuals who have urgently-needed skills have an obligation to use them. It concludes that, while health care professionals can legitimately be sanctioned for violating voluntarily-assumed employment or contractual agreements, they should not be compelled to assume life-threatening risks based solely on their status as licensed professionals. In place of singling out health care professionals for punitive measures, the Article argues that policy-makers should institute mechanisms to promote volunteerism.
1) I'm encouraged that there's a recognition that there is no such thing as a duty to engage in suicidal self-sacrifice.
2) This shows what happens when the government is granted the power to license practitioners in any field, whether it be medicine, nursing, cosmetology, etc. The government can then claim, "We've granted you this privilege, now you have to pay for it by performing additional duty on our terms rather than your own".
It also features frequent NoodleFood commenter Steve Simpson from the Institute of Justice, discussing how the state of Virginia infringes on the free speech rights of some honest businessmen by outlawing their ability to make true statements about the products they sell.
(Via Ari Armstrong, who was also the 2009 winner of the "Modern Day Sam Adams" award.)
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
On a mailing list, someone recently asked about Adam Smith's "third duty of government," namely:
... the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.
The person asked, and reasonably so:
How is this determined; and to what extent is the benefit of the majority a reasonable argument for the forced expense of any individual? (i.e., National defense)
Here was my reply:
Adam Smith's view puts us on a slippery slope, I think. It concedes the moral superiority of the collective over the individual.
If you grant that it's acceptable to forcibly tax people to provide for "public works" and "public institutions," then you'll soon be forcibly taxing people to satisfy the demands of narrow special interests. Why? Because the mechanism of doling out such public funds can and will be used by the special interests that stand to gain so many unearned dollars from it.
That's certainly has happened in American history, to such an extent that we're now spending billions on special interests with barely any discussion thereof. Everyone expects their slice of the government pie, they demand it at other people's expense, and they get it. While many people question the legitimacy of this or that project, few people question the legitimacy of the basic principle. They accept that some people should be forced to part with their money for the sake of projects of no interest to them -- or even projects contrary to their values. But that's wrong.
If some project is truly of great benefit to humanity, then either (1) the users of that project should be willing to pay for the benefit they get (e.g. by paying to visit the museum, attend the opera, drive on the road, attend the school, or use the open space) or (2) benefactors, whether large or small, must be found to fund it (e.g. to endow the school, museum, or opera). Often, some combination of those two methods is perfectly workable -- as history itself shows. (The National Gallery of Art, for example, was created and endowed by Andrew Mellon and other private collectors.)
If some grand project cannot be funded by either of those two voluntary methods, then it's clearly not valued by the public. And in that case, to force people to spend their hard-earned dollars on it is utterly indefensible. It's a sham, in fact.
As a side note, I regard the military, the police, and the courts as a different kind of case than "public works": they are legitimate functions of government. Yes, they do benefit everyone, and they are necessary to the existence of a civilized society. Yet even in their case, coercive taxation is morally wrong -- and practically dangerous. All government should be financed by voluntary contributions. If we can have an all-volunteer military -- where men and women put their lives on the line for too-low pay in order to protect America (and more, unfortunately) -- then citizens voluntarily contributing their part in taxes is hardly far-fetched.
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM The Agitator says: "Detained by TSA in town for a conference, a director of Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty is detained by TSA at the St. Louis airport because when asked to explain why he's carrying $4,700 in cash (it was proceeds from book and ticket sales at the conference), he asks the agents to tell him what law requires him to do so. He managed to surreptitiously record his conversations with TSA officers on a cell phone. The audio is infuriating."
Wow. While I'm no fan of Ran Paul, I'm completely horrified by the attitude displayed by these government employees toward a man guilty of nothing more than carrying a few thousand dollars of cash.
The fact is that too many people -- many of them working for government now -- would willing participate in police state, even to the point of inflicting torture and death on innocent persons. Stanley Milgram's famous experiments on obedience to authority prove that with frightening certainty.
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
The March 30, 2009 edition of the Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News has published the following excellent OpEd by OAC student Lucy Hugel on the national service bill. Here's the introduction:
National service bill makes 'volunteerism' compulsory by Lucy Hugel
Thursday, the U.S. Senate sent back to the House an amended bill to "expand and improve opportunities for service," legislation modeled on President Obama's campaign promise to establish "universal voluntary citizen service."
If passed, this act will produce an explosion in the number of service programs. Unfortunately, the goal of this legislation is profoundly un-American--to instill an ethic of servitude in every citizen.
How could expanding community service programs have such a radical effect in the land of liberty? To understand this, one must see how the plan aims to smuggle in compulsory service...
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
The March 26, 2009 Washington Examiner has published a good OpEd on the threatened expansion of the Americorps "National Service" program. Although this issue has received less press than the various bailout-related issues, it could be equally important to the future of America.
Here's an excerpt from the Examiner piece (bold emphasis is mine):
"Expanded Americorps Has An Authoritarian Feel"
...To begin with, the legislation threatens the voluntary nature of Americorps by calling for consideration of "a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people." It anticipates the possibility of requiring "all individuals in the United States" to perform such service -- including elementary school students.
The bill also summons up unsettling memories of World War II-era paramilitary groups by saying the new program should "combine the best practices of civilian service with the best aspects of military service," while establishing "campuses" that serve as "operational headquarters," complete with "superintendents" and "uniforms" for all participants. It allows for the elimination of all age restrictions in order to involve Americans at all stages of life. And it calls for creation of "a permanent cadre" in a "National Community Civilian Corps."
But that's not all. The bill also calls for "youth engagement zones" in which "service learning" is "a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency." This updated form of voluntary community service is also to be "integrated into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics curricula" at all levels of schooling. Sounds like a government curriculum for government approved "service learning," which is nothing less than indoctrination.
Now, ask yourself if congressmen who voted for this monstrosity had a clue what they were voting for. If not, they're guilty of dereliction of duty. If yes, the implications are truly frightening.
This bill has already passed the House and being considered by the Senate.
The Senate recently voted 74-14 to move the bill onto the floor (i.e., to not filibuster the bill). Hence, it has support from numerous Republicans and Democrats.
If you're alarmed and outraged by this idea, then you can do the following:
1) Forward the Examiner piece to friends, family, co-workers, etc.
To contact your Senators to tell them to oppose S.277, click here.
You don't have to write anything long or super-eloquent. It's more important that your e-mail subject line be something unambiguous like "Oppose S.277", so their staff aides know how to tally your e-mail. For instance, I dashed off the following short note to my Senators:
Please oppose S.277. It moves us dangerously close to mandatory national service, something which is un-American and a violation of individual rights.
Of course if you are so inclined, you can write something longer. Here's what Diana sent:
As your constituent, I wish to express my opposition to any expansion of AmeriCorps and other "service" programs. Such programs are not just costly and ineffective. They also violate the property rights of taxpayers to dispose of their own hard-earned income in accordance with their own choices and values.
Personally, I strongly object to any attempts to use the power of the government to promote the moral ideal of selfless service to the community -- as AmeriCorps does. That ideal does not represent my values: I reject that moral ideal as destructive to human life and happiness. Yet I am forced to pay for this government program. That is morally wrong.
A person has every right to donate his own money to the charity of his choice. A person has every right to volunteer or work for the charity of his choice, if the charity is amenable. I do both -- routinely -- for causes that I care about.
However, a person has no right to dispose of another person's money to fund his charitable work. That's theft, plain and simple.
AmeriCorps should be dismantled, not expanded.
The Senate will be voting soon on this. Hence if you wish to speak out on this issue, the time is now!
Update: The Senate has just passed its version of the bill by a margin of 78-20. They still have to reconcile their version with the one passed by the House of Representatives before they can submit it to President Obama (who has promised to sign it).
My theme is that the Tea Party protesters must couple their outrage at the government bailouts with a positive vision of a properly limited government based on Ayn Rand's ideas.
Over the past week, an extraordinary wave of "Tea Party" protests has erupted across America. Citizens around the country have expressed outrage at the government's mishandling of the financial crisis. And one of the most intriguing developments has been a resurgence in interest in Ayn Rand's classic novel Atlas Shrugged.
Denver's Tea Party protest opened with a reading from Atlas Shrugged. A sign at the New York City protest read, "Ayn Rand Was Right." One banner at the Atlanta Tea Party said, "Read Atlas Shrugged Before It Happens." The Ayn Rand Institute reports that sales of Atlas Shrugged have nearly tripled compared to last year due to Americans' concerns about the economic crisis.
So why has there been such a renewed interest in Ayn Rand?...
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
The Rocky Mountain News has published two (!) of my LTEs on consecutive days.
On February 18, 2009, they printed this letter opposing the latest proposal for "single payer" health care in Colorado:
Single-payer health care has failed in every other country Paul Hsieh, Sedalia
Response to your story, "Dems' bill shoots for universal health care" from 2/5/2009 by Ed Sealover.
Single-payer health care has failed in every other country that has tried it. Canada controls health costs by forcing patients to wait months for MRI scans and cardiac surgeries that Americans can get in a few days.
Single-payer advocates mistakenly claim that health care is a "right".
Health care is a *need*, not a right. Rights are freedoms of action (such as the right to free speech), not automatic claims on goods and services that must be produced by another.
Instead of single-payer health care, America needs free-market reforms, such as allowing patients to purchase insurance across state lines and use health savings accounts for routine expenses. Insurers should be allowed to sell inexpensive, catastrophic-only policies to cover rare but expensive events.
Such reforms could reduce costs and make insurance available to millions who cannot currently afford it, while respecting individual rights.
On February 19, 2009, they printed this letter on the Obama Administration's expanded welfare state programs:
Heads they win, tails we lose Dr. Paul Hsieh, Sedalia
When the economy is bad, welfare statists say, "We must expand government programs because everyone is hurting." When the economy is good, they say, "We must expand them because we can finally afford it."
If I didn't know better, I'd think that they wanted to increase people's dependency on government programs regardless of the reason.
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 PM
The February 20, 2009 edition of the Glenn Beck television show featured a chilling discussion of some worst-case economic and political scenarios facing the US in the next 5 years. Beck was always careful to point out that he and his guests weren't claiming that these scenarios would happen, but rather that they could happen (i.e., they were within the realm of possibility), and that thinking about them was an important part of working to prevent them from occurring.
Dr. Onkar Ghate of the ARI appeared to discuss possible restrictions of free speech if we started heading towards dictatorship and some of the warning signs we should look for. You can watch his segment here:
One of the other topics discussed in detail was the possibility of a large-scale financial meltdown on the order of the Great Depression (if not worse). Given the US government will dig itself into unprecedented levels of debt due to the various bailout programs, it may start trying to print money (i.e., inflate the currency) as a way to "solve" the problem:
Of course, this won't work. And Beck's guests pointed out that this unhappy scenario has already played out in other countries in the past, such as Argentina during the 1990s.
Although I still believe that an Argentina-style financial meltdown probably won't occur in the US, I also believe that there is a small but nonzero chance that it might.
Hence, I'd like to point readers towards this very interesting essay by an Argentinian who lived through that country's crisis. The author dispels some of the extreme right-wing survivalist myths about such scenarios. More importantly, he also discusses the very real threats and challenges that ordinary people have to deal with in such circumstances, and he gives some worthwhile advice and recommendations on how best to cope.
Much of his advice would be applicable to any number of natural or man-made crises. Anyone who values his or her life might want to make it a point to cultivate the mental and physical tools necessary to survive such circumstances.
Again, I don't think this is the most likely future for the US. And I intend to concentrate my main effort in the battle of ideas, precisely to help prevent this from happening. But just as I think it's prudent to keep a fire extinguisher in one's kitchen or a first-aid kit in one's car as protection against bad events, I also think it would be prudent for Americans to plan for significant economic and political turbulence in the near future. Many of these actions are things most intelligent people would want to do anyways, such as minimizing/eliminating debt, keeping at least 6 months of living expenses in the bank, staying physically healthy, etc.
The recent history of Argentina offers Americans some important lessons. Whether we learn from them is up to us.
(Disclaimer: This is the first episode of the Glenn Beck show that I've ever watched. He's pretty good on some concrete points of politics and economics. But he also fell into the typical conservative error of stating that rights come from God, rather than being a consequence of our nature. But I'm hoping that there will be future opportunities for Objectivists to present the correct philosophic justification of individual rights on shows like his.)
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:08 PM
In this video, Yaron Brook answers a question on how to ensure product safety in capitalism via tort law. And he explains why the regulatory state undermines the incentives to make products safe found in a free market.
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
The online political commentary website PajamasMedia.com has published my OpEd on Cass Sunstein, who is President Obama's new director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein is one of the leading advocates of the philosophy known as "libertarian paternalism".
Obama's Regulatory Chief Believes in Paternalistic Government February 10, 2009 -- by Paul Hsieh
The old joke runs, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Most Americans are appropriately skeptical of such a claim, just as they are skeptical when told that they've won $10 million in a Nigerian lottery. But President Obama's selection of Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein to direct the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs threatens to turn this joke into grim reality.
The basic premise of libertarian paternalism is that the government should use its power to "nudge" people into acting in their best interest, while leaving them the choice to "opt out." If the government decides that saving money is good, it would automatically divert a percentage of your paycheck into a savings account in your name unless you explicitly declined. Supporters claim that this preserves freedom because government is only changing the default, while leaving individuals the final choice. It is merely a gentle "nudge," not a hard push.
However, nudging represents an assault on freedom, because it undermines man’s basic tool of survival -- his mind. By creating a default, libertarian paternalism in essence says, "Don't worry -- we'll do your thinking for you." Sunstein’s book explicitly compares Americans to a bunch of Homer Simpsons in need of such guidance. If Americans surrender their minds to the government, they become easy prey for demagogues and dictators...
Both Tara Smith and Eric Daniels have also written about Sunstein's philosophy in Fall 2008 issue of The Objective Standard. Tara mentions his in her article "The Menace of Pragmatism". Eric Daniels has a review of the Nudge book in the same issue.
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
The January 22, 2009 Colorado Springs Gazettepublished one of my LTEs on government regulation vs. personal responsibility. It's the 5th one down:
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY Government paternalism saps desire to make own decisions
I want to thank The Gazette for the nice discussion of individual responsibility in Monday's paper ("People responsible for safety," Our View). Too many adult Americans expect the government to treat them as if they were still children and the government was their parents.
It's only a small step from the government telling you what kind of houses you can build to telling you what food you can eat or what books you can read.
When citizens start asking the government do their thinking for them, it makes them easy prey for demagogues and dictators. That's why this kind of government paternalism is so dangerous.
Paul Hsieh, Sedalia
It was in response to their own January 16, 2009 OpEd opposing more government home safety regulations, "People responsible for safety".
Although it's important to oppose bad ideas, it's even more important to support good ideas. I'm glad to have had this opportunity to do so.
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:07 AM
The Decmeber 17, 2008 Christian Science Monitor has a terrific profile of Underwriters Laboratories. This is the private organization that performs safety certifications of an enormous range of consumer products, including extension cord, washing machines, and even bulletproof glass.
Every product they test is at the request, and the expense, of its manufacturer, who seeks out UL not because it has to -- no federal law mandates safety tests for most items -- but because it's cheaper and easier than a product-injury lawsuit, Drengenberg says. In fact, most retailers won't stock a product if it hasn't been safety tested. But it's all voluntary, a tidy case study of the free market at its best: bottom-line drivers of consumer good.
..."We have one weapon in the factory... The UL mark," says [tester John] Drengenberg. So UL guards it carefully, through a rigorous documentation process. Every product tested is photographed, all of its parts cataloged, and every test performed described in detail. If it passes, the manufacturer puts it on the assembly line -- but at some point during production, a UL inspector will show up, unannounced, for a spot-check, making sure the company is using all the same parts UL saw on the prototype
This is an excellent concrete example of how such private certification agencies could thrive and succeed in a free market, because they meet a rational consumer demand for trustworthy and independent product safety certification.
In a truly free market, comparable private agencies can and should replace the current alphabet-soup of costly inefficient government bureaucracies such as the FDA, OSHA, NTSB, etc.
By Gina Liggett @ 12:11 AM
When I hear of some new government program that's made available courtesy of working, tax-paying citizens and businesses, I'm left stunned in a state of resentful disbelief. But our government -- of the free and brave -- provides benefits in the areas of career development, child care, counseling, disability, disaster relief, education and training, food and nutrition, energy assistance, scholarships and grants, health care, housing, insurance, living assistance, loans, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and tax assistance.
Well, that pretty much covers food, clothing, and shelter... wait a minute, no mention of clothing. Oh well.
Since I currently receive no welfare benefits because I work for a living and buy everything I need and then also pay taxes (like millions of other Americans), I wondered what governmental benefits I could receive anyway. So I took a little on-line quiz at govbenefits.com.
After answering questions about my age, profession, education, veteran status, disabilities, needs I have, etc., I discovered that I would be potentially eligible for 17 government programs! Most of these were for the opportunity to use my educational and professional background to do research in the biological sciences. But I also might qualify for some HUD (Housing and Urban Development) benefits. My favorites, though, were two exciting opportunities, the Prose and Poetry Fellowship and the National Ocean Service Intern Program. Maybe I could combine the two somehow by taking a government-sponsored cruise and write a novel!
It was a dreary and foreboding moment for Juliet as she pondered tearfully with heaving and panting breaths, her longing for Sven, her long-lost beau of an era swept away by the wind which whipped the willows in a wild winter when wondrous wanderings of the heart did happen.
Hey, I could dig it.
Then I wondered what I could get if I decided to quit working, quit paying for health insurance and had $45 dollars in my savings account. I would quality for 32 government programs in my state! Not only would I potentially quality for the Special Milk Program but also the Colorado Summer Food Service program. I'm not sure how as a middle-aged woman those school-based programs would apply to me, but maybe it's because women are recommended to get lots of calcium in their diet.
But certainly I could qualify for more than that. So I re-took the quiz and claimed to be a "practicing artist." Hey! I practice my dance steps everyday! I also added that I have an Injury or Illness because the other day I got this nasty hamstring pull from practicing so much. And I also put in my claim to have a "difference of limb length" because I'm pretty sure that my right leg is 1/17th millimeter longer than the left. I added that I would like Mental Health Services because I've been so distraught over the U.S. socialist revolution that happened on November 4. I would also like some Women's Health Care. Oh, also, I answered "yes" to the question, "Do you feel that you've been denied housing or financial assistance due to discrimination." I'm awfully sure that I feel that somewhere along the line I been discriminated against.
Guest what? 37 programs! Oh my gosh! Lots of housing assistance. Food stamps. Health care. Architectural Barrier Act Enforcement (that's probably because of my limb length difference). Energy assistance. Short-term lending. Job opportunities for low-income persons (hey! I don't want a job!). Weatherization Assistance for Low-income persons (now, THAT, I could use).
And I would only have to jettison maybe that one Objectivist virtue of "independence" to get my goodies. But hey, as our presidential candidates reminded us, this is the country of sacrifice, right?
Tara Smith in her book, "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist," presents Ayn Rand's definition of the virtue of independence: "one's acceptance of the responsibility of forming one's own judgements and living by the work of one's own mind." Tara Smith adds,
More colloquially, it is a matter of making one's own way in the world. The independent person supports himself both intellectually and materially, thinking for himself and taking productive action to sustain himself.
As an individual becomes an adult, a psychological milestone of independence is supposed to occur. This is a time when children separate from their parents who cared and provided for them; they strike out their own, choose a career or job, form new social relationships, and pursue their values. Our welfare-minded society enables the dependency of many of its adult citizens, leaving them in a perpetual state of adolescence, unable to survive without sacrificing others to meet their endless needs.
I've decided after all not to apply for that government-sponsored cruise to become a novelist (although, I hate to deprive the world of my prose). But a society that sacrifices its citizens so that others don't have to grow up is an immoral society.
And despite the so-called good intentions of politicians and interest groups who come up with these care-taking programs, they are no different than the parents who enable their unemployed 30-year-old offspring to live at home for free and play video games all day long.
The virtue of independence is a requirement for survival as a moral being. Only in an individual-rights-respecting society, where there is no sacrifice of some to pay for the dependency of others, can the virtue of independence manifest to its fullest potential -- a benevolent society of individuals left free to pursue their happiness.
So for now I'll keep my job and work on that novel on my free time. (I know you can hardly wait for me to finish it!)
By Diana Hsieh @ 6:36 PM
My friend Bryan Olive -- whom you might know as the customer service manager of the Ayn Rand Institute -- has been fighting an Orwellian battle against the Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau over a parking ticket issued for a car he no longer owns. Finally, after many inane go-rounds with bureaucrats and after the government refused to consider his definitive proof that he did not own the car when the ticket was issued, he took his case to a local reporter. The result is this excellent story.
As one commenter said, "If the DMV, which is a government agency, can't handle title transfers, how the heck will government handle the Obama health care system? Scary times!"
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