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Ari Armstrong's 2011 Posts
Following are consolidated blog posts I wrote in 2011, republished here on August 17, 2025. All contents copyright © by Ari Armstrong. I may not in every case still agree with my 2010 position. Paragraphs that begin "Comment" are notes by readers, unless marked otherwise. Because so many of the hyperlinks have since become "dead," I removed almost all of the hyperlinks and (usually) put the original url in parenthesis. Due to minor editing and formatting changes the material here may not exactly match how it originally appeared.
Major themes include approval voting, environmentalism, gun policy, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Sam Harris, Tea Party, union activism, Occupy Wall Street, abortion, school choice, beer sales policy, Colorado socialists, campaign finance laws, libertarianism, use tax, Michael Shermer, news journalism, the Amazon tax, Harry Potter, tech advances, Doug Lamborn and the tar baby, homosexuality, Prop. 103, and more.
Atwood Pitches Approval Voting
January 3, 2011
Frank Atwood promoted "approval voting" at a recent Liberty On the Rocks event:
While I was skeptical of approval voting at first, Atwood convinced me that it's a good idea—even better than the "instant runoff voting" I've previously praised.
What is approval voting? You the voter can vote for any number of candidates on the ballot for a given position. For example, in the last gubernatorial race, you could have voted for both Dan Maes and Tom Tancredo, rather than just one of those candidates.
Now, (http://data.denverpost.com/election/results/governor/2010/governor/) in fact, John Hickenlooper won more votes than Maes and Tancredo combined, so it's hard to claim that either Maes or Tancredo "spoiled" the race for the other candidate. (Democrat Hickenlooper won 50.7 percent of the vote, lackluster Republican Maes won only 11.1 percent of the vote, and third-party Tancredo won 36.7 percent of the vote.) But let's consider a realistic possibility of a third-party conservative "spoiling" the race for the Republican or a Green candidate "spoiling" the race for the Democrat, meaning that if the minor-party candidate were not in the race, enough votes would go to the major-party candidate to make the difference.
In such cases, approval voting would allow a voter to approve both a major and a minor party candidate. Let's consider a hypothetical three-way race with 100 voters under the two scenarios:
WINNER TAKE ALL VOTING
Chickenpooper gets 48 votes.
Tancledo gets 38 votes.
Maze gets 14 votes.
Under the "winner take all" voting we currently use, Chickenpooper (who we'll assume is the left-leaning candidate) is the winner.
APPROVAL VOTING
Chickenpooper gets 48 votes.
Tancledo gets 49 votes.
Maze gets 25 votes.
In this scenario some voters are voting for both Tancledo and Maze (so the total number of votes cast exceeds 100), and Tancledo emerges victorious. In this case, whereas Maze otherwise would have "spoiled" the election for Tancledo, under approval voting people can vote for Maze and still allow Tancledo to win.
Of course, in the real recent election, many people thought Maes was a complete joke, so some might have preferred both Hickenlooper and Tancredo over Maes and voted accordingly.
I favor approval voting because it allows minor-party participation without creating the risk of "spoiled" elections.
Why do I now think approval voting is better than instant runoff voting? Approval voting is both easier to implement and less prone to quirks.
Under instant runoff voting, a voter may rank candidates. For example, a voter could have picked Maes first and Tancredo second. Then, assuming Maes again came in third, all the votes that ranked Maes first and Tancredo second would go to Tancredo.
But think about ranking candidates in the voting booth. On a paper ballot, one would either have to write in numbers for the rankings or mark a candidate for the same race in successive votes. Electronic voting would require successive votes. But this process would confuse a lot of voters. For example, a voter may not realize that a second-place vote is not required.
Approval voting is a lot easier to set up. A voter simply marks a bubble (or the equivalent) for as many candidates as desired. It's easy to understand and easy to implement.
It is true that any system of voting is subject to possible quirks; today's quite pronounced quirk is that a minor-party candidate can "spoil" a race. Either instant runoff voting or approval voting would be less quirky. But I think approval voting would be best of all.
The (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#The_Condorcet_criterion) Wikipedia entry on instant runoff voting suggests a problem which I'll illustrate with the following scenario:
Suppose Lefty Lou is a fire-breathing leftist who excites his base but genuinely frightens much of the citizenry; for 34 percent of voters Lou is the first choice candidate. Suppose Righty Rick is a social conservative and the first choice of 35 percent of voters. And suppose Centrist Cal, a war hero and former NFL quarterback, is liked by pretty much everybody but the first choice of only 31 percent. Cal is the clear second choice for everybody who more strongly prefers one of the other two candidates. Let's say that, due to imprecise polling, every poll shows the candidates within the margin of error, so voters have little idea who will actually win.
If voters simply voted their first choice under a winner take all system, Rick would win. But of course people can vote strategically under a winner take all system. Cal can argue, "Look, I know many of you are tempted to vote for Lou or Rick, but if you do that, you'll risk putting your least-favored candidate in office. So vote for me!" And such an appeal may very well work.
But consider what happens under instant runoff voting. Assuming people vote their preferences, Cal is eliminated in the first round, throwing the election to Rick, despite the fact that, for 100 percent of voters, Cal is either the first or second choice. That seems like a bad outcome.
Under approval voting, Cal would easily emerge as the victor.
Nor am I persuaded by the critics of approval voting. For example, (http://archive.fairvote.org/index.php?page=1920) FairVote offers the following scenario:
To illustrate how approval voting violates majority rule, consider a primary with 100 voters and two candidates liked by all voters. 99 voters choose to approve of both candidates even though slightly preferring the first candidate to the second. The 100th voter is a tactical voter and chooses to support only the second candidate. As a result, the second candidate wins by one vote, even though 99% of voters prefer the first candidate.
The first problem with this example is that it is totally unrealistic. In a race with only two candidates, most voters would pick between the two based on their preferences. If someone were truly ambivalent between two candidates, voting for neither would have the same effect as voting for both. If 99 voters truly preferred the first candidate, many or most of them would vote that way. Does this involve a certain amount of strategy? Yes. But every system of voting does. The difference is that approval voting is more likely to generate a winner most voters can live with.
Another significant problem with the example is that obviously the 100th voter prefers the second candidate. Let's say 99 voters barely prefer the first candidate to the second, and therefore vote for both candidates, not really caring which one wins. But one voter truly loathes the first candidate and therefore votes only for the second. Why should the very strong preferences of the one voter not outweigh the nearly-nonexistent preferences of the 99? But again this scenario is so implausible that we can safely ignore it.
Of course, if every race had only two candidates, a winner take all system would be fine (and a voter could approve of neither candidate simply by not voting in that race). The entire point of approval voting is to handle races with more than two candidates and thereby prevent scenarios of "spoiled" races.
Frank Atwood is right: Colorado should adopt approval voting.
My Interview with Sam Adams Alliance
January 4, 2011
As my regular readers may recall, I received a (http://www.freecolorado.com/labels/Sam%20Adams%20Alliance.html) Sam Adams Alliance award in 2009. In anticipation of (http://www.samadamsalliance.org/programs/sammies.aspx) this year's contest, Nic Hall of the Alliance interviewed past winners, (http://www.samadamsalliance.org/blog/index.php/2010/12/30/engaging-democracy-sammies-stories-featuring-ari-armstrong/) including me.
The entry deadline for this year's contest is January 28; I strongly encourage my activist friends to enter.
Following are a few of my remarks from the (http://www.samadamsalliance.org/media/simplecdn/podcasts/101229B_AriArmstrong.mp3) audio file. I appreciate Nic's fine job of paring down my lengthy remarks.
"What I'm trying to do is serve as the go-between, between the intellectual theory of free markets and the on-the-ground activism. So I don't do a lot of electoral politics, for instance. Nor am I in academia. But I try to keep tabs on what's going on in the academic discussions about free markets and related issues, and distill that down and popularize it, and educate other activists so that we can be effective in moving the free-market message forward."
"Since I started writing online [in 1998] there's been an explosion of activity... So, even though I was one of the first online writers in Colorado, in terms of free market politics, recently I've been surpassed by a lot of other younger, hipper activists who have been faster to take advantage of social media... So I'm playing catch-up again even though I was one of the early ones online."
"I've been interested in free market politics and the philosophical foundations of the free market since high school. And my dad had a fairly big influence on me, in that he gave me a couple of books when I was in high school. The first was Free to Choose by Milton Friedman, and the second was Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. My dad and I work together now; we write a column together for a small newspaper in Western Colorado called Grand Junction Free Press."
"I've certainly been strongly influenced by Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. A funny thing happens with Ayn Rand: her ideas seem very exciting to youthful readers, but it's easy to miss the subtlety of her ideas. So a lot of people read her and then sort of fall out of those ideas, because they're not seeing the greater depth there. But I had the fortune of getting back into some of those ideas and exploring them in a more deep sort of way."
"Anybody who reads [my book, (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter] will recognize that there are crossover themes between what I'm finding in Harry Potter and themes in Ayn Rand's novels. Now, of course, I don't want to make too much of those, however. But, when you're looking at things like the importance of free will, the importance of heroes struggling after their values, then I think there are some real similarities. But then I of course go into the differences, too, and a big part of my motivation was to explore both the similarities and the differences."
"You see activists burn out all the time, because they have unrealistic, short-term expectations, such as some grand political victory... And when that doesn't happen they burn out and drop out. And that's not really the way that activism works, usually, though there can be short-term political victories. But activism really is a very long-term, educational process. And, yes, we do some practical politics, but... we're not going to shift the culture without educating the population. And this is an inherently slow process."
"This is a big problem that I think a lot of potential activists have. They look out there and they see some expert, whether a great radio personality or a great writer, and they think, 'Wow, that person is so great, that I could never do anything like that.' But the fact is that that that person started somewhere. That person started out just doing college radio, or doing a podcast, or something like that. Everybody starts small and grows from there. So if you wait to become the expert before you start doing anything, you'll never be the expert, because you're not building the experience. So the way to learn how to write letters to the editor is to write a letter to the editor, then send it out to your friends for editing, improve it, and eventually you'll be able to write it with a lot less trouble... People wait for other people to do the work for them, or to push them into it, and you can't do that. It's too late in the game now to have that luxury. You have to get out there and be self-motivated, and jump into the game, even if you don't know quite how to swim yet. Because, damn it, you're not going to learn how to swim until you get in the water."
Listen to the (http://www.samadamsalliance.org/media/simplecdn/podcasts/101229B_AriArmstrong.mp3) entire interview!
Tobin Spratte Reviews Goals of Liberty Ink Journal
January 5, 2011
Tobin Spratte, the new managing editor of (http://www.libertyinkjournal.com/) Liberty Ink Journal, describes the publication and its goals. "We're a free market, liberty-oriented publication," he says.
James Reflects on People's Press Collective
January 6, 2011
(http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/) People's Press Collective, which aggregates conservative and free market writings in Colorado (and on which this post will appear), started with the idea of covering the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Thomas James, a cofounder of the project, reviewed its history and goals at a recent (http://www.libertyontherocks.com/) Liberty On the Rocks event.
James said of the DNC, "We were going to show what was really going on on the street, with protests and riots, and who knows what... the things that the media really didn't want you do see." (At the time, various organizers and pundits discussed the possibility of riots.) The organization's coverage of the event runs through (http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/2008/08/page/2/) August of 2008.
And, for those who missed it, James also discussed the new hard science fiction novel about Mars he coauthored, In the Shadow of Ares:
Resolve to Expand, Use, and Produce
January 10, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110107/COLUMNISTS/110109958/1062&parentprofile=1062) published January 7 by Grand Junction Free Press.
The number of people living on our planet has nearly quadrupled in the past century, expanding from (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html) 1.8 billion in 1910 to (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html) 6.9 billion now, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the United Nations.
For many environmentalists, all these people provoke woe and despair. People keep growing crops, building structures, having babies, and—horror of horrors—using energy from sources like coal and oil. Various environmentalists pray for some plague or catastrophe to wipe out much of the human race. They decry the alleged environmental harm of having children. In short, they hate people.
We happen to like people, and we think the more the merrier. Given continued technological advances possible with free markets and political liberty, our planet can comfortably support many times the current human population.
True, where violence and political corruption reign, as in much of Africa, often people cannot produce enough to support themselves. But this is not fundamentally a problem with the number of people; it is a problem of bad politics, cultural decay, and the ubiquitous violation of individual rights.
Environmentalists preach, "Reduce, reuse, and recycle." The people-haters want fewer people to use less energy and fewer natural resources. Those who love life and cherish people reject such environmentalist pablum and instead embrace the motto, "Expand, use, and produce."
Our goal should not be to reduce the amount of energy we use, but to radically expand it. The point is not to waste energy, but to use more of it as efficiently as possible to meet human needs.
Energy enables us to control the temperature, humidity, and other elements of our immediate environment in the structures we build. Energy lets us light our homes and cities and travel around the world, whether for health or vacation. Energy empowers us to produce the vehicles, buildings, computers, and other things we need to live well.
We look forward to the day when technological innovations allow the average American to use many times the amount of energy as today. We also gleefully anticipate people in other parts of the world catching up with U.S. energy use. To achieve such advances, people need economic liberty and political systems that protect individual rights. Only freedom enables people to use their minds to the fullest to produce the wealth we need to thrive.
When it makes economic sense, we should indeed reuse and recycle things. But we should not squander what Julian Simon called the "Ultimate Resource"—the human mind and our time spent using it. The major goal is to produce things. Recycling is valuable only insofar as it improves human life, as indicated by price signals showing that the rewards of recycling merit the time spent doing it.
We hope that, in another century, many more people live on the Earth, and even more live places other than our home planet. People should colonize the moon, space stations, and asteroids. How glorious will be that day when the human population of Mars reaches a billion.
Thankfully, some people are working toward that end. Various private space companies have launched crafts into space for commercial purposes. Here in Colorado, one space scientist has coauthored a novel about homesteading Mars. Thomas James, a cofounder of People's Press Collective (to which Ari contributes), helped pen "In the Shadow of Ares."
James's novel is about the first family to homestead Mars. At age fourteen, Amber Jacobsen, the first person born on Mars, moves with her parents to a settlement that operates mines and builds greenhouse domes. James discussed the novel in a recent video interview; see (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/12/james-discusses-new-mars-novel.html) http://tinyurl.com/MarsNovel for his complete comments.
James hopes the novel will inspire young readers. He said, "We did aim it toward kids, to get some of these ideas in front of kids that they're not seeing from other sources."
James worries that the fantasy so popular today "is not driving kids into math and science careers. It's not getting them to think about things rationally and logically the way you would with science."
Beyond the science, what sorts of ideas does James explore? "Capitalism is good, honesty is good, reason, integrity, they're all good things, and if you follow these good principles," you'll ultimately achieve good ends.
"Along the way we throw in lessons about economics," James adds, noting that one problem of the novel is "how you would set up an economy on a blank-slate planet."
The novel embraces controversy, as any visionary work must. The Mars settlers depend on nuclear energy as well as genetically modified organisms for their basic needs.
James predicts: "We're starting to see the beginnings of what we describe in the book, as the commercial development of space. And once that takes off, it could be sooner than we think."
Space settlement is the next step in the human effort to expand, use, and produce, in order to thrive.
Skousen Discusses Completed Franklin Autobiography
January 11, 2011
Economist Mark Skousen, a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin, completed the founder's autobiography from letters. Recently Skousen came to Denver for the (http://www.mskousen.com/2011/01/a-great-opportunity-for-austrian-economists-at-the-aea-meetings/) American Economic Association conference, and he made time to speak at a (http://www.facebook.com/Small.Business.Chamber) Small Business Chamber of Commerce event. Skousen also discussed his history as an economist and financial advisor, the subject of a future video.
John Wren Promotes Small Business
January 12, 2011
(http://johnwren.com/) John Wren of the Small Business Chamber of Commerce hosts a weekly meeting to promote startups. In this interview he discusses the projects of his group and the prospects for small business growth.
Listeria Outbreak Cries for Changes, Not Hysteria
January 12, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published November 11 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20111111/COLUMNISTS/111109969/1021&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
The cantaloupe-caused outbreak of listeria created a tragedy for those infected by the bacteria and for their families. As of the end of last month, the (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19194073) death toll had risen to 28, the number of reported illnesses had climbed to 133, and one infected woman miscarried.
Though less important, the outbreak also created a tragedy for Colorado agriculture. Jensen Farms, responsible for spreading the bacteria, sits on the opposite side of the state. Yet Grand Junction has long been the home of fruit growers, and no doubt everyone associated with the industry can imagine the horror of getting caught up in something like that.
Colorado cantaloupes are among the best in the world. We have not seen good estimates on how much money the outbreak cost the growers of healthy cantaloupes, nor how much it may weaken the market for Colorado cantaloupes into the future.
While there is good reason to believe that Jensen Farms contributed to the outbreak through irresponsible practices (more on that below), it is also important to keep in mind the context of the illnesses. As of the 28th victim, the median age was 84. Prior to modern detection methods, such deaths often would have been chalked up to old age. In many cases, the listeria must be considered a contributing factor of death.
Bacteria are everywhere; the human body contains around ten times as many bacteria as human cells. We run into contact with potentially dangerous bacteria on a daily basis. Usually, our bodies fight them off.(http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/10/11/141233998/listeria-outbreak-why-more-of-us-didnt-get-sick) NPR ran an informative story last month pointing out that thousands of people probably ingested the listeria from the cantaloupes, and in most cases stomach acids killed these bacteria. Note too that some 128,000 Americans check into the hospital every year because of foodborne illness, and (http://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/) 3,000 die.
However, even though listeria mostly attacks people with already compromised immunities, obviously farmers should strive to take reasonable precautions to avoid the spread of dangerous bacteria. Jensen Farms seems not to have done that.
For example, "the farm had stopped adding a chlorine-based agent to its wash water," reported the Denver Post's (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19160968) Michael Booth (who has done a generally good job covering the story and sorting through the relevant reports). Tap water gets chlorine treatment to kill pathogens, and it's reasonable to think it could have helped prevent listeria growth. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration raised concerns about Jensen's cooling systems, sorters, and more, Booth reported.
The question is what should be done to improve safety. Merely the financial risk of lawsuits may sufficiently motivate cantaloupe growers to double-check their safety procedures. Booth (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19143711) reported that Jensen "and its distributor, Frontera Produce of Texas, already face multiple wrongful-death lawsuits."
What didn't seem to work is a private audit; one of Booth's headlines reads, "Private audit at Jensen Farms before listeria outbreak failed to flag woes." Primus Labs gave Jensen Farms high scores just before the bad mellons shipped. We haven't looked into the incentive structure of such deals or the details of that particular inspection enough to determine what went wrong; we do, however, wonder whether the inspection lab also opened itself up to tort liability.
Colorado Agriculture Commissioner John Salazar, formerly the area's Congressional representative, wants to expand state oversight. (See Booth's (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19194192) coverage of this story as well.) We appreciate Salazar's relatively light touch here (not that he had much choice given state law): he suggests a possible "Colorado Proud" label that would require meeting certain guidelines.
We like the idea of a certification process, and we understand why other cantaloupe farmers support the idea. Responsible farmers want a good way to distinguish their products and separate themselves from their less-reputable competitors. However, we don't see why the state needs to get involved in it. We think an independent agency, comparable to Underwriters Laboratories or Consumer Reports, can handle the job without bureaucratic assistance. No doubt grocers who sell the melons would look to such certification standards with great interest.
If we have one complaint about Booth's reporting, it is that it seems to sometimes veer off into editorial waters by promoting more federal oversight. We don't think the listeria outbreak warrants that, though we recognize the federal government's Constitutional authority to "regulate" interstate trade. Frankly, the lawsuits alone will likely fix the problems, though we'd also like to see the improved certification.
Life is filled with risk. The only way to totally prevent foodborne illness is to stop eating. (We are, however, also intrigued by the potential to irradiate more food to kill pathogens.) If government regulators overreact, they threaten to raise food prices—something that creates its own health problems—and destroy certain businesses or even industries. Eating listeria-infected cantaloupe is dangerous, but so is throwing people out of work.
Remember not only those who recently got sick, but the multitudes who have enjoyed eating healthy Colorado cantaloupes, still among the best in the world.
[Update: (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19329953) Jennifer Brown and Michael Booth wrote a great article for the November 14 Denver Post discussing the wider problem of foodborne illness and offering some common-sense advice about it.]
Vietnam Vet Linn Armstrong Discusses Service
January 13, 2011
Recently I interviewed my father, Linn Armstrong. Here I've pulled out a couple of his stories about Vietnam. In the first video, he discusses volunteering to teach English in downtown Da Nang. In the second, he discusses his flight home—on which he sold two rifles to the pilot.
Skousen Reviews Life in CIA, Finance, and Economics
January 14, 2011
Mark Skousen recently spoke in Denver about his job in the CIA, transition to investment writing, entry into the field of professional economics, brief stint with the Foundation for Economic Education, and creation of Freedom Fest.
I've also published a video in which Skousen discusses his work on The Completed Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin:
NTU's Stephenson Visits Colorado
January 17, 2011
John Stephenson from the National Taxpayers Union recently addressed Liberty In the Books in Denver.
Following are some of his remarks:
"We are the nation's oldest, and one of its largest, grass-roots taxpayer advocacy groups."
"We've been focused a lot on income and sales taxes over the years. We've also gotten involved in some discriminatory taxes—these are taxes on alcohol, "sinful" products."
"I indicated to [Colorado lawmakers] that a government... lets the private sector do what it should, allows jobs to be created, allows revenues to grow, and allows people to prosper."
"We've also been concerned that government is growing too big nationally, and needs to be checked a little bit." [A "little bit?"]
"States that have reduced their influence on the economy, that have... kept themselves limited to a narrow focus, providing the essential services that the private sector cannot or should not provide, have weathered the recession best... They've let the private sector grow, and increase, and lift up the state..."
"A basic fee is not a bad thing... But when it's a fee to pay for something else than that... that's where I have a problem. Fees should be restricted to a specific use."
"The federal government encourages states to spend more money, through Medicaid, through education, in order to get funding. One of the things we're looking on are ways to adjust those formulas so that the state, rather than encouraged to spend, is encouraged to save."
"Pension costs are going up in every state. Perhaps instead of a defined benefits plan, looking at a defined contribution plan... might be a way to save money."
On the "Amazon Tax:" "A lot of affiliates have been talking to their elected officials here in Colorado about how that has cost them their livelihood, so there's the potential that that could be fixed... Going after a private business just because they're out of state, forcing them to do something they're not constitutionally required to do, is just wrong."
Ritter's "New Energy Economy" Based on Old Fallacies
January 18, 2011
The following article originally was published January 11 by the (http://liberty.i2i.org/2011/01/11/ritters-new-energy-economy-based-on-old-fallacies/) Independence Institute. The Institute's (http://www.joncaldara.com/2011/01/11/on-energy-ritter-earns-an-f/) Jon Caldara offered additional commentary. The article also was published by (http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=11331) Denver Daily News and (http://www.coloradodaily.com/your-take/ci_17114331#axzz1BJ61okDj) Colorado Daily.
If you think corporate welfare "creates jobs," you might be an outgoing Colorado governor.
As governor, Bill Ritter signed "an unprecedented 57 clean-energy bills into law," a January 5 release from (http://www.news.colostate.edu/Release/5539) Colorado State University reviews. Now Ritter will join the university's Center for the New Energy Economy, drawing a privately funded (http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_17021538) $300,000 annual salary.
Whether wind and solar energy actually can significantly reduce carbon emissions remains debatable. The online news source (http://facethestate.com/articles/19847-diesel-generators-take-wind-out-fortzed) Face the State recently reported that an $11 million "new energy" project in Fort Collins actually relies partly on dirty diesel. The irregularity and wide dispersion of wind and solar energy make them difficult to harness.
But advocates of the "new energy economy" do not merely claim that alternative energy reduces carbon emissions. They claim it benefits the economy as well. Such claims about the alleged economic benefits of "new energy" rest on basic economic fallacies.
In a free market, consumers turn to new energy sources when they offer lower costs and better quality than the competition. For example, in the late 1800s consumers turned from whale oil to the "new energy" of petroleum. Advances in nuclear power or some other energy source may in turn largely replace coal and oil without political interference.
Political interference in the market is precisely what Ritter advocates, and that is why his policies harm the economy rather than help it. Ritter's "new energy economy" relies on a combination of political controls and corporate welfare that raise your energy bills and your taxes.
Last year Ritter signed a bill "requiring that 30 percent of electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2020," a release from the governor's office notes. The fallacy is that the bill "will create thousands of new jobs."
Ritter's claims about jobs rest on what 19th Century French economist Frederic Bastiat called the "childish illusion" that such measures do anything other than reallocate wealth and wages. Bastiat urges us to consider the unseen as well as the politically obvious. Ritter's controls will destroy jobs in the oil and coal industries, and they will destroy jobs that consumers would otherwise finance, if they weren't paying higher energy costs.
Another document from the (http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1251651565391&ssbinary=true) governor's office claims, "Ritter's vision and strategies are helping to create and save jobs, support small businesses, increase manufacturing and spur innovation." The document lists various businesses subsidized by the state, including Vestas Blades, IBM, and Abound Solar. Ritter conveniently neglects to mention the costs.
Corporate welfare does not just fall from the sky. It comes from taxpayers. That money is no longer available to those who earned it to create jobs and support businesses in other sectors. While Ritter creates jobs with one hand, he destroys them with the other. The difference is that the jobs Ritter creates serve political interests rather than the interests of consumers.
Consider, as Bastiat might do, the logical absurdities of Ritter's position. If mandating "new" energy creates jobs, then why stop at 30 percent? Why not 100 percent? Why not expand subsidies 1,000 fold? Why not outlaw all coal, oil, and natural gas in Colorado, and force every property owner to install solar panels and windmills? Think of all the new jobs that would require!
Of course, Ritter could argue that, insofar as he has attracted federal funding for "new energy," he has helped forcibly transfer wealth and jobs from citizens in other states to citizens in Colorado.
But that would seem to be a losing game. Last year the (http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2010/08/30/daily16.html) Denver Business Journal noted that "Colorado ranked 33rd among the 50 states in the amount of per-capita federal spending." If Ritter can "create jobs" in Colorado by bilking the citizens of other states, then politicians elsewhere can do the same to us. The net result is not more jobs, but more political favoritism and more economic waste.
Ritter's "new energy economy" is built on old economic fallacies about the alleged benefits of central planning and corporate welfare. For productive employment, we should instead turn to a subsidy-free New Liberty Economy that favors free markets and rewards companies that seek to please customers instead of politicians.
Ari Armstrong, a guest writer for the Independence Institute, publishes FreeColorado.com and moderates (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/libertybooks.html) Liberty In the Books.
The Mugging of Comcast
January 20, 2011
The (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2011/01/comcast_and_nbc_venture_approv.html) Washington Post reports, "Federal regulators on Tuesday blessed Comcast's $30 billion acquisition of NBC Universal, imposing a slew of conditions on everything from competition with rivals to the price of Internet service for poor families out of concern that the firm's vast sweep could harm consumers."
In other words, Comcast must pay protection money to the welfare statists and its own competition for the privilege of conducting business.
The antitrust laws allowing federal bureaucrats to obstruct and control mergers are unjust and should be abolished. Instead we should demand the restoration of free markets, in which businesses are free to offer services to willing consumers at mutually agreeable prices. Business owners should be able to run their enterprises as they see fit, consistent with the property rights of others, which entails the right to expand and merge as they deem best. In a free market, businesses that meet the needs of their customers succeed; the rest properly fail. If a consumer does not like the services or practices of a business, he holds the ultimate trump card: he may withdraw his business and spend his money elsewhere.
The government's only legitimate role in a free market is to uphold property rights and contracts and root out force and fraud. And yet, rather than serve to stop criminals, in this case the federal government itself is acting as the criminal entity, forcibly limiting property rights and voluntary associations. In the name of justice, such practices must be stopped.
For additional reading about the injustices of antitrust laws, please see the Liberty In the Books pages about (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/epstein.html) Alex Epstein, (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/daniels.html) Eric Daniels, and (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/armentano.html) Dominick Armentano.
A Miraculous Shooting?
January 21, 2011
We can indeed be thankful that Gabrielle Giffords survived the attempt to take her life. It was a horrifying event, a slaughter of innocents, and an assault on our Republic. No doubt Giffords faces a tough recovery.
But was her survival a miracle, as I have heard numerous people claim? Today (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20110121/poll-8-in-10-say-prayer-saved-giffords/) The Christian Post reported, "About 77 percent of American voters said they believed that prayer literally helped Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords survive the Tucson shooting, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday."
Was it miraculous that the murderer (http://abcnews.go.com/US/rep-gabrielle-giffords-leaves-tucson-hospital-fly-houston/story?id=12730946&page=2) killed six and wounded fourteen more?
If God were interested in miraculous intervention (and if he existed), why would he wait until after the bullets struck their victims to take action? Following are some examples of what might have been truly useful and impressive miracles. God could have placed the murderer in a force field to prevent him from shooting people. God could have called down from the heavens, "Be warned! Take cover! A mass murderer is approaching your location!" God could have given all the victims temporary superpowers, such that the bullets bounced off of them (like Superman). Or, God could simply have totally healed Giffords on the spot.
If miraculous intervention kept Giffords alive, why didn't God step in to save the six people slaughtered? Did God not care about them? Were they not worthy of miraculous intervention? Were the prayers of their loved ones not honored by God?
True, people shot in the head often die, so, given the fact that Giffords was shot, she was relatively lucky to survive and start down the path to recovery. But she was immensely unlucky to be shot in the first place, so to call her subsequent survival a "miracle" is to abuse the language. One might as well claim it was a "miracle" that she was shot and six others died.
We take some comfort in the fact that Giffords survived the shooting, and we hope for her recovery. But, in recognition of the immense trauma she in fact suffered, and out of respect for those who died, let's not chalk up the events of that day to miracles and prayer.
'Citizens' Budget' Points Toward a Wiser, More Frugal Government
January 24, 2011
The following article originally was published January 21 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110121/COLUMNISTS/110129975) Grand Junction Free Press.
Will we live our own lives or take directives from politicians?
Or, as Jon Caldara puts the question, "Will we as a People expect only those public goods that allow for a vibrant, growing private sector, or will we demand an ever-larger, more intrusive government on which we depend for our every need and decision?"
Caldara's organization, the Independence Institute of Golden, recently published a (http://tax.i2i.org/files/2010/11/Citizens-Budget-Full.pdf) "Citizens' Budget," a detailed guide for getting state spending back under control. (Ari has written guest articles as well as a contracted paper for the Institute.)
Raiding cash funds, violating the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights by raising "fees," and whining for federal "stimulus" funds will no longer work, the authors of the paper point out. Instead, the legislature should "establish a sustainable trend line for balanced budgets into the future" through "realistic spending revisions with no increases in taxes or fees."
While many citizens have lost their jobs or taken pay cuts, Colorado politicians have continued to spend more of other people's money. The 2010-11 budget is $19.8 billion, the paper relates, up "6 percent from the previous year." On average this "places a demand of $3,830 on every man, woman and child living in Colorado."
The legislature's shenanigans can no longer delay the day of reckoning, and now our elected officials must close a billion-dollar gap. How can they do that without further seizing the wealth of productive, job-creating citizens? The Citizens' Budget offers a variety of ideas:
* For current state employees, raise the age to receive pension benefits. Change the pension plan for new state employees so that their benefits are based on the yields of their contributions.
* Phase out the state's Old Age Pension Plan, for which "a recipient may qualify even if he or she has never paid any taxes in Colorado," and allow other existing welfare programs to fill those needs.
* Move to a voucher or stipend program for higher education, "ending direct subsidies to state colleges and universities." And give colleges the freedom and incentives to economize.
* In K-12 education, use tax credits to allow parents to choose alternative schools and save the state money. The added benefit is that more students would get a better education.
* "Reduce incarcerations, but only for non-violent offenders." Violent criminals should be in prison. In our view, others usually should work off their crimes or, in cases of "victimless crimes," not be arrested in the first place.
* Tighten eligibility requirements for Medicaid, increase enrollment fees for subsidized health plans, and introduce health savings plans to give patients an incentive to economize.
Moreover, the Citizens' Budget recommends the broad implementation of "priority-based budgeting," in which spending is evaluated against clearly defined goals rather than automatically increased each year.
We think the Citizens' Budget is a good start. However, ultimately we would go much further in limiting political power.
Let's return to fundamentals. Insofar as government protects individual rights to control one's own property and associate with others voluntarily, government lays the foundation for free market prosperity.
When government surpasses those bounds, it forcibly transfers wealth, interferes with economic liberty, and dampens productive achievement. That is why Thomas Jefferson famously championed "a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."
What has become clear over the past decade of Colorado politics is that, no matter how high taxes or government spending climbs, it will never be enough for the bread takers.
The animating principle of the modern welfare state is egalitarianism, the forced equality of resources. So long as anybody earns more than anyone else, wealth should be seized from the "haves" and given to the "have nots." The fact that the end result of the doctrine is equal misery for all causes its proponents not the least hesitation.
The fundamental thing that honest, ambitious people need to succeed is economic liberty, not "help" from politicians. Indeed, politicians routinely muck up the economy with protectionist measures that hurt competition, subsidies for special interests, labor controls that cost jobs, and financial policies that create recessions.
Then, after damaging economic opportunities and thus placing people in need, politicians take further action to make people dependent on forced wealth transfers.
In a truly free society in which opportunities abound, fewer people become poor, and the prosperous many readily and voluntarily supply their needs.
Government programs that protect individual rights, most importantly the police and courts, consume a small fraction of the state budget. Projects that genuinely may be said to benefit everybody, such as roads, add somewhat more.
Most state spending involves forcibly taking money from those who earn it in order to benefit those who don't. A just budget would respect each person's rights to his own earnings.
Denver Post Politicizes Murders to Push Gun Restrictions
January 24, 2011
Today's condescending, factually inaccurate, and intellectually dishonest lead editorial from the (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_17161989) Denver Post politicizes the horrible murders in Arizona by advocating more useless, rights-violating gun restrictions.
The Post wants to limit the capacity of gun magazines, yet the paper declines to tell us what number it deems appropriate. "The standard Glock magazine holds 15 rounds," the paper notes. But the editorial also favorably mentions the so-called assault weapons ban of 1994, now expired, which restricted the importation and manufacture of magazines for civilian use to ten rounds. So which option does the Post prefer? Fifteen? Twelve? Ten? Four?
Of course, for the anti-gun lobby, ten rounds is ten too many. I've heard anti-gun activists argue that all guns that hold magazines should be banned, and at most single-shot guns should remain legal.
The Post incorrectly states, "It wasn't so long ago that [the murderer] couldn't have bought a gun magazine of that size," under the expired ban. But sales of higher capacity magazines remained perfectly legal under the ban; what was banned was importation and manufacture for civilian sales.
The Post speciously claims, "The NRA is apparently worried Americans won't be able to defend themselves against the possibility of a 33-person, home-invasion team." The number refers to the capacity of the magazine used by the Arizona murderer. But the NRA defends normal capacity magazines, not just the higher capacity ones. The Post's comment could only have been written by someone who has never devoted a serious thought to the problem of self-defense—or who is intentionally lying about it. Home invasions by multiple assailants are actually fairly common, so far as home invasions go (which thankfully are relatively rare due to high gun ownership rates in the U.S.). Home invasions often take place at night. The perpetrators often wear heavy clothing and sneak about. Because gun wounds usually aren't fatal, a criminal might remain quite dangerous even if shot. For all of these reasons, having fifteen or more rounds might be essential for effective self-defense.
Self-defense—a fundamental human right protected by our Constitution—deserves more than derision by Colorado's largest newspaper.
(True, for most tactical purposes, carrying a gun with a magazine that extends far beyond the grip makes no sense. But artificially limiting magazine capacity beyond the natural limitations of the grip size is insanity from a self-defense perspective.)
I found this line from the Post interesting: "A reader sent us an article which cited the Glock website where, we're told, the Glock 'pistol magazines can be loaded with a convincing number of rounds.'" That line has certainly made the rounds. The quote is (http://www.glock.com/english/index_magazines.htm) accurate; however, the Post neglects to mention the qualifier, "up to." I've verified that a 33 round magazine is (http://www.topglock.com/category/1676-Glock_High_Cap_Magazines.aspx) available for the Glock 19.
Notably, the murderer (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107371.html) bought four magazines. Ludicrously, a (http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/01/09/giffords_shooting_assault_weapons_ban) Brady Center spokesperson pretends that he had only one magazine and could not have used more than one magazine in the assault. Perhaps the Denver Post could enlighten us as to whether it believes carrying forty rounds total (ten rounds in each of four magazines) is just fine, whereas carrying 33 rounds in a single magazine must be outlawed. By the logic of the anti-gun crusade, guns with magazines per se should be totally outlawed, if not all guns.
The Denver Post is targeting guns because they make a convenient scapegoat. Nevermind the fact that the murderer suffered severe mental illness. Nevermind the fact that he had numerous (http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/01/16/sheriffs-official-says-reports-on-loughner-were-not-enough-to-p/) run-ins with the authorities over a span of years. No, forget all that: the thing to do is restrict the ability of law-abiding, decent people to buy gun magazines.
The absurdity of the Post's "case" is illustrated by juxtaposing two headlines: (http://articles.cnn.com/2008-11-11/justice/obama.gun.sales_1_gun-shop-brady-campaign-gun-owner?_s=PM:CRIME) "Gun Sales Surge After Obama's Election," and (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704113504575264432463469618.html) "Violent Crime Falls Sharply." While this does not demonstrate that the additional guns helped drive lower crime rates, it does offer a reminder of how weak the case is for imposing additional gun restrictions.
There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Breakfast
January 25, 2011
In the context of massive federal welfare programs, "free" breakfasts for school kids in Colorado may seem like a minor issue. But the Colorado debate over breakfast welfare reveals the fundamental principles at stake regarding forced wealth transfers in general.
These are the basic facts, as reported by the (http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_17188527) Denver Post. The Colorado government faces a budget shortfall of around a billion dollars. Unlike federal politicians, state legislators cannot spend money they do not have. In this context, three Republicans on the Joint Budget Committee voted against spending $124,229 to provide around 56,000 children with "free" breakfast, "though more than 270,000 children are eligible for free breakfast and lunch outright." Without the additional subsidy, the children must pay 30 cents for breakfast.
(According to my calculator, spending an additional $2.22 per child would finance about seven extra days of "free" lunch, so the numbers make no sense to me. Nor does the "untapped balance" mentioned by the newspaper square the figures. However, my purpose here is not to get to the bottom of the figures but to address the moral issues involved, so I'll take the figures as reported.)
Now two of the Republicans on the committee are thinking about changing their vote and allowing the additional subsidy to go through. Republican Cheri Gerou told the Post, "We are not looking to starve the children of Colorado. We care about the children."
Democrat Cherylin Peniston told the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/) Denver Daily, "Being able to provide breakfast each day for our neediest kids is an important function of government."
So, according to these popular media accounts, providing "free" breakfasts is an essential function of government, and anyone who opposes the program hates children.
On the contrary, those who truly love children want to protect their right to live their own lives and control their own income when they become adults. Those who value the education of children want to convey to them the importance of individual rights to individual autonomy and happiness and a healthy republic.
The educational function of the "free" lunches is to indoctrinate children into the primacy of the welfare state.
A government that can force today's adults to subsidize "free" breakfasts for other people's children can force tomorrow's adults to devote their entire livelihoods to the state on the alter of egalitarianism. Nothing is more important for the future of today's children than preserving liberty.
Nobody is stopping anyone in Colorado from voluntarily donating a portion of their income to pay for the breakfasts of anyone they please. But don't try to force other people to hand over their earnings and pretend that's morally virtuous. It's not. It's the moral equivalent of theft.
The only legitimate function of government is to protect individual rights. Forcibly seizing people's income to subsidize other people's breakfasts violates individual rights.
In economic terms, there's no such thing as a free breakfast. A breakfast that is "free" for some parents seizes wealth from other parents and single adults.
That adequately summarizes the basic moral issues involved; however, I also have some questions about the particulars of the program.
1. Of the 270,000 children who supposedly desperately need the "free" breakfasts, how many of their parents spend their own money on any of the following: cigarettes, booze, fast food, expanded cable, outings to bars, regular trips to the mall and cinema, video games, an extra family vehicle, or extra cell phones for the kids?
2. How many of those parents, whose children legislators so desperately want to "help," are forced by federal, states and local politicians to pay sales taxes on food and other essentials, payroll taxes to subsidize people with much greater resources, and property taxes for the education of other people's children?
3. How many of those parents have been unable to find work because of the union-empowering wage controls of the left?
4. Why do reporters for the Denver Post and Denver Daily News believe they are doing their jobs when they completely ignore all of the additional issues mentioned above?
Update: I've thought of a couple of other questions.
5. State Senator Shawn Mitchell points out on Facebook, "A federal FREE meal program feeds school kids in poverty. For families who earn more, there's a 30 cent copay." So how much are those families actually making?
6. How many of those families also receive food stamps?
Comments
Income Eligibility
Ben DeGrow January 26, 2011 at 10:23 AM
To answer question #5: income eligibility for federal "Reduced Lunch" (or breakfast)—those students who would be obligated now to contribute the 30-cent copay currently picked up by the state—is for a family of 4, between $28,665 and $40,793 (130-185% of federal poverty line). The figures change depending on the size of the family. See page 3 of http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Governance/notices/iegs/IEGs09-10.pdf.
Ben Degrow
Spare Us the 'Sputnik Moment'
January 27, 2011
Am I the only one creeped out by Obama's loving references to Mother Russia? He can't get enough of his "czars," and now we are supposed to be inspired to greatness in a "Sputnik moment."
Yes, even the socialist Soviet Union could produce a functional space vehicle, the Sputnik. Meanwhile, the Soviet government oppressed, starved, and looted its subjects for the benefit of elite rulers. Like the Egyptian pyramids, the Sputnik was impressive, but I wouldn't want to live under the government that produced it. Notably, to the degree that the Soviets succeeded at anything, they did so mostly by accepting help from the West, stealing intellectual property from the free world, and permitting its people to violate Communist principles by trading on the underground market.
Of course Obama did not mean to imply that we should strive to model our own efforts after those of the Soviets. Instead, he alluded to the American response of the moon missions. He may not have noticed that the last moon walk was in 1972, and the federal government has made little progress toward space exploration since then. Thankfully, private space companies are now kicking off a real space race.
Here's what Obama (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/State_of_the_Union/state-of-the-union-2011-full-transcript/story?id=12759395&page=1) said:
This is our generation's Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven't seen since the height of the Space Race. In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We'll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology—an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.
In other words, Obama wants central planners to redirect forcibly seized wealth to corporate welfare for medicine, technology, and energy. Because if there's one thing you can say about the Soviets, it's that they proved the efficiency of central planning. But forcibly transferring wealth from those who earn it to those adept at kissing bureaucratic ass does not "create jobs" or benefit the economy; it takes resources out of the free economy to benefit the politically connected. Obama would know this if he bothered to check in with (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/bastiat.html) Bastiat or (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/hazlitt.html) Hazlitt.
It is indeed telling that Obama wishes us to draw inspiration from the "achievements" of the Soviet Union. But neither our economy nor our liberties can handle much more of Obama's Soviet-inspired controls.
***
Comment
Anonymous January 27, 2011 at 10:52 AM
One of my economics professors penned the following couplet. He called it "Cheops Law."
Screams of Slaves cannot Diminish,
The Grandeur of the Works we Finish.
c. andrew
Court Suspends 'Amazon Tax' For Now
January 27, 2011
I haven't seen this break on the big media sites yet, so I'll reproduce a media release I just received as-is. I have not had time to check out the claims or the decision. For background, see my (http://ariarmstrong.com/2010/03/stop-the-amazon-tax/) post from last year.
Majority Leader Stephens Praises Amazon Tax Court Ruling
Plans to Introduce Legislation to Repeal Online Retailer Tax
State House Majority Leader Amy Stephens, R-Monument, today is praising a court ruling by the U.S. District Court of Colorado that has granted a preliminary injunction against enforcing, House Bill 10-1193, the controversial tax on online retailers, such as Amazon.com, and on Colorado consumers.
In a decision issued late yesterday afternoon, the court ruled that the law shall not be enforced due to violations of the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution while litigation continues.
"House Republicans have questioned the constitutionality, and the rationale, of this online tax since it was introduced," Stephens said. "We knew from the beginning that this tax placed an undue burden on businesses and consumers across Colorado, and the nation."
The law is being challenged by the Direct Marketing Association as unconstitutional. In addition to Commerce Clause concerns, the DMA has repeatedly cited privacy issues arising from the requirement that companies turn over confidential purchasing history information to the Colorado Department of Revenue.
"The decision by the court should be applauded," Stephens said. "Unfortunately, this tax proposal was rushed through the legislature, causing concern for consumers and leading to the immediate loss of Colorado jobs."
The law mandated online retailers to start collecting use tax, or to provide information about online purchases made in Colorado in order for the state to collect taxes on the transactions. Passage of the law led to an Amazon.com decision to end their association with 4200 Colorado marketing associates.
Majority Leader Stephens still plans on introducing legislation to repeal the entire online retailer tax.
"A full repeal of the Amazon tax is still necessary," Stephens said. "This court ruling is just one step in the long process of repealing this unconstitutional tax. I am hopeful that with this most recent decision, along with a full repeal by the legislature, we will see these jobs return to Colorado."
The court decision is available to read online (http://www.brannlaw.com/images/MediaAndPublications/126/03913222414.pdf) here.
Why Ayn Rand Trumps Sam Harris on Ethics
February 1, 2011
I submitted a video to the (http://www.project-reason.org/contests/submission/16043/) Project Reason video contest.
Following is the transcript:
What is morality?
Where does it come from?
What is its justification?
In his recent work on ethical theory, "new atheist" Sam Harris argues that morality consists of achieving well-being. Harris argues that our well-being is a matter of fact, and therefore morality can be developed as a science.
Harris adeptly argues that the secular left has fallen into moral skepticism and relativism, holding that nobody can rationally evaluate morality, and one culture's practices must be as good as any other's.
Harris retorts that it is obviously better to be secure, healthy, and happy than it is to be brutally raped and murdered in tribal warfare. Thus, actions consonant with achieving the first state are morally superior to actions leading to the second.
Unfortunately, Harris's own moral theory suffers a fatal flaw. Harris depends on alleged intuitions pointing us to the greatest well-being of conscious beings, a sort of utilitarianism.
Harris's view leads to irresolvable difficulties.
Why should cultures that value domination and the warrior ideal listen to what Harris has to say?
Does morality demand that we achieve the well-being of non-human animals, and to what degree?
[I realize that Harris does answer the above two questions, though I do not think he can adequately do so.]
Does the well-being of some require the sacrifice of others?
Harris in effect reduces his own position to absurdity. In a note, Harris grants that, under his theory, in some circumstances, "it would be ethical for our species to be sacrificed for the unimaginably vast happiness of some superbeings." [See page 211 of The Moral Landscape.]
But an ethical theory that grants the potential moral propriety of the complete obliteration of the human race is on the wrong track.
While some might see Harris's case against moral relativism as cutting-edge, in fact novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand beat Harris to the punch half a century ago.
Moreover, Rand outlined a moral theory based on the individual's rational self-interests. For people that entails living virtuously and respecting others' rights.
Whereas Harris leaves "well-being" nebulous and ill-defined, Rand clarifies that one's well-being ultimately must be judged by the standard of life and death. The good is what advances one's life, the bad is what harms it, as a matter of objective fact.
Under no circumstance would Rand sanction as moral the sacrifice of one's self, or the sacrifice of one's species, for the benefit of others.
Instead, Rand recognized that only when each individual lives for his or her own life-serving values, can people live together by reason and for mutual advantage.
***
oshualipana commented February 4, 2011 at 5:20 PM
Nice too see another well reasoned attack on that charlatan.
Lumnicence commented April 7, 2011 at 3:33 PM
"In a note, Harris grants that, under his theory, in some circumstances, "it would be ethical for our species to be sacrificed for the unimaginably vast happiness of some superbeings." [See page 211 of The Moral Landscape.]"
That is a hideous misreading of the text. The comparison being made is fish to humans as it relates to Robert Nozick's position on whether eating meat is moral or not (in Harris's view it is, since eating meat garners a net well being for a person). He extends this analogy to beings that are to humans what humans are to bacteria. Would it be morally justifiable for them to use us to serve their utility? Is a fish morally justified in its struggle against a fisherman?
"Whereas Harris leaves "well-being" nebulous and ill-defined, Rand clarifies that one's well-being ultimately must be judged by the standard of life and death. The good is what advances one's life, the bad is what harms it, as a matter of objective fact."
What do you mean by advances? Advances to what end? Or shall I give you more credit in understanding than you are willing to extend to Harris?
AriA commented pril 7, 2011 at 4:17 PM
Dear Lumnicence, I am NOT misreading Harris's text, "hideously" or otherwise. I simply quoted it verbatim from his book. If you don't like that text, I suggest you take it up with Harris, not me. In Rand's theory, one's life IS the moral end, and it can be advanced only through legitimate moral virtues. -Ari
Lumnicence commented April 7, 2011 at 7:41 PM
Dear Ari,
I know that you did quote directly (and correctly for that matter), but the meaning was either missed or disdended. By saying:
"But an ethical theory that grants the potential moral propriety of the complete obliteration of the human race is on the wrong track."
...I'm just saying that wasn't what was meant by the text. In context, what he meant was merely that if there were superbeings (like aliens, or whatever), we would be out of touch with their moral reality as ants are out of touch with our morality.
And I thought the objective goal of objectivism was the happiness of the individual concerned? Just as happiness avoids being pinned down in defintion, changing from person to person or even within the same person over time, well-being is also difficult to define, but no less comprehensible.
Ari commented April 7, 2011 at 7:44 PM
My problem with "well-being" is not that it is "difficult to define," but that, in Harris's usage, it depends on false notions of utilitarianism. The relationship between a person's life and a person's happiness is complex and not something I'm prepared to discuss in a blog comment. But I do think those things are intimately connected.
Ari commented April 7, 2011 at 8:02 PM
Let me clarify. My primary problem with Harris's use of "well-being" is not that it is complex or difficult to define. Rather, my point is that Harris's conception of "well-being" is "nebulous and ill-defined," and cannot ultimately form the basis of a coherent moral philosophy, because it rests on utilitarian premises which are at root arbitrary and incoherent.
Anonymous commented April 27, 2011 at 9:42 PM
Great video, great logic! Would that Sam Harris read Rand before he started opening his mouth to larger and larger audiences!
Barry commented August 30, 2011 at 9:48 PM
Dear Ari,
I think Mr. Harris answered quite well the objections that he foresaw with respect to the "nebulous" nature of "well-being" when he compared it very effectively with health. Health is an equally nebulous concept, yet, would you also argue that since the field of medicine rests on the premise of health that it cannot be a coherent or moral undertaking?
Ari commented August 30, 2011 at 10:07 PM
I actually like Harris's comparisons to health. Only I'm not merely arguing that his notion of "well-being" is nebulous; I'm arguing that it is irredeemably undefinable and indefensible, because there is no basis for his utilitarianism. (I recognize there's much more to say to make a complete case about this.)
GeoPorcupine commented April 1, 2012 at 10:47 AM
Both are wrong, but I'll focus on Rand since Harris was already discussed. Utilitiarianism has a lot of problems (though so does deontology), and well-being is either overly vague or tautologically good (leading to it's moral to be good—whoopdie doo). Back to Rand...
Life and death, basically natural selection, determine what is possible, not what is good or bad. To claim otherwise is to fall into the naturalistic fallacy. All moralities will necessarily eliminate impossibilities, but may contain possibilities, even in some cases necessities, which Rand would likely object to, such as slavery and forced sterilization.
Secondly, there's no non-value reason to grant rights to others. Individuals thrive quite well in societies where rights aren't completely respected, so life and death have nothing to say here. While I need to respect my own values, why do I need to respect others? Perhaps people would do better in societies where everyone was completely individualistic, perhaps not. That's a question subject to empirical study. Rand has not convinced me here, and neither has Harris.
My favorite ethical philosopher currently is Alonzo Fyfe, though he misses some important things too.
How About School Choice for Everyone?
February 4, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110204/COLUMNISTS/110209974/1021&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
While President Obama delivered the (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/State_of_the_Union/state-of-the-union-2011-full-transcript/story?id=12759395) State of the Union address in the District of Columbia, pundit and author (http://www.vimeo.com/19196470) Michelle Malkin discussed school choice at (http://www.cmca12.com/modules/cms/pages.phtml?sessionid=f321898a9e343d8d0c5dceab49db8f7a&pageid=91254) Vanguard charter school in Colorado Springs. They had rather different ideas about the state of American education and how to improve it.
Obama pointed out that, even though many American schools lag in graduation rates and math and science outcomes, some politically operated schools perform relatively well. Obama mentioned Bruce Randolph school in Denver, where community involvement and administrative reforms dramatically improved performance in recent years.
Obama believes federal programs play a central role in the functioning of American schools. The president looks for marginal reforms within the context of the traditional public school system.
Malkin, whose mother taught in New Jersey public schools, moved to Colorado largely because of the strong charter system here. She told the crowd at Vanguard, "I am your neighbor, and I'm so proud to be a resident of Colorado Springs. But more importantly, [I am] an incredibly fortunate beneficiary of people's commitment to excellence in education here in this city."
Malkin painted a disturbing portrait of American education, saying, "One in ten high schools in America is a 'drop out factory.'" Mind-crushing fads sweep through many of the rest. Despite some noteworthy exceptions, generally American schools suffer stagnant test scores even as their funding soars. Malkin said the typical leftist approach of throwing more money at education has bought us "cash for education clunkers."
In response to Obama's line about our "Sputnik moment," a reference to the 1957 Soviet space launch, Malkin said the real similarity between us and the Soviets is that "we still have a Soviet-style, government-run schools monopoly." So what do we do about it?
Many Colorado parents have turned to charter schools, still funded by taxpayers and governed by politicians but granted relatively more autonomy. Parents here can choose among all public schools relatively easily.
But the fundamental barrier to meaningful choice in education is that parents are forced to finance public schools. If they choose a private school, they must pay double: once for the public school they do not use, and once for the private school.
That is the reason why many conservatives, notably the late economist Milton Friedman, advocate vouchers. Recently the (http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_16803779) Douglas County school board caused a commotion by promising (or, as the left would put it, threatening) to study voucher programs.
A voucher allows a parent to direct a portion of the school tax funds to any school that qualifies under the program. The basic problem with vouchers is that they spend tax money on otherwise private schools, which might teach controversial ideas like religion.
An alternative to vouchers is a tax credit for education. This allows parents to enroll their child in any qualifying school and reduce their state tax burden by an amount determined by law. A more expansive tax credit allows any taxpayer to save on taxes by funding a scholarship for any child. This year Republican legislators Spencer Swalm and Kevin Lundberg introduced Bill 1048 to create such tax credits.
We propose giving taxpayers even more choice. Each taxpayer pays a certain amount for education through various taxes. Whatever that amount is, the taxpayer should be able to decide where that money goes. A taxpayer could decide to direct all the money to a single private school, a single public school, or any combination of schools.
Our plan would give people the incentive to evaluate schools and direct their money to wherever they think it will be spent most effectively.
For example, we are outraged that tax dollars support the (http://www.denvergreenschool.org/) Denver Green School, which indoctrinates children into the cult of environmentalism. As the (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17091347) Denver Post recently reported, teachers at this school led children in creating a power-point presentation condemning energy use. (Nevermind the fact that the presentation consumed electricity; this cult hardly values consistency.)
Under our proposal, those who wish to finance the leftist indoctrination of children could do so, while the rest of us could direct our resources to schools that teach children things like math and history.
Note that our proposal does not really give the taxpayer full choice over his or her resources. Even our plan falls short of the standard of individual rights and free markets, for it requires people to direct a portion of their resources to schools. Real liberty means people can spend their earnings however they wish, whether for schools, medical research, a new business, or a trip to the Bahamas.
The left recoils at the very mention of real liberty. Even legislation allowing taxpayers to direct all their school-related taxes to the schools of their choice would give the teachers' unions heart palpitations.
Nevertheless, we'll go ahead and say it: each individual has the right to control his own earnings, and he should be able to fund any school he wishes, or no school at all. Call it a Liberty Moment.
***
Anonymous commented February 4, 2011 at 12:12 PM
Vouchers are *anti*-liberty. It sounds good to say that people should be able to use their money as they see fit, but what does its use entail? More government control of private schools.
We already have school vouchers in a major sector of American education: higher education. Federal student financial aid, in the form of loans and grants, is now ubiquitous.
Once a school accepts federal aid, it is obligated to comply with a variety of federal regulations, everything from anti-discrimination requirements to Title IX athletic regulations, and everywhere in between.
At least in higher education, there is a tradition of "academic freedom," which gives professors nominal control over the curriculum. But in publicly funded K-12 education, states have long exercised curriculum oversight. Do you really want to see that oversight extended to private K-12 schools?
The only hope for education in America is a competitive private K-12 alternative that is completely unfettered by the latest educational methodology fads, such as are usually mandated in public schools. We see this today in the success of schools like the Van Damme Academy and the LePort schools. This innovation would not last long if private schools began to rely on federal funding, and took the strings that would inevitably be attached.
Perhaps you mean only to be arguing for something like tax credits for education, which might not entail the same amount of likely government control over curriculum. But vouchers, at least as they are typically touted by conservatives, offer no barrier to the kind of abuse I cite above.
Indeed it is not characteristic of conservatives to tout anything other than vouchers, because mostwant to control schools in line with conservative--i.e., usually religious--ideology. Michelle Malkin is no exception.
NS
Anonymous commented March 17, 2011 at 12:40 PM
"The basic problem with vouchers is that they spend tax money on otherwise private schools, which might teach controversial ideas like religion."
Controversial ideas such as evolution.
We will never agree so why not less us choose what is best for our children?
If you refuse to fund parochial education then please sponsor a bill that would allow me to opt out of your secular, satanic school system.
I pay for your hell school via property taxes, vehicle taxes and a myriad of other streams.
Please allow me to completely opt out.
Ari commented March 17, 2011 at 12:45 PM
Dear March 17 Anonymous, You might help your case by first not sounding crazy. My "secular, satanic" schools? Come on, dude. (I would not ordinarily have posted such a ludicrous comment, except I thought it worth illustrating how insane the religious right often sounds.) And, if you'd bother to actually read the article before posting a comment, you might notice that I do in fact want to allow you to stop funding secular schools. -Ari
Harvey Promotes Social Crusades, Not Tea Party Values
February 9, 2011
Dick Wadhams has dropped out of the race for Republican Chair, leaving State Senator Ted Harvey to fight it out with attorney Ryan Call (and perhaps others). Some have misleadingly attributed the shift to the Tea Parties.
Nobody can claim authority to speak for the Tea Parties as a whole, particularly with respect to Wadham's performance. The Tea Parties are a large, diverse, and disorganized group, and many Tea Partiers aren't even Republicans, much less party activists with a stake in the race for chair. (While I have attended numerous Tea Party events, for instance, I am registered unaffiliated.)
Moreover, Harvey hardly epitomizes Tea Party values of limited government and fiscal restraint, having instead earned his reputation as a big-government social crusader. While I do not deny that many self-proclaimed Tea Partiers (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/teaparty/individual-rights.asp) embrace big-government social conservatism, the ideals of economic liberty and constitutionally limited government are closer to the heart of the Tea Party movement.
For those reasons, the movement to promote Harvey over Wadhams can hardly be said to be about the Tea Parties. I'm sure that many self-proclaimed Tea Partiers support Harvey and at the same time dislike Wadhams, but I'm equally sure that many Tea Partiers dislike both men equally or even favor the latter.
Contrary to deceptive claims by (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/07/dick-wadhams-slams-tea-pa_n_819999.html) leftist "journalists," Wadhams did not "slam" the Tea Party in his statement about dropping out.
Instead, Wadhams (http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/2011/02/wadhams-drops-out/%22) said,
I have tired of those who are obsessed with seeing conspiracies around every corner and who have terribly misguided notions of what the role of the state party is while saying "uniting conservatives" is all that is needed to win competitive races across the state.
I have no delusions this will recede after the state central committee meeting in March. Meanwhile, the ability of Colorado Republicans to win and retain the votes of hundreds of thousands of unaffiliated swing voters in 2012 will be severely undermined.
Wadhams told (http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2011/02/07/dick-wadhams-drops-out-of-state-gop-chairmans-race/22599/) Lynn Bartels: "I have loved being chairman, but I'm tired of the nuts who have no grasp of what the state party's role is."
Note that Wadhams apparently is referring also to supporters of Dan Maes, whom many Tea Partiers initially supported but later abandoned in droves.
Meanwhile, it's not as though Wadhams is some tax-and-spend leftist;(http://www.denverpost.com/carroll/ci_17332374) Vincent Carroll reminds us that he has spent his career working to elect (relative) fiscal conservatives.
What about Harvey? As (http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_17334077) Bartels summarizes, he "has made abortion and immigration issues the cornerstones of his career."
Let's look briefly at what motivates Harvey. In (http://www.freecolorado.com/2004/01/1078.html) 2004, Harvey sponsored legislation trying to dictate how bookstores display "explicit materials." Harvey is also quite interested in (http://www.tedharvey.com/issues.html) restricting the rights of Coloradans to hire the employees of their choice, if they happen to be from out of the country.
The cause that seems to most animate Harvey is outlawing abortion. (http://www.tedharvey.com/issues.html) "Ted firmly believes that it is his duty as a legislator to defend the innocent unborn," i.e., to outlaw abortion. Harvey also touts on his web page, "Ted received the Legislator of the Year award from Colorado Right to Life in 2003." This is an organization that wants to (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) totally ban abortion and ban all drugs and procedures that might prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg, including the birth control pill. In announcing his candidacy for state senate, (http://www.tedharvey.com/continuing-the-fight.html) Harvey said, "Until my last breath, I will always champion life from conception to natural death"—though his anti-abortion stance (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) undermines the lives and liberties of women.
True, Harvey is relatively pro-liberty on issues like guns, taxes, and select(http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17142356) economic controls. Yet I fear that Harvey will animate the religious right of his party and alienate unaffiliated voters and Republican secularists. A "Harvey Party" may well entrench the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/11/how-abortion-cost-ken-buck-us-senate.html) losing strategy of Ken Buck of leading with anti-liberty social controls. Nothing could be more disastrous for the Republican Party in this Interior West state where people tend to want government out of our wallets as well as our bedrooms.
Denver Post Reissues NREL's Misleading Release
February 11, 2011
There are two stories here. One is that the (http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2011/937.html) National Renewable Energy Laboratory has put out an intellectually dishonest release touting the organization's benefits to Colorado's economy—without counting any of the costs in terms of tax subsidies and transferred resources. The second story is that the (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_17362344) Denver Post reissued this release as "news" without bothering to mention its status as a copied release; the byline claims it is "by The Denver Post."
Sure, if you totally ignore all the costs, any government expenditure looks like a great deal. Then again, if you ignore the costs, bank robbery also seems like a great deal, because look at how much the robbers are "stimulating" the economy by putting all that money into circulation! I have written about the general problem (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/01/ritters-new-energy-economy-based-on-old.html) elsewhere, and economists have made the same rebuttals at least since the (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/bastiat.html) early 1800s.
But these sorts of releases are not intended as intellectually serious arguments; they are intended to stir up emotional support among economically illiterate (or simply dishonest) journalists, politicians, and taxpayers. So the fact that NREL would issue such a self-serving release is no surprise, even though any honest scientist working at the organization must be embarrassed by it.
I confess that I am surprised by the Post's treatment of the release. I first heard of the story when hard-core leftist-environmentalist Pete Maysmith mentioned it on his (http://twitter.com/pmaysmith) Twitter feed: "More evidence that renewable energy is a boon for CO's economy. #coleg http://bit.ly/g2P4Kz." The shortened link accesses the Denver Post "story." I got the idea that something was screwy when identical language showed up at (http://www.windtoday.net/articles/NREL_Impact_on_Colorado_s_Economy_Triples-104867.html) Wind Today, and after a couple of phone calls I found the NREL release at the source.
I guess I just expected something a little more from the (http://www.mondonewspapers.com/circulation/usatop100.html) number thirteen newspaper in the nation.
Real Page Numbers Coming to Kindle
February 11, 2011
When I first (http://twitter.com/ariarmstrong) Tweeted the New York Times piece on how Kindle will incorporate real page numbers matching those in print editions, somebody emailed me wondering if I'd had something to do with that. I said I suspected not, even though I've written on the matter. But the language from Amazon's release does seem to cover the same points I raised.
Here is the (http://www.kindlepost.com/2011/02/early-preview-of-free-software-update-for-kindle-.html) Amazon release:
Our customers have told us they want real page numbers that match the page numbers in print books so they can easily reference and cite passages, and read alongside others in a book club or class. Rather than add page numbers that don't correspond to print books, which is how page numbers have been added to e-books in the past, we're adding real page numbers that correspond directly to a book's print edition.
And here's what I (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/11/plea-for-book-publishers-to-include.html) posted on the matter last November:
[A] big problem with digital editions of books these days is that there is no standardized pagination for citations. ... One of the comments [posted to the article] suggests another important use for standardized pagination; in reading groups, where people might be reading copies of a book on different devices, it would be very useful if everybody had a common page system.
Whether or not I helped inspire the change, I'm glad the change is coming.
Unfortunately, Amazon does not mention in its release how publishers accomplish adding the pagination, nor could I readily find this information in Amazon's information on Kindle publishing. If any reader knows about this, please email me or post the information in the comments.
'Unlawful Termination of a Pregnancy'
February 12, 2011
An odd Associated Press story published by (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17367212) today's Denver Post discusses a new bill to make the "unlawful termination of a pregnancy" a felony. What is odd about it is that Colorado statutes already make that a felony. Given the AP reporter didn't review the differences between existing statutes and the new bill, I'll go ahead and do it.
Linked through the (http://www.leg.state.co.us/) Colorado legislature page are the Colorado Revised Statutes. Following are the relevant statutes already on the books:
18-3.5-101. Unlawful termination of pregnancy.
(1) A person commits the offense of unlawful termination of a pregnancy if, with intent to terminate unlawfully the pregnancy of another person, the person unlawfully terminates the other person's pregnancy.
(2) Unlawful termination of a pregnancy is a class 4 felony.
18-3.5-102. Exclusions.
Nothing in this article shall permit the prosecution of a person for providing medical treatment, including but not limited to an abortion, in utero treatment, or treatment resulting in live birth, to a pregnant woman for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf, has been obtained or for which consent is implied by law.
Last year a Mesa County court sentenced a man to five years in prison for this crime, the (http://www.gjsentinel.com/breaking/articles/judge-5-years-for-man-who-killed-girlfriends-fetus) Daily Sentinel reported.
So how is the new bill, 1256, introduced February 11, different? Mainly, it is much more complicated. It defines "unlawful termination of a pregnancy" from the first through fourth degrees. It also defines "vehicular unlawful termination of a pregnancy, and aggravated vehicular unlawful termination of a pregnancy."
While the bill improperly refers to "unborn children," thereby obscuring the very large difference between a born child and a fetus, it "does not confer the status of 'person' upon a human embryo, fetus, or unborn child at any stage of development prior to live birth."
It does make sense to increase the criminal penalties for deliberation and intent, as well as to criminalize reckless acts that cause the death of a fetus.
However, the sections pertaining to vehicles—which constitute the bulk of the bill—seem redundant; it shouldn't matter in law whether somebody kills a woman's fetus by recklessly driving a vehicle or through some other means. Notably, the sections pertaining to vehicles also include a lot of detail about driving under the influence of various substances, also unnecessary for this law. Obviously if someone is driving drunk, that is an instance of the broader category of reckless behavior.
In sum, this is a good bill overall that needs some amending. Specifically, the ambiguous, non-objective language about an "unborn child" should be removed, as should all the material specific to vehicles and operating vehicles under the influence of drugs. The legislature should strive to keep bills as short and simple as possible. However, because existing statutes on the matter are imprecise and don't allow for varying degrees of offense, the new bill (unlike most of the bills floating through the legislature) serves a legitimate purpose of protecting the rights of pregnant women.
Time to Reform Jury Duty?
February 14, 2011
Surprisingly, some people actually appear not to want to serve on a jury. I would like to serve, but I can't manage to get seated on a jury. I've been called for jury duty twice. The first time I was dismissed before I even saw the inside of a courtroom. Today I traveled to Jefferson County's "Taj Mahal," where twenty-five of us got released by the judge because, in his words, "We're not actually having a jury trial today" in the case for which I was called.
My experiences illustrate why jury duty in Colorado should be reformed. After I review some modest reforms, I'll consider some broader possible changes.
I awoke at the 6:30 in the morning and left my house a few minutes after seven. After missing the Colfax exit off I-70, I circled around and made it into the building at quarter till eight. Check-in was uneventful, though I thought it quite ridiculous that I had to hand over my wallet at security. After we potential jurors waiting around in uncomfortable seats (the problem was low, flexible backs), a judge and then a staffer explained the general process, then showed a video with Ed Sardella further explaining jury duty. The staffer mentioned that, of the several cases scheduled for the day, it was possible that some or all of them could reach a plea agreement.
By 9:50, we were still sitting around. (I read from Sam Harris's latest book on my iTouch.) Finally at 10:22 a different staffer called my name along with 24 others and asked us to move into the hall. Somebody expressed surprise that it took 25 of us to fill a six-person jury. Judge Bradley Burback was pleasant enough, and he expressed regret that the prosecutor had not yet arrived. Finally a young fellow (I assume from the prosecutor's office) entered the court room and asked to speak with the judge, who soon assumed an expression that seemed to indicate, "You've got to be kidding me." After telling us there wasn't going to be any jury trial in this case, he released us at 10:35. So figure the entire event took around four hours of my day, plus gas and vehicle wear.
That's a price I would gladly bear—if it actually made any difference. The problem is that my time was completely wasted, as was the time of most of those called for jury duty today.
My suggestions for modest reforms are as follows:
First, reach plea agreements the day before trial, and reduce the number of jurors called in accordingly.
Second, call us in no earlier than needed. I see no point of sitting around for two hours. Why not set the check-in time to 9:30 or ten? And make the video available online.
Third, only call in the number of jurors actually needed. (I realize that to some extent this is a guessing game, but the policy now seems to be to call in as many potential jurors as even conceivably needed, then add a large cushion. I'd be interested to know what fraction of those called in actually end up sitting on a jury.)
Fourth, limit the number of dismissals to a reasonable number. I recognize that we don't want people on a jury who personally know a party in the case, nor do we want KKK members or the like. But those sorts of dismissals constitute a tiny portion of the jury pool. The fact that lawyers can pick and choose the most manipulable jurors from a large pool has led journalist Vin Suprynowicz to define "voir dire" as jury stacking. You simply don't need 25 people to fill a six-member jury.
Now for my more far-reaching reforms. The first has to do with compensation. If you work for somebody else, Colorado law forces the employer to pay their employee $50 per day for up to three days. (See Statute 13-71-126. Actually, nobody at the court house bothered to mention the detail about the $50 limit.) If you work for yourself, a staffer informed us, the court will provide compensation only in extreme circumstances, as arbitrarily decided by a judge. That's totally unfair. If jury duty is a responsibility of each individual citizen, then why should employers have to pick up the costs? One of the staffers actually made a point to say that, if potential jurors were released early, the court would not contact their employers, so jurors were welcome to take the rest of the day off. I don't think it's the court's businesses to interfere with employment contracts, perhaps except to mandate unpenalized time off for jury duty. (I don't even think that's needed, because any employer who hassled an employee about jury duty would get picketed, and I'd participate.)
It does make sense to me, however, to compensate people for hardship, such as for otherwise-unnecessary child care or mileage for the unemployed. Jury duty shouldn't put a person in financial hardship.
But I don't think the state has any business compensating jurors for their time or forcing employers to do so. If it's a fundamental responsibility of citizenship, then the individual juror should bear those costs. I would be open to arguments for compensation, say, if a trial extends beyond a week or so, given that a tiny fraction of trials can grow exceedingly long. Right now, under 13-71-129, the state compensates jurors (a measly) $50 per day for every day of service after the third day.
I save my most far-reaching and tentative reform for last. Giving the state the power to force people to perform any duty makes me extremely nervous. Does involuntary servitude become morally permissible if restricted to jury duty for a day or a trial? (I notice that Congressman Mike Coffman is trying to (http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2011/02/military-ending-draft-registration-021411w/) end the military draft, an admirable aim.)
Here's what the statutes say about enforcement: "13-71-123. Enforcement of juror duties. The court shall take whatever action may be appropriate to enforce the provisions of this article. Upon a finding that a juror will not appear to perform or complete juror service or in response to the court's order, the court may take such action as is likely to compel the juror to appear."
The key word there is "compel." Obviously the statute is quite broad.
Yet juries constitute a key protection of our basic liberties. The Bill of Rights guarantees "the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." True, sometimes juries can be capricious, biased, and emotional. But, on the whole, I'd far rather trust my liberties to a jury of my peers rather than to an appointed representative of the state. Locking somebody in a cage constitutes an extreme restriction of that person's basic freedom of action, and that should be done only after a person is legally convicted by a jury.
So what is the proper way to balance these two apparently competing values? I tentatively propose that people be allowed to ditch jury duty, in writing, and thereby surrender all rights to trial by jury in the future. Under this policy, everyone retains the right to trial by jury, but that right entails participation in the jury system. If you can't be bothered to serve on a jury, fine: but don't expect the rest of us to sit on your jury should you stand accused. Of course, for this to work, a person would have to be offered a legitimate opportunity to serve on a jury and then officially decline the summons, having been notified of the consequences.
But this proposal makes me nervous. It could be abused; if standards slipped a jury summons lost in the mail might be construed as nonperformance. Moreover, somebody could claim not to have understood the consequences.
Another possibility is to allow people to buy their way out of jury duty, say with a $100 fine. But this would skew the jury pool to lower-income participants, which disrupts the ideal of a random cross-section of the defendant's community.
I do not expect the mandated jury service to be altered anytime soon, nor is the matter pressing given all the other obvious and severe violations of our rights. It is an interesting issue in that it involves an unusual tension between liberties and mandates. Even absent reform, I can't imagine why anyone would try to avoid jury service. My only irritation is that I have not actually been able to serve on a jury.
***
Amy commented May 22, 2011 at 12:14 PM
The idea of being able to opt out and then relinquish your right to have a jury in the future is an interesting one. And I agree that if the option of a fine was given, a fine that was too low would mean only the lowest income people would sit on a jury. More to think about...
Susan commented December 16, 2011 at 9:59 PM
I work for a dentist he does not pay for time lost in jury duty;also he can not schedule patients w/ me if he does not know till the night before that I will be there, so I lose 2 months pay(lenght of jury duty in KY). When I asked judge to be excused,he said he was "tired of financial hardship claims, he needed jurors",(by the way, one of the financial hardship excuses he did give was to one of my patients who is a multimillionaire farmer, it is winter here here in Ky, not much for the farmers to do. So yes, having jurors is important, but having to borrow money to pay my monthly bills because of the nature of my job stinks. By the way,I am not poor but definately not rich, I work hard but in todays economy not many people can go 2 months without thier usual salary. Slavery was outlawed by the 13 amendment yet the court can hold you in servitude,at the wimsy of a judge.
Project Reason Videos Released
February 16, 2011
Project Reason has announced the finalists for its (http://www.project-reason.org/contests/2011_video_contest/) video contest.
In my view, the best of the bunch is "Think," an elegant silent cartoon about succeeding through reason.
My second-favorite video is "The Tutor," about a woman who tells children some lesser-known Bible stories.
I also enjoyed "New Age Medic," which pokes fun at some of the sillier forms of "treatments" on the market.
While I too submitted a (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/01/why-ayn-rand-trumps-sam-harris-on.html) video to the contest, I had no illusions I would become a finalist. (Because of delayed permissions, I didn't actually start the video until the day it was due.) My cinematography leaves much to be desired, and several people have been quick to point out that my handwriting is atrocious. However, the content is interesting.
What inspired me to make the video is that, though Ayn Rand preceded Sam Harris in attacking moral skepticism and relativism by half a century, Harris's book contains not a single reference to Rand, not even in a footnote, judging from Amazon's "Search Inside This Book" feature. And Harris's moral theory suffers myriad weaknesses that Rand corrects.(http://www.project-reason.org/) (Project Reason "was founded by Sam Harris and Annaka Harris.") So I submitted a video not to try to win the contest, but simply to point out to Harris and others that, if they regard well-being as central to morality and see moral relativism as dangerous, they ought to take a look at what Rand had to say on those matters.
Grand Junction Could Use Some Common Sense Economics
February 18, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published February 18 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110218/COLUMNISTS/110219966/1021&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
"The first law of economics is scarcity, and the first law of politics is to disregard the first law of economics." So opines Thomas Sowell, as quoted in the recently revised book, (http://commonsenseeconomics.com/) Common Sense Economics. It is a book Grand Junction officials would do well to read.
Yes, government should protect individual rights by operating police departments and courts. But the city of Grand Junction does far more than keep the peace and protect property rights. It runs a variety of businesses that should be left to the private sector.
At the city's web page (http://www.gjcity.org/) (GJCity.org), the department with the most subcategories listed is Parks and Recreation. This includes (http://www.gjcity.org/CityDeptWebPages/ParksRecreation/Aquatics/Aquatics.htm) aquatics; the city "provides year-around programming at two aquatic facilities." It includes the Avalon Theatre, Convention Center, and (http://www.gjarts.org/) "Cultural Arts,"which offers tax dollars to politically favored art. It includes golf as well as (http://www.gjcity.org/CityDeptWebPages/ParksRecreation/Recreation/Recreation.htm) "Recreation," a department "dedicated to providing high quality, affordable leisure experiences."
The city also provides ambulance service. This might change; a (http://www.gjcity.org/CityDeptWebPages/Administration/LinkedFiles/PDF/PressReleases2011/Ambulance_Bid.pdf) January 18 media release from the city notes that, after a bidding process, "City Council will decide whether to continue providing the service through the [fire department] or switch to a private provider."
We have nothing against golf or those other activities. But just because some service is a Good Thing doesn't mean government should help provide it. Groceries and shoes are good things, but we don't want the city running the stores that sell them. We like peaches, wine, beer, and movies, but we don't want the city taking over all the peach orchards, vineyards, breweries, and cinemas.
The first problem with city-run businesses is that some of them are subsidized. So taxpayers who do not use those services, however poor, are forced to subsidize those who do use them, however wealthy. (We don't think politicians should forcibly transfer wealth from rich to poor, either.)
Traci Wieland, the city's Recreation Superintendent, said of the city's services, "Some are self-funding, and some are not;" the question of subsidies "ranges from program to program." She added, "Any shortfall that we have would obviously come from the general fund of Grand Junction."
We're all for charitable contributions to make certain services more widely available. Indeed, Wieland noted that various local businesses already donate funds for some projects. We just don't think the city should subsidize them with forcibly confiscated tax dollars.
Perhaps the brilliant French economist (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/bastiat.html) Frederic Bastiat best addressed the matter: "When we oppose subsidies, we are charged with opposing the very thing that it was proposed to subsidize and of being the enemies of all kinds of activity, because we want these activities to be voluntary and to seek their proper reward in themselves."
The city's golf courses are self-funding. Parks and Recreation Director Rob Schoeber said, "All of the salaries pertaining to the golf courses are covered by the golf fees. The courses operate as enterprise accounts. Their budget is separate from the city general fund, and they cover their own capital and operating expenses annually."
At least the golf courses cover their basic costs. But Schoeber notes that, while "items sold in the golf pro shops are subject to sales tax," the "golf course land is not subject to property taxes." That's a huge competitive advantage over free-market recreational businesses. Government should treat every business equally, not favor some businesses over others with discriminatory taxes.
Even if, hypothetically, a city business paid for itself and paid the same taxes as everyone else, still the city should auction off the business and use the proceeds to reduce people's tax burden.
The core principle is that the purpose of government is to protect individual rights. When city government instead does things like run golf courses, it muddles its mission and opens the door to all sorts of illegitimate activities.
Moreover, even a self-funding city business is not fully subject to the market forces of profits and loss. Only ownership of the resources, which city officials never experience, can fully provide the incentive to devote those resources to their best use. Maybe the golf courses should be run differently, or maybe they should be converted to some other use entirely. Such decisions are rightly made by people interacting voluntarily on a free market.
Perhaps city councilors should contemplate how they'd feel if the city went into direct competition with their businesses. (http://www.gjcity.org/CityDeptWebPages/Administration/CityCouncil/CityCouncil.htm) Members of the council work in the fields of accounting, investing, realty, banking, and security. Should the city open real estate offices, banks, and alarm installation centers? Should the city convert part of the Avalon Theatre to an accounting office that gets special tax breaks?
The city cannot provide services without reducing services offered by others. Resources are scarce. Trying to defy this basic law of economics is like trying to defy the law of gravity. City government should focus on protecting people's rights, and leave recreation to the free market.
***
Mike Dial commented February 26, 2011 at 4:10 PM
Ari, the same kind of nonsense is going on here in Montgomery County, Maryland. The county council is forking over $300,000 to keep open a county-owned golf course that is not self-supporting because few use it. The county is also building a theater to be used as a music venue. The cost was originally supposed to be $8 million, but of course with overruns, it's now over $11 million. I wrote to my county councilwoman to point out that theaters and golf courses that people actually want don't have to be subsidized by the county. I also reminded her that the county budget is so bad that cuts are being made, even to police and fire departments. She didn't even bother to reply to me. In the local newspapers, the head of the county council claims that the theater will actually make the county money, so we citizens should not oppose it (!). How do we rein in spending in a deep-blue state like Maryland with idiots like this in power? If you work for a living, like me, you can't even attend council meetings, which are all during the day.
What Freedom Is and What It Is Not
February 21, 2011
To many, the term "freedom" remains a vague platitude. Others distort the term "freedom" to encompass violent and coercive acts. What does real freedom, the sort of freedom worth wanting, look like, and what is its justification? I delivered this talk February 19 at Liberty Toastmasters.
"Eat the Rich?" Unions, Tea Parties Stage Opposing Denver Rallies
February 23, 2011
Union supporters rallied in Denver February 22 to support unions under political pressure in Wisconsin; Tea Party groups counter-protested at the bottom of the capitol steps. I conducted a number of interviews from both sides.
One dominant theme from the union side was that taxes should be higher, especially on the rich.
In the next video, union supporters call their opponents fascists and "tea baggers," all in the spirit of the "new civility," of course.
Next, union supporters chant "USA!"—to a backdrop of the Soviet hammer and sickle and the Mexican flag.
The next video offers a sense of the competing signs and chants.
I also captured some substantive interviews with both sides that I will release in independent posts over the coming days, so check back.
***
mtnrunner2 commented February 24, 2011 at 8:20 PM
Thanks Ari, for going there first-hand and posting these.
I think it's possible to see the types of ideas advocated by each side and draw a proper conclusion about each side, yet there is still a rather huge elephant in the room: EXACTLY what powers are at stake, and are those powers JUST?
The Wisconsin conflict is presented by most media largely in the terms defined by the major political players, as "unions exploiting government" vs. "unions leveling the playing field on behalf of teachers". But those positions are only derivatives of more fundamental premises.
Based on what I know of labor law, the NLRA coerces employers into sitting down with unions whether they choose to or not, for "arbitration" during a stalemate. This is one of the things that give unions an unjust upper hand beyond the simple negotiating power of a group. So I wonder in this case: what exactly are the rights at issue, and how do they differ from simply getting together as a group and negotiating with the government?
I also wonder: are public job unions significantly different from private job unions concerning the type of rights they ought to have? I wouldn't think so.
If you know of any such analysis, I'd be interested to read it.
Paige commented February 24, 2011 at 9:43 PM
mtnrunner... it is not that companies are coerced to sit with unions in an arbitration during a stalemate it is that the contract the company agreed upon with the union states that arbitration will be used in the case of a stalemate when negotiating.
In any case arbitration is not used to negotiate a contract.. simply the company puts an offer on the table and the members of that union vote to accept to deny the offer. If the offer is denied the company goes back to the bargaining table.
I think the biggest misconception here is that labor unions do not have the upper hand, and they haven't for a long time.. This is not the 1950's when 1/4 people were part of a labor union... statistics say now only 1/10 are union members. Further, in Colorado, union members only make up 7% of the work force.
People need to stop thinking of unions as this overbearing force. The union would be nothing without members... members are the working people who pay dues to gain representation against the corporation against otherwise they would be helpless. A union is not run on millions of dollars,private jets, political power, or a CEO... it is simply run by the working people... the little poeple, the ones who teach your kids, patrol your roads, give you electricity, pipe your buildings, and bag your groceries... not trying to buy an opinion, just trying to voice one.
mtnrunner2 commented February 25, 2011 at 10:28 AM
Paige—The issue I am raising has nothing to do with who runs unions, or how many members they have, but with the exact power that public unions have in Wisconsin, and whether it is just or not.
The fact of the matter is that the NRLA outlaws entirely legitimate activities on the part of the employer. For example, the following is forbidden by law: "to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees"—Section 8(a)(5). This forces companies to the table regardless of what they choose to do. It overrides their judgment by force of law, which most certainly gives unions the upper hand. So, it is not merely a misconception.
Just because someone (not necessarily you, but anyone) claims this benefits "the people" does not mean it's true, or that it is morally right.
mtnrunner2 commented February 25, 2011 at 10:42 AM
Correction: NLRA.
Paige commented February 25, 2011 at 11:03 AM
mtnrunner
The glory of the union is that the power rests in the hands of those employed. The national labor relations act was created to protect employees and to encourage collective bargaining. The NLRB is who as you put it coerces companies to collectively bargain whether they choose to do so or not.
This system is no different than any average person going to their boss and asking for a raise, increased benefits or increased pensions, except that its done on a much larger scale. Its simple for a large company to ignore the needs and requests of one employee, where as it is not so easy to ignore the needs and requests of your entire staff. The union is just a voice, a group of people united together so they can get recognized.
The NLRB can coerce the company to sit down and collectively bargain but they cannot dictate what they company puts down as an offer to its employees.
As for the issue is Wisconsin specifically, those public employees represented by unions have already said they are willing to take the cuts in their pension and their health plans, so this isn't about the money. If it were, the govornor would have been happy with the concession. All the poeple want is to keep their right to collectively bargain, which Gov. Walker refuses to allow. This is not about fixing the deficit, this is about union busting.
Maybe on fixing the deficit the politicians, such as Gov. Walker should offer to take a cut in his pay, and health plan... i think that would get more people's attention.
Denver Union Rally: Bob Glass Reports
February 24, 2011
Activist Bob Glass took scores of photos of the opposing union rallies in Denver February 22; some of them are reproduce here with his permission.
Glass also described his experience just before the rallies: "I parked my car a few blocks away from the capitol and began walking towards the gold-domed building. A man and a woman with teachers' union placards were behind me discussing media manipulation strategy.
"We all came together at a red light and I asked them if in fact they were teachers. They both proudly said 'yes' and proceeded to boast about how dedicated they were to the children. I pointed out that they couldn't be that dedicated if they were not in the classroom teaching the children but were out here denouncing the governor of Wisconsin and supporting collective bargaining rights for state employees.
"The man emphatically told me that he 'had permission' to be here. He didn't say permission from whom—certainly not from the children he professes to be so dedicated to. The woman then quickly chimed in and explained that she was in fact working for the union and not actually involved in education. 'So then you're not a teacher,' I replied. 'Not right now,' she said."
Glass commented on the "vitriol they [some union supporters] showed to the Tea Party counter-demonstrators. They had the attitude that it was inconceivable that anyone could disagree with them and many of them for the first time in their lives had to look into the faces of people unafraid to oppose them.
"Amid their litany of 'Tax the Rich' and 'The people united will never be defeated,' they shouted their usual obscenities and flipped the bird. One hysterical woman even mooned the Tea Party. They accused the Tea Party people of being paid by Wall Street and told us to get back in our Escalades and go home. Suddenly my 1992 Subaru Loyale with 235,000 miles seemed woefully inadequate.
"They sent people into the ranks of the Tea Partiers shouting directly in people's faces clearly trying to provoke a violent confrontation. As usual the Tea Party people showed incredible restraint and as the cops caught on to what was going on they became more vigilant about keeping the two groups separated."
See also coverage from (http://www.whosaidyousaid.com/2011/02/in-colorado-tax-the-rich-tax-the-rich/) Who Said You Said and Lesley Hollywood, as well as (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/eat-rich-unions-tea-parties-stage.html) additional coverage from Free Colorado.
Lesley Hollywood:
Yours Truly conducting an interview:
Shawn Mitchell:
***
Anonymous commented March 2, 2011 at 1:48 PM
I was there, my first state capitol rally. It went down just as posted. The unions do not want to take there hand out of the candy jar. They are emotional and will attack anyone who has a different opinion. They are going to ride this horse (America) into the ground. Facts and common sense are two attributes union members lack. Gov Walker is right on target with his proposals. For the good of the country (everybody) I hope the tea party mentality wins.
Confessions of a Former Koch Fellow
February 25, 2011
Union supporters (http://plixi.com/p/79715747) protested the Koch Industries offices today, as David Weigel noted on Twitter. A couple of days ago numerous union supporters in Denver sported signage demonizing the Kochs. So what's this all about?
Charles Koch helped build Koch Industries into a hugely successful company. Koch also funds various liberty-oriented groups. Back in the summer of 1995 I worked as a (http://www.theihs.org/koch-summer-fellow-program) Koch Fellow in Washington, DC. (The program was incorporated into the Institute for Humane Studies not long after that, if memory serves.)
When I became a Koch Fellow, I knew practically nothing about Charles Koch. I've never met him (though I'd very much like to). I knew he was a successful businessman. Later I learned that "Mr. Libertarian" Murray Rothbard called him the (http://www.lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon37.html) "Kochtopus," though I never found that dispute very interesting.
I was already a hard-core free market advocate by the time I became a Koch Fellow; that's why a became a Koch Fellow. Contrary to the left's anti-intellectualism, typically the money follows the ideas. It does not determine them. (I've also worked for the left-leaning and excellent (http://www.ccjrc.org/index.shtml) Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition back when we reformed Colorado's asset forfeiture laws; I'm even (http://www.progress.org/forf12.htm) featured in The Progress Report.)
So what did I do that summer when I earned my living from Koch money? For one thing, all of us fellows split into research topics; mine was Social Security. I learned quite a lot about the background of the program. But there was no demand that our findings match any predetermined course. Indeed, I disagreed with everybody else in my group, and I continue to disagree with the proposals put out by such groups as the (http://www.freecolorado.com/2004/12/ssev.html) Cato Institute,another beneficiary of Koch's money.
But mostly that summer I worked as an intern for (http://www.famm.org/) Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a group dedicated to criminal sentencing reform. (The Koch program farmed out fellows to think-tanks around D.C.) My big project there was researching the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. I even wrote an (http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/6859275.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS&date=Aug+15%2C+1995&author=Armstrong%2C+Ari&desc=Crack+cocaine%3A++Make+the+sentencing+fair) op-ed for the Washington Post on the subject. Here's what the summary says: "Ari Armstrong, a research associate with Families Against Mandatory Minimums, discusses efforts to get criminal sentencing for crack cocaine brought down to the same level as powder cocaine due to the disparity between blacks and whites sent to prison."
So, as you can see, Charles Koch is a very evil man. How dare he fund my efforts to achieve criminal justice equity for African Americans!
Over at Reason, Nick Gillespie points out a number of other reasons why the left should absolutely detest Charles Koch: (http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/24/evil-koch-bros-support) "Why the Evil Koch Bros. Must be Stopped: They Support Drug Legalization, Gay Marriage, Reduced Defense Spending."
Vicious, detestable man, that Charles Koch.
And, my dear Mr. Koch, if you happen to read this, please accept my sincere gratitude for all the amazing work you've done not only to improve our quality of life through your business activities, but to expand liberty for each individual. You are a hero of our age, and I am honored to have had some association with you within my life, however distant.
CO Union Supporters Speak Out
February 25, 2011
Even though I think unions often get their way illegitimately through political force, I wanted to give the union supporters who rallied in Denver February 22 an opportunity to share their views.
As (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/eat-rich-unions-tea-parties-stage.html) noted, not all of the union supporters were particularly eloquent in their presentations (see also reports by (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/denver-union-rally-bob-glass-reports.html) Bob Glass and Kelly Maher). However, I interviewed a number of union supporters who were articulate and well-informed.
I would note that nobody else has done more to record and publish the views of union supporters at the Denver rally. Advocacy journalists are still journalists, and they can give a fair hearing to people with whom they largely disagree. (Moreover, often journalists who claim to be straight news reporters egregiously bias their stories and misrepresent the views of those they dislike.) The first video offers several interviews.
I added several editorial notes to the first video. Here they are:
The Independence Institute claims Colorado ranks between 29th and 36th in the nation in per-pupil spending, depending on assumptions, based on figures from the NEA, Census Bureau, and US Dept. of Education. (http://tax.i2i.org/files/2010/12/CB_K_12.pdf) Source.
Cap Times claims Gov. Walker's tax cuts cost $140 million. The Weekly Standard claims Wisconsin faces a projected deficit of $3.6 billion. Sources: (http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_61064e9a-27b0-5f28-b6d1-a57c8b2aaaf6.html) One and (http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/wi-fiscal-bureau-chief-walker-tax-cuts-did-not-cause-years-budget-shortfall_550399.html) Two
Rick Ungar writes for Forbes that a Wisconsin bill indeed included language about potentially selling or leasing utilities, though Koch Industries denied any interest in purchasing them. (http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/02/22/a-secret-deal-between-gov-walker-and-koch-brothers-buried-in-state-budget/) Source.
The Denver Post reports that Xcel claims its "authorized" return "has averaged 10.63 percent, but the company's actual average return has been about 8.6 percent." However, nothing about this shows that subsidies for solar energy creates net jobs when the costs are considered.
(http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_17367998) Source.
The next video features a conversation with teacher and union organizer Cathy Royce of Canyon City.
The final video of union supporters features several more interviews.
***
Paige commented February 25, 2011 at 4:44 PM
Thanks for posting this Ari, I Appreciate it!
Paige commented February 26, 2011 at 9:29 AM
Ari- on the editors note that Gov. Walkers tax cuts cost 140 million, and Wisconsins projected deficit is 3.6 billion...
My research shows your facts to be correct, however Wisconsins current deficit is only approx. 138 million which tells me their state would be in the positive if it weren't for Gov. Walker.
Why does he expect public workers to pay for his mistakes? Why is this s union issue? Seems to me the politicians are in the corporations corner not the other way around. At least in this case...
Freaky Unintended Consequences
February 25, 2011
I'm a fan of the Freakonomics books, though I don't always agree with them. (I've written about them a (http://www.freecolorado.com/bw/110305.html) couple (http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/11/low-cost-tech-could-cool-planet.html) times before.) The (http://www.magpictures.com/freakonomics/) documentary of the same name includes some material not found in the books.
I enjoyed this line: "You can teach a kid just as much at a grocery store as you can at a museum, maybe more."
But perhaps the most poignant new story from the film is of Steven Levitt's experiences potty-training his daughter. As he relates the story, his wife for months had trouble getting their daughter to use the toilet. So he figured that, as an economist, surely he could come up with an incentive structure to encourage potty training.
So Levitt decided to offer his daughter a bag of M&Ms if she'd use the potty. Immediately she did so. And for a couple of days, she consistently used the potty in exchange for M&Ms.
But on about the third day, Levitt's daughter said she had to use the potty, and she went a very small amount in exchange for the M&Ms. She immediately said she needed to go again, so she went a small amount for another bag of M&Ms. Levitt points out that his incentive structure had encouraged his daughter, in three short days, to develop excellent bladder control. What it had not done is accomplish his purpose of getting her to use the potty normally.
The moral of the story? If a genius-level economist can screw up the incentives to potty train his daughter, why do so many people think that politicians and unelected bureaucrats can centrally control vast swaths of our economy?
Walker's Discriminatory Taxes
February 27, 2011
I have a hard enough time tracking Colorado politics; I spend very little time tracking the politics of other state. However, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has become the subject of national controversy because of his proposal to limit collective bargaining of political-sector unions.
At the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/co-union-supporters-speak-out.html) pro-union rally in Denver February 22, I heard from a number of people who claimed that Walker's tax cuts are responsible for the budget crisis there. Clearly that's false: Walker's tax cuts amount to something over $100 million, while the state faces a multi-year budget crunch of over three billion.
But this does raise the question of whether the tax cuts were a good idea. I see two problems with them.
First, as (http://www.austrianenginomics.com/) Russ Randall effectively argues in a new video, what matters is government spending, not tax rates. To me, putting the cart of tax cuts before the spending horse makes little sense.
If there is spending in the Wisconsin budget that should be cut—and I do not doubt that there is—then the straightforward thing to do is advocate those cuts.
I hasten to add that long-term tax restraints, such as Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, serve to restrain year-to-year spending increases, so they address the spending side.
The larger problem with Walker's tax cuts is that they are discriminatory. In general, it's wrong to tax substantially similar parties different tax rates. Taxes should be applied evenly across the board. Indeed, it seems obvious to me that discriminatory taxes violate the "equal protection" guarantees of our Constitution. That said, eliminating discriminatory taxes should not become an excuse to raise net taxes; instead, the discriminatory taxes should be phased out in a revenue-neutral way (or in a way that reduces overall spending), to relieve the burden of other taxpayers. I'd rather see a discriminatory tax remain in place than see it eliminated in favor of increased spending (which is the strategy of Colorado Democrats).
The (http://www.htrnews.com/article/20110119/MAN0101/101190816/Gov-Scott-Walker-Wisconsin-Republicans-reach-tax-breaks-deal) AP reports that Walker's proposals offer tax cuts for "new" jobs—which means that existing jobs will be taxed more heavily. It's wrong to political favor "new" jobs over established ones.
The (http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20110201/APC0101/102010421/Wisconsin-Governor-Scott-Walker-signs-tax-cut-bill-into-law) Post Crescent reports that another of Walker's proposals offers tax breaks to companies that relocate to Wisconsin. That punishes existing companies more heavily. If I were an established Wisconsin company, I'd be a little pissed that Walker gave tax advantages to my relocated competitors.
Politicians should not use tax policy to favor some companies and jobs over others. Taxes should be low and evenly applied. Discriminatory taxes should be phased out, not expanded, in a way that benefits the rest of the taxpayers. Walker should have promoted general tax cuts, along with the spending cuts required to balance the budget.
All that said, from what I can tell overall Walker has the interests of taxpayers in mind, which is a lot more than can be said for his many leftist critics, who generally argue as though a citizen's money automatically belongs to the government for politicians to "redistribute" at will.
***
Ari commented February 28, 2011 at 2:23 PM
I unintentionally deleted the following message from Paige. My quick response is that spending on government employees is paid by other working people. -Ari
Ari—If Gov. Walker has the interests of any tax payers in mind then it is that of businesses. He had cut taxes for companies and corporations not the working people. In fact, he wants the working people to take pay cuts in order to make up for the tax cuts he made.
Yes, you have heard several pro union people state that Gov. Walkers tax cuts are the reason for their deficit. The multi-billion dollar deficit you speak of is a PROJECTED deficit, the actual numbers right now reflect a deficit of only 138 million, which means that the 140 million dollars of tax cuts Walker approved definitely have something to do with the short falls.
The bottom line here is that he made those cuts, and the state of Wisconsin is facing a budget crisis HOWEVER the answer to this is not to force public employees, some of the hardest working people in the nation, to take cuts to their pay, health plans and pensions. Gov. Walker has said numerous times that this is the only way to fix the deficit.
If this is true that why doesn't Gov. Walker conceed with the people. Public employees already agreed to take the cuts, they only want to keep their right to collectively bargain, which is a right given to every working person who cares to fight for it.
If Gov. Walker was concerned about the deficit as he says he is then he would have been happy to remove the collective bargaining piece of the bill.
Union Critics Counter-Protest
February 28, 2011
Critics of collective bargaining by political-sector unions rallied in Denver February 22; here Kathy Welch, State Senator Shawn Mitchell, Jeff Crank, and Patti Reynertson share their thoughts.
See also:
(http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/walkers-discriminatory-taxes/) Walker's Discriminatory Taxes
(http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/co-union-supporters-speak-out/) CO Union Supporters Speak Out (video)
(http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/confessions-of-a-former-koch-fellow/) Confessions of a Former Koch Fellow
(http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/denver-union-rally-bob-glass-reports/) Denver Union Rally: Bob Glass Reports (photos)
(http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/eat-the-rich-unions-tea-parties-stage-opposing-denver-rallies/) "Eat the Rich?" Unions, Tea Parties Stage Opposing Denver Rallies (video)
Business Investment: Willkie's Lessons for Obama and Moore
March 4, 2011
Last month, (http://thehill.com/homenews/news/142469-obama-asks-business-to-do-their-part-in-recovery) Obama implored businesses to "get in the game" and increase investments; "now is the time to invest in America."
More recently leftist agitator (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/03/02/moore_on_wealthy_peoples_money_thats_not_theirs_thats_a_national_resource_its_ours.html) Michael Moore said, "[Businesses are] sitting on the money, they're using it for their own—they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this—we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it."
Note that Obama and Moore share a collectivist vision of property. Obama does not want businesses to invest in particular projects most likely to earn them a profit; he wants businesses to "invest in America" as a collective whole, without regard to personal advantage. Moore's collectivism is more overt and severe: he follows Marx in declaring produced wealth the property of the nation state.
But the real cause of lackluster investment is not shortsightedness or "greed" on the part of businesses owners and executives. If they thought they could make money, they'd invest! Instead, the real cause of continued high unemployment and sluggish economic growth is the economic uncertainty created by leftist politicians and activists like Obama and Moore. (http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2975) Robert Higgs, for example, has written about this.
Consider just a few of the ways that power-hungry politicians have fostered uncertainty. ObamaCare with its waivers and Constitutional problems is intentionally left to bureaucrats to implement by fiat. Democrats keep talking about raising taxes and implementing new taxes like the VAT. The FTC and DOJ keep threatening to persecute successful companies under antitrust laws. Vicious laws like Sarbanes-Oxley discourage corporate formation. Obama and his minions have diverted billions of dollars to the politically connected as corporate welfare. Anti-energy activists continue to impede development of real domestic energy sources (as opposed to windmills and wasteful solar panels.)
With all this politically-caused uncertainty, many business leaders simply cannot predict whether they'll see a return on their investments.
If Obama and Moore want businesses to invest, they should stop threatening to confiscate the earnings of businesses and get the hell out of the way.
Interestingly, this same debate played out during the Great Depression.This is Wendell Willkie, a book I discovered through Amity Shlaes, contains the text of a debate between Willkie and Robert H. Jackson held January 6, 1938. Following are some of Willkie's remarks (see pages 70-73 of the 1940 book from Dodd, Mead, & Company).
"Mr. Jackson has previously spoken of a 'strike of capital' against the government. ... The main problem is to restore the confidence of investors in American business, and to do this will require more than pleasant speaking on the part of government. For several years the government has taken definite action to show its hostility to business. It must now take definite action to demonstrate the sincerity of its desire for cooperation. ...
"For example, there seems to be no important disagreement today on the need for a reduction in the undistributed profits tax and the capital gains tax, both of which fall with particular severity upon small businesses and both of which restrict the expansion of industry.
"[Other needed reforms include] modifying those restrictions upon the buying and selling of securities that hamper the investment of funds...
"And above all... the American people should be spared the confusion of hearing what one government official says in friendship today denied by another in hostility tomorrow."
While I do not agree with all of Willkie's proposals, his basic appraisal of the cause of the "strike of capital" is accurate. It is a lesson the Obamas and Moores of the world would do well to heed.
***
Anonymous commented March 5, 2011 at 1:38 AM
I am so scared that Americans actually listen to what Michael Moore has to say. He is a classic Ayn Rand character. I live in a city where many residents loved "Capitalism: A Love Story." One of my friends (used lightly) even posted on Facebook that capitalism hasn't done anything for her. Well, I think my persistent replies made her regret writing it--but she never changed her opinion, of course. I am really becoming frightened about how American citizens are already so controlled and regulated by the government. Most people I know would sit around and allow our country to become fully socialist. Obviously, Michael Moore can't wait for that moment. Scary!
Kim
Kate Yoak commented March 5, 2011 at 8:12 PM
Scary is right, Kim. I only have one question about our future. Does it go the way of Atlas Shrugged—and do people wake up too late to prevent the collapse, or do enough of them see it coming and say "enough" while there is still time? I believe, there is hope for the latter. The faster the socialists attempt to make change, the more likely it is that they will be noticed. Fingers crossed.
Maher, Williams Debate Party Strategy
March 7, 2011
Should liberty activists participate in the Republican or Libertarian parties? That's what Kelly Maher of (http://www.whosaidyousaid.com/) WhoSaidYouSaid.com and David Williams of the (http://gadsdensoc.com/) Gadsden Society debated March 2 at (http://www.libertyontherocks.com/) Liberty On the Rocks.
Maher's basic point was that liberty activists should work within a party that can actually win elections. Williams argued that Republicans have too often undermined liberty.
As indicated by the question I ask in the video, I do not support the Libertarian Party, for reasons I discussed in (http://www.freecolorado.com/2005/05/morelal.html) 2005.
Guarantee to Unions the Same Rights the Rest of Us Have
March 8, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published March 4 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110304/COLUMNISTS/110309967/1062&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
Union battles in Wisconsin spilled over into Colorado February 22 as union supporters and Tea Party groups held opposing rallies at the capitol. See FreeColorado.com for (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/union-critics-counter-protest.html) Ari's videos. The clash offers a great opportunity to review the proper functions and legal protections of unions.
The essential principle is that individuals have the right to associate voluntarily with others, whether as friends, union supporters, or corporate investors. Our First Amendment recognizes the fundamental "right of the people peaceably to assemble."
The great irony and hypocrisy of the left is that it seeks to deprive people of their rights of assembly and speech when they join corporations. People have the right to speak, try to persuade others, and contribute their funds to whatever (nonviolent) causes they want, whether as individuals or as voluntary participants in unions, corporations, or other groups.
"Corporations aren't people," the left continuously cries. True, and neither are unions. However, all groups are composed of individuals, and people don't lose their rights (or acquire any new ones) by virtue of joining some group.
Employers too have the right to associate freely by seeking to hire whomever they please, on whatever terms both parties agree to adopt. Whether employers want to hire no union members, only union members, or some combination, that is properly their right. Thus, we oppose so-called "right to work" laws restricting the voluntary association of unions and employers.
The problem with the Wagner Act (also called the National Labor Relations Act) signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935 is that, in conjunction with subsequent legislation, it violates the rights of employers and their employees to associate freely. Today's unions use political force to drive wages for a select few above market rates, thereby contributing to unemployment and the degradation of American industry. And often government has permitted outright violence by union thugs, who have forcibly shut down businesses and viciously attacked nonunion employees.
Just law neither grants to unions special political advantages nor impedes their formation. Properly speaking, there are no special "union rights" or "corporate rights" or rights for any other group. There are only individual rights, which are the same for everybody, and which people retain when they consensually join together.
Note that when people form unions solely by voluntary consent and eschew violence and political force, those unions become part of the free market economy. The free market simply describes all the networks of individuals who respect each other's property rights and interact voluntarily.
What about political-sector unions, which are the cause of all the fuss in Wisconsin? We might note that the obvious way to resolve the problem in many cases is to restore those jobs to the free market, but then we'd be accused of radicalism.
Government employees don't need special legal protections for "collective bargaining." Union members are free to rally, argue, campaign, and vote. And taxpayers have every right, through their elected representatives, to say no to union demands. The right of the taxpayer to his own earnings is what the political-sector unions blatantly disregard.
At the Denver rally, various union supporters claimed that unions are responsible for shorter workweeks, higher wages, and the rise of the middle class. In fact, insofar as unions have resorted to political force, they have thrown others out of work, undermined American business, and stunted the middle class.
The fundamental driver of higher wages is worker productivity. People in an economy as a whole cannot earn more than they produce. And productivity depends on capital formation. People can produce a lot more with computers, tractors, high-tech factory equipment, and automobiles than they can with crude iron tools and horse-drawn plows. Higher productivity is what enables people to earn more. Thank the capitalists, not the unions, for increasing wages.
True, in a small fraction of cases, unions might, without resorting to political force, persuade an obstinate business owner to pay market wages. In such cases the owner is better off paying more, or he'll soon lose his best workers to competitors. Yet it is fundamentally this competition for labor, not union pressure, that drives up wages as productivity increases.
We were shocked to hear the blatant class envy of many of the Denver union supporters. "Eat the rich," "tax the rich," "tax those bastards up in Aspen," stick it to corporations, we heard. How shameful.
True, some people in our largely politicized economy enrich themselves by gaining favors for the politically connected. That's how newly elected Chicago mayor and Democratic favorite (http://washingtonexaminer.com/op-eds/2008/11/emanuel-used-political-connections-leverage-personal-wealth) Rahm Emanuel gained his money, as Tim Carney pointed out a couple years ago in the Washington Examiner.
But big earners in the free sectors of the economy produce their wealth through years of dedication, hard work, long hours, and foresight. They drive our prosperity. Their money belongs to them, and their rights should not be sacrificed to destructive and hateful envy.
Law Should Protect Wanted Fetuses While Allowing Abortions
March 14, 2011
The following article originally was published March 1 by (http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=11845) Denver Daily News.
A hit and run in Denver last December (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/26341934/detail.html) killed a woman's fetus and led to calls for new legislation. If someone harms a woman's fetus against her will, whether intentionally or through negligence, what is the proper legal penalty?
We recognize a woman's right to bear a child, and we condemn as viciously evil the intentional killing of a woman's wanted fetus. Likewise, when negligence or criminal violence causes the death of a fetus, we regard that as horribly tragic and look for legal recourse.
But the fact that the law should protect a woman's wanted fetus does not imply that the law should also prohibit women from getting an abortion, though opponents of abortion often argue as much.
The mistake is to think that, because the law should protect a woman's wanted fetus, therefore the fetus is a person with full legal rights, just like every born child and adult.
Legal protections for a woman's fetus properly extend from the legal rights of the woman herself. Every woman has the right to life, liberty, and the security of her person. One of a woman's most profound choices is whether to bear a child. A pregnant woman who wants to bear a child devotes great care and resources to having a healthy baby, and she contemplates her fetus in anticipation of the independent person it will become. Therefore, killing a woman's wanted fetus, whether intentionally or as the consequence of violence or negligence, violates that woman's rights.
Likewise, because the woman is an independent person with full rights, whereas her fetus is totally contained within her body and not a biologically separate and independent person, the woman has the right to get an abortion if she chooses.
Unfortunately, some on the religious right have attempted to hijack the issue of fetal protection for backdoor attempts to outlaw abortion. For example, in 2010 Senator Dave Schultheis's bill attempted to (http://coloradoindependent.com/48449/schultheis-bill-to-criminalize-fetus-killing-fails-to-advance) define a fetus as a person in a fetal homicide bill.
Whereas sensible fetal protection laws protect a woman's rights to her own body and choices, legally defining a fetus as a person strips a woman of her rights. If a fetus is legally declared a person with the right to life, then, logically, the pregnant woman must be legally forbidden from getting an abortion, even if that endangers her health, and even if she must be imprisoned and physically restrained to force her to give birth.
Thankfully, newly introduced House Bill 1256 explicitly avoids conferring personhood to fetuses. Existing laws already criminalize the "unlawful termination of pregnancy," and last year a Mesa County court sentenced a man to five years in prison for giving his pregnant former girlfriend an abortifacient without her knowledge, the (http://www.gjsentinel.com/breaking/articles/judge-5-years-for-man-who-killed-girlfriends-fetus) Daily Sentinel reported. [See also my (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/unlawful-termination-of-pregnancy.html) previous post.] The new bill creates four ranges of offense, ranging from recklessness to the deliberate killing of a woman's wanted fetus.
Bill 1256 has some problems. Rather than outline the general principles applicable to call cases, it contains unnecessary language about committing an offense while driving a vehicle. Moreover, the bill obscures the important distinction between a fetus and a born child by referring to an "unborn child." Such vague, non-objective language should be removed.
Overall, though, the new bill seeks to more fully protect women against crime and reckless acts. While the law should not be contorted to serve an anti-abortion agenda, it should consistently protect the rights of every born person, including the rights of a pregnant woman either to get an abortion or protect her fetus, as she chooses.
Ari Armstrong blogs at FreeColorado.com and is the coauthor of the paper, (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) "The 'Personhood' Movement Is Anti-Life."
***
Scott Evans commented March 15, 2011 at 9:50 AM
If a woman can have her unwanted preborn child killed, why can't she have her unwanted already born child killed?
Ari commented March 15, 2011 at 10:12 AM
Scott, There's a reason why I linked to the paper. Please feel free to leave another comment only after you seriously consider those arguments and have something intelligent to say about them. Thanks, -Ari
'America Is Not Broke'
March 15, 2011
Over at Reason (http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/15/because-america-is-not-broke-t) Nick Gillespie reviews the fashionable leftist view that deficit, tax, and spending rates don't matter.
In a recent (http://www.frontrangeobjectivism.com/snowcon/denver.html) writing workshop, a participant brought to my attention a (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/opinion/03thu1.html) New York Times article with the same theme.
The Times accuses those claiming the Emperor has no money of uttering "obfuscating nonsense," though the U.S. faces debt over $14 trillion and unfunded liabilities several times larger. True, this does not technically render the federal government "broke," because it can pay its debts by raising taxes and creating money from thin air, in other words by forcibly confiscating more of people's earnings.
But, regardless of what the meaning of the word "broke," is, out-of-control federal spending threatens our prosperity and our liberty.
***
Scott Connery commented March 15, 2011 at 10:00 PM
Anyone who can't tell that the US is in a severe debt crisis simply isn't looking at the numbers.
http://www.rationalpublicradio.com/the-federal-government-now-owes-100-of-gdp.html
Vouchers Undermine Liberty
March 16, 2011
With Colorado conservatives all atwitter over Douglas County's adoption of a voucher program (see the (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17623486) Denver Post and (http://www.9news.com/news/article/187675/188/Douglas-County-Schools-votes-for-school-choice-voucher-program) 9News), now might be a good time to pause and consider whether vouchers advance liberty or undermine it.
Recently (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-spring/school-vouchers-tax-credits.asp) Michael LaFerrara has argued that a voucher program "is a statist 'Trojan Horse' set to destroy the private nature of private schools," whereas a good tax credit program (along the lines of Colorado's bill 1048) "is a means to more parental choice and less government interference in education."
I have three main concerns with vouchers.
1. Vouchers put otherwise-private schools under heavier government controls. To take but one example from the present case, "The district also added a provision... to allow students to opt out of religious instruction at religion-based schools," the Post reports. But presumably many of the leaders of those schools regard the religious instruction as fundamental to their school's mission. Parents and schools should be free to agree on the terms of a child's education (within the bounds of that child's rights) without political interference.
2. Vouchers force people to finance religious institutions against their will. Secularists are forced to subsidize religious schools, Buddhists and Muslims are forced to subsidize Christian schools, etc. That's wrong. The freedom of conscience, of which free speech is an aspect, entails the rightnot to support, monetarily or otherwise, the propagation of ideas with which one disagrees.
3. Vouchers entrench the welfare state. Whereas a tax credit reduces a person's tax burden, and thus involves that person's own money, a voucher forcibly transfers wealth. Vouchers thus sanction the propriety of forcing some people to fund the education of others. Obviously this is a big problem for anybody who advocates the individual right to control one's own income and resources. If we take property rights seriously, then we must recognize the right of each individual to voluntarily contribute funds to any educational program he chooses—or to no educational program at all. (Obviously parents have an obligation to provide for their own children's education.)
For more on this issue, please see the recent article from my dad and me,(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/how-about-school-choice-for-everyone.html) "How About School Choice for Everyone?"
***
John Galt commented March 16, 2011 at 2:01 PM
Agreed. Vouchers are not perfect. And yes a completely voluntary system with no taxation is preferable. BUT.
Given that that just isn't going to ever happen while people value slavery and altruism, working within the system is the only way to do so. And vouchers are as far as we're going to get within a system that assumes that poor people must be assisted or their kids won't go to school.
We have to remember that Obamacare simply steals the current education funding model: Have everyone pay in, regardless of if they use the system or not, thus making it more "affordable" for those that do use the system. It's just clearly a tax and not a mandate with fines.
What vouchers do is create competition. They also break unions because there isn't one source to deal with. Further, they break the corrupt system of electing your own employer.
What it doesn't do is guarantee that the government is going to stay out. I would say that the only voucher system that will work, is one where schools can opt out of taking vouchers (stay completely private), can determine their own curriculum and simply have to meet minimum standards based on national standardized testing AND NOTHING MORE. (and opting out is not a pre-requisite for any of the above)
Perhaps the best way is that schools that want to opt out of vouchers result in the parents getting a tax credit for the entire amount that they paid in for education up to the amount of the voucher (i.e. the tax would have to be clearly earmarked and not allowed to be touched by anything else) which of course with the exception of all but the very most rich would be lower than the amount of a voucher. If the school chooses not to opt out, then they have to ahere to non-secular principles and not teach religion and would be subject to the constitution and the bill of rights as a result of taking public money.
By doing so, schools could opt out, have no government interference, and those parents would not be using tax dollars to fund a Muslim school for example, while still ensuring that socialists would be ok with it, because they could still "Take care" of the "poor kids".
One thing is for sure though. Vouchers are better than the status quo, and the best we can hope for given the flawed (and stupid) value system of most of America. The question then becomes, do we want to force the system to blow up, or do we want to incrementally fix it over time? John Galt or Dagney Tagart up until the final act? And only your assessment of how far down the hell hole we have gone can determine your position on that...
Ari commented March 16, 2011 at 2:56 PM
Letting the system "blow up" is a false alternative to expanding political controls over education through vouchers. I've already indicated that tax credits, now on the table, are far superior to vouchers. Beyond that, there are many ways to incrementally reform education: disempower the teacher's unions within existing tax-funded schools, promote home-schooling and private schooling, etc.
John Galt commented March 17, 2011 at 11:00 AM
Tax credits do not work. 50% of the population doesn't pay any income tax. That same 50% don't own homes, so giving property tax credits is pointless too. Thus this system only benefits the "rich" and puts the "burden" on the "poor" parents.
Given that essentially all of the American population believes in Altruism, you're not going to get anyone to agree in any numbers that would pass the bill, to a system that does not pay 100% of the bill for every kid in the system. There is no chance and I'm sure you know it. (I'll ignore home schooling because that's just silly considering most families must have two incomes to barely get by, and private schooling for essentially the same reason)
Thus you have to decide to play with what you can get through (vouchers is the only alternative currently on the table that can pass a state legislature) or just throw up your hands, recognize that the legitement position is never going to happen unless everything collapses and then help it along.
Come up with a system where 100% of all of the "poor" families have their kids' education 100% paid for that isn't vouchers, and you might have a winner. Until then, vouchers is it. Hence I push for vouchers because it's better than nothing and hopefully will prove to people that competition is a good thing and that capitalism works. And that will get you to the next argument.
Ari commented March 17, 2011 at 11:35 AM
Dear "John Galt," First, you're nothing like John Galt. Second, I'm not going to post any more snarky, insulting messages from you. Third, you are fundamentally misrepresenting my position, which is not to "throw up my hands" and do nothing. Passing a voucher law that EXPANDS government control of education is not compatible with free-market competition or capitalism, nor have you even attempted to counter my arguments to that effect. There are many, many ways to advance liberty in education, but vouchers are counter-productive. -Ari
Anonymous commented March 17, 2011 at 12:32 PM
Ari,
Let us focus on your #2. I agree secularist should not have to fund religious schools but what about the opposite? Religious folk are forced to fund your secular schools.
Why does Ari consider forced taxation from secular folk given to religious folk less moral than forced taxation of religious folk given to secular people?
Both situations are equally reprehensible.
The pro abortion, pro secular report you helped create seems to advocate theft so long as it is used for secular education and not for religious education. Your # 2 issue reiterates your taxpayer funded secular education stance.
The taxpayer should fund neither or both.
Ari commented March 17, 2011 at 12:38 PM
Dear Anonymous, Whey are they suddenly "my" tax-funded schools? I do not advocate tax funding for any school. I advocate the complete separation of school and state. However, the First Amendment rightly precludes tax funding for religious purposes, so that is an additional barrier. But I quite agree it violates the rights of religious people to force them to finance a secular agenda. (I have no idea which "report" you have in mind.) -Ari
Anonymous commented March 22, 2011 at 8:44 AM
Nothing could be more against the free exercise of religion than forcing taxpayers to fund public schools, then forcing religious taxpayers to pay for education twice—if they want their kids in religious schools. Blaine Amendments cause subsidies for secularists, penalties for the religious.
Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/education-114813-bigotry-board.html#ixzz1HL7Rn0J4
AriM commented arch 22, 2011 at 8:48 AM
So your argument, Anonymous, is that two wrongs make a right?
cawrigh commented March 23, 2011 at 5:14 AM
Joh Galt wrote, "Tax credits do not work. 50% of the population doesn't pay any income tax."
This objection is easily overcome by allowing people and corporations that do pay income tax to claim the tax credit if they donate money to educate children.
Chuck Wright
Anti-Abortion Zealots Kill Fetal Protection Bill
March 16, 2011
You'd think anti-abortion zealots might want to protect fetuses from criminal harm, right? Wrong.
"Right-fringe... abortion extremists" opposed Colorado House Bill 1256, as State Senator Pat Steadman told (http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2011/03/16/unborn-child-bill-will-be-withdrawn-because-of-abortion-concerns/25348/) Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post, causing the bill's sponsors to withdraw the measure concerning fetal protection.
As I've (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/unlawful-termination-of-pregnancy.html) reviewed, Colorado law is deficient in that it criminalizes only intentional termination of a pregnancy (against the woman's wishes). What if, through a criminal or reckless act, somebody unintentionally kills a woman's wanted fetus? That's what happened with the hit-and-run in Denver.
The new bill defined four levels of offense: intentionally killing a fetus after deliberation (against the woman's wishes), intentionally killing a fetus without prior deliberation, recklessly causing the death of a fetus while knowing the woman is pregnant, and recklessly causing the death of a fetus without knowing the woman is pregnant. These basic categories of offense make a lot of sense, which is why I favored the bill (despite some problems with it).
In a subsequent (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/03/law-should-protect-wanted-fetuses-while.html) op-ed, I offered the basic theoretical foundation for such a law: "Legal protections for a woman's fetus properly extend from the legal rights of the woman herself."
Why, then, did anti-abortion activists, who claim to want to protect fetuses, oppose the bill? On March 14, the Colorado Catholic Conference sent an action alert via email opposing 1256. This Catholic group offered two main arguments. First, the "bill fails to recognize an unborn child as a separate victim of homicide or assault," as the bill explicitly states that a fetus is not a person under law. Second:
The Colorado Catholic Conference also opposes the fact that this bill seeks to repeal the criminal abortion statute that is still on the books in Colorado. The pro-life community looks forward to the day when Roe vs. Wade is overturned, and there is no benefit to the pro-life community to repeal our criminal abortion statute, even if currently it is not enforceable.
I take it this refers to statutes 18-6-101 through 18-6-105, which bill 1256 would have repealed. Statute 18-6-102 outlaws the ending of a "pregnancy of a woman by any means other than justified medical termination or birth." The key, then, is what constitutes "justified medical termination," which 18-6-101 defines. The measure severely restricts abortion to cases of likely death of the woman, "serious permanent impairment of the physical health of the woman" (including mental health), serious fetal deformity, cases where the woman is under sixteen, rape, and incest.
As I have (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) argued, these statutes seriously violate the rights of pregnant women to get an abortion. But apparently the Colorado Catholic Conference would rather prevent actual laws that protect fetuses from criminal harm, in order to leave unenforceable statutes on the books that outlaw elective abortions.
This is just the latest illustration of how (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) anti-abortion zealots undermine the rights and lives of actual people, in order to maintain the faith-based fantasy that a zygote is a person. So the next time a criminal gets away with killing a woman's fetus, feel free to blame the anti-abortion crusaders who killed bill 1256.
Denver Mayoral Candidate Mejia Speaks at Liberty On the Rocks
March 18, 2011
Now that former Denver Mayor Federico (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_17630751) Peña has endorsed James Mejia for the same job, I thought I'd release video of Mejia from the March 2 Liberty On the Rocks. Participants asked Mejia some tough questions about education, the city's homeless program, and political "investments." And he offered some thoughtful answers (though I disagree with many of his views).
'Personhood' and the Fetal Protection Bill
March 18, 2011
Anti-abortion activists killed a bill to protect fetuses from criminal and reckless harm, as I recently (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/03/anti-abortion-zealots-kill-fetal.html) pointed out. Over at (http://bigmedia.org/2011/03/17/why-did-the-extreme-anti-abortion-crowd-oppose-a-bill-making-it-a-crime-to-kill-an-unborn-baby/) Big Media, Jason Salzmanalso quotes from the Colorado Christian Family Alliance, which opposed the bill.
Today, (http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_17640481) Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post advances the story by paraphrasing State Representative Mark Waller, who blames the pro-choice side for including language denying the legal "personhood" of fetuses.
Bartels also quotes Colorado Right to Life as accusing Waller of failing to fight the "battle with the liberal, godless, left-wing abortion industry." (Obviously the line is intended as a smear on multiple counts; many people other than those who facilitate abortions favor legal abortion, as do many religious people and non-left-wing people.)
But Bartels is wrong to imply that the "single sentence" about personhood is what primarily doomed the bill. Both the Colorado Catholic Conference and the Colorado Christian Family Alliance mention the personhood line, but they also dislike the fact that the bill repealed other (mostly unenforceable) laws pertaining to abortion. A release yesterday from the Alliance does not even mention the "personhood" issue (see below).
Notably, the Alliance gives anti-abortion activists full credit for killing the bill, and the Alliance pledges to accept only clearly "pro-life," meaning anti-abortion, language.
The Alliance material (http://bigmedia.org/2011/03/17/why-did-the-extreme-anti-abortion-crowd-oppose-a-bill-making-it-a-crime-to-kill-an-unborn-baby/) quoted by Salzman also claims the bill "codifies taxpayer funding for abortion mills." But I looked at the bill and found no language along those lines. Update: State Senator Pat Steadman returned my call and confirmed the bill did not pertain to "taxpayer funding" of abortions. Steadman said it's "ridiculous" to think the bill has anything to do with tax funding, "because that's unconstitutional" according to Article 5, Section 50; "I can't imagine what provision of the bill they would even cite to make that claim."
Obviously the anti-abortion crowd is attempting to hijack the fetal protection bill, which is why the line about "personhood" was important. To review, in 2010 State Senator Dave Schultheis ran a bill explicitly(http://coloradoindependent.com/48449/schultheis-bill-to-criminalize-fetus-killing-fails-to-advance) granting legal "personhood" to fetuses, and in 2008 and 2010 anti-abortion groups ran a (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) "personhood" initiative in Colorado (and have threatened to do so again in 2012).
So for Waller to accuse the pro-choice side of hanging up the bill over "personhood" language is completely disingenuous. The central problem is that the anti-abortion side will not allow a bill to proceed unless it is a backdoor attempt to outlaw abortion.
Another reason why language denying legal "personhood" to fetuses was needed in this year's bill (1256) is that its title and language explicitly refers to an "unborn child." As I've (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/03/law-should-protect-wanted-fetuses-while.html) argued, this "vague, non-objective" language "obscures the important distinction between a fetus and a born child." Given that ambiguity, language clarifying that a fetus is not in fact legally a "person" is absolutely essential to the bill.
Now, for a bill with a neutral title, such as "A Bill to Protect Embryos and Fetuses from Criminal and Reckless Harm," specific language about "personhood" would not be necessary, so long as the bill's provisions unambiguously refrained from restricting abortions.
In general, a good bill would be much shorter and much simpler than 1256. However, a good bill must also prevent anti-abortion zealots from hijacking the law for backdoor abortion bans.
March 17 Release from the Christian Family Alliance of Colorado
Pro-Life Citizens Rally to kill sneak attack on Colorado's voter-passed Pro-life Laws
Even the bill's drafter, attorney Michael Dohr, admitted the bill "removes all criminal abortion statutes" thereby ratifying abortion-on-demand in Colorado
Denver, CO—Today, Christian Family Alliance of Colorado responded to deceptive State House GOP leadership back pedaling on a bill designed to subvert Colorado's voter-passed pro-life laws.
HB 1256, the so-called fetal homicide bill, inspired by a recent hit and run crime committed against an Aurora women and her unborn child, was pulled after pro-life citizens rallied to expose the deceitful bill.
The language of the bill, rather than address only fetal homicide, went far beyond to strike part 1 of article 6 of title 18 that would decriminalize all abortion related criminal activity.
"It saddens CFAC to know that even House GOP leadership seemed prepared to nullify all of Colorado's voter-passed pro-life laws and therefore ratify abortion-on-demand in the Centennial State," said Neville.
"We'd expect that from a Planned Parenthood lobbyist like Senate sponsor Pat Steadman, but not from those who claim to value the lives of unborn children."
"Thankfully pro-life citizens rallied in time to end the travesty that was HB 1256. They are now looking forward to working with real pro-life legislation that will finally close Colorado's fetal homicide loop hole," concluded Neville.
You Mean Licensing Massage Therapists Didn't Stop Prostitution?
March 18, 2011
A few years ago the Colorado legislature imposed massage licensing on the pretext that it would stop "parlor" prostitution. My dad and I (http://ariarmstrong.com/2008/08/massage-licensing-rubs-special-interests/) wrote about this.
You can imagine my surprise, then, upon reading the following Denver Post headline: (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_17644673) "Accused madam in suburban spa prostitute ring surrenders."
You mean licensing therapeutic massage didn't stop parlor prostitution? What a shocker.
Of course the licensing scheme was never about stopping prostitution. It was about protecting existing massage therapists from competition and screwing consumers with higher prices.
Given the obvious failure of the licensing law to achieve its stated objective, will the legislature now repeal Title 12, Article 48.5, Sections 101 through 119, the "Massage Parlor Code?"
Of course not.
Free Elmo!
March 18, 2011
Today's Denver Post publishes some thoughtful (http://blogs.denverpost.com/eletters/2011/03/17/should-public-broadcasting-receive-federal-funding-5-letters/12396/) letters on "public" broadcast funding.
While my own letter did not make the mix, I though it worth reproducing here:
The (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_17595951) Denver Post argues PBS and NPR offer good content that "most Americans" wish to fund with tax dollars. But our nation is established on the principle that the rights of the individual may not be violated by majority rule. Just as "most Americans" cannot rightly prevent an individual from speaking, so the majority ought not force individuals to finance speech against their will. Elmo does not need a bandit's mask, he needs freedom from political meddling.
A Note on 'No Soliciting'
March 18, 2011
This last fall, as I handed out flyers for (http://www.stephenbaileyforcongress.com/) Congressional Candidate Stephen Bailey, I wondered whether all the people with "No Soliciting" signs really wanted to avoid getting campaign literature. (I avoided handing out flyers at such places.)
A family member of mine put up a no-soliciting sign that excepts youth fundraisers. That gave me the idea to post the following: "No Soliciting. No flyers, handbills, phone books, etc. Youth fundraisers and political campaigns excepted." I think that distinguishes the sort of contacts I want from the sort I don't want. (I just used plain paper in a sealed ziplock bag.)
Moreover, the term "soliciting" is somewhat ambiguous, so the added detail is helpful. Dictionary.com includes the following two definitions, among others: "to solicit orders or trade, as for a business"; "to offer to have sex with someone in exchange for money." So does "soliciting" include fundraising for nonprofits and political literature?
Generally I don't want business flyers for several reasons. First, they're wasteful (especially phone books), and I have to spend my time throwing them away. Second, I don't really trust flyers handed out door to door. I'd rather find a business through referral or the internet. Third, if I happen to leave for a few days, collected flyers can telegraph to would-be burglars that the house may be unoccupied.
Today I happened to be returning from a walk, and I noticed a flyer distributer read my sign and then not drop a flyer, as my sign requested. I was so impressed that I asked him who he works for. It turns out it's (http://missjennysclean.com/) Miss Jenny's Dry Cleaner. I had the following humorous exchange with a manager of the business:
[Me] I really appreciated your flyer guy in Westminster respecting my no-soliciting/ no-flyers sign. It gives me a favorable view of your business.
[Manager] I'm sorry, but was that sarcasm? If it wasn't, then thank you. If it was, we instruct our marketing people to avoid houses that have a "no handbills" sign, as we do not handout flyers. If you have any questions, please feel free to call me.
[Me] No, it wasn't sarcasm. I watched your guy notice my sign and then not place the flyer. (I was returning from a walk.) So, because I appreciate your respect for property rights, I posted a link to your web page on my Facebook feed.
The manager then thanked me again.
Now, it might be said that, if I hadn't noticed the flyer guy avoid my house, I never would have heard of Jenny's Cleaner. Perhaps, especially as I already have a dry cleaner I'm happy with. However, if he'd placed the flyer against my stated wishes, I certainly would have had a negative impression of the business.
So, if you have a generic "No Soliciting" sign posted, I suggest you replace it with a more explicit and detailed sign. If you don't have a sign up, you might consider whether you want to try to limit what people leave at your door.
Gardner Introduces Tax Discrimination Bill
March 20, 2011
The more I hear of discriminatory tax schemes (such as what (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/walkers-discriminatory-taxes.html) Scott Walkerpromoted in Wisconsin) the less I like them. While I do not favor repealing tax exemptions unless offset by general tax cuts, neither to I support implementing new discriminatory tax measures. Instead, advocates of economic liberty should advocate lower taxes for everybody, imposed in an equitable way.
I see four main problems with discriminatory taxes.
1. They're not fair. Taxing two people in comparable situations different rates is just plain wrong. Moreover, they seem to blatantly violate the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of an "equal protection of the laws."
2. They involve politicians in social engineering. Politicians impose relatively harsher tax penalties on people and activities they don't like, in order to impose less-harsh penalties on those they favor. But it's simply not the proper job of politicians to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, or to play favorites.
3. Discriminatory taxes encourage individuals and business to squander resources vying for special tax privileges. This time and energy should be spent on productive work, not sucking up to politicians.
4. Discriminatory taxes skew people's incentives. They direct more effort into tax-favored activities, and less effort into tax-punished activities. This necessarily shifts economic activity away from serving the highest needs and wants of customers.
In light of this general criticism, consider a new tax discrimination scheme proposed by Colorado Representative Cory Gardner, as described in a March 17 release:
Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) introduced a bill today that will help entrepreneurs and small business owners by allowing them to open tax deductable savings accounts under the condition that the money is used to start or grow a small business.
"Many small businesses are started in a garage with a dream and a credit card, and it's time to lend these people a hand." Gardner said. "If we're serious about economic recovery and job creation then let's look to ways that we can help small businesses, which create 2 out of every 3 new jobs."
Details of Rep. Gardner's proposal:
* Businesses with 500 or fewer employees will be eligible to open a savings account.
* Contributions to the account would be capped at $10,000 per year and the total value of these accounts at any one time would be capped at $150,000.
* As long as the money is used within five years of the first distribution, account holders do not have to worry about fees or penalties.
* Account holders could use the funds for the costs of business creation or expansion, such as the purchase of equipment or facilities, marketing, training, incorporation or accounting costs.
Consider the problems with this proposal:
* It favors new jobs over old jobs. Thus, it will promote ending stable, existing jobs in favor of "creating" new, more-speculative work.
* Who gets to decide which expenditures count as "growing a small business?" In actuality, every business expense is made with that outcome in mind. But, under the proposal, we'll have some team of bureaucrats to decide what counts and what does not count as "business development" under the program. And so businesses will waste resources playing this political game.
* The proposal favors small businesses over large ones. But, again, it's not the proper role of politicians to pick winners and losers or play favorites. It's the proper job of politicians to protect property rights, including rights of contract. Let people in a voluntary market decide the proper sizes of business ventures.
If Corry wants to cut taxes for businesses, something I strongly favor, then he should just proclaim that openly and offer an across-the-board tax cut.
Talk on Individual Rights Versus Force
March 21, 2011
Starting with the example of slavery, I talk about the principle of individual rights, which holds that each individual properly lives his own life and keeps the fruits of his own labor, as contrasted with the principle of force.
I presented this talk on March 19 at Liberty Toastmasters (which does not necessarily endorse anything I have to say).
I slightly misquote Howard Roark; the original line is, "I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life."
As an aside, I have an interesting story about this talk. I struggled to come up with a theme and outline I was happy with, and the morning of the talk I woke up early and thought about this some more. It seemed that I was trying to mash two different talks together, so the results were unsatisfactory. I went back to sleep and dreamed about writing down some notes, and when I woke up I altered my speech according to the notes I had dreamed about. I cut some material from the middle of the speech and added some new material, and I'm much happier with the talk as revised partly in my sleep. Of course one must rationally review the results, but the subconscious is fairly amazing.
Caldara Promotes Liberty On the Rocks
March 23, 2011
Jon Caldara spoke March 16 at Liberty On the Rocks in Denver.
Amanda Teresi, founder of the organization, also explained why it's important to recognize that George W. Bush was not a free-market capitalist.
Note: I run (http://libertyinthebooks.com/) Liberty In the Books in association with Liberty On the Rocks, and I get paid a bit for doing so.
Stripper Welfare Illustrates Why Charity Should Be Voluntary
March 25, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published March 18, 2011, by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110318/COLUMNISTS/110319963/1021&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
Do people have a right to food, shelter, and other basic needs? Or do people who earn wealth have a right to use it as they see fit, to donate to charity (if they wish to do so) on a voluntary basis?
An (http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_17385291) Associated Press headline last month nicely illustrates a major problem with modern welfare programs: "Colorado bill bans welfare cards at strip clubs." Bill 1058 pertains to "public assistance payments and food stamps" that can be accessed through ATMs. It adds strip clubs to the list of other establishments where the funds may not be withdrawn: racetracks, bingo clubs, gun shops, and liquor stores.
Apparently even the Colorado legislature grants there is no fundamental right to stuff tax dollars into the garters and panties of strippers. Yet somehow we do not find the so-called "Responsible Family and Taxpayer Stewardship Act of 2011" very reassuring. What's to stop the same welfare recipients from cashing out down the block (or illegally selling tax-funded goods) and using the money at the same establishments?
Those who would trivialize such problems need only turn to the pages of the Los Angeles Times, where we find the following headlines and summaries from last year. (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/04/local/la-me-welfare-20101004) "$69 million in California welfare money drawn out of state: Las Vegas tops the list with $11.8 million spent at casinos or taken from ATMs, but transactions in Hawaii, Miami, Guam and elsewhere also raise questions." "Thousands in welfare cash tapped at (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/welfare-cash-dispensed-at-strip-clubs.html) California strip clubs." "California welfare recipients withdrew $1.8 million at (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/25/local/la-me-welfare-casinos-20100625) casino ATMs over eight months."
When politicians hand out "free" cash, there's no way to ensure the money is spent on basic needs. But even programs that provide goods and services, such as food or health care, allow the recipients to redirect their own dollars to wasteful spending. How often do people use food stamps for food and spend their own cash on cigarettes and booze?
The bureaucrats who distribute welfare benefits cannot possibly know whether the recipients use the benefits prudently or wastefully. Even outright fraud is difficult to detect. Moreover, because political programs operate by formulas and reams of rules, bureaucrats usually couldn't do anything about wasteful spending anyway. And, because the bureaucrats spend other people's money, they have little incentive to provide accountability for the resources.
Contrast forced welfare with voluntary charity. Somebody who voluntarily contributes to a cause has a strong incentive to make sure the money achieves its purpose. Voluntary charity is much more flexible, ranging from helping out a family member or neighbor to funding a major nonprofit. Voluntary charities are diverse, meeting a variety of needs through different approaches. Thus, the failure of one charity will have little impact on voluntary giving as a whole.
Voluntary charities are better able to ensure recipients actually benefit from the donations, and they have an interest in improving recipients' condition. A local charity organizer is more likely to know whether a recipient is trying hard to get back on his feet or squandering the resources on booze and strip clubs.
A local food bank is more likely to provide economical, healthy foods, as opposed to the high-sugar processed foods often obtained with food stamps. And voluntary charities are more likely to function well, as opposed to Colorado's (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17467495) failed computers that caused years of welfare backlogs.
If a charity performs poorly, donors can quickly redirect their resources to more effective organizations. By contrast, the contributers to tax-funded welfare have little ability or incentive to provide any oversight for those programs.
The greatest harm of forced welfare programs is not the wasted resources, but the cultural decay they foster. When people donate voluntarily to charity, they share a sense of goodwill with the recipients and hold a sincere desire to help them achieve a better life. Forced welfare more often causes animosity and anger.
The recipients of voluntary charity are more likely to realize that the help comes with the expectation of becoming responsibly self-sufficient. Forced welfare fosters the notion that recipients somehow deserve the help simply by virtue of failing to earn a living. Recipients with this attitude are more likely to squander the resources, live irresponsible lifestyles, and grow perpetually dependent on government handouts.
Those who advocate forced welfare confuse a need with a right, ignoring the fact that a "right" to material assistance implies the ability to force somebody else to produce those resources. Welfare benefits do not come from some magical pot of gold in the sky; they must be paid by individual producers.
People have the right to use the product of their labor as they deem best. A free society is a wealthy society in which the successful majority, freed from onerous tax burdens, gladly helps those truly in need. Voluntary charity respects the rights of the donors while best ensuring the well-being of the recipients.
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Evil Red Scandi commented March 25, 2011 at 3:43 PM
Well, since many of these girls swear they are paying their way through college, it could just be viewed as another government educational fund.
For decades we've had the G.I. Bill; now apparently we have the G-String Bill.
Anonymous commented March 27, 2011 at 9:15 AM
Check out this new study.
The chart is quite revealing. A one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/entitlement-america-head-household-making-minimum-wage-has-more-disposable-income-family-mak
Bill Johnson "Detests" Liberty in Beer Sales
March 28, 2011
Denver Post editorial columnist Bill Johnson (whose tirades inexplicably appear on the news pages of the paper) "detests" a bill to expand economic liberty and consumer choice in the beer trade, he writes in in his (http://www.denverpost.com/billjohnson/ci_17714853) latest piece.
Johnson dislikes a bill that would allow consenting adults—grocers and consumers—to agree to exchange dollars for regular-strength beer. Currently Colorado law forcibly prohibits such voluntary exchanges and limits grocery stores (except for a single store in a chain) to low-alcohol beer.
To Johnson, the issue is about "the little guy" versus "corporate America," and a "government... threatening yet again to shut" down liquor stores. Johnson doesn't mention a single word about the fact that the so-called "little guy" liquor stores (which often also are corporate entities) currently use government force to block the competition.
What about the littlest guy of all, the lone consumer without the resources to relentlessly lobby the legislature, as liquor stores do? Consumers should be able to buy whatever beer they want from the seller of their choice. But their rights are irrelevant in Johnson's world.
To be sure, the legislature also oppresses liquor stores by forcibly preventing them from selling most food and from opening chains. Those laws should be repealed. But two wrongs do not make a right, and rights-violating restrictions on liquor stores hardly justify additional restrictions on grocers. Justice requires the complete repudiation of all such anti-liberty controls.
Liquor store owners went into businesses knowing full well that current law benefits them by forcibly blocking their competitors. Those who start a businesses relying on the protection of unjust laws have no grounds to complain when those unjust laws finally are repealed. To the degree that the economic interests of liquor stores depend on violating people's rights, those interests properly bear no legal weight.
Two main special interests oppose expanding a free market in beer sales: liquor stores and brewers like (http://www.csindy.com/colorado/be-careful-what-you-wish-for/Content?oid=2094849) Mike Bristol. They argue that, if grocers were allowed to sell the beer of their choice, consumers would flock to grocers for their beer purchases, and they would stop buying craft beer. Such hyperventilating claims not only defy reality, they demean consumers as well as liquor store owners and craft brewers.
If consumers only shopped at liquor stores and only purchased craft beer because the law forcibly prevented them from doing otherwise, then obviously existing law harms consumers. Bristol basically is arguing that his beer is so bad that he must force people to drink it, and if he stops using force, people will strop drinking it. Well, if his beer is so bad that consumers would not voluntarily choose to buy it on a free market, then he should stop producing it! Likewise, if liquor stores exist only because the law forcibly prevents consumers from shopping elsewhere, then obviously those stores are not meeting consumers' needs.
I would expect Bristol to take a little more pride in his work than that. If you have a good product, Mr. Bristol, then you should trust consumers to purchase it voluntarily. Just as it was wrong for Prohibition to once put beer brewers like you out of businesses, so it is wrong for you to use the force of unjust laws to block voluntary exchanges.
The simple fact is that, once grocers sell regular-strength beer, some will stock many craft beers, and others will not. That's the case with liquor stores now. Guess what: stores stock what their customers like to buy. I personally have not purchased anything other than high-quality beer for many years (I have a wonderful Vanilla Porter in the fridge right now from Breckenridge Brewery), and I'm not going to start buying Bud and Coors just because the law permits a free market in beer sales.
Having been to many of Colorado's fine breweries, talked to several of the state's brewers, and chatted with hundreds of beer enthusiasts, it is obvious to me that there is a strong market in Colorado for craft beer. That market is not somehow going to evaporate just because grocery stores can sell beer. What that market presents is an opportunity for liquor stores to specialize in selection. I doubt that many grocery stores will offer services like pick-and-choose six-packs, as various liquor stores already provide. As is obvious to anyone who has traveled outside Colorado, liquor stores continue to thrive in states where grocers may sell regular-strength beer.
As for Johnson's argument about putting people out of work, perhaps Johnson should brush up on his (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/bastiat.html) Bastiat so he doesn't sound like such an economic illiterate. What is immediately seen is that some liquor stores may enjoy less business or even shut down. What is not seen is that, if that happens, it will happen because some consumers are better off buying beer at grocery stores. What Johnson ignores are the extra jobs at the grocery stores, the extra money in consumers' pockets that can be spent elsewhere, and the extra time consumers have to produce or relax.
The legislature has no legitimate businesses forcibly disrupting the competitors of select businesses. Laws that prevent consenting adults from associating voluntarily to trade beer for dollars violate the rights of both buyer and seller. Shops that survive solely because they are protected by unjust laws do not deserve to be in business. Liquor store owners and brewers who actually take pride in their work and meet the needs of consumers will continue to thrive in a free market.
Give us liberty. Protect people's rights. Restore a free market in beer.
Additional reading:
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/12/time-for-free-market-in-alcohol.html) Time for a Free Market in the Alcohol Industry
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/02/free-liquor-stores-from-prohibition-era.html) Free Liquor Stores from Prohibition-Era Rules
(http://www.ariarmstrong.com/2007/12/another-look-at-blue-laws.html) Another Look at Blue Laws
(http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/03/time-to-bring-beer-sales-to-ballot.html) Time to Bring Beer Sales to Ballot
(http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/03/beer-smash-protests-protectionism.html) Beer Smash Protests Protectionism | (http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/03/beer-smash-photos.html) Photos
(http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/03/co-brewers-should-endorse-liberty.html) CO Brewers Should Endorse Liberty
(http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/01/good-beer-needs-no-political-force.html) A Good Beer Needs No Political Force
(http://www.freecolorado.com/bw/121604.html) Blue-law special
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Anonymous commented March 29, 2011 at 12:18 PM
Have you ever been to California? They allow all types of liquor sales in grocery stores there and it is very hard to find an independent liquor store. Though the grocery stores have a reasonable selection of products it is not as good as many of our independent Colorado liquor stores. And forget trying to get a recommendation on a good wine from a grocery store clerk.
You seem to make the assumption that we live in a free market and therefore we need to let the free market decide winners. I have some news for you; our market is not free. The overwhelming power of the large corporations easily stacks the deck in their favor. You seem to have bought into the idea that liberty and individualism means stripping away protections for small business from large predatory corporations because doing so fits into your "free market" ideology. The problem is that when the market is not truly free the outcome of your action is collectivism. So, are you and individualist or a collectivist?
You don't believe me? Look at any small mid-western town's Main Street thirty years ago and compare it to now since Wal-Mart moved into town. This is how collectivism wins the game under the guise of the "free market".
Ari commented March 29, 2011 at 12:24 PM
Arizona allows grocers to sell beer and wine. Check out all the independent liquor stores in Phoenix: http://bit.ly/hGjG08 And here is a listing of liquor stores in Los Angeles: http://bit.ly/hGjG08
Your basic confusion, Anonymous, is over the meaning of a free market. A free market is NOT one free from competition. A free market is free from the initiation of force. If individuals wish to voluntarily shop at larger corporate stores, that's their right. If smaller stores can't compete on an open market, that proves only that they cannot meet the needs of consumers as well. We don't need "protection" from lower prices and more convenience!
Anonymous commented March 29, 2011 at 3:15 PM
If you truly believe that the "free market" we have today is not massively weighted toward the success of large corporations through various laws, tax breaks, and lobbyists then there is little hope for you! Competition is not really competition when the deck is stacked.
Ari commented March 29, 2011 at 3:24 PM
I never claimed we have a free market now; the problem is that we do not. But the answer to unjust controls is not more unjust controls, it is more freedom. But the simple fact is that consumers suffer unjust liquor controls because of the lobbyists and political power of the liquor stores and brewers. Currently the deck is stacked against consumers, and I'm trying to unstack it. You're trying to keep it stacked.
Anonymous commented March 30, 2011 at 7:05 AM
Our so called free market is at minimum, is 50% socialistic. If you do not understand this, you do not understand politics. Our social structure is also 50% socialist. The United States Constitution did not guarantee liberty; it guaranteed a Republic form of government. This Republic form of government has created a half free Nation.
I have never heard Ari claim we have a free market unlike old timers such as Rosen . I gotta give Rosen credit because the last few years he has morphed from free market to political economy.
Brew your own,grow your own, then you can have whatever you want, when you want it, nearly tax free!
Anonymous commented March 30, 2011 at 8:01 AM
Anon said: You don't believe me? Look at any small mid-western town's Main Street thirty years ago and compare it to now since Wal-Mart moved into town. This is how collectivism wins the game under the guise of the "free market".
I am not saying there are not laws that go against main street however I thought main street failed because shop owners wanted to sale only 2 lawnmowers per month yet afford a caviar life style?
Wal-Mart brings affordable groceries' to the masses.
This is called efficiency, something we all want.
Fast, Cheap, Healthy Eating
March 31, 2011
For some time I've wanted to discuss "fast, cheap, healthy eating" in more detail, and finally I just decided to do it in a fast and cheap blog post. I should state that I am neither a doctor nor a nutritionist. I'm inspired by "paleo" type eating, associated with lower carbs and nutrient-rich meats and vegetables. Much of my thinking on budget eating was inspired by my "food stamp diets" in (http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/02/low-carb-food-stamp-diet-success.html) 2009 and (http://www.freecolorado.com/2007/10/7news.html) 2007.
Good Time for Economy
Unemployment remains high throughout much of the country; it hit 9.3 percent in Colorado as of the (http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_17704424) last measurement. It seems very much as though the federal government's inflationary monetary policies are starting to show up in food prices (see a (http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_17739087) first, (http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Companies-Hide-Food-Costs/2011/03/30/id/391119) second, and (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-03-30-wal-mart-ceo-expects-inflation_N.htm) third article on the matter.)
So many people's budgets are strained now more than ever. But we gotta eat. Thankfully, some easy, common-sense steps can help make one's grocery budget stretch further while still providing great nutrition. That's what this post is about.
My Dietary Pilgrimage
Once in college a fast food joint put burgers on sale, so I ate there every day until, one day, I nearly vomited. Then I stopped eating there. But the funny thing was, I wasn't really saving any money by purchasing the "sale" food. Soon after college I stuffed my freezer with frozen dinners, again from a sale. But then I discovered that these dinners were full of salt and other junk, plus they just didn't taste very good (at least after about the third one). Nor did they save me any money.
Now I'm still not much of a chef, but I've learned to prepare tasty, economical, fast, and nutritious meals. My wife and I eat things like curry chicken and (http://www.whats4eats.com/vegetables/saag-recipe) saag, roasts with sweet potatoes and onions, quiche, and spaghetti squash with meat sauce. We eat very well, but we don't spend a lot of time or money on our food. I thought others might benefit from my experiences.
The Great Myths: Eating Well Costs a Lot and Consumes Time
We hear constantly that nutritious eating is costly and time-consuming. It's not. Some of the least nutritious food in the grocery stores, food full of sugar and processed grains, is also relatively expensive. Some of the least expensive food overflows with life-giving nutrition. Often preparing and packing a meal takes less time than going to a restaurant.
It is a myth that nutritious eating has to cost a lot. It is a myth that nutritious eating takes a lot of time. This entire post is about exploding those myths, but I thought it worth mentioning them explicitly at the outset.
Eating Out: The Great Budget Killer
I enjoy eating out at restaurants, just like most people do. But it's important to understand just how much that costs. A nice restaurant meal easily can cost a person fifty bucks—enough for more than a week's worth of groceries.
If you figure there are around 260 weekdays in a year, eating an $8 lunch for every one of those days costs over $2,000 for the year. If you buy a $4 coffee for each of those days, that's another thousand.
Sure, if you're bringing down a large salary, you're very busy, and you enjoy eating out, spending that much or more might be worth it to you. But if you're on a tight budget, or you'd rather spend that money on other things, preparing food and taking it to work is relatively easy.
Consider an Entertainment Budget
You probably don't need to give up eating out, but you might want to eat out less often.
For a long time my wife and I bickered about spending money on entertainment. We'd spend money to eat out, then feel guilty about blowing our money on nonessentials. We'd argue about what entertainment pursuits were worth it.
We've solved those problems by adopting an entertainment budget. The idea was inspired by (http://dianahsieh.com/) Diana Hsieh, though my wife and I adapted it to our own purposes. The basic idea is that you give yourself a certain amount each month for entertainment, to spend however you want without feeling guilty about it. Obviously the amount must make sense given your overall budget. If you spend less one month, you can carry the balance to the next.
We also decided to put a third of all extra income (beyond our regular take-home) into our entertainment budget (split evenly between us). We figure that gives us a third for fun, a third for taxes, and a third for investment.
Obviously the details of an entertainment budget can be adapted for the particular needs of an individual, couple, or family. But, having tried it, I really like the general strategy.
Forget List Shopping
It seems like every pretender who addresses the matter of budget shopping suggests that you shop only from an established list. Such advice is horrible. You cannot possibly maximize your grocery budget if you shop only from your preordained list. Indeed, while I do make lists for the essentials, often I shop without any list at all.
The grain of truth to the "shop by list" mantra is that it's stupid to make impulse purchases of unnecessary items. Certainly I am not advocating that!
What I am advocating is that you take advantage of sales, the most important of which are never announced. I'm talking about mark-downs. You will never include mark-downs on your shopping list, because you cannot possibly know which items a store will mark down on a given day.
Now, not every store features mark-downs, but most grocery stores I've seen do. The idea is that stores will put items about to go out of date on steep discount.
My local grocery store—and this is similar to many other stores I've seen—features a regular "discount" section with breads, canned goods, etc. Most of these "sale" items are worthless: discounted junk carbs are still junk carbs. You're not getting a "deal" by buying nutritionally worthless food. Sometimes, though, I have found spectacular deals in the discount sections.
Often, rather than place mark-downs in a special location, stores will leave them in their regular place. For example, once at Target I bought something like eighty 100-percent chocolate bars at a steep discount.
Other times, stores will create a special place for mark-down meats and dairy. So get to know your store. And get to know your foods: I regularly use eggs well after their stated expiration date. (Obviously eating spoiled foods can be dangerous, so you have to pay attention.)
Obviously my shopping strategy depends on my living in an urban and suburban environment, where I am constantly walking or driving past stores. Because my rented mail box is near my local grocery store, I'll quickly pop into the store most days of the week. (Plus I just enjoy walking through stores.) This enables me to hunt for mark-downs. But if you live out in the country, you'll probably be able to visit stores infrequently, so you'll be less able to take advantage of unannounced sales.
The key to mark-downs is to figure out what you need that's a good deal (sometimes mark-down sales aren't a very good deal), then buy a lot of it. Often I'll unexpectedly pick up 20, 30, even 60 pounds of produce or meat, because it's on a spectacular sale. By shopping only by list, you close your eyes to the best deals out there.
Eat What's On Sale
Don't schedule your meals far in advance; cook the ingredients that are the most economical at the time. If you find chicken on a great mark-down, eat chicken, not hamburger. If squash is fifty cents a pound, eat squash, not a pricey salad. Hamburger and lettuce will be on sale another day.
Shop the Good Aisles
I don't even look at most of the aisles in my grocery store. Boxed cereals? Forget it. Soda? Nope. In my world, there are really only three main sections of the store: dairy and eggs, meat, and produce. (Add to these the minor sections of spices and chocolate.) If you're shopping anywhere else, chances are excellent you're wasting money.
Use Your Freezer
If you live in a normal American house, you have a freezer conjoined to your refrigerator. Use it! Practically every meat freezes well. Practically every fruit freezes well, including bananas. (Frozen fruit works great for smoothies.)
The freezer is what enables you to buy mark-downs in huge quantities and preserve the food for several months.
Particularly fruits are subject to large seasonal variations in price. So buy when the prices are low!
I also bought a half-sized stand-alone freezer for the garage. That lets me really stock up on meat and frozen fruit. (I also freeze sprouted bread.) Be aware that the freezer costs some money, as does the electricity to run it, but for some people an extra freezer can save money overall. An extra freezer also allows you consider options like buying a side of beef.
Even if you don't have an extra freezer, your standard one can still hold a great amount of frozen food.
Consider a Dehydrator
I also own a (http://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/) food dehydrator, which is great for drying fruits like peaches, apricots, cherries, and strawberries. (I tend to cut my fruit into thin slices for faster drying.) I've even dried banana slices soaked in orange juice, and they were delicious but exceptionally messy. (I've also tried canning before, which may interest you, but I don't do it any more. I much prefer drying.)
Think About Gardening
This year my wife and I are putting in two long planters with soaker hoses. The goal is to grow food is that is relatively easy to raise in our region and more expensive at the store, like tomatoes. I probably won't grow hard squash, because usually it goes on sale every year for about fifty cents a pound (which likely will inflate upwards over the coming years). I want to try yams, too, and perhaps even some type of berry if I can find a region-friendly one.
Minimize Coupons
I use coupons, just not very often. Usually coupons apply to overpriced items that you'd do best to avoid altogether. Getting a discount on overpriced, highly processed, nutritionally worthless food is still a bad deal.
Remember, there is no coupon for a mark-down, the best deal out there.
Often a coupon is a just a way to dupe the mathematically challenged into spending more money on unnecessary products.
Sometimes people trap themselves in a false choice with a coupon. They think, "Would I rather have Product X at its normal price, or at the discounted price?" The discount wins! But the third option is to buy some other product altogether, or to buy nothing. For example, a coupon for boxed cereal will rarely save you money over a box of uncooked oatmeal or a breakfast of scrambled eggs.
Very often, coupons are for suckers.
Watch Weekly Ads
Sometimes a grocery store will offer some spectacular deals announced in their weekly ads. Usually these ads are mailed to every household and are also available online.
A "loss leader" is a sale product that a store doesn't expect to make any money from, and may even lose money on, in the hopes that the item will bring people into the store to buy other stuff. The loss leader is your friend. Just note any restrictions on quantity.
Sometimes stores offer steep discounts on products like eggs, some item of produce, tea, or a particular meat. Watch for these!
A couple of my local stores recognize "double ad day" every Wednesday, when the store honors ads from two weeks.
Consider Costco
Perhaps surprisingly, Costco (to which my wife and I have a membership) often offers worse prices on staple grocery items. I buy neither eggs nor yoghurt at Costco, though I did recently start buying milk there. One issue is that often Costco offers only a big-brand item, while a local grocery store may offer its own brand or a less-expensive third-party brand.
But some things I regularly buy at Costco: roasted almonds, large bags of fresh spinach, ice cream, and yams. But on many items Target or the local grocer beats the hell out of Costco's prices. So don't assume that "membership store" equals lower prices; very often it does not.
Use Math
Don't assume a coupon will save you money. Don't assume a "sale" will save you money. Don't even assume a mark-down will save you money. Don't assume the larger package will save you money. Don't assume a generic brand will save you money. Don't assume a membership store will save you money.
In short, don't shop like a sucker.
Only two things matter: the quality of the food, and the price per weight.
If a grocer can sell you a generic brand on "sale" for more than a regular brand, he will gladly do so. If a grocer can sell you a larger package for more per weight than the smaller package, again he will gladly do so.
Thankfully, many stores now provide the price per weight, so that can help. If not, figure it out yourself. Put the fruit on the scales. Put that fourth-grade education to work and do a little division. Bring a calculator with you if you must.
Cook a Lot at Once
Some dishes (scrambled eggs) are so quick and easy that it makes little sense to prepare large quantities.
Very often, though, it's a good idea to cook a lot, then keep the spare in the refrigerator or freezer for later. This is the primary way to save time on food preparation.
Don't cook two chicken breasts; cook six. Don't bake one flan; bake two.
You only have to cook major dishes two or three times a week if you cook a lot each time.
The Pan: Types
Now I'll get into cooking proper. I'll start with an essential item for any cook: the pan.
I've gone round and round with pans. I started with a nonstick pan, but it started getting scratched. I bought expensive stainless steal pans, but they're hard to use without food sticking. I tried cast iron, which are theoretically very cool but are difficult to use without food sticking and even more difficult to keep clean without ruining the surface. So now I'm back to a nonstick pan.
Are nonstick pans safe? (http://news.consumerreports.org/home/2009/09/best-nonstick-cookware-pfoa-health-risks-swiss-diamond-reinforced-cookware-earth-pan-with-sand-flow.html) Consumer Reports states, "Some perfluorinated compounds have been found to be accumulating in human blood, but our past tests suggest nonstick cookware is not likely to be a significant source of exposure."
The keys to safely using a nonstick pan are to use it only on low to medium heat and toss it once it starts to scratch or flake. (I suggest a soft silicone spatula.)
The best feature of nonstick pans is that they are cheap. I've seen small ones for as little as a dollar, and regular ones for ten to twenty dollars.
The Pan: Dishes
Pans are great for cooking bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, toast, and so on. Try an "egg in the basket:" a piece of bread with a hole cut in it (say, with a glass), cooked with an egg in the hole.
Often I cook a generic dish starting with an onion. Peel the onion, cut it in half, and slice it in wedges and then in small pieces. Place the chopped onion, perhaps with some chopped cloves of garlic, in your pan with some butter, olive oil, or coconut oil. Cook on low to medium heat until translucent. Then you can add practically any combination of vegetables, meats, and spices for a quick, nutritious meal (plus leftovers).
Are you in the mood for something spicy? Try some tomatoes, hamburger, and chili powder. Have some summer squash sitting around? Dice it up and toss it in with the onion, perhaps with some diced chicken or turkey.
I also use my pan for things like cooked cabbage.
The Crockpot
You can pick up a decent crockpot (with a removable bowl) for around twenty bucks. Do it! Nothing cooks food faster or easier.
Consider some possibilities:
* Throw a roast in the crockpot with some diced yams and onions.
* Combine a can of coconut milk, some curry powder, and a half dozen chicken breasts.
* For an easy, spicy dish, cook a half dozen chicken breasts in the crockpot with a jar of salsa.
* Throw in some ground hamburger for Mom's chili recipe (or a recipe from the internet).
I love my crockpot.
The Oven
You can also bake chicken breasts, fish fillets, and dishes of vegetables in the oven. I really like ceramic dishes with glass lids.
We eat baked "fry"-style yams fairly often. Just slice up a yam or potato into strips, coat them lightly with olive oil and salt, and bake them at 350 degrees for about half an hour, stirring after fifteen minutes. Or I'll cook a sliced onion the same way.
My wife is the master of oven-prepared desserts; for instance, she makes a spectacular (http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/desserts/r/lcarbcheesecake.htm) cheesecake but uses only a quarter cup of sugar for the recipe. I make a great (http://www.care2.com/greenliving/caramel-flan-recipe.html) flan but cut the sugar way down.
The Knife
You don't need a bunch of knives. You need only one knife. But make it a good one.
If I could have only one knife, I would choose the Wusthof paring knife. It's great for cutting up all kinds of vegetables, and it can handle meats well enough.
I also use a larger Wusthof knife for bigger jobs, but I use the paring knife much more often.
If you eat a lot of bread—we do not—you might also want a bread slicer.
The Plates
Once I saw my sister drop a whole stack of Corelle plates, and not one of them broke. I love my Corelle plates. They're inexpensive and sturdy, and they stack well.
But if you're really on a budget, check out the local thrift store.
Don't Forget the Simplest Dishes!
Some of the best dishes are the simplest.
What's easier than throwing a couple of salmon steaks in the oven? Or tossing some chicken in the crockpot?
Salads can make wonderful meals or sides, and they are trivially easy to prepare. Top any combination of greens with any combination of vegetables, and perhaps some chunk tuna or chicken.
For a snack, I like something I call "Chocolate Uncovered Raisins." Mix chocolate chips (I buy 60 percent Ghirardelli from Target, where I get the best price for that item) with some raisins (from Costco) and perhaps some roasted almonds (also from Costco).
Or for dessert I'll mix a little ice cream (Costco) with shredded coconut (Sunflower), fresh walnuts (also Sunflower, from the bulk aisle), and chocolate chips.
If you're not worried about your carb load, you can make silly stuff like popcorn or a microwaved (http://www.ehow.com/how_4553352_minute-chocolate-mug-cake.html) Mug Cake.
Vitamins
I do take a multivitamin, along with Vitamin D3 and fish oil (all from Costco). We try to eat wild salmon (frozen) once a week, as I think that's better than fish oil for getting DHA Omega 3. Salmon is easily the most expensive food I buy, which is why we limit our intake of it and supplement with fish oil.
Good Fat
I have severe misgivings about vegetable fats. Yes, it's low in saturated fat, but it's high in Omega 6 fat, and it's just not something people ate as they developed. So, while a giant vat of vegetable fat is cheap, I go with butter, olive oil, and coconut fat. They're a bit more expensive but still reasonable.
Invite Guests
My grandparents played (http://www.freecolorado.com/2007/06/eversolrummy.html) cards, a lot. When I got older I realized why: they didn't have cable, and they didn't have money for restaurants and such. So the family would get together for dinner and cards. And people had a delightful time. The same simple, cheap forms of entertainment are open to us today.
Stay In Touch
For updates about my articles, blog posts, and videos, please "Like" my(http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ari-Armstrong/171928302837272) Facebook Page.
And please check out my book, (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter: Lessons for Muggles.
***
Evil Red Scandi commented April 1, 2011 at 3:25 PM
You recommended a knife. Culinary flame war time! :-)
Seriously, though, if you have one knife it will have to be steel, because there are a few things ceramic knives can't do—namely, cut through bone and other hard materials, and they can only be used on soft surfaces (wood, plastic, or bamboo cutting boards—no stone, metal, or ceramic). However, we've got plenty of very good knives and the knives we use 95% of the time are our Kyocera Ceramic knives. The reasons are simple:
1) They hold an extremely fine, sharp edge in a way that makes the best metal knives seem downright pathetic. Our "daily use" ceramic knives need sharpening about every two years. The big downside of this is that you have to send them back to the manufacturer for sharpening. This takes about two weeks (including shipping time), but they only charge shipping and handling (about $15 or so for the first knife, each additional knife for a few bucks more).
2) They don't impart any flavor or increase the oxidation rate of your food. You're probably reading this and immediately dismissing me as a brain-dead hippie who believes any stupid thing they read on the Internet. No, I'm serious—I noticed this myself before I started reading up on it. You actually can taste the difference—especially in acidic fruits—and see the difference in things like sliced apples (they go brown much more slowly). Really strange and not something we expected when we bought them, but I'm always willing to take yes for an answer.
3) They don't stain or rust, and nothing sticks terribly well to them.
We had some very nice Henckels steel knives, and we were given a three piece set of Kyocera ceramics as a gift. We've expanded our collection of cermaic cutlery quite a bit since then. Aside from the steak knives (have to use metal on plates), the Henckels mostly gather dust these days. Our preference is so strong that we bought "backup" ceramic knives for the rare occasions when our main ones are out being sharpened.
Carol commented April 5, 2011 at 8:36 PM
I very much like the idea of cooking a lot and storing it for later as it would definitely save time on food preparations. I do have concerns though, how long do you keep it in the freezer before preheating it after- can it stay for say a week? We have tried it before but when I preheat it in the microwave- which is probably a bad idea as the food was still a bit cold even if it was already in the microwave for 20 minutes. Is it a better idea to heat it in a pan? Thanks
Walter in Denver commented April 6, 2011 at 1:32 PM
I enjoy cooking, although I'd never say I'm particularly good at it. But I cook all the time, and I have probably far too many pots, pans, knives, etc.
Things I find indispensable or at least extremely handy:
A dutch oven. If you are pressed for space you can forgo the slow cooker, any crock pot recipe can be made as well or better in a dutch oven. The only drawback versus a slow cooker is if you want to leave it cooking unattended, which may not be a good idea.
At least three knives—a paring knife, a chef's knife for chopping and a boning knife, especially if you cook wild game.
A steaming insert for a large kettle.
A pressure cooker.
A smoker.
Over the long term having multiple cooking vessels for a variety of cooking methods makes cooking at home more interesting, and I will be less likely to eat out if I know I can cook just about anything myself.
Ari commented April 6, 2011 at 1:48 PM
Carol, How long food will keep in the fridge or freezer very much depends on the dish. But generally if you freeze something it will remain in the same state for much longer than a week. Whether you want to microwave or stove-heat a dish—with or without refrigerator thawing—again depends on the dish and the portion size. In my experience, microwaving smaller amounts, and stirring frequently, works better. (Don't use plastics!)
Walter, Thanks for the tips. I never use a knife to cut bones, just because I tend to throw stuff in the crockpot, which nicely removes any remaining meat. I've found no need for a pressure cooker or a smoker, though I do have a nice steamer pan. -Ari
TV Reporters to Register with the Federal Government
April 5, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published April 1 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110401/COLUMNISTS/110339979/1021&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
A menace stalks our society, contributing daily to panic and untimely death. Irresponsible television reporting whips the public into a passionate frenzy and leads them to make imprudent decisions, sometimes with fatal consequences.
Clearly there should be a law. Congress should require reasonable, common-sense television controls to register all reporters with the federal government and require background checks to purchase cameras and other sensitive equipment. After all, it's for the children.
Yes, that's our attempt at an April Fool's joke. But our point is quite serious: the First Amendment and the freedom of speech protects the rights of journalists, even though some journalists act irresponsibly and contribute to harmful and even deadly behavior.
Similarly, the Second Amendment and the right of self-defense rightly protects peaceable gun owners, even though a tiny fraction of people with guns handle them irresponsibly or even commit horrific crimes.
Apparently (http://www.kjct8.com/news/27245138/detail.html) Don Coleman's idea of news reporting over at KJCT Channel 8 is to lie to law-abiding, peaceful gun owners by calling them under false pretenses to harass them about existing gun laws. Coleman reports that his station called people making private gun sales and asked them about background checks, knowing full well that private sales are not subject to such checks. Coleman's resulting report is a barely-disguised editorial masquerading as news.
The background check system is riddled with problems, to which we'll return. First we want to demonstrate that irresponsible journalism can in fact help to kill people, something journalists might care to remember when they advocate forcing people to register with the federal government to practice their Constitutional rights.
* (http://sethmnookin.com/the-panic-virus/) Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus, writes the "media seized hold of the story" about the bogus link between vaccines and autism and "helped to launch one of the most devastating health scares ever." This "led to outbreaks of deadly illnesses like Hib, measles, and whooping cough."
* Gary Taubes argues in Good Calories, Bad Calories that the media contributed to the demonization of saturated fat in favor of high-carb grains, promoting more obesity and diabetes.
* "The media are much more likely to do scare stories about plane crashes than car accidents," (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=20118) John Stossel points out, leading some people to avoid planes in favor of risker car travel.
* While much of the media have sensationalized the risks of nuclear power in the wake of Japan's earthquake, (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2011/03/17/inconvenient-truth-wind-energy-has-killed-more-americans-nuclear) Lachlan Markay writes for Newsbusters that "wind energy has killed more Americans than nuclear energy." Science writer (http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/nuclears-future) Matt Ridley adds, "Compared with coal, oil, gas and biofuels, nuclear energy is pretty harmless and its environmental footprint is minuscule." (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16contain.html) Tom Zeller of the New York Times points out that most nuclear reactors in the world are even safer than those in Japan. Yet media fear mongering may encourage Americans to utilize relatively dangerous forms of energy.
* What about guns? John Lott writes in The Bias Against Guns, "Though not always intentionally, the media and government have so utterly skewed the debate over gun control that many people have a hard time believing that defensive gun use occurs—let alone that it is common or desirable." This media bias discourages some from considering the benefits of gun ownership, leading to more criminal victimization.
Yet, even though "pens don't kill people, bad journalists do," we fully endorse the First Amendment and its protections for all writers and speakers. The law should not punish good journalists for the irresponsibility of a few.
Likewise, the law should punish criminals who misuse guns, not responsible gun owners who help keep society safe by discouraging crime. But punishing the responsible is precisely what background checks are about.
Properly they are called "background registration checks," because they register gun owners with the federal government. No, the names are not kept in a central database; they are kept on file by gun sellers, accessible to federal agents on request.
Under a demagog, such information easily could be abused. Those who want the global history of how gun-owner registration can lead to gun confiscation (and far worse) should see Death by 'Gun Control' by Aaron Zelman and Richard Stevens.
There is no magical, all-knowing Santa Claus who checks his list during a background check. The lists can be wrong, or somebody with a similar name may be wrongly delayed. When it comes to buying a tool for self-defense, delays can matter.
At Colorado gun shows, private sales must go through licensed dealers for a background check, adding to the costs of the gun.
Meanwhile, we have little reason to believe that background checks stop crime. Usually a criminal has easy access to black-market guns, or he'll pass a check anyway. Meanwhile, we're paying state and federal agents tax dollars to sit around running checks rather than chase down actual criminals.
Remember that nothing is so dangerous to our lives and the future of our nation than unjust, abusive laws.
Hsieh Explores Atlas Shrugged's Deeper Themes
April 7, 2011
Philosopher Diana Hsieh, who recorded a wonderful series of (http://www.exploreaynrand.com/1957/) podcasts about Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, discussed some of the novel's deeper themes April 6 at Liberty On the Rocks, Denver. As her main example Hsieh focused on the psychological destruction of the scientist Robert Stadler.
(Be sure to read all about my (http://www.freecolorado.com/ftcdisclosures.html) financial links to Hsieh, as the FTC unjustly requires me to post, and which illustrates why the agency should be abolished.)
Glass Reflects on CU Gun Debate
April 7, 2011
In this guest article, Bob Glass reviews an April 6 event he attended in Boulder.
Venturing into the people's Republic of Boulder is always part freak show and part sensory overload of political correctness. I got more of my share of both when I attended a symposium/debate entitled "Happiness is a warm Gun." This event which took place in the University Memorial Center was part of CU's (http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/) Conference on World Affairs.
This has become an annual event where silver-haired liberals get to feel intellectually and morally superior to the common folk as they drink their half decaf mocha lattes along with tenured professors and listen to how evil capitalism is, how oppressive Israel is, and how imperialistic America is, as the ice caps melt and polar bears must resort to cannibalism. This all occurs with (http://www.dailycamera.com/cu-news/ci_14471936) tax subsidies of course.
Having owned a gun store in Boulder and Longmont during the tumultuous years of the Columbine shootings and the Clinton/Reno fiascoes at Waco and Ruby Ridge, I knew what it was like to be a lightning rod for the media looking for anyone foolish enough to defend individual liberty and the Second Amendment in particular.
When I saw that Sheriff Richard Mack was to be one of the panelists at this event I thought it might be worth my while to attend. For those of you not familiar with Richard Mack, his is the classic story of the cop gone good. In a nutshell he decided to take his oath of upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States seriously. As he read the Constitution and the words of our founding fathers he began to understand what liberty and limited government were all about. He came to the inevitable conclusion that all gun laws as well as the war on drugs are unconstitutional and illegal. Hearing such ideas from Objectivists and Libertarians, even Conservatives is not so unusual. Hearing it from a man who spent most of his adult life in law enforcement is.
There were three other people on the panel besides the moderator. Terri Burke is the executive director of the Texas ACLU. Her claim to fame on the panel was to assert that the ACLU had no position of gun control but did however view the Second Amendment as a collective rather than individual right. I didn't get the opportunity to explain to her that her position was a contradiction in terms. Just as well as I don't think she would have had a clue as to what I was talking about. She asserted that the Second Amendment only talked about the state's right to heavily control and regulate its own armed forces—what was then the militia and what is now the national guard. Again I did not get the chance to explain to her that the Bill of Rights is all about protecting individual citizens against the tyranny of the state and that the term "well regulated" in the context in which it is used in the Second Amendment means well-provisioned.
The third panelist was Colin Goddard, a former student at Virginia Tech now working with the Brady Campaign. His role on the panel was that of professional victim. Goddard was shot on April 16, 2007 at Virginia Tech when a deeply disturbed individual went on a murderous rampage. If you can't wheel out James Brady himself or at least get Tom Mauser to get the water works flowing, then a gunshot victim and now professional lobbyist will have to do. Goddard's main focus was that the current system of doing background checks on gun buyers (the Brady Bill) is insufficient and the government needs greater power and more money to check more thoroughly into a person's legal and medical history. He also asserted that there is no "need" for a variety of firearms now being sold and they should be made illegal. [Editor's note: (http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2011/01/university-of-utah-officials-are-still.html) John Lott and others have pointed out that the shooting occurred despite the campus gun ban, and Lott argues, "those bans actually encourage those attacks."]
Rounding out the statist panel was Jimmie Moore. Moore, now a municipal court judge in Philadelphia, played the role of the victimized Black man in America who despite his violent boyhood in the projects rose above the gun culture and went on to become a lifelong public servant. Moore's main assertion is that we cannot control our own behavior—as evidenced by the rash of shootings in our cities—and therefore the government must step in and control us for our own good. He dismissed the Constitution as a document that condoned slavery and oppressed women and therefore has no validity today. He went on to say the the Constitution is a living, breathing document that is always in a state of flux and subject to the interpretation of judges and the times in which they live. Yes, this man is a judge.
Richard Mack showed great courage and character stepping into this viper pit with a bulls eye painted on his back. His arguments were constitutional, historical, and statistical, showing time and time again how gun control does not work and how the greatest threat to freedom and security is the state itself. The other panelists and the crowd of about 300 treated him like a pinata, taking turns whacking him with their emotion-filled, illogical arguments.
When it came for me to ask a question I immediately pointed out the inherent unfairness of having three gang-up against one. Once the moderator saw that I was not toeing the party line of political correctness he tried to silence me by going to the next person with a question. Big mistake on his part. This turned into an ugly shouting match between us as I stood my ground and said my full piece despite the obvious irritation on the face of the now-silent moderator and the groans coming from the crowd.
After the "discussion" ended an Israeli couple came over to me and thanked me for taking the stand that I did. They told me that originally Sheriff Mack was not scheduled to speak, but it was only through their efforts and invitation that they got him on the panel. So much for the concept of a free exchange of ideas and opinions on a college campus. I shook Richard Mack's hand and thanked him for having the cojones for swimming in the piranha tank. As I left the auditorium, a few more people came up to me and thanked me for saying what I did. But for the most part I was met with stares and snarls of contempt. Just another day at the office in the People's Republic of Boulder.
Atlas Shrugged Movie Trivia
April 11, 2011
Get ready for the Atlas Shrugged movie! Try to answer these seven questions about Ayn Rand's novel. (http://dianahsieh.com/) Diana Hsieh asked the questions at the April 6 Liberty On the Rocks in Denver.
Here are the questions:
1. What does John Galt's motor use as its power source?
2. What was the title of Dagny Taggart's first job?
3. What is Mr. Thompson's position in the government?
4. What is Mr. Thompson's first name?
5. What are the two metallurgical achievements of the State Science Institute?
6. What is Francisco D'Anconia's full name?
7. What color are John Galt's hair and eyes?
For the answers, see the video starting at 2:02!
Expanded 'Values of Harry Potter' Addresses Psychology, Government, and Media
April 11, 2011
Colorado political writer Ari Armstrong releases the Expanded Edition of his book, Values of Harry Potter: Lessons for Muggles, April 21.
The new edition adds eight new essays to the original 2008 book. Those essays include:
* "The Psychology of Harry Potter," which compares author J. K. Rowling's personal experiences with depression to the dementors of the novels.
* "Wizard Law and Segregation," an essay that reviews the political themes of the novels and evaluates the forced separation of wizards and non-magical Muggles.
* "News Media in Harry Potter," which reviews the attitudes of Rowling's heroes and villains toward media and counters criticism of the novels.
"I am thrilled to have the opportunity to return to Rowling's magical world and review its parallels to our own world, especially in the areas of psychology, government, and media," Ari said about his work of literary criticism.
The release date marks the anniversary of Harry's use of a luck potion to obtain a crucial memory about arch-villain Voldemort.
The book is already available in paperback and Kindle.
Review copies (paperback or pdf) may be requested from Ari at ari (atsignhere) freecolorado (dothere) com.
For more information about the book see (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) ValuesOfHarryPotter.com.
Objectivism: Hsieh Summarizes Rand's Philosophy
April 12, 2011
Ayn Rand's Objectivism is an integrated philosophy, not just a political view, Diana Hsieh explained April 6 at Liberty On the Rocks.
https://youtu.be/embed/Nij8lB0ysD8
What's 'Values of Harry Potter' All About?
April 14, 2011
March 24, 2014 Update: Originally this post duplicated the contents of an essay from my Values of Harry Potter page; I figured I'd just (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/vhpabout.html) link to it instead. The essay offers a chapter-by-chapter summary of my literary criticism.
Hsieh Reviews Rand's View of Rights and Capitalism
April 15, 2011
Diana Hsieh reviewed Ayn Rand's ideas earlier this month at Liberty On the Rocks, Denver. Here, she discusses Ayn Rand's theory of rights and addresses luck and capitalism.
Go See Atlas Shrugged Part I!
April 16, 2011
As I mentioned earlier in the week on Twitter, I had never been so excited to see a film for which I had such low expectations. But I truly enjoyed the film adaptation of (the first part of) Atlas Shrugged.
I see that one lonely reviewer listed at (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/) Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a passing grade, leaving Atlas with a paltry six percent rating overall. Yet I am reminded of the scenes in Atlas in which the State Science Institute pans Rearden Metal for political reasons. While Atlas is not as good a movie as Rearden's product is a metal, I think the film faces comparable biases. I think that a film of comparable production value, but based on a politically correct novel or pushing a leftist agenda, would have scored in the forty to sixty range at Rotten Tomatoes.
Based on the trailers, I wasn't sure I'd enjoy the performances of Taylor Schilling (Dagny Taggart) or Graham Beckel (Ellis Wyatt). But I thought they did a fine job. Generally I was impressed with the acting throughout. I was disappointed with Jsu Garcia as Francisco D'Anconia; he played more of a bar-hopping playboy, whereas the real character is a refined, intensely elegant man. And the character of philosopher Hugh Akston is completely misplayed. But everyone else is quite good, and at moments inspired. Patrick Fischler brilliantly portrays the conflicted Paul Larkin, and Rebecca Wisocky nails the serenely devilish Lillian Rearden.
The film looks beautiful. The outdoor scenery and the interior locations are gorgeous. I loved the sequences of building the rail line. And the train run itself proves inspirational (though it retains something of a digitized look).
No, the film does not come close to the intellectual or psychological depth of the novel. And sometimes the film gets the book totally wrong, as when (according to the film) Dagny casually offers to sleep with Francisco to secure a loan. Wrong, wrong, wrong. But the film remains basically true to the story and gets a great deal right.
I've spent quite a lot of time contemplated the (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Harry Potter universe, and, like Atlas, the last two Potter films leave out wide swaths of the books on which they are based. Both Rowling and Rand spend a lot of time inside the heads of the characters, and that's extremely difficult to carry across on screen. While obviously the Potter films have much larger budgets, I think they're roughly as true to their source material as the Atlas film is to Rand's novel.
Another apt comparison is the 1949 adaptation of Fountainhead. Atlas is a far better adaptation. In the older film, both Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal play their characters (Howard Roark and Dominique Francon) totally wrong. (In fairness, Roark would be very hard to portray well.) By contrast, at least at moments Schilling and Grant Bowler (Hank Rearden) revealed the true spirit of their characters.
Of course, it may be hard to top the 1942 unauthorized Italian production of We the Living.
Honestly, I prepared to endure the movie clinching my teeth and trying to keep myself from getting continually ripped out of the story by bad acting and technical faults. But that didn't happen at all. Instead, I was impressed by the opening sequences, and slowly I relaxed, forgot my trepidation, and started to enjoyed it.
No, the film is not the novel. But at least the film respects the novel. Overall the film succeeds, which is a feat under any circumstances, and particularly given the film's extremely low budget (something like ten million dollars). So go see the movie. And then forget the movie as much as possible and return to the book.
***
Joshua Zader commented April 16, 2011 at 6:54 AM
You write, "And there's no 'Money Speech,' or even a quick line!"
Francisco's speech on money appears in Part 2 of the novel. This movie covers only Part 1 of the novel.
Ari commented April 16, 2011 at 6:59 AM
Good catch! I deleted the line accordingly. I'm not sure why I was misplacing it mentally.
Rob commented April 16, 2011 at 10:49 AM
It will be interesting to see how they handle the Money Speech in Part 2—if there is a Part 2—as it may tell us something about their approach to Galt's Speech in Part 3.
SteveD commented April 16, 2011 at 6:45 PM
I've gotta admit that galt's speech seems insuperable to me. Though I understand AR actually wrote an adaptation of it. Maybe they'll use that.
Atlas Shrugged Audience Reactions
April 16, 2011
After the Atlas Shrugged Part I opening in Westminster last night, I asked audience members what they thought of the film. Of course, I could catch only a few people, and some didn't want to be recorded. (One lady who declined an interview said the film reminded her of Dynasty.) Here are all the interviews I did capture. Among this group the view of the film was relatively positive. See also (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/04/go-see-atlas-shrugged-part-i.html) my take.
What's a Horcrux?
April 18, 2011
On the same day Atlas Shrugged came out in theaters, the seventh film of the Harry Potter series arrived on DVD. I'm very interested in both films; see my reviews of (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/04/go-see-atlas-shrugged-part-i/) Atlas I and (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/reviewhallowsi.html) Hallows I.
Central to the plot of the Potter novels is the Horcrux, an object of great evil that manifests the major characteristics of the villains: viciousness toward others, an obsession with physical objects, and a pathological fear of death. I released a short video further explaining the Horcrux:
For a more detailed account, see my book, (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter.
Voices of the Tea Party
April 19, 2011
So what do Tea Party supporters actually think? Listen to these April 15 interviews from Denver.
Grassroots Radio Hosts Atlas Shrugged Event
April 20, 2011
Ken Clark and Jason Worley of (http://www.libertyinkjournal.com/grass-roots-radio) Grassroots Radio broadcast from Westminster April 15 to celebrate the release of Atlas Shrugged Part I.Here three people who attended the event share their thoughts on the political scene.
Why Atlas Shrugged Part I Is a Good Movie
April 20, 2011
The views on Atlas Shrugged Part I range from lavish praise to moral denunciation. My reaction immediately after viewing it opening night was that it is "basically good," despite some obvious problems with it. See my(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/04/go-see-atlas-shrugged-part-i.html) initial review as well as some (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/04/atlas-shrugged-movie-trivia_16.html) audience reactions.
Having just watched the film again, I stand by my initial review, though I enjoyed the film even more the second time.
I wanted to see the film again just to enjoy it on the big screen. However, I also wanted to check my initial estimation of it. Undoubtedly before I saw it I expected it to be an utter failure, yet I was nevertheless excited to see it, so I felt quite relieved that it turned out to be much better than I expected. But had I erred on the side of overemphasizing its merits while ignoring its flaws? No. This movie got a great deal right, much more than its detractors recognize. The fact that it also got a lot wrong explains why I describe it as good but not great.
I have seen several basic camps emerge in evaluating the film.
1. Some fans of Ayn Rand lavish the film with praise, regardless of the virtues and flaws of the movie, simply out of fandom.
2. Some fans of Ayn Rand bitterly condemn the film, refusing to acknowledge any virtues of the movie, because the film does have some flaws and is not consistently true to the spirit of the book. (The fact that the film lists David Kelley as a consultant, while Kelley remains on very bad terms with Rand's heir Leonard Peikoff, does not help in this regard. Disclaimer: while I recognize the value of some of Kelley's older works, such as The Evidence of the Senses, I think he's gone basically off track since then and that Peikoff's criticisms of him are on target. Moreover, I think the film's producers would have done far better to turn to somebody who actually knows something about film, such as the (http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_JeffBritting) Ayn Rand Institute's Jeff Britting.)
3. Various conservatives praise the film for its political messages, regardless of the quality of the film. This group likes the film basically for its propaganda value.
4. Various leftists condemn the film because they hate Ayn Rand and everything she stands for, and there's no way they'd ever say anything good about anything relating to her.
5. Some, like me, enjoyed the film yet see in it virtues and flaws. Some basically didn't enjoy it because they put more weight on the problems that I too recognize.
6. The large majority of Americans, meanwhile, wonder what the hell this is all about or ignore the film completely. But maybe the film will encourage some of these people to grab the novel off their shelves and blow the dust off of it.
Frankly, I'm as skeptical of those who cannot find fault with the film as I am of those who cannot find anything to like about it.
First I'll review what I liked about the film. Obviously there are spoilers below!
The Cinematography: The Colorado landscapes are gorgeous. The bridge is stunning. The interior settings are rich. I particularly enjoyed the construction scenes of the John Galt line. This is all the more impressive considering the film's limited budget.
The Acting: I have heard that the acting is "wooden," claims I regard as silly. Some of the acting is superb: see Patrick Fischler as Paul Larkin, Rebecca Wisocky as Lillian Rearden, and Armin Shimerman as the bureaucratic scientist. Matthew Marsden does a very good job as the entitled sniveler James Taggart.
Unfortunately, the acting of the heroes is on the whole less-good than the acting of the villains. Of the heroes, my favorite performance is Graham Beckel as Ellis Wyatt. Though physically he does not match the Ellis of the novel, I liked what he did with the role. He turned nicely from bitter anger toward the Taggarts to warmth toward Dagny and Hank.
I really liked Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden. I like the way he smiles lightly at his metal. I have heard the complaint that he smiles too much throughout the film; this is not the Hank of the novel. No, it is not, but the Hank of the novel is horribly emotionally repressed for the first third of the story, and that would have been extraordinarily difficult to portray in a stand-alone movie. Notice that Bowler invokes both the fond half-smile as well as a sarcastic, forced smile with his wife. His acting is anything but "wooden;" it is subtle and emotionally rich.
Those who call Taylor Schilling's performance of Dagny "wooden" I think unfairly malign her intentionally understated performance. What I get from her performance is what I get from the Dagny of the novel: a very rich emotional life hidden (from those who don't know her) by a hardened exterior. I thought she did this very effectively, though I grant some of her hand gestures are a little awkward.
The Setting: The film does a very nice job setting the context for the story. Very quickly it establishes that we are in the near future, that the global economy is falling apart, that rail is now the most critical component of transportation, and that bureaucrats continue to seize control over the economy.
True, the novel Atlas is timeless, almost an alternate reality of a slightly altered America of the past. But imagine how hard that would have been to set up in a film. You'd have to communicate to the audience why we're seemingly in the past, but not America's actual past. That would be incredibly difficult to do, and I think critics of this aspect of the film simply haven't given much thought to the enormous challenge of setting the context. Remember, we are now several additional decades away from the quasi-historical setting that Rand envisioned.
My own solution, what I've envisioned, is a film shot in black-and-white, with certain scenes (including Galt's Gulch) shot in color. But such an approach brings its own set of difficulties and risks.
The Themes: True, the film only skims the intellectual surface of Rand's novel. But consider what the film does manage to convey. Dagny makes decisions based on her first-hand understanding of the facts. The producers move the world. There is a difference between producing versus mooching and forcing, and the latter are wrong. The film largely stays true to the intellectual underpinnings of Rand's works, and it does so without (or only rarely) sounding didactic. That's quite a feat.
The Pacing: I've heard the complaint that the film is too fast, that the audience won't follow the story, etc. I disagree with all that. Yes, the film moves along briskly, as I think appropriate. Imagine the reviews if the film seemed to drag! The best comparison I can think of on this point is Joss Whedon's Serenity, which also compresses an enormous amount of background into the opening sequence and moves the story along quickly. I'm not bothered by this. Anyone who pays attention to the movie can follow the basic turns of the story. To me the film is "richly layered" in a way that invites multiple viewings.
Next I'll address some of the other criticisms I've heard about the film.
The Bracelet: I did think the film misses much of the emotional richness of the bracelet scene. Dagny is nearly out of her mind with anger during the scene, and that simply does not come across. Dagny should have confronted Lillian as she berated the Rearden bracelet in front of others, as happens in the novel. Still, if you forget the book, the scene works okay.
The Music: Frankly, I didn't even notice the music my first viewing. I've heard complaints that it's not spectacular. But usually if you're thinking about the music while watching a film, the music isn't doing its job. This time, because I was consciously thinking about the music, I did notice it, and I enjoyed it. I liked the pristine horns during the train run.
The Drinking: The first time I watched the film, I didn't notice that the characters often have a drink in their hands. I noticed this time because others have commented on it. But it doesn't bother me. I also noticed that Hank was drinking coffee at his anniversary party, sitting in bored solitude, which is just right.
The Sex: True, the sex scene between Dagny and Hank captures nothing of the emotional complexity of the book. Rather than include a silly "I want to kiss you" scene, I think the film should have cut straight from the train scene to a far more rowdy sex scene. That would have left all of Hank's conflicts suitably in the background. Still, I didn't hate the sex scene; I just don't think it did much for the movie.
Ellis's Strike: I didn't notice this the first time, but I did after others pointed it out. Ellis's strike is oddly split up. It's as though he goes on strike, then comes back to burn his wells. But I think it's not too hard for a viewer to make this work; just assume that Ellis had to stick around for a while to close down his business, which is actually how the characters often go on strike in the book.
Stadler: Yes, I was surprised by the casting for Dr. Stadler. But, again, try to forget the book and just contemplate whether the character works within the movie. He works okay (not great). Yes, the dialog about the three students seems to come out of nowhere. But, again, it's fairly easy for a viewer to fill in the gaps: Stadler is generally disillusioned because he lost three great students, so now he doesn't give a damn about Rearden, either. I don't think that's too big of a gap for a viewer to cross. A few words could have made the connection clearer.
Owen Kellog: Ethan Cohn's "Owen Kellog" is again nothing like the book. I think the role was basically miscast and misacted. Still, it's not impossible to believe that a mousy man is nevertheless quite competent at his job, and the viewer basically has to take his background on Dagny's word, anyway.
Now I want to touch on the truly bad aspects of the film.
Hugh Akston: It's absolutely impossible to believe that the Hugh Akston of the film is a brilliant philosopher. Hopefully they'll fix that for future parts.
Dagny and Francisco: I still hated the scene where Dagny casually offers to sleep with Francisco to secure a loan. That line served no purpose, and it greatly distracted from the emotional impact of the sequence.
Francisco: I didn't consistently hate the film's portrayal of Francisco, but I didn't like it, either. It's impossible to believe that this scruffy barfly is some sort of great man. I think the actor could have done an okay job if he'd had a better understanding of the character or better direction (and a better costumer). One of the film's missed opportunities is the first scene between Francisco and Hank; this should have been electric, but it was instead a little boring.
The Motor: In the case of the motor, I think the film needed to stray farther from the novel. You have this great climax of the train run, then this long and seemingly pointless quest for the motor. That time could have been spent building up the train run more completely. For example, the novel's scenes of the room full of engineer volunteers, and the guardians of the rail, reveal the deep importance and emotion of the event, yet those scenes are absent from the film. In general, the train run, though inspiring, didn't capture Dagny's ecstatic state of mind, which means it didn't set up the sex scene as well as it could have.
Some of my favorite films are far from cinematically perfect. I absolutely loved Equilibrium and saw it many times in the theater, though it too has some problems. Whedon's Serenity remains one of my all-time favorites, despite some somewhat cheesy scenes with "Mr. Universe" and some less-than-spectacular digital effects. While I'll never like Atlas as much as I like those other two films, it definitely joins my list of favored films.
I return to where I began: I think Atlas Shrugged Part I is a "basically good" film despite its flaws. And I just don't get those who think the film deserves nothing but praise or nothing but condemnation. I still think I've made the best analogy: it's Atlas Shrugged as directed by theFountainhead's John Snyte, though I would add, on a good day.
Ken Clark Pitches Grassroots Radio
April 22, 2011
Ken Clark, a cohost of Denver's Grassroots Radio (weekdays 5-7 pm on AM 560) discusses his show.
A Comment on Comments
April 25, 2011
I moderate comments. I do so to block spam and craziness. Do I discourage some possibly interesting comments by moderating? Perhaps. But to me the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Note that I do not necessarily agree with any comment that I let through. I allow comments that I consider to be interesting and civil. Often I reply to comments with which I disagree, but not always.
Today an anonymous poster complained that I have blocked multiple comments from him. (I'll say "him" though I don't know the gender.) In order to save everybody's time, am happy to explain some reasons I block comments.
First, often I consider anonymous comments, particularly argumentative ones, to be somewhat cowardly. Why should I take you seriously if you won't even give your name? Obviously I cannot know how many of some particular poster's comments I have blocked when they are all marked "anonymous." I think I've accidentally left an anonymous comment here or there, just because I'm used to my blog and various other services automatically inserting my name. Generally, though, I make sure to leave my name when I post comments on other people's services. True, there are occasions in which leaving one's name might put one in danger, but that's not been the case with any anonymous comment I've ever received for my blog. Nevertheless, my default position is to post all anonymous comments, unless they suffer some other serious problem. (Many or most anonymous comments are spam, by the way.)
Second, I am extremely likely to block any comment that includes a gratuitously insulting personal attack against me.
Third, often I block comments that add nothing interesting to the discussion, particularly if they pertain to an old post. Comments like "Wow, that was really interesting" are of this sort.
Fourth, generally I block comments with rampant spelling and grammatical errors. If you can't be bothered to subject your comment to minimum standards of editing, don't expect me to post it.
Fifth, I am likely to block any comment that claims, as the anonymous comment of today did, that by blocking comments on my own web page, that somehow makes me the equivalent of a censor. Anonymous is perfectly free to post his asinine comments on his own web page, where the rest of us are perfectly free to ignore him. My property, my rules. Moderating comments is no more censorship than is stopping a drunk from breaking into my home to deliver a speech.
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kazriko commented April 25, 2011 at 2:16 PM
Just out of curiosity, by anonymous do you mean entirely anonymous with no name whatsoever, or do you extend this to those who use a name, but not necessarily a real name?
I've been debating this particular point for awhile. When Blizzard started to require verified real names to post to their forums using the idea that said real names would force people to behave themselves, I argued that it isn't the real names as much as the investment in their identities that mattered for civil discourse. I've used this name online for 12 years, so I'm rather attached to it.
Ari commented April 25, 2011 at 3:36 PM
That sounds basically right to me, kazriko. Usually I do post (non-spammy) anonymous comments, though often I consider them tainted by the anonymity. I have no interest in using pseudonyms, but I don't have any particular problems with those who use them.
Stop National Debt commented April 27, 2011 at 12:00 PM
One question would be whether this would be considered spam, or on topic because I'm asking the question? :-) Its hard to find other ways to spread the word to small government bloggers when you don't already have traffic than posting, and unfortunately I don't see a more relevant recent posting to comment on with this:
"POLL REVEALS: Americans Are Still In Deep Denial About The Deficit" http://read.bi/h6QDGR If they realized how bad it is politicians would need to act. Non politics-junkies tune out numbers in the $trillions so we need to rephrase the issue:
The federal government will need >$1 million per household to pay its IOUs!
> $116 trillion ="official" debt plus money short for future social security, medicare, etc
Even its "official debt" of $14.2 trillion is $123,754 per household!
Details at http://StopNationalDebt.com with links to contact congress & complain.
Be among the first to join the new Facebook cause "Stop National Debt" : http://www.causes.com/causes/606425-stop-national-debt
since if you don't spread the word, who will?
Ari commented April 27, 2011 at 12:05 PM
I do think, "Stop National Debt" guy, that there are much better ways to get your message out, including: Tweet, Facebook, comment on *relevant* posts. Here you're just basically running an uncompensated advertisement for your group. While I have nothing against promoting one's own articles and causes through comments, generally I think a comment should primarily serve to advance the discussion of the relevant site.
Stop National Debt commented April 27, 2011 at 7:57 PM
Yup, I agree it should advance the discussion of the relevant site in general. I was hunting for posts on libertarian leaning blogs that were related to the topic in order to comment. Your comment on "comments" just happen to bring to mind the idea of the self-referential question regarding spam or I would have passed on.
re: those other methods, I've posted hundreds of messages to relevant Facebook groups, tweeted a few hundred tweets at relevant people, etc, but it is difficult to figure out how to be heard above the noise when starting a new blog/cause.
I find it astonishing that libertarians aren't more interested in using the issue to make more headway when the vast majority of the public has no idea how bad the situation with the debt and moreso unfunded liabilities is or politicians wouldn't get away with inaction and libertarians would be listened to more seriously. Political news-junkies may already have run into figures like what I'm talking about, but most of the public hasn't a clue and its a chance for us to wake them up and question why they are spending so much on government that its debt&unfunded liabilities amount to $>1 million per household based on US Treasury figures.
Despite lip service paid in the mainstream media to there being public concern over the debt, I don't think most of them realize its as bad as it is and libertarians are missing a golden opportunity to get attention. Libertarians wish people didn't need to care about politics since the government should be an insignificant part of our lives. The problem is that we need to get people to care enough about politics to take time to understand our ideas in order to change the government. The way to get their attention is to point out how badly broken government finances are and how much the government spends per household (details on spending per household at http://StopNationalDebt.com )
No One Lives Forever
April 27, 2011
With some regularity I hear the claim that, with sufficient advances in medical science, people can live forever—become immortal. Clearly that's nonsense.
Perhaps someday medical science will be able to halt and reverse the aging process in humans, to cure heart disease, cancer, and the other diseases that kill us, and thereby to grant people an indefinitely long life, without death from "natural causes." But obviously an indefinitely long life is not the same thing as immortality.
Two things kill people besides medical problems: homicide and unintentional injuries. CDC reports that, in 2007, 18,361 U.S. residents (6.1 per 100,000 population) (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm) died by homicide. And 123,706 (41.0 per 100,000 population) (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/acc-inj.htm) died by unintentional injury. The fraction of people who die every year of non-medical causes, then, is 0.000471.
According to my geek friend (http://blog.geekpress.com/) Paul Hsieh, one can calculate average life expectancy simply by dividing one by the death probability, which in our case renders 2,123 years. Paul adds, "Of course, there's a long 'tail' of some people who might live for" very much longer than that. Thus, the "half life" of the population—the time by which half the original population would be dead—would be a few hundred years less than the average, or 1,472 years. (Paul recommends the discussion at (http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/e/Exponential_distribution.htm) Wikipediafor details.)
No doubt a life span over two millennia is a very long time, but it is hardly immortality. Such a state obviously would dramatically impact our understanding of a "normal human life." It would also replace the norm of expecting to die of natural causes with the expectation that all death would result from largely random and unexpected causes.
There are some variables with this. Obviously, not everybody is at the same risk of dying by unintentional injury or homicide. A drug-dealing extreme-sports fanatic is much more likely to die prematurely than, say, a fit librarian. And it's possible for the human-caused (as opposed to medical) death rate to change over time within a society.
Then there's the remote possibility of being able to "back up" one's consciousness, say, by daily transmitting a large data packet to a backup site on Mars, such that a person could be regenerated even if his physical body died. Now we're really talking far-out science fiction. But if you look at the rate of technological advances over the last hundred years, perhaps it's not so crazy a scenario.
But even with very-long lifespans, death would remain a possibility, and therefore, an inevitability. You'd have to worry about wars, large-scale interstellar events, and so forth. If your backup gets destroyed (or there's nobody around to access it) and you're stuck in the middle of a brutal thermonuclear war, you're pretty screwed.
Even the possibility of ending death by medical causes seems incredibly remote; the notion of backing up one's consciousness far more so. So why should anybody alive today care?
To me, the real value of such speculation is to remind ourselves that everybody dies. Within Ayn Rand's theory of ethics, this fact establishes life as the basic metaphysical alternative (to death) that gives rise to the entire phenomenon of value. In some sense it is our need to keep ourselves alive that gives rise to value as such. How that works out remains complicated and controversial, but it's an important insight, I'm convinced.
I hardly expect to outlive Methuselah, though I'd like to live to be 120 in good health. I expect that might become fairly normal within the next century, provided politicians do not continue to muck up health care and the economy as a whole.
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Paul Hsieh commented April 27, 2011 at 2:35 PM
It also means that working on reducing small risks might become far more important to future Methuselahs.
For instance, if wearing a certain safety harness while driving reduced your yearly rate of fatal injury from 0.0002 to 0.0001, it might effectively *double* your expected lifespan from 5,000 years to 10,000 years.
Andrew commented April 27, 2011 at 3:25 PM
What Paul added about the small risks! It comes up occasionally in speculative fiction (Lazarus Long's prepared paranoia leaps to mind), and all the time in my own life ;P
I observe that I must be protecting like 10+ healthy lifespans in my moment-to-moment choices compared to the personal risk profiles I observe in 'normal' people. Actions >> words
Anthony commented April 27, 2011 at 3:51 PM
Presumably doctors will get better at fixing people who get assaulted or injured.
In fact, I assume the "fraction of people who die every year of non-medical causes" has gone down over time. But I guess I could be wrong.
Joshua J. commented April 28, 2011 at 10:05 PM
It is, of course, obvious that no one can literally live "forever". No one believes this except theists. What "immortalists" believe is that people can live practically forever, for thousands, perhaps millions or billions of years (or longer, maybe).
Obviously, the longer lifetimes would require "uploads" of consciousness in order to be achieved, but given the enormous progress we've seen in just the last hundred years in science, I have no doubt such a thing will be possible in another couple thousand years.
As for why it's important now: Biotechnology may very well extend the healthy lifespan of someone in their forties or even fifties by an extra 20 or 30 years (Aubrey de Grey estimates the likelihood of this at about 50%). If such a thing could be achieved, there would be an unimaginably large amount of money poured into medical research to fix disease and repair the damage of aging, because no one wants to die and all of a sudden living for a few centuries would be a realistic possibility for many (plus, think of all those people paying bucketfuls of cash to live longer, and with each advancement, they'll be paying for it longer!). This would spur more development, and soon we will likely hit what is dubbed "actuarial escape velocity", where our life expectancy increases by one year each year, so we never get statistically closer to death, and with an increased rate of advancement will retreat from it, indefinitely.
This, too, would spur more investment and research. I'm only 20, and I think there is a better than even chance I could live thousands of years. "Indefinite lifespans" as they are called seem an achievable goal within many of our lifetimes (certainly mine, haha), and that is why the whole idea is important. Just one more reason to want the government to get out of the way.
Walter Walker Opposed Grand Junction's Socialists
April 28, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published April 15 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110415/COLUMNISTS/110419978) Grand Junction Free Press.
June 15, 2020 Update: At the time I wrote this, I did not know the following information, as (https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/cmus-walker-field-to-be-renamed/article_0da6b2ce-acd7-11ea-8246-c7d1f714a3ad.html) reported by Dan West: "According to interviewees from the Mesa County Oral History Project, Walker helped bring the Ku Klux Klan to Grand Junction and was a member. He later turned against the group and published editorials in the Daily Sentinel attacking the KKK and was even the target of violence from Klan members." So that is an embarrassing omission, obviously. I think there are a couple of lessons here. First, Walker's story is one of sin as well as of reform. Second, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. I include some relevant context and links in a (https://libertygator.com/2020/06/15/walter-walkers-sin-and-reform/) write-up for my Liberty 'Gator.
Back in the era when the Daily Sentinel was "published every day in the year, except Sunday," and a monthly subscription cost just fifty cents, the paper's editor Walter Walker waged rhetorical war against the city's socialists.
Karl Marx published his Communist Manifesto in 1848, and his ideas gained traction in subsequent decades, culminating in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and a socialist sweep through much of Asia.
American intellectuals too flocked to socialist ideas. The so-called Progressives arose in the early 1900s, and in 1927 some of future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's advisors-to-be visited Joseph Stalin. See Amity Shlaes's book on the Great Depression for details.
Jeannette Smith writes for the Fall 1997 Journal of the Western Slope that, by 1913, "socialism had thrived for many years in Grand Junction and Walter Walker stood as one of the movement's staunchest foes." Smith notes that, in 1909, using a system of ranked voting, the city elected Thomas Todd of the Socialist Party as mayor. Based on Smith's notes, we looked up several fascinating old articles.
To get a sense of the local popularity of socialism, consider this September 7, 1908 story: "Nearly one thousand people crowded and packed into the Park opera house last night to hear Eugene V. Debs, the socialist candidate for president of the United States." It was "one of the greatest audiences that ever turned out to hear a political speaker in Grand Junction."
Yet Walker consistently opposed Mayor Todd's socialistic program. For example, the editor relentlessly derided Todd over his city-run ice house. The January 26, 1912 paper quoted Todd, "I am firm in the belief that the city should own and operate its own ice plant." Yet Todd's proclaimed savings of $30,000 a year defied reason, as "only $24,000 worth of ice was used here last year," Walker retorted. (Note: while the articles are unsigned, we'll follow Smith in attributing the anti-socialist editorials to Walker.)
Walker concluded the essay, "Municipal ownership of everything—whether that thing is paying while privately owned or not—is the song of the radical reformer. We have the municipal owned wood pile, now we are to have the municipal owned ice plant: wonder if the mayor will call attention to the need for a municipal owned lumber yard next?"
A few days later, on January 30, Walker pushed harder, suggesting "that the mayor demonstrate his abounding love for his 'masters' by cutting down the price of lumber at the yard he owns and operates in this city."
The paper argued "that the man who experiments with his own money, or who is willing to cut his own profit for the benefit of the people, is more of a patriot than he who wants the public to put up for his benevolent operations, and whose great heart yearns first to take over somebody else's business."
We can only imagine what Walker might say to today's local politicians who control recreational facilities, golf courses, theaters, swimming pools, ambulances, and so on.
Just a few weeks earlier (December 22, 1911), Walker had lambasted the "socialistic municipal wood pile." The article mocked, "Even some of the socialists have smiled to see the lack of the 'Reds' on the woodpile." Instead, four to six men worked the pile daily for food and accommodations at the jail; "the only men at work are some hoboes who drifted in... No family men have applied." Moreover, the article notes, the "the Coal Dealers association" vowed to "fight against the city entering into the business."
Not long after the controversies over the wood pile and ice house, Walker berated Todd yet again over the city's support for the socialistic Industrial Workers of the World.
"The Grand Junction city administration was engaged in a mighty poor businesses yesterday afternoon when it made an appropriation to feed the members of the notorious I.W.W. who are passing through the city this week," an April 9, 1913 article relates.
Walker continues, "We are not surprised at the socialist mayor pulling off a stunt like this: but we are surprised at the other commissioners for standing for it... Thus again does this city come under the lime-light as a 'haven for hoboes...' What right have the city commissioners to make an appropriation to care for these worthless, country-hating, law-denouncing drones? ...Grand Junction has been made a laughing stock in such matters often enough. It is time to call a halt."
Walker noted the hypocrisy of the city supporting those who "denounce the country, the government and the laws, and urge the use of revolutionary methods," while at the same time dragging to jail "some poor devil down in the flats [who] gives another a swig of whiskey."
We're sure that, if Walker were around today, we would often enough find reason to criticize his views. We're also sure that often we would unite to condemn the modern heirs of Todd's socialist schemes.
Films Show Fight Against Tyranny: Atlas Shrugged, Harry Potter, King's Speech
April 29, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published April 29 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110429/COLUMNISTS/110429954/1062&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
The same day Atlas Shrugged Part I arrived in theaters, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I came out on disk. A few days later the Oscar-winning King's Speech followed. These films vary dramatically in content and quality, yet they share an important theme: the fight against tyranny.
The hastily produced, low-budget Atlas Shrugged hardly does justice to Ayn Rand's epic novel, though it remains basically true to Rand's story and offers some good cinematography and acting. (It also offers some really bad acting in parts.) The film opened April 15 in Denver and other larger cities.
While the film misses the rich psychological complexity of the novel, it conveys Rand's critique of the political oppression of producers. The basic story is that a railroad executive and steel manufacturer go into business together to rebuild a Colorado rail line of vital economic importance. Meanwhile, bureaucrats and politically connected "businessmen" join forces to shackle and loot the producers. Mysteriously, the nation's top producers begin to disappear.
Part of the power of Atlas Shrugged is that much of the real world sounds remarkably like the novel. (http://www.freedomworks.org/atlas-is-shrugging) FreedomWorks even put a quiz online, asking, "Can you tell the difference between quotes from elected U.S. government officials and [villains in] Ayn Rand's iconic book Atlas Shrugged?" Often it's difficult, with President Obama threatening to soak the rich and Congressman (http://www.businessinsider.com/jesse-jackson-jr-the-ipad-is-killing-american-jobs-2011-4) Jesse Jackson, Jr., castigating the iPad for displacing jobs.
Unlike the low-budget, limited release Atlas Shrugged, the Harry Potterfilm consumed an enormous production budget and earned the box office to justify the expense. Like Rand's works, the novels of J. K. Rowling offer richly complex characters that challenge the filmmaker.
While Rowling and Rand would clash over various political and philosophical issues, the writers would agree about the importance of defeating tyrants. The basic story arch of the Potter series follows Voldemort's rise to dictatorial power and Harry's quest to stop him.
(For more detailed discussion of Rowling's work, see the Expanded Edition of Ari's book, Values of Harry Potter, at (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) ValuesOfHarryPotter.com.)
In many ways Voldemort resembles one of the 20th Century's most vicious tyrants, Hitler, particularly in his bigoted cruelty. The King's Speechtargets Hitler directly.
Mostly The King's Speech is about a man with a speech impediment, a stammer, who works hard to overcome it. Only the man is King George VI, and his ability to speak becomes vitally important when he must lead his nation to war.
The King's Speech richly deserves its awards, having presented an inspirational story with a phenomenal cast on a limited budget. The film offers two lessons to the producers of Atlas Shrugged. First, a great film can overcome meager funding. Second, a film climaxing with a long and important speech, whether the king's speech or John Galt's speech, can keep the audience riveted if properly set up and presented. (Galt's speech does not appear until the third part of the story.)
True, as Christopher Hitchens warns us, The King's Speech downplays the missteps of George VI. For example, (http://www.slate.com/id/2282194/pagenum/2) Hitchens writes for Slate, "When Neville Chamberlain managed... to hand to his friend Hitler the majority of the Czechoslovak people, along with all that country's vast munitions factories," George congratulated and supported him. Yet George and the English came through in the end, and that counts for a great deal.
When you watch The King's Speech on disk, be sure to listen to the original address on which the related scene of the film is based (or catch it on (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAhFW_auT20) YouTube). It is moving seven decades later.
King George says, "We have been forced into a conflict. For we are called, with our allies, to meet the challenge of a principle, which if it were to prevail, would be fatal to any civilized order in the world. ... Such a principle, stripped of all disguise, is surely the mere primitive doctrine that might makes right."
The films about Harry Potter and George VI portray the defeat of a tyrant who would institute that primitive doctrine. Somebody like Hitler or his fictional counterpart Voldemort takes might, brute force, to its logical conclusion and attempts to impose universal enslavement.
Rand too had intimate knowledge of tyranny, having lived through Russia's bloody revolution and escaped the oppressive Soviet regime, which slaughtered even more people than the Nazis did.
But Ayn Rand went further and fully articulated the opposite principle of "might makes right," the principle of individual rights, according to which each individual holds the right to his own life and the fruits of his labor. If we wish to restore vitality to the "civilized order in the world," it is the principle of individual rights for which we must fight.
The King's Speech is spectacular, and the Potter film is very good. The film based on Rand's novel, though flawed, is good enough to view and at times very moving. But, after you enjoy these movies as works as art, take to heart their warning against tyranny.
***
Benpercent commented May 6, 2011 at 9:20 AM
*Toy Store 3* is also another good film about combating tyranny. The toys actually find themselves in a dictatorship imposed within a daycare center where some "elite" toys live at the expense of other toys, and they work to establish a voluntary society.
Overall, it seems there's a lot of films coming out lately about the evils of statism, at least implicitly. Could this be a sign of good ideas percolating in the culture?
SOS Looks to Mitigate Burden of Campaign Censorship Laws
May 2, 2011
As (http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2011/04/help-me-put-dent-in-campaign-finance.html) Diana Hsieh reviews, the (http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/rule_making/files/2011/20110330_CPF_Notice2ndHearing.pdf) Colorado Secretary of State currently is evaluating rules pertaining to issue-group reporting requirements under Colorado's campaign censorship laws. See also the (http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1250&Itemid=165) Institute for Justice'sreport on the court case at issue. Following are the comments I've submitted to the Secretary of State.
May 2, 2011
Honorable Scott E. Gessler
Secretary of State of Colorado
1700 Broadway, Suite 250
Denver, CO 80290
Care of Andrea Gyger, andrea[ dot ]gyger[ at ]sos[ dot ]state[ dot ]co[ dot ]us
Re: Ari Armstrong's comments on Proposed Revisions and Amendments to the Secretary of State's 'Rules Concerning Campaign and Political Finance,' 8 C.C.R. 1505-6
Dear Secretary Gessler,
The issue before the Secretary of State is how to "promulgate such rules... as may be necessary to administer and enforce" Article XXVIII of of the Colorado Constitution ("Campaign and Political Finance"), approved as Amendment 27 in 2002 by Colorado voters.
A general evaluation of the broader Constitutional provision lies outside the scope of the Secretary of State's present authority. However, in order to set the context, I will note that I regard the entire Article as a violation of the free speech rights of Coloradans as protected by the First Amendment to the federal Constitution. Despite the Tenth Circuit Court's claim, there can be no "governmental interest" that justifies "abridging the freedom of speech" or "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" when it comes to discussing or advocating political campaigns or ballot measures. Moreover, the measure discourages citizen involvement in the political process, the exact opposite of its stated intent.
Regardless of broader evaluations of Article XXVIII, the Secretary of State has a legal obligation under Section 9 to promulgate legally enforceable rules pertaining to campaign finance.
In the case of (http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/08/08-1389.pdf) Sampson v. Buescher (November 9, 2010), the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Article XXVIII as written unduly violates freedoms of speech and association and is therefore in part (federally) unconstitutional. Therefore, the Colorado Secretary of State must issue legally enforceable rules consistent with the Court's ruling.
The Court reviews that, as written, "Colorado law requires that any group of two or more persons that has accepted or made contributions or expenditures exceeding $200 to support or oppose a ballot issue must register as an issue committee and report the names and addresses of anyone who contributes $20 or more."
The Court ruled on a case involving a group that devoted $782.02 to an "anti-annexation effort" by July 13, 2006, and that spent a total of $1,992.37 in cash or in-kind contributions by April, 2007, "of which $1,178.82 went for attorney fees."
The Court finds: "[C]ampaign-disclosure statutes must survive exacting scrutiny. There must be a 'substantial relation' between the requirement and a governmental interest that is sufficiently important to justify the burden on the freedom of association. ... Here, the financial burden of state regulation on Plaintiffs' freedom of association approaches or exceeds the value of their financial contributions to their political effort; and the governmental interest in imposing those regulations is minimal, if not nonexistent, in light of the small size of the contributions. We therefore hold that it was unconstitutional to impose that burden on Plaintiffs. We do not attempt to draw a bright line below which a ballot-issue committee cannot be required to report contributions and expenditures. The case before us is quite unlike ones involving the expenditure of tens of millions of dollars on ballot issues presenting 'complex policy proposals.' We say only that Plaintiffs' contributions and expenditures are well below the line."
The implication is clear and straight-forward: the Secretary of State must, by law, promulgate legally enforceable rules setting a "trigger" amount for mandatory reporting under Amendment XXVIII "well above" the amount of the case in question. While the Court offers no exact figure, common sense dictates that a figure of $5,000 is the minimum that could reasonably be considered "well above" the amounts of the case under scrutiny. I believe that a figure of many times that amount would be more consistent with the reasoning of the Court.
Unfortunately, the speech-restriction organizations (http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/rule_making/written_comments/2011/ElenaNunez_012611.pdf) Colorado Common Cause and (http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/rule_making/written_comments/2011/LuisToro_012611.pdf) Colorado Ethics Watch, in their comments to the Secretary of State dated January 26, 2011, offer a distorted (and frankly self-serving) interpretation of the Court's decision.
Elena Nunez of Colorado Common Cause claims, "In its ruling, the Court only found the requirements too onerous as applied in this particular case. We don't believe that this ruling provides the grounds to weaken the trigger for disclosure more broadly." Nunez advises, "Rather than focus solely on the dollar amount that should trigger disclosure, we urge the Secretary's office to improve its guidance for citizens who will be required to comply with disclosure rules going forward."
Luis Toro of Colorado Ethics Watch takes a similar approach, arguing that the Court's ruling "does not purport to require Colorado to change the threshold at which a group becomes an issue committee subject to reporting requirements."
Nunez and Toro simply ignore the Court's language stating that "a ballot-issue committee" generally cannot be subjected to the reporting requirements unless they spend resources at an amount relative to which the reviewed amounts "are well below."
Furthermore, Nunez's claims that "clearer," newer statutes resolve the problems expressed by the Court's decision do not pass the laugh test. Yet Toro makes a similar claim about C.R.S. 1-40-113(1)(b), which allegedly "is clear and easy to follow and raises none of the concerns expressed inSampson." (By Toro's own description, the law pertains only to notification of those who get petitions printed, not to anybody else who may want to speak out about a measure.)
As several (http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/rule_making/hearings/2011/RulesHearingCPF20110126.html) other comments to the Secretary of State make clear, the campaign rules in fact discourage citizen participation in certain political causes. I add my voice to those who have suffered under the law. In opposing the 2010 "Personhood" measure with Diana Hsieh, I found that our project was significantly hampered by the fact that Diana had to spend many hours complying with the reporting burdens. And that's a project that actually got accomplished despite the reporting requirements; the citizen efforts that were never even launched because of the burdens cannot be known, nor the magnitude of free speech violations calculated. I frankly would not have undertaken the campaign against the "Personhood" measure had Diana not agreed to deal with the onerous bureaucracy of the reporting requirements. My standard course is to simply cut my mind off from any idea that might lead me into the necessity of complying with the regulatory burdens associated with the targeted forms of political speech. Generally I do not even try to develop the ideas and strategies for fighting those political battles that might subject me to the reporting requirements.
At issue is not simply the time required to comply with the reporting requirements, though that cost is substantial. The citizen activist must also bear the emotional burden of constantly fearing that some paperwork error will subject one to expensive and exhausting legal proceedings. Nor do I believe I am alone in finding the prospect of jumping through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops, before I can advocate some political cause with others, to be inherently burdensome.
It is abundantly obvious that the campaign reporting requirements "chill" free speech, in that they discourage it. But to describe this as a "chill" hardly captures the injustice of the requirements. The requirements of Article XXVIII constitute censorship, pure and simple. It is not the censorship of an outright prohibition of some form of speech, but the soft censorship of piling up so many burdens that many simply dare not even try to advocate their views. The results are the same: the law prevents some people from speaking out about causes dear to them.
The notion that cleaner status and rules can overcome the problems expressed in Sampson v. Buescher is absurd. Article XXVIII itself consists of 17 sections, for a total count approaching 7,000 words of dense legalistic language, not counting annotations. Yet, to be safe, the citizen activist must master not only the Constitutional language but all the additional statutes governing campaign finance, in addition to the Secretary of State's rules. Add to that the burden of properly processing and filing all the often-tiny in-kind and cash contributions. Add to that the emotional burdens of risking legal penalties over paperwork errors and struggling to interact with bureaucratic officials.
Far from being "clear and easy to follow," the campaign reporting requirements better resemble a nightmare from the mind of Franz Kafka.
Thankfully, the decision of Sampson v. Buescher, in conjunction with Section 9 of Article XXVIII of the Colorado Constitution, prompts the Colorado Secretary of State to substantially raise the "trigger" amount for issue-group reporting, thereby giving citizen activists in Colorado some measure of relief.
Sincerely,
Ari Armstrong
Denver Mayor Race Illustrates Benefits of Approval Voting
May 4, 2011
As of this writing, the top four candidates in the Denver race for mayor show the following (http://data.denverpost.com/election/results/mayor/2011/denver_city__mayor/) vote totals:
Chris Romer: 28.5%
Michael Hancock: 27.1%
James Mejia: 25.7%
Doug Linkhart: 9.4%
The Denver Post reports, "If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the May 3 election, the top two vote-getters advance to a June 7 runoff."
But if you think about it, that's a pretty foolish way to run an election. For example, what if Linkhart's voters prefer Mejia over the other two? Too bad: Mejia is out (assuming the percentages hold). Or what if the voters of either Romer or Hancock far preferred Mejia over the alternative? Again, the outcome will be that a less-favored candidate will win anyway.
In addition, holding a runoff vote costs taxpayers more money (and taxes their patience as well).
The way to solve both problems—to pick the most-favored candidate and to do it with a single vote—is to institute (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/01/atwood-pitches-approval-voting.html) approval voting. The basic idea is that voters can cast more than one vote. For instance, you could vote for Romer only, Linkhart and Romer, Romer and Hancock, or whatever other combination of candidates you think you could live with.
As it stands, chances are pretty good that the next Denver mayor will not be the candidate with the most support among the voters, though we'll never really know. Even if the results turn out "right" in this case, inevitably the less-favored candidate will win in certain other races. I can think of lots of good reasons to institute approval voting, and no good reason not to.
***
Anonymous commented May 4, 2011 at 9:20 AM
Great post.
http://www.electology.org/approval-voting
Anonymous commented May 6, 2011 at 6:04 PM
Why not prioritize by a 1—2—3—4? And maybe a NOTA?
Ari commented May 6, 2011 at 6:16 PM
One important reason not to let voters rank candidates is that it would be hard to process. If the numbers were hand-written, that would inevitably lead to disputes about the intended meaning of the handwriting. Plus, what if a voter did something like assign two #1s? A digital system also would be complicated. I suppose you could do it in waves: "Who is your first choice candidate, if any?" Then, of those remaining, "Who is your second choice candidate, if any?" And so on.
There's another potentially important problem with rank (or instant-runoff) voting: a candidate who is broadly liked, who is everybody's first or second choice, can get eliminated in the first round. I explain this here: http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/01/atwood-pitches-approval-voting.html
Why Colorado's Campaign Laws Constitute Censorship
May 5, 2011
In the above video, I argue that Colorado's campaign laws constitute censorship, drawing on a May 3 meeting held by the Colorado Secretary of State. See my (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/sos-looks-to-mitigate-burden-of.html) May 2 post for more background about the meeting. Following is the transcript of the video.
[From the May 3 meeting:] I say that these rules constitute censorship. Flat-out censorship. It's not the sort of censorship where you're just arresting people for making certain statements; but it's a sort of softer censorship if you will, where the amount of barriers and burdens [are] put into place, pile after pile, one straw after another on the activist's back. Eventually a lot of people just give up, and say, "I'm not going to put myself in a situation where I might have to deal with these onerous burdens.
[Narration recorded May 4:] I'm Ari Armstrong of Free Colorado.
On May 3, 2011, I attended a meeting held by the Colorado Secretary of State on issue-group reporting rules. I want to draw on that meeting to make my case that Colorado's campaign laws constitute censorship.
The first question is whether an ordinary citizen activist can reasonably expect to understand the intricacies of the campaign laws. The answer is no.
Consider an exchange between Jenny Flanagan, Executive Director of Colorado Common Cause, a lead proponent of the campaign laws, and William Hobbs of the Secretary of State's office. The discussion pertains to a proposed rule change.
Neither Flanagan nor Hobbs seems entirely sure of the law's implications.
[Jenny Flanagan] My name is Jenny Flanagan, I'm the Executive Director of Colorado Common Cause. ... We have a long history working on campaign finance reform, and we were one of the lead proponents of Amendment 27, now Article 28 of the [Colorado] Constitution. ... One of my questions, and hopefully you all can clarify for me, this is 4.27 sub (a) which says that "expenditures made prior to reaching the $5,000 threshold are not required to be reported." That's the kind of secret donation that I'm talking about.
[William Hobbs] So right now, up to $200 is a secret donation, not disclosed, and now it would be...
[Flanagan] I'm not sure. And you can clarify, but is it such that once you reach $200 that it is only after the $200 that is required to be disclosed? Or do we treat all donations that are required as subject to disclosure? That was my understanding, so I guess you can clarify that if I'm wrong there.
In fairness, Hobbes seems to have been addressing a hypothetical case, and Flanagan's understanding was correct.
I called the Secretary of State's office May 4 for clarification, and Deputy Public Information Officer Andrew Cole said "it is your responsibility to report everything" once you hit the spending trigger as an issue group.
Still, Flanagan and Hobbs are representatives of the groups that wrote the law and enforce it, and the fact that they seem to have trouble recalling the law's provisions is not very encouraging for the regular citizen activist.
To give you an idea of what citizen activists face before they can even start forming an issue group, I printed out the Secretary of State's "Colorado Campaign and Political Finance Manual."
The entire document is 100 pages long, of which the first 36 consist of the Secretary of State's explanations and references. [See that (http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/CampaignFinance/files/State_Manual.pdf) documentonline.]
But mastering those pages [the first 36] is not good enough. The document warns: "REMEMBER: You must read Article XXVIII of the Colorado Constitution; Colorado Revised Statute (C.R.S.) Title 1, Article 45 and the accompanying Rules Concerning Campaign and Political Finance to fully understand Colorado Campaign and Political Finance procedures and requirements."
Article XXVIII of the Colorado Constitution takes up another 11 pages of the manual that I just showed you. And this is dense, legalistic language. In fact, that article is by itself longer than the entire original U.S. Constitution.
Title 1, Article 45 of the Colorado Revised Statutes takes up another 29 pages of the manual.
Then the Secretary of State's "Rules Concerning Campaign and Political Finance" take up another 22 pages.
The relevant state and federal court decisions further controlling these matters are not even included, and I have no idea how many additional pages they take up if you were to print them out.
Once you master 100 pages of dense legalese, then the real fun begins, because then you get to actually start filing your expenses and contributions as an issue committee. So how does that work out?
My friend and former collaborator Diana Hsieh [see the (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) paper we coauthored] said the following about her experiences in 2008 and then in 2010:
[Diana Hsieh] So I went and I searched online; [it] took me about two hours to find the information even once I knew it was there somewhere. [I] had to go read the law, it was completely incomprehensible, I had no idea what I was supposed to do. But I ended up registering, I ended up filling out the forms. It was like $300 or $250 that I spent, somewhere just slightly above the $200 range [that triggered mandatory reporting]. And wow that was such a huge pain. Because having to fill out—I mean, here I spent $21 at Staples, and having to get out the receipt, put in the address of Staples, like really, does anybody need to know where I bought my envelopes? ...
[Then in 2010:] And all of a sudden it struck me, and I really think I was kind of blocking it out, "Oh my gosh, I've got all these campaign finance regulations." Because before I didn't have donors, and so it just didn't occur to me, I'm going to have to report all these people who are supporting me. This was not a happy thought. And I did actually seriously consider for a time simply scrapping the whole project. ... I was worried for a couple reasons. One, I just didn't want to go through the burdens of reporting. I thought that was—I just didn't want to do it. The other reasons I didn't want to do it was, I thought it was invading the privacy of my donors. [The project in question defended the right to get an abortion, and in a segment not included Diana noted that abortion-rights activists might be subject to violence.] ...
I think that I underestimated how difficult it would be to be filing all of these reports this time. Because it had been a pretty simple process, although very frustrating, it had been a pretty simple process last time [in 2008], I didn't realize what it would be like to have rolling contributions and rolling expenditures in and out, and how difficult that would be.
So let me just tell you a little bit about how that process worked. First of all I had to spend hours filling out and faxing paperwork to open up a bank account, which I didn't need otherwise. Also to open up a PayPal account so I could have purely separate finances from my own LLC. Then once contributers began to pay their pledges, I had to compile and submit these reports every two weeks. And notice the deadlines for these reports; I just looked this up today just to be sure. But the period would end, and you would have two to three business days in which to gather up all this data and submit it.
Now, for the first report actually, I completely forgot about it, because I had a septic line backup in the house, and I was traveling to the east coast, and basically my life was a complete disaster at the moment. And I was obliged to file this report, and it just completely slipped my mind. And then when I realized it, like "ohmygosh," I was in this massive panic. "Am I going to have to start paying these $50 a day, per violation fines?" And I wrote in this contrite note of, "Please, look, I had all these horrible things, don't fine me, please please please." Because all of a sudden all my payment for the writing that I had done could just evaporate in these fines. And I just didn't know, what would the reaction of the Secretary of State's office be? [Diana was not fined.] ...
I ended up having to keep two sets of books, because I would track who paid my pledges in my pledge software, I keep track of my finances in Quicken, but you guys required a different kind of timing. And so I had to keep... a second set of books in Excel just to make sure that I could keep track of things. But of course you input the data, and nothing ever works out the first time around, it's like reconciling your bank accounts. And so you have to go through everything two or three times. So every report that was filed every two or three weeks was two or three hours of checking and double checking and fixing, and trying to find people's addresses. And at one point, at 11:30 at night before the deadline, panicking for me to try to find a physical address for Facebook, you know they just don't give out that information all that easily.
So it was just this massive pain. I could have spent that time working on the issue, I could have been writing op-eds, heck I could have been watching a movie with my husband, which would have been much more pleasant, much more enjoyable.
And of course, as I mentioned, every time I filed one of these reports, I was petrified of making a mistake. Those $50 per day per violation fines—you know, I don't have thousands of dollars that are just sitting in my bank account for this project. That would have eaten into the money that I had earned writing the paper. And that was really horrifying to me.
So basically what happened was, once again, having to file all these reports simply discouraged me from raising more money and spending more money. I mean, I could have asked people, "Hey look, I'd like to do more Facebook ads, would you be willing to contribute to that?" No thank you. It just was not worth getting in that twenty-five bucks, having to go through the effort of reporting that, in order to spend more money.
So I can't give you any numbers. I can't say, "1,200 people would have spoken out on the ballot measure if we didn't have these campaign finance regulations." But I can tell you firsthand, from these two experiences, the chilling effect that these regulations had on my speech.
So what does Colorado Common Cause Suggest?
[Flanagan] Yeah, I heard the testimony, and again I think holding classes, or doing other kinds of education outreach, so that citizens can have the tools necessary to meet the requirements, is a way to address that concern.
"Holding classes?" So now I should have to attend a government-run class just so I can exercise my First Amendment rights? I find that very notion offensive. But what Flanagan does not try to resolve is the enormous time burden placed on citizen activists of learning and implementing all the relevant rules. Attending government-run classes only adds to that burden.
Besides, information the Secretary of State offers might not be enough to keep a citizen activist safe. Consider the following exchange between Flanagan and Secretary of State Scott Gessler:
[Gessler] But at a minimum, there's some uncertainty with the current law and the Sampson case. Which I think in my mind would sort of be vagueness. How do we resolve that?
[Flanagan] You know, I don't have the magic answer for you today, Mr. Secretary, I apologize. I mean, I think some of the other comments that were talked about, the rules should apply to all—there were some things I actually agreed with. But the [Tenth Circuit] Court wasn't willing to draw the line [regarding the spending trigger for issue group reporting], and I don't know that this office really has the authority to draw the line either. I understand that you have to enforce, and educate the public about what the rules are and how they should be enforced...
We are all subject to the possibilities of being challenged and having things taken to court, and have to deal with that as it comes up. But, for the time, it is the role of this office to inform the public.
Did you get that? Even if a citizen activist learns all the rules, goes to a government-run class, and makes every effort to obey all the rules, the activist might still get sued under these laws.
Matt Arnold of Clear the Bench, who actually was sued under these laws, and who was represented by Gessler prior to his election, responds as follows:
And Ms. Flanagan's advice to people would be, you know what, you can't rely on guidance from the Office of Secretary of State, you just have to run the risk of getting out there, and being sued, by some legal attack group, like Colorado Ethics Watch... Just take the risk, just put yourself out there, just put your livelihood, your good name, your resources, at risk, because you can't rely on the law to mean what it says. I find that advice very troubling. It really does suppress political participation.
The case is clear. Colorado's campaign laws constitute a form of censorship. The only question remaining is this: what are we going to do about it?
CO Campaign Laws Chill Speech
May 6, 2011
Diana Hsieh, who (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) fought the anti-abortion "Personhood" ballot measures in 2008 and 2010, had to endure the onerous reporting requirements of Colorado's campaign laws—just so she could spend a few hundred dollars (in 2008) and nearly $3,000 (in 2010).
As she testified at a May 3 meeting held by the Secretary of State, the campaign laws nearly made her give up her cause, and they reduced the amount of speaking she could do. Not only did conforming to the laws eat away at her valuable activism time, but they discouraged her from raising more money to reach more voters with her message. Moreover, the laws put citizen activists at risk of getting sued by opportunistic attack groups. (Note: I worked with Diana on these projects, and in 2010 we each earned money from donors for our work.)
I testified at the same meeting that the campaign laws have prevented me from pursuing certain activist ideas, thereby violating my right of free speech.
See also:
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/why-colorados-campaign-laws-constitute.html) Why Colorado's Campaign Laws Constitute Censorship, a video with more testimony from the May 3 meeting
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/sos-looks-to-mitigate-burden-of.html) SOS Looks to Mitigate Burden of Campaign Censorship Laws, my written comments
(http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2011/05/speaking-for-free-speech-my-testimony.html) Diana's written comments
Arnold Testifies on Campaign Laws
May 7, 2011
Matt Arnold of Clear the Bench Colorado was sued under Colorado's campaign laws—even after he sought out guidance from the Secretary of State's office.
Arnold makes the shocking, but I think correct, statement, "Under Colorado's campaign finance rules and regulations, the 1960 civil rights movement could not have existed. They would have had to file all sorts of reports, disclosures, identifying individuals who are supporting them. Those individuals certainly would have been subject to retribution, either physically, or financially, or both."
Why I'm Not a Libertarian
May 9, 2011
Given my past activism with the Libertarian Party of Colorado, it is no surprise that lots of people still think of me as a libertarian. At the same time, libertarians think it odd that I disclaim the title. So I thought I'd make another attempt to address the issue; I delivered the following talk May 7 at Liberty Toastmasters.
For more, readers can check out my (http://www.ariarmstrong.com/2007/11/recovering-from-rationalism.html) 2007 article largely on the same topic, which contains links to older writings.
After I delivered my talk, I read Shea Levy's post, (http://blog.shealevy.com/2011/05/06/objectivists-are-libertarians/) "Objectivists are Libertarians." Because that post and my speech appear at roughly the same time, I thought I'd expand my point by briefly responding to Levy's arguments.
Levy argues that, just as it is proper to categorize "Joseph Stalin, Christopher Hitchens, and Ayn Rand" as atheists, despite their vast differences, so it is proper to categorize "John Stossel, Radley Balko, and Ayn Rand" as libertarians.
Levy's argument quickly falls apart when we look at Levy's own "definition" of libertarianism: "the vast majority of activities between consenting adults should be legal and that the current US government acts far out of the bounds of the proper scope of a government."
First, what constitutes "consent?" That very much depends on one's philosophical commitments. Many libertarians argue that "consent" includes things like pirating music, and some hold it includes (http://www.freecolorado.com/2008/06/barr-beats-anarchist.html) having sex with children. Throwing together advocates of a Constitutionally limited government that protects individual rights with advocates of copyright violations and child rape is rather less than helpful. Also included in this motley crew, by the way, are neo-Confederates and racist "militia" groups.
Second, defining one's political beliefs as wanting a less-aggressive government makes absolutely no sense. That includes advocates of Constitutionally limited government as well as right-anarchists and left-anarchists. If we can trust the (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian) Wikipedia entry on libertarianism, in its origins (as a political term) it derives from anarcho-socialism.
Consider, for instance, this telling quote from Colin Ward: "For a century, anarchists have used the word 'libertarian' as a synonym for 'anarchist', both as a noun and an adjective. The celebrated anarchist journal Le Libertaire was founded in 1896. However, much more recently the word has been appropriated by various American free-market philosophers..."
As I mention in the talk embedded here, and as I have argued previously, libertarianism is fundamentally a reactionary movement, in that it is motivated by an anti-government sentiment.
"Smaller government" simply cannot be a defining characteristic of any valid concept, as it includes radically different political commitments, ranging from anarcho-socialism to anarcho-capitalism to Ronald Reagan. Whereas atheism coherently describes people who disbelieve in a god, the comparable concept for people who disbelieve in government is anarchism. Rand certainly was no anarchist, and neither am I (thought I took the theory quite seriously for several years).
To clarify the point, I am not fundamentally for "smaller government." I am for a government that protects people's rights (in a sense broadly compatible with Lockean property rights). I can imagine a scenario in which I'd positively advocate government consuming the vast majority of national output: say, if a reconstituted Soviet Union joined forces with a newly aggressive China and the Islamist world to wage war on the U.S. The fundamental issue is the government's purpose, not its size.
I think the basic conceptual problem with (American) libertarianism is that it tries to mesh two fundamentally incompatible concepts: anarchism and (Lockean) individual rights. I think that nicely explains why even self-proclaimed libertarians who claim to support government so often get caught up in bizarre movements ranging from neo-Confederacy to music piracy to Islamist apologetics.
Furthermore, I suggest that the better libertarians, such as the scholars at the Cato Institute and the writers at Reason, are only better because they don't really take libertarianism all that seriously. That is, they just fling around this term "libertarian" without pinning down its meaning, or they use the term to mean roughly "what I happen to believe."
I suppose people can just arbitrarily define "libertarian" to mean whatever they want, in the same way I could redefine "theist" to mean "one who rejects the supernatural realm." But I really don't see the point of torturing the language like that or causing such needless confusion.
Let me take a recent, local example. Colorado Representative Amy Stephens has spent much of this legislative session pushing through a politically-controlled health "exchange," to comply with ObamaCare. Stephens is either dishonest or less than fully bright, as she has characterized this government-run monstrosity as "free market." She also dishonestly castigates opponents of the bill as (http://coloradopolitics.freedomblogging.com/2011/05/07/amy-stephens-talks-health-care-exchanges-and-amycare/) anarchists. Nevertheless, because so many libertarians are in fact avowed anarchists, and because libertarianism implies or at least openly accepts anarchism, Stephens's slurs find some traction. In short, if you lie with dogs, you'll probably get fleas.
So, again, I am not a libertarian.
***
Bryan commented May 9, 2011 at 11:00 AM
Reasonable people recognize that the use of certain words is therefore simply a starting point in the process of understanding what the other person means by them and what their beliefs truly might be. As a practical matter however the level of detail needed regarding someones beliefs varies drastically depending on the context, the time available and the reason for needing to know more.
You acknowledge the possibility of "redefining" the word libertarian to mean whatever you want but don't see the reason to do so. I''d suggest its not "redefining" as much as simply acknowledging that many words are inherently going to be ambiguous, vague and ill defined with a broad range of possible meanings. "Conservative" and "liberal" (modern, classical, or whatever variety) suffer from the same trouble as does the word "rights". You needed to write "rights (in a sense broadly compatible with Lockean property rights)" due to its ambiguity and even that of course is only the start of narrowing down exactly what your particular view of the concept of "rights" is.
Whatever definition you come up with for rights, libertarian, liberal, conservative, or other words is usually only going to be a starting point and so simply dismissing one potential guide point as being too broad and including views you disagree with doesn't seem useful since almost everyone using any of those words or labels has that difficulty when using them.
As a practical issue when explaining our views to someone its often necessary to start with a general high level abstract but imperfect overview which we then proceed to refine and correct to varying degrees depending on the purpose of the interaction. Even if the initial sign post we are given like "liberal" or "libertarian" differs in our understanding of the term from the views of the person it applies to it at least provides a starting point for further dialogue using that merely as an initial guiding point to steer from.
Given that few people will know whatever word you might use to describe your set of political views, say Aritarianism, its useful to rely on a shorthand as a starting point and it confuses other people needlessly not to be willing to give them guideposts as starting points even if those guideposts aren't exactly on the mark. Your approach I think will sow more confusion and waste more time than merely accepting the closest shorthand as an approximation and then proceeding from there. e.g. many people from suburbs of Denver when talking to people elsewhere in the country will accept the inaccurate initial shorthand that they are from Denver and only correct if necessary.
Shea Levy commented May 9, 2011 at 11:02 AM
Hi Ari,
Thanks for the post. I hope to get a chance to chew this more and maybe respond, but, just to clear things up: "the vast majority of activities between consenting adults should be legal and that the current US government acts far out of the bounds of the proper scope of a government." wasn't meant to be a definition of libertarianism. I was just pointing out two commonalities that occurred to me as I wrote the post. In the comments of the post, I take a shot at identifying some more fundamental common characteristics, and go a bit more in detail into what I see as the cognitive utility of the word.
~Shea
Ari commented May 9, 2011 at 11:03 AM
Bryan, If I were to call myself a "libertarian," I'd immediately need to distance myself from anarchism etc. If I call myself a "free-market advocate," I convey all the positive meaning I want with none of the serious baggage. -Ari
Ari commented May 9, 2011 at 11:08 AM
Shea, My point was that the very meaning and motivation of "libertarianism" is tied up with an anti-government agenda, and your comments feed that view, even if not intended as a definition. I'm not anti-government. Moreover, for reasons indicated, something like "less government" simply encompasses too many fundamentally contradictory viewpoints to serve as a useful political framework. It's just not an essential characteristic of anyone's political views. -Ari
Bryan commented May 9, 2011 at 11:23 AM
I'd agree that the "better libertarians" do what you say regarding making using the term as roughly "what I happen to believe". So I guess my point is to suggest that is both natural and less confusing than trying to avoid potentially being misunderstood by trying to disavow use of the term for the views of those who are closer to "libertarian" than "conservative" or (modern) "liberal".
If you try to disassociate yourself from the "libertarian" label then I'd suggest that as you've found others will likely not remove from their conception of you as one despite your protests unless you professed believes too far from that general vague description (such as e.g. suffering a head injury and coming out in favor of Obamacare :-) ), i.e. accept reality and work with it.
If not "libertarian", if you object too strongly to the description others will simply try to find a different initial word to use when referring to you such as conservative or objectivist or some other term which may have its own inaccuracies. Most language is inherently approximate and imperfect regardless of any intention for it not to be so. I'd suggest its better to simply be ready with shorthand ways to refer to what sort of "libertarian" you are in either a phrase or by hoping your own descriptive label like "Lockean" or "Aritarian" might become widely enough known as a school of thought to eventually take over from the libertarian label you wish to disown
You seem to be concerned about being tarred and feathered by negative preconceptions people may have regarding those who describe themselves using the same term, "libertarian". I'd suggest reasonable people will begin to understand that is simply a starting point when describing a set of views (just as "conservative" is) and not
to be too caught up in worrying about that. Those who tar and feather
for superficial reasons will simply find other ways of doing so and its not too useful to let them guide our use of shorthand language.
I'd suggest that your view of "so many libertarians" being anarchists is likely skewed by those you hang around with and that among American libertarians as a whole most are "minarchists" of some fashion or other and that is the more common view of the general public when they hear the term.
I'd suggest perhaps your view of it as being "lying down with dogs" (your own negative conception of anarcho-capitalists) to accept that as an initial approximation is giving in too easily to those who rely on superficial mud slinging rather than rational argument and allowing them to dictate your use of language.
Anonymous commented May 9, 2011 at 12:44 PM
Ari,
What is your view of the terms "Classical Liberal" or "Market Liberal" or "Laissez-faire Liberal"? I use these terms frequently. I never use the term libertarian unless I say "Minarchist libertarian" and then I explain what minarchist means.
Rand referred to herself as a radical for capitalism. I often wonder if we need a poli-sci term that refers to laissez-faire in the context of limited government. We really don't have a term for that.
M. Stern
Ari commented May 9, 2011 at 12:49 PM
I think I'm most partial to "market liberal." I'm not keen on the term "minarchist" because, first, it sounds odd and hardly anybody knows what it means, and, second, it deals in non-fundamentals. I'm not fundamentally for a government of minimal size; I'm for a government that protects individual rights, at whatever size that requires. But I agree there's not an awesome term to describe my political views. I'm okay with "market liberal," "individual rights advocate," or, in more of an economic context, "capitalist." -Ari
James commented May 9, 2011 at 1:17 PM
You say, "they are against something—the state, and not for individual rights and the system required to protect them" to which the obvious counter is, "No, we aren't for building up a system to protect individual rights. We believe that emergent order will lead to individual rights."
I don't think anyone believes that the hard right will be convinced not to legislate against abortion, just that in a voluntary society people could enter into communities where abortion was not allowed. I've literally never heard the argument, "In a voluntary society..you could PERSUADE people to not get abortions..." that's totally made up. Never heard it, not once. You can of course persuade people to not get abortions in a statist society as well. The argument is that the only way to stop people from having abortions is to persuade them against it, not that this will actually bring the hard right over to the libertarian POV. I've also never heard anyone say that children shouldn't be protected from adult sexual predators, though I can imagine people making the argument that government shouldn't be the one to police those rules.
The IP commentary, "government does it, so it must be bad..." is such a simplification. The point is that those protected by patents and copyrights are protecting their IP with stolen money. If society wanted to all pitch in to protect IP(and it very well might, in a voluntary society—we have a lot of examples of people respecting artists and giving them patronage for original works) it would be totally different. Right now, we have other members of society being forced to protect other people's intellectual property, which they may very well not want to do.
And of COURSE libertarianism is reactionary!!! How could it not be? You could never be a libertarian if there were no government—it'd be like being anti-Klingon or anti-telekinesis. It's perfectly logical to be against a bad thing. Being against something doesn't necessarily make the movement wrong.
You say, libertarianism is not for individual rights AND the system to protect them—you are right, but he has lumped two things together unnecessarily. You imply that individual rights DEMAND a government system in place to protect them, and I would say the burden of proof is on you from that perspective. Of course, if you ever tried to assume that burden of proof you would fail, so it's much easier to just state as fact that individual rights "require a system to protect them."
It's funny, too, because I don't call myself a libertarian because I DO believe there is unnecessary baggage around the term. I just go by voluntaryist—which sums up everything nicely without the connotation. But your arguments certainly seemed aimed at an audience prone to status quo bias, and it's altogether quite sad because he lends authority to these sweeping generalizations with the old "I used to be one of them, so you can trust me here!!!" trick.
James commented May 9, 2011 at 1:25 PM
Apologies for pronoun issues—I originally typed that email to a friend who linked me here and when I changed the format for this post I left a few "he"s that should now be "you"s. Sorry for any confusion!
Diana Hsieh commented May 9, 2011 at 2:35 PM
Thanks much for this post, Ari. A while back, Greg Perkins made some similar arguments about the fundamentality of individual rights to politics—and why wanting "less government" (including zero government) is not a proper basis for political classifications:
http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2009/11/libertarian-vs-objectivist-thinking.shtml
Also, many years ago, I explored the epistemic basis of the concept "libertarianism" in this blog post:
http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2004/04/socialist-dreamin.html
At the time, I was uncertain of my views (as you can tell from the blog post), and I did find this first comment from Don clarifying:
http://www.dianahsieh.com/cgi-bin/blog/view.pl?entry=107941896945396488
Here's my current thoughts:
Today, many people use the term "libertarian" to mean that they're on the right economically, but not religious right or socially conservative. In other words, the term doesn't mean adhering to the non-initiation of force principle as an axiom, nor regarding all defenders of "liberty" (including anarchists and pedophiles) as a political allies.
In essence, the term "libertarian" has become as vague and broad as "liberal" or "conservative." For many people, that's a reasonably apt description of their views, in part because they're in the process of working through difficult philosophic issues. Often, such people are sincerely interested in and friendly to Ayn Rand's ideas. Often, they understand that liberty means respect for and protection of individual rights by government. Often, they clearly reject anarchism and pacifism, support abortion rights and intellectual property, and so on. But because the term is so broad, you have no idea what they think until you ask!
Hence, I'm not going to waste my time quibbling with someone's use of the term "libertarian": I'd rather argue with them on some substantive points, to help bring them closer to my own Objectivist views. However, I persist in thinking that Objectivists should not use the term "libertarian" to describe their politics. Objectivists can—and ought—to describe their politics as "Objectivist"—or, more generally "free market" or "laissez faire" or "pro-capitalist" or "classical liberal."
Happily, more and more people know the basic meaning of advocating Objectivism in politics—as distinct from libertarianism. That's because more of us are using that term—while interacting with the confused mess of quasi-free market people that make up the tea parties and other local groups.
That's real progress, I think.
Ari commented May 9, 2011 at 3:31 PM
I think that's basically right, Diana, but I hasten to note that even "mainstream" libertarians tend to characterize their views as wanting "less government." Thus, the general tendency toward opposing government persists, and they really cannot in principle distinguish their views from those of anarchists, who want the least amount of government. -Ari
Anonymous commented May 9, 2011 at 6:08 PM
Diana, the problem with the terms you suggest (aside from, obviously, "Objectivist") is that they all emphasize economic matters and are silent on issues of legislating morality. I wish there were a better term, because I think there are a lot of people (including me, and some "libertarians") who largely agree with an Objectivist politics even though they are not Objectivists.
DaveJ
Anonymous commented May 9, 2011 at 7:30 PM
Age of consent laws are perfectly compatible with Libertarianism and recommended.
A more mature child can petition a judge for emancipation if he or she thinks they are ready to make their own decision prior to 18 or other agreed upon consent age.
Anonymous commented May 9, 2011 at 7:34 PM
Hi,
Libertarianism is a simple.
Live and let live.
Every person who is not a collectivist is a Libertarian by default.
A government whose major purpose is to protect and honor the non-aggression axiom will be more than adequate.
Jeff
Anonymous commented May 9, 2011 at 7:38 PM
Hi Ari,
Objectively explain why collectivism is preferred to liberty? Also please explain how using force to accomplish ones desires is moral?
Jeff
Anonymous commented May 9, 2011 at 7:57 PM
Diana,
What are "objectivist" politics? Sounds rather subjective, no?
As soon as your objective politics are contrary to my objective politics, you will be faced with 2 simple choices. Ask me to cooperate voluntary or garner my cooperation via the guns of government.
Seems to me, the only objective choice would be the voluntary path. Nobody dies.
If you are willing to support the guns of government view point, the burden of proof is upon you to objectively rationalize murder or imprisonment albeit under the guise of State and citizenship, i.e. the imaginary social contract.
Jeff
Ari commented May 9, 2011 at 8:38 PM
Wow, Jeff; You're simply assigning beliefs to Diana and me that we do not in fact hold. If you want to make some arguments to advance your case, great; but that's the last of the smears I'll let through from you. -Ari
Jim May commented May 9, 2011 at 10:00 PM
I often wonder if we need a poli-sci term that refers to laissez-faire in the context of limited government. We really don't have a term for that.
I call that "liberty".
As far as the need for a "poli-sci" term is concerned, I think that we need an actual political science before we deal with the issue of particular terms within it. The entire realm of political "science" as it is known today exists solely for the purpose of preventing rational thought about politics.
Diana Hsieh commented May 9, 2011 at 10:06 PM
Sheesh, Jeff. The "Objectivist politics" is the politics of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. You can read Ayn Rand's core political essays here:
Man's Rights: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_man_rights
The Nature of Government: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_the_nature_of_government
"Collectivized" Rights: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_collectivized_rights
Resuna commented May 10, 2011 at 11:18 AM
I'm a "civil libertarian". Or that should be written "civil-libert"-arian, perhaps? I don't trust authority, whether that authority is corporate, governmental, or originating in any other institutional structure. On the other hand I believe it's necessary. I don't believe the idealistic "non coercive" libertarian state can exist, because people will accumulate different amounts of power and people will need, at the very least, organizations to enforce "voluntary contracts"... and these organizations will end up being governments and (short of Iain Banks' transcendently powerful benign AIs making work unnecessary) almost everyone will end up subject yo contracts that are only nominally voluntary.
Anonymous commented May 19, 2011 at 6:53 AM
Here is a video that may cause some to rethink IP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRqsdSARrgk&NR=1
Here is an audio that may give you second thought.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KSua3Nczjk&feature=related
Ari commented May 19, 2011 at 10:40 AM
And here you can find Greg Perkins's refutation of the video linked above: http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2009/12/objectivist-recants-on-ip.shtml
Also check out Adam Mossoff's work on IP: http://www.law.gmu.edu/faculty/directory/fulltime/mossoff_adam
Craig commented May 23, 2011 at 4:03 PM
I'm not sure I agree with abandoning the term "libertarian" over it, but I do feel the pain of people prejudicing themselves against anything else I might say (regardless of content or merit) after I identify myself as such. Diana's comment is one of the two general examples that really irk me:
"Today, many people use the term 'libertarian' to mean that they're on the right economically, but not religious right or socially conservative."
I'm a very conservative Christian and like the two libertarians currently running for president (Paul, Johnson) was raised Lutheran (and like Paul I considered going to seminary but decided on another profession). With or without these anecdotes, the quoted is an incorrect application of the term. Libertarianism is a political philosophy—theology and personal practices (aggression towards another is not personal) are outside its scope. I happen to have arrived at libertarianism via application of Christian principles...go figure. None of this changes, however, the use of the term in this way...and the resulting negative connotation.
The other example is that some now believe libertarian = tea party = republican. So, I have friends who identify with team blue whose ears close when they hear the little-l word.
So, maybe the term is thoroughly trashed...but if two of the 10 people who have commented on this post don't know what Objectivism is (hasn't even made it into Chrome's spell-checker, BTW)...I doubt I'm going to get far calling myself a "classical liberal."
OK, thread winner goes to Ari for this (it describes the issue with shallow general understanding and misapplication of these labels well):
"The entire realm of political 'science' as it is known today exists solely for the purpose of preventing rational thought about politics."
russj commented September 26, 2011 at 3:31 PM
Nice post Ari!
Your reasoning is very reminiscent of Heyek's famous "Why I am not a conservative" article, from which I assume you got the title.
I also recall the famous line from "South Pacific: "I know what you're against! What are you for?"
You would rather stand for a set of principles, than oppose those which you despise.
Let's continue to support human rights, and their foundation, natural law.
Russ Josephson
Let's Smear Ayn Rand!
May 10, 2011
With the release of the mediocre (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/04/why-atlas-shrugged-part-i-is-good-movie.html) Atlas Shrugged film, smearing Ayn Rand has practically risen to a national pastime. No other literary figure I can think of has been subjected to such relentless and dishonest attacks. Usually, those who most viciously smear Rand display the least understanding of her ideas.
There are basically three reasons why Rand is the target of such nasty smear campaigns. First, because Rand was an atheist, she is hated and condemned by much of the right. The most notorious, and probably still the most blatantly dishonest, attack on Rand was published by National Review. Second, because Rand was an arch-capitalist, a defender of laissez-faire, and a harsh critic of the Soviet experiment, she is hated by most of the left. Third, the two early biographies about Rand were written by Barbara and Nathaniel Branden, hardly objective sources given their personal spat with Rand, and (http://www.durbanhouse.com/the_passion_of_ayn_rands_critics.html) arguably vicious liars. Unfortunately, those two distorted biographies continue to set the tone for many of Rand's detractors.
It is almost comical how people who otherwise have little in common nevertheless manage to create echo-chambers of anti-Rand smears. Consider the following line by Mark Moe from the (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_18009594) Denver Post: "If this [alleged description of Rand's ideas] sounds like 4th grade tantrumspeak, well, conservative columnist Michael Gerson agrees. Recently he called 'Atlas' a product of 'adult onset adolescence.'"
Indeed, I find it baffling why an otherwise-respectable newspaper would publish a smear-job that so blatantly misrepresents Rand's basic ideas that it almost reads as parody. Moe writes, "[T]hough Rand's monomaniacal philosophy of Objectivism can be boiled down into a few simple axioms, her style is a study in verbose bloviation by characters who are little more than cartoonish megaphones for her stunted worldview." Okay, then! Apparently enough smears strung together can substitute for an argument.
Or consider right-winger (http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_17905320) John Andrews's bizarre claims about Rand:
Messianism is messianism: foolish at best, hypnotic at worst. The grandiosity of Barack Obama and the will to power of Saul Alinsky cry for relief. The country must be rid of them, and soon. But the antidote is not John Galt and Ayn Rand. The messianic similarities are too close. One political panacea can't cure another.
The novel's final scene tells how Galt "raised his hand and traced in space the sign of the dollar," while nearby one of his disciples rewrote the Constitution. No sign of the cross for the atheist Rand; no great reverence for the Founders either. Her secular religion, Objectivism, would improve on both. Right.
Rand is similar to Obama in that both are "messianic?" That's just silly. "No great reverence for the Founders?" That's just willful ignorance; Rand consistently praised the Founders for creating the greatest nation on earth. (True, Rand offered some criticisms of the original Constitution, as did a great many of the Founders.)
Even Rand's fair-weather friends often take cheap shots. For example, the following comment from (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_17943333) Mike Rosen has absolutely no basis in reality: "There were many challenges in converting the book to a movie. At the top of the list was the task of satisfying the Ayn Rand Institute, the objectivist high priests who keep her flame burning and whose approval was a condition of the movie rights." Rand's estate, not the Institute, sold the movie rights long ago, without any such conditions. (That's unfortunate; had the Institute had any significant say in the movie, it probably would have been a lot better.)
Obviously Rand made some mistakes in her life; which novelist hasn't? She could have a fiery temper (hardly uncommon among creative types, though she could also be sweet as a kitten), and I don't see how her affair with Branden can be regarded as anything other than a gigantic mistake. But some of Rand's critics seem to think that, by recounting only Rand's flaws while ignoring her many virtues, exaggerating those flaws, completely distorting her ideas, and stacking smear upon ugly smear, they can simply ignore what Rand had to say.
Fortunately, Rand's audience has never been those who let other people's smears substitute for their own thinking. So read Atlas Shrugged for yourself, and evaluate its literary merits, and its ideas, by your own reasoned judgment.
***
Neil Parille commented May 11, 2011 at 5:18 AM
Nathaniel Branden didn't write a biography of Ayn Rand. He wrote two memoirs (actually one memoir which he revised). There is a little too much anger in the books.
Barbara Branden's biography of Rand was good. In fact, the 2009 biographies have more or less confirmed the Branden accounts. Jennifer Burns said she found no significant errors in the Branden books and she had almost complete access to the Ayn Rand Archives.
Thus I think your claim that the Brandens are "arguably vicious liars" is untrue, at least when it comes to their accounts. They both lied to Rand during the affair, although much worse in the case of Nathaniel.
Valliant's book misrepresents the Brandens and other sources. I've discussed it in detail.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9421651/The-Passion-of-James-Valliants-Criticism
Anonymous commented May 11, 2011 at 5:18 AM
How is criticism of atheism any more degrading than your constant bashing of Christians?
Neither action helps the cause of freedom.
A proper implementation of government would allow both belief systems to operate simultaneously .
Anonymous commented May 11, 2011 at 7:03 AM
Ari, please don't confuse "smear" with "criticism." And fer dog's sake, stop reading Mike Rosen—a more superficial opinionator would be hard to find.
ReplyDelete
Ari commented May 11, 2011 at 9:28 AM
I never said criticizing Rand's atheism counts as smearing! Rather, my point is that some who hate Rand's atheism smear her because of it. Criticizing a view with which one reasonably disagrees is not "bashing," it is making a reasoned argument. A proper government allows complete freedom of religion, and more broadly complete freedom of conscience, as consistent with the rights of others. (E.g., you can't sacrifice somebody as part of your religion.)
bil_d commented May 11, 2011 at 11:43 AM
Ari,
Ayn Rand gets smeared predominantly because of other people's religion, not as a direct result of her lack of it. A fine point, perhaps. Nevertheless, revealing..
It is due to the requirements of mystic belief systems (pick your flavor, it matters not) that when a follower of one runs into Ayn Rand they are put into a position of having to engage in all sorts of tortured defense mechanisms. And smearing her is almost involuntary.
Sad, but true.
Colorado's Campaign Laws Throw Common Sense Out the Window
May 13, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armtrong originally was published May 13 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110513/COLUMNISTS/110519975/1021&parent) Grand Junction Free Press.
It is December of 1787. You hold an intense interest in a revolutionary document, the proposed Constitution for the United States. Will you speak out, or will you remain silent?
Maybe you could write out your thoughts and print them in a pamphlet to distribute in your town. Pamphlets, signed and unsigned, for decades played a crucial role in American political discourse; eventually they would fill such books as Pamphlets of the American Revolution. Or you could rent out a room to hold a meeting. You contemplate the opportunities.
Your friend just returned from Pennsylvania, where he witnessed an attack on James Wilson, a key drafter of the Constitution. Eventually this story would become part of the tapestry of Catherine Drinker Bowen's book Miracle at Philadelphia. These are tense times. Should you speak out anonymously?
You have heard the debate over the missing Bill of Rights. Would the new federal government protect such cherished liberties as freedom of speech? In just a few years such concerns would give rise to the First Amendment, guaranteeing that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble..."
Now imagine, if you can, the impossible absurdity of some bureaucrat standing up to proclaim, "Anyone wishing to speak out on the proposed Constitution must first register with the proper authorities, then report to those authorities the names and addresses of every significant donor to your cause, as well as all of your significant expenses, as defined by said authorities, on penalty of daily fines, and in accordance with a hundred pages of dense legalese. To assist you with this process, the government will run classes instructing you on the proper way to speak your minds."
Can you imagine how Sam Adams, or John Hancock, or the then-anonymous writers of the Federalist essays, or any of the founders would react to such a demand? The Federalists and Anti-Federalists would momentarily forget their dispute in joint outrage. If he were exceptionally lucky, all that would happen to such a bureaucrat is that he would be tarred and feathered and then run out of town on a rail.
And yet those controls on speech describe the burdens Coloradans now face if they wish to speak out on any ballot measure. And we did this to ourselves. Or, rather, a tyrannical majority, stirred to passion by anti-liberty activists, did it to the minority. In 2002 voters approved Amendment 27, now Article XXVIII of the state constitution, to impose campaign censorship.
For censorship is precisely what the campaign laws accomplish. As several activists told the Secretary of State earlier this month in written and oral comments, the laws in fact prevent some people from speaking out, or speaking out as much, because of the onerous requirements. (To listen to Ari's testimony and other comments, see (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/co-campaign-laws-chill-speech.html) FreeColorado.com.)
At least the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of a small activist group that got sued under the campaign laws. Because of this ruling, Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who expressed grave concerns about the chilling effect of the campaign laws on free speech, proposed a rule raising the "trigger" spending level for filing as an issue group from $200 to $5,000.
Consider a few of the campaign laws' legion absurdities. If you run a newspaper, you are not subject to the rules. If you print up pamphlets, you are. What if you start up something which to you seems like a newspaper, but which to your political opponents seems like political campaigning? Then you get sued.
If you speak out directly on a ballot measure, you are subject to the rules. If you "educate" the public only about the underlying issues, you are not. At the Secretary of State's meeting, Matt Arnold of Clear the Bench testified to the absurdity of an issue group getting sued by an attack group not subject to the same requirements. Arnold should know: he himself was sued by the laughably named "Colorado Ethics Watch."
On February 14, 1776, an anonymous author put the lie to the left's paranoia about financial influence. He wrote, "Who the author of this production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the object for attention is the doctrine itself, not the man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, that he is unconnected with any party, and under no sort of influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle."
Today we know the author to be Thomas Paine. The work is Common Sense. He merely stated his authenticity, and proved it only through the cogency of his arguments, which he presumed individuals intelligent enough to grasp and independently evaluate.
Yet Colorado's campaign laws throw Common Sense out the window.
Public's Alleged "Right to Know" Should Not Trump Free Speech
May 14, 2011
The (http://www.gazette.com/opinion/right-118120-free-speak.html) Colorado Springs Gazette published my latest op-ed on Colorado's campaign laws. In this piece, I address the question of whether the public's alleged "right to know" the financial details of political advocacy can justify the violation of the individual right of free speech. Obviously I argue it cannot.
Colorado's campaign laws violate free speech in two different ways, I review in the piece. First, they force the citizen activist to jump through bureaucratic hoops, and suffer possible law suits, in order to run a funded campaign for or against any ballot measure. Second, the campaign laws outlaw anonymous speech regarding such campaigns.
I therefore conclude, "The fact that the public's alleged 'right to know' clashes with the fundamental human right of free speech indicates that there simply is no public 'right to know' regarding details about private citizens. It is only a legal entitlement masquerading as a right." People do have the right to disclose their financial details if they wish and to evaluate campaigns based on disclosures.
On May 13, the Secretary of State's office announced that it had adopted the rule change discussed in the piece, raising the "trigger" amount for issue-group reporting from $200 to $5,000.
Please read the (http://www.gazette.com/opinion/right-118120-free-speak.html) entire piece for details. See also the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/colorados-campaign-laws-throw-common.html) Grand Junction Free Press article by my dad and me that examines the same issue from another angle.
March 24, 2014 Update: I've added the complete text of the Gazette op-ed below.
Public's 'right to know' can clash with right to free speech
Ari Armstrong • Updated: May 13, 2011 at 12:00 am • Published: May 13, 2011
According to the principle of free speech embodied in the First Amendment, people have the right to speak their minds on the issues important to them, free from government interference. They have the right to finance the propagation of their beliefs and to coordinate with others to speak.
According to Jenny Flanagan of Colorado Common Cause, the public has a "right to know" the financial details of those who fight funded campaigns for or against ballot measures. However, the laws required to establish this alleged public "right" necessarily violate the free speech rights of individuals.
The state's campaign laws, approved by voters in 2002 and enshrined in Article XXVIII of Colorado's Constitution, impose burdensome reporting requirements that especially harm small citizen groups.
If you wish to devote even a small budget to speaking out on a ballot measure, you must register with the government and report your finances as an "issue committee."
To do this, you must work your way through 100 pages of dense legalese compiled by the Secretary of State. Then, you must obey complex and time-consuming reporting requirements, tracking in exhaustive detail your donors and expenses. If you make a minor paperwork error, you face fines of $50 per day per violation, though you might be able to beg the Secretary of State's office to waive your fines.
Even if you get through all that, an attack lawyer can still sue you under the laws for any error, however trivial, real or concocted. Just ask Matt Arnold of Clear the Bench, who was sued under the campaign laws even after he followed the advice of the (former) Secretary of State. These burdens especially discourage small citizen groups from getting involved in the political process.
Thankfully, following a court decision last November siding with a small citizen group near Parker, current Secretary of State Scott Gessler proposed a rule raising the "trigger" amount for reporting from $200 to $5,000. At least the change would free smaller groups from the onerous burdens—though not necessarily from the threat of harassing lawsuits.
The campaign laws also outlaw anonymous speech pertaining to funded efforts for or against any ballot measure. Yet the right of free speech entails the right to speak anonymously.
Anonymous speech enjoys a long and noble tradition in the United States. The Federalist Papers, the most important documents defending the Constitution, originally were published anonymously. So was Thomas Paine's Common Sense.
A person might wish to support a cause anonymously to avoid possible legal, political, or criminal retribution. Issues involving abortion, guns, gay marriage, and immigration often provoke heated passions and sometimes worse. Yet Colorado's campaign laws can require financial supporters of ballot campaigns to report their personal addresses as well as the addresses of their employers.
An anonymous supporter might also simply wish to encourage debate about the issues rather than his personality. As John Adams wrote, regardless of an anonymous speaker's motives, "so far as the truth of facts and the weight of argument are in his favor, he ought to be duly regarded."
A person has the right to choose how to speak, as well as what to speak about. Granting the public a "right to know" the financial details in question grants to some the ability to use government force to stop others from speaking in politically disapproved ways.
The fact that the public's alleged "right to know" clashes with the fundamental human right of free speech indicates that there simply is no public "right to know" regarding details about private citizens. It is only a legal entitlement masquerading as a right.
People do have every right to ignore messages they distrust. They can vote against a measure whose backers do not disclose their donors.
Opponents can raise questions about campaigns with secret donors. Last year, the secrecy surrounding measures 60, 61, and 101 made many voters suspicious. Moreover, donors themselves can agree to give only to causes that voluntarily disclose.
People have a right to disclose their own financial contributions to political causes, if they wish. And voters have a right to request such disclosures. But such disclosures cannot be mandated by law without infringing others' rights of free speech, and that's why Colorado's campaign finance laws should be repealed.
Ari Armstrong has written about a wide range of issues, including education, taxes, self-defense, and drug policy. His website is http://www.ariarmstrong.com.
Political Development Versus Economic Development
May 15, 2011
Political "economic development" harms the economy by diverting resources from more-valued to less-valued uses. Sure, it's easy for politicians to point to the fancy shops and such resulting from politicized development, but, as Bastiat and Hazlitt warn, we must also pay attention to all the goods and services NOT produced because of the diverted resources.
Unfortunately, today development has less to do with anticipating and meeting the needs of consumers and more to do with sucking up to politicians and city bureaucrats. Those unable to gain the subsidies and special tax breaks—notably, older, established businesses—must compete on an unlevel playing field. Meanwhile, developers waste precious resources playing the political game that could otherwise go into valuable production.
The (http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17978568) Denver Post recently reported, "The city of Westminster plans to demolish the blighted Westminster Mall to develop a downtown for the 100-year-old community. At a special meeting Monday, the City Council unanimously approved a deal to pay $22 million to Westminster Mall Co., a partnership between Kansas City, Mo.-based Dreiseszun & Morgan and Dillard's."
See my previous article on the city's (http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/05/westminster-declares-mall-blighted.html) bogus declaration of blight. This issue isn't about blight; it's about the city playing games with taxpayer money to try to win back sales tax revenue from the Flatiron Mall in Broomfield.
As (http://brianvandekrol.blogspot.com/2011/05/house-paint-stock-shows-and-shopping.html) Brian Vande Krol notes, there are reasons to be skeptical of the city's grand plans (though I have not personally verified all of his claims): "The Westminster Mall has received millions in taxpayer 'investments' over the years. It was once home to 300 shops. Then Westminster helped develop the Westminster Promenade, and then the Shops at Walnut Creek. Now Westminster Mall has 15 shops. The city is buying the mall, and you and I are once again 'investing' in the property. And the Promenade is losing tenants."
The Promenade does host some empty shops, though it also has a number of apparently quite successful businesses. But I remember a few years back the Promenade featured a large, garish sign promising a city-assisted development of a new health center and related facilities at that location. I returned to the sight of the sign a couple days ago and found the following [photo omitted; sign was cut down].
It is quite sad to walk through the Westminster Mall these days; most of the shops are closed down. The city, by taking a hostile stand against the mall's owners while implying sweat deals for the right players, made unlikely any independent action regarding the property.
Maybe the tax-subsidized redevelopment will become as successful as the city hopes, and maybe it won't. Either way, the city has no business gambling other people's money on the project.
Making the First Amendment Part of the Conversation
May 16, 2011
That Colorado's campaign laws chill free speech when it comes to speaking out for or against ballot measures is now established, incontestable fact. The reams of dense legalize, the onerous reporting requirements, and the risk of getting sued simply keep many citizen activists from getting involved in funded campaigns. On May 11, I taped an edition of Jon Caldara's (http://www.cpt12.org/tv_schedule/program_details.cfm?series_id=35206794) "Devil's Advocate" on Channel 12 to discuss these issues.
I draw your attention to the (http://splicd.com/W9UKnAj4dA8/519/531) exchange starting at marker 8:39:
Jenny Flanagan of Colorado Common Cause: "The reality is, the Colorado Constitution requires disclosure. That's what we have on the books."
Me: "The reality is we have a First Amendment."
Flanagan: "That's the reality. That issue [the Colorado laws' compatibility with the First Amendment] has not been challenged, and that's not part of the conversation right now."
It's a pretty sad day when the First Amendment is not part of the conversation when it comes to political speech. And that is precisely the problem I seek to redress.
Note: On May 13, two days after the show taped (but before it aired), the Secretary of State's office announced the rule change raising the "trigger" level for issue-group reporting from $200 to $5,000.
See also my previous links on the matter:
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/publics-alleged-right-to-know-should.html) Public's Alleged "Right to Know" Should Not Trump Free Speech
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/colorados-campaign-laws-throw-common.html) Colorado's Campaign Laws Throw Common Sense Out the Window
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/arnold-testifies-on-campaign-laws.html) Arnold Testifies on Campaign Laws
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/co-campaign-laws-chill-speech.html) CO Campaign Laws Chill Speech (Videos)
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/why-colorados-campaign-laws-constitute.html) Why Colorado's Campaign Laws Constitute Censorship
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/sos-looks-to-mitigate-burden-of.html) SOS Looks to Mitigate Burden of Campaign Censorship Laws
Freedom Stories: The Entrepreneur and the Immigrant
May 17, 2011
Earlier this month Brian Vande Krol and Luis Tavel delivered speeches about some of their personal experiences. Vande Krol notes that he enjoys "extreme sports" such as skydiving, but the real risks to his life and success come from onerous bureaucratic controls on business. Tavel discusses his journey from Bolivia to Colorado.
(As is always the case, my posting a video of somebody else does not imply that party's agreement with all of my views or vice versa.)
Eina Kleina Social Security Analysis
May 18, 2011
Ezra Klein is very smart. Unfortunately, sometimes he allows his factual research to limit his worldview to the status quo; he becomes a conservative in the worst sense of that term. Consider his recent article on (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/eight-facts-and-three-thoughts-about-social-security/2011/05/09/AFJTVUjG_blog.html) Social Security.
Klein argues, "Over the next 75 years, Social Security's shortfall is equal to about 0.7 percent of GDP. ... Social Security's 75-year shortfall is manageable. In fact, it'd be almost completely erased by applying the payroll tax to income over $106,000."
But "the numbers"—not actually facts but projections—obscure all the important details about the issue.
A mere fraction of a percent of GDP may not sound like much until we realize that the economy has been weighed down by many such burdens. A trillion here, a trillion there, as the saying goes. Social Security is one of several welfare entitlement programs—see also Medicare and Medicaid—threatening to drag down the American economy.
Moreover, the (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11580/07-01-SSOptions_forWeb.pdf) Congressional Budget Office's projections that Klein cites presumes the government can predict GDP nearly a century out—which of course is quite ridiculous. Because most projections show steady GDP gains, the relative size of the Social Security burden appears much lower than its actual cost.
Further saddling "the rich" with higher taxes, of course, only discourages productive effort and thereby impedes the rate of economic growth. So does expanding a welfare program that encourages people to work and save less.
In addition, the "facts" that Klein cites contain the outright fraudulent presumption that "the current balance in the OASDI trust funds" (see page ix of the report) somehow mitigates the program's liabilities. They do not, for reasons (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-homer-simpson-approach-to-social-security/) Paul Hsieh explains.
So the fact that Social Security threatens to erode a "mere" 0.7 percent of additional projected GDP (or CBO says 0.6 percent) is indeed quite troubling.
An even worse example of Klein's static thinking may be found in his comment, "Without Social Security, 45 percent of seniors would be under the poverty line. With Social Security, 10 percent of seniors are under the poverty line." But other things would definitely NOT be equal.
Here's the big fact that Klein utterly ignores: Social Security financially devastates workers, and especially lower-income workers, by stripping off a huge portion of their paychecks to subsidize a welfare program for the elderly. This constitutes the most serious financial impediment to younger workers climbing out of debt, getting ahead financially, and starting a real investment program for themselves.
In other words, one huge reason some elderly people drop into poverty is that Social Security prevented (and discouraged) them from saving for their own retirements.
I am, however, partly sympathetic with one of Klein's conclusions: "Raising the retirement age is the worst of all possible options for reforming Social Security. It's not only regressive, but it also falls most heavily on those with the worst jobs. Means-testing would be much better."
I say I'm only partly sympathetic because the tax itself is horribly regressive, so easing the tax by raising the payout age (which notably is NOT the same thing as the "retirement age") would, on net, greatly ease the burdens of lower-income workers.
One big reason I have advocated the complete phasing out of Social Security by slowly raising the payout age is its simplicity. It's very easy to understand and implement.
But, if Klein insists on further easing the burdens of those at lower incomes, I am more than happy to reach a compromise by means-testing our way out of the horrid program. We could phase the entire thing out simply by lowering the qualifying income line over time. But this is messy: do we count recent annual income or total assets? Wouldn't means-testing encourage the elderly to make themselves artificially poor in order to qualify?
Honest leftists would decry the regressive nature of the Social Security tax and call to replace the entire bloated system with a simpler welfare program for the elderly. As it stands, Social Security often punishes the working poor to reward the elderly rich. That's insanity by any coherent ideology. (The fact that the left nevertheless advocates Social Security demonstrates only that the left is more interested in using the issue to gain power than in actually helping the poor.) Update: I retract this criticism; if the left's ideological goal is to make people dependent on the state, Social Security succeeds spectacularly.
The much broader issue is that people have a right to dispose of their own income as they see fit, whether to spend it, save it, or voluntarily donate it to charity. Thus, while I'm happy to go slow on reform, I do advocate the complete phasing out of Social Security (and indeed the entire welfare state).
To modify my compromise proposal, we could immediately means-test Social Security payments on a sliding scale, so as to mitigate wasteful gaming. Reduce the Social Security tax across the board accordingly. Then set the payout age to increase slowly over time, until the program is completely phased out.
Now that's real reform—and one consistent with the full body of relevant facts.
Green Doomsday Cultists
May 20, 2011
So the world is going to end tomorrow. Perhaps when it doesn't the religious doomsday cultists will finally shut the hell up, at least for a little while.
I have to wonder, though, whether the doomsday scenarios of the environmentalists make much more sense.
Following in the footsteps of the global cooling and global warming scares comes the "climate change" scare. This latest iteration seems altogether too convenient, because the climate is always changing and has always been changing since the formation of the earth. Ironically, environmentalists blast critics as "climate change deniers," when those critics are the ones pointing out that climate change long preceded humanity and, thus, obviously is driven largely (if not entirely) by non-human factors. Even Al Gore's book provides ample evidence of non-human caused climate change, and Nova's "Becoming Human" shows that humans evolved in an African climate that gyrated wildly between rain forest and desert. Yet environmentalists insist that, while pre-industrial climate change was caused entirely by natural factors, post-industrial climate change is caused mostly by human activity.
Also notice how environmentalists (and their lap-dog media) routinely latch onto any short-term weather pattern as proof of long-range "climate change." If the weather is a little warmer, or a little cooler, or a little dryer, or a little wetter than average, then sound the alarms! Human-Caused Climate Change Invades New York! (Or wherever.)
It's been raining in Colorado quite a lot over the past few days, and snowing in the mountains—allowing (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18101155) Aspen Mountain to reopen for the weekend and contributing to (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18104493) 25-foot drifts on Independence Pass -- so obviously the reason is (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2009-08-21-climate-change-rain_N.htm) human-caused climate change. But just a few years ago, the environmentalists (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4484760) warned us that human-caused climate change would lead to drought and shorter skiing seasons.
That's a pretty convenient theory that fits any and all possible weather and climate variations. At a certain point I think it's reasonable to wonder whether claims of "human-caused climate change" remain theoretically open to challenge.
I do not doubt that, at certain stages of very-long-running climate cycles, the weather gets jumpier (more varied) than at other times. We might even be in one of those stages. But proving that would require quite a lot of evidence about present and past conditions—and good record-keeping on such matters began fairly recently. Proving that more variable weather is caused by human activity would require a far more robust set of facts. But notice how frequently we are urged to jump, without any substantial evidence, from "climate change" to "humans obviously caused it."
In Biblical mythology, Adam and Eve lived in a technology-free state of environmental perfection. Then man sinned, setting off a a chain of events that some think will climax tomorrow. The environmentalists seem to concoct a similar ideal state—a climate paradise untouched by man—thrown into chaos by human industry.
But the climate has always been in a state of flux, and people have always suffered natural catastrophes, including wild weather patterns. It is only industrialization that has allowed us to protect ourselves from the fickle and destructive forces of nature.
Barbera: 'Why I Love America'
May 23, 2011
In a recent talk, Kirk Barbera describes how he reminds himself in specific, concrete detail of why he loves America—and why the nation's principles of freedom are worth fighting for.
Does TABOR Violate the U.S. Constitution?
May 24, 2011
As the (http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_18118976) Denver Post reports, a Colorado group is suing to invalidate the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights [TABOR], on the grounds that it violates "the U.S. Constitution guarantee that states have a 'republican' government."
I think the lawsuit is complete bunk, basically a PR stunt, and I predict it will be quickly tossed out of court.
As Professor (http://old.i2i.org/main/article.php?article_id=598&print=1) Robert Natelson concludes in a 1999 paper, "[T]he Framers clearly acknowledged that republican government need not be purely representative[;] that it may contain significant elements of direct democracy. ... The continued pressing of Guarantee Clause arguments against I&R [initiative and referendum] in defiance of unanimous historical and legal authority results in delay, vexation, and a waste of judicial and other resources. The courts should put those arguments to rest forthwith by classifying them as frivolous and imposing appropriate sanctions on the parties who raise them."
But it is worth looking a bit more into the arguments surrounding the suit.
First I want to point out three bad arguments against the suit. One goes something like this: "Because TABOR is itself a state constitutional provision, it cannot violate the federal constitution." Obviously that's wrong. Originally the U.S. Constitution prevented the states from doing all sorts of things, such as putting up trade barriers. Indeed, restraining state governments was a major motivation for creating the U.S. Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment restricts state governments even more severely (and thank goodness). I have argued that the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/making-first-amendment-part-of.html) Colorado campaign laws -- also part of the state constitution—violate the First Amendment.
Others have pointed out that several state governments permit (http://www.iandrinstitute.org/statewide_i%26r.htm) citizen initiatives and referendums and have done so for a long time. But that by itself does not justify the citizen initiative; many governments have done the wrong thing for long periods of time. If something is wrong or unjust, it hardly becomes justified merely by being compounded.
Another bad argument against the suit is that "the people" have the right to impose whatever they want through law. Obviously that's inconsistent with the principle of individual rights. The Founders rightly feared mob rule and tried to protect against it.
Clearly Article IV, Section 4 of the federal constitution restrains state government in important ways, stating, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government..." Clearly, then, Colorado voters could not pass a constitutional amendment imposing a state-level hereditary dictator.
The question, then, is whether the citizen vote on law is compatible with a "republican" form of government. I think the Colorado Senate Republicans explained the point nicely in a release: "The plaintiffs in this lawsuit display a profound misunderstanding of what the founders of our nation and authors of the US Constitution meant by guaranteeing a 'republican form of government.' A republican form of government is above all a government with lawmakers bound by a constitution."
Another question entirely is whether direct citizen vote is a good idea, though compatible with the U.S. Constitution. I can think of no good reason why citizens should not be allowed to vote on some statutory matters. I see no inherent problem with raising the bar for citizen votes to change the state constitution. Even advocates of the current rules must admit that the voters have at times made a mess of things. The unfortunate incentive is for groups to run unalterable constitutional amendments even for issues best left to the statutes. A constitution is supposed to be the most basic and fundamental law, not a repository of special-interest group finagling. Regardless of the rules of our state and era, we as individual voters should take revisions of the the constitution with utmost seriousness.
Is McInnis Exonerated?
May 24, 2011
The basic facts of the plagiarism scandal that brought down Scott McInnis's gubernatorial campaign have not changed since they were reported last fall. The Hasan Family Foundation (http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_18125524) paid McInnis $300,000 for a series of articles on water and related speaking engagements. McInnis (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/24260453/detail.html) paid Rolly Fischer "a few hundred dollars per article" to do much or most of this work. Fischer, claiming he thought McInnis just wanted background material, handed in text largely written by Judge Gregory J. Hobbs.
In short, McInnis turned in the work of somebody else, compiled by somebody else, under his own name, for a $300,000 paycheck. The best that can be said of McInnis's behavior is that was a complete scumbag whom voters were quite sensible to reject. The only bright spot is that McInnis "has since repaid the foundation the full amount," the (http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_18125524) Denver Post reports.
But did McInnis do anything illegal or anything that should cost him his license to practice law? The Colorado Supreme Court Attorney Regulation Counsel sensibly says no. In (http://www.scribd.com/doc/56016081/McInnisAttyReg) letters signed by John Gleason, the Counsel describes the following findings:
"In 2005, Mr. McInnis instructed Mr. Fisher [sic throughout] not to plagiarize any work in the articles he drafted... Mr Fisher did not and does not believe that such use was plagiarism, as he believes Justice Hobbs' article is part of the 'public domain.' Mr. Fisher did not disclose to Mr. McInnis that he had imported the work of Justice Hobbs into his article. ... Mr. McInnis did disclose his retention of a research assistant to Ms. Hasan in writing in 2005, contrary to the Foundation's representation in its press release in 2010."
So, in other words, McInnis didn't know "his" work contained large sections of uncited material, and McInnis told the Foundation that he had a "research assistant" (who apparently did practically all the work for a tiny fraction of the pay).
If that's a "vindication" or an "exoneration," I'd hate to see a conviction! In the words of the Counsel, "[T]here is not clear and convincing evidence of a violation of the disciplinary rules." Just so.
In seeing some conservatives rush to praise McInnis (and, in some cases, to castigate the Hasans), I can't help drawing a contrast to the conservative reaction to Bill Clinton's sex scandal. In a certain, twisted sense, Clinton "did not have sex with that woman" (because an Oval Office blow job arguably doesn't count as "sex") and "there's nothing going on between us" (because "it depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is").
It is in that Clintonian sense that we may boldly declare: "Scott McInnis did not have plagiarism in that paper, 'Musings on Water.'"
Nook Advances
May 26, 2011
I'm a Kindle man. Not only do I have a (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) book about Harry Potter selling for Kindle, but I own a Kindle, and I read books on my iPod Touch with Kindle software.
But I like Barnes and Noble (BN), largely because a local store allows(http://libertyinthebooks.com/) Liberty In the Books (a group I help run) to meet there. So, every month, I walk through the store and talk to the staff about the latest developments for the Nook. (I've caught a bit of ribbing for bringing my Kindle into BN.)
The brilliant thing is that both the Kindle and the Nook now sell for $139—very reasonable even for lower-income consumers. Virtually all well-known public-domain books are available for free for these devices.
It now seems very likely that BN's Nook is here to stay, and that it will save the company.
Impressively, the (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/index.asp?PID=35699) new Nook brings together two important features, so far as I'm aware for the first time: e-ink (and the long battery life that comes with it) and a touchscreen. (Thank goodness the new Nook dropped that idiotic split screen of earlier models, part touch and part e-ink.)
Frankly, I've taken to reading on my iTouch more than my Kindle. There are several reasons for this. The Touch fits in my pocket, so I can take it pretty much anywhere. I really like navigating a book with the touchscreen. On the Kindle, it's a real hassle to click down to the link and jump back and forth. While I like the Kindle screen, the Touch looks great, and I haven't noticed any eye strain. Plus, whether I'm reading a printed book, the Kindle, or a Kindle book on the Touch, I tend to use the Touch to take notes. So, if I'm reading from the Touch, I can read and take notes on the same device. (I wouldn't dream of trying to take notes on the clunky Kindle.)
The new Nook isn't small enough to fit in my pocket, but it is touchscreen, which must help a lot. Goodbye, mouse-sized keypad! And, while the Touch is a much more versatile device, it also currently starts at $229.
I predict that, until Kindle adopts touchscreen technology, the Nook will make larger inroads into Amazon's potential market.
One question is how powerful the Nook is as a pad computer. A BN staffer suggested to me that a variety of applications are coming for the device. Unfortunately, I am unable to find ready information about this. If the Nook can also serve as a word processor, and perhaps even as an email and web device, that will greatly improve its value.
(I have not actually held or even seen the new Nook. If Barnes and Noble would care to lend or gift me one, I would be happy to write up a full review, complete with a disclosure. Given that my wife and I already have four digital reading devices between us, including our Mac, I just can't justify buying a fifth.)
Even though I'm unlikely personally to buy a Nook, I'm glad it exists. It gives BN a real chance of surviving and perhaps even thriving as a company (or as a division of some other company), and it has noticeably motivated Amazon to keep improving the quality of the Kindle while lowering its price. Hurray, capitalism.
***
Allen commented May 29, 2011 at 10:33 AM
"I wouldn't dream of trying to take notes on the clunky Kindle."
Interesting; I'm the opposite. I read on the iTouch when I'm in a pinch (e.g. standing at the microwave at work warming up lunch). And I prefer to take notes on the Kindle.
Angelina commented May 31, 2011 at 3:28 PM
I can't wait to try out the new Nook! I currently have the older version (with both e-ink and touch screen) and I really love it. However, it doesn't mean that there's not room for improvement. I like the idea of a touch screen. I don't do much else on my Nook but read, so it doesn't really have to have a lot of extra features.
Why Spending More for Local Goods Harms the Economy
May 27, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published May 27 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110527/COLUMNISTS/110529990/1062&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press under the title, "Channel 11 piece peddles economic nonsense." Stay tuned for a related update about the views of Denver mayoral hopeful (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18151474) Michael Hancock.
If Bernie Lange had taken to the airwaves to promote therapeutic magnetic underwear or report alien anal probes, he rightly would have been laughed off the station. But apparently peddling economic nonsense fits perfectly well with the editorial policies over at Channel 11 News, the local NBC affiliate.
Last week the station broadcast the segment "Made In America," a silly editorial masquerading as news that falsely argues buying overpriced American products creates jobs. Spending less for the same products made overseas, Lange intones sinisterly, costs Americans not only jobs but "billions in lost dollars." That's due to "the multipliers," you see.
Thankfully, French economist (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/bastiat.html) Frédéric Bastiat* exposed Lange's brand of foolishness way back in 1845 in his "Candlemakers' petition." To update the example, consider an obvious way to create jobs galore for manufacturers of light bulbs and the electricity required to run them. Simply block out all sunlight from your home. Board up all the windows. Think of all the American jobs we'd create if we all followed that one simple step. Say no to extraterrestrial sunlight!
Or consider the blight of foreign-made bananas and coffee. Scandalously, Americans tend to buy both those products from Central and South America. Think of all the American jobs we could create if we bought those goods only from U.S. suppliers, or better yet Colorado suppliers.
Impossible, you say? If you check out the web page of (http://www.botanicgardens.org/content/greenhouse-complex) Denver Botanic Gardens, you will discover the center currently grows bananas, coffee, and chocolate right here in Colorado (as one of our friends pointed out). No doubt we could grow all those things locally if farmers spent enough on greenhouses and heaters.
Sure, the products would cost more, but just think of "the multipliers!" We could add billions upon billions of dollars to our economy just by spending more on the goods we consume every day. Indeed, by Lange's logic, the more we spend, the more we prosper!
Clearly there's something wrong with Lange's reasoning. To get a better idea of the problem, consider Bastiat's wisdom about the seen and the unseen. Bastiat writes, "The bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen."
What Lange sees are the manufacturing jobs lost. What Lange ignores are the exporting jobs created and the additional wealth made possible by trade.
Lange sees that spending more money on American-made products would contribute to the paychecks of American workers. Lange ignores the fact that spending more money on the same goods would deprive other businesses of those dollars. If you spend more money on toys and household items, you have less to spend with the local fruit grower or massage therapist.
Let's get back to basics. Why should we trade at all? Why shouldn't each individual produce everything he needs, all by himself? The answer should be obvious: everyone would become horrifically poor, and only a tiny fraction of today's population would manage to survive at all. Just imagine making all your own clothes, growing all your own food, building your own shelter, and acting as your own dentist.
By trading, we benefit from other people's skills, expertise, accumulated machinery, and natural advantages. Why does Lange think it's any different when we trade with people in other towns, other states, or other nations?
China features lots of cheap labor. We would be fools not to take advantage of that. America, on the other hand, features lots of complex machinery and other capital goods made possible by industrialization and relative economic liberty. That's why (as the CIA reports) per capita product in (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html) China is around $7,400 annually, whereas in the (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html) United Statesit's $47,400.
If we stop buying stuff that China's relatively good at making, that means we have to make stuff that we're relatively bad at making. Such a policy is self-destructive. Buying cheap goods from China and elsewhere allows American workers to specialize on the things they make best.
Of course, it is worth looking into artificial reasons why some American companies move overseas, including high tax rates and business-crushing union policies. We should also explore the reasons for continued high domestic unemployment, particularly the Obama administration's policies of blowing out the deficit and meddling in the economy. But let's fix the underlying problems, not succumb to economic fantasies.
We doubt very seriously that Bernie Lange or anyone else at Channel 11 makes much of an effort to buy only American-made goods. And they'd be foolish to do so. Trade is all about specialization according to one's strengths. We hope, therefore, that Channel 11 sticks to reporting the news and leaves the economic commentary to people like Bastiat.
* Note: I was paid a modest sum to help run (http://libertyinthebooks.com/) Liberty In the Books, which has reviewed select works of Bastiat.
***
Elisheva Hannah Levin commented June 2, 2011 at 8:35 AM
I agree, should the local goods be identical to those from elsewhere. After all, I enjoy coffee as much as most Americans do. My caveat, is that often locally produced food is fresher and/or is produced in ways that make it tastier than mass produced food that is shipped in. And in many cases, such as the one of corn-fed beef in CAFO's, the real cost is obscured because the federal government subsidizes the production of the corn heavily, and the cost to defend oil sources (need for transportation of feed and of product) is never factored in. Since this makes the American food supply chain an artificial economy, most people do not really know what the true cost of "cheap" food is, and how they are paying for it.
Sadly, although the term "free market" should be a redundancy, the understanding of the term "market" is so poor for most consumers, that we have to say it. Free markets, for all goods, across all boundaries produces a vital economy.
Michael Hancock's 'Collective Farm' Foolishness
May 27, 2011
Talk about great timing! Just as (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110527/COLUMNISTS/110529990/1062&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press publishes an article from my dad and me on the economic harms of spending more for local goods, the Denver Post releases an article by Chuck Plunkett discussing the "buy local" proposal of (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18151474) Michael Hancock, who is running for mayor of Denver.
Hancock wants to "create thousands of new jobs for Denver citizens" by promoting urban farming, Plunkett quotes.
Thankfully, Plunkett also quotes somebody who actually knows what he's talking about. Philip Graves, an economist at CU, told Plunkett that if such gardening were economical, "it would already be happening." And, in the best line quoted so far this year by the Post, Graves said Hancock's plan "is akin to the notoriously inefficient 'collective farms' of the old Soviet Union."
Now, urban gardening might be fun and emotionally rewarding, and it might indeed save some people a bit on their grocery bills. But Hancock's idea that it might generate many jobs and substantially benefit the economy is foolishness. Hancock needs to brush on on a couple of basic economic concepts. The first is economies of scale—in many cases larger operations operate much more efficiently, far offsetting the transportation costs. Second, some regions offer natural production advantages. It turns out that growing food usually is best done on (wait for it...) farmland, not in densely populated cities. Regional advantage is a subset of the more general principle of comparative advantage.
Now, there is something government can do to promote local, small-scale agriculture, and that is get the hell out of the way. A recent story at (http://biggovernment.com/bmccarty/2011/05/20/family-facing-4-million-in-fines-for-selling-bunnies/) Big Government reviews a couple of cases of USDA harassment and intimidation of small-scale producers. Timothy Sandefur's book (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/sandefur.html) The Right to Earn a Living contains numerous examples of how the federal government has trampled economic liberties, often harming especially small-scale farmers.
First came Hancock with his (http://www.kdvr.com/news/politics/kdvr-creationism-question-confusion-txt,0,6441572.story) Creationist silliness, and now urban collective farms. I guess we'd better get used to the sound of "Mayor Romer."
Memorial Day Links
May 28, 2011
My great-grandfather Ralph Garver served in World War I.
My grandfather Theo Eversol served 44 months in WWII. Some of his remarks are recorded in a (http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/05/wwii-invasion-forces-headed-for-japan.html) first and (http://www.freecolorado.com/2007/05/memorialday.html) second article. My paternal grandfather Otto Armstrong served in the same war, also in the Pacific Rim.
Earlier this year I interviewed my father Linn about his experiences in(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/01/vietnam-vet-linn-armstrong-discusses.html) Vietnam. He wrote more about his tour in a (http://www.freecolorado.com/2007/06/independenceday.html) 2007 article.
My step-father Marshall Davis also served in Vietnam.
A number of my more-distant family members have also served at various times, as have numerous friends.
Last year, I interviewed (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/09/wwii-vet-seymour-glass-of-445th-bomb.html) Seymour Glass of the 445th Bomb Group. The resulting videos are extraordinary.
Thank you all.
Use Tax Criminals
May 31, 2011
In a recent op-ed published through the (http://www.i2i.org/) Independence Institute, I argue that Colorado's "use tax" is "a nuisance tax that turns good citizens into tax criminals." (If, like most people I've talked to, you have no idea what the use tax even is, I refer you to the article.)
The op-ed was published by the May 25 (http://www.themountainmail.com/main.asp?SectionID=7&SubSectionID=7&ArticleID=22525) Salida Mountain Mail and the May 27 (http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=12937) Denver Daily News. Check out either of those publications for the full piece.
I make the following arguments.
* The "use tax" is a time-consuming nuisance for consumers to pay (as my wife and I discovered).
* Because it is such a nuisance, the state makes little effort to enforce it, and hardly anybody pays it. But that turns huge numbers of Coloradans into tax criminals, exposing them to the risk of arbitrary, politically motivated enforcement.
* It is neither fair nor Constitutional of the Colorado legislature to try to force out-of-state companies to enforce the use tax, as those companies gain practically no benefits from Colorado tax expenditures.
* Besides, requiring large, out-of-state companies to help enforce the use tax would not cover all the relevant taxed items, so it would still be a nuisance for Colorado citizens and it would still turn many Coloradans into tax criminals.
Update: following is the entire text.
How many tax criminals has Colorado's 'use tax' created?
You may be a criminal under Colorado's tax laws without even knowing it. Probably most Coloradans are tax criminals. Merely by reading this article you'll no longer remain blissfully ignorant of the tax in question, the "use tax."
So what is the use tax? Anytime you purchase something from out of state without paying Colorado sales tax—say, if you buy something from Amazon—you're supposed to pay the equivalent use tax to the state for the privilege of using the item here. You're supposed to keep track of all such items over the year and then cut the state a check.
The use tax is a nuisance tax that's difficult to pay. Consider the experiences of my wife and me. After we paid the use tax, not only for last year, but for the past seven years, the Colorado Department of Revenue acknowledged our tax compliance by sending us two erroneous letters claiming we owed the tax.
The only reason the Department of Revenue thought we owed the use tax is that we told them we owed it—in the same letter in which we enclosed our check for the entire amount. The tax bureaucrats cashed our check but apparently still failed to notice that we paid the tax. I felt a bit like a minor character in Franz Kafka's novel "The Trial," in which the authorities relentlessly pursue a man on mysterious charges.
Dealing with the paperwork consumed a huge portion of the value of the tax. My wife and I spent about 6.5 hours combined figuring out the tax, and about two more hours combined responding to the Department of Revenue's bogus complaints, in order to pay a total tax of $436.93. The Department of Revenue will waste who knows how much more of their time and ours figuring out that, yes, we did in fact pay the use tax.
Partly because the use tax is such a nuisance for citizens to pay, the state makes practically zero effort to enforce it, collect it, or even notify citizens that it exists. But if you don't pay your use tax, doesn't that make you a criminal? That's the implication of an April 8 release from the(http://www.coloradoattorneygeneral.gov/press/news/2011/04/08/attorney_general_announces_indictment_against_colorado_springs_man_suspected_f) Colorado Attorney General's office, which alleges that tax-cutting activist Douglas Bruce committed a felony for evading taxes and a misdemeanor for "failure to file a return or pay a tax." The complaint against Bruce involves the income tax, but presumably the same rules apply to all taxes.
A law that turns huge numbers of Coloradans into criminals is a bad law. By not even trying to enforce the law, the state encourages citizens to skip it. And most do. But that raises the specter of arbitrary, politically motivated enforcement.
Last year, the legislature tried to pass off enforcement of the law largely to Amazon and other online retailers, in clear violation of the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. Not surprisingly, a judge ruled against the law, which still failed to motivate the legislature to repeal it this year. Because of the ongoing dispute, Amazon and other companies decline to pay Colorado residents for referrals (so as to avoid creating a business "nexus"), which costs the state income tax revenues.
In-state retailers argue that the use tax equalizes the tax burden for in-state and out-of-state purchases. But out-of-state companies gain none of the benefits of tax-funded roads, police protection, and so on, so they should not be conscripted by Colorado legislators to help enforce state tax law.
By the very nature of the use tax, there is no good way to enforce it. It is a nuisance tax that turns otherwise good citizens into tax criminals.
Ari Armstrong's book (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter sells through Amazon, and Ari used to be an Amazon associate. He is a guest writer for the Independence Institute, a Golden-based libertarian think tank. The views expressed in this guest editorial are those of the Independence Institute and not necessarily those of the Denver Daily News.
What's the Real Price Inflation?
May 31, 2011
Recently economist (http://mercatus.org/features/how-improve-economic-growth-increase-bank-lending) Bruce Yandle wrote, "Inflation doubled from 1.1% in the fourth quarter to 2.2% in the first quarter, but that's when they take out food and energy prices. For real people, inflation is 3.8% (including food and energy prices)." (We can appease the Austrians by distinguishing price inflation from monetary inflation.)
But I wonder if even that figure is wildly understated for at least some consumers. Consider some examples from my local grocery store:
* I noticed that the same package of sausage dropped in size from 16 to 14 ounces, a 14 percent price increase.
* Milk has gone from $1.99 per gallon to $2.69, a 35 percent increase. June 1 Update: I notice that milk is now on sale for $2.29, so a 15 percent increase.
* Whereas a package of cream cheese used to go on sale for $1 per package, the new sale price is $1.25, a 25 percent increase.
* I've been able to find fewer good markdown deals lately, which I take to be a combination of more people looking for them and grocers fighting tighter margins. A non-markdown item easily can cost double.
The wealthy, who already spend a ton of money on food, easily can reduce their spending with marginal shopping changes. But I suspect that, for lower-income shoppers, the real pain of inflation is considerably higher than the official figures indicate. These are also the people probably last in line for wage hikes or even getting hired.
And, according to one (http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/currentinflation.asp) source, the April rate is 3.16 percent.
Shermer Explains 'The Believing Brain'
June 2, 2011
Arch-skeptic (http://www.michaelshermer.com/) Michael Shermer spoke at (http://www.tatteredcover.com/) Tattered Cover May 31 about his new book, The Believing Brain. With permission, I filmed the presentation, and I've edited three selections.
In the first video, Shermer explains the basics of how people tend to find patterns both where they are real and where they are not. We need science to tell the difference, he argues.
In the second video, Shermer argues that people tend to find agency even in complex systems and inanimate things.
Finally, Shermer explains people's tendency to mentally construct agencies and project them into the world.
Shermer also offered some fascinating insights into political battles, specific conspiracy theories (deathers, birthers, truthers), and the importance of free-trading liberal democracies (broadly understood) for preserving the peace and keeping dangerous people from gaining power. For all that and more, you'll have to read his book!
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Tess commented June 2, 2011 at 11:55 AM
This is great!! I was there at the lecture as well. Nice job on filming and editing it. Is there any chance you'd be willing to post the entire lecture or maybe send it to me? Thanks again for posting this!
TJWelch commented June 6, 2011 at 7:44 PM
Many years ago, I read the original (1997) edition of Shermer's book _Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition and Other Confusions of our Time_. In what was otherwise a good book, he included a chapter called "The Unlikeliest Cult: Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and the Cult of Personality". While purporting to be a debunking of Objectivism, it was at most an indictment of the alleged behavior of some Objectivists--largely sourced from the Brandens' memoirs. I don't remember much in the way of arguments against the philosophy itself, other than an arbitary assertion that morality cannot be objective.
Keep in mind that the rest of the book dealt with creationists, Holocaust deniers, UFOlogists and the like. I found it intellectually dishonest to lump Objectivism in with such company on flimsy pretext.
Rand herself exposed the use of such tactics in her essay "'Extremism,' or the Art of Smearing."
Do Media Report the News or Make the News?
June 3, 2011
I was invited to address participants in the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Program in an upcoming event. The topic: "Do the media report the news or make the news?"
My invite came on short notice (as I'm replacing a speaker who had to cancel), and I wondered how much time I could free up for preparation. But then it occurred to me that it would be both easier for me and more useful for the students if I simply asked some of Colorado's journalists what they thought. While I was at it, I figured, I might as well compile the answers for the web page.
I contacted around twenty people, expecting only a few replies (especially given the short notice). I'll update this page if I get additional responses. I asked journalists to mention their top media successes and to answer the question about reporting versus making the news. (By the way, if you're a Colorado journalist and I did not contact you, feel free to send me your answers anyway.)
Please note that the text beneath a writer's name was written by that writer, not by me, and I may not agree with all the comments.
(http://bigmedia.org/about-jason-salzman/) *** Jason Salzman ***
"Do the media report the news or make the news?"
Both. Media outlets are not passive transmitters. They are run by people who make decisions about whom to investigate, what to feature, how to allocate staff time. The staff at mainstream news outlets reflects prevailing values and norms, so the decisions of media staff, on what to cover, are often in line with prevailing opinion of what might be considered news.
Here are a few successes.
1. BigMedia Investigation Leads to Release of McInnis Water Articles. In May, BigMedia (http://bigmedia.org/2010/05/12/277/) pointed out that Scott McInnis divulged, in a radio interview, that he'd received $150,000 from the Hasan Foundation to write a series of articles on Colorado Water issues. It was known that he'd received Hasan money, but what he'd actually done for the foundation was a mystery. BigMedia called on reporters to ask McInnis and the Hasans to release the articles. Journalists didn't do this, so BigMedia wrote a series of articles, (http://bigmedia.org/2010/05/18/journalists-should-question-mcinnis-about-water-articles/) like this one, trying to find the missing articles.
BigMedia was almost certainly first media entity to interview the Hasan Foundation and the McInnis campaign about the articles and to ask for their release. BigMedia was the first media entity to report that McInnis was paid $300,000 to write the water articles, not $150,000, as had been previously reported in the Denver Post. The early BigMedia investigation, pushing for the release of the articles, was cited by the (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_15213807) Denver Post's Ed Quillen, whose June 3 column contained the first mention of the water articles that appeared in The Denver Post:
"Scott McInnis, a Republican candidate for governor... received approximately $150,000 from the Hassan Family Foundation, for which, as he explained on a radio program, 'I wrote a series of in-depth articles on water' that 'could be used in a series for education on water in Colorado.' I follow water stuff fairly closely, and I never saw the work. Jason Salzman, former media critic for the Rocky Mountain News, talked to everybody who might have reasonably encountered this hydrologic epic, and came up empty; McInnis' office did not respond to his questions."
Aliya Hasan, daughter of Malik Hasan and board member of the Hasan Family Foundation, told BigMedia that she didn't think McInnis' water articles, which later were found to be plagiarized, would have been released without the media criticism from BigMedia. [Editor's Note: See my (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/is-mcinnis-exonerated.html) article about more recent developments in the case. -AA]
2. BigMedia Pushes Media to Illuminate Buck As Extreme Social Conservative. BigMedia had been monitoring talk radio shows and pressuring the hosts to ask tougher questions of conservative guests. So, when Ken Buck won the GOP primary and little was known about his social agenda, BigMedia was positioned to report what Ken Buck had been getting away with saying on talk radio and to push the mainstream media to report on Buck's virtually unknown right-wing agenda. In August, two days after Buck won the primary, in a blog post titled, (http://bigmedia.org/2010/08/12/talk-radio-show-does-great-job-of-illuminating-buck-as-a-deep-social-conservative/) "Talk Radio Does Great Job of Illuminating Buck as a Deep Social Conservative," BigMedia was the first media entity to lay out, for mainstream journalists, Buck's positions on social issues and to call on major media to inform readers of his right-wing views.
When the media refused to do this, BigMedia documented that (http://bigmedia.org/2010/08/18/talk-radio-host%E2%80%99s-questioning-of-buck-is-model-for-co-reporters-who%E2%80%99ve-essentially-ignored-buck%E2%80%99s-opposition-to-abortion-in-the-case-of-rape-and-incest/) major media, including the Denver Post (as well as (http://bigmedia.org/2010/08/20/why-is-co-local-tv-news-ignoring-bucks-views-on-abortion/) local TV news), had ignored Buck's position that, for example, abortion should be banned, even in the case of rape and incest. BigMedia continued to push journalists to report views that (http://bigmedia.org/2010/10/07/media-right-to-scrutinize-buck-positions-beforeafter-primary/) Buck had expressed on talk radio early in the year versus the views he articulated later in the campaign. And when the media claimed that Buck's critics were the only ones talking about social issues, BigMedia corrected reporters, pointing out the fact that (http://bigmedia.org/2010/09/26/whos-talking-about-social-issues-in-2010-buck/) Buck talked about themearly and often during the primary.
3. BigMedia's Report, (http://bigmedia.org/2010/02/24/janes-free-ride/) "Jane's Free Ride," Pushes Denver Post to Quote Norton More Often. In April, the project spotlighted the Denver Post'salmost complete failure to quote U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton directly. This report, and subsequent updates, led to more frequent and direct quotations of Norton.
4. Associated Press reports that co-speaker at Palin event had history of bigotry. In April, the (http://bigmedia.org/2011/04/25/media-should-report-that-palin-to-speak-with-general-who-said-islam-should-not-have-same-constitutional-protection-as-other-religions/) project called on the media to report that Sarah Palin would be appearing in Denver with a retired general, William Boykin, who had a history of making bigoted statement about Muslims. Subsequently, the (http://www.denverpost.com/colorado/ci_17972447) Associated Press reported, "Sarah Palin is used to drawing opposition, but it's someone else on stage with her Monday in Colorado that has people talking." That person was Boykin, who said that America's Islamic enemy was "Satan," the AP pointed out, using research that appeared in the (http://bigmedia.org/2011/05/02/reporters-should-ask-palin-and-boykin-during-their-visit-to-colorado-today-can-a-good-muslim-be-a-good-american/) project's blog postings.
5. Business Journal reporter agrees to investigate State Rep. Conti's false claims in newspaper. In February, after the Denver Business Journal ran an article reporting Rep. Conti's assertion that vending companies lost jobs due to legislative action, the project researched the topic and(http://bigmedia.org/2011/02/18/fact-check-shows-rep-contis-claim-in-biz-journal-not-fully-supported/) showed Conti's claim was not supported. The Journal's reporter agreed to investigate, time permitting, but the issue never surfaced in the legislature, so follow-up was not called for.
(http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/author/michael-sandoval/) *** Michael Sandoval ***
Successes include:
(http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/2009/08/colorado-democratic-party-hq-vandalized-dems-blame-hate-from-other-side/) Ariel Attack and "smashtroturfing" from 2009.
(http://slapstickpolitics.wordpress.com/2007/04/05/colorado-statue-honoring-fallen-navy-seal-opposed-glorifies-violence/) National blogosphere exposure of the Danny Dietz memorial controversy -- beating the Denver Post.
(http://www.nationalreview.com/battle10/244695/bennet-bombshell-trillions-debt-nothing-show-it-michael-sandoval) Sen. Michael Bennet and "nothing to show for it" -- two attack ads and above the fold on Drudge.
I consider these the top media successes given the legs that each had in their respective category. The "smashtroturfing" story had national implications (it was the summer of townhall angst against Obamacare) and Dem Chair Pat Waak blamed Tea Party "hate" for the incident, when in fact it was a far left transgendered anarchist paid $500 in 2008 to canvas for Democrats by an SEIU-front 527 supported by CoDA donors Stryker and Gill. This combined on-the-fly investigative reporting and social media crowdsourcing.
The Danny Dietz memorial story was a barely a blip on the radar until national-level bloggers, steered by my original blog post, began to swarm on the issue, prompting a story in the Denver Post, reaction from then Rep. Tancredo, and a general consensus that the memorial was entirely appropriate. This story was a combination of news gathering from various sources before the FB/Twitter era, and pushing the story out to national level bloggers who could force local media to react.
As for Sen. Bennet, merely calling him on something he had said at campaign events all year but failed to get much notice by local media was a big story—here's an appointed senator saying that for $14 trillion in debt, the USA had little to show—and I found the audio that confirmed him saying it. The impact was at least two separate attack ads on Bennet—independent and certainly not coordinated—after the story made it to Drudge. Numerous other articles and coverage followed.
Regarding the nature of the media:
A good journalists finds or undercovers the real story, whether through meaningful questions, hard-nosed investigative reporting, or by ferreting out angles or themes that might be missed by an average "beat" reporter. When it comes to political news, it is often less a question of "making" news than it is a question of story choice. The criticism of media, both left and right, is not "commission" of making the news or manufacturing outrage—though that is often the case. It is more a question of what is "omitted"—the unflattering stories that go unreported in favor of one side or the other. Good journalists do more than simply chase the ambulance, they try to find the smoking gun, the critical witness, or the key evidence to a story, eschewing a simple regurgitation of he said, she said press releases. If they "make" the news, it is in the sense that they give a story legs, and drive the news cycle until the next story replaces it.
(http://www.edquillen.com/) *** Ed Quillen ***
Two recent columns may have affected public policy. One (http://www.edquillen.com/eq2011/20110313p.html) criticized Scott Gessler's request for more authority to investigate the almost non-existent prolem of non-citizens voting (the legislature did not act) and another hit on the proposal to make (http://www.edquillen.com/eq2011/20110217p.html) pseudoephedrine available only by prescription (the notion died, and I think was the only one to write about it).
Going back to 2003, as best I know I was the only columnist, at least in a Denver paper, to oppose the Referendum A water grab, and it went down by a 2-1 margin. It's rare that I feel that good about an election.
Regarding the media, there's a common saying in the trade that "Newspapers don't tell people what to think, but they do tell people what to think about." I can't say much about other media, as I've never worked outside of print.
The correct answer is likely "both." There's lots of news you don't make—police blotter, public meetings, courts, the routine stuff you cover. And there's some you generate with investigative reporting or good feature-writing, bringing something new to public attention.
These days, so many events are not spontaneous, but more or less staged and scripted and you're not doing your readers any favors if you just report the event—in that case you're being manipulated by the choreographers.
My personal attitude, when I'm practicing journalism instead of punditry, is that if I encounter another reporter, I should look for a different story. I abhor pack journalism, and I can see why Sarah Palin has so little respect for the business when there are so many folks assigned to follow her bus around. Of course, if you ignored her, you'd get angry phone calls about how you were conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood to silence a great patriotic voice or whatever.
So a lot of the crap you find in the news is there because squeaky wheels get greased.
(http://www.libertyinkjournal.com/grass-roots-radio) *** Ken Clark***
I have only been in the media a very short time; so far my biggest success has been pulling off the "Grass Roots Radio Colorado" contract with Crawford Broadcasting. I was told that it could not be done, especially by two guys with zero radio experience and more importantly, in a "major market." Well, we proved them wrong by hosting the show for over six weeks straight (an audition if you will), after which Crawford agreed to a contract. Now Jason Worley and I are permanent fixtures on 560 KLZ.
Beyond that, we are gaining quite a following by attacking issues that no one else on radio will go after. Now, I'm told, all of the elected officials holding state office either listen to the show or assign staffers to keep them informed of the issues we dissect. Our success is attributed to the fact that we stand on principle and will carry the water for no party or elected official. We are equal opportunity attack dogs. That being said, we much prefer going after progressives, it's just sad that some of them are on "our side." Plus, we like to have fun.
Second, although (http://www.libertyinkjournal.com/) Liberty Ink Journal is no longer in print, this was my first venture into media. Stephanie Anderson and I decided that there was a need for a publication that actually spoke the truth about issues and could help inform the masses as to what was happening to them. In that regard we were a huge success as we had quite a following and people still remember the magazine, and we still have the online version.
Regarding the media: The "media" neither make the news nor do they report the news, or should I say facts. They decide what the best way to "sell" their position is and that is what they report as news.
If the media reported the news the way that it was intended to during our founding and the drafting of the First Amendment to the Constitution, we would not be in the mess that we are, our society would not be made up of 47 percent takers, and there never would have been a need for the "Liberty Movement."
The media are every bit as corrupt as the Federal Government and they have morphed into what I like to refer to as the "Ruling Class" along with elected officials in both parties. [Editor's note: presumably Clark is referring to the major print and television media. -AA] They decide what we need to know, they decide what the truth is, they decide what society should think, and the sheep swallow it hook line and sinker. ...
That is why it is imperative that the internet and sites like the PPC, talk radio, blogs, etc. remain engaged and continue to get the truth about what is happening to this country out. This is the only way we will ever win back our Republic. The truth is out there, we just need to find it and make the masses understand it.
(http://www.davidharsanyi.com/) *** David Harsayni ***
Does media report or make the news? Both. But there is no such thing as "media" or at least there is no such thing as a media that acts as one voice. It's too democratized. So, sometimes it makes it, sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the sensibilities of the outlet.
On Making the News
June 5, 2011
Yesterday I discussed media with the students participating in the (http://www.hobycolorado.com/) Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Program. This is a group of very smart and articulate kids; the idea is to gather together nearly 200 students from across Colorado for a weekend of talks and leadership activities.
I must say I found this group to be a tough and even slightly intimidating audience. I was a fill-in speaker (as somebody else had to cancel), so I signed up only late Wednesday night. I had a busy schedule the next three days, limiting my preparation time. (Brad Beck, whom I know from Liberty Toastmasters, drafted me; he's on the board of the organization.) When I walked into the room about half an hour early, the students were cheering and playing some sort of game, and I realized I had not correctly envisioned the setting. This was more like a pep rally, not a lecture hall.
But I gulped and took the microphone, determined to make the presentation as interactive and engaging as I could. Before my segment I saw several students stand to offer their views on a couple of topics, and this gave me the idea to simply ask them to answer the question of the day, "Do media report the news or make the news?" Hands quickly shot up. Three students arose to offer their views, and I was struck by how similar their answers were to those of the (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/do-media-report-the-news-or-make-the-news/) professional journalists who had replied to the same question. The first student talked about the selectivity issue; the second argued that media both report and make the news. More hands went up, but after the first three I decided to plow ahead with my own notes.
(I do encourage people to read the interesting (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/do-media-report-the-news-or-make-the-news/) replies I posted Friday from Jason Salzman, Michael Sandoval, Ed Quillen, Ken Clark, and David Harsanyi. I even tried to get Salzman to come out to the event, but he had a prior engagement, so I thought that I could at least bring in a variety of views.)
So, do the media report the news or make it? As an example of simple reporting, I mentioned the Denver Post's story of the (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18204121) police hunt for a man who kidnapped and assaulted a Denver girl. Some sorts of stories are more amenable to straight reporting, and they're difficult to slant.
However, the media certainly do "make the news" in a couple of different ways. They can make the news in the sense of pushing a story into community discussion, as by reporting an instance of political corruption. And they can make the news by pushing a story into wider media coverage (as Salzman did with his reporting of Scott McInnis's water articles).
Then I added a third category: journalists can sometimes "make up" the news as well, and that's uniformly bad. They can either skew the reported facts, or they can omit obviously relevant facts.
The problem is (and the students pushed this point pretty hard in the question-and-answer period) that journalism inherently involves judgment calls both in the selectivity of what to report and of how to present a story. I used as an example another Denver Post story: (http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_18203985) "Rep. Lamborn backs bid to unplug National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden." I noted that story selected the following source as its first quote: "'NREL is a crown jewel in the world of renewable energy,' said Leslie Oliver, a spokeswoman for Perl mutter. 'It's providing a lot of jobs; those are things we need to be fostering.'" I pointed out that this would have been a much different story if the headline had emphasized the effort to trim federal spending, and if the first quote had pertained to saving our children and grandchildren from a crushing national debt. So definitely this story is slanted, but is that bad?
One great thing about the modern internet age, I pointed out, is that we have unprecedented access to alternative media sources. With this comes the ability to interact with the media, and even join the media, in remarkable ways. If we don't like what a paper is covering, or how they're covering it, we may interact with journalists, write blog posts, etc.
I had a forty minute time slot, and the idea was for me to talk for half that time. But immediately after I finished with my (more or less) prepared remarks, I realized I should have shut up much sooner to allow for more questions. Maybe twenty kids lined up to pepper me with tough questions, and the moderators had to turn some students away due to time constraints.
One student asked me whether the media should be more positive. I wasn't sure what that meant, I answered; is it being "negative" to hammer a corrupt politician? The student clarified she was asking about selecting more positive stories from among all the many possible stories. I answered that, yes, I'd like to see more reporting about interesting people in business and the nonprofit world. I mentioned a Wall Street Journalarticle about (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124104549891270585.html) George Mitchell, who has dramatically expanded U.S. production of natural gas, as an example of something I found very positive and inspiring.
I got a question about libel; does that not solve the problem of "making up" the news? I answered that libel laws can protect people against the most egregious cases of malicious lying, but if the bar is set too low everyone will cry "libel" over any alternative interpretation of the facts. Plus (though I'm not sure I explained this point well) a story can be technically accurate in every detail but still fundamentally distort reality by dropping context and omitting the relevant facts. (Elsewhere I made this point by invoking Rita Skeeter, the corrupt journalist from the Harry Potter series. I was pleased to see the students are Potter fans.)
At one point I mentioned censorship ultimately remains the greatest threat to a society's future, but I didn't explain this as well as I might have. The essential point, as Ayn Rand pointed out, is that so long as we retain freedom of speech, we have the ability to fight for the ideas we believe in. There's always a chance, always hope, so long as we remain free to articulate our views. Moreover, censorship invariably accompanies various other governmental abuses, and, by blocking criticism of the government, makes greater abuses inevitable.
I suggested the students take the time to fully appreciate the advantages of the modern internet age. Their parents, I pointed out, were born before the age of home computers. Now most of the students have the ability to browse the internet on portable devices, putting the world's newspapers—and many alternative news sources—at their fingertips. I suggested that the students think seriously about how they can engage the media in order to help direct the course of the culture. These students certainly have the informed eloquence to do so.
***
Bradley Craig Beck commented June 6, 2011 at 11:52 AM
Ari,
Thanks for a great presentation. The HOBY Ambassadors enjoyed your information and perspective on the media. Your posing the question to others helped broaden the conversation. Great examples and an excellent closing, focusing on freedom of speech and the issue of censorship. As young leaders our Ambassadors need to understand the importance of articulating their views. Your call to action on engaging and participating as a citizen journalist was well received and helped to connect all the dots. Best regards,
Bradley Beck—HOBY Colorado
Free Colorado's Beer and Liquor Markets
June 6, 2011
At a recent Liberty On the Rocks event, Kris Cook and I argued in favor of free markets in beer and liquor sales. The event was actually a debate, but, as the other participants didn't actually believe their stance, I didn't want to include that footage.
We make the following basic points:
* We have a moral right to buy and sell what we please, from whom we please (within the context of consenting adults), by voluntary association.
* The Colorado laws prohibiting (most) grocery stores from selling regular beer, wine, and alcohol violate our rights to protect a special interest.
* Because of the law, Colorado consumers pay higher prices and suffer loss of convenience. But, because a small group artificially gains wealth by the law, it lobbies to maintain it.
* Claims that establishing a free market would lead to less safety or less beer selection constitute bogus fear-mongering. Other states without the restrictions don't experience those problems.
* Likewise, claims that establishing a free market would "cost jobs" constitute gross ignorance of basic economics. A free market would instead direct resources to more highly valued uses, thereby creating more wealth.
Prendergast On the Media
June 7, 2011
In preparation for a (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/on-making-news.html) Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership event June 4, I asked(http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/do-media-report-the-news-or-make-the-news/) several regional journalists about their successes and their views on whether the media report or make the news. Westword's (http://www.westword.com/authors/alan-prendergast/) Alan Prendergastadds his comments below.
Hi Ari,
Sorry I didn't reply to this sooner, but last week was pretty crazy. Too late for your presentation, but maybe not for your blog, I would simply add to the pile with this:
1. Success can be measured all sorts of ways, but I'm particularly proud of our Columbine coverage from 1999-2005 or so, because it was an ongoing effort to provide answers to families that were being lied to or simply ignored by public officials and their lawyers. By the same token, I consider much of our prison coverage a success because it shines a light where few journalists choose to go, and at least lets people running the system know that somebody could be watching. Links would be the (http://www.westword.com/specialReports/crime-and-punishment-574911/) Crime and Punishment and (http://www.westword.com/specialReports/the-columbine-reader-574910/) Columbine Reader archives on our site.
2. I don't think there's much "making" of the news, in a strictly manufacturing sense. But it's also naive to suggest that reporters are mere conduits of information who don't consciously shape (and possibly redact) the information they present. I like to think of journalism as a demonstration of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, or at least that part of it which suggests it's impossible to observe an event without altering it in some fashion, the way shining a light on electrons changes their behavior.
Alan Prendergast
Denver Post and NREL, Meet Bastiat
June 8, 2011
Let's play the game of "spot the economic fallacies" in today's editorial by the Denver Post, which essentially advocates corporate welfare. (This follows a slanted news story on the same topic.)
The Post claims that the tax-funded National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden has created "efficient" solar film, windmill blades, and office buildings. What's the fallacy? A more technically "efficient" gadget is not necessarily economically efficient to produce; often it is not. If solar and wind were cheaper than alternative sources of energy, then they would not need subsidies and mandates to "succeed." And if companies can save money through greater energy efficiency, they'll be more than happy to spend their own money figuring out how.
But the Post's main argument is that subsidizing NREL creates jobs. What's the economic fallacy? It's what Bastiat and Hazlitt refer to as the problem of the unseen. What is seen are the jobs associated with NREL spending. What is unseen are all the jobs lost by forcibly transferring that wealth. When people pay higher taxes, and when the federal government sucks money out of market investments through deficit spending, that money is no longer available to fund what consumers want and investors see as the more productive opportunities. The result is that jobs shift from more-productive to less-productive ends, destroying wealth.
The wrinkle is that cutting federal spending only for Colorado would screw Colorado taxpayers more by forcibly transferring their wealth to less-productive jobs in other states. The solution to that is to cut spending in every state—or to simply stop forcing Colorado taxpayers to finance corporate welfare in other states. As I noted earlier this year, on net Colorado gets screwed in the wealth redistribution game, which costs the state net jobs.
There are obviously some people on the Denver Post's editorial board who are not utterly ignorant of basic economics. Why not let them formulate the articles pertaining to economics?
Good Times, Mixed Ingredients
June 9, 2011
I prefer (http://www.fathead-movie.com/) Fat Head to Super Size Me. I don't think much of (http://www.freecolorado.com/bw/070804.html) anti-fast food hysteria. I regard forcing restaurants to (http://ariarmstrong.com/2010/09/under-nanny-state-we-dont-feel-like-dancing/) post calories as both foolish and tyrannical. I oppose the Nanny Statist campaigns against (http://thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=12959) fast food and (http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_18100123) Ronald McDonald.
Yet I also believe that ultimately consumers drive production, and smart consumers demand full disclosure from producers. (The government rightly steps in to punish fraud.) Consumers should spend their money wisely and insist on quality goods.
Therefore, after I drank a yucky strawberry-banana shake from Good Times Burgers, I contacted the company to lodge a complaint and figure out what was wrong with it. Christi Pennington, an "executive assistant" with the company, helpfully provided me with full nutritional details.
Generally I like Good Times. I have regarded the best burger for the money in the Denver area is a bacon "bambino" burger (at $1.39 last time I checked), times two (and throw away the top buns). And generally I like the custard there.
A quick look at the ingredients indicates why the custard is pretty good whereas the shake was pretty bad. Here are the ingredients for the "custard base:" "All-Natural: Milk, Cream, Sugar, & Egg Yolks & Grade A Milk Powder." (The ingredients come from a document dated September of 2010.) Relatively wholesome (though of course a lot of sugar is bad for you, and most Americans eat way too much of it).
Contrast those ingredients with the ones found in "strawberry syrup:" "High Fructose Corn Syrup, Strawberry Puree, Artificial Flavors, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate (preservative), Cellulose Gum & Artificial Colors (red 40 & blue)."
So, in other words, my "strawberry"-banana shake was actually a corn shake with several added chemicals, and a bit of strawberry. Gross.
Good Times lists the meat as "Meyer All Natural, All Angus," which is good. However, I got nervous when I saw a listing for soybean oil immediately beneath the listing for meat. So I asked about this. Thankfully, Pennington replied, "No we do not cook the meat in oil at all." That's good, because as a rule I regard all vegetable fat as suspect.
Unfortunately, Good Times continues to add hydrogenated fat to a number of its products. Everyone agrees that's horrible for you. You can get all sorts of conflicting dietary advice, but one of the well-documented and universally accepted claims is that hydrogenated fat is bad.
And yet Good Times serves up hydrogenated fat in all of the following products, according to the ingredients lists Pennington sent me: bambino bun, chicken dunkers, crispy chicken filet, onion rings, mushrooms in sauce, onion tanglers, cake cone, cheesecake (a custard flavor), cherry hearts, cookie dough, graham cracker, Heath English toffee, hot fudge, Oreo cookies, polar chips, pound cake, waffle cone, and whipped topping.
So I won't be buying any of those items from Good Times! I mean, come on: you can make regular buns without hydrogenated fat but not bambino buns? How about you just get rid of the crappy vegetable oil altogether?
While we're on that topic, I was relieved to read that (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-11-19-popcorncalories19_ST_N.htm) AMC pops its popcorn in coconut fat, not vegetable fat. (The coconut, along with the avocado and the olive, is a fruit. My general view is "fruit fat good, vegetable fat bad." Notably, you can find the former, but not the latter, in nature.) I think those calling for vegetable fat as a replacement for coconut fat are simply idiots who don't know what they're talking about. Thanks, AMC, for not subjecting your customers to unhealthy vegetable fat! (That said, popcorn is not inherently a health food! But that doesn't mean moderate consumption is especially bad for you.)
When I make a strawberry banana milkshake, here are the ingredients I use: frozen strawberries, bananas, cream, and milk. (Sometimes I add commercial but quality ice cream, though I've decided to stop buying that.) When I make popcorn, I use popcorn, butter, and a little salt.
Perhaps a representative for Good Times would care to leave a comment here when the restaurant has decided to at least phase out hydrogenated fat.
So be a smart consumer, take responsibility for your choices, and don't go crying to government to do your thinking for you. Because once you authorize politicians and bureaucrats to micromanage your life, there will be no stopping them. And that is the single most pressing threat to your health and safety.
***
Anonymous commented June 24, 2012 at 8:18 PM
just drank a yucky banana shake from GoodTimes. Though they might actually JUST add a banana to their custard... no such luck. Not because I looked up the ingredients -found your blog. but because that taste was obviously NOT just a banana added to custard. darn. I told my kids, let's stop eating chemicals! ok. we are going to see how that goes. No chemicals for tomorrow. thanks for your blog. I am not going to try to find what the heck makes banana flavor besides a good old banana.... chemicals, I'm sure.
Spending Limits Protect Against Factions
June 10, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published June 10 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110610/COLUMNISTS/110609960/1021&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner." It's mob rule; fifty-one percent of the population voting to enslave the rest. "Democracy is a form of government in which you can vote for a living instead of working for one," adds Lawrence Reed.
America's Founders feared the inherent pitfalls of direct democracy, which is why they established a constitutional republic. The U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights (in its text, if usually not in its modern interpretation) tightly controls and limits the powers of the federal government.
The Constitution establishes a purely representative government at the federal level. We vote on elected officials, and (as outlined in Article V) congress or state legislatures must initiate constitutional amendments. Moreover, Article IV, Section 4 states, "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government." So, for instance, Colorado could not impose a hereditary line of state kings.
Does the federal guarantee of republican government render state-level popular votes void? Specifically, does it clash with the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR), passed by voters in 1992? That's the claim of a (http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/05/tabor_challenge_john_suthers_lawsuit.php) lawsuitfiled in district court and signed mostly by elected officials. The suit hopes to overthrow TABOR and allow state and local governments to tax and spend more without voter approval.
The suit favorably quotes James Madison, who argued against pure democracy in the tenth Federalist paper. However, in an article for theColorado Springs Gazette, legal scholar (http://www.gazette.com/opinion/constitution-118877-violate-referenda.html) Rob Natelson notes that republican governments easily accommodate some direct participation by the people.
Natelson explains, "What Madison actually was saying was that a type of mob rule identified by Aristotle (and called, in English translation, 'pure democracy') was not republican. Madison clearly thought a republic could feature direct citizen lawmaking, since in Federalist No. 63 he referred to ancient Athens, Sparta, and Carthage as 'republics.'"
In other words, TABOR, as part of Colorado's constitution, remains fully compatible with the U.S. Constitution. The politically motivated lawsuit presents a sham.
Moreover, TABOR actually helps protect against the sort of factionalism that Madison warned against. The lawsuit quotes Madison, "It may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose."
The lawsuit conveniently omits Madison's next line: "On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people."
This describes precisely the state of the modern Colorado legislature. "Factious tempers," "local prejudices," and "sinister designs" often rule the day at the state capitol.
For example, the legislature continues to finance corporate welfare, despite the explicit prohibition against doing so in the state constitution. And the legislature continues to impose protectionist legislation, as with the beer laws, rewarding interest groups at the expense of consumers and entrepreneurs. Most modern legislative functions involve forcibly seizing money from those who earn it to give it to those who do not.
Thus, the state legislature epitomizes the evils of faction. While Madison clearly saw the dangers of mob rule, he also warned against the comparable threat of an unrestrained legislature.
The essential characteristic of republican government becomes, then, its constitutional form, which limits the powers of government and protects the rights of the individual from abuse by factions, whether democratic or legislative. A legislature unbound by constitutional rule becomes the rapacious tool of special-interest factions.
The individual rightly claims among his essential rights his ability to work for a living, in voluntary association with others, and to dispose of the fruits of his labor by his own judgment. This is the fundamental human right most often threatened and abused by legislators, many of whom essentially institute legalized theft in exchange for political bribes.
TABOR helps to mitigate precisely this danger. Far from undermining a republican form of government, TABOR augments the constitutional protections of the individual and limits the threat of unruly factions. In requiring voter approval for new taxes, TABOR does not impose mob rule; it checks legislative abuses by the approval of the people. TABOR does not free the majority to abuse the rights of the minority; it allows the voters to stop the legislature from abusing people's rights.
We can argue about whether Colorado voters too easily amend the state constitution. We can debate whether proposed constitutional changes should first meet a test of conformity to federal and state bills of rights. But as to the status of TABOR, far from undermining our republican form of government, clearly TABOR helps to protect it.
A Note on the Hancock Affair
June 11, 2011
Michael Hancock was elected mayor of Denver on June 7. On June 2 (http://completecolorado.com/stories/hancock.html) Complete Colorado courageously or irresponsibly (depending on one's point of view) ran a story with the following headline, "Mayoral Candidate Hancock Linked to Prostitution Ring." Soon after midnight today (June 11) the (http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_18252064) Denver Post published its own story on the matter, following stories by (http://www.9news.com/news/article/202865/339/Hancock-says-allegations-are-false-) 9News, (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/28198345/detail.html) 7News, and other outlets.
Hancock said in a video released by the Post that he has never hired a prostitute.
The purported evidence allegedly linking Hancock to a local prostitution ring (now under investigation) comes from a former owner of the illegal service. Hancock's (misspelled) name appears in the records along with his phone number.
If Hancock is innocent, then his lawyer is doing an excellent job making him look evasive. Assuming he is innocent, this is a serious frame-up, and I'd be interested to learn what sort of possible criminal penalties the framer might be facing if caught.
I can think of a couple of scenarios by which Hancock's name and number might have ended up in the records (other than him hiring a prostitute). This is purely speculative and hypothetical on my part. But, conceivably, somebody could simply have forged the records, which would have been fairly easy to accomplish. Or, conceivably, somebody could have "borrowed" Hancock's phone to set up the initial contact, then called from a different number to hire the prostitutes. As the Post reports, the records contain the line, "Calls from diff #'s (pay ph.)."
But here my purpose is not to try to figure out the correct scenario, for I lack the evidence to do that. Instead, I'd like to make a broader political point.
It is certainly not inconceivable that some city employee has hired a prostitute. Indeed, I'd be quite surprised if that were not the case, and so would everyone else. The same general investigation has already brought down a judge, Edward Nottingham. As the Post reports, the same prostitution records "are believed to include many elite Denver professionals."
What I find disturbing about this is that Americans now expect a significant portion of the population, including a significant portion of elected officials, to knowingly break the law and then chuckle about it, whether it's hiring a prostitute or smoking a joint. And yet these same laws we openly mock in some cases destroy people's lives, whether through a nasty prison sentence, a fatal no-knock raid, or the inherent violence of the black market.
Now, as I have (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/mar/15/should-prostitution-be-legal/) argued, I believe prostitution is immoral even though it should be legal. Where it involves consenting adults, it's not the sort of thing over which we as a society should be launching criminal investigations or throwing people in jail. Where it does not involve consenting adults, it is a vicious crime that should be forcibly stopped.
I do think voters should weigh whether they want to support candidates known to have hired prostitutes, just as in our personal lives we should weigh whether we want to become friends with people who hire prostitutes. Generally the answer should be no.
But, again, if we wish to live in a free society, we must restrict the field of the illegal to a small subset of the field of the immoral. The only acts that should violate the criminal code are those that violate the rights of others (and I mean the actual rights, not the make-believe "rights" to tell everybody else what to do).
Outside prostitution, certain other sorts of "victimless crimes" can be perfectly moral even though illegal; consider brewing beer during Prohibition. Come to think of it, Denver's former mayor, John Hickenlooper, now the governor of Colorado, made his name brewing beer, an activity once outlawed by the very state he now leads.
Ultimately, it does not actually much matter whether Hancock hired a prostitute. It does matter very much that whether someone becomes the target of a criminal investigation depends to a very large degree on arbitrary enforcement and blind luck.
Could It Be... SATAN?
June 13, 2011
Apparently Satan is making a comeback these days. First came an over-the-top silly article from First Things titled, (http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/06/the-fountainhead-of-satanism) "The Fountainhead of Satanism," in which Joe Carters claims, "[Ayn] Rand's doctrines are satanic." The argument goes something like this: because a crazy person liked Ayn Rand, therefore Rand's ideas reflect the beliefs of the crazy person. (Thankfully, no crazy or homicidal person has every claimed to find motivation in or affinity with Christianity.)
Then I was shopping in Costco and saw Ann Coulter's new book, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America. Perhaps, I thought, she's using the term "demonic" metaphorically, to mean something like "Many leftists are so bad they almost seem demonic." Apparently not. Flipping through the book, I found lines like this one: "The mob is satanic and Satan can only destroy." This occurs in the final chapter, titled, "Lucifer: The Ultimate Mob Boss." So, you see, the left is mob-like, and mobs are satanic, therefore, you can complete the little syllogism.
On Twitter, I mentioned that lines like the one quoted make it hard for me to take Coulter seriously. (Incidentally, I briefly (http://www.freecolorado.com/bw/120706.html) met Coulter in 2006 when she spoke in Colorado.) Immediately somebody replied that mobs have put innocent heads on pikes, eaten human hearts, and strapped bombs to babies; does that not demonstrate Coulter's thesis?
My reply is two-fold. First, demonstrating that mobs generally are bad is not the same thing as demonstrating they are satanic. Second, I would point out that, in many cases, mobs have been motivated to expunge what their members thought were satanic forces in their victims. Take, for example, the witch hunts and the Inquisition.
Consider this 2009 headline from the (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/18/african-children-denounce_n_324943.html) Associated Press: "African Children Denounced As 'Witches' By Christian Pastors." The father of one of the boys allegedly possessed by demons tried to pour acid down his throat, "burning away his face and eyes." The boy died soon thereafter.
Invocations of alleged satanic activity among one's enemies prove the perfect motivator for many mobs. And is that not precisely the intended effect of Coulter's book?
I find it hard to believe that Coulter takes herself seriously when, in an(http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/AnneCoulter-Demonic/2011/06/12/id/399728) interview about her book, she excoriates leftists for "their tendency to demonize all those that disagree with them." Because, you know, we wouldn't want to demonize the opposition!
But sometimes you just have to laugh at such silliness, which is why this is such a great time to review Dana Carvey's classic skit, (http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/church-chat/2732/) "The Church Lady."
Technology Catches Up with Harry Potter Magic
June 14, 2011
J. K. Rowling's first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, came out June 30, 1997. The release of the series spans the 20th and 21st Centuries, and new technology has started to catch up to Harry Potter magic.
In the novels, newspapers show moving photographs. On June 29, 2007, a decade after the release of the first Potter novel, Apple released its iPhone, which brings constantly updated news, complete with video, to one's fingertips. The iPhone and similar devices are much more useful and powerful than the magical papers in Harry's world, and owl delivery seems positively primitive by comparison.
A few days ago, (http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37720/) Technology Review published the article, "A Practical Way to Make Invisibility Cloaks" (thanks to Paul Hsieh over at (http://blog.geekpress.com/) Geek Pressfor the link).
The idea is that new production techniques allow for large-scale printing of "metamaterials," largely made of metals, which could be fashioned into things like invisibility cloaks and superlenses.
Provided politicians and bureaucrats manage to restrain themselves from crashing our economies, technology will continue to gain ground on the magic of the Potter universe. Indeed, thanks to the wonders of science and technology, we are living in the most "magical" age of human history, in which doctors can scan people's bones and hearts, people can quickly fly around the world, the average person in advanced economies owns self-propelled coaches, and we can take vast libraries of books and music around with us in pocket computers.
The Potter novels will always remain great literature—for reasons I explain in my book (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter -- but technology will make the magic of the novels seem increasingly less magical. Thankfully, the deeper magic of the novels has nothing to do with casting spells or riding brooms.
Use Tax Nightmare Continues
June 15, 2011
Legislative spending plus depressed tax revenues have generated a budget crunch in Colorado. So you'd expect state government to encourage people to pay taxes, maybe even seem grateful for it, wouldn't you?
But consider the incentive structure for the "use tax." If, like most Coloradans, you've never heard of the use tax (or if you pretend you haven't heard of it), then the state does nothing to you, and you go on your merry way.
Because my wife and I paid the use tax, not only for last year but for the past seven years, the Colorado Department of Revenue has sent us three erroneous letters harassing us about paying the use tax. Which we already paid. Here I continue the chronicle from my write up (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/use-tax-criminals.html) last month.
The last letter is dated June 13 (but received, ironically on June 15, the anniversary of the Magna Carta, which recognizes rights of due process among others). In this letter, Roxanne Huber, Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Revenue, goes so far as to threaten "seizure and sale of your [my!] personal property."
I did learn from this letter that I made a minor mistake in paying the use tax for the 2009 period. You see, according to Form "DR 0252 Web (12/03/10" (and who hasn't perused that one for a little pleasure reading), late payments carry a penalty "not to exceed 18% of the tax due, and interest." I didn't understand the "and interest" clause. I thought we just owed an 18 percent maximum penalty, so that's what we paid. But that's not the end of it.
Form DR 0252 Web refers the reader to (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/www.TaxColorado.com/) www.TaxColorado.com (lovely domain) for additional information. I tried (https://revenuestateco.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/revenuestateco.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php?p_sid=RXBFOCwk) "Common Questions," which contains a section, (https://revenuestateco.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/revenuestateco.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=15&p_created=972585363&p_sid=RXBFOCwk&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD0xNzIsMTcyJnBfcHJvZHM9JnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9ubCZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=&p_topview=1) "Internet Sales—Tax Paid by Purchaser."
THIS page says that for more information I should see Form DR 0252 (which, you may recall, is where I started), or 39-26-106 C.R.S. and 39-26-202 C.R.S. Luckily, I know how to look up Colorado statutes online. So I went to Title 39, "Specific Taxes," "Sales and Use Tax," "Part 2 Use Tax." But section 202 is "Authorization of tax," so I turned instead to 39-26-207, "Penalty interest on unpaid tax."
So what does this statute say? And I quote: "Any tax due and unpaid under this part 2 shall be a debt to the state, and shall draw interest at the rate imposed under section 39-21-110.5, in addition to the interest provided by section 39-21-109..."
In other words, this is not something that any actual human being can follow.
But, according to the Department of Revenue's June 13 letter, there are actually three different sorts of penalties: "Sales tax—Late filing penalty," "Penalty-interest," and "Interest." In my case these things totaled $28, but for some reason we had received "credit" for an apparently arbitrary portion of this, making our alleged amount due $20.07.
But, as I explained to the Department, we had already paid the full tax plus an 18 percent penalty of $20.61, so we owe (at most) $8 for "Penalty-interest" and "Interest," for which we wrote a check.
To collect that $8 in "Penalty-interest" and "Interest," the Colorado Department of Revenue sent and posted a letter, and my wife and I spent a combined 98 minutes responding and then posting our own letter.
The June 13 letter also claims we still owe the entire tax for 2010 (which we already paid), plus a penalty (which we do not owe, because we paid it on time). But for whatever reason, the June 13 letter did not add that amount to the "Amount Due with This Statement."
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/use-tax-criminals.html) Previously I wrote that I feel "a bit like a minor character in Franz Kafka's novel The Trial." While I do not wish to compare the seriousness of my situation with that in the dystopian film (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(film)) Brazil, I cannot help also comparing Form "DR 0252 Web" to Form "Twenty-Seven B Stroke Six." Or, as my wife put it, "I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone."
In other words, the use tax is absolutely crazy.
***
Tony Bubb commented June 16, 2011 at 7:56 AM
Ari,
Yeah, I'm not surprised. I've more or less given up on doing my own income taxes, not because I can't... I did for almost 20 years...
But the Colorado "Fair Share Division" ends up writing me to tell me that my taxes were incorrectly done in vague and confusing language.
This requires time to unravel that and determine that they have had it wrong, not me, and that I don't owe anything more.
When you get your taxes done professionally, that service is covered.
Nobody should have to be motivated in this way, but I am. So much for the folks there.
Corporate Welfare and Tourism
June 16, 2011
Today the Denver Post published a story by (http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_18283326) Jason Blevins claiming that corporate welfare for the tourism industry is responsible for the growth of Colorado tourism. I sent him the following letter:
Dear Mr. Blevins,
Your "news" article is essentially a regurgitated news release from bureaucrats and a company paid by the state to promote tourism funding.
Why didn't you report:
a) Longwoods [the "research firm" cited in the story] is paid by the state to promote ("research") state tourism funding.
b) Longwoods has a history of (http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/01/shut-down-corporate-welfare-for-tourism.html) exaggerating the impacts of state tourism funding.
c) This year [meaning the previous year] Colorado also had good snow and record population (drawing visits to friends and family).
No doubt state tourism funding has increased tourism to the state. But you're hardly reporting the whole story.
Thanks, -Ari
Here I add some additional points.
* As the (http://mercatus.org/sites/all/modules/custom/mercatus_50_states/files/Freedom50States2011.pdf) Mercatus Center reviews, people are moving from less-free to more-free states, which also generates visits by people contemplating a move here.
* State funding for tourism crowds out private efforts to advertise tourism. Tourist attractions are perfectly free to pay for their own advertising, and to coordinate with others for broader campaigns.
* On the moral level, it is wrong to force people to finance corporate welfare for tourism against their wishes. It's the job of government to protect people's rights, not maximize tax revenues or tourism.
***
RussK commented June 16, 2011 at 10:36 AM
All good points. I'd like to mention that I have never been affected--to my knowledge--by Colorado state tourism advertisement. Everything I know about the state, and the things that I'd do there, was learned from word of mouth. Sometimes I think that state advertisement for tourism is more for promoting the state to its own residents. For example, I've lived in Minnesota for nearly two years, and I have seen countless advertisements about vacationing in the state; that seems absurd to me, as I'm already here.
My 'Use Tax' Case Resolved, Tax Remains a Problem
June 17, 2011
The good news is that the Colorado Department of Revenue is no longer threatening to seize my property over "use tax" allegedly due. An agent told me over the phone today that the Department would accept the original payment of $436.93 from my wife and me as payment in full for the past seven years of use taxes.
This, then, concludes my case, which I discussed in an (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/use-tax-criminals/) article last monthand in a (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/use-tax-nightmare-continues/) June 15 follow-up.
But the problems I had with the tax only underscore its broader problems—problems the legislature should address.
To back up, what is the "use tax?" If you buy something from out of state without paying state sales tax on it, you're supposed to track such sales and cut the state a check for an equivalent amount.
Of course, hardly anyone actually pays this tax, and most people I've talked with have never even heard of it. But this exposes most Coloradans to potential criminal charges, property seizure, and arbitrary enforcement. That's wrong.
So you can imagine why, after my wife and I actually paid the tax, we were frustrated to suffer further harassment and intimidation at the hands of the Department of Revenue. Specifically, the Department sent us three letters, all of which claimed we still owed the entire use tax for last year. Two of the letters also claimed we owed an additional amount for 2009. The final letter threatened to seize our property if we didn't pay the 2009 amount. That's more than a little irritating, given that we had already paid the entire 2010 tax, plus the 2009 tax with an 18 percent penalty.
But apparently the Department of Revenue's idea of generating tax revenue is to relentlessly harass and threaten people who actually pay the damned tax, and totally ignore everyone else who doesn't pay it. (I'm talking about consumers; I've heard anecdotally that the state makes some effort to enforce the "use tax" among businesses.)
The other major problem with the tax, beyond the problem of enforcement, is that it's an extreme hassle to pay. Seriously, we're supposed to track all our out-of-state purchases and then calculate the tax ourselves? That's obviously ludicrous, which is why few do it.
Just to calculate and pay the initial tax, my wife and I spent 6.5 hours combined. Then we spent around two more hours responding to the Department of Revenue's first two erroneous letters. We spent an additional 98 minutes (combined) on June 15 responding to the Department's third letter. Yesterday I spent an additional 14 minutes further reviewing the matter. (I also had trouble sleeping and spent most of the day worrying about it.) Today I spent just over an hour on the phone with the Department of Revenue. Combined, my wife and I spent about 11.4 hours dealing with the tax, which transfered to the state $436.93. In addition, the Department of Revenue devoted who knows how much more time to the matter. In sum, a huge portion of the value of the tax was eaten up in the paying of the tax. And that hardly accounts for our emotional distress.
(This is aside from the obvious point that we are out the $436.93, which I am quite confident I could have spent better than the state's bureaucrats will manage.)
Thankfully, the Department's agent I reached today by phone was quite helpful and friendly, and she resolved the matter within a few hours.
What happened in our case, she explained, was that the Department's "system actually calculated penalty, interest, and penalty-interest, which is double interest." The agent said she waived all penalty and interest beyond the 18 percent we already paid, so now "there is nothing due." (I still have no idea how a person is actually supposed to calculate all the penalties and interest according to the formal rules, but apparently just paying the extra 18 percent does not necessarily cut it.)
So why did the Department claim we owed the entire 2010 tax? The agent further explained that the Department had reallocated the portion of our payment intended for that year to the additional penalties for previous years.
I do want to state publicly that I sincerely appreciate the Department's agent for working quickly to resolve the issue. (I only wish her efforts had not been necessary.)
So how should the tax be legislatively modified? At minimum, the legislature should clarify an easy-to-calculate penalty for late payments, adjusted for the degree of lateness. In my experience the existing rules are impenetrable.
However, I believe the legislature should go far beyond that and repeal the "use tax" altogether. It is a nuisance tax, inherently difficult to pay and enforce, and so it turns vast numbers of Coloradans into scofflaws, typically without their knowledge.
But, local retailers would complain, that would unfairly advantage out-of-state sellers. Therefore, as my (http://ariarmstrong.com/2010/04/dump-emergency-sales-tax/) dad and I argued last year, the legislature should simply abolish all sales and use taxes, even if done in a revenue-neutral way by increasing the income tax rate. (This would require voter approval.) Obviously that would eliminate all the problems associated with paying and enforcing sales and use taxes (including the state's malicious campaign against Amazon and other online retailers).
The fewer the types of taxes, the better.
Rethinking Education Tax Credits
June 18, 2011
Should advocates of free markets and economic liberty promote such reforms as charter schools, vouchers, and tax credits for education?
In an article for the (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-spring/school-vouchers-tax-credits.asp) Objective Standard -- and a follow-up (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-summer/letters-replies.asp) reply to critics-- (http://www.principledperspectives.blogspot.com/) Michael LaFerrara argues that vouchers threaten to subject nominally private schools to government controls, whereas tax credits promise to "reduce government involvement in education immediately and lay the groundwork to eliminate it over time."
LaFerrara grants that choice among government-run schools (such as the charter system) "may yield small improvements in the short term," but without achieving long-term advances in liberty. I am somewhat more enthusiastic about charter schools; Colorado has done reasonably well under a robust system of choice among traditional "public" schools and charter alternatives. Two of my second-cousins attend a good charter school north of Denver, and I've been impressed by the (http://www.freecolorado.com/2007/02/lewis.html) Ridgeview Classical School in Fort Collins. However, such reforms apparently haven't helped to improve (http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/06/north_high_credit_recovery_department_of_education_investigation.php) Colorado's worst schools. Do either vouchers or tax credits offer hope for more fundamental reform?
LaFerrara opposes vouchers for the basic reason that they act as government subsidies. Vouchers pass from the hands of taxpayers, to the government, then to parents for use in schools of their choice. This creates two major problems. First, it leads to more government controls of nominally private schools. As LaFerrara summarizes, "Whoever pays the bill ultimately has the power to set the terms"—and he gives concrete examples of how precisely this has happened with voucher programs. Second, vouchers entrench the welfare element of government education by forcibly transferring money to lower-income parents.
To LaFerrara, the key distinction of tax credits—and he promotes a robust reform allowing anyone who pays taxes for education to direct their money to the education of any child—is that the person earning the money spends it, and it never passes through the government. For this reason, he argues, tax credits do not inherently threaten market schools with more government controls, nor do they entrench forced wealth transfers.
However, I remain unpersuaded that a tax credit proposal such as LaFerrara proposes would remain immune from onerous government controls. Notably, the article from the (http://www.schoolandstate.org/Fritz/WhatAboutVouchers.htm) Alliance for the Separation of School and State that LaFerrara cites favorably and extensively in his original article claims that "the drawbacks of vouchers are also inherent in universal tax credits." This is an issue I've wrestled with; one of the first articles I wrote for my web page (http://www.freecolorado.com/1999/01/sepconvoucher.html) criticized vouchers and tax credits,whereas an article I coauthored earlier this year more seriously entertains the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/how-about-school-choice-for-everyone.html) potential for tax credits even while acknowledging their drawbacks.
The fundamental weakness of LaFerrara's argument is that, with tax credits, the government continues to forcibly transfer people's money to education. Yes, you can choose either to pay taxes to standard "public" schools or redirect that money to the educational activities of your choice. True, under a tax credit system such as LaFerrara describes, the money goes directly from its earner to an educational activity, rather than first pass through the government. But still the person who earns that money is forced by law to transfer it to education, one way or another. You could not, for instance, spend that money on your own (noneducational) business, a vacation, or your retirement plan.
Thus, even though a tax credit does not funnel that money through the government, it still extends the government's claims over that money. In a very real sense, the government continues to claim ownership of the funds in question. The difference is that, rather than forcibly seize those funds directly, the government directs those who earn the funds how to spend them (within broad limits). The money is not fundamentally owned by the person who earns it.
In his critical letter, Steve Plafker raises the possibility of parents spending "their" education money on going to the movies and sporting events. We can extend the examples: what about Disney Land? What about schools that teach Satanism or Islamic Jihad? LaFerrara replies, "[U]nder my proposed tax-credit program, parents would be within their rights to treat money spent on a child's trip to a movie—or any other activity they regard as educational—as an educational expense."
But there is simply no way a law such as LaFerrara describes would ever pass. Because tax credits in fact recognize government claims to the money in question, tax credits would inevitably extend government controls over the use of that money. Government would define acceptable uses of the funds, and the notion that a tax credit program could encompass a School for Watching Cartoons or a School of Islamic Jihad or a School for Christian Fundamentalism is a fantasy.
Consider also the rampant corruption a totally uncontrolled tax credit system would promote. Here is a hypothetical. A parent could claim the entire tax deduction, start a "school" that consists of watching free online cartoons, and then pay himself a "salary" for the entire portion of the tax credit. Again, it is simply a fantasy that a law allowing such a thing could ever pass.
A tax credit system may not threaten as severe of controls over nominally private schools, but certainly it would bring government guidance for the spending of those funds. There might be other good reasons for promoting universal tax credits for education, but tax credits will not eliminate government controls over education spending.
What, then, does real education reform look like? Advocates of liberty in education must protect and expand the liberties of homeschoolers and private schools. They must check runaway spending on government education and seek to disempower the teachers' unions.
Beyond that, the basic effort must be educational and ideological. That is, people must advocate real liberty in education, including the individual freedom to choose not to fund any educational activity. (Please keep four salient points in mind. First, currently the government forces people without children to fund education. Second, in a truly free market, many people would willingly contribute huge sums of money to education. Third, parents who do not provide their children with a basic education, as with parents who do not provide adequate nutrition, may be charged with child abuse. But, forth, many parents could ably educate their children for much less than they're forced to pay in taxes for education.) As LaFerrara recognizes, a truly free market in education remains a distant ideal. But we cannot move closer to that ideal without advocating the fundamental principles of liberty and individual rights.
Insofar as tax credits further entrench the principle that government may force people to spend their earnings on other people's education, they hinder, rather than hasten, the movement toward true freedom in education.
***
RussK commented June 18, 2011 at 3:39 PM
I enjoyed LaFerrara's article in The Objective Standard very much, but, likewise, I was hesitant concerning the tax credit solution. Ever since I was introduced to the voucher versus tax credit debate--going back to the beginnings of the Florida voucher system--I have always been more open to tax credits; however, there is much that makes it a problematic solution for both freedom and education, of which you point out in your article. Simply put, the government will continue to define education, whether the money flows through vouchers or tax credits. Just as the Florida voucher system brought standardized testing to private schools, it is just as likely a tax credit system would do the same. Furthermore, on a more economic level, tax credits can have a negative or inflationary market effect, whether housing, green energy, or, in the future, education. Freedom and proper education should be promoted through principle. Flooding education with tax credits, the use of which would be defined by the government, would only skirt the issue of freedom and how to educate a child, as well as further destroy what is left of private education.
Brian T. Schwartz commented June 19, 2011 at 9:44 AM
For what it's worth, Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute (& author of "Market Education, The Unknown History") has a working paper titled "Do Vouchers and Tax Credits Increase Private School Regulation?"
Abstract:
"School voucher and education tax credit programs have proliferated in the United States over the past two decades. Advocates have argued that they will enable families to become active consumers in a free and competitive education marketplace, but some fear that these programs may in fact bring with them a heavy regulatory burden that could stifle market forces. Until now, there has been no systematic, empirical investigation of that concern. The present paper aims to shed light on the issue by quantifying the regulations imposed on private schools both within and outside school choice programs, and then analyzing them with descriptive statistics and regression analyses. The results are tested for robustness to alternative ways of quantifying private school regulation, and to alternative regression models, and the question of causality is addressed. The study concludes that vouchers, but not tax credits, impose a substantial and statistically significant additional regulatory burden on participating private schools."
The PDF is here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/researchnotes/WorkingPaper-1-Coulson.pdf
Anonymous commented June 19, 2011 at 11:13 AM
Reminds me a similar argument. Should we support or oppose tax loopholes? Some Libertarians claim tax loopholes are mini bits of freedom. I say we abolish all tax loopholes in favor of a much reduced tax rate for every producer.
Regarding charters and the destruction of private school? Reminds me of a conversation I had with 3 senior citizen limited government folks. I suggested vouchers and they about flipped. They said government control follows government money. I simply said, don't accept the money if you don't want it. Secondly, government education monopoly will destroy the private market eventually anyways.
At the end of the day, The Feds need to be completely removed from education. State education should be minimalized and county may fund some schools however there is absolutely no reason why education cannot be totally privatized. Sure some will not educate in the tradition of current standards. Put them to work, oh yea we also have to abolish child labor laws.
Go to Khan Academy if you do not believe me. Free, non government education is here. It is waiting for the Statist to get out of the way.
Jeff
Anonymous commented June 20, 2011 at 8:11 AM
More to the point,
So long as there is taxation for education, vouchers should be the norm. What better way to illustrate the benefits of choice and competition.
To ignore vouchers is to protect status quo. Status quo is the destruction of humanity.
Jeff
Ari commented June 20, 2011 at 9:42 AM
The alternate view, Jeff, is that taxation for education is the status quo, and vouchers are a meaningless variation of that.
Anonymous commented June 20, 2011 at 10:10 AM
Ari,
I see vouchers as an argument against education taxation. Many small schools will result, ultimately destroying the government monopoly.
Jeff
mike250 commented June 21, 2011 at 8:56 PM
quite the opposite, the vouchers will just result in a greater monopoly. its just a pragmatic approach and I think education philosophy comes first.
Wow, I Actually Agree With Coulter on Libertarianism
June 20, 2011
Recently I (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/could-it-be-satan.html) mocked Ann Coulter for her silly thesis that mobs are demonic. Bad, yes. Demonic, crazy talk.
But I actually agree with her basic (http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/government-107701-gay-marriage.html) criticisms of libertarianism (http://reason.com/blog/2011/06/20/what-do-ann-coulter-and-slate) (via Matt Welch).
For example, Coulter argues, Ron Paul is wrong to think that government can simply get out of marriage. What about adoption, child custody, health decisions, and inheritance, she sensibly wonders. Back in (http://www.freecolorado.com/2007/01/polygamy.html) 2007 I argued that marriage is a sort of contract, and the government properly recognizes it for all couples.
However (and inevitably), Coulter errs in writing:
Most libertarians are cowering frauds too afraid to upset anyone to take a stand on some of the most important cultural issues of our time. So they dodge the tough questions when it suits their purposes by pretending to be Randian purists, but are perfectly comfortable issuing politically expedient answers when it comes to the taxpayers' obligations under Medicare and Social Security.
Coulter is correct about libertarians; often (but not in every case) they hedge on abortion, misconstrue the significance of the marriage contract, and decline to take a moral stand on things like prostitution and heavy recreational drug use.
But Rand rejected libertarianism, and certainly Rand took tough positions on social issues, as Coulter must know.
Likewise, I cannot be accused of failing to take such tough positions. I have declared (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/why-im-not-libertarian.html) I'm not a libertarian. I've advocated (http://www.freecolorado.com/2007/01/polygamy.html) gay marriage and (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) legal abortion. I've declared (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/mar/15/should-prostitution-be-legal/) prostitution to be immoral while advocating its legality (among consenting adults). Offhand I cannot think of any cultural issue on which I've not taken a stand.
Yet apparently Coulter finds it more convenient to lump all her opponents together and attribute guilt by association. What explains her sloppy reasoning? Personally, I blame Satan.
Individual Rights and Vouchers
June 21, 2011
Recently Colorado's Douglas County instituted a (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18322446) small voucher programredirecting tax money to parents and then, in some cases, to religious schools.
Today the (http://aclu-co.org/news/aclu-and-americans-united-file-lawsuit-to-block-voucher-plan-that-would-fund-religious-schools-) American Civil Liberties Union announced it was joining a lawsuit against the program, declaring it "threatens church-state separation and public education."
The (http://www.ediswatching.org/2011/06/legal-complaint-against-dougco-vouchers-rooted-in-irony-anti-catholic-bigotry/) Independence Institute fired back claiming the voucher program promotes "parental choice and educational freedom." Moreover, the group claims, the state constitutional prohibition of spending tax money on religious schools stems from "anti-Catholic bigotry."
Regardless of the motives for the measure, in fact Article IX, Section 7 of the Colorado Constitution states the following:
Neither the general assembly, nor any county, city, town, township, school district or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation, or pay from any public fund or moneys whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian society, or for any sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university or other literary or scientific institution, controlled by any church or sectarian denomination whatsoever...
I cannot imagine more clear constitutional language: Douglas County may not direct tax funds to religious schools. Those who do not like that language, it seems to me, should seek to repeal it rather than ignore it.
I suppose one could (implausibly) argue that, by sending the money through parents first, it is not the government itself spending the money on religious schools. But the county knowingly approved religious schools for participation in the program.
Or one could argue that Colorado's language (http://www.blaineamendments.org/Intro/whatis.html) violates the U.S. Constitution, though that seems to me a rather difficult case to make—especially for conservatives who typically militate against "judicial activism."
But let us for now set aside the legal question, and focus on the more fundamental question of rights.
Do religious schools, in fact, have a right to forcibly seize wealth from those unwilling to pay it, through the governmental agencies of Douglas County? For those who believe in property rights and economic liberty, the obvious answer is "no." People have the right to fund religious schools, or not to fund them, according to their own conscience.
Of course, the same point could be made about existing government schools, such as the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/how-about-school-choice-for-everyone.html) Denver Green School which propagandizes children about environmentalism, akin to a religion. It is as much a rights violation to force people to fund an environmentalist school as a Christian school. But, about that, the ACLU will utter not a peep.
As I have (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/rethinking-education-tax-credits.html) suggested, if we take economic liberty and freedom of conscience seriously, there is ultimately only one way to protect people's rights: separate school and state.
***
Anonymous commented June 26, 2011 at 9:07 AM
Separate school and state, I like that.
Education is valuable and desired therefore there is no justification for State intervention or interference. The free market can and will beautifully deliver relevant and efficient education.
A question to all separation of Church and State, pro state education folks. Why do you think it is okay to confiscate taxes from religious folks and use them for your secular Darwin schools?
No more Federal or State funding for education.
Jeff
Ben DeGrow commented June 29, 2011 at 3:26 PM
"Do religious schools, in fact, have a right to forcibly seize wealth from those unwilling to pay it, through the governmental agencies of Douglas County? For those who believe in property rights and economic liberty, the obvious answer is 'no.' People have the right to fund religious schools, or not to fund them, according to their own conscience."
Of course not, but that's clearly not what is happening in Douglas County. Parents are directing dollars to schools—with a neutral opportunity to select religious or non-religious institutions—based on their free and independent choice. That's where the Blaine Amendment and your argument fall down.
Ari commented June 30, 2011 at 10:20 AM
Ben, Is it not obvious that some of the tax dollars the parents are "directing... based on their free and independent choice" are forcibly seized from other taxpayers? What about their "free and independent choice?" That, I think, is where your argument falls down. -Ari
The Folly of 'Buy Local' Campaigns
June 22, 2011
Grand Junction's (http://thebusinesstimes.com/on-the-wagon-or-not-buy-local-campaign-has-supporters-and-detractors/) Business Times quotes my dad Linn in an article today exploring a "buy local" campaign.
The article by Mike Moran cites the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/why-spending-more-for-local-goods-harms.html) May 27 Free Press column by my dad and me on the topic and also summarizes our review of Bastiat.
My dad told the paper, "When you start 'buying locally' and not buying the best for the lowest cost, the allocation of resources gets distorted." Specifically, the article goes on to review, spending more for the same product made locally makes the purchaser poorer and deprives other local businesses of the residual.
Moroever, Moran reviews, different "buy local" campaigns begin to compete for business. Certain Grand Junction businesses may benefit from a "buy local" campaign within the city, for example, but other businesses may lose if customers elsewhere also "buy local." The result is that people in various communities spend a lot of time and energy depriving their neighbors of business. Meanwhile, consumers foolish enough to play along get hammered with higher prices.
Now, sometimes buying locally makes sense. For example, due to the soil, climate, and large river, the Grand Valley grows excellent peaches, grapes, and other fruit. Thus, it can indeed make sense to buy those products locally, especially considering the reduced transportation costs. It also makes sense for Grand Valley producers to export their products elsewhere, such as Denver markets. Yet, somehow, the "buy local" crowd in Junction doesn't complain when Denver residents purchase those items from across the pass.
Many types of services cannot be provided at a distance. For example, my dad used to manage properties for a living, a job that requires extensive on-site labor. That's simply not the sort of job a person can hire done by somebody living at a distance. But other sorts of services can be purchased at a distance; for example, one of my friends once worked at a national hotel calling center out of Grand Junction.
An interesting exercise would be to figure out how many businesses in Grand Junction export goods or services to other cities, states, and countries, and how many Grand Junction businesses depend on spending by travelers. Yet the hypocrites preaching "buy local" hardly complain about locals selling their goods or services elsewhere or doing businesses with people from out of town.
The basis of trade is comparative advantage. Different people and different regions should make what they're good at, and exchange their produce for the goods and services others are relatively good at providing. The only thing the consumer should worry about is finding the best products at the best prices.
Colorado Slips in Freedom Index
June 24, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published June 24 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110624/COLUMNISTS/110629991/1021&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
We don't believe in grading liberty on a curve. We believe that any violation of individual rights creates an injustice, and that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Thus, while we are pleased that Colorado remains in the top ten freest states (we're seventh), we're more concerned that we've dropped from the number two slot in 2007. Moreover, even if we surpassed New Hampshire for the top spot, that still wouldn't mean much, competing against the likes of California, New York, and Massachusetts.
Moreover, with the federal government continuing to grow in power relative to state governments, largely turning state legislatures into conduits for federal funding, no place in the country is very free. The Founding ideal of federalism largely has been turned on its head.
Nevertheless, how state governments act very much impacts people's lives—whether they can open businesses, how much of their earnings they can keep, whether they face persecution for peaceable activities, whether they retain important personal freedoms. So it is well worth a look.
The state rankings come from a new report from the Mercatus Center,(http://mercatus.org/sites/all/modules/custom/mercatus_50_states/files/Freedom50States2011.pdf) "Freedom In the 50 States." Broadly, the study finds that "Americans are voting with their feet and moving to states with more economic and personal freedom and that economic freedom correlates with income growth."
For example, (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/06/13/the_texas_example_110182.html) Jay Ambrose noted that the "deficit-slaughtering, budget-cutting, seriously limited government in Texas" (ranked fourteenth by Mercatus) "has added 730,000 jobs in the past decade." Meanwhile, California, ranked 48th, has lost 600,000 jobs. Guess what: economic liberty promotes prosperity, while controls and high taxes threaten it.
Indeed, as the (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576375480710070472.html) Wall Street Journal noted, "Some 37 percent of all net new American jobs since the recovery began were created in Texas." So Texas, with about (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population) eight percent of the nation's population, has single handedly created more than a third of all the new jobs.
How is (http://mercatus.org/freedom-50-states-2011/CO) Colorado doing? Mercatus notes our population grew 4.9 percent from 2000 to 2009. Mostly our unemployment rate has remained lower than the national figure, according to Bureau of Labor statistics compiled by Google. (As of April we showed 8.8 percent "seasonally adjusted" unemployment, compared with 9.1 percent nationally.)
But we have some serious problems, reports Mercatus. The severe smoking bans here violate property rights. The state places burdensome requirements on market schools and "particularly onerous recordkeeping requirements" on homeschoolers. Moreover, the "enactment of a minimum wage helped to drag down its regulatory freedom score." Wage controls result in throwing some people out of work entirely. In addition, some of the state's gun laws remain overly restrictive.
We would add to Mercatus's list of abuses. The state continues to finance corporate welfare, despite the explicit constitutional provision against it. The energy mandates already have driven up utility bills and will continue to do so far into the future.
Protectionism, as in the beer and liquor industries, continues to screw consumers. Colorado's campaign laws violate people's rights of free speech and association.
Morever, the state's sales and use taxes create nightmares for businesses as well as consumers. (That these laws remain widely ignored indicts the laws more than the lawbreakers.) Indeed, legislators made this bad situation worse by trying to force Amazon and other online retailers to help enforce Colorado's tax laws, thereby forcing Amazon to drop all of its Colorado affiliates.
Of course on the positive side we retain the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. Yet we found this Mercatus line odd: "Overall, Colorado has strong fiscal policies and is the most fiscally decentralized state in the country, with localities raising fully 45.5 percent of all state and local expenditures." Tax-and-spend localities further reduce economic liberty rather than augment it.
Mercatus lists some other positives about Colorado. We don't have especially onerous "sin" taxes on politically incorrect goods. Medical marijuana is legal, and "arrests for drug offenses, relative to state usage, are relatively low." And "Colorado is one of the very best states on occupational licensing and civil-asset forfeiture."
We love Colorado largely because of our traditions of liberty. Generally, our Western sensibilities guide us to keep the government out of our bedroom and out of our pocketbook. Our attitude is "live and let live." Don't hurt other people, and don't let them hurt you. We help people out, not because we are forced to, but because we assume responsibility to do so.
Mostly we want to live our own lives, the way we see fit, and achieve our own success and happiness. At least that's the ideal.
We're glad that Colorado remains in the top ten freest states. But we can do much better. We can strive to be first. And then we can realize our goal is not merely to be freer than other states, but to consistently and without failing protect the rights of each individual.
Why Rosen is Wrong about Vouchers
June 28, 2011
Does the U.S. Constitution support the Douglas County voucher program?
(http://www.denverpost.com/quillen/ci_18341760) Ed Quillen and (http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/2011/06/ed-quillen%E2%80%99s-argument-against-douglas-county-vouchers-flunks-u-s-history/) Ben DeGrow have fought it out on the origins of the so-called "Blaine Amendments," which inspired Article IX, Section 7 of the Colorado Constitution prohibiting tax funding of religious institutions.
But here my purpose is not to try to sort out that history; as I've (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/individual-rights-and-vouchers.html) written,"Those who do not like that language [about tax funding], it seems to me, should seek to repeal it rather than ignore it." Nor is my main goal here to discuss the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/rethinking-education-tax-credits.html) propriety of vouchers, which I've done before.
Instead, I want to determine whether the U.S. Constitution trumps the Colorado Constitution in legalizing vouchers within the state. It does not.
This morning on 850 KOA, Mike Rosen offered the following argument. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelman_v._Simmons-Harris) Zelman v. Simmons-Harris that the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion") does not rule out voucher programs that direct tax money to religious schools, so long as the government does not favor certain religious schools and makes the program available to a general class of citizen. Therefore, argued Rosen, the First Amendment trumps Colorado's Article IX, Section 7, rendering vouchers legally permissible within Colorado.
But Rosen's logic is faulty. The Supreme Court merely ruled (or so I understand) that a voucher program does not necessarily violate the First Amendment; whether a voucher program violates a state constitution is another question entirely.
The only way Douglas County's voucher program could be tossed out federally is if it were deemed to violate some aspect of the federal constitution. Nobody is arguing that. (I think a good case can be made that forcibly redirecting funds to religious institutions does violate the establishment clause, but I don't get a legal say in such matters.)
But the U.S. Constitution's relatively weak establishment clause does not prohibit states from enacting stronger rules. The proper test is as follows: Does the voucher program violate the establishment clause? If no, then does it violate the Colorado Constitution? If yes, then it is invalid. (I predict the Colorado Supreme Court will side with the ACLU in this case, and I think it will be right to do so.)
Only if Article IX, Section 7 were ruled to violate the U.S. Constitution would the latter trump the former. To my knowledge, nobody has proposed a plausible case that that is so.
Contrast the case of vouchers with that of the campaign laws. I have argued that (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/making-first-amendment-part-of.html) Colorado's campaign laws violate our rights of free speech as protected by the First Amendment. Therefore, the Colorado laws, though part of the state constitution, should be invalidated by trumping federal law.
But, unless Article IX, Section 7 also violates the First Amendment—and I don't see how it could—then it constitutes the deciding law.
As I have suggested, the legal dispute aside, vouchers (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/individual-rights-and-vouchers.html) in fact violate people's basic rights of economic liberty and freedom of conscience. It is wrong to force someone to finance any religious institution against his will. And until conservatives recognize that basic point, they will at best dawdle at the edges of education reform, and they most likely they will further entrench the core injustices of "public" education.
***
Rob commented June 28, 2011 at 1:10 PM
I'm glad to see this discussion of the so-called "Blaine Amendments" and the potential impact of vouchers on the separation of church and state.
Oklahoma's Constitution has a similar clause—Article 2 Section 5—which was the target of a potential state question in this year's session of the legislature, as it is viewed by religious conservatives as an impediment to getting their hands on tax money, primarily through the Governor's Office of Faith-based Initiatives.
For this reason it has been near and dear to the hearts of supporters of the separation of church and state here in Oklahoma, and I was dismayed to see it coming under attack when word of SJR23 got out at the local AU chapter's legislative preview in January.
So much so that I posted at the blog of the Coalition for Secular Government on the possibility that this could be the opening round in a campaign to put ALL religious establishment clauses in state constitutions to the ballot.
While I'm glad to see that this has not happened—yet—I don't think it can be ruled out and caution supporters of church/state separation to remain vigilant.
While clauses in state constitutions specifically targeting religious funding—a la the "Blaine" Amendment—may be relatively recent, religious establishment clauses predate the Constitution itself and are a crucial backup to the First Amendment. I'm sure you already know that the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom inspired the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Rob commented June 28, 2011 at 1:57 PM
Quillen's piece is EXCELLENT!
DeGrow makes some good points but basically drops context.
I am dismayed at the news from Florida! Obviously I need to catch up on what's going on here.
A Koch Protest and a Smile
June 29, 2011
The leftists were out in full silliness mode protesting the Koch brothers near Vail on June 26. Both Progress Now Colorado and Colorado Common Cause promoted the protest, as did (http://coloradopols.com/diary/15962/unvailing-the-koch-brothers) Colorado Pols and (http://coloradoindependent.com/92163/progressive-groups-in-avon-sunday-to-protest-koch-brothers-conservative-confab) Colorado Independent.
I love the (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18358835) Denver Post's headline: "Koch brothers hold secret GOP business retreat in Vail." It was so secret it drew coverage in the largest regional newspaper. An alternative term for "secret" is simply, "private." Apparently, whenever free-market advocates meet in private, that's ominously "secret," but whenever radical leftists meet in private, that's just a fun little gathering.
I do like a comment from a Koch spokesperson quoted by the Post: "The purpose of this conference is to develop support for the kind of free-market policies and initiatives that can get our country back on the path to economic prosperity and sustained job creation."
I hope the Kochs are immensely successful in this mission, as it is precisely what the country needs. (As I have noted, because I already held free-market beliefs, I actually worked indirectly for (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/confessions-of-former-koch-fellow.html) Koch money one summer. I spent most of my time fighting unjust sentencing that disproportionately harmed African Americans.)
So what could one find at the rally? In (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYyNvvvB9PI) Kelly Maher's excellent video, one can hear a Progress Now representative claiming that Paul Ryan's entitlement reforms "will basically throw Grandma out on the street." That is a bald-faced lie, which is perhaps why another protester cleverly blocked Maher's camera so that she could not continue to record the speaker making a complete fool out of herself.
Or consider the photo of a (http://twitpic.com/5hdie5) sign uploaded by Alan Franklin, which says, "Create American Jobs for Americans! Pay Your Taxes!" Because, you see, when the Kochs build a successful market business, that doesn't "create jobs." Only when they pull money out of their productive enterprises and hand it over to politicians and bureaucrats do they "create jobs."
And leftists wonder why most Americans think they are absolutely bat-guano crazy.
Another (http://twitpic.com/5hdugl) sign says the Kochs are "Wanted for climate crimes," apparently because the Kochs produce, among other things, energy to run our cars. Because, as we all know, the leftists all walked to Vail rather than drive a vehicle. (My guess is that all of the protesters use some Koch product or other.)
Finally, consider a couple of posts from (https://twitter.com/progressnowco/) Progress Now's Twitter feed. AP reporter (https://twitter.com/APkristenwyatt/) Kristen Wyatt Tweeted, "Koch bros. fire back at protesters headed to Vail, point out that ProgressNow doesnt disclose all its donors either." Progress Now retorted, "It's all about consent. ... Our donors knowingly give to a political cause. Koch Bros $$$ comes from consumers & shareholders who didn't consent." Because, you know, the Kochs literally hold a gun to their customers' heads and force them to buy their products. And, if Progress Now is going to play the "consent" card, what about the customers who made some of their own donors fabulously wealthy? Did they consent to indirectly funding Progress Now? Some rich leftists give to leftist causes, some rich conservatives give to conservative causes, and some rich free-market advocates give to free market causes. The only thing surprising about any of this is Progress Now's self-righteous hypocrisy on the matter.
My only complaint about the Koch brothers is that they do not currently direct any of their money to me.
Letter About Speech-Chilling Campaign Laws
July 2, 2011
The June 16 (http://blogs.denverpost.com/eletters/2011/06/16/lawsuit-against-gessler-over-campaign-finance-2-letters/13558/) Denver Post published my letter about Colorado's speech-chilling campaign laws. The same page includes the contrary view of Jenny Flanagan from Colorado Common Cause.
Re: (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_18272933) "Minor players, major burden," June 15 editorial.
Thank you for your editorial supporting the secretary of state's rule exempting small issue groups from complying with onerous campaign laws. As the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found, and as I have personally experienced, the previous rules violate people's rights of free speech and association.
Under those rules, to speak out for or against any ballot measure spending more than $200, one must first register with the state, learn 100 pages of dense legalese, comply with difficult reporting requirements, and then still risk getting sued by the likes of Colorado Ethics Watch. This chills speech.
Moreover, the right of free speech entails the right to speak anonymously—a right many of our nation's Founders invoked in debating the Constitution. Consider such heated issues as abortion, immigration, gay rights, and guns. Voters have every right to ask for disclosure, but not to force it, and to vote accordingly.
Ari Armstrong, Westminster
Unfortunately, two anti-free speech groups, Colorado Common Cause and Colorado Ethics Watch, have sued Gessler over the rule change. Read the reports from the (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18250452) Denver Post and (http://coloradoindependent.com/90746/complaint-filed-against-sos-scott-gessler) Colorado Independent.
In related news, see (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjzmL-Kwk4o) Nat Hentoff's excellent remarks about anonymous speech.
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/making-first-amendment-part-of.html) Read more about this issue.
CA Assaults Amazon Affiliates
July 6, 2011
(http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/577127/201107011811/Hooray-For-Amazon.htm) Investors Business Daily published a good editorial July 1 supportive of Amazon in the wake of California's passage of its so-called "Amazon Tax." See also my (http://ariarmstrong.com/2010/03/stop-the-amazon-tax/) backgrounder focusing on Colorado's version of the tax. (And of course see my (http://ariarmstrong.com/disclosures/) Disclosures Unjustly Compelled by the FTC.)
I sent the following notes to the paper:
Dear IBD,
Thank you for your July 1 editorial against California's so-called "Amazon Tax." I offer two corrections.
First, your list of states attempting to impose the tax omits Colorado, my home state, where the legislature has also driven Amazon and other companies to drop their affiliates (including me).
Second, you incorrectly state that, if online retailers do not pay the sales taxes, that leaves "consumers free to buy without paying them." Not so. According to (http://www.boe.ca.gov/taxprograms/usetax/index.html) "California Use Tax Information," "Generally, if sales tax would apply when you buy physical merchandise in California, use tax applies when you make a similar purchase without tax from a business located outside the state."
I imagine that the typical Californian, like the typical Coloradan, has never heard of the "use tax," meaning that huge portions of the states' populations are in violation of the tax law—a significant problem. [See also my article on (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/my-use-tax-case-resolved-tax-remains-a-problem/) Colorado's use tax.]
In-state companies that must collect the tax have a legitimate beef. But an alternative to expanding the tax to out-of-state companies is to repeal all sales and use taxes, even if offset by increases in other taxes.
Politics and Media in Harry Potter
July 7, 2011
How time slips by! Back in May my book (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter got a little media attention—and now the final film of the series opens next week!
Over at (http://bigmedia.org/2011/05/18/potter-series-promotes-healthy-skepticism-of-journalism-local-author-writes/) Big Media, Jason Salzman, a left-leaning bulldog of an investigator, discusses my chapter, "News Media in Harry Potter."
Salzman has some criticisms. He doesn't like my mention of Paul Krugman's article on the Gabrielle Giffords shooting as an example of bad journalism. Salzman thinks I "could have come up with better examples from the spectacular archive of journalistic foibles." He's probably right. However, I just picked some examples basically at random that happened to be well-known to me. I don't think readers will have much problem adding to the list.
But Salzman thinks I basically make my point that the series presents both a negative and a positive conception of media. He grants, "There seems to be an obvious lesson in the dangers of state control of the press here..."
But Salzman ends on a pessimistic note:
I noticed that Armstrong did not say the truth "will" prevail without quality journalism [though it "can"], and he's right. You have to wonder today, with serious journalism struggling, whether enough of the truth will get out there for our experiment in democracy to have a happy ending.
So maybe the lesson in the Potter series that Armstrong lauds isn't the one we really need. We need more books showing how the truth doesn't prevail in the end when journalism is forsaken or corrupt. That's where things look to be heading to me.
I, on the other hand, am thrilled and excited by the many new opportunities made possible by the blogging and social media for citizens to engage with journalists, correct reports, and even report the news. For a great example of this, one need look no further than (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/do-media-report-news-or-make-news.html) Salzman's own accomplishments.
For May 31, (http://denverdiatribe.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/denver-diatribe-podcast-35-the-politics-of-harry-potter-elway-and-urban-gardens-edition/) Denver Diatribe invited me to join the weekly podcast. We discussed the political themes of the novels, especially the corruption of the Ministry of Magic and the tyrannical rise of Voldemort.
Stop the Hatchet Job on Medical Marijuana Shops
July 8, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published July 8 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110708/COLUMNISTS/110709991/1062&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
Around the turn of the last century, Carrie Nation opposed alcohol use. So zealous was her crusade that she gained a reputation for barging into bars armed with her Bible and a hatchet to smash up the establishments. Some say she even excused the assassination of President (http://www.zianet.com/maxey/reflx335.htm) William McKinley, as he allegedly drank alcohol.
Today's prohibitionists, too civilized for direct physical force, instead seek to impose the force of the vote. Rather than send in a woman with a hatchet, they threaten to send in police armed with guns.
(http://www.gjcity.org/CityDeptWebPages/Administration/LinkedFiles/PDF/MedicalMarijuana/Ban_Passes.pdf) Grand Junction voters already banned medical marijuana dispensaries. Apparently they want to punish people with debilitating pain and nausea by making their medicine harder to obtain. (Disclosure: One of our relatives uses a medical marijuana card.)
The modern Carrie Nations now want to legally destroy the lonely medical(http://www.krextv.com/news/around-the-region/Palisade-Medical-Marijuana-Shop-Only-One-Left-in-Valley-119448989.html) marijuana shop in Palisade. But does this make any sense?
To vote for such a ban, you must believe that mob rule properly trumps rights of property, economic production, and voluntary exchange. Once the mob gains the sanction of the government and the use of its guns, it can be difficult to contain. Who will become the next victim, and on what pretext? Should the mob also be empowered to shut down gun stores or politically incorrect bookstores?
Another victim of Carrie's hatchet is individual responsibility. Most early Americans placed the responsibility of overindulgence on the user. For example, they condemned drunkenness as an abuse of a God-given gift. But alcohol was no more to blame for being drunk than food was responsible for being fat or guns for being careless. While God made no bad drink, people tended to think, some people made bad choices. Today many count medical marijuana as a God-given gift.
We wonder whether Carrie Nation would gleefully applaud or recoil in horror to witness her modern intellectual heirs. Today, rather than blame individuals for obesity, many blame the clown Ronald McDonald, promotional toys, and supersized portions. Who needs parental responsibility? Far easier to blame inanimate objects.
Modern-day Carrie Nations have taken the hatchet to all of Mexico, where the United States' prohibitionist policies have decimated the country by enriching violent and well-armed narcoterrorists. Tea Party favorites such as Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and Tom Tancredo have suggested scaling back the drug war as a way to curtail that violence.
That prohibition causes crime waves and police corruption should come as no surprise. Alcohol Prohibition enriched violent gangsters like Al Capone and Bugs Moran. Today, we don't know brewers of alcoholic beverages as violent gangsters with names like "Johnny the Hick," we know them as respectable citizens with names like "Governor John Hickenlooper." Yes, alcohol is a drug, so we elected a one-time drug dealer to lead our state.
We wonder whether Carrie Nation would have been proud that her prohibitionist legacy included the government intentionally poisoning people. Last year Deborah Blum wrote an article for Slate titled, (http://www.slate.com/id/2245188/) "The Chemist's War: The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences."
Blum writes, "Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people."
Collateral damage, right? Just like the sick in the Grand Valley who no longer have access to their medicine.
Blum quotes a 1927 editorial from the Chicago Tribune: "Normally, no American government would engage in such business... It is only in the curious fanaticism of Prohibition that any means, however barbarous, are considered justified."
By the logic of prohibition, the ends justify the means, and individuals and their rights become expendable.
At least medical marijuana is available now in Colorado—though the state recently saddled the industry with onerous rules and (http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_18381654) regulatory incompetence. We seem to be lurching in the right direction.
We are also heartened that (http://polis.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=243080) Rep. Jared Polis from Boulder has signed on to a bill to help return marijuana policy to the states. Polis joins other Democrats as well as Republicans Ron Paul and Dana Rohrabacher.
Polis stated in a release, "When a small business, such as a medical marijuana dispensary, can't access basic banking services [because of federal laws] they either have to become cash-only—and become targets of crime—or they'll end up out of business."
Frankly people of the Grand Valley should be embarrassed to let Boulder take the lead on such an important issue of property rights and individual liberty.
Harry Potter Themes: Interviews and Articles
July 13, 2011
With the latest and final Harry Potter film opening tomorrow night (after midnight), I've been busily discussing J. K. Rowling's novels and my own work of literary criticism about them, (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter.
Yesterday I sat down with (http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2011/07/noodlecast-86-interview-with-ari.html) Diana Hsieh of Noodle Food to record a 40-minute podcast. We discuss the Potter films and the basic appeal of the novels. We also talk about the novels' values, religious themes, psychology, and politics. (Clarification: Generally one fights a dementor with a Patronus and a boggart with "riddikulus." But, to Harry, a boggart appears as a dementor. This will make sense to you only if you're read the books.)
Today Skeptic Magazine published my article, (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-07-13/) "Religion in Harry Potter,"for its weekly online newsletter. I review the themes of immortality, Christ-like love, free will, and faith. As readers of my book know, I recognize important religious themes in the Potter novels but don't think they play a very large role in motivating the characters.
Last week, Boulder Weekly published my article, (http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-5954-harry-potter-explores-lifes-big-questions.html) Harry Potter explores life's big questions." It begins, "Parents who take their children to see the Harry Potter films enjoy a fun family night. But unless they dig deeper into the stories, parents miss a great opportunity to explore life's biggest issues with their children." I touch on the psychology, politics, and basic values of the novels.
I conclude that piece, "The stories offer thrilling literature alive with dragons and magical duels. But readers miss a great deal if they ignore the rich themes of psychology, politics and philosophy. Harry never had parents able to share these discussions. Your children do."
I hope you'll check out the complete works!
The Pope and Harry Potter
July 14, 2011
Did Joseph Ratzinger condemn the Harry Potter novels before he became Pope?
In my book (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter, I write on page 10: "Before he became Pope, Joseph Ratzinger warned Catholics to beware the books' 'subtle seductions,' according to Catholic News Service." My source is a January 15, 2008, story by Cindy Wooden titled, (http://catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0800250.htm) "Writers in Vatican newspaper debate lessons of Harry Potter novels."
In my article published just yesterday by eSkeptic, (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-07-13/) "Religion in Harry Potter," I use a different source to make the same point. I write, "Before he became Pope, Joseph Ratzinger said the books threaten to 'corrupt the Christian faith'..." For this I use a January 16, 2008, article by Katherine Phan of Christianity Today, (http://www.christiantoday.com/article/vatican.slams.harry.potter.as.wrong.kind.of.hero/16236.htm) "Vatican slams Harry Potter as 'wrong kind of hero.'"
However, in his 2008 book How Harry Cast His Spell -- which I also cite in my eSkeptic piece—John Granger claims the story about Ratzinger is false (see pages 266-67). Is it true that "Pope Benedict XVI has condemned Harry Potter," Granger asks? He writes that LifeSiteNews "started this absurd Skeeter effect that won't go away." (Rita Skeeter is the corrupt and deeply dishonest journalist in the Potter series.) To Granger, claims that Ratzinger "commented on [the Potter novels] critically" is "laughable."
Granger writes, "[A]n article in the Catholic News Service the week the LifeSiteNews post was made... denied the Pope had taken a position on the matter." Granger continues, "The Harry Potter books... have not been opposed, condemned, or criticized by any agency or person of authority in the Vatican... The Pope certainly hasn't spoken on the subject. ... The Pope doesn't oppose Harry Potter."
However, while Granger accuses LifeSiteNews of bogus Rita Skeeter-like journalism, in fact it is Granger who is distorting the record.
The LifeSiteNews article of July 13, 2005, (http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2005/jul/05071301) "Pope Opposes Harry Potter Novels" (which was apparently updated at some point) includes a translated transcript of Ratzinger's letter. (Granger suggests the letter may have been written by "a page in [Ratzinger's] office," but regardless the note carries Ratzinger's name.)
The web page makes available a (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005_docs/ratzingerletter.pdf) scanned copy of the letter. It is written on the letterhead of "Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger" and dated March 7, 2003. While English translations may vary, the letter clearly talks about the possible "subtle seduction" ("subtile Verführengen") of the novels. The letter also talks about corrupting the soul ("das Christentum in der Seele zersetzen").
Is Granger correct that another article "denied the Pope had taken a position on the matter?" No.
It turns out that Cindy Wooden also wrote the July 14, 2005, article forCatholic News Service, (http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0504069.htm) "New attention given to 2003 Cardinal Ratzinger letter on Harry Potter." Here is what Wooden writes:
In the cardinal's letter, excerpted on [recipient Gabriele] Kuby's Web site and published widely since late June, he praised the author's attempt to 'enlighten people about Harry Potter' and the possible 'subtle seductions' that can distort children's thinking before they mature in the Christian faith.
Contrary to Granger's suggestion, the article does not deny that Ratzinger took a position on the Potter novels. Instead, Wooden writes:
Although the Vatican press office July 14 said it would have no comment on the letter since Pope Benedict XVI and his secretary were on vacation in the northern Italian Alps, a former Vatican official said Harry Potter books must be read as children's literature, not theology.
Granger seems to be playing something of a game here. He says "the Pope" has not taken a position on the Potter novels, but that doesn't change the fact that Ratzinger in fact took a critical position, before he became Pope. And that remains the interesting point.
Values, Religion, and Politics in Harry Potter
July 14, 2011
I've taken three shorter videos from my interview with (http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2011/07/noodlecast-86-interview-with-ari.html) Diana Hsieh about my book, (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter.
In the first, I discuss the basic values of the novels. Harry and his allies fight for their lives and safety, for the safety of loved ones, and for a wold in which they can live and work in peace, free from tyranny.
In the second, I discuss the religious elements of the novels. (See also my follow-up note about (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/07/pope-and-harry-potter.html) Ratzinger's letter.)
Finally, I discuss the political themes of the novels, particularly the corruption of the Ministry of Magic and the rise of Voldemort's tyranny.
Reaction to 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2'
July 15, 2011
The final film based on J. K. Rowling's novels, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, is a fabulous movie, featuring great production and effects and fine acting. I especially enjoyed the addition of Ciaran Hinds as Aberforth, Albus Dumbledore's brother. Michael Gambon turns in his best performance as Albus, and it is wonderful to see Gary Oldman (briefly) return as Harry's godfather.
My wife and I watched the double feature, and viewing the two parts back to back was definitely the way to go. The second part returns to Dobby's grave, giving his death some of weight and emotional impact lacking in the first part.
We saw the film in 3D, which seemed distracting at first, but I quickly got used to it. I didn't think I'd enjoy the 3D, but it did give the both the architecture of the castle and the interactions of the characters lifelike depth.
The rest of this review contains spoilers.
After the three leads leave the safe house on the beach, their first major test comes with breaking into Gringotts bank. Here the effects and cinematography become especially stunning with the rail ride to the vaults. Helena Bonham Carter, still dressed as Bellatrix, carries Hermione's persona perfectly, and her misplaced courteous vulnerability creates a lot of fun. (Also, Emma Watson's Hermione looks awesome in the black witch's dress.)
Soon we meet Aberforth outside Hogwarts castle. Unfortunately, while Ariana Dumbledore's image appears in a painting, we learn little about her backstory. Thus, the film leaves viewers mostly ignorant of Albus's past mistakes and redemption, something central to the final novel. True, even a two-part film must omit some elements of a lengthy novel, but the film devotes a hefty sequence to a trivial exchange between Harry and a Hogwarts ghost.
The trio's return to the school and reunion with the other students bear the expected excitement and triumph.
The first battle sequence plays forcefully, filled with drama and impressive effects. This transitions well into Harry's eventual confrontation with Voldemort. Snape's backstory, including his love for Harry's mother, comes across exceptionally well. (Much of the last half of the film drew audible sobbing from among the audience, largely due to this sequence.) And Alan Rickman performs the part in tragic beauty; he's perfect, really. And both the resurrection of Harry's parents and guardians and the King's Cross segment come across very well.
Unfortunately, I thought the film muddles the final battle a bit. For no reason that I can detect, the film alters Neville's killing of the snake, and it totally discards the final public dialogue between Harry and Voldemort. That's too bad, because that meaningful exchange serves to educate the partisans of both sides about the basic facts concerning Voldemort and Snape.
I really enjoyed the epilogue, except it inexplicably shortchanges the son of Lupin and Tonks, wasting the earlier setup of his appearance.
In all, it is a great movie and a deeply emotional and satisfying conclusion to the series.
For in-depth analysis of the themes of the novels, see my book, (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter.
Separate Film and State
July 16, 2011
The government should play no role in film or art generally, for many of the same reasons it should play no role in religion. (The government should universally prevent force and fraud, as by pursuing thieves of artworks, but in such cases the government's actions do not bear on the nature of the art.)
Earlier this month, the Denver Post published the article by Jason Blevins,(http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_18396670) "Colorado's new film commission chief wants to boost state's movie-making incentives." While the first part of the piece reads like cheerleading for the idea, finally Blevins mentions a critical study. And he quotes (http://harriskenny.com/) Harris Kenny, "Basically, this thing has become an arms race. I call it a race to the bottom."
I wrote up some comments at the time that I thought I'd reproduce here:
Getting the state involved in cinema is a bad idea. Direct subsidies, as with the proposal to impose a special tax on movie tickets, unjustly forces Coloradans to finance films against their will. This violates not only their economic liberty but their right of free speech, which includes the right not to support ideas one opposes. Discriminatory tax programs unfairly tax some businesses more than others. The government should tax everyone the same low rate, not play favorites.
Moreover, playing favorites doesn't pay off in the long run, because it just spurs an expensive bidding war with other states. The impact on tourism is murky at best, especially given the direction of resources away from other possible tourist activities.
If the government wants to promote business in Colorado, it should offer appealingly low taxes and fewer hassles to all comers.
Smearing Ayn Rand (Again)
July 18, 2011
A couple months ago I wrote about (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/lets-smear-ayn-rand.html) how Ayn Rand—nearly three decades after her death—has become the target of almost daily smear jobs from both the left and the right, and even some "friendly" commentaries greatly distort her ideas.
That phenomenon is remarkable: I cannot name any other 20th Century public intellectual subject to comparable mistreatment. The smears raise an interesting question: what is it about Rand's ideas that make her opponents afraid of people reading them?
Most of the smears against Rand are so silly and petty that they do not merit responses; anyway, one could spend one's life rebutting them, hardly a productive venture. But the latest (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304203304576450500023100230.html) smear job, by Al Lewis, inexplicably appears on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, among the largest and most respected papers in the world. So perhaps a few words of reply are in order.
Lewis begins with a handful of true claims. Rand opposed libertarianism, and she was (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/why-im-not-libertarian.html) right to do so. Rand also criticized Ronald Reagan, who presided over (http://www.slate.com/id/2075796/) deficit spending, a (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/opinion/the-great-taxer.html) Social Security tax increase, and (http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa107.pdf) higher trade barriers. Perhaps more significantly, he helped set the framework for the growth of the religious right. If Reagan looks rosy to many modern eyes, we need merely recap the names of the full-termers who preceded and followed him: Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama.
Lewis is also quite correct that Rand "was an atheist, an abortion supporter and a champion of the anti-Christian ideal that selfishness is a virtue." And she "villifies communism [and] socialism," as does any sensible person. But that marks the end of Lewis's truthful summary.
It is not true that Rand villified unionism per se, as Lewis claims; she opposed (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/unions.html) "compulsory unionism," just as she opposed compulsory corporatism and compulsion in general.
Lewis then writes, "Some of her ideas are central to the American Dream. But Ms. Rand did much of her writing while hopped up on amphetamines and nicotine. And like most people who abuse this combination, she went too far. She crafted philosophical arguments and wrote bizarre works of fiction to prove their premises."
Let me begin with the smear about the quality of Rand's fiction. Very often, a commentator's hysteria against Rand the novelist roughly matches his ignorance of her works. What Lewis (without argument) regards as "bizarre," I regard as (http://www.exploreaynrand.com/1957/) unique and genius. As far as I know, no other novel ever published has exploded in sales a half century after its original publication. While often the popular strays from the good, there is something about Rand's fiction that deeply touches millions of readers. While many of Rand's critics wish to scare away potential readers of her novels by senselessly mocking the works, any honest individual will ignore all that and decide for himself.
Lewis's claim that Rand's ideas are wrong merely because she smoked and took amphetamines constitutes sheer anti-intellectualism. Even if Lewis's claim were true—and it is not—still the ideas would have to be addressed on their own terms, apart from the personality of Ayn Rand.
It is true that Rand smoked and took amphetamines. But let us remember we're talking about the 20th Century! Rand lived through the era when cigarette companies ran advertisements proclaiming the health benefits of their products. And Jacob Sullum reviews in Saying Yes (page 208): "For decades methamphetamine... was widely used in oral form, along with amphetamine... and dextroamphetamine... These drugs were given to soldiers during World War II, taken by students cramming for exams and truck drivers trying to stay awake on long hauls, and prescribed by doctors for weight loss, narcolepsy, depression, and hyperactivity. Until 1954, amphetamines were available in the United States without a prescription."
Did Rand develop her ideas while she using drugs? No. Jennifer Burns (herself (http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/10/introducing-jennifer-burns-on-ayn-rand.html) hardly consistently fair to Rand) notes in Goddess of the Marketthat, during the editing stage of The Fountainhead, Rand started using "Benzedrine... a widely prescribed amphetamine" (page 85).
By this time, Rand had already written We the Living, her scathing critique of Soviet Communism and statism more generally. She had already written Anthem, her dystopian novel about an independent man who fights the oppressive regime around him. And she had already written (but not finalized) The Fountainhead, the first of her two lengthy and highly ambitious novels. While Rand refined and developed some of her ideas between Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, all the kernels of her ideas were in the earlier works.
I join most moderns in thinking that regularly taking amphetamines is pretty bad for you, and moreover it can adversely affect your personality. But this notion that Rand's ideas may be discarded merely because (after formulating most of those ideas) she took amphetamines is ridiculous and intellectually dishonest nonsense.
Let us continue. Lewis writes, "Ms. Rand mentored former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan," who "poured gasoline on the free market until it exploded." In fact, Rand advocated the gold standard. So did Greenspan in his younger years, which is a big reason why Rand liked him. The fact that Greenspan became a backstabbing sellout who undermined all the principles Rand believed in and advocated is hardly Rand's fault.
Next Lewis claims that, while Rand attacked welfare recipients as "looters," "[w]e now know corporations are the real 'parasites' in an economic crisis." Lewis claims that Rand "did not imagine executives would loot their shareholders, cause an economic crisis and then beg for government help." His comment reflects such basic ignorance of the story of Atlas Shrugged that I must wonder whether he's ever even read this novel which he regards as "bizarre."
Indeed, most of the major villains of Atlas Shrugged come from favor-seeking businesses! Wesley Mouch begins life as a corporate lobbyist. He joins the major villains James Taggart, a railroad executive, and Orren Boyle, a steel executive. The Starnes siblings run a motor company into the ground, inspiring the strike at the heart of the story.
So Lewis's claim that Rand's "brand of laissez-faire capitalism led to corporations growing bigger" until absorbing subsidies and "telling big government what to do" is nothing but a lie. What led to modern corporatism was not laissez-faire capitalism but its opposite: the protofascist policies of the big-government "progressives." (For example, see (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/shlaes.html) Amity Shlaes's book for a description of how FDR's key advisors idolized Soviet-style "planning.")
In fact, Rand argued for the complete separation of economy and state, leaving government the sole function of protecting individual rights. She opposed all subsidies and bailouts, all anticompetitive laws from wage controls to trade barriers, and all forms of economic compulsion. She championed economic liberty, property rights, and strictly voluntary relationships.
For Lewis to blame Rand for the errors and economic distortions of her ideological opposites is the height of dishonesty.
The silver lining is that all the grotesque smear jobs against Rand raise her profile and stir the interest of honest readers.
***
Ellis Weiner commented July 18, 2011 at 4:01 PM
Lewis' article sounds eminently open to criticism, but it sounds as though you equate any criticism of Rand with a "smear." Similarly, criticism of Rand's fiction is ("very often") equated with "hysteria," while you seek to prove Rand's "genius" by appealing to her works' popularity.
"There is something about Rand's fiction that deeply touches millions of readers," you say. It's true. There was also something about Jonathan Livingston Seagull that deeply touched millions of readers, as there is with regard to The Secret, The Bridges of Madison County, Action Comics, Interview With the Vampire, and so on. Like Atlas Shrugged, they, too, were and are unique.
It's disingenuous at best to pretend to acknowledge that "often the popular strays from the good," and then to attempt to legitimize "the popular" by talking about "deeply touching."
What advocates of Atlas never acknowledge is how stacked a deck Rand dealt from: her heroes are all demi-gods and her villains are out of melodrama. The collectivization of the nations of Europe, which she uses to make her heroes seem even more fearless and embattled, add to a third-rate science fiction world (with its "lens" that conceals Gault's Gulch, and the preposterous Rearden Metal, and the laughable motor invented by Galt, and the straight-from-the-fifties "Project X") that she has the gall, or the simple obliviousness, to include in a novel ostensibly about "reality."
Champions of Atlas write as though they had never actually read a decent novel. As Flannery O'Connor wrote to someone, Rand "makes Mickey Spillane seem like Dostoevsky."
Admire "rationality" all you want. But defenses of Atlas Shrugged are at best exercises in wishful thinking and at words demonstrations of lousy taste in literature.
Or, to put it another way, read this: [link to ridiculous work "Atlas Slugged" omitted]
Ari commented July 18, 2011 at 4:27 PM
Ellis, I do not equate all criticisms of Rand with smears. Indeed, I have criticized Rand myself. I do not attempt to prove Rand's genius by appealing to her popularity. Instead, I link to Diana Hsieh's wonderful analysis of the novel. It is not true that all of Rand's heroes are "demi-gods;" that's just silly. Moreover, her heroes span the range of ability and interests. Rand never intended her novel to be "ostensibly about reality;" instead, she created a purely fictional world in which universal principles nevertheless operate. Obviously Galt's motor is science fiction; as to whether Rearden Metal is "proposterous," check out this link:
http://studentsforliberty.org/news/real-life-rearden-metal/
You seem to think you can prove Rand's literature is bad by piling on the ad hominem attacks; obviously, that's wrong. As for your own amateurish work that you use my web page to promote, you parody a straw man. -Ari
Neil Parille commented July 19, 2011 at 6:24 AM
It's unfair that so many people blame Rand for Greenspan and the GEC.
That being said, why did Rand remain close to Greenspan until her death in 82? Harry Binswanger said that by the early 70s he realized Greenspan had departed from Objectivism. It's interesting since Rand split with people.
According to Rand's biographers, she admired Greenspan because he was older and more independent than many others in her circle.
Do CO Vouchers Pass the Constitutional and Moral Test?
July 19, 2011
Douglas County passed a voucher program, prompting a (predictable) lawsuit from the ACLU. The Institute for Justice (IJ) has intervened on behalf of the school district. And the Independence Institute of Golden has taken up a public-relations campaign for the voucher program.
The first question is this: does this or any voucher program in Colorado pass Constitutional muster?
The First Amendment of the federal Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." As (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/why-rosen-is-wrong-about-vouchers.html) I've summarized, the Supreme Court has ruled that the establishment clause does not rule out vouchers for religious institutions; in certain circumstances they are permitted.
My own view is that there should be an absolute prohibition of any tax funding of any religious group, whether or not the First Amendment requires that. Forcing people to finance religious organizations violates their freedom of speech and economic liberty. (Of course, I oppose forced wealth transfers per se.) But let us grant that the federal Constitution (as now interpreted) does not invalidate the voucher program in question.
The more important language comes from Article IX, Section 7 of the Colorado Constitution:
Neither the general assembly, nor any county, city, town, township, school district or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation, or pay from any public fund or moneys whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian society, or for any sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university or other literary or scientific institution, controlled by any church or sectarian denomination whatsoever...
This is the the most clear, absolutist language I can imagine. It prohibits tax funding of any religious group.
Ah, but you see, that language does not actually mean what is says, so we may simply ignore it. At least that is the upshot of (http://www.ij.org/about/3874) IJ's position:
IJ Senior Attorney Dick Komer said, "This challenge to Douglas County's innovative program will fail for one principal reason: It is parents—and not government officials—who are deciding what school a child attends. No educational money will be spent at any school through this program—be it secular or religious—without a parent making that free and independent choice. The provision of the Colorado Constitution on which the opponents of school choice rely has already been interpreted by the Colorado Supreme Court and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to permit Colorado students to use state-provided financial assistance at religious schools, so long as the program is religiously neutral (meaning it doesn't favor or disfavor religion) and the choice is made by the students and their families. Those who challenge school choice always disparage the key role played by the parents in selecting the schools their children will attend, but the Institute for Justice will defend the parents' rights to choose the best available education for their children."
I have not reviewed the legal decisions invoked by Komer. But the Colorado Constitution does not say that school districts can subsidize religious institutions so long as it's done indirectly through a citizen-directed voucher. Whether or not the courts will allow it, directing vouchers to religious schools obviously violates the Colorado Constitution, and any other reading is convenient legal fiction.
Whether the relevant section of the Colorado Constitution was badly motivated is beside the point legally speaking. We can't just ignore Constitutional provisions because we don't like them. Instead, the proper move for those who dislike the provision is to seek its repeal.
That said, a few years ago (http://www.au.org/media/church-and-state/archives/2002/09/the-blaine-game.html) Rob Boston questioned whether the prohibition of religious subsidies arose from anti-Catholic bigotry, as its opponents allege.
I have not looked deeply into the historical question, because frankly it doesn't much matter to me. Is the Colorado language inherently biased? No, it is not. It does not target one faith, but rather prohibits tax subsidies of all faiths.
The relevant moral question is this: does the prohibition of tax subsidies for religious institutions protect rights or violate them? The obvious answer is that it protects people's rights. People have the right to control their own resources. They have the freedom of conscience, which entails the freedom of speech, which entails the right not to support ideas they oppose. People have the right not to finance religious organizations if they don't want to, and it is wrong to try to force them to.
Now, as I have (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/how-about-school-choice-for-everyone.html) argued, it is also wrong to force people to subsidize nonreligious ideas they oppose, such as the environmental indoctrination so prevalent in today's "public" schools. But the solution to that problem is not to universalize the rights violations! Instead, we should seek to protect individual rights across the board. (See also my article,(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/rethinking-education-tax-credits.html) "Rethinking Education Tax Credits.")
On the PR front, the Independence Institute (II) has released a (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZhhS716dIQ) video to the effect that the voucher funds are useful to students and their families. Well, the same could be argued for the recipients of any subsidy.
While the II and IJ talk about "choice," they forget about the most fundamental choice involved here: the choice of how to spend one's resources. Outside that context, we're merely discussing some alleged "freedom to choose" how to spend other people's money.
Now, Douglas County could start a voucher program that excluded religious schools. But that would also generate some problems. What if a basically religious school nevertheless claims to be secular or nonreligious? Why should religious schools be punted from the program, but not, say, the Al Gore School for Environmental Propaganda, or the Che Guevara School for Socialism?
Vouchers must go in one of two directions. Either they must be neutral to ideology, in which case they force taxpayers to finance institutions they may find abhorrent. Or they must discriminate on the basis of ideology, which is not obviously better.
The third option is to forget about vouchers and focus on establishing real, free-market education.
***
Anonymous commented on July 19, 2011 at 3:02 PM
Hi Ari,
I always thought vouchers as my first step to accomplishing your challenge of creating a free market for education. I figure the competition will create clear winners. These winners will produce educated students, efficiently. Ultimately these better schools will dominate the market. Maybe, just maybe a sensible body of representatives will recognize this success of a nearly free market and take the final plunge. They will say, hey, this is so stream lined and affordable, citizens should just pay for this themselves. We hereby no longer collect or expend revenue for education. I fear the current system moves us the exact opposite direct. Education becomes more bloated and expensive. Government subsidy or insurance are the only way to "fund" education.
Please explain why my first step is not an acceptable first step to free market education. Also please provide your first step. Certainly blogging is a nano start but what type of legislation, (even if it is legislation that deregulates), would you like to see?
Thanks,
Jeff
Anonymous commented on July 19, 2011 at 3:09 PM
Hi Ari,
I forgot to mention this point in my previous post. It is regarding a different area so a separate post may be appropriate. The Colorado Constitution uses the word "sectarian" 3 times when refereeing to prohibited education. I did a quick search on sectarian and there is much disagreement to the actual meaning. Many believe it is not just religion. For example Denver Green School would be considered sectarian when compared to alternate definitions of sectarian. Any education other than core may be sectarian?
Thanks,
Jeff
303 Vodka Joins CO Distilleries
July 20, 2011
I've often thought that a great project would be to interview local business owners and film them producing their goods or services. That's time consuming, which is why I keep hoping somebody else will do it. But at least I talked with a representative from 303 Vodka, a new addition to Colorado's still-young microwdistillery industry. I happened to catch the guy at a liquor store tasting, and we bought the 303 potato whisky because we liked it.
We've come a long way from prohibition (though there's still some progress to be made on that front).
Psychology and Harry Potter's Scar
July 20, 2011
I have a new video out briefly explaining my take on Harry Potter's scar, which connects Harry to Voldemort. We should not view this is some sort of original sin, but instead as our psychological potential to let ourselves be overtaken by bitterness and rage to the point that we betray our values.
Update: On July 13, eSkeptic published my article, (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-07-13/) "Religion in Harry Potter." This week eSkeptic published (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-07-20/) "Harry Potter and Jesus Christ," Tim Callahan's review of Harry Potter Jesus Christ. I will address this later; for now I will say merely that I'm underwhelmed. But read my article and the new one and see what you think.
Check out my book, (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter.
Left and Right Assault Free Speech
July 28, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published July 22, 2011, by Grand Junction Free Press(http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110722/COLUMNISTS/110729984/1021) .
Within a week of Independence Day, representatives of the left and right started lining up to assault free speech and advocate censorship.
On July 7 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bachmann-signs-socially-conservative-pledge-on-homosexuality-marriage/2011/07/08/gIQAxyK43H_story.html) Michele Bachmann, a Republican candidate for president, signed a pledge from the (http://images.minnesotaindependent.com/The-Family-Leader-Presidential-Pledge.pdf) Family Leader to "protect" women from "all forms of pornography." The next day, guests on (http://www.thomhartmann.com/radio) Thom Hartmann's "progressive" radio show called for a Constitutional amendment to censor political speech. God help us if they ever reach a "bipartisan" agreement to gut the First Amendment.
We'll start with Bachmann. The pledge she signed neglects to specify what should be done about pornography. But this is a pledge for candidates, so we can sensibly conclude the intent is to pass laws limiting or outlawing pornography. Moreover, the pledge equates pornography with slavery and the murder of children, and obviously those latter two things should be outlawed. (The pledge also suggests abortion should be banned, but that's the topic for another article.)
The first problem is who gets to decide which naked pictures constitute high art and which get banned as pornographic. For example, R. Crum's illustrated Genesis features a nude Adam and Eve, both looking quite healthy (and neither wearing a fig leaf). Should we ban that?
Pornography can be written text as well as images. Chapter 19 of Genesis features Lot's daughters getting him drunk and then having sex with him. The daughters get pregnant, having sons who go on to found the Moabites and Ammonites.
So who in Bachmann's world gets to decide which sexually explicit images and texts rise to the sacred and which deserve criminal prosecution? What about Playboy? What about romance novels? What about Michelangelo's sculpture of David?
Obviously the government has a legitimate interest in protecting the rights of children, who have not reached the age of consent. But consenting adults properly have the right to engage in whatever behavior they want, free from political interference. Anything short of that standard leads logically to the incremental destruction of individual rights.
While Bachmann deserves the harshest criticism for her frankly idiotic move to sign the pledge, the left's censors deserve even harsher condemnation. They should know better. There was a time in this country when the left actually took free speech seriously. Not anymore.
Hartmann's guests made two recommendations. First, amend the U.S. Constitution such that only registered voters may donate funds to a campaign or issue group, and regional politicians may limit the amount donated. Second, finance all campaigns for public office with tax dollars. Both these measures blatantly violate freedom of speech.
The purpose of the proposed amendment is to prevent corporations and other groups from funding campaigns. But who gets to decide which people are qualified voters? Some people don't register to vote for ideological reasons; do they lose their rights of speech? Apparently seventeen-year-olds lose their rights.
Even if the amendment were (http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110702/COLUMNIST/110709952/-1/SPORTS?p=2&tc=pg) restricted to individuals, rather than qualified voters, it still would violate people's rights. True, as leftists monotonously drone, corporations aren't people. But apparently leftists have neglected to notice that corporations are comprised of people. So are unions. So are educational organizations.
Individuals have the right of free speech, and they have the right to join with others to speak. People don't lose their rights merely by collaborating with others.
Limiting the amount people can give to political causes also violates their rights of free speech as well as property. People have the right to support the speech of their choice, whether by lending a printing press, handing out flyers, or donating money to help somebody else speak. Limiting people's ability to support the speech of their choice constitutes censorship.
What about "publicly" funded campaigns? The freedom of speech entails the right not to speak. If somebody forces you to stand up and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or the Communist Manifesto, or whatever, that violates your rights of free speech. Likewise, forcing people to financially support speech against their will violates their freedom of speech.
An important practical problem is who gets to decide which candidates "deserve" tax dollars. Can just any kook declare to be a candidate and go on the campaign dole? Obviously that wouldn't work, so somebody would be in charge of blessing the "right" candidates with political welfare.
Notice that both Bachmann and Hartmann's guests offer their pretexts for imposing censorship. The religious right often claims that pornography promotes sexual promiscuity and so on. The left claims that money in politics corrupts it.
Censors of all stripes unite in their belief that individuals are just too stupid to make their own decisions, and therefore they need benevolent politicians and bureaucrats to do their thinking for them. No presumption could be more deadly to a free republic.
Apple Phases Out Optical and Magnetic Drives
July 29, 2011
Years ago in school we students plugged standard tape recorders into computers to load programs and save files. (That was a big advancement over the older card systems.) Then came the 5.25 inch floppy, which lasted quite a while, then the 3.5 inch floppy, then the zip disk, with a whopping 100 megabytes of storage!
During the development of the magnetic removable disk, of course, the magnetic hard disk drive also became prominent; today terabyte drives are common and cost less than a hundred bucks.
But removable magnetic disks are not commonly used today. They have been replaced by CD and (a bit more recently) DVD optical drives. It seemed reasonable to think that the trend would continue to higher-capacity optical disks (namely Blu-Ray). But now that seems not to be the case.
What is interesting about Apple's latest design changes is that the company dropped its base-model $999 MacBook, which featured both an optical drive and a hard disk, making its entry-level laptop the MacBook Air, which features neither sort of media. Instead, the Air runs exclusively on flash memory; the entry-level model carries 64 gigs of it. Meanwhile, the entry level $599 Mac Mini dumps the optical drive but keeps a hard drive.
How, then, do you load up software and move around files? The Air is basically an internet-driven machine. Apple has facilitated online software sales with its app store, and later this year it is rolling out its own cloud service for file storage. If you want to move stuff around via physical media, you can plug in a flash drive, optical drive, or hard drive. The computer, then, is going the way of Apple's portable devices in terms of using (primarily) the internet to transfer data, rather than optical or magnetic drives.
Of course, this model kind of sucks if the internet ever comes down or falls under political control.
I realize I'm describing pretty obvious trends; still, sometimes I think it's worth stepping back to observe the breathtaking evolution of technology.
***
Rob commented July 30, 2011 at 10:38 PM
Have you noticed that an entire industry has now sprung up just to make URL's shorter?
Rand, Aristotle, and the 'Flayed Ox'
July 31, 2011
In reading Ayn Rand's essay "The Goal of My Writing" for a reading group, I was struck by the following passage:
There is no dichotomy, no necessary conflict between ends and means. The end does not justify the means—neither in ethics nor in esthetics. And neither do the means justify the end: there is no esthetic justification for the spectacle of Rembrandt's great artistic skill employed to portray a side of beef. ...
Misery, disease, disaster, evil, all the negatives of human existence, are proper subjects of study in life, for the purpose of understanding and correcting them—but are not proper subjects of contemplation for contemplation's sake.(The Romantic Manifesto, pages 166-167)
This got me curious; if I've ever seen that work before, I didn't remember it. Wikipedia features a (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_053.jpg) vivid reproduction of the work.
My own reaction to the work is that it's disturbing, a little gross and unsettling. And, oddly, it's bathed in light. (It is a Rembrandt, after all.)
Interestingly, just a few paragraphs later Rand paraphrases Aristotle: "It was Aristotle who said that fiction is of greater philosophical importance than history, because history represents things only as they are, while fiction represents them 'as they might be and ought to be.'"
But, in looking up the relevant passage in Aristotle's "Poetics," I found another quote equally relevant (see the fourth section, page 2318 of the second volume of the Revised Oxford.) The Philosopher writes:
It is clear that the general origin of poetry was due to two causes, each of them part of human nature. Imitation is natural to man from childhood... And it is natural for all to delight in works of imitation. The truth of this second point is shown by experience: though the objects themselves may be painful to see, we delight to view the most realistic representations of them in art, the forms for example of the lowest animals and of dead bodies. That explanation is to be found in a further fact: to be learning something is the greatest of pleasures not only to the philosopher but also to the rest of mankind...
To Aristotle, then, our appreciation of "still lifes" (or deaths) derives from our love of imitation and learning.
But that pertains only to "the general origin;" what about advanced art? A bit later (section nine, pages 2322-2323) Aristotle offers the discussion invoked by Rand:
From what we have said it will be seen that the poet's function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of think that might happen, i.e., what is possible as being probable or necessary. ... Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars. By a universal statement I mean one as to what such or such a kind of man will probably or necessarily say or do...
I think Aristotle must be right about imitative art; early cave art often features animals. And often budding artists develop their skills by painting scenes around them or even other great works of art. But I think there's something more to a good still life beyond the artist showing his skill and the viewer reflecting on the imitation. Instead, a well-painted apple lets us think about apples in a new way. We see a "universal apple," a presentation of how "such or such a kind of" apple "will probably or necessarily" appear. So good art seems to cross the barrier from sheer imitation to projection.
Does Rembrandt's ox compel us to contemplate the misery of death? Even friendly critics seem to think so. I picked out a couple more or less at random:
(http://www.jessieevans-dongray.com/essays/essay088.html) Rembrandt van Rijn's butchered "Carcass of Beef" (also known as the "Flayed Ox"), 37 x 27, hangs, skinned in a dark shed, dominating the center foreground of the painting. ... Rembrandt has sumptuously developed the planes and forms of what, to most people of his day—and ours—would be merely a dead animal of utilitarian use, a source of physical nourishment... He sees in a dead beef—turns it into—a miracle of artistic beauty, and poetic and spiritual profundity. ... Rembrandt has reached his highest artistic level in this work...
The artist paints this raw and drying thing with the reverence and respect with which he painted all things, including the crucifixion of Christ. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:11040.jpg) [Compare.] For, this painting of a slaughtered ox or beef, hanging upside down in a darkened storeroom, can't help but be likened to a crucifixion, with the spreading rear legs like arms affixed to a cross. ...
He does not back away from death and the idea of dying. In a way, he embraces it here, as if a means of resolving its pain and fear. He has dealt with death in the loss of his first wife, Saskia, and at least two of his children.
And...
[T]he weakness of life and possible death at any moment are linked to the idea of vanitas [emptiness or death]. This stands for ephemerality, and reminded the Dutch people in the seventeenth century of their short and meaningless lives. The motive encourages a morally correct life and shows people that earthly delights are only short lived. The time in heaven after death is all that counts and life should be lived as a preparation for that time. Rembrandt's Slaughtered Ox could be such a vanitas symbol. His painting can clearly be placed in the tradition of paintings with dead oxes and other animals. These carcasses are often combined with the homo bulla motive or other Christian encouragements to live your life like a respectable Christian.
While I think the comparison to the crucifixion is strained, surely there's something to the idea that Rembrandt painted the carcass to contemplate death.
I think we can look at the ox at the imitative and the universal level. At one level, it is a viscerally stunning and richly textured work; though the object is "painful to see, we delight to view" its representation in art (at least in the sense of being fascinated by it). At another level, we think, "Every living thing dies, just like this ox."
While the "vanitas" could be taken in the Christian sense to mean the frailty and angst of a short life, it can also be taken in a more positive, this-worldly sense. As a friend put it succinctly on Facebook, "Always live like you only live once." I think it is worth contemplating death sometimes, for it reminds us to live well.
If an artist painted nothing but works like the flayed ox, that would indicate the problem Rand describes. But a single artwork can take a narrow slice of life, and one that need not be cheery and positive. I recognize the general problem Rand is discussing, but her example doesn't seem to illustrate it well.
How Not to Read Harry Potter
August 1, 2011
I'm in the middle of preparing my notes for a talk on the religious themes of Harry Potter. I came across some material that I thought about citing but that's a bit too goofy to use in the talk. So consider this an outtake.
On her web page, (http://phoenixweasley.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/christian-imagery-in-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-one/) Denise Roper quotes some material from her book, The Lord of the Hallows:
"How in the name of heaven did Harry survive?" asked Professor McGonagall at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. (SS 12) This is the first of many examples of how the language of Christianity is used throughout the series. ... In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Mr. Weasley asks, "Good lord, is it Harry Potter?" (CS 39) Draco refers to Harry as "Saint Potter, the Mudbloods' friend." (CS 223) Dumbledore even leads the Hogwarts students and faculty in "a few of his favorite carols" at Christmastime. (CS 212) In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the manager of Flourish and Blotts says "thank heavens" (PA 53)... and Remus Lupin says "My God." (PA 363) ... In these numerous references and in many others, there is evidence of a belief in the Christian God in the world of Harry Potter. (The Lord of the Hallows pages 69-70) [Various page numbers Roper cites include abbreviations for the relevant Potter book.]
My initial response to that is simply: "Oh my God."
For good measure, Roper adds:
[T]here are jokes about a wizard being "saint-like" or "holy" (George on page 74 [of Deathly Hallows]). That George Weasley would call himself "holy" ("hole-y") refers to his missing ear, which was cursed off during a battle with the Death Eaters. St. George was a Christian saint..."
Sorry, but that's just silly.
To take but one example, Lupin says "My God" when he discovers that Scabbers the rat is actually Peter Pettigrew. Obviously he's using the phrase as an expression of surprise, akin to "unbelievable." We live in a culture with deep Christian roots, so it's not surprising that people often use religious-sounding language in basically non-religious contexts. Tons of people say things like "God damn it," "Jesus Christ," "Christ Almighty," "Lord help us," and so on, when they don't actually intend any religious meaning.
If religious humor is enough to indicate religiosity, then I have a few to tell you about the priest who walks into a bar.
Now, it's true that the mere presence of words like "Christmas" in Rowling's magical world indicates a shared religious tradition with the Muggles. That's not surprising; the stories are set in England, and wizards do not formally segregate themselves from the non-magical Muggle world until 1689 (see page 13 of The Tales of Beedle the Bard.) But the incidental use of Christian language indicates nothing more profound than that.
Roper also makes some valid points about the religious themes in Harry Potter, but, to learn about such topics, you'd do much better to read my essay for eSkeptic, (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-07-13/) "Religion in Harry Potter." Or (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) read my book.
***
Anonymous commented August 2, 2011 at 7:52 AM
Hi Ari,
When viewed through a strict Christian lens, Harry Potter is nothing more than black magic and witchcraft.
Ari commented August 2, 2011 at 8:02 AM
The comment by anonymous is false, for reasons I explain here:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-07-13/
Anonymous commented August 4, 2011 at 7:44 AM
Ari,
According to the Holy Bible, if it is not the Holy Spirit, it is Black Magic.
You pick where Harry gets his power.
Anonymous commented August 4, 2011 at 8:02 AM
Ari,
I followed the link you provided. I read it. You are a good writer however this is no substitute for your lack of Biblical understanding and lack of Biblical Faith. Using David Kopel, a man I know and respect, is no excuse. David's comparison of Harry Potter and CS Lewis is a mistake by David. CS Lewis purposely used subject matter children could relate with, to spread the message of the Holy Bible. The chosen tactics of CS Lewis are questionable as he did have a past with the occult prior to conversion. To compare CS Lewis to Harry Potter implies J.K. Rowling was also using an understandable subject matter to transport the Christian doctrine. David Kopel and his comparison are irrelevant and misleading. Shame on David.
As an avid reader of the Holy bible, I can say this. God is incredibly possessive. If it does not originate with Him and glorify Him, it is from the dark one. In Gods Eyes, there is no in-between.
Ari commented August 4, 2011 at 9:21 AM
... and I think "anonymous" has successfully self-parodied!
antiplanner commented June 21, 2012 at 9:21 AM
So automobiles, computers, and refrigerators, none of which "originated with Him," must all be from "the dark one."
Using the iPod Touch for Speech Notes
August 2, 2011
Earlier this evening I used my iPod Touch to help deliver a talk about religion in Harry Potter. (I'll release a video and article about this soon.) I scrolled through my prepared notes on the Touch screen, and that worked very well.
I couldn't find a good application for the purpose. So I just emailed myself the notes for the talk (a friend helped me sync my mail for the Touch), then cut-and-pasted the notes into the built-in Notes program. The only mistake I made was to leave some hotlinks in the text; Notes annoyingly opens up the web browser if you accidentally touch a link (which I did once, causing a brief pause in my presentation).
I liked the Touch much more than paper. You don't have to shuffle papers or change pages, and the Touch is very small and easy to hold without interfering with gestures. It's easy to change hands, too.
But there are a few things I don't like about using the Notes program for this purpose. As noted, the possibility of hitting a hotlink creates a problem. In addition, if you touch the screen just wrong, the software thinks you want to select a block of text, which is disruptive when trying to deliver a talk. If you tip the Touch, it converts the text to the horizontal format, which I did not want. Finally, while Notes displays a clock at top, far better would be a timer. It's hard to remember the start time and figure the total elapsed time when you're concentrating on the material of the talk.
Obviously this opens up the possibility of some clever programmer developing and selling me the type of application I'm describing. To summarize, such an app would offer the following features:
* A timer prominently displayed on part of the screen.
* The rest of the screen devoted to the notes for the talk.
* Easy thumb-tapping to change pages or scrolling (user's choice).
* The ability to import pdf files or cut-and-paste straight text.
* No disruptions involving hotlinks, text selection, or screen reformatting with the gravity sensor.
Let me know when you're ready to sell this to me, and I'll gladly buy it (for a reasonable price). Until then, Notes works adequately for the purpose.
***
Robin E. commented August 22, 2011 at 4:36 PM
I want this app too. I would use it for teaching, for workshops, for agendas for meetings, and other stuff too (yeah, I'm kind of busy...). I was just googling if such an app already exists and hit this blog. For now I'm sticking with emailing myself my notes in pdf format, but what you describe would work much better.
The only think I would add would be a check box for every point or paragraph or whatever, so I could check each thing as I cover it and then can easily find my place again when I've rambled off on a tangent.
Ari commented August 22, 2011 at 4:44 PM
Keynote seems to do much of this; however, it is too beefy for my preferences, plus I'm not sure it does at good job at the basics I describe. But I haven't tried it.
Lamborn Strikes the "Tar Baby" Tar Baby
August 2, 2011
What's amazing about the phrase "tar baby" (as others have noted) is that in today's world of political character assassination a politician strikes a tar baby merely by uttering the phrase.
Just ask Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn. As of the moment of this writing, the top Google hit for "tar baby" is a USA Today article, (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/08/barack-obama-tar-baby-doug-lamborn-apologize-/1?csp=34news) "GOP lawmaker apologizes to Obama for 'tar baby' remark."
Here's what he actually said regarding the debt-ceiling debate, reports the Denver Post's (http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_18598273) Allison Sherry: "Now, I don't even want to be associated with him. It's like touching a, a tar baby and you get it . . . you know you're stuck, and you're part of the problem now, and you can't get away."
Lamborn quickly apologized for using the phrase. But that hasn't stopped the left from blistering Lamborn.
Because she is an expert in linguistic analysis, Sherry helpfully adds, "Though the term is often defined as a sticky situation, it carries some historic usages that are racially insensitive."
According to (http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/08/01/doug_lamborn_tar_baby/) David Sirota, "Lamborn's choice of words shows how the fringe right is mainstreaming racist language."
As Westword's (http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/08/doug_lamborn_barack_obama_tar_baby_racist_harmless.php) Michael Roberts reviews, even the free-market Wayne Laugesen says Lamborn shouldn't have used the phrase.
But what does "tar baby" actually mean, and is it racist? Or (as usual) is the hard left manufacturing outrage to smear a Republican officeholder for partisan purposes?
The Wikipedia entry is actually useful here. It notes a tar baby entraps "Br'er Rabbit" in the classic story. But that's hardly the origin of the symbol.
Wikipedia also references Joseph Campbell, and thankfully I happen to have a copy of his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces on my desk. On page 87, Campbell describes "the celebrated and well-nigh universal tar-baby story of popular folklore." Cambell in turn references a 1930 article by (http://www.jstor.org/pss/534999) Aurelio Espinosa and some other works.
Here's how (http://www.jstor.org/pss/535912) Espinosa opens his 1943 follow-up article:
In my Notes on the Origin and History of the Tar-Baby Story... I examined and studied one hundred and fifty-two versions of the tale. In subsequent articles I have continued to affirm my belief in the India origins of the tale in the sense that India is as far back as we can trace it, and that it is not of African origin as some have believed. I have now in my possession two hundred and sixty-seven versions...
No doubt the term "tar baby" has been used by some with racist intent. But obviously Lamborn does not fall in that category. And lots of ordinary words and phrases have been used to convey bigotry, but that doesn't mean we must eradicate all that language. Rather, we should seek to eradicate the underlying bigotry, where it exists.
A "tar baby" in its oldest and widest use means simply something that entraps you if you start to fight or mess with it. It is now the perfect self-referential phrase.
But is Sirota right that Lamborn's use of the term "shows how the fringe right is mainstreaming racist language?"
Well, let's look at some other examples.
In (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1221764,00.html) 2004 John Kerry, that veritable champion of the "fringe right," used the phrase (and took flak for it).
On August 31, 2003, the Denver Post's hard-left columnist Jim Spencer wrote, "Last week, those same leaders started looking to the United Nations to pull them free of a Middle Eastern tar baby."
On July 3, 2006, the Denver Post's center-left columnist Bob Ewegen wrote, "Mighty clever fox, that Brer Owens seems to be. First, he appears to sucker Brer Romanoff into tangling with that political tar baby, 'immigration.'"
On March 9, 2002, the often-left-leaning Denver Post editorial board wrote, "When the House Civil Justice and Judiciary Committee voted 7-2 on Thursday against creating a special panel with subpoena powers to investigate Columbine, it was only the latest public agency to decline hugging this tar-baby issue." On April 14, 2002, it wrote, "Meantime, a parade of public officials has pirouetted out of the path of a tar baby they'd rather not dance with..."
Over at the left-leaning Westword, the term has been used by (http://www.westword.com/1997-03-06/news/nightmare-on-the-net/full) Alan Prendergast (and (http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2009/12/the_top_ten_feuds_of_the_decade.php) again) and editor (http://www.westword.com/2001-07-26/news/what-a-circus/) Patricia Calhoun.
(Update: Here's another little irony: while Sirota wrote his screed forSolon, another left-leaning writer, (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1997/10/08/news) David Corn, used the term "tar baby" in an article for Salon several years ago.)
So I'll go ahead and hold my breath waiting for Sirota to denounce Joseph Cambell, Jim Spencer, Bob Ewegen, the Denver Post, Alan Prendergast, and Patricia Calhoun for helping the "fringe right" mainstream "racist language."
Or he could just stop smearing Republicans over make-believe issues.
***
Wayne Laugesen commented August 3, 2011 at 11:31 AM:
Great column, Ari. You nailed it, as usual.—Wayne Laugesen
Amie commented August 4, 2011 at 1:01 PM
The difference between the incidents given is that it was used towards a person of color not a situation. To refer to a man as a "tar baby" is different than referring to a particular situation as a tar baby. Big difference!!
Ari commented August 4, 2011 at 1:03 PM
Amie, You are simply misstating what Lamborn actually said. Please see my follow-up: http://bit.ly/oK016g
Anonymous commented August 4, 2011 at 1:34 PM
This is a copy of my letter to Wayne and it applies to you too Ari: Wayne, Your comment about the 3 little pigs is far reaching. Tar baby is and was a derogative term used against people of color. It's a term used to belittle them and encourage hatred. You can continue attempting to defend Mr. Lamborn or you can fess up and admit that such a mean spirited term easily rolling of his tongue is unacceptable.
The fact that others have used it doesn't make it the right thing to do. You know that.
In today's climate of increasing hate and acceptance of bigotry any and all innuendos, whether intentional or not need to be stopped immediately.
Pat Hill
Ari commented August 4, 2011 at 1:39 PM
Pat, Your claims are complete nonsense, and they reveal a basic ignorance about the origins of the tar baby. The tar baby is an African folktale! Please read my two follow-up articles:
http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/moveon-smears-lamborn-for-invoking.html
http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/more-on-african-roots-of-tar-baby-motif.html
Amie commented August 4, 2011 at 2:13 PM
Ari—you are going to defend him regardless of the IMPACT that was felt. Please google Intent vs. IMPACT? It is the IMPACT that matters.
"Even if some people say, 'Well the Republicans should have done this or they should have done that,' they will hold the President responsible. Now, I don't even want to have to be associated with him. It's like touching a tar baby and you get it, you're stuck, and you're a part of the problem now and you can't get away.—He was using the term to describe President Obama not a certain situation. And why is MR. Lamborn deleting comments from his Facebook page?
Ari commented August 4, 2011 at 2:16 PM
Amie, Your argument is again complete nonsense. If it's "the impact that matters," then the logical course would be to repeal the First Amendment. What matters is motivation. In your reading of Lamborn's comments, you are conveniently neglecting the terms "stuck" and "the problem." I imagine that if Lamborn's staffers are deleting Facebook comments, its because some posters are libeling the guy. -Ari
Anonymous commented August 4, 2011 at 2:26 PM
Ari,
You missed the entire point of my email—which being—the term is used negatively. The roots of the term are irrelevant. It's the current conception of the word that is. Even the N word wasn't quite the connotation that it is today. You are trying to find excuses for it and there just aren't any. Pat (and please, I don't call you words nonsense, irregardless of what I think of them, I'd appreciate the same courtesy).
Ari commented August 4, 2011 at 2:32 PM
Pat, In calling your arguments nonsense, I am making a factual assessment, and one I stand by. The roots of the term are extremely relevant, for they reveal that the racist misuse of the term is an aberration based on fundamental ignorance of the folklore. As I've indicated, the real problem is obliterating important African folklore simply because a few idiots abuse it. And, as my examples make clear, the term has been widely used in its proper meaning up to the present day. (Please note that I may decline to continue posting back-and-forth that does not significantly advance the debate.)
James Howald commented August 4, 2011 at 2:55 PM
When I taught composition to freshmen at USC, it was always a struggle to get them to accept that the associations their audience would bring to their choice of words was every bit as important as what they meant when they wrote them. A skilled communicator considers connotation as well as denotation, even though connotation may be more slippery. Lamborn's statement was a mistake because it got people talking not about his point but about his personality and his choice of words. He failed to get the spotlight on Obama, and directed it at himself instead. If you are in public life, you need to able to manage the discussion. Lamborn made a rookie error, although he's no rookie at this point.
Anonymous commented August 4, 2011 at 3:02 PM
The term has also been used even more widely as a racial slur. The existence of one (literature) does not negate the existence of the other (racial slur). They both "are," and both are valid.
If Lamborn was giving a presentation on literature and used the term, no foul. But the fact is, Lamborn used it from his podium as a US legislator to describe our Black President.
Lamborn is a duly-elected representative of his district and constituents, which include not only readers of Br'er Rabbit but also African-Americans. He failed to fulfill his obligations to all. He offended his consituents. Period.
Ignorance is not an excuse, nor do I personally buy that he didn't know exactly what he was saying. Racial code words abound since we have elected a Black President. But I digress.
Bottom line: Lamborn should have known better. Is ignorance of a racial slur an excuse to use it? Not at all. Just like ignorance of the law is not an excuse to break that law.
Using Lamborn's logic, the same would be true of this scenario:
Lamborn runs a red light, seriously harming a pedestrian. It was unfortunate, yes; intentional, no. He should not be held accountable as he wasn't aware that running a red light was against the law. And further, "If there's reasonable people, they'll know this was totally unintentional on my part."
Although mighty creative, Lamborn's argument is laughable. And I'm sure Lamborn even in his lawyer days, having presented that argument, would have been laughed right out of court. And the Judge, being a reasonable guy, wouldn't give two bits that Lamborn felt he was being "unreasonable."
Ari commented August 4, 2011 at 3:06 PM
The claim that Lamborn called Obama a tar baby is simply a lie, and I will not post any additional such lies on this page.
Anonymous's analogy to striking a pedestrian with a car is so strained, so ridiculous, that it demands no rebuttal.
Ari commented August 4, 2011 at 3:29 PM
Please allow me to soften the above comment. I've carefully explained why the claim that Lamborn called Obama a tar baby takes Lamborn's actual statement out of context (again, observe the words "stuck" and "the problem"). Given I've done that, I'm really not interested in posting additional comments here that continue to take Lamborn's comments out of context. I really do need to extricate myself from the "tar baby" tar baby at some point! But I apologize for coming across as overly heated, and I do appreciate people reading my posts, even (or perhaps I should say especially) when they disagree. Our mutual goal should be to reach valid conclusions through reasoned review and debate.
Anonymous commented August 4, 2011 at 4:03 PM
Analyzing Lamborn's remarks from an English grammar point of view: I don't even want to be associated with him. It's like touching a, a tar baby. The word "him" in this sentence refers back to President Obama, and "a, a tar baby" refers back to "him" which refers back to President Obama. If any of the White, male presidential candidates in 2008 were president now, Do you think Lamborn would have chosen that phrase, "tar baby"? Neither do I. Just as we no longer refer to "Little Black Sambo", "tar baby" is passé. And actually I'm beginning to think that only men and/or politicians use this term. I have NEVER heard it in conversation--except when I lived in the Detroit area where it was used by Whites as a racial slur along with the word "Sambo".
Ari commented August 4, 2011 at 5:46 PM
Dear Anonymous, Why do you think it's remotely fair to quote only part of Lamborn's comments? In context, he obviously means the tar baby remark to refer to getting "stuck" in "the problem." As is abundantly obvious to anyone who has given a live presentation, it is impossible to always state all of one's points with absolute, crystal clarity. That is simply the nature of extemporaneous speaking.
Why are you so determined to take Lamborn's quotation in the worst possible light? Those who assume, without evidence, that Lamborn is a racist simply want to see Republicans as racists, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will persuade them.
As to how you've heard the term used, that reveals nothing about the essential meaning of it. But, for what it's worth, I've never personally heard the term used with racial overtones, and I've offered numerous examples of it being used in its legitimate meaning.
Thanks, -Ari
Anonymous commented August 5, 2011 at 7:08 AM
Schizophrenics often suffer from paranoid delusions. They see things that don't exist.
We need a new term, racialphrenics. Basically a type of schizophrenia in which the victim sees racism when it does not exist. Characterized by a hyper sensitivity to their surrounding resulting in racial delusions.
Anonymous commented August 5, 2011 at 9:27 PM
Seems like some folk's day just isn't complete till they've been offended....just say'n.
Anonymous commented August 6, 2011 at 1:57 PM
Ari perhaps you have not studied black history. Hot tar was poured over slaves and then they were covered with feathers and displayed to the rest of the plantation to invoke terror. The term "tar baby" invokes memories of this practice and should not be used toward any black person let alone the President of the United States.
RUKM commented August 6, 2011 at 5:50 PM
Ari,
Thanks for your in-depth study of the origin and use of "tar baby". I appreciate it. Of course, Lamborn was referring to the debt-ceiling "crisis" and not to a person. But, don't expect any logic from the fringe left!
Ari commented August 8, 2011 at 7:56 AM
Tar and feathers is most associated with upstart colonialists targeting disfavored public officials. Clearly it is not an inherently racist term. And, obviously, tarring and feathering has nothing to do with a tar baby. Or should we simply ban tar and its term?
MoveOn Smears Lamborn for Invoking African Tar Baby Folklore
August 3, 2011
It seems that the phrase "tar baby" has become something of a tar baby for me as well. Yesterday I waded into the debate over Congressman(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/lamborn-strikes-tar-baby-tar-baby.html) Lamborn's use of "tar baby." (http://www.khow.com/pages/boyles.html) Peter Boyles read the piece and invited me on to his radio show to discuss the matter tomorrow at 7 am. So, in preparation, I'll do some more poking around (despite my busy schedule).
It seems like I should be spending my time addressing our nation's crushing debt, the high unemployment rate, (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) Lamborn's ties with the hard anti-abortion right, or any other real issue. Lamborn's use of the phrase "tar baby" is an issue only because of the pathological codependency between the left's outrage mongers and their lap dogs in the sensationalist media. In a sane world, in which the left focused on issues instead of character assassination, and the media devoted its resources to reporting real news, Lamborn's comment never would have raised a blip.
Yet I poke another limb into the "tar baby" tar baby here. In doing so, I draw inspiration from an oriental tale in the ancient tar-baby or stickfast motif about Prince Five-weapons. The story is recounted by Joseph Campbell on pages 86-88 of his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In this story the tar baby is an ogre. After failing to smite the ogre with arrows and other weapons, the prince "struck the ogre with his right hand. His hand stuck right to the ogre's hair." The prince proceeded to stick each of his limbs into the ogre, then finally the prince landed a blow with his head, getting that stuck as well.
The ogre is impressed by the prince's bravery, thinking him "some man of noble birth... [f]or although he has been caught by an ogre like me, he appears neither to tremble nor to quake!" The ogre asks the youth why he is not afraid.
The prince answers:
Ogre, why should I be afraid? for in one life one death is absolutely certain. What's more, I have in my belly a thunderbolt for weapon. If you eat me, you will not be able to digest that weapon. It will tear your insides into tatters and fragments and will kill you. In that case we'll both perish. That's why I'm not afraid!"
The ogre releases the prince. So let's see if we might find a thunderbolt or two.
(http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/08/01/doug_lamborn_tar_baby/) David Sirota's position is that "tar baby" is "an obviously racist term." (He uses this term writing this for the publication Salon, which has also featured an article with left-leaning commentator (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1997/10/08/news) David Corn using the term "tar baby.") But, according to Sirota, Lamborn's use of the term is especially bad "because he explicitly used the term to describe a black person."
Is Sirota's claim true? No. It is obvious from context that Lamborn is referring to the "problem" of the debt-ceiling controversy. He is definitely not saying that Obama is a "tar baby" because he is black, and to pretend otherwise is to libel Lamborn. In his original comment, Lamborn used the word "stuck," clearly invoking the historically correct (as opposed to the racist) usage of the term "tar baby."
Let us pause to note how the left is helping to destroy the very democratic openness it claims to champion by employing the tactics of smear, slander, and character assassination. If we want our elected officials and candidates to speak openly with their constituents, then we can't try to crucify them for innocently using an innocuous phrase.
As I've (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/lamborn-strikes-tar-baby-tar-baby.html) reviewed, the cultural origins of the tar-baby motif are very old, very widespread, and very diverse. Back in the '40s Aurelio Espinosa found the oldest examples to come from India.
Obviously "tar baby" as an English phrase originated in the English-speaking world, and it was the term first used by African slaves to describe a legend from old African folklore. The "tar baby" story originated in Africa, and it was brought to the United States by slaves. So the notion that invoking African folklore inherently reveals racism against African Americans is frankly absurd. One might as well claim that wearing African-style scarves is racist.
Here's how (http://www.timbooktu.com/addo/brerabbt.htm) Peter Addo describes the origins:
Most of the Stories referred to as Brer Rabbit are actually Anasne Stories brought to the Americas by the African American Slaves introduced here Centuries ago. In an attempt to keep their Culture alive in this Strange and forbidden place they found themselves, they tried against all odds to keep alive the few songs and stories about the homeland they would never see again. It was something they could remember and so they held on to the Ananse the Wise Trickster figure they were all familiar with from the Land of their birth.
Here the act of Story Telling was a very important part of their Lives since it was by this Oral Tradition that History was kept alive and transmitted from one generation to another. Secondly all the Ananse Stories ended with Specific Messages, Morals or Advice, Proverbs or a Very Wise Saying. What they had then was an Instrument of transmitting Knowledge, Morals, Ethical Values, and an Instrument of sharing but also Preserving their Common Values in a new Land. Thus the very close similarity between the Ananse Stories of Africa and the Brer Rabbit Stories.
A review in (http://www.usatoday.com/life/enter/books/leb268.htm) USA Today -- another paper now lashing Lamborn—refers to "the tar baby in Afro-American folklore."
In his autobiography, (http://www.bartleby.com/55/1.html) President Theodore Roosevelt writes that his uncle Robert Roosevelt wrote of the "Br'er Rabbit" story before Joel Chandler Harris popularized it with Uncle Remus. I haven't been able verify Roosevelt's claim about the publication of the work, but his comments make clear that the stories predated Harris. (I used Wikipedia to help run down some of these links.)
Even those critical of Harris's work recognize the African origins of the stories. Consider this 2009 commentary by the (http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2009-10-28-atlanta-wrens-nest_N.htm) Associated Press:
[B]lack authors like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker—who was born in Harris' hometown of Eatonton—- have denounced the author and say he stole the stories unjustly. ... For Curtis Richardson, who is one of several regular storytellers who perform at the Wren's Nest, being black in a museum that celebrates such a controversial body of work can be tough. Richardson said he refused to tell Harris' version of Tar Baby stories until he researched their roots back to West Africa and the Caribbean. Now he tells the older versions as a way to honor the stories' heritage and skip the modern associations with racism.
Turning to (http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2306/pg2306.txt) "The Wonderful Tar Baby Story," Harris himself supposes that the story originated in Africa. (We may note that in his introduction Harris uses race-loaded language properly off-limits today.)
The premise of the story (in Harris's account) is that a fox is trying to catch a rabbit. The fox mixes tar and turpentine and fashions it into a "tar baby," a sort of mannequin. Note that the important characteristic of tar is that it is sticky, not that it is black. The rabbit ambles by and, thinking the tar baby is a real person, wishes it a good morning. Of course the tar baby fails to reply. The rabbit mistakes this as rudeness and grows irritated. Incensed, the rabbit strikes the tar baby, getting entangled with it. Interestingly, the story ends on an ambiguous note; Uncle Remus says the story has no ending. Maybe somebody helped free the rabbit, but maybe not.
So what is the theme of the story? The rabbit makes two basic mistakes. First, he misconceives the nature of what he's dealing with. As a consequence, he develops totally unrealistic expectations regarding that thing. In misplaced anger, he lashes out, becoming ensnared by the thing.
Interestingly, the story is a perfect metaphor for those calling the tar baby inherently racist. They fundamentally misunderstand what a tar baby is. They lash out in anger over an innocent use of the term. And now they are ensnared in a controversy that makes them look like illiterate partisan hacks.
If we take the story as metaphor for the racist American South, then the most sensibly reading is that the rabbit represents the African American, while the tar baby represents a trick by white oppressors. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%27er_Rabbit) (Wikipediasuggests this reading.)
How, then, did the term "tar baby" get caught up with racist overtones? Quite simply that comes from ignorant and illiterate racists fundamentally misunderstanding what a "tar baby" is. But surely we ought not let ignorant racists destroy a meaningful story from African folklore!
The basic mistake is to think that "tar baby" refers, not to a sticky and ensnaring problem, but to a black person. Consider, for example, the existence (pathetically, still on the market today) of (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-11-18-ebay-racial-terms_x.htm) "tar baby soap."(http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/excerpts/2003-04-29-maybe-you-never_x.htm) Bernie Mac, the brilliant comedic actor who sadly died in 2008, wrote of his childhood, "Kids called me 'tar baby,' 'spooky juice.' I was scary."
There is nothing inherently racist about the African concept of the tar baby. The racist overtones arise only from sheer ignorance. Again, I decline to let ignorant bafoons ruin a perfectly good cultural symbol.
Of course, none of the background about the tar baby matters to the hysterical left. Participants with the hard-left (http://www.gazette.com/articles/office-122500-lamborn-rally.html) MoveOn protested at Lamborn's office. One fellow said Lamborn should be tossed in the briar patch—because apparently it's racist for Lamborn to invoke African folklore but perfectly acceptable for his critics to do the same.
I wonder why MoveOn declined to protest the Denver Post or Westwordwhen left-leaning writers for those papers used the term "tar baby." (See(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/lamborn-strikes-tar-baby-tar-baby.html) yesterday's post for details.)
Unthinking critics have created an unfortunate feedback loop. (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1221764,00.html) John Kerry, Mitt Romney, and (http://www.usatoday.com/news/elections/2007-03-16-2797894945_x.htm) John McCain have all used the term "tar baby." The two Republicans apologized for it. But the journalists covering these stories apparently have never bothered to wonder whether they actually had anything to apologize for. But now it's a tradition: if you're a Republican and you innocently say "tar baby," that makes you a racist and you must immediately apologize. And never mind the facts.
Well, I say the true racism is to smother references to important African folklore in an attempt smear political opponents.
***
Anonymous comments on August 4, 2011 at 7:42 AM:
Ari,
I appreciate your precise approach to this issue. You have definitely honed your sword. Great research. Joseph Campbell has been played and replayed on PBS. The left must approve of his tar-baby definition.
You have also brilliantly illustrated how the left has us all sidetracked on non-issues.
The left, including Sirota and his ilk, are hyper sensitive. They see racism everywhere, even when it does not exist.I do believe there is a pill for this condition of hyper racial sensitivity and other delusions.
For the good of humanity, maybe Sirota should find a new career rather than pedaling snake-oil? The problem with this type of distracting snake-oil is that it is poisonous.
Jeff
Anonymous comments September 19, 2011 at 1:37 PM"
funny... for quite a while I've been calling out Sirota on a variety of topics for his "snake oil" sales tricks and rhetorical spins. Thought I was the first and only, but evidently not.
More on the African Roots of the Tar Baby Motif
August 4, 2011
Yesterday I wrote an (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/moveon-smears-lamborn-for-invoking.html) article blasting the left for smearing Congressman Doug Lamborn for using the term "tar baby," a reference to African folklore.
This morning (http://www.khow.com/pages/boyles.html) Peter Boyles invited me on his show (630 KHOW) for an hour to discuss the matter; see the (http://www.khow.com/cc-common/podcast/single_page.html?more_page=&podcast=fullshow_boyles&selected_podcast=08042011PETE7A.mp3) online recording.
On the air, Boyles mentioned the African "gum baby" as a precursor to the American "tar baby." (The original sort of tar was made from pine pitch and so closely related to gum.) I thought I'd track this down.
Google pointed me to a Kansas publication The Pitch, where (http://www.pitch.com/2002-01-24/calendar/along-came-a-spider/) Gina Kaufman writes:
While coauthoring African Tales of Anansiwith her father, Mackey discovered "Anansi and the Gum Doll," the African ancestor of Joel Chandler Harris' "Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby." The dialect written into the Brer Rabbit stories is actually a remnant of the oral tradition of Ghana, and the wiley Brer Rabbit is the descendant of a trickster spider...
This tipped me off to the book, Framing Identities: Autobiography and the Politics of Pedagogy. That work (by Wendy Hesford) states the following (page 170):
The tar-baby image appropriates an African folktale. The basic elements of the tale are that a trickster approaches a figure made of tar, rubber, orj some other sticky substance. The trickster speaks to the figure and holds it until it can be apprehended. Versions of this folktale have been reported from the Guinea coast area, the Congo, and Angola, and are repeated throughout Africa. See, for example, "Anansi and the Gum Doll" and "Brer Rabbit" (Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend).
I see that book remains for sale, though I'd have to buy a bound copy to read it. But, by now, the fact that the tar baby story comes from African folklore is incontestable.
Yes, Let's Do Throw Lamborn In the Briar Patch
August 4, 2011
(http://www.gazette.com/articles/office-122500-lamborn-rally.html) John Schroyer writes the following about MoveOn's protest of Congressman Doug Lamborn for saying "tar baby:" ''Let's throw him in the briar patch!' one man yelled, to the amusement of the crowd."
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/moveon-smears-lamborn-for-invoking.html) Initially I was struck by the oddity of Lamborn's critics invoking the same African folklore for which they were lambasting Lamborn.
But, returning to (http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2306/pg2306.txt) Joel Chandler Harris's version of the stories which he picked up from the African oral tradition, it struck me that throwing Lamborn in the briar patch is precisely the right move.
Let us recall that, in the tar baby story, the fox captures the rabbit in the sticky tar-baby trap. The story ends on an ambiguous note; the audience is left wondering whether the fox eats the rabbit.
But a bit latter on we learn that the rabbit outsmarts the fox, true to the trickster form of the rabbit (often a spider in Africa). The rabbit begs the fox not to throw him in the briar patch. But in fact that's precisely where the rabbit wants to end up! When, wrongly thinking the action will greatly harm the rabbit, the fox throws him in, the rabbit runs free.
So throw Lamborn in the briar patch! That is after all the only just conclusion to this sad saga.
See also:
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/more-on-african-roots-of-tar-baby-motif.html) More on the African Roots of the Tar Baby Motif
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/moveon-smears-lamborn-for-invoking.html) MoveOn Smears Lamborn for Invoking African Tar Baby Folklore
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/lamborn-strikes-tar-baby-tar-baby.html) Lamborn Strikes the "Tar Baby" Tar Baby
I'll Rejoin the ACLU When It Stops Promoting Tax Hikes
August 5, 2011
I used to be a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. No, I do not agree with everything the organization does, but often it does some good work in terms of sticking up for the rights of free speech and for those abused by government agents.
But when the Colorado (http://www.freecolorado.com/2005/04/aclnot.html) ACLU promoted a tax hike in 2005, that was too much. Not only was the issue far outside the ACLU's mission, but forcibly transferring wealth violates people's liberty. No, I don't expect the leftists running the ACLU to defend economic liberty, but I do expect them not to attack it.
Since I dropped my membership, the ACLU has sent me numerous "final membership renewal statements." (It doesn't seem to quite get the idea of what "final" means.) I'm confident the ACLU has now spent more money mailing me these statements than I ever contributed to the organization.
I've written to the ACLU, explaining the conditions on which I will rejoin, but apparently my letters have been tossed in the trash (which is where I'll toss the latest renewal plea). Just as soon as the ACLU pledges not to support future tax hikes, I'll rejoin the group.
You guys at the ACLU obviously know how to reach me.
Corporations Aren't People, So Stop Taxing Them
August 8, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published August 5, 2011, by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110805/COLUMNISTS/110809986/) Grand Junction Free Press.
Imagine if you and your spouse individually paid income tax, then you had to pay a separate tax on the same income as a family unit. That would be insanely unjust double-taxation, right?
It is equally unjust to tax corporations. If governments must resort to taxation (and frankly we're not even persuaded on that point), they should tax only individuals, not groups. Notably, eliminating corporate taxes would jumpstart the struggling economy, something none of Obama's tax-and-spend interventions has done.
We readily concede the left's tireless mantra: "Corporations aren't people." Families aren't people, either. However, both are composed of people, of individuals with rights.
In a family, two adults voluntarily agree to live together (usually), join their resources (at least partly), support each other, and possibly raise children. In a corporation, many individuals voluntarily pool some of their resources for some productive venture. You don't lose your rights (or gain new ones) by joining a corporation any more than you do by getting married.
Ironically, it is the left that actually tends to treat corporations as though they were people. According to the typical leftist smears, a corporation is some soulless monster, a will unto its own, symbolized by a sinister cigar-smoking exploiter in a black hat. The left reifies the corporation—treats it as a concrete entity under its own motive power.
In reality, a corporation is an abstraction describing an organization of people who come together for a specific purpose. Within a business corporation, many individuals invest in a large-scale operation and hire directors to run it.
Here our focus is on the competitive business corporation. There are many other sorts of corporations; for example, the City of Grand Junction is a type of corporation. Historically, English law granted corporations the political power to forcibly block competitors, but that's not the common meaning today.
Obviously we oppose all political favoritism that lets corporations (or individuals) forcibly damage competitors, gain tax subsidies and "bailouts," or otherwise violate individual rights. (We're talking about real rights, not the made-up "rights" promoted by the left to seize or control other people's resources.)
With that background, we can turn to matters of taxation. Title 39, Article 22 of the Colorado statutes imposes a 4.63 percent tax on "C corporations," the most common type. And the federal government imposes taxes as high as 35 percent, "the world's highest corporate-tax rate," (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12716) Cato's Richard Rahn recently lamented.
Among the many benefits that would result from eliminating all corporate income taxes, the most important would be to spur the American economy. (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/investment-flows-and-corporate-taxes/) Chris Edwards, another writer for Cato, summarizes, "A lower corporate rate would boost domestic investment, which in turn would generate more jobs and higher wages and incomes."
Why? Without burdensome taxes, businesses would flock to the United States and pour more money into the economy. Today U.S. politicians drive companies offshore, then demonize them for fleeing political oppression. Without politicians siphoning off their profits, businesses would invest more in building up and expanding their productive capabilities, creating more and better jobs.
And consider the resources saved in compliance costs. Today, corporations must navigate the conflicting and inherently ambiguous state tax laws, then hire lobbyists to try to protect themselves from (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/economy/03rates.html) federal tax abuse. Through so-called "loopholes," different businesses pay different net tax rates. The result is massive productive potential squandered appeasing and dodging politicians and tax bureaucrats.
Eliminating taxes on groups would hardly eliminate them on the individuals in those groups. Corporate executives would still pay income tax on their earnings, as would all the individual employees of the business and all shareholders earning dividends. The difference is they wouldn't be subject to unjust and economically damaging double-taxation.
Another benefit to eliminating corporate taxes would be to end the social engineering of the Internal Revenue Service. Today, politically favored corporations pay no income taxes. They're called 501(C)(3) corporations, or nonprofits. The problem is that politicians and tax bureaucrats get to decide which groups qualify and which do not.
The result is the absurd spectacle of partisan "nonprofit" groups, including many churches and think-tanks, pretending to be "nonpartisan" for tax purposes. The tax code promotes rampant dishonesty and political gaming within the nonprofit world. Much better would be to tax individual employees of all groups at the same rates.
The government should not be in the businesses of punishing some groups more than others with higher tax burdens. Instead, the government should treat all individuals, and all groups of individuals, equally under the law. Eliminating corporate taxes would substantially promote that goal.
Corporations aren't people. Politicians should stop taxing them as if they were. Eliminate corporate taxes to promote economic growth and basic legal fairness.
***
Anonymous commented January 25, 2012 at 4:40 PM:
This is a very nice article. I would add, as an example of unfairness, the fact that some health insurance organizations, such as Blue-Cross/Blue-Shield are treated as non-profits, while others are treated as for-profits when there is scarcely a hairs width of difference between them. The result is that BCBS has been very successful in dominating the insurance marketplace, reducing choice and competition.
-- Darrell
Ari Armstrong commented January 25, 2012 at 4:42 PM:
The entire distinction between "profit" and "nonprofit" is largely a creation of the federal income tax. In a free market, there could be a nonprofit designation, but that would be a contract between an organization's leaders and its contributors. There would be no artificial political favoritism of some organizations over others.
Lamborn's "Tar Baby" Saga Continues
August 8, 2011
As of the moment of this writing, the story topping the Denver Post's "Denver & the West" section is yet another (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18637788) Associated Press hit piece against Congressman Doug Lamborn for saying "tar baby."
The AP repeats an outright lie and a distortion. The lie is that Lamborn called Barack Obama a tar baby. He did not. He used the term tar baby to refer to getting "stuck" in "the problem" of the debt-ceiling negotiations. The distortion is that the term is "racially denigrating" and therefore taboo. While some ignoramuses have abused the term, its origins is African folklore, and it refers to a sticky mannequin. For details, see my reviews:
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/moveon-smears-lamborn-for-invoking.html) "MoveOn Smears Lamborn for Invoking African Tar Baby Folklore"
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/more-on-african-roots-of-tar-baby-motif.html) "More on the African Roots of the Tar Baby Motif"
The AP's story appears in the very paper whose (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/lamborn-strikes-tar-baby-tar-baby.html) left-leaning writers have used the term "tar baby" on several occasions—without receiving any of the left's manufactured outraged now directed against Lamborn.
And yet, to the leftist crusaders and their media enablers, the facts simply do not matter. This is about character assassination and partisan politics.
Thankfully, (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_18619718) Sunday's Denver Post editorial pages published my op-ed on the matter. It begins:
The critical points to understand about the tar baby flap are these: "Tar baby" comes from African folklore. Congressman Doug Lamborn used the term to refer to the debt-ceiling negotiations, not the president. And the nationwide smear campaign against Lamborn follows the left's typical path of character assassination and guilt by association. ...
My research on the topic has been cited by other media outlets as well.
On August 4, the Colorado Springs Gazette's (http://www.gazette.com/articles/racist-122617-straw-almost.html) Wayne Laugesen mentioned my posts, and on August 3 Westword's (http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/08/jonbenet_ramsey_murder_media_obsessed_black.php) Patricia Calhoun (who has herself used the term "tar baby" in an article) did as well. Unfortunately, neither of those writers pays sufficient attention to the fact that the tar baby story arises fundamentally from African folklore. Any racist use of the term manifests ignorance of that tradition.
On August 4 I also appeared on (http://www.khow.com/cc-common/podcast/single_page.html?more_page=&podcast=fullshow_boyles&selected_podcast=08042011PETE7A.mp3) Peter Boyle's radio show for an hour to discuss the matter.
Though this point is obvious, it may be worth repeating here: just because I defend the use of the term "tar baby" to refer to a sticky situation, that doesn't mean anything goes. For example, if a politician called somebody "the N-word," he would be justly castigated.
But lumping together "the N-word" with the tar baby of African folklore is ludicrous. And smearing a well-intentioned politician for referencing the tar baby is grotesquely unjust.
The Winds of Force and Taxes
August 9, 2011
The (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18644765) Associated Press released a (remarkably inept) article about "a 29 megawatt wind project near Pueblo" half-owned by Black Hills Energy. But at least the AP's article tipped me off to the (http://www.blackhillscorp.com/news11/080811.pdf) Black Hills release, which includes more relevant details.
The company's Christopher Burke explained the real reason for the wind farm: "This approval of our wind project by the PUC is an important milestone as our utility continues to put assets and programs in place to meet the requirements of Colorado's Renewable Energy Standard..."
In other words, this project has absolutely nothing to do with economically meeting the needs of Colorado's energy consumers, and everything to do with pandering to the environmentalist fantasy of widespread wind energy.
Moreover, "The project, planned for completion in late 2012, is expected to qualify for the U.S. Department of Treasury's section 1603 cash grant program," the release states. I'd never heard of the (http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/recovery/Pages/1603.aspx) "1603 cash grant program" before; it's part of the so-called "Recovery Act."
In other words, the U.S. government will steal wealth from wage earners across the country to subsidize an overprised wind farm boondoggle in Colorado.
And yet, given the widespread use of such force and taxes, some people still wonder why the economy is struggling.
***
Anonymous commented on August 9, 2011 at 10:54 AM:
I have been searching for some breakdown of what goes into wind power and what comes out. Is there any net gain? Don't forget to add in the loss from all the traffic jams caused by transporting the long blades. Jeff
Anonymous commented August 9, 2011 at 3:05 PM:
Maybe windfarms are the cause of man-made global warming, not that I believe in man-made warming. This article thinks the wind-farm build up will change climate!http://www.livescience.com/74-windmills-change-local-global-climates.html
Jeff
Polis Promotes, Decries Tax Loopholes
August 9, 2011
Yes, I'm used to members of Congress talking nonsense; that's practically their job description. But a comment that just came through from Jared Polis is so ludicrous it's worth a mention:
In this session, I have sponsored bills to help create jobs by encouraging private investment in critical sectors through tax incentives. I also strongly support tax reform to eliminate special interest loopholes, which will help balance the budget while reducing tax rates for families who don't have high-paid Washington lobbyists rigging the tax code in their favor.
The bit about (http://polis.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=236329) "tax incentives" links to a release about waving certain taxes for private real-estate investments "in high foreclosure areas."
So, in the same paragraph, and apparently written with a straight face, Polis simultaneously says he wants "special interest loopholes" for some, but he wants to eliminate "tax incentives" for others, depending on who has the most political sway for the moment. Only he switched the euphemisms around to fit his purposes.
Unfortunately, Polis's remark typifies the state of the American political discourse.
Why Not Signed Editorials, Denver Post?
August 10, 2011
I sent the following letter to the Denver Post:
The Denver Post's editorials fluctuate noticeably in style, tone, and ideological bent, because they're written by different members of your editorial board.
I like the fact that the Daily Camera and the Colorado Springs Gazetteoffer signed editorials. Ideally, the Denver Post would note the author (or authors) of each editorial and the board members in agreement. That would provide transparency, help readers track the views of particular writers, and encourage writers to offer their best work.
Liberty In Harry Potter
August 10, 2011
I discuss the liberty themes of the Harry Potter novels in my book, (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter, and I summarize that material in a short talk delivered August 3 for (http://denver.libertyontherocks.org/) Liberty On the Rocks.
I summarize five obviously pro-liberty themes in the novels: their anti-tyranny story arch, the heroes' opposition to slavery and oppression, the stories' acknowledgement that power tends to corrupt, their portrayal of heroes boldly standing up to abusive power, and their portrayal of government at its best as protecting people from criminal harm.
However, I point out, J. K. Rowling tends to be a typical English leftist, hardly a free-market advocate. In the talk I cite her comments about the (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/3021309/Harry-Potter-author-JK-Rowling-gives-1-million-to-Labour.html) Labour Party and the socialist (ttp://www.scotsman.com/jkrowlingharrypotter/Harry-and-me.2376441.jp) Jessica Mitford.
Unsurprisingly, then, from the perspective of economic liberty or classical liberalism, several of the Potter themes are ambiguous regarding liberty. While there is no obvious welfare state in the wizard world, this may mean only that the government is not sufficiently advanced for that. The wizarding government maintains an ambitious regulatory state, controlling things from transportation to dragon breeding to cauldron thickness. Finally, the wizards enforce (limited) segregation from the non-magical Muggles, leading to more controls on wizards and Muggles alike.
Yet, on the whole, the novels are wonderfully pro-liberty, and that's a big reason I love them so much.
Rationalizing Forced Wealth Transfers
August 11, 2011
Why do so many people who claim to advocate liberty also call for forced wealth transfers? The answer is complex, and at root it concerns the morality of rational self-interest versus self-sacrifice. But part of the answer, as I discussed August 3 at (http://denver.libertyontherocks.org/) Liberty On the Rocks, is that people tend to reify "the government" and "corporations," treating them as willful entities rather than organizations of individual people. Moreover, many simply ignore the crucial distinction between voluntary and coerced giving.
This "Ethics Advocate" Calls AP's Outrageous Bias
August 11, 2011
Apparently the Denver post thinks it's perfectly fine to publish ridiculous nonsense as long as it was written by the Associated Press.
A couple of days ago, the Post published the AP's fact-devoid article about a new (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/winds-of-force-and-taxes.html) wind farm. Today the Post follows up by reproducing an absurdly biased article from the (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18660163) AP about proposed ballot changes.
The issue, according to the AP, is this: "Secretary of State Scott Gessler is proposing changes to election rules that would bar clerks from counting ballots with write-in candidates if voters fail to mark the box next to that choice."
That part is accurate. I just called Rich Coolidge from the SOS's office to verify, and he added only that the matter is "going through the rule making process." It's "a consideration that the secretary's going to have to make," he said, and "no decisions have been made at this time."
My problem arises with another sentence from the AP's story: "According to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (http://bit.ly/pkZ80r), ethics advocate Jenny Flanagan says a voter's intent should rule..." (I did not read the Sentinel article as it's behind a pay wall.)
The problem is describing Jenny Flanagan, in an allegedly straight news article, as merely an "ethics advocate." Is she a moral philosopher? No. Instead, she heads the (http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=3497007) Colorado chapter of Common Cause. To describe her as a seemingly neutral "ethics advocate" in a news story is ludicrous. An equally biased but opposite description would be "shrill partisan hack," but somehow only the former occurred to the AP.
I do not doubt that Flanagan believes she advocates ethics. But so does every source cited by the AP. Can you imagine the AP describing a Tea Party activists as an "ethics advocate?" Or Jon Caldara? Or me? Gessler too thinks he is advocating ethical rules.
Let's review a couple of background items about "ethics advocate Jenny Flanagan." In a (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/making-first-amendment-part-of.html) debate with me earlier this year, she said the First Amendment is "not part of the conversation right now" regarding campaign laws.
Flanagan also attended a rally a couple months ago in Aspen, joining the hard-left ProgressNow to protest the Koch brothers. You can see (http://twitpic.com/5hdugl) Flanagan in this photo holding her Common Cause Sign, joining others who want to raise taxes and toss Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court. (Also check out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYyNvvvB9PI) Kelly Maher's excellent video about the protest.)
But, hey, apparently "ethics advocate" is good enough for AP work.
Perhaps, rather than just toss up AP articles onto its web page, the Postshould first check to see whether the articles are in fact worth a damn.
For what it's worth, I actually tentatively agree with Flanagan on this particular issue. If a voter does not check the box for another candidate, and actually writes in some other name, the intent seems to be pretty clearly that the voter wanted to cast a ballot for the write-in. However, I can definitely see the problem of ambiguity. It seems to me that a better solution would be a reformulated ballot that makes that particular mistake impossible.
In general, I advocate computer-assisted paper ballots. The computer assist would make them easier to cast, and the paper would remove the problem of computer glitches and hacking. (I advocate counting up the votes from the paper, rather than from the digital vote.) Surely a well-developed ballot could simply avoid the problem in question.
But just because Flanagan seems to make a good point on this particular issue doesn't mean the AP should refer to her as some sort of seemingly neutral "ethics advocate." To do so violates journalistic ethics.
Denver Post Readers Reply to 'Tar Baby' Op-Ed
August 14, 2011
Today the Denver Post published several (http://blogs.denverpost.com/eletters/2011/08/13/%E2%80%9Ctar-baby%E2%80%9D-controversy-5-letters/14285/) replies to my (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_18619718) 'tar baby' op-ed.Here I briefly reply to the letters critical of my piece.
First, though, I point out that the Post piece is very short—around 500 words—and it draws on thousands of words I've written on the matter. So I want to summarize my previous work:
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/lamborns-tar-baby-saga-continues.html) Lamborn's "Tar Baby" Saga Continues
I briefly reply to the Associated Press's assertion that Congressman Doug Lamborn used the term "tar baby" to refer to President Obama. He did not. I also briefly reply to Wayne Laugesen and Patricia Calhoun, arguing that "neither of those writers pays sufficient attention to the fact that the tar baby story arises fundamentally from African folklore. Any racist use of the term manifests ignorance of that tradition."
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/yes-lets-do-throw-lamborn-in-briar.html) Yes, Let's Do Throw Lamborn In the Briar Patch
I point out the irony of a MoveOn protester a) invoking the same African folklore, and b) calling to throw Lamborn "in the briar patch," which in the story actually saves the rabbit.
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/more-on-african-roots-of-tar-baby-motif.html) More on the African Roots of the Tar Baby Motif
I offer even more evidence that the "tar baby" story came from African folklore.
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/moveon-smears-lamborn-for-invoking.html) MoveOn Smears Lamborn for Invoking African Tar Baby Folklore
This is my longest piece on the matter in which I offer extensive evidence for the African roots of the "tar baby" story and reply to David Sirota's hypocritical smears against Lamborn.
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/lamborn-strikes-tar-baby-tar-baby.html) Lamborn Strikes the "Tar Baby" Tar Baby
In my first piece on the matter, I do two main things. First, I firmly establish that the term "tar baby" comes from African folklore, and I show that it has been commonly used in the culture to refer to a sticky situation. I offer specific examples of left-leaning writers from theDenver Post, Westword, and Salon using the term—all without receiving so much as a breath of criticism.
So let's turn to the Denver Post letters.
Sherry Steele finds value in my historical perspective, but she thinks I fall into "blame it on the left or blame it on the right." But she misses my point, which is that the shrill left's smear campaigns against Lamborn are precisely that, which is why those critics neglect to slam left-leaners for using the same term. My point precisely is that we should debate substantive issues, not smear the opposition.
(Some people seem to mistakenly think that I am a conservative or a Lamborn supporter generally. I am neither.)
Dennis Hansen claims that my "ranting" is "narrow-minded and illogical"—without offering a single argument to that effect.
Kenneth Valero first suggests that Lamborn used the term tar baby "against" Obama, but that's false. In his original statement, Lamborn uses the term to refer to getting "stuck" in "the problem." Those who continue to ignore that context are simply being willfully dishonest.
At least Valero recognizes that "tar baby," in fact, derives from African folklore, though he says it has fallen into "corruption." My response to this is what it was in the op-ed: "Surely we ought not let ignorant racists push us to obliterate cultural knowledge of important African folklore." Letting racists steal the term "tar baby" is letting the racists win, something I refuse to do.
Doug Sovern claims I ignore "the usage of the term in the U.S." But I have provided many references to U.S. usages of the term to refer to a sticky situation.
Sovern notes that some with the Tea Party have unfairly attacked Obama. But he misses my point, which is that the left is picking out Lamborn to smear over a make-believe offense, while ignoring many other actual insults.
(And, for the record, I have (http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/02/huttners-hypocrisy.html) criticized those who likened Obama to a Nazi, saying, "Obama is obviously not a Nazi, so tagging him with a swastika is wrong.")
Sovern claims "context is everything," yet he ignores the context of Lamborn's original remark.
Sovern also claims "the Nazis were conservatives," which is ridiculous. The very term is an abbreviation of the National Socialist German Workers' party.
Brandon Reich-Sweet grants, "Yes, 'tar baby' does come from a legitimate African folk tale. However, the term has been used as a slur against black people." I discuss that very fact in my op-ed, yet I return to the point that we ought not let racists steal a perfectly legitimate term.
Ken Lambdin claims, despite all the evidence, that "Lamborn's comment was racist." Some people are just determined to see Republican office holders as racist, because that's a lot easier than debating them on the issues. Dehumanizing the opposition, as the left is attempting to dehumanize Lamborn, is the strategy of cowards.
In addition to these criticisms, Gary Reed and Lou Schroeder offer supportive comments of my piece.
My case holds. Using the term "tar baby" to refer to a sticky situation is perfectly legitimate. That is how Lamborn used the term, and that is how I resolve to continue using it.
***
Dean Barnett commented on August 14, 2011 at 2:42 PM:
Gee, Ari, if there was any reason to think Lamborn knew any of this when he said it, you should have added that to the mix. But since he apologized, in writing, I'm guessing he didn't know this, which would make him the sort of thoughtless person who really shouldn't represent Coloradans
Ari Armstrong commented on August 14, 2011 at 2:56 PM:
Dean, As is obvious from Lamborn's initial comments, he did know that the standard meaning of "tar baby" is a sticky situation. He used the word "stuck." Whether he knew anything else about the folklore tradition is quite irrelevant. But, somehow, Dean, I doubt very seriously that Lamborn's "tar baby" comment is the origin of your dislike for Lamborn. Instead, the left is seizing upon this innocuous term to smear somebody they already wanted to smear. On the political level, this is fundamentally about the left (groundlessly) smearing Republicans as racists heading into the 2012 elections. -Ari
New Harry Potter Essay on Religion
August 15, 2011
Are the Harry Potter novels essentially Christian works? In my new essay,(http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/potterreligion.html) "Religion In Harry Potter Revisited," I argue that, while the novels feature some religious symbolism and themes, those do not fundamentally drive the stories or motivate the heroes.
I recorded a talk based on an abbreviated version of the same material.
Leave Breast Pumping to Contracts, Social Pressure
August 16, 2011
Did the Rocky Mountain Academy of Evergreen, a tax-funded Colorado charter school, decline to renew a teaching contract for Heather Burgbacher because she pumped breast milk at work? That's the allegation of the (http://aclu-co.org/news/aclu-takes-action-on-behalf-of-jeffco-teacher-fired-for-pumping-breast-milk-at-work) ACLU (and a one-sided story from (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/28870795/detail.html) 7News).
Or was Burgbacher let go for an entirely different reason? The (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18688633) Denver Postreports, "Jefferson County school district spokeswoman Lynn Setzer said Burgbacher was a technology teacher who worked under a yearly contract. Setzer said Burgbacher wasn't retained because her position was transformed into a technology adviser to staffers and the school didn't think she was a good fit."
We will never know for sure. The anti-discrimination laws incentivize employees to claim they were let go because of mistreatment, and they incentivize employers to claim the fault lies with the employee.
Another question we will never have answered is whether the ACLU saw the lawsuit as particularly juicy because it targets a charter school, something typically despised by the left.
The only thing crystal clear about the case is that the Colorado and federal laws on which it is based are entirely ambiguous. Consider this description from the (http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/CDLE-LaborLaws/CDLE/1248095305263) Colorado Department of Labor:
An employer shall make reasonable efforts to provide a room or other location in close proximity to the work area, other than a toilet stall, where an employee can express breast milk in privacy.
Reasonable efforts means any effort that would not impose an undue hardship on the operation of the employer's business.
Undue hardship means any action that requires significant difficulty or expense when considered in relation to factors such as the size of the business, the financial resources of the business, or the nature and structure of its operation, including consideration of the special circumstances of public safety.
And who gets to decide what constitutes "reasonable," "undue," and "significant?" You guessed it... lawyers.
Now, I definitely agree that, in most contexts, employers certainly should allow employees time and space to pump breast milk. This is especially true in an educational setting, as it offers children an opportunity to learn something about childbirth, nutrition, and immunity.
But just because something is a good thing doesn't mean the legislature should get involved. Many jobs already involve an employment contract. (As a tax-funded entity, a charter school properly falls under additional rules not applicable to private businesses.) And most businesses would rapidly cave to social criticisms about lack of accommodation.
For marginal jobs, often the very jobs that poor women need, the additional risk of (perhaps groundless) lawsuits could well mean the elimination of the job. So the real impact of the Colorado law is to protect wealthier yuppie women, who don't really need protecting anyway, and make it harder for poor women to get any job at all.
***
ziolus posted the following comment on May 11, 2012 at 10:02 AM:
I was fired for pumping milk at work as well under Colorado state law as well. from a company called teletech. I put my story on youtube if it gives you any help. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IjL8na0UE
Ari Armsmtrong posted the following comment on May 11, 2012 at 10:50 AM:
Please note that I have NOT independently verified the claims made in the previous comment, nor can I attest to their accuracy. -AA
The Rise of Envy
August 18, 2011
Given the existence of "flash mob" riots, the continued rise of the massive welfare state (which threatens to push our nation off the economic cliff), and snarling calls to further loot "the rich," I was enormously saddened to read Ayn Rand's comment from her 1971 essay, "Don't Let It Go:"
"Americans admire achievement; they know what it takes. Europeans regard achievement with cynical suspicion and envy. Envy is not a widespread emotion in America (not yet); it is an overwhelmingly dominant emotion in Europe."
Another Look at Education Tax Credits
August 19, 2011
Earlier this year Michael LaFerrara advocated education tax credits in an article for the (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-spring/school-vouchers-tax-credits.asp) Objective Standard. I (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/rethinking-education-tax-credits.html) criticized a number of his important assumptions. He (http://principledperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/08/education-tax-credits-taking-political.html) responded. So that would seem to put me back at bat.
As much as I appreciate LaFerrara's enthusiasm for tax credits and for trying to move education in a better direction, I continue to think he overstates the potential of tax credits for advancing liberty, understates their inevitable problems, and fundamentally misunderstands the alternative.
My Position
LaFerrara claims I initially "leaned in favor of an education tax credit plan," then "moved in the opposite direction," concluding that "tax credits... must be rejected." That's not quite right.
In the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/how-about-school-choice-for-everyone.html) February 4 article I coauthored with my dad Linn, we built on the idea of "choice" in education. We progressed from vouchers to tax credits for parents, then to more-ambitious universal tax credits.
Then we concluded that real choice consistent with individual rights means leaving people free to spend their resources however they want, consistent with other people's rights. We wrote that even a tax credit plan "falls short of the standard of individual rights and free markets, for it requires people to direct a portion of their resources to schools. Real liberty means people can spend their earnings however they wish, whether for schools, medical research, a new business, or a trip to the Bahamas." (Note that parents do have a responsibility, and a legally enforceable one at that, to provide for their children's intellectual development; however, Laferrara goes far afield in attempting to link this to possible "standardized testing.")
In my (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/rethinking-education-tax-credits.html) June 18 reply to LaFerrara, I did not conclude that tax credits "must be rejected;" as LaFerrara notes, I wrote, "There might be other good reasons for promoting universal tax credits for education, but tax credits will not eliminate government controls over education spending."
If it seems like I'm taking an ambiguous position on tax credits, it's because I am. My position is this. Because tax credits fundamentally presume the government's authority to forcibly transfer wealth for education, I do not believe they are worth the investment of resources necessary to achieve them. At best, tax credits threaten to muddy the ideological waters.
Am I going to morally condemn people who advocate tax credits? No. Am I going to help finance their campaigns? No. Will I endorse and vote for a decent tax-credit proposal? Yes. Am I going to point out the inherent and potential problems with tax credits? Yes. Doing so keeps the debate focussed on the fundamental issue of individual rights, and it helps ensure that, if a tax credit proposal comes about, it will be a relatively better sort.
Principles and Incrementalism
On one hand, LaFerrara suggests I want to achieve the "ideal of free market education... in a single sweeping transformation"; on the other hand he claims I support "a much more subdued reform agenda" than tax credits. Neither claim is accurate.
Advocating the complete separation of school and state may be called many things, but I do not think "subdued" makes the list. I regard the agenda as rather ambitious.
But ambitious, principled reforms can (usually) only be achieved incrementally. Contrary to popular myth, there is no inherent clash between principles and incrementalism. The enemy is unprincipled incrementalism.
In the modern American context, any deep reform of education must be achieved over a span of many years. I advocate, primarily, making the intellectual case that individual rights (including rights to one's own wealth) apply in the field of education. This involves many concrete political strategies, including fighting tax hikes for education, phasing in means testing (with lower taxes), and supporting real market alternatives. I do not advocate merely making a few marginal reforms and then giving up, as LaFerrara seems to assume, but instead systematically building on previous reforms until attaining a completely free market in education.
Tax credits in any sort of ambitious form could only be achieved through a long-term political battle as well. But my worry is that the fight for tax credits will ultimately undermine real liberty in education, precisely because they entrench the notion that government properly forces wealth transfers.
LaFerrara, then, basically misunderstands my position when he claims I seem "content to stop well short of taking the political offensive." I'm all about taking the political offensive! (I do not personally want to spend my life specifically on reforming education, though I'm pleased to spend some of my time doing that and supporting the efforts of others.) I simply wish to avoid mistaking the "political offensive" for a circular firing squad (i.e., a strategy that ultimately undermines rather than achieves individual rights and economic liberty).
Because LaFerrara confuses the relationship between principles and incrementalism, he misattributes to me positions I do not hold, and he advocates one policy that clearly violates rights. He suggests that, by the logic of my argument, I should also oppose such "incremental" reforms as Health Savings accounts and a flat[ter] tax. But that's just not so: I advocate both those reforms precisely because they unambiguously move us toward liberty. But LaFerrara also throws mandatory savings accounts in the mix of allegedly "incremental 'free market reforms'"—even though those unambiguously move us in the direction of (http://www.freecolorado.com/2004/12/socseclinks.html) greater statism.
The essential in evaluating a political proposal is not whether it is incremental or far-reaching or whether it is implemented slowly or quickly. Those are contextual and strategic matters. The essential is whether it in fact advances individual rights.
So do tax credits advance individual rights? I think the answer is yes, because at least they expand the individual's control over his own resources. But they still mandate the money be spent in a very narrow way (for education). The real risk is that tax credits will become yet another tool for Republicans to basically argue, "Forced wealth transfers? Of course I'm for that! I advocate a massive welfare state! Only I do want individuals to have a bit more choice within the context of the government setting the basic terms."
The Inherent Controls of Tax Credits
LaFerrara's basic case is this: "Once the choice of how their education dollars can be spent is relegated to the taxpayer, we will be closer to the day when it will be politically feasible to question why he or she must be forced to pay any government-mandated sum."
I think that could be the case, so long as advocates of tax credits keep focused on the underlying principles. (I note merely that practically all conservatives who advocate tax credits systematically ignore those principles.) If the advocates of tax credits treat them as a means toward achieving liberty, rather than an alternative way to forcibly redistribute wealth, then they may well do some good ultimately.
Unfortunately, LaFerrara largely misunderstands my point about the inherent controls of tax credits. The whole premise of tax credits is that politicians will force you to finance education, only you get much more leeway in how to do that. But obviously there will be limits. As I've pointed out, tax credits for "My Family's Vacation to Disneyland" or "The School for Satanism and the Occult" or "The School for Shopping at the Mall" would be politically rejected. What is allowable and what is forbidden will depend on how a particular tax credit proposal works itself out in a legislature and court system. I predict that any actual tax credit system will in fact place very tight controls on how the money is spent.
LaFerrara points out that free-market elements of the economy routinely fall under increased political controls, too. But this misses the fundamental difference. In the market segment, the default is that the individual owns his own resources, and the government then overrides his rights for some alleged greater good. With tax credits, the default is that the individual does not own the resources in question, and the government is merely setting limits on how to allocate the government's money. With tax credits, the default and the inexorable condition is control.
The idea that that an actual legislature would institute a universal tax credit program with absolutely no controls is pie-in-the-sky, rationalistic, detached-from-reality, utopian thinking.
If you think advocating tax credits will open people's minds to the idea that they actually own their own wealth, then I wish you well in that endeavor. But, in the interim, let's recognize tax credits for what they are: political controls on how people spend their money.
***
Anonymous published the following comment on August 20, 2011 at 10:24 AM:
Hi Ari,
An amendment to abolish Federal, taxation collection and taxation expenditure, for education purposes.
An amendment to abolish State, taxation collection and taxation expenditure, for education purposes.
Ari, when and where are you collecting signatures?
When will your Representatives present these measures?
Thanks,
Jeff
Mike LaFerrara posted the following comment on August 21, 2011 at 5:24 AM:
Ari,
I appreciate your attention to this subject. Most of what you've said here I have already answered in my 8/11/11 post, and I refer the reader to that: http://principledperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/08/education-tax-credits-taking-political.html.
But, let me state that we are in complete agreement in regard to principled incrementalism. There is no confusion in my mind about "the relationship between principles and incrementalism". That was the main point of my recent essay. However, people who agree on basic principles can differ widely on their application to practice—ex. personal accounts within SS.
Yes, they are government-enforced savings. But, what we have today is forced redistribution backed only by hollow promises of old-age benefits, rescindable at any time by congress (http://www.socialsecurity.org/daily/01-13-99.html). At least the taxpayer would have possession of, and a right to, his/her own money, rather than the politicians. I consider SS personal accounts to be a step toward individual rights, especially property rights—preferably without, but even with, basic investment controls. They can be advocated as a step in the phase-out process. Personal SS accounts are consistent with your statement that "tax credits advance individual rights … because at least they expand the individual's control over his own resources." Incremental reforms must certainly be anchored to explicitly proclaimed principles, lest we advance statism. On that we agree. As I've said before, I have yet to see an education tax credit program that meets the test of (free market) principled incrementalism—certainly not ones advocated by conservatives and Republicans!
This brings me to my "misunderstandings" about your positions. Any assumptions I've made are rooted in my analysis of things you wrote. Without going into too many details, let me just say in my defense that, as you acknowledge, your tax credit position is ambiguous. I'm still not clear on exactly where you come down on them. Your strenuous objections in your last piece seemed to preclude any support for tax credits, yet now you say you'd support "a decent tax-credit proposal". Here we seem to agree again: A properly structured tax credit program would be a step in the right direction. What would a "decent proposal" include, in you view? Otherwise, I think you confuse "misunderstandings" with disagreement, such as on the issue of "inherent controls of tax credits". If—and I can't resist repeating myself here—"a universal tax credit program with absolutely no controls is pie-in-the-sky, rationalistic, detached-from-reality, utopian thinking", then how on earth can anyone believe that "an actual legislature would [ever] institute" the complete separation of education and state?
By the way, what do you mean by "phasing in means testing (with lower taxes)" as one of "many concrete political strategies"?
Best to all,
Mike "Zemack" LaFerrara
My Newspaper Paywall Plan for Dean Singleton
August 19, 2011
Today the Denver Post sent its minions to my local grocery store, and they hooked me into a discussion by offering a drawing. This reminded me that(http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18685864) "Denver-based MediaNews Group announced... that it has launched an online subscription paywall at 23 of its newspapers in five states but not in Colorado." I figure we're next.
So if a paywall is going to happen, I'd like it to happen the right way. (And I wrote about this (http://www.freecolorado.com/2009/11/dear-dean-singleton-please-charge-me.html) back in 2009.)
Obviously a monthly subscription is the most standard model. The problem with this is that many readers—especially those who live elsewhere—may want to read an article only occasionally. This is especially true for a big paper like the Denver Post. So a subscription-based paywall should be only part of the approach.
Ideally newspapers will offer two additional ways to read an article online: pay per view, or watch an advertisement.
Here's how I envision the pay-per-view model. The paper reveals the first bit of an article, then offers the option to read the rest by clicking a pay button (say, for anywhere from ten cents to a buck, depending on the sort of article). I purchase credits through the system (say, $30 at a time), log in, then spend my credits however I want (and they never expire). I have no idea how to work the technical side of this, but surely it's possible. Indeed, a robust system could allow other players (including bloggers) to join the same system (for a percentage).
The third option is to view a video (say, 15 seconds) advertising a specific product as "payment" for reading the article.
Readers get the content they want, they have flexible payment options, and journalists earn a living. Does that not make everyone happy?
Alien Invasions: Where Economic and Environmental Insanity Meet
August 20, 2011
"You're traveling to another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. ... Your next stop: the Twilight Zone."
If the Onion covered the Twilight Zone, you'd end up with the sort of actual headlines we're seeing today.
Consider the first headline, from Time: (http://moneyland.time.com/2011/08/16/paul-krugman-an-alien-invasion-could-fix-the-economy/) "Paul Krugman: An Alien Invasion Could Fix the Economy." What Krugman said was this: "If we discovered that space aliens were planning to attack, and we needed a massive build-up to counter the space alien threat, and inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months." He actually referenced the Twilight Zone.
And thus Krugman, a Nobel-winning economist, commits the simplest of economic fallacies, what (http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html) Bastiat in 1850 called the broken-window fallacy, a type of the error of accounting for the seen but not the unseen.
The next headline comes from the land of environmental nuttiness, from the Guardian: (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/18/aliens-destroy-humanity-protect-civilisations) "Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists: Rising greenhouse emissions could tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report." (For context, read the report from (http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/77904) NetworkWorld.)
For any consistent leftist, this creates a paradox of unprecedented proportions. For clearly the solution is to expand CO2 production as rapidly as possible, so as to exacerbate global warming and incite an alien invasion, so that we can "stimulate" the economy and reelect Barack "The Chosen One" Obama in 2012.
(Hat tip to (https://twitter.com/aaronbilger) Aaron Bilger for blending the two stories.)
Rights Violations, Nihilism Underlie Today's Bad News
August 22, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published August 19 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110819/COLUMNISTS/110819950/1021) Grand Junction Free Press.
Bad news knows no shortage these days. What common threads underlie the brutal headlines?
In London and around England, gangs of young hooligans looted shops, set fires, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/09/london-riots-photographers-targeted) brutally beat journalists, and (http://www.news24.com/World/News/First-death-in-London-riots-20110809) murdered a man as he sat in his car.
As a pretext, the rioters named the police shooting of the violent gangster Mark Duggan. (The Mail's (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023556/Mark-Duggan-Violence-drugs-fatal-stabbing-unlikely-martyr.html) Paul Bracchi reports the officers involved specialize in "fighting black-on-black gun crime," but obviously that cannot be true because England banned most guns.) Alleged police brutality cannot justify the systematic destruction of the innocent; something deeper lies behind the rioting.
Somebody on the BBC referred to the violence as the "Blackberry Riots." The thugs organized themselves with mobile computers and (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/london-riots-focus-on-mobiles-social-media/828776/) social mediaover the internet. They used the fruits of capitalism and voluntary economic exchange to destroy shops, cars, buildings, and people.
The rioters flagrantly abused people's basic rights to life, liberty, and property; this much is obvious. Beneath this lies a fundamental nihilism: the destruction of values for the sake of destruction.
Or consider the latest craze in United States cities from (http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/national/16-teens-busted-in-flash-mob-theft-20110627) Boston to (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504943_162-20070193-10391715.html) Chicagoto (http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-09/justice/pennsylvania.curfew_1_flash-mob-curfew-mayor-michael-nutter) Philadelphia: gangs of pampered teens organize "flash mob" crime sprees using information technology, looting goods and in some cases brutally beating residents.
Could such troubling cultural nihilism possibly have anything to do with the fact that, throughout much of the West, the typical student learns that producing wealth manifests greed while voluntarily trading it entails exploitation?
Students also frequently learn that human beings blight the earth and immorally reshape nature for human benefit.
Consider the English soccer star David Beckham, whose family recently welcomed their fourth child. New human life creates a time for celebration and rejoicing, right? Wrong. "The birth of their fourth child make the couple bad role models and environmentally irresponsible," according to people-haters cited in a (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/17/population-control-beckham-family) Guardian article.
But we need not focus on young rioters or anti-human environmentalists to find examples of cultural nihilism. We can find more civilized variants in the federal government.
Consider the flippant remark of (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_N0Cwg5iN4) Alan Greenspan on Meet the Press about the credit downgrade. (Remember that many years ago Greenspan criticized the very existence of the Federal Reserve before making himself the former head of that out-of-control monster.) He said, "This is not an issue of credit rating. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that."
In other words: "Debt problem? What debt problem? The U.S. government can legally counterfeit dollars to pay off debt!" Never mind that such inflation debases the money supply and forcibly transfers wealth from those who earn it to those first in line for the government's counterfeited dollars.
Or consider (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twejh4u_mDE) John Kerry's remark on the same show calling Standard & Poor's reevaluation of U.S. credit "the tea party downgrade"—ludicrously blaming those who warned about the debt bomb for its explosion.
Back up and consider the underlying problem: "Government spending in the United States has steadily increased from seven percent of GDP in 1902 to 40 percent today," (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/past_spending) USGovernmentSpending.com summarizes. Last year the federal government alone spent around $3.5 trillion, more than $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country.
We come frighteningly close to an economic death spiral, in which increasingly high taxes and government spending further discourage productive effort. At a certain point, people simply give up and say to hell with it. As the French economist (http://bastiat.org/en/government.html) Frederic Bastiat warned, at its worst "government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
We call for a renewal of values. Each individual human life is precious; every man is an end in himself. You are right to live your life, to strive for happiness, to reshape the natural world for your prosperity and enjoyment. To define and achieve your life-promoting values constitutes the height of a moral life.
As human beings, we survive through reason (as Ayn Rand pointed out). Our capacity for reason allows us to interact with others in a peaceful, voluntary, and mutually beneficial way. We share love in marriage and friendship; we trade goods and services through the marketplace.
Every person has the right to live his own life as he judges best, consistent with the rights of others. You have the right to use your property as you want, to produce the things you need to prosper, and to voluntarily exchange the fruits of your labor with others. The government properly protects those rights.
Today's culture tolerates, even celebrates, the pervasive and systematic violation of individual rights. It devalues the individual person.
Our confidently bright future requires a reaffirmation of our nation's core values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of enlightened happiness.
Don't Privatize Social Security
August 23, 2011
Recently I delivered a short talk, "Don't Privatize Social Security!" The point is that the scheme to allegedly "privatize" it would do nothing of the sort; it would instead create investment accounts mandated and managed by federal politicians and bureaucrats. The real free-market solution is to slowly phase out the program entirely.
The information about (https://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/idapayroll.html) Ida May Fuller comes from the Social Security Administration.
Of Quakes and Cultures
August 23, 2011
Thank goodness there have been no reported injuries or deaths resulting from the east-coast earthquake earlier today. I haven't checked in with anybody I know there, but I hope for the best. There has been some structural damage, apparently of a relatively minor sort.
As we breathe a sigh of relief that, apparently, the damage was limited, we may turn to some of the cultural implications of the quake.
1. I wonder how long it will take for Islamists to interpret the earthquate as Alah's displeasure with the U.S.? Or how long it will take American evangelicals to see in the quake rumblings of God's discontent?
2. An earthquake, indeed, any form of destruction, is seen as "stimulating" the economy, according to many of today's Keynesians. (Witness Paul Krugman's comments about the "stimulating" effects of a hypothetical alien invasion.) But the French economist Frederic Bastiat offered the correct economic analysis back in 1850. As common sense suggests, destruction harms economic productivity.
3. While environmentalists like to blame all sorts of natural catastrophes on human-caused "global warming," the earthquake reminds us that the planet does a fine job of threatening human life and prosperity, all on its own. As people, we should produce wealth to keep us safe from the ravages of nature, not worship nature as some sort of god.
4. Hurray, capitalism! Because we're so wealthy, we can afford to build quality structures that can withstand earthquakes.
5. I love how Americans use humor to maintain good spirits. The first image I saw of the "destruction" is this one, making light of the quake. (Of course, this is only appropriate because the quake wasn't too destructive.) On Twitter, people joked about how the left would blame the right for the quake and vice versa. One guy joked that the quake is actually the Founders finally rolling in their graves. I enjoy this "We can't be beat" attitude. (To take another example, recently David Letterman mocked the Islamist threats against him.)
So we'll keep hoping we don't hear of more substantial problems.
Aurora's Gaylord Vote Illustrates Politicization of Property
August 23, 2011
A story from (http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_18737218) today's Denver Post illustrates the politicization of property in America: "The Aurora City Council on Monday voted unanimously to designate as 'blighted' 125 acres of vacant land near Denver International Airport." The vote paves the way for Gaylord Entertainment to build a hotel without paying the same property taxes as everyone else.
Of course the "blight" designation is a complete fraud. By the same standards, most any property in Colorado could be declared "blighted." And yet the statutes encourage local politicians to flagrantly lie for political gain.
When local politicians may arbitrarily declare property "blighted," that gives them an trump on private property rights. True, all levels of government have substantially eroded property rights in America, but local governments have done perhaps the most damage.
The "blight" designation is tied into a discriminatory tax scheme. Under Colorado law, some taxpayers are more equal that others. If you run a long-established family business, you get screwed with the highest possible tax rates. If you are a flashy out-of-state (or out-of-country) corporation, you can finagle special tax breaks. Not only do discriminatory taxes violate basic standards of fairness and equality under the law, they promote bureaucratic ass-kissing as the standard method of conducting business.
Politicians ought not be in the "business" of violating private property rights or playing tax favorites. Instead, they should protect property rights for everyone, establish low, even taxes for all comers, and then let businesses succeed or fail on a free market.
***
Geoff Granfield posted the following comment onJune 29, 2012 at 3:23 PM:
There is not a single policy I've heard of changing the tax code which wasn't greeted with strong amount of resistance, establishing that issue among the most difficult difficulties struggling with United States now. It can be unfair, it doesn't matter what facet on the controversy you land on. And while people in politics show they have kept our income taxes small federally, state government legislatures (from either side) have been acquiring unique methods to make up the reduction in revenue. Precisely how imaginative is your current state? http://www.tax-defense-network-tax-laws.com/tax-defense-network-top-10-silly-tax-laws
It's About 'We the People,' Not Politicians
August 24, 2011
If we want to achieve liberty, we need to persuade "We the People," and then the politicians will follow.
GOP Gay Disparagement, Like Alcoholism, a Choice
August 25, 2011
I have already (tentatively) predicted that Obama will win reelection next year, and nothing coming out of the Republican Party causes me to doubt this. (Of course, it is still early, and the economy as well as the Middle East are especially volatile right now.)
Rick Perry, who I figured would rise to front-runner status, has managed to turn the religious right's social agenda into his campaign. Consider this headline from yesterday's Los Angeles Times: (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-perry-signs-antiabortion-pledge-20110824,0,5730418.story) "Rick Perry signs anti-abortion pledge." This is the same issue, more than any other, that cost (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/11/how-abortion-cost-ken-buck-us-senate.html) Ken Buck his senate seat last year.
Now a page of Perry's 2008 book causes Perry to follow Buck down another dead-end path: toward comparing homosexuality to alcoholism. (http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2011/08/24/rick-perrys-remarks-on-gays-alcoholism-recall-ken-bucks-comments-in-2010/37198/) Lynn Bartels has the details over at the Denver Post.
There is a difference between the comments of Perry and Buck, though.
In order to establish the full context, I'll quote from Perry's book On My Honor (page 70) more extensively than Bartels does:
Though I am no expert on the "nature versus nurture" debate, I can sympathize with those who believe sexual preference is genetic. It may be so, but it remains unproved. Even if it were, this does not mean we are ultimately not responsible for the active choices we make. Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink. And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she still makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.
A loving, tolerant view toward those who have a different sexual preference is the ideal position—for both the heterosexual and the homosexual. I do not believe in condemning homosexuals that I know personally. I believe in valuing their lives like any others, as our God in heaven does. Tolerance, however, should not only be asked of the proponents of traditional values. The radical homosexual movement seeks societal normalization of their sexual activity. I respect their right to engage in individual behavior of their choosing, but they must respect the right of millions in society to refuse to normalize their behavior.
The key point here that Bartels ignores is that Perry recognizes the political right of consenting adults to engage in homosexual sex. That's centrally important. Secondarily, Perry calls for "valuing" rather than "condemning" homosexuals. That's a good start.
Unfortunately, Perry's position is essentially "love the sinner, hate the sin." In comparing homosexuality to alcoholism and saying it deserves only "toleration" (as opposed to open acceptance), Perry is basically saying there's something wrong with homosexuality. And that position is wrong.
Given that Bartels (and others) have compared Perry's remarks to those of Ken Buck, it is worth returning to Buck's statements on the matter.
Here's what (http://www.nowpublic.com/world/ken-buck-equates-homosexuality-alcoholism-video-2701571.html) Buck said, extemporaneously, on Meet the Press: "I think that birth has an influence over it [homosexuality], like alcoholism and some other things, but I think that basically, you have a choice." As I have (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/10/election-update-free-colorado-news.html) pointed out, Buck's remark is technically correct. It is indisputably true that "birth has an influence" over sexual orientation, but that "you have a choice" about your sexual partners. For example, some heterosexuals have gay sex or remain celibate, and some homosexuals have straight sex.
Buck's problem was two-fold. First, his comparison of homosexuality, something inherently fine, to alcoholism, something inherently bad and destructive, was a bad one. However, again his remark is technically true; there does seem to be an inborn component to alcoholism. Perry's remark is worse because it was written (as opposed to extemporaneous) and because Perry draws a tighter connection (versus Buck's remark about "some other things").
Second, Buck was an idiot for not leading with the story about how, as a prosecutor, he pursued (http://coloradoindependent.com/27870/hate-crimes-prosecution-could-yield-mixed-bag-for-senate-candidate-buck) hate-crime charges in a transgender-related crime. So here we had a prosecutor whose record was strongly pro-gay rights, being smeared by his critics and the media as some sort of knuckle-dragging troglotyte. That was very unfair toward Buck, though he's the one who set the tone of the discussion. (Note: I actually disapprove of "hate crime" legislation, because I think all crimes are hate crimes and that harming a heterosexual person is just as bad as harming a homosexual one. Plus I worry about starting down the road to thought crimes. But my motivation is much different from that of the religious right.)
Significantly, (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/10/17/5305730-buck-on-homosexuality-you-have-a-choice) Buck quickly clarified: "I wasn't talking about being gay as a disease. I don't think that at all."
We'll see if Perry backtracks along similar lines. But, as a candidate, if you're spending your time backtracking, you're not moving forward.
Ayn Rand As Atheist: Skepticamp Talk
August 30, 2011
I delivered a twenty-minute talk August 27 at (http://www.skepticamp.org/wiki/SkeptiCamp_Colorado_Springs_2011) Skepticamp in Colorado Springs titled, "Ayn Rand As Atheist." I open with the (http://americanvaluesnetwork.org/aynrandvsjesus/) American Values Network attack on Ayn Rand for her atheism, then I describe what her atheism actually entails.
Somebody pointed out that I may not set up an early quote about duty well enough; it comes from Rand's Red Pawn (in Early Ayn Rand) and it comes from a character whose views Rand criticizes as typically Communist.
September 12 Update: Following is a write-up based on the same material.
That the left attacks Ayn Rand for her capitalist politics comes as no surprise. Today's left, though, attacks Rand not only for her political conclusions, but specifically for her atheism. Decades ago, usually only the religious right employed that line of attack (and did so with a vengeance). Today's left, far from consistently defending secular values and the separation of church and state, increasingly joins the religious right in bringing religion into politics.
Rand, on the other hand, consistently defended the separation of church and state. While she eloquently defended freedom of religion and freedom of conscience more broadly, she rejected religion throughout her career and defended reason based on the evidence of the natural world and objective values based on the life and happiness of the individual.
The leftist organization (http://americanvaluesnetwork.org/aynrandvsjesus/) American Values Network prominently attacks Rand's atheism in a web page and related video, touting residual media ranging from Time to USA Today to Fox News. The organization argues:
GOP leaders and conservative pundits have brought upon themselves a crisis of values. Many who for years have been the loudest voices invoking the language of faith and moral values are now praising the atheist philosopher Ayn Rand whose teachings stand in direct contradiction to the Bible. Rand advocates a law of selfishness over love and commands her followers to think only of themselves, not others. She said her followers had to choose between Jesus and her teachings.
GOP leaders want to argue that they are defending Christian principles. ...As conservative evangelical icon Chuck Colson recently stated, Christians can not support Rand's philosophy and Christ's teachings. The choice is simple: Ayn Rand or Jesus Christ. We must choose one and forsake the other.
In fact American Values Network grossly distorts Rand's views—she advocated appropriate loving relationships and thoughtfulness of others—but the organization's deeper error lies in attacking Rand's atheism while explicitly advocating a religious basis for politics (specifically a Christian basis rooted in Biblical texts). Note the enormous difference between logically or factually questioning Rand's conclusions in politics and ethics (controversies beyond the scope of this article), and rejecting Rand's ideas because she does not ground them in religion. The latter sort of attack should concern everyone who values the separation of church and state.
As a silver lining, the American Values Network campaign raises awareness of Rand's criticisms of religion and faith-based politics, provoking thoughtful observers to discover the nature of Rand's actual views. Thankfully, Rand eloquently explained and defended her views on religion. Considered on their merits, rather than filtered and stripped out of context by partisan character assassins, Rand's positions constitute an important alternative to religion and a powerful defense of the separation of church and state. Those positions richly deserve a deeper look.
To set the context for Rand's atheism, consider that she was born in pre-Soviet Russia in 1905 into a Jewish family. Thus, she never grew up with strong Christian (or even religiously Jewish) beliefs. (See Objectively Speaking, edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz, page 226.) Marxism dominated many intellectual circles in Russia, with its emphasis on collectivism and antagonism toward religion. Rand moved to the United States in 1926 where, understandably, her antipathy toward Communism dominated much of her early thinking. Not until many decades later, in the mid-1970s as Rand approached the end of her life, did the religious right make serious attempts to ground politics on religious beliefs.
Yet, as Rand developed her philosophy over time and emphasized different aspects of it as the culture around her changed, she constantly advocated the same worldview of using reason to achieve life-based values in the natural world. This was true of her first professional writing in 1932 until her final public appearances in the early 1980s. By any sensible measure, Rand must be counted among the greatest atheist intellectuals of the 20th Century.
Many of the basic elements of Rand's atheism appear in the first writing she sold, a 1932 screen treatment called Red Pawn. As the name suggests, the treatment largely deals with the evils of Soviet dictatorship, yet it also criticizes religion.
Rand criticizes the notion of duty that contradicts or stands beyond reason. The Communist character Commandant Karayev describes the duty-based view: "When it's duty, you don't ask why and to whom. You don't ask any questions. When you come up against a thing about which you can't ask any questions—then you know you're facing your duty." (The Early Ayn Rand, edited by Leonard Peikoff, page 120.) Rand rejected any attempt to act outside of reason, whether from a religious or collectivist motivation.
Rand's description of Karayev reveals much about her views of religion as well as Communism:
He stood at the door. At one side of him was a painting of a saint burning at the stake...renouncing the pleasures and tortures of the flesh for the glory of his heaven; at the other side—a poster of a huge machine with little ant-sized men, sweating at its gigantic levers, and the inscription: "Our duty is our sacrifice to the red collective of the Communistic State!" (The Early Ayn Rand page 136.)
For Rand, Communism does not fundamentally stand opposed to religion; instead, the Communists substituted the authority of the state (with its Commisars) for the authority of a religion (with its priests and sacred texts). While the religious authorities demand individual sacrifices for God or his works, the collectivist authorities demand sacrifices for the state or some collective end. As Leonard Peikoff summarizes in his introduction to the work, "Ayn Rand saw clearly that Communism, contrary to its propaganda, is not the alternative to religion, but only a secularized version of it, with the state assuming the prerogatives once reserved to the supernatural" (The Early Ayn Rand page 108).
For Rand, then, atheism is not enough. Atheism merely states a negative, an absence or rejection of theism and its supernatural realm. People can reject God and yet advocate irrational and even evil ideas. What matters is one's positive philosophy, and Rand's philosophy of reason grounded in natural evidence and earthly values consequently precludes theism. While American Christians reacted strongly against the atheism of Communism, particularly during the Cold War, Rand saw the similarities between the two camps as more substantial than the differences.
Rand's 1936 novel We the Living, again set in Soviet Russia, addresses (at its periphery) the ethics and psychology of religion. Consider a telling exchange between two of the characters, Kira and Andrei:
"Do you believe in God, Andrei?"
"No."
"Neither do I. But that's a favorite question of mine. An upside-down question, you know."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do—then, I know they don't believe in life."
"Why?"
"Because, you see, God—whatever anyone chooses to call God—is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it." (We the Living, by Ayn Rand, page 97-98 in the 1959 Random House edition.)
Here Rand suggests that religion tends to stand in the way of worldly values by encouraging people to place their hopes of achieving values in some afterlife. One chooses this life and the values of this life, or one neglects or denigrates this life in favor of an imagined world beyond death. (That many people in fact act on contradictory ideas and commitments would not surprise Rand.) Rand presents a highly idealistic vision of values in the sense that they are achievable in this life.
Religion drops even further to the background in Rand's 1940 novel The Fountainhead, but that book too makes some criticisms of religion. Consider an exchange between the main character Howard Roark and his early mentor:
"Why did you decide to be an architect?"
"I didn't know it then. But it's because I've never believed in God."
"Come on, talk sense."
"Because I love this earth. That's all I love. I don't like the shape of things on this earth. I want to change them." (The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, page 39 in the 1994 Plume edition.)
The dialogue again emphasizes Rand's focus on this-worldly values, as opposed to the supernatural realm.
In his famous courtroom speech, Roark adds:
That man [the creator] the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. (The Fountainheadpage 710.)
Here Rand presents religion as backwards mysticism that stands in the way of this-wordly values.
Rand's criticisms of religion become more pronounced and developed withAtlas Shrugged in 1957.
John Galt makes a number of pointed criticisms of religion (and collectivism) in his detailed radio address, including the following:
The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive—a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society—a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a superbeing embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. (Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, page 1027 in the 1992 Dutton edition.)
The mystics of both schools... are germs that attack you through a single sore: your fear of relying on your mind. They tell you that they possess a means of knowledge higher than the mind, a mode of consciousness superior to reason... (Atlas Shrugged page 1034.)
Here Rand emphasizes the irrationality of supernatural religious presumptions or their collectivist counterparts. Whereas, in Red Pawn, Rand revealed the psychology of turning to religion in rejection of worldly values, in Atlas Shrugged she sees as a source of mysticism the fear of relying on one's reasoning mind as the sole means of knowledge.
Following the publication of Atlas Shrugged, Rand turned more to nonfiction writing and speaking, when she continued to attack the mysticism and self-sacrifice of religion and its subversion of reason in politics.
In 1960, Rand delivered an address at Yale titled, "Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World." In this talk, she again explicitly defends reason against the mysticism of religion: "Reason is the faculty which perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses.Mysticism is the claim to a non-sensory means of knowledge." (Philosophy: Who Needs It, by Ayn Rand, page 63 in the 1984 Signet edition.) Moreover, Rand argues that rejecting reason in favor of religious faith in politics leads inexorably to conflict, violence, and rule by brute force:
[F]aith and force are corellaries, and... mysticism will always lead to the rule of brutality. The cause of it is contained in the very nature of mysticism. Reason is the onlyobjective means of communication and of understanding among men... But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding [is possible]. (Philosophy: Who Needs It page 70. Note that a typographical error appears in some printings of this book, corrected here with the bracketed text.)
In another talk later in 1960, Rand blasted conservatives for attempting to ground their politics in religious faith: "Politically, such a claim contradicts the fundamental principles of the United States: in America, religion is a private matter which cannot and must not be brought into political issues" (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, by Ayn Rand, page 197 of the 1967 Signet edition).
Rand's warning about the inevitable strife of faith-based politics, and her resounding endorsement of the separation of church and state, should serve to jolt the rising Religious Left to its senses. Those who believe they can defeat Rand's political positions using logic and reason are free to try it. But rejecting Rand's ideas specifically because they are atheistic, and calling instead on a politics grounded on religious faith and sacred texts, invites long-term disaster in America, logically tending toward theocracy.
Over the course of her career, Rand fought for naturalism, a focus on this world, as opposed to supernaturalism. She advocated reason grounded in the evidence of the senses, not faith or mystical intuition. She advocated a morality based on the lives and well-being of real individuals, rather than some allegedly transcendent realm. She fought for a politics grounded in reason and individual rights. Rand presented these ideas in riveting novels that continue to sell hundreds of thousands of copies every year to readers hungry for Rand's idealized, value-based, story-driven "Romantic realism." Through essays, lectures, and public appearances throughout the rest of her life, Rand continued to advocate her positive philosophy as well as the rightful separation of church and state.
Despite Rand's decades of intellectual achievements, today more than any other literary figure she becomes the target of nasty and fact-challenged (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/07/smearing-ayn-rand-again.html) smears by both the left and the right. The left hates her for her capitalism, while the right hates her for her atheism—though the left increasingly joins the right in this, as the American Values Network illustrates.
Those who reject Rand's moral and political theories would do well to take a second look at what she actually advocated and why, as her views suffer continual distortions in the popular media. Yet even those who disagree with Rand's specific conclusions should recognize her achievements and her status as a preeminent 20th Century atheist intellectual and, more fundamentally, a champion of reason and liberty.
***
"Anonymous" left the following comment on September 11, 2011: Ari, not sure if this was the session where you talked about the left incorporating in more overt ways the religious (principally Christian) creed of self-sacrifice or not. But it got me thinking about an interview between the American play-write Arthur Miller and Jonathan Miller. In it, Arthur Miller touches on this idea, but levels an even greater warning: the combination of Christianity, Judaism, and nationalism—literally lethal in his view. It is a great interview, and is part of a collection of interviews with several atheists entitled The Atheism Tapes (BBC). Cheers! B Danielson
Nation Needs Shared Liberty, Not Sacrifice
September 2, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published September 2 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110902/COLUMNISTS/110909980/1062&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
President Obama calls for "shared sacrifice" to address the nation's debt. But forcing individuals to sacrifice their present and future wealth to politicians' whims caused the problem. To restore economic prosperity, we need to stop sharing sacrifices and start sharing a respect for liberty and people's rights.
Obama's appeal depends on a basic confusion about the nature of sacrifice. The term shares the same root as sacred. Historically, a sacrifice involves a religious rite of giving a gift, often a slaughtered animal, to some deity. That's where we get the term sacrificial lamb. When viewed in this light, "shared sacrifice" presents an obvious problem: somebody plays the role of the lamb.
Over time sacrifice in popular usage came to mean giving up anything. But because so many things can be given up, and for so many different reasons, the term lost any clear meaning. Instead, often it functions to cloud people's thinking.
Some use the term to mean giving up something minor to get something better. Chess players call surrendering a piece to get ahead in the game a sacrifice. In baseball, a player makes a sacrifice bunt to allow a teammate to advance a base, though the hitter returns to the bench. In these cases, making a "sacrifice" is good for you: the narrow or short-term loss increases your odds of winning in the end.
Consider the student who stays home to study, rather than going to the movies or the mall, to earn a good education and career. Or a mother who cuts her own budget to expand the opportunities for the children she dearly loves. Or a soldier who risks his safety to defend his liberty and home. Or a fundraiser who supports medical research in memory of a loved one. Should we call these "sacrifices," even though the person achieves a greater value?
In other cases people use the term sacrifice to mean giving up something important for something trivial or even evil. Someone may sacrifice his career for a drinking binge, his marriage for a meaningless affair, or his savings account for a night of gambling. In extreme cases, various cultures murdered people for human sacrifices to appease some make-believe god, worship a ruler, or try to mystically gain the victim's strength.
When people apply the same term to earning a good job through hard work and slitting somebody's throat, that reveals a fundamental confusion.
So what does Obama mean by a "shared sacrifice?" He wants us to imagine that each of us needs to hit a sacrifice bunt so Team America can win the economic game. What he really means is that he wants to sacrifice the time, labor, and earnings of some people for the benefit or pleasure of his political supporters.
Obama clearly wants to raise taxes. From the left we hear envious snarls to further loot "the rich." Proposals on the table include raising tax rates for some and eliminating tax breaks for things like mortgages and health insurance, for the purpose of raising net taxes. (We approve of dumping tax deductions for special groups, but only to lower rates generally.)
A tax involves forcibly seizing people's wealth, usually for the benefit of some special interest. Ultimately, Obama threatens to send armed federal agents to your house to drag you off to prison to make you share in this sacrifice.
Other aspects of Obama's "shared sacrifice" involve reducing sacrifice, not increasing it. (http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/17/president-obama-listens-to-famers-in-rural-illinois/) CNN writes of a farmer "sympathetic to the president's calls for shared sacrifice, even if that means cuts to ethanol subsidies." But a subsidy entails forcibly looting other taxpayers. Eliminating the subsidy means halting the sacrifice of some Americans to others. We're all for that!
If sacrifice means forcing some individuals to surrender their hard-earned wealth to others, then our goal should be to eliminate sacrifice entirely. A society that sacrifices some people to others relies on brute force and rampant injustice.
A civilized society does not demand sacrifices. Instead it protects people's rights, including their right to control their own wealth and property as they see fit. In a civilized society, people interact by voluntary consent, not coercion.
"Shared sacrifice"—forcibly looting some for the benefit of others—caused the debt crisis. The solution is to phase out shared sacrifice, not expand it. We should dramatically cut federal spending to balance the budget and then start paying off the debt.
If we care about solving the debt crisis and restoring America's economic strength, if we care about protecting the rights of each individual, then we must reject shared sacrifice and instead demand shared liberty.
Denver Post Covers Liberty On the Rocks
September 8, 2011
If I didn't know any better, I'd think the Denver Post is trying to woo the center-right slash conservative slash libertarian slash free-market readership. What else explains the appearance of the Post's Kurtis Lee, recently a transplant from the District of Columbia, at this evening's (https://www.facebook.com/groups/denverlibertyontherocks/) Liberty On the Rocks' event?
The real purpose of the evening's festivities was to celebrate the third anniversary of the (http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/) People's Press Collective (to which this post will feed). Allow me to add my congratulations here, and to thank the organizers of PPC for creating a wonderful platform.
But Lee attended to gather reactions to the GOP debate (which I could barely hear on the bar's echoing television sets). Lee wrote up an (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18847546) articlethat mentioned the event's drinking game (with the word "jobs" acting as the trigger) and that included some substantive and interesting comments.
Regina Thomson told Lee she's looking for a "constitutional conservative" and would favor Herman Cain if he had a chance.
I loved Santiago Valenzuela's response. He said he's looking for real immigration reform "that allows peaceful people" to work here and eventually earn citizenship. I agree with his position, as I've written(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/teaparty/individual-rights.pdf) elsewhere.
Valenzuela is a friend of mine, by the way, and he writes some great posts for (http://www.motherofexiles.org/) Mother of Exiles. Interestingly, I also met a very nice fellow at the event who worked on Tom Tancredo's campaign for governor. And one thing that amazes me about Liberty On the Rocks is how well it facilitates social mingling and networking among people with such diverse views. (I should also note here that I run (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/libertybooks.html) Liberty In the Books, a project of Liberty On the Rocks, and got paid a bit to do so.)
Valenzuela's reply about jobs was classic: "I'm also looking for a jobs plan that gets the government out of our busisness to allow job creators to do their thing." He added that he dislikes Romney because he is the Father of ObamaCare.
Lee's appearance is not unprecedented, however; last year, the Post's (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/09/tea-party-prodded-by-denver-posts-chuck.html) Chuck Plunkett actually spoke at a Liberty On the Rocks event—something that perked up the ears of talented leftie blogger (http://bigmedia.org/2010/10/18/post-editorial-page-editor-sees-need-to-more-left-leaning-opinion-on-spot-blog-for-%E2%80%9Cmore-balance%E2%80%9D/) Jason Salzman.
The Post needn't worry; it's left-leaning credentials remain unchallenged. But I do appreciate the Post's willingness to broaden its coverage and its readership, and I think it's a much better paper for making the effort.
Fun with the Dismal Science
September 12, 2011
I presented this talk September 10 for a Liberty Toastmasters meeting oriented toward humor. Funny isn't usually my thing, but I had a go with the "dismal science." So, yes, I'm exaggerating certain points; however, most of the underlying ideas are based in real economics.
I've written about the potty-training story from (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/freaky-unintended-consequences.html) Freakonomics before, as well as the discussions about (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/alien-invasions-where-economic-and.html) alien invasions from economists and environmentalists. Bastiat's essay about the candlemakers is reproduced in(http://studentsforliberty.org/college/bastiat-project/) The Economics of Freedom.
Tea Party Crowd Cheers Voluntary Health Charity
September 13, 2011
According to a (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irx_QXsJiao) YouTube video by Talking Points Memo about the GOP debate of September 12, the "Tea Party Crowd Cheers Letting Uninsured Die."
Here's how (https://twitter.com/curtishubbard/) Curtis Hubbard, the editorial page editor of the Denver Post, describes the scene: "Cheering for people without insurance to die? Unbelievable." [Note: Please see the update below.]
(http://www.denverpost.com/littwin/ci_18881488) Mike Littwin, a member of the Denver Post's editorial board, writes:
I don't want to say the crowd was rough, but when Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul whether a doctor should refuse to treat a 30-year-old man in a coma who had failed to buy his own health insurance, some in the crowd shouted, "Yes, yes."
I'm serious. I'm a little shocked, but I'm deadly serious.
If "half the truth is a great lie," then Talking Points Memo, Hubbard, and Littwin are great liars. [December 1 Update: See my post, (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/12/belated-apology-to-littwin.html) Belated Apology to Littwin regarding this line.]
So let's back up and look at the entire sequence.
(http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/September/13/transcript-gop-debate-health-care-issues.aspx) Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul (whose candidacy I do NOT support):
Let me ask you this hypothetical question.
A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I'm not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I'm healthy, I don't need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it.
Who's going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that? ... He doesn't have [health insurance], and he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?
Paul answers, "That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody..."
At this point, as the video makes clear, the audience interrupts with applause.
Blitzer cuts in, "But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?"
At that point, at least three idiots in the audience scream, "Yea!" Is this the "Tea Party Crowd?" No. Littwin at least gets that point right. The few chanting "Yea" are not representative of the crowd or of the Tea Party movement. (They are not even known to be self-identified Tea Partiers, though I suspect they are.)
Obviously every large crowd has its idiots. This is true of Tea Party crowds, leftist crowds, union crowds, etc. Notice that those leftists who wish to demonize the entire Tea Party movement based on the idiocy of a tiny minority at the fringe of that movement do not similarly wish to condemn the entire left when a few leftists call for (or enact) violence, racism, or other variants of destructive stupidity (even though such things are much more prevalent on the left). So how about some intellectual honesty here?
Notably, the Talking Points Memo video dishonestly cuts off at this point. But the transcript proceeds:
PAUL: No. I practiced medicine before we had Medicaid, in the early 1960s, when I got out of medical school. I practiced at Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, and the churches took care of them. We never turned anybody away from the hospitals.
(APPLAUSE)
PAUL: And we've given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it. This whole idea, that's the reason the cost is so high.
The cost is so high because they dump it on the government, it becomes a bureaucracy. It becomes special interests. It kowtows to the insurance companies and the drug companies, and then on top of that, you have the inflation. The inflation devalues the dollar, we have lack of competition.
There's no competition in medicine. Everybody is protected by licensing. And we should actually legalize alternative health care, allow people to practice what they want.
(APPLAUSE)
This combination of free-market policy reforms in conjunction with voluntary charity is more typical of Tea Party beliefs, and it is what I advocate. (I would also favor the hospital sending this man "who makes a good living" the bill once he recovers.) For Talking Points Memo, Hubbard, and Littwin to mention the moronic tiny few chanting "Yea" to the "let him die" line, then to ignore Paul's substantive answer and the general audience approval of that, is, as I suggested, less than fully honest.
But, hey, they're talking about the Tea Party, so any smear goes, right?
September 14 Update: After I posted this material, Hubbard added on Twitter, "You infer my comment was directed at entire audience instead of at those who cheered. But you have your defending to do..." Apparently, then, he is claiming that his original comment was not"directed at the entire audience," but only "at those who cheered." Fine. Fair enough.
But, as should be obvious, I am not "defending" those who cheered the "let him die" line; I thought calling them "idiots" and "morons" adequately conveyed my attitude. As for Paul's actual remarks on this issue, and the actual crowd's response to them (as opposed to the earlier response by the few idiots), those do not need defending, which was the point of the post.
I did hesitate to include Hubbard's remark with the other two. Talking Points Memo clearly smears Tea Partiers; Littwin ties the few idiots to the Tea Party, leaving to implication that they are representative. Hubbard, on the other hand, merely says that it is "unbelievable" that there was "cheering for people without insurance to die." He was right to make the criticism.
The problem, and it is a minor one, is that Hubbard neglected the broader context, which is that the overwhelming majority of the audience supported Paul in taking the opposite stand of the few idiots. I read Hubbard's subsequent Tweets, and he uttered not a word about that key fact, though he did manage to post numerous updates about a football game. I think if the first part of the story merits attention, then so does the second part, particularly as the second part reveals attitudes much more representative of the crowd.
The Saul Alinsky Connection: Obama's Unprincipled Class Warfare Threatens the Nation
September 16, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published September 16 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110916/COLUMNISTS/110919987/1021&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
President Obama proves difficult to pin down. On the campaign trail, he opposed mandated health insurance; as president, he sought to impose it. He decried deficits even while ramping up federal spending. Obama answers the domestic jobs crisis by throwing ever more money at it; he answers the Iranian nuclear threat mostly with evasion.
What explains Obama's slipperiness? After all, this is the man who succeeded a wildly unpopular Republican president on the vague and still-undefined platform of "hope and change."
A hint to Obama's character comes through an examination of the original Chicago "community organizer," Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicalsfrom 1971, the Bible for many on the left. As (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/24/AR2007032401152.html) Peter Slevin writes for a 2007 Washington Post article, Alinsky once offered Hillary Clinton a job (she turned it down), and "a group of his disciples hired Barack Obama" to implement Alinsky's vision.
We have nothing against radicals per se; indeed, many rightly see in us a radical bent. The term comes from the Latin word for roots; a radical is somebody who tries to get to the root of the matter. Our two favorite radical quotes come from Barry Goldwater—"extremism in defense of liberty is no vice"—and Martin Luther King—"injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
But the term "radical" doesn't reveal which roots a person seeks. On the good side, America's Founders became the best sort of radicals in their struggle for liberty.
But radicals can also bear deadly poison. A radical racist dyes the whole world a race-tinged hue; radical socialists slaughtered scores of millions of people during the 20th Century.
Our problem with Alinsky rests in his particular sort of radicalism of class warfare and character assassination.
Beneath his platitudes about democracy and the "importance and worth in the individual," Alinsky reveals his core goal: to "use power for a more equitable distribution of the means of life for all people." As Obama reformulates it, the goal is to "spread the wealth around" through political force.
In Alinsky's world, "Mankind has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots," and those in between. "Rules for Radicals," he explains, "is written for the Have-Nots on how to take [power] away" from the Haves."
Observe the unmentioned premises behind Alinsky's project. He presumes that wealth just somehow arrives around us, and some people unfairly grab it first. On such a premise, class warfare becomes inevitable, and forcibly redistributing "the wealth" becomes the radical's goal.
But in a free society that protects people's rights, individuals create wealth by reshaping aspects of the natural world using their intelligence and hard work, then trading on a voluntary market. In such a society, the "Haves" earn their wealth through productive effort, and they provide the employment (and at times the voluntary charity) that enables the "Have-Nots" to get ahead in life.
In a free society, some people produce vastly more wealth than others, and profit accordingly, while all remain free to live their lives by their own judgment and participate in a broadly prosperous economy. In a free economy all can prosper, though to different degrees. The mark of a free economy is peaceful and voluntary association, not the power struggles of class warfare.
Unfortunately, in the power-controlled world created by the presumptions that both Alinsky and Obama share, politicians forcibly transfer wealth from those who justly earn it to the politically-favored "Haves." We call such programs things like "bailouts," "stimulus spending," "quantitative easing," and "entitlements."
Alinsky preaches the dogma of class warfare while pretending he opposes all dogma. The community organizer, Alinsky writes, "does not have a fixed truth—truth to him is relative and changing." You may read Obama's campaign slogan in Alinsky's line: "Man's hopes lie in the acceptance of the great law of change."
Alinsky's ever-changing world lacking timeless truths gives rise to his unprincipled pragmatism. He openly mocks those concerned about whether the ends justify the means. "The real arena is corrupt and bloody," he writes, so "one does not always enjoy the luxury" of upholding "individual conscience." Moral rhetoric on this view becomes a political weapon; "Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action," he writes.
Guided by such views, the left continually employs character assassination against its opponents; note the groundless demonization of Tea Partiers as violence-prone racists. Alinsky explicitly encourages such tactics; he writes, "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." He adds, "One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other." As for the truth, well, there's no such thing, and all that matters is the "moral rationalization."
Everyone who wants to restore American liberty should read Alinsky's book, not only to better understand Barack Obama and his allies, but to learn the tactics of the left and how to fight them.
Fun at Ikea
September 18, 2011
I confess I was skeptical of the Ikea store when it first came to town. But it's a lot of fun, and the restaurant there has some great deals. We found a number of items throughout the store that were less expensive than what we've paid elsewhere. Unfortunately, a city water main broke the day we went, preventing us from buying the Swedish meatballs for lunch. Next time.
Thank You, Netflix
September 19, 2011
I'm a little surprised by the negative reactions to (http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html) Reed Hastings'sannouncement that Netflix is splitting its services into online streaming and DVD rentals.
When Netflix announced its price increases a few weeks ago, I evaluated my streaming queue and my DVD queue, thought about the costs, and decided to dump the DVD side of the service. So now I pay $7.99 per month—around 27 cents per day—for continual access to a spectacular selection of streaming television shows and movies. For that pittance I can watch most of the Star Trek series, Charmed, The Twilight Zone, and tons of other awesome shows, films, and documentaries. In what universe is that not a spectacularly amazing deal?
If I wanted, for another $7.99 per month I could rent DVDs, one at a time, without monthly limits. At least where I live, the Netflix DVD cycle takes around three days, meaning I could rent as many as (around) eight DVDs per month with this plan. (Realistically I'd probably cycle through around four per month.) In what universe is $2 or less DVD rentals not a spectacularly amazing deal? However, it just wasn't quite a good enough deal for me, given the alternatives. Redbox rents new release videos for a dollar, we also use Hulu (the "free" version), and I purchased a couple seasons of House on used DVD. But I came close to dumping my other sources and going solely with Netflix and Hulu.
Think of it this way. If Netflix didn't exist, and a new company suddenly came on the market to offer what Netflix now offers, a streaming service plus a DVD rental service, each for a low monthly price, people would fall all over themselves signing up and lauding the new service. Apparently, given that Netflix has been offering its customers such amazing value for so long now, the company now deserves derision and scorn rather than praise. I think that's a little nuts and frankly a little ungrateful.
Now, I do see a problem with disconnecting the DVD queue from the streaming queue. The problem is that, when I (used to) put a DVD on my queue, and then the same item became available in streaming, the item appeared automatically in my streaming queue, and I didn't burn a DVD rental on it. Now, if you get both services, you'll have to manually add an item to streaming and delete it from the DVD queue.
However, Netflix seems to be anticipating—and I think correctly—that most people will come to want one service or the other, but not both. I think everything available for streaming is also available on DVD, and the opposite will increasingly become the case as time goes on. I can see why some people would prefer DVDs over streaming, though I definitely prefer streaming. I found this line from Hastings to be especially interesting: "DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible." It will be interesting to see what happens as streaming gets faster and cheaper and the United States Postal Service continues to struggle financially.
For now I will simply offer my gratitude to Netflix and stand amazed at how much better my life has become in the Internet Age.
Why Netflix's Split Business Probably Makes Sense
September 20, 2011
[October 10 Update: "(http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2011/10/10/netflix-keeps-dvd-service-under-netflix-brand/) Netflix "has abandoned its unpopular plan to spin off its DVD-by-mail service and rename it Qwikster, saying it will continue to offer both services through its flagship web site." From (http://blog.netflix.com/2011/10/dvds-will-be-staying-at-netflixcom.html) Netflix: "It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. This means no change: one website, one account, one password... in other words, no Qwikster." Obviously this news renders moot much of my previous discussion, preserved below. -Ari]
As I indicated (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/thank-you-netflix/) yesterday, I'm a little shocked by all the people sliming Netflix for the "crime" of offering customers amazing services for stunningly low prices.
No, the company did not handle the price hike well (though its real error was offering unrealistically low prices in the first place). And I do recognize that splitting the DVD rental from the online streaming (with two web portals and two bills) adds a minor inconvenience to customers using both services.
But many treat Netflix like its leaders had absolutely no reason for splitting the business other than to annoy customers. In other words, people utterly ignorant of the business's internal forecasts and long-range strategic plans think they can armchair-CEO better than those whose livelihoods and futures rest on the success of the company. I think that attitude is more than a little presumptuous.
Now, I don't know those forecasts or plans, either; however, I can take some educated guesses as to why Netflix decided to split the business.
1. The inconvenience is minor. Is it really that hard to maintain two accounts? No. It's extremely easy to log into two pages and maintain two queues. Until recently I used both of Netflix's services, and that required maintaining two lists, anyway. If something in my DVD queue appeared in streaming, I still had to manually rank the item in my streaming list and remove it from my DVD list. So the new system is trivially different. (That said, Netflix would do well to alert customers when DVD items become available for streaming.) [Update: Somebody pointed out to me that it was possible to maintain an integrated queue on the Netflix DVD list, as everything streaming is also on DVD, but I never found that helpful.] And two lines on one's credit card bill instead of one? Like, Oh, My, God, surely the sky falling comes next. Get a grip, people.
2. Most people will naturally gravitate to one service or the other. As I reviewed yesterday, I dropped the DVD rentals after Netflix announced the price hike. According to (http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-19/tech/30174644_1_reed-hastings-netflix-ceo-netflix-competitors) Henry Blodget, half of Netflix's customers used both services. (For those keeping track, that means half used only one service or the other.) But the figure for both services was inflated by the ridiculously and unsustainably low bundling price. If you wanted the DVD service, you could get streaming on the side for a pittance more, and vice versa.
Those running Netflix, not being as dense and short-sighted as so many of their critics have managed to appear, can see the technological trend lines. Streaming is getting progressively faster and cheaper. More and more people are buying iPads and other portable devices that can handle streaming. Ever more content is becoming available for streaming. At the same time, some people just prefer the older technology, can't get good internet connections, or don't want to tie up their internet with streaming. Thus, the two groups of customers seem to be diverging, not merging.
3. The split allows more tailored marketing. Assuming the above to be true, that the DVD and streaming customers represent very different demographics, a split company may have a much easier time tailoring its marketing campaigns to the two distinct groups.
4. Splitting the business allows easier adjustments to both sides. Not a single critic of Netflix can predict what's going to happen to the Post Office over the coming months and years. Perhaps Netflix's critics have failed to notice this little detail, but the USPS delivers Netflix disks. The USPS has been hemorrhaging (http://www.pri.org/stories/politics-society/government/will-the-postal-service-shut-down5780.html) billions of dollars, so delivery schedules or prices may change dramatically over the coming months. Netflix may have to change its DVD rental service accordingly. At the same time, while streaming becomes faster and cheaper, it could be that hot new content may cost Netflix more to secure. Splitting the business allows each side to easily and independently adjust pricing and details of service.
5. Splitting the services allows for splitting the company. Others have suggested this. With the services split within Netflix, the company could easy split legally as well, forming two autonomous corporations. Or Netflix could eventually sell off the DVD side. I can't imagine that the people running Netflix have never contemplated such possibilities.
Netflix can clearly see the model of what happens to companies that fail to adapt to changing technology: Borders. Netflix has chosen to take its lumps in the market now in the hopes of sustaining its long-term health. While sensible observers can debate whether Netflix made the best long-range decision, I think it's foolish and frankly mean-spirited to fail to recognize the plausible reasons supporing the company's shift.
Prop. 103 and Fungibility
September 20, 2011
(http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application/pdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1251739022687&ssbinary=true) Proposition 103 is the sole state-wide measure, a tax hike, for the November 1 Colorado ballot. I will have more to say about this elsewhere. For now, I want to investigate one particular aspect of the measure; the potential fungibility of funds under it.
Here's an analogy to introduce the fungibility issue. Let's say your daughter has $100. She wants to go to a concert, but she doesn't want to spend the $30 on a ticket. She also wants to buy a $30 book to help her get into college, and she wants to spend the other $70 on a trip to the mall. She comes to you and says, "Mom, I really, REALLY need this $30 book, because it's really REALLY important for me to get into college. Can, I can I, can I have $30 for the book, please please PLEASE?! I promise I'll use that $30 only for the book."
You say sure. So she spends $30 on the book, $30 on a ticket, and $70 at the mall. Otherwise, she would have forgone the concert ticket and spent $100 total. True to her promise, she spent your $30 on the book. But that's where the fungibility issue comes up: your gift allowed her to divert another $30 to the concert ticket. So even though you officially gave her the money for the book, you might as well have given it to her for the concert ticket. The result is the same.
So the question is, even though Prop. 103 raises taxes "to be spent only to fund public education," does that really mean it will require the legislature to spend more on education that it would have done otherwise?
The answer is yes. Consider the change to the statutory language, which is the primary thing that matters in court; see (http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application/pdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1251739022687&ssbinary=true) page 10 of the Blue Book.(I'd like to thank Carolyn Kampman of the Joint Budget Committee and Chris Ward of the Legislative Council for helping me understand this.)
All revenues raised by the increase in taxes imposed pursuant to this measure... shall be appropriated by the general assembly only for the costs of public education from preschool through twelfth grade and public postsecondary education and shall be in addition to and not a substitute for moneys otherwise appropriated by the general assembly for the costs of public education from preschool through twelfth grade and public postsecondary education the amount of which appropriation shall be not less than the amount appropriated for such purposes for fiscal year 2011-12.
The key line is the last one, which requires that the legislature spend whatever it spends in 2011-12, plus the proceeds of the tax hike. Legislative Council estimates that will be about $515 million the first year and progressively more after that, for a five-year total of $2.9 billion.
The question, though, is what the legislature otherwise would spend on education. If it otherwise would spend (say) $500 million more on education, and the tax hike brings in $600 million, then the legislature has $500 million to devote to other purposes.
Based on my conversations with Kampman and Ward, I conclude it is basically impossible to predict how the legislature otherwise would act, though I confess the intricacies of school finance surpass my mastery. It seems reasonable to assume, though, that Prop. 103 would add substantially to the education budget for the five-year period.
I think Prop. 103 is nevertheless a really horrible idea, but I'll present the reasoning for that conclusion elsewhere.
Let's Eliminate the Sales Tax
September 22, 2011
As my dad and I (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/04/dump-emergency-sales-tax.html) argued last year, Colorado should eliminate the sales tax (along with the use tax) even if done in a revenue-neutral way by increasing the income tax rate.
Consider a few of the many problems with the tax:
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/03/stop-amazon-tax.html) Interstate commerce has created huge problems for collecting and administering sales and use taxes.
* Paying the sales tax over small-scale intrastate commerce is incredibly difficult. For example, I can directly sell my book, (http://www.valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter,practically anywhere in the world, but I cannot afford the paperwork nightmare of selling it directly in Colorado. (You can still buy it on Amazon!) In my experience, many small businesses simply ignore the sales tax laws.
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/my-use-tax-case-resolved-tax-remains.html) Paying the use tax is an absolute nightmare, and the fact that hardly anybody does it turns most Coloradans into criminals.
* Sales taxes disadvantage local stores, yet forcing out-of-state businesses to collect sales taxes would create (http://www.usa-sales-use-tax-e-commerce.com/sales_on_internet.asp) "as many as 15,000 tax rates to administer"—a bureaucratic nightmare.
The obvious solution to all these problems is to simply eliminate the sales tax.
Thankfully, the Joint Budget Committee has placed the (http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/jbc/apprepts.htm) Colorado budgetonline starting with 2004-05. Looking at the budget for (http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/jbc/FY11-12BIB.pdf) fiscal year 2011-12, we can learn what eliminating the sales tax would mean.
Page 6 of that document reveals that total "excise taxes" (sales, use, and related taxes) bring in $2,184,400,000 (let's say $2.2 billion). Income taxes bring in $4,692,200,000 (let's say $4.7 billion). So, very roughly, eliminating the sales tax in a revenue-neutral way would require an increase in the income tax of somewhere less than fifty percent. Of course I'd rather see net taxes decline, but I could live with a revenue-neutral shift in order to get rid of the onerous sales tax.
Reviewing Ayn Rand's 'Anthem'
September 23, 2011
Recently a local reading group I attend reviewed Ayn Rand's dystopian novelette Anthem. That book served as my introduction to Rand many years ago, and rereading it proved rewarding.
In our discussion, we explored a variety of topics:
* The romance between the two lead characters, Equality and Liberty, develops as Equality becomes an independent thinker and scientist. This anticipates Howard Roark's comment in Fountainhead, "To say 'I love you' one must first know how to say the 'I'."
* The way Equality values his scientific work anticipates the relationship between the heroes and their work in Atlas Shrugged. It illustrates Rand's view that material objects are not valuable in themselves, but only in relation to individual values and consciousness.
* For Rand, totalitarianism necessarily results, ultimately, in total economic collapse. The central reason for this is that political controls prevent individuals from acting on their own reasoned judgment, ultimately chilling reasoned thought as such. In the long run capitalism and technological progress cannot survive totalitarian controls. Contrast the primitive society of Anthem with the (in some ways) highly technical societies of other dystopias, such as Brave New World and, more recently,Hunger Games.
Now that I've reread Anthem, I very much look forward to reading (http://www.lexingtonbooks.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=%5EDB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0739110306) Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem, edited by Robert Mayhew. I've read the similar compilation about (http://www.lexingtonbooks.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0739127799) Atlas Shrugged, and it is excellent.
Incidentally, I was thrilled to watch the documentary (http://www.eagle-rock.com/product/EREDV792/2112+%26+Moving+Pictures+%28Classic+Album%29) Rush: 2112 & Moving Pictures (Classic Album) and find an excellent overview of Anthemby (http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_JohnRidpath) John Ridpath. (Anthem helped inspire the story for 2112.)
Below are the review questions used for our group (and others are free to reproduce these for purposes of discussion).
1. What is the ego? (Peikoff's 1994 introduction)
2. How do the conditions surrounding the writing and publication of Anthem relate to the book's theme? (Peikoff's 1994 introduction, Rand's 1946 foreword)
3. What are the principles and laws of the story's society, and what are the emotional consequences of Equality 7-2521 breaking them? (Chapter I)
4. What is the connection between the collectivism and the technological regression of the story? (Chapter I)
5. Why does Rand place the budding romance between the discovery of the tunnel and the Unspeakable Word? (Chapter II)
6. What is the relationship between the advancing scientific discoveries and the building romance? (Chapter III, Chapter IV)
7. Why does Equality say "our new power defies all laws?" Is he right? (Chapter IV)
8. Why does Equality think "this wire is as a part of our body?" (Chapter V)
9. Why does Equality believe the Council of Scholars will accept his gift? Why is he wrong? (Chapter V, Chapter VII)
10. What is the significance of the observation that the electric light "would bring ruin to the Department of Candles?" (Chapter VII)
11. How does Equality's self-discovery connect to his love of the Golden One? (Chapter VIII, Chapter IX)
12. How does Equality's independence mesh with the Golden One's deference toward him? (Chapter X)
13. What is the "world ready to be born?" (Chapter X)
14. What does Equality mean when he writes, "I am the warrant and the sanction?" (Chapter XI)
15. What does Equality mean when he writes, "I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others?" (Chapter XI)
16. How does Prometheus retain his independence while learning so much from others? (Chapter XII)
17. How can one man stoke "the spirit of man?" (Chapter XII)
Health Responsibility (In My PJs)
September 24, 2011
Pajamas Media has published my latest article, (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/health-insurance-and-personal-responsibility/) "Health Insurance and Personal Responsibility," a reply to Wolf Blitzer's remark about letting people without health insurance die.
While my piece was in processing, several others wrote about the issue as well, including (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_18948422) Mike Rosen and (http://healthblog.ncpa.org/answering-wolf-blitzer/) John Goodman (who in turn links to several other articles on the matter). See also my previous post, (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/tea-party-crowd-cheers-voluntary-health-charity/) "Tea Party Crowd Cheers Voluntary Health Charity."
Following are some of my favorite quotes from the PJ article:
... Blitzer's question presumes that the only three alternatives are overpriced insurance, letting him die, or forcing others to pay for his care. Thankfully, the real world offers us far better options. ...
"Society" has no right to violate the rights of minorities or of individuals. Doctors, hospitals, and individuals who wish to help pay for others' care remain free to do so, but they should not be forced by federal politicians to do so.
The deeper problem, the real reason a healthy 30 year old grows tempted to forgo health insurance, is that politicians have made the costs of health care and insurance ludicrously expensive. ...
Free-market reforms make it easier for people to live and pursue a healthy and autonomous life. In moving toward that goal, all that needs to die are the misguided political controls on health care and insurance that have so thoroughly debilitated those fields.
(http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/health-insurance-and-personal-responsibility/) Check out the complete article!
What Is Individualism?
September 26, 2011
Many people hold a confused view of what individualism means. In this short talk, I seek to clarify the concept. Individualism does not mean becoming a loner or failing to help others; it does mean thinking independently and seeing the individual human being as the fundamental source of moral values. Obviously there is much more to be said on the topic, but I this was a good start for four minutes. (The original September 24 talk, delivered at a Toastmasters event, also included an introduction and ending, but those were too audience-specific to be of general interest.)
I mention the CNN debate in which Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul if "society" should let someone die who gets sick without health insurance; I have written on that topic (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/health-responsibility-in-my-pjs/) elsewhere.
Warming Prophets Create Climate of Smear
September 28, 2011
I like Skeptic magazine; indeed, I have written an article for eSkepticabout (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-07-13/) religion in Harry Potter. Healthy skepticism is about thinking for yourself, declining to accept "established wisdom" without good evidence, and rejecting pseudo-science and appeals to non-natural explanations about the world.
Unfortunately, the latest article by geologist (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-09-28/) Donald Prothero for eSkepticpromotes group-think and smearing the opposition. Prothero accuses "climate change-deniers" of ad hominem attacks, even though the very label contains two smears.
First, Prothero clearly means to attribute guilt by association with the term "denier," linking his opponents with other unassociated groups. Prothero explicitly likens his opponents to "evolution-deniers," and never mind that many critical thinkers accept evolution but question climate alarmism. Ah, but some "climate change-deniers" are also "evolution-deniers," and that's good enough for Prothero. The argument seems to be, "Some of my opponents are idiots; therefore, all of my opponents are wrong." But that's not good enough, not if you claim the mantle of science.
Second, Prothero's claim that his opponents "deny climate change" is simply a ridiculous lie. Nobody denies that the climate changes. Indeed, it is precisely the fact that the (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/green-doomsday-cultists.html) climate always changes and has been continually changing since the formation of the Earth that provides goodprima facie reason to think that modern climate change is dominated by nature rather than humans. In all the climate-change literature, the single page that most impressed me was the page from Al Gore's first major book on the subject showing the pre-human cycles of climate change.
Only a fool would argue that modern climate change is due exclusively to human industry. (On the other hand, it is a tautology that, before humans evolved, nature was exclusively responsible for climate change.) However, nobody could sustain the view that human-caused CO2 emissions have zero impact on today's climate. Therefore, the real debate is between the views of "human-dominated climate change" and "nature-dominated climate change."
Given that nature obviously dominated climate change for nearly all of the Earth's history, the idea that nature continues to dominate climate change remains a highly plausible starting point.
As to Prothero's claims about the "scientific consensus" (which, incidentally, has been wrong before), there are a couple of good reasons to think that ideology drives much of the science. First, large sums of federal cash are awarded to scientists who promote the "consensus" view. Second, most advocates of "human-dominated climate change" advocate massive federal controls on the economy as a response, even though that political conclusion extends well beyond the scientific claims.
True skeptics will not be bowled over by the smear tactics and intimidation of the modern environmentalist movement.
Pajamas Reply to Elizabeth Warren
September 28, 2011
Pajamas Media has published my latest article, (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/elizabeth-warrens-social-contract-an-ideological-fantasy/) "Elizabeth Warren's 'Social Contract' an Ideological Fantasy." (The editors picked the great title.)
The article replies to a popular (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20110042-503544.html) video of Warren in which she argues the "social contract" justifies hefty taxes on the wealthy.
I decimate her arguments, if I do say so. First, I point out, "Productive business leaders create the wealth that enables us to thrive, seek employment, and on the side pay for governmental services." Then I argue the proper function of government is to protect people's rights. I conclude:
The notion that the likes of Nancy Pelosi can spend the money of Amazon's Jeff Bezos better than Bezos can is laughable on its face.
Warren contends "there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own." In a sense she's right: people get rich by providing enormously valuable goods and services to others who willingly pay for them. Warren and other politicians should not be able to dictate what "hunk" of the earnings of others they forcibly seize. ...[L]egitimate government does not loot "the rich" (or anyone else) but instead protects people's rights, including their rights to their earnings.
(http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/elizabeth-warrens-social-contract-an-ideological-fantasy/) Check out the entire piece!
Hoiles Finalist
September 29, 2011
RELEASE
Ari Armstrong Announced as Hoiles Finalist for Regional Journalism
Colorado free-market writer Ari Armstrong has been announced as a finalist in the 2011 (http://www.policynetwork.net/2011-hoiles-prize) Hoiles Prize for regional journalism. The award, offered by the International Policy Network (IPN), takes its name from R. C. Hoiles, former head of Freedom Newspapers.
"I'm honored to be included in this impressive group of finalists," Armstrong said. "I'm also very pleased that IPN recognizes this important regional work. I've long believed that advocating liberty at the regional level forms the bedrock of a strong republic."
Armstrong joins six other finalists, and the three winners will be announced November 2 in New York. The same evening, IPN will also announce the winners of the prestigious Bastiat Prize.
Armstrong coauthored four of the six essays submitted for the contest with his father Linn for Grand Junction Free Press.
An IPN release announces the following details:
"Richard Fisher, president and CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve, will speak at the tenth annual dinner for the Bastiat Prize at the Four Seasons Restaurant... in New York on Wednesday, November 2, 2011. ... This year a new prize, the R.C. Hoiles Prize for Journalism, will be given for American work. The prize celebrates courageous journalists who explain the importance of free markets and risks presented by excessive government intervention. ...
"The seven nominated Hoiles finalists are: Ari Armstrong (Colorado Daily), Sara Burrows (Carolina Journal), Bill Frezza (RealClearMarkets.com), Steven Greenhut (The Orange County Register), Steve Malanga (Manhattan Institute, The Wall Street Journal), Bruce Ramsey (The Seattle Times) and Damon Root (Reason)."
The following six articles were considered for the prize:
(http://www.coloradodaily.com/ci_17114331#axzz1Ppjqwkld) 'New energy economy' based on old fallacies
Colorado Daily, January 16, 2011
(Also published by Denver Daily and (http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20110122/COLUMNS/110129963/1026&parentprofile=1058) Summit Daily.)
(http://www.themountainmail.com/main.asp?SectionID=7&SubSectionID=7&ArticleID=22525) How many criminals has Colorado use tax created?
Mountain Mail, May 25, 2011
(Also published by Denver Daily.)
(http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110527/COLUMNISTS/110529990/1062&parentprofile=1062) Channel 11 piece peddles economic nonsense
Grand Junction Free Press, May 27, 2011
(http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110513/COLUMNISTS/110519975/1021) Colorado's Campaign Laws Throw Common Sense Out the Window
Grand Junction Free Press, May 13, 2011
(http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110415/COLUMNISTS/110419978) Walter Walker Opposed Grand Junction's Socialists
Grand Junction Free Press, April 15, 2011
(http://www.gjfreepress.com/ARTICLE/20101210/COLUMNISTS/101209904/1021/) Time for a Free Market in the Alcohol Industry
Grand Junction Free Press, December 10, 2010
Prop. 103. Would Hurt Working Families, Kill Jobs
September 30, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published September 30 by (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20110930/COLUMNISTS/110929947/1062&parentprofile=1062) Grand Junction Free Press.
They're ba-a-ck, and they want to raise your taxes, again. They always do. Yes, it's "for the children." It usually is.
But Proposition 103, the tax hike brought to this fall's ballot by Boulder Democrat Rollie Heath and the teachers' unions, is really about taking more money out of the pockets of working families to enrich those unions. Throwing more tax dollars at government-run schools hardly would improve the quality of education.
If you really want to help "the children" (and everyone else), you will vote no on the job killer Prop. 103. Taking even more money out of the voluntary economy would only make it harder for working families to put food on the table and afford other necessities.
Perhaps you've noticed that the economy remains weak, with unemployment nationally hovering at around nine percent and Colorado not far behind. The mortgage bust and the bipartisan political bungling that followed hit Grand Junction especially hard. Politicians have already burdened the economy with myriad taxes and reams of controls—how much more can it take?
Taking more money from working families for taxes would dry up private-sector jobs. While the cost of the tax hike would depend on the state of the economy, (http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application/pdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1251739022687&ssbinary=true) Legislative Council estimates the measure would suck around $2.9 billion out of the voluntary economy by raising sales and income taxes for five years. Think about how many salaries that represents.
Prop. 103 devotes the money to "public education" from preschool through college, taking the 2011-12 budget as the base level. Legislative Council estimates that base at about $4.3 billion (which includes only state funding, not local and federal). Thus, the added taxes would raise state spending by around 12 to 15 percent per year. Of course, how the legislature would adjust education spending absent the tax hike remains anybody's guess.
Even those who want to raise taxes may question a hike specifically for education. If you think state government should spend relatively more on roads and criminal investigations instead, you may not like Prop. 103 so much. On the other hand, those with particular ideas about how the state should fund education may not see the measure as specific enough.
We think state legislators should prioritize better, cut spending, and lower tax rates so people can keep more of the money they earn. Then people could spend their own money on what they find most important, whether education, a new business, health care, or whatever.
Would spending more tax dollars on education even improve the quality of education? We think not. The Joint Budget Committee notes total Colorado spending on education has jumped from just over (http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/jbc/FY04-05BIB.pdf) $5 billion in 2004-05 to (http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/jbc/FY11-12BIB.pdf) $7.2 billion in 2011-12, a 44 percent increase, while student enrollment has climbed 10 percent. Has education gotten proportionately better over that period? Hardly.
Taking a longer view, Ben DeGrow of the Independence Institute notes, "Since 1970 per-pupil spending in Colorado and the U.S. have more than doubled after counting inflationary changes—even given the real modest freezes and cuts many Colorado K-12 schools have experienced over the past two years." (Note: Ari has written for the Institute, in one case on a contract basis.)
Coloradans already spend tons of money on education. The (http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/NEA_Rankings_and_Estimates010711.pdf) NEA recently estimated per-pupil spending here at over $9,500. Education spending already consumes around 37 percent of the state's total operating budget of $19.6 billion, dwarfing spending for corrections and transportation combined.
What do we get for all that spending? "Adding more tax dollars to K-12 systems on a large scale has no connection to improving academic results," DeGrow summarizes. As (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/president-to-call-for-big-new-ed-spending-heres-a-look-at-how-thats-worked-in-the-past/) Andrew Coulson reviews for the Cato Institute, as U.S. per-pupil funding has skyrocketed over the last few decades, reading, math, and science scores have virtually flatlined.
Rather than throw more tax dollars at the teachers' unions and the political cronies they finance, we need to instead find better value for our education dollars. Schools need greater ability to fire dud teachers without incurring union lawsuits. Most districts can get by with fewer administrative paper-shufflers. Schools should stop following the latest expensive fads and get back to teaching the basics.
Over the longer term, we should look at ways to reduce political involvement in education, not expand it. We are heartened by the success of various charter schools throughout the state. Ultimately we'd like to see real choice in education. We prefer universal tax credits over vouchers. Eventually we'd like to see truly free markets emerge in education, with parents, educators, and voluntary charities assuming the basic responsibility for organizing and financing education. Get politicians and bureaucrats out of it.
This fall, though, we face an immediate choice. Should we divert even more money from the hard-pressed voluntary economy to the teachers' unions, or should we demand greater accountability and better prioritization for the tax dollars we already turn over? Only the latter option comports with economic sanity and your liberty to spend your money as you choose.
Left Targets Gessler for Protecting Voting Integrity
September 30, 2011
Mailing out ballots to inactive voters is an open invitation to voter fraud. There's no telling who's going to receive and submit the ballot.
Therefore, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler sensibly told Denver and Pueblo Counties that they should follow Colorado law and not mail ballots to inactive voters.
In response to Gessler's protection of voting integrity, the left has waged a full-scale smear campaign against him, accusing him of racism and disenfranchisement. This is a major leftist strategy for the 2012 elections: smear all Republicans, conservatives, Tea Partiers, and free-market activists as racists, in order to raise sympathy support for Obama. It is a nasty, mean-spirited, intellectually dishonest tactic. If you want to understand why the left does this, read the article I coauthored on (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/the-saul-alinsky-connection-obamas-unprincipled-class-warfare-threatens-the-nation/) Saul Alinsky and Obama.
One basic issue is how an "inactive" voter can become "reactivated." It turns out it's trivially easy.
I called Andrew Cole about this; he is a spokesman for Gessler's office.(http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/2011/09/colorado-voter-registration-part-4-of-unaffiliateds-and-the-activeinactive-divide/) (Michael Sandoval has also written a bit about this issue.)
Cole said, "To become inactive, you have to have missed a general election, not responded to at least one follow-up postcard from your county clerk, and not voted in any subsequent elections such as a municipal election."
So how does an inactive voter reactivate? Cole explained, "You can physically visit your clerk's office, you can go to (http://govotecolorado.com/) GoVoteColorado.com and with a state ID card activate your status online, and you could also write a letter to your clerk, but you'd have to have a signature to verify who you were."
In addition, a previously inactive voter can get a ballot from the clerk directly "up until and including election day."
So this is pretty simple: if you have not voted in a recent election, and if you have not bothered to reply to your clerk's postcard, you can easily reactivate yourself online or by visiting or writing your clerk. Surely that's not too much to ask of those determining the future of the free world.
While he was on the phone, I also asked Cole about the controversy surrounding military voters.
Cole said that issue arose in Pueblo County under clerk Bo Ortiz. Cole said Ortiz asked the Secretary of State's office about the matter only this week.
According to Cole, Gessler's office told Ortiz that he "can't mail ballots to inactive voters." However, he "should have resolved this issue weeks ago." Cole said there are 80 inactive military voters listed in Pueblo County, and Ortiz has email contacts for 64 of them. In Cole's words, Gessler's office told Ortiz's office this week, "You should immediately email all 64" with known emails and send postcards to the rest. Moreover, Ortiz "should have done that weeks ago."
Cole summarized, "We're asking Peublo County to follow the law, just like we're asking Denver to follow the law."
Apparently following the law is not a concept the left easily wraps its collective head around. Instead, the left would rather play the politics of smear and character assassination.
Income Tax Stinks, but the "Fair Tax" Doesn't Look Much Better
October 2, 2011
The Objective Standard published my latest article, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fair-tax-looks-ugly-in-the-details/) "'Fair Tax' Looks Ugly in the Details."
I point out that, not only would the "Fair Tax" (a type of national sales tax) increase the cost of items by (at least) 30 percent, but it would also tax consumable services. While usually sellers must remit the tax, sometimes consumers must do so. The worst possible outcome is a sales tax added to the income tax.
I argue:
To a large degree, the debate over the sales tax versus the income tax misses the more fundamental issue of spending levels. How the federal government collects our money matters, but how much the government forcibly confiscates matters far more. So long as the federal government spends massive amounts of the citizens' wealth on "bailouts," corporate welfare, and handouts to individuals, any resulting tax necessarily grows onerous.
(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fair-tax-looks-ugly-in-the-details/) Check out the entire article!
Why Voting Integrity Requires Proof Positive
October 3, 2011
Recently I (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/left-targets-gessler-for-protecting-voting-integrity/) wrote, "Mailing out ballots to inactive voters is an open invitation to voter fraud."
This prompted leftist gadfly Alan Franklin to reply in a series of Twitter posts, "[I]f mailing ballots to inactives is 'an open invitation to voter fraud,' I assume you have... evidence of that? ... Because if you have no evidence... you're just another clown using baseless scare tactics. You know that, right?" He further claimed that I'm using "baseless scare tactics to stop ballots from going to voters" and "[t]echnicalities to suppress voting."
This is a serious topic that deserves serious consideration (as opposed to Franklin's ad hominem attacks).
The principle involved here is that the onus of proof lies on the one making an assertion. So if someone were to falsely accuse Franklin of theft, he could sensibly reply, "You have no evidence that I've committed theft; therefore, your accusation is groundless."
Does a voting system likewise require positive proof of fraud before that system may be declared unsound and prone to fraud? No. The difference is that voting is the positive evidence required for an election result, and that positive evidence must be collected and presented according to reasonable standards of integrity.
To return to the example of falsely accusing someone of theft, imagine the following discussion:
Ben: "You are a thief"
Alan "No, I'm not. You have no evidence of that, and you are lying."
Ben: "But you have no evidence that I'm lying, so therefore you are a thief!"
The problem is that Ben bears the burden of proving that Alan is a thief. Ben cannot throw the burden of proof back onto Alan.
Likewise, the voting system bears of burden of proving which candidate (or side) earned the specified number of votes. One cannot reasonably accept just any system of voting based on the claim, "Well, you have no evidence there's anything wrong with this system." Voting requires positive evidence that it yields accurate results.
Imagine some different scenarios that illustrate this principle.
In Country P, the dictator says, "I am the rightful ruler of this country, because the people support me!" If a critic were to answer, "There's no good reason to think the people support you; why not throw the question up for a fair and open election?" What we we say if the dictator answered, "I know my people, and I know they support me. You have no evidence that there's anything fraudulent about my claim, you clown!"
But let's say we could persuade the dictator that an actual vote by the reasonably qualified electorate would better determine which leader has the majority's support. The dictator says, "I have collected all the ballots, and I have counted them myself, and I am the clear winner." If the critic were to reply, "It's not good enough for you to count the ballots yourself, because you have a strong incentive to miscount or 'lose' the ballots you don't like. Therefore, the ballots must be counted in an open and verifiable way." Again we would not be persuaded if the dictator replied, "You have no evidence that my vote count is flawed, you clown!"
Let's switch the scenario to something more like our actual system. Suppose the Secretary of State issued the following proclamation: "I am standing up to the opposition's voter suppression machine! I want to ensure that every qualified voter has an opportunity to cast a ballot. Therefore, I am mailing ten copies of the ballot to every residential address in Colorado, to ensure there are plenty of ballots to go around to all qualified voters. Moreover, people can also walk into my office, without any identification (because demanding ID would make me part of the voter suppression machine!), and request all the extra ballots they may need for themselves and others they know who are qualified voters."
A critic might argue, "But, Secretary, such a system would be an open invitation to fraud!" What would we think of a Secretary who answered, "You have no evidence that such a system would result in fraud, you clown!" It would quickly become clear which party more closely resembles a clown.
A voting system requires positive proof that only qualified voters cast ballots, and that each voter casts only one ballot per election. You can't just mail out ballots to everybody in the state. You can't just let everybody wander in off the streets to vote, without identification.
Mailing ballots to inactive voters clearly fails the test of voting integrity. Often voters become inactive because they move out of state. Mailing ballots to those old addresses, absent any additional evidence that the voter actually lives there, is just asking for fraud. Setting up a system of voting that easily allows fraud is stupid and contrary to the very purpose of voting.
(Remember that inactive voters easily can (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/left-targets-gessler-for-protecting-voting-integrity/) reactivate themselves.)
Indeed, I worry that the entire strategy of mailing out ballots invites fraud. How many elderly voters get a little "help" from their activist grandchildren? How many people cast ballots that aren't actually theirs? We do not know. It is impossible to know. And the absence of proof of voting integrity is the problem.
If we are going to maintain the system of mailed ballots, at least that system must include basic safeguards to prevent the worst and most obvious invitations to fraud.
Far better is to return to the polling place. (Note that there could even be a roving polling facility for the physically incapacitated.) Then voters can show their ID at the door. It's clear that one voter casts one vote by his or her choice. That provides positive proof that the election is fair. Would that result in fewer people voting? Probably. But if you can't be bothered to put in the minimal effort required to ensure voting integrity, seriously do you have any businesses helping to determine the future of our civilization?
Why Can't Blogger and Facebook Play Nicely?
October 3, 2011
Blogger usually works great. Facebook usually works great. So why can't Blogger and Facebook play together nicely?The problem is that, if inside Facebook I link to a post of mine managed by Blogger, Facebook does not pick up the lead paragraph of the post (which obviously is what I want). Instead, Facebook picks up my bio line, which is completely unrelated to the contents of the post.
Others have told me that the problem arises from Blogger's non-standard formatting. Regardless, I imagine that the whiz kids either at Blogger or at Facebook easily could fix the problem, if they'd attempt to do so.
Alternately, perhaps there's something simple that I could do to fix the problem—though I've tried a variety of strategies, all without success. If somebody has a suggestion, please leave it in the comments.
Otherwise, I may have to undergo the serious hassle of switching over to Word Press.
[January 24, 2013 update: Obviously this post now appears on a WordPress site; I moved it here from the old site.]
Would Prop. 103 Let Legislature Spend However It Wants?
October 6, 2011
A couple days ago (http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/2011/10/stuck-with-a-dishonest-tax-increase/) "Brian" wrote about Proposition 103, "The legislature is under no obligation to spend the money on education. Prop 103 is a law, and it is only valid until it is superseded by another law." I heard a similar claim yesterday from Justin Everett and the hosts of Grassroots Radio on 560 am.
While I think it's possible that the legislature could try to overwrite Prop. 103 and redirect the funds to other ends, I think that's very unlikely.
A couple weeks ago I (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/prop-103-and-fungibility.html) reviewed Prop. 103 and pointed out its language adding the tax hike to the education budget of 2011-12. So, as written, Prop. 103 definitely increases the budget for education. (The budget might have increased anyway, but probably not nearly as much.)
If the legislature tried to spend the Prop. 103 money on other ends, that would undoubtedly draw a legal challenge, though I doubt Colorado's absurdly biased courts would welcome it. But the political heat for failing to budget in accordance with Prop. 103 would be overwhelming.
I can't recall who suggested a more plausible alternative: the money could go to shore up the pensions of those working in government "education" (broadly defined). Prop. 103 says nothing about spending the money on actually teaching children.
It's not like critics of Prop. 103 need to reach for strained arguments about the legislature "spending the money however it wants"; as it is written the measure is terrible.
As my dad and I wrote recently, (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/prop-103-would-hurt-working-families.html) "Prop. 103. Would Hurt Working Families, Kill Jobs."
A new (http://liberty.i2i.org/files/2011/10/IP_7_2011_a.pdf) paper from the Independence Institute amplifies these concerns:
The higher tax will reduce job opportunities in Colorado. The total loss in jobs from the Prop 103 tax increase is estimated between 7,400 and 11,600. The higher tax will also reduce the tax base, partially offsetting the revenue generated by the tax. Prop. 103 will exacerbate a $1 billion structural deficit in the state budget.
This is an important argument. By further weakening the Colorado economy, Prop. 103 would reduce the amount of taxes flowing into the rest of the budget. So, while education spending would skyrocket, spending elsewhere would fall relative to where it otherwise would have been.
That Prop. 103 would harm the economy is the first major reason to oppose it; the second is that the tax hike would probably have little to no effect on the actual quality of education. (My dad and I review (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/prop-103-would-hurt-working-families.html) this point as well.) Yes, the money would go to enrich administrators and the teachers' unions, but would it actually improve kids' education? We seriously doubt it.
Further enriching the teachers' unions and entrenching their power is hardly the way to improve education. Instead, we need to move toward free markets to give educators and families the freedom they need to best educate the children in their care.
Comments
No Guarantee
Ari,
I always appreciate your insight, and read most of your posts. Somehow missed this one.
Sorry about the "after-the-fact" response, but just Googled my name and…To reinforce my statement on the radio, Sen. Rollie Heath admitted in a few debates, there is no guarantee of how the money would be spent. Terry Scanlon of the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute admitted the same at a debate, and added "If the legislature can get around Amendment 23, a Constitutional Amendment, then they could probably get around this." Reps. Swalm and Balmer also reinforced this notion at a debate as well after I made this statement. Anything statutory can be changed by both chambers of the legislature with a 50%+1 vote and signed by the governor. With that said, I was relieved and excited when voters killed this tax increase by almost a 2-1 margin.
Best,
Justin Everett
December 16, 2011
Comment by ariarmstrong: Comment by Justin Everet tDecember 16, 2011 at 5:47 AM Ari, I always appreciate your insight, and read most of your posts. Somehow missed this one. Sorry about the "after-the-fact" response, but just Googled my name and...To reinforce my statement on the radio, Sen. Rollie Heath admitted in a few debates, there is no guarantee of how the money would be spent. Terry Scanlon of the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute admitted the same at a debate, and added "If the legislature can get around Amendment 23, a Constitutional Amendment, then they could probably get around this". Reps. Swalm & Balmer also reinforced this notion at a debate as well after I made this statement. Anything statutory can be changed by both chambers of the legislature with a 50%+1 vote and signed by the governor. With that said, I was relieved and excited when voters killed this tax increase by almost a 2-1 margin. Best, Justin Everett
Fuel Controls Violate Liberty
October 7, 2011
The Objective Standard has published my latest article, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fuel-controls-violate-rights-and-stifle-markets/) "Fuel Controls Violate Rights and Stifle Markets." I write:
... [T]he federal government's fuel standards disrupt this forward march of technology, substituting the whims of politicians and bureaucrats for the independent judgment of producers and their customers. As a result, the auto industry becomes more heavily shackled by political directives, and it offers consumers less-desirable vehicles. ...
(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fuel-controls-violate-rights-and-stifle-markets/) Check out the entire piece!
Occupy Wall Street: Bob Glass Reports
October 7, 2011
Bob Glass filed the following report from New York.
On Wednesday I went to Zuccotti park in lower Manhattan to see what all the hoopla was about concerning the swelling crowds gathering to protest Wall Street and Capitalism. Zuccotti park, one of the few private parks in New York City, had been turned into a command post and staging ground for the myriad of groups and individuals who had gathered to vent their rage against the disparity between what they perceived to be the haves and have nots in this country.
The scene was part Woodstock (minus the talent and music) part rave (minus anything resembling ecstasy) and part public forum (minus anything resembling intelligent dialogue). The overwhelming majority of people were in their teens and early twenties—lost souls not quite sure what they were angry about. I spent a few hours going through the crowd talking to as many people as I could, and it seemed that each person had a different agenda, a different bone to pick, and a different cause celebre.
In addition to the young people in search of life's meaning and some type of government handout there was the usual assortment of left wing organizations, including but not limited to the Communist Party USA, the Socialist Workers Party, Workers World Party, and dozens of unions including the SEIU. It became clear to me that the rhetoric of class warfare championed by Barack Obama and dutifully spread by the major media had permeated the crowd and was the only common thread holding the rabble together.
They all seemed to agree that greed and capitalism are the roots of all evil and culprits for all of society's ills. They shouted the usual left-wing slogans like "Tax the rich feed the poor," "Jail the bankers," and "The people united will never be defeated." They were particularly upset about the taxpayers bailing out all of the big Wall Street banks and investment houses, but no one seemed to make the connection that the person most guilty of this is Barack Obama.
It soon became clear to me that I was witnessing the formation of Obama's shock troops, those he will try to exploit to bully and intimidate his way back into power.
The supreme irony was not lost on me that so many of these people had ipads and ipods and were using them with great success to organize their movement. I could not help but remember Lenin's famous quote, "The capitalists will sell us the rope that we will hang them with." And I thought of the passing of Steve Jobs, one of America's greatest inventors, entrepreneurs, visionaries and capitalists. A man who will forever change the way we all live for the better.
Considering what little the occupation crowd has made possible, compared to what the great champion of the free market Steve Jobs has made possible, I could only shake my head. As Howard Roark reminds us, "Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light." The occupation forces seem eager to throw in the torch.
How 'Occupiers' Can Separate Government and Corporations
October 11, 2011
The Objective Standard has published my latest article, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/how-to-actually-separate-government-from-the-corporations/) "How to Actually 'Separate Government from the Corporations'."
I argue, "Beyond the basic role government properly plays in protecting individual rights, government should remain separated from churches as it should remain separated from corporations." I outline four main ways to separate the government from economics: stop interfering with businesses, stop subsidizing them, stop taxing them, and respect the free-speech rights of corporate members.
I conclude:
Members of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement should be careful. If they logically think through their goal to "separate government from the corporations," ultimately they will end up championing capitalism. And then they might decide that Pennsylvania Avenue offers a more appropriate center for a protest.
(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/how-to-actually-separate-government-from-the-corporations/) Check out the entire article!
The Great "Fair Tax" Debate
October 13, 2011
The Objective Standard has posted a three-part debate on the "Fair Tax," a national sales tax intended to replace the income tax.
In my opening salvo, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fair-tax-looks-ugly-in-the-details/) "'Fair Tax' Looks Ugly In the Details," I point out that the "Fair Tax" is still relatively complex, and it would require many Americans to submit the tax. I also discuss the tax's "prebate" and its potential for corruption. I conclude, "Yes, advocates of liberty should look at strategies to make tax collection less burdensome. But fundamental tax reform, which must include serious cuts in net taxes collected, becomes possible only with significant cuts to federal spending."
John Keel wrote a lengthy reply, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/concerning-fair-tax-looks-ugly-in-the-details/) "Concerning 'Fair Tax Looks Ugly in the Details.'" He argues that the tax is simple, it would impose low compliance costs, and it would reduce rather than expand the black market.
In my reply to Keel, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fair-tax-offers-neither-fairness-nor-simplicity/) "'Fair Tax' Offers Neither Fairness Nor Simplicity," I expand my criticisms of the tax. I point out that, yes, the tax would require extensive paperwork for compliance. The so-called "prebate" not only adds another layer of bureaucracy, but it poses the risk of expanding into another welfare program. The "Fair Tax" would become easily corrupted, and it would in fact promote an extensive black market. The tax could also lead to a dual system of federal taxation, complimenting rather than replacing the income tax, and it could morph into a Value Added Tax.
However, I point out, if a sales tax actually followed the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment, that would be a lot better. But still the major goal of the liberty activist should be to reduce federal spending and restore individual rights.
Read the (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fair-tax-looks-ugly-in-the-details/) first, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/concerning-fair-tax-looks-ugly-in-the-details/) second, and (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fair-tax-offers-neither-fairness-nor-simplicity/) third articles in their entirety!
Free Market Arguments Against Vouchers
October 13, 2011
This past weekend I attended the (http://www.freemindsfilmfestival.com/) Free Minds Film Festival in Colorado Springs, and it was fantastic. Among the great documentaries we saw was(http://www.thecartelmovie.com/) The Cartel, a film by Bob Bowden about the shocking corruption in the New Jersey government schools.
I spoke on a panel following the film with Bowdon and (http://www.i2i.org/bendegrow.php) Ben DeGrow.Following are my remarks. (I believe the organizers of the film fest will publish video of the entire panel.)
Listeners might be confused as to why I oppose vouchers and yet support tax credits and charter schools (as interim reforms). I think any political reform needs to pass a two-part test.
1. Does the reform expand or weaken protections of individual rights? Liberty activists should support reforms that obviously expand individual rights and oppose reforms that obviously weaken them. If a reform is neutral with respect to individual rights, then move to the second test.
2. Does a reform improve results? If so, support it. Remember that we've already decided the reform does not further weaken individual rights. If a reform strengthens individual rights, it necessarily improves results; the moral is the practical.
In light of that test, I'll briefly review the three sorts of reforms.
A charter school does not increase taxes levied. Instead, it offers families and educators a means to escape some of the worst problems of the teachers' unions and political education controls. So I think charters pass the second test.
A tax credit, as I've (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/another-look-at-education-tax-credits.html) reviewed before, threatens to bring new political controls to nominally private schools. For that reason tax credits may weaken individual rights, which is why I've always been nervous about them. On the other hand, a tax credit would not increase net taxes levied, while it would offer tax payers significantly more choice in how to spend their education-directed dollars.
A voucher program suffers two problems. It brings new controls to nominally private schools, and it also forces some taxpayers to finance religious institutions against their will, in violation of their freedom of conscience. So I think vouchers clearly fail the first test.
In watching Bowdon's film, I realized that charter schools and vouchers largely end up in the same place: schools still controlled by politicians but with significantly greater parental control. But there are two important differences. First, charter schools simply cannot be religious in nature. Second, there is no confusion about charter schools being "private." The proponents of vouchers explicitly call schools "private" which receive voucher funds, and that destroys the very distinction between political force and the genuinely free market.
I think the best set of interim reforms, then, consists of charter schools in conjunction with universal tax credits in which tax payers are restricted to giving their forcibly confiscated funds to charter schools. I also think charter schools should be very easy to start, with clear and simple rules and evaluations. This expands the options of parents and expands the choice of those footing the bill, but it retains the important distinction between government-financed education and free-market education.
In a free market, people without children may decide whether to contribute their funds to education, and if so in what way and in what amount. Parents, educators, and voluntary organizations bear responsibility for organizing and financing education. By the standards of free markets and individual rights, that remains the ultimate goal. A free market is the only system in which "education choice" fully becomes reality.
Ayn Rand's Novels for Colorado Teachers
October 13, 2011
I am independently promoting funding for the Ayn Rand Institute's (http://freebooks.aynrandeducation.com/order/default.aspx) "Books for Teachers" program for Colorado.
If you are a teacher, I encourage you to check out the program.
If you are interested in Rand's works, I encourage you to (http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=support_ways_to_contribute) donate funds to ARI specially marked to support Colorado's "Books for Teachers" program.
If you donate to ARI for this purpose, please let me know as well. The total target for the campaign is $19,000. Coloradans have already contributed $1,100 to the campaign, and an anonymous donor has pledged $5,000 in matching funds for new donations. Please let me know whether you want me to use your name or remain anonymous. I'll keep a running tally going below. Note that you can DOUBLE your donations with the matching funds.
Previous donations: $1,100 (includes $500 from Mike and Jennifer Rivers)
Matching funds from an anonymous donor: $5,000
"Galt's Gulch" auction leader: David Weatherell for $3,100
The following contributions all qualify for matching funds:
Ari and Jennifer: $80
Doug and Hannah Krening: $500
Martin L. Buchanan: $100
Mike Williams and Cara: $35
Brian S.: $35
Howard and Susan: $160
Betty Evans: $500
Donovan Schafer: $320
Linn and Sharon Armstrong: $50
David Weatherell: $900
CG: $50
Patricia Tolleson: $100
Anonymous: $500
Mike Spalding: $20
Bill Faulkner: $400
JL: $2,000 (fulfills matching funds)
Richard Watts: $1,000
JV: $200
GF: $500
BM: $35
The Kempes: $160
KM: $25
TOTAL RAISED: $16,870
Occupy Denver and Free Speech
October 14, 2011
At this moment I am watching live camera feeds from 9News and the Denver Post of the "Occupy Denver" protests. Earlier today, Governor John Hickenlooper, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, and Colorado Attorney General John Suthers held a media conference pointing out that it's illegal to camp on government property in the city at night. But the "occupiers" said they aren't leaving. Yet, at 11:17 p.m., nothing much seems to be happening. (The idea is that the "occupiers" must clear out their tents between the hours of 11 and 5.)
[Update (11:58 pm): The state capitol property runs right along city park property, so it's unclear to me where the tents are actually located. The Denver Post just (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19104825) reported that "Suthers read the Colorado law that forbids camping on state Capitol grounds." So apparently at least some of the tents are on capitol grounds. Whether the relevant government is the city or the state, the reasoning here applies equally. I have lightly edited some of my earlier text in this light.]
The interesting discussion is over the First Amendment and free speech.
A 9News reporter just asked somebody whether "our First Amendment rights override" the laws against camping on government property. The ACLU's (http://www.9news.com/news/article/224539/339/CSP-prepares-to-enforce-curfew-on-campers) Mark Silverstein told 9News that pitching tents is "symbolic speech that's protected by the First Amendment."
But such comments largely miss the point of the First Amendment. No doubt pitching a tent can be "symbolic speech." But you don't have the right to pitch your tent in my front yard in order to express yourself. The right of free speech must be rooted in property rights.
The complication arises on government property, tax funded property. People have the right to protest on government property, but they do not have the right to impede other people's reasonable use of that property, as by blocking traffic. Pitching tents in these city parks in fact poses risks to safety and health (where are these people going to the bathroom?), and it's entirely reasonable to outlaw camping on such property. Essentially what the "occupiers" are doing is asking other regional taxpayers to clean up their mess and property damage.
Recently my wife and I went to a state park to camp. We paid $70 for an annual state parks pass and $22 per night to camp at the facilities. Should I have just been able to say I was "occupying" the camp space and exercising my "symbolic speech" by pitching my tent so as to avoid paying the fee? Obviously not.
The problem is that governments can potentially abuse their management of tax-funded property to prevent reasonable protests. If a government simply disallowed a group from holding a protest, then that might justify civil disobedience. But I have never heard of anything like that in Colorado.
Of course, ultimately the problems of government property can be mitigated simply by limiting the amount of government property. For example, in New York the "occupiers" have taken over a private park; in that case, the owners of the park properly set the policy.
Yes, the "occupiers" have the right to protest. Hell, I even agree with some of what they have to say. Just a while ago the group in Denver was chanting, "Banks got bailed out. We got sold out." That's exactly right. But let's not hear any more nonsense about "free" camping in government parks somehow bearing First Amendment protection. Our Bill of Rights deserves more serious treatment than that.
See also:
(http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-bob-glass-reports/) Occupy Wall Street: Bob Glass Reports
(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/how-to-actually-separate-government-from-the-corporations/) How to Actually "Separate Government from the Corporations" (The Objective Standard)
Occupy Denver Steals Services, Destroys Property
October 14, 2011
Last night I (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/10/occupy-denver-and-free-speech/) argued that camping out in government parks in the city (where overnight camping is always illegal) is not a First Amendment right.
This morning, I point out that the Occupy Denver movement stole services from Xcel Energy, destroyed property, and cost taxpayers untold thousands of dollars.
(http://www.9news.com/news/article/224539/339/23-arrested-during-Occupy-Denver-ousting) 9News reports, "Officials say the protesters tapped into the electricity of park structures (like lighting fixtures, etc.) to run their equipment. Xcel is repairing the damage the protesters caused, structure by structure." Those costs get passed along to other energy customers. What, do the rest of us also get to steal services so long as we're protesting something? Hey, A-Basin is open; maybe I can just hop on the ski lift without paying if I wear a political shirt.
I have not seen a figure for how many state patrol and Denver city officers were involved in the night's activities—no doubt scores at least. So how much will tax payers in the region end up coughing up to cover these costs? Who's going to calculate that tab?
And then there are the dump trucks required to clean up the mess. The (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19112322) Denver Post reports, "Dump trucks were brought in for tents and other trash that authorities picked up and threw away." Dump trucks, as in plural? How much did that cost taxpayers?
I recognize the long and noble history of civil disobedience. Think about Rosa Parks, Gandhi, and those who refused to obey the Fugitive Slave Act. Today's Tea Party gets its name from an act of civil disobedience. Strategic civil disobedience in the name of a great cause to advance individual rights is a sacred thing.
But the Denver Occupiers do not belong in the same company. They have no noble cause, nor even a coherent message. Instead, they're stealing, destroying, and looting the taxpayers as a cause unto itself. Call it the Narcissist Invasion.
A Parable of Shoe Stores and Bureaucrats
October 17, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published October 14 by Grand Junction Free Press.
The following discussion took place in an alternate universe very much like our own, but different in a few important respects. Any resemblance to real persons in our universe, living or dead, is purely accidental.
The scene is a coffee shop in a town called Great Junction, a town nestled between the Federal Monument, the Bookcliffs, and the Great Mesa. Ralph sits at a table, sipping his brew, sharing a quiet conversation with a few friends.
"Here's how it went down," Ralph began. "For three years my son John and I tried to open a shoe store over at the strip mall by Urban Market. We developed a great business plan and lined up our funding, and John finished up his degree in business while working in a shoe store on the side to earn experience in the industry.
"We did all the basic work in the first year. But then John reminded me we had to apply to the state Shoe Utility Commission, or SUC. I guess their job is to ensure that shoes meet their standards of utility, whatever that means. SUC required us to ask permission from the other shoe store in town, Shoe Central, before we could go into business."
At this point Ralph's friend Henry barged in, "Now hold on there, Ralph, you mean to tell me SUC wanted you to get the permission of your competitor to go into business? That can't be right. That's just insane! When I opened up my burger joint I didn't have to ask permission from McDoogle's! What's next: are they going to make Cameron here ask permission from Orange Cabs to keep his own cab up and running?"
Cameron snorted at the absurdity.
Ralph took a breath, pushed up his shoulders, and continued, "Well, SUC uses pretty fancy language to describe asking permission. SUC says new shoe stores have to 'show a public convenience and necessity' before they'll issue a shoe-store license, all to prevent 'ruinous competition.' And SUC was pretty keen on hearing Shoe Central's claim that it already met the local demand for shoes."
Henry could not contain himself. "'Ruinous competition?' What the hell does that mean? Most businesses compete for customers; that's part of what makes them work hard to offer good service. Shouldn't people have a choice about where they buy their shoes?"
After a pause Cameron asked, "So what happened next?"
Ralph continued, "At least SUC let us ask some local residents whether they'd benefit from a new shoe store in town."
Henry started turning red in the face. "But wait a minute! Doesn't a customer say he wants to shop at a store every time he walks in and spends some money? People say lots of things, but when they put their money on the counter, that's what counts, right? How can a bunch of pencil-pushing bureaucrats predict where people want to shop? Isn't that what the marketplace is for?"
"That's what I always thought," Ralph replied.
"So did SUC give you a permit to open a shoe store?" Cameron asked.
"SUC finally signed off on our shoe store, after forcing us to waste tens of thousands of dollars waiting around," Ralph said.
Henry exhaled sharply.
"Unfortunately, Shoe Central then took the matter to court so a judge could make the decision."
Henry jumped to his feet, spilling his coffee. "You mean, once you kiss the backsides of SUC bureaucrats for a few years, then you've got to start all over with a judge? What country did you say we're living in, again?"
"Take a seat, Henry, it's over," Ralph said. "Amazingly, the judge also signed off on our store. But then SUC got to work again. SUC said we could carry only five types of shoes, and only in three sizes. Also, only people who lived within six blocks of the strip mall could shop at our store. SUC also dictated the prices we could charge for shoes. So we couldn't charge more for better shoes, and if our stock piled up or dwindled we couldn't raise or lower our prices. We'll see if we can make a go of it."
Henry said nothing. He sat hunched over, a single tear welling in his eye, staring at his cap with the emblem of his military service.
After a few moments of silence, a perky young lady walked up to the table and said, "I couldn't help but overhearing, but I for one am grateful that SUC protects the consumer from the anarchy of the marketplace. Shoes are just too important to society to let just anybody sell them. Who would protect us from too many shoes and unfair pricing?"
The woman turned up her nose, spun on her Shoe Central high heels, and walked away. Ralph stared into his coffee.
Those of us living on the alternate side of the universe can only thank heaven that nothing as crazy as the SUC exists in our world.
Bowdon Explains Education's 'Cartel'
October 18, 2011
Earlier this month Bob Bowden, creator of (http://www.thecartelmovie.com/) The Cartel, spoke at the (http://www.freemindsfilmfestival.com/) Free Minds Film Festival about his findings on education. He granted me an interview:
Bowdon strongly advocates vouchers; however, in a panel discussion at the film fest, I offered some (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/10/free-market-arguments-against-vouchers.html) reasons to question their adoption.
In Defense of Income Inequality (In Capitalism)
October 19, 2011
The Objective Standard has published my latest article, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/the-justice-of-income-inequality-under-capitalism/) "The Justice of Income Inequality Under Capitalism." I begin by asking, "Why do many [Wall Street] Occupiers oppose some forced wealth transfers and advocate others?" The typical "Occupier" advocates forced wealth transfers from "the rich" to the less rich—but that "occupation" position is wrong on moral (and economic) grounds.
I point out, "[T]he income inequality under tyranny is fundamentally different from that under capitalism. One arises from looting and forcing; the other from producing and thinking." (I distinguish capitalists from those "who wield political power to seize subsidies and hamstring their competitors.")
(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/the-justice-of-income-inequality-under-capitalism/) Check out the entire article!
Moving Picture Institute Advances Liberty
October 21, 2011
Adam Guillette of the (http://www.thempi.org/) Moving Picture Institute (which helped support the stunning short film against egalitarianism, (http://www.finallyequal.com/) 2081) attended the (http://www.freemindsfilmfestival.com/) Free Minds Film Festival in Colorado Springs earlier in the month. He explained the goals and achievements of MPI:
Waiting for Liberty
October 25, 2011
President Obama says "we can't wait..." for more mortgage bailouts. But political intervention in the economy is what caused the mortgage crises and our continued economic troubles.
The Objective Standard published my latest article, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/yes-president-obama-we-cant-wait/) "Yes, President Obama, We Can't Wait." I write:
... In addition to bailing out those who irresponsibly bought houses beyond their means, HARP also bails out irresponsible lenders—those who willingly lent funds to those with poor credit. The federal government thus showers the irresponsible with unearned benefits while harming taxpayers and artificially propping up the price of houses. ...
(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/yes-president-obama-we-cant-wait/) Check out the entire piece!
Yes, A National Sales Tax is Constitutional
October 26, 2011
Some have questioned whether a national sales tax is Constitutionally permissible (without an amendment). The answer is yes.
(http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/24/9-9-no-way/) Milton Wolf is among those who question this: "Mr. [Herman] Cain's 9 percent national sales tax [and by extension any other national sales tax] simply isn't constitutional. Among the enumerated powers in our Constitution, there is no federal jurisdiction over the purchases you make at your local stores, aside from those involving interstate transactions."
But it turns out I looked this up in the course of researching my article forThe Objective Standard, (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/10/yes-a-national-sales-tax-is-constitutional/) "'Fair Tax' Looks Ugly in the Details." (See also my more detailed (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fair-tax-offers-neither-fairness-nor-simplicity/) follow-up article on the same topic.)
While I am no expert on the Constitution, thankfully we in Colorado have just such an expert now working in the state: (http://www.i2i.org/robnatelson.php) Rob Natelson. (Recently Natelson delivered a (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B792CBF883292F14) seminar on the Constitution with Dave Kopel.)
In his book (http://books.tenthamendmentcenter.com/) The Original Constitution (Second Edition), Natelson discusses the types of taxation permitted under the Constitution (see pages 158-161). He mentions the two relevant sections of the Constitution (as originally written):
Article I, Section 2, Clause 3
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons [etc.; this section was modified by the Fourteenth Amendment].
Article I, Section 9, Clause 4
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken. [This section was modified by the Sixteenth Amendment.]
Of course, the other obviously relevant section is Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises..."
The question is whether a national sales tax constitutes a "direct" or an "indirect" tax. Based on Natelson's remarks, I counted it as an "indirect" one:
Direct taxes included capitations and levies on real property, business assets, and other capital items, on the ownership of basic household necessities, and on wages, rents, and other income. Probably taxes on wealth (such as inheritance and estate taxes) were direct. Indirect taxes were exactions on imports and on consumable goods and services. This line of division was not flawless, for an import duty probably was indirect even if imposed on an item destined to serve as a capital good. (p. 161)
I wasn't entirely sure of my interpretation, so I asked Natelson whether a "sales tax [is] an 'indirect' tax and therefore constitutionally allowed."
He replied, "Yes. A national sales tax is clearly constitutional, so long as uniform throughout the country."
He was quick to point out that his evaluation of the Constitutional matter did not reflect his opinion of a national sales tax.
I will state flatly: even though a national sales tax is Constitutionally allowed, it is still a really, truly, horrendously stupid idea, at least if enacted without repealing the Sixteenth Amendment (which permits the income tax). The worst situation we could possibly end up with (in terms of taxation) would be a national sales tax added to a national income tax. One or the other is bad enough, but both would cripple the economy and severely infringe our liberty.
Thank the Industrial Revolution for Longer Life
October 28, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published October 28 by Grand Junction Free Press.
Growing older comes with its problems, but, as we've all heard, it surely beats the alternative. Earlier this month Ari turned 40. (We don't need to go into details of Linn's age.) An interesting fact about the age of 40 is that it's older than the average lifespan of almost all of human history. So if you're older than 40, or hope to be, thank the industrial revolution, which radically extended human life.
The industrial revolution, fueled by the philosophical Scottish Enlightenment, gained steam in England in the late 1700s. This was right around the time of the founding of the United States, which, as the freest country in the history of the earth, soon adopted the industrial revolution as its own and created unparalleled prosperity.
Modern humans have walked the earth for roughly a quarter of a million years. So you are extremely lucky to have been born during the tiny fraction of human history in which you have a good chance to live to see old age as we now understand it.
According to the (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html) CIA's World Factbook, one nation still has a life expectancy less than 40: Angola. Several African nations still have life expectancies less than 50. Why the difference? Much of Africa remains ravaged by tribal warfare, political corruption, and an almost total lack of industrial progress, exacerbating such problems as famine and the AIDS epidemic.
Throughout almost all of human history, most people faced conditions roughly comparable to those of the poorest regions of modern Africa. Violence, starvation, and disease were the normal conditions of life.
The (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy) Wikipedia entry on "life expectancy" offers some good leads; for example, it cites a recent text on American history that discusses England in the early 1600s. That book summarizes, "Life expectancy was only about thirty-five years, and two-thirds of all children died before the age of four." Today children rarely die. Throughout much of human history, many or most children died, and that was considered normal.
In the industrial world, life expectancy has risen into the upper 70s and 80s. The United States comes in only 50th on the CIA's list with a life expectancy of 78.37. (Monaco tops the list at 89.73.) But the U.S. suffers relatively high rates of auto fatalities and homicides; (http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/08/25/violence-traffic-accidents-and-us-life-expectancy/) adjusted for those factors, our country approaches or hits the top of the list.
But how could early industry, with its dirty coal and poor working conditions, so dramatically extend human life? Prior to industry, most people lived in abject poverty, and even the few wealthy of the time had relatively few of the amenities even America's poor now take for granted. (Andrew Bernstein does a good job of reviewing early industrial advances in Capitalism Unbound.)
Prior to industry, people had to walk wherever they went; the lucky few had horses and carriages (which left stinking, pestilent messes in city streets). Steam-powered boats and trains, then petrol-powered automobiles, gave mobility to the masses. Today we can ride by helicopter to a far-away hospital if we need urgent medical care. We can jet around the world in the time it used to take to traverse a state. A relative recently flew to Europe for discretionary health care.
In the good old days, often you were luckier if you did not have access to a doctor with his leeches and concoctions. If you got an infection, often you would die. Today advanced machinery can scan your bones or peer into your heart. We have access to mass-produced drugs effective at alleviating a wide range of ailments. We have access to heart surgery and advanced cancer treatments.
At America's founding, roughly (http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farmers_land.htm) 90 percent of all working people farmed. Eking a living from the dirt without the aid of tractors and trucks, irrigation pipes, and modern fertilizers imposed severe hardships. Today less than three percent of the workforce raises all our food—freeing up the labor of others to provide our other wants and needs.
Prior to industry, people made their few items of clothing by hand. With industrial production of cotton clothing, the masses could afford to buy clothes and subject them to the rigors of routine cleaning. Today, we can clothe ourselves modestly for perhaps a couple hour's worth of labor.
True, industrial progress requires legal stability and relative freedom. Capital formation—the development of the tools and machines that expand our productivity—drives our improving standard of living. People don't invest in capital when others loot or destroy the products of their effort. The prosperity of capitalism derives from the political protection of people's rights. To the degree we stray from that standard, we undermine our prosperity and threaten our futures.
If you value your high standard of living and your potential to live into your 70s and beyond, live in gratitude for the industrial revolution—and help protect its future.
The Student Loan Bailout
October 28, 2011
The Objective Standard has published my latest article, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/student-loan-scheme-just-another-rights-violating-bailout/) "Student Loan Scheme Just Another Rights-Violating Bailout."
I review the basics of President Obama's plans for student loans and point out they would put taxpayers on the hook for part of the debt. I also found some interesting statistics about the skyrocketing costs of higher education—caused predominantly by federal meddling.
I write, "[A]t issue is not the size of the bailout, but the fact that it forcibly transfers wealth from some people to others, violating the rights of the first group and turning the second into parasites. The more government acts on the notion that it is acceptable to bail out some at the expense of others, the more we will see injustices enacted into law."
(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/student-loan-scheme-just-another-rights-violating-bailout/) Check out the entire article!
Wall Street Occupiers Depend on Capitalism
November 8, 2011
"Free the Wage Slaves"—read the mass-produced T-shirts sold by the entrepreneur at Zuccotti Park. The Occupiers used the tents, paper, clothing, food, and other products of capitalism—to condemn capitalism.
After I filmed several interviews at the park, I caught up with my wife and friend across the street at McDonald's, where they celebrated American capitalism. Interestingly, numerous Occupiers also seemed to enjoy using the facilities at McDonald's (though the day after I filmed this one of the Occupiers (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/camper_mac_attack_IErwi9aOGMCPDdYJw2WcyI) trashed the restaurant). On a personal note, I'd like to thank Apple for producing the iTouch pocket computer and camera with which I filmed the interviews.
Occupy Wall Street: In Their Own Words
November 11, 2011
Thankfully, the Tea Partiers are now taking useful action in politics, rather than holding endless rallies. For the Occupiers, holding endless protests is their political action. I think the Occupations, often violent, law-breaking, trashy affairs, don't ultimately do much to help the leftist cause. But they do help define the debate in America: many people now openly debate the merits of socialism and capitalism, and that is a good thing. It's about time we got back to fundamentals.
I visited Occupy Wall Street in New York on November 3, where I captured several interviews. Note that, while I ask some challenging questions and editorialize a bit, my goal here was not to debate but to interview. It always irritated me when journalists covered the Tea Parties without actually talking to the Tea Partiers. So I wanted to give the Occupiers the chance to say what's on their mind. In many cases, their positions are more subtle and nuanced than perhaps many of their opponents tend to recognize. Here my main goal is to present the Occupation case; later I'll pursue the discussion more forcefully.
Also see my editorial video from the day, (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/11/wall-street-occupiers-depend-on.html) "Wall Street Occupiers Depend on Capitalism."
Here is some of my coverage of the Tea Parties:
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/04/voices-of-tea-party.html) Voices of the Tea Party
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/eat-rich-unions-tea-parties-stage.html) "Eat the Rich?" Unions, Tea Parties Stage Opposing Denver Rallies
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/04/tax-day-tea-party-denver-2010.html) Tax Day Tea Party: Denver 2010
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/09/tea-party-912-march-on-washington-video.html) Tea Party 9/12 March on Washington Video Interviews
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/02/nyt-smears-tea-partiers.html) NYT Smears Tea Partiers
Kirk Barbera on the Benevolent Universe Premise
November 17, 2011
In a November 14 talk, Kirk Barbera discussed Ayn Rand's concept of the "benevolent universe premise" in the context of Rand's novel The Fountainhead and Barbera's own life.
Anti-Abortion 'Personhood' Tries for Round Three
November 22, 2011
The so-called "personhood" movement has been knocked down badly in Colorado twice before in the 2008 and 2010 elections. By wide margins voters defeated ballot measures intended to ban all abortions. But the measures' organizers are back with a new, slightly modified anti-abortion measure for the state's 2012 ballot (assuming the group gathers enough signatures).
I attended the group's November 21 media conference at the state capitol, filmed it, and asked a few questions. Please note that my purpose in filming the event was largely journalistic; my main goal was to record the views of the group's participants. Of course I pressed some questions on matters that I find important. Embedded is the complete video of the event, plus some extra footage of Kristi Burton Brown answering questions.
My opposition to the "personhood" measures is well known (in the relevant circles); I coauthored a paper against the measures in both 2008 and(http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) 2010.
The proposed 2012 measure is mostly the same as the previous measures, though it spells out some of its implications in greater detail. I posted the (https://picasaweb.google.com/107156101927327309509/PersonhoodNov212011) four-page media packet distributed by the group's organizers, including a page with the complete text of the new proposal [omitted].
The major difference for the 2012 measure is that it explicitly allows abortions to protect the life of the pregnant woman. One of the problems with the previous measures is that they left the life of the woman in a precarious state under certain conditions. See the section of the 2010 paper, (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml#3.4) "Abortions to Protect a Woman's Health." The new measure states:
Medical treatment for life threatening physical conditions intended to preserve life shall not be affected by this section. ... "Medical treatment for life threatening physical conditions intended to preserve life" includes but is not limited to treatment for cancer, ectopic and molar pregnancy, twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, and placenta previa.
This language would give doctors some much-needed latitude to perform abortions to save the life of the woman. (Note that the measure's supporters are loath to call these "medical treatments" abortions, but that's what we are in fact talking about.)
But what if a doctor needed to perform an abortion only to protect a woman's long-term health, as opposed to her life? Abortions under such circumstances would be banned if the measure were passed and fully enforced. And ambiguous cases would be decided by prosecutors and the courts.
Still, the measure's supporters have made a serious effort to address one of the concerns with the earlier measures. Unfortunately, the remaining problems with the measure are manifold and severe. Consider:
* Obviously, the measure would totally ban all elective abortions.
* The measure explicitly says that abortions would be banned even in cases of rape or incest.
* The measure would ban all forms of birth control "that kills a person"; i.e., that can prevent a zygote (post-fertilized egg) from implanting in the uterus. Notably, that includes the (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml#3.6) birth control pill, the IUD, and "morning after" drugs.
* The measure would (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml#3.7) ban all fertility treatments "that kills a person"; i.e., that involves the destruction of embryos created outside the womb. In practice, the measure would shut down most fertility procedures that involve creating embryos outside the womb and limit such treatments to the wealthy and to those with rare physiological conditions.
* The measure would subject women who get abortions (along with those who assist her) to (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml#3.2) severe criminal penalties, counting an abortion legally as "murder."
* While the 2012 language explicitly protects women with "spontaneous miscarriages," the entire problem is that it would be the responsibility of coroners, prosecutors, and the courts to distinguish natural miscarriages from intentional harm to the fetus. So the new language changes nothing on that score.
One thing that bothered me about the media conference is Burton-Brown's insistence that her opponents are liars. But it is Burton-Brown herself who has been consistently (http://blog.seculargovernment.us/2008/10/burton-continues-to-dodge-amendment-48.shtml) cagey about the implications of the "personhood" measures. During the conference, she flatly refused to state whether "personhood" would ban the birth control pill (hint: if consistently enforced it would). In any case, neither Burton-Brown nor anyone else has found a single factual error in the (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) paper coauthored by Diana Hsieh and me (though obviously the "personhood" crowd disagrees with our analysis of the basic facts). In general, people ought not call their opponents liars unless they have really good evidence that such is the case; Burton-Brown presented no such evidence (though I have not evaluated all the claims of all of the opponents of "personhood"). Indeed, the main reason for the 2012 rewrite is to address various criticisms.
Obviously I'll have much more to say about Colorado's 2012 "personhood" measure in the coming months. For now, it suffices to say that it is the identical measure as before, only with more verbiage, with the notable exception of the language about "life threatening physical conditions." It richly deserves defeat again, and I do not doubt that Colorado voters will oblige. The problem is that, if unchallenged, it softens the ground for incremental abortion restrictions leading to a long-run total ban.
Meanwhile, Team Obama rejoices as the Republican Presidential candidates fall all over themselves endorsing such wildly unpopular nonsense.
November 29 Update: See the (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/11/opponents-reply-to-personhood-push/) replies by Monica McCafferty, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, and Emilie Ailts, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado.
Harry Potter, Distinguished Toastmaster?
November 23, 2011
I've just published a new article over at the web page for my book, Values of Harry Potter, titled, (http://valuesofharrypotter.com/potterspeech.html) "Harry Potter's Magical Communication." Invoking examples from the Potter novels, I show how the stories offer several lessons for public speakers.
I write, "Tellingly, the final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort involves the two of them arguing, alone, in the midst of hundreds of their compatriots. Harry addresses Voldemort, but he speaks to inform the crowd of the truth of Voldemort's evil and the virtues of Harry's allies." Read the (http://valuesofharrypotter.com/potterspeech.html) whole piece!
This is relevant here: I'd like to congratulate Brad Beck and the other leaders of Liberty Toastmasters for creating a robust and amazingly valuable club. You can meet the future of Colorado's liberty movement at these meetings.
Incidentally, I'm declaring this Friday "Sirius Black Friday," in honor of Harry's godfather. It's the perfect day to (http://valuesofharrypotter.com/) buy my book!
Happy Exuberant Friday
November 23, 2011
The Objective Standard has published my latest article, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/11/call-it-exuberant-friday/) "Call It Exuberant Friday, Not 'Black Friday.'" I write about the day:
What's so black about it? Stores and city streets glitter with holiday lights. Shoppers, often in bright-colored clothing, chatter with excitement among family and friends. ... We should call it "Exuberant Friday," a day for celebrating prosperity, shopping for gifts, and enjoying friends.
(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/11/call-it-exuberant-friday/) Read the entire piece!
Offer Gifts of Liberty This Season
November 28, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published November 25 in the print edition of Grand Junction Free Press.
Why fight the crowds when you can buy liberty-promoting gifts from your computer? We have several suggestions for you.
The final Harry Potter movie will make a popular gift. So will all of J. K. Rowling's novels, which chronicle Voldemort's rise to tyrannical power and Harry's struggle to defeat him. Ari's book (http://valuesofharrypotter.com/) Values of Harry Potter makes an excellent companion to any Potter-related gift for teens and adults.
Ari's book reveals the heroes' fight for values in the Potter novels and their fierce independence. A chapter on free will describes how the heroes forge their own character, while the villains bring themselves to corruption. The book's discussions of religion take on the controversies of sacrificial love and immortality. The new 2011 edition contains essays on the novels' rich psychology as well as their politics, journalism, and more.
Ari has also started writing regularly for (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/) The Objective Standard, a journal influenced by the ideas of Ayn Rand. (Ari gets paid for that work.) For example, you can find Ari's October 19 article, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/the-justice-of-income-inequality-under-capitalism/) "The Justice of Income Inequality Under Capitalism," on the publication's blog.
The journal's editor, Craig Biddle, reviews (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-fall/ayn-rand-theory-rights.asp) Rand's objective theory of rights for the Fall 2011 edition. Rights don't come from God, Biddle argues, but neither do they come from society. Instead, he writes, "they are conceptual identifications of the factual requirements of human life in a social context." That article is available for free, as is a piece by John David Lewis on the (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-fall/911-ten-years-later.asp) Islamist threat to American security; both merit your attention.
You should subscribe to the journal to access all of its articles, and you should consider buying subscriptions for your active-minded friends. You can buy subscriptions to the print version or for audio, online, or ebook versions. A subscription to the journal makes an especially great gift because its benefits extend throughout the entire year.
Any of the films shown at the (http://www.freemindsfilmfestival.com) Free Minds Film Fest in Colorado Springs last month would make wonderful gifts. We recommend three in particular.
The dystopian short film (http://www.finallyequal.com/) 2081, based on Kurt Vonnegut's story "Harrison Bergeron," imagines a society in which everybody is finally equal. People are no longer merely equal under the law, but they are made physically equal by political force. The strong must wear weights, the intelligent must wear shrieking headphones, and so on. But the hero of the story, not content with suffering chains and imprisonment for his strengths and virtues, stages an "occupation" event of his own, and one with a very different message from today's Occupation protests. This film would make a great addition for everyone on your list.
We also recommend two films about Soviet Russia. The first, (http://www.sovietstory.com/) Soviet Story,reveals the brutal slaughter and oppression of the Soviet regime. The film demonstrates that the Communists paved the way for genocidal mass slaughter, while the Nazis (National Socialists) followed the same path. The film features a segment in which the socialist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvsf2MUKRQ) George Bernard Shaw speaks candidly of killing off those deemed undesirable (by the socialists).
Moreover, the film reviews, before and during WWII the Communists actively collaborated with the Nazis to slaughter Jews and oppress most of Europe. It's a brutal film, but one everyone should watch, lest mankind be doomed to repeat the horrors of totalitarian slaughter.
A much happier film showing the collapse of the Soviet regime is (http://www.singingrevolution.com/) The Singing Revolution, the story of the valiant and nonviolent Estonian uprising. The Estonians used singing, long a central part of their cultural traditions, to express their rebellion. It is a magnificent film, and one perfect for holiday viewing. But be warned: you won't be able to watch it with dry eyes.
If you're looking for something more practical, you can buy a gift certificate for those 18 and older for a Grand Valley Training Club Basic Pistol and Personal Protection in the Home Course. These are NRA certified classes taught by outstanding local NRA volunteer instructors, and the classes meet the qualifications for concealed carry. Whether somebody is new to handguns or needs a refresher course, this class offers first-rate training, and for $100 it offers a great value. (For more information call Linn.)
For the readers in your life, anything from the Liberty In the Books list (http://www.libertyinthebooks.com/) (www.LibertyInTheBooks.com) would make a great gift. (Liberty On the Rocks pays Ari a bit to run this program.) Our last three titles are How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes, Why Businessmen Need Philosophy, and The Right to Earn a Living.
The great thing about giving the gift of liberty is that it benefits not only the recipient but all of us, including future generations of Americans.
Opponents Reply to 'Personhood' Push
November 29, 2011
Colorado's anti-abortion "personhood" advocates held a (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/11/anti-abortion-personhood-tries-for-round-three/) media conference November 21 in which they announced their proposed language for the 2012 ballot.
Previously I posted video of the entire event. Here I add the replies by Monica McCafferty, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, and Emilie Ailts, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado.
For my criticism of the "personhood" proposals, see the (http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.shtml) paper I coauthored last year.
My Year In Review
December 1, 2011
As 2011 draws to a close, I wanted to review my writing and political activism for the year. A friend suggested that I start to offer monthly summaries instead, so that's what I'll do starting next month. Thankfully, there's much to review for the entire year!
If you find my work to be a value, please consider making a contribution!
Hoiles Finalist and New York Trip
Perhaps the biggest news of the year was the September announcement naming me as a finalist in the Hoiles prize for regional journalism.
See my (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/hoiles-finalist.html) media release,which links to the articles entered for the contest.
While in New York for the awards banquet, I also attended a talk at the (http://www.fee.org/news/ayn-rands-moral-defense-of-capitalism/) Foundation for Economic Educationand interviewed several protesters with (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/11/occupy-wall-street-in-their-own-words.html) Occupy Wall Street. The photo shows me conducting an interview in Zuccotti Park; see the other photos (hosted by Picasa) of the (https://picasaweb.google.com/107156101927327309509/NYCNov11) New York trip.
Social Media Growth
My (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ari-Armstrong/171928302837272) Facebook author page has 211 followers (please give it a "Like"); I use it to announce my new articles, videos, and media appearances.
My (https://twitter.com/ariarmstrong/) Twitter feed has 1,168 followers. I love Twitter and use it to aggregate news I find interesting (especially Colorado-related news), as well as to link to my own work. My Tweets are retweeted or mentioned nearly every day. If you're not following me on Twitter you're missing out on a large portion of my commentary.
I've loaded a total of 166 videos onto my (http://www.youtube.com/user/ariarmstrong/) YouTube channel, with 77 this year. My most popular video remains my shortest: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TdhI5D5XJw) "'USA Union Rally" at 26 seconds garnered 10,770 views. All my videos for the year got 30,849 views.
I think the following video is my favorite of the year; it contrasts the anti-capitalist sentiments of Occupy Wall Street with a defense of capitalism by my wife and a friend.
Liberty In the Books and The Objective Standard
Thankfully, I get paid directly for some of my work. I have now added fifteen works to the (http://freecolorado.com/libertybooks/libertybooks.html) Liberty In the Books web site, and (thanks in part to a marketing campaign) the group's (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Liberty-In-the-Books/178743505492590) Facebook page has 408 followers. (Please give it a "Like!") I also moderate the monthly Denver reading group. Last year I raised funds for this work in an amount that covers it through the first part of next year. Liberty In the Books is a project of(http://www.libertyontherocks.org/) Liberty On the Rocks.
(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/) The Objective Standard also pays me for my articles. I am now a regular contributer to the blog there. Following is the list of my TOS articles so far this year:
* (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/11/call-it-exuberant-friday/) Call It Exuberant Friday, Not "Black Friday"
* (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/student-loan-scheme-just-another-rights-violating-bailout/) Student Loan Scheme Just Another Rights-Violating Bailout
* (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/yes-president-obama-we-cant-wait/) Yes, President Obama, We Can't Wait...
(The Home Affordable Refinance Program)
* (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/the-justice-of-income-inequality-under-capitalism/) The Justice of Income Inequality Under Capitalism
(Retweeted by (https://twitter.com/#!/michellemalkin/status/126865593063325697) Michelle Malkin!)
* (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fair-tax-offers-neither-fairness-nor-simplicity/) "Fair Tax" Offers Neither Fairness Nor Simplicity
(See also my (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fair-tax-looks-ugly-in-the-details/) first piece on the matter.)
* (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/how-to-actually-separate-government-from-the-corporations/) How to Actually "Separate Government from the Corporations"
* (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/fuel-controls-violate-rights-and-stifle-markets/) Fuel Controls Violate Rights and Stifle Markets
TOS has been a great forum for me to address more national issues.
Articles for Other Publications
I've written articles for various Colorado newspapers (some through the Independence Institute) as well as for Pajamas Media. (Neither the publications nor the Institute paid me for any of this work).
My dad Linn and I continue to write a twice-monthly column for Grand Junction Free Press. See the complete (http://ariarmstrong.com/category/publications/grand-junction-free-press/) list of those articles. In an online September poll hosted by the paper, we were listed as the favorite columnists!
I've also placed several articles with other Colorado papers:
Gazette: (http://www.gazette.com/opinion/harry-108277-potter-strength.html%3Cbr%20/%3Ehttp://bit.ly/bAhX3b) Harry Potter Teaches Freedom and Strength
Colorado Daily: (http://www.coloradodaily.com/your-take/ci_17114331#axzz1BJ61okDj) Ritter's "New Energy Economy" Based on Old Fallacies
(This article was also published by the (http://liberty.i2i.org/2011/01/11/ritters-new-energy-economy-based-on-old-fallacies/) Independence Institute, Denver Daily, and (http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20110122/COLUMNS/110129963/1026&parentprofile=1058) Summit Daily, and it was discussed by (http://www.joncaldara.com/2011/01/11/on-energy-ritter-earns-an-f/) Jon Caldara.)
Denver Daily: (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/03/law-should-protect-wanted-fetuses-while.html) Law Should Protect Wanted Fetuses While Allowing Abortions
Gazette: (http://www.gazette.com/opinion/right-118120-free-speak.html) Public's 'Right to Know' Can Clash with Right to Free Speech
Mountain Mail, Denver Daily: (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/use-tax-criminals.html) Use Tax Criminals
Denver Post: (http://blogs.denverpost.com/eletters/2011/06/16/lawsuit-against-gessler-over-campaign-finance-2-letters/13558/) Lawsuit Against Gessler Over Campaign Finance (Letter)
Boulder Weekly: (http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-5954-harry-potter-explores-lifes-big-questions.html) Harry Potter Explores Life's Big Questions
Denver Post: (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_18619718) Reaction to Lamborn's "Tar Baby" Comment Is Typical GOP-Bashing
Pajamas Media: (http://pjmedia.com/blog/health-insurance-and-personal-responsibility/) Health Insurance and Personal Responsibility
Pajamas Media: (http://pjmedia.com/blog/elizabeth-warrens-social-contract-an-ideological-fantasy/) Elizabeth Warren's 'Social Contract' an Ideological Fantasy
(Retweeted by (https://twitter.com/#!/michellemalkin/statuses/119250364154384384) Michelle Malkin and Melissa Tweets, and discussed at (http://www.bizzyblog.com/2011/10/04/lucid-links-100411-morning/) Bizzy Blog!)
Free Colorado Blog
I've posted 208 articles to this blog in 2011 prior to this one. Sometimes I use the blog to summarize my work elsewhere and link to it, but often I publish substantive and original content directly to the blog. Following are a few of those posts:
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/11/anti-abortion-personhood-tries-for.html) Anti-Abortion 'Personhood' Tries for Round Three
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/10/yes-national-sales-tax-is.html) Yes, A National Sales Tax is Constitutional
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/10/occupy-denver-and-free-speech.html) Occupy Denver and Free Speech
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/10/free-market-arguments-against-vouchers.html) Free Market Arguments Against Vouchers
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-bob-glass-reports.html) Occupy Wall Street: Bob Glass Reports
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/10/why-voting-integrity-requires-proof.html) Why Voting Integrity Requires Proof Positive
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/07/rand-aristotle-and-flayed-ox.html) Rand, Aristotle, and the 'Flayed Ox' (art)
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/07/pope-and-harry-potter.html) The Pope and Harry Potter
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/on-making-news.html) On Making the News
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/does-tabor-violate-us-constitution.html) Does TABOR Violate the U.S. Constitution?
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/eina-kleina-social-security-analysis.html) Eina Kleina Social Security Analysis
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/why-im-not-libertarian.html) Why I'm Not a Libertarian
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/03/personhood-and-fetal-protection-bill.html) 'Personhood' and the Fetal Protection Bill
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/03/business-investment-willkies-lessons.html) Business Investment: Willkie's Lessons for Obama and Moore
* (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/02/confessions-of-former-koch-fellow.html) Confessions of a Former Koch Fellow
Media Interviews and Mentions
I've appeared on radio and television a few times and been mentioned by other media outlets:
(http://www.openmarket.org/2010/12/13/alcohol-regulation-roundup/) OpenMarket.org: "Ari and Linn Armstrong have a (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/12/time-for-free-market-in-alcohol.html) great piece in the Grand Junction Free Press on why it is finally time for a free beer market in Colorado."
Sam Adams Alliance: I was (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/01/my-interview-with-sam-adams-alliance.html) Interviewed about activism.
BigMedia.org: My articles about a fetal protection bill were quoted extensively a (http://bigmedia.org/2011/03/17/why-did-the-extreme-anti-abortion-crowd-oppose-a-bill-making-it-a-crime-to-kill-an-unborn-baby/) first and (http://bigmedia.org/2011/03/21/inability-to-accept-fetus-legal-status-stops-anti-abortion-zealots-from-protecting-fetuses/) second time.
Denver Diatribe: A post (http://denverdiatribe.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/denver-diatribe-podcast-31-grocery-store-gone-wild-edition/) included me as among the writers' "favorite local tweets."
Sam Adams Alliance: I was mentioned in a May 10 blog post (since removed) about free speech and Colorado's campaign laws.
Devil's Advocate: I appeared on Jon Caldara's television program to discuss free speech and Colorado's campaign laws.
BigMedia.org: Jason Salzman quoted me about (http://bigmedia.org/2011/06/07/grassroots-radio-colorado-a-permanent-fixture-on-klz-560-am/) Grassroots Radio.
710 KNUS: I spoke on the radio with Jimmy Sengenberger.
Grand Junction Business Times: The paper included a lengthy review of aFree Press article by my dad and me about (http://thebusinesstimes.com/on-the-wagon-or-not-buy-local-campaign-has-supporters-and-detractors/) international trade.
Westword: I was quoted by Patricia Calhoun regarding the (http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/08/jonbenet_ramsey_murder_media_obsessed_black.php) "tar baby" flap.
630 KHOW: I appeared on Peter Boyles's show to discuss the "tar baby" controversy.
Gazette: An editorial quoted me regarding the (http://www.gazette.com/articles/racist-122617-straw-almost.html) "tar baby" story.
Denver Post: Several (http://blogs.denverpost.com/eletters/2011/08/13/%E2%80%9Ctar-baby%E2%80%9D-controversy-5-letters/14285/) letters replied to my (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_18619718) "tar baby" op-ed. (On my blog I(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/08/denver-post-readers-reply-to-tar-baby.html) replied right back.)
Pajamas Media: The publication mentioned me regarding the (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/food-stamps-a-microcosm-of-out-of-control-government/) food stamp challenge.
Craig Green: In a blog post Craig (http://libertyalumnidiscussions.blogspot.com/2011/09/ari-armstrong-favorites.html) kindly wrote, "Ari has an elegant way of saying a lot in a few words, each one carefully chosen to have the maximum impact."
(http://www.cariandrob.info/) Cari and Rob Show: I appeared on this radio show to discuss (http://download.streamingmediahosting.com/bearrivermedia/cr110811edited.mp3) income inequality and Occupy Wall Street.
Grassroots Radio: I appeared on the October 11 show to discuss Occupy Wall Street.
BigMedia.org: I was mentioned regarding a (http://bigmedia.org/2011/11/22/video-of-personhood-press-conference-shows-often-overlooked-value-of-bloggers/) "personhood" media conference. (The same article was linked by (http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/11/personhood_amendment_kristi_burton_brown.php?page=2) Westword.)
So it has been a very busy and productive year!
Again, I'd appreciate your donation (NOT tax-deductible) if you find my work to be a value.
Belated Apology to Littwin
December 1, 2011
Back during a September GOP debate, Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul if "society should just let" people without insurance die. A handful of people in the crowd cheered. When Paul explained why that's not his position, the overwhelming majority of the crowd applauded enthusiastically.
I was irritated, then, when various commentators mentioned the reaction of the few but not of the large majority. A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irx_QXsJiao) Talking Points Memo video in particular went out of its way to misrepresent by omission the crowd's reaction.
In explaining this lack of context, I (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/09/tea-party-crowd-cheers-voluntary-health-charity/) wrote, "If 'half the truth is a great lie,' then Talking Points Memo, [Curtis] Hubbard, and [Mike] Littwin are great liars." In a (http://www.denverpost.com/littwin/ci_18881488) column, Littwin mentioned the reaction of the few in the crowd (which he characterized as a Tea Party crowd) but not of the many. However, as any decent writer takes seriously his responsibility to report the truth, I ought not have brought out the "l" word with respect to Hubbard or Littwin, and I apologize for doing so. Even though I used the term in a very delimited context (regarding "half the truth"), it's just not the sort of word that one should swing around lightly. I should have reviewed the same factual material without making my criticisms so personal.
Littwin assures me that he was trying to establish that the crowd was spirited in order to set up his discussion about Rick Perry, not otherwise characterize the crowd or the Tea Party as a whole. Especially given that I'm asking for more charitable interpretations of the motives of Tea Partiers, I too should be more charitable in interpreting the motives of others. Even when they irritate me.
Nanny Statist Sullivan Arrested for Consensual Crimes
December 2, 2011
Pat Sullivan, who as Arapahoe County Sheriff from 1984 to 2002 busted drug dealers and prostitutes, himself was recently arrested for attempting to trade meth for sex.
As (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57334054-504083/ex-colo-sheriff-patrick-sullivan-arrested-in-drugs-for-sex-sting-held-in-jail-named-for-himself/) CBS summarizes, "Today, he's accused of offering methamphetamine in exchange for sex from a male acquaintance, and he's locked up in the jail that bears his name, the Patrick Sullivan Jr. Detention Facility."
Sullivan was a hard-core drug warrior. CBS continues, "In 2007 and 2008, Sullivan actively participated in state and local meth task forces, created to help the state deal with the drug problem."
I mentioned the story to Jacob Sullum over at Reason, and Sullum looked up more details on Sullivan's drug-warrior past. Sullum reviews a (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19439677) Denver Post story about how current drug warriors set up Sullivan with paid informants and surveillance. (As I mentioned on Twitter, ordinarily those who surveil consenting adults trading drugs for sex are justly regarded as perverted stalkers.) (http://reason.com/blog/2011/11/30/colorado-drug-warrior-busted-for-meth-di) Sullum writes:
This sort of sleazy setup is an egregious waste of law enforcement resources, and it is manifestly unjust to threaten someone with six years in prison for attempting a peaceful, entirely consensual transaction with another adult. But that is par for the course in the war on drugs, a cause Sullivan enthusiastically served for many years. He led opposition to a 1998 medical marijuana initiative and (http://extras.denverpost.com/news/news1026a.htm) calledasset forfeiture "an incredible tool" in the battle againt meth.
Thankfully, because of (http://www.freecolorado.com/2002/04/1404april25.html) asset-forfeiture reforms that I helped to promote, the cops are less likely to steal Sullivan's house or car over the alleged drugs.
But Sullivan was not merely a drug warrior, he also enthusiastically busted people for prostitution. Consider this February 6, 1990 article by theDenver Post:
Gerald Perry of the Denver Broncos turned himself in yesterday to begin serving a 15-day jail sentence for soliciting a prostitute. ...
Sheriff Pat Sullivan said the offense that Perry was convicted of occurred in the portion of Aurora that is in Adams County. Perry was sentenced by an Aurora municipal judge to the Arapahoe County Jail, but in the order written by the court clerk, the Adams County Jail was specified....
He said the Broncos left tackle will be confined in the jail's 12-cell medical unit except for meals and recreation periods.
"Someone of his stature and reputation would be disruptive" if placed in the facility's general population, said Sullivan. ...
The sheriff said that with time off for good behavior, Perry could walk out of the jail Feb. 14. "He gets six days of good time, as long as he's good," Sullivan said.
Reading that in light of Sullivan's own recent arrest is downright creepy.
But Sullivan's Nanny Statism did not extend only to drugs and prostitution, with which he was allegedly involved, but also to gambling. Consider this March 24, 1990 article by John Sanko in the Rocky Mountain News:
Gov. Roy Romer says he doesn't want Colorado cities turned into miniature versions of Las Vegas or Atlantic City, where casino gambling is the name of the game. ...
"I don't think this is healthy, I don't think it's wise and I don't think it's needed," Romer said of plans to bring casino-style gambling to eight small towns and allow electronic poker in others.
"It would put us on a slippery slope that we would not recover from and we would become a full-scale gambling state."
Lawmakers who support the gambling plan scoffed, but Romer got no argument from Fort Collins District Attorney Stuart VanMeveren.
"It brings in prostitution , it brings in a lot of transients, it brings in a lot of other social problems," VanMeveren said.
Speaking for the state's law officers, Arapahoe County Sheriff Pat Sullivan said serious problems cropped up in the past just with fund-raising "casino nights" for charities.
We wouldn't want low-life drug-dealing prostitutes doing something like raising money for charity through casino nights!
So as sheriff Sullivan fought drug use, prostitution, and gambling—the Nanny State trifecta—and he also advocated controls on civilian gun ownership. In an email today, Dudley Brown of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners wrote:
One of the reasons I am so opposed to the government being involved in your Second Amendment rights is that it takes the power away from you and puts it in their hands.
In the hands of people like the former Republican Sheriff of Arapahoe County, Patrick Sullivan.
Sullivan made a habit of helping out groups like the Brady Campaign when it came to preventing law-abiding citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
He even testified before Congress for Handgun Control in favor of the Brady bill, and in the State Capitol against any concealed carry reform.
During his 18-year tenure as Arapahoe County Sheriff, Sullivan was a poster boy for big government...
But not only was Sullivan a major Nanny Statist, he was also a tax-and-spender. (http://blogs.denverpost.com/carroll/2011/11/30/sheriff-pat-sullivans-improbable-downfall/478/) Vincent Carroll reviews for the Denver Post:
[Sullivan] agreed to participate in a political advertisement in 1992 against the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights in which he pointed to a section of the amendment that he said "cuts cops and puts criminals back on the street."
That claim was a lurid falsehood—which voters apparently sensed because they approved TABOR that year by a comfortable margin.
Given how little Sullivan cared for others' freedoms, it's a little hard to feel too sorry for him now that he has been arrested for consensual crimes.
And yet we must also remember all the violence Sullivan stopped as a peace officer, and all the innocent people he helped protect from harm.
Lovers of liberty must point out the basic injustice of Sullivan's arrest, even though it's the sort of police action Sullivan himself once endorsed.
The Justice of Profits
December 2, 2011
The Objective Standard just published my latest article, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/12/contra-occupiers-profits-embody-justice/) Contra Occupiers, Profits Embody Justice. Following are a few excepts:
According to various Occupy Wall Street protesters, profits hurt people and constitute injustice. ... [F]ar from undermining justice, protecting the right to profit in a free society is an instance of justice. ... Unfortunately, many Occupy Wall Street protesters call for 'social justice,' which is a euphemism for more looting. True justice neither needs nor permits the adjective 'social' before it. Justice necessarily applies in a social context...
(http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/12/contra-occupiers-profits-embody-justice/) Check out the entire piece!
Incidentally, following is the interview at Zuccotti Park that I quote from.
Officials Wage War on Colorado Businesses
December 6, 2011
Colorado bureaucrats and politicians are expanding their war on businesses in the state, threatening the recovery.
Economists with the University of Colorado at Boulder Leeds School of Business thinks Colorado job growth will outpace the rest of the nation next year, the (http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_19477605) Denver Post reports. Mostly these jobs will be in the service sector, the report predicts. Manufacturers will shed jobs. (Of course this is all just fancy guesswork.) To the extent that jobs depend on "green" subsidies, they are counterproductive and precarious anyway.
Bureaucratic controls tend to stifle capital-heavy businesses disproportionately, which helps explain why the service sector looks relatively appealing. But even the service sector will be hit by anti-business policies. Consider three recent news stories.
The (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19474385) Denver Post reports that the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment is joining up with the federal Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service to punish businesses who dare to hire independent contractors. Of course, this is only a "problem" because of all the anti-businesses controls that curtail direct hires, starting with the grotesque payroll tax.
If we actually cared about restoring a strong economy, we'd roll back those employment controls, not expanding them.
The (http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_19476247) Daily Camera reports that the Boulder city council may stick firms with a "business software tax." Allegedly this closes a "loophole" (but freedom is not a loophole!).
If we actually cared about restoring a strong economy, we'd eliminate software taxes across the board, not expand them.
(http://www.steamboattoday.com/news/2011/dec/05/routt-county-commissioners-host-meeting-tuesday-ab/) Steamboat Daily reports that the Routt County Board of Commissioners is trying to hamper the production of oil and natural gas. (Thanks to theDenver Post for mentioning both those other papers' stories.)
If we actually cared about restoring a strong economy, we'd eliminate the arbitrary controls hampering the state's energy industry, preserving only those government actions based on protecting actual property rights from objectively verifiable harms through a legally sound process.
But of course most of Colordo's bureaucrats and politicians care not a whit about restoring a strong economy. They're too busy wielding arbitrary power over others.
Reviewing CO's Campaign Laws
December 8, 2011
Diana Hsieh and I spoke on Colorado's campaign laws at the December 7 Liberty On the Rocks in Denver.
I addressed the general problems with those laws. I remarked, "Colorado citizens with few to no [slight] resources are being dragged into court for daring to speak their minds, for daring to be active in the political process, for daring to stand up and fight for a better country. And I think this is shameful: I think it's shameful that Colorado citizens are being dragged into court for daring to exercise their right of free speech."
Diana reviewed her experiences complying with the speech-chilling laws. Then she explains Secretary of State Scott Gessler's proposed rule changes and offers support for them.
Mass Beer Blind Taste Test
December 11, 2011
Last night a friend organized a blind taste test of several mass-produced beers. This stemmed from an argument over whether Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) was an okay beer or a horrible one. Tasters were given six small lettered cups of beer; nobody knew even which brands they were (except we all knew PBR was in the mix). I collected five results.
Photo: The good Doctor Paul Hsieh applies his penetrating scientific mind to the problem of determining beer quality; (https://picasaweb.google.com/107156101927327309509/December112011?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite) from Picasa.
I did a two-stage ranking. First I marked beers as "okay" or "not great"; I marked three in each category. Then I ranked the beers in order from 1 to 6. Here was my ranking: Sam Adams Boston Lager, Modelo Especial, PBR, Coors Light, Stella Artois, and Pilsner Urquell. So, while I thought the Sam Adams was clearly superior to PBR, PBR still made my "okay" list.
Jennifer (my wife) and I had similar tastes, except she ranked Pilsner Urquell second rather than last. (I didn't like it at all.) Here was her ranking: Sam Adams Boston Lager, Pilsner Urquell, Modelo Especial, PBR, Stella Artois, Coors Light. (It's too bad the regular Coors wasn't in the mix; I suspect that's somewhat better.)
Paul ranked them as follows: Modelo Especial, Sam Adams Boston Lager, PBR, Coors Light, Stella Artois, Pilsner Urquell.
"H:" Modelo Especial, Sam Adams Boston Lager, Pilsner Urquell, Stella Artois, PBR, Coors Light.
"S:" Coors Light, Stella Artois, Sam Adams Boston Lager, PBR, Modelo Especial, Pilsner Urquell.
While Sam Adams ranked in the top half of everyone's list, only Jennifer and I ranked it first. (I thought it was clearly superior to the rest, though not nearly as good as the craft beers I usually drink.) Everyone ranked PBR in the middle, from a 3 to a 5. I was a little surprised that the Modelo performed relatively well, earning two first places and a second.
But of course this exercise largely was academic; generally I'm going to drink a real beer, such as a Guinness or a Rock Bottom Molly's Brown.
Gessler Emerges as the Free Speech Secretary of State
December 13, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published December 9 by Grand Junction Free Press.
True, Secretary of State Scott Gessler has made some public-relations missteps, as when he (http://denver.cbslocal.com/2011/09/22/secretary-of-state-at-center-of-controversy-surrounding-fundraiser/) attended a Larimer County Republican fundraiser in September to cover campaign-finance fines that Gessler's office oversaw. On the whole, though, Gessler deserves praise for having the guts to stand up and take heat for what he believes in: the principles of free speech. Indeed, Gessler deserves the national title as the Free Speech Secretary of State.
Gessler has done the best he can to make sense of the contradictory, often-ambiguous mish-mash of Colorado's campaign finance laws and court rulings about them. His job in that regard is not an easy one: the voter-approved section in Colorado's Constitution gives him one set of directives, while judges give him another, and he must craft the rules guiding the process.
The problems begin with the campaign-finance laws, which inherently violate rights of free speech. As we (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/colorados-campaign-laws-throw-common-sense-out-the-window/) wrote back in May, those laws specify that, to speak out for or against any ballot measure while spending over $200, you "must first register with the proper authorities, then report to those authorities the names and addresses of every significant donor to your cause, as well as all of your significant expenses... on penalty of daily fines, and in accordance with a hundred pages of dense legalese." Obviously those laws undermine free speech and discourage civic participation.
The courts should throw out the entire mess on First Amendment grounds. Instead, last year the 10th Circuit Court (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/sos-looks-to-mitigate-burden-of-campaign-censorship-laws/) ruled that the $200 "trigger" for reporting is unreasonably low. But the court declined to specify a more reasonable amount, leaving Gessler to implement the rules without clear guidance. Gessler reasonably drafted rules setting the "trigger" at $5,000, meaning if you don't spend that much, you don't have to file and comply with the paperwork requirements. Gessler did the best he could to protect free speech within the constraints of the campaign laws and the court decision.
But on November 17, Denver District Court Judge Bruce (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19358023) Jones threw outthe $5,000 trigger, recognizing Gessler's "conundrum" but again declining to offer any clear guidance.
Thankfully, (http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/pressrel/2011/PR20111117Appeal.html) Gessler announced he'd appeal Jones's ruling. In a news release Gessler described the problem precisely: "Under Judge Jones' ruling, we have one threshold for $200 and another threshold for 'some other amount.' We want to encourage participation in our political process but the ruling today only further confuses an already complex process." In other words, without a clear "trigger" for reporting, activists have no idea when they have to file or whether they'll get sued for not filing. Such ambiguity leads to after-the-fact rulings that violate citizens' rights and undermine the rule of just law.
In a December 15 meeting, Gessler will reassert the need for the $5,000 "trigger" and offer numerous other rule changes as well. The (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19403822) Denver Postsummarized two other major proposed rule changes: limit to 180 the number of days the $50 per day fine accrues, and confirm that groups must "expressly advocate" a candidate or measure in order to fall under the campaign laws. (Rich Coolidge, spokesperson for Gessler's office, confirmed that those three rule changes will be on the table; those wanting more detail can find the (http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/rule_making/files/2011/20111115CPFNotice.pdf) 58-page document on the Secretary of State's web page.)
Regarding the fine limit, it's just not fair for hostile, political attack groups to be able to sue somebody long after the fact and keep racking up daily fines.
As for the language about "express advocacy," our ability to speak out on candidates and issues goes to the heart of the First Amendment. The legal issue is that some groups run ads praising or castigating some candidate or issue without actually suggesting how people should vote. If you tell people how to vote, you use the so-called "magic words" that trigger the campaign laws. Incidentally, the Colorado Supreme Court will (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19211629) hear a caseabout this, though the mere fact that we're discussing "magic words" illustrates nicely why the campaign laws by their very nature violate free speech.
Unfortunately, Gessler has been been (http://coloradoindependent.com/106263/gessler-rule-slapped-down-by-judge-in-campaign-finance-case) relentlessly attacked by leftist activists who champion censorship of political speech, including Luis Toro of Colorado Ethics Watch and Jenny Flanagan and Elena Nunez of Colorado Common Cause.
The left is obsessed with the idea that, somewhere, someone may spend their own money to advocate their political beliefs. But free speech is central to our liberties, and that right is meaningless without the physical means to advocate our beliefs. Often that requires spending money. Yet many on the left would restrict our political speech in many contexts and open the door wide to more far-reaching forms of censorship.
When (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/05/making-the-first-amendment-part-of-the-conversation/) Flanagan debated Ari on television earlier this year and Ari brought up the First Amendment, she retorted, "That's not part of the conversation right now." Thankfully, Gessler is doing what he can to change that.
Linn Armstrong is a local political activist and firearms instructor with the Grand Valley Training Club. His son, Ari, edits FreeColorado.com from the Denver area.
Note: See also Diana Hsieh's detailed summary of the proposed rule changes in a (http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2011/12/testify-for-free-speech-on-december.html) first and (http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2011/12/beware-of-one-horrible-campaign-finance.html) second post.
NRF Blames Banks for Harms of Federal Price Controls on Credit Cards
December 14, 2011
Surprise, surprise: price controls have harmful economic effects. Unfortunately, rather than condemn price controls, the (http://www.nrf.com/) National Retail Federation is calling for more. In his detailed, informative article for theDenver Post, David (http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_19544079) Migoya reports that the Dodd-Frank federal price-control law has actually resulted in higher fees for businesses that sell mostly low-cost items, impacting (among others) small restaurants and Redbox.
Following is my letter to NRF:
Dear NRF,
I was shocked to read that one of your employees, Craig Shearman, is blaming the banks for the inevitable harms of federal price controls on credit cards.
Price controls are both immoral and economically destructive because they forcibly prevent people from voluntarily negotiating contracts. Yet, rather than condemn the federal government's price controls, Shearman called for even stricter controls!
Here is the key section of the (http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_19544079) Denver Post article:
"They failed to set something specific on small-ticket pricing, so as not to be more than was previously charged," saidCraig Shearman, vice president of government affairs at the federation. "And banks being banks, there was a loophole, and they're taking advantage of it. What was intended to be fair to all businesses is now a way to gouge small-ticket merchants."
Your organization claims to represent retailers. But you cannot ultimately help retailers except by fighting for a free market. If you advocate government controls, those controls will inevitably expand to hurt the very people you claim to represent. I urge you to change course, condemn price controls, and champion economic liberty.
I welcome your reply, which I will cite publicly.
Sincerely,
Ari Armstrong
Update: (http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=Contacts&op=viewlive&sp_id=40) Mallory Duncan sent me a reply:
Dear Mr. Armstrong—Thanks for your comments. We absolutely agree that transparent and competitive markets are best. It is how retailers operate. It is how we compete to deliver low prices and ever increasing value for our customers.
Unfortunately, until recently, there has not even been the inklings of a competitive market in debit cards. Before the new law took effect, every single bank (all 7,000 of them) and their respective card associations charged exactly the same high schedule of swipe fees to every single merchant, regardless of size or service, and categorically refused to negotiate with any of them. Faced with a dominating price cartel, moving bad actors toward a competitive market requires either litigation or law. Fortunately, those efforts are beginning to work.
Despite some banks' attempts to create loopholes, in time, even the small ticket fees mentioned in the article will become more transparent and competitive. That will be a good thing.
Best,
Mallory Duncan
Following is my reply:
Dear Mr. Duncan,
I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to reply.
Unfortunately, your reply does not address my concerns. You use the phrase "competitive market" as a euphemism to mean a market in which you force banks to do your bidding. The proper, moral, economically best system is a *free* market, in which parties are free to transact on a strictly voluntary basis. Again, when you advocate the use of force, you inevitably subject your own clients to the same threat.
Certainly anticompetitive banking controls should be repealed, and working toward that end should be your goal. But two wrongs do not make a right, and imposing price controls only further violates people's rights.
Moreover, price controls are economically destructive by their very nature, and they inevitably produce unintended harms. If you are successful in closing the "loopholes" that concern you, the price controls will only cause harm elsewhere.
I again urge you to rethink your position, stop justifying your advocacy of force with clever euphemisms, and advocate economic liberty.
Sincerely,
Ari Armstrong
Comments Regarding the Secretary of State's Dec. 15 Campaign Finance Rule Hearing
December 15, 2011
I submitted the following comments to the Colorado Secretary of State's office prior to a December 15 meeting regarding campaign finance rules.
Dear Secretary of State Gessler,
Thank you for holding a public hearing regarding the Secretary of State's rules pertaining to Colorado's campaign finance laws. Before examining some of the particular proposed rule changes, I want to briefly discuss the nature of the campaign laws and their impacts on me as a political activist.
Censorship means the use of government force to prohibit or restrict speech in any of its varied forms. A governmental agent employs direct censorship by banning a particular work or speaker, as by prohibiting the printing and distribution of a specific book or pamphlet, or by threatening a given individual with sanctions for speaking to others. Other sorts of restrictions and controls may not directly prohibit some manifestation of speech, yet, by imposing onerous burdens on the act of speaking, they constitute an indirect form of censorship. For example, if an onerous tax were placed on books or some particular book or type of book, that would constitute indirect censorship.
Colorado's campaign finance laws constitute a form of censorship, albeit an indirect form. No, the laws do not outright ban certain types of speech (as the federal McCain-Feingold law attempted to do). Yet they burden the political activist with onerous restrictions and requirements, effectively curtailing the political speech of many individuals. The campaign laws censor political speech no less than if the government taxed individuals who spoke out many hundreds or thousands of dollars. The result is precisely the same.
Before an activist can even begin to speak out for or against any ballot measure or candidate with the intention of spending even small amounts of resources, the activist must learn the rules (broadly defined). The assorted Constitutional provisions, statutes, bureaucratic rules, and surrounding court cases constitute many scores of pages of dense legalese. Even learning whether certain forms of speech fall under these rules requires substantial effort (indeed, people may violate the rules without even knowing they exist); figuring out how to obey those rules requires far greater effort.
I myself have spent many hours reading about the rules, and yet I feel totally incapable of obeying them. To say that the rules are Byzantine frankly insults Byzantium. To invoke Churchill's words, the campaign laws are "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." To the average busy activist who is not prepared to spend many hours in intense academic-style study of these rules, the campaign rules are practically unintelligible.
For a small-scale project, a political activist easily could spend far more hours navigating the assorted campaign finance rules than the activist actually spends speaking out. By way of comparison, imagine if the government imposed a $40 tax on a $15 book: in both cases, the result is censorship.
True, the Secretary of State's office holds classes to train people in how to obey the rules, a practice endorsed by Colorado Common Cause. Yet there are serious problems with this.
First, commuting to a class, sitting through the class, and then reviewing one's notes itself imposes a severe cost in terms of time on political activism.
Second, the mere fact that citizens are asked to sit through a government-run class to retain their ability to speak on political matters itself violates free speech. In many cases, people speak out for or against particular governmental policies enacted by particular politicians or bureaucrats. Asking the citizen activist to sit through a class organized, perhaps, by the activist's political opponents inherently clashes with that activist's free speech rights. To illustrate the absurdity of the laws, consider that advocacy for or against candidates for Secretary of State can itself fall under the campaign rules. If an activist opposed the sitting Secretary of State and advocated the election of the opposing candidate, the sitting Secretary of State would be responsible for instructing the activist on how to speak out—and for enforcing the rules against the activist.
Third, even if the Secretary of State's office makes a good-faith effort to instruct the citizen activist on how to obey the campaign laws, that hardly guarantees that the activist will remain free from vindictive legal actions lodged by opponents. If the Secretary of State's office offers one interpretation of the law, a judge may offer quite another—as Matt Arnold discovered after getting sued for daring to participate in the political process.
Once the activist learns all the rules, then he or she must register with the government. That fact independently and severely violates the right of free speech. The mere fact of registering with the government to practice free speech, especially given America's long tradition of First Amendment protections, weights heavily on many citizen activists (myself included).
Then come the reporting requirements and threats of legal suits. The activist must track in great detail contributions and expenses, meeting the complex requirements of the campaign finance laws. An activist who makes even a trivial paperwork error may be subjected to fines and lawsuits lodged by political opponents. Again this imposes a severe cost in terms of time and risk. Notably, these requirements weigh especially heavily on the small-scale, independent activist. Large groups able to hire their own accountants and lawyers can more easily comply with the requirements and absorb possible fines and legal fees.
These burdens of learning the rules, registering with the government, complying with the intricate reporting requirements, and then facing the constant threat of vindictive legal actions lodged by one's political opponents certainly chill political speech. The number of victims of this sort of censorship can never be precisely calculated, because in many cases the victims simply shut up and say nothing, and we never know what they might have said otherwise.
Colorado's campaign finance laws have discouraged me from speaking out in certain ways. During the last election cycle, it briefly occurred to me to make up my own flyer regarding candidates and ballot measures, and hand out copies of the flyer in my neighborhood. But, fearing the onerous burdens of the campaign laws, I quickly gave up on this idea; I did not want to become ensnared in the reporting burdens or the threats of legal actions against me by my political opponents.
I did speak out against one ballot measure in my capacity as an activist: Amendment 62. However, I agreed to do this only because Diana Hsieh, who joined me in the effort, agreed to meet all the campaign finance burdens. Absent her efforts, I would not have undertaken the task.
I am already thinking about the possibility of speaking out during the 2012 election cycle. My idea, similar to my previous idea, is to print up a flyer explaining my views on various candidates and ballot measures. But I have no idea whether this sort of speech would even fall under the campaign rules, what "magic words" I might have to avoid, or how I might possibly comply with the campaign rules to make this happen. (Moreover, I have a particular aversion to complying with intricate bureaucratic rules; for the same reason, I pay somebody else to prepare my taxes. Yet I shouldn't have to pay somebody else to help me comply with bureaucratic rules merely to speak out on political matters.) Notably, I would meet the original $200 reporting threshold merely by printing out 2,000 flyers at the local copy shop. Thus, the fact that I would have to spend many hours investigating the campaign rules, perhaps complying with their intricate burdens, and then facing the risk of getting sued by my political opponents, may well shut me up again in that respect. And that is a violation of my First Amendment right—and it is a right, not a privilege—of free speech.
Now I wish to address some of the details of the Secretary of State's proposed rule changes. On the whole, I believe the Secretary of State is making a good-faith effort to make the campaign rules as objective, fair, and manageable as possible given the constraints of the overall system. For this Secretary of State Scott Gessler and the employees of his office are to be applauded. (I have no doubt that the enemies of free speech on the left will continue to smear him instead, as they have done relentlessly now for many months.)
The general point is that the state's constitution requires—not permits, but requires—the Secretary of State to make rules "necessary to administer and enforce" the campaign laws. (Of course, the fact that the Secretary of State needs to issue such rules only further illustrates the inherent ambiguousness of the constitutional provisions on this matter.)
The Reporting Threshold
A December 9 document from the Secretary of State's Office ("Revised Draft of Proposed Rules Office of the Colorado Secretary of State: Rules Concerning Campaign and Political Finance 8 CCR 1505-6") proposes (Rule 4): "An issue committee shall not be subject to any of the requirements of Article XXVIII or Article 45 of Title 1, C.R.S., until the issue committee has accepted $5,000 or more in contributions or made expenditures of $5,000 or more during an election cycle."
This proposed rule is an eminently reasonable response to a federal court ruling on the matter (despite a subsequent nonresponsive and frankly politicized lower court ruling to the contrary).
Article XXVIII, Section 2(10)(a)(II) states that an issue committee is a group that "has accepted or made contributions or expenditures in excess of two hundred dollars to support or oppose any ballot issue or ballot question."
However, in the case (http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/08/08-1389.pdf) Sampson v. Buescher (December 9, 2010), the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reasonably ruled that the $200 threshold is unconstitutionally low based on the First Amendment protections of the federal Constitution. (As modern courts are wont to do, the court issued an unfortunately limited ruling that left in place most of the serious free-speech violations of Colorado's campaign finance rules.)
The Court noted in footnote 5 that the group in question lodged "$782.02 in inkind contributions reported on July 13, 2006." Moreover, "cash contributions (made between September 2006 and April 2007) totaled $1,426, of which $1,178.82 went for attorney fees and $247.18 remained in the committee bank account."
The Court concluded, "[T]he financial burden of state regulation on Plaintiffs' freedom of association approaches or exceeds the value of their financial contributions to their political effort; and the governmental interest in imposing those regulations is minimal, if not nonexistent, in light of the small size of the contributions. We therefore hold that it was unconstitutional to impose that burden on Plaintiffs. We do not attempt to draw a bright line below which a ballot-issue committee cannot be required to report contributions and expenditures. ... We say only that Plaintiffs' contributions and expenditures are well below the line."
In other words, the amount of $2,208.02 ($782.02 plus $1,426) is "well below the line" that would be constitutional. Thus, the Secretary of State, to meet his legal obligations, must set a threshold "well above" that amount. The amount of $5,000 fits the bill adequately.
Note that, absent a clear rule from the Secretary of State's office, activists are left to twist in the political winds. If they spend the wrong amount without reporting, as determined by their political opponents, then they will get sued. The Secretary of State's office is attempting to prevent precisely the sort of after-the-fact rule-making that constitutes a serious violation of people's basic rights.
Aggregate Contributions of $20
The Secretary of State's proposed tenth rule states, "If a contributer gives $20 or more in the aggregate during the reporting period, the contributer must be listed individually on the report, regardless of the amount of each contribution." The document cites statute 1-45-108(1), which states, "All candidate committees, political committees, issue committees, small donor committees, and political parties shall report to the appropriate officer their contributions received, including the name and address of each person who has contributed twenty dollars or more..." By my reading, the Secretary of State's proposed rule follows the cited statute. Unfortunately, this creates an important problem: if somebody donates a few dollars to a cause, then forgets and later donates a few more dollars, the total of which surpasses $20, the issue committee could be in violation of the law without even knowing it.
Other Proposed Rules
In the proposed definitions, the Secretary of State seeks to tighten up the meaning of "electioneering communication," citing the case (http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-969.ZS.html) Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. Imposing onerous burdens on the mere mention of a candidate severely violates the right of free speech. The Secretary of State seeks to restrict to "electioneering communications" speech that "is subject to no reasonable interpretation other than an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate." That is, unfortunately, still far too vague, but it may be the best the Secretary of State can accomplish within the given framework.
Regarding penalties and wavers, I support the Secretary of State's efforts to make the waiver rules more objective and to set reasonable limits on the accrual of fines.
Regarding privacy for contributers, I support the Secretary of State's efforts to allow people who fear for their safety to withhold their personal information from the public record. It's absolutely ludicrous to publish the names and home addresses of those who contribute funds regarding controversial issues such as abortion, immigration, firearms, gay marriage, etc.
Summary: Colorado's campaign finance laws inherently and severely violate the right of free speech of citizen activists. While the Secretary of State must issue rules within that framework (taking into account the relevant court rulings), wherever possible the Secretary of State should issue rules that best comport with the First Amendment and the right of free speech. The Secretary of State's proposed rules do just that.
Morse: Complying with Campaign Laws "Really Does Take a Lawyer"
December 17, 2011
On December 15, 2011, Colorado State Senator John Morse spoke about the state's campaign finance laws at a Secretary of State hearing.
He said, "What we were selling there, if you will, was that people will comply with the law, and there won't be many fines. I think what your experience is showing is that... turns out that complying with all this is complicated, and really does take a lawyer. But that's the price of the transparency, to be able to have these kinds of reporting things."
But Senator, if you have to hire a lawyer or risk hefty fines or lawsuits in order to spend resources speaking out for or against any ballot measure or candidate, that's not free speech.
The proper term for it is censorship.
See also:
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/12/comments-regarding-secretary-of-states.html) Comments Regarding the Secretary of State's Dec. 15 Campaign Finance Rule Hearing
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/12/reviewing-cos-campaign-laws.html) Reviewing CO's Campaign Laws
(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/07/letter-about-speech-chilling-campaign.html) Letter About Speech-Chilling Campaign Laws
Rand's 'We the Living' Opposes Tyranny
December 18, 2011
Hannah Krening reviewed the anti-totalitarian theme of Ayn Rand's novelWe the Living, as well as its literary qualities. This was a December 17 talk for Liberty Toastmasters.
Newt's Nutty Abortion Stance
December 22, 2011
Today two articles came out slamming Newt Gingrich for embracing the hard-line anti-abortion "personhood" movement.
Paul Hsieh wrote the first for (http://pjmedia.com/blog/would-a-president-gingrich-ban-the-birth-control-pill/) Pajamas Media. He emphasizes the fact that Gingrich's proposals would ban the birth control pill and IUD. He writes, "If Gingrich (or any other 'personhood' supporter) wins the 2012 GOP nomination, the future legality of birth control pills and IUDs would immediately become a national political issue, to the detriment of the Republicans. Just as the 'personhood' issue tipped the swing state of Colorado in favor of the Democrats in 2010, it could also tip a few critical swing states in favor of Obama in 2012."
I wrote the other article for (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/12/newt-sides-with-anti-abortion-zealots/) The Objective Standard. Like Paul, I discuss the strategic foolishness of Republicans embracing the "personhood" movement, referencing Ken Buck's loss of a U.S. Senate Seat. I also discuss Gingrich's comments regarding birth control.
One additional point I make is that Gingrich's proposals would subject women who get abortion to severe criminal penalties:
If, as Personhood USA asserts, a zygote is a person with the same right to life as a born infant or adult, then any action that intentionally kills a zygote, embryo, or fetus constitutes murder, as a representative of the organization (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/11/anti-abortion-personhood-tries-for.html) emphasizedduring a November news conference. By the logic of the position and in accordance with existing murder statutes, abortion would be legally prosecuted as murder. Any doctor or husband who assisted in an abortion would be prosecuted as an accessory to murder. A Canadian anti-abortion group forthrightly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NECNQmJ2rY0) argues that women who get abortions should face severe prison sentences. A Colorado supporter of Personhood USA explicitly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzOcTJpgx0k) calls for the death penalty for women who get abortions.
For a more detailed discussion of the issue, see the essay by Diana Hsieh and me, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-winter/abortion-rights.asp) "The Assault on Abortion Rights Undermines All Our Liberties."
Campaign Finance Rules: Collected Testimony
December 23, 2011
As I've (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/12/morse-complying-with-campaign-laws-really-does-take-a-lawyer/) reviewed, Colorado's Secretary of State Scott Gessler held a meeting December 15 to discuss his office's rules pertaining to the campaign finance laws.
Gessler's office has published all the (http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/rule_making/hearings/2011/RulesHearingCPF20111215.html) written testimony submitted on the matter.
I've also published video of several people who, while overall supportive of Gessler's proposed rule changes, nevertheless criticize the broader scope of campaign finance controls. Following are the remarks of Diana Hsieh, Paul Hsieh, Matt Arnold, and me.
If you want to get an idea of why I was a bit fired up, check out this video clip of State Senator John Morse:
Tebowmania Article Published in Denver Post
December 23, 2011
The Denver Post published a recent op-ed of mine, (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_19565147) "Tebowmania isn't just for Christians."
In this article I try to make sense of the overt religion of Bronco's football star quarterback, Tim Tebow. On the surface, there's much about this that seems odd. What if, I ask, "a star football player were as vocal about his Muslim, Hindu, or Scientologist beliefs?" And does God really care about who wins football games?
But, listening to some of Tebow's comments during a recent game, I got a better sense of what religion does for him. I conclude that "what Tebow is able to do remarkably well is keep a sense of perspective about the game and his play," and he uses religion for that end.
(http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_19565147) Read the entire article!
The Case for Abortion Rights
December 23, 2011
The latest issue of The Objective Standard has published an article on abortion rights by Diana Hsieh and me, (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-winter/abortion-rights.asp) "The Assault on Abortion Rights Undermines All Our Liberties." While this article updates the discussion about the anti-abortion movement, it offers the basic, timeless case for abortion rights.I'll offer a brief synopsis here.
The first part describes the modern abortion movement, which is basically divided into those who want to immediately declare the "personhood" of zygotes and fetuses from the moment of conception, and those who push for marginal restrictions on abortion.
The second main part discusses why abortion is important for millions of women. Some women need to get an abortion for reasons of health, rape or incest, or serious fetal deformity. Many more women justifiably seek an abortion because, due to their finances, family situation, emotional stability, or goals in life, they are simply not prepared for motherhood. Abortion bans would severely harm the lives and well-being of many women (and their doctors and supporters).
Then the paper address "The Moral Basis of Abortion Rights." (Diana deserves the lion's share of the credit for this section.) The basic idea is that individual rights apply in a social context, not to a being contained wholly within the body of another.
The final section ties abortion rights to all our other rights. Abortion bans negate a woman's right to control her own body. Restrictions on abortion necessarily infringe rights of property, contract, and speech. Moreover, because restrictions on abortion obviously are rooted in sectarian faith, they open the door to more sectarian-based laws and to endless sectarian conflict.
I invite you to read the (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-winter/abortion-rights.asp) entire article. See also my follow-up post about (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2011/12/newt-sides-with-anti-abortion-zealots/) Newt Gingrich's anti-abortion zealotry.
'Twas the Night before They Occupied the North Pole
December 23, 2011
The following article by Linn and Ari Armstrong originally was published by Grand Junction Free Press.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has found a new place to protest. But instead of camping out in tents they "community organize" from hastily-constructed igloos. Participants call it "Occupy the North Pole," or ONoP for short. Their primary target: Santa Claus.
We contacted Invidia Elf, declared ONoP's spokesperson by unanimous uptwinkles, to discuss the group's goals. Following is her statement.
"We're sick and tired of that so-called Jolly Old Elf reaping all the benefits of Christmas magic. While Santa lives in his grand Christmas castle, 99 percent of elves live in tiny huts or workers' quarters. Some elves in the wood-toy construction department have even had to set up triple bunk beds due to lack of space.
"Santa owns 60 percent of the North Pole's developed property, and he controls 80 percent of the Pole's wealth. Nearly the entire North Pole economy is based on the production of Christmas toys, and who controls that entire enterprise? You guessed it: Santa Claus. He's nothing but a Robber Baron monopolist.
"I won't even get into Santa's dietary habits. He eats more calories every day in cookies and milk alone than most elves eat all week. And his clothes! How many fluffy red tailored suits does the man actually need?
"Don't even get me started on Mrs. Claus, dashing around in her fancy, stainless-steel sleigh like the Queen of the town. She even gets her own chauffeur. Did you know it takes a whole division of elves just to tend the reindeer? The Clauses' barn alone is ten times the size of an average elf house, and it consumes fifteen times the electricity.
"Santa himself doesn't actually do any work; he merely oversees and directs all the work of thousands of other elves. We're the ones who do the real work around here, and I say it's about time we got to call the shots. It's high time to subject the means of production of Christmas toys to a more democratic process.
"A 'living elf wage?' Ha! There's no law whatsoever setting wage standards. Sure, we don't have the unemployment problem you have in America, but at least there workers are protected by laws that force employers to spend more on wages. Did you know that until about a decade ago a new elf employee got paid only room and board? Not even a stipend!
"I tried to unionize the workers a while back, but Santa said 'Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas' and everybody started feeling all cheery again. It's like a Jedi mind trick or something. A lot of these elves don't even know how bad they've got it; they're deluded into thinking they live a wonderful life. It's just a good thing I'm here to educate them.
"The Nog Party? What a bunch of drooling dwarves. Laughably, they think it's a good thing if some people get super rich; it's like they think their so-called 'free market' is guided by invisible magic or something. We know what's in their nog! But here in the real world people have to fight for their lick of the candy cane.
"Oh, sure, Santa spends most of his time making toys to give away. But does he give to everyone equally according to their need? No. Instead, there he sits in his office, day after day, going through his list not just once but twice, checking to see who's naughty and who's nice. And if for no good reason he puts you on the naughty list? Too bad for you! You get nothing but coal.
"It's not the naughty kids' fault. They were not born with the same advantages of nice kids. Why should the nice kids get all the rewards? They already have plenty. Instead, Santa should give the naughty kids most of the gifts to help make up for their disadvantages in life.
"Santa delivers free toys to all the (nice) children of the world, but he does that only one day a year! Here's Santa, the most magical elf of all time, this guy who's been building up his powers for centuries, and all he can manage is a single day of holiday bliss? You'd think Santa could have worked himself up to delivering gifts at least two days a year.
"Just this last winter Santa took a trip with the missus to the Caribbean. Do you know how many times I've relaxed on Caribbean beaches sipping pina coladas? That's right: none. Santa has more inborn ability than fifty other elves together, so what's he doing taking all that time off? ONoP demands that, henceforth, each elf contribute according to his ability, as decided by a democratic process."
To us, it seems an awful lot like Invidia is attacking Santa for his virtues.
We called up Santa for a reply, but all he said was, "Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas! And to all a good night!"
What About Colorado's Millions of Other Tax Scofflaws?
December 23, 2011
Today the (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_19603639) Denver Post lambasted Douglas Bruce, citing his "reckless and brazen" evasion of state taxes. Recently Bruce was convicted on multiple charges.
I have no doubt that Bruce a) organized his finances in ridiculously convoluted ways (as he seems to be able to do nothing simply), b) agitated virtually every politician, bureaucrat, and leftist ideologue in the state, and c) gravely erred by representing himself in court. Whether he's actually technically guilty of violating the state's tax laws, I could not say definitively without studying his case more carefully. What is obvious is that, on the moral level, what's he's actually "guilty" of is daring to spend his own money in politically unapproved ways.
But there's a deeper point here that practically everybody else seems to be ignoring: the large majority of Colorado residents are likely in violation of the state's use-tax laws. I (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/06/my-use-tax-case-resolved-tax-remains.html) wrote about this matter earlier in the year. My guess is that millions of Coloradans are tax scofflaws. So, in the broader sense, obviously Bruce's prosecution is selective; the state simply ignores millions (or at least hundreds of thousands) of cases of (generally unwitting) tax evasion every year.
Here's the comment I sent over to a couple members of the Post's editorial board: "Fair enough regarding Doug Bruce, though the prosecution still smells of political retribution. However, my guess is that well over 80 percent of those currently piling on Doug Bruce are in violation of the state's use-tax requirements. I'd actually be curious to learn what fraction of the Denver Post editorial board is in compliance with the use-tax laws. I personally think it's a problem that probably the overwhelming majority of Colorado residents are in violation of the tax law, but apparently this is not the sort of story the Post regards as interesting."
Update: Curtis Hubbard, the editorial page editor of the Denver Post, informs me that he did in fact (http://www.denverpost.com/opinioncolumnists/ci_19501336) address the use tax less than two weeks ago! Somehow I missed that article. He correctly points out that most people don't pay it and that the state doesn't enforce it. However, his solution to the problem is to force out-of-state online retailers to collect the tax and remit it to the state. I have a rather different idea for how to equalize the treatment between in-state and out-of-state businesses:(http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/04/dump-emergency-sales-tax.html) repeal the sales tax for in-state businesses (even if done in a revenue-neutral way by increasing other tax rates).
Joey Bunch Misstates Gun Statistics in Denver Post
December 28, 2011
[Update 6:31 pm: The Denver Post has issued a revised correction for the online article in question.]
[Update December 29: Joey Bunch related that he takes responsibility for the mistake and apologizes for his initial reaction. For my part, I am satisfied with the way the Post has handled the issue.]
In their article for today's Denver Post, (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19628941) Joey Bunch and Kieran Nicholson claim, "More than 500 children in the United States die in gun accidents each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a 2007 report, which estimated 1.7 million children live in homes where guns are kept." However, there seems to be no factual basis for that claim.
As Bunch is listed as first author and his contact information appears below the article, I contacted him to see where he got his figures. Unfortunately, in a series of emails (see below) he flatly refused to provide me with a citation. Apparently that is because no such citation exists.
CDC provides a (http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html) search page for reviewing mortality statistics. The results for unintentional firearm deaths for 2007, ages zero through seventeen, is 112. Notice that the anti-gun (http://www.bradycampaign.org/xshare/Facts/One_Year_-_U.S._Firearm_Deaths_and_Death_Rates_by_Age_Group__Intent.pdf) Brady Campaign reports comparable figures. (Of the estimated 2,436,652 deaths in the U.S. in 2009, a total of 588 for all age groups resulted from "accidental discharge of firearms." Final figures for 2007 show a total of 613 deaths. Please see pages 19 and 39 of the (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_04.pdf) linked CDC report, and notice that I provided an actual citation for my claim.) To get figures as high as Bunch claims, one has to look at (http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvacci.html) decades-old data. (Note that, in this article, I am concerned only with Bunch's factual claims. I will address the "big picture" issues elsewhere.)
So how did Bunch get from 112 to "more than 500?" I don't really know, given he refused to tell me. I do have a guess, however. A top Google hit for "kids die guns" is a 2008 article from (http://www.momlogic.com/2008/08/protect_your_kids_from_guns.php) MomLogic. That article includes the same numbers as Bunch uses—"more than 500" and "1.7 million households." My guess is that Bunch cribbed these figures (from this web site or a comparable one) without bothering to verify them or even review their meaning.
Here's what MomLogic has to say: "More than 500 children die annually from accidental gunshots. ... Last year, a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found more than 1.7 million children live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns."
What is similar between this article and Bunch's article is that both include the same year for the CDC claim (2007), both include the phrase "more than 500 children," and both include the phrase, "1.7 million children live in homes." One important detail to notice is that the MomLogic article does not cite the CDC for the "more than 500" claim. Also notice the important qualifier in the MomLogic article about the 1.7 million households: these are "homes with loaded and unlocked guns." Bunch offers no such qualifier, rendering his statement wildly inaccurate. (Neither MomLogic nor Bunch actually cite a specific CDC publication.)
I did find some support for the claim about 1.7 million households, but this comes not from CDC but from the American Academy of Pediatrics. (Perhaps there was some association between CDC and the Academy.) (Update: As USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-05-children-guns_x.htm) relates, the authors of the study did have a direct relationship to the CDC.) That (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/116/3/e370.full) 2005 article states, "Findings indicate that ~1.69 million (95% confidence interval: 1.57-1.82 million) children and youth in the United States <18 years old are living with loaded and unlocked household firearms." USA Today offered a (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-05-children-guns_x.htm) popular summary of the study. However, the study is based on survey data, so its conclusions are suspect. (Please notice again my actual citations.)
At this point, then, the Denver Post either needs to come up with an actual citation supporting Bunch's claim, or else issue a correction.
And, in general, I encourage reporters to a) actually have real citations backing up their claims (see also my write-up of a (http://www.freecolorado.com/2008/03/update-on-health-studies.html) 2008 incident), and b) make those citations available to those who ask for them. Anything less constitutes journalistic negligence.
Following is today's email exchange between Bunch and me:
Ari: Dear Mr. Bunch, You write: "More than 500 children in the United States die in gun accidents each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a 2007 report." Please send [me] your citation for that claim. Thanks, -Ari
Joey: CDC. I cited my source.
Ari: I see that you wrote down CDC in your article. The problem is that when I look at the CDC web page, I find very different numbers than the ones you claim. So what I'm asking you for is the actual citation for a specific document that backs up your statement. Please provide that, and stop being coy. Thanks, -Ari
Joey: It took me all of about 3 minutes to find that report. With all due respect, Ari, you're a columnist for a competing newspaper, do your own work.
Ari: Joey, If you found it, then please *send me the cite*. The fact that I write for the Grand Junction Free Press (hardly a competitor to the Post) is entirely irrelevant. I did my own work, as I mentioned, and I found different figures. So now, again, I ask you to back up your claim with a specific citation. Thanks, -Ari
Joey: I told you the name of the report and the year it came out. Would you like me to print it out and drive it to your house? I'll pick up coffee and doughnuts on the way. Good luck with your story, Ari.
Ari: No, I would would like you send me the link to the relevant document, or, if the document is not available online, the title and authors of the printed document. That will be trivially easy for you to accomplish, so please, again, send me the citation. Thanks, -Ari
Joey: I do freelance work sometimes. I'll send you a bill for research, and when it's paid I'll spend my time doing your work. Failing that, you could call the CDC and ask them to send it for you. There could be a per-page fee for that, however. Have a nice day.
Ari: Dear Mr. Bunch, According to your own claims, you've *already done the work*, and it took you "all of about three minutes." If you've already done the work, and found the citation that informs your article, then it will take you about ten seconds to send me the relevant link (or title with authors). As a writer for the Denver Post, you have a responsibility, both to your readers and to the owners and managers of the paper, to back up your factual claims with specific citations. Please do so at this time, and please stop acting so evasive and frankly unprofessional. Thanks, -Ari
Joey: One more time and the last time I'm saying it: do your own work. You work for a newspaper. You are a journalist. Do your own work. Conversation over.
Update: Apparently the conversation is not yet over. After I sent an email to several representatives of the Denver Post linking to this write-up, Bunch again responded, claiming (among other things), "I told you the name of the report." I wrote back noting that he has not, in fact, provided me with the title of the report or anything like a verifiable citation. I will update this article when and if Bunch provides me with an actual citation to the alleged report in question.
Update: Kevin Dale, news director for the Denver Post, states via email, "We are correcting the statistics. Page 2 in tomorrow's paper. We'll be correcting the online story shortly. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. We take our accuracy very seriously indeed."
Update 5:03 pm: I sent a follow-up email to Dale:
Dear Mr. Dale,
Thank you for promptly following through on the matter of the claimed gun statistics published in today's Denver Post.
Unfortunately, the Denver Post's online "correction" also is in error [as of the time of this update].
(http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19628941) http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19628941
The "correction" states that in 2007, 138 children died due to "fatal shooting accidents." But that figure is for ages 0 through 19. Last time I checked, the legal age of adulthood is 18. Therefore, the correct figure is for ages 0 through 17, which is 112 (as I mentioned in my write-up). (While the figures vary only slightly in this case, I still think the Post ought to get its basic facts straight.)
I invite you to see for yourself here:
(http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html) http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html
Moreover, the online article continues to falsely state, "The CDC also estimated 1.7 million children live in homes where guns are kept." The Post's claim here is wildly inaccurate. The figure actually pertains to children "living with loaded and unlocked household firearms." The number of children living in homes "where guns are kept" is many times that amount.
Again, I invite you to see for yourself here:
(http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/116/3/e370.full) http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/116/3/e370.full
(Anyway, that article relies on survey data, which are notoriously unreliable in these matters.)
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
-Ari Armstrong
Update 6:31 pm: The Denver Post has issued a revised correction for the online article in question.
The Tragedy of Fatal Hazards for Children
December 28, 2011
A single death due to an unintentional firearm discharge is one too many. When the victim is a child, the heartbreak can run especially deep.
But is the death of a child due to an unintentional firearm discharge any more or less tragic than the death of a child due to a car wreck or drowning? To think reasonably about the problem, we must put the dangers we face in context.
Earlier today the Denver Post falsely claimed that, based on recent figures, "more than 500 children in the United States die in gun accidents each year." The actual figure for 2007, as the Post acknowledged in a correction, is 112 (as I (http://ariarmstrong.com/2011/12/joey-bunch-misstates-gun-statistics-in-denver-post/) reviewed at length earlier today). And yet, while I think journalists should strive to report the facts accurately, at a certain level the precise numbers are not the most important issue. What is most important is that each of these deaths, whatever their total number, represents a profound tragedy, a life forever snuffed out.
And yet life is full of risks. All sorts of things, not just firearms, can be hazardous if abused, both to adults and children. Obviously the proper goal is to reduce all deaths due to unintentional injury to as close to zero as feasible, everything else equal. The problem is that trying to force down the number of unintentional injuries can result in offsetting harms. For example, there is a very simple way to reduce the number of auto fatalities to zero: ban all automobiles. Yet obviously that would severely harm people in other ways. The same goes for firearms.
The fact is that firearms are useful for self-defense. Forcibly taking people's guns away, or forcing people to render their guns inoperable for self-defense, would increase the numbers of home invasions, murders, and other crimes.
The Post rightly reports the general problem of gun fatalities in its related stories. In the case of the 2007 figures, the context for the statistics is a story about two 5-year-old (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19628941) children fatally shot in Colorado. In one case, a three-year-old shot a five-year-old with a "family friend's gun." In the other case, a child shot herself with her father's gun. Those stories are painfully tragic to read about; obviously the families involved will never fully recover.
The Post includes some relevant context: in the first case the gun's owner may be charged with "child abuse resulting in death and criminal negligence." When the debate about gun laws raged in Colorado several years back, I rightly pointed out that general child-abuse laws already on the books account for all instances of needlessly putting a child in danger.
Notably, the Post has also pointed out the drowning statistics in stories related to drownings. For example, in 2009 the Post's (http://www.denverpost.com/ci_12557139) Kieran Nicholsonwrote, "In 2005, there were 3,582 unintentional drownings in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." In another short story, the Post (http://www.denverpost.com/ci_9340129) related, "The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated 319 children younger than 5 died in pool and spa incidents in 2005."
Obviously the magnitude of the problem does matter. If ten-thousand children died every year in spas or by firearms, that would be an enormously more pressing problem. In the case of firearms, various anti-gun activists have skewed the figures for partisan political purposes. For obvious reasons, news reporters should be careful not to fall for such claims.
Even when reporters get their basic facts straight, readers ought to bear in mind the general context that, of necessity, is not included in a particular news story.
According to (http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvacci.html) GunCite.com, "Fatal gun accidents involving children (aged 0-14) also fell significantly, from 495 in 1975, to under 250 in 1995." Again, the figure for all minors for 2007 was 112. The fact that unintentional shootings have fallen dramatically, even as gun ownership has risen, is a very good thing.
Using the CDC's clever (http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html) search function, we can compare deaths from different sources. For 2007, a total of 7,931 children age zero to seventeen died of unintentional injury. So the deaths involving firearms represents 1.4 percent of the total. When parents are evaluating risks, that's a relevant figure.
Let's check out the numbers of unintentional deaths by various other causes (same year and age group):
Firearms: 112
Drowning: 901
Fall: 123
Fire/Burn: 497
Poisoning: 398
Suffocation: 1,239
Transportation Related, Overall: 4,264
Again, the point is not that news reporters are obligated to provide such context when writing their reports; they are not. But readers should bear in mind that news reports generally do not include all the relevant context.
Parents should take reasonable precautions to prevent unintentional injuries, whatever their cause. Part of this means that gun owners should take precautions not to let any unauthorized or irresponsible person gain access to a firearm. As a group, U.S. gun owners have made great strides in curbing the numbers of unintentional gun deaths. Obviously, some small fraction of gun owners need to do better.
The Delusional Gary Johnson
December 30, 2011
I will write about the ideological problems with supporting Gary Johnson's run with the Libertarian Party elsewhere. Here, I concern myself with an easy question: does supporting Johnson's LP run make strategic sense even on the basic level of partisan politics?
If you think Johnson has a serious chance of becoming president on the LP ticket, you are simply delusional. Any rational person can convince himself that is the case merely by answering the following questions.
1. How many current members of Congress won on the LP ticket?
2. How many members of Congress has the LP elected, ever?
3. How many governors has the LP elected, ever?
4. How many Libertarians currently serve in any state legislature?
5. How many LP presidential candidates have won more than one percent of the popular vote?
6. How many electoral votes has an LP presidential candidate received, ever?
Here are the answers:
1. Zero.
2. Zero.
3. Zero.
4. (http://www.lp.org/candidates/elected-officials) Zero.
5. One. In 1980, Ed Clark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_(United_States)#Results_in_U.S._presidential_elections) won 1.1 percent of the popular vote.
6. One. In 1972 John Hospers got a single electoral vote.
Ah, but some readers are thinking, Gary Johnson actually was a real politician; he served for eight years as governor of New Mexico. I agree that raises the possibility of him earning more votes as an LP candidate than previous candidates have earned. But he could earn many times the previous totals and still lose very badly.
I was (http://www.ariarmstrong.com/2007/11/recovering-from-rationalism.html) active in the Colorado LP for several years. I served on the state LP board. I attended national LP conventions. I even ran as a candidate once. My experience suggests there are two types of LP candidates for mid- to high-level positions. Realistic ones whose reasons for running do not include winning, and delusional ones who think that this time, by golly, they're going to take it all the way. A couple candidates I knew spent ridiculous amounts of their own money running. And guess what. They still got blown out of the water come election day. You have a far better chance earning your first million through Amway than you do winning a major election as a Libertarian candidate.
Ah, but others are thinking, even if Johnson doesn't win, voting for him will lodge a protest. As I will argue elsewhere, lodging a protest vote that promotes the LP is incredibly counterproductive from the standpoint of advancing a rights-protecting government. But let's table that matter for the moment and just talk electoral tactics.
If you want to register a protest vote, an undervote is nearly as effective as a third-party vote. I simply did not vote in the last presidential election, and I may do the same in 2012, depending on the GOP nominee. (I absolutely will not vote for Paul, Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, or Bachmann.) If a vote for the LP candidate were merely a protest vote (which, I emphasize, is not the case), then the strategic advantage of voting LP versus voting for nobody (or a write-in) would be negligible.
And actually spending any time or money promoting Johnson's campaign, given all the alternate ways one could spend time and money, would be at best practically worthless.
But of course one's broader political strategies must account for ideology. It's not like anybody who might support Johnson might instead support an overt Communist as a "protest vote." Clearly promoting the right ideas is the paramount strategic concern. I grant that, if you think that supporting Johnson as an LP candidate would advance the right ideas, then supporting him might offer some minuscule strategic advantage. At this point, I encourage readers merely to contemplate the possibility that supporting Johnson as a Libertarian would instead promote very bad ideas, a case I intend to make elsewhere.
Update: See the next post in the series, (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/12/paul-johnson-2012-libertarians-best.html) "Paul-Johnson 2012: The Libertarians' Best-Case Scenario."
Paul-Johnson 2012: The Libertarians' Best-Case Scenario
December 30, 2011
Now that I've (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2011/12/delusional-gary-johnson.html) dismissed the idea of Gary Johnson having much success as the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate, another possibility occurs to me. It seems to me that, if you're an LP supporter, the best-case scenario is that Ron Paul runs as the LP's presidential candidate with Johnson in the veep slot. That, I confess, would be a formidable ticket.
(I actually think Johnson-Paul would be a stronger ticket, but I don't think that's likely given Paul's relative level of support. However, if Paul takes seriously his (http://www.goddiscussion.com/87963/ron-paul-signs-personhood-usa-pledge-joining-four-other-gop-candidates/) "personhood" pledge, that might preclude him from running with pro-choice Johnson.)
But how would that play out in the election? I predict it would play out roughly as the last governor's race in Colorado played out. Due to a fluke, the frontrunner GOP candidate lost the nomination (after getting caught up in plagiarism charges). The man left for the job was Dan Maes, an inexperienced, incompetent bungler. Thus, Tom Tancredo entered the race with the bizarre Constitution Party. (I reluctantly (http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/2010/11/open-letter-to-tom-tancredo.html) pulled the lever for Tancredo, but in retrospect I think that was a mistake.) What happened? Maes and Tancredo beat the crap out of each other, leaving John Hickenlooper (a decent Democrat) to easily walk away with over half of the popular vote.
I think roughly the same thing would happen if the LP candidate actually got any traction. The Republican candidate would of necessity start spending resources trashing the LP candidate, who would respond in turn. In a battle between the Libertarian and Republican candidates to convince voters that the other guy is a total bastard, both sides would win. Given Paul's newsletters, his foreign policy statements, the bizarre figures of the LP, Romneycare, etcetera, there's more than enough mud to go around!
The most likely outcome is that Obama would walk away with an easy victory, stronger than ever.
And, to the extent that the LP gained any traction, that would serve to convince most Americans that, on the whole, Libertarians are totally crazy.
Moreover, the fight between the LP and the GOP might cost the latter important seats in Congress, leaving Obama with relatively stronger support there. (I've suggested elsewhere that the least-bad possible outcome in 2012 might well be an Obama victory with a strong GOP in Congress.)
Again, elsewhere I will argue that the LP is not worth supporting simply because of the ideas it promotes, and that is the most important issue. But, just on the level of partisan political strategy, I just don't see how promoting a strong LP ticket (if such is possible) could accomplish anything but destruction.