Month: August 2004

This Guy Wants to Be Commander-in-Chief?

The New York Times reports:

Kerry Criticizes President’s Troop Plan

By JODI WILGOREN

Published: August 19, 2004

CINCINNATI, Aug. 18 – With repeated references to his own service in Vietnam, Senator John Kerry told fellow members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars here on Wednesday that President Bush’s plan to move 70,000 troops out of Europe and Asia was vague and ill-advised in view of the North Korean nuclear threat….

Ground forces aren’t a counter to a nuclear threat. For that we have intercontinental ballistic missiles, sea-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers with cruise missiles — none of them based in Korea. The only thing Kerry learned in Vietnam was the location of the Cambodian border. Nope, not even that.

Offensive Language

The Washington Times reports:

Jew can distribute fliers on campus

By Joyce Howard Price

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The University of New Orleans has settled a yearlong First Amendment lawsuit by allowing a Messianic Jew to distribute pamphlets on campus that contain the words: “Jews should believe in Jesus.”

The lawsuit was filed last summer on behalf of Michelle Beadle, a missionary with a group that seeks Jewish converts to Christianity, after she was told by a university official that she could not hand out the pamphlets because of their “offensive” language….

In a telephone interview yesterday, [Miss Beadle’s attorney] said the university’s decision to reject Miss Beadle’s request was “flawed.” Pointing out that the university is a public institution, he said, “It is not the government’s job to decide what is offensive … the speech in that pamphlet is protected, and its content cannot be censored by a government entity. The First Amendment protects individuals against government intrusion.”…

That was a close call, but don’t worry, McCain-Feingold will be expanded to prohibit offensive political speech. Things like, BUSH LIED!!! KERRY FLIP-FLOPS!!! Might hurt someone’s feelings, you know.

A Conservative-Libertarian Tiff in the Blogosphere

Tim Sandefur at Freespace objects to the implication that as a libertarian he is merely a “Republican without morals” and a “self-indulgent, narcissistic heathen,” who “pay[s] lip service to religion” — in the words of “Feddie” (Steve Dillard) at Southern Appeal. The proximate cause of Dillard’s first jibe was a post by sort-of-libertarian Will Baude at Crescat Sententia, in which Baude takes exception to an anti-abortion statement by Alan Keyes.

I’m not sure where Sandefur stands on abortion, but he implies that he’s for legal abortion when he says “I believe that it is immoral for one person to force others to do with their lives what he thinks is right.” If he’s talking about abortion, I must differ, on libertarian grounds. As a libertarian I can conscionably oppose abortion (and take a few other stands that don’t seem to be typical of libertarians), for reasons stated here and here.

In response to Sandefur’s objection, “Feddie” says,

And while many [l]ibertarians are thoughtful people who have carefully formed their views within the confines of respectable moral parameters (e.g., Sandefur, Crescast [sic], and Volokhs), it has been my experience that this is the exception rather than the rule. There is a cruder form of [l]ibertarianism bubbling up from our societal fabric, and it is not one premised on the writings of John Stuart Mill, but is instead anchored upon a radical individualism with no moral compass.

All thoughtful libertarians don’t premise their views on John Stuart Mill’s writings, but other than that, “Feddie” is right. I’ve come across many a so-called libertarian blog that is premised on unalloyed self-indulgence and is as rational as a toddler’s tantrums.

UPDATE:
Sandefur, in an update, says in further reply to “Feddie”:

Objectivism, of which I believe I am the most prominent blogging practitoner [sic], imposes a remarkably severe moral code, which has earned us a reputation among many other libertarians as serious killjoys.

The link leads to a short piece by Ayn Rand, in which she summarizes Objectivism. She says, among other things,

The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders…[emphasis added].

I wonder what this “remarkably severe moral code” has to say about abortion and pre-emptive war. I don’t find abortion (and its companion, involuntary euthanasia) to be particularly moral, even by Rand’s stringent code, which claims to forgo physical force, except in self-defense. Nor do I find it particularly moral to acquiesce in the deaths of fellow citizens rather than trying (if not always successfully) to reach abroad and tear down the infrastructure of terrorism.

I Knew There Was a Reason to Vote for Bush

Virginia Postrel points to this NYT graphic. She notes that it’s part of a media campaign, led by The Washington Post, to discredit Bush’s record on regulation. But, as she says, “this latest media campaign offers an answer to an oft-asked question: Why on earth would a libertarian vote for George W. Bush?” Click the link to see why.

There’s Only One Solution…

…to the problem of murder. Making guns harder to get doesn’t prevent murder. The murderous simply turn to other weapons, as noted in this article from WHDH-TV. The headline is “Police See Surge In Gang Attacks Using Machetes”. Now, if machetes are banned, murderous thugs will simply turn to other weapons, such as Chinese throwing stars and Japanese metal chain whips. (Mmmm….no racist remarks, please.) And if those weapons are banned, thugs will simply turn to baseball bats, then to fists and feet.

You know what that means. Procreation will have to be banned in order to prevent the production of any more fists and feet. After all, the weapons-control freaks will say, guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Now, where have I heard that one?

Here’s a Worthwhile Libertarian Way to Spend Tax Dollars

Doug Kern’s piece, A Real Story of Two Americas, at Tech Central Station is worth a look. Some key points:

One America is safe. One America is not.

Government statistics confirm that the average victim of crime tends to be young (under 24), black, male, single, urban, and poor. Crime is predominantly a problem for the struggling and marginalized….

Poverty can be resolved through individual effort; crime cannot….For the crimes that afflict the poor, our society has only one approved solution: stop being poor, so you can move somewhere safe. Some solution.

Worse, crime corrodes the very ability of the poor to improve their own situation….The poor need investment opportunities more than anyone else — but who wants to build anything in communities that aren’t safe at night?…

Whatever the long-term solution to crime may be, the short-term solutions are simple, obvious, and expensive. We need more: more prosecutors, more public defenders, more judges, more investigators, and more local jail space, to ensure that more criminals learn early and often that their crimes will be justly punished….

In recent years, federal legislation has subsidized the hiring of more police officers. That’s terrific, but what can the police accomplish if the bad guys get off with a slap on the wrist and a suspended sentence, once arrested and convicted? Rare is the jurisdiction in which misdemeanor property theft or damage results in jail time — and yet such small-scale crimes are the very offenses that make life intolerable for America’s poorest citizens. Too often, jail is not an option for misdemeanor-level offenses, as local jails overflow with probation violators and felons awaiting trial. The low-income localities that suffer most greatly from small-scale crimes often lack the resources to punish the criminals who torment them. Those places simply need more money to find, prosecute, and incarcerate criminals.

We should give it to them.

Of course, there are federalism issues and questions about where the money would come from. But a way should be found to make it happen. Protecting the public from crime is the libertarian thing to do, and what Kern proposes would have the added benefit of helping people build productive, welfare-free lives.

What Will They Worry About Next?

Oddly enough, those who view global warming as a man-made problem (if it is a problem) also tend to exclaim “We’re running out of oil” (nuclear power isn’t an option for them, of course). See how easy it is to be a knee-jerk liberal doom-sayer: Just keep repeating contradictory things.

I’m sorry to spoil their self-inflicted misery, but — as rational people have been saying all along — there’s always science and technology. And sure enough:

‘Cool’ fuel cells could revolutionize Earth’s energy resources
UH researchers developing efficient, practical power source alternatives

HOUSTON, July 22, 2004 — As temperatures soar this summer, so do electric bills. Researchers at the University of Houston are striving toward decreasing those costs with the next revolution in power generation.

Imagine a power source so small, yet so efficient, that it could make cumbersome power plants virtually obsolete while lowering your electric bill. A breakthrough in thin film solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) is currently being refined in labs at the University of Houston, making that dream a reality….

UPDATE:
Steven den Beste at USS Clueless, who seems to be a competent engineer, says “yes, I have seen the articles about ‘thin film fuel cells’. No, it doesn’t change anything fundamental. It’s a new energy conversion technology, not a new energy source.” That’s not my point. First, whatever it is, it appears to use fuel more efficiently, which is good. Second, the development of SOFCs highlights the continuous — and often unreported — scientific and technological progress that will surely continue to make life better, as has for the past 200 years.

ANOTHER UPDATE:
For a more complete picture of SOFCs and other new ways to generate energy see this post by FuturePundit.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE:
And there’s more from The Ergosphere, who takes den Beste to task for his doom and gloom attitude. The facts seem to be on The Ergosphere‘s side.

What Kind of Libertarian Am I?

How can a libertarian not only support the war in Iraq but also support pre-emptive war? How can a libertarian even contemplate the suspension of civil liberties in wartime? How can a libertarian oppose abortion? Those are reasonable questions. Here are the answers:

I am a libertarian, not an anarchist. A minimal state is necessary in order to preserve liberty, that is, the enjoyment of life to the extent that our mental and material means enable us to enjoy it. Because I am not an anarchist, I am not reflexively against all activities of the state. I am in favor of those activities that protect us from violence, theft, and fraud — provided that such activities conform to the dictates of constitutional laws.

I am against any activity of the state that is not intended — in fact as well as in word — to protect us from violence, theft, and fraud. Such activities include, for example, censoring political speech for any reason, regulating business in any way, subsidizing any person or business for any reason, or providing services other than defense, policing, and courts. I am against such activities for two reasons: (1) they intrude on our ability to decide for ourselves how to enjoy our liberty, and (2) they make our liberty less enjoyable by robbing us of resources and eliminating incentives to work hard and make sound investments.

The activities I endorse and the activities I oppose have the same end: to maximize our enjoyment of life and the acquisition of the things that make it enjoyable, whether those are material or mental. In sum, the state should protect us from others — including the state itself.

I admit that even within my fairly restrictive framework there are gray areas in which the scope of activity permitted to the state is open for debate. When it comes to fighting a determined and elusive enemy, I am willing to err on the side of too much activity by the state rather than too little. Thus, with respect to pre-emptive war and the temporary suspension of civil liberties as a possible necessity of war:

• Pre-emptive action against foreign enemies may well be the most effective way to defend ourselves from them. I think it is, as I will argue at length in a future post.

• The temporary suspension of civil liberties might also prove to be necessary for the protection of Americans’ lives, liberty, and property — though I certainly have nothing in particular in mind. I am confident that any such suspension would be short-lived and that civil liberties would be restored fully, if not expanded, as they were in the aftermath of the Civil War and World War II.

As for abortion, I see it as (1) the taking of innocent lives by force and (2) a step down the slippery slope to the taking of more innocent lives by force. When people acquire a taste for god-like behavior they seek new outlets for it; power corrupts absolutely. Look at the expansion of abortion rights to include the killing of babies at full term and the selective killing of fetuses to avoid carrying more than one to full term. The killing of babies will not stop short of birth. As for the killing of the aged and infirm, it took years to overturn a Virginia law that enabled physicians to allow patients to die against their wishes or the wishes of their families. Unfortunately, that may not be the end of it, in Virginia or elsewhere.

I conclude that my positions on these matters are absolutely consistent with my libertarian principles, which are absolutely within the mainstream of libertarianism.

On Second Thought…

…I retract my implied praise of Will Wilkinson’s Tech Central Station piece titled “Meritocracy: The Appalling Ideal?”. I wasn’t reading carefully enough to notice that Wilkinson, as he says in a followup post at The Fly Bottle, “didn’t actually defend meritocracy in the TCS piece.” As it turns out, Wilkinson is merely engaged in a meaningless metaphysical dialogue with a Rousseauvian socialist, one Chris Bertram. Wilkinson and his sparring partner are arguing about the degree to which market outcomes reflect economic merit, as if that were a discernible quantity, distinct from market outcomes. Talk about angels dancing on pin-heads.

I don’t retract a word of what I said initially about merit, nor do I retract a word of what I’ve said since about Wilkinson’s opponent. All of my previous posts on these two subjects are here, here, here, here, and here.

Censorship Knows No Political Bounds

From Australian IT:

Labor bid to block net porn

Emma-Kate Symons

AUGUST 16, 2004

ALL internet service providers would be forced to block hard-core pornography reaching home computers under a radical plan to protect children being pushed by federal Labor MPs….

I’m not getting into the merits of the debate. I simply want to point out that conservatives have no monopoly on censorship. Of course, we knew that already because campus speech codes are an entirely left-wing initiative. But I couldn’t resist an off-campus example of left-wing censorship.

Education as Conspicuous Consumption

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution asks “Is education good for growth?” He answers himself by quoting from an analysis by Phil Mullan at Spiked:

Challenging the conventional view, there is actually a striking global correspondence between the world economic slowdown since 1973 and ever-increasing levels of educational spending. Comparisons between countries also confound the idea that more education translates into more growth. For example, South Korea is often given as an example of a country that made education a priority since the 1960s and saw significant economic growth. But as Professor Alison Wolf from King’s College London points out, Egypt has also prioritised investing in education, but its growth record has been poor (4). Between 1970 and 1998 Egypt’s primary enrolment rates grew to more than 90 per cent, secondary schooling levels went from 32 per cent to 75 per cent, and university education doubled – yet over the same period Egypt moved from being the world’s forty-seventh poorest country to being the forty-eighth.

A retort might be that education isn’t the sole determinant of growth – other factors may offset its positive economic role – but it remains a necessary one. But this argument doesn’t stand up either. The rapid growth of Hong Kong, another of the East Asian tigers, wasn’t accompanied by substantial investment in education. Its expansion of secondary and university education came later, as more prosperous Hong Kong parents used some of their newfound wealth to give their children a better education than they had had.

A study for the World Bank came to similar conclusions….

As Cowen says, “The consumption component of education is commonly underrated. Rich countries spend more on education for the same reason that they consume more leisure.”

There you have it. If you work in the “white collar” world, think about how many of your colleagues have pursued advanced degrees because those degrees carry prestige and make them more promotable — not because they have acquired more skills but simply because they have acquired a piece of paper from a university. Now think about how much more productive those colleagues have become because they acquired their advanced degrees. Oh, you’re still waiting to see the results? Fancy that!

I Wish I’d Said That

Michael Munger, writing at the Library of Economics and Liberty, remembers when he worked at the Federal Trade Commission:

…In the afternoon, we would take a break from our exhausting day of blocking asinine regulations, and go have a big frozen yogurt at a place right beside the entrance to the Washington School for Secretaries. Sitting there having a yogurt, watching dozens of attractive women walk by, we would sometimes say to each other, “You know, this is criminal. We are just stealing our money.”

But then one of us would state the standard defense, one all of us believed fervently: “Not true! If it weren’t for us, occupying these crucial desks, they might very hire someone who would write new regulations! We are doing God’s work here, gentlemen! We are constipating the intestines of the cow of regulation!”…

And he had a good point. I often felt guilty about working for a tax-funded think-tank. But at least I tried to enforce frugality, and I fought the good fight against “diversity” — in the name of which an entire program has been erected since my retirement.

The Rationality Fallacy

MSNBC runs a piece by Jerry Adler of Newsweek International headlined “Mind Reading”. Adler is quick to repeat a common misunderstanding about economics:

For all its intellectual power and its empirical success as a creator of wealth, free-market economics rests on a fallacy, which economists have politely agreed among themselves to overlook. This is the belief that people apply rational calculations to economic decisions, ruling their lives by economic models.

Balderdash and hogwash! Economics says that individuals try to maximize their satisfaction, as they understand it. Maximizing satisfaction isn’t always the same thing as maximizing wealth, which is apparently the measure of rationality being used in the article; viz.:

Economists have many ways of demonstrating the irrationality of their favorite experimental animal, Homo sapiens. One is the “ultimatum game,” which involves two subjects….Subject A gets 10 dollar bills. He can choose to give any number of them to subject B, who can accept or reject the offer. If [B] accepts, they split the money as A proposed; if [B] rejects A’s offer, both get nothing. As predicted by the theories of mathematician John Nash (subject of the movie “A Beautiful Mind”), A makes the most money by offering one dollar to B, keeping nine for himself, and B should accept it, because one dollar is better than none.

But if you ignore the equations and focus on how people actually behave, you see something different….People playing B who receive only one or two dollars overwhelmingly reject the offer. Economists have no better explanation than simple spite over feeling shortchanged. This becomes clear when people play the same game against a computer. They tend to accept whatever they’re offered, because why feel insulted by a machine? By the same token, most normal people playing A offer something close to an even split, averaging about $4. The only category of people who consistently play as game theory dictates, offering the minimum possible amount, are those who don’t take into account the feelings of the other player. They are autistics.

Such experiments may prove something about wealth maximization, but they prove nothing about rationality because they fail to take into account the dynamics of human interaction. Being offered only one of 10 dollars is an insult, and accepting an insult isn’t worth a dollar, to most people. When someone who is holding 10 dollars offers you only one dollar, that person is sending you a signal about your worth in his or her eyes. It’s like approaching a panhandler with a fan of five-dollar bills in your hand and plucking out one of those bills for the panhandler — who might take it, refuse it, spit in your face, or grab all the bills. If your purpose is to give the panhandler five dollars, without insulting the panhandler, you approach the panhandler with a single five-dollar bill in your hand and give that bill to the panhandler — who will accept it with thanks. (By the way, why do some people give money to panhandlers? After all, it’s not a way to maximize one’s wealth. That’s right, it’s a way to maximize one’s satisfaction. Those who give money to panhandlers feel better about themselves.)

There is simply a lot more to maximizing satisfaction than maximizing wealth. That’s why some people choose to have a lot of children, when doing so obviously reduces the amount they can save. That’s why some choose to retire early rather than stay in stressful jobs. Rationality and wealth maximization are two very different things, but a lot of laypersons and too many economists are guilty of equating them.

Regulation, Competition, Wages, and Employment

Just a quick note to remind non-economists about the effects of regulation on wages and employment. It’s been shown many times, by many economists, that economic regulation raises the costs of doing business, thereby discouraging business formation and reducing competition. The results: (1) Prices are higher because (a) costs are higher and (b) there is less competition. (2) Wages are lower because there is less demand for labor. (3) Employment is also lower because there is less demand for labor.

It’s about Time

The Observer, at Guardian Unlimited, tells us:

US to redeploy 100,000 troops and shut bases

Peter Beaumont

Sunday August 15, 2004

The Observer

President George Bush will announce tomorrow that the US military will pull up to 100,000 troops out of Europe and Asia in the biggest redeployment since the end of the Cold War [14 years ago!].

The plan will see a number of US bases in Germany closed down [good!], and troops returned home or redeployed to Eastern Europe.

The redeployment – first reported by The Observer in February last year in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq – will be presented by Bush as a logical response to the war on terrorism [true] when he addresses the 2.6 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars at its annual convention in Cincinnati.

In February last year, however, when the proposal was first mooted, Pentagon officials presented the closure of the bases in Germany as punishment for Germany’s refusal to back the war in Iraq [also true].

Pentagon officials, who confirmed the planned announcement in yesterday’s Washington Post, said the change is necessary to adapt the nation’s military to the demands of the global war on terrorism and to take advantage of new technology [also true].

But the planned restructuring also comes amid overstretch in a US army struggling to juggle commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and other theatres, and has been responsible for declining morale particularly in combat units…. [Another good reason for pulling troops out of Germany.]

So many good things can flow from one rational decision. Of course, being Americans, we’ll probably help Germany again if it falls under the rule of an evil dictator or is threatened by an evil empire to its east.

I’ve Changed My Mind

It’s been coming for a long time. I can no longer resist it. But now that I’m blogging, and thus thinking more deliberately about various political philosophies and their implications for the human condition, I’ve come to a conclusion. As a libertarian — who believes that a legitimate function of the state is to protect humans from force — I can no longer condone the legality of abortion. For one thing, legal abortion is a step on the path to legal euthanasia. But legal abortion stands by itself as a crime against humanity. IrishLaw explains, in a reply to a commentary by Will Baude at Crescat Sententia about a statement by Alan Keyes.

First, Keyes (as quoted by Baude), responding to an interviewer’s question:

…I’ve often asked people: So we are supposed to punish an innocent child because his parents have committed an offense like incest, or his father an offense like rape? Would you want to be punished for the deeds of your parents? Would you want to be killed because your parents committed an offense? We know that that’s not fair. … People like to make assertions…. we should make arguments for the positions we take.

Next, Baude:

Well, that is an argument. It’s a terrible one, but it is an argument.

Abortion is not designed to punish the aborted fetus (“killed baby,” if that terminology is more to your liking)– it’s designed, in the case of rape and non-consensual incest, to restore a wronged person to her “whole” state. Now if Mr. Keyes means that innocent people (if indeed a fetus is one) should never ever have costs, especially very large costs, imposed upon them by anybody else in the interests of justice, that is an interesting position (though it probably has to be asserted rather than argued).

Finally, IrishLaw:

Start with the first contention. Abortion may not be designed to punish the unborn child in these cases, but I don’t see how it can be understood as doing anything but. The child is alive before the abortion, and the child is dead after the abortion. The only reason why this innocent child is different from any other innocent aborted child is the very unhappy circumstance of his conception, which difference lies not with the child; and so from that perspective the innocence, lack of culpability, and lack of necessity for death are the same. But if a child is a human being regardless of how he was conceived, why should abortion be permissible dependent on the circumstance of conception? Of course we want to do everything we can to help a wronged woman become whole again. But actions cannot be undone, and they certainly cannot be undone by killing an innocent third party.

Which leads to the second point. I agree that it is an interesting question whether and to what extent costs may be imposed on the innocent in the interests of justice. Is it just, for example, not to hire (or admit to university) more qualified nonminorities (or non-preferred minorities) so that the asserted just end of making up for past discrimination is served by admitting less qualified, preferred minority applicants? (The Supreme Court says no, though they apparently have accepted that achievement of “diversity” is an acceptable just end.) In that case, justice imposes a cost on innocent third parties who were never personally responsible for discriminatory hiring or admissions processes in the past. There must be many hypothetical situations to discuss in this regard. But in what other case would Will assert that the death of an innocent person was an acceptable cost to bear in the interests of justice for a separate party? That is not only a “very large cost,” it is the ultimate cost. I don’t see how asking an unborn child to pay with its life (or, rather, not asking but just doing) is justified in the interests of helping heal the mother, no matter how tragic the injury she has suffered.

Once life begins it is sophistry to say that abortion doesn’t amount to the taking of an innocent life. It is also sophistry to argue that abortion is “acceptable” until such-and-such a stage of fetal development. There is no clear dividing line between the onset of life and the onset of human-ness. They are indivisible.

The state shouldn’t be in the business of authorizing the deaths of innocent humans. The state should be in the business of protecting the lives of innocent humans — from conception to grave.

I come to that conclusion from a non-religious perspective. I am, at best (or worst), an agnostic. I am no less a libertarian for being opposed to abortion and no less moral for being an agnostic libertarian.

I therefore respectfully refute Feddie at Southern Appeal, who pointed me to the Keyes-Baude-IrishLaw controversy by saying “Libertarians are Republicans without morals.” Not so. Libertarians are libertarians because they take a fundamentally moral position, which is that humans have the right to enjoy life, liberty, and happiness.

My position on abortion may not be a typical libertarian position, but neither is it exclusively a Republican position. There are, in fact, a large number of anti-abortion Democrats and more than a few pro-abortion Republicans.

I Just Have to Say Something about This

Many other bloggers have commented on this, but I can’t resist adding my dime’s worth. Media left, right, and center are parroting the party line about the effects of the Bush tax cuts. As the Washington Times (of all papers) says:

Bush tax cuts seen hurting middle class

ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Bush’s tax cuts since 2001 have shifted more of the tax burden from the nation’s rich to middle-class families, according to a study released yesterday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The tax rate declined across all income levels — but more so in the top brackets, the report said….

The tax cuts didn’t hurt the middle class (whatever that is). As the story says, the tax rate declined across all income levels. How does a lower tax rate for the middle class hurt the middle class? Oh, the middle class didn’t get as big a tax break as the so-called rich, who continue to pay the lion’s share of income taxes. It’s just not fair — to the “rich”.

Don’t Call Us…

Todd Zywicki at The Volokh Conspiracy posted recently about the national do-not-call registry. Zywicki defends the do-not-call (DNC) registry on economic grounds; that is:

…It took an ambiguously defined property right (when can telemarketers call you), defined it clearly (telemarketers can call you whenever they want to), and provided a low-cost way of reallocating the property right (register on the DNC)….

…Based on the registration numbers, a majority of Americans want to be free from telemarketing calls. So why not make the default rule “no calls” and make the telemarketers get your permission? Leaving aside the logistical problems (Would calling you to ask you if you want to be called count as a telemarketing call?), the …rule [adopted by the FTC] is efficient because the transaction costs of reallocating are so munch lower for consumers than for telemarketers, especially because the FTC made registration so easy….

That’s one way to look at it. But I look at it differently. My phone is my property. You don’t come onto my property without my permission. The government, in this case, is merely enforcing my negative right to be free from trespass.

Refuting Rousseau and His Progeny

I’ve been pinging on Rousseauvian philosophy in recent posts (here, here, here, and here). Rousseau is the spiritual father of socialism and communism. His modern adherents, who might disclaim socialism and communism by name, nevertheless spout the party line when they claim that we don’t deserve what we have. Their ideas hark back to Rousseau’s The Social Contract, about which Wikipedia says, in part:

According to Rousseau, by joining together through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural right, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law.

In other words, individuals will be free only if they surrender their freedom to the “collective will” — which, of course, will be determined and enforced by a smaller group of citizens, whose authority cannot be questioned by the majority.

Latter-day Rousseauvians dress it up a bit by making assertions like this:

[T]here’s no good reason to believe that a system of free-market and private property is anything close to a merit-based system. Some people work hard on worthy projects for their whole lives or take exceptional risks on society’s behalf and nevertheless remain comparatively poor; others, through being lucky or rich, get to be as rich as Croesus. Is Warren Buffet more morally deserving than the firefighters on 9/11? Of course not. He doesn’t think so, they don’t think so, we don’t think so….

Warren Buffet can speak for himself. Those who remain comparatively poor can speak for themselves. And the “we” at Crooked Timber can speak for themselves. But they cannot speak for me or the millions like me who disagree with them. They are promoting a view of the world as they would like to see it — nothing more, nothing less.

And therein lies the refutation of their worldview. There is no Rousseauvian social contract. There cannot be when millions of us reject the concept. Rousseau’s self-appointed priests and acolytes may judge us to their heart’s content, but their judgments are meaningless because we, the millions, do not accept those judgments.

Scientists in a Snit

Some scientists are “hopping mad” because the Bush administration doesn’t always do what they want it to do. As AP reports via Yahoo! News:

Science, Politics Collide in Election Year

By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer

Last November, President Bush gave physicist Richard Garwin a medal for his “valuable scientific advice on important questions of national security.” Just three months later, Garwin signed a statement condemning the Bush administration for misusing, suppressing and distorting scientific advice.

So far more than 4,000 scientists, including 48 Nobel prize winners, have put their names to the declaration….

Later in the story we get some perspective:

Scientists collect evidence and conduct experiments to arrive at an objective description of reality — to describe the world as it is rather than as we might want it to be.

Government, on the other hand, is about anything but objective truth. It deals with gray areas, competing values, the allocation of limited resources. It is conducted by debate and negotiation. Far from striving for ultimate truths, it seeks compromises that a majority can live with.

When these conflicting paradigms come together, disagreements are inevitable.

The catch is that scientists don’t always “describe the world as it is.” Take the pseudo-science of climatology, for instance, which seems to be populated mainly by luddites who think that the world is coming to an end because of SUVs. (I exaggerate, but not by much.) Working from inadequate data and arguably false premises, they would have us stop in our tracks and revert to a standard of living last “enjoyed” in the 1800s. And climatologists aren’t the only “scientists” who inject their personal preferences into their recommendations.

Many people will be unduly impressed by an anti-Bush declaration signed by 4,000 scientists. They shouldn’t be. Science is like sausage-making. When you see how it’s done, you have qualms about swallowing the end product.