Month: March 2008

Singing It, Proudly

This should bring a lump to your throat and a tear to your eye.

(Thanks to Mark Perry for the pointer.)

Election 2008: Seventh Forecast (Updated)

Here.

In Search of Consistency

I have written:

Think of the fine mess we’d be in if the courts were to rule against the teaching of intelligent design not because it amounts to an establishment of religion but because it’s unscientific. That would open the door to all sorts of judicial mischief. The precedent could — and would — be pulled out of context and used in limitless ways to justify government interference in matters where government has no right to interfere.

It’s bad enough that government is in the business of funding science — though I can accept such funding where it actually aids our defense effort. But, aside from that, government has no business deciding for the rest of us what’s scientific or unscientific.

The context for those observations was the legal controversy (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District) about the decision of the Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board to mandate that students in public school biology classes be taught the theory of intelligent design (ID) as an alternative to evolution.

Timothy Sandefur seems sympathetic to my general point, when he writes about

the public policy problem of the courts determining what sets of unprovable beliefs are and are not objectively irrational. On one hand, courts have even gone so far as to take judicial notice of the irrationality of certain beliefs. See, e.g., United States v. Downing, 753 F.2d 1224, 1238 n. 18 (3d Cir. 1985) (courts may take judicial notice of the invalidity of phrenology or astrology). But on the other hand, taking a step in this direction threatens important Establishment Clause and Free Exercise rights. That’s why in United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944), the Court found that it could not inquire into the scientific validity (or lack thereof) of faith healing, in a case involving a mail fraud prosecution. If courts can determine that certain beliefs with regard to ghosts are objectively irrational and untrue, then what about religious beliefs (which are, in fact [according to Sandefur: LC], objectively irrational and untrue)?

And, yet, Sandefur has been a vocal defender of the Kitzmiller decision, in which Judge John E. Jones III held that

the facts of this case make[] it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not… (emphasis added).

Perhaps Sandefur will tell us how he has reconciled his apparently conflicting views. He does not tell us in his paper, “A Response to the Creationists’ “Neutrality” Argument.” The argument of that paper boils down to this:

  • Schools exist for the purpose of teaching facts and sound thinking.
  • Therefore, schools should not teach things like ID, which Sandefur calls “objectively irrational and untrue), even though there is no scientific basis for accepting or rejecting ID. (See, for example, this post and the posts linked therein.)
  • Public schools are governmental institutions.
  • Government cannot be in the business of establishing religion.
  • Therefore, as governmental institutions, schools should not teach ID (a cover story for creationism) as an alternative to evolutionary theory.

In sum, Sandefur parlays an unprovable allegation about ID into a first-amendment case on the strength of the fact that public schools are governmental institutions. That’s true enough. But public schools are not government. That is, unlike legislatures, executives, and judges, they do not control the machinery of the state. Public schools are governmental institutions in the same way that my city-owned electric company is a governmental institution. In both cases, government simply has seized control of what could just as easily be a private institution (and a better one for it). Public schools become “government” only to the extent that government dictates what is taught (or not taught) in public schools, as it does in Kitzmiller.

Sandefur, in essence, argues that government ought to control schools (an anti-libertarian idea) so that it can control the content of what is taught in schools. And that content should advance his “objectively” correct atheistic agenda. Sandefur (like Marx) evinces a naïve faith in what he calls science:

Science’s focus on empirical evidence and demonstrable theories is part of an Enlightenment legacy that made possible a peaceful and free society among diverse equals. Teaching that habit of mind is of the essence for keeping our civilization alive. To reject the existence of objective truth is to reject the the possibility of common ground, to undermine the very purpose of scholarly, intellectual discourse, and to strike at the root of all that makes our values valuable and our society worthwhile…. At a time when Americans are threatened by an enemy that rejects science and reason, and demands respect for dogmas entailing violence, persecution, and tyranny, nothing more deserves our attention than nourishing respect for reason.

In fact, Americans — and liberty — are threatened by many things, not the least of which is dogmatism of the kind Sandefur evinces. As I say here, “Liberty … to the ‘libertarian’ Left, is the ‘right’ to believe as they do.”

Liberty demands, first and foremost, mutual respect. Science is not a breeding ground for mutual respect, as the controversy about global warming (among other issues) should remind us. Ironically (for Sandefur), mutual respect arises mainly from a concept that is widely associated with religion, namely, the “Golden Rule.”

Quotation of the Day

From Louis Michael Seidman’s paper, “Can Constitutionalism Be Leftist?“:

Being a leftist … is being temperamentally drawn to permanent critique. It is never having a home, always being dissatisfied….

(I’ll have something to say about the paper in a future post.)

Is There Such a Thing as Society?

Margaret Thatcher often is quoted as saying that “there is no such thing as society.” But when Mrs. Thatcher said that, she was arguing against the entitlement mindset, as in ” ‘society’ owes me a roof over my head and three meals a day.” As she put it, “people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbor.”

What Mrs. Thatcher meant to say is that people shouldn’t look to the state (and, thus, to taxpayers) for charity. “Look[ing] after our neighbor” is a clear acknowledgment of the primacy of society (as against the state) as the source of legitimate charity, that is, voluntary charity.

The question now becomes: What is society?

“Society” is not easily defined; it is a word with many meanings, most of them vague. In that respect, it resembles “culture.” And the two words sometimes are used to mean the same thing. Where to begin?

What Society Is Not, and Is

I begin by defining what society is not. It is not merely an economic arrangement: an arms’ length exchange of goods and services for mutual benefit. Nor is it merely a political arrangement, such as the vesting of power in a government for the purpose of making and enforcing laws within a specified geographical area.

There is more to society than economic and political arrangements. The “more” is mutual respect. Mutual respect implies trust, and with trust goes forbearance — a willingness to forgo retribution and violence for slights and trespasses, until one is mightily provoked. (That is why, for example, “redneck culture” is a culture — a way of life — but not the basis of a society.)

There are three outward signs of mutual respect: politeness, thoughtfulness, and neighborliness — practiced in combination, not singly or in twos. Politeness is simple civility: “please,” “thank you,” and the like. (Easier said than done, these days.) Thoughtfulness goes a step beyond politeness; it is seen in such simple acts as returning a stray animal to its owner or picking up litter along a public thoroughfare. Neighborliness (true voluntarism) goes well beyond thoughtfulness; it boils down to burden-sharing, that is, helping others in need through direct action (e.g., cutting a sick neighbor’s grass or bringing her a meal).

As the saying goes, “what goes around comes around.” Mutual respect is impossible where politeness, thoughtfulness, and neighborliness are met consistently with their opposites, which can be characterized as disdain, hostility, or enmity, depending on the virulence of the contrary behavior. To put it positively, by acting (or not acting) in certain ways we foster mutual respect, which repays us with the trust and forbearance of others. This is, of course, the “Golden Rule,” stated in other words.

Mutual respect, by my rigorous definition, is meaningless in the abstract; it must be tested and proved through continuous social contact. Mutual respect is therefore meaningful only to the extent that it is found among persons who are well known to each other and who have frequent social contact with each other. Family and work contacts, like cocktail-party contacts, may involve mere role-playing and politeness. You can pick your friends but not your family or, in most cases, your co-workers. This is not to rule out families and workplaces as venues for mutual respect, but simply to note that they do not rely on mutual respect for their sustenance.

Social Units, the Extent of a Society, and Alliances of Convenience

How many persons can be comprised in a cohesive social unit that adheres around mutual respect? An individual probably can have a relationship of mutual respect (as I define it) with no more than 150 persons (and probably far fewer). A cohesive social unit is most likely to be a nuclear family, an extended family, a rural community, a very small village (or part of a larger one), or a neighborhood in a town, suburb, or city.

A social unit can be likened to a physical atom: an entity with a nucleus (an individual or small number of tightly bonded individuals), surrounded by some number of other persons who are connected to the nucleus by mutual respect. Just as a chemically bonded group of atoms forms a compound, an interlocking network of social units forms a society. By interlocking network, I mean that some (perhaps most) members of each social unit (outside its nucleus) also are nuclei or members of other social units.

How far can a society extend; that is, how many interlocking social units can it comprise? That depends on the extent to which the various social units possess common socio-economic (i.e., cultural) characteristics. (See below.) For, though it is true that a culture does not make a society, a society is bound to have a dominant set of cultural characteristics. It is not in the nature of human beings to bond in mutual respect without the “glue” of core cultural values, or social norms. The more disparate the range of cultural characteristics in a given geographic area (such as the United States), the greater the number of distinct (and possibly antipathetic) societies will be found in that geographic area. This nation is not a society, even though the word “society” often is used (incorrectly) instead of “nation.”

What about those persons who are not members of a social unit? It takes no more than casual experience of life in cities and suburbs to confirm that most of the denizens thereof are not members. (Nodding acquaintances with neighbors, memberships in churches and clubs, and a few friendships with work associates do not a society make.) I am not denigrating those who live in social isolation — whether it is urban, suburban, or even rural — but merely saying that they are not members of a social unit, and that their numbers have been growing faster than the nation’s population. (For more on this point, see this article by Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. See also this table, prepared by the Census Bureau, which documents the growing urbanization of America.)

There is no such thing as American society because not only are Americans too often socially isolated, but also they are too disparate in their cultural characteristics. What we have (for the most part) is not mutual respect but indifference and state-imposed order. More than that, we have state-imposed behavioral norms, which — in and of themselves — have contributed to the breakdown of societal bonds. We are left with some number of distinct (and probably dwindling) societies, around which are spread a vast number of unaffiliated, loosely affiliated, or simpatico individuals.

Distinct societies and unaffiliated persons may, despite their social separation, join in common cause. In the United States, for example, there was until recent decades broad agreement about the ends and means of ensuring “domestic tranquility” and providing for “the common defence.” But cultural diversity begets political strife, which intensifies as the state (goaded and led by élites) undermines traditional societies and their cultural values. The state becomes the arbiter of moral values and the dispenser of charity. The voluntary bonds that enable societies to persist over time — and to co-exist within a nation — are therefore frayed and, eventually, snapped. The nation becomes less like a collection of distinct societies joined by common purposes and more like scorpions fighting in a bottle. (For more on this point, see “The downside of diversity” at the online edition of The Boston Globe.)

Societies in the United States

What characteristics delineate the societies that are found in the United States? The most important characteristics are moral values: definitions of right and wrong actions. In this context, moral values are deeper than generalities (e.g., murder is wrong, terrorism is wrong, theft is wrong); they extend to specific practices (e.g., abortion is murder, terrorists have legitimate grievances, government-enforced theft is theft). Other salient characteristics are:

  • racial and/or ethnic identity (to the extent that these are central to a person’s self-image and a group’s cohesion)
  • religion or attitude toward religion (e.g., “high” or “low” church, Christian or other, believer or strident atheist)
  • education (level, where obtained, field of specialization)
  • type of work (menial/mental, private-sector/public-sector, small-business/corporate, “artistic”/otherwise, etc.)
  • economic class (from the lowest decile to the super-rich, from “old money” to “nouveau riche”)
  • leisure pursuits (NASCAR, bowling, knitting, golf, reading, music, etc.)
  • preferred locale (rural, small-town, suburban, etc.; Northeast, upper Midwest, Southwest, etc.).

I do not mean to say that mutual respect is impossible among persons who possess different cultural characteristics. But persistent differences (especially on fundamentals such as morality) tend to strain mutual respect and, thus, mutual forbearance. When the strain is too great, mutual respect breaks down, and restraint must be state-imposed.

Each of the characteristics listed above, beginning with moral values and running down the list, is a potential source of unity and division. Certain characteristics often appear in clusters. Think, for example, of academics in the so-called liberal arts, who tend to be pro-abortion-anti-U.S.-socialistic moral relativists, strident atheists, Ph.D.s (in impractical specialties), “toilers” in the fields of mental esoterica, upper-half to upper-quintile earners, and effete in their tastes. Those who live near each other (in the vicinity of a particular campus, for example) may sometimes form a social unit — in spite of their innate misanthropy. But those social units will exclude unlike-minded persons and members of groups toward which they (the liberal-arts academics) feign compassion (e.g., poor blacks and Latins), while living securely in their comfortable enclaves.

Which brings me to the types of society that do exist in the U.S.:

  • Blacks of the lower-middle and middle classes who live in urban enclaves, and whose social lives often revolve around church, club, and neighborhood. (“Underclass” neighborhoods riddled with drugs and crime do not qualify because mutual respect has been replaced there by fear and force.)
  • Black Muslims with the same demographic characteristics as their Christian counterparts.
  • Lower-middle and middle-class Latins, especially in the Southwest but also in other areas where they have concentrated. (Latins subdivide into several types of social unit, generally according to country and/or region of origin.)
  • Jews, to the extent that they are concentrated in urban areas and adhere to one or another orthodoxy.
  • Recent immigrants from the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia — not as a bloc, but in their various ethnic/national identities (i.e, Lebanese Arabs, Lebanese Christians, the various Muslim sects, Pakistanis, Indians, etc.).
  • Descendants of the immigrants of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the extent that the old social units founded by those immigrants have not been dissolved by the forces of education, out-marriage, economic progress, and geographic mobility. I am referring, particularly, to the waves of Irish, German, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian, Italian, Jewish, Chinese, Japanese, and other (less numerous) groups that founded many rural communities and formed enclaves within cities.
  • Neighborhood-based social units, in which proximity replaces the “glue” of race, religion, and ethnicity. These are found mainly in places where hedonistic solipsism hasn’t replaced the “Golden Rule,” that is, in villages, small towns, and small cities.

Some types of society are extensive, regionally (e.g., Mexican immigrants in Texas, Muslim Arabs in southeastern Michigan). But there is no single, large society that extends throughout the United States. And there has not been one since the demise of the rather extensive societies of early America — notably, those societies whose members represented various regions of the British Isles.

Whether today’s rather fragmented and dispersed societies will persist is another question. The United States was long a “melting pot,” wherein education, out-marriage, economic progress, and geographic mobility tended to make generic “Americans” of immigrants. But that was true mainly of white, European immigrants. “Persons of color,” whose cultures and geographic origins differ vastly — blacks, Latins, Middle Easterners, and Asians of various types — will not “melt” for a very long time, if ever. Which means that they will retain their political influence, as protégés and supporters of the vast, Left-wing alliance.

The Vast, Left-Wing Alliance and Its Anti-Social Agenda

Another type of society to be found in the U.S. is composed of liberal-arts academics. Whether there is an extensive society of such academics is doubtful. The quality of mutual respect probably is rather strained within any given social unit, and unlikely to survive the trip from campus to campus, fraught as such distances are with academic rivalries.

But there certainly is a broad, Left-wing alliance that consists of liberal-arts academics and their sycophantic students; Hollywood and New York celebrities and their hangers-on; “artists” and “intellectual workers” of most stripes; well-educated, upper-income, professionals who live in and around major metropolitan areas; and hordes of politicians (local, State, and national), who foster and benefit from the prejudices of the alliance. This broad alliance patronizes — and draws political strength disproportionately from — blacks, Latins, and labor-union members.

The Leftist alliance scorns America and traditional American values. It exalts the politics of class, ethnic, racial, and gender conflict. It has demolished the long-standing, trans-societal agreement to ensure “domestic tranquility” and provide for “the common defence.” (See, for example, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and many of the posts at this blog in the category “Leftism – Statism – Democracy.”) If there were an American society, the Left would not be part of it.

Conclusion

There is such a thing as society, contra Margaret Thatcher. But that “thing” is not the state. It is not even a single “thing”; it is a multitude of them.

Members of a true society may, by virtue of their membership, depend on other members of the same society for succor in times of need. But citizenship in the United States is not membership in a society.

Moreover, citizenship in the United States is no longer what it once was: membership in a broad alliance dedicated to justice and defense. Thanks to the vast, Left-wing alliance, U.S. citizenship has become a passport to statism.

Political Correctness (II)

Ed Brayton, a member of the politically correct “libertarian” Left, takes exception to John Ray’s characterization of Barack Obama as a fascist. Here is part of Ray’s response to Brayton:

He presents a set of fairly reasonable excerpts from my various notes about the similarities between Obama and the Fascists of the 1930s. I am glad that he has exposed my contentions to his Leftist audience. Some intelligent Clintonista (if there is one) might note them and use them! I am pretty sure no Clintonistas read this blog!

Brayton thinks it is self-evident that my comparison is absurd — and he would not be alone in that: Fascists are nasty and evil and Obama is nice. Sadly, the Leftist control of the education system has almost completely blanked out how Hitler was seen in his time. I guess it is hard for a survivor of a modern education to accept but Hitler too was seen as “nice” in his day — as a caring father figure for all Germans in fact. He was even seen as devoted to peace! I include some documentation of that in my monograph on Hitler.

And Obama and the Fascists have lots of policy in common too — government control of just about everything, in fact. And I pointed out recently on my Obama blog that Obama is not at all averse to military adventures abroad.

And the public adulation Obama receives is eerily reminiscent of how Hitler was received by vast numbers of Germans. But you have to know history to realize that.

This strikes me as right about Obama and right about the “libertarian” Left, which — like the unvarnished Left — seeks to paint Obama’s critics as racist.

I must add that Ray is too easy on Brayton, who — in addition to being an anti-libertarian Leftist — is a fanatical anti-religionist. He and his ilk at The Panda’s Thumb subscribe to the idea that the government (especially judges) should be in the business of deciding what science is, and isn’t. As I say here,

Think of the fine mess we’d be in if the courts were to rule against the teaching of intelligent design not because it amounts to an establishment of religion but because it’s unscientific. That would open the door to all sorts of judicial mischief. The precedent could — and would — be pulled out of context and used in limitless ways to justify government interference in matters where government has no right to interfere.

It’s bad enough that government is in the business of funding science — though I can accept such funding wheere it actually aids our defense effort. But, aside from that, government has no business deciding for the rest of us what’s scientific or unscientific. When it gets into that business, you had better be ready for a rerun of the genetic policies of the Third Reich.

Liberty, to Brayton and his friends on the “libertarian” Left, is the “right” to believe as they do.

Race and the Crossover Vote

Guest post:

Does this article from Friday’s issue of The Washington Times validate my earlier comments on race and the election?

…20 percent of white Democratic voters say they would defect to Mr. McCain if Mr. Obama is the Democratic Party’s nominee — twice the number who would cross over if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wins the nomination, Pew [Research Center] found.

Clearly Obama is getting lots of white support because Hillary is so unsavory, yet it is clear that the ethnocentric bloc is out there.

Another Reason to Love Global Warming

Garry Reed (The Price of Liberty) gives ten reasons to love global warming. I found an eleventh reason in yesterday’s paper:

© Copyright 2007 King Features Syndicate.

P.S. Ten more reasons to love global warming.

Election 2008: Seventh Forecast

UPDATED (03/12/08)

My eighth forecast is here.

The Presidency – Method 1

Intrade posts State-by-State odds odds on the outcome of the presidential election in November. I assign all of a State’s electoral votes to the party whose nominee that is expected to win that State. Where the odds are 50-50, I split the State’s electoral votes between the two parties.

As of today, the odds point to this result:

Democrat — 306 302 electoral votes (EVs)

Republican — 232 236 EVs

That’s a loss of 7 EVs for the GOP candidate since my sixth forecast, which I issued 18 days ago.

The Presidency – Method 2

I have devised a “secret formula” for estimating the share of electoral votes cast for the winner of the presidential election. (The formula’s historical accuracy is described in my second forecast.) The formula currently yields these estimates of the outcome of this year’s presidential election:

Democrat nominee — 286 to 333 226 to 263 EVs

Republican nominee — 205 to 252 265 to 312 EVs

That’s a loss for the GOP nominee of 8 or 9 EVs since my sixth forecast. Methods 1 and 2 are tracking well with each other have diverged. I suspect that the betting at Intrade doesn’t yet reflect the swing toward McCain. That swing has been precipitated by the Clinton-Obama mud-fest and, for many white Democrats, the prospect of Obama at the head of the ticket.

U.S. Senate

Democrats will pick up four Senate seats, one each in Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia. The gain will change the balance from 51 Democrats (including Lieberman and Sanders, both nominally independent) and 49 Republicans to 55 Democrats and 45 Republicans.

Why Legal Ethics Is an Oxymoron (II)

In an earlier post I merely linked (without comment) to a post by Eugene Volokh (The Volokh Conspiracy). There, Volokh defends a technically ethical (but blatantly wrong) act on the part of two lawyers. The act? Volokh quotes a report by CBS:

Alton Logan doesn’t understand why two lawyers with proof he didn’t commit murder were legally prevented from helping him. They had their reasons: To save Logan, they would have had to break the cardinal rule of attorney-client privilege to reveal their own client had committed the crime. But Logan had 26 years in prison to try to understand why he was convicted for a crime he didn’t commit….

Lawyers Jamie Kunz and Dale Coventry were public defenders when their client, Andrew Wilson, admitted to them he had shot-gunned a security guard to death in a 1982 robbery. When a tip led to Logan’s arrest and he went to trial for the crime, the two lawyers were in a bind. They wanted to help Logan but legally couldn’t….

The lawyers did get permission from Wilson, to reveal upon his death his confession to the murder Logan was convicted for. Wilson died late last year and Coventry and Kunz came forward. Next Monday, a judge will hear evidence in a motion to grant Logan a new trial.

This is Volokh’s initial defense of Kunz and Coventry’s failure to prevent the injustice to Logan:

[M]y understanding is that there is indeed no exception from attorney-client confidentiality in such cases. (If a client tells you that he intends to commit a crime in the future, you may be able to turn him in, but not when he admits that he has committed a crime in the past.)

Why should lawyer-client confidentiality trump justice? One line of thought (suggested by various commenters at Volokh) is that a breach of lawyer-client confidentiality might deter some clients from seeking legal counsel. Well, yes, it might deter guilty clients from seeking legal counsel. But how often is a guilty client candid about his guilt, anyway? Lawyers often defend guilty clients who haven’t been candid about their guilt. Suspecting that a client is guilty and knowing that he is guilty are two different things. A lawyer who doesn’t know that his client is guilty is probably better prepared, psychologically, to defend the client.

What about the excuse that professional ethics prevent lawyers from breaching attorney-client privilege? That excuse merely begs the question, in that codes of ethics are written and approved by lawyers.

Volokh has since penned a second post on the subject:

Some reactions to my “a classical ethical bind for lawyers” post suggested that the ethical question was easy:

The lawyers whose client had said he committed a murder should have revealed that information in order to free the person who was wrongly imprisoned for that murder, even assuming that would have meant disbarment or long-term suspension for violating lawyer-client confidentiality. If they didn’t do this, they’d be acting unethically.

But even assuming that the underlying confidentiality rule is unsound, surely it’s not so clear that people have an ethical duty to save another’s life at such great expense. My guess is that if you spent $10,000, you could likely save the life of some sick child in Africa; if you spent $50,000, I imagine this would be even likelier (and perhaps the number is actually a lot less). If you donated a kidney — which will expose you to a roughly 0.03% risk of death, and a slightly larger but still very small risk of complications — you could dramatically reduce a roughly 20% or more risk of death for someone on the kidney waiting list (since that’s how risky it is for him to be on long-term dialysis while he’s waiting for a new kidney). If you find someone who’s near the tail of the waiting list, you might reduce a still greater risk. Yet most of us wouldn’t say, I think, that it’s really your ethical obligation to run such a risk, or bear such a cost, to save a stranger’s life.

Likewise, I don’t think that it’s really your ethical obligation to lose what is likely hundreds of thousands of dollars in future income, by giving up a profession that you spent over a hundred thousand dollars to train for. You might deserve credit for making such a choice (assuming we conclude that the ethical rule you’re violating is indeed unsound). But that’s different from saying that you have an ethical duty to make that choice.

So, the bottom line (for Volokh) seems to be the “bottom line.” But this still begs the question. Lawyers could change their code of ethics to allow for cases similar to that of Alton Logan. Having thusly changed the code, a breach of attorney-client privilege (where warranted) would not result in disbarment and might not cause a loss of income. (Even where it might cause a loss of income, there is no argument in equity for Volokh’s position, as I explain below.)

Moreover, a change in the legal code of ethics to allow exculpatory breaches of confidentiality would instill greater confidence, not less, in the legal system. The public, on the whole, would be more inclined to believe that lawyers (especially criminal defense lawyers) serve justice. The case of Alton Logan reinforces the contrary perception, namely, that law is not justice.

I would go one step further in the interest of justice. I would make it a crime for a lawyer to withhold information that might exculpate a non-client for the sake of protecting a client. The law would then serve justice.

What about Volokh’s argument that lawyers (among others) do not have “an ethical duty to save another’s life at … great expense”? Suppose, for example, that lawyers who breach confidentiality in a circumstance allowed by their profession’s (revised) code of ethics and mandated by (revised) statutory law would nevertheless lose all of their remaining clients. Given that, Volokh argues (in effect), it would be equitable to force the rich to save the lives of starving African children, and to force anyone who has two healthy kidneys to donate one of them to a person who is on a kidney waiting-list.

Here’s my answer: A lawyer who withholds exculpatory information commits a harm; that is, he causes someone to be punished wrongly for a crime. That is not the case with a person who doesn’t give money to starving African children or who doesn’t donate a kidney to a person in need of one. The harm (starvation or kidney failure) isn’t caused by the person who withholds the money or kidney.

In sum, Volokh’s defense of Kunz, Coventry, and their ilk is fatally flawed. It begs the question and poses false analogies. One might say that Volokh is being lawyerly.

A Huge "Welcome Back"…

…to “Feddie” of Southern Appeal.

It Depends on Where You Stand

The New York Times has an article about Martin Amis’s estrangement from the English left, on the issue of Islam:

[Amis’s] “slogan on [the] distinction [between Islamophobia and Islamismophobia] is, ‘We respect Muhammad, we do not respect Mohamed Atta.’ ” Jihadism, he said, is “racist, homophobic, totalitarian, genocidal, inquisitorial and imperialistic. Surely there should be no difficulty in announcing one’s hostility to that, but there is.”

Indeed there is if, like Amis, you are out of synch with “England’s left-leaning intellectual culture, [which is] traditionally somewhat hostile toward Israel and the United States.” “Somewhat”? Now there’s an understatement for you.

In fact, as the article continues, it becomes clear that Amis sees English “intellectualism” for what it is:

“The anti-Americanism is really toxic in this country, and the anti-Zionism,” he said, attributing the sentiments to empire envy. “I think we ceased to be a world power just as America was unignorably taking on that role.” The dominant ideology “told us that we don’t like empires, we’re ashamed of ever having one.” In England, he continued, “we’ve infantilized ourselves, stupefied ourselves, through a kind of sentimental multiculturalism,” Amis said. He called for open discussion “without self-righteous cries of racism. It’s not about race, it’s about ideology.”

What the Times calls a “transAtlantic divide” is really a chasm between the Left (everywhere) and the remnants of minarchist libertarianism-cum-Burkean conservatism. The Left in this country is every bit as toxically anti-American as the Left in England (and elsewhere). Leftists of all nations stand opposed to liberty. Islamism is merely the Left’s “poster child” du jour.

For more, see the posts in the category “Leftism – Statism – Democracy.”

Democrats and Trade

A post at The New York Times Blog reminds me of an old post of mine:

What U.S. consumers should (and do) care about is getting the most for their money. If more of their dollars happen to flow across international borders as American companies strive for efficiency, so what? If American companies “send jobs” to Juan in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and Pierre in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Juan and Pierre wil use the extra dollars they earn to buy things of good value to them that are made in the U.S., things that they couldn’t afford before. That’s called job creation.

In sum, Juan and Pierre outsource to us because we outsource to them, just as you outsource auto repair to your local mechanic and he outsources, say, computer programming to you. And if Juan and Pierre don’t spend all of their dollars on consumer goods, they put some of their dollars (directly or indirectly) into U.S. stocks and bonds, which helps to finance economic growth in the U.S.

Outsourcing, which is really the same thing as international trade, creates jobs, creates wealth, and raises real incomes — for all. Economics is a positive-sum “game.”

If you’re not convinced, think of it this way: If product X is a good value, does it matter to you whether it was made in Poughkeepsie or Burbank? Well, then, there’s nothing wrong with Laredo, Texas, or Calais, Maine, is there?

Now imagine that the Rio Grande River shifts course and, poof, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, becomes Nuevo Laredo, Texas. Or suppose that the Saint Croix River between Maine and New Brunswick shifts course and the former St. Stephen, New Brunswick, becomes St. Stephen, Maine. Juan and Pierre are now Americans. Feel better?

What’s in a border? A border is something to be defended against an enemy. But do you want a border to stand between you and lower prices, more jobs, and economic growth? I thought not.

See also this, this, and this (#17).

A Fighting Frenchman

Yesterday I watched La Môme (a.k.a. La Vie en Rose), a sad film about the sad life of Édith Piaf. Watching the film, I was reminded that Piaf had an affair with boxer Marcel Cerdan, a French pied-noir.

Cerdan won several boxing titles as a welterweight and middleweight, including the world middleweight championship. Cerdan’s career came to a tragic end in October 1949, when he was killed in a plane crash while enroute to meet Piaf in New York, where she was then performing.

Having been reminded of Cerdan, it occurred to me that he may have been the last Frenchman who (a) fought and (b) won.

Why Legal Ethics Is an Oxymoron

Read this post, at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Spot-On

WFB’s obituary of Murray Rothbard. Well, it’s not entirely spot-on. Buckley is wrong about lighthouses, but that’s all.

Hope vs. Experience

Wolf Howling captures it neatly, in his review of Obama’s foreign policy.

Election 2008: Bad News, Good News

The bad news about Super Tuesday II is the Clinton resurgence.

The good news is a veritable dead heat between Clinton and Obama, which probably guarantees a mud-fest between now and the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.

The bad news is the amount of air time that will be devoted to Clinton and Obama.

The good news is that either Clinton’s or Obama’s “base” will be ticked off by what is said about their favorite candidate, and by the outcome of the Pennsylvania primary. The other good news: possible Obama-Clinton fatigue among all but die-hard Democrats.

The bad news is that Clinton and Obama might then quickly cut a deal, that is, Clinton for president, Obama for vice president.

The good news is that Obama’s “black base” will be ticked off by being pushed to the back of the bus by an uppity white woman.

The bad news is that John McCain will be almost invisible to swing voters until the GOP convention (September 1-4).

The good news is John McCain may seem like a fresh face to a lot of swing voters by the time he becomes the GOP’s official nominee.

I Hate This Kind of Talk

Do presidents “run the country”? I think not, and hope not. But a blogger at The Moderate Voice says, in a long pro-Hillary post, “I believe that Hillary is the best person to run the country.”

I guess the blogger in question is willing to take dictation from Mme. Clinton about eating habits, smoking habits, auto purchases, job preferences, medical care, etc., etc., etc.

No one should “run the country.” And if anyone were to “run the country,” a Democrat (or other fascist type) would be my last choice for the job.

Income and Diminishing Marginal Utility

David Friedman (Ideas) subscribes to the mistaken notion that the utility (enjoyment) gained from additional income diminishes as income increases; for example:

Consider a program such as social security which collects money and pays out money. Dollars collected from the richer taxpayer probably cost him less utility than dollars collected from the poorer taxpayer cost him. But dollars paid to the richer taxpayers also provide less utility than dollars paid to the poorer.

Friedman’s mistake is a common one. It is one misapplication of the concept of diminishing marginal utility (DMU): the entirely sensible notion that the enjoyment of a particular good or service declines, at some point, with the quantity consumed during a given period of time. For example, a second helping of chocolate dessert might be more enjoyable than a first helping, but a third helping might not be as enjoyable as the second one.

The misapplication of DMU arises from an error of logic, an error of observation, and an error of arrogance. (Friedman doesn’t make all three errors, but avowed redistributionists do.)

The error of logic is to assume (implicitly) that as one’s income rises one continues to consume the same goods and services, just at a higher rate. But, in fact, having more income enables a person to consume goods and services of greater variety and higher quality. Given that, it is possible always to increase one’s enjoyment by shifting from a “third helping” of a cheap product to a “first helping” of an expensive one, and to keep on doing so as one’s income rises.

As for the error of observation, look around you. As I explain here,

diminishing marginal utility, DMU, is a key postulate of microeconomic theory. Therefore, the [rich] Xs of the world must be “sated” by having “so much” money, whereas the [poorer] Ys remain relatively “unsated.”

If that were true, why would Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and partners in Wall Street investment banks (not to mention most of you who are reading this) seek to make more money and amass more wealth? Perhaps the likes of Gates and Buffet do so because they want to engage in philanthropy on a grand scale. But their happiness is being served by making others happy through philanthropy; the wealthier they are, the happier they can make others and themselves.

In other words, should you run out of new and different things to consume (an unlikely event), you can make yourself happier by acquiring more income to amass more wealth and (if it makes you happy) by giving away some of your wealth.

Is there a point at which one opts for leisure (or other non-work activities) over income? Yes, but that point varies widely from person to person and, for some, isn’t really a marginal preference for leisure over work and income. The committed workaholic sleeps, at times, but only in order to sustain himself in his quest for more income and wealth. Even non-workaholics generally say “yes” to better-paying jobs. And most of them keep saying “yes” until the offers stop coming. Why “yes”? Because the extra effort involved in earning a higher salary (and there usually is some extra effort), is worth it. Where’s the diminishing marginal utility in that?

Why do most people try to save some of their income instead of spending it all on current consumption? For a “rainy day,” a new house, the kids’ education, retirement, the kids’ legacy, etc. How do they do it? By choosing investments that (they hope) will yield a high return (given the risk involved); that is, by earning more income (and amassing more wealth) than one is able to do just by working. How much is enough? For almost everyone (the main exceptions being super-rich hypocrites like Warren Buffet), there’s never enough. Where’s the diminishing marginal utility in that?

Except for the rare bird who truly prefers less to more, the marginal utility of income per se does not diminish. That is why we accept promotions, invest our savings, and (irrationally) buy lottery tickets.

I come now to the error of arrogance:

…[H]ow much wealth is “enough” for one person? I cannot answer that question for you; you cannot answer it for me. (I may have a DMU for automobiles, cashew nuts, and movies, but not for wealth, in and of itself.) And that’s the bottom line: However much we humans may have in common, each of is happy (or unhappy) in his own way and for his own peculiar reasons.

In any event, even if individual utilities (states of happiness) could be measured, there is no such thing as [a] social welfare function: X’s and Y’s utilities are not interchangeable. Taking income from X makes X less happy. Giving some of X’s income to Y may make Y happier (in the short run), but it does not make X happier. It is the height of arrogance for anyone — liberal, fascist, communist, or whatever — to assert that making X less happy is worth it if it makes Y happier.

Thus endeth today’s lesson in economics and humility.