Category: Leftism – Statism – Democracy

In the "So What?" Department

Slate‘s Timothy Noah thinks he’s onto something:

Here is what [Scott] Norvell[, London bureau chief for Fox News,] fessed up to in the May 20 Wall Street Journal Europe:

Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O’Reilly. And those who hate us can take solace in the fact that they aren’t subsidizing Bill’s bombast; we payers of the BBC license fee don’t enjoy that peace of mind.

Fox News is, after all, a private channel and our presenters are quite open about where they stand on particular stories. That’s our appeal. People watch us because they know what they are getting. The Beeb’s institutionalized leftism would be easier to tolerate if the corporation was a little more honest about it.

Norvell never says the word “conservative” in describing “where [Fox’s anchorpeople] stand on particular stories,” or what Fox’s viewers “know … they are getting.” But in context, Norvell clearly is using the example of Fox News to argue that political bias is acceptable when it isn’t subsidized by the public (as his op-ed’s target, the leftish BBC, is), and when the bias is acknowledged. Norvell’s little joke about clubbing lefties to death should satisfy even the most literal-minded that the bias Norvell describes is a conservative one.

That’s news?

If ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC (in its various incarnations), PBS, and most of the “newspapers” and “news magazines” of America fessed up to liberal bias, that would be news.

I Dare Call It Treason

The New York Times today reports on a CIA cover operation. Winds of Change summarizes:

Today’s New York Times provides intimate detail on the charter flights used by the CIA to ferry prisoners across the globe. The names of the charter companies are disclosed. The types of aircraft flown are revealed. The points of departure and destinations of these flights are stated. There is even a picture of one of the charter craft, with the identification number of the aircraft in full display.

All of this is extremely valuable to al Qaeda members who may have an interest in rescuing, or if deemed appropriate, conducting a suicide attack against suspected extraction flights. A successful attack resulting from this story can endanger the lives of CIA, security and civilian personnel involved in these missions, as well as deprive the intelligence and military communities of valuable information that can be gained from interrogations….

What exactly is the purpose of the New York Times in reporting on sensitive issues such as these? Do they even care about the consequences of making such information pubic? It appears the editors of the New York Times feel that breaking a titillating story about sensitive CIA operations is much more important than national security and the lives of those fighting in the war. All to our detriment.

If the Times‘s reporting isn’t “aid and comfort” to the enemy, I don’t know what is. As I wrote here:

The preservation of life and liberty necessarily requires a willingness to compromise on what — in the comfortable world of abstraction — seem to be inviolable principles. For example:

  • The First Amendment doesn’t grant anyone the right to go on the air to compromise a military operation by American forces…

The NYT article about a CIA operation being conducted in support of an authorized war amounts to the same thing. The right to publish cannot be absolute and should not exempt anyone from a charge of treason.

The State, a Creature of Love or Fear?

Robert Higgs and Daniel Klein offer complementary views about the state’s hold over us. Klein’s “The People’s Romance: Why People Love Government (as Much as They Do),” acknowledges several factors, then focuses on our communitarian impulse:

If government intervention creates an official and common frame of reference, a set of cultural focal points, a sense of togetherness and common experience, then almost any form of government intervention can help to ‚“make us Americans.‚” If people see government activism as a singular way of binding society together, then they may favor any particular government intervention for its own sake — whether it be government intervention in schooling, urban transit, postal services, Social Security, or anything else — because they love the way in which it makes them American.

Of course, love of government as a binding and collectivizing force does not exist in anyone’s sensibilities as an absolute. Everyone seeks other goals as well and understands that some government interventions are more costly than voluntary solutions, and people make their judgments according to their understanding.

People may favor government for other reasons: they fancy themselves part of the governing set; they yearn for an official system of validation; they want to avoid the burden of justifying a dissenting view; they fear, revere or worship power. All such factors work in conjunction with self-serving tendencies of less existential nature‚—privilege seeking, subsidy seeking, and so on‚—and with the rationalizations of these tendencies. Furthermore, people may be biased toward government because cultural institutions indoctrinate and cow them.

All such tendencies may be part of a general account of “collectivism‚”—in the sense of statism. In this article, I seek to expand our understanding of just one factor of collectivism that never operates in isolation from the others and not necessarily the most significant: people‚’s tendency to see and love government as a binding communitarian force.

Klein concludes, hopefully:

[B]arring major war, the prospects for deflating TPR [the people’s romance with government] are looking up (for this reason, I suspect the Democratic Party is in serious trouble). Correspondingly, the prospects for a libertarian enrichment of culture are also looking up. Even if policy isn’t fixed, even if the overall political culture is not improving, wealth and technology are increasingly enabling individuals to resist and withdraw from the dominant political culture. That culture does not engulf people as it did previously. We may look forward to diverse political cultures that accommodate vibrant communities of the mind wise to the statist quackeries and misadventures that surround us.

Higgs, some of whose writings are in Klein’s bibliography, focuses elsewhere in “Fear: The Foundation of Every Government’s Power?“:

All animals experience fear—human beings, perhaps, most of all. Any animal incapable of fear would have been hard pressed to survive, regardless of its size, speed, or other attributes. Fear alerts us to dangers that threaten our well-being and sometimes our very lives. Sensing fear, we respond by running away, by hiding, or by preparing to ward off the danger….

The people who have the effrontery to rule us, who call themselves our government, understand this basic fact of human nature. They exploit it, and they cultivate it. Whether they compose a warfare state or a welfare state, they depend on it to secure popular submission, compliance with official dictates, and, on some occasions, affirmative cooperation with the stateÂ’s enterprises and adventures. Without popular fear, no government could endure more than twenty-four hours. David Hume taught that all government rests on public opinion, but that opinion, I maintain, is not the bedrock of government. Public opinion itself rests on something deeper: fear.[1]

Higgs’s conclusion is more wistful than hopeful:

Were we ever to stop being afraid of the government itself and to cast off the phoney fears it has fostered, the government would shrivel and die, and the host would disappear for the tens of millions of parasites in the United States‚—not to speak of the vast number of others in the rest of the world‚—who now feed directly and indirectly off the public’s wealth and energies. On that glorious day, everyone who had been living at public expense would have to get an honest job, and the rest of us, recognizing government as the false god it has always been, could set about assuaging our remaining fears in more productive and morally defensible ways.

Human nature is complex; both Klein and Higgs’s explanations are therefore plausible: We look to government out of fear (or mistrust in others and in our own abilities) and out of a need for a social bond. Leviathan will wither — if ever it does — only as we become more competent and knowledgeable as individuals, therefore more skeptical about politicians’ motives and the state’s efficacy, and thus less dependent on the state.

Speaking of the Senate…

The Frank Capra classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, was invoked often during the recent debate about filibusters. Mostly forgotten is the 1976 “remake,” Billy Jack Goes to Washington. Here’s a plot summary, courtesy iMDB:

After a senator suddenly dies after completing (and sealing) an investigation into the nuclear power industry, the remaining senator and the state governor must decide on a person who will play along with their shady deals and not cause any problems. They decide on Billy Jack, currently sitting in prison after being sent to jail at the end of his previous film, as they don’t expect him to be capable of much, and they think he will attract young voters to the party. Billy is pardoned, released and nominated, after which he begins his duties. He soon notices that things aren’t right, and starts trying to find out just what is going on.

Now, there’s a movie with everything Hollywood loves: sleazy corporations, sleazy politicians, a wronged “little guy,” vengeance, etc., etc. etc. I’m glad I missed it.

The director and star of the movie was Tom Laughlin. Other than making “B” movies, his claims to fame seem to be that he beat up Gene Wilder (when he and Wilder were in high school) and garnered 147 votes in the 2004 New Hampshire primary.

Oh, and the producer of the movie was none other than Frank Capra Jr. A rather little chip off the old block.

The Course of the Mainstream

When I hear liberals complain that conservative-libertarian judicial nominees are “out of the mainstream,” this is what I visualize:

THE MAINSTREAM THEN


THE MAINSTREAM NOW

The mainstream has shifted considerably to the left in the past 70 years. Being in the mainstream of current political thought is no virtue; being out of the mainstream of current political thought is no vice. A conservative-libertarian judicial nominee should be proud of being out of today’s mainstream — and on the side of liberty

No Wonder Families Are Fleeing the Cities

Headline: Child Population Dwindles in San Francisco

What?

San Francisco has the smallest share of small-fry of any major U.S. city. Just 14.5 percent of the city’s population is 18 and under.

It is no mystery why U.S. cities are losing children. The promise of safer streets, better schools and more space has drawn young families away from cities for as long as America has had suburbs.

But kids are even more scarce in San Francisco than in expensive New York (24 percent) or in retirement havens such as Palm Beach, Fla., (19 percent), according to Census estimates.

Why? This is part of it:

San Francisco’s large gay population — estimated at 20 percent by the city Public Health Department — is thought to be one factor…. [No kidding!]

Then, there’s this:

Another reason San Francisco’s children are disappearing: Family housing in the city is especially scarce and expensive. A two-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot starter home is considered a bargain at $760,000.

And this:

Determined to change things, Mayor Gavin Newsom has put the kid crisis near the top of his agenda, appointing a 27-member policy council to develop plans for keeping families in the city.

“It goes to the heart and soul of what I think a city is about — it’s about generations, it’s about renewal and it’s about aspirations,” said Newsom, 37. “To me, that’s what children represent and that’s what families represent and we just can’t sit back idly and let it go away.”

Newsom has expanded health insurance for the poor to cover more people under 25, and created a tax credit for working families. And voters have approved measures to patch up San Francisco’s public schools, which have seen enrollment drop from about 62,000 to 59,000 since 2000.

One voter initiative approved up to $60 million annually to restore public school arts, physical education and other extras that state spending no longer covers. Another expanded the city’s Children’s Fund, guaranteeing about $30 million a year for after-school activities, child care subsidies and other programs.

“We are at a crossroads here,” said N’Tanya Lee, executive director of the nonprofit Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth. “We are moving toward a place where we could have an infrastructure of children’s services and no children.”

“Children’s services” cost money, which requires higher taxes, which in turn will drive more young, middle-class families out to the suburbs. But “city planners” just don’t get it:

Other cities are trying similar strategies. Seattle has created a children’s fund, like the one in San Francisco. Leaders in Portland, Ore., are pushing developers to build affordable housing for families, a move Newsom has also tried.

Why should families stay in the city?

They can enjoy world-class museums, natural beauty and an energy they say they cannot find in the suburbs.

Well, the enjoyment of museums and so-called beauty doesn’t happen through osmosis. It takes an active effort. The same enjoyment can be had by occasionally commuting into the city from the suburbs. As for “energy,” that’s just another word for crime, pollution, congestion, and weird people.

A Libertarian Paternalist’s Dream World

I wrote recently — and unadmiringly — of libertarian paternalism. What is it? It’s a “brave new world” in which corporations, acting at the behest of the state, dictate our choices — for our own good of course:

The underlying notion is that people don’t always choose what’s “best” for themselves. Best according to whom? According to libertarian paternalists, of course, who tend to equate “best” with wealth maximization. They simply disregard or dismiss the truly rational preferences of those who must live with the consequences of their decisions. Richard Thaler [an economist who is a leading proponent of libertarian paternalism] may want you to save your money when you’re only 22, but you may have other things to do with your money, such as paying off a college loan.

A libertarian paternalist who isn’t fixated on wealth maximization might prefer the European model, in which the state dictates the amount of leisure one should enjoy. As Chris Bickerton, writing at spiked, explains:

The ‘European social model’ serves to rationalise low growth through the prism of individual wellbeing. In reality, this means that the cost of low growth is paid by Europe’s working population. Governments that find it politically expedient to promote policies for tackling unemployment do so by reducing working hours by diktat and forcing through moderated wage claims or even wage freezes. They get away with this because of the demonisation of growth and productivity as social goals.

Faced with this situation, we should refuse to accept that work can only be conceived of as a limitation to the development of human capabilities. We should also refuse to accept the idea that the path to human happiness is through idleness. Contrary to what Jeremy Rifkin [author of the wrongheaded The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream] might think, our modern world is about something more than the number of weeks’ holiday we get each year.

Bickerton, a PhD student in international politics at St John’s College, Oxford, has a much firmer grasp of reality than do economics professor Richard Thaler and his statist collaborator, law professor Cass Sunstein.

It’s true that happiness, for many of us, is about more than wealth maximization. But if wealth maximization makes you happy, you have a better chance of attaining nirvana in the U.S. than in Europe. Not because of libertarian paternalists, but because the choice between wealth and leisure is yours to make (for now). Liberty is all about choice, not about being forced to make the “right” choice by libertarian paternalists.

Getting It Right about Terrorism

This makes sense to me:

In Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism (NBER Working Paper No. 10859) Alberto Abadie…finds that the risk of terrorism is not significantly higher for poorer countries, once other country-specific characteristics are considered. In particular, Abadie finds that a country’s level of political freedom better explains the presence of terrorism….

After controlling for the level of political rights, fractionalization, and geography, Abadie concludes that per capita national income is not significantly associated with terrorism. He finds, though, that lower levels of political rights are linked to higher levels of terrorism[.] [C]ountries with the highest levels of political rights are also the countries that suffer the lowest levels of terrorism. However, the relationship between the level of political rights and terrorism is not a simple linear one. Countries in an intermediate range of political rights experience a greater risk of terrorism than countries either with a very high degree of political rights or than severely authoritarian countries with very low levels of political rights.

Why this relationship? Abadie offers two possibilities. “On the one hand, the repressive practices commonly adopted by autocratic regimes to eliminate political dissent may help [keep] terrorism at bay,” he explains. “On the other hand, intermediate levels of political freedom are often experienced during times of political transitions, when governments are weak, political instability is elevated, so conditions are favorable for the appearance of terrorism.”

(Thanks to EconoPundit for the pointer.)

Proof, If Proof Were Needed…

…that Slate and most of its readers are Left-leaning, from Leftist Timothy Noah:

The New York Times will soon start charging to read its op-ed columnists online. The Times is offering its columnists as an all-or-nothing deal, but I proposed that each columnist be priced according to his or her value. I invited readers to allocate a $25 fee among the eight op-ed regulars….An even allocation, I noted, would be a subscription price of $3.13 to read any given columnist online for one year. But not all Times op-ed columnists are equally worth reading. Hence my reader poll….

The Times columnists, in descending order of perceived value:

Paul Krugman: $6.90

Thomas L. Friedman: $4.10

Frank Rich: $3.92

Maureen Dowd: $3.42

Nicholas Kristof: $2.35

Bob Herbert: $1.42

David Brooks: $1.39

John Tierney: $0.31

…That the two most conservative Times columnists—Tierney [a libertarian, actually: ED] and David Brooks —are the two lowest-ranking may reflect some liberal bias among Slate readers, or even some liberal bias within Chatterbox himself. (Let he who is without sin…)

“Liberal bias”? No kidding!

Here’s how I allocated my $25 (a negative amount means that I’d have to be paid to read a columnist):

David Brooks $100
Maureen Dowd – $100
Thomas L. Friedman $0
Bob Herbert -$100
Nicholas D. Kristof -$100
Paul Krugman $0 (not negative only because he produces easily rebuttable material for econ bloggers)
Frank Rich -$100
John Tierney $325

Net amount = $25

As for Slate, I read it for the same reason that econ bloggers read Paul Krugman: It propagates easily rebuttable Leftist cant.

Class in America

The New York Times is running a series on “Class in America,” the introduction to which includes the usual Leftist cant,* and which assumes that class is tied to occupation, education, income, and wealth:

At a time when education matters more than ever, success in school remains linked tightly to class. At a time when the country is increasingly integrated racially, the rich are isolating themselves more and more.[**] At a time of extraordinary advances in medicine, class differences in health and lifespan are wide and appear to be widening.

And new research on mobility, the movement of families up and down the economic ladder, shows there is far less of it than economists once thought and less than most people believe….In fact, mobility, which once buoyed the working lives of Americans as it rose in the decades after World War II, has lately flattened out or possibly even declined, many researchers say….

One way to think of a person’s position in society is to imagine a hand of cards. Everyone is dealt four cards, one from each suit: education, income, occupation and wealth, the four commonly used criteria for gauging class. [Click here to see where you fit in the American population.] [***] Face cards in a few categories may land a player in the upper middle class. At first, a person’s class is his parents’ class. Later, he may pick up a new hand of his own; it is likely to resemble that of his parents, but not always.

Well, success in school, income, and health are linked tightly to intelligence, and those who have the genes for high intelligence tend to have more schooling, make more money, stay healthy, and pass their genes on to their children. Is that somehow wrong? The Times implies that it is.

In spite of the tight link between genetic inheritance and success, there is a lot on intergenerational mobility across the income distribution. (Who are you going to believe, the lying NYT or me?)

In any event, the Times swings and misses twice when it comes to defining and measuring class.

First, the Times deploys the card-game analogy quoted above, which suggests that life is a zero-sum game in which the winners win at the expense of the losers — when that isn’t the case. The Times reinforces the zero-sum notion by introducing a class scale that measures relative status; someone must move down the scale if someone else is to move up it.

Second, and more fundamentally, class is something that one possesses independently of job, education, income, and wealth. A super-rich person can inhabit the lowest class, while an extremely poor person can inhabit the highest class. We could be a nation composed entirely of high-class persons. There’s nothing to prevent it — nothing, that is, but the choices each of us makes about three facets of life:

  • Tastes – our likes and dislikes. A high-class person eschews loudness, crudeness, and ostentation and adopts reflective pursuits (e.g., writing, reading demanding works of fiction and non-fiction, understanding music and art).
  • Manners – overt behavior toward others. A high-class person is polite toward and considerate of the feelings of others, even in fleeting encounters.
  • Ethics – the rules by which we live. Regardless of tastes and manners, a person cannot be high-class without also being honest, fulfilling obligations, and avoiding the temptation to use power to dictate to others.

Money makes it easier to have good taste and good manners, but money is no guarantee of either; Paris Hilton and scores of rock musicians, sports stars, movie stars, and other celebrities are cases in point. Ethics seems to have little do with money or high station, as business and political “leaders” are wont to remind us by their actions, year after year.

Consider the presidents of the U.S. from FDR through Clinton. Based on their tastes, manners, and ethics, I rate them as follows:

  • Low-class: Roosevelt, Johnson, Nixon, Clinton
  • Middle-class: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter
  • High-class: Ford, Reagan, Bush 41

In other words, it’s entirely possible to be something less than high-class even if one has held the most prestigious job in the world, earned a college degree (or two), made a high income, and possessed considerable wealth (as have most modern presidents). Class comes from within, not from the material attainments by which the Times would judge us.
__________
* Leftists like Charlie Rangel like to think that by attacking the rich they are helping the poor, when just the opposite is true. Well, Rangel is evidently a lot richer than I am, so I guess he is going to hell, if I am to believe this exchange with Chris Matthews on 04/07/05:

Matthews: “I mean Charlie, Jesus didn’t hang around with the swells- the rich people.”

Rangel: “Well, he said the rich people are going straight to hell.” [Courtesy Trey Jackson]

Just the place for him. He’ll like the company, which undoubtedly includes at least one other infamous racial demagogue.

** What people do with their money is — or should be — a personal matter, subject only to the proviso that they do no harm to others. Gated community? Fine. I’d like to live in one, as would many if not most of the poor with whom the Times seem to identify. What’s wrong with keeping the riff-raff at bay? Do you think that law-abiding poor people enjoy living where they do? When the poor finally make enough money to afford a move to the suburbs, they do so to escape their former neighbors, not to mingle with them.

*** I followed the link (bracketed in the original) to learn my “class standing” and wound up in the 87th percentile, based on my pre-retirement job and (in today’s dollars) income and wealth. By the same criteria, my father was somewhere in the 40th to 50th percentile. Not bad. But my grandfather undoubtedly was somewhere near the bottom. I didn’t steal from anyone to move up, nor did my father, nor did the vast majority of those who now stand higher than their parents and grandparents on the Times‘s class scale. But my standing on the Times‘s scale would be meaningless had I the tastes, manners, and ethics of a Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Democracy and Great Art

I have written much about democracy’s insidious effect on liberty. For example, in Part V of “Practical Libertarianism for Americans” I said:

[P]ublic opinion, elite opinion, and the media have combined to undo the great work of the Framers, whose Constitution prevented tyranny by the majority. Unchecked democracy has become the enemy of liberty and, therefore, of material progress. As Michael Munger says, “The real key to freedom is to secure people from tyranny by the majority, or freedom from democracy.”

The last best hope for liberty and prosperity lies in the neutralization of public opinion through a renewal of constitutional principles.

To which I added, in Part VI:

Unchecked democracy undermines liberty and its blessings. Unchecked democracy imposes on everyone the mistakes and mistaken beliefs of the controlling faction. It defeats learning. It undoes the social fabric that underlies civility. It defeats the sublime rationality of free markets, which enable independent individuals to benefit each other through the pursuit of self-interest. As “anonymous” says, with brutal accuracy, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on lunch.”…

Human nature has overcome constitutional obstacles. The governed and their governors — locked in a symbiotic relationship that is built on a mistrustful worldview, economic illiteracy, and baser instincts — have conspired to undermine the Constitution’s checks and balances. People, given their mistrustful and ignorant nature, have turned to government for “solutions” to their “problems.” Government, in its turn, has seized whatever power is necessary to go through the motions of providing “solutions.” For rare is the legislator who doesn’t want to legislate, the executive who doesn’t want to act, and the judge who doesn’t want to exercise his judgment by interpreting the law rather than simply apply it…

[L]iberty has been vanquished in the mistaken belief (or hope) that government can effectively and efficiently make us better off, salve our woes, and put an end to social and racial divisions. To those ends, the governed and their governors, walking hand in hand, have taken liberty for a stroll down a slippery slope. Every step they have taken down that slope has made more problematic our journey back up the slope.

Think of the Constitution as a great work of art that has been altered through the operation of public and elite opinion. The result is analogous to this:

That’s da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, in case you don’t recognize it.

Science in Politics, Politics in Science

Here’s Will Saletan of Slate, writing about Intelligent Design (ID):

In September 1999, [John] Calvert founded the Intelligent Design Network to promote his mutant line of creationism. The next year, a political asteroid struck Kansas. Alarmed by the 1999 curriculum changes, voters went to the polls and wiped out the education board’s creationist majority. With the old species out of the way, the new one took over. In January 2001, as the newly constituted board reopened the curriculum standards, IDnet proposed revisions radically different from [those of the Creation Science Association for Mid-America (CSA)].

The board’s draft standards said, “The fossil record provides evidence of simple, bacteria-like life as far back as 3.8+ billion years ago.” CSA would have tried to remove that sentence. IDnet embraced it and proposed to add a prepositional phrase: “almost simultaneously with the postulated habitability of our earth.” This would underscore Calvert’s argument that life arose faster than randomness could account for. A few lines later, the board’s draft mentioned the fossil record, radioisotope dating, and plate tectonics. CSA would have fought all three references. IDnet affirmed them and asked only for a revision to limit their implications: “Certain aspects of the fossil record, the age of the earth based on radioisotope dating and plate tectonics are consistent with the Darwinian theory. However, this evidence is not inconsistent with the design hypothesis.”

Two years later, in a bioethics journal, Calvert and an IDnet colleague, biochemist William Harris, summarized the differences between Biblical creationism and ID. “Creation science seeks to validate a literal interpretation of creation as contained in the book of Genesis,” they explained. “An ID proponent recognizes that ID theory may be disproved by new evidence. ID is like a large tent under which many religious and nonreligious origins theories may find a home. ID proposes nothing more than that life and its diversity were the product of an intelligence with power to manipulate matter and energy.”

Last year, conservatives regained a narrow majority on the Kansas board. They’ve reopened the curriculum, but this time, CSA isn’t running the show. Calvert and Harris are. At last week’s hearings, Calvert presented 23 witnesses—– scientists, philosophers, and teachers — —to make the case for ID. A lawyer representing evolutionists asked the witnesses how old the earth was. Most affirmed the conventional geological estimate: 4.5 billion years. Only two stuck to the young-earth theory.

Essentially, ID proponents are gambling that they can concede evolutionist earth science without conceding evolutionist life science. But they can’t. They already acknowledge microevolution — —mutation and natural selection within a species. Once you accept conventional fossil dating and four billion years of life, the sequential kinship of species loses its implausibility. You can’t fall back on the Bible; you’ve already admitted it can’t always be taken literally. All you’re left with is an assortment of gaps in evolutionary theory — —how did DNA emerge, what happened between this and that fossil— — and the vague default assumption that an “intelligence” might fill in those gaps. Calvert and Harris call this assumption a big tent. But guess what happens to a tent without poles.

Perversely, evolutionists refuse to facilitate this collapse. They prefer to dismiss ID proponents as dead-end Neanderthals. They complain, legitimately, that Calvert and Harris are trying to expand the definition of science beyond “natural explanations.” But have you read the definition Calvert and Harris propose? It would define science as a continuous process of “observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.” Abstract creationism can’t qualify for such scrutiny. Substantive creationism can’t survive it. Or if it can, it should.

It’s too bad liberals and scientists don’t welcome this test. It’s too bad they go around sneering, as censors of science often have, that the new theory is too radical, offensive, or embarrassing to be taken seriously. It’s too bad they think good science consists of believing the right things. In the long view — —the evolutionary view— — good science consists of using evidence and experiment to find out whether what we thought was right is wrong. If they do that in Kansas, by whatever name, that’s all that matters.

The money quote: “It’s too bad [liberals and scientists] think good science consists of believing the right things.” Not all scientists think that way, but it’s obvious that many of them do. Politically correct science is dangerous science, for it can be used to “prove” that we ought to do things that are against our own best interest.

Consider this:

Our planet’s air has cleared up in the past decade or two, allowing more sunshine to reach the ground, say two studies in Science this week.

Reductions in industrial emissions in many countries, along with the use of particulate filters for car exhausts and smoke stacks, seem to have reduced the amount of dirt in the atmosphere and made the sky more transparent.

That sounds like very good news. But the researchers say that more solar energy arriving on the ground will also make the surface warmer, and this may add to the problems of global warming. More sunlight will also have knock-on effects on cloud cover, winds, rainfall and air temperature that are difficult to predict.

And this:

While researchers argue whether Earth is getting warmer and if humans are contributing, a heated debate over the global effect of sunlight boiled to the surface today.

And in this debate there is little data to go on.

A confusing array of new and recent studies reveals that scientists know very little about how much sunlight is absorbed by Earth versus how much the planet reflects, how all this alters temperatures, and why any of it changes from one decade to the next.

Determining Earth’s reflectance is crucial to understanding climate change, scientists agree.

And this:

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.

Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: “The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.

“The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently – in the last 100 to 150 years.”…

Dr Bill Burrows, a climatologist and a member of the Royal Meteorological Society, welcomed Dr Solanki’s research. “While the established view remains that the sun cannot be responsible for all the climate changes we have seen in the past 50 years or so, this study is certainly significant,” he said.

“It shows that there is enough happening on the solar front to merit further research. Perhaps we are devoting too many resources to correcting human effects on the climate without being sure that we are the major contributor.”

And this:

Earth’s temperature is on the rise, researchers say, and environmental watchdogs are howling, hoping it’s not too late to avert negative effects that could range from melting icecaps to mass extinctions.

Some scientists, however, now think global warming is irreversible. In light of this sobering view, certain economists and scientists are searching for a silver lining. While the good news they find might not be global, some researchers believe the benefits of Earth’s warming will help compensate for the harmful consequences.

But global warming may in fact be a long-term cyclical phenomenon, and it may have little or nothing to do with human activity.

In spite of vast uncertainty about the causes and consequences of global warming, many scientists have joined the Luddites of the Left in their demand that we do something about global warming, namely, curtail economic activity and impoverish ourselves. Why? Because scientists are human, too. And many scientists, beneath a pretense to objectivity, are in fact Leftists who view global warming as a moral issue — it must be the consequence of our sinful embrace of capitalism and economic growth — and not as a series of unsettled scientific questions:

  • What actually causes global warming?
  • Is it permanent?
  • What might we be able to do about it, if anything?
  • Are its consequences, on balance, negative or positive — and for whom?

Why should we trust Left-wing scientists (or nonscientists) on the subject of evolution when we can’t trust them on the subject of climate?

The Huffington Post

Ariana Huffington’s new group-blog is up and…not exactly running. Huffington’s stable of celebrity bloggers is heavy on name recognition and light on original thought. For example:

  • Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall (a heterosexual, married, Hollywood couple) predictably defend gay marriage because it doesn’t affect them (or so they think).
  • Mike Nichols (the former comedian and successful film director) babbles on about the purpose of the blog, fundamentalists, evil market forces, and the need for better metaphors. Mike needs to find a metaphor and stick with it.
  • Film actor John Cusack eulogizes Hunter S. Thompson, probably unaware that Thompson was the antithesis of a Hollywood liberal.
  • Comedien(ne) Ellen DeGeneres laments that fact that 1,000 wild horses have been turned into dog food. Did I miss the part where she offered to pay for their care and feeding?
  • Director David Mamet rambles as if under the influence of a hallucinatory drug, though he manages to slip in a predictable, Hollywoodish dig about “a vast coup…in our government.”

There’s more, but that’s more than enough for me. The Huffington Post won’t appear on my blogroll, nor will I visit it regularly. There’s no “there” there.

Slippery Sunstein

Legal Affairs Debate Club this week hosted an exchange between Cass Sunstein and Randy Barnett (“Constitution in Exile?“), in which Sunstein exuded his usual slipperiness. I was taken especially by this bit of casuistry:

Let’s define judicial activism neutrally, as invalidation of government action.

Sunstein, in his zeal to discredit judges who try to enforce the Constitution, attempts to smear them with the term “judicial activism,” which was coined to describe judges who try to rewrite the Constitution. Moreover, Sunstein subtly tries to illegitimate the judiciary by separating it from “government,” which he — as a knee-jerk majoritarian — identifies with the legislature.

The Threat of the Anti-Theocracy

The following is an adaptation of Stanley Kurtz’s parody of the left’s view of the religious right’s political agenda.

What is the real agenda of the anti-religious far Left? I’’ll tell you what it is. These nuts have practically taken over the federal government. Now they want to effect total control of the populace through Hitlerian eugenics, namely, abortion and euthanasia. They want to perpetuate our enslavement to the state by raising taxes to confiscatory levels and by regulating every mode of social and economic intercourse. They want to execute anyone found guilty of thinking that abortion and pre-martial, extramarital, or homosexual sex are wrong. Otherwise, they want to abolish the death penalty, empty the prisons, and allow criminals to roam the streets, where they can prey on innocent, disarmed citizens.

But aren’’t extremists like this far from political power? On the contrary, the anti-religious political movement called “Liberalism” or “Leftism” has gained control of the Democrat party, and often controls Congress and the White House as well. Having already taken over most of the judiciary, the conversion of America to a politically correct, socialist, slave state is well in hand.

It is estimated that 100 million Americans are Liberals or Leftists, although many of them are unaware of the true effects of their beliefs and goals on liberty. It would be a mistake, by the way, to think of Liberals and Leftists as simple working people. Their leadership and funding comes from the super-rich, the influential intelligentsia, and political power brokers at all levels of government. The quest of these cryptofascists for power and world domination is a self-conscious program of pure, unmitigated evil.

You don’’t believe me? Well, consider the fact that Hillary Clinton is positioning herself to run from the center-right in the 2008 election. From that point on the political spectrum, she will draw enough votes to capture the White House and bring in a Democrat Congress on her skirt-tails. She will then be in a position to appoint Leftist justices to the Supreme Court, ensuring permanent dominion of the Leftist agenda in America.

For Leftists, the most important event of the last half of the 20th century occurred when Bill Clinton proved that Leftists would support a demonstrably corrupt leader for the sake of gaining and holding onto power.

There is an infection, an anti-religious and political pathology that has corrupted our politics. The Left has embraced evil. Let us pray that Americans will go to the voting booth and finally free this country from the Democrat Leftist menace.

Libertarian Paternalism

UPDATED TWICE BELOW

There’s a fuss about “libertarian paternalism,” which its proponents (Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago) say is intended to help individuals make better decisions by having corporations and governments shape choices more artfully. Zimran Ahmed (Winterspeak) defends the concept because he

spoke to Thaler about this and read the monograph he [Thaler] wrote with Sunstein.

“Libertarian Paternalism” is noting that people often just take whatever default choice is offered and therefore working hard to come up with good default choices. This does not limit choice because you don’t need to stick with the default. But since *something* has to be the default, you might as well put effort into making it something good.

I don’t think it’s quite that easy to defend libertarian paternalism, which strikes me as another paving brick on the road to hell.

Consider an example that’s used to explain libertarian paternalism. Some workers choose “irrationally” — according to libertarian paternalists — when they decline to sign up for an employer’s 401(k) plan. The paternalists characterize the “do not join” option as the default option. In my experience, there is no default option: An employee must make a deliberate choice between joining a 401(k) or not joining it. And if the employee chooses not to join it, he or she must sign a form certifying that choice. That’s not a default, it’s a clear-cut and deliberate choice which reflects the employee’s best judgment, at that time, as to the best way to allocate his or her income. Nor is it an irrevocable choice; it can be revisited annually (or more often under certain circumstances).

But to help employees make the “right” choice, libertarian paternalists would find a way to herd employees into 401(k) plans (perhaps by law). In one variant of this bit of paternalism, an employee is automatically enrolled in a 401(k) and isn’t allowed to opt out for some months, by which time he or she has become used to the idea of being enrolled and declines to opt out.

The underlying notion is that people don’t always choose what’s “best” for themselves. Best according to whom? According to libertarian paternalists, of course, who tend to equate “best” with wealth maximization. They simply disregard or dismiss the truly rational preferences of those who must live with the consequences of their decisions. Richard Thaler may want you to save your money when you’re only 22, but you may have other things to do with your money, such as paying off a college loan.

Libertarian paternalism incorporates two fallacies. One is what I call the “rationality fallacy,” the other is the fallacy of centralized planning.

As for the rationality fallacy, I once wrote this:

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.

Nevertheless, many economists (like Thaler) do equate rationality and wealth maximization, which leads them to propose schemes for forcing us to act more “rationally.” Such schemes, of course, are nothing more than centralized planning, dreamt up by self-anointed wise men who seek to impose their preferences on the rest of us. As I wrote more recently:

The problem with [rules aimed at shaping economic behavior] is that someone outside the system must make the rules to be followed by those inside the system.

And that’s precisely where [central] planning and regulation always fail. At some point not very far down the road, the rules will not yield the outcomes that spontaneous behavior would yield. Why? Because better rules cannot emerge spontaneously from rule-driven behavior….

Of course, the whole point…is to produce outcomes that are desired by planners…

…and to hell with what the individual thinks is in his or her own best interest.

“Libertarian paternalism” consists of paternalism and a rather subtle form of socialism. There’s no libertarianism in it, no matter what its proponents may say.

Free people, free markets, no compromise.

UPDATE: And here comes “libertarian” paternalism — from the left, of course:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., who this year has proposed three pieces of retirement savings legislation, said Monday, “We need to work on strengthening Social Security, but if you look at where the immediate problems are, it’s not in Social Security, it’s in their ability to save for retirement and the amount they have saved.”….

…Peter Orszag, an economic policy adviser in the Clinton administration who now heads the Retirement Security Project.

…is recommending Emanuel’s proposals to extend the savings tax credit and automatically enroll workers in 401(k)s. Orszag also wants automatic increases in the percentage of income directed toward 401(k)s and the automatic diversification of assets in them as workers near retirement.

“This is an area where there is strong bipartisan interest,” Orszag said. “Why not do something that both sides agree on, and do something that will build a sense of bipartisanship, as a precursor to dealing with some of the more difficult issues down the road?”

So, instead of allowing workers to invest 12.4 percent of their income in a real retirement plan, they will be forced to continue paying that amount into the Social Security Ponzi scheme. On top of that, a chunk of their income will be forcefully diverted to 401(k) plans — because Big Brother thinks that’s the “rational” thing to do. Workers will have no say in the matter, because socialist paternalists know what’s best for them.

UPDATE II: Then there’s this, from an article about “neuronomics”:

The problem, of course, is that people don’t always behave rationally. They make decisions based on fear, greed, and envy. They buy plasma TVs and luxury vehicles they can’t afford. They don’t save enough for retirement. They indulge in risky behavior such as gambling. Economists understand this as well as anyone, but in order to keep their mathematical models tractable, they make simplifying assumptions.

As Steve Antler (EconoPundit) explains:

Look: economics teachers with good sense tell students they’re talking about how people would behave if they were rational.

Whether people actually are rational is another matter entirely.

And, to repeat myself, rationality isn’t the same thing as wealth maximization.

Rich Voter, Poor Voter, and Academic Liberalism

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution points to a presentation in which this graphic appears:


Standard deviations from mean income on the X-axis, probability of voting Republican on the Y-axis. Data plotted here are for counties in Mississippi, Ohio, and Connecticut (being “poor,” “average,” and “rich” States, respectively).

That graphic is supposed to clinch this point (Tabarrok is writing):

We all know that in the recent election poorer states tended to vote Republican while richer states tended to vote Democrat. On the basis of the famous maps many people jumped to the conclusion that poorer individuals were voting Republican (Nascar Republicans) while richer individuals were voting Democrat (trust fund Democrats). But the inference is a fallacy, the ecological fallacy. In fact, high-income individuals, as opposed to high-income states, vote Republican with greater likelihood than low-income individuals (the effect is not huge and it may be declining but it is significant). It’s even true that rich counties tend to vote Republican with greater likelihood than poorer counties. Gelman links to this graph which nicely illustrates the ecological fallacy. The three lines show that within each state higher-income counties are more likely to vote Republican but when you look between states the correlation between income and voting Republican is negative.

Actually, when I saw the geographic distribution of votes in the 2004 election, by State and county, I didn’t “jump[ ] to the conclusion that poorer individuals were voting Republican (Nascar Republicans) while richer individuals were voting Democrat (trust fund Democrats).” I drew the more reasonable inference that there is a strong geographic correlation between values and voting preferences; that is, adherence to the tenets of the regulatory-welfare state is stronger in richer States, at every income level. And that’s precisely what the graphic indicates: Where you live does make a difference in how you vote.

It may be true that the higher your income in a rich State, the more likely you are to vote Republican. But for any given level of income, a person who lives in a rich State you is less likely to vote Republican than a person who lives in a poor State.

Why? Here’s my take: The “rich” in the rich States — as is obvious from casual reading about limousine liberals and wannabe limousine liberals in New York and California — have by and large bought into the regulatory-welfare state, which is mainly a creation of the Democrat Party. So, the rich-State rich vote their “consciences” or, rather, they tend to vote Democrat because the think they can

  • keep the unwashed masses at bay with the modern equivalent of bread and circuses.
  • salve their (misplaced) guilt about the “good luck” that made them rich.

At the other end of the scale, low-income NASCAR fans who live in rich States are more likely to vote Democrat than low-income NASCAR fans who live in poor States.

Why does it work like that? Because where you live has a lot to do with your values. People tend to adapt (“go along and get along”) or migrate.

The same principle applies to academia. Conservative and libertarian intellectuals tend to avoid academic careers (call it pre-emptive migration) because they don’t want to adapt their thinking to fit in with the liberal supermajority on most campuses. Thank goodness there are some campuses (such as George Mason University) that are friendly havens for libertarian-conservative academics like Tabarrok and his blogging partner, Tyler Cowen.

The Broken Promise of Liberty

I have posted at Liberty Corner II “The Broken Promise of Liberty,” which is Part VI of my series “Practical Libertarianism for Americans.” Here are excerpts of Part VI:

If liberty is so wonderful, why don’t we enjoy it in full? Why are our lives so heavily regulated and legislated by so many federal, State, and local agencies at such a high cost? What happened to the promise of liberty given in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution? The answers to those questions are bound up in human nature and the nature of governance in a democracy….

In sum, it’s all about trust. You can trust in people to do the right thing because it’s to their benefit to do so, as it is in free markets and free societies. Or you can tie people down, economically and socially, in a morass of statutes and regulations….

Trust doesn’t mean an absence of rules, but the rules have only to be minimal, socially evolved rules of acceptable conduct, such as the Golden Rule or the last six of the Ten Commandments. The clearer and more intuitive the rules, the more likely they are to be enforced by self-interest, by fear of social opprobrium, and by pride in reputation — with swift, sure, and hard justice as a backup.

But none of that goes down well with the untrusting, who think that the road to happiness must be paved with hard-and-fast rules for everything and everyone (except those who break the rules, if they have certain racial, sexual, and socio-economic characteristics). Otherwise, how would people know what to do?…

What happens, then, is a ratcheting of government power, in response to demands for government to “do something,” and in furtherance of the ambitions of power-seeking politicians. There is no in-between solution. There is either a government of strictly limited powers — such as the one envisioned by the Framers — or there is, inevitably, socialism or something very close to it….

We have been following the piecemeal route to serfdom — adding link to link and chain to chain — in spite of the Framers’ best intentions and careful drafting. Why? Because the governed — or dominant coalitions of them — have donned willingly the chains that they have implored their governors to forge. Their bondage is voluntary, though certainly not informed. But their bondage is everyone’s bondage….

Unchecked democracy undermines liberty and its blessings. Unchecked democracy imposes on everyone the mistakes and mistaken beliefs of the controlling faction. It defeats learning. It undoes the social fabric that underlies civility. It defeats the sublime rationality of free markets, which enable independent individuals to benefit each other through the pursuit of self-interest. As “anonymous” says, with brutal accuracy, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on lunch.”…

The Framers understood human nature as a natural enemy of liberty. That is why they strove to check the passions of the mob and the power of government….

Human nature has overcome constitutional obstacles. The governed and their governors — locked in a symbiotic relationship that is built on a mistrustful worldview, economic illiteracy, and baser instincts — have conspired to undermine the Constitution’s checks and balances. People, given their mistrustful and ignorant nature, have turned to government for “solutions” to their “problems.” Government, in its turn, has seized whatever power is necessary to go through the motions of providing “solutions.” For rare is the legislator who doesn’t want to legislate, the executive who doesn’t want to act, and the judge who doesn’t want to exercise his judgment by interpreting the law rather than simply apply it….

The authors of the Declaration of Independence, were they writing it today, would be able to list “a long train of abuses and usurpations” by the federal government against the States and the people. Their list would rightly include these charges, once levelled against the British monarch:

…erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our people and eat out their substance….

…combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws….

…[took] away our [State] charters…and alter[ed] fundamentally the forms of our governments….

[L]iberty has been vanquished in the mistaken belief (or hope) that government can effectively and efficiently make us better off, salve our woes, and put an end to social and racial divisions. To those ends, the governed and their governors, walking hand in hand, have taken liberty for a stroll down a slippery slope. Every step they have taken down that slope has made more problematic our journey back up the slope.

For earlier entries in the series, follow these links:

I. Introduction

II. Terminology

Addendum to Part II: Notes on the State of Liberty in American Law

III. The Origin and Essence of Rights

IV. Liberty and Its Prerequisites

Addendum to Part IV: More Hayek

V. The Economic Consequences of Liberty

Addendum to Part V: The Destruction of Income and Wealth by the State

Absolute Cluelessness

William A. Galston issues a challenge to liberals to retake the political high ground by coming out in favor of individual freedom (“Taking Liberty,” Washington Monthly, April 2005). But Galston’s notion of freedom is the usual, redistributional, ignore-the-consequences, liberal version; for example:

“A system of universal health care would allow all Americans to pursue their dreams and take more risks.” But who pays? And what happens to the quality and quantity of available health care when government takes the inevitable next step of controlling supply as well as demand?

“And it means getting serious about the millions of talented poor and minority kids who don’t continue their education after high school because no responsible adult ever told them that they could—and should.” Oh, really? No one? Never? Of such bombastic assertions is liberal policy made.

“[I]ndividual choice, while not always synonymous with liberty, and sometimes contrary to it….” Examples, please, of lawless forms of individual choice that are contrary to liberty?

“[T]here is plenty of room short of vouchers for more personal choice in K-through-12 education. Minnesota, for instance, has long permitted its families to choose among public schools across district lines; Britain does much the same.” And when “failing schools” must scale back, do the “gaining schools” get to hire teachers who know what they’re teaching, or must they hire the same sub-educated “professional educators” who caused the failing schools to fail?

“[F]reedom is seldom without cost. It usually requires sacrifice.” Yes, but the kind of sacrifice required — the willingness to go in harm’s way — isn’t the kind of redistributional sacrifice liberals have in mind when they talk about sacrifice. Nor is it reinstatement of the draft, which Galston invokes in so many words.

“We must love not another country’s dream, but our own—the American Dream—and we must work to make it real for every American who reaches for it.” As long as the “rich” (that is, everyone who makes an above-average income) pays for it. Of course, there would then be far fewer rich and far more poor among us, but Galston and his ilk neither know that nor care much about it.

The liberal agenda already has exacted an immense cost, a cost that will continue to mount as the liberal agenda advances. Equality in squalor is the name of the liberals’ game.

Yet Another Look at Democracy

James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds is a flawed masterpiece. Surowiecki seems to understand how unregulated markets make people better off, but in the end he succumbs to the notion that we can regulate our way to “the common good” through democracy. Surowiecki nevertheless gets it right when he says this:

[A] group of people…is far more likely to come up with a good decision if the people i the group are independent of each other….

Independence is important to intelligent decision making for two reasons. First, it keeps the mistakes that people make from becoming correlated. Errors in individual judgment won’t wreck the group’s collective judgment as long as those errors aren’t pointing systematically in the same direction….Second, independent individuals are more likely to have new information rather than the same old data everyone is already familiar with. The smartest groups, then, are made up of people with diverse perspectives who are able to stay independent of each other. Independence doesn’t imply rationality or impartiality, though. You can be biased and irrational, but as long as you’re independent, you won’t make the group any dumber.

If only Surowiecki had stopped there, on page 41.

Democracy undoes independence. It imposes on everyone the mistakes and mistaken beliefs of a controlling faction. It defeats learning. It defeats the sublime rationality of markets, which enable independent individuals to benefit each other through the pursuit of self-interest.