I Wonder Why People Mistrust the Government?

Maybe because some governments (Multnomah county, Oregon) threaten 7 year-old girls with a $500 dollar fine for running a lemonade stand without the proper permit.

Darn kids, always flouting regulations, that's what's wrong with young people today . . .

But, you say, "the county apologized, and no real harm done, right?" (except for fixing permanently in that girl's mind a terrifying first impression of government - oh, wait, that's not harm, sorry). Yes, this was a mere county government worker just acting "by the book." It was easily cleared up by Jeff Cogen, chairman of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners.

(By the way, when you need a board to manage all your commissioners, doesn't that tell you something?)

But this was one smallish county in a meduim sized metro area in a smallish state. Very few levels between the health department employee and Mr. Cogen. Imagine the same quick corrective action happening in LA county, or New York City . . . yeah, I can't either.

County regulations are simple when compared with State regulations, and nothing compared to the massive and ever-expanding river of regulations continually spewing from Federal agencies.

The photo above is of titles 12 to 26 out of 50 titles of the Code of Federal Regulations. Yes, that's only about one fourth of the Federal Regulations out there - and this is before agencies start creating regulations for "Health Care Reform." (the bill itself was 2000 pages, but it left most of the rule-making to Federal agencies. 2000 pages? That's nothing compared to the regulations that will come out of it - wait and see).

This site gives some scope to the problem:

According to the Office of the Federal Register, in 1998, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), the official listing of all regulations in effect, contained a total of 134,723 pages in 201 volumes that claimed 19 feet of shelf space. [Note: 10% or 13,458 pages are IRS regulations alone]. In 1970, the CFR totaled only 54,834 pages.

The General Accountability Office (GAO) reports that in the four fiscal years from 1996 to 1999, a total of 15,286 new federal regulations went into effect. Of these, 222 were classified as "major" rules, each one having an annual effect on the economy of at least $100 million.

134,723 pages?!?! A person could literally be crushed by the weight of Federal regulations, ha ha . . . . sorry bad joke. But seriously, if you could read 1 page a minute, 24 hours a day, you'd finish reading it in a little over 93 days.

There are entire paid publications dedicated entirely to informing industry attorneys that a single Federal agency is going to change regulations. There are currently about 14,800 notices, rules, or proposed rules open for comment on regulations.gov. According to that site, "On average, federal agencies and departments issue nearly 8,000 regulations per year." (Double what they issued in 1996 - 1999).

But why fear the government? Those 134,723 pages of regulations (plus 8000 new regulations per year) plus all the state and local regulations would never affect the average person, would they?

Lets ask the little girl from Oregon . . .

Never Thought I'd Say This...

...and get ready for Hell to freeze over ... but Keith Olbermann makes an excellent point.

Yes, you read that right. The guy is a raving left-wing loon, but he is right about the senate healthcare bill, specifically the requirement that all Americans purchase government approved insurance. He lays out what it will cost the President:

[T]his bill costs you the [support of the political] left —and anybody who now has to pony up 17 percent of his family’s income to buy this equivalent of Medical Mobster Protection Money.

Olbermann continued:

The mandate in this bill … must be stripped out...It is above all else immoral and a betrayal of the people who elected you….

And this sounds awfully rebellious:

I am one of the self-insured, albeit by choice. And I hereby pledge that I will not buy this perversion of health care reform. Pass this at your peril, Senators, and sign it at yours, Mr. President.
I will not buy this insurance.
Brand me a lawbreaker if you choose.
Fine me if you will.
Jail me if you must.

Wow, I couldn't have said it any better myself. What a weird feeling to agree with him...

Granted his reasons for opposing it are much different than mine, as you can see reading the entire post. He's ticked that it is not fully socialized. But I understand his dislike of the mandate. The enemy of my enemy is my friend? . . . well, maybe not quite yet.

Why Trying the 9/11 Terrorists in NYC is a BAD Idea

An excellent analysis of why trying Khalid Shiekh Mohammud in New York is a colossal mistake. The legal jargon is a little dense, sorry.

The writer is an attorney who lays out how the trial will inevitably play out. I think he's exactly right. We've seen this already in the trial of Zacharias Moussoui (however it's spelled), the alleged 20th hijacker. In short it will be a massive media circus, cost incredible amounts of money, give the confessed terrorists an international platform and publicity, and require that the U.S. disclose our secret intelligence gathering techniques. Not to mention setting the defense attorneys up for life financially, and ruining the reputation of the U.S. legal system.

He also speculates on the President's motivations for bringing the trials here, and concludes that it is part of a sinister left-wing plot. On that point I think he gives President Obama too much credit. A plot requires competence and planning. I'm not sure it's a plot, so much as just plain stupidity, naivete, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the world and of human nature coupled with a disdain for any policy or measure enacted by President Bush.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'd rather see them tried at the International Criminal Court. It's reputation has no where to go but up, and when the terrorists are all freed, it would help cement public opinion against international institutions, and strengthen faith in America. All the opposite outcomes of a trial in NYC.

Sensible Healthcare Reform

I've resisted posting on healthcare reform here for 2 reasons:

1. No one wants to read a 10,000 word rant complete with charts and analogies.
2. I can't find the time to write said 10,000 word rant.

So, I leave it to others with greater powers of brevity. Charles Krauthammer has two suggestions that should be tried before any radical restructuring of the current healthcare system. They will genuinely reduce costs and lessen the influence of government in our lives.

(1) Tort reform: As I wrote recently, our crazy system of casino malpractice suits results in massive and random settlements that raise everyone's insurance premiums and creates an epidemic of defensive medicine that does no medical good, yet costs a fortune.

I'm a lawyer, and even I agree with that. The inability of malpractice insurance companies to predict what crazy awards juries will give leads to astronomical premiums. In addition, it causes doctors to order unnecessary procedures "just to make sure:"

An authoritative Massachusetts Medical Society study found that five out of six doctors admitted they order tests, procedures and referrals -- amounting to about 25 percent of the total -- solely as protection from lawsuits. Defensive medicine, estimates the libertarian/conservative Pacific Research Institute, wastes more than $200 billion a year.

Krauthammer envisions something like the workers' compensation plan to handle malpractice incidents.

Abolish the entire medical-malpractice system. Create a new social pool from which people injured in medical errors or accidents can draw. The adjudication would be done by medical experts, not lay juries giving away lottery prizes at the behest of the liquid-tongued John Edwardses who pocket a third of the proceeds.

The pool would be funded by a relatively small tax on all health-insurance premiums. Socialize the risk; cut out the trial lawyers. Would that immunize doctors from carelessness or negligence? No. The penalty would be losing your medical license. There is no more serious deterrent than forfeiting a decade of intensive medical training and the livelihood that comes with it.

Second, uncouple health insurance from employment and from geography:

(2) Real health-insurance reform: Tax employer-provided health care benefits and return the money to the employee with a government check to buy his own medical insurance, just as he buys his own car or home insurance.

There is no logical reason to get health insurance through your employer. This entire system is an accident of World War II wage and price controls. It's economically senseless. It makes people stay in jobs they hate, decreasing labor mobility and therefore overall productivity. And it needlessly increases the anxiety of losing your job by raising the additional specter of going bankrupt through illness. . . . If we additionally eliminated the prohibition on buying personal health insurance across state lines, that would inject new and powerful competition that would lower costs for everyone.

Good common-sense things to try which will lower the cost of medical care and reduce both the need for, and the cost of, health insurance.

Common Sense . . . Almost

I was reading about the California Woman who just gave birth to octuplets. The poor lady had 6 kids already.

It seems like the media has no shortage of advice and criticism for her. Some stories imply that any sane person would have aborted several of the babies, others wonder about a possible breach of medical ethics by the doctor who implanted 8 embryos in the first place.

I'm glad she didn't abort them, I do wonder about the doctor though. Fox news tries to at least be helpful

"Eating, sleeping and bathing are the key areas to get scheduled," he said. "The same goes for mom and dad. Parents need to make sure they're whole or else they won't be valuable to their children."

Good, so far so good, just good common sense, but then common sense seems to go right out the window:

Sophy said the expense of raising 14 children will likely be prohibitive, citing studies that estimate it costs roughly $2.5 million to raise a child to adulthood. Using that math, raising 14 children would cost roughly $35 million.

"And that's basic stuff," he said. "That doesn't include swimming lessons and things like that. It's very costly and hopefully the planning that needs to be done was done upfront."

What the heck? 2.5 million dollars? For one child? Who won't even know how to swim? I don't even have to think to know that that is patently absurd.

If your family makes $100,000 a year and spends every penny on only one child for 20 years that's still only 2 million dollars. Throw in a $100,000 college education, and another $100,000 for law school, and you're still not there.

Common sense should tell you that many people who don't earn 2.5 million dollars in their lifetime successfully raise children to adulthood. For example, the median income in the U.S. is about $50,000. that median earner will need 50 years to make 2.5 million. Obviously it doesn't cost them 2.5 million to raise one child.

The reporter makes matters worse by simply regurgitating the number and then calculating that it will take 35 million dollars to raise the 14 children in the family.

Absolutely ridiculous.

When Are You Moving?

WARNING: this is a LONG, dry, economics rant post. Beware!

"When are you moving?"

I get asked this question every time I mention that we live in Ogden, but I work in Provo. The people asking the question have a point. A 156 mile round-trip commute isn't the most pleasant part of my day, and on snow days I often can't get either down or back.

The short answer is . . . who knows!

Here follows the long answer:

I do know why we haven't moved yet. Besides the wonderful generosity of family, for which we are very grateful, housing prices are not . . . shall we say . . . stable. MSNBC has an article today about the housing market. Apparently none of the measures being taken by the Federal Reserve have done anything to stem the tide of foreclosures or to increase the number of homeowners or the median price of a house. They have a spiffy graphic showing what housing prices have done since 1999:

Now, this raises two questions in my mind.

1. Why are homes worth more in the middle of every year and less at the beginning and end?
2. How does this track with median income changes over the same period?

I have no comment on the first question, and I only asked the second because I already knew the answer. That's why I'm writing this post.

So, as to question 2 - the amount a family can afford to pay for a house is related to their income. "Well. . . duh!" you say. Bear with me. It's more obvious when you think about housing prices in terms of years of income. In the UK, for example, the size of a mortgage you can qualify for equals 3 times your annual income (ignoring all other factors). Thus if you earn $50,000, then you can get a $150,000 mortgage. The ratio in the US is a bit more generous, but, same idea. With that in mind, let's look at another chart (thank you Wikipedia):

If you'll notice, median income peaked in 1999. Since then it has declined.

Everyone assumes the housing market was healthy in 1999. So, we'll start there. In 1999 median income was about $46,000, and the average home cost about $138,000 (just eyeballing the chart for the end of the year). That works out to . . . let's see . . . carry the 2 . . . oh, yeah, 3 times the median income. Those mortgage people were on to something. I'll call this 3:1 ratio a "healthy ratio."

Now let's look at 2005. Housing prices that year were $230,000 for most of the year, while median income had declined to $45,326. That comes out to over 5 times the median income. Not a healthy ratio.

When I look at the numbers that way, it's perfectly obvious why houses aren't selling. The latest income figures available are for 2007. They show that median income has risen slightly since 2005. It was about $50,000 in 2007. the housing slump was in full swing in 2007, so for that year the ratio declined from 4.6 times median income to 4 times median income.

What really gives me pause is this:

Looking at the income chart, median income starts to slide before every recession, and continues to decline till well after the recovery is underway. As every news outlet in the country recent told us, we are in a recession. Chances are good, therefore, that median income is falling, and has been for a while. (we don't get income figures till after the fact).

If this is one of the sharpest recessions ever, as we are reminded daily, chances are median income will fall steeply, and housing prices will continue to follow until well after the recovery is underway.

With that in mind, I'm going to make some predictions. Since they will be memorialized on the internet, we'll all see what my predictions are worth in a few years. (it's really win-win: if, as is most likely, I'm wrong, you'll all know to stop wasting your time reading my blog, and I'll know to keep my mouth shut on topics of which I am ignorant). These are also the reasons, in my mind, we aren't moving yet:

• I think housing prices will return to something much closer to the "healthy" 3:1 ratio they were at in 1999.
• Prices won't even begin to recover until unemployment starts to fall, and median income starts to increase at the earliest. (probably more like 6 months later).
• All the fancy things lenders did to make up for the increasing gap between income and housing prices are gone for good.
• I think the national median home price will easily fall below $150,000

I think the low prices will stay around a while because 1) All the speculators fueling shows like "Flip this House" lost their shirts (and good riddance), and 2) Lenders will be gun shy for a while, given the number of banks that went under from bad mortgages.

We'll see what happens, but I'm not optimistic for the next few years.


PS - Sorry for the abrupt ending, I tried to think of a good closing with a smooth transition and a hard-hitting conclusion, but I couldn't. The thoughts have stopped, hence so does the post.

...

Apparently I Don't Understand Economics

We all know inflation is bad. Rising prices devalue our money and make it harder to buy things. Apparently the opposite is also bad. Deflation - falling prices - is also bad for the economy, at least according to economists quoted by MSNBC.

“A benign decline in prices amidst a sluggish but recovering economy would be unwelcome but tolerable,” Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg wrote in a note to clients this week.

Unwelcome to whom, Mr. Rosenberg? I know plenty of people who like to pay less for goods of all types. I've heard of weirdos who like to pay more, but they're much more rare.

“But the price slashing now under way as the consumer beats a hasty retreat could allow that corrosive deflationary spiral to take hold — something the Fed wants to avoid at all costs.”

The Fed wants to avoid falling prices "at all costs?" boy, with friends like that, who needs enemies?

As I said, I'm not an economist, but perhaps someone who is could answer this question for me:

If inflation is bad and deflation is bad, then what, precisely, do you expect prices to do?

Should a pound of cheese always have the same price? If so, then the USSR had this economics thing all figured out. They just printed the price right on the label. Year after year a jar of tomato sauce was 40 kopeks. Your parents paid 40 kopeks and, by darn, your children would pay 40 kopeks. Is that the answer?

The problem I have with this idea is that (as I have learned both in life, and in school), in a market, there needs to be a mechanism to balance supply and demand. That mechanism is price. If I want 40 dollars for a widget, and you don't think it is worth 40 dollars, guess what? No sale. Deflation has to occur to meet your demand.

At this point any "real economist" is probably either rolling on the floor laughing, pulling out his hair in frustration, or muttering incoherently about Econ 110 having no relationship to "real economics."

Well, maybe not - but the economists in the MSNBC story seem to have nothing but contempt for consumers. They give the distinct impression that they believe the average of consumers' judgments about the worth of goods (otherwise known as the 'market price') is wrong, and that they, the "elite" know what things are worth.

Pardon my skepticism, but are these the same "elite" who have guided our economy to it's current prosperous state? The ones who never saw the housing bubble coming? Who watched house prices rise 10% per year as wages rose 2% and saw nothing to worry about? Who thought sub-prime mortgages were a terrific idea? Or, a little farther back, thought stratospheric stock prices for unprofitable .com businesses were just the "new economy?" Or thought that Pres. Bush's tax cuts would unacceptably reduce govt. revenue? or that Reagan's tax cuts would do nothing the stimulate the economy? Or thought that Sweden was a model of a well-run economy?

Now who should be laughing?

I'll say it again. Economics is not a science. It is a pseudoscience. Any claims to truth or predictive ability that it makes are a fraud.

Economics is a descriptive art - like psychology. Also like psychology, it has no power to predict future behavior because every person in the system is an agent unto herself, and not an automaton. This is why no one saw this crisis coming. Economists admit that this is unprecedented and was almost completely unforeseen - and they are right - they just don't see it as a failure of their 'science.'

Economics is (at best) a social science, a descriptive study of human behavior. It is individual psychology mis-applied to huge groups of people, and it goes through fads just like any other field of study. It also has its quacks like any other field. Keep this in mind next time an economist claims to know something.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)

(I've been itching to write this post for a while now, and since I'm stuck at work waiting for a massive file copy to finish, here you go).
One of the environmental/no oil crowd's biggest success has been halting oil drilling in ANWR. to justify it they show pictures of the refuge such as this:

Beautiful, who'd want to put a stinky old oil rig there?
And this:

awwww, look at the cute little squirrel, the poor thing must be afraid of the noisy oil well, poor little guy!
What they don't tell you is neither of these pictures is from the area where drilling is proposed. They are from the permanent wilderness area far to the south. No one is suggesting drilling there.
This is where the oil is:

Oh, wait, that's the winter picture, of course it's just a bunch of ice, it's Alaska for crying out loud! I wouldn't want to be accused of falsifying it's true beauty by showing it out of season. Here's the summer view:

Much prettier, no? I hear it often hits 40 degrees in July. Parts of it even grow grass as you'll see. But that's beside the point; it's the wildlife that will really suffer!
The best indication of the horrors that await the caribou and the other wildlife of ANWR can be found by looking at the sad plight of their brethren right down the coast in Prudhoe Bay who are already suffering the effects of the unfettered greed and environmental indifference of Big Oil! BEHOLD THE CARNAGE!!!!

Note the oil drilling operation and pipeline behind all the rotting carcases. . . what? . . . wait a second . . . those caribou aren't dead, they're eating and resting with their young!. . . huh? . . . well I'm sure they're scared of all the development! you'd never see them get any closer than that to an oil rig!

. . . like right on the access road . . . D'oh! Well, caribou aren't the brightest . . .  savvy predators, like bears, surely understand the danger posed by the human intruders!


well, OK. . . those are just dumb brown bears. Polar bears would never. . .

. . . ah, but small animals, like birds, would be driven away by the . . .

. . . they may hunt, but they'd never nest near an oil rig . . .

Um . . . Ok. Maybe we should learn from the other Alaska coastal drilling sites and not hyperventilate over ANWR.

Current Oil and Gas Prices are Self-inflicted Wounds

For several reasons, I always enjoy finding articles that summarize everything I've been thinking on a current issue. First, it confirms what I've always thought - "I'm a smart guy." Second, it saves me the trouble of composing long blog posts - I can just cut, paste and link. Much easier.
so I'm glad I found this post on the real political and historical reasons for the current "energy crisis."
Short version: Congressional dismay about high gas prices is like me blindfolding myself and then complaining when I bump into things a lot.
Long Version:

Americans feeling the pinch at the pump should recognize that the wealthiest nation on the planet has nothing but itself to blame for the third in a series of energy crises that began when Richard Nixon was still in office.
Having largely ignored the previous two shots across the bow — the first coming in 1973 when OPEC decided to ban sales of oil to nations that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and the second in 1979 after the Islamic Revolution in Iran — the U.S. seems determined to repeat the mistakes of the past.

What should make Americans on both sides of the aisle even more ashamed is that before the first energy crisis, the United States produced 11.428 million barrels of oil per day. This represented 66 percent of the 17.308 million barrels we consumed that year.
Compare that to 2007, when America produced 8.481 million barrels per day, or only 41 percent of the 20.7 million barrels consumed. Such is the result of the so-called energy policies of seven White Houses and 17 Congresses controlled by both Democrats and Republicans.

Yet, today’s politicians — mostly on the left side of the aisle, of course — have the gall to place all the blame for rising energy prices on increased demand from expanding economies like China and India.
At least those countries are participating in exploration efforts to expand their own supplies. China’s oil production has almost doubled since 1980, while India’s has grown by an astounding 375 percent. At the same time, U.S. production has declined by 22 percent. . .
Closer to home, our neighbors also ramped up oil production. To the south, Mexico has seen its crude output jump 64 percent since 1980, while Canada’s increased 85 percent.
Did I mention that our production declined by 22 percent in the same period?
Putting this in its proper perspective, if America had responded to the second energy crisis by increasing oil production only at the average rate of our North American neighbors, we’d currently be supplying ourselves with 18.86 million barrels of crude per day, or 91 percent of our usage.

It's not as if we don't have the oil available. According to an April 2006 study done for the Library of Congress:

Oil shale is prevalent in the western states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. The resource potential of these shales is estimated to be the equivalent of 1.8 trillion barrels of oil in place. . . . In comparison, Saudi Arabia reportedly holds proved reserves of 267 billion barrels.

That doesn't include ANWR, and it doesn't include offshore drilling.
The real problem, I believe, is that liberals, and environmentalists in particular, want oil to be expensive. Read the words of Sen. Obama when ask his opinion of high oil prices:

I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money in their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more rapidly, particularly U.S. automakers.

I think most people fail to see the need for an adjustment at all. the article points out that Democrats don't have this attitude about other scarce "resources."

Why has one political party for nearly four decades viewed energy crises through the narrow prism of learning to adjust to higher prices and declining resources, as opposed to aggressively finding and producing more of what the country and the economy needs?

Such questions seem particularly relevant given how this same party views hunger in our nation and throughout the world. The answer isn’t for those that have less to make an adjustment and adapt to their impoverished condition. 'Adjust to having less' is certainly not the Left’s prescription for Americans lacking health insurance.

Democrats want government to increase the supply of food and medical care to those deemed financially incapable of providing for themselves.
Why doesn’t the same hold true for energy?

Discriminatory Dollars

A federal court ruled today that the treasury department discriminates against the blind by . . . get this . . . printing money!
Well, not exactly. But, the court did rule that the fact that different denominations aren't distinguishable by touch violates the Rehabilitation Act. In essence, the government needs to make sure that blind people can tell a $5 from a $10 from a $20 by touch.
I'm not saying this isn't a problem, but where does it end? Aren't the Homeland Security color alerts discriminatory? How does someone know what an "orange" threat level is if they've never seen color?
There's no really effective way to comply with this decision. Make each denomination a different size? won't they need to carry several reference cards for comparison? (not to mention the forced redesign or replacement of every single vending machine / ATM / counting machine / ticket machine / cash register / wallet in the country). Print raised marks on the bills? That will last until the bill gets wadded up or washed, and what a great way to counterfeit! a few minutes with a needle, and viola! all my ones are twenties. Texture? How many different textures are there, and do they survive wadding?
Some difficulty is, I think, an inevitable result of blindness. That's why it is called a handicap. There's nothing wrong with trying to help the blind, but I don't think the court thought this one through.
Incidentally, I'm not simply being "ableist", the American Federation for the Blind opposes changing the money too.

Surprised Economists

I've been struck repeatedly over the last few years by how many stories about the economy contain phrases along the lines of "economists were surprised by..."
It seems like they are surprised by any economic news that comes out. Something is always more or less than predictions, and not by just a little, but by orders of magnitude. For example, economists were surprised again today by job numbers and factory orders. (Incidentally, I wish I'd got to this earlier, the wording earlier today was different, the "news people" softened their description of how surprising the numbers were).

a government report showed the nation’s employers cut far fewer jobs than expected last month, stirring optimism about the buoyancy of the economy. . .
The Labor Department’s report that employers cut 20,000 jobs in April was a relief to Wall Street, which had been expecting payrolls to fall by 75,000 jobs. . .
The Commerce Department said U.S. manufacturers saw orders increase 1.4 percent in March. Economists expected a 0.2 percent increase after declines in January and February.

They were expecting 75000 fewer jobs. They were only off by 275% This one isn't sooooo bad, after all there are a lot of jobs in the nation, and the usual gains are 200-300 thousand. Maybe they had a bad day. But, 0.2 versus 1.4? That's off by 600% and the viable range on those numbers is never more than a few percentage points.
I can only think of 3 explanations for the constant stream of these stories:

• First, the stupid economists are the only ones giving interviews.
• Second, these are the smart ones, and even they don't know what they are talking about.
• Third, and this is my theory: You cannot reduce the countless individual choices of a quarter billion people to a formula with any degree of accuracy.

This may disappoint some of my economist friends, but economics is NOT a hard science, it is a descriptive science. It is valuable when looking retrospectively, but absolutely useless as a tool for precise prediction.
Economics is not the only 'science' with this problem. Political science, sociology, psychology, and even, to some extent biology have the same shortcoming. This is because they are trying to predict the actions of beings with souls and free will. In such cases, the best you can do is averages and general trends.
That doesn't mean they are not worthwhile tools, but their practitioners need to recognize the limits of their science and not advocate more detailed policies than the science can support.

Unity, Dissent and Patriotism

I am currently reading Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg who is one of my favorite columnists. His articles alone are worth the cost of my National Review subscription.
In the latest issue, Goldberg writes about Barrack Obama and his call for "unity." He relates it to the general liberal failure to understand patriotism. Liberals think patriotic conservatives are fascists, but united liberals are patriotic. Unfortunately, the whole article is only available to subscribers. Some highlights:

When John McCain released an ad calling himself the “American president Americans have been waiting for,” one could hear outraged caterwauling from the Democratic jungle: What’s John McCain trying to say? We’re un-American? Who’s he calling unpatriotic? Fred Barnes, writing in The Weekly Standard, calls this anticipatory offense “patriotism paranoia.” Indeed, there does seem to be psychological insecurity on display. If I say to a male friend, “Those are nice shoes,” and he responds with “How dare you call me gay!” it’s fair to say he’s the guy with the issues. . .
Part of the problem is that many on the left think patriotism is essentially fascist, another name for nationalism and jingoism. And some may use it that way — but some may also call a duck a “cat,” which doesn’t mean we should all be hostage to this usage. The misuse of “patriotism” and “dissent” is worse, because a country without a word to describe its love for what is best within it is a country ill-equipped to defend what is best within it. . .

Barack Obama and other Democrats use the word “unity” as a substitute for something like “patriotism.” They consider “questioning the patriotism” of Democrats — even when it’s not actually being questioned — beyond the pale and “divisive.”

But, unity itself is inherently neither good nor bad.

Unity by itself has no moral worth whatsoever. The only value of unity is strength, strength in numbers — and, again, that is a fascist value. That’s the symbolism of the fasces, the bundle of sticks that in combination are invincible. Rape gangs and lynch mobs? Unified. The mafia? Unified. The SS? They had unity coming out the yinyang. Meanwhile, Socrates, Jesus, Thomas More, and an endless line of nameless souls were dispatched from this earth in the name of unity.

Our government is set up specifically to discourage too much unity. Unfettered unity is really just the tyranny of the majority:

The founding fathers dedicated a great deal of thought to the subject of unity, and they found it was something to view with skepticism at best and, more often than not, with fear. Hence we have a constitution designed to thwart the baser forms of unity. Our government is set up so that the Senate cools the populist passion of the House, the executive thwarts the passions of the legislature and vice versa, and the Supreme Court checks the whole lot, to which its composition is in turn ultimately subject. “Divisiveness” — the setting of faction against faction, one branch of government against another, and the sovereignty of the individual above the group — was for the founders the great guarantor of our liberties and the source of civic virtue.

Liberals also confuse dissent and patriotism. Like unity, dissent is by itself is neither good nor bad.

Or consider this supposedly brilliant bumper-sticker insight: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Mark Steyn has had great fun with that line, pointing out that Thomas Jefferson — usually credited as its author — never said anything of the sort. Steyn traces the fakery back to a 1991 quote from Nadine Strossen, the head of the ACLU, an organization with a vested interest in putting the founders’ imprimatur on relentless knee-jerk complaining. . .

It is worth pointing out that if Jefferson had in fact said something like that, he would have been what social scientists call a moron. As John O’Sullivan once noted, tongue firmly in cheek, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Treason is the highest form of dissent. Therefore treason is the highest form of patriotism.” Yet when you listen to the verbal contortions many on the left go through to defend the New York Times’s efforts to reveal national-security secrets, or to journalists who think expressing open sympathy for America in the international arena is a grave sin, or simply to the usual battiness of countless America-haters, you can appreciate the wisdom of the Italian proverb that the truest things are said in jest.

Equating dissent and patriotism is an egregious example of moral equivocation:

Now it must be said that no conservative standing upon the shoulders of Burke, Nock, Buckley, Hayek, Goldwater, and Reagan would for a moment dispute the suggestion that dissent for the right reason can be one high form of patriotism. But it depends on the reason. The dissenter-for-dissent’s-sake is among the most common species of pest in the human ecosystem. The reflexive contrarian who cares not what he is contradicting is quite simply the most useless of citizens.

When confronted with the assertion that the Soviet Union and the United States were moral equivalents, William F. Buckley Jr. famously responded that if one man pushes an old lady into an oncoming bus and another man pushes an old lady out of the way of a bus, we should not denounce them both as men who push old ladies around. Likewise, we should not say that the man who dissents from a church-burning mob and the man who dissents from a fire brigade are morally equivalent “dissenters.”

Liberals try to end debate by calling for unity and labeling principled objection as cynical and divisive:

Rightly ordered unity in a democratic republic is the end result of ceaseless debate and discussion. But today, ceaseless debate and discussion is precisely what many liberals object to. As Al Gore is fond of saying about global warming, “The time for debate is over.” Legions of liberals insist that we must move beyond ideology and partisan differences on this, that, and the other. But have you ever heard anyone say that we need to “move beyond ideology” for the sake of bipartisan unity and then abandon his own position? Of course not. When someone says that we need to get past labels and move beyond ideology, what he means is that you need to drop your principled objections and get with the program.

So, what is patriotism really? I like the description above. It is the word we used to describe our love for what is best within our country.

Do We Get the Government We Deserve?

WARNING: Another long post ahead!
I got a question from a relative that I've also wondered about for a while:

Are the people ultimately responsible for bad government policies? The people elect the government officials or give way to small interest groups by not voting, but the government officials often get elected on false promises and demagoguery. Are the people to blame for being ignorant and believing the demagoguery? What is a better way to obtain the voice of the people if voting doesn't work? Do electoral colleges in theory vote for what the people really want regardless of how they vote?

This is a question I've struggled with for years. On my more cynical days, I tend to think ignorant voters are responsible for bad government, and that all politics is a beauty contest. But, on my more thoughtful days, I think there are several things to consider.
First, I think local and state elected officials better reflect the views of their constituents than federal officials do (usually). You've heard the saying "all politics is local." Well, this used to be literally true. Really until the 20th century, the individual had almost no contact with the federal government. Issues from taxes to schools to roads were all local issues. People are much better able to be educated on local issues than national ones simply because they are better acquainted with the areas and people involved. Demagoguery is less apt to succeed, and false promises are more swiftly punished at the local level. But the modern federal bureaucracy has expanded so much that it intrudes more and more into areas that used to be the province of local government (e.g. No Child Left Behind, Interstate Highways, Medicare and Medicaid, Income Taxes). The federal government has so many more voices clamoring for attention that it will seem unresponsive to almost everyone. The media coverage of issues makes this worse. Federal elections and issues get a disproportionate share of coverage and analysis.
Second, this problem is compounded by the fact that Congress has delegated much policy-making authority to agencies, and exercises little oversight. Courts, too, regularly defer to agency judgments. So policies are set by agencies rather than elected officials. Congress likes it that way because they don't have to take responsibility for controversial policies. They can blame the "current administration" that chooses the agency heads. Agencies take on a life of their own and their inherent inertia and resistance to change means that they far outlast any presidential administration, and almost any national outcry for change. (you could call this the 1st Law of Government Dynamics: an agency once created can never be destroyed, only converted into another agency).
Third, the two-party system restricts the range of possible actions on any issue to basically two: the Republican party line, and the Democrat party line. Any widespread public desire for government action is taken up by a political party and filtered through the lens of their platform. On the other hand, issues that don't agitate a sufficient number of people tend not to be championed by either party, and thus never come up for debate in Federal elections.
Fourth, we are a victim of our freedom. People don't get too worked up about things that don't directly affect them; and despite all our complaints, most of us just aren't that affected by government. We go about our lives without any direct consequences for voting liars and demagogues into office. (see my sixth point about having a "stake" in the outcome). We vote for the one who says all the right things, then don't bother to hold them to it because we don't feel the effects of the lie. Someone wise once said something to the effect of "limitations on freedom are more readily accepted in big things than in little ones." As long as the government doesn't interfere with our little everyday things, we don't get too worked up over it. We get worked up over taxes, for example, because we pay them all the time. Hence the tax code is revised every year, sometimes substantially. This, in part, is why the Soviet Union fell. It tried to control too many little things. This also may be why China's Communists have survived. People can make small decisions with relative freedom, and TVs and Gameboys are available. A little repression of dissidents doesn't bother anyone too much. The Scriptural warning about "flaxen cords" comes to mind.
Fifth, people really don't care. Most people don't understand the hot-button issues, and don't care that they don't know. The only time most people see and hear presidential candidates is in (scripted) televised debates, the nightly news, or MTV's rock the vote. All that sticks is the 4 word sound-bite message. Most people see even less of Senate and House candidates, and nothing at all about state legislative races beyond the (R) or (D) after the name. Being a political wonk takes time and effort. Few of us have the time or interest to become specialists, (and even fewer are touched in the head enough to enjoy it as I am).
Sixth, and this is going to be politically incorrect to say, but the expansion of the vote has made voter apathy worse. Originally the vote was limited to white male land owners. They were seen as the ones who had a stake in the decisions the government made. They stood to lose property, and were thus more motivated to study and debate the issues. By expansion, I don't mean giving the vote to women and blacks, there's nothing wrong with that, I mean giving the vote to those who have no "stake" in the outcome. Now that everyone over 18 can vote, many people simply have nothing at stake. The one who wins won't affect them in any way. Even worse, candidates can now promise to give money out if they are elected, whether you are talking about tax rebates or welfare benefits, it is all just a matter of giving people a stake in the election that they wouldn't otherwise have, and a reason to vote for candidate X. So, for many people, the decision boils down to "None of this will affect me, but candidate X will give me $500, so I might as well vote for him."
In summary, voter apathy is partly to blame, but I think the structure of our system is a big factor, particularly the waning of states' rights and the rise of our current massive federal bureaucracy. People just can't keep track of all issues, and naturally they tend to react to local issues, or national issues that impact them personally such as taxes, marriage, etc.
As to what is a better way? Who knows. As stated in my post on the electoral college, our system originally was attuned to the voice of the people on the state level. Federal bodies were not directly elected, with the exception of the House of Representatives. This allowed people to focus on issues on the state level where government is more responsive. The state then relayed the voice of the the people to the federal Congress and the President who never directly regulated individuals. The state officials then were accountable to the voters of the state. Currently the House and Senate are both directly elected, and the Presidential electors are tied into the two-party system, so the state government really has little to say on the federal level. Your state government can perfectly reflect your views, and be very responsive, but can't influence who holds federal office.

The Electoral College (part I)

Now, for those of you not put to sleep by the title, there is a new push by Sen. Nelson (D) of Florida to abolish the electoral college.

As the state now wrestles with the national Democratic Party to find a solution to seat its 210 delegates at this year’s presidential nominating convention, Nelson noted that “the solution is very elusive,” but that, “If nothing else, this election has provided further evidence that our system is broken.”

First of all, our system is not broken. This election has shown nothing of the sort. The primary elections are not part of the 'system.' They are internal party affairs, and any problems are entirely the fault of the political parties. Leave the electoral college out of it Senator!
Is the U.S. Senate 'evidence' that our system is broken? NO, of course not, it's evidence of federalism. The senate and the electoral college are the two main forums in which states play a role in federal decisions.
Senator Nelson on TV yesterday was urging the abolition of the electoral college in the interests of the principle of "one person, one vote." Each and every person already has one vote, at the state level.
What many people don't realize is the the U.S. has no national elections, NONE. We never have. Every election is a state election, including the one for president. our Federal government is formed not from the top down, but from the bottom up, by the states.
Representative are elected at the state level, then each state sends theirs to Washington, where together they form the House of Representatives. Similarly, Senators are elected at the state level (they used to be appointed by the state government) and sent to Washington to form the Senate.
The election of the President is no different. Electors are chosen at the state level (and they don't have to be elected at all, they can simply be appointed - Const. art. II sec. 1), and are then sent to Washington where they form the electoral college. That college exists for the sole purpose of choosing the president, and they can choose whomever they want. The Senate and House of Representatives count the electoral college votes together and the person with the most becomes the president. After the President is chosen, the electoral college is dissolved until the next presidential election. In the event no candidate gets a majority of the electoral vote, the House of Representatives chooses the president, and each state gets one vote.
The system is perfectly consistent as it is. The state plays an integral role in forming both the legislative and the executive branches of the Federal Government. The individual has a vote and a voice in every election, but it is at the state level. I don't see a good reason to disrupt this. . .
(to be continued . . .)

From the files of Big Brother

The nanny state continues it's malignant growth. A Tyranny Update from Walter Williams via Townhall.com:

The California Energy Commission has recently proposed amendments to its standards for energy efficiency... These standards include a requirement that any new or modified heating or air conditioning system must include a programmable communicating thermostat (PCT) whose settings can be remotely controlled by government authorities. A thermostat czar, sitting in Sacramento, would be empowered to remotely reduce the heating or cooling of your house during what he deems as an "emergency event."... the thermostat must be configured in a way that doesn't allow the customer to override the czar's decision.

Get ready for mandated 68 degrees in the winter and 78 degrees in the summer. Babies, illness or personal preferences be damned! Will Californians really put up with this? I hope not, because California lunacy has the tendency to spread. Forget the Mexican border fence, let's start work on the California border fence. We'll make it like the Berlin Wall. We'll welcome all escapees, but won't let them return.

Someone has to save them...

Why I Quit the Social Sciences

MSNBC has an encouraging headline today:

Bucking the trend in many other wealthy industrialized nations, the United States seems to be experiencing a baby boomlet, reporting the largest number of children born in 45 years.

The nearly 4.3 million births in 2006 were mostly due to a bigger population, especially a growing number of Hispanics. That group accounted for nearly one-quarter of all U.S. births. But non-Hispanic white women and other racial and ethnic groups were having more babies, too....

The same report also showed births becoming more common in nearly every age and racial or ethnic group. Birth rates increased for women in their 20s, 30s and early 40s, not just teens. They rose for whites, blacks, Hispanics, American Indians and Alaska Natives.

If I were to guess at the reasons, I would say things like: "people are confident in the future" or "people are well-to-do enough that they can support a larger family" or simply "Americans love family and value children."

According to "the experts," however, I would be mistaken. The actual reasons, of course, are:

a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty.

Huh??? That the stupidest thing I've read in weeks. I must have missed the Supreme Court's over-ruling of Roe v. Wade, and the onset of the current Depression with its widespread poverty. I'm sorry, but poor education does NOT explain an increase in fertility among women in their 30s and 40s.

This is a prime example of social science failing to see the trees for the forest (to turn the metaphor around). They are taking a generalization and applying it to a specific case (the U.S.) which may not fit the generalization. All this "expert" did was think of the generalizations commonly used to explain the decline in fertility which usually accompanies economic development, then... and this is a basic logical fallacy... assumed that since fertility increased, the level of development as measured by the above factors must have declined.

Anyone who has had any logic training at all knows that:

If A (development), then B (lower fertility)
Not B,
ergo not A

is not logically sound.

That is what I hated about the social sciences. They all seem to believe that because the group acts a certain way on average, individuals within the group act the same way. No allowance is made for individual choice or action. Everything is averages, means and standard deviations.

Social Science cannot explain individual cases that deviate from the norm. It cannot account for Ghandi or Hitler, Mother Teresa or Stalin, the Pioneers or the Crusades, Jim Jones or Jesus Christ, and it cannot, apparently, explain why Americans love and value children more than Europeans do.

America is not Rome

There's a great article on National Review's site today. It's nice to read something positive about America hidden among all the negativity. The author's main point is that there have been a series of "crises" over the last century. Over and over, we were supposed to be replaced by a new superpower, or a new economic system. Over and over, all have failed.

Our Constitution is the oldest written constitution in the world. Our economy is open, efficient, and above all, flexible. But the best line of the whole article is this one:

"Does merit — or religion, tribe, or class — mostly gauge success or failure in America? What nation is as free, stable, and transparent as the U.S.? Try becoming a fully accepted citizen of China or Japan if you were not born Chinese or Japanese. Try running for national office in India from the lower caste. Try writing a critical op-ed in Russia or hiring a brilliant female to run a mosque, university, or hospital in most of the Middle East."

In America people rise based on merit, not the station or tribe they were born into. Merit is largely the sum total of a lifetime of individual choices; it is moral agency at work. That is the reason for our strength.

you can read the whole article here:

"No Decline Here"