I like Humphries’ world of “bean growers” and “bean counters” where: bean counters are those folks who love balance sheets, think profits just magically happen, and that the counting of the beans is far more important than the growing of beans; and where bean growers are the folks who actually create wealth producing beans. But I’d add to the growers and counters: the “bean sellers” who neither produce nor count beans but rather convince people to acquire more beans than they need and move beans from the bean seller’s pile to customers’ piles, keeping a few beans for themselves for each move; and lawyers and managers of people who don’t grow, count or move beans and don’t know anything about beans at all but nevertheless tell everybody else what they should or should not do with beans --- amassing great amounts of beans in the process.

There is a broad range of possible outcomes to any situation, and each outcome has associated with it some good (benefit) and some bad (cost), optimism (seeing only the good) and pessimism (seeing only the bad) are merely the extremes on a continuous line, not either/or choices.

I’m not sure what gamblers would have thought about Valley Forge. Some might have despaired and bet against George Washington, some may have bet for him out of pure optimism. But most of the card players I know would first have considered both the odds and payoffs of both positions (fighting or not fighting), and bet accordingly. If Washington’s troops were professional gamblers, they would have fought not because they were absolutely convinced they could win, but because what they would gain from wining made up for the low odds of victory --- a “give me liberty or give me death” sort of thing.

I think Americans and their leaders have been mainly realists. Valley Forge and Midway are examples of battles fought knowingly against the odds because of the huge outsized benefits of victory over defeat. I think less glorious military endeavors in American history such as Viet Nam were lost because we entered the battle first with an overly optimistic view of what it would take to win, and second, with much more to loose than to gain. That’s a really bad foundation for a bet, and in the end we recognized its stupidity and folded our hand, just as any reasonable gambler would have done.

Sowell says “One of the many symptoms of this decay from within is that we are preoccupied with the pay of corporate executives while the leading terrorist-sponsoring nation on earth is moving steadily toward creating nuclear bombs”, but he’s way off base --- what terrorists may or may not be doing with nuclear bombs is one issue (obviously of huge importance) but that doesn’t mean corporate salaries isn’t also an issue of some importance. Most Americans are able to deal with more than one issue at the same time if they choose to do so. Overpay of corporate executives itself is a weakening force in America because it demoralizes the workers who do their best for their companies and see the executives pocket an unearned portion of the fruits of the workers’ labor, and it refocuses workers attention from doing their jobs well to seeking impossible personal financial goals no matter what the cost to their company, especially in the long term. Corporate officers lead by example, and if the example they set is “give me a bigger share of the corporate pie”, they should expect workers (and their unions) to also fight for a bigger share. Sowell says “Does anyone imagine that we will care what anyone's paycheck is when we see an American city in radioactive ruins?“ Should anyone not care what is in their paycheck when American cities are not in ruin? And if they shouldn’t care about the size of their paycheck, why are corporate executives fighting so hard for their huge compensation.

Sowell says “It took only two nuclear bombs to get Japan to surrender-- and the Japanese of that era were far tougher than most Americans today. Just one bomb-- dropped on New York, Chicago or Los Angeles-- might be enough to get us to surrender”. It took only two bombs for the Japanese to surrender because they recognized and understood that we could bomb them out of existence and they could do nothing to stop us --- the probability of their victory was zero and the cost of that continuing to fight was in effect infinite (utter destruction), while the cost of surrender was large but finite. We, on the other hand, have several actions we can take in response to nuclear attack, including nuclear retaliation. To assume that a few bombs will force us into surrender is an assumption unsupported by evidence and in direct contradiction to what America did after 911 --- counterattack.

Sowell says “The dumbing down of our education, the undermining of moral values with the fad of "non-judgmental" affectations, the denigration of our nation through poisonous propaganda from the movies to the universities. The list goes on and on”. He should add to the list the ravings of single-issue columnists oblivious to the complexity of the real world.

I think Sowell misunderstands WW-II’s war in the Pacific. Japan might have defeated our naval forces and taken Hawaii and perhaps the Aleutians but they did not have sufficient population or supply chain to occupy the continental US --- if they tried they would have met the same fate Germany met in Russia, Russia met in Afghanistan, and we met in Viet Nam. And in the long run, Japan plus the territories Japan could successfully occupy could not out produce us and would collapse under its own economic troubles, just as the Russian Communist empire fell to the US and its allies in a long term economic competition.

Re: Townhall.com – 1/5/2009 – “Terrorists’  Rights Verses Crime Prevention” – Rachel Alexander

Alexander says “Civil libertarians, including prominent conservatives like Rep. Ron Paul and former Rep. Bob Barr … have protested the detainment and interrogation methods used on suspected terrorists at Gitmo, wiretapping, and other methods of surveillance. They don’t represent the majority of Americans, many who privately say anyone involved with terrorism should be executed”. Alexander confuses the “suspected terrorists” of Paul and Barr with the “terrorists” that the majority of Americans have little sympathy for (but who do not necessarily want to see them executed since the majority of Americans are against the death penalty) with those “involved with terrorism” (an ambiguous class of individuals presumably including relatives of terrorists). Alexander’s failure to make these distinctions illustrates a profound lack of understanding of the spirit and letter of the Constitution as it was written.

Alexander says “While some of these “rights” make sense in order to prevent the government from falsely imprisoning innocent people, at some point there is a line where these specified additional “rights” for suspected terrorists begin to infringe upon the rights of innocent Americans. How these terrorists’ “rights” have been created and defined has mostly been decided in the U.S. courts by judges, not by Congress, by overturning legislation passed by Congress and signed by the President.”  Those familiar with the Constitution might agree that the “necessary and proper” clause [Article 1 Section 8 #18] and the “Habeas Corpus” clause’s exception for “Rebellion or Invasion” [Article 1 Section 9 #2] appear to give Congress the power to deny such rights from “suspects”. The “Executive Vesting” clause [Article 2 Section 1 #1] gives the President the power to unilaterally issue executive orders (actually more like “regulations” than laws) under the Presidents unique role as “Commander in Chief” of the armed forces and “Commander of Militia” [Article 2 Section 2 #1] that may affect civilians during declared emergencies, but it is unclear how executive orders could apply beyond this. Over time, “activist judges“ have extended the scope of Presidential powers beyond what seems to be the Constitution’s original intent, especially in the area of law enforcement [Nixon vs Fitzgerald (1982)]. However, all this is moot, because the Bill of Rights, which succeeds the above mentioned clauses of the Constitution, puts limits on Presidential or Legislative action that stops the President of the Legislature from denying any rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights from anyone (except active military or militia in times of war or public danger), even suspected terrorists. Those rights are protected from governmental denial based on any and all presumed authorization under the preceding provisions of the Constitution. In fact, it is only “activist judges” who could take away such protection --- non-activist judges would protect those clear Constitutional rights from the abuse of the President or the Legislature.

Alexander says “Many of the anti-terrorism methods being attacked by civil libertarians involve new methods and areas of communication never addressed nor contemplated by the Constitution or Congress”. Airplanes and their use in war were unknown, unimagined, and unaddressed in the Constitution, but only an idiot would conclude that an Air Force could not be funded by the Legislature, ruled by the regulations of the Legislature or commanded by the President under the constitutional provisions for the land and naval forces. So why should the right of citizens to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” against searches and seizures [4-th Amendment] exclude e-mail communication. If the air force is a military branch, then why aren’t private e-mails papers?

Alexander says “there is no absolute right to be free of wiretapping regardless of who you are, there is always some way to get an emergency order authorizing one”. Alexander is correct --- there is a way, and that way is specified explicitly in the 4-th Amendment as “upon probable cause, supported by an oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” and in the 5-th Amendment requirement for the “due process of law “.  Court decisions, dating back to 1765 England, form an extensive set of precedents defining when and how these clauses are to be implemented.  Only the most activist judge would ever find that the Legislature or President may overturn these standards without court muster.

I personally believe that certain constitutional protections should not have been extended to non-citizens, especially to non-citizens acting outside the boundaries of the United States, and believe that “Military Regulations” clause [Article 1 Section 8 #14] gives sufficient authority for Legislature to define what rights non-citizens have in foreign conflicts pretty much without Court review. But as a loyal American familiar with the terms of the Constitution, I recognize the power of the Court to step in to stop actions beyond what the Constitution allows for US citizens. And no one can convince me that military regulations or executive orders or any other means of action by the Legislative or Executive branch can interfere with the Court’s responsibility to protect US citizens from government violation of their rights, even citizens suspected of being involved with terrorism.

Alexander says “Failing to take precautions to prevent” some action “tramples on the rights of innocent Americans”. But isn’t that what people always say when they want to take your rights away from you --- If we give people this right (say free speech, commercial rights, the right to bear arms, etc), some people will use their freedom to do you harm (speak poorly of you, sell you defective dangerous merchandise, shoot you. etc) so to protect you from them we must deny people (and you) this right. If Alexander thinks that 4th and 5th Amendment rights are too easily abused by evil people hiding their activities from the government to allow ordinary citizens these rights, I say Alexander is already very far down that slippery slope toward dictatorship.

Re: The Heritage Foundation – Issues – Education – 1/26/2009 – “Ten Reasons Why the “Economic Stimulus” Should Not Include Education Spending” – Dan Lips

There are lots of different “stimulus” proposals. I’d like to address just one set, “Postsecondary Education Programs”, and explain why Lips is wrong about several of the “Top Ten Reasons Why this Education Spending Plan Is the Wrong Approach”.

Reason 1. “Increasing federal spending on education will not improve the economy” I find it hard to believe that Lips can believe that improving the intellectual skills of the labor pool by producing more college educated workers will not help the economy. Federal student scholarship support has been a major reason why the number of college educated citizens is as high as it is, especially among the lower economic classes. Whatever Lips’ personal beliefs are about the efficiency of private vs government spending, surely even Lips must admit that there is far less private scholarship aid than needed to meet demand, or that college managed federal scholarship support is any less efficient than privately funded scholarship support.

Reason 2. “A federal bailout for state governments is irresponsible” Lips says “shifting the burden from states and localities to federal taxpayers is irresponsible, since funding public education is primarily a state and local, rather than federal, responsibility”. While I would agree with this view for pre-college education, college education has always had more than a local focus, that even state colleges have significant numbers of out-of-state students, that graduates of state colleges often move to other states where their education enriches the skill levels of their new home state’s employment pool, and that academic research benefits all states, not just the ones where the research is performed. The federal government has always (at least in my academic lifetime stretching back to 1960) been a major supporter of state universities, and that support extends back in time to the Morrill Acts Of 1862 and 1890 that established the Land Grant colleges and universities, the Hatch Act of 1887 establishing agricultural experimental stations, and the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 that established co-operative extensions. Certainly when I left industry to teach at a Jesuit university in 1980, much of the student support money available was federal. If Lips yearns for the pre 1860’s level of federal support for higher education, I suppose he is entitled to his yearnings. But to call federal support “irresponsible” is just irresponsible.

Reason 5. “History shows that increasing college subsi¬dies have not solved the real problem of higher education affordability”.  History has shown that no single solution ever solved the problem of higher education affordability. The cost of higher education keeps rising faster than inflation for many reasons, among them: increasing demand for higher education and more slowly increasing supply (high cost of creating or expanding current facilities and difficulty attracting competent professors limits supply) results in higher free market prices; the technological needs that institutions of higher education face (library resources, computer facilities, scientific apparatus) are expensive; and finally, the scope of knowledge that higher education must support grows faster than the population, so provide study in all disciplines means increasing faculty faster than students. Quality has its costs, and if academic institutions are to provide high quality educational opportunities in all disciplines, per student costs are likely to increase faster than the general rate of inflation.  

Re: Townhall.com – 1/28/2009 – “There Is No Santa Clause” – Walter E Williams

Economics is not a zero sum game. Economic activity is not limited by a fixed set of assets. A private enterprise may borrow money, use it to create additional capacity, and sell the outputs of the new capacity to pay off the borrowing and make a profit too. This profit does not necessarily mean some other private enterprise must run a deficit. That’s why economies can grow faster than population growth and standard of living can rise. That’s why government borrowing to finance our interstate transportation infrastructure has been a huge contributor to economic growth.  

Not every government expenditure is wasteful. Government infrastructure (roads, harbors, sewers, etc) and military, police, and communication services have dated back to the beginning of civilization and over time have proven more reliable and cheaper than similar private facilities and services. There are areas in which government finance and management beats private enterprise in quality of service and efficiency.

While the currently proposed stimulus legislation has provisions which seem to border on boondogglery, the problem with the stimulus package is in the details and not in the concept. Williams should back off his knee-jerk rejection of the stimulus and work to insure that the provisions of the stimulus package actually are additive to our economic health.

Re: Townhall.com – 1/27/2009 – “What Are They Buying?” – Thomas Sowell

Typical one-sided thinking --- see only the facts that support your position, ignore the facts that discredit it.

Sowell says “The government is putting money into banks … in hopes that the banks will put it into circulation. But the latest statistics shows that banks are lending even less money now than they were before the government dumped all that cash on them.” The money government invested into the financial system is only a small fraction of the losses in assets the financial system suffered during the recent collapse and that investment went mostly to boosting capital to keep the financial system solvent. As banks bring their leveraging down, new lending will increase. But much pre-collapse loan volume was based on overleveraging and making lots of bad loans that had poor chance of repayment. Do we ever want THAT loan volume back?

Sowell says “Spending money for infrastructure is another time-consuming way of dealing with what is called an immediate crisis. Infrastructure takes forever to plan, debate, and go through all sorts of hearings and adjudications, before getting approval to build from all the regulatory agencies involved. Out of $355 billion newly appropriated, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that only $26 billion will be spent this fiscal year and only $110 billion by the end of 2010”. Is this an argument not to spend $26 billion now and $110 billion by the end of 2010? Furthermore, both the Great Depression and the Japanese economic difficulties lasted much longer than just a couple of years, and any realistic approach to our current economic problems must look further ahead than just an immediate time perspective.

Sowell says “If you cut taxes tomorrow, people would have more money in their next paycheck, and it would probably be spent by the time they got that paycheck, through increased credit card purchases beforehand”.  Unfortunately, lower taxes won’t help those out of work or minimum wage workers who pay relatively little in taxes in the first place. While I have no objections to rational tax cuts, I can see no reason why significant benefits to our current financial problems would come from tax cuts at this point in time. The question of lower taxes at a time when the economy is less sick is of course something else again.

Sowell sys “Crises have long been seen as great opportunities to expand the federal government's power while the people are too scared to object and before any opposition can get organized“. It seems that those who oppose federal power also see opportunity in crisis --- they claim good economy is the result of private enterprise and bad economy the fault of government, so when the economy is in crisis, take power from the government. This is not necessarily a wrong conclusion but is surely an illustration of milking a crisis. In fact, governments mainly step in to solve problems that private sector dynamics cannot solve --- yes, governments tend to act mostly in reaction to existing crisis. Forbidding government from dealing with crisis might eliminate some side effects that governmental action may produce but it will never solve any crisis. Of course, when problems have been solved and where side-effects of government problem solutions become worse than the problems itself, we the voters must instruct our elected government officials to stop trying to solve the solved problems. And we the voters must keep governments from attempting ridiculous solutions. If we can’t do our job, we are unfit to for democracy, and government overreach is the least of our worries. If we can do our job, let’s just do it.

Sowell says “In the name of protecting the taxpayers' investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank”. As history has demonstrated, neither the government nor the banks seems to know how to make (or, more to the point, when not to make) loans and neither the government nor General Motors seems to know how to make cars. But the Treasury auction has proven to be at least as orderly a market place as the free market of corporate securities, and while the government doesn’t know as much about cars as BMW, Honda, Toyota, and maybe even Ford, GM doesn’t seem to know any more about cars than the government does.

Sowell says “To this day, we are still subsidizing millionaires in agriculture because farmers were having a tough time in the 1930s. We have the Federal National Mortgage Association ("Fannie Mae") taking reckless chances in the housing market that have blown up in our faces today, because FDR decided to create a new federal housing agency in 1938”. It is absurd to blame subsidized agriculture on Congressional reaction to the 1930’s agricultural crisis or FNMA’s financial overreaching on FDR. What government did to avoid future farm and financial crashes were appropriate for their time. What we the voters have let these programs become is something else again. We should consistently reelect those who keep government doing and only doing what government is supposed to be doing, and vote everyone else out of office. But ranting that the 1930’s government is responsible for all our financial troubles ignores the real issues of economic boom/bust cycles. And blaming government for everything is just plain stupid.

Re: Townhall.com – 1/27/2009 – “Where Is Free Market Economics When You Need It Most?” – Mona Charen

Charen says “we got into this mess because government created a housing bubble”. She’s only partially right. Government made it possible for and encouraged us to get into this mess. Private enterprise eagerly took the encouragement to heart and made the bad loans that plague us today; private enterprise should not have made bad loans even if the government thought it should. Private enterprise made the loans because it brought them short term profits at the cost of taking on long term risk and thus deserves most of the blame here.

Government debt is no worse than private enterprise debt. What is common about debt is that nobody can continue to run deficits forever, neither private enterprise nor government, and that any entity that does run deficits too long looses the faith of their creditors that they will repay the debts, and bankruptcy or some other form of financial ruin inevitably follows. Debt should be taken on and paid off depending on short term conditions relative to the long term --- you can take on debt when you need more money in the short term only if you can (and will) pay off the debt later on when short term means exceed needs.

Right now the supply of money has decreased due to insufficient capital in the financial system far in excess of any weak stimulus such as tax relief. Government debt taken on and redeployed to stimulate the economy makes sense even if some of the current proposed stimulations don’t make much sense. But we all should be worried that the money we borrow and inject into the economy to refinance the financial industry and jump-start the economy actually gets withdrawn from the economy as the economy recovers, liquidating the debt and keeping money supply form over extension.

Re: Townhall.com – 1/8/2009 – “The Ten Big Lies About America” – Rebecca Hagelin

Speaking of lies ….

Liberals do not “love to argue that it is government – not the spirit or will or hard work or free markets and free citizens – that can cure economic ills.” What liberals argue is that government and hard work and the free market are all necessary components of curing economic ills and that spirit, will, and work of citizens and the free market together, without government, are sometimes not sufficient. That the New Deal did not “cure” the depression is obvious, but that the New Deal was of no help is just plain absurd. The final “cure” of the depression was WW-II, a fact that perhaps illustrates only that the New Deal was not a large enough intervention --- employing huge numbers of workers as soldiers and financing the production of massive amounts of military supplies was.

There are very few who would make Big Lie #5. What really is believed by liberals is that “The power of Big Business can and sometimes does hurt the country and its people”. Government regulation and/or after-the-fact enforcement can deter big business from its occasional misuse of their market power, and in the rare cases where private enterprise has failed miserably to meet market demands on its own, government has moved in to do the job either on its own (TVA and Bonneville rural electric power supply) or as a driving force on private enterprise (regulated monopolies for rural telecommunication). Government regulation is not required because all Big Business (or even most Big Business) is evil, but because a few Big Businesses sometimes do harmful things. Banks use surveillance in their branches not because they think their customers are bank robbers but because they understand that some of their “customers” may be bank robbers and surveillance helps deter robbery and catch robbers after-the-fact. Quality assurance doesn’t assume that all production runs are bad, only that statistically some are, and that catching the bad products before they get shipped and catching bad production processes before the products are produced is cost effective. Government would be deficient if it did not act in a similar way on behalf of its constituency, its citizens.

It is not true that when “governmental regulators crack down on a given company, they most often harm, rather than help, the interests of its workers (and shareholders, obviously)”. Sometimes they do, sometimes they do not, depending on what and how they intervene. I fiercely dispute the notion that government requirements for audited financial statements harm the shareholders of the audited businesses. The audits are not free, but they are cost effective deterrents to any potential dishonest or careless management actions.

While it may be true that “the boss … can’t benefit in the long term at the expense of his employee .... They either prosper together or fail together”, in fact bosses are often driven by the short term, not the long term, and as such often do benefit at the expense of his employees (and at the expense of non-management corporate ownership), just as unions often act to benefit employees at the expense of their employers.

Over involvement of government in the free market is a serious problem, but assuming that any involvement of government in the free market is too much, or that anyone who favors any government involvement in the free market is an enemy of the free market is absurd and a Big Lie.

Re: BreakPoint – 8/1/2008 – “A Civil Right to Gay Marriage” – Regis Nicoll

Nicoll errs when he fails to see distinction between biblical marriage (or whatever you want to call the marriage for procreation and family raising) and legal marriage (the license issued by the state and granting certain joint civil rights).

Let’s assume that biblical marriage is a natural right and non-biblical marriage is not a natural right. That leaves open the question as to whether non-biblical marriage should be a civil right.

As Nicoll admits, “Civil rights are legal privileges granted by the State to promote the common good of the governed”. What kinds of rights fit that description? Based on one of the three “civil rights” Nicoll cites (right to drink alcoholic beverages) I think he really should give some more thought to his definition of “common good of the governed”

I would assert that government should recognize as civil rights those actions that do no material harm even if they do not materially contribute to the common good of the governed. I think this is the brand of reasoning that would make the consumption of alcohol a right if anything will. Government should interfere with individual freedom only to the extent that is needed to promote the common good, and if something is not harmful it ought to be allowed, that is, anything that is not harmful to society should be a civil right. Debate over what level of harm makes an act not a right is another issue not relevant to this particular discussion.

Most do consider biblical marriage (heterosexual marriage for the purpose of procreation and family raising) a natural right.

Most people consider heterosexual non-biblical marriage entered into for reasons other than procreation and family raising a right. Many heterosexual couples marry because they love each other and want to spend their life together in a monogamous relationship. Perhaps they cannot have children for medical reasons. Perhaps they fear they cannot raise children because of economic, physical, or other limitations. Perhaps they fear that the pattern of their own mistreatment as children by their parents might be repeated by them on their own children. For whatever the reason, society recognizes that such marriages do no harm to it and grants the right for heterosexual couples to enter such marriages.

In the past (even in our own country) restrictions have been placed on the right of heterosexual marriages. But those restrictions such as limiting heterosexual marriage to partners of the same race have been stripped away, perhaps because heterosexual marriage was seen as a natural right but more likely because society recognized that such mixed marriages are either good for society or, if not a positive good, certainly do no harm.

Inevitably we will recognize that although homosexual marriage is not a natural right, whether or not it contributes to the common good is not material because in the long run, recognizing homosexual marriage actually does no real harm, and thus should be allowed by the state. My apologies to those who are upset by the thought of homosexual marriage, but like some people’s problems with marriages of mixed race or mixed religion, or even with childless marriages, protecting you from the pain of your own prejudices is insufficient reason to interfere with the free choice of others.

I think it is quite appropriate that religious institutions are allowed to restrict marriages performed under their jurisdiction to heterosexual couples of the same religion or religious denomination, especially if their sacred traditions explicitly disallow other types of marriages --- freedom of religion and all that. But I think that homosexual marriage has as many advantages and as few disadvantages to society as non-biblical heterosexual marriage and as such, should be considered a civil right.

I like to distinguish ceremonial marriage from civil union. A civil union is a government recognized “legal contract” between two persons that grants them specific civil rights, the right of inheritance perhaps being of most significance. Ceremonial marriage, on the other hand, is a “social contract”, granted and recognized by non-government social organizations (primarily but not necessarily religious) with no inherent legal rights. I have no problem with attaching the rights of civil union to ceremonial marriage, but I do have problems when the rights of civil union are restricted by qualifications imposed on ceremonial marriages by non-government institutions.

Government should be involved in the business of civil unions, open to any two persons of sufficient maturity, who want to spend their lives together in a single “family” regardless of any other characteristics they may have. Government should not be involved in ceremonial marriage, a social institution in of itself granting no legal benefits, other than by granting civil union rights to ceremonial marriages..

Re: Family Security Matters – 7/28/2008 – “The Greens Are Going Crazy” – Alan Caruba

Perhaps Caruba has a point --- there may be a lot we might learn from China.

Perhaps Caruba thinks we should follow China’s lead in social and political policy. Perhaps Caruba thinks we should give Communism a try? Perhaps Caruba thinks we should wipe the internet and newspapers of all objectionable content, especially suggestions that current government leadership is less than stellar? Perhaps Caruba thinks we should try China’s ideas on family planning?  

Just because China is wrong on political and social issues doesn’t mean that they are wrong on Green, but it is hardly an argument that they are right on Green either.

Caruba’s assumptions that China isn’t also concerned with the environmental effects of fossil fuel combustion is not that well founded --- hasn’t China just put limits on auto travel and factory operation in an attempt to clear the air of pollution hanging over the Olympic Games? China seems to have recognized the errors in its past polluting behavior and is making some attempt to correct them. If Caruba wants us to learn from China, perhaps what we should learn is that blind growth, oblivious to the environmental harm it can produce, isn’t worth the environmental cost.

Re: Townhall.com – 12/18/2008 – “Why Atheism is Morally Bankrupt” – Ben Shapiro

Shapiro’s “proofs” that without God there is no morality nor free will nor soul are erroneous. Among his many other logical errors he confuses sufficiency with necessity.

Granted, the existence of God is logically sufficient to explain morality, free will, and soul. God’s existence in itself does not insure that these things do exist --- God could as easily have created man without these attributes as he could have created man with these attributes, and it is quite possible that man in fact does not have a soul but only an immense hubris that leads man to believe that man and man alone possesses a soul. But despite God’s sufficiency, God is not a necessary condition of the existence of man’s soul --- the soul can easily be thought of as a natural attribute of man, either existing in a dimension of its own beyond the reach of science or as a yet undiscovered concurrence of physical and chemical phenomena.

The hypothesis that the laws of physics can predict the future from the state of the universe is contrary to the current theories of science in which there is a good deal of uncertainty in the future above and beyond the uncertainty in our knowledge of current state of the universe. But even if the laws of physics could predict the future doesn’t mean that free will is lacking any more than someone who knows you well enough to know how you think can force you into saying something merely by guessing that you will say it. It seems logical that free will is the default state of nature for intelligent beings, and free will should exist unless constrained by an outside force. In my opinion, the only force that could interfere with man’s naturally free will is God --- just the opposite from Shapiro’s claim that God is the only possible source of free will

Despite Shapiro’s claim to the contrary, free will can and does exist in animals that Shapiro considers soulless. Dogs and horses train their young to behave appropriately around others of their species, and young dogs and horses learn that there are consequences for their behavior and that it is best to choose appropriate behavior if they wish to avoid correction. Anyone who has owned and trained dogs knows that dogs do possess the ability to learn right from wrong, learn to anticipate punishment for their transgressions and rewards for doing right. Shapiro may call that training or instinct or whatever, but it is only hubris that makes Shapiro think that man is any different. When I call my dog in from his dog run he does one of two things, he either comes to me immediately to get a back or ear rub or he runs to the other end of his run. This is the behavior I want --- I want him to know that when I call him it’s time to come in but not before he “does his stuff”. But when I really want him to come in NOW, I just say “cookie” and in he comes to get his dog treat. He also responds to my tone, and is much more likely to come to a “COME!” than a simple “come” command --- he seems to understand that there is no correction other than a missed rub for ignoring a “come” but a scolding for failing to respond to a “COME!” Does his understanding of his choices and their consequences in responding to “come”, “COME!”, and “cookie” mean he has a soul? Probably not. Does it mean he has morality? His intelligence is probably too limited to draw the relevant abstract representations of right and wrong necessary to qualify him as a moral being. But is does illustrate a behavioral pattern very, very close if not identical to that expected of a being with free will. I defy anyone to invest a test proving my dog lacks free will.

Our criminal justice system arose from voluntary “contractual” and/or forced transferences of self defense and the rights of punishment to the state. This transference requires humans to have high levels of intelligence including the ability to form abstract general mental models from specific events, but this hardly requires a soul.

What Pyle called the “ghost in the machine” I learned as the “genie in the watch” but neither has anything to do with the existence of soul, morality, or free will. The real point of the “genie in the watch” is that the domain of things by definition unphysical is beyond science, and to argue the scientific existence of those unphysical things is absurd. The question of whether unphysical things exist is a completely unrelated issue --- it may well be true that there is a genie in every watch that makes the watch run, that slow watches have lazy genies, that fast watches have hyperactive genies, and that watches that stop keeping time have lost their genies. But the existence of watch genies is an issue of faith --- you believe in them or you don’t --- and not an issue of science. The absurdity of the “genie in a watch” is not in the belief in the genies existence but in failing to recognize that the existence of genies is an article of faith inappropriate for arguments based on physical observations and in failing to recognize that a genie is not a necessary part (even if he is a part) of a working watch.

Shapiro says “We dont jail … dogs for assaulting cats -- they arent responsible for their actions”, but we do lock up dangerous dogs and even execute them for their transgressions when they are serious enough. Both dogs and their masters are held jointly responsible for the dog’s actions.

Shapiro is really off base on “equality”. The term “equality” has many usages: mathematical equality, equality under the law, biological equality, equality before God, etc, and these usages are different from one another. The “equality” recognized and insured in our democracy is equality under the law since the Constitution is a law of man and that is the only kind of equality that law of man can offer. The State of Indiana once considered regulating mathematical equality with a bill to make pi (the mathematical constant 3.14159…), equal to exactly 3 --- a legislative proposal that mercifully failed and that well illustrates how inappropriate it is for government to concern itself with equality other than equality under the law. As for biological equality, almost any scientists would immediately recognize that the biological differences between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stephen Hawking are negligible compared to their similarities. Hawking’s and Schwarzenegger’s shared humanity dwarf the differences in their specific human attributes.

Biological and social Darwinism are very different from one another. Biological Darwinism makes no value judgments --- “survival of the fittest” is a definition for the “fittest” genotype in a particular environment or range of environments and has meaning only in sense of a genotype being able to leave descendents of the same genotype and thus persist over time. Social Darwinism is exactly the opposite; value judgments determine what fittest means and then mechanisms are created to ensure that the individuals who fit the “fittest” model survive. Social Darwinists might see Schwarzenegger’s and Hawking’s physique and intelligence as somehow making them “fit” or “unfit” but biologists wouldn’t even look at the two to determine their fitness --- they’d look at the number of  Schwarzenegger and Hawking descendents over time.

Shapiro says “Without a soul, freedom too is impossible -- we are all slaves to our biology. According to atheists, human beings are intensely complex machines. Our actions are determined by our genetics and our environment. According to atheists, if we could somehow determine all the constituent material parts of the universe, we would be able to predict all human action, down to the exact moment at which Vice President-elect Joe Biden will pick his nose“. According to the mechanistic model of the universe, our actions are determined by much more than our genetics and environment; one significant factor is our history --- man is a learning “machine” and what man does is in part determined by what he has done and what he has had done to him in the past. As far as being able to exactly predict human or any other physical action, atheists and non-atheist scientists gave up that naïve idea almost 100 years ago with the rise of quantum and statistical uncertainty that implied that the equations of science were multi-valued so no single event can ever be deterministically predicted. And even if quantum and statistical uncertainty were not true, the number of variables necessary to define the universe is for all practical purposes infinite and any equations used to process the infinity of data could not possibly be solved and exact predictions made in finite time --- by the time Biden picked his nose the theoreticians would still be at work solving their predictive equations and their computations would be moot. You would think that quantum and statistical uncertainty would be welcomed by theologians because the indeterminacy of science puts infinite wisdom beyond the power of science, thus increasing the domain that God can explain but science cannot. But for some reason, it was the believers in God who had the most trouble with uncertainty, believing that God would not play games of chance with destiny. Atheists did not seem to be so troubled by indeterminacy.  

Shapiro asks “Since when does biology dictate a moral drive?” Let me pose a model by which biology can dictate a moral drive. Self interest is a biological directive, partly derived from genetic makeup giving us intelligence and partly derived from individual experience. Species that do not do a good job leaving descendents will not survive the test of time, while species that do will persist. Intelligence (with or without a soul) and experience allows man to generalize classes of risks that pose a threat to premature death and allows man to design and follow behavioral patterns that reduces these risks. Man can also learn that certain behaviors can produce feelings of pleasure and/or pain and allows man to design and follow behavioral patterns to increase or decrease confronting these feelings. Great intelligence allows man to realize that there are many actions that man can take that threaten the survival or happiness of other men, and that by formulating and abiding to certain rules of conduct and by enforcing these rules on those who refuse to honor them voluntarily, man can protect himself from others. Some of these rules might be considered moral rules (such as the 10 Commandments) and others are considered human laws. Some might be considered conventions, not mandated in law but generally practiced by individuals and enforced by peer pressure. Dangers to humans are common to humans first because humans are human and second because the environment of all humans (the earth) is reasonably similar, so it should surprise nobody that across the world of diverse human cultures, the generally agreed upon rules of behavior are strikingly similar. At any rate, that’s a model of how morality might arise in soulless man without the help of God. This is not a necessary mechanism for morality --- morality could have been created by God. But this is a sufficient model for morality and could/might have produced morality in man without divine intervention.

Shaprio says “as a system of thought, atheism cannot be the basis for any functional state. If we wish to protect freedom and equality, we must understand the value of recognizing God. We must recognize the flame of divinity -- free will -- He implanted within each of us“. Atheism can be the basis of a state and in many ways provides a stronger basis for democracy that does traditional religion. The strength of an atheist based government is that its power is derived from the consensus of its citizens, not the inflexible commandments of God as interpreted by people and/or historical documents the citizens have no control over. If a majority of humans are actually blessed with intelligence and self interest, then that intelligence and self interest should be the ideal foundation for democracy. If, however, majority human intelligence is insufficient to distinguish need from want, short term benefit from long term benefit, etc, then humans are not fit to rule themselves without the imposition of God given rules. In my opinion, both atheism and religion are appropriate foundations for government but atheism is a better basis for democracy while religion is a better basis for a dictatorship over population of intelligence too low to recognize its own self interest.

I have nothing against the belief that morality and society are based on God, a belief which is a reasonable sufficient explanation of how things got to be the way they are and how we should react to things in the present and the future.

I have nothing against the belief that morality and society are based (independent of God) on the scientific laws of nature, a belief which is also a reasonable sufficient explanation of how things got to be the way they are and how we should react to things in the present and the future.

I have nothing against the model of morality and society that has God creating scientific law and then leaving the evolution of the universe to scientific law.

But I do object to claims of uniqueness for their beliefs that are found in those who hold God as the root of all causes and those who hold science as the full explanation of all phenomena. I see both the God and no-God scenarios each as sufficient foundation for morality and society.

Re: Townhall.com – 12/16/2008 – “Atheists’ National Holiday” – Chuck Norris

Subject: harassment and hatred

If you believe in "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you", why does it surprise you that people whose beliefs you disdain should disdain your beliefs as well.

If Christians (or any other group) expect to be treated with respect by others, they ought to treat others with the same respect they desire for themselves.

Atheists have deep seated beliefs about the non-existence of God, just as deep as Christians have for the existence of God. Atheists saying that God does not exist should be no more objectionable to you than your saying God does exist should be to them.

You know you won't stop talking about God in front of them. So accept their talking about no God in front of you.

*** posted as a comment to Norris’ article ***

Re: Townhall.com – 12/10/2008 – “The Big Government Light Brigade” – Terence Jeffrey

Sticking to principle is virtuous when and only when the principle you stick to is a clearly defined principle worth sticking to.

The problem with the “small government” as a principle is that “small” is undefined, perhaps indefinable.

The smallest possible government is no government at all. No law. No national defense. No protection from your neighbor taking or using your property without your consent. It would be a “might makes right” world. The biggest possible government is an all pervasive government that can and does do everything. No private property, just restricted government granted permits to use property. No inalienable rights, just government granted rights. It would be a strictly regulated micromanaged world. There is a huge range of sizes between the smallest government and the largest government. Any government between the two extremes is bigger than the smallest and small than the biggest and in someone’s eyes is too big and in someone else’s eyes is too small.

In reality, many of those screaming for smaller government thru eliminating the social umbrella or business and environmental regulation want more government in some areas, for example, in national defense or morality enforcement. Of course, others want to increase government intervention into social, business, and environmental issues while expending less energy in national defense or interfering with issues of personal behavior.

It is my opinion, the only reasonable “principle” governing the size of government is “no government should be any larger or any smaller than is required to accomplish the goals for which that government was instituted among men”. In my opinion, “big government” is not a principle but a derogatory mantra of those who wish to reduce some specific area of government intervention while “small government” is a complementary mantra of those who wish to reduce some specific area of government intervention.

Re: Townhall.com – 12/6/2008 – “Jesus vs Atheists” – Bill O’Reilly

Why does O’Reilly find expression of opinions in conflict with his as “insulting”? Why does he see disagreement with him as an “attack”? Is it because O’Reilly just doesn’t understand that a democracy is supposed to encourage differing opinions? Does O’Reilly think that those who disagree with him and have the nerve to publicly state their disagreement hate him? If so, does O’Reilly hate them?

O’Reilly clearly doesn’t understand what is going on in the state of Washington. Not about naked bike riders, support for the homeless, religious displays on government property, or anything else.  

The State of Washington did not prohibit non-Christian displays at Christmas time because the courts have said that if the government allows the religious displays of any religion on government property, it must allow religious displays for all religions. The State of Washington supports Christian displays on state property during Christmas, and to legally allow Christian displays it must also allow non-Christian displays. In order to prohibit religious displays that those of other religions may object to, Washington State has no choice but to prohibit displays by all religions on state property.

Christmas is celebrated by Christians for the birth of Christ and as the celebration of faith, love, peace, and giving that Christians associate with the birth of Christ. Other religions also have traditions that celebrate faith, love, peace, and giving, but their traditions differ from those of Christians, especially concerning the birth of Christ. If Christmas is to be a national holiday it must not be a holiday only to Christians but to all Americans. As a Christian holiday, the holiday may honor Christ, but as a national holiday it must also honor traditions relevant to all American, Christian or otherwise. The Establishment clause of the 1st Amendment does not forbid a national celebration of Christmas on government property, only an exclusively Christian celebration.

The particular non-Christian Christmas display that bothers O’Reilly speaks only to the historical contributions of religion to our society without celebrating love, peace, and giving --- it clearly is not an appropriate expression of the holiday spirit, but it clearly is not an illegal utterance exception to freedom of speech such as shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater. Since it is not an illegal utterance and since the Court has ruled that allowing one religion’s displays requires allowing all religion’s displays, the state has no legal authority to deny the display of the message O’Reilly finds offensive. To deny this display but allow other religion-specific displays would be illegal.

O’Reilly thinks that “teaching children about the atrocities against Native Americans by the Pilgrims” denigrates Thanksgiving. He’s wrong. The truth is never denigrating, it is revealing. A thing is what it is, not what we wish it should be. Thanksgiving commemorates the survival of our ancestors from the hardships of settling in a new land, something well worth celebrating. But the act of settlement did hurt native inhabitants, partly the unintentional consequence of settlement and partly by the intentional acts of settlers. It should not surprise O’Reilly if some of the loyal American citizens who are descendents of those harmed Native Americans don’t enthusiastically celebrate Thanksgiving the same way the Pilgrim’s descendents do, and it should not irritate O’Reilly if some of us who do celebrate Thanksgiving do so while recognizing that our initial non-native settlers were not all perfect in spirit and deed. Those who forget the mistakes of the past are bound to repeat them. Perhaps O’Reilly should say some Thanksgiving prayers for the forgiveness of our European ancestors for whatever sins they committed in dealing with the Native Americans during settlement rather than trying to hide the fact that some sins were committed. Hiding those sins will only give license to future generations to repeat them out of ignorance.

Re: Townhall.com – 11/30/2008 – “In open contests, voters beat politicians” – Paul Jacob

Jacob doesn’t understand the American voter. Although voters say they are for term limits in principal, voters’ actions say that voters really mean that they are for term limits for those legislators who represent voters other then themselves --- legislators who represent their constituencies interest well are overwhelmingly reelected again and again in spite of what the same voters may say about term limits in general.

Arguments for term limits seem equivalent to the following: voters are incompetent to tell when the performance of their elected legislators fail to warrant their reelection and thus keep reelecting incumbent legislators who in someone’s opinion (other than the legislators’ constituency) should not be reelected; and to insure these incumbent legislators get kicked out of office (regardless of what their constituency thinks), voters should not be allowed to reelect them. Power does corrupt, and I guess Jacob feels that the power to reelect legislators gives the voters too much power, and suggests that voters be relieved of that power.

What are the arguments against term limits? Below are three.

Argument #1: Term limits is too blunt a sword; it removes not only those incumbents whose performance is deficient but also the ones whose performance is superior. It’s like reducing pork by cutting the budget across the board --- 10% of the pork goes as well as 10% of the defense budget and 10% of the repayment on our national debt. 10% less pork hardly makes a difference. 10% of our military budget might permanently cripple our national security. 10% less on repaying our national debt means the country is technically in default.

Argument #2: If voters are too incompetent to determine when those who represent them should not continue in that role, how can voters be competent enough to determine who should represent them at all; after all, evaluating incumbent legislators on their performance is much easier than predicting legislators performance prior to their being legislators.

Argument #3: Long time incumbents carry with them knowledge and skills that takes years to acquire, and having a legislative body of perpetual rookies means no such knowledge and skill base will reside in the legislators but instead would lie in the professional staffers. I’d rather have enough experienced legislators around to act as a counter weight to unelected professional staffers. Reforming the seniority system seems to me to be a more sensible plan than firing all the senior legislators.

Corruption is not the only reason to explain how so many legislators who are elected to office with the promise of establishing term limits change their views once in office. Perhaps after getting some on the job experience, they realize that term limits is a terrible idea that is attractive only to those who don’t understand what it takes to be a good legislator.