Obama’s State of the Union: You’re just part of his “blueprint”

This originally was published in the Boulder Daily Camera on Saturday, January 28, 2012.

For refutations of the President’s flawed claims and statist economic plans, see the Cato Institute‘s website, blog, and YouTube channel.  Regarding Obama’s “Buffett tax” on millionaires, the Associated Press explains that the wealthiest Americans already “pay a lot more taxes than the middle class,” including secretaries

To understand Obama’s statist fervor, ask yourself: Are you a machine cog?  Surely not. But like many politicians, Obama disagrees, at least tacitly. How? Linguist George Lakoff explains how metaphors are key to understanding political discourse.  In his speech, the President expressed his desire to “lay out a blueprint for an economy.”  At least twice he’s mentioned starting a health care “system” from “scratch.” This speaks volumes.

“The economy” refers to people producing and exchanging goods and services. In a freed economy, government respects people’s right to trade voluntarily. But Obama sees the economy as a machine to be manufactured, or a cake to be baked.

Obama has the same conceit that better economists have warned about for centuries. Describing the “man of system,” Adam Smith wrote: “He seems to imagine that he can arrange … members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges … pieces upon a chess-board.” “Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations,” wrote French economist Frederic Bastiat in 1853. Or, as 1974 Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek wrote, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

Technocrats violate our right to buy and sell incandescent light bulbs

This letter appeared in the November 2011 print and on-line issue of APS News, the newsletter of the American Physical Society, the world’s second largest organization of physicists.

Physicist-turned-Congressman Rush Holt supports legislation banning conventional incandescent light bulbs (Back Page, August/September APS News). His statements about the legislation are misleading. Worse yet, his support of the ban embodies an elitism that supplants people’s right to choose with authoritarian dictates of a technocratic ruling class.

To the Wall Street Journal‘s claim that “Washington will effectively ban the sale of conventional incandescent light bulbs,” Holt glibly replies, “This was, of course, untrue. No type of light bulb was banned.” Sure, the legislation does not ban all incandescents, but it does ban conventional ones, as the Journal claims. The legislation will “make current 100-watt bulbs obsolete” and such bulbs will “disappear from store shelves,” reports the New York Times.

To justify the ban, Dr. Holt narrowly defines efficiency to mean only energy efficiency. But the most “efficient” light bulb best achieves the user’s purpose. Energy efficiency is important, but so are an appealing color spectrum, quickly reaching full brightness, low-cost dimming, and tolerance to vibration and heat.

The Congressman also decries proposals to repeal the bulb ban, as it could undermine Congress’s “tradition of supporting innovation.”  But when companies spend money to satisfy government demands, they invest less on innovation to satisfy perceived customer demand.

Businesses in relatively free markets innovate just fine. Consumer electronics is an obvious example, but product packaging has also become more efficient. Soda cans use less metal, while bottled beverage manufacturers advertise bottles using less plastic or petroleum-free plant-based plastics.

Meanwhile, the bulb ban exemplifies “innovative” ways for bulb makers to increase profits through political pull. Conventional bulbs are a “ubiquitous commodity” with a “negligible” profit margin, the New York Times magazine recently noted.  “No amount of subsidy or ‘green’ branding has managed to woo consumers away from Edison’s bulb.” So the lighting industry endorsed new efficiency standards that force consumers to buy more expensive products.

“We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money,” quipped Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics. Even if this is true, wasting one’s own money is every person’s right. Moreover, if a consumer has good reasons to prefer conventional incandescent bulbs, buying them is not wasteful. What’s wasteful is being forced to buy less desirable alternatives.

A physics PhD and a high-profile government job is not a moral sanction to violate consumers’ right to choose.

Does Boulder’s 4-20 smoke-out denigrate a CU degree?

Does the 4-20 smoke-out “denigrate” the value of a CU degree “by helping to label CU-Boulder as a party school,” as CU-Boulder Vice Chancellors Frank Bruno and Julie Wong wrote in an e-mail to all students advising them not to attend?

After all, Playboy magazine ranks CU-Boulder as this year’s “top party school,” claiming that “nearly half the university’s 24,000-plus undergrads turn out for the annual 4/20 smoke-out.”  This figure is flimsy — Playboy isn’t known for hardcore scholarship after all. Wikipedia lists the peak attendance as 11,000 in 2008. Further, “University officials estimated that about 75 percent of those in attendance were not affiliated with CU,” reports the Camera.

In any case, recent research by Northwestern Professor Lauren Rivera lends credence to the Vice Chancellors’ claims. Rivera analyzed how elite investment banks, law firms, and management consulting firms “use and interpret educational credentials in real-life hiring decisions.”  She concluded the “that educational credentials were the most common criteria employers used to solicit and screen resumes.” When evaluating resumes, “school prestige was the most commonly used criterion … evaluators privileged candidates from the ‘top’ of ‘the list’ regardless of their grades, coursework, major, area of specialization, or prior work experience.”  When screening resumes, about 75% of recruiters used school prestige, while only 25% used standardized test scores.

So what to do?  One way to deflate 4-20 is to repeal the immoral and authoritarian laws against marijuana sales and use. That’s just one reason that CU Chancellors should support marijuana legalization.

This was originally published in the Boulder Daily Camera on April 23 2011.

See commentary on Rivera’s research at Arnold Kling’s EconLog post.

Donations vs. Taxes

Here’s a short video illustrating the coercion behind government-mandated charity.

For more, see GeorgeOutToHelp.com.

I discuss related issues in my Huffington Post article, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-t-schwartz/questioning-your-compassi_b_574030.html”>Questioning your “compassionate” politics. For example, if you really care about helping a certain group of people, asking government to do it is the last thing you should want. This is like committing yourself to donate to a charity forever, regardless of its efficiency and effectiveness.

I found this post via a link to Reason.tv in comment on Arnold Kling’s post, “Donations vs. Taxes.”  In response to criticism, Kling writes:

[T]he idea that I need to show my gratitude to others by expressing support for coercion seems perverse. I would think that voluntary donations would be a much more sincere expression of gratitude than joining in the project of collective coercion.

Arguments against “Personhood,” Amendment 62

Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh, PhD have written a position paper against  “Personhood” movement:

The ‘Personhood’ Movement Is Anti-Life
Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception

This is relevant to Colorado politics because the proposed Amendment 62 is about this issue (details).

Here’s the table of contents, which links to each section of the analysis.  There’s also a version in PDF format.

Contents

• Introduction

• The ‘Personhood’ Movement
  • “Personhood” and the Abortion Debate
  • Colorado Campaigns
  • Campaigns in Other States
• The Destructive Effects of ‘Personhood’
  • A Legal Quagmire
  • Harsh Legal Penalties
  • Bans of Elective Abortions
  • Abortions to Protect a Woman’s Health
  • Abortions for Rape, Incest, and Fetal Deformity
  • Bans of Common Birth Control Methods
  • Bans of Common Fertility Treatments
  • Bans of Embryonic Stem-Cell Research
  • Amendment 62 Is Anti-Life
• Individual Rights and Abortion
  • The Compromise of Roe v. Wade
  • Today’s “Pro-Choice” Rhetoric
  • The Core Arguments for “Personhood” Laws
  • Rights in Pregnancy
• The Morality of Abortion
• ‘Personhood’ and the Separation of Church and State
• Amendment 62 Is Not a ‘Message’
• Notes

“Consumer protection” vs. thinking for yourself

From an article by Linn and Ari Armstrong:

We have nothing against restaurants posting calorie notices, so long as they do it voluntarily in accordance with their customers’ shopping preferences. But mandatory postings violate the rights of property and voluntary association.

Moreover, mandatory calorie postings insult the intelligence of shoppers. Do we really need some bureaucrat to tell us that deep fried sugar is bad for you? Consumers can make wise decisions without the “help” of meddlesome politicians.

Indeed, by encouraging people to depend on politicians and bureaucrats for their health and safety, Nanny State laws ultimately stunt people’s independent thinking. Nothing is more dangerous than that, whether for people’s health or the health of the republic.

Read the whole article, which starts of describing New York’s Cabaret Laws, which restricts dancing in most clubs and bars: Under Nanny State, we don’t feel like dancing.

For more on nanny state restrictions, see Radley Balko‘s  What’s the Matter With Chicago?

“Campus gun ban at CU Boulder ignores reality”

That’s the headline the Denver Post used for my article about the University of Colorado’s gun ban, which prohibits concealed-carry permit holders from being armed on campus. It begins:

Imagine this news headline: “School shooter apologizes — not for killing — but for violating CU campus gun ban.”

Preposterous, right? Not to some members of the University of Colorado Boulder faculty.

A recent motion from the Boulder Faculty Assembly (BFA) supports a campus gun ban — as if someone intent on killing would comply with a campus gun ban, let alone regret breaking one.

One argument I’m particularly fond of is:

Here’s a challenge for the CU Regents and Boulder Faculty Assembly. They’re OK with armed campus police, but not armed citizens with the training and qualifications to have earned a concealed-carry permit. Then why not issue special campus gun permits to those who, at their own expense, undergo the same firearms training as the CU Police?

If this is not acceptable, how about more rigorous training, or limiting permits to faculty and staff? If a regent or CU faculty member opposes this, you should wonder about his actual motives for opposing concealed carry on campus.

Read the whole article: Campus gun ban at CU Boulder ignores reality.

(Graphic courtesy of Oleg Volk and A-Human-Right.com.)

Update: This was the most-viewed opinion article at the denverpost.com for the week of August 1-August 7 2010.  See the “OnLineNumbers” part of the Aug. 8 print edition here (pdf).

CU campus concealed-carry & right to self-defense

Banning seat belts in cars would be immoral. Banning guns deserves equal condemnation.  Self-defense is a fundamental human right – not granted by governments, but recognized by just law. Gun bans deny peaceful people an effective means of self-defense against violent criminals, who ignore gun bans. Just as someone who disables seat belts shares responsibility for the resulting traffic fatalities, gun ban supporters are partially responsible for victims of violent crimes.

The issue at CU is whether people with concealed-carry handgun permits can be armed on campus.  Armed with baseless prejudice against permit holders, supporters of campus gun bans imagine hypothetical horrors that might result from allowing it. But none of these have occurred on campuses, like CSU, that have allowed concealed-carry. Actual horrors — mass school shootings — have occurred only on so-called “gun-free” campuses.

Violent criminals seek unarmed victims, as Dave Kopel documents in his law review article, “Pretend ‘Gun-free’ School Zones: A Deadly Legal Fiction.” A “gun free” campus invites rapists and murderers: “Commit your crimes here – your victims won’t shoot you!”

“Dial 911 and die,” warns Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. Police typically cannot respond in time to stop shootings, and have no legal obligation to protect us. Students owe their lives to heroic civilians such as Joel Myrick, Mikael Gross, and Tracey Bridges, who stopped school shootings with guns they retrieved from their cars.

Gun bans disarm such potential heroes and invite rapists, gay-bashers, and murderers to prey on defenseless victims.

The above was printed in the July 3 Daily Camera (Boulder, CO).

Other gun control resources:

• GunCite
• Is there a right to own a gun?, by Mike Huemer
• Dave Kopel
• ConcealedCampus.org’s rebuttal of common arguments against concealed-carry on campus

(Graphic courtesy of Oleg Volk and A-Human-Right.com.)

Questioning your “compassionate” politics

My <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-t-schwartz/questioning-your-compassi_b_574030.html”>first article/post for the Huffington Post appeared today. It begins:

“You oppose Medicaid and government-run schools? You’re heartless and lack compassion.”  If you have ever made this accusation, even tacitly, I invite you to reconsider the government policies you support.

Why does being compassionate mean supporting government-run schools and health plans? This makes little sense if you view these programs as government-run charities. Would you agree to perpetually donate a portion of your monthly income to the same charity -  regardless of its effectiveness?  If the charity is doing a lousy job, wouldn’t you want the freedom to find a better one?

Read the whole article: <a id="title_permalink" title="Permalink" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-t-schwartz/questioning-your-compassi_b_574030.html”>Questioning Your “Compassionate” Politics. (Update, the Denver Daily News also published the article.)

Thanks to Ari Armstrong, Paul Hsieh, Dave Kopel, and my wife for their comments. Thanks to Jessica Corry for putting me in touch with HuffPo.  I acknowledge many others in links within the article.  One person I did not link was Michael Cloud, whose book Secrets of Libertarian Persuasion was quite helpful, especially for this sentence, which is basically his:

If you support mandatory charity, what do you authorize government to do to those who peacefully refuse to cooperate?

I also recommend Cloud’s CDs on this topic. Great material, and not much overlap with the book.

Peter Saint Andre also inspired some of my ideas for this article. Many years ago I read his essay, On the Road to Voluntary Government Financing.

The tale of the slave, by Robert Nozick

How free are you?

Some food for thought by Robert Nozick, an excerpt from Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 290-292 (1974), winner of the National Book Foundation’s National Book Award in 1975.

Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is about you.

1. There is a slave completely at the mercy of his brutal master’s whims. He often is cruelly beaten, called out in the middle of the night, and so on.

2. The master is kindlier and beats the slave only for stated infractions of his rules (not fulfilling the work quota, and so on). He gives the slave some free time.

3. The master has a group of slaves, and he decides how things are to be allocated among them on nice grounds, taking into account their needs, merit, and so on.

4. The master allows his slaves four days on their own and requires them to work only three days a week on his land. The rest of the time is their own.

5. The master allows his slaves to go off and work in the city (or anywhere they wish) for wages. He requires only that they send back to him three-sevenths of their wages. He also retains the power to recall them to the plantation if some emergency threatens his land; and to raise or lower the three-sevenths amount required to be turned over to him. He further retains the right to restrict the slaves from participating in certain dangerous activities that threaten his financial return, for example, mountain climbing, cigarette smoking.

6. The master allows all of his 10,000 slaves, except you, to vote, and the joint decision is made by all of them. There is open discussion, and so forth, among them, and they have the power to determine to what uses to put whatever percentage of your (and their) earnings they decide to take; what activities legitimately may be forbidden to you, and so on.

   Let us pause in this sequence to take stock. If the master contracts this transfer of power so that he cannot withdraw it, you have a change of master. You now have 10,000 masters instead of just one; rather you have one 10,000-headed master. Perhaps the 10,000 even will be kindlier than the benevolent master in case 2. Still, they are your master. However, still more can be done. A kindly single master (as in case 2) might allow his slave(s) to speak up and try to persuade him to make a certain decision. The 10,000-headed master can do this also.