Eleutherian

Deceptions and Lies to Promote Cigarette Tax

2010-03-17T09:18:00.000-04:00

I'm a little behind in responding to this story, but as long as Americans continue to smoke cigarettes, calls to increase taxes on the purchase of cigarettes will also continue. Reuters reported in a one-sided story that a $1 per pack tax increase on cigarettes would "reap" over $9 billion in increased tax collections.

The story quotes John Seffrin, chief executive of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network:

An increase in tobacco tax rates is not only sound public health policy but a smart and predictable way to help boost the economy and generate long-term health savings for states facing deepening budget deficits.

The American Cancer Society, in conjunction with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and various other advocacy groups, have long touted increased taxes as a means to deter smoking, often under the guise of increasing tax collections. These are two separate motives, and I will address each separately.

First, and most importantly, why do nonsmokers feel the need to FORCE smokers to quit? You should not be proud of making an activity too expensive for a person if they truly enjoy partaking in it. Some people truly enjoy smoking and do not want to quit. By making cigarettes more expensive, you will do one of two things to this type of smoker: 1. force them to spend more on cigarettes and less on other goods and services, or 2. force them to quit an activity they love. This should not be a proud moment for anyone.

The second motive is to supposedly increase tax collections for states. This, of course, assumes this is a state tax increase as opposed to a federal tax increase, as a federal tax increase will only serve to decrease states tax collections from cigarettes.

John Seffrin's quote states that cigarette taxes are a "smart and predictable way to help boost the economy." In one way, he is correct. Increasing cigarette taxes will surely boost the sales of black market cigarettes. A recent study found:

...hiking taxes $1 per pack will lead to a leap in the total smuggling rate in Washington from 39.3 percent to 51.5 percent. That is, 51.5 percent of the cigarettes smoked in the state of Washington will be contraband.
Commercial smuggling involves large-scale organizations that ship semi-tractor trailers and vans long distances and maintain complex distribution systems.
Our estimates indicate that nearly 30 percent of the smuggling will come from these commercial haulers. It’s worth noting that some of the trailers are actually hijacked from underneath legitimate truckers themselves.

In researching this post, I came across a report by the aforementioned Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids entitled, "Raising State Cigarette Taxes Always Increases State Revenues." I have a general rule that when the title of an article contains a lie, there is not much need to read the rest of it.

For example, according to a Commonwealth Foundation study, in Pennsylvania:

After a 35 cent per pack increase in 2004, revenue fell by $72 million, and tax revenues remained below 2004 levels since then.

Of course, the more damning evidence against the projection that a $1 per pack tax increase would raise over $9 billion in new tax collections is that these projections have consistently been overestimated. The same Commonwealth Foundation study stated:

Of 57 state excise taxes imposed from 2003 through 2007, only 16 were found to raise as much revenue as projected. Thirty-nine state tax increases fell short of estimate by a range of 2% to 181%.

This doesn't exactly strike me as "smart and predictable."

Privacy Invasion in Public K-12 Schools

2010-03-15T09:38:00.000-04:00

I recommend this great article by James Stephenson, Seen Not Heard: How Obscure Security Makes School Suck. It's not very long and worth the read to get an idea of what our children are exposed to under the guise of security.

One of my favorite points made in the article (emphasis mine):

A common justification for cameras is that they make students safer, and make them feel more secure. I can tell you from first hand experience that that argument is bullshit. Columbine had cameras, but they didn't make the 15 people who died there any safer. Cameras don't make you feel more secure; they make you feel twitchy and paranoid. Some people say that the only people who don't like school cameras are the people that have something to hide. But having the cameras is a constant reminder that the school does not trust you and that the school is worried your fellow classmates might go on some sort of killing rampage.

See my previous post on why 'I Have Nothing to Hide' Is a Poor Argument against Privacy.

Less Secrecy about Invading Privacy

2010-03-08T09:39:00.002-05:00

The White House’s new cyber-security chief, Howard Schmidt, recently declassified the highly-secretive policies behind the much rumored NSA-backed Homeland Security cyber attack defense program known as Einstein.

Mr. Schmidt deserves credit for taking the steps to declassify this important information, regardless of his motives. However, this should not make us feel any more at ease about this program. According to the Wall Street Journal:

The program is designed to look for indicators of cyber attacks by digging into all Internet communications, including the contents of emails, according to the declassified summary.
Homeland Security will then strip out identifying information and pass along data on new threats to NSA. It will also use threat information from NSA to better identify emerging cyber attacks.

As Homeland Security increases the size of the haystack from which they are trying to find the needles, they will increase continue to increase the number of false positives, treating innocent law-abiding strands of hay as if they were treasonous needles. Yes, in this analogy, hay is the U.S. population and needles are terrorists.

In a previous post on privacy, I stated:

Advocates of security over privacy will often justify their position on data mining by touting the technology as the solution to finding a needle in a haystack. However, the combination of surveillance and processing created the haystack in the first place. These techniques also create a problem known as the false positive paradox.

Let's assume that a terrorist test is 80 percent accurate. In New York City, the test would indicate false positives for over 4 million citizens. Instead of finding 10 terrorists, the test would label millions of citizens, who likely love their country, as enemies of the state.

Even if you do not plan on ever committing any serious crimes, the odds of you being falsely accused will continue to increase with the expansion of programs like Einstein.

Government Intervention in Merger between Private Voting Machine Companies

2010-03-06T15:16:00.006-05:00

Government interferes in private market by passing regulations that discourage new entries into the industry.
Two private companies in this industry want to merge.
Government prevents merger due to lack of competition.

The above summary tells the tale of the voting machine industry since the 2000 presidential election. Like many economic problems, it all started with unwarranted government intervention in the private market.

The Associated Press reports that the Justice Department is attempting to undo a merger that occurred six months ago between the country's two largest voting machine companies. Since the new, merged company now operates machines in 70 percent of the nation's voting districts:

Critics say the merger could cause foul-ups at the polls on Election Day, and some even characterize it as a national security risk.

If a merger that occurred six months ago (more than one year before the mid-term elections) runs the risk of causing "foul-ups," then how would undoing a merger just nine months before mid-term elections reduce this risk? It doesn't.

Surprisingly, the AP prominently reported on the real cause behind the lack of competition in the industry:

The emergence of one megaplayer in the electronic voting machine industry may be an unintended consequence of reforms enacted after the presidential election debacle in Florida a decade ago. Few companies can afford to get into the business due to the expense of developing the electronic voting safeguards that reformers insisted on.

Instead of admitting their previous mistakes and introducing regulatory reforms, the government has decided to cause further damage to the voting machine industry by breaking up an economically viable business contract.

Ron Paul Wins CPAC Straw Poll - Effect on Libertarian Party

2010-02-21T09:03:00.002-05:00

CNN reports that Rep. Ron Paul won the annual CPAC presidential straw poll on Saturday with 31 percent of the vote (Mitt Romney finished second with 22 percent). While this will not have much of an effect on the eventual Republican candidate, it has profound complications for the future of both the Republican and Libertarian parties.

Of the 2,400 voters at CPAC, 54 percent were between the ages of 18 and 25, and they overwhelmingly voted for Ron Paul over more traditional Republican candidates. These 1,000+ young people actually want to call themselves Republicans, but they cannot identify with the majority of the party's favored politicians.

Ron Paul's following has continued to grow since the last presidential primary, especially among young voters. When Ron Paul fails to win the nomination (yes, "when" not "if" - the Republican Party leadership will not stand behind Paul), some of his disillusioned followers will still vote Republican. However, the Libertarian Party will provide an attractive alternative to many of these freedom loving individuals.

Just as the Democrats refuse to support the numerous good policies that go against the desires of their union and trial lawyer support base, Republicans refuse to lose the support of their ultra-conservative and elderly supporters. Democrats continue to embrace traditional (reactionary) policies, while Republicans embrace traditional (outdated) policies. Of the two, outdated trumps reactionary, but it's still a choice between two inferior options.

The Libertarian Party offers the superior option for anyone who supports a truly progressive agenda. For example, as I stated in a previous post:

Given that the libertarian platform has formed the basis for your [LGBT] rights, it's in your self-interest to support the continuation of this platform - libertarianism.

The Golden Age and Self-Ownership

2010-01-07T11:58:00.002-05:00

I recently began reading the first book in John C. Wright’s Golden Age science fiction trilogy. While it was a slow read at first (which I now see as necessary to fully understand the futuristic society), the philosophical themes have taken shape, and it has become a joy to read. This is not the first time I have written about a science fiction book on this blog. Oddly, I had never even read a science fiction book until I started this blog several months ago. Several books on the Libertarian Reading List fall in this genre, and they are among the best books for challenging the stubborn remnants of traditional, reactionary thinking in any self-proclaimed libertarian.

Returning to Wright’s The Golden Age, the paragraph at the bottom of page 114 shook me from my blogging lethargy. The story’s main character, Phaethon (a reference to the Greek myth), is suffering from voluntary memory loss but cannot understand why his full-memory self would voluntarily agree to it. He is questioning Rhadamanthus (an artificial, self-aware entity/servant with thought capacity far beyond that of a normal being) why he didn’t stop him from making such a foolish decision (as he now sees it). To this, Rhadamanthus replied:

If we were to overrule your ownership of your own life, your life, would, in effect, become our property, and you, in effect, would become merely the custodian or trustee of that life. Do you think you would value it more in such a case, or less? And if you valued it less, would you not take greater risks and behave more self-destructively? If, on the other hand, each man’s life is his own, he may experiment freely, risking only what is his, till he find [sic] his best happiness.

The themes in this one paragraph have countless “real world” applications. I will expand on the two main points: the nanny state mentality (or as I often refer to it, legislating morality) and encouraging risk.

Whenever the government attempts to legislate morality or dictate behavior, it is overruling your ownership of your life. If Rhadamanthus is correct in implying that lacking ownership of your life will cause you to value it less (and I believe he is correct), then this will increase feelings of depression and thoughts of suicide among the owned people. On top of that, governments often pass absurd legislation to prohibit people from ending a life they no longer value. (See David Hume’s essay Of Suicide for more on this topic). Most of all, when the government overrules your ownership of your life, it increases your dependence on the government.

The relationship between ownership and risk is a topic that deserves a post of its own, but I will briefly touch on it here. Risk homeostasis is when increased safety measures (for example) have the unintended effect of promoting riskier behavior. An example of this can be seen in the recent sub-prime mortgage crisis. The government wanted to encourage people to purchase homes (because they apparently have something against renting – but I digress), but banks were not willing to approve loans to people who did not appear capable of making payments over the life of the loan. To solve this, the government stepped in and offered to guarantee these loans that the banks would not have otherwise made. This encouraged the banks, related financial intuitions, realtors, and potential homeowners to engage in risky behavior.

Private Sector Apartment Building Bans Cigarettes (without the Need for Government Intervention!)

2009-12-09T20:59:00.006-05:00

I apologize for the long hiatus since my last post. I've had this story on my desk for weeks, but the sheer brilliance of it finally brought me back to this blog.

New York City's first completely non-smoking apartment building will soon open at 1510 Lexington Avenue. Residents will be prohibited from smoking both inside and within the immediate outside perimeter of the building.

This story might upset a lot of people - after all, the building is banning a legal activity. However, allow me to explain my positive excitement over this news.

The government did not have a finger in this decision. This is not a public housing project. Rather, this is a private, family-owned apartment building that saw unmet market demand for smoke-free housing. CBS New York reported:

And even with a surplus of apartments on the market, Kenbar [Management] feels theirs will be in demand. Backing that up was a Zogby poll in July, which found that 58 percent of New Yorkers would be willing to pay more for a smoke-free home.

If you want to be free to smoke in your apartment - fine, live someplace else.

All levels of government can learn a valuable lesson from this story. There is no need to force private businesses to ban smoking in their establishments. If a market for smoke-free establishments exist, the private sector will respond to it. The government will cause more harm than good by intervening in these matters that lie outside its proper scope.

For example, Ireland's smoking ban in pubs has been highly lauded around the world. However, it is not as widely known that in the first year of the smoking ban, over 100 pubs went out of business. According to Stephen Kelly, chief executive of the Federation of Retail Licensed Trade:

The much-promoted view that non-smokers would be rushing to premises has not materialised. We expect another 100 to close next year.

If non-smokers want to spend their money only at smoke-free establishments, the private market will react far more appropriately than the government in taking actions to accept their money. Government intervention is tailored to only meet the needs of the majority (or, more specifically, the majority of the electorate). The private market, on the other hand, meets the needs of every individual - an incomprehensible concept to supporters of big government.

In Defense of Child Labor - Benefits of Unforced Child Labor

2009-10-05T08:34:00.001-04:00

Child labor is a sensitive subject for many people around the world. However, this must not discourage objective analysis of the practice. A simple search for "benefits of child labor" turns up very little relevant information. Due to the sensitive nature, I recognize that not everyone will appreciate this post, but I hope you can appreciate the spirit in which it is written - the spirit of reason over emotion.

I want to remove your cultural blinders with regard to child labor. In most of the more developed countries of the world, child labor is seen as a dark memory from the past, virtually inexistent in these countries today. However, stating the obvious, not all countries developed at the same rate. Many countries are significantly less developed, and as such, child labor practices are still common.

Before going further, I feel obligated to draw a distinction between forced and unforced child labor. Forced child labor includes any form or slavery or indentured servitude, including prostitution. While adult prostitution is a legitimate enterprise, children are not mindful beings with regard to sex.

Unforced child labor includes agricultural and factory work, barring the previously stated distinctions. These children are free to work or not to work. No one is forcing them to hold these jobs. This is unforced child labor, and it should not be condemned by people not living in the given country.

Growing up in the United States, I was only eligible for one kind of job at the age of thirteen - agricultural work (with strict limitations on the number of hours and the times of day I could work). No one forced me to work. I wanted to work. However, the International Labour Organization would still have classified me as a child laborer - and therefore, someone needing rescued. I did not need rescuing and neither do many of these children who want to earn a little extra money to help their families - or simply to stay alive.

In some countries, there are more orphans than orphanage capacity. These children must not only sustain themselves but also any siblings they may have. Why should they not be allowed to earn income? Why do foreign governments pressure these countries to prevent these children from earning an honest living?

Before factory jobs were available in these countries, many children simply died. These "sweatshops" pay wages significantly lower than the wages in more developed countries, and sometimes significantly lower than wages after you factor for purchasing power parity. However, they are still better than other job alternatives.

I have seen the jobs and working conditions of children in non-factory jobs in several lesser developed countries. Instead of hauling large amounts of recyclables or firewood over long distances, these children could be sitting in a factory making textiles, AND earning higher wages. Why should we deny them this luxury?

I am stating the obvious to say that child labor creates a trade-off between labor and education. However, if your choices are death and education, would you really choose education? Education is a goal many families in lesser developed countries hope to attain for their children. Studies show, and I have seen with my own eyes, that when these families receive any surplus income at all (after paying for their basic necessities), any children who were working are sent back to school instead.

Child labor is an unfortunate practice that prevents children from receiving a proper education. However, it is also a godsend to many children and families who would otherwise not earn enough money to survive. Allow these lesser developed countries the chance to improve their situations themselves rather than pressuring them to adopt our customs, which evolved only after achieving a more advanced state of development.

Fewer Posts, Higher Quality

2009-09-23T10:09:00.000-04:00

Due to an increased work schedule and the necessity of studying for the GRE and foreign languages, I will be posting less frequently. However, in place of short, daily posts, I will post longer, more detailed analysis of current events and various policy issues. I hope you continue to follow.

The Case Against Worrying about China's Dollar Reserves

2009-09-22T09:55:00.001-04:00

China holds a lot of U.S. dollars. They essentially fund our continued deficit spending. We hear many reasons as to why they continue to hold and acquire more U.S. currency. We hear almost as many reasons why this is a dangerous situation. Unlike many of these supposed explanations, this analysis is not meant to scare you.

The reason China continues to acquire more and more U.S. dollar assets is because their economy has failed to evolve from the export-driven model that has raised them to where they are today. In order to sell goods in the United States, Chinese companies (or the government) must be willing to accept U.S. dollars as payment. Since China exports a greater monetary value of goods to America than it imports from the U.S., China is left holding excess quantities of dollars (and large quantities at that).

The U.S. government only sees that we import more than we export - and fools themselves into thinking this is a problem. The government has correctly identified one reason for this trade imbalance: China's fixed exchange rate. However, it is mistaken in its attempts to change this.

China manipulates its currency more than most countries. For years, the U.S. government has pressured China to relax its control over the currency (while increasing control over its own currency with each passing year). This is not a healthy solution to the "problem." Because China manipulates its currency, China essentially is forced to extend the United States an unlimited line of credit. China's strictly controlled exchange rate only hurts China.

As for what China does with their dollar reserves - they invest it - and often in (or with) American enterprises at that! In 2008, Chinese state-owned enterprises invested $35.7 billion overseas, including the $14 billion purchase with U.S.-based Alcoa of a 12 percent stake in Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto Ltd.

If the U.S. government doesn't shoot itself in the foot by either pressuring China or prevent Chinese companies from investing in the U.S. (which almost always strikes me as absurd), we'll find that China's dollar reserves will eventually make their way back.

Of course, lowering our tax rates will do a great deal toward expediting this process (and have the pleasant effect of decreasing the use of overseas tax havens).

Environmental Homeostasis - Fuel Economy Standards and the Environment

2009-09-21T09:45:00.000-04:00

Dwight Filley begins Risk Homeostasis and the Futility of Protecting People from Themselves by stating:

There is a growing body of evidence...that points to the surprising conclusion that most coercive measures intended to increase safety either have no effect or an opposite effect. Thus for example, when the government mandates the use of automobile seat belts, fatality rates do not decrease as expected. This counter-intuitive result is consistent across a broad range of governmental attempts to protect people from themselves.

I firmly support the risk homeostasis theory, and in reading on it lately, I just as strongly believe it applies to the environment. Particularly, environmental homeostasis applies to government mandated fuel economy standards.

Here's a story that may sound familiar. An environmentally conscious person who normally takes mass transportation to work every day buys a Prius (or another highly fuel efficient vehicle). The government may have even influenced the decision by providing an economic subsidy. Now, this person feels better about driving to work over taking mass transit.

Yes, the vehicle travels many miles for every gallon of fuel. However, the mass transportation system is still running. Every efficient gallon of literal fuel adds figurative fuel to the problem. This environmentally conscious person became comfortable in the thought of driving a vehicle with admirably-high fuel efficiency, forgetting the reason why mass transportation was the favored option all those previous years.

When the government manipulates the market, more harm occurs to the environment than would otherwise result from individuals making decisions according to their own free will (i.e. free from coercion). Forcing the automobile industry to increase fuel efficiency standards or providing economic subsidies to individuals who purchase more fuel efficient vehicles distorts the market and changes behavior. Ironically, the government's fuel efficient mandates and market manipulations will lead to increased subsidies for government-run public transportation systems, further hurting taxpayers, the economy, and the environment.

How to Judge an Economic Downturn - Comparing Recessions

2009-09-18T09:32:00.002-04:00

I try not to repost often on this blog, but Greg Mankiw posted a couple gems on judging economic downturns. I will try to condense the two posts:

The question: Does comparing the decline in real GDP provide the best comparison of recessions?

According to this method, the current recession is the worst since the Great Depression. However, Mankiw is quick to point out:

Note that the phrase the worst since the Great Depression may inadvertently lead the reader to think that we are somehow getting close to the Great Depression in severity. As the chart shows, that is not at all the case.

One might wonder why the unemployment rate was higher in the 1982 downturn if that recession had a smaller decline in GDP. Part of the answer is that the 1982 recession followed closely after the 1980 recession, from which the economy had not fully recovered when the next downturn began.

This second paragraph implies that the 1982 recession may have been more severe than this method indicates. By this logic, the more comparable (using this method) 1957 recession was likely more severe, too (following the 1953 recession so closely).

An economist at an unnamed financial firm responded to the first post, and Mankiw reposted his analysis. The anonymous contributor begins by stating:

I prefer the unemployment rate for historical analysis. In olden days, it was likely better measured than real GDP. And before 1947, there is no quarterly real GDP.

He provided the following chart, depicting the difference between the civilian unemployment rate and the natural rate of unemployment as defined by the CBO.
This method places the current recession at just about the severity of the 1982 recession. As the current unemployment rate will likely continue to increase, it is rather safe to assume this recession will surpass it. However, we must take care to remember Mankiw's words regarding the proximity of the 1982 recession to the 1980 recession.

The contributor continues:

Another way to gauge the slack is to focus on a single demographc. Let's take married men, spouse present. They are the most stable segment of the labor forcce [sic], and here is their unemployment rate:

It has been terrible this time, but not as bad as the early-1980s. Why this time seems worse is the unemployment rate for teenagers is a record high. I think we should give some blame to 3 consecutive annual hikes in the minimum wage.

I have previously posted on the effect of the latest minimum wage increase.

I encourage you to read the full posts, especially the contributor's analysis in the second link.

Swedish Taxpayers Fund Feminist Porn

2009-09-17T10:14:00.001-04:00

The Local, an English-language Swedish news site, reported that the Swedish Film Institute gave 500,000 kronor ($69,000) in taxpayer money to fund a feminist pornographic movie:

Engberg has also tried to make feminist porn before, which has resulted in a lesbian porn film and a film of women's' [sic] facial expressions at the point of orgasm. Her vision is to get make [sic] the porn industry more appealing to women, all in the name of feminism. She also claims that women's sexuality is more multi-faceted than men's.

But to argue that girls having sex with girls and women masturbating is somehow a good alternative to mainstream porn feels like a completely alien concept to me, and to many other women. Furthermore, most people would agree that the state should not fund pornography. And when it does, should it really only benefit women, all in the name of equality? If a man had sought and received similar funding for ‘regular’ porn, it wouldn’t have taken long before there was an outcry from supporters of equality between the sexes.

I am glad the author of this article acknowledges that the government should not fund pornography and should not fund initiatives that only benefit certain groups in the name of equality. These are positive developments that demonstrate why Sweden is shifting away from its socialist tendencies at a time when other countries (e.g. the United States) are regressing.

However, the author passed on the opportunity to take this line of thought a step further by stating that the government should not be in the business of funding movies in general (pornographic or not). After all, the classic Swedish Film The Seventh Seal didn't receive public funds.

If You Don't Like Our Sexual Harassment Policy, We'll Revoke Your Right to Due Process

2009-09-17T09:36:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite organizations is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). I previously posted on their defense of free expression at Bucknell University.

Always on the prowl, FIRE has recently come to the aid of Thomas Thibeault, a recently fired (and suspended, which I'll soon explain) professor at East Georgia College. Prior to his firing/suspension, Prof. Thibeault was a respected professor who never received a negative review and was recently placed on tenure track.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Prof. Thibeault engaged in the following conversation at a routine sexual harassment training session:

The story Mr. Thibeault told related to a conversation he said he'd had with a student a week earlier. She was complaining that she did not want to go to another professor's office because the professor stared at her cleavage. At the meeting, Mr. Thibeault said the student was wearing a very low-cut top "designed to draw attention to her cleavage," according to his written statement. She also had a tattoo on her chest, he said, and her cleavage was "decorated" with glitter (or maybe it was barbecue sauce, he said).

"I told the student that she shouldn't complain if she drew such attention to herself," Mr. Thibeault says he related at the meeting with the vice president. Then he says he asked the vice president what provisions in the college's sexual-harassment policy protected against "complaints which are malicious, or in this case ridiculous."

Mr. Thibeault says Ms. Smith, the vice president, said there were no such provisions, and he says she instructed people to report to the college any stories they had heard about sexual harassment by other professors. Mr. Thibeault says he told Ms. Smith the policy was "flawed."

First, the college believes professors should have no protection against unfounded sexual harassment claims. Second, the college wants professors like Prof. Thibeault to report other professors for unfounded sexual harassment claims. As I told my own college's disciplinary review board during my undergraduate years, "Finger-pointing is not accountability."

Two days after challenging the school's sexual harassment policy, Prof. Thibeault was fired by EGC President John Bryant Black for "sexual harassment," calling Thibealt "a divisive force in the college at a time when the college needed unity." He was given the choice of resigning or being fired. Thibealt, who was denied the right to face his accuser or even here the accusation made against him, refused to resign. Black then threatened him with arrest if he did not leave the campus and not return by 11:30am.

Less than one week later, Thibealt received a letter from Black, stating, "EGC has begun dismissal proceedings....Their charge is to advise me whether or not dismissal proceedings shall be undertaken." Apparently, Black realized he violated Thibealt's right to due process as guaranteed by the Georgia Board of Regents. The dismissal proceedings led to Thibealt's suspension.

Here's a quick summary of events:

Black fires Thibealt
Black threatens Thibealt with arrest if he does not leave the campus
Black informs Thibealt his case is under review
Black suspends Thibealt

After all of this, Thibealt still has not been informed of either his accuser or the accusation made against him. According to FIRE director Adam Kissel:

It is hard to imagine a worse failure of due process in this case. Nobody knows what the actual allegations are because they are being kept secret, even from Thibeault himself. In the stunning absence of any charges, evidence, or hearings, it is clear that EGC has punished Professor Thibeault for speaking out against a flawed harassment policy.

New Jersey Teachers Will Force Students to Excessively Apply Hand Sanitizer

2009-09-16T10:10:00.001-04:00

By November, every classroom (over 3,000) in the Jersey City school district will have a hand sanitizer dispenser in an effort to combat the dreaded swine flu, and teachers will be required to force students to use them multiple times each day.

The worst part of this nonsense is that people are applauding these unnecessary, wasteful, and potentially hazardous decisions. As I previously wrote:

...the difference now is that there is no backlash against the schools for enacting it. Public schools have finally found a parental fear they can exploit...

Students will be forced to apply hand sanitizer before entering class in the morning, before and after lunch, and after every use of the restroom. The school has not stated what the punishment will be for students who decide they don't want to be forced to sanitize their hands and refuse to use it.

After quickly researching the negative side effects of excessive hand sanitizer use, it seems you can easily categorize the products as either alcohol-based and non-alcohol-based. The products without alcohol run the risk of creating drug resistant strains of various diseases - certainly a very bad thing.

Alcohol-based products must contain at least 60% alcohol to effectively kill bacteria (any less and you're just moving the bacteria around on your hands). Excessive use over several years has led to reports of arthritic-like pain. Additionally, this level of alcohol is highly flammable. I feel sorry for the poor students using Bunsen burners after lunch.

Finally, there have been numerous reports of alcohol intoxication from ingesting hand sanitizer. Intoxication can occur by simply licking your hands after applying the hand sanitizer. But it's ok...it's not like children ever put their hands in their mouths...

Besides, as Jersey City Superintendant Dr. Charles T. Epps stated, forcing students to apply hand sanitizer is the "best way to keep them safe."

--

In other news, Chinese universities are forcing international students to take their temperature every day and report the results to the university. Getting ideas New York and New Jersey?

Quick Thought on the US Postal Service Website

2009-09-16T09:40:00.001-04:00

I was at the US Postal Service website (www.usps.com) the other day when I realized - the address is www.usps.com. Wouldn't it be more accurate if the address was www.usps.gov? After all, the US Postal Service is a government-run monopoly (and not a "natural" monopoly, either).

However, the US Postal Service also owns the .gov domain (www.usps.gov - opens in a new tab/window). Perhaps a more suitable domain would be www.usps.monopoly.gov.

The European Union has plans to privatize the postal services of its member countries in the next two years. When will America try to catch-up? I'll have more on privatizing the US postal service in a later post.

Lessons for Libertarians from the Brilliant Book by Ursula Le Guin - The Dispossessed

2009-09-15T09:52:00.002-04:00

I'm steadily making my way through the Libertarian Reading List, and I will share any major findings along the way. I just finished reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. It was a solid but not outstanding book until the final few chapters, which were amazing for their insight. I will focus this post largely on passages from pg. 293-294. (Note: Shevek is the main character of the book, Takver is his partner [there are no husbands and wives, which are viewed as property], and Odonianism is the label for an anarchic ideology).

Shevek had learned something about his own will these last four years. In its frustration he had learned its strength. No social or ethical imperative equaled it. Not even hunger could repress it. The less he had, the more absolute became his need to be.

He recognized that need, in Odonian terms, as his 'cellular function," the analogic term for the individual's individuality, the work he can do best, therefore his best contribution to society. A healthy society would let him exercise that optimum function freely, in the coordination of all such functions finding its adaptability and strength....With the myth of the State out of the way, the real mutuality and reciprocity of society could give security and stability, only the individual, the person, had the power of moral choice - the power of change, the essential function of life. The Odonian society was conceived as a permanent revolution, and revolution begins in the thinking mind [emphasis added].

The chapter continues:

Fulfillment, Shevek though, is a function of time. The search for pleasure is circular, repetitive, atemporal. The variety seeking of the spectator, the thrill hunter, the sexually promiscuous, always ends in the same place. It has an end. It comes to the end and has to start over. It is not a journey and return, but a closed cycle, a locked room, a cell....

So, looking back on the last four years, Shevek saw them not as wasted, but as part of the edifice that he and Takver were building with their lives. The thing about working with time, instead of against it, he thought, is that it is not wasted. Even pain counts.

Le Guin writes from a largely anarchistic point of view, but The Dispossessed applies equally well to libertarians (I have nothing against anarchism, but this blog focuses mostly on libertarian thought).

A recurring concept in the book is that the end does not justify the means - the end is the means. You cannot achieve peace through violence; you achieve violence that spreads. You cannot achieve economic freedom through control; you achieve control that spreads.

As libertarians, we must not compromise our values in order to achieve partial success. It is our responsibility to be stubborn. We may not accomplish much, but we will not achieve desired ends through undesired means.

I do not know if Le Guin chose "four years" on purpose, paralleling one presidential term, but the lesson applies. Even when politicians are moving the country away from freedom, the time is not wasted. Pain is not wasted.

Your Income Is 3 Percent Higher Thanks to Globalization

2009-09-14T10:23:00.000-04:00

A recent article by Daniel Griswold stresses the tangible, positive benefits of globalization in our lives. The main problem with promoting economic freedom is that its benefits are not easily visible. Griswold stresses in his article:

The consumer benefits of variety can be harder to quantify than a simple drop in price, but they are just as real. A 2004 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the real incomes of American families are about 3 percent higher because of the greater variety that imports bring. That translates to a real gain of $1,300 per person or more than $5,000 for a family of four just from the expanding varieties that trade has brought to the marketplace.

As I have stressed to environmentalists, you must stress the economic benefits before you can influence people to change their own behavior/beliefs. You cannot (or, at least, should not) force them to change. In this case, proponents of free trade must stress the benefits in as tangible and easy-to-understand manner as possible to win over the minds of economic isolationists.

Campus Progress Doesn't Understand Unemployment

2009-09-14T09:38:00.000-04:00

My friend Kevin over at Questing for Atlantis asked with regard to this Campus Progress comic, "Can you guess what's wrong here?"

It’s the implicit suggestion that any level of unemployment is unacceptable.

The silliness of this idea is so plain on its face that I was hard pressed to believe the cartoon was serious and not a fun bit of satire on leftism taken ad absurdum. Except since it’s on Campus Progress I don’t think that’s too likely.

Anyhow, basic economics lesson. There are a lot of different kinds of unemployment.

There’s frictional unemployment, people temporarily between jobs and looking for their next job.
There’s structural unemployment, resulting from a mismatch between the skills sought by the labor demand and the skills possessed by the labor supply.
There’s seasonal unemployment, a result of people working in industries that only operate at certain times of year. The people in Most Dangerous Catch are a good example.
There’s classical unemployment stemming from wages set above a market-clearing level

Full post here.

France Prepares to Enact Carbon Tax

2009-09-11T10:06:00.000-04:00

Greg Mankiw's blog pointed me to this development - France is preparing to enact a carbon tax. Now, I've previously written on the merits of a carbon tax over a cap-and-trade system (carbon quota), but France presents an interesting case - they have both.

Also interesting is the title of the BBC News article on the story: France Set to Impose Carbon Tax [emphasis added]. When BBC reported on the EU cap-and-trade (carbon quota) program, they did not describe it as an imposition upon the people. Of course, they may have just chose the word because two-thirds of French voters are against the tax.

Mankiw was quick to point out that the French carbon tax will be revenue neutral either by offsetting current taxes or through a tax rebate. Additionally, the carbon tax will not overlap with any industries covered under the EU carbon quota program.

Google Thinks Economics when Approaching Alternative Energy

2009-09-10T10:27:00.000-04:00

This Reuters article on Google made me feel all warm inside (Eleutherian warming). Basically, Google has decided to invest money in alternative energy technologies. Yet another private company displays that the government has no business spending taxpayer dollars on research by politically connected researchers.

Bill Weihl, a leading Google energy researcher, stated:

Typically what we're seeing is $2.50 to $4 a watt (for) capital cost. So a 250 megawatt installation would be $600 million to a $1 billion. It's a lot of money.

Weihl's team is attempting to cut the costs of producing key components to as much as one-fourth their current cost. Instead of taxpayer-funded government subsidies for otherwise uncompetitive technology, Google plans to use innovation to allow the technology to complete on its own economic merits. This is libertarian environmentalism that everyone can embrace.

No Wonder Switzerland Was Always Neutral - They Avoided Working with the United States

2009-09-10T09:30:00.000-04:00

I'm still upset that UBS caved to the U.S. government's demands to break Switzerland's secrecy laws by providing the names of 4,450 UBS clients. However, I'm not nearly as upset as the Swiss. RealClearWorld reports, "The Swiss public is critical of UBS but resentful of outside meddling with its secrecy laws." Great, more people that are upset with the United States over invading privacy.

The author, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, makes a solid point:

Blaming bank secrecy for the illegal origin of funds that find their way to Swiss banks is like advocating press censorship because deceitful politicians give TV interviews to win votes. Governments that blame foreign banks for tax evasion and money laundering are whitewashing their own incompetence. Incidentally, not a few dictators -- Robert Mugabe comes to mind -- with Swiss bank accounts obtained their cash from foreign aid provided by the very governments that accuse those banks of harboring illegal funds.

The United States needs to stop looking to other countries to solve U.S. problems. Most problems involving money held overseas are a result of the cumbersome U.S. tax code. More on this in a future post.

Massachusetts Will Grant Police Carte Blanche to Ignore Your Liberties to Prevent Swine Flu Outbreak

2009-09-09T09:56:00.000-04:00

Continuing my assault on political overreactions to swine flu (yes, people are still talking about it), the Massachusetts state assembly is trying to pass legislation that will allow the authorities to ignore your Constitutionally guaranteed liberties in the event of a "pandemic."

According to WorldNetDaily:

[The bill] would allow authorities to forcefully quarantine citizens in the event of a health emergency, compel health providers to vaccinate citizens, authorize forceful entry into private dwellings and destruction of citizen property and impose fines on citizens for noncompliance.
If citizens refuse to comply with isolation or quarantine orders in the event of a health emergency, they may be imprisoned for up to 30 days and fined $1,000 per day that the violation continue.

I wish I could say that I can't believe the state's Senate actually passed this bill. I can only hope the state's House has enough sense to table it - never to be seen again (at least until another over-hyped disease comes around to spur politicians into a liberty-taking frenzy).

Here are a couple of great lines from the proposed bill:

to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises
to close, direct, and compel the evacuation of, or to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated any building or facility
to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated, or to destroy any material
to restrict or prohibit assemblages of persons
to require a health care facility to provide services or the use of its facility
to procure, take immediate possession from any source, store, or distribute any anti-toxins, serums, vaccines, immunizing agents, antibiotics, and other pharmaceutical agents or medical supplies located within the commonwealth as may be necessary to respond to the emergency
to collect specimens and perform tests on any animal, living or deceased

I don't want to know how many liberties the Massachusetts government wants to take from its residents through this one bill, but I'm pretty certain the Constitution was designed to protect U.S. citizens from exactly this kind of government intrusion.

Netherlands Helps Homeless via Private Market

2009-09-08T10:32:00.001-04:00

Beginning September 13, homeless residents of Utrecht, Netherlands (a beautiful city, in my humble, world-traveling opinion) will become official tour guides of the city. While the homeless residents are licensed by the city (and therefore, not completely a private market solution), I still love this innovative idea.

The nonprofit organization, Altrecht, developed the program with the city of Utrecht. Simone Lensink, a spokeswoman for the organization, described the program:

The idea is for people to rediscover the town and in particular those areas where their guides used to sleep or do drugs. This is a small part of the history of Utrecht.

These are people with a unique background. They had to learn to be social and to be able to tell their story in an interesting and coherent manner

Altrecht recognized that a market existed for "underground" tours of Utrecht. I am sure demand exists in other cities around the world, too. Customers can learn a new side of the cities they visit (or where they already live), and the city's homeless men and women can earn money for performing a real service - not a government handout or fake make-work job.

Minority Party as Oppositionists

2009-09-08T09:37:00.000-04:00

The Financial Times recently ran an article titled, "Obama speech to pupils riles Republicans." Why are so many Republicans upset over a speech by President Obama to the country's children? After all, when parents began to threaten to keep their children home from school that day, the White House released a transcript of the speech in advance so parents could make an informed decision.

The FT article touched on an interesting point not just about the Republican Party but the minority party (whichever of the two major parties happens to hold the title). Matthew Yglesias from the Centre for American Progress, a left-leaning think-tank, stated:

The opposition party seems to have made a strategic decision to be in opposition.

The article also stated that when Republican president George H.W. Bush made a similar speech to students in 1991, Democrats opposed the decision. This led me to wonder, is the minority party always a party of oppositionists?

Why does the minority party always seem to outright oppose most decisions by the majority party? Why does neither the majority nor minority party provide solid, objective rationales for their policy decisions? Do they honestly believe the subjective, misleading statement they make or do they believe the American people are too stupid to understand objective explanations for policy decisions?

Taking this line of thought further, what would happen if a strong third party received seats in Congress? Would a third party automatically become oppositionists, too? Would a strong Libertarian Party become oppositionists?

Additionally, when does opposition encroach on the majority party's freedom of expression?