Too Much "We" Not Enough "Me"

People are always saying we should do this or we should do that. If someone thinks that a certain segment of society is too poor, too rich or just plain too anything they always say "we" should fix it. This usually makes me quite angry. If the whining left off there and didn't worm its way into politics I would not be upset at all, but politics is exactly where every bit of it winds up. The reasons this angers me are very simple.

First, why do these people presume to speak for me? I think that people should never be put on government welfare. Ever. But because people have said "we" should take care of the poor and have gotten the government involved I no longer have a choice in the matter. I deny the right of anyone to make such important decisions for anyone other than themselves. Note that I didn't say that people should not be able to be charitable to the poor. I just believe that each of us individually have the right to choose who we wish to help and in what way. Using government to force the issue takes away that right.

Second, those who want "us" to do something seem to never actually just shut up and do it for themselves. They always insist on using the force of government to make everyone comply with their wishes. If these people actually cared about whatever they think "we" have to do then they would get off their butts and actually work on the problem rather than beating other people over the head to work on it for them. You might say that if no one is forced to help then the problem will not be solved. This is a load of crap. We supposedly live in a democracy. (It is NOT a republic even though it was founded as one. Our ancestors changed it.) If this is a democracy then the majority of the people must be in favor of solving a problem for it to be addressed. So, If a majority of the people are for working on a problem, why do they need to drag the rest of the people into it? Their are more than enough of them to solve it themselves.

So, the next time you feel that "we" should do something think for a moment whether you are going to get out from in front of the TV and actually do something to directly help or not. If you aren't willing to help directly then you don't really care.

Should Women Register for the Draft?

Apparently one of the candidates in the Democratic debates said that we should move toward true equality and require women to register for the draft. My first thought was, "Why don't we move in the other direction and insure equality by removing draft registration for everyone?" Think about it for a second. We are supposedly a free society. Why does a free society need to enslave people to fight for it? It doesn't make any sense. Make no mistake about it drafted soldiers are slaves. They aren't free to go where they please and must follow the orders of their superiors (owners) or be punished.

If our cause is worth fighting for then plenty of people will fight for it voluntarily. If it is not worthy then how better for a free people to show their disapproval than by not participating?

Should Planned Parenthood be Publicly Funded?

There are two sides to the abortion debate. One side thinks it's OK to abort babies and the other thinks that aborting babies is murder. Given that a large portion of the population thinks that abortion is murder and, therefore, morally despicable should they be forced to pay for it? I think the answer is obvious.

Abortionists are usually of the liberal persuasion. Most liberals strongly believe in gun control. Many believe in banning guns outright so that they can't be used to murder people. What if there was a law that forced everyone to pay extra taxes so that poor people can also own guns? Whether you agree with them or not, do you think liberals would oppose such a measure on the moral grounds that it would promote violence?

Is it right to force either party to pay for something that they find immoral?

Should Creationism be Taught in Science Class?

The short answer is, "No." If you're a creationist don't get mad check out my reasoning first.

Creationism is based on faith and science is not. The scientific method is the basis for all of scientific thought. The scientist is required to observe natural phenomena, come up with a hypothesis that describe the phenomena and make predictions that can be tested based on what would be observed if the hypothesis is true. The hypothesis must either be discarded or modified if it is found through experimentation or observation to be untrue. Thus a scientist must be prepared to discard his hypothesis based on the evidence. In other words, the possibility of being wrong must be admitted and accepted by all scientists.

Creationism, on the other hand, is based in faith. Its proponents can never admit the possibility of being wrong. Therefore, it is automatically contradictory to the scientific method and is outside the realm of science as a result. If it is not science then it shouldn't be taught in a class that is supposed to be about science. It is not on topic. The only exception that might logically exist would be in the context of explaining the difference between a science and a faith as I have just done. Note that I'm not claiming that creationism is necessarily wrong. I'm just claiming it is not science.

There are theology classes in many schools. How much science do they teach?

The $#!^ They Teach to Kids in School

Everyone has an idea about what they feel should be taught as part of a well rounded education. The problem is that if you ask fifty different people this question you are likely to get fifty different answers. The problem gets even worse when you not only require that everyone go to school but you also require that everyone be taught a certain set of things at a minimum. No one agrees on what that minimum should be and some are morally or even religiously opposed to certain topics.

One perennial favorite topic of controversy is the dispute as to whether creationism should be taught in science class. I will leave aside my opinion on what I feel is the right answer to this for now and focus instead on the implications that arise from the fact that this controversy and others like it exist at all.

The fact that public schools are regulated by the government means that the government decides what is taught. Thus the curriculum becomes politicized and the only thing that is taught is that which is government sanctioned. This leads to endless battles that no one ever truly wins. The battle is refought constantly and much bitterness is created. There is also the danger that the government may usurp education for the purposes of teaching whatever political and social ideology it feels will guarantee its continued power. Many would argue that this has already happened here in the U.S. The only real solution to this sort of thing is to get the government out of the equation and let people decide what their children are taught in school for themselves.

I know what some of you are thinking. We can't have people just learning anything they want! They might skip something important and learn something else that is totally useless! They won't be ready for the real world! I say, "That is a crock of crap!"

First, who said you were the last authority on what knowledge is useful and what is not. This line of reasoning assumes that students and their parents are incapable of deciding for themselves what the student should learn. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have faith in people to make the right choices for themselves most of the time if given the chance. What does it say about you if you do not?

Second, stop and think for a minute about what it would've meant to you if someone had told you that you could go to school and learn anything you wanted and little that you didn't. To me it would have been Heaven. Of course, I did like most people and tuned out the classes I didn't want to learn anything about and paid good attention in the classes I liked. The end result was nearly the same as if I had never attended the bad classes other than the huge waste of my time and the school's resources. I would've been better off if I had learned something interesting during those times.

So let's just skip all of the drama and let people have the freedom to learn what they want.

Economic Games

Capitalism is usually portrayed by its champions as a positive sum game. A positive sum game is one in which both parties to a transaction benefit from it. Under this sort of model no one needs to force either party to participate. They just do it naturally because they both perceive a benefit to themselves in the transaction. Opposition to this model usually arises from people who either insist that one or the other party is being cheated or that the two parties are adversely effecting third parties who are outside the transaction. This, they say, gives rise to the need for the government to regulate business transactions. Let's address these two possibilities separately and see if they have any merit that justifies third party intervention. Note that I'm not considering environmental effects in this post but am only looking at things from an economic perspective. I'll look into environmental concerns later.

It is indeed true that someone is occasionally cheated in a free market transaction. The question that must arise then is whether the cheated party has any recourse to rectify the situation. Such a recourse does exist within the court system. If anyone ever feels cheated they can take the other party to court in order to be compensated for their loss. If the matter is too small to justify even a small claims case then chances are the offended party will take their business elsewhere while complaining to anyone who will listen about how they were treated. They may also take their complaint to the Better Business Bureau for help. If the other party cheats enough people then sooner or later they will be out of business or perhaps even in jail. So several mechanisms already exist to deal with cheaters that work in the vast majority of cases. What's more, the people involved in the transaction are the best ones to judge whether they were cheated or not and initiate action to resolve the problem. No outside meddling that is not chosen by the parties involved is necessary.

Third party complaints are usually complaints because that third party either didn't get chosen to participate in the transaction or they feel that their is a forth party that is more deserving of the business. For example, they might say something like, "That company is putting me out of a job because they've moved their manufacturing overseas." This sort of complaint is really just sour grapes because someone wasn't competitive enough to win the deal. If it is expensive to run a company in one place and cheap to run it in another then where would any rational person put the company? If you would put your company in the more expensive place then what are you really doing? I think you are most likely fooling yourself. You don't go out and find the most expensive products possible for your personal use. Why should you expect a company to be any different? You are only being hypocritical if you do. The correct reaction to losing business this way is to look for more ways to be competitive instead of trying to force other people to pay more than market value for your products or your time.

Another potential third party effect touted by the interventionists is the effect arising from the scarcity of resources. We are running out of oil, for example, so everyone must now buy high gas mileage cars and use florescent light bulbs to conserve oil. Or we are running out of fresh water so everyone must use toilets with smaller tanks and low flow shower heads. This line of thinking neglects the fact that the rising prices of scarce resources alone should be enough to encourage their rationing. If oil prices go up, people automatically try to do things in a more energy efficient way. Back in the 70's when oil prices rose rapidly millions of people started buying fuel efficient cars without any government coercion at all. In recent years, when gas prices have spiked people have started demanding hybrid cars to further conserve. I was buying florescent bulbs long before the government mandated them precisely because they are cheaper in the long run.

Similarly, if the price of water rises enough people will automatically start trying to conserve. The problem with water though is that its price is usually directly controlled by the government and its price doesn't rise even if an area is hit with a long drought. If the prices are allowed to rise people will find ways to conserve and entrepreneurs will be inspired to try to find new and innovative ways to get water to the stricken area. Their efforts may even result in new ways of producing fresh water that can increase the supply for everyone everywhere.

See Thomas Sowell's excellent book "Basic Economics" for a crystal clear explanation of how prices in a free economy automatically signal scarcity of resources and encourage rationing and conservation.

Thus third party complaints seem to me to be unjustified in the cases I've presented here. If you can think of any cases I haven't covered let me know.

Winners and Losers

I saw an article today entitled, "Who Will be the Winners Under Obama's Jobs Plan?" Apparently, the winners are going to be teachers, union labourers and other political friends of the President's. At least according to the article anyway. This started me thinking. Does the fact that only some citizens are going to be winners under this plan mean that others will be losers? I suspect that the answer is yes. After all, if some people are winners it follows that others must be losers. That's really the only other category that exists if you start classifying some people as winners and others as not.

I'm sure that if you asked Obama he would say that the intent of the Jobs Bill is to benefit everyone by creating a stronger economy. I have no reason to believe that he would be lying if he did. It probably really is his intention to improve the economy. However, we all know what paves the road to Hell. It is the actual effects of economic policy that are what really matter.

Given that the language used to promote the Jobs Bill is pretty much the same as the language that was used to promote every other round of economic stimulus recently, is it unfair to suspect that this bill is really just another stimulus bill except with a different name? The word 'stimulus' has become a rather dirty one in public circles of late. Perhaps, this bill is being marketed differently to avoid that stigma. The bill also has the same objectives as the previous rounds of stimulus; to improve unemployment, rebuild our infrastructure and improve education. If this really is just more of the same thing that has already failed, why are we doing it again? Are we really stupid enough to keep banging our heads against the same brick wall?

The mere fact that an article that was obviously slanted in favour of the bill could find winners under the bill goes a long way toward proving that the bill does favour some people over others. If the bill helps some and just as much as it harms others, what good is it? If it merely takes money out of one person's pocket and puts it in the pocket of another, how is it helping? Presumably the person who was taxed so another person can spend would have spent the money on something. Odds are it would've been something that they felt would improve the quality of their own lives. Instead they are forced to pay someone to build some public works project that might or might not be useful. There has been more than one project that turned out to be as useful as Alaska's famous 'bridge to nowhere.' Sure after the project is done everyone can see the new structure, but no one sees all of the things that the people who were originally taxed would've done with the money. If they had been able to keep their own money they would've bought myriad other products and services that are much more likely to be beneficial to them personally. But, since this is spread over millions of people all across the country, it is much harder to see the impact than it is with something that is large and easily located like a bridge or a road. At best, this bill is playing a zero sum game. Some must lose so that others might gain and there is no net improvement in the economy. This is why none of the other stimulus bills worked and it is why this one will also fail.

Offshoring of Jobs

I've read a lot lately about how the off shoring of jobs to China and other countries is hurting America. Most seem to feel that the corporations are greedy and unpatriotic for leaving. They feel that the issue can be addressed by passing laws that tax imports or otherwise punish such companies are the way to solve the problem. It seems they blame the free trade agreements that have been enacted in the last 20 years or so for the problem. I suspected that, as usual, the problem is more complex and the solutions are less obvious than the general populous thinks. So, I decided to examine the issues involved.

First, are corporations greedy? The answer is obviously that they are for the most part. After all, No one founds a corporation to lose money. In fact, the kind of people that start corporations are usually out to make as much money as they can. To stay in business they must achieve a number of goals. They must provide a product that people want. The price and quality of the product must be as good as or superior to those of its competitors. And, perhaps most important, they must be able to make money. Money is the life blood of any business and the business will not survive without it. Thus the desire to maximize profit is as fundamental to the nature of any business as self preservation is to the survival of any animal.

Are corporations unpatriotic? I think that the answer is that they are at least somewhat patriotic. After all, a company founded in a country is going to be composed of employees and stock holders that are mostly citizens of that country. They are therefore not likely to make decisions that they feel are likely to be a danger to their home or to their own jobs. However, patriotism is not necessary to a company for its survival. If a company cannot make a profit in one country it only has two choices, either move to another country or go out of business. Moving to another country is the only choice that allows the company to survive by fulfilling its fundamental purpose of making money. Likewise, if a company cannot compete with a foreign company that for whatever reason has advantages it may have no choice if it is to survive but to relocate to an area where it can pick up either the same advantages or others that are just as effective.

Given that corporations are greedy and at least somewhat unpatriotic, what are we to do? We can either accept them as they are or try to change them.

A powerful way to change them would be by changing their fundamental goal. We could put a cap on greed. We could say that you can only go into business if you agree to make a certain percentage profit and nothing more. Everything over the cap could be paid as tax. However, this option is fraught with dangers. It is not uncommon for a company to lose money for several years in a row. If potential profits are capped it may take much longer to recover from the losses. There may be extended periods of low or no hiring during the recovery. Some companies will shy away from innovations that would endanger whatever profits they are allowed to make further damping hiring. Once a company is making all of the money that it is allowed to make it will be unlikely to hire new people as there will be no benefit from it. Many people might even decide that they don't want to start a business at all because of the extra risk created by the profit cap. Capping business profit would thus most likely cap both business growth and new hiring. This may be perfectly acceptable price to pay for removing the greediness of corporations, but we must ask ourselves if the risks are worth the rewards. Capping business growth may result in as much or more unemployment as off shoring.  Also, capping profit still doesn't address the fact that business will be free to leave. Few businesses will stay around after the cap goes into effect.

Maybe we should recognize that the goal of business is to make money and try to use that goal to bring business back home. We could put high tariffs on imports. In this way companies might be artificially forced to move back to the U.S. in order to optimize their profits. What are the results of high tariffs likely to be? First, the price of every item that we import now will immediately go up. The items won't be any cheaper to make in their native land and someone will have to pay the tariffs. This will also mean that unemployment will increase among our trading partners around the world. This will mean that less money is available to buy U.S. exports. U.S. companies will have to fire workers. Second, most countries will immediately raise tariffs on goods from the U.S. This will quickly result in an additional drop in U.S. exports. Fewer exports will mean even more unemployment. One also must bare in mind that other countries are perfectly free to trade amongst themselves. The U.S. is not the only market on Earth and for many items it is not even the largest market. Companies that relocated manufacturing outside the U.S. are therefore not likely to relocate all of their foreign manufacturing back to the U.S. precisely because of the high tariffs that are likely to be placed on U.S. exports. The result will almost certainly be a world wide decline in the standard of living and the tariffs may destroy more U.S. jobs than they create. Furthermore, it is widely (though not universally) recognized among economists that tariffs do result in lower living standards and higher unemployment. See Henry Hazlet's "Economics in One Lesson," Chapter 11. Given all of this, are the risks of this course of action worth the potentially non-existent rewards?

Perhaps the solution is to recognize that companies are leaving for a reason. We should also recognize that the reason has to do with the fundamental goal of business to make money. Money cannot be made in the U.S. as easily today as it was in the past. We must re-examine the changes that we have made since the hay day of American economic might with an eye toward removing the ones that have made doing business here less profitable. Not all of the changes need to be eliminated. Some, such as clean air laws, may still be necessary. When it becomes possible for an American businessman to make a good profit staying in the country he grew up in you can bet that he will.

Stop Government Support for the Arts

I am going to open with an analogy that hopefully drive home an important point.



If you were to walk by a beggar leaning against a 10 story building with a sign that said "hungry, needs food" how would you address the problem?

In one approach, you would go into a store, buy him a meal, and bring it to him. Every last penny you spent went to feed that man. Nothing was wasted. The man did not take your $10 and go into the liquor store and buy wine, or down the corner for a rock of crack, or whatever drug he wanted. This approach is efficient and effective.

Another approach would be to publically sanction a criminal gang to go out and mug citizens of the city. Those gang members at gunpoint would rob people of their earnings, taking more from people with more, and taking less from people who had less, to avoid taking all that they had. In exchange for this service, the gang keeps some of the money then transfers the rest to a politician who makes some wonderful speech about how HE PERSONALLY is addressing the problem of hunger. The politician then gives a fraction of the money, say $10,000 to his staffer who pockets $1,000, and goes to the top of that 10 story building and shakes the money bag out. A stream of dollars falls down the long way to the ground, and our intended hungry man grabs a $10 dollar bill which he then beelines for the liquor store to buy as many bottles of cheap wine as he can. Our wonderfully unbiased TV crews and reporters from the Washington Post go in and do a human interest story about how greatly this man has prospered from the centralized hunger program instituted by the politician, and voters go pull the plug in November for him, sanctioning the entire process.

This second approach is corrupt, ineffective, and inefficient.

Yet the standard liberal argument against those who openly reject the second approach is that they are inhumane, uncaring, hateful people who wish the poor to die in hunger.

Lost is the relevant discussion about what is the most efficient and effective means of charity. The false choice between (hunger) and (federal anti hunger programs) is pandered off to the media, and many within the public swallow this notion whole that the only solution to this problem is the federal one.

As you centralize charity, you increase waste fraud and abuse.

This arts funding question by the government falls right in this same box. The false choice here is between (no funding and starving artists) and (wasteful, corrupt, and ineffective federal funding of the arts). Sorry, I am not buying it. If you think an artist does good work, you can personally go buy that artist's work and directly support them. This is the most effective way of supporting the arts, with zero waste. Those who do not like that artist are free to not support them.

But when you have federal programs to support the arts, you have people being robbed of their tax dollars against their will, to support artists they may hate, and money loss at each and every step of the way of the dollars going uphill to the distribution point, and downhill to the artist. You also have the corruption and political waste of redirecting those dollars to whatever purpose will most likely re-elect that politician.

I am so tired of a world in which some sob story is used to rationalize this theft of the fruits of my labor to be redistributed to things I oppose regardless of my say. Our constitution spells out and limits the power of our government to specific enumerated areas, and imposed centralized charity is not one of those areas.

As we see in the UK and Greece where this notion of centralized charity is taken to its logical extreme and those nations fail finacially. Can we not use this as a wake up call to examine the base premise of federalized charity?

Shouldn't Laws be Easy to Understand?

I was watching some discussion of why congressman don't read the bills they vote on the other day. One thing that dumbfounded me was that they said that many of the bills they consider are written in legalese and thus are not only very boring but are very difficult for anyone to understand, apparently including themselves.

How are we to be expected to obey the law if we can't even understand it? Ignorance of the law is supposed to be no excuse. But if the lawmakers themselves don't know what the law means, how can we reasonably be expected to know? Are we supposed to just let them pass whatever they want then take their word for what it means? Apparently, the people who actually write the laws can slip anything they want in and no one will know the difference.

I'd like to see some prank additions. Maybe "It is here by resolved that Obama is a putz" could be added somewhere for example or maybe "It is hereby declared that all lawyers are studs and shall be called such from this day forth."

Bipartisonship Sucks

Why are people always complaining about all the arguing that goes on in Washington? I thought that one of the purposes of our political system was to allow conflicting viewpoints to be expressed. When people are entitled to argue and seek compromises that suit them aren't we free? Aren't we slaves when everyone must agree with a single party line? Isn't it true that on occasion we cannot compromise with those who hold opposing views? A good way to get seriously injured is to compromise with someone who wants you dead.

Why Do Politicians Always Want To Increase Taxes To Fix Problems?

It happens all the time. A perceived problem arises and we get a new tax to fix it. There are too many people smoking in America. So, let's tax tobacco. Drinking is an undesirable activity. So, let's tax alcohol. There's a problem with global warming. Let's tax energy. We don't like the way banks are doing business. Let's tax them too. I could go on, but an exhaustive list would take way too long.

Leaving aside the question of whether any individual one of these items is actually a problem or not and whether the governement has the Right to try to fix them. Are more taxes really the way to fix them all? If you listen to our governement it seems that taxes are the way to fix everything. Perhaps we are going about the fight against AIDS the wrong way. Maybe we should tax anyone who got AIDS while engaging in risky behavior. After all, with the large majority of the victims it was their risky behavior that got them the disease in the first place. The revenue could be used to help find a cure.

All these taxes do is make the government dependent on the sins of it's constituancy for revenue. Just think how much bigger the deficit would be if people really did quit. The governement would probably collapse. If an activity really is causing harm to society, then the right and honorable thing to do is make it illegal. He who makes money off morally wrong activities is nothing more than a pimp.

Socialists are also Greedy

Socialists often try to demean the people that oppose them by saying anyone who is on the Right is greedy. They are so successful with this argument that everyone is familiar with the details.  So, I won't rehash them here. They seem to feel that the only way anyone can be wealthy is by lieing, cheating and stealing and then using the money to bribe politicians. Socialists use this reasoning to justify using the power of government to take wealth from the people on the Right and redistribute it to those they feel need it more. The Left wins many converts to its side in this way from among those who benefit from this way of thinking. It is very hard to resist free money. Most just think of it as coming from the government and not any one individual. Those who do think of where the money is coming from think that it is coming from rich people who don't work for it in the first place. In some way that I don't understand, this is supposed to make it OK. After all, leaving aside the issue of whether the rich work for their money or not, the people who are taking the hand out certainly didn't work for it.

What these people don't realize is that the government doesn't just tax the rich to get the money. They also borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from other countries each year. Chief among them is China. The Chinese government, like most governments, gets its money from its people. Now, add to this the fact that there is no way in Hell that we are ever going to be able to pay the money back without devaluing our currency and you will see that the leftists of this country are also stealing from the much, much poorer people in foreign lands to buy the loyalty of the poor in this country. I contend that, as a direct result, the poor in this country are far better off than the poor in any other country on Earth. In fact, they are even better off than the middle class in many third world nations. We have poor people that are far fatter than even the wealthy in many foreign countries. I have seen them myself. How's that for Greed?

Philosophers Think Too Much

I recently read a really good book called "The God That is There." It didn't really change any of my views on religion, but I learned quite a lot from it. One of the big things I learned was that philosophers think too much. They've been looking for the meaning of life since the beginning of humanity. Of course, they started out thinking that the meaning of life came from on high. Whether that be one God or many. That wasn't good enough for them so they rejected religion and started looking for some sort of hidden meaning that the universe inherently has. Artists picked up on this in the last century or so. That is why so much of modern art is abstract and random in appearance. They are hoping some sort of meaning will appear out of the chaos. Some have even committed suicide because they couldn't find the meaning they were looking for. They couldn't deal with the possibility that there was no meaning to life at all.

I think that one of the reasons that people have such a hard time with the meaning of life is that they don't realize that each person gets to pick the meaning for their own life. In fact, they are not even restricted to just one meaning. Some might say that religion is the meaning to their lives, for example. If pressed though most of the same people would say that family is a big part of their life. The meaning of your life is inherent in how you choose to spend it.

Religious people would say that their version of God is really the one and only source of purpose in the Universe. However, this neglects the fact that people are free to choose whether they will follow God or not. There is no need to talk of sin and redemption if you have no choice but to obey God. If you believe in God, you have to believe that free will exists. Free will implies choice. People who reject religion may be in error or they may not, but the choice is still theirs.

Let's End the Drug War

I think it is time to end this stupid drug war. Here's why:

1. It hasn't kept anyone who wants drugs from getting them any time they want. In all my life I've never seen or heard of anyone who wanted an illegal drug who couldn't get it easily. We are spending billions every year and the only thing that results is that the drugs are more expensive and more profitable for the criminals. Legalizing them would immediately bring the cost down and perhaps remove the incentive for people to cheat, steal and murder to get money for drugs. I don't think that drug use would make more than a temporary spike after legalization. Pretty much everyone that wants them is already using them.
2. Thousands of innocent people die every year because of drug related crimes. These people aren't involved in the drug trade at all and should not have to die just so we can continue to look righteous. If we only saved these lives, legalization would be more than worth it. Sure, drug users would continue to die. Let's face it though. They knew that drugs were dangerous when they decided to start using them.
3. No one should have the right to tell another person what they can and can't do with their own bodies as long as they aren't causing harm to others. The most important right that anyone has is the right to ownership of themselves. That ownership is infringed any time any one makes someone do something with their body that is against their will.
4. We would no longer feel compelled to interfere with the sovereignty of other nations. We are constantly meddling with the internal politics of other countries in our fruitless attempts to stop the flow of drugs. We have no right to interfere in the internal politics of any country. This also costs many extra billions each year in foreign aid.
   

What I Think About Health Care Reform

I don't think that health care is a right. The reason for this is simple. A thing cannot be a right if it grants favors to some at the expense of others. A simple example of this is slavery. A slave owner might misguidedly say that he has a right to property and slaves are his property so they shouldn't be taken from him. The problem with this is that the slaves have a right to liberty. That right belongs to them from birth and the owner's right to property cannot supersede it later.

People have a right to their property since all property a person earns ultimately comes from their rights to life and liberty. Basically, property is what they chose to spend their limited time on Earth producing. If someone removes that property from them against their will they are effectively subjugating the life and liberty that was used to create it. Slavery is the involuntary subjugation of a person to the will of another. Therefore, I think it is not unreasonable to claim that government sponsored health care, in which the property of some is seized forcibly to be given to others, is tantamount to slavery.

No Easy Answer

I don't think that there is an easy answer to the problem put forth in my previous post. So, I withdraw my claim that I have an answer. I think that the only thing that could be done is to alter people's fundamental nature to where they don't have the impulse to think they can run other people's lives. That would probably require both genetic and cultural alteration to a degree that would make us all guilty of the very thing we were trying to stamp out. The best we can do is to live our lives the best way we know how while allowing others to do the same as long as they cause no harm to others.

The Cause of all Ethnic and Civil Discord

The Cause is simple and obvious. All Ethnic and Civil discord is caused by one group in a society feeling that their interests are either not being represented in the government or are being suppressed by other groups in the society. Simply put, no one wants to be told how to live their life. Most people will try to get along peacefully with everyone they come in contact with if they are given a choice. However, their are people out there whose fondest wish is that everyone should live as they do, either that or just be that everyone should be their slaves. When people are pushed too far by these meddlers they will often resort to violence in an attempt to secure their way of life, expecially if they are treated violently.

History is full of examples. I will mention a few to prove my point. First, the American Revolution was started to a great degree by the lack of representation of the American Colonies in the British government. The American Civil War was caused by the perception in the South that the interests of the Southern States were not being met in the US Government. The Israelis and Palestinians have been at each other's throats for over half a century now because the Palestinians feel that their is no room for them in a Jewish state and the Jews feel that Israel has to be a Jewish state. There are multitudes of other examples from recent history that anyone who has been paying attention can name with ease. All of them involved people who felt that their way of life was being threatened.

In my next post, I will propose a solution that I feel will at least alleviate this problem if not solve it outright.

Trying Children as Adults in Court

I think it is wrong to try anyone under the age of eighteen in court as an adult under any circumstances. I know that many people will go ballistic upon reading that last sentence but hear me out.

The usual reason given for trying children as adults is the heinous nature of the crime that they are accused of committing. My problem with the whole idea is that it is the child and not the crime that is supposed to be on trial. The child is innocent until proven guilty. Legally speaking it has to be assumed that the child has not committed the crime. It is the burden of the state to prove that he has done what he is accused of. Until the state has done so, he must be assumed to be a child. To do otherwise is to assume his guilt before the trial has begun.

Also, when a child is treated as an adult in court, he or she is treated exactly like an adult during the proceedings. Even an innocent child can easily be torn apart on the stand by an experienced lawyer. Everyone knows that children are not capable of the same level of reasoning as adults. It has been scientifically proven that most people do not have fully developed brains until the age of 25. Children are being sent to fight for their futures unarmed against professional soldiers.

Another thing that is stupid about trying children as adults is that after a child is found innocent they suddenly become children again. They cannot get a driver's license. They can't drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. They cannot vote. I don't see how it is logical to consider them adults when they are on trial for their lives one day and then treat them like children again when they are found innocent the next.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not soft on criminals. If a child is found to be guilty of a crime then the discussion of whether they acted as an adult or not can begin.

What is right and wrong without God

I was recently told that it is impossible to define right and wrong without God. When I decided that God probably didn't exist, I began thinking about this very possibility. The first thing that leaps to mind is the old "might makes right" option (which is also God's option if you think about it). This option didn't appeal to me for obvious reasons. I'm not all that mighty and I don't want anyone applying their "might" to me or mine. What then can serve as the basis for morality?

I think that, if you asked everyone on Earth whether they wanted to live, the vast majority of them would say "yes". It is not logical to seek to deny someone else the right to live if we also desire that right. We cannot kill without the likelihood that someone will try to kill us. If you asked everyone whether they wanted to have their property stolen from them, most people would say "no". I cannot steal other people's property and expect them not to retaliate. I could go on but I think you get the idea. I cannot live as a law unto myself and expect to make it very far. Anyone who has been keeping up with the class can see that the Golden Rule is what I'm driving at here. The Golden Rule really does have a basis in logic and fairness. I think the Golden Rule and the principles I just derived it from are a very good basis for morality. The existence of a supreme being is also not needed to arrive at it. Even someone who has never heard of God would probably say that the Golden Rule is a sensible and powerful tool for living a moral life.