Give and take, not necessarily in that order

“Compromise,” the lady said, “is the process whereby those of opposing principles agree to set aside their differences, however vast, to frame a resolution which includes some measure of both gain and loss for both parties. A compromise can thus insure against a loss that might otherwise be total, in exchange for the concession that victory can never be complete. It is therefore the safest course of action in any number of day-to-day disputes, whether they are domestic, legal or philosophical.”

“Sure, ok.” said Solomon, and proceeded to cut the baby in half. 

It's been a while since I wrote, and at least part of the reason is the thorniness of the issue I decided I'd write about. I've been asking myself what good my absolutist tendencies are doing myself or the philosophical causes I believe in. And everywhere I look in these circumstances, the word compromise is there, taunting me with one of its various definitions, including  “trading preferred elements and outcomes to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution,”  as well as “abandoning one’s professed beliefs to avoid or end conflict”.  Other forms of the word are troublesome too, like compromised, which is to say "weakened by one's own actions, generally in contradiction of professed beliefs" Now, just where you are in that range of definitions determines whether the word is friend or foe.

By way of example, I might well write a book, bound to be a best seller, with the compelling title "Hole in the Ground Full of Snakes: Reasons Not to Get In One". While my outline is incomplete, I am thinking of a chapter on why snakes are unpleasant that is sure to stir the hearts of every American. I will give concrete examples of the injury done to so many by various holes in the ground filled with snakes, particularly elderly folks on fixed incomes. I think a chapter on how hard it is to get out of the hole makes sense too. But let's be clear: My intended audience is people who are considering getting into a hole in the ground filled with snakes, along with those who have to walk by such holes frequently, and, of course, the people who love them. 

Not on that list is a significant group of readers to whom the book is of no use whatsoever, but who nevertheless have an abiding interest in the topic: people who are already stuck in a hole in the ground filled with snakes. 

I've impugned the impassioned pleas of others on such grounds. "We should never have gone to war in Iraq," they say. 

"Conceded," I say, at least for the sake of argument. "So what do we do now?"

"Well, I'm just saying we had no business being there..." The rest is muffled, probably by a snake. 

My argument is not that such nay saying is wrong or even entirely unnecessary, just that it is not, in and of itself, particularly useful in getting us out of Iraq. 

So, here I am, hoisted on my own petard as they say. I am sincere in espousing the various elements of human freedom mentioned in these pages. But building a model society is way too often just that, building a model of a society instead of fixing the real one. 

Back to that hole in the ground full of snakes. I am already stuck in it. We all are, I think many will agree, particularly as economic troubles deepen. And many of us will have differing view of the best way out of the hole and what a non-hole in the ground filled with snakes world looks like. And, while I know that my solutions are the correct ones, they will not be easy to execute without the involvement of others in the hole. Lacking any particular authority over one another, we may simply all have to take the long view: what set of agreements will get me closer to being out of the hole in the ground filled with snakes? Can I accept a plan I believe will be unsuccessful if it moves my plan closer to being executed? Will those who believe in my plan think me disingenuous for working with those who don't? 

The trick is to keep your overall beliefs in mind, knowing they can't be held absolute in the world without constant bloodshed. But surely there must be some sacred, immutable line never crossed or sullied by the stain of compromise, right? No, actually. Because as soon as it is immoveable, it becomes another absolute that will never be held to. 

The choices therefore become pretty clear. You can be a voice crying in the wilderness--"look on my works ye mighty and despair"--you can try for something that looks even a little more like your ideal, or, you can move to a very isolated spot, in the desert, the tundra, or the far side of the moon, and start over completely.

Assuming there is more than one of you, by the way, starting over changes nothing. But you will get to see it all happen again.

There was an old woman who swallowed a fly. She really should have stopped there.

Drug Tests and government checks


New freedoms often come with new responsibilities. In the case of my children, they get some sort of car, but they also have to cover their car insurance, which means going to work. The pairing of liberty and liability seems entirely natural, and derives from the idea that I, as a parent, have enormous discretion in such matters as granting liberties, enabling privileges, and redressing wrongs.

So the model for coupling a privilege, like recieving welfare or unemployment insurance, with a responsibility to remain drug-free (and, periodically, to prove it) is well established and gets a lot of heads nodding. After all, the cost is born by the recipient and it keeps the riffraff out of the system. My problem is not that it's likely to be found unconstitutional; I think any number of things are that are in common practice in government, and I think any number of other things ought to be. No, my problem is the same old problem--that it grants government a power it should not posses as compensation for a privlege it should not have granted in the first place.

Let's see, so many places to go...I think I'll set aside the failed drug policy in this country, the ridiculous prohibition that has cost so many billions and so many lives. I'll also ignore the self-fulfilling and demand-generating culture of addiction and poverty, driven by a huge swath of well meaning folks who believe they can take better care of the allegedly disenfranchised than those poor happless folks can manage themselves.

The wave of what I will call UFC("Urine for Checks") legislation being discussed seems to appeal to a lot of people who would say their concern is making sure their tax dollars are well spent, or even making sure the least possible amount is spent. I phrase it that way because what they say isn't well represented by their apparent legislative preferences. The way to save money is to end programs, not to begin new ones. Given the obvious challenges in administering and litigating such a huge drug testing program, it is unfathomable to me that this would save anyone any money. So, if such programs are passed, and if they can't reasonably be said to save any money, why do they pass? That's actually easy: moral indignation.

I guess I should make clear at this point that I understand the motive and feel a bit of the old M.I. myself. I don't like the idea of my tax money going to drug users. But I really wonder if the folks who support these bills are really taking all of its ideas to their ultimate conclusions, or rather, tracing them backwards to their  premises. Because I don't believe most people would agree with them. I'll list a few here.

1) Government is your daddy. How do you think of government, at its best that is? I think of it as a  clerk or administrative assistant, carrying out things society has told it to complete, with no real will of its own. The UFC debate plants governement firmly in the role of parent, doling out privileges and responsibilities, deciding what's best for all of us.

2) Welfare is an undisputed responsibility of government. Just being clear here; the argument is all about whether you must pee for payment; but the checks will be written no matter how we vote on this legislation. I object to welfare as I object to the taxation which funds it. Go back one more level and the ridiculous assumptions are many fold: that the government is better at planning for trouble (poverty, unemployment) than we are as individuals; that deficit spending makes sense in bad times; that tax collection is somehow superior to private savings or investment.

3) The government can administer drug tests accurately and fairly. Sure, why not. Government is always so efficient, especially when attached to huge entitlement programs.

4) Lots of welfare or unemployment recipients are on drugs. Yeah, that's not actually true. UFC solves a problem that isn't much of a problem, on top of everything else. Note: A recent headline noted that the Social Security Administration wrongfully declares dead 14000 people a year.

5) No one has a right to take drugs. This won't won't be as obviously false to the reader, but I believe it is. Put simply, I believe everyone has a right to do anything that doesn't violate the rights of others--children in their care, or cars in the opposite lane for instance. Insert ususal schtick about alcohol prohibition here. But more importantly, our attempts to legislate new behavior around drugs simply have not worked. We ought to be past ruminating on what government SHOULD do and well on to concentrating on what government is actually capable of.

In conclusion, two wrongs don't make a right. (Yes, I thought of that myself just now.)If we are incensed at government abusing its authority to make us pay for the welfare of others, giving it more authority, this time to examine our various bodily fluids and keep records, is ill advised at best and crazy at worst. We as a nation, having swallowed the fly, will not be thought wiser for downing a spider. Sure, we've got strong stomachs, but there is a horse in that list a ways down, and I for one am not that hungry.

I don't like them either, but they're my ride.

So we were sitting around last week, the three of us--me, Chicken Little, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Chicken was nervous, like he usually is. Kept checking his pocket for his ID in case he got carded. It's a little sad; the guy's like 57. His carding days are long behind him. But he's all about careful. I can get him to drink one Gin Ricky. That's the extent of his loosening up over the years. But its a joy to watch him drink it--to see him unbend for just a moment and take his eyes off the ceiling. It's like watching Atlas shrug.

Wolf Boy has no such trouble. He starts in, with the whole "you got something on your cheek, nope still there" thing, and in spite of myself, I'm trying to see myself in the window until he cracks a smile. Then five minutes later he'll start in again. It's all about the running gag with him, about having a good time. But, just when I'm determined to ignore him, I scrape a cheek and come back with a fleck of the nachos we've been chowing down.

Like it always seems to, the conversation turns to the economy. CL has been saying things are bad for a long time now. He even has something of a following. They spend the weekends checking inventory in their bunkers and cleaning weapons. Wolfie, on the other hand, has his own radio talk show. He loves Chicken Little, even as he continues to toy wth him. And why not? He's making a fortune. And the wolf rears his head just often enough to keep everyone from dismissing him as a crank. Lately, he too has been talking about how bad things are, how the national debt is crushing us. He swears this time he really means it, and that, if we don't wake up, the Chicken Littles of this world will be all that's left to inherit the Earth. He's been talking about an America in decline.

So why do I care? Chicken Little is a crackpot, always has been. He's spent so much time burrowing underground, that he's made almost no effort to prop the sky up. His world view is not simply about his fear that the sky is falling, it requires the sky to fall. Nothing he does makes any sense until that actually happens. And the Boy Who Cried Wolf is even worse--a vulture who gets a special thrill out of pronouncing the worst, just to watch them come running. And when it really does strike, he can take credit for prophecy.

Here's my problem: I agree with them. I have my own reasons. Frankly, I just call them like I see them. But it's frustrating when you don't much care for the company you keep. Chicken's ok. Too nervous, but mostly well intentioned. I can't say that for everyone in his bunker though. A few of them aren't just readying a defense; they're choosing targets...just in case. Wolf Boy is just detestable, though I wish I had a little of his charisma.

The problem is, I blend right in with this crowd, and can be dismissed just as easily. I had a moment once, but that was a long long time ago. Then, as now, I called it like I saw it. Once the pandemonium started, people were too busy going crazy to pay any attention to me. They were running in every direction, afraid that the lie they had allowed themselves to believe for so long would visit them again in the form of the Emperor's judgement. But they had little to fear from him; As they scattered, he stood there for a moment, embarassed and afraid--of me--the little boy who told the world he was naked. Then he marched on. Like nothing was happening.

<sigh> So what could I do? I bought another round. And hoped, (though I didn't believe it) that we were all wrong, for a little while longer.

Bernie Madoff was an amateur.

It happens to every pyramid scheme eventually. I salute the American people for having made it this long without getting caught. Charles Ponzi himself (from whom the term "Ponzi Scheme" takes its name) could not have done better. 


In fact, it seems to me a natural progression. A Ponzi scheme is one that pays returns to investors from the funds provided by future investment. Such schemes generally have little or no other source of legitimate income. So we promise Paul he can make 5 bucks if he invests 10. He says sure and hands us a ten, with which we buy a pack of baseball cards, a Fresca, and a copy of Cat Fancy magazine. The gum is ok, but we toss the B. J. Robideau rookie card. Paul now wants his money. What to do? Easy. Convince Peter to invest 50 by promising him 75. Having robbed Peter to pay Paul, we spend the rest on that croquet set we've had our eye on. When Pete wants 75, we find a handy Pauline. If we're lucky, we build a track record of satisfied investors that keep the gravy train running like a train full of gravy. 


The pyramid scheme is slightly more honest. It sets up a scheme in which new members of an enterprise make money largely by recruiting subordinates. There's often a pretext of selling detergent or timeshares or some such, but basically, it's about getting people to kick up some percentage to the level above them. Eventually of course, there is a level at the bottom that has nothing more to kick upward and the whole thing collapses. 


That's where the American government comes in. They eliminated this little problem by legally requiring everyone to pay up. Social Security is the most obvious example; everything it pays out is from the proceeds derived by collecting higher and higher taxes from American workers. If I did anything similar as a private citizen, I'd be convicted of a crime. That's why the aging population is such a concern--the pyramid is bulging at the top and will soon be upside down. 


It may not matter though. We're seeing the same phenomenon across the board. Even when the law forces you to contribute to such obviously ridiculous schemes, they can only last as long as there is actual money to contribute. When the government has all the money, eventually the plan will fail--or will have succeeded beyond their wildest mustache-twirling expectations. 


We are nearing that point. We are paying off previous investors (bond holders, those who paid social security taxes, etc) with the taxes we collect, often from the same people to which we make the payments. We can increase the tax rates for now; we can maybe put them off a little longer. But ultimately we're going to wind up right where they all do: with an angry phone call wondering why a payment is late. Then a flurry of them. Then the cops. And finally, the liquidation of all our croquet sets, at auction, with the Chinese taking home some great bargains. 


Then what? Start over of course. And who does the starting over? 


<sigh> You. Me. The exact same people who were paying for it all to begin with.

Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.--Ben Franklin

There is a school of thought that capitalism is immoral and that the wealthy are necessarily evil. That school was in session yesterday when Rupert Murdoch was "assaulted" with shaving cream while testifying about how some people who worked for him may have paid to have some phones hacked into.

While hypocrisy is not the focus of this post, it's hard to ignore; there is simply so much of it. And yes, that includes a "captain of industry" suddenly saying, "No, I can't take responsibility for every little thing my company does. I'm just one man," or words to that effect. But it also includes the rest of the media, whose lust for truth knows no bounds, until they don't like the truth, then suddenly the bounds are like an old friend.
And worst of all of course is the government--British, American, whatever--who say they're shocked, simply shocked, that anyone could stoop so low as to hack into a cell phone. This in a day and age when western governments make it their business to eliminate all privacy as a threat to the public good. Interestingly, there seems to be a different bent to things in the EU, where the habit seems to be to trust the government and not corporations, with the theory being that governments answer to the people and corporations are private. In the states, traditionally anyway, I think the feeling has been just the opposite, with the theory being that corporations answer to our wallets and government is unaccountable.

So Rupert Murdoch is called a "greedy billionaire". And the guy with the shaving cream must have really been a principled fellow, to take that brave stand. I'm sure a bunch of guys passed a joint around all night while rewatching the footage, grumbling about the man keeping them down. This is what is known as not a meaningful protest. It changes nothing, convinces no one of anything, serving only to help some misfit climb up the ladder in his revolutionary circle or get some street cred with the cute Marxist who won't give him the time of day.

Churchill said it, "If you're not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart. If you're still a liberal at forty, you have no head." But, sadly, 30 is the new twenty.

There is a moral argument for socialism, or, rather, against capitalism. It is rare indeed to hear it genuinely made--that is, argued by someone who has any credibility to argue it. That's not to say I believe it, in any event. Regardless, I'm not going to refute it on any moral grounds for now, since, whether it's "right" or not, it just doesn't work. And it doesn't work because, I believe, at a cellular level, it is contrary to the nature of man. Actually, that's too narrow. I believe it is contrary to the nature of living things.

We are fooled so easily into thinking ourselves so far advanced above the beasts of the fields (and the plants, please, they're so slow). But time and again we learn otherwise. Of course, we laud nature excessively too, imagining that the balance we lack is somehow commonplace in the wild. But life on the plain or in the woods, amongst tundra or tall trees, is often violent, sickly, and short. And extinctions occurred before we came along. We are not the solution, we are part of the problem, assuming you view it as a problem. I view it as a fact of life. Natural selection.

Understand, when we talk about natural selection, we're not talking about a conscious process; we're talking about systems that only work one way. If an organism survives to reproduce, it wins, for another generation. It can do this in any number of ways. The organisms that find a good way, flourish. The ones that do not, will flounder and die. We are programmed to want to be the best, not by society, and not by commercials. It's part of our basic instruction set, like the boot code on your pc.If you think it's easily overridden, drop by a great site called YOU ARE NOT SO SMART and check out any article. The latest, on misattributed arousal should correct that whole "we are smarter than the average bear" thing.

Those who oppose capitalism seem to forget how long it's been around. They also seem to forget that other things have been tried before and failed, miserably. Not just in the 20th century, but long before. Those who practice it, are not given the opportunity to practice it for long. Like religions that don't allow sex, they die out in a generation--indeed, faster, the more successful they are.

There is some consolation, then, at least for curmudgeonly libertarians like me. The kind of liberalism we are flirting with will die out quickly enough. Socialism itself will ultimately do away with the socialists. Because behaving contrary to human nature is bone crushing. It eliminates innovation with desire to escape. In place of genius, there is dissidence. Instead of community, there is contraband. And finally, in place of productivity, there is revolution. That's what happened in the Soviet Union, the more quickly because of their extremes,and the more messily too, with oligarchs who mysteriously managed to emerge from the equanimity of communism with more than a few dollars in their pockets (some animals, after all, are more equal than others).  And in China too, though much work remains. There is much freedom to come there, and it will be bought and paid for by capitalists.

Another disreputable revolutionary, John Adams, said something like "We study war so that our children may study commerce, navigation, and industry. They study such enterprises so that their children may study art." In any system which presumes to govern fairness, there will always be loopholes. And we will always find them. Not to do so would arguably be irresponsible to ourselves and our loved ones, especially when you believe the system is rigged.

We thank the jurors for their service, but they are now obsolete.

Casey Anthony walked free today, disappearing on a chartered flights to parts unknown. Unknown for now, anyway, but such things are seldom mysterious for long. Ms. Anthony needs money too badly to remain a recluse longer than a few weeks. Her story is her only means of support it seems, so, alas, we've not heard the last of her. 

Comparisons to OJ abound, but I think they're inapt. OJ, was, after all, famous, wealthy, a symbol of success and the recipient of a great deal of admiration. He was also, arguably, a recipient of the benefits of jury nullification. Did the jury really doubt his guilt? Were they convinced his long ride in that Bronco was intended to bear him away from persecution? It is possible, perhaps, but I don't really believe that. 

Casey Anthony, on the other hand, had little to recommend her. The recipient of no awards, she showed no particular promise, and her fall was only from the curb to the gutter. Perhaps I exaggerate--I say this with no detailed knowledge of her background and rely rather on my impression of such bits of the trial as I have seen. But the death of her child is the source of her only celebrity, certainly. No cause could have been served by her acquittal save her own. Her jury therefore should be taken at their word when saying that they did not believe her guilt had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. 

So, reasonable doubt. That's what the talk has been about since. The words do not appear in the constitution. They were only finally given genuine authority by the Supreme Court in 1970, and then only by the way, not as the central focus of the case. They were hung upon the "due process" clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. As standards go, this strikes me as a good one. The jury system is, like all human beings, not flawless. We can only ask that juries conclude within the limits common to all reasonable persons. 

But alas, we live in unreasonable times. We've not heard a lot from the jurors; for the sake of argument, I'm going to extend what little we have heard to the rest as representative of their view of things. In short, they feel sick, just sick, about all of it. They believed Casey Anthony guilty but felt the prosecution didn't prove it sufficiently. They wish the prosecution had done a better job, so they could hang her as she deserved. 

So, they believed her guilty. Were I able, I would ask them: how did you come to that conclusion? Was it what you heard in the courtroom during your weeks of listening and observing? If so, do you not count yourselves as reasonable? 

Perhaps not. Too many episodes of CSI where chemistry yields all. At the moment we enjoy more information, more easily accessible, than at any time in the history of the planet. My phone holds more than all the scrolls at Alexandria. So if a thing is a fact, it is recorded; it is deduced; it is cataloged. It brooks no doubt whatsoever. 

I think it is fair to ask whether, whatever standard these jurors applied, it could result in a conviction anywhere at anytime. After all, if there is no room for a simple human estimate of guilt, then the entire adversarial system can henceforth be replaced, with a simple review of the chemistry. 

Happy 235th, big guy!

Ha! 235, sure, but we both know the real story, right? 235 years since we started counting. More like 525 if we go back to Columbus. And don't get me started on the Vikings! 

But hey, no skin off your nose either way right? Sure, you look still look great in a suit, nobody's denying that, and you pull off the stove pipe hat, but nobody expects you to look like like a spring chicken anymore. I mean you're not Jack Lalanne (he should rest in peace). On the other hand, Rome fought off an invasion from the Gauls at your age. Though Rome also demonstrates that nobody lives forever, and you gotta take care of yourself.

No, you're showing some wear and no one begrudges you that. And experience counts for something. But it is maybe time to take stock. Don't get me wrong; there's still plenty of time to fulfill all that early promise. But you may need to pay a little more attention to the clock. And would it kill you to exercise a little self determination?  All that entitlement has left you a little soft around the middle. Not sure how well you'd fare if things really got tough. 

And I don't like bringing it up on your birthday, but your spending problem...its getting out of control. I know we've talked about it before, and there's always some good reason: The Great Depression, World War II, the War on poverty, spending the Soviet Union out of existence. But you have to admit the excuses are getting a little thin. Encouraging home ownership? By giving a mortgage to anybody with a check stub and a copy of Martha Stewart Living? And don't give me that bit about how Fannie and Freddie are private, those punks wouldn't make a move without you--if you tell them everybody gets a house everybody gets a house. 

All I'm saying is that there's always an excuse, and, up till now, I've accepted them, because you always manage to pull a rabbit out of your hat. See, Americans are pretty good at innovating even as things get worse. That means we've been able to keep growing, even while you kept skimming off the top.

Come on, don't look so shocked. We all knew you were doing it--heck, you even stopped pretending after the first few hundred years and took it right from our paychecks. We  didn't say much. We like living here and you kept the place nice. But frankly, a lot of us are starting to wonder what we're getting for our money.

No, its not about your intentions. I know you've got a heart of gold and you hate to see anybody poor or tired, especially the huddled masses. And the wretched refuse...well, they could always count on you. The problem is--well, its embarrassing to say this after this long--well, nobody really expects you to pay it back at this point. I was talking to China and they told me how they saw you at the Drop Inn and you hit 'em up for another 20 bucks "just until payday". China says they're through, no more, and they sound like they mean it. 

Ok, no more crying. We've been down this road before. Remember Gramm-Rudman-Hollings? Remember all that talk about a balanced budget amendment? Even a line item veto, that was gonna fix everything. Well, I'm not buying it anymore. Get your credit cards. We're cutting them up. 

What? No, I don't know what you'll do if you have car trouble. Guess you better get a bus pass. You should have thought of that before you went to Libya. Seriously, another war? Now? Shouldn't that tell you that you have a problem? What are you going to do with another war? You never even finished Vietnam and Korea! 

Stop crying! C'mon, your colors are starting to run...ok, ok. Look, I'll give you another couple of months. Ok? Just a few months. To get your car fixed. But don't let me catch you using those cards at the minimart! And after that, its down to business. We really mean it this time. 

Wait...there are gay people in New York?

So New York becomes the latest state to pass a law allowing for same sex marriages. <Insert non-homophobic and hopefully endearing gay joke here. Maybe something about not wanting to be the clerk who registers all those china patterns.>

Let's state the obvious: gays have been the subject of discrimination for a very long time. Marriage is what we're focusing on lately, but they've traveled a long road that started with the right to simply be gay. That would be very tough. My ancestry is Irish (Bear with me a moment. Full disclosure: I've never felt disenfranchised a day in my life.), but whatever discrimination the Irish suffered when they immigrated to the U.S., they generally were not told to stop being Irish. Gays on the other hand, have been told to "cut it out" for quite a lot of time and there are programs to convince them they can and should. So this is a real victory and certainly moves them closer to equal treatment. 

That said, I would like to have seen this whole debate go in a different direction. I think this decision solidifies and legitimizes a system that no longer makes sense.

The government puts a lot of stock in marriage. Married couples have special legal rights. They can't be made to testify against one another. They get breaks on their taxes. That sort of thing. Government generally recognizes the age old tradition of marriage as "sacred" and deserving of some sort of acknowledgement. There's a whole lot of Christians who would like that to continue. They think it is important that government sanction and affirm their view of romantic cohabitation and its presumptive responsibilities.

Why? Well, lets not be disingenuous. I believe the reason is that they would like the government simply to enforce their view of morality. The most extreme probably support laws against being gay generally, which are still on the books in many places. They are happy then, to grant the government authority to regulate the most undeniably personal sorts of behaviors. 

Wow is that dangerous. It's also a recurring theme, right or left. Watch the talk shows and you'll hear the debate, whether the issue is gay marriage, hate speech, taxation, regulation, etc. They go back and forth over which evil to discourage and which behavior to encourage. Just once I'd like to see a host step in and say
     
"Well, at least we all agree that we're better off with the government officially sanctioning who we sleep with, what we think, and what we do with our money. Next, an hour on the latest search for a missing blond girl. Good night everybody."

I am not suggesting that marriage cannot be sacred, and that people are not free to solemnize their unions in any way they choose--exactly the opposite in fact. Its existence as a religious or societal institution makes perfect sense to me. And there are reasons a growing country might have found benefit in encouraging marriage, offspring etc. But we're not there now, and I see no reason why we should want our government to care whether we are married, single, or living in a commune. 

Aside: who will be the first gangster to get married to another gangster so they don't have to testify against each other in court? Too bad Law & Order is gone. 


I believe most of the matters that are legitimized by government sanctioned marriage could be just as easily settled by a contract. Things like property, shared guardianship of children, next of kinship--these could all be spelled out in simple, often boilerplate legal documents. It might encourage people to give them more thought, for that matter, and come up with unique arrangements all their own. 


Of course, the government is big business, and they make a lot of money off things like inheritance taxes that are built on established structures. That's the easiest candidate for elimination and simple contractual settlement. Why on earth should the government care, except that they want a piece of the action? But it's obvious what their interests are. 


Why should WE care? My marriage (to a woman, incidentally) is all about me and her, and the vows we've made to each other and our children. I don't need Uncle Sam to tell me what it means and what its worth. 


<sigh> See, I'm the guy whose home team won the series on a bad call. Sure I'm happy, but I'd prefer that last runner had really been safe, not benefited from the ump's bad eyesight. 


No one's interested in hearing that at the victory party though. Oh well. Pass me the hoers d'oeuvres, what are these, like little cream puffs?

In the spring, a young man's fancy turns to revolution

"Behind one door is a beautiful maiden. Behind the other a voracious tiger. You must choose." Woody Allen and Bob Hope, of wildly differing political stripes, would nonetheless agree that the correct answer is "I choose the one with the maiden!" Except of course it doesn't work that way. You can't see what's behind the doors; you have to choose blind, and worse, there is seldom anything as nice as a maiden. 

<sniiifff> Ah, smells like Arab Spring. 

Take Egypt for example: long-term dictator vs impassioned mob crying for justice. We can all be forgiven for siding with the guys who gather in the square without tanks and guns. And I did actually, though I am by no means sure it was the correct choice. Why not? 

Because--hang on, first things first, why do I care at all? After all, I can't claim any sovereignty in Egypt. I can't claim that my own rights are being trampled by an Egyptian dictator--though my taxes have gone to prop him up for 30 years or so, so that's a hook. But no, what really makes me interested is one of my postulates, that governing yourself is the highest good. And if I support it for myself, I have to support it for others. And I believe that, as the world gets both larger and smaller, that has to include Egyptians too. And for the same reason: enlightened self interest. I believe more people who believe in freedom makes the world a safer place, and one in which I am more likely to remain free. 



Alright, so why be reluctant to support the protestors? Well, if you'll note as of this writing, the military is still in charge. They've put a straw poll of presidential candidates up on Facebook, a savvy move no matter their ultimate intentions. So that's point number one. The impassioned mob has not actually replaced anyone yet, they've only DISplaced them. If they turn out not to have the strength to take and hold power, then nothing's been gained. Also, it's not at all clear they have the same definition of freedom as I do. If not, they wouldn't be the first. There are many for whom history has meant the right to bludgeon others as they've been bludgeoned (Puritans, I'm looking at you). 


If they can't actually take power, then my support of them is inconsequential. If they can't hold power, then it's purely symbolic. If they don't actually share my view of self government, then my support for them is counterproductive and even dangerous. So what's to do? Which door do you choose? I put my ear to the door and listened for growling. Then I picked the other door. It could be a snake, a scorpion, whatever. Better the devil I don't know, I guess. 


Of course I'm talking like this choice, a blind hope in the lesser of two evils or even one evil and a not particularly evil, but not all that nice, is unique to foreign policy. But you could substitute Democrats and Republicans and the arguments are much the same. While I have ideals, I am not an idealist. I vote based on my perceived chances of improving my lot over time. "None of the above" seems unlikely to do that. So I pick the candidate I identify with the least evils, or perhaps the least pressing evils, hoping he will undo the work of the last one and be himself undone by the next. 


I'm not throwing away my vote. I'm making a calculated decision to do the best I can. To keep opening doors, year after year, hoping against hope to find a maiden behind one eventually.

I should actually be running everything

True, I lack a formal education. And I've never been farther away than Acapulco on a school trip, but I can get somebody for the foreign affairs stuff. My point is that I'm a nice guy with lots of common sense. So I would make good choices about lots of things--like what kids ought to learn in school, much better than their parents, in many cases.

Of course, there is a catch. I'm not exactly in a position to impose my will on others. I do not have the charisma to gather an army based on my words, and my physical presence is somewhat less than imposing. I own no tanks. So, in all likelihood, I am going to live in a society where all decisions are not made by me. It's a shame. But given the long odds on getting and holding supreme power personally, I have decided it is wisest for me to embrace a theory of government that limits the power anyone can wield over anyone else. 


So the highest good is that everyone make their own choices, so long as they do not impact others against their will. The highest good is that everyone be allowed to act according to their will, even when I am convinced I know better for them. Even if that impacts their children.


I say this to eliminate the "won't someone think of the children" defense for virtually any huge intrusion into the minutiae of people's lives. It doesn't matter whether it sounds sensible or not. Think about it for a moment; there are people whose lives seem to cry out for regulation in practically every detail. Some people are not, at least seen from the angle of my own vantage point, very good at living. Of course the people I can see can generally see me and may feel exactly the same way. 

So what you're hearing is a hard preference from me for not regulating, which necessarily means not paying.

Maybe its not clear how those go together, but they generally do. The reason is simple: when you buy as a group, you have to agree as a group. Anyone who likes anchovies on their pizza knows how well this works out for the minority. If you're lucky, you wind up eating cheese, because it's the least common denominator. More likely, you wind up eating pepperoni because it's what the rest of us schmucks enjoy. But you see the options here: something that no one wants much vs. something that everyone but you wants. 


Back to the school example: I've had my kids in public school in a couple of very different places. I was in a liberal community first and grew very tired of hearing the issue of the day presented as if it had been decided and the left held the only responsible position. Later I moved, and the dogma changed with the scenery. I was soon faced with teachers who found endless opportunities to quiz students on their religious beliefs and winked every time evolution was taught (as in, "we all know this is hogwash, but I have to teach it").


Gonna go out on a limb here and say I am not the only one annoyed with being limited to these two choices. Part of that is the nature of our current political scheme which is all either/or. Both left and right are ready to hand powers to the state that I think are absurd, but more on that another day.


Why are we stuck with this choice? In this particular case, its because we've mandated that every child must have an education and that it must be "free". Free in this case is a just a euphemism meaning not paid for directly, but out of our tax dollars, like the whole country is a kind of home owner's association with really hefty dues and we get school and roads instead of a pool and landscaping in the medians. 


The difference here is that you are legally obligated to swim. You can send your kids elsewhere, but you have to send them, and that "free" education?--yeah, it isn't, and you are still paying for it, whether you use it or not. So, unless you have the strongest convictions or deepest pockets, you wind up using the "free" one, cause you've already payed for it. 


Ok, so everyone has an education. But it's not a great one. And depending on your point of view, a pretty bad one. I submit though, that it can't be any other way if you're going to fund education through the sole vehicle of public schools. Because I'm not going to agree with everyone on every item. So the best I can hope for is to settle on a bland course that will offend few and likely bore all. In the end, we all feel like we're eating someone else's pepperoni when we want anchovies. 

The alternative, of course is to buy your own. That means not chipping in with the group that wants pepperoni. It also means finding others who like anchovies (because who can afford a whole pizza?), a task which might have been hard once but now, not so much. A Google search reveals over 4.6 million hits on the phrase "I like anchovies."

There's a lot of practical discussion in here that I'll have to come back to in another post, since I've strayed from my central point: I believe in the right of others to make their own choices and determine their own fate, even to their detriment. It is the only reasonable position of someone who wishes to retain their own freedom to choose. 


NOTE: These early posts sound a lot more certain than I intend the blog to be ultimately. That's largely because I'm laying out my postulates, the basis for the questions I'm asking myself these days. And just to make it clear that I really have some, here are some questions I'm asking myself today:


I enjoy the company of bright people. How much of that society is a product of public education? How would the things I enjoy have been achieved without it? Would eliminating education requirements and funding result in vast swaths of uneducated children? Is it better to be uniformly mediocre than to suffer vast differences based on things like income? 

Personal freedom is the highest good, but it's not the only one. Where do other imperatives stack up? 

There, that should undo it all nicely.

Something I Say a Lot

Governments rule with the threat of force and violence. I don't mean that to sound melodramatic. I mean just what I said. We grant our governments (more on the granting elsewhere) the power to enforce laws against our citizens. Such enforcement is built on the ability to do harm to us. If you doubt that, consider the course of a set of traffic violations. You are fined for parking or speeding or having a taillight out. Should you ignore the fines, your car will ultimately be taken from you. Should you resist strenuously enough, you could be jailed. Should you flee incarceration, attack those who seek to bring you under control, or be perceived as a threat, you may well be killed. That's only the most exaggerated example, because generally speaking, the government is so disproportionately strong that it doesn't need to kill you. It can pin you down and wait for you to cry uncle. 

My point is not that government shouldn't enforce laws or that its use of violence is necessarily corrupt. I am simply acknowledging that it is the threat of violence that gives government its power to accomplish even the most mundane of its tasks--from collecting taxes to collecting garbage to collecting dust on its oil reserves.  

So, I think we should be very careful about which tasks we decide will be carried out on that basis. If you don't think it matters, ask yourself whether the following two invitations are equivalent:
    "Would you like to have lunch with me?"
and
    "Have lunch with me or I will break your legs."

These strike me as very different interactions. I think we ought to save the threat of violence for some extremely special circumstances or mandates. So what should the government do, about a problem, a crisis, a plan for the future? We think about such things all the time, in a form something like "I think the government should provide free health care," or, "I think the government should pay teachers more." These are not uncommon or unreasonable sentiments. I do, however, think they sound a bit more ominous when rephrased accordingly: "I think that all citizens should be required, under the threat of violence, to provide free healthcare to their fellow citizens." 

Hmm.Well, maybe. 


"I think that all citizens should be required, under the threat of violence, to give more of their income to school teachers."


My point is not that there is a right or wrong answer to those questions, but that phrasing certainly changes the mood in the room. And I maintain that it's the right mood in which to answer these questions. Is the problem being addressed so severe, so dire, and so universally understood and agreed upon that it requires the forced consent of all citizens to address it?


Quick examples: 


Should everyone be forced to pay for an army?  I think yeah, probably.
Should everyone be forced to join the army?  Well, no, not most of the time. I think. 
Should everyone be forced to pay for encouraging others to join the army? And my head hurts. 

So no law currently forces you to join the army. But you do have to pay for it and you even have to pay to convince other people to join it, recruitment posters, whatever. But, especially in this day and age, all the activities of government are accompanied by PR and even advertising to convince you it really is a good idea. 


Solid answers? No, not at all but questions worth asking I think. Though doing so is completely optional, no threat of any kind implied by the author.

So Many Questions...

Why blogging?

I’ve written lots of things in my life, though I’ve never been published, beyond being paid for some brochures, coloring books, and a technical manual once upon a time. I’ve scratched out poems for fun and my own edification and have a tweens science fiction novel that I ought to do something with. But blogging seems like a bite of work I can handle right now, in and amongst my other obligations.

Writing is also a great mechanism for me to work things out. It is the way I communicate best, or, at least, most convincingly, so it’s always been a great tool to help me decide what I think. 

Why this subject?

I’ve become concerned in recent years that I am in danger of contradicting myself. I am also concerned that a tendency to speak of the ideal prevents me from actually answering the questions of the day effectively. I see virtually no one I admire in current American political discourse. Actually, wait, that’s too broad. There are many voices for which I have some respect, but they are not actually in politics.

So what’s the plan?

Well, in apparent contradiction of the previous paragraph, I’m going to start by documenting what I think is ideal. For myself, and anyone who wants in on the conversation, I have to outline my premises or postulates, and go through the process of turning them into a theorem. It’s the only way I know to organize a reasonable evaluation of whatever comes after—to build a set of rules against which to judge a particular course of action. That said, I’m just going to have to see what works as a start in.

Sources?

Early on, I’m going to try and avoid a lot of heavy quotes or references. That may lead me to duplicate the work of others or to look dumb treading on well covered ground. But the purpose of all this is to get to my own set of principles, so, I’d rather try to document and develop them organically. That said, I may get into some question of history, for example, that I need to research, and I’m not going to avoid that either. But this is a thought experiment as much as anything.

I’m probably going to use a question and answer format quite a bit here as I get started. I also intend to have some questions off to the side for extra credit, the sort of thing that leads me to start the blog to begin with.