Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of ...

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Money Isn't the Only Cost

This shouldn't suprise anyone that knows anything about economics.

[A]ccording to a new study conducted by a Baltimore ER physician. Two years ago, he found that the number of men who check into the ER during a televised sporting event drops 30 percent as opposed to the levels on the same day of the week when there are no sports on. Now, his new study reveals that in the four hours after the event ends, overall ER attendance is 40 percent higher than the average for the same day and time of the week.

Critics often accuse economists of only caring about money, which simply isn't true. Money just happens to be the cost that is the easiest to identify and measure. Time, quality, happiness and all sorts of other intangibles enter into a persons' decision to purchase goods and services.

If someone can delay emergency medical treatment in order to finish the game is it suprising that some people would decide to forgo some treatments if they had to pay full price for it? The assumption that these decisions are wrong or not rational are simply off base because no one, except the person himself, understands what the risks and costs are.

The Gilded Age

A commenter stopped by to repeat the liberal meme that the "Gilded Age" was the result of laizze faire capitalism and we don't want to do that again do we?

Unfortunately, that is just liberal revisionism. The excesses of the Gilded Age were as much a product of government intervention as libertarians claim is occuring in today's world.

Americans' sense of civic virtue was shocked by the scandals associated with the Reconstruction era, including corrupt state governments, massive fraud in cities controlled by machines, political payoffs to secure government contracts (especially the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal regarding the financing of the transcontinental railroad), and widespread evidence of government corruption during the Ulysses S. Grant administration (see {Whiskey Ring. Led by the Bourbon Democrats, especially Samuel J. Tilden and Grover Cleveland]], there was a call for reform, such as Civil Service Reform. More generally there was a sense that government intervention in the economy resulted in favoritism, bribery, kickbacks, inefficiency, waste and corruption. The Bourbons Democrats led the call for a free market, low tariffs, low taxes, less spending and, in general, a Laissez-Faire (hands-off) government.

Now those were Democrats that I could stand behind.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

More Of The Same

Instead of tackling Harold Meyerson's Cato Unbound's Democrat Libertarian essay head on I'll just offer a couple snarking responses. Kip already got the meat of it and I think it would end up sounding a lot like my previous attempts and sound very much like what I wrote earlier today.

The very first words that Harold put down almost made me stop reading. "Markos Moulitsas has, as usual, made an important contribution to our political discourse with his essay on Democratic libertarianism."

Important?! It was barely readable and didn't even attempt to answer the major libertarian concerns about the left! Though, I have to admit to being presently suprised that someone admitted that the major parties are internally inconsistent.

Not suprisingly, Harold failed to address the primary point that every libertarian blog has made since Kos made his original overtures. Corporate power only exists because government has the power to create the rules that the marketplace runs by. He, instead, tries to tell us how bad corporations are and only government can protect us.

So I'll say it again. The power that business has only exists because government has granted it to them. Until someone on the left addresses this point kiss any support from libertarians goodbye.

Law Bleg

I've been subpoenaed.

Part of me is curious to see how the process works, the rest of me doesn't want to be bothered with the interuption.

I know at least a couple lawyers read the blog on occasion - any advice or information on what to expect? I'll be a witness for the prosecution in a federal case.

Much Left Unsaid - Part II

Part I is here.

Not everything that Geoffery Stone says is off base. I'm sure that many liberals feel the way that he does - I just don't think its representative of liberalism today. Take for example:

5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and the outcasts of society. It is liberals who have insisted on the right to counsel, a broad application of the right to due process of law and the principle of equal protection for all people.

6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support government programs to improve health care, education, social security, job training and welfare for the neediest members of society. It is liberals who maintain that a national community is like a family and that government exists in part to "promote the general welfare."

Liberals, in general, have been champions of equal protection and due process and should, rightly, be lauded for those efforts.

While I think that the progressive desire to help everyone is ill-advised and generally does more harm than good, you can only fault them for being wrong - not inconsistent.

7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith. It is liberals who have opposed and continue to oppose school prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools and who support government funding for stem-cell research, the rights of gays and lesbians and the freedom of choice for women.

Yet secular faith is just fine. Many, including me, have pointed out the the environmental fetish that many on the left have is nearly a religion. Nature is inherently good and anything that harms nature is bad. Does it get more religious than that?

8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties. It is principally liberal judges and justices who have preserved and continue to preserve freedom of expression, individual privacy, freedom of religion and due process of law. (Conservative judges and justices more often wield judicial authority to protect property rights and the interests of corporations, commercial advertisers and the wealthy.)

He just couldn't resist throwing in a "conservatives are evil, greedy bastards" line could he? Why can't liberals acknowledge that the wealthy are individuals too and deserve to have their rights protected just as much as everyone else? I have never understood why liberals despise property rights - is it a holdover from when only the wealthy owned property?

I believe that property rights, probably more than any other issue, is what drove the Founding Fathers and inspired the Constitution.

10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values. It is liberals who have demanded and continue to demand legal protections to avoid the conviction of innocent people in the criminal justice system, reasonable restraints on government surveillance of American citizens, and fair procedures to ensure that alleged enemy combatants are in fact enemy combatants. Liberals adhere to the view expressed by Brandeis some 80 years ago: "Those who won our independence ... did not exalt order at the cost of liberty."

And the last one is a humdinger. An implicit accusation that conservatives don't value the Constitution, but without an admission that liberals despise the parts of the Constitution that Conservatives value: limited and enumerated powers for government.

This is, of course, where I smugly point out that libertarians love the whole Constitution - limited government power and unlimited personal liberty.

Stone paints a picture of pretty rainbows and sunny skies, hopefully I've been able to fill in the gaps and point out the ugly truth to some of the liberal values.

Update: More thoughts from Professor Bainbridge here and here.
Update II: Jane Galt shares her thoughts.

Much Left Unsaid - Part I

Geoffrey Stone published a list of 10 things he thinks defines liberalism. I'm guessing that he had a limit on the length of the essay, because he left a bunch of exceptions out of his list.

1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that "time has upset many fighting faiths." Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.

Except when you disagree with liberal ideals. From the kerfuffle over Survivor to heckling of Republican speakers on college campuses to destroying pro-life displays I don't think that many liberals would agree with Mr. Stone's celebration of open debate. In fact, if you spent any time on liberal blogs you would see routine belittlement of opposition if not outright censorship.

2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support the civil rights movement, affirmative action, the Equal Rights Amendment and the rights of gays and lesbians. (Note that a conflict between propositions 1 and 2 leads to divisions among liberals on issues like pornography and hate speech.)

Well, except when you don't like the differences. Black politicians are frequently called traitors or Uncle Tom. You also frequently see blogs on the left openly attack Democrats that don't toe the party line.

3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion expansion of the franchise; the elimination of obstacles to voting; "one person, one vote;" limits on partisan gerrymandering; campaign-finance reform; and a more vibrant freedom of speech. They believe, with Justice Louis Brandeis, that "the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people."

Does anyone think its a bit odd to include "individuals have a right and responsiblity to participate in public debate" and "campaign-finance reform" in the same belief? Not only is the so-called "reform" a limitaiton on speech, it just doesn't work.

The money spent on campaigns this season has broken all number of records. So the desired intent of "keeping money out of politics" has only succeeded in keeping individual's money out of the game. The big boys still get to play.

4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind. It is liberals who have defended and continue to defend the freedom of the press to investigate and challenge the government, the protection of individual privacy from overbearing government monitoring, and the right of individuals to reproductive freedom. (Note that libertarians, often thought of as "conservatives," share this value with liberals.)

It is also liberals that who have defended the right of government to interfere in all manner of individual freedoms. From smoking bans to eating froie gras to forcing poeple to eat healthy, liberals only think that individuals have the right to choose when they agree with the decision.

Continue reading Part II here.

Liberals Were Wrong

During the confirmation hearings of Alito and Roberts the left was apoplectic tyring to convince anyone that would listen that the nominations were a thinly disguised attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade.

This pretty much puts lie to that particular meme:

The Supreme Court, as expected, refused on Monday to allow an Atlanta woman to reopen the 1973 ruling that was a companion case to Roe v. Wade. The case of Doe v. Bolton, also decided Jan. 22, 1973, added to Roe by restricting the medical requirements imposed on the abortion option. Sandra Cano of Atlanta, who was the "Mary Doe" of that case, asked the Court to reopen her case under federal court Rule 60 (b). Her appeal was denied without comment, and with no indication of any dissent. (Doe v. Bakerf, docket 06-162).

If Alito, Roberts and the rest of the conservative court were truly out to reverse Roe there is no way that they would have denied hearing this case.

Not that the left will ever admit a mistake or shut up with all the dumb conspiracy theories.

Illinois to Repeal Laws of Economics

The Illinois House Utility Oversight Committee voted 9-4 to extend the ill-conceived electrity rate freeze for an additional three years. Not only is it absurd that the vast majority of people do not understand the impact of such a freeze, politicians are failing in their duty to explain it.

I'm not sure that I believe Com-Ed's prediction of bankruptcy, but the freeze is only going to delay the inevitable. Meanwhile, loudmouth know-nothings are showing their ignorance for all to see.

That's why Citizen Action/Illinois supports extending the current electricity rate freeze for three more years, protecting consumers from unjustified rate hikes while still allowing the utilities to make healthy profits.

Rates have been decreasing in real terms for nearly a decade - how, exactly is a rate hike unjustified? Eventually rates will have to be raised; that is unquestionable. The longer obstructionists delay that painful step the more likely we will see disruption in supply and the larger the increases will be.

If I didn't live in Illinois I would wish a pox on all these idiots - but I don't want to have to suffer for their ignorance.

Monday, October 09, 2006

What's The Fuss?

I just finished the fourth episode of Survivor and so far the race issue has played out almost exactly as I thought it would. In other words - not at all.

The teams were initially divided into four racially segragated teams. During the third week the original teams were broken up into two diverse teams. From this new makeup the teams ceased operating on purely racial terms seeking to find alliances that were selfishly advantageous.

Thats not to say that race won't or doesn't come into play. I'm sure that in the final weeks of the show there will be some appeals to common ancestry, but early in the game we saw a white tribesmen vote against a white tribesman and black tribesman vote against a black tribesman. Racial overtones won't come into play (in my view) until the game is really zero sum. At this stage every trick will be played - but it will have nothing to do with race and everything to do with winning.

TV Without TV

I noticed in my last post that the term "TV Show" probably isn't long for this world. Or, it could become anachrocistic. Will our children (or grandchildren) still use the term 'watch TV' even though they aren't really sure what a TV is?

Or will short form, episodic programming be called something else? What should TV without TV be called?