Category Archives: Liberty

Gay Marriage: This is NOT What We Meant

Posted on September 12, 2011 | 2 comments

Republicans, led by the Tea Party, have control of state houses across the country.  Why, right here in North Carolina for example, we have control of both the Senate and the House for the first time in 140 years.

Several, many in fact, good things have come as a result of this.  Tomorrow the Republicans are going to undo much of that good work:

RALEIGH, N.C. — The gay marriage debate has arrived in North Carolina after years in which Democrats managed to push it aside because they controlled the Legislature.

Now Republicans are in charge of the General Assembly after a 140-year absence. They’ve scheduled a legislative session Monday to consider proposed constitutional amendments, including those that would let voters decide next year whether to define marriage in the state constitution as between one man and one woman.

Now, it can be said that such considerations ought be left to the voters.  However, in this case, the basis of the founding of the nation protects the individual.  No matter HOW many people disapprove of gay marriage, the fact remains that Liberty must be served.  Two sovereign individuals have chosen to commit themselves to each other ought be enough for the state.  It ought to be enough for us.

I’m not advocating that the marrying habits of all people be APPROVED, certainly not.  After all, were that the case, it is highly likely that I would never have been allowed to marry my wife; so many people objecting to such an honorable and capable woman of marrying such a degenerate as myself.  That not withstanding, she is capable of free will.

Liberty is powerful.  And hard.  It often means that the outcome isn’t exactly how we wanted it to end.  But that’s what makes it good; the hard.

I hope the Republicans fail tomorrow.  I really do.

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Posted in Liberty, Politics: National, Politics: North Carolina, Republicans Can Be Leftists Too, States Behaving Badly

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Sexism or Just Good Business

Posted on September 11, 2011 | 1 comment

I have a really cool old used book store I like.  It’s big, full, extensive and unpretentious.  You just go and shop and no one stops to bug ya unless you go ask to be bugged.

The other day I was shopping for old Free Mason texts, found a few and just kinda asked:

“Do you have the ability to notify me when these things come in?”

Voila.  I’m now on the list.  And here is what I got today:

As we are near the Holiday season, have mustered a collection that will please everyone.  We’ve prepared sets of products for both men and women, books that will serve as great gifts, leisure reading, or help guides.  For men, we’ve placed our Science Fictions, Outdoor Sporting, and Business sections with awesome discounts.  Also for women, our Crafts, Cooking and Romance Novel prices are slashed.

To review.

MEN:

  • Science Fiction
  • Outdoor Sporting
  • Business

WOMEN:

  • Romance
  • Cooking
  • Crafts

For the record, the owner is a woman and successful.  Is she sexist or just right?

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Posted in Economics, Liberty

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Extreme

Posted on September 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

Some time ago a friend and I were debating politics, life and people.  Wonderful conversations these, some of my most favorite.  Wonderful times.

This friend and I find ourselves at opposite ends of the spectrum.  I enjoy calling myself Libertarian and he Liberal; very Liberal.  And while I agree with his views, mostly, on the tender mercies of the social issues, we are in direct contradiction when it comes to things fiscal, economic or, strangely, on Liberty.

It was the topic of Liberty, actually an extension of what I think Liberty is, just the other night.  And, as so often as these conversations do, they begin rather pleasant and easy going and, unless cared for, degenerate into me in my corner and he in his.  So, this time, I asked that we stop and consider each others claim.

See, I see Liberty being extended to the person.  And, I see personhood being established somewhere between conception and actual live birth.  I’m open to the debate about the when, but really, I don’t think that’s the critical point.  The critical point is that you get someone to acknowledge that life begins sometime before actual birth.

Anyway, we were discussing abortion and I declared that I am pro-Liberty.  That is, before life is established, abortion should be at the discretion of the mother.  And after life is established, abortion is at the discretion of the mother is some cases:

  1. Life or health risk of the mother or the child.
  2. Cases where the mother is the victim of a crime.

As the conversation continued, we moved past this distinction and began exploring the right-wing nuts that refused to listen to any rational thought and held to a “no abortion ever for any reason period” position.  At which point I realized that I thought my friend was debating the wing nuts; not me.

So I asked him, “Given that there are extreme positions on the right – no abortion ever – what is the extreme position on the Left?”

His answer?

“There isn’t one”.

Blink.

Blink.

Now, when debating an individual about a topic and your going in position is that there are extremists, on YOUR side, that you disagree with, it normally sends a signal that you are somewhat moderate.  But when you’re debating partner refuses to acknowledge the same, it sends the signal that they are not; no matter what they claim they are.

Now, to be fair, my friend does not, at least I think does not, claim to be moderate.

Anyway, when faced with this interesting dilemma that extremism only exits on the “other side” I asked him a question that would cause his Liberal tendencies to collide.

“What if the mother decided to abort because the baby was black”?

Or disabled.

Or gay.

Or a girl.

Eugenics, it seemed, was the extreme.

In this case a person has to determine what to defend.  And in this case, the ugly ugly consequences of a genetic means test outranked the ability of a mother to choose.

Now, to be sure, in the specific I agreed with my friend on this.  I would think it horrible if someone decided to abort a child simply based on the fact that she was a she.  However, I am sure that our rational behind that conclusion would be very very different.

And I find THAT fascinating.

Anyway, I was able to make my point.  That there were extremes, on both sides, that we weren’t willing to go.  And just because I happened to add “Or poor” to that list didn’t make me any more vile than, well, anyone else who objects to abortion based on sex.

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Posted in Liberty, Politics: National

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Moderate

Posted on September 5, 2011 | 1 comment

There’s been much talk in the last few days weeks months years about the need to compromise.  To reach out, walk the aisle and find partners in diplomacy in order to strike a deal, pass legislation. And I think, to a large degree, that such sentiments are noble and admirable.  In the end, a compromise or coming together, where both sides can walk away and succeed in front of their “bosses” is, or should be, the goal.

Much of what I do in my job is such positioning, or compromising.  There are certain jobs that have to be done, some that don’t of course, and they must be done, or sunset, by a certain group of people.  Often times, the group that SHOULD be doing the work doesn’t WANNA do the work.  Or, the converse is true as well, the organizations that own the work today don’t wanna give it up.  Either way, two divergent thoughts about how to get the thing done.  Only in rare circumstances do I advocate for a total power play.  Most often I urge an agreement that will allow both managers to succeed in front of their boss.

Politics should be no different.

However, it assumes that both players are moderates.  That they don’t have the dogma associated with the zealot.  Faced with conflicting ideas and paths toward success, they feel sure that the “other guy” has the same goal in mind.

Today, that is not the case.  We are dealing with a different kind of conflict today.  We’re debating the very essence of how our government should be organized.  We are NOT debating about how we are going to run an agreed upon government.

On one side, you have a group of people who feel as free and as open a market is best suited to bring about prosperity to a nation as a whole.  On the other, you find a group f of people who feel that by taking more and more of another’s property is the best way to bring about prosperity as a whole.

This is not a debate about a middle ground, this is a debate about which form we wanna live under.

Ayn Rand said it best:

There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the burglar a single teaspoon of one’s silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender—the recognition of his right to one’s property.

I can’t compromise with today’s Democrats when it comes to their larger world view.  It has come down to what system of government we will agree to abide by.

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Posted in Diplomacy, Government, Liberty, Politics: National

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Income Disparity

Posted on September 5, 2011 | 1 comment

Income disparity.

Wikipedia describes it like this:

Income inequality in the United States of America is the extent to which income, most commonly measured by household or individual, is distributed in an uneven manner.

Pretty fair I think.  It hits what I think are the important aspects of the topic:

  1. Income
  2. How measured
  3. Distributed
  4. Uneven

I think that most reasonable people wanna help out the folks who need the help.  Further, I think that most reasonable people wouldn’t personally help those folks, who-while down on their luck, aren’t down due to luck.

Anyway, very often when solutions are discussed, or when examples of success are presented, I am faced with the argument that the Income Disparity, the Income Inequality of America is very very poor.  So poor, perhaps, that we rank near, tied for or dead, last.  A common tool to measure the disparity in incomes is the GINI Coefficient.  Or the GINI Index.

The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion developed by the Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini and published in his 1912 paper “Variability and Mutability”

The Gini coefficient is a measure of the inequality of a distribution, a value of 0 expressing total equality and a value of 1 maximal inequality. It has found application in the study of inequalities in disciplines as diverse as sociology, economics, health science, ecology, chemistry, engineering and agriculture.

It is commonly used as a measure of inequality of income or wealth.  Worldwide, Gini coefficients for income range from approximately 0.23 (Sweden) to 0.70 (Namibia) although not every country has been assessed.

Most uses of the GINI Coefficient that I have ever heard of deal with Income Disparity.  Though from reading wiki, it seems that the GINI Coefficient is simply a tool to measure dispersion.  So, it’s nice to learn that the GINI is simply a statistical tool that has been applied to measure income disparity.

As I am generally ignorant of many things the measuring of income between the people of a nation, I think it’s important to learn more.  As I enter into this investigations, I’m struck by two aspects of the inquiry:

  1. Does it matter?
  2. What is being measured?

The second first.  Because the GINI can be used to measure seemingly anything at all;  fish in a body of water, water in a body of land or pine cones in a body of grass.  It’s important to know what the subject of the measurement is.  And I think that most discussions surrounding the GINI are clear on what they are measuring.

For example, we are having a discussion concerning taxation on my post concerning Denmark and the United States.  One of my friends  points out that:

The US pre-tax and transfer GINI index is at .46, while Sweden is at .43, and Denmark and Norway are at .42. That means pre-tax they are slightly more even in income distribution, but not much. German has a bigger pre-tax gap between the rich and the poor than the US at .51.

After tax the US GINI index moves to .38 — a modest improvement. But it is the most income disparity of the entire industrialized world. Taxes and transfers move the wealth distribution from .46 to .38.

After taxes and transfers Denmark is at .23.

Clearly the GINI is being used to measure two different things.  Income pre-tax and then income post-tax.  Which is valid as long as the measurements are clearly labelled.  And again, I think in most cases they are honestly so represented.

Now the first.  Does it matter?

This is trickier.  Does the fact that the richest among us make more than the poorest among us matter?  Perhaps.  It sounds like there is a body of evidence that suggests it does matter AND that when that disparity is high, society suffers.  I don’t know, I haven’t looked at it.  First blush, I think my take is that I don’t care as long as I have a reasonable shot at getting pretty close to the top.  And reasonable can mean many things.  When I buy a lottery ticket I have as reasonable a shot as anyone else.  I certainly would resent the rich having a better shot at winning numbers than me JUST because they were rich.

So, where are we.

I wanna look at Income Disparity.  Perhaps as it’s measured by the GINI.  And I wanna know, at the end, several things.  The first of which is: DOES IT MATTER?

And if it does, which of the following matters the most:

  1. Straight income.  The MONEY paid from employer to employee.
  2. Total compensation.  The total compensation from employer to employee.
  3. This measurement BEFORE taxes.
  4. This measurement AFTER taxes.
  5. Finally, this measurement AFTER social entitlement programs.

Let’s see how this goes.

Thoughts?

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Liberty, Politics: National

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Should The Ugly Be A Protected Class?

Posted on August 31, 2011 | 1 comment

I like my talk radio.  And I like my North Carolina.  That’s why I listen to local talk whenever I can.  That means on the way TO work and on the way FROM work I get the local liberal talk.  In the morning I get Brad and Britt and the afternoon brings me Allan Handelmman.  Today they BOTH got me going.

First Allan.

It’s well know that the Left feels the best way to remove a bias against a particular group is to take society, group them according to characteristics that match the oppressed group and treat them differently than they do the rest of the population.  I know, I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either.  But, ya know…..

Okay, so, today’s group of people that are being exploited by the evil rich capitalists?

Ugly people:

In addition to whatever personal pleasure it gives you, being attractive also helps you earn more money, find a higher-earning spouse (and one who looks better, too!) and get better deals on mortgages. Each of these facts has been demonstrated over the past 20 years by many economists and other researchers. The effects are not small: one study showed that an American worker who was among the bottom one-seventh in looks, as assessed by randomly chosen observers, earned 10 to 15 percent less per year than a similar worker whose looks were assessed in the top one-third — a lifetime difference, in a typical case, of about $230,000.

There ya have it; a clear cut case of discrimination against a certain group of people.  And what should we do?

A more radical solution may be needed: why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals?

Certainly this is more satire?

We actually already do offer such protections in a few places, including in some jurisdictions in California, and in the District of Columbia, where discriminatory treatment based on looks in hiring, promotions, housing and other areas is prohibited. Ugliness could be protected generally in the United States by small extensions of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Ugly people could be allowed to seek help from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies in overcoming the effects of discrimination. We could even have affirmative-action programs for the ugly.

Come on….there is NO way we could do this:

The mechanics of legislating this kind of protection are not as difficult as you might think. You might argue that people can’t be classified by their looks — that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That aphorism is correct in one sense: if asked who is the most beautiful person in a group of beautiful people, you and I might well have different answers. But when it comes to differentiating classes of attractiveness, we all view beauty similarly: someone whom you consider good-looking will be viewed similarly by most others; someone you consider ugly will be viewed as ugly by most others. In one study, more than half of a group of people were assessed identically by each of two observers using a five-point scale; and very few assessments differed by more than one point.

For purposes of administering a law, we surely could agree on who is truly ugly, perhaps the worst-looking 1 or 2 percent of the population.

Serious?

Economic arguments for protecting the ugly are as strong as those for protecting some groups currently covered by legislation. So why not go ahead and expand protection to the looks-challenged? There’s one legitimate concern. With increasingly tight limits on government resources, expanding rights to yet another protected group would reduce protection for groups that have commanded our legislative and other attention for over 50 years.

…

You might reasonably disagree and argue for protecting all deserving groups. Either way, you shouldn’t be surprised to see the United States heading toward this new legal frontier.

I’m sure many generations of fathers have felt this.  But I seriously think that my America will have been better than my child’s.  As Sean Patrick says:

And so passes the glory of America.

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Posted in Liberty, Politics: National

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Obama Can Sleep Well Tonight

Posted on August 29, 2011 | 2 comments

If I get him fired in 2012, he can sue me for hurting his feelings:

A jury’s $60,000 verdict against Minneapolis blogger John “Johnny Northside” Hoff for a posting that got a man fired will stand, a Hennepin County judge has ordered.

In a nine-page ruling, District Judge Denise Reilly wrote that ex-community leader Jerry Moore provided “direct and circumstantial evidence” to support the jury’s verdict that a blog post by Hoff led to his termination by the University of Minnesota.

Hoff “acknowledged that it was his goal to get [Moore] fired and that he was working ‘behind the scenes’ to do so,” Reilly wrote. “After the fact, [Hoff] took personal responsibility for [Moore’s] termination and announced his ongoing, active involvement in the University’s actions.”

The case has drawn the attention of numerous free-speech advocates, including the Society of Professional Journalists, which filed a brief in support of Hoff.

Hoff, who learned of the order on Monday, called it “a dark day for the First Amendment.”

“I didn’t think it would go this way,” he said. “I’m shocked.”

The jury ruled last March that Hoff’s scathing blog post amounted to actively interfering with Moore’s job at the U, even though Hoff’s statements were true when he linked Moore to high-profile mortgage fraud.

The jury awarded Moore $35,000 for lost wages and $25,000 for emotional distress. Hoff sought to overturn the verdict or get a new trial. Reilly denied both efforts.

It was true.  All of it.  And he was found guilty.

I know nothing else about the story, so I should ‘prolly withhold righteous judgement, but this kinda stinks.

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Posted in Elections 2012, Liberty

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Social Programs For The Poor: Open Question To The Left

Posted on August 24, 2011 | 6 comments

As I was typing this one single question, I thought of  more:

  1. Does your definition of “poor” predicate itself on things needed to live?  Or does it involve definitions based on relative wealth?
  2. If the government capital “O” Ought provide for the poor, does this include those who choose to put themselves in that group of people defined in question #1?
    1. I.E. If a person chooses to be poor, is the government still bound by the Ought?
  3. If you could compel a citizen to work in a pure socialist state, why can’t you do the same in this one?

6 Comments

Posted in Liberty, Politics: National

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To Be Fair: Greens Aren’t The Only Mean People

Posted on August 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

I’ve always suspected that the Left considers forcing me to contribute to their causes against my will, “charity” on their part.  For example, if the Liberati are able to pass a law that requires me to pay taxes for homeless relief, they are able to tell their other Liberal friends that they contributed to the relief of the homeless.

Hardly.

What they did was cause ME to contribute to the relief of the homeless.

So this should come as no surprise:

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the “licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour”, otherwise known as “moral balancing” or “compensatory ethics”.

Now, to be fair, I don’t feel this relates only to the greenies.  I’m pretty sure it is applicable to all on the Left.

However, this is good stuff:

…those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it – in other words, steal – they did, while the conventional consumers did not. Later, in an honour system in which participants were asked to take money from an envelope to pay themselves their spoils, the greens were six times more likely to steal than the conventionals.

In the end, it would appear that the Left and I have more in common than I thought.  We both believe that it’s my responsibility to care for the less fortunate.

Who woulda thunk it?

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Posted in Government, Liberty

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Lessons From Yale

Posted on August 20, 2011 | 6 comments

From TaxProf Blog via Instapundit:

The untold story is that redistribution of income is, by and large, not designed to help the poor but to preserve social stability on behalf of the rich (or a portion of them). It’s like Guido Calabresi used to tell his students on the first day of classes at Yale. Are you in favor of high taxes? Yes. Are you in favor of high spending? Yes. Do you want to see your seats at Yale redistributed to people with lower test scores? Silence. Aha, he would say, you just want to redistribute other people’s advantages, not your own.

Freakin’ Liberal Leftists!

 

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Posted in Liberty, Politics: National

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