Democrats: The party that believes if they spend enough it will stimulate the economy to the point that they can raise taxes as much as they want.

Libertarians: The party that believes if they cut taxes and spending enough it will stimulate the economy to the point that people will finally vote for them.

At first I thought that I was just bothered that people would use such a tragedy to try to forward their own political ends, but I have since realized that that isn’t what really disturbed me. I am well used to seeing people, in an effort to discredit the ideas of their ideological opponents, making whatever argument they believe the average person will unthinkingly accept. And often, seemingly, the less related the argument is to actually confronting their opponents real ideas, the better. So, this example of attacking people’s ideas about limited government, by attacking their stated willingness to fight for those ideas, shouldn’t have been anything particularly new or upsetting.

So what was really bothering me?

It has since occurred to me that it is not the use of this red herring fallacy that bothers me most, but rather, it is the fact  that the people making this argument really believe that this fallacy would resonate with the average person.

It is not so long ago that the exact opposite fallacy would have held far more sway with the average person in the United  States – that if people were willing to fight for an idea, that the idea must hold more merit. In fact, this may be, at least in part, the reason for recent violence related rhetoric. It may be that talking about “second amendment solutions” and saying things like “if ballots don’t work bullets will”, plays well to the demographic that supports conservative pundits and politicians by signaling a strong conviction of ideology.

Of course, ideally, no one would fall for either of these red herring arguments. Ideas should be considered on their own merits, and the degree to which the persons espousing ideas are willing to fight for what they believe shouldn’t have any logical bearing on the relative merits of those ideas.

But it makes sense that people will, on average, be more likely to accept one or the other of these opposite fallacies:

1.) that the person more willing to fight for what they believe in has more conviction and is therefore more likely to be correct

or

2.) that the person less willing to fight is more cool headed and therefore more likely to be correct.

So why does my gut instinct tell me I’d rather live in a society were the average person is more convinced by the former than the later in political rhetoric?

Is it just a case of historical tradition?

The historical tradition of trial by combat (which today is still echoed by battles between courtroom linguistic champions) was based on the idea that the truth could be found by an adversarial contest. It was believed that the side with the most conviction in their case would always fight harder, and also believed that greater conviction equated to greater truth. Also, as a resident of the USA, I happen to live in a country  founded by a bunch of guys who were willing to go to war over a tax on what was maybe their third or fourth favorite beverage – so maybe I just have a cultural bias towards always being willing to fight for what I believe in. But maybe there is also a more rational component to my preference.

To understand why I am in favor of people being willing to fight for their political beliefs, you must first understand what a “political belief” really is:

A political belief is a belief about what should or should not be legislated – made law. A law is something that prohibits or mandates behavior by threat of punishment. A punishment is by nature an act of violence – a removal of life, liberty, or property by force or threat of force. So any political belief is a belief about how violence should be used to alter the behavior of others.

That is almost definitionally something you should be willing to fight about.

If you would not personally be willing to use threats or actual violence (provided you felt it within your means to do so) to enforce or prohibit certain behavior by some other person, you really shouldn’t be supporting legislation that will cause violence to be threatened or carried out to that end.

And if you believe that violence is being threatened or actually used by legislative mandate in a way that does more harm than good, and that it is within your ability for your threats or use of violence to tip the situation towards greater good, then you should be willing to do what you believe will help.

So, as I have said, it bothers me that many Democrats seem to think that it is a detraction to say that their political opponents are willing to fight for what they believe in. It implies that they believe that the balance in this country has shifted towards the majority not being willing to fight for what they believe in.

I certainly hope that is not true.

I also hope that this is just political rhetoric on the part of these Democrats denouncing allusions to violent resistance.

I hope that they are also willing to threaten to, or actually fight for their beliefs when and where they think it will create greater good to do so.

I hope that if the Religious Right ever obtains political control of this country and tries to pass laws that would have the police round up homosexuals and put them in institutions where they can be “cured” with hormone treatments, that the Democrats would fully support those who would point out that gays have guns too, refer to “second amendment solutions”, and say things like “if ballots don’t work bullets will”.

Now it may be that you think that my example here doesn’t equate to whatever it is that the Tea Partiers have their panties in a bunch about. But that is just a matter of personal opinion. Different people are bothered by different things. I can certainly imagine people believing the above described horrible legislation to be both for the greater good of society and the personal good of those being interred.

From my personal point of view, almost everything government does amounts to guys with weapons forcing people to do (or not do) something, supposedly for their own good.

If the rhetorical allusions to violence by those who would feel oppressed in my example scenario do not strike you as being just as bad as anything the Tea Partiers may have said, then your feelings on the issue stem from your support or lack of support for the underlying political arguments, not your feelings about violent rhetoric – thus making any condemnation of the use of violent rhetoric on your part a red herring.

But more importantly, please keep in mind that, based on clear historical record and on the large number of people out there who think very differently than you do, most of whom would happily use the political process to force their values on you, that it is not really all that improbable that you too may one day be talking about second amendment solutions.

So, please now consider some of the the various possible systems for deciding on the setting of your bedroom thermostat:

Free Market:

We all live in our own houses and sleep in our own rooms. Each of us has a thermostat, with which we can individually regulate the temperature we choose for that room, based on all the personal factors that weigh into that decision – what range of temperature we are comfortable sleeping in – how much it costs to keep the room at a given temperature, etc… Whatever decision we make, it is the best possible one for us individually, and makes us as happy as we can possibly be, given all the factors involved.

Estimated percentage of total possible value achieved <= 100%

Democratic Central Regulation:

A central authority decides what is the best possible temperature for our room. We have no control over that temperature, other than to vote on what it should be. The average of these votes is chosen. Some people will find that their rooms are colder or hotter than they might like, but only to the degree that they differ from the average. If we assume a standard distribution of preference from the norm, we find that, but with some outliers in total agony, most people are not too greatly inconvenienced.

Estimated percentage of total possible value achieved <= 70%

Partisan Democratic Central Regulation:

A Red Party exists for those who prefer hot temperatures – a Blue Party for those who prefer cold. In each selection period, party primary selections pick two temperatures that compete in the general selection.  Only those truly committed to extreme hot or cold consider themselves party members and vote in the primaries, where primary candidates boast about how much hotter or colder than their opponents they are.  So in the general selection, the two chosen candidate temperatures are each at least a standard deviation off the norm in opposite directions. Regardless of whether it is the Red or Blue temperature that is finally chosen, more than half of the country is unable to sleep at night.

Estimated percentage of total possible value achieved <= 50%

]]> http://www.whysean.com/2010/04/04/political-climate-control/feed/ 0 http://www.whysean.com/2009/11/04/gay-marriage-should-not-be-legalized/ http://www.whysean.com/2009/11/04/gay-marriage-should-not-be-legalized/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:42:50 +0000 Sean Hastings http://www.whysean.com/?p=204

(Nor Should the Heterosexual Variety)

The government should not legally recognize any marriage. There is simply no need for it and it just causes trouble. Any required legal status for any sort of partnership can be conferred through applicable contract law, and need never use a word as charged with religious connotations as “marriage.” Leave the word “marriage” to the churches.

In our society, people who attend one church seem to be able to get along pretty well with the blasphemous heathens next door who have different religious beliefs. They are quite happy in the knowledge that their beliefs and rituals are the correct ones, and that everyone else is going to hell. As long as the government doesn’t decide to start legislating about who is or is not saved, and what constitutes a proper ritual, or whom should be allowed to participate, everyone seems quite happy. But there would certainly be an uproar if the government decided to declare that women had the right to be priests and men could become nuns – even if their was no mention of specific religious denominations, nor any requirement for any specific church to follow the government guidelines.

This is exactly what is happening when we allow the government to make ANY laws about “marriage”. It is offending people on a religious level.

If we let each church define marriage themselves, everyone will happily believe that the church next door does not perform “real marriages” like the ones done by the right thinking people over here. They may be sad for those poor lost souls, but not really too upset about it. They certainly won’t bother any of the rest of us about it.

I happen to be married to someone of similar age, racial type, religious beliefs, and of the opposite sex – a union that is fully recognized by pretty much everyone everywhere as a “legitimate marriage” – yet I’d still very much rather that the government had no business in recognizing or not recognizing the nature of my relationship with my wife. We should (all of us) be able to freely define our own relationships, not have government approved relationship templates legally imposed upon us.

Having the government legally sanction any definition of “marriage” is a violation of separation of Church and State and/or an absolutely unnecessary governmental approval of just one of the many possible relationships within which free people should be able to choose to associate. Once you grant that the government has any business defining marriage at all, it should not surprise you that their will be significant non-productive argument about that definition and that it might not end up defined the way you would want it defined.

Stop trying to get marriage legally redefined and start trying to get it legally undefined.

If you happen to be a heterosexual person who wants to protest the different treatment of gays, the proper way to show your solidarity is to NOT get married (or if you are married – get divorced) and just enter into a domestic partnership, the same way your gay friends are required to. Then fight to get the applicable legislation on domestic partnerships changed to be just as good or better than current marriage laws and to get all laws involving the word “marriage” removed from the law books.

Then no one will ever again have to argue about what is or is not a “real marriage” unless they happen to be into arguing their religion with non-believers.

It makes me cringe whenever I hear this, and I hear it a lot. Whenever anything goes wrong with a controlled system, the people who want more control blame the problem on the last attempt at “deregulation” and hold this up as proof that more regulation is the answer to any given problem.

So why don’t I accept this explanation?

Because there never has been real deregulation – just a change in regulations that politicians have labeled as “deregulation.” Regulations may have been reduced in some sense, but you can bet that they were also simultaneously increased or changed in some substantial way as part of a political compromise, and that many many existing regulations still remain.

And there will always be a recent attempt at “deregulation” to blame for any problem. The people involved in any regulated industry will always be trying to reduce the restrictions on their free actions, and will be using the normal governmental channels to do this. Some of the time their efforts will succeed and sometime they will fail, but there will always be some recent reduction of regulations to point to. Of course there are always recent regulatory increases as well. Without a more in-depth analysis, it is impossible to tell whether recent increases or decreases in control are leading to a given problem.

You can’t just look at the order in which the new rules were imposed or removed, because changes in rules can take some time to have good or bad effects, and because the addition or removal of a rule may well only produce good or bad effects in an environment of existing rules, so it is often difficult to judge which rules get the credit or blame for a given set of results.

If you just go by what was the last change, when a problem occurs it is quite likely that the last change was indeed one removing a regulation rather than adding a regulation. But this does not justify the belief that removal of regulations is dangerous and adding them brings safety – rather it is a natural effect of the existence of this very same belief.

In an environment where problems are seen to be fixed by regulation, the standard cycle runs like this:

1.) If things are going smoothly, it is difficult to justify restricting people’s freedom, so regulations are likely to be slowly removed where some people perceive that greater good can be achieved without some existing regulation.

2.) If a problem occurs, it is unlikely that people will analyze the situation well enough to say, “Removal of regulation X did bad things because we did not also remove regulation Y which without X unbalanced the system. If we had removed both X and Y things would have worked fine.” So…

3.) Regulation X is re-instated and/or a bunch more regulations are added in the ensuing panic because it is believed that a lack of regulation is the problem.

4.) If these new regulations cause additional problems, the removal of regulation X can still be blamed and changes can be made in a continued environment of distrusting “deregulation.”

5.) Eventually things stabilize and the cycle can start over.

This is how we can live in a world where government regulations are always increasing, yet somehow “deregulation” can still be blamed for any problems that happen to occur within a highly controlled system.

I found a very clear explanation of the current wall street financial crisis and bailout plan that I can find no fault with, so rather than going over this ground again, I will just direct you to the words of this author (who apparently has the LJ handle of “boffo”and is named “Nifty McNiftington” – and with a name like that, he better be good!) .

It is medium long, but worth reading in its entirety here: http://boffo.livejournal.com/770495.html

A couple key points that the author illuminates, and that is worth reiterating, are:

1.) Insolvent banks are still insolvent under the bailout plan, and only banks that are having problems because of a short turn failure of credit markets will be saved. SO this bailout, in its conception, is not just giving money away (even if politicians might tend to bend it that way in its execution.)

2.) That it is this same short term credit market failure hurting these banks that is impacting the economy seriously, but that the government stepping in and affecting a bailout may actual prolong this crisis by keeping the market on hold, waiting for government evaluation of instruments that should have a free market valuation.

There are also a couple things this author doesn’t mention that I think are relevant:

A.) The banks involved are already strongly controlled and regulated to the degree that if I tried to go into the same business as they are in without extensive schooling on the legal issues and knowing a couple senators or some such so I could get the proper licensing, then I will be arrested for violating many different laws.

A truly free market could respond to a credit crunch by offering new players an opportunity to enter the market and make loans. But because these people would be arrested for violating banking laws, this does not happen. Regulation prevents the market from responding properly to the problem.

This is very similar to the situation we find ourselves in with the gas shortage in the South East.

We have a very large country with a great highway system, so how come gas can’t be trucked in from areas where there is a surplus to areas where they need it? the answer is that it is illegal. Government regulation divides the country into zones with different regulations on gasoline refining standards and additives. Gasoline approved for one part of the country is illegal to sell in another area.

B.) One of the reasons this problem of evaluating old loans in a downturn credit market has caused a downward spiral, is that new accounting regulations were imposed during the previous government bailout during the savings and loan crisis and again after the Enron failure.

Before these new regulations, the loans would have maintained their initial book valuation until they defaulted, were paid off, or were sold. The new regulations require constant revaluation of loans on the books. Long existing regulations restrict a banks lending ability to a set percentage of its assets. So a downturn in the loan resale market both causes the bank to lose stock value and puts additional restrictions on banks lending ability.

Less availability of credit means more entities selling off both mortgage backed securities and bank stock when they need cash – further reducing the book value of banks and further tightening the credit crunch. Lather, rinse, and repeat until you have a complete credit market failure.

C.) Given that this crisis is in some part a result of the regulation added in reaction to previous problems, it seems quite likely that the new regulations (that will no doubt be added during this bailout) will also have unforeseen consequences.

***

This crisis is not the failure of a free market, but a failure of a market that is anything but free, adjusting to changes in regulation and ongoing government moderation. All of this happened in conjunction with a housing bubble with artificially low government set interest rates causing real estate to look artificially attractive to speculating investors, and two of the biggest lending entities (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) being pseudo government corporations run by people who “knew” that the government would step in and guarantee their failures and thus acted incautiously.

A lot of factors caused the current problems, but the last thing that it can be fairly called is a product of lack of regulation or failure of the free market. The motto on Wall Street has long been “Government compliance is Job One!”

Cartoon from the book “God Wants You Dead” by Sean Hastings and Paul Rosenberg.

Happy Tax Day to all you citizens of the USA!

Why do our congressmen think that it is their duty to interfere in the rules and regulations of a game being played for entertainment purposes by private citizens? The usual reason of course… no, not just because they all really enjoy hearing themselves talk, seeing themselves on television, and exercising arbitrary power over other human beings – how cynical of you to even think that! They don’t do these things for themselves – it’s all for the children…

You see, famous sports figures are role models for our kids – and our leaders don’t want our kids learning to do illegal or immoral things to win a contest.

That being the case, I guess it is fortunate that our elected leaders are not also role models for our kids. The number of illegal and immoral things they do to win elections and gain more fame and power certainly makes me wish those guys would confine their ambitions to just using potentially dangerous substances on their own bodies. And I definitely wouldn’t want my kids learning how to conduct the sort of political witch hunts that our leaders have demonstrated again and again throughout history.

There is not much difference between the communist witch hunts started by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s and the congressional hearings I am seeing today. In fact, the parallels make the two cases seem disturbingly similar. A situation exists in which public figures in an entertainment industry are being accused of certain past actions – things they might have done that were not against the rules or even particularly frowned upon in their industry at the time. They now risk serious damage to their careers, if they confirm the allegations. If they deny the allegations, they may be jailed for lying to congress. They can not stand mute because that would be contempt of congress, and the fifth amendment won’t protect them because the things they are on trial for are not actually illegal.

Additionally, those who agree to inform on their friends are applauded as heroes, and those who refuse to do so are branded as un-American scoundrels.

What a wonderful lesson for the children.

In the case of the communist witch hunts, the “evil” behavior in question was holding certain political views at some point in the past. In this case, it is having chosen to use certain substances at some point in the past. I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to see a strong parallel between the basic human right to control the contents of one’s own mind and one’s own body.

Senator Joseph McCarthy played this same game, and he played it well. He won contest upon contest, disgracing and/or jailing many famous people, thus increasing his own fame. But our current generation of congressmen should remember that, in this bit of history, McCarthy is remembered as the villain of the story – not the hero. They should also try to recall an important lesson that they were all supposed to have learned as children and are now supposed to be trying to pass on to the next generation by virtue of their own actions:

It’s not whether you win or lose – it’s how you play the game.

I am officially dying.

I had a physical just the other day and my doctor told me that I am going to have to start watching my cholesterol levels which are apparently on the high end of the normal range. Also my balance of the different types of cholesterol is not particularly good. Basically I have been informed that it is all down hill from here on out, and I probably have less than 5 decades to live.

However, this bad news led me to some good news. My doctor suggested that I take fish oil supplements for Omega-3 fatty acids to help balance my cholesterol, so I went to Ye Olde Vitamin Shoppe to purchase these supplements. While there, I made a very happy discovery:

It seems that L-tryptophan is once again legal to sell as a dietary supplement in the United States of America.

This makes me feel a quite optimistic. The FDA’s prohibition on the sale of L-tryptophan has been (at least for me) a symbol of the evil that governments so often do under the guise of protecting us from ourselves. I am glad to see the end of it.

There are exactly 8 essential amino acids that the human body needs to function properly, but which it can not produce from other chemicals. If you don’t consume these eight substances regularly, you will die. So make a note – these are all very important things to include in your diet. These eight amino acids are: L-isoleucine, L-leucine, L-lysine, L-methionine, L-phenylalanine, L-threonine, L-tryptophan and L-valine.

Since the FDA’s 1989 ban on the sale of L-tryptophan, one of my favorite things to say has been, “I am proud to live in a country that has not yet outlawed 7 of the 8 essential biological ingredients of human life.” While I will certainly miss being able to throw this statement into almost any political discussion with a totally straight face, I have decided to take it as a good omen that this ban has finally ended.

So I am feeling very good today – although this could just be a result of the L-tryptophan supplements I am now taking.

Ingesting L-tryptophan helps the human body produce serotonin. This makes L-tryptophan an anti-depressant as good or better than Prozac, while being both cheaper and healthier than Prozac. It is a healthier because it stimulates the creation of more serotonin which promotes an ongoing feeling of well being. Prozac, on the other hand, acts as a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor, causing an overall decrease in serotonin levels over time, while producing temporary good feelings as the existing serotonin is burned up at a faster rate.

Since L-tryptophan is both healthier and cheaper, one would imagine that Prozac would never have made much headway in a free-market economy. But fortunately for Eli Lily and company, the corporation that developed and patented Prozac, free market economies are few and far between. By a “lucky coincidence” shortly after the FDA approved Prozac for sale it then banned the sale of L-tryptophan.

Now some might cynically believe that the existence of a newly patented and approved drug and the banning of an un-patentable dietary supplement that performed the same function better, by the same regulatory agency that approved the drug, was more than a lucky coincidence. They might be especially inclined to believe this if they have read the 1993 report of the FDA Dietary Supplement Task Force that shines some light on an oddly pro-pharmaceutical policy by admitting that, “The Task Force considered various issues in its deliberations, including… what steps are necessary to ensure that the existence of dietary supplements on the market does not act as a disincentive for drug development.”

But Not me.

I am feeling so good from taking my L-tryptophan that I will happily buy into the official story that after a contaminated batch of imported L-tryptophan caused 37 deaths in 1989, the only safe thing for the FDA to do was to completely ban the sale of this essential amino acid.

It makes a lot of sense – at least if you look at it from the government’s point of view.

It is just easier to ban a substance, than to figure out what actually happened. And since L-tryptophan isn’t a patented drug, even if Eli Lilly was not specifically lobbying against it, there wasn’t anyone lobbying for it. There just weren’t any big monopoly profits to be made by going through the expensive process of lobbying the FDA to reconsider their decision. The FDA’s operational model is that someone should petition them and pay for the necessary studies and the time of FDA employees. Why should they ever bother to allow any dietary supplement or food additive to be sold if no one is specifically paying them to do so? And to maximize their authority, the logical default is to prohibit everything new, and ban anything old given any possible excuse to do so.

Of course, in banning one of the eight essential ingredients to human life, it is inevitable that some inconsistencies would crop up, so we shouldn’t blame them if some of their necessary decisions made the ban seem hypocritical. For example, even while the official position of the FDA was that L-tryptophan was a dangerous untested drug rather than a nutritious foodstuff, they still had to allow it to be added to baby food. After all, they couldn’t have babies dying from an amino acid deficiency drawing attention to the fact that this prohibited substance has been an historically vital component of the human diet as far back as our ancestors have had mammalian body types.

And it is probably also just another coincidence that the L-tryptophan ban was lifted the very next year after the patent on Prozac (fluoxetine) finally expired. It would be cynical to think that the ban was lifted when someone stopped receiving their regular bribe money, and I just can’t work up a good dose of cynicism right now – not with all the serotonin I have in my system. So I will just have to be happy in the knowledge that the government finally got it right.

I can sleep soundly knowing that my government has finally corrected its one and only mistake, is certainly not currently enforcing any other stupid laws, and will surely never make any similar mistake in the future now that they have seen the error of their ways.

Or my sound sleeping might just be an effect of the additional melatonin that L-tryptophan allows my body to produce. In addition to regulating sleep, melatonin is an excellent antioxidant that can reduce my cancer risk. I may even lose some weight by reducing the carbohydrate cravings commonly caused by L-tryptophan deficiency. (Is there anything that this wonderful substance can’t do?)

Now I can legally die a happy man.