"Don't You Want Us to Succeed in Iraq"

Bridging on Paul Gessing's last blog, the level of mendacity among war boosters is now officially off the charts. They are trotting out ever sophistical, specious arguments to support the "surge," hoping that something will stick.

Sean Hannity, talk show host and consistent shill for Compound W, was interviewing a person who opposes the war. Raising his voice, Hannity asked, belligerently: "Don't you want us to succeed in Iraq?" The guest said something like, "I'm not sure what you mean by 'success'." Hannity shouted him down, "Answer the question."

This, of course, is easily seen through. Like most of the English language, the word "success" is squishy. For example, if "success" means the US troops stay in Iraq for 10 years, refereeing a Sunni/Shia Civil War until no militia are left, then, NO, Mr. Hannity, I don't support success. The Iraq War is like fruit from a poisoned tree. It was a mistake from the get-go, based on false premises. It was a set up for failure in my book. Of course, I want to get US troops out of harm's way. I don't want them to die or to be maimed in a cause that I find completely inappropriate.

There IS NO success here. This is a case of making the best of a bad situation. Yes, it's probably helpful that Saddam is out of power, though his hanging was -- by my values -- unwarranted and barbaric.

The Hannitys of the world don't seem to have the integrity to answer the most basic question: What is your definition of "success"? If they won't do that, then they are not engaging in civil discourse. The only word I can think of is "propaganda" to describe this rhetoric.

-Robert Capozzi

The Feingold Option

It is truly unfortunate that Russ Feingold is not running for President in 2008. He seems to be one of the few Senators who not only understands the situation in Iraq, but is willing to do something about it. As Justin Raimondo points out, it is time to get behind Feingold's push to force the Bush Administration to bring the troops home from Iraq.

More On “Giving Back”

A year or so ago, TFL had an exchange on the notion of “giving back” (here, here, here and here). Fresh from seeing a preview of the commendable documentary Mine Your Own Business, I go a bit further than I did then.

In that documentary, we see some very poor people who are desperate to improve their material lives. Environmental extremists are blocking mining companies from setting up operations in these remote places. In a roomful of right wingers and libertarians, there was hostility to the environmental extremists. Understandable hostility, as the environmentalists were caught fabricating and lying to make their case by the liberal journalist/documentarian.

How does this relate to the subject of “giving back”? We live in a generally wonderful, affluent society. Here, property rights are at least somewhat recognized, and the justice system – though hardly perfect – supports property rights.

We take this for granted. But, in most of the world, and throughout most of human history, property rights and justice does not and did not rule. That’s extraordinary, for us Americans, especially. If most people in America did not believe – even vaguely – in property rights and justice, our lot could easily be like the people of Romania, Madagascar, and Chile, the people featured in Mine Your Own Business.

In a sense, if Google, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet want to “give back” in recognition that the community more or less recognizes their right to amass great wealth, the case is weak to quibble with the term “giving back.” It’s kind of healthy, actually, and is reality-based. It seems perfectly appropriate that some wish to celebrate our social order by contributing to the less fortunate.

-Robert Capozzi

Lost in Compound W

I guess we shouldn't be surprised by this news. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Old Executive Office Building, some wonks came up with this scheme.

This regulatory approach has been shown time and again to fail. Yet, pressured to appear to be "doing something," this "cure" is worse than the disease. Sure, oil "dependence" is a bad thing, on a lot of levels. The common-sense solution is a gradual increase in the gas tax, offset with other tax cuts. But that would make too much sense, would be too effective in reducing pollution and oil dependence, and is too direct.

Let's be cute, say the wonks, bedazzled and bedraggled as they must be with Compound W in such obvious disarray.

Can't wait til 09. There must be a better way to run a government. It surely can't get much worse than this!

-Robert Capozzi

Can Congress Stop the War?

Most Americans intuitively understand that Congress has the authority not only to stop Bush's "surge" of troops in Iraq, but to stop the Iraq War entirely. Jonathan Turley explains exactly what Congress could and should do to thwart Bush.

As Turley points out, the question is whether the Democrats have the guts to stand up to Bush on this. Americans from all walks of life were frustrated enough to vote the Republicans out of office, but large numbers of Democrats supported the war from the beginning and are still unwilling to take a stand. We'll see soon enough whether an opposition party exists in Washington. Personally, I doubt it. I think they'll give Bush more rope to continue the debacle as close to the '08 election as possible.

Ahmadinejad and Bush: Something in Common

It turns out that "democracy" is on the march in the Middle East after all, but not because of the Bush Administration's policies. In fact, Iran's President Ahmadinejad is becoming increasingly unpopular at home because he's spending too much time bashing the United States and not enough time reforming his nation's stagnant economy. As an elected leader, he is now facing serious political problems. See how Democracy works President Bush?

The preoccupation both men have with belligerent foreign policies is dragging both men down. While Iran thankfully remains on the back burner for now, Bush should immediately abandon his misguided effort to reform the Middle East and should instead concentrate on enhancing Americans' freedoms here at home. This means bringing the troops home starting now. Unfortunately for us as Americans, according to the article above, the Iranian people seem to be doing a better job of pressuring Ahmadinejad to change direction than we are.

Hill In

It's (reasonably) official: Hillary Clinton wants to be our next president.

Gut reactions:

* No surprise here, of course.
* Does Hillary REALLY think she can win? It seems she can win the D nod, but President Hillary Clinton? Why does she run? To make a point? To be "important"? To make the history books as the first major-party female candidate?
* Hillary is one smart pol. She's apparently done a "good" job at playing the role of "Senator from NY". Has it occurred to her, though, that her getting the nomination increases the chances of the GOP winning, given what a polarizing figure she is?

Time, as always, will tell.

-Robert Capozzi

"Redistributing" Justice

Excellent feedback from Kevin Rollins on my blog Justice Isn't Blind. He writes:

But, I don’t have faith that redistributing wealth is in itself a cure for injustice. If inequality, or rather poverty, is the cause of injustice, then whichever means alleviates poverty the quickest is the most expedient for establishing justice.

This seems to misconstrue my view. The institution of private property requires a justice system to sort out ownership and contract disputes. Barring the early onset of omniscience, any justice system cannot be equal. There are, in a sense, barriers to entry, involving time, legal fees, and, perhaps as importantly, reputation. People who frequently file lawsuits are called "litigious," and others tend to avoid the litigious, as their (possibly) justified propensity to file lawsuits marks them as "people not to deal with."

So, we have unequal justice in the context of the institution of property. Of course, we can just throw up our hands and say, "That's the price of living in a 'free' society, where affluence can come to anyone who perseveres." Still, is there not something deeply disturbing about unequal justice? If the affluent and well connected have a preference in defending their property rights, does that not start to feel more like the state of nature and less like a civil society? It becomes a kind of trade off: general affluence vs. (unfortunate) injustice in the eyes of the law.

There are two basic schools of thought for the citizens dividend, each with two strains, near as I can discern: Redistribution and rights-based. More specifically:

1) The Green Party's citizens dividend is mostly a straight redistribution model.
2) Charles Murray and Milton Friedman's negative income tax are more efficient redistribution models.
3) Georgist inspired citizens dividends, which are similar to the oil royalties that all AK citizens receive, which is rights-based.
4) Or, the injustice compensation I'm suggesting here, also rights-based.

Perhaps the time is NOT right for a citizens dividend. Perhaps any attempt to rectify systemic injustice is futile or counterproductive. For instance, when the State already claims 40% or more of GDP (with some of it redistributed in a crazy-quilt fashion), perhaps the cure is worse than the disease, choking off economic growth, for example.

These, however, are questions of application, not theory. IF the theory of a liberal, civil society is that the institution of property must be backed up with a system of equal justice, then liberal, civil society flunks. Justice is clearly not equal. What I am suggesting is that a citizens dividend could mitigate and compensate -- admittedly with a broad brush -- the inherent injustices we as a society seem to accept, for good or ill.

Finally, could Rollins have it backwards, at least for a lot of citizens? Rather than poverty being the cause of injustice, could injustice be the cause of poverty? If a subset of the citizenry are denied equal justice and FULL property rights, are they not being held back, at least economically? I suspect both are true: Injustice leads to poverty, and poverty leads to injustice. Thankfully, this vicious circle is countered to a large extent by economic growth, where the rising tide lifts all boats.

And, to be clear, unequal justice applies to all, not just the poor. Say a millionaire has a contract dispute with a large corporation. Say that the millionaire is in the right, but he or she does not pursue a lawsuit to invoke his or her property rights because the corporation has "deeper pockets." Or, he or she mounts a suit, but loses due to clever lawyering by the corporation. Injustice has prevailed. This happens all the time, near as I can discern.

Systemic injustice affects us all, to varying degrees.

-Robert Capozzi

Blinding Justice

Bob Capozzi has an excellent post entitled “Justice Isn't Blind.”

He writes:

“As this is a keystone to a liberal, civil society, it seems reasonable to ask: Is that so? Is justice fair and impartial?

Why is it not always? For many reasons. Sometimes the keepers of the peace are themselves biased. Sometimes the law is vague and contradictory. Sometimes the law has not been established. And sometimes – often – a citizen lacks the resources necessary to receive justice.”

I agree with his comment that equal justice (in the sense that the courts and the law treat all individuals equally) is not a reality, even under liberalism. But, this failure of our generally liberal society to provide perfect fairness through its laws and courts is actually an indication of why liberalism is so important. No legal system or government will ever be able to serve out perfect justice, because no legal system or government will have the perfect knowledge of events, people, and morals.

Socialists have argued that because a liberal society cannot see all ends, therefore we should replace it with a system which sees far less. I know Bob is not suggesting socialism as an answer.

Instead he reminds us of a proposal which has been supported by several writers here at Free Liberal – the citizen dividend. The citizen dividend is not a bad idea, especially considering it as a replacement for the welfare bureaucracy. But, I don’t have faith that redistributing wealth is in itself a cure for injustice. If inequality, or rather poverty, is the cause of injustice, then whichever means alleviates poverty the quickest is the most expedient for establishing justice.

Will the economy grow faster or slower with the taxes required to fund the citizen dividend? Or is an effort to reform our legal system and make it a more even playing field a cheaper course to take? At what point do reforms begin to create as much injustice as they remove?

-- KDR

Beckham: Not About the Money

“I don’t want to go out to America at 34 with people saying he is only going for the money.

“I am going out to hopefully build a team which has a lot of potential, that’s what excites me.”

-- David Beckham, quoted in an article about his $250 million, 5 year contract to play for the L.A. Galaxy.

It’s never about the money. Money is merely an intermediary, the transmission of which indicates the creation of a (hopefully) mutually beneficial trade. The money represents David Beckham’s expectation that he could not do better for himself otherwise, or else he would have asked for even more. The money represents all the choices he will possess in exchange for the choices he is giving up. The money represents that his presence in L.A. is worth greater than $50 million a year to the team, and a greater amount still to the fans (customers) of the team.

Wow, imagine creating $50 million a year in value! Beckham’s comments, rather than being seen as clever weasel words to avoid being branded a greedy capitalist, should be seen for the truth they hold. His presence in America could generate huge returns for professional soccer as a whole and great pleasure for the burgeoning mass of young people who play the sport and dream of becoming stars.

-- KDR

How to Disable RFID Chips in Your New Passport

The thing about new technologies and new government programs is that as soon as some bureaucrat comes up with a new way to limit our freedoms, thousands of smarter and more innovative people -- the kind that would never want to work for government -- start thinking of ways around it. In the case of the government's new RFID chip-implanted passports, the solution is blunt force rather than brilliant thought. Good to know nonetheless.

Justice Isn’t Blind

Getting a bit deeper on some of the themes surrounding our minimum wage discussion, consider this:

In its original meaning, a “liberal” society is one in which citizens have the right to exercise their pursuits of life, liberty, property, and happiness. Most political discourse involves “property” in some form or another. Who has what? How did they get it? How much of it do they get to keep, and how much of is taken from them to ensure justice and a civil society?

The right to property, then, is backed up by a justice system that ensures (as much as possible) that rightfully gotten property remains with owner. And that, in the marketplace, those who are damaged in some way are compensated. This “justice” is supposed to be “blind,” that is, fair and impartial.

As this is a keystone to a liberal, civil society, it seems reasonable to ask: Is that so? Is justice fair and impartial?

Of course, one’s answer could vary widely. I would not, however, be surprised that most people’s honest answer would be, yes, justice is often blind, but not always.

Why is it not always? For many reasons. Sometimes the keepers of the peace are themselves biased. Sometimes the law is vague and contradictory. Sometimes the law has not been established. And sometimes – often – a citizen lacks the resources necessary to receive justice.

Now and in the past, this last point has been a flaw in the system. Citizens of lesser means intuitively know that “justice” prefers the more affluent than themselves. Live on the “wrong” side of town, and the cops get there less quickly. Have a property dispute, and making the case involves more legal fees than the property’s value itself. The boss puts you in a dangerous situation, but does not compensate you for it. The boss makes unwanted sexual advances, but the economic harm to you of quitting is worse than the psychic damages of working in a hostile work environment. Employers are able to wield a kind of implicit threat on its employees, backed up by their disproportionate ability to obtain legal representation, should it come to that.

Seeking redress is time consuming and expensive. Injustice is often overlooked for this and other reasons. Yet injustice exists. Nearly everyone – deep down – knows this. On balance, this social order is preferable to alternatives like communism, socialism, fascism, and monarchism. Still, there is a gloom surrounding the liberal social order, too, a gloom of injustice.

Liberals – in the progressive sense of the word – have for the past 100 years or so have attempted to patch this classical liberal social order’s many injustices. They tinker with the economy’s fabric, attempting to smooth over the rough edges of injustice. In so doing, of course, other unintended damage is done, such as the minimum wage’s inevitable increase in unemployment.

This is why the notion of a citizen’s dividend – a subject that comes up from time to time here on TFL – is growing on me. Even if one doesn’t accept the Georgist, commonwealth notion (that all citizens share equally in the underlying natural resources of a nation), there is another way to justify the citizen’s dividend. It becomes a kind of injustice equalization. It’s impractical to construct a perfectly blind and omniscient justice system. Many or most will, during their life, experience some injustice that is not compensated. The information costs of determining who is uncompensated are prohibitive. In recognition of that reality, all citizens are compensated for this kind of low-grade injustice that so many face.

-Robert Capozzi

Beggar Thy Neighboring State

Frequent commenter Tarvok brings up an interesting point: "If all states are forced to have the same minimum wage, we get to trash other states for California's benefit!"

I'm not at all sure that this is a significant phenomenon. Some states already have higher minimum wages than the federal standard. I've seen no evidence that those states have experienced lower growth rates or unemployment rates than states that defer to the federal law.

I am persuaded that some regulations favor large BUSINESSES over small ones. Large businesses have the economies of scale to spread out the costs of regulation, choking off upstarts that don't.

There is some evidence that TAX policy and subsidies can influence state vs. state economic activity. Southern states, for example, have for many years been attracting industry, jobs, and people from northern states using a range of inducements. Near as I can tell, though, the minimum wage tends to only apply to service-type jobs, which require a lot of customers. Jobs that actual "suck" people out of one state into another tend to NOT be minimum wage type jobs.

For a variety of reasons, our social order has evolved in such a way that -- as a general matter -- employers have an advantage over the employee. Employers have access to pools of capital that employees don't. An employer can expose an employee to a number of dangers, and the employee has little redress but to quit. That becomes a "black mark" on the employee's resume: Why did you quit? Aren't you a "team player"?

Unlike products, where freedomistas point to Underwriters Laboratories as the model for ensuring safety, nothing like that has developed to ensure something I might call "decency" in the workplace. The market perhaps COULD develop some kind of mechanism to expose abusive employers, so that, at minimum, prospective employees could steer clear of employers who tend to treat its people poorly.

This, I know, is heretical in some quarters, especially among those who believe that capitalism and freedom are the tantamount values. I share that view generally, but I do suggest that those who don't see that the private power of the employer is corrupting are not paying attention.

As evidence, all one need do is look at the business headlines over the past 10 years or so. Time and time again, corrupt corporate chieftains have been shown to abuse their power and their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. The behavior by the "leadership" of WorldCom, Enron, Adelphia, Tyco, etc., was not about serving customers, maximizing profits, or any of the positive things that capitalism brings forth. It was corporate warlordism, I suggest.

And, in my opinion, this warlordism isn't just something that happens in major corporations. I once had a boss at a very small company who, displeased with one employee's performance, leaned into this fellow and said, "I bet you feel like committing suicide right now." A week earlier, the boss had said to me that he suspected this same employee was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. While such patently sick behavior may be extreme, I suggest it represents a big downside to how our social order has developed. Is it any surprise that employees "go postal" when this sort of sickness raises its head?

Of course, government actions often exacerbate such behavior, rather than minimize it. "Going postal," after all, referred to government postal workers, under extreme and perhaps undo pressure to perform, shooting supervisors and fellow employees.

Still, when people see such things happening in their lives and in the news, it seems quite a natural impulse to stem the worst abusers, at minimum. I suggest that to not acknowledge such feral behavior in the workplace, to not condemn it, is not going to win over the broader population in the "war of ideas."

-Robert Capozzi

Irresponsible?

This one irritates me. Bush is saying:

"But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success. To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible," he said.

This is somewhat clever rhetoric, but can't we see through it? The "naysayers" to the surge and the Iraq War generally in fact HAVE given options, things like "get out now," "get out in one year," etc. Bush disregards this, attempting to paint ALL opponents of his policies as "irresponsible."

Tactically, Bush is at a massive advantage. He commands the armed forces, who can assess various scenarios and fact sets. If an opponent suggests an alternative, Bush can pooh-pooh that proposal for technical reasons.

But, OK, here's my non-expert proposal: Don't do the surge. Instead, consolidate US troops, perhaps around the Baghdad airport. Continue training the Iraqis there for, say, six months or a year. Stop fighting the insurgents, let the Iraqis do that. Convene a regional conference of the neighboring countries. Then, get out!

-Robert Capozzi

Federalism and the Minimum Wage

One (perhaps) final thought on the minimum wage, which appears to be going up:

It is very easy to oppose a federal minimum wage. Rather than getting into the advisability of having a minimum wage at all, setting a national standard is simply impractical. There are places in the country where the market sets the minimum wage for virtually everyone in that market well above the national minimum wage. There are other places where the minimum wage regulation is not bad entry-level work. Costs of living and the levels of economic activity vary greatly say, on the coasts, vs., say, North Dakota.

It seems one could easily take the position that wage regulation is best left to the states. Opposing a federal standard, and an increase in the federal standard, is not a view that gets one voted out of Congress or asked to leave from a party. It's not the position of a Neanderthal from the perspective of the "smart set." Odd, perhaps.

-Robert Capozzi

Ron Paul Running for Prez!

Finally, a candidate with principles has entered the 2008 race for the presidency. With the nightmare scenario of statists McCain and Hillary looming on the horizon as leading contenders for the top office, we need someone of Dr. Paul's limited-government principles more than ever.

Is the "Surge" Really About This?

I was under the impression that embassies and consulates were considered part of a nation's sovereign soil. If so, what -- dear reader -- is the meaning of THIS?

A prelude to Compound W's real agenda?

One hopes not....

-Robert Capozzi

Muhammad Ali's Mixed Legacy

I've always had a mixed view of Muhammad Ali's legacy, but a recently-released video by ESPN called "Ali Rap" has renewed interest in the fighter who has never strayed far from the spotlight by arguing that Ali's rhetorical skills had a hand in the invention of rap.

I have always respected Ali's opposition to the Vietnam War, but as this article points out Ali was at times a racist, anti-Christian, anti-intermarriage of the races, and knee-jerk anti-American. There is no debate that Ali still looms large nearly 30 years after his retirement. As someone who is too young to remember him in his fighting days, perspectives that are at odds with the media's fawning is quite relevant.

The Cult of the Omniscient State

In our dialog on the theory of the minimum wage, Paul Gessing wonders "Do we really need a law against enslaving oneself?"

Perhaps "we" do, perhaps we don't. I wasn't advocating that; I was using the extreme example of "voluntary" slavery to make the point that I'm personally open to such a law, were it necessary. Civil societies are governed by the rule of law. In theory, civil societies ban or regulate certain public behaviors and, more rarely, certain private behaviors. They do so to defend the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and to ensure domestic tranquility.

The theory I'm suggesting is that if we agree that slavery is something that could be banned (as it is in the Constituton), there could be wage rates that are so low that they are slave-like. The very contract for $1 per hour is imbalanced, for the wage earner is on its face being abused, economically abused. There are people in our society who lack the consciousness to see that they are being abused, so rather than leave this matter to the courts, overarching laws are in place to ban the abuse before it happens. That is the purpose of law, to proscribe what's acceptable behavior and what isn't.

Of course, we're in a time and place where the laws themselves are abusive. We have far too many of them, they often contradict themselves, and they squelch the general prosperity and domestic tranquility rather than enhance them. The State is clearly not omniscient. Nor is it wise. In my opinion, taxes are far too high, spending far too profligate, regulations far too complicated. A war is being waged based on false premises.

These are the matters to address, IMO. Arguing for a $0 minimum wage: A colossal waste of time!

-Robert Capozzi

Where is the line?

Paul Gessing asks the question: Where is the line where private contracts are no longer legitimately private?

My short answer is: I don't know. Surely there's a line that says a private contract to enslave oneself IS over the line. I'm not making the case, but I could imagine making boxing over the line, for it's behavior that on a street corner IS illegal, and with good reason.

Freedom of contract is like freedom of speech, in some ways. It's an excellent general rule, but sometimes the specifics get dicey. Freedom of speech does not give one the right to shout fire in a theater, in part because the theater owner doesn't allow it. Nor is one able to use "fighting words" to taunt another citizen.

I am merely saying that -- yes, generally, there should be a right to make contracts among consenting adults. When a contract gets "abusive" in some way -- like slavery is -- establishing certain SPECIFIC rules of law to carve out exceptions seems like a sensible thing. The minimum wage doesn't cut it for me as a specific carve out. I am not persuaded that at $5 or $7 an hour that either is abusive. This issue as currently debated, however, is not well crafted, IMO.

I don't, however, advocate a $0 minimum wage. That's poor rhetoric, IMO, because to most people, that sure SOUNDS like slavery. There are times when a "benign neglect" approach is called for, and this seems like one of them.

If it's "principled" to advocate the right to enslave oneself, then I suppose I'm not principled, or at least not consistently so. But that approach over-simplifies, I humbly submit.

-Robert Capozzi

Gee, I sure hope not...

The saber-rattling in the Middle East just got louder. Now it appears to be Israel's turn to threaten the use of bunker busters on Iran.

Just a few weeks ago, cooler heads seemed to be prevailing with the release of the Iraq Study Group's devastating report. But the Empire does seem to be striking back, with putatively civilized people talking such loose talk. And now Compound W is talking about "surging" in Iraq.

Actually, though, if a surge were part of an exit strategy, one might buy it in context. It doesn't, however, appear to be so, as the US is building large, billion-dollar bases in Iraq, the US's next Germany, perhaps?

-Robert Capozzi

Volunteers vs. Wage Earners

Fellow TFL blogger Paul Gessing makes a great point here. Volunteers "work" for causes all the time, and the government doesn't outlaw that. Therefore, if working for $1 "clears" the market, why not allow that?

There is a difference between working and volunteering. Working drags along with it other values. It's a trade: time for money. There IS NO trade in volunteering; it's done because the volunteer believes that that his or her effort will enhance his or her life by enhancing the lives of others.

Say, for example, that a job entails being beaten by one's employer. For $10 per hour, an employer may -- at his or her whim -- hit the employee. Most would agree that that's abusive, I believe. (I'm not talking about football players who get "hit" in their line of work, either.)

It's not too much of a stretch to say that the $1 per hour job is like the $10 per hour "whipping boy" job. Whether I'd outlaw either is an open question in my mind. I'm merely suggesting that there is SOME mitigation surrounding the minimum wage issue.

Gessing's correct: This minimum wage issue is much ado about very little, in some places, nothing. It's pandering, mostly.

What I do find perplexing is those who suggest that the $10 whipping boy job is merely a matter for civil action. The rule of law is a highly elastic concept, one that can be applied in a number of ways. Overstatement for effect often has the effect of discrediting the advocate. That, I suggest, is the effect of freedomistas who say there should be no minimum wage. Part of me agrees, but I don't believe it's effective rhetoric to take that position.

-Robert Capozzi

The on again, off again saga of global climate change

While snow slowly melts here in New Mexico, back east there is a heat wave going on and people are talking about global warming. Of course, just like warm winters and large snowstorms are nothing new, neither is talk about global climate change. In fact, as Jeff Jacoby points out, there have been apocalyptic forecasts of global weather change -- whether that be heating or cooling -- for more than 100 years.

While I am not a climate scientist, it is no coincidence that the people who want to grow government the most have also jumped at the chance to use global warming as a tool to further their agendas.

What is perhaps even more perplexing about the global warming issue is the role that apocalyptic fears have played in human society for thousands of years. There seems to be a desire on the part of many humans to be living in a "special" time, even if it means death and destruction for themselves and their species.

90% of Iraqis "We Were Better off Under Saddam"

In perhaps the most damning sign of our failure in Iraq, a recent survey of Iraqis indicates that a large majority of them long for the days of Saddam Hussein ruling with an iron fist.

Of course, "spreading democracy" was a dumb idea to go into Iraq in the first place. We certainly should not base our foreign policies on what foreigners think, rather we should go to war only when it is absolutely necessary and to protect Americans from direct threats to their lives, liberty, and property. That said, the level of displeasure with the way things are going in Iraq among Iraqis should make it pretty clear that things are not going to improve and that a "surge" in troop levels is only going to make the situation worse.

Origins of the Thought of “Evil”

Regular TFL columnist Fred E. Foldvary’s last offering got me to thinking about the notion of “evil.” While I generally find Foldvary’s insights helpful, there’s a different way to look at the question of “good” and “evil.”

Everything is an opinion. Everything.

It’s even an opinion that everything is an opinion.

I agree with Foldvary that philosophers “have not even arrived at a consensus about what evil is.” He considers this “strange.” I don’t. If everything is an opinion, then that there are billions of opinions at any given moment seems quite predictable. While there may well be a consensus generally that, say, killing is “evil,” yet through the centuries and now, there are a host of exceptions to the general rule.

Into this morass, Foldvary suggests that “[w]e can know which ethic is the moral imperative for humanity if we apply reason.”

This sounds appealing. If we apply reason, the “one truth” will somehow be revealed, Foldvary seems to suggest. Yet Foldvary acknowledges that “[r]easoning begins with premises that come from observation.”

There, as they say, is the rub. Through the millennia, thinkers with a commitment to “reason” have come down on all sides of the great, burning questions that face humanity…right, wrong, good, evil, virtue, vice, etc. Why is this? Could it be that human beings have limited and biased observation skills? Is it not observable that the observer has a propensity to rank-order facts that are most salient to a question? Is it not clear that these biases and limitations necessarily limit exponents of “reason” from finding their theoretical “truth”?

Put another way, was Shakespeare – more poet than logician – more or less onto the truth when he observed “to err is human”? My observation, at least, is that Yes, the human condition is one of imperfect information, imperfect knowledge, and imperfect reasoning. Those imperfections are themselves immutable laws.

So, while I resonate with Locke and Jefferson as does Foldvary, I recognize that they too were imperfect. And, in consistent humility, I recognize that my own understanding of the opinions of Locke and Jefferson’s are also imperfect.

For instance, while I agree with Locke and Jefferson that all humans were created equal, I also recognize that does not appear to be the case. We come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and perhaps innate abilities. Locke and Jefferson were more taking a leap of faith than applying “reason” to their views of inherent equality.

This is not to say that there cannot be conventions that work reasonably well. Newton’s “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line” is a convention that, most of the time, works, and most seem to agree that that is so. Yet, another opinion at another level, Einstein “proved” that Newton was wrong.

It does, then, begin to seem grandiose to suggest, as Foldvary does, that there can even be “a universal ethic by which all acts and only those acts which coercively harm others are evil.”

What is an ethic, much less a “universal” one? What is an act, what is coercion, and what is harm? And, of course, what is evil? These are all opinions, all subjective values. I happen to agree that a social order that minimizes what we might call “coercion” is in my opinion “virtuous,” but the details are now and always have been up for grabs. There may well be a kind of “greater good,” for example, that we have the rule of law, to provide a baseline of reasonable certainty as we go about our daily lives. I agree with Foldvary’s view that greater good arguments have been used through history and now in ways that don’t work in ways that I agree with and find dysfunctional.

There are, of course, any number of ways to roughly approximate a greater good, too. It’s not something that can be reduced to a formula. That is, of course, because everything is an opinion.

-Robert Capozzi

Minimum Wage and Slavery

I'm against raising the minimum wage. It will -- it HAS to -- increase unemployment. X-ing out "minimum wage" jobs that are not actually "minimum wage" jobs -- wait staff, principally, whose compensation comes largely in the from of tips -- minimum wage jobs are mostly entry-level and part-time gigs. People who reflexively support a raise in the minimum wage seem to forget that today's minimum wage job is almost always a stepping stone to better paying jobs.

Still, I wonder: Is there a wage that is so low that it starts to look like slavery? Is it so low that the exploitation is somehow so repugnant that it's appropriate for the government to step in and say, You can't do that?

I don't happen to believe that a person could "voluntarily" become a slave. I'm quite OK with the government stepping in to stop a person "allowing" him or herself from becoming a slave. This despite the fact that I am not a fan of most of what government is currently doing.

So, if someone were to "agree" to work for, say, $1 per hour, is that starting to feel like slavery? It's NOT slavery, but it starts to become slave-like. Yes, in a marketplace, few would continue to work for $1 an hour when for most jobs the going rate is far higher. So, the heavy hand of the government stepping in to outlaw this capitalist act among consenting adults seems unnecessary.

The point of this thought pattern is to deconstruct the underlying motives for the current debate (which looks pretty much over) over the minimum wage. It's not stated, but when wages get so low that they start to feel like slavery to most onlookers, the collective impulse is: Outlaw that behavior.

So, resisting the minimum wage increase seems like a battle not worth fighting.

-Robert Capozzi

Notes from the Sausage Factory

The always thoughtful Tyler Cowen, econ prof at free market hotbed George Mason University and NY Times columnist, is promoting an idea that has some merit. From the ashes of the Bush Social Security reform ideas, Cowen is suggesting something called "universal 401(k)s."

Gut reactions:

* It passes the first test. While a frightening thought, were I in Congress, would I vote for it? Yes, it, in broad outlines, is an improvement over the current mess.

* Why use the more restricted 401(k) vehicle when IRAs are already far more universal and far more flexible? IRAs are less "managed" than 401(k)s.

* Why "match" the 401(k) contribution when the contributions could, for instance, be excluded from one's personal taxable income? Excluding income is as or more "progressive" than matching, and is more controllable by the taxpayer/saver. Even when you factor in the earned income tax credit, the effective and marginal tax rates over poverty on the working poor and lower income groups generally are the highest, when you factor in the very high Social Security and Medicare taxes, as well as the many other taxes that the less well-to-do face. The current tax system taxes people back into poverty. From a "first things first" perspective, these people could use tax relief the most in our society.

There is, as a general statement, a tendency among pols and wonks to want to create "new" programs, even occasionally well-intentioned ones. My view is that this "pride of authorship" impulse is counterproductive, and is one of the reasons Bush's plan has failed to catch fire. Making a tweak to the existing IRA doesn't score enough points in the history books, perhaps, so let's create something we'll be remembered for. It seems, at least, to go that way.

Pride is not a deadly "sin" for nothing.

-Robert Capozzi