Objectivist v. Constructivist v. Theist

The MMA Ban and the First Amendment: The New York Legislature Embarrasses Itself

2011-11-30T10:27:00.001-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
New York’s Ban on Mixed Martial Arts
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
November 27, 2011

In 1997, New York banned mixed martial arts (MMA). MMA involves combat that combines a range of more specific combat sports, dominant among them wrestling, boxing, Brazilian jujitsu, and karate. New York is in the minority here. Currently, 45 of 48 of states with athletic commissions permit and regulate MMA. The law was pushed by New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and signed into law by Government George Pataki.

Recently, Zuffa, LLC, the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) along with a number of professional fighters and fans sued the New York officers who enforce the ban, specifically, the State Attorney General and the New York City Attorney General. The plaintiffs assert that the ban violates the Constitution, including the First Amendment, Due Process Clause, Equal Protection Clause, and Commerce Clause. I’ll focus on the First Amendment.

The First Amendment argument runs as follows. As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick points out, the ban allows amateurs to participate in MMA, but prohibits people from advancing or profiting from it. That is, the ban targets the public performance of MMA, not the fighting that comprises it. New York enacted a narrow ban because the legislature didn’t like MMA’s message. Specifically, it wanted to protect children by banning the sport’s glorification of violence. The bill’s sponsors, Senator Goodman and Assemblyman Kaufman, were clear that they sought to ban the public performance of MMA in part because of the message it sends to children.

On a side note, this ban is uncommonly silly. Children in New York children are awash in glorifications of violence. Consider first-person shooter games, violent movies and rap music, and professional wrestling. MMA is unlikely to add much to this atmosphere. However, uncommon silliness does not make a law unconstitutional.

The problem with the ban is that the Supreme Court has been crystal clear in holding that the Constitution prohibits governments from banning a specific message, whether directly or indirectly. There are exceptions to this general rule, but they focus on a few narrow categories. The Court held that governments may ban obscenity (graphic pornography without redeeming value), child pornography (graphic child pornography), fighting words (expressions that tend to immediately cause violence), clear-and-present danger (expressions that tend to cause immediately dangerous situations), and fraud. Glorification of violence does not fit into any of these categories.

In a recent case, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011), the Supreme Court again made it clear that states may not create new categories of unprotected expression. It specifically held that they may not ban glorifications of violence (in videogames), even when done to protect children.

Worse, the ban is so poorly written that it likely covers expressive activity that is uncontroversially protected by the First Amendment. The ban makes it a crime for people to “materially aid” a combative sport activity. As the plaintiffs point out, the materially aid clause is so sloppily written that it might cover citizens to write to state officials asking them to repeal New York state’s MMA ban, a local artist who sells t-shirts with pro-MMA slogans, New York film distributers who produce videos of MMA bouts in other states, and video “parties” at Madison Square Garden where people pay to watch MMA fights on the big screen.

The plaintiff’s other argument (New York is shutting down its message) is less clear. Their claim is that professional MMA sends messages about discipline, challenge, and inspiration. This includes the following specific messages: skill and training can accomplish remarkable things, skill and training can defeat brawn and brutality, respect for one’s opponent is consistent with combat sports, and it is admirable to be courageous in the face of a challenge. Other MMA proponents (for example, legendary fighter Renzo Grace) see the message aesthetic terms, analogous to the strategic beauty of chess. The general test for a message for First Amendment protection is whether there is a statement that the agent tries to send and the audience is likely to receive. It is not obvious that professional MMA bouts contain such a message.

The problem is that parallel arguments could be made with regard to obscenity (graphic pornography). Its message is the pleasure can be achieved through excellent performances and a range of sexual practices. It also expresses how conventional limitations on sex (limiting it to married couples, twosomes, heterosexuality, or the vagina) are outdated and hinder both pleasure and artistic displays of the human body. Still, this inconsistency is irrelevant given that the Justices who foolishly allowed the obscenity-exception to be written into the Constitution (see William Brennan) are gone and the current ones have largely prevented further rewriting.

A bigger problem for the shutting-down-message argument is that, as Jonathan Snowden of MMA Nation points out, even the UFC’s attorney, Barry Friedman, concedes that courts are skeptical about the right to engage in sport for sake of sport. For example, Friedman mentions a case allowing a municipality to ban jogging without a shirt or numchuk possession. One can see the motivation here. First, the messages here often have minimal, trivial, or vague content. For example, what message does topless jogging send?

Second, the sport category appears to be irrelevant to the Constitution. A few years ago it was incorrectly reported that for a fee, a Nevada business was allowing men to hunt naked women (employees) with paintball guns. Whether this activity is protected by the Constitution does not depend on whether this is a sport. This can be seen in that the category sport is not mentioned in the Constitution, not part of the drafters or ratifiers’ intentions, not part of what justifies it, and so on.

Third, the sport exception might result in various unprotected activities being repackaged as sport so that they might receive First Amendment protection. For example, The World’s Biggest Gang Bang 3 is a film of a woman having sex with 600 men. Were courts to recognize sport-based protection, the film could be repackaged as a sport and thereby receive First Amendment protection. It could be staged as a live sporting event, perhaps even to minors.

Were New York State’s ban to cover all MMA and not merely the public performances of it, then the ban might withstand Constitutional scrutiny, although it would be obviously irrational. The ban specifically allows boxing, wrestling, and karate competitions (Brazilian jujitsu is independently permitted) even though they comprise the vast majority of MMA action. What’s more MMA is as safe, if not more so, than a number of permitted sporting events, including professional boxing, football, ice hockey, car racing, equestrian sports, and rodeos. One study found that it was one-twentieth as dangerous as football.

Overall, the First Amendment case for striking down New York’s ban is strong because it is overbroad and, perhaps, because it targets a group’s constitutionally protected message. The law is so sloppy that it should also fall due to Due Process defects, such as vagueness and gross irrationality.

Joe Paterno and the Sexual-Abuse Scandal

2011-11-16T13:42:00.001-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
Blaming Joe Paterno
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
November 14, 2011

A sexual abuse scandal has brought down legendary Pennsylvania State University football coach Joe Paterno. At issue is whether he is guilty of a crime or a moral failure. Let me begin by stating the obvious: sexually assaulting children is extremely harmful, horribly wrong, highly illegal, and should not be tolerated.

Here are the facts as set out by Wikipedia, The Washington Post, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and other news sources. For 31 years, Jerry Sandusky served as an assistant coach under head coach Paterno from 1969 to 1999. For 23 of those years, he was the team’s defensive coordinator (lead defensive coach). In 1977, he founded a charity (The Second Mile) designed to help troubled boys at State College, Pennsylvania, where Penn State is located. Roughly two weeks ago (November 5, 2011), Sandusky was arrested and charged with 40 criminal counts of sex crimes against boys. This includes seven counts of sexual assault (involuntary deviant sexual intercourse), seven counts of indecent assault, eight counts of corruption of minors, and so on.

The evidence for these alleged crimes is not new. In 2000, a janitor noticed Sandusky in a Penn State shower performing oral sex on a boy. He reported what he saw to his supervisor, but the latter did not pass this information on to school officials or the police. In 2010, assistant coach Mike McQueary saw Sandusky sodomizing a ten-year-old boy in the shower. He did not intervene, but later reported the incident to Paterno. The next day Paterno relayed this information to Athletic Director Tim Curley. Curley and Penn State Senior Vice President Gary Schultz (the administrator in charge of the police) ordered Sandusky not to bring any more children from Second Mile to the football building. University President Graham Spanier approved this order. None of the three appear to have taken further action. Sandusky was allowed to operate a summer camp on a Penn State satellite campus (Behrend near Eric), where he had daily contact with boys ages 9 to 18.

Curley and Schultz appeared before a grand jury. They testified that McQueary didn’t tell them of sexual activity. They were then charged with perjury (lying about McQueary) and failure to report suspected child abuse to the police. Penn State placed Curley on administrative leave and Schultz resigned. The Board of Trustees gave Spanier an ultimatum: resign or be fired. He resigned. Paterno offered to retire, but the Board refused and fired him.

One issue is whether Paterno committed a crime. University of Mississippi law professor Michael McCann argues that while possible charges against him include obstruction of justice, perjury, and failure to report suspected child abuse, he is probably not legally guilty of these crimes. Legally, a person obstructs justice when he conceals evidence or when he delays or frustrates a criminal investigation. Paterno probably didn’t do this because the day after McQueary spoke to him, he reported a version of what he heard to his boss, Tim Curley. Under oath, Paterno testified that McQueary told him that Sandusky was engaged in a general act (“doing something of a sexual nature”) to a boy, whereas McQueary testified he told Paterno that Sandusky was engaged in anal intercourse, but it is doubtful this difference, and how it affected what he told Curley, obstructs justice. Also, there is a time limit on pursuing this crime and it is about to expire.

Paterno is likely not legally guilty of perjury. The difference in Paterno’s and McQueary’s testimony is not clearly lying (intentional misrepresentation). Paterno might have failed to remember exactly what he was told (most of us can’t remember exactly what we were told and Paterno is 84 years old). Also, convicting Paterno would require a prosecutor to show that McQueary, rather than Paterno, did not misremember what he said or lie. Given his failure to intervene, McQueary might be seen as having a motive to misstate what he told Paterno.

Nor is Paterno likely legally guilty of failing to report sexual abuse. The Pennsylvania Child Protective Services Law requires teachers and school administrators to report alleged abuse to child protective services, police, or a supervisor. Paterno did this. In addition, it is doubtful that the law applies to him.

The moral issue is murkier. Was Paterno blameworthy for failing to do more? First, Paterno promptly turned the information over to his boss (Curley). He likely knew or reasonably expected that the information would be given to the administrator who oversaw the Penn State police force (Schultz). It is unclear that he knew or should have known that these two would have dropped the ball by not ordering an investigation. Nor did Paterno have a clear duty to monitor or oversee their actions.

By analogy, consider a lieutenant in the army who gets a report of a sergeant abusing recruits. He promptly reports this to his commanding officer (a captain) whom he trusts and who tells him he will take it from there. It is not clear that the lieutenant should second-guess the captain’s judgment about what happened and how to proceed. Nor is it clear the lieutenant should insist on meeting with the military police or the commanding officer’s boss (for example, a major) if the commanding officer were to disbelieve the report.

Second, even if he should have known, negligence is not the sort of moral failure that makes one a monster. Consider a ship pilot who daydreams and doesn’t notice himself doing so. As a result, he fails to steer his ship away from the rocks, which results in it sinking and a passenger drowning. Such an individual is flawed, but not terribly blameworthy.

Third, people often confuse moral and legal obligations. This is commonly seen in police officers and judges who enforce obviously unjust laws with a clear conscience. Consider, for example, officers who aggressively enforced laws that criminalized homosexuality in the 60’s and 70’s and perhaps, also, those who enforced the Rockefeller anti-drug laws. It is unclear whether Paterno made this mistake, but it is a common one.

Fourth, it is very hard to turn in beloved family and friends. Most mothers would have a hard time turning in a son, even if they had evidence that he committed a date rape and was a threat to do it again in the future. This might be due to self-deception or the sheer strength of her love. A similar thing is true of soldiers who witness wartime atrocities by brothers in arms. Consider, for example, soldiers who observed the My Lai massacre and did nothing to stop it. My guess is that after 31 years of working together under stressful conditions, Paterno was close to Sandusky.

Fifth, there is an underlying philosophical issue as to whether people have a moral duty to save strangers. For example, many rich and middle class people fail to donate money to starving children in the third world and don’t see themselves as bad people. Whether there is such a duty and whether it applied to Paterno is a discussion for another day.

None of this establishes that Paterno acted rightly (or wrongly). What it likely establishes is that he is not a moral cretin, gross moral failure, disgusting human being, etc. It is a separate matter whether these labels fit Spanier, Schultz, and Curley. They obviously fit Sandusky.

Occupy Wall Street and Obama's Mean-Spirited Demagoguery

2011-11-02T10:00:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
The Case Against Progressive Taxes
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 30, 2011

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) crowd and President Barack Obama claim that the rich don’t pay their fair share and should be made to do so. They want to make the tax system more progressive. A tax is progressive when people who make more money pay a higher tax rate.

The federal income tax rates are progressive. In 2011, the rich (married couples who file jointly and make over $379,150) have a 35% federal income tax rate. The middle class ($69,001-$139,350) have a 25% rate and the working class and poor ($17,001-$69,000) have a 15% rate.

The rich pay a higher rate of their income to the government than other groups. The Tax Foundation found in 2009, that the top 1% of earners earned roughly 17% of income but paid roughly 37% of federal income taxes. The super rich (top 0.1%) of earners made 8% of all income, but paid 17% of all federal income taxes.

If we look at effective tax rates (what tax rates people actually pay), we see the same pattern. The rich paid the highest percentage of their income, 24%, to the federal government versus 11% for everyone else. The rate was a mere 8% for the upper middle class. Because the rich make most of the capital gains, they undoubtedly paid a far larger share of other weighty taxes (for example, corporate and dividend taxes). Even the claims of investors like Warren Buffet that they pay a lower rate of taxes on their income can be seen to be false once we realize the income is double-taxed, initially as corporate income and later as capital gains or dividends. Payroll taxes do not reverse this overall trend.

As usual, the poor free ride on others. In 2009, nearly 47% of U.S. households paid no income taxes. A significant number of those filing (more than 36% in 2008) paid no income tax and a significant number of them made money via the tax code because of the earned income tax credit and other child-tax credits.

The moral case for progressive taxation is surprisingly weak. The argument against is that when it comes to coercion, the government should treat citizens equally unless there is a good reason to treat them differently. There is no reason to tax the rich at a higher rate than others. Hence, the rich should pay the same tax rate (or, perhaps, the same amount) as others. Consider some of the reasons cited in support of progressive taxation.

One reason given for taxing the rich more is that they impose greater costs on society. This is false. Antipoverty programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, cash-welfare payments, and similar ones are pricey. Worse, the biggest government programs (Social Security and Medicare for the federal government, public education for local and state governments) are almost always justified because they provide benefits to the poor and working class. The poor also constitute the majority of people in prisons and are the focus of police officers, social workers, and many other government workers. As economist Walter Williams points out, if anyone should pay more taxes because they impose greater costs on the rest of us, it is the poor.

A second reason given is that the rich contribute less than do others. This is also false. The rich get rich through the free market, which involves people voluntarily giving them their money in return for goods and services they value more than the money and more than competitors’ products. Consider, for example, Apple’s Steve Jobs. Writing in National Review, Michael Tanner notes that Jobs generated as much as $30 billion annually in increased wealth for the U.S. economy in addition to his role in causing Apple’s stock to skyrocket. When Jobs took over as CEO of Apple in 1997, it was worth $2 billion. It increased to $350 billion, which made a lot of people holding Apple stock richer. His company’s technology also provided valuable benefits to teachers, doctors, soldiers, autistic children, people trying to overthrow tyrannical dictators, and so on. Note his estimated wealth ($7 billion) was a small percentage of the wealth and other benefits he generated for others. While this is an extreme case, the contribution of other rich people has much the same pattern. In any case if anyone contributes less and takes more, it is the poor for the reasons mentioned above.

A third reason given is that the rich don’t deserve their money. On some theories, what people deserve depends on how hard they work or how much they sacrifice. Professors Mark Aguiar and Erik Hurst found that the most educated people work more hours than others and have to pay dearly for the education required for their jobs. Because education likely correlates with income, it is not clear the rich are less deserving. In addition, the hard-work and sacrifice theories are mistaken. Consider a job where one man digs ditches using a shovel and a second uses a backhoe. The former might work harder or sacrifice more, but the latter will accomplish a lot more and, as a result, intuitively seems to deserve more money. If this is correct, then desert tracks contribution, if it tracks anything. Via their labor and capital (money), the rich contribute more.

A fourth reason given is that the rich need the money less. If we are talking about what people need (for example, food, clothes, shelter, and protection), these needs are satisfied through anti-poverty, emergency programs (for example, the Federal Emergency Management Agency), and the military and police. Like the rich, the middle class don’t need most of their income and no one is calling for them to be soaked.

Class warriors support their claim that the rich don’t pay their fair share by pointing out that the rich get much of the nation’s income. The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that between 1979 and 2007, rich people’s income increased much more quickly than others. For the top 1% of the population with the highest income, household income (after-tax and inflation-adjusted) increased by 275%. In comparison the middle class’s (21% through 80%) household income increased by just under 40% and the poor’s (bottom 20%) increased by only 18%.

The rich and affluent people’s share of all income is increasing. During the 1979-2007 period, the rich’s (top 1%) share of all after-tax household income increased from 8% to 17%. In 2007, the affluent (top 20%) made 53% of all such income. This means the top fifth of Americans made more than the other four-fifths. None of this, however, supports soaking the rich. Such a soaking requires these changes be linked to an argument from justice or fairness.

In the U.S., taxes are already progressive and this is wrong. The refrain from OWS and Obama that the rich should be made to pay their fair share contains a lie and is a mean-spirited attempt to pick on an unpopular minority.

The Catholic-Priest Argument against Catholicism

2011-10-19T12:56:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
The Catholic Sex Abuse Cases Cut Deeper
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 16, 2011

The Catholic sex abuse cases are well known. Less well known is the degree to which these cases suggest that Catholicism is false.

The extent of Catholic sex abuse cases in the U.S. was set out in the 2004 John Jay Report commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It found widespread abuse. Consider the victims. In the U.S. from 1950 to 2002, the investigators found that 10,667 persons younger than 18 made allegations of sexual abuse. In cases that were investigated, 80% of the allegations were substantiated. Most victims (roughly 61%) were abused for two years or more. The victims were mostly male (81%) and roughly split between pre- and post-pubescent individuals (roughly 53% were 13 years-old or older). Most of the abusers engaged in multiple types of abuse. More than 27% of the allegations involved a priest performing oral sex and 25% involved penile penetration or an attempt to do so.

In response, the Catholic Church paid through the nose. Worldwide, it paid out $1.5 billion to victims as of 2006. $1 billion of this was paid out to U.S. victims (2002 figure). 80% of the reported cases occurred in the U.S. and it is unclear if U.S. priests were more likely to be abusers than priests elsewhere or if victims here were more likely to come forward.

Consider the priests. During 1950-2002, allegations were made against 1 out of every 25 U.S. priests (4%). Because the majority of reported cases occurred in the U.S., in 2008 the Catholic Church asserted that the scandal was the result of 1% of Roman Catholic Priests (roughly 5,000 out of 410,000). Most of the accused priests in the U.S. were not victims of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse and did not have alcohol or substance abuse problems (9% self-reported the former and the latter is estimated at 19%). George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center found 2% of sex abuse offenders were Catholic Priests. This number is very high given the small percentage of the adult male population that are priests. Another study found that that most priests were not pedophiles (preferring pre-pubescent children), but ephebophiles (preferring early teens) or indiscriminate sex offenders.

The Catholic leadership’s response to these scandals was yet another scandal. Various leaders shuffled priest-abusers from one parish to another, paid compensation in return for silence, hid the review process in secrecy, and used bankruptcy laws to shield the church from having to pay victims. For example, dioceses in Tucson, San Diego, Milwaukee, and Wilmington used the bankruptcy shield.

The widespread sexual abuse is evidence that Catholicism and the Catholic moral positions are false. If a group claims that its doctrines regarding God and morality are true and a significant number of the group’s vanguard acts in a way that is both wrong and inconsistent with its doctrines, there is reason to doubt the doctrines. In the case of Catholicism, a significant number of the vanguard acted in ways that is wrong and inconsistent with its doctrines. 1 out of 25 U.S. priests were alleged to have sexually abused children and the Catholic leadership’s response was at best shaky.

One objection Catholics and others (for example, The Teapot Atheist website) make is that it is a fallacy to conclude that Catholicism is false because many of its messengers showed a sociopathic disregard for the well-being of children. This is a mistake. In the absence of strong independent evidence for a position, if the messengers do not believe in the message enough to follow its dictates, there is little reason to see why others should do so.

By analogy, consider a business that sells a diet plan. Later, it is discovered that a bunch of fat slobs own and run the business. Worse, they have no scientific evidence for their plan. Not only would the diet plan be a laughing stock, it should be. After all, if the people who know the plan best can’t make it work, there is little reason to believe it will work for others. It is uncontroversial that there is no scientific or philosophical evidence for the Mary’s virgin birth of Jesus, the trinity, and transubstantiation. This is in part because the latter two doctrines are incoherent.

A second objection Catholic defenders might make is that the cause of the child abuse is a general problem that is independent of Catholicism. For example, on one interpretation of a statement by Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, the problem is one concentrated in homosexuals. Remember that 81% of the victims were male and over half were post-pubescent. Alternatively, Philip Jenkins of the Pennsylvania State University argues that the problem is not distinctive to Catholic clergy. He argues that child-oriented sexual activity is just as frequent in married clergy of other denominations and schoolteachers.

The first empirical claim is likely false as specialists in sexual abuse, such as Gregory Herek (psychology professor at University of California at Davis) and James Cantor (editor-in-chief of Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment), deny that the scientific literature shows there to be an association between homosexuality and either child molestation or pedophilia. It is also implausible that 4% of schoolteachers have had allegations of child sexual abuse made against them. Even if one of these they-all-do-it defenses work, this at most shows that Catholicism’s elite are at no better than the rest of the population. This is hardly what one would predict a group that has a uniquely correct relation to God.

A third objection is that this only shows that certain parts of the Catholicism are false and need to be revamped. The parts might involve the dismantling the Catholic hierarchy, ending the celibacy requirement for priests, or preventing men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” to be ordained. As of 2005, the church no longer does the last. This sort of ad hoc objection would be convincing were the Catholic religion consistent with buffet-style religion, whereby one picks and chooses which rules and conventions are a true part of Catholicism. However, neither its doctrines nor the way it is practiced allows for such a buffet.

The problem of Catholic sex abuse cases has been well explored in the popular press and investigated in academia. The scandal cuts deeper. It is evidence that Catholicism is false. In so far as it exposes this falsity, some good might come out of the abuse.

A President Abandons Blacks

2011-10-05T15:16:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Blacks Support for Obama: Cheering on a Savage Beating
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 2, 2011

Recently, black leaders such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and few others have begun to criticize President Obama. She was promptly smacked down by demagogue-in-chief Al Sharpton. While black criticism of Obama is beginning to percolate, it is still rare and muted. This makes no sense given that the Obama Administration sat by and watched as the economy, prisons, and public schools gave blacks a savage beating.

Blacks were one of the biggest forces behind Obama’s victory. In 2008 according to the Washington Post, roughly 96% of blacks voted for Obama. Blogger Ruy Teixera points out that blacks were 13% of the national voters. A 12-13% head start in an election is huge. Blacks were also 25% of Democratic voters. Thus, blacks gave Obama the Democratic nomination and then propelled him into office.

The recent economic recession has been an economic steamroller, flattening many blacks. Writing in The Washington Times, James Bacon gives the snapshot of the steamroller’s destruction. In 2009, 26% of blacks lived in poverty, compared to 10% of whites. The unemployment rate for blacks is roughly 17%, more than twice that of whites. A study by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that black men in the middle class are 37% more likely to fall from middle class to the bottom 30% of income earners than white men.

Even worse, Bacon points out, in the larger picture, blacks are bleeding out wealth. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the median net worth of black households dropped to $2,200. This is much less than the $97,900 median figure for white households. 40% of black households had a net worth of $0 or less. A 2010 Study by the Center for Responsible Lending found that 8% of blacks lost their homes to foreclosure. A 2009 study by the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank of foreclosures in California showed blacks were more than 3 times more likely to be in foreclosure compared to whites, even after controlling for income and credit score.

The federal government significantly overemploys blacks, but this has done little to prevent the Obama steamroller. Columnist Pat Buchanan points out that although blacks are roughly 13% of the population, they constitute 25% of the employees at Treasury and Veterans Affairs, 37% at the Department of Education, 38% at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and 42% at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Quasi-government agencies are worse. Buchanan notes that blacks are 44% of the employees at Fannie Mae and 50% at Freddie Mac. These are the private corporations that the government in effect insures (it’s given them more than $140 billion). Were whites so overrepresented, preferences and covert quotas would have been rammed down these departments’ and agencies’ throats.

Fans of big government might claim that blacks would be even worse off had the Obama Administration not massively expanded government spending, ratcheted up regulations, fought to keep taxes high, continued the two wars, and so on. I find this implausible, but let us grant it for the sake of argument. A bigger failure is that the Obama Administration has done nothing on the two largest issues African-Americans face: imprisonment and education.

The federal and state governments lock up black men as if they were a congenitally criminal population. Writing in the Boston Globe, Louise Palmer noted back in 1999 that there will likely be 1 million African-American adults behind bars. It should be noted that others have lower estimates (800,000 on one study). This is a 500% increase over the last two decades. Data from a 2003 Justice Department report shows that 10.4% of African-American males population aged 25-29 were incarcerated. Note that the 10.4% is for one year, which means that a still higher percentage was imprisoned at one time or another. In 2000, there were more black men in prison than in college. Many of these men are in prison for non-violent drug offenses. When locked up, these men don’t care for their children, have jobs, or form friendships and loving relationships in their communities. When they get out they are damaged goods and less attractive to black women and employers.

The public education system is another disgrace. A 2010 study by the Schott Foundation finds that less than half (47%) of black males graduate from high school, compared to 78% of whites. When they do graduate, far too many black diplomas are fraudulent. Using National Assessment of Educational Progress Data, a study by the Education Trust found that by the time black students reach their senior year, they are four years behind their peers. On average, a 17-year-old African-American has skills in English, mathematics, and science similar to those of a 13-year-old white student. And remember, the performance of white students is nothing to be proud of. Economist Walter Williams has long pointed out that were the Klu Klux Klan to design a system to crush black progress, they could not have done better than America’s public schools.

The Obama is in the midst of excusing states whose schools continue to fall below the standards set forth in the Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind law. Given that the teachers’ unions are one of the most powerful forces in the Democratic Party, Obama knows who brought him to the dance.

What has the Obama administration done to reverse these trends in imprisonment and education? The Obama Administration had a Democratic controlled Congress for two years. Did the administration not know that hundreds of thousands of black males were locked up and that black children learned very little in government schools or did it just not care? Note that these failures do not depend on whether you’re a fan or big government or liberty. Locking up hundreds of thousands of young black men for selling recreational drugs is loathsome on either theory. Similarly, no one who looks seriously at why public schools fail blacks thinks that the main problem is underfunding. Also, note that even those who think that black-white differences are explained in part by genetic differences in intelligence would have to admit that federal and state governments are making things far worse.

Black silence occurs because in part because of mistaken ideology and in part because black leaders are beholden to the Democratic Party and its 800 lb. guerillas, the unions, and both are inextricably tied to Obama.

Contra Republicans: Homosexuality is neither wrong nor a disorder

2011-09-21T11:37:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Republicans and Gays: Get Off Their Case
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
September 19, 2011

Republicans have a problem with gays. The husband of one leading candidate, Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has a clinic that performs conversion therapy, which tries to change homosexuals into heterosexuals. Another two (Mitt Romney – Mormonism- and Rick Perry –Evangelical Christian) are members of churches that condemn homosexuality. Most of their candidates oppose gay marriage, as did Barack Obama during the 2008 election.

Gays are a small percentage of the population. On University of Chicago sociologist Edward Laumann and colleagues’ famous study estimate self-identified gay males are 2.8% of the male population and gay females are 1.4% of the female population, although about 9% and 4% have had sex with someone of the same gender. Still, both are significant numbers. Gays outnumber farmers and, depending on the way they are measured, probably approximate Jews, both of which get pandered to by politicians.

The Republicans’ and their churches’ positions boils down to the claim that gay sex is wrong or homosexuality is a mental disorder. The first can be quickly dismissed. One person acts wrongly only when he wrongs someone and there is no one whom gay sex wrongs. Such sex does not wrong the gay person’s partner as she gave informed consent. Nor does it wrong the gay person herself for the same reason. Even if it harms her in some way, and this claim would need to be defended, many activities that harm participants are not wrong. Consider, for example, smoking, overeating, or wasting money on the lottery.

The Bible condemns such sex. See Leviticus 18:22, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” See, also, Romans 1:27, Corinthians 1:9-10, and Timothy 1:8-10. Given that the Bible also rips pig eating and money lending and permits slave owning (see Leviticus 11:7-8, Ezekiel 18:13, and Leviticus 25:44-46), we can safely ignore the Bible when thinking about these types of issues.

The disorder issue is trickier. Currently, the psychiatric community does not consider homosexuality a mental disorder. In 1973, the board of directors of the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its handbook on disorders, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The association’s membership ratified this decision in 1974. In 1975, The American Psychological Association followed suit. Until 1986, the psychiatric association it did consider gays as having a disorder if they were unable to get aroused by heterosexual sex and this inability interfered with their relationships and produced distress (ego-dystonic homosexuality). In 1986, it eliminated this diagnosis.

A disorder is, roughly, a disease or injury. More specifically, it is a dysfunction that causes harm. Following NYU professor Tim Wakefield, a dysfunction is the inability of some bodily mechanism to perform its natural function. A mechanism’s natural function is its evolutionary purpose or one of its purposes. For example, the heart’s natural function is to pump blood. If the heart fails to do this adequately and this causes the owner harm, then he has a disorder. Is homosexuality a disorder?

The evidence for homosexuality being a biological dysfunction is simply not there. If homosexuality is a dysfunction, then it involves a person failing to use his organs to perform their evolutionary function. It is unlikely that the penis and vagina were favored by evolution only for immediate impregnation. They also likely have a role in individuals bonding, which also has evolutionary advantages. This can be seen in that our closest animal relatives (bonobos), who engage in gay sex and adult-child sex, despite neither leading to reproduction.

In the U.S., heterosexuals and homosexuals differ in their rate of reproduction. On one study, only 38% of heterosexual couples do not have children, while 78% of lesbian couples and 90% of gay couples do not. If mechanisms are judged solely by how they frequently contribute to reproduction, then homosexuality would be a dysfunction. However, certain races also reproduce less often. For example, in the U.S., blacks reproduce at a significantly higher rate than whites (24% in 2008). The same is true for Hispanics. Also, people with higher IQs reproduce at a lower rate than people with lower IQs. The notion that whiteness and high IQ are biological dysfunctions is implausible.

If, in evolutionary terms, homosexuality resulted in more of gays’ genes being passed onto the next generation, perhaps by adding to the success of nephews and nieces, then it might have been favored by evolution. A similar mechanism can be seen in African hunting dogs where evolution has led to only the leading male and female producing puppies and the other members of the pack, who are related to the leading pair, helping to feed and protect them.

The harm claim is also unclear. It is unclear whether gays can be changed into heterosexuals. A 2002 study by Psychologists Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder found it ineffective in roughly 9 of 10 participants. The most proponents of conversion therapy proponents can claim is that the studies conflict and are beset by methodological problems. If homosexuals cannot change their orientation, or most cannot do so, then it is unclear in what sense homosexuality harms them.

When compared to heterosexuals, gays do appear to be less happy. Professors Susan Cochran, Theo Sandfort, and others have found that gays do have higher rates of psychiatric disorders, including mood and anxiety disorders. For example, one 2011 article by Paul Flynn and Matthew Todd in The Observer found that for depression, gay men are four times more likely to suffer depression than straight men. Both gay men and women are also more likely to attempt suicide. They also are less happy. Laumann and his colleagues found that homosexuals were less likely than heterosexuals to say they were very happy and more likely to say they were unhappy most of the time.

It is likely that the lower-level of unhappiness in gays has an outside cause, societal hostility, that explains at least some of these problems. This is supported by the studies that indicate that nearly half of gays have been subject to verbal abuse or physical violence and that such victimization is associated with a variety of mood and anxiety disorders. Still, it is not clear whether this abuse is the cause of all of these problems. This lack of clarity is hardly enough evidence to support the claim that homosexuality is harmful to gays.

Homosexuality is neither wrong nor a disorder. Republicans should drop their hostile stance toward them, hide their religions’ stance toward them, and focus instead on Obama’s creeping socialism.

Jews: Why are they make so much money and vote so left?

2011-09-07T13:34:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
The Mystery of Jewish Success
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
September 5, 2011

As a group, American Jews are a mystery. Their overall success lacks a clear explanation. So does the fact that they consistently vote for and fund a party that is against their interests.

Jews are roughly 2% of the U.S. population. In the U.S., University of Washington sociologist Paul Burstein points out that Jews are more successful educationally and economically than other ethnic, racial, or religious groups in America. One 2005 study found that in the 1990’s more than 60% of Jews were college graduates, versus 22% of all Americans. Even the well-educated and successful Episcopalians (46% college graduates) don’t come close.

This pattern intensifies at the high end of the academic food chain. Blogger Steven Silbiger points out that Jews are 20% of the professors are leading universities. During the 20% Century, University of Utah Anthropologist Gregory Cochran and his colleagues point out that 27% American Nobel Prize winners in science were Jewish. They are also 25% of the Turing Award winners (for excellence in computer science). They are also more than half of the world’s chess champions.

Jews also have and make a lot more money than other Americans. One 2003 study found that their family net worth is roughly 2.5 times greater than other Americans. A 2005 study found that their household income is roughly double (195% per capita) of the average American household.

Again, the pattern intensifies at the high end. Silbiger reports that 45% of the Forbes richest Americans are Jews and that one-third of American multimillionaires are Jews. This pattern can also be seen in the professions. Consider, for example, law. Silbiger reports that 45% of partners in leading law firms in New York and Washington are Jews. The same is true for one-third of the Supreme Court Justices.

In other areas, they are far less successful. Their presence in the professional football, baseball, basketball, and mixed martial arts is far less impressive. For example, in the NFL in 2002-2003, there were only six in the NFL, 4 of whom play the less athletic positions such as quarterback, kicker, or punter (34% of the teams are currently owned by Jews). There are few American sex symbols who are Jewish, although Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman are near the top.

There are multiple explanations for the Jews’ success, although it is unclear whether any particular one is true and, if so, what weight to give it. One explanation is that Jews do well in the same way non-Jews do, by getting more education and working long hours. This explanation is unhelpful because it begs the question as to why Jews do these things more than others.

A second explanation is that Jews succeed because they have beliefs or behaviors that are specifically Jewish. For example, Professor Lehrer and others posit that the advantage might come about because education is central in traditional Jewish life and because Jews have a historic tradition of self-help organizations. Others note that Jews have a long tradition of working in managerial and financial jobs. It is not clear how to test this explanation. A 1998 study by Esther Wilder and William Walters found that more observant Jews (for example, Orthodox Jews) make less money than less observant ones (for example, Reform Jews), but it is unclear whether religious observance tracks the influence of traditional Jewish life.

A third explanation focuses on social capital. Social capital is the advantage that a population has because it has certain collective human resources that benefit members. Burstein provides an example of a Jewish gathering in which professionals and business owners provide the younger generation with a competitive advantage by serving as role models and giving them advice and encouraging proper attitudes. Along the same lines, more educated parents might be thought better able to better promote academic skills. Again, this explanation is hard to assess and, in any case, likely depends on another account to explain why they have more social capital.

More controversial is a fourth explanation: intelligence and genetics. Anthropologist Cochran and his colleagues argue that Ashkenazi Jews have the highest IQ of any ethnic group. They score about 0.75 to 1.0 standard deviations (12-15 IQ points) above the general European average. In at least one case, the higher IQ was found even among poorer Ashkenazi Jews. They also have a very distinctive pattern in scoring noticeably higher in verbal and math scores, but lower in visuo-spatial abilities. Cochran and company argue that this might explain why their success in literature and math has not produced similar results in several of the arts (for example, sculpture and architecture). To the extent that group differences in intelligence have a genetic explanation, this might partly explain Jewish success.

Despite their economic and educational success, Jews vote against their interest. They overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party despite its explicit commitment to wealth redistribution and higher taxes on the wealthy and upper middle class. This is even more surprising given the Democratic Party’s and President Obama’s unwavering support for affirmative action, many of the spots for which would otherwise go to Jews (and Asians). There are frequent reports that Jews provide a significant portion of the money that goes into Democratic coffers, but I am unable to find an academic study that verifies these reports. According to Ruy Teixeira, 78% of Jews voted for Obama. This makes them more similar to blacks (96% for Obama) and Hispanics (67% for Obama) than whites (43% for Obama). This is all the more interesting given that on the whole Democrats and the left are less supportive of Israel than Republicans and the right. This is particularly true of Obama who is probably the least friendly President to Israel in years.

The Jewish pattern of voting for Democrats appears to lack a good explanation. As Marc Sheppard from the American Thinker has pointed out, the pattern has been in place since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Jews supported Roosevelt by a 9-to-1 in 1940 and 1944. Sheppard argues that this is odd given that the Roosevelt administration worked overtime to prevent Jewish immigration and during WWII avoided bombing the death camps. It is also odd because socialist states were notoriously hostile to Jews and some (for example, Germany and Soviet Union) targeted them. In any case, the pattern is stable over recent years with large majorities of Jews supporting Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Obama. Unlike the explanations for economic success, the various explanations for Jewish leftism are far more speculative. It remains a mystery why group members vote so transparently against their interests.

Academia: Tenure

2011-08-24T08:56:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Tenure, Academic Freedom, and Efficiency
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
August 21, 2011

Tenure in the academic world occurs when faculty are given lifetime employment after demonstrating that they have performed well enough in the past. More specifically, it is an academic faculty member’s contractual right not to lose his job unless there is just cause. A tenure-track position is a job in which the occupant either has or will be eligible for tenure. There is parallel protection for K-12 teachers.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I’m tenured and that on some views I benefitted greatly from tenure. Also, this column reflects my view and not necessarily that of any group to which I belong.

Tenure is relatively recent. It was largely absent in the 19th Century and didn’t become widespread until after 1945, in part due to severe faculty shortages. Outside of teaching, tenure does not occur, although lifetime tenure for judges and protection of other government workers is somewhat similar. For example, NFL teams would never grant tenure to players or coaches.

Tenure is also declining. Since 1972, there has been a decline in the percentage of college professors that are tenured or tenure-track. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the percentage of professors who are tenure-track went from 56% in 1975 to 32% in 2005. It is also no longer found in some parts of the world, such as most of Europe and Australia.

Let us consider the most plausible arguments for tenure. The main argument is that tenure protects academic freedom. Academic freedom is a murky notion that refers to faculty’s opportunity to research and teach on various topics without penalty. The idea is that political forces would otherwise shut down the free discussion of ideas in the academy. Given the historical attempts by alumni and legislature to get universities to fire faculty with unpopular views, this argument has some bite to it.

The argument has a number of problems. First, even if true for professors, it is unclear why tenure-like protection should be given to non-professors, such as K-12 teachers, whose job is not as clearly tied to the marketplace of ideas and who have few, if any, research duties.

Second, consider whether the tenure system protects academic freedom for untenured professors, particular adjuncts. Adjunct professors are professors whose job is not tenure-track. If their academic freedom is protected, then tenure is likely not that important for academic freedom. If their academic freedom is unprotected, then it is unclear why so much attention should be put on a system that fails to protect more than two-thirds of professors.

Third, even if tenure does protect academic freedom, it is unclear that its benefits outweigh its costs. The cost of tenure is that people who are ineffective stay on for life. This is probably why businesses in other fields beside education don’t give out tenure. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of a mandatory retirement age, which can allow for formerly good professors to stay long after they’ve become ineffective. In the classroom, this can mean that generations of students might suffer under a bad teacher.

Fourth, if the goal is to protect unpopular lines of thought so as to promote the marketplace of ideas, there is reason to doubt whether tenure does this. Campuses are notoriously hostile both to free speech and to conservative and libertarian voices. A 2004-2005 study by professors Daniel Klein and Charlotta Stern found the ratio of Democrats to Republican among university instructors in the social sciences and humanities to be between 7:1 and 9:1 despite the fact that that national ratio is 1:1 (2011 Rasmussen Report). None of this gives us much confidence that tenure protects the robust discussion of ideas.

The second main argument for tenure is economic: tenure is justified because it is an efficient job benefit. The idea is that many professors could succeed in jobs that pay far more. This is clear in fields like medicine, law, accounting, and engineering. On this argument, tenure is a job benefit professors accept in return for lower pay. This arguably benefits taxpayers and students who pay less in taxes and tuition and, perhaps, professors if they prefer security over higher pay.

The argument is hard to assess. University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt (of Freakonomics fame) argues that tenure produces a bad incentive structure. He points out that the better professors would prefer more money over tenure because they know they’ll have a job regardless; the worse ones would prefer security over more money because they would be the ones who would be fired. As a result, he argues, it provides an incentive for less able professors to stay in academia. Boston University economist Jeffrey Miron points out that the problem is exacerbated by the incentive for older faculty to stay on despite declining productivity.

I’m not sure what to make of this argument. It is not obvious to me that better professors would prefer more pay to security. In any case, it depends on how much more pay we are talking about. For the 2009-2010 academic year, on average, SUNY-Fredonia assistant professors (junior untenured professors) got paid $56,000, associate professors (mid-level tenured professors) got paid $65,000, and full professors (senior tenured professors) got paid $86,000. I’m not sure how many would want to give up tenure for an extra $5,000 a year. Even if they would, the security-for-lower-pay tradeoff, and the army of adjuncts that comes with it, might well be good for taxpayers and tuition-paying families. This is particularly true given that college costs have skyrocketed over the last few decades.

The third argument is that the tenure system provides an incentive for professors to invest time and energy in their institution and colleagues. Tenure tends to prevent faculty from moving between colleges and universities as the latter are hesitant to guarantee lifetime employment upon hiring someone. As a result, faculty tend to stay with their colleges and universities for a long time and have an incentive to improve them. They also have an incentive to put time and energy into hiring, mentoring, and promoting talented junior faculty because they will work with them for years. Without tenure, such junior faculty might even threaten their jobs. This provides faculty with incentives similar to partners at law and accounting firms. This does seem to be a good incentive from the colleges’ and universities’ perspective, although it’s less clear that reduced mobility is good for professors. Nor is it clear that this benefit outweighs the costs of dead-wood professors.

In the end, the benefits and costs of tenure are hard to balance off against one another. The free market might do a good job of determining whether tenure is efficient. Perhaps this is the best approach as this is likely not an issue that can be determined by sitting in one’s philosophical armchair. Public colleges and universities should then likely be encouraged to follow the free-market outcome as it is the best evidence we have of the efficient solution.

Budget Deal: What a Disgrace

2011-08-10T10:16:00.000-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
The Debt Deal: Congress Sells Out America
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
August 2, 2011

On August 2nd, the agreement to raise the debt ceiling passed. This is easily the largest debt-ceiling increase in American history. It raises the ceiling by $2.4 trillion dollars. This is enough to allow the government to borrow through 2013. This is also past the Presidential election year, although I’m sure this is just a coincidence. The agreement calls for a second round of cuts between $2.1 and $2.4 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years with $900 billion to be done immediately. It then calls for super-committee made up of members of Congress to make the rest the second round cuts or, if they fail to do so, an across-the-board set of cuts of at least $1.2 trillion automatically kick in.

As with the Wall Street bailout (TARP), the massive stimulus package, and ObamaCare, New York’s worst, Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) voted for the ceiling increase (Gillibrand wasn’t in office for the TARP vote). Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) did not, likely because it did not have enough tax increases for her. New York voters must really be proud.

The deal is a disgrace. First, the deal didn’t cut anything. The first round of “cuts” targets discretionary spending. Yet it increases discretionary spending by 16% between 2012 and 2020 and increases it every year in between the two. A slowed rate of spending increases is not a cut.

Given how the “cuts” are calculated, if the government were merely to have kept its spending levels at current levels (in nominal dollars) for the next ten years, this would count as a cut of trillions of dollars. There is a good chance that SUNY is likely to tell professors that they won’t get a pay raise for the next two years. No professor will reason like Congress and claim that SUNY cut his salary.

Second, even the slowed rate of increases is tiny. The Cato Institute’s Tad DeHaven points out that once we exclude spending on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars because they are ending (these savings are part of the $2.4 trillion), the government will now spend $43 trillion over the next ten years rather than $44 trillion. Meanwhile, the debt will skyrocket over the next decade. Specifically, each American’s share will increase by more than 50% on the Heritage Foundation calculation based on Congressional Budget Office numbers. Given this momentous change, I can’t understand why in a recent CNN poll, Congress’ approval rating hit a record-low of 14% and lower on other polls (for example, Rasmussen Reports).

Third, even the slowed rate of increase probably won’t happen. The deal calls for a 0.6% “cut” for 2012 and the lion’s share of “cuts” to occur from 2013 onward. In 2013, there will be a new Congress and it will be free to ignore the one that passed this deal. And, of course, one Congress cannot bind another.

We’ve been down this road before. In years past, Congress promised Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush big spending cuts in return for tax increases. The tax increases went into effect, but the cuts never did. After making these promises, Congress told Reagan to blow it out his shorts and continued to spend more every year. They did the same to the hapless Bush. The analogy here is Lucy van Pelt telling Charley Brown to kick the football. In any case, Congress can always a label a war or other program a “spending emergency,” thereby removing it from the agreement’s cap. The fact that Congress recently labeled part of the 2010 census a spending emergency tells us that they are not above such shenanigans.

Fourth, a major cause of the present and future debt problem was ignored. Entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) are a large cause of the massive deficit. 44% of the federal budget is deficit spending and entitlements are roughly a third of the budget. Because entitlements have risen much faster (five times faster) than discretionary spending over the last 45 years and likely will continue to do so, they are a major cause of the financial mess. Given this, the wise men in Congress decided to exempt Social Security and Medicaid from the first round of cuts and from the across-the-board cuts if the super-committee does not reach an agreement. They also limited the degree to which Medicare can be cut.

Fifth, the urgency behind the deal was misplaced. Part of the urgency was the threat if the U.S. government losing its top-of-the-line credit rating (triple-A). Like the TARP deal used to sell the bailout to Wall Street, politicians and pundits warned of a financial catastrophe of biblical proportions. The fact that Japan lost its triple-A credit rating more than a decade ago and still has one of the lowest interest rates was apparently not relevant. Also, irrelevant is that no one knew whether the current deal is enough to prevent the credit downgrade. In fact, the credit downgrade occurred.

Sixth, if the terms of the deal were followed, taxes would increase. The Democrats will never allow entitlements to be cut and when dire stories about what an across-the-board cuts spook the Republicans, they’ll cave Boehner-style and vote for tax increases. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s public statements make it clear that in the second round, spending cuts will have to be matched by tax increases and his allies will be half of the super-committee.

The deal is worse than no agreement at all. With no deal, the American people would force their government to cut its spending by 44%/ This might prevent undeclared and seemingly endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, unconstitutional wars in Libya and Yemen, significant U.S. military presence in Japan and Europe, the inane war on drugs, foreign aid, etc. On one estimate in Daily Kos, the U.S. currently spends roughly 50% of the total military spending in the world. Most of which has little to do with our security. According to the USA Today, the federal government is the largest source of revenue for state and local governments. Perhaps the government would stop doling out the goodies to states, particularly the childish ones (California, Illinois, and New York). The fact that Constitution requires this is icing on the cake.

Democrats should be pleased. They want increases in taxes and spending and this deal delivers both. The problem is that Congressional Republicans, particularly the career politicians, buy into the basic Democrat vision of the country. Between 2000 and 2010, the U.S. massively increased government from roughly 20% to 25% of the economy (Heritage Foundation using numbers from the Congressional Budget Office). The current level is much higher than the historical (1960-2010) average of 18%. Republicans locked in these changes by signing off on the debt-ceiling increase without even a gesture toward moving spending down to its historical level.

Sadly, it is not clear that the treacherous Republicans will pay much of a price for this deal. They sold out the country in the last budget deal too, getting miniscule “cuts” and hoping the American people are too stupid to notice. It’s likely that conservatives will hold the deal against House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), but they’ll still be in office for a while and will be treated as heroes when they retire.

Americans are in a bind. Backing the Republicans leads to the loss of ground as the Democrats continually roll them. Abandoning them would allow President Obama and company to complete their agenda of single-payer healthcare, brutally high taxes, and amnesty for illegal aliens. What a mess.

The Duty to Tip: Five Theories

2011-07-27T09:53:00.000-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Waitresses and Tips: Why Should We Tip Them?
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
July 11, 2011

In my travels this year, I’ve eaten at a lot of restaurants. I’ve noticed that despite the widespread practice of tipping waitresses and waiters (servers), there is little agreement on why we should do so.

Tipping varies across time and place. In the U.S., the customary tip is currently 15-20% of the pre-tax price of a meal. While some restaurants are moving away from tipping and instead instituting mandatory service charges, it is not clear this has really caught on.

Historically, tipping in the U.S. was controversial. Tipping didn’t appear until after the Civil War. When it did, it was strongly opposed by people who considered it demeaning to servers. They viewed it as a leftover from the class-divided Old World, with its master-and-servant relationships. There were anti-tipping associations and newspapers denounced it (for example, New York Times). Six states banned the practice.

Tipping varies across countries. Tipping in Canada is similar to the U.S. In some countries, customers don’t tip (Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, and Brazil). In others, tips are more moderate, 10% or less (Germany, France, England, Italy, China, and Argentina).

There is variation in who gets tipped. In the U.S., people tip waiters and waitresses, bartenders, taxi drivers, barbers, food deliverers, and airport skycaps. They don’t tip fast-food attendants, flight attendants, headwaiters, and doormen (when merely opening doors). For handymen and gas-station attendants, it’s optional.

There are even racial differences in tipping. Professor Michael Lynn of Cornell University found that in the U.S., white customers tip about 16.5% of the bill, whereas black customers tip 13%. He found that this is likely not due to worse service.

It is not clear whether there is a moral duty to tip. First, it might be argued that the duty to tip comes from the fact that it is customary to do so. This is unconvincing because the fact that a practice is customary does by itself not show that it is morally required. Some customs are outmoded or offensive. In the U.S., it used to be customary not to tip servers. Also, a custom-related duty depends on another factor such as charity, gratitude, rights, and so on and these other factors are what explain any related duties. A similar problem accompanies a view of the duty as resting on etiquette.

Second, the duty might be thought to rest on the fact that servers need the money and would otherwise be underpaid. This was the argument famously given to Mr. Pink in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. The problem is that lots of people need money and are underpaid and it’s unclear why servers are singled out for our charity, particularly when others are even worse off, for example, the starving and homeless. Even if servers were owed charity, it is not clear why this should be done via tips rather than through gifts or government welfare.

Under the current system, servers get paid an hourly wage. In the U.S., servers must be paid the minimum wage ($7.25 per hour), although employers may subtract tips from that amount and must pay at least $2.13 an hour. If people don’t tip, the law requires employers fill the gap. If they don’t do so, this is between the servers and restaurant owners. It’s unclear why it’s the business of a restaurant patron to make up for an owner’s failure to follow the law or the state’s failure to enforce it.

On a side note, tipping is big business. In the aggregate, restaurant workers make more than $26 billion per year in tips. Also, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010 study, waiters and waitresses are about 0.5% of U.S. employees. They earn an average of $9.99 per hour and $20,790 per year. In some areas and states, the average is higher. For example, in the District of Columbia, waiters and waitresses average $14.30 per hour and $28,750 per year in wages.

A third argument is that tips are owed as a matter of gratitude. When restaurant patrons are asked why they tip, this is one of the main reasons they cite. But it is unclear why U.S. patrons should be more grateful than patrons in England, France, Australia, and Japan. It is also unclear why customers should show gratitude toward some workers (for example, servers and taxi drivers), but not others (for example, fast-food attendants, flight attendants, and headwaiters). Lastly, it is unclear why gratitude isn’t expressed in the portion of the restaurant bill that goes toward the server’s minimum-wage salary. It apparently is for the low-paid workers who don’t get tips.

A fourth argument is that customers have a duty to tip because it provides the incentives for good service. This is sometimes tied to the historically mistaken notion that the word “tip” means “to insure prompt service.” The idea is that tipping is the best way for restaurants to monitor and control the quality of service given that it would be inefficient for the owner to spend his time watching the servers. One problem with this argument is that it rests on a duty to provide efficient incentives and there is no such duty. By analogy, even if it provides an efficient incentive for a society to pay starting teachers $65,000 rather than what they currently receive, $39,000 (a New York Times article recently argued for such a pay raise), it hardly follows that any parent has a duty to supplement a teacher’s salary. Also, at least one study found that in countries that don’t have tipping, service is as good as in countries that do. Hence, the notion that tipping is necessary for good service is not obvious.

If there is a duty to tip, it is because the restaurant patron forms a contract with the server to tip her. This is a little mysterious because neither party mentions the contract and it is not written down anywhere. It is even more mysterious because this assumes that the average restaurant patron knows that he is entering into two contracts: one with the restaurant to pay for the food and a second with the server to pay for the service. And for those who think that contracts have to be explicitly stated or enforceable by law, this explanation is a non-starter. Still, if there is a duty to tip, this is where it comes from. I suspect this is correct, but it has an odd feel to it.

Vacation: I'll be back in July

2011-05-16T16:04:00.002-04:00

Dear Friends:
I am taking a two-month break from the columns. I shall return to the column business on July 12th. Thank you for reading the columns and for your many kind words.
Thank you,
Steve K

Dependency Class: Too Many in the Wagon

2011-05-04T15:59:00.000-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
The New America: The Dependency Class Versus the Productive Class
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
May 1, 2011

More and more Americans are living off others. Not only will this darken the U.S.’s future, but it’s also offensive.

First, less of American’s income is coming less from paid work (wages) and more of it from government redistribution. According to the USA Today, wages made up 51% of personal income, the lowest in the nation’s history. In contrast, government payments hit a record high of 18.3% of personal income (90% comes from the federal government). These payments consist of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, food stamps, and so on. Roughly, for every five dollars in income employers paid out, the government paid out two. This is a 46% increase from the 2000 level. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the average American got $7,400 in government payments, way up from $4,800 in 2000.

The number of people living off the government is so high it’s frightening. Ed Morrissey, writing on the Hot Air website, points out that one in six Americans receives help from the government, a record 44 million on are food stamps (roughly, 15% of the population), and more than 8.4 million are collecting benefits for being jobless. Among states, generous New York gives the most, paying an astounding $9,400 per person. Only West Virginia approaches that amount and it siphons a significant portion of its revenue from federal government.

Second, less people are working. The USA Today, doing breakthrough work, found that the share of the population that is working fell to the lowest level since women started entering the work force three decades ago. Less than one in two Americans (45%) of Americans had jobs in 2010. This is the lowest rate since 1983 and an 8% drop since 2000. The pattern for men is particularly surprising. In 2010, just two out of three (66.8%) had jobs, the lowest on record. As of 2009, the USA Today reported, women were on the verge of outnumbering men in the workforce, a historic change.

Third, less people make things and more work for the government. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore points out that there are nearly twice as many people work for the government (23 million) as in manufacturing (12 million). This is, roughly, a reversal of the situation in 1960. Ask yourself whether it is healthy to have so many workers living off taxes and so few making things. He also points more that some states have even higher ratios. New Jersey’s ratio is 2.5 to 1 ratio and New York’s is 3 to 1. Moore states that more Americans work for the government than for manufacturing, construction, utilities, mining, farming, fishing, and forestry. This is a recipe for disaster. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is for compensation for government workers.

Fourth, the least productive citizens pay increasingly less income taxes. Income taxes are increasingly born by the most productive citizens. In 2008, the bottom 75% of taxpayers (incomes equal or less than $67,000) made 34% of income, but paid only 14% of income taxes. Income here is adjusted gross income. The bottom 50% of taxpayers paid only 3% of all income taxes and a measly 3% of their income went to income taxes. In 2009, according to the New York Times, 47% of American households owed no income taxes, although most of them paid other federal taxes (for example, payroll and gas taxes).

The above facts suggest more and more people are riding in the wagon, less are pushing (Phil Gramm’s analogy). This appears to be offensive, an interesting question is why? One theory is that it is inefficient. Having so many people live off redistributed wealth transfers resources from the more efficient private sector to the less efficient public one. Studies, for example those by the Heritage Foundation, show that economic freedom (lack of government interference and lower taxes) strongly correlates with a society’s overall amount of wealth as well as other measures of well-being, such as health, education, and personal freedom. Having a dependency society will likely make us poorer.

However, inefficiency is the wrong sort of explanation because it is a problem for a whole society, and an abstract one, whereas the dependency society insults each individual the government treats as an ATM.

A second theory is that the country faces big problems and the above pattern will surely exacerbate things. George Bernard Shaw famously said, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” The country faces a massive debt. It is approaching the yearly output of the whole economy. According to www.usgovernmentspending.com, the government in 2010 at all three levels now spends more than 40% of what is produced in this country (that is, more than 40% of the GDP).That is, they spend more than 4 cents for every dime the economy produces. As people become increasing dependent on welfare programs and government wages, an increasing large segment will be unwilling to make necessary cuts in government spending. Those living off a sugar daddy are unlikely to want him to stop his free-spending ways.

This theory does not explain the offensiveness of the dependency society because the threat is a future one, namely that the country’s economy will be stuck in the doldrums, if not tank, while the dependency society is offensive today.

A third theory is that the dependency society is offensive because the attitude it takes toward more productive citizens. When the government takes so much of the fruits of their labor, it treats them merely as a means to an end. It treats them as mere ATMs, that is, as beasts of burden whose lives can be hijacked for the benefit of others. How else could one make sense of requiring some people to work at least one out of every three minutes for the government so that it can divvy out the benefits to favored groups? Decades ago, Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick argued that sacrificing some for the benefit of others is wrong because of the profound disrespect it involves. Just as it is true of slavery and a wartime draft, it is also true for a dependency society, albeit to a much lesser degree.

A progressive defender of this redistribution, for example, President Obama, might argue that as long as the majority of voters chose to yoke productive citizens in the above way, democratic values provide a good reason for the yoking. This rests on a misunderstanding of democracy. Democracy is valuable in large part because it tends to produce better results than other types of government. It is also more respectful of the citizenry as free and equal people than undemocratic systems. Both values are compromised if the majority decides to use its voting power to harass and oppress others. This might be done, for example, when governments impose Sharia law on unwilling women, oppress blacks via Jim Crow laws, or silence unpopular opinions. Making the productive class pay through the nose for an increasingly unappreciative and demanding group of dependents is offensive, even if the majority of Paul-like voters support it.

Mommy Wars: The Tiger Mother Throws Down the Gauntlet

2011-04-21T19:53:00.002-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
The Tiger Mother at War
Dunkir-Fredonia Observer
April 18, 2011

In her bestselling book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and her Wall Street Journal article, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” Amy Chua defends her version of “Chinese Mother” parenting practices and the philosophy behind it. The publisher (Penguin Press) knew the book would be huge and paid her in the high six figures in advance for the book. Her book and article have created a firestorm that has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, National Public Radio, and the like. Chua has an endowed seat at Yale Law School (best in the U.S.) as does her Jewish husband who is less of a disciplinarian. Her family contains other similarly accomplished academics.

Her daughters were not allowed to attend a sleepover, have a play date, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, get any grade less than an A, not be the best student in any subject except gym and drama, play any instrument other than the piano or violin, and not play the piano and violin.

The “Chinese mother” philosophy, nicely summarized by Caitlin Flanagan in The Atlantic Monthly, consists of the following claims. First, children are inherently strong, not fragile. Because of this, parents can demand that their children work hard and excel at school without worrying about their self-esteem. Second, self-esteem comes from accomplishing difficult-and-worthwhile projects. Third, the better children get at doing something, the more they will enjoy doing it. Fourth, parents know better than their children what is in their interests. As a result they often override their children’s own preferences. That’s why Chinese daughters aren’t allowed to have boyfriends in high school or to waste their time being Villager Number Six in the school play. Fifth, Chinese mothers love their children. They are not content to let their children turn out badly and will make sure they have what they need to flourish.

Chua claims that “Chinese mothering” is not limited to the Chinese. She allows that Korean, Irish, and Ghanaian mothers can be Tiger mothers. This is likely politically correct cover. Her argument focuses on what she claims are the characteristic practices and attitudes of Chinese mothers. Perhaps she might include other East Asian mothers (that is, Korean and Japanese mothers). Other reviewers have also interpreted her in a similar way.

Critics have raised three main criticisms of the Chua’s thesis. First, Chinese parenting practices do not produce more successful children. Second, even if the practices produce more successful children, they are bad because they produce less happy children. Third, even if Chua’s practices do work and do not produce children who are less happy than those with Western parents, they still reflect some defect in Chua or the Chinese culture.

Consider the criticism that the Chinese parenting practices don’t work. One concern here is whether Chinese children do better because they have a genetic advantage. In her previous bestseller (“World on Fire”), Chua pointed out that the Chinese have dominated markets in a number of Asian countries outside of China. As Chua is surely aware, professors Richard Lynn, Arthur Jensen, J. Philippe Rushton, Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, and others have found that East Asians have on average a higher IQ than whites (5-6) points and other races. They argue that the difference is due in part to genetics. It has been argued that 40-80% of intelligence in populations is heritable. This view is quite controversial, but one now dated poll it reflected the plurality view of specialists in the field. If this is correct, then at least part of Chinese success is likely genetic. It is not clear how much, if any, Chinese parenting practices add to their genetic advantage. Furthermore, East Asians do better on math-related subtests. This would lead the heredity crowd to predict that they would do strikingly well in math and science fields. This is what we find.

The parenting-practice issue becomes less clear when we compare East Asians to Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of European descent). The latter have the highest tested IQ. On some studies, it is 112-115. They outperform East Asians in the various intelligence-related contests: earning money, attending Ivy League schools, winning the top intellectual prizes (for example, Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals, and Turing Awards). This is not to say that Jewish mothers don’t have special parenting practices (for example, guilt) or that Chinese parenting techniques don’t improve the performance of Chinese children relative to others, but it is to say that the quick inference from Chinese success (outside of China) to Tiger-mother practices is unconvincing.

Consider the criticism that even if Chinese practices work, they produce less happy children. The arguments to this extent tend to beg the question. Writing in the Atlantic Monthly, Christina Schwarz writes that during ages 3-12, play is good for children, despite its being disordered, unproductive, and unclouded by reason. She argues that this is what makes childhoods worth remembering. Her implicit message is that Tiger mothering lessens it and is therefore bad.

On a different tack, Chinese-American women quoted in Psychology Today, charge that Chua’s practices are cruel and abusive. They don’t cite any studies or conceptual arguments to support their charge. Ayelet Waldman writing in the Wall Street Journal points out that Asian-American girls aged 15-24 have above-average suicide rates, but she does not make it not make it clear whether this is true for East Asian families, let alone high-achieving ones.

On one study, East Asians were somewhat less happy (satisfied with their lives) than other relatively wealthy and free peoples. It is not clear to what degree this results from culture, genetics, or something else. Also, if the Chinese parenting practices work, they likely result in a greater chance at marriage, employment, and higher occupational status, some of the factors that correlate with greater happiness.

A third group of critics provide arguments that appear to be a series of anecdotes and personal attacks against her or the Chinese culture. They claim she is sadistic, racist, narcissistic, a banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) who knows nothing about Chinese culture or language, and that she doesn’t respect or cherish her daughters. The plural of anecdote is not data (not my line). In the anecdote-war, Chua has a powerful ally: her oldest daughter. Writing in the New York Post, Sophia Chua Rubenfeld publicly thanked her mother for helping her to have a meaningful life. She claims that she finds meaning in pushing herself to the limit of her potential and exalting in the feeling of doing more than she ever thought she could. “If I died tomorrow, I would die feeling I’ve lived my whole life at 110 percent. And for that, Tiger mom, thank you.”

Why then did so many mothers savage the book? One explanation put forth by Flanagan is that the liberal upper class mothers (read: rich and well-educated white mothers) who want their children to have a carefree, creative, and effortless childhood will soon discover that their children are going to get spanked in the competition for admission to elite colleges, medical schools, top music conservatories, and so on. She posits that Chua and other Chinese mothers are forcing them to choose between the childhood and the future they want for their children and they resent it. Another explanation, implicit in Waldman, is that Chua makes Western feel guilty because they expend less effort on parenting and are more preoccupied when compared to the Tiger moms. I’m not sure I put much stock in either explanation, but am also unsure what accounts for the rage the book has unleashed.

Obama's War & Congressional Authorization

2011-04-06T09:16:00.000-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
The Libyan War and the Constitution
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
April 3, 2011

There are many reasons to oppose the current U.S. war on Libya. First, this war is expensive. Reuters reports that we’ve already spent $550 million on it and we just got into it. The federal government is currently borrowing roughly 43% of what it spends (roughly, we will likely borrow $1.6 trillion on a $3.7 trillion budget) and hence a country mired in debt is putting the war on the credit card. We’ve already spent $800 billion on the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars. The total costs of these other wars may go as high as $3 trillion if the estimate by Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is correct.

Second, because our goals are not clearly defined, mission creep has occurred and likely will continue to do so. The war was initially sold to us as imposing a no-fly zone to keep Moammar Gadhafi’s air force from killing the rebels. This could be accomplished by taking out his air force and air defenses. The mission then changed to protecting civilians. The new goal might explain why we’ve killed Gadhafi’s soldiers, destroyed his armor and command-and-control centers, and even bombed his residence. The recent discussion of arming the rebels suggests a new mission is on the way: regime change. If this mission succeeds, we’ll likely have yet another mission: nation building. In Afghanistan and Iraq this has been expensive and gone poorly, but President Obama rushed in anyway.

Third, the war makes U.S. policy unpredictable to both U.S. citizens and foreign countries. The U.S. attacked forces in Serbia, Bosnia, Iraq, and Libya, in part for humanitarian purposes, but did nothing in Sudan, Congo, and Rwanda. Given the lack of U.S. interests in Serbia, Bosnia, and, arguably, Libya, the pattern is arbitrary. This arbitrariness can also be seen in the U.S.’s muted response to protesters being killed in Bahrain and Yemen. Because both Republicans and Democrats jump into humanitarian wars, U.S. voters have no way to end this type of foreign adventurism. Other countries are also left to guess at what we’ll do next.

The main reason to oppose this war is that it is unconstitutional. Obama didn’t bother to get Congressional approval for his war. He did, however, get U.N. permission. Apparently, that’s what’s important.

Article I Section 8 states that Congress shall have the power to declare war. The best interpretation of this clause is that except in the cases where the country or its vital interests are attacked, the President cannot initiate war until Congress has declared it. Not only does the language of the Constitution suggest this, but the country’s fathers, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington, likely intended this. As writer Walter Isaacson notes, Washington said, “The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress, therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated on the subject, and authorized such a measure.” Alexander Hamilton in Federalist no. 69 stated that the President is just the “first general and admiral” and just as generals and admirals may not initiate war, Presidents may not either.

The structure of the Constitution also supports this interpretation. Elsewhere in Article I Section 8, Cato Institute scholar Gene Healy points out, Congress has the power to initiate military action, specifically by allowing private American ships to attack other countries’ ships and to use militias to suppress domestic rebellion and repel invasions. In contrast, the Constitution grants to the President merely supervisory war-related powers. He may lead the army and navy only after Congress has created them and authorized their use.

As a side note, this was the position that Senators Obama and Biden held before they joined the executive branch. University of California at Berkeley professor and former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo notes that Biden opposed the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito because he didn’t admit that the Bush administration would need congressional permission to attack Iran. Obama is on record defending a similar view.

Yoo provides the strongest argument for the claim that the President alone has the power to make war. Yoo argues that this claim can be seen in the nation’s history. The U.S., he notes, has used force abroad more than 100 times and only declared war five times. Even major wars like the Korean and Vietnam wars were fought without a declaration of war and Congress didn’t even authorize the former.

Yoo also argues that the drafting history of the Constitution supports his claim because the Constitutional delegates substituted in “declare war” for “make war,” suggesting that they didn’t view Congress as having the power to initiate war. He further argues that when the Constitution sets out a power that Congress and President share, such as enacting laws and entering treaties, it lays out a specific procedure. However, it does not lay out a specific procedure for war. He claims that a proper historical understanding also supports this interpretation. Constitutional delegates, Yoo claims, were following our English ancestry. In England, he notes, the King alone could initiate war and Parliament could undermine a war by refusing to fund it. Congress, Yoo notes, can stop a war via the purse.

The courts and the Clinton and Obama administrations have in effect adopted Yoo’s position. In Doe v. Bush (1st Circuit 2003), Campbell v. Clinton (D.C. Cir 2000), and Massachusetts v. Laird (1st Circuit 1971), which considered Constitutional challenges to the second Iraqi, Serbian, and Vietnam wars, the courts threw out challenges based on the fact that Congress had not authorized these wars. The courts reasoned that because Congress had not ordering an end to the wars or cut off funding, it was not at odds with the President. This reasoning makes sense only if Presidents can make war without Congressional approval.

If Yoo and the recent administrations were correct, then the Constitution permits Presidents to unilaterally start bloody and expensive wars with major powers like China and Russia without Congressional oversight. If Congress tried to stop the war by passing a law and the President vetoed it, Congress could then stop it only by forming a super-majority to override the President’s veto. In effect, Congress would have to act through hard-to-obtain super-majorities. This is likely not what the war-weary founders intended. It would also do little to slow down our repeated entry into unnecessary wars, especially with the pathetic specimens who populate Congress.

In addition to the Constitution, the War Powers Resolution, passed over the veto of President Nixon, prohibits the President from using the armed forces in a war for more than 60 days (with an addition 30-day withdrawal period) without Congress declaring war or otherwise authorizing the use of force. This resolution appears to be inconsistent with the Constitution on either of the above views because it transfers a power (war-making) from Congress to the President or vice versa. In any case, it’s still on the books and Obama has yet to satisfy it.

The best approach here is for Congress to follow Stanford Law Professor John Hart Ely’s suggestion to impeach and convict Obama for illegal war-making. Ely argues that violating the separation of powers to engage in an illegal war is a “high crime or misdemeanor” and far worse than, for example, Richard Nixon’s wiretapping and Bill Clinton’s perjury and witness tampering. Were this adopted earlier, this might have prevented Presidents from recklessly spending American blood and treasure in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Libya.

Whether the military who took an oath to uphold the Constitution should refuse to fight is an issue for another day.

Judaism and Christianity: Falsehoods in Sacred Texts

2011-03-23T09:36:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Judaism and Christianity: The Shame of the Bible
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 7, 2011

Judaism and Christianity are committed to the claim that what the Bible says is true or, at least, reliably true. There are two reasons for this. On one account, these religions are, by definition, a set of beliefs with a certain historical past. This historical past involves the Bible. For Jews, consider the centrality of Abraham, Saul, and David, and Moses’ receipt of the Ten Commandments. For Christians, consider Mary’s virgin birth, Jesus’ crucifixion, speeches, miracles, and so on. On a second account, these religions depend on knowledge that comes from the Old and New Testaments. On this account, even if these religions are not defined in terms of the Bible, they rely on knowledge that has been reliably passed down through the Bible, although perhaps not only through it. Both religions, then, depend on what the Bible says.

The problem is that some of what the Bible says, at least in its current translations, is false. University of Colorado philosophy professor Michael Huemer provides the following examples. First, some statements contradict each other and at least one of every two contradictory statements is false. Consider how one is saved.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith … not by works. [Ephesians 2:8-9]

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but no deeds? Can such faith save him? … Faith by itself, if it not accompanied by action, is dead. [James 2:14-17]

Behold I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. [Revelation 22:12]

Consider whether God changes his mind.

God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. [Numbers 23:19]

Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. [Exodus 32:14]

Second, the Bible makes scientific errors. Here are a few examples.

All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground. Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. [Leviticus 11:20-22]

You may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided into two and that chews the cud. However, of those that chew the cud or that have a split hoof completely divided you may not eat the camel, the rabbit, or the coney [a small Middle Eastern mammal]. [Deuteronomy 14:6-7]

He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim … It took a line of thirty cupits to measure around it. [1 Kings 7:23]

The problem is that no insects (including grasshoppers) are four-legged, rabbits don’t chew cud, and pi does not equal 3. For those who are tempted to claim that insects walk on four feet and jump with two, this still conflicts with Leviticus 11: 23. Cute moves about rabbits also fail.

Third, the Bible makes grave moral errors. It has a long list of who must be put to death. This list includes anyone who curses his father or mother (Leviticus 20:9), commits adultery (Leviticus 20:10), engages in gay male sex (Leviticus 20:13), promiscuous girls who lose their virginity (Deuteronomy 22:20-21), and those who do not keep the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2).

The Bible also orders complete and total genocide in some cases (Deuteronomy 7:1-2 and 20:10-17) and permits the keeping of slaves (Leviticus 25:44-45) and beating slaves (Exodus 21:20-21). There’s more, but you get the picture.

Jews and Christians have to admit that the Bible contains falsehoods. This is enough to show that God didn’t write it because he’s all-knowing. Worse, they involve big errors, specifically, how one is saved, the nature of God, whether one may commit genocide and keep slaves, and who should be killed for unpopular sex. Even if Christians and Jews want to retreat to the position that human beings wrote the Bible and were divinely inspired, the most that can be said is that they are an extremely unreliable source as to what is true and what God wants. This alone is enough to show that Christianity and Judaism is false when viewed in terms of their full set of doctrines (for Jews, Abraham, David, and Moses; for Christians, virgin birth and Jesus’ arising from the dead and role in salvation). Even the stripped down minimal doctrines (monotheism and Jesus’ divinity) are doubtful to the extent they are not supported by evidence that does not rely on the Bible.

One objection is that Bible as originally written was not stocked with such falsehoods, they crept in when it was translated. I’ve seen no evidence for this, perhaps there’s some of which I’m unaware.

A second objection is that the Bible was written nearly two thousand years ago and it is unfair to blame ancient people for not using modern science, morality, and logic. The objection is not that these people were blameworthy for what they wrote. Rather, it is that the Bible is so unreliable as to count as evidence against Judaism and Christianity.

A third objection is that belief in Judaism and Christianity should rest on faith (strong belief unaccompanied by adequate evidence) or these religions’ ability to make people’s lives go better. The data shows that religious people are happier and, a dated study, shows that they have better sex lives. It is likely reassuring for those who grew up with it and, for many, it provides a loving and supportive community. Even if this is true, believers are still in the awkward position of believing in and practicing what they do not know to be true and, more likely, know to be false. This is problematic for those whose job depends on their handling evidence. This includes scientists, engineers, physicians, lawyers, professors, and people in business. To the extent that one holds that self-interest is a good reason to believe something, regardless of whether it is true, religious people escape can live with the awkwardness. Perhaps this is why we see lawyers, physicians, and professors sitting slightly uncomfortably in Synagogues and pews.

In sum, the Bible contains a number of troubling falsities. In the absence of convincing philosophical arguments for religious doctrines, and here I just assume such arguments are absent, this is convincing evidence that Judaism and Christianity are false. This need not trouble those who are okay with holding false beliefs in limited areas, when doing so makes their lives go better. However, to the extent that politicians and religious leaders rely on the Bible to solve personal, moral, or political issues, they are arguing from false premises and should be ignored.

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

2011-03-10T10:57:00.001-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
Enhanced Interrogation Techniques: Taking Off the Gloves
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 6, 2011

An important fight has broken out over the Bush administration’s use of hardball tactics when interrogating al Qaeda suspects. In Courting Disaster (2010), Bush administration speechwriter Marc Thiessen argues that the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) was spectacularly effective.

The CIA started using EITs after the 9/11 attacks. According to the Justice Department (cited by Thiessen), high-value detainees who would not cooperate with interrogators were subjected to “conditioning” techniques. These included nudity, sleep deprivation, and a diet limited to Ensure dietary shakes. If these didn’t work, “corrective” techniques were used. These included a face slap and a forceful head grasp. If this didn’t work, “coercive” techniques were used. These involved being put in uncomfortable stress positions, forced to stand against a wall, being slammed into a flexible wall, and being doused with cold water. Finally, if all else failed, detainees were waterboarded. Strict conditions governed this last technique. The CIA was required to have credible intelligence that a terrorist attack was imminent. It was also required to have substantial and credible evidence that the subject had information that could prevent, disrupt, or delay an attack and that other methods were unlikely to work.

Thiessen points out that of the tens of thousands captured in the war on terror, the CIA only held about one hundred terrorists, only about thirty were subjected to EITs, and only three were waterboarded. In 2006, the Bush administration reluctantly scaled back the program to “conditioning” and “corrective” techniques. In his first two days in office, President Obama shut it down.

Thiessen provides four reasons to think EITs worked. First, he points out that in the decade before the CIA began using EITs, al Qaeda launched a number of successful attacks against U.S. interests: the first World Trade Center bombing, bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, an attack on an American destroyer (USS Cole), and the 9/11 attacks. In the eight years since the CIA began using EITs, he claims, al Qaeda did not launch a single successful attack on American soil or against American interests abroad.

Second, Thiessen notes, the FBI questioned suspects after al Qaeda attacks with its gloves on. He claims that the FBI failed to get information needed to prevent the 9/11 attacks. By contrast, he claims, since the CIA started using EITs, dozens of senior al Qaeda leaders have been captured and a number of attacks prevented.

Third, Thiessen argues, the use of EITs was based on behavioral science and years of study through the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training. He claims that the U.S. government learned from SERE training water boarding is highly effective. According to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, by 2001 all the military services except the Navy stopped using waterboarding in SERE trainings because it was too effective and thus not useful for training. Thiessen argues that if waterboarding is this effective against our military personnel, it is likely effective against terrorists.

Fourth, he argues, virtually every knowledgeable person who has looked at the reports concluded that the EIT program produced vital intelligence that saved lives. For instance, he argues, until the EIT program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say that over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda – how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks – came from the CIA’s interrogation, which included EITs.

This information, Thiessen claims, prevented attacks including ones on a Los Angeles skyscraper, Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf in England, the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, a U.S. Marine base in Djibouti, and a high rise building, as well as an anthrax attack. It also led to the capture of a sleeper suspect who was thought to be considering attacking the New York Stock Exchange, U.S. military academies, and water reservoirs.

Thiessen’s arguments have come under fire from a number of people. Writing in the New Yorker, Jane Mayer (author of The Dark Side, which also covers the war on terror) argues that Thiessen’s arguments fail. Mayer argues that in the eight years that the CIA used EITs, while there were no attacks on American soil, American interests were attacked. She mentions attacks on Egyptian and Indonesian hotels, the U.S. consulate in Karachi, and the Bagram Air Base, as well as an assassination of a U.S. diplomat. Thiessen dismisses her list because it includes attacks that were not carried out by al-Qaeda or did not target Americans.

Mayer seems to argue that al Qaeda did not successfully launch an attack on U.S soil after 9/11 because of tightened surveillance, hundreds of billions spent to improve intelligence, and better coordination between the CIA and FBI, not because of EIT use. Given Thiessen’s specific claims about what terror suspects were identified and which attacks defused, Mayer’s argument works only if we have reason to disbelieve the CIA’s reports and the experts Thiessen cites. These include two former CIA Directors, three former Directors of National Intelligence, and a Homeland Security Advisor. It is worth noting that Mayer has her own experts who are critical of the program, including a FBI Director and four chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Writing in Slate, former senior military interrogator Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym) argues that Thiessen’s reliance on the use of CIA interrogators’ opinions is unreliable because they used torture and thus are worried about being prosecuted for war crimes. He also argues that the military and FBI would have gained better information and done so more quickly without using EITs. Given the FBI’s track record, this claim needs evidence that Alexander doesn’t provide.

In a slightly different context, Harvard University English professor Elaine Scarry points out that we have good reason to be wary of expanding the government’s interrogation powers given its recent history of dragnet searches and failure to police itself. In a 2004 article, she points out that in the 2 ½ years following 9/11, 5,000 foreign nationals suspected of being terrorists were detained without access to counsel. She notes that only of three were ever charged with terrorism-related acts and two were acquitted. She also notes that the court set up to issue warrants using secret information (operating via the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) declined only one requested warrant in an estimated 25,000 requests. Thiessen would likely respond that these concerns are legitimate, but not on point for the small and tightly monitored CIA program.

The balance of the evidence appears to suggest that EITs provided information that prevented attacks on U.S. interests home and abroad. The best argument the critics have been able to provide is that less coercive methods would have worked as well, but they have scant evidence. The real objection to such EITs, especially water boarding, is that they are immoral, illegal, or that the costs outweigh the benefits. The first objection is implausible. If EITs work and prevent the deaths of innocent victims and far more Qaeda members, the program is legitimate self-defense. The other two objections are best left for another day.

Desert and Income

2011-02-23T12:26:00.000-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
How Much Money Do Workers Deserve?
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
February 20, 2011

People often give their opinions about which workers are paid too much and which too little. Consider teacher salaries in the context of Wisconsin’s heated budgetary fights. Commentator Michelle Malkin points out that the average Wisconsin teacher’s salary for 2009-2010 was roughly $53,000. Malkin notes that the total wages of such workers is sometimes much higher. For example, she notes that the average Milwaukee Public School teacher will receive roughly $100,000 in compensation ($57,000 in salary and $44,000 in benefits). According to Tami Luhby writing for CNN, Governor Scott Walker’s proposal would require most state workers to contribute 5.8% to their pensions and 12.6% of their health insurance premiums. Luhby states that they currently pay little for their pensions and roughly 6% of their health insurance premiums.

Police salaries have also been discussed in the context of financially troubled states such as New York, New Jersey, and California. After five years, the base salary for New York State Troopers is roughly $85,000. This understates their salary because it does not include additional types of compensation. It leaves out extra pay for certain locations, expanded duty, hazardous duty, and so on. They also get to retire after 20 years. New Jersey police make more than do police in other states. Their base salaries average $91,000 a year (median salary 2009).

NFL salaries have recently been in the news because NFL owners are threatening to lock out players. According to the NFL Players Association, this past season the average salary was $1.1 million. This does not count disability benefits, pension coverage, medical and life insurance, and so on. The average career, however, is only 3 ½ years and most college players never make the NFL.

When people claim that various workers make more or less than they deserve, their opinion often rests on mistaken assumptions. For example, politicians and commentators often assume that teachers are underpaid and overworked. There is reason to doubt this. Professor Jay Greene of the University of Arkansas and the Manhattan Institute using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics points out that public school teachers earned roughly $34 an hour in 2005. This was 36% more than the average non-sales white collar worker made and 11% more than the average professional specialty and technical worker made. They worked roughly 3 hours less per week than the former and 2 ½ hours less than the latter. Greene notes that the teachers made more per hour than architects, psychologists, chemists, mechanical engineers, and economists. Their overall salary is not that high due to the fact that over a year they work significantly less hours than do other workers (think summer and winter breaks). They also tend to get generous retirement and health benefits and greater job security relative to others and these factors are not part of the salary differential.

People have heated opinions about whether teachers, cops, and NFL players deserve more or less. The problem with these opinions is that they often rest on mistaken theories. The dominant philosophical theories hold that persons deserve to make a certain amount of money based on how hard they worked, how much they sacrificed, or how much they contributed to others.

Consider the theory that people deserve their income based on how hard they worked. This is implausible. Imagine two persons digging ditches for an employer. One uses his own shovel, the second his own backhoe. The second will get a lot more done and intuitively seems to deserve more pay, even though he likely didn’t work as hard. Even if hard work were to explain what people deserve to make, there is the problem of determining what counts as work done for a job. For example, physicians claim that they deserve their high salaries because they worked hard in medical school and during their residencies. It is hard to see, however, how someone could work hard in a job that he doesn’t yet have. Furthermore, if people enjoyed their job, then it is less hard in some sense. Hence, this theory suggests that if someone enjoys what he does, then he deserves less money. Again, implausible.

Consider the theory that people deserve their income because of the sacrifices they made or the risks they took. However, risk is only part of the cost-benefit package that comprises a job. NFL players have short careers and risk serious injury, yet play a game that many players enjoy with religion-like fervor. Many also get the benefits of celebrity status and much better dating opportunities. There is no satisfactory theory that explains why salary should track risk rather than the overall package of costs and benefits. Of course, the value of this package depends on an individual’s taste and there is no objective worth that can be assigned to it in order to determine what people deserve to make. For example, Greene points out that teachers get less overall salary than many professions, but have far more time to spend with their families and on other interests. The optimal balance between leisure and salary varies between individuals.

Sometimes the opinionated make up their own facts. For example, politicians and other gasbags often say that police officers have more dangerous jobs than others. The data does not support this. For example, according to 2008 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, police officers are killed far less frequently than farmers/ranchers and sanitation workers (they are 60% and 57% less likely to be killed). They are also injured less often (57% and 40% less likely to be injured). They are also killed less often than truck drivers (27% less likely). Yet most people don’t consider farmers, garbage men, and truck drivers to have dangerous jobs. In terms of overall danger, fisherman and loggers take far greater risk than all of them and still get paid less.

Consider the theory that workers deserve money based on what they contribute to others’ well-being. As mentioned in my last column, in a free market system, in general, income tracks the degree to which one person produces goods and services that others value. What explains why consumers are willing to pay more for some goods over others is that they value the former more. The money-test is less clear when it comes to government providers and those whose actions have effects not reflected in the marketplace (specifically, those whose actions have externalities). If this theory is correct, then a person deserves what people in the free market are willing to pay him. If this is right, then people who confidently hold forth on which workers are paid too much or too little, are spouting nonsense because there is usually is little way of knowing what these workers contribute relative to what cheaper and more expensive replacements would contribute.

In most cases, the best guide to how much money people deserve to make is what they get paid in the free market. When it comes to government workers, figuring out what they contribute to others when compared to cheaper and more expensive workers is pure guesswork.

Admission: Philosophy and Some Numbers

2011-02-12T18:24:00.000-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
A Philosophy of Admissions
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
February 7, 2011

An interesting issue concerns who should be admitted to different state colleges. As background, let’s consider some of SUNY-Fredonia’s numbers. Full disclosure: I’m a professor there and every semester I have outstanding students who would stand out in any college.

Fewer people are applying to SUNY-Fredonia than in years past. The college might have to raise its acceptance rate in order to keep enrollment high. On one estimate, the percentage might go from 50% in 2009 to 55% this year. This does not appear to be a big deal. It will merely return the acceptance rate to roughly the level it was in the recent past (2005-2007). Furthermore, President Dennis Hefner states that this has not reduced the applicants’ quality.

The overall pattern of competitiveness of admitted students appears to have leveled off. In the past five years (2005-2009), the SATs are about in the middle of a narrow 1104-1120 range and roughly half of the students come from the top quarter of their class. This last figure is impressive. This number does not include the disadvantaged students (Educational Development Program and Full Opportunity Program) who are not part of these numbers. It is a disturbing that colleges take some students off the books as if they weren’t on campus. This type of accounting gimmick would get a private business in hot soup. However, given that other colleges are also keeping two sets of books, this is needed for clear comparisons.

According to the 2009 University Fact Book, the six-year graduation rate is holding steady around (roughly 63%) for 1999-2003. For freshmen, the four-year graduation rate is dropping noticeably. Recently, it has dropped about 10% (from 49% in 1999 to 44% in 2005). I don’t know why.

The minority graduation rate is a matter of concern. From 1999 to 2005, on average 28% of freshmen minorities graduated in four years. That is, roughly only 3 out of 4 minority freshmen at Fredonia fail to graduate in four years. The six-year graduation rate is better (averaging roughly 43% from 1999-2003). However, when over half fail to graduate from Fredonia in 6 years, this is not great news. It is unclear if such students merely fail to finish at Fredonia or do not finish anywhere. The number of minorities doubled in the last decade (2000-2009) and minorities now comprise roughly 8% of the undergraduates. Hence, this concern is not going away anytime soon.

Fredonia’s ranking among competitor schools is interesting. Leaving aside Cornell (a wealthy public-private hybrid), Fredonia is ranked 12th among SUNY colleges and university-centers by SATs. If we focus on SATs among SUNY-colleges (SUNY-schools with less extensive graduate programs), it ranks 6th. Here ranking is done via the SATs of the middle 50% of students. It ranks lower than Geneseo, New Paltz, Purchase, Cortland, and Oswego, but higher than Brockport, Buffalo State, Oneonta and four others. Because this pattern is similar with regard to ACT scores and high school GPA (exception: Purchase students have a lower GPA), this ranking, at least with regard to the middle 50% of students, appears to be accurate.

Aside from Geneseo (1290-1380) and New Paltz (1100-1300), which are significantly ahead, Fredonia is competitive with the schools that it ranks behind. Also, the pattern changes over time. Fredonia had higher scores (average SAT score of entering freshmen) than New Paltz, Purchase, and Cortland as recently as 1990 and higher scores than Geneseo if one goes back to 1978. Oswego has also been dropping back, while New Paltz has surged ahead.

According to a noteworthy business ranking, Fredonia does about as well as its admissions ranking, although the schools ranked above and below it do not always track student ability. According to Kiplinger’s ranking of the best values in public colleges, Fredonia is 6th among SUNY colleges behind the usual suspects (Geneseo and New Paltz), but also behind some schools compared to which it has smarter students (Brockport and Oneonta). It has a slightly higher graduation rate than several of its closest competitors, but gives out less non-need-based aid.

Its average graduates don’t do as well financially as a number of its competitors. According to a 2008 article in The Wall Street Journal, the average mid-career Fredonia graduate (specifically mid-career median salary) makes roughly $66,000 per year. This is less than several of the competitor schools (for example, Farmingdale/$84,000, Geneseo/$81,000, Oswego/$78,000, Oneonta/$77,000, Plattsburgh $76,000, and Potsdam/$70,000) and much less than graduates of the university-centers (for example, Albany/$92,000, Stony Brook/$93,000 and University of Buffalo/$82,000). My guess is that the difference is at least in part the result of regional effects and the fact that Fredonia puts so many people into moderately paid fields such as teaching.

One interesting issue is whether a college (for example, Fredonia) should pursue higher admissions standards. Higher-admissions standards likely produce a more intellectually invigorating atmosphere, especially in the classroom, and might help recruiting. On the other hand, higher standards also result in fewer opportunities for marginal students. Students from poorer and less educated families are especially likely to denied entrance. Given that state colleges are funded by state taxpayers and that the smartest students are, on average, more likely to get loans and to pay them off, it is not clear why the admissions bar should be raised. The moral argument is unclear. Selfish professors (for example, Kershnar) would prefer it, but this is not a good reason for the taxpayers to do it.

A second issue is whether an individual college should pursue its own admission goals or whether the system as a whole should set the different admissions standards. Perhaps by allowing a few elite colleges (for example, Cornell, Binghamton, and Geneseo) to enroll most of the best students and having a few others (for example, Buffalo State, Old Westbury, and the community colleges) enroll less talented students, would bring about tracking-related benefits. This would allow professors to teach at a level that would reach most of their students and would reduce the problem of students mismatched to their school. The military sorts people by ability, including intelligence. It is unclear why SUNY as a whole shouldn’t do the same.

The SUNY colleges are already closing down some programs at some colleges (for example, computer science at Geneseo, Classics at Albany, and nursing at New Paltz). Presumably, other colleges will offer such programs and from a system-wide perspective, it is probably not cost-efficient for every college to offer every program.

A third issue is whether resources should be shifted to colleges that produce the graduates who make the most money. In a free market system, in general, income tracks the degree to which one person produces goods and services that others value. What explains why consumers are willing to pay more for some goods over others is that they value the former more. The money-test is less clear when it comes to government providers and those whose actions have effects not reflected in the marketplace (specifically, those whose actions have externalities). Still, this might be a way of ranking colleges according to what their graduates contribute to others.

In the absence of a philosophy of admissions to state colleges, our approaches to these issues will at best be a piecemeal approach that squanders public dollars.

Affirmative Action: States versus Feds

2011-01-28T11:19:00.000-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
Affirmative-Action Hydra: Cut It Off and It Reappears Elsewhere
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
January 23, 2011

In this last November’s election, Arizona voters overwhelmingly banned government affirmative action. Specifically, 60% of the voters approved a law that prohibits the government from discriminating on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex. Arizona became the 5th state to do so, joining California, Washington, Michigan, and Nebraska. Everywhere statewide voters have been given a choice on affirmative action, they vote it down.

President Obama and the Congressional Democrats have quietly but energetically pushed for more affirmative action. ObamaCare is loaded up with language that requires affirmative action for medical schools and other medical programs. The Dodd-Frank finance bill contains many new offices to monitor race and gender, which inevitably leads to more affirmative action as businesses use preferences to avoid being investigated. The country is thus moving in two directions. The states are slowly walking away from affirmative action; the federal government is sprinting toward it.

Affirmative action, in the sense used in this article, refers to preference for less qualified applicants. It is done for a variety of reasons, among them: it promotes diversity, helps to create role-models, reduces discrimination, compensates for past wrongs, combats stereotypes, promotes equal opportunity, and so on.

A 2008 analysis by Edward Rubinstein of the National Policy Institute and 1993 analysis by Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer, writing in Forbes, found that affirmative action costs a lot. Brimelow and Spencer estimated that the cost of these programs was equal to 4% of the economy (specifically, GDP). Rubinstein claimed that the current percentage is higher.

Affirmative action imposes three types of costs. First, there are the direct costs of federal, state, and local agencies to monitor and sue businesses. At the federal level, examples include the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. There are many similar institutions in the states and school systems.

Second, as Rubinstein points out, these programs are expensive. Businesses must comply with the regulations, respond to government inquiries, defend against lawsuits, and so on. The Center for the Study of American Business found that for every dollar spent on regulation, about 20 dollars is spent by the private sector to comply with them. Hence, the money spent on government regulation multiplies as businesses try to stay clear of the regulators’ crosshairs.

Third, and most significant, many people pay more or receive substandard goods and services because less capable people have replaced more capable ones. This is not a knock on racial or ethnic minorities or women, both contain many highly talented people. Rather, this results from a system that cares more about race-and-gender bean-counting more than ability. Here are just a few examples of how the system produces victims.

One 1994 study in the Journal of American Medical Association found that only 49% of black and 66% of Hispanic medical students passed their medical boards for the first time (versus 88% for whites and 84% for Asians). This is unsurprising given that the board scores tend to correlate with MCAT scores and affirmative action beneficiaries are let in with much lower scores. Poor performance is a serious matter given that physicians inadvertently cause hundreds of thousands of deaths a year and that medical errors are a significant portion of these cases. A 1998 study in the Journal of American Medical Association found that 71% of newly licensed physicians prescribed potentially inappropriate medication to elderly patients and drug-related illness is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. Graduating substandard physicians ratchets up these risks.

Professor Steven Farron argues that one of the biggest predictors of K-12 students’ performance in is teachers’ scores on competence examinations. For example, he claims that the data show that it has a larger effect than class size or their degrees. To the extent affirmative-action hiring lowers the scores of a district’s teachers, it likely results in children learning less.

A study by economist John Lott found a similar pattern. He claims that between 1987 and 1990, in the 189 cities he studied, the decrease in the number of white male police officers by 6,912 (6%) increased the number of murders by 1,145 and the increase in the number of black male officers by 950 (5%) increased the number of rapes by 300. If correct, police-related affirmative action is a tragedy.

Even if affirmative action did have desirable effects by promoting diversity, generating role-models, combating discrimination, and so on, there is no evidence that I am aware of that these benefits outweigh the above costs. This is unsurprising given the size of the costs. In the absence of such evidence, the same sort of reasoning that leads most people to want the best surgeon and teacher for their child should lead them to want to get rid of affirmative action.

This issue will reappear. The American electorate is getting increasingly polarized on racial grounds. In the last election, Ronald Brownstein writing in the National Journal noted that in the 2010 election for the House of Representatives. 60% of the white vote was for the GOP, whereas 73% of the minority vote was for the Democrats. Among blue-collar whites and college-educated white males, Brownstein points out, the preference was nearly 2-to-1. Even college-educated white women, who gave a majority of their vote for Obama, went 55-43 for the GOP. Brownstein notes that the groups differ ideologically. In 2010, he points out, 63% of whites thought that the government was doing too much, 60% of minorities thought that it was doing too little.

Vdare.com writer Steve Sailer notes that the increasing racial polarization and whites’ distaste for affirmative action opens up an opportunity for the GOP to use affirmative action to win elections. He allows that Obama could preempt the issue by reducing or eliminating them. Given Obama’s world view and political base, this is unlikely. To see Sailer’s point, imagine the GOP landslide that would occur were the remaining 45 states to vote on laws like Arizona’s. This effect will intensify if unemployment stays high.

Because the states and the federal government are moving in different directions on affirmative action and because it is likely something that can motivate the base of both parties, this issue is likely to reappear in the near future. The parties and the mainstream media fearful of the issue’s ugliness and the inconvenient facts that surrounding it will do their best to ignore it, much as they initially did for the recent President Bush’s attempt to ram through amnesty for illegal immigrants. They’ll fail and the issue will flare up again.

ObamaCare Lynchpin is Unconstitutional

2011-01-12T10:32:00.000-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
Obama versus the Constitution: Interstate Commerce and ObamaCare
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
January 10, 2011

ObamaCare (2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) requires individuals to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. Specifically, in 2014 Americans will either buy federally approved health insurance or pay a fine of up to $695 per year.

The law has already been challenged in court. Before the federal law was passed, Virginia passed a law (Virginia Health Care Freedom Act) that prohibited any individual from being required to buy health insurance. In a case relating to Virginia’s law, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson on December 13, 2010 ruled against the mandate. Also, the attorney generals of thirteen states have gone to court in opposition to it.

In court, the Obama Administration argued that the federal government may impose this mandate because it is authorized under three different parts of the Constitution: the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Tax and Spending Clause, and the Commerce Clause.

The first argument should be quickly dismissed. The Necessary and Proper Clause says that “Congress shall have Power … To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution…” Both the language and precedent make it clear that the clause authorizes the implementation of other specifically listed powers. This clause, then, permits a law only if it comes under another specifically listed power.

The Tax and Spending Clause states that “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.” This clause clearly does not authorize the mandate.

First, as the state of Virginia argued, the part of ObamaCare that sets out the mandate explicitly claims that it is authorized by the Commerce Clause. Second, as Judge Hudson points out, the mandate is a penalty rather than a tax. The statute itself labels the mandate as a penalty. In addition, it has the penalty-like structure in that if you don’t do what you’re told, you have to pay a fine.

Third, as George Mason law professor Ilya Somin points out, if this were a tax, then Congress could control pretty much everything people do through the use of penalty-like taxes. It could mandate that people run every day, avoid alcohol, or stay thin. Fourth, Somin further points out, the mandate allows that the insurance payment go to private insurance companies. This is not part of the common defense or general welfare as the clause requires. If it were, then the government could require people give their money to private parties, thereby gutting the part of the Constitution (The Taking Clause) that limits when property can be taken. For example, the Constitution would conflict with a law that required all citizens to give $500 directly to Goldman Sachs, J. P. Morgan, or AIG. Fifth, for roughly 75 years, the courts have repeatedly held that the taxing power must aid another specifically listed power, for example, interstate commerce.

The Obama administration argued that the federal government has imposed sanctions for failure to pay taxes, show up for military duty, or register for the draft and that this mandate is similar to those sanctions. However, these sanctions rest on specifically listed Constitutional powers and hence shed no light on the ObamaCare mandate.

The Commerce Clause asserts that “The Congress shall have Power … To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” The purpose of this clause was to prevent states from passing tariffs and other protectionist measures against products sold made or sold by people in other states. Evidence for this comes in part from comments from the principal author of the Constitution, James Madison, in The Federalist Papers. Further evidence of this comes from the way that the Commerce Clause was designed to fit into the Constitution. Madison intended that the Constitution grant the federal government only a few and well-defined powers, in contrast the many other powers left to the states. On his account, the federal government was to be focused largely on international affairs, such as war, foreign affairs, and international commerce. Madison is clear that the objects on which people’s daily lives focus were to be left to the states.

Up until the 1930’s, the Supreme Court followed the language and structure of this clause and the Constitution and shot down President Roosevelt’s early attempts to extend federal control over every corner of the American economy. Starting in 1937, two Supreme Court Justices switched their interpretation of the Commerce Clause to allow the federal government to control vast portions of the economy. The changed Court rejected the view that interstate commerce meant the sales of goods between individuals in different states. On this earlier interpretation, which characterized most of American history, the clause didn’t cover production, manufacturing, mining, and so on.

The rewriting of the Commerce Clause was completed in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942). There the Supreme Court held that it applied to any activity that is part of a larger group of activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. In Wickard, the Supreme Court looked at whether the federal government could set a quota on wheat that a farmer grew and consumed on his own property. The farmer claimed that these activities were not interstate commerce. The Court held that the federal government could enforce the quota because wheat growing and consumption in general affected interstate commerce, regardless of whether the individual farmer’s wheat did so. This line of reasoning has been repeatedly upheld.

The ObamaCare mandate pushes this line to its absurd conclusion. As Somin points out, most purchases of health insurance are not interstate because a combination of state and federal laws makes it illegal to buy health insurance across state lines. Hence, buying health insurance is not interstate commerce.

In addition, the mandate focuses on people refraining from buying something. This is a refusal to engage in interstate commerce. Even if the government can regulate economic activity, it cannot force someone to engage in it. The government is in essence arguing that it may force people to buy various products by labeling their refusal to do so, “economic activity.” To use an analogy from University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein, under this reasoning, your refusal to buy a bicycle or healthy food is economic activity and you can be forced to buy them.

The Obama administration responded by claiming that consuming health care without paying for it is an activity. The administration seems to think that refusing to buy insurance is similar to stealing food from Walmart. This is mistaken. People who pay for healthcare out of pocket don’t act like this, but would be made to buy insurance. Also, just because some people are forced to pay for others’ healthcare doesn’t transform a refusal to purchase insurance into stealing.

The fight over the mandate shows that Congress and President Obama have contempt for the Constitution. Let’s hope the Supreme Court doesn’t.

Academia: Budget Cuts

2010-12-01T08:13:00.000-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
The Humanities and the Budget Axe: No Immunity
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
November 29, 2010

The morning after the state spent like a drunken sailor is beginning to dawn. In the State University of New York (SUNY) system, academic departments are being cut. Some of these cuts raise the issue of whether the state should go after humanities programs. While the boundaries are not always clear, the following are sometimes grouped as humanities: classics, English, history, languages, philosophy, and the arts (for example, theater, music, and painting). As with many spending issues, the issue here is priorities, so the arguments are really about how much the state should spend on humanities rather than on other things. Full disclosure: I’m a humanities professor at a state college.

With the exception of the public parts of Cornell University, SUNY-Geneseo has the smartest students in the SUNY system. Geneseo is cutting three academic programs: computer science, communicative disorders and sciences, and studio art as part of its effort to close a $7.2 million deficit. SUNY-New Paltz (2nd smartest students among SUNY-Colleges) is cutting its nursing program as part of a $6 million deficit-reduction plan. For similar reasons, SUNY-Albany is cutting its French, Italian, Russian, classics, and theater departments. SUNY-Fredonia, which has roughly the 6th smartest students among SUNY colleges, is also considering cuts.

There are three main arguments against states cutting or eliminating humanities programs. First, humanities programs make society better off. Second, they pay for themselves and, in fact, subsidize other fields. Third, they are part of a university’s core mission. Let us consider them in turn.

The first argument is that the humanities teach the best of what has been thought and said and in so doing, make society better off. The idea is that having students learn about Plato, Aristotle, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Locke, and Mozart makes the students’ lives go better and benefits society as a whole. Public intellectual and former Duke University professor Stanley Fish points out that the general education requirements at most universities, including Albany, are satisfied by many courses in a diverse array of disciplines. As a result, students are not required to study these intellectual giants and many never do. This is true even at elite universities, such as Yale, Brown, Cornell, Amherst, and Berkeley. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni recently faulted them for not requiring courses in specific fields (for example, math and history), let alone particular courses.

As far as I can tell, there is not much empirical evidence that reading and discussing these intellectual giants makes individuals’ lives go better or improves society. Perhaps there is a study showing this, but I haven’t found it. In one literature summary by Oxford University psychologist Michael Argyle, greater education is correlated with greater happiness, but he notes that is mainly because it affects income and occupational status. On some accounts, happiness is not the only factor related to how well someone’s life goes.

Even if thinking about the giants were to make people’s lives go better or improve society, we’d still need an argument that spending state money on it via college programs contributes more than other uses of the money. For example, it is unclear whether the money would be better spent on medical care for the poor, K-12 programs for the gifted, or more firefighters. Even if the state money were confined to higher education, it is unclear whether the money would be better spent reducing tuition increases, offering more and better classes in engineering, physics, and medicine, and so on. Perhaps it might even be spent on promoting some of these giants (for example, Shakespeare and Mozart) by subsidizing performances that are open to the public.

The second argument is that that humanities departments pay for themselves. University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) English professor Robert Watson cites various studies at UCLA, University of Washington, and University of Illinois that the humanities departments generate profits by taking in more in tuition money than they cost. University of California at Santa Barbara English professor Christopher Newfield not only claims they make a profit, but that their profits subsidize more expensive fields, such as science, engineering, and medicine. Fish counters that this misunderstands the economics of higher education. He argues that no matter how popular humanities courses are, they still don’t cover their full costs, which is why they still need state subsidies, albeit less than some other fields. The success of this argument depends on which side is right. I don’t know the answer.

The third argument, which comes from Fish, argues that the essential purpose of a university includes teaching and researching in the humanities. Hence, if we value universities, we must value the humanities. This argument fails. One can imagine universities that do not offer courses or do research in the humanities. For example, were the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to dump all of its humanities programs, it would still seem to be a university. Even if Fish were right about the essence of a university, it still doesn’t follow that the university should be located at each school rather than the system of schools. For example, were SUNY-Geneseo to lack studio art, SUNY-Brockport to lack philosophy, and SUNY-New Paltz to lack theater, the system as a whole might still be a university. In addition, students could choose colleges in part based on what they wanted to study, although not every college would offer every field or, perhaps, merely not a major in every field.

The positive argument for the state reducing or cutting humanities programs in tough financial times is that they contribute less to a state’s economic success than other majors. Graduates in many engineering fields, physics, and computer science average roughly $100,000 in mid-career pay. In contrast, various humanities field average considerably less: history and philosophy (roughly $73,000), drama and English (roughly, $68,000), and French and theater (roughly, $60,000). One problem with this argument is that other factors might explain the salary differences. At least one analysis indicates that science and engineering majors have a higher IQ than humanities majors.

Columbia University professor John McWhorter suggests that some of the money spent on humanities could be better spent on vocational tracks. One way to understand this is that the citizens of a state would get more economic benefit from young people with skills in plumbing and electrical equipment than in French and playing the bassoon.

None of this shows that the humanities programs should be cut or eliminated. What it does show is that in times of crushing taxes and crippling deficits, the arguments for privileging humanities programs over other parts of academia or the state budget are at best incomplete. The humanities are fun, rewarding, and important, but this is no reason to hide them from the budget axe.

Free Speech versus Privacy: Online Sex Journals

2010-11-17T10:43:00.000-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
Online Sex Autobiographies: Privacy versus Free Speech
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
November 15, 2010

An issue that has arisen and will become increasingly more important is whether Americans have the right to keep some information private. This issue arises when two freedoms, free speech and privacy, smash into each other.

The issue is nicely illustrated by a Duke University graduate, Karen Owen, who wrote a fake Senior Honors Thesis in May 2010, shortly after graduating. She sent it to three friends. In September 2010, a friend forwarded it to others and the thesis went viral. The thesis is entitled, “An education beyond the classroom: excelling in the realm of horizontal academics.” Written in the form of a series of case studies, she sets out a rating system to evaluate men’s sexual performance and then assesses the performance of thirteen Duke athletes. The specific rating is based on a number of factors (for example, physical appearance, sexual talent and creativity, and enjoyable personality) that are nicely laid out. About half the men got bad ratings and a few got terrible ratings.

Owen is likely extremely bright. In addition to getting into Duke, which has roughly the same admission standards as the Ivy League, her thesis is clearly written, organized, and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny.

The issue arises whether the men could sue her, especially those who got low grades. One person can sue another for the public disclosure of embarrassing private facts. According to Oklahoma State University professor Joey Senat, for the person suing to prevail, he must prove that the defendant publicized a non-newsworthy, private fact about him that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. The fact must be so intimate that publication outrages the public’s sense of decency.

Courts have held that public figures have less of a right to privacy because information about them is a more legitimate public concern. The courts have held that a person need not intend to put himself into the public eye to be a public figure. Senat’s example comes from Sipple v. Chronicle Publishing Co. (Calif. App. Ct. 1984). In that case, a former Marine sergeant deflected a gun during an attempt to assassinate former President Gerald Ford. The sergeant became a public figure despite not intending to do so. When a publication stated that he was gay, which was true although his Midwest family didn’t know it, the court held that he was a public figure.

Owen could arguably defend herself by claiming that she did not publicly release the information, her friends did. She could also argue that the information would not be highly offensive to a reasonable person. After all, it’s hardly news that star athletes at big-time colleges hook up with groupies. Nor is it news that some get the job done well and some don’t. Owen might defend herself by claiming that the public release did not cause the men legally recognizable harm. She could even argue that the men were public figures. For example, the one who got the worst grade was a Canadian tennis star.

This case is not unique. There are a number of websites that allow people to anonymously reveal sexual details and make various harsh and raunchy observations. On college students, there was JuicyCampus and is now College ACB and Burnbook. Locally, Topix.net allows Fredonia and Dunkirk people to anonymously comment on which locals are promiscuous, business cheats, adulterers, wife-beaters, gay, animal-abusers, and so on. Because the people who write on the site are anonymous, they can be neither sued nor subject to social disapproval.

The notion of a right to privacy in this context is odd. A person doesn’t normally own information. For example, it is hard to imagine that the athletes could sue Owen were she to have given the same information to her priest, therapist, or gynecologist. They couldn’t sue her for defamation if she truthfully described the sex. In addition, were there a right to own information, or at least a right to prevent it from being publicized, it is hard to see why public figures wouldn’t also have it.

If the law is justified by its having good results, then there should be some empirical support for the claim that discouraging the release of this information is more important than preventing bad behavior by publicizing it. I am unaware of any such support. Even the boundary separating public and private concerns is murky. For example, consider the media’s widely publicizing the sex lives of an evangelical preacher (for example, Ted Haggard used meth and hired a male prostitute), a teacher (Mary Kay Letourneau had sex with a 13-year-old student), a car mechanic (Joey Buttafuoco had an affair with 16-year old Amy Fisher, who then shot his wife in the face), and a former pro athlete (for example, Tiki Barber carried on with the babysitter). It is hard to determine why these facts are a matter of public concern, especially given that similar facts about our neighbors are not. Many public figures never consented to expose their sex lives. Arguably, the public learns more about themselves by finding out what their neighbors are up to than what freakish celebrities have done lately.

A critic might respond that we restrict our liberties in other ways to protect privacy reasons and this is no different. For example, criminal voyeurism statutes protect people against being watched or filmed when they undress in places where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. Laws against appropriation protect people from having their name or likenesses used in advertisements without their permission.

In addition, there is a sense that the schools and employers are prying into people’s personal lives in invasive ways. Both increasingly search people’s online sites (for example, Facebook), drug test employees and students, and have vague moral-turpitude clauses that can be and sometimes are applied with Church-Lady priggishness.

Still, protecting privacy by shutting down people’s autobiographical observations sacrifices one freedom for another and does not obviously favor the more important one. Hard-to-follow laws requiring people to guess at what is a public concern or what constitutes publicizing information worsen the situation. Also, it is hard not to laugh in the face of those who fret about the loss of privacy and then enthusiastically support the government hunt for those engaged in private behaviors like prostitution, pornography, drugs, online gambling, and so on.

Voters Pound Democrats: The Wages of Irresponsibility

2010-11-04T16:45:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Why the Democrats Got Pounded
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
November 1, 2010

Assuming the projections hold up, yesterday voters pounded the Democrats. The polls show that the voters called them onto the carpet for three reasons: the economy is a mess, government spending is out of control, and political corruption is getting out of hand. The Democrats had it coming.

The first reason Democrats got pounded is that the economy is weak. When the childlike Democrats gained control of both sides of Congress in January 2007, unemployment was at 4.6% and the stock market (Dow Jones Industrial Average) was at roughly 12,600. Almost four years later, the former is at 9.6% and the latter at roughly 11,100. When inflation is taken into account, the stock market has dropped by roughly 15%. A fun thought experiment is to figure out how many years of retirement this cost you. To be fair, the Democrats had a lot of help from the Bush administration.

If anyone doubts the Bush administration loved big government, recall its signature accomplishments. Among them were more medical welfare (Medicare drug coverage), greater restrictions on free speech (McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill), more federal involvement in education (No Child Left Behind), pricey overseas wars (Iraq and Afghanistan wars), expanded government search powers (Patriot Act and related bills), and milquetoast tax cuts. Not exactly a Reagan-like legacy.

The second reason Democrats got pounded is that government involvement in our lives is expanding at breakneck speed. Consider spending. According to www.usgovernmentspending.com, the government in 2010 at all three levels now spends 44% of what is produced in this country (that is, 44% of the GDP). That means that for every $1.00 earned in this country, the government spends 44 cents of it. It now spends $41,219 per household (Heritage Foundation, 2008). Government at all three levels has been growing, but it has exploded (26% growth) over the last three years. This underestimates the role of government because the government controls the economy in part through vast tentacles of regulation. If the combined role of Obama Care and regulation exceeds 6% of the economy, and they likely will, then over half of the economy will be controlled by the government. This makes the economy as much socialist as market-based, despite the protests of effete news commentators.

Consider taxes. The upper middle class (top 25% or roughly $67,000, 2008 figure) pay a marginal rate that is over 40%. Consider a New York resident in this bracket. His marginal tax rate includes a federal income tax of 25-28%, an entitlement tax of 15.3% (Social Security tax 12.4% and Medicare tax 2.9%), and a state income tax rate is 6.85%. This marginal rate does not take into account deductions and credits, but it also doesn’t take into account property, sales, corporate, and sin taxes.

The U.S. has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. Only Japan beats us and their economy has been in the doldrums for two decades. When state taxes are added, 24 states have rates higher than Japan. Corporations are just collections of taxpayers, so when corporations are taxed this simply means that taxpayers are further bled.

Even on the conservative estimate of the Tax Foundation, taxpayers work for the government from January 1 to April 9 (May 17 if you count deficit spending and you should). This underestimates the taxes on the middle class because the poor and working class (bottom 50% of taxpayers) don’t pay their fair share of the income tax (3% of income-tax revenue), let alone other major taxes. You worked all winter for Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. At least by the summer, if not the spring, you were working for yourself.

Democrats are irresponsible. In 2010, the government debt is approaching 100% of the economy. Note that 44% of the debt is foreign owned, so reneging on it will likely result in our credit being reduced if not cut off. Because the interest rate on it is roughly 8% (2008 figure), the problem is snowballing. The government ran roughly a 10% deficit in 2009 and will likely run another massive deficit in 2010. It plans on continuing to do so for the few years. The current Congress and President are like a lawyer with a coke problem. This lawyer makes $100,000 a year, owes $100,000 in credit-card debt, and is spending 10% more than he makes with no end in sight. We know how this story is going to end. The same is true if Barney Frank, Charley Rangel, and Brian Higgins were to stay in the majority.

The third reason Democrats got pounded is corruption. It played a smaller role than the above factors, but still mattered. Some voters remembered the illegal activities of scoundrels like Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Maxine Waters (D-CA). The former allegedly failed to pay taxes, committed rent-control crimes, and failed to report income. The latter used her influence to help bail out a bank in which her husband held a sizable stake. Other voters revisited the tawdry kickbacks demanded by Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) in return for voting for Obama Care. Some voters likely considered the various sleazy benefits given to former Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Ted Stevens (R-AK). Both got favorable treatment or other benefits from people who worked for businesses they regulated. Deserving attention, but not getting it, are the special-interest payoffs that have characterized the careers of government profiteers Joe Biden, Harry Reid, and Michelle Obama. The Republicans were not much better when they were in power, but the Democrats pledged to clean up the sleaziness and then kicked it up a notch.

What is happening in this year’s election is voters have simply had enough. This election is in effect a referendum on Obama and the Democrats and the majority of voters are disgusted. Upon taking power the Republicans should do a few things. First, they should repeal Obama Care. Further socializing medicine (government accounted for about 50% of medical expenditures before the bill) is bad for health care and the economy and politically unpopular.

Second, they should cut Washington spending and stop propping up irresponsible states like New York and California. An across-the-board cut, perhaps 10% initially, would limit the ability of special interests to carve out various protections and reduce the caterwauling about any group receiving unfair treatment. This cut should include sharply reduced defense spending and spending on foreign affairs. The American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan should be ended and the large number of American troops overseas (for example, those in Germany, Japan, and South Korea) should be yanked back.

Third, the Bush tax cuts, all of them, should be retained and further cuts put in place. Making an American’s work more than a third of the year for others is not just inefficient, it’s immoral.

Fourth, investigate the various criminals in Congress. This might step on some toes. For example, in early 2010, all eight of the open House investigations involved members of the Congressional black caucus. If this caucus, or any other, is loaded up with criminals, they should be exposed. If Obama wants to veto some or all of the policy changes, let him do so. In 2012, voters will be more than glad to open up another can of whoop-ass.

Fall '10 Election: Cuomo and Fake Christians

2010-10-20T09:05:00.000-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Fake Christians against Paladino
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 17, 2010

The recent furor over Carl Paladino’s comments on gays involves the usual stench of leftist hypocrisy. According to the Huffingtonpost.com, New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino spoke before a group of orthodox Jewish leaders in Brooklyn. He promised to veto gay marriage legislation and noted that he didn’t march in this year’s gay pride parade. He denounced those who would hurt gays and said that he adopts a live-and-let-live approach. He then said the following, “I just think my children, and your children, will be much better off, and much more successful getting married and raising a family. And I don’t want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option. It isn’t.” The Jewish leaders then applauded. According to Newsday, Paladino had the following line in the prepared text, but left it out of his speech, “There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual. that is not how God created us.”

Paladino’s opponent, Andrew Cuomo, supports gay marriage as did the two previous governors, Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson. Patterson introduced legislation to legalize it. Given that Cuomo pledged to make gay marriage a priority, were he elected he would probably succeed in legalizing it.

Here is an argument for Carl Paladino’s position and probably one he would accept. (1) If Christianity is true, then what the Bible says is strong evidence of what is true. (2) The Bible says that homosexuality is wrong. (3) Hence, if Christianity is true, then there is strong evidence that homosexuality is wrong.

There is good reason to believe that Christianity is closely connected to the Bible. Christians generally hold that the Bible (Old and New Testaments) was written by humans who were divinely inspired and that it is either the word of God or good evidence for it. This can be seen both in Christian doctrine and practice. Different Christian groups (for example, Catholics and Protestants) and Jews differ as to which of the Biblical books are canonical. Also, the Bible provides evidence for many Christians concerning the divinity of Jesus, a doctrine that lies at the heart of Christianity.

The argument for the notion that the Bible says homosexuality rests on statements like the following.
• “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Leviticus 18:22.

The New Testament has similar sentiments.
• “And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” Romans 1:27.
• “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, … will inherit the kingdom of God.” Corinthians 1:9-10.
• “Now we know that the law is good, if any one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, immoral persons, sodomites, … and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. Timothy 1:8-10.

Cuomo and Paladino are Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic Church asserts that homosexual acts are contrary to natural law and sinful. It claims that this is in part because such acts are not related to the reproduction and in part because they do not proceed from genuine affection and do they complete the participants. The Church considers homosexual desires to be disordered, but not sinful. It also condemns premarital sex, marital sodomy, contraception, pornography, and masturbation. One can see why Bill Clinton never joined it.

The Catholic Church is not alone. Other Christian branches that hold that homosexual acts are sinful include the Orthodox/Eastern Christian, Pentecostal, Southern Baptist, and Mormon. Other popular branches, Anglicanism and Presbyterianism, are torn on the issue.

One objection is that the Bible is a poor guide to morality. Consider the following.
• Pig Eating: “[Swine] shall be even an abomination of you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination.” Leviticus 11:7-8
• Money Lending: Anyone who engages in money-lending “he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.” Ezekiel 18:13.
• Slave Owning: “[Y]ou may acquire male and female slaves … You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property.” Leviticus 25:44-46.

The objector claims that the Bible is no substitute for moral reasoning. However, if the Biblical injunction is repeated in several places, if most of the major branches of Christianity interpret it the same way, and if the early version used plain language, and I don’t know whether this last condition is met, then the Biblical injunction on homosexuality can be distinguished from the above passages.

A second objection is that we should separate religion and politics. Notre Dame philosopher Robert Audi argues that politicians should present sufficient secular reasons for their position, even if they have religious reasons for holding it. This is incorrect. If someone knows what is wrong because God has told him so, whether directly or indirectly, then it is irrational for him to ignore this when deciding what the state should do or what to teach his children. He also shouldn’t hide his thinking from the public.

A third objection is that Christianity and, probably also, Judaism are false and thus should be ignored. My guess is that this is what Cuomo and many of his supporters believe. It is dishonest to pretend that you are a Roman Catholic and then treat Catholic doctrine as a big joke. Were the reporters not in the tank for Cuomo, one would ask him why he considers himself a Catholic when he rejects Catholic doctrine on homosexuality, abortion, birth control, and divorce. Perhaps he could start a group entitled, “Catholics against Catholicism.”

Paladino also claims that children shouldn’t be taught that homosexuality is an equally valid lifestyle. His argument rested on its not being in the children’s interest. It is implausible, and in any case not supported by any evidence that I’m aware of, that a gay lifestyle is bad for people who have a homosexual orientation. However, there is a different reason to accept Paladino’s conclusion. Given that public schools are paid for by coercively obtained taxes and given that many parents are in effect forced to send their children to them, the schools should hesitate to ram down the children’s throats messages that violently clash with their family’s religious beliefs. There is no burning reason to do so here and the schools should therefore avoid the pro-gay propaganda. Such propaganda is what drew Paladino’s ire.

If Andrew Cuomo and other fakers want to heap scorn on the Catholic position, they should explain how their view is consistent with the Bible or their faith.

On Being Grateful to Veterans

2010-10-06T12:33:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Gratitude and Veterans: Breaking the Faith
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 4, 2010

In the United States, it is an article of faith that citizens should be very grateful to veterans. Presidents regularly reaffirm this faith. On Veterans Day in 1993, President Bill Clinton said, “Today we gather to honor those who have rendered the highest service any American can offer to this nation: Those who have fought for our freedom and stood sentry over our security. … [T]oday we join as one people to appreciate a debt we can never fully repay.” Other recent Presidents have all said similar things.

There are two federal holidays in the United States dedicated to veterans or a portion of them. Veterans Day, which occurs on November 11th of every year, honors military veterans. Memorial Day, which occurs on the last Monday of May, honors U.S. soldiers who died while in military service. Both are federal holidays. There are many federal, state, and local statues and memorials that honor veterans or some portion of them. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. is a high profile instance. In ordinary English, people work as farmers or garbage men, but serve in the military.

In contrast to U.S. citizens’ attitude toward veterans, they are not very grateful to farmers, sanitation workers, intellectuals, and so on. These groups get no holidays and there are far fewer public expressions of gratitude toward them. I assume this general lack of gratitude is correct.

Despite this disparate treatment, farmers did as much historically for Americans as did the military. Specifically, their food added as much to our well-being as did the military’s protection. To see this, consider the conditions Americans would be in if no one grew food and no one worked as a soldier. They would be in bad shape in both cases, but probably worse in the former. A similar thing is true of intellectuals. In forming the system that created and protected liberty in Great Britain and the United States, intellectuals played a vital role.

If we look at individual veterans rather than veterans as a group, leaving aside commanders such as General Patton, we can see that no one veteran contributed that much to a war effort and, in any case, many veterans were adequately paid for their work. Consider contribution. That no one veteran contributed that much to the war effort can be seen in that in most cases, one soldier’s presence did not turn the tide of a battle, let alone the war. In addition, had a particular man not joined the military, it is likely that someone else would have occupied his position. Next consider compensation. For example, consider the salaries of officers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to military analyst Rod Powers, when a person comes into the military as a commissioned officer, an O-1, he makes an average starting salary of $45,969.67. A seasoned officer, for example, an O-4 with 10 years of experience, takes home an average of $94,313.54. This is not bad pay, even when we take into account the officers’ skills. Enlisted men also get paid moderately well, again controlling for skills.

One objection is that combat veterans took great risks in fighting overseas. As the recent flap in Dunkirk illustrates, not all veterans saw combat. Different jobs have different costs and benefits. A person is free to take a job or not take it. If he takes it, particularly if he does so because he likes the cost-benefit package, then so long as he is paid and faces predictable costs and risks, he has no business demanding gratitude. Nor does he merit it.

To see this point, compare the fatality rate of three jobs: member of the military, logger, and fisherman. At the height of the U.S. military insurgency in Iraq, which occurred in 2006, American Thinker writer Steve Gilbert reports that the fatality rate was .13%. Gilbert reports that this is roughly the same rate it has been for the last 25 years. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, here are the fatality rates/average salaries for other professions in 2008: fisherman (0.13%) and logger (0.12%). The salaries of fishermen and loggers are lower than that of the military and the fatality-risk roughly the same. Fishermen and loggers miss out on some hardships (for example, they might spend less time away from their families), but they also miss out on some benefits (for example, they might not form the same lasting friendships or take as much pride in what they do). The attractiveness of various cost-benefit packages varies from person to person. If someone chooses one package (for example, a military package) over others (for example, a logger package) knowing the costs and risks, it is hard to see why we should be grateful to him. It is also hard to see why he serves others rather than merely working for them.

A second objector might concede that perhaps we shouldn’t be grateful to veterans or combat veterans, but we should be grateful to veterans who were injured or killed. To see why this is mistaken, consider people who win a lottery. The lottery is fair if it was reasonable to both parties when the ticket was purchased. If it was reasonable to both, then neither party need be grateful to the other. Next consider a reverse lottery. Here players get a good sum of money in return for taking a small risk of death or severe injury (perhaps, they will have to donate an organ). Again, if reasonable, no gratitude is owed. Military service is like a reverse lottery. If the contract when members signed up was reasonable for them and the citizens who hired them, then neither need be grateful.

A third objector might claim that my discussion misses the issue because many young men were made to fight via the draft and hence we should be grateful to them. Let us assume that draftees were made to fight against their will. If this is correct, then we should not be grateful to them any more than we should be grateful to slaves. Neither was motivated by altruism. A former slave owner probably should be sorry for what she did to the slave and should compensate him, but given that the slave did not act out of concern for the owner’s well-being, she should not be grateful.

I think this essay contains a positive message for people considering joining the military or staying in it: It is important that your life go well. Hence, other things being equal, you should join the military or stay in it only if you like the job, people, or values that comprise it. Viewing your life in the military as a service or a sacrifice is not only a mistake, but also prevents you from focusing on what should guide your decisions.

Irresponsible Political Hack: Brian Higgins

2010-09-22T07:50:00.002-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Brian Higgins: Western New York’s Big Spender
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
September 12, 2010

Many people wonder how our federal government could have become so irresponsible. Western New Yorkers need not look elsewhere to discover the answer. The state’s 27th Congressional District includes two-thirds of Buffalo, most of the city’s Eastern and Southern suburbs, and all of Chautauqua County. It’s a district that has been gerrymandered for political purposes. This district has repeatedly elected Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY). Higgins is a great example of why Americans are disgusted with Congress. One recent NBC/Wall Street Journal August survey found that only 21% approve of the job Congress is doing. The 21% must have been on drugs.

How bad is Higgins? In 2009, Higgins received an F from the National Taxpayers Union (NTU). This grade doesn’t do justice to his assault of the taxpayers. In 2009, the NTU gave him a grade of 2 (out of 100). Just imagine what you would think if your child or students earned that grade. He consistently soaked the taxpayer more than his Democratic colleagues have done over the last five years do and that’s not easy. Despite his voting pattern, he faced minimal Republican opposition in 2006 and 2008 and received more than 70% of the vote in both elections.

Not only does he view the taxpayer as a chicken, fat and ready for the plucking, he is also an unimaginative lockstep Democrat. According to The Washington Post Votes Database, he voted with a majority of his Democratic colleagues 99.1% of the time during the current Congress. This, of course, does not include the roughly one out of twenty votes that he missed.

It is worth considering some of the bills he supported. Higgins voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that was signed into law by President George W. Bush in October 2008. The program was sold as a plan for the government to spend up to $700 billion in order buy toxic assets. These are illiquid, difficult-to-value assets from banks and other financial institutions. The program mysteriously transformed into a program that allowed the government to own portions of banks and other major industries. This involved giving $40 billion to deserving institutions as Citigroup, Bank of America, and AIG (American International Group). The evidence that this was necessary to avoid a financial meltdown is weak at best. In contrast, it is clear that it was sold to the American public under false pretenses. In Higgins’ defense, he joined economic heavyweights as Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain in voting for this monstrosity.

Some of the TARP money was used to nationalize GM. The U.S. government got 61% of it and GM’s union got 17.5% ownership stake. Chrysler also got $11 billion. How any of this related to toxic assets or financial institutions is still a mystery.

Higgins and the Democrats then became spending legends. Not satisfied with TARP, they passed the Stimulus Bill in February 2009. It allowed the government to spend $787 billion for a Christmas tree of benefits for various groups, including extending unemployment benefits and massive handouts to the states. Apparently, these generous souls were horrified at the idea of cutting taxes, but the idea of shoveling money at state governments just felt right. At the time the bill was passed unemployment was 8.2%. It is now 9.6%. Even the Congressional Budget Office predicted that in the long run the massive spending bill would be a drag on the economy. Of course this money went on the federal credit card since the country was already running a deficit. This past August, Higgins and company spent another $26 billion in welfare to state governments so that they could continue their irresponsible spending on education and Medicaid. The bill was a thinly disguised payoff to prevent layoffs to key Democrat constituencies.

Higgins further distinguished himself by voting for such abominations as Obama Care (the attempt to further socialize medicine) and cap and trade (a series of massive new energy taxes and regulations). After the election one can bank on Higgins joining Democrats when they try to give amnesty to illegal aliens and raise taxes on the rich, small businesses, inheritors, and other chickens ready for plucking.

Higgins won a tight election in 2004. However, given the spread of his recent victories, it appears that he is now the 27th District’s Congressman for life. Why does he keep getting elected?

One reason is that Buffalo is a left-wing city. According to Wikipedia.com, even when Jack Quinn was the 27th District’s Representative, it was the most Democratic district in the country to be represented by a Republican. Also, Buffalo is one of the poorest cities (roughly 29% of its people are below the poverty level) and poor cities do not vote for Republicans. Buffalo hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1954. This is a common pattern among the poorest cities. If you consider other poor cities, such as Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Saint Louis, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia, none of these cities has elected a Republican mayor in years. Two have not elected one in a couple of decades (Cincinnati and Cleveland) and the rest haven’t elected one in nearly 50 years. Obviously, this has worked out well for the residents, who remain mired in poverty.

A second reason is that Higgins gets infused with union money. According to OpenSecrets.org, five of his top six contributors (11 of his top 25) to his 2009-2010 campaign committee are unions. An interesting issue is whether union support explains his vote or whether the causal arrow goes in the opposite direction. My guess is that it goes both ways.

A third reason is that the local news media have not highlighted just how far left Higgins is. One searches in vain for Buffalo News articles highlighting Higgins’ spending habits or his lockstep party voting (perhaps I missed the articles). Higgins actually labels himself a moderate, raising the issue of whether his nose grows longer when he says this. A fourth reason is that Higgins dispenses pork to generate further support. He is hardly alone in doing so. Here he joins the long tradition that includes Congressmen we can all be proud of, such as the late Dan Rostenkowski, Ted Stevens, and Robert Byrd.

Brian Higgins is far-left member of Congress and part of the Obama revolution. He is a case study in how a big-spending Congress stays in power and runs the economy into the ground. Western New York has only itself to blame for him.

Education: Students Take it Easy

2010-08-24T16:50:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Colleges Students: Less Studying, More Recreating
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
August 23, 2010

College students are studying a lot less than they used to. An interesting issue is why they are and whether we should care about it.

In a study by Philip Babcock of University of California-Santa Barbara and Mindy Marks of University of California-Riverside found that students study roughly 40% less than they used to (14 hours per week versus 24 hours per week). Their study looks at the period from 1961 to 2003. They argue that the trend is a general one in that it can be seen across different types of students: those who work and those who don’t, every major, and different calibers of colleges (elite to bargain-basement). This is not a recent phenomena, most of it happened before 1981, suggesting that the pattern is not due to technological advances, such as the computer.

This difference is not due to students being more prepared. Babcock and Marks point out that there is little evidence that recent students are more prepared than earlier ones. The former do not have higher test scores when they enter college. For the 2007-2008 academic year, the U.S. Department of Education found that roughly a third of students needed at least one remedial class. At public two-year classes, this disgraceful number was 42%.

Nor is the difference due to lack of spending on college. According to the New York Times, the cost of college in 2008 was roughly $19,000 per student. This is $10,600 more than in other developed countries.

There are several explanations for the lesser effort. University of California at Berkeley professor David Kirp and fellow researchers argue that market pressures have caused colleges to cater to students’ desire for leisure. Kirp and company support this claim by arguing that student evaluations, which became popular in the 1960’s and 1970’s, reward easier instructors and punish harder ones. On their theory, because many faculty prefer to spend their time on research and students prefer to spend their time on leisure, the faculty trade higher grades for better evaluations. Ohio University Economist Richard Vedder points out that in the period during which studying has dropped, grade inflation occurred. He notes that grade point averages have risen by half a letter grade during this period (2.5 or 2.6 to 3.0). Babcock and Marks note that they are hard-pressed to name a reward that faculty get for maintaining high standards. The penalties for doing so are clear.

Another explanation is that grades matter less than they used to. Stanford Economist Caroline Hoxby argues that the difference between the ability-levels of students at different colleges has increased over time, while the difference between the ability-levels of students at a particular college has decreased. That is, colleges are getting better at segregating by ability. Probably as a result of this, employers depend less on college grades in hiring than they used to and so students put less time in to getting better grades and more time into getting in to college than they used to.

There is some reason to believe that students who study more learn more and earn more. In general, undergraduates are not given an exit exam, so it is difficult to determine how much they learn in college, let alone whether they are learning less than they used to. However, there is some reason to believe that they are learning less than they otherwise would were they to study more. Studying more increases both academic performance (specifically, grade point average) and future earnings. Decreases in study time have been found to cause lower grades. Greater studying has been found to correlate with greater wages, although whether the former causes the latter is less clear. If extra studying produces valuable knowledge or skills, then less study time does cost both the students and their society.

I wonder if this is an issue that we should care about. After all, students are like the rest of us. They must choose between learning less and recreating more. For example, when we spend Sunday afternoon watching the NFL, we lose out on valuable learning time. I don’t there’s a right answer as to how much students should study.

The problem with this live and let live approach is that we are paying through the nose for public colleges and as such students’ studying time is relevant in our deciding whether we are wasting money. After all, people should feel free to improve their abilities in ultimate Frisbee, surfing the net, and sex, but they shouldn’t expect taxpayers to subsidize their doing so. Perhaps our money would be better spent on paying only for those students who study more or do better, rather than the indiscriminate grants and subsidies that currently bloat college spending.

One way to generate more studying time might be to have mandatory exit exams that would allow colleges to be measured and compared in terms of how much education they provide to students. Many colleges would feel the pressure from prospective students, employers, and alumni and respond by developing incentives for students to study more. Just as public school teachers in K-12 screamed bloody murder when exit exams were introduced, college faculty (myself included) and administrators would likely do the same. Some colleges might decide to opt out and they should be allowed to opt out, so long as they go off the public dole. If exit exams were made a condition for federal or state aid, taxpayers would be better able to see whether their tax dollars were being spent wisely.

I’m not sure that less student studying is a bad thing or that exit exams are a good solution, but less sure that the status quo is adequate.

Fat People and Government Hostility

2010-08-16T08:56:00.003-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Should the government target fatties?
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
August 6, 2010

In the U.S., the federal and state governments hate smokers but not fatties. They tax the hell out of the former, but not the latter. They sponsor harsh public-relation campaigns that vilify smoking, but not obesity or overeating. At issue is whether the different treatment is justified. Those who love freedom probably think that the government shouldn’t be in either business, but let us leave their concerns aside.

Consider the taxes and bans on smoking. Governments at the federal and state levels target smokers with a vengeance. For every pack of cigarettes, the U.S. government taxes it by $1.01 and the states often tax it more. For example, New York taxes every pack $4.35, which is the highest in the country. Thus, in New York, a smoker pays $5.36 in taxes per pack. Other lefty states like Connecticut ($3 per pack) and Massachusetts ($2.51) do the same. 394 colleges now ban smoking. These bans are spreading like wildfire. In 2005, only 18 colleges did so.

Smoking is less common than obesity. In the U.S., only about 16% of adults smoke daily and only about 20% smoke at all. In contrast, a 2010 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that roughly 34% of adults are obese. The rates of obesity are exploding. The American Journal of Preventive Medicine notes that in 1993 only 14% of adults were obese. Among women, weight problems are getting out of hand. Roughly 36% of women are obese and 64% are overweight. The average woman now weighs roughly 165 lbs. and the most frequently worn size is a 14 (this is plus-size). Among minorities, things are worse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) using 2006-2008 data found that black and Hispanic women are much more likely than white women to be obese.

What could justify the government’s policy of targeting smokers but not fat people?

Differences in heath-care costs do not justify different treatment. One 1997 study from The New England Journal of Medicine found that smoking reduces long-term health-care costs because smokers die early and a significant portion of medical costs are incurred by the elderly. That is, it is not even clear that smoking produces health-care costs rather than savings. In contrast, the head of the CDC, Thomas Frieden, estimates that obesity costs the country $147 billion per year (2008 figure). Note these figures are controversial.

Nor is the different treatment justified because smoking is more dangerous than obesity. A 2001 study by two RAND researchers Roland Sturm and Kenneth Wells found that obesity is more risky than is smoking. They found that the obese suffer higher rates of suffering from a chronic illness than do smokers. Chronic illnesses include diabetes, hypertension, asthma, heart disease, and cancer. The researchers found that the obese also spend more on health-care services and medication than do daily smokers.

General disgust or dislike probably doesn’t justify the different treatment. First, it is doubtful that the government should target something just because people disapprove of it. Second, it is plausible that the majority disapproves of obesity more than smoking. Consider several studies cited by Stanford University law professor Deborah Rhode. One survey showed that college students would prefer a spouse who is an embezzler, drug user, or shoplifter than someone who is obese. A second found that 90% of formerly obese individuals would rather be blind than return to being fat. A third found that obesity carries as much sigma as AIDS, drug addiction, and criminal behavior. A fourth found that roughly 90% of obese individuals reported humiliating comments from family, friends, or coworkers. While I could not find any data to support this claim, I suspect that smokers are not subject to as much or as intense disgust. In addition, consider the following thought experiment. Would you prefer your spouse be a thin smoker or an obese non-smoker? My guess is that most readers, and especially younger adults, would prefer the former.

The difference isn’t explained by harm to others. It is widely reported that second-hand smoke harms non-smokers. Less frequently reported is that obesity is contagious. A 2007 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a person’s chances of becoming obese increase by 57% if they have a friend who becomes obese, 40% if they have a sibling who does so, and 37% if a spouse does so. If this is correct, then allowing obese people into a school or workplace poses a risk to others. Perhaps the discussion of harm is too quick given the role of choice in the different types of second-hand harm.

Perhaps the difference is explained by the difficulty of change. Diets tend not to work. UCLA psychology professor Traci Mann and fellow researchers found that one to two thirds of dieters regain more weight than they lost on their diets and that this probably underestimates the degree to which dieting is counterproductive. Even when dieting produces weight loss, Mann and associates found that it is not clear that this improves dieters’ health. In addition, Rhode argues, stigma is not an effective way to deal with obesity and in fact it is more likely to cause obese people to overeat than to eat less. Attempts to quit smoking are more likely to work. For example, a number of countries, including the U.S., have more ex-smokers than smokers. Smoking also appears to be under our control in a way in which weight is not. Rockefeller University Jules Hirsch and Columbia University researcher Rudolph Leibel estimate that 70% of the variation in people’s weight is inherited and that people can control their weight only within a relatively narrow range. It is unclear how this fits with the data about the skyrocketing rates of obesity.

Taxes are also an effective way to lessen smoking. For example, for every 10% increase in the price of a pack of cigarettes, youth smoking rates decrease by 7%. There is no indication that a similar policy would lessen obesity.

So perhaps what justifies governments’ decision to target smokers rather than fatties is that the former are more malleable. This assumes that the government should be in the business of telling people how to live their lives and this assumption is questionable.

Race: Black Men & White Women; Asian Women & Black Men

2010-07-27T17:56:00.002-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Imbalance in Interracial Marriage
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
July 20, 2010

In politics, race has reared its ugly head. The NAACP accused the Tea Party of racism. Charges of racism have been directed at the Obama administration’s refusal to prosecute the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation. Racial comments have plagued Obama’s former minister Jeremiah Wright, Obama administration czars Van Jones and Mark Lloyd, and U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod. President Obama injected himself into a conflict between a Harvard professor and a police officer and the conflict and summit led to a nationwide discussion of race. Oddly, there is much less discussion of interracial marriage, particularly an asymmetrical marriage pattern, which is far more interesting.

In the U.S., Interracial marriage is common. The 2000 census shows that 4.9% of marriages are interracial (2,669,558 marriages). There is a striking asymmetry in marriages involving whites, blacks, and Asian-Americans. Consider blacks. Black males are far more likely to marry whites than are black women. In 2006, 6.6% of black males (286,000) had a white spouse, whereas only 2.8% of black women (117,000) had one. On a side note a similar pattern likely holds for cohabitation and sex.

Steve Sailor, president of the Human Biodiversity Institute, points out that this difference underestimates the pattern given the acute shortage of black males in relation to black females. The 2000 census indicates that there are 10 black women for every 9 black men. In addition, roughly 10% of young black men (ages 20-29) are incarcerated in a given year (2002 figure) and roughly one in three is under the control of the criminal justice system. In addition, Sailor points out, black women work far more often in corporate offices, universities, and other places that have richer and more educated men and this should be given them greater access to potential white spouses.

The opposite pattern is true for Asian-Americans. For Asian-American/white marriages, 75% involve an Asian-American woman and white man. This is a strong effect given that in 2006, 41% of Asian-American-born women had a white husband. In the past, this pattern has resulted in significantly more Asian-American women being married than Asian-American men. One issue is what explains these asymmetries. A second issue is whether it justifies the anger that is alleged to be percolating among black women and, to a lesser extent, Asian-American men.

One explanation is that black males and Asian-American women are doing what business people often do, expanding their market, thereby giving them access to more buyers and more leverage over ones from their own group. This explanation is unsatisfactory because if it were just an economic explanation one would expect black women and Asian-American men to do the same thing and they don’t do so as often. In addition, if this were correct, Asian-American men and black women would improve their economic position by dating or marrying each other and they don’t. In 2006, there were very few marriages (.02% of all marriages) between Asian-American men and black women.

A second explanation has to do with how social condition shapes women’s preferences. A study by Columbia University professor Raymond Fisman and fellow researchers indicates that when it comes to dating, women have a strong preference for their own race, whereas men don’t. For example, black women prefer black men, Hispanic women prefer Hispanic men, and so on. The one exception was East Asian women (Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans). They treated Asian-American and white men the same and discriminated against others. This explanation claims that the asymmetry is explained by women’s preferences and that these preferences are the result of social conditioning. This explanation doesn’t explain why social conditioning would lead Asian-American women, but not other minority women, to avoid discriminating against white men. In any case, this explanation is at most part of the picture because it doesn’t explain the pattern with regard to blacks. In addition, Steve Sailor points out that the social-conditioning theory fails to take into account how different the conditioning and culture are among groups like Koreans, Filipinos, Cambodian refugees, and 5th generation Japanese-Americans.

A third explanation is that on average, and with many exceptions, black men and Asian-American women are better looking than their same-race counterparts. Black women are considerably more likely to be obese when compared to black men and white women. Using data from The Journal of the American Medical Association, they are 33% and 50% respectively more likely to be obese. In general, society severely punishes obesity. Obese women are 20% less likely to marry and 30% less likely to had sex over the past year when compared to normal-weight women. They are also paid significantly less in the workplace (one study found that obese white women make 24% less). One survey showed that college students would prefer a spouse who is an embezzler, drug user, or shoplifter than someone who is obese. When it comes to dating, Raymond Fisman and his fellow researchers showed that men emphasize their partner’s looks far more than do women.

Asian-American men are on average shorter than other males and society punishes short men. As Stanford University law professor Deborah Rhode points out, short men are less likely to be hired and promoted, paid less, and underrepresented in leadership positions. For example, University of Rochester economics Steven Landsburg points out that on average, men who are 6-feet tall make roughly $6,000 more than someone who is 5-foot-6-inches after controlling for education and experience.

Anecdotally, there are more Asian-American women than men who are sex symbols (for example, Lucy Liu and Sandra Oh) and news anchors (for example, Lisa Ling and Connie Chung). The women also seem to be far more common in online pornography. Don’t believe me? Check. Also, because Asian-American women are less likely to be overweight or obese than their white and black women competitors and they likely have a competitive advantage in dating and marriage that their male counterparts lack. When it comes to stereotypes, as Sailor points out, Asian-American men are often portrayed in TV as less masculine than other groups (for example, African-American men).

I’m not sure what to make of this third explanation. At most, it is part of the picture. Also, whether the pattern is desirable is a question left for another day.

There are reports that black women bitterly resent this pattern. Sailor cites discussions in movies like Waiting to Exhale and daytime talk shows. A similar pattern, albeit less visible, is reported among Asian-American men. It is unclear whether these anecdotes represent a widespread attitude or just attention-grabbing stories. In any case, the resentment is misplaced in that it is hard to see what the objection is to individuals finding love and moving toward a better life. If individuals don’t have moral duties toward racial groups or cultures, and it is hard to see why they would, the resentment is just envy masquerading as race solidarity.

Constitution: Guns and the Left's Attack on Incorporation

2010-07-14T23:58:00.002-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Guns and the Second Amendment: The Constitution Dodges a Bullet
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
July 12, 2010

The recent Supreme Court decision, McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. ____ (2010), is a major victory in a country whose constitution is largely disappearing. In a preceding case, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. _____ (2008), the Court struck down a District of Columbia law that banned the possession of handguns in the home. The Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a gun because guns are connected to self-defense. The Court argued that this right allows individuals to possess handguns in their homes.

In McDonald, the Court considered a Chicago law that in effect banned private citizens from having handguns. On a side note, the Court noted that Chicago has one of the highest murder rates in the country (including cities like New York City and Los Angeles) and rates of other violent crimes that exceed the average in comparable cities. Several of the people who sued Chicago did so because they had been threatened or were victims of violence by drug dealers, burglars, etc. and wanted to protect themselves.

Chicago argued that neither the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges and Immunities Clause (“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States”) nor the Due Process Clause (“[N]or shall any State deprive any person of the life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”) results in the states like Illinois being subject to the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment says, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Chicago argued that the Due Process Clause does not incorporate the Second Amendment (apply it to the states). Rather, the clause only applies to the states only those parts of the Bill of Rights (the first ten Amendments) which are indispensible to a “civilized” legal system. Because there are civilized countries that ban guns, Chicago argued that the Due Process Clause does not apply the Second Amendment to the states. On this view, then, the states can ban gun ownership even if the federal government cannot.

By a 5-4 majority, the Supreme Court rejected Chicago’s argument. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito argued that the Due Process Clause incorporates the Second Amendment (applies it to the states). His argument has two parts. First, the Due Process Clauses includes a particular right in the first Eight Amendments to the Constitution only if it is (a) fundamental to the U.S.’s scheme of ordered liberty or (b) deeply rooted in the U.S.’s history and tradition. The Court found that the right to self-defense, including the right to a handgun, meets these conditions.

Alito argued that the right to self-defense, including the right to own a gun, is deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition. Evidence for this can be seen in that the right was part of the rights of Englishmen before the U.S. came into existence and that this influenced the founders’ thinking. Also, there is evidence that the founders who drafted and ratified the Bill of Rights viewed the right to own a gun for self-defense as a fundamental right. In fact, Alito argued, the debate at the time was not over whether citizens had such a right, that was assumed, but whether it was adequately protected by the federal government’s limited powers or whether it warranted separate protection via the Bill of Rights. The historical importance of this right can also be seen in that four states adopted gun-right laws before the Constitution was ratified and nine more did so in the roughly thirty-year period after it went into effect.

Alito refrained from adopting the view that the Due Process Clause incorporates all of the Bill of Rights. Justice Hugo Black famously put forth this position, but the Court never adopted it. However, Alito made it clear that the Court is moving toward Black’s position.

The Court’s reasoning came under sharp attack from the right and left. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the Due Process Clause protects only process rights and cannot restrict the content of laws in the way in which Alito suggests. For example, Thomas noted, it protects the right against double jeopardy, the right to a lawyer in criminal cases, and so on. Thomas argued that an individual’s right to own a gun is a privilege of American citizenship. Hence, it is protected by the Privileges and Immunities Clause. As the Cato Institute’s Josh Blackman and Ilya Shapiro point out, Thomas sought to reject 140 years of precedent that had been put forth in bad faith by a recalcitrant Reconstruction-era Supreme Court. Thomas’ argument rests on his theory of interpretation. He holds that the Constitution’s meaning is determined by considering how ordinary citizens would have understood the Constitution’s language at the time it was put into place.

Thomas’s approach is appealing. His theory respects the original meaning of the Constitution’s language and its structure (relation between the parts of the Constitution). His interpretation comes closest to what the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution had in mind. The downside is that he gives precedent short shrift. Alito’s argument fits better with precedent. Both produce the same result in so far as they hold that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment.

Justice Stephen Breyer argued the Second Amendment was not intended to protect an individual’s right to own a gun for self-defense. He argues that by roughly 8 to 1, professional historians of early American history agree with him and the Court should avoid second guessing the experts. Breyer argues that even if this were not the case, there are several reasons to think the Due Process Clause does not incorporate the Second Amendment. Among the reasons are that there is no consensus on whether the right to own guns is fundamental, the right does not protect minorities or others neglected by the political system, and determining the scope of the right would force judges to make decisions about gun safety and effectiveness that are outside their area of expertise.

It is hard to know how any of these reasons are relevant. The reasons are policy considerations. If judges consider them, then they cease to interpret the law (what judges are supposed to do) and start to make the law (what legislators are supposed to do). Nor is it clear where these policies come from. They are not explicitly or implicitly in the Constitution. Nor are they a part of fundamental American values such as liberty, equality, or democracy. In addition, Breyer’s reasoning fits poorly with his reasoning in other areas, for example, abortion.

The Supreme Court, especially Justices like Breyer, Stevens, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor, has in effect crossed out important parts of the Constitution (Commerce Clause, Takings Clause, and Tenth Amendment). They almost got the Second Amendment. Scary.

Gay Marriage: The Polygamy Argument

2010-06-23T10:11:00.001-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Gay Marriage and Polygamy
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
June 15, 2010

In 2008, California voters passed ballot initiative Proposition 8. It amended the California constitution to prohibit gay marriage. Its text stated, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” It passed 52% to 48%. In California, a federal judge is currently hearing a case on whether Proposition 8 is Constitutional. The case will likely to be appealed to the Ninth Circuit and then the Supreme Court.

The passage of Proposition 8 is part of a pattern. Over the past few decades, forty-one states and the federal government have adopted laws that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In all thirty-one states in which the marriage issue has been put to a general vote, same-sex marriage lost. It is legal in only five states (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont) and the District of Columbia.

The proposition was a response to the California Supreme Court’s ruling that same sex couples have the right to marry under the California constitution. The battle over Proposition 8 shook the state. Proponents and opponents raised huge sums of money ($39.9 million and $43.3 million respectively). Religious organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), various conservative groups like Focus on the Family, and political figures like John McCain and Newt Gingrich supported it. The Mormons carried much of the load, pouring in money and a sizable volunteer army. All ten of the state’s largest newspapers opposed it, as did Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sen. Barack Obama, and an array of other groups, notably Jewish, Episcopalian, and Unitarian ones.

An issue here is whether the arguments for legalizing gay marriage also support legalizing plural marriage. Plural marriage can consist of different relationships, such as one man and several women (polygamy), one women and several men, lesbian groups, multiple heterosexual men and women, multiple bisexual men and women, and so on.

There are two interesting arguments for gay marriage. The first argument is that every person has a fundamental right to marry the person of his choice. This fundamental right might rest on his having the more basic right to shape his own life according to self-chosen principles. Alternatively, it might rest on his having a more basic right to be treated similarly to others with regard to state benefits, at least when he is not directly harming someone else. To my mind, this first argument is convincing.

The second argument is that gay marriage will benefit the gay people who are married, their children, and the rest of society. The argument sometime rests on the claim that gay marriage will neither lessen the rate at which men and women marry, nor harm the children of heterosexual marriages. The empirical argument is messy. One issue is whether children raised by homosexual couples are as well-adjusted as those raised by heterosexual couples. The American Psychological Association claims that they are, but others (for example, the dissenting judges in the landmark Massachusetts case on gay marriage) argue that the studies conflict and as a group they are inconclusive. Given that gay couples are already raising hundreds of thousands of children, another issue is whether having their parents marry will benefit them than if they do not.

The first argument supports plural marriage. If people have a fundamental right to marry who they want then this includes not merely a member of the same sex, but others as well. Richard Posner, a 7th Circuit Judge, points out that if a woman who wants to be a polygamist’s second wife is prevented from doing so, then her fundamental right is violated.

The second argument less clearly supports plural marriage. Various commentators, such as William Saletan of Slate.com, claim that plural marriage contains harmful features not present in monogamous marriages: instability, sexual jealousy, and stress. Cathy Young, writing in Reason Magazine, claims that the availability of plural marriages would add anxiety and unhealthy pressure to current marriages by giving spouses more options. However, their claims are unsupported by any scientific studies. They rely on a few anecdotes and the plural of anecdote is not data (sadly, not my line). Various commentators in the first half of the 20th Century might have similarly relied on anecdotes to explain why interracial marriage is a bad idea. In addition, it should not surprise us if people who engage in an illegal activity have more problems than do those who would engage in it were it legal.

Even if there were data that supported these claims, it is not clear what follows. University of Pennsylvania sociologist Hongyu Wang and others found that interracial marriages are significantly more likely to end in divorce (24% more likely) and last less long when they do than in-group marriages. If divorce is harmful to both the divorced couple and their kids and if this sort of data does not provide a reason to prohibit interracial marriage, then it is not clear why it would do so for plural marriage.

Plural marriage probably has a longer history than gay marriage. It is likely that human beings evolved in polygamist groups, although it is not clear if this involved anything like marriage. In addition, law professor Jonathan Turley argues that in the Bible, leading figures like Abraham, David, Jacob, and Solomon were polygamists and favored by God. It is also not clear that plural marriage has more problems with infidelity than does gay marriage. Stanley Kurtz, writing in The Weekly Standard, cites West Virginia University sociologist Gretchen Stiers and University of Vermont psychologists Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solomon to support the claim that gay male marriages are far less monogamous than heterosexual ones and that the former place less emphasis on monogamy.

It is irrelevant whether more people view plural marriage negatively than view gay marriage negatively. Our freedom does not rest on a popularity contest.

If the right-based argument for gay marriage is sound, then a similar argument applies to plural marriage. If one adopts the benefit argument for gay marriage, then there is no substitute for scientific study. The same is true for plural marriage. Mere anecdotes simply will not do. The solution that makes these issues go away is for the government to get out of the marriage business, but there is no movement in this direction.

Constitution: First Amendment

2010-05-12T12:11:00.000-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Animal-Cruelty Videos and the Supreme Court
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
May 11, 2010

A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court in United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. ___ (2010) by an 8-1 decided that a statute (18 U.S.C. 48) that prohibited the portrayal of acts harmful to animals was unconstitutional. The law made it a criminal penalty of up to five years in prison for anyone who creates, sells, or possesses a depiction of animal cruelty if done for commercial gain. It defined “animal cruelty” as one in which “a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed,” if that conduct violates federal or state law where the creation, sale, or possession took place. It thus criminalized the commercial depiction of activity that is already illegal. It exempted depictions that have serious social value. Scientific, educational, and artistic videos are the sort of depictions that might have enough social value.

The defendant, Robert Stevens, sold videos of pit bulls fighting each other and attacking other animals (specifically, a wild boar and a domestic farm pig). His videos included dogfights from the 60’s and 70’s and recent dogfights in Japan, where it is allegedly legal.

There is a strong case for the law. It was intended to stop the interstate market for crush videos. These videos involve the intentional torture and killing of helpless animals such as cats, dogs, mice, hamsters, and monkeys. These videos are sexually arousing to some consumers. Justice Alito provides a graphic description of one such video involving a woman and a kitten that is absolutely disgusting.

Congress’s motivation in passing such a law was that the only effective way of stopping this criminal conduct (it is illegal in all 50 states and D.C.) is to make it unprofitable. Without the law, the filmmakers are hard to prosecute because the videos are made in secret and often do not show the faces of the women torturing the animals or the video’s time and location. In the rare cases when such perpetrators are identified, they effectively defend themselves by arguing that prosecutor cannot prove the location in which the film was made (thus, the state lacks jurisdiction) or that the statute of limitations has not run (thus, it is too late to prosecute). When President Clinton signed the law, his signing statement indicated that it would cover only crush videos and nothing else, not even dog fighting.

The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts, found the law unconstitutional. Roberts noted that there are areas of expression that are unprotected by the First Amendment, including obscenity, child pornography, and incitement. He declined to include animal cruelty on the list because it was historically unprotected. The government countered that such speech had so little value that it was unworthy of First Amendment protection. Both arguments are weak. Contra Roberts, a prohibition on expression does not become constitutionally valid just because it’s been around for a long time. On the other hand, the Constitution does not authorize Congress to decide what expression is worth protecting.

Roberts then argued that the statute was overbroad. That is, it criminalized constitutionally protected speech. Roberts argued that it banned depictions of animal suffering beyond crush videos, animal-fighting videos, and other forms of extreme animal cruelty. He reasoned that because the statute covered any illegal treatment of animals and only made exception for material with serious social value, it prohibited hunting videos. He observed that most hunting videos are recreational and thus lack serious social value. Interestingly, Roberts noted that the government provided no explanation of why videos of hunting or Spanish bullfighting have more social value than those of Japanese dog fighting.

The government responded that it would limit its prosecution to extreme cruelty. Roberts dismissed this silly argument. An unconstitutional statute should not be upheld because the government promises to use it responsibly. Roberts ducked the most difficult question, which is whether a narrow ban on crush videos and deadly animal fights would be constitutional.

In dissent, Justice Alito argued that the case should be sent back to the lower court to address whether the narrow ban was constitutional. He argued that the statute was limited to extreme animal cruelty (crush videos and deadly animal fights) and the court got it wrong when it suggested that the statute covers hunting videos. Alito argued that under the statute, such videos were protected because they do not focus on animal cruelty and have serious social value and because Congress did not intend to prohibit them. He argued that this statute was similar to the Court’s previous treatment of child pornography. Like a state law prohibiting child pornography, the ban on depicting animal cruelty was the only effective means by which to prevent horrible and already illegal activity from occurring and the harm prevented easily outweighs the social value of the videos.

Consider the issue of whether the narrow ban would be constitutional. At issue is whether, as a constitutional matter, such material may be banned if it is the only effective way to prevent such abuse. The Constitution includes the basic rule that various social goals are not to be pursued by preventing people from accessing various subject matters or ideas. The Supreme Court opened the door to this when in it allowed states and local governments to ban obscenity (hardcore pornography). It is hard to say what ideas or value obscenity and animal-cruelty videos have, nevertheless they do appear to be express a viewpoint, even if only an aesthetic one.

The sort of debate that Roberts and Alito got into over whether hunting videos had serious social value is not in the text of the Constitution. Nor was it part of the original intent of those who wrote the Bill of Rights or the original understanding of the people when it was passed. Instead, this issue looks like something the legislature should consider. The latter is better able to determine whether deer hunting videos have serious social value.

Also, there is an oddity in that while the justices and members of Congress were outraged by the dog fighting videos, and they are horrific, it is alleged by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and others that factory farms treat pigs and chickens in ways that are comparably horrific. That they do so in private and for taste rather than entertainment is irrelevant.

If the statute is rewritten to be a narrow ban on crush and animal-fighting videos, the Court will not be able to duck the issue. The narrow ban might be the only effective way to protect innocent animals from being tortured for sexual entertainment. It thus falls under one of the government’s core functions: protecting individuals from harm.

On the other hand, the statute targets expression rather than the underlying victimization. It thus conflicts with the First Amendment’s text and the original intent behind it. We should hesitate to ignore the Constitution. Even when the expression has minimal value and even if the depicted conduct is filthy and destructive, carving exceptions into the Constitution lays the groundwork for the government to target other areas of free speech.

Professors & Students Having Sex

2010-04-28T16:41:00.000-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Faculty-Student Consensual Relations and the Church Lady
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
April 26, 2010

At state colleges and universities, the issue of faculty-student romantic and sexual relations is an issue that refuses to go away. It often pits administrators and feminists with Victorian sensibilities against those with live-and-let-live attitudes about romance and sex. I should disclose that a number of the facts and ideas for this column come from SUNY-Fredonia philosophy professor and lawyer, Raymond Belliotti.

As a legal matter, only one public institution (College of William & Mary) bans all romantic and sexual relations between faculty and undergraduate students and between supervising faculty and graduate students. Such blanket prohibitions were rejected by other universities, including the University of Virginia, University of Washington, and the University of Texas at Arlington. Some private universities (for example, Rice University and Yale University) have adopted a version of the prohibition. The complete prohibition at state institutions is likely unconstitutional because it violates people’s rights to privacy and intimate association, rights strongly affirmed in a recent Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). Even if such a ban were Constitutional, consider whether state colleges and universities should adopt it.

There are two models which track the view that faculty and student are adults (the “adult model”). On one model, the libertarian model, the regulation of romances should be governed by sexual harassment rules. Sexual harassment rules prohibit faculty attempting to trade grades or other benefits for romance or sex. They also prohibit hostile working environments, whereby repeated sexual attention makes someone uncomfortable. On a second model, the supervisory model, such relations are prohibited only when the faculty member supervises or evaluates the student. This second model allows faculty-student relations to be governed by the same rules that govern relationships between senior and junior faculty and between those administrators and staff with supervisory roles over others.

The adult model has a number of advantages. First, it makes it clear that when they leave the workplace, faculty and students’ lives are their own and not subject to meddling by administrators and staff. Consider what we would think if administrators who wanted to monitor the weekend habits of the faculty, including the churches they attend and the websites they visit. Second, it protects faculty and students from degrading investigations. For example, imagine some flabby old administrator at a Southern college asking a 22-year-old female student when an English professor first touched her breasts and you get the picture. At SUNY-Fredonia, there are allegations that administrators engaged in covert searches of faculty email when investigating one or more of the cases that have come up in the last few years. Third, unlike the adult model, the blanket prohibition discourages beneficial relationships and marriages. At Fredonia, there are quite a number of past and current faculty who are married to former students (not always their students). Because the benefits of marriage and children are weighty, opponents of the adult model must show that the costs of the adult model outweigh its benefits. They are unlikely to do so. Fourth, it fits with the view that students are adults and ought to be treated as such.

Fifth, the adult model prevents further intrusion into fraternization and non-romantic friendships that are common on campuses. As various professors have pointed out, feminist professors, African-American faculty, and advisors to student clubs often supervise and befriend students, sometimes hosting events in their homes, and are encouraged and rewarded for such activity. This happens even though this brings about widespread concerns of bias and favoritism.

One objection to the adult model is that the faculty and student are in an unequal power relationship and that this inequality is bad or wrong. The idea here is that the professor carries with him (and it is almost always a male) a superior role that makes him able to control the nature and direction of the relationship. Under the libertarian model, there might also be grades that make the relationship even more unequal. This objection is often attributed to feminists in part because feminists argued against the adult model in the biggest battle over this issue, which occurred at the University of Virginia.

The power to control the nature and direction of a relationship doesn’t just depend on one’s position at work. It also depends on a person’s psychological strength, willingness to leave, and on her value in the dating market. The latter is in part a function of things like personality, intellect, and attractiveness. Because students often have far greater market value than the professor or than the other women or men he might date, it is not in the least bit clear that the professor has more power. More important, even if there were a power differential, it is not clear that this makes a relationship bad or wrong. Lots of couples differ in their power to shape the relationship (consider couples who differ in attractiveness, intelligence, and strength of personality) and no one thinks that this makes their relationship bad or wrong.

A second objection is that such relationships often involve premarital sex and such sex harms or degrades female students. The claim that such sex harms them might be an empirical claim about the psychological effects of premarital sex. I doubt there is evidence to back this up, but even if there were, an obvious solution would be to publicize the risk and then allow women to decide for themselves whether to take the risk. In general, we do this with regard to their sexual lives, so it is unclear why we should take a different approach in academia. The claim that such sex involves moral harm (best imagined coming from Saturday Night Live’s Church Lady) is the sort of lifestyle choice that is none of the state’s business. It is for this reason that the administrators and staff should not be in the business of discouraging homosexuality, promoting celibacy, and so on.

A third objection is that students are not adults. This objection is a variant on the sex-is-harmful objection, because even if this were true, protecting children against something makes sense only if it poses a significant risk of harm. As law professor Sherry Young has pointed out, the notion that mostly male administrators should ignore adult women’s own perceptions and preferences about their lives and sexuality infantilizes them. She points out that such protective rules resemble paternalistic measures like curfew restrictions and restrictions on overnight visitation that were abandoned years ago.

The administrators and feminists who seek to prohibit faculty-student relationships have a pinched and demeaning worldview. Their arguments against the adult model are unsupported by evidence, rely on false and irrelevant theories of power and sexuality, and infantilize students. As such, their arguments should be ignored and they should lose credibility.

The Moral Status of Hazing

2010-04-14T09:31:00.000-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
Hazing: Naked in Ice Water
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
April 12, 2010

Hazing occurs when one person humiliates or imposes risky conditions on a second in return for some group-related benefit. The benefit might involve inclusion or promotion in the group. There is a widespread attempt to stop hazing, although the arguments for doing so are not too convincing.

At www.hazing.cornell.edu, Cornell University provides some examples of hazing. Cornell doesn’t specify which hazing acts were done by fraternities, sororities, sports teams, or military teams (ROTC groups). In one case, new members were made to do calisthenics to the point of collapse. In a second case, other new members (my guess, sorority sisters) were pressured to make out with members of the same sex. In a third case, new members were put under bright lights and interrogated. When they answered incorrectly, ketchup and mustard were thrown on them. In a fourth case, new members were made to lie down naked in a makeshift pool filled with six inches of ice water, beer, kitchen garbage, and urine.

Hazing is illegal in all but six states. In New York, depending on how it is done, hazing is a misdemeanor (Class A allows for up to a year incarceration) or violation (up to 15 days incarceration). It is also prohibited by many colleges and universities, including Cornell. Even the military prohibits hazing and classifies it as a criminal offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Despite this criminalization and other prohibitions, hazing is surprisingly common. One 2008 study by University of Maine professors Elizabeth Allan and Mary Madden found that 55% of college students (and 61% of males) involved in clubs, teams, and organizations experienced hazing. In fact, 47% experienced it before coming to college. This number goes up to 70% for those involved in a varsity team or who joined a fraternity or sorority. The most frequent types of hazing involve participating in drinking (drinking games or binge drinking), singing or chanting, and associating with specific people. The first two were the most common for varsity teams, fraternities, and sororities.

There are two main arguments for hazing. First, some defenders of hazing argue that it doesn’t wrong new members because they gave informed consent. The notion that you can’t be wronged by treatment to which you consented is widely accepted and used to explain why sex, wrestling, and surgery are not objectionable.

The second argument is that hazing is permissible because it is the best way to bring about desirable results. Proponents argue that hazing ensures that members are committed to their organization and each other, encourages bonding, and fosters a sense of exclusivity. Together these changes strengthen friendships and a sense of identification and pride in the group. Consider, for example, the commitment to each other, sense of brotherhood, and pride in their group found in Navy Seals, Green Berets, and Marines. This is likely due in no small part to the hellish training they go through.

Allan and Madden’s study provide some support for this beneficial-results view. They found that more student perceive positive than negative outcomes of hazing. In addition, a significant number (31%) said it made them feel more like a part of the group.

One objection to hazing, and probably the one that underlies criminalization and campus prohibitions, is that it causes unnecessary harm or involves coercion. The notion that it causes unnecessary harm depends on the claim that the benefits of hazing (commitment, bonding, and exclusivity) could be had in other ways. This is an empirical claim. I am not aware of any studies that support it. Perhaps there are some.

The notion that hazing usually involves coercion is a mistake. New members can avoid it simply by leaving the group. Some hazing is undoubtedly too dangerous, but from this it does not follow that all hazing is wrong.

A second objection is that hazing is degrading. Philosopher Michael Cholboi argues that a practice is degrading when its main goal is to subordinate another by getting him to accept his subordinate status. On this account, getting people to do lie in urinate-infused ice water or make out with members of the same sex (when not gay or bisexual) degrades them in this way. This might be seen as analogous to the degradation that accompanies being the submissive partner in bondage-and-domination sexuality.

The problem with Cholboi’s objection is that it is not clear that hazing does this. If enduring rough treatment is the means by which a group brings about commitment, bonding, and exclusivity, then it is not clear that hazing is, or should be seen as, subordinating. The data suggesting that students who have gone through hazing are more likely to view it positively than negatively and the data suggesting that nearly a third view it as more strongly bonding them to the group, suggests that many of those who are hazed don’t see it as degrading.

A third objection is that hazing exploits people’s desire to join fraternities, varsity teams, military units, and so on. Exploitation occurs when a person or group uses the desperation of a weaker person to make an unfair deal with the latter. The problem is that however much people want to join a fraternity, team, or military unit, they are not desperate in the relevant way (having only one reasonable option). For example, they are not similar to a starving woman who must trade sex for food. Even if new members are desperate, it is not clear that hazing is an unfair price to pay for the friendships, pride, and fun that accompanies membership in fraternities, elite military units, or varsity teams.

Despite the long history of hazing, prosecutors, military leaders, and campus administrators are trying to get rid of it. The arguments for doing so are unconvincing.

Ob

2010-03-31T11:53:00.000-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
The Breaking Point
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 28, 2010

The U.S. is rapidly approaching a breaking point when it will have to do one of three: lose a significant amount of wealth, cut government benefits or workers, or eliminate its foreign empire. It is not even clear that the third option is enough to eliminate the bloodletting. One thing is for sure, the solution will be painful.

The U.S. has spent itself into a hole. The government at all three levels (federal, state, and local) now spends more than 40 cents of every dollar produced in this country. According to www.usgovernmentspending.com, total spending is at a postwar high of 43% of the economy (gross domestic product) in 2009. The Heritage Foundation analyses show just how much spending is out of control. In 2008, the government at all levels spent $41,219 per household. This crazy level occurred because federal spending grew nearly seven times faster than people’s average (median) income from 1970-2008. In recent years, the problem has continued. Between 2002 and 2008, the federal government increased spending by roughly 7% per year (2 ½ times the inflation rate). Has your income increased at this clip?

This spending explosion has not been matched by an increase in revenue. The federal deficit was roughly 9.9% of the GDP in 2009 ($1.4 trillion) and is estimated to be 10.6% in 2010. The debt (sum of past and present deficits) is now enormous. The total federal debt was 86% of GDP in 2009 and is estimated to be 98% in 2010. Government projections show gargantuan deficits continuing into the next few years. To see the problem, consider what you would tell someone who makes $100,000 a year, owes $100,000, and plans to continue borrowing money to support his profligate lifestyle. Because 44% of the debt is owed to people and institutions in foreign countries, the debtors can’t easily be stiffed without a sharp increase in interest rates or painful cutoff of credit. The interest on the debt is 8% of the budget (2008 figure). As a result, the debt will feed on itself.

Given that the middle class and rich already pay so much of the revenue, this problem cannot be avoided by further soaking the rich. Already the top 50% of income earners pay 97% of the income-tax revenue (2007 National Taxpayers Foundation figure). That is, the bottom half of earners pay next to nothing (less than 3%) of income-tax revenue. Because the income taxes, corporate taxes, and estate and gift taxes constitute 59% of federal revenue, the upper classes already carry too much of the government weight.

Here’s the rub. To cut the spending, a powerful constituency or the U.S. foreign empire will have to take a hit. First, consider entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid). They constitute 66% of federal spending. Medicare (Hospital Insurance program) and Social Security will be in the red by 2011, if they are not already. Any attempt to cut Social Security and Medicare (or Medicare patients in Obamacare) will run into a political buzz saw as the numerous and well organized older voters clamor to get what they were promised.

Second, consider government workers. According to a Cato Institute scholar Chris Edwards, government workers are well paid relative to private workers. Specifically, they make 34% more in wages and 70% more in benefits. This gaps shrinks but does not go away once you control for skills. They also have more secure jobs. Private workers are three times more likely to be discharged than government ones. Politically, government workers are a potent army. They are five times more likely to be unionized and constitute over half of total union membership. Their power can be seen in that even with anger at government at a fevered pitch, no national figure is calling for deep cuts to their ranks. It can also be seen in that fixing even the most obvious problem, incarceration (the U.S. has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its prisoners), runs into strong union opposition.

Third, consider the U.S. foreign empire. Consider work done by columnist Pat Buchanan citing research by Arthur Vance and Chalmers Johnson. The U.S spends more on defense than the next 10 nations combined and has more firepower than the next 13 navies combined. U.S. troops are stationed in 148 countries and 11 territories, including 100,000 in Iraq, 100,000 in or headed to Afghanistan, 50,000 in Germany, 35,000 in Japan, and 28,000 in Korea. When the budgets for the Pentagon, two wars, foreign aid, intelligence agencies, contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and new embassies are added up, it is roughly $1 trillion per year. Even if we were to cut all of this spending to $0, this would still not balance the budget. And even a 50% cut would produce overwhelming opposition from the wealthy and powerful defense lobby.

Because of the hole the U.S. is in and because government spending is backed by some of the most powerful constituencies, the U.S. is unlikely to climb out of the financial hole by cutting spending. Nor can it tax its way out of the hole. But debts must sooner or later be paid. With total government spending at record levels and the rich and middle class already shouldering a heavy load, it simply is not possible to transfer more money from the private sector without keeping the economy in the doldrums, if not tanking it, and making us poorer. As it is, the increasing transfer of resources from the more efficient private sector to the less efficient government acts as a brake on economic progress.

Economic growth is further threatened by the specter of inflation. In recent years, the Federal Reserve has exploded the money supply. In the waning years of the Bush administration, it shot up the monetary base (a key part of the money supply) up by more than 100%. Such an increase has not been seen in 50 years. The coming inflation will not only make us poorer, but will also produce uncertainty that that businesses hate, thereby slowing business growth.

Something has to break. U.S. citizens will have to choose between a significant loss of wealth, serious cuts to entitlements or government workers, or losing their empire. Even the loss of the empire is probably not enough by itself. A breaking point is coming and someone is going to get pounded.

New York Politics: Corruption

2010-03-17T10:59:00.000-04:00

Stephen Kershnar
New York Politicians: Pretty Damn Funny
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 15, 2010

New York politicians are so sleazy and incompetent that they are fun to watch. Sure, like their Washington counterparts, they’re running things into the ground, but this is a small price to pay for the entertainment.

Consider first the executive branch. Former governor and pompous crusader Eliot Spitzer (D) resigned after being caught with a smoking hot prostitute. When he was the New York State Attorney General, he aggressively pursued those in the prostitution business. He should have been thrown out of work when his office used the police in a plan to spy on and smear Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R) when Bruno travelled around the state with police escorts. When Spitzer stepped down in 2008, he was replaced by then Lieutenant Governor David Paterson (D). Paterson quickly admitted to adultery and drug use and the media gave him a clean bill of health. Apparently, prostitution-adultery is worse than either police spying or adultery and drug use. Albany is a wise place.

Ben Adler of Newsweek points out that the man the Spitzer administration was using the police to spy on was later convicted in 2009 on felony charges for corruption relating to $3.2 million in consulting fees he received while serving as Senate Majority Leader. My favorite part of his case was the $80,000 he received from a businessman in return for a worthless horse (see New York Daily News). One can see how Bruno might have gotten carried away. An article in www.wikipedia.com asserts that there is at least one building named for Bruno in each of the fourteen towns and two cities that comprise Rensselaer County, New York. Plus, there is a minor league baseball stadium, “Joseph L. Bruno Stadium,” in Troy, New York named after him.

Last month Paterson decided not to run for re-election because of allegations that he was involved in witness tampering and violating gift-rules. Paterson supposedly got New York State Police and staffers to try and talk staffer David W. Johnson’s girlfriend into dropping a domestic-abuse case. Paterson also allegedly lied under oath about soliciting free tickets from the Yankees for World Series games. One can just imagine Spitzer complaining bitterly that high-priced prostitution is much classier than Paterson’s low-rent activities.

In the State Senate that Joseph Bruno previously ran, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) is currently investigating State Senator Pedro Espada (D) for allegedly violating state election, labor, and nonprofit laws. Fellow State Senator Hiram Monserrate (D) was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend and the Senate expelled him. A former NYPD officer, he allegedly slashed his girlfriend’s face with a broken drinking glass during an argument. In 2009, these politicians left the Democratic Party and formed a coalition with the Republicans. Both later returned to the Democrats. Democrats like characters. Adler asserts that the Democrats bought Espada with the Senate Majority Leader position. Monserrate is currently running for his seat again.

Just in case you’re wondering, this is the very same Cuomo who played a major role in the housing crisis that tanked the economy. He spurred Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite more subprime mortgages and lower underwriting standards. Obviously with a foul-up so massive, he will be an excellent choice for governor. Having previously been married to Robert Kennedy’s daughter, he combines the Kennedy family’s judgment and the Cuomo family’s competence.

Even the state watchers have to be watched. New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi (D) resigned in 2006. He did so as part of a plea bargain in which he was found guilty of defrauding the government for his personal use of state employees to help his wife. Given that, as Adler points out, New York City provided a police driver and security escort to Mayor Giuliani’s mistress, Judith Nathan, Hevesi could plausibly claim that everybody was doing it. Adler reports that Cuomo is currently investigating Hevesi for allegations that state pension fund gave contracts to Hesevi’s aides and political allies. My favorite Hevesi corruption allegation was that his aides gave $800,000 to Raymond Harding (Harding pled guilty for taking the money) in return for Harding not running for re-election so Hevesi’s son could win an Assembly seat. He did.

Speaking of Giuliani, his police commissioner, Bernie Kerik (R), was sentenced in 2010 to four years for assorted felonies. This differed from his 2006 conviction for, among other things, accepting a gift from a construction firm trying to do business with the city. Mayor Giuliani (R) recommended Kerik to the Bush Administration to head the Department of Homeland Security.

When it comes to corruption, though, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) is king. This month he stepped down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee for taking corporate-sponsored junkets. The New York Post points out that this scandal is not to be confused with the ones surrounding his failure to pay taxes on a Caribbean villa, his failure to disclose more than $500,000 in credit union assets, the sweetheart deal involving four rent-stabilized Harlem apartments, and his use of Congressional office to raise money for a center modestly named after him. He’s still way behind Bruno. Because the four apartments were rent controlled, he paid at least $30,000 less per year than their market value. As a side note, the House has a $100 per year limit on gifts. The New York Times reports that the apartments’ owners also gave to Rangel’s campaigns. He also used one apartment as a campaign office despite the fact that the law disallows it. Rangel was able to afford the villa and other goodies despite working for the government since 1967. While Rangel got all these goodies, Paterson only got Yankee tickets. Unfair.

Funnier than Rangel is the recent resignation of Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY). According to Brian Palmer in www.slate.com, Massa admitted that he groped a male staffer and “tickled him until he couldn’t breathe.” That’s some serious tickling. He obviously is an excellent tickler.

Through sheer hard work, New York has become more corrupt than its two closest competitors: New Jersey and Illinois. As Jonathan Alter pointed out, Illinois managed to have three governors in prison and a fourth, Rod Blagojevich, has been indicted for trying to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Impressive, but New York is more diverse and creative.

While these buffoons take bribes, tank the economy, and tickle away, New York faces a deficit that might be as high as $9 billion dollars. According to the Tax Foundation, as of 2009, it has the second highest state and local tax burden, the second worst business climate, the highest cigarette and gas taxes, and the fifth highest per capita property tax collections (the last is a 2006 figure, the latest available). Its financial mess is no fluke. It shot spending up by 41% over the last decade. With the recession in full force, the overall state budget increased by 8.7% last year and Paterson proposes to increase it again this year (0.6%). The New York Times reports that New York spends more on education per capita than any other state. The same is likely true for per capita spending on Medicaid (it was the highest in 2006 according to The Public Policy Institute). It is an interesting question whether the corruption causes the mismanagement, mismanagement causes the corruption, or some other relation holds.

Holocaust: Guns & Jews

2010-03-02T17:04:00.001-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
Guns, Jews, and the Holocaust
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 2, 2010

On April 12, 2010, many Jews around the world will celebrate Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah). Among the purposes of the holiday is to understand why the Holocaust happened and what can be done to avoid such slaughter in the future. The Holocaust has a central feature in the Jewish life. It played a large role in the creation of Israel and occupies a central space in the Jewish psyche.

The Nazi horrors are well known. The standard figure is that the Nazis killed roughly 6 million Jews. At death camps like Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Belzec, the murder ran with clocklike precision. The prisoners were efficiently unloaded from trains. The majority’s clothes and other possessions were promptly taken and, in some camps, they were told that they were to take showers or be deloused. According to Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolph Hoss and others, the camps differed in the degree to which they fooled the Jews about what was happening. The Jews were then herded into airtight rooms into which was dumped a poison gas (for example, cyanide-poison Zyklon B). It took up to 20 minutes to die (one estimate was that about a third died immediately), depending on how close an individual was to the gas vent. Jewish prisoners then removed the bodies, took out their gold fillings and cut the women’s hair, and burned them in crematoria. The prisoners hoped that doing this dirty work made them useful and would thereby extend their lives. Burning hundreds of thousands of human bodies produced a foul and nauseating stench that permeated the surrounding towns. Hoss and others claimed that the surrounding communities knew exactly what was going on. Jews were not the only ones on the Nazi to-do list. They also slaughtered millions of Poles and Russians and hundreds of thousands of gays and Gypsies.

Holocaust-level slaughter is not unique. University of Hawaii Professor R. J. Rummel points out that in the 20th Century governments killed roughly 169 million people via mass murder and genocide. This is almost four times more than were killed during this time from international and civil wars and many more than were killed by criminals. Rummel’s ranking of murderous leaders in terms of the number of lives snuffed out is as follows: Joseph Stalin (USSR), Mao Tse-tung (China), Adolf Hitler (Germany), Chiang Kai-shek (China), Vladimir Illich Lenin (USSR), Tojo Hideki (Japan), and Pol Pot (Cambodia). Having two of the top four slaughterers, the Chinese were 30% of the slaughter victims and the current Chinese government is the one created by Mao’s revolution. The Cambodian slaughter was especially bloodthirsty because the communist Khmer Rouge probably slaughtered over 2 million people despite having a population of only about 7 million. The government killed roughly 8% of its population per year in power.

It’s not clear that the current U.S. government and stable European and Asian democracies pose much of a threat of mass murder and genocide. Nevertheless if the concern is to make sure that genocide never again happens, it is worth considering what these murderous regimes had in common. These countries all had socialist ideologies, an absence of democracy, and gun control. All but Hitler’s Germany and Tojo’s Japan were communist countries. Germany and Japan were socialist governments in the sense that the governments exercised a large degree of control over the country’s economy. With the possible exception of Germany, none of these governments arose from a democratic vote and none were democratic when they murdered civilians.

Aaron Zelman and Richard Stevens, authors of “Death by gun Control,” argue that all of these governments had gun-control laws in effect. This included registration and license requirements, bans on private ownership, government list of gun owners, and severe penalties for gun-law violations. For example, Germany under Hitler banned private gun ownership. Zelman and Stevens argue that that slaughter would accompany anti-gun laws is unsurprising. It’s much easier to round up and slaughter unarmed and defenseless people.

In the U.S., Jews have a strong tendency to vote for politicians who support centralizing economic power and imposing gun controls and prohibitions. For example, 77% of Jews voted for Obama. This voting pattern is not unusual. Roughly the same percentage voted for Kerry, Gore, and Clinton. The most high profile Jewish politicians are all on the far left. Examples include Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and big-government independents Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT). These senators enthusiastically supported the government takeover of car and banking companies, increasing government control of medicine, and judges who deny that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to own guns. For example, Jewish Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) that Americans do not have an individual right to own guns. Surprisingly, older Jews (55 and over) appear to have been more likely to support Obama than younger ones (35 and under).

After blacks, Jews are the most liberal ethnic or racial group. They are even more liberal than union members and some academic departments. Leftist Jews might argue that the degree to which they support socializing the American economy is not remotely close to that found in the murderous regimes and that the sort of gun control they support will do little to disarm the American populace. In 2000, the FBI estimated that in the U.S., 60 million people own guns and they own over 200 million of them. Alternatively, they might argue that the risk of genocide in the U.S. is so negligible that other values (for example, social justice) are more important. These arguments are not implausible. If so, then the Jewish voting pattern is consistent with their continuing focus on the Holocaust and celebration of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Genocide continues. In 1994 in Rwanda, roughly 11% of the country’s population (800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates) were killed, many with machetes. In Sudan, more slaughter. The Bashir government disarmed non-Arab groups in 1989. The Sudanese military and the Janjaweed, a Sudanese Arab militia group, have slaughtered large numbers of black Africans in Sudan, particularly in Darfur, where an estimated 400,000 have been slaughtered. Sure enough, the general pattern repeats itself. According to the Cato Institute’s Dave Kopel, in Sudan the totalitarian government made it virtually impossible for private citizens, specifically black Africans, to buy or own guns. Given this and other disasters that are sure to come, the failure of the international community, particularly the United Nations, to push for gun ownership has made populations increasingly vulnerable to such attacks. Perhaps if the international community, and those who love liberty, were to revisit the anti-gun policies that hamstring vulnerable populations, the chance of mass murder will be reduced.

Academia: Leftist Dominance

2010-02-17T10:11:00.001-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
Professors: Liberals at Work
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
February 15, 2009

Professors are predominantly left-wing. There are roughly 1.2 million college or university instructors. As a group they are very liberal and this pattern increases with more elite colleges and universities. A 2004-2005 study of six social science and humanities fields by economist Daniel Klein and sociologist Charlotta Stern found that the ratio of Democrats to Republicans ranged from between 7:1 and 9:1. This is relevant because these are the ones most likely to be discussing politics and religion. A 1999 study by professor Stanley Rothman and others found that among faculty in all fields, the ratio was almost 5:1. This likely underestimates the lopsidedness because this same study indicated that 72% were left of center. In contrast, a 2007 Gallup poll found that among voting-age Americans the ratio was roughly 1:1 (specifically, 31% Democrat and 28% Republican). In the 2004 elections, George W. Bush won 51% of the popular vote, but only 20% of the professors’ votes.

This raises concerns because various scholars (for example, political science Professor Benjamin Highton) have found that individuals tend to form and stabilize their political views in late adolescence and young adulthood. This overlaps with their exposure to the leftist professorate and suggests that the faculty might be reshaping young people into leftists.

Conservative and religious students’ attitudes reflect the overwhelming bias. A 2009 study by Professors Matthew Woessner and April Kelly-Woessner found that conservative students were only one-half as likely to aspire to get a doctorate as liberal ones. Similarly, a series of interviews done in 2009 study by Sociologist Amy Binder found that conservative students at a major university neither regarded faculty highly nor sought to emulate them. A 2006 study by Professors Neil Gross and Catherine Cheng found that students who were conservative, Republican, or evangelical had less confidence in higher education and viewed professors as having less prestige than did other students. A 2010 article by sociologists Ethan Fosse and Neil Gross theorized that very religious students tend to avoid academia because of its reputation for secularism.

Why are professors so concentrated on the left? One explanation put forth by Klein, Stern, Rothman and others is that the liberal professors discriminate against conservatives and religious folk. There are a lot of anecdotes in support of this claim. Anyone who’s experienced the outrage with which the faculty respond to attempts to eliminate affirmative action or who’ve seen the faculty give wild applause to Hillary Clinton’s senatorial campaign have a sense of it. However, it should be remembered that the plural of anecdote is not data (sadly, not my line) and hence feelings of discrimination don’t show how often, if ever, it occurs.

A second explanation for the left’s dominance is self-selection. Fosse and Gross found that 43% of the political difference between professors and non-professors is explained by four factors: advanced educational credentials, a disparity between education and income, religious identification, and greater tolerance for controversial ideas. The religious difference is that professors are more likely to be Jewish, non-religious, or non-theologically-conservative Protestants. Gross’s analogy is that just as the perception of nursing as a woman’s career has led to many more women than men going into it, the perception of academia as liberal and secular has led to many more liberals than conservatives going into it. Fosse and Gross base their finding in part on the different aspirations of liberal and conservative students. They argue that it is unlikely that being a professor, or having professorial interests, makes professors liberal. In support of this claim, they cite a 2009 study by Gross and Cheng that 81% of liberal professors report their political views were formed well before they were professors (specifically, when growing up or in college). This explanation has some difficulties in that it does not account for more than 50% of the disparity.

There is also the possibility that third factors unrelated to discrimination or self-selection are causing some or all of the disparity. Urban location and the underrepresentation of colleges and universities in the South might contribute to it. Also, professors have lower than average rates of childbearing and are increasingly feminized (women are just under half of new faculty). These factors might also contribute to it.

The issue arises what, if anything, should be done to combat the left’s increasing political and secular dominance in academia. One solution is to just ignore it. However, to the extent that taxpayers believe in free markets, traditional families, and God and view the West’s history as exceptional, allowing state-funded professors to push and bully students away from these beliefs is distasteful. Normally, one would expect the free market to punish schools that don’t remedy their consumer-frustrating political biases in the same way that the free market punished the leftist bias in the big three networks and CNN with Fox news and Rush Limbaugh. But so much of higher education being state funded that it is largely insulated from free-market discipline.

A second solution is to have quotas or preferences for moderate and conservative professors. As in affirmative action the cost of such preferences will be a significant loss of ability. If standards are dropped for moderate and conservative professors, as professional schools do for blacks, Hispanics, and others, we can expect to see significantly reduced quality of research and teaching in many of the preferred candidates.

A third solution is to have professors disclose their political leanings. This would allow students to limit their susceptibility to the leftist professorate by choosing schools that are not too lopsided or by being prepared by family and friends for the leftist push that will occur in some classes. The problem with this solution is that it requires disclosure by professors of matters that, at least for state employees, are private. It also is far too easy to game the system by encouraging large numbers of leftist professors to identify themselves as moderate or conservative.

A fourth solution is to get professors who have to discuss political and religious topics to provide balanced coverage of the different sides and to have other professors (for example, hard sciences and English) stay out of these areas. The problem with this solution is that the goal of balanced coverage is unreasonable. What counts as equal coverage of intellectually respectable positions depends on what theories are respectable and how respectable they are. For example, in discussing affirmative action, no one thinks that Aryan-supremacy theories should get the same depth of coverage as theories that emphasize equal opportunity and merit. Even if theory respectability is objective, it is unlikely that they can be identified independent of a professor’s political and religious views. This just reintroduces the problem of leftist bias.

The first response is probably the best, because concerns about merit, rights, and unreasonable goals sink the next three. However, I am not confident with this conclusion. In any case, students and families should recognize the danger here. Forewarned is forearmed.

Recreational Sex and Respect for Others

2010-01-20T16:04:00.001-05:00

Dale Tuggy
ON THE MORALITY OF “HOOK UPS”
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
January 20, 2010

My colleague Dr. Kershnar argues that there’s nothing morally wrong with “recreational sex”, by which he means sex “outside of marriage or a committed loving relationship.” (“The Tiger Woods Factor”, January 13.)

In the context of an intimate friendship, sex is not simply scratching an itch. It’s a social, reciprocal act, of mutual giving, vulnerability, the smoothing over of relational tensions, even self-sacrifice. It is, in biblical terms, two people becoming “one flesh”, as if they were one organic living unit, not two. Such a lovers act with a view towards the physical, emotional, and spiritual benefit of each other.

Kershnar argues that actions are morally wrong only if they cause great harm, violate someone’s rights, or exploit someone. This principle is false, and betrays a stunted, legalistic approach to morality. For example, it is wrong to curse out one’s own mother simply to let off steam, yet this arguably doesn’t cause great harm, violate anyone’s rights, or involve exploitation.

But suppose his principle is correct. Still, recreational sex often leads to great harms, such as the spreading of STDs, abortions, or women bearing the heavy burden of solo parenthood and children growing up fatherless. Again, rights violations are common, as when one or both are married to someone else. As to exploitation, in casual sex by definition both participants are using each other, as the great philosopher Immanuel Kant says, “merely as a means” to the end of pleasure. That is, each one uses the other in the way that one uses a tool, without regard for their good.

It may be harmless rutting to you, but to your co-rutter, what you’re now doing may be something which, after settling down into marriage, he or she will permanently regret. Sex is odd this way; our sexual activities are deeply imprinted in our memories, and shape all our future sexual thinking and acting. Further, sex is strongly habit-forming. A habit of casual sex, then, gives rise to an appetite for casual sex, and for sex with a variety of partners. And these things wreak havoc on our ability to get and permanently stay in a marriage, or in any relationship much resembling a marriage.

Why can’t we just sexually behave like bonobos, alley cats, or hippies circa 1968? It seems incompatible with human nature; sexual intimacy has a unique value, and we only want to “spend” it where it counts – that is, in the context of an exclusive and lasting intimate friendship. When humans are sexually intimate, they are “bonded” in a unique way – each has “known” the other in a way that most of their acquaintances never will. This is why after a casual “hook up”, both parties feel embarrassment. (“What was your name, again?”) When the lust has diminished, that bonding just seems out of place, given the lack of relationship. All in all, Kershnar’s claim that recreational sex is a mere matter of taste, like love of opera, is juvenile.

My purpose in this debate isn’t to shame those who’ve engaged in recreational sex. Nor am I interested in outlawing promiscuity. My aim is only to persuade you that this sort of activity is unfitting – even when it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights or cause great harm. If you believe in God, of course, it’s plausible that God would not want us to treat each other as mere masturbatory tools. Hence, belief in God tends to strengthen one’s aversion to recreational sex. But I emphasize that all ethically sensitive people, believers or not, find this practice to be unfitting. In our sober moments, locker-room bragging aside, we pity those whose sex lives consist primarily of casual “hook ups”.

Speaking of God, let me address believers. The over-arching purpose for the human race, according to Judaism and Christianity, is that there should be a vast and diverse community of people each of whom loves God and loves her neighbor as herself. Recreational sex is unnatural because it is incompatible with a lifestyle of loving one’s neighbor. Loving someone is defined as acting so as to promote their overall well-being. In casual sex, one doesn’t necessarily mean one’s sexual partner ill. Rather, one just doesn’t care what is good for him or her, beyond their immediate pleasure. The other person is just a body, a mere treat to be greedily consumed. What is “unnatural” is what is not specified by the design plan of the human race, and yes, not all such activities are wrong (e.g. balancing a spoon on the end of one’s nose). The ones that are morally wrong, on this “natural law” tradition of moral theory, are the ones which tend to prevent us from being the sort of people we were intended to be.

Casual, meaningless sex does this. Having a habit of casual sex means that you’re the sort of person who habitually ignores the well-being of others. I suggest that this sort of callousness extends beyond the sexual realm to how we treat people generally. If that’s so, this sort of condition is even more tragic than it first appears.

Recreational Sex is Morally Neutral

2010-01-13T16:04:00.001-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
EVERYBODY NEEDS A HOBBY
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
January 5, 2010

On November 25, 2009, the National Enquirer broke the news that golf great Tiger Woods had an affair. He joins a long list of celebrities who have done so. The list includes historical figures (for example, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Baines Johnson), recent political figures (for example, Bill Clinton, Elliot Spitzer, and Jesse Jackson) and other athletes (for example, Michael Jordan, Evander Holyfield, and Barry Bonds,). It is also widely reported that A-list actor Will Smith has an open marriage with Jada Pinkett Smith. Leaving aside issues surrounding adultery and open marriages, and I take no position on them, the issue arises whether recreational sex is wrong.

Recreational sex is sex that is outside of marriage or a committed loving relationship. It sometimes is part of a promiscuous stage in which a person has recreational sex with several people in a short period of time. It’s not for everyone, but that’s a matter of taste not morality. This is no different than many other activities, such as golf, eating McDonald’s fries, and sex with the obese.

An act is wrong only when it wrongs someone or causes great harm. One person wrongs a second only if he violates the second person’s right or exploits her. If a couple has recreational sex no one’s right is violated because both participants voluntarily consent. Nor does it involve exploitation. Exploitation occurs when one person uses his superior position to get another person to agree to a terrible deal. For example, if during a winter storm tow truck operators charged $1,000 per tow to desperate and freezing motorists, the operators would exploit the motorists. Nothing like that is true of recreational sex. And ordinarily recreational sex doesn’t cause great harm. In fact, I’ve been told that it’s a lot more fun than reading my columns.

Religious critics of recreational sex often say that God wants people to engage in other recreational activities (e.g., cooking and book clubs) rather than recreational sex. They often invoke the divine command theory. This theory says that some acts are morally obligatory because God commands that we do them; others are wrong because he forbids them. This is silly. If it were true, then God would have no reason for forbidding certain acts (e.g., rape and battery) rather requiring them. If God has an independent reason for forbidding such acts, then it must be because they are wrong independent of what he commands. Hence, God isn’t much help here.

Others claim that such sex wrong because it’s unnatural. This is usually followed up with the claim that sex is natural only if it’s for the purpose of reproduction in the context of marriage. Now this obviously takes away the fun away from infertile couples or couples in which the wife is already pregnant. This is absurd.

Furthermore, when we ask what makes an act natural, we shouldn’t be surprised if the opponents sweat as much as the ladies in Richard Simmons’s videos. By “natural,” they can’t mean what’s morally right since this is what’s at issue. Nor do they likely mean that natural acts are statistically common ones since deviant sex is fairly frequent and probably not on the natural-sex crowd’s list of favorites. By “natural,” they probably don’t mean under conditions in which human beings evolved since there is a good chance that human evolution took place in the context of polygamy. Opponents of recreational sex likely would reject any view that is opposed to monogamy. The opponents might think that natural acts are ones that are in line with human beings’ purpose, although they then have the daunting task of identifying what that purpose is. If you think that human beings came about via evolution, and you should, they don’t have a purpose.

It’s not even clear why unnatural activities are wrong. It’s not clear to me that doing chemistry experiments, running ultra-marathons (some are 50 or 100 miles long), or performing ballet is natural. We certainly didn’t evolve to do them, nor are they closely tied to our special purpose.

An opponent of recreational sex might claim that it’s wrong because it’s bad for the participants. He might claim that it leads to sexually transmitted diseases or makes participants less eligible for marriage and parenthood. Now it’s not obvious that acts that hinder the agent’s interest are wrong. Tailgating and watching the Bills might also make a person less eligible for marriage in so far as it makes him fat and bitter, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

Even if acts that make a person’s life go poorly are wrong, the opponent must provide data in support of the claim that recreational-sex makes lives go poorly. He might try to show that participants who use contraception and are reasonably careful in their choice of partners run a significant chance of getting a STD or not getting a desirable spouse. I doubt he has data in support of these claims. On average, more educated women have had more sex partners and tried more sexual things than their less educated sisters, yet are more likely to get college-educated husbands. This doesn’t show that recreational sex doesn’t hurt a person’s chance of getting a desirable spouse, but does show that the breezy claim to the contrary needs support.

In short, it’s a mistake to count a matter of taste as a matter of morality. Sushi, recreational sex, and opera appeal to some tastes and not others. That’s all there is to it.

Healthcare Reform: Constitutionality

2009-12-30T15:22:00.000-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
The Constitutionality of Health Care Reform
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December 28, 2009

The recent health care reform proposal requires that every American buy federally regulated health insurance or pay a $750 fine. A debate has broken out over whether the proposal is constitutional. Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Jim DeMint (R-SC), and the attorney generals for seven states (Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, and Washington) have raised the issue of whether its various provisions are constitutional. In 1994, the Congressional Budget Office pointed out that this type of mandate would be the first time that the federal government required people to buy a good or service as a condition to lawfully live in the United States. As a result, it stretches the Constitution near its breaking point.

The Constitution permits the federal government to regulate or prohibit an activity only if it one of the powers listed in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution. One such power is set out in the Commerce Clause and it grants the federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce. The bill’s proponents state that this clause permits the mandate.

The Commerce Clause states that Congress has the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” The power to regulate interstate commerce was intended to prevent states from passing tariffs and other protectionist measures against products made or sold by people in other states. However, in 1942 the Supreme Court in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942) in effect rewrote this clause. The Court held that it applied to any activity that is part of a larger group of activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. In Wickard, for example, the Supreme Court looked at whether the federal government could set a quota on wheat that a farmer grew and consumed on his own property. The farmer claimed that these activities were not interstate commerce. The Roosevelt-era court held that the federal government could enforce the quota because wheat growing and consumption in general affected interstate commerce, regardless of whether the individual farmer’s wheat did so.

In a recent case, Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005), the Supreme Court considered whether the federal government could prohibit the cultivation and possession of marijuana that was authorized by California state law, used for medical purposes, and neither bought nor sold. The Supreme Court said the Commerce Clause allowed the federal government to do so because marijuana production in general substantially affects the interstate commerce in marijuana.

The issue is in part whether omitting to buy insurance is similar enough to growing and consuming wheat or marijuana. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Irvine School of Law, argues that it is. He notes that the national economy is more closely connected to healthcare coverage than to wheat or marijuana production. For example, in 2007 health care expenditures were $2.2 trillion, $7,421 per person, and 16.2% of the economy (gross domestic product). Chemerinsky argues that the reasoning in the Wickard and Gonzales was not limited to commercial activity and hence it does not matter whether the refusal to buy healthcare insurance is a commercial activity. He points out that the marijuana growing in Gonzales was done for personal medicinal use. Chemerinsky then concludes that because the people who do not buy health insurance affect interstate commerce, the Constitution permits them to be punished or otherwise sanctioned.

Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett and others argue that under this reasoning, every act or omission would fall under the Commerce Clause because every act or omission in general substantially affects interstate commerce. On this reasoning, for example, the government could punish people who don’t brush their teeth because dental expenditures in general affect interstate commerce. Barnett and company argue that in recent Tenth Amendment cases, U.S. v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995) and U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 198 (2000), the Supreme Court made it clear that the Commerce Clause does not permit federal interference in local non-economic activity. In particular, the Court held that the Commerce Clause did not provide the federal government with a general police power, which is the authority to make laws for public health and safety. Because the healthcare-insurance mandate is an exercise of a general police power, Barnett and company argue that it is unconstitutional. Barnett’s interpretation is more faithful to the Constitution’s language and the founders’ original intent.

President Obama makes a different argument than Chemerinsky, although his argument probably should also be interpreted as a Commerce Clause argument. When asked whether it was constitutional to mandate that every American buy health insurance or get punished, Obama responded that is appropriate in the same way that states may mandate that people buy auto insurance. Writing in the Washington Examiner, Ken Klukowski points out that this shows a disturbing lack of understanding of the Constitution. Auto-insurance mandates occur when states exercise their general police powers, that is, their authority to regulate for public health and safety. Because nothing in the Constitution or Supreme Court decisions grant the federal government an analogous power, Obama’s argument fails. Also, Klukowski points out, everyone is not required to buy auto insurance. They only have to do so if they exercise the privilege of driving on public roads.

Obama and the Democrats might try to avoid the Commerce Clause morass and instead argue that this is an instance of the federal power to tax. One problem with this is that dressing up a fine as a tax will not fool anyone. Even if it did, the argument would fail because of the political compromises that have gone into it. As Cato scholars Robert Levy and Michael Cannon point out, such a tax would not be an income tax and thus the mandate couldn’t rest on the Sixteenth Amendment. Nor, they argue, is it an excise tax because it is not based on the value of an insurance policy. It is instead a tax per person (capitation tax) and Article I Section 8 makes it clear that these taxes have to be uniformly applied among the states, which has been interpreted to mean in accordance with their population. The mandate exempts numerous groups (poor and low-income people, religious objectors, incarcerated people, etc.). Because they are not uniformly distributed across the states, this mandate is not uniformly applied and is therefore unconstitutional.

The two best arguments for the constitutionality of the healthcare bill rest on the Commerce Clause and the federal government’s authority to tax. The Commerce Clause issue is a morass because the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the clause has left it unclear whether it applies to all activities that affect interstate commerce or whether it is limited to economic activities that do so. The broader interpretation (all activities) runs head on into Tenth Amendment cases that deny that the federal government may regulate or prohibit local non-economic activity. The taxation argument is a loser because it masquerades a fine as a tax and because as a tax it would still lack required features. How the Supreme Court will treat this mandate is unclear, how it should treat it is clear.

Obama #4: Debt Monster

2009-12-16T12:05:00.000-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
Obama: The Debt-Accelerator
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December 15, 2009

President Barack Obama is well on his way to being a terrible President and a Jimmy-Carter-like stain on nation. It remains to be seen whether his foreign policy will be the embarrassing mess that his economic policy is. This depends on how his decisions to continue the Iraq war and intensify the Afghanistan one turn out. Right now, it’s too early to tell.

According to the BBC, the U.S. budget deficit was $1.4 trillion this year. This is 9.9% of the economy (gross domestic product or GDP). This is the largest deficit since World War II and more than three times larger than the previous deficit record, which under President Bush was $459 billion in 2008. Not only did Obama spend like a meth user (sadly, not my metaphor), but he made it clear that he’ll continue to do so. According to a 2010 Office of Management and Budget report, the deficit will be roughly a $1 trillion per year until 2015.

The debt has also spun out of control. Public debt is the amount of money that the federal government owes to those who hold U.S. debt instruments (for example, some types of bonds). It is not a true measure of debt because the federal government also generates debt by borrowing money from its own trust funds. An example is the Social-Security Trust Fund. The gross debt is the public debt plus trust-fund obligations. According to the Office of Management and Budget, when President Bush left office in 2008,the gross debt was $10.7 trillion or 75% of GDP. It is expected to rise to 100% of GDP by the time Obama finishes his first term in 2012. This is analogous to a person who makes $50,000 a year and has $50,000 in debt. Cato Institute scholar Ted DeHaven estimates that the debt in 2010 will be equal to $81,000 per U.S. household. Our competitor and potential enemy, China, owns roughly 25% of the public debt and continues to keep us afloat.

The spending that accelerated the debt has not worked. Writing for the Heritage Foundation, Jim Robinson points out that in January 2008, the U.S. economy had 4.9% unemployment. That year, he points out, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) passed and President Bush signed a $168 billion economic stimulus package and an even more massive $700 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) designed to help the financial markets. By January 2009, he notes, the U.S. economy lost 3.5 million jobs and the unemployment rate was 7.6%. Obama and Pelosi then decided that even more spending was called for. They agreed to an even larger $787 billion dollar stimulus package and other Christmas-like bailouts. By October 2009, the economy had lost another 3.6 million jobs and the unemployment rate was roughly 10%.

Consider whether this level of spending was necessary. According to data from the National Bureau of Economic Research and analyzed by economists at New Mexico State University, from 1919-1945, the average recession was 18 months. Post World War II, the average recession was about 10 months. In the past, then, the U.S. economy has climbed out of recessions without spending the government spending us into oblivion. University of Chicago economics professor Casey Mulligan argues that it is not even clear that the economy is in worse shape today than it was as recently as 1980 to 1982.

Running up this much debt for future generations is immoral except when the money is used to purchase something that is more valuable than the debt principal plus the interest rate. Most likely, Obama and company didn’t do this.

The Democrats used some of the money to buy car companies and financial institutions for far more than private buyers wanted to pay for them. They also used some of it to lavish gifts on one of their main benefactors, public employees. According to the USA Today, from December 2007 to the present, the private sector lost 6.3% of its jobs (7.3 million jobs), but the federal government sector gained 9.8% and the state and local government gained 0.2%. During this period the federal workers got hefty raises. When newly hired workers are screened out, federal workers got an 8.7% increase over this period. 19% of them now make more than $100,000. The average federal worker makes more than $30,000 more than the average private sector worker. Defenders of federal workers respond that they are more highly skilled than those who work in the private sector and that they make less than their private-sector counterparts. Still, the differences could hardly be more stark.

The Democrats also shot up federal welfare spending. Welfare spending is means-tested aid to the poor. According to the Heritage Foundation, in his first two years in office Obama will increase federal welfare spending by one-third. When adjusted for inflation, this is two and a half times greater than any previous increase in U.S. history. We now spend 4697 billion per year. If this spending were converted into cash benefits, the money spent would raise the income of all poor families above the poverty line. Needless to say, much of it never reaches the poor.

All this spending doesn’t even take into account, the latest Democratic health care plan to expand the number of people on Medicare. According to the General Accounting Office, Medicare (specifically Medicare Hospital Insurance) is already running a deficit. If you add people to a program already running a deficit, you make the deficit worse.

There is a real wild card in the mix whose effects we haven’t yet seen. Economist Arthur Laffer points out that the fed has increased the money supply (monetary base for econ nerds) at the highest level in half a century. This will cause a tremendous threat of inflation. This wild card is not Obama’s doing, but it might well exacerbate the spending-related damage.

It is hard to see how it is moral to run up the credit card and leave the debt for future generations. This is much like dumping your garbage on your neighbors’ lawns and expecting them to clean up after you. All of this makes political sense, borrowed money can be used to buy votes, but not policy sense. For those who looked at Obama and company’s past carefully, none of this came as a surprise.

When Sarah Palin came out with her new book, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” came out her opponents shrieked that she was unqualified to be President. Fairly typical of the comments were those by New York Times columnist David Brooks who said, “[s]he's a joke. I mean, I just can't take her seriously. We've got serious problems in the country. Barack Obama's trying to handle war. …” That anyone who voted for Obama could rip Palin would be funny, if it weren’t so sad.

Rape and Evolution VI: Clothing and the chance of rape

2009-12-10T10:34:00.003-05:00

Dear Colleagues:

The issue arises as to whether attire affects the frequency of rape. I take no position on the issue. I am not aware of any data that directly addresses this issue.

If there is evidence for the propositions (1) and (2), then this might be thought relevant to whether at the margin clothing might have an effect on rape, although it is probably not strong enough to justify any belief on the topic.

Here are the two propositions.
(1) Many rapists are motivated in part by sex.
(2) In some cases, being scantily clad increases sexual motivation in men.

There is some support for proposition (1) (Many rapists are motivated in part by sex).

a. Most rapists do not have a preference for rape over consensual sex. See Freund et al., “Heterosocial competence of rapists and child molesters: a meta-analysis,” The Journal of Sex Research 40 (2003): 170-178; Baxter et al., “Sexual responses to consenting and forced sex in a large sample of rapists and non-rapists,” Behavior Research and Therapy 24 (1986): 513-520.

b. There are no significant differences between the arousal patterns for male rapists and other males. W. L. Marshall and A. Eccles, “Issues in clinical practice with sex offenders,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 6 (1991).

c. Male rapists responded more strongly to consensual sex scenarios than to forced sex scenarios. Baxter, “Sexual responses to consenting and forced sex in a large sample of rapists and non-rapists,” 513-520.

d. Young sexually attractive females are raped more often than older, less sexually attractive females. See data on more frequent targeting of fertile-age women.

I don’t have any empirical support for proposition (2) other than anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data (sadly, not my line). However, this strikes me as extremely plausible. This is in part an explanation why attractive single women choose to dress in form-fitting or revealing outfits.

If there is such an effect, and this hasn’t been shown, then my guess is that it is small. One study indicated that most rapists did not remember what their victim was wearing.

Note that (1) entails that the feminist thesis (rape is about hatred or control of women and not about sex) is false. It is an interesting question whether there is any recent data that supports the feminist position.

I am not saying that being scantily clad in any way justifies or excuses rape or that in every case, or even most cases, being so dressed will affect a person’s chance to be raped. I also take no position on whether women are required or permitted to dress in any way.

I don’t see this debate about language. Rather, it is about rape. Specifically, what relation it has to evolution and sexual motives.

Thank you for your thoughtful notes,
Steve K

Obesity and Taxation

2009-12-02T16:04:00.000-05:00

Stephen Kershnar
Learn to Love the Obese
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December 1, 2009

Our society is considering a tax on fat-causing food and, perhaps, even on fat people. Daniel Engber writing in www.slate.com summarizes some of the recent movement on this issue. 80% of the states in the U.S. currently tax junk food or soda. In an interview in Men’s Health, President Obama was sympathetic to a federal soda tax. The New York Times and New England Journal of Medicine have recently called for a significant tax on soda. The former calls for a staggering $1.28 per gallon tax in New York. Other writers go further. In the New York Times, David Leonhardt writes sympathetically on the idea of discrimination against the obese. Writing in the Huffington Post, John Ridley calls for a tax on the obese.

The idea behind the soak-the-fat-people campaign is that they are imposing costs on the rest of us. According to New York Times writer Michael Pollan, the U.S. spends $147 billion to treat obesity. 30% of the increase in health-care spending over the past ten years comes from obesity and that it now amounts to roughly a tenth of all health-care spending. According to Ridley, this results in a cost of $1,250 per American household, mostly in taxes and insurance premiums. Obese people shoulder some of these costs. According to a Center for Disease Control study, in 2006 obese people spent 42% more than normal-weight people on medical costs.

Before the U.S. decides to slam fat people, it is worth noting that they already pay a significant price for their weight. Piling on taxes that are aimed directly and indirectly at them adds salt to their wounds.

Consider the economic price they pay. According to a recent paper in the Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, one study found that obese white women (64 lbs. overweight or two standard deviations) suffer a 9% decrease in wages. This is equivalent to the difference of 1.5 years or education or three years of work experience. A second study found that severely obese white women suffer a decrease in wages of 24% when compared to their normal-weight counterparts. Severely obese black women suffered a 14.6% decrease and severely obese white and black men suffered 19.6% and 3.5% respectively.

Consider the social price they pay. According to Engber, obese women are half as likely to attend college as their peers and 20% less likely to get married. Because marriage helps to eliminate poverty, this makes obese women more likely to be poor. Writing in www.slate.com, Steven Landsburg points out that ugly women tend to attract husbands who have less educational achievement and earnings potential than do other women. If ugliness correlates with obesity, and this is not clear, then even when they do get married their choices are worse. Epidemiologist Peter Muennig reports that obese persons report being badly stigmatized. He reports that when one group of formerly obese persons was asked to choose between blindness and obesity, 89% chose blindness. He notes discrimination against them is rampant. There is evidence that parents discriminate against their obese children, doctors against their obese patients, and husbands against their obese wives.

Consider the health price they pay. Engber, citing Muennig, points out the obese are up to twice as likely to die as a normal-weight person. Also, obese women are seven times more likely to suffer significant illness or death and are especially vulnerable to clinical depression.

As a society, the U.S. not only has laws banning discrimination against minorities and women, but also has laws favoring them. Affirmative action laws often result in their being given preferential treatment even when they are less qualified than their competitors. In contrast to women and minorities, fat people get little protection. Only a few cities (for example, San Francisco and Santa Cruz, CA, and Washington, D.C.) and only one state (Michigan) prohibit weight-discrimination. The American Disabilities Act doesn’t protect them because being obese is rarely a disability from a physiological cause.

One response is that being obese is a choice and that being a minority or woman is not. The problem is that genetics plays a significant role in determining someone’s weight. One study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that weight (specifically, body-mass index) is 77% heritable. This is a little misleading, however, because this measures weight relative to same-generation peers and thus includes some environmental factors. Still, it does indicate that weight is significantly heritable and the magnitude of this effect lessens the degree to which someone’s weight is under his control.

A second response is that obese people are discriminated against because consumers, daters, and spouse-seekers prefer thinner people and society should not try to counteract the preferences of a free people. There is evidence for the former claim. Economist Steven Landsburg points out that beautiful people are more likely to be found in occupations where consumer preference plays a larger role, specifically, retail sales, waitressing, etc. However, the same might be true with regard to consumers and race or gender and if consumer preference does not warrant discrimination against women and minorities than neither does it do so for fat people.

What’s more, Engber and epidemiologist Muennig argue that anti-obesity campaigns increase anti-fat bias and that this bias exacerbates the health and discrimination problems obese people face. If this is correct, then the various taxes and insurance and employment penalties will cause fat people increased discrimination, isolation, illness, and death.

On the other hand, subsidizing something produces more of it, taxing it less. If the U.S. subsidizes food production (see the many agricultural subsidies) or prevents employers and insurers from shifting the costs of fat people onto them, then it subsidizes obesity. This will produce more obesity and spread its costs.

The obese already shoulder significant burdens. Piling on seems mean-spirited. On the other hand, failing to tax them in conjunction with other policies (for example, agricultural subsidies) threatens to subsidize obesity, thereby increasing the problem. Balancing these costs and benefits is a Herculean task. A free society doesn’t concern itself with whom employers hire, what people pay for insurance, and what attitudes people have toward their neighbors. However, because we are well on our way to socialized medicine (nearly half of health spending is done by the government) and have become a country of busybodies, the Herculean task is exactly what we’ll need to do.

Rape and Evolution V: Another response to faculty and staff

2009-12-02T16:02:00.001-05:00

Colleagues:

Thank you for your notes. I said the previous note was my last. I lied.

I thought I’d defend this sentence.

“Whether the most effective way to stop men from acting out on these desires is to strengthen criminal penalties, educational programs that focus on making men aware of these desires and the need to control them, discouraging women from dressing in provocative ways, or other means is in part an empirical question and not one that can be answered by common sense.”

First, what this sentence says and was meant to say is that the best way to discover which ways of combating rape are most effective, or effective at all, is by empirical investigation not by common sense. From this sentence, it does not follow that changing people’s attire affects the frequency of rape. I take no position on this issue. Because I think empirical investigation is the best way to discover the best teaching methods, traffic rules, baseball strategies, and lots of other things, I didn’t think the sentence was controversial. After I wrote it, I thought that one of my philosophy department colleagues might respond by busting my chops for making such a minimal claim.

This just repeats the very helpful comments of my colleague, Leonard Jacuzzo.

Second, even if something were an effective means to prevent rape from happening, it does not follow that it is morally required or permitted. For example, it might be that one way to reduce murder and rape is to increase the frequency of abortion. It does not follow from this claim, and this claim alone, that abortion is morally required or permitted. Here I take no position on the moral or legal status of abortion or whether abortion reduces violent crime.

Third, even if an act were an effective means to prevent a result, it does not follow that a person who omits to do it is blameworthy for the result. Here it is helpful to distinguish who is to blame for a result and what is a prudentially wise thing to do. An act might be prudentially unwise without making the agent responsible for the result. To see the distinction, imagine that a professor, Jones, runs in the middle of the night in downtown Detroit. His colleagues tell him that this is not safe. He responds that if bad guys beat him up, then they are to blame for his injuries. His colleagues would likely agree with him and still tell him that it is not a wise decision to go running in the middle of the night in Detroit. I take no position on whether changing one’s attire is prudentially wise.

In summary, the sentence does not entail that (1) attire affects the frequency of rape, (2) modest attire is morally required or permitted, or (3) victims are in any way to blame for an attack.

Thanks and I hope your semester is finishing well,
Steve K

Rape and Evolution IV: A response to a different history professor

2009-11-30T11:32:00.001-05:00

Thank you for your thoughtful note.

Here is the Thornhill and Palmer assertion. “The most convincing study of pregnancy and rape in peacetime settings (Holmes et al., 1996) involved a three-year longitudinal study of a representative sample of several thousand American women. Among victims of reproductive age (12-45), the rape-related pregnancy rate was 5% per rape, or 6 percent per victim. … [T]he figures reported by Holmes et al. probably should be corrected to about 2 percent. At this time it is not known whether false rape allegations influence this percentage.”

Thornhill and Palmer (2000), 100 citing M.H. Holmes et al., “Rape-related pregnancy: Estimates and descriptive characteristics from a national sample of women, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 175 (1996): 320-325. Note Holmes et al. (1996) apparently state that the probability of conception following rape is 5.3% for women 12-17 and 4.7% for those ages 18-45.

You asked about the conception rates for consensual sex. It is 3.1%. A. J. Wilcox et al., “Likelihood of conception with a single act of intercourse: providing benchmark rapes for assessment of post-coital contraceptives,” Contraception 63 (2001): 211-215 cited in Fessler. Note that age differences make the comparison to rape-related frequency tricky.

You asked about the comparative rate of conception. “Moreover, analysis of conception rates reveals that the probability of conception following rape does not differ from that following consensual coitus.” Daniel Fessler, “Rape is not less frequent during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle,” Sexualities, Evolution, & Gender 5.3 (2003): 127-147.

Note that the percentages need not be that high for natural selection to operate. “Natural selection can operate effectively with small reproductive advantages, as little as 1 percent.” Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate (2002): 368.

You ask where Thornhill and Palmer (2000) got their data. They went to the Holmes et al. 1996 study. Where did Holmes et al. go to get their data? I don’t know the answer to this. I am assuming that the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology is a peer-reviewed journal that would have been sensitive to this issue, but this is just an assumption.

You point out that conception is not the same as the production of offspring who will themselves reproduce. This is correct, but all the conception-data was used is to show that there is evidence that some of the known effects of rape are consistent with evolutionary theory. Compare this to predictions made by the feminist theory (rape-is-not-about-sex) and the anti-evolution theory (rape is not an evolution-based adaptation or effect of such an adaptation or adaptations). Is there any evidence for these theories?

I’m curious as to whether you found Johnston-Robledo and McVicker’s arguments #1 through #7 (my numbering) to be weak.

1. If so, I’m not sure why a curiosity about one piece of data would have led you to sign a letter containing such arguments.

2. If not, I’m wondering why neither you nor anyone else has presented a plausible defense of any of these arguments.

Thanks again for the note. I hope your semester is finishing well,
Steve K

Evolution and Rape III: Responding to a history professor

2009-11-29T17:54:00.002-05:00

Here is my response that appeared in proftalk to an attempt by a history professor at Fredonia to defend the Johnston-Robledo and McVicker letter that she signed. Proftalk is a campus discussion forum for faculty and staff.

PART ONE: UNSOUND ARGUMENT

Thank you for your thoughtful note. Here is Johnston-Robledo and McVicker’s argument.

“To argue that rape is a reproductive strategy or that it is motivated by reproduction continues the illogic of the column. … Further, social science research has not determined that men have a reproductive motivation for rape despite Kershnar's reliance on limited evidence to suggest that they do. When men indicate that they are motivated to rape by sexual desire, this response does not mean that they are motivated by reproduction as opposed to power and control.”

Here is a restatement of their argument.

(P1) If rape is connected to evolution, then rapists are motivated by reproduction.
(P2) It is false that (in general) rapists are motivated by reproduction.
(C1) Hence, rape is not connected to evolution. [(P1), (P2)]

My objection was that premise (P1) is false and rests on a misunderstanding of how evolution works. I’m not sure I see how your points rehabilitate (P1). More generally, I don’t see why anyone would think that this argument is convincing.

PART TWO: RAPE AND EVOLUTION

You assert that the following statements are true.

1. Rape [often] results from a desire to control others.

2. The desire to control others is the product of evolution.

We thus agree that the evolutionary theory of rape is likely true. Note that even if the control theory (proposition 1) is true, this does not show that other specific theories (e.g., rape-is-about-sex theory) are false. The theories are compatible. So I’m not sure we disagree.

PART THREE: RAPE IS ABOUT SEX

Johnston-Robledo and McVicker make the following claim.

“It is virtually impossible to argue that rape is primarily about sex and/or reproduction. Rape is, arguably, more about sexualized aggression than aggressive sex.”

I don’t see that you or Johnston-Robledo and McVicker have presented any evidence for this claim.

First, I don’t know how “impossible” is being used here.

Second, there is some evidence that rape is about sex. Here are a couple of examples. At least one researcher who interviewed rapists concluded that their actions were explained in part on the basis of their desire for sex. Also, a significant percentage of college men (60% in one study) report having used force to achieve sexual intimacy despite the female’s negative response. It is not implausible to think that this behavior is related to sexual desire.

Hence, even if one thought that rape is not primarily about sex, it is hard to see why it is “impossible” to argue for this claim.

In any case, it would be interesting to see who else signed Johnston-Robledo and McVicker’s letter. Perhaps they have other arguments against the broader or narrower evolutionary theories.

I hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving,
Steve K

Evolution and Rape II: Night of the Living Feminists

2009-11-21T15:58:00.002-05:00

The Objectivist
Misunderstanding Evolution
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
November 7, 2009

The broader evolutionary explanation of rape asserts evolution either directly or indirectly explains much of the rape-behavior we observe. There are three widely discussed theories as to how this explanation works. First, Randy Thornhill, a University of New Mexico biologist, has put forth a model that asserts that evolution has affected men’s psychology in such a way that in at least some men there is a tendency to think in ways that lead to opportunistic rape. Second, Craig Palmer, an anthropologist at the University of Missouri, argues that rape is an evolutionary by-product of other psychological adaptations that increase male reproductive success. Third, University of Michigan psychologist Barbara Smuts, McMaster University psychologists Margo Wilson and Martin Daly, and others argue that evolution has led to aggression against women that facilitates a long-term reproductive strategy. That is, rape is a biological adaptation by which males maintain control over females and it evolved because such control led to long-term reproductive success. Thus, the three models hold that evolution explains thought and behavior patterns that have in many cases led to rape because rape is connected in some way to greater reproductive success.

Note that the evolutionary theorists do not claim that rape is not bad or wrong, rapists are not blameworthy, rapists should not be punished, the environment plays no role in causing rape, etc.

All three models are consistent with the claim that rape is motivated in part by a desire for sex. The evolutionary theory is a minimal theory in that it is consistent with there being other motivations for rape (for example, control) and other causes (for example, cultural causes). In contrast, the opposing hypothesis is more extensive in that it holds that rape has nothing to do with evolutionary desires. Proponents of this view often view rape as focused solely on power or control and not at all on sex.

Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker points out just how plausible it is that rape is about sex. He points out that given that men sometimes want to have sex with women who don’t want to have sex with them and men have a tendency to resort to violence to get what they want, it would be extraordinary if some men didn’t use violence to get sex. Because these tendencies have a clear connection to genes and evolution, the broader evolutionary theory should have an obvious feel to it.

SUNY-Fredonia Professors Ingrid Johnson-Robledo and Jeanette McVicker criticize the broader evolutionary theory of rape and narrower Thornhill model. Thirty other SUNY-Fredonia faculty and staff signed on to their findings. Here are some of the reasons the pair provide against the broader and narrower theories.

1. The evolutionary explanation of behavior insults men because it reduces them to biological destiny.

2. If a desire is hard-wired into a man, this implies that he is helpless (to act on it).

3. Rape usually, if not always, leads to gratuitous injury and the injury is psychological.

4. In many cases, rapists do not inflict gratuitous injuries against their victims because they do not use or carry weapons.

5. Some rapists use objects to violate women and some use a condom. Hence, the reproductive theory of rape is refuted.

6. Rapists indicate that they are motivated by sexual desire, not reproduction. Hence, rape is not explained by its connection to reproduction over millions of years of human evolution.

7. Rape has a success rate of 5% and this is quite low.

8. 18% of rape victims are under age 11.

9. There are some rape-free societies.

Most of these are irrelevant. None is anywhere near strong enough to defeat the evolutionary theories.

Consider 1. Johnston-Robledo and McVicker claim that evolutionary explanations reduce men to “biological destiny.” It is not clear what they mean here, but they probably mean that evolutionary theories entail that if men act on genetically induced desires then they are not morally responsible for what they do. This is a mistake. From the fact that a desire is in part the result of genetic factors, it does not follow that a person has no control over whether to act on it. A man can still reason with regard to whether to act on the desire. For example, if I desire to eat my neighbor’s freshly grilled steak and this desire is part innate, it does not follow that I am compelled to eat it.

Consider 2. Johnston-Robledo and McVicker argue that if, as evolutionary theory asserts, a man’s desire (or propensity) is hard-wired into him then he is helpless to act on it. This is a mistake for the reason mentioned above. How could a large flock of faculty and staff make such an obvious error?

Consider 3. Johnston-Robledo and McVicker claim that contrary to the evolutionary theory, rape usually, if not always, leads to gratuitous injuries because it leads to psychological injuries. The proponent of an evolutionary theory of rape would predict that rapists would in general avoid injuring their victims in ways that would prevent them from conceiving and bearing a child. Gratuitous is thus understood in terms of physical injuries that are not needed to carry out the rape or a direct result of it. Psychological harm is irrelevant to the theories because it is a direct result of the rape. The evidence here is striking. According to Center for Policy Research members Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes, only 5% of rape victims are severely physically injured. Remember the data are being used here to explain how a behavior came about, not whether it is bad, wrong, or harmful.

Consider 4. Johnston-Robledo and McVicker claim that in many cases, rapists do not inflict gratuitous harm because they do not use or carry weapons that would inflict severe injury. Leave aside whether this claim is consistent with the previous one. On their account, attackers who can generate enough force to invade a woman’s body can’t generate enough force to pile on additional severe physical injury (for example, by repeatedly striking them). What?

Consider 5. Johnston-Robledo and McVicker argue that because some rapists use objects to violate women and sometimes they use a condom, rape has nothing to do with reproduction or evolution. First, as Steven Pinker points out, this is true of only a minority of rapes and so it is consistent with the evolutionary theory that most rapes involve reproduction-related acts. Second, Pinker points out, some voluntary sex involves objects and condom use. It doesn’t follow that voluntary sex is unrelated to sex, reproduction, and evolution. If this is true for voluntary sex, then it is true for coerced sex.

Consider 6. Johnston-Robledo and McVicker claim that rapists indicate that they are motivated by sexual desire and not reproduction and that both motivations would apply if evolutionary theory were true. The two assume that evolution never increases reproductive fitness by producing a desire to have sex unconnected to a desire to reproduce. This misunderstands evolution. If a desire leads to increased reproductive success then evolution selects for it, regardless if the organism intends to reproduce. This is true of sexual desire.

Consider 7. The two professors claim that if rape has a 5% rate of conception, this is too low to affect evolution. Again they are wrong. If over millions of years an adaptation increases reproductive success by 5%, this will likely have evolutionary effects.

Consider 8. Johnston-Robledo and McVicker observe that many rapists target girls who are not yet fertile and they claim this weighs against the evolutionary explanation. First, if Thornhill is right, then the majority of rape-victims are fertile. At most the pair’s observation shows that some rapes will have little reproductive success, perhaps because the desire is not sufficiently focused. This is a long way off from showing that over millions of years of evolution on the African plains rape was a losing reproductive strategy. On the first model, it might be that the desire is not a sharply focused one. On the third model, raping pre-fertile girls might be a way of controlling them when they do become fertile. The evolutionary models are thus consistent with this observation.

Consider 9. Johnston-Robledo and McVicker assert that there are rape-free cultures and that this is not what the evolutionary model predicts. They likely have in mind claims by researchers like University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Peggy Sanday who report that 47% of societies are rape-free. But as University of New Mexico anthropologist Melissa Emery Thompson points out, the studies that were not focused on sexual issues, varied substantially in length, and often rested on rape-reports. Because rape is frequently hidden from researchers, especially ones not focused on sexual matters, and because rape is often not reported, the support for there being such rape-free societies is weak. Even if it weren’t weak, many genetically-linked behaviors (for example, homosexuality and aggression) are not expressed in all people and all places. In some cases, this is because environmental factors block the expression of some genes.

We’ve considered the professors’ nine objections. Seven were irrelevant and several involved obvious mistakes. The last two are relevant, but are not strong criticisms of either the broader or narrower theories. There are serious criticisms of both, but such criticisms involve a reexamination of Thornhill’s and other scholars’ data and a discussion of the different types of rape (for example, stranger versus acquaintance rape). None of this showed up in Johnston-Robledo and McVicker’s objections. They simply didn’t do their homework. Mindless adherence to feminist ideology is a poor substitute for rigorous scientific thought.

Academia: Women, Babies, and Advancement

2009-11-04T08:43:00.001-05:00

The Objectivist
Academia and Sex Differences
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
November 2, 2009

On average, men and women differ in their preferences with regard to work and family and this leads to workplace differences. An interesting issue is whether the academic workplace should be changed to better accommodate women’s preferences.

In some high-end fields, women have less success at the top of the career ladder. Consider, for example, law and business. Joanne Lipman writing in The New York Times reports that in 2008, women made up almost half of the associate lawyers (those who work for law firms), but only 18.3% of the partners (those who own the firms). Similarly, she reports, only 15 women run Fortune 500 companies.

The same pattern occurs in academia. There women with children or who are likely to have children do worse than their peers. Consider the following research by Mary Ann Mason, Dean of the Graduate Division at the University of California at Berkeley. Women with babies are 28% less likely than women without babies to enter a tenure-track position. A person is on the tenure track when she is on track to have a permanent full-time position in a college or university or has such a position. Married women are 21% less likely than single women to enter a tenure-track position. Women faculty are 27% less likely than men to become an associate professor (mid-level professor) and 20% less likely than men to become a full professor (senior-level professor) within 16 years. A high percentage of mothers end up in second-tier academic positions (specifically, lecturers, part-timers, and adjuncts).

Mason and Marc Goulden (a research analyst at Berkeley) point out that the academia presents family-related problems for women. They point out the following. Only a third of women without children who take a fast-track university job ever become a mother. Tenured women are more than twice as likely as tenured men to be single 12 years out from the Ph.D. If married, tenure-track women faculty are 50% more likely than men to divorce (and twice as likely to divorce as women in second-tier positions).

It is not entirely clear what is going on here. There is no general hindrance to parenting. Mason points out that men who have early babies (babies had less than five years after Ph.D. completion) do better than all other groups, including single men and women.

The problem might be one of spousal selection or timing. Mason and Goulden point out that most women academics are married to people with advanced degrees and most academic men are not. If this results in men being more likely to have a stay-at-home spouse, and I suspect it does, then the differences in academic success might in part reflect this difference. The problem might also be one of timing, specifically having early versus late babies. Mason points out that women with late babies (babies that are not early) do as well as women without children.

The difference in academic success is accompanied by, and probably caused in part by, differences in productivity. Consider Mason’s findings on postdoctorates (Ph.D.s whose job is to do research in a professor’s lab). Married men with children put in 15% more time as a post-doctorate than married women with children and married men without children put in 29% more. Married women with children are 25% less likely to present at a conference in the last year than married men with children and 17% less likely than married men without children. There is some evidence, albeit weak evidence, that this pattern holds for publications. Philosophers Miriam Solomon and John Clarke report that in philosophy, women receive 25-33% of the Ph.D.s, have 21% of the philosophy positions and yet publish only 12.4% of the articles. Note these figures come from different but overlapping periods.

Women professors with children are not lazier than their counterparts. Rather, they put their efforts elsewhere. For example, Mason found that women with children do roughly 16 more hours in housework and caregiving than do men with children and 24 hours more than do men without children.

Proposed explanations for these differences in academic success have included discrimination and genetics. An important factor is probably different preferences. Women attach less weight to their careers and more to family. This can be seen in that male Ph.D.s are more likely to want to be professors at research positions than are women Ph.D.s (32% more likely for University of California Ph.D.s). The latter are also much more likely to shift their career goals away from academia. When they shift their career goals, women are more likely than men to cite as reasons children and spouses. Mason provides an example of this line of thinking is the following quote from a doctoral student, “I feel unwilling to sacrifice a healthy family life and satisfying personal life to succeed in academics, and thus industrial options have become more appealing.”

Women’s preferences are not wrong, bad, or irrational, just different. Professor Michael Argyle of Oxford University points out that marriage is one of the strongest factors to correlate with happiness and the correlation is stronger for women than men. In The Blank Slate, Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker points out that on average mothers are more attached to their children than are fathers and that this is true in societies all over the world and in our mammal lineage. He notes that on average women are more attentive to their babies’ well-being and place a higher value on spending time with their children. In contrast, Pinker notes, men’s self-esteem is more closely tied to their status, salary, and wealth. He also points out these factors play a larger role in men’s attractiveness as a sexual and marriage partner than it does for women.

One response by some universities such as the prestigious University of California at Berkeley is to excuse parents with substantial caregiving duties for children from having to teach some of their classes. A second response has been to give these parents an extra year or two to earn tenure. Other universities have adopted similar policies. It is not clear, however, whether these policies are justified by either fairness or efficiency.

These policies transfer costs from one person to another. If at a state university, professor Jones get excused from teaching some of her classes, one of three things happens: other professors have to teach her classes, students are offered less classes (or larger classes), or taxpayers have to pay someone to teach a class when they have already paid someone to teach it. By analogy, imagine the Sunshine taxicab business has salaried drivers. If women drivers with babies get excused from their shifts, then consumers pay more money, Sunshine loses money, or other drivers have to work extra shifts. This cost transfer might be good policy, but it is not a requirement of fairness or justice. Furthermore, if the headwind is against people who have early babies and don’t have stay-at-home spouses, then this is arguably a cost of one’s choices.

The efficiency claim is harder to assess. The concern here is whether the policies have positive or negative effects on people other than the professors. Such policies might encourage some of the best and brightest women to go into academia. This is desirable. There might also be eugenics-type reasons that are relevant. On the other hand, if students and others benefit from more productive professors, then there is reason to be weary of these policies. Also, this policy provides an incentive against stay-at-home parenting and if this is bad policy, and I don’t know that it is, this is a reason to avoid it. The effects are speculative and in any case hard to balance against each other. In addition, it is not clear that there is one right answer for every academic sector.

In any case, the issue is an interesting one and one the academic world will have to consider.

Evolution and Rape

2009-10-21T11:50:00.001-04:00

The Objectivist
Rape and Evolution
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 19, 2009

The way in which we think is the result of how our brains are wired. Evolution tells us that the way in which our brains are wired is in part the result of the way in which wiring patterns affected reproductive success over millions of years of our history. Evolution provides an insightful look into this history. It can be troubling in that it suggests that many of our violent and ugly desires are at least in part genetic. Perhaps the best example of this is rape.

Men and women often use different reproductive strategies. In animals like human beings where offspring depend on their parents for years, females must invest significant time and bodily resources in order to reproduce and raise their offspring. In contrast, men can father many more offspring with much less time and bodily resources. This gives them an incentive to have as many mates as possible. This is not true for females. The male reproductive strategy explains why males more strongly desire casual no-string-attached sex than do females. On this account, then, the male reproductive strategy was hard wired into their brains through their genes. This same account also explains why males desire rape-sex when females do not.

In A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig T. Palmer defend the notion that rape is a behavioral pattern that evolved because it was genetically advantageous. Their argument rests on several types of evidence. It should be noted that their arguments are highly controversial.

First, Thornhill and Palmer argue that the theory fits cleanly with the presence of rape in our closest relatives and across human cultures. They note that male rape of females is found in our closest relatives (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans). They claim that it is also found in every human society. In addition, they note, it is widespread in the animal kingdom. Mammals, birds, and insects all engage in coerced copulation. Whenever you see a behavioral pattern that is found in our closest relatives and in all human societies, there is good reason to believe that it is either an evolutionary adaptation or a by-product of one.

Second, Thornhill and Palmer note that the theory explains how victims are chosen. Rape victims are overwhelmingly in their peak reproductive years (13-35, mean age 24). This is what one would expect of a behavior that is favored because it led to increased reproduction. This age distribution differs from other violent crimes. It also is not what one would have expected if rape victims were picked for their physical vulnerability. Thornhill and Palmer also assert that rape is a relatively effective way of producing conception. They claim that roughly 5% of rape victims become pregnant.

Third, Thornhill and Palmer point out that the notion that rape is an evolutionary adaptation explains the way in which rape is often carried out. In particular, it explains why rapists usually do not cause gratuitous injury to victims. That is, they rarely inflict a serious or fatal injury that would preclude conception or birth. Thornhill and Palmer note that it explains why it is more likely that a rape victim will more likely suffer a vaginal rape, rather than an oral or anal one, if she is in her fertile years than if she is not. Again, all of this fits with the notion that rape was encoded because of its contribution to reproductive success.

Fourth, the researchers point out that the desire for rape appears to be fairly widespread in males. They note that studies indicate that many normal men (for example, college students and community volunteers) are significantly sexually aroused by depictions of coercive sex, including ones that involve physical aggression. Again, this is what we would expect if rape where an evolutionary adaptation because it would allow for opportunistic reproduction.

This theory has striking implications. Feminist writer Susan Brownmiller and numerous other feminist writers have claimed that rape is not motivated by sexual desire, but by hostility toward women or by a desire to control them. This theory does not fit the data. In particular, the theory is unable to explain why such desires have led to a targeting of victims and means of victimizing them that is so closely tied to reproduction. It fits poorly with the observation that rapists favor women in their reproductive years and statistically in time in which they are at their peak attractiveness. It fits uneasily with the similar pattern of rape in human beings and their closest ape relatives. The theory runs aground on studies that indicate that most rapists cite sexual desire as a cause of their actions.

The theological view that human beings are created by God in his own image also fits poorly with this data. After all, it is hard to imagine why God would want his most prized creation to walk around with such evil and destructive desires. Even if God wanted to make it hard for humans to be moral by tempting them, it is hard to believe that he couldn’t have picked a less cruel way of doing so.

The theory also has implications for what to expect of men, especially young men in their peak sexually competitive years. It tells us that we can expect a significant number of them to have rape-thoughts and -desires. This likely includes the seemingly kind-hearted college-aged male who is your son, grandson, nephew, son-in-law, etc. Whether the most effective way to stop men from acting out on these desires is to strengthen criminal penalties, educational programs that focus on making men aware of these desires and the need to control them, discouraging women from dressing in provocative ways, or other means is in part an empirical question and not one that can be answered by common sense. For example, the penalties for rape are already quite strong (in the U.S. in 1992, the average rapist was sentenced to 11.8 years and served 5.4 years).

In any case, there is a dark side to man and one that is hard-wired into him.

Torture: Self-Defense Argument

2009-10-07T13:22:00.000-04:00

The Objectivist
Interrogational Torture: Justified Self-Defense
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 5, 2009

The Abu Ghraib scandal will likely prevent the U.S. from using interrogational torture in the future, even as the U.S. withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan. The scandal surrounded a Baghdad Correctional Facility (also known as the Abu Ghraib prison), where there was haphazard and cruel treatment of prisoners by soldiers in the 320th Military Police Battalion. The New York Times reported that the investigation uncovered evidence that the soldiers did the following to detainees: forcibly sodomized one, poured phosphoric acid on others, tied ropes to detainees’ genitalia and then pulled them across the floor, jumped on a detainee’s leg (one already damaged through gunfire) with such force that it would not heal properly, beat them, urinated on them, etc. The U.S. found at least one case of homicide. There were also allegations of rape (including a fourteen year old Iraqi girl) and other cases of homicide. It was estimated by Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the Abu Ghraib prison commander, that 90% of the detainees were innocent.

Eleven soldiers were convicted for these abuses and did prison time. In addition, seventeen soldiers and officers were removed from duty. Karpinski was demoted, in effect ending her military career. The American Civil Liberties Union leaked a 2004 FBI memo which indicated that President Bush explicitly authorized the use of extraordinary interrogation tactics by U.S. military personnel. The authorized tactics included sleep deprivation, hooding, loud music, stress positions, and the use of dogs.

Despite the Abu Ghraib mess, the U.S. probably should use interrogational torture. To see the argument for it, consider the following case from MIT professor Judith Jarvis Thomson. A trolley’s brakes don’t work and it is speeding down the tracks where it will run over five workers. The trolley driver, Edward, can turn the trolley onto a side track so that it runs over only one worker. Most people think that it is okay to Edward to do this because it saves four lives. This intuition gets stronger if the one worker disabled the brakes in order to kill the five.

A similar thing is true in cases in which a terrorist is part of an attack on civilians. Consider a case in which a terrorist has helped plant a bomb or initiated an imminent attack and refuses to disclose where the attack will occur. In both cases, by endangering innocents the attackers have forfeited some of their rights and may thus be harmed in the effort to blunt the attack. In the terrorist case, he may be harmed as a way to defend the innocent from his attack.

There are a series of objections. One objection is that even though the terrorists deserve to be tortured, the U.S. shouldn’t do this because the U.S. degrades itself in so doing. This appears to be the objection of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other Senators who oppose such torture. However, it is less degrading to waterboard a terrorist who is part of an ongoing attack than to sit by and watch him and his buddies blow up innocent people.

Here is another way to consider the degradation issue. A number of recent economic studies indicate that the death penalty saves lives by deterring future murders. If this is correct and if the death penalty does not degrade us, then torture doesn’t do so. After all, most people would prefer torture to execution and the former more directly prevents killings. Similarly, it is hard to see why waterboarding someone for two days is more degrading than locking a young man in a cage for the rest of his life as is done when the state imposes a life sentence. It is certainly less degrading than shooting people with 50 caliber machine guns so that they explode into a pink mist and this is what happens when surgical attempts to stop terrorism fail.

A second objection is that torture doesn’t work. However, there are cases where interrogational torture does appear to have worked. One 1995 case involved Philippine authorities who tortured a terrorist into disclosing a plot to blow up eleven commercial airliners that were carrying roughly four thousand passengers. A 1994 case occurred when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israel tortured the driver of the car used in the kidnapping to find where the soldier was being held. In a 2004 Central Intelligence Agency study, the director reports that interrogational torture (labeled “extraordinary interrogation tactics) provided extremely valuable information, including critical threat information. This likely referred in part to the repeated waterboarding of Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, a top al Qaeda planner, logistical expert, and architect of the 9/11 attack that killed nearly three thousand people. His information led to a number of arrests, including terrorists who planned to smuggle explosives into the U.S. and a sleeper operative in New York. Now there is the question whether torture, when done by professionals, often yields useful information and there is simply not enough information to answer it.

A third objection is that even if torture does not wrong anyone and is effective, it still has overall bad effects. It is claimed that interrogational torture strengthens our terrorist enemies by giving the U.S. a terrible image in the Muslim world, alienates allies, creates an environment where other countries will engage in horrendous torture, etc. The cost-benefit analysis is not clear. The U.S. also strengthens terrorist groups, alienates allies, etc. when it uses overwhelming military force to pursue enemies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, and occupies the first two. It is the threat of such terrorism that causes such actions and it might be that diminishing of this threat through interrogational torture would decrease the need for such pursuit and occupation. In any case, the cost-benefit analysis is unclear and so both the objection and response are so speculative as to warrant little weight.

A fourth objection is that interrogational torture is illegal and hence should be avoided as part of our respect for the rule of law. There are two statutes that might be thought to apply to U.S interrogators operating overseas: the War Crimes Act and the Torture Convention. Because it is likely that the relevant war-crimes statutes (Geneva and Hague) don’t apply to terrorists, the War Crimes Act probably is irrelevant. It is unclear whether the Torture Convention prohibits carefully calibrated interrogational torture. If it does, the U.S. should consider withdrawing from it and changing U.S. law so that it allows overseas interrogational torture to occur. Perhaps this would be subject to certain safeguards. Such safeguards might include permitting such techniques only when done by highly trained and specialized CIA agents and only when they receive written authorization from the President or, perhaps, cabinet head.

Interrogational torture is a type of defense. It appears to have worked in at least some cases. It is no more degrading than the death penalty and life imprisonment and less degrading than wartime killing. When used correctly, interrogational torture is disturbing but not obviously wrong.

Metaphysics: Personhood

2009-09-23T11:32:00.001-04:00

The Objectivist
Problems with Persons
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
September 21, 2009

An interesting feature of the intellectual world is how little we understand about persons. This creates problems in deciding what policies to adopt in the context of life and death. The three dominant theories of a person assert that a person is an organism, a physical object, or a soul. All three are inadequate.

The notion that a person is an organism fits nicely into what we know about biology. Because we think that human beings are animals and that animals are organisms, it follows that human beings are organisms. An organism is just a living being. A fairly standard account of life is put forth by Paul Davison. On his account, a being is living or alive if it is composed of cells, metabolizes nutrients, grows, reproduces, responds to stimuli, regulates its internal environment, etc. This theory fits cleanly with the notion that human beings are merely animals whose distinctive features resulted from natural selection.

The problem with this theory is that it generates absurd results. For example, a proponent of the persons-are-organisms theory has to assert that at death an individual ceases to exist. On this theory, because a person is a living organism and because a corpse is not living, a person is distinct from his corpse. Philosopher Fred Feldman points out the ridiculous results that follow from this. For example, the individual we see sitting in an open coffin is not the one who was a great husband and father, stormed the beaches of Normandy, cheated on his taxes, etc. In addition, if a person died while wearing a tuxedo, then someone must have removed him and replaced him with the corpse, all without undoing the buttons. This theory claims that it is not just that the person changes when he dies, but rather that he ceases to exist and a new thing (the corpse) takes his place.

Worse, on this account, persons can survive brain replacement. Imagine that a surgeon replaces George W. Bush’s brain with that of Barack Obama and vice versa. Intuitively, it seems that Bush is now located in Obama’s body and vice versa. Bush would think himself located in Obama’s body and find himself waking up next to Michelle. Yet this is not true on the persons-are-organisms theory. On this theory, the same organism is located in Bush’s body and hence the brain transplant does not change where Bush is located. After all, a living organism can survive the replacement of an organ. For example, people survive kidney, heart, and liver replacements.

The notion that a person is a physical object, probably a brain, fares no better. We often think that persons begin to exist when they are conceived. In other words, we were once zygotes. A zygote is an organism that comes into being at conception and exists through implantation in the uterine wall. Because zygotes do not have brains, this theory entails that people were never zygotes. This is bizarre. We pretty clearly do think that we existed before we were born, in part as a zygote.

Both the organism and brain theory have a problem with identical twins. Identical (monozygotic) twins occur when a single fertilized egg splits to form two individuals. On the persons-are-physical-objects theory, the person has not yet come into existence between the zygote doesn’t yet have a brain. On the organism theory, other problems result. If we ask which of the two twins contains the life found in the fertilized egg, we are unable to give a satisfactory answer. The twins are distinct from each other and one and the same organism can’t be identical to two distinct ones. This is analogous to how a country that splits in two can’t be identical to both of the resulting countries. If, instead, a person is a body rather than a brain, then it is again mysterious as to which twin got the original body and which got a new one.

The soul theory is even worse off than the other two. A soul is an immaterial (non-physical) object that is conscious. There is no evidence that persons can exist when they are dead or lack a brain. First, there is not a single scientific study that has located such an otherworldly ghostlike object. Second, there are no confirmed instances of persons switching bodies or existing without a body. If persons were souls that merely resided in bodies, such things are possible and we might expect to observe them. Third, there are many well-documented correlations between the ways in which people think and what is going on in their brains. The simplest explanation of this is that thinking occurs in the brain, rather than in some ghostlike soul. For example, when people get drunk or take LSD, their thought patterns change. When particular parts of a person’s brain are damaged, they sometimes lose very specific abilities. For example, brain damage can make a person unable to recognize faces, speak, or form long-term memories. It is hard to see why this would be the case if thinking did not occur in the brain.

Soul theory becomes even less plausible when we consider what happens in the case of twins. The proponent of persons-are-souls theory must claim that the soul that the zygote had went to only one of the twins or went out of existence. It is absurd to think that one twin got the old soul and one a new one when they are identically placed with regard to the original fertilized egg. It is equally absurd to assert that both twins got new souls. After all, what happened to the old one?

The issue of the nature of persons is at the forefront of some of the most heated political issues of our time. Consider stem-cell research. Whether this research is wrong depends on whether scientists do something incorrect when they destroy zygotes. In deciding whether this is wrong, we need to know whether zygotes are persons. The same is true with regard to abortion.

A different but related issue arises with regard to the comatose. For example, consider Terri Schiavo. Terri Schiavo was a woman, or perhaps merely a body, who was in a coma probably as a result of bulimia. Her husband wanted to cut off nutrition and allow the body to die. Parts of Schiavo’s brain had disintegrated to the point where she would never regain consciousness. Whether there was a legitimate interest in keeping her body alive depended in part on whether Schiavo ceased to exist. It is difficult to answer such questions without an adequate understanding of persons, let alone a consensus on the issue. Yet this is precisely where we are.

Christianity: Does the Jesus doctrine withstand scrutiny?

2009-09-09T16:19:00.000-04:00

The Objectivist
The Oddity of Christianity
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
September 8, 2009

In the contest between religion and atheism and between religions, one reason to reject a particular religion is if it contains a doctrine that does not make sense or is not supported by evidence. Christianity contains just such a doctrine.

Consider the Christian view of Jesus. Christians view that Jesus as both divine and human. On the Christian view, Jesus was born to a virgin, Mary. Because of his death and resurrection, human beings can achieve salvation and enjoy eternal life in heaven. Jesus also performed a number of miracles including turning water into wine, feeding a crowd of five thousand using only fives loaves of bread and two fish, walking on water, resurrecting a man (Lazarus) who had been dead for four days, giving sight to a blind man, etc. Note these claims differ from the historical claims about him, for example, he was a Galilean Jew who preached to a small band of followers and was killed by Romans.

Some of these doctrines make no sense. The notion that God is both fully divine (god-like) and fully human (and hence not god-like) entails that he both has and lacks a property. This is impossible. By analogy, a shape cannot be both square and not square at the same time.

This problem gets compounded in those who believe in the Trinity. This doctrine holds that God the father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are three different persons who are unified in a single substance. A person cannot be composed of three component persons because there would be too many subjects of consciousness or lives. This is why, for example, a living cow cannot be composed of three smaller cows. Nor can the three persons be mere features of a greater person. Persons are objects; they are not features or attributes of other things. By analogy, a person might have certain parts (for example, a left arm and a right leg), but these are not features of him (as are, for example, his enjoyment of dirty jokes or skill at poker).

The notion that through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus atoned for the Mankind’s sin also makes no sense. This is because it does not satisfy the demands of justice for one person to suffer for what someone else did. Consider a case where a vicious thug, Al, batters and then kills a woman, Betty. When it comes time to incarcerate or execute him, Al’s mother volunteers to be incarcerated or killed on his behalf. Justice is not in any way satisfied if this is done to her. The same is true if you think that Al owes Betty or her family a debt of honor.

On a side note, the same problem arises with the idea of original sin. The idea is that particular human beings are somehow blameworthy or deserve bad things because of what Adam and, perhaps also, Eve did. This has similar problems to atonement via another’s sacrifice. The problems multiply if you combine the doctrines of atonement and original sin, as do some Christians.

There is little to no evidence for the claim that Jesus’s mother was a virgin when she conceived him. On a side note, many Christians hold that Jesus has siblings, so Mary did reproduce with her husband on other occasions. There is also little to no evidence of Jesus’s miracles. We lack the testimony of a number of independent and impartial observers of these events. Nor do we have any other sort of evidence for them. In the roughly 2,000 years since Jesus’s time, there have been no new messiahs for whom there is better evidence of their divinity.

One objection to the concerns about contradiction and evidentiary support is that people should be allowed to believe what they want. This is true and no one is suggesting that people who have false, contradictory, or unsupported beliefs should have a Louisville Slugger taken to their head. The issue is not whether people should be made to renounce their beliefs, it is whether their beliefs are rational.

A second objection is that religious beliefs make people happier. Specifically, they help people in times of great suffering (for example, consider the role of religion in soothing grieving widows) and lead to great altruism (for example, consider Mother Theresa). This is true, but it is not clear these benefits outweigh religion’s costs. By allowing in contradictory and unsupported beliefs, religion undermines clear thinking. It also contributes to an incredible amount of religious and inter-ethnic violence. This likely involves the death of hundreds of thousands. Even if religion does have net benefits, and this is not obvious, we are still trading off truth for happiness. This might be worthwhile, but in any case it is worth acknowledging.

A third objection to this is to assert that belief in these aspects of Jesus rest on faith and hence need not be coherent or supported by evidence. However, we are not impressed by unsupported belief in other areas. Consider a scenario in which you are drinking at a bar and a fellow bar patron tells you that he believes that the Aryan man should reign should reign supreme over the other races. When you ask him why, he says that he doesn’t have an argument or other evidence for this view, he just believes it on faith (that is, in the absence of adequate evidence). You would think him irrational. Your view should not change if we substitute beliefs about Jesus for beliefs about Aryan supremacy. The structure of his beliefs in the two cases is the same.

In addition, if our beliefs about Jesus are contradictory, then it is hard to say what is wrong with holding other contradictory beliefs, particularly in the context of religion. However, religious people have little tolerance for other contradictions in religion. For example, if you believe that God is all-good, this is often thought to rule out the notion that God is also a cruel mean-spirited child-molester. Similarly, if God is all-knowing, this presumably rules out the notion that he doesn’t know his multiplication tables.

If our beliefs about Jesus are not supported by evidence, then we should be willing to tolerate other beliefs not supported by evidence. However, in other areas of our life, we have little use for beliefs not supported by evidence. For example, a scientist who consistently drew scientific conclusions unsupported by evidence would be drummed out of his field. A judge would be unimpressed by a prosecutor who sought to convict and punish a defendant when he lacked evidence that made it likely that the defendant did the crime.

None of this would matter except that religion, including Christianity, plays an enormous role in shaping our world. In the United States, religious reasoning is used to justify wealth redistribution, slow down medical research, block abortion-clinics, condemn gay sexuality, oppose evolution, and criminalize a wide range of activities in which a person harms no one but himself (for example, pornography, gambling, and drugs). Internationally, religion contributes to countless acts of violence and destruction. Examples include the torrent of violence in Sudan and ever-present repression in the Middle East. To the extent that that contradictory or evidence-free reasoning leads to such injustice, death, and destruction, it matters and is damaging.

Healthcare Reform: The Public Option

2009-08-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

The Objectivist
Public Option: Higher Cost, Lower Quality
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
August 24, 2009

The Democrats in Congress and the Whitehouse are pushing a public option. It is a centerpiece of the Affordable Health Choices Act. The public option is a Medicare-like, government-run health insurance program.

The White House has signaled that they might be willing to pass a healthcare-reform bill without a public option. This caused many Democrats to get their panties in a twist. As reported in Medical News Today, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) asserted that the public option is “a must.” Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) stated that “without a public option, I don’t see how we will bring real change to a system that has made good health care a privilege for those who can afford it.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “There is strong support in the House for a public option.” Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) threatened that without a public option, the legislation could lose up to 100 Democratic votes in the House.

Concerns about cost and quality of care supposedly motivate the attempt to reform healthcare. The U.S. spends more on health care than any other nation. According to the New York Times, this amounts to more than $7,500 per person and roughly $15,000 per household. Using 2004 figures, this is 92.7% more than any other G7 country (France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Japan, and Canada). The U.S. also spends a higher percentage of the economy than all but one other member of the United Nations (in 2007 this was $2.26 trillion or 16% of Gross Domestic Product). These costs wreck havoc on personal finances. One study by David Himmelstein of Harvard University found that medical expenditures caused 60% of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S.

U.S. healthcare gets bad grades. A 2008 report by the Commonwealth Fund found that despite all this spending, the quality of health care in the U.S. was worse than 19 other developed industrial countries with which it was compared. The World Health Organization also ranked the U.S. 37th in overall performance and 72nd in overall health level in comparison to the 191 member organizations it included in its study.

The public option will not fix either problem. Consider cost. A public option is designed to cover many of the uninsured. The U.S. Census Bureau asserts that there are 47 million people who are uninsured at some point in the year. Economist Katherine Baicker and others point out that people who are insured generate more healthcare spending than uninsured individuals. Hence, insuring the 47 million would increase total healthcare costs. If our concern is to lower overall spending, the public option is a loser.

It might be argued that public option would reduce costs (or more specifically, reduce the increase in medical costs) by providing more competition. Some proponents argue that the government can provide services more cheaply. They often cite Medicaid, Medicare, and Veteran’s Health Administration as evidence for their claim. This is wishful thinking.

Medicaid charges less because it pays a fraction of what Medicare, private-insurance companies, and out-of-pocket consumers pay. The latter groups end up subsidizing Medicaid. Merely encouraging more subsidization will not reduce total costs, merely shift them around.

Medicare (or a Medicare-like program) will not reduce costs. First, Medicare is a mess. The program involves 140 million Americans paying 2.9% of their income to pay for healthcare for 42 million mostly elderly Americans. It costs roughly $400 billion a year and is running a massive deficit ($179 billion in 2007). It will go broke roughly 8 years from now. In its shaky status, Medicare resembles Social Security. The latter is another Ponzi scheme that will start running deficits as early as this year. It works via a 12.4.% tax on working Americans (in part via their employers) that is also transferred to the elderly, disabled, and others.

Second, as Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post points out, if Medicare (or a similar program) offered insurance that competed against private plans, it would have to start doing a number of costly things. It would have to collect premiums, market its programs, maintain a reserve, and manage payouts in way that lowers costs and increases quality. There is no reason to believe that it would do so more efficiently than the private sector. Public sector employees get roughly 44% more in compensation (wages and benefits) than do private sector employees and are usually much harder to fire. Government waste and mismanagement is legendary. Government-protected businesses like Amtrak and the Post Office are forever running deficits and needing protection against competition. History simply provides no reason to think that a government-run insurance company would be more efficient.

Even if the government could run an insurance system more efficiently, massive taxes would be necessary to support the public option. Under the current House plan the public option would be available for individuals making up to 400% of the poverty level (or up to $43,320). The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the latest version of Affordable Health Choices Act at will cost $597 billion over ten years and reduce the number of uninsured by 20 million. This surely underestimates the cost.

Consider the estimate of 47 million uninsured people. Somewhere around 9 million of the uninsured (19%) make more than $75,000 a year and hence choose not to purchase health insurance. Let us subtract them from the number of uninsured, thereby reducing the number to 38 million. If we insured all 38 million, the total cost would be would be $285 billion per year ($7,500/person x 38 million people). If we also screen out immigrants and those currently eligible for employer-sponsored insurance or current government programs, this still leaves 12 million uninsured. Covering them would cost $90 billion per year ($7,500/person x 12 million people). In addition, the public option would suck millions of people out of the private sector because for many employers it would be cheaper for the employer to pay the tax (8%) for not insuring its workers than to pay for private insurance.

The current House plan leaves 27 million uninsured. The program would quickly expand to cover many of these people. To see this, merely consider how Social Security and Medicaid (and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program or S-Chip) were expanded. If President Obama and Congress provide amnesty for the 12-20 million illegal aliens, and they’ll try, even more people will need to be covered. None of this is affordable, especially when we consider that Obama has already run up huge deficits and that Medicare and Social Security will soon be in the red.

There is even less reason to think that the government will increase the quality of healthcare. Is there an area where government-provided services are better and cheaper than the private sector? Like the medical system, the public-school system provides a poor product. The U.S. spends more on education (in per pupil terms) and gets middling to bad results. In the inner cities, the schools are horrible despite being awash in money. The burden here is on the proponents of the public option to establish that the government would provide higher-quality medical services. They can’t carry this burden because there is no area where the government has done so, at least when its costs are competitive with the private sector.

Several states, specifically Maine, Massachusetts, and Tennessee, introduced programs to cover the uninsured. An article in the Wall Street Journal on Maine’s program pointed out that in 2003 Maine attempted to cover all of its uninsured citizens. Its proponents claimed that it would be paid for by savings in the healthcare system. Instead, the program is operating a deficit and had to be supported by a tax on private health insurance. Despite substantial tax subsidies, the Maine’s program produced only a small reduction in the uninsured. Massachusetts’s program did reduce the uninsured. However in doing so, it likely caused healthcare costs to rise faster there than in the rest of the nation. Also, predictably, the cost to Massachusetts taxpayers skyrocketed. Tennessee’s program is another failure. Proponents of the public option might claim that the federal government will do so much better than state governments. Yeah right.

The case for the public option is that it will decrease costs or will increase quality. Neither is plausible. The public option would increase medical costs, jack up taxes, and produce inferior healthcare. Anyone who votes for it should be thrown out of office.

Environmentalism: Cash for Clunkers

2009-08-12T10:35:00.000-04:00

The Objectivist
Cash for Clunkers: Kindergarten Legislators
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
August 10, 2009

The Cash for Clunkers program (Car Allowance Rebate System) is incredibly stupid. It is economically inefficient and an incredibly wasteful way to help the environment, if it helps it at all. The program speaks volumes that our President and Congress would spit out such a childlike program.

The Cash for Clunkers program initially set aside $1 billion for U.S. residents to trade in less fuel efficient vehicles for new, more fuel efficient ones. Congress and President Obama then later spent another $2 billion to keep the program going. Purchasers were given either $3,500 or $4,500 depending on the trade-in. The program was designed to stimulate the economy by boosting auto production and sales and help the environment by replacing gas-guzzlers. After the first week of the program, the Department of Transportation asserted that 250,000 vehicles were sold under this program in less than a week. In addition, the clunkers were less fuel efficient (average 15.8 miles per gallon) compared with the newly purchased vehicles (average 25.4 mpg), thereby producing a 61% increase in fuel efficiency. Oddly, the car experts at Edmunds.com noted that a Ford SUV was the most widely purchased new vehicle.

Consider the economic effects. First, Edmunds.com points out that in any given month 60,000-70,000 clunker-like-deals happen without any government program in place. Because the program was to last for 4 months (July 1st to November 1st), 240,000 such trade-ins would have occurred anyway. The superfluous nature of this program can be seen in that, as Edmunds.com reported, 100,000 buyers put their purchases on hold waiting for the program to begin. Using a low-end estimate that 150,000 such trade-ins would have occurred anyway, and this surely underestimates the number, the government spent $1 billion to cause an additional 100,000 cars to be traded in. That is, the government spent $10,000 per additional car sale. It could have used to this same amount of money to give Kias to 90-100,000 people. Clearly, this would have better for the American people.

Second, the program required that dealers destroy the power train components (engine and parts by which power is sent to the axles). This is unbelievably wasteful. Consider the following variant on an example from 19th Century economist Frederic Bastiat and more recently from the Cato Institute’s Richard Rahn and journalist Adam Maji. Town thugs decide they want to promote economic growth by creating business for people in the window business. They smash other people’s windows, thereby creating more business for window-makers and –installers. This diverts money from where it would otherwise have been spent (for example, new houses and clothes) to windows. This makes the people poorer because it diverts money from more preferred to less preferred goods. Nothing in this example changes if the thugs use government money to pay people to smash their own windows. The destruction of cars with significant economic value makes us poorer just as would the destruction of windows.

Third, the program is a money loser. The average American car travels 12,000 miles per year. The increase in fuel efficiency means that because of the trade-in the owner will buy 287 less gallons of gas per year, thereby saving him $861 per year (287 gallons x $3 per gallon). Even if the program on average gets owners to trade in their car two years early, the government will be spending at least $3,500 to save roughly $1,700. This is idiotic.

Consider next the effects on the environment. Assume that there is a problem with global warming from CO2 emissions.

First, the 61% increase in fuel efficiency does not mean that we will burn that much less gas. This will occur only if drivers with more efficient cars won’t drive more. However, Declan McCullagh from CBSNews.com and others argue that with more efficient cars people drive more. This also is in line with common sense. You’re less likely to drive to see a friend in another state if you are driving a large gas-guzzling truck than if you are driving a Prius. If this is correct, then the trade-ins will produce less saving in gas than the mpg difference suggests.

Second, it takes a significant amount of energy to build a new car. It takes an average of 6.7 tons of CO2 to build a new car. Assuming you save around 2.8 tons of CO2 per year by burning less fuel (287 gallons x 19.4 lbs. CO2/gallon). Hence, if on average the program only gets people to trade in their car two years early, the program actually increases CO2 and is thus bad for the environment.

The government disagrees and estimates the program will save 365,000 metric tons of CO2. Even if this is correct, and I doubt it, this is a tiny sum. It is .05% of how much China increases its CO2 emissions each year. It is .006% of the total U.S. CO2 output. That is, it is a drop in an ocean of emissions.

Third, even if the program does save CO2, the estimate by Nina Rastogi of www.slate.com is that it will cost the government$175.53 per ton of CO2. This is incredibly wasteful in that a ton of CO2 currently sells for $17.50 on the European Climate Exchange. Note Rastogi is using data from William Chameides, dean of Duke University’s Nicholas School for the Environment.

Why would Congress and the President adopt a program which is bad for the economy and probably bad for the environment? One reason is that the program is very popular. How could it not be? If a program gave me $4,500 of other people’s money to do what I was going to do anyway, I would like that program too. A cash-for-furniture program and cash-for-clothes program would be popular for the same reason. A second reason these guys adopted the program is that the government is promoting its own business and that of a benefactor, the United Auto Workers. The government owns 61% of GM and the UAW owns 18% of it and the latter also owns 55% of Chrysler. They are helping themselves out using taxpayer-funded inducements. A third reason is that with the government now borrowing $1 out of every $2 that it spends ($1.8 trillion out of $3.9 trillion), all spending discipline has been lost. When the bill comes due, the current Congressional delegation will be long gone.

The Cash-for-Clunkers program provides clear evidence that the President and Congress have a childlike view of the world.

Healthcare Reform: Rationing

2009-07-29T14:15:00.001-04:00

The Objectivist
Rationing Healthcare
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
July 27, 2009

President Obama and Democrats in Congress are trying to reform health care. They claim doing so will drive down costs and increase quality.

Their concern over costs is a powerful one. They note that the United States spends more on health care than any other nation ($7,439 in 2007). Using 2004 figures, this is 92.7% more than any other G7 country (France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Japan, and Canada). The U.S. also spends a higher percentage of the economy (Gross Domestic Product or GDP) than all but one other member of the United Nations (in 2007 this was $2.26 trillion or 16% of GDP).

These costs wreck havoc on personal finances. One study by David Himmelstein of Harvard University found that medical expenditures caused 60% of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. Prescription drugs are also more expensive than in almost any other country. Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University notes that there are still other troubles. He notes that the cost of health insurance is skyrocketing. It has doubled in the past decade, rising more than four times faster than wages. He also notes that in eight years Medicare will be in the red.

Despite all this spending, on some accounts, the U.S. healthcare gets bad grades. A 2008 report by the Commonwealth Fund found that despite all this money, the quality of health care in the U.S. was worse than 19 other developed industrial countries with which it was compared. The World Health Organization also ranked the U.S. 37th in overall performance and 72nd in overall health level in comparison to the 191 member organizations it included in its study. The U.S. does worse than other wealthy nations when it comes to life expectancy and infant mortality, although it is not clear whether this is the result of differences in the health-care systems.

The President and Congress have proposed a number of reforms. They propose to expand Medicaid (medical services for the poor), a credit to subsidize the purchase of medical insurance, a public health-insurance option to compete against the private ones, a new tax on individuals who don’t purchase insurance (2.5%) and on employers who don’t provide it (8%), a cap on out-of-pocket spending, and increased use of the collection and use of health-information technology. These reforms (specifically the Affordable Health Choices Act and companion measures) are estimated to cost anywhere from $600 billion to $1.6 trillion. For a government that already faces a staggering $1.85 trillion deficit (13% of the GDP), massive deficit next year (10% of GDP), and reeling economy, the new spending and taxes pose a real threat.

One interesting argument for these proposals is by Peter Singer. He argues that these reforms will involve intelligent rationing rather than the haphazard rationing that occurs today. Singer argues that health care is a scarce resource and like all resources it is rationed. In the U.S., he argues this is done by price. That is, you get what you or your employer can afford to pay for. He argues that in the public sector, specifically Medicare, Medicaid, and hospital emergency rooms, rationing is done by long waits, high copayment requirements, and low payments to doctors and hospitals, which discourage some of them from serving public patients. Singer argues that this haphazard way of rationing is too expensive and lowers the overall quality of health care by concentrating too much spending on less important cases.

Government rationing involves the government refusing to pay for inefficient treatments. Singer notes that last year in Great Britain for example, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) set a limit of $49,000 on the cost of extending life for a year. This prevents it from spending money on drugs that cost too much. He uses the example of Sutent, a drug that extends life for those with advanced kidney cancer for six months and costs $54,000.

Singer argues that the government already is engaged in trading off lives for other values and that this is no different. For example, he notes, in the U.S. the Department of Transportation does not recommend safety measures that cost more than $5.8 million per life. Similarly, the Consumer Product Safety Commission uses a $5 million per life figure in deciding what consumer protections to require. Others argue that because there a multiple good things in life and we can’t escape the need to make trade-offs. Life is one of those good things. For example, lowering the speed limit to 50 mph or keeping the blood-alcohol content level to the (current) 0.08% might save lives, but it does so at the expense of pleasure, liberty, and wealth. For example, the speed limit would increase driving time and decrease the efficient movement of goods. The alcohol-content law increases incarceration and police intrusion.

Singer argues that rationing need not prevent someone from spending their own money on inefficient treatment. Some countries (for example, Australia) permit people to purchase private insurance to supplement public plans.

One problem with government rationing is that some countries do not allow for private options. A single-payer system requires all healthcare to be paid for by the government and does not allow a private option. Under such a system, for most people, government rationing would be the final word on who lives, dies, or gets what treatment. Thus, the system could deny lifesaving surgery to the elderly or surgery to those who suffer from an array of health problems. The idea of government bureaucrats or our crass Congress making these life-and-death decisions is troubling. Singer would likely respond that such rationing occurs anyway and at least this way it would be done in a rational manner.

A second problem with government rationing is that in general the government tends to make things worse. It seems clear that if the government produced and distributed food, computers, and cars, prices would go up and quality would go down. It is not clear why we should think that healthcare is different. Singer might respond here by citing the international comparisons mentioned above.

He might also argue that healthcare is a different sort of good and hence less appropriate for market forces. Following Princeton economist Paul Krugman, he might note two differences between healthcare and consumer goods. First, unlike consumer goods, healthcare involves extreme costs (for example, bypass surgery is very expensive) and must be done via insurance. Second, unlike consumer goods, healthcare purchases do not allow for experience or comparison shopping (for example, it is not clear how one compares doctors). I find the Krugman responses unconvincing, but many would disagree.

A third problem with government rationing is that there is a strong concern about liberty. The government already pays just less than half of all healthcare costs. Once it begins to pay a much larger figure, the costs can be used to justify a wide range of restrictions. The government might restrict what people eat, drink, and smoke, how often they drive, what recreational activities they engage in, etc. It might also involve the government collecting sensitive information on all of us in order to drive down costs. Singer would likely respond that if we are worried about liberty, then we should act to protect it rather than letting concerns about liberty bleed over into other areas.

I’m skeptical of government healthcare. Still, it is an interesting issue how government rationing stacks up against market rationing and whether the current hybrid system (roughly 50% government and 50% private) is serving us well.

Patriotism

2009-07-09T08:45:00.000-04:00

The Objectivist
Why Do You Love Your Country?
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
July 7, 2009

July 4th saw the usual outpouring of flags and patriotism. Patriotism is the love and devotion to one’s own country. Americans are very patriotic. In one 1995-1997 survey, U.S. residents were the fourth most patriotic country.

Patriotism differs from love of one’s group. This love focuses on things such as the group’s shared ethnicity, religion, culture, history, etc. One can love his group even when it doesn’t have a country. Examples include the Kurds, Sioux, and Tutsis. There can also be countries that contain vastly different groups. Examples include multi-ethnic and religious countries such as the United States and Indonesia.

Nor should patriotism be confused with love of small groups. These might include one’s neighbors, childhood friends, or platoon members. In these cases one knows and cares about particular people. Patriotism is nothing like that.

It is worth considering whether Americans should be patriotic. The United States is better than most of the other countries. Its citizens are one of the richest. Its per capita income is usually ranked between 4th and 20th in the world, with the specific ranking depending on what is measured (nominal dollars or purchasing power) and who does the study (International Monetary Fund versus Central Intelligence Agency). It typically ranks behind small countries such as Luxembourg, Norway, and Singapore. Its citizens are also one of the happiest, ranking 15th on one study of how people view their own lives as going. On some accounts, it is also one of the freest. It ranks 6th on the Heritage Foundation’s index of economic freedom. It should be noted that this index has received significant criticism.

It should be noted that even if the United States is freer than some of its peers, it still is run by people who hate liberty and who trample on our founders’ vision. For example, every year the United States takes more than 40% of many people’s income. That is, for every five days someone works, the government at all levels takes everything he makes on Monday and Tuesday. In the U.S., we currently incarcerate 1% of the adult population and keep 3% of the population under control of the criminal justice system (incarcerated or under probation or parole). To put this in perspective, the U.S. has 25% of the world’s prisoners, despite having less than 5% of the world’s population, and imprisons people much more often than do our peers (5 times the rate of Britain, 9 times the rate of Germany, and 12 times the rate of Japan). Given these facts, no reasonable person could be patriotic based on his love of freedom.

Even if you are a big fan of the various nanny laws, such as ones concerning seatbelts, drinking age, marijuana, guns, cigarette and alcohol sin taxes, etc., the above tax and criminal-justice facts are still disturbing. In addition, the country’s fathers (for example, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin) would undoubtedly be disturbed by them.

Others claim that patriotism is not based on one’s country’s performance but rather on the fact that he has a special connection to it. On these other accounts, a citizen should love his own country regardless of whether it is the U.S. or Haiti, Iran, or Burundi. On this theory, patriotism doesn’t rest on how well one’s country stacks up against others. Rather, it should flow from gratitude, pride in the country’s history, or some other feature. The other feature might be that one’s nationality is central to his identity or the fact that his country is like an extended family.

None of these theories is very convincing. As philosopher Igor Primoratz points out, you owe gratitude to those who freely confer benefits on you. That is, you owe gratitude when someone gives you a gift. You need not be grateful to people who trade you certain things (for example, cable channels) for another (for example, money). The benefits that countries have given their citizens (for example, protection and roads) were paid for in full via taxes and citizens’ law-abiding behavior. You don’t owe your country gratitude any more than you owe your cable company gratitude.

History is even less of a ground for patriotism. Some governments have long and arguably glorious histories (for example, Britain and France). If patriotism rests on a country’s history, it has to be a good history, not just any history. But many governments have at best mixed histories (for example, various governments in China, Russia, Germany, and Cambodia were terrible) and others have a short and unimpressive history (for example, Zimbabwe). It is hard to understand why people in these latter cases should love their countries based on these histories. Even for countries with long and glorious histories, it is hard to know why previous good works should produce loyalty for a government that has lost its way. After all, the past is gone.

The notion that patriotism follows because one’s country is central to his identity is implausible. Central to a person’s identity might be his ethnicity, religion, or culture, but these are all distinct from his country. For example, the Romani (Gypsy) people are an ethnic group who take pride in their identity but lack a country. Even if this were not the case, merely because something is central to your identity does not mean you should love it or be devoted to it. For example, even if your identity is centrally linked to Maoist China, Third Reich, or Khmer Rouge, it’s still hard to understand why you should love those states, unless you’re in the funeral business. The same principle holds true for countries with mediocre governments.

A country is also nothing like an extended family. Families are constituted by people who are either closely genetically related to each other or who know and love each other and have a shared personal history. None of this is true of the millions of people who comprise modern nations. The talk of an extended family is a mysterious analogy and in any case not one that illuminates patriotism.

The July 4th style patriotism is a mistake. The United States is not a free enough country to warrant love or devotion. It is better than most, but that’s unimpressive. Patriotism also does not receive support from arguments based on gratitude, history, identity, or family. One might love the American people, but this is not patriotism. In any case, one can’t love the American people because one can’t love millions of people whom he has not and never will meet.

New York Politics: Damn Entertaining

2009-06-25T12:52:00.001-04:00

The Objectivist
New York Legislature: More Entertainment, Less Performance
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
June 22, 2009

The New York State Legislature is both more entertaining and worse than ever.

It is worth following the procedure in the recent coup because it is a window into how control of the New York Senate rests on a legal morass and a wild cast of characters. On June 8, 2009, as set out in the Wikipedia.com, New York Times, and the Albany Times Union, Republican Senator Thomas Libous made a motion to elect a new Senate leader. All thirty Republicans and two turncoat Democrats (Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate) voted for the motion. After the motion was passed, Democratic Senator, Jeffrey Klein, moved for adjournment. Officiating senator, Democrat Neil Breslin granted Klein’s motion and thus did not recognize the vote. Republicans quickly objected noting that a majority of senators didn’t vote to adjourn as required by the Senate’s rule. Nevertheless, Klein declared the meeting adjourned and all but four Democrats walked out.

The remaining senators then voted to replace the current majority leader and Senate President, Malcolm Smith, with two people. Former minority leader, Dean Skelos became majority leader and one of the Democratic turncoats, Espada, became Senate President. Because there is no lieutenant governor, Espada as Senate President would become Acting Governor if Governor David Paterson died, resigned, was removed from office, or left the state.

Hiram Monserrate later decided that he would rejoin the Democrats leaving the Senate divided 31-31. Usually in the event of a tie, the Lieutenant Governor of New York would break the tie but because the position is vacant, there is no one to fill this role. The position is vacant because the person elected to the office (David Paterson) became Governor when Eliot Spitzer left office as a result of a prostitution scandal.

The Republicans claimed that the transfer of power took place on the basis of two arguments. First, New York Senate’s rules (Robert’s Rules of Order) prevented the adjournment because a body cannot adjourn when there is a motion on the floor. Second, there was never a vote on adjournment. Malcolm Smith responded that the Republican attempt to gain control is illegal because he was elected to a two-year term and that term was not yet over.

The people involved in the case are wild and wooly. The former governor left after being found to have patronized a prostitute. Upon assuming office, Paterson promptly admitted to having an affair with a state employee. There was also some evidence that state funds were misused in connection to the affair. Apparently, having an affair with a state employee is not a removable offense, but having one with a hot prostitute is. Paterson later admitted that when he was younger he used cocaine and marijuana. No word on which he enjoyed more.

Senator Monserrate has been indicted for felony assault. In March 2009, he allegedly cut his girlfriend’s face with broken glass. If convicted, he’ll have to leave office. Senator Espada is accused of a wide number of campaign violations and other conflicts of interest. He owes $13,000 in fines for campaign-related violations for a 2008 race and $60,000 for a 2001 race in which he ran to be Bronx Borough President. He is also under investigation for siphoning money designed for a health clinic to his campaigns and for living outside of the Bronx despite claiming residency there. Former Senate Leader Malcolm Smith, 49, who is married, was recently slapped with a paternity suit by an unidentified woman. He promised that if the child is his, he will do the right thing. Clearly, these guys could hang with the Kennedy family.

Now this state government has long been stupid and destructive. In one study by the Tax Foundation in October 2008, New York had the second highest state and local taxes and the second worst business tax climate in the U.S. Sadly, for New Yorkers, a burst of effort by New Jersey has displaced New York’s traditional top ranking. Across the U.S. in 2008, people paid 9.7% of their income to state and local governments, but overachiever New York took 21% more (11.7%) of its residents’ income. Sadly, New Jersey beat us because it takes 11.8%. Along with Connecticut, these were the only states taking more than 11%. In dollars, the average New Yorker pays $7,206 in taxes to the states and localities. This is roughly $3,000 more than the average U.S. resident pays. As of January 1, 2009, New York was the leader in both gas taxes ($.413/gallon), cigarette taxes ($2.75/pack), and a number of its counties have some of the highest property taxes in the country.

Next consider the recent budget. In April 2009, New York passed a budget. Despite an estimated $17 billion deficit and the fact that it is hemorrhaging jobs (150,000 jobs lost between summer ’08 and April ’09), New York increased its spending by roughly $11 billion (approximately 9%). This ramped up total spending to $132 billion. In justifying this spending, state leaders noted that the federal government gave them an additional $6.2 billion as part of the federal stimulus, so there was really no reason to stop spending. This budget contained the usual pork, in this case $170 million. This included spending on such important groups as the Urban Yoga Foundation, Brooklyn Cricket League, Utica Curling Club, and the Harlem Honeys and Bears senior citizen swim club. The budget also contained $350 million in tax credits for the television and film industry, which were big contributors to Democrats.

New York is incredibly dependent on the rich and the securities industry (i.e., Wall Street). In the past, Wall Street generated 20% of the state’s tax revenues, which is more than Michigan takes from the auto industry and Texas takes from gas and oil. E. J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute points out that in 2010, the top 1% of income earners are expected to pay 36% of the income taxes. In gratitude for the rich carrying so much weight, New York punished them by raising taxes on those earning up to $500,000 by 15% (6.85% to 7.85%) and on those making more than that by 31% (6.85% to 8.97%). Economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore argue that when states soak the rich, the rich leave those states, report less income on their tax returns, and choose not to locate in them. For example, a study by McMahon indicated that when states jacked up taxes on the rich, they got the slowest increase in wealthy taxpayers.

Laffer and Moore also found that that from 1998 to 2007, large numbers of people, both rich and not rich, moved from the highest income-tax states (e.g., New Jersey, New York, and California) to no-income-tax states (e.g., Florida, Nevada, and Texas). They also found that the latter states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster income-tax growth than the former.

One solution is to vote out all incumbent, both in the primaries and in the general election. This might be an agreement that to which Democrats and Republicans can agree. If there is a push is to vote out only those legislators who voted for the recent budget, and Gov. Paterson as well, too many Democrats might balk. Instead there can be an agreement that the current legislature while awfully entertaining, is too dysfunctional and destructive to remain in place.

Supreme Court: Sotomayor is the wrong type of activist

2009-06-10T19:09:00.000-04:00

The Objectivist
Sonia Sotomayor: The Wrong Type of Activist
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
June 8, 2009

Sonia Sotomayor should be kept off the Supreme Court not because she is a judicial activist but because she is the wrong sort of activist. She is a judge in the Second Circuit (the federal appellate court that covers New York, Connecticut, and Vermont). She is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents and was born and raised in the South Bronx. Her father died when she was nine and was raised by her mother in public housing. She received a full scholarship to attend Princeton, where she graduated summa cum laude with a degree in history (1976), and received a scholarship to attend Yale Law School, where she edited the Yale Law Journal (1979). She served as both an assistant district attorney and a commercial litigator and in 1992 was confirmed as a federal judge before turning forty.

Conservatives, such as former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, often charge that liberal judges are judicial activists. Judicial activists are judges who decide cases in part on the basis of morality. In contrast, conservatives claim that a judge’s job is similar to that of an umpire. Umpires, they claim, should merely call balls and strikes. Judging pitches on the basis of empathy, morality, or anything else is unfair and not the umpire’s job. Similarly, conservatives argue, a judge should apply the rules of the game, in this case the law. Chief Justice Roberts explicitly made this claim during his confirmation hearings.

The conservatives’ picture here is that the different government officials have different roles. A legislator makes the law, a judge interprets it, and an executive administers it. This structure is important because federal judges are not elected and have lifetime tenure on the court. As a result, they are less subject to democratic correction than are the other two branches.

The conservatives argue that judges should not make law (that is, decide cases on the basis of their moral values) for three reasons. First, in so doing, they make the government less democratic because the rules are being set by unelected and unaccountable judges. Second, they act unfairly because people can’t know what the rules are. Instead of a hard-and-fast set of rules that people use to guide their decisions, the rules become whatever the judge says they are and this is unpredictable. Third, a judge who substitutes her values for the rules acts as a legislator and this is not her job.

This picture of the law is mistaken. The law is not a collection of hard-and-fast rules. Even if the law did consist solely of rules, and this is doubtful, there can be issues for which the rules don’t apply or conflict. For example, the Constitution does not have a rule as to whether a state may withdraw from the United States, as the country discovered in period leading up to the Civil War. Also, the Equal Protection Clause arguably conflicts with the requirement that each State, no matter how small, gets the same number of Senators. In addition, statutory language can be ambiguous (admitting several different interpretations) or vague (not having clear boundaries). For example, it is not clear that there is a clear boundary separating reasonable and unreasonable searches and seizures. Alternatively, there might be a clear boundary but no value-free way to locate it. To handle gaps, conflicts, ambiguity, or vagueness, judges have to use moral values. Hence all judges are judicial activists.

If judges emphasize the values relating to fair notice to citizens, then they make the law more rule-like. Judges who emphasize fair notice emphasize factors such as the plain meaning of the statutory language, how the different statutory provisions relate to one another, and, where it is clear, original intent. Such an approach makes statutory language work similar to how our conversational language works in our daily lives. In contrast, judges that emphasize their life experiences, emotions like sympathy and empathy, or poorly defined notions like social justice and equality, do the opposite. They make the law less rule-like.

Sotomayor and President Obama, when nominating her, emphasized her life experiences. In a speech at the Berkeley Law School, she focused on the need for judges to understand the values of needs of people from different groups and made it clear that being a Latina judge was an advantage in doing so. She said “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Elsewhere, she said “And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.” She also emphasizes the legislative aspect of judges, stating that “[a] court of appeals is where policy is made.”

Because values are a part of a judge’s toolbox, Sotomayor’s values are also relevant. She is a race warrior. Pat Buchanan points out that at Princeton, she agitated for more Hispanic professors. For example, she headed a group, Accion Puertorriquena, that filed a complaint with the federal government claiming that Princeton had not hired enough Hispanic professors. At Yale, Buchanan points out, she co-chaired a group that demanded the hiring of more Latino professors and administrators. She also filed a complaint against a law firm, when one of its members suggested that she was admitted to the law school on the basis of affirmative action. As a side note, while there is some evidence that Sotomayor is not an affirmative-action baby, the data suggests that the majority of black and Hispanic students at elite law schools would not have been admitted but for these programs and hence the employer’s concern was justified on statistical grounds.

From 1980 to 1992, she served on the board of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a Puerto Rican special interest group. Others make her implicit ethnic claim in stark terms. New York Senator, and world-class demagogue, Charles Schumer asserted that “It’s long overdue that a Latino sit on the United States Supreme Court.” To see the problem, imagine that Jews and Asians successfully made similar demands in the context of the NFL and NBA and consider what would happen to the caliber of play and shared sense of purpose among teammates. Now imagine a similar result in the courtroom.

The role of a judge is to interpret the law, although doing so requires judges consider moral values. In some sense, then, all judges are judicial activists. However, by emphasizing some values (for example, life experiences and tribal loyalty) over others (for example, fair notice), a judge does her job less well. There is reason to believe Sonia Sotomayor will do her job less well.

Supreme Court: Ricci v. DeStefano

2009-05-27T13:48:00.002-04:00

The Objectivist
Affirmative Action Unmasked
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
May 25, 2009

This past April, the Supreme Court case heard Ricci v. DeStefano. This case is interesting because it highlights the tradeoffs involved in affirmative action and, outside of education, likely signals its slow death.

In 2003, the City of New Haven, Connecticut took steps to fill the captain and lieutenant positions in its fire department. New Haven’s law and regulations required that hiring and promotions be based solely on merit as determined by a competitive exam. New Haven hired a firm that specialized in employment-related tests, particularly ones relating to public safety. The test was approved by independent experts. 118 people took the test, including 27 black candidates. None of the black candidates did well enough to qualify for the 15 promotions, although one or two Hispanics did. On a side note, New Haven had already tried to mitigate the effects of the exam by giving the written exam get 60% of the weight to get promoted and the oral exam get 40%.

After the exam, the Civil Service Board would normally certify the list of those eligible for promotion. However, a local minister with close ties to the mayor made it clear that because of the racial disparity, he opposed certification. City officials tried to impugn the exam, but the firm that designed it stood by it and offered to perform a post-exam study that would have validated the test. The city blocked the study, almost undoubtedly because they knew the test would have been validated. They did so even though their contract with the firm required them to pay for it.

New Haven then refused to certify the exam on the basis that it would face lawsuits relating to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Some of the firefighters denied promotion sued the city and several individuals on the basis that it violated their rights under Title VII and the Equal Protection Clause. The Equal Protection Clause prevents state agencies from denying people equal protection under the law. Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating in hiring or employment conditions on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, etc The District Court and the Second Circuit ruled against the firefighters. It held that New Haven’s concern about being sued was reason enough to throw out the test results.

As George Will points out, the lead plaintiff, Ricci, presents an appearance problem for New Haven. To prepare for the exam, Will points out, he quit his second job, bought more than $1,000 worth of books the city recommended, paid to have them put on audiotapes (he is dyslexic), and took practice tests and interviews. He studied hard, sometimes as much as 13 hours a day, and got the 6th highest score.

New Haven was concerned with part of the law that bans employment tests and practices that have an adverse impact on members of one race. In fact, the federal government (specifically, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has guidelines that hold that evidence of adverse impact occurs when the selection or promotion rate for one group is less than 80% of the group with the highest rate. As Steve Sailor points out, this means that if 50% of whites pass a test, then 40% of more of the minority groups must pass the test. If this doesn’t happen, then unless it can validate the test, the employer will be found to have discriminated. If the employer validates the test, then it will not be found to have discriminated unless those suing can show that there was an equally valid and less discriminatory test.

The Supreme Court should have an easy time with this case. The Individual Rights Foundation, Cato Institute, and others point out that the city blocked the post-validation study because it would likely validate the test. The evidence that there was an alternative, less-discriminatory test is laughable. In oral argument before the Supreme Court, New Haven had to admit that their evidence for such a less discriminatory test rested on the claim made by a competitor firm who hadn’t even seen the test New Haven actually gave.

As a policy matter, the argument against affirmative action, and against blocking such exams, is straightforward. Such policies severely harm people and this harm is probably not outweighed by the policy’s benefits.

Psychology professor Kevin Murphy of Pennsylvania State University points out that general intelligence is the single best predictor of job performance, but also the one most likely to have a substantial adverse impact on several minority groups. Murphy and others further point out that once general intelligence has been measured, the testing of more specific abilities may well add little in predicting who will perform well.

To see this, consider the following insights from Steve Sailor. Sailor, points out that as a group, black students on average score at the 18th percentile of white students on the graduate admissions test and at 20% on the medical admissions test. To admit large number of black students, standards are dropped, which then produces frustrating results. Using 2004 data from Richard Sanders of UCLA Law School, Sailor points out that 53% of black law students who enter law school fail to become lawyers versus 24% of whites. 40% of black law school graduates never pass the bar versus 15% for whites. Similarly, a 1994 study of medical boards published it The Journal of American Medical Association found that only 44% of blacks passed the medical boards for the first time, versus 84% for whites and 79% for Asians. Note that none of these observations depends on whether the differences are genetic.

Hiring less meritorious people harms people. In one study by economist John Lott, between 1987 and 1990, various policies, including affirmative action, decreased white male officers by 6% (6,912) and increased the number of Black male officers by 950 (5%) in the 189 cities Lott studied. He concluded that these policies produced 1,145 more murders and 30 more rapes. Similarly, a 1998 study in The Journal of the American Medical Association, 71% of newly licensed physicians prescribed potentially inappropriate medication and inappropriate medication is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. Admitting less able medical students likely exacerbates this problem. A similar pattern is likely true of firefighters. When you hire less talented people in life-and-death jobs, some people who would otherwise escape injury, get hurt and killed.

University of Maryland law professor Sherrilyn Ifill points out that New Haven has a history of discriminating in its fire department. She points out that black firefighters have repeatedly sued the city for discrimination in hiring and promotion and won, most recently in 2004. However, New Haven didn’t even try to defend its policy in terms of compensating for past discrimination because it knew that one cannot compensate one person for what was done to another. Nor did it rest its argument on the value of diversity, a common justification in educational contexts. So it is not clear what reason it thought outweighed the increased risk to its citizens of hiring less competent firefighters. However, even if could have cited one, it is unlikely to outweigh the greater risks to its citizens.

New Haven’s weak legal argument and even weaker policy argument will likely result in the Supreme Court reinstating the test results. The case highlights the real tradeoffs in death and injury that results from affirmative action.

There is an important addendum to this case. The Obama administration backed New Haven. President Obama then nominated Sonia Sotomayor to be a Supreme Court Justice. She served on the appellate court that summarily dismissed the firefighters’ claim. Obama and Sotomayer will act to preserve race preferences no matter how shaky the case and in so doing are pitting some racial groups against others. Wherefore by their fruits, ye shall know them.