Julie Borowski Gives Libertarian Guys Dating Advice
This sounds really stereotypical, but she actually gives good advice. My main reaction to this video was, “Wow, Julie is even nicer than I thought.”
“Divestment Day” Hurts Investors, Does Nothing for Climate
My latest at IER. An excerpt:
To be sure, in these discussions the activists would come back and make the issue one of simple morality: Would you pick up the wallet from an unconscious man lying on the sidewalk, even if you knew that the next guy surely would? In a case like this, to keep a clean conscience, most people would say they would refrain from profiting in this fashion, knowing full well the guy was going to get robbed.
But even on its own terms, the alleged problem of human-caused climate change isn’t like this. Even the computer models selected by the Obama Administration to measure the “social cost of carbon” don’t say that fossil fuel use should stop—instead they simply conclude that humans ought to cut back on the margin to make the benefits and costs come into synch. This is a technical issue that I have debated elsewhere, but the point is that using fossil fuels isn’t “immoral” in the way that, say, taking a guy’s wallet would be.
To see just how confused it would be to transform divestment into a simple issue of morality, consider: Just about everyone at the universities in question, including the administrators, faculty, and students, drive cars and use electricity that were largely powered through fossil fuels. They will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, whether or not the university endowment holds the stocks of certain companies providing them with that energy. This would be an odd “moral stand against fossil fuels” indeed.
aaa
The Separation of Coherence and State
[UPDATE below.]
On Facebook I follow George Takei (“Lt. Sulu” from the original Star Trek series) because he’s pretty funny, but mostly because I loved that show. Unfortunately Takei applauded the Oregon judge who ruled against the Christian bakers, and put the hashtag #SeparationOfChurchandCake.
Upping the ante, one of Takei’s fans posted this in the thread without further comment:
This is all so muddled it’s hard to know where to start. The traditional notion of “separation of Church and State” comes explicitly from an 1802 letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists. Here’s the key paragraph:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
Thus Jefferson with this phrase–and the drafters of the First Amendment to the Constitution–was putting a brake on what the State could do. These men were trying to protect the individual’s free exercise of his or her religious beliefs from political interference.
Things have now been turned inside out, with the State forcing people to violate their religious beliefs. There is clearly no duty owed of baking a cake; if the bakers had decided to retire, and thus fail to provide the gay couple with a cake, nobody would have batted an eye. But it was because their action was motivated by a particular religious belief that it violated the State’s rules.
Although Takei and some of his fans were confused on this point–and by the way, I realize he was cracking a joke with the hashtag, but he still is confused about what it means to live in a free society–I was glad to see that many others weren’t. Indeed, several people chimed in along the lines of, “I’m gay and it saddens me to think there are so many people who don’t want me to have the right to marry the person of my choice, but the government has no right telling owners how to run their business. This won’t help us.”
UPDATE: In the comments someone challenged my statement that “it was because their action was motivated by a particular religious belief that it violated the State’s rules.” I admit I didn’t word that in the most understandable way, but here’s what I meant:
==> Suppose the bakers had told the potential customers, “You know, thanks for the business, but about 6 years ago we both decided that as store policy, we weren’t going to do wedding cakes any more, period. The people are just too stressed out with those ones. It’s either Bridezilla coming in, biting our heads off, or the soon-to-be sap husband who’s trying to placate Bridezilla, know what I mean? So in the interest our sanity, we just decided no more wedding cakes. But here are three addresses of our colleagues within 5 miles of here who’d love your business.”
Would the above be illegal? I hope not, and in any event I doubt a customer who had a wedding to worry about would bother suing them, rather than drive 2 miles to the next bakery that would love their business.
==> Suppose the same gay customers wanted a birthday cake for a co-worker. Would the owners have refused on the grounds that “We don’t make cakes for your kind”? I don’t know this particular incident, but I know I’ve read similar accounts where the owner(s) explained they had no problem serving gay customers in general, but rather it was the idea of making money by facilitating something that violated their religious views on the institution of marriage.
==> So in light of the above two points, I hope it’s clearer why I said that the specific reason this was illegal was that their reason for failing to perform the action was a religious one.
Potpourri
==> At Mises CA I have a short note on John Bugas, a colorful character who embraced the notion of consumer sovereignty as a way of defending capitalism.
==> Chip Knappenberger and Pat Michaels evaluate the climate models.
==> Plosser wants to raise short-term rates sooner rather than later. My kind of central planner!
==> My latest FEE piece on occupational licensing. An excerpt:
It is a paradox of our age that the interventionists think the public is too stupid to consult Angie’s List before hiring a lawyer, and so they need politicians to weed out the really bad ones by requiring law licenses. Yet, who determines whether a person (often a lawyer!) is qualified to become a politician? Why, the same group of citizens who were too stupid to pick their own lawyers.
The Climate Change “Consensus” Isn’t What the Washington Post Thinks
I am really getting sick of people thinking “humans contribute to climate change, therefore Washington should impose a big carbon tax” is a no-brainer. It’s not. My latest IER post:
Now don’t misunderstand, Richard Tol (the developer of the FUND model which shows net benefits for moderate warming) supports a carbon tax. But that’s because he thinks the benefits of warming are already baked into the cake, and he’s concerned about what will happen decades from now. So would Stromberg—since he is so committed to empiricism and science—want the senators to vote on how many more decades of benefits from global warming humanity will receive, according to one of the models chosen by the Obama Administration? I bet a lot of Republicans would line up for that one, so Stromberg should be glad to see their commitment to truth.
And I bring in Freeman Dyson, of “Dyson Sphere” fame (among sci-fi nerds):
Also on this point, notice that even if you thought it would be worth restricting carbon dioxide emissions and crippling economic growth, if that were the only option, it still wouldn’t mean it was the best way to deal with the potential threat. That was one of Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson’s points, and why he is now labeled as a “skeptic” and considered a pariah in some circles even though he used to be a cool “eccentric” scientist with amazing ideas. (My brief and cynical summary of the treatment of Dyson: Dyson’s brilliant imagination of the potential of humanity was great until he started thinking of cheap ways our kids could deal with the possible dangers of climate change. After his musings wandered on tothat topic, fashionable people threw him under the bus.)
What’s Good for Dave Ramsey Is Good for Charles Krauthammer
Gene Callahan has consistently opposed my view that it is a perfectly fine rhetorical move to exaggerate the numbers in an opponent’s position, to see how compelling the stated principle really is. A few years ago Gene complained when libertarians did this in the minimum wage debate, and just recently he said that my rhetorical move against Charles Krauthammer’s call for a $1/gallon tax on gasoline also left him unsatisfied.
This always surprised me, since Gene is a voracious reader of philosophical work and arguably the only thing philosophers really do for us is test the validity of various arguments. In other words, reading various philosophers hardly ever makes me think I’ve found the answer, but the exercise does help me think through the flaws in the various answers that others have put forth.
Anyway, I decided in our recent exchange just to wait, and watch Gene use the same rhetorical trick in his own work. I didn’t have to wait long. Last week he wrote a post complaining about Dave Ramsey:
Here we find “financial guru” David Ramsey telling his guru-ees: “T]he 30 year mortgage robs your future. […] It simply enabled borrowers to buy more house than they could afford by spreading the payments out over a longer term. On top of that, those homeowners paid tens—even hundreds of thousands of dollars more in interest.”
Sigh. First of all, why is this “more house than they can afford”?! They can afford, it, since they spread the payments out! And if Ramsey’s argument works, why doesn’t it work equally well against his preferred 15-year mortgage?! Don’t all mortgages enable borrowers to buy “more house than they could afford” if they had to pay cash?
…
Yes, in some cases, a shorter mortgage might be better. But Ramsey shows no signs of acknowledging the trade-offs involved.
Gene’s critique of Ramsey is so analogous to mine of Krauthammer that it’s almost eerie. Now suppose a fan of Dave Ramsey found Gene’s post, and wrote the following:
“Callahan you idiot! I suppose if your doctor said, ‘Gene, I don’t think you should be eating 6 square meals a day, that wouldn’t be healthy’ then you’d come back and say, “Ha ha doc, if that’s a good argument, then would it be bad for me to eat 3 square meals a day!”
Would such a flippant response blow up Gene’s critique of Ramsey? No, of course it wouldn’t. What Gene did was show that the specific argument Ramsey used against 30-year mortgages couldn’t be a good one, because the same argument would show that 15-year mortgages were bad, and Ramsey himself is OK with his listeners taking out 15-year mortgages.
I’m going to stop now. In closing, all I would say is, I hope Gene (and Josiah Neeley et al.) don’t forever remove this wonderful rhetorical device from their toolbox, for fear of hypocrisy. Just admit you were wrong when you criticized me for using it.
Private Property in the Vaccine Debate
An obvious point, but not one I had seen people making:
The only way to address these fundamental conflicts is to take the State out of the equation. Let private property owners set the relevant rules on their land. Privately run schools, daycare centers, youth clubs, and pediatricians can set their individual policies regarding vaccination requirements for participating children. Health insurance companies can decide if they will insist on vaccination in order for a newborn to remain on a parent’s plan.
Private property doesn’t eliminate conflict, but it is a necessary foundation for the peaceful resolution of very heated disagreements. Bringing the State into the picture will hurt all children.
Hitchens vs. Craig: Does God Exist?
My son and I are watching this debate between the famous atheist and a renowned apologist:
As you can imagine, I now think that Craig has the upper hand, but–as I admitted to my son when he asked about it–if I had watched this same debate when I was in college, I would’ve thought Hitchens destroyed his opponent.
The interesting thing is that both now and back then, I can appreciate the merits of the particular points. What has changed is my opinion on which points are stronger in the balance.
For example, considered by itself, it is nutty that God would be upset with humanity, and would only take us back after we had murdered His Son. Thinking about this point (from Hitchens) makes you reject Christianity as an absurd myth–no rational, loving God is at work here!
However, if you focus on Craig’s arguments about the fine-tuning of the universe and the early Christian martyrs, then you seriously entertain the hypothesis that Jesus was exactly Who He claimed. And if that’s true, then you’re going to interpret the crucifixion as a further evidence of God’s generosity and sacrifice–not as evidence of His warped morality.
Two last comments to show that (I hope) I’m being fair while watching this: Craig is much more methodical in his debating style, but I think he botched his discussion of the multiverse in his opening statement. My son and I replayed it, and we still couldn’t even understand how Craig thought he was defanging the argument that the fine-tuning of the universe exists because we are in one of an infinite number of possible universes, and of course it must support life if we’re looking around measuring the charge on an electron and the speed of light.
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