I was discussing our treatment of prisoners in the U.S. with some friends when I got what I think is an ingenious idea.
Part of the Left wants the government to socialize a bunch of things, most notably medicine. Socialized medicine has some very great benefits. It is based on the idea that healthcare is a universal need that is often too expensive for a significant portion of the population to afford. In the U.S., medical debt is not uncommon, but more importantly, many of the lower class don't seek medical care when they need it, because it is too expensive. A majority of medical care is not related to dangerous or self destructive behavior. It is the result of disease, genetic disorders, living conditions, working conditions, or accidents that are not easily avoidable. In short, most harm requiring medical care is not the fault of the person needing it. Withholding that care for financial reasons is completely unreasonable, especially in such a wealthy society. At the same time though, who is going to pay for it? How do we keep things fair by providing necessary medical care without the apparent unfairness of taking wealth from others to pay for it?
This is not the only case where fairness demands both that something expensive be provided to those who cannot afford it and that rights of ownership are respected. I have said before that death by starvation is not an acceptable punishment for laziness. We also have mentally ill prisoners who are not entirely responsible for their actions but cannot be allowed their freedom without treatment, so they will no longer be a threat to society. We have a political movement for abolishing the death penalty, but we also have prisoners who are too dangerous to let out but who's upkeep burden should not be thrust on the public against its will. These are all very expensive problems. Some we already charge to the people, even though a significant number see it as completely unfair. Some we ignore, allowing some people to suffer for the fairness of others.
So, the other day I told a friend that the problem with abolishing the death penalty, aside from the rare prisoner that can still cause significant harm even in prison (for example mob bosses, who can orchestrate murders from their cells), is the cost. Charging the public for the upkeep of prisoners who are too dangerous to ever release causes economic harm, violating the purpose of the justice system (which is to protect the people). I suggested, instead of spending millions of dollars lobbying the government to abolish the death penalty, these groups should pay for the upkeep of these prisoners, thereby justifying keeping them alive. This would retain the death penalty as a means of dealing with people who are literally too dangerous to keep alive, and it would alleviate the economic burden of keeping less dangerous people alive, who cannot be released, by allowing those who can and are willing to afford it to foot the bill.
This idea can, and in my option should, be extended to many other things, it if can be done successfully. It would require one essential thing: The government would need to be willing to work with non-profits.
If enough people were willing to donate, a non-profit could be created that would provide a basic income to everyone in the U.S. The best, and probably the only reasonable, distribution system for the money would be the IRS. So, the IRS would have to work with the NPO, where the NPO provides the money and the IRS distributes it. This could be done fairly efficiently through the IRS. Even better though, no one would have to worry above government overreach. The non-profit and the donors could decide controversial things, such as whether or not the funding should be distributed only to U.S. citizens or to all U.S. residents. The actual amount distributed would be decided based on available funding. The only government overhead would be the marginal extra work for the IRS, working the additional funds into its existing distribution.
Perhaps the best part about all of this is that it completely transcends politics. Congress does not get to vote on whether or not to have a basic income, if it is being provided by a non-profit. A Republican controlled Congress cannot cut the basic income to balance the budget, and a Democrat controlled Congress cannot increase government spending to raise the basic income. The government would not have to foot the bill at all, and the only control it would have over it would be the cooperation of the IRS. If a similar non-profit was created for a single payer medical system, it would get even better though: Medicaid would become entirely obsolete. The government could easily cut the program (or cut it down to merely a distribution system for the funds raised by the NPO), balance the budget better, and maybe even start reducing its debt, and we would still get a decent medical system! Add to this the prisoner related things, and our criminal justice system would cost far less. In the long run, we could expect to see significant tax reductions, at the same time as expanding social programs and improving the fairness and living conditions of our country.
Crowdfunding is supposedly some big new thing invented in the 21st century, but in reality, it has existed for all of recorded human history. Taxation is the involuntary crowd funding of government. Charities facilitate the voluntary crowd funding of welfare. I believe we can bring these things together. Obviously the core of government and of our justice system needs to be funded, whether people are willing to donate voluntarily or not, but many, perhaps even a majority, of government programs can be crowd funded, and if they can, they should be.
The costs of crowd funding peripheral government programs include potentially reduced efficiency and less government control over those programs. The potential benefits include greater overall funding, especially for more popular programs, better distribution channels for charities (the IRS can distribute funds far better than any charity), more direct ability to influence programs for the general public (which means improved democratic process), the ability for people to choose whether or not to support a given program, and a much leaner government, all at the same time as providing the same or better services.
Yes, one potential problem is that some programs just won't get funded. Not only is that already a problem (do you see a basic income), it is also not a problem with crowdfunding. The U.S. is supposed to be a democratic nation. What is more democratic than voting with your wallet? There are exceptions, but in general it is accurate to say that if the people will not voluntarily fund a program, then the people don't want that program, and in a truly democratic nation, that justifies allowing the program to collapse and disappear. There are a few programs that need funding regardless, like the military, the FDA, and the FCC. Critical defensive and regulatory agencies should at least get minimal funding to continue sufficient operation. Programs for social welfare, highly controversial agencies, scientific research (NASA, perhaps), and broadly socialized services (e.g. a single payer medical system), however, can and should be crowdfunded.
By crowdfunding these things, they become depoliticized. Crowdfunding basic income and a single payer medical system eliminates the ability of Democratic candidates to essentially buy the votes of the poor by promising these things. It also eliminates the ability of Republican candidates to buy the votes of the rich by promising to cut taxes by eliminating these programs. The government can (and again, should) still be involved, as it is uniquely positioned to aid in distribution. Adding a basic income to tax returns is something trivial for the IRS, because it already has a distribution system in place. The Medicaid program already has a massive support network throughout the U.S., allowing it to provide coverage nearly everywhere. Replacing Medicaid's underlying funding and qualification system with a universal single payer system funded by one or more NPOs would be a little more difficult than the basic income, but it would still be significantly easier than one or multiple NPOs trying to cut new deals with a wide enough network of health care providers to actually function as a single payer system. For death row prisoners, having their support be crowdfunded to indefinitely delay execution, the criminal justice system is an essential element, but again, allowing one or more NPOs to provide that funding would be trivial. The same applies for prisoners who need treatment for mental illness. In all cases, the government is an essential element, but it can run leaner and avoid the distraction of controversial issues if the funding and management of these programs are outsourced to NPOs that are funded through voluntary donations.
We do not need the government to initiate this either. We can do it ourselves. The movement for abolishing the death penalty has enough money and influence that it could immediately start lobbying state governments to allow them to pay prisoner upkeep to delay execution, and most state governments would be far more amenable to this offer than the demand that the death penalty be abolished entirely. There are also lobbying groups for medical reform and welfare that could easily shift their focus from trying to convince the government to provide more services to trying to provide those services themselves through a donation model. Environmentalist groups could work with the EPA to offer better return on carbon credits. They could work with state governments to offer credits for logging companies to avoid important habitats and replant wherever they go. In fact, U.S. environmentalist groups could even work with other governments to provide incentives for companies to act more responsibly. (For example, instead of spending tons of money on boats, helicopters, and other equipment to terrorize Japanese whaling boats, they could work with the Japanese government to offer incentives to whalers to reduce their quotas.) Of course, I think we need to get things in our own country under control first, but this could eventually expand to the entire world, with international NPOs that help shape policy and behavior by offering to help instead of arguing and fighting. The government does not have to buy into this before we can start trying to drive change. All we need is reasonable government cooperation, and we can do the rest ourselves, and we can start now!
I believe crowdfunded peripheral programs is the next evolution of government. It can reduce government overreach, reduce necessary size of government, reduce government corruption, increase overall freedom and liberty, and produce a better society that better fits the desires and expectations of the people. I don't know if we are ready enough for it to ensure that it will always be sufficiently funded, but I think now is the time to start moving in that direction.
Showing posts with label death penalty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death penalty. Show all posts
22 April 2017
08 May 2015
Work to Live: Death, Divorce, and Crime
The work to live ideology results in 700 deaths per year from freezing. It is a major contributer to domestic violence as well as high divorce rates in the U.S. It is highly likely that it also is a major factor in illegal drug use. Of course, this does not even count the cases of starvation and other shelter related deaths. Frankly, this work to live thing is imposing what amounts to serious cruel and unusual punishment on around 600,000 people (the government claims that this is how many people are homeless each night on average).
This is a shame, in a country that produces almost five times what it consumes of nearly all basic necessities (shelter may be an exception). Even during the recent recession, we had a thriving economy, producing enormous amounts of nearly everything, and only a very small portion of that is necessary for survival. A vast majority of our labor goes into producing things that we do not need. We have too much of nearly everything (half of the food produced in the U.S. that is not exported gets thrown away), and yet, we are just letting people starve and freeze to death on the streets. Why?
The problem is "work to live." At the same time the U.S. is making great strides to abolishing the death penalty. Last year, there were only 35 executions in the U.S. total. The grand total since 1976 is 1,407. Each year, 20 times as many people as were executed last year die from freezing alone. It only takes two years for enough people to die from freezing to match the total number of executions since 1976. The death penalty is not a significant source of death in the U.S., and more innocent people die every year in accidents than the grand total of innocent people that have died to the death penalty in all of U.S. history. Why are we so vocal about the death penalty while huge numbers of people are dying constantly because of some outdated ideology that is based largely on a situation that never actually existed in known history? We are evidently hypocrites.
Domestic violence, divorce rates, and drug abuse all go together. These are all problems that are limited primarily to the lower class. Domestic abuse in middle or upper class households is extremely rare compared to those living in poverty. The most common cause of divorce is financial disagreements that stem from not having a high enough income. Drug abuse is far more common among the homeless and poor than any other class. In fact, crime in general (especially petty theft and violent crime) is most frequently committed by the poor. The worst part is that a vast majority of poor people are not poor by their own choice, but they are punished for it and treated as if it were. As with the death penalty, innocent people are being punished for not being able to work to live. They largely have no choice, and multiple studies have shown that giving them sufficient money, even straight cash with no strings attached (the opposite of work to live), will alleviate most of these problem, and it will give them the means and motivation to permanently escape them.
Work to live has become a toxic ideology on our society. It was the root cause of the recent recession, because even during the recession, goods were plentiful. It causes people to keep jobs they hate, preventing other people who want those jobs from getting them. It causes a great deal of death, far more than the death penalty. It causes economists to make nonsensical statements revolving around the idea that reducing unnecessary work is bad. It causes people to oppose valuable economic advances, again based on the idea that reducing necessary work is bad. It is a major factor in divorce, drug abuse, and crime. Eliminating the work to live ideology (with, for example, a basic income) would do far more to reduce unnecessary death than eliminating the death penalty, and it would likely reduce crime far more effectively than the death penalty or any other law enforcement ever has.
This is a shame, in a country that produces almost five times what it consumes of nearly all basic necessities (shelter may be an exception). Even during the recent recession, we had a thriving economy, producing enormous amounts of nearly everything, and only a very small portion of that is necessary for survival. A vast majority of our labor goes into producing things that we do not need. We have too much of nearly everything (half of the food produced in the U.S. that is not exported gets thrown away), and yet, we are just letting people starve and freeze to death on the streets. Why?
The problem is "work to live." At the same time the U.S. is making great strides to abolishing the death penalty. Last year, there were only 35 executions in the U.S. total. The grand total since 1976 is 1,407. Each year, 20 times as many people as were executed last year die from freezing alone. It only takes two years for enough people to die from freezing to match the total number of executions since 1976. The death penalty is not a significant source of death in the U.S., and more innocent people die every year in accidents than the grand total of innocent people that have died to the death penalty in all of U.S. history. Why are we so vocal about the death penalty while huge numbers of people are dying constantly because of some outdated ideology that is based largely on a situation that never actually existed in known history? We are evidently hypocrites.
Domestic violence, divorce rates, and drug abuse all go together. These are all problems that are limited primarily to the lower class. Domestic abuse in middle or upper class households is extremely rare compared to those living in poverty. The most common cause of divorce is financial disagreements that stem from not having a high enough income. Drug abuse is far more common among the homeless and poor than any other class. In fact, crime in general (especially petty theft and violent crime) is most frequently committed by the poor. The worst part is that a vast majority of poor people are not poor by their own choice, but they are punished for it and treated as if it were. As with the death penalty, innocent people are being punished for not being able to work to live. They largely have no choice, and multiple studies have shown that giving them sufficient money, even straight cash with no strings attached (the opposite of work to live), will alleviate most of these problem, and it will give them the means and motivation to permanently escape them.
Work to live has become a toxic ideology on our society. It was the root cause of the recent recession, because even during the recession, goods were plentiful. It causes people to keep jobs they hate, preventing other people who want those jobs from getting them. It causes a great deal of death, far more than the death penalty. It causes economists to make nonsensical statements revolving around the idea that reducing unnecessary work is bad. It causes people to oppose valuable economic advances, again based on the idea that reducing necessary work is bad. It is a major factor in divorce, drug abuse, and crime. Eliminating the work to live ideology (with, for example, a basic income) would do far more to reduce unnecessary death than eliminating the death penalty, and it would likely reduce crime far more effectively than the death penalty or any other law enforcement ever has.
09 February 2015
Boston Bombing Excludes Catholics
There is some consternation among Roman Catholics over the jury selection criteria for the Boston Bombing case. One of the criterion states that jurors must be able to impose the death penalty. The catechism states that the death penalty should only be imposed when there is no other reasonable way for the government to protect society from a criminal. In modern society, with much better prison security than the past, this is taken to mean that the death penalty is no longer necessary. Roman Catholics who believe and follow this teaching are not eligible to be on the jury for this case, and this is causing some frustration and controversy.
Unfortunately, the problem is not with the catechism or the jury selection criteria. The problem is with a fundamental understanding of the justice system. The catechism has it right, with the strong implication that justice is about protecting society, not about handing out due punishment. The problem is the assumption that an imprisoned criminal is neither threatening or harmful to society. Aside from the current jury issue, this is manifested in the fact that the U.S. has some of the highest prison populations per capita in the world. Prisoners are both a threat and a burden on the people, especially when they are in prison for life.
The problem here is that prisoners cost money. In fact, they cost a lot of money. Prison guards are not cheap to pay. Prisons cost a lot of money to maintain. Prisoners also require clothing, food, and other amenities. In the effort to avoid cruel and unusual punishment, expenses for prisoners are not trivial. Most modern prisons provide televisions, computers, and fairly nice recreational equipment for prisoners as well. Prisoners probably cost more than the typical American barely surviving in poverty. They certainly cost more (and have a higher quality of living) that the typical American college student.
Now, when a criminal is in prison for 6 months or a few years, and if that criminal comes out of prison as a functioning member of society, it is possible for him or her to eventually pay the debt to society incurred in prison through paying taxes and improve society in general. Those in prison for life can never pay back this debt, and thus they are a permanent burden on society. The money spend on permanent prisoners could, and probably should, be spent helping upstanding citizens who are in poverty due to any number of circumstances. By spending this money on permanent prisoners, we are allowing those prisoners to remain a threat to the safety and security of society at large and specifically of those who need that money for their survival. In other words, when there is no chance of reprieve, the harm that a prisoner will ultimately do to society completely justifies the death penalty, even according to the wording of the catechism.
That aside, prisoners themselves should also be regarded as part of society. If a terrorist is put in prison with other prisoners, that terrorist becomes a threat to the safety of those other prisoners. Even if you don't by the assertion that the cost to society constitutes serious harm, it is impossible to deny that especially dangerous prisoners, that may be a serious threat to other prisoners, constitute a threat to society as well (consider, what if the prisoner murdered by this criminal is your brother, who is serving time for some desperate but trivial crime).
In my opinion, any Roman Catholic who feels forced to opt out of jury duty for this case, because of catechism teachings, does not understand the justice system. I am not trying to discriminate. I am saying it like it is. The U.S. justice system is no where near a point where it is so infallible that a terrorist that is put in prison for life is not still a significant threat to society. Those who oppose the death penalty on the religious grounds that we should not impose that penalty if we can protect the people perfectly fine without it need to consider whether they may be "trusting in the arm of flesh" too much.
Unfortunately, the problem is not with the catechism or the jury selection criteria. The problem is with a fundamental understanding of the justice system. The catechism has it right, with the strong implication that justice is about protecting society, not about handing out due punishment. The problem is the assumption that an imprisoned criminal is neither threatening or harmful to society. Aside from the current jury issue, this is manifested in the fact that the U.S. has some of the highest prison populations per capita in the world. Prisoners are both a threat and a burden on the people, especially when they are in prison for life.
The problem here is that prisoners cost money. In fact, they cost a lot of money. Prison guards are not cheap to pay. Prisons cost a lot of money to maintain. Prisoners also require clothing, food, and other amenities. In the effort to avoid cruel and unusual punishment, expenses for prisoners are not trivial. Most modern prisons provide televisions, computers, and fairly nice recreational equipment for prisoners as well. Prisoners probably cost more than the typical American barely surviving in poverty. They certainly cost more (and have a higher quality of living) that the typical American college student.
Now, when a criminal is in prison for 6 months or a few years, and if that criminal comes out of prison as a functioning member of society, it is possible for him or her to eventually pay the debt to society incurred in prison through paying taxes and improve society in general. Those in prison for life can never pay back this debt, and thus they are a permanent burden on society. The money spend on permanent prisoners could, and probably should, be spent helping upstanding citizens who are in poverty due to any number of circumstances. By spending this money on permanent prisoners, we are allowing those prisoners to remain a threat to the safety and security of society at large and specifically of those who need that money for their survival. In other words, when there is no chance of reprieve, the harm that a prisoner will ultimately do to society completely justifies the death penalty, even according to the wording of the catechism.
That aside, prisoners themselves should also be regarded as part of society. If a terrorist is put in prison with other prisoners, that terrorist becomes a threat to the safety of those other prisoners. Even if you don't by the assertion that the cost to society constitutes serious harm, it is impossible to deny that especially dangerous prisoners, that may be a serious threat to other prisoners, constitute a threat to society as well (consider, what if the prisoner murdered by this criminal is your brother, who is serving time for some desperate but trivial crime).
In my opinion, any Roman Catholic who feels forced to opt out of jury duty for this case, because of catechism teachings, does not understand the justice system. I am not trying to discriminate. I am saying it like it is. The U.S. justice system is no where near a point where it is so infallible that a terrorist that is put in prison for life is not still a significant threat to society. Those who oppose the death penalty on the religious grounds that we should not impose that penalty if we can protect the people perfectly fine without it need to consider whether they may be "trusting in the arm of flesh" too much.
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