Children Aren't Important?

I keep seeing this come up, and I do not understand why there is not more public outcry over it.  It started with Trump's tax reform.  Now, Trump's tax reform helped a lot of people.  It increased refunds for a lot of lower income working Americans.  Unfortunately, however, it also neglected children.  In a sense, it counted adults as worth more, reducing the total amount of refund for lower income working families with more children than average.  (We saw more than a 10% decrease in our refunds, despite getting a little more back from the EITC.)  After Trump it was Yang, with a Freedom Dividend plan that would have given adults a basic income worth around half of a living wage but just plain did not even count children as people.  Now we have plans for an economic stimulus package with a relief element for individuals, and yet again, children are being treated as unimportant.

Trump suggested an initial relief check for all American adults, with some kind of cutoff to avoid giving a lot of money to people who do not need it.  This is not a bad idea, except for the fact that children are rapidly increasing in value in the U.S. (as fertility rate decreases), and this plan straight up neglects children.  Of course, others immediately pointed this out, and Trump agreed with plans that provide smaller amounts for children.  Now, I am not complaining about the fact that the amount for children is smaller in some of these plans.  Household dynamics work fine this way, as the biggest cost for most families is rent or mortgage payments, and this scales much slower with family size than other necessities.  But now Mitt Romney has proposed a plan to the Senate that has reverted back to this adults-only thing.  Is it just Republicans or wealthy politicians, or do Americans in general consider children to be unimportant?  This is ironic, given how much resources state and Federal governments put into oppressing parents for even the most trivial things that might be disadvantageous for their children.

There are a number of potential excuses for denying children disaster relief when it is being provided to adults, but they are all wrong.  The first is that the relief given to parents will help their children.  This is not untrue, but unless everyone has the same number of children, it is overly simplistic and punishes larger families while rewarding single people and couples without children.  Punishing larger families right now is a really bad idea, and it happens to be the next topic of discussion.

The second excuse is that counting children will reward larger families for having more children.  I have two responses to this.  The first is, that is straight up false.  I heard the same argument when I lived in Alaska.  I once overheard some of my coworkers complaining that certain Russian families had large numbers of children, so they would get more money from the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend.  The largest payout I have ever seen from that is around $2,000 per person, and it pays out once a year.  (It has hovered around $1,600 the last two years.)  No offense to my coworkers, but anyone who thinks children cost less than $2,000 a year to provide for either has not had to provide for children or is in serious need of remedial math.  Even at the maximum payout, children do not turn a profit from the Alaska PFD.  (Note that I was one of 7 children, in my teens, living there.  My parents made enough to live comfortably but nothing more, and the PFD definitely did not cover all of the costs of 7 children, let alone turn a profit.)  The $500 per child suggested by some is only a quarter of that.  It would take more than $500 a month for most Americans to profit off of children*.  My second response is, is it wrong to reward parents for having more children?  Raising children is expensive, and it takes a lot of work.  If we wanted to be completely fair (especially to women), we would be paying at least $30k a year to stay-at-home moms with one child.  That is the long term babysitter average wage though, which only covers 40 hours a week.  Moms are more like nannies than babysitters, doing household chores, teaching children basic skills, and so on, on top of supervising and caring for children.  If we assume 14 hour days (children are recommended to sleep from 10 to 14 hours a day, depending on age), that comes out to $125k a year (average pay is $19/hr in the U.S.), if we do time and a half for overtime, with overtime being only anything over 40 hours a week.  (No, you can't pay babysitters or nannies salary.  They are non-exempt employees and thus must be paid hourly wages that comply with overtime laws.)  A nanny might be expected to care for one to three children at that pay.  $500 a kid, as a one or two time payment, is not actually a reward.  It is not even fair wages for services rendered!  And even if it somehow was profitable, encouraging people to have more children is not a bad thing right now.  The U.S. fertility rate is currently lower than 1.8 (average children per woman, in a lifetime).  The replacement rate is 2.1.  That means Americans are not having children at a high enough rate to sustain our own population.  Those panicked about overpopulation might see this as a good thing, but people who understand the economic impact of a declining population do not.  To maintain a healthy economy in the long term, it is important to maintain at least the replacement rate, and while immigration can help make up the difference, it is not a good long term solution, especially when Americans want stricter immigration regulation.  Not only is rewarding people for having more children not a bad thing, it is actually something we are going to have to do anyway, if we want to avoid long term economic decline.  The fact is, parents with large families should be treated as heroes for doing their part to slow the long term decline of the U.S. economy.  We should be happy to make children profitable for them, and they at least deserve some help with the costs of raising children, if not fair wages for the work.

(* I say most, because it might work in the lowest cost-of-living regions, for parents who are already covering a lot of needs through government welfare programs.  In this case though, it is not the $500 a month that is turning a profit but the $500 a month combined with the other welfare.  The $500 a month will never cover more than 100% of the costs of a child on its own.)

Now, I have never heard anyone argue that children are not as important as adults, as an excuse for only providing a basic income or disaster relief for adults and not children, but actions speak louder than words.  Clearly, Mitt Romney considers children to be worthless in comparison to adults.  The current House bill being crafted for relief does include children, but it also puts a cap on larger families.  A maximum of four children can be counted.  Families with more than four children, the true heroes, are out of luck.  Their children are counted at a value of four fifths or less of an adult each.  My value, as a teen with six siblings, would have been only 57% that of an adult.  Even a Democratic House somehow cannot manage to consider children as important as adults.  Yes, the House bill does pay out equal amounts for adults and children, but with a maximum family limit, it is still treating children as lower value, second class citizens.  It would be better to give children half the payout of adults, without a family cap.  (And yes, this would actually result in a smaller payout for my own family.  But at least it would treat children as equal, instead of devaluing children in larger families.)

The fact is, children are not just important.  They are critical.  We often hear the cliche that children are our future, a rather blatant statement of the obvious, but we do not seem to understand the extent of it.  Number are important.  Shrinking populations are populations in economic decline.  And immigration is not a long term solution, because they do not contribute significantly to an increase in the percentage of children.  The fact is, children need relief too.  If we cannot value our children enough to ensure their well being during this crisis, perhaps we deserve mass death and economic collapse.

Diversity of Government

I am not sure if I have written on this topic before, but if not, I have been negligent, as this is critical to democracy.  I was reminded to write about this by this article about vaccine refugees.  I have written about vaccination before, so I am not going to go into much depth on the subject here.  That article merely provides a good example of why diversity of government is so important.


To summarize the article, a handful of states have made it illegal for public schools to accept unvaccinated children without a medical exemption.  Many states still allow personal and/or religious exemptions, allowing parents to choose not to vaccinate for any reason, without excluding their children from public school.  A handful of parents in states that only honor medical exemptions have chosen to move to states with a higher degree of "medical freedom".  Alternatives are homeschooling or paying for a private school that does not require vaccinations.  In the context of this post, my personal position on all of this is irrelevant, so I am not going to share it here.  (Again, I have written about vaccination in the past.  If you want my opinion, it is available in other articles I have written.)


One of the biggest problems with democracy is that it can force up to 49.9% of the people to live under laws they do not agree with.  By default, democracy is the best form of government for ensuring that the largest number of people are content with the laws they live under, but democracy can only guarantee satisfaction with the law for half a person more than 50% of the population (for an odd numbered population; one person more for an even numbered population).  That means under a democratic government, almost half of the population can be living under laws they find unacceptable.  It gets worse though.  When you have hundreds or thousands of laws, it is trivial to get to a point where the majority of the population is opposed to almost half of the laws.  Consider, with two laws, 51% might approve of each, but the 49% that disapproves of one might all approve of the other.  That gives only a 2% overlap of people who approve of both, with 98% dissatisfied.  And that overlap can theoretically get as low as a single person, depending on the overarching form of government.  (In a democratic republic or a democratic constitutional monarchy, one person is less likely to make a difference than in a purer form of democracy, but that does not make the situation better.)  When you have three laws, you can end up in a position where 51% approves of each law, but 49% disapproves of two laws and the other 51% disapprove of one law.  That averages out to each individual disapproving of 1.49 laws, or 100% of the population disapproving of 49.7% of laws on average.  It is easy to end up in a situation where the majority is not opposed to any individual law, but the majority of individuals are opposed to almost half of the laws and are generally dissatisfied with the whole situation.  This can make a democratic nation an undesirable place to live for the vast majority of the population.  And that's in a pure democracy, where voters are not aggregated under elected representatives where 51% of the popular vote has the same value as 100% of the popular vote (which is the basis of gerrymandering to minimize the voting power of a particular group).  In representative systems like republics and constitutional monarchies, it is possible for laws to get passed that less than 50% of the people find acceptable (even when representatives do their jobs right).

When people complain about laws too much, the knee jerk reaction tends be words along the lines of, "You can always move somewhere else."  This is viewed as petty and rude, but not only is it often correct, it can sometimes be the most ethically responsible solution.  This is where diversity of government comes in.  While moving somewhere else is sometimes the right solution, it isn't always, nor is it always a solution at all.  Perhaps a family would like to live in a city where liquor laws are fairly strict, because they have a family history of alcoholism and would like to limit their children's exposure to alcohol.  Maybe another person teaches electric guitar as a side gig and wants to live in a city without noise ordinances that would prevent evening appointments.  What if national law governs liquor and forbids local regulation of liquor?  That family now has no city in the country that will be safe for their children.  What if there is a national noise ordinance that applies to all residences within some proximity of other residences?  Now the guitar teacher cannot teach guitar in addition to working a day job.  What if there are 100,000 people living in the country who want a city with stricter liquor laws than national law provides?  Sorry, they are out of luck.  They cannot even found their own city, where they can live under the laws they want.  What if there are 100,000 people who, for various reasons, want to live somewhere without noise ordinances?  Again, that is not an option.  These are not the only examples.  What about gambling?  How about recreational drug use?  Perhaps more controversial things, like abortion.  Maybe how much taxation goes into public education, or maybe even whether or not public education is mandatory in the first place.  Of course, mandatory vaccination is certainly near the top of the list.  And this is not just a problem with national laws.  What if a group of activists convinced every city government in the country that unregulated access to alcohol is a fundamental right, or maybe they convince every city government that unwanted noise infringes on their rights, and now there is not a single city anywhere that can accommodate these people.  Sorry, out of luck, because there is not somewhere else you can move to anymore.

This does not happen a lot in the U.S., because we have fairly high diversity of government.  This diversity is created by sharing of sovereignty between Federal and state governments.  The Constitution limits the powers of the Federal government to things that affect the nation as a whole and to regulation of interaction between states.  And while the Federal government has far overstepped these bounds, we still have a system where diversity of government is fairly high.  If you do not like the laws in your state, odds are good there is another state that would be more acceptable to you.  If you prescribe to the progressive theory that all children should be forced to attend public school, for the social benefit of other children, there are states where homeschooling and most private schooling is illegal.  If you want to homeschool, there are states that protect the right to homeschool.  As the article mentioned above demonstrates, if you want to live somewhere you know all of the kids in school will be vaccinated, there are states where you can get that, and if you do not want to be forced to vaccinate your kids as a condition of attending public school, there are states that give you that option.  The advantage of diversity in government is that like minded people can congregate under laws that are acceptable to them.  It is not perfect, and there will probably never be a place where even one person finds 100% of the laws acceptable, but a fair amount of diversity in government can at least provide the option for the vast majority of people to live under a set of laws where the majority of those laws are acceptable to them.

The problem with this system is that people tend to get stubbornly attached to their current location.  When that happens, and they don't like the laws they are living under, instead of finding a place to go that has more suitable laws, they tend to try to oppress those around them, believing that their ideal laws somehow trump the will of the majority.  Sometimes they even convince themselves that everyone everywhere should be forced to live according to their personal beliefs and opinions.  And this tends to lead to political polarization, as people with minority opinions talk louder to try to fool lawmakers into believing they have a majority and the majority, being convinced they are a minority, start doing the same thing.  And it gets even worse when people start projecting their own opinions on other people they share features with.  For example, twice as many women (50%) believe abortions should only be legal under special circumstances (woman's life in danger, rape, incest) than believe they should be entirely legal (24%) or entirely illegal (24%), and yet many feminists are convinced that the broad legalization of abortion is a good thing for the majority of women.  A full 74% of women disagree agree with that.  Not only is this projection completely wrong, democracy is not even about what is good for people.  It is about what people want, because no individual or small group has any right to decide what is best for everyone else.  (Ironically, fewer men (18%) believe abortion should be entirely illegal than women.)  Allowing governments to be diverse, by only attempting to change laws at the lowest level, is a critical factor in maintaining government diversity.  You might want to live under a particular set of laws, but that does not mean others do, even if they are the same gender, race, sexual orientation, or whatever as you are.  To maintain democratic rule in a way that is acceptable to everyone, each person must respect the desires of others, even of they do not seem to make sense.  This means respectfully staying out of local politics that do not affect your region.  Roe v. Wade is toxic to democracy, because it undermines the democratic power of men and women across our entire nation.  Because of that legislation by judicial fiat, the democratic right to live under the laws a group a people collectively prefer has been substantially reduced.  74% of women in America have lost the right to have any say on abortion law, because of Roe v. Wade.  Roe v. Wade significantly reduced diversity of government in one sphere, and that has caused a lot of people harm.

Diversity of government requires two things.  The first is respect for the opinions and desires of others, even when you do not agree with them.  The second is a willingness to live where the laws are acceptable to you, if you have the reasonable ability to live there.  Attempting to go "over the heads" of local government to force a political position undermines diversity of government, and that undermines democracy.  And attempting to force local government to agree with your view, where you could move somewhere else, with more like minded people, also undermines democracy and diversity.  This is especially true when you are attempting to get a local government to conform to what everyone else is doing, because it can cause a particular type of diversity to go extinct, eliminating the choice of anyone else to live under the laws they want.

Another good example of this is the city I live in, which actually has fairly strict liquor laws.  A student at the local university once wrote a persuasive essay on why the city should change its liquor laws to fall in line with cities across the U.S..  The problem with this position is that this student could live in any of those other cities, but people who live in this city do not have anywhere else to go to live under strict liquor laws, because there are extremely few cities in the U.S. with strict liquor laws.  Convincing this city to change its laws would reduce diversity in government, and in fact, reviewing this student's paper is where I first realized the importance of diversity of government.  I prefer living in a city with strict liquor laws, but I am not campaigning to convince other cities to adopt the same laws, and I am not trying to convince the Federal government to override them in favor of my position.  I respect the right of the people living in those cities to choose the laws they are going to live under.  I disagree with California's law eliminating all but medical exemptions for vaccines, but again, I respect the right of the people of California to live under that law, if they so choose.  I am not going to try to force my political position on you any more than I would try to force my religion on you, but I expect and deserve the same respect.

It is not showing me your respect, when you try to force laws on my region against the will of the people that live there.  If you want to show me respect, and if you want what is best for me, let me deal with it.  Let me vote for the laws I want in my region, instead of trying to force on me the laws you think I want or that would be best for me, by appealing to a higher government.  And this applies to everyone.  If you want to show respect for women, instead of trying to make abortion 100% legal and easily accessible in the U.S. mind your own business, and let the people of each state make their own choice about this.  If some of them do not like it, they can move to where the majority agrees with tham, and if some of the women there do not agree with the laws there, let them move where more people agree with them.  That is what respect is about.  It is not about imposing your position and your beliefs on everyone else or projecting your desires on everyone else.  For our country to get along well, and for democracy to even work at this scale, diversity of government is critical, and attempting to undermine it will only serve to increase toxic political polarization and partisanship.

Code of Ethics for Elected Officials

A lot of elected officials, especially at the Federal level, have started using social media, some fairly heavily.  This has been met with mixed feelings.  Some people see this as increased government transparency, while others have seen this as political propaganda.  Either way, participation in social media presents a serious conflict of interest for elected officials.  While it definitely can and probably should be used to increase government transparency, it can also be used to influence people and to spread propaganda, misinformation, and even downright lies, and it has actually been used this way.

As such, we need a code of ethics for elected officials, that includes but is not limited to the use of social media.  I would like to suggest a set of ethical rules for elected officials.

1. Elected officials should always specify whether a social media post, video, recording, or other publication is being produced in an official capacity.  Ideally, elected officials should always use separate accounts for official and personal communications, and the personal accounts should not reference the elected office of the official in any way.
2. Social media content published in an official capacity should stick to facts.  It should not contain propaganda, personal opinions, campaign advertisements, promotion of political or personal agendas, or anything else not directly related to the job the person has been elected to.  Statements of intent to vote on a particular bill in a particular way are appropriate but should avoid any explanation except, "This is what my constituents want".  (And even that explanation might come back to bite you, if it turns out they don't want that.)
3. Official publications that contain information later discovered to be incorrect should be amended whenever possible, noting the error and resolution, and if it is not possible, an official retraction should be published as soon as the mistake is discovered, and reasonable effort shall be made to direct all past, present, and future consumers of the original publication to the retraction.
4. Official publications should generally be reviewed by advisors and/or peers before being published.
5. Official publications should adhere to any standards, regulations, and policies set by the government body the elected official is a member of.
6. Unofficial publications should avoid any and all implication that they might be official in nature or otherwise represent anything other than the personal views of the official, including but not limited to using a separate account for that does not mention the office of the user in the username, profile, or any other publicly accessible information associated with the account.
7. Unofficial publications should avoid accidentally or intentionally using the public profile, fame, wealth, or any other benefit afforded by the public office to endorse or promote any particular political agendas, and indeed, elected officials should generally limit unofficial publications to sharing facts and personal opinion in neutral ways that do not promote or otherwise argue in support of any particular position or platform, even if adherence to this rule feels like it hampers freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
8. Unofficial publications should not be produced or published during time an elected official may reasonably be expected to be working, including any time the body the official is a member of is in session, for bodies that are not active constantly.  For bodies that are constantly active (including the Executive Branch), officials should not produce or publish unofficial publications at any time where doing so would interfere with the work or take time away from the work that would cause even minor negative effects, and ideally any such personal projects should be worked on only during specifically scheduled time off (for example, vacations).
9. Elected officials should surrender access to any and all social media accounts used for official publications upon retirement (whether voluntary or through the loss of an election or expiration of a term limit) from the position.  Ideally, the account should transferred to the ownership of the government body the official was a member of, which will act as caretaker to preserve the account and its contents for consumption by the public.  If the official is later elected to office again, ownership may be returned for the duration of service.
10. Retired elected officials should continue to abide by the terms of this code of ethics with regards to their private social media accounts, with the exception that they may engage more fully in the endorsement of personal political opinions, so long as they continue to avoid using the fame and other benefits associated with having held public office to gain an unfair advantage over other figures who have not had the benefit of holding public office.
11. Retired and current elected officials should never take advantage of the benefits of holding or having held public office for profit or personal benefit of any kind, including the use of official publications for gaining advertisement revenue, the use of official publications in campaign advertisements, the use of official publications for endorsing or advancing personal political agendas (or personal agendas of any kind), the leverage of experience in elected office to claim any manner of authority or special expertise on any matter (including paid speaking engagements), or the engagement in any kind of compensated work for any entity that the official has accepted any form of lobbying from.

Each element of this code of ethics is designed to avoid specific problems that are common today, as outlined below.

1.  Many elected officials, especially those in Congress, are currently using their position to gain fame, for future personal benefit and for the purpose of advancing personal political agendas.  This is not the purpose of elected office, and it is a misuse of taxpayer money that pays the wages of these officials.  Separating official communications from personal communications will help regular citizens separate legitimate concerns related to the job from the personal politics and agendas of the officials.  Public office was never intended to be used as a stage from which to endorse a political platform or other personal agenda.  Public officials are elected to represent the will of the people, not to preach or impose upon the people their own wills.
2. As with 1, the separation of the job from personal opinions is important, and without that separation, elected officials can and do abuse their positions to promote their own platforms, instead of doing their job, which is to represent the will of the people.  The only valid reasoning for voting in a particular way on a bill is that it is what one's constituents want or is otherwise more consistent with the will of those who the official represents than the alternative.
3. Accuracy is critical to transparency.  The people cannot make informed choices when voting, if the information they have is not accurate and up to date.
4. Oversight is wise and necessary in ensuring this code of conduct is adhered to.  It is clear that not all elected officials understand the difference between personal opinion and their job.  Oversight may help them to learn that difference, and if it doesn't, at least it may prevent more egregious violations of this code of conduct.  Oversight will also help to catch factual errors before publication, avoiding the need for excessive retractions.
5. Again, oversight is wise and necessary.  This provides governing bodies with the ability to more narrowly define what is and is not appropriate in an official publication.  This includes censorship of sensitive material that could pose a security threat if published, as well as general rules of civility and propriety in official publications.  Official publications will reflect on the quality of the governing institutions, thus they have a right to regulate the nature of those publications.  (For example, a Representative angrily swearing in a statement about the President reflects very poorly on the House in general, as well as on her constituents and on the U.S. as a nation.)
6. The use of elected office to promote personal political agendas is a serious abuse of power that needs to be stopped.  Again, the purpose of elected office is to represent the will of the people, not to promote one's own political agendas.  Using the benefits of public office to help promote personal agendas is an abuse of power and a theft of taxpayer money.  No elected position should be used to gain an unfair advantage in promotion of personal agendas over those who do not hold any elected position.  To do so is unethical and undemocratic.
7. Merely seeing the title of an elected official in the username or profile text of an account could imply that the publication is official in nature, and it will definitely provide an unfair advantage based on the elected office of the person.  Those seeing an unofficial account for the first time, who do not already know the name of the official, should not be able to tell from the account that the account is owned by an elected official.  It is impossible to enforce complete fairness, as it is unreasonable to require elected officials to use pseudonyms for their personal accounts, but as much as possible, fair practices should be observed, which is why it is suggested that elected officials should generally avoid active promotion of personal agendas on their private accounts, even if doing so seems like it gives up certain rights.  (Note that it is also traditional for the President to release his or her tax records, despite the fact that the privacy of such personal records are generally regarded as protected by the Constitution, so this is not an unprecedented ethical rule.)
8. The time an elected official is being paid to work should never be used for personal activities.  Elected office is a job, and the wages payed to elected officials are payment for labor rendered.  An elected official who is working on personal projects during work time should rightly be fired, just like any other employee who did the same thing would.  It is completely and entirely inappropriate for any elected official to be spending paid work time on personal projects, and accepting full payment for work time partially spent on personal projects is theft against one's employer, in this case the American people.
9. Official publications of elected officials legally belong to the employer of the officials, which is the American people, and thus should be preserved for the use of the people as desired.  In addition, allowing retired officials to retain control of official accounts would allow them to abuse those accounts.  Thus, all official accounts that are not currently in active use should be preserved by the body those accounts are accountable to, both to minimize opportunity for abuse and to ensure the preservation and public availability of the contents of those accounts.  A government cannot remain transparent when ex-officials retain the power to destroy official publications.
10. Retiring does not absolve an official of ethical responsibilities.  Retired officials should not be restricted in public participation in political discourse and promotion of personal agendas, as they are no longer bound to the job of representing the will of the people, but they still should not be allowed to abuse or otherwise leverage their status as retired public officials to gain an unfair advantage over those who have not served in elected office.
11. Abuse of power of this nature is rampant in our government currently, and it interferes seriously with the democratic process.  It is common practice for elected officials to cultivate special relationships with for-profit businesses and other profitable organizations to create future opportunity for themselves once they leave public office.  This results in the drafting and passage of laws and policies designed specifically to benefit special interests, often at significant cost to the general public, purely for the personal benefit of the elected officials.  This is an abominable and wicked practice that undermines democracy, violates the will of the people, and causes significant harm to the people.  This should be regarded as blatant bribery, and all elected officials guilty of this practice should be impeached and thrown out of office, then tried for the high crime of bribery (and/or solicitation of bribery) and sentenced to long prison sentences, without options for house arrest, intermittent imprisonment (like nights or weekends only), or parole.  (And maybe if high profile, wealthy people actually had to pay the same price for their crimes as poor people, our prisons would be less cruel and abusive to prisoners.)  Elected officials should be legally and permanently barred from working for any company or organization they have ever been lobbied by, and they should also be barred from taking any sort of payment or compensation for any work they do that they would not have had without serving in an elected office.  In addition, any official content produced while in office was paid for and thus belongs to the people, making it a violation of copyright law to use it for personal profit or benefit without the express permission of the people.

The fact is, a significant amount of the corruption in our government could be quelled, merely by enforcing a code of conduct addressing these elements.  This does not exhaustively cover all possible forms of corruption (for instance, the practice of earmarking funds for states as a tacit bribe for the passage of some unpopular bill), but it covers some of the most destructive and most common types of and motivations for corrupt behavior.  Hopefully by restricting elected office from being an engine for politicians to promote their personal political platforms and build relationships with special interests for future profit, the motivation for corrupt people with ill intent to seek elected office will be significantly reduced, and the tendency toward corruption for those who originally had purer motives will be decreased significantly, giving us a more democratic government that is more concerned with the will of the people than with their own personal profit.

Privatized Socialism

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.

Child Support

Today, I just want to point out a major flaw in the U.S. child support system.  I have a friend who divorced her abusive husband very shortly after getting pregnant.  I am not going to bore you with the stories of the emotional abuse from him and his family during and after the birth, but I will mention that the husband was provided with DNA evidence that the child was his.  Recently, some five months after the birth, he finally announced that he has no intention of paying child support (prior to this it was always "next month I will start").  She has been raising their child on a very small income with no support from the father for almost half a year, and she is currently in a very difficult financial situation as a result.  Child support laws won't even give her any recourse for another month, and she is will still not see any of the money for another 2 to 3 months.  This is not a unique story.  There are children all over the U.S. who have been financially abandoned by their fathers, and the children and mothers have to suffer for almost a year to see any justice.

U.S. child support needs some massive revisions.  First, fathers should not be paying directly to the mothers, and they should not be paying through a middle man that only forwards the payment if it is received.  This is essentially the state telling mothers and children that they can just rot and die if the fathers don't pay.  Six months is far too long to wait before taking action.  Who deserves survival more, a deadbeat dad who abandoned his kid, or the kid who did nothing wrong?

It would only take one thing to make a huge difference: Instead of mom only getting the money if dad will pay it, the government should do the paying.  The government should pay mom her child support every month, on time, and in full.  Then, the government should send dad the bill.  If dad does not pay, mom should not have to report him or file for recourse.  In fact, she really should not even have to know.  If the government wants to wait six months before garnishing wages, that should be its own business, and it should feel the sting of a light pocket book, because the government made the law, and the government can afford it much better.

Before closing, I want to avoid some misunderstandings.  I realize that sometimes moms abandon their children when the fathers get custody.  This applies equally to them.  I presented this way, because a very vast majority of divorces find the children with the mother, while the father is ordered to pay child support.

The point here is, regardless of which parent has the child, it is beyond cruel and irresponsible to leave the financial support of the child entirely in the hands of someone who's commitment is questionable.  If the government is going to order that child support be paid, the government should be responsible for enforcing that order in a way that does not cause suffering for the child.  If the government is not capable of forcing all payments to be made in full and on time, it should take on the responsibility of making the payments regardless of whether the debt has been paid, and it should take sole responsibility of collecting the debt.  We no longer live in an era where doing this is far too expensive to be feasible.  It can and should be done, because we are not just talking about the well being of our children.  We are talking about our future society.  If we cannot make sure that our children do not have to suffer in poverty needlessly, our nation is going to go backwards, not forwards.  Even if you are too selfish to care about this, consider who is going to care for you when you get old, when a vast majority of Americans are in poverty.

What's Wrong With Socialism

Socialism is a pretty big deal to conservatives.  It is treated as the devil.  Socialism is treated like tyranny.  It takes away freedom and destroys fairness.  It eliminates the will to work.  Really though, what is actually wrong with socialism? Why do most conservatives fear it?  Why do people think that it is a threat to freedom?

The answer is sadly simple: Taken to its logical end, socialism results in communism, where all wealth is equally distributed, everyone owns everything, thus no one owns anything, and there is no ownership, thus there is no motivation.  Socialism as seen in the USSR is frightening, because, aside from the corruption aspect, it resulted in all of the things that most conservatives fear about it.  It nearly eliminated personal freedom entirely, and it reduced motivation to work so far that it caused serious economic problems.  This extreme socialism realized the darkest fears of conservatives.

There is a major problem with this fear though.  During the earliest times of this nation, after it had declared independence, but before it became the US, a similar problem was observed with democratic republics.  Contrary to popular belief, our founding fathers did not base the design of the Federal government entirely on the democratic republic of Athens (or similar governments of that era).  Much of that design was based on existing colonial governments of the time.  Different colonies were trying out different versions of democratic government, though nearly all used some form of republic.  One problem that came up a lot was too much democracy.  I believe the colony was Virgina (I might be wrong; it's been a while; there may also have been others).  One colony created a legislature that had absolute power.  The governor did not have veto power.  The result was a very high level of democratic representation, which resulted in a very high level of democracy.  The end result of this was that at one point, many farmers were having a difficult time paying their debts, so the legislature of this colony (mostly farmers, elected by farmers) passed a law suspending all debt payment for farmers.  The result was catastrophic.  With no legal guarantee for debt payments, lenders stopped lending.  Those owning existing debts found relief, but those lending were quickly in serious financial trouble, and without anyone willing to grant more loans, the economy of the colony suffered very seriously.  This was not the only problem.  Different colonies experimented with different balances, all with different results.  When the founding fathers drafted the Constitution, they based the Federal government on what they had learned from all of these experiments.  The President was given veto power, to help avoid problems like the Virginia situation.  Congress was divided into two houses, partially because many states with a single legislature still had problems with too much democracy causing unwise laws to be passed, and partially because the state governments wanted more direct representation in Federal government (this last part was demolished when Senators became elected by public vote, instead of appointed by state governments).  In short, too much democracy is no better than too much socialism.  In fact, there are other historical cases where democratic governments have quickly destroyed themselves, because there was nothing to prevent the majority from ignorantly passing self destructive laws.  Historically, democracy was such an epic failure that many of the founders of this nation even questioned the wisdom of a democratic government, because they feared this would happen with the US as well.

Any form of government taken to an extreme will result in problems.  Isolating all governmental power in a single person has proven problematic almost constantly throughout history.  Democratic forms of government have historically never lasted very long, because they tend to become very unstable as size increases.  On paper, extreme communist socialism sounds like an excellent idea, but in practice, we have seen only disaster.  In the US, we are seeing fairly extreme capitalism (extreme compared to most of history) recreating the feudal systems we thought we had thrown off long ago.

The problem is not socialism.  The problem is extreme.  The type of government matters less than how far it is pushed.  In the US, we have gotten by for far longer than most governments throughout history have managed to stay stable, with a system combining democracy, republic, capitalism, and various amounts of socialism.  The US is not purely democratic.  It is not purely a republic (the Supreme Court is not elected by popular vote, among other things).  It is not purely capitalistic (we regulate fairness and safety to some degree).  It is not purely socialist.  It does have elements of all of these though.  None of these need to be feared, so long as they are not taken to extremes.  Extreme democracy will result in voters making decisions that they are not informed enough to make.  Extreme republic will result in so much politics that no one will have time for anything else, not to mention still having voters making decisions that they are not qualified to make.  Extreme capitalism will result in a caste system including slavery, though perhaps less overt than the chattel slavery we are all familiar with.  Extreme socialism will result in exactly the same things that happened with the USSR.

The fact is that the only extreme we are really close to is capitalism.  We don't need to fear socialism, because we are so far away from it that we are suffering problems from the opposite extreme.  The fears about socialism are well founded, but they should be fears about extreme socialism, not about socialism in general.  Fearing socialism is about as logical as fearing democracy.  In either case, there can be too much of a good thing, but too little is just as destructive.  What we should really fear is imbalance.  Right now, the imbalance is against socialism, not toward it.

What's wrong with socialism?  The same thing that is wrong with capitalism and democracy: too much is a bad thing!

Hobby Lobby and Mandatory Benefits

The Hobby Lobby case was an extravagant law suit.  Of course religious freedom should have won.  There should never have been any question.  The problem was not with Hobby Lobby, and it was certainly not about human rights.  The problem is with who carries the obligation to enforce those rights.

Consider how this would play out: The government decides to enforce the right to own property by putting businesses in charge of it.  Now, businesses are legally required to handle things like evictions and property deeds for their employees.  If an employee is robbed, the employer is required to investigate and bring the thief to justice.  Oh yeah, and this only applies to full time employees.

Now, considering the following: The government and the majority of Americans establish that adequate medical care is a fundamental human right.  The government comes up with a list of medical care related things that every person should have free access to.  Now, to enforce this the government does two things.  First, it puts enforcement in the charge of for-profit businesses.  Businesses are now required to provide their employees with the list of things that every person should have free access to.  Now, we cannot forget though, this only applies to full time employees.  The second thing the government does is to mandate that anyone who is not a full time employee must pay, out of their own pockets, for insurance.  This is great.  Now, the government says that adequate medical care is a fundamental human right, so we are forced to enforce this right ourselves on an individual basis.  That makes perfect sense.  Imagine if this was applied to freedom of speech.  If the government tries to shut us up, our only recourse is to fight the government as an individual.  Appealing to the law would not be an option, because it is our own problem, not the government's.  This applies equally to medical care.  The government is pretending to provide what has been established as a fundamental human right by saying that for-profit businesses and individuals have to enforce this right.

The Hobby Lobby case should not have been about religious freedom.  That should have been a given.  The Hobby Lobby case should have been about responsibility.  If the government is not responsible for enforcing human rights, then no one is.  Enforcing rights is the purpose of the government.  The reason health care has become a problem in the first place is that the existing system, including mandatory benefits and health insurance, is entirely inadequate.  Forcing people to subscribe to the current system can hardly be considered enforcing a fundamental human right to adequate medical care.  In fact, it is little more than another way for the government to control us and subject us.

The big problem with requiring businesses to enforce human rights is that it forces people to work for them.  This is a rather foul case of discrimination against freelancers and business owners.  Human rights do not just apply to those who work for someone else.  If something is a right, then, by definition, it applies to everybody.  Further, allowing businesses to get out of this obligation for part time employees is even worse discrimination against the poor.  Clearly, the American lower class does not have the right to adequate health care, based on the precedents set by the law.  This also gives businesses far too much power.  A business can decide who has the right to adequate medical care merely by setting schedules and employee classification.  If my employer does not like my religion, my political ideology, my race, or even my hair color, a simple reduction in hours can change my classification to part time, exempting me from the right to adequate medical care.  Even worse, now I am legally required to go buy insurance (which, just for the record, does not provide adequate medical care), even though my pay check just got substantially reduced.  Choosing who human rights apply to is not the responsibility of for-profit businesses.  In fact, even governments have no business discriminating in this area. 

Enforcement of human rights is the job of the government.  It is not the job of businesses, and it certainly is not the job of the individual.  If individuals have to enforce their own fundamental rights, then the government is obsolete.  A government that puts the burden of enforcing human rights on businesses and individuals is lazy and corrupt.  If adequate health care is truly a fundamental human right, the government needs to get off of its lazy butt and take care of the problem.  This is the government's job.  It is not the job of businesses or individuals.  Further, if adequate heath care is a human right, it should apply to everyone, not just those who work full time and not just those who are willing and can afford to buy into the system.

Hobby Lobby should never have needed to defend its religious rights.  The government never had any business placing the burden of providing a fundamental human right on the business in the first place.  There are certainly cases where religious freedom must be balanced with other human rights, but it was entirely wrong of the government to place Hobby Lobby, or any other business, in this position in the first place.  Not only could this pitting of religious freedom against the right to adequate health care have easily been avoided, it should have.  If the government had done the right thing in the first place, this issue would never have arisen.

Unions

I have a problem with unions.  It comes down to two things: Unions are too powerful and too easy to abuse.  Unions are currently absolutely necessary to take care of problems that the government refuses to treat fairly.

The recent Supreme Court ruling on a dispute between an Amazon contractor and its warehouse employees (which I have discussed in more detail in a previous post) illustrates the second part of my problem.  Without unions, many workers are just plain not treated fairly.  In the Amazon case, workers were being forced to go through excessively long security checks daily without pay for the time spent.  Our Supreme Court justices (whom I must assume are idiots, because the only other option is that they are deliberately helping to enslave and oppress innocent Americans, and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt) declared that businesses do not have to pay workers for time spent doing anything that is not, in essence, part of the job description.  At this point, this declaration now counts as an infallible part of U.S. law.  The government offers no protection for what amounts to blatant wage theft.  There is only one solution: unions.

Unions were originally created in response to government inability to enforce fair labor practices.  In the early U.S., it was common for employers to underpay workers and to require far more hours of work than is healthy or fair.  Unsafe work conditions were more common than safe ones by a very wide margin.  People were regularly inured or killed in workplace accidents that could have easily been prevented, because owners were too cheap to spend even small sums to ensure safety.  Children were treated as slaves, working 16 hours days in these conditions, for so little money that entire families had to work, and that was still not enough to get by.  The government was not powerful enough to do anything to stop these unfair practices, and in many cases, the government did not have enough reach to even be aware of them.  The solution was labor unions.

Workers in these conditions eventually banded together, demanding fair treatment.  Their employers refused the the demands and threatened to fire anyone who continued to dissent.  Eventually the workers realized that if all of them dissented at once, their employers would be unable to replace them all fast enough to avoid financial catastrophe.  The worker strike was born (it was actually born in France, but it was quickly adopted by oppressed U.S. workers).  Nearly all of the workers in one or more factories refused to continue work until conditions, hours, and wages were improved.  Employers were powerless against the unions because they were dependent on the employees.  Firing them all would result in financial ruin for the company.  Initially the government panicked: Worker's unions threatened the U.S. economy.  If workers had so much power, they could easily force businesses to pay so much that it would cause rampant inflation.  Besides that, even short strikes resulted in production halts, and in factories that produced necessities, those halts could result in serious harm.  This did something else very important though: It put the problem of workers right in the face of the government, where it could no longer be overlooked or ignored.

The government realized that treatment of workers was a major problem.  It also recognized its responsibility in doing something about it.  The government still did not have the power or reach to handle the problem on its own.  It did have the power to protect the workers in their own attempts to deal with the problem.  Business owners lobbied the government to make unions and worker strikes illegal.  Their claim was that these things caused economic instability.  Their claims seemed reasonable, however, the government eventually recognized that the underlying problem was not the strikes, but the unsustainable hours and pay, as well as the often deadly work conditions provided by employers.  Laws were passed to protect unions and striking workers from retaliation.  Currently, workers cannot be fired for discussing unionization, actually unionizing, or for striking.  Workers who are striking on economic grounds (wages, other compensation, or work hours) can be "permanently replaced" (they cannot be fired, but if a willing replacement can be found, the strikers hours can be reduced to 0 indefinitely, which is approximately the same as being laid off).  The government also created a set of safety and treatment requirements and guidelines for how employees may be treated.  Strikes related to these issues are further protected, prohibiting even permanent replacement.  When it comes to safety and other government protected employee rights, replacements hired during a strike must be fired to make room for striking employees returning to work once the dispute has been resolved.

The potential for abuse of unions was still clear, so some restrictions have been added.  Closed shops, where the company may only hire union members, was strictly prohibited.  Closed shops allow the union to control all hiring decisions by restricting admittance into the union.  This gives the union veto power over any hiring action.  In the U.S., closed shops are illegal.  Union shops, where new hires are required to join the union after being hired, are legal, as well as agency shops, where non-union members must still pay union dues, and open shops, where employees may choose but are not required to pay dues if they are not union members, are all legal in the U.S..  Prohibition of closed shops prevented the most obvious abuses of unions, but it still left some loopholes, most of which still exist.


When unions were originally created, they were necessary.  They were very useful, and they did a great deal of good.  Since then, many things have changed.  The biggest change is power and reach of the government.  Workplace safety is no longer a serious union issue, because OSHA, a government agency, defines and enforced workplace safety.  If a workplace is unsafe, it is faster and easier for an employee to report the violation to OSHA than it is for a union to try to resolve the issue, and the penalties for those violations are enforced by the government, making workplace safety violations fairly rare.  Wages are still a problem, but not because the government is not powerful enough to do anything about it.  They are a problem because the government refuses to do anything about it.  Worse, the most common places for wage issues are not well suited to unions, because employee turnover is too high.  In the past several decades, most union wage issues were not problems of employers paying unfair wages.  Most of the issues were greedy employees who were already being paid far higher than the U.S. average wanting more than their fair share (and, in the case of the U.S. steel industry, this was one of the blows that ultimately killed it).  Unions are no longer useful tools for enforcing fair wages.  Instead they are tools for overpaid employees to rip off their employers even more.

Work hours were another major thing that unions were good for.  Twelve to sixteen hour work days were common.  Unions pulled the U.S. work week down to 40 hours and the work day to 8, requiring extra pay for any time worked beyond that.  Of course, the goal was actually closer to 35 or 30 hours a week (20 according to some), but unions lost sight of that goal almost a century ago.  Unions are no longer necessary to enforce this though, because the government has enacted laws prohibiting employers from giving employees more than 8 hours of work in a day and 40 in a week, with an additional requirement that when this is violated, employees are paid extra for time beyond those limits.  This is no longer a union problem; it is now a government problem.  Worse, despite unions and government, the average American voluntarily works an average of 50 hours a week and often the overtime goes entirely unpaid.  When the workers don't care, there is little unions can do to fix the problem.

Overall, unions have lost most of their usefulness.  They still have potential for abuse though.  Unions have a great deal of lobbying power.  In Alaska, in the mid '90s I believe, the workers at some of the power plants went on strike.  I don't know all of the details, but I do know that the labor union exercised power that belongs only to government and individual citizens, by manipulating the state government in making some very harmful laws.  The power plants hired electrical workers from Washington state, as temporary workers until the strike was resolved.  In retaliation, the union lobbied the state government to change certification laws to require electrical workers in Alaska state to have gone through their training in-state.  In other words, a journeyman or master electrical worker in Washington state could only be hired as an apprentice in Alaska, without going through all of the time required for certification within the state of Alaska.  The union did this to put more pressure on the power company by denying them well qualified temporary workers (the law specifically prohibited hiring them into positions that normally required journeyman certification).  Besides being a low and very unethical blow, this has some severe economic implications.  I am certain the argument given to the legislature and governor was that hiring out-of-state workers would drain money from the state economy.  I don't think this justifies using the law to lie about a person's job qualifications, but besides that, this economic justification was incomplete.  The end result was that the workers got most of their demands.  The economic consequences of that was increased cost for power, which resulted in economically damaging inflation in a state where the cost of living is already quite high.  There may have been short term economic costs of hiring out-of-state workers, but the long term costs of not doing so were far worse.  There is also another long term economic cost: The electrical workers union in Alaska now has a legally enforced monopoly on electrical labor.  The political power held by unions has not just been harmful in Alaska.  In other places in the U.S., unions have used the law or other political influence to merge with other unions against their will (by "merge," I mean "hostile takeover").

Unions have largely become for-profit institutions in the U.S..  Their primary goal is no longer doing what it best for the workers or even representing the workers.  Their goal now is to do whatever gets the union the most money.  This frequently means demanding higher pay even when it is not needed or fair.  It also preempts any requests for reduced hours, because reduced hours means lower gross pay, which means lower dues.  By allowing union and agency shops, the government has allowed unions to force employees to become union members and to pay union dues against their will.  Unions in the U.S. typically have a number of permanent employees who are not actually members of the union.  In many unions, this includes a CEO and other administrative positions, who make decisions about what the employees want, without actually having any experience of being one of those employees.  Some of these positions, like lawyer and accountant, are justified, but full-time administrative positions in a union are absurd.  Unions are now run primarily by people who are totally disconnected from the union members and their work environment.  Frankly, a union that is a for-profit business should not have any degree of legal protection beyond what is normal for any other for-profit business.  Otherwise, it is even more prone to abuse.

So, now we come down to the problem: The government now has the reach and power to make unions entirely obsolete, and it has already made them mostly obsolete.  Instead of doing that though, it is actually making unions more necessary.  Unions should no longer exist, because they should no longer be needed.  When they were created, the potential for good outweighed the potential for abuse.  This is no longer true...except, when the government fails to do its primary job of representing the will and best interest of the people.

The Amazon case is prime example of where unions are useful.  The employees are being robbed by their employer.  They could unionize and strike, demanding pay for their time worked, demanding that the security check be listed in the job description (making it an essential part of the job, and thus legally part of paid work time), or demanding that the security checks be discontinued.  They could even unionize and heavily lobby Congress to repeal the highly constitutionally questionable law the Supreme Court used to justify its appallingly oppressive decision (even abuses of power can have legitimate non-abusive uses).  The problem I have with this is that they should not need to unionize to get paid for all of the time they spend doing work required by their employer.

An employer should have the right to require employees to do worthless work (plenty already do it anyhow), but employees should have the right to get paid regardless of whether the work required is profitable or not.  This should be legally protected.  What free society has a law that explicitly permits employers to blatantly and openly require work time from an employee that does not need to be compensated?

Religion is Government

Throughout history, religion has played a major role in how people act.  In many cases, religion is better at controlling how people act than law is.  Historically, many nations that recognized this co-opted religion as an additional method of control, creating or adopting state religions that encouraged people to act how the government wanted them to.  Religion has always been more personal than government though.  Even within one religion, members understand doctrines differently from one another.  Because religion is about personal belief, it should not be forced on someone, and as the American Revolution approached, this started to become far more obvious.  This fact was ultimately one of the driving factors in that revolution.  If you ignore the aspect of personal belief though, you may notice that religion has a lot in common with government.

First, to be completely blunt, religions are governments.  They are not secular governments, but they do govern their members.  The most important difference between religion and secular government is free will, and this is why government and religions have no business being legally connected.  When a state religion is created, it becomes an arm of the government, and the free will that makes religions what they are is lost.  This even applies to nations that adopt atheism as the state religion, banning any other religions.  As micro governments, religions actually play some very useful roles.

Religions have some power over the behavior of their members.  Now, some people perceive this as a bad thing, but it is not actually.  The reason is that participation is entirely voluntary.  Where religion is free from the influence of secular government, it encourages people to be civilized of their own free will.  Religions to do wield legal power to punish their members in any universally meaningful way.  They might excommunicate members who do not follow the tenants of the religion, but in most cases, members who are expelled from a religion have shown either through their words or actions that they do not actually believe the doctrine of that religion (there are occasional exceptions), and thus, no serious harm is done to them.  Religions are more or less social institutions that impose social rules and punish deviation through entirely social means.  People are free to choose their social rules by choosing which religion they are a member of.  This is unique, because people have little power over their secular government beyond relocating to the realm of a different government.  Even in a democratic government, those who do not agree with the majority have little control over how they are governed.  When religion is free, each person can choose his or her own social rules, and if there is not a religion that fits, it is always possible to create a new one.  Overall, religions help keep civilization civilized, and more effectively than government can.

Religions act as an additional check and balance to secular government.  Religions help unify people.  Groups of people who choose to have similar beliefs is far more united than the people of a nation that is forced to follow only one religion.  Religions can unite against unjust government actions.  Religions can help encourage political dialog that can drive positive change.  Religions give the people more power and ability to unite against the government when necessary (religions even played an integral role in starting the American Revolution).  When governments choose to work with religions, the voice of the people can be better heard by the government, without the need for the people to unite against the government.  Viewed as independent governing entities who represent their followers, religions can work with secular governments to enhance communication between the government and the people it represents.

Religions also tend to be better at social welfare than governments.  Because religions cannot impose mandatory taxes, they are limited to the voluntary donations of their members, which is why some forms of welfare must be handled by secular governments, however, religions can often get into places that secular governments cannot.  This does not just include countries in need of foreign aid that doubt the motives of secular governments.  It also includes homeless people, who do not have permanent addresses or even identification.  Secular governments just cannot afford the man power required to effectively distribute all needed welfare, even in their own regions.  Religions often have plenty of members willing to spend some time on charity work, who can distribute welfare with less concern for accountability.  Because the funds are donated voluntarily, religions do not have to worry so much about abuse of the system.  Also, because religions typically have more limited funds, abuse of religious social welfare is rarely very profitable.  In addition, because religions are autonomous and have less accountability, they can be more flexible.  In the effort to enforce fairness and accountability, government often inadvertently leave gaps in their social welfare programs.  Religions can fill those gaps, though perhaps no so well as the government could by analyzing the system and making adjustments.  Without religions helping with social welfare, much of the world would be doing far less well than they are.

The most unique thing about religions is that participation is voluntary.  This is very useful.  First, it encourages each person to choose a religion.  Most people in the U.S. are members of some religion or other.  Of those that have no official membership, many still identify with some religion, even if it is just a generic version of some category of religions (for instance, non-denominational Christian).  Those who do not identify with any religion often still have some personal religious ideology that guides they actions.  This means that most Americans subscribe to some religious ideology that encourages them to get along with others.  Further, because religion is voluntary, people feel compelled to keep the tenets of their religions, because they made a personal choice to do so.  There is a great deal of work that government does not need to do, because religions do it for them.  Integrity is only legally enforced when legal contracts are involved, however, most people are honest most of the time, even when it may not benefit them.  Most people don't steal, even when they know they will not get caught.  Most people overlook minor harm that was unintentional.  There are no laws enforcing most of this good behavior, and in the cases where there are, they are not reliable.  People choose to be civilized anyway, and in a large part, religions are responsible.  Religions encourage civilization and making wise choices, and because participation is voluntary, members are more likely to follow the commandments and recommendations, because they chose them of their own free will.

Secular governments have a monopoly on violence, and perhaps that is for the best.  In the past, religions that have been permitted to use violence have abused that authority a majority of the time.  Even limiting religions to using violence only on their own members is probably a bad idea.  Likewise, religions have something of a monopoly on personal belief.  Again, this is probably for the best.  Allowing secular governments to control the beliefs of people has almost always ended in disaster in the past, and forcing a large group of people to have the same beliefs has never turned out well.  Government and religion complement each other in very important ways, when they are autonomous from each other.  When they are combined, however, a major conflict of interests almost always arises, and one or the other is assimilated and becomes an engine of tyranny.

Universal Pre-K

http://national.deseretnews.com/article/2750/navigating-the-research-on-universal-pre-k-overhyped-or-silver-bullet.html

I just read this, and I see so many flaws in the various arguments that I cannot resist writing about it.

First, the argument is about whether the Federal government should devote several billions of dollars to make preschool part of the education system.  There is some evidence that poor children are likely to make more money and are less likely to get involved in crime when they grow up, if they attended a preschool.  There is also, however, significant evidence that the cognitive benefits of preschool disappear within 2 years of starting elementary school.  The cost to the country of doing this is around $15 billion.  One side of the argument claims that universal pre-K is the best way to improve education and situation of the poor.  The other side argues that the benefits are primarily temporary, and the cost will be more than the return.  At this point, I don't actually care who is right.  Perhaps we need more research, preferably done by people with mixed opinions, to avoid confirmation bias.

The first problem with universal pre-K is the cost.  Our nation is already heavily in debt, and if we cannot prove that the investment will pay off, perhaps we should not do it.  The second is reach.  While the evidence shows that poor children can gain substantial long term benefits from pre-K, there is no conclusive evidence that middle and upper class children benefit at all.  Those supporting universal pre-K say that it will not be taken seriously if it only targets poor people, and they cite Head Start as an example of this.  While this is probably true, it is not, perhaps a valid excuse for spending many times what is necessary.  What I hear them saying is, "We need to spend $15 billion to get people to take this seriously."  That money would probably be more effective spent as a bribe to get the people to pretend to take it seriously than it would to use it to offer preschool to those whom it is unlikely to benefit.

There is also a lot of mud slinging going on in this debate, which makes it very difficult to determine what is fact and what is opinion.  There is one study that "was likely underfunded" (yeah, I don't know what that is supposed to mean either) that showed kids who attended pre-K actually did worse in math and language than kids who did not.  The "fact" that it might have been underfunded is used to discredit it.  Likewise, another study showed impressive long term benefits from pre-K, at a price of $90,000 per child.  While this study may have been valid, the price tag for those results is just not an option.

One theory as to why benefits are observed is that preschool provides more social interaction than the home, improving the social skills of the children at an age where it makes a bigger difference.  Perhaps (though it is not stated), middle and upper class children have more opportunities to gain social skills at 4 years old than lower class children?  If this is not true, then this theory does not account for the discrepancy between lower class children and middle/upper class children.  (Supposedly, poor families are actually having fewer children than middle and upper class families now, so maybe social interaction at home can have the same benefits, so long as there are several children.)  Regardless, if this is true, we don't need to bother spending $15 billion extra on this.  It is already proven that the benefits of the learning go away fairly quickly.  If the social interaction is the key, then we could eliminate low income pre-K programs like Head Start and instead provide government funded day care, and it would be far cheaper.  Day care provides a very similar social setting, and day care workers don't cost as much as trained educators.  In fact, without the learning part attached, and presented as an aid to poor families where both parents work, it would be taken far more seriously than a preschool program justified primarily by limited and unreliable data.

One proponent of universal pre-K asks a question that is stupidly obvious.  Discussing some of the problems with programs specifically targeting poor people, Steven Barnett asks, "Why would we do that?  Why not just make it open to everyone?"  The painfully obvious answer is $15 billion.  I guess he just didn't think of that one.  In addition to this, there are multiple claims that the $15 billion to $20 billion already being spent on low income preschool programs is being spent poorly.  Not everyone agrees with this, but given the state of the rest of our education system, it is hard to believe that significant improvements are not possible.

Ultimately, the situation is complicated.  Obama and other proponents of the idea seem to be prepared to throw huge amounts of money at in, just in case it works.  There is evidence that it could be beneficial, but there is no evidence that it will be.  None of the most influential studies mirrored the reality of the situation well enough to actually trust.  The less influential studies all seem to be affected by many uncontrolled factors, as there is really no consensus between them.  Studies targeting the middle and upper classes are unlikely to ever be conducted, because no one seems to care.  What I see this as is a giant $15 billion experiment that will affect children all around the U.S., to see whether universal pre-K will help them or harm them.  Maybe the potential for harm is not that high, but the price tag certainly is.  $15 billion is enough money to pull over 1 million Americans out of poverty entirely.  This would dramatically reduce the need for a preschool system designed to help poor children, and it would likely do far more for them than preschool ever could.

I don't care who is right in the debate over benefits, but I am opposed to spending huge amounts of money on things that have such a high risk of failure.  Instead of arguing over what the data means, maybe we need to spend a fraction of that money doing more research, where the situations are closer to what they would be if universal pre-K was made available on the proposed budget.  I might not care about who is right, but I certainly do not want our government to gamble even more money on huge social experiments that have a limited probability of paying off.

Religion in Politics

Around 49% of Americans seem to believe that it is not only appropriate, but obligatory for churches to be involved in politics.  While it is illegal, according to IRS restrictions for non-profit tax status, for churches designated as non-profit organizations to support specific political candidates, it is not illegal for churches to support specific ballot measures, initiatives, or even political movements.  While there has been some resistance to churches having any involvement in politics, the percentage of Americans opposed to church involvement in politics is far lower than the percentage for.  In fact, the percentage of Americans who support removing the non-profit restriction for supporting specific candidates is even growing.

Mixing politics with religion has been a controversial topic for almost a century, however, there was a time when few questioned it.  The American Revolution was driven, in a very large part, by Protestant preachers in the colonies.  The religious view at the time was that government was ordained of God, and only He had the right to change it.  There are even Bible passages that lend a good deal of support to this argument.  Many preachers, however, carefully studied the passages often quoted to support this idea, and they found an interesting loophole.  Most of the passages stated or implied that government was ordained of God to serve the people.  They reasoned that a government that does not effectively serve the people is not a legitimate government, by that standard.  By refusing to give the colonies representation in Parliament, the British government was not doing its job by serving its citizens in it colonies.  Many preachers explained this to their congregations, showing that even God could support a revolution against a tyrannical government, because, by His standards, a government that does not properly serve its people is not a legitimate government.  The British government did serve the people of England properly, however, it did not serve its citizens in the colonies properly, thus it was not a legitimate government over the colonies.  Ultimately, this broke down the barriers preventing the people from rebelling against Britain, and the result is that the U.S.A. is now a sovereign nation in its own right.

Our Founding Fathers were very wary of religious influence in government and government influence in religion.  Some groups of colonists had come to the Americas specifically to escape religious persecution, and even much the majority that came primarily for economic freedom and opportunity also had religious freedom in mind.  At the time (and even today), Britain had a state religion, which certain government officials were required to be members of.  The Church of England was literally owned and controlled by the British government.  Certain other religions were banned in Britain (often depending on the mood of the current monarch).  Many other European countries also had state religions as well as specific religious bans.  Punishments for violating bans or even being a member of a religion not endorsed by the state ranged from public persecution to death, depending on the religion and the current ruler.  While Protestantism was the dominant religion in the colonies, there were still some Catholics and Anglicans.  In addition, Protestantism was fractured into a large number of different denominations.  Almost without fail, any state religion would reduce a significant portion of the population to second class citizens.  This did not fit well at all with the philosophy that people should be allowed to worship as they saw fit.  The result of this was strict protections for religious freedom, along with strict condemnation of any laws that might favor one religion over the other.

So now we get to a modern application of this knowledge.  The first important thing to remember is that religion and politics are strongly related.  Government is expected by the people to enforce certain moral expectations.  In a large degree, these moral expectation come directly from religion.  Rights that are supported by all religions are often called "human rights" and are frequently turned into laws called "civil rights."  Even entirely secular laws designed to improve the national economy (including tariffs and such) are based in the Biblical principal that government is ordained of God to serve the people.  This "separation of church and state" idea that religion and government should have nothing to do with each other is both wrong and impossible.  So long as religion is common in the U.S., it will and must have an impact on government.  Likewise, government will always have an impact on religions within the region it governs.  The Constitutional protections necessary to ensure religious freedom make these influences largely indirect, but they cannot be reasonably prevented.

Back to the question: Should churches be involved in politics?  Separation of church and state as an argument against it is not valid.  While direct influence can be eliminated to a large degree, indirect influence cannot.  Churches in the U.S. have a historical precedent of political involvement.  Our Founding Fathers, who drafted the Constitution never spoke out against this practice, though they were fully aware that it existed.  It would thus be unreasonable to assume that they believed churches should not be involved in politics.  Perhaps they were wrong though, and maybe we are more enlightened.  Of course, this attitude of assuming that past generations were stupider than we are is a strong red flag.  This is an egotistical assumption that is often wrong and will cause more trouble than it is worth.  Instead we should look at the relationship between government and religion.

What is the appropriate relationship between government and religion?  Many people would say that no relationship between the two is appropriate.  This argument is impossible to support though.  There is no way the government can interact with religious without becoming involved with it.  Even wide spread prohibition of religion is a government relationship with religion (and in fact, it is the equivalent of establishing a mandatory state religion).  If the government ignores religion entirely, its relationship with religion will come through the people.  For example, despite the fact that it is unconstitutional to restrict public official to those of a specific religion, Kennedy's opponents used his Roman Catholic religion against him in their campaigns.  So long as religion exists, there will be a relationship between religion and government, and if it is eliminated by government edict, that is, in and of itself, a relationship between religion and government.  It is almost pointless to discuss the question of whether such a relationship should exist, because it is impossibly for it not to exist.  That said, in a democratic government where some of the citizens have religious beliefs, it is entirely appropriate for such a relationship to exist, because the people the government represents include religious people.

Government involvement of the general public is all about beliefs.  A person who supports unregulated abortion typically does so out of a belief that the woman should be free to choose.  A person against unregulated abortion may chose to be against it out of a belief that killing even an unborn child is murder.  One of the most controversial topics that churches have gotten involved in is same sex marriage.  Those who support it believe that homosexuals are otherwise being deprived of rights that are freely available to heterosexual Americans, while those against typically believe that homosexual acts are sinful and may ultimately result in the wrath of God.  It does not matter whether the belief comes from religion or supposed logic; neither position really has a strong argument, and it all comes down to opinion and personal beliefs.  One group may choose to subscribe to a specific set of beliefs will the other may choose beliefs ala-carte, but ultimately it does not matter.  An American citizen has the right to representation, regardless of where they choose to get their beliefs.  So long as some of those beliefs may be obtained from religion, religion is an integral part of government.  Now, this does not mean that we should strip the Constitution of its protections for religion, but it is something that anyone arguing about the propriety of religious influence in government should be aware of.

During this election season, a much larger number of churches supported specific political candidates than in the past.  While this is stated to be illegal, it is technically not.  What is illegal is for a non-profit organization to support a specific candidate, and since most churches in the U.S. are registered as non-profits, it is illegal for them to support specific political candidates.  Of course, this is actually far more complicated than it seems.  This particular law is part of IRS policy for non-profit organizations.  It is also legally questionable.  While it is not addressed specifically in the Constitution, many believe that it could qualify as persecuting churches to prohibit them from supporting specific political candidates, and the specific argument is that it infringes on freedom of speech.  While this argument does seem rather sound, it still has a great deal of opposition.  The opposition's primary argument is the "separation of church and state" argument, which we have already established does not apply to this kind of situation.  Ultimately though, it may not matter.  The 1,600 preachers that have supported specific candidates from the pulpit will likely not face any trouble from the IRS.  The IRS policy is primarily in place to prevent attempts to create non-profits designed as campaign engines for specific candidates.  Churches, even when supporting specific candidates, are not specifically designed to do this.  Churches typically support candidates that agree with their beliefs and that will support their morals in government.  This is little different from supporting specific legislation on a state level ballot (which is entirely legal).  Further though, the primary goal of these preachers is to gain the ire of the IRS, so they can push a case through to the Supreme Court, in hopes that the IRS non-profit policy will be overturned, at least with reference to religious organizations.  So far, the IRS is not biting, and they may never bite, given that these churches are not violating the purpose of the policy.

My opinion on this is simple.  I believe that churches have every right, and in fact, they may sometimes even have a moral obligation, to support or oppose specific legislation according to the beliefs they teach.  I am ambivalent about the issue of churches supporting or opposing specific political candidates, however, I have a hard time seeing any difference if a church is consistently supporting candidates that will represent their moral beliefs.  I do think that churches with non-profit status should not be allowed to make monetary campaign contributions for specific candidates.  This could easily be seen as a misuse of tax exempt non-profit funds.  I suppose, however, I would not be opposed to a specific exception allowing campaign contributions, so long as they are reported and taxes are paid on the money contributed, but these contributions should be entirely transparent, so their followers know what is going on.  (Or, perhaps even better, they could organize a contribution event, where a church official collects and contributes funds for specific campaigns, but where the funds never become the legal property of the church.  This would be sort of like how for-profit businesses have charity events, soliciting and collecting contributions for some charity.)

Overall, trying to separate politics from religion is a fruitless task.  Religion defines the beliefs of many people, and the people are supposed to define the government.  This means, in a large part, religion defines government.  Attempting to completely eliminate the influence of religion on government is impossible, and if history is a good indicator, even trying is a prediction that the government is starting to crumble.  Democratic politics and religion are both belief based things.  This is, in a large part, why religious freedom needs protection from the government.  Trying to take the religion out of politics is essentially saying that a majority of the population is not qualified to take part in government, because they are "tainted" by their religious beliefs.  This is just not how a democratic government operates.