The Pomposity of Statism

Check out my latest at the Downsize DC Foundation.

The taint of trade

"I've long thought that most of liberalism/progressivism as we know it today is basically aristocratic conservatism in Enlightenment drag, with the landed gentleman's disgust and disdain for the bourgeoisie and the vulgar world of commerce, contemptuous paternalism towards the peasantry, and unthinking presumption of his own superiority." - John Markley

Check out The Superfluous Man: The taint of trade

Walter Block's Achievement

Four years ago, Austrian economist and UNLV professor Hans Hermann-Hoppe received a "non-disciplinary letter" from the school condemning remarks he said in the classroom about homosexuals that a student perceived as derogatory. Hoppe fought back with the help of the ACLU, and the letter was removed from his file.

This year, Austrian economist and Loyola-New Orleans professor Walter Block was condemned by the school's diversity task force based on a second-hand report of allegedly gender-and racially-insensitive remarks he made in a speech and Q & A given at another school. Block's fighting back relentlessly.

Will the Task Force rescind their condemnation? Will the University apologize to Block?

I doubt it.

And even if they viewed a repeat performance of Block's speech, I doubt they will repent. The one member of the Task Force who did show up appeared to be plenty angry with what Block said.

And here's the reason: to use facts and logic to point to causes, besides chauvinism and bigotry in the free market, that explain wage gaps between males and females, or between blacks and whites, is often automatically interpreted as blaming females and blacks, or suggesting they are inferior. Also, university profs are generally quite egotistical (even those who serve on Diversity Task Forces), and generally will refuse to admit, to themselves or to others, that they're wrong.

(Block, as it turns out, "blames" marriage and children for the gender gap, and points mainly to past and present government policies for the racial gap.)

But while I think Block won't win this one, I think he, along with Hoppe, have achieved unseen future victories against the PC Police. Their relationships with Lew Rockwell and the Mises Institute certainly helped their causes go national.

These "unseen future victories" will be when the PC Police declines to act, or is afraid to act because of fear of national backlash. They will be more inclined to research not just one's academic paper trail, but their popular articles and friends on the web.

So I congratulate Prof. Block for fighting this fight. The cause of academic freedom (and economic freedom) is stronger for it.

Children Have Rights, Too

Two of the top stories in the Foundation for Economic Education's "In Brief" today are about young people. First, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU call for state and federal bans on corporal punishment. Then, as you may have already heard, there is a call by college presidents to open the debate about the drinking age.

It is said that children can't be as free as adults because "with freedom comes responsibility," and children are not responsible. But this line of thinking discriminates against children who would take, or do take, responsibility for themselves, for others, and for property. It is true that most children are not property owners and therefore usually have to play by the rules property owners set for them: "My property, my rules." But this does not justify any person, privately or on behalf of the State, to violate their rights. That is, no one has the right to initiate force against a child. Not parents, not teachers, and not police who catch one drinking.

But what if a child violates the rules?

Let's put it this way: if a private business firm provided a list of employee rules against being late, smoking, etc. and for which paddling would be the punishment, many people would be outraged and would seek to ban the punishment - even though all prospective employees would be competent adults and no one is coerced into working there.

How, then, can the State force kids to go to public school, and then commit violence against them for misbehaving? Especially for actions that are not themselves violent or destructive to property? Isn't this many times more outrageous than a corporal punishment policy for adults who, after all, are free to quit the job before facing the punishment?

There are means of disciplining a misbehaving but non-violent child without violence, such as withholding privileges and shunning. Schools that have the discretion to use corporal punishment for non-violent behavior are more likely to twist the minds of young children rather than to educate them.

(Of course, there are greater problems with the whole system of schooling in the United States. That's why I'm a proponent of the Separation of School and State.)

As to drinking, instead of imposing restrictions and prohibitions on young people, we should instead inform them that they will be responsible for their actions. We can tell them what alcohol does to brains at their age, and that if they choose to drink and then cause damage of some sort, neither their youth nor their intoxicated condition will absolve them of responsibility. We can then let them decide for themselves what to do. This would be a lot easier if there were no age restrictions. Young people are drawn to alcohol, cigarettes, etc. partly because they want to seem older than they are; they want the privileges of adulthood. So let's take away the taboos, but then emphasize personal responsibility. The drinking age shouldn't be lowered to 18, the drinking age should be repealed. The law should not be concerned with what people do to themselves, only what they do to other people.

Overreaction?

Oakland University is shut down for a day after threats were written on bathroom walls. But do school shooters ever give public warnings before they attack? And do people who make general threats - whether to individuals or to a group of people - ever follow through?

It seems to me that putting the students on alert would have been better. If the students - and instructors - had the right to defend themselves, it would be less likely that anyone would attack.

The Equivalent of Bed Shortages

On ABC News tonight I learned that one in five adults in Grand Rapids, Michigan are functionally illiterate. Yesterday, I think they said something like 27 million adult Americans were illiterate - though I couldn't quickly find a source. And every year we hear of declining performance in math and science. This is a disgrace, and I have the perfect solution:

Free, universal, government-provided education for all!

Oh, wait . . . we already have it. Indeed, nationwide, it costs $8,700 per student. The more we spend on education, the dumber we get.

It's inevitable that people go through the socialized education system for 12 years and still can't read, just like there are bed shortages in socialized health care systems. When "everybody" is supposed to be taken care of, very few will be well-taken care of, most will be only adequately taken care of, and a significant number who require extra attention won't get it. So some kids will have trouble learning to read at the pace of the rest of the classroom, and then become embarrassed and feel stupid, relying on social promotion until he or she can get the hell out of school - and losing interest in books in the process, perhaps hating life and society as well.

Cultural factors no doubt play a role in why the U.S. states are so much worse in running their socialized education systems than are other countries. But it seems to me that a completely free market in education couldn't perform any worse than 20% functional illiteracy.

One Subject, Please

Today's Downsizer-Dispatch . . .

Last week, the House passed the "College Opportunity and Affordibility Act of 2007." It's a very expensive bill; according to Washington Watch, it would cost the average American family $865. A title like that makes one think the bill is about financial aid to college students. But because federal student aid is popular, ideologues and social engineers in Congress and the Dept. of Education loaded the bill with unrelated programs. The act runs to a whopping 792 pages.

The summary of the bill (H.R. 4137) at thomas.loc.gov lists 35 major provisions. About a dozen have nothing to do with student aid. They create grant programs - but not direct aid to students - pertaining to rural areas, minorities, the disabled, elementary and secondary education, campus safety, and the environment. In addition, there are about half a dozen provisions of questionable relevance to the title of the bill.

This is one way government grows. It is fun to point out gross pork-barrel spending, like "bridges to nowhere." But just as expensive are grant programs, each costing hundreds of millions, sprinkled in 800-page bills. These add to the federal government's budget commitments without addressing a way to pay for them.

The core issue - re-authorizing and refining the federal programs pertaining to student aid applications - would have made for a long and expensive bill already. Adding unrelated programs only made it longer and more confusing. It also increased the likelihood that provisions which wouldn't have passed by themselves would sail through - perhaps unnoticed and unread. Indeed, this bill passed 354-58.

Federal student aid is one subject. Improving colleges and universities is another subject. And improving K-12 education is yet another subject. We want Congress to address one subject at a time, and that's why DownsizeDC.org is proposing the One Subject At a Time Act (OSTA).

OSTA requires that each bill that comes to a vote be about one subject, and one subject only, which will be expressed in its title. It will prevent Congress from packaging unpopular legislation into a popular or much-needed bill. It will actually save time by discouraging members of Congress from proposing amendments that don't pertain to the subject of the bill. And it could save taxpayer dollars by removing costly, hidden provisions from bills.

Please tell Congress that you resent unrelated subjects in the same bill. Tell them that the unrelated programs in H.R. 4137 should have been dealt with separately. Tell them to pass the One Subject at a Time Act.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org