Social justice, like most buzzwords, is so heavily used that we have ceased to think about what it means (if we ever did). It seems to have simply become a stamp of approval (much like “green” or “reduced calorie”)—if it’s social justice, it must be good. I, on the other hand, maintain that “social” adds the same gloss to “justice” as it does to “disease.” Please allow me to explain.
Some part of my brain gets very frightened when people use words without their meaning. Perhaps this is because it is a symptom of groupthink, or perhaps it is simply the offensiveness of ignorance proudly displayed. At bottom, though, I think the problem is that words, once detached from the ideas or things they represent, become very dangerous. They allow people to fool themselves and others into doing things they would never condone if they stopped to think about it.
Worse, I think some people do this intentionally, as a sort of marketing strategy for their ideas. If I know people won’t buy what I’m selling if I tell them what it is, I’ll borrow the reputation of some other word and add a modifier in front of it. So prunes become “dried plums” (which at least has the benefit of being technically correct), and toothfish becomes “sea bass.”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Ole Miss Debate
John McCain will attend the debate at Ole Miss tonight.
No, he hasn’t made an announcement. But I’m fairly confident he will, and I have been since yesterday morning. How am I so confident? Game theory. Now, game theory doesn’t give you answers. But it does help you discipline your intuition, requiring you to first be explicit about your assumptions and then helping you see their interaction without allowing extraneous considerations to cloud the picture. So think of game theory (or any formal modeling) as Photoshop: it can remove the red-eye and clear up the resolution, but you still take the picture.
So let’s look at McCain’s situation. There are two players, McCain and Obama. They have two choices: attend the Mississippi debate or not. So there are four potential outcomes:
My Problem with PR
(Sniiiiifff.) Smell that? That, my friends, is the smell of free time. Or, well, free-er time. We are all well aware of the economic truth that there is no such thing as a free lunch. But we all too often forget its opportunity cost corollary, there is no such thing as free time. And with the end of the semester, my opportunity costs have reduced to the level that I can now afford such luxuries as…spending time with my children. And blogging!
It’s not a lot, but it’s my life.
As you might imagine, quite a few burrs have built up under my saddle. So please pardon me if it takes a while to catch up with the news. (Just sing “Time Warp” in your head every time you log on. Fishnet and heels entirely optional.) And what has my dander up today is Hillary Clinton’s claims to the Democratic nomination.
Hayek Secretly a Baptist!
Please forgive the Enquirer-esque subject line. Of course, I actually know nothing of the religious beliefs of Dr. Hayek, but I strongly doubt that he was a Baptist of any sort, let alone a Southern Baptist. Not, however, because his philosophy made it impossible. As I’ve hinted before, I know of no religious beliefs as compatible with classical liberalism as Baptist (at least, properly understood).
In recently discussing The Road to Serfdom with Ben, he pointed out a passage I had not previously noticed which illustrates a part of this.
What our generation is in danger of forgetting is not only that morals are of necessity a phenomenon of individual conduct but also that they can exist only in the sphere in which the individual is free to decide for himself and is called upon voluntarily to sacrifice personal advantage to the observance of a moral rule. …Only where we ourselves are responsible for our own interests and are free to sacrifice them has our decision moral value. We are neither entitled to be unselfish at someone else’s expense nor is there any merit in being unselfish if we have no choice.
I suppose that, in order to make clear how this relates to Baptist belief, I’d better explain a little bit about Baptist belief.
Of Wickard and Wassails
In this holiday season, it seems only too necessary to share a thought which occurred to me recently. I can only hope you, dear reader, will not consider me too much of a Scrooge for harshing the holiday mellow. But the fact of the matter is—and this is a fact that should have us all rushing to take up ballots against our oppressors—that Congress, according to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the commerce clause, can legislate that you give Christmas presents.
The Regressive Amendments, Part 1
The Principle
History has deemed the early part of the 20th century in America as the Progressive Era and the amendments made to the Constitution during that time as the Progressive Amendments. These labels are rubbish. The so-called “Progressive” Era was in fact quite the opposite. Of the four amendments of the Progressive Era, only one, the 19th, which gave women the right to vote represented a decision consistent with the liberty whose creation was the great progressive accomplishment of the creation of this country. The other three represent a regression.
The 16th, 17th, and 18th Amendments take us in spirit back to before the progress made by our Constitution. They deny the liberty on which our nation was founded and remove the institutional safeguards of this liberty. This is no progress! The founding of our nation was a first. We were an example of liberal democracy for the entire world to see. We were a showcase of freedom, and a beautiful institutional model for insuring that freedom would remain. Over the past 200 years, however, we have slowly and methodically begun to destroy every institutional safeguard of freedom we have, abandoning the progress made by our Constitution.
If Wishes Were Windmills, We’d All be Don Quixote
First, let me apologize for my extended absence. The last few weeks have been particularly busy in my professional calendar, and I fear it left no time for the joy of blogging. If it’s any consolation, I’ve missed the opportunity to think and write on a regular basis. I guess you could call it a “blogger’s high,” and I’ve certainly been in withdrawal. It should be no surprise—the love of thinking systematically and communicating thoughts to others is what drew me to this line of work in the first place. And I brought you these flowers…
In the stolen moments in my recent schedule, I have had a few ideas I’d like to share. I’d like to propose at least two reforms to our government. Of course, I’d really like to repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments (Ben Bryan has come up with a particularly apropos sobriquet for them, but I’ll let him introduce it). But short of that, here are two ideas.
First, let’s make Congress subject to a limited form of tort law. A tort, of course, is a legal wrong, something done to another for which one owes them compensation to make them whole. (Torte, on the other hand, is a delightful afternoon treat with tea or coffee.) Obviously, it can’t be regular, run-of-the-mill tort law. The entire purpose of forming a government is for it to be able to harm some of us (or our rights) when necessary. The problem comes with government doing it when it isn’t necessary. So I propose that we define a new type of tort, one which only legislatures may commit (and which legislatures would have to define by statute, so I’m obviously tilting at windmills).
They Say the Neon Lights Are Bright
For those who have not yet heard the news via Belmont’s main website, the Commission on Presidential Debates has chosen Belmont University to host the Town Hall Presidential Debate on October 7, 2008.
Nope, I didn’t stutter, and that is what you think it is. We’re hosting a presidential debate! I suppose the advantage of a blog in this context is to provide the immediate reaction, rather than calm and reasoned reflection. And I have to tell you, this news has sent a tremor through campus. I’m not sure how we compare to previous sites in terms of campus population, etc., but I have to imagine this represents quite a coup for our administration. I know it represents one heck of an opportunity for fostering political debate on campus–among students, not just among candidates. Actually, probably more the former than the latter; when’s the last time a debate actually featured debating?
At any rate, we are all extremely excited, and we can’t wait to find out how we will be allowed to participate! Expect to hear more here!
Let Free Markets Fix Healthcare
An alumnus of Belmont’s MBA program, entrepreneur Charles Hagood, provides lean management consulting for the healthcare industry through his company Healthcare Performance Partners. While currently working in Denmark he wrote this at his blog site:
…I can’t help but note that the majority of healthcare issues for the most part will not be solved via socialized medicine and certainly not with the government getting more involved to “help us”. The answer is to eliminate waste, reduce unevenness, and reduce overburden.
Amen.
We are now facing a false choice in the US. One choice is to continue the current system of rent seeking by the healthcare industry. K Street in Washington, DC is awash with lobbyists and their money funded by various healthcare and corporate interests. The healthcare mess we now have is the outcome of decades of duplicitous acts between large public corporations, various healthcare interest groups, and politicians. Through a labyrinth of tax and employment laws we have created over the years an incredibly inefficient system that has pushed costs up at a pace that far exceeds any normal inflationary increases.
As an alternative, the other choice we are being presented with is the socialized model, which has gained tremendous steam of late thanks to the left and the mainstream media. If you want to see where complete government control of healthcare takes us, just ask Canada, or Great Britain, or any of the long list of socialist democracies that have taken that path. Not only are their systems inefficient, but theirs are also increasingly ineffective.
The third choice is to let the free market once again drive healthcare. Sadly, this alternative is getting precious little attention right now. We live in an age where the Republicans are taking us on a gentle stroll to socialism, while the Democrats offer the alternative of a full speed sprint.
If we put the “free” back into health care markets, we will see a system that will seek out improved outcomes through more efficient means. That is what free markets demand. How do we do this?
The first step is to uncouple health insurance from the tax code. This will take employers out of the loop. Health care is not a gift from our employers. It is part of what they pay us. By enmeshing healthcare in the tax code and employment law all we get is more bureaucracy and waste within American business and within our government. We have suckered Americans into believing that the market will take those dollars away if the government does not enforce the current system. The truth is that free markets will pay us the same. But now more of the dollars will come directly to us and not be redistributed through the human resource systems of corporations, to the bloated bureaucracy of health insurance companies, all under the watchful eye of our government. That is where much of healthcare money gets wasted.
We also need to deregulate health insurance. Let market forces work. We will see a return to the system we had 40 years ago where we had high deductible plans that covered only “major medical” events. We will have more income to pay for routine healthcare ourselves, which will guide that industry to more efficient and more effective outcomes through market pressures.
In short, get healthcare out of the tax code and employment law, and get government out of micro-managing health insurance. This is a simple prescription, but one that no politicians seem to have the courage nor vision to support.
Another shameless plug . . . !
I’m sure we all can relate to the enjoyment associated with the sharing of good news . . . the following is some good news I received this morning via email:
Hi,
We recently published “Hidden Gems: The 100 .edu sites every Entrepreneur Should Read ” I am happy to let you know that your site has been included in the list.
I figured I’d bring it to your attention in case you think your readers would find it useful.
Cheers,
Rich McIver