Real "Tolerance" ....

 This article is full of MSM nonsense about Trump, but Haidt strikes a chord I agree with. It will never be the case that "all of us" will agree on the complex issues of government and human liberty. It would serve us better if we could view those with differing perspectives as "equally human" in spite their threat what we value. 

Haidt discovered that conservatives had some important insights to offer on human nature, the value of institutions, and the importance of moral capital. He felt conservatism offered an important counterbalance to the excesses of progressivism. He also came to appreciate the pedigree of conservatism, from the writings of people like Edmund Burke in the 18th century to Thomas Sowell in the 20th. (Haidt told me he considers himself to be a centrist, engaging with views from multiple sides in order to understand issues. But he’s a centrist who only ever votes for Democrats, because he thinks the Republican Party has been in a state of moral and philosophical decline for many years.)

Haidt laments the state of contemporary American politics, believing that on both the right and the left we’re seeing populism that responds to real problems but in illiberal ways. “On the right,” he said, “the populism there is really explicitly xenophobic and often explicitly racist … I think we see strands of populism on the right that are authoritarian, that I would say are incompatible with a tolerant, pluralistic, open democracy.”

Looking in the other direction, Haidt says, “we’ve messed up the word liberal and we’ve used it to just mean ‘left.’ I’ve always thought of myself as a liberal, in the John Stuart Mill sense. I believe in a society that is structured to give individuals the maximum freedom to construct lives that they want to live. We use a minimum of constraint, we value openness, creativity, individual rights. We try hard to maximize religious liberty, economic liberty, liberty of conscience, freedom of speech. That’s my ideal of a society, and that’s why I call myself a liberal.”

But on the left, Haidt said, “there’s been a movement that has made something else sacred, that has not focused on liberty, but that is focused instead on oppression and victimhood and victimization. And once you get into a framework of seeing your fellow citizens as good versus evil based on their group, it’s kind of a mirror image of the authoritarian populism on the right. Any movement that is assigning moral value to people just by looking at them is a movement I want no part of.”

Haidt went on: “I think this is a very important point for us to all keep in mind, that left and right in this country are not necessarily liberal and conservative anymore. On the left, it’s really clear that there are elements that many of us consider to be very illiberal; and on the right, it’s hard to see how Trump and many of his supporters are conservatives who have any link whatsoever to Edmund Burke. It’s very hard for me to see that. You know, I would love to live in a country with true liberals and true conservatives that engage with each other. That, I think, is a very productive disagreement. But it’s the illiberalism on each side that is making our politics so ugly, I believe.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/jonathan-haidt-pandemic-and-americas-polarization/612025/

Walter Williams on Individual Liberty

 He appeals to the authority of the founders too much, but his logic is always spot on. Hand salute, again, Dr. Williams, on the journey.

On the other side of the coin from limited government is individual liberty. The Founders understood private property as the bulwark of freedom for all Americans, rich and poor alike. But following a series of successful attacks on private property and free enterprise—beginning in the early 20th century and picking up steam during the New Deal, the Great Society, and then again recently—the government designed by our Founders and outlined in the Constitution has all but disappeared. Thomas Jefferson anticipated this when he said, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

"Ironically, the free market system is threatened today not because of its failure, but because of its success. Capitalism has done so well in eliminating the traditional problems of mankind—disease, pestilence, gross hunger, and poverty—that other human problems seem to us unacceptable. So in the name of equalizing income, achieving sex and race balance, guaranteeing housing and medical care, protecting consumers, and conserving energy—just to name a few prominent causes of liberal government these days—individual liberty has become of secondary or tertiary concern."

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/future-prospects-for-economic-liberty/?utm_campaign=williams&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=101929147&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_7Xid2e4YvUwbiTjrmw2xXJfrmqurfhpWDcYSOULhZa6PD5GENDtXckseLMDURb4szR5W3KFI3lBpJpBJAg8BFOkBbVA&utm_source=housefile

Liberty or Death

 I identify with this guy. Both sides have a better grip on some pieces of virtue than the other, and both sides have some "so wrong for so long" strongly held beliefs. Both sides are at their best when grounded in individual liberty and self government with rule of law. I'm pretty sure many of our citizenry either doesn't care about or doesn't understand the idea of individual liberty and self government.

"Haidt laments the state of contemporary American politics, believing that on both the right and the left we’re seeing populism that responds to real problems but in illiberal ways. “On the right,” ... "I think we see strands of populism on the right that are authoritarian, that I would say are incompatible with a tolerant, pluralistic, open democracy.”

Looking in the other direction, Haidt says, “we’ve messed up the word liberal and we’ve used it to just mean ‘left.’ I’ve always thought of myself as a liberal, in the John Stuart Mill sense. I believe in a society that is structured to give individuals the maximum freedom to construct lives that they want to live. We use a minimum of constraint, we value openness, creativity, individual rights. We try hard to maximize religious liberty, economic liberty, liberty of conscience, freedom of speech. That’s my ideal of a society, and that’s why I call myself a liberal.”

But on the left, Haidt said, “there’s been a movement that has made something else sacred, that has not focused on liberty, but that is focused instead on oppression and victimhood and victimization. And once you get into a framework of seeing your fellow citizens as good versus evil based on their group, it’s kind of a mirror image of the authoritarian populism on the right. Any movement that is assigning moral value to people just by looking at them is a movement I want no part of.”"

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/jonathan-haidt-pandemic-and-americas-polarization/612025/

Just Another Incredible American Story

Hate and guilt-shaming are not helpful for society to improve and move forward. Instead, we should embrace the central American value of freedom. The freedom to worship the religion of your choice. The freedom to hold differing political ideologies. The freedom to choose your occupation and your own path in life. The freedom to peaceably protest your government.

We are beyond blessed to call the Land of the Free our home. Only in America can I be born a poor Black boy raised in poverty by a single mother and climb the ladder of opportunity to become a brain surgeon and then a member of the president's Cabinet. These dreams would not be possible in socialist Venezuela, communist China or authoritarian North Korea.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/statues-george-washington-other-heroes-are-being-razed-we-should-ncna1232731

Tamny Wins

https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2019/08/15/dear_catherine_rampell_the_former_soviet_union_had_many_experts_too_103850.html

A frequent theme in this column is one about the fallability of the brilliant. Jeff Bezos regularly acknowledges how often his experiments prove much less than great, the best venture capitalists admit that more than nine out of ten capital commitments result in bankruptcy, and then the world's best traders note that they're wrong almost as often as they're right. It's incredibly difficult to predict the future, and that's an understatement.

Germany, Sweden, Kentucky

Last year, I posted an article titled "If Sweden and Germany Became US States, They Would be Among the Poorest States" which, produced a sizable and heated debate, including that found in the comments below this article at The Washington Post. The reason for the controversy, of course, is that it has nearly reached the point of dogma with many leftists that European countries enjoy higher standards of living thanks to more government regulation and more social benefits. What the data really suggests, however, is that even after social benefits are incorporated into the income data, the median American still has a higher income than most European countries. 
https://mises.org/blog/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden-and-germany-rank-kentucky

Friedman About Social Responsibility

I asked "have you read Friedman's famous article about the social responsibility of corporations?", the answer "no" might be disqualifying for comments about the role of government and businesses.

"Aside from the question of fact–I share Adam Smith's skepticism about the benefits that can be expected from "those who affected to trade for the public good"–this argument must be rejected on grounds of principle. What it amounts to is an assertion that those who favor the taxes and expenditures in question have failed to persuade a majority of their fellow citizens to be of like mind and that they are seeking to attain by undemocratic procedures what they cannot attain by democratic proce­dures. In a free society, it is hard for "evil" people to do "evil," especially since one man's good is another's evil."
http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html

Doing business is about you agreeing to buy what someone else wants to sell.  No coercion, voluntary exchange. There is no higher form of human interaction.

Government is the opposite - it has only coercion or threat of same to wield.

Greenbacks and Freedom

The Federal Reserve and various other financial regulatory bodies were sold politicallyin no small part as protections against inflation. But inflation has run rampant. According to the inflation calculator, today’s $100 bill is worth only as much as $4.18 in 1913, the year the Federal Reserve was established. When you realize that inflation helps debtors and that governments are the world’s biggest debtors, this makes a certain amount of sense — for them.

But at a time when, almost no matter where you look in the world, the parts of it controlled by the experts and technocrats (like Larry Summers) seem to be doing badly, it seems reasonable to ask: Why give them still more control over the economy? What reason is there to think that they’ll use that control fairly, or even competently? Their track record isn’t very impressive.

Cash has a lot of virtues. One of them is that it allows people to engage in voluntary transactions without the knowledge or permission of anyone else. Governments call this suspicious, but the rest of us call it something else: Freedom.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/02/29/100-dollar-bill-cash-inflation-larry-summers-federal-reserve-column/81080728/

Liberty? Are You Crazy Like a Koch?

It's nice to find anyone with power who will articulate what liberty is and can explain why it matters.

Whenever we allow government to pick winners and losers, we impede progress and move further away from a society of mutual benefit. This pits individuals and groups against each other and corrupts the business community, which inevitably becomes less focused on creating value for customers. That’s why Koch Industries opposes all forms of corporate welfare — even those that benefit us. (The government’s ethanol mandate is a good example. We oppose that mandate, even though we are the fifth-largest ethanol producer in the United States.)

It may surprise the senator to learn that our framework in deciding whether to support or oppose a policy is not determined by its effect on our bottom line (or by which party sponsors the legislation), but by whether it will make people’s lives better or worse.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-koch-this-is-the-one-issue-where-bernie-sanders-is-right/2016/02/18/cdd2c228-d5c1-11e5-be55-2cc3c1e4b76b_story.html

"The natural consequence of true liberty is diversity."

The natural consequence of true liberty is diversity. Unless a society can figure out a way to reach perfect agreement, conflicting views will be inevitable. Any effort to impose conformity, through government or any other means, by punishing the misguided for believing incorrectly will impoverish society intellectually and oppress it politically.

The test of our commitment to liberal principles is not our eagerness to hear ideas we share, but our willingness to consider seriously those we oppose.

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/04/22/freedom_to_marry_freedom_to_dissent_why_we_must_have_both_122376.html#ixzz2zfH2WQDd 
Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter

Putting a Finger on It

The bedrock issue here is that the federal government owns more than 80% of the state of Nevada. This is true across the western states. To an astonishing degree, those states lack sovereignty over their own territory. Most of the land is federal. And the federal agencies that rule over federal lands have agendas. At every opportunity, it seems, they restrict not only what can be done on federal lands, but on privately-owned property. They are hostile to traditional industries like logging, mining and ranching, and if you have a puddle in your back yard, the EPA will try to regulate it as a navigable waterway.

That is only a slight exaggeration.

One could say that Cliven Bundy is just one more victim of progress and changing mores. The federal government has gotten more environmentally-conscious, and now we really, really care about desert tortoises. (It was the designation of desert tortoises as an endangered species that gave BLM the opportunity to squeeze Bundy in the early 1990s.) But here’s the thing: the Bureau of Land Management–the federal government–is not necessarily anti-development. Rather, its attitude depends entirely on what sort of development is in question.

Thus, BLM has developed a grandiose plan to develop vast solar energy installations on federal land across the Southwest. Wind power projects are favored, too. In fact, the same BLM that has driven Nevada’s ranchers out of business has welcomed solar projects with open arms. Some have claimed that Harry Reid is behind the BLM’s war against Cliven Bundy, on the theory that he wants the land for a solar project in which his son Rory is involved, along with the Chinese. I don’t believe this is correct. The solar projects are located north of Las Vegas, 30 miles or so from the area where Bundy ranches.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/04/why-you-should-be-sympathetic-toward-cliven-bundy.php

Charles Koch: I'm Fighting to Restore a Free Society - WSJ.com

Well written.http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303978304579475860515021286?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303978304579475860515021286.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

What is Tolerance?

I love this and aspire to live up to it:
“Tolerance,” he has written, “means acknowledging that even if people may be wrong in one thing that means a lot to you, it doesn’t follow that they’re wrong in all things. It means (among other things) being willing to see the merits, if there are merits, in people who believe things that you think are wrong, foolish, or even evil.” It’s a generous philosophy that will be put to the test now that the Conspiracy has joined the Post, where many readers—judging by initial comments—are less inclined to be generous back after reading Volokh and his fellow bloggers’ arguments in favor of conservative causes like gun rights.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/168389/the-volokh-conspiracy/2

What Is A Right?

According to The New York Times, a case the Supreme Court heard on Tuesday, involving a challenge to Obamacare's requirement that businesses pay for their employees' contraceptives, "pits religious liberty against women's rights." Similarly, last month's controversy over an Arizona bill aimed at protecting business owners from being forced to treat homosexual and heterosexual couples alike was widely perceived as a conflict between religious liberty and gay rights.
Both of these debates are more accurately described as clashes between real rights and fake rights. To put it more politely, they pit negative liberty, which requires freedom from external restraint, against positive liberty, which imposes demands on other people's resources. Under the latter vision, giving freedom to one person requires taking it away from another.
http://reason.com/archives/2014/03/26/free-birth-control-and-unfree-photograph

Never Would Have Thunk It

More Porn, Less Rape

Over the past two decades, as pornography has become much more easily accessible over the Internet, the rate of rape and sexual assault has declined by about 60 percent, according to the Department of Justices Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
http://reason.com/archives/2013/07/15/seven-surprising-truths-about-the-world/email

Fertility and Freedom

The fertility replacement rate is about 2.1 children per woman. The 2012 Revision estimates that 48 percent of the world's population lives in countries with below replacement rate fertility, the largest of which are China, the United States, Brazil, Russia, Japan, and Vietnam. According to the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of the World 2012 report, China's index number increased from 3.74 in 1980 to 6.16 in 2010; Brazil from 3.83 to 6.42; Russia from 4.43 in 1995 to 6.35; Japan from 6.88 to 7.61, and Vietnam has just begun to be measured, but the trend is toward more economic freedom; and the United States fell from 7.92 to 7.70.

Another 43 percent live in intermediate fertility countries with total fertility rates between 5 and 2.1 children. The largest of these countries are India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, and the Philippines. Indonesia's economic freedom index number rose from 5.09 to 7.04; Pakistan from 4.3 to 5.94; Bangladesh from 3.38 to 6.43; Mexico from 5.13 to 6.65; and the Philippines from 5.33 to 7.06. Nine percent live in countries where the average woman bears more than five children, of which 29 are in Africa, and two are in Asia. All with very low economic freedom index scores.
http://reason.com/archives/2013/07/19/population-explosion-again

Tyranny Begets Tyranny

"The young woman was reacting to a New York City regulation, to take effect on March 12, limiting to 16 ounces the size of sugar-sweetened soft drinks available for purchase at restaurants, street carts, movie theaters and sporting events. The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the new home of the Nets, has already imposed this limit. Convenience stores, vending machines and some newsstands are exempted from the regulation.  Several new studies underscore the public health potential of the restriction. If it succeeds in curbing the consumption of sweet liquid calories, it is likely to be copied elsewhere, because the nation's love affair with super-size sugary soft drinks is costing cities and states billions of dollars annually in medical care."   

Uh, how about having the government stop advocating low fat, high carb diets?  Notice the author's disclaimer paragraph which allows her to skirt the larger question of the health impact of carbs generally: 

"Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Laboratory at Cornell University, explained that beverages aren't as filling as solid food because they lack texture and "mouth feel," and we "tend to consume them so fast they don't register."  

I have mixed feelings - wrong to limit human choice, wrong to mis-educate based on bad science, wrong to give the sugar beverage industry a pass while pounding the meat and whole fat dairy folks. It's government gone wrong. 

And yet, there's virtually no doubt that doses of sugary drinks above 12 ounces a day become problematic very rapidly. And sports drinks are just as much to blame as coca cola and its competitors.  It's also wrong to limit smokers, but I sure like being able to dine without the smokefest around.  The truth is, the whole "public health" and "environmental protection" concepts are another means to justify tyranny and get people used to the idea that wise and well informed superiors know more about how to take care of us than we do of ourselves, and more about our self interest than we do.  

And nit-wits like Jane Brody are more than willing to strap on their lemming suits and march on.

Clear Thought, A Valuable Commodity

"For mass killings, the numbers are already so low that the logical question would be: is it worth doing anything to try to reduce even more the chance of mass killings? What could be the undesired side effects of implementing policies to that effect? For example, let's say that someone came up with a vaccine that guaranteed that a child who received would never be a mass killer. However, one child in 100,000 dies from an adverse reaction to the vaccine. Clearly the vaccine itself would cause more deaths than mass killings, so it's a net negative if we are trying to minimize unnecessary deaths."
Quote taken from here:
http://cafehayek.com/2012/12/wise-thinking-about-tragedy.html

Full article here:
http://diegobasch.com/mass-shootings-political-correctness-and-magical-t
hinking

Politicians say stuff they think will sound good, without regards for the utility of the language. To expect otherwise if foolish, even if you happen to be favorably disposed towards the President.

Suicide Terrorists and Suicide Killers - Same?

"...we should think of many rampage shooters as nonideological suicide terrorists. In some cases, they claim to be fighting for a cause - neo-Nazism, eugenics, masculine supremacy or an antigovernment revolution - but, as with suicide terrorists, their actions usually stem from something much deeper and more personal." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/opinion/what-drives-suicidal-mass-kill 
ers.html?_r=0  

"There appears to be a triad of factors that sets these killers apart. The first is that they are generally struggling with mental health problems that have produced their desire to die.  "The second factor is a deep sense of victimization and belief that the killer's life has been ruined by someone else, who has bullied, oppressed or persecuted him.  

"The key is that the aggrieved individual feels that he has been terribly mistreated and that violent vengeance is justified. In many cases, the target for revenge becomes broader and more symbolic than a single person, so that an entire type or category of people is deemed responsible for the attacker's pain and suffering. Then, the urge to commit suicide becomes a desire for murder-suicide, which is even rarer; a recent meta-analysis of 16 studies suggests that only two to three of every one million Americans commit murder-suicide each year.  

"The third factor is the desire to acquire fame and glory through killing. More than 70 percent of murder-suicides are between spouses or romantic or sexual partners, and these crimes usually take place at home. Attackers who commit murder-suicide in public are far more brazen and unusual.  

"...rampage shooters have often been captivated by the idea that they will become posthumously famous. "Isn't it fun to get the respect that we're going to deserve?" the Columbine shooter Eric Harris remarked. He had fantasized with his fellow attacker, Dylan Klebold, that the filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino would fight over the rights to their life story."

Facts and Insight About Random Mass Killings

"Has the rate of random mass shootings in the United States increased? Over the past 30 years, the answer is definitely yes. It is also true that the total U.S. homicide rate has fallen by over half since 1980, and the gun homicide rate has fallen along with it.  Today, Americans are safer from violent crime, including gun homicide, than they have been at any time since the mid-1960s.

"Mass shootings, defined as four or more fatalities, fluctuate from year to year, but over the past 30 years there has been no long-term increase or decrease. But "random" mass shootings, such as the horrific crimes last Friday in Newtown, Conn., have increased.  

"Loren Coleman's 2004 book "The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines" shows that the copycat effect is as old as the media itself. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1774 classic "The Sorrows of Young Werther" triggered a spate of copycat suicides all over Europe. But today the velocity and pervasiveness of the media make the problem much worse."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732372310457818527185742403
6.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

It is rare to find such a factually dense and relevant article, thank you Mr. Kopel.  

After the above intro, he goes on to explore the "why" questions.  

-Why more R/M killings now than in the 60, given that the first Federal gun law came in 68? -10+ round magazines are not new - but a counter point to that is that they are much more common than they used to be, even just as far back as 1986 when I was a police officer.

-What would account for why the 1980s were far worse for criminal homicides generally, but better for the R/M killings?

-Assault weapons bans started in California in 1989, and Connecticut in 1993. Federal "assault weapons" ban was enacted under Clinton in the 90s. So clearly those bans did not stop R/M killings. "Assault weapons" are better regulated now than in the 60s.  

The author suggests three explanations:

-The copy cat effect

-Fewer mentally ill folks are institutionalized

-We designate areas as "gun free", which means they are "safe zones for killers." The author calls these "pretend gun free zones."