Category: too much government

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general freedom ideological culture media and media people too much government

Herd Immunity

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama gave cautious support for the anti-vaxxer cause a few years ago. No scandal.

But only now that Republican politicians Chris Christie and Rand Paul have talked about the risks of (as well as of parental rights and responsibility regarding) childhood vaccination has the issue of mandatory vaccination finally hit big.

Ronald Bailey offers a more modest proposal. “Vaccination is arguably the greatest public health triumph of the past century,” he  begins.  But he argues not for mandating vaccines, but for social pressure: “person-to-person shaming and shunning.”

That is one traditional (and less politically extreme) way to solve such problems.

But what is that problem, at base? Those who fear a negative personal effect from vaccination (and there are some, though the “autism” charge appears to be bogus) become “free riders,” as economists like to put it. They gain a de facto immunity without having to pay — either in money or in the small risk that vaccination does demonstrate.

This particular free rider benefit depends on the concept of “herd immunity.” That’s the conjectured level of protection for individuals who lack biological immunity by the overwhelming presence of vaccinated people in a population who are immune. (The disease can’t spread because it hits too many dead ends in healthy hosts.)

As has been often noted the last few days, though the anti-vaxxer trend has mainly tended to “infect” (as a “meme”) urban populations of left-leaning folks — epitomized by Hollywooders Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey — the new backlash against anti-vaxxer rights has come strongest from the left-leaning media.

The Republican “offenders” provide cover?

Apparently, those of the Democratic herd think they have immunity . . . to criticism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom too much government

Against Enabling Segregation

Rosa Parks, born February 4, 1913, became a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement for her actions on December 1, 1955. Ordered to move from the first row of the “colored” section after seats reserved for white passengers had filled up, Parks refused.

“When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night.”

Economist Thomas Sowell believes that the conflict might never have even come up as an issue, had the bus been privately run.

“Why was there racially segregated seating on public transportation in the first place?” he asked on the occasion of her death in 2005. “[T]here was certainly plenty of racism in the South, going back for centuries. But racially segregated seating” did not have the same unbroken history. Sowell pointed out that no matter what their own views, owners of the private transit lines of the 19th and early 20th century lacked motive to enforce segregation and thereby alienate many of their passengers.

When markets aren’t overrun by politics, both buyers and sellers must focus on the value they want from trade — a good product or competent service. Participants are penalized if they routinely set aside those benefits in order to indulge an animus.

In the 20th century, the trend towards taxpayer-funded mass transit displaced economic incentives with political ones.

Only governments can force entire industries to routinely act on an irrational prejudice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment too much government

Baby Steps in Reform

Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

His crib.

The Georgia toddler was badly burned by a flash grenade during a drug raid gone wrong. A remorseful sheriff’s department claims they could not have known what would happen.

But such botches are not rare.

The War on Drugs is habitually conducted via late-night, no-knock, violent intrusions into homes. That’s now a main part of the standard modus operandi.

OverkillThe raids are often based on scanty and unconfirmed information. They proceed even if no dangerously violent criminal is known to be inside. The drug warriors’ primary concern, they say, is to stop suspects from flushing contraband down the toilet, not to avoid needlessly jeopardizing the lives of known and unknown occupants.

A couple of Georgia lawmakers have offered legislation to reduce the chances of such collateral damage. One would slightly restrict the circumstances in which no-knock warrants could be issued. Another would require most no-knock raids to be conducted between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

Though modest steps, they may help save some lives.

But the fundamental problem? The persistence of the War on Drugs.

Waging that war permits endless “botched raids” like the one that almost killed Bou Bou. So long as such invasions remain a standard means of trying to catch dealers with their stash — indeed, so long as the War on Drugs is being waged at all — innocent persons will always be needlessly at risk from the persons charged with protecting them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets too much government

Experience Denied

Jan Ellison is grateful for the low-wage jobs she had as a kid.

“The difference from the way my own children are being raised is that I was acutely aware of the financial burden of these [educational and other] pursuits. . . . I made money of my own from age 11 onward. I had a paper route. I cleaned houses and swimming pools. I took clerical temp jobs. . . . I can’t say that any of this was important work, but the act of doing it mattered.”

She learned to “work for the ticket” that would take her to better things.

That minimum wage laws make it harder to gain such experience is a problem raised not by Ellison but by a Cafe Hayek reader, Mike Wilson, who calls her memoir “as powerful a case against raising the minimum wage as I have encountered.” (Strictly speaking, against establishing or enforcing any wage-rate floor.)

Wilson’s sensible point is that when you’re just starting out in the work force, you must develop the habits and skills needed to do a job well and to then go beyond it. These include punctuality, mastering procedures, accepting corrections with grace, being civil, staying productive and careful when you’re tired, and more.

What you can bring immediately to a job is willingness to learn what’s necessary. But the higher your pay must be before you’ve made yourself worth that pay, the harder for employers to give you the chance to make yourself worth it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets too much government

Death by Metro

“Metro has a reputation for shoddy service and a history of not learning from its mistakes,” Aaron Wiener admitted in a column for The Washington Post. But this extremist zealot’s basic argument for government-run, taxpayer-subsidized mass transit might best be understood by its headline: “Metro’s a mess. All the more reason to ride it.”

A woman died last week riding the city’s subway system. She was overcome when train cars became stuck in a tunnel filling with smoke. Another 84 riders were hospitalized, two in critical condition.

DC Fire was so woefully slow in response — victims say more than 30 minutes — that afterwards no public official was willing to say precisely how slow. Not the new mayor; not the Chairman of Washington’s Metro board. The latter provided an excuse, claiming he “cannot speak to it” because of the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Administration.

Upon arrival, the rescuers’ radios didn’t work. “[D]espite hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades and new training and safety protocols at the transit agency,” The Washington Post reported, “a critical piece of infrastructure — emergency communications — remains a significant problem.”

This isn’t Metro’s first accident, either. Six years ago, nine people died when two Metro trains collided.

Without profits, and run “politically” as a public entity, there just isn’t the same incentive to make the necessary investment in infrastructure required to run the subways safely. A private company with Metro’s record of accidents and failure in addressing safety concerns would likely be shut down.

Sadly, Metro faces no such threat.

But the transit agency faces a different one: ridership has fallen to the lowest point in a decade. People are voting with their feet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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meme too much government

Tom Paine and “The Crisis”

Tom Paine

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Categories
general freedom too much government

More Civilization

Civilization is a choice, a habit, a line in the . . . sand.

For modern, prosperous society to progress, to grow more healthy and wealthy and wise, most of us have to agree on a small set of principles. Mostly, we must agree not to rush to violence at the merest provocation.

There has to be a lot of negotiation to get anything done. At least, in a free and open civilized society.

Terrorism is the repudiation of this principle.

The main perpetrators of terrorism these days hail from Muslim peoples. But there are non-Muslim terrorists, too. Many of the “school shootings” and similar violent acts in America and even in Europe rarely get listed as terrorism, though they certainly look terroristic. And most don’t have anything to do with Islam.

Even when Muslims are the ones committing the terrorism, their victims are often also Muslim.

Some folks estimate that as many as 95 out of a hundred terrorist victims are Muslim. Why? Because so much of this violence goes on in countries like Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

While this estimate is probably too high, the fact that Muslims themselves are the most common victims of Muslim violence suggests that the underlying problem is the lack of institutions in those lands that hold to the choice — the habit — of civilization.

So, yes: tyranny is at the root of the problem.

Americans, if we want fewer terrorists, might want to restrain our governments from propping up or closely allying ourselves to “Muslim” dictatorships, then.

This is something we can control.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
individual achievement moral hazard responsibility too much government

Finding a Mission

Iraq War vet Daniel Gade is a lieutenant colonel, professor of public policy, and triathlon competitor with a message for fellow veterans: disability pay may be doing you more harm than good.

Having lost a leg in combat himself, he submits that he is a messenger somewhat harder to dismiss than some others would be.

Professor Gade criticizes how the government puts vets with relatively mild problems in the same category as those with true disabilities, and gives them incentives to stay out of the job market.

An example is the Individual Unemployability program, which treats veterans rated as at least 60 percent disabled as if they are 100 percent disabled as well as 100 percent long-term unemployable. Demonstrating that level of disability and unemployability to the satisfaction of the government means a bump in monthly benefits from $1,200 to $3,100.

“It’s a trap,” Gade insists.

He is working with private donors on a pilot program for vets. His idea is to give grants to develop employment skills rather than to maintain unemployment. Participants must forego any attempt to increase their disability pay by seeking a higher disability rating.

According to one soldier who gave the professor’s pitch a hearing, the government’s system to help vets “is just ‘Give me the money, who cares about anything else.’”

Gade’s proposal, on the other hand, “says go out and work, be productive, feel good about yourself. There is where we do well. If we don’t have a mission, we don’t do well.”

Accept the mission.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies subsidy too much government

Subsidy for Everybody!

According to Vice President Joe Biden, the debate is over. Health care, by which he means medical assistance, is a basic right — to be obtained through government, and made effective by the Affordable Care Act — not a “privilege.”

By “right” he means  “something others are forced to provide,” in this case by taxes, regulations, and the full panoply of U.S. law. Today’s “liberals” like to use the word “privilege” to mean anything obtained without direct government assistance. And therein lies a huge problem.

In his first weekly address of the year, Biden touted how great the ACA, “Obamacare,” is. How affordable it is for families, for everyone! It’s a panacea, though Biden didn’t use the word.

Actually, he didn’t say that we have a right medical care. He said we have a right to health “insurance,” which we’re forced to purchase — and for which many are subsidized, too.

How far does he go with this?

“An awful lot of people who didn’t think they could or would find quality, affordable health insurance are actually able to get assistance from the government to help them pay for their health care plans at a cheaper rate,” he earnestly intoned. “A family of four with an income of around $95,000, they can still get a subsidy to lower their health care premiums.”

You can see where the problem is. If a household making $95,000 per annum can receive subsidies, who’s paying for all this?

Perhaps you.

Can you see why Obamacare’s a prescription for financial disaster?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights too much government

Philadelphia Freedom?

It’s fun to watch intrusive, abusive, and exclusive government operations fail. It’s instructive to see how they react.

Years ago, internationally renowned artist James Dupree purchased a large building in Philadelphia’s depressed Mantua neighborhood to renovate it not only into his studio, but into a place other artists could practice their crafts.

Sadly, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA) thought it should be taken from him and then transferred to a supermarket.

Dupree fought back. He got the Institute for Justice on his side and, after years of litigation, the PRA finally gave up, returning the title it had taken it had taken from him.

But with some final remarks from Brian Abernathy, PRA’s executive director, who thought it his mission to bring “healthy food” to the community:

Unfortunately, the legal costs associated with Mr. Dupree’s appeals make it impossible to continue. Despite all the work to date, PRA will end condemnation proceedings enabling Mr. Dupree to keep his studio. While we have explored the potential of building around Mr. Dupree’s property, a viable project under these conditions is not possible. In short, the inability to acquire Mr. Dupree’s property puts the prospect of bringing fresh food to this community at serious risk.

Nonsense. A successful artists’ complex is an asset to the health of a community, its economic health. And citizens, had they kept their community clean, and had the core city government helped keep it peaceful, would have eventually encouraged private expansion to serve local grocery needs.

Meanwhile, the PRA had not even lined up a business to put in the studio’s place. It was all speculation.

A “successful” PRA would probably have wound up with an empty lot.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.