A Few Gripes

I know what you're thinking: "Gripes? On this blog? Heavens!" But it's true. Here they are:

1) For the jillionth time, pro-lifers are pro-life because they believe abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, i.e. murder. It is not because they hate women, or want to keep women in their place, or think women should all be mothers instead of workers, etc.

2) Pro-lifers do not stop caring about babies after they are born. You lefties are making the classic mistake of thinking that just because your opponent doesn't hold with a given policy (i.e. a large welfare state), then he doesn't care about the intended beneficiaries of such policy. This is like thinking that a person is really pro-terrorist or anti-American just because he doesn't think invading Iraq or Libya is a good idea. Take statement p: " cares about children and the poor" and statement q: " is in favor of a large welfare state." You assume that p automatically implies q, and if !q is the case, then obviously !p. Your error is the assumption that p implies q. (propositional logic, do some reading)

3) There are many "controversies" in economics which are, for all intents and purposes, settled, and only persist in being controversies in the mainstream press or among politicians or whatever. They are settled because both the theory and (more importantly) the empirical data has pretty much made up every economist's mind on the subject. I say this because of a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives published a "study" claiming that reductions in corporate tax rates do not spur investments, and thus do not "create jobs." This is, of course, total baloney, and akin to releasing a study claiming that tides do not actually go in and out but rather stay put. There are still plenty of areas for disagreement, but there are many "controversies" which can be settled empirically without a lot of hemming and hawing. Anybody who thinks of themself as a serious, reasoning person should begin their understanding of economics (and hence politics) by accepting these settled axioms and reasoning from there, not trying to "debunk" them in a vain attempt at salvaging a discredited ideology.

4) Ultra-rich liberals, exactly how does that work? I mean, Ted Turner once claimed to be a socialist. Friedrich Engels was a wealthy heir and incompetent factory boss. I can't make up my mind about whether these people are aberrations and distractions from the real debate or if this trend says something important and fundamental about left-wing philosophy. In either case, how can one possibly take them seriously? If Warren Buffett really believed that the wealthy weren't being taxed heavily enough, why does he have accountants to help him reduce his taxes at all? Why not write a bigger check to the government and say "nah, you keep it all"? Or why not give more to charity? In the case of Buffett, many people argue that he advocates higher progressive taxes because his financial services companies would personally benefit (and they certainly would), but if we're talking about multi-millionairess Whoopi Goldberg, communist sympathizer and talented actress, then what's the explanation?

5) Tax cuts do not "cost" anybody anything, it is outright lying to claim otherwise. There is no cost incurred by anybody, anywhere, when taxes are cut. "But what about people who rely on government spending? Aren't they bearing a cost?" No, when your parents decided you were too old for an allowance and had to get a job instead, it didn't cost you a thing. Your total stock of resources didn't diminish one iota. If a person works, and then doesn't get paid for their work, then they beared a cost--the opportunity cost of their labor. To say that it "costs the government money to cut taxes" means that, as a result of tax cuts, the government must now spend more money. That is literally what leftists are saying when they complain about tax cuts. It may not be what they mean (I know very well what they mean, they believe the government is de facto entitled to everybody's money and that tax cuts take away what's theirs), but it is what they actually say, it is the actual argument that they are using (in my experience leftists don't say what they really mean, but instead use other "dummy arguments" like "it's for the children" or something, rather than saying "line the pockets of the public sector unions and keep me in office!"). Pay attention to the wording next time. They say that as a direct result of cutting tax rates, the government will incur a cost. How else can the government incur a cost but by being forced to spend money? Now, how does being forced to spend money follow as a direct result of tax cuts?

6) A particular reason I have trouble taking leftists seriously is that I think they put ideology over pragmatism even when it hurts them. Going back to taxes for a good example: leftists want bigger government, to get bigger government you want more tax revenue so the government can afford to be big (the alternative is slavery and brainwashing, which worked for the Soviet Union for a while), and here is where leftists put ideology over pragmatism. Their stated goal is more tax revenue, the way you get more tax revenue is often (but not always) with tax cuts. I say often but not always for a reason, for now we'll focus on those times and places where taxes are to the right of the Laffer Curve (to use a broad analogy) and where reducing them would result in greater economic growth and thus more long-term tax revenue. This happened during the 80s. I know, I know, you've heard that the government had horrendous deficits as a result of tax cuts in the 80s. Not true, the government actually had enormous revenues as a result of the economic growth following the tax cuts, it was the spending spike that caused the deficits (deficits or surpluses are functions of both spending and revenue, if revenue goes up and so do deficits, then spending must have gone up too, that's not even economics that's just arithmetic). The facts bear me out on this one, tax cuts in the 80s spurred economic growth which gave the government more money. Now, if I were a leftist and my goal was more money in government hands, I'd root for tax cuts wherever it seemed appropriate as a means of maximizing government revenue for the long-term (obviously we could maximize government revenue tonight if we simply taxed everybody at 100% of their income right this minute). But as I said, this is where leftists reveal that their religion, their faith, their ideology of collectivism is more important to them than their stated goals: they opt for higher tax rates virtually every time. It's more important to them to see the government being large and overbearing than it is to actually maximize revenue. They may not all think along these lines, but a lot of them do. I hear some conservatives talk about peace, but what they really like to see is the military kicking some butt, whether it brings peace or not. Same kinda thing. I love when I get to compare left-wingers and right-wingers and show their similarities. :-) Maybe I should make a post all about stuff I love about politics and economics.

Things I Hate About Politics--Part One

This is the first in a series of posts (future posts to arrive whenever I feel like it) about thinks I dislike about politics (which is plenty).  First, I'm going to focus on what the people, i.e. voters and non-voters who are not politicians, bureaucrats, or employed by the government do that bug me (though you'll notice that quite a lot of these things are also practiced by politicians).

1.  The tendency to believe uncritically what alleged statistics or facts you hear from somebody on "your side," and to automatically disbelieve any alleged statistic or fact that comes from "the other side."  People often do this to protect themselves against reality, they'd rather believe a falsehood than a truth, because believing the truth might mean changing their beliefs on policy (though this assumption is often false).

2.  People's lack of curiosity about how the other side thinks and feels.  I often hear people of various viewpoints describe people who disagree with them as liars, jerks, or just stupid.  Sometimes that's the case, sometimes people are liars, jerks, or stupid.  But when I hear somebody describe the other side that way, that tells me they don't know much about the other side, their understanding of the other side is limited to what "their" media tells them about the other side (i.e. what Rush says about the left or what Michael Moore says about the right), or is defined by the lunatic fringe of the other side, or misunderstandings of what exactly motivates the other side.  Which tells me that you don't understand the issues yourself very well, it tells me that you are in a cocoon where your beliefs reign supreme and unquestioned.  If you can't understand your views in relation to the views of those who disagree with you, how well do you understand political issues?  How well do you understand how prices work if you cannot observe an economy where prices don't function properly or at all?  Understanding other viewpoints isn't about making compromises or being weak, it's simply about understanding, gaining knowledge.  It does not necessarily imply any change in your positions on the issues.

3.  The kneejerk reaction to be against something that the other side is for.  This is often because of what motivates their policy positions, rather than what that particular policy position is.  F'instance, I consider myself in favor of free immigration and am against deportation of illegal aliens and am in favor of some form of amnesty for workers who are already here--although my reasons are practical in nature and differ entirely for the reasons that leftists hold to similar policy (yes, to calm your fears, I am opposed to immigrants benefiting from the American welfare system and believe violent criminals ought to be deported).  For the left, a good example is minimum wage laws.  Every economist agrees, and so does the empirical data, that minimum wage laws simply raise unemployment among the least-skilled workers--teenagers, certain minorities (why only certain minorities?  that's for a future post), ex-cons, in other words the people who most need to improve their job skills and productivity are the first ones cut out of the work force when minimum wage laws are enacted or raised.  Even flaming left-wing economists oppose them for this reason.  Yet rank and file Democrats and lefties are whole-heartedly in favor of minimum wage laws, and raising them to ridiculous, economy-crippling heights.  Why?  Because the other side is opposed to minimum wage laws and/or hikes.  Lefties don't want to find themselves in agreement with (dun dun DUN!!!!) Big Business.

4.  Feeling the need to defend something a politician said because they are the same party as you.  One of the liberating things I noticed about going independent six years ago was that I no longer felt obligated to defend stupid things politicians said because they were my party.  I wasn't a fanboy anymore, defending the indefensible against any criticism.  I could see politicians for who they are, policies for what they actually do, and if somebody said or did something stupid I could attack it.  I see plenty of this right now coming from the left as regards Obama, such as defending his insensitivity to various issues (Ft. Hood massacre, the Berlin Wall anniversary), his membership to radical socialist churches and his friendships with communist terrorists (future generations will look back at a person like Obama winning the Presidency and wonder if the entire nation had lost its mind), I could go on.  But the point is that people are only defending these things because Obama is a Democrat.  Simple as that.  Any excuse will do when it's your guy.  Doesn't have to be a good excuse, just an excuse, and you'll swallow it and tout it.

5.  Not voting third-party, or voting even when you don't really have a choice.  If there is a race and none of the two-party candidates really fit your views, I don't care if it's for President and you are in a swing state, you vote third-party with a candidate who fits your views.  Think about future elections, not just one.  Hate RINOs or DINOs?  Stop making excuses to vote for them.  If there is no third-party choice, abstain from voting for that race.  Politicians do pay attention to turnout, and if "their base" doesn't turn out they notice.  Not voting can be as powerful as voting, it's just a shame that we're so inundated with "voting is your duty" propaganda that many people don't understand that.  It's all about giving those in power the incentive to make the right decision, it's not about getting the right people in, because once those right people get in they face the same incentives as the last guy.

6.  Ignoring the importance of grassroots action.  This relates to number five.  As I said, it's all about giving those in power the incentive to make the choice you want them to make, to vote for the bills you want them to vote for, to introduce the bills you want them to introduce.  It matters less who is in office, and it matters more what incentives they face, and they get their incentives from opinion polls and what voters vote for (and lobbyists, that's another post).  Obama got the (wrong) impression that voters wanted a center-left President and that he had some kind of socialist-lite mandate.  He was wrong.  But the GOP got the right message for future elections:  they don't want soft RINOs.  Already you see the GOP changing its behavior, its rhetoric, and the types of candidates it puts forward.  These changes don't happen fast (they can't), but if they are led by genuine grassroots efforts (and that includes not voting) then they will be forced to happen if politicians want to keep their jobs.