Government – Rolling Doughnut

Ignorance of Libertarianism Is the Problem

CJ Werleman opined at AlterNet on “Why Atheist Libertarians Are Part of America’s 1 Percent Problem”:

In the days running up to Thanksgiving, Walmart urged its workers to donate food to their most in-need colleagues. You know, instead of Walmart having to pay said workers a livable wage. When people ask me what libertarianism looks like, I tell them that. By people I mean atheists, because for some stupid reason, far too many of my non-believer brethren have hitched their wagon to the daftest of all socio-economic theories.

Why is it that those least knowledgeable about libertarianism speak so authoritatively on what libertarianism entails?

The Walmart story does not inherently demonstrate that libertarianism is flawed or daft. It doesn’t even demonstrate that Walmart doesn’t pay its employees enough. It might mean that, but one photo can speak a thousand words of nonsense. It’s plausible that the donation point was established to help employees who’ve fallen on unexpected hard times. That is consistent with libertarianism, which can be defined as “the belief that each person has the right to live his life as he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. … In the libertarian view, voluntary agreement is the gold standard of human relationships.” There is no reason to assume that excludes compassion.

Werleman continues:

Famed science author and editor of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer says he became a libertarian after reading Ayn Rand’s tome Atlas Shrugged. Wait, what? That’s the book that continues to inspire college sophomores during the height of their masturbatory careers, typically young Republicans (nee fascists). But unless your name is Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), most people grow out of the, “Screw you, I have mine” economic principles bestowed by the Russian-born philosopher by the time they’re legally old enough to order their first beer.

Atlas Shrugged does not push the idea that “Screw you, I have mine” is an acceptable worldview. (Or “Fuck you, I’ve got mine”, as I described this theory in my response to author John Green’s similar misunderstanding.) The idea is better expressed as a rejection of “Screw you, I want yours.” An implicit tenet within libertarianism is that people are generally good, both able and willing to cooperate. Werleman demonstrates what appears to be a fear that people are generally awful without the force of government compelling them to be “good”.

Atheists like to joke that faith makes a virtue out of not thinking about things, but the belief in libertarianism is an act of faith given libertarianism has not only never been tried before anywhere, but most of the world’s leading economists denounce it as a folly that would exacerbate the central economic challenges we face today—most significantly, wealth disparity.

The assertion that libertarianism has never been tried before does not constitute proof that libertarianism is therefore wrong-headed. Anyway, libertarianism happens every day when two or more people engage in voluntary exchange. The difference is scale. That difference in scale is relevant, of course, and is not meant as proof that libertarianism would work. But to say that it’s never been tried is inaccurate.

Without a link, what “leading” economists believe strikes me as little more than an appeal to authority. I’ll pass.

When I hear an atheist say he is a libertarian, I know he’s given absolutely no thought to it other than the fact that he likes the sound of no foreign wars and no drug laws. The aphorism that libertarians are Republicans with bongs is just about spot-on. Thinking Ron Paul is a genius because he’s anti-war and anti-drug laws is like thinking a Big Mac is good for you because it has lettuce and a pickle.

This is the point at which I think Werleman is trolling. He can’t possibly be this ignorant of the topic. Also, Ron Paul is not a libertarian. (The Libertarian Joke Generator is at work.)

Werleman wanders through a few paragraphs about all of the horrible, awful economic consequences of the last 35 years, a time when libertarianism wasn’t tried, remember. We’re supposed to take it on faith that this is the result of Reagan because of privatization, deregulation, and free trade. These are Reagan’s “holy trinity”. Sure, I guess, but Werleman provides no evidence to support his assertion that these three resulted in the economic crisis we now face. It’s Reagan as bogeyman.

He explains what he thinks a libertarian world would be:

… With libertarianism, property is sacred; all governments are bad; capitalists are noble heroes; unions are evil; and the poor are pampered good-for-nothings.

In order: yes, no, maybe, maybe, and no. Property rights are at the core of a functioning society, starting with one’s own person. Libertarians believe that government has legitimate powers but also the opportunity to do evil, which is why its powers must be limited. (Libertarianism is not anarchism.) Capitalists in the pejorative sense Werleman intends are most likely better described as corporatists or crony capitalists. To the extent that unions are voluntary organizations, they need not be evil. Being a pampered good-for-nothing is bad, but it has nothing to do with wealth.

He prefaced that fantasy with this:

Atheists who embrace libertarianism often do so because they believe a governing body represents the same kind of constructed authority they’ve escaped from in regards to religion. This makes sense if one is talking about a totalitarian regime, but our Jeffersonian democracy, despite its quirky flaws, is government by the people for the people, and it was the federal government that essentially built the great American middle-class, the envy of the world. …

Our Jeffersonian democracy is built on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, including liberty. It is not built on naked majoritarianism or other offensive ideas that glorify the state at the expense of individuals.

He then quotes Robert Reich¹ (from… somewhere):

Robert Reich says that one of the most deceptive ideas embraced by the Ayn Rand-inspired Right is that the free market is natural, and exists outside and beyond government. He writes:

“In reality, the ‘free market’ is a bunch of rules about 1) what can be owned and traded (the genome? slaves? nuclear materials? babies? votes?); 2) on what terms (equal access to the Internet? the right to organize unions? corporate monopolies? the length of patent protections?); 3) under what conditions (poisonous drugs? unsafe foods? deceptive Ponzi schemes? uninsured derivatives? dangerous workplaces?); 4) what’s private and what’s public (police? roads? clean air and clean water? healthcare? good schools? parks and playgrounds?); 5) how to pay for what (taxes, user fees, individual pricing?). And so on. These rules don’t exist in nature; they are human creations. Governments don’t ‘intrude’ on free markets; governments organize and maintain them. Markets aren’t ‘free’ of rules; the rules define them.”

To say that these rules are human creations that don’t exist in nature is semantics for political purpose. These rules are human creations. They exist outside of government, as any cursory understanding of p
rohibition and black markets demonstrates.

They also exist within government, which libertarians do not dispute as a basic fact. And since libertarians believe that governments have just powers, the issue is about what constitutes a just power. Voluntary exchange does not include fraud, for example, so a rule against fraud can be appropriate. A court system that provides a means for peaceful resolution of disputes can be justifiable. Werleman incorrectly presents the political difference as one of whether or not rules should exist, which is informed by his far-too-common misunderstanding of libertarianism-as-anarchism (or libertarianism-as-fuck-you).

Link via Butterflies & Wheels. (“Never read the comments” definitely applies to that post.)

¹ For perspective I’m not fond of how Robert Reich lets politics creep into his economics in the form of “Screw you, I deserve yours.” Is he one of Werleman’s leading economists who denounce libertarianism?

“Now prosecutor, why you think he done it?”

Ronald Bailey has an interesting essay, Watched Cops Are Polite Cops.

Who will watch the watchers? What if all watchers were required to wear a video camera that would record their every interaction with citizens? In her ruling in a recent civil suit challenging the New York City police department’s notorious stop-and-frisk rousting of residents, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the Federal District Court in Manhattan imposed an experiment in which the police in the city’s precincts with the highest reported rates of stop-and-frisk activity would be required to wear video cameras for one year.

This is a really good idea. Earlier this year, a 12-month study by Cambridge University researchers revealed that when the city of Rialto, California, required its cops to wear cameras, the number of complaints filed against officers fell by 88 percent and the use of force by officers dropped by almost 60 percent. Watched cops are polite cops.

I agree with the premise (and the need for strict rules to protect the privacy of individual citizens, as discussed later in the piece).

However, I have no expectation that this would improve much if implemented. We already recognize how many people accept the government’s assertions in criminal cases. Charged is too often synonymous with guilty. More on point, we know how such video evidence will be treated.

Consider this case of a man arrested in Florida in 2010:

An 18-year-old man faces a number of charges today after West Melbourne police found him jogging naked wearing only swimming goggles next to a busy roadway.

“He was jogging butt-naked and didn’t even have on shoes. We suspect he was under the influence … he was a little incoherent,” said Cmdr. Steve Wilkinson, spokesman for the West Melbourne Police Department.

Okay, fine, we can’t have that. But is the bolded part here true?

The unidentified man, who officers had to subdue with a Taser, was seen sprinting at about 7 a.m. today near the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Eber Road, officials reported.

And:

Cmdr. Steve Wilkinson said King could not have been caught without the Taser, adding that King was speaking incoherently but was also apologetic for inconveniencing police.

In this case, the officer’s Taser had a camera attached to film the incident. His dashboard cam captured the rest of the interaction. The video evidence does not support the bolded statements.

The video isn’t embedding correctly. It starts at 25:20.

In the video from World’s Wildest Police Videos, the script has John Bunnell focus on making sure we agree that the police officer doesn’t want to, and shouldn’t have to, deal with a naked man. Because, ick, right?

Law enforcement officials are taught how to handle all kinds of different criminals. But let’s face it. Some, they’d rather not handle at all.
…

This isn’t exactly the kind of perp the cop wants to get into a wrestling match with.

The video also received the Top 20 Most Shocking Moments treatment. The facts titillate and remind us that police video is entertainment for the masses, even when it involves the use of excessive, potentially-lethal force. The camera footage is used to mock the accused and to further entrench the idea that a police officer may use a taser if arresting a suspect would involve physical effort or put him in an uncomfortable situation. Even with video, we don’t reject the use of the taser here. It repeats the now-accepted belief that the taser is a substitute for police work rather than a substitute for the officer’s firearm.

Video can be helpful and should be used. Without a commitment to changing how we use them now, I’m skeptical that video will be used in a way that compensates for existing problems in our thinking or teaches us to respect rights more. Too often we adhere to:

Cops are heroic
The cop tasered a criminal
Tasering a criminal is heroic

The video lets us continue that nonsense.

Today’s Duh: Anthony Weiner is not a libertarian

In the true spirit of Kip’s truth that all politicians are moral defectives, we have Anthony Weiner. When asked about the New York City health department’s (weak) effort to regulate metzitzah b’peh, a ritual that has led to herpes infections that have killed at least two infant males and left at least two more with brain damage, Weiner said:

“You know, I’ve been criticized a lot of places for my position on metzitzah b’peh, on the ritual bris,” he said last night. “My instinct as a liberal is the libertarian sense of that word, is that we have to be very, very careful when we in government decide to step in, even if we’re 100 percent sure. Remember, government always is about the rule of the majority. … You have to be extra careful to protect the rights of people that are in the smallest of minorities.”

Anthony Weiner doesn’t understand his instinct. He is not a libertarian. His position is not libertarian. Even the health department’s inch-high speed bump (i.e. a “consent” form) is not liberatarian on this issue. That is not because it has the government stepping in, but because it does almost nothing. As practiced today, metzitzah b’peh – and child circumcision, more generally – violates basic human rights. There are dead and brain-damaged children already. The same risk exists in every instance in which it’s performed, just as objective harm results from every circumcision.

Libertarianism recognizes the primary purpose of any legitimate government to protect the rights of its individual citizens. This includes the individual’s right to bodily integrity and autonomy. Hence, valid laws against all other forms of non-therapeutic, unwanted physical violence exist without contention. Since children are also people, an obvious fact that too many self-proclaimed libertarians miss, government may enact and enforce laws to protect their rights, too. This includes protecting children from objective physical harm inflicted for reasons unconnected to objective need. Without need, the individual must consent. Proxy consent forms for objective harm do not protect children. They are not an acceptable standard. The libertarian position on non-therapeutic child circumcision is prohibition, as any other form of unwanted, unnecessary objective harm is prohibited.

Weiner manages to provide some insight in his words. The smallest minority is the individual, and the most vulnerable smallest minority is a child who can’t defend himself. We have to be extra careful to protect them. That includes not being too cowardly to acknowledge something we’re 100 percent sure about. Oral suction of an open wound is unsanitary and should only be done with the individual’s consent. Ritual or “medical” circumcision of a healthy child removes normal, functioning tissue and should only be done with the individual’s consent. There is no parental right to this rite.

Link via Janet Heimlich.

My 2012 Presidential Ballot

Reason posted Who’s Getting Our Votes: Reason Writers’ 2012 Presidential Picks. It’s worth a read. For fun, I’ve answered the questions here.

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1. Which presidential candidate are you voting for and why?

Gary Johnson, because he is the only candidate offering anything resembling a defense for the liberty and rights of individuals. I disagree with his support for a national consumption tax, but overall, he’s interested in economics based on economics, not politics. Liberty has to start somewhere.

2a. Between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, who do you think would be worse regarding economic freedom, including things such as industrial policy, free trade, regulation, and taxes?

Romney, but only because I expect he would have a friendlier Congress to his political trading. Obama’s policies will probably be worse, if not by much, without consideration for what he might get passed. If I thought a Romney administration would do anything on fixing or repealing Obamacare, my answer would change to Obama.

2b. Between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, who do you think would be worse regarding social freedom issues such as gay marriage, free speech, school choice, and reproductive rights?

Romney, even though I’m not convinced he’d get too much accomplished there because of what he could push through the Congress.

2c. Between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, who do you think would be worse regarding foreign policy, military interventions, and the global war on terror (including domestic restrictions on civil liberties)?

Romney, because he’d see the extra powers Obama has taken after the newly-assumed powers of the Bush years and add his perspective. Obama would likely extend what he’s doing without the creativity of a fresh eye.

3. Who did you vote for in 2000, 2004, and 2008?

Gore (because I didn’t understand my politics), Kerry (because Bush needed to go), and Barr (because I was a trusting moron). If the choice was Barr instead of Gary Johnson this year, I’d vote for myself.

4. Apart from the presidency, what do you think is the most important race or ballot initiative being decided this fall?

The various marriage equality issues to cement cultural change before DOMA gets to the Supreme Court, although marijuana is critical to reveal popular support for this liberty issue. Perhaps further wins will force changes at the federal level, regardless of who wins the presidency. Since that is unlikely, I’m going with marriage equality.

5. Reason’s libertarian motto is “Free Minds and Free Markets.” In contemporary America, is that notion a real possibility or a pipe dream?

Pipe dream. The citizenry isn’t getting any dumber, but the public perception that it is creates more entrenched support for government control everywhere, including the economy, speech, and personal choices in general.

The ACA and the Future of Infant Circumcision

I’ve made the argument that a government-run single-payer health care system in America would not automatically result in non-therapeutic infant circumcision rates comparable to other Western nations (e.g. United Kingdom), probably most directly here. I stand by that for the reasons I’ve stated. But now that the Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the Supreme Court, I want to explore a possible (though unlikely) unintended consequence of encouraging the government to control more health care.

As I understand it, the government has now been given what amounts to unlimited power to incentivize (i.e. compel) activity to achieve a public policy goal where some (or many) may prefer inactivity. Congress merely needs to establish a “Do X or Pay T” regulatory scheme. Many, although not a majority of Americans, approve of this for health care. This is presumably a statement on the value of the goal rather than an explicit endorsement of the means. But the means matter.

Extending this thinking, what now prevents the Congress from implementing “Circumcise your newborn son or Pay a Tax”? It now has that power. And the logic is no different. Congressman Brad Sherman endorsed the political thinking that would encourage such a policy during last year’s discussion of the San Francisco ballot initiative. He declared that “Congress has a legitimate interest in making sure that a practice that appears to reduce disease and health care costs remains available to parents”.

I do not believe this is politically likely. With any extension of this newly-expanded power, Congress will need the political cover to pass a new tax. They swore the ACA wasn’t a tax, though, so lying is an option. They’re politicians, after all. It would still face challenges. But it is possible, and we’ve seen the lengths to which politicians will fall over themselves to avoid offending the status quo on non-therapeutic infant circumcision.

I think my argument holds up. If nothing else, the ACA almost certainly slows future progress on ending this violation of male children. Cultural circumcision has a new god in the perceived¹ reduction in future health care costs. There are means available within government control to pursue that. If we get further “reform”, it’s likely to offer even more control to the government. That is a problem. This seems obvious to me. As long as the government has a power and a willingness to ignore facts, the possibility of consequences exists, both intended and unintended. We should be careful which methods we endorse.

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¹ The time value of money must be included. A dollar spent today on health care is not the same as a dollar that might be spent twenty, thirty, or more years from today. The number of adult circumcisions needed would have to be greater than it is to justify this public purse argument. It still wouldn’t be ethical to circumcise healthy infants, of course.

Accountability to Those Who Pay the Buck-O’-Five

Ken at Popehat has a perfectly concise take-down of LZ Granderson’s ridiculous CNN essay arguing against seeking too much information from our government about “Fast and Furious“. I won’t be able to say it better than Ken, so here are his words. (And if you’re not reading Popehat, correct that in your RSS reader.)

But to go much beyond the criticism of these men runs the risk of learning that this great nation of ours is heavily involved in doing some things that are not so great.

It would be nice to see this as a wry comment on American willingness to overlook lawbreaking by the government when it is committed (at least nominally) in service of goals of which we approve.

But the straight-faced reading is too similar to what I have come to expect from the media to be certain of my hoped-for satirical reading. Right now scandals over both Fast and Furious and the government response to it are being spun in many places as a cynical partisan obsession. I have not the shadow of the doubt that many of the loudest critics of the government have partisan motives. But if we dismiss criticism of government misbehavior because of partisan motivations, we’ll never entertain significant criticism of the government. We’ll always have partisanship. We can’t let it be an excuse to abandon our obligations as citizens to monitor and criticize the government.

Like Granderson, I know that “freedom isn’t entirely free”. It’s not “squeaky clean”. Unlike Granderson, and like Ken, I expect America to strive to be as squeaky clean as possible. Where we (allegedly) can’t be, I want to know why. I want to know what my government is doing in my name. I do not want elected dictators.

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LZ Granderson has exhibited questionable critical thinking skills in the past. A year ago he wrote an essay against the San Francisco ballot initiative that aimed to prohibit non-therapeutic male child circumcision. It was awful in nearly every paragraph. His arguments were either incomplete or idiotic in every case.

Five Year Olds Believe in Free Lunches

With the Supreme Court expected to rule on “Obamacare” (i.e. PPACA) tomorrow, I want to consider this reddit thread asking to explain it to a 5-year-old. There’s a long list of what PPACA does, and will do, if the Supreme Court upholds it. Some may be wise, while others are surely not. The overwhelming point, though, is that none of this is free. Consider this, for example:

Employers need to list the benefits they provided to employees on their tax forms.

That costs money. Even if the change is minor, computer systems have to be reprogrammed and tested. Multiply that across every employer in the U.S. How much productivity is being consumed by this instead of something else that may provide more wealth? What improved health outcomes will this generate?

Or consider:

It creates a new 10% tax on indoor tanning booths. ( Citation: Page 923, sec. 5000B )
…

A new tax on pharmaceutical companies.

A new tax on the purchase of medical devices.

A new tax on insurance companies based on their market share. Basically, the more of the market they control, the more they’ll get taxed.

Those taxes are taxes on consumers. I suspect many people reading the list, and maybe its author, don’t grasp that. All taxes are on individuals. Consumers will pay higher costs or receive fewer services.

The real beauty of the list comes when the author injects opinion.

The biggest thing opponents of the bill have against it is the mandate. They claim that it forces people to buy insurance, and forcing people to buy something is unconstitutional. …

Yes.

… Personally, I take the opposite view, as it’s not telling people to buy a specific thing, just to have a specific type of thing, just like a part of the money we pay in taxes pays for the police and firemen who protect us, this would have us paying to ensure doctors can treat us for illness and injury.

I don’t see the distinction between buy and have when the only way to get a thing is for someone to buy it. This is the “I like it” and “by whatever means” arguments in favor of constitutionality.

I expect the Supreme Court to strike down the mandate. I suspect the rest will go down, as well, because it’s the least controversial and problematic path if the mandate goes. The rest of the act needs the mandate to achieve the remaining cost savings (that it won’t actually achieve, even with the mandate). The least “activist” thing to do is for the Court to let Congress start over.

None of this is to suggest that we should do a victory dance in favor of the old status quo if the mandate goes down. We need reform within health care. Such as untying insurance from employment, which our current unemployment rate suggests would be wise. We won’t get responsible reform, because we’ll get more rent-seeking like PPACA instead. But if Congress has to start over, there’s a chance, however small.

Link via Wil Wheaton, who should heed his own “Don’t Be A Dick” suggestion. Blaming the constitutional challenge to PPACA on “the Koch Brothers and their Tea Party Rubes” as an attempt to “get the Supreme Court to take away” what PPACA legislates is dickish partisanship. Calling one’s opponents names and implying they’re stupid merely based on group affiliation is being a dick.

Penn Jillette on Obama’s Marijuana Hypocrisy

Penn Jillette is awesome for many reasons. As such I’m a fan of his new weekly podcast, Penn’s Sunday School. It always delivers, like last week when he went on a rant about President Obama’s continuation of the unwinnable, anti-liberty drug war and his hypocrisy. It’s brilliant and can be fully experienced in the clip below in a way the transcript can’t deliver.

Like Mr. Jillette, I’ve never consumed drugs or alcohol, but I do not care if another wants to do so. My only criterion is what I use for everything: do it voluntarily and without harm to another. Ingest drugs? No harm. Rob someone to get money to buy drugs to ingest? Harm. Drive while under the influence? Harm. It’s not complicated.

Contrast that with President Obama’s comments in his interview with Jimmy Fallon (video via NORML):

Notice the nanny-state mentality where anything that might be an individual problem automatically becomes a matter of “public health”. No one is an individual, just a cog in the machinery of the state to be managed and used.

Of course, Obama’s hypocrisy goes further. (As it does for all politicians, who are, by default, moral defectives.) Via the same NORML link, he clarified his remarks in an interview with Rolling Stone (from April):

Let me ask you about the War on Drugs. You vowed in 2008, when you were running for election, that you would not “use Justice Department resources to try and circumvent state laws about medical marijuana.” Yet we just ran a story that shows your administration is launching more raids on medical pot than the Bush administration did. What’s up with that?

Here’s what’s up: What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana. I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana – and the reason is, because it’s against federal law. I can’t nullify congressional law. I can’t ask the Justice Department to say, “Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books.” What I can say is, “Use your prosecutorial discretion and properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really doing folks damage.” As a consequence, there haven’t been prosecutions of users of marijuana for medical purposes.

The only tension that’s come up – and this gets hyped up a lot – is a murky area where you have large-scale, commercial operations that may supply medical marijuana users, but in some cases may also be supplying recreational users. In that situation, we put the Justice Department in a very difficult place if we’re telling them, “This is supposed to be against the law, but we want you to turn the other way.” That’s not something we’re going to do. I do think it’s important and useful to have a broader debate about our drug laws. One of the things we’ve done over the past three years was to make a sensible change when it came to the disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. We’ve had a discussion about how to focus on treatment, taking a public-health approach to drugs and lessening the overwhelming emphasis on criminal laws as a tool to deal with this issue. I think that’s an appropriate debate that we should have.

Only to a politician does “not prioritize” mean “vigorously pursue”. And, sure, cutting off supply of marijuana to people who may legally possess and use it within specific states isn’t “prosecution”, but it sure isn’t the same as federalism or a passing nod to his campaign promises. Nor, circling back to Jillette’s destruction of Obama’s hypocrisy, is his implied wrongness of recreational use vindicated by anything he’s said or done. He’s nothing more than a bad parent’s slogan: Do as I ~~command~~, not as I do.

Government Preparation for Adulthood

This story is almost two weeks old, but it still has value.

A two-page oral sex encounter by an awkward teen at boarding school in the coming-of-age novel Looking for Alaska was deemed too racy by Sumner County schools last week.

The district banned the book from its assigned classroom reading list, becoming at least the second in the state, after Knox County in March, to keep students from reading it together in class.

The teen novel is the first in several years to be stripped from Sumner classrooms. Wilson, Rutherford and Williamson county schools say they haven’t banned the book or any titles in recent years. Metro schools didn’t have information on the book as of Monday.
…

In this case, he said, the value didn’t outweigh the controversy. The book was not pulled from any district library shelves, [Sumner County schools spokesman Jeremy Johnson] said.

I oppose censorship. This is clearly a form of censorship, although not quite as bad as removing the book from the school system entirely. A public school board prohibiting a book from the classroom curriculum is insulting to both teachers and students. It also provides excellent support for a libertarian rant against public provision of education. The argument against home-schooling seems centered around the willingness of some parents to avoid facts. This is no better, since the government engages in the same behavior. It’s also unnecessary. In high school, I had to seek parental permission to read The Catcher in the Rye for an essay because it featured adult language and themes. That’s an imperfect, reasonable solution which leaves discretion to parents and provides a learning opportunity for all students.

The school board’s decision is awful, and especially so because the book is part of a high school curriculum in which students are presumably being taught to think critically. Still, this strikes me as worse:

“Kids at this age are impressionable. Sometimes it’s a monkey see, monkey do,” said parent Kathy Clough, who has a freshman and a senior at White House High School, where the book had been assigned reading. “I’m going to trust that my school board made the right choice. … If they feel like this book is a little too graphic, I’m all for it.”

Or she could read the book and decide for herself. Just an idea.

I don’t understand that kind of parental abdication. Of course her concern is probably quite appropriate, given how willing she seems to turn over the raising of her children (who are nearly adults) to a government body. But this is infuriating because she assumes all parents are as incapable of teaching the idiocy of “monkey see, monkey do” as she implies she is, and therefore, no parents should have the choice for such books to be a part of their teen’s education. If she thinks a “child” 14 or older isn’t aware that oral sex is a thing, she’s mistaken. If a ~~child~~ teen between 14 and 18 hasn’t learned enough to distinguish literature from a directive, the school system is worse than just a censoring band of thugs. It’s an incompetent, censoring band of thugs. All parents should be vehemently opposed to ceding more control to that school system, as Ms. Clough is happy to do.

Here’s the author, John Green, explaining this scenario when it occurred elsewhere in 2008:

Via John Green on Twitter.

Update: Post updated because I found evidence that I had to ask permission to read The Catcher in the Rye.

This May or May Not Be How the Drug War Ends

Many people are talking about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s high-level proposal from his 2012 State of the State address to shift the governmental approach to drug use/abuse among the citizens of New Jersey.

The transcript (video excerpt in bold):

At the same time, let us reclaim the lives of those drug offenders who have not committed a violent crime. By investing time and money in drug treatment – in an in-house, secure facility – rather than putting them in prison.

Experience has shown that treating non-violent drug offenders is two-thirds less expensive than housing them in prison. And more importantly – as long as they have not violently victimized society – everyone deserves a second chance, because no life is disposable.

I am not satisfied to have this as merely a pilot project; I am calling for a transformation of the way we deal with drug abuse and incarceration in every corner of New Jersey.

So today I ask this Legislature and the Chief Justice to join me in this commitment that no life is disposable.

I propose mandatory treatment for every non-violent offender with a drug abuse problem in New Jersey, not just a select few. It will send a clear message to those who have fallen victim to the disease of drug abuse – we want to help you, not throw you away. We will require you to get treatment. Your life has value. Every one of God’s creations can be redeemed. Everyone deserves a second chance.

It’s being applauded. In an important way, it should be. He’s proposing a shift from prison to treatment. We’re long past the point at which society can pretend the War on Drugs has been or can be successful. Experience has consistently shown it will not work. Now, the War on Drugs is just an excuse to provide ever-increasing power to the government. Good riddance to any part of that we can dismantle.

But therein lies the problem with Gov. Christie’s proposal. While a move in the right direction, he’s not proposing the removal of the state’s police power from the discussion. He proposed mandatory treatment for every non-violent offender with a drug abuse problem. That leaves the state police power involved. His speech was too high-level to establish that this will be terrible or that it can’t be good if the details are specified. But who defines “offender”? Would buying drugs still be an offense? And who defines “problem”? Would mere use of a drug be considered evidence of abuse? That’s a considerable amount of discretion when discussing mandatory (i.e. compelled with force) treatment.

There is a flaw in the term “non-violent offender”. And he said “…God’s creatures can be redeemed” rather than something about having freedom to ingest whatever one wants or the irrational economics of putting a “non-violent offender” in jail. Gov. Christie needs to elaborate before I’ll assume this is a push for liberty rather than the 2012 version of compassionate conservatism.

Via Elias Isquith at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen and Andrew Sullivan.

I know the video doesn’t fit. At some point I’ll update my blog theme to something newer than 2005.