tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49255801991858656212024-03-05T00:11:50.076-05:00The Ferguson ForumAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.comBlogger1312125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-72939195685864363612017-05-26T12:01:00.001-04:002017-05-26T12:01:44.241-04:00McCaleb: Public pensions in some ways mirror Madoff’s Ponzi scheme<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<em>“In a world full of lies, the most dangerous ones are those we tell ourselves.” </em><br />
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― Diana B. Henriques<br />
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HBO debuted its original movie on Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff over the weekend. Based on Henriques’ book “The Wizard of Lies,” the film (and book) tells the chilling tale of Madoff’s fraudulent investment scheme in which more than 2,200 people lost almost $20 billion in retirement savings.<br />
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That is a lot of victims losing a lot of money.<br />
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But it’s peanuts compared to what public pensioners – in Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and elsewhere – stand to lose if drastic reform measures aren’t taken soon. More on this in a moment.<br />
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A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud in which early investors see quality returns, not because their money was invested wisely as the investors are led to believe, but because new investors fund the payouts. The cycle perpetuates itself – more and more new investors are needed to continue to fund previous investors’ returns at an unbeknownst higher risk to themselves – until it inevitably collapses.<br />
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In Madoff’s case, the collapse occurred in 2008, after almost 30 years, when the housing bubble burst and the economy was sent into the Great Recession. Simplistically, far fewer new investors could be found, and prior investors, many hurting because of the turn in the economy, asked for their full investments back.<br />
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Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of fraud. His victims suffered untold losses.<br />
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What’s the point of my Madoff history lesson?<br />
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A strong case can be made that public pensions are eerily similar to a Ponzi scheme, and that a similar collapse in some of the most underfunded systems in the country might be inevitable. That would mean an untold number of new victims that would make the Madoff case seem relatively minor by comparison.<br />
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The difference between a Madoff-like Ponzi scheme and the public pension crisis is that government is complicit in the latter, and that dedicated public servants, state retirees and taxpayers are the ones at risk.<br />
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I think we all can agree that taxpayers and state workers who have spent their careers serving residents, teachers included, don’t deserve that.<br />
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Doubt that will happen? Let’s start with Puerto Rico.<br />
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The U.S. territory in the eastern Caribbean declared a form of bankruptcy (after Congressional approval) earlier this month because of massive debt that included $50 billion in underfunded pensions. In a story headlined “In Puerto Rico, pension fund works like a Ponzi scheme,” the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/business/dealbook/puerto-rico-teacher-pensions.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reported the following</a>:<br />
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“Puerto Rico, where the money to pay teachers’ pensions is expected to run out next year, has become a particularly extreme example of a problem facing states including Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania: As teachers’ pension costs keep rising, young teachers are being squeezed — sometimes hard. One <a href="http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/71521/2000431-Negative-Returns-How-State-Pensions-Shortchange-Teachers.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Report, ">study</a> found that more than three-fourths of all American teachers hired at age 25 will end up paying more into pension plans than they ever get back.”<br />
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For pensioners in Puerto Rico, where a recovery plan is still being devised, it could mean pennies of the dollar of what they were promised.<br />
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For current and future public pensioners, a similar fate awaits if drastic reforms don’t happen.<br />
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Take Illinois, whose five state pension funds are now underfunded by more than $130 billion, worst in the nation. At that deficit, the pension funds have in hand just about 37 cents of every dollar they will owe to current and future pensioners.<br />
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But it actually could be much worse than that.<br />
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Money set aside to fund pensions – from taxpayers and public employees – is invested to grow the dollar pool. But most pension systems have over-estimated the rate of returns on these investments. As recently as 2014, Illinois’ Teachers Retirement System projected an inflated 8 percent annual return rate. That projection was dropped to 7.5 percent three years ago. Just last year, Illinois’ State Employees Retirement System downgraded its rate of return estimate to 7 percent. Each of these downgrades cost Illinois taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually because the taxpayers are legally required to make up the difference.<br />
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What’s worse is that many investment professionals and ratings agencies say a more realistic rate of return is in the 3 to 4 percent range. If that’s the case, Illinois’ already staggering pension debt would balloon by tens of billions of dollars more. That could be devastating to younger state employees who still have decades to go before they retire. A younger teacher who is funding current retirees’ bloated pensions faces a potential collapse in the system, risking much or all of her retirement nest egg.<br />
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And as return estimates continue to drop, taxpayers are forced to pick up the ever-growing tab.<br />
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There is a partial solution.<br />
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Illinois state Sen. Dale Righter has filed legislation that would place all new state employees, including teachers, in a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan. State employees would contribute 8 percent of their salaries into the private investment account, and the state (taxpayers) would contribute an additional 7 percent.<br />
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While Righter’s plan wouldn’t solve Illinois’ $130 billion (likely more because of the overstated return on investments) pension deficit, it would relieve new hires of any concerns of a pension collapse and it would drastically slow Illinois’ ever-growing pension obligations. More action, particularly other structural reforms that will improve Illinois’ overall economy and increase its tax base, are needed to chip away at the deficit.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.ilnews.org/news/state_politics/other-u-s-states-improve-fiscal-outlook-by-changing-pensions/article_f33bd580-3f07-11e7-a304-273f30ef9cb9.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">States that have adopted similar plans to Righter’s</a> already are seeing fiscal improvements.<br />
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Unfortunately, many in the Illinois General Assembly continue to think that higher taxes are a major part of the solution. But we’ve been there and done that, and it hasn’t worked. It’s led to a stagnant economy and a mass exodus of Illinoisans to other states.<br />
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States such as Illinois and and their employees need drastic pension reform measures if they are to stave off a Madoff-like collapse.<br />
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It’s time we stop telling ourselves dangerous lies and get these reforms done.<br />
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<em>By Dan McCaleb | <a href="http://watchdog.org/293393/mccaleb-public-pensions-ways-mirror-madoffs-ponzi-scheme/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">From Watchdog.org</a>.</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-76948946624277660562017-05-26T11:57:00.002-04:002017-05-26T11:57:37.108-04:00Time for a New “Hiatus” in Warming, or Time for an Accelerated Warming Trend?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As you can tell from our blog volume, there’s been a blizzard of new and significant climate findings being published in the refereed literature, and here’s some things You Ought to Have a Look at concerning the recent “hiatus” in warming and what might happen to our (now) post-El Niño climate.<br />
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With President Trump still deciding on U.S. participation in the Paris Climate Agreement, new research suggests the Earth’s global mean surface temperature (GMST) will blow past the so-called 1.5°C Paris target in the next decade. But before making that ominous prediction, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL073480/full" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Henley and King (2017)</a> provide us with a good history lesson on a taboo topic in climate science circles: the recent global warming “hiatus” or “pause” from 1998-2014. One could be forgiven for thinking the hiatus was “settled science” since it featured prominently in the 2013 IPCC AR5 assessment report. But a concerted effort has been made in recent years to discount the hiatus as an insignificant statistical artifact perhaps based upon bad observational data, or a conspiracy theory to distract the public and climate policymakers. Even acknowledging the existence of the “hiatus” is sufficient to be labeled as a climate change denier.<br />
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Social scientists, psychologists, and theologians of all stripes feared that widespread community acknowledgement of the hiatus would wither support for climate policy at such a pivotal juncture.<br />
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In a 2014 <em>Nature</em> Commentary (<a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n3/full/nclimate2156.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Boykoff</a> Media discourse on the climate slowdown) saw the rise of the terms “hiatus and pause” in the media in 2013 as a “wasted opportunity” to highlight the conclusions of the IPCC AR5 report, which in itself ironically struggled with explaining the hiatus/pause (<a href="http://www.nature.com/news/ipcc-despite-hiatus-climate-change-here-to-stay-1.13832" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IPCC: Despite hiatus, climate change here to stay.</a> <em>Nature</em> September 27, 2013). Amazingly, in a <em>Nature</em> interview a week prior to AR5’s release, assessment co-chair Thomas Stocker said this:<br />
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Comparing short-term observations with long-term model projections is inappropriate. We know that there is a lot of natural fluctuation in the climate system. A 15-year hiatus is not so unusual even though the jury is out as to what exactly may have caused the pause.</blockquote>
Claims that there might be something fundamentally wrong with climate models are “unjustified unless temperature were to remain constant for the next 20 years,” he said.<br />
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Except there was something fundamentally wrong with the climate models: they missed the pause! The IPCC was caught flat footed and their dodgy explanations were woefully inadequate and fueled continued questions about the credibility of future warming forecasts based exactly on those deficient climate models. What’s going on with this hiatus? A cacophony of explanations has filled the literature and media with several dominant themes: do not believe your lyin’ eyes – the data is wrong – and even if it is not, you are using it wrong. Karl et al. 2015 <em>fixed</em> the SST and buoy data, and (erroneously) claimed to have gotten rid of it. Cherry picking! The heat is sequestered in the depths of the ocean or the aerosols covered up the greenhouse gas signal. It’s enough to make you think climate “science” might not know what it is talking about!<br />
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Only a few years since the last (2013) UN climate report, there is now a strong scientific consensus on the cause of the recent global warming hiatus as well as the previous “big hiatus” from 1950s-1970s: a mode of natural variability called the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) which could be colloquially called El Niño’s uncle. The mode operates on longer time scales than El Niño but it is intimately related as a driver of Pacific Ocean heat exchange with the atmosphere and therefore a dominant modulator of global temperature. In a March 2016 <em>Nature Climate Change</em> commentary (<a href="https://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2938.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Fyfe et al.</a>), eleven authors including climate scientists Benjamin Santer and Michael Mann persuasively “make sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown.” Their article provides evidence that directly contradicts claims that the hiatus was a conspiracy, or scientifically unfounded fiction. Several important points are made that deserve mentioning:<br />
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The recent hiatus occurred during a period of much higher greenhouse gas [GHG] forcing e.g. CO2 almost 100 ppm higher than the previous “big hiatus” slowdown in the 1950s-1970s. The authors rightly raise the question if the climate system is less sensitive to GHG forcing that previously thought or global temperatures will undergo a major warming “surge” once internal natural variability (e.g. IPO) flips sign.<br />
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The observed trends in global surface temperature warming were not consistent with climate modeling simulations. Indeed, using a baseline of 1972-2001, climate models failed to reproduce the slowdown during the early twenty-first century even as GHG forcing increased. The hiatus was neither an artifact of faulty data nor statistical cherry-picking – it was a physical change in the climate system that was measured across multiple independent observation types.<br />
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Climate scientists still need to know how variability (natural and anthropogenic) in the climate system works to attempt to model its changes through time regardless of political inconvenience.<br />
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Now back to the Henley and King (2017) piece that predicts a flip in the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation to a positive phase will lead to almost 0.5°C increase in global temperature by 2030. Based upon the RCP8.5 high emission scenarios (which are likely to be too high themselves), those same climate models that did not adequately predict the early 21<sup>st</sup> century hiatus are used to generate so-called warming trajectories.<br />
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<img alt="Image adapted from Henley and King (2017) " height="498" src="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/15cbaseline.jpg" title="Image adapted from Henley and King (2017) " width="754" /><br />
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Image adapted from Henley and King (2017)<br />
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How plausible is this extreme warming scenario? Regardless of the phase of the IPO, the model projections suggest an acceleration in the warming rates considerably above the hiatus period of the last 15-years. The authors allow for 0.1°C of warming from the recent strong El Niño as the offset for the “new” starting period, but that estimate is probably too low. We calculated the daily temperature anomaly from the JRA-55 reanalysis product—a new and probably more reliable temperature record–and apply a 30-day centered mean to highlight the enormous warming step with the 2015-2016 El Niño. Only an eyeball is necessary to see at least a 0.30°C upward step now into May 2017. Note that this is <em>not</em> carbon dioxide warming, and if we had a strong La Niña (the cold opposite of El Niño), we would expect a step down.<br />
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Is this warming now baked in (double entendre intended) to the climate system or will we descend to a lower level during the next year or two thanks to a La Niña? In other words, will the hiatus return, another one begin, or will the upward trajectory accelerate? Oh, and did we mention that we know of no climate model that warms the earth in jump-steps followed by long “hiatuses” after big El Niños?<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-35145763830487142922017-05-26T11:50:00.002-04:002017-05-26T11:50:22.483-04:00I’m Not a Terrible Person, I Just Believe in Freedom<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I see the look in my best friend’s eyes when I talk to her about free markets. She looks at me like she doesn’t know me. As if the friend that she has laughed and cried with, that she trusts, has been invaded by an inhuman body-snatcher.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">But I only told her that</span><a href="https://fee.org/articles/low-cost-private-schools-are-leaping-ahead-in-the-developing-world/"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">developing countries</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> have experienced great successes in their private schools (especially compared to public schools which cost three times as much for the same or worse results), that perhaps alternatives to failing public schools aren’t a bad thing, and that we need to guard against giving away our power because one day it might end up in the hands of a monster.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">It makes sense to me, but I can tell she thinks that I no longer care about the experiences of minorities in America, the LGBT community, or women’s rights. </span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Not so! I must not be explaining myself to her accurately. Allow me an attempt to do so now.</span><br />
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<strong>E Pluribus Unum</strong><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">I truly care about the people who live in our society. True, I am a white, middle-class, heterosexual woman who lives in the southern United States. Also true, I feel a strong connection with the disenfranchised people who are struggling to get by and to be accepted in the land of the free and abroad.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">I don’t believe in freedom and capitalism because of some careless idea about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. I know that some people don’t have boots to stand in. And that is a shame. I feel for those people. I know how easily that could have been me, and still could be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">These are my people.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">I think about the ways that we are the same. There are kind people in every group, who feel when strangers are hurting, who love animals and the environment, and who care about the lives of everyday Joes and Josephines. My people, the human race, all over the globe, they feel the power of music. They smile at babies, share meals, embrace. They’re innovators and explorers; long ago, they took to the seas, the mountains, and the moon. Scattered all over the planet, they look up at the same stars. They hope and dream.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">I want more than prosperity for these people. I want opportunities. I certainly don’t want all of us to be equally screwed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">I acknowledge that I am privileged by experiences over which I have no control and that have nothing to do with the person that I am. For example, if I speak and write with “correct” grammar, no one calls me a credit to my race. If I am nonviolent, career-driven, or pursue an education, I am not labeled as ‘one of the good ones’. If I buy nude pantyhose, the nylon will actually resemble the color of my skin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Like you, I have no control over the place of my birth or to what family I was born. The world is not just and we all fear the power of others to make us small. To make us disappear.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">There are people a plane ride away from me who confront this reality daily. I’ve seen pictures of cities reduced to rubble and of kids who have only lived through war.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">A majority of humanity wants the same things, to feel safe in the world, in our homes, on the street. It’s nice to be nice and what stops us? Nothing.</span><br />
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<strong>Power and Freedom</strong><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">I’m not so naïve as to deny the impact of historical horrors and people with iron fists, whose amplified voices have moved feet and toppled innocents. As a people, we have flung salt at each other, thrown up walls, and tossed over exploding bombs. But every day we have an opportunity to be better than yesterday.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">We give away our power so easily, out of fear and hate and hope. I want opportunity for you, just like I want opportunity for me. I also want your freedom, and mine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">The question of policy will always be: where do we draw the line?</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">I like to imagine my ideal government as a metal fence post. It has clearly defined geometry, a solid foundation, and within its structure, it stands strong. Society and people's lives twine around the post like vines, occupying the negative space, growing, flowering, reaching for the sun. The fence post doesn’t show favoritism, it doesn’t suppress or give one vine a boost. It is functional and useful and it stops right there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">We are at liberty to add love, multiply our empathy, and forget to divide. But I believe the solution to our concerns is subtraction of power from the grasp of people who will take it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Freedom as a life philosophy and free-market economics are about civil rights and allowing the people who need it most to build wealth. They are not about stepping on the poor or ignoring women’s and minority rights. There can be a balance between protecting people and allowing society to progress through </span><a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/LtrLbrty/bryTSO1.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">spontaneous order</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">According to Vox,</span><a href="http://www.vox.com/2017/1/22/14350808/womens-marches-largest-demonstration-us-history-map"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">3.3 million women marched</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> down US streets last Saturday. They did not do so by the grace of government. Individuals made choices; they used their agency and their civil rights to assemble, use speech, and protest. What will stop passionate people from fighting against injustice?</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Politicians can only play catch-up. Culture, which you and I contribute to at every moment of our lives, defines what our society looks like and how people are treated. We don’t need Government to save Gotham. We have us.</span><br />
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<img alt="Marianne March" src="http://fee.org/media/21534/march-marianne-03.jpg?center=0.23496659242761692,0.52166666666666661&mode=crop&height=287&widthratio=1.3937282229965156794425087108&rnd=131338798140000000" /><br />
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<a href="http://fee.org/people/marianne-march/"><br />
Marianne March<br />
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Marianne is a recent graduate of Georgia State University, where she majored in Public Policy, with a minor in Economics. Follow her on twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/mari_tweeets" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@mari_tweets</a>.<br />
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This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href="https://fee.org/articles/i-m-not-a-terrible-person-i-just-believe-in-freedom/">original article</a>.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-18219610513807867872017-05-26T11:40:00.000-04:002017-05-26T11:40:27.711-04:00Horrifying Video From Abortion Conference Shows Utter Disregard for Human Life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Lawyers for Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden released a <a href="http://stevecooley.com/media/">new video</a> on Thursday that exposed horrifying statements from leaders within the abortion industry.The video footage was obtained at National Abortion Federation conventions that took place in California in 2014 and 2015.<br />
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The <a href="https://prochoice.org/about-naf/">National Abortion F</a><a href="https://prochoice.org/about-naf/">ederation</a> describes itself as “the professional association of abortion providers.” It “exhibits and presents at numerous <a href="https://prochoice.org/health-care-professionals/conferences/">conferences</a> … about topics related to abortion care.”<br />
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The video notes that “Planned Parenthood makes up about 50 percent of [the National Abortion Federation’s] members and leadership.”<br />
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The video opens with a Planned Parenthood medical director speaking on a panel about “heads that get stuck” and the “hemorrhages that we manage.”<br />
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Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. But this can't be done alone. <a class="" href="http://dailysignal.com/2017/05/25/horrifying-video-abortion-conference-shows-utter-disregard-human-life/#dear_reader">Find out more >></a><br />
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She is later seen telling a panel: “Given that we might actually both agree that there’s violence in here, ask me why I come to work every day. Let’s just give them all the violence, it’s a person, it’s killing, let’s just give them all that.”<br />
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A Planned Parenthood abortionist then complains about how an unborn child “is a tough little object” and is “very difficult” to take apart.<br />
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A lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union is heard remarking, “When the skull is broken, that’s really sharp!” as the crowd laughs about the difficulty of “getting that skull out.”<br />
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Another Planned Parenthood official is seen speaking on a panel recalling that an “eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that is gross!” as the crowd laughs.<br />
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A procurement manager from StemExpress is seen commenting that there are “a lot of clinics that we work with that, I mean, it helps them out significantly.”<br />
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A Planned Parenthood official later says that “[t]he truth is that some might want to do it … to increase their revenues. And we can’t stop them.”<br />
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One would think the state of California would be concerned about what was said at these conferences.<br />
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But instead of looking into potential illegal profits from the transfer of fetal tissue, California is charging Center for Medical Progress journalists with <a href="https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press_releases/Complaint%20Affidavit_SF.PDF?">15 felonies</a> for bringing these troubling questions to light in the first place.<br />
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California argues that the Center for Medical Progress unlawfully recorded the subjects of undercover videos without their consent.<br />
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When the charges were announced, Casey Mattox, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2017/03/29/pro-life-activist-who-filmed-planned-parenthood-responds-to-bogus-charges/">told The Daily Signal</a> that even in two-party consent states like California, “It’s well understood as a matter of First Amendment law that people have a right to be able to record their own conversations.”<br />
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He added:<br />
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These were publicly recorded conversations, they were recorded in restaurants and other places where Planned Parenthood officials should not have expected they had any privacy at all. I find it fascinating that the state of California is apparently very concerned about the privacy of Planned Parenthood officials, and much less concerned about getting to the truth of Planned Parenthood actually engaging in violations of the law by selling baby body parts.</blockquote>
As this concerning case makes its way through court, Americans should remember that Planned Parenthood receives over half a billion dollars from taxpayers each year.<br />
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Today’s video once again demonstrates the urgent need for policymakers to <a href="http://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/congress-should-end-federal-funding-planned-parenthood-and-redirect-it">end taxpayer funding</a> for Planned Parenthood, its affiliates, and other abortion providers once and for all.<br />
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Funding could instead be redirected to centers that provide health care for women without entanglement in on-demand abortion.<br />
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Congress has the opportunity to deny Planned Parenthood certain federal funds in the upcoming budget reconciliation bill to repeal Obamacare by ensuring the language includes a provision (just as the 2015 version of the bill did) that would disqualify Planned Parenthood affiliates from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for one year after the enactment of the bill.<br />
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Ultimately, Congress should send the <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2016/09/30/to-protect-taxpayers-from-funding-abortion-the-hyde-amendment-must-be-permanent/">No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act</a>, which passed in the House of Representatives in January, to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature.<br />
<br />
<em>Commentary by Melanie Israel. <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2017/05/25/horrifying-video-abortion-conference-shows-utter-disregard-human-life/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Originally published at The Daily Signal</a>.</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-37875450068163190192017-05-26T11:33:00.001-04:002017-05-26T11:33:04.480-04:00Climate Budget Cuts Are Smart Management, Not an Attack on Science<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It’s been described as a “<a href="https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/05/24/stories/1060055051">slap</a> in the face,” “<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-budget-still-funds-one-big-climate-program/">slaughter</a>,” “a punitive … <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-budget-is-an-assault-on-science-and-the-environment-says-climate-scientist-c3473a5c84b6">assault</a> on science, the environment, and indeed the planet.”<br />
<br />
Aside from being inappropriate and irresponsible, these remarks are how some in the policy world and media have depicted cuts to global warming spending in President Donald Trump’s first budget proposal.<br />
<br />
People seem to have forgotten—or perhaps never noticed—just how much the government spends on direct climate programs.<br />
<br />
Trump’s budget proposal does in fact eliminate or cut a number of climate programs. But you don’t have to scratch too far beneath the surface to realize there are legitimate justifications for doing so.<br />
<br />
Even if the federal budget won’t be balanced on the back of eliminated climate programs, there are a number of basic problems with government climate spending.<br />
<br />
<strong>1. Quite simply, there are a lot of global warming programs.</strong><br />
<br />
For all the Obama administration’s emphasis on global warming as an issue, the Government Accountability Office’s <a href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/690/682765.pdf">December 2016 assessment</a> found only partial improvement in program management and could not yet determine if government standards showed whether programs were being effective, as they had only just been implemented.<br />
<br />
The Government Accountability Office <a href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/668415.pdf">noted</a> in 2009 that “the federal government’s emerging adaptation activities were carried out in an ad hoc manner and were not well coordinated across federal agencies, let alone with state and local governments.”<br />
<br />
At least 18 federal agencies administer climate change activities, costing at least <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43227.pdf">$77 billion between fiscal years 2008 and 2013</a>, according to the Congressional Research Service.<br />
<br />
<b><strong>2. Most of the money goes to green tech rather than science. </strong> </b><br />
<br />
If these technologies are economically viable, there will be plenty of private sector capital available to develop them. Hardworking taxpayers shouldn’t have to dump money into speculative or failing technology companies or pad the bottom lines of successful ones.<br />
<br />
The Department of Energy is <a href="http://www2.heritage.org/research/testimony/examining-the-department-of-energys-loan-portfolio">notorious</a> for spending on research, development, demonstration, and commercialization of technologies like wind, solar, geothermal, electric vehicles, biofuels, coal carbon capture and sequestration, small nuclear, and batteries.<br />
<br />
This has been particularly true in more recent years as a result of the Obama administration’s failed stimulus package, which funneled billions of dollars into energy technologies.<br />
<br />
According to the Government Accountability Office, the bulk of federal climate spending has gone to <a href="http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/climate_change_funding_management/issue_summary#t=0">technology development</a> rather than science, wildlife, or international aid.<br />
<br />
<strong>3. There’s a lot of wasteful spending.</strong><br />
<br />
While the Navy’s price per gallon may appear cheap, the actual total cost to the government is much higher.<br />
<br />
Despite clear direction from Congress that fuels be cost-competitive, the executive branch camouflaged the costs of the Navy’s biofuel program by subsidizing it through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Credit Corporation program and the Department of Energy.<br />
<br />
There are other much larger boondoggles, too. The Navy <a href="http://www.heritage.org/environment/report/science-policy-priorities-and-reforms-the-45th-president#_ftn30">spent</a> hundreds of millions of dollars on biofuels to meet a political objective to “jumpstart” a domestic biofuel economy with <a href="http://www2.heritage.org/research/reports/2017/01/the-new-administrations-policy-should-reflect-that-biofuels-cannot-meet-military-needs">no strategic advantage for military capabilities</a>.<br />
<br />
There are many other equally ridiculous examples, such as an Environmental Protection Agency <a href="http://budgetbook.heritage.org/natural-resources-environment/eliminate-environmental-justice-programs/">grant</a> for “green” nail salon concepts in California.<br />
<br />
As just one example of wasteful spending, Office of Budget and Management Director Mick Mulvaney <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/mulvaney-trump-budget-pulls-back-from-crazy-climate-stuff/article/2623913">highlighted</a> the National Science Foundation’s grant for a global warming musical. (The nearly $700,000 grant was <a href="https://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1010974&HistoricalAwards=false">awarded</a> in 2010.)<br />
<br />
<strong>4. International climate initiatives are fatally flawed.</strong><br />
<br />
There are a number of problems with America’s continued participation in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the body that has produced international global warming agreements and, most recently, the Paris Protocol.<br />
<br />
One would think that an international climate conference aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be the perfect opportunity to have a teleconference to show some good faith. But instead, government officials from around the world fly to lavish venues while telling you to buy hybrids and eat less meat.<br />
<br />
Each year, the result is the same: symbolic commitments that shame industrialization and the use of fossil fuels with little to no actual impact on the climate.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, the Palestinian Authority’s participation in the Paris Protocol should be <a href="http://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-us-should-withdraw-the-united-nations-framework-convention-climate-change">cause enough</a> to halt funding as Congress has stipulated under current law.<br />
<br />
As the Trump budget proposes, the U.S. should also end funding to the quasi-scientific body behind the Paris Protocol—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This panel’s studies have been subject to bias, manipulation, and poor data.<br />
<br />
<strong>5. There are major problems and gaps in climate science.</strong><br />
<br />
The fact is, climate modeling is at this point an inexact science. Models have proven to be <a href="https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-115-SY-WState-JChristy-20170329.pdf">inaccurate</a>, and regulatory cost-benefit accounting metrics based on them are <a href="http://www.heritage.org/energy-economics/report/rolling-the-dice-environmental-regulations-close-look-the-social-cost">indefensible</a>.<br />
<br />
It is thus no surprise that massive government policies like the <a href="http://www.heritage.org/energy-economics/commentary/time-say-au-revoir-paris-climate-deal">Paris Protocol</a> and Clean Power Plan are demonstrably <a href="http://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-state-climate-science-no-justification-extreme-policies">ineffective</a> in addressing global temperatures.<br />
<br />
There are many areas of <a href="https://judithcurry.com/2015/07/29/assessments-meta-analyses-discussion-and-peer-review/">disagreement</a> and <a href="https://judithcurry.com/2010/09/22/the-uncertainty-monster/">uncertainty</a> among climate scientists, not to mention biologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, economists, and others with relevant expertise.<br />
<br />
Exacerbating this is the role the federal government has played in toxifying the scientific debate on global warming. Rather than fostering scientific discovery in a field that is a mere few decades old, the federal government appears to have <a href="http://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-state-climate-science-no-justification-extreme-policies#_ftn11">expressed bias in funding</a> science that supports federal climate policies.<br />
<br />
Science that challenges the current narrative is pilloried in the press and labeled “denialism,” whereas an intellectually honest approach would seek to understand and improve the science.<br />
<br />
The debate is not improved by demands for <a href="http://www.heritage.org/report/the-climate-change-inquisition-abuse-power-offends-the-first-amendment-and-threatens">RICO investigations</a> or <a href="http://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-state-climate-science-no-justification-extreme-policies">anti-science statements</a> castigating those with different opinions as part of the “flat earth society” with their “heads in the sand,” and encouraging people to “find the deniers near you—and call them out today.”<br />
<br />
We don’t need more spending on <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2014/06/18/24-things-media-claims-caused-global-warming/">iterative studies</a> telling us that coffee could be more expensive and snakes bigger thanks to global warming. We need better modeling, better understanding of basic science, more data, and a better, transparent discussion on climate science and climate policies.<br />
<br />
Even after the president’s proposed cuts, there is plenty of money left in the federal budget to study and model the climate.<br />
<br />
For instance, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, a division that includes many climate programs within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, would be cut by more than $150 million, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/stories/1060054989">but still retain a hefty $324 million</a>.<br />
<br />
Let’s also not forget the role that universities, nonprofits, and international organizations play in studying the global climate.<br />
<br />
Eliminating wasteful spending, some of which has nothing to do with studying the science at all, is smart management, not an attack on science.<br />
<br />
It’s time to end the boondoggles and hold the federal government’s climate science activities to the same standards of rationality and cost effectiveness as other government spending.<br />
<br />
<em>Commentary by Katie Tubb and Nicolas Loris. <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2017/05/25/climate-budget-cuts-smart-management-not-attack-science/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Originally published at The Daily Caller</a>.</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-81558155718050581602017-05-22T12:28:00.001-04:002017-05-22T12:28:06.765-04:00No Representation without Consent – Not Even from Unions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When the American colonists complained that the British subjected them to taxation without representation, the British responded that the colonists’ interests were represented in Parliament. The colonists rejected that argument on the grounds that they didn’t consent to that representation. The principle of no taxation without representation doesn’t constrain government if government can impose unwanted representation. A second principle – no representation without consent – is needed to give the first its meaning as a claim of right. That second principle is also applicable to the representation of workers by unions.<br />
<br />
<strong>A Tale of Two Unions</strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In France, eight percent of workers are union members, but 98 percent</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of </span><a href="http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relations/Map-of-European-Industrial-Relations"><span style="font-weight: 400;">workers </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">are bound</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> by the terms of employment that unions negotiate.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (Good luck to President Macron in his quest for labor law reform.) While some workers may not care that unions represent them without their consent, it is likely that many more resent the fact.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In the US, 10.7 percent of workers are union members, while 11.9 percent of </span><a href="http://unionstats.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">workers are covered</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (Table I, All Wage and Salary Workers) by union-negotiated terms of employment. While the discrepancy is much smaller than it is in France, the same urgent question demands an answer: </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">should anyone be forced to accept representation services from any private entity against his or her will?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In France, unions get their privilege of forced representation from laws that command employers, even employers whose employees are union-free, to deal with “works councils” when forming the terms and conditions of employment (as well as other business decision-making). Those same laws require that unions be the sole representatives of workers in the councils. French law makes forced representation legal, but it does not make it right or just.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In the US, the unions’ forced representation privilege emerges from Section 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). It is called “exclusive representation”: if a union gets at least 50 percent plus one of the workers in an enterprise to vote in favor of the union’s representation, then all workers therein must be represented by the union – even those who voted against such representation and those who abstained from voting. As in France, American labor law makes forced representation legal; it does not make it right or just.</span><br />
<br />
<strong>Unions vs. the Constitution</strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Unions defend exclusive representation on the grounds that it is democratic. All workers get to vote, and therefore all workers are bound by the outcome. Furthermore, unions argue, it is routine for private organizations such as clubs and fraternal associations to make many decisions on the basis of majority vote. So why should union representation be different?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Because it is different: </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">government forces union representation to be decided by majority rule.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Majority rule in clubs and fraternal associations is adopted without government coercion.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Democracy is a form of government, and unions are not governments. In a democracy, a numerical minority is forced to give way to a numerical majority on matters that are </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">within the appropriate scope of government.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> No one claims that because we live in a democratic country, numerical minorities must give in to numerical majorities about whether to associate with a specific church, if any. The First Amendment takes that decision out of the appropriate scope of government.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The First Amendment also guarantees freedom of association. It takes the question of whether numerical minorities must give in to numerical majorities with respect to whether to associate with a specific, or any, labor union out of the appropriate scope of government. Yet the NLRA forces individual workers in a numerical minority to give in to the will of the other individual workers in a numerical majority on the question of union representation. The NLRA trumps the First Amendment.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">When the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the NLRA in its 1937 </span><a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/301/1/case.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jones & Laughlin</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> decision, it did so on the basis of its reading of Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. It arbitrarily asserted that “commerce” included localized manufacturing, contrary to a century of rulings to the contrary. The Court ignored the issue of forced representation. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">This decision is a notorious example of results-based, rather than principles-based, jurisprudence. President Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Court if the Justices didn’t decide in his favor on the Jones & Laughlin case. The sad fact is that too many Supreme Court justices can, and too often do, make it up as they go along to bring about the results they want or think they need.</span><br />
<br />
<strong>One Vote for All Time</strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The unions’ appeal to democracy to justify exclusive representation is embarrassingly disingenuous. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Once a union wins a representation election, it never again has to stand for reelection.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> For example, there are no members of the United Auto Workers currently employed making cars in Detroit who voted on union representation. The UAW won elections in the 1930s and 40s, and all the workers who voted in those elections are retired or deceased.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In Wisconsin, Scott Walker’s </span><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin_Act_10,_the_%22Scott_Walker_Budget_Repair_Bill%22_(2011)"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Act 10</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> did away with this one-vote-for-all-time rule as it applies to Wisconsin’s government employees by stipulating that once-elected unions must stand for reelection on a regular basis – just like the members of the Wisconsin Legislature must stand for re-election on a regular basis. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The unions call Walker a union buster. I call him a worker protector.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://employeerightsact.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Employee Rights Act</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, originally proposed in 2011 and re-submitted in the current (115</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">th</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">) Congress, would, if adopted, do away with the one-vote-for-all-time rule for all private-sector unions. It would require a new representation election when there has been at least a 50 percent turnover among employees since the last election.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">That would be nice, but it is not nearly enough. The only way to adequately solve the problem of representation without consent is to abolish exclusive representation. Sadly, no one in Congress or in the White House is proposing to do so.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">As a last resort, unions defend exclusive representation on the grounds that collective bargaining would be “too complicated” if employers had to deal with more than one union as well as union-free individual workers. This is a merely utilitarian argument which ignores the no-representation-without-consent principle. Moreover, it is proven to be a lie because, prior to the adoption of the NLRA in 1935, members-only bargaining was routine and successful (</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Charles W. Baird, “Toward Equality and Justice in Labor Markets,”</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span><em><a href="http://www.jspes.org/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies</span></a></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Summer 1995: 163-186, available from the author on request as a pdf file)</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Never underestimate the power of entrepreneurship to discover simple solutions to seemingly complicated puzzles.</span><br />
<br />
<strong>The Right to Work</strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Much has been written recently about right-to-work (RTW) laws. The NLRA gives states the power to stipulate that, within their respective jurisdictions, no private-sector worker represented by a union against his or her will can be forced to pay for the unwanted representation. </span><a href="http://www.nrtw.org/right-to-work-frequently-asked-questions/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Twenty-eight states</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> have adopted such laws, including prior bastions of union privilege such as Michigan, which did so in 2013.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Forced payment for unwanted union representation by government-sector workers is under attack in the courts. Many think that had it not been for the unexpected </span><a href="https://fee.org/articles/californias-union-cartel-saved-by-a-death/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, such coerced takings would be illegal today, but there is </span><a href="http://www.caperb.com/2017/01/17/the-new-friedrichs-case-janus-v-afscme/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">another case</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> on this issue heading to the Supreme Court. If the Court agrees to hear the case, it is likely that all government employees will soon have RTW protection against forced takings by the unions that represent them, especially since Justice Neil Gorsuch has replaced Justice Scalia on the Court.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">There is even a </span><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/785"><span style="font-weight: 400;">National Right-to-Work Act</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> under consideration in the current Congress. If passed, no private-sector worker in the US could be forced to pay for unwanted union representation. But the prospects for enactment of this legislation are poor. Unions, notwithstanding their 10.7 percent market share, have too much political power, just as they do in France.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">It is crucial to understand that RTW laws do nothing about representation without consent. Even with such laws, workers are still forced to accept unwanted union representation; they just don’t have to pay for it. If exclusive representation were abolished, right-to-work laws would be irrelevant. Only voluntary union members would have to pay union dues to pay for the representation services they want, and unions would only represent their voluntary members. That is one characteristic of any society that deserves to be called free.</span><br />
<br />
<img alt="Charles W. Baird" src="http://fee.org/media/22773/cwb.jpg?anchor=center&mode=crop&height=287&widthratio=1.3937282229965156794425087108&rnd=131395959820000000" /><br />
<h5>
<a href="http://fee.org/people/charles-w-baird/"><br />
Charles W. Baird<br />
</a></h5>
<a href="http://www.charlesbaird.info/">Charles Baird</a> is a professor of economics emeritus at California State University at East Bay.<br />
<br />
He specializes in the law and economics of labor relations, a subject on which he has published several articles in refereed journals and numerous shorter pieces with FEE.<br />
<div style="font-style: italic;">
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href="https://fee.org/articles/no-representation-without-consent-not-even-from-unions/">original article</a>.</div>
<img alt="" src="http://fee.org/counter/152713" height="1" width="1" /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-79036457806138695812017-05-22T12:08:00.001-04:002017-05-22T12:08:12.044-04:00Behind closed doors: What the Piltdown Man hoax from 1912 can teach science today<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: black;">In 1912, Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist in England, claimed he’d made one of the most important fossil discoveries ever. Ultimately, however, his “Piltdown Man” proved to be a hoax. By cleverly pairing a human skull with an orangutan’s jaw – stained to match and give the appearance of age – a mysterious forger duped the scientific world. <img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/76967/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" /></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">In the decades between the find’s unearthing and the revelation it was fraudulent, people in the United States and around the world learned about Piltdown Man as a “missing link” connecting ape and man. Newspaper articles, scientific publications <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674660410" style="color: black;">and museum exhibitions</a> all presented Piltdown Man as a legitimate scientific discovery supporting a particular vision of human evolution.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Historians, science writers and others have <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Piltdown-Scientific-Forgery-Frank-Spencer/dp/0198585225" style="color: black;">investigated the Piltdown Man controversy</a> over the years, shedding <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-piltdown-forgery-9780198607809?q=Piltdown&lang=en&cc=us" style="color: black;">new light on the fraud</a>. As we reconsider the nature of “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/" style="color: black;">facts</a>,” “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/18/what-is-fake-news-pizzagate" style="color: black;">fake news</a>” and knowledge production, it’s worthwhile to revisit the Piltdown Man episode.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">At issue was not just the deliberate hoax, but also the incomplete flow of information about the purported human ancestor. Soon after the discovery, access to the original materials in England was cut off by a few gatekeepers. Science is suffocated when researchers are unable to reliably corroborate claims made by others. The same issues arise today, with the research community grappling with what’s been called a <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/reproducibility-1.17552" style="color: black;">reproducibility crisis</a>; scientists need access to evidence and data in order to replicate (or not) research results. The Piltdown Man controversy lends support to the modern <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/ak6jr" style="color: black;">open science movement</a>, with its call for transparency at every step of the scientific process.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<figure class="align-center zoomable"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/167586/area14mp/file-20170502-17285-1pjrddd.jpg" style="color: black;"><img alt="" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/167586/width754/file-20170502-17285-1pjrddd.jpg" /></a></span><br />
<figcaption><span class="caption" style="color: black;">Piltdown Man believers kept tight control over who could get an up-close look at the fossils. Arthur Keith is pictured in the white coat, Charles Dawson over his left shoulder.</span><br />
<span class="attribution" style="color: black;"> <a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piltdown_gang_(dark).jpg" style="color: black;">John Cooke</a></span></figcaption></figure><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: black;">Limited firsthand access</span></h2>
<span style="color: black;">Experts immediately cited the discovery of a large human-like cranium with a primitive-looking, ape-like jaw as a major breakthrough. Influential anatomists such as Sir Arthur Keith hailed Piltdown Man as authentic. The popular press on both sides of the Atlantic described prehistoric archaeology as a dramatic hunt for a missing link and came to embrace Piltdown Man within an oversimplified framework of human evolution.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">But there were some scientists – notably British Museum curator Reginald A. Smith – who were skeptical from the outset. Doubters noted the major find was attributed to a previously little-known archaeologist.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Curators in the United States impatiently hoped to learn more. But transatlantic requests were denied by their counterparts in Britain who controlled access to the cranium and jaw, moving the bones to a secure vault at the Museum of Natural History in London. Rumors swirled.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Controversial Smithsonian curator <a href="http://anthropology.si.edu/naa/fa/Hrdlicka_Ales.pdf" style="color: black;">Aleš Hrdlička describes in an annual report</a> traveling to England himself:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: black;">“Regrettably… the specimen was not yet available for examination by outsiders, and so no original opinion can be given concerning its status. It represents doubtless one of the most interesting finds relating to man’s antiquity, though seemingly the last word had not yet been said as to its date and especially as to the physical characteristics of the being it stands for.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black;">Early in the 20th century, provocative claims about discoveries commonly circulated through letters, rumors and splashy newspaper articles suggesting major new finds. American museums were simultaneously intrigued and frustrated by word of significant finds like Piltdown Man. Some claims proved to be genuine, while many others were found to be falsified or misleading. With limited information, it was especially difficult to determine the validity of claims made by scientists abroad.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">News about major discoveries might change planned exhibitions about human evolution or prehistory at museums in New York or Chicago, or influence what students were taught about human history. Uncertainty plagued museums in this regard, as their scientists tried to view skeletons firsthand on visits to European museums and to secure good casts or copies for their own collections. Even amid growing doubts, a major exhibition in San Diego that opened in 1915 <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674660410" style="color: black;">prominently featured a Piltdown Man sculpture</a>.</span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: black;">What’s the damage done?</span></h2>
<span style="color: black;">This lack of transparency resulted in an absence of accurate information in the scientific community.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">It ultimately took until the later decades of the 20th century for the Piltdown bones to be fully discredited. The hoax was <a href="https://theconversation.com/solving-the-piltdown-man-crime-how-we-worked-out-there-was-only-one-forger-63615" style="color: black;">likely created by Dawson himself</a>, though <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Piltdown-Men-Ronald-William-Millar/dp/057500536X" style="color: black;">who exactly concocted the scam is still debated</a> – “Sherlock Holmes” author <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/08/10/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-cleared-of-piltdown-man-hoax/" style="color: black;">Arthur Conan Doyle’s name has even been mentioned</a> as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-twist-to-whodunnit-in-sciences-famous-piltdown-man-hoax-64470" style="color: black;">possible perpetrator</a>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">As Berkeley anthropologist <a href="http://anthropology.si.edu/naa/fa/spencer.pdf" style="color: black;">Sherwood Washburn offered in a letter</a>, “My opinion is that if more people had seen the originals sooner the fake would have been recognized.” Confusion had arisen because <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LtOkhpR3hY" style="color: black;">so few scholars were granted access</a> to the original evidence.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Part of what finally put Piltdown Man to rest was the nature of new discoveries emerging. They informed researchers’ developing understanding of the human past and began turning much scientific attention away from Europe toward Asia and Africa.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">While it is impossible to know with certainty, the Piltdown Man episode likely slowed scientific progress in the global search for human ancestors. What is clear is that the claims worked to muddle popular knowledge about human evolution.</span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: black;">Piltdown Man’s lessons for today</span></h2>
<br />
<figure class="align-right zoomable"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/167590/area14mp/file-20170502-17267-1l3115g.jpg" style="color: black;"><img alt="" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/167590/width237/file-20170502-17267-1l3115g.jpg" /></a></span><br />
<figcaption><span class="caption" style="color: black;">Museums still display Piltdown Man replicas, not as science but as cautionary reminder.</span><br />
<span class="attribution" style="color: black;"> <a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sterkfontein_Piltdown_man.jpg" style="color: black;">Anrie</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" style="color: black;">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><span style="color: black;">The unknown forger behind Piltdown Man intentionally misled the world about human evolution. The false claims rippled through the news media and museum exhibitions. Without access to reliable sources, in this case the original bones, the fraudulent story of Piltdown Man spread like a slowly building wildfire.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">The Piltdown Man controversy hints at the dangers of drawing conclusions based on limited or emerging information, for both the public and scientists. In some ways, the whole episode foreshadowed threats we face now <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/04/13/facebook_s_latest_attempt_to_fight_fake_news_makes_it_seem_more_helpless.html" style="color: black;">from fake news</a> and the spread of misinformation about science and many other topics. It is hard to get to the truth – whether about a news story or scientific theory – without access to the evidence supporting it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Certainly new information flows much more rapidly today – thanks to the internet and social media – potentially a partial corrective to the problems connected to misleading claims. However, scientists and others still need access to accurate and reliable information from original sources. With the Piltdown Man remains locked away in a secure museum vault, speculation and misinformation flourished.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Support is now building for an <a href="http://www.digital-scholarship.org/cwb/WhatIsOA.htm" style="color: black;">open access</a> research model: When possible and appropriate, original materials, data and preliminary findings should be made available to others in the field. Scientists also work to balance <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/25/discovery-human-species-accused-of-rushing-errors" style="color: black;">how quickly they publish new research</a>: It takes time to do careful work, but keeping finds hidden away for too long also impedes progress and understanding.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<figure class="align-center zoomable"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/167785/area14mp/file-20170503-21649-1x026xi.jpg" style="color: black;"><img alt="" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/167785/width754/file-20170503-21649-1x026xi.jpg" /></a></span><br />
<figcaption><span class="caption" style="color: black;">Excavations continue in the hobbit cave in Indonesia.</span><br />
<span class="attribution" style="color: black;"> <a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/12394349@N06/14748473277" style="color: black;">Bryn Pinzgauer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" style="color: black;">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><span style="color: black;">Consider a 2003 find from Indonesia that was as shocking as the discovery of Piltdown Man: a nearly complete female skeleton researchers suggested was from a tiny human ancestor they called <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-floresiensis" style="color: black;">Homo floresiensis</a> (commonly nicknamed “hobbit”). Media speculation ran wild early on about this new species added to our family tree, but paleoanthropology has evolved a great deal since Piltdown Man.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Scientists from several different groups worked to <a href="http://www.livescience.com/29100-homo-floresiensis-hobbit-facts.html" style="color: black;">understand the discovery</a> – seeking related finds and going back to the original fossils to systematically assess the claim. Soon additional <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature02999" style="color: black;">detailed scientific publications began to emerge</a>, allowing the scientific community to continue <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature04022" style="color: black;">to add to the evidence</a> and better <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/4311029a" style="color: black;">scrutinize the discovery</a>. To date, the teeth of at many as 12 individuals have been found.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Homo floresiensis are likely a genuinely groundbreaking discovery – hopefully the more transparent way the research unfolded makes this easier to untangle than Dawson’s claims a century ago. Thoughtful collaboration, making data available openly, more effective <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2016/may/10/what-has-science-communication-ever-done-for-us" style="color: black;">popular science communication</a> and multiple channels of accurate information may help us better respond to the next Piltdown Man.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/samuel-redman-247435" style="color: black;">Samuel Redman</a>, Assistant Professor of History, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-massachusetts-amherst-1563" style="color: black;">University of Massachusetts Amherst</a></em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/" style="color: black;">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/behind-closed-doors-what-the-piltdown-man-hoax-from-1912-can-teach-science-today-76967" style="color: black;">original article</a>.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-25745836761446110412017-05-19T07:01:00.000-04:002017-05-19T07:03:56.746-04:00Scientist: Sea Ice Expanding, Driven by Falling Temperatures<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://bettereconomy.org/2017/04/30/kill-the-un-climate-scheme/">.<img alt="" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1560" height="300" src="https://donnyfergusoncom.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/unclimatebutton2.jpg?w=300" width="300" />.</a><br />
__<br />
While there’s been thousands of legacy media stories about the very real decline in summer sea-ice extent in the Arctic Ocean, we can’t find <em>one </em>about the statistically significant <em>increase</em> in Antarctic sea ice that has been observed at the same time.<br />
<br />
Also, comparisons between forecast temperature trends down there and what’s been observed are also very few and far between. Here’s one published in 2015:<br />
<br />
<img alt="Observed (blue) and model-forecast (red) Antarctic sea-ice extent published by Shu et al. (2015) shows a large and growing discrepancy, but for unknown reasons, their illustration ends in 2005." height="434" src="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/shuetal.jpg" title="Observed (blue) and model-forecast (red) Antarctic sea-ice extent published by Shu et al. (2015) shows a large and growing discrepancy, but for unknown reasons, their illustration ends in 2005." width="538" /><br />
<br />
<em>Observed (blue) and model-forecast (red) Antarctic sea-ice extent published by Shu et al. (2015) shows a large and growing discrepancy, but for unknown reasons, their illustration ends in 2005.</em><br />
<br />
For those who utilize and trust in the scientific method, forming policy (especially <em>multi-trillion dollar </em>policies!) on the basis of what could or might happen in the future seems imprudent. Sound policy, in contrast, is best formulated when it is based upon repeated and verifiable observations that are consistent with the projections of climate models. As shown above, this does not appear to be the case with the vast ice field that surrounds Antarctica.<br />
<br />
According to the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), CO<sub>2</sub>-induced global warming will result in a considerable reduction in sea ice extent in the Southern Hemisphere. Specifically, the report predicts a multi-model average decrease of between 16 and 67 percent in the summer and 8 to 30 percent in the winter by the end of the century (IPCC, 2013). Given the fact that atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> concentrations have increased by 20 percent over the past four decades, evidence of sea ice decline should be evident in the observational data if such model predictions are correct. But are they?<br />
<br />
Thanks to a recent paper in the <em>Journal of Climate </em>by Josefino Comiso and colleagues, we now know what’s driving the increase in sea-ice down there. It’s—wait for it—cooling temperatures over the ocean surrounding Antarctica.<br />
<br />
This team of six researchers set out to produce an updated and enhanced dataset of sea ice extent and area for the Southern Hemisphere for the period 1978 to 2015. The key enhancement over prior datasets included an improved cloud masking technique that eliminated anomalously high or low sea ice values, assuring that their work is the most definitive study of Antarctic sea ice trends to date.<br />
<br />
The six scientists report the existence of a long-term increasing trend in both sea ice extent and area over the period of study (see figure below), with the former measure increasing by 1.7 percent per decade and the latter by 2.5 percent per decade.<br />
<br />
<img alt="Figure 1. Monthly anomalies of Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent (left panel) and area (right panel) derived using the newly enhanced SB2 data (black) of Comiso et al. and the older SBA data (red) prior to the enhancements made by Comiso et al. Trend lines for each data set are also shown and the trend values with statistical errors are provided. Source: Comiso et al. (2017)." height="221" src="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/seaiceanomoly.jpg" title="Figure 1. Monthly anomalies of Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent (left panel) and area (right panel) derived using the newly enhanced SB2 data (black) of Comiso et al. and the older SBA data (red) prior to the enhancements made by Comiso et al. Trend lines for each data set are also shown and the trend values with statistical errors are provided. Source: Comiso et al. (2017)." width="700" /><br />
<br />
<strong><em>Figure 1.</em></strong><em> Monthly anomalies of Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent (left panel) and area (right panel) derived using the newly enhanced SB2 data (black) of Comiso et al. and the older SBA data (red) prior to the enhancements made by Comiso et al. Trend lines for each data set are also shown and the trend values with statistical errors are provided. Source: Comiso et al. (2017).</em><br />
<br />
With regard to these observed increases, Comiso <em>et al</em>. confirm “the trend in Antarctic sea ice cover is positive,” adding “the trend is even more positive than previously reported because prior to 2015 the sea ice extent was anomalously high for a few years, with the record high recorded in 2014 when the ice extent was more than 20 x 10<sup>6</sup> km<sup>2</sup> for the first time during the satellite era.”<br />
<br />
They compared satellite-based estimates of temperature over the ocean/ice and found a very high negative correlation between ice cover and temperature. So, the large and systematic increase in ice extent must be related to a cooling over the sea-ice region throughout the 36-year period of record in this study.<br />
<br />
Why is this important? Much like the problems with the missing “tropical hot spot” we <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/bad-timing-carbon-tax">noted</a> last month, Antarctic sea-ice modulates a cascade of meteorology. When it’s gone, or in decline, as is the forecast from the climate models, much more of the sun’s energy goes into the ocean, as that energy is only very poorly absorbed by ice, which means an enhanced warming of the Southern Ocean. That has effects on Antarctica itself, where slightly warmed surrounding waters will dramatically increase snowfall on the continent. The fact that there are only glimmerings of this showing up (if at all) should have tipped people off that something was very wrong with the temperature forecast for the nearby ocean.<br />
<br />
Consequently, it is clear that despite a 20 percent increase in atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub>, and model predictions to the contrary, sea ice in the Antarctic has expanded for decades. Such observations are in direct opposition to the model-based predictions of the IPCC.<br />
<br />
(N.B. as noted in our May Day <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/global-science-report-antarctic-updates">post</a>, the Antarctic ice sensor crashed last April, and subsequent data appears to be very unreliable and, in some cases, physically impossible.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>References:</strong><br />
<br />
Comiso, J.C., Gersten, R.A., Stock, L.V., Turner, J., Perez, G.J. and Cho, K. 2017. Positive trend in the Antarctic sea ice cover and associated changes in surface temperature. <em>Journal of Climate</em> <strong>30</strong>: 2251-2267.<br />
<br />
IPCC. 2013. <em>Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</em> [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 1535 pp.<br />
<br />
Shu, Q., et al., 2015. Assessment of sea ice simulations in the CMIP5 models. <em>The Cryosphere</em><strong> 9</strong>, 399-409.<br />
<br />
<em>By <a href="https://www.cato.org/people/craig-d-idso" rel="foaf:publications">CRAIG D. IDSO</a> and <a href="https://www.cato.org/people/patrick-michaels" rel="foaf:publications">PATRICK J. MICHAELS</a>. <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/global-science-report-sea-ice-expansion-southern-hemisphere-real-driven-falling-temperatures">Originally published at The Cato Institute</a>. <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt="Creative Commons License" src="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/download-remote-images/i.creativecommons.org/73443598981/80x15.png" /></a> This work by <a href="http://www.cato.org/" rel="cc:attributionURL">Cato Institute</a> is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License</a>.</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-14407025132345061082017-05-19T06:56:00.001-04:002017-05-19T06:56:11.640-04:00The Earth is getting greener. Environmentalists want to stop that.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A recent <em>Science</em> paper by J-F. Busteri and 30 named coauthors assisted by 239 volunteers found, looking at global drylands (about 40% of land areas fall into this category), that we had undercounted global forest cover by a whopping “at least 9%.” 239 people were required to examine over 210,000 0.5 hectare (1.2 acre) sample plots in GoogleEarth, and classify the cover as open or forested. Here’s the resultant cool map:<br />
<br />
<img height="606" src="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/forestdistribution.png" width="1211" /><br />
<br />
This has been the subject of a flood of recent stories, blog posts, tweets, and whatever concerning Bastin et al. But here at the Center for the Study of Science, we’re <em>value added</em>, so here’s some added value.<br />
<br />
Last year, Zaichin Zhu and 31 coauthors published a remarkable analysis of global vegetation change since satellite sensors became operational in the late 1970s. The vast majority of the globe’s vegetated area shows greening, with 25-50% of that area showing a statistically significant change, while only 4% of the vegetated area is significantly browning. Here’s the mind-boggling map:<br />
<br />
<img alt="Trends in Leaf Area Index, 1978-2009. Positive tones are greening, negative are browning, and the dots delineate where the changes are statistically significant. There is approximately 9 times more area significantly greening up than browning down. " height="549" src="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/leafareaindexx.png" title="Trends in Leaf Area Index, 1978-2009. Positive tones are greening, negative are browning, and the dots delineate where the changes are statistically significant. There is approximately 9 times more area significantly greening up than browning down. " width="883" /><br />
<br />
<em>Trends in Leaf Area Index, 1978-2009. Positive tones are greening, negative are browning, and the dots delineate where the changes are statistically significant. There is approximately 9 times more area significantly greening up than browning down. </em><br />
<br />
Hope you’re sitting down for the money quote:<br />
<blockquote>
We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models show that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend…</blockquote>
And the other greening driver that stood out from the statistical noise was—you guessed it—<em>climate change</em>.<br />
<br />
Now, just for fun, toggle back and forth between the two maps. As you can see, virtually every place where there’s newly detected forest is greening, and a large number of these are doing it in a statistically significant fashion. This may lead to a remarkable hypothesis—that one of the reasons the forested regions were undercounted in previous surveys (among other reasons) is that there wasn’t enough vegetation present to meet Bastin’s criterion for “forest,” which is greater than 10% tree cover, <em>and carbon dioxide and global warming changed that.</em><br />
<br />
<strong>References:</strong><br />
<br />
Bastin, F-L., et al., 2017. The extent of forest in dryland biomes. <em>Science</em> 356, 635-638.<br />
<br />
Zhu, Z., et al., 2016. Greening of the earth and its drivers. <em>Nature Climate Change, </em>DOI: 10.1038/<br />
<br />
NCLIMATE30004.<br />
<br />
<em>Commentary by Patrick Michaels. <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/greener-not-browner">Originally published by The Cato Institute</a>.</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-47489775339703136852017-05-19T06:51:00.001-04:002017-05-19T06:51:18.167-04:00What’s behind the fidget spinner fad?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When I asked a colleague if he knew about fidget spinners, he responded: “I’d never heard of them until last week, when my daughter told me she had to have one.” <img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/77140/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" /><br />
<br />
Many parents must be having that conversation with their elementary school-age kids; as of this writing, fidget spinners held the top 16 spots in Amazon’s rankings of the most popular toys, and 43 of the top 50. Add <a href="https://www.thefidgetcube.co/">fidget cubes</a> (a spinner cousin), and fidget toys hold 49 of the top 50 rankings.<br />
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Fidget spinners, it seems, have become this year’s leading toy fad. I’m a sociologist <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520246263">who has studied fads</a>, and the rapid popularity, media attention and concerns over a new toy craze are a familiar story. As for adults’ confusion about the purpose of the fidget spinner – for many kids, that’s probably part of its appeal.<br />
<br />
Don’t know what a fidget spinner is? Not to worry – most people who aren’t in touch with school-age children don’t have a clue. (When I asked a class of 30 college students, only two knew what they were.)<br />
<br />
A fidget spinner has two or three paddle-shaped blades attached to a central core. Squeeze the core, give the blades a flick and they spin. That’s it. With a price between US$3 and $4 and available in all sorts of color schemes, many children can carry around a pocketful.<br />
<br />
<figure><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ndg8wVTrcHo?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440"></iframe><figcaption><span class="caption">Some tricks of the trade.</span></figcaption></figure><br />
Fidget spinners have attracted all sorts of commentary. Some schools <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fidget-spinner-craze-is-sweeping-the-u-s-but-some-schools-say-theyre-discractions/">have banned them as a distraction</a>, and there are worries that they may disrupt students’ learning. Others argue that fidget spinners <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/family/fidget-spinners-how-the-latest-toy-craze-also-benefits-children-with-special-needs">can calm special needs students</a>. But most <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/04/27/the-hottest-new-toy-fad-is-a-spinning-piece-of-plastic/">simply categorize them as a craze or fad</a> – the most recent in a long line of toys that children have swarmed to.<br />
<br />
The hula hoop is probably the most famous. Over the course of a few months in 1958, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Fads-Richard-Johnson/dp/0688049036/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494381982&sr=8-1&keywords=richard+a.+Johnson+american+fads">an estimated 25 million were sold</a> – enough so that every child in America between the ages of five and 11 could have owned one. Soon, however, most hula hoops stopped spinning and began collecting dust. Similar toys fads include troll dolls, super balls, Rubik’s cubes, Beanie Babies and jelly bracelets.<br />
<br />
It’s impossible to predict which toys will become the focus of faddish enthusiasm. It helps if the price tag falls within a child’s budget, if it’s small enough to be brought to school and if it appeals to both boys and girls. But these aren’t hard and fast rules. Cabbage Patch Kids ($25 – equivalent to about $60 today) hit it big in 1983 when frustrated, holiday present-buying adults competed for the limited supply of dolls in stores. (They were eventually <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Fads-Richard-Johnson/dp/0688049036/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494381982&sr=8-1&keywords=richard+a.+Johnson+american+fads">issued</a> “adoption certificates” that could be exchanged for the dolls when production runs caught up with demand.)<br />
<br />
<figure class="align-center "><img alt="" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/168634/width754/file-20170509-11008-1aejh4.jpg" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A happy customer displays his newly purchased Cabbage Patch Kid doll in 1983 as he leaves a South Bellingham, Massachusetts storefront crowded with people hoping to make a similar purchase.</span><br />
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Massachus-/fdb4dff8c2574669b269667a65881713/1/0">ASSOCIATED PRESS</a></span></figcaption></figure><br />
Adults are often ambivalent about children’s fads. Some get caught up in the enthusiasm, like those who invested in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Great-Beanie-Baby-Bubble-Delusion/dp/1591846021/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494382160">the Beanie Baby bubble</a>, convinced that the toys could only grow more valuable with each passing year. (They didn’t.)<br />
<br />
Others try to read meanings into toy fads. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/si.1998.21.2.197">Progressives might worry</a> that children are being exploited, separated from their allowance money by “Big Toy” marketers. (“Wouldn’t it be better if children played with wooden blocks, instead of commercialized plastic?”)<br />
<br />
And conservatives might fear that toys will corrupt children’s values. During the jelly bracelet craze, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=y7jtAwAAQBAJ&dq=Kids+Gone+Wild:++From+Rainbow+Parties+to+Sexting,+Understanding+the+Hype+Over+Teen+Sex&source=gbs_navlinks_s">some claimed</a> that those thin rings of plastic gel were actually dangerous sex bracelets, with each color referring to a particular sexual act (and having one’s bracelet broken required the wearer to perform that act). Of course, critics of all stripes can suspect that the toys distract kids from their responsibilities to focus on their studies.<br />
<br />
All of this exaggerates the significance of toy fads. <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/1/182">Play is undeniably important to childhood development</a>, but particular toys rarely have dramatic effects. Most parents have probably given a small child a nicely wrapped present, only to have the child ignore the gift in favor of playing with the ribbon. Adults imagine that war toys or sexist toys or racist toys or meat toys (which trouble vegetarians) or occult toys (which concern evangelicals) will produce adults with bad values, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/si.1998.21.2.197">but it’s hard to find much evidence to support those claims</a>. No doubt some women who are feminists owned a Barbie as a kid.<br />
<br />
Toy fads are important because they represent something novel, different. An important part of childhood is gradually separating yourself from your family and becoming your own person. We can see this when middle-school children announce a taste for music that diverges from what their parents enjoy; it’s a way of declaring, “I’m my own person.”<br />
<br />
We can imagine slightly younger kids comparing fidget spinners – yours is an interesting color or really sparkles when it spins, while mine spins for a really long time. Fidget spinners are all the more fun to the degree they’re subterranean, with most adults clueless.<br />
<br />
They’re getting a lot of attention today, but like all fads their novelty will inevitably fade: They’ll soon be stuffed in the corners of dresser drawers, waiting to provide little jolts of nostalgia when they’re rediscovered a few years down the road.<br />
<br />
<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/joel-best-140654">Joel Best</a>, Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-delaware-820">University of Delaware</a></em><br />
<br />
<em>This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-fidget-spinner-fad-77140">original article</a>.</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-33565898159189852552017-05-19T06:45:00.000-04:002017-05-19T06:45:18.832-04:00Arguments why God (very probably) exists<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The question of whether a god exists is heating up in the 21st century. According to a <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study">Pew survey</a>, the percent of Americans having no religious affiliation reached 23 percent in 2014. Among such “nones,” <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/04/americans-faith-in-god-may-be-eroding/">33 percent said</a> that they do not believe in God – an 11 percent increase since only 2007.Such trends have ironically been taking place even as, I would argue, the probability for the existence of a supernatural god have been rising. In my 2015 book, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cg4m4s">“God? Very Probably: Five Rational Ways to Think about the Question of a God,”</a> I look at physics, the philosophy of human consciousness, evolutionary biology, mathematics, the history of religion and theology to explore whether such a god exists. I should say that I am trained originally as an economist, but have been working at the intersection of economics, environmentalism and theology since the 1990s.<br />
<h2>
Laws of math</h2>
In 1960 the Princeton physicist – and subsequent Nobel Prize winner – <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1963/wigner-bio.html">Eugene Wigner</a> raised a <a href="https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html">fundamental question</a>: Why did the natural world always – so far as we know – obey laws of mathematics?<br />
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As argued by scholars such as <a href="https://www.brown.edu/academics/applied-mathematics/philip-j-davis">Philip Davis</a> and <a href="http://www.math.unm.edu/~rhersh/">Reuben Hersh</a>, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lMdz84dWNnAC">mathematics exists</a> independent of physical reality. It is the job of mathematicians to discover the realities of this separate world of mathematical laws and concepts. Physicists then put the mathematics to use according to the rules of prediction and confirmed observation of the scientific method.<br />
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But modern mathematics generally is formulated before any natural observations are made, and many mathematical laws today have no known existing physical analogues.<br />
<br />
<figure class="align-center "><img alt="" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/168655/width754/file-20170509-11023-1xtngmq.jpg" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Einstein Memorial, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.</span><br />
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/136352792/in/photolist-d3QWd-bMjP2P-a9Wixm-88biBa-arc7Xp-gmg5g-9Axhbh-9ED6od-7H6zwA-kspmmF-mwM7A8-rcBYua-5jNiBM-dwrSTk-bFnrEt-Bmt7Gf-fKCrGc-3ikCMe-mkxs3-pnx7k2-9EAbAT-5jSyTC-9ED6yq-9EAbPD-36oWNQ-6vAiEJ-6vAitA-5jSz51-6vAioA-6vw6Bc-9ED6rb-9ED6sW-6vAi9J-9EAbVR-pHw41u-4Xpc3u-6vAieo-9LWE8f-ed5Hqe-fmWi5A-NiFw7-5V3mPF-6vAiiG-4zSaJC-5hMACB-5tkt3x-dzXjD-odeh3T-7jxVer-CNWNZ">Wally Gobetz</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><br />
Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity, for example, was based on theoretical mathematics developed 50 years earlier by the great German mathematician <a href="http://www.storyofmathematics.com/19th_riemann.html">Bernhard Riemann</a> that <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/">did not have any known practical applications</a> at the time of its intellectual creation.<br />
<br />
In some cases the physicist also discovers the mathematics. Isaac Newton was considered among the greatest mathematicians as well as physicists of the 17th century. Other physicists sought his help in finding a mathematics that would predict <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AMOQZfrZq-EC&pg=PA459&lpg=PA459&dq=%22An+Ocean+of+Truth,%22&source=bl&ots=q6FyxbOuQh&sig=0kW1di2-2C3MhwYBClurJPdE234&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjr3r_NqePTAhWC54MKHSNhCeYQ6AEITzAM#v=onepage&q=%22An%20Ocean%20of%20Truth%2C%22&f=false">the workings of the solar system</a>. He found it in the mathematical law of gravity, based in part on his discovery of calculus.<br />
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At the time, however, many people initially resisted Newton’s conclusions because <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AMOQZfrZq-EC&pg=PA459&lpg=PA459&dq=%22An+Ocean+of+Truth,%22&source=bl&ots=q6FyxbOuQh&sig=0kW1di2-2C3MhwYBClurJPdE234&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjr3r_NqePTAhWC54MKHSNhCeYQ6AEITzAM#v=onepage&q=%22An%20Ocean%20of%20Truth%2C%22&f=false">they seemed to be “occult.”</a> How could two distant objects in the solar system be drawn toward one another, acting according to a precise mathematical law? Indeed, Newton made strenuous efforts over his lifetime to find a natural explanation, but in the end he could say only that <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Religion_of_Isaac_Newton.html?id=jipvnQAACAAJ">it is the will of God</a>.<br />
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Despite the many other enormous advances of modern physics, little has changed in this regard. As <a href="https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html">Wigner wrote</a>, “the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it.”<br />
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In other words, as I argue in my book, it takes the existence of some kind of a god to make the mathematical underpinnings of the universe comprehensible.<br />
<h2>
Math and other worlds</h2>
In 2004 the great British physicist <a href="https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/people/roger.penrose">Roger Penrose</a> put forward a vision of a universe composed of <a href="http://chaosbook.org/library/Penr04.pdf">three independently existing worlds</a> – mathematics, the material world and human consciousness. As Penrose acknowledged, it was a complete puzzle to him how the three interacted with one another outside the ability of any scientific or other conventionally rational model.<br />
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How can physical atoms and molecules, for example, create something that exists in a separate domain that has no physical existence: human consciousness?<br />
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It is a mystery that lies beyond science.<br />
<br />
<figure class="align-right "><img alt="" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/168656/width237/file-20170509-7918-1llyulm.jpg" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Plato.</span><br />
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/elizabethe/8650802082/in/photolist-ebrC53-22n4Ao-6XiYSp-mDJXUH-7krE6e-7ghijy-8LbhtW-63AHwi-gBbuuu-9wE4y1-gFZkdg-bXTHV-9hJkks-gBkNF3-deKLMZ-gBimB1-4Kh7ix-aPBXUV-gBkAK6-qLjMXy-9wE4C5-8U3S7g-5bNfij-gBm3tJ-gBdkBV-6PjxqB-hYAeXG-btMFXK-dqmEB2-gBkn65-dW2Pz7-7LFfiy-wc2hAE-eL82wz-2qq9aG-qEBFER-9wB5E4-2NqSdJ-2g5pn-59Asp6-GuBJ-qEBFKv-uLex4-inFRzM-bLCKM6-5PPUjM-Nk1suL-5ZMBfG-aUZYb8-8PXnEP">Elizabethe</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><br />
This mystery is the same one that existed in the Greek worldview of Plato, who believed that abstract ideas (above all mathematical) first existed outside any physical reality. The material world that we experience as part of our human existence is an imperfect reflection of these prior formal ideals. As the scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, <a href="https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/news/2010/08/20/ian-mueller-scholar-of-ancient-greek-philosophy-and-math-1938-2010/">Ian Mueller</a>, writes in <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books/mathematics-and-the-divine/koetsier/978-0-444-50328-2">“Mathematics And The Divine,”</a> the realm of such ideals is that of God.<br />
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Indeed, in 2014 the MIT physicist <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2e3t77/i_am_max_tegmark_an_mit_physics_professor/">Max Tegmark</a> argues in <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Our_Mathematical_Universe.html?id=BiKDvgAACAAJ">“Our Mathematical Universe”</a> that mathematics is the fundamental world reality that drives the universe. As I would say, mathematics is operating in a god-like fashion.<br />
<h2>
The mystery of human consciousness</h2>
The workings of human consciousness are similarly miraculous. Like the laws of mathematics, consciousness has no physical presence in the world; the images and thoughts in our consciousness have no measurable dimensions.<br />
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Yet, our nonphysical thoughts somehow mysteriously guide the actions of our physical human bodies. This is no more scientifically explicable than the mysterious ability of nonphysical mathematical constructions to determine the workings of a separate physical world.<br />
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Until recently, the scientifically unfathomable quality of human consciousness inhibited the very scholarly discussion of the subject. Since the 1970s, however, it has become a leading area of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/consciousness-9780199739097?cc=us&lang=en&">inquiry among philosophers</a>.<br />
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Recognizing that he could not reconcile his own scientific materialism with the existence of a nonphysical world of human consciousness, a leading atheist, <a href="http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/">Daniel Dennett</a>, in 1991 took the radical step of <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Consciousness_Explained.html?id=d2P_QS6AwgoC">denying that consciousness even exists</a>.<br />
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Finding this altogether implausible, as most people do, another leading philosopher, <a href="http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/object/thomasnagel">Thomas Nagel</a>, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/mind-and-cosmos-9780199919758?cc=us&lang=en&">wrote in 2012</a> that, given the scientifically inexplicable – the “intractable” – character of human consciousness, “we will have to leave [scientific] materialism behind” as a complete basis for understanding the world of human existence.<br />
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As an atheist, Nagel does not offer religious belief as an alternative, but I would argue that the supernatural character of the workings of human consciousness adds grounds for raising the probability of the existence of a supernatural god.<br />
<h2>
Evolution and faith</h2>
Evolution is a contentious subject in American public life. <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/10/darwin-day/">According to Pew,</a> 98 percent of scientists connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science “believe humans evolved over time” while only a minority of Americans “fully accept evolution through natural selection.”<br />
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As I say in my book, I should emphasize that I am not questioning the reality of natural biological evolution. What is interesting to me, however, are the fierce arguments that have taken place between professional evolutionary biologists. A number of developments in evolutionary theory have <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=fvmv2kU6PrYC">challenged</a> <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/300564/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne/9780143116646/">traditional Darwinist</a> – and later neo-Darwinist – views that emphasize random genetic mutations and gradual evolutionary selection by the process of survival of the fittest.<br />
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From the 1970s onwards, the Harvard evolutionary biologist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/21/us/stephen-jay-gould-60-is-dead-enlivened-evolutionary-theory.html">Stephen Jay Gould</a> created controversy by positing a different view, <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674024441">“punctuated equilibrium,”</a> to the slow and gradual evolution of species as theorized by Darwin.<br />
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In 2011, the University of Chicago evolutionary biologist <a href="http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/people/view/james-a-shapiro">James Shapiro</a> argued that, remarkably enough, many micro-evolutionary processes worked as though guided by a purposeful “sentience” of the evolving plant and animal organisms themselves. “The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable,” <a href="http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/people/view/james-a-shapiro">he wrote</a>. “Our current ideas about evolution have to incorporate this basic fact of life.”<br />
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A number of scientists, such as <a href="https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/biographical-sketch-francis-s-collins-md-phd">Francis Collins</a>, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, “see no conflict between believing in God and accepting the contemporary theory of evolution,” as the American Association for the Advancement of Science <a href="https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/QA_Evolution_0.pdf">points out.</a><br />
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For my part, the most recent developments in evolutionary biology have increased the probability of a god.<br />
<h2>
Miraculous ideas at the same time?</h2>
For the past 10,000 years at a minimum, the most important changes in human existence have been driven by cultural developments occurring in the realm of human ideas.<br />
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In the Axial Age (commonly dated from 800 to 200 B.C.), world-transforming ideas such as Buddhism, Confucianism, the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and the Hebrew Old Testament almost <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674061439&content=reviews">miraculously appeared</a> at about the same time in India, China, ancient Greece and among the Jews in the Middle East, <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674061439&content=reviews">groups having little interaction</a> with one another.<br />
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<figure class="align-center "><img alt="" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/168658/width754/file-20170509-7904-18g5e6p.jpg" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many world-transforming ideas, such as Buddhism, appeared in the world around the same time.</span><br />
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/toofarnorth/2823588421/in/photolist-62hFvB-fibjQb-4cVFiJ-5H8HUd-C2ndV-7GG2Fz-CMFevp-MZ7ub-4uem3q-7G15Wb-5H4rdP-5ivCsZ-abNL6Z-S745UE-buJSFq-DASDo8-7FW9mX-7GG2va-afm5zm-7G15SG-7G16fS-7GG2S8-nEfEnS-dvB1wA-5izUKE-5ivCy2-i568PS-rzW68-8nZ4HH-6QkHJQ-RHCDvx-5qxVPm-naTuwk-5BTpt3-i56a2U-aoGX3g-5CAT8N-3qo1At-2sm31A-5yn3-ooAKm-miHypu-F2LFi-mwGDT9-5dHrPL-6HonDA-rLmSz-5qUmsd-6hyasC-4Tzfz">Karyn Christner</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><br />
The development of the scientific method in the 17th century in Europe and its modern further advances have had at least as great <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/global-history/european-miracle-environments-economies-and-geopolitics-history-europe-and-asia-3rd-edition?format=PB&isbn=9780521527835#M6WWJdxjxfZQZiIi.97">a set of world-transforming consequences</a>. There have been <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo9419313.html">many historical theories</a>, but none capable, I would argue, of explaining as fundamentally transformational a set of events as the rise of the modern world. It was a revolution in human thought, operating outside any explanations grounded in scientific materialism, that drove the process.<br />
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That all these astonishing things happened within the conscious workings of human minds, functioning outside physical reality, offers further rational evidence, in my view, for the conclusion that human beings may well be made “in the image of [a] God.”<br />
<h2>
Different forms of worship</h2>
In his commencement address to Kenyon College in 2005, the American novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace said that: <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/this-is-water">“Everybody worships</a>. The only choice we get is what to worship.”<br />
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Even though Karl Marx, for example, condemned the illusion of religion, his followers, <a href="https://www.upress.pitt.edu/BookDetails.aspx?bookId=35157">ironically, worshiped Marxism</a>. The American philosopher <a href="http://philosophy.nd.edu/people/alasdair-macintyre/">Alasdair MacIntyre</a> thus wrote that for much of the 20th century, Marxism was the <a href="http://undpress.nd.edu/books/P00260">“historical successor of Christianity,”</a> claiming to show the faithful the one correct path to a new heaven on Earth.<br />
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In several of my <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Reaching_for_Heaven_on_Earth.html?id=oKm2AAAAIAAJ">books</a>, I have <a href="http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02095-4.html">explored</a> how Marxism and other such “economic religions” were characteristic of much of the modern age. So Christianity, I would argue, did not disappear as much as it reappeared in many such disguised forms of <a href="http://www.marketsandmorality.com/index.php/mandm/article/view/1095">“secular religion.”</a><br />
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That the Christian essence, as arose out of Judaism, showed such great staying power amidst the extraordinary political, economic, intellectual and other radical changes of the modern age is another reason I offer for thinking that <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cg4m4s">the existence of a god is very probable</a>.<br />
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<em>Note from Editor of The Conversation US: This is a revised version of the original piece. We have done so to make explicit the author’s expertise with regard to the subject of this article. We have also incorporated important context that was missing in the original version.</em> <img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/75451/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" /><br />
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/robert-h-nelson-162296">Robert H. Nelson</a>, Professor of Public Policy, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-maryland-1347">University of Maryland</a></em><br />
<br />
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/arguments-why-god-very-probably-exists-75451">original article</a>.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-27260777569556707202017-05-19T06:41:00.001-04:002017-05-19T06:41:27.901-04:00Bill Nye’s Doomsday Predictions on Overpopulation Get Lambasted<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Bill Nye has been in the news a lot lately, mostly as the result of the hyperbolic predictions he is prone to making, many of which are backed up with very little science.<br />
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Whether it’s on <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/bill-nye-gender-ideology-guy">gender identity</a>, <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/earth-warming-catastrophically-fast">global warming</a>, or <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/when-science-guys-try-philosophize-it-gets-messy">philosophy</a>, Nye can often be found serving up “a gold mine of fallacies, half-truths, vacuity, and plain historical ignorance,” as one writer put it.<br />
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One of Nye’s hobby horses is overpopulation. It’s a problem so severe that Nye has <a href="http://www.snopes.com/bill-nye-extra-kids/">wondered aloud</a> whether it was time to penalize people in developed nations who have “extra” kids. (The panelist on his show responded that “we should at least consider it,” to which Nye replied “Well, ‘at least consider it’ is like, ‘do it.'”)<br />
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There is nothing wrong, of course, in publicly musing about the merits of a particular policy, even one that penalizes people for procreating (something many would argue is a fundamental act of humans).<br />
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The problem is that Nye seems willfully ignorant (or stubbornly obtuse) on many of the issues he opines. (One wonders how familiar the Science Guy is with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus">Thomas Malthus </a>and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/the-unrealized-horrors-of-population-explosion.html">Paul Ehrlich</a>, social scientists who made similar population doomsday predictions that never materialized.)<br />
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Perhaps this should not be surprising. As others have noted, Nye is not a scientist; he is a popularist. Nye has received multiple honorary degrees in science, but the only degree he actually earned is a B.S. in mechanical engineering. He is primarily the product of good branding, effective TV presence, and clever marketing (he wears bowties and his last name rhymes with Science Guy).<br />
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In a recently released video, <a href="http://wetheinternet.tv/">We the Internet TV</a> set out to debunk (in rather hilarious fashion) some of Nye’s more wild assertions. It’s a pretty smart clip. Enjoy and decide for yourself if Nye's scientific bona fides match his immense popular stature and cultural influence.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315px" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8wuga0CzRFI" width="560px"></iframe></div>
This post <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/bill-nyes-doomsday-predictions-overpopulation-get-lambasted">Bill Nye’s Doomsday Predictions on Overpopulation Get Lambasted </a> was originally published on <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/">Intellectual Takeout</a> by Jon Miltimore.<br />
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<script async="async" src="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/sites/all/themes/ito/js/ito-repub.js"></script><br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-20208927372979939332017-05-18T06:33:00.002-04:002017-05-18T06:33:37.911-04:00Frugal Prepping: 12 Cheap Ways to Prep Like There’s No Tomorrow<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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With economic times being what they are, it only means that we become more frugal when it comes to <a href="http://amzn.to/2qqBMnr">prepping</a>. No one wants to be overdrawn in their accounts because they were trying to prepare for emergencies. Frugality is an art form, and if used properly, it can save you lots of money. The key is to know where to find these hidden gems. With a little “out of the box” thinking and some patience, you can acquire prepper items like food, tools, shelter, first aid and weaponry for pennies on the dollar.<br />
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Before you begin, keep these tips in mind:<br />
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<li>Find out what your budget it and set aside an <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/5-simple-ways-to-grow-an-emergency-fund_28072015/">allotment</a> each month for preps.</li>
<li>Take <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/inventory-management-for-survival-supplies_15022010/">inventory</a> of what you already have so that you don’t purchase multiples of items.</li>
<li>Have a list of items you need and don’t deviate from the plan!</li>
<li>When you are prepping on a budget, be patient and wait for the right opportunity to purchase.</li>
<li>Don’t ever panic buy or shop impulsively. This is where you lose money and the key here is to save it.</li>
</ul>
There are many strategies you can take to save money on your preps, you just have to choose which one is best for you. Here are 12 suggestions you can take to frugally purchase preparedness items.<br />
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<strong>12 Cheap Ways to Prep Like There’s No Tomorrow</strong></h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Buy in bulk.</strong> A lot of preppers use this frugal shopping strategy so they get more bang for their buck. Discount warehouses are great for this type of purchasing. As well, when you buy in bulk, you will enough of this item for a short-term emergency, so you can cross the item off your prepper list until you need to buy more. The LDS warehouse is another place to get bulk items inexpensively.</li>
<li><strong>Purchase a small item at a time.</strong> If your budget is so tight that you only have $5 extra in your account – you can make that work. Take a look at these <a href="http://www.shtfplan.com/emergency-preparedness/prepping-on-the-cheap-the-5-a-week-shopping-challenge_07102012">prepper food items that are $5</a>.</li>
<li><strong>Barter in your community.</strong> Your skills and services can carry you far if you allow them to. Consider what abilities and knowledge you possess that can be shared with others and barter them for goods or other services. Here are some great tips on how to <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/how-to-barter-better_22082013/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">barter better</a>.</li>
<li><strong>Go to farmer’s markets and get in contact with local growers. </strong>If you work a deal with a vendor at a farmer’s market, you can get lots of food relatively inexpensively. Work a deal such as, get 5 lbs of strawberries to turn into jam and give 4 jars to the vendor. This is a great way to practice self-reliant skills and put food in your pantry. If you are an avid hunter, work a deal and see if someone will preserve the meat. See what I mean?</li>
<li><strong>Thrift stores. </strong>Thrift stores are a great way to collect vintage or antique items for a fraction of the cost. Ready Nutrition writer, <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/the-functional-vintage-kitchen_19112015/">Ruby Burks</a> found <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/cast-iron-cooking-one-of-the-best-investments-a-prepper-can-make_25052015/">cast iron pots</a>, old cookbooks and kitchen utensils to use in her home. Remember, keep a list of items you are looking for and don’t deviate. This will keep your budget in check.</li>
<li><strong>Look for free stuff.</strong> I know this one is a long shot, but there are items you can get for free at garage sales, Craigslist, and even rummaging through items people have thrown out. Freecycle.com is another place to look for items. At this website, people recycle previously owned items and give them away for free.</li>
<li><strong>Go to the Dollar store.</strong> Not only can you buy food at the Dollar stores, but <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/frugal-prepping-12-survival-tools-you-need-in-your-bug-out-bag_06012017/">tools </a>and <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/frugal-prepping-30-survival-items-you-can-get-at-the-dollar-store_28062015/">medical supplies</a>. This could be an untapped local source of preps for you!</li>
<li><strong>Use coupons. </strong>Finding <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/the-preppers-coupon-campaign_27102009/">coupons</a> in the Sunday newspaper, magazines, local grocery stores or even online is a great way to start the search for what you need. Not only can you use coupons to use for short-term and long-term food supplies, but you can find deals for camping equipment or warm clothes, etc. You can literally save hundreds of dollars using coupons.</li>
<li><strong>Purchase gently used items.</strong> Pawn shops, Ebay, military surplus stores, and Craigslist are great places to look for used items. You can save a lot using this method, but take all necessary means to ensure the products are not damaged in any way. As well, if you are meeting someone at their home, practice safety and go with someone else.</li>
<li><strong>Look for deals</strong> – When you are shopping and you come across a deal such as 10 canned goods for $5 – get it! This is a great way to save money and <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/25-must-have-survival-foods-put-them-in-your-pantry-now_03042013/">stock up your pantry</a>. This cumulative savings strategy can go for any of your prepping needs – <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/the-prepared-home-50-essential-items-to-put-in-your-ultimate-survival-medical-kit_28022017/">medical supplies</a>, <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/shtf-dental-care-essential-supplies-and-tips-you-need-to-survive-a-post-collapse-dental-emergency_21042017/">dental care</a>, garden seeds, etc. Typically, these type of deals can be found in your local newspaper. Don’t forget that coupons are your best friend in this situation.</li>
<li><strong>Do-It-Yourself</strong> – Whether it’s DIY projects or dehydrating your own food, this method can save you a lot of money. For example, instead of spending $4 on waterproof matches, dip them in wax yourself and viola! Or, if you need dehydrated food, buy a dehydrator and do it yourself.</li>
<li><strong>Grow your own food. </strong>Having food stashed away for a rainy day is one of the must-have items in your preps. Why not start a garden and grow your own. Any food that comes from our harvest can be dehydrated or canned for long-term use. This instantly saves you money at the grocery store too and is a great way to practice <a href="http://readynutrition.com/resources/going-rogue-15-ways-to-detach-from-the-system_17042015/">self-reliance</a>.</li>
</ol>
We are all looking for ways to save money in our prepper ventures and hopefully some of these suggestions can help you. What are frugal strategies you use to save money on your preps?<br />
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<h3>
</h3>
<div>
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<em>Tess Pennington is the author of <a href="http://amzn.to/1DrawnL" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Prepper’s Blueprint</a>, a comprehensive guide that uses real-life scenarios to help you prepare for any disaster. Because a crisis rarely stops with a triggering event the aftermath can spiral, having the capacity to cripple our normal ways of life. The well-rounded, multi-layered approach outlined in the <a href="http://amzn.to/1DrawnL" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blueprint</a> helps you make sense of a wide array of preparedness concepts through easily digestible action items and supply lists.</em><br />
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<em>Tess is also the author of the highly rated <a href="http://amzn.to/1obI6El" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Prepper’s Cookbook</a>, which helps you to create a plan for stocking, organizing and maintaining a proper emergency food supply and includes over 300 recipes for nutritious, delicious, life-saving meals. </em><br />
<br />
<em>Visit her web site at <a href="http://readynutrition.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ReadyNutrition.com</a> for an extensive compilation of free information on preparedness, homesteading, and healthy living.</em><br />
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<em>This information has been made available by </em><a href="http://readynutrition.com/"><em>Ready Nutrition</em></a><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-90656033362240669812017-05-18T06:29:00.001-04:002017-05-18T06:29:11.546-04:0014 Facts on Beer and U.S. Presidents<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<strong><span style="font-size: 18px;">1) George Washington</span> loved beer and had his own recipe. </strong><br />
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<img alt="" src="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/sites/ito/files/george_washington.jpg" style="height: 188px; width: 250px;" /><br />
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His favorite style was a porter, but he (or his servants or slaves) also brewed his own "small beer," a simpler brew with less alcohol. Here is the recipe he used:<br />
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"Take a large Siffer [Sifter] full of Bran Hops to your Taste. Boil these 3 hours then strain out 30 Gall[ons] into a cooler put in 3 Gall[ons] Molasses while the Beer is Scalding hot or rather draw the Melasses (sic) into the cooler & St[r]ain the Beer on it while boiling Hot. let this stand till it is little more than Blood warm then put in a quart of Yea[s]t if the Weather is very Cold cover it over with a Blank[et] & let it Work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask—leave the bung open till it is almost don[e] Working—Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed."<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: 18px;">2. Franklin Pierce loved beer too much.</span></strong><br />
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Pierce drank <em>lots </em>of beer—and pretty much everything else. He died of cirrhosis of the liver.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: 18px;">3. Thomas Jefferson hired a former British soldier to teach a slave how to brew. </span></strong><br />
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Jefferson too loved his beer. (Are you seeing a theme here?) His wife, Martha, would brew as much as 15 to 20 gallons every few weeks. After Jefferson’s wife died, he brought to Monticello a brewer and former British soldier who had stayed in America after the cessation of hostilities. The brewer taught one of Jefferson’s slaves, Peter Heming, how to brew.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>4. Lyndon Johnson was dangerous when he drank Pearl beer. </strong></span><br />
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Johnson loved drinking Pearl beer out of a can.<br />
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5. He also liked to drink beer <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875716,00.html" style="line-height: 22px;">while driving</a>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>6. Grover Cleveland once attempted to cut back to four beers a day--and failed. </strong></span><br />
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Grover Cleveland, as a young attorney working in Buffalo, could predictably be found in the city’s many beer garden’s with cigar in one hand and a tankard of beer in the other (especially during warm summer evenings). According to author Mark Will-Weber, “Big Steve” (Cleveland’s nickname) made a deal with his opponent during their race for district attorney that they would limit their beer intake to four per day during the campaign. Finding the prohibition stringent, however, the men came up with a solution. They upgraded to four full tankards per day. (If political challenges today could only be resolved so easily.)<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>7. James Garfield was sneaky about his beer drinking. </strong></span><br />
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Garfield once received “criticism” for having a keg of beer on campus. His defense? He claimed it was for “medicinal purposes.”<br />
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8. Garfield, whose presidency followed teetotaler Rutherford B. Hayes, did not serve alcohol at the White House. He would, however, occasionally sneak out for beers in the evening, according to diarist Thomas Donaldson.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>9. Teddy Roosevelt tried to crack down on beer drinking. It didn't go well. </strong></span><br />
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Teddy Roosevelt was not a huge fan of beer or taverns. In fact, while serving as police commissioner in New York during the mid-1890s, the progressive Republican led a crackdown on saloons, especially on Sundays. His crusade did not go well, as he ruefully noted i<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UNQgxw3nWMAC&pg=PT121&lpg=PT121&dq=%E2%80%9CAfter+two+or+three+months,+a+magistrate+was+found+who+decided+judicially+that+seventeen+beers&source=bl&ots=9YzDgiXLhd&sig=I4x0PHK8iCKm33ivar0BFBIhUY4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2w8ftiP3LAhUFHh4KHQscCkoQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CAfter%20two%20or%20three%20months%2C%20a%20magistrate%20was%20found%20who%20decided%20judicially%20that%20seventeen%20beers&f=false" style="line-height: 1.29412em;">n his autobiography</a>. An ordinance that allowed the intake of alcohol with food foiled his efforts: “After two or three months a magistrate was found who decided judicially that seventeen beers and one pretzel made a meal.”<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>10. John Adams loved porters, especially Thomas Hare's. </strong></span><br />
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For years leading up to the American Revolution, colonialists who loved good porters, like George Washington and John Adams, had to import it from London. That changed, however, when a Philadelphia brewer named Robert Hare developed a porter recipe that could compete with the breweries in London. By 1774, Hare’s porter was all the rage in the colonies (the crumbling ties to England might have had something to do with Hare’s success, as well). On the Fourth of July in 1788, a huge party was thrown to celebrate the ten states that had ratified the constitution. Ten toasts were made and a blast of cannon fire accompanied each toast—and a majority of toasters were said to have had Mr. Hare’s famed porter in hand.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>11. Abraham Lincoln did NOT like beer. </strong></span><br />
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Lincoln is considered one of America's greatest presidents; alas, he is one of the few who rarely (if ever) tasted a drop of beer.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>12. During the 1787 Constitutional Convention the Framers drank A LOT. </strong></span><br />
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During the hot summer of 1787 when the U.S. Constitution was signed, delegates drank like fraternity brothers at a reunion. According to one receipt from a local tavern, racked up a few days before the document was completed, the 177 delegates drank the following: 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of porter, 8 bottles of hard cider, 12 bottles of beer, and 7 bowls of alcoholic punch.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: 18px;">13. Jefferson thought beer was good for human health and spirit.</span></strong><br />
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He once said the following: “Beer, if drunk in moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health.”<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>14. Washington came up with creative drunken names for his dogs.</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong><img alt="" src="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/sites/ito/files/george_washington.jpg" style="height: 188px; width: 250px;" /> </strong></span><br />
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Washington enjoyed both hunting and beer so much that he named his French hounds after his, er, fondness for spirits. Among the names of his hounds <a href="http://ourwhitehouse.org/houndsandmules.html">were</a> the following: “Drunkard,” “Tippler,” and “Tipsy.”<br />
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Note: A lot of these facts came from Mark Will-Weber’s very cool book: <em>Mint Juleps With Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking</em>. I highly recommend it to people interested in history or alcohol.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="150" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=intelltakeo0d-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=1621572102&asins=1621572102&linkId=071703905d44904d29786ff45ec40897&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;" width="300"></iframe><br />
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Bonus fact: Ben Franklin, who was not a president, did not really say: “God made beer because he loves us and wants us to be happy.” But it would have been cool if he did.<br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/jmiltimore/?fref=ts" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">Jon Miltimore</a> is the Senior Editor of <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Intellectual Takeout</a>. He is the former Senior Editor of <em>The History Channel Magazine </em>and a former Managing Editor at Scout Media.<br />
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Follow him on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/jmiltimore/?fref=ts" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/miltimore79" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.<br />
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This post <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/14-facts-beer-and-us-presidents">14 Facts on Beer and U.S. Presidents</a> was originally published on <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/">Intellectual Takeout</a> by Jon Miltimore.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-11920835825126913402017-05-18T06:27:00.001-04:002017-05-18T06:27:19.388-04:00Why FDR was against Public Employee Unions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In the case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the Supreme Court announced a 4-4 vote on March 29, 2016. The tie was due to the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. For teachers unions around the country it was a great victory that would have likely not happened.<br />
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Here is how <em>The New York Times </em><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/us/politics/friedrichs-v-california-teachers-association-union-fees-supreme-court-ruling.html?_r=0">describes the decision</a>:<br />
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“The Supreme Court handed organized labor a major victory on Tuesday, deadlocking 4 to 4 in a case that had threatened to cripple the ability of public-sector unions to collect fees from workers who chose not to join and did not want to pay for the unions’ collective bargaining activities.<br />
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It was the starkest illustration yet of how the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia last month has blocked the power of the court’s four remaining conservatives to move the law to the right.<br />
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A ruling allowing workers to refuse to pay the fees would have been the culmination of a decades-long campaign by a group of prominent conservative foundations aimed at weakening unions that represent teachers and other public employees. Tuesday’s deadlock denied them that victory, but it set no precedent and left the door open for further challenges once the Supreme Court is back at full strength.”<br />
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And a little more background from the same article:<br />
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“Under California law, public employees who choose not to join unions must pay a ‘fair share service fee,’ also known as an ‘agency fee,’ typically equivalent to the dues members pay. The fees, the law says, are meant to pay for some of the costs of collective bargaining, including ‘the cost of lobbying activities.’ More than 20 states have similar laws.<br />
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Government workers who are not members of unions have long been able to obtain refunds for the political activities of unions, like campaign spending. The case the court ruled on Tuesday, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, No. 14-915, asked whether such workers must continue to pay for any union activities, including negotiating for better wages and benefits. A majority of the justices had seemed inclined to say no.<br />
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Relying on a 1977 Supreme Court precedent, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, upheld the requirement that the objecting teachers pay fees. Tuesday’s announcement, saying only that ‘the judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court,’ upheld that ruling and set no new precedent.<br />
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The unions defending the compulsory fees said the teachers’ First Amendment arguments were a ruse. Collective bargaining is different from spending on behalf of a candidate, the unions said. They said the plaintiffs were seeking to reap the benefits of such bargaining without paying their fair share of the cost.”</div>
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The issue of public employee unions and negotiations has long been contentious. In fact, for most of America’s history, public employee unions were illegal. The reason being is that the taxpayers don’t actually negotiate with the public employee unions and there is a great danger of those unions actually capturing legislators and other government officials through campaign contributions and other means.</div>
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), a four-term progressive Democrat of the 1930s and 1940s, actually warned about that very danger in a letter he wrote in 1937 to Luther C. Steward, President of the National Federation of Federal Employees:</div>
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“The desire of Government employees for fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions, development of opportunities for advancement, facilities for fair and impartial consideration and review of grievances, and other objectives of a proper employee relations policy, is basically no different from that of employees in private industry. Organization on their part to present their views on such matters is both natural and logical, but meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government.</div>
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<strong>All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.</strong> It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.”</div>
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Continued:</div>
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“Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.”</div>
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The whole document may be read <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15445">here</a>.</div>
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Today, many would argue that what FDR warned about the inability of taxpayers to negotiate with public employee unions has actually come true. Since the <em>Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association</em> was a tie decision, it set no new precedents. Expect this issue to be one that is revisited by the courts and continues to be prominent in national and state discussions.</div>
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<em>This post <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/why-fdr-was-against-public-employee-unions">Why FDR was against Public Employee Unions</a> was originally published on <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/">Intellectual Takeout</a> by Devin Foley.</em><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-77533399761503493002017-05-18T06:19:00.001-04:002017-05-18T06:19:53.408-04:00The One Thing about ‘Climate Change’ That’s Always Bothered Me...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
On the issue of climate change, there’s one particular claim of its apologists that has always bothered me. And I don’t think I’m alone.<br />
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It’s not the idea that we should take better care of the earth—I’m all for adopting a less utilitarian view toward it. It’s not the idea that taking better care of the earth may involve some major sacrifices and life changes—though I’d likely have issues with a national or global mandate. And it’s not the idea that the earth’s temperature may be warming, or cooling, or just “changing” (I can’t keep track of what's currently considered orthodox).<br />
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It’s the claim that recent changes in the earth’s climate have been <em>primarily</em> caused by man, and that policy changes can reverse these changes. To me, it seems problematic to conclude this without defining a benchmark and without adequately taking into account dramatic climate change in past centuries.<br />
<br />
Apparently Philip Jenkins, professor of history at Baylor University, agrees with me.<br />
<br />
In a thoughtful piece for <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/history-and-the-limits-of-the-climate-consensus/">The American Conservative</a>, he explains that he doesn’t take issue with the scientific consensus “that the world’s temperature is in a serious upward trend,” and that it could have significant consequences for life on earth. And he’s in favor of developing new technology that depends more on renewable energy resources.<br />
<br />
As a historian, however, he has a few issues “with defining the limits of our climate consensus, and how these issues are reported in popular media and political debate.”<br />
<br />
For one, writes Jenkins, “[T]he correlation between emissions and temperatures is none too close. Rising temperatures do not correlate with any degree of neatness to overall levels of emissions.”<br />
<br />
Also, Jenkins notes that assertions that modern climate change is “catastrophic and unprecedented” are amusing to historians:<br />
<blockquote>
“[Historians and archaeologists] are very well used to quite dramatic climate changes through history, notably the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period">Medieval Warm Period</a> and the succeeding <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age">Little Ice Age</a>. That latter era, which prevailed from the 14th century through the 19th, is a well-studied and universally acknowledged fact, and its traumatic effects are often cited.”</blockquote>
And there seems to be a lack of precision when it comes to defining what constitutes a “normal” temperature for the earth. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference">2015 Paris Conference</a> said it hoped to restrict “the increase in global temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to… limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”—and did not provide further clarification. But as Jenkins asks,<br />
<blockquote>
“[W]hat on earth is intended here? Which pre-industrial levels are we talking about? The levels of AD 900, of 1150, of 1350, of 1680, of 1740? All those eras were assuredly pre-industrial, but the levels were significantly different in each of those years.”</blockquote>
These all seem like reasonable points to raise, though it’s difficult to do so in today’s political “climate” without being immediately shouted down.<br />
<br />
Again, I don’t wish to challenge the scientific consensus on climate change. Neither does Jenkins. But before moving forward with sweeping policies and implementing regulations that will be a significant tax (in both senses of the word) on businesses and individuals, I would simply ask: Shouldn’t we proceed with caution? Shouldn’t we make sure that we have satisfactory answers to the issues raised above?<br />
<br />
It seems like the scientific thing to do.<br />
<br />
<em>This post <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/one-thing-about-%E2%80%98climate-change%E2%80%99-%E2%80%99s-always-bothered-me">The One Thing about ‘Climate Change’ That’s Always Bothered Me...</a> was originally published on <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/">Intellectual Takeout</a> by Daniel Lattier.</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-55354013388759875442017-05-18T06:16:00.002-04:002017-05-18T06:18:24.139-04:00When the Supreme Court Stopped FDR's Economic Fascism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Eighty years ago, on May 27, 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court said no to economic fascism in America. The trend toward bigger and ever-more intrusive government, unfortunately, was not stopped, but the case nonetheless was a significant event that at that time prevented the institutionalizing of a Mussolini-type corporativist system in America.<br />
<br />
In a unanimous decision the nine members of the Supreme Court said there were constitutional limits beyond which the federal government could not go in claiming the right to regulate the economic affairs of the citizenry. It was a glorious day in American judicial history, and is worth remembering.<br />
<br />
When Franklin Roosevelt ran for president in the autumn of 1932 he did so on a Democratic Party platform that many a classical liberal might have gladly supported and even voted for. The platform said that the federal government was far too big, taxed and spent far too much, and intruded in the affairs of the states to too great an extent. It said government spending had to be cut, taxes reduced, and the federal budget balanced. It called for free trade and a solid gold-backed currency.<br />
<br />
But as soon as Roosevelt took office in March 1933 he instituted a series of programs and policies that turned all those promises upside down. In the first four years of FDR’s New Deal, taxes were increased, government spending reached heights never seen before in U.S. history, and the federal budget bled red with deficits.The bureaucracy ballooned; public-works projects increasingly dotted the land; and the heavy hand of government was all over industry and agriculture. The United States was taken off the gold standard, with the American people compelled to turn in their gold com and built lion to the government for paper money under the threat of confiscation and imprisonment.<br />
<br />
In June 1933 Congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), after which FDR created the National Recovery Administration (NRA). Modeled on Mussolini’s fascist economic system, it forced virtually all American industry, manufacturing, and retail business into cartels possessing the power to set prices and wages, and to dictate the levels of production. Within a few months over 200 separate pricing and production codes were imposed on the various branches of American business. The symbol of the NRA was a Blue Eagle that had lightning bolts in one claw and an industrial gear in the other. Every business in the country was asked to have a Blue Eagle sign in its window that declared, “We Do Our Part,” meaning it followed the pricing and production codes. Citizen committees were formed to spy on local merchants and report if they dared to sell at lower prices.<br />
<br />
Propaganda rallies in support of the NRA were held across the country. During halftime at football games cheerleaders would form the shape of the Blue Eagle. Government-sponsored parades featured Hollywood stars supporting the NRA. At one of these parades the famous singer Al Jolson was filmed being asked what he thought of the NRA; he replied, “NRA? NRA? Why it’s better than my wedding night!” Film shorts produced by Hollywood in support of the NRA were shown in theaters around the country; in one of them child star Shirley Temple danced and sang the praises of big-government regulation of the American economy.<br />
<br />
The NRA codes were soon joined by similar controls over farming with the passage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). Farmers were given subsidies and government-guaranteed price supports, with Washington determining what crops could be grown and what livestock could be raised. Government ordered some crops to be plowed under and some livestock slaughtered, all in the name of centrally planned farm production and pricing.<br />
<br />
Much of the urban youth of America were rounded up and sent off to national forests for regimentation and mock military-style drilling as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The Works Progress Administration (WPA) created make-work projects for thousands of able-bodied men, all at taxpayers’ expense. Since unemployed artists were “workers” too, they were set to work in government buildings across the land. Even today, in some o f the post offices dating from the 1930s, one can see murals depicting happy factory workers and farm hands in a style similar to those produced in Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany.<br />
<br />
This headlong march into economic fascism was brought to a halt by the Supreme Court. The catalyst was a legal case known as the <em>Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States</em>. Schechter, a slaughterhouse that sold chickens to kosher markets in New York City, was accused of violating the “fair competition” codes under the NRA. The case made its way up to the Supreme Court, with the nine justices laying down their unanimous decision on May 27, 1935.<br />
<br />
Three hundred people packed the court that day to hear the decision, with prominent members of Congress and the executive branch in the audience. The justices declared that the federal government had exceeded its authority under the interstate-commerce clause of the Constitution, since the defendant purchased and sold all the chickens it marketed within the boundaries of the State of New York. Therefore, the federal government lacked the power to regulate the company’s production and prices. In addition, the justices stated that the NRA’s power to impose codes constituted arbitrary and discretionary control inconsistent with the limited and enumerated powers delegated by the Constitution.<br />
<h4>
AAA REJECTED</h4>
This was soon followed by the Supreme Court’s rejection of the AAA in January 1936, when the justices insisted that the federal government lacked the authority to tax food processors to pay for the farmers’ subsidies and price supports. Furthermore, since farming was generally a local and state activity, the federal government did not have the power to regulate it under the interstate-commerce clause.<br />
<br />
Franklin Roosevelt was furious that what he called those “nine old men” should attempt to keep America in the “horse and buggy era” when this great nation needed a more powerful central government to manage economic affairs in the “modern age.” FDR’s response was his famous “court packing” scheme, in which he asked Congress to give him the power to add more justices to the Supreme Court in order to tilt the balance in favor of the “enlightened” and “progressive” policies o f the New Deal. But this blatant power grab by the executive branch ended up being too much even for many of the Democrats in Congress, and Roosevelt failed in this attempt to assert naked presidential authority over another branch o f the federal government.<br />
<br />
Shortly after the Supreme Court declared both the NRA and AAA unconstitutional, David Lawrence, founder and long-time editor of <em>U.S. News and World Report</em>, published a book titled <em>Nine Honest Men</em> (1936). He praised the justices for their devotion to the bedrock principles of the Constitution, and their defense of the traditional American ideals of individual liberty, private property, and the rule of law — even in the face of the emotional appeal of government to “do something” during an economic crisis.<br />
<br />
Since that landmark decision 80 years ago against the imposition of economic fascism in America, the U.S. government has continued to grow in power over the American citizenry. But it should be remembered that men of courage, integrity, and principle can stand up to Big Brother and resist the headlong march into economic tyranny.<br />
<br />
<em>Richard M. Ebeling is BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. He was president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) from 2003 to 2008</em>.<br />
<br />
<em>This blog post has been reproduced with the permission of the <a href="http://www.fee.org/#axzz2OsGvFN38" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Foundation for Economic Education</a>. The original blog post can be found <a href="http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/let-a-thousand-home-businesses-bloom" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-30065514711689526932017-05-18T06:15:00.002-04:002017-05-18T06:15:08.261-04:00These three bills would permanently Drain The Swamp<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://bettereconomy.org/2017/04/30/pass-the-reins-act/">.<img alt="" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1811" height="300" src="https://donnyfergusoncom.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/reinsactwarrenbutton.jpg?w=300" width="300" />.</a><br />
<br />
Over the past eight decades, Congress has gradually relinquished its lawmaking role and left it to the administrative state, said a conservative senator at a Capitol Hill event on Wednesday.<br />
<br />
“Many Americans now feel that they are not in control of their own government,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said during an event hosted at the Federalist Society’s fifth annual Executive Branch Review Conference. “The administrative state is designed to be insulated from the will of the people.”<br />
<br />
The Utah senator said that one way he is working to combat this phenomenon is through an initiative he has started called <a href="https://www.lee.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/article-one-project">Article One Project</a>.<br />
<br />
“Our goal is to develop and advance and hopefully enact an agenda of structural reforms that will strengthen Congress by reclaiming the legislative powers that have been ceded to the executive branch,” Lee said.<br />
<br />
Lee said that lawmakers are to blame for the shift in power.<br />
<br />
“We are not, in fact, the victims, we are the perpetrators,” Lee said, adding:<br />
<blockquote>
We have done this willfully because it makes our job easier. It is a whole lot easier and less politically risky to have somebody else do the lawmaking than it is to do the lawmaking yourself.</blockquote>
There are several pieces of legislation, Lee said, that could help address executive overreach.<br />
<br />
<b>1.) REINS Act</b><br />
<br />
The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/26">REINS Act</a>, which has passed the House but has yet to pass the Senate, would make progress in regaining ground Congress has lost, Lee said.<br />
<br />
This proposed law would require both congressional and presidential approval of major rules, which “have an economic impact of $100 million or more,” Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2017/01/04/reins-act-will-make-government-agencies-accountable-to-the-people/">wrote</a> in a recent op-ed.<br />
<br />
“Under this law, the specialized know-how within each agency would still be allowed to contribute to the regulatory process,” Lee said.<br />
<br />
“But ultimately, Congress would be responsible for every major regulation that went into effect. This would make it easier for American voters to know who to blame for bad policies. As things currently stand, lawmakers can have it both ways.<br />
<br />
<b>2.) Separation of Powers Restoration Act</b><br />
<br />
The second piece of legislation Lee suggested to help restore congressional authority is the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/76">Separation of Powers Restoration Act</a>, which has passed the House in 2016.<br />
<br />
In a 2016 <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/284123-separation-of-powers-restoration-act-key-to-rebalancing">op-ed</a> in The Hill, Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, warned that “The practice of administrative agencies engaging in de facto ‘lawmaking’ was exacerbated by a 1984 Supreme Court decision, [Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council], which determined that courts must defer to agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous laws as long as their interpretation is deemed ‘reasonable.’”<br />
<br />
The Separation of Powers Restoration Act, which Ratcliffe has <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/76">introduced</a>in the House again this year, would “[reverse] the 1984 Supreme Court decision that established the ‘Chevron doctrine,’ placing the power to determine ambiguous laws back into the hands of the judiciary.”<br />
<br />
“The bill would end the dysfunctional status quo that tilts the legal playing field in favor of bureaucrats who pass the legislation to [place] federal law in the hands of legislators and the power to write and judges power to interpret just as the Constitution,” Lee said.<br />
<br />
<b>3.) Agency Accountability Act</b><br />
<br />
The third piece of legislation, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5499">Agency Accountability Act</a>, will do exactly what its name implies, Lee said, and will hold agencies accountable.<br />
<br />
The act, which has been <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/850">introduced</a> in the House, would “make federal agencies accountable … by directing most fines, fees, and unappropriated proceeds to the Treasury instead of letting federal agencies keep the money and then spend it as they see fit,” the Utah senator said.<br />
<br />
Right now “agencies have the ability to use funds received through fines, fees, and proceeds from legal settlements without going through the formal appropriations process, thus avoiding congressional oversight,” according to a <a href="http://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/commentary/congress-has-ceded-too-much-authority-agencies-bill-would-restore">report</a> from The Heritage Foundation’s Justin Bogie, a senior policy analyst in fiscal affairs.<br />
<br />
If signed into law, this legislation would help restore Congress’ role in overseeing how money is spent, Lee said.<br />
<br />
“You see the Constitution has this pesky little provision that … Congress has the power and the responsibility to direct spending of federal dollars. The power of the purse is one of Congress’ most potent tools for controlling bureaucracies,” Lee said.<br />
<br />
While Lee said that many Americans feel like they have lost control of their government, legislation like the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5499">Agency Accountability Act</a> would be a remedy.<br />
<br />
“Passing the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5499">Agency Accountability Act</a> will go a long way in putting Congress, and by extension, the American people, back in charge of the federal bureaucracies and specifically, the way they spend money,” Lee said.<br />
<br />
Lee urged Congress to act.<br />
<br />
“If we are able to pass even one of these legislative proposals … then we will have made real progress toward listening to the people and making sure that our government itself has to listen to the people,” Lee said, adding:<br />
<blockquote>
If we can pass all three bills, it would constitute a fundamental, generational shift of power in the country, a shift of power back to the people.</blockquote>
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<aside class="narrow"><em>Report by The Daily Signal's Rachel del Guidice. <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2017/05/17/3-bills-sen-mike-lee-thinks-shift-power-back-people/">Originally published at The Daily Signal</a>. The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. <a href="https://secured.heritage.org/dailysignal?utm_source=dailysignal&utm_medium=textllink&utm_campaign=tds_onsite&utm_content=0615_donatenow">Donate now</a></em></aside></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-67306141142141243402017-05-18T06:09:00.000-04:002017-05-18T06:09:34.634-04:00Economic Theory Really Is Pro-Immigration<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In his now-classic work <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Policies-ebook/dp/B007AIXLDI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493233819&sr=8-1&keywords=the+myth+of+the+rational+voter"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Myth of the Rational Voter</span></a></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Bryan Caplan identifies four systematic biases about economics held by the average citizen: </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">make-work bias</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (an inclination to overestimate the disadvantages of temporary job destruction due to productivity increases), </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">anti-market bias </span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">(a tendency to overlook the benefits of the market as a coordination mechanism), </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">pessimistic bias </span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">(an inclination to underestimate the present and future performance of the economy), and </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">anti-foreign bias</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (a tendency to underestimate the economic benefits of interaction with foreigners). </span><br />
<br />
Widespread biases on economics are far from being harmless.<span style="font-weight: 400;"> Wrong ideas held by voters usually lead to catastrophic policies due to the inherent nature of the democratic process. In other words, in most cases, politicians undertake those policies that they deem popular among voters in order to get reelected. If those policies beget pernicious consequences for the economy, harmless beliefs turn into lower living standards for all.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Of those four biases, the most potentially harmful is the anti-foreign bias. This inclination to underestimate the benefits of economic cooperation with foreigners manifests itself politically in two main ways: protectionism and anti-immigration policies. Despite the recent surge of protectionism in some developed countries, </span><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/PTAs_WTO2011.png"><span style="font-weight: 400;">free trade is now the rule rather than the exception</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in most parts of the world. However, when it comes to immigration, only a few steps have been taken worldwide over the last few decades in a direction of liberalization (even though </span><a href="https://openborders.info/economist-consensus/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">the consensus about the benefits of more open borders in the economics profession</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is probably as strong as the consensus around free trade).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">As I will show in this series of two articles, anti-immigration policies reduce the well-being of both potential immigrants and host societies, as shown by economic theory and empirical evidence. Or, to put it differently: even a partial liberalization of immigration restrictions would, in the long-term, contribute to improving the standards of living globally. </span><br />
<br />
<strong>Economic Theory Supports Immigration-Friendly Policies</strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The economic case against less restrictive immigration policies rests on shaky pillars. The most common anti-immigration arguments are related to the supposedly negative effects that immigration has on the host country’s labor market, and, more specifically, its impact on employment and wages. According to advocates of immigration restrictions, immigrants do not only take natives’ jobs, but also have a depressive effect on wages.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">However, economic theory does not support these assertions. First, </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">the economy is not a zero-sum game</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">: the numbers of jobs available is not finite. As pointed out by Alex Tabarrok (</span><a href="http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1737"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and </span><a href="http://www.independent.org/issues/article.asp?id=486"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">), immigrants are not only producers but also consumers, which implies that an increase in demand triggered by the expansion of </span>the immigrant population goes hand in hand with an increase in total employment.<span style="font-weight: 400;"> Also – and contrary to conventional wisdom – not only highly-qualified immigrants create </span><a href="https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/17/study-immigrants-founded-51-of-u-s-billion-dollar-startups/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">positive externalities</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> on host economies. Low-skilled immigrants tend to take lower-productivity jobs (as they often either lack higher education or do not speak the language), allowing the native-born to access higher-productivity jobs (assuming free trade and a flexible labor market).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">All said above can be also applied to wages. All else equal</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the law of supply and demand says that an increase in the supply of labor would inevitably cause lower wages. However, more immigrants also mean a </span><a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2010/Powellimmigration.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">higher demand for goods and services</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which in turn results in a higher demand for labor, preventing a generalized decrease in salaries. Even in those cases when wages in a particular sector are temporarily pushed down, lower wages lead to lower costs for companies, which usually results in lower prices for consumers due to the process of competition. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Immigration-friendly policies can also help tackle the demographic problem that many developed countries have been experiencing over the last years. For instance, the progressive demographic ageing of the American population is already having an impact on the US social security system. According to the </span><a href="http://www.prb.org/Publications/Media-Guides/2016/aging-unitedstates-fact-sheet.aspx"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Population Reference Bureau</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the number of Americans over 65 years old will have moved from 15% in 2014 to 24% of the population by 2060. As a result, </span><a href="http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0004_worker-benefit-ratio"><span style="font-weight: 400;">the worker-to-beneficiary ratio</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> will decrease by 32%, from 3.4 in 1990 to 2.3 in 2030. This problem could be mitigated by adopting a more flexible immigration policy that increases the working population, reversing the trend that will otherwise end up with significant spending cuts in social security benefits. </span><br />
<br />
<strong>Benefits for the Sending Countries and Immigrants</strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The discussion so far has focused on the benefits of immigration for receptor countries. How do the </span><a href="https://www.myattorneyhome.com/Glossary/sending-country"><span style="font-weight: 400;">sending countries</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and immigrants benefit from the migratory phenomenon? Immigrants usually transfer part of their income to their countries of origin with the aim of economically supporting their families and friends. These so-called remittances are flows of capital from developed to developing countries which assist in the economic development of sending countries. </span><br />
<br />
The main beneficiaries of eliminating barriers to labor mobility would be, no doubt, immigrants themselves. This is due to the concept of <span style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Place Premium</em>. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">This concept, first introduced by Michael Clemens, Claudio E. Montenegro, and Lant Pritchettin in a 2008 </span><a href="https://www.cgdev.org/publication/place-premium-wage-differences-identical-workers-across-us-border-working-paper-148"><span style="font-weight: 400;">paper</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, refers to the automatic increase in earnings (PPP adjusted) that a worker experiences by moving from a low-productivity country to a high-productivity country, without increasing the worker’s human capital. The factors behind this phenomenon are multiple: differences in capital accumulation, quality of infrastructures, technology, proximity to high-productive workers, different legal frameworks, etc. The empirical evidence (which will be dealt with in the second and final article of this series) shows that wage differences among countries due to </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Place Premium </span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">are immense. The corollary is simple: more open borders would bring about a substantial reduction in poverty levels across the world. </span><br />
<br />
<strong>Potential Gains from Reducing Global Migration Barriers</strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">What would happen if migration barriers were partially or totally eliminated on a global scale? In his paper </span><a href="http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.3.83"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Economics and Immigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Michael Clemens, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, reviews the academic literature on the topic. If all barriers to labor mobility were to be removed, world GDP would increase in the range of 50% to 150%.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Even partial liberalizations would bring about considerable gains. For instance, a reform that allowed 7% of the population to emigrate to higher-productivity countries would result in an efficiency gain of 10% of world GDP. To put this into perspective, if all remaining trade barriers were eliminated, world GDP would grow by just 2 or 3%. As shown, the impact of relaxing migration barriers on the world economy would be extremely positive, especially for the poorest segments of population. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The theoretical analysis above clearly supports the adoption of more immigration-friendly policies as a way of increasing economic growth and improving the welfare of millions and millions of people, including those in receptor countries. However, economic theory needs to be supported by facts. In my next article, I will provide empirical evidence in support of eliminating barriers to immigration.</span><br />
<br />
<img alt="Luis Pablo de la Horra" src="http://fee.org/media/18843/ruiz.jpg?anchor=center&mode=crop&height=287&widthratio=1.3937282229965156794425087108&rnd=131317337480000000" /><br />
<h5>
<a href="http://fee.org/people/luis-pablo-de-la-horra/"><br />
Luis Pablo de la Horra<br />
</a></h5>
Luis Pablo de la Horra is a Spanish finance graduate from Vlerick Business School.<br />
<div style="font-style: italic;">
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href="https://fee.org/articles/economic-theory-really-is-pro-immigration/">original article</a>.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-10005278237516953852017-05-18T06:06:00.002-04:002017-05-18T06:06:18.051-04:00What the Self-Esteem Movement Got Disastrously Wrong<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of Saturday Night Live’s most popular skits in the early 90s was a mock self-help show called “Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley.” Smalley, played by now-Senator Al Franken, would begin each show by reciting into the mirror, “I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggone it, people like me.”<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="150" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-DIETlxquzY" style="height: 279.562px; max-width: 560px; width: 497px;" width="300"></iframe><br />
<br />
This was a spoof of the “self-esteem movement,” which in the 80s had been all the rage. In that decade, self-esteem became a hot topic for motivational speakers and almost a book genre unto itself. In 1986, California even established a self-esteem “State Task Force.” But by the next decade, the movement had degenerated into an easy late-night punchline. Even today, Smalley’s simpering smile is the kind of image that the term “self-esteem” evokes for many.<br />
<br />
<strong>Generation Barney</strong><br />
<br />
The self-esteem movement is also widely blamed for its influence on American schools and families. In the name of building self-esteem, teachers and parents showered children with effusive, unconditional praise. In the name of protecting self-esteem, kids were sheltered from any criticism or adverse <a href="https://fee.org/articles/wise-parenting-uses-natural-consequences-not-artificial-ones/">consequences</a>. The sugary rot spread to children's television as well. Many of today’s young adults were raised on Barney the Dinosaur, who gushed with “feel-good” affirmations just as sappy as Smalley’s.<br />
<br />
I am reminded of a moment from my own education career in the early 2000s. I had designed a classroom game for preschoolers, and one of my colleagues, a veteran early childhood educator, objected that my game involved competition and winners. “Your game can’t have a winner, because that means other kids will be losers,” she explained.<br />
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According to critics, this kind of mollycoddling has yielded a millennial generation full of emotionally fragile young adults who, in the workplace, expect praise and affirmation simply for showing up, and who can’t cope with (much less adapt to) constructive criticism. It is also partially blamed for the rise of politically-correct university “snowflakes” (aka “crybullies”) and their petulant demands for “safe spaces” on campus.<br />
<br />
<strong>An Unknown Ideal</strong><br />
<br />
Ironically, these criticisms would be heartily endorsed by the father of the self-esteem movement. The whole thing was kicked off by an influential 1969 book titled <em>The Psychology of Self-Esteem</em>, written by Nathaniel Branden (1930-2014), a psychotherapist and one-time colleague and lover of Ayn Rand. It was the first of a long series of books by Branden about self-esteem, which included <em>The Disowned Self</em> (1971), <em>Honoring the Self</em> (1983), <em>How To Raise Your Self-Esteem</em> (1987), and <em>The Power of Self-Esteem</em> (1992).<br />
<br />
In <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Six-Pillars-Self-Esteem-Definitive-Leading/dp/0553374397"><em>The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem</em></a> (1994), his definitive book on the subject, Branden expressed deep dissatisfaction with prevailing discussions of the concept, especially after the movement became an explosive fad in the 80s. In that period, the concept of self-esteem was distorted by what Branden called “the oversimplifications and sugar-coatings of pop psychology.” Branden declared that:<br />
<blockquote>
“I do not share the belief that self-esteem is a gift we have only to claim (by <strong>reciting affirmations</strong>, perhaps). On the contrary, its possession over time represents an achievement.” <em>[Emphasis added here and below.]</em></blockquote>
As Branden understood and explained it, self-esteem was an action-oriented, tough-minded concept. If Branden had been Stuart Smalley’s therapist, he would have advised him to stop mouthing empty self-compliments into the mirror and instead to start building real self-esteem through deep reflection and concrete action.<br />
<br />
Branden especially deplored how badly education reformers were getting self-esteem wrong. He wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
“We do not serve the healthy development of young people when we convey that self-esteem may be achieved by reciting “I am special” every day, or by stroking one’s own face while saying ‘I love me’…”</blockquote>
He elaborated that:<br />
<blockquote>
“I have stressed that <strong>‘feel good’ notions are harmful</strong> rather than helpful. Yet if one examines the proposals offered to teachers on how to raise students’ self-esteem, many are the kind of trivial nonsense that gives self-esteem a bad name, such as <strong>praising and applauding a child for virtually everything he or she does</strong>, dismissing the importance of <strong>objective accomplishments</strong>, <strong>handing out gold stars</strong> on every possible occasion, and propounding an <strong>‘entitlement’ idea of self-esteem</strong> that leaves it divorced from both behavior and character. One of the consequences of this approach is to expose the whole self-esteem movement in the schools to ridicule.”</blockquote>
Branden further clarified:<br />
<blockquote>
“Therefore, let me stress once again that when I write of self-efficacy or self-respect, I do so in the context of reality, not of feelings generated out of wishes or affirmations or gold stars granted as a <strong>reward for showing up</strong>. When I talk to teachers, I talk about reality-based self-esteem. Let me say further that one of the characteristics of persons with healthy self-esteem is that they tend to assess their abilities and accomplishments realistically, neither denying nor exaggerating them.”</blockquote>
<strong>Other-Esteem</strong><br />
<br />
Branden also criticized those who:<br />
<blockquote>
“…preferred to focus only on how others might wound one’s feelings of worth, not how one might inflict the wound oneself. This attitude is typical of <strong>those who believe one’s self-esteem is primarily determined by other people</strong>.”</blockquote>
Indeed, what most “self-esteem” advocates fail to understand is that other-reliant “self-esteem” is a contradiction in terms. Far from building self-esteem, many of the counselors, teachers, and parents of yesteryear obstructed its growth by getting kids hooked on a spiritual I.V. drip of external validation. Instead of self-esteem, this created a dependence on “<a href="https://fee.org/articles/are-you-not-selfish-enough/">other-esteem</a>.”<br />
<br />
It is no wonder then that today we are faced with the (often exaggerated) phenomenon of young, entitled, high-maintenance <a href="https://fee.org/articles/are-you-not-selfish-enough/">validation-junkies</a> in the classroom and the workplace. Their self-esteem has been crippled by being, on the one hand, atrophied by the psychic crutches of arbitrary authoritarian approval, and, on the other hand, repeatedly fractured by the psychic cudgels of arbitrary authoritarian disapproval.<br />
<br />
Almost entirely neglected has been the stable middle ground of letting children learn to spiritually stand, walk, and run on their own: to build the strength of their self-esteem through the experience of <a href="https://fee.org/articles/spark-and-fuel-how-to-help-your-child-learn-without-resorting-to-compulsion/">self-directed pursuits</a>, setting their <a href="https://fee.org/articles/are-you-not-selfish-enough/">own standards</a>, and adapting to the <a href="https://fee.org/articles/wise-parenting-uses-natural-consequences-not-artificial-ones/">natural consequences</a> of the real world.<br />
<br />
Branden also noted that self-esteem is not promoted by:<br />
<blockquote>
“…identifying self-worth with membership in a particular group (<strong>“ethnic pride”</strong>) rather than with personal character. Let us remember that <strong>self-esteem pertains to that which is open to our volitional choice</strong>. It cannot properly be a function of the family we were born into, or our race, or the color of our skin, or the achievements of our ancestors. These are values people sometimes cling to in order to avoid responsibility for achieving <strong>authentic self-esteem</strong>. They are sources of <strong>pseudo self-esteem</strong>. Can one ever take legitimate pleasure in any of these values? Of course. Can they ever provide temporary support for fragile, growing egos? Probably. But they are not substitutes for consciousness, responsibility, or integrity. They are not sources of self-efficacy and self-respect. They can, however, become sources of self-delusion.”</blockquote>
This helps to explain the emotional fragility of young people obsessed with “identity politics,” especially the <a href="https://fee.org/articles/trump-s-ego-is-actually-too-small/">perverse pride in group victimhood</a> that pervades the campus left. It also speaks to the agitation and resentment of today’s crop of white nationalists and other right-wing “identitarians.” As Ayn Rand wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
"The overwhelming majority of racists are men who have earned no sense of personal identity, who can claim no individual achievement or distinction, and who seek the illusion of a “tribal self-esteem” by alleging the inferiority of some other tribe.”</blockquote>
Authentic self-esteem promotes, not codependency and fragility, but independence, enterprise, resilience, adaptability, and a growth mindset: exactly the character traits that individuals, young and old, need more of in today’s economy and political climate.<br />
<br />
It is nothing short of tragic that the confusions of the so-called self-esteem movement have turned an indispensable concept into an object of ridicule and blame. Far from being the source of our problems, self-esteem is the <a href="https://fee.org/articles/trump-s-ego-is-actually-too-small/">missing solution</a>.<br />
<br />
<img alt="Dan Sanchez" src="http://fee.org/media/20718/dan_sanchez_2017.jpg?center=0.306282722513089,0.46078431372549017&mode=crop&height=287&widthratio=1.3937282229965156794425087108&rnd=131317337460000000" /><br />
<h5>
<a href="http://fee.org/people/dan-sanchez/"><br />
Dan Sanchez<br />
</a></h5>
Dan Sanchez is Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writings are collected at <a href="http://www.dansanchez.me/">DanSanchez.me</a>.<br />
<div style="font-style: italic;">
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-36668370008286253902017-05-18T06:03:00.001-04:002017-05-18T06:03:28.640-04:00The Road to Serfdom: 15 Quotes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">F.A. Hayek published <em>The Road to Serfdom </em>in 1944 as a response to the Russian communists and the German and Italian fascists of the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s, as well as to those in other parts of the West that might be tempted by the allure of a society based on total security or equality.<br />
<br />
Hayek worried that the impulses for planning and power by the intellectual elite and the desire for security and equality by the people could be ruinous to free societies. He believed that those who argue most for giving the public freedom and security by increasing the power of the state would be the very individuals who would put the public on the road to serfdom. It is impossible for a society to work toward one end, for example equality or material security, and to keep its freedom. In the end, according to Hayek, the masses will become serfs, serving those who hold the power in government.<br />
<br />
Below are fifteen quotes from <em>Road to Serfdom </em>that will give you an idea of some of his concerns. If you haven’t read the book, it’s a good one to add to your reading list.<br />
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Fifteen quotes from Hayek’s <em>The Road to Serfdom: </em><br />
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1. “As is so often true, the nature of our civilization has been seen more clearly by its enemies than by most of its friends.”<br />
<br />
2. “…the promise of greater freedom has become one of the most effective weapons of socialist propaganda … what was promised to us as the Road to Freedom was in fact the High Road to Servitude.”<br />
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3. “…the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us.<br />
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4. “The common features of all collectivist systems may be described, in a phrase ever dear to socialists of all schools, as the deliberate organization of the labors of society for a definite social goal.”<br />
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5. “…democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something so utterly different that few of those who now wish it would be prepared to accept the consequences, many will not believe until the connection has been laid bare in all its aspects.”<br />
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6. “The [classical] liberal argument is in favor of making the best possible use of the forces of competition as a means of coordinating human efforts, not an argument for leaving things just as they are.”<br />
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7. “Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another.”<br />
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8. “…socialism means the abolition of private enterprise, of private ownership of the means of production, and the creation of a system of ‘planned economy’ in which the entrepreneur working for profit is replaced by a central planning body.”<br />
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9. “Hitler did not have to destroy democracy; he merely took advantage of the decay of democracy and at the critical moment obtained the support of many to whom, though they detested Hitler, he yet seemed the only man strong enough to get things done.”<br />
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10. “By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.”<br />
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11. “The younger generation of today has grown up in a world in which in school and press the spirit of commercial enterprise has been represented as disreputable and the making of profit is immoral, where to employ a hundred people is represented as exploitation but to command the same number as honorable.”<br />
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12. “Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity.”<br />
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13. “It is essential that we should relearn frankly to face the fact that freedom can be had only at a price and that as individuals we must be prepared to make severe material sacrifices to preserve our liberty.”<br />
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14. “Probably it is true that the very magnitude of the outrages committed by the totalitarian governments, instead of increasing the fear that such a system might one day arise in more enlightened countries, has rather strengthened the assurance that it cannot happen here."<br />
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15. “Nothing makes conditions more unbearable than the knowledge that no effort of ours can change them…”<br />
<br />
This post <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/road-serfdom-15-quotes">The Road to Serfdom: 15 Quotes</a> was originally published on <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/">Intellectual Takeout</a> by Devin Foley.<br />
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-10164886989245611662017-05-17T13:04:00.002-04:002017-05-17T13:04:36.868-04:00Here's why Trump will likely win reelection in 2020<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Most <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html">Americans don’t like Trump</a>. <img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/77362/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" /><br />
<br />
Trump will most likely be reelected in 2020.<br />
<br />
How can both of these statements be true? Here’s how:<br />
<br />
Even when people are unhappy with a state of affairs, they are usually disinclined to change it. In <a href="https://www.academia.edu/26781261/From_Political_Liberalism_to_Para-Liberalism_Epistemological_Pluralism_Cognitive_Liberalism_and_Authentic_Choice">my area of research</a>, the cognitive and behavioral sciences, this is known as the “default effect.”<br />
<br />
Software and entertainment companies <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-power-of-default-settings-1487266744">exploit this tendency</a> to empower programs to <a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/the-windows-10-privacy-settings-you-need-to-change-right-now-1301257">collect as much data as possible from consumers</a>, or to keep us glued to our seats for “<a href="https://digiwonk.gadgethacks.com/how-to/prevent-binge-watching-by-disabling-netflixs-sneaky-auto-play-feature-0160581/">one more episode</a>” of a streaming show. Overall, only <a href="https://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2011/09/14/do-users-change-their-settings/">5 percent of users</a> ever change these settings, despite widespread concerns about how companies might be <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/21/the-state-of-privacy-in-america/">using collected information</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Save-Everything-Click-Here-Technological/dp/1610393708">manipulating people’s choices</a>.<br />
<br />
The default effect also powerfully shapes U.S. politics.<br />
<h2>
Four more years</h2>
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to four consecutive terms as president of the United States, serving from the Great Depression to World War II. To prevent future leaders from possibly holding and consolidating power indefinitely, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxii">22nd Amendment</a> was passed, limiting subsequent officeholders to a maximum of two terms.<br />
<br />
Eleven presidents have been elected since then.<br />
<br />
Eight of these administrations won a renewed mandate: Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.<br />
<br />
Even the three single-term aberrations largely underscore the incumbency norm.<br />
<br />
Had Ford won in 1976, it would have marked three consecutive terms for the GOP. If George H.W. Bush had won in 1992, it would have meant four consecutive Republican terms.<br />
<br />
Since 1932, only once has a party held the White House for less than eight years: the administration of Democrat Jimmy Carter from 1976 to 1980.<br />
<br />
Therefore, it’s a big deal that <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/25/america-is-getting-used-to-trumps-insanity/">Trump is now the default</a> in American politics. Simply by virtue of this, he is likely to be reelected.<br />
<h2>
Popularity is overrated</h2>
Trump won his first term despite record low approval ratings, triumphing over the <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/197231/trump-clinton-finish-historically-poor-images.aspx">marginally less unpopular</a> Hillary Clinton. He will probably be able to repeat this feat if necessary.<br />
<br />
The president continues to enjoy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/17/donald-trump-is-doing-just-fine-with-the-only-people-he-cares-about-and-needs/">staunch support</a> from the voters who put him in the White House. He has raised millions of dollars in small donations for reelection, pulling in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/us/politics/trump-raises-millions-for-2020-re-election-bid.html">twice as much money as Barack Obama</a> in his first 100 days. And he’s <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/07/president-donald-trump-uses-election-laws-to-push-agenda/101262288/">already putting that money to use</a> running ads in key states that trumpet his achievements and criticize political rivals.<br />
<br />
Although most don’t like or trust Trump, polls show he seems to be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/17/the-myth-of-the-disillusioned-trump-voter/">meeting or exceeding Americans’ expectations</a> so far. In fact, an ABC News/ Washington Post survey suggests that if the election had been held again in late April, Trump would have not only won the Electoral College, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/23/trump-voters-dont-have-buyers-remorse-but-some-hillary-clinton-voters-do">but the popular vote as well</a> – despite his declining approval rating.<br />
<br />
To further underscore this point, consider congressional reelection patterns.<br />
<br />
Since World War II, <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_kyle_kondik/incumbent_reelection_rates_higher_than_average_in_2016">the incumbency rate</a> has been about 80 percent for the House of Representatives and 73 percent for the Senate. Going into the 2016 election, <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html">Congress’ approval rating</a> was at an abysmal 15 percent. Yet their incumbency rate was actually higher than usual: 97 percent in the House and 98 percent in the Senate.<br />
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As a function of the default effect, the particular seats which happen to be open this cycle, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/12/these-3-maps-show-just-how-dominant-republicans-are-in-america-after-tuesday/">Republican dominance of state governments</a> which has allowed them to draw key congressional districts in their favor – it will be <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/03/09/for-democrats-won-easy/UwXqnHIC3uqrhkaSbSsouN/story.html">extremely difficult</a> for Democrats to gain even a simple majority in the Senate in 2018. The House? <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-democrats-wont-win-the-house-in-2018-68037">Even less likely</a>.<br />
<h2>
Trump … or who?</h2>
Due to the default effect, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/23928377/Syria_Contextualized_The_Numbers_Game">what matters most</a> is not how the public feels about the incumbent, but how they feel about the most likely alternative.<br />
<br />
Carter didn’t just have low approval ratings, he also had to square off against Ronald Reagan. “The Gipper” was well-known, relatable and media-savvy. Although the Washington establishment largely wrote off his platform with derisive terms like “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/270292.stm">voodoo economics</a>,” the American public found him to be a visionary and inspirational leader – awarding him two consecutive landslide victories.<br />
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Trump’s opposition is in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/01/why-did-trump-win-new-research-by-democrats-offers-a-worrisome-answer/">much worse shape</a>. The Democratic Party has been hemorrhaging voters <a href="http://www.academia.edu/31849643/The_Democratic_Party_is_Facing_a_Demographic_Crisis">for the better part of a decade</a>. Democrats are viewed as being more “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/democratic-party-out-of-touch-obama-wall-street-speech/524784/">out of touch</a>” with average Americans than Trump or the Republicans. Yet key players in the DNC still resist making substantive changes to the party’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-need-a-real-debate-about-foreign-policy/2017/04/25/2b08ddd2-2919-11e7-b605-33413c691853_story.html">platform</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/magazine/democratic-party-election-trump.html">strategy</a>. Hence it remains unclear how Democrats will <a href="http://fiatsophia.org/2017/04/20/trump-opponents-need-stop-playing-hands/">broaden their coalition</a>, or even prevent its <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/democrats-say-they-now-know-exactly-why-clinton-lost-in-2016-20170501-gvwn28.html">continued erosion</a>.<br />
<br />
Trump is not likely to follow in Carter’s footsteps. Other modern precedents seem more plausible.<br />
<br />
For instance, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/12175/Bushs-ReElection-Prospects-Unclear-From-Historical-View.aspx">Truman had an approval rating of around 39 percent</a> going into the 1948 election, yet managed to beat challenger Thomas Dewey by more than two million in the popular vote, and 114 in the Electoral College. The president had been holding raucous rallies in key states and districts, growing ever-larger as the race neared its end. However, the media disregarded these displays of support because his base <a href="http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/sampling01.htm">was not well-captured</a> in polls. As a result, his victory came as a total surprise to virtually everyone. <a href="http://fiatsophia.org/2016/11/10/trumps-victory-not-surprising/">Sound familiar</a>?<br />
<br />
One could also look to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/09/08/donald-trump-praised-by-former-president-nixon/">Trump’s harbinger</a>, Richard Nixon. Throughout Nixon’s tenure as president, he was <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/nixon-and-the-media-109773">loathed by the media</a>. Temperamentally, he was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/nixons-resignation-40-years-later/375447/">paranoid, narcissistic and often petty</a>. Nonetheless, Nixon was reelected in 1972 by one of the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/7/newsid_3697000/3697098.stm">largest margins in U.S. history</a> – winning the popular vote by more than 22 percentage points and the Electoral College by a spread of over 500.<br />
<br />
Of course, Nixon ultimately resigned under threat of impeachment. But not before he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/after-45-years-of-conservative-rulings-heres-what-a-liberal-supreme-court-would-do/2016/02/19/efa63ad4-d589-11e5-b195-2e29a4e13425_story.html">radically reshaped the Supreme Court</a>, pushing it dramatically rightward for more than a generation. Trump is already <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/upshot/how-gorsuchs-influence-could-be-bigger-than-his-single-vote.html">well on his way</a> in this regard.<br />
<br />
And like Nixon, Trump is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/22/donald-trump-president-impeached-liberals-history-process">unlikely to be impeached</a> until his second term, if at all.<br />
<br />
Impeachment would require a majority in the House. Removing Trump from office would require at least a <a href="http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/2/essays/100/standards-for-impeachment">two-thirds vote in the Senate</a> as well.<br />
<br />
Nixon faced impeachment because, <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/nixon-and-trump-then-and-now/">even after his landslide reelection</a>, Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress. Clinton was impeached in 1998 by a Republican-controlled House, but was <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.vote/">acquitted</a> in the Senate because the GOP controlled only 55 seats.<br />
<br />
Without massive Republican defections, Democrats will not be in a position to impeach Trump, let alone achieve the two-thirds majority required in the Senate to actually remove him from the Oval Office. The 2018 elections will not change this reality.<br />
<br />
In other words, <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/09/is-this-trumps-saturday-night-massacre-dont-count-on-it-215119">we can count on</a> Trump surviving his first term – and likely winning a second.<br />
<br />
Consider the example of George W. Bush, who, like Trump, assumed the presidency after losing the popular vote but <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/would-al-gore-have-won-in-2000-without-the-electoral-college/">taking the Electoral College</a>. His tenure in office <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/04/18/why-presidential-candidates-like-trump-campaign-as-isolationists-but-like-trump-govern-as-hawks/">diverged wildly</a> from his campaign commitments. He was prone to <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/bushisms/2004/05/the_misunderestimated_man.html">embarrassing gaffes</a>. He was widely panned as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/threat-inflation-threat-deflation-the-bushes-and-robert-byrd/273754/">ignorant and unqualified</a>. Forced to rely heavily upon his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/us/politics/elder-bush-says-his-son-was-served-badly-by-aides.html">ill-chosen advisors</a>, he presided over some of the <a href="http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/21/who-was-the-least-successful-foreign-policy-president/">biggest foreign policy blunders</a> in recent American history. Many of his actions in office were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/opinion/31bamford.html">legally dubious</a> as well. Yet he won reelection in 2004 by a healthy 3.5 million votes – in part because the Democrats nominated John Kerry to replace him.<br />
<br />
Without question, Kerry was well-informed and highly qualified. He was not, however, particularly <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/on_the_trail/2004/11/why_kerry_lost.html">charismatic</a>. His cautious, pragmatic approach to politics made him seem <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/politics/campaign/echoes-of-a-1972-loss-haunt-a-2004-campaign.html">weak and indecisive</a> compared to Bush. His long tenure in Washington exacerbated this problem, providing his opponents with plenty of “<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/taking-flip-flops-seriously/">flip-flops</a>” to highlight – suggesting he lacked firm convictions, resolve or vision.<br />
<br />
If Democrats think they will sweep the 2020 general election simply by nominating another “grownup,” then they’re almost certainly going to have <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/02/the-democrats-2020-nightmare">another losing ticket</a>.<br />
<br />
For Trump to be the next Jimmy Carter, it <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/30/13795728/nancy-pelosis-victory-ryan">won’t be enough</a> to count on his administration to fail. Democrats will also have to produce their own Ronald Reagan to depose him. So far, the prospects don’t <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/17/everyone-loves-bernie-sanders-except-democratic-party">look great</a>.<br />
<br />
<em>Editor’s note: This article has been corrected. The original version had the wrong year for George H.W. Bush’s reelection bid.</em><br />
<br />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/musa-al-gharbi-148497">Musa al-Gharbi</a>, Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in Sociology, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/columbia-university-1026">Columbia University</a></em><br />
<br />
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-will-likely-win-reelection-in-2020-77362">original article</a>.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-90338854126355632692017-05-17T10:15:00.002-04:002017-05-17T10:15:28.927-04:00Your Team Would Win More in a Low-Tax State<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The tax system is bad news for professional sports, with plenty of anecdotal evidence showing that <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2016/02/07/the-super-bowl-and-marginal-tax-rates/">athletes</a> (and even <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/baseball-hot-dogs-apple-pie-and-chevrolet-and-the-irs/">fans</a>) get pillaged by government.<br />
<br />
Now we have some comprehensive academic research to augment the anecdotes.<br />
<br />
<strong>Playing Field Impact</strong><br />
<br />
The <em>Wall Street Journal</em> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tax-rates-and-professional-losers-1494189632">opined today</a> on a new study about the impact of marginal tax rates on professional sports teams.<br />
<blockquote>
Erik Hembre, an economist at the University of Illinois-Chicago, looked at the question: Do tax rates affect a team’s performance? He analyzed data in professional football, basketball, baseball and hockey between 1977 and 2014. Since the mid-1990s, he writes, “a ten percentage point increase in income tax rates is associated with between a 1.9-3.0 percentage point decrease in winning percentage.”<br />
<br />
Here’s why: Professional athletes are taxed at the highest marginal rate. The average NBA player earned more than $4.8 million in 2013 and the average was $2.3 in the NFL, so athletes who play for the Minnesota Vikings earn less after taxes than do Dallas Cowboys.<br />
<br />
…The effect appears strongest in the NBA, “where moving from a high-tax state to a low-tax state has a similar effect on winning as upgrading a bench player to an All-Star.” An NBA team that fled Minnesota (top rate: 9.85%) for Florida (0%) could expect to win an additional 4.5 games a season, Mr. Hembre found.”</blockquote>
This <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/suddenly-i-like-soccer-at-least-when-it-confirms-supply-side-economics-tax-competition-and-the-laffer-curve/">makes sense</a>.<br />
<br />
Indeed, there’s evidence from Monaco, which plays in the French soccer league, that <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/the-french-national-sport-is-taxation-not-soccer/">low taxes produce better results</a> on the playing field.<br />
<br />
The editorial concludes with a caveat…and a political lesson.<br />
<blockquote>
Players make free-agent decisions for many reasons, and New York or Los Angeles can offer attractions and endorsement deals that offset their horrendous tax rates. But no one should be surprised that professional athletes respond to incentives like individuals in any industry. Perhaps this evidence will tempt governors and state lawmakers to cut rates now that they know that, along with a growing economy, they might end up with better sports teams and happier fans, also known as voters.”</blockquote>
None of this should be a surprise. We know <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/a-video-primer-on-how-taxes-reduce-economic-value-and-cause-deadweight-loss/">taxes impact the decisions</a> of high-income, high-productivity people, everyone from <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/its-a-bird-its-a-plane-its-super-entrepreneur/">entrepreneurs</a> to <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2016/11/12/tax-rates-and-mobility-of-superstar-inventors-along-with-more-election-related-humor/">inventors</a>.<br />
<br />
<strong>Impact on the Economy</strong><br />
<br />
Now that we’ve looked at the impact of taxes on an industry, let’s now consider the <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/a-primer-on-growth-politics-and-taxation/">impact of taxes on the overall economy</a>. Professor Ed Lazear, in <a href="http://bfi.uchicago.edu/fiscal-lazear">an article</a> for the University of Chicago’s Becker-Friedman Institute, makes some critical observations on the American tax code.<br />
<br />
Starting with the system’s complexity.<br />
<blockquote>
In the first 20 years after the 1986 Tax Reform Act was passed, there were already about 15,000 changes to the basic law. The lack of transparency is costly: resources devoted to tax preparation and avoidance alone amount to more than 1% of GDP.”</blockquote>
Continuing with distortions in the internal revenue code.<br />
<blockquote>
The tax system is full of inconsistencies, preferences, complex rules, and contradictory definitions that encourage distortionary behavior by Americans in their legitimate attempts to minimize their tax liabilities.<br />
<br />
…Additionally, there are parallel systems that are not fully integrated into one coherent tax structure. Within the income tax category, the Alternative Minimum Tax has rules that are layered on top of the basic tax rate structure, which override the tax calculation for a sizeable fraction of taxpayers. Beyond that, the payroll tax, both employer and employee contributions, are distinct from the income tax rules, but for most Americans, act as a basic income tax that is an add-on to the income taxes that they pay.”</blockquote>
And there’s a big section on the economic harm caused by over-taxing business investment.<br />
<blockquote>
…growth is most affected by taxes on capital. Notorious is the high US corporate tax rate of 35% that the US imposes, which results in obvious evasive action like locating business overseas. More important, but less visible, is the actual reduction in investment that occurs because capital is taxed so heavily in the United States. The marginal dollar of investment is one that can find its home in another country as easily as in the US. When we raise taxes on capital, a German investor who might have preferred to invest in an American company simply chooses to keep that money in Germany. The easy flow of capital across borders means that lowering tax rates will encourage more capital to flow to American businesses.<br />
<br />
…if investment were untaxed altogether, the economy would grow by an additional 5% to 9%<sup>.</sup> In the short run, the easiest way to accomplish this is to allow full expensing of investment with indefinite carry-forwards. This simply means that firms can deduct the cost of investments from their tax liabilities immediately and fully. Allowing full and immediate deductibility of investment expenses removes the distortions that impede capital investment and, as a consequence, raises productivity, incomes, and GDP.”</blockquote>
Augmented by the economic damage caused by over-taxing human capital.<br />
<blockquote>
Economists have estimated the human capital portion of the total capital stock in the United States as between 70% and 90%. …increasing tax rates is likely to have profound effects on occupational choice and investment in the skills that are required to be productive in high-value occupations.<br />
<br />
…The personal income tax, and especially extreme progressivity, which places high burdens on professionals, discourages entry into professional occupations. Since human capital is such an important component of all capital, it is important to avoid over-taxing individuals directly.”</blockquote>
<strong>The Rich, the Poor, And Everyone Else</strong><br />
<br />
He concludes by explaining why the class-warfare crowd is misguided.<br />
<blockquote>
Lowering capital taxation and paying close attention to the progressivity of the tax structure both benefit the rich directly. The middle- and lower-income parts of the income distribution also benefit, however.<br />
<br />
…there is a close relation between average income wage growth and productivity. Furthermore, there is a close link between GDP growth and productivity growth…unless we ensure that the economy grows, which means that productivity grows, we will not have wage growth.<br />
<br />
…the poor and rich alike did best when economic growth was robust.”</blockquote>
This last excerpt is critical. Some of my leftist friends <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/everything-you-ever-needed-to-know-about-the-lefts-view-of-income-inequality-captured-in-a-single-image/">think the economy is fixed pie</a>, and this leads them to think the rest of us lose money any time a rich person earns more money.<br />
<br />
Or they are motivated by envy. In some cases, this even leads them to support policies that hurt poor people so long as rich people suffer even more.<br />
<br />
<img alt="" class="article-noprint-image" data-id="152589" src="http://fee.org/media/22681/image1_jfk_quote.jpg?width=472&height=222" style="float: right; height: 222px; width: 472px;" /><br />
<br />
Both these views are wrong. President John F. Kennedy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_rising_tide_lifts_all_boats">was right</a> about a rising tide lifting all boats.<br />
<br />
And we see that in the incredible data that’s been shared by scholars such as <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/the-miracle-of-modern-day-prosperity-and-the-ideas-and-policies-that-made-it-happen/">Deirdre McCloskey</a> and <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/the-amazing-hockey-stick-of-economic-progress/">Don Boudreaux</a>.<br />
<br />
And since we just quoted Kennedy, let’s close with an equally appropriate quote from Winston Churchill, <img alt="" class="article-noprint-image" data-id="152588" src="http://fee.org/media/22680/winston_churchill_quote.jpg?width=380&height=355" style="float: right; height: 355px; width: 380px;" /><br />
<br />
who <a href="https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu101776.html">famously observed</a> that “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”<br />
<br />
And the best example of that is in the data comparing the US <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/comparing-the-united-states-and-nordic-nations-is-american-inequality-bad-if-it-simply-means-some-people-get-richer-faster-than-other-people-get-richer/">with Denmark and Sweden</a>. Or the <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/margaret-thatcher-debunks-the-leftist-agenda-on-income-equality/">words of Margaret Thatcher</a>.<br />
<br />
The moral of the story is that Slovakia <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-which-nation-punishes-productive-people-worst-of-all/">has the right approach on taxes</a> while Sweden has the wrong approach. That’s true, whether you want a winning sports team or <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/based-on-a-review-of-studies-looking-at-the-impact-of-taxes-on-growth-academic-research-gives-obama-a-record-of-0-23-3/">a winning economy</a>.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<em>Reprinted from <a href="https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/score-a-touchdown-with-lower-tax-rates/">International Liberty</a></em>.</div>
<img alt="Daniel J. Mitchell" src="http://fee.org/media/15587/daniel-j-mitchell.jpg?center=0.37666666666666665,0.58333333333333337&mode=crop&height=287&widthratio=1.3937282229965156794425087108&rnd=131317337590000000" /><br />
<h5>
<a href="http://fee.org/people/daniel-j-mitchell/"><br />
Daniel J. Mitchell<br />
</a></h5>
Daniel J. Mitchell is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.<br />
<div style="font-style: italic;">
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href="https://fee.org/articles/your-team-would-win-more-in-a-low-tax-state/">original article</a>.</div>
<img alt="" src="http://fee.org/counter/152591" height="1" width="1" /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-44922534726410118712017-05-17T10:13:00.001-04:002017-05-17T10:13:23.805-04:00Increasingly intolerant Democrats now look to terminate pro-life members<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It’s not looking good right now. The Democratic Party elected a new, younger, more ideologically extreme chairman than the older guard of liberal political veterans. Then <a href="http://www.mrctv.org/blog/dnc-chair-lays-it-down-saying-all-democratic-candidates-must-support-abortion">this</a> happened.<br />
<blockquote>
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez is now demanding conformity from his party members on the issue of abortion, claiming that “every Democrat” must support a woman’s right to terminate her unborn child and promising to only support Democratic candidates who line up on his side of this ideological aisle.<br />
<br />
“Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” Perez said in a statement. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”</blockquote>
There goes federalism. This vision for a party trying to regroup and regain leadership is one of big government on steroids. Even liberal party stalwarts were forced to speak out as moderating voices when Perez lurched left of them, and essentially threw down the gauntlet.<br />
<br />
Like <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/democrats-vs-trump/dnc-unity-tour-hits-speed-bump-over-candidate-s-abortion-n748911">Bernie Sanders</a>, who dared to support a mayoral candidate in Omaha, Nebraska who had a “mixed record on abortion, highlighting divisions within the party even as the DNC seeks to mend fences with its high-profile unity tour.” Progressives started peeling away and withdrawing support for candidate Heath Mello after learning that eight years ago, he supported an ultrasound bill that would actually give women considering abortion the ability the make a better informed choice.<br />
<blockquote>
That bill, according to the Nebraska Legislature, required that a woman seeking an abortion "be told of her right to request a list of places she can get a free ultrasound," but did not require her to actually get the procedure, as critics initially claimed.</blockquote>
Note that it was an option for real choice. Full stop. And that’s what stopped the Democratic party leadership from backing their party candidate.<br />
<br />
He lost the race as a result, but exposed the <a href="http://time.com/4771152/heath-mello-tom-perez-omaha-nebraska-mayor-abortion/">party’s deep divide</a> over abortion, an inevitability in these extreme times. Which also casts more light on media reporting, since almost all major media changed their style books years ago and refer to pro-life positions as ‘anti-abortion’ or ‘anti-choice’. Some choice, Mello’s candidacy, and new party leadership, revealed.<br />
<br />
His run was a promising sign, he said, for a candidate "with a proven record of working bipartisan and tackling some big issues and, yes, to some extent, is a pro-life Catholic Democrat." It’s hard to be either a pro-life or a Catholic Democrat.<br />
<br />
Nancy Pelosi has long, and very publicly, been the latter. But even she has felt the urgency of <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/pelosi-course-you-can-be-democrat-against-abortion-n749856">speaking out</a> about these distinctions, and whether and how they fit in her fractured party.<br />
<blockquote>
Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says that it's absolutely possible for someone to be a member of the Democratic Party and also be against abortion..."I have served many years in Congress with members who have not shared my very positive — my family would say aggressive — position on promoting a woman's right to choose."</blockquote>
She went further, in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pelosi-democratic-candidates-should-not-be-forced-to-toe-party-line-on-abortion/2017/05/02/9cbc9bc6-2f68-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html?utm_term=.771461ce5a3d">Washington Post</a> interview last week.<br />
<blockquote>
The Democratic Party should not impose support for abortion rights as a litmus test on its candidates, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday, because it needs a broad and inclusive agenda to win back the socially conservative voters who helped elect President Trump.<br />
<br />
“This is the Democratic Party. This is not a rubber-stamp party,” Pelosi said in an interview with Washington Post reporters.<br />
<br />
“I grew up Nancy D’Alesandro, in Baltimore, Maryland; in Little Italy; in a very devout Catholic family; fiercely patriotic; proud of our town and heritage, and staunchly Democratic,” she added, referring to the fact that she is the daughter and sister of former mayors of that city. “Most of those people — my family, extended family — are not pro-choice. You think I’m kicking them out of the Democratic Party?”</blockquote>
Meanwhile, this past Tuesday evening, Democratic Chicago Congressman Dan Lipinski, longtime champion of the working class, a Catholic, pro-life stalwart and one of the only remaining ones of his kind, held a town hall meeting in his district. And he was targeted yet again by abortion activists, as he has been for months.<br />
<br />
It’s a time of clarification. Elected officials and citizens alike need to step up, get engaged, take part in public debates, learn the facts and speak out, prepared to make a defense for what they believe. And - as long as it is true - stand by it and encourage others. Come what may.<br />
<br />
<em>This article by Sheila Liaugminas was originally published on MercatorNet.com under a Creative Commons Licence. If you enjoyed this article, visit MercatorNet.com for more. Sheila Liaugminas writes from Chicago. She is a journalist, author and host of <a href="https://relevantradio.com/programs/a-closer-look-with-sheila-liaugminas">A Closer Look</a> on Relevant Radio. See more at: https://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/abortion-litmus-test-forces-democrats-to-choose/19783#sthash.hpn9hHqH.dpuf</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14118808658279604750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925580199185865621.post-4643449598263442512017-05-17T10:08:00.002-04:002017-05-17T10:10:49.517-04:00Liberal colleges declare war on reality<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Duke theology professor Paul Griffiths created a firestorm recently by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/duke-divinity-crisis-griffiths-documents/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648304000&usg=AFQjCNFZIxzs5M3hK2M6X21_XYqibeJ-vA" href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/duke-divinity-crisis-griffiths-documents/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">criticizing</a> time-consuming racial equity meetings that, in his view, detracted from research, teaching, and study:<br />
<blockquote>
It’ll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: there’ll be bromides, clichés, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty. When (if) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show.</blockquote>
He was promptly accused, in response, of “racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry.” Yet in the entire correspondence, which he recently published, he says nothing that could reasonably be construed that way. It also came out that he had been subject to a kangaroo court for months over his objections to the meetings. Dr Griffiths <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/8/paul-griffiths-duke-theology-professor-resigns-ove/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNEU4P7F6ESnbpsE781Fb0cpWn3LbQ" href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/8/paul-griffiths-duke-theology-professor-resigns-ove/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">resigned yesterday.</a> A recent graduate <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/8/paul-griffiths-duke-theology-professor-resigns-ove/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNEU4P7F6ESnbpsE781Fb0cpWn3LbQ" href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/8/paul-griffiths-duke-theology-professor-resigns-ove/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wrote in response</a> to the news:<br />
<blockquote>
In a discussion about the racist incidents with some other Div School students, I said that perhaps the way we were responding to the incidents was hurting rather than helping, because after every incident the black students would make public announcements about how hurt and afraid and rejected they felt, and then everyone would hatch plans to re-educate the whole university on issues of racism. I suggested that instead perhaps we should respond to the perpetrators like we would a bully, with strength and confidence and even defiance, to show them they didn’t have power over anyone. You would have thought I had suggested we start a chapter of the KKK. They made it clear I was a horrible person in denial of the harsh realities of racism for suggesting such a thing, and I learned to keep my mouth shut.</blockquote>
This is a clear example but not the only one. Rule by authoritarian mobs with a vested interest in promoting intergroup conflict is morphing into our future as a society.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, academics are popping up everywhere to advance ideas <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://qz.com/947481/free-speech-is-too-broad-a-category-lets-break-it-up-in-order-to-save-it/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNFcZz8GyMRO2MDUXy3c3TCAdJaZ0w" href="https://qz.com/947481/free-speech-is-too-broad-a-category-lets-break-it-up-in-order-to-save-it/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">like those of</a> Australian philosopher Robert Simpson: “However, once we extrapolate beyond the clear-cut cases, the question of what counts as free speech gets rather tricky,” so “I’d propose a third way: put free ‘speech’ as such to one side, and replace it with a series of more narrowly targeted expressive liberties.” He cites Canada as a good example but Canada has just enacted a law against Islamophobia, a law whose implications are engendering increasing alarm. Dr Simpson's article is a sound reason to believe that we should stick to opting for free speech in all but the most “clear-cut cases.”<br />
<br />
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/the-war-on-freedom-is-rotting-our-intellectual-life/19725&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNGhdWBUABY1b07txwCoSkIQxbUt8g" href="https://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/the-war-on-freedom-is-rotting-our-intellectual-life/19725" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Last week,</a> we looked at some ways in which the war on freedom is rotting our intellectual life: In a world governed by naturalism, power is its own justification and it need not be exercised in a rational way. Many of the controversies and contentions that surround us are easier to sort out if we keep that in mind. For example, let's revisit some earlier themes, to see the shape of what’s to come in more detail:<br />
<br />
<em>Facts have no privileged position in the world that struggles to be born.</em> And the results can harm the most vulnerable people. Heather Mac Donald, author of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/the-war-on-cops-how-the-new-attack-on-law-and-order-makes-everyone-less-safe/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNFDalLG5DhFCTKfqorYjQZRIegICg" href="http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/the-war-on-cops-how-the-new-attack-on-law-and-order-makes-everyone-less-safe/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The War on Cops,</a> was recently <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10300/death-of-facts&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNHg8yvVZXwNNs0bRcnDBzSJLoZTsQ" href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10300/death-of-facts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">subjected to abuse at</a> Claremont College (“fleeing the university under the protection of campus security”), on the false grounds that she is a racist.<br />
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As public affairs analyst Douglas Murray puts it, the students quite freely “make claims about people that are lies, yet state them as though they are categorical truths. And then they declare that ‘truth’ is a ‘construct’ -- and one that they do not believe in.” Mac Donald's crime was to trace the spike in homicide in the United States in recent years to lack of enforcement due to concerns about appearing racist. As it happens, facts still matter off-campus. In the real world, poor and otherwise disadvantaged people of all races are <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.wesh.com/article/poor-people-are-more-likely-to-be-victims-of-violent-crimes-says-report/9143572&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNHW9QLe91-vHvHmpLBBAPCxlmu-7A" href="http://www.wesh.com/article/poor-people-are-more-likely-to-be-victims-of-violent-crimes-says-report/9143572" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">more likely to be victims</a> of violent crime than better off ones are. Meanwhile, students can comfortably insulate themselves in the ivory tower from the consequences of their unquestioned beliefs.<br />
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<em>It makes little difference if useful beliefs are based on obvious untruths</em>. For example, college women <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://heatst.com/culture-wars/female-college-students-say-theyre-suffering-from-rape-anxiety/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNE0Ebw1Dp1iVKZZ9COArm3MP8aZKQ" href="https://heatst.com/culture-wars/female-college-students-say-theyre-suffering-from-rape-anxiety/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fear rape</a>, based on a 2015 Association of American Universities study which estimated that about one in four had experienced sexual assault or misconduct. But that study grouped social offences with criminal offences. The US Department of Justice offered a figure (2014) of one in 53 college women. That's a much more realistic figure and, in any event, less advantaged women are <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/who-suffers-most-from-rape-and-sexual-assault-in-america.html?_r%3D0&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNGyG-8L0TPGm1_fs3RnpkE5WflWZw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/who-suffers-most-from-rape-and-sexual-assault-in-america.html?_r=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">significantly more likely</a> to be victims of sexual assault. The myth of omnipresent danger creates anxiety and learned helplessness in college women and distracts attention from those truly at risk.<br />
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<em>There are no fixed standards of justice to appeal to</em> so hypocrisy is no longer the tribute that vice pays to virtue; it is just the new normal. Take the case of gay provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, whose scheduled appearance at Berkeley touched off anti-free speech riots. Yiannopoulos suffered a major career setback for <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/milo-yiannopoulos-new-media-venture&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNGgV6Hg9p0uZqL6lWF_Zx6y5cEwQg" href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/milo-yiannopoulos-new-media-venture" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">appearing soft</a> on gay sex with minors (he denies it and has supported a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/02/12/10-changes-id-make-if-i-were-ceo-of-twitter/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNEiPl7Zre69u6YixW65YrksFemCAA" href="http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/02/12/10-changes-id-make-if-i-were-ceo-of-twitter/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Twitter crackdown</a>).<br />
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But some <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/05/18/salons-todd-nickerson-on-pedophilia-im-not-a-monster/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNFaCRvR7WSAhJE39vBgYV3Qx69XXA" href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/05/18/salons-todd-nickerson-on-pedophilia-im-not-a-monster/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ideological opponents</a> seek to normalize pedophilia themselves. For example, a key <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/02/salon-removes-pro-pedophilia-articles-written-todd-nickerson-website/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNEaou5gK4FOP6LwDSl0crO9bkCv8g" href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/02/salon-removes-pro-pedophilia-articles-written-todd-nickerson-website/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">article</a> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.salon.com/topic/todd_nickerson/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNHoXok7Cd3UIAejjkcP5QdvBhiZjA" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/todd_nickerson/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">disappeared</a> from Salon but (<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://web.archive.org/web/20151229202238/http://www.salon.com/2015/09/21/im_a_pedophile_but_not_a_monster/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNGj7q0SuYXPp-Vk_ClVXFcn5EnWeg" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151229202238/http:/www.salon.com/2015/09/21/im_a_pedophile_but_not_a_monster/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">was saved</a> on a web archive). In world where pedophilia is gradually being <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/don-t-lock-up-low-risk-paedophiles-say-police-xkqsh35mc&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNEPXsmjrYWz-1b5ZV0uxq8Jwasffw" href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/don-t-lock-up-low-risk-paedophiles-say-police-xkqsh35mc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">normalized</a> even by British police, the question of whether anyone will suffer much for it is coming to depend on one’s standing with campus mobs and their supporters.<br />
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Similarly, feminist journal Hypatia attracted a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://dailynous.com/2017/05/06/hypatias-editor-board-president-defend-publication-tuvel-article/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNHCRdrVxIz_KpiCdFsyRBxWsELq2g" href="http://dailynous.com/2017/05/06/hypatias-editor-board-president-defend-publication-tuvel-article/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">meltdown</a> of criticism for publishing an article on “transracialism.” The editors assumed that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://dailynous.com/2017/05/01/philosophers-article-transracialism-sparks-controversy/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNFAsUtA5tup4SvUTdl3p3ccbqj_FQ" href="http://dailynous.com/2017/05/01/philosophers-article-transracialism-sparks-controversy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">it was legitimate</a> to change one’s race if it was legitimate to change one’s sex. But in the Orwellian world of today’s academia, everything is suspect unless it is explicitly encouraged—in which case, anything is possible.<br />
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<em>When the only standard is approved sensitivity, as in the tranracialism controversy above, even moral outrages must be accommodated and accepted. </em>At Jewish World Review, John Kass <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0417/kass042717.php3&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNFwYBhs68bPM7zihq6xAX6YbHACoQ" href="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0417/kass042717.php3" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">quotes </a>Ayaan Hirsi Ali, herself a victim, on the silence of feminists about female genital mutilation:<br />
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"The left can easily and comfortably condemn the misogyny of white men, but not of men of color, not of Muslims," Hirsi Ali said. "They are afraid of being shunned. They're afraid of being put into a basket of deplorables. So they're silent.</blockquote>
And sometimes it goes beyond silence. A former UNICEF health specialist calls FGM <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/05/former_unicef_advisor_female_genital_mutilation_is_gender_egalitarian_surgery.html&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNGeICanNtSYVcz0VpVWk2A-Lc17Nw" href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/05/former_unicef_advisor_female_genital_mutilation_is_gender_egalitarian_surgery.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">gender egalitarian surgery,</a> with little risk of social shame. Unlike Hirsi Ali, she is not seen as an apostate from moral relativism.<br />
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Phyllis Chesler was disinvited from speaking at the University of Arkansas on <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2017/04/13/how-academics-think-about-freedom-of-speech-fisking-the-email-that-killed-phyllis-cheslers-talk-on-shame-murders/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNGYwQGaFXlJIjKGkrte5qdGk53l9g" href="http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2017/04/13/how-academics-think-about-freedom-of-speech-fisking-the-email-that-killed-phyllis-cheslers-talk-on-shame-murders/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">honour killings</a> because, so the argument runs, opposition is a form of racism. You will need to read the explanation of that for yourself. Racism has become a very broad brush indeed.<br />
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<em>The sciences are especially hard hit.</em> This year’s March for Science offered some sobering revelations for the future of science as identity politics.<br />
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One was figurehead Bill Nye. During the aftermath of the March, videos surfaced that won’t likely help his reputation: My Sex Junk and another one in which ice cream cones discover sex. Detractors wondered if he wasn’t now the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/04/the-insane-left-hits-rock-bottom.php&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNGVejU_VOzQhm2IjNqymGd9QVUR1Q" href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/04/the-insane-left-hits-rock-bottom.php" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">”Pee Wee Herman of popular science.”</a> Meanwhile, Nye was also quoted as wanting to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/bill-nye-enough-extra-kids/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648305000&usg=AFQjCNFY4Ca3vk9SUIG5YCN9HwzAJwt23A" href="http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/bill-nye-enough-extra-kids/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">shrink science classrooms:</a> “Should we have policies that penalize people for having extra kids in the developed world?” and also as being open to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/14/bill-nye-open-criminal-charges-jail-time-climate-c/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648306000&usg=AFQjCNGUvAg00HAIAA09wi1a6QX5erp8OQ" href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/14/bill-nye-open-criminal-charges-jail-time-climate-c/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">jailing</a> skeptics of climate change.<br />
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But the key complaint about Nye that made news during the pre-March publicity invoked none of this. It was that he is <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi/march-for-science-diversity?utm_term%3D.ix7a5aQAd%23.nfaXdXgyw&source=gmail&ust=1494467648306000&usg=AFQjCNG9wP5d3Uv94foROZMevw6CEmFwZQ" href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi/march-for-science-diversity?utm_term=.ix7a5aQAd#.nfaXdXgyw" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">too white.</a> That makes sense if one assumes that, in terms of influence, identity matters far more than behaviour.<br />
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Preeminent science journal <em>Nature</em> endorsed the March, suggesting that scientists who object to the antics should <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.nature.com/news/nature-supports-the-march-for-science-1.21804&source=gmail&ust=1494467648306000&usg=AFQjCNE5qe6znJPnFWy4m0LaSrZwMArzUw" href="http://www.nature.com/news/nature-supports-the-march-for-science-1.21804" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">shout louder</a> “about what you think matters more.” It’s a strange world in which the bar for a scientist is set at shouting louder than a motivated identity group. And Harvard sociologist Andrew Jowett explained in the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/march-for-science/523803/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648306000&usg=AFQjCNGYxd0UG_A2Kw_huA6_Tm_M-vgUKQ" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/march-for-science/523803/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Atlantic</a> that explaining science to the public doesn’t really work anyway: “Scientized” political issues generate “particularly sharp controversies precisely because the participants can focus exclusively on questions of scientific validity while obscuring the values and interests that shape their positions.” As if both sides in any controversy do not have discernible values and interests that shape their positions.<br />
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His subtext is yet another riff on “The public can’t make good decisions.” We should expect to hear that often now. It would be more helpful to the rest of us if Dr. Jowett would comment on recent trends in which <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://isecoeco.org/pdf/pstnormsc.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1494467648306000&usg=AFQjCNEAuZsXJhDhtX8TCayZ7mQTV2SOsA" href="http://isecoeco.org/pdf/pstnormsc.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">post-normal,</a> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/im-a-scientist-and-i-dont-believe-in-facts/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648306000&usg=AFQjCNHYlPyV4nks6Ti7_vN-jpjJ5ALM-g" href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/im-a-scientist-and-i-dont-believe-in-facts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">“post-<wbr></wbr>truth,”</a> and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/im-a-scientist-and-i-dont-believe-in-facts/&source=gmail&ust=1494467648306000&usg=AFQjCNHYlPyV4nks6Ti7_vN-jpjJ5ALM-g" href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/im-a-scientist-and-i-dont-believe-in-facts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">post-fact</a> science have come to seem normal, and objectivity is seen as <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article%3D2467%26context%3Dtqr&source=gmail&ust=1494467648306000&usg=AFQjCNHxyQaclnNQu5fnMYGWE6K05clKBg" href="http://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2467&context=tqr" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sexist</a> or worse.<br />
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These protest movements are not 1960s retro; they are a flat-out war on reality, conducted by seasoned veterans with a lot at stake.<br />
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<em style="background-color: white; font-family: "Noto Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">This article by Denyse O'Leary was originally published on MercatorNet.com under a Creative Commons Licence. If you enjoyed this article, visit MercatorNet.com for more.<br /><br />- See more at: https://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/when-professors-stifle-freedom-of-thought/19778#sthash.LJyCNIJX.dpuf</em></div>
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