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Today, Jim Wilson points out an apparent inconsistency:

Corporations are the dominant form of organization in modern society. They make most of what we own and chances are that you currently work for one or have worked for one in the past. In the modern economy our fortune is tied to theirs. If they are not making profit levels they find acceptable, corporate share holders can disinvest and shut down much of the economy and compromise the economic well-being of everyone else. They wield a great deal of power over society. Many of us hear more direct orders from our corporate bosses in a given week than we hear from our government in a year.

We take this relatively recent development in our society for granted or natural. We look at corporations uncritically. This is especially true of more conservative libertarians and small government, free- market oriented friends. They feel that the modern business corporation is a legitimate part of the free-market as well as product of it but it is impossible to be consistently pro-free-market and supportive of modern corporations. They are one of the largest distortions of the free-market in existence today.

Corporations are by definition entities that have special government-granted legal privileges that are distinct from those of their individual members. They are distinct from other types of organizations operating on the market. A small business, a general partnership or sole proprietorship, which does great harm to the persons or property of others in the course of business, is legally responsible to the full extent of the damage. A business that receives a corporate charter however, has a limit on the extent that it could be held responsible. If a corporation is responsible for harm to the persons or property of others, shareholders may lose their investments and employees including management may lose their jobs but neither will be liable for debts to the corporation’s creditors or damage to other caused by their activities. In other words, corporate law sets up incentives for owners and managers to risk the well-being, health environmental, or national security of others with minimal risk of having to personally deal with the consequences. You can sue the corporation as an entity but the people responsible for its decision making and their accumulated wealth will be protected.

This feature is greatly responsible for much of the economic growth since the onset of the Twentieth Century. Growth is a product of special government treatment and it comes at a cost. As a result, large corporations have enormous political influence as well as massive influence over the economy and our individual lives. This is a violation of a truly free-market where the same liability standards would apply to all organizations. Libertarians are now in the awkward position of having to denounce government intervention that is likely responsible for a great deal of economic development or having to be inconsistent in their ideology.

Corporate law dictates that corporations be structured as a system of directors and subordinates. Special treatment is given to organizations that are highly hierarchical and pyramid shaped over the more egalitarian structured entities. The economy is now dominated by organizations set up in the same manner as the state and the military so much that such hierarchies now feel natural to us.

Corporations are similar to so called “free trade agreements.” While these by definition involve our government intervening in the economic policies of other governments and are inconsistent with a small government, conservatives universally support them. Consistent advocates of small government should oppose them. A consistent free market advocate should favor our government leading by example rather than meddling in the economic affairs of other countries. Only the favored industries tend to be ones our government subsidizes. If we actually grant all the assumption of free market rhetoric, the appropriate thing to do would be accept trade from all other countries regardless of their trade policies. A major point of these trade pacts is to get policies favorable to the stronger country “locked in.” When the weaker country elects new leadership or public opinion in it changes, the policies will remain unchanged. Our government also supports the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. They intervene internationally to promote U.S. business interests.

Many of the supposedly small government people in both the conservative and libertarian movements have a slightly corporatist bias. They ignore, take for granted, or even praise government intervention on behalf of corporate interest while railing against the welfare state or regulatory state. This is a double standard. It is unsurprising since a great deal of free-market rhetoric is funded by corporate interests. Corporate sponsored propaganda often makes corporations out to be the victims of government intervention rather than a product of it. The power of corporations should be questioned and advocates of free-markets and small government should play a key role. In doing this they would make their world-views more consistent.

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Low res, fair use version (moviegoods.com)

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Jim Wilson recently discovered this 1969 gem of a movie and it impressed him enough to write this review. It came out when I was in high school and my friends and I went to see it at a drive-in. There we saw a western set musical with all of the stereotypes projected on a screen 40 feet tall. The sound came out of a speaker attached to a pole that we hung on the window. I don’t think we really needed to hear Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood singing in high fidelity audio anyway.

 Paint Your Wagon was a fun movie. You can read the entire script HERE. If you’d like to hear the opening song, “I’m On My Way” you can get that HERE.

 A review of an old movie may seem a little far afield from what is normally covered on this blog but consider that the central theme of the movie is summed up near the end when Ben says, “Funny, here we go and build a town just the way we like it…” I can’t complete the quote because it might spoil the ending. The town is build around the desires of Ben, Pardner, and the gold prospectors. At one point, Ben and Pardner decide to share Ben’s wife. He bought her from a Mormon earlier in the movie. While they’re discussing it Ben says, “It’s not like somebody was asking you to do something immoral, like stealing gold.”

 Ben and Pardner had found heaven in a town called Hell but it all comes to an end after a parson brings in religion and it spoils everything. Ben leaves and Pardner adapts but there’s a lesson in there somewhere a Freethinker can find…

“Welcome To Hell Parson. No Name City Population: drunk.”

-Ben Rumson

Years back I saw the 1969 film paint your wagon which in case you didn’t know has the unusual distinction of being not only a western starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin but also a full out musical with both actors singing. I remembered the film being referenced in a Simpson’s episode in which Homer rents it and is disappointed that it is not the type of gunfighter or cut-throat story that Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin are generally associated with. Many younger people I talk to remember the movie entirely from the Simpsons’ episode or think the Simpsons’ writers made the whole thing up. The film was somewhat doomed to obscurity because of inability to fill a clear niche. Big name musicals were on their way out by 1969 and neither Eastwood nor Marvin is much of a singer anyway additionally the film’s subversive subject matter probably also alienated the taste of target audience that big budget musicals tend to go for.

In the film Lee Marvin’s character Ben and his “Pardner” Clint Eastwood become the founders of a gold rush boom town with an all male population. The gender imbalance is corrected when a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints comes through with his two wives. The townsfolk are initially confused and curious but come to the conclusion that it is unfair for the Mormon to have two wives when none of them have any. They convince him to auction of his younger and more rebellious wife to the highest bidder which ends up being a drunken Ben. She threatens to shoot Ben on their wedding night and refuses to be treated as mere property but eventually they find an arrangement that is suitable for both of them.

Eventually the other townsfolk get jealous of Ben for having the only woman in town so they develop a scheme to kidnap prostitutes from a nearby town. Ben leads the kidnapping effort but while he is gone his purchased wife falls in love with Pardner and upon his return they all agree to enter a polyandrous relationship. Meanwhile the kidnapping is a great success and town starts brothel that is visited by men from all over making it a local center of sin.

Eventually a traveling preacher hits town and tries to get its population to repent out of fear that the place will be sucked into hell and then it happens. Ben also corrupts the preacher’s son leading to the exchange: Pop… believe me until you’ve had a good cigar and a shot of whiskey you’re missing the second and third best things in life.” Later it is revealed that “physical education” with a local “floozy” is his number one best thing in life.

Despite the forced marriage, human trafficking, and kidnapping (which probably is not an unfair portrayal of how women lived in the old west) this film is light hearted and some of the dialogue is entertaining. The black and gray morality is thought provoking. Ben is clearly a scoundrel who does many unconventional things in the film but he is depicted positively and makes things work for his wife and his “pardner”. It is also one of the few films I know that depicts a polyamorous relationship in a positive light. The singing is often a little awkward but it features the song the “They Call the Wind Mariah” for which Maria Carey was named.

The film came out at the height of the sexual revolution and much of it seems to be a challenge to the sexual norms of the old guard. It portrays sex with prostitutes, consensual non-monogamy, heavy drinking, and tobacco use in fairly favorable terms while the puritanical religious sorts definitely appear as prudish jerks. I like the film. I’m not sure who I would recommend it to and I certainly recognize that it is a bit dated and a bit weird as a musical but it is over all fun and I love to hear what some of the old guard thought of it when it came out.

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Some explanation before I introduce Jim Wilson’ next blog entry:

 Jim gave me the following blog entry a few months back and I’ve been sitting on it. As you know, Jim writes profusely in this blog on a wide variety of topics. I’m dependent on Jim since he regularly provides three articles a week for this daily blog. Currently, I’m trying to get ahead and program in future blogs because next week I’ll be in Las Vegas attending TAM 2012 (The Amazing Meeting) and hanging out with Skeptics from around the world so I’m now going back to the submissions that I’ve been sitting on.

 Jim and I are different people. He’s not an alter ego. He’s a real person with his own ideas. He’s quite a bit younger than I am which gives him an edge on seeing things from a different perspective. I don’t always agree with his assessment but we are both freethinkers and understand that often reasonable people disagree due to differences in priorities and personal experience.

Jim’s original submission suggested that freethinking voters should not vote in the upcoming general election since we are a “Red” state and our vote would not make a difference. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t in clear conscience run that article. You should never tell someone not to vote because when you vote there are more items on the ballot than the presidential candidates. There are local races that actually affect us more than the national offices. Saying get knowledgeable about the candidates and the issues is better than saying “if you don’t know, don’t vote.” I was also uncomfortable about the Red State discussion since we don’t have all representatives from a single party and there is an outside chance that the independents could rise up and make Arizona a swing state.

 After some discussion, he took another stab at it. Here’s Jim Wilson’s rewrite:

Should, you vote against Obama & Romney?

I say yes, but that is just my opinion. I believe you should vote in such a way that it reflects the best interest of the country, your state, county, and city. Vote for whoever you think would do the best job and is most deserving of your support and if do not think any of the candidates deserve your support feel free to write someone in. Also, if do not feel that you have sufficient knowledge of the candidates or issue by all means take some time and do a little research there is a great deal of information available on the Internet and about all the major candidates and plenty of the minor ones.

While most if this piece is dedicated to the upcoming presidential election, I want to remind everyone that this should not be a voter’s first or only focus. Your vote has more influence when it comes to Congress, state, and local level offices. There is wide variety of choices regarding these positions.

I believe that our state is pretty strongly Republican but that is not true of other positions. Gabrielle Giffords and Raul Grijalva are recent examples of Democratic Arizona Representatives and Kyrsten Sinema is running in the Phoenix area and is a fellow Atheist with excellent secular credentials. The theocratic wing of the religious right currently has huge sway in our state government that I strongly urge everyone to research their Arizona House and Senate members and vote accordingly. It is time to show the Center for Arizona Policy that its outmoded religious authoritarianism and complete control the state’s Republican office holders will no longer be accepted. Become active in Arizona politics and do not limit your involvement to voting on election day. There are so many issues that need to be tackled and the status quo thrives on an indifferent citizenry.

I have a different opinion about the presidential election. I suggest all Arizonans keep in mind that this state is not expected to be a swing-state in the presidential election. It is reasonable to expect that the Republican candidate has this state in the bag. I see no reason to care about making the margin Obama looses by any bigger or smaller. I also hold no illusions of electing a third party candidate this year but that is not what is important to me. For me, the monopolization of our politics by what amounts to a two-party-one-party system is a major problem as is the lack of real choice this leaves us with. I sympathize with the notion that a functioning Democracy should actually give the people real choices rather than just the illusion of choice between to establishment insiders. In many ways, I see Republicans and Democrats as part of the problem and as I’m always happy when I get a chance to express this and I am always looking for opportunities to make their domination of the political system less secure.

I would say to anyone not living in a swing state to go ahead and vote for whoever you think the lesser of the two evils is but if you live in a solid red or blue state like this one you should go vote your conscience to the fullest and let the establishment know that we are looking for alternatives. A cumulative effect of more people doing this will be getting more coverage and more publicity to anti-establishment politicians and more importantly it will make their often important ideas better known and bring these ideas to the table. The attitude of not wanting to waste your vote on a candidate who is not going to win is absurd especially when ones lives in a state where the election is already decided and their vote as no-influence on it what so ever.

We have a wide range of choices this election cycle and many of them offer great appeal and many of them deserve far more attention than they are currently getting. There are many parties and many candidates with interesting and sometimes refreshing positions.

The Libertarian Party candidate is the former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson who is a favorite of many libertarians. Libertarian Party candidates tend to be more consistently free-market than the Republicans especially in social issues but also as importantly in areas of foreign policy such as opposition to the expansion of the country’s overseas empire the meddling in the policies of other countries. Libertarians want to get the government out of the bedroom and the boardroom. Libertarian candidates strike me as far more likely to consistent fiscal conservatives unlike their mainline Republican counterparts who have greatly (and often intentionally) contributed to our countries debt crisis. Libertarian Party candidates are consistently small government unlike their mainline Republican counterparts who have greatly (and often intentionally) acted to expand the role of the U.S. government domestically and internationally when in power.

Vote your conscience or not at all and whatever you do don’t be blinded by the Republicrat political machine. Vote Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Socialist, or whatever… you can even write in Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, or Peyton Manning for all I care. Just vote for who you think would do best.

Jim Wilson looks into sweatshops:

“My concern is not that there are too many sweatshops but that there are too few.”

- Jeffrey Sachs Columbia University Economist United Nations Advisor and Earth Institute Founder

Sweatshops tend to be the universal label for places with the worst possible working conditions. The term conjures up images of third world people working long hours under unsafe conditions. They have few if any bathroom breaks are exposed to hazardous material and frequent abuse from bosses and over-seers. This is not to mention pay so low as to be comparable with slavery and the use of child labor. It is undeniable that such workshops are the source of many of the consumer products that make life for us first worlders as rich as it is and it is these conditions that keep the many of the prices we pay low.

We don’t like to think about that. The mere thought of our favorite fleece or running shoes being assembled by the hands of poorly treated child workers is unsettling. Many Americans also feel too busy with our own lives to spend much time worrying much about some kid in Dogcrapistan. The residual colonial attitude is that we are improving the lives of foreign savages by giving them the opportunity to assemble Air Jordans.

Many of my libertarian and conservative friends will happily (in some cases gleefully) point out that if these people could find a better means of supporting themselves they would not be sweatshop laborers. The more vulgar of these sorts go as far as to argue that we should applaud corporations that use sweatshops for improving the lives of the poor. I cannot help but note these arguments always come from comfy-living westerners or tenured economics professors who are quite safe from the market forces they wish to subject everyone else to.

On some level, they are correct I’m sure it is true that sweatshop labor is the best option available for many people. I recognize that correcting the underlying circumstances that produce them would be disastrous. I don’t want to boycott the world’s poorest workers out of their jobs. But, I’m also not going to praise or celebrate the companies that exploit them. This is especially true when the products in question are hundred dollar basketball shoes or brand name hand bags that sell for a small fortune but only cost a few bucks to make. If rich Americans and Europeans are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for something the kids making it should be getting most of this money rather than the fat cats at the top of the corporate hierarchy far removed from the actual production process. I also will not applaud or say anything positive about a company whose overseers actively dehumanize members of their work force.

The same goes for companies that are in league with governments that actively suppress the working class. I’m talking about corporations that participate in military coups and have used the military to crush strikes or in any way used the state or paramilitaries to limit their laborers options. I cannot help but be sympathetic with the school of thought that wants to blame all the poverty that makes sweatshops possible on state intervention and I think a good case can be made. My understanding is many colonial governments used taxation to force people out of subsistence agriculture and used violence to create huge disparities in access to land and resources. This type of colonial inequality still exists in places where sweatshops are common and state action is at least in part if not fully responsible.

On the other hand, maybe all developing countries really do need to go through a sweatshop phase. The United States and Western Europe certainly did. If so then this is an unfortunate reality of capitalism. After all, imagine how many brilliant people will never reach their full potential because they never had any choice but work some tedious sweatshop job. Perhaps there are countless would-be Einsteins and Mozarts laboring in the world’s factories and plantations who will have the chance to realize their full potential.

With modern technology we produce enough food to feed the world’s population so why should anyone work on starvation wages? I do not have any easy answers to the questions raised here but working for workers empowerment is an important step. I have recently read about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers which has successfully made agreements for better wages and working conditions with several major food retailers improving the lives of some 30000 farm workers. They have done this without government assistance or recognition which flies in the face of the stereotype that labor unions require state intervention or force to see victory.

Americans should spend more time pondering where their consumer goods come from and how to make the world a better place for the people who make them.

Last year Philip “Space Museum” Olson delivered a talk on the Bombardier beetle on the Desert AIR Podcast. Here is a transcript of that presentation:

One of my absolute favorite entomologists is the late Thomas Eisner. I want to talk for a few minutes about some of the research he did and how it has been misunderstood and misrepresented by creationists. I’m talking about the Bombardier beetle and its incredible defense mechanism – the ability to spray out a boiling mixture of oxygen and chemicals known as quinones. Many species of bombardier beetle emit the substance as a thin jet which they can aim with uncanny accuracy. The beetle is able to do this through an ingenious evolutionary adaptation. It stores two precursor chemicals – hydrogen peroxide and another type of chemical called hydroquinones – in separate reservoirs in the abdomen. When the beetle feels threatened, it contracts special muscles, forcing the two chemicals into a special mixing chamber. This is when things get really cool. Inside the mixing chamber are special enzymes – catalyses and peroxidase. Oxygen is freed from the hydrogen peroxide, and the hydroquinones are then oxidized into p-quinones. There is a lot of thermal energy released during this reaction, and as the substances heat up, the internal pressure builds and the boiling mixture is expelled out the rear end of the beetle at the would-be predator or over-eager bug collector. It gets even better. Not only is the mixture boiling hot, the substances that are expelled are very irritating to almost all arthropods and most vertebrates – including people, even when they are not hot. More incredible still – this cycle of muscle contraction, chemical reaction and expulsion occurs at a rate of up to about 500 times per second.

Now, many creationists look to the bombardier beetle as proof of intelligent design. Their “evidence” seems to be based primarily on the work of Duane Gish, a biochemist who is a former vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research. Like all good creation scientists, he gets all the facts wrong. He starts off by claiming that hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinones are spontaneously explosive when combined – they are not. He claims this was a mistake he made due to a poor translation of the original research by Dr. Hermann Schildknecht, mistaking “explosive” for “unstable”. However, if Gish were truly a scientist, and not merely a creationist masquerading as one, he would have performed the simple experiment himself before repeating it so vociferously, something which should have been exceptionally easy (if not unnecessary!) for him to do as a biochemist. He also continues making a thoroughly disproved claim that an explosive “inhibitor” is required to prevent the beetle from blowing itself up. He makes the argument that the entire reaction mechanism is “irreducibly complex” and that anything less than the present form would result only in a beetle capable of blowing itself up. It’s easy to show the errors in Gish’s reasoning; we don’t even have to look into the fossil record or hypothesize intermediate stages to show that the argument of irreducible complexity simply falls flat with the bombardier beetle. He apparently overlooks the fact that the quinones, by themselves, are present in the cuticles of many different arthropods. Also overlooked is the fact that hydrogen peroxide is a by-product of cellular metabolism. A small amount of excess quinone that is left on the external cuticle would make an insect unpalatable to predators (in fact, many beetles and millipedes make use of simple quinones as defensive chemicals to avoid being eaten). There are bombardier beetles that have been found, which, instead of producing a fine jet of hot quinones, emit more of a diffuse gas, and others which produce something more akin to bubbling foam. These could be examples of beetles with lower amounts of the catalyses or peroxidase, or perhaps weaker muscles, smaller storage or mixing chambers. However you want to slice it – they are intermediate forms, all of them capable of defending themselves well enough to continue reproducing, none of them simply blowing themselves up, and so the argument of irreducibly complexity is itself reduced to nothing.

Perhaps most important in all of this is the fact that the man responsible for much of the research on bombardiers, Thomas Eisner, was himself a non-believer. He died earlier this year, of complications due to Parkinson’s disease and was an outstanding scientist, incredibly gifted science writer, pioneer of the field of chemical ecology, and one of my all time favorite authors. If you want to know more about the bombardier beetle or Thomas Eisner, I wholeheartedly recommend you find his book “For Love of Insects”.

* Charles Darwin, an avid beetle collector, recorded an experience in which he once popped a beetle into his mouth when he spotted a third beetle and already had both hands full, only to get a mouthful of a hot, irritating chemicals from the beetle

Jim Wilson shows strong libertarian tendencies in his editorial on gun control:

I’m not a big gun control fan or advocate. I’ve joked on this blog that I live in a state where the second is the only amendment that matters. I think the second amendment is an important one. I think law abiding people should be able to arm themselves, for protection, for hunting, target shooting, and whatever other lawful uses they like. I have not been convinced by anyone on either side of the gun debate that their gun policy of choice has played a significant role in the fall of crime anywhere.

I tend to error on the side of more personal freedom. I see little reason why most people should not be able to own a gun, but I am open-minded. If you can demonstrate to me that a strict gun control regime actually increases public safety and reduces violent crime, there is a part of me that would favor it. If you could show me that unlimited access to guns on demand, kept society safest, I would favor that. Which brings me to a question for gun control opponents: What if the jerks are right? If it was shown conclusively that a strict gun control regime kept society safest, how much freedom would you be willing to give up?

Don’t say that it could never happen, this is a hypothetical exercise. I want to know how much liberty you are willing to give up, for the security of the population. I personally hate being asked to give up any whatsoever and the thought of doing so makes me sick to my stomach. I tend to identify with Benjamin Franklin when he said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” I dislike the heavy handed enforcement of laws designed to keep everyone safe. I cringe at seat belt laws, helmet laws, speed-traps and red light cameras. What traffic cops do is either a huge waste of tax payer money and law enforcement personnel, or a despicable way for the state to extract money from ordinary citizens trying to get work on time. These give the police one more excuse to pull you over and investigate you.

Such laws may keep drivers safe, but are intrusive. The huge fines that are associated with breaking them are often draconian. I feel the same way about other victimless crimes. These include prohibitions on drug use, paying for sex, obscenity laws, anti-sodomy Laws, prohibition of intoxication in public, contraceptive restrictions, bans on abortion counseling, nudity prohibition, curfews, bans on factual sex education, and parental notification laws. All of these are things that have been or still are enforced in this country. Then there are restrictions on one’s ability to freely carry knives or swords in many jurisdictions. Shouldn’t that be covered under the second amendment too? Maybe it is time to start a National Knife Association to lobby for sword and knife owner’s rights.

Perhaps some of these laws have positive benefits, and I hate to think that any of them do. Where do we draw the line? How much petty tyranny is consistent with keeping America the land of the free? It seems like there are always proposals for new freedom restricting laws made for our own good. Recently, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed legislation that would allow the health department to levy fines on vendors who sell soft drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces. This is likely to be completely ineffective at protecting public health, as well as likely to trigger the exact sort of cynicism of government that gets Republicans elected in the first place.

It is not only Government that is doing this sort of thing. A major manufacturing employer near one of my former residences did not allow its employees to enjoy tobacco products even off the job. Others are taking a greater interest in what their employees are doing on Facebook and other websites. As much as I dislike government encroachment into my private life, I find employer encroachment just as annoying but in today’s economy what can we do?

We are overly tolerant of being regulated, supervised and prohibited. Our government spends a fortune prosecuting victimless crimes and loses just as much in tax revenue. Furthermore, the government now has unprecedented abilities to gather information on and detain American citizens, all in the name of fighting terrorism. How much of this is keeping us safe, and when is enough, enough? Where do you draw the line?

Here’s the latest from Jim Wilson:

Recently, National Review writer Jonah Goldberg appeared on the Daily Caller and argued for increasing the voting age. Saying:

“Personally, I think the voting age should be much higher not lower. I think it was a mistake to lower it to 18 to be brutally honest. It is a simple fact of science that nothing correlates more with ignorance and stupidity than youth. We’re all born idiots and we only get over that condition as we get less young. And yet there’s this thing in this culture where ‘Oh young people are for it so it must be special.’ No, the reason young people are for it because they don’t know better. That’s why we call them young people… The fact that young people think socialism is better than capitalism. That’s proof of what social scientists call their stupidity and their ignorance and that’s something that conservatives have to beat out of them, either literally or figuratively as far as I’m concerned.”

This echoes a similar sentiment by conservative writer Ann Coulter. Who said:

“If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream; it’s a personal fantasy of mine but I don’t think it’s going to happen and it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women. It also makes the point; it is kind of embarrassing; the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and ‘we’ll pay for health care, and tuition, and day care, and here what else can we give you soccer moms?’”

Heritage Foundation Moral Majority founder and conservative activist Paul Weyrich argued:

“Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people; they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

It is now known that the 2000 election of George W. Bush was influenced by voters purges carried out by his brother Florida governor Jeb Bush and his secretary of state Katherine Harris. The same thing is happening again this year as Florida governor Rick Scott is pushing for further voter purges. Both rounds of purging tended to focus on black Latino and independent voters who tended to go Democratic. Both disenfranchised legitimate voters for completely illegitimate reasons.

This seems to be a theme in conservative and libertarian politics especially the more corporatist, elitist, status-quo oriented wings of both camps. The political right simply wants to cut the voting rights on many parts of the population. I’m sure many would love to go back to the days when only property-owning white males could vote. There is a complete disregard for consent of the governed. Many of my libertarian friends would be happy to see a handful of like minded people take over the state by any means and destroy its workings. While many of my conservative friends were happy to cheer or make apologies for the increased growth in the power of the executive branch of government while presidents named Bush and Reagan were in charge. The double standard now seems to have set in since Obama has come to office. The liberals I know appreciate the idea of the governed having a say in the type of regime they live under. This reflects the fact that they see effective and efficient government as a possibility. Conservatives, on the other hand, driven by the sabotage instinct, seem to want to do everything they can to make the state as expensive and inefficient as their ideology says it is when they are in power.

But maybe the conservatives are right. At some level majority rule does come down two wolfs and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch if there are not some protections in place for the minorities involved. This has made me very sympathetic to the libertarian side over the years. With the Republican establishment, it is different though. They are happy to engage in heavily interventionist policies that often benefit their cadre of elite supporters over the rest of us. I speak, of course, about massive military expenditures, ugly foreign interventions, and adventurism. Republicans favor the erosion of civil liberties, promotion of Christian theocracy, and favor corporations.

In response to Goldberg (as well as the others), 18 year-olds should get the right to vote because they can fight and die for this country. They should have some say in its government. If they dislike capitalism, it is probably because the capitalism they grew up with is the type of crony capitalism where government, big business, and the military collude together to enrich themselves at the expense of the tax payer. It is unfortunate that the older parts of the voting population support or are indifferent to these things. Older voters are more supportive of religious theocracy, drug prohibitions, pointless expensive wars, and imperialism (which Goldberg is vocally in favor of). The youth vote may be more supportive of the welfare state but they are realistic on the warfare state. Also Goldberg strikes me as first and foremost a loyalist of the Republican establishment and his chief grievance has been that young voters do not vote Republican. I can’t blame them. Republican administrations have been highly fiscally irresponsible and have been dishonest about their expansion of government. I am not found of the established power players of either party but as far as I am concerned the youth vote is correct on many issues. You don’t get to deny people’s voting rights just because they do not go with your candidates of choice. We all pay taxes and have to live under this government’s rules. We should have some say in the nature of the regime we live under.

Just a reminder:

Monday, May 21^st you can join the Tucson Atheists at the Denny’s on Speedway, just west of Alvernon at 7PM. This month we’ll be discussing what the United States might be like without the current religious influences. Along with that we’ll be discussing where Atheists get their morals. Finally, when things go our way who should we be thanking? http://www.meetup.com/Tucson-Atheists/

Tonight, up to 40 people will come together to share each others company and discuss freely what they believe would believe the world would be like without religion. We won’t be the first to ever discuss this question and we won’t be the last. If you type the question in Google, you’ll get many answers from many people. There are variations of the question, too. Some people ask, “What if religion never existed?” as opposed to, “What would happen if religion lost its current influence?” Of course, the answers from the net will be more balanced than you’re likely to hear at a meeting of non-believers. We’ve already decided that it isn’t for us. In scientific terms we’d be considered a self selected sample and subject to self selection bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias). Our answers are going to be skewed toward the non-believer. On the whole, the data we develop from our attempt at finding an answer won’t be useful for informing policy decisions that affect the general public. At this point, many who read this blog will be saying, “That’s right!” without considering the opposite situation.

Currently, the Arizona legislature represents a situation that suffers from another source of bias, selection bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias). Ideally, we’d have a legislature making decisions that represents a fair sample of the population. Realistically, that’s not going to happen. It’s going to represent the people that are in the majority and the decisions are going to favor that majority. For the most part, that’s as it should be. However, the legislature is held in check by the type of democracy that the founders created—a constitutional democracy (http://www.answers.com/topic/constitutional-democracy). In an unlimited democracy, there is no limit on the majority and there is a very real danger of the tyranny

From the Oxford Guide to U.S. Government:

“A constitutional democracy, then, is government by majority rule with protection of minority rights. It is democratic because of its foundations of popular consent and majority rule. It is constitutional because the power of the majority to rule is limited by a supreme law.”

In editing this blog and watching the comments that are tossed back and forth, it is apparent that most want a variation of the same dream. Most people want to be left alone to live their life without others telling them what to do. Both sides often support their convictions with the same catch phrase, “Read the Constitution” but each side has its favorite part of the Constitution. What amazes me is that there are some that believe that the constitution doesn’t apply to state government. That’s scary to me and to the others that will be meeting tonight because we understand that we are, in most surveys, the most hated and distrusted minority in the country (for example: http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistbigotryprejudice/a/AtheitsHated.htm). Here’s the irony, we believe the most important part of the Constitution are the limits that it places on the majority. We’re fond of the limits that it places on the government. This is reasonable coming from a hated and trusted minority. People representing the majority often believe that the most important part of the Constitution is the limits that it places on itself. I believe that somewhere in all these discussions, we’re missing the fact that there is a high degree of commonality between these groups but tonight we’ll be coming together and imagining what the country or the world would be like if the Atheist wasn’t the most hated and distrusted minority.

More on Ron Paul by Jim Wilson:

The last blog entry on Ron Paul generated discussion about states’ rights. Ron Paul supporters argued that State governments can and should be free to do just about any crazy thing they would like. The other side argued that there should be limits on the states’ power. Recently I asked my friend, a Ron Paul supporter:

“Should states be allowed to bring back racial segregation? Outlaw non-Christians running for office? Imprison people for traffic violations, or legalize rape?”

His answer was a hesitant “yeah sure.” His answer may not reflect Representative Paul’s opinion, but it is consistent with the fact that he believes the Bill of Rights should not apply to state governments. His We the People Act if passed would allow state governments to disregard both the establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

It is good that the Due Process clause of the 14th amendment has been interpreted as forbidding state governments from robbing their citizens of the rights protected by the Bill Of Rights especially in Arizona where the Religious Right dominates the state government. My friend is confident that even though he thinks states should be allowed to legalize rape, and carry out other crimes against humanity, he believes that this unlikely to happen. Perhaps, but you never know what sort of zealots could be elected in a generation or two.

I distrust the national government but, I also distrust the state governments. Both are a part of the governing structure. With our federal structure intact, it provides oversight of the state governments. For example, the national government outlawed state level racial segregation. If the national government is the much greater threat to our civil liberties, as my Ron Paul praising friend insists, is allowing the states to abolish any freedom they want still the best solution?

My friend reminded me that the federal government takes his money and spends it on illegal wars. Would he be completely fine with state governments doing this instead?

Saying that any level of government should have nearly unlimited authority, is hardly in keeping with the ideal of limited government. Of course, there is the argument that state governments are easier to change than national governments. However, it still takes a great deal of time energy and resources to change unfair laws at any level of government. Without reasonable limits and minority protections, democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch

A popular argument is: “If you don’t like what a state government is doing, you can always move to another state.” Seldom do you hear the similar argument can be made at the national level. In the United States, the Constitution provides the baseline environment that enables states’ governance. Without the national constitution and without the 14^th Amendment in particular, each state would be just another sovereign country and Ron Paul isn’t a fan of the 14^th Amendment (http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/ron-paul-versus-the-fourteenth-amendment/)

Throughout the world, there are countries as large as Texas persecuting their citizens on the basis of religion. We generally consider them tyrannical. To prevent that from happening here, the secular national government holds the line on religious discrimination throughout the states. Periodically, the Supreme Court hears cases concerning violations of the First Amendment. However, Ron Paul’s We the People legislation would not allow the Supreme Court to hear such cases: (http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h539/show)

Official Summary

1/14/2009–Introduced.We the People Act – Prohibits the Supreme Court and each federal court from adjudicating any claim or relying on judicial decisions involving:
(1) state or local laws, regulations, or policies concerning the free exercise or establishment of religion;
(2) the right of privacy, including issues of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or
(3) the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation where based upon equal protection of the laws…

Without the federal courts to back up the built in restrictions to the government supplied by the U.S. Constitution, the state of Texas would be free to establish its own state religion. If Ron Paul then finds a way to rid the nation of the 14^th Amendment, Texas could establish religious tests for its state offices then you’d see a true tyranny of the majority. Of course you could then move to a neighboring state but people should not have to leave their friends or family, or their sources of income, because their state government has decided their group has no first amendment rights.

It seems designating power down to the states is a bit arbitrary. Why not get rid of states entirely and make it United Counties of America? County level governments would be theoretically easier to change than state governments. Or why not favor something like Anarcho-Capitalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism) and turn the continent into a patchwork of privately owned dictatorships? That would at least be more consistent than then a patchwork 50 state governments with full sovereign power.

Perhaps, Dr. Paul and his supporters may have a more coherent and sensible position than an extremely limited federal government along with unchecked power in the state governments. If so, let me know. Perhaps you are not a Ron Paul supporter but think you may have a more sensible solution to the problem of designating power in a country, feel free to let me know as well. Otherwise, favoring a system where state governments can legalize rape, racial segregation, draconian traffic laws, the outlawing of birth control, enslavement, and religious persecution puts you into the insane fringes of the political spectrum.

 Editor’s note: I realize that the discussion of “legalizing rape” is way over the top and may seem a bit of a “straw man” argument but Jim assured me that it was actually part of his discussion with the Ron Paul supporter.

Another FreeThinking opinion from Jim Wilson.

Let’s Legalize Prostitution

Canada’s Ontario province has recently decided to legalize prostitution and brothels. Congratulations to them, and great job! Why don’t we move toward doing the same thing here in the states? While I have no interest in making use of the services of prostitutes, I really see no reason why their trade should be outlawed. If a man or woman wishes to pay for sex they should be able to. It’s their own money legalizing prostitution would be great for the economy. Frankly, I see no reason why two or more consenting adults cannot and should not be allowed to make such an agreement.

Prostitution like the use of marijuana and other drugs are victimless crimes and a matter of personal responsibility. I don’t understand how many of the puritanical traditionalist and self-appointed moral guardians, are also self-appointed high priests of personal responsibility and small government in nearly every other context.

Drug use and prostitution have been made much more dangerous and more sinister by confining them to black markets. Like alcohol in the twenties, black markets open up doors for gangsters and thugs and make criminal activity highly profitable. Confining prostitution to an illegal economy has forced prostitutes to subject themselves to merciless pimps and corrupt cops. The trade might be safer with some regulation and oversight.

Prostitution is perfect for a black market economy, which is why it is pervasive, even though it is outlawed in much of the world. It is in high demand. Customers are willing to pay high prices. The work itself requires low-skill and very attractive to the many workers, who have less success elsewhere in the economy. Prostitution appears commonly in places with great numbers of unattached men, like military bases. Should the men who serve our country’s military be free to release their sexual tension while contributing to the circulation of wealth throughout the economy? Why should men and women struggling to make ends meet be forbidden from earning money by bringing pleasure to others in a safe legal environment?

The United States, the land of the free, forbids consenting adults from engaging in desired sexual activity even though no one would be hurt by it. The client is able to fulfill his or her sexual desires, while the prostitute is able to earn an income, in what maybe precarious economic times. Some argue that prostitution may demean the people who engage in it, but if they, are recognized and given the same legal protections that other professionals have, this would certainly be less of the case. Prostitution isn’t the most demeaning job in existence. For-example, I find being told to wear the uniforms of fast food company employees or being told to express the false corporate enthusiasm of the telemarketer to be arguably as dehumanizing and demeaning as the work many prostitutes do. In some ways we are all prostitutes. With legal recognition more prostitutes could work independently and own their business. They’d be free to be independent and  would no longer need pimps for protection or pay policeman so that they could continue to work.

Legalizing prostitution would subject it to regulation, as well as health checks, standards of accommodation, and oversight that removes the risks associated with it. The self-appointed moral guardians may fear these beneficial consequences of legalization the most. There is very reactionary part of this culture that views free expressions of sexuality as pure evil and would hate seeing the risks removed.

The need for prostitutes is real and it would generally benefit society. More people would have the option of meeting their sexual desires in safe, legal and consensual ways. The taboo nature of human sexuality, the repression of human sexuality, and the glorification of purity and virginity have done great harm to society. The repressed sexuality will often express itself in unhealthy ways and there are many stories of sexual dysfunction caused by growing up in a sex negative environment. We should not rely on the government to impose morality on everyone. Government has the job of protecting our freedom and should allow us to come to our own moral conclusions and not force those of others upon us. If you don’t like marijuana or prostitution do not participate, but do not try to impose your moral beliefs on everyone else. This, as I emphasized in my piece on CAP, is especially true of if your moral beliefs and objections are religiously based: No one has the right to impose their religious morality on others through force.