Offline IMLife is not a race; it’s a class field trip along a slow and winding river, filled with good friends, awe inspiring wonders, and marvelous learning experiences around every bend. Reply
Pseudo Random Musings Full Post View | List View
The title says it all.
- Don’t Politicize Stem Cell Research Debate
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Reasonable people can disagree on whether stem cell research is morally wrong. However, I find it disturbing so few people, including the editorial board of the Daily Harold, seem to recognize a significant problem with federal funding of stem cell research. It’s not about whether it’s right or wrong to do the research itself. It’s about forcing people to fund something they believe is wrong. Instead of politicizing the issue as some have done, we must return to the constitutional principles of freedom and not force people (e.g., through taxation) to contribute to causes they believe are wrong. If people want the research to occur, let them vote with their checkbooks to fund it.
Thursday July 27, 2006 - 09:22am (MDT) Permanent Link | 2 Comments - How to Reduce Wasteful Government Spending
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I recently came across an excellent article describing the problem of wasteful government spending and how all the cards are stacked against someone trying to reduce it. In summary, there is a great deal of power behind the goal of increasing spending and maintaining programs even if they’re wasteful, and very little power on the side of the taxpayer.
Fortunately there was also a proposed solution that made a great deal of sense. Here’s a brief description from the article:
To correct this imbalance, Congress itself should create an Office of Taxpayer Advocacy charged with the specific mission of representing the taxpayer interest in opposing unwise or unnecessary spending. This agency could employ thousands of researchers to investigate ineffective and unnecessary programs and highlight the damage done by the spending of tax dollars. It could establish a hotline for taxpayers to call about instances of waste and abuse. It could employ writers and public relations specialists to publicize the costs of spending proposals, to ensure that Congress, the media, and the public heard anti-spending arguments.
To the cynic, perhaps this is just another wasteful program, but I believe it has a good change of significantly reducing wasteful government spending.
This can also be done at different levels of government. Has anybody done this (e.g., a state government)?
Wednesday July 26, 2006 - 11:43am (MDT) Permanent Link | 0 Comments - Campaign Finance Reform
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It’s alarming how many people fail to see the relationship between the power to control the money and the power to control the process even if not given explicitly. If I allow government to finance the media, I give it power over what gets published. There is always the implied threat if not explicit legislation that the entity that displeases the group in power will regret it. Nobody is suggesting that government finance the media – it’s an effective illustration because it’s clearly inappropriate and the problems are the same as with publicly financed campaigns.
If I give a public official power to finance campaigns, I give him power over the process. If he doesn’t like a candidate or some other entity influencing the campaign he can create legislation to either directly limit their ability to participate in the process, can hurt them using legislation indirectly, or just uses the threat to control things.
This same power applies to private entities financing campaigns, however, they don’t have the power to make the rules except as they can influence public officials. More transparency lets the people decide when something inappropriate has been done without limiting their freedom to speak.
Incumbents clearly have an advantage because they can sometimes get away with mixing legitimate business with running a campaign. Using taxpayer money to finance a campaign is clearly wrong and yet it’s sometimes hard to separate campaigning from legitimate business. Perhaps we must make it more transparent where the money is coming from. For example, what if we required any communication from public officials to clearly state if taxpayer money was used including use of staff and such. Given full disclosure the people then decide whether it was improper use of their money. The media and challengers can of course point out problems and will be happy to do so if they have adequate access to the information.
The models for public financing of campaigns I’ve seen all have limits imposed. If you want to use taxpayer money, you have to limit your communication. This increases the incumbent’s advantages mentioned.
Free speech works the other way as well. I believe it’s wrong to force me to pay for advertising I find objectionable. The money for public financing of campaigns doesn’t just magically appear – it comes out of my wallet.
I believe the answer to reducing the incumbent’s advantage in campaigns is more transparency in campaigns and in government. I’d like see legislation to facilitate this instead of additional limits to free speech.
Here are some articles I've found useful in my research on this topic:
Friday June 30, 2006 - 06:17pm (MDT) Permanent Link | 0 Comments - Freedom
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Freedom is an interesting word, full of controversy. In the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition, the first definition is, “The condition of being free of restraints.” That all seems very simple, but the controversy comes quickly when you realize that freedom can’t be absolute for any individual unless perhaps they live all alone on an island. Freedom in society necessarily means to be free of restraint as long as you allow others the same. That implies we must use self-restraint and if we don’t, there must be enforced restraint.
An illustrative case happened in February, 2006 when an Afghan citizen was accused and brought to trial for the crime of apostatizing from Islam by converting to Christianity. A good summary of what occurred can currently be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_(convert). This case raises many questions related to freedom:
- What can other countries morally do if anything to put pressure on the Afghan government to support freedom of religion?
o - Call their leaders?
o - Economic sanctions?
o - Use of militarily force?
Representatives from a number of countries called Afghan leaders to express their outrage that a country that was just liberated from the Taliban by people from many religions including Christianity would even contemplate making changing religions a crime.
A little more controversial is economic sanctions.
The 3rd is probably far more controversial, but I believe we all have an obligation to protect the freedom of any person in the world. To some that obligation is a complete mystery. For me it comes from the knowledge that we’re all children of a Father in Heaven with a clear familial responsibility to look after our brothers and sisters.
Each and every person in the world has inalienable rights. We have an obligation to protect those rights, by force if necessary.
So, do we force Afghanistan to change its laws? I don’t think so. The minimum requirement is for Afghanistan to allow people to leave who don’t wish to abide by its laws. This is what was finally allowed with Abdul Rahman, who was offered an opportunity to live in Italy.
Another illustrative case is with abortion. Does a law against abortion violate women ’s rights? Except in the case of rape, or when a pregnancy jeopardizes the life of the mother, the women made her choice when she had sexual relations. The necessary insight is you can’t expect to choose the consequences of your actions. Once a women is pregnant, the unborn child now has rights.
Tuesday June 13, 2006 - 11:11pm (MDT) Permanent Link | 0 Comments - Immigration -- should we go after companies who hire illegals
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I've decided I was wrong since I wrote my blog entry at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-GqCBlWIzcK_8_SU1OHS2?p=14.
One of my conclusions in that entry was that we should go after in a strong way companies who hire illegal immigrants. Since then I've decided this is wrong. Someone should be able to hire who they want with minimal government interference. As I've said elsewhere, one of causes for illegal immigration is the mountain of regulations companies are hit with who simply want to hire someone. Government has created a huge impediment to hire Americans legally. Reduce this regulation and there will be fewer illegals and fewer jobs going to other countries.
Friday June 9, 2006 - 11:35pm (MDT) Permanent Link | 0 Comments
