His spokesman Hogan Gidley emails me in response to Mark Miners comments: “Senator Santorum is certainly an advocate for states’ rights, but he believes as Abraham Lincoln – that states do not have the right to legalize moral wrongs. The Senator has been clear and consistent – and he believes that marriage is and can only be: between one man and one woman.”

Now, it’s easy to see where Santorum is coming from — the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Lincoln at the time was arguing, as so many libertarians argue, that there are some rights which are not to be voted on. Popular sovereignty can be good for making some decisions, but that in the case of slavery, it is used to uphold a moral wrong. Infringements upon rights granted by natural law cannot be justified by majority vote:

Lincoln’s strategy was to isolate Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty from the national mainstream as a form of moral dereliction for its indifference to the corrupting effect of slavery in republican society. Douglas insisted that in his official capacity as a United States senator he did not care whether the people in a territory voted slavery up or down. Lincoln admonished: “Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it; because no man can logically say he don’t care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down.” Douglas argued that the people of a political community, like any individual, had a right to have slaves if they wanted them. Lincoln reasoned: “So they have if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong.”

Lincoln and Douglas were coming from different first principles. In fact, the argument is not at all unlike modern arguments about abortion, a point I’ve made before. The question is not whether abortion should be allowed, the question is whether a fetus is inherently “person” enough to have natural rights. If it is, abortion is murder. If it is not, abortion is no different morally from removing a cancerous growth from one’s uterus. Yet both sides constantly talk past each other without acknowledging that they are working from wildly different first principles.

Abraham Lincoln, contrary to what Santorum suggests, is not suggesting that all men must be forcibly stopped by government from engaging in moral wrongs. He explicitly acknoledges the libertarian right of natural law — you can do what you wish with what is yours. You may self-govern; the nanny state is not there to stop you from acting within your personal domain. From his 1854 speech in Peoria, IL (same source link as above, italics original, bold added by me, and one sentence from the original speech inserted into the below passage for continuity):

The South claimed a right of equality with the North in opening national territory to the expansion of slavery. Rejecting the claim, Lincoln denounced slavery as a “monstrous injustice” and a direct contradiction of “the very principles of civil liberty” in the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln said that the right of republican self-government “lies at the foundation of the sense of justice,” both in political communities and in individuals. It meant that “each man should do precisely as he pleases with all that is exclusively his own.” Declared Lincoln: “The doctrine of self-government is right—absolutely and eternally right—but it has no just application” as attempted in the Nebraska Act. Spelling out the natural-law premises of his argument, Lincoln continued: “Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has just application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, why in that case, he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent, a total destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government—that is despotism.” Recurring to the nation’s founding principles, Lincoln summarized: “If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal’; and that there can be no more moral right in connection with one man’s making a slave of another.”

Note my bolded portion on self-government. It seems that Abraham Lincoln and Rick Santorum have some agreement that a state cannot legalize a moral wrong — they merely happen to have WILDLY different definitions of what constitutes a moral wrong.

Abraham Lincoln is following the traditions of natural law and natural rights. Each man is his own, and barring his attempts to coerce others to do his bidding, he should have freedom to operate as he sees fit. Slavery is an attempt to coerce others to do his bidding, and therefore it is an abhorrent moral wrong that has no place in a free society.

Rick Santorum is following a different tradition, one that states that man is NOT his own, and should forcibly be stopped from operating in his own domain if his actions violate no ones natural rights, but violate Santorum’s own sensibilities. If two members of the same sex, wholly consensually and within the bounds of their natural rights, want to engage in a right of contract such that they bound themselves together for all the legal purposes we generally associate with marriage, they must be barred from doing so. This consensual and voluntary action must not be permitted!

Abraham Lincoln says that the government must not condone the violation of one man’s natural rights by another, and that democracy is not an adequate justification for doing so. Rick Santorum says that government must be in the job of actively violating those natural rights, even if the people of a territory choose to vote to recognize those rights! Abraham Lincoln says that slavery is wrong because it takes away the right of self-government; Rick Santorum says that we must all be slaves of the state, because he doesn’t like what we choose to do with our freedom.

Abraham Lincoln decries a situation which denies the equality before the law of human beings; Rick Santorum claims the mantle of Abraham Lincoln while cheering laws that deny that equality! In doing so, Rick Santorum misses the irony: he’s replaying the Lincoln-Douglas debates in modern times, but he doesn’t realize that he’s taking Douglas’ side, not Lincoln’s.

In the introduction to the pledge, there was language that suggested that black families were better off during slavery and more likely to be families that included both a mother and a father than “after the election of the USA’s first African-American president.” This language was later struck from the document that included the pledge.

For most of the G.O.P. field, candidates were reluctant to sign and offered no comment. Mrs. Tea Party herself, Michele Bachmann, however; couldn’t sign the pledge fast enough – even before the reference to black families was removed. Rick Santorum also signed, Jon Huntsman said he doesn’t sign pledges, Newt Gingrich reportedly won’t sign the pledge unless there are additional changes to the language (How could he? Isn’t he on wife number 3?) Mitt Romney rejected the pledge calling it “inappropiate for a presidential campaign” and a Ron Paul spokesman said the congressman “has reservations” about the pledge and “doesn’t want the government to dictate and define traditional marriage.”

Gary Johnson, true to form, effectively vetoed the pledge.

Actually, this is an understatement. Gov. Johnson blasted the pledge calling it “un-Republican and un-American.”

Government should not be involved in the bedrooms of consenting adults. I have always been a strong advocate of liberty and freedom from unnecessary government intervention into our lives. The freedoms that our forefathers fought for in this country are sacred and must be preserved. The Republican Party cannot be sidetracked into discussing these morally judgmental issues — such a discussion is simply wrongheaded. We need to maintain our position as the party of efficient government management and the watchdogs of the “public’s pocket book”.

This is exactly what this so-called marriage vow is: a distraction. The Tea Party movement was successful in the 2010 elections because the focus was on the economy, limited government, and liberty NOT divisive social issues.

Gov. Johnson continues:

This ‘pledge’ is nothing short of a promise to discriminate against everyone who makes a personal choice that doesn’t fit into a particular definition of ‘virtue’.

While the Family Leader pledge covers just about every other so-called virtue they can think of, the one that is conspicuously missing is tolerance. In one concise document, they manage to condemn gays, single parents, single individuals, divorcees, Muslims, gays in the military, unmarried couples, women who choose to have abortions, and everyone else who doesn’t fit in a Norman Rockwell painting.

Maybe The Family Leader has done as all a huge favor? By pressuring candidates to sign the pledge in hopes of receiving The Family Leader’s precious endorsement, those of us who want to have some idea of how serious these candidates are about limited government and freedom now have a litmus test of sorts. Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum receive an F, Jon Huntsman and Newt Gingrich maybe a B, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul an A, and Gary Johnson an A+. The rest who have yet to respond get incompletes.

Obviously, for so-called values voters, the grades would be awarded in the opposite way (i.e. Johnson gets an F and Bachmann an A+). This pledge exposes the divide within the Republican Party and the battle for the party’s soul. Will G.O.P. primary voters nominate someone who will welcome individuals (especially independents) who aren’t necessarily found in a Norman Rockwell painting or will they once again nominate someone who panders primarily to white Christian men who want to tell you what to do in your bedroom?

If they win, we might as well get used to the idea of 4 more years of President Barack Obama.

So what kinds of rape were excluded? Women who are drugged, intoxicated, mentally incapacitated, under age (i.e. statutory rape), and even date rape victims did not qualify under the House bill’s definition of “forcible rape.” While I do think each of these things should be debated in a criminal justice context, its wholly inappropriate here.

Here’s another example of abortion opponents needlessly taking the issue in to legal territory it need not go. I’ve never quite understood why pro-lifers are so eager to say that there’s no such thing as a right to privacy (though the 4th and 10th 9th Amendments say otherwise) to argue that Roe v. Wade was incorrectly decided. In the case of redefining rape in this legislation, House Republicans could have potentially put women in danger had they had their way. All they really needed to say was “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion.” Period.

Forget about the whole issue of abortion in the context of this language. It’s not difficult to see why this language wouldn’t play well among women – even to pro-life women. Surly some of these congressmen have daughters, sisters, or mothers? If one of the women they loved was drugged and raped, would they really have the nerve to say that the non-consensual sex was somehow not a rape?

If the bill did somehow become law of the land, it’s not difficult to see how a criminal defense lawyer might use the law to benefit his client: “Your Honor, my client in fact did not commit rape at least as defined in the ‘No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act’…he put something in her drink to ‘get her in the mood’ and he likewise took a Viagra.”

Maybe that’s a little farfetched – I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer and don’t even play one on TV. It does seem dangerous though to start redefining words like rape in such a careless fashion.

Fortunately, the offending language was taken out of the bill today due to pressure from various activist organizations but the damage to the sponsors of this bill is surely already done. I fully expect this issue will resurface in attack ads in the next election cycle. This time, the attacks will be well deserved.

As the project has neared breaking ground, opponents and supporters have taken to the streets. “It’s an affront to the freedom that NARAL protects that these Christo-fascists would try to base their hate so close to our headquarters,” said Susan Colona, a NARAL employee. “It’s clear that they’re moving so close in order to threaten and intimidate the workers here at NARAL. It’s chilling, in the wake of the senseless murder of Dr. George Tiller, that they’re willing to escalate their actions.”

Protesters carrying signs with slogans such as “Go Back To Kansas” and “Keep Your God Out Of My Uterus” marched outside the headquarters. Supporters of the church countered nearby with opposing signs, “Abortion Is Murder — An Eye For An Eye” and “We Protect Those Who Can’t Protect Themselves.”

Pro-choice US Representative Donna Edwards (D-MD) sides with NARAL. “The actions of the picketers in support of this church are a clear example of hate speech. We are a country that values freedom of religion, and I don’t believe we can legally stop this congregation from forming, but I am deeply saddened that the church would choose such a site for their home.”

Pastor Elijah Williams, who would be heading the proposed church, doesn’t understand the fight. “While we as a church are generally against the practice of abortion, many within the ELCA are willing to make exceptions for circumstances such as rape and the health of the mother. In fact, Dr. George Tiller was a member of the ELCA, and we have publicly condemned Scott Roeder for his unconscionable actions. We are a peaceful church, and chose the site of our church because we thought it was the best place for our home, not because of its proximity to NARAL.”

Pastor Williams even suggested that the extremist protestors antagonizing NARAL were not from the ELCA, but rather sent by the Westboro Baptist Church, an organization known for sending protestors to funerals of US Servicemen killed in combat.

The fight doesn’t appear to be waning. NARAL has been searching for legal ways to fight the church, including potentially having the entire block declared a historic landmark due to its age. Stephen Simpson, a lawyer who had previously advised the ELCA on other matters, doesn’t see this as cause for hope. “What should have been a very simple process of building a home for a budding congretation is now likely to be derailed. Once national politics and the legal system become involved, this will become a circus. I hope the church and NARAL can come to some agreement to avoid this outcome.”

Given the contention between the parties, though, this appears unlikely at this time.

It comes down to two different potential mutually exclusive beliefs:

1. The intrinsic “human-ness” of a fetus begins at conception, or viability, or wherever you define — but nonetheless prior to birth.
2. “Human-ness” begins at birth.

It’s a near-universal belief, whether libertarian, conservative, or liberal, that humans have certain rights. Libertarians nearly always define these as “negative rights”, i.e. freedom from external restraint or infringement. Liberals typically extend this significantly to “positive rights” or the common good, i.e. everyone has a right to an education, a square meal, health care, etc, and individuals may have some liberties restrained (i.e. income taxes, etc) in order to ensure provision of those positive rights for others. Conservatives, as far as I can tell, more define such positive rights as the ability to live in a stable, moral, traditional society, and are willing to curtail liberties (such as drug use, prostitution, etc) that threaten the wider societal “stability”.

But either way, they all believe that individuals have rights and murder is wrong.

If you believe the first proposition — i.e. that a fetus prior to birth has innate “human-ness” and thus human rights, to allow for that innocent “child” to be killed is murder. While there may be needs from time to time to balance rights of one against rights of another (i.e. when health of the mother is threatened, perhaps), one might side with the mother, but that would be considered a justified moral tragedy, not a dispassionate and lightly-considered “choice”. To someone who believes proposition 1, Roe v. Wade is an abomination, as no amount of privacy justifies murder.

If you believe the second proposition — that a fetus prior to birth has no innate rights, then you have no issue with abortion. At that point the fetus can be considered an invasive and unwanted growth inside ones body, and the removal of such is entirely at the discretion of the mother, as it is her body and thus her choice. To infringe on her personal privacy is thus immoral and not the purview of government.

The belief in the first or second proposition is not covered by any moral theory of libertarianism that I’ve come across. Thus, if you define your view of abortion as a logical outgrowth of the rights the fetus does or does not have, you can impart that a priori belief into libertarianism.

As with all beliefs, there are a lot of people who have gut instincts but have never put in the hard thinking to really boil this down to proposition 1 or 2, and then accept the consequences thereof. Most tend to choose a pro-life or pro-choice position and then try to work backwards to justify it in arguments… But then that’s true of most political debates — the average layman incorporates a lot of subconscious values into his/her belief system, and then chooses the political party that “feels” right based on those subconscious values.

But I personally think that the entire debate over abortion boils down to whether one believes proposition 1 or proposition 2. That is fundamentally not a libertarian, conservative, or liberal belief — regardless of the fact that there’s significant overlap between religions who believe proposition 1 and conservatives, and many secular and liberal folks who believe proposition 2. Believing proposition 1 and allowing abortion is philosophically inconsistent, and believing proposition 2 and disallowing abortion is a violation of individual freedom of the mother.

It’s as simple as that.

PS – I left this as a comment to Aaron Ross Powell’s discussion of libertarianism, but thought it widely-applicable enough to post here as a more general discussion.

what can one say
about 700K?

>;-)

Like cockroaches, “compassionate conservatives” are scurrying out from the cracks and crevices to celebrate this death. Balloon Juice is keeping track of the pro-murder statements over at Free Republic.

At The Next Right, diarist DebraJMSmith entitles her gloating rant: “Abortionist, George Tiller, Shot Dead!” (Update: This post has now been removed from the site)

“And I do not feel sorry for a family who loved a murderer,” she writes. “And I sure do NOT feel sorry for a church that had no problem allowing a murderer to attend.”

It’s to be noted that she also posts Alabama Judge Roy Moore’s poetry on her personal site. Moore recently had to distance himself from a supporter who wrote:

“We must clean up our education system which is indoctrinating our children through a multicultural mix of communism, Islam, New Age and anything that goes, except Christianity, which is now being portrayed as the enemy. Our forefathers founded America on God and his word. The enemy is now taking it away, but he can do it only if we remain apathetic and refuse to listen and act on the truth.”

Of course, Moore attracts supporters such as these when he writes legal opinions like this (emphasis added):

To disfavor practicing homosexuals in custody matters is not invidious discrimination, nor is it legislating personal morality. On the contrary, disfavoring practicing homosexuals in custody matters promotes the general welfare of the people of our State in accordance with our law, which is the duty of its public servants… The State carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children toward this lifestyle, to not encourage a criminal lifestyle… Homosexual behavior is a ground for divorce, an act of sexual misconduct punishable as a crime in Alabama, a crime against nature, an inherent evil, and an act so heinous that it defies one’s ability to describe it. That is enough under the law to allow a court to consider such activity harmful to a child. To declare that homosexuality is harmful is not to make new law but to reaffirm the old; to say that it is not harmful is to experiment with people’s lives, particularly the lives of children.

One wonders how many more Roy Moore supporters will be celebrating the Tiller’s murder in public.  Certainly, a lot more of them will be celebrating in the closet. And Republicans can’t figure out why they are losing elections.

UPDATE: Here is some related sickness on Twitter.

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism [...] The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

-Ronald Reagan (1975)

For the second election in a row, you find yourselves on the losing end. A significant majority of Americans have lost confidence in you and your lack of vision.

As you debate amongst yourselves the reasons why you lost the White House as well as numerous seats in both houses of Congress, perhaps this former Republican who has flirted with the Libertarian Party* over the last decade can offer you some helpful advice and constructive criticism. While I do not presume to speak on behalf of the many thousands of disillusioned former libertarian- leaning small government Republicans who were once a valued voting bloc in Ronald Reagan’s “conservative coalition,” I am quite certain that there are many others who would agree with my appraisal of why you find yourselves in the position you are in.

President-Elect Barack Obama is wrong about a great many things but one thing he (and his party) has which you do not is clearly defined principles and the ability to communicate these principles effectively. I know what the Democratic Party stands for, what does the Republican Party stand for?

I know what the modern meanings of the terms “liberal” and “progressive” mean, but I have no idea what the modern meaning of the term “conservative” means. I have recently seen polls which ask the following question:

The Republicans lost the election because

a. The Republican Party is too conservative

b. The Republican Party is not conservative enough

I find this question to be impossible to answer!

If by “conservative” one means a party which appeals almost exclusively to white Christian male culture warriors whose primary agenda is using the police power of government to accomplish desired political goals, then my answer would be “a.”

If by “conservative” one means promoting the rights of life, liberty, and property then clearly, my answer would be “b.”

I do not believe the ambiguity of the term “conservative” is by accident. “Conservative” is every bit the nebulous term as we have heard ad nauseam from the Obama campaign (i.e. “hope” and “change”). Because these terms are so under defined, each person who hears these buzzwords assigns his or her own meaning to them. I seem to recall every candidate in the Republican primary refer to himself as a “conservative” or even a “Reagan conservative” at one time or another. How is it possible that candidates with philosophical differences as stark as that of Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani both claim to be conservative?

Now that I have pointed out your apparent error of asking the wrong question (garbage in, garbage out right?) to try to regain the trust of a majority of voters, I believe it is time for you to explain what exactly a conservative is. My understanding of the term is more in line with what Barry Goldwater described in Conscience of a Conservative** as opposed to what the Republican Party has offered in the 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008 campaigns.

I realize that a political party cannot be all things to all people but all of your constituents deserve to have a clear understanding of where your party is going. Does this mean that moving forward that you will have to choose between two very large voting blocs – small government conservatives and social conservatives?

This depends completely on how you choose to frame the issues. Where the Republican Party seems to stand now is that government can and should be used to force individuals to behave a certain way***. This approach is completely at odds with the small government conservative approach that undesirable behavior can be changed with the power of persuasion**** rather than force.

Is it possible that the Libertarian Party has an approach that a majority of social conservatives could live with? Perhaps you could learn something from The 2008 Libertarian Party Platform:

(From the Preamble)

As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.

We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.

Consequently, we defend each person’s right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.

This approach to governance that the Libertarian Party offers is why I have left the Republican Party and voted accordingly. Thus far, I have not seen any evidence that your party will become the party of smaller government, lower taxes, and more freedom. Some of the names I have heard bandied about as the “new face” of the Republican Party such as Mitt “Romney Care” Romney, Sarah “I can see Russia from my house” Palin, and “Tax Hike Mike” Huckabee suggests that you are yet to learn why small government conservatives are leaving in droves.

This is not to say that you will continue to lose every election until you return Goldwater/Reagan conservatism. There is a good chance that you will regain one or both houses of Congress in 2010 and perhaps the presidency in 2012*****. But if you wish to win elections and stay elected, you will need to return to these philosophical roots.

Until that day comes, I will continue to support the Libertarian Party and only support Republicans who demonstrate in word and deed their wishes to shrink the size, scope, and power of government.

*And has recently joined the Libertarian Party and voted for another Republican turned Libertarian (Bob Barr) for president in this election.

**I would recommend everyone in a leadership capacity of the G.O.P. to read this book. I am certain that all of you have it on a shelf collecting dust and cobwebs. I would also recommend Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (read John Galt’s speech if nothing else) to learn why lovers of liberty such as myself were very turned off by the McCain campaign’s collectivist references to “a cause greater than self,” “sacrifice,” and “the common good.”

***Abortion, end of life issues (right to die with dignity), gay marriage, gambling, drug use, prostitution, blue laws, etc. are all examples of personal choices that social conservatives believe should be regulated or abolished.

****Persuasion as in convincing individuals to make a different choice with a compelling argument. No matter how much one tries whether using persuasion or force, not everyone will make the “right” decision. This is a fact of life we need to learn to deal with.

***** Due to the unrealistically high expectations Obama set for himself, many of his supporters will be sorely disappointed when they learn he is a mere mortal. I also believe the Democrats will overreach and try to take the country further to the Left than a majority of Americans are prepared for.

What motivates these very nice people to be such tyrants? Some will vote in ignorance of the issue* and others out of a sense of ‘social justice.’ Very few will intentionally vote to take liberty or property from a fellow citizen; most will vote to do so out of a well intentioned but misguided sense of right and wrong.

The Colorado ballot contains 18 ballot measures, most of which are proposed amendments to the state’s constitution. About half of these measures would restrict liberty, increase taxes, or otherwise punish individuals for activities which ought not to be a crime in a free state or country.

Threats to Liberty from the Left

Union backed amendments 53, 55, 56, and 57 are all very hostile to business. Amendment 53 targets business executives for criminal liability (as if business executives are not already criminally liable for committing crimes), 55 would change Colorado from a “right to work state” to a “just cause state,” 56 requires employers with 20 employees or more to provide health coverage for employees and their dependants, and 57 would put employers at greater liability than the existing workman’s comp laws.

All of these amendments would make Colorado a less attractive place to do business and would likely mean fewer decent paying jobs. Like most populist proposals, the people who the advocates of these measures are trying to help would be hurt the most.

Amendments 51, 58, and 59 concern taxation. Amendment 51 would increase the sales tax to fund programs for the developmentally disabled, 58 directly taxes the oil and gas industry (Coloradans who wish to pay more for gas should support this measure), and 59 redirects funds which under current law are rebated to taxpayers under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) to an education savings fund.

Given governments’ track record of mismanaging taxpayer money (especially given what’s going on in Washington), I am in no mood to pay additional taxes or allow the government at any level to keep more no matter what the reason.

Threats to Liberty from the Right

While many of the ballot measures are economically on the Left, at least one is socially conservative. Amendment 48, the so-called “personhood” amendment would amend the Colorado Constitution to define all fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses as people complete with all legal rights associated with being a person. Clearly, this amendment is an attempt to ban abortion in the state of Colorado. Inevitably, if 48 is passed, there will be legal challenges which 48’s proponents hope would ultimately lead to overturning Roe v. Wade.

Amendment 48 makes no exceptions for rape** or incest. While there is an exception for abortion in the event that the life of the mother is threatened, opponents of 48 believe that doctors would put women at unnecessary mortal risk out of fear of being prosecuted for murdering the unborn. Because a fertilized egg would have the same legal rights as a person, a woman and her doctor could face life imprisonment and even the death penalty (someone explain to me how this is “pro-life”!).

Opponents of 48 also fear that doctors would be compelled to violate doctor/patient confidentiality as they may be required to report miscarriages to the authorities if s/he has the slightest suspicion that the miscarriage was caused intentionally***.

Giving fertilized eggs a definition of personhood would also:

- Ban commonly used birth control such as the birth control pill and the morning after pill
- Ban embryonic stem cell research (both public and private)
- Raise additional legal reproductive rights questions on issues with regard to artificial insemination

Despite what both pro-lifers and pro-choicers say, the abortion issue is very complex and there is plenty of room for debate on the merits of this issue among libertarians. What I would hope abortion foes would realize is that this measure has implications far beyond a legal prohibition of abortion.

NEXT: Why Libertarians Should Vote: Restoring Liberty via the Ballot Box (Part 3 of 3)

*To be fair, some of the language found in some ballot measures is very difficult to understand for those who do not have a legal background. The campaigns which support and oppose these measures understand this and create misleading ads to appeal to the ignorance of the voters to vote with emotion rather than reason.

**Women who become pregnant as a result of rape should never, ever, be forced to give birth to the spawn of her attacker. Never.

***The tragedy of a miscarriage is horrible enough without being interrogated by the police.

To have “a strict constructionist” philosophy means to return to slavery and other injustices of the era of the founding fathers? What Whoopi fails to understand (and what Sen. McCain failed to explain) is that the founders themselves knew that the Constitution as written was not perfect and would have to change over time via the amendment process:

Article V. – Amendment

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

On December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery:

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

A strict constructionist judge would, by definition, take Article V and the Thirteenth Amendment into account because a strict constructionist judge would rule on the current state of the Constitution; not as it was approved in convention on September 17, 1787.

Having said that, I do not believe that a President McCain would appoint strict constructionists any more than any other president has in recent memory. Anyone who could have authored the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, a law which undermines the very foundation of freedom of speech and expression, cannot be taken seriously as someone who respects and/or supports the Constitution. In the modern political parlance, the term “strict constructionist” has become a codeword* for someone who supports whatever the current so-called conservative agenda happens to be. If McCain were serious about appointing strict constructionists, he would appoint individuals who would find many of the Bush Administration’s policies, executive orders, signing statements and laws unconstitutional. Many of McCain’s own proposals would also necessarily be D.O.A.

But Whoopi need not worry: if McCain does become the next POTUS, she will not find herself picking cotton. Even by McCain’s definition of “strict constructionist.”

*The ladies on The View are concerned with good reason that in many cases, the term “strict constructionist” has become a codeword for someone who simply would overturn Roe v. Wade.

“We were flabbergasted when we heard her start saying that ‘stem cells are a gift from God’ and that ‘stemcell research is biblically based’ in her arguments. I mean she was going to vote the right way, but this was her argument to get other people to vote the right way. And the reason this is really horrific is-our argument is whether or not you allow stem cell research to progress shouldn’t be based on your theology, because if it is just a competition between whose theology is right. I mean President Bush, when he vetoes these bills, he bases it on God and the Bible also and his interpretation. … Making this a competition of whose theology wins is not appropriate. What you need to do is to say ‘Look this is science, this is not – we can’t have the government imposing anyone’s theology – you know, this is research, this is not about what someone’s religious belief is.” – I transcribed this myself – any deviation from what was actually said is a mistake rather than malice – tarran

In effect, she was opposed to a minority being able to block some bit of government funding for research based on moral objections rooted in superstitious beliefs.

This seems a reasonable position at first blush, but is, in fact, a highly immoral and, frankly impossible proposition. Let us turn to our old friends the Nazis for a demonstration, since they make for great reductio ad absurdum argumentation. Imagine if the Nazi party had managed to win a majority in the U.S. House. A representative from the Illinois delegation rises up and proposes a bill that in order advance scientific knowledge on the subject of hypothermia, he wants the NSF to oversee research using human subjects who are subjected to extremes of temperatures and stressed to the point of death. When challenged about the morality of killing people, the legislator dismissively says “they’re just Jews, it’s OK”. When the non-Nazi legislators protest that “Jews are human too,” the Nazi legislator could argue that the non-Nazis are trying to impose their twisted expansive morality upon the Nazi majority, who were elected fair and square by a majority of the American people!

This is not an impossible scenario: the Nazis did conduct these gruesome experiments, and we living in the modern era definitely benefit from their research. The systematic understanding developed by the Nazis of hypothermia has saved countless lives in the subsequent years. It is even possible that at this point more people have been saved as a result of the research than were killed in conducting it. However, I don’t think anyone reading this, were they confronted with the question of initiating such a research project, would accept such an argument. Our moral decision that murdering human beings is so wrong that public money should not be spent on it is just that, a moral decision. The fact that it is almost universally held by the entire population does not change the fact that we are applying a personal moral judgment to public policy.

The fact here is that when the government funds research into stem-cells, it is offensive to a large segment of people who are forced to pay for it. These people feel it is immoral. Now, if they tried to outlaw stem-cell research from being conducted at all, one could make the case that they are imposing their morality on everyone else. However, it is the people who are demanding that taxpayers be forced to fund this research who are imposing their morality upon the rest. Those who find stem-cell research to be immoral are being forced to support it. This is just as outrageous as when atheists are forced to take a loyalty oath that includes the words “under God” while attending government schools.

This is, of course, an inevitable conflict when taxes are levied to pay for some charity like scientific research. Somebody somewhere is going to see their hard-earned money spent on things that they don’t approve of.

Moreover, I am puzzled by the support shown by many in the “skeptical” community toward government funding of science. This community is dedicated to stamping out “junk science”, which is a quite worthy goal. However public funding of science is far more junk-science friendly than non governmental sources. One only need to look at the Soviet Union’s support for Lysankoism and dismissal of Einstein’s theory of relativity as a ‘bourgeois theory’ to see some extreme examples of this. The reason why is quite ably explained in a working paper written by W. N. Butos and T. J. McQuade, Government and Science: A Dangerous Liason?:

Science, in the absence of outside intervention, is a decentralized system of social interaction operating according to generally understood rules, the basis of which are the institutions of publication and citation. There is no controlling authority, because power is distributed (not necessarily evenly, but still widely) across the population of participants. The institutional arrangements of science explicitly cater to the self-interest of all of the participants. The process of interaction constrained by these arrangements results in observable side-effects stabilized by negative feedback – the corpus of scientific knowledge and the generally acknowledged reputations of participating scientists. This stabilization is
not such as to preclude variation of the side-effects in response to environmental changes. And these relatively stable side-effects provide not only general and nondiscriminatory benefits even to nonparticipants but also the incentive for a positive feedback effect on participation in the system.

But science in and of itself generates no revenue and so the expenses associated with scientific pursuits must be funded by other sources. Since very few scientists are independently wealthy, it is common for them to be employed as teachers in academic institutions, receiving both a salary for personal maintenance and some financial support for the operational expenses attendant to scientific activity. Scientists can also be supported directly by private donors or by corporations. And they can be financed through grants of public funds. It is not surprising that these different funding sources should have different effects on the practice of science, and an examination of such effects leads directly to a consideration of intervention in science, for it is through funding that organizations outside of science can most easily affect the actions of scientists, introduce new incentives, exercise control, and alter the adaptive characteristics of the knowledge-generating system as a whole.

The three broad sources of outside funding (donors, businesses, and legislatures) have an obvious similarity: in none of these cases is funding, or its continuation, without strings attached. Donors may be motivated by civic duty or a desire for the immortality of association with a fundamental advance or with a large institution, businesses by the indirect profitability of such funding, and legislators by the benefits produced by the spending of the funding in their districts or on the enhancement to their electability from being associated with the promotion of a good and popular cause. But the first two of these source types have constraints which are more or less tied to the scientific results produced. The third, however, measures success not necessarily by the science produced but by the perception among voters and constituents that they might benefit from the particular funding. The funding constraints are therefore much less pressing for government funding (for the amounts potentially available through government taxation, borrowing, or money creation are huge) and yet are the least connected with the success (in terms of usefulness to other scientists in follow-on research) of the scientific activity itself. This characteristic, compounded by the organization of the government funding apparatus into a small number of large bureaucracies, has potentially corrosive effects in several ways, as we will see. We divide these effects, for ease of exposition, into incentive effects, “Big Player” effects, problems of boom and bust, and problems of bureaucracy.

• Incentive effects: Under government science incentives matter, just as they would markets. These altered incentives will affect the institutions involved in the administration of science, including funding agencies recipient institutions, and also how scientists behave. Funding agencies are not autonomous, but operate as a bureaucracy within the government sector. Their incentives emanate, at least in par from the legislative and the executive branches, thereby establishing a political dynamic for explaining their behavior along any number of margins, including the areas of science receiving funding, institutional recipients, and its geographic disbursement. There is also a symmetry of interests between the funding agencies, including the military, and recipient institutions (industry and universities). This carries implications for the dynamics of government science because it creates a potentially powerful lobbying nexus whose interests are geared to sustaining and expanding government funding.

• Big Player effects: The source structure of science funding matters in the sense that, while an environment with a small number of large funders provides the potential for those desiring to control the direction (or, in the extreme, even the content) of science to have systemic effects, whereas in an environment with a large number of small funders the effects of individually power-oriented operations are much more likely to be localized and constrained. This effect is the analog of the Big Player phenomenon in markets. Following Koppl and Yeager (1996), government is a Big Player in science whose behavior is capable of dominating the flow of signals guiding the direction and intensity of scientific research. The magnitude of government’s influence exposes science to self-reinforcing path dependent processes that may be analogous to herding and bubbles in financial markets. However, while in markets the prospect of self-correction is strong because underlying market realities sooner or later prevail, science has no analog of resource constraints for its products and has to rely only on its internal coherence as established by its own critical procedures. Big Player effects are known to produce herding and bubbles in financial markets. The corollary in science is the funding opportunities provided by government for designated areas of research, such as AIDS or environmental issues. Because such government-funded research enthusiasms are inextricably linked to the political process, the presumption must be that the direction of research is driven by the same incentives and constraints as any other politically- based funding program. This suggests that the basis for such funding is arbitrary and no more or less justifiable than any other possible use of taxpayer funds. Moreover, the development of the direction of research itself is likely to be sustainable only for as long as the funding continues, after which new funding objectives will replace previous ones.35 Government funding, in this sense, is not too unlike Congressional Omnibus Transportation Bills: a predictable amount of funding will occur, but for what and for whom is always up for grabs.

• Problems of boom and bust: In recognizing that government science operates along a significant political dimension, we propose that the path of science will also reflect the shifting funding priorities of government institutions, both elected and otherwise. It seems clear that the level of government intervention in science can be explained in part by “public choice” considerations. But economists have long understood that the cyclical activity or dynamic stability of the economy reflects the effect credit policies of central bankers and very possibly the electoral cycles of representative democracies. In economics we can think of fiscal policy’s effect on the average level of economic activity as opposed to monetary policy’s affect on the dynamic stability of the system.

In proposing a similar kind of distinction for analyzing government intervention in science, our discussion considers such intervention in the context of the dynamic stability of science. Windfall funding for science is like artificially cheap credit for business – the immediate effect is a growth in investment (including employment) and, with a lag, output. The general quality of the output is not necessarily compromised, although by making it possible for people who would otherwise work elsewhere to pursue a scientific career the tendency may be to lower the average quality of the practitioners. What may be noticeable is an increase the “far-outness” of the investigations pursued – in the sense of the resulting papers being of little or no interest to other researchers and generating minimal, if any, citations and follow-on publications. One would expect to see, in the distribution of government science funding, bursts of heavy funding in some areas, cutbacks or neglect in others, with the identities of these areas changing as the political winds change direction.36 When the Russians threaten to lead the way into space, astronautics and space science is favored, building up an impressive edifice of research capability and trained scientists ready to push the discipline further. When the Japanese threaten to develop a “fifth-generation” computer, attention switches to computer science and the growth in space science funding becomes insufficient to maintain the talent already developed. When the Japanese are no longer seen as a danger to national prestige, political attention wanders away from computer science and its newer PhDs find employment in the area of research they have been trained for much harder than expected to come by. It is a scenario of localized booms and busts – “science cycles” – accompanied by a real disruption of individual lives and waste of talent and resources similar to that characteristic of business cycles.

The problem with temporarily unconstrained funding is that it fosters unstable growth. Lavish funding results in more scientists being trained as the recipients of funds require assistants to pursue the funded projects; in turn, these assistants, if they are to become researchers in their own right will require funding of their own.37 Private funding sources naturally limit the growth of the system of science in a way that has a relatively direct connection to the perceived usefulness of the science itself to other scientists, and this sort of stabilized growth is likely to be more durable and productive than spurts of growth and retrenchment based on factors external to science.

The danger to quality of output and integrity of behavior comes with the downturns in funding, when the rate of increase of funding ceases to keep pace with the structural growth fostered by prior funding. At this point, scientists are in competition with each other not merely for scientific reputation but for their very livelihood.

•Problems of bureaucracy: Concentration of funding in large government-financed organizations brings to bear the usual symptoms of bureaucracy – success measured by budget rather than results, unwillingness to take risks which may subject the organization and its managers to criticism, and a concentration on areas of research likely to be politically popular. And, as pointed out by Greenberg, bureaucratic control of the funding process has led to conservatism (“calcification”, as he puts it). While this may not affect the general quality of research work, it will tend to channel scientists seeking funding into more conservative, more obviously “acceptable” lines of inquiry, and will make it more difficult for mavericks to be funded. Again, bureaucratic effects are competently discussed in Greenberg (2001).

Bias-free research is impossible. The incentives that produce junk science cannot be eliminated. Rather we would be better off seeking to limit the damage that people who chose to produce junk science can do. That can best be accomplished by having the government to return the money taken from taxpayers to fund scientific research to the taxpayers, and get out of the game entirely. There is a significant demand for scientific research, so it will continue. But under a regime of voluntary donations, scientists could work with those who wish fund stem-cell research while having to face far less opposition to their work.

Comte, charmingly, also penned “Love as a principle and order as the basis; Progress as the goal” to support his totalitarian socialist views (which was later shortened to “Order & Progress” to become the motto of Brazil – and part of the justification for their death squads). Much more euphonious than “From each to his abilities, to each to his needs” eh.

At any rate, and disregarding the dictatorial delusions of a 19th century Frenchman; there’s a strong point to be made with the statement.

To the extent that human behavior is predictable (and on the macro scale, it can be surprisingly so), or more to the point that societies and subcultures behaviors are predictable; the primary factor in those predictions is demographics.

Of course that is so, because demographics is specifically the study of ones (or ones “group”) position in society; social, economic, religious, political; and how that is likely to effect the actions and decisions of those similarly grouped. In fact, in many ways demography is specifically the study of how people can be broken into groups of (at least somewhat) predictable behavior.

I know personally two demographic experts, who happen to be married to each other; Kim and Connie Du Toit. Connie uses her expertise in determining the best way to train corporate workers on a large scale (like the entire workforce of a fortune 500 company in India); and Kim uses it to design retail store environments (where to locate stores, what merchandise to sell in what stores at what locations, and where to put it in the store) for maximum sales.

So, given that Kim is a demographic expert (and believe me, he is… actually THEY are. They can talk about the subject for hours); the fact that he was gobsmacked by this piece that he linked is somewhat surprising:

Heinsohn is not concerned with the absolute size of populations, but rather with the share of teenagers and young men. If this share becomes too big compared to the total population, we are facing a youth bulge. The problem starts when families begin to produce three, four or more sons. This will cause the sons to fight over access to the positions in society that give power and prestige. Then you will have a lot of boys and young men running around filled with aggression and uncontrollable hormones. And then we shall experience mass killings, until a sufficient number of young men have been eradicated to match society’s ability to provide positions for the survivors.

According to Heinsohn, 80 per cent of world history is about young men in nations with a surplus of sons, creating trouble. This trouble may take many forms — a increase in domestic crime, attempts at coups d’état, revolutions, riots and civil wars. Occasionally, the young commit genocide to secure for themselves the positions that belonged to those they killed. Finally, there is war to conquer new territory, killing the enemy population and replacing it with one’s own.

But, as Heinsohn emphasizes again and again, the unrest and the violent acts caused by youth bulges have nothing to do with famine or unemployment. In his book he describes it as follows: “The dynamic of a youth bulge — it cannot be emphasized too often — is not caused by a lack of food. A younger brother, who may be employed as a stable hand by the first-born son and who may be well fed and perhaps even fat, does not seek food but position, one that can guarantee him recognition, influence and dignity. Not the underweight but rather the potential losers or the déclassé are pushing forward” (p. 21).

And that’s just part of the prelude. The rest, and the analysis itself, will leave you slack-jawed with astonishment, I promise you.

It’s not often I read something which makes me smack my head (figuratively speaking) and exclaim, ”Of course!”, but this analysis managed that quite easily. It’s one of those pieces which grabs all the little loose ends lying around in your brain, and ties them all into a big, tidy knot.

And, if he’s right, we are facing some really interesting times ahead—in a bad sense.

Oh he’s definitely right (Heinsohn that is). Astute China and India watchers have been saying for years “watch out for the demographic bomb”.

China and India both have a vastly disproportionate share of young males to young females due to sex selective abortion and infanticide. Combine that with huge and growing populations, and little opportunity for upward mobility; and it doesn’t take a genius to see trouble on the horizon.

The middle east, which has comparatively few opportunities for position and advancement in comparison to it’s huge population of young males (also due to cultural sex selection, though there is less infanticide and almost no abortion – females are simply not allowed to be active members of society; combined with active neglect and plural marriage, the pool of available women is very small), has been going through this for it’s entire recorded history; and the problem is only accelerating.

There are only two ways to defuse the bomb: The first is to provide more opportunities for status, position, and advancement; the second, to reduce birth rates, especially of males.

America has done both quite successfully, providing consistent year over year growth in excess of it’s population, while bringing birth rates down to replacement levels through organic cultural incentives (not through population control policies, which simply don’t work as intended, in fact creating demographic bombs as above), and allowing relatively moderate immigration (in fact our primary demographic issue in the US is assimilated illegal immigration).

Europe quite frankly has not done either very well (and the mid-east hasn’t done anything at all except get worse). Since the 1970s (after the post war recovery and then economic boom – also largely caused by demographics) Europe has only provided modest opportunities for relatively small percentages of it’s population, while reducing their birth rates far too drastically.

This population implosion has required Europe to import unskilled labor in massive amounts; thus resulting in nearly the same problems that exist in the mid-east: large numbers of low status young men, with little opportunity for advancement, little attachment to the political and social fabric of the society in which they live (or rather which they live outside of but conterminous with), and a strong incentive towards violence.

Europe cannot decrease their birth rate (it’s already well below the replacement rate), in fact they need to INCREASE it (some governments are already offering incentives to do so – they don’t work well either); and if they stopped importing labor they would have a total economic collapse; which would simply accelerate the descent into violence that has already begun in France, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

They are desperately trying to stave off the problem with their welfare state, but they don’t understand, it’s not about hungry people, it’s about people who feel like they have no way of getting ahead. People who have little self worth and a burning desire to feel important; and no way of doing so.

Those people are rife for recruitment into radical religious and political sects; because they give an inflated sense of self worth, and accomplishment; as well as giving people with excess of energy and aggression (the definition of angry young men) goals that they can expend that aggression on.

Oh, and I should note, Americas OTHER major demographic problem is also an excess of young men in an area of little opportunity, with a lot of excess anger and energy, and a lack of self worth and self respect: we call them gangs.

In many ways you can see much of the radicalism of the middle east as one giant street gang, sucking up the angry young men and using their energy to do violence on others.

The only way that Europe is going to solve this problem is by allowing opportunities for advancement and growth to (excuse the bad reference it’s sure to create in your head) explode. The only way they could do that would be to drastically reduce their regulatory and tax burdens: to remove the negative incentives and allow the positive incentives to grow and take over.

…but they won’t do that.

Europes choice is economic freedom, or bloody revolution; and yet somehow they seem to think the only way to avoid the blood is through LESS freedom, thus they are accelerating the problem.

They are married to an ideology of government control, and nannyism. This is ultimately an ideology that is incompatible with the aggressive side of human nature, and one that will eventually explode (and not very far off unless I miss my guess terribly).

They believe that somehow, making sure everyone is fed and has a place to sleep, will make everything alright. Of course they do this by taxing everyone into penury; at the same time regulating the productive down to nearly nothing, and reducing competition … it’s more “humane” after all… which eliminates jobs or reduces them to meaningless time serving. Combined with legislating low work hours, minimum wages, and protectionist markets…

They’ve eliminated both real work, and competition almost entirely. In the process they’ve eliminated all of the opportunities for people to advance socially and economically; and to EARN self worth and self respect.

People need to have some way to earn self respect; it’s not something that can be given to them. In fact attempting to do so makes the problem worse. If you’re given everything, you value nothing, including yourself.

People don’t just want to be warm and safe and fed and “equal”… oh I know, for some it’s enough, for a while anyway; but man is a competitive and aggressive beast by nature, and blood will eventually out… people want to strive, and excel, and fight, and win.

You can’t win, if they don’t let you play.

Maybe be if Giuliani was concerned about something else than lusting for power, his position on Roe v Wade would be much more clear.

Toward the end of the interview, Hannity asked Brownback if he believed there should be any legal exceptions for abortion such as rape, incest, or the life of the mother. These seem like reasonable exceptions even to the most pro-life (or anti-choice) proponents but not to Sam Brownback. Even Sean Hannity who is very pro-life and very Catholic seemed to be a little taken back by his response.

Brownback clearly stated that there should be absolutely no legal exceptions for abortion. He admitted such a situation would be tragic but also said that “it’s not the baby’s fault.”

This attitude of Brownback’s is completely indefensible. While I do not believe any woman who is a rape victim should be legally required to bring a pregnancy to term, there is still some room to debate whether or not having an abortion is moral. But to say that the government must require a woman to potentially sacrifice her own life for the sake of her baby is absolute violation of her liberty. No person should ever be required by law or expected to sacrifice his or her life or limb for the sake of another for any reason (I similarly am opposed to military drafts for the same reason). If a person is to sacrifice his or her own life, it should only be done voluntarily.

My question to Senator Sam Brownback and his fellow travelers: What is so “pro-life” about taking a woman’s right to life away?

NOTE: I have not been able to locate the trascript of the interview at this time. If I should come across it, I will add the direct quote to the body of this post.