I read a very good article in the "Huffington Post" found here. It is about wealth and income inequality in the U.S. in the past 70 or so years. If you want further information on economic inequality in the U.S. and a short brief on Keynesian economics, watch this YouTube video with Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz. I think the actual info starts at about eight minutes in.
With the "Huffington Post" article, I only found one point which I disagree with. When it says, "(the) Clinton era tax increase - especially on the wealthy - that yielded the first balanced budgets in decades, substantial economic growth (sic; they forgot the Oxford comma)and a temporary narrowing of economic inequality" it implies that the Clinton era tax increase caused - or at least contributed significantly to - the economic boom that occurred in the nineties. The economic boom that occurred in the nineties was primarily the result of the mass amounts of technological innovation that occurred also at that time. The tax increase did contribute to balanced budgets and narrowing of economic inequality (albeit slightly), but it did not cause the economic growth in the nineties. The economic boom would have happened regardless of the Clinton era tax increase.
I'm for the Clinton era tax increases, but the ideal amount of tax increase would be far more progressive and all around higher than the one in the Clinton era.
The article lays out a seven point plan to combat economic inequality in the U.S. Included in the plan are things like raising the minimum wage, regulating the financial sector, including worker's rights in international trade agreements, etc.With the possible exception of point six, which calls for the protection of the implementation of the ACA the way it was supposed to function, all of the points made by the article are actually conservative, or in some cases regressive, policies. They aren't advocating anything that hasn't already been done by the U.S. Those points that call for a change, such as raising the minimum wage, use the fact that the wage has been higher in the past to show that it should be higher now. Other points advocate maintaining the status quo of a particular program.
For example, the argument that so-called liberals use for raising the minimum wage is regressive in nature, or at the very least conservative. They say that in the height of the American economic 'golden age' (1945-1970ish) the minimum wage in America was far higher in real value than it is now. Hence, it isn't fair that the minimum wage employee has actually lost purchasing power since then, so we must revert to the policy which was in use in the 'golden age'. If liberalism is the "belief in the value of social and political change in order to achieve progress," like Merriam-Webster says, then raising the minimum wage is not actually liberal. Progress runs contrary to regress. Hence, raising the minimum wage, at least to the point to where it has been in the past, is actually contrary to liberalism. This is just one example of many others.
Not to say that a policy is bad or good based purely on whether or not it has been done before, nevertheless it is still somewhat disturbing when the supposedly 'progressive' economic doctrine is actually just less conservative as the more 'conservative' ones. Even more disturbing is the fact that those on the political right of so called 'progressives' advocate the policies popular in times of clear economic depravity. In one case, the 'progressive' case, they are simply promoting the economic policies of the years 1945-1980ish (Keynsianism). In another case, the mainstream conservative one, they are promoting the tax policies of the era prior to the New Deal, but with some of the New Deal reforms (Monetarism); the policies after the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. In the most extreme case, they promote the laissez-faire, mercantilistic(which is somewhat of an oxymoron) policies of the Gilded Age (Austrian School).
The reason why this is disturbing in my mind is there is no major group promoting truly progressive policies. There are no socialists representatives in the U.S. In Germany, the Left Party, a socialist party, controls 64/631 of the Bundestag seats. In all of the Nordic countries, there are similar parties which usually make up about 6% of the respective parliament/congress. In France, the Socialist party makes up a majority of the government, though the French Socialist party is considerably more moderate than most socialist parties worldwide. Despite the relatively widespread occurrence of socialist parties worldwide, the U.S. has no major socialist group in existence. The closest we have is Bernie Sanders and a handful of senators/representatives like him. They are at best moderate democratic socialists but probably just social democrats. This leads me to believe that the lack of true progress in the United States may cause the U.S. economy to stagnate and fall behind its European counterparts.
Just a bit of a disambiguation, the general difference - at least as far as I can tell - between democratic socialist and social democrat is as follows: democratic socialists are primarily socialists, their economic policy takes precedence over their governmental policy. Whereas social democrats prioritize democracy over socialism. Occasionally only a semantic difference, the distinction can have practical implications. If a politician is a social democrat and also isn't prone to make sweeping reforms, then the politician will likely be against any massive socialist programs because it (may) discriminate against businesses or wealthy individuals; hence a social democrat is likely far more pro-capitalism, or at least pro-free-market-socialism than a democratic socialist, who tend to be more progressive in the actual sense and generally more socialist.
The fundamental problem which is inherent in the lack of major progressive political parties in any country is simple: the world around the country is rapidly changing. Generally the world's impact on us is handled through foreign policy, however events which are economic in nature should be handled by a policy that is economic in nature. Thus, in an economic situation which hasn't ever happened before in the world's history, like say the E.U., the policies addressing the issue should also never have been done before.
It also goes the other way, situations which have happened before should be handled by paying close attention to the way it was handled in the past. If it was handled poorly in the past then we probably shouldn't handle the same situation the same way. We also must be wary of a post hoc egro propter hoc attitude about problems in the past. We need to actually find the root cause and solution to the problems in the past in order to accurately apply them to today.
So, after my rant against the liberal-conservative dichotomy, I still want to address the actual article. Economic inequality has been this extreme only once before in American history. The period directly preceding the stock market crash of 1929 had levels of inequality similar to what is experienced today.
The eventual fix to the great amounts of wealth and income inequality came in the late 1930s. The period surrounding World War II is what is known as the Great Compression to economists. Following that era, and up until about 1970, the relationship between what CEOs and other high income professions made on the one hand, and what the wage-labor worker made on the other, remained relatively stable.
To me, it seems the solutions to the original inequality crisis in the U.S. was two-fold. Policies such as raising taxes on the rich, artificially inflating demand (through military spending), and accumulating the largest budget deficits thus-far seen in American history definitely contributed to the Great Compression and subsequent economic prosperity following World War II.
The other set of policies that contributed to the economic prosperity following World War II was global in nature. First off, the U.S. manufacturers were free from foreign competition due to World War II. Though, because most Europeans were too poor to afford imported goods as a result of the same war, the potential exports that U.S. manufacturers were able to profit off of were limited. That was until the Marshall Plan and the general recovery of the European economies that the Marshall Plan contributed to. After that, the American manufacturers were able to export their products to Europe in substantial quantities. Thus, they still dominated the market, but they were also able to large amounts of profit due to the ability to export their products.
Back to the domestic set of policies, the manufacturing class would have been the sole beneficiary if the laws protecting labor, such as minimum wage, and the power of unions themselves weren't at historic strengths. There needs to be some form of institutionalized policy that guarantees the benefits that the upper-class acquires is distributed to the lower classes.
So, the solution to the modern crisis of economic inequality needs to contain both liberal and conservative policies (in the manner consistent with the aforementioned rant). There does need to be a strengthening of the labor unions and a raise in the minimum wage, an increase in the graduation of our tax structure and general tax reform, an increase in the artificial inflation of demand (though hopefully not through military means), and a "Marshall Plan" for South America, Africa, and certain areas of Asia. But, we also need to both adjust these tried-and-true policies to modern times, and to develop entirely new policies to accurately reflect our times.
In address to the "Marshall Plan" proposition, economic inequality works fundamentally the same way on a global level as it does on a national level. So the increase of foreign aid has the same benefits on the global level as an increase of the minimum wage or the social-safety-net has on the national level.
We also need to find a market in which we have the potential to be preeminent. In the first Great Compression, we had the potential to become preeminent in the manufacturing sector, and so we did when the chance arose. Likewise, we need a new market in which our country can excel. We shouldn't regress back to manufacturing, because developing countries are far better at manufacturing than already developed nations.
All-in-all, the thing which most liberals lack in their solutions to fix economic inequality is a way to address the changing times, Keynesian economics won't do it all by itself.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Communism
here
The article from "MSNBC" is about how the American public has historically been opposed to those labeled 'socialist'. However, that relationship seems to be changing. A Seattle council women recently got elected despite the fact that she is a self proclaimed socialist.
In the article, she makes the point that the best way to describe socialism in a condensed medium is to contrast it with Capitalism. I agree. I also think that the best way to promote socialism is to show the negative results of Capitalism, the greatest of which is extreme wealth inequality.
I think it is taken for granted within our society that Marx was wrong. He wasn't. Most critics point to Russia, China, or Eastern Europe to show that the effects of communism are bad, therefore communism doesn't work. The reason why this is not proof indicating that Marx was wrong is because the governments in all 'communist' societies hitherto in history have actually not been Communist, at least in the original Marxist sense of the word.
Essentially, the idea of Communism is to use the riches resulting from both the Capitalist society before the proletarian uprising, and from the scientifically planned Socialist system occurring after, to provide for everyone equally. If everyone is equal, then there will not be any reason to need a police force, a military, any substantial amounts of government, organized education, or any other institutional organization. Essentially, pure-Communism is actually anarchy, that is complete lack of government.
The way in which Communism intends to make everyone equal is through abolition of all private property. Everyone's needs, including recreational needs, will be provided for. They will not be provided by the state, because in pure-Communism there is no state. Essentially, everything will be commonly possessed.
In anarchy what is preventing the criminals from committing crimes and the murderers from murdering? Basically, the lack of overall incentive is the reason an anarchy wherein everyone is equal isn't total chaos. The vast innumerable amount of the world’s problems have their synthesis in jealousy originating from a tangible, materialistic cause. The elimination of ownership will therefore truncate the coalescence of new jealousies. The rapaciousness of humanity ends with the eradication of jealousy. Ergo, the very fact Communism repudiates the concept of materialistic ownership, also leads Communism to be a vastly more safe than any other system thus far in history.
There is a school of neo-Marxists called the Frankfurt school if anyone is interested in contemporary Marxism.
Probably the biggest reason to be pro-socialism is the inherent flaws in pure Capitalism. The reason Capitalism, in the Smithsonian sense, is inherently flawed is it relies on the assumption that humanity is by-enlarge moral and incorruptible. Adam Smith after all was first-and-foremost a moral philosopher. Laissez-faire capitalism doesn't take into account the tendencies of wealth to corrupt, or the fact that some people will act contrary to the interests of society. In laissez-faire capitalism (or rather the closest thing that there has been so far in history) the concentration of wealth will consolidate into fewer hands over time inevitably.
Capitalism, in a laissez-faire sense, is characterized by the wealthy lording over the non-wealthy. It is a system which becomes unfair, immoral, and is overall detrimental towards society. It suppresses the arts and freethinking, it is anti-reform, anti-regulation, and anti-involvement. It is a system designed to get the rich richer and poor poorer. Capitalism is a system in which the proletarians continually become more greatly in debt; in which the workers only further strengthen their own chains by conforming to the system by working under it; in which the hardest of workers, predetermined to live their lives in the slum from which they were born, only work there way deeper into that odious, rat-infested, repugnant death trap; in which the government is a mere puppet more than happy to follow every command, fulfill every whimsy, that the Capitalist asks of it; in which the ultimate destination for the system, the ultimate consequence of the practices aforementioned, is the complete and total divergence from anything resembling fair and balanced. The ultimate destination of Capitalism is a plutocratic, tyrannical, Social-Darwinian, pseudo-Democracy, where the injustices of the system are disguised behind a thin veil of false elections and false freedom. (mic drop)
Relating back to the original thesis, economic inequality is the underlying cause of a majority of our countries problems. Emancipation of humanity, of which economic equality is the largest part, is the goal of socialists. So, socialists seek to ameliorate the world's problems. Problems such as crime rates, health issues, drug addiction, poor education, decreased productivity, political corruption, and unfair treatment of other nations all have their synthesis primarily in economic inequality. Hence, a socialist seeks to relieve these problems.
It's Good Not to Vote.
here
I am in an especially socialistic mood today, so I thought I would also write about Russel Brand's (relatively)recent interview on "NewsNight." Essentially, Brand calls for a egalitarian, socialist revolution by means of income redistribution, heavy corporate taxes, and a staunch defense of the environment. He also abhors the concept of profit.
For the most part, I agree will Brand. But, as his ideas are relatively extreme, I will take the role of apologist for a while.
A point was made in the interview regarding Brand's right to critique the government considering he hasn't ever voted. I want to focus on this point. I think under certain circumstances no one has more right to ridicule, criticizes, or complain about the government than those who do not vote. Voting is a activity within a democratic society to choose between a set of candidates. Voters vote for the candidate they see as acceptable, or rather most acceptable. Hence, unless everyone is acceptable for office, there is an arbitrary minimum threshold which a voter will vote for a specific candidate; at a certain point a candidate becomes unacceptable. Generally, if one candidate is unacceptable for office in a voter's eyes, they will vote for the other candidate(s). However, at a certain point the voter, or the candidates, will become so ideologically distanced between themselves that no candidate is acceptable.
So, the very fact that all candidates partake in the Capitalistic institutions of our society, for Brand, is enough to make all the candidates unacceptable. Hence, though he may want to vote, he doesn't vote because no choice is acceptable in his eyes. Since he is so far removed from the government (or the government is so far removed from him), the path the government is taking is extremely divergent from the path Brand would like to see it take. The fact that what Brand promotes and what the government promotes is of such a great difference ensures that Brand will be severely dissatisfied. His dissatisfaction allows him to critique, complain, and ridicule.
However, if the reason that the voter doesn't vote is they are apathetic towards politics, then not voting is a practice (or rather lack thereof) that is at the stem of problems in most democratic countries. It exacerbates the oligarchic tendencies of the government ruling over them. The apathy associated with not voting extends to not learning about the issues and candidates, not assembling when the desire is there, and not participating in the national dialectic that is present within all free democracies. Hence, though Brand may not vote, that doesn't necessarily mean that he is apathetic towards politics as a whole; the very fact that he is in an interview about politics shows otherwise.
I think that was the most contentious point specific to his interview that I don't cover in another post.
I am in an especially socialistic mood today, so I thought I would also write about Russel Brand's (relatively)recent interview on "NewsNight." Essentially, Brand calls for a egalitarian, socialist revolution by means of income redistribution, heavy corporate taxes, and a staunch defense of the environment. He also abhors the concept of profit.
For the most part, I agree will Brand. But, as his ideas are relatively extreme, I will take the role of apologist for a while.
A point was made in the interview regarding Brand's right to critique the government considering he hasn't ever voted. I want to focus on this point. I think under certain circumstances no one has more right to ridicule, criticizes, or complain about the government than those who do not vote. Voting is a activity within a democratic society to choose between a set of candidates. Voters vote for the candidate they see as acceptable, or rather most acceptable. Hence, unless everyone is acceptable for office, there is an arbitrary minimum threshold which a voter will vote for a specific candidate; at a certain point a candidate becomes unacceptable. Generally, if one candidate is unacceptable for office in a voter's eyes, they will vote for the other candidate(s). However, at a certain point the voter, or the candidates, will become so ideologically distanced between themselves that no candidate is acceptable.
So, the very fact that all candidates partake in the Capitalistic institutions of our society, for Brand, is enough to make all the candidates unacceptable. Hence, though he may want to vote, he doesn't vote because no choice is acceptable in his eyes. Since he is so far removed from the government (or the government is so far removed from him), the path the government is taking is extremely divergent from the path Brand would like to see it take. The fact that what Brand promotes and what the government promotes is of such a great difference ensures that Brand will be severely dissatisfied. His dissatisfaction allows him to critique, complain, and ridicule.
However, if the reason that the voter doesn't vote is they are apathetic towards politics, then not voting is a practice (or rather lack thereof) that is at the stem of problems in most democratic countries. It exacerbates the oligarchic tendencies of the government ruling over them. The apathy associated with not voting extends to not learning about the issues and candidates, not assembling when the desire is there, and not participating in the national dialectic that is present within all free democracies. Hence, though Brand may not vote, that doesn't necessarily mean that he is apathetic towards politics as a whole; the very fact that he is in an interview about politics shows otherwise.
I think that was the most contentious point specific to his interview that I don't cover in another post.
Progressive Taxes
here
The article talks about how some may consider the nominee for the Federal Reserve chair to be 'progressive'. Progressive as in more Keynesian.
Like many Keynes economists, she sees economic inequality as probably the largest single concern.
I think one of the most important things that needs to be done for the benefit of everyone is redistribution of wealth via highly progressive taxation. Redistributing the wealth will (obviously)decrease economic inequality.
Many people have problems with progressive tax structures. I will do my best to explain why there really isn't any moral or ethical dilemma with taxing certain people higher percentages.
One, the lump-sum tax structure. In my eyes, the tax policy which should theoretically be the most just is a lump-sum tax on every human or every household. Everyone pays a set amount; everyone pays the same set amount. The reason this at first seems the most just is that you are taxing the people themselves, regardless of there wealth or income. Everyone is treated equally.
Two, the flat tax. Everyone in this taxing code is taxed an equal percentage. This time you are taxing there income, not the actual person. The reason this structure is superior to the lump-sum tax is it takes into account the well-being of the individual it is taxing. It takes into account the well-being of the populace indirectly, as well-being is relational to income. It doesn't indenture the populace as much as the lump-sum tax. Therefore, upon further analysis this tax structure actually is more just than the lump-sum method.
Three, the progressive tax structure. Fundamentally, this taxing method is identical to the flat tax. The progressive tax structure taxes well-being just like the flat tax. However, this tax structure identifies the fact that well-being isn't linearly proportional to income; it's not an arithmetic relationship. It is a geometric (exponential) relationship. Thus, since the relationship between income and well-being (which I will define better in a sec) is geometric; and since the desired tax is on well-being; the way you go about taxing income is therefore geometric - a progressive (sometimes called graduated) tax.
Well-being is how well someone lives. It is the quality of life someone has. Quality of life is essentially how happy someone is. Happiness in economics is measured in utils(that is utility). Something which has more utils than another thing causes more happiness.
Not everything is weighted equal in utils. Not even the same things are weighted equal in utils. Certain things for some people cause differing levels of happiness than they do for other people. At different times the utility of an object can also change. Hence, utils are an inherently relative term.
Now to show that income and quality of life aren't directly proportional.
For one, if someone buys two of something, say two IPods, then the utility of the second IPod will be less than the utility of the first. This is because the use that the user finds for the first one is greater, and hence the happiness that is derivative from it is greater, than the second one.
Within economics, especially basic economics, there is a general assumption that people are rational. When it comes to buying things, they buy what they want/need the most. Hence, people will try to maximize there utils. They do this by buying what gives them the most utility first.
Since the amount of utils derived from buying something diminishes as the amount of things bought increases, spending twice as much money doesn't grant twice as many utils. Therefore someone who has an income of 10 million dollars doesn't live twice as well as someone who has an income of 5 million dollars. This creates a logarithmic regression relationship with income on the X axis and well-being on the Y axis.
Therefore, if the intent is to tax well-being, as it is in both flat-taxes and progressive taxes, then the only logical way to do that would be through an exponential relation like the way progressive taxes work. So, in reality, proponents of a flat-tax actually want the same thing as a progressive tax, they just don't know it.
I couldn't find an article explicitly on progressive taxes but I wanted to write about so this is the closest I got.
The article talks about how some may consider the nominee for the Federal Reserve chair to be 'progressive'. Progressive as in more Keynesian.
Like many Keynes economists, she sees economic inequality as probably the largest single concern.
I think one of the most important things that needs to be done for the benefit of everyone is redistribution of wealth via highly progressive taxation. Redistributing the wealth will (obviously)decrease economic inequality.
Many people have problems with progressive tax structures. I will do my best to explain why there really isn't any moral or ethical dilemma with taxing certain people higher percentages.
One, the lump-sum tax structure. In my eyes, the tax policy which should theoretically be the most just is a lump-sum tax on every human or every household. Everyone pays a set amount; everyone pays the same set amount. The reason this at first seems the most just is that you are taxing the people themselves, regardless of there wealth or income. Everyone is treated equally.
Two, the flat tax. Everyone in this taxing code is taxed an equal percentage. This time you are taxing there income, not the actual person. The reason this structure is superior to the lump-sum tax is it takes into account the well-being of the individual it is taxing. It takes into account the well-being of the populace indirectly, as well-being is relational to income. It doesn't indenture the populace as much as the lump-sum tax. Therefore, upon further analysis this tax structure actually is more just than the lump-sum method.
Three, the progressive tax structure. Fundamentally, this taxing method is identical to the flat tax. The progressive tax structure taxes well-being just like the flat tax. However, this tax structure identifies the fact that well-being isn't linearly proportional to income; it's not an arithmetic relationship. It is a geometric (exponential) relationship. Thus, since the relationship between income and well-being (which I will define better in a sec) is geometric; and since the desired tax is on well-being; the way you go about taxing income is therefore geometric - a progressive (sometimes called graduated) tax.
Well-being is how well someone lives. It is the quality of life someone has. Quality of life is essentially how happy someone is. Happiness in economics is measured in utils(that is utility). Something which has more utils than another thing causes more happiness.
Not everything is weighted equal in utils. Not even the same things are weighted equal in utils. Certain things for some people cause differing levels of happiness than they do for other people. At different times the utility of an object can also change. Hence, utils are an inherently relative term.
Now to show that income and quality of life aren't directly proportional.
For one, if someone buys two of something, say two IPods, then the utility of the second IPod will be less than the utility of the first. This is because the use that the user finds for the first one is greater, and hence the happiness that is derivative from it is greater, than the second one.
Within economics, especially basic economics, there is a general assumption that people are rational. When it comes to buying things, they buy what they want/need the most. Hence, people will try to maximize there utils. They do this by buying what gives them the most utility first.
Since the amount of utils derived from buying something diminishes as the amount of things bought increases, spending twice as much money doesn't grant twice as many utils. Therefore someone who has an income of 10 million dollars doesn't live twice as well as someone who has an income of 5 million dollars. This creates a logarithmic regression relationship with income on the X axis and well-being on the Y axis.
Therefore, if the intent is to tax well-being, as it is in both flat-taxes and progressive taxes, then the only logical way to do that would be through an exponential relation like the way progressive taxes work. So, in reality, proponents of a flat-tax actually want the same thing as a progressive tax, they just don't know it.
I couldn't find an article explicitly on progressive taxes but I wanted to write about so this is the closest I got.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Up in Smoke
This is in response to Noah's article found here.
Noah claims that weed is indeed a gateway drug. This implies one of two things: cannabis is the cause of further drug use, at least to some degree; or cannabis is the first (nationally illegal) drug people tend to take.
Though true in some cases, the first of the two implications is by-enlarge false. Granted, there will definitely be some circumstances in which one is encouraged to move on towards harder drugs because of marijuana. However, on the scale of the whole population of drug users, the vast majority of them were not caused to use harder drugs because of prior cannabis use.
As detailed here (towards the bottom of the study) and here, the largest foreign cause - that is a cause not related to the finances, biology, or traumatic experiences of the drug user - towards increased use of harder drugs is the culture associated with using drugs. Meaning, the very fact that cannabis is illegal causes more hard drug use. The very fact that cannabis users have to go to a dealer who may also sell hard drugs causes the pot-smokers to have a higher rate of hard drug use. If cannabis wasn't illegal, then the pot-smokers wouldn't have to participate in the underground to smoke cannabis, they then wouldn't associate with those who use and sell harder drugs, and hence they wouldn't be exposed to hard drugs any more than the general population. Without the influence of the hard drug culture, the cannabis user is far less likely to move on towards other hard drugs.
Of the dichotomy aforementioned, the second option is almost entirely true.
Cannabis is the first 'drug' people tend to take. In reality, cannabis is actually only the first nationally illegal drug people tend to take. Of those who have used cannabis, the average age people first used the drug is 17. The average age cigarette smokers first smoked cigarettes is 14. Since most of those who smoke marijuana have also smoked cigarettes, tobacco is actually the first drug in this gateway drug theory. So, ideally the crusade should be aimed at tobacco; which is far more addictive, far more deadly, and overall more detrimental to society as a whole.
Another key statistic is the fact that those who used cigarettes but didn't use marijuana when they were youth have a similar percentage of usage of harder drugs as those who used both marijuana and tobacco. Taking the 'marijuana step' out of the gateway drug theory has little to no effect on usage of harder drugs. This is not suggesting that cigarette usage does; when the same thing is done but with tobacco, the results are the same: Those who used marijuana but not tobacco have a similar percentage of harder drug use when compared to those who used both tobacco and marijuana. Hence, neither tobacco nor marijuana (nor alcohol for that matter) have the effect of increasing ones likelihood to use harder drugs. In logic this fallacy is called cum hoc ergo propter hoc, and post hoc ergo propter hoc.
The case could also be made that caffeine, high amounts of sugar, or fatty foods are really the 'first' gateway drug, as all three of those substances have a similar effect and are used in similar circumstances as 'regular' drugs. All three are unhealthy; all three are often used to alleviate stress; all three cause some amount of pleasure; and all three are to some extant addictive. For the same reasons listed above, none of these three vices have the effect of causing further usage of other substances.
This means that those who eventually go on to use hard drugs do so for the following reasons: One, they were exposed to the hard, illegal drug culture in some way or experienced creative 'marketing techniques' administered by the dealer. Two, they experienced traumatic events in childhood such as abuse, thus predisposing them to search for substances to dull the pain. Three, they in some way for whatever reason identify with drugs and/or the state of highness associated with them. In all three reasons, the usage of marijuana neither causes nor by-enlarge further exacerbates drug usage.
Another conclusion of the study above is that criminalization of cannabis doesn't decrease use of said cannabis. Neither criminalization nor decriminalization of cannabis decreases or increases the use of cannabis, respectively. By-enlarge, the legal status of cannabis, at least in modern times, is divergent of the willingness of people to use the drug. I think this was also the conclusion of the "Reuters" article Noah critiqued. This has to do with the way our culture views cannabis specifically. The fact that cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol and less addictive than cigarettes has led our society to appropriately view cannabis as less harmful than those substances. Hence, our relatively widespread use of cannabis.
On to Noah's second point.
The assertion, "the idea that you will be able to regulate a drug that you have legalized that is already extremely difficult to regulate when illegal is fallacious," is itself fallacious. Legalizing by definition makes those who were once secretive about their usage more open to their usage, less secretive. The more open society is about what it does, the easier it is to address, and regulate, whatever 'it' is. Also, if someone has an option between two products, the only difference of which is the status of their legality, the person will most often choose the legal one. Therefore, if a person in say Colorado wants to buy weed, they will buy it from the state sponsored stores, rather than from the person down the street who is selling it illegally. Hence, legalization makes something easier to regulate rather than harder.
The proposition to put the tax money from marijuana into education is probably one of the smartest I've heard from government in a long while. The reason that will decrease marijuana usage in the long run is simple: people with higher levels, or a better quality of education also have a lower rate of all drug usage.
On to Noah's third point.
Overall this argument is a slippery slope. Noah didn't use one piece of evidence indicating that the next direction of the pro-legalization forces is legalization of hard drugs. It was pure speculation.
The reason the pro-legalization forces won't by-enlarge move on to legalize hard drugs is because there isn't an argument to be made for legalizing hard drugs. With marijuana, along with other soft drugs, the argument integral to legalization is the fact that the detriments associated with cannabis usage are few. The same cannot be said of hard drugs. That is what differentiates them from each other. Hence, those looking to legalize hard drugs won't have the same battle as those looking to legalize cannabis.
Noah's fourth point is entirely dependent on his third one. Hence, its falsity.
However, ad hoc, I will refute some of the argument.
An economic argument first proposed by Milton Friedman for legalizing all drugs refutes your assertions well. The argument is geared towards harder, addictive drugs; rather than softer, less-addictive drugs. I will break the argument into premises.
(1)The current demand of drugs, disregarding natural fluctuations or general trends, is inelastic. Addictive drugs create a (seeming) necessity of those drugs to the users.
(2)The supply of drugs once legalized will increase.
(3)The demand, however, will not increase; due to inelasticity.
(4)Therefore prices of drugs will decrease.
(5)Lower prices reduce profits for drug dealers
(6)Lower profits decrease the amount of freedom the dealer has to pursue aggressive marketing techniques, such as free samples.
(7)Less aggressive marketing techniques lower the rate of first time drug users.
(8)Therefore legalizing drugs decreases usage over time.
Also, it isn't an ad hominem argument; it's a slippery slope argument, an ad consequentiam, or an ad passiones argument, or all three depending on how you meant it.
I know this wasn't a conventional article, but to be honest, Noah is a better writer than most newspaper writers.
Noah claims that weed is indeed a gateway drug. This implies one of two things: cannabis is the cause of further drug use, at least to some degree; or cannabis is the first (nationally illegal) drug people tend to take.
Though true in some cases, the first of the two implications is by-enlarge false. Granted, there will definitely be some circumstances in which one is encouraged to move on towards harder drugs because of marijuana. However, on the scale of the whole population of drug users, the vast majority of them were not caused to use harder drugs because of prior cannabis use.
As detailed here (towards the bottom of the study) and here, the largest foreign cause - that is a cause not related to the finances, biology, or traumatic experiences of the drug user - towards increased use of harder drugs is the culture associated with using drugs. Meaning, the very fact that cannabis is illegal causes more hard drug use. The very fact that cannabis users have to go to a dealer who may also sell hard drugs causes the pot-smokers to have a higher rate of hard drug use. If cannabis wasn't illegal, then the pot-smokers wouldn't have to participate in the underground to smoke cannabis, they then wouldn't associate with those who use and sell harder drugs, and hence they wouldn't be exposed to hard drugs any more than the general population. Without the influence of the hard drug culture, the cannabis user is far less likely to move on towards other hard drugs.
Of the dichotomy aforementioned, the second option is almost entirely true.
Cannabis is the first 'drug' people tend to take. In reality, cannabis is actually only the first nationally illegal drug people tend to take. Of those who have used cannabis, the average age people first used the drug is 17. The average age cigarette smokers first smoked cigarettes is 14. Since most of those who smoke marijuana have also smoked cigarettes, tobacco is actually the first drug in this gateway drug theory. So, ideally the crusade should be aimed at tobacco; which is far more addictive, far more deadly, and overall more detrimental to society as a whole.
Another key statistic is the fact that those who used cigarettes but didn't use marijuana when they were youth have a similar percentage of usage of harder drugs as those who used both marijuana and tobacco. Taking the 'marijuana step' out of the gateway drug theory has little to no effect on usage of harder drugs. This is not suggesting that cigarette usage does; when the same thing is done but with tobacco, the results are the same: Those who used marijuana but not tobacco have a similar percentage of harder drug use when compared to those who used both tobacco and marijuana. Hence, neither tobacco nor marijuana (nor alcohol for that matter) have the effect of increasing ones likelihood to use harder drugs. In logic this fallacy is called cum hoc ergo propter hoc, and post hoc ergo propter hoc.
The case could also be made that caffeine, high amounts of sugar, or fatty foods are really the 'first' gateway drug, as all three of those substances have a similar effect and are used in similar circumstances as 'regular' drugs. All three are unhealthy; all three are often used to alleviate stress; all three cause some amount of pleasure; and all three are to some extant addictive. For the same reasons listed above, none of these three vices have the effect of causing further usage of other substances.
This means that those who eventually go on to use hard drugs do so for the following reasons: One, they were exposed to the hard, illegal drug culture in some way or experienced creative 'marketing techniques' administered by the dealer. Two, they experienced traumatic events in childhood such as abuse, thus predisposing them to search for substances to dull the pain. Three, they in some way for whatever reason identify with drugs and/or the state of highness associated with them. In all three reasons, the usage of marijuana neither causes nor by-enlarge further exacerbates drug usage.
Another conclusion of the study above is that criminalization of cannabis doesn't decrease use of said cannabis. Neither criminalization nor decriminalization of cannabis decreases or increases the use of cannabis, respectively. By-enlarge, the legal status of cannabis, at least in modern times, is divergent of the willingness of people to use the drug. I think this was also the conclusion of the "Reuters" article Noah critiqued. This has to do with the way our culture views cannabis specifically. The fact that cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol and less addictive than cigarettes has led our society to appropriately view cannabis as less harmful than those substances. Hence, our relatively widespread use of cannabis.
On to Noah's second point.
The assertion, "the idea that you will be able to regulate a drug that you have legalized that is already extremely difficult to regulate when illegal is fallacious," is itself fallacious. Legalizing by definition makes those who were once secretive about their usage more open to their usage, less secretive. The more open society is about what it does, the easier it is to address, and regulate, whatever 'it' is. Also, if someone has an option between two products, the only difference of which is the status of their legality, the person will most often choose the legal one. Therefore, if a person in say Colorado wants to buy weed, they will buy it from the state sponsored stores, rather than from the person down the street who is selling it illegally. Hence, legalization makes something easier to regulate rather than harder.
The proposition to put the tax money from marijuana into education is probably one of the smartest I've heard from government in a long while. The reason that will decrease marijuana usage in the long run is simple: people with higher levels, or a better quality of education also have a lower rate of all drug usage.
On to Noah's third point.
Overall this argument is a slippery slope. Noah didn't use one piece of evidence indicating that the next direction of the pro-legalization forces is legalization of hard drugs. It was pure speculation.
The reason the pro-legalization forces won't by-enlarge move on to legalize hard drugs is because there isn't an argument to be made for legalizing hard drugs. With marijuana, along with other soft drugs, the argument integral to legalization is the fact that the detriments associated with cannabis usage are few. The same cannot be said of hard drugs. That is what differentiates them from each other. Hence, those looking to legalize hard drugs won't have the same battle as those looking to legalize cannabis.
Noah's fourth point is entirely dependent on his third one. Hence, its falsity.
However, ad hoc, I will refute some of the argument.
An economic argument first proposed by Milton Friedman for legalizing all drugs refutes your assertions well. The argument is geared towards harder, addictive drugs; rather than softer, less-addictive drugs. I will break the argument into premises.
(1)The current demand of drugs, disregarding natural fluctuations or general trends, is inelastic. Addictive drugs create a (seeming) necessity of those drugs to the users.
(2)The supply of drugs once legalized will increase.
(3)The demand, however, will not increase; due to inelasticity.
(4)Therefore prices of drugs will decrease.
(5)Lower prices reduce profits for drug dealers
(6)Lower profits decrease the amount of freedom the dealer has to pursue aggressive marketing techniques, such as free samples.
(7)Less aggressive marketing techniques lower the rate of first time drug users.
(8)Therefore legalizing drugs decreases usage over time.
Also, it isn't an ad hominem argument; it's a slippery slope argument, an ad consequentiam, or an ad passiones argument, or all three depending on how you meant it.
I know this wasn't a conventional article, but to be honest, Noah is a better writer than most newspaper writers.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Ryan-Murray Budget Conference Committee
Overview
Sen. Bernie Sanders
Both of those articles are about the upcoming Budget Conference Committee.
The Budget Conference Committee will consist of the entire Senate Budget Committee and select Republicans and Democrats from the House. It was called to hopefully resolve the differing House and Senate budgets.
Usually, when a Conference Committee is called, the entirety of the respective standing committees in both the House and the Senate are called. That is, at least to the best of my knowledge. However, only seven representatives have been invited. I'm not necessarily making a point I'm just pointing out an abnormality.
Now, what I'm excited about is the fact that Sen. Sanders will be on the Committee. Though it isn't unusual - as he is on the Senate Budget Committee, I am nevertheless still happy that I have someone who adequately represents my views on the Conference Committee. Sen. Sanders is guaranteed to be a voice vehemently opposed to cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other such programs.
Despite my excitement regarding Sanders, I doubt the Conference Committee will accomplish anything before their deadline of Dec. 13th. When the similar such Committees have been called in the recent past, notably the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, they accomplished little-to-nothing.
Sen. Bernie Sanders
Both of those articles are about the upcoming Budget Conference Committee.
The Budget Conference Committee will consist of the entire Senate Budget Committee and select Republicans and Democrats from the House. It was called to hopefully resolve the differing House and Senate budgets.
Usually, when a Conference Committee is called, the entirety of the respective standing committees in both the House and the Senate are called. That is, at least to the best of my knowledge. However, only seven representatives have been invited. I'm not necessarily making a point I'm just pointing out an abnormality.
Now, what I'm excited about is the fact that Sen. Sanders will be on the Committee. Though it isn't unusual - as he is on the Senate Budget Committee, I am nevertheless still happy that I have someone who adequately represents my views on the Conference Committee. Sen. Sanders is guaranteed to be a voice vehemently opposed to cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other such programs.
Despite my excitement regarding Sanders, I doubt the Conference Committee will accomplish anything before their deadline of Dec. 13th. When the similar such Committees have been called in the recent past, notably the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, they accomplished little-to-nothing.
Capital Punishment
Here is a couple articles on Capital Punishment in recent news:
Iraq Execution
Texas Drugs
Maryland
Catholic
Error
I made up all the titles.
The 'Iraq Execution' article shows the U.N. condemns use of the death penalty, especially on the scale that Iraq used it just recently.
The article 'Texas Drugs' illustrates the sometimes less-than-ideal ways in which proponents of Capital Punishment seek to administer the death penalty. This shows a situation in which the execution itself could become increasingly inhumane.
The article titled 'Maryland' details a desire to end Capital Punishment in Maryland.
The article titled 'Catholic' shows how devout Catholics, who are usually very conservative, are increasingly becoming opposed to Capital Punishment.
'Error' details how our justice system does indeed make mistakes.
Now, on to my main points regarding Capital Punishment.
In sum, I think Capital Punishment is bad.
(1)Now, the most important question regarding capital punishment is a question regarding the whole of our justice system. The question is: What is the purpose of incarceration, and subsequent punishment, of criminals? The primary purpose of correctional institutions in any democratic nation is rehabilitation. Though secondary purposes, such as protection for/from society, exist, criminals ideally should be free once they have been 'fixed'. Violent criminals should be free from prison once they are sane again - once they are no longer unstable and deemed healthy. In an ideal system, the justice system would be based entirely off rehabilitation.
Tangentially, when I say healthy and fixed I am relying on the presumption that one needs to be mentally abnormal in order to commit insidious crimes such as rape and murder. Healthy people don't kill people intentionally.
For an example, say a criminal commits murder. They then get caught and convicted. They get sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole. Twenty years into their sentence, they have learned their lesson. The criminal has repented, realized the error in their ways, and is never going to commit another heinous act again. Obviously, if society knows all the information aforementioned, then I can't see any reason why the criminal should stay in prison. Keeping them locked up proves nothing. Their doesn't seem to be any rational argument to keep them locked up given these circumstances. Therefore, in an ideal system, the once-murderer should be set free and reintroduced into society.
The problem arises when society doesn't know if the murderer is in fact cured. This is why our society has introduced arbitrary sentencing times. This is why a burglar gets less time than a murderer. To realize the error of burgling, and recovering appropriately, takes less time than doing the same for murdering. The problem that our society has is it sometimes focuses only on the punishment itself, not the purpose of the punishment. Sometimes we sentence people, who are perfectly capable of rehabilitation, to cruel or unusual punishments just to spite the person. We get caught up in the moment and forget the overall point of the system: rehabilitation.
By definition, Capital Punishment, and to some extent life without parole, is pointless. Capital Punishment, because it literally prevents the criminal from reforming, doesn't serve a purpose. It is the embodiment of unusual punishment because it is a punishment that serves no point.
(2)A counter-argument to my claim is that we sentence violent criminals to protect the rest of society. If that is the sole reason we sentence violent criminals, then it would make sense to keep them incarcerated for as long as possible.
The flaw in the logical, simply put, is the criminals are being punished for something they have yet to do. They are being sentenced for longer times than needed because when they get out they have a higher potential to commit crimes. Notice, they have a higher potential to commit crimes, which does not mean they will commit crimes.
Basically, if you punish a prisoner, by sentencing them to a longer than needed sentence, you are punishing them twice. Once for what they did, and once for what they may do after they get out. Punishing someone for what they may do, even if the person has a higher than average chance of doing it, is inherently problematic. It creates a standard to punish others for what they may do, based purely on the statistical likelihood of them doing it.
In English 11 last year, I satirically used similar logic (or pseudo-logic rather), though brought to an extreme, to justify incarcerating large portions of our population. Here is some of that article:
The Federal prisons system has the most people in correctional facilities per capita in the whole world. This means that we are doing a great job keeping criminals off the streets. One can logically conclude that this means that our country has the lowest crime rates in the world and ergo the safest country in the world. However, statistically speaking, this is not true. Among other similarly, both technologically and socially, advanced countries, our violent crime rate is below only Australia. So, our problem is now two-fold: we have a exponentially increasing prisoner population, and we have to deal with a high violent crime rate. The reasonable answer to this dilemma is to both incarcerate more prisoners and to keep them in there for a longer time, while simultaneously building bigger and stronger correctional institutes. Once you commit a crime you are always a criminal. Therefore, you are always dangerous to society. The longer you stay in prison the more safe everyone else will be.
Some crazy nut-jobs argue that we should put people in different prisons for different crimes. (i.e. if you commit a violent crime you go to prison, whereas if you say shoplift you would only have to pay fines and restitution) I’m here to say that any and all arguments in support of this Ideology are completely and totally fallacious. One only needs simple common sense to see the falsehoods in the aforementioned idea. Let me give you this simple scenario to show you to my way of thinking: If a person steals a packet of gum, knowing full well that stealing is illegal, they did willfully and maliciously break the law. These same laws are what keep the fabric of society intact. If said person can, without remorse or regret, commit such an act, then no personal moral ideals exist in sufficient enough quantity to stop them from committing much more serious crimes, such as murder or assault. Therefore, all criminals should be treated with the same harshness as the worst offenders: mass murderers and the like. Because if one can commit one crime then no personal moral ethics will stop them from committing another. Although stealing gum is not as serious as committing murder, I consider it an investment to lock up everyone who has even a remote possibility of murdering somebody.
The offspring of those who a currently, or have at one point or another, served a sentence in prison have a higher incarceration rate when compared to the rest of the general population. So, it’s only obvious that we need to do something about the sons and daughters of criminals. Well, because improving their lot in life, by providing funds towards education and other social welfare projects, would be simply ridiculous, the only reasonable solution left is to imprison these children. They could potentially threaten other people. I consider it a preemptive imprisonment for crimes which they have yet to commit. My opponents argue that we should only imprison the appropriate amount of these children. The appropriate amount being the percentage of them that are likely to commit crimes. However, I reason, that the only way to stop the offspring from committing crimes is to incarcerate all of them. That way we can be 100% sure that there isn’t even a possibility for them to wreak havoc upon society. The best way to combat crime is through prevention. Using this same principle, I can also conclude that we also need to imprison all peoples whose income is less than the national median income, all immigrants, and the state of Louisiana. These different groups all have higher crime rates than the national average and therefore should be imprisoned for it.
As you can see, it is fallacious to use statistical likelihood to justify imprisonment.
(3)On yet another point, even if it were reasonable to imprison those who have yet to do something - which it isn't - the way it is decided whether or not a person has a higher chance to commit crimes is inherently flawed. It is based on society's view of the subject in question. Though we like to pretend that humans are inherently reasonable and logical all the time, often times we are persuaded by sensationalism and other corrupt arguments from pathos.
Arguments from pathos are present in our courtrooms. Now, not all arguments using mankind's emotional responses are egregious. Though, of the three different modes of argument - pathos, ethos, and logos - pathos is the most easily corruptible. It is also the most effective at generating a response. Because of the effectiveness of arguments appealing to people's emotions, the arguments involving pathos as the center-piece of the argument are commonly used in the courtroom.
Since the objective of both the prosecution and the defense is to most effectively convince the jury, the adept lawyer disregards all arguments against their own. They don't present all the evidence; only the evidence that furthers their own cause. The adept attorney will sometimes intentionally commit logical fallacies or distort facts in order to further their own ends. Since the majority of the jury may be ignorant, they are then persuaded by the brute emotional response that they have.
Now, if the system works, meaning both the defense and prosecution have equally eloquent attorneys, then there is no problem. The two lawyer's fallacies cancel each other out, or neither lawyer commits to using fallacious reasoning out of fear of being called out on it.
The problem arises when both attorneys aren't equally matched. If that happens, for whatever reason, the actual truth of the trail becomes insignificant, or at least less significant. Which is one reason why more serious crimes require a greater amount - that is a more convincing amount - of evidence.
Another reason more serious crimes should require more evidence is the fact that more serious crimes permit more serious punishment. When the state punishes someone, for whatever crime, they are essentially revoking something from that person. Whether the thing revoked be time, money, community service, etc, it doesn't matter. The more one revokes from that person, the more possible detriment that person endures. The greater detriment that person endures the more possible error in the states justice is possible. The state wants to minimize the amount of error it produces within the criminal justice system. Since being wrong - that is giving the wrong verdict - on a serious crime has the possibility to produce more error when compared to a less serious crime, the requirements to incarcerate serious criminals is therefore more stringent.
Also, the sentencing shouldn't be reliant on the jury answering correctly necessarily. Thus, sentences that do rely on absolute correctness, that is sentences that are themselves absolutes, shouldn't be permitted - unless you're willing to make the argument that juries are never wrong. The death penalty, and to some extent life imprisonment, is an absolute punishment. It takes away everything the murderer has. With respects to the murderer, it revokes an infinite amount from him. Ergo, unless the juries never answer incorrectly, the death penalty cannot be allowed.
In other words, if the possible amount of error is infinite, as is the case in Capital Punishment, then the certainty required to justly incarcerate murderers is absolute. Absolute punishment requires absolute certainty.
Basically, if you are to sentence someone to an absolute, like the death penalty, you have to be absolutely sure they in fact did what they are being punished for. Our system, and any system for that matter, can't accomplish perfection, even one-time perfection. The amount of proof required increases with both the severity of crime and punishment. If the punishment is lenient, then the amount of proof is lenient. If the punishment is an absolute, then the amount of proof is absolute.
Really, it's better to let 100, or even 1000, guilty people go, than incarcerate one innocent person, if the punishment is death. The detriment towards society that will occur by letting guilty people go is a lesser negative than the absolute detriment that occurs when an innocent person is killed.
(4)Capital Punishment doesn't, by enlarge, deter crime.
In states without the death penalty the crime rates are significantly lower than states with the death penalty. Though this doesn't suggest keeping the death penalty raises crime rates, it merely suggests that if a state were to abolish the death penalty, they wouldn't experience a large increase of crime.
According to the ACLU, when a survey conducted questioning police chiefs throughout our country to rank the most effective factors that, in their opinion, contributed to decreased crime rates, the death penalty was ranked last. It was behind longer sentences, gun control, more police officers, curbing drug use, among others. Which shows that if one desires to decrease crime rates, the death penalty is the least effective means by which to do so.
Violent crimes, and murders in specific, can be divided into two different categories. Those which are premeditated and those which aren't.
If a crime is premeditated it means it has been thought out prior to when the crime is committed. Literally, that is what premeditated means. Criminals, by enlarge, don't premeditate their crimes with the intention of being caught. They plan on getting away with their crimes most of the time. Therefore, since the intention of the criminal is to escape, the difference between Capital Punishment and life imprisonment doesn't matter. The criminal plans on escaping anyway so why bother with worrying about the punishment.
If the crime isn't premeditated, then most likely the reason the murderer murders is to satisfy a barbaric urge to give in to emotional distress. The higher cognitive functions of the murderer are suspended. Basically, the murderer loses their cool. If the higher cognitive functions, such as reason and logic, of the murderer are suspended, then the murder doesn't consider adequately the negative repercussions of the murder they are about to commit. Hence, they will not consider the death penalty when committing the murder, at least not adequately. If they don't consider the repercussions, then there isn't a possible way for the death penalty to deter that particular murder.
A third set of circumstances exists. If the criminal does premeditate their crime yet expects to get caught, which happens incredibly rarely, then most likely the criminal intends to become a martyr or is insane. If they are insane, then it is already unconstitutional for us to kill them. If they wish to go down as a martyr, then likely Capital Punishment is expected and they are willing to die for their ideology. Hence, under neither circumstance does Capital Punishment deter a crime.
There are circumstances in which Capital Punishment actually causes more deaths to occur (besides the murderers). In 1996, Daniel Colwell, who suffers from a mental illness, kill random individuals in a Georgia parking lot because he wanted to die. He was to afraid to take his own life so he had the state do it for him.
(5)Capital Punishment is contrary to the 'unalienable' rights that we fought for in the Revolutionary War. In the Declaration of Independence, we declare that Great Britain violated the basic human rights everyone possesses, and they violated the social contract between themselves and us, thus they were no longer fit to govern over us. Ideologically, they breached the social contract and that breach gave us the right to overthrow them. We fought a war over what we perceived as an infringement upon our rights. Now, this relates to Capital punishment because among the rights endowed by our creator - the rights possessed by everyone regardless of creed, sex, economic background, philosophical ideology, etc - is the right to Life. The right to Life is unalienable - that is the literal right to Live. Nothing - no entity, government, organization, or person - has the right to take away the right to Live.
In the Bill of Rights, in our Constitution, we are guaranteed specific rights. These rights are given to us by the government in exchange for the governments sovereign over us. It's a social contract. Now, the Constitution doesn't explicitly state people have a right to live because the government doesn't have the authority to give that right. The right to live is unalienable. Hence, since the government never possessed the ability to endow people with the right to live, the government also doesn't have the authority to take that right away.
In the 5th amendment to our constitution, it states:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence(sic) to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Notice that is states, "nor shall they (the defendant) be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." This clause does not invalidate my point, nor does the clause indicating, "No person should be held to answer for a Capital..." Though both clauses imply that Capital Punishment is possible under our Constitution, indeed it is possible, neither clause states it as a necessity.
Of the three terms in the 'Life Liberty and Property' clause two of them, liberty and property were chosen for, presumably, a reason. They did not say 'pursuit of happiness' because the pursuit of happiness is an extremely ambiguous term. The pursuit of happiness is also an ideological term - a philosophical one. They used property, among other words, to cement the Constitution to the political environment of the day; to put the abstract idea, originally from Locke, into a practical form. To disambiguate the supreme law of the land just to the point where it becomes practical. By doing so, they also, as a result, tied the Constitution, in some ways, to what the social norms of the day were. Social norms progress as history progresses. Therefore, right and wrong - at least in some respects - is different now than it was then. Ergo, a completely Originalist approach to the Constitution is absurd. Because the Originalist approach may be erroneous in some respects, it isn't wise to simply take everything in the Constitution literally without any interpretation. The interpretation should thus be comprehensive and take into account the morals of our time. It should take into account the norms surrounding us just as the Constitution was drafted to take into account the norms surrounding their time. Just because the Constitution hints at the possibility for the death penalty - though never explicitly stating that Capital Punishment ought to be used - doesn't mean we should use Capital punishment blindly as the abhorrence of Capital Punishment should never be considered a solution to anything, regardless of how heinous the crime may be.
The liberty which the constitution endows us with is the only liberty that the Constitution can endow us with: Positive Liberty. Positive Liberty (which is the technical term) is, in sum, the right to be oneself's own master. The freedom to control your own life. Positive Liberty contrasts with Negative Liberty. Negative Liberty is, in sum, the ability to not be a slave. The right to be free of others domination over you. Everyone, regardless of anything, is born with Negative Liberty. Negative Liberty is unalienable. It is impossible to legitimately revoke someone's Negative Liberty. People always possess the freedom to escape domination. Through coercion, one may force others into slavery, thus taking away their Negative Liberty. However both the act of coercion and consequential repeal of said person's Negative Liberty are crimes against humanity. No matter what entity commits the coercion and eventual de-liberation, the result is the same. The entity violated the unalienable rights of humans and therefore committed an abhorrent crime against humanity itself.
The term pursuit of happiness, in addition to the tone of the rest of the Declaration of Independence, leads me to believe the Declaration was written in a much more ideological frame of mind than the more pragmatic Constitution. The Constitution had to be grounded whereas the Declaration did not. Thus, because the Declaration was written more in the abstract, it wouldn't be fallacious to say most probably the other two terms - Life and Liberty - were also meant to be on the abstract side of things. They were written in the ideal. They were phrased that way to highlight what the ultimate goal is - what the ideal unalienable rights are. The right to Live is unalienable, the right to Negative Liberty (that's the technical term) is unalienable, and the right to pursue your own happiness - provided it doesn't violate John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle - is unalienable.
In sum, the three rights guaranteed in the Declaration are unalienable. In fact, they technically don't even need to be guaranteed, as they are inherent in all humans. The three rights in the Declaration guaranteed are as follows: the right to Live, Negative Liberty, and the pursuit to become happy within the restraints of society. The three rights in the Fifth Amendment are as follows: the right to live your life as you see prudent - the right to determine your own livelihood, Positive Liberty, and property - your possessions. The three rights in the Fifth amendment are all rights that can be taken away if the Social Contract is violated; the three in the Declaration are indeed unalienable.
Just because the Declaration was abstract then doesn't mean it has to still be purely abstract now. I am not stating that I want the Declaration to be the supreme law of the land. That is absurd. However, the Declaration declares the enlightened philosophy that our Constitution was later based off of. The Declaration declares this philosophy in full force. It wasn't an official law, and thus wasn't subject to realism. It could be as ideological as it wanted. In the time of the Constitution, it was somewhat of a norm to have capital punishment as part of a legal system. So, because the Constitution had to be at least marginally grounded to its time, Capital Punishment was included to be a possibility within the Constitution. However, just because it was at one point Constitutional, doesn't mean Capital Punishment remains constitutional today. The ideological message of the Constitution, and the enlightenment period in general, converted into today's norms, would be contrary to Capital Punishment.
(6)Nowadays, the world (at least the civilized western-style democracies) are overwhelmingly opposed to Capital Punishment. Japan, Belarus, India, and the U.S. are the only western-style democracies in the world to still use Capital Punishment. In the E.U., it is outlawed. No country, except Belarus, in Europe has Capital Punishment. 51% of nations belonging to the U.N. prohibit Capital Punishment. In addition, 4% only allow it during war time, and 25% haven't actually used the death penalty in over ten years. The U.S. belongs to the group of 40 nations (20%) who still use Capital Punishment. Most of these nations are either Despotisms or are in Asia. In Asia the philosophy regarding Capital punishment is different. The U.S. ranks fifth on the list of most people executed per year, behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, but luckily we are ahead of Yemen and North Korea. The U.S., a liberal democracy, is comparable to a monarchy, two theocracies, a dictatorship, an anarchic pseudo-democracy, and an oligarchy. Obviously world-wide the U.S. has fallen behind when it comes to Capital punishment. In fact, we are about twenty years behind the other nations of the world.
These statistics don’t necessarily mean we have to change our Capital Punishment laws, though they do suggest it. They do however mean that the worldwide norm is that of no Capital Punishment. Generally speaking, doing something outside of the norm requires reason. The greater the variation the greater the reason required. We are far outside the norm. Hence, if we are to justify still using the death penalty, then we need quite a large amount of reasoning to back us up. Which has the effect of shifting the burden-of-proof towards those who are defending the death penalty, rather than those trying to change it.
(7)One of the arguments for Capital Punishment involves the differentiation between the definitions of killing and murder. The reason these two terms, according to the argument, is that it isn't ever right to murder but under certain circumstances it is acceptable to kill. The two definitions are as follows: kill is to end the life of someone, murder is the crime of deliberately killing someone. The only impact-ful difference between the definitions is the crime part. One of which, according to the definitions, isn't a crime and the other is a crime. However, both Capital Punishment and murder are crimes because they are both crimes against humanity. Murder also happens to be a crime in most, if not all, states (nations), but the laws which the nations set are insignificant when compared to the laws of humanity.
There is one acceptable circumstance in which killing is admissible. Killing in self-defense isn't bad, though that death has to be in-deliberate You can't mean to kill someone in self-defense. This doesn't necessarily apply to only people. Any entity with independence of choice, positive liberty, may defend itself. Which, in effect, can authorize defense on the scale of states.
As I said, the laws of humanity outweigh the laws of an individual country. As Capital Punishment is contrary to the law inherent within humans dictating that it is wrong to kill, Capital Punishment is a crime - it's a crime against humanity. Killing deliberately while simultaneously breaking the aforementioned law is murder. Murder, I concur, is always wrong. Therefore Capital Punishment is always wrong.
(8)A contradiction arises if governments do indeed have the ability, or right if you will, to kill its own citizens - not to say that the government is killing at will, there are checks and balances within the system to prevent tyranny.
Still, the ability to use the death penalty creates a huge problem. The problem originates from the location where governments get their power, their right to rule. All government power is derived from the people it governs over. Every single power the government possess is derived from the people in one way or another. If government does indeed have the power of execution, then therefore people have the power of execution in their state of nature. In the state of nature, people may gain retribution for the wrongs done unto them by killing the offender.
Meaning, without government, people may kill other people as punishment. They may do this without breaking any morals, norms, or ethics. They may kill ethically. If the person chooses to kill ethically responsibly, then only a minor problem arises, like if they only kill for something equally detrimental towards themselves - an eye for an eye. However, when people are indeed in their state of nature, they are in effect independent. For a particular individual, the punishment for everything may be death. Hence, one can ethically kill someone else - provided they are in the state of nature - for only a minor infraction.
I don't think anyone would be willing to argue that killing someone for as little as thievery, or the like, is ethical. Indeed it isn't. Therefore, if governments do indeed have the right to execute - that is use Capital Punishment, then the aforementioned scenario has to be true. In order to be ideologically consistent, one who defends Capital Punishment has to be willing to defend that it is ethical to kill someone for as little as thievery if man is in its state of nature.
(conc)In sum, Capital Punishment is an abhorrent antediluvian practice which persists into the modern era despite the obvious ethical, moral, statistical, logical, and effectual deficiencies inherent within it. From a viewpoint of justice, it solves nothing because it is inherently unjust. From the viewpoint of the social contract existing between governments and peoples, it cannot possibly be justified in any logically consistent system as any social contract that allows it is null and void. From the pragmatic viewpoint that Capital Punishment decreases crime rates, the contradictory is true. From the idea that criminals should be kept incarcerated longer than needed purely to satisfy the statistically induced paranoia of some members of our population, it is a fallacious, erroneous, specious, and egregious form of deception to punish twice - once for what has been done, and once for what may become done. From a worldwide perspective, our country is one of the last bastions still engaging in a long-since antiquated form of punishment. From a ethical perspective, it is hypocritical incarnate to do unto one what they have done unto me - two injustices don't synthesize justice. From any reasonable perspective, Capital Punishment is contrary to necessary punishment - it is, by definition, cruel and unusual punishment.
Iraq Execution
Texas Drugs
Maryland
Catholic
Error
I made up all the titles.
The 'Iraq Execution' article shows the U.N. condemns use of the death penalty, especially on the scale that Iraq used it just recently.
The article 'Texas Drugs' illustrates the sometimes less-than-ideal ways in which proponents of Capital Punishment seek to administer the death penalty. This shows a situation in which the execution itself could become increasingly inhumane.
The article titled 'Maryland' details a desire to end Capital Punishment in Maryland.
The article titled 'Catholic' shows how devout Catholics, who are usually very conservative, are increasingly becoming opposed to Capital Punishment.
'Error' details how our justice system does indeed make mistakes.
Now, on to my main points regarding Capital Punishment.
In sum, I think Capital Punishment is bad.
(1)Now, the most important question regarding capital punishment is a question regarding the whole of our justice system. The question is: What is the purpose of incarceration, and subsequent punishment, of criminals? The primary purpose of correctional institutions in any democratic nation is rehabilitation. Though secondary purposes, such as protection for/from society, exist, criminals ideally should be free once they have been 'fixed'. Violent criminals should be free from prison once they are sane again - once they are no longer unstable and deemed healthy. In an ideal system, the justice system would be based entirely off rehabilitation.
Tangentially, when I say healthy and fixed I am relying on the presumption that one needs to be mentally abnormal in order to commit insidious crimes such as rape and murder. Healthy people don't kill people intentionally.
For an example, say a criminal commits murder. They then get caught and convicted. They get sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole. Twenty years into their sentence, they have learned their lesson. The criminal has repented, realized the error in their ways, and is never going to commit another heinous act again. Obviously, if society knows all the information aforementioned, then I can't see any reason why the criminal should stay in prison. Keeping them locked up proves nothing. Their doesn't seem to be any rational argument to keep them locked up given these circumstances. Therefore, in an ideal system, the once-murderer should be set free and reintroduced into society.
The problem arises when society doesn't know if the murderer is in fact cured. This is why our society has introduced arbitrary sentencing times. This is why a burglar gets less time than a murderer. To realize the error of burgling, and recovering appropriately, takes less time than doing the same for murdering. The problem that our society has is it sometimes focuses only on the punishment itself, not the purpose of the punishment. Sometimes we sentence people, who are perfectly capable of rehabilitation, to cruel or unusual punishments just to spite the person. We get caught up in the moment and forget the overall point of the system: rehabilitation.
By definition, Capital Punishment, and to some extent life without parole, is pointless. Capital Punishment, because it literally prevents the criminal from reforming, doesn't serve a purpose. It is the embodiment of unusual punishment because it is a punishment that serves no point.
(2)A counter-argument to my claim is that we sentence violent criminals to protect the rest of society. If that is the sole reason we sentence violent criminals, then it would make sense to keep them incarcerated for as long as possible.
The flaw in the logical, simply put, is the criminals are being punished for something they have yet to do. They are being sentenced for longer times than needed because when they get out they have a higher potential to commit crimes. Notice, they have a higher potential to commit crimes, which does not mean they will commit crimes.
Basically, if you punish a prisoner, by sentencing them to a longer than needed sentence, you are punishing them twice. Once for what they did, and once for what they may do after they get out. Punishing someone for what they may do, even if the person has a higher than average chance of doing it, is inherently problematic. It creates a standard to punish others for what they may do, based purely on the statistical likelihood of them doing it.
In English 11 last year, I satirically used similar logic (or pseudo-logic rather), though brought to an extreme, to justify incarcerating large portions of our population. Here is some of that article:
The Federal prisons system has the most people in correctional facilities per capita in the whole world. This means that we are doing a great job keeping criminals off the streets. One can logically conclude that this means that our country has the lowest crime rates in the world and ergo the safest country in the world. However, statistically speaking, this is not true. Among other similarly, both technologically and socially, advanced countries, our violent crime rate is below only Australia. So, our problem is now two-fold: we have a exponentially increasing prisoner population, and we have to deal with a high violent crime rate. The reasonable answer to this dilemma is to both incarcerate more prisoners and to keep them in there for a longer time, while simultaneously building bigger and stronger correctional institutes. Once you commit a crime you are always a criminal. Therefore, you are always dangerous to society. The longer you stay in prison the more safe everyone else will be.
Some crazy nut-jobs argue that we should put people in different prisons for different crimes. (i.e. if you commit a violent crime you go to prison, whereas if you say shoplift you would only have to pay fines and restitution) I’m here to say that any and all arguments in support of this Ideology are completely and totally fallacious. One only needs simple common sense to see the falsehoods in the aforementioned idea. Let me give you this simple scenario to show you to my way of thinking: If a person steals a packet of gum, knowing full well that stealing is illegal, they did willfully and maliciously break the law. These same laws are what keep the fabric of society intact. If said person can, without remorse or regret, commit such an act, then no personal moral ideals exist in sufficient enough quantity to stop them from committing much more serious crimes, such as murder or assault. Therefore, all criminals should be treated with the same harshness as the worst offenders: mass murderers and the like. Because if one can commit one crime then no personal moral ethics will stop them from committing another. Although stealing gum is not as serious as committing murder, I consider it an investment to lock up everyone who has even a remote possibility of murdering somebody.
The offspring of those who a currently, or have at one point or another, served a sentence in prison have a higher incarceration rate when compared to the rest of the general population. So, it’s only obvious that we need to do something about the sons and daughters of criminals. Well, because improving their lot in life, by providing funds towards education and other social welfare projects, would be simply ridiculous, the only reasonable solution left is to imprison these children. They could potentially threaten other people. I consider it a preemptive imprisonment for crimes which they have yet to commit. My opponents argue that we should only imprison the appropriate amount of these children. The appropriate amount being the percentage of them that are likely to commit crimes. However, I reason, that the only way to stop the offspring from committing crimes is to incarcerate all of them. That way we can be 100% sure that there isn’t even a possibility for them to wreak havoc upon society. The best way to combat crime is through prevention. Using this same principle, I can also conclude that we also need to imprison all peoples whose income is less than the national median income, all immigrants, and the state of Louisiana. These different groups all have higher crime rates than the national average and therefore should be imprisoned for it.
As you can see, it is fallacious to use statistical likelihood to justify imprisonment.
(3)On yet another point, even if it were reasonable to imprison those who have yet to do something - which it isn't - the way it is decided whether or not a person has a higher chance to commit crimes is inherently flawed. It is based on society's view of the subject in question. Though we like to pretend that humans are inherently reasonable and logical all the time, often times we are persuaded by sensationalism and other corrupt arguments from pathos.
Arguments from pathos are present in our courtrooms. Now, not all arguments using mankind's emotional responses are egregious. Though, of the three different modes of argument - pathos, ethos, and logos - pathos is the most easily corruptible. It is also the most effective at generating a response. Because of the effectiveness of arguments appealing to people's emotions, the arguments involving pathos as the center-piece of the argument are commonly used in the courtroom.
Since the objective of both the prosecution and the defense is to most effectively convince the jury, the adept lawyer disregards all arguments against their own. They don't present all the evidence; only the evidence that furthers their own cause. The adept attorney will sometimes intentionally commit logical fallacies or distort facts in order to further their own ends. Since the majority of the jury may be ignorant, they are then persuaded by the brute emotional response that they have.
Now, if the system works, meaning both the defense and prosecution have equally eloquent attorneys, then there is no problem. The two lawyer's fallacies cancel each other out, or neither lawyer commits to using fallacious reasoning out of fear of being called out on it.
The problem arises when both attorneys aren't equally matched. If that happens, for whatever reason, the actual truth of the trail becomes insignificant, or at least less significant. Which is one reason why more serious crimes require a greater amount - that is a more convincing amount - of evidence.
Another reason more serious crimes should require more evidence is the fact that more serious crimes permit more serious punishment. When the state punishes someone, for whatever crime, they are essentially revoking something from that person. Whether the thing revoked be time, money, community service, etc, it doesn't matter. The more one revokes from that person, the more possible detriment that person endures. The greater detriment that person endures the more possible error in the states justice is possible. The state wants to minimize the amount of error it produces within the criminal justice system. Since being wrong - that is giving the wrong verdict - on a serious crime has the possibility to produce more error when compared to a less serious crime, the requirements to incarcerate serious criminals is therefore more stringent.
Also, the sentencing shouldn't be reliant on the jury answering correctly necessarily. Thus, sentences that do rely on absolute correctness, that is sentences that are themselves absolutes, shouldn't be permitted - unless you're willing to make the argument that juries are never wrong. The death penalty, and to some extent life imprisonment, is an absolute punishment. It takes away everything the murderer has. With respects to the murderer, it revokes an infinite amount from him. Ergo, unless the juries never answer incorrectly, the death penalty cannot be allowed.
In other words, if the possible amount of error is infinite, as is the case in Capital Punishment, then the certainty required to justly incarcerate murderers is absolute. Absolute punishment requires absolute certainty.
Basically, if you are to sentence someone to an absolute, like the death penalty, you have to be absolutely sure they in fact did what they are being punished for. Our system, and any system for that matter, can't accomplish perfection, even one-time perfection. The amount of proof required increases with both the severity of crime and punishment. If the punishment is lenient, then the amount of proof is lenient. If the punishment is an absolute, then the amount of proof is absolute.
Really, it's better to let 100, or even 1000, guilty people go, than incarcerate one innocent person, if the punishment is death. The detriment towards society that will occur by letting guilty people go is a lesser negative than the absolute detriment that occurs when an innocent person is killed.
(4)Capital Punishment doesn't, by enlarge, deter crime.
In states without the death penalty the crime rates are significantly lower than states with the death penalty. Though this doesn't suggest keeping the death penalty raises crime rates, it merely suggests that if a state were to abolish the death penalty, they wouldn't experience a large increase of crime.
According to the ACLU, when a survey conducted questioning police chiefs throughout our country to rank the most effective factors that, in their opinion, contributed to decreased crime rates, the death penalty was ranked last. It was behind longer sentences, gun control, more police officers, curbing drug use, among others. Which shows that if one desires to decrease crime rates, the death penalty is the least effective means by which to do so.
Violent crimes, and murders in specific, can be divided into two different categories. Those which are premeditated and those which aren't.
If a crime is premeditated it means it has been thought out prior to when the crime is committed. Literally, that is what premeditated means. Criminals, by enlarge, don't premeditate their crimes with the intention of being caught. They plan on getting away with their crimes most of the time. Therefore, since the intention of the criminal is to escape, the difference between Capital Punishment and life imprisonment doesn't matter. The criminal plans on escaping anyway so why bother with worrying about the punishment.
If the crime isn't premeditated, then most likely the reason the murderer murders is to satisfy a barbaric urge to give in to emotional distress. The higher cognitive functions of the murderer are suspended. Basically, the murderer loses their cool. If the higher cognitive functions, such as reason and logic, of the murderer are suspended, then the murder doesn't consider adequately the negative repercussions of the murder they are about to commit. Hence, they will not consider the death penalty when committing the murder, at least not adequately. If they don't consider the repercussions, then there isn't a possible way for the death penalty to deter that particular murder.
A third set of circumstances exists. If the criminal does premeditate their crime yet expects to get caught, which happens incredibly rarely, then most likely the criminal intends to become a martyr or is insane. If they are insane, then it is already unconstitutional for us to kill them. If they wish to go down as a martyr, then likely Capital Punishment is expected and they are willing to die for their ideology. Hence, under neither circumstance does Capital Punishment deter a crime.
There are circumstances in which Capital Punishment actually causes more deaths to occur (besides the murderers). In 1996, Daniel Colwell, who suffers from a mental illness, kill random individuals in a Georgia parking lot because he wanted to die. He was to afraid to take his own life so he had the state do it for him.
(5)Capital Punishment is contrary to the 'unalienable' rights that we fought for in the Revolutionary War. In the Declaration of Independence, we declare that Great Britain violated the basic human rights everyone possesses, and they violated the social contract between themselves and us, thus they were no longer fit to govern over us. Ideologically, they breached the social contract and that breach gave us the right to overthrow them. We fought a war over what we perceived as an infringement upon our rights. Now, this relates to Capital punishment because among the rights endowed by our creator - the rights possessed by everyone regardless of creed, sex, economic background, philosophical ideology, etc - is the right to Life. The right to Life is unalienable - that is the literal right to Live. Nothing - no entity, government, organization, or person - has the right to take away the right to Live.
In the Bill of Rights, in our Constitution, we are guaranteed specific rights. These rights are given to us by the government in exchange for the governments sovereign over us. It's a social contract. Now, the Constitution doesn't explicitly state people have a right to live because the government doesn't have the authority to give that right. The right to live is unalienable. Hence, since the government never possessed the ability to endow people with the right to live, the government also doesn't have the authority to take that right away.
In the 5th amendment to our constitution, it states:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence(sic) to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Notice that is states, "nor shall they (the defendant) be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." This clause does not invalidate my point, nor does the clause indicating, "No person should be held to answer for a Capital..." Though both clauses imply that Capital Punishment is possible under our Constitution, indeed it is possible, neither clause states it as a necessity.
Of the three terms in the 'Life Liberty and Property' clause two of them, liberty and property were chosen for, presumably, a reason. They did not say 'pursuit of happiness' because the pursuit of happiness is an extremely ambiguous term. The pursuit of happiness is also an ideological term - a philosophical one. They used property, among other words, to cement the Constitution to the political environment of the day; to put the abstract idea, originally from Locke, into a practical form. To disambiguate the supreme law of the land just to the point where it becomes practical. By doing so, they also, as a result, tied the Constitution, in some ways, to what the social norms of the day were. Social norms progress as history progresses. Therefore, right and wrong - at least in some respects - is different now than it was then. Ergo, a completely Originalist approach to the Constitution is absurd. Because the Originalist approach may be erroneous in some respects, it isn't wise to simply take everything in the Constitution literally without any interpretation. The interpretation should thus be comprehensive and take into account the morals of our time. It should take into account the norms surrounding us just as the Constitution was drafted to take into account the norms surrounding their time. Just because the Constitution hints at the possibility for the death penalty - though never explicitly stating that Capital Punishment ought to be used - doesn't mean we should use Capital punishment blindly as the abhorrence of Capital Punishment should never be considered a solution to anything, regardless of how heinous the crime may be.
The liberty which the constitution endows us with is the only liberty that the Constitution can endow us with: Positive Liberty. Positive Liberty (which is the technical term) is, in sum, the right to be oneself's own master. The freedom to control your own life. Positive Liberty contrasts with Negative Liberty. Negative Liberty is, in sum, the ability to not be a slave. The right to be free of others domination over you. Everyone, regardless of anything, is born with Negative Liberty. Negative Liberty is unalienable. It is impossible to legitimately revoke someone's Negative Liberty. People always possess the freedom to escape domination. Through coercion, one may force others into slavery, thus taking away their Negative Liberty. However both the act of coercion and consequential repeal of said person's Negative Liberty are crimes against humanity. No matter what entity commits the coercion and eventual de-liberation, the result is the same. The entity violated the unalienable rights of humans and therefore committed an abhorrent crime against humanity itself.
The term pursuit of happiness, in addition to the tone of the rest of the Declaration of Independence, leads me to believe the Declaration was written in a much more ideological frame of mind than the more pragmatic Constitution. The Constitution had to be grounded whereas the Declaration did not. Thus, because the Declaration was written more in the abstract, it wouldn't be fallacious to say most probably the other two terms - Life and Liberty - were also meant to be on the abstract side of things. They were written in the ideal. They were phrased that way to highlight what the ultimate goal is - what the ideal unalienable rights are. The right to Live is unalienable, the right to Negative Liberty (that's the technical term) is unalienable, and the right to pursue your own happiness - provided it doesn't violate John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle - is unalienable.
In sum, the three rights guaranteed in the Declaration are unalienable. In fact, they technically don't even need to be guaranteed, as they are inherent in all humans. The three rights in the Declaration guaranteed are as follows: the right to Live, Negative Liberty, and the pursuit to become happy within the restraints of society. The three rights in the Fifth Amendment are as follows: the right to live your life as you see prudent - the right to determine your own livelihood, Positive Liberty, and property - your possessions. The three rights in the Fifth amendment are all rights that can be taken away if the Social Contract is violated; the three in the Declaration are indeed unalienable.
Just because the Declaration was abstract then doesn't mean it has to still be purely abstract now. I am not stating that I want the Declaration to be the supreme law of the land. That is absurd. However, the Declaration declares the enlightened philosophy that our Constitution was later based off of. The Declaration declares this philosophy in full force. It wasn't an official law, and thus wasn't subject to realism. It could be as ideological as it wanted. In the time of the Constitution, it was somewhat of a norm to have capital punishment as part of a legal system. So, because the Constitution had to be at least marginally grounded to its time, Capital Punishment was included to be a possibility within the Constitution. However, just because it was at one point Constitutional, doesn't mean Capital Punishment remains constitutional today. The ideological message of the Constitution, and the enlightenment period in general, converted into today's norms, would be contrary to Capital Punishment.
(6)Nowadays, the world (at least the civilized western-style democracies) are overwhelmingly opposed to Capital Punishment. Japan, Belarus, India, and the U.S. are the only western-style democracies in the world to still use Capital Punishment. In the E.U., it is outlawed. No country, except Belarus, in Europe has Capital Punishment. 51% of nations belonging to the U.N. prohibit Capital Punishment. In addition, 4% only allow it during war time, and 25% haven't actually used the death penalty in over ten years. The U.S. belongs to the group of 40 nations (20%) who still use Capital Punishment. Most of these nations are either Despotisms or are in Asia. In Asia the philosophy regarding Capital punishment is different. The U.S. ranks fifth on the list of most people executed per year, behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, but luckily we are ahead of Yemen and North Korea. The U.S., a liberal democracy, is comparable to a monarchy, two theocracies, a dictatorship, an anarchic pseudo-democracy, and an oligarchy. Obviously world-wide the U.S. has fallen behind when it comes to Capital punishment. In fact, we are about twenty years behind the other nations of the world.
These statistics don’t necessarily mean we have to change our Capital Punishment laws, though they do suggest it. They do however mean that the worldwide norm is that of no Capital Punishment. Generally speaking, doing something outside of the norm requires reason. The greater the variation the greater the reason required. We are far outside the norm. Hence, if we are to justify still using the death penalty, then we need quite a large amount of reasoning to back us up. Which has the effect of shifting the burden-of-proof towards those who are defending the death penalty, rather than those trying to change it.
(7)One of the arguments for Capital Punishment involves the differentiation between the definitions of killing and murder. The reason these two terms, according to the argument, is that it isn't ever right to murder but under certain circumstances it is acceptable to kill. The two definitions are as follows: kill is to end the life of someone, murder is the crime of deliberately killing someone. The only impact-ful difference between the definitions is the crime part. One of which, according to the definitions, isn't a crime and the other is a crime. However, both Capital Punishment and murder are crimes because they are both crimes against humanity. Murder also happens to be a crime in most, if not all, states (nations), but the laws which the nations set are insignificant when compared to the laws of humanity.
There is one acceptable circumstance in which killing is admissible. Killing in self-defense isn't bad, though that death has to be in-deliberate You can't mean to kill someone in self-defense. This doesn't necessarily apply to only people. Any entity with independence of choice, positive liberty, may defend itself. Which, in effect, can authorize defense on the scale of states.
As I said, the laws of humanity outweigh the laws of an individual country. As Capital Punishment is contrary to the law inherent within humans dictating that it is wrong to kill, Capital Punishment is a crime - it's a crime against humanity. Killing deliberately while simultaneously breaking the aforementioned law is murder. Murder, I concur, is always wrong. Therefore Capital Punishment is always wrong.
(8)A contradiction arises if governments do indeed have the ability, or right if you will, to kill its own citizens - not to say that the government is killing at will, there are checks and balances within the system to prevent tyranny.
Still, the ability to use the death penalty creates a huge problem. The problem originates from the location where governments get their power, their right to rule. All government power is derived from the people it governs over. Every single power the government possess is derived from the people in one way or another. If government does indeed have the power of execution, then therefore people have the power of execution in their state of nature. In the state of nature, people may gain retribution for the wrongs done unto them by killing the offender.
Meaning, without government, people may kill other people as punishment. They may do this without breaking any morals, norms, or ethics. They may kill ethically. If the person chooses to kill ethically responsibly, then only a minor problem arises, like if they only kill for something equally detrimental towards themselves - an eye for an eye. However, when people are indeed in their state of nature, they are in effect independent. For a particular individual, the punishment for everything may be death. Hence, one can ethically kill someone else - provided they are in the state of nature - for only a minor infraction.
I don't think anyone would be willing to argue that killing someone for as little as thievery, or the like, is ethical. Indeed it isn't. Therefore, if governments do indeed have the right to execute - that is use Capital Punishment, then the aforementioned scenario has to be true. In order to be ideologically consistent, one who defends Capital Punishment has to be willing to defend that it is ethical to kill someone for as little as thievery if man is in its state of nature.
(conc)In sum, Capital Punishment is an abhorrent antediluvian practice which persists into the modern era despite the obvious ethical, moral, statistical, logical, and effectual deficiencies inherent within it. From a viewpoint of justice, it solves nothing because it is inherently unjust. From the viewpoint of the social contract existing between governments and peoples, it cannot possibly be justified in any logically consistent system as any social contract that allows it is null and void. From the pragmatic viewpoint that Capital Punishment decreases crime rates, the contradictory is true. From the idea that criminals should be kept incarcerated longer than needed purely to satisfy the statistically induced paranoia of some members of our population, it is a fallacious, erroneous, specious, and egregious form of deception to punish twice - once for what has been done, and once for what may become done. From a worldwide perspective, our country is one of the last bastions still engaging in a long-since antiquated form of punishment. From a ethical perspective, it is hypocritical incarnate to do unto one what they have done unto me - two injustices don't synthesize justice. From any reasonable perspective, Capital Punishment is contrary to necessary punishment - it is, by definition, cruel and unusual punishment.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Government Default
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJWe1v5KO8o Sen. Sanders
http://www.epi.org/blog/welfare-isnt-generous-wages/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jd-iaYLO1A&feature=share Rigged Rules
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-chart-destroys-the-fox-news-view-of-the-debt-ceiling-2013-10
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/12/business-and-the-gop/?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/opinion/krugman-the-wonk-gap.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0
Along with the two YouTube videos, the articles above detail the possible detriments associated with defaulting on our debt.
The second YouTube link titled 'Rigged Rules' shows the House GOP's attempt to stop any vote from taking place within the House regarding the government shutdown. In affect, any bill regarding the government shutdown can be brought to the floor only by the majority leader Eric Cantor. This gives the House leadership supreme power regarding the government shutdown. Basically, when it comes to the government shutdown, the House is an oligarchy of a few representatives.
A common misconception regarding how the U.S. pays it's debts is it can pick and choose what to pay and what not to pay. This is false. As detailed in the 'businessinsider' article, the U.S. doesn't possess the ability to easily differentiate between say interest payments and welfare payments, if it can at all. And, even if it did, under some circumstances we still wouldn't be able to afford the interest payments with solely tax revenue. All-in-all, the U.S. is going to default if a solution is not agreed upon.
Sen. Sanders (probably my favorite Senator) makes a couple good points when he is being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer. Towards the end of the interview, Sen. Sanders says something along the lines of "it is unjust to get out of debt on the backs of the poor". I agree fully. As detailed by the article from 'epi', one of the most egregious misconceptions people have is they think we can just stop paying for government programs that benefit the poor, like food stamps. Aside from whether or not you think welfare in this state is to extensive, all should easily see that to stop paying all of those who are in financial distress would cause mass-malcontent. Indeed it is already causing distress, and that is with a great deal of government programs kept intact. Another point is people choose to get on welfare, and when they choose to get on welfare they live a far better life than when they worked. This is false. By enlarge, people will attempt to financially better themselves by working. They will try to get off welfare if possible. And besides, even if there was a desire to stay on welfare, the welfare life is by no means luxurious.
Not only is the government shutdown incredibly detrimental to the poor, it is also equally detrimental to corporations and businesses. As detailed in the Krugman blog, the GOP has increasingly become the party of bad economic policies for all, rather than just for most.
http://www.epi.org/blog/welfare-isnt-generous-wages/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jd-iaYLO1A&feature=share Rigged Rules
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-chart-destroys-the-fox-news-view-of-the-debt-ceiling-2013-10
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/12/business-and-the-gop/?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/opinion/krugman-the-wonk-gap.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0
Along with the two YouTube videos, the articles above detail the possible detriments associated with defaulting on our debt.
The second YouTube link titled 'Rigged Rules' shows the House GOP's attempt to stop any vote from taking place within the House regarding the government shutdown. In affect, any bill regarding the government shutdown can be brought to the floor only by the majority leader Eric Cantor. This gives the House leadership supreme power regarding the government shutdown. Basically, when it comes to the government shutdown, the House is an oligarchy of a few representatives.
A common misconception regarding how the U.S. pays it's debts is it can pick and choose what to pay and what not to pay. This is false. As detailed in the 'businessinsider' article, the U.S. doesn't possess the ability to easily differentiate between say interest payments and welfare payments, if it can at all. And, even if it did, under some circumstances we still wouldn't be able to afford the interest payments with solely tax revenue. All-in-all, the U.S. is going to default if a solution is not agreed upon.
Sen. Sanders (probably my favorite Senator) makes a couple good points when he is being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer. Towards the end of the interview, Sen. Sanders says something along the lines of "it is unjust to get out of debt on the backs of the poor". I agree fully. As detailed by the article from 'epi', one of the most egregious misconceptions people have is they think we can just stop paying for government programs that benefit the poor, like food stamps. Aside from whether or not you think welfare in this state is to extensive, all should easily see that to stop paying all of those who are in financial distress would cause mass-malcontent. Indeed it is already causing distress, and that is with a great deal of government programs kept intact. Another point is people choose to get on welfare, and when they choose to get on welfare they live a far better life than when they worked. This is false. By enlarge, people will attempt to financially better themselves by working. They will try to get off welfare if possible. And besides, even if there was a desire to stay on welfare, the welfare life is by no means luxurious.
Not only is the government shutdown incredibly detrimental to the poor, it is also equally detrimental to corporations and businesses. As detailed in the Krugman blog, the GOP has increasingly become the party of bad economic policies for all, rather than just for most.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
John McCain Blames Tea Party for Shutdown
Here is a link to a couple of articles:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/10/john-mccain-tea-party_n_4075052.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/john-mccain-ted-cruz_n_3989887.html?utm_hp_ref=john-mccain
And here is one point out the irony of the government shutdown:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/09/how-government-shutdown-will-affect-obamacare-launch/70021/
The article is about how John McCain blames some members of the GOP for the government shutdown. John McCain is sometimes considered a maverick and will often be the first to negotiate. The other article from 'The Atlantic Wire' points out that the intention of the government shutdown will not be achieved. Basically the government shutdown will not for the most part affect Obamacare. Obamacare is designed to not need to be renewed every year.
This article about John McCain shows the growing split within the GOP between the Tea Party fanatics and the 'moderate' old guard. However, this is unlike most other splits in our history that occur within a party. Usually, when a split happens, the new 'camp' are the more left-leaning ones. The 'Mugwumps', of the late 19th century, are an example of this. In this case the opposite is true. The Tea Party are by far more right-wing than the already relatively far-right Republican Old Guard. I'm using relative in the scale of other democratic nations worldwide.
My prediction for what will result is as follows: there will be a Hegelian antithesis of the Tea Party occurring on the far-left, resulting in an overall shift of this countries political spectrum to the left slightly from where it is now. Hopefully, the Tea Party will end our now thirty era of Conservatism that has dominated our political landscape since the late seventies. We are in need of many reforms.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/10/john-mccain-tea-party_n_4075052.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/john-mccain-ted-cruz_n_3989887.html?utm_hp_ref=john-mccain
And here is one point out the irony of the government shutdown:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/09/how-government-shutdown-will-affect-obamacare-launch/70021/
The article is about how John McCain blames some members of the GOP for the government shutdown. John McCain is sometimes considered a maverick and will often be the first to negotiate. The other article from 'The Atlantic Wire' points out that the intention of the government shutdown will not be achieved. Basically the government shutdown will not for the most part affect Obamacare. Obamacare is designed to not need to be renewed every year.
This article about John McCain shows the growing split within the GOP between the Tea Party fanatics and the 'moderate' old guard. However, this is unlike most other splits in our history that occur within a party. Usually, when a split happens, the new 'camp' are the more left-leaning ones. The 'Mugwumps', of the late 19th century, are an example of this. In this case the opposite is true. The Tea Party are by far more right-wing than the already relatively far-right Republican Old Guard. I'm using relative in the scale of other democratic nations worldwide.
My prediction for what will result is as follows: there will be a Hegelian antithesis of the Tea Party occurring on the far-left, resulting in an overall shift of this countries political spectrum to the left slightly from where it is now. Hopefully, the Tea Party will end our now thirty era of Conservatism that has dominated our political landscape since the late seventies. We are in need of many reforms.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
America's Middle Class and the Greed of our Bourgeoisie Overlords
The article I'm examining is a 'New York Times' article by Eduardo Porter. Despite what some of you may think, the NYT can put out some quality pieces. This article isn't about headline news, but rather a continuing trend that is occurring within America: the weakening of the middle class and the stratification of the Bourgeoisie. The article can be found here.
Porter, the author, starts the article by comparing our modern times to 1988. He shows that technology has progressed beyond belief, that the average production of Americans has risen, and, disturbingly, the economic prosperity of most Americans has stagnated. The median income in America, adjusted for inflation, has remained at relatively the same levels since the mid eighties, though there was a spike in the data at the end of the nineties. Tangentially, the article fails to mention that these numbers are inflation adjusted, and it also uses the term 'typical' to denote median. Anyway, this is seriously concerning considering that both: the average production has increased, and the price of many items considered integral to the middle class; college expenses, home ownership, healthcare, ect; has risen faster than inflation. Porter points out the reason behind this. He shows the rich have been getting richer while everyone else has become poorer or remained the same. Porter also makes the point that what our nation considers middle class is increasingly becoming a fantasy. It is getting farther and farther out of most peoples reach. To demonstrate the increasing gap between classes, watch this video on Youtube. It is a very interesting piece detailing a study done by a Harvard professor.
I think something serious should be done to combat wealth and income inequality in the United States. Although what I'm about to propose may seem a bit drastic (and will no doubt receive tons of comments about), there has been other countries which have successfully done something like this. What I want to see happen is the salary of the CEO (and other executives) of any given company legally tied to the average amount of money that company pays its workers. So, in effect, the companies owners and executives will receive an incentive to pay their workers more money. They will get more money if they pay more and vice-versa. Perhaps if they cross a certain threshold, say Y x Minimum Wage, they could even get a small tax break on their income. Or, rather than tying it to minimum wage, perhaps we tie it to national median income. Give a tax break to CEOs (never have I ever said that) who pay a certain percentage above median income.
Currently there is no direct incentive for CEOs to pay better wages so most don't. I say direct because they do in fact benefit from paying their employees more money. Henry Ford payed his employees well and as a result he 'purchased' a loyal fan-base to buy his products. Most CEOs don't see eye-to-eye with this philosophy. If they were to receive some incentive, perhaps not even as extreme as what I'm suggesting, they would be more eager to pay their employees a better wage.
Now, some will probably think that this would be incredibly detrimental to our economy because we will lose job creators, and thus jobs. First lets examine the prerequisites required to open and operate a successful business. First, and probably most obvious, the potential business owner needs some form of Capital. The definition of Capital I prefer is: Capital is anything used to generate more Capital. Hence, Capital can be anything from a good idea, to money, to gold. Second, there needs to be demand for your product. This prerequisite is far more important. One cannot simply open a business if there is no niche for that business to occupy. The amount of people in the economy willing to spend their money on product A needs to be quantitatively large enough to support the owner of product A. Thus, the less money people on average have within our economy, the less niches there will be for products A, B, C, and D. Increasing the amount of people willing to spend money, P, within an economy will also increase the number of niches, N, in the economy. The variables P and N are directly proportional. Therefore artificially increasing P will produce a quantitatively larger N.
Because N is the response variable in this situation, it is pretty much impossible to artificially increase N itself. P needs to be increased to increase N. This is one reason why Supply-Side economics is inherently flawed, but that is another article entirely.
The point of that massive paragraph in abstract was to demonstrate that artificially increasing P by giving the proletarians more money (in the form of better wages) will by definition create more businesses. It will create, in abundance, the very thing potential business owners need the most to thrive: a market for their products.
Real quick, here is an article detailing what Switzerland did when they capped CEO's wages. Other countries also have regulated CEO wages but Switzerland's are the most extreme to my knowledge.
Overall, by increasing the pay check of the proletarians (aesthetically that word pleases me) it will do three things: one, it will decrease the income and wealth inequality in the U.S.; two, it will increase the opportunity for new businesses to flourish, and three, it will generate tax revenue and increase the rate our economy grows at. Other than the fact that CEOs are only going to be rich and not filthy stinking rich, there are no downsides that I can foresee with this.
You are more than welcome to comment if you disagree with my idea or need me to disambiguate something.
Porter, the author, starts the article by comparing our modern times to 1988. He shows that technology has progressed beyond belief, that the average production of Americans has risen, and, disturbingly, the economic prosperity of most Americans has stagnated. The median income in America, adjusted for inflation, has remained at relatively the same levels since the mid eighties, though there was a spike in the data at the end of the nineties. Tangentially, the article fails to mention that these numbers are inflation adjusted, and it also uses the term 'typical' to denote median. Anyway, this is seriously concerning considering that both: the average production has increased, and the price of many items considered integral to the middle class; college expenses, home ownership, healthcare, ect; has risen faster than inflation. Porter points out the reason behind this. He shows the rich have been getting richer while everyone else has become poorer or remained the same. Porter also makes the point that what our nation considers middle class is increasingly becoming a fantasy. It is getting farther and farther out of most peoples reach. To demonstrate the increasing gap between classes, watch this video on Youtube. It is a very interesting piece detailing a study done by a Harvard professor.
I think something serious should be done to combat wealth and income inequality in the United States. Although what I'm about to propose may seem a bit drastic (and will no doubt receive tons of comments about), there has been other countries which have successfully done something like this. What I want to see happen is the salary of the CEO (and other executives) of any given company legally tied to the average amount of money that company pays its workers. So, in effect, the companies owners and executives will receive an incentive to pay their workers more money. They will get more money if they pay more and vice-versa. Perhaps if they cross a certain threshold, say Y x Minimum Wage, they could even get a small tax break on their income. Or, rather than tying it to minimum wage, perhaps we tie it to national median income. Give a tax break to CEOs (never have I ever said that) who pay a certain percentage above median income.
Currently there is no direct incentive for CEOs to pay better wages so most don't. I say direct because they do in fact benefit from paying their employees more money. Henry Ford payed his employees well and as a result he 'purchased' a loyal fan-base to buy his products. Most CEOs don't see eye-to-eye with this philosophy. If they were to receive some incentive, perhaps not even as extreme as what I'm suggesting, they would be more eager to pay their employees a better wage.
Now, some will probably think that this would be incredibly detrimental to our economy because we will lose job creators, and thus jobs. First lets examine the prerequisites required to open and operate a successful business. First, and probably most obvious, the potential business owner needs some form of Capital. The definition of Capital I prefer is: Capital is anything used to generate more Capital. Hence, Capital can be anything from a good idea, to money, to gold. Second, there needs to be demand for your product. This prerequisite is far more important. One cannot simply open a business if there is no niche for that business to occupy. The amount of people in the economy willing to spend their money on product A needs to be quantitatively large enough to support the owner of product A. Thus, the less money people on average have within our economy, the less niches there will be for products A, B, C, and D. Increasing the amount of people willing to spend money, P, within an economy will also increase the number of niches, N, in the economy. The variables P and N are directly proportional. Therefore artificially increasing P will produce a quantitatively larger N.
Because N is the response variable in this situation, it is pretty much impossible to artificially increase N itself. P needs to be increased to increase N. This is one reason why Supply-Side economics is inherently flawed, but that is another article entirely.
The point of that massive paragraph in abstract was to demonstrate that artificially increasing P by giving the proletarians more money (in the form of better wages) will by definition create more businesses. It will create, in abundance, the very thing potential business owners need the most to thrive: a market for their products.
Real quick, here is an article detailing what Switzerland did when they capped CEO's wages. Other countries also have regulated CEO wages but Switzerland's are the most extreme to my knowledge.
Overall, by increasing the pay check of the proletarians (aesthetically that word pleases me) it will do three things: one, it will decrease the income and wealth inequality in the U.S.; two, it will increase the opportunity for new businesses to flourish, and three, it will generate tax revenue and increase the rate our economy grows at. Other than the fact that CEOs are only going to be rich and not filthy stinking rich, there are no downsides that I can foresee with this.
You are more than welcome to comment if you disagree with my idea or need me to disambiguate something.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Syria
I decided to write this article on the the Syrian conflict and the overlapping foreign policy of the U.S. I examined a slew of newspaper articles, opinion papers, and studies to write this article, so I think it would be more appropriate to simply cite an article as I go rather than cite them all here. However, Noah's post was actually far better than most of the articles I read while researching, so I'll put his link at the top.
Just for some historical background, Syria is currently in the midst of a two-and-a-half year civil war. The conflict pits Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his tightly knit military and secret police apparatus against the loosely organized rebel opposition. The opposition consists of a wide array of factions and organizations. They Range from the Muslim Brotherhood; to the Coalition of Secular and Democratic Syrians; to the Syrian Democratic People's Party (a socialist party); to the Al-Nursa Front (an Al-Qaeda associate); to many other local factions and organizations. The Syrian rebels aren't always as righteous as some in our media proclaim. Nor are they a homogeneous entity with unified goals.
Those who like to condemn Assad like to also forget that some, if not a majority, of the belligerents opposing Assad are just as ruthless as he. One of the major differences - and most likely the cause of Assad's greater casualty infliction count - is the Regime has access to sophisticated weapons and the rebels don't. At least some of the rebels, particularly the ones affiliated with terrorist organizations, would be more than happy to use chemical weapons if they could get their hands on them. This article from the 'New York Times' editorial pages is guilty of only showing one side of the conflict, so is this article from the 'Washington Post'. It is important to evaluate the belligerents of a conflict when contemplating involvement in such conflict.
The article from the 'New York Times' editorial pages also seems to be relying on the idea that there are only two real choices in this matter. Which is not only fallacious but also an egregiously representative statement. There are many different options and even more consequences in this scenario. I will expand on this False Dichotomy in another paragraph.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not throwing in my support for Assad. Given only two choices: one being to aid Assad, the other being to aid the rebels, I would choose to aid the rebels. Luckily we are not forced between those two choices because both of them are horrible. Assad's regime is guilty of near-countless atrocities. Even without the civil war in mind, the Assad regime is one of the worst in the world. Prior to the civil war, The Assad regime was condemned by humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International for its poor human rights record. It often imprisoned those who spoke out against the Assad regime and used the military to back it.
During the Syrian Civil War, the Syrian Government has on multiple occasions used chemical weapons in the form of Sarin gas to further their cause. I say government because there is some dispute as to whether Assad himself approved of the use of chemical weapons. This article questions the assumption that Assad himself was responsible.
The government of Russia outright denies the allegation that Syria even used chemical weapons and instead blames the rebels. Russia may not be totally sincere in its accusation. Russia currently is the only country on the U.N. security council that is allied with Syria. Their veto is keeping some countries from potential military action against the Assad regime. If they deny the allegations condemning Syria of using chemical warfare, then they have a more defensible position to cast their veto power from. As for the reason Russian supports Syria, Russia, along with the U.S., is the largest exporter or arms and munitions in the world. One of Russia's largest clients happens to be Syria, and by extension the Assad regime. A successful war against Syria would be extremely detrimental towards the long term economic position of Russian arms exports.
Despite the conflicted validity as to whether or not Assad personally ordered chemical weapons, he nevertheless is still responsible for mass amounts of loss of life. Two-and-a-half years ago, when this debacle first started, it was Assad who ordered peaceful protesters to be fired upon. Therefore he started the war. He was the original aggressor.
Of the over 110,000 likely deaths that have occurred in this conflict, over 75% have been civilian, oppositions forces, or militia. This shows two things: one being that the overall death toll is incredibly high for a country with a population of 22 million, second being that the Assad Regime is clearly winning the fight. The second point is alarming because this makes the act of using chemical weapons even more nefarious because the government did so willingly and for expedience, not out of necessity.
In addition to the death toll, there is hundreds-of-thousands more who were wounded in the conflict. There is millions of refugees in the surrounding countries who have fled from Syria because of the conflict. Furthermore, there has been thousands of prisoners taken by either the Assad regime or the Rebels who were tortured and inhumanely imprisoned. The overall refugee export of Syria has had a destabilizing effect on the region. Countries such as Jordan or Turkey now have to make accommodations for hundreds-of-thousands of refugees. It's like if the amount of immigrants coming into the U.S. increased, overnight, twentyfold.
Now, on to the matter at hand. As I've stated prior, I think the way the media has narrowed down our options is a False Dichotomy. On the one hand we could do nothing, and on the other we could launch missiles and airstrikes at the Assad regime. To me, it seems as though there are a slew of options in between and a couple at the more proactive end that the media has not even dared touch.
We could (and I'm not advocating this) invade Syria and install a friendly 'democratic' government. The benefit of this idea is we possibly could get an ally in the region and there isn't any instability after Assad's death. However, the power vacuum would have to be filled with U.S. soldiers. The major downsides to this solution is the cost and loss of life. We have learned from experience that this idea doesn't work. In both Iraq and Vietnam we had a similar plan and failed miserably. Based on estimates from the Iraq war, we would need roughly 600,000 soldiers to complete this plan effectively. That would drag this country further into an already substantial debt and would overall not be good.
Another possible route is that we attack Syria in a limited way. We aid the rebels when we can and takeout major military installations with our bombers and missiles. We provide support but don't commit actual ground forces to the conflict. President Obama promotes this policy.
Many, including Noah, have compared this policy to the one used in the Libyan conflict a couple years ago. However the parallel between Libya and Syria, and their respective civil wars, is non-existent. They are two different conflicts, both in quality and quantity. For one, in Libya U.N. approval was achieved quickly and without any real pressure from the U.S. We had many different nations on our side who were willing to act on their own accord. This gave some minor amounts of international legitimacy.
Secondly, the two conflicts entail a vastly different amount of soldiers and causalities. In Libya, the government had an army of about 20,000 regular soldiers plus another 10,000 militia. These soldiers, though well trained, were up against an army of 200,000 volunteers. These 200,000 volunteers were well armed and included a number of Army deserters. The volunteers were also relatively well organized and homogeneous in their goals. However, in Syria, the government has an army of 170,000 soldiers including 80,000 regulars. The Syrian opposition's 60,000 man army is also made up of dozens of different factions. My point being Syria is completely a different kind of conflict than Libya was.
As a third minor point for the differences between the two conflicts, Libya is relatively isolated whereas Syria is not. Meaning Libyan instability doesn't spread as easily as Syrian instability.
If we were to launch airborne forces into Syria there would no doubt be high amounts of civilian causalities as a result. Assad might even lash out against Israel or Saudi Arabia (our allies in the area) and now we've only exacerbated the problem. My point being is there doesn't seem to be a plan for all of these what if situations. It appears the reserved military strike on Syria isn't well thought out. Just judging from what I know of the situation a military strike doesn't seem to solve any problems. It only causes more.
Beyond the strike itself, even if the Syrian government were to capitulate, our problems in Syria would still exist - perhaps even more so. The reason comes from the fact that the opposition in Syria is incredibly diverse. If and when the Assad regime topples there will most likely be a power struggle. Lack of any dominant military presence in the area will create a power vacuum. Within this vacuum there will be a great amount of civilian deaths and destruction. So, by toppling the Assad regime we may only breed more discord.
All-in-all I think the idea to use a limited strike against Syria may at first seem ideal, though upon further rumination it is just as bad as the first idea.
A third possible solution (still not the one I promote) is one involving complete isolation. I think Noah did a more than adequate job refuting this argument in his article. Most people in America are against a strike against Syria, as detailed here. However, I think most of the people have just taken a hefty dosage of international apathy to counteract the Iraq War.
A fourth and final solution is one with no downsides, though it doesn't fix all problems. We should take a non-military active approach to this scenario. Meaning we provide generous humanitarian aid to the refugees outside - and civilians within - Syria. Granted this won't end the conflict, but it also doesn't risk exacerbating the conflict further. We won't risk another Iraq, yet we won't completely ignore the conflict. This will also help curb our governments constant need to be involved in a military expedition. Read this article if you want to read an analysis of the overuse of presidential war making powers, and a critic of the false dichotomy I mentioned earlier. All-in-all not many pros in this idea it is just the lack of cons that make me in favor of this.
If you have a better idea, want me to disambiguate something, or wish to dispute something, please feel free to leave comments.
Just for some historical background, Syria is currently in the midst of a two-and-a-half year civil war. The conflict pits Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his tightly knit military and secret police apparatus against the loosely organized rebel opposition. The opposition consists of a wide array of factions and organizations. They Range from the Muslim Brotherhood; to the Coalition of Secular and Democratic Syrians; to the Syrian Democratic People's Party (a socialist party); to the Al-Nursa Front (an Al-Qaeda associate); to many other local factions and organizations. The Syrian rebels aren't always as righteous as some in our media proclaim. Nor are they a homogeneous entity with unified goals.
Those who like to condemn Assad like to also forget that some, if not a majority, of the belligerents opposing Assad are just as ruthless as he. One of the major differences - and most likely the cause of Assad's greater casualty infliction count - is the Regime has access to sophisticated weapons and the rebels don't. At least some of the rebels, particularly the ones affiliated with terrorist organizations, would be more than happy to use chemical weapons if they could get their hands on them. This article from the 'New York Times' editorial pages is guilty of only showing one side of the conflict, so is this article from the 'Washington Post'. It is important to evaluate the belligerents of a conflict when contemplating involvement in such conflict.
The article from the 'New York Times' editorial pages also seems to be relying on the idea that there are only two real choices in this matter. Which is not only fallacious but also an egregiously representative statement. There are many different options and even more consequences in this scenario. I will expand on this False Dichotomy in another paragraph.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not throwing in my support for Assad. Given only two choices: one being to aid Assad, the other being to aid the rebels, I would choose to aid the rebels. Luckily we are not forced between those two choices because both of them are horrible. Assad's regime is guilty of near-countless atrocities. Even without the civil war in mind, the Assad regime is one of the worst in the world. Prior to the civil war, The Assad regime was condemned by humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International for its poor human rights record. It often imprisoned those who spoke out against the Assad regime and used the military to back it.
During the Syrian Civil War, the Syrian Government has on multiple occasions used chemical weapons in the form of Sarin gas to further their cause. I say government because there is some dispute as to whether Assad himself approved of the use of chemical weapons. This article questions the assumption that Assad himself was responsible.
The government of Russia outright denies the allegation that Syria even used chemical weapons and instead blames the rebels. Russia may not be totally sincere in its accusation. Russia currently is the only country on the U.N. security council that is allied with Syria. Their veto is keeping some countries from potential military action against the Assad regime. If they deny the allegations condemning Syria of using chemical warfare, then they have a more defensible position to cast their veto power from. As for the reason Russian supports Syria, Russia, along with the U.S., is the largest exporter or arms and munitions in the world. One of Russia's largest clients happens to be Syria, and by extension the Assad regime. A successful war against Syria would be extremely detrimental towards the long term economic position of Russian arms exports.
Despite the conflicted validity as to whether or not Assad personally ordered chemical weapons, he nevertheless is still responsible for mass amounts of loss of life. Two-and-a-half years ago, when this debacle first started, it was Assad who ordered peaceful protesters to be fired upon. Therefore he started the war. He was the original aggressor.
Of the over 110,000 likely deaths that have occurred in this conflict, over 75% have been civilian, oppositions forces, or militia. This shows two things: one being that the overall death toll is incredibly high for a country with a population of 22 million, second being that the Assad Regime is clearly winning the fight. The second point is alarming because this makes the act of using chemical weapons even more nefarious because the government did so willingly and for expedience, not out of necessity.
In addition to the death toll, there is hundreds-of-thousands more who were wounded in the conflict. There is millions of refugees in the surrounding countries who have fled from Syria because of the conflict. Furthermore, there has been thousands of prisoners taken by either the Assad regime or the Rebels who were tortured and inhumanely imprisoned. The overall refugee export of Syria has had a destabilizing effect on the region. Countries such as Jordan or Turkey now have to make accommodations for hundreds-of-thousands of refugees. It's like if the amount of immigrants coming into the U.S. increased, overnight, twentyfold.
Now, on to the matter at hand. As I've stated prior, I think the way the media has narrowed down our options is a False Dichotomy. On the one hand we could do nothing, and on the other we could launch missiles and airstrikes at the Assad regime. To me, it seems as though there are a slew of options in between and a couple at the more proactive end that the media has not even dared touch.
We could (and I'm not advocating this) invade Syria and install a friendly 'democratic' government. The benefit of this idea is we possibly could get an ally in the region and there isn't any instability after Assad's death. However, the power vacuum would have to be filled with U.S. soldiers. The major downsides to this solution is the cost and loss of life. We have learned from experience that this idea doesn't work. In both Iraq and Vietnam we had a similar plan and failed miserably. Based on estimates from the Iraq war, we would need roughly 600,000 soldiers to complete this plan effectively. That would drag this country further into an already substantial debt and would overall not be good.
Another possible route is that we attack Syria in a limited way. We aid the rebels when we can and takeout major military installations with our bombers and missiles. We provide support but don't commit actual ground forces to the conflict. President Obama promotes this policy.
Many, including Noah, have compared this policy to the one used in the Libyan conflict a couple years ago. However the parallel between Libya and Syria, and their respective civil wars, is non-existent. They are two different conflicts, both in quality and quantity. For one, in Libya U.N. approval was achieved quickly and without any real pressure from the U.S. We had many different nations on our side who were willing to act on their own accord. This gave some minor amounts of international legitimacy.
Secondly, the two conflicts entail a vastly different amount of soldiers and causalities. In Libya, the government had an army of about 20,000 regular soldiers plus another 10,000 militia. These soldiers, though well trained, were up against an army of 200,000 volunteers. These 200,000 volunteers were well armed and included a number of Army deserters. The volunteers were also relatively well organized and homogeneous in their goals. However, in Syria, the government has an army of 170,000 soldiers including 80,000 regulars. The Syrian opposition's 60,000 man army is also made up of dozens of different factions. My point being Syria is completely a different kind of conflict than Libya was.
As a third minor point for the differences between the two conflicts, Libya is relatively isolated whereas Syria is not. Meaning Libyan instability doesn't spread as easily as Syrian instability.
If we were to launch airborne forces into Syria there would no doubt be high amounts of civilian causalities as a result. Assad might even lash out against Israel or Saudi Arabia (our allies in the area) and now we've only exacerbated the problem. My point being is there doesn't seem to be a plan for all of these what if situations. It appears the reserved military strike on Syria isn't well thought out. Just judging from what I know of the situation a military strike doesn't seem to solve any problems. It only causes more.
Beyond the strike itself, even if the Syrian government were to capitulate, our problems in Syria would still exist - perhaps even more so. The reason comes from the fact that the opposition in Syria is incredibly diverse. If and when the Assad regime topples there will most likely be a power struggle. Lack of any dominant military presence in the area will create a power vacuum. Within this vacuum there will be a great amount of civilian deaths and destruction. So, by toppling the Assad regime we may only breed more discord.
All-in-all I think the idea to use a limited strike against Syria may at first seem ideal, though upon further rumination it is just as bad as the first idea.
A third possible solution (still not the one I promote) is one involving complete isolation. I think Noah did a more than adequate job refuting this argument in his article. Most people in America are against a strike against Syria, as detailed here. However, I think most of the people have just taken a hefty dosage of international apathy to counteract the Iraq War.
A fourth and final solution is one with no downsides, though it doesn't fix all problems. We should take a non-military active approach to this scenario. Meaning we provide generous humanitarian aid to the refugees outside - and civilians within - Syria. Granted this won't end the conflict, but it also doesn't risk exacerbating the conflict further. We won't risk another Iraq, yet we won't completely ignore the conflict. This will also help curb our governments constant need to be involved in a military expedition. Read this article if you want to read an analysis of the overuse of presidential war making powers, and a critic of the false dichotomy I mentioned earlier. All-in-all not many pros in this idea it is just the lack of cons that make me in favor of this.
If you have a better idea, want me to disambiguate something, or wish to dispute something, please feel free to leave comments.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Student Loan Debt
8/27/2013
The article I found comes from the British newspaper "The Guardian" and explains the downsides to an agreement reached by Congress concerning student loan debt. The article, in its entirety, can be found here. This article, from the "Washington Post", gives some background on the actual legislation that was passed.
Overall the article makes the point colleges are too expensive for the average middle class college student. The article also criticizes the student loan interest rate legislation for its relatively ineffectual solution. The legislation, according to the article (and myself for that matter), failed to address the primary concern of collegiate expenses: the actual cost. Total collegiate costs for a four year degree in the past 30 years has risen a ridiculous 357%, compared to a more modest 120% raise in the CPI (consumer price index, meaning how much things cost) over the same amount of time. The article also shows the American people are at a bit of a dilemma: they need to go to college in order to get a job, but college costs are also at an all time high. Still more, the job market in the past couple of years has been incredibly bad, so even with a four year college degree some will still find it difficult to find a job. Towards the end of the article the author questions the necessity for some to go to college. The New York Times, however, recently published an article showing this necessity is at an all time high. Now more than ever is a four year degree required to work anywhere other than McDonalds. Jobs that require a college degree are the backbone of what make this nation great. The more we discourage potential college students with excessive amounts of debt, the more we start to fall behind our foreign competitors.
Although the legislation's immediate impact will be to keep student loan interest rates at around 3.80%, it also tied this interest rate to the Federal Reserve Boards interest rate. Meaning if the Fed raises its interest rates (as it likely will) so to does the interest rates on student loans go up. There is, however, a cap to interest rates for student loans, but this is only for undergraduate degrees. The cap is set at 8.50%, and according to the CBO interest rates will reach that rate within the next five years. Meaning the piece of legislation is only another temporary fix.
Ultimately, we need to move towards a direction where the government pays for college expenses for everyone (at least those who graduated high school). This system would complete the ambitions of some of our founding fathers (notably Jefferson), and it would pull the United States into the 21st century. A system where education is free is the only system that can guarantee everyone has an equal opportunity, despite race, economic background, gender, religion, sexual preferences, etc, to succeed. Providing for the general welfare and equal opportunity are what this nation is all about. A fiscal conservative might point out that the cost of providing free quality education for a country with a population of 310 million would be considerable - even for government standards. However, the returns on an investment of this nature are guaranteed to outweigh the cost. There is practically no risk. If you have more Americans in higher paying jobs then you get more tax revenue from those Americans. Granted, we couldn't have everyone go to Stanford or Yale, but even a community college education is better than just a high school diploma. It's not like this hasn't ever been done before; most countries in Europe have mostly free tertiary education and California will also pay for the first two years of schooling beyond high school. In order to keep up with other western democracies the United States needs a better educated populace.
The article I found comes from the British newspaper "The Guardian" and explains the downsides to an agreement reached by Congress concerning student loan debt. The article, in its entirety, can be found here. This article, from the "Washington Post", gives some background on the actual legislation that was passed.
Overall the article makes the point colleges are too expensive for the average middle class college student. The article also criticizes the student loan interest rate legislation for its relatively ineffectual solution. The legislation, according to the article (and myself for that matter), failed to address the primary concern of collegiate expenses: the actual cost. Total collegiate costs for a four year degree in the past 30 years has risen a ridiculous 357%, compared to a more modest 120% raise in the CPI (consumer price index, meaning how much things cost) over the same amount of time. The article also shows the American people are at a bit of a dilemma: they need to go to college in order to get a job, but college costs are also at an all time high. Still more, the job market in the past couple of years has been incredibly bad, so even with a four year college degree some will still find it difficult to find a job. Towards the end of the article the author questions the necessity for some to go to college. The New York Times, however, recently published an article showing this necessity is at an all time high. Now more than ever is a four year degree required to work anywhere other than McDonalds. Jobs that require a college degree are the backbone of what make this nation great. The more we discourage potential college students with excessive amounts of debt, the more we start to fall behind our foreign competitors.
Although the legislation's immediate impact will be to keep student loan interest rates at around 3.80%, it also tied this interest rate to the Federal Reserve Boards interest rate. Meaning if the Fed raises its interest rates (as it likely will) so to does the interest rates on student loans go up. There is, however, a cap to interest rates for student loans, but this is only for undergraduate degrees. The cap is set at 8.50%, and according to the CBO interest rates will reach that rate within the next five years. Meaning the piece of legislation is only another temporary fix.
Ultimately, we need to move towards a direction where the government pays for college expenses for everyone (at least those who graduated high school). This system would complete the ambitions of some of our founding fathers (notably Jefferson), and it would pull the United States into the 21st century. A system where education is free is the only system that can guarantee everyone has an equal opportunity, despite race, economic background, gender, religion, sexual preferences, etc, to succeed. Providing for the general welfare and equal opportunity are what this nation is all about. A fiscal conservative might point out that the cost of providing free quality education for a country with a population of 310 million would be considerable - even for government standards. However, the returns on an investment of this nature are guaranteed to outweigh the cost. There is practically no risk. If you have more Americans in higher paying jobs then you get more tax revenue from those Americans. Granted, we couldn't have everyone go to Stanford or Yale, but even a community college education is better than just a high school diploma. It's not like this hasn't ever been done before; most countries in Europe have mostly free tertiary education and California will also pay for the first two years of schooling beyond high school. In order to keep up with other western democracies the United States needs a better educated populace.
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