Category Archives: Logic & Reason

Libertarianism, Logic & Reason, Science & Skepticism, Social Issues

Pro-Life and Pro-Choice – They Are Not Mutually Exclusive

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I found myself in a debate on Twitter with writer Sarah Benincasa. After the GOP debate, she had referred to all Republicans as “Shitheads.”

Your humble correspondent is a libertarian-republican. (Small L and small R). The small letters indicate I’m not beholden to either party, but just the principles of liberty and a constitution, the defining factors of being a libertarian and a republican.

Feeling somewhat insulted by someone I typically felt was fair and tolerant of other people’s opinions, I decided to respond by pointing out that some of the people on that stage had indeed shown that they were not your stereotypical Republican, and that ultimately the type of bigotry one uses to paint all people of a group with one brush, isn’t really fair. Below was my response followed by Sarah’s passionate counter-response.

Sarah Benincasa

This got me thinking about the issue a little deeper. I won’t point out more of the discussions that followed. They were mostly followers of Sarah attacking me or the candidates with contempt, instead of showing any interest in respectful debate. So I explained my position as respectfully as I could, and exited stage left.

But this exchange brings a couple of issues to light.

The first of which is the concept of being a one-issue person. I believe many of the pro-choice people are often pro-legalization of marijuana as well. Senator Rand Paul has worked with Democrat Corey Booker to accomplish exactly that. If that had been the one issue Sarah (if she is pro-legalization) opted to key on instead of abortion as an important issue to her, she might have painted him in a different light.

Senator Rand Paul (R)
Senator Rand Paul (R)

The point being that no candidate will ever agree with you 100%; It’s that simple. As a voter, the best you can do is find common ground with candidates where you’re able, support them when you do, and dissent when you don’t.

You should certainly side with the person who most commonly aligns with your beliefs, but it’s silly to assume someone is all bad and treat them as if they’re evil “shitheads.”

As much as I dislike Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, I don’t paint either one to be evil, or call them names. I just think they’re wrong, more often than not, and challenge their positions or their integrity when they are found to be disingenuous, a trait common in politicians of all parties.

But delving into the abortion issue, I first want to point out the flaws with the basic pro-life/pro-choice argument.

The converse of pro-life is not pro-choice, it’s anti-life. And thus the converse of pro-choice is not pro-life, it’s anti-choice. The two are slightly separate issues. So I’ll first explain my position and why.

As it is typically understood, I am pro-choice. I believe there are many understandable instances where a woman would choose to abort, that I compassionately cannot condone throwing her in jail on a 1st degree murder charge for, where I absolutely would if she killed the child the same child after birth. So I’ve always argued that viability is a fair cut-off in my opinion—emphasis on opinion.

But that being said, I’m also pro-life in an untraditional sense. I would encourage anyone who is pregnant and healthy, to bring the child to term and either raise it, or put it up for adoption if so desired. But that’s an issue between her and the father, not her and the government, also in my opinion.

Yet in my debate, despite being pro-choice myself, I ended up arguing the pro-life point. I suspect mostly because I believe in fairness over ideology.

It’s interesting that the pro-choice crowd typically claim to be the more scientifically enlightened, attacking the pro-life group who are largely religious, and often they argue are anti-science as a result, yet they overlook that fact that once an egg is fertilized, and the resultant zygote begins to replicate, approximately 24 to 30 hours after fertilization, it is inarguably a life because of that natural cell replication, and it’s purely human DNA means it is inarguably human. Like it or not, it is a human life, and all the science you can throw at it, backs that.

Human Zygote development directly after fertilization. (Click Image for more information)
Human Zygote development directly after fertilization.
(Click Image for more information)

Being atheist, I don’t lend much credence to religion, so I won’t point out the religious component to all of this, it doesn’t matter. Whether you believe it’s a human life because God says so, or because science says so, you believe it’s a human life.

So then the question becomes when is it a life that deserves protection under the law?

I cannot say this with enough emphasis; that question can never be a matter of fact. It is pure opinion, and no one person’s opinion is any more valid than another’s, because with opinions, there is no scientific truth you can apply to make one argument better than the other, otherwise it would be fact. I believe in such situations, you can either respectfully agree to disagree, or you can behave intolerantly and attack your dissenter for having a differing opinion.

But the issue I take with many of my fellow pro-choice advocates, is that they call this a woman’s right issue, then argue that pro-life advocates are against women’s rights. This is where the pro-life/anti-life and pro-choice/anti-choice argument I made earlier becomes rather important.

If you are concerned about the woman’s rights, you will either be pro-choice or anti-choice. If you are viewing this argument from the embryo’s point of view, you are either pro-life or anti-life. The two are not interchangeable.

So when pro-choice people attack pro-life people for being against women’s rights, that’s a straw man argument.

The pro-life people believe it is a human life, with rights under the law. They believe that it’s not part of the woman’s body, but instead a separate body inside the woman’s body. As such, not believing it a woman’s rights issue whatsoever, or even framing it that way.

Logical Fallacies (Click to enlarge)
Logical Fallacies
(Click to enlarge)

Pro-choice people however, believe that as long as the embryo resides in the mother, it is part of the mother, and therefore not a separate life, and not worthy of protection under the law, but instead, something a woman should have the right to remove, similar to a breast reduction to remove unwanted tissue to increase her quality of life.

I am not saying such people equate a fetus to a breast, so please no outraged response, understand I’m only saying they paint the procedures in a similar light, from an ethics perspective.

In either instance, again these positions as to whether it’s part of the woman’s body, or its own separate body within a body are matters of opinion, not fact, and can be argued either way. Tolerance dictates you must respect the converse opinion.

I have to point out that from a science perspective, the DNA of the embryo is unique from the mother’s, something that wouldn’t be true of any other organic substance inside the mother, she might opt to remove from her body; aside from a disease or another foreign invader of some sort anyway. So it’s hard to argue with science that the embryo is part of the mother’s body when it doesn’t share her exact DNA, but instead, a mix of her’s and the father’s.

Actual Image of Human DNA through an Electron Microscope. (Click image for more information)
Actual Image of Human DNA through an Electron Microscope.
(Click image for more information)

I have a long history on this site of being all about science, so in theory, I probably should be what is traditionally thought of as pro-life and equate abortion to murder.

But I frankly know that if I had a daughter, and she had an abortion a month after fertilization versus a year after the birth, I cannot conflate the two as equally heinous. So despite all the evidence to the contrary, I remain pro-choice from a legal standpoint, and pro-life from a personal one.

As for Sarah and her followers, they are passionate about women’s rights, and that’s a good thing—I wish them well even if they think I’m a jerk.

I just wish they would embrace a little more empathy for those with differing opinions, and not conflate opinion with fact, because arguing someone is wrong, must revolve around facts, never opinions.

Elections, Guns & The 2nd Amendment, Justice System, Libertarianism, Logic & Reason, Social Issues

Banning Muslims – Knee-Jerk Reactions vs. Critical Thinking

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Donald Trump has recently announced that as president, he would use executive order to ban Muslims from entering the country temporarily.

As an atheist, I feel all religion can be dangerous if taken to extremes. But that being said, there can be no doubt that around the world, in the 21st century, the overwhelming majority of atrocities committed in the name of religion are committed by people of the Muslim faith.

Any time a tragedy happens, we as a people tend to believe we should try to analyze the problem that caused the tragedy and fix it. If the problem is too big for any one of us to fix, the non-libertarian population often feel government should fix it for them.

But let’s apply a little critical thinking to Trump’s idea of banning foreign Muslims from entering the United States.

How exactly do we go about banning all Muslims? If a Muslim applies to come to America, do the authorities ask that Muslim if they’re Muslim?visa_application_rejection[1]

While an honest Muslim might answer truthfully, knowing it would preclude them from coming, wouldn’t a radical Muslim intending to kill Americans, or a desperate but peaceful Muslim hoping to flee a war-zone,  just lie to get into the United States?

Quite similarly to the “If guns are outlawed, only criminals will have them” argument, if Muslims are banned from entering the United States, only deceitful Muslims will enter.

There is no DNA test that tells you what religion someone is—religion isn’t genetic. There is nothing science has to offer to detect one’s religion.

Lie detectors have been proven time and time again to be faulty at best. Even physiologist John Larson, Ph.D., one of the early inventors of the lie detector, regretted ever inventing the device. Before his death in 1965, he stated, “Beyond my expectation, through uncontrollable factors, this scientific investigation became for practical purposes a Frankenstein’s monster, which I have spent over 40 years in combating.”

Joe Larson administering a Lie Detector test
Dr. Larson administering a Lie Detector test

The 1st amendment states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

By the letter of the Constitution, the president could in-fact pass such an order, because it isn’t Congress passing a law, it’s the president passing an executive order.

So while some have put forth the constitutionality argument, I would have to argue it is a non sequitur.

U.S. Constitution: 1st Amendment
U.S. Constitution: 1st Amendment

But, the Supreme Court continues to allow Blue Laws which are clearly an establishment of religion, proving the letter of the Constitution isn’t always their ultimate guide.

So it’s quite possible that the Supreme Court would strike such an executive order down based on the “principles” of the first amendment, versus the letter of it, as they tend to err on the side of secularism these days—something I typically appreciate.

The Supreme Court Of The United States
The Supreme Court Of The United States

So now we understand that if Trump wrote such an order, there’s no way to know who is and isn’t a Muslim. Even if the Supreme Court didn’t strike it down as an executive order, if Congress tried to pass it as law, it would most assuredly get struck down then.

But also, it is important to consider that even if such a law did somehow evade the Supreme Court’s wrath, and scientists invented a Muslim detector that really worked; when exactly is “temporary” over?

We’ve been fighting the war on terror since 2001, and it’s not like there are any fewer radical Muslims killing people. While the radicals may be a small minority at best, if he’s passing such an order to eliminate the threat, the threat won’t be eliminated until all Muslims are dead—an idea I assume most people would not support.

Because much like it’s impossible to identify a Muslim with any certainty if they choose to hide it, it’s equally impossible to identify a radical Muslim hell-bent on killing innocent civilians they deem to be infidels deserving of death.

Hopefully, Trump and his supporters will come to their senses and realize this isn’t a workable plan, and instead look for ways to better screen all people coming into the United States. But they should also understand that with freedom comes danger, as illustrated by our gun laws—something most Trump supporters do support, and anyone else who is serious about liberty.

So if we’re OK with one danger, we should be OK with the other, lest we be hypocrites.

While I don’t claim to have the answer; if we’re seeking one, I’d at least like to know there’s a bit of logic and reason behind the ideas being proposed, because this one has very little.

“If you see something, say something,” is a much simpler notion, it’s something we can all do to help government officials find these people. Exercising our 2nd amendment rights to arm ourselves so we can take down any would-be killers in our midst if we encounter one is pretty simple too.

Both are far more likely to be effective and far more doable than Trump’s entirely unworkable notion.

Capitalism, Elections, Libertarianism, Logic & Reason, Social Issues

She Who Shouldn’t Be Named – Why I’ve Always Despised Hillary, and a Strategy For Defeating Her

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I recently stated among friends, that I’ve vehemently despised Hillary Clinton since she was first lady; she has not done anything to change my opinion of her since.

My friend, attempting to challenge me on this, poignantly asked me what she could have possibly done as first lady to raise my ire. He was assuming I was just being a political ideologue with a hatred for anyone who is a Democrat, or at least Democratic in nature.

Hillary_Clinton_official_Secretary_of_State_portrait_crop[1]
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Little did he know, I actually do have a reason, and it’s called The Health Security Act of 1993, affectionately known as Hillary Care. Despite neither being an elected official of Congress or the Senate, Hillary Clinton, at the pleasure of her husband Bill, drafted a legislative proposal for a government mandated single-payer health care system—a socialized medicine scheme. It was similar to what Obama really wanted when he ultimately settled for the Affordable Care Act, a quasi-free market system.

This wasn’t “Just say no” or Michelle Obama’s campaign to get people to eat healthy, this was an attempt at a massive overhaul of the American way of life (free-market capitalism) that would have cost taxpayers more than any other subsidy before it—by far. Yet she didn’t have a single taxpayer vote for her, thus giving her any legitimate reason to do such a thing. Not to mention, it was equally disturbing her husband appointed her to do so.

If Hillary had an ounce of medical training, or a history of leadership in the insurance industry, she would have some qualifications to point to in proposing such a scheme, but she’s a lawyer, nothing more, and thus unilaterally unqualified to run a taxpayer-funded, trillion-dollar (likely) system.

In my opinion, this showed a monumental amount of arrogance, and an unprecedented lack of respect for the Constitution and the American people.  As the years have passed, she has never shown herself to be anything other than arrogant, disrespectful to our nation’s framework. Since then, she has also demonstrated a massive amount of untrustworthiness, with her various lies and legal indiscretions.

The United States Constitution
The United States Constitution

While I would never vote for a Democrat due to their current largely non-libertarian ideology, there are many Democrats I at least find respectful and trustworthy, just possessing a different ideology than my own, and I can respect that, to some extent.

Nonetheless, it would appear that the rest of the Democratic machine wants to have a baby with her, and unless she executes a bunny on national TV, she’s likely to be their nominee.

So with that in mind, I want to address Senator Rand Paul’s reaction to her, along with others from the GOP, and potentially the LP.

FORGET ABOUT HER, AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, UNTIL THE DEBATES.

Rand, Rubio, Cruz, and others are on full attack mode against Hillary, and it’s a horrible strategy. People already hate attack ads, but for better or worse, a trait instilled within all of us is that a man attacking a woman, even if only verbally, is unbecoming and in poor taste. Just close your eyes for a minute, and imagine a bunch of guys angrily ganging up on a woman, and tell me who comes off looking like the villain—I assure you, it isn’t Hillary.

Senator Rand Paul (R)
Senator Rand Paul (R)

There is no metric where any GOP or LP candidate will win votes from people who weren’t going to already vote for them by attacking Hillary.

Instead, they should focus on why they will be a great president as they see it, then if asked about Hillary in general, simply respond that they assume she’s a patriot, but simply has a different idea for America than they do, and more importantly, than our forefathers did when they drafted the Constitution.

The news media, led by Fox News, but also some main stream outlets, print media, and internet agencies have challenged Hillary’s shortcomings, let them be the ones pointing out the flaws in her character, they aren’t running for anything.

Her ideas are atrocious, socialism always is. So attacking her character as a campaign opponent is unnecessary when you can simply point out the flaws in the ideas she’s promoting with logic and reason, letting her and her ideology die on their merits, without ever even mentioning her name.

But every time a candidate mentions her, she is effectively getting press. If you mention her in an attack, she’s now getting press as the woman being attacked by those mean men (since no other woman has indicated she is looking to enter the fray). This will only bolster her likability as she milks playing the victim.

Former Governor Gary Johnson - Libertarian nominee for President
Former Governer Gary Johnson – Libertarian nominee for President

I’ve made it clear on numerous occasions that while I like Gary Johnson first and foremost, Senator Paul is the one GOP candidate who would likely wrestle my vote from Governor Johnson. But I would still consider Rubio or Cruz a severe improvement over Obama a monumentally better choice than Hillary, even if they don’t get my vote.

So Senators Paul, Rubio, and Cruz, and anyone else yet to enter the presidential arena who happens to be a champion of liberty, please heed my advice, and consider Hillary “she who should not be named.”

Focus on the issues, and attack Democratic issues, but do whatever you came to not let the name Hillary Clinton leave your mouth unless you have to.

 

Capitalism, Drug Use, Environmental Issues, Logic & Reason, Science & Skepticism, Social Issues

Anti-GMO Pot Smokers: The Unwitting Hypocrites

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As someone who loves science, with more than just a passing interest, I tend to trust scientists in general far more than politicians, Hollywood stars, CEO’s or the general public.

Sometimes scientists get things wrong, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to argue that any group of people are more right about how the world works; my trust is placed in the most capable hands.

One of the more controversial subjects these days is genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Many people consume them without knowing it, some actively avoid them, and some are like me—trustful of the people who know more than me that the product that they are bringing to market has been well-researched, and has provided no evidence of any harmful effects to the consumer.fda_sign_web_14_0_0[1]

Recently, the FDA weighed in on genetically modified apples and potatoes, approving them for resale in the US. This won’t stop anti-GMO activists from attacking them, however. And companies like McDonald’s, have stated they have no intention of using the potatoes.

McDonald’s have not elaborated on their reasons to my knowledge, but assuming they’re aware of the science behind them, and the rigorous testing these potatoes must have passed by their manufacturer, J.R. Simplot, and then the FDA, I feel it’s safer to assume McDonald’s is simply making a smart marketing decision.Simplot logo[1]

People who are OK with GMOs will still buy from McDonald’s if they already were a customer, and people who are afraid of GMOs will too. The only people McDonald’s might lose are people making a principled stand to avoid them because they’re being anti-science, and I suspect such people are pretty small in numbers.

One group of people are unwitting hypocrites however, and that’s the high number of marijuana users who say they only consume organic, non-GMO foods.

Go to any pot dispensary, and you will find a myriad of choices available to the consumer so vast, that no other consumable crop likely exceeds it in variance. There are certainly more marijuana choices available than there are varieties of apples and potatoes.

The reason for this is that marijuana is one of the most heavily genetically modified organisms on the planet. People have been combining varieties of seeds for centuries to come up with crops that are either heartier to produce a greater yield of usable plant, or more often than not to yield a higher THC content for better highs.

The bottom line is that it’s nearly impossible to procure marijuana in its natural state these days.

Marijuana Harvest
Marijuana Harvest

So these users are either supremely ignorant as to how that pot came to be, or somehow have decided that the “scientist” who lives next door working out of their basement, and may or may not have taken a few biology classes, knows more than the multitude of PhD holders at Monsanto, Simplot, and/or the FDA as to what is safe for human consumption. If there’s logic in that, I don’t see it.

The argument is that marijuana is genetically modified by cross-pollination, or cross-breeding, a process where the pollen of one plant is introduced into the stigma of another. Essentially, it’s the plant version of crossing a horse with a donkey to create a mule.

By doing this, you’re coupling two plants with DNA which is nearly identical, but specifically that share a common trait you hope to enhance by combining them. This will usually work to some extent, because that’s how procreation works in general.

This is oversimplifying it a bit, but basically, when any two organisms procreate, the commonalities they share have a high chance of being part of the offspring, the traits they don’t share have a 50:50 shot at becoming part of the offspring, and of course, if neither have a particular trait, they are all but guaranteed not to produce offspring with that trait.

Think of shooting a shotgun at a target 100 feet away. Most of the shot may centralize around the bulls-eye, assuming your aim was true, but there will be scattered buckshot all around your aiming point that’s rather indiscriminate.Shotgun_Target This is cross breeding. You’ll get pretty close, and you’ll often have something close to the desired result (a bulls-eye), but you’ll likely have a lot of other stuff you didn’t necessarily want as well (shot outside the bulls-eye).

What people like Monsato and Simplot are doing however, is specifically activating or deactivating a particular and singular gene they know will give the offspring they create the desired result, without changing anything else. If cross-breeding is a shotgun at 100 feet, GMOs are a marine sniper on his best day from just 5 feet.

While I know this can be a soft spot for creationists, evolution is a very natural process. Traits that are most common in surviving species carry on, traits that aren’t usually die off before procreation, and go extinct. It’s an incredibly slow process that can take up to hundreds, if not thousands of generations. Cross-breeding and GMOs simply speed it up to one generation, and often obtains something pretty close to the desired result of the breeder, GMOs are simply the significantly more precise of the two.

It may not seem natural, and by definition it isn’t, but it’s effectively just an infinitely faster version of evolution, something that is indeed entirely natural.

Science, somewhat justifiably so, isn’t always considered trustworthy. There is a long history of scientific discovery that has been at the expense of human lives. Whether it be malicious Nazi scientists doing experiments on their Jewish captors, or well-intentioned experiments that have simply gone wrong, scientific endeavors have occasionally killed humans.

However, when you think of all the diseases that have been eradicated, all the organ transplants and medical procedures that have given people new leases on life, or all of the wonderful technology that simply makes our lives easier, clearly science has had an overwhelmingly positive influence on the human race.

GMO producers are simply either trying to being a better product to market, or often save lives by creating crops that can grow in places around the world who are starving because the produced GMO’s natural cousin won’t grow there, saving many lives. So if you’re against that, you’re unwittingly asking people to starve to death because you think it’s wrong for mankind to “play god” with food.

Either way, I love science, and I love the idea of using science to provide the world a better organism. Now pass me the GMO french fries.

 

Logic & Reason, Science & Skepticism, Social Issues

Sexual Orientation Is Not A Choice

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Recently, famed neurologist and potential 2016 presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson recently argued that being gay was a choice, citing that some men enter prison straight and leave homosexual.

He later apologized for any hurt he might have caused, stating that he could not really argue it was a choice, but instead, that it’s a simple unknown, correctly pointing out that there are no proper studies to indicate how someone becomes gay.

Dr. Carson, while being a brilliant neurologist by all accounts, is someone whose profession involves dealing with the mechanical aspects of the brain. A psychiatrist however, is someone who deals with the behavioral aspects of the brain. Two very different sciences, arguably only related by the fact that they both revolve around the brain.

This means Dr. Carson is someone who would not be considered to have an expert opinion on the psychological aspects of human sexual behavior.

Neurologist Dr. Ben Carson
Neurologist Dr. Ben Carson

The American Psychological Association (APA) however are experts, and they define sexual orientation as “normal aspects of human sexuality.” But let’s delve a little further into what it means to be gay.

While your humble author is not gay, and cannot speak to what it feels like to be gay, I don’t have to be. We can analyze this pretty easily by looking at multiple aspects of sexuality in general with a skeptical eye.

First, we must understand that being homosexual, and engaging in homosexual acts are two entirely different things that under any situation, may or may not be related.

Acting homosexual would be the process of engaging in a homosexual act, and that is entirely a choice of basic human free will. Using the prison example, if I were to be raped by another man, I involuntarily engaged in a homosexual act, but that does not mean that I magically became homosexual in that instant.

Being homosexual, means that a person is sexually attracted to members of the same sex and not the opposite, irrelevant of whether they’ve actually engaged in the act. For instance, there are many accounts of gay men who marry and mate with women, even though they are genuinely only attracted to other men, in order to fit into societal structures better. Despite never having homosexual sex, such men are homosexual.gay-marriage1[1]

I had a person argue that once you first engage in sex with someone of the same sex, then and only then, are you gay. But by this logic, all virgins are asexual, and will only have their sexual orientation determined once they finally get to enjoy that sweet lovin’.

Are we really going to argue two twelve-year-old boys for instance, who haven’t had sex yet, but one is attracted to girls, the other boys, are the same? This logic is unilaterally flawed.

But let’s get back to the idea of choice, and specifically what sexual orientation even is.

Again, consulting the APA, “Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic and/or sexual attractions to men, women or both sexes.”americanpsychoass[1]

We all know what attraction means on the surface of it, but what is attraction psychologically? It’s an instinct all animals in the animal kingdom possess (yes, humans are animals), usually for the purpose of procreation, but some animals also use it for social bonding or even fun. Humans are not exclusive in this, research has shown that many animals engage in sex for non-procreational purposes.

The social bonding and fun issues can explain away Dr. Carson’s prison analogy easily enough. Prisons are not co-ed, so if you introduce any person into a population with only their own sex to interact with, the natural order of things for these people will be to form social bonds, some of which will likely escalate to one of a sexual nature. While this is not true for sociopaths who don’t need such bonds, not all prisoners are sociopaths.

In prison, homosexuality is merely the only option for sexual activity available to them, so the instinct to have sex for the pleasure and the emotional bonds it may bring, eventually overcomes the instinct to have sex only with someone of the opposite sex. Once they get over that initial fear of the unknown, like overcoming the fear of jumping out of an airplane with each successive jump, it would be quite easy for an otherwise heterosexual male to embrace homosexual behavior if it were the only option available to him.

While I accept that many may have experienced homosexual activity for the first time in prison, I could find no study to support that many don’t leave prison and resume heterosexual activity once members of the opposite sex are again made available to them.

But is attraction in general a choice? The answer must be no, and I can prove it.

Throughout my life, I’ve often fallen in love with women who didn’t love me back, nor gave me any indication they ever would.670px-Deal-With-Unrequited-Love-Step-8[1]

I’m obviously not alone in this. If hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, unrequited love must surely be the second. I think most of us have experienced it at one time or another.

Unrequited love brings one thing and one thing only—pain. While masochists may like a little pain, no one enjoys the pain of knowing someone you want doesn’t want you back.

Let’s try an experiment. If you’re single, there’s likely someone right now that you are in love who doesn’t love you back, otherwise, you wouldn’t be single, right? You know being in love with them only brings you pain, so right now, I want you to stop being in love with them…go ahead…close your eyes and make that choice. Wasn’t that easy? It wasn’t? You couldn’t just choose to not be in love with them anymore? Why not?

If you can’t choose to turn off your attraction, by what logic could one argue that homosexuals can choose to change who they’re attracted to either? It’s a clear contradiction of concepts that cannot be reconciled except to acknowledge it’s not a choice.

Since I experimented with the single men earlier, married men, you and I both know that you are attracted to women other than your wife on occasion. It’s in our core nature to spread our seed everywhere. You may love your wife entirely, but you can’t control that sexual desire.

But if you’re truly a loving husband, you choose to remain faithful to your wife, despite your desire to have sex with another. That’s the exact same thing that happens when a gay person chooses to only engage in heterosexual sex, proving that being gay and acting gay are not the same thing. One is a choice, one is an uncontrollable instinct.

 

Capitalism, Drug Use, Libertarianism, Logic & Reason, Tax System

Liberty With A Price Tag Isn’t Liberty. Colorado’s Legal Marijuana Isn’t As Good As You Think

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Recently it was announced that Colorado’s overwhelmingly successful venture into legalizing recreational marijuana has generated so much tax revenue, that the people are owed a refund.

Before I condemn them on this tax, I must at least give them all due credit for having a clause in their state constitution that limits the amount of tax revenue that Colorado is allowed to collect before it must refund a portion to the people. It’s referred to as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TaBOR), and it’s a very pro-liberty thing to do.

Sadly, Colorado Republicans and Democrats alike are now upset they may have to give some of this money back however. I understand the Democrats being upset, they’ve never met a taxpayer dollar they didn’t genuinely believe they could spend better than the person who earned it. But it’s sad that the Colorado Republicans, the party that’s supposed to be about limited government, are somehow upset with this too.

Forget all of that though, because there is a much deeper issue here. This Colorado legal-pot situation is not as libertarian-friendly as one might think.

Marijuana Harvest
Marijuana Harvest

Colorado was smart enough to embrace the science that shows that marijuana is a fairly benign drug that is often less risky in its consumption than alcohol. They were also non-hypocritical enough to know that allowing alcohol while not allowing marijuana made little sense—kudos to them on both counts. But that’s where the liberty segment of their new pot-friendly legislation ends.

Sadly, politicians love new revenue streams more than I love my mom. Because the legislators in Colorado decided that instead of just giving people more freedom to choose what they put in their body, they would give them a way to do it prosecution-free, if and only if, they paid an additional tax over and above the normal sales tax, which exceeds 25% when all of them are added together.

Knowing this would generate a significant amount of tax revenue was certainly part of the equation, if not the impetus for legalization, when the one and only reason should have been that in a free country (or state in this case), it should have never been illegal in the first place.

What Colorado is essentially doing is no different from the sugary drink tax in Berkeley, California, cigarette taxes across the country, or any other tax on a product over and above the standard sales tax. They are using the tax system to encourage behavior like a backwards carrot on a stick. No rights are being protected, nor is any governmental service being offered.

Berkeley Soda Tax
Berkeley Soda Tax

As someone who supports a consumption tax system like the FairTax.org proposal, one might think that I and other libertarians would support a marijuana tax, but it’s very anti-libertarian on multiple fronts.

When sin taxes such as these are passed, it assumes that government has an interest in what you do to yourself and should penalize you for what they have determined is bad behavior. But government’s duty is to protect you from others who would harm you, not from yourself. They have no right to tell you how to live your life or be the arbiter of what is good behavior. Are you comfortable letting them tell you what shows you should watch or what kind of mate you should choose?

The reason to support a consumption tax is that it’s effectively a fee for services rendered. If government builds infrastructure, and enforces contracts between enterprises which allow all of these products to freely come to market, it’s a fair way to charge people for that government service. But what service is Colorado providing for the marijuana tax?

For instance, I can fairly argue it’s okay to add a diesel/gasoline tax, because that money then pays for roads. You’re being charged a fee for services rendered. However, there is no additional service Colorado is providing with their multitude of tacked on taxes to marijuana, it’s simply a revenue stream that goes into the state’s general fund, and the oh-so-common “It will go towards helping schools” argument is also part of the equation.ColoradoMarijuanaTax.thumbnail[1]

I’ll set aside my argument that there shouldn’t be public schools in the first place, but why exactly is a pot smoker disproportionately responsible for educating Colorado children or paying for other non pot-related issues?

If we love liberty, we should never support a tax that cannot be directly attributed to the item being taxed as a fee for a service government is providing. With government, we are often forced to accept compromise to appease the statist-minded voters and politicians, and I’m sure Colorado’s marijuana tax is no different, but we are most certainly not to a point where we can call Colorado’s legal marijuana system a victory for libertarianism.

It’s no more of a victory than if a football team were losing 70-0 and in the closing seconds scored a field goal to avoid getting blown out. Sure it feels good to put points on the board, but you still lost in the end.

Blue Sky Thinking, Capitalism, Libertarianism, Logic & Reason, Social Issues

Drug Testing For Government Checks? How About Work For Government Checks?

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For nearly as long as we’ve had government entitlements, we’ve had people wanting government to drug test the people receiving them. The purpose being that if I have to take a drug test to get a job to pay into this system, they should have to take a drug test to get the money out of it.

Aside from that, many would like to know that their hard-earned tax dollars are not going towards buying drugs instead of food, water, and shelter—the things these programs are supposed to be for. It’s a fair point that I used to agree with it. However, as I see the issue, this is frankly a red herring.failed-drug-test[1]

If our concern is about misspent monies, then why give them money at all? With food stamps for instance, they would just get actual food, not cash to buy food. While that still doesn’t prevent trading food for drugs, it would at least make it significantly more difficult since most drug dealers are usually not apt to take two steaks for a dime bag.

What about the people who use the money for new Air Jordans, wheels for their car, fur coats, or other frivolous items. These are no more what that money was intended for than drugs, but no drug test will sniff out other frivolous waste like this. Not to mention, alcohol is equally wasteful, equally mind-numbing, and very commonly where money from government entitlements ends up.

Getting away from those who rightfully qualify for these programs, what about the fraudsters? Many people do side work under the table, easily make enough to support themselves, but because there’s no W-2 to rat them out, they get a government check because it appears they qualify for assistance.

These people could be people doing illegal work like selling drugs or prostitution (which should be legal in my opinion), or these could be people who are doing legal work, but just getting paid under the table for it tax-free.prostitution-car[1]

The system, no matter how you work it, is always highly corruptible, and thus the reason most limited government advocates like myself feel government should not be in the business of salvaging the lives of those who have chosen a path that doesn’t afford them their basic food, drink, and shelter needs.

If we move off of the corrupt things people might do with government entitlement monies, does someone failing a drug test mean that they used taxpayer money to buy drugs? Not necessarily.

For instance, pot smokers in general are usually rather friendly in my experience. While I’ve never used marijuana myself (no joke), I’ve been offered it more times than I can count. Maybe this person who might fail a dug test was just at a friend’s house Friday night and benefitted from some “puff-puff-pass.”

Insuring that government money is used for the purpose intended is nearly impossible, and as such, a fool’s mission. This is why libertarian-minded people like me would simply argue that you can’t corrupt what doesn’t exist in the first place, and end all such programs. As heartless as it may seem, we honestly believe charities would do a better job, and people would be more charitable if given those tax dollars back.

But there is another way. While most libertarians want to quash entitlements altogether, there may be a more capitalistic way we all benefit from them doing it, and the answer is in community service.

Instead of offering money for doing nothing, why not offer government on-the-spot labor? Instead of having to apply for government handouts, you simply go to a government office, and say, “what can I do?”help-wanted-marijuana-legalized-jobs[1]

In any town around the country, there can be litter and trash lying around, infrastructure that could use improvement, graffiti that needs cleaned off walls, schools that could use adults standing guard, or any other myriad of things we’d like to do, but we don’t often have the money to do it.

Local citizens might contact their government office with needs that these people could fill such as help mowing a lawn or shoveling a driveway even. Or companies could broker deals to get on-the-spot labor through local government assistance office. Local businesses often need an extra person due to employee illnesses, random promotional events that may require extra help, etc. The citizens or companies would pay the people directly, the welfare office would simply connect the two parties.

No one has a right to get paid for doing nothing, and government is a guarantor of rights, not a charity.community-service-trash

The jobs they’d be assigned would be menial, difficult, unrewarding tasks that no one else wants to do, thus  ensuring that people will seek gainful employment elsewhere, doing community service for no longer than is necessary to bridge the gap between jobs.

It has never been, nor ever will be government’s business to know what you put in your body, and suggesting we should drug test people to get government assistance is a violation of their rights after my rights were violated by stealing from me to assist them, despite my objections to it.

Under my proposal, I frankly don’t care what they do with that money. If they provided a valuable service, they earned it, and like me, should be able to spend it however they see fit. They win, the taxpayers win, and nobody got something for nothing.