Category: Libertarian

Reproductive Rights Include Not Engaging In Sex

The argument that men should have no fiscal responsibility for children they don’t want if the mother refuses to abort the fetus is back in the news.

Greg Bruell and his girlfriend of a year and a half, Sandra Hedrick, had a pact. “We agreed that if we got pregnant, we’d terminate because we were not in a stable family unit,” Hedrick says. Or as Bruell more starkly puts it, “I resumed sexual relations with her on the condition that were birth control to fail, she’d abort without waffling.”

“Resumed,” because nine months earlier Hedrick had conceived a child with Bruell and the couple decided to end that pregnancy. Or rather, he decided, and she went along. Their relationship was too rocky—a series of breakups followed by passionate reunions—for them to become parents together, Bruell argued. Plus, both were still in the process of finalizing divorces, and he was a newly single father struggling to balance his needs against those of his eight-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son. Bruell wanted to steady their destabilized worlds before jumping into fatherhood anew.

This is no less ridiculous than when I first wrote about it four years ago. As I wrote then, “it should be clear that sex can lead to children. Anyone who doesn’t know this shouldn’t be engaging in sex.” And, in the story in this article, it’s as clear as two paragraphs can demonstrate that an unstable, on-off relationship may not be the best place to trust that a partner’s word means much. Engage in sex at your own risk, and accept the consequences of misplaced trust.

Via reason’s Hit & Run.

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Near the end of the article, there’s a resolution and a speculation (emphasis added):

This spring, Bruell informed [Mel] Feit that he didn’t want to headline a lawsuit, after all. He could no longer countenance being pitted against Hedrick and his daughter, and he couldn’t figure out a way to proceed in the courts that wasn’t adversarial. There are any number of lessons that can be learned from Bruell’s withdrawal, one of which is that Libertarians probably don’t make the best activists. “[My lawsuit] would have been a speculative jab at the legal system with low probabilities of success that would have only helped others,” he says. “And given that I’m not an altruist, that was not a sufficient motivation to throw myself on the sword.”

The italicized fragment is preposterous, since one case is anecdotal, and there’s no proof here that libertarianism has anything to do with Mr. Bruell’s decision not to pursue legal theories. This strikes me as the author’s bias creeping into the article.

Individual Preferences Are Subjective

I recommend this month’s featured article at Econlib, “The Relentless Subjectivity of Value” by Max Borders. It’s in the context of economics, but anyone who reads my work here will surely recognize something familiar and useful. My favorite excerpt:

Nudging assumes a universal standard of well-being that simply cannot exist. For example, is it really that great to live longer? If foregoing scotch and bacon allows me to increase my life expectancy from 88 to 90, is it worth it to me? Will any amount of information possessed by folks at the Department of Health and Human Services cause me to see the light? I doubt it. I value my nightcap more than I value three more years at Shady Oaks. And I don’t want to hear “you’ll thank me when you’re 90” because, a) I’m not 90 and b) I may or may not enjoy the life of incontinence at Shady Oaks. Call me irrational, but if you do, you’re simply substituting your preferences for mine. Time, context and perspective count for a lot. Of course, none of this is meant to argue that your preferences or mine can’t be changed by either nudging or thoughtful advice. The point is that architecting choices means rigging the incentives in favor of another’s preferences, with no objective standard of value.

Again, even if you don’t care about the economics, it’s an interesting essay worth your time.

Fire Officer Beavis

This is why television broadcasts should show fans running on the field at sporting events:

… A Philadelphia police officer Tased a fan who ran onto the field before the eighth inning. The kid seemed to be running around and waving a towel, but police took no chances. In fact, neither did Jayson Werth. He readied himself for a possible altercation when the fan jumped onto the field near right field, but the fan quickly darted past him before being takent [sic] down in left.

The Phillies said in a statement: “This is the first time that a Taser gun has been used by Philadelphia police to apprehend a field jumper. The Police Department is investigating this matter and the Phillies are discussing with them whether in future situations this is an appropriate use of force under these circumstances. That decision will be made public.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the fan has been charged as a juvenile with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and defiant trespass. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsay defended the officer’s decision to Taser the juvenile.

“It was inappropriate for him to be out there on the field,” Ramsay told KYW Radio (1060-AM). “Unless I read something to the contrary, that officer acted appropriately. I support him 100 percent.”

An individual is tased for trespassing. Officials with the Major League Baseball team involved understands that this deserves scrutiny, talking about an “appropriate use of force.” [Disclosure: As I’ve made clear throughout my blogging, I’m a Phillies fan.] The police commissioner believes that the officer was justified in tasing the individual because trespassing is “inappropriate”. This should scare everyone.

Of course trespassing is inappropriate, as the property owner controls his property and every sports team has a policy against fans entering the field of play. But tasers can be lethal. Would the cop shoot the kid in the back with his firearm for this? Was he just compensating for being out-of-shape and not wanting to engage in the physical confrontation necessary to subdue the individual? The taser, as it’s being used, isn’t a tool for police to do their job. It’s now a substitute. That is worthy of actions to rein in police, not chuckles.

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For reference, watch this video about a suspect who died after police tased him. There are many implications, but notice how the spokesman blamed the now-dead suspect for getting himself tased and subsequently choking on a bag of marijuana he’d previously, visibly shoved in his mouth. Is that the mentality we want to endorse for any police force?

Spying on Students in Pennsylvania

For a brief summary:

The FBI is investigating a Pennsylvania school district accused of secretly activating webcams inside students’ homes, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press on Friday.

The school district has acknowledged that each student’s school-issued computer has software that allows the district to access it remotely, including the ability to capture images. My guess is that, in the case of the student who’s parents have sued, the alleged image was likely something the student downloaded and the school saw on his hard drive. If I’m right, it’s still creepy, but (momentarily) relegates to possibility the theories that the school captured images of naked students.

Since the privacy implications must still be considered, the article includes commentary from privacy experts. The experts aren’t quoted as saying anything surprising. The reporter offers a different perspective in her transition:

The Pennsylvania case shows how even well-intentioned plans can go awry if officials fail to understand the technology and its potential consequences, privacy experts said. Compromising images from inside a student’s bedroom could fall into the hands of rogue school staff or otherwise be spread across the Internet, they said.

Which school officials would not be ‘rogue’ if such pictures fell in their hands? I take the implication that somehow there are school staff members who should be legitimately authorized to see such pictures, that some spying is appropriate. I’m sure that’s lazy writing rather than a disturbing lack of skepticism of authority. But someone obviously authorized the installation of this software and didn’t notify the students or their parents that it was included. I always assume stupidity first, if it’s possible, but it would be unwise to rule out an conscious disregard for civil liberties.

(They’re children, after all. They have no rights at school or away from school if school officials deem those rights an impediment to order.)

Massachusetts Will Debate The Right to Bodily Integrity

The Massachusetts legislature is considering a bill that would make non-therapeutic genital cutting (i.e. circumcision) on healthy minors illegal.

…

(a) For the purpose of this section, the term “genital mutilation” shall mean the removal or cutting or both of the whole or part of the clitoris, labia minora, labia majora, vulva, breast, nipple, foreskin, glans, testicle, penis, ambiguous genitalia, hermaphroditic genitalia, or any genital organ.
…

Reading the bill in its entirety shows that the author(s) shaped it directly from the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act, while correctly updating the text to remove the federal law’s gender discrimination. It includes protection for females, which is useful (if likely redundant) since Massachusetts does not have a state law prohibiting female genital mutilation. The Massachusetts bill is reasonable and should move out of committee, where it’s scheduled for a public hearing on March 2nd, and pass into law.

It won’t, of course. I’m hopeful it will at least get an honest hearing, but I’ve worked on this topic too long to be that naive. Too many people are unwilling to consider all facts, particularly those detrimental to their status quo preferences.

For example, this editorial from Massachusetts, from Wicked Local, reveals that its authors fail to understand even the actual text of the bill.

Thumbs Down:

Circumcision is a crime? Through state Sen. Michael W. Morrissey, Charles Antonelli of Quincy has decided to waste the Senate’s time with a bill that would ban male circumcision of anyone under the age of 18 in Massachusetts unless medically necessary. The measure would get right in the way of parental rights, imposing a fine and/or up to 14 years in prison on people who violate this ban. Antonelli is the Massachusetts director of MGMbill.org — a group of “we know better than the majority of doctors” nuts working to ban what it calls “male genital mutilation.”

Is it a waste of time to get in the way of parental rights to alter a daughter’s genitals? Because the bill does that, as the excerpt above proves. The federal Anti-FGM act does the same. So, the question here is what is the full list of plenary parental ‘rights’ that require only that the child have a penis?

For what it’s worth, if a doctor believe a healthy child needs surgery, yes, I’m more informed than he or she is. And he or she violates the Hippocratic Oath when recommending genital cutting, regardless of the healthy patient’s gender.

This group shoves aside the belief held by most of the medical community that circumcision reduces susceptibility to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases as well as urinary tract infections and penile cancer. The anti-circumcision group declares “those findings are not a valid reason to amputate a healthy, functioning body part of a child.”

I won’t speak for those involved with MGMBill.org, but for me, I shove nothing aside. Prophylactic circumcision has the potential to achieve those results, statistically. So what? Because, somehow, possessing an objectively healthy, functioning body part does not indicate that surgery is not valid for that healthy, functioning body part. There are apparently no ethical considerations involved. There is apparently no need for an objective look at the relative and absolute risks involved. There is apparently no need to question whether or not the child might want his normal, healthy foreskin.

It’s frustrating that Wicked Local defiantly states that circumcision reduces susceptibility to HIV without also noting that every study showing this risk reduction involved only adult volunteers, not non-consenting children. Note, too, that the studies only found a reduction in female-to-male transmission through vaginal intercourse, a significantly smaller problem in the United States than in Africa.

But Wicked Local seems to perceive the issue to be about only potential benefits, no matter how trivial or easily avoided with lesser methods the risks posed by the foreskin. So surely we are failing all children by not proactively removing dangerous body parts from their bodies. To avoid getting in the way of parental ‘rights’, when do we start studies to determine whether or not there is a potential medical benefit to be achieved from prophylactic breast tissue removal? Although, since some adult women are already voluntarily having their breasts removed pre-emptively, we can assume that a plenary parental ‘right’ to remove the healthy, functioning breast tissue from daughters exists. What’s good enough for the parents is good enough for the children. Right?

That’s all intentionally absurd, of course. But without a boundary, there is nowhere to end the madness. The subjective boundary Wicked Local establishes here is arbitrary and based on its editors personal preferences. The law cannot be based on such whim. For proxy consent, the child’s objective needs matter first. Where there is no objective need for intervention, there is no parental ‘right’ to intervene. Surgery must be prohibited. That is a clear standard that applies to males and females, genitals and not genitals.

Also ignored is Jewish and Muslim tradition in which all males are usually circumcised as part of their faith.

Passive voice, males are circumcised. They do not choose. Indeed. But this bill does not seek to prohibit religious circumcision. Adult males may still choose circumcision for themselves if they believe their God demands it. This bill focuses on minors, where civil law must take precedent over religious texts. It codifies that the human rights of every individual exist first, and no amount of parental preference can supersede that in the pursuit of subjective, unprovable spiritual or cultural benefits. Unless we’re opening the law books to strike any law that violates a religious dictate governing what one person may do to another, there is nothing objectionable on this front. Are we opening the law books in this manner for a purge of religiously objectionable civil laws?

The bill has not yet been assigned to committee. It would be best to see this ridiculous waste of government time sniped from the legislative agenda and left discarded on the Senate clerk’s floor. Parents and doctors, not legislators, should decide the merits of whether a male child should or should not have a circumcision.

Parents and doctors, not legislators, should decide the merits of whether a female child should or should not have genital cutting? Again, if we’re saying that parents have a plenary ‘right’ to alter their sons for subjective reasons, the same plenary ‘right’ must exist for their daughters. Or we could consider the importance of the omitted word, a healthy child, and recognize that the answer is irrefutable because it is illegal (and immoral) to discriminate based on gender alone. Either all children have the same right to bodily integrity or no children have that right. The former breaks our current ignorance, while the latter turns children into property.

And here’s a tip for the angry anti-circumcision group — you would do a lot better with an informative public education campaign and debate rather than going state-to-state trying to shove your will on everyone and toss parents who don’t agree with you into jail for up to 14 years — a tact that so far has not seen even one state go along with this nonsense.

I agree, an informative public education campaign and debate is the best way to go. We shouldn’t need to legislate against something unjust. But we do, because the rights
of boys in America (and Massachusetts, in this case) are violated every day. I can explain how male circumcision is egregious because it violates human rights. I can explain how male circumcision is egregious because it is not the least invasive solution for every perceived benefit. But the Wicked Local editors haven’t even bothered to understand the text of the bill. I can overcome ignorance. I cannot overcome willful ignorance.

Why I Skim The Daily Dish

I still have Andrew Sullivan’s blog in my RSS reader, but only as a way to stay informed on what’s happening. Most days I only skim it, not carefully. Where he used to be open to questions, however scattered he may have bounced around on his emotional responses, now he usually exhibits a single with-me-or-against-me attitude. In anticipation of Brown’s victory in yesterday’s special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy, Sullivan wrote (emphasis in original):

The second explanation is the Brooks/Noonan theory that somehow everything feels wrong to the Independent or conservative-leaning voters. They have an instinctual fear of more government and, even though the Senate bill couldn’t be more minimalist within the confines of expanding access and controlling costs, this gnaws at them. I think this is a legitimate feeling (I have it too) – but an illegitimate argument.

Look: the markets conservatives have believed in have failed.

As the more honest conservatives (Greenspan, Posner, Bartlett) have noted, the financial crisis was a clear indicator that we need a more active and vigilant government in regulating the financial sector. And when you look at the results of America’s hybrid and dysfunctional healthcare system, it is more than clear that the status quo is unsustainable. Yes, this system has pioneered amazing breakthroughs and a pharmaceutical revolution that has transformed lives. But the cost and inefficiency of this is simply staggering. Look at the graph above. If you think it’s great, support the GOP. They don’t want to change anything, but a few tweaks.

Which part of America’s hybrid and dysfunctional health care system proves that the market has failed? It’s an interesting claim, but it’s not an argument. It’s a silly analysis of what the market should provide and how much it should cost. There’s nothing objective here. There’s only the expectation that we all agree that the government is the only way to fix the market failure of our hybrid health care system. As he writes later in his post:

At least Obama seems interested in government. The GOP seems interested only in politics and rhetoric that can sustain the bubble of deep denial they live in.

Obama and the rest of the Democrats are interested in government as the solution, which is the wrong approach. It’s easy to suggest that government will be reformed in the process, but that’s a rather nonsensical assurance when the problem is systemic in our interest-driven political system. Wishful thinking will not stop the flow of special handouts and exemptions that result with government involvement.

There’s a complex case to be debated, which hasn’t happened because it’s easier to spew anecdotes as universal fact. It’s easier to write “…Tea Partiers are just opposing the working poor having a chance to buy health insurance,” as Sullivan wrote in November, than it is to confront a group’s objections. In fairness, Sullivan has questioned what Republicans would do instead. But assuming indifference and malice in the face of silence is unhelpful speculation.

This is not to endorse the Republican approach. I find the party to be devoid of any value, which is to say I hold Democrats and Republicans in equal esteem. Nor am I endorsing Senator-elect Brown as a beacon of principled leadership newly arrived in Washington. From the little I’ve read, he’s more of the same, defending torture by the American government, for example. But him not having a coherent or satisfactory answer on the current Senate and House health care bills does not equate with there being no coherent or satisfactory rebuttals to the current bills. As Mark at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen wrote:

It is increasingly frustrating to me that, for many supporters of Obama, any belief that the existing health care reform bills will do more harm than good is automatically written off as being in bad faith or, as it were, “nihilistic.”

I believe I’ve advocated here that any health care reform aimed at reducing costs must start with untangling health care from employment. An individual’s employer is no more responsible for her health than it is for insuring her automobile or home. It’s a holdover from the ridiculous tax rates of the World War II-era, where offering health insurance as an employment benefit was economically wise. Rather than fix the rates, government enshrined the concept in tax law. That was stupid, but it worked when people worked at a single company for life. Today it’s uncommon to have had only a single employer by age 30. If we don’t fix that broken government-provided incentive, we’ll continue to have people lose their health insurance when they lose their jobs.

The current legislation keeps that tie, but punishes indiscriminately for receiving “too much” of a benefit. That’s just doubling down on the madness of the past, thinking that government can fix what government broke by adding more government. It’s the nonsensical thinking of the central planner, the kind who believes that anything that isn’t what it should be in a hybrid market is clear proof that the market has failed, requiring more of the planner’s expertise.

To show that other ideas exist, Megan McArdle offers her suggestion:

Raise the Medicare tax by half a percentage point, and eliminate the tax-deductibiity of health insurance benefits for people making more than $150K a year in household income, $100K for singles. Then make the federal government the insurer of last resort. Any medical expenses more than 15% or 20% of household income, get picked up by Uncle Sam.

I’m not a fan of this because it still messes with the tax code, encouraging employers and employees to tinker with non-cash compensation for borderline salaries. Other people may want that approach, but I’d rather have cash and make my own decisions. Social engineering is not good. For example, a $100k threshold means different realities in D.C. versus Omaha. It’s a lot of money either way, but that punishes people unfairly in areas with a higher cost of living. The tax code would need to be more complicated to rectify this problem, which proves the need to simplify away from government trying to influence “correct” decisions.

That said, I’m willing to consider it as an opening to ridding the tax code of the health insurance exemption.

So, alternative ideas clearly exist. But it’s easier for Sullivan to vent, lumping everyone who disagrees with him into a tidy, immature opposition. In a later post yesterday, he wrote in a post titled “A Libertarian Revolt?” (emphasis in original):

Since so much of the energy behind the Brown candidacy seems to be driven by anti-government sentiment, why is someone like me – who actually criticized Bush for being big government long before these late-comers – so dismayed?

Here’s why. The rage is adolescent. It did not exist when the Republicans were in power and exploded government during years of economic growth. Fox News backed Bush to the hilt through it all, as he added mounds of unfunded entitlements to the next generation’s debt, and then brought Beck in as soon as Obama inherited the mess. Scott Brown, moreover, has no plans to cut the debt or control government: none. He is running in d
efense of every cent in Medicare. He wants to increase the deficit by more tax cuts. He favors an all-powerful executive branch that can suspend habeas corpus and torture people. He has no intention of cutting defense. His position on the uninsured is: get your own states to help. His position on soaring healthcare costs is: stop the first attempt to control them.

We hear Karl Rove lamenting big government! We hear Dick Cheney worrying about deficits! The cynicism here is gob-smacking. And the libertarian right is just happy to go along.

Like I said, I don’t endorse Brown for these reasons. If I lived in Massachusetts, I wouldn’t have voted for him or Coakley in yesterday’s election. So why am I lumped into the nihilist group because I’m a libertarian who thinks the current health care bills would cause harm to the nation? Sullivan is aware enough to understand that Libertarians ≠ Republicans, yet he pretends they’re synonymous without looking at what libertarians offer because both groups oppose the solution he wants. It’s unfair to rant incomprehensibly against something that is clearly untrue. One might say it’s adolescent, which is why The Daily Dish is no longer must reading for me.

Our Security Makes Me Afraid

This:

The man who is believed to have slipped into a secured area of Newark Liberty International Airport and to have caused a six-hour shutdown of a major terminal on Sunday has been arrested, Port Authority officials said on Friday night.
…

Mr. [Haisong] Jiang’s arrest [on a charge of defiant trespass] came a day after a video showing security footage of the incident was released by Mr. Lautenberg. It shows a man in a light-colored jacket standing near where arriving passengers exit a secured part of the airport. When a security guard leaves his post, the man embraces a woman and slips across the rope into the secured part of the terminal. The two then walk away together.

I don’t have much to say on the facts of the case. I haven’t seen the video, so I can’t decide whether or not the Mr. Jiang’s alleged actions were intentional. Instead, I want to comment on this:

The security guard has been on administrative leave since Tuesday, and he faces disciplinary action, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Derrick F. Thomas, a national vice president with union representing the guard, told The A.P. that the guard has “been rated a model employee.”

While in high school, I worked at a drug store. One day, the assistant manager in charge of the store during my shift left for approximately 30 minutes to run personal errands. She left a senior clerk in charge. If my memory is correct, that clerk was a high school student like me. Nothing occurred at the store during her absence. The next time I reported to work, I learned the manager had fired the assistant manager for her action.

If secure restricted areas of an airport demands attention and scrutiny to each individual entering, as we’re told it does, what’s less severe here than what occurred at a drug store twenty years ago that makes administrative leave appropriate rather than immediate dismissal?

My initial conclusion is to accept the obvious distinction. The drug store was a private enterprise. The TSA is a government entity. The former requires accountability. The latter can’t. I’m inclined to be skeptical of this conclusion, since I don’t wish to be an ideologue. Then I read this (via KipEsquire):

A bystander waiting for an arriving passenger noticed the breach and told the guard. TSA officials then discovered that surveillance cameras at the security checkpoint had not recorded the breach and were forced to consult backup security cameras operated by Continental Airlines.

There could be any number of issues why such a lapse might occur, technical or otherwise. None of them are acceptable. This is security theater, not security. And we’re doubling down on our stupidity with every new, predictable incident.

“Doesn’t everyone believe that it is evil to be selfish?”

Spoiler Alert: This entry includes a discussion of plot points from “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged.”

In the New York Times Adam Kirsch reviewed Anne Heller’s new Ayn Rand biography, “Ayn Rand and the World She Made.” I have nothing to say regarding Heller’s book specifically because I haven’t read it yet. Here I wish to focus on Kirsch’s grasp on Ayn Rand’s two major novels. There is nothing to definitively suggest he hasn’t read them, although I suspect he hasn’t. There is plenty to prove that he hasn’t understood them if he has read them.

He reveals his ignorance in the first seven words of his review:

A specter is haunting the Republican Party — …

The implications of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are as relevant against the Republican Party as they are against the Democratic Party. Neither cares about anything beyond handing out favors to its preferred group of insiders in exchange for continued power. The individual is a tool to be manipulated for the party’s needs. Kirsch’s references to Whitaker Chambers and Wendell Willkie should’ve been enough for him to at least explore the validity of his thesis. Instead he cited the rantings of outrage-huckster straw man Glenn Beck, who is not a libertarian.

(Note: The term libertarian is the easiest way to represent liberty here. But Rand was an Objectivist, which is similar but not synonymous. See here, for example.)

Next, Kirsch attempts to summarize Rand (emphasis added):

And while it’s not hard to understand Rand’s revenge-fantasy appeal to those on the right, would-be Galts ought to hear the story Anne C. Heller has to tell in her dramatic and very timely biography, “Ayn Rand and the World She Made.”

“Going Galt” is likely a revenge fantasy to those claiming they will now “Go Galt” as a result of some offense by the Obama administration, but that doesn’t guarantee it reflects the meaning of what they’ve co-opted. First, Rand would’ve been no less an opponent of George W. Bush’s administration than she would’ve been of Obama’s. Or likely any other presidential administration since the publication of Atlas Shrugged because of the ever-growing control of the modern presidency (and legislature) over the choices of individuals.

More importantly, “Going Galt” is about withdrawing from a society that seeks only to act as a leech. Some of the words Rand gave to Galt:

There is a difference between our strike and all those you’ve practiced for centuries: our strike consists, not of making demands, but of granting them. We are evil, according to your morality. We have chosen not to harm you any longer. We are useless, according to your economics. We have chosen not to exploit you any longer. We are dangerous and to be shackled, according to your politics. We have chosen not to endanger you, nor to wear the shackles any longer. We are only an illusion, according to your philosophy. We have chosen not to blind you any longer and have left you free to face reality-the reality you wanted, the world as you see it now, a world without mind.

We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it. We have no demands to present to you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you.

Galt’s speech is “goodbye,” not “let’s negotiate a compromise.” But it’s only a goodbye to the world of moochers and looters, not from producing or living as he wishes. Galt’s Gulch was a society where men and women produced. This year’s “Going Galt” meme was about going idle. It is a reaction to the ongoing problem identified by Rand, but it is not her solution.

For one thing, it is far more interesting than anything in Rand’s novels. … The characters Rand created, on the other hand — like Galt or Howard Roark, the architect hero of “The Fountainhead” — are abstract principles set to moving and talking.

This is at once the failure and the making of Rand’s fiction. The plotting and characterization in her books may be vulgar and unbelievable, just as one would expect from the middling Holly­wood screenwriter she once was; but her message, while not necessarily more sophisticated, is magnified by the power of its absolute sincerity. …

Rand was a Romantic, which is why her characters “are abstract principles set to moving and talking.” I’ve heard it said (I forget by whom) that Rand was a 19th century writer in the 20th century. That’s an accurate description, but as a criticism from Kirsch, it’s purely subjective. The proper approach to criticism is to judge whether or not the literature works at what the writer attempted rather than whether or not the reviewer approves of the writer’s intent and/or method. Her ideas, which are what Kirsch attacks¹ in his essay, are not false simply because he perceives her characters as abstract principles.

Personally, I enjoyed Rand’s approach to both novels as literature. I found her characters and situations compelling and effective in achieving what she sought to present. However, she could not write sex scenes. The sexual relationships in both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged suggest that she had a bizarre concept of sexual intimacy. Whatever she believed in her life, Roark’s rape of Dominique in The Fountainhead is an inexcusable error in her presentation of Howard Roark as an idealized man. She was not a perfect novelist never to be questioned.

Kirsch reveals his misunderstanding (or ignorance) of Rand’s novels in this paragraph:

Rand’s particular intellectual contribution, the thing that makes her so popular and so American, is the way she managed to mass market elitism — to convince so many people, especially young people, that they could be geniuses without being in any concrete way distinguished. Or, rather, that they could distinguish themselves by the ardor of their commitment to Rand’s teaching. The very form of her novels makes the same point: they are as cartoonish and sexed-up as any best seller, yet they are constantly suggesting that the reader who appreciates them is one of the elect.

In Atlas Shrugged there is a difference between John Galt and James Taggart, but there is also a difference between John Galt and Eddie Willers. Rand presented the idea that talent is real and identifiable, but also that, while everyone isn’t moral, anyone can be. Eddie Willers wasn’t invited to “Go Galt” because he wasn’t a creator, but he wasn’t despised because the heroes of Atlas Shrugged knew him to be moral who recognized the difference between producing and looting. Patronizing to the untalented moral man? Probably. Evidence that Rand believed everyone could be an elite? No.

Kirsch next engages in the type of cartoonish characterization he attributes to Rand’s novels. When discussing Rand’s process for writing and publishing Galt’s speech, he states (emphasis added):

… Rand labored for more than two years on Galt’s radio address near the end of “Atlas Shrugged” — a long paean to capitalism, individualism and selfishness that makes Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is good” sound like the Sermon on the Mount. … [Random House’s Bennett] Cerf offered Rand an alternative: if she gave up 7 cents per copy in royalties,
she could have the extra paper needed to print Galt’s oration. That she agreed is a sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing and especially her life. Politically, Rand was committed to the idea that capitalism is the best form of social organization invented or conceivable. This was, perhaps, an understandable reaction against her childhood experience of Communism. …

Yet while Rand took to wearing a dollar-sign pin to advertise her love of capitalism, Heller makes clear that the author had no real affection for dollars themselves. Giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist, and few popular novelists, would have done. It is the act of an intellectual, of someone who believes that ideas matter more than lucre. In fact, as Heller shows, Rand had no more reverence for the actual businessmen she met than most intellectuals do. The problem was that, according to her own theories, the executives were supposed to be as creative and admirable as any artist or thinker. They were part of the fraternity of the gifted, whose strike, in “Atlas Shrugged,” brings the world to its knees.

Wall Street is a fine film, but it’s full of hogwash as an attempted refutation of capitalism. The movie is Oliver Stone’s half-understanding of “greed”, which is similar to the very common misunderstanding of Ayn Rand’s vision of “selfishness.” Advocates of capitalism don’t push it as the best form of social organization in order to create an enclave of Gordon Gekkos. It is the best form of social organization because it is based on voluntary exchange. Decentralized decision-making is better at discovering and meeting individual needs and desires. It is based on the realization that elites can’t possibly know what’s best for everyone or anyone.

A key facet of economics is that all tastes and preferences are subjective. Rand’s willingness to concede 7 cents per copy to keep Galt’s speech unaltered indicates only that she valued the presentation of her unedited work more than 7 cents per copy. It was a voluntary exchange, mutually beneficial to her and Random House. Suggesting that this is a contradiction of her philosophy, that no “genuine capitalist” would ever give up money, is a pejorative little different than suggesting that “no genuine Jew” would choose principle over pennies. Kirsch’s statement is a smear of lesser magnitude because his stereotype is more acceptable politically, but it is still a smear.

Rand presented her view of money in Atlas Shrugged, as spoken by Francisco d’Anconia in his speech on money. An excerpt relevant to Kirsch’s cartoonish mischaracterization of capitalists:

“So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Anconia. “Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

The notion that Rand’s only action consistent with her philosophy would be to hoard “lucre” reveals Kirsch’s ignorance of Rand. His disagreement with her does not disqualify him from critiquing her. Not understanding her novels or her philosophy does.

11/1 Update: The more I think about Adam Kirsch’s book review of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Anne Heller’s Ayn Rand and the World She Made, the more I realize it was worse than I depicted. Rand explained what she thought of Kirsch’s idea of the “genuine capitalist” in The Fountainhead. His name was Gail Wynand, the news tycoon who published ideas he believed to be false in order to collect “lucre” from customers. Nothing was beyond Wynand’s preference for pennies over principle, as evidenced by his publishing Ellsworth Toohey’s words. In the novel’s conclusion, Wynand did not get what he wanted because he did not deserve it. He’d sacrificed himself for something smaller.

¹ Remember, though, that his essay is ostensibly a book review of a Rand biography.

Single-Payer and Circumcision in America

In my second response to Hanna Rosin’s posts on circumcision at The Daily Dish, I closed with this:

As a circumcised male, why do I care whether circumcision is mandated by the government or merely by my parents? The result – forced circumcision – is the same for me. Basically, Rosin engages in the “if you don’t like circumcision, don’t circumcise your son” defense. This is wrong. The case against circumcision centers on the boy as a (healthy) human being, not the boy as a son of parents making a choice.

This is the core of the ethical refutation of prophylactic infant male circumcision. Proxy consent cannot be justified on any grounds because the surgery is unnecessary, permanent, and carries an inherent risk of damage beyond what is deemed acceptable. On the last point, remember that no one considers the boy’s potential future disagreement with society’s definition of acceptable.

Ms. Rosin’s passage that prompted my comment involved the question of government-mandated circumcision. The CDC is not recommending that, of course. My point stands because, to the circumcised child, an influenced decision is no better than a required non-decision if he does not wish to be circumcised. But it does raise an interesting point for the current debate over health insurance reform that I’ve attempted to make in the past. From Ed Morrissey:

I’m neutral on the issue of circumcision, which has become a controversial practice, but find this idea of interventions very, very odd. In the first place, circumcision does not provide an immunity to STDs, not AIDS or anything else. Studies indicate that circumcised males may have less danger of acquiring an infection, but as the NYT points out, that’s from heterosexual relations — a very minor channel of AIDS communication in the US. Men have much better choices than circumcision for avoiding HIV infection, including the use of condoms (still not a perfect defense, but better than circumcision), refraining from intravenous drug use with shared needles, avoiding high-risk sexual practices altogether, and so on.

Why should the CDC push circumcision at all? The government has no business being in the middle of that decision. Under ObamaCare, however, when the government starts paying more and more of the health-care tab, they will point to ambiguous cost savings down the road — in this and other cases, decades down the road — to pressure Americans into surrendering their choices now. [ed. note: surrendering the choices of their children]

Apart from unnecessarily cluttering the single-payer issue with the “ObamaCare” phrase, this is exactly right, I think. How often do we need to see the public health community ramble on about the cost-benefit analysis “proving” that the net effect of prophylactic infant male circumcision is positive? How many lies pretending that non-essential and non-functional are synonyms will be necessary before we accept that not everyone shares the same view about what individuals should do and have, when those same people so often prove that they mistake their opinion for fact? Those people are at least as likely to make it to positions of power as anyone who considers the child’s lack of need and possible future objections.

It’s useful to highlight that most countries with an explicitly single-payer health care system have infant male circumcision rates that don’t approach 10%. Of course. But we can’t dismiss that the rates are greater than 0%. We must consider why.

I think the question of why narrows to culture. American culture places a high, irrational value on circumcision and its alleged wonders. Whether it’s the perceived health benefits for diseases that are already unlikely in a normal human state or a fear that schoolmates and sexual partners will laugh at him if he’s normal rather than common, we don’t evaluate circumcision factually. Ms. Rosin demonstrated this when she wrote that calling circumcision surgery is “a bit of an exaggeration.” No, it’s not, but our society possesses a strong anti-curiosity attitude on the topic. As Mr. Morrissey noted, the New York Times article provides all the necessary data to show that the CDC’s thinking is irrational. Yet, it’s picked up by people like Ms. Rosin who uncritically regurgitate only the parts they like and declare the resulting subset of findings uncontroversial. This is the low level of discourse in America surrounding circumcision and children.

If America had implemented a single-payer system at the same time England created its system, we could make a one-to-one comparison and the incidence of circumcision today would likely be close. But we didn’t. Instead, we have 60 additional years of circumcision to defend and justify. We have irrational beliefs to refute, should those holding those beliefs be willing to question them. We have a society that “knows” the foreskin is “just a flap of useless skin” and isn’t interested in hearing anything to the contrary, no matter how logical or based in scientific proof. A majority of our society still believes that the individual child is in the care of his parents for his medical decisions without a thought that this non-therapeutic surgical intervention is (social) experimentation, not medical care. The national discussion becomes about what people want to believe, not what is true. Cost is not a primary concern.

**********

Patrick Appel posted the Ed Morrissey link at The Daily Dish, where I found it. Mr. Appel writes:

The CDC is thinking of promoting circumcision, not requiring it. Whether or not you agree with the procedure, this controversy has nothing to do with health care reform. If single-payer leads to more circumcision, then how come America has among the highest rates of circumcised men in the world, much higher than most if not all countries with socialized medicine?

Mr. Appel makes the same mistake. The argument isn’t that single-payer leads to more circumcision. The argument is that American single-payer will not lead to a decrease in male circumcision. Either the system will pay or parents will pay. My view is the former because public health officials invariably think about the public rather than the individuals in the collective and politicians do not have the moral framework to say “no” to the inevitable backlash that would occur. Without legal reform recognizing the same rights for boys that we’ve already codified for girls, circumcision will continue in America, regardless of who pays.

I Do Matthew Yglesias’ Homework

Last week, in a post lamenting the not-odd fact that the words and actions of politicians do not match, Matthew Yglesias wrote this:

My personal feeling, the longer I spend in DC and working in the political domain, is that I get better and better at understanding other people’s ideologies. I also feel that people writing about politics often caricature opponents’ views as part of a rhetorical strategy. But I’ve been back-and-forth on the main issues long enough that I’m pretty sure I could switch this blog’s point of view and do a credible job of offering critiques-from-the-right of the progressive liberal health reform movement and the progressive liberal approach to domestic policy generally. One happy consequence of this is that I find the stubborn persistence of principled disagreement less mystifying than I once did, and have a greater appreciation for what I now think of as a certain irreducibly Kierkegaardian element to ideological commitment that, in turn, helps explain why so many “normal” people have such fuzzy political views.

The words I placed in bold are important to remember while reading an entry Mr. Yglesias posted¹ yesterday (archived version:

There’s lots of great stuff in this Ed Pilkington story about the dark side of free market health care (via Tomasky) but my favorite bit was this part:

Eventually his lack of motor control interfered with his work to the degree that he was forced to give up his practice. He fell instantly into a catch 22 that he had earlier seen entrap many of his own patients: no work, no health insurance, no treatment.

He remained uninsured and largely untreated for his progressively severe condition for the following 11 years. Blood tests that could have diagnosed him correctly were not done because he couldn’t afford the $200. Having lost his practice, he lost his mansion on the hill and now lives in a one-bedroom apartment in the suburbs. His Porsches have made way for bangers. Many times this erstwhile pillar of the medical establishment had to go without food in order to pay for basic medicines.

This is the kind of thing that makes it so hard for me to take seriously the idea that we can’t have the government give people health care because it might subject them to “rationing.” Depending on the details, it may or may not be correct to believe that any particular government program is being too stingy. But how does giving people nothing at all resolve that problem?

There are two issues here, closely related to Mr. Yglesias’ entry from last week linked above. The initial problem is glaring but only if you follow the link to the Ed Pilkington story. You wouldn’t know this from his excerpt, but the paragraph continues (emphasis mine):

He remained uninsured and largely untreated for his progressively severe condition for the following 11 years. Blood tests that could have diagnosed him correctly were not done because he couldn’t afford the $200. Having lost his practice, he lost his mansion on the hill and now lives in a one-bedroom apartment in the suburbs. His Porsches have made way for bangers. Many times this erstwhile pillar of the medical establishment had to go without food in order to pay for basic medicines. In 2000 Manley finally found the help he needed, at a clinic in Kansas City that acts as a rare safety net for uninsured people. He was swiftly diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, a degenerative genetic illness, and now receives regular medical attention through the clinic.

Mr. Yglesias’ excerpt is an incomplete representation of the complex facts, presumably to make the point – a caricature, if you will – that the free market has failed. But has it really failed?

Mr. Manley probably should’ve saved his money for potential later-life crises rather than buying a new Porsche every year, as the article states he did when his practice was strong. That is a relevant point, but it’s little more than a distraction to the real issue underlying Mr. Yglesias’ belief that everyone has an obligation to pay for everyone’s care, especially where the free market (allegedly) fails. Regardless, we have the system we have, not the one either side wishes. It shouldn’t have taken so long for Mr. Manley to receive the care he needed. Stating this needn’t be considered a concession or profound.

What Mr. Pilkington, and subsequently Mr. Yglesias, failed to explore is the care that Mr. Manley eventually received.

[Dr. Sharon] Lee’s clinic, Family Health Care, is a refuge of last resort. It picks up the pieces of lives left shattered by a health system that has failed them, and tries to glue them back together. It exists largely outside the parameters of formal health provision, raising funds through donations and paying all its 50 staff – Lee included – a flat rate of just $12 an hour.

Unlike Mr. Yglesias, I researched Family Health Care. It took approximately 10 minutes. Mr. Manley is getting care thanks to the “dark side of the free market.” Consider the clinic’s financial profile for 2005-2007:

The clinic receives 0% of its funding from government, meaning that the remaining 100% of its budget comes from the bank accounts of individuals, corporations, and non-profit organizations. Where is the free market failure to provide health care to those in need?

The structure of the American health care and insurance system is idiotic and needs reform. We should talk about that. The article even includes anecdotal stories to suggest problems that need to be addressed within the views of each side’s extremes. But presumably that wouldn’t have made the point for Mr. Pilkington or Mr. Yglesias that government needs to step in to protect the poor from the free market’s alleged failures, which are, we are told, ignored by the mean-spirited right-wing capitalist liars opposed to President Obama’s proposal. A neat, tidy box, indeed. That reaches closer to ideological commitment – propaganda, if you will – than journalism.

Update: I’ve struck the reference to propaganda. This isn’t that. Rather, Mr. Yglesias’ ideological commitment is more likely laziness embracing the appearance of victory.

¹ Normally I refuse to reprint an entire entry because links are survival. In this case, I can think of no other way to make my points.