Week 46: Fair Share

The notion of paying one’s fair share of taxes comes up time and again in election cycles, and it is based on two key fallacies. First, the fallacy that wealth is finite; that for one person to become wealthy, it must be at the expense of another. For anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of economics, it is evident that this is not true. Second, the fallacy that the wealthy unscrupulously avoid paying a fair share of taxes.

Consider what some presidential candidates say:

“We’re in a situation where you have the top one percent, in fact, making — paying a lower tax rate than you do.” -Joe Biden

“Democratic socialism means, that in a democratic, civilized society, the wealthiest people and the largest corporations must pay their fair share of taxes.” -Bernie Sanders

“I want millionaires and billionaires and big oil companies to pay their fair share.” -Elizabeth Warren

These statements and many more like them are illustrative of the us-versus-them thinking that is prescribed in Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, a political handbook designed to foment discord and hatred so that these feelings can then be used by those who stir them up (i.e., his “organizers”) to their own political advantage and power. According to Alinsky, “An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent.” He expands on that, writing, “He dramatizes the injustices.” In short, Alinsky’s so-called organizer “stirs up unrest.” Alinsky’s acolytes, such as those quoted above and as with our former President, intentionally pit one group of people, be they identified by socio-economic status, race, gender, etc., against another, and then they leverage the media and half-truths to dramatize the unrest they sow. Tragically, this is a playbook that no longer informs only the far left but informs all in power to some extent or another.

Focusing on socio-economics, let us look at the principle behind this sample of candidates’ statements and what it means for our society and how they affect the values and virtues we discussed last week.

To begin our analysis, let us consider income tax data from 2016, which comes from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and is the most current data available. The top 50 percent of wage earners paid 97 percent of all income taxes, and the top one percent, about whom we hear so much from presidential candidates, paid 37 percent of all income taxes, which is nearly twice the percentage they have of the overall income pie (19.7 percent of total income). For those in the lower income brackets, they receive a credit that exceeds any tax liability they may have incurred. This Earned Income Tax Credit resulted in adjustments and direct payments to those tax filers of approximately $100 billion.

It is important to keep in mind that, when candidates claim that the rich pay less than the poor, they are factoring in capital gains tax rates, among other things, making the comparison between rich and poor one of apples to oranges. Therefore, for the purpose of our discussion, let us have an honest discussion and stick to apples, which is to say income tax rates and related perceived disparities.

More data…to maintain deficits at present levels, income tax rates on the top earners (i.e., those making more than $400,000 per year, so here we aren’t even talking solely about millionaires and billionaires) would need to be increased by approximately 20 percent, from nearly 40 percent to 60 percent. To achieve a balanced budget at the expense of top earners, their tax burden would need to be increased to 102 percent. These estimates come from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). It is important to note that these estimates do not factor in new proposals, such as Medicare for all, free college education, a basic income, and so on.

With these facts in hand – data from the IRS and CBO – there can be no question that the top half of wage earners pay almost all income taxes in the United States, with the top one percent paying more than a third of that. The bottom half of wage earners pay almost no income taxes, with some even receiving tax credits and refund payments.

This brings us, at long last, to two questions: what is a fair share and who determines what is fair? Let us begin by turning to Adam Smith. Contrary to a reference you may expect, namely his work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, consider the thoughts he expresses in Part II, Chapter II of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. He writes, “There can be no proper motive for hurting our neighbor.” He continues, “To disturb his happiness merely because it stands in the way of our own, to take from him what is of real use to him merely because it may be of equal or more use to us, or to indulge, in this manner, at the expense of other people, the natural preference which every man has for his own happiness above that of other people, is what no impartial spectator can go along with.”

Montesquieu also has something to say on this topic, which may inform our conversation – or at least inform the questions we consider. In The Spirit of the Laws, Book XIII, Chapter 1, he writes, “One must not take from the real needs of the people for the imaginary needs of the state. Imaginary needs are the ones sought by the passions and weaknesses of those who govern, the charm of an extraordinary project, the sick envy of vainglory, and a certain impotence of spirit in the face of their fancies.” He goes on to say, “There is nothing that wisdom and prudence should regulate more than the portion taken away from the subjects and the portion left to them. Public revenues must not be measured by what the people can give but by what they should give.”

What is a “fair share?”

As we learn from Smith and Montesquieu, a fair share must not be based on what a person can conceivably pay, as this may inflict a sort of financial pain on the individual and adversely impact his or her ability to pursue the things that would bring them happiness, such as pursuing the noble ambition of building an idea into a thriving business, employing others in useful work, and satisfying the wants and needs of others. Consider the effects of imposing an income tax of 102 percent on the top one percent. It may theoretically address our nation’s financial woes in the near term, but one thing is likely to happen and another is certain to happen. It is likely that the top one percent would move away, thus killing the goose that lays the golden egg. In fact, the top one percent would be foolish to remain in such a confiscatory environment. This is the self-interest that Smith explores in his Moral Sentiments as well as in his Wealth of Nations. It is certain that such a tax rate is unsustainable. Taking from people more than they earn would relieve them of their income immediately and cause them to burn through their savings over time. Without that income and capital, they would no longer be able to invest in business, new technologies and – to be sure – people, whom they or others employ. Again, the goose is dispatched, along with its golden eggs.

They can conceivably pay nothing, but the results of this are clear, as well. Most evident is the fact that the public treasury would be deprived of its income. Under present taxation levels, the treasury would be slashed by more than a third in terms of funds coming into it, and the government functions dependent upon these funds would be impacted. (Whether that is a good thing or not, I am sure I will address in another post!) What may be less evident is the result of turning givers into takers. Giving requires significant work. Taking does not. As Montesquieu observes, “Ambition is excited by work; poverty is consoled by laziness.” This is not saying that those in poverty are lazy. The point that Montesquieu is making is that poverty can result in a feeling of resignation and hopelessness, and an easier route in life is to accept the financial welfare proffered by government than to produce financial welfare for one’s own self. In this situation, I am compelled to share my personal opinion – my belief, based on statements in the public record and on the application of logic – that our political system is, by deliberate design, set up to push people toward poverty and to keep them beholden to the state for their sustenance. The opposing force to this design is the industry, purpose and mobility offered by the free market. At no point in history has there been greater upward mobility for people in the lower- and middle-income classes than in the nineteenth century. People flocked to this nation to benefit from the consequences of a free and open market. We had relatively open borders, which I believe is a fundamentally good thing in a free society, but one that is ruinous in a society that is not free, with a major corner stone of such freedom being economic freedom. Because we have not had a free and open market for more than a century, the benefits of open borders cannot be realized and must be regulated to a similar extent that the economic life of the nation is regulated. More on that another week!

As we see, too many or too few taxes may have detrimental effects for individuals and for society. What is the sweet spot? What is fair? This brings us back to what one should pay.

Should. Is there any word more subjective, more inclined to paternalistic judgment than this?

It seems reasonable to assert that a fair share must focus on results. Thinking back to our discussion about values and virtues, our social contract demands the maximization of individual happiness by leveraging only the essential social mechanisms to achieve that maximization. A fair share must also play to the rule, not to the exception. To be sure, there will always be those who accumulate wealth with the sole intention of stuffing it in the proverbial mattress. These wealthy are the exceptions. The rule in terms of the wealthy is that they use their mental and financial resources to build up and expand enterprise, which provides employment and opportunities for upward mobility to those who are not wealthy.

Therefore, the concept of paying one’s fair share must be bifurcated into one share that is surrendered to the government for its uses, purposes and its cut of the share, and one that is used by the individual for his or her purposes, which may be to build and expand industry and initiative.

The former provides money, the latter provides work and remuneration. If we think back to the effects of work, much more than money is gained by the individual. He or she derives purpose and an ambition that is in no way evil.

Through services provided as part of the taxation system, a culture of entitlement is fostered, and rightly so. If we pay into a system, we should be entitled to its fruits. It is interesting to observe, though, that just the opposite occurs in practice. Entitlement is promoted, a la Alinsky’s philosophy, in those who contribute the least. I do not ascribe blame to the impoverished in the least. They are operating in the system established by the political class (established, I believe, with nefarious intent). A person struggling at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy could be considered foolish if they did not avail themselves of the resources being offered by government. The tragedy is that the system is designed to perpetuate dependency on and vassalage to those in political power. It is in no way the fault of the poor that they are provided with ineffective schools, inadequate housing and the like that damns them to a life of struggle and pain. It is not their fault that politicians’ answer to this conundrum is to tax more and throw more money into these failing programs, like a distant, uncaring uncle who simply sends a check on birthdays and holidays to demonstrated his supposed care.

It is also essential to recognize the fact that it is not the fault of the wealthy. They provide opportunities to enhance the self-sufficiency and upward mobility of those who work for them. They do so while being vilified in the chambers of Congress and in the media.

In considering the fair share paid by the wealthy, it is important to consider the point of diminishing returns, a point which straddles the fence between what they can pay and what they should pay.

Cui bono? This is the question we should ask when determining what is a fair share and who decides what fairness is. To whom is it a benefit?

History demonstrates (i.e., it is a fact) that as tax rates are lowered – yes, including tax rates on big corporations – revenues to the treasury increase. The inverse is demonstrated in the historical record, as well. Lower tax rates spur economic activity and result in more tax dollars flowing into the system. Higher tax rates restrict and lessen these things. A current example illustrates this point: the recent tax rate cuts enacted by Congress. Overall tax burdens have been lowered, and tax receipts to the treasury are at an all-time high.

With lower tax rates, people keep their income and capital and can use them to pursue their individual purposes, which have a ripple effect that results in economic benefit to society. Higher tax rates limit the benefits enjoyed by individuals and to society. The only winners from higher tax rates are those in the political class and those working in government.

Who decides what is “fair?”

This begs the question: should those in the political class, therefore, be the ones deciding what is fair. From this treatment of the subject, it seems clear that they have an inherent conflict of interest. This conflict plays out in example after example of legislation in which law makers exempt themselves from the very tax legislation they impose on citizens, such as the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). This is a very real and fundamental violation of the principle of the veil of ignorance, making such exemptions unethical. Do we, as a people, want those among us, who are so devoid of an ethical compass, determining for us what is or is not a “fair share,” let alone any other decision of import to our lives and happiness?

As you listen to program proposals and hear that we will tax the top one percent to fund them, ask if they are fomenting unrest, as Alinsky would advise, and whether the lessons of history would suggest an increase in the happiness and fulfillment of the people giving and the people receiving, or are they simply endeavoring to bind us with strings attached to taxes and blind us with an unfounded hatred for one another.

Education, roads and healthcare seem to be the hot topics, as always. Is increasing the tax rates of one group of citizens to supposedly provide more funding to programs that the federal government has been failing to provide with efficiency and effectiveness since their inception a good use of citizens’ financial resources, as Smith discusses? Is the confiscation of wealth through taxation truly serving anyone well, apart from political candidates’ ability use to acquire, amass and sustain power?

Week 47: Values

When I hear politicians, particularly in the run-up to an election, speak of American values or who we are as an American people, I am left wondering if they have read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution itself, let alone the works of the Enlightenment and of Antiquity that serve as the underpinnings of our social contract. The lack of context and the projection of individual politician’s values on the body politic (if I may borrow a medieval notion of a nation and its people, which is, to be sure, nuanced and, I believe, apropos to the true nature of our two-party system) result in warped and disingenuous proclamations of the concepts that constitute American values.

On the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a revolutionary diplomat and politician from Massachusetts was invited to deliver a speech to the people of Boston in commemoration of that august event. In his opening statement, Jonathan Loring Austin said his purpose was to, “review those feelings, principles and measures, which fixed the important era we now commemorate.”

Values are those “feelings, principles and measures” to which Austin referred, and he went on to say, “that no nation will long continue free, after it has lost its virtue.” Before being accused of conflating values and virtues, permit me to draw distinction between the two. Values are statements of principle. Virtues are conformity to principle.

As Adam Smith wrote in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, “When we consider the character of any individual, we naturally view it under two different aspects: as it may affect his own happiness and as it may affect that of other people.” The former deals with values and virtue as they live within a person. The latter deals with values and virtue as they live within societies.

In a discussion of American values, we will leave the contemplation of individual values and virtue to the mind and heart of each individual. Instead, let us turn our attention to those common values and shared virtues that make Americans unique among the peoples of the Earth.

Our values are enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, in the Truths that we hold to be self-evident.

·        All men are created equal. This notion is drawn from the works of the Enlightenment, such as from Kant and his concept of absolute moral worth, and Locke’s notion of people in their natural state and their purpose in forming social contracts. When speaking of the value-based principle of equality, looking through the contextual lens of history, the word “men” referred to all people, as opposed to being the gender-defining, divisive word it seems to be today. Certainly, conformity to this principle has been imperfect. We need only look to the evil institution of slavery or to the insidious vassalage of women prior to the recognition of their natural rights to witness this imperfection. However, it is the striving for moral excellence (i.e., virtue) that is an ongoing and never-ending pursuit, as conformity must come from the actions and habits of people, who are – each and every one of us – imperfect. Therefore, it is critically important to draw a clear distinction between values and virtue. We hear this often in the course of political debate – that the Founders were imperfect men, therefore, their ideas should hold no weight. If conformity to principles is the standard by which values are judged, we would have no values. This is not to say that we should abdicate the duty to pursue moral excellence. We absolutely should pursue it with all vigor and determination.

·        We have an unalienable right to Life. The word “unalienable” refers to something that can neither be transferred to another nor taken away nor be denied. In terms of American principles, as they form our shared values and are hopefully expressed as virtues, these rights are grounded in Natural Law and in the inherent nature of these principles in individuals. Rights are not – nay – cannot be dispensed by government. They are embodied in each individual’s personhood. I will save my thoughts on the topics of abortion and the death penalty for another time, but as you listen to candidates for office broach such topics, ask if life is being transferred, taken away or denied. If a candidate claims that any proposal or plank in their plan is a value of the American people, it must, by definition be one that secures the agency of the life or lives under consideration. If it does not meet this test, it cannot be a value.

·        We have an unalienable right to Liberty. What, though, is Liberty? It just so happens that John Stuart Mill lays this out for us in his work On Liberty. He writes that liberty concerns, “the nature and limits of the power that society can legitimately exercise over the individual.” He goes on to write that, “protection against the tyranny of government isn’t enough; there needs to be protection also against the tyranny of prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to turn its own ideas and practices into rules of conduct, and impose them—by means other than legal penalties—on those who dissent from them; to hamper the development and if possible to prevent the formation of any individuality that isn’t in harmony with its ways. There is a limit to how far collective opinion can legitimately interfere with individual independence; and finding and defending that limit is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as is protection against political despotism.” I find it frightening to see the extent to which one side will characterize the other as illegitimate, immoral and un-American, vilifying one another rather than engaging in civil discourse and debate. I believe that screaming and name calling, as seen on any number of so-called new programs or in the halls of Congress, serves as a poor substitute for substance, or the lack thereof, when talking about topics of import to We the People. As you listen to candidates speak, and as you endeavor to cut through the ad hominin attacks and the false choices that are offered up, ask if a proposal will serve the principle of maximizing individual autonomy, development and action. If it does not, it cannot be an American value.

·        We have an unalienable right to the Pursuit of Happiness. This is a societal value, predicated on individual values, that is uniquely American. I know of no other nation that calls out such a principle in its social contract. Without a doubt, happiness is defined at the individual level. Of course, there is overlap among individuals, but I cannot define for you what happiness is, as you cannot define it for me. By coincidence, we may both identify the same thing, but that is a matter of chance, not of rule. The virtue is in making clear a path for the value. The question is, to pursue happiness, what role may the government play? I believe its legitimate role, harkening back to Mill, is to minimize its hindrance to individuals pursuing their unique notion of happiness. As far as I can reckon, the only legitimate role of government in the pursuit of happiness is to ensure that one person’s pursuit does not adversely affect another’s pursuit. Any role beyond that does one of two inappropriate things: 1) imposes a definition of happiness on individuals and/or 2) limits one’s pursuit in lieu of another’s, essentially picking winners and losers in terms of happiness. Please don’t misunderstand me. With the pursuit of happiness being a fundamental value in our society, I do believe the infringement of this pursuit by one citizen or by the government against another citizen should be met with significant penalty, providing such penalty does not violate this or one of the other values. As proposals and plans are proffered for your consideration, consider how they impact the pursuit of happiness. If they limit even one citizen’s pursuit in favor of another’s pursuit, they cannot be virtuous in conformance with our values.

In closing, keep in mind the unalienable rights that lay the foundation for our values and that make possible our national virtue. They are inherent in our simple yet profound Americanism. In his 1876 speech, Austin reminded the assembled crowd, “The dogmatical epithets ‘giving and granting’ were too derogatory to your feelings, and too dishonorary to be obeyed, you therefore contrasted your ideas of right with their assumed declaration, and asserted that the British parliament had no right to bind the American colonies in any case whatever.” We have a new parliament, a new political class that imposes its soft tyranny, which tries – with every created agency, with every legislated act, with every proposed rule – to assert its power over the individual. I entreat you, if not to reject such assertions of political expediency outright, to give learned and careful consideration to each, to each assertion of what American values are and ought to be, and to judge for yourself whether they meet the shared definition of values upon which our nation was founded and toward which we strive for the moral excellence of virtue.

Week 48: Impeachment

In this election cycle, a topic has arisen that had not been among those originally contemplated for this 52 Weeks blog. The topic, of course, is impeachment. Let us begin by grounding ourselves in the Constitution of the United States of America, which is the foundation of our social contract with one another, including those citizens chosen for public office.

·        Article I, Section 2, Clause 5 of the Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power of impeachment.

·        Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 give the Senate the sole power to try all cases of impeachment. When serving in this function, Senators are under oath or affirmation. When trying the president, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides. A concurrence of two-thirds of members present are required for conviction.

·        Article II, Section 4 lists the offenses for which a president may be removed from office, which include: treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

·        Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7 lays out the punishments for a conviction of treason. They include: removal from office and the disqualification to hold office. This is the extent of the powers of Congress. An impeached individual may still be subject to trial and penalty as a citizen under the law.

In the late eighteenth century, after the War of Independence was won and after the Articles of Confederacy were being found insufficient in terms of governing the new nation, the Constitution was drafted and an effort for ratification was underway. To further explain and gain support for the new Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison wrote a series of 85 essays, which are collectively known as The Federalist Papers.

In Federalist 65, Hamilton opens in regard to the powers of the Senate, “A well-constituted court for the trials of impeachments is anb object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”

By way of background, and as an illustration of how times change, the power to try cases of impeachment was vested in the Senate, as it was, at the time, viewed as “significantly dignified” and “sufficiently independent.” The Supreme Court was thought to lack the appropriate degree of credit and authority to try such cases. Additionally, impeachment is predicated on some political violation, as described above, and not necessarily a violation of law, for which the Supreme Court was designed to adjudicate.

Providing alternative arguments during the period of consideration of ratification were writings that have become, collectively, The Anti-Federalist Papers. Under the nom de plume Brutus, the issue of high crimes and misdemeanors was mentioned on March 20, 1788. “Treason and bribery are named, and the rest are included under the general terms of high crimes and misdemeanors. Errors in judgment, or want of capacity to discharge the duties of the office, can never be supposed to be included in these words, high crimes and misdemeanors.

With insight from these papers into the intentions of those who designed the impeachment process, we must weigh the impending impeachment of Donald Trump from two perspectives.

First, are the accusations against him ones of errors in judgment or want of capacity to discharge his office? For clarification, the word capacity, at that time, included concepts that we may differentiate today as capability. It is ability in a legal, moral or intellectual sense.

Second, are the accusations against him born of a dislike for the political philosophy he espouses or the personal characteristics he embodies.

In The Federalist Papers, impeachment is described as a “national inquest.” If this inquest proves nothing more than an error in judgment or exposes no more than an agitation of the passions, we must, through the lens of principle, disregard his alleged offenses, if we are to cast votes unprejudiced by the animosity of the president’s political opponents. However, if he be accused and perhaps condemned of substantive violations of the public trust, which injure the body politic, we must let that guide our consciences in casting our votes.

In Federalist 64, Jay writes, as it relates to corruption in the execution of treaties, “As to corruption, the case is not supposable. He must either have been very unfortunate in his intercourse with the world, or possess a heart very susceptible of such impressions, who can think it probable that the President and two thirds of the Senate will ever be capable of such unworthy conduct. The idea is too gross and too invidious to be entertained.” The Founders envisioned persons of good will to be elected to office and that the will of the people would guide such elections.

The House of Representatives, our representatives, hold the power to impeach; the Senate to convict. As citizens, it is our duty to let our voices be heard by our representatives. Weigh the issue in the context of the Constitution and informed by the two questions above. Then, without the subjectivity of passion, tell your representative how to proceed, consistent with your expectation of him or her.

Week 49: Education

“The foundation of every state is the education of its youth,” said Diogenes. Building on this belief, people of influence across the ages have expressed the desire to achieve more than just laying a societal foundation. Some have opined on the notion that ideologies may be ingrained in societies if those in power can control the education of the youth. Some form of “give me a child to teach in his early years, and I will sow a seed that will never be uprooted,” has been attributed to Aristotle, Jesuit leaders, Stalin, Skinner and others. Some with noble intentions, some nefarious.

Regardless of the intention, I believe there is a great deal of truth in this notion. For this reason, there should be little surprise that education in America is such a big business. Nor should there be any surprise that it has been so politicized since the 1970s, when the federal government got into the business of education with the establishment of the U.S. Department of Education.

According to the its FY2018 Agency Financial Report, the department’s total budgetary resources (i.e., what it has to spend) amounted to $358.5 billion, with nearly half of that being borrowed money (i.e., debt incurred to fund the department).

As with any enterprise of this magnitude, resources are neither taken nor given freely, nor should they be. Think, though, of multitude of strings attached to the monies flowing in and out of the Department of Education. You can read about those strings in the varied and sundry acts and programs enacted by Congress. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Every Student Succeeds are but a few recent examples of plans put forth to improved our bedeviled system of public education in the United States. As with any use of someone else’s money (i.e., yours and mine through the taxes we pay), there should indeed be strings attached. Those strings should relate to beneficial outcomes, which is to say a favorable return on investment.

Since the 1970s, funding for the Department of Education through tax revenues and deficit spending, while having periods of financial ebbs and flows, has increased significantly. Since that time, our system of public education continues to fail so many American students, particularly those who most need the benefits derived from the educational process. For the moment, let us ascribe to the law and policy makers good intentions in terms of the legislation and regulations they enact.

Unfortunately, the intentions of the do-gooders in Washington seem to give way to the failure of unintended consequences over and over again. With the No Child Left Behind Act, for example, an overemphasis was placed on teaching to standardized exams. Of the 11 states that received grants in the Race to the Top program, only four produced improved graduation rates. As for the Every Student Succeeds Act, critics point out that there are relatively few changes from previous legislation that would improve the lot of students in vulnerable populations. Yet, as Reagan stated in his “A Time for Choosing” speech to the 1964 Republican convention, “The more the plans fail, the more the planners plan.” This seems apropos the discussion of federal involvement in public education.

And what is the answer to the repeated failure of plan after plan? Let us spend more money. We’ll get it right next time. I ask: are the minds and futures of generation upon generation of youth a fair price to pay politicians for their experiments in education?

To that point, Harry Truman said that politicians are the “C” students of the world. In general, I think he was correct. If we accept that general premise, do we really want the members of Congress and the administration appointees designing our educational system, developing curricula and defining student success?

As politicians this election year put forth their plans for education, I think it’s important to ask a couple questions.

1.       Who best has the interest of individual students in mind and heart? Is it a politician, seeking to maintain their power in Washington, or is the parents of individual students? Do the educational planks of candidate platforms place control in the District of Columbia or in the homes and local communities of students and parents?

2.       How do candidates’ proposals ensure that good money isn’t thrown after bad?

3.       How do the strings attached to funding for public education benefit students and parents, as opposed to the apparatchiks in Congress and in the Department of Education?

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about the importance of education and learning in the United States, recognizing that they are essential to Liberty and a free people. More than 130 years prior to the federal government established the Department of Education, de Tocqueville observed, “There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.” He also noted that the homes he visited were always appointed with an axe, a bible and newspapers.

The love of learning and the recognition that it is a necessary condition for Freedom has historically been a key facet of the American identity. It is so important in lifting people up and in ensuring that each person fully benefits from citizenship. I am by no means saying that we should do away with education generally or public education specifically. I’m simply suggesting that we should be cautious in regard to whom we would turn over the tutelage of our fellow citizens, be they five or fifty-five.

In the Enchiridion of Epictetus, Arrian recalls some advice from Epictetus, which goes, “If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?” This precept should have great value for our society today, as free and open thinking in the classrooms and on the campuses of academe faces the forces of oppression. Even those who suggest that the intentions of those in Congress might be misguided are pilloried with all manner of ad hominem attacks, onus probandi fallacies, or the fallacies of single cause.

As always, the purpose of these weekly posts is not to tell you what to think but to beg your engagement in the thought process and the discussion of election-year issues. As always, I invite you to share your thoughts and arguments in the comment section below.

Week 50: Price tag

In weeks 52 and 51, we examined the philosophical and practical notions of rights and equality. We will, of course, continue to explore the philosophy and principles that serve as the cornerstone of our democracy. This week, we will explore what might seem to be a more practical aspect of our republic, specifically the cost of our republic and the proposals we will hear during this election year.

If I could encourage you, kind reader, to do two things first, read this blog and share PubliusSpeaks.org with others, second, take seven minutes to watch this video, which is part of a talk by the Nobel Prize awardee Milton Friedman. In it, he describes much more eloquently and succinctly than I the financial shell game that is our national economy.

Friedman’s concept that there is “no free lunch” is, or at least should be, at the heart of the discussion of the myriad programs that are suggested by candidates from both parties. “Free” education, healthcare, food and housing; a guaranteed minimum income; the list goes on and on.

To ground our conversation, the national debt of the United States of America $22.577 trillion. Roll in the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare Parts A, B and D, along with benefits for Federal employees and veterans, and the cost per citizen (not per taxpayer) is more than $381,000. If the average salary for U.S. workers is $47,060 (Q1 of 2019), it would take each person eight years to pay their share. This assumes that the debt and unfunded liabilities would remain frozen and not increase. It also assumes that each person will forego personal expenses, such as food, water and shelter, for those eight years.

In Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he writes, “When the publick expence is defrayed by funding, it is defrayed by the annual destruction of some capital which had before existed in the country; by the perversion of some portion of the annual produce which had before been destined for the maintenance of productive labour, towards that of unproductive labour. As in this case, however, the taxes are lighter than they would have been, had a revenue sufficient for defraying the same expence been raised within the year; the private revenue of individuals is necessarily less burdened, and consequently their ability to save and accumulate some part of that revenue into capital is a good deal less impaired. If the method of funding destroys more old capital, it at the same time hinders less the accumulation or acquisition of new capital, than that of defraying the publick expence by a revenue raised within the year. Under the system of funding, the frugality and industry of private people can more easily repair the breaches which the waste and extravagance of government may occasionally make in the general capital of the society.”

In this passage, we see two key concepts. First is that public funding of programs destroys capital and the ability of individuals to provide for their own welfare and to save for their future. Second is that it is the industry of the individual that can repair this destruction, and repair is necessitated upon low taxes.

Regarding the first concept, I would argue that personal initiative is also destroyed. For those whose capital is redistributed, they are deprived of the utility of what they have produced. Furthermore, they are deprived of making the decision about how to use their capital for the good of society – either through charitable gifts and the good feeling it engenders or through the effect of Smith’s “invisible hand,” which results in all the wonderful downstream effects of the use of one’s own capital, such as creating jobs for others through the demand for goods and services.

Smith also writes about the opulence of the state. When its opulence grows, so must the redistribution of private capital and wealth through taxation.

Listen to the proposals of the candidates in this election year. Do any of them talk about the costs of such programs? The answer is either no, or it is yes but relies on grossly false figures. Name a government program that comes in at expected costs or below. I think you’ll find none.

Knowing that each new program or expanded program will require more taxes from you or increase your share of debt and unfunded liabilities, what proposals will you support? In making that decisions, we should all keep in mind that we would be opening our own wallets to Uncle Sam and requiring our fellow citizens (i.e., the half that actually pay taxes) to do the same.

As citizens, we should be asking the candidates (and our fellow citizens) this question: How much productive, private capital are we willing to destroy to pay for things like Medicare for All? Also, how much good capital are we willing to spend after bad? In this, I call your attention to the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The problems it purported to fix still exist and the lies upon which it was sold to the people (e.g., if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor) still plague many citizens.

Returning to Milton Friedman, he reminds us that no one spends his/her money as well as himself/herself. Furthermore, when we allow someone else to spend our money (i.e., the government), there are multitudes of administrators and functionaries that all get their cut of the funds, ever increasing the cost of government programs.

Also, it’s important that we ask for results. In terms of accountability in government programs, there is little to none. For the more than $381,000 that each of us owes, does any one of us know the return on investment? How many are lifted out of poverty because of government programs? How many become trapped in a cycle of dependency and ignorance. Take public education, for example, the kids who need a good education to lift themselves and their families out of poverty are the same kids who receive from our government the worst conditions for education. The cry from politicians is more money. What is the return on that increasing investment? Education continues to grind on as a great divider between the haves and have nots, despite more and more funding. This seems to be true for each and every program.

As we can clearly see, there’s not only a tremendous financial price tag to government programs, but there’s a more devastating price tag, one that has a depressing return on investment – that of human dignity.

Let us question those seeking to represent us as to the costs of their proposals. Let us force them to explain the tradeoffs. Let us require them to walk through the use of redistributed funds in a way that guarantees the elevation of human dignity. Perhaps it’s not more, but less.

Week 51: Equality

In a prima facie sense, it might seem nice, even desirable, for everyone everywhere to have the same of everything. In such a world, outcomes, such as health, wealth and happiness, would be distributed equally among all people. Want, and by extension avarice, would be banished to the pages of history. Everyone would sow the seeds of plenty and reap the harvest of prosperity.

Upon even superficial reflection, such a pursuit turns out to be a fool’s errand and can quickly be seen as antithetical to individual liberty and incongruent with nature itself.

In terms of the individual and of liberty, each of us has our own interests, desires, pleasures, wants and even needs. What I find to be a pleasurable outcome of today’s pursuits may bring displeasure to you. If I had my way, each day would be spent on my paddleboard with one of my dogs along for the ride. The outdoors and a pack of dogs may be repugnant to someone else. (Although, I have a hard time believing that if they knew my dogs!) Conversely, someone else may find a day spent shopping in an air-conditioned mall to be an enjoyable endeavor. I would liken that to the misery described in Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. So, as you can see, individual tastes stand in the way of equal outcomes when considering personal fulfillment.

In terms of nature, people are also different. Yes, we all need water, food and shelter, as Maslow describes in his hierarchy of needs. However, each of us requires different amounts or types of these staples of life. An athlete may require greater caloric intake and more water than someone with a sedentary lifestyle in order to physically function at an optimal level. A nomadic herdsman may require a significantly different type of shelter than a businesswoman in Manhattan.  Yes, these may be extremes in terms of examples, but they illustrate the point.

So, to achieve a state of equality described in the opening paragraph of this letter, someone somewhere must account for these differences and take action to eliminate their impact. Someone somewhere must exercise control – control over the athlete, the herdsman, the businesswoman, and yes, control over you and me.

Throughout history, philosophers and futurists have written much about such a state and the perils therein inherent. Plato in Republic (381 B.C.), Thomas More in Utopia (1516), Yevgeny Zamyatin in We (1921), Aldous Huxley in Brave New World (1932) and Lois Lowry in The Giver (1993), to name a few, describe states in which some sort of outcomes equality is attempted. Each delves into the perverse and frightening results of such states, and they illustrate why such states are impossible, even immoral. They also demonstrate why states that endeavor to create such utopian conditions are doomed for failure and for ruin.

In Republic, all that may be otherwise enjoyed by the individual (e.g., property, family, etc.) are sacrificed for the common good. In such as state, where everyone lives for everyone else, happiness is elusive, as Adeimantus found. Honor and glory are not to be had, as Glaucon found.

In Utopia, we again see a lack of personal property, a subjugation of one person to another, a central authority manipulating the lives of each person – even whether or not a person is allowed to remain in his or her home, his or her city or on the island of Utopia. Individuals are but pawns of the state. There is no privacy, because it is assumed that a person will behave badly unless being observed by all. This, as mentioned in an earlier letter, gives into the belief that people are fundamentally bad. I believe this premise to be false. How, I ask, can that be true?

In We, people are reduced to numbers and their lives are run by a central power according to the Table, or instructions for what is to be done and when. All people live in glass buildings, again, a belief that people are fundamentally bad and must be watched. As is found commonly in similar arrangements, people are encouraged to watch one another and to report others for violations of the rules. As also is often the case, wrongdoers are put to death.

In A Brave New World, people are artificially created, born into a rigid caste system and drugged in order to maintain an orderly society. Granted, equality is not the goal of Huxley’s state in this work, but it is an illustration of the perils of centralized control to try to achieve some sort of societal utopia.

In The Giver, the concept of “sameness” is extolled by the “Community,” a group of towns based on the principle that harmony can be achieved if differences among people are more or less eliminated. The Giver, as with A Brave New World, drugs the populace to achieve this end. Society is planned by a central authority, embodied in a group elders. By the way, one of my favorite actors, Jeff Bridges, did a great job as the Giver in the movie adaptation of this book.

Common threads in utopian philosophy are that equality of outcomes is desirable and that elimination of individualism through the application of central control is necessary to achieve such equality. I would argue that such control destroys those very things that make us human, those very things that help us climb Maslow’s hierarchy from the physiological needs toward self-actualization.

Take, for example, the construct of the family. In many works about utopia, the family unit is eliminated. Certain women are selected for the communal role of child-bearers. Their progeny, through various mechanisms based on the writer’s concept of utopian society, are raised and trained by some other person, group or family-type unit. The generational bonds from parent to child and so forth and so on have no real meaning.

Another example includes the choice of profession. In some conceptualizations of utopia, the central authority, like the elders in The Giver, evaluate the person and assign to him or her a role that they deem most appropriate to their skills. The individual has no choice in the matter.

Sadly, frighteningly actually, neither of these examples are confined to imaginary societies in the pages of philosophy or fiction. Both hit very close to home, temporally and proximally.

From 1935 to 1945, the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) operated an organization called the Lebensborn, which translates to the Fount of Life. In the Lebensborn, typically unmarried women would give birth to as many “racially pure” and healthy children as possible. Conception was achieved with “racially pure” and healthy members of the SS. When ready, the children would be adopted out to Aryan families that subscribed to and supported Nazi ideology. Sadly, SS racial doctrine was based in part on the eugenics movement espoused by Englishman Francis Galton and American Federick Osborn.

Jump forward to 1975, when for four years, the Khmer Rouge led by the dictator Pol Pot tried to implement a classless society in Cambodia by emptying the cities, tearing families apart and assigning everyone (that is everyone who wasn’t killed, as were teachers, doctors, architects and anyone else perceived as intellectuals) to agricultural forced labor camps. Children were taught, or rather indoctrinated, that families were wrong and that their true allegiance was to the state. Children were even taught to spy on family members and to report anything antithetical to or critical of the Khmer Rouge government and its ideology. Does that sound familiar? Thinking of the Spies children’s group in Orwell’s 1984, children under the Khmer Rouge were compelled to do the same type of spying. This was true, also, for the Hitler Youth organization in Nazi Germany.

Even in the United States, in this day and age, the concept of family is adversely impacted by the role of a central authority (i.e., the federal government) in the lives of citizens. Welfare participation is an example of this impact. Our welfare system is designed in a manner that makes it monetarily advantageous for recipients, particularly recipients with children to avoid marriage and even to grow their family with additional births out of wedlock. This perverse incentive, built into the welfare system, results in impoverished, single-parent families that, despite the best – and often heroic – efforts of the parent, struggle to get by. Couple this with the horrendous state of public education in impoverished neighborhoods, and you end up with a disastrous, desperate situation that becomes self-perpetuating, leading to generations of our fellow human beings, who are lost to the blessings of liberty.

Coming “to the rescue” is the government, which tells these families that the government is there to help. Recall former First Lady Hillary Clinton stating that it takes a village to raise a child. On the surface, this may sound nice – everyone chipping in, everyone caring about everyone else. I agree that our lives are enriched by the connections we make with others and what we can learn from others, in all the richness of our diversity. Clinton’s concept of a village was not this voluntary type of association. Her vision was about the forced transferring of responsibility from individuals to society, specifically the government. Think about the miscreants whose backsides warm the seats of Congress. Would you want them raising you or, someday, your children? I would not.

Advocates of utopia know that the family is indeed the foundation of society. It is the setting in which we begin the learning process. It is the environment in which we first learn to interact with others, which is the precursor to the broader social contract. It is the structure that helps form the moral and ethical principles that inform our worldview. It is a place into which the government does not have an unobstructed view. Consequently, the family is the most dangerous institution to those who believe in utopian principles.

So much for the family and its role as a cornerstone in the social contract. Let us turn now to our work.

In 1993 in the United States, Mrs. Clinton was selected by her husband, President Bill Clinton, to lead a taskforce that would reform healthcare for Americans. One provision of her proposed reforms included a role for the federal government in determining how many physicians were needed in the various fields and specialties of medicine. No longer would a medical student interested in some area, such as orthopedic surgery, be able to pursue that type of work, unless it was deemed necessary by a central committee and approved by that committee for that student to pursue that career.

Just think for a moment about all of the innovation and beneficial advances in medicine, or any other field for that matter, that have come from the right person in the right place at the right time. These “right” conditions have not been achieved because the government has manipulated people, placement and timing. No! Improvement in the human condition often comes about because of the individual passion a person has for his or her work as well as the sometimes-serendipitous workings of time and place.

Similar control and direction from some central power in determining the professions a person may pursue have been a key component in many totalitarian regimes throughout history. Such was the case in the Soviet Union, particularly in the days following the October revolution of 1917, as well as under three generations of the Kim regime in North Korea in which you are assigned a job, trained for it, and it is your job for life. In time, they all fail to achieve their desired ends. The Soviet Union abandoned this approach to the goal of 100 percent employment. North Korea still uses this approach of total control; it’s results being evident in any examination of the regime and the lives of its people.

Control is an essential component in utopian societies. It can be achieved in a variety of ways. As with soma in A Brave New World or the daily pill (or injection in the movie adaptation) in The Giver, the people were drugged into submission. In the pursuit of utopia, socialist and communist regimes, like the social democratic parties of the Nazis or the modern-day Democrats, and communist parties like the Khmer Rouge or the Soviet Union exercise control through violence, terror, threats, and most dangerously and insidiously through policies and laws. Take, for example, the opioid addiction epidemic in the United States today. Overprescribing, if in fact true, subdues the population taking it and makes them dependent on the healthcare system, a system deeply intertwined with government. Despite politicians excoriating the physicians and pharmaceutical companies for this crisis, they still collaborate with and take money from these special interest groups. It makes one wonder if their outrage and concern is genuine or feigned.

I understand that one of those examples may seem quite controversial. Democrats are, after all, our fellow citizens. But we must separate the people who identify as Democrats from the philosophy of the party. Democratic philosophy is focused on equality of outcomes, or creating a level playing field, as they might say. So it is true, too, for many Republicans. This is achieved through the redistribution of private property, such as income and wealth – taking from some to give to others. This redistribution is not voluntary. Instead, it is forced redistribution under the threat of fines and imprisonment. They see a fundamental role of government as compelling one person to labor for the benefit of another. Simply put, the government compels me to give up approximately one quarter of the money I earn so that it may be given by the government to others for their benefit (e.g., subsidies to all manner of industry, such as energy, automotive and farming; funds that promote abortion in vulnerable communities; and health insurance – notice that I did not write health care, which is a very different thing). This is the government requiring that one individual works for the benefit of another.

Does this arrangement not describe a state of servitude? Granted, you and I do not have an overseer lashing us with whips or beating us with canes or clubs. It was not long ago, however, that those in power would easily turn firehoses or release attack dogs on those sought equality under the law.

Perhaps ironically, this party, which today claims to extol the virtue of equality, is the same party that fought for slavery in the Civil War, that opposed Civil Rights legislation and from whose ranks groups like the Ku Klux Klan were born.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that today’s Democrats are crazed, lynching mobs of power-hungry socialists. No, they are much more insidious and much more dangerous, as are many, if not most, of their Republican colleagues in the chambers of Congress and in the halls of government.

I would argue that politicians today, regardless of affiliation with the Democrat or Republican parties, are more concerned with establishing and perpetuating their own power than they are with ensuring that individual Liberty and equality, as envisioned by the Founders, are preserved and protected for We the People. To solidify their power, they must make us think that they are necessary to our happiness and are our protectors from a society that would take advantage of us and that would do us harm.

One way they foster this thinking is by casting our individual differences as evil and by promising us that they alone can mitigate the ill effects of difference by planning a society in which our outcomes are essentially the same. This approach preys on the Hobbesian notion that we are, in a state of nature, nasty and brutish.

Another way they do this is built on the foundation of mistrust they have laid. They create all manner of laws and regulations based on the false idea that differences are bad. Look through the Federal Register and you will find laws, rules and regulations that apply to treating one group differently from another, be it based on gender, race, color, age or any other characteristic that outwardly differentiates one person from another. In none of this legislation is any consideration given to the inward attributes that truly define our humanity – our hearts, minds and souls.

With outright oppression, such as police turning dogs and firehoses on black Americans and white supporters in the 50s and 60s, government control and hypocrisy has been on display, naked in the evil ideology of its purveyors. With legislative oppression, inequality is concealed in the voluminous pages of the Federal Register, virtually inaccessible to all but those who have studied the language of juris prudence. That is why I say it is insidious. Their efforts to separate us are hidden behind twisted language that is buried in the law; law that truly benefit one type of person – the politician.

So, I’ve painted a pretty rosy picture, wouldn’t you say? If history indeed serves as a teacher, there is a silver lining. When I look at societies in which central control and planning and the manipulation of the lives of the people have been core to their systems of governance, nearly every one of those societies has crumbled or is crumbling. Some are even trying, to varying degrees, to manage a transition away from social control toward freedom and liberty.

The USSR fell in the 90s, and they are still trying to determine what that means for the Russian people and the people of the former satellite nations of the Soviet Union. The Khmer Rouge is no more. The regime in North Korea, which has been on the verge of collapse, has begun making overtures to the south, even appearing under a unification flag in various Olympic games. In our own country, many aspects of the central planning efforts of the New Deal were ruled unconstitutional. China, really the last remaining, major communist stronghold, has been for a number of years embracing greater economic freedom for its citizens, something that I believe will serve as a precursor to political and social freedom for the Chinese people.

Some will say that a little bit of socialism or a little bit of government control is not only necessary but is a good thing. They will hold up the examples of Sweden, Canada and Britain, but they will ignore the history and social development of these nations compared to ours. Nima Sanandaji’s book, Scandinavian Unexceptionalism: Culture, Markets and the Failure of Third-Way Socialism, exposes the false narrative about Nordic socialist utopianism. Its arguments can also serve as a lens for us to view nations like Canada and Britain. The bottom line for me is to always question thoroughly the ruling class’s efforts and motives for convincing us, the People, to give up responsibility for our own wellbeing and to relinquish it to the panacean promise of equality they claim is inherent in their control and planning.

Again, think of who comprises the ruling class. Harry Truman called them the C students of the world. Almost daily, they are exposed in the media as much, much worse. Philanderers, liars, embezzlers, creatures of a quid-pro-quo system that makes them wealthy, often at the expense of you and me. Am I flawed, too? Of course! Each person is. Perfection, I believe, is found only in God. So, for those of us in the mortal realm, degrees of perfection and imperfection are relative. I believe, on whole, each individual is vastly more capable of determining what is right or wrong for himself or herself than politicians and government functionaries in Washington. In making decisions for ourselves, we have our own self-interest in mind, and we weigh our options accordingly. Those in government almost universally must consider being re-elected and maintaining power. Certainly, their re-election is linked to the promise of ensuring you and I are able to fulfill our own self-interests, but as government grows and as those in government devise new and perverse ways to divide and conquer us, that linkage becomes increasingly tenuous.

How long will it be before we are required to take our daily dose of soma or some other drug to pacify us and extinguish the flame of our individual desires? How long will it be before we are required to listen to an unending stream of propaganda designed to change our thinking, as in literature’s 1984, or in the real-life factories and fields of North Korea? That sounds so far-fetched, doesn’t it?

The scary truth is that it has been happening. I would suspect it is still happening. The CIA’s Project Artichoke and Project MKUltra, both sought to achieve mind control through various types of drug addiction. The government also collaborated with universities to test the efficacy of brain washing, based on the power of suggestion and coercion from perceived authority figures. Yale’s Milgram experiments and Stanford’s prison experiments are just a couple examples of these types of research.

Broadly speaking, many of these efforts are undertaken with the implicit and sometimes explicit goal of creating a social structure in which everyone is equal. Should we entrust the pursuit of this goal to those who would employ such unethical, deceptive and immoral means to achieve it? For myself, I have come to the conclusion that the answer is an unequivocal no. Each person should investigate, analyze and carefully consider their own answer to this question. I hope these blogs help you in your deliberations. Even the thoughts that I share with you – question them, test them, evaluate them on your terms and through your own research, and guided by your own moral compass.

I regret having to write such a doom and gloom post. I think we may rest assured that no politician starts out in life with the plan to subject another human to drug-induced psychosis for his or her own political gain. At least I sure hope that’s an accurate assurance. So, what is it then that transforms otherwise good and decent people into monsters who would so abuse their fellow human beings? I think Lord Acton had it right when he named that corrupting force: power. He said, “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” While our rulers are not yet absolute, they become closer and closer to absolutism with every shred of Liberty that we give up to them.

John Barrymore said, “A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” This is part of my purpose in writing these posts. I don’t want to grow old. I want to trust that my dreams and yours hold in them the reality of a beautiful tomorrow in which each person is free to create and to fulfill their own destiny and to voluntarily engage in commerce with others – be that commerce for the goods and services of one another’s labor, or for the ideas and opinions of one another’s mind, or for the love in their hearts. I dream of a future in which we are not subject to the will or whim of someone else, but are free to work in harmony with others, harnessing the goodness and beauty of each person’s inward qualities that today’s laws, rules and regulations fail to consider.

Week 52: Rights

As individuals, we are limited in terms of what we can accomplish in pursuit of our own goals. No one can acquire, let alone perfect, the requisite knowledge and skills to lead a full life. Therefore, we form implicit and explicit social contracts, so that each member of the social group may collaborate with others in the group. Through such collaboration, each individual’s goals may be advanced, and the advancement of those goals advances the objectives of society.

The first and most fundamental social contract is the family. Husbands and wives join together to fulfill the need for companionship, love and to share the burdens of life. Those are goals at the individual level. Because this union often involves procreation, a couple that has children also fulfills a societal objective, which is the perpetuation of the species.

Millennia upon millennia, individuals and families have collaborated with others to form societies. Working together, individuals hope to advance their own goals and objectives in an easier and better way than they could alone. As Adam Smith discusses, this ultimately promotes the well being of the society at large.

As these collaborations become larger and more complex, it becomes necessary to formalize the social contract. This is often accomplished through the formation of governments. In part 1 of Book II of “The Spirit of Laws,” Montesquieu observes, “There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic. In  order to discover their nature, it is sufficient to recollect the common notion, which supposes three definitions, or rather three facts: that a republican government is that in which the body, or only a part of the people, is possessed of the supreme power; monarchy, that in which a single person governs by fixed and established laws; a despotic government, that in which a single person directs everything by his own will and caprice.”

The American colonists chose to part ways with the government of King George, which was a sort of amalgam between monarchy and despotism. For British subjects living in the mother country, there were fixed and established laws by which the people could more-or-less predictably interact with the government. In the colonies, the rule of laws was less predictable, leading the colonists to see the relationship between the government and the people to be more akin to despotism. While the colonists initially wanted security in their social contract by means of the British monarchy, it became more and more evident that this would not be possible. Abandoning both monarchy and despotism, the Founders drew on the lessons of antiquity and those of the Enlightenment to form a republican form of government as the new mechanism for defining and executing the American social contract.

The rest is history, so to speak. Through local, state and national elections, resulting in a mixture of direct, popular vote and votes by the Electoral College, politicians are elected to represent us, “We the People.” Conceived in the notion that government should preserve, protect and defend individuals’ rights and the pursuits of their objectives, the first representatives developed a social contract in the form of The Constitution of the United States of America. Representatives today should be a voice for the people they represent.

Unfortunately, the notion of representing what the people want (or don’t want) in order to pursue their goals and objectives has been supplanted with what the politician thinks the people should or should not have. Granted, we the citizens share blame. I would venture to say it is a small minority of people who commit the time to call, write, email, Tweet, participate in townhalls, or otherwise engage with their representatives, let alone take the time to actually participate in the voting process. Politicians are people, and like all people, they are not mind readers. In absence of our loud and clear voices, politicians will pursue goals and objectives that are based on other inputs, such as special interest groups, as opposed to input from their constituents. It then becomes a guessing game in which the politician searches for any expedient to ensure reelection and to remain in office.

Once a politician’s focus turns from representing the people’s interests to representing their own, we depart from republicanism, skip over monarchy, and land squarely in a despotic form of government. Instead of one despot, though, we have many.

Perhaps the most insidious tool these would-be despots possess is that of claiming something to be a right and in convincing the citizens that they are being denied that right. After all, if it is a right, how dare a politician or government deny it to me?

In this election year, as in every election year, we will hear about the “rights” that politicians claim citizens (and non-citizens) have. What is lacking in their rhetoric is intellectual honesty, specifically in respect to what a right is.

For example, candidates may “fight for” a right to healthcare, a right to secure borders, a right to an abortion, a right to life, a right to a living wage. Sadly, they do not fight for the right to party. Thankfully, Quiet Riot has that covered. Notwithstanding the heroic efforts of such 80’s hair bands, the list of purported political rights for which candidates fight goes on and on. In subsequent posts, I will address these specific topics. In the meantime, and to set the stage for those discussions, I believe it is essential to understand the term “rights,” as some of these may or may not be rights.

Take any of the examples described above. Let’s choose healthcare. Is it desirable that each member of society have access to healthcare services? It may be. But is it a right? Or, is it a benefit that each citizen enjoys as a result of being part of a society that has determined it to be advisable and favorable to provide? Let us explore these questions.

What is a right?

In the context we are discussing, Merriam Webster defines a right as “something to which one has a just claim.” We sometimes hear people, especially those in the political realm, refer to fundamental human rights or natural rights. Such rights are those inherent in our personhood. They are not bestowed upon us or granted to us by government or by anyone else. They are conditions we have a just claim to because they are ours and do not come from anyone else. As Cicero observes in On the Republic, this type of “true law is correct reason congruent with nature, spread among all persons, constant, everlasting,” meaning that natural law, from which natural and human rights derive, is the same for all people and is free from the interpretation of others, including governments.

As a human being, I have a just claim to my thoughts and opinions. I have a just claim the fruits of my own labor. I have a just claim to be secure in my own life. In these things, I am not dependent upon others. Do I, however, have a just claim to the thoughts and opinions, the fruits of labor, and the security of others? In short, do I have a just claim to the personhood of another? I would suggest the answer is a clear and unequivocal no.

To return to the example of healthcare. I am neither physician nor nurse. I do not have the knowledge and skills to heal myself. This is something that is not inherent in my personhood. In order to obtain medical care, I must rely on others. Reliance, though, is not the same thing as a just claim. To say that I have a just claim to the labor of the physician or the nurse requires subjugation of the physician or nurse to serve my needs, and subjugation is always predicated on the threat of force and violence. I would argue, as Locke does in Two Treatises on Government, that when a form of government fails to protect a citizen’s life, liberty and property (i.e., a person’s fundamental natural and human rights), that government should be replaced. When a government resorts to the use of force to impose duties upon its people that subjugate one to another, I would suggest that that government is no longer a protector of the rights of the people.

All this is not to say that universal access to healthcare is a good or bad thing. It is only to say that it is not a right, because one person does not have inherency to use force or the threat of force (either personally or through the instrument of government) to take the fruits of another’s labor.

Indeed, societies may decide through their respective forms of government that access to healthcare is a desirable thing for all of their citizens and may pass laws to that effect. This, however, is not a right but is a benefit bestowed on an individual by being part of a society and being subject to its social contract, its laws and its mores. It is not a right, because access is guaranteed by the government, not by one’s own personhood. It becomes an agreement in which once citizen has a claim to the labor of another, in this example to that of the physician or nurse, and in which that party (e.g., the physician or nurse) cannot withhold such labor under penalty of law, which is to say force.

For the acquisition of anything that is not inherent in personhood, including access to healthcare, to be virtuous, the arrangement must be voluntary. Both parties (e.g., the healthcare provider and the patient) must agree to the services to be provide and for what recompense or requital. When the acquisition of something that is not inherent in personhood is obtained without the voluntary consent of both parties, the use or threat of force compels one party to the service of another. To put it bluntly, an involuntary arrangement exists that enslaves one person to another. Instead of the whips and rape and killing fields of a century-and-a-half ago, modern servitude is enforced through the threat of fines, imprisonment and armed federal officials.

This is the real danger in leading people to believe that something is a right, when it is actually a benefit, fore how can the government legitimately deny to the people their rights?

As the year goes on and as the debates go on and on and on, listen closely to candidates for all offices. Listen for what they maintain to be your rights, and question whether it, whatever “it” may be, is something inherent in your personhood or is something that requires the government to take the time, treasure or talents of one person to give to another. Is that taking and giving predicated on the voluntary agreement of the involved parties, or is it arranged by our government under the threat of force? Is “it” a right, a voluntary exchange, or an act of servitude?

If the candidate’s proposal involves an actual right, listen for how he or she will protect its free exercise from interference by others, including government. If the candidate’s proposal involves a benefit to be conferred upon the citizenry, listen for the mechanism by which he or she will procure that benefit. If they employ means that do not require voluntary commitment from all involved, know that they are comfortable with servitude and are willing to subjugate one person to another. It is through such involuntary arrangements that our representative form of government is cast aside and that despotism exists.