Who is visiting my blog from Moscow?

I seem to get a number of visits from someone with an IP address in Moscow. Hello Moscow! I can't help but wonder who in Moscow is checking my blog and why. It would be nice to think someone found something I wrote at least mildly interesting. I'm not even convinced my 4 "followers" find my blog all that interesting... So...Moscow...say Hi sometime.

Spoiler vote is BS

Our political system here in the USA is very broken.

The voting system is particularly bad. I'm of the opinion that the voting system we have may in fact be unconstitutional in that it allows states to draw districts that will have the effect of disenfranchising minorities that otherwise would have representation. Just quickly think about this example: Imagine a voter base of 100 voters. We'll chop those voters up not by arbitrary criteria, but rather based upon the theoretical way in which they would like to vote...or their actual political opinions about the type of representation they would like. We'll pretend that there are 30 people who consider themselves Red, 30 Blue, 10 Green, 10 Yellow, 10 Orange, and 10 Purple. If we allow the populace to elect 1 representative for every 10 voters, we'll end up with 3R, 3B, 1G, 1Y, 1O, and 1P. If instead we draw a district map and have the subset of 10 people within the district elect someone based upon a "plurality" such as we do, then we'll end up with a government that is likely made up of 5R and 5B. All the minorities are likely to be eliminated from representation. I believe that it can be proven that all district maps will have the effect of eliminating minority representation and disenfranchising voters.
In our given example, a typical district will have 3R, 3B, 1G, 1Y, 1O, and 1B voter. All the minorities are likely to be given a false choice between a B or a R representative. It's likely that a typical district will have 7 out of 10 voters not really like their representative. Compare that to the district-less voting where every minority capable of getting 10 votes gets a representative.
Then Imagine a single seat election, like for governor. Chances are that the R and B candidates will be leading in the polls. Chances are good that 70 out of 100 of our voters won't really like whomever ends up winning if we jut do straight plurality voting. Range voting would guarantee that the most preferred candidate would win any single seat election.

Multiple seat elections, such as for congress would be better off using a proxy vote system, or at the very least using re-weighted range voting.

I'll go on more about that another time.

I just got riled up because I saw Chris Mathews make the same stupid spoiler vote argument I've heard so many times before. He said essentially this: "when you vote for a third party candidate, you aren't voting for a winner, but instead you're depriving someone else of your vote and you are spoiling the election and wasting your vote." This whole idea is nonsense for a number of reasons.

Once again, I'll jump into an example to point out what I consider the absurdity of this argument. Imagine that Satan and Pestilence (of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse fame) are leading in the polls and that Jesus (or insert your favorite good being here) is also running but trails badly. It seems like Chris would say that you are wrong, even foolish, to vote for Jesus when he trails in the polls. It seems like Chris ignores the fact that you don't want either of the leading candidates to win. Here, it seems as if Chris assumes, and makes an ass of himself, that you have a preference of the leading candidates and thus you ought to vote for one of them. To tell the truth, I would in fact be a little surprised if Chris wouldn't back down given my example and admit that the problem here in fact is all those claiming that they will be voting for Satan or Pestilence, as it is clear that Jesus (or insert optimum candidate here) would be better by nearly every imaginable measure. Perhaps Chris (along with most sane people) would also admit that any voting system that would bias the system and give us this false choice of Satan or Pestilence is in fact part of the problem. Perhaps, he would even admit that the media spoon feeding us who we ought to vote for or not because they supposedly can or can't win is part of the problem...but I doubt it.

Our system of voting in the USA is nearly the worst possible one you could come up with. It is almost guaranteed to disenfranchise voters and cause massive polarity. However, the only two ways we can hope to overcome this problem is to A) vote for the candidates that don't favor the biased system such as the Republican or Democrat, or Ron Paul, or B) have a bloody revolution.

You can side with Chris Mathews and continue to throw your vote away on typical republicans and democrats and you'll get more and more corruption and eventually a collapse of society, perhaps into revolution. Or, you can try to vote some honest people like Ron Paul into important offices despite the fact that that you'll need to fight an uphill battle against the system and the "polls" won't show you to be winning right away.

The best moral rules

I was discussing morality again the other day with someone and my wife asked me to make another post about the matter. So...I've included some of my thoughts and comments below:

I'll lay it out for you in as simple terms as I can. Volumes have been written on the issue, but I'll try to sum up in a few lines.

1. Individuals all want and value different things. Everyone thinks something different is "good" from their point of view.

2. Society is made up of individuals

3. Morality deals with how one ought to behave in the context of a society

4. Rights deal with how one should expect to be treated under the moral rules of the society


5. A moral rule, to be of interest to any given individual, should be one that they want to see society follow because it helps them in their own self interests, whatever they may be. in this way, people will be moral out of self-interest despite the fact that everyone has different self interests and values. Advocating morality is good for the individual and the society.

6. The non-aggression principle - to not use force against others and their property is an optimum moral rule because it meets the self interest of everyone (except for those who by definition wish to cause harm itself - serial killers, rapists, child molesters...these people are not self interested in following this rule, but they can't be part of any moral society).

If you as an individual do not have to worry about others harming you or your property then you are objectively better off in whatever your arbitrary goals may be...thus, it is in your interest to be in a society with this moral standard no matter who you are (again, excepting for people who by definition wish to cause harm). This is as universal as a moral gets. most people, by definition, OUGHT to want this moral rule. It is objectively true for nearly everyone. That's not arrogant, that's a fact.

How to I judge the "rightness" of the non-aggression principle? Via my subjective values and wants as mentioned in item #1, just like everyone else. The great thing about the non-aggression principle is that it ought to be followed by all non-violent people all over the world because it will serve their self interests and values, no matter how subjective or different from mine they may be. This is why I consider this to be the best moral rule. It is true no matter your subjective views of the world or what you want.


7. Any moral rule that advocates the use of force against some innocent* subset of individuals is poor because it begins to run contrary to the interests of more and more individuals, both those having force used against them and those using the force. Any such rule will, by definition, reduce the both the potential size of a society and the potential opportunity for individuals to pursue what they want. Why would an individual want to follow or advocate a moral rule that is clearly contrary to their own self interests or subjective values? This is why most other moral rules are lesser than the one I'm advocating.

* innocent in this context means that they haven't violated #6. They are not, and have not, used force or fraud against others or their property.

9. Given a large, and inclusive, moral society that is following the non-aggression principle there is no reason that people can't or won't freely band together in order to pursue things like education, medical care, cars, and pretty toe nails. These are all arbitrary ends as covered in #1. All of these ends, and all other non-violent ends of all other people, can be pursued in relative safety under the non-aggression principle. You can freely help your community and family and so can everyone else if they want to...or I can live like a hermit if I want to.

10. It is true that some people may fail and it is true that by use of force some people, may some times, achieve more of what they want at the expense of what others want but there is no objective way to measure your arbitrary wants and desires against those of another and the introduction of force against innocents to achieve any given arbitrary end has removed you from what most people would universally (by their own subjective standards) agree is moral* and put you in the subset of people that want to use violence for arbitrary means (rapists, killers, molestors)

*moral here means that all non-violent people everyone can recognize that they are better off in a society with the non-aggression principle...that they ought to advocate for it. (this doesn't mean that people might not perceive they are better off with other rules, only that objectively they are better off with THIS rule than without it).


In sum: Since morality deals with how one ought to act in a society, and it is true that for all non-violent ends, an individual would be objectively better off with this the non-aggression rule in place than without it, then it should follow that this rule is objectively true for all non-violent ends.

We all should attempt to follow the non-aggression principle.

This is not a thesis, but I tried to cover the jist of things.

Why the end is nigh...

No, the world isn't going to blow up, or at least if it is I don't know about it.

The end I'm talking about is the global economy, and even more particularly, the US economy.

The topics I'll be talking about are difficult to summarize but I'll do my best. Some of the issues and ideas I'll be bring up have their own sections at the library or courses at schools, and yet here I'll try to sum them up in a couple of paragraphs.

It seems to me that the system itself is completely doomed to fail. It is, by it's very nature, unsustainable in the long term.

I'll use the post to talk about why I think this is the case. I may come back and keep editing this post in order to flesh out my ideas and arguments on the issue further. I may also choose to make more and more posts on the subject, or maybe I'll do both.

I'll start by focusing on why the US economy will fail but I may wander into the global spectrum from time to time. I think arguments like those I'll use in dealing with the US will also apply to all other countries, as all other countries that I'm aware of suffer from the same issues to different degrees.

Here is the bare bones, over-simplified, argument as to why the US economy is doomed to fail:

1. We use a debt based fiat currency. In effect, all of our money is "borrowed" into existence. In order for debtors to pay back their principle plus interest, it is required that even more people borrow even more money into existence or else there won't be enough money to pay back everything owed.

2. Oil and other fossil fuels are finite. We will peak in production of these fuels some day. That day may already be here.

3. Monetary inflation is required for our monetary system. We always need more money to be made so that we can pay back the principle plus the interest. The system itself can not allow the money supply to shrink too much because the effects would be devastating to debtors...and since nearly everyone is a debtor, deflation would be devastating to nearly everyone. In general, falling prices or deflation, is bad for people in debt as they lose income and possibly default. Bottom line is that inflation is basically a requirement of our monetary system.

4. Our inflation requires a growing energy supply or ever increasing production or else our monetary inflation turns rapidly into price inflation. If we aren't producing ever more real goods and services, then what we get is more and more dollars chasing the same or less goods. This will result in real price increases.

5. Real price increases of the sort mentioned above are bad for the currency. They tend to reduce faith in the currency and make future investment less likely. Future investment also means future debt...which according to#1 we require ever more of. Thus, we can't have people lose too much faith in the currency or else they stop going into debt fast enough and if they aren't going into debt fast enough then the system fails. Real price increases will also tend to increase interest rates (though our FED can screw that up to a large degree) and as interest rates go up, people tend to want to borrow less...and again, we need people to borrow ever more money or else there simply isn't enough money for everyone to pay back their principle plus interest which means systemic failures become ever more probable. I believe this condition where we have high inflation and little or no economic growth is often referred to as "stagflation."

6. Our regulations and property laws, including intellectual property laws, are skewed very badly so as to prevent individual workers from being entrepreneurial and converting natural resources and labor into profitable goods and services on their own. In other words, natural "market forces" are badly warped out of shape and are prevented from functioning. Sometimes government policy is to actively encourage the exact opposite of what needs to happen in order for the system to heal. We don't have homestead laws and our 10% unemployed can't just start farming for themselves until they figure out a better job. They can't just enter into all sorts of fields because the barriers to entry are ever greater.

7. The price of oil is artificially, and tenuously, attached to the dollar. Oil is bought and sold in dollars. The worlds major oil markets and major oil producers all use dollars and have done so for 50 years. When the US rapidly borrows more money into existence our price inflation is greatly tempered by this fact because as the cost of oil goes up, everyone else in the world requires more dollars to buy the oil they want and they thus need to suck dollars out of circulation here...slowing down the price growth of everything else for Americans.

8. The baby-boomer population bubble is problematic.


I'll elaborate more on all of the above points more as I go.

Right now I'd just like to point out that I think that a large deal of what we see in the US economy right now can be explained by these points and that looking at the US economy with these ideas in mind it seems like we may, in fact, be headed for a systemic failure.

We have had greater than 9% unemployment and close to 20% under-employment for a couple of years now. The biggest "dips" in the unemployment rate during that time have come from government expansion and things like census jobs.

Our job creation is having trouble keeping up with population growth. Several reasons our employment rate isn't getting higher even faster include the fact that people "fall off" the unemployment rolls, that if people earn even a tiny bit of money they aren't unemployed, that if a young person opts to go to school or just fails to look for a job then they too aren't unemployed.

That's enough for now.

I'll be back for more later.

Rebuttal

I get so few comments and find the topic so interesting I thought I'd take time to respond to a comment I received today. I'll put the text I'm responding to in italics so it will hopefully be easier to read.

It was God who defined marriage as between a man and a woman (check it out!)

Check it out where? The bible? Which version? Will the verses I read be intelligible in English or do I need to learn Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic? I think I covered this well in my last post. If one wishes to say god defined the term, then the state has no place in giving married people special status of any kind. Check out the first amendment and refer to the text of the declaration of independence where it is established that the government's authority comes from the governed...and that includes all gay members of society.


Our founding fathers had NO idea what this country would be like in the year 2010. They could not possibly have fathomed gay rights or marriage for that matter. Our founding fathers were Christians although some refuse to believe that.

The founders may not have known what the country would be like in 2010, but they built into the system protections for all minorities, right down to the individual, and they designed a government with checks and balances that they hoped would be able to protect those minorities from the government, and the ever changing will of the majority.

I find the word "Christian" in this context to be without meaning. There are as many sets of "Christian" belief as there are "Christians" in the world today; so to say that the founder's were "Christian" as if it implies shared religious views beyond deism is kinda silly.

There is nothing meaningful one can take from the idea that the founder's were "Christian" and then apply to the idea of the word "marriage" or it's legal issues. For instance, John Adams was a unitarian, who loved the peace and equality he felt was taught by the "Christian" religion...and today a number of unitarian sects of Christianity openly recognize gay marriage. In addition, John Adams was the president and he signed into law the Treaty of Tripoli which had been unanimously passed by the senate (not many things had ever passed unanimously at that time); this treaty contained this text: "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion -— as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen" So, it seems that John Adams and all the senators at the time didn't feel the government of the USA was based upon any religion or in any way in conflict with the Muslims or any other religion. Having the entire senate pass a treaty with such text says a lot about how "Christian" our government was at the time and even today.

Then there was Thomas Jefferson, who so disliked the superstition and magic in the bible that he actually took it upon himself to re-write the bible with all the magic and divine references to Jesus removed. His bible focused on what he felt were the valuable moral teachings. Do you suppose his religious views are in line with Ted Haggard? Jim Bakker? Billy Graham? Peter Popoff? How about the Pope? Any of them?

There is also reason to believe that George Washington and other founders were also only deist or unitarian in nature. Which again, might put their religious views in line with those "Christian" sects that openly accept gay marriage.

But I digress...all this is a red herring anyway.

I tend to believe that the people do have some say in the laws passed by Congress. These options are put on the ballot because the people have the RIGHT to provide their opinion.

The idea that we have inalienable rights, and that these rights are equal for all members of society are core principles I dealt with in my last post. Sure, you can have whatever opinion you want, but that doesn't mean we can vote on who to eat for lunch. The answer is: nobody. We all have the right to life and it can't be denied to us no matter how many people vote. So, sure the people of California have a process that they can use to pass laws or even constitutional amendments that bypasses their legislature, and they used it to get prop 8 on the ballot. That doesn't in any way mean that prop 8 is moral or legal...all it means is that some people followed a procedure and then they voted.



When the opinion of the majority is overturned by ONE judge (gay, black, brown, jewish, etc) I have a problem with the direction in which my country is going. Far cry from where it was just thirty years ago.

You should not respect the will of the majority on all things. I would have thought my cannibal example made that clear enough. You can't at the same time appeal to the founders for moral and legal guidance by suggesting that "they" gave us a different country and at the same time ignore the text of the declaration of independence which states clearly we the people have unalienable rights. That means we have certain things that simple can't be voted on morally...like who to eat for lunch.

It is the responsibility of the judge to stand up for the rights of the minority and insure that they are treated equally in the eyes of the law. I find it appalling that a judge would be chastised or criticized for fulfilling this aspect of his job.

What if the people under 60 years of age passed a referendum to seize all the property of all persons over 60 years of age and distribute it amongst themselves? Would you then be ashamed of the 62 year old judge for overturning the ballot measure and saying it was clearly not legal? Or would the judge have to be under 60 for his opinion to matter? It seems to me that it is clear the young people should not be allowed to vote away the property of all the old people even though we out number you by a lot. It seems equally clear to me, that any vote we had on the issue would be morally and legally void because of our constitution and founding principles.

It's important that the system treats everyone equal and that judges insure minorities are indeed equal in the eyes of the law.

---

"They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
-- Pastor Martin Niemöller

Our government...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness"

So begins the declaration of independence. It states, rather succinctly in my opinion, a set of core principles upon which our country was founded. It doesn't cover all the principles one might say we had or have, but it's enough to get me started anyway.

I had a discussion today about the court ruling in California that overturned the voter initiative to outlaw gay marriage. The person I was talking to was of the opinion that it is wrong for a single judge to overturn the will of the people and that in particular, it was wrong for a gay judge to rule on this case. I felt she was wrong on both points.

On the matter of overturning the will of the people, I tried to point out that we aren't supposed to be ruled by the will of the majority in this country. We the people give to the government limited powers in order to secure our own rights (see above). The law should be blind when it comes to rights and securing them equally.
I tried to point out that it wouldn't be right if she was on an island with 100 cannibals and they all voted on what to eat for lunch. Clearly it's not right of them to eat her and they shouldn't even be allowed to vote on such a thing. The very idea is barbaric, immoral, and certainly it's contrary to the founding principles above. She has a right to life and that can't be voted on. She wanted to say that she would just be lunch and that's the way it is. I however disagree that such a vote is in any way moral or deserving of respect; and it certainly doesn't fall in line with what the founding fathers intended. I tried to point out that we are supposed to live in a republic and not a democracy. We aren't supposed to vote on just anything, just like we shouldn't vote on who to eat for lunch. The government is endowed with it's just, and limited, powers by the people to secure their rights. It is a well agreed upon right that we have the right to live, so it's clear that the government shouldn't be voting on who to kill. If a judge were to overturn the vote of the cannibals and tell them that they can't eat her, that judge would be right for overruling them even though the vote was 100 to 1!

At this point the issue seemed to be one of what "marriage" is. She wanted to say that it was a union of one man and one woman and that's the way it's always been and that's what the voters wanted so we should respect that.
I, on the other hand, recognize that either marriage get's it's meaning from a higher authority, which makes it a religious matter the state can't be involved with, or it is just a word that we the people define and alter to meet our needs. I suppose there might be other possibilities, but I'll focus on those, as they seem obvious to me.

If there is a god and he said what marriage is, then the state has no place in giving benefits or special status to followers of that particular religion. The law needs to treat us all equally. So, if the state did create a special status it called "marriage" and gave those married people special tax status, and special insurance rates, and special services it would have no choice but to allow that special status to be applied to all pairs of people who wanted to choose it or else it would be playing favorites with religion...and that's a big no no according to the first amendment and it's also obviously wrong according to the principles in the opening of the declaration of independence whereby all the people are securing their equal rights, not special rights for some. I happen to know there are religions and even Christian sects that respect and allow for gay marriage, so it's not even like there is some sort of universal understanding that god defined marriage one way or another.

The other possibility is that marriage is just a word we use to describe the union of two people. If it's just a word, then there is no reason we can't adapt that word to be inclusive and insure equal rights. Stop and think about what it means if gays can't have marriage status in the states eyes. It makes it complicated, if not impossible to establish inheritance rights, shared property rights, medical proxy status, and tax status, not to mention your ability to pay for insurance and other products.

Now, most of the time, it should be possible to jump through hoops and establish contracts between yourself and a gay partner that does give you inheritance rights, medical proxy rights, and perhaps some other things granted by a marriage contract. The ability to do these things, and the ease of doing them, will vary a lot by state. In contrast, all of this is taken care of at once with a marriage contract and as a bonus you'll also qualify for special tax status and the new found "right" to purchase products for spouses or participate in programs that require spouses.

It seems clear to me that by preventing some people from getting "married" in the eyes of the state, we are clearly playing favorites and limiting the rights of those who are not permitted.

At this point some people might choose to point out that "gay" people are free to marry a member of the opposite sex and get the same recognition from the state as the rest of us. So ha! They aren't limited! neener neener boo boo.
To that, I must ask what make a person a man and what makes a person a woman? Do I need a penis to be a man? What if I lost mine in an accident? What if I wasn't born with one?
Or, what if I'm not a simple XY, or XX baby? It's more common than you might think: http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency
Such a person would lack, what is fundamentally, the trait we generally use to determine gender and such a person would thus be prevented, by law, from establishing the same legal status that "normal" men and women can get.
No matter how small this pool of people is, it should be clear that a law that says you can marry a member of the "opposite" sex simply doesn't apply to these people as they don't have an opposite or they may have both sexes at the same time!

Oh sure...we could let these people just choose to be categorized as a M or an F....but now look what we've done...we've given a special privilege to these people! I can't choose to be an F! Certainly not without a lot of medical work.

No matter how ya slice it, you're going to end up denying rights to some people. Marriage, when limited to being between 1 man and one woman, creates a special class of people with special rights and that just simply doesn't jive with morality and it doesn't line up with the founding principles of this country.

Let the gay people marry. Let anyone marry anyone they like, be it XX, XY, XXY or any other chromosome combo. It doesn't hurt the straight or "normal" people at all. It doesn't hurt "traditional families" in any provable or objective way. All we know for sure it does is make certain people second class citizens to leave it the way it is.

A quick rant on health care reform...

I'm irritated with our government and media. I'm almost always irritated with them, but this week I'm more annoyed than usual.

Let's say we all agree that it would be nice if we could supply everyone the health care they need.
Let's further agree that our insurance companies and the laws that currently govern them are often "bad" and they leave some people lacking in care.

Now, the question is what do we do about this situation, if anything?

I think there are a number of things we could do to help the health care cost situation including the importing of drugs and tort reform. We can go more into that later.

I haven't read the bill and I have no intention of trying. Nobody has read the whole bill, with the possible exception of senate pages who may have been forced to read the thing on the floor of the senate while nobody was listening. I've read enough of whats in the bill to be annoyed with our government for having passed it though.

Right now I'd like to rant about how annoyed I am with the media saying the following or it's equivalent over and over: "this bill will make health care more affordable for everyone."

This is such complete bullshit. It's mind-boggling how people in government and the media can even think such things.

I'm particularly annoyed when they use the word "everyone." They are putting a tax on high priced health insurance...which by definition will make health care for those people more expensive. So, right off the bat we can't say everyone.

Next, there are some obvious flaws with the ideas in the bill.
The insurance companies like to avoid covering the sick...particularly those with pre-existing conditions. I'm not saying this is moral or that I like the insurance companies, but it's obvious that this is good for their business. Now, we're going to force insurance companies to cover all the people they wouldn't take previously. Why didn't they take them before? Because they were too damn expensive! So, the assertion is that this bill...which forces the insurance companies to cover all the costly sick people they have been trying to avoid or charge and arm and leg will somehow make premiums for the rest of us go down. This is back asswards. When you add a bunch of expensive people to the insurance rolls, all the healthy people have to subsidize their costs. Adding sick people will mean increased premiums.
Now, the hope is that insurance companies will lower their administrative costs and cut executive pay and such and this will help keep costs in check. There are a bunch of carrots in the bill to get them to try to do this and penalties if it doesn't seem like they are. Pardon me if I'm skeptical that the morons on capital hill could write a bill that would even come close to performing this task correctly and keep a highly profit motive based industry from wanting to earn more profit.

I think I'll also write some about the constitutionality of this absurd mandate to buy health insurance. It would be possible for congress to pass a law that does what this "mandate" does and have it be legal, but the way they wrote it, it is almost certainly unconstitutional.

Go government! Go Media!