Yearly Archives: 2012

The hypocrisy of local control advocates

November 6 there will be a proposed constitutional amendment to the Georgia state constitution (Georgia Charter Schools Amendment 1) on the ballot that would grant the General Assembly the authority to create charter schools directly, thus bypassing creation by the local school board. This activity had been found to be unconstitutional in a May 2011 ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court – hence the amendment to make it constitutional. This amendment is quite the conundrum: voting yes would marginally increase school choice at the expense of creating an entirely new government bureaucracy to oversee “state” charter schools. However voting no would prevent new bureaucracy, but at the expense of continuing to maintain the monopoly privilege of the local school system. A bit like trying to decide if I would prefer to be kicked in the mouth or the stomach.

When the positions of both sides are contrary to the principles of a free society it makes it that much easier to pick apart their rhetoric. The argument from the pro camp is essentially that in order to increase choice we need to just stop pouring money into the current (local) system, and now pour money into an entirely new (state) system. Trust us. We know what we’re doing. They claim it will not divert money from the local schools, and that is true, to an extent, as the amendment makes specific mention of non-diversion of funds. However, it is laced with qualifying language such as “prohibits…deduction of CERTAIN state funds from local school districts”. Funds are fungible, although non-discretionary funding may not be touched, there is no doubt that discretionary funding will magically become scarcer. And when that happens you will have one side shouting “draconian cuts!” and the other “no change in funding!” and both would be correct. Is it any wonder voters are turned off by the political process?

The con side is just as bad. They employ the same anti-competitive rhetoric usually reserved for discussions of vouchers. Charters are evil because the competition they would engender results in (a) wasteful duplication of effort and (b) would siphon money away to evil non-local “for profit” school organizations. So I suppose then it would be an equally good idea if we were to outlaw private groceries and establish a local government run “food board” that monopolistically sells food to citizens in its region in order to eliminate duplication of effort and the export of “local money”. It’s much easier to misdirect the spotlight from one’s own pro-monopoly rhetoric if it is draped in anti-local jingoism. I guess a local monopoly is preferable to “foreign” competition.

The perplexing part is that both sides are right and wrong. Both local control and more choice ARE better, but monopolistic trusts and bureaucratic government programs are not the way to achieve those goals. The truly hypocritical position lies with the local school boards that take great offense at the state intruding into their perceived power domain, however, they have no qualms about intruding into a parent’s right to have ultimate control over their child’s education. A true advocate of local control defends the rights of the most local decision makers: the parents. Parents have the right, not the privilege, of deciding how their children will be educated – without being required to suffer the diminishment of choice via the act of reaching into the parent’s wallet in order to pay for the choice already made for the parents by the school board.

In the end I reluctantly recommend a “no” vote if only to send a message to the legislature that we want better legislation. We do not need more government control of the education market, we need less. We need an option that provides for less outside control and more local control, control by the parents.

Cutting corners

“And so you’ve got higher administrative costs, plus profit on top of that. And if you are going to save any money through what Governor Romney’s proposing, what has to happen is, is that the money has to come from somewhere.” – President Barack Obama.

President Obama made the above remark in last week’s (10/3/12) presidential “debate” (aka joint press conference) comparing the cost structure of Medicare to that of private insurance. His remarks rely on a grade school understanding of profit that is sadly shared by many.

Let’s dissect the error of his ways. “And so you’ve got higher administrative costs”: The president is being a bit deceptive here. Medicare’s administrative costs are lower because it has virtually no checks against fraud prior to payment. The system is designed purposefully this way in order to entice doctors with an easy claims process. Unfortunately it leaves the system vulnerable to every type of conman and charlatan. Kind of like saying a government-run unmanned honor system bank operates with lower costs than a private bank full of tellers and security guards.

Next he says “plus profit on top of that” in reference to private insurance: Implicit in this statement is the notion that without profit (or perhaps just “excess” profit, “excess” being defined in the liberal dictionary right next to “fair share”) everything would cost proportionately less. If he is going to be intellectually honest then using this logic there is no other conclusion then that government should run everything profit-free. Considering how well that system (communism) has worked, it is unlikely he will be intellectually honest.

However the last statement, “the money has to come from somewhere” reveals his ignorance of business. This ignorance renders him incapable of comprehending how a business could enhance profit by any method other than cutting corners. The method that eludes him is productivity improvements. These are achieved by (a) identifying inefficiencies and removing them and (b) utilizing new or existing tools. With productivity gains the consumer receives the same or a better product for a lower price while the business earns a greater profit. The profit motive encourages good businesses to enhance productivity, which benefits both themselves and their consumers. The profit motive can also encourage some businesses to cut corners on product quality. However these businesses can only cut corners to the extent consumers are willing to accept the tradeoffs. If they go too far they risk going out of business at the hands of more efficient competitors. In the long run the profit motive strengthens good businesses and weakens bad businesses.

If government operates without a profit motive (as the President implies is a superior route for purposes of saving money) it operates in an information vacuum, like a ship adrift beneath a cloudy sky with no stars to guide it. It is not possible to know if one is adding or degrading value if they never ask “what is this worth?” A prime example: baking apple pies adds value, but burning apple pies degrades value. Both involve the same use of resources (apples, labor, oven) however one process is wasteful while the other beneficial. There is no non-arbitrary method to determine which process adds value or degrades value and by how much. The only way to know is to offer each on the market and see which one more people are willing to give more in exchange for. To those that might say healthcare is different, then I ask you this: if the consumer does not directly bear the cost of the healthcare they consume, then on what basis can they draw a line and say “this is too much to spend?” Is there no amount that is too much? There is only one tool government has to maintain product access when it forces prices for scarce goods below their market rate: rationing. Rationing through waiting lists (a common practice in the single-payer no profit systems) gives the false illusion of lower nominal costs by simply ignoring the costs in terms of quality of life for those suffering while they wait or the cost of lives cut short. It may seem like voodoo to President Obama, but the desire for profit is a powerful motivator to increase efficiency and thus lower costs.

End the TSA

“You can’t professionalize unless you federalize” said Senator Tom Daschle after the 9/11 attacks regarding the apparent need for the federal government to assume the responsibility for all airport security. It sounded somewhat plausible at the time. After all, clearly the private system must have failed by allowing the hijackers through? Actually, no. The knives used were not in any way restricted under the government rules in place at the time. Three of the hijackers were permitted entry to the US by the federal government even though they had expired visas. Yet these failures in both governmental policy and procedure were simply ignored as those in power assured themselves that NOW we would learn from our mistakes. Until the shoe bomber. Ok, now we’ve really learned – check everyone’s shoes too. Until the underwear bomber. Ok, ok, now we’ve really got it this time, we swear – check for liquids above some arbitrary number we pulled out of thin air. Some might argue that despite its flaws the TSA must be effective, as we’ve had no more hijackings since 9/11. True, but under the prior private system there had not been a single hijacking incident on a commercial passenger flight originating from a US airport since 1983 (and that was merely a diversion, no lives were lost). For some perspective consider that in the 1970’s we had 13 hijacking in US airspace. Thirteen! And yet no one saw the need to federalize then. However after nearly two highjack-free decades it was decided that the only way to prevent another 9/11 style attack is to put in charge of security the same people that can’t even manage to efficiently run the post office or Amtrak: the US federal government. The TSA has increased staff over 400% since 2001 (costing taxpayers $56 billion) while flights have only increased 12% – and yet security related delays are commonplace. That is classic text-book government inefficiency at work.

The real problem with the TSA, however, is not the bloated inefficiency or free mammography’s but rather their complete lack of accountability to the airlines or the passenger. When a terrorist does eventually manage to navigate the well-publicized security maze, who will be held accountable? No one. The government is immune from any sort of prosecutorial culpability. Rather than being the catalyst to ending the TSA, such a failure will only be the rallying cry for even more money and manpower. Funny, failure in the private sphere results in bankruptcy, but in the government sphere it only enhances the failing entity. In a private system there is accountability. Airlines have a self-interest in not seeing their planes destroyed and their customers killed – it’s kind of bad for business. They have insurance for such events. Their insurer has a self-interest in not paying claims, therefore it requires the airline to screen passengers. The airline in turn hires an outside firm to handle screening. That outside company would bear liability for their failures therefore they would have insurance. Both insurers would closely monitor and regulate the screening company to ensure they did an effective job because those insurers would not want to pay out claims.

In a private system of interlocking companies and insurers the common goal of not losing money is accomplished most effectively by those who in turn are most effective at preventing property damage and loss of life. Those ineffective at it are quickly driven out of business (assuming no government bailouts). It is accountability, not government, which fosters professionalism.

Don’t blame people, blame the system Mitt

Poor Mitt Romney – apparently no one ever taught him the first rule of politics: always assume you are being recorded. The issue at hand though is not so much his ham-fisted point making, but rather that he, like so many other politicians, decries the effects of government policies while ignoring the underlying causes.

What government gives in benefits they take away in choice.

Both the left and the right work their constituencies into a lather by heaping denigration upon individuals rather than upon the system that fosters the behavior they impugn. When government intervenes they not only give but take as well. What they give in benefits they take away in choice. Government programs crowd out or eliminate private markets that would permit the individual to take personal responsibility. For example, Social Security participation is mandated by law. We cannot opt out. After being robbed of 12.4% of our income whom but the wealthiest has anything left for private retirement? Social Security offers supplemental income for children with disabilities (to help pay for care). There currently exists no private insurance market for disability/long term care for those under 18. Likewise, there is no private market for unemployment insurance. Is this surprising? Why opt to pay for something that is already “free.” Private disability insurance for adults exists however only a minority of workers have such coverage. It offers little to lower wage workers relative to the “free” offerings of Social Security disability. People are not stupid. You can’t blame them for choosing “free” over “not free” given the choice. And you certainly can’t blame them when there is no choice at all. The solution is to fix the system, not the people. Phasing out government monopolized programs like social security, unemployment insurance, and welfare would give people back their natural incentive to look out for themselves. They would purchase their own individual (a) disability policy, (b) unemployment policy and (c) save for their own retirement. Elimination of the taxes that pay for these programs would permit higher wages thus offsetting or eliminating net costs. These changes alone would mean the private market would cover 99% of what people are currently receiving as government “handouts.” Private charity would easily handle the 1% of cases where extreme bad luck has left some unable to care for themselves. And even if you believe in the government “safety net” concept, surely it should be for the bottom 1%, not the bottom 50%.

The left is no more immune to this chicanery then the right. They decry the evil one-percenters and crony-capitalists without addressing what created them. Their outrage is the moral equivalent of leaving all the windows and doors of your house wide open while on vacation and then being surprised that someone robbed you. Maybe hunting down the robbers and putting them in jail will make you feel better, but wouldn’t it make sense to just lock your house? The solution to combat cronyism and corporate welfare is to simply eliminate government authority in the arenas that the large corporations are controlling. End the bailouts, the money printing, fractional-reserve lending and bogus deposit “insurance”, the tariffs, the competition-eliminating regulations, the subsidies and the mandates. All of these are mechanisms by which government helps big business to the detriment of everyone else. Big banks and big business are big and powerful because of government standing behind them like the kid on the playground who has the big bully backing them up.

The left and the right have something to learn from Mitt’s gaffe: don’t blame people for simply using the bad tools government gives them. Destroy the bad tools.

The Value Myth

Are teachers underpaid? How much is a teacher worth? To answer this we must first define “value”. Although it is a common myth, there is no such thing as intrinsic value. Gold has no more intrinsic value than a lump of mud. The act of digging a hole has no more intrinsic value than teaching. By “intrinsic” I mean objectively measurable. Value is an entirely subjective human construct (just as “beauty” is.) It cannot be measured like density or boiling point. However, subjectivity does not imply lack of consensus. In broad strokes we rank things quite similarly (i.e. we prefer gold over mud). But at the finer scales our value rankings are different and can shift over time. These differences are in fact a necessary condition for commerce. Generally speaking, one values things they want more highly than things they already have. For example, if I buy your wristwatch for $10 then I value the wristwatch more than the $10. Likewise, you value the $10 more than the wristwatch. The value of the wristwatch is not $10, it is either more than $10 or less than $10 depending on who you ask. If that seems counterintuitive, consider this: would you sell your $10 bill for my $10 bill? No, because you gain nothing in the exchange. Then why sell a wristwatch for $10 if you gain nothing in the exchange? Both parties realize a gain in an exchange due to their different value rankings (within the context of that trade).

Both parties realize a gain in an exchange due to their different value rankings

So how does understanding subjective value relate to determining if teachers are underpaid? In a free (non-coercively influenced) market, every completed trade is “fair” in the sense both parties subjectively gained. In a free market being “underpaid” simply means there was a willing buyer that you failed to find that valued what you sold more than the party you sold it to. Subsidized public schooling is at best a semi-free market. It has actually driven wages higher, not lower, than they would be in a free market. We know this because if teachers were underpaid then private schools would poach the best teachers with elevated pay. In fact the reverse is true. Private school teachers make on average 25% less than public school teachers. And yet some would like to widen the disparity even more. For example at the “Save our Schools” rally in 2011 (see video at 3 min.) a woman implied we should spend $72 trillion/year on education (I guess the public schools indeed failed her in that she lacked the math skills to realize that spending $1 billion/child would come to that sum).

So how do we align the fact that most if not all of us value teaching above say professional football and yet teachers make far less? The cumulative effect of our individual value rankings when filtered through supply and demand across an economy can result in apparent societal ranking of value at odds with the ranking of value of the individuals making up that society. Teachers don’t make less than football players because “society” values them less. They make less because of math. A small number divided by a very small number is bigger than a large number divided by a very large number. (e.g. what each pays in property taxes or tuition far exceeds what one might spend on watching professional sports yet teachers make less because in part they vastly outnumber (about 4,000 to 1) professional football players).

If you really think teachers are underpaid you are certainly free to start a private school and pay them exactly what you feel is appropriate. That’s the advantage of a free market vs government; nobody’s approval is needed for you to immediately take advantage of the mistakes of others in the market

You didn’t put that fire out

Nestled deep within President Obama’s infamous “you didn’t build that” speech is a subtle statist sentiment that has escaped the slings and arrows of his detractors. Perhaps because, being statist themselves, they agree with it. He says:

“The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.  I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service.  That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.”

There are two flaws in this statement, the first philosophical, the second practical. The philosophical flaw is the implication that a necessary condition for success is human cooperation (true) that is facilitated by government action (false). This notion rests on the faulty premise that absent government coercion certain types of cooperation are simply not possible. To underscore this sentiment he utilizes what many statists consider to be the “slam dunk” example against privately supplied “public goods”: fire fighting. Alas, he has picked just about the most easily debunked example.  This one is almost too easy to dispense with. Here goes:

To the statist the question is this: We want to protect our homes from fire, but how shall we pay for this service? If your house is burning down you aren’t going to compare prices, therefore market failure is implied. In fact some have made the most ironic of arguments against privatization of such services by citing the recent example of a public fire department that allowed a house to burn due to lack of fee payment. The irony lies within their straw man argument that mischaracterizes the distortions of normal market incentives inherent in a public monopoly as being examples of flaws in putative private market.

To understand how any private market works requires an understanding of incentives. Who has an incentive to prevent property destruction? The owner and the insurer. In a private system insurers would REQUIRE homeowners to purchase fire protection (if not outright inclusion of such costs in the premium). Because the insurer wants to be reasonably confident that these companies are competent, the insurer will have a vested interest in auditing and regulating these fire companies to be sure they know what they’re doing. And the fire companies will welcome such regulation because meeting the insurer’s standards will ensure they are on the insurer’s short list of approved fire mitigation vendors. The mutually beneficial incentive structure of the relationships ensures their continued maintenance. No outside compulsion or force is necessary. The homeowner is protected from fire and loss, the insurer is protected from loss and the fire company receives remuneration for their valuable service to both parties.

What would be the benefits of this private system over the current system? The amount the homeowner pays will be related to risk. Riskier homeowners pay more, less risky ones pay less. Our current system simply assumes expensive homes are somehow inherently more likely to catch fire than inexpensive homes. This is absurd on its face.  In a private system costs will be driven downward as each party tries to minimize risk. Owners suffer fewer losses, insurers pay fewer claims and fire companies decrease their capital overhead and operate more efficiently. In our current monopoly system, fire prevention technology may help the owner and the insurer however it has minimal to no impact on the budget of public fire departments. Because there is no price feedback in the public system, resources may be under or over allocated due to budgets driven by bureaucrats rather than customers.

So, the President is wrong. If we all had our own fire service it would work just fine. It is indeed possible to cooperate without the gentle fist of government.

The Mortgage Interest Myth

There is a persistent myth that the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction (HMID) does the following: (a) promotes home ownership by (b) providing a financial benefit to the middle class taxpayer. That’s the funny thing about myths; they aren’t true. In fact, the truth here is the exact opposite. The HMID has not expanded homeownership in any meaningful way. Between 1960 and 1997 the rate of owner occupied homes has bounced around in the 62-66% range. This is no different than other Western countries that lack a tax favored deduction for mortgage interest. Why? The HMID is a government subsidy and subsidies drive the costs of whatever they are subsidizing upward (healthcare, education, sugar, etc). The government is effectively paying people to engage in approved behavior (home buying). However, these subsidies do not occur in an information vacuum: home sellers are aware of this subsidy and adjust asking prices upward accordingly. There is no net benefit to the buyer (who pays more upfront and is then reimbursed by the government) or to the seller (who gets more when selling but paid more when buying). The only consistent beneficiary is the real estate agent. The National Realtors Association lobbies hard to maintain the HMID. Their protestations to the possibility of losing this part of the tax code make clear current policy benefits them. Their reaction makes sense in light of the fact that by their own admission the HMID drives prices upward (as much as 15% higher) thus effectively keeping all home prices 15% higher than they otherwise would be. A government-sponsored program that maintains artificially high prices is beneficial for what reason again?

The second part of this myth is that the HMID actually benefits the middle class. As of 2009 only 22% of federal returns took advantage of the HMID and of that only 30% were classified as “middle class”. In other words, only a mere 6% of returns constitute middle class usage of this deduction. The average tax savings for people in this group is only $152/year. The primary beneficiaries of the HMID are the “wealthy” – those making over $200k/year. Over 70% of returns above $200k/year claim the HMID. Because the wealthy pay disproportionately more tax they reap a likewise disproportionate advantage from this deduction with an average savings of $1862/year. Technically no taxpayers “benefit” from the HMID. Absent this deduction they would have paid a lower price for their home so their net payment is roughly the same.

Eliminating tax subsidies coupled with a lowering of marginal rates would allow a tax savings to be spread around to ALL taxpayers, not just a narrow few. In fact, Obama’s own “Deficit Commission” aka the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson Deficit Reduction Plan called for eliminating nearly ALL tax exemptions coupled with lowered rates. Those benefiting the most (the wealthy with large exemptions) from current exemptions will effectively pay more tax even with decreased marginal rates because the net benefit to all other taxpayers from lowered rates must come from somewhere if revenue neutrality is maintained.

It’s time to let go of tax myths that act as obstacles to change and move toward a simplified tax system (ideally the Fair Tax but for now we are discussing income tax) with a low (and ideally flat) rate structure and broad base that is built on a relative foundation of fairness (to the extent that the concept of “tax fairness” is not an oxymoron) that does not attempt to manipulate behavior by rewarding a few for behavior that many are unable to participate in.

Who shall steer us then?

This week the Republican Party will be carrying out their well-scripted coronation of Mitt Romney as the party’s presidential nominee. Sadly, those in control of the party are either moles for the Obama campaign or are criminally inept. They have done everything in their power to suppress any possibility of Ron Paul’s name going into the nomination ring at the convention (in case you’re not aware, he never officially dropped out of the race and technically can be nominated were it not for recent RNC shenanigans).

What is the result? The nomination of a candidate who is more like Obama than unlike him. Yes, their rhetoric may be different, but both are in stark agreement on many issues: the war on drugs, the war on terror, bailouts for big banks (TARP), increasing government spending, and government managed socialized healthcare (Obamacare v Romneycare) to name just a few. So while the American people watch the cleverly orchestrated marionette show between Mitt and Barry, little do they realize there is only one manipulator controlling the strings: the elite party bosses of the centralized state (D’s and R’s are two sides of the same coin). In that respect I suppose it should not be surprising that Ron Paul was ignored and shut out of the process at every turn. He represented an opportunity for a meaningful choice between the two major parties. Why would the party push a candidate who is nearly identical to the opposition rather than a candidate that can offer a real alternative in the market place of ideas? If I’m trying to sell a product I don’t do it by copying my competition and then claiming the product is different because mine comes in a red box and theirs comes in a blue box.

Libertarians don’t want to pilot the ship, they want to dock it so people are free to come and go as they please.

Of course one could make the same argument against the Democrats. Their candidate claimed to stand in stark contrast to the policies of Bush yet he furthers Bush-era policies: bank bailouts, DEA raids of state-legal marijuana dispensaries, Guantanamo, and strong support of the PATRIOT Act and the NDAA. The Democrats are becoming war hawks and pawns of the military industrial complex (NDAA support) while the Republicans are becoming socialists (Romneycare, Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind). Both parties are merging into the single Bureaucratic State Party. This “BS” Party is a monopoly that suppresses all outside dissent and rigs the rules to prevent you, the voter, from even hearing about other options. For example, the Commission on Presidential Debates (a non-profit organization literally controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties) has a “15% rule” that prevents Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gov. Gary Johnson from being on the debate stage with Romney and Obama this fall. The media, rather than acting in its regulatory role as part of the Fourth Estate, is willingly involved in the suppression of dissenting opinions by not even placing Gov. Johnson (or any other party’s candidates) in any polls used as the metric for the magical 15% threshold.

So again I ask, why would both parties be so aligned across so many issues while feigning the appearance of difference in order to give the populace the illusion of choice? Because the goal of both parties is power. Their policy alignments all have one thing in common: expansion or maintenance of government power. The bureaucrats write rules that validate the existence of more bureaucrats. The parties may fight over who is steering the ship, but what they both agree on is that the people must never ever leave the ship. If the people find out they can live on land and take care of themselves, then there won’t be much need for a ship and her crew, will there? Libertarians don’t want to pilot the ship, they want to dock it so people are free to come and go as they please. It’s all about choice. You may not agree with Gov. Gary Johnson, but fairness in the political process is a very basic American principal. There is no legitimate reason to establish rules that suppress ideas that fall outside of the 3×5 card of approved political opinion. Let the voters hear all sides and make up their own minds.

Breaking Bad

I’m old enough that I now find most entertainment to be fairly derivative and predictable. However the TV series “Breaking Bad” is a welcome exception. If you are not familiar with it but enjoy solidly unpredictable drama you owe it to yourself to look into it. The August 12 episode’s ending left the audience in a state of numbed denial [spoiler alert: stop here if you have not seen the episode yet]. The main characters have just clandestinely robbed a train of a key chemical needed to prepare crystal meth when a young boy on a motorbike happens them upon. Without a word one of them pulls out a gun and simply dispatches the boy as blithely as one would a troublesome fly. Why? Because the boy might say something which could lead to their arrest.

After the shock of witnessing the senseless onscreen (albeit fictional) death of a young innocent wore off I came to realize why this scene was so disturbing: this type of violence occurs routinely. The boy’s death is iconic of the reprehensible loss of civilian life in wars. In “traditional” wars civilians usually know where the front line is and can avoid it. Today that is impossible. The wars on “terror” and drugs occur on a global battlefield from which there is no escape. Innocence is no defense: you are just one street address typo away from no-knock raid carried out by machine gun festooned goons.

Apropos to the “preventive” murder depicted, the US repeatedly goes to war upon the same principal of “potential threat neutralization” (Spain-1898, Korea-1950, Vietnam-1965, Iraq-2003). Unsurprisingly the neocons and chicken hawks are now rattling their swords to do the same to other countries (Iran, Syria). We as a nation are engaging in the same onscreen behavior as the thieves in “Breaking Bad”: shooting first for fear of what might happen. This behavior is reprehensible at the individual level and at the national level. The moral validity of actions does not change based on the numbers that simultaneously engage in those actions.

The moral validity of actions does not change based on the numbers that simultaneously engage in those actions.

For parents there is no greater fear than contemplating the untimely death of your child. So consider what kind of a country would inflict on foreign parents our most horrid nightmare. The US has killed both directly (drone strikes) and indirectly (sanctions) hundreds of thousands of children through the cold indifference of our leaders. Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright in a 1996 interview with 60 Minutes stated that “we think the price is worth it” when asked if the confirmed deaths of half a million Iraqi children due to UN sanctions was “worth it” in relation to the goals of those sanctions. The Bush administration fares no better: he (and Congress) restarted the Iraq war (of which even low estimates are 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties and authorized the use of torture. Likewise Obama has failed to live up to his 2009 Nobel Peace Price. He acts as a remote executioner via the deployment of the “judge, jury, and executioner” drone strikes that have killed countless civilians who are written off as “collateral damage.” Ah, yes, the ends always justify the means. Wake up America. We have “broken bad” and are now the “bad guys.” Would we tolerate Chinese drone strikes of Americans because China deemed them to be a potential “threat” ?

In terms of this country’s meddling, interventionist, blow-back prone foreign policy it doesn’t matter whether Obama or Romney wins; they will both continue our current wars and will have no qualms about starting new ones. If you are tired of the endless wars (drug and terror) and have no more desire for the blood of innocents to be on your hands by way of voting for the “lesser of two evils” (“hmmm… who should I vote for, Hitler or Stalin…”) then consider the alternative that the media is so afraid you might hear about they won’t even include him in national polls: Libertarian Party candidate for president Gary Johnson. 

Who counts the votes?

“Voting is every citizen’s constitutional right.” The operative word in this uncontroversial statement is “citizen.” In order to validate one’s right to vote one must verify that one is an eligible* citizen (*over 18 and not a felon). To claim verification is an undue barrier to this right would be to likewise claim that a member of a health club should not have to substantiate that they are in fact, you know, members of such club. If you walk into a club and try to use the facilities would you not expect to be challenged with a request to prove that you are entitled to use such facilities? Then why is the idea of demanding that voters demonstrate their eligibility to vote seen as an outrageous request? The typical response is to trot out some sob story about how some poor person can’t afford the bus fair across town to pick up their free ID. Please, there is always some pathetic excuse that betrays the complainer to be someone that can’t be bothered to expend even the slightest effort in securing this supposedly sacrosanct right.

The next complaint is that voter ID laws are a solution in search of a problem, citing various studies that show extremely limited cases of fraud. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Uncovering voter fraud is like finding a cockroach… for every one you see there are a million more you don’t see. In person voter fraud by its very nature is all but impossible to determine objectively after the fact. It would be like determining the crime rate in a city by asking people if they have broken the law. Unsurprisingly crime rates would be much lower if measured that way. Voter ID is a simple precaution to prevent possible fraud. Car theft is pretty rare, but I’ll bet you still lock your car in public? Why? Because it is a trivial preventive step in the same way voter ID is a trivial preventative.

Could the process be easier and more streamlined? Yes, of course. For example, why do we register to vote in one process and then provide an unrelated ID to vote? We should be able to present the voter registration card (a card that every voter currently gets when they register) as proof of eligibility. Problem solved.

Unfortunately voter fraud is all too common in American elections. Jimmy Carter was the victim of such a severe case of fraud in 1962 (that by some miracle of persistence he was able to prove and eventually had the results reversed in his favor) that it is believed this is the primary reason his Carter Center now takes a keen interest in worldwide election monitoring. If someone wants to steal an election it is much easier to manipulate the vote count rather than the vote itself. That doesn’t mean we should leave the door open and make it easy for in person fraud to occur, but it does inform us as to where we can most effectively allocate resources to prevent fraud. The weak link in the chain is the human link. Sure the vote is 40 to 60, but if that information is relayed by me calling Bob on the phone or sending him an email, then I can tell him any number I want. Don’t think it goes on today? Think again.  I personally witnessed this type of fraud (vote total relay) myself this past spring (a recount was done which negated the attempted fraud). To paraphrase Joseph Stalin, “It’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes.”