Funeral Protesters

The following article discusses the funeral protester First Amendment case that the Supreme Court is considering:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-funerals-20101007,0,7401118.story

I have a bad feeling that we are about to see an application of the legal maxim "Tough Cases Make Bad Law."

Sorry for the delay, back to "Elitists"

I kind of lost my train of thought there, but my point is that, like "socialist", "Keynesian", or "liberal", "elitist" is applied to people in a derisive way.  However, if you stop and think about what the term really means (in a non-extreme sense), it probably describes most people in most situations.  Imagine that one of your family members is sick- would you take a poll of 100 people off the street and follow the advice of the majority?  Or would you try to track down the most qualified doctor in the area (or maybe outside of it) and do what she suggests?

Maybe it makes me a horrible person, but I think that complex issues (for example, state-wide or national policy) are beyond the grasp of a lot of people.  I don't know about you, but I'm offended by the ads I see on TV now.  It frustrates me to know that some dipshit can be sitting around watching "The Vampire Diaries", hear some unsupported stat that "Electing Harry Reid for another term will mean that your children will have over $40k more in debt" (or that person could be walking around the Pinoy Festival, like I was last weekend, and hear the same thing from a volunteer), and decide that he will vote for whoever isn't Harry Reid.  *Please note that I don't think that Sharron Angle saying that "it's not my responsibility to create jobs" is conclusive proof that a person shouldn't vote for her either, the attack on Harry Reid just sprung to my mind first.

Anyway, that's a meandering point, but I was trying to get to this:  if someone is going to be influenced by an ad like that, his vote should be worth less than someone who has an understanding of how various policies are likely to play out.  I understand that having that point of view makes me an elitist- Frankly, I think that if you don't think that way, you're retarded.  (and yes, I understand that thinking this way means that the dumb would be underrepresented in the polls, and there's a danger that their interests won't be adequately represented.  My response to that is "it's better than the dumb being overrepresented".)

Finally, back to your initial point, as to why the liberal elites (or elitists) insist on making fun of TEA Partiers.  My guess is, like w/ Fox News, it's out of frustration more than anything, and it will be ineffective.  In their eyes, TEA Partiers are a bunch of people who are treating a very broad issue (the general welfare of the country) in an absurdly narrow sense (we want to pay less in taxes).  In most cases (one of our esteemed colleagues is an example of the absurd version of this), these people take one mostly (but not universally) correct assumption (that the invisible hand will yield an optimal result) and have made that the end of the analysis:

1.  If everyone acts in a self-interested way, then everything will turn out for the best.
2.  I want to pay less in taxes-  I don't mind contributing to the military or the police, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay a cent for "x", because I personally won't ever benefit from "x".

As I have run into, trying to have a discussion with this person can get outrageously frustrating.  Trying to have a discussion about whether educating a potential criminal might lead to less crime (and lead to less money being spent on police officers and jails), or something more subtle than that (like trying to quantify any other utility from such a policy decision, such as increased enjoyment that person might get from his life if he makes something of himself) goes nowhere- instead you keep coming back to the major principal that "if you keep taking from the rich, they'll leave the country" or "keep your hands off my money".

Elitists

Tony,
I think you're right about one thing- I suppose I am an elitist.  Having said that, based on my understanding of the term, I think one would have to be retarded not to be.  According to Wikipedia, elitists believe that there is a group of people who "are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight", based on some particular characteristic, such as intelligence, training, etc.


Do you really believe that on all matters all people's opinions should be equal?  Do you believe that someone w/ an IQ of 160 who has 5 degrees from Ivy League schools and who started his own fortune 500 company shouldn't be listened to more carefully than Joe the Plumber?  An elitist would listen to the first guy.


Maybe feeling like this means that some other horrible label should apply to me (shoot, I guess I'm already a "elitist socialist keynesian", but I believe that certain people are intrinsically better leaders than others.  Baby is crying, more later.

No Fat Chicks

Tony,

Your last question is ridiculous.  If someone wants to be an NFL lineman, he needs to be way stronger than the average American.  If he wants to be a kicker, he needs to be able to kick the ball better than the average American.  If he wants to be a running back.... (I think you get the picture).

If someone wants to be president, she should be way smarter than the average American.  Sarah Palin is arguably dumber than the average American; that is why she is mocked.

Thoughts on Tax Cuts

Tony, the question you ask assumes that there's only on thing that can happen when you mess around with taxes.  The point I constantly try to make is that there are different effects.  Before, we spoke about whether someone would decide to work more or less when he was taxed more (someone who's not necessarily a business owner).  My point then was that there's an income effect (he wants to make his car payment, so he'll actually work more if he's taxed more), and there's a substitution effect (which pushes him to work less, if he's taking home less each hour, then leisure gets "cheaper").

In this particular case, focusing only on businesses, we're both now on the other side of the argument.  Before, you were arguing that the hourly worker would work less when he was taking home less money per hour.  Now, you're arguing that a business owner will work more (by firing the help) when he's confronted with taking home less per hour.  As before, I don't think that the business owner's actions are that easy to predict.

There are a couple of fairly strong forces at play.  First off, I don't think you can ignore the fact that a salary is something that's not taxed on the business' end.  If the tax on the business, or the business owner, is higher relative to the tax on what the worker takes home, keeping workers on starts to make more sense.  Think about it- if you have some menial task, like cleaning, and assume that the business owner is as good as the professional cleaner (unlikely), he can either pay $50 to the cleaner (who will keep, say, $40 after taxes) to do the job, or he can do it himself, pay tax on that $50 and keep $25 for himself.  Also, if you're talking about businesses that produce things (like Pepsi making cans of soda), you can usually put together some equation where an employee can produce x cans per hour.  Pepsi should hire employees as long as they're producing cans of soda that are worth more than their hourly wage.  Since the business doesn't pay tax on the money that is paid to the workers, a change in the tax rate won't change the optimal number of workers.  I think that's a hugely important point that gets glossed over all the time.

Let me go off on a bit more of a tangent here:  businesses are always (theoretically at least) making profit-maximizing decisions.  A restaurant doesn't charge $15 (instead of, say, $20) for a steak because it's being nice, it charges $15 b/c it thinks that particular price will yield the most profit (after considering the cost of buying the meat, paying employees, etc., and estimating the number of customers that it will have if the steak is set at $10, $15, or $20).  It frustrates me when people say that businesses can no longer "afford" to sell tacos for $.50, or whatever else.  If they were doing it before, it was either calculated to help the business or the decision makers are retards (and actually breaking the law if there are shareholders).

Finally, I will concede that higher taxes can slow investment.  I don't think that it (higher taxes) makes it more likely that a business will fail, but investors are essential bettors- if there's more taxes that's like a bigger house cut on the bet, so the sharper ones will be less likely to invest.

RE: Bush Tax Cuts

Let us assume that you are correct about the choice that the business owner will make. Doesn't this make you doubt the efficacy of trickle down economics for improving the condition of non-business owning, working-class Americans? Assuming that the business owner is already operating with employees that he can live without, would providing him with additional tax breaks cause him to hire new employees? Perhaps the business owner will just use the extra money to pay off his yacht.

An Email from a Friend

My buddy Justin responded to my Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell post in an email (he did not include the typos in his email. The formatting changed when I copied the email into FoxTrott):

“While I appreciate the point you are trying to make, there is a fundamentalflaw with your logic in Scenario 2. Unless I am missing something, you seemto posit that a male Soldier who declares his sexual preference for boysseven years of age is not homosexually oriented. I submit to you insteadthat the Soldier in question is actually both a pedophile and a homosexuallyoriented individual, and, therefore, is also subject to discharge under theCongressional "Policy Concerning Homosexuality in the Armed Forces," ascodified in 10 USC 654, like the Soldier in Scenario 1.I believe that your point would be better served by substituting "boys" with"girls" in Scenario 2 (assuming we are still talking about a male Soldier),but this entire hypothetical still fails in practical application. Thecommander in Scenario 2 would likely refer the Soldier for a mental healthevaluation immediately given the fact that the Soldier has confessed aproclivity towards underage children. The Soldier's assurance that he wouldnever act on that proclivity is irrelevant because of the career-endingcatastrophe (and potential criminal culpability/civil liability) that wouldbefall our hapless commander should the Soldier be unable to control himselfat some point in the future. Assuming the Soldier was truthful in his claimand his paraphilia was confirmed upon a medical examination (regardless ofhis intent to act upon it), he would be designated as administratively unfitfor service and separated under the applicable service regulation. See,e.g., Army Regulation 40-501 (Standards of Medical Fitness), para. 3-35(a);Army Regulation 635-200 (Active Duty Enlisted Separations), para. 5-17. Inthe end, the pedophiliac Soldier is administratively discharged just likethe homosexually oriented Soldier.My comments here are limited only to the two scenarios laid out above andare not intended to address the substance/policy of 10 USC 654 or any of itsimplementing regulations.”

The point of my Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell post was to show the absurdity of that policy by establishing that bad soldiers get to stay in the army as homosexuals are automatically discharged merely for being homosexuals. Thus, I responded to Justin with several theoretical soldiers that I thought the military would not discharge despite a poor character trait. For example, I asked whether the military would discharge a soldier that merely expressed an abstract desire to have sex with his mother. Additionally, I asked whether the military would discharge a racist white soldier in a unit made up of African Americans. Finally, I asked whether the military would discharge a soldier who told the men in his unit that he wanted to sleep with their wives. Justin had a response for every example. In each case, the military could discharge the soldier.

I knew that the military was tough. However, I did not know that the military had so many ways to discharge soldiers. There is likely no soldier of whom I could conceive that the military could not discharge under the right factual scenario.

The problem is the level of discretion that the military has to punish non-homosexual soldiers. I gave Justin the example of a male soldier in a unit in which a majority of the men are married. Suppose that this soldier tells the men in his unit that he has a fetish for married women. The soldier has seen the wives of the married men. The soldier tells those men that he wants to have sex with their wives. The married men believe the soldier and want to kick his ass. However, all the men know with 100% certainty that the soldier will never actually have sex with their wives, flirt with their wives, etc. The married men merely know that the soldier has a strong sexual desire for their wives.

Justin posited two ways in which the military could discharge this soldier:
1) Under Art. 134 (10 USC 934) (stating that “Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter [10 USCS §§ 801 et seq.], all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter [10 USCS §§ 801 et seq.] may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special, or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.” (emphasis added)).
2) Under Army Regulation 635-200, para. 5-17(a)(9) (Active Duty Enlisted Separations), para 5-17 (stating that “Commanders specified in paragraph 1–19 may approve separation under this paragraph on the basis of other physical or mental conditions not amounting to disability (AR 635–40) and excluding conditions appropriate for separation processing under paragraph 5–11 or 5–13 that potentially interfere with assignment to or performance of duty. Such conditions may include, but are not limited to—…Other disorders manifesting disturbances of perception, thinking, emotional control or behavior sufficiently severe that the Soldier’s ability to effectively perform military duties is significantly impaired. Soldiers with 24 months or more of active duty service may be separated under this paragraph based on a diagnosis of personality disorder.” (emphasis added)).

Both of the above authorities permit, but do not require, the discharge of a soldier. However, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell requires the discharge of a soldier who has indicated that he is gay. See 10 USC 654(b)(2) (declaring that “A member of the armed forces shall be separated from the armed forces under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense if one or more of the following findings is made and approved in accordance with procedures set forth in such regulations:… That the member has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, or words to that effect.” (emphasis added). In fact, as written, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has only two exceptions:
1) No discharge if “the member has demonstrated that he or she is not a person who engages in, attempts to engage in, has a propensity to engage in, or intends to engage in homosexual acts.” Id.
2) No discharge if “the member engaged in [homosexual] conduct or made statements [indicating homosexuality] for the purpose of avoiding or terminating military service…and…separation of the member would not be in the best interest of the armed forces.”

Thus, under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the military must discharge a soldier that lets another soldier know that he is gay so long as the former soldier does nothing to prove that he is straight or that he only said that he was gay to get out of the military. On the other hand, the military can, but need not, discharge a soldier who tells the other men in his unit that he wants to have porno sex with their wives. I think that we can all agree that it would not be unreasonable to argue that the latter statement would have a greater negative effect on unit “morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion” than the former. Why then the varying levels of discretion? If what we really care about is “morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion,” See 10 USC 654(6), shouldn’t we at least give the military the discretion to decide whether an individual soldier’s homosexuality actually hurts his unit’s morale, etc.?

JAC: The military already has rules against flirting and having sex with other soldiers (male or female). These rules should alleviate most of your concerns. I merely wish to point out the absurdity of discharging soldiers based solely on the sexual preference that they manifest.