Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, June 04, 2009 6:18:11 PM
As I have been rather ill and unable to write, I figure the least I can do is to tell my regulars what they can expect. So, as I am probably not going to write tonight, let me describe the ideas I have in mind for upcoming posts:
1. Death Duties - As mentioned in "I Don't Get it", I plan to write a rather straightforward criticism of inheritance taxes, as well as soak the rich schemes, explaining how the dilution of capital actually makes fewer opportunities for other to get ahead and is more likely to create a permanent, inherited wealthy class, which it is supposed to eliminate.
2. A Rational Look at Gun Control - Taking an approach similar to , I will look at a model town without gun laws and then examine step by step the logical impacts of various gun control measures, and subsequent anti-smuggling laws, criminal sentencing enhancements, etc. Hopefully this pragmatic approach will make clear the fact that gun control fails to bring about any of the claimed benefits.
3. Practical Versus Dogmatic - An essay starting with anti-smoking laws, using them as an example of the way that dogma often gets int he way of practical solutions. This will lead into the next article...
4. Utopianism and Disaster - And examination of the way that the left's yearning after an idealized solution often results in total failure. More specifically, the way that failing to accept reality, to admit to a range of possible solutions which are "good enough" leads to pursuit of completely unworkable solutions.
5. Advantage and Resentment - This essay will describe the way various laws provide advantage to one group or another and the resentment these laws breed. Obviously, affirmative action is the prototype of this sort of law, having revived racism in areas where it had once vanished, but laws as diverse as tariffs, union closed shop laws, bankruptcy laws, even bidding rules for government contracts create their own special advantages and create situations ripe for resentment between groups.
Of course regular readers know I never seem to follow through on more than half the promises in such list, but hopefully this will be the exception and these will all be posted. If not, at least they give me some ideas to which I can return in the future when I run out of material.
UPDATE 06/05/2009
I think I will also include one more in this list. I have been meaning for some time to write justifying complete privatization of education. I know this position is only slightly less unpopular than my argument to eliminate medical licensing and all regulation of food and drugs (see "
Medical Regulations", "
Medical Regulation II" and "
Another Thought on Regulation"), but it needs to be made. the belief that private education would mean great masses of illiterate children (which would differ from our NEA monopoly, how, exactly?) is a red herring. Education can be both private and nearly universal, there is no contradiction between the two.
Think of it this way. We can currently afford to educate all children, even with government waste and inefficiency, and with the top heavy ratio of administrators to teachers. And some parents even pay twice, paying taxes and then sending their children to private school at their own expense. Not to mention the many charities which send children to private, mostly religious, schools. If we can afford that now, why would education be less affordable if privately run and with government waste removed? Yes, some would need to rely on scholarships or charity, or maybe neighborhood cooperative schools, but could it be worse than our failing monopoly schools which benefit no one except the NEA and schools of education? (Well, and maybe those who come up with new ideas for social engineering, who get a free laboratory thanks to public schools.)