I have been reading my old posts recently and have come to the conclusion that, in a number of areas, I have covered most of the important points pretty well. That is not to say that I will not have some new revelations that will require additional explanation, or that my understanding of matters might not change, or at least evolve over time. But as I have largely moved away from current events and begun writing almost entirely on general principles of government and analysis of erroneous political theories, I lack the constant influx of material available to topical pundits, and so I tend to cover the same ground over and over again. You would think that would lead to quite a bit of repetition, and to some degree that has been the case, but I have also found it has allowed me to elaborate upon points I normally gloss over, and thus has led to a very thorough explanation of many points I would not normally have covered in detail. But, having covered those points, and fleshed out my theories, and even written very thorough rebuttals of many political theories, I find that I am fast approaching a point where additional explanation would begin to verge on redundancy.

To avoid such a fate, I have decided to concentrate on two areas¹, though the two overlap and could arguably be seen as a single approach. The first are essays intended to provide alternate views of the topic at hand, taking differing approaches to allow those who did not previously grasp an argument to see the rationale. The second are persuasive essays, intended to convince those who were previously antagonistic that my theories are valid. As you can see, the two are closely related, as different approaches are generally used to persuade those not previously convinced, and when approaching those not previously persuaded, the best method is usually to try a new means of explanation.

The reason I mention all this is that it occurred to me that many of my arguments on a specific topic have been rather abstract, and, when not abstract, were still rather generic, lacking the specificity that makes for the best examples. To remedy this, I began thinking of very specific examples, and came up with a number of very mundane, but quite telling, illustrations.

And what were these examples? Or the topic to which they relate? Allow me to provide an illustration or two, and both should become clear.

When I discuss mathematics with anyone, specifically high school or middle school math classes, the first statement I hear from anyone I meet is "I was fine with math until I took geometry." I cannot count the number of times I have heard that statement. It seems that hatred of geometry is near universal. It appears, no matter how much they enjoyed or excelled at basic mathematics and algebra, when anyone began geometry they were left confused.

Which is completely puzzling to me, as I hated math until I took geometry. Well, "hated" is a bit strong... I enjoyed basic arithmetic and other elementary school math, and, though I found it tedious and boring, I did well enough in algebra. But geometry was the first math class I truly enjoyed. And it was where I received my best grades, achieving perfect scores on my midterm and final exams. Which makes it very hard for me to understand how anyone could find geometry difficult.

Or, perhaps I should offer up the example of my son. While I hear any number of parents complaining o their children being obsessed with soda, or longing for candy, that too is alien to me. I never stopped my son from consuming either, and he drank some soda, and tried some candy, but he just has little interest in either. He has a fondness for cakes, though even that is off and on, but as far as most candy is concerned, and all soda, he is either indifferent, or rejects it. Nor has it anything to do with any active discouragement on my part, he just doesn't seem interested, he has other things he would rather eat².

Or an even more mundane example. I simply cannot find much of interest in most "sex symbols". I am told that a certain actress, say Angelina Jolie, or more recently Megan Fox, is beautiful, or even perfect, and I just can't see it. There are plenty of attractive women, even attractive actresses, but it seems the ones who are held forth as "sex symbols" simply don't hold any appeal for me³.

So far I am sure my readers are wondering what my point may be. Yes, people like different things. Yes, some things which are generally accepted, such as the attractiveness of some actress or the difficulty of geometry, are not true for everyone. So what?

But the fact that readers recognize that fact is itself the point. Readers understand that there is a range of opinions, that individual valuations of various things differ. That some people like chocolate and others vanilla. That, even though, as the title says, people believe all children like hot dogs or ice cream, there are some who do not. In short, there is no opinion to which all men subscribe, and even if there were, they would agree to differing degrees, and so what agreement there was would be only a very superficial one.

So, why does everyone forget this when it comes to government?

All government action, beyond the most basic protection of rights, is a matter of enforcing specific values. ( "The Inherent Disappointment of Authoritarianism", "The Right Way") When the government protects citizens against force, theft and fraud, or acts as an arbiter of disputes through civil court enforcement of contracts ("In Praise of Contracts"), even when it settles those rare harmful interactions between strangers through tort cases, it is basically creating the minimum environment required for human society to function. ("My Vision of Government", "My Vision of Government Part II", "Why I Am Not A Libertarian", "The Benefits of Federalism", "An Analogy For Government", "A Simple Proposal", "Man's Nature and Government", "Prelude", "Negative and Positive Rights", "Symmetry and Asymmetry in Government", "Why Freedom Is Essential",)

But when it goes beyond that minimal protection of individuals, it moves into the realm of valuation, and of necessity that means forcing one specific set of values upon all citizens. ("A New Look At Intervention", "Liberalism, Its Origins and Consequences") I discussed this before in "In The Most Favorable Light" and "Slippery Slopes", but for the sake of readers, allow me to go through it one more time, hopefully from a slightly different angle.

Government, at least in its present form, engages in three types of actions.

The first is to act as an arbiter between two parties, enforcing either a set of private agreements (contracts) or a body of generally accepted rules (torts), or in a few cases (probate court, custody hearings, divorces) a little of each, modifying the established rules through the application of private agreements, at least to some aspects.

The second action is the protection of one or more individual from another, either preventing the use of force theft or fraud, or punishing the act afterward. ("Compassionate Execution", "The Death Penalty", "A Rational Approach to Punishment", "The Ends Justify the Means?", "Fair or Functional?", "Not Completely One Sided", "Motives Unimportant", "Sunday Morning Talking Heads", "Civilization and the Fear of Death") This applies not only domestically, but internationally as well, as foreign policy ideally should be informed by the basic principle that the government exists to protect citizens' rights⁴.

The final action, which includes the vast majority of must laws currently on the books, as well as almost all regulations promulgated by executive agencies, are rules and laws which require an individual, or more than one, to either avoid making a choice he would otherwise make, or requiring him to act in a way he otherwise would not. This sometimes is disguised as an effort to protect one individual against another (eg. minimum wage "protecting" the employee, or rent control "protecting" the renter⁵ -- see "He's Bad So He Must Be Wrong"), but in reality these laws simply tell both renter and owner the prices for which they may contract, regardless of their own wishes, or the wages which are permissible, regardless of their own decisions.

And each such rule embodies an implicit set of values. Granted, the government does not say so. They pretend the rules they enforce are somehow rational laws based on absolute values. ("Absolute Values", ""It's Our Top Priority!"") But as I have argued again and again, there is no rational way to establish such rules. ("Who Will Decide", "Envy Kills", "Envy And Analogy", "Saving Us From Lower Prices", "Price Gouging", "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, Or The Logical Implications of Price Gouging Laws", ""True" Prices", "Excuse Me?") The government may claim a given wage is not a "livable wage" ("Exploited Labor", "Exploiting Workers?", "Capital Investment", "Fairness and the Free Market"), but "livable" is a meaningless word, as are the other favorites "necessity" and "luxury" ("The Most Misleading Word", "Luxury and Necessity"). Instead, any such rule is nothing more than the opinion of one or more bureaucrats dressed up in scientific sounding jargon, or perhaps populist rhetoric, and passed off as established fact.

For example, look at workplace safety regulations. Clearly, all other things being equal, we would prefer a workplace to be more safe rather than less. But all things are not equal, and increasing safety tends to increase costs, which either raises prices, reduces available jobs, or both, meaning we have fewer and more expensive goods or services as well as fewer workers with smaller paychecks. And so any safety decision ends up being a balancing test between the improvement of safety and the cost of that improvement.

Of course the agitator will tell us employers will always try to make no improvements and so must be forced to do so, but that is nonsense. As I argued in "Mistaken Perceptions of the Industrial Age" and "Fairness and the Free Market", every employer wants to retain his existing workforce, from pure greed, if nothing else,, as both the skills they have acquired through work experience and his knowledge of their work habits, make them more valuable to him than comparable new hires, not to mention the cost of hiring and training new workers. But beyond that, workers consider safety when choosing a job, or deciding whether to remain at a current job, which makes unsafe conditions an impediment to getting the workers one needs⁶. All of which is considered by an employer when deciding which safety related changes to make.

But safety regulations short circuit this process. Decreeing that a specific safety measure must be instituted, these regulations effectively declare that that measure is worth any cost, which is clearly a value judgment. And by smuggling in this value judgment, regulations effectively substitute their own values for those of both employers and employees. Employers are no longer allowed to weigh the alternatives, but are forced to institute measures important to the regulators. Similarly, workers can no longer agree to forgo a safety measure, either for more pay or just because it does not matter to them. They must labor under the given measure, and accept the lower pay or reduced number of jobs caused by the cost of the measure.

And there you have the simple truth that all regulation is nothing but the imposition of an outsider's values upon individuals. And you also have the reason for my introductory paragraphs.

We recognize in everyday life that individuals differ in their choices, and thus in their values. We would not want to see everyone forced to eat the same food, nor would we make everyone dress the same. We do not force everyone to embrace the same religion or join the same political party. We do not make everyone listen to the same music or read the same books. For that matter, we consider it a triumph that we have gone from three networks, to four, and then to hundreds, offering countless options, specifically because individuals have different tastes.

So, if we revel in the "on demand" era, in the ability of each individual to tailor every aspect of life to his specific wishes, why do we forget this when it comes to government? Why do we suddenly think that no one would ever want to work for less than minimum wage? That no worker and employer could agree that certain safety measures are not important? That someone could want to buy food with transfats ( "Salt, Transfats, DDT, Bad Science and Even Worse Law") or could be willing to let a packager call a meat "ham" even if it is made from pressed shoulder meat? ("Why Regulation Makes So Little Sense", "Bad Economics Part 12", "Terrifying ", "Just a Thought") We suddenly imagine that the government imposed choice is the only rational one, the only possible decision.

In short, when it comes to government, we think we would be much happier if we all were forced to watch one television channel, listen to one song, read one single book, wear identical clothes, and all marry the same girl. For a culture so obsessed with choice, when it comes to the coercive power of the state, we suddenly show little interest in the topic.

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1. This is not entirely true, as I am still working on my series "Liberalism", and as new revelations strike me, I write them out on this blog, but for the most part, I feel I have covered the theoretical basis for all the major topics, and debunked many of the worst fallacies, and so it is time for me to attempt to persuade those who were not convinced before, and to ensure my points are completely clear and understood by everyone who reads them, friendly or hostile.

2. Don't take this to mean he eats a perfectly healthy diet. At one time he was obsessed with cauliflower, broccoli and celery, but that passed like most of his fascinations, and was replaced by a fondness for cake, which passed as well. But as far as actual candy is concerned, excepting two periods when he was fascinated with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Three Musketeer bars for a few weeks each time, he has never had much interest.

3. This might be a problem of my seemingly anachronistic values, as I find the beauties of many early and mid 60's films much more appealing than their modern counterparts. Though, even there I tend to find the less famous actresses (say Marisa Mell or Kumi Mizuno) more appealing than the better know actresses.

4. This does not mean I endorse the Ron Paul-like minimalism in foreign policy favored by many libertarians ("The Problem With Ron Paul", "War As Last Resort"). See "Rational National Defense", "Rights Versus Laws", "Last Word on Defense", "Fiction, Play and Violence", "An End to War" and "Foreign Policy".

5. I have discussed at great length the ways in which such supposed "protection" is no real protection. For example, "Professional Education", "Licensing", "Business Licensing and Regulation", "Bad Economics Part 12", "Real Life and Regulation", "Insider Trading", "Gun Control, The FDA and Regulating the Law Abiding", "Medical Regulations", "Medical Regulation II", "Manipulating the Law", "Government Intervention and the Purpose of Government", "Another Thought on Regulation","Trickle Down Freedom", "Selling Yourself Cheap", "Science and Government Intervention", "Politicians and Economic Ignorance", "Adaptability and Government", "Perverse Incentives", "When Help Hurts". I am working on another essay on a similar topic, but until that is complete, the essay "The Irrationality of Government Redistribution" provides an example of a similar misunderstanding, showing how the supposed benefits enjoyed by the recipients of redistributed wealth are actually nothing of the kind.  

6. This obviously leads to a balancing test, where owners must see whether it is more cost effective to improve safety, or to offer salaries high enough to make workers overlook unsafe situations. Similarly, workers are forced into the opposite decisions, whether the pay is high enough to make up for the risk of injury.

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POSTSCRIPT

It is amusing that older science fiction, from the era when it was generally assumed the future would be some semi-socialist utopia, without money ("Utopian Pipe Dream", "Wow! That was painful."), that everyone DOES wear the same clothes, that religious differences seem to be absent, and that they all seem to enjoy the same music, art, dance and entertainment. In that single case, it seems the writers admitted what proponents of interventionist government usually work hard to conceal, that government intervention eliminates all choice. ("A Question for Artists of the Left")

(Actually, the lack of religious discord may be because the writers assumed, as do most "rational atheists", that the rationalists of the future will simply "move beyond religion". It is a common conceit of atheists that their position is somehow more rational, even if that claim is largely based upon their habit of stacking the deck in their favor then proclaiming victory.See "Atheism's Circular Reasoning","Standard of Proof" and, the somewhat related, "The Nonsensical Nature of Some Statistical Analysis".)