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This is just a reminder that Globally Rational will be hosting the July 2 edition of Carnival of the Liberals, a fortnightly event which showcases the best recent articles by liberal bloggers.  The deadline for submitting an article is midnight CST on July 2, so get your submissions in ASAP!

Here are some relevant links:
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We all hate child molesters.  Even child molesters hate child molesters.  We can all agree that they deserve whatever sort of punishment we can give them… but where do we draw the line?

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal recently signed a bill allowing chemical castration for convicted sex offenders.  While the law borders the realm of “cruel and unusual punishment”, I can see plenty of positives too…

PROS: Child molesters are sick.  They tend to be repeat offenders, and the reason is because of their natural tendencies.  As much as I’d hate to suppress somebody’s natural tendencies, I think it’s necessary in cases like this one… chemical castration means that these people will never commit these sorts of acts again.  And it means that people are less likely to do it in the first place.

CONS: Where do we draw the line?  Today it’s child molesters and castration… what will it be tomorrow?  There is a reason why the Constitution outlaws “cruel and unusual punishment”… the point is so that we can avoid a scenario where innocent people are castrated.

What do you think?

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We hear politicians talk a lot about “a lady I met who couldn’t afford to pay for xxx” or “a man in Ohio who lost his job”.  I’ll accept that unemployment rates are a little bit higher than last year, but we can find stories like that at any time, even if the economy is booming.  The question I’d like to ask is this: as a society, are we really worse off than we were in 2000?

The Dow Jones is higher today than it was then, even if you adjust for inflation.  The dollar may be a bit weaker, but that’s more of an international issue than a domestic one; also, the “housing crisis” and the “recession” are supposed to affect other countries just as much as they affect the US.  Gas prices are high, but that’s just supply and demand.  As a nation, is the average person doing better or worse?

Gregg Easterbrook, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, argues (in a Wall Street Journal article) that we’re better than ever:

• Housing prices may have dropped, but that’s only because they surged a few years ago.  People always talked about the “housing bubble”, but people ignored it until the bubble decided to burst.  Easterbrook points out that the average house value today is still about 30-40% higher than it was in 2000 (before the price boom).
• The unemployment rate (~5.5%) is pretty low by historical standards.
• Income is still rising faster than inflation.
• The definition of a recession is “two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth”.  We still haven’t even had one such quarter… the economy may not be growing as fast as before, but it’s still growing.

I think a big part of our problem is that people think the economy is worse than it is.  In a recent survey, 79% of Americans were worried that we may go into a depression (not a recession)… I don’t think they realize exactly how extreme a depression is.  The media hype is fueling our tendency to act like we’re in a recession, which fuels the possibility of a real recession.

The reason why we’re worried is because we’ve become accustomed to the “Great Moderation” of the last couple of decades; economists agree that normal economic volatility has decreased substantially in recent years.  Because of this, every slight downturn seems much worse than it actually is.

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We all complain about high gas prices… personally, I’m tired of seeing the complaints. Here’s why:

1. Prices aren’t determined by costs; they’re determined by supply and demand. Our demand for fuel is increasing (case in point: India/China) and the supply is decreasing. My only complaint is that the government wasn’t able to foster a gradual increase (rather than a sudden one, which was a major contributing factor to the recession)… the reason for this is because they were doing everything possible to avoid the inevitable increase, so when they ran out of resources, the prices catapulted to their rightful place.
2. Prices still haven’t increased to the point where we significantly reduce consumption. As long as demand doesn’t decrease, the prices will continue to increase… the only thing that can stabilize the prices is if we stop using as much gas. At that point, the supply and demand curves are intersecting and we’re at the perfect price.
3. Until prices get high enough so that we can’t get by anymore, we’ll never devote adequate resources to alternative energy. Last year, the government spent $200 million on solar power research, about $300 million on nuclear energy and on “other fossil fuels”, and about $400 million on coal. By contrast, we spent $102 billion (about 100 times as much) on the Iraq War. Also, we spend $1.6 billion every day on gasoline (almost $600 billion per year)… that means that we spend more money PER DAY on gas than we do PER YEAR on alternative energy.

As long as we’re spending 500 times as much on gas as we do on alternative energies, how do we expect to really fix our problems? Instead of reducing our gas taxes (like Hillary and McCain were suggesting), I think we should add a little bit of a tax and use it to pay for novel research. In the long run, it will save us money… even if we only increase prices by 1% (about 4 cents per gallon right now, which seems pretty inconsequential with the way that prices have been inflating), that’s enough to multiply our alternative energy research by a factor of 5.

But it seems like we’re stupid enough to demand lower gas prices, even though we know that it will hurt us in the long run. I say that we add a 2% tax to all gas purchases, which would amount to 8 cents a gallon, and use it to multiply alternative energy funding by 10.

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So far, the American healthcare industry has been unnecessarily slow in joining the Information Age.  Although the excuse is usually the fact that they want to ensure safety and confidentiality of patient data, anybody who has ever worked in the industry knows that it’s far easier to misplace a paper file (thousands of which can be found in every doctor’s office) than it is to fall victim to an online hacker.  Honestly, you could call my doctor’s office right now and if you pretend to be me, they’ll give you any information you need.  I think the real reason why many medical practitioners haven’t digitized their records is because many of the administrative assistants in the industry don’t like anything to change (for instance, I once worked for a doctor who had to buy a more expensive and less effective piece of software just because it was the only program with which his assistant was familiar).

And this is why I’m not Libertarian… this is another example of a case where the government needs to intervene; in this case, the purpose is to make sure that our healthcare system doesn’t have pointless inefficiencies.  Luckily, Congress jumped in this time to create penalties for physicians who don’t start using electronic prescriptions.  I see a lot of advantages:

• This signals the end of the notorious “illegible doctor’s handwriting” issue.
• Patients often have serious complications from drug interactions, usually because their physician doesn’t know what other drugs they are taking.  E-prescriptions will allow doctors and pharmacists to have an automated system that throws up a red flag every time a patient is about to get a drug that could interact harmfully with one of their other drugs.
• That same automated system will also reduce allergic reactions to drugs.
• The process for prescriptions and refills will become much more efficient.  Right now, a patient can’t get a refill on a prescription until it the pharmacy gets approval from the patient’s physician, which typically takes hours or days.
• This will do wonders for quality control; it will be very easy to see if a doctor is favoring more profitable drugs (pharmaceutical companies often provide incentives for doctors to prescribe certain drugs) when the patient would be better off with a cheaper alternative.

And that’s just a few things that I can think of off the top of my head.  Feel free to post any other pros/cons in the comments… if they’re legitimate, I’ll add them to the list.

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I saw an article today in USA Today suggesting that the legacy of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first female Supreme Court justice, has been fading since she retired in January 2006 (after a tenure of over two decades).  The article mentions that the new Court has “undercut several of her most important rulings on issues such as abortion rights, campaign finance law and government policies intended to help racial minorities.”  Among other things, the article mentions the following changes in the Court’s policies since O’Connor retired and Chief Justice William Rehnquist died:

• Shifted course on abortion rights: The court upheld a federal ban on the abortion procedure opponents call “partial birth” and backed away from a 2000 O’Connor opinion that required an exception in such laws to protect the health of the mother.

• Retreated on integration: The court made it harder for public school districts to assign students to schools outside their neighborhoods to achieve racial diversity. In 2003, O’Connor had cast the swing vote to allow affirmative action in higher education and stressed the importance of racial diversity.

• Altered its approach to campaign-finance law: The court opened the door to corporate and union financing of broadcast ads right before an election. It moved away from a standard O’Connor had crafted to regulate campaign financing and made it harder for Congress to limit donations in elections. In doing so, the justices said campaign finance regulation could undermine free speech.

What interests me the most about this article is the fact that the Supreme Court’s political leanings have obviously changed thanks to the justices appointed by President Bush II.  While Rehnquist and O’Connor were known to make apolitical decisions on a case-by-case basis, their replacements (John Roberts and Samuel Alito, respectively) are generally considered as members of the Court’s “conservative wing”.  Since when is a legal system, particularly the Supreme Court, allowed to have a “conservative wing?”

It’s about time that we start appointing justices based upon their accomplishments rather than their political leanings.  Aside from the Presidents Bush, all US Presidents have appointed justices who make highly rational, apolitical decisions.  Why do we let it fly when an active member of either political party is allowed to join the Court?  Alito, Roberts, and Clarence Thomas (who was appointed by Bush Sr.) are the only current justices who weren’t approved by at least 85% of Senators (Alto had 58%, Roberts had 78%, and Thomas had a mere 52%).  The other six justices made it in almost unanimously… why is it that the Bushes couldn’t do the same thing that Ford, Reagan, Nixon, and Clinton were able to do?

The purpose of the Judicial Branch of the US government is to interpret and enforce the laws.  As long as the members of the highest court are affiliated with a political party, how can we possibly guarantee neutrality?

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I saw a YouTube video today regarding the war in Iraq (created by a Ron Paul supporter):

The Jed Report correctly describes this video as potentially “brutal” and “devastating” to John McCain.  What I think is interesting is that, despite the fact that this information has all been in the public domain for months, it doesn’t become “brutal” until after somebody puts it on YouTube.  Did people not realize beforehand that McCain apparently believes that Baghdad is a safe place where anybody can walk around without any fear?  Did they think that he intends to withdraw troops from Iraq?

I think it’s about time that people start noticing these trends on their own instead of relying on a random YouTube user to tell us.  If you support the war and you think that it’s safe to walk around a ravaged city like Baghdad, then I understand why you wouldn’t care about his statements… but the vast majority of people (including intelligent and educated people) don’t even know about this.  I’ve met plenty of people who judge McCain based on the promises he made during the 2000 campaign, when the war and the economy were nonfactors.  It’s time for people to actually think before they vote.

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It’s common for a Presidential nominee to replace the chair of his party with one of his own people.  Although Barack Obama’s recent decision to keep Howard Dean as the DNC chair was minor news at best, I think it’s much more important than the media has made it seem.  I think the foreshadowing is undeniable; this will tell us a lot about what a potential Obama presidency would be like.  Here are some things that jump out at me:

• Obama did not install one of his cronies, which would be a huge change over past Presidencies.  In fact, some people at the University of Chicago (whose law and economics programs are among the best in the world) are worried that Obama will steal all of their best professors and put them into his cabinet.
• Howard Dean (a licensed physician) and Barack Obama (a Harvard-educated lawyer who was offered a tenure-track faculty position at one of America’s best law schools) are both highly intelligent and highly educated.  This gives me hope that we’re approaching an America where politicians work together and make intelligent decisions for the benefit of the country instead of trying to benefit their own respective political campaigns.
• A lesser-known fact: Obama and Dean have both strayed substantially from their parents’ life views, which suggests to me that they embrace change and positive development.  Howard Dean grew up in a conservative family and Obama has written (among other similar things) that “my mother’s confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn’t possess… In a land [Indonesia] where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hardship… she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism.”

I’m hoping that this is a positive sign for Obama’s campaign and, eventually, his Presidency.  It’s no secret to my regular readers that I’m a bit biased (I’ve supported Obama ever since Ron Paul fell into oblivion and McCain started to turn into another Bush), but am I wrong?

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There are plenty of social issues that are important in politics these days.  Everybody seems to be highly concerned with what everybody else is doing.  With these issues, I like to ask myself “is it really worth the effort to oppose an issue that some people care so dearly about?”  Some examples:

• Gay marriage - I agree that homosexuality defeats the original purpose of marriage, which exists (from an evolutionary perspective) for the purpose of procreation and to ensure that all children grow up with their two original parents.  So, gay marriage doesn’t make scientific sense… but why would I really care?  Allowing it would make many same-sex couples very happy and it wouldn’t really affect me in any practical way.  Just because it defeats the purpose of marriage doesn’t mean that I should prevent them from doing it… sure, I think it’s a pointless idea (if you look at it scientifically), but if they want to do it, why would I stop them?
• Abortion - I can understand that the issue here is whether or not a human life is being destroyed.  However, it seems like that should be a question that can be effectively answered only by an expert scientist in the field rather than by a politician.  Why can’t we just get a consensus from the scientists and then leave the issue alone?
• Immigration - Sure, we need to worry about securing our borders.  But what about the people who come here legally and go through the full quota process?  Why do we have to make life difficult for them?
• Religious polygamy - If polygamy were widespread, then it would be a problem for obvious reasons.  But as long as a group of consenting adults is happy (assuming that no sexual abuse is going on), why do we feel the need to separate innocent children from their caring polygamist mothers?  They’re not really threatening our society; they just have a certain preferred way of life.  Why do we let the government get involved in religious issues?

A lot of it (i.e. gay marriage, abortion, polygamy) comes down to religious issues.  Although the term “separation of Church and State” is thrown around all over the place, it seems like people generally ignore it.  Why was it such a big deal that some people thought Barack Obama might be Muslim?  Why does the government think of marriage as a holy bond between a man and a woman?  Sure, religion has a place in a person’s life; honestly, I wouldn’t even mind it if the US declared itself to be a Christian nation.  But as long as we maintain the concept of “religious freedom,” we cannot make policy decisions that involve religious values.

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Plenty of us have heard that over 60% of Americans aged 18-24 couldn’t find Iraq on a map of the Middle East (yes, a map of the Middle East… not even a map of the world) in a 2006 survey (that’s three years after the start of the war). I just took a look at that survey and found a few other interesting facts:

• Only 50% think that map-reading skills are “absolutely essential”
• Despite that fact, 75% couldn’t find Iran or Israel on the same Middle East map.
• 65% couldn’t find the UK on a world map.
• 88% couldn’t find Afghanistan on a map of Asia.
• Half of people couldn’t find India or Japan on the Asian map
• 70% couldn’t find North Korea, and only 37% knew that the North/South Korea border is more heavily fortified than the US/Mexico border and the China/Russia border (both of which are mostly barren).
• Only 35% knew about the huge earthquake in Pakistan, which had killed 70,000 people only a few months before the survey.
• 74% of people thought that English is a more common first language than Mandarin (which was picked by 18%).
• When asked to pick the country with a Muslim majority (between Indonesia, India, Armenia, and South Africa), 48% thought it was India (which is only 10% Muslim) and only 25% picked Indonesia (which is over 80% Muslim).
• More interestingly, people thought that the Mississippi’s flow had something to do with Hurricane Katrina.

Apparently, we don’t know anything about the world. This is why the rest of the world looks down on Americans… geography is no longer an important part of our school curricula. How do we expect to succeed through globalization if 90% of our youth don’t even know where Afghanistan is?

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