[essays slated for - and some already published in - THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER,
Santa Ana, California.]

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		Table of Contents:
		------------------

	Taxes Should be Cut and Cut and Cut
	Is it "Robert Dole versus Socrates"?
	PBS Paradoxes
	Why is it Nature versus People?
	Irrevocable Punishment is Unjust and Imprudent
	Welfare versus Commerce
	Unintended Awful Consequences of Affirmative Action
	How Central Is the Abortion Debate to America's Soul?
	    A dispute with Alan Keyes.
	The Devious Ways of Democratic Statism
	Federalism and Welfare
	Looking Good is A Job Asset
	If it isn't the Poor, it's the Children
	Harper's' Outburst of Business Bashing
	New Justice Will Have Old  Bad Ideas
	Ideology, Principles and Public Policy

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Taxes Should be Cut and Cut and Cut
Tibor R. Machan

=09The only good tax is no tax.  Why?  How would we fund government
without taxes?  Those are good questions to ask.  But first let's
understand what taxes are.
=09Throughout most of history, governments -- usually monarchies
headed by kings, emperors, pharaohs and other major or minor tyrants --
actually owned everything under their rule, including, believe it or not,
the people.  In those regimes the population h ad been regarded subjects,
not citizens.  That means that the people were treated as the underlings,
subjected to the will of the ruler.
=09In these social systems the institution of taxation was a cruel
measure of outright extortion perpetrated by rulers upon their subjects.=20
Because the rulers owned everything, when the subjects lived on the land
owned by the rulers, they had to pay for th is privilege.  No, they had no
legal right to the land they worked; they had no legal right to their own
labor; none of the basic rights of individuals were given legal
protection.  The law served the interest to the rulers, period, until
gradually the ab solute power of rulers began to be checked and contained.=
=09In time the idea gained prominence that these heads of government
were human beings, not gods, and thus had no (divine) right to rule anyone
at all other than themselves.  Indeed, the idea emerged -- between the
11th and the 18th centuries -- that every human individual had the basic,
natural right to his or her life, liberty and property.  Anyone wanting to
gain the works of others would have to ask for it -- this is the meaning
of the well known phrase "consent of the governed."  This consent must be
o btained if one wants anything from another, period, no exceptions.  John
Locke, the English political philosopher, went the farthest -- though
still not all the way -- toward the development of this idea and its
implications.
=09All the while, of course, the point had been resisted vehemently
by those who felt they knew how others ought to live their lives, conduct
themselves and make use of their properties, knew it better than the
persons who had the natural right to these.  T hey fought tooth and nail,
with force of arms, with references to tradition, and, of course, with
fancy arguments.  And the argument is still going on.
=09One argument, if one can all it that, that is still being used
widely goes something like this:  Well, in other countries people's rights
to their lives, liberty and property are violated much more extensively
than are the rights of our citizens, so why object to such violations?=20
Why be cry babies?  The New York Times put it this way on April 4,
evidently attempting to dissuade members of congress from cutting taxes
and placating the citizenry lest it consider protesting the upcoming date
with the IRS:=20
=09 "The US ranks next to last among the 24 leading industrial
countries in rate of taxation on income."  So why complain -- others are
being rooked far more, their governments continue to succeed at extorting
their labor and wealth more than others, so what 's there to complain
about?
=09If the founders of the United States of America had all along been
preached to by the editors of The New York Times and the intellectuals who
join them across the country in bolstering the power of government to tax
the citizenry, well, there would be no United States of America, the
bastion of individual liberty in the world.  Because from the start this
country had the revolutionary gall to call for more liberty for its
citizenry than any others had.  Of course, calling for it didn't always to
the tric k, which is why Lincoln needed to free the slaves and some
amendments needed to be made to the US Constitution.  But all in all, the
call for more individual liberty has been one of the cornerstones of
America's uniqueness.
=09The call for tax cuts is just one mild step in the direction of
living up to the promise of the American revolution.  Ultimately taxes
need to be replaced with a form of payment for government services that is
fully, uncompromisingly consistent with the principle of "the consent of
the governed."  Until then, however, the more cuts the better, regardless.
=09So Republicans, carry on with courage and don't let yourself be
bamboozled by the editors of The New York Times or anyone else.  The call
for the continuation of unchecked taxation, the resistance to tax
reduction, plays into the hands of those who want government returned to
its role as ruler of the people and the people returned to the status of
subjects, not sovereign individuals.=20

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Is it "Robert Dole versus Socrates"?
Tibor R. Machan

=09Socrates, the ultimate role model for educators, not to mention
for teachers of philosophy, was tried, convicted and executed some 2500
years ago for the crime of corrupting the youth of Athens.  He went about
the streets of his city meeting with young p eople and he raised questions
about the conventions of the day, including the nature of justice, piety,
knowledge, and other fundamental matters.=20
=09Socrates didn't have ready made answers to the questions he raised
but he did suggest, through his method of repeated challenges of what
people took for granted, that what is most crucial for human beings is to
examine their lives, to think critically in stead of just accepting
prevailing beliefs.  This is the way to make sure we believed that is true
and lived in harmony with reality.
=09Ever since Socrate's laid out this approach to living, most
intellectuals -- educators, pundits and artists have embarked on a form of
critical scrutiny of their culture's ideas and ideals.  Of course, their
means have differed tremendously both in style and quality.  Some have
done their task cautiously, prudently, with great attention to detail and
nuance, scrutinizing at the right time, in the right place.  Others have
acted rashly, cavalierly, in a helter-skelter manner, with wholesale
dismissal of t he past and by poking fun at all conventions, defying and
ridiculing them, offering alternatives that are not well thought out at
all but only appear appealing because of the form in which they are
advanced.  Socartes would have found them to be sophists or jokesters,
philosophically and morally irresponsible.  (He went so far as to accept,
without protest, his death sentence because he believed that he owed
loyalty to his society even while it did something terribly wrong, namely,
tried to stifle philoso phy.)
=09When Senator Robert Dole once again brought to public attention
the topic of Hollywood's impact on our culture, he was probably unaware
that he was challenging the honored tradition of Socrates and joining with
the Athenian authorities who had no patienc e with criticism, ridicule and
irony.  Senator Dole and his spin doctors probably thought that aside from
utilizing a fairly safe ploy -- attacking Hollywood for its excessive sex
and violence -- coming out against Hollywood amounts to standing up for
per ennial virtues, to condemning widely despised vices.
=09Granted the Senator disclaimed any interest in government
censorship and urged only cultural (including economic) resistance to the
entertainment industry's persistent parading before the public morally
repugnant, indeed very seriously objectionable imag es, ideas, and
stories.  But his being a senator and a leader of one of the two major
political parties vying for the power to make laws simply cannot be
ignored when he levels the serious charges he did against Hollywood.=20
Coming from him, the prospects for censorship cannot be ignored.
=09What is at issue here needs to be separated into two distinct
parts.  First, what is it exactly that movies, books, television programs
that project perverse values do to a culture?  For what are those who
produce these responsible?  Second, what is to b e done about the matter
once the first question has been answered?
=09It is ridiculous to argue that authors, writers, producers,
actors, distributors, and so forth merely react to the demands of the
public.  This would be rank determinism -- as if these folks couldn't help
themselves from yielding to whatever the public a sks for.  When you sell
someone something that is bad for him, knowing this full and well, you may
not be the cause of the harm but you have contributed to the harm by
making the harmful product available.  This is not to say, it must be
stressed, that th e seller is the cause of the harm and can be held solely
responsible for the harm.  The same goes for authors of good books, makers
of good products or services.  Both those who put their wares out into the
market and those who pick these wares from other s contribute to what
results.
=09Clearly this is the case with a great many human relationships.=20
Teachers offer their services but students must attend in order to benefit
from them.  Even in the case of parents all they can do is set good
examples and provide good rearing giving child ren, especially as they
grow older, the a ready opportunity to take advantage of these.=20
=09Great scientists, philosophers, poets, novelists, playwrights, and
politicians are not great because they single-handedly produce wonderful
effects.  Their greatness consists of placing before humanity ideas,
ideals, products, inventions, creations and s o on that will, if paid
attention to and emulated by others, bring forth something truly
beneficial.
=09If, however, we are going to praise those who inject into the
world valuable creations, then it must also be proper to blame those who
produce vile stuff, or trash, in the arts, humanities or by means of
entertainment.  What are they to be blamde for the n?  For being complicit
in making the world worse off in various ways.=20
=09Still, they aren't the sole cause of this.  In a relatively free
society, where one can take or leave what others have to offer, no one has
to accept what he or she is taught, preached to, offered for sale.  Human
beings are normally free agents -- if th ey were not, the entire debate
would be moot since the very idea that we ought to act one or another way,
say about Hollywood's indulgence in sex and violence, assumes that we have
the freedom to choose to do so.  Everything would just happen and we could
do nothing about it.
=09Chiding novelists, dramatists, writers, comedians, and the rest is
quite valid but it may be misdirected if too narrowly focused.  And it
also gives rise to same dangerous remedies.  Which brings up our second
question, What is to be done?
=09In a free society it is not politicians who ought to upgrade the
culture but the writers, dramatists, poets, painters, etc.  If there are
too many writers of bad Hollywood scripts, others must come forth and
improve matters.  Senator Robert Dole cannot m ake the difference.  It is
the people out there in the culture, not the politicians -- who ought to
concern themselves with protecting our rights -- who can help reverse
cultural degeneration, corruption.  To pin the responsibility on any one
group is unj ust and suggests false remedies: silencing one group while
leaving the rest to continue without rebuke.
=09Understandably, politicians like to use scapegoats.  They don't
like the complexities of the real world, for that would leave them with
very little to say that can be easily quoted.  But we should know better
anyway.  We should not allow the politicians desperate need for some
sensational issue to blind us to the fact of the complex and multifaceted
sources of responsibility for the problems in our world.

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PBS Paradoxes
Tibor R. Machan

=09When the government interacts with the citizenry, no bias is
supposed to occur.  This is why firms doing business with governments are
forbidden to engage in any kind of discrimination, favoring one group of
citizens over another.  This is why juries mus t be chosen without
prejudice against or in favor of certain groups.=20
=09All of this follows from the principles that everyone is supposed
to be treated as equal under the law, something embodied in the 14th
amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
=09Public Broadcasting, which is partly financed by the government,
is often urged to be fair-minded, unbiased in the way it deals with
various issues.  You will notice that the famous McNeil/Lehrer News Hour
always features pro and con folk discussing the topic of the day.  If some
program on Israel or abortion fails to be fair, PBS usually assures
viewers who complain that some other program leans the other way.  And
this is natural: with moneys taken from all of the citizens, taxes, it
would be wrong to finance some faction's viewpoint more vigorously than
another's.
=09Admittedly the idea of complete fairness is impossible to achieve.=20
There simply isn't enough time and money to do all viewpoints full
justice, even if there were a serious intention to do so.  In fact only
prominent enough factions from the citizenry ha ve their positions even
considered, let alone presented.  In this day of multiculturalism, for
example, I have never seen a prominent representation of the
Hungarian-American viewpoint, or that of Mongolian Americans.  These
groups, as thousands of others , simply lack the clout in Washington.
=09But lately there has been a most flagrant breach of fairness that
cannot be excused based on limited resources or lack of constituency.  PBS
has been running ads, what can only be considered political promos, in
support of its own alleged indispensabilit y.=20
=09What do these promos say?  They ask such questions as "Who would
do this program if PBS were around to do so?"  "What would we do about
such and such programming without PBS?"  In short, these are plain old
political campaign slogans, aiming to promote a legislative agenda.
=09Now is there a paradox here?  Yes.  We have a corporation partly
funded by the government that is using its position as a supposedly public
service to promote the agenda of only a faction of the public, namely the
fact favoring PBS.  Of course, those who love PBS want it to be continued.=
But PBS is not a private sector venture whose supporters are using their
own wealth to undertake its various projects.  No.  The Corporation for
Public Broadcasting funds PBS.  A large percentage -- around 15% -- of the
funding comes from taxes paid by all of us, not only by supporters of PBS.=
So this outfit has no business using your and my money to promote
something you and I are opposed to.
=09Conceivably PBS can have a debate or talk show or public affairs
program considering funding for CPB, PBS, and NPR.  With guests or
citizens presenting different views on the topic, such programs might be
fair, an accurate expression of "the public."  Bu t that is not what is
going on.
=09The reason governments do not run churches or newspapers is that
it is not the business of government to advocate various programs.=20
Government is supposed to make sure that we can all strive to implement
our ideas, to the extent our good fortune and har d work make possible.=20
But when government gets into the act with schools, colleges,
universities, and broadcast networks, it role as a fair representative of
the people is destroyed.  That is one of several reasons PBS should be
abolished.=20

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Why is it Nature versus People?
Tibor R. Machan

=09During this era of prospective budget busting -- which is really
nothing more than dashing wide eyed bureaucratic expectations -- one group
that is doing double time in moaning and whining is the environmentalist
lobby.  Don't get me wrong, I do not dism iss everything scary coming from
ecologists.  Human beings can be reckless and destructive, although I
doubt that our worry should be about the environment instead of, say,
ourselves who can only flourish if there are no great disasters, whether
of our ow n making or through, for example, climactic happenstance.
=09What does incline me to doubt the complete sanity of many
environmentalists is their constant insistence on reading human life out
of the rest of nature.  As if we were not natural, did not belong with the
rest of the world -- indeed, as if we had been d umped into reality by
some runaway dump truck disposing of unnatural trash.
=09The plain fact is that we are every bit as natural as are ants,
snail darters, spotted owls or wetlands.  Indeed, we are probably the
crown of creation, the highest level of nature attained thus far in the
known universe.  What's more, this means that ho using developments, too,
are part of nature.  As are high rise buildings, bridges, disposable
diapers, and even nuclear waste.
=09Part of the rhetoric that gives environmentalism the apparent
moral high ground concerns the supposed conflict between the sacrosanct
natural versus the lowly artificial, technological, "man made."  I am sure
we have all heard instance of this blabber, a s when on some program
featured on the Discovery channel we hear it said that some part of nature
had been undermined by, you guessed it, "MAN"!=20
=09Yet, consider this: when a zebra is destroyed by a lion, this
isn't depicted for us as the sad demise of some natural thing at the hands
of an alien, unnatural force.  When hurricanes, volcanoes, typhoons or
tornadoes wreak havoc across the globe, these are accepted as natural
events, not to be lamented as environmental disasters, only as minor
disturbances.  Oh, once in a while even these are traced in some
incomprehensible remote fashion to alleged human misconduct.  (But just
how that is conceived by the finger wagging environmentalist crowd is
rather bizarre.  Most of those scientific types don't really believe in
freedom of the will, in the capacity of human beings to make real choices!=
So how then can they blame us for anything?)
=09In fact we are every bit as much a part of nature as those
wetlands environmentalist wish to protect from us.  Why they do not go out
to protect other parts of nature from, say, termites or floods beats me.=20
Why they aren't willing to read out of this wo rld everything else that
changes the environment surrounding it is one of those puzzles these folks
simply refuse to address.
=09What makes sense is that human beings are a different natural
phenomenon from, say, volcanoes and foxes, just two natural beings that
cause some destruction here and there in the universe.  But remember,
birds are different from fish, and fish are differ ent from rocks, and so
forth and so forth, so the fact that human beings manifest even radical
differences is by no means unprecedented.  Nature repeatedly keeps
introducing such things, nothing strange about that any more.=20
=09But no.  The environmentalist crowd keeps treating the novelty
that we are as freaks, aliens, undesirables.  Housing developments are not
natural; nor are freeways, parking lots, or dams.  Why?  Well, there is no
answer given to that question because the idea is obviously nutty.  What a
natural being does is by definition natural.  It happens that doing wrong
is new -- other beings do not do the wrong thing, that's reserved to human
nature.  But it's natural, too.  It is our task to avoid doing wrong, to
keep doing right, but the problem is not between natural versus
non-natural or anti-natural.
=09The whole rhetoric of environmentalism needs to be recast into
terms that make better sense.  Let's cut out the scam of trying to exclude
human life from the realm of nature. Then we can ask whether it is the
right thing for us to build houses, bridges, dams, parking lots, or
nuclear power generators.  Those are real issues.  The nature versus human
beings story is a phony, through and through.=20

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Irrevocable Punishment is Unjust and Imprudent
Tibor R. Machan

=09Capital punishment or the death penalty is usually administered
for very grave crimes such as high treason, the murder of police officers,
serial murders, first degree murders with special circumstances, etc.  I
want to argue in opposition to it.  I believe what I will offer here
deserves close scrutiny and then adoption.
=09My objection to the death penalty is somewhat unusual.  I do not
argue against it because I think it is cruel and unusual punishment; nor
do I claim that it is barbaric or demeans members of the society in which
it is practiced.  I agree that there are people who do not deserve to
remain alive among the rest of us, whose evil doings warrant the most
terrible, most severe rejection of them by us, and causing the death of
such people would be an act of justice, if it could be done without the
risk of even greater injustice.  Some people do deserve to die for what
they have done, there is not much doubt about this.
=09What is wrong with the death penalty is that it is a form of
punishment we cannot undo if we are mistaken.  There is little doubt that
defendants are often found guilty even though they may in fact not be
guilty.  That is because human beings -- even twelve of them working
diligently together, let alone twelve who may be angry, prejudiced,
emotionally out of control, etc., as well as judges of appeals courts and
the federal judiciary -- can make mistakes.=20
=09Usually if mistakes have been made in the criminal justice process
and were later discovered, reparations can be made to those who have been
wronged.  But if a defendant's punishment included execution, there is no
way to remedy matters.  It is not possible for us to restore someone to
life.  It is not possible to apologize and make amends.  We are left with
the burden of guilt for having given ourselves no option in the wake of a
very real possibility, namely, having mistakenly convicted and executed
someone.=20
=09Thus, being against the death penalty on the basis I have outlined
does not mean that convicted criminals are being coddled or safe guarded
against the consequences of their actions.  Nor does this line of
reasoning assume that defendants could not deserve being executed --
certainly it is arguable that many who have received the death penalty, as
well as some who are about to be sentenced, have wronged others so
severely, so viciously, that they have no reason left to live.=20
=09Not executing even such persons is only to ensure that we,
law-abiding citizens, do not find ourselves acting irresponsibly in the
face of our fallibility.  We need to make sure that we can recover from
mistakes.  It is only rational for us to anticipate that now and then this
will be necessary and avoid policies that make it impossible.=20
=09Indeed, in any given case mistakes can be made.  Very likely the
defendants have earned the most severe punishment for their crime,
although I am not privy enough to the case to make such a determination
myself.  Still, the process may have been flawless.
=09Yet, it is not at all silly to suppose that -- given how close
knit many communites are, how the legal profession often forms a kind of
fraternity and sorority in many regions, and the frequent possibility of a
bad designation of venue -- some mistakes may well be made in many cases.=
So it is vital that we guard against the worst consequence of such a
possibility.  Not because of the defendant, but because we want to do the
right thing, even if only belat- edly.
=09The punishment of criminals need not, of course, be seen as having
to be thawed via the abolition of the death penalty.  A person who, as his
or her punishment, is properly incarcerated for life -- without the
possibility of parole and with no privileges at all that would
approximate a civilized life -- would most likely suffer more than one who
is put to death in the ways often done in our day (e.g., electric chair,
lethal injection).  Once dead, no one suffers in the ordinary sense of
that term, in the sense in which human punishment may create suffering
in others.  (At most it is living for some time with the knowledge of the
serious prospect of being executed that amounts to severe suffering and,
thus, grave punishment.) But once death occurs, there is no more
suffering.  (Even with the prospect of an afterlife, a convicted crimi-
nal, about to be executed, can make his or her peace with divine authority
and escape supernatural punishment!)
=09Suppose one continues to live while having been properly,
seriously banished from society (that is, other persons and whose presence
and creations could be the source of most of one's joys in life) -- that
is, without all the current, namby-pamby athletic, recreational,
educational and related pleasantries and benefits to make jail an
experience akin at most to a hospital stay.  One will then suffer the
prolonged consequences of one's criminal actions, namely, being banished
from nearly all of civilized community, day in and day out, relentlessly.=
(Few rational persons would prefer spending the rest of their lives thus
properly incarcerated, to being put to death.)
=09Some might object that we can tell well enough who deserves to be
killed for his or her crimes.  The process is strict enough for that.  We
are rightly confident about many of our decisions based on no better
evidence and reasoning than is available to and from a jury.  We build
bridges, airplanes, dams, and undertake innumerable risky operations, some
of them involving the possible loss of life, without giving them up
because a mistake might be made.
=09Sure enough.  However, there are positive goals to be gained from
such risky ventures, and these are usually not at the expense of others
who are unwilling participants.  Airline passengers, people living beneath
dams, those who drive in tunnels, mountain climbers, drag racers and so
forth are all willing to take the risk.=20
=09Those who turn out to be the victims of wrongful convictions are
not willing participants in their own fate.  Granted, many got what they
implicitly asked for when they were severely punished.  But the few who
have been mistakenly convicted, all the way through the justice system,
are not among them.  Thus we must take every possible measure not to
expose them to irrevocable punishment.=20

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Welfare versus Commerce
Tibor R. Machan

=09The current efforts of Republicans to downsize government has met
with one statistic that is supposed to defend increased welfare
expenditures.  It is the claim that since 1964 the number of poor children
has increased significantly.  Those who have made this claim have also
argued that a cause of this is the lack of jobs, a part of an economy in a
recession.
=09What produces such economic malaise?  It is the dysfunctional
social system of the welfare state.  It drains the economy of energy for
which there is a demand and encourages production of energy for which
there isn't.=20
=09To this some will say that this is a needed price to pay for
providing help to the helpless.  Well, though this does not square with
the idea of a free republic, that's not all that's wrong with it.  The
welfare legislated by the welfare state simply fai ls to be, on balance,
what its supporters claim, namely, helpful to the those who are helpless.=
Instead it encourages the belief in one's helplessness, which often
becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
=09Indeed, supporters admit this when they claim that poverty is
caused by lack of jobs.  A vicious circle, one might suggest!  It is this
that Republicans need to stress, next to what they simply haven't managed
to realize, namely, that the taking from Pet er to supply Paul with what
he needs is morally wrong - a case of theft, plain and simple.=20
=09The welfare state needs a frontal attack on many fronts, not the
least of which is its drain on the productivity of people, not to mention
the moral one that stresses that it is founded on theft.  Let the
opponents then come forth with their alternative moral priority, namely,
forcing people to behave in line with perfect virtue, all of the time.=20
And this will be evidently dumb - only free human beings can be good human
beings.  That this carries with it the risk of some evil is no cases
against the poi nt.  (Our risk aversive moral climate will yet render too
many of us cowards!)

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Unintended Awful Consequences of Affirmative Action
Tibor R. Machan

=09Here is a thought: when racists can rail against affirmative
action, they can feel righteous, which makes them feel better about
themselves and helps avoid having to come to grips with their racism.
=09Affirmative action does not really help those blacks who can use
the help.  instead it is the middle class blacks who get from this
government mandate just a bit of boost in their economic lot, as is the
case with women who benefit from affirmative actio n.  The very people who
ought to continue to make it on their own and have every chance to do so
get the extra, unfair boost.  Those in real bad straits aren't even
touched by this facade of assistance.
=09But, while nothing much of substance gets done for most blacks by
affirmative action, the policy does everything to boost the self-image of
racist Americans.  For now they can submerge their racism within a really
legitimate rage.  They can now hate the government for imposing on people
plainly unfair, even racist, policies.=20
=09What irony!  You brag about a program because it supposedly
creates a level playing field and help the ones who have no desire for
such a thing, letting them finally gain public sympathy.  If I were a
racists, this would be a most welcome deal.
=09These days being a racist isn't even acceptable in the deep south.=20
Not long ago I heard a hospital worker in Opelika, Alabama, make a racist
remark about a black colleague.  When I rebuked him for it -- he made the
comment to me -- he said "I am sorry, I am a racist but I cannot help it."=

Not a sign of righteousness.
=09But I bet, if this guy loses a promotion to a black because of
affirmative action, he can now hate blacks under the guise of hating big
government.  how convenient, not having to live squarely with your
irrational feelings, being able to disguise them wi th the support of
government, as anger with government oppression!
=09If there is anyone who has very good reason for opposing
affirmative action mandates by the government, it is American blacks.  It
is, as Shelby Steele noted recently on the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour, a way
white liberals can feel good about themselves wit hout actually having to
do much of substance.  That's all.=20

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How Central Is the Abortion Debate to America's Soul?
A dispute with Alan Keyes.

Tibor R. Machan*

=09Alan Keyes is the best candidate for president the Republicans
could offer except for his fundamental misunderstanding of where to apply
the basic tenets of our republic, the words of the Declaration of
Independence.
=09Keyes is precisely right that what this country needs is to be
reinvigorated as to its basic vision, the conception of a political
community that honors the principles of individual rights.  Yes, he is
dead right, that what needs to be reintroduced into the consciousness of
all Americans, after decades of fuzziness and vacillation, is that "We
hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that
they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that
among these rig hts are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  That
to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed...."
=09But, arguably, Mr. Keyes is wrong that this implies, clearly and
unambiguously, as it does that slavery is a violation of basic individual
rights, that abortion, too, is such a violation.  That issue is not a
clear cut instance of applying the doctrine o f individual rights by any
means. As such, it cannot be central to the mission of reinvigorating the
soul of America, the principles of the Declaration.  The reason is not
difficult to grasp.  The problem in Mr. Keyes' position is that he
confuses what is a straightforward with a borderline case.=20
=09The killing of a zygote or fetus prior to the development of the
cerebral cortex, the higher or thinking portion of the brain, is arguably
not a case of homicide because, just as in the case of whether one is
fully human when the brain has died, it raise s the issue of whether one
is human the brain has not yet been born.  It has been central to our
conception of what it is to be human that a human being must have the
capacity to think, to form ideas, something that can only be done when the
higher functi ons of the human brain have set in.
=09Consider that at the end of a person's life he or she may become
brain dead.  Would allowing such a person to die be homicide?  Would
pulling the plug be homicide?  This question is problematic because we
have here a borderline case.  (It is analogous to disputes about when is
one a child, an adolescent, an adult, whetehr some living things are
plants or animals, etc.)
=09In contrast, if a black human being is lynched, there is no
question about whether this is homicide.  If a black human being is
enslaved, there is no question that this violates the unalienable right to
liberty of that person.  But if someone is kept "al ive" after his brain
dies so that his organs may be used to save someone else's life, after
which the plug is pulled, that is neither homicide nor enslavement,
certainly not in any clear cut and simple fashion.
=09But let's now turn to Mr. Keyes' call for a full debate on the
abortion issue.  Here is the pro-choice position that Mr. Keyes charges
with abandoning the principles of the Declaration:=20
=09At conception only a "pre-embryo" exists.  This amounts to the
trophoblast, and a few cells comprising the embryoblast.  Indeed, prior to
day 14, when an embryo comes to exist, this embryoblast can continue on
several paths:  it may develop into an embry o proper, a tumor, a
hydatidiform mole, a cancer, twins, or triplets, or, more often than not,
nothing at all by virtue of genetic defects.  As one biologist puts it,
"until the primitive streak appears at day 14, there is no human
individual."  This mean s that no person with an identity -- or, to use a
different term for it, a soul -- exists prior to day 14 after conception.=
This arguably proves that at conception no human individual could possibly
exist, since no persisting individual entity exists bef ore that time.
=09Yet even at this point it is questionable that a person or human
being exists.  It depends on what a human being is.  Unless we establish
this fact clearly and consistently there is no way to rationally resolve
the dispute.=20
=09A human being is a rational -- or thinking -- animal, a biological
entity that survives and flourishes mainly by the use of its conceptual
faculty (the part of the functioning brain that produces thinking, the
formation of ideas, theories, principles, e tc., the cerebral cortex).=20
=09In the fetus this portion of the brain fully develops near the
24th week of pregnancy.  It is at that point impossible, then, for the
fetus to be even an infant human being.  (Babies and the nearly-born do,
indeedd, think, albeit at the very minuscule l evel, just embarking on the
formation of some ideas.)
=09Here is the most important point:  What the above implies, if
true, is that it is false to accuse someone of homicide who has an
abortions=97or performs one=97before the 24th week of pregnancy.  To punish
such a person for murder or even manslaughter is unju st and laws must
prevent such actions.  It would be akin to punishing someone for killing,
by pulling the plug on, a brain dead person.
=09It is true that even the above demarcation of when a potential
human being becomes a human being is imprecise.  Yet so is when a child
becomes an adolescent or an adolescent an adult, yet we have elaborate
legal provisions which hinge on those points of demarcation.  In fact, we
must cope with "gray areas" throughout all human affairs.  Just because
they pose difficulties and occasional consternations=97as when we have to
figure out whether to charge a child with an adult crime=97we are not
justified in igno ring the typical cases.  And in abortion the typical
case is that it is potential human beings, not human beings proper, that
are being destroyed.  In effect, this is no more homicide than destroying
some human sperm or egg.
=09Finally, it is worthwhile to consider that if we were to treat the
conceptus -- that is, the being that is formed at the point of conception
-- as a child, this would arbuablyu bring about a near-police state.  For
example, every miscarriage would have t o be investigated, every
intercourse would have to be recorded (as births are now), and pregnant
women would have to be monitored (because, unlike a child, the fetus is
not available for public observation and legal protection).  All this
would undermine the principles of the Declaration of Independence.  (Mr.
Keyes here risks being hoisted on his own petard.)
=09I am concerned in this debate with justice, as is Mr. Keyes.  He
wants to place this issue before the American people.  I think he is right
that this matter needs to be taken up, although not because the issue is
as central to the soul of America as slav ery was.=20
=09The position he must contend with from many of those who agree
with him on the true fundamentals, is that banning abortions prior to the
24th week or so of pregnancy is arguably unjust.  It protects no human
being's but only a potential human being's non existent right to life,
liberty or pursuit of happiness.  And it punishes those who refuse to
carry on with a pregnancy, arguably without having violated anyone's
rights.  Such a ban, then, could violate the rights of the individuals or
couples who should be free to decided whether to bring a pregnancy to
term.
=09I believe that seeing the matter along these lines accomplishes
two things:  First, it is closer to the truth of the kind of issue that
abortion amounts to, namely, a borderline problem, not one at the heart of
our public life as Mr. Keyes claims.  Secon d, it makes it possible to
provide Republicans with a bigger tent than Mr. Keyes believes Republicans
can rightly, justly tolerate, by bring pro-life and pro-choice Republicans
-- indeed, Americans -- together on the central issue of fidelity to the
Decla ration, while not demanding that they accept only Mr. Keyes' account
of what the principles of the Declaration imply regarding this borderline
case, namely, abortion.
=09Mr. Keyes is right: if the pro-life position is sound, than it is
not possible to declare the abortion controversy a matter of private
morality.  (Although he is wrong to think that everything that is clear
cut is a matter of public morality -- that woul d eliminate the chance for
human choice and liberty in moral matters.) But even if the pro-life
position is right, it does not clearly and unambiguously follow from the
principle of the right to life, anymore than opposition to euthanasia or
assisted sui cides follows from that principles simply and unambiguously.=

  ========================================================================

The Devious Ways of Democratic Statism

Tibor R. Machan

=09Whenever public programs are being cut, those who have their
benefits reduced offer cries of need and those who feel for them cries of
compassion.  Yet whenever public programs are enacted, which also cuts out
the benefits of those who need to pay for it from higher taxes, it is
contended that this is just the result of social life.  After all, "we"
have decided to fund social security, unemployment compensation, the
national parks, public broadcasting, or whatnot, haven't we?  So it is no
objection to t his that some of us suffer losses, that some of us now have
to forego benefits, experience reduced income which can lead to reduced
quality of education, recreation, home life, dental care, transportation
safety, cultural enrichment, and so forth.  None o f this is supposed to
matter because "we" have decided to tax ourselves higher to fund all those
public programs.
=09This is rank duplicity.  If the Republicans, for example, elect to
cut federal programs which leave open the possibility that some states
will not spend money on poor children's lunches, that is mean-minded,
cruel, and morally insidious.  But if the Demo crats decide to increase
taxes for various programs, well that is just the way democracy works and
all those suffering the consequences have no reason to complain.  We did
it to ourselves, so we have no right to fuss.
=09Why is it that it is OK to violate the individual rights to
liberty and property of millions of people when the lot of us decide to do
this but not OK to reduce the benefits of people when a somewhat
differently configured lot of us decided to do that?  Why may the choices
of individuals be ignored and thwarted by democratic decision making but
not the feelings and lot of others hurt by the same process?
=09The fact is that most people who talk of democracy like it only
when it supports their agenda.  It is fine to use democracy to rob the
rich -- it makes it valid public policy instead of theft.  But if the poor
are the targets than suddenly democracy is i nvalid.
=09Indeed, the reason is that democracy is never enough.  There must
always be some specification of the goals for which democracy is
appropriate.  It isn't enough to have a democratic process -- it can lead
to results of widely different quality.  Sometime s the majority does
right, sometimes wrong.  And the task of political theory is, in part, to
identify those areas of public life that should be subject to democratic
decision making.
=09What are those areas?  And why are they the ones?
=09Whether alone or with his or fellows, a human being may not do
some things to other human beings.  Especially no one may take over
another's life.  This is true whether or not that other's life is
fortunate, well to do, talented, accomplished, beautiful, accepted by
others and rewarded.  In either case one may not take over another's life
-- it amounts to theft, robbery, assault, kidnapping, murder, battery,
rape, and other forms of aggression.  And the fact that the numbers of
those who do such things i s increased and even constitute a majority of
those concerned makes no difference.  It is wrong to steal on one's own as
well as with the support of millions.  It is wrong to enslave, to place
others into servitude when they refuse, etc., no matter whethe r one is in
the minority or the majority.
=09Nor can majorities authorize certain people, their political
representatives, to carry out such deeds, even if they do it indirectly,
by threatening those whom they would rob, steal from, kidnap, assault or
whatever with aggressive enforcement at the han ds of the police.  It is
wrong, then, even for the government of a representative democracy or
republic to carry out such deeds.  Having done it with democratic
"authorization" makes it no more right than if no such authorization had
taken place.  There i s simply no moral authority for anyone to delegate
to another such powers since one hasn't got them in the first place.
=09And all parties to the debate admit this, more or less directly.=20
This is why even when the people vote in Republicans, liberal democrats
claim that what the Republicans do is wrong.  They argue that it is wrong
on the floors of the House and Senate.  So they evidently think that what
the democratic process produces is not the end of the story.  Even if the
law passes, the liberal democrat will call it heartless, unkind, lacking
in compassion.  And it is no answer to this that, well, it was brought
about by way of the democratic process -- "we" did it, so it's OK, a
matter of society's collective will.=20
=09But by the same token it is no answer to those who protest the
taking of their life-time, income, good fortune or whatever by majority
vote that. well, this is OK since it is done democratically.  The
violation of the rights of individuals is no less jus tified by democracy
than is collective callousness.=20
=09Of course this raises the problem of how to be kind,
compassionate, generous, helpful to those in genuine need without
violating the rights of individuals to their life, liberty and property?=20
The answer is actually quite simple: Do it, promote it, exhib it it by
your own conduct!  When members of a society learn that moral principles
cannot justly be violated by the democratic process, so they may not
violate anyone's rights with the excuse that "we" did it so it's OK, they
learn, also, that when the rig ht thing must be done, it has to be done by
choice, free of coercion.  So the help that the poor and needy should be
given must be given at the initiative of the free citizen -- via charity,
church, philanthropy, fund raising, etc.=20

  ========================================================================

Federalism and Welfare
Tibor R. Machan

=09Even Ronald Reagan accepted something that I regard morally and
politically wrong, namely, that government ought to redistribute wealth
from those whose needs are reasonably well satisfied to the needy.  This
policy is morally wrong because it is nothing less than legalized theft.=20
No person would be legally justified in holding up another person so as to
benefit a third person.  In extreme circumstances someone in dire straits
could be morally justified in stealing, if that were the only alternative
and the circumstances he or she faces were accidental, no one's fault.=20
But this could never be justified as a legal measure.
=09Yet, we live in a society that runs by democratic means, so that
if the general public believes in legalized theft, there is very little
the victims can do to resist.  So the question that remains is not so much
whether government ought to redistribute w ealth but how best to do it,
how to do in a way that actually does help the needy.
=09This is the issue over which the Republicans and Democrats
disagree, not over whether there should be a government welfare program in
these United States of America.  And here the Republicans have the
stronger case.  That is because local governments sim ply have better
knowledge about where the needy are, what they need, and how the system is
abused.  But even Newt Gingrich does not put the argument correctly.
=09It is not that we need 50 experiments with how to administer a
welfare program for those who actually need and deserve help.  Gingrich
said, on NBC-TV's Meet the Press (December 4), this is why the system
needs to be changed.  But although there may be s ome value in
experiments, nothing much would be proven necessarily by California's
success with one program, not for some other state such as Hawaii.  But it
is important that California, or even more, some city in California,
administer a welfare program for those who are needy because the city
administrator have at least some chance of getting a clear idea of what
kind of help is needed, how it would best accomplish its task.
=09The argument for federalism -- of letting the smallest
governmental units administer welfare -- is localism.  Local governments
are in the best position to know about actual circumstances that bear on a
case.  Experimentation is irrelevant.=20
=09The problem with nationalizing welfare or anything else is that
the national government cannot know about the absolutely relevant details
of the cases thrust into its jurisdiction.  Even though even at the local
levels it is wrong to steal from Peter to help out Paul, at least there
Paul may actually be helped, since those doing the stealing and helping
may have knowledge of Paul's circumstances.=20

  ========================================================================

Looking Good is A Job Asset
Tibor R. Machan

=09NBC-TV's Dateline did a segment May 17th on how employer's often
prefer thin, good looking women for sales positions, over fat homely ones.=
ABC-TV's 20/20 had done a similar show a couple of years ago, only 20/20
had the guts to feature the late Roy Chi lds, Jr., who weighed some 450
pounds, I believe, but didn't believe that people owed him anything.=20
Dateline never offered a rebuttal to the complaining women, unless you see
Jane Pauley's and Snow Phillip's appearance on the program week after
week, wit h no one who is bad looking ever standing in for them, as a
demonstration of why the complaining women had no case.
=09Why should looks have nothing to do with whether one is hired for
a job involving contact with people whose slightest displeasure can drive
them away from a prospective sale?  If I own a restaurant, why should I
not hire good looking help with which to s erve my customers?  Why should
the receptionist at an insurance firm, a used car lot, or even a dentist's
office not be someone who tends to appeal to people in terms of
conventional standards of attractiveness?
=09The answer to this from advocates of absolute fairness is mixed.=20
Some claim it is unjustly discriminatory, but this begs the question.  So
what?  We discriminate all the time based on considerations of what
appeals to us esthetically.  Even if it is not a person's fault to be
obese, just as it is not to be ugly or bow-legged, others clearly have
every right, even justification, to pay attention to how others appear, to
the esthetic aspects of their fellow human beings.  We do this all the
time when we p ick furniture, flowers, paintings, cats and dogs,
girlfriends and boyfriends, husbands and wives, even children.  While that
is not all any decent person considers about anything else, let alone
other human beings, clearly there is nothing wrong with payi ng heed and
preferring what is attractive to what is not about other people.
=09But no, this is supposed to reveal one's meanness.  It is supposed
to be nastiness to do this.  But in fact nothing like that can be said of
our discrimination in favor of what appeals to us.  We merely want
something out of life that is not always possi ble, to enjoy the view, the
nearness of what is esthetically pleasing.
=09And this does not stop at our front door.  It clearly extends to
the office, to the class room.  Of course, when one hires someone for a
position that has nothing to do with appealing to customers' esthetic
sensibilities, the point is moot.  And if someo ne is qualified for the
position as announced, someone else less so but prettier should not get
the job, since that would involve plain deception, misrepresentation.=20
=09But is there anything wrong with stating up front that the job
includes as one of the qualifications the applicant's appearance?=20
Nothing.  The only problem is that these days one cannot legally say so.=20
Thus we find ourselves engaged in minor deceptions .  That's too bad.  Yet
it is more the fault of those who pretend that it is wrong for us to spell
out what we like -- in addition to what we need to have done -- at the
job, then those who are trying to live with the law and also follow their
common sense.=20

 ========================================================================

If it isn't the Poor, it's the Children
Tibor R. Machan

=09If I had sufficient media visibility, I could market my ideas to
publishers and my first popular book would be entitled, "It usually begins
with the Poor."  The second would be called "It usually follows with the
Children."  The gist of the idea is this:  Whenever power hungry folk grab
for more power, they pick some group in whose behalf they make their plea
for more power; and the poor are first on the list.  The children follow.
=09Not only do such folks shamelessly invoke the poor as the alleged
would-be beneficiaries of their power wielding, but they do this for
projects that have absolutely no relationship to poverty. Consider the
current and very belated questioning of the valu e of public television by
some political newcomers.  Some of the more radical libertarian types
among the new Republican majority in Congress have dared question the
justice of taking money from all tax-payers to fund the Corporation for
Public Broadcasti ng, surely an elitist state-supported entertainment and
propaganda machine if there has ever been one.  Only public education
beats this media outfit in the game of "Who will try to control the minds
of the people?"=20
=09Grabbing for power over the minds of the public is, of course, a
largely non-partisan effort.  Both parties strive for it.  The content of
the brainwashing may differ, but it is indeed one of the roles of
contemporary politicians to try to manipulate how people think.  In the
main it is a hopeless effort, although one can reach some success if one
combines it with the practice of handing out benefits to those whose
ideological sport is being sought.
=09But now and then decent politicians come to the fore who have more
concern for general principles of justice than for wielding power in
support of this or that special interest, narrow objective.  And among the
new Republicans some have shown an inclinat ion to stress principle over
special interest.  In that spirit we find some who are trying to establish
some measure of justice in the tax system, by advocating the flat tax,
which would tax all people at the same percentage of their income.  Others
want to stem the tide of the so called generosity of government, robbing
Peter to further the objectives of Paul.  And others are actually
proposing the elimination certain government programs.  Among the latter
we find a few who are proposing to kill one of t he welfare state's most
fraudulent programs, "public" broadcasting.=20
=09It is notorious how the bulk of the general public will have
nothing to do with this government funded task!  National Public Radio, as
well as the Public Broadcasting Service, mostly offer radio and television
fare for an intellectual and left liberal c lientele.  NPR is blatantly
left-wing.  I listen in on nearly everything they offer, enjoying,
however, only the music.  The rest I tune into because I want to know just
how unabashed NPR is with its effort to mold people's thinking.  The
interviews on NP R are uniformly one-sided. Friends of the left, from
politics, science, the arts, entertainment, the social service spheres and
elsewhere are routinely given ample air time to present their case for
greater government involvement in the support of their e ndeavors.  No
"hostile" questions are raised, no investigative reportage is allowed,
when it comes to these friends of the state.  Be it All Things Considered,
Weekend Edition, Fresh Air, or some round table chat lead by that
spokesperson of left-liberali sm, Daniel Shorr, it all amounts to boosting
the reputation of the interventionist state.=20
=09Yet when the defenders of this monstrous aberration of the
function of government heard of the criticism from the new Republicans,
they had the gall to claim that their institution was there to help the
poor!  On a debate on CNN's "Crossfire," Michael Ki nsley, the ever
present clever point-man for left-liberal political agendas, and his
cohort in defense of PBS, didn't even flinch in suggesting that this
shamelessly elitist government propaganda vehicle is something needed by
the poor.  In fact what it i s needed for is as a vehicle to keep the
light of left liberal ideology burning at tax-payers' expense.
=09But, of course, this line of defense is falling on deaf ears.=20
Hardly anyone is fooled.  So another tactic must be embarked upon.  This
is that children need PBS.  Why?  Well, because a quarter century of
commercial TV for children has been too amusing!  To quote Peggy Charren,
founder of Action for Children's Television, "The record of those 25 years
[of broadcasting for children] shows that in large part, commercial
television has abdicated its educational responsibility and concentrated
on its ability to amuse."  How evil can they get!
=09It is peculiar that people who want government to help with their
tasks never have enough government for their taste.  It isn't enough that
public education is in the hands of governments across the country.  It
isn't enough that children are ultimately in the hands of politicians or
their cronies throughout the better part of their childhood, bombarded
with civics lessons, social studies, history, and the rest as conceived of
by champions of state power.  No. Television too must be lassoed into
service for purposes of "educating" children.  Heaven help us if children
are amused, as would be done by commercial (read: nasty, greedy, callous,
inhuman) broadcasting.  We must monopolize their brains with lessons in
environmentalism, multiculturalism, self-lo athing for the sins of their
white ancestors and the rest of the left-liberal agenda.
=09It is indeed time to put a stop to this.  Let the left liberals do
their advocacy the old-fashioned way: buy a newspaper or magazine or a
radio/television station and sell it to a willing public.  Make your case
at your own expense, not on the backs of m illions who (a) disagree with
your message and (b) have no interest in funding your offerings in the
free market place.
=09Public education, from elementary, high school, college and
university levels, is largely run by the left liberal gang.  The tax
payers foot their salaries, overhead and grants to the tune of billions of
dollars.  It is time to wrest control from this gr oup and return both the
responsibility and the authority of educating children to those who asked
for it, parents, when they embarked upon child bearing.  It will be just a
beginning to eliminate, permanently, one may hope, the propaganda machine
of publi c broadcasting as a vehicle for such power grabbing.  Maybe the
rest will slowly come tumbling down, as well, once the revolution gets
under way good and hard to turn this country on the path to liberty, away
from the (often admittedly subtle) tyranny of the left liberal statist
elite.  On the way the remaining statist inclined conservatives might also
learn a few lessons in the value of liberty.=20

  ========================================================================

Harper's' Outburst of Business Bashing
Tibor R. Machan

=09In the October 1994 issue of Harper's Magazine, a venerable
institution in publishing if there ever was one, author Earl Shorris has
penned one of the most vicious, class warfare inciting articles that has
ever been published.  The piece, "A Nation of Sa lesmen," which is soon to
be a book to be published by W. W. Norton (itself a prestigious house), is
a relentless, zealous, and ideologically blind attack on the profession of
business, in particular selling.
=09If you think Author Miller's depiction of the salesman (and oddly
the sexist bias is not even noted), in his The Death of a Salesman, was a
prejudiced denigration of a perfectly honorable profession, just wait 'til
you read Shorris's diatribe.  Anecdote after anecdote the author paints a
picture of some select members of the profession with which he then sets
out to smear everyone who has made a living from selling.=20
=09The method is pure innuendo.  None of the stories can be checked
out, we simply have to take the author's word.  And even if he is honest,
none of it proves what he claims, namely, that "Homo vendes (salesmen)
lack dignity."  All that a close and prudent reading of this rhetorical
exercise provides is an example of pure ideological hatred, mixed with a
bit of scape-goating reminiscent of the Nazis and, of course, of Karl
Marx, both of whom picked the seller as the scourge of Western
Civilization, with th e Jews filling the ranks of sellers most prominently
and getting it good and hard in the process of the hate campaign.
=09Shorris cleverly avoids implicating Jews but he could just as well
have named them, since because of their centuries long exclusion from
other professions throughout Europe, they ended up occupying the business
professions more than others did.  This is how Marx selected them, in his
essay "On The Jewish Question," for the depiction of the typical
capitalists.
=09Sellers have, of course, had an ambiguous reputation anywhere in
the world, mostly because of the implausible but prominent belief that
what we do for ourselves to enjoy our lives is somehow lowly, base, evil.=
Thus Shorris's vitriolic verbal assault wil l probably find some who
embrace it with relish.  But in truth it is vicious, an exemplary case of
business bashing, little more.=20
=09Is it a surprise that Harper's would publish such vile stuff?=20
Well, I am not sure.  The family wealth that now backs the publication was
originally produced honestly, by hard working capitalists.  But the
current leadership, headed by John R. MacArthur, is a different story.=20
They largely inherited their money and probably feel the typical guilt
that comes from people who have bought into, hook, line and sinker, the
myth that money is evil, that serving one's economic interests soils one's
soul, that pr udence is not really a virtue but an amoral inclination
(just as Immanuel Kant, the precursor to much of modern philosophy
argued).
=09Furthermore, Harper's is publsiehd by a non-profit foundation, one
of those institutions of our society that has served for many to escape
the realities of the a market besieged by the petty tyrannies of
government meddling. Perhaps Harper's wants to enc ourage the destruction
of all competitive, profit making enterprises and bring them all into the
fold of the nonprofit sector.
=09In any case, the story of why such a prejudiced outlook on
business is championed -- in the only country which has proven that the
free enterprise system, when it was given some chance to flourish, can
become the breadbasket of the -- world is a long one .  For now one can
only hope that the half truths embodied in the Shorris piece will be seen
for what they are and will be treated as they deserve to be, with prudent
dismissal.=20
=09Every profession can be exposed to malpractice.  Selling no less
than writing, teaching, science or law.  Lazy thinkers will pick on one or
two of these and blame on it, rather than one some who engage in abuse and
corruption, the vows of the world.
=09One can only hope that eventually the kind of vile scape-goating
Shorris exhibits with such panache fails to ignite even greater injustice
then has already been perpetrated against a perfectly decent and extremely
helpful profession.=20

  ========================================================================

New Justice Will Have Old  Bad Ideas

Tibor R. Machan

=09It does not matter for me whether a nominee to the Supreme Court
is brilliant.  Intellectual virtuosity isn't what benefits justice most.=20
As Plato showed us throughout his dialogues, sophistry is smart but not
always wise.
=09Supreme Court nominee Stephen Breyer is, no doubt, bright, quick
on his feet, clever.  As one of his supporters put it, he is a great
pragmatist.  And that is what is most disturbing, plus that everyone,
liberal, conservative, rightists or leftist loves him so much.
=09A pragmatist is someone who believes that there are no principles
in ethics or politics, only rules of thumb that members of a community
happen to agree on.  But there is never any way to show that these rules
are really sound, really accord with the way the world is.  A pragmatist
may be sincere, but he cannot believe, by his own tenets, that sincerity
is a good thing as such, apart from its effectiveness for achieving
certain goals.  As Professor Richard Rorty, America's foremost pragmatist
philosopher has noted, it is what the community sanctions that counts.=20
Dissidents cannot be right.  Rorty said, about the difference between
Soviet and Western type legal orders, that [We] cannot say that democratic
institutions reflect a moral reality and that tyrannical regimes do not
reflect one, that tyrannies get something wrong that democratic societies
get right.(p. 37) [Richard Rorty, "The Seer of Prague," The New Republic,
July 1, 1991, pp. 35-40.]
=09Now one needs but think a bit to appreciate how devastating such a
viewpoint is as far as the political ideals of our republic are concerned.=
They are there, well, because they are there, not because they are right,
just, proper for human beings to establish.  The founders and framers,
Lincoln and the rest of them, all merely gave vent to some kind of
prejudice, an arbitrary preference, instead of having succeeded in
identifying just principles of human community life.=20
=09By the pragmatist account the Civil War was fought over
conflicting prejudices, not over whether it is right or wrong to hold
slaves, whether the union should tolerate some citizens' claim to being
inherently superior to others.  The Nazis were simply of a different
opinion from what the people of the Allies believed, and the Soviet Union
just felt different from us -- and all of its dissidents -- about the
relationship between government and the citizenry.
=09Why do all the conservatives on the Senate Judiciary Committee
applaud this?  Why do all the liberals?  Why does anyone?  Perhaps it is
in their eagerness to avoid the cat fights associated with the Clarence
Thomas nomination.  Or with Robert Bork's unsuccessful quest for a seat on
the Court.
=09But there may be something else to it.  Bork was, after all, a
philosophical kin to Breyer.  He also held, and still holds, that all our
political system rests on is the will of the people.  Whether that will is
sound or not, whether the people are moral or immoral is an irrelevant
issue.  What matters is that the people established some rules and judges
should merely make sure that these rules are followed.
=09This, in effect, makes the constitution no more than a game
invented and the Supreme Court a referee, to make sure that people who
play the game adhere to the rules.  Of course, games are invented, so the
rules can be changed anytime, with no breach of justice at stake.  So if
the people of the use instructed their legislators to enact slavery or
torture or the abolition of the First or Fifth Amendment, the Court should
say nothing since the people are supreme.  And if the people abolished
democracy itself, this paradoxical action, too, would be unexceptionable,
from the viewpoint of the pragmatist.  There are no principles of
morality, of justice, of ethics, of economics, of even physics - - all's
just a matter of what we will. Not even the oath a judge takes need be
upheld, not if it doesn't suit the judge.  There are no binding principles
that requires us to keep our words.
=09During one of the exchanges with a member of the Judiciary
Committee, Judge Breyer repeated a famous quote offered by Justice Holmes,
in one of the his famous dissents (Lochner v. New York).  the gist of it
was that Herbert Spencer's economic philosophy of laissez-faire economics
was not enacted into law by the U.S. Constitution, so the Congress could,
if it chose, abolish the free market, the right to private property, and
make America into a socialist economy.
=09Holmes, one might recall, was an avowed pragmatist, an admirer of
the founder of pragmatism, Charles Peirce.  What he definitely was not is
a champion of the ideals of the founders of the American republic.
=09Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, Adams, and Washington, to name just a
few, did not believe that all this country needed was for the people to
make their will known.  While they had great confidence in the wisdom of
the people as far as electing their politicians is concerned, they didn't
believe in unlimited democracy.  For the simple reason that they were
perfectly aware of how impossible such a system is.
=09A pure democracy leaves even democracy unprotected from mob
psychology, from impulsiveness, from mass hysteria.  The Bill of Rights
was one effort by which to avoid such a development, and judicial review
of legislative action was another.  Not that judges should themselves make
law.  But judges should guard the law against any kind of corruption.=20
Their standards should be the Constitution.
=09There is also the clear possibility that democracy by itself will
be impossible, since if the people are not secure in their rights -- if
laws that protect their rights to life, liberty and property are not
stable, do not last beyond the next election -- then the independence of
their political judgment is undermined.  If you fear for your life,
liberty and property from the majority -- which is free to attack in via
the legislative process -- then you will not vote freely, without
prejudice, without guarding against what the majority might do to you
should you be in disagreement with them.  You say, but how about the
secret ballot?  Why, the democratic process, unless properly limited, can
dispense with that in a jiffy.  (In some colleges the secret ballot is
being abolished, so as to see whether tenure committee members are being
politically correct as they make their choices in hiring and promotion
decisions.)
=09It has come to this:  Senators are no longer even pretending to
uphold principles.  They may give lip service to "the right to privacy,"
but only because that happens to be a favorite refrain of the PC crowd.=20
They want judges that will let them do anything they can muster the power
to do.  No limits.
=09And that spells the end of the last hope for a free country,
namely, a judiciary whose members take the American political system to be
basically sound, essentially on the right track where justice is
concerned.=20

  ========================================================================

Ideology, Principles and Public Policy
Tibor R. Machan

=09It is called ideology by its critics.  It is, in fact, principled
politics when consistently implemented.=20
=09I am referring to a form of thinking pertaining to public policy
that is all too rare in contemporary society.  This form of thinking seems
like a relic of the past now, associated with such people as the American
founders as well as those who carried ou t the French and Russian
revolutions.  It involves looking at a country as a system of principles
around which people's lives are organized.  Exactly which of those sets
will be the best for people is what political philosophers examine and
argue about.=20
=09Of course, there are those, too, who deny the relevance of such
principled thinking to our political life.  They argue that human life,
including public affairs, are too variable, unsteady, chaotic and
irrational to yield to systematic approaches.  This line of thinking is on
the rise in our society and elsewhere.  It gains support from the hectic
nature of human life conveyed on the media -- innumerable bits and pieces
of human affairs seeming unconnected by any measure of coherence.  It is
also support ed by how little systematic thinking most citizens engage in
when they reflect about politics, let alone when they argue for various
policies.  Special interest, ethnic, racial and sexual politics all
contribute to the appearance of the helter-skelter nat ure of human public
life.
=09Still, when it comes to public discussions of politics, these
different forms of thinking come off not as honest arguments dealing with
how best to understand human public life.  Instead they are made to appear
as different forms of idiocy, nonsense, by those who oppose them.  And
someone is, no doubt, right.  Who it is can be a very difficult issue to
determine.
=09It is just this task that is taken up by education.  Disciplines
such as political philosophy, political science, sociology, cultural
anthropology and political economics all attempt to address the issue of
whether human political life can be something s ystematic, something
principled, or must it be accepted that politics is fragmented, chaotic,
incapable of being understood in terms of some general principles.
=09A column is no place to decide this issue.  Suffice it to say that
form my money human political life has to be considered systematically.=20
Even if the events of political life appear to be without clear rhyme or
reason, I take it that the founders and t he revolutionaries were right:
some kind of coherent, principled view of politics is closer to the truth
about politics than is the piecemeal approach.  Whether it is capitalism
socialism the welfare state or some other system that fits human community
li fe better, by which our lives will make the most sense and will be most
prosperous and happy is something that we need to attend to.=20
=09It is, in any case, a serious distraction, propagated by many
political players, to dismiss the systematic approach as mere ideology, as
some kind of dogmatic, inflexible, unrealistic approach to governing a
society.  What is important is that citizens - - upon whom the direction
of societies ought rest and who, especially in near-democratic systems,
that direction actually depends -- not be mislead by heated rhetoric into
believing that politics cannot be discussed in a principled fashion.=20
General ideas matter, even if those who do not like them refuse to debate
them and instead dismiss them as mere ideology.  Whenever that term enters
the political arena, one can be sure that the real issue is crucial: what
kind of country should we have, what system o f laws ought we to live by.=


END OF COLUMNS (so far)