That’s an old cartoon, but I like it, and so I’ll take any excuse to post it. Such as this email I received from “Mark”:
Just caught your “If Housepets were Libertarians” cartoon
Boy are you confused about what Libertarians are. It’s not about selfishness, it’s about not being FORCED into charity. What’s more damaging however is the impression you form in the minds of those who take your little drawing at face value. Read a book would you; how about “Atlas Shrugged” or “Wealth and Poverty” or “ Freedom to Choose”. If you are going to dabble in political thought don’t let yourself be pigeonholed as a complete neophyte.
I’m really tickled by the idea that if you haven’t read a book by obscure 1970s anti-feminist George Gilder, then you’re a complete neophyte.
I don’t interpret “If Libertarians Were Housepets” as saying that libertarians are selfish (that’s more the theme of this cartoon). Rather, it’s saying that Libertarians have dangerously little understanding of how society actually works. As Mark Thoma writes:
Where I part with many libertarians – perhaps due to my background – is in the idea that government is almost always at odds with liberty. In my case, government played a key role in providing me with opportunity – education is one example, without tuition of $100 per semester at a state school, I probably would not have gone to college – but the opportunities government provided me go beyond education (and also see the examples given in the article for women and minorities).
Bruce Bartlett argues: ((I’ve cut out a sentence in which Bartlett says that blacks no longer have less freedom than whites, generally. One look at who goes to prison in the US is enough to refute that claim.))
Many government interventions expand freedom. A good example would be the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was opposed by libertarians like Barry Goldwater as an unconstitutional infringement on states’ rights. Yet it was obvious that African Americans were suffering tremendously at the hands of state and local governments. If the federal government didn’t step in to redress these crimes, who else would? […]
One could also argue that the women’s movement led to a tremendous increase in freedom. Libertarians may concede the point, but conservatives almost universally view the women’s movement with deep hostility. They think women are freest when fulfilling their roles as wife and mother. Anything that conflicts with those responsibilities is bad as far as most conservatives are concerned.
But although Libertarians may concede the point, Bartlett points out, in the end they still vote Republican, because they’re entirely focused on economics, and on government as the enemy of liberty. This is problematic because libertarians tend to have an extremely narrow conception of what liberty is: not paying taxes.
The Cato Institute publishes an annual survey of economic freedom throughout the world, but produces no surveys of what countries have the most political or social freedom or those that have the most libertarian foreign policy.
Furthermore, economic freedom tends to be determined primarily by those measures for which quantifiable data are available. Since it is very easy to look up the top marginal income tax rate or taxes as a share of GDP, these measures tend to have overwhelming influence on the ratings. As a result, countries like Denmark, which are very free every way except in terms of taxes, end up being penalized. Conversely, authoritarian states like Singapore don’t suffer for it because they have low taxes.
Although not all libertarians are well-off white men, nearly every libertarian I’ve met had at least two of those three traits. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think that if you’re economically comfortable, white, and male, it’s much easier to imagine that government is the biggest threat to liberty in the world, and to minimize or dismiss how other factors — such as racism, sexism, and the concentration of wealth and poverty — also constrain liberty. For George Gilder — a white man with more money than he could ever spend — perhaps the biggest threat to his freedom is taxation. But most of us aren’t George Gilder.
Actually, the existing environmental groups are a specific response to the specific hypothetical you mentioned.
If you want to now move on to the general rule, say so. but you asked, how the market would even attempt to stop extinction, and you claimed that it’s not set up to do so at all. As it happens (for this example at least) you seem to be wrong; there are a variety of NGOs which address this very issue. Mind you, IMO we still need the government, but you are sucking the answer to your own question.
Yes, and there are actual reformers actually attempting reform in actual communist nations. That doesn’t make “join the party, rise through the ranks, and make the changes you want” any less a BS answer to “what is the communist mechanism for protecting private ownership of land?”
This is because Communism (simplistically, anyway), is essentially not concerned with protecting private ownership of land. Thus, their answer is, “gain power within our system, and you’ll be able to do what you like.”
The libertarian answer is the same.
In the USSR, power was measured largely by party standing.
In libertarian ideology, it is measured by money.
Gain power within our system, and you’ll be able to do what you like.
—Myca
As a ‘ps’, I’ll add that I understand that people who consider that a ‘mechanism’ think I’m being unfair. I have explained why I don’t think it’s honest to refer to it as a mechanism.
In the end, my point, though, is not simplistically about plant and animal extinction, or about antibiotics or about any of that. What it’s about is the larger issue, that Libertarian ideology is incredibly bad at preventing or redressing individual actions causing collective harm.
It’s not that our current system is amazing at it either … but when you compare down the line, it’s almost always better.
—Myca
New Drug to Fight Tuberculosis Called Better Than Streptomycin
New York Times – Mar 25, 1949
“The reason is that the bacteria undergo some changes that heighten their resistance to the particular antibiotic with which they are in contact.”
PG,
Antibiotic resistance is a function of evolution. No, rules that control access to antibiotics won’t stop it. But it does slow the rate at which it happens. Which allows time to develop new drugs.
And, conversely, unrestricted access to antibiotics speeds the process up massively … especially in situations where, since it’s not doctor proscribed, the course of treatment isn’t as thorough as it needs to be.
—Myca
chingona,
Do you really think that our rules effectively restrict access to antibiotics, and more importantly, ensure that they are used properly when prescribed? I don’t. Also, what is the rate of antibiotic resistant infection in Paraguay? The fact that people there use antibiotics without a prescription isn’t itself an argument that they must therefore have a high rate of resistant infections.
1) You claim there’s no libertarian mechanism for preventing extinction
2) Various folks say “well, there’s the market and other forces. Things like TNC and Sierra exist even in the face of legislation.”
3) You say that’s not a mechanism because it’s not a guarantee.
I suppose I don’t see what the advantage is of having a mechanism which doesn’t work. Is there such an advantage?
Unless you think that a broken mechanism is of value (I don’t, I suspect you don’t, and if you disagree with me I would love to know why) then why aren’t you asking “does this work?” instead of “is this a mechanism?” Otherwise, you seem to be focusing on the semantics of process, while ignoring the results.
I don’t care if there’s a mechanism to prevent collective harms from occurring, I care whether the collective harms are in fact prevented from occurring. The existence or lack of a mechanism doesn’t seem to really address the issue of results: there are shitty mechanisms and there are relatively good ones, just like there are probably areas where the market has done a good job and areas where it has not.
As I’ve said, I also think that the issue of collective harm is an area where government tends to be better than nongovernment, but i think you are presenting a confusing and incorrect argument.
Fair enough. My primary objection is to that it’s broken. I do still object to calling it a libertarian mechanism, in that it seems to be specifically about *not* addressing the problem with the economic system.
My question remains, though … do you consider, “join the party, rise through the ranks, and make the changes you want,” a legitimate mechanic for “how would I hold private real estate in a communist state?” I mean, would your objection there be that it’s broken or that it’s an illegitimate mechanic?
As I said in post #103, the semantics of this are less important than the larger point I’m making about libertarian ideology ignoring collective harms, but I am curious.
—Myca
They don’t do as good a job as they could, and some things are always going to be nearly impossible to regulate, like making sure someone takes the entire dosage. But I do think it’s better than nothing.
No one really knows because there is no public health system to speak of. Mostly, if you’re really sick, you’ll die anyway because you’ll never go to the doctor, so who knows if you died because your disease was resistant to the powerful antibiotics you bought at the corner store or if you just took an inadequate dosage or the wrong thing for your particular illness.
But they don’t have to have a high rate of resistant infection themselves to be contributing to the evolution of these pathogens, along with about 90 percent of the rest of the countries in the world.
PG,
Are you actually arguing that whether you can get antibiotics without a prescription is completely irrelevant to how quickly new strains of bacteria emerge? Like, you think it makes no difference at all?
To be honest (and I’m sorry, PG, because I really respect and like your comments 95% of the time) it sounds an awful lot like Rush Limbaugh’s bit about how antipoverty efforts are useless, since we still have poor people.
As in, ‘there’s antibiotic resistant bacteria in the US, so obviously, restricting access makes no difference.”
—Myca
Did you mean to write “government” instead of “economic” here? I think that the answer would be that it IS addressed through the economic system, but not through the governmental system. Which may be worse or better, but isn’t the same as “no mechanism” or “no means of addressing it.”
Unless, that is, you want to take the position that economics are universal and therefore don’t really count in this discussion. I can see that but I don’t think it’s correct: different government types will be more or less reliant on different universes (economics, government, etc.) The “economic market forces” of a libertarian country are quite different in the “economic market forces” of a communist country, even if they have the same label.
Holding private real estate is completely against the concept of a communist state. It is an “anti-communist” thing to do; the more private it is then the less communist the state is. I think that is what you mean by an “illegitimate mechanic.”
OTOH, protecting dodos by forming groups of dodo fans who conserve dodo habitat is not against the concept of a libertarian state; rather, it is a hoped-for feature. It is a “pro-libertarian” thing to do. You can have any number of such groups without affecting the libertarian aspects of the government.
Ah, dammit, you’re right. That’s why my original example, back in post #89 (before I screwed up and invoked Communism) was:
If I read you right, you would consider a fair answer?
—Myca
Teaching people to start fires by blinking really quickly is not against the concept of a libertarian state. But it isn’t realistic, either, and I think that is what Myca is pointing out.
If the mechanism has no chance of achieving its goals, is it really a mechanism for its goals?
Myca @ 94
I’m familiar with that piece. She made a similar statement also when she was on Bill Maher. She’s right that we haven’t had a bank run in quite some time. There still feels like there’s something missing from her description however. However I can’t think of a point against that at the moment, so point conceded.
My comment @ 90
I should have said that given that there was a Meat Inspection Act of 1891, there must have been widespread governmental failing for Sinclar’s book to be accurate.
Jake,
No chance? Why set up a straw man?
I’m no libertarian, but it’s blindingly obvious that the “eye blinking” thing isn’t like that. Climate change? Private mechanisms (poor, but existing.) Environment? Ditto. Clean air? The same. Heck, there are even private mechanisms for road maintenance (“this stretch of road maintained by…”) Health care (private insurance), yadda yadda.
If you can’t or won’t distinguish between something that is bad and something that is nonexistent, you are not arguing honestly.
Myca:
Without knowing exactly what you mean, I guess I agree. But I am not getting the point you are trying to make.
The think you’re skipping over is that your solutions depend on using governmental control over the resources of people who don’t agree with you to get what you want. You get a majority, you change the government and raise taxes to pay for your pet project (whether or not the minority likes it.) You want clean air, you get to tax me for it whether or not I give a hoot.
Now, I like clear air, and I’m willing to pay taxes for it. I am a member of various private environmental groups as well. But as I see it, the issue for libertarians is that they don’t want you to be able to rope them (and their resources) into your club. They want you to have to convince them to be in your club, as opposed to convincing enough other people (majority) to force them to be in your club.
Sure, but your argument is for more or better regulation, not less or none.
I mean, I’m seeing this argument a fair amount in this thread … “government action X didn’t stop companies from selling poison in bottles labeled “Yummy Milk!” Therefore, we can’t rely on the government!”
And the problem is that the alternative is relying on the company selling you poison. An argument about the failings of government regulation is meaningless without a concomitant argument about how the free market would have done better in the same situation.
— Myca
Yeah. No chance. Even with government assistance in conservation, we’re not going to be able to preserve enough habitat to stop the vast majority of extinctions due to human activity. Without government assistance I’m not sure that we could stop 1% of extinctions due to human activity.
As an example of the lack of mechanisms for dealing with collective issues we can just take a look at global warming. The market is not calling for any actions to be taken to, for example, lower output of greenhouse gases and remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Given that we have very little time to do this before climate change takes place, if we’re to believe the scientific community, the only hope is for government intervention. Collective action to prevent the coming disaster (if we are to believe the scientific community) cannot possibly happen in time under the libertarian mechanism to alleviate the problem.
The same is true of, to pick a moderately recent controversy, the spotted owl. Private citizens didn’t have enough time to raise the massive amounts of funds required in time to prevent extinction. Even government intervention may not have come in time, but left to private citizens there wouldn’t be any left now.
This would be the real world result of the libertarian mechanism for preventing extinctions. Extinctions cannot be prevented by the mechansims allowed under libertarianism. Is there really a question about that?
Yes. Totally agreed. They are inherently anti-democratic.
In a less snarky way, I think one of the real problems is that they don’t view, “choosing to live in a democratic society with certain social assurances,” as, “agreeing to join the club.” I do.
Hilzoy had a great post about this around the assassination of George Tiller, where someone said to her, “Ah, but if you really think of fetuses as people and abortion as murder, then the shooting of George Tiller makes sense.” Her response was, “No. I really think of Iraqi citizens as people, but I didn’t shoot anyone when the US decided to kill a whole bunch of them … that’s because in a democratic society, sometimes stuff you don’t like happens.”
It’s one thing to argue that taxes ought to be lower or taxes ought to be higher or there ought to be a greater or lesser social safety net, and they’re completely welcome to try and convince as many people as possible of that.
I utterly reject, however, that there is something immoral or illegitimate in the majority of us voting to implement (for example) higher taxes, and them having to go along. Yeah, sorry, but you decided to live here. Sometimes elections don’t go your way. That’s the way it works.
I understand that they don’t want to be ‘forced’ to subsidize other people’s health and well being. That’s cool. I don’t want to be ‘forced’ to live in a country without a social safety net. Sometimes you’re the bug. Sometimes you’re the windshield.
—Myca
Jake,
Are you suggesting that private actino would stay the same if there were no government action? that doesn’t make much sense; they tend to be linked.
Do you have any evidence for this, or statistics on how linked they are?
—Myca
Myca:
Are you familiar with Underwriters Laboratories? They’ve been in business since the late 1890’s providing safety regulation in a variety of areas. Most people have likely used a product that has been approved by them. Many of their standards have become national standards. They’re a good example of how the market could handle safety problems. Here’s a linkk on their history.
Even though I expect there not to be a significant enough difference to matter, no I’m not. I am, however, suggesting that where even coordinated government action is often not enough or quick enough in those examples that private citizen action would be never be enough nor quick enough.
I am, however, suggesting that where even coordinated government action is often not enough or quick enough in those examples that private citizen action would be never be enough nor quick enough.
United Airlines Flight 93.
Proving once again that there is no policy question which conservatives don’t respond to by saying “9/11.” :-P
There are certainly circumstances in which non-governmental action is enough, and quick enough — Spiderman pushing that small child out of the path of the hurtling truck, for example. (Why is that child always in the street? Why can’t the truck driver learn to slow down when driving down that block? Although Spiderman has certainly done a bang-up job pushing the kid out of the way again and again, a better long-term solution would be for the city to install a speed bump.)
The question is, are there some things government does better? I’d say there are. Which is better at making sure that poor people have comprehensive health care, including preventative care — the free market, or government?
Of course, bringing up health care makes another point, which is that the most effective solutions tend to involve both government and the market. A poor person needing medical care is much better off in France (which has a good combination) than in the UK (an entirely socialized medical system) or the US (where we’re not purely private, but we’ve deferred much too much to market dictates in how our system is designed).
PG:
It seems pretty clear to me that “negative” has a negative connotation and “positive” has a positive connotation. Perhaps that reveals something about the biases among the political philosophers that use that terminology.
Amp:
There are certainly circumstances in which non-governmental action is enough, and quick enough
I propose that there are circumstances when private action is not just quick and quick enough, but that at times it provides results that government cannot provide. As has been said during the 2nd Amendment debates, “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” Sometimes private action is the ONLY effective alternative. But that is often not considered by those favoring government action in all things, or at least as their automatic first alternative.
Which, of course, is being done by nobody in this debate.
The thing is, there are things that private industry is the appropriate solution for, things that government action is the appropriate solution for, and things that are best done in some sort of combination.
I don’t want the government to be in charge of selling me televisions, and I don’t want private industry to be in charge of making sure my water is safe to drink, basically.
My objection to Libertarian ideology is not that we should look to the government only or look to the government first, it’s that we should look to the government sometimes.
The range of situation in which Libertarians find government action appropriate is so narrowly constrained as to be ridiculous, and most of my arguments here (about distributed harms, how feeble their methods for dealing with things like antibiotic resistance and pollution are, etc) have been about how they favor private action only, in situations where private action only would lead inexorably to disaster.
I’m not opposed to private action or private industry. I’m opposed to the idea that I should only be able to drink clean water if someone finds it more profitable to nourish me than to poison me.
—Myca
This isn’t even vaguely analagous to extinctions, pollution or global warming. This is so not analagous as to be a non sequitur.
And then what Myca said.
And lastly, Libertarianism is, at heart, a Utopian ideology just as much as Communism is a Utopian ideology. Sure, if everybody trusted each other, were trustworthy, worked for the greater good as well as their own good, and fulfilled their productive potential Libertarianism would work wonderfully. So would Communism. However, since the real world has proven that people are not those aforementioned things, both Communism & Libertarianism lead to disaster and misery for the vast majority of the populace.
Just as there are good ideas within Communism, there are good things within Libertarianism. It’s just that the first principles of Utopian ideologies are faulty and therefore fully implemented Utopian ideologies can never work well in the real world.
This is the Mark that started all the mess above. And what a “mess” it is. It’s comical to read comments about what posters think I believe or that I harbor a “typical” libertarian view of the world. In fact not one single comment even scratches the surface of what I know to be the way the world works. Libertarians, just as Republicans or Democrats, will hold a range of views on most subjects. After 35 years or so witnessing declining freedom across the spectrum of national and world issues it becomes more apparent that fewer and fewer Americans know or even care about this decline. What’s more depressing though is the immediate attack that ensues when the freedom to choose to act or not act on one’s own behalf is mentioned. This is true even in the realm of traditionally hands off areas of private life ie. drugs, sex, will the government steal my house etc… And the attacks come from both sides depending on the sensitivity of the responder and their personal experience. If your brother died of an overdose you might want to lock up all pot smokers even though he stupidly injected heroin. If your mother lost her house because the town council has a grand vote buying scheme of a shiny new shopping center built by their cousin’s husband and she won’t move you probably have a hard time seeing how the takings clause can be viewed kindly under any circumstance.
The problem is a knee jerk “there oughtta be a law” group mentality with all these things. As if because someone was elected by less than half the eligible voters or worse yet a delegation of bureaucrats they have the magic compromise that will suit the individuals involved. America has become a nation that wants to force compassion on the so called “winners” and feels a collective need to reward the so called “losers”. This is unsustainable.
So we return to the cartoon. People are not dogs or cats or fish. These animals just respond to stimuli or praise with no reasoning power. Humans choose to feed the dog whether he fetches or not but not if he bites everyone. The fish tank gets cleaned and cared for because the fish are fun to view unless I can’t afford the food or the pump. And the cat can stew in his own world all his life and will still get petted unless it claws hands or furnishings beyond an acceptable limit. But humans must decide what they want and go get it or be at the mercy of others goodwill. The tipping point will be when the creators of wealth say enough is enough and decide to fend for themselves and their families or neighbors. We all draw lines at different places and that’s the way it should be. The founders of our nation had an idea that the government’s power should be strictly limited and specifically enumerated. Beyond that “you are on your own”. They expected Americans to educate themselves and their families in the way they saw fit and to be free to share their knowledge with others if they so choose. This is the way the world would work well or at least better. It certainly is not the way it’s working now; which is not so well. We libertarians see the decline of reason and freedom as a threat and the increase of liberty and self support as the best hope. The statist and their following see more restrictions as a leveling of outcomes and panacea to the cold cruel world’s relentless attack on the rejection of nature’s way.
These views cannot be reconciled forever. We are getting closer and closer to the day of reckoning. Perhaps the current Administration’s most beneficial attribute will be to hasten the day when purveyors of continued freedom hit the reset button and set us on a course with a more firm foundation. I’m not interested in an “I told you so” scenario. That would no doubt be more harmful and violent than necessary. I’ll settle for a quiet and private realization among the citizenry that much of the nonsense that has passed for wisdom in recent years needs to be simply rejected and a self sufficiency ethic restored. And still there is so much more to be said….
There’s nothing in here that I disagree with, but it all sounds so general and abstract that I don’t see what it has to do with my segregation example. Even as a general position, though, this isn’t a defense of negative rights, but of natural rights. After all, as you point out, free speech – a “negative right” as that term is accepted among those who use it, libertarians among them – is squarely put into the camp, on a global scale, as an ‘ethical right’ that nevertheless shouldn’t be considered a ‘legally enshrined right’. And while I don’t like talking in terms of global scales when it comes to rights (as it falsely implies we should find a middle ground between, say, northern Europe and Saudi Arabia. I prefer limiting the discussion to stable democracies), we can go with purely American examples. The right to shoot a criminal intruding into your home – and I mean *home*, not your yard or any land you happen to own – I’d argue, is an ethical right, but it shouldn’t be allowed by law. Creates too much moral hazard.
I suppose:
– Rights as defined by the US Constitution, as interpreted through actual American legal precedent history, as opposed to the imaginary one that exists in the heads of ideologue revisionists. On whichever side they may be.
– Rights as the term is generally accepted and used among those countries in the world where elections are free and fair, assassinations and coup d’etats non-existent, government goons with AK-47’s don’t clash with Amnesty International, and people aren’t whipped in public. If you want me to elaborate on this, I will.
You know what, Ron? I actually agree with you, though for different reasons and though I reach a different conclusion. If all conservatives, right-wingers, and libertarians of the right-leaning bent just used the term similar to “entitlement”, I wouldn’t object to the language. (Just on the positions.)
I don’t actually like the actual term “entitlement”, of course, nor do I agree that it’s a “perfectly good word” – the word carries a clear derogatory connotation. (Consider the phrase “X person acts like (s)he is entitled to Y”.)
Nor do I agree that the term “negative rights” sounds bad while “positive rights” sounds good, mainly because the vast majority of those who make this cdistinction are those who believe only in “negative rights”. Most who believe in both just use the unitary term “rights”. Why would advocates of an ideology freely choose a term they consider pejorative, with no compulsion from the other side?
Nor do I agree that up until now (presumably until the godless Sixties), the American and/or Western liberal tradition has equated the term “right” with what is now sometimes called a “negative right”. What, for instance, of the right to vote?
But I do agree that the positive/negative right distinction is almost purely a modern vehicle for talking about issues such as health care and housing, which is what I think you’re saying. It’s a matter of opposing guaranteed money-denominated resources to people, and that is the most accurate way to put it. What the positive/negative language does is give this a faux intellectual-sounding pedigree – as in, positive vs. negative atheism, positive vs. negative logical statements, etc.
“I don’t think the government should give any resources to anyone” is straightforward enough, but for all their claims that most Americans support this and that it is the most consistent with American values, I get the feeling libertarian-minded thinkers are wary of stating their beliefs so bluntly. So they retreat to an abstract philosophical-sounding model, that seems accurate at first glance. After all, there does seem to be some sort of difference between free speech and state health insurance, though this is one of resources, not one of “positivity” or “negativity” thereof; as supported by the fact that I’d suspect a wide majority of Americans would group the right to vote and Civil Rights legislation with the former category. But put it through any sort of gray area, and the positive/negative distinction unravels into a heated quibble over grammar. That a shallow, ultimately insufficient model is pushed anyway, for purposes of appearance and rhetorical usefulness, is where my beef lies.
Anyways, I’m sorry to have derailed the topic so far with a personal pet peeve.
Ah.
Well in that case the CRM movement isn’t really counter to anything, insofar as the various things supporting it are/were supported by either Congressional statute (usually Constitutional) and/or Supreme Court decisions or Constitutional amendments (inherently Constitutional.)
If you’re talking about constitutional rights, then no rights which isn’t in the constitution (SSM) is a right.
Constitutional rights are generally framed as negative rights, and ias a result the various USSC decisions which have upheld the CRM have incorporated those negatiev rights by reference.
So if we are moving out of general “ethical” or “natural” or ‘fundamental but not Constitutional” rights discussion, I am quite confused by how the CRM movement is counter to negative rights.
Also, can I suggest that we choose one or the other thread? This is an interesting discussion to me at least, but probably better served if we’re in one place.
“choosing to live in a democratic society with certain social assurances,” The key is that we don’t have a choice. Being born here is not a choice. People can’t opt out of the system. Leaving the country is not an answer, because it accepts as a given that the government’s total control over a region of land is legitimate. I say this as someone who would voluntarily live in more or less our current system if given a choice, but I nonetheless think others should be allowed to opt out if they really want to. But see the rights versus entitlements discussion.
“My objection to Libertarian ideology is not that we should look to the government only or look to the government first, it’s that we should look to the government sometimes” you seem to be mistaking Libertarianism for Anarchism. The distinguishing mark is that libertarians do support some form of limited government power. I can’t really fault you, since some libertarians are anarchists with a streak of pragmatism (or maybe it’s just me…). It’s really tempting to see “X is morally right for reason Y” as an argument for some government program X, disagree with Y and explain in excrutiating detail why you disagree, and forget to say that you either agree with program X for subtly different reasons or at least find it tolerable. As a math geek, poor arguments for a good result grate like formulas which are incorrect but produce the right result in the particular case they are being used for.
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