I Already Googled It

In response to this (which is in turn in response to this):

With regard to the First Nations/Central Saanich debate, how about a solution that no one has yet proposed: Respect for property rights.

The natural right to property flows — as argued by John Locke — from the exertion of one’s labour upon the natural world.  An apple growing on an otherwise unowned tree is no one’s property, but if you pick the apple it becomes yours.

Land should be treated in the same way.  If you put land to use it becomes yours, but in a state of disuse it should belong to no one.

If we take this approach, it is clear that residents of Central Saanich do not have the right to decide what the First Nations may do with their land.

Respect for property rights — and thereby the volition and self-ownership of others — leads to peace, co-operation, and prosperity.  Bickering about what people may or may not do with their property is not useful and only harbours bitterness.

The First Nations people were here before non-First Nations people, but that does not give them a right to the whole continent.  Non-First Nations people came and setup a government, but that does not give them the right to rob the First Nations of their pursuit of happiness.

Using your land should be a right — not a privilege — which means no approval, license, or permit should be necessary.

In response to this:

Iain Hunter opines about the law, but seems to have forgotten the supposed goal thereof — justice.

Someone has forgotten “justice” when they say “rehabilitate“.  “Justice” is “punishment of wrongdoing“.  Rehabilitation is not punishment.

But what “punishment” is fair?  And what is “wrongdoing“?  And what of the victim?  If “justice” is to be “just“, should the victim not be “made whole“?  This is called “restitution“.

Therefore, a fair punishment is one which makes restitution — which compensates the victim for his losses.  We can extend this to define “wrongdoing“ as an action which incurs a loss upon another person.

But what of crimes with no victim?  What if I’m selling marijuana to someone who wants to buy it?  The buyer clearly suffered no loss, for he requested the marijuana and offered payment of his own volition.  If there is — therefore – no victim and no loss, what debt is to be paid and to whom?

This is the fallacy of substituting “the state” as victim and prosecutor, of using the power of the state — violence — to achieve social ends, rather than simply to protect people from one another.

The state is not our father figure.  Its purpose is not to reform or change our behaviour in accordance with the political whimsy of the day.  Its job — if it is to be at all legitimate — is to play the role of referee.

This is the problem with our laws and legal system, not mandatory minimum sentences.

Invariably in democratic politics where representatives are chosen by a plurality, people will become concerned with “proportional representation” and the “popular vote”.

All of this presupposes the legitimacy of a democratic system, which is unfortunate.

At the root of democracy is the unfortunate logical fallacy that because more people think something should be so than not, that thing should be so.  This is an argumentum ad populum.  At the core of this thinking is an argumentum ad baculum—the majority can overpower the minority, so they rule.

The structure of federal systems such as that of Canada and the United States is—surprisingly to some people—not to be democratic, but rather to be anti-democratic.  If the goal was to be democratic the Constitution of Canada—and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—would not exist.  The presence of these and an unelected Supreme Court are extremely strong bulwarks against majority rule.  If the people who designed our federal system wanted the country to be democratic, they would not have appointed branches with a check on the elected branch.

But these are merely the facts—i.e. this is merely that something is so, not why it is so.  Why is this a good idea?

Consider the basic tenet of democracy: Majority rule.  This raises an important question: Which majority?  The majority of people in a house, on a street, in a municipality, in a city, in a province, in a country, or in the world?  And why is one of these majorities somehow more or less valid than another.

Consider marijuana prohibition.  Even if this has the majority support of people in a city, why should any particular household not be able possess or consume marijuana?  They’re not imposing or harming anyone else, so why can or should the majority be able to constrain them?

This is—of course—where the argumentum ad baculum comes in.  Majority rule is morally unqualified; it is merely backed by more guns than its opposition, and therefore “might makes right”.

There are scenarios where this ridiculousness of the majority’s rule becomes even more apparent.  What if everyone—unanimously—in a particular city wants to decriminalize marijuana, but the more numerous people in the adjacent city don’t, and the more numerous people in the adjacent city have used majority rule through the province- or country-level government to ban marijuana?

This is the problem that the concept of federalism attempts to solve.  First, there is a Constitution which limits what government can do.  Then there is an unelected—and therefore not subject to political whims—Supreme Court which has the power to hold the government accountable to the Constitution.  Then the power is split between two levels of government—nation and regional (i.e. federal and provincial)—and then those two levels of government are made up of people elected by plurality from certain regions.

This brings us to another point: The evils of political parties.

You see, the fact that representatives—MLAs and MPs—are elected on a per region basis is significant.  Those people are supposed to represent the issues that affect that region.  The Constitution is supposed to restrain centralized power from trampling on regional concerns.  This is why the citizens of B.C. can choose a monopoly on car insurance—ICBC—while people in Ontario may not.  This is not the affair of the federal government, so a one size fits all solution, nation-wide, is out of the question.

Under a system where the “popular vote” becomes significant, representation of these regional concerns is gone.  Representatives are chosen from some pool of representatives, and it becomes an issue not of voting for the person you want to represent you, but rather the party.

The problem with parties is that they have monolithic, nation-wide agendas, which don’t vary from region-to-region.

The other issue here is that of having your voice heard.  As power is centralized it becomes harder for individuals to affect it.  If you elect an independent—unaffiliated with any party—representative, you can simply write them a letter, have a meeting with them, go to a “town hall”, et cetera.  It’s very easy to have your concerns heard by this person, since they represent your area, and there aren’t many people in your area.

But what about affecting the whole Conservative Party?  That’s 165 Members of Parliament as of this writing.  That’s much more difficult.  And so long as—for the most part—the party is whipped and votes according to the party line, representation will be difficult.

Of course, there are Members of Parliament who do vote against the party line, such as Scott Simms (Liberal Party) on “C-304 An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (protecting freedom)” but this is uncommon and party members can face severe consequences—such as expulsion from the party—for failing to vote according to the party line.

George Washington was right to warn against political parties, and Canadians—just as Americans—have fallen victim to them.

The issue is not—as the “popular vote” supporters believe, or would have you believe—the first past the post voting system, but rather the formation and entrenchment of political parties.  Switching to a system of “popular vote” is only going to make this problem worse, as political parties become increasingly important.

The focus should always be bringing power closer to the people, where they can change it, where they can have an impact on it, and where its effects can be seen and felt by those people forming those policies.  If MPs from Ontario vote on a policy that’s devastating to a community in British Columbia, they won’t necessarily see or hear about the consequences thereof, they won’t feel the devastation—they’re uninvested, unconcerned, and unaccountable.

This is why if you want a truly accountable, truly responsive government, you must support federalism and oppose the formation and entrenchment of political parties.

The “popular vote” is just mob rule.  It is the very thing that federalism is supposed to hedge against, not succumb to.

Ultimately, however, democracy is a morally bankrupt system.  It is two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner.  It is the acquiescence of concrete moral principles to the shifting whimsy of the majority.  It is an admission that moral right and wrong are not fixed and unchanging, but are rather shades of grey that shift with the times and the “popular vote”.

If you truly believe democracy, you must believe the following:

“Since the government of Nazi Germany was originally democratically elected, the Holocaust was morally right.”

“Since the government of the United States is democratically elected, racism was morally right until 1964.”

If you disagree with either of these statements, then you believe in some level of anti-democracy, which means that you see some of the failings of democracy, which means that you’re halfway there.

Democracy holds that two other people have a higher claim to your life than you do, by virtue of their superior numbers.  If you believe that you own your own life, if you believe that you have certain rights and freedoms that no one can take away, you don’t believe in democracy, nor do you want it.

In response to this:

Bonuses received by people in positions of authority within Crown Corporations are nothing more than a distraction.  The bonuses are not a problem; the concept of Crown Corporations is the problem.

If ICBC, BC Hydro, et cetera, were market run you could choose between competitors, and you could do so independently.  Choosing power company A wouldn’t bind you to choose insurance company A.  This competition would force these companies to minimize costs and prices — bonuses would have to be deserved.

Government monopolies — Crown Corporations — bundle choices together.  You can’t vote liberal for ICBC, but conservative for BC Hydro, or conservative for Crown Corporations, but NDP for law making.  It’s all or nothing — always the lesser of two evils, never something good.

The problem is that people believe the government can do things better than the market.  These bonuses — this “crony capitalism” — demonstrate that people in government are plagued by the same ills as people elsewhere.  However — unlike the market — the government can use the law to legitimize their actions, remove consequences, collect the money it needs (i.e. tax), and remove competition.

The choice is thus: A vote every 4 years for a monolithic party platform, or “voting” with your money on each issue — independently — every day?

We’ve heard “power to the people”, but what is “power”?  It’s the ability to choose.  Markets give that, governments only take it away.

In response to this:

In attempting to fear monger us into opposing B.C.’s interest in decriminalizing marijuana, David Lindsay falls back on the most obviously ridiculous “argument” in politics today: “For the children”.  It’s an admission of defeat.  The person who invokes it has no argument – he has lost – and yet seeks to appeal to your emotions (a well-recognized logical fallacy) in lieu thereof.

Children are born with parents – adults who are tasked with caring for and teaching them.  If marijuana is destructive to children their parents are empowered – both legally and morally – to prevent them from using it.  If the parents fail in this duty, or wilfully neglect it, why is that my business or concern?

Why should an adult who makes a decision to grow, consume, or sell his own marijuana be kidnapped (i.e. jailed) because some parents may or may not be able to effectively parent?

The idea that we should sacrifice the liberty of all members of our society for the sake of some – in this case, children – is ridiculous, destructive, and antithetical to a free society.

Don’t presume that you know how to live the lives of others better than they do and they’ll extend the same respect to you, otherwise live in fear that the whims of the majority will next turn against your lifestyle.

People presuming to talk about politics could learn a lot from the platitudes we spout at children: “Mind your own business”.

In response to this:

Justine Semmens – writing about income inequality — seems to miss a fundament of statistical analysis: That correlation does not imply causation.  That is to say, that just because two things correlate with one another in an analysis of relevant statistics, does not mean that those two things are related or that one causes the other.

Just because income inequality is high in certain (or most/all) third world nations, and not in select first world nations, does not mean that income inequality is the herald of a third world nation.  Justine “cherry picks” two highly socialist first world nations (and economic analysis shows that Scandanavia’s shift towards socialism in the 70s and 80s caused economic stagnation) and a very highly indebted first world nation (Japan’s debt-to-GDP exceeds 200% according to the IMF) for the comparison-in-question.  We can see that the U.S. — for example — has — both historically and presently — had high income inequality, and yet it is definitely not a third world nation.

 Income inequality is an irrelevant measure.  We should not be concerned with how many people have how much money as compared to others, but rather how they got that money.

 The trend increasingly is crony capitalism: Surviving off the taxpayer and political connections.  This is what must end.

 We must not be distracted/misled into replacing the free exchange of goods and wealth with state coercion and redistribution.  That’s been tried before.  It ends in disaster, suffering, and misery.

In response to this:

Bob Etheridge suggests that the price disparity between a consumer good — a cellphone — and a specialty good — an insulin pump — is due solely to unreasonable markup.

I have a different explanation: Supply and demand.

Nearly everyone has a cellphone, which means there’s a large demand, and therefore the margin on each phone does not have to be large to cover the manufacturer’s fixed costs.

Compare this to insulin pumps. Not everyone has an insulin pump, and not everyone will need an insulin pump. This means that the relation between per unit margins and fixed costs is much different than with a cellphone.

Moreover, if your phone “crashes“, it’s a minor inconvenience. If a medical device “crashes“, someone may have died. There’s a large cost that comes with reliable hardware and software that is not present in consumer electronics.

Bob suggests that provinces pay “a fair price“, but what is “a fair price“? Only the market can decide “a fair price“, but the market for medical goods and services in Canada has been destroyed by socialization. Is he advocating price controls, which are known to cause shortages?

The real problem is that cost is removed from the consumer by socialization. This encourages over-consumption and disregard for costs while discouraging the competition that causes the costs for market-provided goods and services to fall.

But this will not change. Socialized medicine is the third rail of Canadian politics, regardless of inconvenient economic reality.

In response to this:

Redner Jones calls in the Monday edition to make healthcare a federal matter. Not only is this a bad idea, but it’s unconstitutional.

The Constitution Act, 1867 states:

“In each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to [...] [t]he Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Hospitals [...] in and for the Province, other than Marine Hospitals.”

In addition to unconstitutionality, centralizing health care is a bad idea. It hasn’t worked in Britain. It hasn’t worked in the U.S. (the American system of medicine is user pay only where federally regulated “insurance” or federal programs do not cover the costs — these federal programs and mandates conspire to raise costs, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of unaffordability).

Health care is not one size fits all. Despite its third rail status in Canada, socialized medicine is a fundamentally bad idea. Worse would be centralizing it — at least at the provincial level citizens can agitate for change, this is much harder at the federal level.

The government licenses drivers, purporting to keep the roads safe, but have you driven recently? The government controls guns, but it seems every other week someone is gunned down in Surrey.

Do you really want this government making medical decisions for you? Deciding how many doctors, nurses, hospitals, or beds are needed to keep you and your loved ones alive and healthy?

And in addition to the consequentialist argument, there’s a moral argument: By what right do we compel others to pay for our medical care?

I wrote the following on Reddit today about Canadian politics, thought I’d share: