Taxes, taxes, and taxes . . .

There is an interesting little discussion going on over a link I recently posted on Facebook.  You can find it here.  Those commenting are wrapped up in a discussion of how best to collect taxes.  That is an interesting, and useful, discussion – and this is not a rebuke to anyone commenting there so far.

But the real problem is not HOW taxes are collected, but HOW MUCH is collected in taxes.  I am not (yet-ha!) an anarchist, so I think there are (a very few) things governments need to do.  But we must remember that the more money that goes to governments, the more governments will do.  Governments ALWAYS expand at least to (and almost always beyond, by borrowing) the money they can collect.

I cringe when I hear conservatives (of which I am not exactly one in some senses of the word) tout the advantages of a particular tax plan because it will, among other things, bring in more revenue for the government.  If you are interested in individual liberty of the political variety, you should not wish more revenue for any government.

More revenue is an invitation for a government to do more.  But the more a government does, the less liberty those under its heal will enjoy.  One good way to increase individual liberty is to partially starve governments.  They should not be starved to death, because there are a few things they need to do.  But they should be on such a lean diet that they do not have the resources to infringe on liberty.

There are, no doubt, more equitable ways to collect taxes than income taxes.  But if the scope of governments were reduced to essential functions, no one would care how taxes were collected because they would be so low no one would notice.  At those rates, what we would notice is a dramatic increase in liberty – and it is a very valuable commodity indeed.

Jesus and Guns

A Christian, to my best understanding, is one who follows the teachings of Christ and being a child of God. Whenever I hear Christians in support of fewer gun laws and in favor of guns, I think to myself, would Jesus, if alive today, carry and own a gun? The answer to me seems to be an obvious no.

So opens an opinion piece that you can find here.  It is expresses what seems to be a common mistake made by many Christians.  It assumes that Jesus is a very straight-forward model for the behavior of Christians.  While it is true that, as far as we know, Jesus never carried a weapon of any kind, that alone does not prove that Christians never should.  In fact, the writer seems to ignore Luke 22:36 where Jesus commands the buying of a sword for those who do not have one.  In context, this is no ‘proof-text’ for buying a gun.  But Jesus does say this.

Christians are not called upon to do everything Jesus did.  We, in fact, cannot, because Jesus was unique in both His being and the work He was to do on our behalf.  Jesus never drove a car (let’s say, a chariot or a wagon, as far as we know) but that doesn’t prove we shouldn’t, even though cars can be very dangerous, and can be used as weapons.

There is also a certain kind of shallowness in the talk about “Christians in support of fewer gun laws and in favor of guns.”  One might be in favor of fewer gun laws and still not in favor of guns.  My best guess – and it is just a guess – is that some Amish might take just such a position.  And, of course, some gun laws might lead to more guns.  Concealed carry and open carry laws probably encourage the ownership and use of guns.  Not all “gun laws” are “gun control” laws.

The writer seems also to assume owning guns necessarily implies using guns to kill people.  This reveals an ignorance of all sorts of gun owners who focus on target (such as skeet) shooting, and gun owners who focus on hunting.

I suppose I am nit-picking a bit with some of these points, so let’s get to the main point.  Is there anything in the Christian ethic that forbids the use of weapons in defense of the innocent?  To say ‘yes’ to this is to confuse the role of the church and the role of the state in God’s economy.  The writer goes on to claim:

Besides all that, and the fact that, if you believe in God who controls all, what situation would you be in that a gun could solve the problem, but God couldn't?

This seems to reflect the rather naïve view that God’s control of situation will never involve means that include human action.  Why couldn’t your Christian neighbor who owns a gun and uses it to disable an intruder bent on the murder of you and your family be God’s answer to your prayer for safety?  Do you really think God would prefer that your children be raped and strangled by an evildoer rather than your Christian neighbor shoot the evildoer before he can commit those evil deeds?

While there could be times when a Christian might rightfully forego personal self defense, the kind of ‘personal pacifism at any price’ idea is not taught explicitly or even implicitly by the historic Christian faith.  In fact, if you think Christians are called upon to defend ‘widows and orphans’ (that is, the defenseless) there could be times when such a defense will need to be physical, and will require the use of weapons.  Thus, it is at least ethically conceivable that our friends such as Smith, Wesson, Strum, Ruger, Mossberg (and others) might be useful tools in the pursuit of our Christian duty in some circumstances.

Honest Darwinians

Here is an intriguing video in which two Darwinians (Richard Dawkins "Darwinian medicine" advocate Dr. Randolph Nesse) talk about natural selection, the human body, and its implications for medical practice.  It is about nine minutes long but worth listening to completion.  I was put on to it by the Discovery Institute.

Repeatedly, Nesse talks about the “design” of the human body.  Dawkins stops him on more than one occasion to remind everyone that this “design” is only apparent.  Nesse agrees, of course, but even comments more than once that, in spite of the fact that he is using the word “design” in a special sense, it always seems like the best word to describe his view of the human body.

There is an utterly fascinating book by Cornelius Hunter titled Darwin’s Proof where this point is explored in detail.  Hunter shows that Darwin and modern Darwinians begin with a theological view about how God should have made things, and then conclude from the fact that God did not make things the way they think He should have that God cannot be responsible for things as they are – especially in regard to living things.

To confirm Hunter’s thesis, when Nesse qualifies his use of the word “design” he stops to explain that, although the body seems designed, it is very poorly designed. No intelligent being, he claims, would design a body that way our bodies are designed.  Ergo, we cannot be designed.  The whole thing is completely captivating.

Near the end of the video, Nesse gives and illustration he likes to use in regard to how selection works in organisms.  He says it is analogous to the way we empty the change from our pocket at the end of the day into a jar.  Everyday, all sorts of coins go in.  But when we take out the coins we want in the morning, we tend to take the silver coins because they are worth more.  So what goes in is random, but via selection, what comes out is not.

It doesn’t seem to occur to the good Doctor that his illustration of selection presupposes the presence of an intelligent selector.  Those poor Darwinians!  But, in the end, they are honest.

Deceptive, to say the least

"The folks in Congress and on the campaign trail who oppose this plan warn that it would somehow hurt small businesses and job creators," Obama said in his weekly address. "They’re completely ignoring the facts."

"Under my plan, 97 percent of small business owners would avoid getting hit with any income tax hike whatsoever.  In fact, I’ve cut taxes for small businesses eighteen times since I’ve been president.  And just this week, I ordered a series of new steps to help our small businesses grow and hire," Obama said.

"The only place we disagree is whether we keep giving tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% of Americans.  Republicans in Washington want more of those tax cuts.  With the deficit we have, I don’t think we can afford them," the president said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78502.html#ixzz20dPCzvCd

I know it is an election year, and that politicians will say almost anything (delete “almost”) if they think it will get them elected.  But one has to wonder if the President gets his economic ideas from the Cracker Jack box.  I am nothing more than a (very) amateur economist, but even I can see some problems here.  Since it is very difficult to believe these arise from stupidity, I am forced to conclude that they come, rather, from duplicity.

First, consider the phrase “giving tax cuts.”  This is terminology that is surely designed to mislead people.  We have a certain tax rate right now.  The question is whether or not to keep it the same, or allow it to go higher.  The phrase “giving tax cuts” is surely intended to make people think that someone wants the current rates to go lower.  Unfortunately for the economy, few if any are proposing that.

Second, if Obama really wants growth and hiring, he would especially want to avoid increasing the taxes of that horrible “wealthiest 2% of Americans.”  People – no matter where they happen to fall in the wealth category – when they are allowed to keep their earnings, almost always do two things with those earnings.  They either spend them, or invest them.  (I suppose a few people hide cash in the mattress, but I think we can ignore them for our purposes.)

If people spend their earnings, they are buying things, which is good for people who sell things.  Why does it so upset the Obamaniacs so much to think that rich people spend money?  Isn’t that good for those with whom they spend it?

If people save their earnings, those savings are typically used to buy “capital goods” or things used to make the things we want to consume.  Most of those despised ‘fat cats’ who are filthy rich have riches invested in something or other.  And that something will be the stuff someone uses to make the stuff we want to consume.  Unless, that is, governments like Obama tax away those earnings.  Then, the stuff people want is not as easily made, and not made as much, giving us the kind of sputtering economy we have just now.

This is simply the way things work, economically speaking.  It simply does not matter what anyone, including a President, thinks or says about it.  It’s a sure as water running downhill.  Since statists know this, and persist in policies that must make us poorer, it is difficult to believe that they want us anything other than poorer.

And that is not a wildly improbable idea, because collectivists clearly want people to be dependent upon government.

One final point.  The President says that he doesn’t “think we can afford” what he calls “tax cuts” (which, remember, is really keeping tax rates constant).  Real tax cuts do not cost anyone anything.  What they do is limit the scope of government.  Again, this is something statists do not want.

The Immigration Issue and Christians

To my email inbox this week came a newsletter from the Christian Standard.  The articles are all about Christianity and the immigration issue.  As is typical, the editor claims no position on the matter.  He says:

What is Christian Standard’s position on immigration? As a rule we don’t make pronouncements on political or legal issues, and that’s not our purpose here. As more than one writer this week and next says, the issues are complicated and the solutions are not easy.

But surely every reader can agree on this position: Let’s show love, Christian love, to immigrants. If we must ask about their status, let that not be the first question. We may be the best or only way for the immigrants around us to experience the peace and purpose we have discovered in our Lord. That’s Christian Standard’s position on immigration.

But despite the claim to take no position on the matter, a quick reading of the articles offered shows only one that offers something of a ‘con’, or at a cautionary, position.  The rest are more or less (mostly much more) ‘pro.’  And, in fact, the editorial quoted above at one point says, “We fear that too many Christians have come quickly to their conclusions without considering counter views from others who also love God.”  The over-all effect of the articles in the newsletter is something like this – you xenophobic hayseeds of the middle-American Christian church need to change your stubborn, uninformed minds on this matter of immigration.  I think that impression was clearly intended.

This might shock those of you who know me, but I have some sympathy for broader immigration laws.  I think many people come to this country for the freedoms they do not enjoy at home, and I admire all people who seek freedom.  In fact, I would like to exchange some of the freedom-loving immigrants I have met for many of the native statists who plague our country.  (I would be most pleased, for example, to exchange Barack Obama for some freedom-loving Iranian.  And perhaps Mr. Obama would be more at home in a nation that is already totalitarian, and doesn’t need his help getting there.)

But there are a couple of interesting omissions from this collection of articles from the Christian Standard.

First, as has been said many times by many people (and any idiot should be able to figure it out), liberal immigration policy and a massive welfare state are a recipe for disaster.  Only one article even mentions this, and even that one mentions if very briefly, and not nearly forcefully enough.  This doesn’t mean that all immigrants come here for the freebies, of which we offer an over-abundance.  But immigrants, when they arrive, will become legally entitled to many of our handouts, even if that is not their motive for coming.  Even now those here illegally can and do partake of the dole.  Many Christians, being the fluffy-headed dopes that they are, don’t even bother to consider this.  They see our massive welfare state as simply the way things ought to be.  (One of the authors of these articles is affiliated with a group dedicated to expanding the welfare state.  Another cites a leftist ‘Christian’ group that openly advocates socialism.)

That is problem number one.  There is also a problem number two.

Current immigration law is part of our overly-big, intrusive national governmental structure.  Is it a mess?  Of course, just like all the rest of it.  Our hodgepodge of statist laws and policies is irrational, and often unjust.  But immigration law is only a small part of that mess.  And it is interesting how ambivalent the Christian attitude toward law can be.

For example, one of the authors quotes with approval a sermon in which the minister said,“You may say to me, ‘what about illegal do you not understand?’ I say to you, ‘what about love your neighbor do you not understand?’”  What I would like to know is:  where can we find this same attitude toward other aspects of our massive regulatory, confiscatory state?  Where is the same kind of compassion toward those who do not want to comply with tax laws?  Where is this kind of concern for those who do not want to comply with onerous business regulations?  There are dozens more questions like those we could offer, but you get the idea.

There is a kind of political, and even moral, hypocrisy in those who urgently want to reform our massive regulatory state, but only the part of it that deals with their pet agenda.  There are many laws propagated by our government that are horribly unjust and need to be changed.  Calling on Christians to address just one small part of that nasty package is not just inconsistent.  Such changes would probably just make a bad situation even worse.

Ever Onward and Upward!

from “Lights, Camera, Crazy!” by Michael M. Rosen

According to Richard Vedder, an Ohio University economist and the foremost national expert on college tuition, the fees at his alma mater, Northwestern University, consumed 15 percent of the annual median family income in 1958. By 2003, tuition at Northwestern chewed up a gaudy 53 percent of median family income. Other schools exhibit similar explosions.

By 2003, tuition at Northwestern chewed up a gaudy 53 percent of median family income. Other schools exhibit similar explosions.

Much of this obscene acceleration in prices can be laid at the feet of the federal government, which, in a vicious cycle, subsidizes loans, makes direct grants, and offers loan forgiveness, all of which in turn spur higher education institutions to hike tuition further, which in turn necessitates further government aid.

Kent comments:

If you have been around American higher education, you are painfully aware of this.  It has contributing causes other than government money.

I have one son who works at a university that has tried to “have it all” in the last several years.  What it has is a faltering budget, and skyrocketing tuition.  I have another son who teaches at a college that is very focused – on offering good classes, imagine that!  They do not try to do it all.  As a result, it is very affordable.

Many, perhaps most, colleges and universities today do not make serious attempts to focus their mission, or to economize in reaching their goals.  But why should they, when they can more easily complain about their level of government funding, wait for the inevitable direct and indirect (through government loans and grants to students) and constantly raise tuition.

The lack of focus and lack of serious attempts to do more with less can continue to happen because governments continue to pour money into higher education.  Who can be opposed to “more money for education”?

But only the economically blind can fail to see how this does, and must, always work.  Some purportedly desirable activity gets a shot of cash from government.  What is the inevitable result?  The price of that activity will go up, since more money is now “chasing” (by being dedicated to) that activity.

Then, when the price goes up, there are renewed cries about the price increases for that activity.  Politicians are motivated to dedicate even more money to that activity.  As a result, the price of that activity increases even more, as do the cries of “it’s too expensive!”  And thus the cycle continues.

It is true of higher education, as it is always true of everything to which governments dedicate funds.  We could do a similar analysis of “health care.”  We could do a similar analysis of almost everything, since government subsidize almost everything today.

The question is:  how do we escape these vicious cycles?

It would take a remarkable amount of social-political will-power.  Quite frankly, I don’t think we have it.  I hope I am wrong, but it is difficult to come up with any plausible scenario in which I am.

Of Electric Cars and Environmentalists

The general idea of an electric car seems good to me.  There are all kinds of advantages.  An electric motor is a very simple device, in theory, compared to a gasoline internal combustion engine.  The problem with the whole electric car push today is that it is being engineered by the state, for political, almost quasi-religious (environmentalism) purposes.

This summary of a Wall Street Journal article points up some of the problems connected to electric cars.  Some are practical.  Batteries are still far too expensive, and will not hold sufficient charge for significant trips.  But the main problem is that electric cars need electricity, and environmentalists don’t want us to generate more electricity, at least by any means that we now have to do so.

One electric car now being produced and highly touted is really a hybrid, and such a car still needs gasoline and an internal combustion engine.  At this point, electric cars are not much more than a political toy of politicians seeks to court the favor of environmentalists.

For the time being, if you want to be able to keep driving, you probably need to run over enough environmentalists that the rest stop their incessant, irrational squawking about cars.

But God doesn’t permit us to run over environmentalists.  Perhaps near misses could have the same effect, and stay within the boundaries of morality.  If not, perhaps a whole new approach is in order.  We could attach environmentalists to those little carts used as taxis in some countries, and let them pull us around to places we want to go.  Surely environmentalists would be willing.  In return, we could feed our cart-pulling environmentalists plenty of locally-grown, organic food.

Everyone would be happy!