Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy

Commentary by Lawrence W. Reed on  FEE.org:

I would like us all to think about some very critical fundamentals, some bedrock concepts that derive from centuries of experience and economic knowledge. They are, in my view, eternal principles that should form the intellectual backdrop to what we do as policymakers inside and outside of government.

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The “Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy” that I want to share with you tonight are pillars of a free economy. We can differ on exactly how any one of them may apply to a given issue of the day, but the principles themselves, I believe, are settled truths. They are not original with me; I’ve simply collected them in one place. They are not the only pillars of a free economy or the only settled truths, but they do comprise a pretty powerful package. In my belief, if every cornerstone of every state and federal building were emblazoned with these principles—and more importantly, if every legislator understood and attempted to be faithful to them we’d be a much stronger, much freer, more prosperous, and far better governed people.

Principle 1: Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.

First, I should clarify the kind of “equalness” to which I refer in this statement. I am not referring to equality before the law, the notion that you should be judged innocent or guilty of an offense based upon whether or not you did it, with your race, sex, wealth, creed, gender or religion having nothing to do with it. That’s an important foundation of Western Civilization and though we often fall short of it, I doubt that anyone here would quarrel with the concept.

No, the “equalness” to which I refer is all about income and material wealth, what we earn and acquire in the marketplace of commerce, work, and exchange. I’m speaking of economic equality. Let’s take this first principle and break it into its two halves.

Free people are not equal. When people are free to be themselves, to be masters of their own destinies, to apply themselves in an effort to improve their well-being and that of their families, the result in the marketplace will not be an equality of outcomes.

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We are different in terms of our talents. Some have more than others, or more valuable talents. Some don’t discover their highest talents until late in life, or not at all.

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We are different in terms of our industriousness, our willingness to work. Some work harder, longer, and smarter than others. That makes for vast differences in how others value what we do and in how much they’re willing to pay for it.

We are different also in terms of our savings. I would argue that if the president could somehow snap his fingers and equalize us all in terms of income and wealth tonight, we would be unequal again by this time tomorrow because some of us would save it and some of us would spend it. These are three reasons, but by no means the only three reasons, why free people are simply not going to be equal economically.

Equal people are not free, the second half of my first principle, really gets down to brass tacks. Show me a people anywhere on the planet who are indeed equal economically, and I’ll show you a very unfree people. Why?

The only way in which you could have even the remotest chance of equalizing income and wealth across society is to put a gun to everyone’s head. You would literally have to employ force to make people equal. You would have to give orders, backed up by the guillotine, the hangman’s noose, the bullet, or the electric chair. Orders that would go like this: Don’t excel. Don’t work harder or smarter than the next guy. Don’t save more wisely than anyone else. Don’t be there first with a new product. Don’t provide a good or service that people might want more than anything your competitor is offering. [read more]

Interesting speech. His other principles not shown here are:

1. What belongs to you, you tend to take care of; what belongs to no one or everyone tends to fall into disrepair.
2. Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.
3. If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it.
4. Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.
5. Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government that’s big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you’ve got.
6. Liberty makes all the difference in the world.

Angry People Think They’re Smarter Than They Are

From Live Science.com (Aug. 6):

If you know someone who's generally ill-tempered, it might please you to know that they're probably not as smart as they think they are. That's because, unlike other negative emotions, anger seems to make people overconfident about their intelligence, a new study suggests.

"Anger differs significantly from other negative emotions, such as sadness, anxiety or depression," Marcin Zajenkowski, study author and psychologist at the University of Warsaw in Poland, told PsyPost.

Previous research has shown that anger is an unusual negative emotion in that it's often associated with positive traits, like optimism. But how anger affects perceived intelligence was unclear. Zajenkowski and his colleague suspected that angry people might be more likely to overestimate how smart they are.

To test this, the researchers surveyed more than 520 undergraduate students attending schools in Warsaw. The students answered survey questions to gauge how easily and how often they get angry. Then, the students took a survey to assess their own intelligence before taking an objective intelligence test. [read more]

Pretty much describes the Left.

How Religious Freedom Erodes, One Step at a Time

From Daily Signal.com (Aug.6):

Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the formation of a new Task Force on Religious Liberty at the Department of Justice. The action came on the heels of a ministerial summit on religious freedom, which explored how religious freedom is under attack around the globe.

At the summit, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Sam Brownback, U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, highlighted the problems that arise when governments try to enforce conformity to a single view of what is sacred. Governments do far better, they argued, to honor every individual’s freedom to determine that for themselves. That is the path to pluralism—and peace.

Increasingly, however, that is the path less traveled. Too many nations are following paths leading to the decline of religious freedom.

That awful journey often begins with the social ostracization of religious minorities. In Saudi Arabia, for example, official textbooks teach students to compare Christians and Jews to dogs and pigs.

The next step economically disenfranchises religious minorities, denying them employment and education. In Egypt, for instance, Coptic Christians face extreme prejudice when looking for work—be it with the police force or the military, or even a professional soccer team.

Next comes the criminalization of minority religious beliefs. In Pakistan, for example, a Catholic woman named Asia Bibi currently sits on death row for allegedly blaspheming Muhammad.

Ultimately, the path away from religious freedom ends in violence, which may come from either the state or civil society groups. Last year in India, Hindu vigilantes killed a 12-year-old Muslim boy for allegedly slaughtering a cow that they consider sacred. [read more]

China’s gov’t oppression of religious groups:

• China demolishes hundreds of churches and confiscates Bibles during a crackdown on Christianity
• BreakPoint: China’s Crackdown on Religion

How to Reduce Your Risk of Death by Gun Violence

From FEE.org (June 6):

Do you want to reduce your risk of death by gun violence? If so, consider these 10 common sense ways to do so. These are things one can implement fully and immediately with no permission or agreement from anyone else but are entirely in the control of any individual. Marching to persuade politicians is a very indirect way of reducing anyone’s risk from gun violence. And considering their track record on so many issues, politicians may end up putting us all at further risk when all is said and done.

1. Don’t commit suicide. This is the most common gun-related death, being about 63% of all firearm deaths in the US.
2. Adopt a policy of not escalating any road rage situations. If someone does something offensive on the highways have it pre-settled in your mind to react by de-escalating the situation (refrain from responding in kind) and back off to allow the heat of the moment to cool.
3. Do not join a gang. Violence is the accepted norm among gang members, resulting in many becoming victims of gun violence.
4. Do not buy or sell illegal drugs. Yes, I do know that it’s the drug laws more than the drugs themselves that leads to gun violence among drug buyers and sellers. But, people already on the wrong side of the law are more likely to commit gun violence than the law-abiding population.
5. Do not get involved with abusive people. Someone who previously has physically abused a partner is more likely to do so than are those who have never engaged in such abuse.
6. Implement a personal curfew. The safest place anyone can be at 2am is at home in bed. Roaming the streets in the middle of the night exposes one to gangs, drug sellers, and other dangerous people.
7. Stay away from Gun Free Zones. One study showed that 98% of all mass shootings happen in these places. Gun Free Zone signs tell violent people this is a spot where the picking will be easy. As for everywhere else, these predators may be deterred since they have to wonder if there’s already a good guy with a gun on the property. [read more]

Makes perfect sense to me especially #7. I wonder if the Left knows that 98% stat or if they even care. There are four more suggestions not listed here.

Killer Nanorobots Are Coming For Your Cancer

From Forbes.com (July 31):

Hong Kong researchers have successfully developed a 3D-printed nanoscale robot that can maneuver at a cellular level.

In Jun, Science Robotics, a leading robotics technical journal, published a report about the exploits of the City University engineers.

It shows that targeted, personalized medicine with tiny robots is no longer science fiction. [read more]

If the nanorobots can kill cancer maybe they can be programmed to kill viruses and other diseases. Hypothetically, making mankind live forever.

Artificial intelligence can predict your personality by scanning your eyes

From CNET.com (July 29):

"The eyes are the window of the soul." Cicero said that. But it's a bunch of baloney.

Unless you're a state-of-the-art set of machine-learning algorithms with the ability to demonstrate links between eye movements and four of the big five personality traits.

If that's the case, then Cicero was spot on.

A joint project between the University of South Australia and the University of Stuttgart had an artificial intelligence track and monitor the eye movements of 42 human participants using a video-based eye-tracker from SensorMotoric Instruments. The researchers then cross-checked the findings with regular, well-established questionnaires.

Of the "big five" personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism), the artificial intelligence was able to reliably identify four: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

According to the study, this is the first time eye movements have been used to identify personality traits, which is interesting in itself -- but the end goal, according to Tobias Loetscher from the University of South Australia, is to improve human-machine interactions at some point in the future. [read more]

Interesting. Just what AI needs to determine who will/won’t be a good slave to them when they takeover. Of course, I am joking. Then again…

3 Stoic Lessons That Can Help Heal Our Toxic Political Culture

From FEE.org:

Emotional. Tribal. Irrational. These are just three adjectives which could be applied to the political discourse of the 21st century. Both in the United States and Europe, discussions have reverted from constructive criticism and mutual understanding to name-calling, de-platforming, and retreats into echo chambers. None of this is particularly useful for a pluralistic society.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. Back in the days of Ancient Rome and Greece, the founding fathers of the stoic school of philosophy taught the importance of clear-mindedness and rationalism in the development both of the self and of society. Here a three of these lessons which now, more than ever, need to be relearned.

1. “The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”

One of the great stoic thinkers, Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, argued that emotional reactions to opposition were signs of weakness; to become enraged is to become a slave to emotions, surrendering your logic as you do so. In this way, once one has allowed himself to become angry at his opponent, he has lost the battle.

Instead, one should take the time to face problems and antagonism logically, and with a clear mind.

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2. “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

Epictetus, another stoic philosopher from Ancient Greece, discussed the importance of learning as much as possible before putting your own ideas forward. Listening to more arguments than one puts forward allows for a far better understanding of the wider debate.

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3. “If you judge, investigate.”

In today’s world of fake news, alternative facts, and clickbait headlines, it can be easy to form a strong opinion of someone or something before a full understanding has even been gained. Seneca the Younger teaches that all judgments and opinions we make must be fully understood before we can begin to feel secure in them.  [read more]

The Experts Have Been Wrong About Lots of Things. Here’s a Sampling

From The Daily Signal.com (July 25):

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted that if Donald Trump were elected, there would be a protracted recession within 18 months.

Heeding its experts, a month before the election, the Washington Post ran an editorial with the headline “A President Trump could destroy the world economy.” Steve Rattner, a Democratic financier and former head of the National Economic Council, warned, “If the unlikely event happens and Trump wins, you will see a market crash of historic proportions.”

When Trump’s electoral victory became apparent, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned that the world was “very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight.” By the way, Krugman has been so wrong in so many of his economic predictions, but that doesn’t stop him from making more shameless predictions.

People whom we’ve trusted as experts have often been wrong beyond imagination, and it’s nothing new. Irving Fisher, a distinguished Yale University economics professor in 1929, predicted, “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” Three days later, the stock market crashed.

In 1945, regarding money spent on the Manhattan Project, Adm. William Leahy told President Harry S. Truman, “That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The [atomic] bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.”

In 1903, the president of the Michigan Savings Bank, advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in Ford Motor Co., said, “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.” Confidence in the staying power of the horse was displayed by a 1916 comment of the aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Douglas Haig at a tank demonstration: “The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous.”

Albert Einstein predicted: “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” In 1899, Charles H. Duell, the U.S. commissioner of patents, said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Listening to its experts in 1936, The New York Times predicted, “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” [read more]

Unless the so-called “experts” have a very good reason why a technology cannot be invented, it probably will be invented eventually. Just because mankind doesn’t have the know-how now doesn’t mean we won’t have it in the future. Knowledge always increases for better or for worse.

How to predict the side effects of millions of drug combinations

From Kurzweil AI.net (July 17):

Millions of people take up to five or more medications a day, but doctors have no idea what side effects might arise from adding another drug.*

Now, Stanford University computer scientists have developed a deep-learning system (a kind of AI modeled after the brain) called Decagon** that could help doctors make better decisions about which drugs to prescribe. It could also help researchers find better combinations of drugs to treat complex diseases.

The problem is that with so many drugs currently on the U.S. pharmaceutical market, “it’s practically impossible to test a new drug in combination with all other drugs, because just for one drug, that would be five thousand new experiments,” said Marinka Zitnik, a postdoctoral fellow in computer science and lead author of a paper presented July 10 at the 2018 meeting of the International Society for Computational Biology.

With some new drug combinations (“polypharmacy”), she said, “truly we don’t know what will happen.”

How proteins interact and how different drugs affect these proteins

So Zitnik and associates created a network describing how the more than 19,000 proteins in our bodies interact with each other and how different drugs affect these proteins. Using more than 4 million known associations between drugs and side effects, the team then designed a method to identify patterns in how side effects arise, based on how drugs target different proteins, and also to infer patterns about drug-interaction side effects.***

Based on that method, the system could predict the consequences of taking two drugs together. [read more]

Right now the computer scientists’ program only works for two drugs but they are trying to make it work for multiple drugs. A good start nonetheless.

Who Needs the WHO? Not the World’s Poor

From FEE.org (May 11):

The World Health Organization is a large and antiquated United Nations body that is expensive unnecessary and counterproductive to its own cause of "public health." It's time to take the appropriate measures and defund it.

The WHO and Ebola: an Illustration of Failure

As the Ebola crisis was ravaging a number of African countries in 2014, we put our trust into a number of international organizations to assist West African countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or Nigeria to contain the spread of the virus and aid those who were unable to receive medical care. The World Health Organization (WHO), with its ambitious goal regarding public health, was one of them. According to itself, the "WHO aims to prevent Ebola outbreaks by maintaining surveillance for Ebola virus disease and supporting at-risk countries to developed preparedness plans."

Experts in the field, however, beg to differ. As Reuters reported in 2015, a specialist panel convened by Harvard’s Global Health Institute (HGHI) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) concluded that immense human suffering went "largely unchecked" by institutional responders.

It turned out that WHO officials were aware of the outbreak in spring, yet it took until August for the World Health Organization to declare it a public health emergency and take action. This is months after the broader public was already made aware of the problems with the epidemic.

The WHO, however, does have priorities—in the same year that WHO reports failed to mention the Ebola outbreak, the UN's agency reported on the promotion of tobacco products. Even more striking is that the WHO's concern wasn't only that of tobacco marketing in Western European of Northern American areas but in the precise areas affected by Ebola.

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Over 2,500 people died from Ebola in Guinea, but rather than addressing the important health concerns of what could become a global epidemic, the WHO focused on cigarettes. Former WHO Director General Margaret Chan spoke at the sixth Conference of the Parties of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC COP6) in Moscow in 2014 (during the Ebola outbreak) and declared fighting smoking as the biggest priority for the WHO.

This is in line with the general priorities of this organization. The WHO has shifted its focus from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), caused by fatty foods, smoking, or drinking. Unimpressed by the large-scale consequences of nation-wide epidemics, the WHO prefers to play a nanny and regulates people's personal behavior. Is this what taxpayers expect to happen? [read more]

Sounds like the Left. The article goes on to say the travel expense for WHO is a whopping $200 million! Charities like Doctors Without Borders can do it cheaper and more effectively.

The IRS Has Rehired Hundreds of Fired Employees. Congress Should Step In.

From The Daily Signal.com (July 26):

For one of the most punitive agencies in the federal government, the IRS sure is forgiving with its own employees.

Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., has proposed a bill that would prevent the IRS from rehiring employees fired for misconduct or poor performance.

The bill, titled the Ensuring Integrity in the IRS Workforce Act, follows a recent Treasury inspector general report that shows the IRS rehired more than 200 fired workers in a little over a year. A previous inspector general report proves this problem dates back to at least 2009.

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Often, these employees do not have to wait long to get their old offices back. Two IRS employees fired for poor performance were rehired within six months.

Faced with these findings, the IRS was unapologetic. In a response letter to the Inspector General’s Office, the IRS’ chief human capital officer wrote that the IRS “determined its current process is more than adequate to mitigate any risks to American taxpayers, federal agencies, and its employees.”

Given that the IRS refuses to change its hiring process, swift congressional action is necessary. And Noem’s bill has a good chance to pass. In fact, a previous version of this legislation passed the House, 345-78, a little more than two years ago. [read more]

Only in government agencies can this re-hiring happen. Here are some of the findings from the article:

• A fired worker with several misdemeanor theft convictions and one count of felony possession of a forgery device.
• 11 employees previously disciplined for unauthorized access to taxpayer accounts.
• 17 employees previously caught falsifying official documents.

I hope Congress passes Representative Noem’s bill.

Why the Supreme Court Should Be More Like the Last Super Bowl

Commentary from Walter E. Williams on The Daily Signal.com (July 18):

The Constitution represents our “rules of the game.” Supreme Court justices should be seen as umpires or referees, whose job is to enforce neutral rules.

I’ll give a somewhat trivial example of neutral rules from my youth. Let’s call it Mom’s Rule.

On occasion, my sister and I would have lunch in my mother’s absence. She’d ask either me or my younger sister to divide a last piece of cake or pie. More often than not, an argument would ensue about the fairness of the cut.

Those arguments ended when Mom came up with a rule: Whoever cuts the cake lets the other take the first piece. As if by magic or divine intervention, fairness emerged, and arguments ended. No matter who did the cutting, there was an even division.

That’s the kind of rule we need for our society—the kind whereby you’d be OK even if your worst enemy were in charge. By creating and enforcing neutral rules, we minimize conflict.

Consider one area of ruthless competition where that’s demonstrated—sports. The 52nd Super Bowl featured the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots. A lot was at stake. Each player on the winning team would earn $112,000; losers would get half that. Plus, each winner would get a Super Bowl ring that might cost as much as $40,000.

Despite a bitterly fought contest and all that was at stake, the game ended peaceably, and winners and losers were civil to one another. [read more]

Nice analogy. I like the way he thinks.