Since the Final Four begins today, I guess it’s about time I said something about Vanderbilt’s season, after making it to the Sweet 16 but falling to Georgetown 66-65 on an extremely difficult (and arguably illegal) shot by Jeff Green with two seconds remaining. Here’s pretty much what I would say.
That is all.
Front page, center column, to be specific. I’ll leave the storytelling to Jacob, since it was really his party, but I was happy to provide the venue and we had a blast. I highly encourage you to read about miracle fruit and our related misadventures.
The opening paragraph of this story says it all:
Former Gov. Fife Symington says now that those strange lights that appeared over Phoenix a decade ago were from another world and that he had a close encounter with an alien craft on March 13, 1997.
Awesome.
I’m at a conference in Philadelphia this weekend, but I thought I’d share an anecdote with a question attached to its end. Wednesday afternoon I was leaving my office building and I found a $100 bill on the ground. I looked around and there was no one in sight. I waited for a minute and nobody came looking for it. I contemplated a bit further and decided to take it. I then proceeded to consider it bonus money (the rationale against government rebate checks) and spend it frivolously on myself and my friends.
In that brief period of time between finding the money and deciding to take it, I found myself concerned with a problem of ownership. I genuinely wanted the money to be returned to its rightful owner, but I could think of no reasonable way to guarantee the money would end up in the appropriate hands. If I’d left the money, it could have blown away or been picked up by someone equally undeserving, and perhaps the rightful owner would never have come back anyway. I could have turned it over to the campus police, but they have no better way of establishing ownership than I do, and they might just pocket such a small sum rather than waste time on the paperwork.
The best idea I’ve heard so far comes from a friend who suggested posting signs advertising an undisclosed sum of money, and then turn the bill over to the person who could identify sum and location. However, $100 is a plausible guess (assuming it’s a sum large enough to be concerned but too small to turn over to police) and the owner might not know where it was recovered. Moreover, for someone who believes one’s property is worth protecting but isn’t a hapless altruist, what’s the appropriate expenditure of time and effort on the search? Should I have continued the manhunt until exhausting $99.99 worth of my labor?
Okay, enough rambling. But if you do have an opinion on this, I’d be interested to hear it.
People are always asking me how I can work with so many libertarians without claiming to self-identify as such. I’ll leave a more direct answer for another time, but I will speak around the answer for a moment.
I’m currently reading Brian Doherty’s new book Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. Brian has a lengthy history with libertarians, and with my employer, giving him an insider’s perspective. In addition, it’s written with a journalist’s flare, making it an easy and fun read that so far I’d highly recommend. Brian has also written the lead essay for this month’s Cato Unbound addressing a recurring theme of his book, which has resulted in empassioned reaction essays from several prominent colleagues.
My favorite essay in the exchange? Virginia Postrel, who says everything I want to say about self-identified libertarians. I generally like to know the product before I buy it, and what product would I be getting if I signed up for libertarian as a descriptor? Am I buying the “because it makes the world a better place” label or the “because that’s the way it ought to be” label? Does it matter? And if it does matter, is it because of differences between practitioners in each camp or because of the perceptions of those practicitioners by society at large?
And certainly the two descriptions don’t have to be mutually exclusive, to head off a rebuttal. In fact — in an ironic twist for a disproportionately atheistic group – the ”oughts” typically take it as a matter of faith that the two will align in their ideological endgame. And yes, you could essentially turn this into rights theory vs. consequentialism, but I’m not a philosopher so I’m not going to. Moreover, that’s not my point. My point is how do people define themselves in a way that’s useful either to understand themselves or to assist outsiders in understanding them?
But I’m digressing a bit. Read Postrel, and the other contributors, and then make up your own mind about my ramblings… I hear some libertarians think that’s okay.
Apparently the annual return of ”Kosher for Passover Coke” to stores has begun, albeit only in cities with high Jewish populations as usual. I’ve written over and over about the pleasures of sugar cane soft drinks that can seldom be found in our high-fructose world, thanks largely to massive sugar quotas that peg the U.S. price of sugar at roughly 800% (seriously) of the world price.
The best solution, it seems to me, is free trade on the sugar market. John Craven suggests another route: go try the Kosher version of Coke (or Pepsi, or Dr Brown’s, or Dublin Dr Pepper, or Jones Soda, or Mexican Coke…) and see how you like it. If enough people try it, and enough people demand it, then maybe one day in the distant future a market for the product will emerge that can overcome the government’s meddling.
(And either way, I’d still love to see that quota eliminated… make sure you read that part in one of my back posts about how we’re propping up about 10,000 farmers to the exclusion of about a million starving Indonesians.)
Time has never been an unbiased source when it comes to criticizing conservatives, and at first glance this week’s cover story seems no different – note that the picture of Reagan is even photoshopped. In my opinion, analysts begin treading on dangerous ground when they start assigning problems to an ideology based on the way it’s being implemented by a particular group of legislators.
Given that caviat, though, the story does have some interesting things to say about the current political situation for Republicans. It correctly notes significant differences between the present-day application of Republicanism and how distant it is from Reaganism, for example. However, it’s probably a bit premature to pronounce a crisis of conservative ideology, and more accurate to focus on a crisis of application.
Of late, I’ve come to believe the problem with Liberalism (not to be confused with liberalism) is its belief that it can be — and solve — all things for all people, whereas the problem with Republicanism (not to be confused with conservativism) is its unwavering support for a set of core tenets that don’t actually fit together ideologically. I’m not sure what ideological stance actually resonates with most people, so I’m not prepared to offer any substantive comments on this point except to say that I wouldn’t pronounce any ideology politically dead just yet.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
[Update 3/19/06: Paul Krugman weighs in (if you have a university email address, go here to get TimesSelect articles for free), asserting that it isn’t worth hearkening for Reagan because he would have been exactly like Bush if he could have been, since conservativism is inherently a morally corrupt ideology. Funny, wasn’t the pre-2000 Krugman an economist?]
I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t say much on the ruling (basically overturning DC’s blanket ban on handguns) that hasn’t already been said. But I will say a couple of things. First, whether you agree with the decision or not, I highly recommend reading the ruling (PDF). In 84 short pages you learn about pretty much every major 2nd Amendment argument: the significance of the Militia clause, the meaning of “the people”, the meaning of “to keep and bear Arms”, whether “a free State” applies to the District…
If you’re looking for some readings in support of the ruling from a couple of predictable sources: try National Review and Human Events.
Want to read opposition to the ruling? The New York Times and Washington Post are always reliable on this side of the fence.
And want to think for yourself? Read the ruling — and the dissent — before assuming the case is Adrian Fenty and Richard Daley vs. the NRA and Bush administration.
Men’s Basketball: #6 Vanderbilt obliterated #11 George Washington 77-44, which admittedly they were supposed to do, but VU has a history of losing games they’re supposed to win so it’s still relieving/gratifying. Next up: #3 Washington State on Saturday.
Women’s Basketball: #2 Vanderbilt plays #15 Delaware State at noon EST on Sunday. First-round games in the women’s tournament are notorious for being such embarrasing blowouts that I don’t see why we don’t reduce the women’s field to 32.
Men’s Baseball: #1 Vanderbilt is a school-best 19-0 entering conference play with a three-game home series against #14 Ole Miss. Now we’re in the SEC and we’ll find out what they’re really made of…
As I’ve said before, I don’t typically write about work here except for one pitch a season. My organization, the Institute for Humane Studies, offers weeklong summer seminars for students and young professionals interested in thought-provoking discussions about the relationship between liberty and society. Some are geared toward a broad philosophical discussion of libertarian concepts, while others engage more specific topics like globalization or civil liberties. The application deadline is March 31, and those who complete the brief application by March 15 get a free book.
IHS offers these seminars both as an educational opportunity and a chance for participants to interact with each other and with us for career development purposes. They’re particularly advantageous for those interested in policy, academia, journalism, and creative media — areas where IHS is best leveraged to assist.
I won’t say any more about them here, but law professor Randy Barnett (if you haven’t heard of him, you should) speaks highly of his long experience with IHS and its summer seminars in particular. If you or someone you know might be interested, I encourage you to seriously consider the opportunity.
Yesterday I got angry at a Times editorial and wrote about it, then proceeded to get into further debate in the comments.
Today I note that Tyler has spent the last several days writing about unions more broadly. He seems to have stirred up his readers by proposing a deal: he’ll support large wage increases for union workers as a “natural experiment” in exchange for the concession from union backers that unionization slows the rate of economic growth. He then adds to his line of reasoning in subsequent posts.
Pretty interesting stuff. Personally I’m completely persuaded by the economic evidence that unions are worse for the rate of economic growth. As for the opposing side, I’m least persuaded by the disbelievers, and most sympathetic to those who concede the economics and argue that the better use of unions is to protect job security and safety.
Since I do believe security and safety are important, I’m inclined to support whatever the most effective measure is to ensure them at optimal levels. For me, this probably means that security and safety protections should emerge either through legislation or as the product of employer-employee relations, but not both. And, as part of determining which method produces a more optimal set of policies, one would have to ask whether there’s a difference between employer-employee relations conducted by unions vs. by individual workers (or a mix, as in a “right to work” state), just as one would ask whether legislation is better optimized at the local, state, or federal level.
The Titans started free agency with about $40 million to spend, among the most in the NFL, and 10 picks in this year’s draft. The general consensus is their primary needs are wide receiver and cornerback. Less than a week into free agency, we’ve lost our starting running back and our #1 and #2 wide receivers to free agency, and our #1 cornerback might not be with the team next year due to off-the-field issues. Free agents signed: zero.
I hope the general manager knows something the fans don’t, because I don’t see how this could be good…
Thank Jimmy Wales too, of course, but apparently he thanks Hayek.
The Times today has it absolutely dead wrong in its rationale for supporting legislation strengthening the ability of employees to unionize.
There’s simply no way to arrive at the positions of the editors without presupposing that businesses generally harm their workers and that employees are generally better off unionized. One has to assume that wages and benefits always improve in a union environment, which evidence shows to be untrue (even before mandatory union dues are sliced off the top). One also has to believe it’s the union’s right, once it has claimed exclusive rights of negotiation for a set of employees, to use the existing contract rather than a blank slate as a base point for contract talks.
Here’s the second most disturbing paragraph for me:
The most significant change in the bill is known as a majority signup, which would allow employees at a company to unionize if a majority signed cards expressing their desire to do so. Under current law, an employer can reject the majority’s signatures and insist on a secret ballot. But in a disturbingly high number of cases, the employer uses the time before the vote to pressure employees to rethink their decision to unionize.
And the most disturbing one:
The bill’s opponents charge that replacing secret ballots with the majority signup would be undemocratic. But the current system is by no means fair. The law prohibits union advocacy by employees during work hours and allows employers to ban organizers from the work place. But employers can require workers to attend anti-union presentations, and can discipline or fire those who refuse to attend.
The Times apparently doesn’t think the federal laws prohibiting any member of management from threatening, interrogating, persecuting, or spying on workers during a union campaign are strong enough. Conversely, it apparently doesn’t think a similar threat exists from union representatives, who are not prohibited from any of these actions. And it apparently doesn’t think there’s any danger of peer pressure when a group of workers goes around the to their coworkers asking each of them face-to-face to sign their union petition.
Anyone familiar with the process for submitting a ballot in a union election knows that it’s impossible to know who voted for what. It’s carefully designed that way to prevent both the company and union advocates from retaliating against the individual. Employees who want to form unions typically feel passionately about it — passionately enough that coworkers opposed to a union already face the threat of persecution (or worse) by their peers. If anything, the employer’s ability to reject a petition protects the employees, and it could be claimed that those who would do away with it are more anti-worker. But more importantly, this editorial, and this bill, insults workers everywhere by presupposing they are not strong enough or smart enough to make an informed decision on a secret ballot!
The Times and supporting legislators must believe that workers having a union is more important than workers having the right to a vote free of peer pressure from either side. Wait, I don’t have to guess, because the Times says it outright:
Labor unions have a role to play in helping to fix today’s economic ills — most notably, worsening income inequality, a problem that’s caused in part by unions’ decline and the workers’ resulting lack of bargaining power. What’s needed is a Congressional drive to help Mr. Bush see this obvious connection.
A bill designed around the idea that unions are good for workers regardless of potential worker opposition is a faith-based initiative. Is this not obvious? Somebody who believes the opposite, please tell me why my concerns are mistaken, because short of sheer politics, lobbying, or blind ideology, I don’t understand why someone would support making the votes transparent.
For all my talk about the Vanderbilt men’s basketball team, the women’s team is pretty good too. They just won the SEC Tournament, and now their coach is lobbying for a #2 seed. When 4 of your 5 losses are to Duke, Tennessee twice, and Georgia (who you beat 2 of 3 times), yeah, I’d say you’ve got a compelling case.
