News From Maryland’s 36th District

16 12 2009

For those who follow Maryland politics, I have a bit of news I wanted to share.

Diana Waterman, a member of the Queen Anne’s County Republican Central Committee and both the 1st Vice Chair-Elect and the Eastern Shore Regional Chair of the Maryland Federation of Republican Women, has formed an exploratory committee for a campaign for Delegate.

To avoid any confusion though, I want to make it absolutely clear that Diana is only going to run in the event that the current holder of the seat, Delegate Richard Sossi, gives it up in order to run for State Senate (which is in turn dependent on Senator E.J. Pipkin vacating the seat to run for higher office, something many believe to be reasonably likely).

Also, in the interests of full disclosure, Diana Waterman happens to be my mother and I am the treasurer for the exploratory committee. Any statements I make on this blog are solely my own opinions and should in no way be considered as her stances on any issue.

All of that being said, I highly recommend reading the letter she sent out explaining why she has formed the committee and consider printing out the donation card and sending it back with some form of financial support. As Brian Griffiths so aptly noted:

Hey, I’m as happy as anybody that so many people are protesting health care in DC. I really am. The fact that 15,000+ people took the time to go downtown today, on a work day, and protest says a lot about their passion and the anger being felt by millions of Americans over the Democrats attempts to bankrupt the country and ruin our health care system.

But this is the easy part. Unless these protesters are willing to put in the grunt work, the long hours, to donate their time, their money, and their sweat to candidates who are willing to fight for their values in Annapolis, in Washington, then it will all be for naught.

My point is that it’s real easy to bitch, but it’s not so easy to work hard and lead. Our party and our nation needs leaders and workers right now a heck of a lot more than we need protesters…

Her letter:

and the donation card:


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Categories : 2010 Election, Eastern Shore, Maryland, Political News, Politics, Queen Anne's County

The Man Upstair’s With Me On This One

10 12 2009

I don’t think it’s quite what Heinlein meant with Valentine Michael Smith’s “Thou art God” in Stranger in a Strange Land, but this new scientific finding certainly seems to fit.

The scientists conducted a number of studies, but one of the more fascinating was an fMRI brain scan in which they looked at which parts of believers’ brains were activated when they were asked about what they believed, what other people might believe, and what God believes about ten different moral issues. It turns out that thinking about what God believes activates the same brain areas as thinking about one’s own views.

H/T: Reason


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Categories : Literature, Science

McDonough Should Review Immigration Stance and Allies

9 12 2009

Over at monoblogue Michael posted a press release from Delegate McDonough citing a study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform that purports to show just how much illegal immigration is costing Marylanders.

Now a new study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (F.A.I.R.) has exposed the fact that illegals are costing Maryland citizens more than 1.4 billion dollars annually.

I’ve gone and read over the study and the fact is its claim is nowhere near as sound as one would believe.

The primary flaw of the study a heavily slanted accounting of the costs of illegal immigration. Any honest accounting of the costs of immigration must necessarily be balanced against the benefits of immigration, both legal and illegal.

FAIR’s study doesn’t do this. While they at least took the time to acknowledge there is a receipt of taxes from illegal immigrants, they gloss over the point, suggesting that any contributions made by illegal workers would be balanced out by new contributions by legal workers.

This point is demonstrably false. As a Cato Institute study released this summer notes, increasing security to limit illegal immigration would in fact have a deleterious net impact on the economy:

Our simulations show that the difference between the long-run welfare effects for U.S. households of the worst and best policies that we considered is about $260 billion a year in current dollars. This is the welfare gap between the tighter-border-enforcement policy in Simulation 1 (a welfare loss of 0.55 percent) and the liberalized policy with an optimal visa charge in Simulation 7 (a welfare gain of 1.27 percent).

These economic impacts come in part through tax receipts, but also manifest in the form of increased wages to remaining illegal immigrants, reductions to average wages as a result of changing occupation-mix of employment of U.S. workers, tightening capital, decreased employment, all of which outpace the relatively meager reductions in public expenditure on illegal immigrants.

The effect of this problem becomes bigger when one considers the relative inputs and outputs of illegal immigrant economic activity. The only welfare programs they have access to are emergency medical care and K-12 education (with some additional public expenditure coming in the form of law enforcement and incarceration costs). When you consider that the first two will logically have an inverse correlation to the third, any cost savings from reducing illegal immigration will likely be lower than what FAIR sells them as.

With economic impacts like these it is careless at best, and downright deceptive at worst to willfully leave out the economic benefits of immigration when doing an accounting of its costs, particularly when Cato has already done such a thorough study on the topic.

Understanding just who FAIR is makes me lean towards downright deceptive. Looking at the About page on their website, it is quite clear that the organization’s interest isn’t public expenditures, nor is it remittances to families in immigrants’ native countries, concern for rule of law, or any of the other items noted in the study.

The motivation for the Federation for American Immigration Reform is simple. It is crass xenophobia. They’re honest about it. In their stated purpose they advocate for a moratorium on all immigration and in their principles they state that immigration should be:

at the lowest feasible levels consistent with the national security, economic, demographic, environmental and socio-cultural interests of the present and future.

When a group is this open about their bigotry there’s little reason to wonder about the worthlessness of its study. FAIR is a perfect example of what Shikha Dalmia was talking about when she noted “The cost of undocumented aliens is an issue that immigrant bashers have created to whip up indignation against people they don’t want here in the first place.”

Delegate McDonough and Michael are both good people. They’re both honestly concerned about the amount of taxpayer money the state is spending. But they, and others in the GOP, need to think carefully about their stances on immigration. Republicans need to reject the bigotry espoused by the likes of FAIR, acknowledge how broken our immigration system is, and embrace substantive reform that makes the path to legal residency simple, quick, and inexpensive.

UPDATE: Frequent monoblogue commenter Marc posted several more links taking issue with FAIR’s study. I’m re-posting them here as well,

As far as the study, here’s a partial rebuttal: http://immigrationimpact.com/2009/12/04/fair-blames-immigrants-and-children-for-maryland%E2%80%99s-budget-deficit/.

The problem with many of these studies is that they are ideologically-driven. FAIR isn’t going to put out anything that is in any way fair to illegal immigrants. If it produces a study, it’s going to show illegal immigrants hurt the US. Finding good, unbiased data on this subject is difficult. Here’s something from 1994: http://migration.ucdavis.edu/MN/more.php?id=298_0_2_0.

A CBO report from 2007 looked at the impact of illegal immigrants on state and local expenditures and finds that they do cost state local governments money and that their taxes don’t offset their costs, but that they only impose a small burden: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/87xx/doc8711/12-6-Immigration.pdf. This study doesn’t include taxes paid to the federal government.


Comments : 1 Comment »

Categories : Immigration, Maryland

Correction: Sherman Alexie is an Ignorant Enema

8 12 2009

Never let it be said I don’t correct my mistakes. A few months back I tore into author Sherman Alexie for delivering a foolish and misguided rant about the evil’s of e-books in general and the Kindle in particular.

Considering how relatively low-profile my blog is, you can imagine my surprise last night when I discovered he had in fact read my post and posted a response (he did however fail to link back to mine, but considering how much he pats himself on the back for his Luddite sensibilities I guess we can’t blame him for not knowing that basic convention of internet discourse).

Since his response lacks a dedicated url, I’ll copy it here, just to make sure everyone is able to read it:

I read this personal essay about Twitter addiction – salon.com – on the same day there was also a small flare-up of my violent-fear-of-Kindle-related controversy. Because of my opinions about Kindle, a blogger wrote that she/he thinks I am an “ignorant douchebag” who is guilty of “barbarism.” Sherman the Barbarian! I like that. This person must have seen me play basketball. However, “douchebag” is a problematic insult. There is something sexist and trite about using a vaginal-related product as disparagement. I think the gender-neutral “enema” is more original and hilarious: “Sherman Alexie is an ignorant enema.” Now that’s a crassly poetic insult. And one that sounds suspiciously like a George Carlin bit. Did I just steal from Carlin? But, hey, we live in an Open Source Culture. I’m not stealing from Carlin; I’m remixing.

Despite my enema-impaired intellect, I realize now that I am messin’ with certain folks’ addictions when I question the moral, ethical, artistic, and aesthetic qualities of digital book technology. Have you ever questioned the drinking, eating, smoking, dating or shopping choices of an active addict? And if so, do you still have the burn scars? Of course, being a recovering, non-so-recovering, and openly-in-denial addict of various varieties myself, I have Johnny Blazed plenty of friends, family members, and strangers. But I’m an old school addict. Just keep me away from the booze, tortilla chips, and T.J. Maxx. I am very curious about these new school addicts. I think there will soon be a booming economy in the treatment of Internet and digital addiction. And, yes, as I type this on my computer, while connected to the Internet, after doing a few ego-related Google searches, I am quite aware of the ironies inherent in this little blog-like post. But it’s not a blog, damn it! I’m not a blogger! And I don’t have a problem with my Internet use! I’m not addicted! I just use the Internet to relax! I deserve to play on my computer after a long hard day spent working…on my computer.

(At this moment, during a live performance, I would purposefully pause to prolong and heighten my self-mockery. I would also use facial expression, body language, and stage position to highlight my shameful hypocrisy. And I would be hoping that more and more members of the audience would realize that, in addition to playing a character named On Stage Sherman, I was also playing a character named Digitally Addicted Dude Who Has Suddenly Realized the Extent of his Addictions. And as I post-modernly describe what I would be doing if I were performing this live, I am also hoping that more and more of my readers recognize that I am commenting on the primary weakness of digital technology: lack of intimacy. And now I pause again, on the theoretical stage and in this blogesque post (It’s not a blog!), to listen to the furious typing of my detractors: “But Sherman, I have made so many friends on the Internet. I am close to so many more people that I would otherwise be. Because of the Internet, I have hundreds of friends.”

Hundreds of friends? Hundreds?

I guess that’s my problem. I have a small number of friends.

This all brings me back to one of my favorite stories. Years ago, my little sister startled me by saying, ‘I know how you smell. Shoot, you could blindfold me, and have you and ninety-nine other guys take off their shirts and hang them on a clothesline, and I could still find your shirt by your smell.”

That’s a cute and faintly icky story. But it should serve as something of a parable, too. Smell is the memory-sense. And digital technology will never have a scent (until Amazon starts selling its Smells Like Old Books cologne).

Okay, now I have to go build Legos with the sons I’ve been ignoring as I wrote this rant on digital non-intimacy, and I have to email it to my co-worker so she can post it on my website, and while I’m at it, I should probably group-send it to the five hundred people on my email contacts list, and….

- posted 8 16 09

As you can see from the title of this post, I am more than willing to accommodate Mr. Alexie and his pretentious ramblings – but only to a degree.

Let’s go through his post, point by point.

In his second paragraph Alexie glibly tries to turn my criticisms of him back on me.

He makes a rather weak joke about how he plays basketball in response to the charge of barbarism – conveniently ignoring the fact that he said he wanted to hit a woman because she was reading from a Kindle.

He glosses over the charge of ignorance by instead going on a tangent about people lashing out at him because they’re addicts – conveniently ignoring the fact that my response to him included clear historical and economic arguments for why he was wrong about e-books.

Finally he concludes with a rather tired argument about how the digital world is stealing away intimacy, while completely ignoring both the benefits of the trade-off (increased connection with a significantly larger people constituting a wider range of the population and a more rapid, freely-flowing exchange of ideas) and the ways in which technological advancements are closing even the intimacy gap. He also happens to completely dismiss my offer to have a serious discussion on the issue since I think, in spite of his willful efforts to ignore and distort my response to his initial claims, there’s some valuable opportunities for insight to be gained here.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s likely to happen. As I noted before, Alexie seems to spend an awful lot of effort congratulating himself on being a Luddite and it’s been rare in my experience that such individuals are interested in an honest discussion. And on top of that, he seems to have doubled down on those sentiments since he posted his response.

But at least he isn’t as crazy as poet and author Alan Kaufman, who is apparently even crazier than Alexie, comparing the e-book and the Kindle to the Holocaust.

I wonder if Gutenberg got this much blowback for his insidious efforts to destroy the manuscript.

H/T: Gizmodo



Comments : 4 Comments »

Categories : Economics, Literature, Sherman Alexie, Web 2.0

Why Stop There?

8 12 2009

I found it a bit hard to believe, but for once I’m pretty much in agreement with Ezra Klein.

In an op-ed published today he highlights the fact that one of the biggest problems with our current healthcare system is the employer provision of health insurance. Mostly he focuses on the issue of awareness of health insurance costs:

In 2009, the average employer-sponsored health-care plan cost a bit less than $13,500. But virtually no one cut a check for $13,500. Employers generally pay more than 70 percent of their employees’ health-care costs. To employees, that seems like a good deal, particularly given how fast costs are growing. A “benefit,” as it’s called.But health-care coverage is not a benefit. It’s a wage deduction. When premium costs go up, wages go down. When premium costs go down, wages go up. Yet workers don’t know that. In fact, the information is hidden from them. That means that cost control seems like all pain and no gain, which makes it virtually impossible for Congress to pass. It’s like asking someone to diet when they don’t realize it will help them lose weight.

I was glad to see Klein didn’t just stop there. While it didn’t make its way into the op-ed itself, in his post about the op-ed being up, he notes that the problem isn’t just awareness, it’s third-party payment itself:

One of the lessons of this health-care reform process has been that cost control is extremely hard, in part because few of the system’s participants really see an upside. Neither workers nor Medicare beneficiaries nor Medicaid recipients feel the full cost of their insurance coverage

Sadly, Klein disappoints a bit from there on. Instead of following these ideas to their logical conclusion – strip away the tax bias towards employer-provided insurance in order to break the current insurance payment model and replace it with direct payment by individuals – he settles for merely putting the health insurance deduction on every paycheck.

It’s a good idea, so I’m not complaining too much. Still, he could have been for something an awful lot better.


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Categories : Economics, Ezra Klein, Healthcare, Taxes

Not To Say I Told You So…

3 12 2009

…But I did.

That’s because the alternative isn’t an end to rationing. It’s a rearrangement of what drives it. Like it or not, when government becomes the arbiter of choice rather than the market, decisions cease to be driven by market forces and are instead driven by political pull. Try imagining a healthcare system where every health complaint is now a political interest. Do you think they’ll prioritized around necessity and importance? Or will it be around which ones have the best lobbyists and marketing?

Confused about what I’m talking about? Congress proved me (and numerous other libertarians correct) by caving to public pressure and mandating copay-free coverage of mammograms, even though it is both economically and medically questionable to do so.


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Categories : Big Government, Government Waste, Rent Seeking, Universal Healthcare

Libertarianism in the Classroom

2 12 2009

This is an excellent video from a webseries called Justice. As described on its website:

Justice is one of the most popular courses in Harvard’s history. Now it’s your turn to take the same journey in moral reflection that has captivated more than 14,000 students, as Harvard opens its classroom to the world.

In this twelve part series, Sandel challenges us with difficult moral dilemmas and asks our opinion about the right thing to do. He then asks us to examine our answers in the light of new scenarios. The results are often surprising, revealing that important moral questions are never black and white.This course also addresses the hot topics of our day—affirmative action, same-sex marriage, patriotism and rights—and Sandel shows us that we can revisit familiar controversies with a fresh perspective.

I haven’t watched the others (in fact I’m still finishing up the one below, but I’ve watched enough to know I want to post it), but this one is a fairly good discussion of the philosophy of libertarianism. I have to agree with Julian Sanchez, it’s a good portrayal, but an awful lot is the professor taking down libertarian undergrads who don’t have the philosophical chops he does (in particular I really wished the libertarian defenders had simply acknowledged that yes, democracy is a bad thing).

That being said, it’s still worth watching and the world would be a far better place if this were a top watched program rather than Gossip Girl or whatever other idiotic show it is people are watching these days.

HT: Cato@Liberty


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Categories : Libertarianism, Philosophy, YouTube

From the Department of Completely Expected News

1 12 2009

Maryland has fewer millionaires than it did before it passed a tax increase on top earners and state revenues are down as a result.

The number of Marylanders whose returns indicate an income of $1 million or more dropped 30 percent – from 7,067 to 4,910 – between the 2007 and 2008 tax years.

Most of the missing 2,157 probably dropped out of the top bracket because of economic reverses. But 542 who filed in 2007 didn’t file at all in the next year. Presumably most either died or – more likely – moved to more tax-friendly states


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Categories : Economics, Maryland, Political News, Taxes

Thanksgiving Tradition

27 11 2009

I’m just putting it on the record now.

Should I ever get elected President of the United States, I will not pardon the turkey. I will get an axe and personally cut its head off. And then it will be prepared, cooked and served for Thanksgiving dinner.

That is all. Hope everyone else had a good Thanksgiving too.


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Categories : Uncategorized

Spontaneous Order By Any Other Name

24 11 2009

There was a recent post at Boing Boing on roads and pathways Detroiters carved out for themselves when thick snow coverings covered the roads for days at a time. Both these paths and the (possibly anecdotal) experience of London following the Great Fire, which Mark Frauenfelder mentions in the post, are fantastic examples of the principle of spontaneous order.

The fact that the post never makes mention of Hayek or any of the other notable economic theorists who dealt with it, but instead quotes from Gaston Bachelard, calling them “Pathways of Desire,” very interesting and very telling about our society. In general we seem far to susceptible to being awed by the wonders we have planned, those that are the realization of the execution of human will, and relatively blind to those that spontaneously occur on their own without any outside guidance.

This fetishization of planned orders is bad enough when it’s benign. As the examples noted by several commenters highlighted, it is routinely common that sidewalks are laid out according to some planner’s design and then are promptly ignored. This is inefficient, but it doesn’t harm anyone.

On the other hand, the fetishization of planned order can also be very dangerous. It leads people to ignoring the miraculous order that governs the market and has yielded untold benefits to our lives. It has also led to the institution of governmental regimes built around central planning, regimes that also murdered millions of people and forced countless more to live in misery and squalor.


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Categories : Economics, F.A. Hayek, Spontaneous Order

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