Anthony Watts rarely submits his 'findings' to peer review.

Dismissed.

The Weekly Standard is not a credible source. Also notice how the entire article focuses on one individual's report of the facts, which also makes it unreliable.

Not that I doubt there may be truth to it, of course. Although I have nothing against employees organizing to collectively bargain, I am opposed to the behaviors and legal benefits Unions enjoy. To me, they violate the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Simon,

I'm not talking about education or health care providers for young children. I'm talking about a provider who is paid to supervise a child while his/her parents are working.

While I can understand your point about consumer reviews creating a barrier to entry for those who aren't established, newcomers can at least compete by compensating parents with lower prices and thus keep the cost of childcare down. When the government creates licensing requirements, then prices go up due to less competition and higher entry costs.

For example, the price of childcare has skyrocketed in some areas because the state or municipal governments imposed licensing requirements that effectively create a barrier to entry. It is also unnecessary. It's the fault of parents if they don't do their research.

Because Zarf made me move it.

Actually, the unemployment problem in the U.S. has to do with both structural and surplus unemployment.

Structural unemployment means that there is a mis-match between skills and availability. As the U.S economy has become more service orientated, the labor force has failed to adapt. This means that while there are jobs available, employers are having difficulty filling them with qualified people.

Related to our structural unemployment problem is our surplus unemployment problem. As a result of unions and labor laws (e.g. minimum wage and equal pay laws), unskilled workers are unable to negotiate their labor for less compensation.

Finally, our welfare laws create perverse incentives by punishing the poor who find work. The result is that the poor will try to maximize their welfare payments before they look for work.

So how to fix the U.S. economy?

1. Remove the laws that exempt unions as conspiracies to restrict trade, and then prosecute them for violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
2. Overturn labor laws that set a minimum wage and restrict discrimination.
3. Overturn consumer protection laws that can be corrected with the flow of information and consumer vigilance ("buyer's beware").
4. Increase the supply of universities, relax general education requirements, and distribute student financial aid on a meritocratic basis.

These are very good short-term and long-term suggestions.

Now my extreme suggestions:

1. Privatize retirement and health care.
2. Create a flat tax (15%?) on all income over $30,000, allow no deductions, and eliminate corporate taxes.
3. Update the law books, and require old laws to be overturned when they are invalidated by new laws.
4. Simplify the laws. Make them easily understandable by anyone with a High School education.
5. Reduce military spending to ~300 billion.
6. Tort reform.

If we did these things right, then life in the U.S. would be improving.

Most incumbents lose the first round. Clinton was really the only exception.

3.

Unless you accept my counter proposal of returning to Federalism. Then we may have a mutually satisfactory solution.

They are empirical in the sense that they report my values. Otherwise, yep.

I suppose we could potentially universalize them with an argument that they are essential to other values that are generally valued. For example, access to birth control and abortion serve to lift many natural barriers to entry that once deterred women from pursuing careers. A second argument could be made that cheap sex benefits society by making the population happier and reducing the prevalence of male violence.

What I'm saying is that people think rights transcend the natural world and institutions, but in fact they were entirely conceived by people stuck in their ivory towers, and now they are features of Western institutions. I used them as a useful fiction to engage you without getting in to an unnecessary philosophical conversation.

To be more precise, I am not fond of my freedom to have those things legally prohibited/restricted by moral busy bodies.

> Mister Spock wrote:

> As a voluntary slave of the state, why would anybody care what you think? You argue both that you have no rights, and that you'll get violent over your preferences... It sounds like you should be committed. You argue that you have no right to liberty, but that you'll get violent over a preference. That's hypocritical and nonsensical.

As a voluntary slave to the state, get used to the whims of your rulers or the majority. It's your stated preference. You shouldn't be telling us how you'll get violent over the results of your own preference. That just sounds like you're trolling and put no thought into the ideas you presented here.

What government are you talking about, anyway? Birth control is cheap as hell in the USA, and it's no more restricted than other medicine (which is admittedly poorly and overly restricted for the benefit of the healthcare and pharmaceutical mega industries). Sure, a bunch of people don't like it, but they hardly have the votes to get it outlawed anywhere. They have no legislative power. Hell, you can kill your kids halfway out of their mother's va-jay-jay in many places. What are you talking about?>

I'm an empiricist, so I'm not going to refer to entities that transcend the natural world and our institutions. That is why I rarely talk about rights unless it is conversationally convenient to talk about them as a useful fiction. Consequently, my political philosophy is amoral and sometimes crude. So all I can say, while remaining consistent, is that I value my liberty, and that there is only so much tolerance I have for restrictions on it.

I think you underestimate the power that social conservatives exercise in the Republican party. For example, they nearly enacted Virginia's Mandatory Ultrasound bill when it required women pregnant for less than 12 weeks to receive a transvaginal ultrasound. Even with the revision removing the required transvaginal probe, it's still an overt invasion of a woman's privacy. Also, the GOP platform included banning some forms of pornography.

> Zarf BeebleBrix wrote:

Um... and?>

There are others you haven't mentioned, although I have a philosophical problem with the term "rights." Ignoring that, taking away the first right, with some modification, is a sufficient justification for me to withdraw my consent to be governed by the state.

Modified:

1. Right to purchase contraception without government interference restricting my ability to obtain it.
2. Right to have sex with a consenting partner, regardless of marital status.