BipolarNation.com Platform
The BipolarNation.com Platform is a summary of my political beliefs.
Click the links to find my thoughts and research on a particular issue.
Pro-life policy
Tax Policy
Other Financial Systems
Health Care
Social Security
Entitlement Policy
Education
Social Policies
…Legalization of Marijuana
…Racism and Affirmative Action
Military Spending
Foreign Policy
NASA Spending and Policy
Crime Policy
Energy
Infrastructure
Climate Change Policy
Balancing the Budget
Introduction
Life Begins at Conception
Eliminating the Counter-arguments
Counter-arguments for legalization theories
In the founding document of the United States of America, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are listed as inalienable rights. These rights extend to all people, except in cases where individual liberty can be revoked as punishment of a crime, or legitimate self-defense or legitimate defense by military force.
Moreover, the value of individual human life should be respected above all other value in which the government may play a role. The de-valuation of human life and rationalization of relativistic human value has lead to some of history’s greatest tragedies. Without life, no human is capable of enjoying the freedom and security that should be the aim of government to uphold.
No satisfactory answer for “When Life Begins” exists but “Conception.” All other answers are relativistic and rationalizations to de-value human life present in the womb.
Conception is the Absolute Point at which the sperm and the oocyte merge and become capable of producing eventually a full-grown human being. The merged sperm and oocyte become a zygote.
This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being.
-Keith Moore, Essentials of Human Embryology
The human at conception is the first appearance of a human organism that is already genetically complete. No other formations – such as the development of eyes or arms – is necessary to become “more” human: It is already simply a human organism at its youngest stage.
“The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity.”
-Ronan O’Rahily and Fabiola Muller, Human Embryology and Teratology
There is no other distinction – including birth – in which it may be said that this organism “becomes” human. To wait for a fetus to be “fully developed” is a relativistic slippery-slope, a false distinction. At which point would a 5-year-old be fully developed? After puberty? Does this mean that 5-year-olds are not human?
The only distinctions between life and non-life is before conception and and after death.
Counter-arguments to life begins at conception
Aside from conception, there are four other major views as to when a fetus is born.
- Embryological view
- Neurological view
- Ecological view
- Birth view
Embryological view:
The embryological view holds that life begins at gastrulation, the point in which embryo can still split into twins (typically less than two weeks after conception). This may seem like a difficult distinction, since “can one soul split into two souls?” tends to be the question.
A counter-counterargument has been presented: if you split a single worm – already alive – into two worms, does that mean it was never a worm to begin with? The answer is no, and likewise, an embryo that splits would not have its soul split in half. The humanness of life that begins at conception does not “wait” until the gastrulation process.
Neurological view:
The neurological view holds that life begins when a fetus produces measurable brain waves, typically around twenty-four weeks after conception. The argument is that we generally view the death of a human being at the point they no longer produce brain waves. This argument is predominantly philosophical in nature and depends upon defining “humanity” by the capacity for rational thought.
Any measurement of death is insufficient to measure the generation of life since they are not the same process. The attempt to define humanity as the production of rational thought is akin to saying that an apple tree is not an apple tree until it produces apples. What was it before it produced apples? It was still an apple tree.
Ecological view:
The ecological view holds that a fetus is not alive until capable of survival outside of the womb.
This is another philosophical distinction that claims a fetus might be “non-human” one moment and then “human” at a point in which its lungs may be mature enough to survive outside of the womb. Needless to say, the maturation of the lungs is an irrelevant distinction.
Birth view:
The birth view holds that a fetus is alive once it has been born.
Birth offers no major difference in the life of a human that would suggest its status has gone from “non-human” to “human.” The fetus does not gain consciousness.
Counter-arguments to legalization theories
Countering the argument that “legalized abortion saves mothers’ lives”
Supporters of abortion argue that Roe v. Wade/abortion legalization have brought the amount of deaths of aborting mothers down. Even if this is true, it does not signify a reason to legalize abortion. Mothers are ultimately responsible for their own actions.
If the argument is that fewer people will die if abortion is legal, then the counter-argument is that this is not true, since the increase in abortions drastically increases the amount of fetuses who are killed, far beyond any drop in numbers of mothers who die having an abortion.
Numbers seem to show that the legalization of abortion lead to a decrease in the deaths of mothers having abortion, from the thousands down to the hundreds annually. Meanwhile, the federal legalization of abortion has lead to an approximate “tenfold” increase in the amount of abortions.
Countering the argument that “making abortion illegal won’t solve the problem”
As mentioned above, the legalization of abortion saw a “tenfold” increase in the amount of abortions. Needless to say, this is a drastic change.
The reason to criminalize actions is to make them less likely to occur.
Countering the argument stating that in the case of rape, forcing a mother to have a child is a violation of her freedoms
Someone who murders an adult human being would be locked away in prison, which is a restriction on their freedoms as punishment and protection from the rest of society. Likewise, if someone were to attempt to murder an adult human being with a knife, their hands could be restricted.
Similarly, abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape, because the life of the unborn child is still a life.
Why the Flat Tax Works
An Example of the Flat Tax
The Flat Tax and the Poor
In my younger and more politically formative years, I remember hearing about the flat tax (in which everyone is taxed the same percentage of income) and turning to my older brother, saying something to the tune of, “isn’t a flat tax fair for everyone?”
He just said, “yeah.”
Well. That makes sense.
Liberals want a “progressive” tax that more heavily taxes the rich. But if the tax rate were the same for everyone, the rich would pay more actual money, because 20% of $1,000,000 ($200,000) is a lot more than 20% of $30,000 ($6,000). The flat tax is as progressive as any income tax should get.
BipolarNation.com calls for a flat income tax, and the abolition of the capital gains tax, the gift tax, the property tax, and payroll taxes.
There are three principles at work here.
- In any economically free country, there wouldn’t be regulations that say you have to make more taxes than her, or she should pay more taxes than you. More regulations only serve to inhibit freedom and the pursuit of opportunity, which also means the creation of wealth.
- The flat income tax plain works, as will be detailed later on, helping spur economic growth, encouraging people to actually pay their taxes, and attracting business.
- The flat income tax is simple and reduces the need for the IRS, cutting the need for spending just on making sure people pay their taxes.
Perhaps the most important economic thinker of all time was Adam Smith. Smith put to words what was already happening in the world: when free trade existed, an “invisible hand” seemed to regulate economies by themselves, providing for prosperity and the free exchange of goods and services. Or, as Smith put it:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.
Those who are quick to condemn the “greed” of capitalism fail to realize that in the honest pursuit of wealth, one has to actually create wealth. Remember that wealth isn’t only money.
Consider a graphic designer who creates logos for business. If I have need for a logo, the logo is actually wealth. I would hire a graphic designer to create something that never existed before, and in turn, I would pay him money for it. Although we have traded with each other, something had to be created in the first place.
Jobs, too, can be created.
Taxes only serve to inhibit this natural process of wealth creation and trade, as taking money out of the hands of free traders gives them less money with which to create more wealth. A flat tax would drastically lower the tax rate on those with the highest ability to create wealth (the wealthy).
Consider, also, the Laffer curve.
If high tax rates worked to stimulate economic growth, a country could simply grow by raising tax rates as highly as possible. However, consider that if 100% of your income was taxed, there would be no incentive to work.
The Laffer curve says that there is an optimal rate of taxation that would maximize revenue and economic growth. I would argue that this rate is much lower than many people think.
Note that the graph makes it look like the ideal tax rate is around 50%. I do not agree with this.
With a low enough tax rate, wealthy people who can afford accountants to hide their money from the government would lose incentive to do so, as paying taxes might be cheaper than avoiding the taxes in the first place.
The creation of wealth is evident in the economic growth of the countries that have adopted the flat tax system. Consider, for example, Lithuania, which has adopted the flat tax system. As it says on Wikipedia:
Lithuania, which levies a flat tax rate of 24% (previously 27%) on its citizens, has experienced amongst the fastest growth in Europe
Many other countries in Eastern Europe that have adopted the flat tax rate have seen similar types of growth. There is argument that the flat tax rate coinciding with increased economic output doesn’t necessarily reflect casuality, but I don’t agree that this is the case.
Many countries that integrate the flat tax simply don’t tax the poor below a certain income level, which would be acceptable.
A common criticism of the flat tax would be that it favors the rich (which, of course, would make sense economically anyway, would it not?), but lower tax rates have shown to help the poor, as well.
For example, during the Reagan years in the U.S. – a time in which a few liberals might tell you they “struggled” because of Reagan’s policies – the poor actually performed better.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan cut taxes, and this spurred economic expansion throughout the 1980’s.
First, note that the poor did better when the taxes were lowered:
Note the “trickle-down” effect that seems to occur as the income of the richest quintile increases.
Next, note that the middle class performed better, as well:
A middle class of taxpayers can be defined as those between the 50th percentile and the 95th percentile (those earning between $18,367 and $72,735 in 1988). Between 1981 and 1988, the income tax burden of the middle class declined from 57.5 percent in 1981 to 48.7 percent in 1988. This 8.8 percentage point decline in middle class tax burden is entirely accounted for by the increase borne by the top one percent.
As is noted by the Cato Institute:
The only economic variable that was worse in the Reagan period than in both the pre- and post-Reagan years was the savings rate, which fell rapidly in the 1980s. The productivity rate was higher in the pre-Reagan years but much lower in the post-Reagan years.
The Reagan tax cuts did not bring us to a flat tax, but they lowered the tax burden on the people and in turn spurred economic growth. In eastern Europe, we also see economic growth because of low, flat tax rates.
In the 2010 U.S. federal budget, almost $47 billion is pledged to the Department of Education. This is $47 billion too much. The Department of Education should be cut from the federal budget and education should be left to the states themselves.
When it comes to school policy, the government makes a few faulty assumptions:
- The best way for children to learn is to be lectured to.
- The best way to make sure all children are lectured to is to federally mandate it.
- Problems with this school system can be solved with more spending.
As you can imagine, I disagree with all of these assumptions.
Human Beings Weren’t Meant to Learn While Sitting in Classrooms
Spending More Money Doesn’t Help
Home-Schooled Students Outperform Public Students
Public School Has Nasty Side-Effects
Solutions
Relevant Posts
Human Beings Weren’t Meant to Learn While Sitting in Classrooms
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
-Confucius
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
-Mark Twain
Researchers recommend letting children bang on pots and pans rather than watching “Baby Einstein” videos. Banging on pots and pans is at least active, and generates enough demand on the brain that it will force new neural pathways to connect and adapt. This trend extends throughout the entire school system: human beings do not learn most efficiently by sitting and watching someone else teach.
If you need a simple illustration of the futility of public education, let me ask you: can you get a six-pack by having a teacher tell you how to do it?
It is simple human physiology that what you repeatedly do, your body and mind will adapt to. The public education system sits children down at the age of five and progressively lets them move less and less until high school, where there isn’t even “outside time” comparable to that of a prison. This might be an effective way to force children to adapt to life in an early-2oth Century steel factory, but American labor is different in the 21st Century. Either way, it’s not the government’s role to force this on anyone.
According to the Malcolm Gladwell book, “Outliers,” the 10,000-hour rule means that the key to success in any given field is 10,000 hours of practice doing something. For example, with 10,000 hours of practice, you could become a great golfer.
With 180 days of school per year, from first grade through twelfth grade, an average student spends 15,120 hours in school. Subtract 4,320 hours for two hours a day of lunch periods and recess, and that still leaves 10,800 hours of time. 10,800 hours of effective practice is enough to become great at something, but mandatory public school robs them of these hours.
Do students come out of school knowing basic math, reading, and writing? Sure, but to suggest that students need some 13 years of education to learn those things is absurd. These basic skills could be mastered by fourth grade and don’t require a Department of Education for them to be learned. I’d also like to note that humans learn how to speak before they enter kindergarten, and they do it completely on their own.
Do you think school works effectively to get children to adapt to social situations and learn about how to form relationships? I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed that in the real world, we aren’t actually grouped by age and forced to sit in the same room until the afternoon.
With all of this inefficiency, you’d think I’d be done. But here are some elements school systems lack even by their own standards:
- Financial literacy. Calculators can do the work of junior high math, but for some reason schools insist on teaching you more algebra without telling you how to practically apply this math to the world of finance. I had to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad to learn what assets and liabilities are. Of course, I doubt teachers who believe they’re underpaid have much of a concept of real-world finances. Were you ever warned in school about credit card debt, told how to get a loan, paying your , or taught how to start a business?
- Social skills. They have classes called “social studies,” but schools don’t offer classes on making friends, meeting members of the opposite sex, persuasion, or even basic social skills like making eye contact. Sure, proponents of public education will say that getting kids together at least gets them used to social interaction, but if they really believed in having kids doing something was the best way to learn, they’d forget all about the lecture style.
- Goal-setting and self-actualization. It boggles teachers’ minds when you struggle in their class. “You lack direction,” they might see. Oh, I was under the impression that you were here to teach me things, I didn’t realize you’d leave the important life skills for me to improvise. So, let me figure out the importance of goal-setting by myself so I can learn and subsequently forget the year Woodrow Wilson was elected. I guess I got the idea that you were going to teach me important things because I’m required by law to be here and all you talk about is the importance of education.
- Survival skills. “Let’s see, I’m out here in the middle of nowhere, I have no shelter, no water, and no food. But at least I remember a small percentage of the periodic table. Oxygen and…oh boy.”
- Marketable skills. Public schools will teach you typing, but they can’t compete with the amount of practice you get from typing on your own. Many of the students who end up with marketable skills are the ones who actually practiced them while also going to school, or at least chose a school to learn them from.
For some reason, public schools insist on teaching you things you can learn by looking up on Wikipedia or in a dictionary as opposed to giving you the hands-on practice you need to actually develop skills and thorough understanding, and they do it under the idea that they’re helping you really learn.
Spending More Money Doesn’t Help
Proponents of public schools want low student-to-teacher ratios, plenty of pay and benefits for teachers, and the budget to have nice schools with nice things in them. But even by their own standards, the money we spend just goes down the tubes.
Examine this chart:
As you can see, even as we invest more and more money into public schools, the performance of our students in math and science essentially remains the same. If public schools were effective by their own standards, they’d be able to use this extra money to improve the quality of their education. It’s not surprising that they are unable to do so.
You’ll also find that optimizing other variables – like teacher-student ratio and teacher pay – doesn’t really help. (Link) Bolds added:
Here’s a brief report card on four decades of public education reform:
Many so-called education experts believe that class size—the ratio of students to teacher—must be reduced to improve learning. We’ve already tried it. From 1955 to 1991, the average pupil-teacher ratio in U.S. public schools dropped by 40 percent.
These experts also proclaim that lack of funding hamstrings reform, and that the 1980s were a particularly bad time for school finances. Wrong again. Annual expenditures per pupil in U.S. public schools exploded by about 350 percent in real dollars from 1950 ($1,189) to 1991 ($5,237). In only two years during this 40-year period did spending fall: 1980 and 1981. Spending grew by about a third in real terms from 1981 to 1991.
The average salary of public school teachers rose 45 percent in real terms from 1960 (the first year data are available) to 1991. This increase masks a more variable trend. Real salaries rose until 1974, when they began to level off and even decline. The average salary reached a trough of $27,436 in 1982, after which it rose to an all-time high of $33,015 in 1991. Instructional staff in public schools generally saw their earnings increase faster than the average full-time employee—from 1950 to 1989 the ratio of instructional-staff salary to the average full-time salary in the U.S. increased by 22 percent (although it sank from 1972 to 1980). Student performance has hardly kept pace with the dramatic increases in resources devoted to public education. While the percentage of students aged 17 at the beginning of the school year who graduated from high school rose 30 percent from 1950 to 1964, it has leveled off since then. In fact, the 1991 percentage is lower than the 1969 peak of 77.1 percent.
Evidence from the National Assessment of Educational Progress and other performance measures shows how poorly served America’s public school students really are. Just five percent of 17-year-old high school students in 1988 could read well enough to understand and use information found in technical materials, literary essays, historical documents, and college-level texts. This percentage has been falling since 1971.
Not only do public schools perform poorly by their own standards, they fail to perform better with the types of improvements – class size, compensation – they ask for.
You’ll see another source here:
Compared to Europe and Asia, 15-year-olds in the United States are below average in applying math skills to real-life tasks. The United States ranks 18 out of 24 industrialized nations in terms of relative effectiveness of its education system. Knowledge in history, geography, grammar, civics and literature are all in decline in terms of academic understanding and achievement.
…
Consequently, there are two specific categories in which the U.S. excels, compared to the rest of the world. First, the U.S. ranks second in the world in the amount we spend per student per year on education = $11,152. The U.S. is also a leader in having some of the smallest classroom numbers in the world. Yet the slide continues.
Home-Schooled Students Outperform Public Students
Link.
A 1997 study of thousands of families compared the test results of home schooled students versus public school students. Home-schooled students won:
In 1997, a study of 5,402 homeschool students from 1,657 families was released. It was entitled, “Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America.” The study demonstrated that homeschoolers, on the average, out-performed their counterparts in the public schools by 30 to 37 percentile points in all subjects.
Additionally, state-level studies on home-schooling in Tennessee, Alaska, Oregon, North Carolina, Arkansas, Arizona and Nebraska found results that cast a lot of doubt on the idea that public education is superior to home-schooling:
In the spring of 1987, the Tennessee Department of Education found that homeschooled children in 2nd grade, on the average, scored in the 93rd percentile while their public school counterparts, on the average, scored in the 62nd percentile on the Stanford Achievement Test.
…
According to the Arizona State Department of Education, 1,123 homeschooled children in grades 1-9, on the average, scored above grade level in reading, language arts, and math on standardized tests for the 1988-89 school year. Four grades tested were a full grade level ahead.
Given the already-established problems with public schools, this should at least show even public school supporters that there is reason to doubt the idea that they are inherently better than other forms of education.
Public School Has Nasty Side-Effects
If demonstrating that public school is not only ineffective by its own standards – and continues to fail despite greater investments of money and resources – there are some nasty side-effects that bear mentioning.
First, schools don’t exactly do a lot to help the childhood obesity “epidemic.” An article by Reuters in 2007 highlighted this:
At school, teens have ready access to high-fat, sugary foods and drinks, according to a study by Lloyd Johnston and colleagues at the University of Michigan.
Johnston found the majority of middle schools (67 percent) and high schools (83 percent) had contracts with a soft-drink company.
While high schools are more likely to offer soft drinks, they are less likely to require physical education, Johnston found in a separate study. While 87 percent of 13- to 14-year- old students surveyed attend schools that require physical education, only 20 percent of 17- to 18-year-olds face physical education requirements.
When liberals try to tax your soda, ask them why they support public schools.
Next, public schools have high rates of molestation and sexual harassment. (Link) The Catholic Church has been demonized for sexual abuse and cover-ups, but further study shows that public education is far worse in both categories.
Too often, assumptions have been made that this problem is worse in the Catholic clergy than in other sectors of society. This report does not support this conclusion. Indeed, it shows that family members are the most likely to sexually molest a child. It also shows that the incidence of the sexual abuse of a minor is slightly higher among the Protestant clergy than among the Catholic clergy, and that it is significantly higher among public school teachers than among ministers and priests.
Look at the high numbers recording sexual abuse in public schools:
The American Medical Association found in 1986 that one in four girls, and one in eight boys, are sexually abused in or out of school before the age of 18. Two years later, a study included in The Handbook on Sexual Abuse of Children, reported that one in four girls, and one in six boys, is sexually abused by age 18.[xxix] It was reported in 1991 that 17.7 percent of males who graduated from high school, and 82.2 percent of females, reported sexual harassment by faculty or staff during their years in school. Fully 13.5 percent said they had sexual intercourse with their teacher.[xxx]
Not only that, but a study showed that there is little consequence for many teachers who harass and abuse their students:
One of the nation’s foremost authorities on the subject of the sexual abuse of minors in public schools is Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft. In 1994, Shakeshaft and Audrey Cohan did a study of 225 cases of educator sexual abuse in New York City. Their findings are astounding.
All of the accused admitted sexual abuse of a student, but none of the abusers was reported to the authorities, and only 1 percent lost their license to teach.
As the success of school choice in Sweden has demonstrated, the solution is to get government out of schools and put the power of choice in parents’ hands. From there, competition for money incentivizes schools to demonstrate that they can do a good job of educating your children.
I recommend that the United States federal government eliminate the Department of Education and cease education spending. Public education would be left to the states.
At the state level, I recommend states cut education spending, mandatory attendance requirements, and leave education to private enterprise, possibly giving vouchers for the parents of each student to spend on the school of their voice.
Parents should be free to home-school their children or send them to the private school of their choice.
Relevant Posts about Public Education:
http://www.bipolarnation.com/2008/04/04/the-top-nine-calvin-and-hobbes-re-public-education/
http://www.bipolarnation.com/2007/12/19/reason-3280-why-american-education-stinks/
http://www.bipolarnation.com/2008/04/02/reason-3281-why-american-education-stinks/
http://www.bipolarnation.com/2008/08/26/reason-3282-why-american-education-stinks/
http://www.bipolarnation.com/2009/02/10/reason-3283-american-education-stinks/
http://www.bipolarnation.com/2008/01/14/school-not-the-pledge-is-the-mindless-practice/
http://www.bipolarnation.com/2009/08/31/are-public-teachers-overpaid/
I have never so much as touched a marijuana cigarette (if, you know, that’s what the kids are calling it these days), but my libertarian streak tells me that I don’t have the right to tell you whether or not you should touch it. Some libertarians, like the uberlibertarian John Stossel even say that all drugs should be legalized, and that it’s an adult’s right to hurt themselves if that’s what they want.
Now, obviously, I’m going to make the argument that marijuana should be legalized, but not that it should be done at the federal level. I’m just going to make the general argument that people should be able to do marijuana if they like – and it’s probably something that should be left to the states.
My assertion is that marijuana isn’t that bad of a drug, and even if it was as bad as alcohol, it should be legal (just like alcohol is). I intend to make that point while addressing some of the popular counterpoints.
Just for the record, I won an anti-drug essay writing contest in D.A.R.E.
Here is an interesting video of Ron Paul debating Stephen Baldwin, about the legalization of marijuana. It’s interesting to note that the star of “Bio-Dome” is actually against the legalization while the politician is for it:
Just a quick note: this section is not advocating the legalization of any other drugs, as I haven’t done enough research to consider those.
Counterpoint #1: Marijuana is a harder drug than alcohol and tobacco.
This, I believe, is a myth that is fueled partly because it’s hard to define what makes a “hard” drug.
In Great Britain (in which marijuana, like the U.S., is illegal), the Misuse of Drugs Act classifies drugs according to the harm they cause. Class A is the hardest (here you’ll see heroin and cocaine), Class B is the second hardest (amphetamines), and Class C is the third hardest – I don’t think there’s a Class D.
Where do the “popular” drugs – alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis – fall? Alcohol is the fifth hardest, ahead of speed, tobacco is the ninth hardest, and cannabis is eleventh hardest. Alcohol and tobacco don’t receive “Class” ratings because they’re legal.
So, according to a country which still bans marijuana, marijuana is still not as harmful – or as “hard” – as tobacco or alcohol.
Smoking marijuana does do bad things to you. But these are, at most, as bad as alcohol’s effects.
Counterpoint #2: Marijuana will lead to harder drugs like cocaine or heroin (Gateway Drug Theory).
Even if this was true, does that mean it should be illegal? After all, alcohol and tobacco lead to drunk driving accidents, cancer, and all sorts of nasty things. Alcohol can lead to a smoking habit (people who try it when they’re drunk), and it probably can even lead to marijuana use, which counterpoint #2 says will/can lead to heroin and cocaine. Alcohol and tobacco are frequently referred to as “gateway drugs” just like marijuana.
What do the studies say? Some say marijuana makes people more likely to do harder drugs, and some say it doesn’t. I think that the science will lean towards saying it does.
Let’s ignore the social effects, which are obvious. Consider that rats who were given THC (present in marijuana), and allowed to administer their own heroin by pushing a lever. The rats who had been given the THC administered more heroin on average.
So there’s validity to Gateway drug theory. Of course, tobacco is also a gateway drug (Wikipedia):
According to the NIDA, “People who abuse drugs are also likely to be cigarette smokers. More than two-thirds of drug abusers are regular tobacco smokers, a rate more than double that of the rest of the population.”
For those of you who think tobacco should be legal and marijuana shouldn’t, why do you say tobacco should be legal? Because people should be able to make the choice of putting tobacco into their lungs? Than why not marijuana? They both have Gateway drug effects.
Counterpoint #3: The current illegalization IS arbitrary; but let’s not break it because that’s a slippery slope toward harder drugs.
I’ve heard this argument, which is that even though alcohol and cigarettes are bad, the current line we have as to what is legal and what is not is fine, and we shouldn’t start meddling with it. If we do, we might just lose sensitivity and eventually legalize all drugs.
If we leave this to the states, we’ll be able to have first-hand knowledge of how it all works. We don’t want to jump into this with the federal government.
My first counter-counter-argument is this: well, we’ve already legalized alcohol again (after prohibition). Did THAT slippery slope lead to more legalization of harder drugs?
But let’s say this counterpoint is true, and all drugs would eventually be legalized. What kind of effect would that have?
One, it might lower drug-based crime. Imagine being able to pick up cocaine at the 7-11. Maybe not a pretty sight, but what kinds of effects would it have? Criminals who previously made a living being the only suppliers of cocaine would be out of a job, because the McCrack at McDonald’s just got put on the dollar menu, plus they have a drive-through. How would this not bust the shadow economy?
Obviously that sounds a little silly; after all, crack and heroin are some serious things; you don’t want people to be able to pick it up at a McDonald’s.
But think about this: the drug market is already about 8% of the world’s trade every year (link). That’s already massive. Is the illegalization of drugs really working?
I don’t like marijuana, I don’t think people should do it, and I’ll never do it, ever. But if you can’t tell me I shouldn’t eat pizza, I won’t tell you you shouldn’t smoke weed.
Note: This post is also an addition to the BPN Platform.
Morgan Freeman: I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history.
Mike Wallace: How are we going to get rid of racism…
Morgan Freeman: Stop talking about it.
If you’re a redhead, and I’m a brunette, there are no preferences that say you should be hired over me, or that you should be admitted to School X over me. But if you’re black, and I’m white, that sometimes happens.
Why?
Guilt over racism has lead to such an overreaction the other way that much of America is now racist in favor of blacks. (Is much of America racist in favor of whites, or even latinos? Sure. That is also wrong.)
Publik edyoo-kayshun pushes America’s racial past on young children, teaching them to be racist and to see people in terms of color. I know of at least one family in which one black (adopted) child and a white child were so close in age they thought they were twins. Racism is socially-reinforced and any attempt by the government to make racism official through affirmative action or other racial preferences is shameful.
The BPN Platform calls for an end to all government racial preferences.
Reasons for Nuclear Energy
Understanding Wind Energy
One reason that it’s difficult to trust the environmentalist movement is that they don’t embrace nuclear energy as the wonder that it is – clean, safe, reliable, and utterly innovative. The BPN Platform would emphasize nuclear energy as the energy of the future and of the present, looking to loosen restrictions on building new plants to let private markets get to work.
Current Status of Nuclear Power
Although the United States is the largest producer of nuclear power, France is the largest-percentage producer, producing some 80% of its overall energy consumption as of 2006. There are currently over 100 reactors in the United States.
Nuclear Energy is Low-Polluting
According to Wikipedia (citing the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology), the carbon emissions of Nuclear energy are comparable to that of wind power.
Nuclear energy is not without its detrimental effects on the environment. Nuclear power uses recycled water systems like nearby lakes for cooling purposes, essentially heating them up. Many nuclear plants use artificial lakes for this purpose.
The other issue that many seem to bring up against nuclear energy is the amount of radioactive waste produced. Relative to carbon emissions and most pollution, however, the issue of managing nuclear waste is not all that troubling.
Decrease Government Regulation of Nuclear Power
Beyond safety requirements, there is no reason to regulate nuclear energy – excessive government regulations scare investors off and prevent innovation in this area. Nuclear power plants require a lot of upfront investment which can be provided through private capital. With relatively low operating costs, nuclear power plants can be a sound investment.
Wind turbine shadow flicker: As you can see in the following video, wind turbines can cause “shadow flicker” on private homes.
Other Energy Policy
The BipolarNation.com Platform calls for the elimination of the Department of Energy and for the loosening of energy regulation, leaving much power of energy safety and regulation to the states.
- No to the Cap-and-Trade idea
- No to energy investments including alternative energies
Relevant BPN Posts
Introduction
The Causes of Climate Change
Errors and Over-regulation Due to Fear of Man-Caused Climate Change
Countering Popular Counter-Arguments
Relevant BPN Posts
My policy on climate change has two main points that argue against heavy federal government regulation of industry:
First, the Earth’s climate indeed changes, but most of the changes are results of fluctuations in Solar output. Saying that the Earth’s climate changes is equivalent to saying “the sky is blue.”
Second, even if the Earth’s climate was changing predominantly because of human activity, domestic regulations would serve little purpose. Even by their own estimation, these regulations would produce very little change to begin with. Also, without other large economies like China or India on board, these regulations would be fruitless and would stifle American industry.
The BipolarNation.com Platform is against Cap-and-Trade proposals, the classification of Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant, the existence of the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal energy subsidies, and federal pollution regulation.
The BipolarNation.com Platform is for looser restrictions on Nuclear power plants, looser restrictions on domestic oil drilling, and leaving environmental regulation determinations and emissions standards to the states.
Climate change is not predominantly brought about by human activity, but by solar activity and other non-human activity such as ocean cycles.
A report released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute came to the conclusions that human activity is not predominantly responsible for fluctuations in temperature. The same report also found that there has been “no net warming” of global temperatures in the 21st Century despite rising CO2 levels. The report also published these findings:
- Pacific Decadal Oscillation and El Nino Southern Oscillation cycles are “by far the best single explanation for global temperature fluctuations”.
- Changes in Greenhouse gas levels have “so little effect that that it is difficult to find any effect in the satellite temperature record, which started in 1978.”
- Increase in surface measurements of temperature are more likely caused by urbanization than by the increased presence of greenhouse gases.
- “It is not reasonable to conclude that there is any endangerment from changes in GHG [greenhouse gas] levels based on satellite record, since almost all the fluctuations appear to be due to natural causes and not human-caused pollution as defined by the Clean Air Act.”
According to Columbia University researcher Richard Wilson in 2003, the Sun can be directly responsible for climate change. A general warming trend corresponds to increased Solar output throughout the 20th Century.
It has already been established that Solar output also has an effect on short-term temperatures. Refer to this chart to see the correlation between Earth temperatures and Solar output:
This evidence should suggest even to strict environmentalists that human activity alone is not the only factor in climate change, and that our attempts to control the Earth’s climate would still be subject to powerful variables outside of our control.
Errors and Over-regulation Due to Fear of Man-Caused Climate Change
The apocalyptic idea that the climate could be changing harmfully and irrevocably has inspired a lot of fear and speculation about the future of the planet, sometimes to unintentionally funny degrees.
Consider film critic Roger Ebert’s four-star review of Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth.” At the end of the review, Ebert wrote that he was inspired to go around his house and turn out all of the lights, presumably to cut down on pollution. Needless to say, despite this action the globe’s temperatures continue to remain out of Ebert’s hands.
In 1974, Time Magazine published an article called “Another Ice Age?” in which the magazine speculated the possibility that the world was heading to massive cooling, not heating, writing that the Earth’s mean temperature had decreased 2.7 degrees since 1940. Man’s role in this ice age? Pollution and farming leading to the blocking of the sun’s heat, not the trapping.
Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States and current face of the man-caused climate change movement, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work. Gore, however, has not even been a model citizen when it comes to his own movement. It was shown that during a recent “Earth hour,” “the savior of the environment couldn’t be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees.”
Additionally, Gore’s own house uses some 20 times the average amount of energy as American homes, paying some $30,000-a-year in utilities. Not to mention the possibility that Al Gore could cash in heavily if Cap-and-Trade is passed.
Countering Popular Counter-Arguments
Counterargument #1: CO2 and other Greenhouse Gases Coincide with Rising Temperatures
The chief argument of MMGW (man-made global warming) believers is that human industrialization and the coinciding rise in pollution is to blame for rising temperatures and adverse effects on the climate.
Much of the evidence for this correlation comes from organizations like the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change). The IPCC in 2007 reported that warming is happening and that it is due to increased GHGs in the atmosphere. This report also noted that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere (379 parts per million in 2005) is outside of the natural range during the last 650,000 years.
However, these reports use often faulty data and base many of their recommendations from computer models that are fed with this faulty data, not to mention exclude real-world variabilities. For example, the IPCC’s prediction that hurricanes would become more intense has not come true.
Another more powerful example of the IPCC’s faulty data and assumptions is IPCC assumption of constant humidity in the atmosphere. Humidity in the atmosphere is important because water vapor is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases. The PICC’s 2007 report made the claim that since there is no detectable change in relative humidity in the upper-atmosphere, increasing temperatures have necessarily increased the humidity levels. While the IPCC models predicting a “positive feedback loop” in regards to this increase in water vapor might be correct, their assumptions about the presence of water vapor itself are not.
An increase in upper atmospheric temperatures and water vapor would show evidence for man-caused global warming. But the observable data shows that this is not the case. As you can see, the temperatures aren’t rising anywhere except in the models:
With an assumption of stable relative humidity – in reality the relative humidity is decreasing – the IPCC report seems to be based on faulty assumptions. Since this upper tropospheric information could prove the “engine” of global warming, this seems to be a vital flaw in the IPCC report.
Counterargument #2: CO2 Coincides With Global Temperatures
One argument gets more specific: that CO2 specifically seems to have a close relationship with global temperatures.
It’s already been shown that CO2 actually lags behind temperature.
In all cases where there is a good enough resolution, one finds that the CO2 lags behind the temperature by typically several hundred to a thousand years. Namely, the basic climate driver which controls the temperature cannot be that of CO2.
The AR4 report by the IPCC (mentioned above) ignores this lag.
The Collapse of Global Warming
Should We Pollute the Earth to “Save It”?
John McCain’s Global Warming Policies Stink
Hurricane Season a Bust
[...] Note: This post is also an addition to the BPN Platform. [...]
[...] Note: This post is also an addition to the BPN Platform. [...]
[...] to get Obama Derangement Syndrome. I really don’t. But sometimes, I think Obama checks the BPN Platform in the morning just to see the opposite of what he’ll do that [...]
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