Video: The Morality of Vigilantism

 Activism, Ethics, Law, Politics, Webcasts
Apr 182012
 

In Sunday’s Philosophy in Action Webcast, I discussed the morality of vigilantism. The question was:

Where is the line between justice and vigilantism? When is it moral to take the law into your own hands – meaning pursuing, detaining, and/or punishing criminals as a private citizen? Suppose that you know – without a shadow of a doubt – that some person committed a serious crime against you or a loved one. If the justice system cannot punish the person due to some technicality, is it wrong for you to do so? If you’re caught, should a judge or jury punish you, as if you’d committed a crime against an innocent person?
My answer, in brief:
The vigilante is not an agent of justice, but a threat to innocents and to the foundations of civilized society.
Here’s the video of my full answer:
If you enjoy the video, please “like” it on YouTube and share it with friends via social media, forums, and e-mail! You can also throw a bit of extra love in our tip jar.

Join the next Philosophy in Action Webcast on Sunday at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET at PhilosophyInAction.com/live.

In the meantime, Connect with Us via social media, e-mail, RSS feeds, and more. Check out the Webcast Archives, where you can listen to the full webcast or just selected questions from any past episode, and our my YouTube channel. And go to the Question Queue to submit and vote on questions for upcoming webcast episodes.

 Posted by on 18 April 2012 at 2:00 pm  No Responses »

Video: The Morality of Breaking the Law

 Activism, Ethics, Law, Politics, Webcasts
Apr 172012
 

In Sunday’s Philosophy in Action Webcast, I discussed the morality of breaking the law. The question was:

When is it moral to break the law? Laws should be written to protect individual rights. Unfortunately, many laws today violate rights. When should I abide by a rights-violating law, and when is it proper to break it?
My answer, in brief:
A person does not have any moral obligation to submit to violations of his rights. However, the proper course – whether complying with the law, breaking the law overtly, or breaking the law covertly – depends on the particulars of the situation. Mostly, get legal advice first!
Here’s the video of my full answer:
If you enjoy the video, please “like” it on YouTube and share it with friends via social media, forums, and e-mail! You can also throw a bit of extra love in our tip jar.

Join the next Philosophy in Action Webcast on Sunday at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET at PhilosophyInAction.com/live.

In the meantime, Connect with Us via social media, e-mail, RSS feeds, and more. Check out the Webcast Archives, where you can listen to the full webcast or just selected questions from any past episode, and our my YouTube channel. And go to the Question Queue to submit and vote on questions for upcoming webcast episodes.

 Posted by on 17 April 2012 at 2:00 pm  No Responses »

Which Think Tanks Have The Most Influence?

 Activism, Politics
Apr 132012
 

The University of Pennsylvania published an interesting ranking of relative cultural/political impact of various US and international think tanks, based on their publications, media appearances, reputation amongst policymakers, etc. The list is independent of their political leanings (e.g. liberal, conservative, libertarian, etc.) or primary specialty (economics, foreign policy, etc.).

The UPenn listing of the Top 50 US think tanks for 2011 can be found on pages 36-37 of this file: “2011 Global Go To Think Tank Index Rankings“

Their Top 50 list includes several whose works I’ve cited in the past, including:

6) Cato Institute
10) American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
42) Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
43) Manhattan Institute
48) Mercatus Center

(Note: I don’t necessarily endorse these organizations, but I’ve found some of their publications informative and useful in my own research/advocacy.)

To compare their sizes and/or budgets, one can look up their financial information on GuideStar.com (a website that collates information about nonprofits and charitable organizations). GuideStar lists their “annual expenses” as follows:

6) Cato: $21.8 million
10) AEI : $25.6 million
42) CEI: $4.3 million
43) Manhattan Institute: $11.8 million
48) Mercatus Center: $7.7 million

Some friends may be interested in how a couple of other organizations which also perform advocacy (but which aren’t classic “think tanks”) compare in size:

Institute For Justice (IJ): $9.3 million
Ayn Rand Institute (ARI): $8.7 million

For further context, the top 5 US think tanks listed by UPenn (and their GuideStar annual expenses) were:

1) Brookings Institution ($90.4 million)
2) Council on Foreign Relations ($50.7 million)
3) Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ($24.3 million)
4) Center for Strategic and International Studies ($30.1 million)
5) RAND Corporation ($262.8 million)

Anyhow, I thought this might be of interest for people wondering how folks in the mainstream culture perceived the relative effectiveness of various think tanks, including their relative “bang-for-buck” ratios. As usual, the reliability of these rankings depends on the validity of their methodology (which is discussed in detail in their report).

 Posted by on 13 April 2012 at 8:00 am  No Responses »

The Story of Collectivism

 Ethics, Funny, Language, Politics
Apr 122012
 

Jim M posted the following awesome little story on Facebook:

This is a story about four Collectivists named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. The consensus was that there was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anyone could have.

Apparently, the author is unknown.

 Posted by on 12 April 2012 at 2:00 am  No Responses »

Federal Court Strikes Down Amazon Tax

 Amazon Tax, Colorado, Law, Politics
Apr 092012
 

I’m super happy about this news: Federal court tosses 2010 Colorado Amazon tax law:

A federal court has thrown out a 2010 Colorado law meant to spur online retailers like Amazon to collect state sales tax.

The law had already been temporarily blocked in federal court last year, but U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn’s ruling Friday permanently handcuffs it. “I conclude that the veil provided by the words of the act and the regulations is too thin to support the conclusion that the act and the regulations regulate in-state and out-of-state retailers even-handedly,” Blackburn wrote in his opinion. The law and the rules to carry it out “impose an undue burden on interstate commerce” and are unconstitutional, the judge wrote.

It’s not clear whether the State of Colorado will appeal this ruling… but I hope not! Amazon hasn’t yet instituted its affiliate program in Colorado. When Ari Armstrong inquired with them, they said:

Thank you for contacting us regarding rejoining the Associates program. At this point, we’re evaluating the decision from the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. We’d welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to Colorado residents. We’ll contact you if we are able to re-open the program in the future.

As Ari says in his post, “Hopefully, the Associates program will again become available. Now will the legislature kindly leave us the hell alone to earn money?”

 Posted by on 9 April 2012 at 1:00 pm  No Responses »

Video: Outing Anti-Gay Politicians as Gay

 Ethics, LGBT, Politics, Videocast, Webcasts
Apr 042012
 

In Sunday’s Philosophy in Action Webcast, I discussed outing anti-gay politicians as gay. The question was:

Is it wrong to “out” a hypocritical anti-gay public figure who is secretly gay? Some conservative politicians have taken strongly anti-gay positions, but are secretly gay themselves. If one learns of this, is it wrong for gay activists to publicly “out” them? What if they don’t engage in public hypocrisy, but are just quietly “in the closet”? Should activists respect their privacy in that case?

My answer, in brief:

People who publicly advocate meddling in other people’s private choices should not expect others to respect their private hypocrisy. They should be exposed, as a matter of justice.

Here’s the video of my full answer:

If you enjoy the video, please “like” it on YouTube and share it with friends via social media, forums, and e-mail! You can also throw a bit of extra love in our tip jar.

Join the next Philosophy in Action Webcast on Sunday at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET at PhilosophyInAction.com/live.

In the meantime, Connect with Us via social media, e-mail, RSS feeds, and more. Check out the Webcast Archives, where you can listen to the full webcast or just selected questions from any past episode, and our my YouTube channel. And go to the Question Queue to submit and vote on questions for upcoming webcast episodes.

 Posted by on 4 April 2012 at 3:00 pm  No Responses »

Save the Welfare State!

 Abortion, Immigration, Politics
Apr 032012
 

Kelly and Santiago Valenzuela offer a good reductio ad absurdem of the argument that immigration must be limited due to the burdens that illegal immigrants impose on us via the welfare state on Mother of Exiles:

A common argument I hear against immigration is that we don’t need a further drain on the American welfare state (i.e., health care, social security, school system, etc.) As we’ve pointed out before, the problem with the welfare state is the existence of the welfare state, but many like to claim that stopping the flow of immigration into this country will somehow help or solve the problem.

Under that logic, we should make having kids illegal. After all, every child born becomes a burden to the system, another mouth to feed, another brain to educate, another job to eventually fill. Of course this is preposterous, especially coming from a pregnant woman, but hear me out.

There are arguably 10-20 million undocumented immigrants in the country, which have accumulated over the past couple decades. By contrast, 4 million children are born each year in the US. If you want to worry about the welfare state from the standpoint of adding people to the welfare rolls, the second number is way more worrying than the first.

The next time that I hear some conservative trot out that argument, I’m going to propose — with tongue firmly planted in cheek — that a better option would be to force abortion on any pregnant women living below the poverty level. Why not?!? After all, conservatives claim that the government is entitled to massively violate the rights of peaceful, hard-working people seeking a better life for themselves, plus the rights of Americans who wish to employ or trade with them, in order to save the welfare state, which massively violates rights in and of itself. To compel poor women to have abortions would simple be a more effective way to keep those welfare payments manageable. Sure, doing so would violate rights, but clearly, that’s not something of concern to anti-immigration conservatives.

Of course, conservatives would be horrified by that argument — and that’s precisely the point. It’s never okay to violate rights, and it’s particularly vile to systematically violate rights in one way in order to be able to persist in systematically violating rights in another way. (Notably, most conservatives regard abortion as a violation of rights, which is completely wrong. Abortion is a woman’s right, and forcing her to abort is just as much a violation of rights as preventing her from doing so.)

The fact is that the argument about welfare is just a rationalization for conservative opposition to immigration. Perhaps a good reductio is just what they need to break through it.

 Posted by on 3 April 2012 at 7:00 am  No Responses »

Vecchio Video Series On ObamaCare

 Activism, Health Care, Law, Politics
Mar 302012
 

Dr. Jill Vecchio, the head of the Colorado chapter of Docs4PatientCare (and a fellow radiologist!), has recorded an informative set of videos on ObamaCare and what it means to all Americans.

One important point: the current system is not a free-market but rather a mixed system with some free-market elements but also enormous amounts of government regulation. Forthcoming additional government controls to be imposed by ObamaCare will not solve our current problems but rather make them worse. In contrast, there are many good free-market reforms that would lower our costs and improve our health care quality.

Part 1 — Coverage:

Part 2 — Costs, section A:

Part 3 — Costs, section B:

Part 4 — Employers and Exchanges:

Part 5 — Doctors and Patients:

Part 6 — Constitutional Issues:

Part 7 — Real Health Care Reforms:

(Note: I don’t necessarily endorse every single point she makes, but overall I found these extremely informative. Cross-posted from FIRM.)

 Posted by on 30 March 2012 at 7:00 am  No Responses »

Santorum Versus Free Speech, Again

 Christianity, Election, Free Speech, Politics, Religion, Rick Santorum
Mar 272012
 

Rick Santorum wants to ban hard-core pornography:

Rick Santorum wants to put an end to the distribution of pornography in the United States.

“America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography,” Santorum’s official website reads. “Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships. It contributes to misogyny and violence against women. It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking.” The former Pennsylvania senator states that, “as a parent, I am concerned about the widespread distribution of illegal obscene pornography and its profound effects on our culture.”

Santorum criticized the Obama administration for turning “a blind eye … to the scourge of pornography” and for refusing to enforce obscenity laws. “If elected President, I will appoint an Attorney General who will do so,” Santorum writes. “While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum Administration.”

In fact, America is suffering a pandemic of harm from meddling statist politicians, particularly of the theocratic variety, such as … Rick Santorum!

Oh, and if that’s not alarming enough, see for yourself how preacher Chris Terry introduces Rick Santorum:

For more, see Pastor Dennis Terry Introduces Rick Santorum, Tells Liberals and Non-Christians to ‘Get Out’ of America.

 Posted by on 27 March 2012 at 7:00 am  No Responses »

Conservative Tripe on Immigration

 Ethics, Immigration, Politics, Rights
Mar 122012
 

Just a few moments ago, a conservative Facebook friend of mine posted the following:

Oh. My. Hell. I was stopped dead in my tracks, and before I knew it, I wrote the following:

So we should be more like Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea?!? Really?!? Instead of creating a police state, how about we we open immigration to any honest person willing to earn a new life for themselves, as America used to do?

Right now, our impossibly byzantine immigration laws force almost anyone eager to make a better life for himself and his family to break the law. That’s neither just nor consistent with individual rights. The fact is that immigrants are the victims of awful laws, and they are right to break those laws.

What would you do if you happened to be born in some repressive pest-hole, rather than in the land of opportunity? Would you passively resign yourself to suffer and die? Or would you break an unjust law for the opportunity of a life worth living for you and your family? If you have any ambition to live a successful and happy life, you would become an illegal immigrant.

As with all statist laws, responsibility for the many problems with illegal immigration are the responsibility of anti-immigration lawmakers and voters. Don’t blame the victim.

AMERICANS are the reason that America is in debt. Illegal immigrants didn’t vote us into our current vast welfare state: we did that all by ourselves — and yes, I mean not just Democrats, but Republicans too. We’ll not fix that by pointing fingers at scapegoats.

For rational ideas on immigration, see Mother of Exiles.

Update: See also Craig Biddle’s article Immigration and Individual Rights and my webcast discussion of proper immigration policy.

 Posted by on 12 March 2012 at 12:20 pm  No Responses »
Page 1 of 38 1 2 3 … 37 38 Older Entries
Home | Live Webcast | Archives | Blog | Question Queue | Connect | Support Us | About Us
Copyright 2012 Diana Hsieh | Email | Twitter | Facebook | Blog
Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha