Baby Potentials

Babies.  Those tiny, soft, shining rays of sunshine that remind us of all that is innocent and precious in life.  What is it about babies that makes our hearts melt and makes us carry them softly, carefully, and that they rivet our focus whenever we see them?  Why do they cause nearly ever woman around to suddenly want to go to them and see them, coo at them, and talk about how beautiful they are?  We all seem to have this reaction (even if many men are too macho to coo, inside they still think those babies are super-cute and make them feel a welling-up of fatherliness and a desire to protect them).

All of us feel that way, right?  Right?

The Specter of Gosnell

Wrong.  The very existence of abortion (for reasons other than the mother's life being truly threatened by the pregnancy, or due to rape and incest) belies something that to me is utterly incomprehensible and horrifying.  Abortion is one of those issues that people would talk about, but I didn't want to listen because it bothered me, and I figured it was rare and only done by misguided people who I had never met and likely never would.  But this is wrong too.  When I realized the estimates of how many abortions have been performed since the official "legalization" in Roe v. Wade (around 50 million), I realized that I surely know people who have willingly participated in this in one form or another.  I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which increases my odds of encountering people like this materially.

Since the onset of the Gosnell case (just google search it, you'll find enough reading material to keep you occupied for a long time, just be prepared because much of it is very graphic) I have contemplated whether his utter contempt for life really was an outlier or if this behavior is more pervasive than abortion advocates are letting on.  I have recently read story after story after story (in addition to Gosnell) that leads me to conclude it's definitely worse than its advocates claim (ahem).  But a tougher question exists: even if they aren't dirty or reckless like Kermit Gosnell, are they still just as evil?

To answer this question, we need to go back to first principles and to examining results (as I'm wont to do).  I'm going to tackle this not from a religious perspective, but from a practical/logical human perspective, even though the religious perspective strengthens the case substantially.  But without it, we can still make a very compelling case, without even getting to the consideration of when a spirit quickens a baby's body (although that is important).

Life's Importance

What is life?  Particularly what is human life?  I think we all have a pretty good sense for that.  There are esoteric scientific definitions, but generally we all understand with clarity that human beings have a consciousness and the ability to choose (some more easily than others, but unless a person is in a vegetative state and will never recover, the other variations in ability are not worth categorizing away from a full ability to choose).  What, then, constitutes an important human life, one worth expending a great deal to save?

Let's start with an example.  Suppose you have a ninety-year-old woman, who has lived a good, long, feisty life.  She has much family, has contributed to her community, and has served many people.  She is then diagnosed with a relatively advanced stage of cancer, and she is not likely to survive long.  Even with extreme intervention, the latest techniques and procedures, and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, in all likelihood her life may be lengthened past where she would otherwise last at most six months.  Both she and her family would likely agree, despite the heart-wrenching difficulty of the decision, that it is best to take some action: focus on quality of life management for the remainder of her time.  And there's nothing alarming about that, although the situation is still saddening.  If she had hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on her own medical care she might decide to go for it, but even then...probably not.

A second example, and this one is personal: there is a sixty-year-old woman who is suffering from the effects of cancer, and she has a lump of cancer dislodge and then come to rest in her brain, causing a stroke.  She has great damage to her brain and is in a coma, very likely never to recover even after extensive brain surgery.  Here pain management until she passes away is quite clearly the best course of action, even though it just breaks everyone's heart that this is the option left to them regarding a beloved woman's life.

And one more example: now there is a child, a cute little girl, ten years old, who is diagnosed with a relatively advanced stage of bone cancer.  The family, the doctors, the community all band together to raise money, try the most effective techniques, pray, work, cry, and do everything they can to beat that cancer.  Every possible resource available is brought to bear in saving the girl's life.  She doesn't have a very high likelihood of making it, but nobody even bats an eye at the effort made to save her.  And that is as it should be.

Why the difference?  Why would we fight like mad to save the little girl, but not the ninety-year-old (still wonderful) lady?  Why do we choose a non-interventionist, quality-of-life route for some, but pull out all the stops for others?  The answer almost seems to obvious in hindsight: potential.

Potential

Human beings make judgment calls constantly.  (That doesn't mean we're being judgmental, by the way.)  We have to make small and large evaluations at nearly every juncture of our life.  Whenever that pertains to other people we are of course urged to exercise caution, compassion, and forethought.  So far so good.

When it comes to evaluating the value of a human life, things get very uncomfortable very fast.  Many people default to trying to preserve every life in every way every time with all available resources, and that is an admirable default stance.  But given the world has limited resources, we invariably end up seeing situations arise like I noted above; sometimes it's just not worth it to expend the resources, given the potential of the life we are trying to save.  These decisions should be limited in frequency, and we all hope we don't have to get involved in them because they're never fun to make.  But it happens, and we eventually get to participate in the calculus.

Generally speaking, people don't feel like it's the wrong decision to let someone go who is on their deathbed when there is clearly little to no potential left.  We also have a very strong recoil when a life is ended when the individual otherwise had a lot of potential left.  When a child dies, "they had their whole life ahead of them."  This sentiment is natural, human, and good; it encourages us to protect the innocent, the young, and the defenseless.  It is no fallacy to state that a young person who lost their life could have been "the next Einstein," an expression of the hope we have in the seemingly boundless potential of even a single life.

What then is the potential of a baby?  Even if we try to obscure the humanity of the little creature growing inside of a mother by calling it a fetus or a zygote, or even if we try to minimize its importance by calling attention to the mother's consciousness and known ability to make choices, we cannot deny the potential of the baby.  Specious arguments such as "if it were born right now it would die so there is no potential against the mother's choice" don't fly, because babies are not generally born preterm, and given the incredible potential of the person whose budding existence is already established, it would seem the mother's choice and the baby's obvious desire to live ought to be weighted heavily in favor of the baby.  The potential for good done to all people by letting that individual baby live is simply too great to cast aside.

Arguments

Yet there are various arguments some people make in favor of abortion.  Some of them are narrow, based on limited circumstances, and some are very broad.

Life of the mother in danger

One limited argument regards the cases where the life of the mother is in grave danger in continuing the pregnancy.  This is a strong argument: there do exist pregnancies such as this, and they can literally kill the mother, and usually the baby too as a result.  Competent and accurate medical evaluations can arrive at the conclusion that continuing a pregnancy is just too dangerous.

In some cases this may simply be the best option.  However, my wife and I have a friend that had an issue with her uterus (related to endemytriosis) where her pregnancies were very difficult, her babies born pretty early, and she would hemorrhage a lot.  And I mean a LOT.  With her second child, she was born quite early because the doctors decided they couldn't wait any longer and did an emergency C-section.  The baby was in the NICU for quite some time, but survived and is now doing just fine.  The third pregnancy, she began hemorrhaging even earlier, and the doctors were recommending she abort the pregnancy right away.  She refused, and they waited as long as they could, and did the emergency C-section again.  Her baby lived only a couple of weeks or less in the NICU.  But if you asked her, she wouldn't have changed a thing.  It was very hard on them, but worth it to do everything in their power to save the baby, contingent on making sure the mother herself was also protected adequately.

Modern medical technology, while not entirely eliminating the reason for abortions in these cases, is making them less necessary from a strict standpoint.  And it is entirely a noble choice for a mother to do as this mother did: expend whatever resources are possible to save the baby.

Rape or incest

Generally the main argument for abortion is "choice," or really the mother's choice.  We'll talk more about that further below, but it is indeed a compelling situation when a pregnancy was thrust upon a woman (or teenage girl) against her will in any significant degree.  As she truly didn't get a choice in the matter, the option of terminating the pregnancy may have some reason to it.  There are often circumstances surrounding incest in particular where revelation of a pregnancy could clearly endanger the mother-to-be's life (an abuser in the home, etc).

But the root of these problems is that somebody is a criminal and deserves to be locked up for a long time, and the baby isn't the criminal and also got no choice in the matter.  To take one person who had their will taken from them, and have them take it out on another person who also had no choice in the matter hardly seems like a good solution.  The better avenue if possible (and it isn't always possible or easy, I'll admit) is to nail the criminal to the wall and remove them entirely from the life of the new mother.  In conjunction with adoption, this is in my opinion the best outcome: the most life and potential is preserved, while the scumbag gets his comeuppance.  The new mother does still have to endure what is undoubtedly a difficult pregnancy and potential stigma, but nevertheless she will have a clear conscience.  A clear conscience is worth almost any price.

Deformities and disabilities

When Stalin, Hitler, and Franco began rounding up people with disabilities in those collectivist countries and exterminating them, the rest of the civilized world cried out in horror.  How could anyone take an individual, much less one who cannot defend them self, and execute them simply because "they are a burden"?  Our stomachs twist into a knot just thinking about it.  Yet when a doctor offers to do tests on a pregnancy to look for genetic markers they usually are required to mention that the mother may choose to abort the pregnancy if an abnormality is found.  My own wife always said, "why on earth would I take those tests when it wouldn't change my decision to fight to keep the baby?"

Many people are afraid of raising children with disabilities.  It can be very difficult, very straining on the family finances, very taxing to deal with a child who never develops emotionally or can be properly reasoned with, etc.  It is also hard to go through the process of birth with a baby who may not make it, or may not live very long after birth.  These are very real concerns, and it will certainly be a life-changing event (but then again, having a child at all is a life-changing event).  But we should ask: is it selfish?  And what about the potential of a child with disabilities?  What potential is there?

Let me illustrate with a couple of examples.  Once I was at a regional conference for my church, and seated a few rows ahead of us was a particular family that had a few kids.  There was a daughter, it seemed she was eight-ish years of age that had long straight dark hair, and her dad that had short but wavy hair.  The daughter seemed wiggly, but was very affectionate with her father.  He reciprocated, and seemed very happy to have his daughter leaning on him and snuggling with him.  This continue for some time, and I thought to myself that must be a really good dad, as his daughter obviously adored her dad.

Then she turned back in her chair, and I could see clearly she had Down syndrome.  I had this initial reaction of shock, like I didn't expect a Downs child to act like that.  But then I realized she was so full of love, and so is her dad.  She was happy, and smiling, and living life to its fullest as well as any child could.  Her dad was living life to its fullest as well.  I envy that dad.  I envy his relationship with his daughter.  I envy his heart, and wish mine was as pure.

A number of years later, in high school, I recall a boy my age that was in a special wheelchair as he had very little motor function, and could barely speak at all.  His name was Mark Peterson.  I'm not sure, but I think he had cerebral palsy.  After he would arrive on the bus, some random student would wheel him into the school, and another might jump in and take over, taking him to his first class, and so forth.  I remember riding the elevator with him once and asking him where he was going, and I could barely make out what class he said.  But everyone knew him, and it was also clear his mind was sharp, but his body didn't want to cooperate at all.

Some other kids in the school who had perfectly functioning bodies, but their minds didn't keep up as well were also around.  I vividly recall one of them falling asleep at his desk in one of the regular classes they had him attend, and he left a big pool of saliva as he slept.  The rest of us tried to not laugh or make a scene, but it was a little amusing of course.  We did our best to include them, and make sure they didn't feel too out of place, even though I'm sure sometimes not everyone was totally sensitive to them.

Then came graduation.  My high school graduating class had 630 students, and we filled Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City with students and family.  I was a valedictorian, and had tons of medals and honor cords hanging off of me that day.  But that's not really what makes that day memorable for me; something else of far greater importance happened.  After the speeches and whatnot, and everyone was going up to get their diplomas one at a time, they had Mark come up.  I can't even write this without tearing up.  As he was wheeled out, the entire hall erupted in a deafening roar of cheers and claps.  Everyone stood up.  He stayed up there for at least 5 minutes of this deafening roar, which far outstripped what anyone else received.  I was in the front as a Valedictorian, and I could see Mark's face, his big smile and teary eyes.  He was on top of the world.  He was a hero to us all, and we let him know it.  His face radiated the most bliss I think I've ever seen.  I felt a warmth wash over me and stay with me; I realized that Mark had brought out pure, unfettered humanity and love from all of us.  I never wanted that moment to end.  I will forever remember what Mark did for all of us, by living and enduring.  Right after the other boys with mental handicaps came up, and they got the same treatment.  They were beaming, and were so happy.  That was their moment, where we told them they were not one whit behind us.  Their potential was being fulfilled in a big way that night.

So, I say to those who would abort a baby who appears to have a disability detected in-utero: how dare you.  How dare you deny them the joy of life, in whatever degree they can experience it, even if it is very short?  How dare you deny them the chance to experience the good and the bad, the pain and the pleasure, the disappointment and the joy of living?  How dare you be so selfish as to deny the rest of us the inspiring moment when these individuals teach us to be human and to be compassionate?  How dare you take my heroes from me, and from my children?  Do you not realize what you can learn from them?  Do you not realize the personal growth you experience by being brave and strong for their benefit?  Do you not see that they represent all of us when we are weak, helpless, forgetful, obstinate, or when we misunderstand or just can't do things the way we want?  They are our mirror, and our conduct concerning them is one of the truest measures of what is in our heart and soul.  And they deserve our protection.  They deserve that deafening roar of claps and cheers to tell them they are one of us and that we've got their back.  I don't think Mark is alive anymore, as his disability took the lives of all of his siblings that had it (and most of them did) by the time they were 25 years old.  But the effect he had on me and others I know is causing his potential to still be fulfilled today with grand and powerful echoes.  Mark lived; oh how he lived and loved life.  I will never forget him.

Other reasons

There are various other reasons given to justify abortion, such as undesired gender, convenience, "relationship complication," embarrassment, anger, bad timing, etc.  I think it's safe to say that these are not strong reasons, and with respect to potential they can easily be discarded as invalid.  When terminating a life for any of these reasons after an individual is born we would call it murder.  So, if potential is a main operative concern with the calculus of saving or terminating a life when the question legitimately arises, why should we wait to call something murder until the baby has taken a breath?  Does that mean we can kill someone who is on a heart-lung machine with impunity and not be jailed for it?  Yes, forbidding the termination of pregnancy for these reasons will certainly impact the mother's life, and her subsequent choices.  But really, is her choice taken from her, or is this instead just insisting on her accepting the consequences of her actions (which is not a concept in contravention of liberty and rights).

Look at it this way: you can make your choices, but you cannot choose the consequences.  Many people try very strenuously to avoid the consequences of their choices and actions, but in the end it always catches up with them.  You cannot run away from your choices forever.  So, then, where is the choice?

Herein lies a major problem the world is experiencing these days.  Pregnancy is being disconnected conceptually from sexual intercourse.  People go around having sex, and then seem surprised when the female cohort turns up pregnant, as if lighting had struck them.  Here is the principle people are missing: unless a woman has been through menopause, sexual intercourse leads to pregnancy.  There are many methods of reducing the likelihood of pregnancy, but there is only one way to completely eliminate the chances of getting pregnant: don't have sex.  Any person who decides that he or she is ready to have sex needs to realize they have decided they are ready to produce a baby.  Despite the world's inane attempt at decoupling the two, the truth reigns supreme that sexual intercourse makes babies, and that is its primary function in the final analysis.

The choice is made when a man and a woman mutually consent and decide to have sexual intercourse.  If they didn't want a baby, well, they were only fooling themselves.  The consequence of pregnancy is a non-zero risk, and it is a risk they assume in the act.  If the other legitimate reasons (life of the mother medically truly in danger, rape or incest) are not fulfilled, then taking the life of the baby to avoid the consequences is somewhat akin to killing a witness to a robbery and dumping the body so that you don't get caught.  From a non-religious point of view that couple (or whoever instigated the decision to abort) is pure scum and it will probably catch up with them.  From a religious (Judeo-Christian-Muslim) point of view, it is guaranteed to catch up with them if they don't repent deeply before their life itself runs out of time.

To argue that a mother's convenience or other minor issues relative to a baby's, say, potential century of lifetime experienced are more important flies in the face of reason.  Anybody who truly feels that way, that a growing baby is nothing more than a lump of tissue or is a parasite to be discarded at will needs to take a long, deep look inside.  If the principle of potential is ignored, the entire framework for what constitutes morality and murder in all societies comes unraveled.  The endgame for that type of society is clearly not pretty.

However, many of these women who go through with abortions for these other reasons have been egged into it by someone.  A selfish boyfriend, a selfish parent, a misguided but close friend, etc.  Many of them are scared, and are damaged after the procedure is done.  They deeply regret it, and remain confused and likely to not talk a lot about it.  I do not believe that these women should bear the full burden of guilt, but their handlers should.

To answer one of the earlier questions, if a doctor performs abortions (for non-valid reasons as detailed) even with a clean, "safe" facility that otherwise appears fine, is he still evil?  In my opinion, yes.  I believe it appropriate to apply Jesus Christ's characterization of the pharisees to such doctors: whited sepulchers.  They are pristine and white on the outside, but inside are full of dead [babies'] bones.

What we should do

We should be compassionate and understanding to these women, as they need a forgiving and merciful group of people to welcome them and teach them a better way, one that preserves life and the boundless potential each tiny life brings.  They are conceived in a careful cradle of life, by a mother who undoubtedly has trepidation and fear for her ability to take care of such an awesome responsibility: helping a child grow to fulfill their potential.  We should inspire them to the desire to soon hold that soft, delicate and cute newborn baby to soak in the immense humanity that comes with that event.  Even if they are to give up the baby to a desirous adoptive couple, their life will forever be changed for the better, and we need to help them see the grand potential of letting that pregnancy run its natural course.

It does not take a village to raise a child (it takes a family), but the village needs to defend the child, and all children, and all mothers.  We carry deep within us the seeds of greatness, and it is our responsibility by virtue of having life to defend others' lives, especially those who cannot do so for themselves.  We must treat each conceived baby, no matter what their stage of existence, as precious and inspiring.  We should regard them as having the capability to change the entire world for the better.  And we should help each mother see that their baby will change her life dramatically for the better, if she will allow that change to occur.  We must support them, cheer them on, and cheer their beautiful children on.  We must carry them up to life's graduations where they can hear the deafening roar of claps and cheers of their fellow men, women and angels who also carry the same heavenly potential as they do, making it clear that they are one of us, and that we will never forget them.

Always remember: when God wants to change the world, he sends a baby.

Fundamental world views: individualism vs collectivism

A recent spat in the media about Rand Paul being unfairly cornered on decades-old civil rights legislation and the resulting discussion has highlighted the fundamental divide in politics today.  Indeed, it represents the fundamental divide in human thought across political parties, time, ages, races, and location: individualism vs. collectivism.

While I cannot do it justice here, a proper understanding of what these two terms are is treated at length in Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, a read that is highly recommended.  In brief, individualism is a philosophy that holds individual, natural rights as sacred, condemning violence of any kind against others except for self defense (or defense of those who cannot defend themselves).  It embodies the concept of sovereignty, which is that we are free to choose and act for ourselves, so long as we do not infringe the rights of others.  The natural result of this basic philosophy is some familiar rights we all know about: private property rights, the right to the fruits of one's own labor, freedom of speech and religious expression, the right to self-defense, and so forth.

On the other side of the divide is collectivism, or a philosophy that individual rights are not as important as the group (whatever that may be), and that all members of the group should be equal (sometimes even strictly equal).  Collectivism's goals roughly can be summed up in this: everyone should "make it," no matter what their differences are.  Where individual discrepancies become too large, they are reigned in via redistribution, coercion or other methods so as to restore equality.

Fruits of Collectivism

Just as individualism has natural results and natural frameworks that arise from it, so does collectivism.  A few philosophies of government fall into this category, among them are socialism and communism.  The stated intent to eliminate the poor or the downtrodden (economic equality) is an obvious underpinning for socialism, although degrees and strategies for implementation vary widely.

But for a moment, envision the results of such a philosophy.  If the desire for equality overrides individuality, which individuals decide what equality really means?  There are some objective measures of equality (for example, some aspects of people financial situations can be measured numerically), but the reality is that human beings engage in subjective valuation of what they encounter; recall the saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure."  If someone else decides what you can have in order to be equal to your neighbor, that may actually feel like a terrible injustice due to your own subjective valuation.

What's more, those who decide what should be given or taken are in a position of relative importance compared to those who do not have this power, and that those with that power tend towards abuse of their position, thus destroying the equality meant to belie the whole apparatus.  In addition, if many individuals in the group agree with the current rulers, what happens when a different set of rulers gain control, and what was allowed and provided for equality's sake previously is now changed to something else?  This reliance on experts or benevolent dictators necessarily will mean that, while some will agree with their actions, some will not due to individual differences that cannot be ignored.  Those who do not agree, though, generally will not have the power to counter that which they do not agree with.

History is rife with examples where socialism and communism had those in charge abusing their position to silence dissent (for the supposed betterment of the whole of course!) to gain economic advantage, such as separate housing programs for the regular people than for the party leaders, etc.

What's more, policies and laws that put individualism on the back seat compared to collectivist goals have fundamental effects on overall wealth and standards of living even when there is no abuse of power.  They largely stem from the fact that, if one is going to be taken care of and "made equal" to his peers despite personal differences, then much of the motivation to excel and produce the effort necessary to benefit himself or society is largely lost.  If responsibility for earning and working hard can be pushed on someone else without repercussions, the natural human temptation is to indulge that laziness.

The effect of the removal of motivation is that, on the whole, society becomes poorer and has a lower standard of living.  This occurs because on average people work less and produce less; work and production are the fundamental underpinnings of a standard of living for a society.  Where there is no hope to excel in an area beyond one's peers or to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, most will not bother to try.  Advancement and financial stability will slowly decelerate.  The weight of those who take more than they give (called externalities in philosophy) will eventually gain critical mass and cause a collapse of the system.  This is precisely what happened in the USSR, a sad tale confirming the drag placed on a society under collectivist government.  Underscoring the rot that was occurring in soviet society was the refrain spoken there: "we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us."

A final note: another form of government that can be classified as collectivist is corporatism, widely regarded as a synonym of fascism.  In this case, there is generally a two-tier system of equality, with the merging of government and corporate interests forming an elite oligarchy at the top which enjoys many extra benefits and power, with those in the lower tier exercising some form of socialism or crony capitalism in an attempt to enter the ruling class or mitigate their losses.  It can be classed in form as socialism for the rich, where the redistribution is not strictly toward equality; instead it tends to move upward to the ruling class and downward to the poorest in order to secure the consent of the masses.  It fleeces the middle and working classes who are given no political power.  It is simply a more visibly corrupt, obfuscated form of socialism, but the results are generally the same in the end.

Implementation of Collectivism

We have touched on this to some degree already, but it is important to further expound on the methods through which each worldview is implemented.  It must be noted that human beings are, broadly speaking, self-interested beings.  Self interest is not necessarily selfishness, however; a self-interested being may find great reward in providing volunteer service for other people, rationally seeking a net benefit of everyone around himself or herself.  It can take on many forms and is a manifestation of that same subjective valuation that is inherent to each individual's makeup and experience.

Collectivism's goal of equality also takes on various forms: equality of race, equality of financial situations, equality of actions, equality of feelings, etc.  In order to provide equality, however, individual differences in a given area must be reduced or removed.  Being naturally at odds with subjective valuations in some individuals, this imposition of equality on those who would need to change their valuations provides a choice for collectivists: let them choose, or coerce them into being subject to the collective's rules aimed to create the equality.  It is readily apparent that if a choice is provided then equality can never be generally achieved for an entire nation, as those who do not wish to participate will simply act or speak in such a way to contradict the set terms of equality, thus destroying any perception of having reached the goal.

Of necessity, then, collectivist regimes impose the rules of equality by coercion and by force.  Any arrangement where people join the collective by choice and remain by choice is not collectivism, it is simply individualism where many choose to band together for common benefit, by contract!  This fact that the use of force is necessarily for collectivist governments is evident:  under socialism, for example, what happens when an individual does not pay their taxes to aid in redistribution of wealth (toward the aim of economic equality)?  They are harassed, fined, and ultimately jailed.  In the United States, IRS enforcement agents are even issued a badge and a gun, and if you physically resist their efforts to arrest you for violation of these rules, you could conceivably end up shot and killed in the process.

When everyone is forced to comply with collectivist policies then any complaint about the policies or their implementation are met with disdain, as the individual is often painted as not desirous of equality.  In the case of racial equality (a noble goal), they are painted as racist.  In the case of economic equality, they are painted as greedy, or as one who hates the poor, and so forth.  This perception management is necessary for collectivism, as any admission that the use of force does not justify the ends (equality) would destroy the whole regime.

Fruits of Individualism

On the other hand, individualism stresses as sacred individual natural rights, and that those rights do not come from government, but from God or nature.  And individual's rights cannot require another to do anything, such as provide a service, buy a product, or say (or not say) any particular thing, etc.  An individual's rights allows them to utilize their life, time, resources, and private property how they see fit, so long as they do not infringe the same right for others.  An individual's rights also extend to the opportunity to enter into exchanges and contracts with others freely, so long as all parties to any transaction agree and are not misled or coerced (more on this below).

Note that this broad right to do or say as one pleases does not extend indefinitely; one cannot lie or commit fraud, as knowingly spreading falsehood can easily be classed as an infringement of others' right to their agency (free choice).  Providing misleading information naturally impugns another's ability to make proper choices, and as such is a violation of natural rights.  In addition, along with each right comes responsibility to act appropriately and within the bounds of that right (e.g. don't violate the rights of others), and to uphold and defend others' rights to the same.

By deduction, it can easily be found that if all individuals acted within their rights, with self interest, a set of natural structures arise.  First, is the free market, which is simply describing in aggregate many individuals engaging in exchanges and contracts with each other freely.  Within this system, pursuing one's self interest is generally called capitalism.  Capitalism is a system of freedom for contract and exchange, and nothing more and nothing less.

The next system that arises naturally and desirably is a limited government.  No free society will be comprised of perfect individuals, and thus some lying, fraud, and violation of other individual rights is bound to take place.  Individuals have a right to enforce their own individual rights, and to request help from others in enforcing just consequences for violation of rights (a natural consequence of a violation of rights is a loss of at least some rights for the offender, pursuant to the offense).  Limited government achieves these ends by being delegated the authority to act for individuals in defense of their rights (not exclusively, but nonetheless the authority is given).  This delegation of authority is done by consent, trust, and benefits all of society when appropriately discharged; for specific functions government can increase efficiency, justice, and order in defending natural rights, particularly for those who do not have the capability to defend themselves properly.

Among many other benefits of individualism, the natural result is that individuals will pursue exchanges that will tend to be beneficial to themselves under whatever subjective valuation they espouse.  The other side of any exchange will also do so, and the matching of the two parties results in mutually beneficial transactions.  The information that flows throughout the whole society about these transactions serves to direct the ebb and flow of markets, production, and labor, and if all of these are unencumbered by intervention by third parties (where no rights have been violated), it results in a constant improvement in overall wealth and standard of living.  A metaphor typical of this type of improvement is "a rising tide lifts all boats" as all of society is made richer.

It is true that tolerance is required under these arrangements.  The freedom to do or speak as one pleases dictates that one must tolerate differences of opinion and subjective valuation, and not spuriously equate just any action to a violation of natural rights.  Those differences are precisely what makes the entire system of individualism function: they provide the dynamics and diversity that absorbs shocks and changes over time, and encourages the natural flow towards an equilibrium of the highest wealth possible.

Implementation of Individualism

It becomes somewhat impractical for individuals to enforce consequences for rights violations themselves, and there will obviously be some controversy and chaos resulting from it if someone is claiming they are enforcing their rights appropriately while the alleged offender or others say the alleged victim is not.  Naturally, a neutral third party should be agreed upon by both parties, and by agreement their determination of guilt must be accepted.  The obvious implementation of this in society is government, and a particularly relevant example is the court system.  As a check on the court system, a jury is also provided (again, if you insist on your own rights being enforced, you have an obligation to help others enforce theirs, and thus sit on a jury as needed) for similar goals of ensuring neutrality and proper enforcement of natural rights.

The government is also a natural result of individuals who would rather not have to provide for certain common needs for large-scale events, such as war defense, negotiation with other nations, etc.  Realize, however, that government cannot legitimately exist by itself; rather, it exists by contract with individuals writ large, however implicit that contract may be.  In the United States, agreement to the contract is implicit, but the contract itself is explicit (the US Constitution).  The contract is not intended to limit the freedom of individuals but rather to limit the power of government so that it only performs the duties assigned to it as a proxy for them.  The government should not be able to perform any duty, even in aggregate, that the individuals that are party to the contract cannot do for themselves in their own individual sphere (self defense, rights enforcement, contracts, and so on).

As a result, individualism rejects the notion that the government may use force to abridge any individual right if the individual has not violated another's right: a person may not be punished before they commit a crime.  This circumscribes nearly all regulation and control that government may exercise, and strictly limits its size and power; it is also desirable for the contract with government to strictly limit the delegated power, in order to keep it from abridging the rights of the individuals that authorize its existence.

There are various strategies for keeping other people and government in check so as to not allow a drifting away from its ideal limited functions.  Checks and balances between departments and branches are a prominent method.  Another is federalism, which is breaking up government horizontally instead of vertically (checks and balances between branches are a vertical separation); federalism is the separation of power between, for example, states and the federal government in the United States, or even the separation of power between states and counties.  It emphasizes that keeping power delegated more locally gives individuals more opportunity to check government and keep it from overstepping its bounds, as their voice is maximized in a locality.

Additionally, individualism is based upon core principles, rejecting the notion that other people may rule them; it is the ultimate expression of individual sovereignty, and other levels of sovereignty are built purely upon individual free association.  Thus, individuals are ruled by principles and laws made pursuant to those principles, and not by "men."  This rule of law is a central tenet of individualism, which holds forth that other people cannot make decisions for any individual where he/she has the ability to make that decision, and that individual actions are governed by laws that are applied equally to all.

Polar Opposites

The fundamental difference between collectivism and individualism then is the use of force vs. the use of agency.  Individualism is the supremacy of the individual and their right to choose their own actions, so long as they do not harm another or another's property.  Collectivism is simply a veiled form of totalitarianism, where a desire for equality is used to trump individual rights.

It can also be said that collectivism aims to provide "freedom from worry".  This is clearly an invalid use of the word freedom, where by having choice forcibly taken away in certain matters the subjects are somehow made more free.  If collectivism removes the worry of failure, that certainly cannot be described as freedom.  In addition to the unintended consequences of such a goal, it goes against the very grain of choice, as those who wish to opt out are not allowed to do so.  When agency is destroyed the utopian goal of equality and removal of concern creates not a utopia but a nightmare and a totalitarian's playpen.

Between the two worldviews, it can be seen that collectivism is a dangerous system based upon, in effect, slavery and control and theft (redistribution).  Individualism provides true freedom and is most likely to obtain an increasing standard of living and net benefit to all participants.  While there are individual risks and responsibilities that must be shouldered, individualism provides equality of opportunity in that every individual is free to work as hard as they would like, and is free to seize opportunities as they come, but is not free to force those opportunities to come via coercion.

Truly the world views are actually between freedom and slavery.

Note: please see Liberalism by Mises for a wealth in good information on the subject, although he treats it through the term neoliberalism rather than just collectivism.  But he's really talking about the same thing.

Proportional slavery

Are we just slaves?

No really, this is a serious question. A person can be enslaved in various ways due to their own bad choices, and of course by the choices of others. But is it possible that many of us (if not our entire nation) are for all practical purposes enslaved, but too distracted to realize it?

Now before you stop reading, let's frame the question in a slightly different context. Were the African American people in the South prior to the Civil War slaves? You can't seriously be asking that question, you must be thinking. Yes, I am asking it, although I know the answer as well as you do. Perhaps they were just "part slaves" because some of them managed to save up enough money to buy their own freedom (yes, many of them were paid). Thus, some were able to leave through the prescribed means of the system they were under. Maybe that makes them only, say, 90% slaves?

This flies in the face of reason. They were 100% enslaved, pure and simple whether they were paid or not. It is morally repugnant to argue otherwise. They did not have control over their own lives in any meaningful sense, or control over their own decisions, as their opportunities were limited artificially by their masters on purpose. Any of them caught trying to escape were returned to their enslavement and punished or even killed.

Now take a deep breath, forget for just a moment all of your preconceived notions about our own current situation, and hop on this train of thought for a little ride.

What is This Freedom You Speak of?

What does it mean to be free? Not a little bit free, but truly free? And why is freedom so important? The answer lies within the minds and hearts of every human being. While Locke and the Founding Fathers and others have done a wonderful job helping us to understand the answers, we usually need not go further than what our own conscience tells us. The meaning of freedom is strikingly simple: agency, ownership, and responsibility. But those words are too broad left alone, so let's define them further following our intuition.

To have agency is to be able to make choices without coercion. Nobody is to take away that agency from you unless you specifically harmed another's agency. In philosophical parlance, this is called violence against another individual or their natural rights, whether it is physical in nature or not. You have a fundamental, God-given right to live your life the way you see fit, so long as you do not infringe the right of others to do the same. If you do infringe someone else's right to live their life the way they see fit, that person (and society at large, and thus the government by delegation) has a legal opportunity to ensure justice is met and that you are punished accordingly. But that is the only time you may justly be deprived of your right to agency in any way (for justice's sake).

Ownership is the concept of controlling a limited, scarce resource that you have earned or intrinsically have. Among the things you automatically own are your time, your talents, and the fruit of your labor; although the latter may just be a manifestation of your time and talents. You have a right to control what you produce, and a right to control what you already legally own such as land, houses, financial assets, etc. You also have a right to enter into a transaction with anybody else (note, I said anybody) to exchange something you own for something that you want, as long as the other party in the transaction agrees. You cannot force them to agree to any terms, and they cannot force you, but you voluntarily agree together to a set of terms that are favorable to (hopefully) both parties. In such transactions of resources, information in the marketplace from yours or others' previous transactions inform the terms. This exchange forms the core of what is called a free market, and when viewed on a large economic scale it is referred to as capitalism. The free exchange of goods via contracts, and the producing of new goods by those using their rightfully owned resources is all there is to capitalism.(1) If anybody coerces you into not being able to transact the way you and another party wish to, or threatens you with violence of any kind if you do not give up some of what you own (your time, work, talents, property, etc.), then they are infringing your natural(2) right to ownership.

Responsibility at its core is the requirement that you not infringe the two basic rights of agency and ownership, and that you uphold these rights in all of their proper manifestations for others completely. Anything less is essentially advocating a form of slavery! (Let that sink in for a moment.) There are some additional responsibilities, such as a responsibility to accept the consequences of your actions. This includes receiving the application of justice. It includes a responsibility to not retaliate against someone or attempt to curb his or her use of their natural rights when they have not infringed the natural rights of others. It includes providing for any children you have; e.g. you had an opportunity and choice to engage in sexual intercourse with another willing person, but you do not have an inherent right to then avoid the consequences of doing so. As your children grow in their capacity to exercise their agency, you have a responsibility to let them actually do so and allow them to face the consequences of their actions. Of course, you should teach them as much as you can along the way so that they choose to use their agency wisely.

Are We Free Today?

The foregoing principles all make sense, and they form a simple framework against which we can decide what promotes freedom and what does not. But here is where the ears usually get plugged, when we start applying this to our current situation. Let's start with a candidate that people have accepted for far too long: income tax. There isn't a single person I know that would like to have taxes raised, or really be taxed much at all (there are those strange creatures out there who do, but they are rare). We inherently understand that taxes are bad, and we all have this awful helplessness deep down about them that they might just be immoral and not the best way to do things. However, we convince ourselves that our government wouldn't function without them and that they are somehow a necessary evil. But are they really necessary? It has been discovered that if we were to take away all of the federal personal income tax receipts from the government, and reduce government by that size, we would have a federal government about the size it was in...1999. Yes, you read that right. We could have a 1999-sized government, with zero personal income tax. Perchance it is not so necessary after all?

Individual income tax is identifiable as not a necessary evil, but it is even worse than just being unnecessary. It can be easily shown that it is a violation of property rights; it is a form of slavery. It is estimated that we individually work until around March or April every year to cover the taxes we pay that year. For those that claim you can get out of it by dropping below the poverty line, or not having a job, does that seem like much of a choice? In that state we can't live, or else we live on the dole and essentially are advocating the slavery of the rest of society to pay for us. The choice is to accept slavery either way. You may have heard some people in government refer to our tax system as voluntary. But is it really? What happens if you have income but do not pay your income tax? Eventually, you will get a notice from the IRS. If you ignore it for long they will send armed agents to your house, who will kill you if you resist, or throw you in jail if you don't resist but don't pay. So, if you don't agree to an obfuscated form of slavery, they will subject you to overt slavery and a complete loss of freedom. Oh and by the way, if you leave the country but are still a US citizen, you still owe your taxes, and they will still eventually get you. If you do a private transaction and do not pay taxes on any income, it is in the tax code that even barter of that nature is taxable on the dollar value of whatever you transacted. In practical terms there is no escape.

Another example is the use of dollars (Federal Reserve Notes) themselves. The Federal Reserve controls the money supply along with its cohorts the banks as they engage in fractional reserve lending. They have depreciated the value of the dollar by over 95% since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. While there were financial panics before that (due to banks doing the same thing by overissuing specie!), the overall value of what people owned stayed largely stable, if not being subject to a slightly deflationary environment. Slow deflation actually rewards savers modestly, and is not to be feared. Nowadays if you save your money the Fed essentially will tax it via inflation of the money supply. What's worse is that due to the mechanics of monetary velocity, the rich and politically well-connected get the newly printed dollars first and can spend it before prices rise, and you get stuck with the bill indirectly. Your property is stolen.

No problem, let's use a different currency, you say? By law, you cannot. You are expressly forbidden to create a new currency, even one backed by gold (thus not being nearly so subject to the problem of inflation), or else the Secret Service will raid your operation and throw you in jail. Nope, only the Federal Reserve and their friends the bankers are allowed to counterfeit money, and you must accept the damage they do to your own savings and asset values.

But otherwise we still have a lot of freedom, right? It can't go too far beyond that, we might surmise. Well, let's take something seemingly very disconnected with any of this and see. You go out and buy a bottle of Sprite. You got paid yesterday, so inflation isn't an issue, and you're a poor college student who doesn't make enough money to pay taxes. (Scratch that, make it Coke because you have a project due and need to stay up working on it.) You do a quick, arms-length transaction that benefits the store owner and yourself, with no taxes involved besides sales tax, but that was voluntary on your part to purchase the soda, so that's relatively better. No problem.

Or is there no problem? Take a look at the label, and you'll notice on the ingredient list (ha! that list is there mandated by law, increasing the cost of production!) that there is no cane sugar, but instead it contains high fructose corn syrup. What has that got to do with anything? The question is why do they use the real sugar in Coke in other countries (even in Europe) but not the US? It is due to stifling regulation on the price of sugar, presumably to protect american sugar producers. All it has really done is give us Coke that doesn't taste as good, and high sugar prices, not to mention other knock-on effects of price fixing. Price fixing is inherently anti-freedom, because it ties the hands of other parties in transactions such that they can't transact the way that is in their own best interest. It inserts a third party by force of law into every transaction, who has the power to dictate terms to one or both parties. It is a form of coercion, in an area that the coercive party has no business sticking their nose.

We can find thousands upon thousands of such examples. It permeates our lives, even though it appears largely hidden from view at first. Just because we cannot see them easily does not mean the problems do not exist, or that they are not going to destroy our freedom entirely in the end. An undiscovered cancer often does not manifest any symptoms until it is too late, or nearly so. These distortions and reductions of freedom benefit a powerful few at the expense of the many.

The Curse of Collectivism

There are certain ideologies promoting the common good or doing our part, but in reality the common good is far and away best achieved in the freest society. Are there poor among us? Set up a charity, and take voluntary donations. Is there lying and fraud? Investigate, punish, and apply justice for those who have had their rights violated, but never punish a crime before it is committed.(3)

Every form of collectivism (be it corporatism/fascism, socialism, communism, chrony capitalism, and any number of other -isms) is just an immoral justification for the reduction of individual freedom; their tantalizing promise of everyone being equal in unjustifiable ways is really just a pretty face on a maggot-infested ideology that has proven to provide misery for those subject to it, time and again. Don't fall for the siren call of wealth redistribution or of giving up a little liberty for a little security. In all cases, you will effectively lose your wealth, your liberty, and your security, and be left to beg at the hands of those who you thought would be your saviors.

Proportional Slavery

Are we slaves? Maybe just 10% slaves? Maybe 30% slaves? Are we enslaved at all? If so, and we do nothing about it, are we not truly 100% slaves? Do our masters just hide that reality nicely behind a facade of conventional wisdom and public demonization of anyone who would dare contravene the status quo?(4)

Take a moment to stop and ponder this the next time you see your taxes taken out of your paycheck, or hear about government regulation and intervention either here or abroad, or about bankers and elites getting bailed out while you are still paying your taxes, or any number of other indicators that something is not quite right in the Land of the Free. If you listen closely enough, you might just hear the crack of a whip, the cocking of an oppressor's gun, or the clatter of the chains around your ankles.

And finally you will smell a hint of true freedom, coming from just past the edge of the plantation. It is within reach, if we are principled enough to obtain it.

Notes:

1 - The recent attacks on capitalism as the culprit for the current great recession completely dumbfound me. We do not have true capitalism, for starters; we have limited capitalism occuring in segments of the market despite the intervention by the government and distortions from what is now been documented as rampant fraud. Greed is not the fundamental unit of capitalism; hard work and freedom are the fundamental units. A person may be completely driven by the desire to do good and collect money to give to charity and flourish under capitalism, just like the next guy who is driven to collect money to buy a mansion. Those drives have nothing to do with capitalism.

2 - Note the word natural here; for religious folks, this is synonymous with God-given. The implication here is that these rights predate and supersede government authority. This was well understood by the Founding Fathers, who sought to codify a big giant check against the government in favor of these rights in the US Constitution in the form of the Bill of Rights.

3 - This is not to suggest you shouldn't try to stop a crime in progress. However, if someone has not committed a crime, regulations that purport to prevent crime or other "bad things" generally really are just used to provide barriers to entry in a market or cause other distortions, and they don't actually prevent the crimes very well anyway.

4 - Someone remarked the other day that they had really been bothered by President Obama's handling of dissenting views against his policies. They noted that his response is to make fun of and demean (usually subtly) any who oppose the policies he is pushing for. He is by no means alone in this behavior.

Discrimination revisited

In my previous post I noted that I had observed a vocal few (that I called outliers) making some very harsh accusations against supporters of Proposition 8. My sentiment is shifting however to be that I don't think these are outliers. I am observing a surging trend among those who oppose Proposition 8 to resort to discriminatory language themselves and fear mongering against their perceived enemies.

Singling out the LDS Church

Let's start with the protests in LA at the LDS temple:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest7-2008nov07,0,3827549.story

First, let's correct a number of errors in what many of the protesters were saying:

1. The LDS Church did not donate $20 million to the Yes on 8 campaign. The Church donated about $2300 or so to the Protect Marriage Coalition, to reimburse them for travel expenses when a few leaders of the Church met with leaders of the coalition. In other words, Protect Marriage paid for the travel, and the Church didn't make them foot the bill in the end. That is all the Church directly contributed, and it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Some have implied the Church donated millions of dollars, but it did not.
   
2. Some have estimated that members of the Church have donated, collectively, as much as $20 million in support of Proposition 8. This could be right, but examining all the donors trying to guess at their religious affiliation sounds a little questionable. There just isn't enough information. What if the real amount is really more like $5 million, out of more than $35 million total? Does that change their attitudes towards the Church?
   
3. The protesters claim that the LDS Church is really the driving force behind the direction that the Yes on 8 folks took in their ads and their strategies. Many members certainly offered their time, but there was already strong leadership in place from the Protect Marriage Coalition. From what I understand, it was well after it was gaining momentum that a Catholic bishop invited the LDS Church leadership to take an active role.
4. The protesters claim that the LDS Church strongly encouraged or even forced members to donate their money and time. This is pure hogwash. There was an official encouragement for about 2 minutes on one Sunday, for sure, but nobody who chose not to contribute is being threatened with excommunication or any other punishment. In fact, I personally thought the encouragement was almost too soft; I expected more than what they said. They were very understanding about those who could not or did not want to donate. Anybody who asserts that members of the Church are just robots or are fearful and do whatever they're told, is wrong. I have never, ever heard leaders of the Church tell people that they should just obey, and not go find out for themselves the truth. In fact, it is quite the opposite; the Church is entirely based on people having a personal conviction, attained on their own and confirmed in their hearts and minds by God directly that what they are doing is right. This is a deeply held tenet of the Church.
   

With that out of the way, I'll divulge my own story regarding the issue. It is public record that I and my wife both contributed to the Yes on 8 campaign. I was not actually at church the day that the letter regarding the Church's support of traditional marriage was read (even though my wife was), but I have since read the letter. In any case, we were not asked directly by anybody to contribute at that time. My wife and I were unable to do so until around September, and then we both decided together without anybody pushing us that we should. We researched the issues, we prayed about it, and felt very strongly that supporting Proposition 8 was the right thing to do.

We decided on how much we thought we could contribute, and also decided we would go ahead and do it. That same day, our bishop independently asked us if we wanted to contribute. He didn't say we had to, nor did he ask for an amount, and he made it clear that this was not mandatory at all. But when he was asking us if we wanted to, I got that same "yes, this is right" feeling all over again, and it felt like a confirmation that it indeed was time to do it. So we did. And we did again later in October, with no urging from the Church. It was all us.

I don't regret contributing one bit, nor do I regret the content of the ads that my contributions helped produce. The opponents of Proposition 8 have called the Yes on 8 ads 'lies,' 'hate-filled,' 'bigoted,' 'wrong,' 'unfair,' and 'intolerant.' Funny thing, those terms; if you read my last post, you'll see why using those terms is, ahem, a real stretch, if not intolerant in and of itself. The Yes on 8 ads' claims were based in case law in Massachusetts, Department of Education regulations in California, laws already passed in California, and actual events that have occurred in both states. There are both things that have been noted in the media that everyone knows about, and there are parents who have told us about their own experiences with their children's schooling in the last year that give very clear creedence to what the Yes on 8 ads were saying. After reading the documentation behind the ads, I realized that not only could a reasonable person conclude that the possibilities raised in the Yes on 8 ads are real, but that in some cases the scenarios cited have already occurred. They call this 'fear mongering,' but I think it's just plain arguments based on researched data. It jives with what people are reportedly already experiencing with the schools (yes, multiple public schools) in the SF Bay Area where we live.

How the No on 8 campaign can call these 'lies' is beyond me, unless they are trying to redefine 'lie,' just like they apparently want to redefine 'tolerance,' 'discrimination,' 'bigotry,' and 'sex' (gender) as noted in the California Constitution. Again, see my previous posts for more background on these definitions, as they merit a discussion by themselves. This sort of molding words to fit a political agenda is very dangerous; double-speak only results in suppression of information and the truth.

The Protests

And now we find ourselves turning full circle. The opponents of Proposition 8 are still out in front of the Los Angeles LDS Temple as I write this, screaming epithets such as as 'bigots!' and claiming the LDS Church somehow took away their rights in a display of religious power-grab. This is demonstrably not the case (the LDS Church didn't force those 5+ million voters to pass Proposition 8!), and to lump all LDS people together as hate-filled, discriminatory bigots is a bigoted act itself. The protesters are by their very actions demonstrating their bigotry towards members of the LDS Church.

Way to go, guys. Your cause is suffering from a teensy bit of something called hypocrisy.

The Church has been on the receiving end of this kind of thing before, though; so don't worry, the members won't get scared like the protesters would like them to. In fact, I'm quite sure most members will view this singling-out of the Church as confirmation that what they are doing is right, and it will only strengthen their resolve to stick to their standards. What's even more interesting, is the protesters basically allege that the Church is what caused Proposition 8 to pass. I suppose it is probably true that if the members didn't donate as much as they did, there is some chance that the word wouldn't have gotten out as effectively, and perhaps it wouldn't have passed. But to state that as if it were conclusive, and then place all of the blame at the feet of President Thomas S. Monson and 'Mormons' everywhere and host a protest about it, well, that's just disingenuous.

Even beyond that, I don't see them protesting against the 7 out of 10 African Americans that voted for Proposition 8! Or how about the more than half of all Latinos who voted for it! Never mind that members of the Church comprise perhaps 300,000 of the voters or so, and the margin of win for the vote was more than 500,000. If all of the members of the church moved out of the state 2 months ago and didn't vote, it still probably would have passed. I'm sure that members of the LDS Church don't mind taking some credit, but please, let's spread the congratulations around a little to the other 5 million people who favored it, shall we?

Racial Discrimination

Now, the African Americans and Latinos who voted for it aren't getting protested at, but in the media they are still getting smeared some. I have seen more than one article now (one of these was from an article at cbs5.com, I can't recall which article though) as well as comments from the protesters that essentially stated that those minorities who voted for the proposition were "church-going uneducated people." Excuse me? Did they really mean that? If so, I smell true bigotry right there (unless the definition changed in the last week, in which case I apologize for sounding so...old fashioned). Hm, a teensy bit more of hypocrisy creeps in. Way to go, guys.

Me, personally, I just think that African Americans and Latinos actually have values, and are less afraid to vote their conscience. Their motivation to vote the way they did was their principles.

What's even more alarming is that the No on 8 group has tried diligently to compare their plight to that of the Civil Rights Movement, and to the interracial marriage issues of the past (which were really awful, by the way). The two are not comparable, and the comparison just muddies the waters. Homosexuality is driven by a difficult choice (an inconvenient truth for homosexuals, but truth nonetheless), the other issue was based on discrimination ultimately due to part of a group of people's actual DNA. Take the following example:

Put on one side of a line an African American man, and a white man. Put on the other side of the line an African American woman, and a white woman. Under interracial marriage rules in the past, they would only let the white man and white woman match up for marriage, and ditto for the african americans. This is clearly discriminatory, because the only substantive difference between each man is a few genes (not a whole chromosome), and the only difference between the two women is a few genes as well. There is no good reason to prohibit the matching to occur diagonally across the line, and so interracial marriage prohibitions were rightly struck down. Remember, marriage in this case is a union of the opposing sexes for the purposes of procreation and family.

Now, if a man on one side of the line is homosexual, he still has his choice to marry either one of those women (if they like him, of course). The man next to him who is not homosexual has the same choice. Neither has an advantage above the other. Same is true for the women; if one is lesbian, she can still choose a man on the other side of the divide of either race. She misses no opportunity. Marriage is about the appropriate union of the opposing sexes (genders) into a construct that makes them into something greater than the sum of their parts (this is called a family). If a homosexual doesn't want to marry someone across the line, then fine; they have their choice, and nobody is taking that away. Trying to make a match without crossing the gender line is, plain and simple, not marriage. No rights have been removed, because everyone on all sides have always had the chance to marry someone of the opposite sex. Whether they choose to do so or not is their own business.

Claiming they have the 'right' to marry someone of the same sex is an expansion of rights, and one that is clearly not welcomed by the majority of the population. Many rights are inherent to human beings and should be treated as such (right to life, right to a fair and speedy trial after being accused, right to the pursuit of property, right to free speech, right to make choices that do not impede others' liberty, etc.), but many other opportunities that some people like to call 'rights' are really 'privileges,' which are only to be granted by circumstance and approval of society. In other words, one can get married if they fulfill the conditions pertaining to it, and society blesses the action because the conditions are fulfilled. If the conditions are not fulfilled, then no amount of yelling and waving signs will make something that is not marriage suddenly become so.

A final note on discrimination: the California Constitution has several protected classes that are illegal to discriminate on the basis of each. They include race, ethnicity, sex, and religion. The CA Supreme Court extended 'sex' to include 'sexual orientation,' and that is pretty much the whole basis for overturning Proposition 22 on May 15 of this year. Hm, 'sex' in this case very clearly is just a synonym for 'gender', e.g. whether you have a Y chromosome or not. Sexual orientation or sexual preferences have absolutely nothing to do with 'sex' in this context. This wasn't even stretching a definition, this was just plain making stuff up. Supreme Court judges are not stupid, and they knew full well that they were making one monster of a leap with their decision. There is no 'sexual orientation' class protected by the constitution, and thus there is no protection under that document for striking down laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Proposition 8 simply was meant to peg that definition back to its true, historical meaning.

Proposition 8, Tolerance, and Discrimination

I have read about and discussed California's Proposition 8 quite a bit in the past few months, it being of much interest to me (since I live in Hercules, a little town in the northeastern part of the SF bay area). Along the way, I have noticed a disturbing trend: anybody who states their support of Proposition 8, even if that is all that they say, is almost immediately labeled by somebody as a bigot and as intolerant. The California Supreme Court even used discrimination as the underlying justification for striking down Proposition 22. There have been extreme instances of this type of labeling, but for this discussion we'll consider them outliers, and instead focus on the common response in a general fashion.

Tolerance

First things come first; we need a definition, instead of a label or epithet. Here are Webster's definitions for tolerance:

1. The power or capacity of enduring; the act of enduring; endurance.
2. The endurance of the presence or actions of objectionable persons, or of the expression of offensive opinions; toleration.

The first thing to notice is that tolerance has two fundamental parts: allowing freedom of choice, and being patient with others. Other dictionary definitions also have a strong component of respect, but I would posit this is a manifestation of the "allowing freedom of choice" aspect, in that you respect others' right to a different opinion or way of being. Just as you demand that right for yourself, and you would not want to be ridiculed for your opinion, you must provide like respect for others' views.

However, there has been an abuse of the concept of tolerance in that it has been extended to imply more than what it means. Usually, the extension takes the form of something along these lines:

If you don't agree with my opinion, then you are close-minded and too conservative. You are intolerant, because you think that what I am doing or what I say is immoral or wrong.

Now, what I wrote above was a blunt depiction of what some people imply when they call others intolerant. That was deliberate, to demonstrate a point; usually they express their view of what tolerance means in more subtle ways, but nonetheless the implications are there.

The problem, however, is fairly obvious: tolerance does not mean that one has to accept another party's opinion, or even admit or imply that their own opinion could be wrong. That is not part of tolerance at all; you can be very tolerant of others' views and very respectful, and in fact even be a very staunch supporter of others' right to have their own opinion or way of life without ever conceding that your own opinions might be wrong.

To be open-minded, however, is different from tolerance. Open-mindedness implies that you admit that you are searching for corrections and additions to your knowledge and opinions. But again, it requires only a very soft admission that you could be wrong. You can be open-minded and a critical thinker, and have an opinion presented to you, inspect it, and finally reject it without compromising your 'open-minded' status.

To be intolerant, then, is to disrespect others' right to their own opinion and way of thinking or acting. But remember: intolerance of certain items is a moral requirement: we should be intolerant of murder, rape, incest, abuse, racism, etc. That is the right thing to do. But we should be tolerant of opinions, freedom of speech, religious views, sexual orientation, and so forth.

Application to Proposition 8 Detractors

And now we come back to the disturbing trend I noted earlier. Those who decry Proposition 8 supporters as being intolerant usually do so simply for it being stated that the supporters will vote to defend traditional marriage (and an anciently-established societal norm). This brings the detractors' cry of intolerance into focus for what it is: they themselves show intolerance by belittling an opinion different than their own. They essentially use the moral pressure of being viewed as intolerant to motivate Proposition 8 supporters to back off from supporting the amendment. Boiled down, this is basic disrespect and manipulation, and thus squarely lands the detractors in the realm of hypocrisy. They quickly call Proposition 8 supporters intolerant, when they themselves demonstrate by that very statement that they are at least partially intolerant. The claim that they are seeking so-called "equality" does not help their case; that justification is only a misdirected attempt at hiding the fact that they will not tolerate the presence of another opinion.

On the flip side, there is no room for supporters of Proposition 8 to demonstrate intolerance. Respect for others' right to an opinion is not only important, but it is a direct manifestation of one's love of liberty and freedom. The right to choose an opinion and to vote accordingly is a right that should be defended even to the loss of one's life. There is no room for intolerance, and I sincerely ask that those on both sides of the debate try to internalize this principle. All involved should discuss, vote, and decide; but they should not intimidate or attempt to manipulate others' right to their own decision. Your future freedom depends on respectfully allowing others to have an opinion that differs from your own.

Discrimination

Once again we'll start with a definition, this time from the American Heritage Dictionary:

1. The act of discriminating.
2. The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment.
3. Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice: racial discrimination; discrimination against foreigners.

The concept of discrimination is fairly straightforward, as long as you recognize that it has two (wildly different) flavors. The first is good in that it is the ability to see details and differences. As a synonym for discernment, it is a positive trait in that a discriminating person cannot be duped. They understand that small details can have a great effect on the net value or meaning of something.

The second flavor is nearly the opposite of the first. It is to make generalizations (often that are erroneous) of a class, and assume that individual members of the class are all subject to the conclusions of that generalization. Think of it as ignoring details and differences, and assuming uniformity. This version of discrimination has rightly earned a negative connotation. I would add that an acceptable additional restriction for our discussion is that the class is a class out of necessity; e.g. members of the class are lumped together because of an inherent trait, one that they can't choose to have or to not have. Discrimination against an individual due to something they verifiably can't change (such as race) is worse than discrimination against an individual for something they can change.

Application

Proposition 22 was struck down by the CA Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision that hinged upon discrimination. For more information on the process of judicial review, please see my earlier post On Judicial Review, and Rule by the People. Also, see More on Judicial Review for some additional insights into the In RE Marriage Cases decision and judicial activism in general. Essentially, the consenting judges claimed that the CA Constitution does not contain any provision allowing laws that discriminate against any group of people. That's a fair enough statement, but the problem is that this was applied based on an assumption that restricting marriage to be only between a man and a woman is discriminatory.

So let's take a step back, and look at marriage. At first blush, it would seem that this restriction perhaps could be discriminatory. But, if you examine the issue further you will find that this is not the case. If we use homosexuals as the class, then here are the questions we have to ask to determine if marriage as a heterosexual-only institution is discriminatory:

• Do homosexuals constitute a class that can have (possibly erroneous) generalizations made about them?
• Can they individually choose to be a member of this class, and choose to remove themselves from the class (e.g. is it an inherent trait, like race)?
  
• Is the marriage issue ignoring individual merit or detail (e.g. does marriage fit easily for at least some homosexuals)? Or, instead, is the generalization of man-woman marriage actually correct?
  

Class Status

The first question is easy to answer: yes, homosexuals undoubtedly constitute an undeniable class. They represent somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% of the US population, and they have common traits.

Can they Choose?

The second question is more complicated. There appear to be two camps within the homosexual community. Some contend they are born the way they are, that their homosexuality is intrinsic. They feel they cannot change it. The other camp believes that they have chosen their sexual orientation and they are not interested in finding a genetic link or anything of the sort (or else someone might come up with some gene-therapy-type 'cure' for homosexuality).

Personally, I think the answer lies in between the two camps. Every human being has weaknesses and temptations, and many of those are evident in such a way as to indicate that the seeds of the weakness were with them at birth. However, just because we are born with weaknesses, that does not mean we have to succumb to them. I am a very strong believer in the power of human choice: that we can choose what we do, what we say, and thus for all intents and purposes what kind of person we are. We are certainly not robots who are programmed such that we just can't help but, ahem, perform sexual acts of any variation. I cannot stress this enough: we can choose our actions.

Thus, my own answer to the second question: homosexuals have a choice, even if it is a very difficult one. They are not forced to be what they claim they are, nor are they forced to do what homosexuals do. The temptation may be intrinsic, but acting upon it is most certainly not.

Generalization, and Marriage

The final question requires establishing yet again a definition. What is marriage, anyway? What is its purpose? Here are the first few (relevant) definitions listed for marriage, this time coming from the Random House dictionary:

1. The social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc.
2. The state, condition, or relationship of being married; wedlock: a happy marriage.
3. The legal or religious ceremony that formalizes the decision of a man and woman to live as husband and wife, including the accompanying social festivities: to officiate at a marriage.

To understand it better, I will propose a few points as integral to marriage, and then some comments about each. Here is the first:

Throughout the entire history of mankind, it has been between a man and a woman, logically due to a biological basis required to conceive and perpetuate human life.

Artificial insemination is, in programmer parlance, a hack in that it is what you try when the accepted conventional method fails. This cannot be the sole method for cases with a 100% certainty that the conventional methods of procreation won't work (e.g. lesbian couples).

Throughout history, marriage has been administered and regulated by spiritual/religious leaders.

It is only in the last 150 years or so that licenses of any kind have been required; and, even in the US before about 1920 or so they were only required for interracial marriages. Yes, I'm totally serious. Marriage is not only a societal construct, but it is closely related to religion. Sometimes those spiritual leaders were also the civic leaders, but the norm was that they had spiritual or religious charge over the people they officiated in marrying together.

Marriage is not just about love and devotion. There are many other important traits to marriage.

The traits that are necessary are love, devotion (faithfulness), sexuality, patience, sacrifice, using complementary differences to accomplish what one could not accomplish alone, commitment, and humility. There are arguably more. Marriages lacking any one of these things tend to be unhappy and rocky. Marriages lacking some of these things at first, such as arranged marriages, can over time gain these traits and become very successful; so the lack of a trait or two does not mean the marriage is not allowable. Nor does the presence of one or two of these traits mean marriage is allowable.

Marriage is ultimately about family, which means it's really about having and raising kids.

Yes, there are married couples that choose not to have kids, but they are sincerely missing the point. There are those who cannot have kids due to infertility, but there is still some possibility they can get pregnant. Case in point: we have some family friends who tried for years to have a baby, and were not successful. They subsequently adopted two kids, at different times. Around the time the second child had his first birthday the wife turned up pregnant, which was obviously a total surprise (and a very happy one, I might add). Using infertile couples as justification for homosexual marriage is extremely tenuous.

Marriage is not a right, it is a privilege. This is closely related to the spiritual aspect of marriage, and the fact that it is not really (or originally) a civic right.

The state has only begun to regulate marriage en masse in the last century or so, usually for monetization like paying for a license, and for tax tracking and regulation. Neither of these are necessary for marriage or integral to it. To claim that marriage is a right is like saying it is a right that a couple be able to have six boys in a row. If the conditions are met, and the opportunity presents itself, they might just have six boys in a row. But, it would be absurd to demand that marriage be provided as a right, just as it is absurd for a couple to demand to have six boys in a row. If the conditions are met then the privilege may be taken; but if not, then that unfortunately means the person is not (or perhaps should not) be getting married.

There are potentially more integral aspects of marriage, but these will suffice. Yes, it is somewhat of a complicated contraption, but it is fairly straightforward and intuitive.

So, would it be an unfair generalization to say that a same-sex relationship could not fulfill the definition of marriage? The answer hinges on whether even some of the relationships could fulfill the conditions to call it marriage. If even some of them could, then that opens up the possibility that all of them could, and it certainly would be unfair and discriminatory to exclude them from the legally-allowed benefits of marriage.

It is obvious that it depends on how one defines marriage. To me (and most of mankind, even spanning mankind's history), all the above points I listed are obvious, logical parts of what marriage is. Same-sex marriage advocates often try to boil marriage down to one thing: "we love each other, so we should be allowed to get married." As stated above: love, devotion, sexuality, etc. are only part of the equation, and they by themselves are not justification to have parties included in the realm of marriage.

So, what is missing? First, the biological component. Homosexuals cannot reproduce with their partner. Period. It is impossible. Lesbians can claim the option of artificial insemination, but that rings hollow: it's not their partner's sperm, and it is a hack, where the real process is not even possible. Adoption is also covering up the original problem, and rings hollow (not to mention that study after study, not just case studies, show children do much better in a nuclear family with a father and a mother). Any slowdown in social research reports affirming the benefits of father-mother-children relationships is due largely to political pressure, and the fact that the research is already out there showing the obvious conclusion.

Second, most spiritual and religious leaders are often at the far opposite end of the spectrum from homosexuality. Thus, homosexuals have chosen the civic route to try to enter the marriage fray. With a legal definition and civic allowance only, that cheapens the very nature of marriage, ignoring its roots and purpose.

Third: having and raising children. Due to the biological incompatibility, their children cannot come from their partner (or else the child cannot be their own biological child; one partner definitely gets cut out). This takes away a fundamental right for a child to have a mother and a father. And yes, this is a right, because all children must have paternal and maternal DNA to be conceived, and those who conceived the child have a responsibility to the child. Parents who give their baby up for adoption can usually choose the adoptive parents, and they are doing what is best for the child, thus fulfilling their responsibility in a tangible way. Also, it is quite evident that children have more trouble on average when they are not given the opportunity to grow up in a nuclear family. Circumstances vary, and children's reactions vary, but by and large this result is quite evident. Homosexual couples cannot provide both a mother and a father, by definition. Strike three.

In consideration of these definitions, it cannot be deemed discriminatory to say that same-sex relationships should be excluded from marriage. By their very nature, homosexual relationships do not fit into what marriage is. Therefore a generalization that every one of them cannot be made into marriage is a true statement, nor is it ignoring details or the merit of the individual relationships. In other words, the generalization is completely true. Thus there is no discrimination, and the CA Supreme Court's decision was invalid, as it was based upon invalid definitions of either discrimination or marriage, or both.

Final Thoughts

Due to the foregoing discussion, marriage simply does not make sense for same-sex relationships. It would need an expanded and changed definition before that could be the case. However, a society does not suddenly start changing the definition of an institution that is thousands of years old without that change justly being described as Orwellian. If a society changes the language to suit political or minority pursuits like this, it helps wedge a door open that will lead to degradation of the language (and thus the clarity of our thoughts in general), and of common sense. Evidently, control over language yields considerable control over moral issues.

A final definition note: the word bigot and related terms are often used in connection with discrimination (and anecdotally Proposition 8), but remember that it is tightly related to the word discrimination. As such, if no discrimination is taking place, the proponent cannot be rightfully considered a bigot on the subject.

Unfortunately for many devoted same-sex couples, same-sex marriage is an oxymoron. I do not wish to belittle their relationships, as I am sure they are as sincere in their relationships as they can be, as am I. They have protections under domestic partner laws in California that give them all of the state-derived legal benefits of marriage without needing to change the definition of marriage. I see no harm in keeping it this way, and I question the motives of those who seem to think that preserving the definition of traditional marriage is discriminatory. I would ask, what are they really after? Marriage is not necessary to prove love and devotion or make a commitment. If that is all they are after, then they already have what they want.