Frozen Transparency

Today is the day Americans celebrate their independence from Britain. The choice of date is a little odd, seeing as the actual resolution declaring independence (the Lee Resolution) was passed on July 2nd, and the Declaration of Independence was signed on August 2nd. (Although in all fairness, the declaration was adopted on July 4th).

That document now has absolutely no legal bearing. Some people like to cite sections of it as rails against our government, ignorant of this fact. But it still has importance as a document in history—much as the Mayflower Compact does—and is worth studying, especially in our history. Its opening is one of excellence:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

What I find most interesting about the document, though, is that while it has no legal bearing, it in a sense proclaims the basic political philosophy of the country:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

But furthermore:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

History classes (rightly) talk very much about how revolutionary the document was—no pun intended. And philosophically speaking, the very idea that a group of guys would openly declare this was astounding—although not as surprising as some people like to think, seeing as many of the ideas of the document had been floated around Europe for the century prior.

But a lot of people today seem to miss the fundamental philosophical basis for this proclamation. If you go back and read that very famous line:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

You’ll notice something very odd. It says “they are endowed by their Creator” (emphasis added). Capitalized. As in, God. That Judeo-Christian “I Am” God. Alpha and Omega. Creator of heaven and Earth.

Whoa, hold on. What about separation of church and state (a phrase that never actually occurs in the Constitution, no matter how much some people claim it does)? What about tolerance and religious understanding? Hey wait a moment, what about atheists, Buddhists, Hindu, Aztec, or any of the other five sixths of the world?

Yeah, about that…

See, when you look at the philosophical underpinning of the American Revolution, it comes down to the radical idea that when God created humans, He endowed them with something more than just a body, but a soul with dignity. Because God created all humans like this, all humans should be treated equally by law. That they have inalienable rights. None of this “king is more important than peasant” bullshit.

It all flows from a Judeo-Christian understanding of the world. I can think of no other religion that has this basic philosophical notion. It is explicitly stated in Galations:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

There is, of course, quibbling to be done here on several accounts. Judiasm and Christianity have different views of sin and the rights of humans, for instance. Plus, there is that fun topic of slavery. And likely a host of other things.

Yet, as I consider what I know of the world’s religions (which is admittedly limited), I cannot think of another religion that has such a core tenet in its faith: that all men are endowed by a creator with certain inescapable rights, that the abrogation of such is sufficient to overthrow a government. It’s possible that it’s out there, and I would be interested to learn of other religions that have this ideal.

Even if there are, it’s still worth noting that the entire philosophical basis for the American Revolution (and subsequently the American governments) is very Christian in nature and ideal. It’s difficult to escape the religious underpinnings of our country, and it saddens me when people deny the obvious so vehemently. So I shall finish with the last of the Declaration, in which they once again cite a religious influence:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

And the torrents of liberty should flow like a mighty river, engulfing all in their wake.

I will continue to believe that neither science nor mathematics are inherently patriarchal or oppressive until someone can show me a digital computer created with matriarchal science.

I would then use that computer to calculate out the digits of pi, just to see at what point they diverged.

Apparently, change is good. One of the main points constantly made in the Obama campaign has been that he stood for “Change”. In this case, it is apparently a change in the political system, although I have my doubts that any politician that started in Chicago is really that different from other politicians. I also find myself skeptical that electing one person can somehow catalyze a governing system that’s worked for over 200 years to suddenly become something new. Or his change is more subtle, and won’t be as obvious to normal, everyday people. In either case, change is good.

Apparently, change is bad. The main complaint I hear leveled against Microsoft products whenever a new one comes out is “It’s different!” Office 2007, for instance, did away with the horrid convoluted drop-down menus that had cluttered up previous versions of Office (to the point where ninety percent of requested features already existed in the program). The first response? “It’s different! They changed it!” Windows Vista has also had similar charges leveled against it: “They changed the start menu!” Never mind the new interfaces being better (in general; some in Vista were pretty neutral), never mind the sudden discoverability of features (in a version of Word prior to 2007, take a 100-page document with headings, tables, and pictures and quickly change the margins, add a table of contents, add an index with index entries, reformat your body text and headings, and then create repeating headings on your tables. And then create a bibliography of sources—and halfway through, change your citation format from MLA to APA). Remember, change is bad.

Thesis: change is bad. However, chanting a slogan is no change from the past, even if such a slogan is, in fact, the word “Change”. Because we know it really won’t.

Suppose there are ten people. Person one has 1$ in free money, person two has 2$ in free money, and so on, so person ten has 10$ in free money.

Let us then assume there is soap (a good for which it can be assumed that everyone wants it), but there are only seven bars of it. All ten people want soap, but only seven will get it—so how do you determine which seven?

The way a market would determine—this example being both contrived and overly simple, admittedly—is to set the price of the soap such that only seven of the people can purchase it. For example, each bar of soap would be 4$. The bottom three people cannot buy it, even though they want it.

But now, suppose people want everyone to have soap. Some might claim it’s even a human right to have soap (though this right didn’t exist prior to there being soap)! The question then becomes: how do we guarantee that everyone has soap?

“Aha!” go some politicians. “Since the price of soap is 4$ a bar, all we need to do is give people money so they can afford it!” So they give everyone 3$, which means that everyone can afford it. But there are still only seven bars—so the price of soap goes up to 7$ to compensate. That person who had 6$ (and so was decidedly middle-class) was previously spending 66% of their income on soap. Now, they are spending 77%.

Of course, that 3$ given actually has to come from somewhere, so let’s take 3$ from each of the top three people, and give it to the bottom three. So now our money range is: 4,5,6,4,5,6,7,5,6,7. But we still only have seven bars of soap! The price would then probably become 5$—enough for eight people to afford it, which means that one gets short-shafted. Or it might be 5.50$, so some people have to sell off family heirlooms to get that extra half-dollar.

Alternatively, the politicians could simply regulate the price, and make soap cost one dollar. There are still only seven bars of soap, so that means that we have a shortage of soap, since only seven people (out of ten) have it—even though everyone can afford it!

The real problem here is that there are only seven bars of soap; if we had ten bars, there would be no issue whatsoever. The price would probably be 1$ (the price enforced by the government), so everyone could afford it, and there would be no shortages. The question then becomes: why are there only seven bars? Is it possible to produce more?

In the case of soap, yes, there is. However, that’s about the point where they find out that the government limits the number of bars of soap that can be made. So the government is trying to solve that which is already the cause of the government, and people still lose out.

How do you make sure everyone can afford soap? Get rid of government caps on the amount of soap that can be produced—then you produce enough soap so that everyone can have a bar (I didn’t discuss sharing for simplicity). Once you reach that point, you might either get a soap monopoly that still overcharges, or you might get a competitive marketplace that pushes the cost of soap down to 1$ a bar—but at least you have enough soap for everyone.

By the way, if you replace “soap” with “medical care”, and “bar” with “doctor”, you have a grossly over-simplified view of healthcare in the United States. (Yes, the situation is far more complicated than the AMA intentionally limiting and reducing the number of doctors—that’s why I said “grossly over-simplified”.) So maybe we ought to stop talking about health insurance, and start talking about why medical care is so expensive in the first place. Might it be because of a lack of supply?