The Best in American Idiocy: Neocon Quotes from AlterNet

An article dated yesterday from AlterNet discussesalarming trends in conservative American thinking.

The following made my short list of favorite quotes:

"Do you have a child back in England?" she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. "You'd better start," she says. "The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe."

"Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get."

Ward Connerly is the only black person in the National Review posse, a 67-year-old Louisiana-born businessman, best known for leading conservative campaigns against affirmative action for black people. Earlier, I heard him saying the Republican Party has been "too preoccupied with… not ticking off the blacks", and a cooing white couple wandered away smiling, "If he can say it, we can say it."

Dinesh D'Souza announced as we entered Mexican seas what he calls "D'Souza's law of immigration": " The quality of an immigrant is inversely proportional to the distance travelled to get to the United States."

In other words: Latinos suck.

"The civilised countries should invade all the oil-owning places in the Middle East and run them properly. We won't take the money ourselves, but we'll manage it so the money isn't going to terrorists."

"Couldn't they just do experiments on Muslim stem-cells?" I ask. " Hey - that's a great idea!"

If this is the direction conservative thought is going in this country, I might as well apply for my British visa today. So much for our country being a bastion of tolerance, acceptance, and moderation. I believe the Founding Fathers would be ashamed.

Nod to BoingBoing for alerting us all.

Rational Gay Union Policy

I'm not attempting to steal JurisNaturalist's thunder, but our recent discussion of the rationality of gay union is even more important to post because we're both fairly conservative Christian men.

JN sent me an e-mail this morning about a possible paper topic. A general outline of our discussion (he might contest it was one-sided pontificating) is below.

Assumptions:

1. Heterosexual unions (hereafter referred to as "marriages") are good for society. They promote procreation, family values, sexual and mental health, and general happiness.
2. Heterosexual couples choose to enter into marriage for these reasons, and according to individual sets of tastes and preferences (often, individuals are said to display a "vector" of preferences, tradition being one common example).
3. Marriage is a private contract and subject to analogs of common contract law. Divorces, alimony, custody and more have analogs in breech of contract, reparations, and property ownership, respectively (forgive the coldness).
4. Individuals enter into contracts only when it is beneficial to both parties.
5. It has not been widely shown by credible sources that homosexual unions (hereafter referred to as "gay unions") are not afforded the same quality of life improvements set forth in step 1.
   
6. It follows that all couples, regardless of sexuality, benefit from union (steps 1 and 4 with 5).
7. As long as individuals benefit, society's welfare increases.
8. It is in the best interest of governments to sanction unions for all couples.

Caveats:

1. Some members of society may receive disutility from the existence of gay unions. One might imagine an extreme conservative Christian to be extremely irked by his state's passage of such a law. In this case, social welfare decreases.
2. Some members of the gay community receive disutility from the ban or non-recognition of gay unions. One might imagine an extreme leftist progressive becoming irate over a state ban of gay marriage. In this case, social welfare also decreases.

We are left with no decision. Either banning or allowing gay union will decrease social welfare. We much measure the total welfare effect of each and compare three worlds:

1. Where gay union is allowed
2. Where gay union is banned
3. Where those receiving disutility from the permission of gay union do not exist

In the first two worlds, both containing the individual that receive disutility from permission, social welfare is not optimal. When that common factor is removed, in world 3, social welfare is optimized based on the above assumptions (thought process).

We see, then, that the market for gay union has a positive externality in that it increases total social welfare, but costs of offending idealogues are included in any individual policy decision. Following general theory of market failures and government intervention from any basic resource economics course, one sees that gay unions are underprovided. This is much in the same way that education is thought to be underprovided in Externalities in a Nutshell; however, in that article, higher than normal costs are borne by buyers but in gay unions, these costs are borne by other individuals.

It occurs to me that, by my last statement, this means the market for gay unions contains a negative externality, not a positive one. This means that the market over-provides the number of unions. However, I believe this discrepancy lies in whom one place initial rights (see Property Law or Google for some more information on "initial allocation". If anyone can find a hole in my logic, please leave a comment. If a negative externality is actually the case, the following analysis is perfectly incorrect.

The common solution, then, is that government intervene to create an environment conducive to more gay unions, either silencing or removal of the offended, or in some other way encouraging couples to enter this contract. If this means subsidizing the union, then I see potential laws being similar to current marriage laws, including tax breaks for the union, for raising children, etc.

It seems more likely, however, that the first step be allowing the unions to take place at all.

The Conservative Mind

Quite an interesting article today from the WSJ (click on title to view article for seven days). From the article:

"Kirk identified six elements that make the conservative mind: belief in a transcendent order that "rules society as well as conscience"; attachment to "the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence" as against the routinizing and leveling forces of modern society; the assumption that "civilized society requires orders and classes"; the conviction that "freedom and property are closely linked"; faith in custom and convention and consequently a "distrust of the 'sophisters, calculators, and economists' who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs"; and a wariness of innovation coupled with a recognition that "prudent innovation is the means of social preservation." The leading role in this mix that Kirk attaches to religion marks him as a social conservative; his insistence that religion provides the indispensable ground for individual liberty marks him as a modern conservative."

1. Belief in transcendent order to society and conscience. Check!
2. Civilized society requires order and classes. Do I herald elitism? Check!
3. Freedom and property are closely linked. Unsold.
4. Faith in custom and convention. Heck no. But its odd that this is included, because most economists are conservative, yet according to this are inherently counter-custom. Odd.
5. Wariness in innovation. Double heck no.
   
6. Try as I might, I can only count five.

According to this, I'm only 40% conservative. Far more than I'd have guessed two years ago. But look at the last sentence. When taking that into account, I can check item 4 if taken as a belief in natural order, structure beyond my own comprehension or design. Once in a while, I may be wary of innovation, if it affect my bottom line, but generally I'm in favor of it (search posts for "change" or "growth"). And the freedom and property thing... I dunno. I can be free without property (cue Buddhist mantra).

Update: And listening to Janis Joplin on 100.7 this morning, I'm reminded that "freedom is just another word for 'nothing left to lose.'"

So I'm only 40%-50% conservative. Prime range for accurately calling myself a conservative Democrat!