TAS Writing Assignments
The American Scene is an awesome place and thanks to Ross and Reihan we’ve managed to put together some of the smartest minds on the internet (and, well, me). Unfortunately, precisely because of the awesomeness of the Scenesters, most of us have outside gigs (guilty!) that prevent us from writing here as often as we would like.
But there’s stuff from us that I’d love to read!
So I’ve decided to just hand out writing assignments. Watch out, they will be graded and will be on your permanent record.
Ross: A book. What would a truly pro-life, modern society look like? Pro-lifers rightly make the case against abortion but I think it would be very useful to also make the case for what a pro-life society would and should look like. I also happen to believe that many “pro-life” politicians delude themselves about what true pro-life policies would entail. It would not simply entail outlawing abortion.
It would entail a massive public/private network of support for women who have unwanted pregnancies. A truly pro-_life_ society would also have different policies and attitudes toward end of life care. Ross is the writer who’s been one of the most lucid in hinting about this stuff in various interviews and blog posts, but I think we need an in-depth look at what, looking over the abortion law hill, true pro-life policies would be. It seems to me that Ross is the best-placed to do this, and it would be a true service.
Reihan: You need to write more books, dude! One a year should be a minimum. Here’s the next one: tomorrow, the US Constitution is amended, making Reihan Salam Secretary of Education for life, with dictatorial power to run roughshod over Congress, the courts, unions, states, etc. What does education in the US in 2030 look like? You have 300 pages.
Peter: an article. What percentage of GDP would an ideal libertarian state consume?
This ideal libertarian (as opposed to minarchist or anarcho-capitalist) state would presumably fund a well-functioning justice, police and national defense system. Note that Switzerland, a country that is rightly admired by many libertarians, is a heavily militarized country, precisely to ensure its neutrality/non-interventionism. An ideal libertarian state would also presumably provide some sort of negative income tax as well as school vouchers and vouchers for (catastrophic) health insurance. While such programs would mostly involve cutting checks and thus comparatively small bureaucracies, they would still be not-insignificant wealth transfers from Peter to Paul.
Also note that while you can reasonably argue that an ideal libertarian state would experience high economic growth, these kind of expenditures would hold relatively constant as a percentage of GDP. As libertarians are fond of pointing out, we spend more on health today than in 1900 because we’re much richer.
So, what would all of those wealth transfer schemes take out of GDP? 20%? 30%? …40%?
Bonus question: how would the ideal libertarian state raise that money? Libertarians don’t like corporate income taxes for a bunch of very good reasons. They also don’t like the VAT because it desensitizes the citizenry to tax increases. They don’t like taxes on capital. They certainly don’t like import duties. So how would this ideal libertarian state raise this not-insubstantial revenue? Would it be mostly through personal income taxes? If so, might the higher brackets of personal income taxes have… gasp high marginal rates?
POULOS: A 3-5 page explanation of what, exactly, “postmodern conservatism” means. That my grandmother can understand. My grandmother is not dumb, and not poorly read, mind you. But she needs things explained clearly. So do I, in this regard, evidently.
I will probably come up with ideas for the other Scenesters (and Scenesters are welcome to come up with writing assignments for me!).
Go!
Sheesh! That’s a tough question. But a good one. Part of the issue is technical: I don’t know my way around the defense budget very well, but maybe this will give me the excuse I’ve been looking for to spend more time looking into it. Part of the issue is that in imagining an ideal libertarian state, you have to figure out not just what the state is but how it got there. To become America in 2010, the States first had to be America in 1950, and 1850, and 1800, and so on. That potentially complicates things somewhat.
— Peter Suderman · Sep 29, 02:27 PM · #
Similar to what libertarians want to spend, I’d be interested to know, from both sides of the aisle, what the ideal number of immigrants to the country would be, and what the make-up would look like.
All to often, I get the idea that the “enforcement first” crowd really doesn’t see a lot to be done after the enforcement happens. And that the “amnesty” crowd would really prefer something like a completely open border.
But seriously, how many folks would Mark Krikorian let in if we could actually seal off the border? And whom? Similarly question to the amnesty folks. Let’s say we grant amnesty to everyone here. Could they all stay? Should we let more in after that? Etc.
— Sam M · Sep 29, 03:31 PM · #
I feel like mandatory quotas would work a lot better than writing assignments. Any chance you could make that happen?
— Will · Sep 29, 03:49 PM · #
The prolife assignment sounds awfully, awfully pollyannish. The “pro-life” movement is not really interested in preserving life at all. Just because that’s their name, it doesn’t mean that’s what they are. They are interested in regulating sex, in particular women’s sex. (Anecdote: there is no effort to stop single men from buying Viagra, but they try to stop single women from buying The Pill.) They occaisionally branch out into end of life decisions and homosexuality (not making this up), but it’s really about the sexual paranoia of compulsive busybodies. You mistakenly assume these people have hearts and will tolerate social support for sexually “free” women. They will never do that.
— Ray Butlers · Sep 29, 03:57 PM · #
“… they try to stop single women from buying The Pill.”
Who does? Is there a movement afoot to make the Pill illegal? Wouldn’t surprise me. Just curious.
— Sam M · Sep 29, 04:17 PM · #
Hey, I don’t know if I’m part of your so-called amnesty crowd, but I’d favor letting in all undocumented immigrants and wannabe undocumented immigrants on one condition: No more government documents. No more citizenship papers. No more tax forms. No more social security papers. No more drivers licenses. No more plumbers licenses and no more sneering at Joe, the Unlicensed Plumber. No more birth certificates. Do away with all that and you’ll have truly open borders in every sense of the term, and a truly open society. (There was a time not so long ago when we got by without all of these things.)
— The Reticulator · Sep 29, 04:32 PM · #
What would a truly pro-life, modern society look like? Pro-lifers rightly make the case against abortion but I think it would be very useful to also make the case for what a pro-life society would and should look like.
Pro-life is a misnomer. Pro-lifers are no more pro life than so-called pro-choicers are pro choice. I’m anti-abortion, myself, not pro-life. The other side of the issue is pro-abortion, not pro-choice.
— The Reticulator · Sep 29, 04:41 PM · #
OTOH, I’m totally on board with Reticulator’s no-more-tree-cutting solution.
— Consumatopia · Sep 29, 04:57 PM · #
I’d like to see some kind of path to citizenship for immigrants already here, and, assuming we can restrict illegal immigration, I’d like to see legal immigration raised to about the level that illegal immigration is currently taking place.
To put it another way, I want to change the law, but I don’t want to change the actual migration trend. I would like looser laws enforced more tightly.
(I meant this post to go before my other one)
— Consumatopia · Sep 29, 04:58 PM · #
Peter:
Indeed. This is also why my efforts at writing science fiction were always stillborn.
That’s also why I left out whether the ideal libertarian state would be America or some island somewhere. I still think it’d be very interesting to have your thoughts on this.
— PEG · Sep 29, 05:34 PM · #
You could probably get one of those totalitarian libertarians to write about an ideal libertarian state. Totalitarians specialize in utopian states.
— The Reticulator · Sep 29, 06:20 PM · #
@SamM: “Is there a movement afoot to make the Pill illegal? Wouldn’t surprise me. Just curious.”
Colorado Prop 62 would have that effect http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_Fetal_Personhood,Amendment_62(2010)
— Boooo · Sep 29, 06:33 PM · #
@SamM: “Is there a movement afoot to make the Pill illegal? Wouldn’t surprise me. Just curious.”
Colorado Prop 62 would have that effect http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_Fetal_Personhood,Amendment_62(2010)
— Boooo · Sep 29, 06:33 PM · #
Colorado Prop 62 would have that effect
Uh, huh. And President Obama needs to show his birth certificate, otherwise we know he’s bent on turning our country into an Islamic, Atheistic Communist Worker’s Paradise, complete with Death Squads patrolling the streets to cleanse it from unworthy life.
— The Reticulator · Sep 29, 07:01 PM · #
Sam M.,
I like the idea of immigration pauses. Have 10 or 15 years of little immigration, then open some for a decade or so. An average of about 1 – 2% of the adult citizen population per decade sounds about right, which i believe would be somewhat lower than now. That should ensure longterm that the immigrant population doesn’t get too far above 5% and the population of immigrants plus first generation children doesn’t get too far above 10%. That should be OK for assimilation purposes. I prefer that the great majority of these percentages consist of legal immigrants.
For legal immigration, I would like to junk the family reunification policy and the lottery. Explicitly auction off a segment of our work visas/green cards every year. Cash on the barrel head, its the yankee way. Otherwise use intelligence, education, skills, and age as your basic filters (20 year olds pay more taxes in the long run).
In determining who gets to immigrate, give bonuses to population that fit the base American profile (controversial):
1. Christian, Jewish, or secularist/enlightenment liberalism worldview.
2. From a country with a strong democratic tradition.
3. From a country with a strong market economy tradition.
4. Native english speaker (in fact, I see no problem with basically excepting immigrants from Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, and NZ from immigration quotas, as long as they were born citizens of those places so we don’t have to worry about policing those countries’ own immigration policies)
4.5 Comfortable English speaker, even if not native.
5. From Western Europe, or failing that from the West (Europe and the settler states, roughly speaking)
6. racially white or Asian (this will be a bridge too far for most, for obvious reasons, but my view of human nature is that humans are naturally prone to quarrel along apparent racial lines—doubly so if if you have already existing racial tensions in the country; keeping american whites from forming a racial voting bloc like blacks and to a lesser extent hispanics should be a major policy goal)
7. women
8. singles
We could go on, like listing preferences for people from cultures that practice neolocalism, out-group monogamous romantic marriages, etc.
— Third Rails · Sep 29, 09:05 PM · #
Part of the issue is that in imagining an ideal libertarian state, you have to figure out not just what the state is but how it got there. To become America in 2010, the States first had to be America in 1950, and 1850, and 1800, and so on. That potentially complicates things somewhat.
— Replica Swiss Watch · Sep 30, 07:06 AM · #
Third Rails: Why don’t you go jump on one, you fucking bigot?
— Alley Akbar · Oct 2, 08:56 AM · #
“So how would this ideal libertarian state raise this not-insubstantial revenue?”
Libertarianism is more like a reflex than a an actuall political philospohy. The libertarian percieves govenment as being x big, or x intrusive and then has a negative emotional reaction. Translating the emotion engended by this reflex into percentages of GDP is as difficult as it would be to come up with an appropriate number of spiders in the world based on the creeped out feelings of an archnophobe.
— cw · Oct 3, 11:13 PM · #
No deadline? Your reward: I ACCEPT!
— James · Oct 4, 03:31 AM · #
Admiral Ackbar,
when I said intelligence should be one of the criteria for immigrants, it wasn’t personal. No offense meant.
— Third Rails · Oct 4, 06:01 PM · #