{N.B. Cross-posted at Spinning Clio–MAC}
Historian Ralph Luker points to a new book by Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks called Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism. According to this story:
When it comes to helping the needy, Brooks writes: “For too long, liberals have been claiming they are the most virtuous members of American society. Although they usually give less to charity, they have nevertheless lambasted conservatives for their callousness in the face of social injustice.”
…The book’s basic findings are that conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure.
Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone’s tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don’t provide them with enough money…
“These are not the sort of conclusions I ever thought I would reach when I started looking at charitable giving in graduate school, 10 years ago,” he writes in the introduction. “I have to admit I probably would have hated what I have to say in this book.”
Still, he says it forcefully, pointing out that liberals give less than conservatives in every way imaginable, including volunteer hours and donated blood.
…Harvey Mansfield, professor of government at Harvard University and 2004 recipient of the National Humanities Medal, does not know Brooks personally but has read the book.
“His main finding is quite startling, that the people who talk the most about caring actually fork over the least,” he said. “But beyond this finding I thought his analysis was extremely good, especially for an economist. He thinks very well about the reason for this and reflects about politics and morals in a way most economists do their best to avoid.”
Brooks seems very reluctant to embrace his findings. I would bet it’s because he isn’t too keen on the idea of the political hammer it could become for social (religious) conservatives. I also think he’ll get his wish of having other academics putting his findings through rigorous analysis! Finally, Ralph poses a good question: “do people on the left actually say: ‘I gave at the IRS.’?”
[Open full post]One could, I suppose, respond to Andrew Stuttaford’s prods about an intelligent designer by wondering aloud why this sort of thing isn’t an example of built-in wonder — a cold-blooded miracle, if you will:
Twice within a year the brown arole lizard has evolved changes in its body and behaviour to outwit a predator — confirming Charles Darwin’s theory on natural selection.
Changes in limb length were observed by biologists after they introduced a predator, the northern curly-tailed lizard, to islands off the Bahamas where the brown arole is found.
In the first six months the brown arole, Anolis sagrie, developed longer legs so that it could outrun its predator, Leiocephalus carinatus.
Over the second six-month period the arole changed its behaviour so that it spent far less time on the ground and longer on branches and plant stems.
After a year the surviving aroles had much shorter, stumpier legs that were more suited to clinging on to thin branches. “We showed that selection dramatically changed direction over a short time, within a single generation,” the researchers reported in the journal Science.
We live in a skeptical world, indeed, if lizards’ spontaneous ability to grow or shrink their legs is not evidence of design! Sadly, upon review of the online abstract and supporting materials (PDF), it appears that the ever-intriguing evolution/miracle debate needn’t be had. From the former:
We predicted that the introduction of a terrestrial predator would first select for longer-legged lizards, which are faster, but as the lizards shifted onto high twigs to avoid the predator, selection would reverse toward favoring the shorter-legged individuals better able to locomote there.
And from the latter:
For individual identification, each lizard received an island-unique pattern of colored marks by injecting elastomer (Northwest Marine Technologies) subdermally into two limb segments. In November 2003 and May 2004, we censused nearly exhaustively on each island to determine surviving individuals. …
Selection gradients could only be calculated on islands for which some, but not all, lizards died. Because survival of marked lizards was either 0 or 100% on some islands in some of the time periods, our sample size was reduced to nine islands in the first time period and five in the second time period; those five islands were used in the repeated measures analysis. On these islands, an average of 20.6 males was measured at the start of the experiment; survival
rates were 33% and 58% in the 0-6 and 6-12 month periods.
Interest may or may not compel me to pick up a copy of the magazine with the full article in it, but it appears that Stuttaford’s source was incorrect. The lizards’ limb length didn’t change; rather, lizards of different limb lengths survived at different rates. Gee. The only astonishing finding here, as far as I can see, is the tendency of scientists and the materialists who love them to trumpet their documentation of the obvious and treat it as if it is revolutionary new proof that God doesn’t exist.
As far as evolution goes, what I’d be interested to know is whether this single generation of lizards manages to convey its adaptations to the next generation. Note that the study addressed only males. If females, for a made-up example, have to lie dormant on the ground for a time in order to lay eggs, then the species might not survive at all. Or if long-legged gals are somehow better able to mate among the “high twigs,” then the evolutionary influences on leg length might cancel out.
What would be exponentially more difficult to cancel out, given human beings’ capacity for split-second adaptation, is the long-legged credulity of modern skeptics.
In the pages of the Providence Journal, Richmond, RI, resident Rod Driver encourages Rep. Jim Langevin to seal our fate and ensure war — perhaps with a nuclear component — with Iran (at least):
On that date the House voted on an amendment offered by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D.-Ore.) to prohibit the administration from initiating military operations against Iran, Syria, North Korea or other nations without authorization from Congress. This, of course, is exactly what the U.S. Constitution requires.
But Rhode Island’s representatives, Langevin and Patrick Kennedy, voted with Tom DeLay (R.-Texas) and almost all other Republicans to defeat the amendment. See 2005 Roll Call No. 285.
Unless this vote is reversed, President Bush is likely to regard it as authorization to attack Iran.
It’s stunning that some people — who don’t give any indication of being drooling morons — can be so un-forward-thinking in their advocacy. To ask a question that Driver doesn’t seem to have considered is to answer it: What is likely to be Iran’s reaction were the United States to tie its own hands when it comes to war?
I fear we’re heading into an unimaginably dangerous era.
So far, in addition to alluding to Dan Yorke’s thought about disbanding the RI GOP and remarking upon the post-election insight provided by the current RI GOP Chair Patricia Morgan, I’ve written about the need for the Rhode Island GOP to coalesce around a cohesive and cogent political philosophy and how work needs to be done both from the top down and from the bottom up. I ended this last by writing that “All politics may be local, but in Rhode Island, it’s personal.” It’s my opinion that therein lay the key to political success for the RI GOP.
I think that it is the process whereby the RIGOP chooses its candidates that needs to be refined. I believe that the party relied too much on “self-starters.” While a willingness to run is admirable, too often it seems that simple desire doesn’t translate into electability. I don’t mean that they haven’t organized their campaign or that they don’t have attractive ideas. No, what I’m getting at is a much more visceral problem. Too many of their fellow Rhode Islanders don’t know who the hell they are!
As I mentioned in the last post, money would go a long way in solving this problem. It can be an equalizer. It’s a quick solution and also absolutely necessary for running a campaign. Money can get you 30-35% of the electorate. Being known by the electorate is crucial, but “being known” is more than just name recognition. No, here in Rhode Island, where everybody knows everybody, a candidate has to make sure they are known–and I mean really known–in the community BEFORE they decide to run.
Success in Rhode Island politics is heavily dependent upon personal connections. A candidate will get votes for being a “good guy” regardless of his political disposition. (This doesn’t mean that only native Rhode Islanders need apply, but I think it is a tremendous advantage over an out-of-stater like myself and most of the rest of the Anchor Rising contibutors). The RI GOP needs to identify their own “Jimmy who lives up the street” to run against the Democrat’s “Tommy who lives down the street.” And these candidates need to already be integral members of their local community.
But what about the rank and file Republicans who may want to run some day but may not be so visible within their community right now? Read on.
Rhode Island GOP Chair Patricia Morgan sat down for an extensive and wide-ranging interview with Dan Yorke yesterday. I believe that the viewpoints of the current GOP Chair are worthy of conclusion in this discussion we are having about rebuilding the RIGOP. Call it serendipity, I guess.
First, here are my quick takes on some of the items that came out of the interview:
The headliner is that Steve Laffey was engaged in some dealmaking with regards to the Senate run and that he asked for either the URI Presidency or an Ambassadorship in lieu of taking on Chafee. He was denied both. Throughout the interview, Morgan repeatedly talked of healing the party, but in the end, Laffey proves to be a constant source of friction, even for her.
It would appear that a lot of the money/resources sent to the RI GOP from the National Party was spent in the primary for the GOTV (Get Out The Vote) effort, which essentially helped Senator Chafee. I understand that it was used to build a GOTV system (computers, lists, etc.) and that it would have been unwise to hold back until after the primary. I even recognize that using the primary as a “dry run” for the general election was a good idea.
However, I also can’t help but wonder if too much of those resources were used specifically for the GOTV effort on behalf of the Chafee campaign in the primary. How much of those resources were spent identifying independents and Democrats and then cajoling them to vote for the first–and probably only–time for a Republican? As a caller said, why couldn’t the RI GOP just have stayed out of the Senate ’06 primary and let the two candidates with the deepest pockets slug it out on their own? Then they could have still built the GOTV effort and focused on the local races, where the money was really needed.
I think that all can agree that the Governor absolutely needs to take charge of the party. I realize he has a state to manage, but if he wants to have a lasting legacy, he had better step up and create an environment whereby individuals with whom he shares a political philosophy can carry the banner in the future.
Finally, we can agree that there are a core set of principles (mostly fiscal/good government) around which the RI GOP needs to build. However, many of the most energized volunteers in both the national and local GOP are those who prioritize social issues over economic. They don’t engage in politics for the sake of helping themselves (ie, pocketbook issues), they do it so that their children will have a better future in a world that is a little less crass than it is now. Those resources need to be tapped and the only way to do that is to convince social and religious conservatives that their input is valuable and that their viewpoint will be respected.
In the extended entry (below) is a summarization of that conversation.
According to Benjamin N. Gedan in today’s Projo, Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Stephen Fortunato has ruled that the state Board of Elections must make copies of “ballots that [did] not register a vote during a recount” that can be examined by individuals not associated with the Board. The BOE objects to Judge Fortunato’s ruling and has delayed the recounts that were in progress while it seeks to have it overturned…
The Board of Elections yesterday asked the state Supreme Court to delay enforcement of a Superior Court decision mandating that hundreds of ballots be segregated and photocopied during machine recounts.The recounts yet to be finalized involve Allan Fung in Cranston, Joseph Larisa in East Providence as well as local races in East Greenwich, Portsmouth and Tiverton.
On Tuesday, Judge Stephen J. Fortunato Jr. ruled that ballots that do not register a vote during a recount be photocopied to potentially allow a manual examination to determine if the voter’s intent can be learned.
The Board of Elections strongly objected, saying the removal of ballots for photocopying would slow recounts, increase mistakes and facilitate a manual review process that would mirror the tortured presidential election recount in 2000.
My question is this: Is the BOE objecting to specific procedures that have been laid out by the Judge, or are they objecting to ever letting anyone from outside of the BOE see the ballots? If the objection is the more general one, then my second question is what good is it to keep a paper-audit trail if you are never going to let anyone from outside see it?
(Also, a minor digression: I wonder if Judge Fortunato had an opportunity to extol the virtues of Marxism to the judges from Russia who paid a visit to the Rhode Island courts earlier this week?) [Open full post]
According to Edward Fitzpatrick in today’s Projo, Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch continues his pattern of asserting that the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to him. We’ve had the Attorney General assert that it’s alright for him to take campaign contributions from a defendant that he is in negotiations with and to file incomplete campaign finance reports. Now, the AG is claiming his office should be exempt from Rhode Island’s Access to Public Record’s Act…
Facing a deadline in an access-to-public-records request, Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch yesterday released none of the evidence gathered as part of the Station nightclub investigation.[Open full post]
Instead, the attorney general’s office sent The Journal a letter saying it could not release certain information and records because of privacy concerns and because of orders issued previously by Superior Court Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr….
Earlier in the day, a Superior Court judge rejected a petition from the attorney general that sought guidance on what material must be made public. Lawyers met in chambers with Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, who concluded Lynch’s petition did not follow the procedure laid out in state law regarding access to public records, according to the attorney general’s office and a lawyer representing The Journal….
[Spokesman for the Attorney General Michael Healey] said, “Nothing about this case has been routine and basically what we were trying to convey to Judge Thompson in chambers this morning was: This is an exceptional case, so please consider giving us an exemption.”
Scott Mayerowitz of the Projo provides some specific numbers on the projected state budget deficits, for this year and next…
But state government is also spending more than was budgeted, particularly in the Department of Corrections and the Department of Children, Youth and Families. Additionally, a reduction in the state’s work force hasn’t been fully implemented.Remember, this is what Rhode Island is facing during a national economic boom. What’s going to happen to RI in the event of an economic downturn? [Open full post]
State lawmakers face not only the $104.8-million deficit this year, but an expected $254-million deficit for the fiscal year that begins on July 1.
Commenter “Andy” (no relation, as far as I know) tries to provide a signature example of how emergency room overuse contributes to rising healthcare costs…
If an uninsured person has no primary care provider, they are less likely to seek help if they have (to take a silly example) a chronic stomach ache. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, the stomach ache is the result of an ulcer. If the uninsured goes to a clinic early on, it seems to me that it is a relatively quick and inexpensive fix. If, however, the uninsured does nothing until the ulcer burns a hole in the stomach (or whatever it is that ulcers do – I am not a doctor) and then goes to the ER, then the uninsured will need surgery, which is a significant cost that can be recovered by driving up premiums/costs for the insured population.It is true that Andy’s example describes a situation, if frequent enough, that would drive up insurance rates for everyone. The longer people wait before seeking care, the more intensive care they are likely to need. More intensive care for more people means (assuming a traditional insurance model) that everyone’s insurance premiums go up.
Still, Andy’s example does not support the conjecture that the real cost of providing care at an ER is any greater than the real cost of providing care at a walk-in clinic or other type of facility. It�s the waiting that drives costs up, regardless of where care is finally delivered. However, for the rest of this posting at least, we can let this distinction pass, and focus on the issue that too many people waiting until they feel sick enough to go to a healthcare provider of last resort could be driving up healthcare costs for everyone.
Solving this problem takes us back to the paradox that universal care advocates generally want to avoid. Preventative care would catch some, maybe many, illnesses early, obviating the need for more expensive treatments. Yet there is no way, if we really want everyone to take advantage of preventative care programs, that it is rational to pay for them through an insurance-style system (full argument here). For preventative care, it makes much more sense to eliminate the middleman and pay doctors directly.
So what do we do?
The answer, in part, is to separate healthcare events into two categories, rare events (accidents, major illnesses) paid for through insurance, and routine events (regular check-up, initial examinations of aches and pains) paid for through direct reimbursement of doctors. Then, we give everyone the option of a health-savings-account plan for paying for the routine events. And then, knowing that regular check-ups and establishing a relationship with a general practitioner reduces the odds that someone will need intensive care, we sell health insurance at two different rates. Those who use some of their HSA money each year for a preventive care regimen get a slightly lower rate, because there are less likely to need major care in the future. Those who don’t pay a higher insurance rate for the same coverage.
Note that aspects of the over-regulation of health insurance, things like “community rating” systems, make this kind of common sense approach illegal in many places. It is deeply frustrating when government throws up regulatory barriers that prevent people from acting rationally and then says the only solution is a total-government takeover of the system that government mucked up in the first place. [Open full post]
(via John J. Miller of National Review) [Open full post]Cranston, RI — Mayor Laffey today ordered that Cranston flags be lowered to half-mast to honor the life of Nobel prize-winning economist, Milton Friedman, who passed away today at the age of ninety-four. The Mayor commented, “Milton Friedman’s belief that individual freedom should rule economic policy is inspirational to all of us who truly believe in the American Dream.” Mayor Laffey added that Friedman, “along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul, and of course, Ronald Reagan were all part of a team that brought us out of the global malaise of 1970’s and collectively — though in very different ways — contributed to the overwhelming victory of Democracy over Communism.”