'Personhood' Now Amendment 48

The measure to define a fertilized egg as a person has become Amendment 48 for Colorado's 2008 ballot (as I mentioned at my other blog). As I've argued, the measure gives Democrats an advantage this November. As Electa Draper reports for The Denver Post, the Democrats agree.

[I]n this political cycle, even candidates who oppose abortion are not interested in identifying with highly controversial social issues, said Denver political analyst Floyd Ciruli. ... Conversely, Ciruli said, if a conservative candidate doesn't endorse it, he or she could alienate the base.

In the U.S. Senate race, Bob Schaffer's campaign spokesman, Dick Wadhams, who also leads the Colorado Republican Party, did not return calls for comment.

Democrat Mark Udall's campaign spokeswoman, Taylor West, said, "Mark's been very clear that he does not support this. Schaffer has been refusing to take a position. He's trying to hide how far out he is on this issue." ...

Musgrave spokesman Joe Bretell would not comment other than to say Musgrave signed the petition to place the measure on the ballot.

Musgrave's Democratic rival in the 4th Congressional District, Betsy Markey, opposes the amendment.

"It's an extreme measure," Markey spokeswoman Anne Caprara said. "It's an extreme right-wing tactic. This will shine a light on Marilyn Musgrave."

I doubt that Musgrave, an incumbent in a conservative district, is vulnerable, but Schaffer definitely is. Amendment 48 gives women a strong incentive to show up at the polls -- and vote for Udall while they're at it.

It is indeed telling that Musgrave signed the measure. If Markey is smart, she'll praise gun owners, oppose tax hikes, and spend every campaign cent she has mailing women and independents in the district linking Musgrave to Amendment 48. I don't know anything about Markey, but if she's even reasonably competent and centrist this issue gives her a chance to win.

I'll be interested to see how Schaffer tries to evade the issue. Good luck on that.

Maybe Colorado Republicans will eventually figure out that most Westerners don't want to live in a theocracy.

Cool Stuff

I won't often review products, but I'll make an exception and mention a few here.

Theracane: This is not a substitute for a professional massage, but it's as close as I've found. The Theracane is basically a curved stick with knobs on it. I've found it especially useful for massaging back muscles that I cannot reach by hand. An even cheaper tool is a sock tied with two tennis balls in it; I place this on the floor and roll by back on it, with my spine between the balls. (Note: I have no medical expertise; please consult a health professional and don't sue me.)

Wranglers: I've always been a Levis man. But I got tired of my jeans wearing out so fast. So I tried Wranglers, and, not only do they seem to last better, they fit better, too. They're not as tight where tightness is uncomfortable. And they're a bit less expensive, too.

Chocolate Syrup: I got tired of looking for hot fudge sauce, because practically all of it contains hydrogenated fat. So I made my own, using about equal parts of cocoa powder, water, and sugar, plus a little bit of butter (I used around a tablespoon for a half-cup of cocoa). Cook on medium heat till it boils for a few minutes. This made an excellent sauce for ice cream and chocolate milk. However, it was a bit sweet for me, so next time I'm going to use half the sugar.

Perry Mason: The first season of Perry Mason is out on DVD, and it's great. It's a bit unrealistic for the lawyer to keep representing people who get falsely accused of murder, but each episode stands on its own. Mason is a clever guy, and he seeks the truth. (I forgot to mention this show in my list of television favorites.)

Heroes Live in Shadow of War

The following article originally appeared in the May 26, 2008, edition of Grand Junction Free Press.

May 26, 2008

Heroes live in the shadows of war

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

Amanda is a vivacious, intelligent woman your elder author met last year in Rangely. She helped coordinate a law enforcement class at Colorado Northwestern Community College. She surprised me at lunch when she said, "There are not any heroes." Yes, Amanda, there are heroes. They surround us like shadows. Recently we talked with some of them.

Bob Magos was a WWII submariner. On December 5, 1941, he was hitchhiking the seven miles to school in Hamilton, Ohio. Nobody stopped, so he crossed the street to try his luck. He ended up in Florida.

Bob says he was "going down through Kentucky on December 7." He continued, "I stayed in one of those fifty-cent bed and breakfasts. I walked down on the highway and stuck my thumb out and an Army Intelligence officer stopped in a black '38 Ford and said, 'Do you boys need a ride?' And I said, 'Yeah we're going to Florida.' He said to hop in.

"He said, 'Did you hear about Pearl Harbor?' And I said, 'Where in the hell is Pearl Harbor? How would I hear about it in Kentucky?' He told me where it was and what the Japanese did and he kept playing with the radio."

As they traveled through rural Kentucky they came to a country store where people had gathered to listen to the radio for news. Within a few days Bob had returned home to enlist in the Navy.

Mort Perry, a retired Mesa State professor who worked to expose students to divergent political views, is another WWII veteran.

Mort is Jewish from his mother's side. In his youth he saw the news casts of Adolph Hitler ranting and raving. Mort recalls that, when he was 16, his father said, "We are going to have war sooner or later."

At 20, Mort entered the Army Air Corps. Mort ended up in North Africa in Morocco and Algeria. He flew as the gunner of a B-17. While traveling with British troops in a lorry Mort's group was attacked by a Stuka dive-bomber. Mort was seriously wounded while pulling his fellows from harm's way.

"I was taken to Casa Blanca and treated by a Colonel Knots, a world's leading kidney expert who saved my kidney for 20 years before it had to be removed."

Mort received the Purple Heart.

In the summer of 2007 your elder author was walking with a group to the parking lot after a tennis doubles match. The license plate on Larry Beidleman's car stated that he too was a Purple Heart recipient.

We asked Larry if he received the Purple Heart in Viet Nam. He replied, "Oh no, I received that one in the Korean War. But I was also in WWII."

Larry, now 85, said, "On October 1942 I enlisted in the U.S. Army. I landed on Normandy on D + 18," or Debarkation Day plus eighteen days. Larry fought through the hedgerows to join the Battle Of The Bulge, though he points out that he was not at Bastogne, a town where American troops refused to surrender to the Germans. After V-E day (Victory in Europe) Larry spent three years in Austria before returning to the United States.

Larry also fought in Korea, the "forgotten war." Larry arrived at Incheon during the later part of the war, when UN forces had trench lines on the 38th Parallel.

He recalls, "The military had established MLR (Major Lines of Resistance). The trenches and bunkers and conduct of the war was reminiscent of WWI. Our action at the time was small patrols."

Larry talked briefly about the events leading to his Purple Heart. Ethiopia sent a small force of soldiers composed of Haile Selassie bodyguards. "I was Liaison Officer assigned to the Ethiopians, who were particularly good at night fighting." Larry accompanied the Ethiopians through the UN lines. "On returning back from patrol we were discovered by the North Koreans/Chinese and they fired some artillery where I was slightly wounded in the knee."

Otto Armstrong (next up in our family line) never talks much about the war. The picture album he brought back with him sometimes provokes comments. Otto and Tommy Etcheverry, school friends, joined the military together here in Grand Junction.

Otto was one of the first occupation troops at Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. The pictures show the devastation of the bombed out cities. "We just marched up the street where the atomic bombs had gone off. The bombs had caused quiet a bit of damage but hell, they had it cleaned up overnight."

Theo Eversol, grandfather on the other side, told plenty of stories about the Pacific Rim. He's gone now, as are so many of the veterans from that terrible war.

Amanda, we still have heroes, though they may not think of themselves as heroes or talk much about it. Search for them in the shadows.

Martian Climate Cycles

Omigosh! Mars has suffered both Global Warming and Global Cooling! Quick -- pass another subsidy! Charles Q. Choi reports for Fox:

Peering beneath the ice at the north pole of Mars has now revealed the red planet may be surprisingly colder than was thought.

Any liquid water that might exist on Mars therefore might be hidden deeper than once suspected, closer to that world's warm heart, researchers suggested. ...

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter... scans revealed the polar cap has up to four layers of ice rich in sand and dust, each separated by clearer sheets of nearly pure ice. Each dirty and clean layer is some 1,000 feet thick (300 meters).

These dirty and clean layers were created by ages of intense dust storms followed by icy eras. This five-million-year-long cycle was likely driven by wobbles in Mars' tilt and fluctuations in the shape of its orbit around the sun.

The more sunlight the red planet saw because of these changes, the more the polar icecaps retreated and the more dust storms Mars saw.

You mean something other than human production influences climate? You mean, like, maybe the sun?

Whether and to what extent human emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases influence Earth's climate, liberty remains the best policy.

Liberty also offers people the greatest promise of mining that Martian ice and generally setting up camp on the planet. There's a whole solar system filled with natural resources just waiting for people to exploit them.

Tvert Spins Parties at Governor's Mansion

So Bill Ritter -- that's Governor Ritter, former District Attorney of Denver -- sanctioned crazy parties at the governor's mansion. At first I wondered why this is news. (God knows I've done worse, back when I was young and dumb.) I wish Ritter would throw more parties and sign fewer bills. But leave it to Mason Tvert of SAFER, a group advocating legal marijuana, to spin the story into something interesting.

As The Denver Post reports:

Marijuana supporters want to ask the governor why his young son can have a drinking party inside the governor's mansion while other citizens can't smoke marijuana inside their own homes without the fear of prosecution.

Mason Tvert, who spearheaded the largely symbolic victory in 2005 when Denver voters legalized possession of one ounce or less of marijuana, held a press conference [May 16] outside the mansion at East Eighth Avenue and Logan Street, the same day it was reported in the Denver Post that August Ritter III has been hosting keg parties in the mansion.

Tvert asks a fair question. Yet Ritter, who has admitted to smoking marijuana, has discussed lighter sentences for drug users but never has wavered from his prohibitionist stance.

Go, Iron Man

I admit I was pleased that Iron Man squashed Speed Racer. While I have not seen the latter movie, its previews are boring, and I loved Iron Man.

I wasn't going to watch Iron Man, either, but it got good reviews, and one reviewer said it's pro-America. It is. It has three main things going for it.

1. The film's message is that defending America is good, while doing business with terrorists is bad. Iron Man unapologetically blasts terrorists.

2. Iron Man is self-made, and he's proud of who he is. Unlike Spider Man, Iron Man creates his super powers. Unlike Batman, he does so not because of childhood psychosis, but because he needs the powers to kick ass and save his life and legacy. I never thought Robert Downey, Jr., was super-hero material, but I was wrong. He is brilliant as the haughty yet charming man behind the mask. It's nice to see a super-hero have fun.

3. Iron Man is pro-science. Unlike Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark does not just buy himself a bunch of fancy gear; he engineers and builds it himself.

The movie does have a couple of problems. First, the idea that a power generator keeps shrapnel out of his heart is silly -- though I did love the idea of the miniature power generator. Second, the movie seems like it's split into two parts. In the first part, Iron Man fights terrorists in the Middle East; in the second, he fights a U.S. traitor (you don't need three guesses who, given the poster art). The stories are tied together but not very tightly.

Still, this is a good movie, and the fact that American audiences are rewarding it says something good about the audiences.

Lakewood Drops Food Tax

"Starting next year, Lakewood residents will no longer have to pay a sales tax on groceries," Tille Fong reports for the May 12 Rocky Mountain News. City Council voted to repeal the tax. This follows a 2003 citizens' drive to repeal the tax in Littleton.

Fong adds, "The $4 million that the city receives annually from the grocery tax will be offset by the $3 million that will be raised by revoking a 1 percent sales tax waiver granted to Colorado Mills and Wal-Mart."

I've never been a big fan of discriminatory taxes that unfairly advantage new, big businesses. If lower taxes help business, then the sales tax should be reduced for all businesses.

Recently I discussed taxes with a friend, and the conclusion was that it's bad to tax productivity, because taxing it discourages it. It's bad to keep taxing the same thing with the same owner over and over, as happens with property and cars. The result is that you never really own your property; you must in effect pay rent to the government to keep possession. It's bad to tax investment.

Sales tax on consumer goods is least-bad of the options listed, but that creates the problem of taxing the poor for food, housing, medicine, etc. If government exempts certain things, like food, then that applies to expensive steaks and seafood -- hardly essentials. Whether government exempts "necessary" items or "poor" people, that generates a bureaucracy to decide what's exempt and to enforce the rules.

A good rule, though, is that the fewer the types of taxes, the better. The lower those taxes, the better.

'Personhood' Amendment Favors Dems

Colorado's Democrats must be smiling. The so-called "personhood" amendment -- which absurdly defines a fertilized egg as a person -- seems headed for the ballot, as Electa Draper reports for The Denver Post.

Yes, the measure will bring out evangelicals and right-wing Catholics to the polls. But it will also motivate the left and women's groups to vote against it. And it will convince most centrist and unaffiliated voters that Republicans are right-wing kooks, once Republicans start associating themselves with the measure.

How can Republicans avoid it? Bob Schaffer has claimed that abortion is "always wrong." He's already been pressured by the right for not being hard-core enough against abortion. He cannot persuasively dodge the issue as a state matter (when he's running for U.S. Senate), because, as WorldNetDaily puts it, the measure may be the "silver bullet to kill Roe v. Wade." It is a federal as well as a state issue.

Republicans have given themselves a choice of platforms for this Fall: hypocrites or women-killers. For one of the results of the measure, should it be passed and legally enforced, would be to endanger the lives of women. Kristi Burton, leader of the drive, said the measure would force us to "balance the interests" of a fertilized egg with those of the mother, Draper reports. What that means, in practice, is that some women will die, because doctors could be prosecuted for performing abortions in boarderline cases.

The brilliance of Colorado Republicans continually amazes me.

In a way, it's nice that the evangelicals have placed their cards on the table, bypassing the careful game of incrementalism. The logical conclusion of the religious right's stance on abortion is that a fertilized egg is a person (because infused by God with a soul) and must be legally protected. And that is the debate that we will have for the next six months (assuming there's nothing squirrelly with the signatures).

Thankfully, the measure is doomed (assuming a vigorous opposition campaign). No reasonable person regards a fertilized egg as a person, with all the rights of you and me. A fertilized egg is a potential person, and there is a big difference. I suspect that the measure will go down to defeat with at least 60 percent against. So it's a losing issue for Republicans either way. Meanwhile, the big-money Democratic donors will be more than happy to hammer any Republican (in an up-for-grabs seat) foolish enough to endorse the measure. Just how large of an advantage do Republicans (who retain the registered-voter edge) want to give Democrats in this state?

If Republicans had a lick of sense -- and I'm convinced that they don't -- they would come out in droves against the measure. I predict that they won't, which indicates only the extent that the religious right has them politician-whipped.

Watch 'My Name is Earl'

I'll pause from politics to review some television shows I've been watching on video.

My Name is Earl is about a criminal loser who decides to turn his life around. He makes a list of all the bad things he's done, then makes up for them, one by one. The show uses karma as a device, but it's not central to the theme. While karma in a supernatural sense does not exist, it is true, as Earl learns, that if you do good things, good things will happen to you, while if you do bad things, bad things will happen to you. The cast is superb, particularly Jason Lee as Earl. Each half-hour episode feels, not long, but complete. The stories are clever and hilarious; I don't know how the writers come up with the situations that Earl finds himself in. I've watched the first season so far and look forward to more.

I've tried several sci-fi series, but they've disappointed with few exceptions. I enjoy Star Trek, and I adore Firefly. Other than that, the only series I've been able to watch is Crusade, which has a Trekian feel. After an alien race attacks Earth and unleashes a deadly virus, the ship Excalibur must search the galaxy for a cure. The crew run into all sorts of aliens and troubles along the way. After several episodes, I've come to enjoy the characters and the writing, which deals with topics from romance to death cults. Be warned: the computer graphics are horrible for the first few episodes, but then they improve.

Rome is a feast. It follows the rise of Julius Caesar and other key figures, and it creates rich characters out of two soldiers barely known to history. The acting is quite good (though Cato comes off looking like a nutty old crank). HBO substitutes steamy sex scenes for expensive battles.

I guess that, because I'm watching sci-fi and manly Romans, I can admit to watching Gilmore Girls. I wasn't sure I'd be able to stand the series because of the ridiculously dense jokes and the grating side-characters. They hired that whiny lady from the "Save the Children" infomercials, whose voice I can barely tolerate. Nevertheless, the central relationship between the teen and her young mom develops nicely, and the grandparents are delightfully portrayed. The girl reads constantly, studies hard, and sets ambitious goals, and the series is for that reason inspiring.

Politics Imposes External Harms

The following article originally was published on May 12, 2008, by Grand Junction's Free Press.

Politics imposes external harms

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

In our last article, we pointed out that a tax-funded recreation center unfairly charges people who don't use the center and pushes out competing voluntary services. We argued that, if a recreation center is a good idea, "then it will be profitable on a free market. Those who want the center can... pay for it all by charging their customers (or collecting voluntary donations)."

Keith J. Pritchard sent a reply to FreeColorado.com, your younger author's web page. Pritchard argued that we're "missing an important economic concept -- beneficial externalities." We supposedly aren't "considering the marginal social benefit. For example, it could provide a nurturing environment for youth who might otherwise be on the street experimenting with drugs. If the center kept these youth out of trouble with the law and out of prison (paid for by taxpayers), that is a beneficial externality."

How silly of us: we didn't realize that the only two choices in life are going to a tax-funded recreation center or doing drugs and going to prison.

There is a little problem with Pritchard's case: every recreational activity offers an external benefit. Children who attend Boy or Girl Scouts are not "on the street experimenting with drugs." Other alternatives include going to the movies, reading a book, joining 4H, dancing, martial arts, skiing, going out to eat, cooking a family meal at home, playing games, and so on. All the money forcibly redirected to the recreation center is not available for all the other goods and services that people otherwise would buy.

What is an externality? It is any benefit not funded by the beneficiaries or any harm not funded by the party causing the harm. The problem is that "beneficial externalities" are ubiquitous. If the government should subsidize every activity that offers external benefits, then the government should subsidize nearly everything.

Pritchard has no way of knowing that the external benefits of a recreation center exceed the external benefits of the recreational activities that would otherwise be funded. Thus, by his logic, government should also subsidize theaters, dance studios, restaurants, board games, camping stores, and so on. Not a single provider of recreation should be excluded from the tax trough.

But why stop with recreation? Children need good shoes so that they can walk to and around school. They need cool shoes so that they can have good self-esteem. Obviously, then, the government should subsidize all shoe makers and stores. Children need food so they can develop their minds and get good jobs, so perhaps Fruita should open up a tax-funded grocery store. Books provide all sorts of positive externalities, so clearly government needs to run the book stores.

But let's not stop with businesses! Attractive people walking down the street offer an external benefit to those who appreciate their appearance. What's needed, by Pritchard's logic, is a subsidy for good-looking people and a tax on ugly people. We also need an Attractiveness Index, so that the best looking people get the most tax subsidies while the ugliest pay the highest fees. (Your authors could be in trouble.)

If the government is going to be in the business of subsidizing positive externalities and taxing negative ones, the government should control not only the entire economy but all of our personal choices. Pritchard cannot point to a single human activity for which we cannot show some externality.

Pritchard is "missing an important economic concept" himself, the concept of Public Choice, the branch of economics popularized by Gordon Tullock and James Buchanan (who won a Nobel for his efforts). One of the many interesting implications of Public Choice economics is that politics is a gigantic source of negative externalities.

In the name of "fixing" externalities, politicians impose high taxes, slow the rate of economic growth, hamper the flow of economic information by distorting market prices, create tax-sucking bureaucracies and commissions, impose protectionism, waste funds, and subject our paychecks to special-interest warfare.

The alternative is a free market in which government's only role is to protect individual rights by preventing violence and preserving private property. With rights consistently protected, people are best able to apply their reason to the problems of living and enter into voluntary, mutually-beneficial exchanges.

A system of individual rights is best able to handle externalities. Negative externalities such as pollution of specific properties are resolved through the courts. Social negative externalities, such as rudeness and body odor, are solved by such measures as social pressure, the property holder's right of invitation, and soap commercials. Positive externalities are captured by private businesses and philanthropies.

Those who invoke the theory of externalities to rationalize tax subsidies for their pet projects in fact sanction the greatest contributer of negative externalities, the political process of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The system of individual rights provides justice as well as the best framework for solving economic problems.

Linn is a local political activist and firearms instructor with the Grand Valley Training Club. His son Ari edits FreeColorado.com from the Denver area.

'Live and Let Live' Barry Maggert Killed in Plane Crash

Yesterday Colorado suffered a sad loss. I had seen the photos on the newspapers' web pages, but I didn't put it together until, by coincidence, I called Sheriff Bill Masters today, and he told me that the victim of yesterday's plane crash near Boulder was Barry Maggert, long an activist with the Libertarian Party, with which I was once involved. Masters heard the news from Richard Lamping, with whom Masters and I have worked and who helped organized Maggert's 1998 campaign for U.S. Congress.

Lamping told me about how he got Maggert to open his interviews with a line attributed to Benjamin Franklin, "Half the truth is a great lie," in criticism of his opponent. Once Maggert and I had a long and pleasant conversation about his history in politics.

As the Rocky Mountain News reports, Maggert was on his way to see his son graduate today from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The Rocky adds: "Maggert was a columnist for the Carbondale Valley Journal and owned Maggert & Associates Engineers in the town. The Valley Journal says Maggert is a former chairman of the Garfield County Libertarian Party and wrote a column that expressed those views entitled 'Live and Let Live'."

What did Barry Maggert believe? I managed to pull up an article from the October, 1998, Colorado Liberty that quotes Maggert. Bill Winter reports:

Colorado Libertarians took to the trees to conduct a 'pick-in' to protest restrictive INS policies that have kept immigrant farm workers out of the fruit orchards in that state and threatened to leave apples, pears, and peaches rotting on the trees. On August 29, two dozen LP members spent the day picking pears in the orchards of Talbott Farms in Palisade, Colorado. ...

Included in the Libertarian 'pickin' crew were Sandra Johnson, the party's candidate for governor; Dan Cochran, candidate for Lieutenant Governor; and Barry Maggert, candidate for U.S. Congress (District 3).

During the day, Libertarians picked an estimated $5,600 worth of fruit, and donated the proceeds of their labor to migrant farm workers. ...

"The INS is displacing needed labor and hurting people who are trying to feed their families," agreed Maggert.

"These Mexicans are trying to improve their lives -- something we as Americans should never oppose. This is not the American
way.

"It's uncommon to see a government agency meet its objectives as well as the INS has this year," he said. "But the INS's success means that fruit will rot on the trees, that workers will be prevented from the free and voluntary exchange of their labor, and that all of us, rich and poor alike, will pay higher prices for food this fall."

And Maggert's old political web site includes additional views:

Campaign Philosophy

Every individual should be free to pursue his or her own goals and aspirations, both personal and economic, limited only by a respect for the equal rights of everyone else to do the same.

The only legitimate purpose of government is to deal with those who refuse to respect the rights of others.

Goal

To work toward a freer America by eliminating laws, regulations, and government programs that restrict or handicap the individual rights to pursue life, liberty and happiness, as the individual sees fit so long as it does not interfere with the rights of others. ...

Education:

We have a system in this country where only the wealthy can afford to get the education of their choice for their children. Even though all Americans pay taxes for childrens' education, only a select few have enough money left over to send their kids to a free-market school.

By returning the tax dollars paid by families back to them, all Americans can pick the school of their choice. This causes competition amongst schools to create better curriculums, teaching methods, and learning environments.

Returning parental control of a child's education instead of the government deciding what a child should and shouldn't be taught is of the utmost importance.

Social Security:

This looming financial disaster must be our top domestic priority before it bankrupts our nation. Social Security taxes should be halted. Americans could then start to pay into their own private retirement programs.

Government assets should by sold to provide for annuities for all people that have paid into the current system so that their promised benefits are not taken away.

Environment:

I trust private entities, such as The Nature Conservancy, to take care of our precious forests, deserts, seashores, and wilderness areas more than I trust the government to take care of them. Politicians get contributions from oil, timber, and mining companies as payment for opening up these lands for corporate use. If a private conservator is sold these lands, they belong to them only, to be used as they see fit. As private organizations free enterprise will keep these organizations in check.

Abortion:

I am personally morally opposed to the idea of abortion as a means of contraception, but I am equally opposed to using government to force my morality onto another person. All individuals have the right to do with their own bodies as they choose. ...

War on Drugs:

I want to see dramatically reduced crime rates in this country. I want to see drug pushers removed from our schools. I want to see less gang violence. I want to see less organized crime. And lastly, I want to see less crowded prisons so that we may put away violent criminals for good. Why would anyone want to keep our current system of drug laws alive?

It's time to end the insane war on drugs. The drug problem in America centers around the business of buying and selling of illegal substances, not the individual's use of drugs. Since hallucinogenic drugs were banned in this country, crime has skyrocketed. Drugs in schools have risen dramatically. The current problems we endure with gang violence and drive-by shootings have not been seen since the days of Prohibition.

One only needs to look back at what the prohibition of alcohol did for organized crime and violence in this country. When Prohibition ended, it ended the criminal careers of men like Al Capone and the days of drive-by shootings and Tommyguns.

Apparently Maggert was interested in Ron Paul's presidential run.

I didn't know Maggert well, and I haven't seen him for years, but what struck me most about him was his down-to-earth good humor. He was a lot of fun to talk with, and he seemed to really enjoy himself. He was serious about promoting human liberty. Even though I eventually left his party, I always appreciated Maggert's grounded approach. I join with other Colorado advocates of liberty in offering Maggert's family deepest sympathies during this painful time.

Maggert will be missed. We will remember him and his life's message, "Live and Let Live."

Colorado's Spaced Invaders

Oh, boy:

Never-before-seen video of "space aliens" - footage that will be revealed to the public in a few weeks - convinced Jeff Peckman that extraterrestrials exist. ...

If Peckman has his way, Denver voters will have a chance to say whether they, too, believe that there is intelligent life outside Earth and whether the city should prepare for close encounters of the alien kind.

Peckman is sponsoring an initiative that would require the city to create an ET Commission...

Well, why not? After all, plenty of people in Colorado believe that gun-owner restrictions cut crime, that socialized medicine improves health, and that higher taxes help the economy. There is at least some possibility that extraterrestrials exist.

That said, the "ET Commission" is not a joke that will remain funny for long.

Drunkard DA?

Lest we need a reminder that angels do not administer the laws, the Gazette reports (via the Rocky Mountain News): "Fourth Judicial District Attorney John Newsome has been caught on tape drinking and then driving his county-owned vehicle, KOAA reported Tuesday. ...In all, Newsome was shown drinking about 134 ounces of beer in five hours." True, the drinking didn't start till after 4:00 p.m., and whether he was legally impaired is not a matter for me to decide. I wouldn't have been able to drink 70 ounces of beer in "less than two hours" and then drive responsibly. KOAA's video of the story is fairly damning. I do think that District Attorneys driving tax-funded vehicles should be held to a high standard. I assume that Newsome's office handles cases of impaired driving.

Surprise, Surprise: Bill 217 Captured by Special-Interests

As Brian Schwartz has reported, State Senator Bob Hagedorn said that "to load up mandates" into his bill 217 would be its "kiss of death." Unfortunately, while the bill deserves death, bad legislation has a way of rising from the dead to stalk citizens.

Schwartz points to a May 2 article from the Denver Business Journal by Bob Mook that reports the following:

[Representative Anne] McGihon acknowledged the House is much different than the Senate bill, but it now is supported by a wide range of advocacy groups -- some of which originally opposed it. ...[T]the bill was severely changed in the House with provisions that removed a coverage cap of $250,000 from the plans. Another House provision would direct the panel to consider plans that cover hospice and palliative care...

I'm not sure where the bill stands now. But even if the bill is stripped of its House provisions, the fact that the bill was immediately subjected to special-interest lobbying indicates where this legislation is headed, if it becomes law. Not only will the new commission it creates be subjected to continual lobbying, but, if the legislature enacts the commission's recommendations, the legislature too will be subjected to such pressure, so long as the legislation remains in force. It is the inevitable result of politician-controlled medicine.

Gorman Skewers Bogus Families USA Health Claims

Families USA is a "non-partisan" outfit that is a partisan fighting for government-controlled health care. It advocates policies that would harm families and that run contrary to the USA's heritage of liberty. The organization is built on deception and it uses bogus claims to advance its agenda.

Back in February, Linda Gorman and I pointed out that a Families USA "study" regarding the magnitude of costs shifted from the uninsured to the insured is deeply flawed. We wrote:

Those who advocate an individual mandate throw up all kinds of numbers to support the wild claims that the proposal would save everyone money. A Jan. 8 article from The Denver Post claims that "Coloradans who have insurance spend an extra $950 each year to cover the costs of those who show up at the hospital without insurance."

The article attributes the number to state Rep. Anne McGihon, who said that the figure comes from Partnership for a Healthy Colorado. Partnership for a Healthy Colorado, in turn, says it got the figure from Families USA, which published a paper in 2005. That paper's estimates were unable to accurately predict the percentage of uninsured residents in Colorado. The paper also grossly overestimated at least some costs of uncompensated care.

The Lewin Group, the modeling firm hired by the commission to collect information about Colorado, reported total Colorado expenses for the uninsured of about $1.4 billion. Of that amount... leftover uncompensated costs, the ones that are not paid by any identifiable source, total $239 million. Divide $239 million by Colorado's 2.8 million insured residents, and the result is a maximum likely cost-shift of about $85 per insured individual per year.

To "fix" the problem of $239 million in cost-shifting, the [Commission for Healthcare Reform] proposes to increase health spending in Colorado by more than $3 billion...

Then, on May 2, Gorman posted an article to John Goodman's Health Policy Blog regarding Families USA's claims about insurance and mortality:

In the series of reports, called "Dying for Coverage," Families USA purports to show how many people are killed by a lack of health insurance in each state. For example, they claim 6 people die every day in Florida because they are uninsured. Seven die every day in Texas, 8 in California, and 25 in New York.

How is Families USA able to tally up all this carnage with such pinpoint precision? As it turns out, these claims are based on a 15-year cascade of studies - each repeating the errors and misinterpreting or mischaracterizing the findings of the previous one and ultimately relying on data that is 37 years old. ...

[T]here is no point at which anyone from Families USA actually examines a medical record. There is no interview with any doctor, any patient or any family of a deceased patient. There is only algebraic mumbo jumbo in support of an unsupportable claim.

Gorman explains the problems with Families USA's claims in greater detail in the article.

Gorman's criticism follows one by Michael Tanner, who explains, "The Families USA study was not a traditional 'double blind' experiment with a control group and a treatment group." Tanner offers additional evidence discrediting the Families USA claims.

As I have reviewed, Brian Schwartz discovered that a summary of State Senator Bob Hagedorn's bill 217 cites the bogus Families USA study.

Finally, on May 3, the Rocky Mountain News published Gorman's letter regarding Families USA's claims about Medicaid. Gorman points out that an earlier article from the Rocky, "Report ties Medicaid cuts to job losses," "simply repeated the substance of a press release from Families USA." Gorman continues:

...What the Bush administration is proposing is a slightly smaller budget increase, about 7.1 percent rather than 7.4 percent. The 2009 budget numbers are available on Page 61 at http://www.hhs.gov/budget/ 09budget/2009BudgetInBrief.pdf.

If Families USA were a real family making $50,000 a year, these budget numbers would be the equivalent of having an expected windfall of $53,700 reduced to $53,550.

Families USA is known for approaching health care with a well-defined ideological slant and for producing lousy numbers on all manner of health-care issues. One hopes that, next time, the Rocky will take the Families USA reputation for inaccuracy into account, and that it will check before it unquestioningly reproduces their press releases as news.

It would also be pleasant if Colorado legislators would refrain from basing state policy on Families USA's misinformation campaigns.

Denver Post on Guns

Michael Booth and Kevin Simpson have written a surprisingly balanced article about gun ownership for The Denver Post, not a paper to which readers usually look for balance regarding such issues.

Unfortunately, the authors do get some points wrong. My criticisms should not be interpreted as a blanket condemnation of the article, but as a corrective to an article that's largely good.

The authors sound surprised to report that, in handgun safety classes, people spend much of their "class time learning how to avoid actually using a gun." The authors call this a "paradox," but it is the standard orientation of gun owners.

The authors correctly note that those with concealed-carry permits compose an "exceptionally law-abiding group." Unfortunately, the authors misstate the evidence regarding guns and crime. They write: "Gun enthusiasts argue more guns equal less crime... but researchers point to a long-term decline influenced by larger forces and no impact on crime attributable to concealed-carry laws."

It is true that "larger forces" play the bigger role. However, it is simply not true that "researchers" -- suggesting all researchers -- have found no impact of concealed-carry laws. Some researchers have found that concealed-carry reduces crime, others have found that it does not reduce crime, and no researcher has found that concealed carry increases crime.

Moreover, plenty of unassailable research shows that gun ownership reduces "hot" burglaries when the owners are home. John Lott, in addition to running statistical regressions showing that concealed-carry reduces crime, also ran regressions showing that gun ownership generally relates to lower crime, other things equal. (Lott reviews the research regarding guns and crime in The Bias Against Guns and More Guns, Less Crime. Such scholars as Joyce Malcolm, Gary Kleck, Don Kates, and Dave Kopel discuss many other issues including burglary. I review a portion of the evidence in my 2003 article, "Guns and the Media.")

The main problem with the Post's article is that it advocates "middle ground" gun restrictions but does not offer any actual evidence that such restrictions would work. The article ignores the evidence that existing restrictions (such as Brady registration checks) have failed, as well as the well-developed arguments as to why various proposed measures would cause more problems than they solved. For example, the article quotes State Senator Sue Windels, who has offered "lock up your safety" legislation that would demonstrably make homeowners less safe. Instead, the article offers polling data indicating that many people want more restrictions, as though polling data were a substitute for sound arguments. The article thus reveals a deeply pragmatic mindset that assumes a principled, consistent view must be wrong by virtue of the fact that it is principled and consistent, despite the fact that it is also supported by tight logic and robust empirical evidence.

Krause on China

Mike Krause, a Senior Fellow with the Independence Institute, has started the blog "Regime Watch" to track "Beijing's world-wide thuggery." So far, I've learned of China's role in the Sudan and in Zimbabwe.

Mostly I track state policy, and even there I must be selective in what I follow. I devote less attention to foreign affairs, and China gets only a fraction of that time (what with all the goings on in the Middle East). It is great, therefore, that Krause is devoting a space to China, a nation posed to become an ever greater global player.

I've always been torn between two arguments. On the one hand, free trade with China may foster a middle class there, expose China to Western ideas and institutions, and encourage pro-liberty reforms. On the other hand, trade (or at least some sorts of trade) may further enable China to build its military, threaten its neighbors, control its people, and support other oppressive regimes. Obviously, we do a great deal of trade with China, though, off hand, I don't know what fraction of our trade or China's trade this constitutes. In what ways is China getting better? In what ways worse? Perhaps Krause can delve into these sorts of broader issues as he develops his blog.

For Better Health, Repeal Political Controls

The following article originally was published by the Independence Institute on April 30, 2008.

For Better Health, Repeal Political Controls

By Ari Armstrong

My wife and I pay $132 per month total for high-deductible health insurance, hundreds of dollars less than we would pay for comprehensive insurance. Our goal is to never need to make an insurance claim. We pay for all of our routine medical care -- doctor visits, eye glasses, dental work, prescriptions -- out of pocket, and we like it that way.

Our medical expenses come out of our Health Savings Account (HSA), which means that it's all pre-tax money. Unfortunately for us, various enemies of HSAs have been trying to undermine them at the national level.

By paying less for high-deductible insurance, we've been able to pay off debts faster and prepare for a family, something that has been difficult given our high tax burdens.

If Colorado wants to keep and attract young working families, the legislature ought not further muck up health insurance by loading in a bunch of new expensive mandates. Nor should the legislature require such couples to further subsidize others through higher taxes and/or insurance premiums.

If the legislature wants to make health insurance more affordable for more people, it should repeal existing political controls that have driven up insurance costs and priced some people out of the market.

However, we should realize that the broader problem with health insurance is that, because of federal tax policy, most insurance is tied to one's job. Lose your job, lose your insurance. Because of the tax benefits of "paying" people with insurance coverage, such insurance is really pre-paid medical care that discourages economic provision and consumption of health care.

Our society has largely forgotten the proper purpose of insurance when it comes to health. Most people remain healthy into middle age, when risks for various diseases start to increase. Through insurance, we voluntarily pool our resources to pay for the care of the few who get unlucky. If federal policy had not driven health insurance off track, we'd buy insurance when we're young at a low rate and keep the same policy long-term, and we'd also pay for routine and expected expenses directly, which would encourage healthy competition.

All of the commonly cited problems with medicine have been caused by decades of political intervention in medicine. For details, see "Moral Health Care vs. 'Universal Health Care'," by Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh, MD, at WeStandFirm.org.

Yet, rather than act to repeal the controls that are the cause of the problems, many of today's politicians want to impose still more controls. If they succeed, the result will be worse health care that costs even more.

Here in Colorado, the legislature has considered everything but repealing the controls that are the cause of the problems. In 2006, then-Governor Bill Owens signed into law Senate Bill 208 to create the Blue Ribbon Commission for Healthcare Reform. That commission rejected the only free-market proposal and recommended such measures as massively expanded taxes and forcing everybody to buy insurance. The Commission's recommendations basically went nowhere.

But apparently one failed commission deserves another, so State Senator Bob Hagedorn is currently pushing Bill 217. If the bill passes, later this year Governor Bill Ritter will appoint "a panel of expert advisors" to come up with a bunch of new political controls for the legislature to consider in the future.

Originally, the bill encouraged the "panel of experts" to assume that all Coloradans would be forced to purchase politician-approved health insurance. The amended bill lists that only as an option.

Forcing people to buy insurance would cause two basic problems. First, you can't force somebody to buy something they can't afford, so any such plan must accompany massive tax hikes and subsidies. Second, once politicians force you to buy something, special-interest groups will constantly fight to include their pet service as part of the forced package, whether you want it or not. The result will be continual pressure to expand the scope of the forced insurance and make it ever more costly.

Much of the bill describes the creation of politician-approved "value benefit plans" for health insurance that would be subject to a variety of restrictions and substantially subsidized through taxes.

Yet consumers and providers have the right to decide through voluntary exchange what plans constitute a value to them. We don't need a new bureaucratic commission; we need liberty.

Ari Armstrong, a guest writer for the Independence Institute, blogs at FreeColorado.com.