Stop Wasting Money

The relationship between government and religion in the US seems odd. The current conflict between President Obama and the Catholic Church about mandating funding for contraception shows how uncomfortable the relationship can be.

In general, religious leaders seem to support big government. I see this in our current and previous synagogues, where rabbis support President Obama’s expansion of government involvement in health care.

Underlying this is a sound religious attitude supporting charity. Most religions advocate helping the poor. But does religious doctrine really advocate that this be done through government?

Religions advocate helping the poor through charity. Typically members of the religion give money to their church, temple, mosque, or related institutions. The religious institutions then provide hospitals, schools, shelters, food, etc. to those in need. “Historically, hospitals were often founded and funded by religious orders or charitable individuals and leaders.” (Wikipedia on Hospitals)

Government, by contrast, takes money from people through involuntary taxes. And in general government does not deliver help through religious institutions.

The unpleasant truth? Big government is bad for religion and religious institutions.

There is substantial evidence that government involvement in charity crowds out private giving. In other words, when government does more, people give less to charity.

Also, when government takes on these roles, it diminishes the importance of religion. Government in effect takes the place of religion, or even becomes the religion. The leaders can become so powerful that they develop a cult of personality. North Korea is a present day example. Past examples include Mao in China, Stalin in Russia, and Hitler in Nazi Germany. Marx famously referred to religion as the opiate of the masses.

There are stark differences between religions and government in how they help people. Religions tend to operate on a very local level. The work is mostly done by volunteers or workers willing to work for less money because of their affinity with the religious mission. Fraud is rare because things happen on a local level and the volunteers and workers share a common interest in helping those in need. And through providing services to the needy, religions are able to spread their religious message and values.

Government inherently tends toward centralization. Decisions are made at the national level rather than locally. Volunteers are rare in government “charity”, replaced by highly paid bureaucrats. Government employees are typically concerned with moving up the ladder, increasing their power and pay, and especially their pensions and other benefits. And of course, government in the US is prohibited from spreading any kind of religious message or values.

What a surprise then, that atheism is more common in Europe than in the US. Europe has had bigger government for longer, and is often touted by big government liberals as a shining example of government run health care. As long as you ignore the looming Greek healthcare catastrophe.

Most government insiders view religion with contempt, most famously shown by then-candidate Obama’s reference to people clinging to guns or religion (in the audio below around 40 seconds in):

While I am a registered Republican, this is not a Democrat vs. Republican issue. George W. Bush dramatically increased government involvement in schools with No Child Left Behind and in health care with Medicare Part D.

Typically support for big government comes mainly from Democrats and liberals. But insiders of both parties expand government because it increases their power.

It always amazes me that liberals don’t see why big government is particularly bad from their perspective – because liberals aren’t always in charge. If you’re a liberal, do you really want someone like Rick Santorum in charge of a powerful federal government? President Obama has been accused of abusing the power of the executive branch. Do you really like the precedent this sets for the next time the GOP wins the White House?

When does big government become dangerous to the people? What are the warning signs?

The Obama administration is developing a plan to fly combat drones over US territory. Hmm …

Trolls are an all-too-common denizen of the internet. We see them on Facebook and other places. Recently I had an experience with them on this blog. I wrote a blog post critical of Governor Gary Johnson and his connection with political consultant Roger Stone.

While much of the responses I received were genuine, there were also some that were suspicious. They used the same language and nasty attacks. And this leads to one of the things that’s wonderful about the web. You can be a troll if you like but trolls leave tracks. This blog uses WordPress, and its comment feature indicates the IP address used by the commenter and time of posting to the comment narrator (me).

Here are some comments from purportedly different people using the same IP address:

HP — pederson.howard@yahoo.com — 69.64.222.154 — Submitted on 2011/12/28 at 8:08am
Shouldnt use your column to settle scores. Sounds like Mr. Stone is in your wheelhouse BIGTIME!

Smoke — Rogermanis@hotmail.com — 69.64.222.154 — Submitted on 2011/12/28 at 7:42am
Warren—this is just sour grapes. If the NY Libertarians had nominated Kristin Davis insrtead of you thay would have won 50,000 votes and wouldn’t have to petition their way onto the ballot. You are the one who hurt the party.

Joe paine — Joepaine1@hotmail.com — 69.64.222.154 — Submitted on 2011/12/28 at 7:39am
Warren– You make a living getting drunk drivers who kill people behind the wheel for a living off. Who are you to criticize anyone?

Not only are they from the same IP address (in bold), but they were also posted within about 30 minutes from each other. Here’s another couple:

Susan Greenberg — susangreenberg88273@aol.com — 99.58.192.216 — Submitted on 2011/12/27 at 4:15pm
I read what you wrote defending older men have sex with teen age girls. It was perverted. I would not want my daughters anywhere near you. I’m glad you moved to Florida. The children of the Albany area are safer because of it.

Seth Greenberg — dvader2283@aol.com — 99.58.192.216 — Submitted on 2011/12/27 at 4:10pm
Warren – didn’t you publically call your opponent Kristin Davis a whore ? Didn’t you refuse to share the NYLP voting delegate lists and convention rules with any other candidate before the NY convention? Who is guilty of dirty tricks? Look in the mirror.

Again with the same IP address. And the comments were posted 5 minutes apart. There were also two other comments posted within 12 minutes after the last one, using different IP addresses but similar language and form of attack (references to my work as a defense lawyer, or to Kristin Davis, who is not even mentioned in the blog post).

One other piece of evidence is the purported e-mail addresses. I searched for them on the web and can’t find a single one of them. Here’s a Google search for Pederson’s:

If these were real people using their real e-mail addresses, you would think at least one of them would show up on a Google search. But they’re not real people. It’s all probably one or two cowardly people using fake names to attack others while remaining hidden.

Here’s two more:

DontMissYou — loyalopposition@gmail.com — 67.241.174.81 — Submitted on 2011/12/27 at 3:45pm
Gee if the NY Libertarians had had a fair and open convention to nominate a candidate for Governor perhaps Roger Stone wouldn’t have killed your chances to get 50,000 votes and put the Libertarians on the map. Instead you used gestapo tactics and refused to share delegate lists with the other candidates. You reap what you sow. Even in South Florida.

PeteSzabo — newyorklives@gmail.com — 67.241.174.81 — Submitted on 2011/12/27 at 3:43pm
I read what you wrote defending older men having sex with teen age girls. It was perverted. I would not want my daughters anywhere near you. I’m glad you moved to Florida. The children of the Albany area are safer because of it.

These two were posted from the same IP address, two minutes apart. And notice how the second one is exactly the same, word for word, as the “Susan Greenberg” comment. And another comment (not posted) used the same language as “DontMissYou”.

The image below shows some of what I see in the WordPress comment moderation screen. Please note there were two more that I could not fit onto the screen. Click on the picture to see it in a larger size:

For an excellent discussion of tracking trolls, see Chantal Stained Glass.

I’m tired of the myth about insurance for pre-existing conditions. The picture below motivated me to write this blog post:

Short story, from her perspective: Her job did not include health insurance. She was diagnosed with tumors in her uterus. Then she couldn’t get insurance coverage for this pre-existing condition. So she favors Obamacare. For a fuller version of her side, see her blog post: I am Obamacare.

One key detail she does not mention: While her job did not include health insurance, she chose not to pay for health insurance out of her own pocket.

Now she complains that she can’t get insurance for this pre-existing condition. But this is a misunderstanding of what the word insurance means.

Please consider this analogy:

Her job didn’t include car insurance, and she did not buy any on her own. She got in an accident and the car was damaged. She went to a car insurance company, and they refused to pay for the pre-existing damage to her car. And this was a nice insurance company, so they didn’t laugh at her.

The more reasonable version of pre-existing conditions is where you have a condition that makes you more likely to suffer certain diseases, but you have no symptoms or evidence of such disease yet. That creates an adverse selection problem – the people who are likely to get sick are more likely to buy insurance, and they cost more to insure so that drives the price of insurance up. Then the people who are less likely to get sick are less likely to buy insurance. Removing them from the risk pool increases the total risk, further driving prices up. This is an area where some economists argue, somewhat credibly, for government intervention to address this form of market failure.

But the current discussion about Obamacare and pre-existing conditions is not about adverse selection or “insurance”, as the photo above shows. Insurance is about covering for the risk that something might happen, not about covering for something that did happen.

This part of Obamacare is about bailing out people who chose not to pay for health insurance. And the blame does not fall only on President Obama and the Democrats. Most Republican insiders are just as bad. Government bails out people who did not buy adequate insurance for floods. It has bailed out banks, car companies, and so on.