Do schools have birth-control role?

Following the story of a Maine middle school offering birth control to students because of an outbreak of teen pregnancies*, my Denver Post column today takes on a new task force “study” that recommends contraceptives – including birth control pills and emergency contraception — be handed out to low-income kids in the city. 

This particular task force (and there are never enough special task forces roaming around Colorado) consists of 43 diverse experts who all share two characteristics.

1. They’re all far smarter than I am.

2. Not a single member of the distinguished panel is a parent to my children (unfortunate for my children, I agree.)

The second point is a critical one overlooked in this age of “community.” We’ve become so deferential to task forces and experts - especially when it comes to what’s best for our children - that we’ve forgotten that, guess what, they’re not always right.

More important – at least in my world view – is the fact that the state is not here to replace the parent. Or shouldn’t be. There are many parents who have a moral dilemma regarding contraception and particularly “emergency contraception,” which is said to prevent most pregnancies if taken within a few days of sexual intercourse. This is still America and competent parents still get to raise their own children.

Until — or should say when — we all become collective parents in a New Brave World.

*As a growing national problem, this is a myth. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teen pregnancies have been plummeting for more than a decade. The CDC reports that births to 15- to 17-year-olds fell in 2004 to 133,980, the fewest since 1950. 

Prohibition Returns!

The folks at reason magazine were kind enough to run my cover story (excerpted from Nanny State) from the Novemeber print edition online today.

Here is the audio …

 … of my interview with Dennis Prager.

The Dennis Prager radio show …

… I’ll be on tomorrow (Monday) at 11.00 AM Mountain time for an hour to discuss Nanny State.

On Goblin-Like Creatures

Evolutionary theorist (with a heavy emphasis on “theorist”) Oliver Curry claims that the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000 and that one day we will split into two separate species, one an “attractive, intelligent ruling elite” and the “an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures.”

As an amateur theorist, I have a few problems with this theory:

1. Perhaps I’m missing a key element to this, but weren’t attractive people just as likely to pick other attractive people as their mates 3,000 years ago? And as the template for what’s “attractive” changes, at least somewhat, in each era of history, making this theoretic evolutionary split unlikely. If this organic divide is to happen, why hasn’t a shift been observed in the first couple of hundred thousand years of human history?

2. Intelligence and good looks are not analogous, as anyone who’s had the privilege of watching America’s Most Smartest Model can certainly tell you. There is no proof that those two gifts have grown any closer with time.

3. We all know there are plenty of very smart people who aren’t eye-catching whatsoever. Still, they can be exceptionally successful and achievement breeds confidence — an attractive quality to many people. As a result, unsightly people can often hook up with a highly attractive members of the opposite sex. (Take for instance the former couple: author Salman Rushdie and author/actress/(terrible) chef/TV hostess Padma Lakshmi.) This means, one suspects, that the children of these couples will either be moderately intelligent and only so-so looking or take one trait or the other and dilute beauty and intelligence.

4. Not all “attractive and intelligent” people desire to be part of a ”ruling elite.”

5. There are humans who show tremendous aptitude for certain skills and none for any others. Ruling-class micromangers, for instance, might have impressive IQs and offer little else. Then again that could be a turn on. There are plenty of other factors that can turn on the opposite sex besides intelligence, beauty or lots of money: Charisma. Humor. Some weird skill. An attitude. A body type. And so on.

6. A further point about subjectivity. Certainly, there are universally attractive people — Padma Lakshmi, comes to mind — but there is plenty of wiggle room in this regard. We all find different types attractive.  (A co-worker once told me he had seen Rhea Perlman at a Lakers game and that she was “stunning.” Now, some people may agree. Others, however, may disagree fervently with this appraisal.)

7. How does plastic surgery play into this dynamic of the future split? As people are more apt to make themselves attractive to others — and the methods and results of plastic surgery will only improve as we move forward — how will we know who is naturally ugly? This will certainly muddy up this speculative genetic split, I imagine.

8. Because of the market system in America, the one that is now growing in India and China, a permanent “ruling” class is less likely, not more likely. Fortunes are won and lost all the time. New technologies bring new faces. And sometimes those faces are nothing to write home about.

Nanny State on Book TV

C-Span’s Book TV will be running a discussion/speech I gave/had with some fine folks at the library in Aurora, Colorado the other day. Nanny State was the topic, of course, but we also ventured into some other areas, as well.

From what I hear they tend to run these things frequently. The upcoming schedule:

Saturday, October 27, at 9:15 AM ET
Sunday, October 28, at 1:00 AM  ET (Ouch!)

For those in the Denver area …

Chalk it up to bad luck. With the full realization that there is some kind of baseball game going on tonight, the Aurora Central Library is hosting an event called “The Big Read,” celebrating Fahrenheit 451, the classic book by Ray Bradbury. I will be speaking about my book Nanny State from 7 to 8:30 p.m. MT. I’m told C-Span’s Book TV will be there to tape the talk. So if you have the time and interest please join what promises to be an intimate group tonight at the Aurora Central library.

About the event.
About Book TV.

Judas Giuliani or the Yankee Flipper*

Well, now I have serious doubts about Rudy Giuliani. How anyone can trust him with grand issues of our time when he can’t even get simple baseball fan guidelines right? We’ve all heard about Hillary’s “I’ve always been a Yankee fan” nonsense. It’s frequently repeated because it tells us something deeper about her character. How you conduct yourself as a sports fan tells us plenty about you. And this tells us that Giuliani is clueless or a depraved panderer — or worse: not a real Yankees fan.

“I’m rooting for the Red Sox,” Giuliani, owner of four Yank World Series rings, declared during a campaign event in a Boston restaurant, prompting thunderous applause.

“I’m an American League fan, and I go with the American League team - maybe with exception of the Mets,” he said. “Maybe that would be the one time I wouldn’t, because I’m loyal to New York.” 

Ugh. Not a real Yankees fan. There are many rules to being a true sports fan for any club, as Bill Simmons points out here. Now, Simmons doesn’t even take the time to mention that a Yankees fan never ever ever roots for the Red Sox (or vice versa) because there is nothing more obvious on God’s green earth.  

(Incidentally, Giuliani’s “loyal” to New York Mets twaddle, as most New Yorkers know, is also completely idiotic: Simmons rule # 20: If you hail from New York, you can’t root for the Yankees and the Mets. You have to choose between them. Repeat: You have to choose between them. Don’t give me this “As long as one of them is doing well, at least New York is winning” spiels. What is this, the sports fan’s version of bisexuality? How about making a choice? Any New Yorker who said the words “It’s the Yankees versus the Mets … I can’t lose!” during the 2000 World Series deserves to be tortured with a cattle prod.”)

Here is a true Yankees fan, just so we get this thing straight: ”Any Yankee worth his salt cannot root for the Red Sox under any circumstance at all. Period. End of story,” said Ken Schlesinger, 44, a lawyer from the Upper East Side. 

End of story.

*Headlines stolen from the always irascible New York Post.

(C/P Huffington Post.)

Mini-monopolies

I’m a big supporter of free markets and capitalism and even nefarious pharmaceutical companies. But today’s verdict in favor of Amgen in its patent infringement lawsuit against Roche is the sort of thing, I believe, turns off a lot of people (well, those paying attention.) This particular victory means that a new anemia drug won’t be released in the United States and Amgen will continue to corner the market’s $7 billion franchise.

I was surprised to learn that Medicare pays for the majority of dialysis treatments in this country, and thus it spends more than $2 billion a year on Amgen’s Epogen alone. How many similar patents corner the market and thus Medicare spending?

What happens if there’s only one basic formula or therapeutic option to treat a disease? Does that mean a single entity can lock up the market for over 20 years? Devoid of any competition, government agencies can’t even pretend to haggle down the price. At one point, I suspect, a congressperson or senator will decide that a “fair” price should be set for this drug. I realize the immense amount of funding that goes into R & R, but clearly, competition has to rattle these mini-monopolies before we give excuses for some wide-eyed official to start capping prices and destroying the pharmaceutical sector.

Or am I missing something?

Confused or Deliberate

It’s something I often deal with as a columnist and Megan McArdle almost get it’s all right when she writes about folks who confuse political economy with personal virtue. Not all, but many, on the Left will attempt to shut down any discussion about taxation or funding by taking the moral high ground and accusing a conservative/libertarian of being “selfish” …

But this makes absolutely no sense. Democrats are not advocating spending their own money on the poor; they’re advocating spending the money of a very small group of voters who lean Republican. One might argue that this very small group of voters is selfish, but they are not the majority, or even a plurality, of Republicans staunchly opposed to taxes. Or other people opposed to taxes. Of all of the libertarian bloggers out there advocating lower taxes and social spending, I’m hard pressed to think of one who wouldn’t personally benefit more from the increased social spending than from the lower taxes.

I have only one quibble, though, and that is that I highly doubt most of these critics “confuse” political economy with personal virtue. Yes, someone like Paul Krugman seems to believe that anyone who stands in the way of higher taxation and further re-distribution is selfish — or perhaps just plain evil. But most often this tact is a lazy ad hominem attack meant to undermine a conservative/libertarian position and avoid any further discussion on the matter.

Then again, there is the whole question of who actually is selfish. (I don’t exactly buy this notion entirely.)

“No wonder they call it The Holy Land”

Typically not my bailiwick … but I was taken aback by this Mark Shea post of an Israeli tourism spot featuring bikini clad ladies. He writes, that this “is the sort of thing that makes me wonder how long American Evangelicals (and even some Catholics) can be snookered by the notion that Israel is something other than a secular nation-state. The Golden Calf appeal to Money Sex and Power evident in the commercial is perfectly representative of typically debased postmodern secular culture and has nothing to do with “fulfillment of prophecy”.

Capitalism bad. Sex bad. Fine.

The question, though, is who exactly is “snookering” the Evangelicals? Does Shea mean Jews? Other Evangelicals? Moreover, I’ve never heard anyone claims that Israel is anything but a secular state. Actually, it’s the American-style secular freedom that Jews have been bragging about for the past 50 years.

Mike Potemra has a wonderful post on the issue:

Now, I think Israel is both a secular national state and a nation of descendants of God’s Chosen People—and this gives me two reasons to back Israel. As an Evangelical, I have emotional and religious reasons to support the Jewish believers who live in Israel; as a believer in secular freedom—America, too, is a secular (i.e., non-confessional) state, and long may it remain so—I support the people of Israel, believers and non-believers alike, who are just trying to live normal lives in the face of enemies who want to (first) put their women in burkas and (second) exterminate them.”

Shea says he didn’t mean to post this video as a wedge. And he says his post isn’t anti-Semitic (and I don’t think it is) But then why post it? If Israel instituted a religious police and prohibited bikini-laden ads and substituted Hasidic women making Hallah, does Shea believe that Evangelicals would be more impressed? Such a dictatorial state would be, as far as I can tell, more abhorrent to the mainstream Evangelical than a sexed up tourist spot. Obvious, I think. So Shea clearly has a political problem with the Israel-Evangelical relationship.

Ramesh Ponnuru agrees with Shea and writes that the ad is “both tacky and offensive” for featuring some pretty girls in bikinis. So that must mean he agrees that Evangelicals are being snookered. Who is deceiving them? Also, it’s his prerogative to idealize Israel for religious reasons and hold Israelis to a higher standard than say, Bahamans or Californians. But I’m not sure if either of these guys have had the pleasure of visiting a Tel Aviv beach, which is about as secular as secular gets (I spent two years living in Israel). I am sure the millions of Evangelicals who support Israel and visit the country know full well there are scantily clad women, nude beaches and strip clubs, so most of them aren’t fooled as they continue to support Israel.

In any event, as I read it, Evangelicals do not believe in any fulfillment prophecy that is tethered to the moral fortitude of the Jewish inhabitants in the holy land, anyway. 

Guilt-ridden or soon will be …

Yes, it’s from Canada, but what a great review. 

THIS book is one long, wonderful rant, exactly the kind of purgative we need to cleanse our systems of the poison of Puritanism that is infecting us.

It is the voice of reason, shouted from the rooftops, so that everyone can hear it, if they choose to.

Unfortunately, most of won’t listen to it; our nannies will cover our ears and say that David Harsanyi is a bad man who will try to get us hooked on seemingly harmless, tasty things like french-fried potato chips before graduating us into deeper and more dangerous vices, soda pop perhaps, hamburgers even, until one day, there it will be, right in front of us, no longer veiled by the cheap nylon cover behind the 7 Eleven counter — tobacco, the demon itself, in all its alluring, addictive and expensively taxed glory.

Someone should make a movie out of this.

If only.

“Dangerous ideas”

Thanks to Jamie Glazov for the interview in Frontpage.com. And a FP commentor gives us a twist on Confucius: “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how hungry he is and demanding you give him more fish every day.”

More on conservative missteps in the past few years: 

It must be added that many conservatives are also ideologically inconsistent on this issue. During the overblown Janet Jackson nipple controversy, Republicans, who only few years earlier were advocating the elimination of the FCC, now were entertaining the idea of expanding the regulatory power of that organization to encompass cable and satellite television because a over-the-hill disco singer popped a mammary. There is a difference between condemning the repugnant (things like Janet Jackson’s dance routine) and advocating that government protect us from the repugnant. That’s the distinction between a nanny and an active citizen. Too many folks, if something is the “right thing to do” government should force us to comply. It’s a dangerous idea. Because the right thing is almost always subjective.

A Voice of Reason

Via Jacob Sullum on Reason’s Hit & Run: 

Maverick anti-smoking activist Michael Siegel has published an article in the journal Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations in which he faults the tobacco control movement for misrepresenting the acute cardiovascular effects of exposure to secondhand smoke. Siegel, who supports government-imposed smoking bans in workplaces and agrees with his fellow activists that long-term exposure to secondhand smoke raises the risk of heart disease, criticizes them on his tobacco policy blog for claiming that even transient exposure might kill you. The journal article (which is available for free) gathers together some of the more egregious misrepresentations and explains why they are inconsistent with the scientific evidence …

Siegel, a rare voice of reason and intellectual honesty, is worth paying attention to, if only to temper the wild scaremongering that goes on every day.

Give us your poor, your tired, your deoxyribonucleic acid …

Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo has hatched a new plan. He’d like the US government to ask foreigners seeking visas through relatives to provide DNA samples and scientifically establish their so-called family ties. He introduced a bill yesterday.

“This will help protect the integrity of our immigration system,” said Tancredo, who has based his presidential campaign on curbing immigration. “It will give us one more tool to make sure that the beneficiaries of these visas are who they say they are.”

Immigrants would pay for the DNA costs through visa application fees under the proposal.

Obviously, Tancredo pinched the idea from the French.  In France new familial arrivals must speak French, pledge to the government that their kids will behave, and someone in the family must show earnings of up to 1,600 euros a month. And give DNA.

Despite the grousing emanating from both the far-left and populist right, there is neither widespread abuse of immigrants nor are immigrants particularly beholden to government welfare. Recently, France, once known for welcoming all newcomers with open arms, has made a dramatic u-turn. Huge numbers of immigrants in France are dependent on a massive welfare state. Immigrants (even illegal ones) rarely come to the United States for the free goodies — not yet, at least.

One thing is for sure, if DNA is now required, an unnecessary tightening of already-arduous immigration regulations, we will only perpetuate more illegal immigration.

Which brings me to another question: what’s the real problem here? Immigrants or, as we’ve been told by Tancredo and Lou Dobbs, illegal immigrants? Why would we make the process to enter the country even more difficult? Actually, I know the answer. I’ve heard Tancredo’s Malthusian rhetoric up close. I’ve heard his suggestion that this country needs a moratorium on all immigration. One wonders how long? Five years? 100 years?

An email interview

After writing a piece in the Politico last week about Nanny State, Jeremy Lott posts his entire e-mail interview with me here.

Are we less free now?

David Boaz asks the question riffing off a Washington Post review of my book.  Anita  Allen, the reviewer, says we were never “as free as Harsanyi imagines, and we are not now the “children” he peevishly fears we have become.” Well, of course not. The introduction clearly erects the parameters of what I am talking about. Overall we are as free as we have ever been. Government dependency is growing on every level, however, and that’s why we’re “turning” into a nation of children.

Open the newspaper on any random page, and you can find evidence of the growing tendency to meddle in our lives: seat-belt laws, smoking bans, trans-fat bans, potty parity and on and on. But are those things worse than the older laws that Allen cites? And if you go back further than she did, you can find worse indignities: established churches, slavery, married women denied property rights. So while we should deplore the deprivations of freedom that Harsanyi explores, we should not necessarily conclude that we’re progressively less free.

The review is written by a critic who disagrees with my underlying ideological take on the world, and that is something that doesn’t bother me. It’s 100 steps above the typical right-wingers-are-crazy attacks I see elsewhere.

Plus, Allen writes that, “To make this book work, it helps to read Harsanyi as a 21st-century John Stuart Mill. In “On Liberty ” (1859), Mill condemned laws prohibiting gambling, polygamy and the use of drugs and alcohol. The “only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others,” Mill wrote. “His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”

Now, that is something I can live definitely with.

Toilet rage

Obviously, this doesn’t happen every day, because if it did I’d be in some big f***ing trouble, so I won’t get overly excited. But when a Scranton, PA, woman faces 90 days in the slammer and a fine of $300 for shouting profanities at her own overflowing toilet like any red-blooded American, we’re headed in the wrong direction. 

Dawn Herb, whose potty mouth caught the attention of an off-duty police officer, was charged with disorderly conduct recently, prompting her to fire off a letter to the editor and vow to fight the charge.

“It doesn’t make any sense. I was in my house. It’s not like I was outside or drunk,” said Ms. Herb, who resides at 924 Luzerne St. along with her four young children. “A cop can charge you with disorderly conduct for disrespecting them?”

The answer, apparently, is yes.

In defense of scalpers

I live in Denver where the Rockies are on the verge of a World Series berth. You can imagine what sort of enthusiasm the team is generating. Everyone in town has now become a huge baseball fan. This also means there are scalpers trying to meet the new demand for tickets. My Denver Post column today deals with the preposterously unAmerican laws that ban scalping within city limits.

Let’s begin with a confession. When I was younger man, on more than one occasion my attendance at a sporting event was facilitated by a criminal.

Many of you, I suspect, have done the same.

Scalping involves two adults, voluntarily agreeing on an acceptable price for tickets. If lucky, folks find themselves close enough to faceoff, tipoff or first pitch to engage in a fierce negotiation, allowing one to snag tickets at cost or less.

We all know scalping is against the law - so please don’t do it - but have you ever wondered precisely why? It is, most often, an innocuous deal. A victimless crime.

Within Denver city limits, a person is prohibited from selling tickets for a penny more than the face value. If you’re caught doing so, you face a misdemeanor that can cost you up to $999 and one year in jail.

On Coors Field property, it’s illegal to sell tickets even for face value. Last week, Denver police confiscated 58 Colorado Rockies National League Championship Series playoff tickets from a 23-year-old man.

Not necessarily a bright man, considering he was apprehended carrying a spreadsheet detailing his projected - and illegal - profit margin.

Many people fear that shady individuals will corner the market on sports and concert tickets, creating a monopoly and shaking down consumers for unreasonable prices.

You know, like Ticketmaster.

The Rockies, of course, have the right to sell limited tickets to each consumer and safeguard against this sort of activity. But it’s hard for me to think of any other product in America that can’t be turned around and sold for a profit.

“People want ample opportunity to enjoy baseball and sporting activities, and most people want at least a fair chance at enjoying the games,” Sonny Jackson, Denver police spokesman, says. (Coming from a police department that was holding 58 confiscated tickets away from fans, this seems like a rather ironic statement.)

Clearly, wiping the stain of illegal ticket sales to the Blake Street gutter is a waste of taxpayer money. No?

“It does not interfere with any of our manpower,” Jackson said. “We have people on vice and narcotic units that are designated for this - a segment charged with dealing with scalping.”

Wise use of police?

I admit it … I’m not a mathematician. But if, let’s say, three officers are busy wasting time with scalpers, doesn’t that mean there are three fewer officers on a beat protecting citizens from real crimes?

Jackson won’t divulge just how much manpower is designated, but if the police are interested in the scourge of scalping, they would be better served taking their operation online.

The rise of online message boards - in particular, Craigslist - makes at-game ticket selling an unnecessary risk. There are so many Rockies tickets available online, in fact, a consumer can afford to be picky.

“True. The trend is certainly changing things,” Jackson says. “The advent of the computer makes this behavior less obvious. It has changed the usual way of selling a ticket. The fact is you can sell it. It’s not a crime if the transaction is not undertaken in Denver.”

“Unbelievable Seats At Great Prices!” is what I find online.

“Mondays NLCS Game Rockies vs. D-Backs $280 FOR THE PAIR (Hard Tickets) … Willing to meet (Live in Denver, work up North)”

The competition for ticket sales on Craigslist has created fierce pricing competition. Most sellers are quite reasonable. They have to be.

And the customer service! How many sellers are willing to meet you with their product? When it comes to Rockies tickets, most of them will. One guy is throwing in a “free drink ticket and snacks …”

Obviously, there are other concerns regarding scalping, namely counterfeit tickets. Thus, everyone is looking for “hard tickets.”

And if you’re going to meet, do it in the crime-ridden suburbs, where scalping anarchy is permitted by law. Make the switch at Applebee’s.

In the end, I’m not sure why it’s fair to allow monopolies to sell tickets and not individuals. Turning a profit on your investment doesn’t sound like a crime to me. It sounds like America.

(Original here.)

In fact, I am free to buy almost anything in this country then turn around and sell it for a profit. Why not tickets? Jim Caple wrote on the topic a few years ago at ESPN.com:

Scalpers generally are portrayed as a seedy bunch of grifters only a few steps up the food chain from child pornographers, fantasy football participants and Pete Rose’s circle of friends. I don’t see it that way, though. Rather than a bigger blight on society than the Backstreet Boys, the scalper is a humble businessperson and a fan’s best friend, next to $1 Heineken Night.

Amen.

Keep it Off the Streets

Occasionally, a reader will quiz me about public nudity. Yes, it’s one of the lines I like to draw in the Nanny State. I support private nudist colonies or cordoned off areas for nude beaches — as both can be easily avoided by the public. I would support politically expressive nudity as a matter protected by the First Amendment. But that’s about it.

Besides the legal questions (and there have been great debates on the issue), theoretically, nudity is wonderful. On a personal level, though, the problem remains that those who bare all are typical the last people you’d like to see in the nude. Take this bozo hipster for example. He decided to wander around Times Square without clothing because he was having a bad day.

(As I wrote in a recent Denver Post column: “There are two inarguable truths about nudity. One: I am ashamed of my body. Two: Adults who seem most inclined to take their clothing off in public should be ashamed of theirs.”)

There are also questions that, um, arise, when it comes to public nudity: sexual arousal and the presence of children, for instance.  Nudity can be a true public nuisance. In the end though, even if public nudity were allowed, I suspect very few people would take the state up on the offer. We don’t wear clothing because we’re coerced by the state, we wear clothing because most of us would be embarrassed not to.