Author: Michael LaBossiere

 

 

The first Trump administration made it clear that they saw creating fear as a legitimate tool to deter migration. During his campaign, Trump promised mass deportation and there is no reason to think that a kinder, gentler approach will be adopted in his second term in office. But is using fear to deter migration ethical?

It can be argued that it is. Obviously, deterring people by using laws and policies aimed at creating fear is a how society attempts to deter people from committing crimes. If it is morally acceptable to do this to deter potential jay walkers and murderers, then it is acceptable to do this to deter migrants. While some ethicists oppose the use of coercion by fear, the strategy of deterring bad behavior through fear has the approval of Aristotle.  This is like the use of force: not all uses of force are to be condemned, just immoral ones. So, the key question is whether using fear to deter migrants is morally acceptable.

In the past, the Trump administration adopted a strategy of creating fear by doing evil. First, the administration aggressively followed a policy of separating children and parents and officials were clear that this was intended to deter migration by creating fear that America would do evil to migrants. It is no accident that in fiction a quick way to show a group is evil is for it to take children from their parents. Second, the Trump administration treated detained children badly. Caging children and denying them necessities is also a stock behavior of evil characters in fiction. This is for good reason since mistreating children is evil. The purpose of this was to deter migrants through fear that if they try to come here, America will put their children into dirty cages without soap or toothbrushes.

Proponents of this policy argued that people choose to come here illegally knowing what will happen, then what is done to them is justified. On the one hand, this has some appeal. If I tell someone that a pot is hot and they grab it anyway, they only have themselves to blame.  On the other hand, if people are being pushed into a situation, such tactics mean people will be harmed rather than deterred. Going back to the stove, if I keep a hot pot to deter starving people from taking the food, I will just end up burning hungry people. Saying that they knew they would be burned is not an adequate defense. In the case of migration, many people are fleeing problems the United States helped. People are being pushed by things worse than what the Trump administration tried to do to scare them away.

There is also the fact that, as Locke argued, there are moral limits to how even a criminal can be treated. One of these is proportionality. Separating families and imprisoning children without necessities is a punishment that goes beyond the alleged crime. This is especially important in the case of children; they cannot rightly be considered guilty of a crime and hence punishing them is unwarranted. As such, using these methods is wrong.

As a final point, even if using such wicked means to deter people could be justified on utilitarian grounds, this would require showing that they are effective. However, they clearly did not work, and we were burning the hungry because the pain of the burn is less than the pain of the hunger. The Trump administration was fine with this. While they had hoped these evils would deter people, they had no qualms about doing wrong even when it does not achieve their stated goal. It became evil for evil’s sake, and we should expect more of the same.

While the United States purports to be a democratic republic, it is already an oligarchy. This was made clear by the billionaires at the inauguration of the billionaire Trump. It was made even clearer by Trump handing power over to Elon Musk and his DOGE.

 In this context, an oligarchy is a political structure in which power is held largely by a small number of people. While all hierarchical systems have power disparities, the hallmark of an oligarchy is that power is highly concentrated in a few. Russia, which is ruled by Putin and his fellows, is a clear example of an oligarchy.

While oligarchs can be elected democratically, a democracy distributes power and the choices of the many are not nullified by the will of the few. In a republic,  power is concentrated in the representatives, but they serve the people they represent rather than a few who hold the power. Preventing an oligarchy from emerging from the corpse of a democracy or republic requires preventing the concentration of power. Alternatively, allowing the butterfly of oligarchy to emerge from the caterpillar of democracy requires shifting power from the many to the few. This has already happened, but there is still some chance of rolling back the oligarchy. Fortunately for the oligarchs, cementing their rules is straightforward.

One important step is to ensure that limits are removed from the use of money in politics. The United States has hyper-concentrated wealth, which means that the hyper-wealthy are vastly outnumbered by everyone else. If the use of money in politics is ever limited, then the hyper-wealthy must compete for political influence using the same tools as the non-wealthy, which means they will not always get their way. To the degree that the wealthy are free to use money to influence politics, they gain an advantage over the many and can use this advantage to concentrate political power to match their concentration of money. Thanks to the Supreme Court, the use of money in politics is all but limitless.

A second important step is to weaken or eliminate groups that can compete with the oligarchs. While the many cannot match the wealthy few in individual spending and influence in a money-based political system, the many can pool their resources and match the few with their collective effort. One obvious example of this collective group is the labor union. If these groups are viable, the oligarchs cannot enjoy the full concentration of power. As such, cementing the American oligarchy requires crippling or destroying these unions. This is already being done with right to work laws and other legislation. While it might be thought that business tends to oppose unions because of financial reasons, unions also pose a clear political threat to oligarchs. There are, of course, other groups besides the unions that can exert political influence. For example, religious groups have political clout. Because of this, building the oligarchy requires eliminating, weakening or assimilating these groups. Ideally, of course, religious groups would support the oligarchy.  One way that has proven effective is manipulating Christian groups to focus on homosexuality, transgender people, and abortion rather than on social justice; this encourages them to hand power to those who claim they will outlaw abortion and oppress homosexuals and transgender people. Racism and sexism are also very useful here as tools for keeping groups from forming alliances against the oligarchs. For example, the people hurting the white working-class the most are not brown or black workers, but the rich white people who make the economic decisions. If white workers realized this, it would be bad for the white oligarchs.  Once the significant groups are neutralized or assimilated, then the oligarchy will be well established. Of course, there are still the pesky voters—they can still, in theory, resist the oligarchy, which leads to the third step.

While the United States still has elections, allowing honest and fair elections would be an impediment to the oligarchs. After all, the many might vote against what the powerful few want. As such, the influence of certain voters must be reduced. Fortunately, there are already tools to make this happen. One is gerrymandering, which allows numerical minorities to foil the will of the majority—an important condition for oligarchy. Another tool is voter suppression, something forged throughout United States history (especially the Jim Crow laws). If the right people can be prevented from voting, then the results of elections can be influenced. Combining the two tools and adding a few more into the mix (such as election fraud and having candidates supervise their own elections) can really help solidify the oligarchy.

Lastly, there is the strategy of concentration itself—power must flow from the many to the few. One ongoing method is crafting laws and policies that ensure that money flows upward and concentrates rather than flowing downward. Another method is to hoard opportunities, something that the college admission scandal exposed (now largely forgotten). And, as DOGE is showing, professional civil servants who might impede the will of the oligarchs must be fired or traumatized into quitting so that they can be replaced with those loyal to the oligarchs. This is all part of keeping power concentrated—if the people stand a chance of regaining power, then that could be end of the oligarchy. As such, they must be kept in their place if the oligarchy is to be an enduring reality.

 

 

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One of the founding myths of the United States is that religious liberty is enshrined because people fled to the colonies to escape religious persecution and the strong connections between the church and state in Europe. Whatever the truth of the matter, these are two excellent reasons to legally protect religious liberty. After all, persecuting people based on their faith (or lack thereof) seems wrong. Concentrating secular and theological power has often proven dangerous, although the church and the state can be quite harmful operating on their own. See, for example, Pol Pot or the scandals of the Catholic Church. As such, freedom of religion seems generally good, albeit within limits.

It might strike some as odd that religious liberty should be limited, but it is the nature of freedoms that they require limitations to exist. To say that freedom requires limiting freedom might seem paradoxical or Orwellian, but it is neither. Consider, for example, the freedom to own property. As Hobbes argued in his Leviathan, if everyone has the right to everything, then this amounts to a right to nothing. As Hobbes and others have noted, meaningful property rights require limiting property rights. To illustrate, for you to own your phone or house, it follows that my liberty to own or use them must be limited. The same applies to other freedoms and rights. For example, your right to life puts limits on the freedoms of others; they are not free to murder you. The same applies to religious liberty: for you to have freedom of religion, others must be restricted in their ability to compel you to practice a different faith or to forbid you from practicing your faith. As such, to accept religious liberty in a meaningful sense is to accept that it has limits. The practical challenge is sorting out these limits, which is a matter of grave concern in the areas of religion, law and ethics.

One sensible approach to freedom is that of John Stuart Mill. Mill argues that freedom should be set on utilitarian grounds using a principle of harm. The gist of his approach is that if what you are doing does not harm anyone else, then you should be free to act (or think) in that way. If your action harms others, then this provides a reason to limit your freedom. As would be expected, this approach is often applied to religious freedom. To illustrate, it is unreasonable to tolerate human sacrifice on the grounds of religious liberty.  This can also be seen as an evaluation of which right trumps the other. In the case of human sacrifice, it can be argued that the right to life takes precedence over the right to practice one’s religion. As a practical matter, as Mill noted, people tend to take the view that what they like should be allowed and what they dislike should be forbidden, without any general principle in operation beyond liking and disliking.

Some would argue that religious freedom has been weaponized to be used against homosexuals, transgender people and women. For example, there are those who argue that discrimination against homosexuals and transgender people in housing, employment, and so on is justified by the religious views of those who claim that homosexuality or being transgender is against their religion. In the case of women, there are those who contend that their religious liberty should allow them to refuse to provide contraception or abortion services to women. There are, of course, those who say that they are just defending true religious freedom, it just so happens that it seems to always discriminate against people they do not like.

One interesting point is that if religious freedom allows such discrimination, then it will allow discrimination against anyone if one has the right sort of religion. For example, Christianity would seem to warrant discrimination against liars, adulterers, those who worship graven images, witches, those who misuse the name of God, those who do not respect their mother and father, and so on. Consistency would seem to require that if, for example, homosexuals can be discriminated against because they are seen as violating sincerely held religious beliefs, then the same would apply to all sinners. That is all of us, for we are all guilty of some sin or another. Probably many. Oddly enough, there seems to be little interest in denying goods and services to adulterers and liars (which is fortunate for Trump) even though adultery and lying make it into the Ten Commandments and homosexuality is mentioned but once and apparently as being on par with eating shellfish. One might suspect that proponents of this sort of religious freedom are looking for a way to justify their discrimination rather than with acting consistently in accord with their professed faith. After all, if one should be allowed to discriminate against homosexuals because they are engaged in what one regards as sinful behaviors, then the same should apply to all sins. This, of course, seems absurd since it would warrant discrimination against everyone. So, let he is without sin engage in the first discrimination.

Some years ago, Alabama led the way by passing the most restrictive anti-abortion law of the time, one that forbid abortion even in cases of rape and incest. After Roe v Wade was overthrown, other states rushed to implement anti-abortion laws. Proponents of such laws, such as Alabama governor Kay Ivey, claim that their motivation is to protect life. As the governor said, “to the bill’s many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God.” Some who opposed the bill claimed that it was not about protecting life but about restricting women’s reproductive rights. While we can never know what other people think and feel, it is sensible to look at the evidence when determining likely motivations and intentions. As always, it is rational to judge the function of something by what it does, rather than what people say it is intended to do.

In the case of the abortion law, the claim was that Alabamians believe that every life is a precious and sacred gift from God. This is certainly consistent with wanting to reduce the number of abortions. But do Alabamian politicians and authorities hold to this view? A sensible test is to see if they consistently apply this principle in their legislation and actions throughout the state.

Coincidentally, as the governor of Alabama was signing the law because of her deep belief that life is a precious, sacred gift a story broke that Alabama’s prison conditions are so awful as to be unconstitutional. If Alabamians believe that every life is a precious, sacred gift then they would presumably not permit the sacred lives in their prisons to endure such unconstitutional treatment.

An obvious objection is to argue that while all lives are precious, sacred gifts, some lives are more precious and sacred than others. While fetuses are innocent, prisoners have been found guilty of something and hence deserve to be punished. As such, having horrible prisons is consistent with the view that life is a precious, sacred gift.

This has some appeal. Even if life is precious, morality still permits people to be treated differently based on their actions. As such, one can hold that life is precious, but some life must be locked up. However, there is still a problem. If life is a precious, sacred gift, then even the worst people are still precious, sacred gifts and deserve decent treatment. Moral and legal limits of punishment are, of course, recognized by the constitution and Alabama’s failure to act on this casts doubts on their devotion to the professed principle that each life is a precious, sacred gift.

But one could still argue that criminals earn their abuse by being bad and hence Alabama is acting consistently by having terrible prisons and a strict anti-abortion law at the same time. But if Alabamans have this devotion to life, one expects that it would manifest in excellent maternal and infant health. If your doctor said she saw you as a precious, sacred gift and would do anything to protect life, you would expect her to act on that. You would no doubt be shocked if she proved negligent in her medical responsibilities and you ended up being needlessly ill.

Given the professed view that Alabamans regard life as a precious, sacred gift, one would be shocked to learn that Alabama does poorly when it comes to maternal and infant health. Alabama is tied for 4th worst in the United States, with 7.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. While it might be argued that this is due to factors beyond their control, there is a consistent correlation between strong anti-abortion laws and poor maternal and infant health. While correlation is not causation, the reason for this correlation is clear: the state governments that enact the strictest anti-abortion laws also show, via public policies, the least concern for maternal and infant health. This is inconsistent with the professed principle that life is a precious, sacred gift. It is also inconsistent with the professed motivation for anti-abortion laws: to protect the life of children. It is, however, consistent with the hypothesis that anti-abortion laws are motivated by misogynistic principles. After all, if legislators pass anti-abortion laws because of hostility towards women’s reproductive freedom and wellbeing, then one would also expect them to also neglect maternal and infant health in their other policies. On the face of it, this is the better explanation. The function of state policy is to ban abortion and increase infant and maternal mortality; it is what it does.

It could be argued that Alabaman leaders do hold to the life is a precious, sacred gift principle, they are just bad at consistently applying it. So, it is applied to abortion but not to maternal and infant health or to prisoners. Failing to apply one’s professed principles consistently is a common human failing and could explain how anti-abortion leaders fail to apply their professed pro-life principles to infant and maternal health care. So, one could argue that the Alabaman legislators have a good principle, but they do not apply it consistently, despite their professed devotion to it and the effort they put in applying it in the case of abortion.

But a better explanation is that the Alabaman legislature and governor do not hold to their professed principle. Their actual principle is one that is hostile to women and perhaps to the less powerful in general. This principle is consistent with the state of Alabama prisons and the state of maternal and infant health care. If they do hold to their professed principle, they are incredibly inconsistent in their application, which is morally problematic as well. But the simplest explanation is that they are lying when they profess to believe that life is a sacred, precious gift.

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In 1981 the critically unacclaimed Looker presented the story of a nefarious corporation digitizing and then murdering super models. This was, one assumes, to avoid having to pay them royalties. In many ways, this film was a leader in technology: it was the first commercial film to attempt to create a realistic computer-generated character and the first to use 3D computer shading (beating out Tron). Most importantly, it seems to be the first film to predict a technology for replacing people with digital versions and to predict that it would be used with nefarious intent.

While the technology for creating digital versions of real people is still a work in progress, it is quite good and will continue to get better. While one might think that such creations would require the resources of Hollywood,  the software to create such deep fakes has been readily available for years, thus opening the door to anyone to create their own digital deceits.

As should be expected, the first use of this technology was to “deepfake” the faces of celebrities onto the bodies of porn actors. While obviously of concern to the impacted celebrities, the creation of deepfake celebrity porn is probably the least harmful aspect of deepfakes. Sticking within the realm of porn, deepfakes could be created of normal people in efforts to humiliate them and damage their reputations (and perhaps get them fired). On the other side of the coin, the existence of deepfakes could enable people to claim that real images or videos of them are not real. One can easily imagine cheaters using the deepfake defense and the better deepfakes get, the better the defense. This points to the broad problem with the existence of deepfakes: when the technology is good enough and widespread enough, it will be difficult to tell what is real and what is deepfake. This is the core moral problem with the technology and its potential for abuse is considerable. One obvious misuse is the creation of fake news in the form of videos of events that never occurred and recordings of people saying things they never said.

It can be argued that there are legitimate uses of deepfake style technology, such as movies and video games. This is a reasonable point: if those being digitized provide informed consent, this is just an improved version of the CGI that has long been used to recreate the appearance of actors in movies and video games. However, this argument misses the point: it is not the technology that is the problem, it is the use. To use an analogy, one can defend guns by arguing that there are legitimate uses (such as self-defense, hunting and target shooting) but this does not defend homicides committed with guns. The same holds for deep-fake technology: the technology itself is morally neutral, although it can clearly be used for evil ends. This makes it problematic to control or limit the underlying technology, even if it is possible to do so. It is easy to acquire the software and almost impossible to control access to this technology. Controlling it would be on par with trying to prevent access to pirated movies and software. Because of this, limiting access is not a viable option.

From a philosophical perspective, deepfakes present an epistemic problem worthy of the skeptics. While not on the scale of the problem of the external world (how do we know the allegedly real world is really real?), the problem of deepfakes presents a basic epistemic challenge: how do you know that a video or audio recording is real and not a deepfake? The problem can be seen as having two parts. The first is discerning that a fake is a fake. The second is discerning that the real is real. Fortunately, the goal here is practical in that we do not need epistemic certainty, we just need to be reasonably confident in our judgements. This does raise the problem of sorting out how confident we need to be in each situation, but this is nothing new and law and critical thinking have long addressed the matter of required levels of proof.

On the philosophical side, the old tools of critical thinking will still serve against deepfakes, although awareness of the technology will be essential. For example, if a video appears of Taylor Swift killing cats, then it would be reasonable to conclude that this is a deepfake. Whatever one might think of Taylor Swift, she does not seem to be a cat killer. There is also the general point that deepfakes do not create physical evidence and Life Model Decoys (probably) do not exist.  Naturally, fully addressing the critical thinking needed to address deepfakes goes far beyond the scope of this essay.

On the technological side, there will be an ongoing arms race between software used to create deepfakes and software used to detect them. One concern is that nations will be working hard to both defeat and create deepfakes—so there will be plenty of funding for both. Interestingly, there seems to have been little use of deepfake technology in American politics, perhaps because it was judged to be either unnecessary or too risky to use.

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While American cities have seen an increase in guns being stolen from unlocked cars, Tennessee has been leading the nation. In 2016 2,203 guns were reported stolen from vehicles. In 2017 4,064 thefts were reported. The causes of the increase are no mystery. One factor is the law. Tennessee passed a law allowing people to keep guns in their vehicles without a permit or any training and this increased the number of people keeping guns in their vehicles. A second factor is fear: people worry about violence and anecdotes about car jackings abound. Hence people are more likely to have a gun in their vehicle. A third factor is that when more people have guns, more people want to have guns because they are worried about the other people who have guns. This motivates both the carrying and theft of guns.

Because some stolen guns have been used in crimes, there have been proposals to make it a crime to fail to secure a gun stored in a vehicle. As would be expected, these proposals meet with strong opposition. One argument against them is based on the claim that they would make criminals out of law-abiding citizens. One obvious reply is that this is true of any new law that makes something a crime. What was legal is now a crime, thus citizens who were law-abiding would become criminals if they did not obey the new law. But, as with any law, there is the question of whether it would be a good law.

It can be argued that the gun owner is the victim when their gun is stolen, and they should not be punished for failing to protect their property from theft. To use an analogy, one should not blame the victim of a sexual assault and to suggest that the victim should have been more cautious would be wrong. The same would apply to people who leave guns unsecured in cars. A such, the law should focus on punishing the thief rather than the victim.

While the analogy is appealing, perhaps there is a better analogy here. In my adopted state of Florida pools must be fenced and have gates that close automatically. This is because pools are a hazard and those responsible for them have an obligation to not endanger the public through  negligence. If a child wanders into my pool and drowns because I did not secure it, that death is partially my responsibility. I am not morally protected by property rights to do as I wish with my property.

The same reasoning could be applied to guns: an unsecured gun presents a potential danger to the public and the owner is obliged to secure it. This obligation does not extend to property in general: if someone steals your iPad from your car, that is your loss and does not put others at risk. If someone steals your .45 from your unlocked car, you do suffer a loss, but the public is now at risk from an armed criminal.

One could raise the obvious counter: securing a pool is to protect children who do not know any better, while securing a car is to keep out people who know exactly what they are doing. So, while securing your vehicle is a good idea, the obligation is not on you to secure it, but on other people not to steal from your vehicle.

On the one hand, in general people are not morally obligated to secure their property and other people should not steal. Roughly put, stealing is wrong; not securing your property is just stupid. As such, the law should aim at punishing theft rather than the failure to secure property.

On the other hand, people are morally responsible for dangerous property and should take reasonable steps to secure it. This is especially important for guns since they can be used to harm others. The concern here is that it is not the thief who is at risk, it is other people who could be harmed by the thief using the stolen weapon, which would not have been easily available if it had been secured. As such, this could be seen as  like the pool analogy: the concern is about  innocent people who might be harmed by the negligence of the owner. As always, the mere fact that something is morally wrong does not automatically entail it should be illegal and the legal question remains.

One stock counter to imposing legal responsibilities on gun owners is an appeal to the Second Amendment. The idea is that such restrictions are unconstitutional since they limit the right to keep and bear arms. One stock reply is to point out all the legal restrictions that have passed muster, although these can be debated. Another option is to point out that there are principled restrictions on other fundamental constitutional rights. To use a popular example, the 1st amendment does not allow dangerously irresponsible speech, such as falsely saying that you have a bomb while you are on a plane. The same should hold true for the 2nd. It is not carte blanche for irresponsible behavior and hence it would be acceptable to impose laws requiring responsible behavior as a condition of exercising the right. The question then becomes whether such a law would be unduly burdensome or unreasonable.

On the face of it, requiring people to secure their guns is neither burdensome nor unreasonable. After all, locking the doors is quick and costs nothing. While, as noted above, some have proposed making failure to secure a gun a crime, it seems more reasonable to impose a sensible and effective penalty: the violator would be required to acquire a means of properly securing the gun (such as a gun lock or gun safe). While there might be concerns about cost, these devices are cheaper than the gun they are supposed to secure and hence should be affordable to anyone who can buy a gun. And some guns come with locks when purchased. Pro-gun groups could also use some of their resources to offer discounts to poorer gun owners so they can purchase the means to secure their guns.

Securing one’s gun is a basic responsibility of gun ownership and those who want to exercise this right are obligated to fulfil this responsibility. As such, requiring people to properly secure their guns is reasonable and just, provided that the law does not impose any burdensome requirements or unreasonable punishments.

While there are arguments in favor of school choice that transfers public money to private schools, many of them focus on the benefits to those able to leave public schools. Those left behind seem largely ignored. This is a problem.

An argument in favor of school choice is based on the claim that it allows students to escape from dangerous public schools. It is true that public schools can be violent places and protecting children from violence is laudable. This approach is analogous to moving away from high-crime areas, ideally to well-policed gated communities. While this is beneficial to those who can choose to escape, it does nothing to address the underlying problems of school violence. It merely allows some to escape, while leaving the rest behind.

It could be argued that school choice can still solve the problem. However, the obvious reply is that even if all children are (for example) given vouchers, this will merely recreate the problematic public schools but in private form. This undercuts the safety argument for school choice. It would be like trying to solve the problem of high crime neighborhoods by creating gated communities and then moving everyone within the gates. This shows the basic problem with trying to create safety by moving some people away from unsafe areas: it does nothing for those left behind.

One could counter that the solution is dilution: if the problem children could be identified and distributed among various schools, they would be more manageable. This does have some merit, but this could obviously be done without school choice programs.

It could be argued that what matters is securing the safety of some, be it in private schools funded by public money or in gated communities. As such, school choice is good for those who matter. Those left behind do not matter. While this might be appealing to those on the right side of the gates, the obvious problem is that they do not (yet) exist in total isolation from those left behind. So, failing to address the underlying safety issues still leaves people unsafe. This argument is like arguing that public roads are unsafe because of poor maintenance, so the solution is to provide some drivers with publicly funded road vouchers so they can drive on the safer private roads. While this can be great for those who get the vouchers, it does nothing for those stuck with the dangerous public roads. It would make more sense to use the public money to make the public roads safer.

A second stock argument, the quality argument, in favor of school choice is that private schools perform better than public schools, so parents who want their children to get a good education should favor programs that permit their children to avoid or leave public schools in favor of private schools. This assumes that, in general, public schools will be inferior schools. Let us suppose that is true and the higher quality of private schools is a reason to provide public funds to allow some parents to remove their children from the inferior public schools.

From the perspective of those leaving, this seems like a good argument. Who would not want to be able to choose a better education for their children? However, what happens to those left behind, such as those who do not get vouchers? They, obviously enough, remain in what are claimed to be inferior schools. What about them?

It could be claimed that the choice programs can be expanded to allow more children to escape the bad public schools. But diverting more money to school choice programs will result in less funding for public schools, thus resulting in a spiraling decline for these schools.

It could also be argued that the choice program can be funded without taking money from public schools, so public schools would also be well-funded. However, this creates a problem for the quality argument. If public schools are bad, then it would make more sense to use public money to make them better rather than diverting funds to private schools. If public schools are properly funded and become good schools, then the quality argument would be undercut. Using public money so children can “flee” a good school to attend another good school has little appeal. So, the quality argument is self-defeating.

While school choice is appealing to those who want their children to escape public schools, it does nothing to address those left behind. This is a serious failing of school choice and makes one suspect that its proponents do not really care about the good for all children, just what is good for certain people.

 

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In the previous essay, I considered some arguments in favor of school vouchers. Another set of arguments focus on the choice aspect, that vouchers allow parents to select the education that best fits their children and that will cultivate the desired values. For example, choice proponents claim that vouchers enable parents of children with special needs to pick a tailored program not available in public schools. An obvious reply to these arguments is that the main reason public schools lack tailored programs is that they are underfunded. Schools could offer tailored programs if they had the funding and diverting public money to vouchers makes less sense than funding these programs. This would be like arguing that public money should be diverted from community rec centers to private gyms because the rec centers lack the variety of equipment possessed by private gyms. If the equipment is critical for the community, then the funding should be used to get that equipment for the rec centers rather than funneling money into private gyms.

A third set of arguments focus on economic efficiency and accountability. The gist of the arguments is that private schools will be more economically efficient and more accountable than public schools. While I will not deny that public schools can be inefficient and lack accountability, the same is true of private schools. Look at the nightmare of for-profit colleges to see what can go wrong in the private education sector. There is no public sector curse and private sector magic, one can have bad or good in either. If a school district is inefficient and not accountable, going private is not an automatic fix. It just leaves all the problems in place in what remains of the public sector. Rather, the solution is to increase efficiency and accountability in the public sector, as has been done with many very good public schools. In the case of for-profit schools, there is always the obvious question about how they can do all that a public school would do for less yet still make a profit. At the college level, the answer was that they did not.

A final set of arguments focus on how vouchers and similar programs improve schools by offering competition. While, as a runner and gamer, I do recognize that competition can result in improvements, this does not seem to apply in education. First, consider the disastrous for-profit colleges. If the competition hypothesis held true, they should have been better than public schools and helped improve them. However, they ended up being vacuums for public money and disasters for their students. Public schools mainly responded by doing what they could to help their victims. After the for-profit college debacle I attended meetings about what we could do to help the “refugees” from the failed for-profit colleges. Second, public schools operate at an incredible disadvantage in the competition. They are more accountable than private schools, they must meet far more requirements than private schools, they are subject to state assessment and grading, they must accept everyone, and their funding is limited. Arguing this way for vouches is like arguing that giving places like Disney and Six Flags public money from the state park system would improve the state parks because of the competition. This would not improve the state parks—they are far more limited than the private operations and already have far less funding. If we want better state parks, taking away money is not the way to make that happen. Likewise, taking money from public education is not going to make it better.

In sum, while vouchers are good for some people, they do not benefit public education. The arguments in their favor are problematic, while those against them are strong. As such, vouchers (and similar programs) are a bad idea.

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While strong support for public education has been bipartisan at times, it is now split along ideological grounds Most opposition to vouchers is from the left and they use various standard arguments. First, it is argued that the voucher system is intended to transfer public money to private businesses, thus making it a form of “wealthfare” in which public money benefits the well-off. Second, it is argued that vouchers take money from underfunded public schools that desperately need funding. Florida does very badly in spending per student and is at the bottom of the states for teacher pay. There are many unfilled teaching positions, schools have broken air-conditioning, and teachers routinely buy their own classroom supplies. Third, it is argued that vouchers are often a way to channel public money into religious institutions through their schools and using taxpayer money to fund churches is unconstitutional and wrong. Fourth, it is argued that the voucher system is intended to undermine public education to maintain the existing class structure and undermine democracy. While I agree with these arguments, it is worth considering the claimed merits of vouchers. After all, to simply embrace or shun something solely on ideological grounds would be to reject critical thought. As such, I will consider some of the reasons advanced in favor of voucher programs.

One set of reasons can be grouped under what I will call the “better student argument.” The gist of this argument is that vouchers are good, because they create better students. To be specific, choice advocates point out that private schools have better safety, better academic performance and better graduation rates than public schools. From this, they contend, it follows that vouchers are beneficial.

It certainly makes sense that private schools often have better students than public schools. But this is because they can select their students, and public schools must take everyone. To use an analogy, comparing the two is like comparing intramural teams which must take everyone and varsity teams that have strict tryouts. The varsity teams will almost always be better teams. But it is not being varsity that makes the varsity team better, it is the selection process. The fast runner is not fast because she is on the varsity team, she is on the varsity team because she is fast.  The same holds for the private schools; they get better students because they are free to reject the ones they do not want.

One could also use an analogy to public health: the private schools are like hospitals that can select their patients and exclude those they do not want. Public schools are like hospitals that must take everyone. Such exclusionary hospitals would have better outcomes than the public hospitals as they would select the better patients and would be getting more money. However, this would hardly be a good solution to public health problems. 

On the one hand, if your child is a good student and can get accepted by a private school, then the voucher program is appealing. You can get your child into a school with better students. On the other hand, if your child is the problem child or bad student that other children are trying to escape, then the voucher program will not help you. Your child will be stuck in an ever-declining public-school system. While this might be just a problem for the children who cannot escape and their parents, these children are part of society and are thus everyone’s concern even if the concerns are purely pragmatic about crime and employability. Using a public health analogy, abandoning people into a declining public health care system puts everyone at greater risk.

If it is replied that the problem students will also get vouchers, then the obvious problem is that private schools will no longer be better or safer. Going back to the sports analogy, this would be like varsity teams trying to still claim to be better while responding to criticism about leaving people out by opening the teams to everyone. They would soon cease to be better. Likewise for the voucher program: if it is open to all children, then the public schools would be replicated in private form. If the schools are exclusionary, then people will be left behind in what are claimed to be more dangerous and inferior schools. As such, the better student argument is problematic. Excluding the “problem” students so that the private schools are better means abandoning these citizens to declining public education, which will hurt everyone. Opening the schools up to everyone would mean they would be the same as public schools, so they would not be better. The discussion continues in the next essay.

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The foundation of legitimate political authority has been explored by political philosophers like Hobbes and Locke. When the thirteen American colonies revolted, they sought a foundation for political authority. While there are many views, the founders of the United States adopted a philosophy shaped by John Locke: legitimate political authority requires the consent of the governed and the majority should rule. Being aware of what Mill later called the tyranny of the majority, the founders put in place constitutional protections against oppressive incursions by the majority (and the state).

While these ideas appeal to me psychologically because of my upbringing, they also stand up well to philosophical scrutiny. As such, I accept that political legitimacy stems from the consent of the governed and that majority rule with proper protection against the tyranny of the majority is a good idea. For the sake of this essay, I will assume that these two basic principles are correct while acknowledging that they could be refuted.

Since the legitimacy of the government depends on the consent of the governed, it is essential that the governed can provide or withhold consent. As a practical matter, voting is fundamental to this consent. A citizen can also provide consent by not voting, if they are free to vote and decide against doing so. If a citizen is unjustly denied their right to vote, then their consent is not obtained. This weakens a government’s legitimacy  since the it would be extending its authority beyond the provided consent. To avoid a charge of absurdity, I must make it clear that I am not claiming that disenfranchising a single citizen destroys the legitimacy of the state. Rather, each unjustly disenfranchised citizen reduces the legitimacy of the state to that degree. I cannot specify the specific number of disenfranchised voters that would destroy the legitimacy of a state, but to require this would be to fall victim to the line drawing fallacy. But if most citizens were unjustly disenfranchised, that would be an indisputable case in which the state lost legitimacy. At levels less than this, the legitimacy of the state would be reduced proportionally to the degree of unjust disenfranchisement. Simply put, the more unjustly disenfranchised citizens, the less legitimate the state. Individual citizens who are unjustly disenfranchised can make a reasonable case that they owe little or no obedience to the state that has disenfranchised them. One can appeal to the principle of no taxation without representation.

While we praise the right to vote, the United States has a long and persistent history of unjust disenfranchisement. While the past is of interest, what is of practical concern is the present unjust disenfranchisement of citizens.

One means of unjust disenfranchisement it to use the specter of voter fraud to “justify” measures denying citizens their right to vote. While voter fraud does exist, all the evidence shows that it is incredibly rare.  To use an analogy, the obsession with voter fraud seems like a confused person who thinks Americans face a dangerous epidemic of excessive exercise and that a lack of health insurance is not a serious problem. This confused person would work hard to impose restrictions and limits on exercise while expressing no concern about insurance.  While athletic overtraining does occur, it is not a general problem and the focus should be on the lack of health insurance. Likewise for voter fraud and voter suppression: voter fraud does occur, but the real problem is voter suppression.

There is also the fact that the methods used are often ineffective against the sort of fraud that does occur. These methods are more effective at disenfranchising voters, especially narrowly targeted voters. One example is the Republican’s voter ID law in North Dakota that requires voters to have an ID that shows a street address. Many native American voters live in rural areas and have PO boxes rather than street addresses and they are now trying to get new IDs that meet the requirement of the law. In terms of why the law exists, it is not because there was an epidemic of fraudulent voting by people using government IDs that lack street addresses. Rather, it is because Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp won her election by less than 3,000 votes in 2012. 80% of majority-Native counties voted for her, so suppressing their votes could have resulted in a Republican victory. This law will also impact other citizens.

Another example of voter suppression is disenfranchising felons. While felon disenfranchisement impacts Republican and Democratic voters (Trump is a convicted felon), it is seen as impacting Democrats more, which explains why Republicans tend to favor it.

There are other ways in which citizens are unjustly disenfranchised, most of which are the result of strategies of the Republican party. It might be countered that I and the Democrats are only concerned about voter suppression because the voters being targeted are more likely to vote for Democrats. One might go beyond this and claim that I and the Democrats would be fine with the suppression of Republican voters. One might point to how Democrats engage in gerrymandering and other political trickery, perhaps even their own version of voter suppression.

My reply is that I cannot speak for other Democrats; but I can speak for myself. My view is that voter suppression is wrong regardless of who is being unjustly suppressed. As such, if the Democrats engage in voter suppression, I condemn that as strongly as I condemn voter suppression by Republicans. Or anyone, for that matter. While I would generally prefer that a Democrat win (if only from the pure self-interested fact that Democrats tend to be much friendlier to education and more pro-environment than Republicans), I would rather lose an election fairly than win through voter suppression. This is because, as noted above, voter suppression reduces the legitimacy of the state by robbing citizens unjustly of their opportunity to consent. In a nation that professes to be a democracy (yes, I know that it has a republican system at most levels) to rob citizens unjustly of their right to vote is a crime of the highest order. This is because it denies the foundational right of the citizens of a democracy and damages democracy itself. As such, voter suppression is treason, plain and simple.