Category: Politics

 

I agree with JD Vance that kids should get votes. My disagreement with him is that these votes should be cast by the kids and not given to the parents. In my previous essay, I argued why parents should not get these “extra” votes. In this essay, I will argue why kids should get to vote.

On the face of it, there should be a presumption of voting rights: each citizen of the United States should have the right to vote unless an adequate reason is given to deny a person this right. In terms of justifying this presumption, the obvious justification comes from the social contract theory that provides the basis of American political philosophy. The general idea is that legitimate political authority derives from the consent of the governed and voting is a means of ongoing consent to the ongoing political authority. To the degree that the United States denies citizens the right to vote, it undercuts its own legitimacy. Thus, the burden of proof rests on those who would restrict voting and not on those who favor the right. There are, of course, arguments that children should not have the right to vote, but these can be countered.

One general class of arguments focuses on the alleged defects of children. The reasoning is that because children are defective relative to adults, they should not have the right to vote. One alleged defect is epistemic in nature: children lack the knowledge and information needed to vote in an informed manner. The obvious reply to this is that adults are not denied the right to vote if they are ignorant and ill-informed, which is often the case. While citizens should be knowledgeable and vote in an informed manner, this is not the foundation for the right to vote—it is, once again, the need for the state to secure consent to have legitimacy.

Another alleged defect is a matter of character: children are supposed to be irrational, impulsive and unable to make good decisions. To use a silly example, that children might vote to make cake legally a vegetable. But this does not distinguish them from adult voters, who often vote in ways that are irrational, impulsive and not good decisions in both the practical and moral sense. Opponents of Trump tend to see Trump voters this way, while still supporting their right to vote. Trump’s proponents tend to see Democrats this way, although they usually do not propose stripping all Democrats of the right to vote. While voters should be ethical and rational in their voting, these are not necessary conditions for this right.

There is also the alleged defect that children would be easily swayed and duped by unscrupulous politicians. While it is true that children can be less discerning and more trusting than adults, American politics shows that adult voters are easily swayed and duped. After all, Trump voters claim that Democrats are duped by Democratic politicians and critics of Trump point to his relentless duplicity and lack of scruples. So, both sides will agree that voters are duped, they just disagree as to who the dupes are. As such, if effective critical thinking skills were required for the right to vote, many adults would need to be stripped of this right. And, as noted above, the right to vote is not based on the ability to vote well, but the moral view that the legitimacy of the state depends on ongoing consent.

While this is but a single example, Mike Lindell provided an excellent example showing how a child, in this case Knowa De Brasco, can be rational and informed and an adult (who gets to vote and gets on the news as a pundit) can be ill informed, impulsive and irrational. While De Brasco and Lindell are both somewhat unusual, they do stand in for significant numbers of people: informed children and irrational adults. As such, the argument that children are defective relative to adults and should not have the right to vote is not a compelling argument—unless we wish to strip Mike Lindell and those like him of his voting rights. Which we should not do.

Another type of argument involves pointing out that rights and privileges are age gated in the United States. For example, the legal drinking age is 21. As another example, the legal age for marriage varies as four states have no official minimum age and other states range from 15 to 18. There are also age gates on driver’s licenses, being able to rent a car, and being able to enlist in the military. From a moral standpoint, the usual argument for restricting such rights (and liberties) is the sort presented by J.S. Mill in his discussion of liberty. Roughly put, children could be harmed by poor decisions if they had the freedom to make certain choices and they lack the faculties to reliably make good choices. This does raise an obvious problem for adults: if an inability to make good decisions should deny a person the right to make such decisions, then adults should never get the right to make such decisions. After all, if they made the wrong decision, they would have shown they should not have the right to make that decision. But, back to children.

While children use the same logic and critical thinking as adults, their brains are still developing and thus they are inclined to make what many adults would see as risky or bad choices. As such, it is reasonable to put age some gates in place—although there can be good faith and rational debate about what these should be. The justification is to protect children from harm until they are more capable of dealing with the consequences of bad decisions. Or have the agency to be accountable for such decisions. But this argument does not apply to the right to vote.

While a child might make a bad decision when casting their vote, the voting will not cause them the sort of direct harm that, for example, underage drinking or marriage could cause. The worst that can happen is what could happen to any adult voter: they will vote for someone or something that ends up causing them harm, such as voting for a politician who cuts education funding for the kid’s school or opposes gun control legislation that might reduce school shootings. As such, the protection from harm argument does not apply to voting, since voting does not cause direct harm to the voter.

One final argument I will consider is a practical one, that young kids who cannot read or work a voting machine on their own would not be able to vote. But this could be addressed by assisting children who want to vote (as adults are assisted) or by setting the voting age based on when kids would usually have the basic abilities needed to physically cast a vote; this would be at least by age 5, since that is when kids usually start school. And if they can handle going to school, they are ready to vote and would, generally, not do any worse than adults.

JD Vance and I agree that children should have the vote. But we disagree on how this should work and the reasons why children should have this right. As Vance infamously sees it, childless people not only have less commitment to the future of the country, the “childless left” lack “any physical commitment to the future of this country.” Since parents have this commitment and children have a stake in the country, the parents Vance said, “Let’s give votes to all children in this country but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children.” In my next essay I will argue why Vance is right that kids should get votes. In this essay I will argue why he is otherwise wrong.

While children could be given the right to vote easily enough, there are various practical problems in terms of assigning these votes to parents. I infer that Vance is thinking of a two-parent family, but even then, there is the question of which parent casts the votes (I infer Vance would think the husband should cast these votes). Cases of adoption, stepparents, divorce, biological parents, sperm donors, egg donors, and so on would also need to be addressed. Parents also do not always vote the same way, which raises that problem as well. This proposal also runs into a problem with citizen children of non-citizens or of parents who otherwise are not permitted to vote (such as convicted felons). If Vance is truly dedicated to children being represented, then the obvious solution would be that these parents would not get their own vote but could cast the votes belonging to their children. Otherwise, these innocent children would be unfairly disenfranchised and the childless cat ladies would win.  I suspect that Vance would not favor allowing non-citizens to cast the votes their citizen children would be entitled to under his idea, although his reasoning should allow this.

One concern is that while the children will eventually get the right to vote on their own, these extra votes would give parents more political power for eighteen years, even if their kids disagreed with how these votes were being cast. It does seem implausible that anyone would have kids just to get more votes, but the right has long claimed that poor people intentionally have more kids just to get more entitlements. If they believe that is how people think, then they would need to worry about people also having more kids to get more votes to vote for more entitlements for people with kids. While I think this is not a serious concern, folks on the right would need to address this irrational fear. I do suspect Vance has some plans on how to disenfranchise parents he does not want voting. Given all these problems, it would obviously be easier to just have the kids cast their own votes, and I will argue for this in the next essay. But perhaps these problems could be addressed. This raises the question of why parents should get these “extra” votes.

Vance, as noted above, contends that parents have more of a commitment to the future of the country than childless people, specifically the childless left. Given that he served in the Marines prior to having children, it should be inferred that either he is wrong or that his reasons for serving did not include a commitment to the future of the country. Given the heroism of childless American soldiers in our wars, I would disagree with Vance on this matter—unless someone wants to dismiss their sacrifices. Vance also ignores or fails to consider that people can love others who are not their own children. These can be adopted children, relatives, friends and even strangers.

It can certainly be argued that parents have more of a stake in the future of their biological children, but ironically this best fits the usual evolutionary accounts of parenthood and not Vance’s professed Christianity. After all, the evolutionary approach explains parental concern in terms of reproduction and genes, so the link to biological children is the foundation of this biologically driven behavior. But Jesus did not, as far as we know, have any children and yet he is supposed to love and care for us. One could counter this by arguing that Jesus is a special exception or that as Jesus is God, Jesus is the Father and Son at the same time; thus, Jesus has a kid and that kid is him. Metaphysics is complicated.

Catholic priests and nuns are also not supposed to have biological children (after they take their vows), so Vance would need to be critical of them as well. But perhaps they could also be an exception. The challenge would be justifying their exception to Vance’s principle while ensuring that this exception would not apply to those he criticizes. Vance would, perhaps, say that Catholic priests and nuns can care since they are childless Catholics and not childless cat ladies.

God also enjoins us to love one another as He loves us and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This would seem to entail that God thinks we can love people other than our biological children. Vance would need to show that God is wrong about this or that, for some special reason, the childless are incapable of following God’s commandment and God decided to command them anyway.

While parents generally do care about their children, there are also bad parents who might vote in ways that are harmful to the future of their kids, such as voting against efforts to protect the environment or provide housing their children will be able to afford in the future. Being a parent does not automatically make a person virtuous.

There is also the fact that even if it is assumed that parents feel they have a greater stake and are motivated by commendable moral reasons, this does not mean that they will vote in ways that benefit the future of their children. That is, being a parent does not entail that one has a better understanding of politics, economics, policy, and so on. A parent could easily think that by voting in support of the fossil fuel industry and against efforts to address climate change, they are making a better future for their children. When, in fact, they are voting for a worse future.  As such, there is not a compelling reason to give the votes of kids to their parents. That said, I agree with Vance that kids should get the vote, and I will argue for this in the next essay.

 

Statistics show that violent and property crimes have plunged since the 1990s and although some types of crime have increased, overall crime is down. However, most Americans erroneously believe that crime has increased in general. Interestingly, while Americans tend to think that crime is up nationally and locally, they believe the increase is less where they live. This all can easily be explained using some basic ideas from critical thinking.

When people repeatedly hear stories about crime, even the same incident over and over, they tend to conclude that the amount of crime must correspond with how often they hear about it. Since many politicians and news companies frequently talk about crime, people will think it must be high or increasing; this is mistaking the frequency of hearing about it with the frequency of crime. This is the availability heuristic cognitive bias at work. This can also feed into the fallacy of hasty generalization in which an inference is drawn from a sample that is too small to warrant such a conclusion. For example, a person might hear about a few crimes on the news and then infer from this small sample that crime is more widespread than it really is.

 There is also a tendency to infer from hearing vivid or dramatic accounts of crime that crime must be high. This mistakes the vividness of crimes for statistical likelihood. In philosophy, this is known as the misleading vividness fallacy. It occurs when a small number of dramatic events are taken to outweigh significant statistical evidence. Somewhat more formally, this fallacy is committed when an estimation of the probability of an occurrence is based on the vividness of the occurrence and not on statistical evidence of how often it occurs.  It is fallacious because the vividness of an event does not make it more likely to occur, especially in the face of significant statistical evidence.

This fallacy gets its psychological force from the fact that dramatic or vivid cases tend to make a strong impression. In the case of crime, people can feel that they are in danger, and this intensifies the vividness. For example, when a politician or a news show focuses on a brutal murder and provides dramatic details of the crime, this can make people feel threatened and that such a crime is likely to occur even when it is very unlikely. The way people respond to shark attacks provides another good example of this fallacy: the odds of being killed or injured by a shark are extremely low; yet shark attacks make the news and make people feel that they are likely to be in danger.

Politicians and news companies also tell their audiences that crime is high, often explicitly using various logical fallacies and rhetorical techniques to persuade people to accept this disinformation. One common fallacy used here is anecdotal evidence. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a very small number of cases. The fallacy is also committed when someone rejects reasonable statistical data supporting a claim in favor of a single example or small number of examples that go against the claim. Politicians, pundits and the media will often have a go-to story of a crime (which is also usually vivid and dramatic) and repeatedly present that to their audience. If the audience falls for the anecdotal evidence, they will feel that crime is high, even though crime has been steadily decreasing (with a few exceptions).

Politicians and news companies also often enhance their anecdotes and crime stories by appealing to people’s biases, fears and prejudices. For example, a politician might focus on migrant crime and present minorities as criminals, thus tapping into racism and fear of migrants. Those who fear or dislike migrants and minorities will respond with fear or anger and feel that crime is occurring more than it really is.

The disparity between what people think about local and national crime can be explained by the fact that the local experience of people and whatever accurate local information might be available will tend to match reality better. People also tend to think better of their local area than they do of other places (although there are exceptions). And there is evidence that people are good at estimating crime in their own area and as crime is down, a more accurate estimate will reflect this.

The obvious defense against poor reasoning about crime is to know the facts: while America is a dangerous and violent country, crime has been decreasing and is much lower than it was in the 1990s. But it is fair to say that Americans are right to be concerned about crime, although we tend to be wrong about the crime facts. For example, if you work for wages, you should be worried about wage theft and the fact that the criminals usually get away with it.

 

Both Vice President Harris and former President Trump have promised to eliminate taxes on tip income. Critics of both have raised the obvious points that Harris could (attempt) to do this now and Trump could have done it when he was President. While this tax cut sounds appealing as a political move, there are questions about whether it is a good idea from both a moral and practical standpoint.

On the positive side, eliminating taxes on tips would be directly beneficial to workers who receive a significant tip income. Being able to keep more of their income means that they would have more money to address the high cost of life in today’s economy of high rent and grocery bills. As tipped workers tend to be in the lower economic classes, this tax break has an extra appeal since it will mostly help lower income people. That said, there is the usual concern about tax changes that people will find ways to exploit and abuse this tax elimination. For example, it would not be surprising to see wealthy people suddenly receiving substantial tip income in addition to their capital gains income. But this is not a defect with eliminating taxes on tips itself, although there are concerns about this proposal.

One concern is that the proposal does not address the fundamental problem with jobs that rely on tips. While tipping has greatly expanded, it has not always been practiced in the United States and was once looked upon in a negative light. Like many bad things in America, the negative aspects of tipping can be traced back to slavery: freed slaves sometimes worked jobs for no pay, relying on tips from customers to have an income. While there is now a federal minimum wage for tipped workers, this wage is currently $2.13 an hour (although some states have higher minimum wages).

This means that the income of tipped workers relies heavily on chance. For example, whether a waiter does well on their shift comes down to luck with the generosity of customers. While some might say that a waiter can increase their tips through hard work or skills, this is obviously not consistent. A hard-working waiter might get a lousy tip from a stingy customer while a bad waiter might catch the eye of a customer in some manner and “earn” a big tip. While eliminating the tax on tips does increase take home income, it does nothing to make the income of those who work for tips more consistent. Also, it could be argued that mandating a higher minimum wage for such workers would provide more benefit.

Employers of tipped workers have an obvious incentive to favor the tax cut over any increase in wages, since tips shift the burden of paying the workers from the employer to the customer. In effect, the worker is a short-term employee of the customer, but the customer is not required to compensate them fairly (or at all) for their labor. In defense of this practice, it can be argued that in the case of restaurants, the margins are so tight that this is the only way for the restaurant owners to make a profit. It could be countered that the cost of service should be added to the cost of the food, and this should be paid to the workers. This does have some appeal, since people who tip are already paying more for their food. The main arguments against involve claims that this would cause people who do not tip or who are willing to tip but not willing to pay more for the food itself to cease patronizing the restaurant that adopted such a policy. These do have some appeal, if the claims are true. But the strongest moral arguments against eliminating the tax are based on fairness.

The first fairness argument is that it just as the employer of tipped workers shifts the burden to the customer, the elimination of taxes on tips would shift their tax burden to everyone else who pays taxes. These are the people who make enough to pay taxes but not so wealthy that they can avoid taxes. This is, of course, not a special problem with the elimination of the tax on tips but a general problem with any tax cut. The funds to pay for the military, subsidies to farmers, Trump’s Secret Service protection, border security, and the PPP “loans” for wealthy Republican politicians during Trump’s presidency have to come from somewhere and each tax cut shifts the burden. The obvious response is that the tax cuts can be addressed by spending cuts. But these are unlikely if Harris wins and if Trump wins the cuts would most likely hurt the lower income tipped workers. But if this tax cut was offset by making the wealthy pay at least some of their fair share, then that would make it more morally acceptable in terms of fairness. Instead of redistributing wealth in the usual upward direction, this would at least redistribute some of it back to the workers.

The second fairness argument is that only workers receiving tips benefit from the tax cut. Other workers who make the same income would be paying more taxes despite this sameness of income. A reply to this is to point out that the tax system already favors certain types of income. The maximum capital gain tax is significantly lower than the maximum tax on income from jobs. But at least this special category would benefit workers. The counter to this is to point out that such differences seem fundamentally unfair as income is income and granting special benefits seems unjust.

In closing, since tipped workers tend to be in the lower economic classes, eliminating taxes on tips has a certain moral appeal and it would seem wicked to oppose this. That said, this approach does not meaningfully address the fundamental problem with tip-based jobs and there are fairness concerns in terms of shifting the tax burden and granting some workers a tax cut based solely on the type of income. A better approach would be to address the fundamental problem with tipping, but it is unlikely that Harris would do so and certain that Trump would not.

Many classic conservatives advocate a broad application of free market principle. This includes an opposition to regulation, or rather regulation that does not favor businesses. As health care is seen as a business in the United States, this view leads to concerns about health care cost regulation in the United States.

Because of the high cost of health care, there have been proposals to limit the cost of health care services. Those who oppose these regulations claim pricing should be set by free competition between health care providers and that consumers of health care should become savvy shoppers. The idea is that savvy shoppers will take their business to providers that offer better services or lower costs, which will force the competition to lower costs or improve quality. This is a stock free market argument.

There are serious problems with the idea of relying on savvy health care shoppers and competition to reign in prices and improve quality. The first is the challenge of finding the prices that health care providers charge. While it can be difficult to predict what services a consumer might need, health care providers often have a range of prices depending on who is paying for the services. For example, insurance companies negotiate prices, and these differ from what consumers without insurance would pay. Health care providers, although they always have a database of billing codes and costs, are often reluctant to provide this information in a readily accessible and comprehensible manner.

A second problem is that health care consumers usually lack the medical knowledge to make informed decisions about health care. While a person might face some challenge in picking the best phone or laptop, sorting out medical care is typically beyond the skill of most. That is why people go to medical professionals. As such, being a savvy shopper is difficult.

A third problem is that it is somewhat misleading to call a patient a consumer. While this might seem to be a mere difference in labels, the difference between consumer and patient is significant.

One difference is that a patient is typically in duress. They are injured or ill and not in a position to engage in savvy shopping practices. While an informed rational consumer will be looking for the best deal, a suffering patient is concerned with getting better. As people say to not go grocery shopping on an empty stomach, it would be best to not shop for health care when one is not healthy. But that is exactly when one needs health care. There are also the more extreme cases. For example, a person who is badly injured in a car crash is not going to be shopping in a savvy manner for emergency rooms during the ambulance ride.

It can be countered that there are cases that allow savvy shopping, such as elective surgeries and non-emergencies. This is a reasonable point and a person who is not in need can take the time to shop around and be a savvy consumer. However, this does not apply to cases in which a person is sick or injured enough to impede such savvy shopping.

Another important difference between consumer and patient is that the consumer often has a reasonable choice between buying a good or service and doing without. For example, while someone might want the latest and greatest iPhone, they can live just fine without it.      

 In contrast, patients usually have need treatment and doing without would be a real hardship or even fatal. When one must buy the good or service and the provider knows this, it makes it much harder to be a savvy shopper. This also provides a segue into the matter of regulating prices.

While free market pricing might work when consumers can easily do without the good or service, it runs into obvious problems for the consumer when the goods or services are necessities. To the degree that the patient cannot do without health, the patient is at the mercy of the provider. So, while a person can easily elect to do without the latest iPhone if they cannot afford it, it is much more difficult for a person to do without chemotherapy. As a personal example, when I was bitten by a dog in September 2023, I had to get rabies shots because if the dog had rabies, then I would die without the shots. And when I had a quadriceps tear, I had to get surgery if I wanted to be able to walk and run.  True, a consumer could do without liposuction or breast implants, but such elective surgery differs from non-elective treatments.

The stock counter to such concerns is that if a consumer finds the price of a good or service too high, they can go to a lower priced competitor. In the case of health care, the opportunity to find a lower priced competitor can be problematic. A patient might not have the time to shop around. In many places, there is not any local competition with lower prices that would allow a patient to engage in savvy shopping. Going back to my rabies shots, the only place I could get them was at an emergency room and I had to pay the emergency room prices each time. I checked with all the local pharmacies and my own doctor, so I did try to shop around. When I had my quadriceps tendon repair surgery, I also did not have an opportunity to shop around for a discount. As such, this free-market advice is not very helpful.

In the case of pharmaceuticals, patients often find that there is no competition. When a company has a patent on a medication, the United States’ government uses its coercive power to enforce that patent, ensuring the company retains its monopoly for the specified time. Because of this, a patient who needs the medication has two choices: do without or pay the price. There is no free market competition, so without regulation on the part of the state, the company can decide to charge whatever it wants. While this can result in bad press and public criticism, patients cannot rely on this to result in lower prices.  

This monopoly system does create a quandary for a principled proponent of the free market. On the one hand, without such state regulation a truly free market of drugs would make it irrational for for-profit companies to invest in costly research. As soon as the drug was developed, the competition would duplicate it and would be able to sell it cheaper because they would not need to recoup the cost of development. A solution, which would not be very free market, would be to have the state fund the expensive research and then provide the results to companies who would then compete without monopolies for consumer dollars. One could, of course, stick with a strict no regulation ideology and let the market be completely free of the state and hope medications would somehow be developed.

If the state steps in to regulate prices as part of the agreement for using its coercive power to protect patent monopolies, then there would also be no free market competition. But the state could see to it that the companies charged prices that allowed profits while not gouging patients.

My own view, as might be suspected, is that since patients are essentially a coerced market when it comes to health care and medication, the state should act to regulate prices. In the case of pharmaceutical companies, this should be part of the bargain with the state that allows them to maintain their monopolies. After all, if taxpayer dollars are to be used to protect monopolies, then they should get something in return and this should include reasonably priced medication. In the case of health care providers, while they do not usually have a monopoly, they do have a coerced market. Just as the state justly steps in to prevent price gouging during large scale natural disasters, it can justly do so regarding personal disasters in the cases of injury or illness.

I know health care providers and pharmaceutical companies want to make a profit and, as such, I would advocate that the regulations on pricing leave them a reasonable margin of profit. While it might be objected that a reasonable margin of profit is hard to define, my reply is that if price gouging can be recognized in other areas, it can (and is) be recognized in the realm of medicine.

Throughout American history it has been claimed that immigrants steal jobs, commit crimes and spread disease. Sometimes, such as with Ron DeSantis, some descendants of immigrants can go on to make the same accusations against current migrants. My focus in this essay is to address the claim that immigrants (and migrants) are stealing jobs from Americans.

One approach is to consider what it means for immigrants to steal jobs. To facilitate the discussion, I’ll offer an analogy to another type of alleged theft, that of stealing someone’s girlfriend (or boyfriend).

While I will change the names to protect the innocent and the guilty, when I was in college Dick was dating Jane.  Jane was at my school and Dick was attending a school in a different state. Jane started spending a lot of time with John, and eventually John started dating Jane. An angry Dick showed up to confront John about “stealing his woman.” Jane’s response that she was not stolen because she was not anyone’s property. She chose who she wanted to be with. In this case, John. For those who are wondering, I am not John, Dick or Jane. But thanks for asking. While there were moral concerns about what Jane and John did, Jane was right. She is not anyone’s property and could not be stolen. So, Dick’s charge of theft did not apply. If John had kidnapped Jane, then that would have been another matter entirely, but still not theft.

Like affection, a job is provided by someone else and not something that can (typically) be stolen. So, when an immigrant is hired by an American employer, the immigrant is not stealing the job. The American employer is choosing to hire the immigrant rather than hiring an American. Going back to the girlfriend analogy, the American worker would be like Dick, he thinks the job is rightfully his. But the employer is like Jane, she is the one deciding who gets her affection (in the case of the employer, the job). So, the American did not have their job stolen; the American employer decided to give it to someone else. The job, after all, belongs to the employer.

This argument could be countered by going back to the girlfriend analogy. Suppose that Dick and Jane are engaged and are committed, but John is willing to do more for Jane and asks far less in return and is much more appealing. It could be claimed that John is not playing fair: he should respect the special relationship between Dick and Jane and not outcompete poor Dick.

The easy and obvious reply is that it would clearly be morally problematic for John to intentionally make a play for Jane when she is in a committed relationship.  However, it is still Jane’s choice whether to stay with Dick or move on to John. As such, most of the responsibility would rest on Jane. It is fair to note that John did outcompete Dick, but Dick could have stepped up to compete if he really wanted Jane to stick with him.

In the case of the job, it is morally problematic for immigrants to cross the border illegally to seek jobs in America. However, the bulk of the moral responsibility lies with the employers. While immigrants might tempt them by being willing to work for far less, it is up to them to stick to their commitment to the law or to break it. As such, it is not the immigrants that are stealing jobs. Rather, employers are choosing to hire immigrants and if any wrong is being done to Americans who want those jobs, most of it lies on the employers.

Turning to the practical matter of immigration, if a political party wants to deter migrants from coming to the United States illegally in search of employment, it makes the most sense to focus on enforcing employment laws and punishing businesses that break these laws. While the border would still need to be secured, cracking down hard on employers breaking employment laws would reduce the number of people coming here to work illegally. But neither party has the will to do this, since they know a big chunk of the American economy depends on not policing illegal employment. But because of their rhetoric and the xenophobia baked into the political apple pie of America, they cannot support a sensible system of legal employment and documentation of workers. They thus get their pie (being able to rail against migrants) and eat it too (having large parts of the economy rest on the backs of migrant workers who are employed illegally). As a closing point, we should speak in terms of illegal employment rather than illegal immigrants; that would be more honest.

While most Americans are not hostile to transgender people and oppose discrimination against their fellow Americans, the Republican party has made them a major target in their endless culture war. While sports have become one of the newest battlefields in this fight, there is still a focus on the bathroom battles. While the legal issues will be addressed by judges, there are also the moral issues.

Utilitarianism provides one approach to the moral issue of whether transgender people should be able to choose which bathroom to use. This involves weighing the harms of denying this choice against the harms of granting it. In a democracy, this approach seems to be a reasonable one, at least if it is believed that a democratic state should aim at the general good of the people (and that America is a democracy).

A utilitarian assessment leads to an obvious conclusion: bathroom choice should be granted. The two main arguments against bathroom choice fail in the face of facts and logic. One argument is that allowing bathroom choice would put people in danger. Since some states have already allowed bathroom choice, there is data about the danger presented by such choice. Currently, the evidence shows that there is no meaningful danger. As some wits enjoy pointing out, more Republican lawmakers have been arrested for bathroom misconduct than transgender people. As such, Republicans worried about bathroom safety should focus on policing their own party.

The other argument is the privacy argument, which contends that allowing people in bathrooms based on their gender identification would violate the privacy of other people. While the focus is on women’s bathrooms, men’s bathrooms have the greater potential for privacy violations because of urinals. Sometimes there are not even dividers between them and someone could simply look down and across at another person engaged in urination. As women’s bathrooms lack urinals and have stalls, there is more privacy. However, someone could obviously peep under a stall. In this sense, bathrooms already lack some degree of privacy. But this could be addressed by enclosing urinals in stalls and making stalls peep proof in ways that would still allow ventilation and ease of cleaning. But making bathrooms peep proof has not been a focus of Republican law makers, so they are probably thinking of privacy in a different way. The most reasonable interpretation is privacy from members of the other sex, this could be called “gender privacy.”

Those favoring transgender rights would point out that allowing people to use facilities based on gender identity would not result in boys seeing girls or vice versa. It would just be the usual girls seeing girls in the girls bathroom and boys seeing boys in the boy’s bathroom. Since the main worry is transgender girls in girl’s bathrooms, I will focus on that. However, the same discussion could be made for transgender boys.

The obvious reply to this would be to assert that gender identification is not a real thing: a person’s gender is set by biological sex. So, a transgender girl would, in fact, be a boy and hence should not be allowed in the girls’ locker room. This is presumably, based on the assumption that a transgender girl is still sexually attracted to girls because they are still a boy. There seem to be three possibilities here.

The first is that transgender girls are straight boys and are sexually attracted to girls (that is, they are just faking) and this grounds the claim that a transgender girl would violate the privacy of other girls. This would entail that lesbian girls also violate the privacy of other girls and since about 10% of the population is gay, then any bathroom with ten or more girls probably has some privacy violation occurring. As such, those concerned with privacy would presumably need to address this as well. The worry that lesbians might be violating privacy could be addressed by making stalls peep proof, but then no transgender bans would be needed since privacy would be protected.  While this could prove expensive, if Republicans are truly dedicated to bathroom privacy, they could provide funding for this.

The second is that transgender girls are not automatically sexually attracted to other girls and hence do not violate their privacy: they are girls like other girls. It could be objected that what matters is the genetic makeup or gender past of the person: someone who was once a biological male seeing a girl in the locker room violates her privacy. Arguing for this requires showing how this matters in terms of privacy, that being seen by girls is not a privacy violation but being seen by a transgender girl who is just going about their business is a privacy violation. That is, if the person looking does not care about what is being seen, then how is it a privacy violation?

The third is that transgender girls are just girls. In which case, there is no privacy violation since it is just girls seeing girls.

While those advancing these arguments might honestly believe them, it might be suspected that the motivation for opposing bathroom choice is a dislike of transgender people. This is the “transgender people are icky and bad” argument. This “argument” has no merit on the face of it, which is why it usually is not advanced as a reason by opponents of bathroom choice. But now back to the utilitarian argument.

One stock problem with utilitarian arguments is that they can be used to justify violating rights. This problem typically arises in when the benefits received by a numerical majority come at the expense of harms done to a numerical minority. However, it can also arise in cases where the greater benefits to a numerical minority outweigh the lesser harms to a numerical majority. In the case at hand, those opposed to bathroom choice could argue that even if bathroom choice benefits transgender people far more than it hurts people who oppose bathroom choice, the rights of anti-choice people are being violated. This then makes the matter a question of competing rights.

In the case of public bathroom facilities, such as student bathrooms at schools, members of the public have the right to use them since that is the nature of public goods. There are, however, reasonable limits placed on access. For example, the bathrooms in public schools, courthouses and government buildings are generally not open to anyone to wander off the street to use. So, while there is a right to public bathrooms, like all rights, it does have its limits. It can thus be assumed that transgender people have bathroom rights just as people who oppose bathroom choice do. What is in dispute is whether the right of transgender people to choose their bathroom trumps the right of anti-choice people to not be forced to use bathrooms with transgender people.

Disputes over competing rights are often settled by utilitarian considerations, but the utilitarian argument already favors bathroom choice. As such, another approach is needed, and a reasonable one is the consideration of which right has priority. This approach assumes that there is a hierarchy of rights, and that one right can take precedent over another. Fortunately, this is intuitively appealing. For example, while people have a right to free expression, the right to not be unjustly harmed trumps it. This is why libel and slander are not protected by this right.

So, the bathroom issue comes down to this: does the right of a transgender person to choose their bathroom have priority over the right of an anti-choice person to not encounter transgender people in the bathroom? My inclination is that the right of the transgender person has priority over the anti-choice person. To support this, I will use an analogy to race.

Not so long ago, there were separate bathrooms for black and white people. When the bathrooms were to be integrated, there were dire warnings that terrible things would occur if bathrooms were integrated. This is a stock conservative approach against expanding rights: if these people get this right, then terrible things will happen. This argument was made in defense of the anti-miscegenation laws, against desegregation of schools and the military, and against same-sex marriage. So far, the claims of harm have turned out to be wrong.

In the specific case of desegregation of bathrooms, these terrible things obviously did not take place. Whites also have argued that they had a right to not be in the same bathroom as blacks. However, the alleged white right to not be in a bathroom with blacks does not trump the right of blacks to use the public bathroom. Likewise, the right of transgender people to choose their bathroom trumps the right of anti-choice people to exclude them.

It can be objected that if this argument is taken to its logical conclusion, then gender mixing will occur in the bathrooms. For example, one common sight at races (such as marathons) is long lines leading to the women’s bathrooms and short lines for the men’s bathrooms. Women runners might start going into the men’s room (they already sometimes do). Then terrible things might happen. Specifically, I might need to wait longer to pee before races. This is a case where my selfishness must outweigh my moral principles: though I have no moral objection to gender mixing of bathrooms, my selfish bladder says that I cannot give up my right to a shorter line. If men want to go to the women’s bathroom, my bladder approves since that means less wait for it.

Trump seems likely to be re-elected president and he will certainly return to his support for religious freedom and is promising a harsh crackdown on immigrants.  This combination leads one to think about people protecting migrants due to their religious convictions and offering sanctuary. The idea of churches serving as sanctuary from the state was developed in Western Europe during the Middle Ages and is a part of Western culture. Of course, even if the Democrats win, they seem inclined to take a harsher stance on immigration.

Sanctuary is morally appealing when it is granted to protect a person from injustice on the part of the state. Judging who is worthy of sanctuary (as with any moral assessment) can be complicated, but the basic principle is clear enough. If our country’s immigration policies and practices are  unjust, I believe that immigrants who have committed no other crimes would be worthy of sanctuary. Since they typically lack the resources to defend themselves, church sanctuary can provide them with the protection they need to make their case and seek justice. Even if sanctuary proves ineffective for a particular immigrant, the granting of sanctuary can make a moral and political statement that might influence public perception. As a practical matter, the effectiveness of sanctuary depends on the reluctance of the state to use force to remove people. This reluctance might be grounded in many things, ranging from the power of the institution to the negative public reaction that might result from violating sanctuary. 

While the notion of sanctuary does enjoy the support of tradition, it could be argued that churches should not be be allowed a special exemption from the enforcement of the law. It should not matter whether migrants are seeking shelter in a church, a Starbuck or a private home. Law enforcement officials should be able to arrest and remove them because they are, by definition, breaking the law. This view is grounded on the idea that all institutions, religious or not, fall under the laws of the state and are not to be granted special exemptions. But, if exemptions from laws were granted to religious institutions in other areas, then this could be used to justify an exemption for sanctuary. 

In the United States religious institutions enjoy special exemptions from taxes and some laws. For example, the Catholic Church is not subject to certain anti-discrimination lawsuits despite restricting certain jobs to men. As another example, there is also an exemption for religious employers regarding coverage of contraceptive services. There has also been a push for new religious liberty laws that are aimed mainly at allowing people to discriminate against same-sex couples on religious grounds. Such laws grant exemptions based on religion and the arguments used to defend them could, in many cases, be pressed into service as arguments in favor of granting sanctuary to illegal immigrants. For example, if it is argued that exceptions to anti-discrimination laws should be granted to churches and businesses because of religious beliefs about gender and sex, then it would be challenging to argue that an exception to immigration laws should not be granted to churches because of religious beliefs.

The obvious challenge in using the religious liberty and exemption arguments to justify sanctuary is showing that the situations are analogous. This is super easy to do. Christians who oppose same-sex marriage usually cite Leviticus, but Exodus 22:21 is quite clear about how strangers should be treated: “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Scholars also point to Matthew 25, especially Matthew 25:40 when justifying granting sanctuary to immigrants: “And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’” As such, granting churches a sanctuary exemption to immigration laws seems at least as well founded as other cases of religious liberty. From a moral standpoint, an exemption for sanctuary would seem superior to exemptions for discrimination, for it is better to help people than to discriminate against them.

A way to counter this reasoning is to argue that there should not be religious exemptions to laws. While this would argue against a religious exemption to immigration laws, it would also apply to all other exemptions and is thus not an option for those who support those other exemptions. Since many of those who are anti-migrant do favor religious exemptions and religious liberty in general, this option is not open to them in a principled way. Fortunately for them, there seem to be no meaningful consequences for holding inconsistent views.

Another way to object is to contend that while religious exemptions should be allowed in other cases, it should not be allowed for granting sanctuary migrants. One approach would be a utilitarian argument: the harm done by allowing sanctuary would be sufficient to warrant imposing on religious liberty. As I have used this argument myself against “religious liberty” laws that make discrimination legal, I must give such an argument due consideration. So, if it can be shown that granting migrants sanctuary would create more harm than would violating the religious liberty of the sanctuary churches (and the harms done to the migrants) then religious liberty should be violated. But this approach would need to be applied in a consistent manner: those who argue against sanctuary on the grounds of harms must apply the same principle to all religious liberties.

My overall view of the matter is that since Congress and the President have consistently failed to create a just and rational immigration policy, then citizens have the moral right to offer protection to migrants who need protection from injustice. This must be done until our elected officials create a rational, realistic and ethical system. If Trump gets elected, then this will be especially important because his followers seem to  believe in themselves and America first but not that God was serious when He said, “this is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.”

As discussed in the previous essays, Trump and some of his followers claimed that God intervened to save Trump from being killed. If this is true, then it would follow that God decided to let one person die and two others get critically injured when He could have intervened. This raises the classic problem of evil, a stock Atheism 101 argument.

The simple version of the argument is that if God is all good, all powerful and all knowing, then there should be no evil. But there is evil, so God does not exist. A slightly more sophisticated version concludes that either God does not exist, or He is lacking in at least one of those three attributes. Much more sophisticated versions consider, in depth, how to reconcile God’s qualities with the existence of evil. I will look at each of these three attributes and how they might be reconciled with evil.

Philosophers usually present God as being omnipotent, but there is debate about what it means to be all powerful. The famous question of whether God can create a rock He cannot lift is part of this discussion. Some philosophers, the Intellectualists, claim that God’s intellect is his primary quality and that He either will not or cannot do the impossible. On this view, God can do anything that is possible, but His omnipotence is thus limited.  For example, God cannot make a triangle that has 4 sides. Those accepting this view often try to use this logical limit to solve the problem of evil. For example, God cannot create a perfect world and hence the world must be imperfect. One version of this reasoning points out that if God created a second perfect being, that being would also be God. But there cannot be two perfect beings (because each being would lack what the other has and for various other reasons) and this is why there can only be one God and why the world must be imperfect. On this view, evil (imperfection) is a necessary part of the world and that is why God saved Trump but lets other people die. The usual response to this is to point out that the world is worse than imperfect, and God could make things better while the world remained imperfect.

People also try to explain evil by limiting God’s powers in other ways. A classic move is to embrace a form of polytheism and attribute evil to the Devil. But this requires accepting that God and the Devil are comparable in power or coming up with some explanation as to why God lets the Devil cause evil. Another classic gambit is to invoke free will and use that to explain human caused evil. Free will limits God’s power and that is how evil can occur. The challenge is explaining how free will works and then explaining why God could not allow free will but mitigate the evil it is alleged to cause. Others also speak of God’s plan; that the evil that occurs is necessary for His plan. This also postulates a limit on God’s power, since He cannot reach His goal without allowing evil.

 Reducing God’s power in various ways to explain evil is an option that can solve the problem of evil, but it comes with the obvious cost of diminishing God. On this view, God could save Trump, but because of whatever limits His omnipotence, He could not have prevented the other people from being shot.

There are other philosophers, the Voluntarists, who claim that God’s will is supreme and He can will anything, even the impossible. This means the logically impossible and not just things that are very difficult. For example, God could will that triangles have 4 sides while still being triangle. It is not that we would call squares triangles, it is that the necessarily three-sided figure would be four-sided but still a triangle. He could also make all contradictions true and all tautologies false. He could make it so that if A is bigger than B and B is bigger than C, then A is smaller than C. None of this makes any sense to our mortal minds, but a God that can do the impossible can do all that and infinitely more impossible things. It might initially seem that being a Voluntarist would make it more difficult to solve the problem of evil. After all, the Voluntarist would have to accept that God could create a perfect world. But one consequence of God being all powerful in this sense is that He also defines morality, so He can make anything good or evil, even if it made no sense to us. This moral view is called divine command theory, on this view what God commands is good and what He forbids is evil. People who like divine command theory tend to think that God commands what they themselves want and forbids what they dislike, but that is not how the theory works. God could, at any moment, chose anything to be good or bad and He can obviously lie about it. So, for all we know, God just decided that being a woke transgender vegan advocate of renewable energy is the very best thing to be. Or maybe it was that way all along. Given that God can change logic and truth at will, our reason is useless in sorting any of this out. Or anything at all, since God’s will also applies to physics, chemistry and so on.  On the plus side, the problem of evil is solved: whatever God wills is good, so everything that happens is good. On the minus side, reason is useless. On this view, God saved Trump, killed one person and let two people be critically injured. But maybe this is all good? We do not and cannot know. While most thinkers focus on God’s power, His knowledge can also be relevant to the problem.

As with God being all powerful, philosophers debate what it means for God to be all knowing. Does this mean that God has all possible knowledge or that He even has impossible knowledge? In terms of the problem of evil, it could be argued that evil occurs because God does not know that it is occurring. On this view, perhaps God suddenly knew that Trump was in danger and acted just in time to save him. As might be guessed, free will could also figure in here: because humans have free will, God does not know what we might do. So, God did not know that the shooter was going to shoot until he started shooting. God will also need to require time to gain knowledge and act on it, otherwise He could just intervene instantly, which would raise the question of why He did not act. While claiming that God has epistemic limitation would explain evil, it does create its own problems in terms of diminishing God and making prophecy more difficult to explain.

The easiest solution to the problem of evil is to abandon the idea that God is all good. The two usual options are to simply reject that God is all good or to argue that our conceptions of good and evil are wrong. Rejecting that God is all good, that evil also comes from God, solves the problem. Evil exists because God is not all good. For Trump’s followers, God did a good thing in saving Trump but letting the other people get shot is not a problem because God does or allows evil as well.

If it is argued that our conceptions of good and evil are wrong, then the problem is solved because we are wrong about there being any evil. On this view, everything that happens is good, but we might not realize this. This is sometimes explained in terms of God’s plan (which ties back to limiting God’s power) or the big picture argument. The big picture argument often uses an analogy to looking at a beautiful painting by pressing it against your face. It will look awful. But if you move back from the painting, you will see its beauty. So, while the person dying at Trump’s event seems bad, it would be seen as good once one sees the big picture. This view might also involve accepting that God has a limit on His power since His big picture must apparently be made with a lot of events that seem evil up close. This approach is appealing to many since it explains away any evil that occurs, which is the solution most look for.

 

Trump and some of his followers are claiming that he survived the shooting because of divine intervention. Some even claim that this proves he is chosen by God. In the previous essay I looked at the metaphysics of God’s causal relation with the world in general terms. In this essay, I will focus on the metaphysics of God protecting chosen people.

For some, divine protection is described in terms of the armor of God. While this is not literal magical armor (like +3 plate), it is an appealing way to describe divine protection. While there are various theological views on this matter, my concern is with the metaphysics of how God’s armor might protect those chosen to wear it, such as Trump (according to some of his followers). In more general terms, this is an exploration of divine protection.

Throughout human history people have told stories of gods offering supernatural protection to mortals. A well-known example is when the goddess Thetis magically protected her son Achilles. This protection was imperfect, and Achilles was slain at the battle of Troy. Prior to the concept of a perfect monotheistic God, the gods of the polytheistic faiths were usually limited in their powers and subject to opposition from other supernatural beings (and even mortals). They were not omniscient or omnipotent and they tended to be portrayed as very powerful human-like beings, complete with human flaws. So, if a god protected a mortal (such as a child, spouse or favored one) this protection could be overcome or defeated, and it would make sense for a protected mortal to still be cautious. But things are rather different with God.

On the usual philosophical conception of God, God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. He is sometimes presented as having character defects, such as being jealous or wrathful (although some people see these as virtues and not vices). But being all knowing, God would be aware of any threat to those He has chosen to protect. Being all powerful, there is no threat that God could not neutralize. Being all good, God would want to protect His chosen from evil. As such, if Trump is wearing God’s armor, then he would seem to be immune to all harm. After all, God knows of every threat to Trump and can prevent them all. He presumably also wants to prevent them, given that it is claimed that He intervened to save Trump because Trump is chosen, and God has a purpose for him. Conveniently, this provides the basis for an empirical test for whether Trump is chosen or whether God has a purpose for him that will ensure divine protection. If Trump has God’s protection, then Trump should be unkillable until he fulfils God’s purpose. Since God is all powerful, Trump could open the door of his jet at 10,000 feet and leap out or crash it into a mountain and be fine. He could go into the lion exhibit at a zoo and hug the lions and they would be like kittens. He could drink a gallon of bleach and it would be like drinking Diet Coke and so on. After all, keeping Trump alive through all this would not even be inconvenient for an omnipotent being. But, of course, Trump will do none of these things and his followers would probably be angry at my proposed test.

As criticisms, some might say that to put divine protection to the test would be arrogant and disrespectful to God. It would be like Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane doing something intentionally dangerous to prove that Superman is protecting them. While this does have some appeal, it does seem to be a way of avoiding testing the claim of God’s protection under the pretense of it being disrespectful. After all, God presumably would not get pissed off and just decide to let Trump die if Trump has a purpose to God and is Chosen. But maybe God would do just that, so those protected by God must take care to remain protected. That is, God could decide to withdraw His protection if He is disrespected. But if God could pick a new chosen one and replace Trump, then Trump is not very special. Fortunately, there are tests that do not require that Trump try to harm himself.

If Trump is protected by God’s armor and God will, for example, deflect bullets away from him, then Trump does not need mortal protectors. If Superman is guarding Lois Lane, she does not need a cop with a gun to protect her. If Trump and his followers truly believe that God is protecting Trump, then he should forgo the protection of the Secret Service and law enforcement. These mortals are not all knowing or all powerful, so they provide infinitely inferior protection. And adding them to God’s armor would do nothing and they cannot make Trump any safer. So, he could save a lot of taxpayer money and forgo the protection.

Trump’s followers could argue that this would, once again, be arrogant and disrespectful to God. But that is absurd, since insisting on the protection of mortals when one has divine protection would be what would insult God. Trump’s followers might try to argue that God’s protection is fallible, which would require accepting a limited and fallible God. They could also argue that someone trying to harm Trump might be aided by the devil and hence Trump needs the mortal protection. There are two obvious problems with the devil gambit. One is that the devil cannot do anything that God does not allow, unless God is not omniscient (so the devil can be sneaky) or not omnipotent (so the devil can overpower God). The other is that if the devil can beat God, he can easily beat any mortal guardians of Trump. So, he and his followers face the dilemma of rejecting protection or admitting that God’s protection is not adequate.

Trump and his followers do have one good argument they could use, and this is to argue that the protection needs to be present not for Trump but for all the unfortunate souls who God does not care about. Those people can, as we have seen, be wounded or killed and God will not do anything to save them. While this does have some appeal, this would entail that the approach at Trump events would need to change; they should ignore any threats aimed directly at Trump and focus entirely on protecting everyone else. In fact, it would be best for Trump to be on stage alone, with clear paths in front of and behind him. As God will save Trump, this will make it less likely that divinely deflected bullets will kill or injure bystanders.

One might be wondering what his followers would think if Trump was killed. I suspect that it would be claimed that this was God’s plan and purpose, perhaps to allow J.D. Vance to become president. From a practical standpoint, there is probably nothing that would disprove beliefs about God’s plans, who He has chosen or what His purpose might be. Since Trump survived the attack (by someone believed to have really bad aim), this was attributed to divine intervention. If Trump gets killed or dies, this would presumably also be attributed to God’s plan.