Category: Politics

In the previous essay I discussed gender nominalism, the idea that gender is not a feature of reality, but a social (or individual) construct. As such, a person falling within a gender class is a matter of naming rather than a matter of having objective features. In this essay I will not argue for (or against) gender nominalism. Rather, I will be discussing gender nominalism within the context of competition.

Being a runner, I will start with competitive sports. As anyone who has run competitively knows, males and females usually compete within their own sexes. So, for example, a typical road race will often have awards for the top males and for the top females. While individual males and females vary greatly in their abilities, males have a general physical advantage over females when it comes to running: the best male runner is better than the best female runner and average male runners are also better than average female runners.  But good female runners are better than average male runners and the best female runners are better than good male runners.

Given that males generally have an advantage over females in running (and many other physical sports), it could be advantageous for a male runner if the division was based on gender and people could simply declare their genders. That is, a male could declare himself a woman and thus be more likely to do better relative to the competition. While there are those who do accept that people have the right to declare their gender and that others are obliged to accept this, it seems clear that this would not be morally acceptable in competitive sports.

The ethics based purpose of dividing athletes by sex is to allow for a fairer completion. This same principle, that of fairer competition, is also used to justify age groups. As older runner knows, few things slow you down like dragging years.  Because of this, a runner could, in general, gain an advantage by making a declaration of age identity (typically older). Perhaps the person could claim that he has always been old on the inside and that to refuse to accept his age identification would be oppression. However, this would be absurd: declaring an age does not change the person’s ability to compete and would thus grant an unfair advantage. Likewise, allowing a male to compete as a woman (or girl) in virtue of merely declared gender identification would be unfair. A declaration by itself would not, obviously, change the person’s anatomy and physiology.

There are, however, cases that are more complicated. These include cases in which a person has undergone a change in anatomy. While these cases are important, they go beyond the intended scope of this essay, which is gender nominalism.

Some competitions do not divide the competitors by sex. These are typically those where the statistical physical differences between males and females do not impact the outcome. Some examples include debate, chess, spelling bees and NASCAR. In these cases, males and females compete equally and hence the principle of fairness allows for the lack of sex divisions. Some of these competitions do have other divisions. For example, spelling bees do not normally pit elementary school students against high school students. In such competitions, gender identification would be irrelevant. As such, competitors should be free to gender identify as they wish within the context of such competitions.

Interestingly, there are competitions where there appear to be no sex-based advantages (in terms of physical abilities), yet there are gender divisions. There are competitions in literature, music, and acting that are divided by gender (and some are open only to one gender). There are also scholarships, fellowships and other academic awards that are open only to one gender.

Since being a biological male would seem to yield no advantage in such cases, the principle of fairness would not seem to apply. For example, the fact that males are generally larger and stronger would yield no advantage when it came to writing a novel, acting in a play, or playing a guitar. As such, if people should be able to set their own gender identity, they should be able to do so for such competitions, thus enabling them to compete where they wish.

It could be argued that the principle of fairness would still apply, that people born as males would still have an advantage even if they elected to identify as women for the competition. This advantage, it might be claimed, would be based in the socially constructed advantages that males possess. Naturally, it would need to be shown that a male that gender identifies as a woman for such competitions, such as getting a woman’s only scholarship, would still retain the alleged male advantage.

It could also be argued that these divisions are not based on a principle of fairness about advantages or disadvantages. Rather, the divisions are to give more people a chance of winning. This could be justified on the same grounds that justify having many categories. For example, there are awards for being the best actor in a supporting role, which exists to create another chance for an actor to win something. If a person could just gender declare and be eligible, then that would create an “imbalance”, much as allowing non-supporting actors to declare themselves supporting actors to get a shot at that award would be unfair.

Of course, this seems to assume that there is a justified distinction between the genders that would ground the claims of unfairness. That is, it would be as wrong for a male to win best actress as it would be for a female screenwriter who never acted to win best actress for her screenplay.  Or that it would be as bad for a male to get a scholarship intended for a woman as it would be for a football player who cannot do math to get a math scholarship. This approach, which would involve rejecting one form of gender nominalism (the version in which the individual gets to declare gender) is an option. This would not, however, require accepting that gender is not a social construct. One could still be a gender nominalist of the sort that believes that gender classification is both a matter of individual declaration and acceptance by the “relevant community.” As such, the relevant communities could police their competitions. For example, those who dole out scholarships for woman can define what it is to be a woman for the purpose of their scholarships, to prevent non-woman from getting them. This would, of course, seem to justify similar gender policing by society, which leads to some interesting problems about who gets to define gender identity. The usual answer people give is, of course, themselves.

 

 

After losing the battle over same-sex marriage, some on the right selected trans rights as their new battleground. A key front in this battle is that of sports, with the arguments centering around professed concerns about fairness. There is also a lot of implied metaphysics going on behind the scenes, so this essay will examine gender nominalism and competition. This will, however, require some metaphysical groundwork.

A classic philosophical problem is the problem of universals. Put roughly, the problem is determining in virtue of what (if anything) a particular a is of the type F. To use a concrete example, the question would be “in virtue of what is Morris a cat?” Philosophers often split into two camps when answering this question. The nominalists, shockingly enough, embrace nominalism. This is the view that what makes a particular a an F is that we name it an F. For example, what makes Morris a cat is that we call (or name) him a cat.

The other camp, the realists, take the view that there is a metaphysical reality underlying a being of the type F. Put another way, it is not just a matter of naming or calling something an F that makes it an F. In terms of what makes a of the type F, different realist philosophers give different answers. Plato famously claimed that it is the Form of F that makes individual F things F. For example, it is the Form of Beauty that makes all the beautiful things beautiful. And, presumably, the Form of ugly that makes the ugly things ugly. Others, such as myself, accept tropes (not to be confused with the tropes of film and literature) that serve a similar function.

While realists believe in the reality of some categories, they usually think some categories are not grounded in features of objective reality. As such, most realists agree that nominalists are right about some categories. To use an easy example, being a Democrat (or Republican) is not grounded in metaphysics, but is a social construct. A political party is made up by people and membership is a matter of social convention rather than metaphysical reality. There is presumably no Form of Democrat or Republican.

When it comes to sorting out sex and gender, things are complicated and involves at least four factors.  One is anatomy, which might (or might not) correspond to the second, which is genetic makeup (XX, XY, XYY, etc.). The third factor is the person’s own claimed gender identity which might (or might not) correspond to the fourth, which is the gender identity assigned by other people.

While anatomy and physiology are adjustable (via chemicals or surgery), they are objective features of reality. While a person can choose to alter their anatomy, merely changing how one designates one’s sex does not change the physical features. While a complete genetic conversion (XX to XY or vice versa) is (probably) not yet possible, it is just a matter of time before that can be done. However, even if genetics could be changed, a person’s genetic makeup is still an objective feature of reality and a person cannot change their genes merely by claiming a change in designation. But if genes define a person’s sex, then a genetic change would objectively change their sex.

Gender is, perhaps, another matter. Like most people, I often use the terms “sex” and “gender” interchangeably when speaking informally. Obviously, if gender is taken as the same as sex, then gender would seem to be an objective feature of reality. But if  gender and sex are taken as the same, then we would need a new term to take the place of “gender.”

However, gender has been largely or even entirely split from anatomy or genetics, at least by experts in the relevant fields. One version of this view can be called “gender nominalism.” On this view, gender is not an objective feature of reality, like anatomy, but a matter of naming, like being a Republican or Democrat. While some politicians have decreed that there are two genders, the fact that they think they need to do this just proves that they understand gender is a social construct. After all, politicians do not feel the need to decree that water is hydrogen and oxygen or that that triangles have three sides.

Some thinkers have cast gender as being constructed by society, while others contend that individuals have lesser or greater power to construct their own gender identities. People can place whatever gender label they wish upon themselves, but there is still the question of the role of others in that gender identity. The question is, then, to what degree can individuals construct their own gender identities? There is also the moral question about whether others should (morally) accept such gender self-identification. These matters are part of the broader challenge of identity in terms of who defines one’s identity (and what aspects) and to what degree are people morally obligated to accept these assignments (or declarations of identity).

My own view is to go with the obvious: people are free to self-declare whatever gender they wish, just as they are free to make any other claim of identity that is a social construct (which is a polite term for “made up”). So, a person could declare that he is a straight, Republican, Rotarian, fundamentalist, Christian, and a man. Another person could declare that she is a lesbian, Republican, Jewish woman, who belongs to the Elks. And so on. But, of course, there is the matter of getting others to recognize that identity. For example, if a person identifies as a Republican, yet believes in climate change, argues for abortion rights, endorses same-sex marriage, supports trans rights, favors tax increases, supports education spending, endorse the minimum wage, and is pro-environment, then other Republicans could rightly question the person’s Republican identity and claim that that person is a RINO (Republican in Name Only). As another example, a biological male could declare identity as a woman, yet still dress like a man, act like a man, date women, and exhibit no behavior that is associated with being a woman. In this case, other women might accuse her of being a WINO (Woman in Name Only).

In cases in which self-identification has no meaningful consequences for other people, it makes sense for people to freely self-identify. In such cases, claiming to be F makes the person F, and what other people believe should have no impact on that person being F. That said, people might still dispute a person’s claim. For example, if someone self-identifies as a Trekkie, yet knows little about Star Trek, others might point out that this self-identification is in error. However, since this has no meaningful consequences, the person has every right to insist on being a Trekkie, though doing so might suggest that he is about as smart as a tribble.

In cases in which self-identification does have meaningful consequences for others, then there would seem to be moral grounds (based on the principle of harm) to allow restrictions on such self-identification. For example, if a relatively fast male runner wanted to self-identify as a woman simply by claiming this identity so “she” could qualify for the Olympics, then it would be reasonable to prevent that from happening. After all, “she” would bump a qualified woman off the team, which would be wrong. Because of the potential for such harm, it would be absurd to accept that everyone is obligated to automatically accept the self-identification of others.

The flip side of this is that others should not have an automatic right to deny the self-identification of others. As a general rule, the principle of harm would apply here as well: others  have the right to impose in cases in which there is actual harm, and the person would have the right to refuse the forced identity of others when doing so would inflict wrongful harm. The practical challenge is, clearly enough, working out the ethics of specific cases.

American gun rights groups, such as the NRA (National Rifle Association), have long argued that citizens need to be armed as a defense against government tyranny. The traditional narrative has been that “the left” would send agents of the state to “take your guns.” In recent years, right wing protestors and demonstrators have often made a point of being well-armed, sometimes looking like they were LARPing a Call of Duty game. White Americans have also enjoyed a right to use violence in “self-defense” against people of other colors, with the Kyle Rittenhouse case being a famous example.

As many pointed out on Facebook and other social media sites, the NRA and other gun rights groups remained silent when the Trump regime sent ICE to impose the president’s whims and act on his petty grievances. But the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE triggered a response.

While the evidence seems clear that Alex was executed by ICE agents, the Trump regime immediately claimed the ICE agents acted in self-defense. Obviously, no investigation had been conducted, and the Trump regime has blocked efforts of local law enforcement to investigate the shooting. Alex was legally carrying a gun, and Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said, “if you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you,” finishing with “Don’t do it.” This was a rhetorical mistake on his part, as it triggered an immediate response from gun activists as well as gun rights groups. A response from Gun Owners of America was that “federal agents are not ‘highly likely’ to be ‘legally justified’ in ‘shooting’ concealed carry licensees who approach while lawfully carrying a firearm. The Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting — a right the federal government must not infringe upon.” Essayli seems to have attempted to move the goal posts in the face of this criticism or, as his defenders would say, “clarified his remarks.” Gun rights activists do have grounds for concern and those on the right probably feel that they have been betrayed.

As noted above, people on the right often show up at protests and demonstrations well-armed. In states that allow open carry, people sometimes make a point of openly carrying their weapons. But there seems to have been a social contract that the police would leave armed whites alone, if they were not committing crimes.  But Alex, who was a white gun owner, was killed while doing nothing wrong and the narrative used against him was anti-gun rights. As such, Essayli’s statement would sound like a threat to people who believe in Second Amendment rights. So, the criticism of Essayli and these specific actions of ICE are consistent with the values and warnings expressed by the right leaning gun rights groups. That said, the Gun Owners’ of America also accused the left of “antagonizing” ICE agents. This could be seen as a gesture to the Trump regime to show their solidarity with the President and ICE’s actions. On this view, the condemnation of Essayli and “the left” can be seen as a warning for officials to adjust their rhetoric rather than a true condemnation of ICE’s unrestrained violence. After all, these groups did not issue statements about the killing of Renee Good and their condemnation has focused on the demonization of the gun and gun ownership rather than primarily on the killing. As such, the right leaning gun rights groups face a quandary here: they want to defend gun rights but also want to blame and condemn “the left.”

To be fair and balanced, some gun rights activists have condemned the killing and have noted that ICE presents a threat that crosses the left/right boundary in the United States. This is a reasonable view for although liberals tend to favor gun control and conservatives tend to favor gun rights, taking away or protecting gun rights is not a matter of left versus right. Rather, taking away or protecting rights is on the authoritarian axis of politics, and this can be left or right. Jokingly, I call authoritarians on the left “authoritarians in red” and those on the right “authoritarians in black.” While the right often aligns itself with authoritarian views in the United States, those who are truly in favor of gun rights and sincerely oppose government tyranny should oppose the tyranny being imposed by the Trump regime, especially the use of ICE. But there are presumably those who think that gun rights should depend on both a person’s color and their political views, such that law enforcement should leave the right and white alone, while they should be free to kill the left or non-white.

While the Trump regime has attempted to demonize Alex, he seems to have been a kind, caring person who worked as a registered nurse for the United States Department of Veteran’s Affairs. While the Trump regime is surely hoping his killing will intimidate people by sending the message that ICE will kill even people like Alex if they oppose the whims of Trump, it does run the risk of galvanizing Americans by making it clear that no one is safe from the Trump regime. It is a sad and terrible thing that he was killed, and the world is a worse place because of his absence.

 

While casting Democrats as wanting to impose big government, Republicans profess a love for small government and local control. However, as J.S. Mill noted, people rarely follow consistently applied principles about what the state should do. It is not surprising that Republicans are for local control, unless the locals are not doing what they want. Then they use the power of the state against local government. For example, laws that forbid local governments from passing laws to restrict fracking.

Even in oil industry friendly states such as Oklahoma, local governments have tried to impose restrictions on fracking. As might be imagined, having a fracking operation next door is disruptive because of the lights, noise, heavy truck traffic and contamination. In Oklahoma there is also the added concern of earthquakes linked to disposal wells. Since places that did not have earthquakes before fracking do not have earthquake resistant structures, these new quakes pose threats to property and public safety.

In general, local governments acted because the locals believed that state government was not doing enough to protect their well-being. State legislatures tend to be very friendly with the oil and gas industry. This makes sense, because of their economic importance in these states. While lobbying is not cheap, it is a small price to pay to ensure that state legislatures pass laws forbidding local governments from acting contrary to the interests of the oil and gas industry. Otherwise, the industry would need to influence (or purchase) all the local governments and this would be both costly and time consuming. It makes more sense to pay the state government to make the local governments comply to the will of the industry.

Since I favor individual autonomy, it is hardly surprising that I also favor local autonomy. As such, I see such laws as wrong.

The most obvious type of arguments to use against such laws are all the general arguments Republicans advance in favor of local control when the locals are doing what Republicans want them to do. After all, if these arguments show local control is good and desirable, then these arguments should apply to this situation as well. But, as noted above, the “principle” most people follow is that others should do what they want and not do what they do not want them to do. Consistency is rare and almost nonexistent in politics.

One argument in favor of having the state impose on the local governments is based on the fact that having a patchwork of laws can be cause problems. The flip side of this is, obviously, that having a consistent set of laws across the state (and presumably the entire country) is generally a good thing. Assuming that the laws are good, of course.

In the case of regulating the oil and gas industry, the argument rests on the claim that having all these different local laws would be confusing and costly. It is better to have laws for the industry that cover the entire state (and, to follow the logic, the entire country or world). Interestingly, in the Before Time when the EPA advanced a similar argument for regulating water, Republicans rushed to attack because of their inconsistent love for local rule. Once again, this is hardly a shock: the patchwork argument is not applied consistently, just when a party wants to prevent local control.

Applied consistently, the patchwork argument has its appeal. After all, it is true that having laws vary with each locality can be confusing and have some negative consequences. For example, if the color of traffic lights was set by localities and some decided to go with different colors, then there would be problems. As another example, if some local governments refused to recognize same sex-marriage when it is legal in the state, this could lead to various legal problems (such as inheritance issues or hospital visitation rights). As such, there are be good reasons to have a unified set of laws rather than a patchwork.

That said, it can be argued that the difficulties of the patchwork can be outweighed by other factors and one can always apply a utilitarian argument. If it can be shown that allowing local autonomy on a matter creates more good than the harm created by having a patchwork of laws, then that would be an argument in favor of local autonomy in that matter. In the case of local control of the gas and oil industry, this would be a matter of weighing the harm and the benefit to all those involved (and not just the oil and gas industry). I am inclined to think that allowing local control would create more good than harm, but I could be wrong. Perhaps the benefits to the state as a whole outweigh the damage done locally. That is, the few must sacrifice for the many (albeit against their will). But perhaps the many are suffering for the few stockholders, which would seem to be wrong.

Another moral argument can be built on property rights. In the case of fracking, the oil and gas companies do own the mineral rights. As such, they do have legal property rights to the resources. However, the people who own the property above the minerals also have rights. These presumably include a right to safety from environmental contamination, a right to not have their property values degraded, a right to a certain quality of life in regard to noise and light, and so on for other rights. The moral challenge is, obviously enough, balancing these rights against each other. Working this out is, in the practical sense, a matter of politics. But this often means that money makes right.

Since local governments tend to be more responsive to locals than the state government, it could be argued that they would be biased against the oil and gas industry and hence this matter should be settled by the state to avoid an unfair resolution. However, it can be argued that state governments are often influenced (or owned) by the oil and gas industry. This would seem to point towards the need for federal regulation of the matter (assuming that the federal government is more objective) which is something that Republicans tend to oppose, despite it being the logical conclusion of their argument against local control. Interesting, arguments advanced to claim that the federal government should not impose on the local control of the states would seem to apply to the local government. That is, if the federal government should not be imposing on the states, then the states should not be imposing on the local governments. But it must also be noted that the Republicans favor federal imposition on the states, if they like what is being inflicted on the states.

On May 3, 2015 the American Freedom Defense Initiative put on a contest in which cartoonists drew images of Muhammad for a cash prize. To most Muslims, such portrayals of Muhammad are deeply offensive. As such, it is reasonable to infer that the event was intended to be provocative, especially since the event was well protected with armed security forces. As such, it was hardly shocking when two gunmen attacked the event. These armored and heavily armed men were killed by a traffic officer armed only with a pistol. At the time, ISIS claimed credit for the attack.

As I have argued in previous essays, violence in response to offensive artwork or other forms of expression is not warranted. As such, there is no need to re-hash those arguments to argue the attack was morally wrong. Outside of the realm of violent extremists, I doubt there is much dispute over this point. As such, I will proceed to the main matter I wish to focus on.

Back in 2015, Indiana made headlines with its religious freedom act. There is also the recurring talking point that religious liberty and religion are under attack in America. One example given of the threat to religious liberty was the requirement that employers of a certain size provide insurance coverage that covered birth control for full-time employees. Another example over used is the legalization of same sex-marriage. A third example is that some states have laws that forbid discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation. This is supposed to violate religious liberty by forbidding, for example, a Christian baker to discriminate against a same-sex couple that wants to buy a wedding cake.

Though I have written about specific cases, my general view is based on the principle that religious rights do not grant a right to violate the rights of others. To use an easy and obvious example, a religion that claimed human sacrifice as a basic tenet of its faith should be denied the right to engage in this practice. After all, the right to life trumps the right to practice one’s faith on others against their will.

In the case of discrimination against same-sex couples, I follow the same principle: the freedom of religion is bounded by the principle of harm. Since same-sex couples are members of the civil society and being able to engage in free commerce is a basic right in capitalism, to deny them the right to goods and services because of their sexual orientation would harm them. While it might be countered that selling a cake to a same-sex couple would harm the Christian baker, it is not clear what harm is being done. After all, she is selling a cake and selling an item is not an endorsement of the purchaser. If, for example, Nazis are buying my books on Amazon, I am not thereby endorsing Nazism.

In the case of a company being required to provide coverage that includes birth control, the company is not harmed by this. The company is not required to use birth control, directly hand it to the employees, or endorse it. They are merely required to provide employees with the opportunity to have such coverage if they desire it. It is, in fact, a form of compensation. It certainly does not violate the rights of an employer if employers spend their salaries as they wish, even on birth control.

While the laws purported to defend religious freedom do not, for obvious reasons, specify that they are aimed at defending a specific variety of Christianity, it is evident that the concern is not about defending religion in general. If it were, the event in which people competed to draw cartoons of Muhammad would have been condemned by all the folks supporting the religious “freedom” laws and those who claim religion is under attack in America. After all, holding an event explicitly aimed at mocking a religion and provoking members of a faith is an attack on religion. This event was far more of an attack on religion than forbidding bakers from discriminating against same-sex couples.

While I think people should not engage in such offensive behavior (I also believe that people should not burn American flags or urinate on crosses), my consistency requires that I must accept the freedom of people to engage in such offensive behavior.

This is, as with the case of the wedding cake, based on the principle of harm: restricting freedom of expression because the expression is offensive creates more harm than it prevents. Part of this is because while there is a right to freedom of expression and it can be wrong to offend people, there is no right to freedom from being offended. That said, members of civil society do fall under moral expectations of polite behavior. So, while there is no right to forbid people from urinating on crosses they own, burning American flags they own or drawing cartoons of Muhammad, a decent human being will consider their actions and act with respect for the views of others. That is what good people do. I admit, I have not always lived up to that myself and that is a failing on my part.

It is, of course, possible to cross from mere offense to actual harm. This boundary is, unfortunately, not always sharp and admits many gray zones. Fortunately, though, the principle is clear: mere offensiveness does not warrant forbiddance, and religious freedom does not warrant unjustly imposing on the rights of others.

America, it has been said, needs to be taken back. Or held onto. Or taken on a long walk on the beach. Whatever the metaphor, there are elections coming up. You should vote if you can, since these might be the last elections.  

One narrative put forth by some Republicans is the need for politicians not beholden to special interests, outsiders who are for the people. That seems reasonable. Looking around, I don’t see too many of those in the GOP. To be fair and balanced, the elite Democrats are also beholden to special interests and are insiders.

Among the people (that is, us) there are longstanding complaints about the nature of politicians and folks regularly condemn the activities and traits of the political class. People ask why the sort of folks they claim to really want don’t run, then elect the type of people they claim to loath.

It is time that America had a true choice. A choice not just between candidates of the two political machines, but between actual candidates and an uncandidate. I am Mike LaBossiere and I am your 2026 Uncandidate.

It might be wondered what it is to be an uncandidate. One defining characteristic is the inability to win an election, but there is obviously more to it than that. Otherwise almost all Florida Democrats would be uncandidates.

What truly makes an uncandidate is that they exemplify what voters claim they want, but would assure catastrophic defeat in an election. I’ll run through a few of these and show you why I am an uncandidate for 2026. You can decide if you’d like to be one, too.

One of the main complaints about politicians is that they are beholden to the money that buys them the elections. As an uncandidate, I have a clear message: do not send me your money. If you are like most people, you need your money. If you are a billionaire or PACmaster, I am not for sale. If you find you have some extra cash that you do not need, consider asking a local teacher if she needs some supplies for her classroom or donating to the local food bank or animal shelter. Do some good for those who do good.

My unwillingness to accept money is certain defeat in the political arena. But, I am an uncandidate.

People also complain about the negativity of campaigns. While I will be critical of candidates, I will not engage in fear mongering, scare tactics and straw man tactics through slickly produced scary ads. Part of this is because I have no money to do such things. But part of it is also a matter of ethics. I learned in sports that one should win fairly by being better, not by whispering hate and lies from the shadows. Or shouting them in public.

Since I teach critical thinking, I know that people are hardwired to give more weight to the negative. This is, in fact, a form of cognitive bias, an unconscious tendency. So, by abandoning negativity, I toss aside one of the sharper swords in the arsenal of the true politicians.

Interestingly enough, folks also complain that they do not know much about many candidates. Fortunately, I have been writing a blog since 2007 and have written a pile of books and articles. My classes are on YouTube. My positions on issues are defended in detail . I was also born in the United States, specifically in Maine. The blackflies will back me up on this. While willing to admit errors, I obviously do not shift my views around to pander. This is obviously not what a proper candidate who wants to win would do.

Apparently being an outsider is big these days. I think I went to Washington once as a kid, and I have never held political office. So, I am clearly an outsider. For real. Often, when a person claims to be an outsider, it is like in that horror movie and the call is coming from inside the house (or the senate). Obviously enough, being connected is critical to being elected. I’m unconnected and will remain unelected.

Finally, folks talk about how important the middle class is. While millionaires do claim to understand the middle class, I am middle class. Feel free to make comments about my class or lack thereof. I drive a 2001 Toyota Tacoma and paid $72,000 for my house back in the 1990s. Since I experience the problems of the middle class, I understand those problems. Political offices are obviously enough, not really for the middle class.

So, I announce my uncandidacy for 2026. I am not running because 1) I actually have a job and 2) I would totally lose. But I encourage everyone to become an uncandidate—to be what we say we want our leaders to be (yet elect people who are not that anyway).

I’ll be unrunning my uncampaign forever.

 

Remember: do NOT send me money. If you have some extra money, donate to your local school, foodbank or animal shelter instead.

One interesting narrative about the riots in Baltimore involved the concept of the rule of law. Put roughly, the rule of law is the idea that the law should govern rather than the arbitrary decisions of those in power. The notion is sometimes applied to the citizens as well, that citizens should follow the rule of law to resolve conflicts—as opposed to engaging in activities such as riots or vigilantism.

Thinkers such as John Locke have argued that the rule of law is preferable to that of the state of nature. These arguments are generally persuasive, especially since Locke emphasizes the moral responsibilities of the state in regard to the good of the people. That is, he does not simply advocate obedience to whatever the laws happen to be but requires that the laws and the leaders prove worthy of obedience. Laws or leaders that are tyrannical are not to be obeyed but are to be defied and justly so.

Since I find Locke’s arguments appealing, it is hardly surprising that I favor rule of law when the laws are good and the leaders are acting for the good of the people. When the government has moral legitimacy, the laws and the leaders have the right to expect people to follow the laws and listen to the leaders. However, when the laws or leaders violate the basic agreement, then their legitimacy evaporates.

Some conservatives spoke of the tyranny of Obama and how the Democrats wished to create a tyrannical state. They are right to be worried about tyranny. However, their timeline is in error: tyranny was already present in 2015 and has strengthened since.  

John Locke provides the following definition of “tyranny”: “Tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to.  And this is making use of the power any one has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for his own private separate advantage.”

The United States meets this definition. In 2014, researchers at Princeton and Northwestern conducted a study to determine the extent to which laws reflect the views of the majority versus the interests of those in power. This study, titled “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” , used data gathered from 1981 to 2002.

The researchers examined about 1,800 polices from that time and matched them against the preferences expressed by three classes: the average American (50th income percentile), the affluent American (the 90th percentile of income) and the large special interest groups. The results were hardly surprising: “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

While following these laws would be to conform to the rule of law, it would also be to embrace tyrannical laws crafted for the advantage of those holding power and not the good of the people.

While the people who riot are probably unfamiliar with this research, they know the obvious: they live within a political and economic system that serves the “private, separate advantage” of the elite class and has little to offer them. As such, it should be no shock that some people do not embrace the rule of such law. If they are striking out against these laws and their riots are a revolt, they are revolting against a tyrannical system, one that serves the interests of the powerful few and not the good of the people. Or to be fair to those who were critical of the riots, perhaps they are just breaking things.

Continuing with tyranny, Locke notes that “Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another.”

Sadly, this is an accurate description of the excessive use of force against citizens by some police officers. Baltimore, as has been widely reported, has paid out millions of dollars in settlements due to the wrongful use of force by police against citizens. As folks on the right love to say, not all police officers are bad and there are excellent officers. However, even a cursory examination of the problems with policing in American cities shows that Locke’s definition of tyranny is routinely met. As such, it is evident that the rule of law was already broken well before the riots. And is being shattered in 2025.

While Locke did not use this phrase, the rule of law is a two-way street and those who are charged with enforcing the law must also obey that law, otherwise it would be unreasonable to expect obedience from the citizens. As such, the most obvious step to restoring rule of law is to ensure that those charged with enforcing the laws are also following the laws. This was true in 2015 and is still true today.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Veggies

On April 12, 2015 Freddie Gray died in police custody. For some, this was part of a pattern of police violence. For others (such as Fox hosts), this was just another isolated incident.

The initial protests to this death were peaceful and it was hoped by many that Baltimore would avoid the violence that marked other protests (including riots in Baltimore’s own past). This hope was shattered in an outbreak of violence and destruction.

One obvious concern is the identity and the nature of those engaged in violence. According to some narratives, the rioters were thugs or outsiders taking advantage of the situation to engage in destruction, theft and violence. That is, they are opportunists and not protestors.

The United States does have a history of costly and pointless riots that are not protests. These are, of course, sports riots. One outstanding example is the 1992 riot in the aftermath of the Chicago Bulls vs. the Portland Trail Blazers. The damage was estimated at $10 million. There have been other lesser riots, such as that following the 1999 Michigan State vs. Duke game that resulted in about $250,000 in damage (and whose iconic photo is a shirtless white bro “flashing the horns” atop a burned-out car). My adopted state of Florida also sees violence and property damage during Spring Break, although California did seem interested in getting into the spring break riot game.

Given that Americans are willing to riot over sports and spring breaks, it is reasonable to consider that the rioters in Baltimore were not protesting but were motivated by other reasons, perhaps just wanting to break and burn things.

There are some narratives that cast at least some of the rioters as having also been protesting. That is, their motivation is not just to steal, break and burn but to express their anger about the situation. One way to explore motivations is to consider the situation in Baltimore. That is, to see if there were legitimate grounds for anger and whether these factors might have provoked people to violence and destruction. 

Baltimore was (and still is) a paradigm of the brutal race and class divisions in the United States. It has the historical distinction of being the first city to pass a citywide segregation law (segregating each residential block by race) and the legacy of this law persists as Baltimore remains a segregated city. In the center of the city, 60% of the population is black. The suburbs are predominantly white. Despite there being laws against forced segregation, the United States is still highly segregated. This provides grounds for anger.

Baltimore also exemplifies the stark class divisions in the United States. Back in 2015, 150,000 of the city’s 620,000 were classified as poor (the average income for a family of four being $23,492). The unemployment rate was close to 10%. As the American Revolution showed, people get angry and violent in response to perceived economic injustice. Given the massive disparity between economic classes in the United States and their support by the structures of law and authority, what is shocking is not that there is an occasional riot but that there are not daily riots. As such, there were sufficient grounds for anger. Naturally, some people claimed that this poverty is because the poor are lazy: if they would only work hard for the job creators, they would not be poor. This view ignores the reality of poverty in America, but it is a beloved narrative of those who are doing well.

Not surprisingly, Baltimore also has had serious issues with crime. Drug addiction was a serious problem and the city was 5th in the number of murders per year in 2014. It was, however, 15th in the number of violent crimes per year. Crime is, of course, a complex matter. Some claim that this sort of crime arises from poverty, oppression and lack of opportunity (as opposed to the ‘crimes’ of the financial classes, such as destroying the world economy). There is, of course, a correlation between crime and these factors. Some claim that people turn to crime because of moral defects rather than these factors. This does have some merit. After all, a look at the financial sector and halls of power show evil behavior that is clearly not caused by poverty.

Like other US cities, there was also an issue with how the police treat their fellow citizens. In 2011 the city paid $6.3 million settling police misconduct claims. Between 2011 and 2012 there were 156 such lawsuits. The number did decline to 156 from 2013 to 2014. While it is reasonable to consider that not all these suits had merit, what happened to Gray does provide reason to suspect that there are grounds for being concerned about policing in the city.

When people think they are being oppressed and subject to brutality, they respond with anger. For example, one can see the rage the fine folks on Fox express when they speak of the War on Christmas and how Christians are being mistreated and persecuted in America. One can only imagine the anger that arises when people really are subject to mistreatment. As such, there seem to be legitimate grounds for anger.

While the anger of those engaged in violence might have been justified, there is still the obvious concerns about whether such behavior is morally acceptable and whether such behavior is effective in achieving goals.

On the face of it, much of the violence and destruction would seem to be difficult to justify morally. Most of the destruction seemed to involve community infrastructure and the property of people who were not responsible for what provoked the protests. While the anger against the police was understandable, the attacks on reporters and firefighters were unjustified. The reporters did nothing meriting being attacked and the firefighters were trying to keep the city from burning down, which is certainly a laudable goal. Crudely put, if the violent (alleged) protestors were striking against injustice, they were (mostly) hitting the wrong targets. To use an analogy, if Bob has wronged Sam and Sam smashes Sally’s windows because he lives near her and cannot get at Bob, then Sam has acted wrongly, no matter how badly Bob wronged him.

It might be countered that the destruction is morally acceptable because the (alleged) protestors are striking out against an unjust social order. The obvious reply is that while this might have some abstract appeal, the real damage is being done mainly to the innocent rather than the guilty. As such, the violence and destruction seem to have been immoral.

A second issue, which can connect to the moral issue, is the effectiveness of violence as a means of protest and social change. Obviously, violence can be very effective in achieving goals. We Americans can point to our own Revolutionary War and the wars won against everyone from the Apache to the Japanese. However, violence is only effective when one has enough power to achieve one’s goals through that violence. Since the rioters went up against the police and the National Guard, it makes sense why they could not achieve victory through force of arms.

However, a case can be made that violence gets attention. Peaceful protests, one might argue, sound nice but are easy to ignore. After all, “change things or we will peacefully protest again” has less power than “change things or there will be cop cars burning in the streets and the authorities will have to explain why they are losing control of the city.” Interestingly, many of the pundits who praised the property destruction that occurred during the Boston Tea Party are quick to condemn contemporary protests they do not like. These pundits also praise other violence they approve of but lack a consistent principle regarding violence as a means of achieving goals beyond they like violence aimed at goals they like and dislike violence that is aimed at goals they dislike.

A moral case can be made against violence, such as that famously made by Dr. King. When there is the possibility of redress and justice through peaceful means, then non-violence seems to have an obvious advantage over violence: people are not hurt or killed, and property is not destroyed. However, the fact that a major American city had to be patrolled by the National Guard showed once again that there are deep and profound problems in civil society. In 2025, it is equally evident that these underlying problems have not been addressed, and things are just getting worse.

 

 

In the United States, corporations are considered persons. In recent years the judiciary has accepted that this entitles corporations to various rights, such as freedom of speech (which was used to justify corporate spending in politics) and freedom of religion (which was used to allow companies to refuse to provide insurance coverage for birth control).

Despite having freedom of speech and religion because they are people, corporations can, unlike other people, be legally owned. Common stock is bought and sold as a matter of routine business and provides an ownership share in a corporation. Since corporations are people, this means that people are being allowed to legally own other people. Owning another person is, of course, slavery. While slavery was legal at one time in the United States, the 13th amendment is rather clear on this matter: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

If corporations are entitled to 1st amendment rights because they are people, it follows that they must also be entitled to 13th amendment rights. That is, corporations have a right not to be owned by other people. The obvious reply is that this is absurd. My response is that this is exactly my point: the 13th Amendment is an obvious reductio ad absurdum (“reducing to absurdity) of the claim that corporations are people. If they are people and thus get rights, then they cannot be owned. If they can be owned, they are not people and hence do not get the rights of people.

But, let it be supposed that companies are people and hence get the right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion.  Yet somehow don’t get the freedom not to be enslaved. It will be interesting to see where these claims lead.

Freedom of expression is usually presented in terms of a person’s right to engage in expression, perhaps by secretly donating fat stacks of cash to secretive political organizations. However, freedom of expression is also a freedom from being compelled to express views. For example, the State of Texas argued against allowing the Confederate battle flag on Texas license plates on this ground. This is reasonable: the freedom to express myself includes the freedom to not express what I do not wish to express. Otherwise, my expression would not be free.

Freedom of religion is also usually presented in terms of protection from being limited or restricted in the practicing of one’s faith. However, like freedom of expression, it can also be taken to include the right not to be compelled to engage in activities against one’s will. So, for example, people argue that compelling a baker to not discriminate against same-sex couples would be to compel her to engage in an activity (baking a wedding cake) that goes against her faith. While I disagree with the claim that forbidding discrimination violates religious freedom, I do agree that compelling a person to act against their faith can be an unjust violation of religious freedom.

Corporations, at least according to the law, have freedom of expression and freedom of religion. As such, they have the right not to be compelled to express views they do not hold and the right not to be compelled to engage in practices against their religious beliefs. Given that a corporation is a person, there is the question of what a corporation would want to express and the question of its faith.

It might be claimed that since a corporation is a legal fiction operated by actual people, then the beliefs and expressed desires of the corporation are those of the people who are in charge. On this view, a corporation is a legal Mechanical Turk, a pantomime person, the face of the Wizard of Oz (“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”). While run by an actual person or people, it is a fictional shell that is not a person.

The advantage of this approach is the corporation’s faith is the faith of the actual people and what it desires to express is what they desire to express. The obvious problem is that this view makes it clear that the corporation itself is not a person, so it would not get a set of rights of its own, above and beyond the rights held by the actual people who control the legal pantomime person. So, claims about violations of freedom would have to be about violations against actual, specific people and not against the legal version of a Mechanical Turk (or Legal Turk, if one prefers).

If someone insists that the corporation is a person in its own right, then this entails it is a distinct entity apart from those who seem to be operating a non-person pantomime person. On this view, the views of the corporation cannot automatically be those of the people who would seem to be operating the pantomime person. After all, if it is just them, it is not a person. To be a person, it needs to have its own personhood. If it has freedom of expression, it must have its own desires of what to express. If it has freedom of religion, it must have its own faith.

Sadly, corporations are not free to express their own views or their own faith. They are owned and compelled to speak and engage in matters of faith. They are, contrary to the 13th amendment, legally enslaved. While there is a chance that the corporate person’s views and faith match those of the human persons parasitizing its legal body, this need not be the case. After all, a slave that is forced by her owner to say things and go to church might believe what she says or have the faith she is compelled to practice but she might not. Unless she is set free from her owners and allowed her own beliefs and faith, she cannot be said to have freedom of expression or faith.

While Tim Cook has spoken in favor of same-sex marriage, Apple might be a devoutly Christian corporation that cries each time it is forced to mouth Tim Cook’s words. The corporation Hobby Lobby might be a bisexual atheist. As it is beaten to its knees to cry out prayers to a God it does not believe in, it might be eager to engage in hot mergers with other companies, regardless of their gender. Until these corporations are freed from the tyranny of ownership, they can never truly exercise their freedom as people.

The obvious response to this absurd silliness is that it is clearly absurd and silly. However, that is my point. If a corporation is a person that is distinct from the actual people operating the pantomime legal person, then it is being denied its freedom of expression and religion because it is forced to say and do what others want it to say and do.  This is, as I am sure most will agree, absurd. If a corporation is a legal pantomime and the corporate beliefs and ideas are those of the folks operating it, then it is not a person and does not have the rights of a person. The real people do, of course, have all the rights they have always possessed.

This is not to say that there should not be collective rights and laws for organizations. But this is very different from regarding a corporation as a person with faith and beliefs it wishes to express. That is, obviously enough, a pile of pantomime bullshit.

Some states impose a waiting period on abortion, ranging from 24 to 72 hours.  My adopted state of Florida has a 24 hour waiting period. Opponents of these laws claim they are yet another attack on reproductive rights. Proponents claim that the state mandated waiting period is reasonable and will permit women to be informed about the risks of abortion and the condition of the fetus. While the legal aspects of these laws are of considerable interest, I will focus primarily on the moral aspects of the waiting period and the two-visit requirement.

When the law was being considered in Florida, Julie Costas argued in favor of it. She said she had an abortion thirty years previously and that she regretted the decision. Her argument was that, counterfactually, she might have changed her mind if she had received more information (thus supporting the two-visit requirement) and if she had to wait 24 hours (thus supporting the 24-hour requirement). This can be made into a moral argument in favor of such laws. By the state imposing the two-visit requirement and the waiting period, there is a chance that some women might change their minds about an abortion they might later regret. In terms of the moral aspect, the appeal is that the requirements might prevent a future harm, that of regret. It could also be argued that increasing the chance a woman might not get an abortion would be morally good since it would avoid the death of the fetus.

I agree that a person should take time to consider whether to have an abortion. I suspect, but do not know, that even without such laws people put thought into this decision. Obviously, there can be exceptions. There are, after all, people who consistently act without thinking through their actions. While there is a moral obligation to think through morally significant actions, it is not clear that 24 hours (or whatever it might be) is the right waiting time. After all, there needs to be evidence that an extra 24 hours of consideration is likely to result in a better decision.  

In terms of the number of visits, that should depend on what the person needs. After all, it is not clear that a second visit would consistently result in more information that one visit would not provide. There are also practical concerns of cost and time. It is reasonable to think that the intent of imposing a second visit is to make abortion harder and more expensive, rather than any concern about extra information.

While people should take time to consider significant decisions and two visits might be a good idea for some people, there is the central issue of whether this is a matter suitable for the coercive power of the state. After all, there are many things people should do that should not be compelled by the state. For example, I think that people should exercise, be polite, be kind and eat healthy. However, I do not think that the state should compel these things. But, of course, there are many things that people should do, and the state justly compels people to do them. These include such things as paying taxes, ensuring that any electrical work you do is up to code,  and serving on juries. The issue is whether a state imposed waiting period is justified in a principled way.

The principle I use, which I obviously stole from Mill, is that the use of the compulsive force of the state is justified when it is employed to prevent one person from wrongly harming another. A case can also be made for compelling people to serve the general civil good, such as compelling people to serve on juries and pay a fair share of the taxes. However, compelling people to serve the good is more problematic than compelling people to not do harm.

The principle of harm could, obviously enough, be used to argue against allowing abortion on the grounds that it harms (kills) a living thing. Of course, this is not decisive, since the harms of not having an abortion must also be considered. This principle does not justify the two-visit and 24-hour waiting period requirements. Then again, perhaps it could be argued that they would provide some slight possible protection for the fetus: the woman might change her mind or lack the funds to pay for the two visits. This is too weak to provide a convincing moral reason to have a such a law.

It could be argued that a different version of the principle of harm should be used. To be specific, that a law can be morally justified on the grounds that it would compel a person not to harm herself. This principle can, obviously enough, be justified on utilitarian grounds. Various laws, such as the infamous NYC ban on big sodas, have been passed that aim at protecting a person from self-inflicted harm.

In the case of this bill, the moral reasoning would be that because there is a chance that a woman might change her mind about an abortion and she might later regret, so the state has the right to compel her to have two visits and to wait twenty-four hours (or longer). A rather obvious problem is that it sets a very low bar for the state using its compulsive power: there must only be a chance that a person might change their mind about a legal procedure that they might later regret. This principle would warrant  massive state intrusion into the lives of citizens. Sticking with a medical example, people do sometimes regret having elective surgery. So, this principle would warrant the state imposing a waiting period and a two-visit rule. But there would seem to be no reason to stick within the field of medicine. People can regret many decisions, such as buying a car, choosing a college major, accepting a job offer, or moving. Yet it would seem unreasonable to impose a waiting period for such decisions. Looking at it in utilitarian terms, the harms inflicted by such laws (such as the cost of enforcement, the annoyance, and so on) would outweigh the alleged benefits. Especially since a waiting period would not seem to increase the chances of a better decision being made.

What makes more sense is having laws that protect people from decisions made while they are incapable of properly making decisions, such as when intoxicated. So, for example, it is reasonable to have a law that prevents a person from getting married when they are intoxicated. It is also reasonable to have waiting periods that are based on actual need. For example, a waiting period that is needed to complete paperwork or verify a person’s legal identity would be justifiable on practical grounds, assuming the time requirements are legitimate.

Given the above arguments, these laws are morally justified and are an unwarranted intrusion of the state into the lives of citizens. Those who oppose big government and government intrusion should oppose such laws. Those who favor big government “jamming things” should support it.