Category: Politics

While the anti-abortion movement claimed a great victory when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Republican Party has learned that this victory proved deeply unpopular with the American people. While Democrats favor abortion rights more than Republicans, 64% of surveyed voters say abortion should be always or mostly legal. While some Republican controlled state legislatures have imposed extreme restrictions on abortion rights, abortion rights supporters have won in several state ballots. As this is being written several more states (including my adopted state of Florida) have abortion rights measures on the ballot. Given that the anti-abortion view is held by a minority of voters, it is likely that these measures will pass in many states.

Because the anti-abortion position of the Republican party has proven unpopular and has imposed a political cost, the party’s rhetoric has shifted. The current rhetorical spin is that the Republican party is not against abortion rights. Rather, the party is for states’ rights.  Those critical of this rhetoric like to point out that appeals to states’ rights was also a tactic employed by the southern states to defend slavery. While the analogy is imperfect, the comparison does have some merit.

The states’ rights argument for slavery amounts to contending that the states should have the freedom to decide whether they will allow slavery, and this is usually phrased in terms of an appeal to democracy. That is, the citizens of the state should vote to decide whether some people can be denied freedom and be owned. An obvious defect with this reasoning is that it rests on the assumption that it is a matter of freedom of choice to take away freedom of choice.

A similar defect arises with the states’ rights rhetoric in the abortion debate. If it is accepted that the citizens of the state have the right to decide the issue of abortion because they should be free of federal law, then it is problematic to argue that the state has the right to take away the freedom of women to decide whether they get an abortion. If choice is important, then having legal abortion allows women to choose: a woman is not mandated to have an abortion nor forbidden, so she can make the choice. Hence, this rhetorical move entails that abortion should be legal nationwide.

Someone might counter this by taking the anti-abortion stance that women should not be allowed that choice, perhaps by drawing an analogy with murder. After all, they might argue, we would not want people free to chose murder. But the problem with that reply is that by using the states’ rights rhetoric, the Republican party has acknowledged that the legality of abortion should be a matter of choice, and this makes it difficult to argue that abortion should not be a choice for individual women.

While intended to address the backlash from the unpopularity of the success of the anti-abortion movement, this rhetoric has caused backlash from that movement. Some anti-abortion activists have urged their followers to withdraw their support of Trump. There is the question of how much impact this will have on the election, given that anti-abortion voters will almost certainly not vote for Harris. But it might cause a few single-issue voters to stay home on election day or not vote for Trump.

Pro-abortion rights people are almost certainly not going to be fooled by this rhetoric, since they know this is a rhetorical shift and not a change in policy or goals. While it might win over a few of the undecided voters, it seems to have two effects. The first is that it gives Republicans an established rhetorical talking point to use whenever they are asked about abortion. The second is that it provides those who want to vote for anti-abortion Republicans but who are not anti-abortion themselves a way to rationalize their vote. They can insist the Republican party is “pro-choice” because their new rhetorical position is that the states should chose. But not that women should chose.

The states’ rights rhetorical move could be an effective strategy. While the anti-abortion movement would prefer a federal abortion ban, having the states decide is better for them than having abortion legal nationwide. After all, some states have put abortion bans in place and these have been wins for the movement. But the obvious downside for this movement is that some states have put in place protections for abortion rights, despite the anti-abortion movement’s desire to make the choice for everyone.

In closing, the states’ rights argument is a position that cannot be effectively defended, because its foundation is the principle of choice, and this entails that it is the women who should make the choice for themselves.

 

The pager attack attributed to Israel served to spotlight vulnerabilities in the supply chain. While such an attack was always possible, until it occurred most security concerns about communication devices was to protect them from being compromised or “hacked.”

While the story of three million “hacked” toothbrushes turned out to be a cyber myth, the vulnerability of connected devices remains  real and presents an increasing threat as more connected devices are put into use. As most people are not security savvy, these devices can be easy to compromise either through their own vulnerabilities or user vulnerabilities.

There has also been longstanding concern about security vulnerabilities and dangers being built right into technology. For example, there are grounds to worry that backdoors could be built into products, allowing easy access to these devices. For the most part, the focus of concern has been on governments directing the inclusion of such backdoors. But the Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal shows that corporations can and have introduced vulnerabilities on their own.

While a comprised connected or communication devices can cause significant harm, until recently there has been little threat of physical damage or death. One exception was, of course, the famous case of Stuxnet in which a virus developed by the United States and Israel destroyed 1,000 centrifuges critical to Iran’s nuclear program. There was also a foreshadowing incident in which Israel (allegedly) killed the bombmaker Yahya Ayyash with an exploding phone. But the pager (and walkie-talkie) attack resulted in injuries and death on a large scale. This proved the viability of the strategy, thus providing an example and inspiration to others. While conducting a similar attack would require extensive resources, the system is optimized for vulnerabilities that would allow it. Addressing these vulnerabilities will prove difficult if not impossible because of the influence of those who have a vested interest in preserving them. But policy could be implemented that would increase security and safety in the supply chain. But what are these vulnerabilities?

One vulnerability is that a shell corporation can be quickly and easily created. Multiple shell corporations can also be created in different locations and interlocked, creating a very effective way of hiding the identity of the owner. Shell companies are often used by the very rich to hide their money, usually to avoid paying taxes as made famous by the Panama Papers. Shell companies can also be used for other criminal enterprises, such as money laundering. Those who use such shell corporations are often wealthy and influential, thus they have the resources to resist or prevent efforts to address this vulnerability.

The ease with which such shell companies can be created is a serious vulnerability, since they can be used to conceal who really owns a corporation. A customer dealing with a shell company is likely to have no idea who they are really doing business with. They might, for example, think they are doing business with a corporation in their own country, but it might turn out that it is controlled by another country’s intelligence service or a terrorist organization.

While a customer might decide to business with a credible and known corporation to avoid the danger of shell corporations, they can face the vulnerabilities created by the nature of the supply chain. Companies often have contracts with other businesses to manufacture parts of their products and the contractors might subcontract in turn. It is also common for companies to license production of their products, so while a customer might assume they are buying a product made by a company, they might be buying one manufactured under license by a different company. Which might be owned by a shell company. In the case of the pagers, the company who owns the brand of the devices denied that they manufactured them. While this is (fortunately) but one example, it does provide an illustration of how these vulnerabilities can be exploited. Addressing them would require that corporations have robust oversight and control of their supply chain. This would include parts of the supply chain that involve software and services as well. After all, if another company is supplying code or connectivity for a product, those are vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, corporations often have incentives to avoid such robust oversight and control.

One obvious incentive is financial. Corporations can save money by contracting out work to places with lower wages, that have less concern about human rights, and fewer regulations. And robust oversight and control would come with a cost of its own, not even considering what it would cost a company if such robust oversight and control prevented it from engaging in cheaper contracts.

Another incentive is that contracting out work without robust oversight can provide plausible deniability. For example, Nike has faced issues with using sweatshops to manufacture its products, but this sort of thing can be blamed on the contractors  and ignorance can be claimed. As another example, Apple has been accused of having a contractor who used forced labor and has lobbied against a bill aimed at stopping such forced labor. While these are examples of companies using foreign contractors, problems also arise within the United States.

One domestic example is a contractor who employed children as young as 13 to clean meat packing plants. As another example, subcontractors were accused of hiring undocumented migrants in Miami Dade school construction project. As children and undocumented migrants can be paid much less than adult American workers, there is a strong financial incentive to hire contractors that will employ them while also providing the extra service of plausible deniability. When some illegality or public relations nightmare arises, the company can rightly say that it was not them, it was a contractor. They can then claim they have learned and will do better in the future. But they have little incentive to do better.

But a failure to exercise robust oversight and control entails that there will be serious vulnerabilities open to exploitation. The blind eye that willingly misses human rights violations and the illegal employment of children will also miss a contractor who is a front for a government or terrorist organization and is putting explosives or worse in their products.

While these vulnerabilities are easy to identify, there are powerful incentives to preserve and protect them. This is not primarily because they can be exploited in such attacks, but for financial reasons and for plausible deniability. While it will be up to governments to mandate better security, this will face significant and powerful opposition. But this could be overcome if the political will exists.

 

For more on cyber policy issues: Hewlett Foundation Cyber Policy Institute (famu.edu)

 

During his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump was provoked into repeating the debunked claim that migrants in Springfield, Ohio had stolen and eaten pets. Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance, an Ohio native, has doubled down on the debunked pet eating claims. In an interesting move, he admitted that he is willing to “create stories” to bring attention to problems in Springfield.  As a philosophical approach requires applying the principle of charity, it must be noted that Vance attempted to clarify his claim by asserting that “I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.” Unfortunately for Springfield, the false claim has also focused the attention of people outside the media. Springfield has faced bomb threats that closed schools and the community has been harmed in other ways. Local officials and the Republican governor of Ohio have attempted to convince people that the claims made by Trump and Vance are untrue. But despite the claim being thoroughly debunked, it persists.  In this essay, I will focus on Vance’s view that creating such stories is justified.

One reasonable criticism of Vance’s approach is to argue that if there are real problems, then the truth should suffice. If, as Vance and Trump claim, the situation in Springfield is dire, then they should be able to provide evidence of that dire situation and that should suffice to get media attention.

In support of Vance’s view, it could be argued that the media tends to focus on attention grabbing stories. It is also true that the media and politicians often ignore problems the American people face, such as wage theft. In terms of making a reasonable case for Vance’s view of storytelling to focus media attention, a utilitarian moral argument could be advanced to support the general idea of telling an untrue story to get media attention focused on a real problem. The approach would be a standard utilitarian appeal to consequences in which the likely harms of the untruth would be weighed against its likely benefits. As with any utilitarian calculation, there is also the question of who counts in the calculation of harms and benefits.  If the media is ignoring a real problem and only an untrue story will bring attention to the real problem, then the good done by the falsehood could outweigh the harms of dishonesty. But the untruth about Springfield does not seem to meet these conditions.

Trump and (to a lesser extent) Vance command media attention. Almost everything Trump expresses publicly ends up in the news. As such, there is no lack of media coverage of what Trump and Vance say and if either of them spoke about the “real problems” in Springfield, their speeches and claims would get media attention. They have no need to create stories to get attention and if there are real problems, then the truth should suffice. The only reason for people with such media access to create a story to get attention is that the truth will not suffice to support their claims.

There has also been media coverage of real problems in Springfield, such as the strain put on community resources and the challenges of assimilating migrants. Hence, there is no need to create stories to draw attention to these issues. But these are clearly not the problems that Trump and Vance wish to solve for the people of Springfield. After all, it seems that Trump’s proposed “solution” to the real problems in Springfield is mass deportation. Vance has also claimed, incorrectly, that the migrants are there illegally. His claim seems to be that he disagrees with the legal process by which the migrants are there legally and hence they are, on his view, there illegally. This does not seem to be how the law works. Given this, the pet eating story makes sense: the story was not created to draw attention to real problems, it was created to “justify” the deportation of migrants and to create support for this by making people afraid and angry. If migrants presented a real and significant threat, Vance and Trump would not need to create stories. They could simply present an abundance of evidence to prove their claim. The fact that they need to rely on the debunked story only serves as evidence that they lack evidence to support their view.

If we consider all the people who are likely to be affected by this untruth, then Vance’s approach is clearly morally wrong. As noted above, Springfield has already been harmed by this story. It has also served to fan the flames of racism and prejudice in general, inflicting harm across the United States. This shows that the making up stories of the sort Vance is talking about is not justified on utilitarian grounds.

But if the scope of moral concern is narrowed down to Trump and his supporters, then it can be argued that the story does benefit them. While Trump and Vance might seem foolish, evil and crazy to some for making and doubling down on this repeatedly debunked claim, their anti-migrant stance and this sort of remark could appeal to Trump’s base. While the polls vary, as this is being written Trump is predicted to have at least a 50% chance of winning, which suggests that this story might be benefiting him. In which case, Vance can justify creating stories on the grounds that deceit helps him and Trump while the truth would hurt them. But if Trump loses and this story plays a role, then it would have turned out that it was bad for Trump.

 

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.