I think that a large part of the gulf between leftists and libertarians is about our different conceptions of the nature of equality (and inequality) and what policies follow from these conceptions.

Today, there’s a great Cato Unbound article on the subject: When Inequality Matters by David Schmidtz.

I think that this is an issue that everybody who’s interested in political philosophy should think seriously about. I like to believe that if that were to happen, many more people would come to accept a more libertarian framework. Perhaps there are fundamental differences among people’s psychologies that prevent this…but everything Schmidtz wrote makes sense to me.

I’m also eager to read the replies that should be coming in the next few days.

HT: Will Wilkinson

Update: Tom G. Palmer has written a very good reaction essay in which he continues where Schmidtz left off and considers the prior moral question of which inequalities are ours to arrange, and some of the common errors that people make when justifying state action to redistribute wealth.

Speaking of Palmer, don’t miss Jonathan Rauch’s article about the heroic work Palmer is leading to expose classical liberal works to the Arab world (Iraq in particular).

Ok, not  exactly.

But she is supportive of a teacher who was disciplined (10-day pay loss), for denying a student’s request to use the bathroom. The student suggested he’d use a wastebasket in a closet, then. She said “Go ahead” (not thinking he’d really go through with it).

 

He did. 🙂

Listen, I’m sympathetic to the difficulty teachers can have maintaining the attention of a roomful of involuntary captives. I say: “Too bad!” It’s not an excuse to treat them worse than prisoners of war.

If you don’t like the job, get a better one.

Althouse says the teacher just made a “judgement call” that the kid didn’t really need to go. She is, as all teachers are, completely incompetent to make such judgements for other people. I think it’s a horrible abuse of power.

Perhaps, it was a common abuse of power when many of us were students.

But, it’s abusive all the same.

I’ve been busy recently and haven’t had the time to blog much.

So, I thought I’d just enter a quick post with my thoughts on some recent events. These probably won’t be very surprising.

Google and China: I don’t see that Google deserves most of the criticism it has received for its google.cn site. Yes, it’s somewhat restricted, but it isn’t a tool of repression and people in China are better off with it than without it. Google seems to have carefully considered the ethics of the project and made a defensible decision that they should go ahead and pursue it.

Cartoons of Mohammad: Absolutely ridiculous reaction by rioting Muslims. They shouldn’t expect others to conform to their rules, and they can’t prevent others thinking badly about Islam by reacting like a bunch of idiots. I’m sure that many have been manipulated by those seeking to exploit this incident, but they shouldn’t be so easy to manipulate.

Cheney Hunting Accident: I’m baffled why this was such a hot story. It’s obviously unfortunate for those involved, but I don’t think it tells us anything interesting about Cheney. Certainly nothing bad.

David Irving Conviction: Idiotic. Yes, he’s a jerk and he made horribly wrong historical claims. But, open societies must tolerate the peaceful expression of unpopular opinions. His conviction belies the claims that the muslims who urged censorship of the Danish cartoons didn’t understand the nature of european freedom of expression. They did understand it: Some “offensive” opinions are punished, and some aren’t.

Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers for winning their fifth Super Bowl.

It was a pretty good game.

There were some close calls, but I think most of the major ones were ruled correctly. Neither side played their best games, but I think the better team won.

I did think it was classy of the Seattle players that I saw interviewed to aviod the bait offered up to place the blame for their losses on the officials. They agreed that they made mistakes, and that the Steelers made more big plays and fewer mistakes, and deserved to win today.

I haven’t commented on the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections because I wasn’t sure how to interpret it.

Was it a vote for more extreme terrorism, or a vote against known corruption?

Will Hamas use its new power to expand its attacks on Israel, or will political and economic realities force it to moderate its positions, recognize Israel, and discourage terrorist acts?

What does this mean for the prospects of democratic reforms elsewhere in the Middle East?

Fortunately, we can read Natan Sharansky’s opinions. He understands these issues better than most.

Some key excerpts:

No, the real difference for the Palestinians was that a Fatah-run Palestinian Authority was rightly seen as a corrupt and feckless organization that had done and would continue to do nothing to improve Palestinian lives, whereas Hamas was untainted by corruption and appreciated for providing real social services.

With the vote being a choice between corrupt terrorists dedicated only to themselves and honest terrorists who are also dedicated to others, is it any surprise that Hamas won by a landslide?

…

The world must base their support for this new regime on two ironclad conditions. First, Hamas must explicitly abandon the goal of destroying Israel and renounce terrorism. Second, it must dedicate itself toward building a free society for the Palestinians.

David Friedman is one of those people whose writing I love to read because he’s really smart, and very talented at expressing complex ideas clearly, and controversial arguments persuasively.

The Machinery of Freedom is a classic, and a favorite of mine. I also remember enjoying reading his Usenet posts years ago.

If you haven’t checked out his blog yet, then you should.

Today, he had pretty good post about unschooling.

I thought the President’s speech was pretty good. But, maybe that’s because I set my expectations so low.

I liked much of what he had to say (e.g. the war, Hamas, tax cuts, open markets, new supreme court justices, cutting failing programs and earmarks).

He did propose some new, stupid, spending programs (e.g. more government research on energy and battery technology, more school teachers, AIDS treatment), but they seemed more modest than the outrageous programs of past years.

I was disappointed by the foolish call for bans on research and trade related to human cloning, and embryos.

I guess Bush made it clear that he’s steadfast about the war, recognizes that he now has less political capital to promote ambitious new programs, and still pays lip-service to the concerns of the religious right.

So, all in all, there was some good and some bad.

But, it could have been a lot worse.

The Super Bowl will be interesting for me this year.

I live in the Seattle area, and I’m a long-time Pittsburgh Steelers fan; so, this year’s Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the Steelers should be fun.

I admit that I haven’t been following the game very well for the last few years (although I have been watching some Steelers highlights on Comcast On-Demand lately). But, I did watch both conference championship games today.

The Seahawks seem to have a pretty solid team, but I didn’t see anything offensively or defensively today from the Seahawks that will match up well against the Steelers.

So, I not only want the Steelers to win..but I think that they will, too.

I’ve never been inclined to root for the home team. I’m sure it’s partially because my dad liked non-home-teams; but, I also was averse to conforming to the crowds who blindly rooted for the local teams. It made sense to me to choose the team I preferred.

It still does.

I liked the Steelers of the ’70s (Bradshaw, Swann, Harris, Lambert, etc.), and I like today’s Steelers (Roethlisberger, Polamalu, Ward, Bettis, etc.).

Why should I root for a team that appeals to me less just because they happen to play closer to where I live?

I’ve been on vacation in Las Vegas for a week.

A couple of nights ago, my son and I rode the thrill rides on top of the Stratosphere tower.

We enjoyed some of the rides we’d ridden before (Big Shot, and X-Scream), but we really enjoyed the new (to us) ride: Insanity.

It’s difficult to describe how exhilarating it is to be suspended off the edge of a 1,000 foot tower, and then spun around (at an angle) so that you can see the tower from the outside (as well as lots of other stuff way down there).

It was a blast.

If you’re going to Vegas and enjoy thrill rides, don’t miss Insanity.