Back to the 'grind' on Monday!!

Hey i have the same birthday as erin cafaro. Congrats on the gold! I like pat sherwood a lot, he always seems to explain the importance of function, crossfit and the real world.

Looking forward to a week off!
Anyone else cycle off for a week?

Awesome video. So, I guess it's safe to say we won't be doing Chest and Tris on Monday?

Well said Pat!

The rest day article reminds me of a book by James Surowiecki entitled 'The Wisdom of Crowds'. The book describes how, why, and when groups of non-experts can come up with better solutions than an expert. In fact, every time someone posts a question here, the blog becomes a perfect example of the wisdom of crowds.

I like the idea of getting well outside the Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding box (Franco Columbu shout out), but I'm hesitant to fully embrace the idea of thinking of strength training like sports training in the way described in the clip. Some people may be more resilient than me, but I have found that after a hard chest day (either from heavy weight or lots of highly eccentric reps, as with burpees), the 'ol pecs are not good to go in 24 hours. I can warm up extra carefully, but they seize up completely if I push them at all. On the other hand, I could swim two days in a row without issues. My quads can usually deal as well. Does anyone else out there have a balky muscle group or two? And is this related to remembering watching the 1984 Olympics (i.e., being over 30)?

I followed The Joe Weider/Schwarzenegger protocol for 30 yrs and THE BEST thing I ever learned from Muscle and Fitness Magazine, was the existence of Crossfit!

Thank You Coach!

Sherwood just addressed the most common question/argument I get from newbies and prospects to CrossFit. I usually just tell them to shut up and have another glass of Kool-Aid, it gets easier to swallow the more ya drink!!

The article by Sowell has some very good points, and have you ever seen a talented surgeon try to manage his personnel or billing dept, thats a joke! Bottom line free economies rule, so why the heck are we letting our gov't "experts" take over healthcare?

Not sure if I'll need a rest day. Rested 2 days earlier this week. Maybe I'll work on pushups or do some more jumping pull ups since those are my weaknesses.

Anyone got any ideas of a decent workout I could do?

#10

Do the workout "GI Jane"

Road to 235. Update

Hello to my crossfit. I have some geat news.... Just want to let yall know I finaly hit the big 300lbs. YEA!!! I have now lost a total of 82lbs. I start in Feburary 2008 at 382lbs. I have not been close to 300lbs in over 7years. I just can't believe it!! I was sooo excited to get on the scale today and see that number. I am getting closer and closer to my goal. I know I could have not done it with out my crossfit family behind me 100%. Again I want to thank yall for your words of encouragment. They have helped me big time. Also I did interview about my road to 235 on CrossFit O-Zone on 08/12. If yall would like to read it just click on CrossFit O-Zone under friends of crossfit on the main page. I am just sooo stoked on this. I am getting there! Watch out everone nothing is going to stop me..... CrossFit Games 2009 Here I come.
Nina C.C.TX

Perfect. Will modify and try it tomorrow. Thanks

Rest Day Friends,

I am sad and happy to say that we are shutting down CrossFit Chaos and moving to the home of CrossFit Headquarters... in Prescott, AZ.

Last week I was in Phoenix, AZ to meet my folks, so we could go to the
Memorial of my Uncle/GodFather Ross in San Diego. I arrived a couple
Of days early to drive to Prescott to visit my Friends and mentors Greg and Lauren Glassman to take him up on a long standing invitation.

Greg was on the phone when I arrived, so Lauren and Greg's father Jeff, were showing me the
"Man Gym" out in their garage. When Greg gets off the phone he looks at me and says, "Joey, this may seem kind of presumptuous, but what do you think about moving to Prescott?" I did not even blink (it is the training folks).

To make a long story short, over the last week and a half I have been in talks with a California Multi-Gym owner, Joe, who happens to own the large gym in Prescott, Freedom Fitness
This guy also already houses "CrossFit Unlimited" inside his Milpitas, California gym. (Where the current male CF Games champion came from before he started his own affiliate.) He owns a rather large fitness center called Freedom Fitness in Prescott.

As of Wednesday we came to a solid agreement,and I will be running this new affiliate in partnership with him. Mostly his equipment, marketing, gym and mentorship, and mostly my labor, talent, personality and time. We are looking to name it Freedom CrossFit.

I, the Wife, and the Man-Cub hope to leave by the end of September, so the affiliate in Prescott
will open October 1. I want to publicly thank Coach and Lauren for recommending and vouching for me. This is an opportunity of a life-time to be under the eye of some of the best minds in the fitness and life arenas. I intend to do right by everyone involved and make the most of this situation for my family, my mentors, and the community.

And yes, I can honestly say that Jeff Glassman is the smartest guy in the room.

The dash is on.

Joey

Woodrow Wilson was our first Phd as President I believe. He was also our first big central planner. He believed that The Constitution (written by amatuers) was of the "living and breathing" type... outdated. He, as an "expert", proposed his own document to replace it. Many years later our most destructive president, known as an experimenter, imposed his New Deal (FDR). Central planning always leads to misery, where we all end up in the rice fields, shoulder to shoulder, all equally poor.

So can I do bicep curls everyday?

Congrats Joey! You deserve it. All of your hardwork and determination is paying off, and I can't think of anyone more deserving of the honor and privilege of running HQ than you. You are CrossFit!

I admire several of Sowell's books, and would happily end public education, but this is a sloppy article. Sowell asserts that home schooling outperforms public schooling without offering a shred of evidence. In fact the evidence is problematic, because of selection bias: parents who home school are likely to care deeply about their children's education, and children of such parents also achieve excellent results in public school. Public school teachers labor under many constraints that home schooling parents do not, particularly the inability to remove disruptive students from class. They also teach classes of 20 or 30 instead of one or two. I take and agree with Sowell's point about the failures of central planning, but he has illustrated it far better elsewhere.

Thank you for the article. Because I love reading the Rest Day articles, I realized I never subscribed to National Review. Well, after I finally subscribed to the print version, I read this article already. Thomas Sowell is describing Social Science. The belief only "experts" can do matters that people have done in the past reeks of arrogance.

This is Sowell's point. The Wisdom of Crowds brought up by M@ #6 really backs this up beautifully; however, the danger would be when the crowd gets manipulated into Conventional Wisdom.

Only free people with free markets can enable innovation in the marketplace. This also applies with search for the facts. If I remember, Tony Budding in the Message Boards addressed the point if academic economists were so accurate, as they claimed in the classroom, then they should clean up in the Stock Market. The investment bankers, the Practical Economists, succeeded in the real world as opposed to the Educational Economists.

Congrats Nina! You go girl. Looking forward to meeting the new skinny you at the games.

haha. i still think they are just trying to mess with us sometimes and do leg workouts 3 days in a row

Congratulations Joey!

This was a pretty short article, and I'm sure that the subject could have been a little deeper.

Central planning is really good for a wide range of situations. Can you imagine the chaos of a military force without central planning? Or a fire department? Most groups of people need some sort of structure to adhere to, but that doesn't mean that they need to be micro managed.

The point about economic central planning seemed to be that managing all of the minutiae of an deeply complex system leads to oversights that create havoc. This doesn't mean that we should abandon all regulation for anarchy, as this has been shown to create undesirable situations. As with most things, it's finding that right balance. In this case, between freedom and fairness.

To draw a comparison to a good system, I give you Crossfit. Organizing thousands of people across the globe to follow a fitness routine is an amazingly complicated task. There are tons of us out there that belong to the Crossfit Community, and there is central planing, but the rules are not strict, complicated or stifling. The "rules" are really just guidelines put in place to keep us all moving in the same general direction. Everybody, from affiliate owner to part-time WOD champion, has their sights on the goal of functional fitness, but we all know the variations at the local and individual level better than any central planner could. Like people's interactions in a free market, our individual goals bring us together in a productive network.

Dr Sowell is a national treasure. He does his standard incredible job of boiling economics down to the simplest, most digestible bits of common sense - describing in this case what Hayek called the 'fatal conceit' (of which you can get a condensed version for free online if you google it; it is a classic in understanding some of the more obvious and inevitable failings of centralized planning in govt).

Joey - holy cow, get some! That's so cool, I won't even tell you to fook off for leaving this area.

Nina - keep rocking it, thanks for sharing the ride with us.

Paul

I live in AZ and am so excited for the headquarters to be in Prescott. Living here I grew up as a big ASU fan, and always followed the Sundevils in sports particularly football. For me footbal in AZ and Pat Tillman will be forever linked. I was a huge Pat Tillman fan when he was playing football and a bigger fan when he enlisted. If he was alive today I think he would've been a CrossFitter. He lived his life by honor, integrity, hardwork, loved his community, and gave his life for his country. Didn't care what people thought of him and constantly challenged himself physically and mentally. Isn't that what we do as CrossFitters? The question I want to ask all of you and Coach is do you think Pat Tillman is worthy of having WOD named after him?

Congrats Joey and Gina !

Pat Sherwood described my EXACT globo gym routine and then outlined how I began to look at my body now, after crossfit. Breaking the globo gym stigma of only working a muscle group once a week took a couple months, but thanks to crossfit my body feels completely in sync. The difference between now(after crossfit) and this time last year(pre-crossfit) running cross-country is exponential concerning strength, speed, and endurance.

Well.....I DID IT!!!!

My first full dead hang pull up. Chin above the bar and everything
I now feel like part of the Crossfit family. I couldn't make my first post to CF until I got the pull up.
Thank you Chris...wish you could have been there

Joey,

Wonderful news! Congratulations!

Hari

Well put Pat, excellent video!

#10
When ever I am looking for a workout to do I alway rely on the "Filthy Fifty" to break it off on myself.
That is the best advice I can give.

I have to post a retraction on my time for yesterdays WoD. I am in Iraq and used a vehicle to develope my 800m route. I assumed that the trip counter was in my native miles. However, it was kilometers. Each round was 200m short for a total of 600m shy. 13:00 with 600m sprints, oops! Now I know and, Knowing is half the battle.

Go Joe!

Just got back from a great surf at Bells Beach. So lucky to be an hour from one of the finest surf beaches in the world.

First time surfing since late April. Started Crossfit "for real" in late June.

Felt stronger in the water, paddled faster than ever before, caught more waves, had more fun.

I love Crossfit!

Enjoy the rest day!

Joey - congrats.

Nina - you are a rock star, girl!

Erin, congrats on the Gold!

Joey, wow, congrats to you too. What an awesome addition to the affiliates and the community!

Hell, yeah, Nina! You're the soul of everything I love about Crossfit. Keep kicking ass. I'm not surprised to see that someone as hard and tough as you is a fellow Texan.

On to rest-day fun....

Speaking of the glaring deficits of central planning, could we have an article from Atlantic Monthly or The New Yorker for our rest article every now and then? Maybe a clip from the Daily Show? Or, to be "fair and balanced," given the preponderance of National Review articles, maybe a Mother Jones article, even if it's just once every Halloween? Coach and Lauren, I love y'all, but really, as a contrarian moderate, I feel my shooting-down-conservatives muscles are getting overtrained at the expense of my shooting-down-liberals muscles... and like any overtrained muscles, my posture is being affected (I find myself leaning left!).

And, of course, the irony of an article like this being posted by our own philosopher-king-and-queen was just too delicious for me to ignore. That being said, y'all were what Plato had in mind.

Comment #15 ....Central planning always leads to misery, where we all end up in the rice fields, shoulder to shoulder, all equally poor.

AMEN! Your entire comment was spot on! I love this community- I'm new here and I swear it's like coming home!

#12 Nina- Great job! I am proud of you! I have I client I train who recently hit the same milestone, her weigh-in last week was 297 down from 339. Keep us posted as to your progress! You will do it!

Congratulations CCTJOEY, that's fookin A!!

Nina, you're progressing at a fantastic rate I'm happy things are going so well for you. Keep it up :-)

I saw Erin get that gold a week ago Sunday.
Lots more photos here at Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/churbuck/sets/72157606780326080/

#8 Tim

Agree. I often get fitness magazines and finding the crossfit article was the best.

#24
TC - I agree completely. Pat Tillman was a vicious beast and continues to be an inspiration to all. I second the nomination. Coach...any help?

Great vid, Pat! You have a great speaking manner and are funny as s.

#3 Dr.Eric
I just took a week off to prevent burnout and elbow burditis. I just PRd my first 40 consec. pullups and that was great, however, I had been going hard for 3 months straight with the 3 day on 1 day off routine and it caught up. I woke one morning and didn't want anything to do with working out. My brain even felt it and my legs were heavy. So I gave up a week. Eva T. even said in a video interview a while back to beware because this "stuff" is potent. It truly is. I have consistantly prd over the last months so I want to keep it that way in the future. It seems I will now go hard until I start feeling some signs of burn out in any one of the ten fitness categories listed by CrossFit and then simply take the time off I need until I "feel" ready. I do not cycle rest anymore. It may not be needed because just listening to my body and mind simply does the trick. Going hard as long as I can in my opinion will have more lasting effects as long as I can recognize burn out signs.

Pat Sherwood vid: Awesome. It is hard for me to explain CrossFit methodology to other non crossfitting fitness people (naysayers). Pats comments will surely give me some ammo. This will only go so far though because in the end the argument boils down to individual goals. Is my goal pretty biceps and whatnot or the ability to scale walls with body armor fast and efficiently.

CCT Joey congrats.

#24/#38/All:

Pat Tillman: Check with family and friends on this one. Just to be sure and respectful.

#7

Your analogy to chest workouts at full capacity and swimming may not be accurate. In order for you to do that comparison you would have to swim at the same intensity that you did chest. In other words, practically drown before you get out of the pool. In that case, I would wager a bet that you would feel the same and have the same issue with swimming as you did with chest.

Secondly, I liked Pat's presentation and it makes complete sense. I never really understood why people want to bodybuild, all the time! I couldn't grasp what the point was because their fitness level was still very poor. The thought process of "I can lift all this weight but can't run down the block" is ridiculous. I always told my friend that if he every got in a fight it would be over in less then 1 minute, do to his lack of real life fitness.

Thanks again for providing this opportunity!

Loved the video. Pat told it the best way I've ever heard. Very well put Pat. All of us used to have that kind of schedule in the old days. But the fittest guys back in school weren't the weight lifters. They were the wrestlers. Those animals ran, climbed, did push-ups, squats everything. I'm sure their conditioning was due to the variety of the workouts.

Watch the movie Vision Quest some time. That guy is a cross fitter without a doubt. He just didn't know it lol.

Comment #22 Nick said: "Can you imagine the chaos of a military force without central planning? Or a fire department?"
--In a word, yes. In fact, there are folks that sit around imagining things like this all the time and there are fascinating ideas about how it could be done.

WRT military force in particular, the same issues that prevent centrally planned economies from working efficiently make military operations work with inefficiency - lack of complete information, lack of ability to focus on the most relevant information, and lack of human ability to process even the limited but overwhelming amounts of information that are available.

However, Mr. Sowell is referring to a specific concept of centralized planning, planning of economic transactions. There are two ways to organize economies - by allowing freedom to organize markets via free trade, and by imposing the coercive power of govt on economic transactions through 'centralized planning.'

Following Dr. Sowell's argument, one might conclude that the housing 'market failure' and the notable shortcomings of the current US health care system (the largest of which is NOT related to who can get how much insurance) are related to the ways in which govt interventions disconnect consumers from prices, and/or distort price/demand relationships (not to mentiont he 40% fo the US system that is centrally planned).

Paul

#44 Paul

You are exactly right, doesn't it seem like every time our Federal gov't does anything to "bail" out the people it only ends in a disaster long term. My opinion is that the American people are in for a very rude awakening when it comes to the delivery of quality healthcare in the years to come for the very reasons that you mention, remove the natural interactions of a free market between suppliers of healthcare and consumers of healthcare and you create a very unsustainable healthcare economy. Why can't we learn from our mistakes on this?

FWIW, I think the answer wrt Pat Tillman is that CFHQ developes tribute WODs for those who are lost from the CF community, or those living who are chosen to be honored by the CF community, for example, 'Eva.'

Nina, you're doing great! Keep it up.

CCT Joey, congratulations.

Greg, Lauren, and the whole CF community. Thank you for everything. I guess today I'd like to let you all know that what you're doing has been a huge blessing to me and my soon-to-be wife.

I drink the Kool-Aid and I like it (OOOOHHH YEAH),
ProPain

I am 45 years old. I ran the 400M in HS and college, but haven't run other than occasional jog since (~24 years). I have been biking and lifting weights seriously though. I am absolutely astounded that I can't run 400M in less than 1:45 and 800M less than 4:00. I have been doing CF for 4 months now and enjoy getting back in to the interval training, but wonder if there is any hope to improve my times and how long it will take.

nice video
good call pat, cuz i mean when arent we using the same body part in life, everyday were doing the same thing over an over,. im so happy i found crossfit god knows what the hell i'd be doin at some globo-gym right now

J-Man,

I chose the hard chest/swimming comparison because Pat mentioned swimming workouts in the video. I agree that the two types of stimulus are quite different when one compares a workout that thoroughly trashes the chest to swimming workouts that don't generally trash any specific muscle group. That is why I have trouble accepting his explanation at face value.

I can see working the same muscle group on back-to-back days when there is some functionality left in it. I just struggle with the idea that there is much to be gained from sticking it to a muscle group that is truly trashed.

In many sports or professions involving demanding physical exertion, people need to be able to use muscle groups frequently (including on back-to-back days and even multiple times per day). On the other hand, the stress is typically spread out across muscle groups. The more focused the stress, the more rest is likely required between efforts.

I guess I'm sipping the Kool-Aid on this point. There are clear benefits to training in non-compartmentalized fashion, but there have to be limits to what you can do on any given day based on what you might have done the day before. To completely ignore those limits seems to invite injury, not positive adaptation.

So, what day do I do my behind the back wrist curls?

Well...... I DID IT!!!

My first full dead hang, chin above the bar pull up.
I now feel like I am part of the Crossfit family. I couldn't make a post until I got the pull up..
Thank you Chris....couldn't have done it without you

Leah

Hi,

Pat Sherwood's video (http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFitAgainFaster_VBL1SherwoodBodyParts.wmv ) (safe for work, family) hit the nail firmly on the head.

One way to get that 'I worked bodypart X for n days in a row' possibility that real life demands, is to select exercises (literally) randomly for your workout.

We know that randomness gives variability, but variability (just purposefully selecting a lot of different exercises) doesn't give randomness.

Cheers,

Justin Smith
http://www.statisticool.com/weightedexercise.htm

Read the Hayek.

Anyone else susppect Sowell gets paid by the word?

2/3 of his piece has little to no relevance to what I understand to be his point:

-->central economic planning does not work because the subject matter of economics is beyond the comprehension of the experts who would do the planning.

The structure of his piece seems to be:

1. So-called expert teachers fail, or do not succeed sufficiently.

2. So-called expert economists fail because the nature of their subject matter is not amenable to expertise (of any sort) at the macro level.

3. If a surgeon (an expert) were to try economics (or rocket science) she would fail.

So...What do numbers 1 and 3 have to do with 2?

Is his point that claimed expertise of any type should be challenged, ignored, derided? (this would seem to go against what he implies in point 3 - that surgeon's are legitimate experts in the art of surgery).

Is his point that expertise is not transferable (i.e. from surgery to economics)? This is a relatively trivial point, and may bolster technocrat enthusiasts.

Anyway, of course his point was #2. Why didn't he develop that instead of scoring easy emotive points on unrelated matters?

The fact that planning does not work as well as the free market (for achieving certain values, in certain historical contexts) is not inherent in the structure of the universe. As Sowell points out (and Hayek), it is a matter of contingency: experts (economists) do not have perfect knowledge of the subject matter of economics. If the knowledge were better, the planning would be better. Their conceit (as Hayek/Paul) mentioned, is that they think they do have that knowledge, and worse, they act that way.

There was a very suggestive article (a thought piece without much data to support it) in "Foreign Affairs" (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701faessay86405/azar-gat/the-return-of-authoritarian-great-powers.html)

titled "The Return of the Authoritarian Great Powers." It challenges the steadfastness of what Hayek seems to characterize as the inextricable bond between political and economic liberty, looking at societies that are and have combined economic liberty with political authoritarianism, running through Japan/Germany to USSR, to China.

The jury's out. What would a massive middle class mean to China? Would it necessarily mean political liberalization? Hope so. But?

Comment #48 - Posted by: George

George, wondering that question out loud to J just last night - not sure if the limit is age, 15 pound weight increase over the old days, lack of specialized running training to the exclusion of other modalities, or all three. Paul

Prole, always look for your posts, this one was particularly enjoyable, thanks.

Of course, in this short piece, Sowell is only discussing why central planning can't work, even if the actors are well intentioned. He doesn't even touch on how badly that planning gets corrupted as soon as real humans are the planners, vice theoretical 'most good for the most people' planners.

Paul

When professionals fail to adapt based on the performance of amateurs, then there is something wrong with that profession.

Real problems with centralized planning occur in the absence of decentralized control and execution. Centralized planning can work, if the model of the plan is integrated decision making.

Prole,

I don't think Hayek ever argued that economic liberalism couldn't coexist with political authoritarianism. He argued that coercive economic control by the government constituted a "Road to Serfdom", as the title of that book suggests. The undesirability of living as an unfree subject of a prosperous state was considered by him self evident. The Germans under the National Socialists did quite well. He built roads, subsidized vacations, provided an extensive social welfare system (started by Bismark to cut out the knees of opponents of his autocratic regime), etc. Life can be good when your neighborhood is filled with recently vacated houses full of stuff free for the taking.

That you would make that argument is surely revealing.

With respect to the article, this is a short description of what Hayek termed "Distributed Knowledge". Why do home schooled kids do better? Their parents know them. They know their limits, their capabilities, their moods, and their preferred modes of learning.

A professional teacher, even though individually more qualified to confer knowledge, can never know as much about individual kids as can their parents. The economic analogy, obviously, he extended in the article.

More generally, with respect to surgery, I think he's pointing to what might be termed "The tyranny of the model". I am listening to another excellent series of lecture by Daniel Robinson titled "Great Ideas in Philosophy".

In it, he mentions that Newton can plausibl be argued to be the inventor of the generalized abstract model as heuristic tool. In this invention, he effectively originated a foundational tool of modern science.

As Robinson points out, though, what has come to be the received wisdom is that all fields of knowledge must possess detailed theoretical models, which can only be created by and understood by professionals. By extension, a field which can only say "keep doing whatever you're doing--it seems to be working", is a field which will find itself extinct in short order.

Thus, you have a process by which persistent failure is generated--certainly in economics, arguably in many other realms--but the models never abandoned. Rather, the real world is critiqued for being inconsistent with theory. "The implementation was wrong"; "the war/imperialist interferance prevented realization of our goals"; "the people were corrupted by outside influences", etc.

The case can be made, in my view, that the world would be better off if 3/4ths of the Humanities departments in the world were eliminated. They don't teach anything which leads to happier citizens, more productive citizens, greater wealth, greater social harmony, or any other desirable goal of which I can think.

On the contrary, they obscure the very possibility of a discussion of what would in fact be social or individual goals worth pursuing. They congeal around conformitarian (likely neologism there) agendas that are what I have termed "Post-Rationalist", although "Anti-Rationalist" might be a better term.

Congratulations, Erin! That's SO awesome! Way to represent Team America.

Also, I'm lucky enough to work out with your brother JD, who never fails to pass on great erg tips that have really helped my times. I'm sure they all came straight from you. So, thank you!

It is a facile observation that centrally-planned economies didn't succeed very well. The market is a powerful tool and can result in unmatched efficiency. Fine.

So what was the real point of the article? To me it argued - unconvincingly - that experts and well-intentioned interventions are doomed to fail. It looks to chip away at the moral authority of those who would push for intervention in markets to try to make life fairer for those who otherwise would lose out. The article is another call for "hands off our lives and our dollars". It's very similar to "AGW is a conspiracy of the left to take away my freedom". A familiar thread on here.

The reality is that the intellectually beguiling "democracy of free markets" arguments in favour of non-regulation ignore the manipulation that can still occur at fundamental levels throughout the system. And ignore the massive injustices that "free markets" can bring about where the strong batter the weak. Usually, these arguments are made by those doing best out of the perceived "non-intervention".

Sowell holds the US up as a beacon of free market economics but that doesn't sound right to me. Look at the disgraceful history of sugar subsidies. Look at the actual effects of perceived "de-regulation" on ownership of the media. Look at the collapse of the GATT talks (which many commentators fear is going to have a very negative impact on third world producers.) There's no such thing as a truly free market. Those who wish to make the rules and pull the strings should be up front about it and stop yanking our chains with this weak idealogical bs.

Scotty022 #33 - I've been feeling the burn on the left side myself, bro. I'm all for developing those other muscles!

Peace.

Tried CrossFit for the 1st time today, did yesterdys workout since today was a rest day. AWESOME!!

M/25/5'8"/180

11:37

33/F/5'10"/150

Loved the video! I am always trying to educate my clients about the importance of GPP, and I can't wait to share this video with them - Pat's a great speaker!

Still working on my rest week; rested the past two days, did a 1/2 Angie today.

50 pull-ups
50 push-ups
50 GHD sit-ups (felt I should at least do GHD if I was only doing 50)
50 squats

12:13

Hey guys, just got back from Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island where my cousin just became a Marine, and imagine how happy I was to see sets of kettlebells on the PT field!!

Semper Fi

Congrats Erin!

Quick question from a newbie: When it says pull-ups does that mean strict pull ups or kipping or both? Just curious. Thanks

Comment #65 - Posted by: N. Carbone

Kipping is the default pullup - but you'll see WODs which also use weighted and Lpullups. Welcome aboard.

FYI - FAQ covers this and other newbie questions very thoroughly; worth a look daily. Paul

I love the short video clip. On one hand it sounds so funny what Pat told the audience and on the other hand he is so true. That's exactly what everyone believes in a commercial gym, me included, until I found Crossfit. This video should spread the world.

3, 2, 1, GO

Thank you to all of the crossfit community and coach.

I just did my first tri .3 swim 11.75 bike 3 run 1:16:26 and beat my training partner by 14min. I been doing crossfit for about 4+ months and have lost 30 pounds 3 inches on my waist lost 12 % bodyfat and gained 5 pounds of muscle. I was a volunteer at the games and saw some great feats and that motivates me everyday. Anyone that considering cf as a regular thing just do it and to the cf out there that are thinking about the going to the games next year just do it I spent a few thousand dollar to get out there and I would have paid more.

34m/168/10.3bf/6'

Congratulations Nina! Keep up the hard work girl you are an inspiration!

#14 Joey

Good luck in your new ventures! May you make quick adjustments...sometimes things happen for good reasons...may you find them in this move...
be safe brother wish you lots of success.

The crossfit community is awesome! All I can say is Coach you and your wife have the biggest heart ever! We are grateful to you guys! That was very big of you! What a great leadership we have....we learn such great things from you guys.

Be safe!

fifty miles on the road bike, What a rest day:)!!!!!!!!!!!

#61, J1, writes,

"Sowell holds the US up as a beacon of free market economics but that doesn't sound right to me. Look at the disgraceful history of sugar subsidies."

I find absolutely nothing in the article that praises the US "as a beacon of free market economics." Rather, I read it as a general criticism of central planning, wherever it occurs. If fact, the author begins with a criticism of the way in which the US administers public education.

Your example of US sugar subsidies further supports the argument that government central planning doesn't work well here or anywhere else.

Great article. I've been a Thomas Sowell fan for perhaps 25 years. Recommended book: "Knowledge and Decisions" for more insight into the argument against central planning. Though in my experience the knee jerk critics of Sowell will NEVER read one of his books. Their loss. I am an optimist, the world will continue to get better (more free and more civilized) in fits and starts regardless of the opinions of idiots.

Hi,

To elaborate on my comment #53, if you're selecting exercises randomly, invariably people are concerned about:

a) doing the same exercise for many days in a row, and

b) not doing an exercise for a long period of time

If you're literally selecting exercises randomly, you can actually calculate the exact probabilities of a) and b) for any exercise and for any number of days.

To quell any concerns,
Cheers,

Justin Smith
http://www.statisticool.com/weightedexercise.htm

Comment #60 - Posted by: J1

J1, your visceral distrust of freedom, and therefore your presumable trust in the coercive power of govt to make things 'fair,' came through loud and clear - however, I hope you were not under the misimpression that your retort rose above the level of weak ideological bs. Paul

sorry Barry cooper and Apolloswabbie- I was so compelled to thank you that I forgot to sign off my name!

Be safe and thanks again..
Lisa

could not sit still. ran 5 miles and sprinkled in 10 100m sprints

Happy Sunday everyone...I have been slacking off the past week and decided not to take today as a rest day....I did not want to go the gym either so I came up with this workout..As many rounds in 20 minutes of:

400 meter sprint
12 pullups (these could scale to ring pullups)
400 meter sprint
12 inclined parallelette pushups (could scale to handstand pushups)
400 meter sprint
12 20# wall balls

I call it "The trailer park" because I am staying at an RV trailer park in Tampa....I have homemade parallelettes and a homemade medicine ball...So if you're on a budget and dont want to drive to the gym...give "The Trailer Park" a try.

ciao for now
Gene

Tabata your iPod

Hey everyone! I've always wanted a way to do a Tabata interval on my iPod. I've found one, and made another. If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, you can download an interval timer from iTunes; just search "interval timer."

I, however, do not have either of those nifty things, so I made a 20-second mp3, a 10-second mp3, and a 1-second puking sound mp3 to signal the end. By repeating these in a playlist, you can make a Tabata interval on your iPod for free. To download mine, go to http://www.orbitfiles.com/users/scotty022

--Note: for unknown reasons, the "save to disk" button is sometimes grayed out for 3-5 seconds before lighting up. Be patient. Also, the file is very small, and very clean.

To make your own, there's an easy-to-follow article here: http://lifehacker.com/software/ringtones/geek-to-live--make-a-ringtone-from-any-mp3-212232.php

--Another note: within the tech community, a "hack" is a general term for a clever workaround or a novel use for existing tools, not a malicious attack. This website is neither malicious nor illegal.

Enjoy!

#75-- Paul, I wouldn't say that a critique of unregulated markets is equivalent to a "visceral distrust of freedom." Nevertheless, I'm impressed that you have such intimate knowledge of J1's viscera... ;)

Way to go Nina-good on you!!!!
Thanks for keeping us posted, you are awesome!
Aloha

My only real problem with the article is it opens with a false analogy. The hypothetical case is clear cut and preposterous, having no bearing on the real world. Surgery is falsely compared to homeschooling as if they were practically identical, and no effort is made to point out the glaring incongruities between them.

A few simple differences between homeschool and public school:
1) Homeschool parents are self-selecting, which means they are not a representative sample of the capabilities of all parents. Attempting to say any parent could homeschool is analogous to saying any parent could and should perform their own car repairs. Some are more inclined and capable in that direction and choose to do so. Doing your own repairs frequently results in a better or more thorough job than what you might get at a mechanic shop, but that doesn't mean auto-mechanics are a blight on society.
1.5) Homeschool students are self-selecting. The parent chooses to home-school based on a prior evaluation of success. It is not a path tread lightly, and one of the key factors is whether or not the student has the temperament to succeed in that environment. Not all do. The ones that succeed, which are the ones we hear about, are the ones estimated ahead of time to be likely to succeed. It’s like selecting a group of 6”5’ tall people, having hoboes teach them to dunk a basketball, then when they learn it well, suggesting that coaches should be fired and replaced with hoboes.
2) I'm not sure where the author got the $10,000 per student per year figure, but even if true, it needs to be compared against the lost income of the parent who chooses to stay home with their child along with the money spent on supplies, trips, and educational material. I would estimate home-schooling costs twice or three times as much as public schooling using these figures. The question then would be: "Are the children getting twice the education?"
3) Student: Teacher ratio is much lower at home than at school. Studies have shown that lower student: teacher ratios produce better results than the opposite. Homeschoolers have the advantage.
4) The homeschool student has the advantage of consistency of teacher from year to year. There is none of the wasted time necessary to learn names, mannerisms, and capabilities while determining the new classroom social order at the beginning of each new school year.
5) The teacher/parent has a vested interest in the success of their student/child and they have a long-standing emotional bond which may help foster an environment for success.
6) The homeschool parent has a parachute. If homeschooling fails, the parent can just drop the child off at public school. Schools have no such back-up. They must be at least minimally successful on all fronts.
7) The public school teacher must educate to the lowest common denominator in their classroom, which means holding up the education of the rest of the class (who may be ready to move on) in order to ensure everybody gets it. No child left behind...
8) The home-school parent can give incentives like, "When this lesson or work is mastered, we can do something fun for the rest of the day." The public school teacher has no such option.

Overall, the homeschool model has all the advantages and few of the disadvantages of public education, and yet it seems to be only marginally more successful. This is hardly a case of butcher knives and home-surgery. And the article does a disservice to itself by starting out with such a blatant non-analogy.

All that being said, I can agree with Sowell’s central thesis that “central planning” can be a recipe for disaster. Free societies and free-markets work well as has been shown time and again. And some types of central planning are almost essential, but that’s beyond the topic of my comment. Nick, #22, covered this well in his comment. Apolloswabbie and Prole also offered much insightful criticism of this piece, leaving me with my one small piece. I hope I did it justice.
Adam

Hari,

In this case Dr. Sowell is essentially preaching to the choir(nationalreview.com), if this were running in the nytimes I am sure he would have made a much more convincing case. I thought this would have been a good opportunity to show how the Chinese Olympic athletes, who have been "managed" by the state since near birth, were only marginally better in most cases to their free living competitors.

And yes, you are absolutely right about gov't subsidies and the effects they have on industries like agriculture. The Omnivores Dilemma sheds some serious light on this. Its true we are a mildly socialist society, as many conservatives will readily admit but work in congress to object. Like it or not Sowell does influence many politicians away from taking a Keynesian approach economic meddling.

Pat Sherwood; "Body Part Splits."

Good video. Also checked out "Again Faster." Very professional instructional videos!

"Those who want to make the world a better place, really just want to control it."

I knew you could do it Leah!!

Chris

PR on "Angie" today: 34:04 as Rx'd.

I know it's still slow compared to you beasts out there, but I'm getting stronger...faster...

I like the idea of the article, but some of its examples are horribly flawed. The intelligence of crowds has been well and better documented (try Emergence by Steven Johnson), but Sowell is trying to bring down too many others with the easy targets of Soviet national planners.

In his last sentence he implies that rocket science and criminal justice are also better handled by amateurs like commodity speculation. I assure you that these fields are dictatorially controlled by trained experts.

I strongly disagree with his first example that the teaching profession is flawed. It ruined the entire article for me, it was so nasty and misguided. I was about to rail, but Adam did it better a few posts above. Libertarians would do well to consider that without public education, a theoretically ideal free market economy would turn into an aristocracy in a matter of generations.

It would seem public education, currently, is trying to turn us into socialists. America has always been a flexibly meritocratic nation--aristocracies are for Europeans and Asians--and I think that is the best system.

The alternative is rule by leftist goons who use naive populism to attain and keep power. It is, after all, the People's Republic of China, n'et ce pas? Really, I would view the distinction as meritocratic versus autocratic.

The point about surgery has been misunderstood. What he is pointing to is the integral and necessary relationship between claimed skill and the ability to generate observable outcomes. IF someone could perform surgery easily, THEN it would not be such a special skill. He is not, however, making the claim that surgery or rocket science is easy. That would be be foolish, and he is in fact quite intelligent.

The point is that if you can only talk about something, but not do it, then you are between useless and harmful.

Nor is he implying teachers can't teach. He is saying that their credentials in no way imply a necessary correllation between their attainment of a degree and actual capacity. Getting a teacher's certificate means you passed the tests, not that you can teach.

That is my memory of the article, in any event, which I read this morning.

thank you #81,

for doing a lot of typing that i would have otherwise done. i hate to bash on the article, as some of it is very true, but then who doesnt know that free market economies work better? arent we past this realization? i also have absolutely no idea what this has to do with experts versus amateurs... is Sowell under the impression that there are no professional people in our society? his data is correct but he correlates it in a ridiculous manner.

i think one thing i have to add is the "fact" that elemantary school educators consider themselves experts in education. i dont think this statement is true at all. he simply adds that so he can draw the conclusion that professionals fail in comparison to home schooling.

If want some more information on free markets checkout http://mises.org/

#89: Unfortunately, no. viz. Barack Obama, John McCain, GW Bush, Ben Bernanke, and Hank Poulson. To name but a few.

Comment #87 - Posted by: Richard "Libertarians would do well to consider that without public education, a theoretically ideal free market economy would turn into an aristocracy in a matter of generations."

--I don't see how you can possibly back this statement up. Coercive govt education is a relatively new aspect of our republic, and the prior approach did not lead to the aristocracy you imagine.

Comment #81 - Posted by: AdamWC/39/165
Nicely thought out post - but by the end, I think you were making the case for homeschooling by uncredentialed non-experts providing a better outcome than a centrally organized, coercively directed school populated by credentialed 'experts.' As for costs, the only way you can say homeschooling 'costs' more is if you factor the relatively minor costs of homeschooling plus the 'lost' income of the non-working parent that stays home to provide the schooling (which is a legit point).

The present US system, which is a coercive govt monopoly, provides a questionable outcome at $10K/student/year (an amount that has more than doubled in real dollars since 1970) - which raises the question of what alternatives might capture the benefits of competition, decentralization, and market forces in general to provide a better price/outcome option. Approximately 8 million American families eschew 'free' public education, and pay for either home schooling or private schools because they view that alternative as so vastly superior to the 'free' version. That is these 8 million consumers consider it a bad deal at zero cost - in fact, it's a bad deal compared to the ~$8K/year/kid that is paid for an average private school (around this town). THAT's INCREDIBLE!

I'm looking for the day when we all finally get sick of the coercive govt monopoly on public schools, and reclaim it for our own. It's exciting to think of what opportunities might present themselves in a market of schools competing for the best students whilst students get to compete for the best schools for their particular talents/aptitudes/intelligences. Paul

Just caught Casey Burgener on TV by total chance.

Sweet!

National Geographic - Super Strength

WFS Link - http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/super-strength-3051/Overview

#89 dT

"who doesn't know that free market economies work better?"

Uhhh......there is this whole group of people and their supporters meeting in Denver this week, you might want to ask them!!

33/M/179/6'00"

After installing my new StudBar Pull-up bar in the garage today, I was coaxed into a rest day "Fran" with two buddies who helped me install the bar. The gym is now totally complete, thanks to the one stop shopping at www.TheGarageGymStore.com (Thanks Eddie & Lisa for everything you guys do for CrossFit, too!).

Anyway, the "Fran" I didn't feel like doing was a new pr at 4:53! I am pretty excited about finally getting under 5 minutes. Plus, since this was outside in 88 Degrees plus high humidity, I think I'll be closer to 4:25 next time we're inside.

See you in VA Beach.

Dan D.
www.CrossFitStickers.com

Hey X-men & women

Any of ya's here in the
People's Republic of West Seattle?

Diggin' the "Seattle Summer" &
it's sogginess

Going on record here:
Pat Sherwood is the BEST lecturer in all of CF. Too hairy for my tastes, but a damn good lecturer.

Wow! Actually some real debate today! Thanks to all who actually "argue" their cases. I have grown weary of all the name calling that passes for legitimate debate and argument in our mass media.

I also find it troubling when someone calls for "disbanding Humanities departments" in the name of freedom. One of my degrees is a Humanities degree, and it made a huge difference in my ability to think, and more importantly, express myself. I have worked in countries where governments to attempt control of minds. You can never control someone else's thoughts, only their access to information.

The motivational speaker Tremendous Jones made a statement that I have taken as my personal motto: “You are the same today as you’re going to be in five years except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read.” I have family members who home school, and that is their decision.

Our children will go to public school for several reasons. First, "Specialization is for insects." My wife and I could do a good job teaching nearly every subject offered in a college prep high school. I cannot, however, expose my children to points of view other than my own. In Crossfit, we are encouraged to "soften the boundaries" and expose ourselves to different sports and physical activities. I see a public education as exposure to the same on an intellectual level. I have benefited from a few great teachers who introduced me to books and thoughts that changed the course of life, but none had the effect my parents did. As a parent, I will be VERY involved in the education of my children.

Education has long been the focus of reformers hoping to change society. It makes total sense--change society at the source. Tyack and Cuban have an excellent book on the reformation attempts on education called "Tinkering Toward Utopia."

Apollo #92

Poor people have few resources and incentives to invest in education. If public education were done away with, the poor would be far less educated than the rich. After a couple generations where the poor (and eventually the middle class) are getting no education, the class divisions would be as rigid as in an aristocracy. The US functioned largely as an aristocracy for decades before it slowly turned into the more meritocratic society it is now and the socialization of education played no small part.

The education market is opening up now. College choice already functions like a free market and every big city in the country has a wide variety of private and alternative public schools for different interests, goals, and aptitudes. But to do away with basic compulsory public education would do enormous harm to the already tenuous class situation in this country.

That was a great video!

I'd love to hear more about how Erin Cafaro used CF to help her achieve the monumental feat of a Gold Medal in Olympic rowing. That is simply incredible!

A bit of simplistic analysis from a weary traveler:

As far as body part split training goes, I'm not a fan of it and it's definitely overused - especially by my rugby team (I've been trying to turn them on to Crossfit), but definitely has its merits in a lot of program structures even for athletes - in general, I'm not going to wipe my legs the day before a conditioning oriented practice, much as I would not train my upper body heavily before a tackling and scrumming practice. Diminished performance during practice and the potential for injury by over-stressing a recovering muscle are simply not worth it.

Central planning, too, has its merits. Some have already cited the benefits of a public education system, which in spite of the flaws of its current incarnation provides an invaluable service to society, much as government research funding and defense spending have historically advanced science. Markets are an excellent method of resource allocation, but it must be remembered that though they progress towards efficiency, they remain inefficient due to the inherent irrationality and emotion of market participants and some degree of central planning can smooth out these inefficiencies (most notably housing and healthcare).

In general I think we need to move away from the logic that no governmental plan of action is the best plan. It allows too many people who fail to understand the subtleties of modern policy and economics to fall victim to emotionally charged rhetoric. The structure of government and training program structure seems much like an investment portfolio diversification helps to promote worthwhile and consistent returns.

#102 - In your weariness you are more awake to the nature of things than writing-for-deadline hacks like Sowell.

I notice that the people who want to do away with Public education generally have absolutely nothing to proffer in it's stead beyond some vague platitudes about ' doing it yourself'.

The other painful irony (for them) is that for the past 8 years Republicans have moved far more towards central planning than Democrats- appointing Czars to coordinate many of the major initiatives advanced by other agencies.
In some cases this has probably been a good thing- in others the sheer scope of accountability has safely ensured no accountability.
And, while markets should be free- it takes regulatory framework to ensure that ideas - not individuals in the ascent are the commodity which has the mobility- and nations benefit from central planning in so much as they can coordinate strategies for success in the global market place.

Its the dynamic that we cultivate- between everything - from charter schools/public/private schools to Corporations/regulartory agencies/small businesses that makes us strong- not the elimination of any particular element.
Balance of power has defined this nation from the beginning- yet in our age we have idiots like the Greens/Libertarians who take one piece of doctrine and get myopic about it.

Comment #92 Paul- look at the former Soviet Union- it became a wild west of a free market economy- and moves steadily towards another totalitarian state- because the few people who got ahead formed a class of oligarchs just as tyrannical as the communists- people are people and as such seek balance-

Jay SC- to say that Democrats dont believe in free markets is just jingoistic- foolish and evidence of someone not paying attention to anything going on the country. Pardon me if you were just being caustic.

I should probably be less harsh on this Sowell fellow and check out the books his fans have reccomended- and I will.
but from this brief read it looks like he got his Doctorate from his momma at their home school.

Made up "Angie" and the 800m/press workouts for my rest day, since I was a lazy ass past couple days

M/23/5'11"/195

"Angie" 15:22
mowed lawn
3rnds 800m run/presses 95# 16:58

#102 james

Well, I was being jokingly caustic since there are people on the far left that to say the least are bordering on being socialistic, but if you want to call me jingoistic, lets go!! Yes I am a conservative, believe America offers the most free economy in the world, that everyone has equal opportunity to benefit from it, and that there are those, mostly "leftist goons", as someone above called them, who seem to continually fight this awesome system we have. I say to them, and you if you believe it, if you like socialism there are plenty of countries that offer that system, don't try to poison ours, we like the deal we have, where every man if he is responsible and works hard has a chance to succeed.
On the other hand the Republicans have their problems also, and I won't deny that, since many conservatives are sick of the "Corporate influence" on them! I'm not partisan, I just think you are naive if you don't think there a those in the Democratic party who want us to move much closer to socialism, and Obama might be one of them, I can't tell what he wants except "change". I wasn't making a generalization since there are very reasonable Dems who really want whats best for America, but don't deny that there ARE those who support that party who constantly push against a free economy!! BTW, I think Paul's posts are right on the money, your post comes across like one who is either employed by our "all-knowing" gov't, or has "been had" by our free economy, just an observation.

7 Rounds for time of:
10 Reps of 40lb Dumbell Thrusters (20lbs per arm)
20 Sit ups
30 Reps of 35lb KB swings

Time - 33:30

M/24/160

Comment #104 - Posted by: james "Comment #92 Paul- look at the former Soviet Union- it became a wild west of a free market economy- and moves steadily towards another totalitarian state- because the few people who got ahead formed a class of oligarchs just as tyrannical as the communists- people are people and as such seek balance- "

--James, it's assumed that rule of law is required for markets to function, as are property rights. The Russia example of 'it's all chaos unless it's regulated' misses the point - they had govt there, they didn't have rule of law.

James and all - you would be well served to consider that when you address each issue as bipolar (either liberal/DNC or conservative/RNC) you miss that they both have us playing into their hands when we assume they represent the full spectrum of issues or possibilities. It's true that for the present we are stuck with their predictably unsatisfying leadership (our present system generated 'them' as the outcome, and will continue to do so). As for what should or could be, that's an entirely different story.

"idiots like the Greens/Libertarians"
Do you even know what a libertarian is? How would you define one? Is it your intention to be insulting to a significant portion of the CF community, or are you blathering about libertarians thinking there are none within earshot?

Paul

Comment #103 - Posted by: ptf said "though they progress towards efficiency, they remain inefficient due to the inherent irrationality and emotion of market participants and some degree of central planning can smooth out these inefficiencies (most notably housing and healthcare)."

--The best I can tell of what you are saying that markets are not perfectly efficient, but with govt 'assistance' can be made more efficient. I invite you to provide a single example of that happening.

I would suggest, should you take up that challenge, that health care and housing are poor examples to use for that project. They are already rife with govt interventions that make them inefficient - mostly by distorting price/value relationships. The most you could argue is that additional govt interventions in health care and housing could influence the distortions alredy in place. Paul

It's funny how people seem to want to draw one of two extremes: either you have NO regulation, or you want to consider Government in general more reliable than markets, which Hayek showed clearly is a "Road to Serfdom".

I'm an Adam Smith liberal. I believe that some market regulation is necessary to preserve competition, but that in general the less the better. I also believe that we are already a socialist state, and have been since FDR.

If anyone wants to look at a concrete example of where the Democrats have fundamentally misunderstood the point Sowell is making, you need look no further than their foolish and misguided ideas on Universal Healthcare. They literally want to ignore a century of economic theory that has worked, and mountains of empirical evidence, to argue that eliminating "distributed knowledge" in favor of a large governmental burocracy will make us more efficient. Horsefeathers.

"I'm an Adam Smith liberal."

Figures, LOL. You can't have your cake and eat it. You either get the cake, and that's it; or you eat it and the cake is gone.

I agree with a lot of what Sowell has to say in the article. However, when we talk about governments being inefficient in distributing goods, we need to look at empirical evidence. For the vast majority of goods, the private sector is the most efficient at distributing. Health care, in the current employer paid insurance model, is not one of them. I have had personal experience with my top of the line health plan(which I pay top dollar for) refusing to cover large medical expenses for no discernible reason. After going to a lawyer, it was made apparent to me that it would be cheaper to simply suck it up and pay, rather than fight the insurance company's formidable legal teams.

The problem is two fold: The concept of insurance means that nobody knows how much their doctor charges their insurance company for a given service. This is a fundamental for creating efficiency in a free market, and it is absent in the U.S. Healthcare industry. Without consumers being able to shop for the best price, how can the free market work to depress prices? If you had grocery insurance, what is to stop you from buying New York Strips instead of chicken, if the cost to you will be the same? Eventually, SOMEBODY has to pay. That somebody is all of us, in the form of increasingly high premiums.

The second problem is that insurance companies have a profit model that routinely cause them to deny their clients coverage. They simply will not pay a doctor if they find the slightest technicality that allows them to deny payment. This is simply a business maximizing its profit, with zero care for the patients. If I want to switch insurers, how can I? My contract is through my employer, so I have no choice. I'm stuck with a company who routinely fleeces me.

I like the new HSA's that Bush signed into law a few years ago. Those things are lifesavers. I would also like to see laws requiring public posting of all prices for procedures. But the current system is terrible, and honestly, as much as I don't like socialized systems, we spend more on health care per capita in the US than in any other country.

Tricare is socialized health care, and it has a higher customer satisfaction rating than any private health insurance. I'm talking about the $900/ year plan, not the crappy free one that makes you go to military hospitals.

#111: read your history. Smith, John Stuart Mill were self desribed liberals. Democrats are socialists. The word has become perverted because we as a nation have moved the entire center of gravity to the left. Even Bush is effectively a socialist in his social policies. Our spending on a variety of programs was entirely unaffected, even when the Republicans controlled Congress.

If you stay here, you will notice I use the word leftist a lot. I do that because "liberals" in this country are not even remotely liberal, so the word is a misnomer that obscures their true radicalism. It is, in my view, excessively generous.

With respect to insurance, the book to read is "Crisis of Abundance", which has been recommended several times by Bingo and Apolloswabbie.

Barry,

What do you think of Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments" as providing the ethical underpinning and describing the psychological mechanism driving the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker of the the "Wealth of Nations"? Thinking of Smith like that (and Hume too of course) would, I hope, provide for a more sophisticated account of the social contexts for the creation and creation, acceleration, and transfer of wealth...and labour.

Wealth of Nations (Chapter VIII, Wages of Labour)

"What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same...

...It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it...

...In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired... Many workmen could not subsist a week...

We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate...We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and, one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of...

But though, in disputes with their workmen, masters must generally have the advantage, there is, however, a certain rate, below which it seems impossible to reduce, for any considerable time, the ordinary wages even of the lowest species of labour."

-- He says some disparaging things of the servants to be sure, but you get the point. The chapter really is splendid. Makes for a fine comparison with Chapter 6 of Marx's "Wage Labour and Capital". Anyway, it's nice to get from the horse's mouth instead of some National Review or Cato Institute tool.

That is the point of Unions. I'm a moderate, in my own view. I've quoted that rough passage on several occasions, and have never been a champion of 100% laissez faire markets. I've known too many CEO's not to understand how they think.

Jumping from there--which is in my view a moderate Republican position--to an espousal of class warfare is precisely the sort of thoughtless and damaging leap made by intellectuals everywhere.

I would accuse Obama of it, if I thought of him as anything other than a remote controlld, battery operated simulacrum of a sincerely concerned citizen.

The point of America is to build the middle class in such a way that we can all live comfortably. I read about supposed "assaults" on the middle class, but the reality is that all but the poorest of the poor in this nation are middle class, because we are quite wealthy. What counts as poverty here counts as affluence in many nations.

Interestingly, I just listened to a lecture on Hume, and am currently (I listen when I drive) in the middle of one on Thomas Reid, who I think I will like quite well. I'm fond of Berkeley as well. He has never been refuted, because he cannot be refuted, as far as I can tell.

Nice video Sylar. . .I mean, Pat. . .well said.

Very interesting Barry.

I wrote my master's thesis on the philosophy of language in the Scottish Enlightenment.

What is nice looking back at Smith and especially Hume (but this would apply to most of them) is their consummate style, perfected long before the days of jargon. Simple metaphors executed economically to great explanatory effect. Sober and creative, penetrating and elegant.

Anyway, you're keeping good company.

This is off-topic but I woke up this morning thinking about it, and will pass it along. I was using our excellent no appointment, pay as you go, $48/visit outpatient care system yesterday, and read an article on China. Reality is, Chinese intellectuals appear to be making a hard turn to the right. All the American influences--and let's be honest, American money both as investment and as a result of products sold abroad--appear to be doing nothing to foster Western liberal ideals.

On the contrary. I fear at some point in the next twenty years a turn from authoritarian communism to authoritarian nationalism (aka Fascism) may cause us all to view this as he 1936 Olympics. Presumably some Chinese Leni Riefenstahl is already at work.

In that view, we can safely consider Taiwan not as a further step in Communist global aspirations, but as a Danzig or Austria, and her conquest rationalized at some point as an "Anschluss". They will lack local agitators and sympathizers, but they will not lack force or speed, if and when they do it.

If the bulk of Chinese saw the suppression by force of Tibet to be a good thing, why wouldn't they view a forced "reunification" of Taiwan and the China to be a clear sign of the heavens of their divine destiny? The Land of the Rising Sun would pass the baton to the "Middle Kingdom", with the United States-- the "Beautiful Kingdom"-- presumably left with some hard choices.

Hopefully we will have a politically and militarily mature person in office if and when that happens.

For me, for now, I am going to stop buying Chinese whenever presented--as I nearly always am--with an alternative.

Would an authoritarian and nationalistic government in China be a good thing for the Western Democracies in 10 years time?

Comment #112 - Posted by: John Kabler said: I agree with a lot of what Sowell has to say in the article. However, when we talk about governments being inefficient in distributing goods, we need to look at empirical evidence.
For the vast majority of goods, the private sector is the most efficient at distributing. Health care, in the current employer paid insurance model, is not one of them.
---You are correct, but don’t mistake the system we have for a private market system. 40% is medicare/Medicaid, and the other 60% is riddled with govt interventions that force inefficiencies.

I have had personal experience with my top of the line health plan(which I pay top dollar for) refusing to cover large medical expenses for no discernible reason. After going to a lawyer, it was made apparent to me that it would be cheaper to simply suck it up and pay, rather than fight the insurance company's formidable legal teams.
---This is a good example of the effect of govt interventions, to wit, insurance companies are not competing for your business. They largely compete for corporate clients, and feel very little need to satisfy individual customers. Therefore, the plans in general meet the specifications of the employers and are both confusing and not aimed to please the employees; certainly not as much as, for example, auto insurance which is far more consumer oriented.

The problem is two fold: The concept of insurance means that nobody knows how much their doctor charges their insurance company for a given service. This is a fundamental for creating efficiency in a free market, and it is absent in the U.S. Healthcare industry. Without consumers being able to shop for the best price, how can the free market work to depress prices? If you had grocery insurance, what is to stop you from buying New York Strips instead of chicken, if the cost to you will be the same? Eventually, SOMEBODY has to pay. That somebody is all of us, in the form of increasingly high premiums.
---That is correct if we continue to pay for our insurance as ‘pre paid service plans’ through employers, vice an improved system of paying for ‘coverage to prevents us from paying for unexpected events of really high cost’ like we do with other forms of insurance, such as auto insurance. The present US system, which I do not defend in its entirety, distorts price/value relationships through govt interventions starting with tax policy which strongly incentivises the pre-paid service plan model of health care – the most expensive model.

The second problem is that insurance companies have a profit model that routinely cause them to deny their clients coverage. They simply will not pay a doctor if they find the slightest technicality that allows them to deny payment. This is simply a business maximizing its profit, with zero care for the patients. If I want to switch insurers, how can I? My contract is through my employer, so I have no choice. I'm stuck with a company who routinely fleeces me.
---Exactly true – great reason to divorce provision of health care from employment, and there are other great reasons to do this, which I’m too lazy to delve into now, hope you’ll forgive me. However, auto insurance companies operate on a profit model but no one's trying to socialize them - no reason profits and customer satisfaction cannot go together, and in fact, it is very unlikely folks will see satisfied customers in a non-profit medical care arena. In the UK, for example, young people who essentially don't need health care love their 'free' system; the older, more sick folks that actually have need of care are not so enamored.

I like the new HSA's that Bush signed into law a few years ago. Those things are lifesavers. I would also like to see laws requiring public posting of all prices for procedures. But the current system is terrible, and honestly, as much as I don't like socialized systems, we spend more on health care per capita in the US than in any other country.
---HSAs are a great idea. But, saying ‘we spend more on health care per capita’ than any other country is not an indictment of our system; because we are more free, we have more to spend, that’s good. Our system also generates more innovation, more technology, more drugs, and other nations piggy back off of our productivity in generating new health care options. The indictment of our system is that we spend the money stupidly, without a connection between how much is spent, who pays for it, and what value the expense provides to the ‘spender.’

Tricare is socialized health care, and it has a higher customer satisfaction rating than any private health insurance. I'm talking about the $900/ year plan, not the crappy free one that makes you go to military hospitals.
---Tricare is provided to a very, very selective population. Comparisons of this population to others is so problematic as to be absurd. Further, satisfaction information without cost information is of little use. Same goes for comparisons which point to the VA system providing ‘high customer satisfaction.’ Think of the very specialized populations that utilize these systems – valid comparisons to other populations will be problematic.

My two cents, two days late where no one will read it. Paul

Hey Paul- it was neither my intention to insult nor not insult- just stating what is in my veiw a fact- Libertarians are basically right wing Utopians.
I know many personally and they generally make nice friends and good clients- But I find their political veiws to be completely unrealistic- I feel the same way about the Greens.
I find it funny on this board ,of all places,someone would chastise me for calling another veiwpoint absurd- I didnt realize we had a spirit of political correctness going on here.
But for you Paul- (and probably only you) I would apologize- because you are generally respectful of other peoples veiws- I wont mention that I think Libertarianism is idiotic on this board ever again- out of courtesy if not conviction. And of course- Im open to changing that opinion if you have links etc to share.

Jay SC- good reasoning - but no- Im self employed, started my first enterprise at age 8 and rarely have worked for anyone else and doing what Ive always wanted to do- American Dream (albeit with modest returns) in action here- my only problem is that I have no healthcare- so yes, I will be voting for the party that can deliver what is in my best interest.

Barry Cooper- I have been on a Chinese boycott as well- it is extremely difficult. I am particularly frustrated by the lack of toys for my kids. Also Leni Reifenstahl could never be reproduced in a place like China- unless her films were somehow reverse engineered.

Hey Paul- it was neither my intention to insult nor not insult- just stating what is in my veiw a fact- Libertarians are basically right wing Utopians.
I know many personally and they generally make nice friends and good clients- But I find their political veiws to be completely unrealistic- I feel the same way about the Greens.
I find it funny on this board ,of all places,someone would chastise me for calling another veiwpoint absurd- I didnt realize we had a spirit of political correctness going on here.
But for you Paul- (and probably only you) I would apologize- because you are generally respectful of other peoples veiws- I wont mention that I think Libertarianism is idiotic on this board ever again- out of courtesy if not conviction. And of course- Im open to changing that opinion if you have links etc to share.

Jay SC- good reasoning - but no- Im self employed, started my first enterprise at age 8 and rarely have worked for anyone else and doing what Ive always wanted to do- American Dream (albeit with modest returns) in action here- my only problem is that I have no healthcare- so yes, I will be voting for the party that can deliver what is in my best interest.

Barry Cooper- I have been on a Chinese boycott as well- it is extremely difficult. I am particularly frustrated by the lack of toys for my kids.

With regard to the comments by Smith (#114) he is describing a non-competitive labor market and assumes that capital for investment and/or starting one's own business is not available to the 'workers' (who are apparently, from that passage, presumed to be haplessly unable to do anything for themselves but rent themselves out for employment by others).

Whether that was what Smith actually saw at the time, I don’t know, but it is not what exists now.

The Millionaire Next Door aptly describes many who start with a laborer’s education and funding and build their own assets by applying their own comparative advantage in the market place.

If I were take issue with anything Smith may have stated, it would be his apparent supposition in the quoted passage that employers are not susceptible to competition for good help. One need only look at the NFL to see how the ‘free agency’ system pits the owners against one another – and that is in a monopoly industry. Free markets are not, of course, perfect in selecting out quality workers and rewarding them commensurate to their productivity – the workers themselves have a hand in that and it would be hard to quantify because wages alone are not the totality of what workers seek (location, quality of life, job satisfaction, etc) – but free markets beat the snot out of the alternative.

Barry, I don’t know how we can ‘build’ a middle class. Sorry for the drum beat – but I think the middle class builds itself when it is not restricted by the govt from applying its individual comparative advantage in the market place without govt provided preferences that reduce competition. WRT your comment above on the ‘point of unions,’ the problem with unions is what they do to laborers – businesses and those with capital can always find another way to invest when the union makes the business non-competitive, it’s the union employees, who have wedded themselves to that overpaid job, that suffer most when these companies fail. In the mean time – ever know anyone more likely to really hate their job and their employee than a union guy/gal? There’s a phenomenon by which union presidents get elected for their ability to rouse the masses against the employer – seems far less common for labor leadership to get elected for pointing out how good folks have it and how critical it is that the company excel for the best interest of the ‘unionees’ (pls correct me if I’m wrong on this). And like it or not, every laborer and every citizen is over-paying for govt union employees who, like UAW, have negotiated unsustainable retirement/medical packages. Google it – doesn’t take long to find numerous treatises on the coming death spiral in state and local pension funds/medical plans.

Barry and I see many things in the same light, but I am not a moderate; I want less govt restriction (the minimum possible) all day, all night.

Up to 4 cents this AM …

James - thanks for a thoughtful response.

Can you connect Libertarianism with 'right wing Utopians' - ? I think you are confusing libertarianism with something else entirely, or confusing what it means to be 'right wing.'

Libertarianism impractical - no doubt in the USA right now - but libertarian WAS the USA until the 20th century, and it made an incredible nation with one enormous failing; slavery and the failure to include those with black skin in the rule of law that should have been accorded without preference to the citizenry.

However, for those who see the coercive power of govt as the greatest in a long list of the vicissitudes of life, I hope you wouldn't expect us to pretend that there's any virtue in either of the predominant parties of today?

As for political correctness on the boards - not sure what you mean. There's a simple practice of courtesy, part of which means not referring to others as idiots, unless you truly intend to antagonize. WRT that, I take you at your word. Paul

Paul- I think your second paragraph sums up my sentiment if not my idea about libertarianism as a system. It strikes me as a nostalgic way of looking at the future- therein the disconnect.

Political correctness in many circles equals common courtesy- it was a jab- but with a point- I think if people can trash talk liberals and attack their character with imputiny on the board then turnabout is fair play. Certainly whenever those not on the "right" have asked for this courtesy we havent been accorded the same respect- could it be that the board has gotten beyond that and I havent noticed?
I love good discourse- and also love a good p'''ing match- just not mixing the two - sort of like beer and liquor.
Like I said - if everyone is playing nice guess I have to as well.
... shucks.

James, there are still many who use words like 'liberal' or 'conservative' or 'right/left winger' as an epithet, you are not alone in that. Most intend to be antagonistic. What struck me was a thoughtful post with unthoughtful application of 'idiots.' I wanted to clarify your intent.

I grant that libertarians have associated with the 'right' to find a leverage point in the system - there are also points that those in the left have in common with libertarians (law shouldn't restrict who we have sex with, for example). But I ask again - how do you define a libertarian? Do you have a clear concept or a general impression based on your well paying but 'idiotic' clients?

It's a simple question, third time I've asked, if you won't answer I'm taking my toys and going home (I'm sure that has you terrified). Paul

I think the Boards are generally respectful (though I did get something of a bloody nose at #76 having made what I thought was a cogent enough point!)

Paul, you said I distrust freedom. I really don't. I have a deep love of freedom as someone from a country that fought very, very hard for a long time to get it.

I do think markets are a useful tool in allocation of limited resources. But they fail. When I hear an argument for what I consider an extreme form of libertarianism I get cynical. Firstly, I'm reminded of the callous application of laissez-faire economic policy in Ireland during the famine of the 1840s when millions died and emigrated. Someone who tells me that markets are always right had better not be THAT extreme, or I just don't see any humanity in their arguments. Secondly, I get cynical because I look at various big business interests who've called for de-regulation (aviation, media and others) where it is quite clearly a grab. It's greed dressed up as political ideology. It is to those I say "spare me the ideological bs".

The US is as close as we get to a free market today. The welfare system is fairly un-generous. The public health system doesn't seem to work. The richest 1% control more wealth than the bottom 90%. So when Bush says he's "cutting death taxes" it sounds libertarian - "hands off our dollars"! But in fact, this is a cynical move to help that richest 1%. Most people never left enough in their estate for it to matter. The old line "Never give a sucker an even break" springs to mind. Those pulling the strings are hijacking "libertarianism" and playing it to a US public predisposed to liking how it sounds.

My 2 cents after others have moved on!

Comment #100 - Posted by: Richard

Richard, well said. I'm not advocating that we 'do away with' education for the poor. If you take the present govt monopoly on education as an extreme, and a free for all in which parents are left to figure it out for their kids on their own, I think the later would have a better outcome than the former - but I don't expect many to agree with me on that point.

Between those two poles, however, is a lot of room for ‘change we can believe in.’ No one’s actually proposing that change on the national stage of course. But for the sake of discussion, suppose you and I, with very differing perspectives, sat down (and pretending for the moment we could actually do anything about it afterwards) decided to work on a system that:

-provided for competition between schools for the best students
-provided for competition between students for the best schools
Note: ‘best’ meaning offering the education judged most relevant for the student, not the present ‘one size fits all’ sub-optimal approach
-allowed parental influence
-worked from a funding system or source that would prevent the poor from being locked out of quality education (as they are under our present system),
-would not punish the poor as the present high tax system does (by way of decreased economic growth/activity)
-provided a ‘safety net’ for those students so behaviorally deprived that they cannot participate in ‘normal’ schools without negative impact on the ‘normal’ students

Do you have any doubt we could do far better than what is in place now? It might be a 25-50 year implementation, who knows, but can we at least stop kidding ourselves that the present system does anything to stop this: “the poor would be far less educated than the rich” The rich do OK with the present system – it is the poor and much of the middle class that are punished by it. The present system is not defensible.

Geez, I’m up to 8 cents now …

dont worry- in Euros it's still only two cents

Comment #126 - Posted by: J1 said:
Paul, you said I distrust freedom. I really don't. I have a deep love of freedom as someone from a country that fought very, very hard for a long time to get it.
---I take you at your word for that and I appreciate you 2nd post which, fwiw, does rise above ideological BS. However, there are but two paths in this. Freedom or coercion. If you say you don’t trust freedom, it implies you do trust coercion. It appears that many don’t grasp that, perhaps you do and would articulate it differently.
Secondly, I get cynical because I look at various big business interests who've called for de-regulation (aviation, media and others) where it is quite clearly a grab. It's greed dressed up as political ideology. It is to those I say "spare me the ideological bs".
---Airline deregulation, telecom deregulation, they both were an enormous boon to the consumer. The businesses in existence at the time – presumable the ones who you think were in a grab – have largely been crushed because they cannot keep up with the competition for consumer $$$$ that has resulted. By this example, deregulation has resulted in making airline travel an option for millions who couldn’t afford it previously. How does that support your mis-trust of deregulation? Markets obviously can fail – however, government interventions predictably fail. I’m betting on the not extreme proposition of an incredibly strong track record for freedom vice a miserable track record for coercion.
The US is as close as we get to a free market today. The welfare system is fairly un-generous. The public health system doesn't seem to work. The richest 1% control more wealth than the bottom 90%. So when Bush says he's "cutting death taxes" it sounds libertarian - "hands off our dollars"! But in fact, this is a cynical move to help that richest 1%. Most people never left enough in their estate for it to matter. The old line "Never give a sucker an even break" springs to mind. Those pulling the strings are hijacking "libertarianism" and playing it to a US public predisposed to liking how it sounds.
---Did you just say the death tax helps the richest one percent who never left enough in their estate for it to matter? I trust you see the contradiction there. The death tax is a poor example to illustrate this point because the effect of it was not to make the distribution of wealth more fair, but rather to enrich estate planning attorneys, for those that could afford them and the necessary financial gymnastics that they could provide – while punishing those who, for example, spent their lives building farms and small businesses that they could not pass along to their children. If a citizen is not allowed to actualize his/her entitled to give his/her estate to whomever he/she chooses, without govt intervention, that is a significant attack on freedom. If freedom results in ‘unfair’ or ‘uneven’ distribution of wealth – so what? Why does that matter? It’s not a zero sum game in which if I have more, you have less. By freedom, we make gains in productivity through cooperative trade such that we all have more – that’s why every wealthy nation participates in the global system of trade, and those without wealth are characterized by their lack of participation in same. The 90%/1% argument is spurious – by that argument, we in the US should be giving up all we have to make sure we even things out with the Iranians and North Koreans who have so little. The rich get that way by providing value to those who have money to spend – Bill Gates isn’t a billionaire because he took anything from anyone – he provided a product at a price consumers were more than willing to pay because of the value it added to their businesses and their personal lives, IOW the products were worth more to the consumers than what they had to pay.

---The welfare system is un-generous … by what measure? We’re bankrupting our treasury through Medicare, Medicaid and social security (multiple sources on this on request). We have tax rates that no tyrant could ever impose on their serfs. How much would you have the state extract from the citizenry it is charged to protect before it would satisfy your sense of ‘generous?’ I would say we have so much wealth and opportunity in this country, that anyone who feels they are ‘poor’ can only make the claim based on a relative measure and when compared with other Americans. Compared to the world, we’re virtually all incredibly wealthy – with the exception of that part of our population that is so dysfunctional as to be largely beyond help anyway.

With each point you make, it reinforces what I think - you do not appear to trust freedom, and you seem to think that more govt coercion could make things better. I on the other hand see much of what you would like to change as a result of an existing govt intervention, and would like to use freedom to make it better.

That said, peace to you also. Paul

my apologies for the poor edit of #129 - allowed the post I was responding to, to mix with my response. paul

#126: did you know that the top 10% of income earners in America pay 70% of the taxes? Those who make the most pay the most. That doesn't seem so unfair to me.

In fact, I would hazard a guess 2/3 of the worlds population would love to have the problems American leftists complain about. Not they experience them, of course, but SOMEBODY has to stand up for the poor and downtrodden, even if they have to stand ON them to get their soapbox set up properly.

Paul # 129: Some excellent points. However, you say

"There are but two paths in this, freedom and coercion"

and that's what this comes down to. I can't see legislation after a free election as equivalent to a Sheriff of Nottingham upping rack rents to pay for his new castle. Governments run societies, not economies. "Survival of the fittest" is not a motto for a just government or a fair society.

You say

"If freedom results in ‘unfair’ or ‘uneven’ distribution of wealth – so what? Why does that matter?"

That sends a shiver down my spine. It matters if you're living on less than a dollar a day, because someone with a bigger army than yours holds all the water in your region. It matters if those in power pretend they love "freedom", but they're actually subsidising the production of goods (in return for political donations), to the point where you can't sell your own produce into your local market because it's swamped with those foreign subsidised imports. It matters if "de-regulation" means you get your news from a very limited number of super-powerful sources who are in bed with the only two policital parties in the country.

The idea that we all have equal opportunity and that the nation cherishes us all equally is laughable on many levels as things stand. Pushing for even more "freedom" risks perpetuating and accentuating that hegemony. Abolishing universal free and compulsory education is not progressive. It's regressive. It's not a blow for freedom, it's a blow for elitism.

More and more, I'm reading articles - written by those with a good grasp of the power of markets - about how third world aid is actually a poor use of resources and how famine is simply endemic in certain regions. Aid may need a re-think on distribution and structure, but it saves lives. It's a mark of our humanity. Doing nothing and letting "markets decide" puts us back with the animals.

My earlier point on death duties makes sense. The vast majority of Americans did not have to pay it, but it was presented as mean and nasty to everyone. It wasn't. It hurt only the elite.

Good debate and I appreciate the kind words regarding my second post!

Peace.

J1: you need to read Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit". A key, critical distinction he makes, that gets at the core of honest, principled conservatism, is that between "action to" and "action for".

Caring for the poor is laudable. Wanting fairness and justice to prevail is laudable. And it is precisely because leftists believe their methods work that they condemn principled conservatives for being hard hearted, and generally mean spirited.

And yet, more has been done to lift the poor out of the morass of their situations by economic growth, than has ever been achieved by stealing from the rich--an action justified by cultivated and unrepentant resentment--and giving to the poor.

What leftists miss both in economics AND in the debate on global warming, is the existence of multiple feedback loops with respect to any complex phenomena.

There is no fundamental difference between claiming that all carbon dioxide collects in the atmosphere without any dynamic means of leaving the atmosphere (negative feedbacks) and claiming that all money spent alleviating poverty actually eliminates poverty (i.e. that there are no systemic problems created by such programs).

In my own thinking, I view poverty experienced in an affluent society as a symptom of a qualitative defect. Our poor are not poor monetarily, they are poor in knowledge. They don't know the value of families in achieving economic success. They don't know the value of education, and that they need to work hard for many years to succeed.

In my own terminology, you can't fix a qualitative defect quantitatively. You can't correct ignorance by giving it money. Where knowledge is present, you can create opportunity with money, but money alone will not create a work ethic. It can't. It is blind. It can fill bellies, but not unwilling minds.

If you give $1,000 to a recent African immigrant, and $1,000 to someone who is fourth generation "ghetto"--white, black, purple, or green--you know what? It will get spent differently.

Action To is what is actually accomplished. It is the actual outcome, intended or not, of an intervention. Action For is what leftists live for. It is action which makes them feel all emotionally tingly inside because they think it will make a big difference. Sometimes it does. But quite often, the actual effect is to destroy existing culture and social mores--knowledge--and create instead a mockery of a self respecting, autonomous human being, who looks to the State as a parent, and who feels nothing but helpless resentment when the little pills stop appearing at the beginning of the maze.

J1,

We're talking past each other - not uncommon on boards but not particularly useful either. I expect that given time and a chance to discuss it face to face, we’d not agree but we’d understand one another.

Death taxes – these are symbolic political gestures that enrich tax attorneys but don't hurt the elite because they don't pay it, as you pointed out. Even if it 'worked' it would be wrong, but that's a value judgment, and I don't expect you to see that differently. I can’t understand why you would like to repeat the death taxes point when you stated in your original post that they do not work (and I agree with you on that point).

Your 'less than a dollar a day' example is arguing a different point - that dollar a day guy's lack of rule of law, lack of access to the global system of trade (no economic liberty), and subjugation to govt oppression is not connected to your or my wealth - except to the extent that if he did have rule of law and economic liberty, he'd be richer and so would we. On the other hand, govt authority to take funds from you and me for ‘distribution’ will be ineffectual in enriching him.

"It matters if those in power pretend they love "freedom", but they're actually subsidizing the production of goods (in return for political donations), to the point where you can't sell your own produce into your local market because it's swamped with those foreign subsidized imports."
---This is the case against govt interventions, not for them. If govt is restricted from influence (aka more freedom), that govt cannot be bought/bribed/influenced by the connected at the expense of those not connected.

"Doing nothing an letting markets decide"
---You imply that the only thing that can be done is to use the coercive power of govt to get aid to those in need - patently false. The US is the most generous nation on earth wrt charitable giving - likely because we have more economic liberty and thus have been more productive and are more wealthy, but also because we don't cede this responsibility to the state. Charity means from me to you by my choice - govt aid is just more politics and generally ineffective, and certainly not cost effective.

"Abolishing universal free and compulsory education is not progressive."
---I disagree with this assertion, but as I said above, that's not what I'm advocating; did you read that part?

"Governments run societies, not economies"
---What does this mean? Nothing runs societies, insofar as I can tell. That sort of assertion is not defensible, nor meaningful. But it does reveal your govt-centric world view.

"I can't see legislation after a free election as equivalent to a Sheriff of Nottingham upping rack rents to pay for his new castle."
---Well, OK, but I hope you also don't see politicians taking money from the larger group to dedicate it as payment to smaller groups in exchange for votes as being any better or as having a better outcome (the list here is long and distinguished but I think you already mentioned sugar subsidies). But if I get your point, you think govt coercion will result in a better outcome than freedom.

It would seem that you judge the risk of the 'strongman' as being so great that it justifies the govt coercion, assuming that govt coercion can regulate out the strongman. For my part, the discussion only starts when there's enough govt to provide for rule of law and property rights; absent that, there's likely no freedom to discuss. And this is really the heart of the matter to me; you and I ought to get together with our fellow citizens to provide for enough govt to establish our own collective defense, and for a mechanism that defends you and your property from my predations and vice versa – more govt than that is an unjustifiable insult to liberty.

"The idea that we all have equal opportunity and that the nation cherishes us all equally is laughable on many levels as things stand."
---"The nation" is not an entity and does not have the capacity to cherish. This sentence is not intelligible - would you kindly rephrase to explain what you intended to say? As to equal opportunity, govt does in fact prevent this in many regards, which I regret.

“"Survival of the fittest" is not a motto for a just government or a fair society.”
---Is this what you think I'm arguing for? What is 'fair?' How is that to be determined and by whom?

I think ‘fair’ means you get to work in the marketplace to apply your comparative advantage, free from govt imposed preferences, to get the most benefit you can from your life energy. Fairness cannot by any means be connected to outcomes. As for survival of the fittest, what you see in wealthy nations is generosity and concern for fellow man, whereas what you see where there is poverty is tyranny and human cruelty. Humans are kindest where there is the most 'excess.' Humans are the most cruel where the stakes are the most grim. It follows that kindness is cultivated by that amount of govt which supports economic growth. In my view, that's the least possible govt, much less than we have now, and far less than the politicians are selling to get our votes.

With time we could likely identify the a priori assumptions that define our differences in worldview and therefore shape why we view these things differently. Seems like that may not happen today. At any rate, a stimulating exchange (for me at least). Peace to you, Paul

J1, I'm a little dense, seems like you're an 'across the ponder,' no?

If so, thoughts on this? http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_3_otbie-british_children.html

Barry - well stated as usual. Paul

Paul,

Likewise. We're just a pair of fine, fine fellows, are we not? Personally, I never tire of looking at my august visage in the mirror, noting the dapper and distinguished touch of grey, and of course the genius in my eyes.

It's usually about then I realize my dog has peed on the floor, and I'm not standing in shower water.

Sorry, I've always had difficulty with compliments. My great and likely logical fear is that if I come to believe the reports I read about me, I'll lose all usefulness whatsoever. For that reason my internal dialogue is a bit like John Cleese's Frenchman in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

1. On death taxes, what I originally said was:

"So when Bush says he's "cutting death taxes" it sounds libertarian - "hands off our dollars"! But in fact, this is a cynical move to help that richest 1%. Most people never left enough in their estate for it to matter."

Joe Public was never going to have to pay death taxes. They only bit on those leaving huge estates. Yet getting rid of death taxes was portrayed as a blow for the common man. It wasn't. You somehow read-in that I was commenting on tax avoidance but I wasn't. Hopefully, the posts now make more sense for you.

2. "that dollar a day guy's lack of rule of law, lack of access to the global system of trade (no economic liberty), and subjugation to govt oppression is not connected to your or my wealth...."

I would disagree. He can live in, and be surrounded by, countries with rule of law, have access to global trade and not be subject to any particular government subjugation. His misfortune could simply be to have ended up in a poor region with no water when the boundaries were drawn by the victors. Or to live downstream from a new dam built in the neighbouring region. Some kind of intervention (which I think you would call coercion) is morally right to give that guy and his family a fair shot at a decent life. I suspect those selling him water at a high price would argue for "letting the markets decide".

3. "It would seem that you judge the risk of the 'strongman' as being so great that it justifies the govt coercion, assuming that govt coercion can regulate out the strongman."

I fear an unregulated and largely unknown collection of super-rich and super-powerful individuals more than I fear an open and democratically-elected, accountable government. The former is what will, inevitably, result where you allow rampant free market capitalism to decide who gets the power in your society. You get leverage and vicious concentration of wealth. In developed countries, the gap between rich and poor is widening year-on-year. I'm not a communist. I'm doing reasonably ok but I will vote for the party that tells me they are going to take my money and build a better, more fair society.

4. Re: nations cherishing children equally, do you really not get it? The body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own, is a nation. The nation is an entity, has attributes all of its own, and your kids swear an oath to "one nation under God" every day. Regardless of class, colour or creed, that nation should give each of them an even break on health, education, working opportunities etc.

5. “"Survival of the fittest" is not a motto for a just government or a fair society.”
---Is this what you think I'm arguing for?

Well, yes, I do. You won't allow government intervention because you see it as coercion. What do you think will happen?

In conclusion, this has been like a tough WOD. Like a Cindy or a Murph, I've enjoyed it despite the toll it has taken. But if I don't get off the internet soon, I may actually be murdered by someone very special to me!

Peace and good wishes.

Appolloswabbie,

At such a late stage and after your thorough responses, I realize this is a lazy rejoinder (therefore I don't expect you to respond)...but...

You say fairness is not a matter of outcomes but of opportunities. I could say I agree with that. I like the idea of a meritocracy, but I think the merit of an action, or a course of conduct, or a lifetime, can only be compared with actions, courses of conduct and persons who are similarly situated. It is not enough to say that you and I, or she and he have equal opportunities under the law.

Beyond the example of a person who earns a dollar a day, what about the child, with two siblings, whose single parent earns $64 per day? That is s/he work full-time for minimum wage in the state of California. Roughly, her before tax income is in the 16k range. The child formally has opportunities equal to the child of a professional couple, or an entrepreneurial couple. That is important. It was important through the 18th to 20th Centuries when minimal formal equality was missing for blacks, jews, chinese, japanes, indians, and for women. But even now, where formal equality has been achieved (for the most part), that doesn't mean, that the child born into poverty has equal opportunities to those born into wealthier families. This is because with poverty comes less education, poorer health, higher rates of abuse and domestic and societal violence) while the wealthy enjoy better health and education, suffer less physical and drug abuse.

These things - health, education, safety - are not outcomes for a child. There are no outcomes for children, only opportunities. All kids face snakes, all kids face ladders, but wouldn't a just notion of "equality of opportunity" try to equalize the proportion and the quality of opportunities for all children. This doesn't mean socialism, or %100 wealth transfer tax (though such a tax would be just in a true meritocracy it would hinder the productive force of greed and disperse capital too widely for it to be of much use).

It does mean, however, a safety net, a minimum, identifying and maintaining some playing field of opportunities that allows nearly all children a real chance at creating for themselves (with the same tools handed to the children of the middle class at birth) what the wealthiest, most powerful people of the middle class have.

Too often I've heard members of the middle class and the wealthy praise the virtue of "merit" while resting on their daddy's merit.

Comment #136 - Posted by: Barry Cooper

"Likewise. We're just a pair of fine, fine fellows, are we not? Personally, I never tire of looking at my august visage in the mirror, noting the dapper and distinguished touch of grey, and of course the genius in my eyes."
---Barry, you fogot to mention how well hung you are.

Paul

J1, Prole, this is getting good! Not sure if I'll be gifted with the leisure that I had yesterday, but will do your thoughtful responses justice as I'm able, thanks. Paul

Well said, Prole.

One of the posters today mentioned how FDR was a failure of some sort when its quite obvious that FDR policies built the strongest middle-class the world has ever known. Ironically, the same middle-class that said poster likely has benefited from greatly.
Said poster, as all conservatives nowadays, demonstrate daily their lack of knowledge of, and/or respect for, the sacrifices of his forebears that created this great nation. The failure we are witnessing currently, as all Americans should already know, has been seen before. Its a product of the same sort of unbridled capitalism created by corporate royalists that led the country to economic calamity in the 1890's with the robber baron's and also the republican Great Depression in the 1930's.
Knowledge is power so the lack of knowledge is weakness. Conservatives lack of understanding of even basic economic & legislative history weakens the country. Conservative "ideas", born from agenda laden "think" tanks and propagated by this ridiculous corporate media, have been demonstrated to be economically ruinous, are unsurprisingly leading us down the same sad road once again.
To Barry C..... glad to see you are in favor of TRUE meritocritists(?) Obama appreciates your support!

Prole,

What is the point of public schooling? What is the point of low interest loans and outright grants offered to the poor so they can attend college?

If you want to find a school that has literally been shot to hell, where the kids get pregnant or get someone pregnant before age 18, where the walls are covered with grafitti, are you going to go to a suburb? Are you going to be in the halls of the elite?

No, you are going to be in the sort of place where people--if they were serious about getting out of poverty, and creating opportunities for themselves--should be showing up early, staying late, and working hard in the middle. This is what Asian immigrants in the same neighborhoods do.

This lack is what I'm calling a qualitative defect. The opportunities exist in this country, in far, far greater profusion than any other nation on Earth (try making an entrepreneurial startup work in France). The reason the poor that stay poor (many poor are immigrants who work into the middle class in a generation or two) never get ahead, is that, for lack of a better word, they are lacking in virtue. They are lacking in the virtues of thrift, industry, ambition, energy, integrity and persistence. The sorts of things the men and women who founded this nation had in abundance.

And what is the typical response to this? "Easy for you to say. You've never blah blah blah". You know what? Making apologies for the poor, and giving them excuses to think of themselves in any way other than people who have not, yet, capitalized on the opportunities available to them, is corrupting them. It is precisely the legacy of the War on Poverty--which, contrary to leftist mythology was ended because it didn't work, not because of the Vietnam War--that the poor look not to themselves, but to populist demagogue like Obama and his handlers for relief.

How does Hope get doled out? In little pills passed out in checks they hope will get larger if Obama becomes our Welfare Commander in Chief.

Not only is this dumb policy, it is immoral policy. If you want to find a place to lay the blame of the destruction of the family in American inner cities, you could do no better than to observe that two parent families diminished in numbers pari passu with the ability of single mothers to support themselves without a man in the house. And without working, I might add.

What we have seen is a qualitative tornado that swept through the inner cities--erasing values which were previously in place--leaving in its wake the values of gangsters (power and loyalty), 4th generation single parent households, poverty, ignorance, endemic crime, and hopelessness brought on by being taught for 40 years their problems weren't their fault, and that, therefore, they could do nothing to fix them, at least within the system.

Ameriswede,

Even though I'm a very amateur student of economics, I would hazard a guess I've forgotten more than you have ever known. Have you read any books by Hayek? von Mises? Keynes?

But that wasn't what I meant to talk about. That's Econ 101, for those taught in schools not dominated precisely by the sort of folks Sowell is castigating.

No, I wanted to talk about The Titanic, the movie. Due to reasons foreign to my own inclination, I watched it over the weekend. It made so much money, because it had a patent mythos to it, which eluded me until my second watching.

There is, according to my new understanding, a clear parallelism between the Old World, as symbolized by the Titanic, the "experts" behind her creation, and the social order that existed on it, characterized by clear class distinctions, and well ordered social roles.

To this is contrasted Rose and Jack. Rose, twice, says "this makes no sense, that's how I know it's true".

The Titanic sinks, as most of you will know, in the ocean (my sense of humor is dry sometimes to the point of turning to dust). This is a de facto indictment of overweaning confidence in not only technological progress, but symbolically of an entire world order. It is a commonplace, historically, to compare the Titanic disaster with WW1, which followed only a few years later, and which gave birth to what we might term the "Failurist" movement in philosophy.

In the movie, the contrast to the iron-clad certainties of the time was passion. Things were held to be true, and desirable, precisely by virtue of their not according with "sense". If they don't make sense, and they elicit strong passions, they must be true, whatever that means.

How far do we have to go from here, to Marxism-Leninism? A half step? A nudge and a wink?

Reality is, we know that centralized planning doesn't work. We know that giving money to people who are poor, generation after generation, doesn't work. We know that appeasing violent nations doesn't work, without a credible threat of military force.

A sober analysis of history allows one to make any number of clear conclusions about efficacy. And yet significant portions of both the public, and our intelligensia refuses to learn these lessons.

Why? Because they don't make EMOTIONAL sense. They can't be true because they don't feel true. There is not a great deal of opportunity in America because not everyone takes advantage of it. This feels true. You can't simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. This feels true.

What we see in the Titanic is nothing less than a template for Leftist romanticism. Can anyone doubt that Rose was a Communist at some point in her life? All the "seize the day", passionate intellectuals were.

There is some merit in "making it count", as Jack says. At the same time, a life lived in pursuit of passion becomes rapidly a snake eating its own tail. Without a capacity for calming the desire to pursue every evanescent desire that might spring into your heart, you cannot raise children. You cannot hold a position of responsibility.

In short, society cannot function if everyone only thinks selfishly about what they want, and what that day might hold for them, so they can "make it count".

The traditional, time tested, and in my view correct solution to this problem is contentment. Simply put: is it better to possess everything in the universe, but no capacity to enjoy it, or to possess enough, and to be happy with it?

I would argue all true, sustainable happiness depends first and foremost on contentment.

This post has already been tied into the topic of the day, but let me reiterate: when authority which demonstrates incompetence is appealed to again and again, there must be psychological and cultural factors involved that are external to the exercise of reason. These factors become endemically pathological when reason itself is rejected as the moderator of experience.

Paul,

You're right. Life is hard when you're only 3". . .

from the ground.

Barry,

It is only recently that I heard a(nother) self-described conservative make the link between his opposition to the welfare state and his fear of substantive equality for women. It shocked me. Like you he descried "the ability of single mothers to support themselves without a man in the house."

When I think of virtue, I think of single mothers Barry. Honestly I do. I don't fear them. I don't think they want coddling. I think they want a society that has the will to hold the father's of their children proportionately and materially responsible for these children, and I think they want equal pay for equal work, and to be let out of the underpaid employment ghettos most are crammed into.

The amount of virtue (we are talking Benjamin Franklyn-style Protestent/thrift virtue I assume, and not, lets say, Machiavellian Neo-Roman Republican public-interest virtue) it takes a single mother (who statistically will be in a lower paying job, and make less per hour for equal work than a man) to raise her child, to provide the basic necessities of shelter, food, clothing and supervision, love, might easily surpass the virtue of the middle class account manager who puts in a 12 hour day making sure X corp buys from Y corp, or the professional tied to his/her clients 12 hours a day.

It is important to compare similarly situated individuals whan determining the outward manifestations of their economic virtue. If my labour turns five dollars into twenty over the course of a year, does that make my virtue greater than yours if you turn 100k into 120k?

I'm back dipping my fingers in that humane, comprehending free-marketeer: Adam Smith. Try out Part I, Section III, Chapter III his "Theory of Moral Sentiments", titled:

"Of the Corruption of Our Moral Sentiments, Which Is Occasioned by This Disposition To Admire the Rich and the Great, and To Despise or Neglect Persons of Poor and Mean Condition."

I'm not trying to characterize Smith as ambiguious, but as sophisticated, not incoherent, but penetrating.

Let me put it this way: is it easier to climb a mountain with a 10 lb pack or a 100 lb pack?

It is virtually certainly harder to raise children as a single mother than as a partner in a committed marriage. The vast bulk of our poor live in single parent homes.

Given this, are we to understand that teenage pregnancy is a result of a lack of understanding about the birds and the bees?

Or are we to understand that it is a predictable consequence of a semi-rational understanding that the consequences of irresponsibility, while significant, are not AT THAT MOMENT as severe as depriving oneself of an evanescent pleasure with someone who will almost certainly be gone soon?

It's quite simple: rates of teenage pregnancy went up throughout the 1960's, and 1970's, during which leftist ethics and political policies were largely ascendant. Part of it was the sectual revolution, part of it was a generalized distaste for responsibilty and social maturity, and part of it was making the consequences of screwing up acceptable, both financially and morally.

Why should we consider the person who consciously chooses the 100 lb pack anything but unintelligent, in having chosen a fate much harder than was necessary?

Someone--I think it is Thomas Sowell, although I may be mistaken--has an article titled something like "Do these things and you can't fail in America". It includes not fostering a child or getting pregnant before age 28 or so, showing up to work at time, finishing high school, learning proper English, and a few others.

There is no question that the only long term solution to poverty is jobs, and the only means by which the poor can get well paying work is to be qualified for well paying work, and the only way that can happen is if they put out the effort to make that happen.

Given the 40-50% dropout rate in inner city schools, I don't see that effort, and the corresponding failures are as predictable as water running downhill. Government may or may not owe people the opportunity to learn, but if they can't even take advantage of that, then the only remaining responsibility is to keep the law abiding part of populace from being victimized by those who don't want to play the game by the rules.

It's OK to choose failure. It's just not Ok to complain about it and blame it on someone other than the person in the mirror.

Let me put this yet another way. If we have, despite the best of intentions, engineered a system which through the rules of the system consistently increases the number of teenage pregnancies, then at some point we will need to alter the system. Teenage pregnancies lead to teenage preganancies. Children that were raised by their grandmother tend to give birth to kids raised by their mother, who will then be their kids grandmother. It is a spiralling loop which has reached a point where close to 0% of the kids raised in the inner city have both parents in the home for any significant amount of time. It's less than 10%, so it can't get much lower.

We know that life is hard as a single mother, and we know poverty is a virtual certainty for all except those capable of almost inhuman efforts.

Given all of this, is it moral to continue to enable--as a codependent partner in a dysfunctional relationship--kids to make bad choices? Is the path away from these ridiculous practices not going to involve some pain? Is it not the case that there is plenty of pain now in any event?

You need to read Apolloswabbie's link above. If you give post-moral people more money, they spend it. They don't get more moral, which in this case means more self reliant and responsible. If there is no qualitative structure in place which is lacking only capital, you can keep people from starving, but you can't make them productive, self respecting members of society.

Weird, post is getting held...

Comment #137 - Posted by: J1 at August 26, 2008 4:47 PM
1. On death taxes
--OK, I get it, you mean the idea of the death tax was hijacked and used to trick the fools that think it was libertarian idea, “Keep your hands off of my money.” I don’t disagree with that, the entire process of politics is just one long stream of mis-representations by the two sides. The other stupid mis-representation was that the death tax could work to its intended purpose, or should work to its intended purpose, which is to deprive a citizen of his/her right to do with his property as he/she would. IOW, the premise of the tax was immoral and actuality of it was it served to keep estate attorneys well fed, creating waste more than any other thing.

2. "that dollar a day guy's lack of rule of law, lack of access to the global system of trade (no economic liberty), and subjugation to govt oppression is not connected to your or my wealth...."
In this one, we were talking past each other, my points were aimed at domestic politics and the obligations of the state to its citizenry. As to the issues that affect those hapless folk who are born in the circumstance you describe, that’s a discussion for another day.

3. “I fear an unregulated and largely unknown collection of super-rich and super-powerful individuals more than I fear an open and democratically-elected, accountable government.”
I find it curious that you feel democratic govts are accountable. It seems to me they are not, or they are only minimally so, certainly far less so that most corporations, for example. To wit – assuming Social Security and/or Medicaid continue on their present path of wrecking the Federal budget, who could be held accountable for the loss of billions (trillions?) of dollars?

4. “Re: nations cherishing children equally, do you really not get it?”
No, from your perspective, I’m sure I do not get it. A nation is a concept, but cannot cherish anything. Perhaps this is an issue that would be clearer if we were not limited by the slowness of typing and the semantics involved. Giving the kids in a nation ‘an even break’ is a noble goal. To what extent govt can do that is the issue. Most of the efforts of govts to date specifically aimed at that goal have back fired, as is well described in “Losing Ground.”

5. “"Survival of the fittest" is not a motto for a just government or a fair society.”
--Is this what you think I'm arguing for?
Well, yes, I do. You won't allow government intervention because you see it as coercion. What do you think will happen?”
I believe the outcomes will be best for the most people when govt is so limited that it cannot be hijacked to the purposes and ends of the powerful at the expense of the less powerful. And by limited, and at the risk of repeating myself, I mean limited to doing what it should do, which is to defend the rights of the individual.

"In conclusion, this has been like a tough WOD. Like a Cindy or a Murph, I've enjoyed it despite the toll it has taken. But if I don't get off the internet soon, I may actually be murdered by someone very special to me!"
---Well said! Paul

Comment #138 - Posted by: Prole
Prole, welcome to the discussion, the water’s warm …

1. “Beyond the example of a person who earns a dollar a day, what about the child, with two siblings, whose single parent earns $64 per day?”
--This scenario assumes too much to be the basis for a discussion. First of all, what govt interventions made it likely the person was in that situation in the first place (Barry’s comments below apply – the welfare state has made single parenthood more likely vice less so)? What govt interventions made the mom in question unable to provide productivity commensurate with earning greater compensation for her life energy/time? What govt interventions so suppressed economic growth such that employers are scrambling to bid for her services with higher wages and benefits? To make an examination of such a situation, one must look at what is seen and what is not seen to even begin to draw any conclusions. Both of us see the issues in the scenario you cite – neither of us can consider and not worry about the fate of the children. The question is whether intervention by the state – a state run by politicians who by definition work for re-election in service of their own ambition and will gladly use the productivity of others in that effort regardless of the effects – can best provide a positive impact on situations such as you describe. I’m sure by now you will know that I think the idea of coercively taking money from some to give to others does not produce the outcomes that you and I both want.

2. “This is because with poverty comes less education, poorer health, higher rates of abuse and domestic and societal violence) while the wealthy enjoy better health and education, suffer less physical and drug abuse."
---This begs the question of causation v correlation. Are they poor because they exhibit poor behavior? Is there any evidence that state interventions, such I assume you would embrace, can have a positive outcome? For example – poverty rates (and how this is measured is problematic, but it’s what we have to work with for now) were falling prior to the ‘Great Society’ but the rate at which poverty rates were falling decreased after the Great Society was implemented. Did the intervention help or hurt? I think “Losing Ground” makes a strong case that, of billions spent, the crime isn’t what was taken from citizens, or what was ‘spent’ but ‘what we bought.’ What we bought was a worse outcome for more people than what would have happened if the state hadn't intervened in the first place.

3. “It does mean, however, a safety net, a minimum, identifying and maintaining some playing field of opportunities that allows nearly all children a real chance at creating for themselves (with the same tools handed to the children of the middle class at birth) what the wealthiest, most powerful people of the middle class have.”
---Safety net, establishing the opportunity for every child to be able to get what any child can get – noble goals. Role of govt in establishing same, ability of govt to establish it – these are my issues and I have articulated them plenty already.

4. “Too often I've heard members of the middle class and the wealthy praise the virtue of "merit" while resting on their daddy's merit.”
--- I don’t have any perspective on this. My dad indebted himself to pay for my education, and I’ve been self supporting since May, 1986. My dad was a doctor and an Episcopal priest, and his mom paid for his college education by buying, restoring and selling furniture, and by hand tailoring clothing. Dad’s dad was a farmer and used the savings from working for his father to open a country store. His father (three generations back from me) lost his dad when he was 16, and only just avoided losing the family farm by putting his brothers and sisters (all younger than he) to work. My mom’s side of the family had a similar story. To me, merit is a great concept but what works for the best outcome for all involved is the issue at hand. Talk of merit and “who deserves what” is great for sitting around and bullshitting endlessly, but doesn’t address the issue of what to do or who should do it to get the best (but never perfect) outcomes. Paul

Prole said "It is only recently that I heard a(nother) self-described conservative make the link between his opposition to the welfare state and his fear of substantive equality for women. It shocked me. Like you he descried "the ability of single mothers to support themselves without a man in the house."
---Prole, the question is this, and just this. If govt policy makes single parenting more common, and thus puts more women and more children in the undesirable position which documentably serves children and their parents poorly, isn't that a grand basis not to have that govt policy? I have a dear, dear friend of 15 years who's a single mother of four. I understand, to the degree that a cretin like myself can, how difficult that was and what an amazing thing she's accomplished. I don't know that in her case the govt had anything to do with what her life is like. But if it did, wouldn't you agree that such a govt intervention was wrong?

This is the point - not that women are "empowered" or "not empowered" (empowered is an oxymoron in this context) to be single moms -
the question is whether govt policy that creates this situation more often is good or bad.

To me that's an easy question to answer.

The problem with all govt interventions is that incentives that drive human behavior are as complex as humans - and when we endeavor, under the fatal conceit, to act in ways to alleviate human suffering using the coercive power of the state, we nearly inevitably create negative unintended consequences that cause more harm than good. We're barely even smart enough to figure out how.

Paul

Prole, should be another that pops before the one that is now #150 which answers your post to me in #138. P

Barry Cooper (again if you’re still reading),

"What is the point of public schooling? What is the point of low interest loans and outright grants offered to the poor so they can attend college?"

I'm going to tell you a little story that took place over the last 16 years.

There was a doctor living in a south-eastern European country, where a terrifying war breaks out. The family was forced to leave, and went to Britain to seek refuge. They lost everything – all their money and property – in the war. At the start they were poor, with the father earning £100/week with which to support what was soon a family of four. The mother couldn’t work, because there was no-one else to care for the children – they couldn’t afford nannies or nurseries.

Still, the doctor worked hard, started to earn more money, and eventually they were able to move into a house of their own. They did so, but they had no money with which they would be able to finance their childrens’ educations, so they sent them to a state (public) school. Over the following years, the children worked hard, pushing themselves to the top of the class, coming out with outstanding grades. They start secondary school, again in state schools, and get top-level qualifications.

During this time, the doctor becomes a professor, the boss at his workplace etc. He is now earning enough money to ensure he can pay for his kids’ university education -- and his children harbour ambitions to go to some excellent and expensive universities.

From this, I will tell you, I am an advocate of meritocracy. It allows people recognition for their achievements, separates the determined from the lazy, and means that judgement isn’t based on prejudices or birthplace; all laudable things. However, that does not mean it is mutually exclusive from some socialistic elements; would the family have achieved what they did if some state support had not existed? No, probably not; the children may not have even gone to school. But their achievement was due to their own effort and ability, nevertheless (meritocracy at work). So the question I ask is:

Would you prefer that such a system is in place and that those who need it and will take full advantage of it can do so; or do you prefer the system not exist so that no-one can abuse it?

Isn’t this an example of Action To?

Or have I missed your point entirely?

Just some thoughts.

Hopefully this time it'll get through.

Quick question - if your post is held without any obvious reason (e.g. obscenity, personal assault etc.), how long is it prudent to wait for before reposting? I tried two hours after my original post, and a smaller section two hours after that, but wonder if it is enough? Very Sorry to break the flow of conversation, I know this could be construed as the equivalent of interrupting a talk in real life, but I don't want to end up with thirty-odd re-posts pasted down the page.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=040708A

Prole, J1, this piece is directly relevant to my concerns about the power of govt vice the power of the wealthy or elite or what have you.

Paul

D - generally, if a post is held, it has something in it that is catching in the spam filters, and it will stay there until the site monitor has time to scan and release your post. Reposting does not help, unless you also reword and remove the offending comment - which could be almost anything, like the word 'college' for example, due to the probability that spam uses that word. Good luck, be patient. Paul

Erin Cafaro visited my school,Prescott Senior Elementary School in Modesto,Ca today.I got an autograph!!!

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