Waving Hands

Social contracts have long been held by political philosophers to be a just foundation for civil societies. Such contracts are supposed take into account the interests of citizens by ensuring that the state is governed by rules that society has accepted. The fundamental problem with social contracts throughout history, however, has been that actual contracts are not reached in a way that takes into account the interests of everyone. Instead, they are formed by and only take into account the interests of a smaller group of people who seek mutual benefit for themselves by uniting their power. These people then use the contract as a basis for oppressing others; for dictating to them what they can and cannot due, and using the power of the group the contract is designed to serve to control the behavior of the rest. Such acts prevent the oppressed groups from choosing any actions that could improve their state in the world or free them from their suffering. We have seen this with rulers and fiefdoms controlling subjects and serfs, with men uniting to control and limit the opportunities of women, with whites coming together to enslave other races to work for them. The history of the world is the history of one group of people obtaining power and collectively using their prestigious state in a way that needlessly and unjustifiably perpetuates the suffering of others.

What is so shocking about these societies is that even though the situation is clearly little more than a mask for oppression, at the time they exist, such societies is broadly accepted, both by those in power and by those who suffer. Even good and decent people find rationalizations or excuses for the perpetuation of unjust suffering. These range from the idea that it is good for those who suffer to be under the control of those in power, to the idea that society would greatly suffer from any change to the existing structure, to the idea that if those in power sought to include others in their group it might harm some in that group, and so, unfortunately, it is necessary to maintain the oppression and suffering of the rest. John Stuart Mill did a brilliant job exposing the mendacity of such assertions in his work “The Subjection of Women,” showing how the pretenses of defenders of such subjection were shallow and hollow, and amounted to little more than the rule of those who are mighty without any moral justification.

We like to think that we have moved past this as a society, that we are now inclusive and see the benefits of others. We think we have moved passed arbitrary distinctions and seen that our fellow brothers and sisters have a place with us, and have the right to control their own lives. We see now that they, too, should be party to our contract, and be permitted to share in its benefits. Of course, not everyone feels this way. Some still think that those of another sex or another race aren’t “one of us,” and so aren’t really entitled to the benefits of our society. But the rest of us have come to see such expressions for the mindless bigotry that they are, and words like ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ have come to be filled with the disgust and condemnation they deserve. However, patterns of human behavior that persist for millennia should never be confidently felt to be behind us. And, sadly, our own society is not different from those of the past. We include more people, but our contract is not all-inclusive. To see the pattern, we need merely look at who we include in the title “one of us,” at which groups of innocent people suffer from a lack of inclusion in that group, and at where we find a sense in those who have prestige that they can use their power to keep that innocent group in a position of needless suffering. Today’s label for “those it is okay to keep suffering needlessly because they aren’t part of our group” isn’t one of race or sex, it is one of nationality. ‘Foreigner’ is label people use to justify the same attitudes and behaviors in today’s society that those in power have always used to justify the unjust treatment of others who aren’t “one of us.” The consequences are at least as horrific, and the blind sense of justification by the perpetrators of the needless suffering of innocents all the more vociferous and self-satisfied because they think themselves above such acts.

Controlling where another human being can or cannot live despite the fact that they are innocent, that they have the means to relocate, that there are available places to relocate to and persons willing to rent or sell to them, and that their relocation would do more than anything else could to ease their suffering and improve their lives and the lives of their families is something so horrific that if we saw it done to an American citizen we would be outraged. When people hear of imminent domain cases where someone has been thrust out of their own home most people are outraged. Who is the government to tell someone where they can and cannot live, to prevent them from owning a spot of land someone was once willing to sell them merely because some powerful company or group wants to use it for a cause the people in power prefer? Our sense of outrage is just, but baffling, because that is precisely what we do when we prohibit immigrants from moving to our shores. The only real difference is that the consequences are far, far worse for the potential immigrant.

We see ourselves as party to the contract; the foreigner as “not one of us.” We have nothing but luck to account for fact that we have a position of prestige and power. They have nothing but bad luck to account for the fact that the country of their birth was full of suffering and poverty. Yet, because they aren’t a part of our group, we think it right to control their movements and their behavior, knowing full well this will cause them great hardship, because we are powerful and we can. We are no different from the oppressors of the past, and no less blind to our own unjust actions. We also use the same, hollow excuses; pretending that minor harms to those in our group justify great suffering in those we choose to exclude from it. Pretending that society would falter if the group were expanded. Pretending that somehow they are different from us in a way that makes us better. The perpetuation of the suffering of innocents throughout the world through the establishment of immigration restrictions by those in more prosperous lands is a moral crime. It is as great a moral crime as the history of oppression of women, of the enslavement of others to serve the needs of those in power, or of any other act of unjust control over the life of another that those with power have always engaged in to serve their own interests. Such a crime is unconscionable, no matter how comfortable we feel with it. Hopefully one day people will look back on us as see us with the same contempt as we now see those who abused their power in the past. Hopefully one day ‘nationalist’ will join terms like ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ in expressing great disgust and condemnation. And hopefully it will happen soon so that the needless suffering of millions can begin to be eased, and the recognition of their basic rights to control their own lives and to pursue their own happiness can be recognized throughout the world.

For a while now I have thought that redistribution of wealth was unjustified since it involved a form of taxation that I thought violated people’s rights. However, there is what appears to be a sound argument for the view that some redistribution of wealth through taxation is morally justified, even though taxation is a violation of people rights. The argument goes as follows:

(1) It is permissible for someone in a sufficiently dire state of need through no fault of their own to steal in order to provide for that need, assuming that there are no other viable options for securing what they need.
(2) This entails that some actions that constitute a violation of someone’s rights can be overridden by considerations of extreme circumstance.
(3) If it is permissible for someone in these circumstances to visit a rights violation on a random individual, then it would be better if we could ensure that the rights violation was visited on someone to whom the harm of the violation would be lessened.
(4) Taxation, though typically a rights violation, would be a means of controlling the distribution of harm in violating people’s rights as a means of providing for the needs people face in these situations.
(5) These harms would be lessened if they were disproportionately levied against people who were better off to begin with, since losing a comparable amount of a good is less damaging to those who have more of that good.
(6) So, if there are no viable alternative means for a society to ensure that people are not facing, through no fault of their own, conditions that would justify visiting a rights violation on a random individual, then taxing the rich in order to help these individuals would be morally justified.

This situation of redistributing wealth does still involve a rights violation on my view, and it would be better if individual citizens would take it upon themselves to create alternatives to taxation that prevented the possibility of a situation arising where the need for such a rights violation existed. Until people create such alternatives, however, the justification for redistribution seems to hold up for any situation where we would say that individuals facing it would be justified in visiting a comparable rights violation on a random individual in order to get out of that situation. People who advocate smaller governments are therefore morally obligated to establish and fund alternative private means of providing for the basic needs of those who are suffering greatly through no fault of their own. I think this is a sound argument. It has implications for a number of views that I am now beginning to think I had too strong of a position on. For example, suffering from a horrible disease for which there is an available cure that you couldn’t possibly afford would seem to meet the requirements for (1), so long as you aren’t to blame for your ailment. Therefore, the state may be justified in taxing people to pay for medical treatments in extreme cases, at least until charities arise to provide such care when the need arises. This account does have the nice feature that most redistributive taxation is unjustified, since typically people have other means of providing for their needs, or are largely to blame for their condition. It also preserves the, in my view correct intuition that taxation, particularly when it isn’t used to pay for services you wish to pay for in such a way, are an instance of a rights violation.

I’ve been reading a very interesting book over the weekend called The Gift of Fear. It was written by Gavin de Becker, who is an expert at analyzing the causes of violence and has received numerous awards for his work in the field. The book is fascinating on its own, primarily because it clearly shows that one of the most surprising and often seemingly incomprehensible aspects of our society is actually predictable, understandable, and, to some extent, preventable. The account of violent activity is detailed and valuable. One aspect of it, however, piqued my interest in terms of its relevance to international terrorism. According to de Becker, there are four elements that are almost always present in the mind of someone who commits a violent act. He labels these elements JACA: Justification, Alternatives, Consequences, and Ability. The basic idea is that a person who threatens violence will usually only act on it if they can justify to themselves or rationalize their behavior, if they see very few alternatives to violence as practical or desirable, if they are willing to accept the consequences of the act, and if they believe they have the ability to engage in the violence in an effective manner. Often these beliefs are delusional to a certain extent, but in the absence of sincere beliefs about these issues, people will almost invariably choose a non-violent alternative.

In terms of the war on terror, the death of bin Laden seems to have gone a long way in stripping terrorists of each of these elements. First, bin Laden was a charismatic leader; he convinced his followers of the justice and necessity of their actions, and he served as a symbol of powerful defiance and leadership in what he was able to convince people was a just cause. This may be hard for us to accept, but many people in certain parts of the world respected bin Laden and acted to follow him. Without him, there is far less of a voice to rally people to a strong feeling of justification that accompanies decisions to join or fund such a group. In addition, President Obama has handled this killing brilliantly. Bin Laden was killed in a way that makes it almost impossible for people to view him as a martyr for the cause. He was treated with respect and dignity in his burial by following his religious customs, he acted in a cowardly manner by using human shields, and gruesome pictures of his corpse have been kept from the public so they cannot be used to stir fervor of sympathy for him merely in virtue of the horrors of his death. There is good reason to think that the death of bin Laden will greatly diminish the justification most people were able to create for supporting or joining his cause.

In addition, recent events have made it clear that there are viable alternatives in the Muslim world to terrorism as a means of improving the lives of the citizens of those nations. Recent revolutions, and the inactivity or support of America and the rest of the world in those revolutions have given people suffering through these regimes legitimate cause to believe there is an alternative to terrorism as a means of improving their lives. In addition, since they are home-grown, there is more of feeling of control over one’s own life here, the loss of which is usually central to a feeling of having no better alternatives. In the presence of this alternative, if it can be maintained, there is far less reason to support drastic measures like terrorism in order to improve one’s state, and recruitment and funding are almost certain to drop. Relatedly, when one has hope for a better future, one automatically has more to lose and is therefore less willing to accept the consequences of violence. These elements go hand in hand in predicting a diminished availability of resources for future terrorist acts.

Finally, these points together greatly diminish the ability of terrorists to carry out their actions. With fewer recruits and less funding, terrorists will have a much more difficult time carrying out their plans. Terrorism will, of course, never end, but in all likelihood its scope of importance and the severity of its effects will be greatly diminished because their ability to create and deploy successful large-scale actions will greatly diminish. Terrorism will likely return to its former state of diminished relative international significance rather than maintaining a central stage of world importance and a corresponding power over world events. There is no need for a war against something like that.

I do not know who deserves credit for all of this, or how long it will take for these effects to occur. I’m guessing it’s sooner than people think, though. It is nearly impossible to tell whether or not people would have felt empowered to rebel if Bush’s wars hadn’t made it clear that there was external support for regime change. It is probably true that Obama’s ability to divert or limit anti-American sentiment encouraged people to pursue other options and lessened the strength of a scapegoat to keep people feeling hopeless. It is also certainly true that Obama’s handling of the killing of bin Laden will greatly help in preventing people from finding as many grounds for maintaining the fervor of their commitment. But so long as we don’t let a dangerously shallow and obscene figure like Donald Trump or, to a lesser extent, Sarah Palin reinvigorate these attitudes by foolishly choosing them make important decisions in these matters, there is good reason to believe that the fervor will die down, the lives of people throughout the Muslim world will blessedly improve, and the war on terror and its justification will end not just because we have decided to stop giving it that name, but because it no longer has a basis for existing.

Positive and Negative Rights:

When someone has a right to something, this always creates obligations in others. My right not to be killed creates an obligation in others not to kill me. My right to be compensated for my labor in accordance with the terms of a contract creates an obligation in my employer to pay me for my work. It is common in discussing rights to differentiate between positive rights and negative rights. A negative right is a right that creates an obligation in others not to interfere with us. A positive right is a right that creates an obligation in others to provide us with something. To fulfill the first sort of obligation, all we have to do is refrain from interfering in the lives of others against their wishes. To fulfill the second, we have to accept a burden of providing something to someone and carry through on an action.

Natural vs. Contingent Rights:

Natural rights are rights that we possess merely in virtue of existing. Contingent rights are rights that we acquire in virtue of the specific circumstances we are in. The right to life and liberty are generally thought to be natural rights. We don’t have to do anything in order to acquire them, nor does anyone else have to do anything to us in order to be obligated not to violate them. A right to be paid by your employer, however, is contingent. If I walk into a building and start working, I don’t have a right to be paid. In order to create that obligation in another, there has to be an agreement between parties creating the obligation. Similarly, we don’t have a right to charity from others. The difference between a charitable contribution and a payment of a debt is that the former is voluntary while the second is morally obligatory. This is why charity is praiseworthy, while paying one’s debts at least ought to be expected.

Against Natural, Positive Rights:

While people certainly obtain positive rights in a large number of circumstances, there is debate over whether or not any natural, positive rights exist. There is good reason to believe that they don’t. This reason is that any such rights would seem to violate our general right to liberty. If, merely in virtue of the fact that you exist, I am required to act in such a way as to provide you with some benefit, then I am not free to live as I see fit, because I must put forth whatever effort is necessary in order to fulfill my obligation to provide you with the good or service in question. Negative rights merely require us to leave one another alone. Positive rights place requirements on us even when we aren’t interfering with anyone else. This interference in how we choose to live our lives in spite of the fact that we have done nothing to create any need in those to whom we are presumed to be beholden seems to require a great deal of effort to justify. I find it unlikely that such justification can be found, or that we possess any rights to be given goods or services merely because we exist.

What about Children?:

One case that seems like it may be an exception is the case of children. It seems at first glance that a child has the right to be provided with what she needs to survive by her parents. I think, however, that this right is actually contingent. Specifically, I think it is grounded in the fact that the parents are responsible for the fact that the child has the needs in question. By bringing a child into a world while knowing that it would need to be cared for in order to survive, you create an obligation to provide for that need in the same way you would be obligated to provide for the medical needs of someone you injured. This explains why we are obligated to provide for the needs of our own children, but not for the needs of other’s.

Health Care:

If health care were a right, it would seem to have to be a natural, positive right. We haven’t done anything to one another that would seem to justify a requirement that we pay for one another’s health care. Since we aren’t responsible for the bad health of others, it seems quite implausible that we are nonetheless obligated to provide for fixing or improving their health. We may, of course, choose to do so, and we could, if we wanted to, all agree to pay for one another’s health care, but I see no reason to believe that we are all naturally morally obligated to do so.

Does that Mean we shouldn’t Provide Health Care?:

Not necessarily. Rights aren’t the only reasons to act. There are at least three sorts of reasons to help others that could justify deciding to pay for the health care of some people. First, there is the basic fact that it is good to alleviate suffering and to help one another. This provides a strong moral reason (although not an obligation) to do what we can to help one another obtain the health care we need. Second, it is good for us to express our concern for one another and to demonstrate compassion and charity. Creating a morally decent citizenry should include encouraging us, when possible, to help those in need, including medical need, when it is in our means to do so.

The problem with both of these reasons to act is that while they certainly justify a great deal of charitable action on the part of individuals, typically we don’t recognize such moral considerations as justifications for state action. Since state action is inherently coercive, using it to require people to be charitable in the way that you would prefer them to be rather than allowing them to decide for themselves how to use their own money is a violation of their rights. Therefore, while I strongly encourage the development of charitable actions to help those in great medical need, justifying state intervention in health care requires a different approach.

Here, we come to the third reason we may choose to help one another pay for health care: because we believe it is in our best interests to do so. One reason we form social contracts is for mutual benefit. Therefore, if we believe that we would all be better off if we chose to pay for health care through state action, we could create an obligation in one another to pay for it in the same way we create an obligation in one another to pay for the security of the nation or the building of highways. This avenue of argument seems to be the best avenue for arguing in favor of government health care. From what I understand about the issue, I tend to find the arguments for the view that government health care would be a better option than private health care unpersuasive, but since many, if not most economists disagree with me on this point, I am far from willing to be dogmatic about the issue. If good practical grounds for government involvement in health care can be found, then that would provide reason to adopt it. The arguments that rest on rights, however, seem to have little basis, and the arguments that appeal to other moral considerations, while they provide good reason for charitable action, aren’t the sort that justify government action.

In the meantime, here’s a practical suggestion for those who are interested in helping others pay for insurance. When I get my electric bill, there is an option to donate money to help pay for the cost of heating for poor people during the winter months. The electric company will take donations and use them to lower the heating bills for low-income families. This procedure doesn’t require forcing others to pay more for their service, but it gives people an opportunity to be charitable if this issue concerns them. I see no good reason not to offer a similar service to those who otherwise couldn’t afford health care. If you want to contribute to your health insurance company to offset costs so they can provide for those who are in financial need, then there is no reason not to do so. Encouraging insurance companies to set up charitable funds for this purpose would be a non-coercive and convenient way for those who care deeply about providing health care to those in need to choose to help provide it.

The threat of the “tyranny of the majority” has been recognized as a serious problem for democratic societies since the formation of American democracy. The solution to this problem the founding fathers envisioned was to establish a set of rights as a foundation for American democracy, and to set up a branch of government whose job it was to ensure and protect those rights no matter what the people wanted. This branch, the Supreme Court, was supposed to be independent and completely free of the interference or even the input of the electorate. We don’t get to vote for Supreme Court justices precisely because they are supposed to be a branch of government whose actions are beyond the say of the public, and free from the influence of the tyranny of the majority. This makes the current processes for confirming justices seriously problematic. Holding proceedings to determine the fitness of judges in a public forum virtually requires politicians to act as if their constituents political views should be reflected by nominees to the court, when this is precisely what establishing the court was intended to bypass.

So long as justices are competent and willing to use their judgment in protecting the rights of the people, no matter what the popular views of the citizens are about such protections, it is wrong for members of congress to stand in the way of judicial nominees. It is certainly wrong to do so out of concerns over “judicial activism,” whatever one takes that to be. It was recognized at the time of its creation that the bill of rights was artificially limited, and that laws would be created that violated our right without violating the bill of rights. Part of the proper role of any judge is to ensure our rights, even in the absence of precedence from the founding fathers. The real test of the proper conduct of a justice is whether or not they are willing to subjugate the rights of individuals to the interests of groups or the interest of government. Actions of that nature would be clear violations of the proper role of the judiciary in our society. Actions that seek to protect our rights, on the other hand, even when they go beyond those guaranteed in the initial formulation of the rights guaranteed by the founding fathers are part of the proper role of a judge. We should want wise people (Latinas or otherwise), guided by an underlying aim of protecting individual rights, to have the authority to do so no matter what the public wants.

There are any number of issues where there is room for legitimate debate over whether or not something is a right that ought to be protected on behalf of the people. Such debate can, of course, lead some to believe that the court is legislating contrary to our rights while the court can view itself as protecting them. However, on issues where great legislative minds strongly disagree, deferring to a less informed public hardly seems a superior alternative. In the long run, it is likely better to defer to the informed, if debatable judgments of those whose function is the preservation of our rights against the threat of democracy than subjugating all of us to the whim of the people at any given time. The long view of the preservation of our rights is what made the founding father’s decision to create an independent judiciary sound, and it has led to the long-standing preservation of our rights in this country. There are any number of issues where I would likely strongly disagree with the views of any of the recent appointments to the court by either party in power. Despite this, I think it is a good thing that the people don’t have a direct say in who gets chosen for those seats. I also think it is a problem for the long-term preservation of our freedoms that people of vision and independent thought are so often kept from prominent positions on the court due to the inappropriate influence of the public through the televised and lengthy processes of judicial confirmation that judges are now subject to.

Although I have tried to explain their underpinnings in the last post, most people consider my political views to be rather extreme.  When it comes to method, however, I take a far more cautious approach.  My approach is still underwritten by general principles, however, including the following:

We ought to do what works:

It’s very useful to have a vision for how things should be.  It helps give direction and purpose to political planning, and without it, it is easy to simply accept whatever view sounds interesting at the moment without careful reflection on the costs or consequences.  However, when we find something that actually works, we have to be willing to subjugate our ideological concerns for the welfare of others.  The reason for this is that it is always easier to be mistaken about broad, general issues than it is in evaluating the success of certain projects.  Seeing Norman Borlaug feed billions of people who otherwise would have starved through agricultural developments and genetic engineering of crops, and still insisting the whole world regress to organic farming is either callous beyond measure or utterly insane.  Although alternative explanations for results should be considered, we can often tell that some ideas are working, and we should stick with them if they do, even if our general political views are hard to square with them.  Blindness to success, and a willingness to force people to suffer rather than reconsider one’s political worldview, are fundamentally immoral.  On a related note, insistence on persisting in projects that are obviously unsuccessful because your views tell you it must work eventually is similarly immoral.  Seeing 100,000,000 innocent dead, for example, at the hands of Marx’s vision, and insisting we’ll get it right one time can only be the cry of a madman (or an academic).  One should always adjust to the facts on the ground, not insist that they aren’t there because they don’t fit one’s ideology.

We should understand the costs of government action:

Nothing in life is free, and money that’s “the governments” doesn’t magically appear in a large pile waiting to be doled out as people wish.  When we choose to do something through government action, we are required to take money out of people’s pockets.  In addition, we are choosing to use their money on one cause rather than another.  Therefore, the idea “this would be good to do, let’s get the government on it” is almost never a good one.  Governments pay for programs by taking money away from people and directing it toward one cause rather than another.  Taking people’s money isn’t a good thing, and poor prioritizing just makes it worse.  The real test of government is “can government do this better than anyone else, and is it vital enough to justify forcing everyone else to pay for it?”  The answer to both questions is usually “no”.

The consequences are hard to see:

The effects of our plans never stay limited to our area of interest.  If we decide to help out farmers by preventing other people from growing food, we raise the cost of bread, and poor people go hungry.  Policy decisions are brought down on everyone’s head, so we should be cautious in implementing our decisions.  However, if people have options to choose from when they face problems, we can limit the scope of bad policies and have more opportunities to see which things are working.  This is probably the best argument for state’s rights, and trying things at the local level before they go federal.  It’s an even better argument for leaving things to the free market whenever possible, so everyone can work on solving everyone else’s problems.

Stability Matters:

One cost that people don’t think about enough is the cost of adjustment.  Think about every time Facebook changes its homepage.  People go nuts.  It doesn’t matter what the changes are, it doesn’t matter if they might turn out to be improvements, a huge group of people inevitably hate it.  Why?  Because they liked the old one just fine, and now they have to adjust to something new.  People don’t like periods of adjustment, and change for its own sake is never worth it.

Speed Kills:

For the reasons just given, trying to implement large-scale changes quickly will almost certainly be a disaster.  Fortunately, things are designed in this country to run with beautiful inefficiency.  When people see a problem, there is a natural tendency to want to solve it right away.  But when we are dealing with large-scale policies, it is far better to take a lot of time to hear everyone out on the potential problems, and make sure that we are actually making things better instead of worse in our efforts to help.

Massive suffering is the most important political concern:

There are plenty of places in the world where the average life is absolutely horrid.  People live in squalor, disease runs rampant, people starve and die young, genocidal maniacs kill millions, women are locked indoors and beaten for failure to satisfy their husband’s every whim.  Great evil exists in this world, and there’s plenty of massive suffering even in its absence.  People cannot live a life of freedom or hope or prosperity in such conditions.  Alleviating such suffering is a moral imperative that supersedes our other concerns where they conflict, and where such suffering can be alleviated.

Resources aren’t fixed:

For decades, people have been insisting that the world is going to be horrible in the future because we are using one thing or another too often.  People seem to think that our current level of a resource is all we’ll ever have, and that it’s value in the future will nonetheless remain constant.  These things aren’t true.  Usable oil supplies keep going up because when we started to use up the easily accessible oil, we’ll found ways to access oil that’s harder to get to.  When we start to use that up, we’ll find other ways to power our vehicles, ones that will almost certainly become more efficient.  People who face problems find ways to solve them.  Requiring that people in the future remain as creative in their lives as we had to be to live ours isn’t a hardship, it’s part of life.  Making people suffer now so that people in the future won’t have to find new ways to use resources, or ways to create new resources, doesn’t make sense. Certainly, wrecking the environment completely, or changing policies so that people in the future can’t implement their solutions would be horrible things to do to those who will come after us.  Using what we have to improve our quality of life, however, and trusting that people in the future will continue to be smart enough to do the same with what they have available to them, is not immoral.

Results: The slow march to anarchy:

While I think that we should eventually get rid of the government if possible, I certainly don’t support a dramatic revolution to get there.  People currently need the things that government provides, and we don’t currently have the private institutions we would need in place to fulfill a number of vital government functions.  We should starting making them, however, and start reducing the government in size as we find viable alternatives.

Government solutions have an impact on entire societies.  Non-governmental ones are optional for people, and so we can try a large number of them without the unforeseen side-effects crippling an entire society.  Private charity is vital to solving the problems of the world, and we should try as many good ideas as we can to see what really helps people.  In the process, we will be developing private alternatives to government solutions that can show that we can handle the problems we face without the intervention of government.

This effort to solve problems cannot be merely local.  We are a part of a global society, and we should want everyone’s involvement in our efforts to make the world a better place.  We can’t have a stable non-governmental option in the presence of widespread global suffering.  We should all want to help people who are suffering, wherever they are in the world.  We will benefit from doing so, because it is always better to have a larger group of people and resources to draw from, and because prosperous societies rarely find much benefit in warring with their trade partners.  Ending global poverty will help ensure national security without the need for military action.  It will make us all more prosperous and capable of helping one another.  And, most importantly, it’s the right thing to do.