LETTER: An observer proposes an agenda for the Occupy movement

RESPONSE–I can’t take enough time to respond in detail to the numerous historical, factual, and theoretical errors in this list of disconnected and largely bad ideas. A few specific comments below. I can’t believe I just spent even this amount of time doing this…

As Benjamin Franklin was exiting after writing the U.S. constitution, a woman asked him “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a republic or a monarchy?”. He replied “A republic—if you can keep it.” (Wikipedia)

Those grass root movements succeed whose leaders are able to succinctly articulate what the movement is actually about in terms of specific grievances and formulate a program for change which satisfactorily addresses them…. (SEE LETTER ABOVE)

The Declaration of Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson included a list of 27 specific grievances including the quartering of troops, cutting off trade, and imposing taxes without the consent of the state legislatures. Perhaps the time has come for the Occupy movement to compile a list of specific grievances to be addressed, if only in order to define in terms everyone can understand exactly what the movement is about. Or perhaps its leaders should simply state right here and now what needs to be done in order to protect the American way of life.

RESPONSE–I don’t think most of the above is factually correct, but will confine myself to responding to the proposals listed below.

We the People of the United States, the “99%”, in Order to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do propose that the Constitution of the United States be modified so as to provide for the following:

1. That Global warming constitutes a grave and immediate threat to life on Earth and is caused by the result of the release of carbon dioxide and other “green house” gases into the atmosphere is to be officially accorded the status of a scientifically proven fact. Federal and State governments are to commit to the country to a radical reduction in the use of hydrocarbons through the development of alternative, sustainable forms of energy. A surcharge of $0.50 is to be levied on every gallon of fuel or pound of coal sold within the United States. A Department of Environmental Sustainability is to be created and endowed with powers to review all Federal programs, actual and proposed, and all legislation, both actual and pending, from the view of its impact on the environment with a view to phasing out the use of fossil fuels and their replacement with non-polluting forms of energy, including solar, wind, and tidal power. The Department shall be charged with regulating the price of fossil fuels to ensure that they do not fall below a certain level in order to ensure the economic viability of alternative forms of energy. Polluting industries are to be required to install scrubbers featuring carbon capturing technology converting carbon dioxide into a solid form capable of being stored or reused. Foreign manufacturers regardless of origin are to be held to the same standards of environmental sustainability. To the extent they do not, commodities and goods imported from abroad are to be subject to import duties sufficient to act as a serious inducement to the adoption by foreign governments of comparable programs.

RESPONSE –There’s no such thing as an “officially accorded scientifically proven fact,” and any such notion is fundamentally antithetical to the entire notion of science, which never takes anything as “official” and is built, to a great extent, on discrediting the orthodoxy of the past. While there’s no reasonable doubt that we are changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere, there is considerable doubt over the long-term consequences of that change, much more doubt over whether that change is avoidable, very little doubt that the specific proposed remedies here wouldn’t work — in fact, there’s an extensive literature on most of them explaining why they won’t work, or won’t work well — and, perhaps most importantly, no doubt that even entirely eliminating the carbon output of the United States would make little difference to the overall outcome. There is a place for a thoughtful and rational response to this issue, but there’s no sign of such a response in this manifesto.

2. Henceforth we, as a society and as a nation, are to live within our means. Federal, state, and local governments are to assess taxes sufficient to finance the cost of current and proposed programs. Taxes are to be assessed and collected in accordance with the principle of progressive taxation. No exception is to be made for individuals or legal entities. Individuals earning up to $25,000 a year shall be exempt from paying state and federal income taxes. Individuals earning between $25,000 and $50,000 shall be required to pay at least 15% of their income in the form of taxes. Between $50,000 and $100,000 this shall increase to 20%. Between $100,000 and $500,000 this shall increase to 30%. Between $500,000 and $1,000,000 this shall increase to 40%, Between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000 this shall increase to 50%. Over $5,000,000 this shall increase to 70%. Over $10,000,000 this shall increase to 95%. The capital gains tax is to be increased to 35%. New federal and state taxes on consumption are to be introduced in the form of a 5%+5% value added tax. Proceeds from the value added taxes are to go exclusively towards improving and expanding public education and establishing a national, single-payer health system. Reduction of national and state debt is to be accomplished by eliminating tax loopholes which enable corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share of taxes and through the collection of said taxes. Individuals and companies are to be prohibited from using foreign domicile or transfer pricing as a means for avoiding paying US taxes. No US individual or company may own shares in a company domiciled in or doing business with companies domiciled in the Bahamas, the Channel islands, Cyprus, Dubai, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, or any other country failing to conclude a bilateral tax treaty with the United States providing for companies owned by US citizens to pay their fair share of US corporate and personal income taxes. All companies doing business in the United States shall be required to pay annual state and federal corporate taxes not less than 1% of net turnover regardless of whether the company was profitable that year or not and regardless of what legal tax breaks are available. In the case of extraction industries such as coal, oil, or gas that amount shall be 3% of annual turnover. In the case of banks, securities companies, or insurance companies that amount shall be be 10% of the value of financial services rendered during a given year.

RESPONSE— There are extensive studies on the effects of taxation, and the most effective way to obtain the best result from a taxation system. There’s no indication that this assortment of random ideas reflects any of that learning. The idea of dedicating specific taxes to specific pet ideas or projects is foolish, and the various ideas conflated here may or may not have independent value, but have little or nothing to do with each other. I assume, by the way, that the proposal here is for marginal taxation, though even that basic point isn’t clear. I also note that this proposal would preclude Keynesian-style or emergency deficit spending. The proposal on barring share ownership of companies “doing business with” companies domiciled in known tax havens would probably preclude most US companies from having any shareholders — since those companies can’t realistically avoid “doing business with” foreign companies that choose to domicile in tax havens. The net result of all this would likely just be that the US economy would collapse, and all companies with the ability to do so would simply become foreign to avoid this problem.

3. A constitutional amendment is to be adopted banning legal persons both from contributing money to politicians, political parties, or any individual or organization channeling funds to the politicians or political parties. Political Action Committees and other organizations established for the purpose of circumventing statutory limitations on political contributions are to be prohibited from contributing money to politicians or political party, either directly or indirectly, and from defraying costs ordinarily associated with political campaigns (such as print, television and radio advertising). Public and private television and radio stations shall be required to provide local candidates collecting at least 1000 signatures, state candidates collecting at least 10,000 signatures, and candidates for public office collecting at least 100,000 signatures with a minimum of two thirty seconds spots per day in the 30 days leading up to local, state, or federal elections, both primary and secondary. Public and private television stations are henceforth prohibited from running advertisements of a political nature except those prepared and submitted and paid for by the campaigns of specific candidates for publics office.

RESPONSE–This would prevent individuals of modest means from engaging in political speech. It would tilt the field irrevocably in favor of “specific candidates for public office” who happen to be independently wealthy. And it is a frontal assault on the first amendment, which has served us rather well for over 200 years. There may be a need for campaign finance reform, but any such reform requires some level of both rationality and respect for the first amendment.

4. Former public officials and their staff members are to be banned from accepting employment with companies whose companies are regulated by, depend on, or otherwise have regular dealings with federal, state, or local governments for a period of five years from leaving public office. Government officials and their staff shall be required to publicly disclose the nature of any and all meetings with registered lobbyists. Government officials and their staff are to be strictly forbidden from accepting any gift or service exceeding $50 in value, including (but not limited to) offers of transportation via private aircraft or boat, hotel accommodation, entertainment (other than that which is provided free of charge to the general public), seminars or any other forms of education not generally made available free of charge.

RESPONSE –This would preclude government officials from having any employment of any sort for 5 years after leaving their positions, because all businesses, of all forms, are either “regulated by, depend on, or otherwise have regular dealings with federal, state, or local governments.” The result would be that no one would want to work for the government, except that the result of proposal 2 above would probably leave so little of the private economy left that the government might well be the only employer left standing. That, of course, would lead in relatively short order to an economy like that of the Soviet Union, or perhaps North Korea, which might be the actual unintended (or intended) result of these various proposals.

5. Henceforth, all US citizens attaining the age of 18 shall be required to register and to vote in local, state and federal elections unless they are physically, psychologically, or emotionally unable to do so. US citizens failing to register and/vote shall be subject to a fine of $1000.

RESPONSE–This is so coercive that it doesn’t merit a response. To put a simple point on it, the likely effect would be to impose $1000 fines on thousands of poor or uneducated people.

6. The separation of church and state is to be rigorously upheld and vigorously enforced. No religious faith or movement shall have the right to impose its views on others through legislative fiat. Evolution is to be be recognized as a scientifically proven fact and taught in public schools as part of the scientific curriculum.

RESPONSE –See my comment above re “scientifically proven facts,” and note that much about evolution is currently in huge flux (e.g., the historical debate over punctuated equilibrium vs steady state, and the recent literature about the effects of non-gene components of DNA on gene expression and the response of those components to environmental factors); see also Kuhn on the structure of scientific revolutions for a sense of how silly this kind of proposal is. The first part merely reflects the status quo, granting that how that plays out in practice is always a fractious, loud, and combative question — as it was meant to be, and always will be

7. A women’s right to an abortion upon demand during the first trimester of her pregnancy shall be upheld. States shall reserve the right to regulate the availability of abortion during the second and third trimesters. However, no women shall be denied an abortion whose life is biologically threatened as a result of complications related to pregnancy.

RESONSE–This simply assumes the answer to the key question, which is when life begins. That question deserves constant debate and study. No humane society would countenance murdering a person because that person’s life imposes burdens on or intrudes on the privacy of other persons. Nor should a humane society support burdening someone when their own life is at stake, or where the burden is imposed for something that isn’t a person. The key question, which is constantly sidestepped in strident rhetoric about privacy and autonomy on one hand, and murder on the other, is when is someone a “person.” Once that question is answered, the results follow. How that question should be answered is extremely challenging, and what the debate should, and ultimately must, be about — is it brain function? Conception? Birth? And the answer to the question may change over time, with better knowledge and capabilities (see above). But the question can’t be answered by reference to whether the prospective person’s life imposes burdens on other people, because there is no coherent stopping point to that particular analysis (see Logan’s Run, for a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reference). The trimester analysis invented in Roe v. Wade was a judicial compromise based — viewing it in the best light — on the science of the time; it has no particular claim to validity, much less to being enshrined as some sort of immutable principle.

8. Marijuana and other relatively harmless recreational drugs are to be decriminalized, regulated, and taxed. Henceforth, drug addiction and drug abuse are to be treated primarily as matters of public health and not of criminal law enforcement. Anyone serving a prison sentence for drug use is to be immediately released from prison. Henceforth, courts shall have the right to prescribe mandatory treatment and/or public service in the case of the consumption of banned substances but not incarceration.

RESPONSE: –An idea that might have merit, regardless of one’s views of illegal recreational drugs…

9. All US citizens shall be entitled to affordable health care. Private HMOs and other for profit organizations are either to be nationalized or run on a not-for-profit basis. Malpractice insurance in the case of licensed physicians is to be underwritten by the United States government. In the case of malpractice no physician or hospital shall be required to remunerate their patients or families thereof in an amount in excess of $100,000 providing it can be demonstrated that said physicians and hospitals acted in good faith to address the health needs of the individual concerned. Lawyers filing malpractice suits on behalf of clients are to be prohibited from charging their clients more than 10% of damages awarded.

RESPONSE—Even assuming that a national health system in fact is objectively better than a private system — a debate I’m happy to have — an entitlement to affordable health care — or any other “entitlement” — assumes that the government should assume the coercive power to effectuate that right. The President explained this well in his distinction between negative rights — the fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution — which prohibit the government from doing things to people and are thus “costless” in a broad sense, and positive rights, which require the government to do things for people, have never been part of the U.S. Constitution, and necessarily carry with them the power of the government to coerce other people to do what needs to be done to provide that positive right. That kind of coercive power is inimical to the basic idea of the U.S. government. Whether it should exist may be a debate worth having, but the usual way in which the question is framed is to simply enumerate the proposed benefits of the right (“free health care”) without considering who would have to be coerced, and to what extent, to provide those benefits — and what the long-term effects of that coercion might be.

10. Henceforth the President of the United States and the heads of the various intelligence agencies and members of the joint Chiefs of Staff are to be personally liable to US Congress and the American people for any information provided to Congress or the American people resulting in the deployment, redeployment and/or use of American troops that turns out to be factually incorrect. The use of private contractors and subcontractor by the armed forces of the United States in the conduct of foreign wars or military actions is to be abolished. The provisions of the Geneva Convention with regard to the treatment of prisoners are to be fully respected. No foreign national in the custody of the United States may be transported outside the United States for the purpose of circumventing laws or conventions proscribing the use of torture.

RESPONCE—I hardly know where to begin with this one. Strict liability for factually erroneous political and military decisions, rendered in the inherently uncertain environment of international politics, would essentially end government. The other ideas in here largely either reflect the status quo or are broadside slogans based on a lack of understanding of the facts (for example, why would the military use private contractors? The answer is complex, and not likely amenable to a one-sentence solution).