UK Social services ‘to take baby from teenager deemed too stupid to marry’

My friend Liz H. posted this story on facebook, and I couldn’t believe it.

From the UK Telegraph:

Kerry Robertson, 17, who has mild learning difficulties, has been told that she will not be allowed to bring up her own child, who she has already named Ben.

Last month Miss Robertson was prevented from marrying her fiancé Mark McDougall, 25, after council officials claimed that she “did not understand the implications of getting married”.

She has now been warned that she will only be allowed a few hours with her baby, which is due in January, before it is taken into foster care.

After hearing the news, Miss Robertson, of Dunfermline, Fife, who is 26 weeks pregnant, said: “I couldn’t believe it. I am so upset – I can’t stop crying.”

In Buck v. Bell, the United States Supreme Court upheld a statute instituting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the mentally retarded, “for the protection and health of the state.”

Justice Holmes famously wrote:

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

How far is the statist culture in the UK away from actively practicing eugenics?

Who is John Galt?

Pic: My JHNGALT License Plate. The Only Way to Go Galt!

So I received a call a few weeks ago from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation regarding my “JhnGalt” vanity license plate. The official asked if I had ordered a vanity license plate. I replied, “Yes.”

Then, she asked me, “Who is John Galt?” I almost burst out laughing hysterically.

I replied, “a character from a book.” She asked what book? I replied “Atlas Shrugged.” The mischief this license plate will create has already begun. Every time someone pulls up behind me, they will ask themselves, “Who is John Galt?” If a police officer ever pulls me over, and asks me, “Sir, who is John Galt?” I may need to call one of my attorney friends to get me out of involuntary commitment due to my inability to stop laughing.

Oh well. Who is John Galt?

Update: Welcome Instapundit fans! If you like my posts, please follow me on Twitter, read my RSS feed, and check out my other John Galt posts. Go Galt!

Update 2: I think I found the perfect license plate holder.

Tyler Cowan NYT: How an Insurance Mandate Could Leave Many Worse Off

From Todays NYT, Tyler Cowan writes a fantastic piece about how insurance mandates may make society worse off. (H/T Volokh). I echo Professor Adler, and encourage everyone to read this article in its entirety. Cowan is one of the top economists around, and he hits the nail right on the head.

Americans seem to like the idea of broadening health insurance coverage, but they may not want to be forced to buy it. With health care costs high and rising, such government mandates would make many people worse off. . . .

Defenders of a broad health insurance mandate argue that it will lower average costs in the health care market. The claim is that many of the uninsured are young, healthy or both, and that bringing them into the insurance pool might lower average premiums by spreading risk across low-cost groups. Yet Massachusetts has had a health insurance mandate for several years and this cost-saving mechanism does not appear to be kicking in.

At this point, it seems more plausible that the cost of health insurance will keep rising, just as the costs of health care services have continued to climb. The upshot is that the burdens of mandatory purchase, the subsidy costs and the associated implicit marginal tax rates will all increase, eventually to the point of unsustainability. . . .

We’re often told that America should copy the health care institutions of Western Europe. Yet we’re failing to copy the single most important lesson from those systems — namely, to put cost control first. Instead, we’re putting our foot on the gas pedal and ratcheting up the fiscal pressures on the system, in the hope that someday, somehow, it will all work out.

As it stands, we’re on the verge of enacting a policy that is due to explode, penalizing many of the very people that it was ostensibly designed to help.

And there are serious potential John Galt problems with Obamacare:

To ease the burdens of the insurance mandate, the reform proposals call for varying levels of subsidy. In some versions, such as the current Senate bill, subsidies are handed out to families with incomes as high as $88,000 a year. How long will it be before just about everyone wants further assistance, and this new form of entitlement spending spins out of control? It’s possible to lower insurance subsidies, but then the insurance mandate would impose a bigger burden on the people we are trying to help.

A subtler problem is what economists call “implicit marginal tax rates.”

The fiscal reality is that not all income groups can receive equal subsidies; as a family earns more, its subsidy would probably decrease, eventually falling to zero. But then we are taking money away from the poor as they climb into higher income categories. This is a disincentive to earn more, and the strength of the disincentive increases with our initial generosity. For many people, the health insurance aid would phase out when food stamps, housing vouchers and the earned income tax credit also end and the personal income tax kicks in.

This structure of incentives would likely discourage many parents from earning a better life for their children. Congress could tweak the subsidies so they don’t phase out so quickly, but then we’re back to very high fiscal costs and subsidies for many families in the higher income classes.

And I love the graphic the NYT inserted:

Employees at Financial Firms Going Galt. If you tax them, they will leave.

I wish I didn’t have to post this many John Galt stories, but as we briskly march down the road to serfdom, I fear the frequency of these stories will increase.

From the Washington Post, Top employees leave financial firms ahead of pay cuts (H/T Instapundit,)

“Many executives were driven away by the uncertainty of working for companies closely overseen by Washington, opting instead for firms not under the microscope, including competitors that have already returned the bailout funds to the government, according to executives and supervisors at the companies.”

“There’s no question people have left because of uncertainty of our ability to pay,” said an executive at one of the affected firms. “It’s a highly competitive market out there.”

At Bank of America, for instance, only 14 of the 25 highly paid executives remained by the time Feinberg announced his decision. Under his plan, compensation for the most highly paid employees at the bank would be a maximum of $9.9 million. The bank had sought permission to pay as much as $21 million, according to Treasury Department documents.

At American International Group, only 13 people of the top 25 were still on hand for Feinberg’s decision.

This is economics 101. If you decrease the incentives to work in a particular industry, people will exit that industry. Some may think forcing executives out of financial firms is desirable. Their greed and evilness caused the financial meltdown, the argument would go. I am not an expert in this field, so I won’t opine, short of saying that there is a reason certain people are elevated from the rank and file employee to the upper echelons of management. For the most part, they possess unique leadership skills that others lack.

Even assuming there is a bad apple, an executive who screws things up, the statist’s policy is a blanket approach. The pay cuts will affect all executives, good and bad. Soon, the leaders of industry, the giants on whose shoulders society rests, will no longer find the incentives to take on these high stress, high demand jobs, as the pay is not worth it. Then, where will we be? People like Tim Giethner and Joe Biden running our Industry?

At the moment, these employees are only going Galt in the metaphorical sense. They are leaving their jobs in the financial industry to enter other industries. But what happens when all industries are under the yoke? Where will they go? Who is John Galt?

Middle Class Shrugged. When working doesn’t pay.

When the government’s tax regime is so oppressive, and there are so many governmental incentives not to excel, but to remain mediocre, what is a middle class person to do? Shrug.

From Forbes, H/T Instapundit.

Middle-class folks are finding that a raise or second paycheck doesn’t always mean living better. Time to work less?

Judith Lederman would like to find another $120,000-a-year job. But Casey, her high school senior daughter, will qualify for $19,000 a year more in college financial aid if mom has to settle for half that salary.

Eighteen months after being laid off, Judith Lederman, a 50-year-old divorcee who lives in Scarsdale, N.Y., is ready to consider jobs paying half the $120,000 she earned as a publicity manager at Lord & Taylor. That’s mostly because she’s desperate, but it also makes sense when you consider how this country punishes work effort. While the first $60,000 of her income would be lightly taxed, the next $60,000 would be hit with what is in effect a 79% tax rate. Given a choice between a part-time or easy job paying $60,000 and a demanding, stress-ridden job paying $120,000, Lederman would be wise to take the former. In the tougher job she would be contributing twice as much to the economy. But she wouldn’t be doing herself much good. It would make more sense to take it easy and spend more time with her high school senior daughter, Casey.

How did a middle-class single mom wind up with a 79% marginal tax rate? At $120,000 she would pay $16,500 a year more in federal and state taxes, wouldn’t qualify for the five-year $12,000-a-year cut in her mortgage payments she’s applying for and would be eligible for $19,000 a year less in need-based college financial aid.

I made this exact Galtian decision sometime last year. I realized that if I went into Big Law, I would spend countless hours at a difficult job, only to be rewarded by the Government taxing most of the marginal income above a certain level. Why bother? Shrug. I would rather do what I love, make less, and get to keep more of my earnings.

Why should society punish people who want to succeed? Why should incentives discourage people from realizing the maximum of their potentiality? Why should the government place the strongest yoke on the backs of those who keep this society afloat.

Who is John Galt?

The Real Victims of the Current Crisis Are The Executives. Who is John Galt?

This Funny or Die video has been floating around Facebook. In the video, Will Ferrel and a bunch of other actors and comedians, through satire, convey that the real victims of the health care crisis are the health care executives. Some of my favorite quotes (roughly transcribed):

“We need to remember who the real victims are. Health insurance executives. People are saying a lot of mean things about health insurance executives, and it needs to stop.”

“These great business men are American heroes. Why is Obama trying to reform health care when Insurance Companies are doing just fine.”

I know they are being sarcastic, but I feel bad for executives. These are the giants upon whose shoulders society stands. They should be praised, not vilified. Go ahead. Call me heartless. Who is John Galt?

More on Ayn Rand’s Influence on me, and why I work so hard.

Over at Volokh, it is Ayn Rand Day, as David Bernstein discusses the influence of Ayn Rand on his life. He writes:

Second, Rand, with her celebration of man’s potential and achievement, has inspired many people to strive to fulfill their potential, including me.  Rand didn’t influence my political views very much; I was already a libertarian when I read her work, and had already read Friedman, Hayek, Nozick, Rothbard, Sowell, and many others.  But she did help change my outlook on life.

I was always a very successful student, but always a very lazy one.  When I arrived in college, my basic career goal was to find an easy but reasonably well-paying job, and do the minimum necessary to maintain it.  I indeed wound up finding a job, in academia, that allows many people to do this.  But in the meantime, reading Rand, along I’m sure with less obvious influences that I can’t identify easily, led me to want to be an achiever, not just a time-server. The glow of Rand’s writing eventually wore off, but I found that I really enjoyed being a scholar, working hard at it, and being good at it.  As a result, I’ve worked much harder in my career than I ever did in high school or college.  And the feeling of satisfaction I get when I work hard and publish something I think worthwhile is far great than I ever got from my effortless A average in college.

I had a very similar experience, but slightly different. I always worked hard. As long as I can remember I studied more than most, I engaged in sundry entrepreneurial endeavours, and I always sought to separate myself from others based on sweat on the brow and mental exertions.

My first year of Law School, I worked 40 hours a week and attended evening classes. My second year of Law School I worked about 30 hours a week (don’t tell the ABA), maxed out at 17 credits, was on Law Review and VP of Mason’s Federalist Society.  My third year I cut back to 25 hours a week, maxed out at 17 credits, Articles Editor on Law Review, published an article in the Santa Clara Law Review, and VP of Fed Soc. As a law clerk, I work more hours than most of my fellow clerk friends, and spend many hours every night working on my scholarship and writing.

But why work so hard? After reading Rand, I realized that hard work was an essential aspect of who I am.

One of my favorite quotes in Atlas Shrugged turns Descartes on his head. It is not, “I think therefore I am.” It is, “I am therefore, I think.”

An essential aspect of who I am is my ability to think and reason. And the natural extension of my thoughts and reasoning, are my work. I love what I do, and I do what I love. For me, working hard is not toil or work in the colloquial sense. I loathe watching television, or other mind-numbing activities. Wasting time is an anathema to my life. I enjoy pushing my mind to its limits, and working as hard as I can at all times.

For this reason, I owe Rand a great debt.  And I suspect many other hard workers and minds of our society owe Rand a thank you as well.

How Ayn Rand Influenced Me, and Reconciling Objectivism with Religion

At Volokh, Ilya Somin writes an interesting post about Ayn Rand, titled “Assessing Ayn Rand: “An Utterly Intolerant and Dogmatic Person Who Did a Great Deal of Good”. Ilya discusses how his libertarianism was never influenced by Rand, despite her prominence to spread the cause of libertarianism in the 20th Century.

I was never much influenced by Rand or impressed by her writings. I became a libertarian in high school primarily as a result of reading Friedman, Hayek, Nozick, and Thomas Sowell – and because being a refugee from communism prevented me from becoming a left-liberal, as would otherwise have been likely. I also read some of Rand’s books at that time. But I wasn’t impressed with her effort to defend free markets based on her theory of the “virtue of selfishness.” or her “Objectivist” philosophy. Many of her ideas seemed poorly developed or superficial. I was also turned off by her intolerance for disagreement and her lack of serious effort to engage with opposing points of view.

Frequent readers of my blog will know that I am a fan of Rand. Just check out all of my John Galt posts.

I had a much different experience than Ilya. My libertarianism was largely informed, if not guided by my experiences with Rand. While in College, I considered myself strictly a conservative. I favored limited government and individual rights, but I didn’t really know why.

My 1L Semester at Mason, in our Law & Economics Seminar, Professor Rustici (one of the best Professors I have ever had) asked us to read Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal. Let’s just say it rocked my world. Rand systematically explained why capitalism is the economic system of government most compatible with individual liberty and freedom.

After reading Capitalism, I ventured to conquer Atlas Shrugged. As I was working 40 hours a week and attending law school as an evening student, I could only manage 20 pages a day. It took me nearly 6 months to read, but I was enraptured by every minute of reading that amazing book. I began seeing parallels between the stories Rand told, and our society sliding towards statism. I subsequently read the Fountainhead, the Virtue of Selfishness, and other Rand works. And I was hooked.

These works helped me understand why I favored limited government, and why individual liberty is essential to a persons being. Every day, I strive to make all my actions rational, and try to do nothing that will hurt another.

More after the jump, and reconciling obejctivism and religion.

Who is John Galt?

You know exactly what story I am talking about. I don’t even need to provide further details. Just shrug.

Update: A friend just e-mailed me and asked if this story at Marginal Revolutions was “the source of your Randian post today.”  The answer to that question is yes. I’m glad my readers can read my mind 🙂

Standish, MI Strugged: Town so dependent on closing federal prison, willing to welcome Gitmo Detainees

Poor, poor Michigan. Standish, Mich., is dependent on its prison, which is about to close. It says it still wants the Guantánamo detainees to fill the void, but opponents are pushing to recall members of city council.

From CSM:

A Michigan town may be waffling on welcoming Guantánamo Bay detainees.On Monday, the Standish City Council passed a unanimous resolution expressing interest in having a federal prison at the Standish Max Correctional facility, slated to close Oct. 31 due to budget cuts. But the resolution stripped out all reference to the detainees currently being housed at the US base in Cuba.

While some reports have interpreted the change in language to mean that the welcome mat has been officially yanked, the community 120 miles north of Detroit is not ruling out taking the more than 200 detainees, says Ruth Caldwell, vice president of the Standish Chamber of Commerce.

This state is so hard on its luck, that they are willing to house Detainees from Guantanamo. It seems the only people actually moving into Michigan may in fact be, wait what is Obama calling them nowadays? Well whatever they are, Michigan wants them!